Sniper fire began to chew at the earth around them

Before Bolan could put out a distress call, a faint popping sounded from atop the peak behind him, followed by an ominous whoosh and the harsh glare of two igniting flares. The clouds turned a bright shade of ochre that illuminated the ridgeline, exposing Bolan and O’Brien.

“Go!” O’Brien feebly reached for the compress and pushed Bolan away. “Now!”

The flares touched down, landing close enough that their sparks made the Americans an even clearer target. Two more rounds rained down on Bolan and O’Brien. One glanced off the Executioner’s M-16 mere inches from his trigger finger. The other tore through O’Brien’s neck, just above his flak jacket. The recon officer went limp, blood spurting from a severed artery.

Given the trajectory, Bolan knew the shots were coming from the distant peak behind him, well beyond the range of his assault rifle. It also seemed a safe bet that there were at least two snipers.

Bolan had to make a quick decision. Staying at O’Brien’s side meant certain death, but venturing any farther along the ridgeline would only court the chance he’d trip another land mine. That left one option.

The Executioner took it.

Killing Ground

The Executioner®

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

They are dead; but they live in each Patriot’s breast, And their names are engraven on honor’s bright crest.

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

1807–1882

Every soldier who fights for freedom and justice deserves honor and peace in death. Anyone who threatens this right will have to answer to me.

—Mack Bolan

THE MACK BOLAN LEGEND

Nothing less than a war could have fashioned the destiny of the man called Mack Bolan. Bolan earned the Executioner title in the jungle hell of Vietnam.

But this soldier also wore another name—Sergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.

Mack Bolan’s second tour of duty ended prematurely when he was given emergency leave to return home and bury his family, victims of the Mob. Then he declared a one-man war against the Mafia.

He confronted the Families head-on from coast to coast, and soon a hope of victory began to appear. But Bolan had broken society’s every rule. That same society started gunning for this elusive warrior—to no avail.

So Bolan was offered amnesty to work within the system against terrorism. This time, as an employee of Uncle Sam, Bolan became Colonel John Phoenix. With a command center at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, he and his new allies—Able Team and Phoenix Force—waged relentless war on a new adversary: the KGB.

But when his one true love, April Rose, died at the hands of the Soviet terror machine, Bolan severed all ties with Establishment authority.

Now, after a lengthy lone-wolf struggle and much soul-searching, the Executioner has agreed to enter an “arm’s-length” alliance with his government once more, reserving the right to pursue personal missions in his Everlasting War.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

1

Safed Koh Range, Afghanistan-Pakistan Border

Fifty miles southeast of the Afghanistan capital of Kabul, Mack Bolan steeled himself against the harsh, cold wind that swept up through the moonlit mountains, stirring a clot of low-hanging clouds that partially obscured the steep, jagged slopes stretching before him. He was nearly ten thousand feet above sea level, positioned along a battle-scarred ridgeline just below the highest peak in this stretch of the Hindu Kush, lying prone on a bed of pine needles. Under better conditions, he would have had a clear view of the trails below, along which, according to all available intel, Taliban forces would most likely attempt to slip into the country from covert bases in the tribal lands of neighboring Pakistan.

The intermittent cloud cover made this an ideal night for the terrorists to make their move. To tempt them farther into the open, an attractive bait had been set two miles to the north, atop a plateau several thousand feet below where Bolan held his vigil. There, U.S. and NATO forces had begun to erect a new base for their joint military operations. It was a familiar modus operandi for the Taliban to take advantage of such situations, staging predawn raids in hopes of capitalizing on uncompleted fortifications manned by security personnel not yet acclimated to their new surroundings.

In this case, however, the half-built site was merely a red herring. Once the Taliban crossed the border and closed in on its target, their advance would bring them into the crosshairs of a half-dozen Special Ops teams lying in wait at key points along every known access route. Bolan was one of those who would likely sound the first alarm. If he had his way, by the time the ambush was underway, he would have already made his way downhill to lend a hand in helping crush those from whose ranks America had been subjected to the moment of infamy now known, with grim simplicity, as 9/11. Granted, it would take more than one such victory to eradicate the black-turbanned sect once and for all, but after weeks of making little headway against the terrorists, both U.S. and NATO forces were anxious to boost their morale and at least match the recent success of their host confederates, the Afghan National Army.

The Executioner had come to Afghanistan intent on a solo mission against the Taliban, but once apprised of plans for the ambush—which Pentagon spin doctors had optimistically christened Operation Rat Trap—Bolan had quickly realized that prowling alone through the mountains would more likely draw friendly fire from the commando squads than bring him face-to-face with the enemy. He’d grudgingly allowed himself to be thrown into the established mix, and when he’d set out for his lofty surveillance post, it had been in the company of a recon specialist from the Army’s 25th Infantry Division deployed at Bagram Air Base.

The man at his side, as the stakeout dragged into its third hour, was Captain Howard “Howitzer” O’Brien, a beefy, gray-haired veteran halfway through his third tour of duty in Afghanistan. Prior to that, the Cleveland native had served in the Gulf War, and his cumulative experience had brought with it a hardened cynicism surpassed only by the officer’s apparently incessant need to vent his notions as to how the U.S. military brain trust had mismanaged both conflicts.

“Y’know, if we’d done things right from the get-go, we wouldn’t be stuck here doing this kinda shit,” O’Brien murmured as he, like Bolan, peered downhill through night-vision goggles that, for the moment, did little more than deflect grains of sand periodically whipped up by the late-October winds.

“Back in ’91 we had Hussein and his fucking Imperial Army dead to rights,” he went on. “All we had to do was march into Baghdad and finish the job. But what do we do instead? We call it quits and head home so those scumbags can regroup and pick up where they left off. Real smart, huh?”

It was an old argument, one Bolan had tired of the first few dozen times he’d heard it. When he didn’t respond, however, O’Brien took it as a cue to forge on.

“Then, boom, ten years later we blow in here to Binladenstan looking to kick some Taliban ass for 9/11. We rout ’em out of Kabul and have ’em right where we want ’em—running scared up here into the mountains. But do we finish the job? Hell no. Instead we get ourselves sidetracked going back after Hussein. By the time we yank him out of his hidey-hole and see that he gets a necktie party, these dipshits have retrenched themselves so we gotta come back and start from square one again. You see a pattern here?”

Bolan wasn’t about to let himself be dragged into the officer’s diatribe. He kept his eyes trained on the mountains below, looking for signs of movement through the shifting clouds. The only visible stirring was a gentle rippling on the surface of a small glimmering mountain lake situated at the base of a steep slope extending downward from his position. There’d been a time when the entire length of the slope had been a sheer, vertical wall of solid rock, but years of bombing, first by the Soviets and then the U.S., had pulverized sections of the precipice, turning them into collapsed mounds of loose rock and gravel. The ripples were caused by the occasional plop of small stones pulled down into the lake by gravity.

“What, you think I’m exaggerating?” O’Brien taunted. “Or maybe you think Washington knows what they’re doing and aren’t just dicking around for votes and kickbacks from whoever’s making the money off this fiasco. Is that it?”

Bolan remained silent. Much as O’Brien’s diatribe rankled him, it also took him back to a time when he’d taken issue with his government to the point where he’d gone rogue. It had been a dark period in his life, and though the wounds had healed, the scars remained.

O’Brien broke the silence.

“You know I’m right,” he said.

Bolan felt his patience wearing thin. He also sensed that O’Brien wasn’t about to let up until he got some kind of response out of the man he knew only as Special Agent Cooper—one of several code names the Executioner used to safeguard his identity as well as that of the covert agency he worked for.

Finally Bolan turned to the captain and raised his goggles long enough to level the officer with a cold look.

“I like politicians about as much as I do hindsight,” he replied tersely.

O’Brien stared back into his cohort’s withering blue eyes and chortled, then flashed a begrudging smirk.

“Touché,” he said. “Okay, okay, memo received. I’ll shut up.”

Given that the officer had been ranting almost nonstop since they’d set out from the makeshift base camp shortly after nightfall, Bolan doubted O’Brien would keep quiet. On the bright side, after glancing along the ridgeline that tapered away to their right, the recon officer finally told Bolan something he didn’t mind hearing.

“I’m gonna contact the other teams to see if they’ve spotted anything,” the captain said, rising to a crouch. He reached to his thigh and pulled a checkbook-size Jorson 278 microcomputer from his cargo pocket. “I’ll duck in the bushes to shield the LCD.”

“Good idea.”

O’Brien snickered again, gathering up his M-16. “Just don’t rat me out as a hothead when you report back to CIA or whoever the hell it is you’re working for,” he said. “I’ve got a pension waiting for me at the end of this, and I don’t want it mucked up.”

“Deal,” Bolan promised as he lowered his goggles.

O’Brien hunched low and headed off toward a cluster of overgrown hawthorn shrubs farther down the ridgeline, his thick-soled boots crunching on loose gravel. Clouds spilled up over the crest and within a matter of seconds the officer had vanished into their ethereal mist. Grateful for a moment’s silence, Bolan turned from O’Brien’s location and peered through high-powered binoculars at a patch of mountainside near the lake that had been laid clear by the moving clouds. He was focusing on a narrow ribbon of switchbacks when the night air resounded with a sudden blast, followed quickly by a curdling howl.

O’Brien.

Bolan was quick to his feet, forsaking the binoculars in favor of his Army-issued carbine. He raced down the ridgeline, careful to follow the same route O’Brien had taken. He had a hunch as to what had just happened, and when he came upon the writhing officer, his suspicions were borne out. O’Brien’s right leg had been severed just below the knee and blood spurted from the mangled stump into a fresh, shallow crater gouged out of the soil.

“Land mine,” the officer moaned weakly.

Bolan shed his goggles and reached for the obliterated mess that had once been O’Brien’s right calf. He tugged free the largest available scrap of torn pant leg and pressed it against the officer’s wound, hoping to staunch the blood flow.

“Try to stay put,” Bolan advised. Blood seeped through the compress, warming his fingers.

“Looks like I get that pension sooner than I thought,” O’Brien whispered hoarsely. His ruddy complexion had turned ashen, and he began to shiver. Bolan knew the man was going into shock. He shifted his grip and cupped the severed stump with one hand, freeing the other to reach for the microcomputer O’Brien had dropped. The device had a built-in walkie-talkie, and Bolan knew the captain’s only chance would be a medevac airlift back to the base.

Before Bolan could put out a distress call, a faint popping sounded from atop the peak behind him, followed by an ominous whooosh and the harsh glare of two igniting flares. The clouds turned a bright shade of ochre that illuminated the ridgeline, exposing Bolan and O’Brien. A second later, sniper fire began to chew at the earth around them.

“Go!” O’Brien feebly reached for the compress and pushed Bolan away. “Now!”

The flares touched down, landing close enough that their sparks made the Americans an even clearer target. Two more rounds rained down on Bolan and O’Brien. One glanced off the Executioner’s M-16 mere inches from his trigger finger. The other tore through O’Brien’s neck, just above his flak jacket. The recon officer went limp, blood spurting from a severed artery.

Given the trajectory, Bolan knew the shots were coming from the distant peak behind him, well beyond range of his assault rifle. It also seemed a safe bet that there were at least two snipers.

Bolan had to make a quick decision. Staying at O’Brien’s side meant certain death, but venturing any farther along the ridgeline would only court the chance he’d trip another land mine. That left one option.

Bolan took it.

2

Casting aside the microcomputer, Bolan dived sharply to his left, then rolled on his side until he reached the point where the ridgeline gave way to the steep-pitched incline. He’d abandoned his carbine, as well, leaving both hands free as he went over the side. The dying flares cast light on a few likely footholds and Bolan put them to quick use, lowering himself enough that the next sniper rounds skimmed off the crest and caromed far above his head. O’Brien remained an open target, and as shots continued to rain down, Bolan suspected the assailants were ensuring that the recon officer had joined the ever-growing list of U.S. fatalities in the prolonged Afghan conflict.

Bolan considered his next move. Off to his right, just beyond reach, a young, hearty spruce jutted through a seam in the precipice. The Executioner looked for a way to inch within reach, but there was nothing between him and the tree but a bald expanse of sheer granite. For that matter, all around him there was little more in the way of footholds, and directly below it was a forty-foot drop to a boulder-strewed stretch of land separating the cliff from the small lake. Bolan realized he’d reached a dead end.

Eventually the flares were spent and darkness once again settled over the mountains. The sniper fire trailed off as the clouds fell back on themselves and wisped past Bolan, increasing his cover. He stayed put but shifted his weight until he felt secure enough to free his right hand. Unsnapping the clasp on his web holster, the Executioner unsheathed a 9 mm Beretta. Much as he loathed fighting battles on the defensive, there was little for him to do now but wait for the enemy to come to him. He stayed put, forcing himself to remain patient.

Bolan’s eyes had readjusted to the darkness when a gust of wind swept across the ridgeline, stirring up loose dirt and showering it down on him. Forced to avert his gaze, the Executioner turned his head and glanced downward. Doing so, he caught a fortuitous glimpse of activity thirty yards past the rubble heap trailing down into the lake. Three men armed with assault rifles were stealing their way up the winding trail by which O’Brien and the Executioner had reached the ridgeline. Their backs were to Bolan, but he knew they had to be Taliban.

The Executioner slowly torqued his body to give him more range with the Beretta. When one of the footholds gave way under his shifting weight, Bolan scrambled to keep his balance. Dislodged bits of rock clattered down the facing and thunked ominously off the larger rocks below.

The gunmen down on the trail were about to make their way around a bend that would have carried them out of view when the last man in the column stopped and glanced over his shoulder, raised his AK-47 and shouted to the men in front of him. Bolan didn’t need a translator to realize he’d been spotted.

The Executioner had secured himself enough that he was able to unleash a 3-round burst before the other man could fire. The shots were hurried, but one of them struck home and his would-be assailant crumpled to his knees, carbine slipping from his lifeless fingers. When the next closest Taliban dropped to a crouch and drew a bead on Bolan, the Executioner fired again. There were no kill shots this time, but he drew blood and the other man wailed as he staggered backward. The third gunman reached out and quickly pulled his colleague to cover behind an escarpment buttressing the bend in the trail.

Overhead, far up near the top of the peak from which the original shots had been fired, Bolan heard more muffled shouts, followed by the rattle of falling stones he’d been listening for earlier. At least one of the snipers was coming down after him. When the clamor grew louder and small rocks began to tumble over the edge of the ridgeline, Bolan figured the attacker had bypassed trails and was sliding down the loose bed of choss. If that was the case, he’d reach the ridgeline in a matter of seconds.

The Executioner hadn’t emptied his Beretta, but he quickly swapped out the semiautomatic’s half-spent magazine for a fresh one, certain he’d need all the firepower he could muster should he find himself locked in a cross fire. If it came to that, he knew his chances were slim. The clouds had moved on, leaving him splayed against the rock, every bit as vulnerable a target as O’Brien had been after the land mine had taken him down.

There was no further activity on the trail below him, but overhead Bolan soon heard the tramp of footsteps. One of the snipers had already reached the ridge and was closing in on him.

Bolan was weighing his next move when, about a mile to the north, staccato bursts from several AK-47s suddenly drowned out the sniper’s footsteps, followed by return fire from M-16s. The Executioner craned his neck and scanned the terrain where the shots were coming from. Through the drifting clouds, he saw blips of light punctuate the exchange of gunfire close to where one of the Special Ops forces had taken up position. There was only one likely explanation. More of the Taliban had somehow managed to slip past recon and turn the tables on their would-be ambushers.

There was no time to mull over the turn of events. Bolan knew he had to act. It seemed likely that the distant firefight had distracted the enemy closing in on him, and he went with the odds. Holstering his Beretta, he coiled himself against the rock, then pushed off to his right, extending his arms toward the lone tree growing out from the cliff facing. As his fingers curled around the gnarly trunk, Bolan grabbed tight and swung forward, building momentum so that when he let go, he was able to clear the gap leading to the stretch where, as with the similar slope above, bombing had created a natural slide made up of pulverized gneiss and granite.

Bolan landed hard on his back amid the loose stone, knocking the wind from his lungs. He struggled to remain conscious as he felt himself sliding feetfirst down the incline, dislodging enough rocks and other debris to create a full-scale avalanche. There was no way to tell if the enemy was firing at him. All he heard was the thunder of falling rock and the equally loud reverberation of blood pulsing through his head.

Moments later, Bolan splashed into the lake. The icy water revived him instantly and as soon as his boots touched the shallow lake bottom, he bent at the knees and lunged forward, swimming clear of the larger boulders that had been brought crashing down behind him. Several rocks glanced off his legs and right thigh but their force was blunted by the water, and Bolan was able to stroke his way farther out into the lake.

He remained submerged as long as he could, then, lungs burning, he angled his way upward and broke the surface. There he trod water as he gasped for air. He was halfway out into the lake. A ragged peninsula comprised of fallen trees and snagged debris stretched toward him from the far shore. Bolan swam quietly toward it, relying on leg kicks to keep his splashing to a minimum. Once he reached the trees and wriggled beneath a moss-covered branch, the Executioner stopped long enough to catch his breath.

He could still hear gunfire to the north, but there were shots in the air around him, as well. Bolan wasn’t the target, however, and the most persistent firing came from almost directly overhead. Bolan peered up and saw a small AH-6J “Little Bird” combat chopper hovering in place just past the lake, directing blasts from a side-mounted .50-caliber machine gun at the Taliban gunmen on the path leading up to the ridgeline. Bolan couldn’t see the trail, but the ridgeline and distant peak were both within view, and there was no sign of fire being returned by the snipers.

There was little Bolan could do to assist those in the chopper, which he recognized as part of the U.S. aerial force based out of Bagram. At the risk of being spotted and mistaken for the enemy, he pushed away from the half-submerged tree and circled around the peninsula, then slowly swam toward the far shore of the small lake. By the time he reached it, the Little Bird had let up on its offensive. The chopper was about to drift toward the precipice when it suddenly shifted course. Its halogen searchlight swept across the lake, falling on Bolan as he pulled himself from the water. The Executioner straggled ashore, half-numbed by the cold water but still able to feel countless bruises he’d sustained since first going over the side of the ridgeline.

The chopper dropped to within a few yards of the embankment. The copilot reached out and helped Bolan up onto the skid.

“Don’t think we can squeeze you in here,” the copilot shouted over the blare of the rotors.

“I’m fine here,” Bolan replied, taking hold of the open door frame as the copter pulled away from the lake, listing at a slight angle to compensate for his added weight.

“There were a couple snipers above the ridgeline,” he told the copilot, a Native American in his late twenties.

“Didn’t see ’em,” the other man told him, “but they’ll have to wait. We’ve got an SOS from Team Five. Taliban popped up out of nowhere and have ’em pinned.”

Bolan changed the subject. “You got a dry weapon in there?”

“Sure thing.” The copilot reached behind his seat and handed Bolan a foot-long Heckler & Koch MP-5 K submachine gun. The H&K was larger than his Beretta but still fit snugly in his right palm. It packed a greater wallop, too. Bolan knew that if he kept the weapon close-bolted, he’d be able to fire from the skid with minimal kickback, ensuring better accuracy.

“Where’s O’Brien?” the copilot asked.

“Caught a land mine up on the ridge,” Bolan told him. “Snipers started in on us before I could call for help. He’s gone.”

The copilot spit and readied one hand on the trigger operating the Little Bird’s outer machine gun. “Bastards!”

The men fell silent as the AH-6J banked into the clouds, using them for cover en route to the distant skirmish. Peering down through the mist, Bolan spotted another of the U.S. commando squads spread out in a column, threading their way along one of the mountain trails. They still had a few switchbacks to negotiate, however, and the Executioner doubted they’d reach the battle in time to be a factor.

Once they emerged from the cloud cover, Bolan saw a CH-47 Chinook hovering in place a quarter mile ahead over terrain that looked much the same as the area he’d just left—half-barren mountains ribboned with narrow trails and pocked by bombs and mortar fire. The Chinook’s tail gunner dispensed fire into the brush along a footpath high up near the top of a steep gorge. As they drew closer, Bolan saw a shadowed figure take a hit and plummet into the crevasse. Close by, a second Taliban crouched behind a large boulder, unseen by the tail gunner, drawing a bead on the Chinook with a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher. The Executioner whipped his H&K into firing position and steadied himself on the Little Bird’s skid. He cut loose with a single round, striking the boulder. When the Taliban turned toward him, Bolan was ready with a follow-up shot. This time he didn’t miss.

“Beat me to him,” the copilot shouted to Bolan. “Nice shot.”

Bolan pointed to the trail leading away from where he’d dropped the insurgent. “That looks like their way out,” he yelled. “Get me as close as you can!”

Bolan’s command was relayed to the pilot. The AH-6J promptly swerved right, then dipped toward the trail. Bolan crouched on the skid and waited until the chopper drew closer, then, clutching the MP-5, he pushed clear and dropped to the ground. He landed hard and felt a sharp pain in his right ankle as he lurched away from where the trailed dropped off into the abyss. He struck the rock facing just off the trail and winced as jagged gneiss bit through his shirt, drawing blood. Bolan ignored the wound and braced himself, ready to face the enemy.

3

Aden Saleh cursed as he watched one of his fellow warriors keel into the ravine, the victim of rounds fired from the large American warbird thundering out in the misty night air before him. The hope had been that dust storms forecast for the evening would have reached far enough into the mountains to thwart visibility and keep gunships from responding to the Taliban assault. Such had not been the case, now Saleh’s men were paying the price. Yes, they’d managed to take the enemy by surprise and decimate those who would have done the same to them, but the arrival of the helicopters threatened their chances of making a safe retreat to the tunnels through which they’d been able to reach the attack site undetected.

Saleh, a lean, grim-faced man who’d spent nearly half his thirty years rising up through the Taliban ranks, directed his wrath at the hovering Chinook, emptying the last rounds from his Kalashnikov, to little effect. His ammunition spent, he cast the assault rifle aside and yanked a 9 mm Ruger from his waistband. Fifty yards to his left, a smaller chopper had just deposited a soldier on the same footpath where he now stood. The entrance to the tunnel lay between them, but Saleh was closer to it and had no intention of letting the other man prevent him from making his getaway. He whirled and fired, forcing the enemy to cover, then charged forward, mere steps ahead of a strafing round fired his way from the Chinook.

Halfway to the bend where he’d last seen the American, Saleh threw himself to the ground and crawled off the path. He squeezed past a mound of holly just off the trail, then bellied his way beneath a rock formation protruding from the canyon wall. There, in the cold darkness, a manhole-size opening yawned its welcome. Saleh burrowed through the gap and wriggled past a loose boulder, following a narrow shaft to the point where it widened enough for him to rise to his knees. He had no interest in backtracking to reset the boulder that had earlier helped conceal the opening. If anything, at this point he hoped his pursuer would find the entrance and come after him.

Saleh crawled a few more yards, then squirmed clear of the shaft, entering a larger tunnel tall enough to stand in. He quickly brushed himself off, then made his way to the first turn. There he stopped and shoved the Ruger back in his waistband, and pulled from beneath the folds of his shirt a Soviet-made F-1 fragmentation grenade. He thumbed loose the cotter ring, then, pressing the safety lever, he drew in a breath, hoping to soothe the loud clamor of his racing heart. He needed to be able to hear the infidel’s approach, so that he would know when to let fly with the limonka and turn the entrance shaft into a death trap.

BOLAN STAYED PUT once the insurgent’s 9 mm serenade drove him to cover. There was no way for him to round the bend without placing himself back in the line of fire. By the same token, he figured the enemy would be unable to flee any farther without coming his way. Judging from the hail of gunfire spewing from the two choppers, the Executioner also thought there was a good chance any of the retreating Taliban would be dispensed with before they reached him.

As he awaited his next move, Bolan felt the warm trickle of blood running down his shoulder. He shrugged it off and tested his arm, then tried putting his full weight on his right foot. The ankle felt sprained, but not severely enough to hinder him, and he was certain that, at worse, he’d only need a couple stitches in his shoulder. He’d fought on countless times in the past with far worse injuries.

The firefight went on without him, but not for long. Soon the only shots were being fired from the helicopters, and then their guns fell silent, as well. As the Chinook lumbered away, the Little Bird pulled back from its firing position and briefly shone its light on the trail leading to the attack site, then slowly drifted Bolan’s way. Once the chopper was within shouting range, the copilot called out to Bolan.

“I think we got ’em all except the one just down the trail from you.” The man pointed to Bolan’s right. “Fucker dropped to his belly and went Houdini on us.”

“He couldn’t have just disappeared,” Bolan shouted back.

The copilot shrugged. “If you want to check it out, we’ll light the way.”

Bolan nodded, readying his MP-5. Once the searchlight illuminated the path before him, he ventured around the bend and cautiously made his way forward, slightly favoring his bad ankle. The dirt was etched with bootprints, all of them leading toward the staging site where the Special Ops force had been attacked. It was another twenty yards before he came upon more tracks. The imprints were different from the others, made by boots other than those worn by U.S. troops. All but one set of the tracks led to the ambush site; the other, headed the opposite way, had been made by the man whose retreat Bolan had hoped to prevent. There was a spot where the latter tracks stopped and had been smudged away, along with the other prints. Bolan surmised the reason and glanced to his right, where a small thicket of holly just off the trail had been partially flattened.

The Executioner pointed his gun into the brush while signaling for the Little Bird to shift position. Once the search light had been redirected, Bolan saw there was clearance beneath a protuberance in the rock wall that flanked the trail. Cautiously he dropped to a crouch for a better look. Just enough light made its way into the clearance for him to spot the tunnel opening.

Bolan signaled for the chopper to hold steady, then leaned inward. He was about to enter the cavity when he checked himself and stopped, heeding an instinct honed by years on the battlefield.

“I don’t think so,” he murmured to himself.

Bolan retreated long enough to track down a handful of stones lying along the side of the trail. Clustering them in his fist, he ventured back to the opening, took aim and flung them into the darkness.

Just as the Executioner took a step back there was an explosion. The ground beneath him shook, and he bent at the knees to steady himself as loose debris and frag shards flew out from the opening, laying waste to the holly. Bolan was spared the worst of it, except for a few bits of shrapnel that glanced off his shins.

The blast was short-lived, and in its wake a foul tendril of smoke curled its way through the collapsed remnants of what had once been the tunnel. Bolan could no longer see the opening, but he suspected it would no longer be large enough for anyone to squeeze through.

He was still staring at the damage when the chopper pulled closer.

“Tunnel?” the copilot shouted out to him.

“Not anymore,” Bolan called back.

IT TOOK ANOTHER ten minutes for two of the other Special Ops squads to reach the ambush site. With the fighting over, there was nothing left for them to do but help Bolan and the Chinook crew load casualties into the bulky gunship, which had touched down on a plateau eighty yards to the north. It was a sobering task. Of the twelve commandos who’d been attacked, eleven had been slain, their bodies riddled with far more kill shots than had been necessary to take them out. The twelfth commando was also near death and had passed out after confirming that the unit had been attacked by enemy forces who’d clearly used the hidden tunnel to slip undetected within striking distance.

As for the Taliban, six men had been cut down just off the trail near the rocks and dwarf spruce that they’d taken position behind once the first shots had been fired. At least two more were reported to have gone over the side during the ensuing firefight. There was no way of knowing, at this point, how many men had managed to retreat back into the tunnel before Bolan’s arrival. The Executioner had inspected the blasted opening shortly after the explosion and confirmed that it was too collapsed and choked with debris to be of use. The AH-6J Little Bird had set out to comb the surrounding mountains in hopes of spotting anyone using another way out of the tunnel. Bolan doubted that anything would come of the search. One of the arriving squad leaders was of a similar sentiment.

“Fuckers are like cockroaches,” Captain Rob Kitt said. Kitt was a pallid, broad-shouldered man in his late thirties. He wore a headset-equipped helmet bearing the same camo pattern as his fatigues. “If you can’t stomp ’em before they slip through the cracks, forget about it.”

“You got that right,” another of the commandos said. “Hell, we could punch these mountains with bunker busters from now till doomsday, and there’d still be tunnels left for them to scurry through.”

While the last of the U.S. casualties were being carted off, Bolan and Kitt, each clutching a high-powered flashlight, took a closer look at the slain Taliban fighters and their weapons. In addition to AK-47s and the ASG-17 grenade launcher Bolan had prevented from being used on the Chinook, the terrorists had carried out their attack with knockoff G-3s as well as at least two well-worn M-16s that looked as if they dated back more than twenty years to America’s campaign to support mujahideen forces opposed to the Soviet occupation.

“Ain’t that a bitch,” Kitt murmured as he inspected one of the M-16s. “Killed with our own goddamn weapons.”

“The Kalashnikovs are just as old,” Bolan said.

“Probably scavenged off dead Russkies,” Kitt theorized. “We’ll haul ’em back to Bagram along with the bodies. Maybe AI can find something that’ll clue us in on where they set out from.”

When the captain’s headset squawked, Kitt excused himself and wandered off, leaving Bolan to muse over the fallen enemy. All but one of them looked to be in their early twenties, wearing black turbans and dark, loose clothing, much of it bloodstained with gunshot wounds. The oldest victim, and by far the most heavily bearded, had a scar along his right cheek and was missing two fingers on his left hand. When Bolan’s flashlight caught a gleam of metal beneath the folds of the man’s shirt, he leaned over and found an automatic pistol tucked inside his waistband. Like the C3s, it was handmade, a crude approximation of a U.S. Government Model 1911. Bolan had seen footage of Taliban camps where children worked by candlelight manufacturing such guns as a means of supplementing the insurgents’ arsenal. The weapons were notorious for jamming or even exploding when triggered, and Bolan wondered if that had been the cause for the man’s missing fingers.

Bolan had begun to search the man more thoroughly when Kitt returned.

“That was Little Bird,” he reported. “No luck tracking down any stragglers.”

“What about O’Brien?” Bolan asked. “Did they get to him?”

“We’ve got a problem there,” Kitt replied. “They went to ridgeline and can see where he tripped the mine, but there’s no sign of him.”

Bolan’s expression darkened. “He was shot through the neck. There’s no way he could have pulled through.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Kitt said. “My guess is the snipers took the body as some sort of consolation prize.”

Bolan’s stomach knotted with rage. If he’d had it all to do over, he’d have reacted the same way once the ambush had broken out, but that did little to ease his mind over the notion that Howitzer O’Brien had been left behind to fall into the hands of the enemy.

4

Remnants of a late-season hurricane had wandered far enough inland to lash Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains with a torrential downpour that left Stony Man Farm, like many other estates scattered throughout the Shenandoah Valley, drenched and wind-battered. Barbara Price, mission controller for the Farm’s Sensitive Operations Group, was out helping the blacksuit security force tend to the damage. Sloshing through rain puddles, bundled up warmly against the late-autumn chill, the blond-haired woman gathered up snapped twigs and broken tree limbs that lay strewed in the orchards and added them to a growing heap in the truck bed of one of the Farm’s Ford F-150 pickups.

“Could have been worse,” one of the blacksuits told her as he stomped on the debris, compressing it to make room for more. Like the others, he had a web-holstered 9 mm pistol concealed beneath his down-lined ski vest and gave no appearance of being anything other than a hired farmhand. “A little colder and the trees would’ve iced over. If you think this is a mess…”

“We’re not out of it yet,” Price said, casting an eye on the dark, leaden clouds still massed over the valley. There was more rain in the forecast, and she could only hope the temperature wouldn’t dip low enough to threaten the trees further.

As Price gathered up the last of the fallen branches, a rumbling sounded overhead. It wasn’t thunder, but rather the familiar, mechanical drone of an approaching helicopter. Moments later, a small Bell 47 two-seater dropped below the cloud line and approached the camouflaged runway that lay between the orchards and the dormant planting fields.

“I’ll let you guys finish up,” Price said. She took a large thermos from the front seat of the truck and made her way to the runway. By the time a bulky, middle-aged man wearing a rumpled trench coat had disembarked from the helicopter, she’d filled the thermos cap with coffee.

“Not exactly fresh from the pot,” Price said, holding out the coffee. “It’s still hot, though, and way too strong.”

“Just the way I like it.” Hal Brognola, SOG’s director, mustered a wan, close-lipped smile. “Thanks.”

By the time he’d taken his first sip, Brognola’s smile had faded. Price knew it had nothing to do with the coffee. She’d been there to greet Brognola enough times after his return from Washington briefings to know from his expression that the President had just confided in him about some active global threat that would require placing the Farm’s elite covert operatives directly in harm’s way.

“Afghanistan?” she guessed as they strode from the runway. When Brognola eyed her, she went on, “I spoke with Striker earlier. He filled me in on the ambush.”

“The ambush is just part of it,” Brognola replied. “And so is the whole matter of this missing soldier.”

“Okay, you’ve got my attention,” Price said. “Let’s have it.”

“It has to do with the Afghan National Army and this whole call for pulling out Western troops.” When they reached the main house, Brognola led the way up the front porch, nodding to the blacksuit stationed near the front door. The security agent stepped aside, holding the door open. As they proceeded inside, the SOG director told Price, “At the same time we took this hit at Safed Koh, the ANA was routing a Taliban squad up to the north near Jalalabad.”

“They’ve been on a roll lately, haven’t they,” Price said. It was more of a statement than a question.

“That’s just it,” Brognola said. “Up until a few months ago, the pattern was always reversed, with us making headway and having to lend ANA a hand. Then there was all this clamor about pullouts and the Afghans decided they wanted to run their own operations without our input.”

“‘Meddling’ is how I think they put it.”

Brognola nodded. At the end of the main hall was a staircase. As they took the steps down, he said, “In any event, since this shift they’ve been catching all the breaks while we keep running into setbacks. It plays in nicely with their calls for autonomy, but the President and Joint Chiefs think it’s all a little too convenient. I’m inclined to agree.”

“Same here,” Price said.

Once they reached the basement, it was a short walk down to the mouth of a large underground passageway. There was a small electric rail car parked just inside the opening. Brognola took the wheel. Price rode shotgun.

“So I’m guessing it’s up to us to see if there’s something hinky going on,” she said as the car started down the tunnel.

“Correct. The bottom line is this,” Brognola said. “If the ANA is legitimately trouncing the Taliban, we want to know how they’re doing it. Just as important, we want to make sure they’re doing it on their own.”

“You think maybe they’ve cut a deal elsewhere?”

“That’s what we need to find out,” Brognola said. “I’ve thought through a game plan, but I’d like your input before we run it past the cybercrew.”

“No problem,” Price responded, “That’s what a mission controller’s for.”

ONCE ALL THE FALLEN BRANCHES were loaded into the pickup, one of the blacksuits drove from the orchards to the Annex, a large outbuilding located on the far east perimeter of the estate next to a stand of young poplars that had been equally pummeled by the storm. Inside the building, limbs and twigs from the latter trees were being fed into the growling maw of an industrial wood chipper and turned into mulch, one of the by-products that was presented to the outside world as proof of Stony Man Farm’s agricultural reason for being. The various enterprises did, in fact, cover a portion of the Farm’s sizable overhead, but the site had a more far-reaching agenda. There in the Annex, one floor beneath the thick concrete slab upon which the wood chipper carried out its noisy duties, Price and Brognola had just emerged from the underground tunnel and were making their way to the Computer Room, nerve center for America’s best-kept secret in the covert war against those intent, one way or another, on bringing the country to its knees.

“That sounds like the way to go,” Price said, once Brognola had laid out his strategy for dealing with the situation in Afghanistan. “We’re going to have our hands full, though.”

“Fortunately, that’s something we’re used to,” Brognola replied as he opened the door for his colleague.

“I’ll apprise Striker while you brief the others.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

The Computer Room was a vast brightly lit chamber with workstations positioned here and there, a far wall lined with large flat-screen monitors that flashed an ever-changing patchwork of display maps, news feeds and images from aerial sat cams. Three-quarters of the Stony Man cybernetic crew—Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman, Huntington Wethers and Carmen Delahunt—were on duty, laboring intently at their consoles to provide needed INTEL and logistical backup for SOG commando teams on assignment both at home and abroad. One by one, however, they took note of Price and Brognola’s arrival and quickly shifted their attention.

Price exchanged a brief greeting with the others, then ex cused herself and moved to a corner alcove, where she dialed out on a secured phone line routed through enough code scramblers to sidestep any possible attempt to intercept the call. Brognola, meanwhile, unbuttoned his trench coat and raided the liner pocket for a twenty-dollar Padron, one of two dozen such hand-rolled cigars presented to him by Phoenix Force leader David McCarter upon that unit’s successful return from a mission three weeks ago in Nicaragua. There had been a time, years ago, when Brognola would have lit up and shrugged off the gibes of those who took exception to the pungent smoke, but times had changed and the big Fed now contented himself with rolling the cigar between his fingers as he spoke or chewing on it.

“Where’s Akira?” he queried, glancing at a vacant station normally commandeered by the cybercrew’s youngest member, Akira Tokaido.

“Catnap in the lounge,” answered Delahunt, a fiery redhead in her late forties who’d come to Stony Man by way of the FBI. “We started a union while you were out and decided we deserve a little shut-eye when the brain cells overheat.”

Brognola rolled with the wisecrack. “Fine by me,” he said. “As long as you do it in shifts. Just don’t start asking for maid service and mints on your pillows.”

“Fair enough.”

Wethers, a one-time Berkeley cybernetics professor with neither the knack nor patience for small talk, cleared his throat, eager to steer focus back to more pressing concerns.

“Something came up at the briefing, I take it,” he said to Brognola. “Does it have to do with Striker and the Taliban?”

Brognola nodded, shedding his trench coat and draping it over the back of Tokaido’s chair.

SOG’s two commando units, Able Team and Phoenix Force, invariably handled missions as a group, but Bolan’s preference, as it had been when he first set out for Afghanistan, was to work alone, knowing the crew back in Virginia would cover his back. Brognola intended to do all he could to see that the Farm held up its end of the bargain. He quickly passed along news of the Safed Koh ambush, concluding with the update Price had received earlier from Bolan.

“We’ve had no luck rounding up anyone who left the attack site,” he said. “The feeling is they’ve managed to slip back into Pakistan, most likely with O’Brien’s body.”

“By Pakistan I take it you mean the tribal region,” Delahunt said.

“That’s always been our premise, and there’s nothing here to suggest otherwise,” Brognola said. “The ambushers we were able to recover are with Army Intelligence at Bagram. They’re going through personal effects while the bodies are autopsied to see if there’s some dietary tip-off as to where they might have been holed up.”

“Dietary tip-off?” Kurtzman asked. “That’s a new one on me.”

“Different tribes, different crops,” Brognola said. “If any of them have undigested food in their system, it could be as good as finding fingerprints in a homicide case.”

“‘Alimentary, my dear Watson,’” Delahunt said, invoking a Sherlock Holmesian British accent. When Wethers shot her a stern glance, she told him, “C’mon, Hunt, a little levity won’t grind things to a halt, okay?”

“Does that make it another one of our ‘union perks’?”

Delahunt laughed. “Hey, what do you know, Hunt made a funny.”

“Okay, people,” Brognola interceded. “Can we get back to the task at hand? Following up on this ambush is just our first step. There’s a wider picture we need to be looking at, as well.”

Brognola paced before his colleagues as he quickly reiterated what he’d told Price earlier regarding concerns about the ease with which the Afghan National Army had been striking lopsided blows against the Taliban while the joint U.S.-NATO effort was being stymied at every turn. When he stressed how the ANA’s solo triumphs coincided with growing calls for Western pullouts, all three members of the cyberteam agreed on the need to look for another explanation besides a run of good luck on the part of the home team.

Kurtzman, the crew’s wheelchair-bound leader, was the first to respond after Brognola had completed the briefing. “I’ll start culling sat-cam databases for signs of Taliban movement along the border,” he said.

“Good,” Brognola said. “Also see what you can do about getting one of the orbitals to make a few extra passes over that whole stretch of mountains. BASIC would probably be your best bet, but use my name and pull in markers with the National Reconnaissance Office or some of the private firms if you have to.”

“Will do.”

“You didn’t bring it up,” Wethers said, “but shouldn’t we also be looking into how the Taliban knew where our ops teams were positioned? From the sounds of it, they were right on target when they came out of that tunnel.”

“Not to mention they were breathing down Striker’s neck from the get-go up on that ridgeline,” Delahunt added. “I’m smelling a tip-off.”

Price had just wrapped up her call with Bolan and rejoined the group in time to overhear the last exchange.

“Striker’s thinking the same thing,” she told Wethers. “AI assured him they’re looking into it.”

“All the same, let’s do our own checking,” Brognola said. “Did he have anything new to report?”

“A possible break, actually,” Price said. “A recon chopper came across someone lying wounded in the mountains near Jalalabad a couple hours ago. He was unconscious with multiple bullet wounds, but he was too far from where the ops team was attacked so they’re thinking maybe he’s part of that Taliban crew the ANA took out around the same time.”

“It’d be nice if that was the case,” Brognola said. “Especially if we can get him to talk.”

“It sounded to Striker like it’s pretty touch-and-go as to whether this guy will even pull through,” Price said. “They flew him to Bagram and he’s still in surgery. Apparently he’s got internal injuries and nearly bled out.”

“Let’s hope for the best,” Brognola said. “We could use a break.”

“One other thing,” Price added. “Striker wants carte blanche in terms of his next move. He wants to go with the first strong lead on where they took O’Brien’s body.”

“Not a problem,” the big Fed said. “I’m sure that whole situation is weighing on him.”

“‘No man left behind’? Yeah, I think it’s a concern for him,” Price said. “Can’t say as I blame him.”

“Me, either,” Kurtzman interjected, “but he was following that same code when he went to help the guys being ambushed. It’s not like he was retreating.”

“I’m sure he realizes that, but still…”

“C’mon folks,” Brognola said, stuffing the cigar in his shirt pocket so that he could have both hands free to roll up his sleeves. “We’ve got a big haystack to comb through, so let’s get cracking.”

“Will do,” Delahunt said. “I’m wondering, though…Given the situation over there, is the President still looking to make that photo op in Kabul next week?”

Brognola shook his head. “He’ll still be going to Istanbul for the NATO conference, but he’s scratched the side trip.”

“Smart move,” Delahunt said. “Last thing we need is the Taliban feathering their turbans with an assassination.”

5

Spin Range, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan

As Brognola was rallying his cybercrew in the Stony Man Computer Room, halfway around the world, high in the arid mountains just north of Safed Koh Range, the enemy the SOG was trying to place in its sights was huddled in an inauspicious farm hut, with dirt floors and windows draped loosely with flaps of leopard skin to fend off the cold winter air. In the center of the room three men sat close together on mats set around a low, candlelit table, warming themselves with hot tea and steamed rice sprinkled with shaved bits of roast lamb. They spoke quietly, barely above a whisper, but their words carried both passion and urgency as they addressed events of the past twelve hours.

General Zahir Rashid of the Afghan National Army, at sixty-three by far the oldest of the three, was out of uniform, dressed like the others in plain shepherd’s clothing. There were streaks of gray in his neatly trimmed beard and a glimmer of intensity in his dark brown eyes. A veteran of Afghanistan’s United Front, Rashid had come into his own once that group’s militia had morphed into the ANA. He was also widely credited as the mastermind behind the string of recent victories Afghan troops had racked up against the Taliban. The previous night, in fact, he’d taken to the field and led the successful defeat of an insurgent squad in the mountains near Jalalabad. However, that one-sided skirmish would never have been possible without the input of the man seated directly across from him.

It was Aden Saleh, a high-ranking member of the Taliban and the warrior who’d eluded Bolan in the aftermath of the Safed Koh conflagration. He’d not only apprised Rashid of the Taliban’s movements in the Spin Range, but had also seen to it that the insurgent group stalked its way blindly into an ambush that had resulted in the deaths of all but one of its men. The ploy had been easy enough to carry out, because for the past six months Saleh had been in charge of orchestrating each and every incursion into Afghanistan made by the black-turbanned renegades. Saleh’s reasons for betraying his own men were simple. As with any organization, there were schisms within the Taliban. The majority of those who’d fallen in the Jalalabad battle, like most of the others slain by ANA forces over the past few weeks, were part of a dissenting minority opposed to a strategy to regain control of Afghanistan, not by acting alone, but by entering into a covert alliance with Rashid and other rogue ANA generals. This alliance also had outside force whose support, Saleh and his superiors felt, would be essential to ensuring that any coup would not be quickly undone by the U.S.-NATO coalition.

Spearheading efforts on behalf of that outside force was the third man seated at the table.

Eshaq Faryad, a native of neighboring Uzbekistan, had been among the first soldiers to set foot in Afghanistan during the 1979 Soviet invasion, and for ten years he’d remained in the country, doing all he could to help fend off counterattacks by the mujahideen. Years after the Soviet occupation had been squashed, thereby forcing him to flee back across the border, Faryad was back, this time in collusion with some of the same Afghan leaders he’d earlier fought against. As before, his primary objective was to place the country under Russia’s yoke. And while Uzbekistan had been awarded its sovereignty following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Faryad’s allegiance remained with Moscow, and all these years the bald, clean-shaved man had continued to receive orders—as well as a steady, sizeable income—from the Russian capital’s intelligentsia apparatchik. In recent years that organization’s official title may have changed countless times, but in his heart Faryad still considered himself KGB—SVR to the rest of the world.

The three men had come together to discuss a number of issues, but two in particular weighed most heavily on them in terms of immediacy.

First was the matter of the U.S. soldier whose body had been hauled away from the ridgeline in Safed Koh by the sniper who’d killed him after he’d triggered a Taliban-set land mine. Captain Howard O’Brien’s corpse lay just outside the hut, stripped and covered beneath a layer of snow brought down from the higher elevations. His weapons, along with a microcomputer, had been confiscated and what was left of the recon officer’s uniform was being washed and mended in hopes some use could be made of it. Meanwhile, the men squabbled over what to do with the body.

Saleh wanted to use the slain officer as barter in hopes of negotiating the release of Azzizhudin Karimi, the low-level Taliban fighter who’d survived the ambush by Rashid’s ANA troops the night before in the hills outside Jalalabad. But Faryad and Rashid opposed the idea, taking the sniper’s word that the other U.S. soldier who’d been on the ridgeline had to know O’Brien was already dead. They knew there was no way the U.S. would exchange a live prisoner for a dead one. For that matter, Rashid was equally skeptical that they would even be able to use O’Brien to secure the return of the bodies of the men who’d fought alongside Saleh when they’d ambushed the Special Ops team in the mountains of Safed Koh. The Afghan general had already learned from his informants at Bagram Air Base that those victims were in the process of being autopsied at the request of U.S. Army Intelligence.

Saleh had been enraged by the news of such desecration, but he realized it was pointless to argue any further for trying to leverage O’Brien’s body as a bargaining chip. This was, he decided, one of those situations when it was best to back off from his position for the sake of maintaining the alliance with those seated across from him. Besides, acquiescence now would likely serve him down the line should a time come when he would need one of them, in turn, to side with him as swing vote on some other matter.

“Very well,” the Taliban leader finally relented. “We’ll make use of his weapons and uniform and just dispose of the body.”

“Preferably in a way that it’s never found,” Rashid added. “If the Americans are kept wondering about his fate, it will be something of a victory.”

“Agreed,” Faryad said.

“I’ll see to it personally,” Saleh said.

“It’s settled then,” Rashid replied. “Let’s move on.”

“Before we do, what about the computer?” Faryad asked.

“What about it?” Rashid said. “We don’t have the access code. Without that, it’s of no use to us.”

“We should try to crack the code,” the SVR agent suggested. “If we can get into the system, it could prove invaluable.”

“If you know anything about hacking, you’re welcome to try,” Rashid countered.

“I know someone,” Faryad said. “I’ll look into it.”

“As you wish,” Rashid said, eager to change the subject. “Now, we need to discuss how to deal with Karimi.”

Saleh’s simmering resentment got the better of him. Before he could check himself, he found himself blurting, “If you’d finished him off when you had the chance, there would be nothing to deal with.”

A sudden tension filled the room. Rashid’s face reddened as he stroked his beard and then busied himself with his tea, buying time to choose his words carefully.

“I saw him go down,” he said, squarely meeting Saleh’s steely gaze. “We were in the midst of a firefight, and I had to deal with those still putting up resistance. By the time we’d taken care of the others, Karimi was gone.”

“He disappeared?” Saleh scoffed. “Just like that?”

Faryad quickly intervened, eager to defuse the confrontation.

“I’m sure Karimi was well-trained, like all the Taliban,” he told Saleh. “And no doubt had tried to slip into a hidden tunnel and make his escape, just as you did—though not as successfully.”

Saleh knew Faryad had resorted to flattery in hopes of appeasing him. Much as it rankled him, the Taliban lieutenant played along, turning back to Rashid with what he hoped would pass for a look of conciliation.

“My apologies, General,” he said. “It’s just that Karimi could prove to be a loose cannon. I know the man personally—he was starting to have his suspicions about the way dissenters were being conveniently killed off in your attacks. If he’s interrogated, he could tip our hand and undermine everything.”

“From what my contacts at Bagram tell me, he’s been unconscious since the Americans found him,” Rashid assured Saleh. “He’s not expected to survive surgery, much less be in any position to be questioned.”

“If there’s any chance he might survive, the risk is still there,” Saleh countered. “And it’s too great a risk to leave to chance.”

“What are you suggesting?” Rashid said.

“The attack we’d planned on Bagram,” Saleh said. “Though we’ve had to call it off, the teams are still in place. I say we make use of them.”

The Taliban leader was referring to an intricate plan to attack the American military base during the U.S. President’s scheduled visit to Kabul the following week. Just prior to meeting with the others, General Rashid had learned that the appearance had been canceled, and before they’d broached the matter of O’Brien’s corpse and belongings, the three men had agreed to suspend the assault on Bagram. They still hoped for a chance to take out the President, but instead of carrying out the mission on their own, the men had decided it would be better instead to lend what resources they could to Kurdish militants from the PKK, whose operatives in Turkey were already targeting the Istanbul NATO conference, which the U.S. commander-in-chief still planned to attend. No contact had been made with the Turks yet, since those involved in the Bagram plot had yet to be diverted from the Afghan capital.

“I understand what you’re suggesting,” Faryad told Saleh, “but even if we could modify the plan and carry it out on short notice, would it really be worth it? Neutralizing a drone like Karimi hardly matches the importance of killing a president.”

“I’m telling you,” Saleh insisted, “if Karimi makes it through surgery and talks, it could set back everything we’ve been working for. Or worse.”

Rashid, seeing a chance to smooth things over with Saleh, ventured, “The medical facility at Bagram would be an easy enough target. And security at the base won’t be as heightened as it would have been for the President. We wouldn’t need to stage a full assault.”

The SVR agent mulled things over, then asked the Taliban leader, “How soon could you be in a position to carry this out?”

“My men could be ready at a moment’s notice,” Saleh said.

He turned to Rashid. “What about the men you have stationed on the base?”

“The same,” the general responded. “Provided I can get through to them, they’d be ready to act within a matter of hours. Maybe sooner.”

Faryad calmly finished his tea, then offered a whimsical smile. “This might well be a way to kill two birds with one stone. If we can silence Karimi while striking the Americans where it hurts, maybe it will give them extra incentive to get out of our way once and for all.”

Saleh rose to his feet, signaling an end to the meeting. “Let’s do it!”

6

Bagram Air Base, North of Kabul, Afghanistan

As he stepped off the bus that had brought him to the outskirts of Bagram Air Base, Nawid Pradhan couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this kind of hope. It was almost intoxicating. It reminded him of how he’d felt years ago, when he’d have friends over to his apartment for dinner and there would be wine, laughter, the squeals of playing children and spirited conversations that lasted long into the night. Perhaps, if all went well and Allah was willing, he would one day have that kind of life again. This day, he was certain, would be a step in that direction, a direction away from the despair and anguish that had dogged him since the Taliban had turned his world into ruin.

So high were the Afghan’s spirits that, for once, he barely noticed how severely the threat of rain had increased the ever-present, gnawing ache in his arthritic hip. Yes, the pronounced limp was still there and Pradhan instinctively winced with each step, but he continued at a brisk pace along the dusty shoulder leading to the bazaar, oblivious to the dark clouds rolling in from the north.

The bazaar was a weekly affair. Just off the road a hundred yards from the entrance to the U.S.-NATO command center, more than a hundred local merchants and fledgling entrepreneurs were busily setting up shop at their usual locations.

Thunderstorms might have been forecast for later in the day, but no one seemed daunted as they went about their preparations. Some had erected sturdy booths inside well-secured tents, while others displayed goods set out on tables shaded by blankets propped on tall, rickety poles. Those with less means made do with arranging their wares on large rugs laid across the ground. There was a wide range of products: everything from small statues, holiday ornaments and bootleg DVDs, to freshly harvested produce, clothing and cigarettes. Most weeks Pradhan was among those looking to do business with soldiers from the base. His specialty was computer servicing, and there would always be at least a few officers looking to retrieve lost data or have their laptops tweaked so they would run faster.

This day, however, Pradhan had come to the bazaar not to sell, but to buy. Before boarding the bus back in Kabul, he’d received his meager weekly stipend from an Internet café where he worked a couple hours each day tending to computers. While a portion of the wages would go toward provisions to bring back to his family, he’d earmarked the lion’s share for a new wardrobe. It wouldn’t do to go to the interview wearing his normal tatters. It was important, he felt, to dress in a way that would make the best possible impression.

Pradhan took his time perusing several booths that featured slightly used Western clothing, finally settling on a pair of tan chinos, a white shirt and rattan sandals with expensive-looking tassels. The ensemble was more costly than he’d anticipated, but he felt it was money well spent. After all, what was a few hundred more afghanis? Once he got the job, it would only take him a day or two to make a return on his investment. And after a few months he would have made enough to afford a change of clothes for every day of the week. If he and his family continued to live frugally, by spring there would even be enough money to move into an apartment. Perhaps it would not be as nice as the one they’d lived in before their forced exile to Pakistan, but it would be a start and a welcome step up from living out of a cave.

Someone was using the makeshift changing tent behind the booth where Pradhan had bought his clothes. While he waited his turn, he bought a bottle of spring water, a bar of scented soap and a sponge so that he could clean away whatever grime he’d missed earlier while bathing in the icy waters of the Kabul River. He would be glad to put that ritual behind him. He’d been told at the job site that there was a shower in the employees’ locker room—a shower with hot water, no less!

Once the changing tent was available, Pradhan went in and shed his old clothes, then hurriedly scrubbed himself from head to toe, anxious to rid himself of the telltale odor he knew would mark him as a transient. It was a laborious task, but he kept at it until his skin felt raw. Afterward, the Afghan hummed to himself as he tried on the new outfit. Everything fit perfectly, and when he eyed himself in a dusty mirror set in the corner, the one-time refugee beamed at his reflection, convinced he’d chosen well. Instead of a hapless vagrant, he looked like a working man, a man with a job and prospects for a better life. He flashed another smile, imagining the look on his wife’s face once he presented himself to her later and gave her the good news. He hadn’t yet told her about the job—he wanted it to be a surprise. After so many years of hardship and suffering, he looked forward to seeing, once again, a flicker of joy in her eyes. He longed, even more, to finally be able to tell her that her steadfast faith in him throughout all their sorrowful tribulations had not been in vain.

Once he’d adjusted the collar of his new shirt, Pradhan retrieved a neatly folded employment application form from the pocket of his old pants, then gathered up the rest of the clothes he’d changed out of and stared at them with disdain before tossing them into a waste container. Goodbye to the years of travail, he thought. As of this day, all that was behind him.

Pradhan was making his way out of the tent when he heard a commotion near the road. Several men were shouting angrily, and by the time Pradhan had circled around the clothing booth, the clamor had increased. A few dozen merchants had left their stations at the bazaar and were congregating around a convoy of three Army Humvees that had stopped alongside the road. A U.S. officer from the base had stepped out of the lead vehicle and was addressing the throng. Behind them, the soldiers in the other Humvees watched on warily, clutching M-16s.

“What’s going on?” Pradhan asked a produce merchant who’d yet to leave his booth. The man’s features were grim, tinged with anger.

“They’ve canceled the bazaar,” he said.

Pradhan noticed the darkening horizon for the first time. “Because we might have a little rain?” he asked.

The merchant shook his head. Gesturing at the soldiers, he explained, “They say the base is in lockdown. No one’s being allowed out or in.”

Pradhan felt a sudden knotting in his stomach.

“Why?” he asked.

“Something about security,” the other man replied skeptically. “As if we’re about to attack them with bananas and CDs!”

“That’s not a bad idea,” a vendor in the next booth called out. “They say we’ll be compensated for being ‘inconvenienced.’ Ha!”

Pradhan was disheartened by the news and as the shouting grew louder, he fought back his sudden anxiety. He hobbled away from the booths, making his way around the periphery of the angry mob.

“It doesn’t mean the worst,” he whispered to himself. Already, the words sounded hollow, though.

When he reached the road, Pradhan continued along the shoulder, heading toward the base. He hadn’t gone far when one of the soldiers called out to him from the rear of a Humvee.

“Where are you going?”

The Afghan pretended not to hear and kept walking. His long, purposeful strides aggravated his hip, and with each step his limp became a little more pronounced. He tried his best to ignore the pain as well as the sound of the vehicle, which had shifted into gear and was backing up toward him.

“Sorry, sir, but the base is off-limits,” the soldier called out to him as the vehicle drew closer.

Pradhan refused to acknowledge the soldier and trudged on, eyes straight ahead. The main gate was less than fifty yards away. He only made it a few steps farther, however, before the vehicle caught up with him and veered sharply onto the shoulder, blocking his way.

“You need to go back with the others,” the soldier said. He was a young recruit, half Pradhan’s age, pink-faced beneath his helmet. He was trying to be polite, but it was clear that he was issuing a command rather than a request, and though his carbine was aimed at the ground away from Pradhan, his finger was on the M-16’s trigger.

“I have an interview!” Pradhan snapped, unable to rein in his frustration. “For a job at the base! Working on computers!”

“All job interviews have been canceled,” the soldier told him. “There’s been a temporary freeze put on hiring while we—”

“I have the job!” Pradhan insisted, waving his employment application. “Ask Mehrab Shah! He recommended me! The interview is just a formality!”

“I don’t know anything about that, sir,” the soldier replied. “All I can tell you is the situation has changed. No one is allowed to come onto the base without proper clearance.”

“Ask Mehrab Shah!” Pradhan repeated. “He’ll tell you! I have the job! I have clearance!”

“Have you gone through processing?” When Pradhan stared back, uncomprehending, the soldier rephrased the question. “Have they given you a background check?”

“I have nothing to hide!” he said.

“That’s not what I asked, sir.”

“I’m a loyal Afghan citizen who lost everything to the Taliban!” Pradhan shouted, his voice trembling with rage as much as desperation. “Four years I spent in the Pakistan refugee camps! Four years! I came back because there were promises we would have a chance to get something back! Empty promises! Now, finally, I have an opportunity!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the soldier said. “It’s out of my hands.”

“I’m begging you!” Pradhan pleaded. “This means everything to me!”

The soldier turned from the Afghan and glanced at the Humvee’s driver, who offered only a faint shrug. A second recruit riding in the back of the vehicle shook his head with a look of resignation. The soldier looked back at Pradhan and was about to say something when he checked himself and instead reached for the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt.

“This Mehrab Shah,” he said. “Whereabouts on the base does he work?”

“Mail and shipping,” Pradhan said, tears welling in his eyes. “He does maintenance and deliveries. Please! You have to help me!”

The soldier keyed the walkie-talkie. As he raised it to his ear and waited for a response, he told the distraught Afghan, “Let me see what I can do.”

AS HE RETURNED to his workstation following his nap break, Akira Tokaido shook his long wet hair, inadvertently flecking Aaron Kurtzman with a few wayward droplets.

“My dog used to do that,” the cybercrew leader quipped.

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