“What do you propose?” Ous whispered.
Bolan took out his grenade and pulled the pin. He nodded at Ous to do the same. The man scowled but did so. “You intend to fire for effect?”
“Not exactly.”
“We have only two grenades,” Ous reminded him. “Perhaps it would be wise to use them defensively.”
“Let’s see how smart these guys really are.” Bolan took out his cell phone.
“What do you plan to do?” Ous queried dryly, “set it on vibrate and hurl it at them?”
Bolan’s plan was a playground trick, but sometimes people forgot things in the heat of battle, and while he knew his opponents were stone-cold killers, he was hoping they were not operators. The soldier hit Ghulz’s emergency preset number. Several seconds later Bolan was rewarded by the sound of Pakistani Qawali music pulsing tinnily from a cell speaker. The glow of the cell phone’s display was a flare in the light amplification of Bolan’s night-vision gear.
“Ah!” Ous exclaimed.
The reaction in the rocks was horror and consternation.
“Bismillah!”
Bolan hurled his frag grenade and Ous flung his a second later. The rocks flashed yellow and pulsed smoke in tandem detonations. Horror and consternation rose to wailing and screaming. Bolan swung up his suppressed submachine gun.
“Take a prisoner if possible.”
He and Ous charged. The Executioner hit the rock maze and followed the stench of spent grenade and passed the bodies of several men he’d shot. The rocket launchers needed a good bit of space for the back blast. Bolan found the dead and dying in a tiara of rock that formed cover in the front and opened into a culvert in the back. He had guessed right. A small pile of Shmel launch tubes littered the firing position. Of the four men, two were facedown unmoving. The third wheezed as he bled out on his back, and the fourth was trying to crawl away while holding his face.
Three choppers flying nap of the earth suddenly popped over the opposite ridge. A SuperCobra gunship flanked by a pair of Venoms thundered over the valley in a hostile wedge of USMC firepower.
“Cavalry’s here,” Bolan said.
Ous clubbed the wounded man to the dirt and sighed. “Thank, God.”
Bolan gazed at the man. “You were worried?”
“Thank God they are helicopters.” Ous stood at stared at the oncoming Marine aircraft and then looked at Bolan very seriously. “I never wish to fly in a plane again.”
Bolan knew Ous was going to have to confront his fears in order to return to the base.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ous survived the plane ride back to base. The lack of any parachutes in sight and a task to keep him occupied might have had something to do with it. The prisoner’s shrapnel wounds were bad but not life-threatening. He had ridden a gurney in the back of the plane sutured up and morphined out of his mind. Ous had spoken to him and found that Tajik was the man’s first language. He was northern Afghani from Badakhshan Province, and his name was Motahmed. In the midst of Motahmed’s opiate-induced babbling the man had suddenly remembered where he was, whom he was with and what his status was, and clammed up.
Still, it was a good start.
Bolan watched as Motahmed was wheeled into the infirmary surrounded by a phalanx of MPs.
“Sir!”
The Executioner turned as a female Marine corporal ran up and handed him a folded piece of paper. “Sir, Agent Farkas asked me to give you this as soon as you got in.”
The big American thanked her and read the note: Meet me in the mess tent, asap, bring Ous. It was followed by the code word Bolan had given Farkas for private communication. Agent Keller, who’d joined him, watched as Bolan folded up the note.
“What? He’s still pouting because he had to stay behind on babysitting detail with the female prisoners?”
“Don’t know. Speaking of the prisoners, why don’t you go check on them?”
“No problem. You want to go have boy-talk, you go ahead. I’ll go check on Zurisaday and the Pussycats.” Keller checked the load in her pistol and wandered off toward the detention area.
Ous stared at the note. “What is going on?”
“Agent Farkas wants to have a private meeting with us, in public.”
Ous followed Keller’s lead and checked the load in his pistol. “Very well.”
Farkas sat in the back of the mess tent, facing the entrance. He hadn’t shaved and he looked distinctly unhappy. The word “haunted” came to Bolan’s mind. Farkas looked relieved when Bolan and Ous entered the mess tent. It was very late or very early depending upon how you felt about matters and only a few scattered clumps of Marines sat eating or drinking coffee. Bolan and Ous grabbed some coffee and took a seat.
“Got your note,” the Executioner stated. “What’s up?”
Farkas looked back and forth between the two warriors. “I asked you two here because at the moment you’re the only two people I trust.”
Ous raised an eyebrow. So did Bolan. Ever since Ous’s attempt on Bolan’s life, Farkas had strenuously objected to the Afghan’s continued involvement. This new outpouring of trust didn’t bode anything good. “What’s on your mind?”
“Listen,” Farkas said, “I know there’s a lot of stuff you haven’t told me, that you can’t tell me.”
“You can always ask.”
Farkas looked at Ous. “You went after him, because somebody had something on you, right?”
Ous stared at Farkas for long moments. “That is essentially correct.” Farkas reached into his jacket and pulled out a Pesh Kabz dagger. It wasn’t as nice as the one with which Ous had attacked Bolan, but the sinuous lines were unmistakable. “You found it on your bed?”
“Yeah, along with a picture of my wife.”
Bolan gave Ous a hard look. He knew the man’s family had been threatened, but the veteran had been holding out about the dagger. “You found the knife you tried to kill me with on your bed?”
“It was placed on my pillow—” Ous shook his head “—as I lay sleeping. With a picture of my family beneath it.”
Farkas was appalled. “Well, why didn’t they just kill me?”
“Because they are trying to warn you off—” Ous took out his pipe “—or, like myself, there is a task they wish you to perform.”
Bolan took the agent’s eye and held it. “You been tasked, Farkas?”
“No! God no!”
“You are a Westerner. They would not expect you to fully comprehend the meaning of the dagger. They are expecting you to take it as a warning or else you will be contacted again if they wish something of you.”
“Who the hell are they?”
Bolan spoke very quietly. “Hashasheen.”
Ous’s head snapped around. His pronunciation was better. “What do you know of the Hashashiyyn?”
“They were the Nizari branch of the Ismaili Shia Muslims in medieval Persia. They were a splinter group, and as such they were persecuted. Some sources credit them with developing asymmetrical warfare, and if they didn’t they took it to the next level. They used bribery, political intrigue, espionage and disinformation campaigns to keep their enemies in confusion. Throughout the Middle East and Central Asia they planted sleeper agents, and when all else failed they intimidated or assassinated the leaders of their enemies. Some people think the word assassin derives from Hashasheen. Their leader was known as the Old Man of the Mountain. Their base was high in the Kopet Mountains overlooking the Caspian Sea. It wasn’t unknown for them to sell their services.”
Farkas just stared. “What happened to them?”
Bolan shrugged. “They couldn’t infiltrate, intimidate or assassinate the Mongol invasion. They were wiped out.”
“So there’s a new Old Man of the Mountain with an assassin army in Iran?”
“There was.”
“What happened?”
“They couldn’t intimidate or assassinate me,” Bolan said. “Most got wiped out.”
“Jesus…” Farkas r
emarked.
Ous visibly stopped himself from making the sign against the Evil Eye. He regarded Bolan long and hard. “Had any other man told me this, I would consider him insane or possessed.”
“So…these guys were like, Persian ninjas?”
“In a sense. Like ninjas, mystical powers were attributed to them. They didn’t do anything to dissuade anybody believing it. Espionage and intimidation were their best weapons. If you, your wife or your child wakes up with a dagger on their pillow, then you know that you and yours aren’t safe anywhere. If I had to bet, somewhere on this base is a Marine who was gotten to, and told to put that knife on your bed.”
“This much I agree with,” Ous said. “However the dagger with which I tried to kill you was placed on my pillow, as I slept. I was in a safehouse few if any would know of, and I had taken security precautions both within and without my chamber. There is no one who could have been bribed or gotten to, to effect their egress. This was a work of great skill.”
“That’s troubling.” Bolan nodded. “Farkas, you get anything out of Zurisaday?”
“The bitch is a goddamn cipher.” Farkas scowled.
Ous puffed on his pipe. “Perhaps more of a trained sleeper agent, and an assassin.”
The base general alarm and Bolan’s phone rang simultaneously. “What’s happening, Keller?”
Keller’s voice was ragged with pain. “The bitch is loose! She slaughtered the entire holding block and just about took my head off!”
Bolan rose. “Zurisaday is loose. Farkas, stay here.” His voice rose to command tones as he addressed three Marines who had risen from their seats and put hands to sidearms.
“You three! Agent Farkas may be the target of an assassination attempt. Guard him with your life!”
The Marines sounded off in a chorus. “Sir, yes, sir!”
“Ous.” Bolan drew his Beretta. “With me.”
Bolan and Ous stepped out into the predawn. The Afghan filled his hand with steel. “You believe she has a target? Or does she seek to escape?”
“I don’t know yet, but she didn’t try to escape until after we got back from your place.”
“It is an interesting coincidence.”
Marines were running in every direction in various states of dress and armament.
“What course of action do you suggest?” Ous asked.
“Let’s wait a moment or two,” Bolan suggested.
“Very well.”
The two warriors’ patience was rewarded as the lights of the base went out in a rolling cascade. Some parts of Sangin were semipermanent fixtures, others, like the tents with medical or command, communication and control equipment, were equipped with emergency generators. Parts of the base rebooted into scattered emergency light. Tracts of tents and Conex containers stayed in darkness.
“She’s coming,” Ous observed.
Bolan took his night-vision goggles out of his hip pack and held them up to his eyes. “Yes.”
Zurisaday came loping out of the gloom. Her mouth was smeared with blood and she held a Military Police collapsible baton in the open position. She caught sight of Bolan and Ous in the fading starlight. She flicked her gaze from side to side and decided that going through them was her best option. Bolan pocketed his NVGS. “Stop.”
The woman came straight-on.
She wasn’t afraid of the gun. Bolan was very certain the young woman wasn’t afraid of anything. She intended to assassinate somebody, escape, or be killed trying, and didn’t seem to have much problem with either eventuality. Bolan considered shooting her legs out from under her, but 9 mm hollowpoint rounds were known to make a mess, and femoral artery wounds bled out faster than anything other than hits to the throat.
Bolan holstered his pistol and beckoned the assassin in. Zurisaday’s hair streamed behind her as she ran light-footed down the gravel path. Her lips skinned back from bloody teeth in a frozen, rictus smile. As the black of night turned to the purple of predawn, like she looked like a succubus as she came in for the kill. The soldier had beaten her once, but he’d had the element of surprise.
It seemed the assassin wanted a rematch.
“If I don’t take her down, shoot her.”
“As you wish,” Ous stated.
Bolan strode out to meet his opponent.
He didn’t relish hitting women, but when one added the descriptor sociopath-assassin, gender considerations went right out the window. Zurisaday was eerily silent and grinning as she raised her truncheon high for a wild swing at Bolan’s head. He saw it for the feint it was. The strike turned into a liquid swift, softball pitch thrust straight for his solar plexus. It was a blow guaranteed to snap Bolan’s xiphoid process and drive it inward, perforating the diaphragm and collapsing his lungs.
Bolan twisted his torso with the blow, and the tip of the truncheon scraped across his chest rather than punched through it. He snapped his knee into Zurisaday’s stomach as she sailed past. The assassin gasped as she spun, then stumbled. Bolan hadn’t collapsed her lungs, but he had driven every last ounce of air out of them, and even sociopaths needed to breathe. His strategy solidified as he continued his attack. Sociopaths generally had a movie in their head of a universe that centered around them, and they didn’t like changes to the script.
Bolan’s knee had been above the belt. His spear hand struck just below it and stopped just short of rupturing Zurisaday’s bladder. It didn’t do much for the assassin’s strangled attempts at breathing, either. She wheezed like a landed fish and bent double but didn’t fall. Bolan took the opportunity to drop a hammer fist over both of her kidneys. Zurisaday’s claw hand toward Bolan’s groin was palsied, but it was remarkable that she could still muster any offense at all. He caught her wrist and rewarded her gumption with a spear hand between the biceps and bone that crushed her medial nerve. He finished off her right arm with a knife hand into the biceps itself.
The woman didn’t cry out. Her eyes flared almost in incomprehension as Bolan gave her left arm the exact same treatment. She tottered back a step with her arms hanging uselessly by her sides. She attempted a kick at Bolan’s groin. He caught her ankle and worked the offered leg, spear-handling the femoral nerve and then driving his elbow into the flesh of her thigh in the mother of all charley horses. Zurisaday dropped to her knees and even more incredibly lunged her head forward like a snake striking. Her bared teeth snapped for Bolan’s groin like a steel trap. He put both hands on her shoulders and tossed her into a wrestler’s sprawl. Zurisaday landed facedown in the dirt. Bolan rolled across her back and gave her an elbow to both hamstrings. He flipped her over and gave her left leg a femoral spear and dealt a hammer blow to the muscle to match her right.
Bolan rose, dusted himself off and examined the woman.
He hadn’t broken any of Zurisaday’s bones or torn any of her tendons or ligaments, but the crushed muscles and nerves in her limbs would feel like ground meat and be about as useful for days to come. She stared up with a pure, distilled hatred that was almost palpable. If looks could have killed, bits of Bolan would have been strung around the surrounding tents like Christmas lights. The assassin was shaking, but not with pain. She hadn’t killed her target or been killed in the attempt. She had been man-handled, and taken with childlike ease. The script of her movie hadn’t been edited.
The film itself had snapped in the projector.
A shuddering, hissing stream of what Bolan could only suspect was sizzling invectives began spilling from Zurisaday’s beautiful mouth, and it went on and on. He stood over her implacably as she spit forth her insane fury like poison.
Ous spoke quietly at Bolan’s side. “I have gleaned what is most important out of her rant. She is now repeating herself.”
Zurisaday took the news like a lightning bolt.
Bolan had seen grown men and women go into fits several times in his life. Only the state of the nerves and muscles and in Zurisaday’s limbs kept her reaction to Ous’s words from launching into full-blown grand mal se
izure. The blown pupils, rolling eyes, gnashing teeth, frothing at the mouth, whole body spasms and speaking in tongues were bad enough. Ous made the sign against the evil eye and took a prudent step back. “The woman has been possessed by evil spirits.”
“For some time,” Bolan agreed.
A pair of MPs ran up and skidded to a halt.
“You want us to take her back to the holding area?” the lead MP asked Bolan.
“If you would.”
The second MP cleared his throat. “Uh, is she epileptic?”
“No. As far as I know, she’s just pure evil.”
The MPs spent several moments internalizing this. “Is she safe to transport like this?”
“She should be.” Bolan considered the woman’s physical breakdown and let out a tired breath. “But I’d watch out for her teeth.”
CHAPTER NINE
“How did she get out?” Bolan asked.
Ous echoed the sentiment. “She had help?”
Bolan, Ous, Keller and Farkas sat around a table drinking Marine Corps coffee.
“Of a kind…” Keller rubbed her swollen jaw. Zurisaday had run over her like a freight train as she’d burst out of the holding area.
Bolan raised one eyebrow in interest. “What kind?”
Keller rolled her eyes in disgust. “The detainee offered to perform, shall we say, an act of oral outrage for one of the guards, through the bars, ostensibly in exchange for cigarettes.”
Farkas sighed. “I swear this Zurisaday chick is a Marine magnet. It’s like they can’t resist her or something.”
“Or something,” Bolan was pretty sure he could see where this was going. “And?”
“And the young private was smart enough to put his sidearm in a locker, but dumb enough to think his baton would be enough to control the course of events. Needless to say, she got a hold of his baton.”
Bolan grimaced. “Both of them?”
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