She understood him, and she was stunned. "I have been working seven months to gather information here," she fumed, "and now you tell me it was all for nothing?"
"I have no idea what's on your boss's mind. I know that midnight brings the house down, if I get my act in gear."
"All this for nothing." There was bitterness behind her words.
"Who knows? You might be listed MIA. I know your people have been losing agents right and left the past few months."
"But you are here."
"I had some luck along the way."
"How can you summon help?"
He told her, briefly, of the small transmitter and his plan to hide it in the courtyard, where its beacon would attract the Phantoms like a homing call to lethal birds of prey.
"But why not here?" she asked, when he was finished. "In the garden."
Bolan scanned the shrubbery, the open sky above, and wondered why he had not thought of such an option sooner. If the strike force got this far, the fortress would be clearly visible; a few yards wouldn't matter, either way. It would be easier to hide the homer in the garden, and he doubted that the place would see much traffic in the next twelve hours. If there was a drawback to the plan, it would be Sarah, and the level of his trust for her on short acquaintance.
Bolan had already made his mind up that she was not working for the sheikh. A female killer did not fit the Old Man's scheme of things, the holy order that he had decreed for his disciples. Women were reserved for pleasure and the menial pursuits of work around the castle. Given all of that, her tale made perfect sense, and Bolan was inclined to bet the odds this time.
Her bitterness could be a problem. From appearances, her mission had been scrubbed without the lady's knowledge, and it made her angry. Worse, she knew about the air strike now, and from a stranger. And she realized that her own initial warning would have been the shriek of Phantoms overhead, the stunning impact of their bombs and rockets.
Bolan could not blame her for being out of sorts, but he didn't believe that her emotions would propel her into any kind of foolish action. It was yet another hunch, but he had learned to trust them through the years, and Bolan was more often right than wrong.
He checked his wristwatch, found that it was nearly one o'clock. He was running out of time, his scheduled meeting with the Old Man of the Mountain fast approaching. He could place the homer now, but with the maximum duration of its battery, he could not activate its signal prior to 4:00 p.m. His chances of returning to the garden in three hours, unobserved, were close to nil.
It was time to gamble with his mission. With his life.
"Do you have access to the garden all the time?" he asked.
Sarah responded with a frown and a nod. "Yes, unless the guards are posted. Then we are inside and may not leave until our… demonstration… is completed."
"So, it wouldn't be a problem for you to come back in, say, three hours' time?"
"I can be here," she told him, "but the sheikh forbids us to possess a timepiece, so I may not be precise."
He slipped the anodized Omega off his wrist and handed it to her. "Four o'clock," he told her, "at the earliest. It doesn't matter if you're late, as long as you come back before, let's say, ten-thirty."
"Late for what?"
"To activate the homer."
Bolan let her have a close-up of the small transmitter, showed her how to turn the beacon on with the manipulation of a single switch.
"The battery will last eight hours, give or take, and if it dies before the cavalry arrives, we've got no backup plan. You follow?"
"Yes. I understand."
"How good are you at climbing trees?"
"I manage."
"Fine."
He chose a sturdy cedar, scrambled halfway up the trunk, until the limbs began to thin, and chose a slender branch that met his specs. With loving care, he clipped the homer to its perch, the small transmitter wedged between two branches. It was readily accessible to anybody standing on the branch that now supported Bolan's weight. He glanced down between his feet and saw that Sarah was memorizing his position.
She was quick, he had to give her that. If only she was stable under fire…
He dropped to earth and faced her once again, prepared to leave. "All right, it's set to go. Remember: four o'clock or later, and the Phantoms will be waiting at eleven, more or less."
"It will be done. Have you any plan for getting out before the air strike?"
"I'm still working on it," Bolan answered. "I might have a better angle on it once I've seen the sheikh's school for killers.
Her eyes lit with sudden trepidation. "And if there is a way, may I…?"
"You're welcome," Bolan said. "How do I get in touch with you again?"
"You can request a woman later, after you have finished with your tour of the castle. Ask for Shari. Tell the sheikh that you were pleased with her performance in the garden."
"It's refreshing when I get a chance to tell the truth."
The woman dropped her eyes, and Bolan could have sworn the faintest trace of blush had crept into her cheek. Imagination, probably. She was a pro, beyond embarrassment, immune to flattery. He had already staked his mission and his life on that belief, and he could not afford the luxury of second thoughts.
"Until we meet again."
He left her then, aware that everything he had was riding on the woman, her ability to activate the homer in a given time frame. Simple, right? Unless her other duties kept her from the garden or she was observed in transit, held by sentries for interrogation at the Old Man's leisure. Bolan would not know if she had pulled it off, with any certainty, until the bombs began to fall.
And if they didn't… well, then it would simply be too late. For all concerned.
He shrugged the morbid thoughts away and concentrated on his destination as he left the garden, following his own steps back in the direction of the banquet chamber and his room. The Old Man's runners would come looking for him there, no doubt, and Bolan did not wish to keep them waiting, or to cause the smallest of suspicions.
He hoped the absence of his watch wouldn't become a problem, finally deciding that his own internal clock would have to serve. In Vietnam, and afterward, the Executioner had learned to gauge time's passage with his mind, his other senses. It was not precise, in terms of seconds won or lost, but it had served him thus far, and it was the only option that remained.
He knew that he would recognize the stroke of midnight when it came, and he would do his best to be prepared with an escape plan. Failing that, it would be every man — and woman — for himself, and Bolan would devote his dying energies to making sure the Old Man of the Mountain did not slip away in the confusion. If it came to that, it was the very least that he could do.
13
Sheikh al-Jebal was waiting for them in the courtyard with a pair of bodyguards, a groom and four horses, freshly saddled. There was no sign of Tahir Arrani, and Bolan felt uneasy at the second-in-command's protracted absence.
"Are we going for a ride?"
The Old Man's smile was polished, as impregnable as stone. "A great deal of our training is conducted there…" he pointed in the general direction of the gates"…beyond the walls. If you would witness the disciples at their best, a journey of some minor distance will be necessary."
"Fine with me." He nodded toward the bodyguards and raised an eyebrow. "Won't you need a little more protection?"
The chief Assassin's grinning face became more animated. "We enjoy an understanding with the people of the valley," he explained. "They grant us anything we wish, and we, in turn, permit them to exist."
"Sounds fair enough."
He mounted and settled in the saddle while his host was helped aboard by bodyguards and groom. The massive gates were opened for them by a team of armed attendants, gunners on the wall and in the courtyard bowing low before their master as he passed. The mounted riflemen hung back, bringing up the rear, and Bolan realized their presence was a me
re formality, more of an honor guard than any serious concession to the dictates of security. Sheikh al-Jebal could probably be overpowered, killed, by any group of decent size and strength, but he displayed no fear of a potential ambush. He was clearly confident that no one in the valley dared to lift a hand against him.
That was power of a sort, submission won by application of selective terror. Bolan thought about the people of the valley, generations raised up in the shadow of the Eagle's Nest. A thousand years of tyranny, whose interruption — briefly, by the Turks, and later by the British — must have seemed like chaos rather than deliverance. How long could captive people live in thrall before their spirits were completely broken, crushed beyond repair?
There must have been some rebels through the years, but it would not be difficult to catalog their fates. A few — the early ones — would try to stand alone against the cult, and they would disappear, or possibly be executed in public as a warning to the others. More would follow the example of the martyrs, seeking strength in numbers and associations, but their strategies were poor, their weapons nonexistent, and their life span could be measured out in hours, days at most. These days, he thought, the malcontents and rebels would be bent on getting out, escaping from the valley that had been converted to a scenic prison camp. Discreet inquiries in Damascus would convince them that the government was not concerned with what went on at Alamut as long as the Ba'ath regime was not endangered and the holy war with Israel ground along on schedule. Finally the fugitives would face a range of choices: they could emigrate, they could adapt or they could burrow in and work against the cancer, as Hafez Kasm had elected. Hiding in the bushes to attack the master of the Eagle's Nest was simply not an option open to consideration.
For the better part of twenty minutes, Bolan recognized their track from his approach. Had it been only yesterday? The atmosphere of Alamut was stifling, disorienting, and he felt as if he might have been inside the fortress for a week. In fact, he realized, it was his second day.
His last day.
Soon, the Old Man of the Mountain led them off the beaten track and along a narrow, winding road that wriggled through the foothills like an adder. In minutes, Alamut was lost to sight, the trees around them closing in, their branches interwoven, filtering the sunlight. It was perfect for an ambush, but they passed on unopposed, with Bolan following the sheikh and their escort bringing up the rear.
They spent the better part of half an hour climbing through the trees and finally emerged into a level clearing. With a second glance, the soldier recognized that they were perched on a plateau, the southern end of which had been defoliated to facilitate erection of a training camp. The compound came complete with a Ranger-style obstacle course, rappelling towers and a firing range equipped to handle point-blank combat simulations as well as sniping exercises at two hundred yards. A three-story clapboard house stood off to one side of the firing range, its door ajar, the vacant windows watching Bolan with a consummate disinterest.
About twenty disciples of the cult were waiting for them, forming ranks and snapping to attention at their first glimpse of the sheikh. Amal was not among them, having recently delivered Bolan to the castle courtyard, but the thug in charge might easily have been his twin. Upon command, the double rank of cultists knelt before their master, foreheads pressed against the earth.
"Arise!"
The trainees scrambled nimbly to their feet and waited while the sheikh dismounted, with assistance from his bodyguards. The Executioner climbed down without a helping hand and joined his host in an inspection of the troops.
"Our standards are the highest, Mr. Harrigan. For every man who stands before you, three have been rejected on the basis of deficiencies that make them unacceptable to Allah. One in four of these will not survive the final stages of their training."
He realized the Old Man's words were meant to be accepted literally. "That must be some graduation exercise," he said.
"In training warriors, realism is of critical importance. Blanks and wooden swords are for beginners. Soldiers of jihad must be prepared to risk their lives at any moment of the day or night, upon command."
"I see."
"You will, in time. But first, a demonstration of the stamina and physical agility that sets these men apart." He turned to the instructor with a narrow, mirthless smile and said, "Begin."
Upon a curt command from their instructor, half of the trainees broke ranks and sprinted toward the obstacle course, throwing themselves into the exercise without restraint. As Bolan watched, they hurdled moats and scrambled over barricades, climbed ropes and swung across monkey bars hand-over-hand, slithered through makeshift tunnels and crossed a log bridge without breaking stride. The final phase demanded that they crawl beneath a maze of razor wire, across fifty yards of ground, while their instructor and the sheikh's two bodyguards filled the air with automatic fire, their patterns interlocking at a height of barely eighteen inches off the ground.
It was an adequate performance, but the Executioner had witnessed tougher training in the Special Forces, and he wondered how the sheikh's disciples would perform when they were flying high on hashish, primed to kill — or die, if necessary — on the orders of their lord and master. Based on the survival record from their recent missions, Bolan thought the training in evasion and escape was merely sham, designed to bolster confidence in warriors who had come to terms with death. The reality was that the executioners dispatched from Alamut were not expected to return.
Before the last man had completed his negotiation of the course, the leaders were en route to the rappelling tower, scrambling up a ladder fixed to one side of the wooden structure, hesitating on the platform only long enough to choose a rope before they started down, the hard way. Bolan watched them, human spiders dangling on webs of hemp, the rocky earth below them ready to receive their bodies as a human sacrifice. They wore no gloves, no special shoes or climbing gear, and they revealed no trace of hesitation as they automatically went through their paces, anxious for the sheikh's approval.
When all had run the course and scaled the tower, their instructor herded them in the direction of the firing range. The Old Man of the Mountain followed, Bolan trailing, conscious of the fact that fully half of the trainees had still done nothing. The twelve men stood stiffly at attention, their eyes fixed on the distant mountains that were the boundary of their world. He wondered if they had a function in the present exercise, deciding that the sheikh would play his hand when he was ready.
Each man displayed his prowess on the firing range with pistol, submachine gun and rifle, cutting decent groups in targets stationed at a distance from twenty feet to one hundred yards. The distance work appeared to be reserved for half a dozen of the gunmen who were being trained as snipers. Standing, crouching, prone, they popped off head and heart shots with an easy off-hand style that made it look deceptively easy. Bolan gave them credit for technique, but wondered once again how the consumption of hashish might tamper with their aim.
Thus far none of the raids conducted by Ismaili hit teams had involved long-distance sniping, and it struck him that the special training, like the mock evasion drills, were being utilized to make the cultists see themselves in military terms. For all of their devotion to the cause, their resignation to the "afterlife," devotion might begin to waver if the one-way, suicidal nature of their mission was discussed in frank and open terms. While the illusion of survival lingered, the disciples of Sheikh al-Jebal could function free of apprehension, nagging second thoughts. They were a step removed from kamikazes, fighting for a holy cause and still persuaded that survival was a possibility.
The rolling echoes of their gunfire died away, and Bolan waited while the final targets were reeled in for his inspection, designated shooters standing down and handing off their weapons to the backup members of their team.
"I'll grant you, they seem capable enough." He nodded toward the second dozen, still awaiting orders. "What's their story?"
"I have saved them for a special demonstration," Bolan's host replied, his smile unsettling the soldier. "It is no great feat to run the hurdles or to shoot at paper targets. Even unarmed-combat practice has its built-in limitations. You agree?"
"I'd say so, yes."
"For training to have any value, there must be a taste of realism to it. For a buyer to be satisfied, he must experience the product for himself, firsthand."
"You've lost me, now." In fact, he knew precisely where the sheikh was going, and he didn't like it. Not at all. But he could not afford to show the slightest trace of fear or apprehension.
"This…" the Old Man cocked a thumb in the direction of the clapboard house"…is also used for training purposes. A graduation exercise, as you might say. Selected members of our order are conveyed inside and left with one instruction — make their way back out again."
"I take it that they're not alone?"
"Precisely. They must cope with opposition from their classmates, former graduates and so forth. We consider it a challenge."
"I imagine so."
"I realize that you have not been trained as my disciples have, but you are still a military man, is that not so?"
"I served my time. It's been a while."
"Effective training lingers, in the mind and in the hand. A lazy man may lose his strength, but he will not forget the lessons he has learned. And I do not believe you are a lazy man."
"I take it I'm invited to participate?"
"My humble servants would be pleased to have the benefit of your experience."
He thought it over, knew the consequences of refusal might be dire. It was a test, apparently designed to separate potential customers from the vicarious poseurs who hung around the fringes of the underground. If he declined, his cover might be blown; at best, he would be treated with reserve, perhaps suspicion, while the sheikh debated tactful ways to send him packing.
"I believe it might be interesting, at that."
The Old Man of the Mountain seemed delighted. "Excellent."
Cold Judgment Page 12