Appointment in Kabul te-73

by Don Pendleton

  The approaching military carrier shifted into lower gear, its engine sounds distinct on the night air.

  The truck was a supply carrier of the flatbed variety, the bed empty, perhaps returning late from a delivery to a detachment in the field or to one of the outposts. Bolan hurried into action, retracing his route via a doorway from the roof to a stairway inside, past closed doors of apartments down to a deserted dirt street.

  The building reeked of too many people living too close together. Or maybe I smell their fear, thought Bolan. Kabul had the same beleaguered air he remembered from Saigon. And Beirut. He angled away from the building, a crouched shadow and nothing else as he speed-jogged along a course to a point one block short of the checkpoint, then he crossed over.

  He stopped.

  One of the two-man foot patrols strolled by within ten feet of him without knowing he loomed there, ready to strike.

  He chose not to take this pair. He had to make it over to the next street. He let them talk and walk past, two raydoviki chatting in Russian.

  Bolan knew enough of the Russian language, having studied every spare moment he had between missions.

  He had already used it with acceptable results.

  The conversation between these two, as with most soldiers thrown together during a long night's sentry duty, touched on the subject of women as they receded into the night, away from Bolan's position. After the sentries had passed far enough away from him on their rounds, Bolan continued on his track toward the street along which the approaching supply truck would come, after it passed the checkpoint. He heard the vehicle brake for the checkpoint and the voices of the sentries interrogating the driver.

  The night is so quiet, even silenced reports from the Ingram would carry, Bolan thought. Until he had Lansdale, the warrior would have to play this one quiet. But hard!

  He encountered another two-man patrol walking its beat near the intersection midway between the blocks separating the high command from the checkpoint.

  This couple did not know of their encounter with the Executioner until the heartbeat of their death.

  He came at them fast, the edge of each stiffened hand slashing downward hard enough to break both necks.

  The soldiers crumpled to the pavement at Bolan's feet with soft sighs.

  One block over, the sentry at the checkpoint waved the supply carrier through. The driver upshifted and Bolan knew he had less than half a minute now or he would miss the chance.

  He dragged each dead soldier by one foot until the bodies rested hidden behind stacked hay, well out of sight of anyone passing on the darkened street.

  He selected the jacket and headgear of the dead man closest to his size. The uniform was too small, but Bolan thought it would do in the dark for sentries well into their shifts, who would not be as sharp as they should be.

  He hurried back to the intersection and stood in the middle of the street as the truck approached, the way a sentry would during a routine double check.

  Bolan raised a hand in an authoritative signal to halt, reasoning that since there were guard patrols stationed along these approaches to the compound, it would not be unusual for these patrols to do spot checks along the last stretch to the main gate.

  Bolan intended to use their tight security measures against them, bending adversity into an ally.

  The intersection positioned him exactly midway along the two-block stretch between the checkpoint and front gate. If he worked this right, those at either end of the stretch would interpret the truck's stopping as nothing more than a spot check.

  The truck braked, its front end stopping less than a foot from Bolan, Bolan approached the driver's side of the truck. He saw a second man in the truck cab.

  At first the sleepy-eyed driver saw only the Soviet army jacket and headgear where he expected to see a sentry, but when Bolan stepped up, the driver got a better look at the soldier who had stopped them, saw the blackface, the night goggles and started to open his mouth. The Executioner tugged open the driver's door, reached in and rapidly pulled the driver out, down into a raised knee that smacked the man's face with such force, Bolan heard the neck snap. He caught the failing body in the crook of his left arm. With his right he threw the combat knife across the few feet of space in the cab before the shotgun rider could angle his weapon around. The soldier had no time at all because the blade buried itself to the hilt into his heart, killing him as dead as the driver.

  Bolan continued at high speed, staying away from the headlights at all times, everything happening so fast that, yeah, the seemingly distant checkpoint in one direction and the base at the other end of the dark street appeared to be buying this as just another security check by an enthusiastic sentry.

  The Executioner dragged both bodies from the truck to an entranceway between two shops that looked deserted. He retrieved his knife, cleaned off the blood on the corpse's uniform and hustled back to the supply carrier. Bolan climbed into the cab and started the truck moving, closing the cab door as quietly as possible. He pulled out a treated cloth to remove much of the facial blackout goo with hurried swipes.

  He drove at a moderate speed and reached into the cab's glove box where he found military orders for the driver's last run, as is customary with motor-pool drivers in armies around the world.

  Satisfied, he left the orders where he found them, closed the box and slowed the truck when he reached the closed main gate and guardhouse of the compound.

  He stopped the truck and feigned grogginess from lack of sleep. He saw a sentry approaching.

  "Your orders," the guard snapped in Russian to the dim outline behind the steering wheel in the cab at a height that made the shadows only murkier. Bolan reached over routinely, snapped open the glove box and handed the orders down.

  The sentry studied the papers in the light from the guardhouse where the other two soldiers had their machine guns trained on the cab. The guard looked up from the papers for a closer view into the shadowy cab.

  Bolan felt hackles rise on the back of his neck, his finger tight around the trigger of the Ingram MAC-10 that rested across his lap. He was ready to blow this sentry to bits and drive the truck through that iron gate into the jaws of hell itself if it meant pulling Lansdale out of here and finding out what the guy knew about the Devil's Rain.

  The sentry's right hand moved to the trigger of his shoulder-strapped AK-47.

  "The orders say there are supposed to be two of you," he snarled at Bolan in Russian.

  "Where is the other man? Tell me. Immediately!"

  6

  Colonel Pavl Uttkin, ranking GRU officer attached to the 40th Army in Kabul, resented having to wait for Boris Lyalin, his KGB counterpart, before commencing interrogation of Lansdale, the American agent Uttkin had apprehended less than an hour ago. But the Soviet military intelligence boss had no choice and he knew it.

  But now it would begin and Uttkin felt the familiar pleasant warmth of anticipation course through him.

  The moment Lyalin had arrived in his chauffeured ZIL, they marched Lansdale down along the basement hallway toward the torture chamber where other work had been going on this night.

  They had Lansdale in handcuffs clamped too tight behind his back, each of the CIA man's arms in the viselike grip of a stocky raydoviki armed with an AK-47 assault rifle.

  Colonel Uttkin hated Afghanistan.

  He hated himself.

  He knew the Central Committee and the General Staff used him only because he got results even though they loathed him for the methods he used.

  His skills had led him to this hellhole of a country that reminded him too much of his childhood home in Bukhara, where the wasteland of desert meets the desolate frontier of the mountains; where he had turned in his parents as enemies of the state when he was thirteen. His parents had killed themselves rather than face slow death in a concentration camp. Pavl Uttkin had existed ever since hoping he would be the next to die, and until then the only pleasure he could find was in the screa
ms and pain of others.

  Uttkin led the way to the door of the "interrogation room."

  "Brief me," Lyalin snapped irritably. "Can this not wait until morning?"

  "It cannot. Not with... General Voukelitch's orders that all such interrogations be carried out immediately. Voukelitch may be in Parachinar but he has eyes and ears in Kabul."

  Lyalin glared at Uttkin, with a nod indicating the handcuffed American. "You had, uh, best concentrate on the matter at hand, Colonel."

  "Do not worry, comrade," Uttkin assured the KGB man as they reached the door to the torture chamber. "Mr. Lansdale shall not repeat what he hears to anyone. Not in this life, I can assure you. He will not leave this room alive."

  They stood aside to allow the soldiers to open the door and forcibly push the American in.

  A glare illuminated the room with operating-room brilliance. A long wooden table with foot and wrist straps occupied the center of the room directly beneath tube lights, the table unoccupied at the moment but smeared with fresh blood.

  A naked male corpse in a corner had obviously been unceremoniously rolled off the table and kicked away. The dead man had no eyes; they were smeared bowls of horror, the rictus of death indicated he had died screaming. Parts of his body were butchered, his fingers all broken, the ends thing but gory stumps.

  The room stank of a sick sweetness that Uttkin loved. He forced his eyes away from what remained of the man he had watched tortured, trying to keep his voice steady so as not to betray the excitement he felt.

  "What remains of Captain Zhegolov of the security staff. We discovered he has been passing along secret military information, deployment of troops, comings and goings here at the base, that sort of thing. After some, ah, persuading, we learned from Zhegolov the identity of the man to whom he has been passing this information. Mr. Lansdale."

  Lyalin glared at the American.

  "It would be far better, far easier for you to voluntarily tell us what we want to know. Surely you can appreciate that. Your life could be spared."

  Lansdale returned the stare. He said nothing.

  "He will not talk without persuasion," Uttkin opined. "I know his kind." To Lansdale's face he sneered, "These Americans think they are very tough but they all scream and tell me what I want to know before they die."

  "Begin then," the KGB man ordered.

  "Of course." Uttkin turned to the soldiers holding Lansdale. He snapped his fingers and made a motion toward the blood-smeared table.

  The guards understood. They removed Lansdale's handcuffs and roughly strapped him to the table, giving the American no opportunity to resist. Lansdale felt his clothes stick to his skin with sweat. The table felt clammy beneath him; the light above him was blinding. He wondered if he should bite the cyanide pill he carried inside his mouth. He could see no other way out and he was damned if he would die screaming the way poor Zhegolov obviously had. Lansdale knew these butchers could make anyone scream with their knives and scalpels and beg for the mercy of death.

  At least Katrina was safe.

  Lansdale made his decision.

  The pill.

  * * *

  The idling of the two-and-a-half-ton supply carrier was the only sound in the Kabul night between the gate guard's demand and the Executioner's response. Bolan made his voice tired.

  "The baby-sitter they sent along asked me to drop him off where he lives on the way through town," he answered the sentry in Russian.

  "Don't you know that's against regulations?"

  "That's what I told him. Look, comrade, he wasn't my responsibility, was he? I'm only the driver and I'm damned tired, I don't mind telling you." Bolan, the role-camouflage expert, played it with the perfect note and tone.

  The sentry saw what Bolan wanted him to think he saw in the less than half-light at the high command's front gate. Bolan kept to the shadows of the truck's cab.

  The soldier considered the orders he held a few more seconds, made up his mind and handed the papers back up to the shadowy driver in Soviet jacket and headgear.

  "Proceed." The sentry stepped away from the truck and signaled to the men behind the bulletproof glass of the guard station.

  The iron-grille gate slid sideways. The sentry waved the truck through. Bolan smiled as he put the vehicle into gear and rolled onto the base.

  Piece of cake.

  Sure.

  Getting out would be the difficult part, but the nighthitter had already formulated a strategy for withdrawal, with plenty of room for improvisation. The Executioner's first, his only, priority right now was to find Lansdale, pull him out and find out where these cannibals manufactured the nightmare they called the Devil's Rain. He steered the truck toward the headquarters building. The grille gate whirred mechanically shut behind him like the jaws of a trap.

  Yeah, exactly like the jaws of a trap.

  For an instant Bolan wondered if he had trusted Katrina Mozzhechkov too much.

  He braked the truck in front of the headquarters' main entrance, which opened onto a lighted hallway the width of the two-story building.

  An oblong patch of light fell across the walkway from the doorway. Inside there the Man from Blood knew he would find the orderly room and the answer to where they had taken Lansdale after bringing him here.

  The width of the building showed no lighted office windows at this predawn hour. The only light came from the open entranceway. He doused the truck's headlights but left the supply carrier running, then lowered himself from the cab, the truck blocking him from view of the building.

  He saw a two-man roving sentry patrol walk in the opposite direction, paying little attention to a military vehicle that had cleared two checkpoints.

  Bolan waited an additional second after the guards disappeared from sight around one of the barracks buildings, gave a quick look around to make sure no one could see him, then tugged off the cap and Soviet uniform jacket. He double-timed it around the front of the truck and up the short walkway, in through the front door of Soviet headquarters.

  He stepped briskly to the first office doorway, which was open, light streaming out, to his right.

  Orderly room.

  Bolan nodded when he saw the four Soviet soldiers. They were relaxing as if they didn't have a thing to worry about because they sat under the tightest security lid in Kabul; three raydoviki, bearlike in Russian army uniforms, rifles close at hand, lounged in chairs, waiting for the end of their shift. A younger enlisted man, the orderly, behind a desk to answer incoming calls, at the moment was leafing through an American sex magazine. The four soldiers reacted a heartbeat too late at the sight of the big dude.

  The kid behind the desk stood, mouth agape as he reached for a holstered pistol.

  The raydoviki recovered enough from their lethargy and grabbed for weapons. Bolan swung the Ingram MAC-10 at hip level and squeezed the trigger, the submachine gun recoiling in his fists, the silenced tube spitting flashes of orange-red flame and 9mm manglers to terminate the three infantrymen.

  Two of the Soviets caught the Ingram's stitching fire after they grabbed their AK'S but before they could pull the rifles around on the blacksuited penetrator. Bolan executed these cannibals, both men spinning away under the impact of so many slugs and such sudden death, sprawling across furniture in a tangle against the wall.

  The third infantryman's weapon was rising, but only reached halfway up toward Bolan when another 9mm burst raked this one even though he tried to steer away at the last second. The blistering slugs riddled his chest at a different angle.

  Only heartbeats had passed since Bolan wasted the trio, but the orderly behind the desk managed to unbutton the flap of his belt holster and clear leather, a pistol tracking toward the Executioner.

  Bolan dropped on the punk like a house, pinning this cannibal backward across the desk, swatting the Ingram at the kid's gun wrist. The big warrior heard a snap and the pistol and skin mag skidded off the desk to the floor.

  Bolan applied pressure, pinni
ng the orderly to the desk top. The Executioner pressed the silencermuzzled snout of the MAC-10 against the punk's chest.

  "The prisoner they just brought in," he growled in icy Russian. "The American. Lansdale. Where is he?"

  Beads of sweat popped across the soldier's face.

  "D-downstairs. Third room on the left! Don't..."

  "You should've stayed home, kid." Bolan triggered a burst from the Ingram. The soldier bucked, his feet off the ground, then collapsed to the floor when Bolan released the dead throat. The would-be cannibal's tunic smoldered from the contact shot.

  Bolan exited the orderly room thirty seconds after he went in. He started toward the stairway leading to the basement level when combat senses alerted him in time to eyeball a two-man guard unit strolling in through the building's entrance on its appointed rounds, or to gab with their comrades in the orderly room. They found their Executioner, who triggered a silenced burst, and the sentries tumbled backward out of the doorway across the walk, life oozing from them, and Bolan knew he had whittled down his time.

  He took the stairway to the basement level four steps at a time. He slapped another clip into the Ingram.

  The Bolan Effect, yeah.

  Hitting hard.

  7

  Lansdale's tongue made contact with the pill wedged against the roof of his mouth.

  He loosened it from where it had been specially sealed back in the States. He closed his eyes against the piercing light and what he had got himself into. What a cruddy way to die, he thought.

  Colonel Uttkin's face loomed above him, blocking the light. "Perhaps you think you can, how do you say, ah, yes, hold out on us, Mr. Lansdale," the GRU pig purred silkily with a smile that wasn't quite sane. "I can assure you that the longer you force us to continue with this unpleasantness, the more you endanger others. Such as Katrina Mozzhechkov."

  Lansdale stopped working the suicide pill loose and tried like hell to register no reaction at all, but he could see the GRU sadist pick up on the tightening he felt.