Keller shook her head ruefully. “The young military policeman’s ‘man baton’ is still attached to him, barely. They say he’ll regain full functionality in time.”
“I thought her hands were cuffed behind her back.”
“Yeah, well, somehow she managed to limbo her arms underneath her to the front, all the while holding our young hero helpless in her ‘jaws of death’ grip.”
“Talented girl,” Bolan observed.
“Yeah, well, from there she also got hold of his keys, went into the cells of her fellow detainees and killed each one of them.”
“She beat them to death?”
“Oh no, worse than that. They were flat-out executions. Upon initial examination it appears each woman was kicked in the stomach to bend her over and then the butt of the baton was driven into the base of her neck in a single blow. A blow with a great deal of both force and precision.”
Bolan knew the technique. Someone had given the young woman a comprehensive lesson on kill shots. “Second cervical vertebrae.”
“Your classic blunt-trauma neck kill. Fracture the vertebrae and sever the spinal cord, and your talented girl did it four times in less than five minutes. That’s got to be some kind of record, particularly under prison break conditions.” Keller gave Bolan an appraising look. “Quite frankly I’m surprised she didn’t hand you your gonads this morning.”
Bolan mentally reviewed his dawn battle with the assassin. “She tried.”
“Well, she’s back in holding under double guard.” She gave Bolan another look. “The doctor got done with her about an hour ago. Says he’s never seen such a spectacular array of deep tissue hematomas in his life. He says the patterns and placement of her contusions beggar his medical experience.”
“Figured you wanted her back, maybe talking, and with no hope of busting out for a day or two.”
“You say she started talking after the beat-down you gave her?”
“Other than her expressing unkind thoughts, I couldn’t get anything out of it.”
Keller glanced at Ous. “You?”
The Afghani smiled at Bolan. “She hoped that your mother might recognize you in a meat pie.”
Bolan smiled. “Nice.”
Keller snorted. “What else?”
“After that her words became increasingly uncultural. However, she spoke her insults in Arabic, and I can tell you from personal experience that both by the flavor of her words and her accent it is very likely she is Syrian by birth.”
Keller nodded. “Well, that jibes with previous intel at least.”
“There were some aspects of her rant you may find of interest,” Ous stated.
“Such as?”
“Some of it was most unladylike, to be spoken by a lady—” Ous cleared his throat and nodded deferentially “—or in a lady’s presence.”
“Mr. Ous, are you aware of the fact I was at one time a United States naval officer?”
Ous looked to Bolan, who shrugged. “Go ahead, give her a thrill.”
“Well…of interest, was that she said, ‘after the council’ was done with our friend, she was going to make sarma with the skin of his phallus and feed it to him.”
Keller’s nose wrinkled. “What’s sarma?”
Bolan grinned. “Imagine an egg roll stuffed with—”
“Eew!”
The big American changed the subject. “He’s right, the council part is interesting.”
Farkas spoke up for the first time. He’d been very quiet since the discussion in the mess tent. “Hey, that coincides with your wiping out the modern Old Man of the Mountain and his minions in Iran.”
Keller turned a droll look on Farkas. “You been holding out on me, partner?”
Bolan sat back and let Farkas tell the story of the dagger on his pillow and summed up the story of the Assassins of Alamut he’d been told. He was a trained agent and there was very little that needed correction.
Keller reserved comment until Farkas was finished. “Jesus H. Christ. Anything else I should know?”
“That’s the skinny as it stands,” Bolan said. “And at least now everyone in this room trusts one another.”
“F’ing marvelous,” Keller muttered.
Ous blinked at Keller and spoke with great seriousness. “Trust earned, indeed, is a marvelous thing. May I say, Agent Keller, that I trust you implicitly.”
Ous’s earnestness was just about bulletproof. Keller relented. “Yeah, well, I trust you, too.”
Ous beamed.
Keller turned to Farkas. “What about you?”
Farkas shrank with shame. “Man, c’mon Kat. They put a dagger and a picture of my kids on my pillow. How many people had access? They’re getting to people. I’m sorry, my first thought was maybe they’d gotten to you, too.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Farkas seemed to be slowly coming back to life. “So what do you think a council could mean?”
Ous blew blue smoke toward the tent ceiling. “It means there is no Old Man of the Mountain.”
Farkas blinked. “Okay…and?”
Bolan gave Farkas credit for having had a hard night and held his peace.
“It means if we’re dealing with a new, or splinter group of the Assassins, they are not a cult dedicated to a charismatic leader,” Ous explained.
Bolan nodded. “Or we have a council of charismatic leaders, each representing different countries, sects or areas of operation. We know they can penetrate the United States Marine Corps, and if they can do that…?” Bolan left the question in the air.
Keller didn’t leave anything anywhere. Her feelings on the matter were plain. “F me.”
Bolan watched as Farkas did some math. The agent stabbed a finger on the map of Afghanistan in the middle of the table. “Okay, so the Assassins of old were all about protecting the sect, playing one side against the other. So, what are these new Assassins trying to defend?”
Farkas was a good man, but his world had been seriously rattled, and Bolan cut him some more slack. “You think they’re on the defensive?”
Farkas suddenly got the major message to his melon. “No, no they’re not. They’re playing offense.”
Bolan nodded over his coffee. “There’s hope.”
Ous took a long tug on his pipe. He blew three smoke rings and then sent a pursed-lip stream of smoke that bull’s-eyed all three like a lance. “They infiltrate us, fearing not that we can infiltrate them.”
A slow smile spread across Bolan’s face. “It’s hubris.”
“God frowns on it.”
“Okay,” Keller said. “What in the Blue Hell are you talking about?”
Bolan looked at Ous. Both warriors knew they’d had a meeting of the minds.
The soldier poured himself more coffee. “The Assassins trained their sleeper agents and killers from childhood, then put them in place to confound their enemies when the balloon went up on any particular front.”
Keller’s smile was beautiful to behold. “And these new ‘council’ assholes haven’t had time to train anybody.”
Farkas glanced around the table. “So?”
Keller dropped her elbows to the table and her face into her hands.
Farkas looked around the table in vague panic. “What?”
“Other than an inner corps of hardcore fanatics, they haven’t had the time to custom-build an army of assassins. So since they’re buying off the rack…”
Farkas blinked twice as the ramifications hit home. “Oh shit.”
Bolan nodded. “Oh yeah.”
“So what do we do?”
Keller and Ous both nodded at Bolan, who nodded at Farkas. “We switch sides.”
Sangin
GHOLAM DAEI WATCHED his guest with interest. The man was stripped to the waist and was moving around Daei’s personal exercise cellar. Unlike Gholam Daei’s ogrelike proportions, the guest was short and as lean as a whip. The guest ran a Khyber knife through a series of exercises of the like Daei had never
seen. The Khyber knife was famed throughout Central Asia, but it was particularly known as the traditional blade of an Afghan warrior. It pretty much looked like a chef’s knife on steroids. Running fifty-six centimeters, this particular example was approaching swordlike proportions. Daei considered his guest’s weapon somewhat exaggerated for what was supposed to be an all-around working and fighting knife, but Daei had acquired what had been asked for without question.
There was nothing exaggerated about the way the dull gray blade hissed through the air in liquid-quick patterns of thrusts, cuts and blocks.
The guest suddenly came to an abrupt halt and sheathed the blade. Daei nodded ingratiatingly and spoke in English. “It will serve?”
The man nodded curtly and replied in Arabic. “I am becoming used to its balance. It will serve elegantly.”
“I am pleased.”
The guest nodded once more. “What is the status of Motahmed?”
“My informants tell me he died of his wounds in Marine Corps custody. His body is being returned to his family.”
The guest stood steaming in the cool of the cellar for long moments, frowning. “Do you believe this to be the case?”
“I have no reason not to believe it. The slaughter at Ous’s home and the hillside above was great. I am told the Marine medics engaged in Herculean efforts to keep him alive, and even if it is untrue, there is little he can reveal.”
“Yes, it was costly, and to little effect.”
Daei bristled inwardly but kept it off his face. “War has its fortunes.”
The guest grunted at the wisdom of the statement. “Do we know where the family of Omar Ous is currently?”
“Currently only God and the Americans know. Neither has seen fit to reveal their location to myself or my agents.”
“Then they are most likely in protective custody, and most likely no longer in Afghanistan.”
Daei sighed. “Most likely.”
“This American and his continued interference concern me.”
There was no need to ask which American. He was a source of growing concern to Daei, as well. “We still have several Marines on Sangin Base who shiver beneath our shadow. However they are extremely valuable sources of intelligence. The loss of Corporal Convertino was tragic. We had great plans for him, and I am loath to use those remaining assets in Sangin Base in another assassination attempt against the American.”
“That is understandable. However, tell me, what is the status of the NCIS agent asset, Farkas?”
Daei shook his head in very dark amusement. “Agent Farkas appears to feel that our shadow can no longer reach him, or his family, and I blame the American. It is known Farkas met with the American and Ous just as Zurisaday attempted her escape. And, speaking of the American, he defeated her in open combat, hand to hand. I believe Farkas broke silence and told of his visitation.”
“Interesting. And what is the status of Farkas’s family?”
“I must admit our resources in the United States are extremely limited at the moment, and almost entirely relegated to intelligence gathering. I am informed that his family continues to abide at their residence in Virginia. It is also known to me that they are under the protection of federal agents. I fear I cannot reach out across the hemisphere and touch them without grave risk of exposure. I must admit I have thought of you concerning this.”
“I have far less to fear in this situation, but nonetheless, an operation within the United States is always a serious undertaking.”
Daei shrugged. “I could arrange a suicide attack.”
“That would defeat our purpose. Let me consider if action should be taken against the Farkas family and then when and what that action might be.”
Daei bowed. “I have been instructed to obey your orders and see to your every need.”
The guest grunted at the wisdom of the statement.
Daei failed to mention he also had orders to kill his guest if and when he should become a liability. “What do you recommend?”
“Another attack at the Marine base would be foolish. They are at a high state of alert. I believe it would be wise for me to engineer an incident, one that will draw the American and Ous out of Sangin Base and into our hands. Upon consideration, it will be at that juncture that I will bring Agent Farkas back into play.”
“I am intrigued. How may I be of assistance?”
“I will require you to recruit more men,” the guest said, “and unlike others, despite their skills or ferocity, they must be utterly willing to die.”
Sangin Base, Secure Communications Area
“UP TO SPEC?” Kurtzman asked.
Bolan looked at the paraphernalia he’d asked for. “Yeah.”
Seventy-two hours of rest had done the team a world of good. It had given the enemy three days to consider the situation, as well, but Bolan was hoping they had spent it considering the ass-kickings they had taken and decided they needed more men. Mothamed had caved under pressure. Bolan was preparing to sign up for Team Jihad.
He was going undercover in Central Asia to try to get hired and penetrate a revitalized Islamic death cult, and he didn’t speak Arabic, much less any of the local ethnic languages or dialects. Normally that would have been strike one, strike two and strike three right there. But Bolan had a couple of advantages. One was that Omar Ous was going to run interference for him, and two he had the technological wizardry of Aaron Kurtzman and Akira Tokaido, and Stony Man Farm’s assets, including John “Cowboy” Kissinger, at his disposal.
Kurtzman watched on the laptop camera as Bolan picked up an old-fashioned, bulky, hooked-over-the-ear hearing aid with Cyrillic writing imprinted on it. “Okay, that is your lifeline. We have two satellites slaved to it and linguists who speak Arabic, Pashto, Dari-Persian and Tajik. We’ve locked them in a basement room of the Pentagon and they will be listening on six-hour shifts. They will be able to hear anything you hear within conversational distances and translate via satellite in real time. The rig matches an older model of Russian manufactured hearing aids that an Afghani might be able to get his hands on.”
Bolan tried fitting the rig into and over his ear.
“The kicker are the batteries,” Kurtzman continued. “You’re going to burn through them fast. We’ve given you a set of spares, but turn the rig off whenever you have the opportunity.”
“Got it.”
“Now Afghanistan is being flooded with cheap Chinese cell phones these days. We chose an older candy-bar model to give ourselves more space to work with inside.”
Bolan picked up the battered cell phone.
“It won’t help you under cover so much, but the phone is satellite and can be used just like the fake hearing aid for translation. It has deep erase so any data you kill is dead, but don’t worry about that because we’ll be recording everything.”
“Right.”
“Again, if you get called or texted in foreign languages by whoever hires you, remember the hearing aid and the phone are slaved. We can translate any time of day right into your hearing aid, but there may be a slight lag, so be careful.”
“Always.”
“Ous will have a similar phone but different model. Oh, the antenna?”
Bolan glanced at the old-fashioned stub of black plastic antenna barrel. “What caliber?”
“Cowboy stayed Chinese. It’s PRC issue 5.8 mm subsonic. Aim over your thumb-knuckle and press the Chinese logo medallion, hard.”
“Nice.”
“The camera function will appear to be broken. Memorize the second number I sent you to enable it. Anyone who tries to access the photos will have to know that number to view them. We want as many photo captures as possible, but be careful of who you try to capture. When you do, send and then erase as quickly as possible. We can send the photos back later if you need to show them to someone on the ground.”
“Got it.”
Bolan checked his weapons. The Russian bullpup sniper rifle Ous had given him was a little too fancy for his
undercover role, but Bolan still wanted the power of precision shooting. Kissinger had sent him a Dragunov sniper rifle that was so battered it looked as though it was on its last legs. On the inside the action was as slick as glass and hand-tuned and accurized by the master himself. The Stechkin machine pistol next to it looked like it had seen equally hard use externally but it was likewise racing-tuned on the inside, and loaded with Russian high-impulse rounds. The fourteen-inch Khyber knife wasn’t fancy, but Calvin James, the Farm’s knife-fighter in residence, had put his signature shaving sharp edge on the high-carbon steel. He had done the same for the Dragunov’s bayonet. The last weapon was a tiny Russian PSM pistol. To this day they were still called “suicide specials” in Russia.
“You really think you’re going to get away with this?” Kurtzman asked.
To Bolan’s knowledge something like this had never been tried in Central Asia. “The whole thing is going to hinge on Ous.”
“You trust him?”
“Implicitly,” Bolan replied.
“Well, then, the good news is your CIA groomer and her kit are in the capital. She should hit Sangin in about two hours.” Kurtzman smiled knowingly, “Then the real fun begins.”
“Yeah…” This was a part of the mission Bolan wasn’t particularly looking forward to.
The computer wizard’s smile became insufferable. “We all want pictures.”
CHAPTER TEN
Bolan and Ous stepped into the meeting room.
Keller whistled. “Christ on a crutch…”
Farkas gaped in agreement. “If I didn’t know you, I’d shoot you.”
Ous’s eyes narrowed at Farkas, who backpedaled.
“Except I’d be too scared.” He looked to Bolan for a lifeline. “You, I don’t even recognize.”
Sunless tanning solution had darkened Bolan’s face and hands a few degrees short of Ous’s weathered complexion. His mustache and black beard were made of human hair and of the highest quality that the CIA provided for its covert ops, and it fell to his collarbone. The adhesive that held the false beard to his face was guaranteed for a week, and his own beard would grow right through it, though Bolan knew through personal experience that by day three the beard-itch would become almost unbearable. Hair extensions had brought his dark locks down to his shoulders to match the beard, and the CIA groomer had accentuated his eyebrows into some nebulous place between a hillbilly Spock or Satan on a bad-eyebrow day.
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