“Bear, you got eyes on?” Bolan queried.
“Oh copy that, Batman. It was one hell of a show. The Sangin bazaar is officially a riot area.”
“What’s our quickest route out of the city?”
“Head straight for the river.”
“Control, you copy that?” Bolan asked.
“Copy that, Batman.”
“We’re going to abandon the truck in the first open area outside of town. Request evac.”
“Copy that.”
Bolan and Ous both dropped down among the bound, squirming women and relaxed as Keller tore through town. He looked at Zurisaday’s unconscious form and the basket containing Convertino’s head. The corporal was a traitor to his beloved Corps and the United States he had sworn to serve, but he had fallen going forward.
Someone was going to pay for that.
CHAPTER FIVE
The massive, tapered clubs were half the height of a man. Gholam Daei’s mighty frame was stripped to the waist as he swung the sixty-five-pound clubs rhythmically around his head. A local woodworker had turned the clubs from a pair of sapling trunks to the man’s specifications. Daei noticed his servant, Karim, enter the chamber, but he finished his five hundred swings before he acknowledged him. “Yes?”
Karim ushered in two men. Azimi and Khahari were brothers, and local Taliban. They goggled at the bearded, bare-chested giant who stood in front of them radiating power. Gholam gave them a benevolent smile. “What news, brothers?”
“The news is bad, brother,” Azimi said.
“Oh?”
“Zurisaday has been captured.”
“And what became of the women who were supposed to guard her?”
Azimi lowered his head. “Captured.”
“Captured? They are living martyrs, sworn to die in their duty, sailing to paradise on an ocean of infidel blood. I find such a thing very hard to believe.”
Khahari cleared his throat. “There was an American.”
Gholam nodded sagely. “There usually is.” His smile slowly faded. “So, this American single-handedly took Zurisaday and her escort, while you, your brother and your men watched helplessly?”
“There was an infidel whore, shamefully hidden beneath a burka like a pious woman!” Azimi objected.
Daei raised one bushy brow in displeased question.
“And there was a gunship!” Khahari added.
Daei privately admitted to himself that in his own experience gunships could qualify as mitigating circumstances.
“And Omar Ous!” Khahari cried.
“Omar Ous, indeed?” Gholam grunted at this news. “Indeed, brother!”
“You and your brother are aware that a fatwa has been issued against Omar Ous?”
The brothers looked down at the ground. “Yes, brother.”
“And that it is your holy obligation to kill him?”
“Yes, brother.”
Daei looked for the silver lining. “And what were the civilian casualties of this assault?”
“A few broken bones, as some were trampled fleeing or injured throwing themselves out of harm’s way.”
Daei felt his anger beginning to rise. “Tell me at least this amorous Marine is dead.”
“Yes, Zurisaday herself took his head from his body.”
“Well, at least that is something. Tell me the other bad news.”
“The teashop owner, Abdullah, and his son Razi were both arrested. The tunnel between the tea shop and the bazaar has been compromised.”
“So, during the, abduction, I gather you held back and observed?”
“Yes, brother, we held back, waiting for the crowd to attack them so that our own attack would blend in,” Azimi stated.
It wasn’t the worst of plans. “And then the gunship descended and drove the crowd away?”
“Yes, brother, so we observed.”
“What did you observe?” Daei queried.
Azimi and Khahari both took out their cell phones. Daei took them and examined the video files. He watched the jerky film several times without comment. There were several decent shots of the American except that all Daei could make out was that the man was from the West, wearing a ball cap pulled low and sunglasses that hid his eyes. Daei switched to Khahari’s phone. His device clearly showed Ous knocking down one of Zurisaday’s escorts. Then the helicopter descended and turned the world into a confused maelstrom. He had some very bad footage of the pickup pulling away and Azimi taking several potshots at it.
Daei considered what he had seen.
Omar Ous was a hero among mujahideen veterans and considered a lion of the Northern Alliance. He was also ethnically Tajik. He had no use for southerners, less for Pashtuns, and considered the Taliban and their creed of Islam an abomination to be crushed. Such a man would have no compunction about shooting up the Sangin bazaar, much less gunning down female assassins in burkas. It was also well-known that he didn’t like Westerners and that he considered accepting their soldiers and their assistance a necessary evil. Yet here, digitally captured, he was following the American’s nearly suicidal rules of engagement.
Daei had been fully prepared, even expecting the escaping Marine to be a trap. He had been well prepared in the village, and he had believed so yet here again in the Marine forward base. It was an unprecedented, indeed, anomalous string of failures, one after the other, blowing up in his face like a string of firecrackers. They all had one thing in common.
The same, unknown, American operator.
He watched the video of the big American again, whirling among the living martyrs like a dervish. He was fairly sure he could take the man in hand-to-hand combat, and part of him yearned to lock horns with the American, lock him up and choke him out, only to have him awake, mewling and screaming to the final sensations of having his head sawed from his body with knife. For the moment he was invulnerable. He was surrounded by several thousand United States Marines, had Omar Ous to warn him of dangers Westerners normally couldn’t see, and had the United States Navy and God knew whom else backing his play. The situation was quite simple. Omar Ous needed to be shown the error of his ways, and the American operator needed to be cut from the herd.
Daei’s huge teeth split his black beard.
It was always good when one could kill two birds with one stone.
Sangin Base, Suspect Unit
ZURISADAY’S SKETCHES did her no justice. Even with the left side of her face swollen she was mind-emptyingly erotic. The push into Helmand Province had provided some of the heaviest fighting of the Afghanistan conflict and had provided a great number of enemy captures. The Sangin base had its own unit for processing terror suspects before shipping them out to the Kabul facilities or the United States. Zurisaday sat in a prefab holding cell complete with one-way glass. She sat staring at the glass, unblinking, with an almost reptilian hatred. Bolan had seen such looks many times before. He could feel her eyes on the other side of the glass, and he knew she could feel his. The woman was much more than a religious fanatic.
She was a sociopath.
“She said anything?” Bolan asked.
Keller looked up from a file she was amending on her laptop. “Not a peep since we brought her in.”
Bolan nodded. It would take very advanced interrogation techniques and time they didn’t have to get anything out of her. “What do we know about her escorts?”
“They’ve clammed up. Farkas suggested we leave them together for about an hour before separating them.”
“And?”
“A little bit of pay dirt. They were just dumb enough to whisper to each other. They didn’t say much except ‘say nothing’ and ‘remember your duty,’ but that was enough to determine that they’re Afghani, Pashtun and local.”
“Anything else?”
Keller clicked on the file. “They were armed with cheap-ass, copies of Russian Borz submachine guns. The knife one them attacked you with was the same knife used to murder Corporal Convertino. Zurisaday’s prints were
on it, as well. I’m predicting she was the one who actually did the decapitation.”
Bolan looked into the unblinking, inhuman eyes on the other side of the glass. “I’ll buy that.”
“Yeah, but the part I don’t get? You’d think the Taliban would just put some men under burkas and be done with it.”
“For one, even though he was unarmed, Corporal Convertino was a U.S. Marine and a dangerous individual. If he found Zurisaday with only a couple of apparently helpless women with her, he would have let his guard down.” Bolan smiled faintly. “You heard Ous. You can tell a lot about a woman by how she moves in a burka. Practiced eyes, and just about every Afghan male’s eyes seem practiced, would probably spot a man beneath that garment almost instantly, and they wanted to get her and the head to an extraction point.”
“Okay, you got me, but it’s still kinda odd. The Taliban hardly ever uses women for anything except punching bags.” She cocked her head at Bolan. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking about suicide bombers in Moscow.”
Keller blinked. “The Black Widows?”
“Right, women whose husbands were killed fighting the Russians in Chechnya, Dagestan and the Caucasus region republics. They get widowed, they get radicalized, and they go to Moscow and blow themselves up to rejoin their husbands as holy martyrs.”
“I know who they are, but it’s just not Taliban MO.”
“I know. This whole thing stinks of something a whole lot more than the local Taliban.”
“Like a whole lot more what?”
“Like either the local Taliban has had some kind of sea change, or there’s a new player involved.”
“Oh Jesus.” Keller shook her head. “A new player? Like who?”
“I don’t know. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen terrorists coopted by an outside party, either knowingly or unknowingly.”
“Thanks. I’m going to sleep a lot better tonight.”
“Where’s Ous?” Bolan asked.
“He pulled a fade. He doesn’t like spending the night on U.S. or coalition bases unless he absolutely has to. He’s got his own safehouses and his own web of informants.” Keller’s eyes narrowed slightly in irritation. “None of which he’s ever shown any inclination to share.”
Bolan could understand. Alliances often shifted and changed in Afghanistan, and those who fought beside the Western Coalition were all too aware of the fact that they were on a timetable to leave. They were lucky Ous was playing ball at all.
Keller shrugged. “He said he’d be back at dawn.”
“All right.” Bolan stretched out his arms and felt his shoulders creak. “I’ll see you then.”
“Yo, mystery man.”
Bolan turned. “Yes?”
“You got a snuggle buddy for the night?” Keller asked.
The left corner of Bolan’s mouth quirked. “Snuggle buddy?”
“I’m a lone female NCIS agent on a base full of horny United States Marines.”
“There’s always Farkas.”
“Farkas already made his move, and he’s married, and I don’t mess around with partners.”
Bolan laid his hands on his chest guilelessly. “We’re not partners?”
“You’re my liaison with every branch of government, with godlike powers.” Keller looked at Bolan seriously. “And Convertino fragged the infirmary. He may not be the only compromised Marine in this camp, and maybe I’d feel better with a tall dark stranger with a machine pistol watching over me tonight.”
“Well, I’m sharing a tent with a couple of lieutenants.”
“And I have an air-conditioned container unit to myself, and the two sergeants who shared it left their DVD collection behind when they were evicted in the name of NCIS.”
“Well…I don’t know.”
Keller’s eyes began to widen in bemused outrage. “I’ve had over a hundred Marines hit on me per day, I choose you, and you’re gonna make me beg?”
“Beg, it’s such an ugly word.”
Keller’s face went flat. “I have popcorn.”
Bolan nodded. “I’ll bring beer.”
Keller clapped her hands. “Yay!”
Ous’s safehouse
COLD SWEAT BROKE OUT across Omar Ous’s body. He stood over his bed bare-chested. His Browning Hi-Power pistol had filled his hand without thought as he had lunged up from slumber. Ous had been a guerrilla fighter since the age of twelve. He knew he could be ambushed, and he knew he could be tricked, for much to his shame such things had happened before. Even in righteous jihad, such were the fortunes of war. He bore many scars both great and small upon his body for every mistake he had made and lived to learn from. However, without unseemly pride, Ous believed it was nearly impossible for someone to sneak up upon him, even in slumber. Like many veterans who had fought hard and lived long enough, he was attuned to that which didn’t belong. The odd smell, the almost subliminal sound, or the lack of those that did belong, all spoke to him consciously and unconsciously. Wherever Ous laid his head he took precautions.
In the case of this night, in this room he had taken over a weaver’s shop, Ous’s precautions were as simple as a chair jammed beneath the doorknob and a length of wire sealing the window. A determined opponent could quickly breach such defenses, but not without waking the warrior slumbering within. His precautions were still in place. Apparently untampered with. Apparently a ghost had entered his room this night.
A ghost, or worse.
Ous looked down upon his pillow and what he saw strained credibility. What it represented had been reduced to old wives’ tales and myth since time out of mind. Nonetheless, Ous knew that he wasn’t mad. He also knew that he wasn’t dreaming.
The blade that lay glittering upon his pillow was very real.
The dagger would be strange to Western eyes. It looked like the dorsal fin of some delicate, exotic fish. The blade started wide at the base and then tapered very quickly through a shallow S curve to a needlepoint. Despite its eight-inch length, the blade almost looked dainty. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The thick T-shaped spine along its back and its acute wedge shape made it utterly rigid. In ancient times it had been designed to exploit the weak points in metal armor and burst chain-mail links. East or west, the ancient, Persian Pesh Kabz was arguably the best armor-piercing dagger design ever to emerge from medieval times, and the Moghul Empire had spread them across South and Central Asia. Ous knew from personal experience that such a blade, driven with enough enthusiasm could plunge through 1980s-vintage Soviet spun fiberglass and titanium body armor to find the life beneath it. He had little doubt that it could pierce the more modern Kevlar armor if required.
Ous looked at the photograph of his wife and his two children lying beneath the blade, and he knew what was required of him.
CHAPTER SIX
Bolan’s machine pistol was instantly in his hand as he sat up. Keller murmured and snuggled closer. Beer was forbidden to U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but it flowed like a river to the German coalition contingent, to the tune of 260,000 gallons a year. Like cigarettes, beer was an excellent bribe and Bolan had made sure a case or two of Bundeswehr beer was available to him to cement the love of the United States Marines. The soldier had allowed himself two bottles and allowed NCIS Agent Kathryn Keller to work her wiles on him. The woman had allowed herself four bottles and had worked her wiles on him with a vengeance. Marine Corps cots were definitely not built for two, so they had made a nest of blankets on the floor and made it exactly halfway through Casablanca. Bolan pushed the 93-R’s selector switch to 3-round burst mode in answer to the quiet knock at the door.
“Who is it?”
“Omar Ous! Are you decent, or shall I come back?”
Bolan flicked his selector to safe. “Give me a minute.”
“Of course.”
Bolan pulled on a pair of boxers and a T-shirt, and tossed his Beretta onto the bare cot. Keller made a tiny noise and took the opportunity to cocoon hers
elf in all of the covers. The container-shelter unit was literally an upgraded cargo container unit with power, AC, and because it was an officer’s unit, its own portable toilet. Bolan found Ous at the door, smiling in the pearly dawn light and holding a steaming mug of coffee.
“Good morning, my friend,” Ous said.
“Good morning, did you—”
Ous struck like a snake.
A snap of his wrist sent hot coffee sleeting for Bolan’s eyes. Most men would have recoiled from the attack. The Executioner dived into it. He closed his eyes as the coffee scalded across his face and hit Ous in a flying tackle down the unit’s three steps. The ground was unyielding dust and gravel, but both men had taken hard falls before and it appeared Ous’s revered father had taught him how to wrestle as well as shoot. As they rolled, Ous took the opportunity to drive two hard right palm heels into his target’s sternum. Bolan took the shots and the opportunity to yank his adversary’s pistol out of his sash. Ous’s hand closed on Bolan’s wrist like a vise as he attempted to drive his knee up between the American’s legs. Bolan had two decades and a good twenty pounds on his opponent but Ous was as hard as nails and grimly determined as they wrestled for the pistol. Ous struggled with all of his strength to keep the muzzle away from his face. Even though he was on top, Bolan’s strength and experience began to tell.
Ous seemed to produce the sinuously curving dagger out of thin air.
The dagger flashed across the top of Bolan’s wrist and the pistol fell from his hand. Ous rose up to drive the dagger into the American’s heart with both hands. Bolan got a foot into the man’s chest and shoved him off. Ous snarled and came back instantly as Bolan rolled up to find him plunging the dagger straight for his heart.
The soldier clapped his hands. For a heartbeat the blade was trapped between the heels of Bolan’s palms just inches from his chest. Before Ous could react to this incredible turn of events, Bolan snap-kicked him in the groin. Ous’s face crumpled and he fell to his knees with a groan.
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