Those who lived in the hills for long enough often learned to read the exchanges of fire as though they were ciphered messages, and so it was that the Taliban faction that haunted the plain knew that another war party had fallen afoul of the women’s rights group. They’d received intel that a Pakistani military detachment had been in the area with two Americans. They also knew that their numbers had been depleted. It wasn’t hard to work out that the military’s expertise had saved the women. Similarly, it wasn’t difficult to surmise that if wave upon wave of small cells attacked, the PWLA and military numbers would be ground down to nothing.
It was a game of patience and chance, of waiting for the optimal moment to strike and hoping that other groups would crack first and do the hard work.
Weighing this, it was only a matter of time before the nerve of one Taliban unit broke, and they set off in pursuit. They traveled all night, tracking down the old PWLA camp and finding it deserted. Along the way, they had come across the dead of both sides. The heavy exchange of fire had taken its toll. The PWLA and their military aides would be exhausted. If the Taliban fighters could follow them and hit them hard, then it would be an easy strike.
There were eight in the group. They moved in silence across the harsh terrain, the cold biting into their bones. Tracking the PWLA’s flight from their first camp was simple. Despite their best efforts, they’d left an easily discernible trail. Carrying a wounded man with them had not aided any attempts to disguise their path.
As dawn broke, one of the Taliban men—Yusef Khan, an advance scout—tracked back to the main group to report what he’d seen: a shallow dip in the land where the PWLA had set up a second camp. So as not to betray their presence on the open plain, the other seven men took cover while the scout advanced to probe the activity in the valley. He watched as the women and military personnel dismantled their camp and filed onto the plateau. It was obvious from the direction they took that they were heading back to the city. Khan glanced at the sky as it loomed dark, heavy and ominous above him.
Right now, to bring his men forward would be to expose them. By the time they had covered the necessary distance, their objective would have had far too much time to see them and to engage. They needed to find a way of closing on the convoy so they would not detect the approach until it was too late.
Like most of the fighters who lived in the region, Khan knew the territory like the back of his hand—better, perhaps. There was very little cover between here and the outskirts of Quetta. Unless something changed soon, his people would be unable to overtake the caravan and find a point of ambush or attack before they reached civilization.
Suddenly, the wind that whipped across the plains went from humid to wet, and a low chuckle broke in his throat. Drops of moisture sprayed his face. As he turned to make his way back to the rest of his force, Khan knew that the gods had smiled on him.
* * *
A GRAY FOG DESCENDED on the women as they marched, and then it began to pour. They had to stop to turn Faiz on his stretcher and cover him as much as possible to prevent the rain from flooding his nose and mouth. The rain formed a curtain around them that cut their visibility down to a few yards.
Zia and Davis found their task impossible. They were hemmed in by the downpour. Anyone or anything could be out there, and the prospect made them nervous.
Bolan looked around, then up, and it was as if he was standing under a faucet. Rivulets of water and mud ran around their boots. Thankfully, the ground here was too rocky to become a quagmire, but it was now quite slippery underfoot.
The women were now huddled together, and Bolan called the military personnel over so they could reconsider their strategy. “Should we try to find shelter?” Davis asked.
“I wouldn’t recommend shelter around here,” Jinnah mused. “Too easy to get trapped if someone’s coming for you, and there’s no way we’d be able to see the enemy’s approach.”
As the words left his lips, Zia yelled and a shot rang out.
* * *
THE TALIBAN FIGHTERS upped their pace and advanced through the rain. They were sure-footed and used to these sudden changes in weather, so made up the distance between their position and the PWLA convoy with ease. With the rain as cover, they moved with an impunity that added to their speed. They knew that if they made ground quickly, they could descend out of the gray curtain and take on their enemy before they had a chance to react.
Khan led the way, signaling to the men when they were approaching the caravan. The PWLA had been marching at a steady pace, so he estimated their position. Timing was everything—they would come upon the women and strike swiftly. They would be ready and their enemy would not.
But when the women loomed up at them out of the mist, it was sooner than the scout expected. The Taliban fighters were not fully prepared for their own ambush, and one man gave a shout of alarm.
* * *
ZIA WAS EDGY. He had a feeling in his gut that something was very wrong. He mistrusted the terrain and the weather, and he was sure that the Americans—no matter how good Colonel Stone was—didn’t understand how treacherous these conditions could be. Corporal Jinnah knew, of course, but he was momentarily distracted. The women—well, Zia had been impressed by their bravery and the speed with which they were picking up skills and knowledge, but they were children when it came to hill fighting.
Reacting to some strange instinct, Zia turned back in time to see a man bearing the Taliban insignia, with an AK slipping off his shoulder, almost run into him. They were so close that he could see the surprise in his enemy’s eyes that he was sure was mirrored in his own.
He yelled an incoherent warning and fired on the man. The shock was forever fixed on his face as the shell from the Zia’s AK took off the top of his head. He dropped, and before he hit the rain-sodden ground, Zia had already shifted his aim to cover the men who were scattering before him.
At his back, his warning had served its purpose. The women had turned their attention away from their own huddle and had shouldered their weapons. Some were already loosing shots into the space where the Taliban fighters had been just moments before. But already they were like wraiths in the fog of rain.
Bolan yelled at the women to form a circle and fire outward, keeping the wounded man and someone to carry him in the center. They would have to try to move in this pattern, so that they could cover themselves without being a static target. A hard maneuver at the best of times, let alone under such harsh conditions.
There was no shelter out here; the only thing that could help them was also the thing that could cause them the most harm. The rain was their friend and their enemy. It made the opposition hard to track, but by the same token, the Taliban men would have difficulty pinpointing the PWLA fighters’ positions and picking them off.
Bolan fired into the mist, trying to place his rounds with care, knowing that ammo was at a premium and any break in the stream of fire could give the enemy an opening.
He could hear a steady rhythmic pattern of fire emerging from all around him, and knew that the brief training they’d given the PWLA had worked. The women were firing in short bursts, and staggering their fire as they tried to pick targets rather than waste ammo in spray’n’pray.
Zia had moved forward, taking it on himself to adopt an offensive position and try to drive the enemy back. If it worked, then they would be unable to place any effective fire on the women, and Davis and Jinnah could marshal the convoy away while the Executioner joined the young Pakistani soldier in forming a rear guard to cover their retreat.
Bolan checked on Davis and Jinnah. The American was trying to locate the enemy and drive them back, like Zia, but she seemed to be having a hard time getting a visual through the curtain of rain.
Jinnah, too, was having few problems. Cradling his AK in the crook of his elbow, moving backward and firing only the occasional shot as
he covered himself, the corporal was yelling in Urdu for the women to gather and move as one. He used his free hand to indicate the kind of movement he meant.
So far, the return fire had been sporadic and ill-directed. Gunshots echoed high and wide, or chipped rock and threw up small sprays of mud at their feet. The enemy must be finding visual contact hard, as well. Bolan could only hope this would continue. If the rain let up just a little right now, he had a bad feeling that the women would be sitting ducks.
Although they were more or less firing blind, his people were getting lucky. He heard two distinct cries of pain as shots struck home. However many opponents were on their tail, at least two of them were effectively out of the game. It was a start.
Squinting into the rain-dark distance, Bolan yelled as a light flared up brightly in front of him, searing his vision. He looked away for a second to save his eyes, and when he turned back he was standing in a cone of light. A yard away from him, a flare lay sputtering on the ground as its phosphorescent glow did battle with the rain that sought to extinguish it.
He was the only visible target, and fire began to rain in on him as thickly as the water that threatened his sight and his footing. Bolan stood between the enemy and the PWLA, and he knew that any fire flying past him would endanger the women at his back. There was only one thing he could do to save the women behind him, and to save himself. He dived for the flare, hitting the ground in a roll and feeling the rock jar his shoulder, numbing it temporarily. He grabbed the flare, flinging it back in the direction from which it had come. A chattering of fire from the PWLA line told him that he may have had the luck of illuminating some of their assailants. He threw himself to the side, coming to rest with a bone-crunching whack against a small cluster of boulders.
Hardly pausing to get his breath back, knowing that to be still could cost him his life, the Executioner pulled himself up and tried to use the rocks as cover.
It was only as he stumbled to his feet that he felt the rock beneath him tremble and move. As it did, a teeth-grinding screech rent the air.
At first, Bolan thought somebody had used a grenade or explosive.
Then he realized it was much worse than that.
Chapter Fifteen
Jinnah cursed loudly as the ground shifted beneath his feet. Turning, he could see that the women had formed a circle, with two of them in its center carrying Faiz. These two fought to stay upright on the slippery ground. The American woman was only a meter or two from him, just visible through the downpour. She was staring around her, bewildered, and moved closer to Jinnah, stumbling as she got near. He bent at the knee to catch her, supporting her weight as she regained her footing.
“Where’s Stone? And what the hell is going on?”
Jinnah shook his head. “I lost him when he threw the flare,” he yelled over the driving rain and sporadic gunfire. “As for this—” he indicated the shaking rock beneath them “—it’s just the way it is up here. Not stable land, Captain. If this is an earthquake, there’s little we can do except wait it out and hope there aren’t too many aftershocks. I think it is safe to say that this is a minor—”
“How the hell can you know that?” Davis snapped.
“We’re still standing and not lying broken at the bottom of a ravine that has split the ground around us. That’s how I know, Captain. Now, if you’ll stop asking pointless questions, we may be able to find a way out of this.”
The women had steadied themselves as a unit, and had ceased shooting as the enemy’s fire now seemed out of range. Hidden from view by the incessant rain, there was the sporadic chatter of fire a short distance away, a call and response that suggested Zia was still standing, and more than holding his own against the Taliban fighters. They were making little headway against him, it seemed, although it was worrying that he was now lost from view to his own forces. Zia was out there on his own, with no real sense of direction, and only the imperative to stay alive to keep him going.
“We need to throw him a lifeline,” Davis said to Jinnah.
Jinnah nodded briefly. “The ground looks relatively unscathed to the west—you take the women that way. Keep going. If there are no great aftershocks you should be fine. I’ll go after Zia and guide him back.”
“What about Stone?” Davis asked.
Jinnah chewed his lip. “Don’t think I’m not concerned about the colonel,” he said carefully. “But I have the feeling the man can look after himself better than the rest of us.”
* * *
BOLAN HAD BEEN thrown off his feet as the quake shuddered beneath him, and he saw red flashing lights as his head hit the sharp edge of a rock. He tasted blood as it streamed from the shallow cut and into his mouth. He wiped it away and groped blindly for something to stem the flow and clean his face. His combat shirt had a ragged tear where his ribs had crashed against the rock, and he ripped a section of it off.
His head swam as he stood, and he stopped suddenly, drawing a deep breath and using all the breathing and martial arts techniques he had picked up over the years to try to slow his pounding heart and lower the rising blood pressure that was adding to the mild concussion sustained by his fall. This would have to work damn quickly. Even through the steady rainfall, he could sense that the enemy was closing in on him.
Over to one side he could hear the exchange of fire as one of his people headed off the enemy. That took care of some of the attackers, but he had no idea how many there were in total.
One thing was for sure: one of the Taliban fighters was out there. The Executioner could feel him getting closer.
Bolan instinctively turned full circle and saw the figure emerge out of the rain. The man held a wickedly curved blade in a goatskin grip above his head, ready to strike down where the soldier’s shoulder blade had been a moment before. There was no time to take any kind of evasive action. The only thing Bolan could do was step backward and reach out to grab his enemy’s arm as it descended. Bolan steadied himself as he took the man’s momentum and used it against him, moving back and to one side, guiding the man’s knife hand so it skimmed harmlessly past him. His assailant fell face-first onto the rocks. Before he had a chance to recover, Bolan was on the man’s back, with his knee on his spine. He gripped the man’s neck, feeling for his chin. He took hold and of it and twisted, hearing the man’s neck crack.
Breathing heavily, Bolan straightened and looked around. There was no one visible through the rain, and for that he was glad. Every second without a threat was in his favor.
Bolan gathered himself and stayed the spinning in his head. He picked up his AK and began to move slowly toward the sounds of the firefight.
* * *
ZIA STOOD HIS GROUND, advancing slowly until he found cover. He had just settled into a small patch of scrub when the earth heaved beneath him, throwing him sideways. He fell on one knee but managed to keep himself upright enough to shoot at a dark shape he saw flit through the mist. Returned fire ripped up chunks of stone about two meters from where he was kneeling. That was good. He figured he had a better sight of them than they had of him.
He was aware now, though, that his need to find cover and the shaking of the earth had driven a wedge—maybe a physical one—between him and the convoy. Pausing between his bursts of fire, he could hear nothing except the shots returned in his direction. He had no idea where the PWLA was in relation to his position.
He looked back, desperate to spot some kind of landmark. There was nothing to help him. He would just have to hope for the best.
Zia left his cover, keeping low and refraining from fire so as not to draw attention to his position. He figured his intent to drive back the enemy had been successful. The fact that a larger scale firefight hadn’t erupted confirmed this. His only problem was that his success had left him out on a limb.
Zia kept running. The low visibility meant that anyone comi
ng up on him would appear out of the mist quickly. He would need to be sharp. His nerves jangled as he ran, adrenaline coursing through his veins and drying his mouth. His head pounded with every step, with every beat of his heart.
A dark shape loomed out of the rain, and he raised his AK, finger tightening on the trigger even as the barrel came up level. It was only when his finger tensed the last fraction of an inch that he recognized the figure cutting through the curtain of water. Zia cursed as he realized he was about to shoot one of his own.
* * *
BOLAN HAD SOME idea of where the convoy may be. He took his bearings from the direction of the gunfire, and the assumption that this firefight was down to the actions of Zia as he pushed forward. If the hardy young soldier had kept moving in the same direction as when Bolan had last seen him, then the opposite direction should lead him back to the PWLA party.
It was a theory that was seriously flawed, but it was all he had right now.
He kept low, using every small piece of cover that appeared out of the all-encompassing deluge. Behind one small bush, its barren branches glistening with jewels of water, he stopped to take stock and to wipe the water out of his eyes.
The firefight was sporadic now, and from this he gathered that the enemy had not so much disengaged as lost sight of their prey. Zia must be attempting to fall back and rejoin the main party. He heaved himself up and started across the slippery rock and thin layer of mud beneath his feet, hoping that both he and Zia would reach the PWLA before the Taliban fighters.
And without any mishap...
* * *
JINNAH POUNDED ACROSS the terrain with a more sure-footed stride than anyone else on his team. He had spent many years of early service in Balochistan and had seen conditions like this before. He knew how hard it was to fight under this blanket of rain, and how easy it was to lose your comrades. Zia was a good man, and Jinnah would hate to see him taken out of the game no matter what. But he’d be damned if Zia was lost to the conditions and not the opposition.
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