“All right!” Mikela snapped.
There was an uncomfortable tension in the vehicle as Laith kept the hammer down.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized sullenly.
“You didn’t have to describe everything in gory detail.”
Mikela’s dark eyes scanned the horizon as they moved along. Morning was dawning quickly, and Laith could tell that exhaustion was getting to her. He was about to say something when the phone on his hip warbled.
“Laith, where are you?” Mack Bolan’s voice cut over the radio waves.
“I’m heading to Makaki,” Laith answered. “The last two witnesses to the Shafeeq massacre are working there.”
“I thought I told you to stay put. Is Dr. Bronson with you?” Bolan asked.
“She’s with me.”
Bolan sighed. “Laith, Abraham’s Dagger has at least seventy-five heavily armed Taliban veterans out in force today. Some of them went to capture Tera, and the rest are being given orders to attack other zones.”
“You know where?” Laith asked.
“I didn’t see any records, and I don’t think Abraham’s Dagger would be stupid enough to leave anything in writing for me. But my educated guess would be the Special Forces HQ at Chaman and the camp at Makaki,” Bolan said. “And you’re going to be rolling right down the throat of an ambush.”
“But,” Laith began, “you came here to stop the murders of—”
“I know that,” Bolan answered.
“So where are you? What are you going to do?” Laith peppered him with questions.
“I’ll think of something,” the Executioner told him.
The connection went dead and Laith stared at the road ahead of him.
“What?” Mikela asked.
“That was Colonel Stone,” he explained. “The men who wanted you dead last night are going to make an assault on the Makaki camp to get the remaining two doctors. And they’re going to attack the Special Forces HQ at Chaman. They’re also going to capture the Israeli woman who was with us last night.”
Mikela’s face twisted into a mask of worry. “But—”
“Yeah. It would take hundreds of men for them to do that,” Laith stated. “My brother has about a hundred men, but there is no way he could get them to either place in time to make a difference. And if what Colonel Stone says is right, then the U.S. military is coming under the hammer right about now.”
“All those people, though,” Mikela answered. “There’s five thousand refugees at Makaki—”
“I know that,” Laith answered. “And those are my people. Afghans. Real Afghans, not some punks who thought it would be some sweet summer vacation to load up on a truck and go shoot some Russkies to get themselves their little paradise.”
“I’m sorry,” Mikela said. “Is there anything we can do?”
“I just got through talking to the one man I trust to let me know when we can do something,” Laith responded.
“Can he do anything?” she asked.
Laith kept quiet, realizing that every second he kept his foot on the gas, winding down the road to Makaki, he was breaking the big man’s rules of engagement.
Orders or not, Laith couldn’t sit by and let an army of thugs sweep down on his defenseless people.
MACK BOLAN WAS PUSHING the Land Rover to its limits, knowing that the alignment and the undercarriage were taking a pounding even their legendary reputation wouldn’t stand up to for long. He had his phone open and was about to dial the number he remembered from Marid Haytham.
The phone vibrated in his palm, and Bolan answered it immediately.
“Colonel Stone?” Haytham’s voice came over.
“What’s wrong, Haytham?”
“It’s Tera Geren, sir,” came the answer.
“Where are you? Is she all right?”
“My partners are debating giving you our location,” Haytham explained. “But she’s okay. Well, she’s alive. She took a beating, and so did Captain Blake.”
“Abraham’s Dagger launched an assault on their convoy,” Bolan deduced.
“Exactly,” Haytham responded. “Listen, I know we promised a truce between our sides, but the men I’m working with aren’t too interested in honoring words exchanged with Americans and Jews.”
“And you?” Bolan asked.
There was a momentary silence.
“The Israeli military murdered my family, Colonel. Do you comprehend how it feels to wake up one day and realize the people you love are dead and you were completely impotent to do anything about it?” Haytham asked.
“My father, mother and sister died just like that, Haytham,” Bolan stated. “Don’t explain to me what loss is.”
There was a choked moment. “My apologies.”
“You couldn’t know,” Bolan returned.
“We need to know where Abraham’s Dagger is. We have to act against them, it’s the only bargaining chip I have available against my partners,” Haytham stated.
“Tell me where you are, or get a force up and ready and meet me somewhere neutral. Bring Blake and Geren along too,” Bolan compromised.
“Let me try to convince my people,” Haytham said quickly. “I’ll call you back.”
“Right,” Bolan said. He was about to shut it off as the connection went dead when the phone shook again, the vibrating ring drawing his attention. “What?”
The sound of gunfire on the other end of the digital stream was all too familiar, Sergeant Robert Wesley’s voice was a bellow over the line. “Colonel Stone! We’re under attack in Chaman!”
“I know,” the Executioner answered. “How are you holding out?”
“Pretty damn bad. They’re blowing the hell out of this place, and not giving us a chance to respond. They took us by surprise,” Wesley snapped back. “I’d like to blame the Marines for distracting us, but these guys were given good placement, and I don’t like speaking ill of the dead!”
“Marines?” Bolan asked.
“Force Recon,” Wesley answered. “Colonel Stone, we need reinforcements!”
“I might have some help coming your way,” Bolan said.
MARID HAYTHAM TURNED BACK to the eight Palestinians who watched him like hawks.
“Any reason why the Americans aren’t answering our calls?” Sariz asked with a sneer.
“I don’t know, but Colonel Stone took my call. He sounded like he was in a hurry, but he was willing to meet at a neutral location if you didn’t want to talk with him here,” Haytham explained, getting out the offer before the balding Palestinian could cut him off.
“You’re soft in the head as well as the heart!” Beraz, a burly man over six feet tall, spoke up. “If he comes here, the Americans are just going to—”
“Listen,” Fasood spoke up, flexing his freshly bandaged shoulder, “there are as many Americans who are sympathetic to the cause of a Palestine free of Israeli oppression as there are who buy completely into the lies of the Jews.”
“That’s right,” Haytham answered. “This is a man who spoke to me as an equal and with trust. He had me outnumbered last night, and he had more than enough firepower to kill me, or capture me. Instead, we parted under a flag of peace.”
“Because he wanted to track you down and kill all of us,” Sariz told him.
“I’m getting tired of your mouth,” Fasood growled. “It was your bloody bullet that hit me, not anyone else’s. You shot me, you twit!”
Haytham saw the group of Palestinians split up. Only one other man, Sellil, stood with him and Fasood, leaving it six to three odds in favor of the hard-core Hamas soldiers. “Fasood, it’s all right.”
The big man was about to argue, but he saw the look in Haytham’s eyes and nodded, cooling down. Haytham tossed Sellil a glance, and he also wordlessly accepted the stand-down.
“I’m going to call Colonel Stone, and we’ll take Blake and Geren to another location,” Haytham explained.
“The Jew bitch stays here,” Sariz snarled. His knife glinted from his
fist, a grin splitting his face. “We need to get acquainted.”
Haytham rolled his eyes. “I don’t have time—”
Something boomed and hissed outside, and Haytham realized he’d never spoken truer words in his life. The time for negotiations ran out as the wall of their hotel suite exploded, black smoke and debris swirling as a thunderbolt-like explosion struck the building.
13
The Executioner followed the columns of smoke burning into the sky on the way back from the former Soviet base, his instincts grabbing him by the gut and dragging him toward the site of a recent battle. The Land Rover jumped over one rut in the road and he saw even more of the asphalt chewed up by what he quickly recognized as the effects of a 40 mm grenade launcher. He kept the pedal to the metal when he spotted two Humvees at roadside. Each of the vehicles was smoldering, sporting gaping holes where smoke poured out.
He skidded to a halt by the closest of the Humvees and got out, dragging his war bag with him, which contained a well-stocked medical kit. He looked around and heard a cry come from off to his left.
“Over here, Colonel!”
Bolan recognized the man. It was Sergeant Jerrud, and he was kneeling at the top of a roadside ditch, rifle at the ready. Bolan raced over.
“Who’s hurt?” he asked, kneeling and pulling out his kit. He counted the men. There were only three, and he instantly recognized the one who was wounded as Sergeant Montenegro. Another Green Beret was resting on one elbow, his face a mass of bruises.
“Just Montenegro, sir,” Jerrud responded.
“And the others?” Bolan asked.
“Just what you see,” came the response.
Bolan knelt by Montenegro, who already had a bandage pressed to the side of his neck.
“Shrapnel, sir,” the other Green Beret responded. “Bounced off the clavicle and went through the trapezius muscle. He’s bleeding a lot, and he’s gone into shock. We’ve already used our supply of Ringers solution to keep him stable.”
“I’m sorry,” Bolan said. He was about to do something when the other man reached for the medical kit.
“Sergeant McKorkindale,” the medic told him. “I bet I’m a little more qualified than you are. Trouble is, my kit’s burning up.”
“Go ahead,” Bolan said, handing off. “Jerrud, you’re pretty much on your own for the time being. The team’s HQ is under attack in Chaman.”
“Shit on a stick, sir!” Jerrud exclaimed.
“No backup is going to pick you up, and I can move the three of you, if you want.”
“That would be good,” Jerrud answered. “But what about Blake and the woman?”
“Did you see what happened?” Bolan asked.
“Well, the Tali-mooks were all celebrating having taken us down and were around Blake’s Mercedes, when this big black ZIL comes roaring up and a bunch of Arabs pop out and start shooting. If I had more motor controls than to barely crawl out of my Hummer, I’d have thrown in with them, they were righteous shooters” Jerrud answered. “It was two guys who did most of the ass kicking, though.”
Bolan wasn’t going to ask for a description, but he knew who at least one of the men was. “What happened next?” he asked.
“This bald little prick hops out after the shooting’s over and empties his gun into the sky, and the lead dude, a guy with a beard like a local, jams him into the car before the bullets come back down to earth,” Jerrud answered. “Asshole ended up clipping the other guy from the ZIL. A big guy, ‘bout your height, but about fifty, sixty pounds heavier.”
“How’d they treat Blake and Geren?” Bolan asked.
Jerrud shook his head. “Blake got a gun waved in his face, but it seemed more like a matter of formality. Geren? The girl?”
“The one you know as Rosenberg,” Bolan said, cursing himself for forgetting Tera’s cover for a moment. He tried not to remind himself of Afghanistan splitting at the seams, two bloody rifts being torn open even as he was here in a roadside ditch with an injured Green Beret and the other survivors of an ambush.
“She was treated a little better, helped to walk to the Russian car,” Jerrud stated. “Who were they, sir?”
“Hamas,” Bolan explained. “It’s a long story.”
“Hell, I’ll believe Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock at this point,” Jerrud muttered. “I’m just glad to be alive. And I’ll be even more glad if we can keep Montenegro—”
“Quit talking about me in the third person,” the big sergeant said. “I’ll live.”
Bolan sized up the tall man, lips pale and gray, eyes sunken, one arm strapped tight to his side. “I’ll take your word for it,” he said.
“It looks worse than it feels,” Montenegro said.
“That’s called morphine and Demerol, dimwit,” McKorkindale spoke up. “You’re taking it easy.”
“Easy isn’t in our vocabulary today, gentlemen,” Bolan explained.
“We heard,” McKorkindale answered. “A man can dream, can’t he?”
“Get into the Land Rover,” Bolan said. “I’m going to see if I can salvage anything. Did you collect—”
Jerrud held up three chains with plastic encased dog tags. “They’re coming with us, Colonel. But please, we have to send someone for their bodies.”
“We will,” Bolan promised. “We just have to get out of this alive.”
GREB STEINER GLANCED at Olsen Rhodin, the sadness having left his anger-hardened eyes. Ever since the previous night, with the death of Soze, and with the escape of Marid Haytham, he had become a changed man.
“I told you I didn’t want you making hard contact with the enemy,” Rhodin explained halfheartedly.
“Shut up, you spineless bastard,” Steiner snarled.
“Listen,” Rhodin began, but a hand clamped over his mouth. The stubby finger squeezed on his lower mandible so hard he was afraid the bone would snap like an eggshell.
“You listen,” Steiner said. “I’ve seen this mystery man at work. Suddenly, you get all tail between your legs and are launching all kinds of sloppy attacks. You’re attacking Green Berets and refugee camps, and why? Because you’re afraid of someone who matches the legend of a devil. I’ve seen him, through the scope of my rifle. He’s human!”
Rhodin shook Steiner’s hand away, terror making his heart hammer a mile a minute. “Then if he’s human, he’s not going to be able to get in our way for the hits on Takeda and Koenig.”
The convoy they were in, heading for Makaki, was a dozen vehicles long, but the plan was to abandon the trucks long before they got to the outskirts of the camp. Getting the heavy transports through thousands of people in tents and improvised huts around the refugee camp would have proved nearly impossible, even with a bulldozer or a couple tanks.
“So you say,” Steiner answered. “It all depends on what he decides his priority is. As it is, Stamen never answered back from the ambush on Captain Blake and the Geren woman.”
“A communications error,” Rhodin spoke up. He rubbed his bruised jaw, stretching and flexing it back into shape. “It was a dozen men, armed with rocket-propelled grenades.”
“Against at least half of a Special Forces team and their vehicles,” Steiner responded. “I swear, if Stamen is dead—”
“You let Soze down,” Rhodin answered.
Steiner stiffened, his thick arms going taut. Rhodin wondered if he’d just invited the sad-eyed assassin to twist the skull from his shoulders for use as a kick ball. Fists the size and shape of hams flexed and tensed, tendons crackling as they stretched across heavy muscle and thick bone. The Abraham’s Dagger commander had watched Steiner shatter the necks of grown men with a single punch from those brutal hands. If Steiner was going to punch Rhodin, the Dagger leader took consolation that he wouldn’t feel death.
“You’re right, Olsen,” Steiner answered. He relaxed.
“The sooner we’re out of this forsaken country, the better,” Rhodin said. “But we have to cover ourselves. We have to show the world that those who co
ddle the Palestinians are not safe—anywhere.”
MACK BOLAN LEANED ON TO the Land Rover’s accelerator. As the road raced past them outside the windows, Afghanistan became a blur.
“Stone, you’re going to open up Montenegro!” McKorkindale spoke up.
“Let him drive, man!” Montenegro snapped. “He’s got lives to save!”
“At the cost of our—” McKorkindale began.
“Shut your fuckin’ pie hole, Mack!” Jerrud yelled. Bolan spun his head, looking at Jerrud, then realized that he was using the nickname for the A-Team medic. He returned his concentration to the road, fingers tight around the steering wheel.
Haytham had contacted him while he was stripping gear from the shattered Humvees. Even though Bolan hated looting the vehicles of fallen fellow soldiers, he was a practical man. Supplies were needed, and he said a moment of silent thanks to the three dead American soldiers who had given their all. Now, all that was left was what Uncle Sam had issued them, and he was going to make as much use as possible of what still worked.
The Land Rover went over a bump and caught some air time, soaring twenty feet and landing, tires protesting, the frame of the vehicle whining. This wasn’t the safest driving he’d ever done, but without an aircraft, there was no faster way to get to Haytham’s side before the attack on the Hamas men and their captives was over.
Abraham’s Dagger had tracked down the Palestinians to their headquarters in Afghanistan, and were sending a third prong of their assault against the unaware enemies. Had Tera Geren and Jason Blake not been their prisoners, the Executioner wouldn’t have thought twice about going to Haytham’s rescue.
Then a twinge of guilt filled him as the outskirts of Chaman loomed in the distance.
Marid Haytham was a man Bolan could understand. He was a man who was dragged into a war, driven by loss and pain. Where Bolan had turned himself into a living shield to defend the innocent, Haytham had forged himself as a sword, driving down on the men he assumed were responsible for the deaths of his loved ones.
That he didn’t harm bystanders was all that the Executioner needed to know about the true state of Haytham’s soul. The man was tortured and made a promise to himself he’d never let another suffer as he had. The exact same vow that drove Mack Samuel Bolan to risk his life every single day.
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