“Brace for impact!”

The tail of the Dauphin lifted straight up in the air. Alarms sounded and red lights flew across the consoles. Zanotto snarled in a rage. “We’re hit!”

Bolan gritted his teeth and held on. Zanotto kicked her pedals, and throttled into emergency war power. The helicopter bucked, tilted, lifted and yawed as it slewed across the sky. Bolan had been in this type of situation before. They were done. The flight was over. The Dauphin started to turn into its death spiral.

“We’re going down!” Zanotto punched the transmit button. “Mayday! Mayday! This is Flight Z-1. We are going down at coordinates—”

Bolan reached over and twisted the radio bandwidth. Nothing happened. It was as if the knob had been set and then snapped off on the Shield tactical frequency. “We’re cut off!” he shouted.

Smoke oozed through the air vents and the fire alarm was peeping and blinking plaintively.

Bolan watched Afghanistan hurtle toward them.

Ambush Force

The Executioner™

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Men who take up arms against one another in public do not cease on this account to be moral beings, responsible to one another and to God.

—U.S. Army General Order No. 100, 1863

Men who betray their fellow soldiers will face judgment from their God. But, before that happens, they will face judgment from 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.

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Charles Rogers for his contribution to this work.

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

1

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

Alpha squad had been slaughtered. Mack Bolan flipped through the file. The reinforced squad of U.S. Army Rangers had gone into the Jalkot Canyon area of Afghanistan, and to a man they had come back in body bags. They hadn’t just been killed; they had been stripped and quite possibly tortured. The exact circumstances of their deaths were uncertain because their bodies had been decapitated, doused with kerosene and burned.

“This stinks to high hell, Bear.”

Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman nodded and sipped his coffee. “That’s what everyone at the Joint Chiefs of Staff is thinking, but no one is willing to say.”

Bolan ran his finger over a map of Afghanistan. “The Rangers were supposed to be intercepting a Taliban courier?”

“That was the mission profile. A simple grab and go. An informant gave the CIA the courier’s route and a timetable. The weird thing is that according to intel, both the sector that got hit at and the adjacent one have been pacified.”

Bolan peered at the map. “Looks like the courier’s route was right along the sector border.”

“Again, it’s weird. As a matter of fact, both sectors are supposed to be models of the post-Taliban reconstruction of Afghanistan. In Sector G, they’re growing saffron for the spice market, and in H Valley next door they’re growing flowers for the European perfume industry. According to reports, they’re paving roads, building schools and there’s not a woman in a beekeeper suit in sight. Before they were pacified, both sectors were nothing but poppy fields ruled by Taliban-friendly warlords like medieval fiefs.”

“Who’s running the show?”

“German coalition forces cleared both sectors.”

“Interesting.”

“I don’t need to tell you, Striker. The Bundeswehr doesn’t mess around. They give both the U.S. and the UK a run for our military-professionalism money. They’ve quadrupled their patrols and have poured in men and matériel.”

Bolan had worked with the German army. They were about as good as soldiers got.

Kurtzman pulled up a file on his computer. “Shield Security Services has some operators in the area providing private security for some of the local businessmen and foreign contractors.”

That was interesting, as well. Shield was the top shelf of international private security and hired only the best.

“It still stinks. How did they sneak past the German patrols? This was way too professional for the Taliban,” Bolan argued.

“Well, you’ve got to admit they’ve been getting slicker. They had decades of getting fat and sloppy, looting the country of its wealth, beating women with sticks and stoning men in soccer fields for minor religious infractions. The coalition may have come in and kicked their collective asses, but they aren’t gone. The Taliban are lean, hungry, angry and learning their lessons the hard way.”

That was all very true, but it still didn’t answer Bolan’s questions. “I’m not buying a random band of Taliban bumping into Rangers in the field and wiping them out. This was a planned ambush.”

“So…” Kurtzman took a meditative sip of coffee. “Are you willing to tell the President what no one else will?”

“Yeah.” Bolan nodded. “This was an inside job. The question is who.”

Briefing room, Tent City, Kabul

THE MEN FROM DELTA FORCE were seething. Nearly all Delta Force commandos were chosen from the United States Army Ranger Regiment. The Rangers were the Army’s elite. That made Delta Force the elite of the elite. Delta Force commandos remembered their days as Rangers and knew with great pride that the Ranger Regiment was where they had launched their careers as Special Forces soldiers.

Now an entire squad of Rangers had been killed, beheaded and burned. The assembled Delta team was going hunting for some payback.

“All right, ladies!” The black lieutenant looked like an NFL linebacker who had been shoved through a trash compactor. He barely cracked five-six but he weighed 180 if he weighed an ounce, and his Afro pushed the limits of U.S. military hairstyle acceptability. Lieutenant Richard Dirk was “Dick Dirk” to his friends and equals in rank and affectionately known as “the Diggler” behind his back. The vertically challenged Special Forces officer had amassed a sizable legend for neutralizing the designated enemies of Uncle Sam on three continents and was currently working on his fourth. His voice was out of all proportion to his size. “Listen up! We’re going hunting tonight, and your Uncle Sam in his merciful compassion had been kind enough to send us an observer to make sure we don’t screw up!”

Groans and muttered expletives greeted the lieutenant’s announcement.

“So I would like you all to give a warm, Delta Force welcome to Mr. Matthew Cooper from the Justice Department!”

Mack Bolan walked into the tent.

A lanky blond commando named Sawyer drawled out his disgust with an accent straight out of the hills of Tennessee. “Christ, LT, who is this fucking cherry? I—” Sawyer leaned back in his seat as Bolan locked eyes with him. It took a lot to give a Delta Force commando pause, but whatever Sawyer saw behind Bolan’s blue eyes stopped him midsentence. “Shit, dude, don’t look at me like that.”

That wasn’t enough for Lieutenant Dirk. “You will shitcan that talk, Sawyer, or I will personally correct your cracker attitude for you! You read me?”

Sawyer recoiled before the wrath of his commanding officer. “Shit, LT! Yeah—I mean, yes, sir! I mean….” Sawyer regained some of his composure. “But what the hell, LT? Are we Commies now with political officers spying on our asses? What the hell is an asshole from the goddamn Department of Justice doing here? Makin’ sure we don’t commit no atrocities? I mean who sent him? The Supreme Court?”

Dirk seemed to grow and expand in rage and stature as he prepared to rain his wrath on Sawyer.

Bolan interrupted the dressing-down. “Permission to address your men, Lieutenant.”

Lieutenant Dirk continued to glare bloody murder at Sawyer. “Oh, by all means. Please do.”

“Who is the angry god of your universe?” Bolan addressed the tent at large.

Bolan had files on all the men present. A hulking Latino private in the back named Obradors shot up his hand. “Why, Mr. Cooper, we do dastardly deeds for the Diggler!”

Lieutenant Dirk rolled his eyes and mostly kept the benevolent smile off his face.

“Well,” Bolan conceded, “the lieutenant is the Messiah, but who is God?”

Special Forces operator opinions flew around the tent.

“Jesus?”

“Santa Claus?”

“Anheuser-Busch?”

Bolan shook his head. “No, it’s the big guy in the round room.”

The tent grew quiet as Bolan invoked the commander in chief.

“He’s taken a personal interest in your situation.”

Jaws set nervously and brows furrowed. That might be extraordinarily good or horrifically bad news. It was generally considered best not to have the Man’s attention at all except when he was handing out medals.

Bolan tapped the com-link clipped to his shirt. “Gentlemen, I am not here to observe you, usurp command or steal your thunder. I am here to deliver the thunder. The standard chain of command has been circumvented. We will not be going through the Pentagon or United Nations coalition command. I am here to make sure that fire support, extraction and real-time data are available as needed. Short of a nuclear strike, it is my job to make sure that you receive everything you need.” Bolan shrugged. “If you require a tactical nuclear strike, I can’t promise it, but I will ask the President of the United States for it directly. However, if my services aren’t required…”

“Oh, hell no!” Sawyer grinned delightedly. “Your shit is sacred, brother.”

“Fuckin’ ay,” Obradors agreed.

Bolan nodded to himself. The Delta Force commando team was leaning forward eagerly. Everyone loved divine intervention. “Captain Fairfax will brief you on the mission.”

“You heard the man!” Dirk bawled. “Now I would like you all to turn your kind attention to our friend and leader, Captain Fairfax!”

The commandos whooped for their commanding officer. Fairfax had been in Somalia and earned his officer’s stripes and the jagged scar along his jaw the hard way.

Lieutenant Dirk edged up to Bolan as the briefing began. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“By all means, Lieutenant.”

“No offense meant, but, uh, just who in the blue hell are you, anyway? Don’t get me wrong. It’s nice that the Man has taken an interest in our little situation, but why exactly are they sending me a Fed?”

“None taken, and I’m not a Fed.”

Dirk cocked his head suspiciously. “Well, you work for the Justice Department, don’t you?”

“No.”

Lieutenant Dirk blinked. “No?”

“No.”

“I was told you did.”

“That was a misinterpretation.”

“Well, we’re going out tonight, me and you.” The lieutenant’s eyes went hard. “So why don’t you illuminate my ignorant black ass?”

Bolan sighed. He had been a soldier, and there was nothing worse than strange, murky individuals suddenly popping up from stateside during an operation. It implied mission creep and goat screws of epic proportions. “I don’t work for the Justice Department. I have a working relationship with the United States government, and when I choose to take action, I liaise with the President through the DOJ.”

“A…working relationship, and when you choose to take action you talk with the Man?” That gave even Dirk pause.

“Yeah.”

“Directly?”

“Sometimes,” Bolan admitted.

“So…you’re a spook?”

“No, though I’ve been spooky.”

“Paramilitary?” Dirk tried.

The man was getting warmer. “I guess you could call me an operator of a sort.”

“You’re—” Dirk’s nose wrinkled in suspicion “—a merc?”

“Naw.” Bolan shook his head. “I don’t get paid.”

“You don’t get paid?” Lieutenant Dirk regarded Bolan like a primatologist who has just encountered a gorilla with wings. “So you’re a…volunteer, spookerator, with a direct line to the President who does this out of love?”

“Close,” Bolan conceded. “And payback. I’m pretty big on payback.”

Dirk suddenly grinned. “Well, hell, that’s all you had to say! Count me in!”

Bolan looked at Lieutenant Dirk long and hard. “You want in all the way?”

The lieutenant cocked his head. “You mean join the all-volunteer spookerator love and payback club? Sorry, man, I appreciate the offer, but I’m Delta all the way.”

“What if I said I might need you on a one-shot deal, and it involves the dead Rangers.”

“I’d ask you to clarify that a little.”

“I think it was an inside job.”

“Inside job?” Dirk’s face became a mask of stone. “That’s some real messed-up shit you’re implying there, Spooky.”

“Problem is, I don’t have any proof. To get it, and get payback, I’m going to have to go inside. I’m going to need someone like you to piggyback my way in, and frankly I don’t mind admitting I’d like to have someone like you on my six.”

“This is getting really goddamn deep and dark.”

“Listen, if we come back from this op tonight alive, and you trust me after, I’d like to buy you a beer and talk about it more.”

“Ooh!” Dirk grinned. “Beer.”

Pandit Valley

“WHERE THE HELL IS Coop?” Dirk hissed. “I told him to keep his civilian ass on my—”

Bolan spoke quietly. “I’m right here.”

“Jesus!” Dirk turned around. “I thought you were arranging satellite feed.”

“I was.”

“Well, don’t sneak up on a brother like that!”

“I didn’t. I’ve been here for five minutes.”

“Man…So what have we got?”

“It’s a series of caves. The local villagers say two years ago there were some earthmoving machines up in the hills. There’s no known mining in the area, and satellite recon shows no new construction. Most likely, what we have is a tunnel complex, probably using the preexisting caves as a template. Thermal-imaging satellites show low-level heat signatures venting from several sources around the cave area, probably cook fires.”

“Great.” Lieutenant Dirk wasn’t pleased. In his experience the only thing worse than urban warfare was tunnel fighting. “We’re going to have to dig them out hole by hole.”

“I’ll have a map of the complex ready in another couple of minutes.”

Dirk brightened. “Someone gave you a map of the place? Why didn’t you say so?”

“No one gave me a map. Someone’s making me one.”

Dirk paused. “Someone’s making you one?”

“Yeah, hold on.” Bolan pressed the mike on his secure line. “How we doing, Strike Eagle?”

Jack Grimaldi, Stony Man Farm’s premier pilot, came back across the line. “Striker, I am over the target area.”

Gadgets Schwarz came across the radio. He was Able Team’s technical whiz, and Bolan had asked him to come up with something that would give them the edge on the dug-in Taliban. Schwarz loved a challenge and as usual had come up aces. “Striker, we are ready to deploy.”

“Deploy when ready, Strike Eagle.”

Dirk cleared his throat. “So, uh, who is deploying?”

Bolan looked upward. “I have a couple of friends of mine up at about twenty thousand feet in an F-15E Strike Eagle.”

“Oh?” Dirk contemplated that. “What are they deploying?”

“UAVs.”

Dirk nodded. U.S. Special Forces were ever increasingly discovering the joys of working with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. “So what are they going to do for us? Fly in the cave and blow everything up?”

“No, we want prisoners and we also want any papers, computer files, cell phones or intelligence we can get our hands on. So it would be best if we went in and took care of business ourselves, by hand.”

Dirk frowned beneath his night-vision goggles. “Okay, so…”

“So the UAVs are carrying ground-penetrating radar units. GPR scans work best in solid rock formations that will resonate to the radar pulses. The good news is that those caves are mostly solid granite. We’re deploying three UAVs. With any luck, within a few minutes we’ll have a three-dimensional map of the complex.”

Dirk stared up at the stars. “Aren’t our little friends going to hear the buzz bombs as they come in?”

“The UAVs are gliders. Once they’re near the target, they fold their wings, deploy steerable chutes and extend padded all-aspect legs. GPR works better in direct contact with the ground, so the legs act as the antennas.”

“You know, I thought I had access to all the cool toys, but this is shit I ain’t even heard of.”

Bolan shrugged. “I happen to know the director of the Future Warrior Project in Massachusetts. I gave her a call, and my friends brought over a few working prototypes.”

Dirk considered that and how quickly it had come about. “Jesus, you really can make the magic happen.”

“I’m a helper,” Bolan agreed. “I’m here to help.”

Dirk snorted in bemusement, and then Bolan and Bravo troop waited long minutes. The commando spoke quietly. “The Man wants blood for blood, doesn’t he?”

“From what I understand, favors are being called in. More than favors—the U.S. is giving markers to people we’d normally never get in bed with,” Bolan said.

“Except that no one gets to ice eighteen Rangers and walk away,” Dirk stated.

“No, the Rangers get payback. No one is walking away. The President wrote a blank check to get a line on these caves, and he wants to see people in bags for his money.”

Schwarz’s voice came across the link. “Striker, this is Strike Eagle. The Eaglets have landed. We have solid returns from One and Two. Eaglet Three must have landed wrong. We are mapping. You should be able to pull it up.”

“Copy that, Strike Eagle.” Bolan pulled out a small handheld device and watched as the screen filled with radar patterns. Bolan examined the screen. “We’ve got one main entrance that leads in and up about fifteen yards and opens up into a large chamber. By shape it’s a natural cave, about thirty yards by forty. Two tunnels branch off, one straight back and another off to the left, each about ten yards. They’re straight and level, cut by machines, and each leads to another chamber. The chambers are symmetrical, and again, man-made. One appears to be filled with a number of large, symmetrical objects. The two chambers both have a tunnel coming out of them and meet in a fifth chamber. Basically, the complex is a rough hexagon, each chamber connected by a tunnel.”

Dirk stared at what appeared on the screen to be little more than blobs and streaks. “If you say so.”

Bolan pulled out a stylus, traced the diagram and killed the flashes of the radar pulses behind it, leaving five circles each connected by a line. “That’s your map. I’m sending it to the PDA of each man in the troop.” Bolan pressed Send and a few seconds later each man in Bravo troop signaled he had the map.

“God…damn,” Dirk opined.

“I told you the President was writing a blank check on this one.”

“Then by all means, let’s give the man his money’s worth.” Dirk spoke into his tactical radio. “All units. Start moving in.”

Bolan and Bravo troop began moving through the rocks. Delta Force always had access to the best toys, and Bolan had been given the keys to the candy store. Each man in the reinforced squad was equipped with a SCAR rifle chambered for the Russian 7.62 mm round. It was ballistically comparable to the old Winchester .30-30, but Bolan had no complaints about that. Some people thought the U.S. .223 was too light and didn’t have enough stopping power. Others thought the other major U.S. military small-arms round, the .308, was too heavy and had too much recoil. The 7.62 mm was the porridge the Russian Bear had chosen, and her soldiers had collectively wept when they’d abandoned it to try to emulate the Americans.

These rifles were firing heavy subsonic bullets and had suppressor tubes fitted over their muzzles.

Bravo troop was as silent as wolves running through fog.

Corporal Sawyer’s voice came across the link. “I got two sentries by the entrance to the cave beneath camouflaged shelters.”

“You got a line of fire?”

“Affirmative.”

“Take ’em,” Dirk ordered.

Bolan was close enough to Sawyer to hear the action of his automatic rifle click twice and two spent pieces of brass tinkle to the ground. At the cave mouth, nothing seemed to happen save that an arm flopped out from what appeared to be solid rock.

“Sentries down,” Sawyer said.

“Move in,” Dirk ordered. “By the numbers.”

“Mind if I take point?”

“Oh, by all means, please.” Dirk waved Bolan forward expansively. “I’m sure Sawyer would love the company.”

Dirk spoke into his radio. “Sawyer, wait on Striker.”

“Copy that.”

Bolan moved forward to Sawyer’s position. “Corporal.”

“Nice to see you up front, Coop. In my experience, civilians tend to lead from the back.”

Bolan scanned the entrance. From Sawyer’s angle, the Executioner could see that the rocks overhanging the cave mouth were really awnings, blankets stiffened with clay and dirt and stretched across stick frames so that they looked like rock formations. It was an old trick and a good one.

“You ready to step into the funhouse, Sunshine?”

“After you.”

They moved to the mouth of the cave. Beneath the camouflaged awning, two men in local dress lay facedown with a single bullet hole through their heads. “We’re in, Bravo. Come ahead.”

Bolan and Sawyer moved down the tunnel. Bolan ran a hand along the wall. It was rough and appeared to have been recently widened. It was wide enough to drive a jeep through. Bolan knelt and found tire tracks in dirt among the many footprints. “Bravo Leader, this is Striker. Be advised there has been vehicle traffic in the complex. At least jeep size.”

“Copy that, Striker,” Dirk replied. “We’re coming in.”

Dirk left a team outside watching their six, and the rest entered. Bolan and Sawyer crept down the tunnel. Both men held up their fists for “Halt” and crouched at the entrance to a large chamber. There were about fifty men in the cave, and several fires burned. Many were asleep. Others crouched in small circles drinking tea and talking or running rags over their rifles.

Sawyer shoved up his goggles. “Well, I count fifty, and the map says there are four more caves.”

“Most of them are sleeping.”

“Well, how you wanna wake ’em up?”

Bolan reached into his gear bag, pulled out four grenades and handed a pair of them to Sawyer.

Sawyer stared at them. “Frags?”

“Stingballs. Each one holds several dozen hard rubber buckshot pellets.”

Sawyer scowled. “Okay, that will probably wake them up, but then—”

Bolan pulled out a couple of Claymores.

Sawyer frowned. “Claymores? I thought you said you wanted prisoners.”

“Stingmores. These contain hundreds of rubber buckshot pellets.”

Sawyer grinned. “I think I saw this in a movie.”

The lieutenant came up, and Bolan related the plan to him. “Then we hit them with flash-bangs and stomp them,” Bolan finished.

Dirk was grinning as he turned to the two commandos behind him. “You heard the man. They beat ’em, and then we light ’em up!”

Bolan pulled the pins on his grenade. “On your signal, Lieutenant.”

“By all means, please.”

Bolan and Dirk hurled the grenades strategically throughout the cavern.

“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey!” Sawyer called out happily.

The men around the campfires jerked and rose, grabbing for weapons. Bolan and Sawyer crouched low and lowered their helmets, and the stingball grenades detonated. Men howled out in Arabic and Pashto as the blunt 20 mm rubber spheres traveling at five hundred feet per second struck them. Everyone else was leaping out of their blankets and rising while others fell around them.

Bolan and Sawyer stuck the stingmore mines into the dirt and pumped the detonator switches. “Gooooood morning, Afghanistan!” Sawyer sang out.

More than one thousand rubber buckshot pellets blasted across the cavern in two intersecting arcs, and men blinking from sleep were scythed down before they knew what hit them. Bolan and Sawyer stayed crouched, plugging their ears with their thumbs and shutting and covering their eyes with their fingers. Orange light still pulsed through Bolan’s eyelids, and thunder rolled through the cavern. The second salvo of flash-bangs detonated moments later, and then Bolan was up and in the cavern with Bravo troop swarming in behind him.

The devastation was almost total. Fifty men lay on the ground, beaten, blinded, deafened and disoriented.

Lieutenant Dirk roared, “A and B Teams! Secure the side tunnels! Everyone else secure prisoners!”

The two teams charged to the side tunnels and aimed overwhelming firepower down them. In the cavern, plastic zip restraints appeared like party favors and moaning, suspected Taliban where swiftly hog-tied.

Gunfire broke out in the right side tunnel. Sawyer bawled back into the cavern. “We got resistance here on the right, LT!”

Dirk shouted orders. “C Team! Reinforce B! D Team, you’re with me! Pincer movement!”

Bolan took point with Sawyer. Both of them had M-203 grenade launchers mounted beneath their rifles. The Executioner nodded at him, and they both fired the weapons down the tunnel and leaned back as the grenades detonated in the chamber beyond. They charged down the corridor, followed by Dirk with A and D teams. The chamber was dimly lit and filled with open metal racks. Two men lay dead on the floor, while another man clutched his face and fired a pistol in the general direction of the entrance. Bolan’s and Sawyer’s bursts peppered the would-be pistolero. He fell into one of the metal racks, and a row of six of them fell like dominoes.

Sawyer stared at the rows of racks. There were scores of them. Possibly a hundred or more. “What? Are they building a treehouse?”

Bolan stared at them. The racks were actually frames consisting of eight hollow aluminum rectangles bolted together. Each was about eight feet long and contained a series of metal hoops within them. Bolan estimated the diameter of the hoops to be approximately 132 mm. “No, those are rocket racks. The hoops inside are the launch rails.” Bolan peered at the dark entrance to the next tunnel and turned to Dirk. “I strongly suggest we don’t throw anything explosive into the next room.”

“Yeah, I hear you.” Dirk spoke into his radio, “Obie, what’ve you got?”

Obradors came back from the other side of the complex. “Two hostiles down. The chamber appears to be some kind of machine shop. Multiple generators and lots of welding equipment. Looks like they’ve been making frames and mounts for something, as well as a bunch of threaded collars, and I mean a lot of them.”

Bolan spoke across the link. “You got a diameter on those collars, Obie?”

“Yeah, uh, about five inches?”

Bolan frowned as his suspicions were confirmed. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, your map?” Obradors said.

“What about it?”

“It’s shit. There ain’t no fifth chamber.”

“What do you mean?” Bolan probed.

“I mean there ain’t no tunnel. The wall is blank.”

Dirk looked at Bolan. “And?”

“And ground-penetrating radar doesn’t lie. Tell B and C teams to hold position and don’t touch anything. Especially the walls.”

Dirk gave orders. Bolan jerked his head at the far tunnel. “Let’s see what’s behind door number three.” Bolan moved down the tunnel with Sawyer right behind him. There was no one in the next chamber, but it wasn’t empty.

“Shit,” Sawyer pronounced. “Missiles.”

Bolan stared at the pallets of weapons stacked in pyramids. “No, unguided artillery rockets, 132 mm. The Russians call them Katyushas, or ‘Little Katys.’”

“Jesus, they must have a hundred of them in here.”

Dirk had one of his men videotaping their find. “A lot of them seem to be missing their warheads.”

“Yeah,” Bolan agreed, “and Obie has a machine shop on the other side of the complex making 132 mm threaded collars.”

“Shit,” Sawyer said.

“Shit is right,” Bolan said. “You notice anything else.”

Sawyer looked around the room and stopped. “There’s no tunnel. No fifth chamber. Just like Obie said.”

Bolan clicked on his private link. “Strike Eagle, this is Striker. Give me another GPR pulse, and triangulate the position of the tunnel to chamber five from my position.”

“Copy that, Striker,” Schwarz responded. “Coming up.”

Bolan took out his little computer and watched as the GPR pulses flashed across his screen. Up in the stratosphere, Schwarz was scribbling with his stylus. The pulses faded, and the map of the complex appeared. A dot appeared in the chamber where Bolan was standing.

“That dot is you, Striker.” A straight line appeared on the little map that went from Bolan’s position through the tunnel to the fifth chamber. “The tunnel entrance is exactly ten degrees east from your position.”

“Copy that.” Bolan walked up to what appeared to be a roughly dressed but blank stone wall.

Dirk played the tactical light on his weapon across the rock face. “So, there’s like a secret knob or something?”

“No. The tunnel’s been sealed off from the outside. There probably isn’t even a door, just brick or concrete with a layer of clay and rock molded over it for camouflage.”

Dirk scowled. “You said sealed from the outside?”

“Think about it. If we hadn’t used GPR, what would have happened? We’d have come in, kicked ass, destroyed the rockets and then dropped the caverns with explosives and walked away happy, mission accomplished. We never would have known to look for a fifth chamber.”

“Yeah—” Dirk nodded as he saw it “—and the Taliban could come back later when the coast was clear and dig it up.”

“Right. You got some shaped charges?”

“I believe we do.” Dirk turned to one of his men. “Penner! Coop here would like you to make him a door!”

The demolition man came forward and stared at the wall. “Okay, assuming concrete, assuming the same diameter as the other tunnels…” Penner mumbled to himself in demo-speak as he put together a breaching charge and then packed the plastique brick against the section of wall. He took a few steps back from his work and pressed his detonator box. “Fire in the hole!”

The detonation was anticlimactic. There was a thump and a pulse of fire around the edges of the charge, but the explosive had been shaped to blow inward against the wall. A two-foot section of the rock wall was gone to reveal that Bolan was right. The tunnel had been bricked up and then covered with a layer of clay and rock. Penner and another commando went at the sagging brick with entrenching tools. They cleared a four-foot entrance and stepped back.

Bolan shone his tactical light down the tunnel. It was exactly the same as the other, and the entrance to the fifth chamber opened into darkness at the end of it. “You better let me go first. This part may be booby-trapped.”

Dirk nodded. “Be my guest.”

Bolan crawled through the hole and slowly went down the tunnel. Dust filled the air from the blast. He went into the chamber and played his light across several pallets laden with crates. The crates had Cyrillic writing on them. Bolan didn’t read Russian, but he didn’t need to. Nor did he need to open any of the crates. He recognized the green circle with the three-lobed, red warning sign for chemical hazard, and he recognized the colored bar code and the serial numbers and letters beneath it.

Dirk came across the radio. “What do we have, Coop?”

“We’ve got cyclosarin nerve gas.” Bolan ran his light across the piled pallets. “A lot of it.”

2

Tent City, Kabul

Aaron Kurtzman was well pleased, and his face showed it across the video link. “Everyone is singing your praises, Striker. Delta Force is oozing goodwill, and Hal said the President wants to clone a hundred of you in assorted colors.”

“Yeah.” It hadn’t been a bad op. Some very unpleasant adversaries had gone down, and something very ugly had been averted.

“You don’t seem pleased. You don’t think you got the right boys?”

“Oh, we got the right Taliban boys, but we didn’t get the thugs who backed their play against the Rangers.”

“You still believe someone betrayed the Rangers’ location?”

“It was more than just a tip-off. The Taliban had intel on composition and numbers, and they had serious backup. Light-support weapons, at least, being used by people who knew what they were doing. Even in the most desperate of circumstances, Army Rangers should have been able to fight their way out of a Taliban ambush. Instead, they were cut to pieces. Even in the face of overwhelming numbers, a few should have been able to escape and evade. We have hundred percent casualties. That’s unheard-of, Bear, but since they were mutilated, beheaded, burned and their bodies stacked like cordwood, it’s a little difficult to determine exactly what happened. So everyone is screaming Taliban.”

“Yeah, well, it’s Afghanistan, Striker—people scream Taliban with good reason.”

“Bear, someone sold that gas to the Taliban. You want to take out a reinforced squad of U.S. Army Rangers with hundred percent casualties? How about starting a firefight in a narrow canyon and then ending it with nerve gas.”

Kurtzman was no longer smiling. “Yeah, nerve agents are nonpersistent. So when help finally arrived, they found spent shell casings and RPG hits and suspected nothing.”

“And the bodies were burned to prevent any telltales of nerve-agent exposure to be found.”

Kurtzman let out a long breath. “Well, that means you’re right. Someone set up the Rangers, someone gave the Taliban nerve agents and someone with the expertise had to be present to deploy the gas correctly.”

“That’s right, and it happened on German army turf.”

“Striker, the Germans haven’t produced chemical weapons since World War II.”

“The East Germans did.”

“Those stockpiles were destroyed—” Kurtzman sighed unhappily “—supposedly. You’re going to have a hard time penetrating the German army.”

“I can’t, and winding a black turban around my head and pretending to be Taliban isn’t going to work, either.” Bolan flipped through his file again. “You said the Shield protection agency has contractors working in the area?”

“For God’s sake, what are you trying to say?”

“Nothing I can prove, and nothing anybody will want to hear. Hell, I’m probably wrong, and frankly I hope I am. But we won’t know unless I go in and tear things open. What I am saying is eighteen Army Rangers are dead. And if the United States Army Rangers are after you, you’d better have a weapon of mass destruction, because that’s the only way you’re going to stop them. I think that’s exactly what happened, and far as I can see there are three possible players. I can’t join the Taliban, and I don’t speak German.”

Kurtzman’s craggy brow furrowed. “So you’re going to join Shield.”

“They’re independent contractors,” Bolan said. “It’s probably the only cover I can use to poke around.”

“They’ve got a waiting list a mile long,” Kurtzman argued. “They’ve got Special Forces guys from all over the world taking early retirement just to join up.”

Bolan nodded. “I know, so I’m going to need a guy they would kill to have join them and then piggyback my way in.”

Kurtzman perked an eyebrow. “You have someone in mind.”

Bolan grinned. “Indeed I do.”

BRIGADIER EUGENE TOLER PEERED at Lieutenant Dirk’s fist somewhat apprehensively. He sighed, rolled his eyes and then shook his head at Bolan. “Mr. Cooper, are we sure this is absolutely necessary?”

Bolan didn’t blame the English officer one bit. The lieutenant’s fists, like a lot of things about him, were oversized for his frame. “I’m afraid so, sir.”

Captain Fairfax stood to one side shaking his head. He had been in Special Forces for decades, and nothing had ever prepared him for the utter surrealty of this situation, much less the fact that he was about to lose his best officer.

Dirk took a deep breath, and his knuckles creaked and popped as he balled up the soup bones. He looked at his hand as if it didn’t belong to him and then at the brigadier. “You ready, sir?”

“Well…right!” The brigadier squared his shoulders, thrust out his jaw, straightened the front of his battle dress uniform and, like English officers and gentlemen since time immemorial, found refuge in Shakespeare. “‘Lay on, McDuff.’”

It was a beauty of a whistling right hook. Brigadier Toler was a big man, but his head whiplashed on his neck as he flew back across the folding table behind him. It wasn’t an act. The folding table collapsed beneath him, and he, his computer, monitor and everything else on his desk hit the floor with a tremendous crash.

Dirk’s voice boomed out at parade-ground volume. “You limey son of a bitch! Good men died because of you!”

“Goddamn it, Lieutenant!” Fairfax bawled. “What in the blue hell do you think you’re doing?”

Toler pushed himself to a sitting position in the wreckage and matched Dirk and Fairfax decibel for decibel. “Mr. Pitt!”

Toler’s aide-de-camp peeked his head in and stared in horror.

“Mr. Pitt!” The brigadier pointed a damning finger at Dirk. “Place that man under arrest!”

“Sir!” The bookish young man visibly braced himself. “Guards!”

“Lieutenant Dirk is an American officer and can only be confined or charged by a U.S. military order!” Fairfax snarled.

“That man serves under NATO Afghanistan Coalition Command, and by God, I’ll see him tried and court-martialed under its bloody aegis!”

Bolan didn’t feel the need to add anything. It was all rolling along very nicely.

Pitt’s voice rose a panicked octave. “Guards…”

It was Fairfax’s turn to be outraged. “You can’t do this!”

“I can and will!” Toler thundered.

“Guards…”

British soldiers with the scarlet-peaked caps of the Royal Military Police came charging into the tent. Toler lurched to his feet. A magnificent shiner was inflating all around his left eye. “Guards! The American lieutenant has just struck a superior officer! Put him under close arrest!”

The MPs’ faces went from surprise to bloodred rage. A Yank had taken a poke at one of their officers. Truncheons rattled out of their sheaths.

Fairfax took a step forward. “By God! If you think—”

Toler roared like a wounded lion. “If the captain opens his bleeding gob again, clap him in irons for obstruction!”

Dirk beckoned the brigadier in. “Oh, you want some more of this? You limey mother—”

The Redcaps dived into Dirk. Dirk disposed of one with a hip throw and staggered one with a right hand before he took a truncheon thrust to the guts and the other two RMPs dived into his legs. Pitt couldn’t have weighed more than 115 pounds dripping wet, but the brigadier’s aide hurled himself into the fray with the enthusiasm and fury of wounded national pride.

The fight went to the ground and became a wrestling match. Dirk was a Special Forces soldier in prime physical condition, but taking down soldiers was what the RMPs were trained to do and numbers and weight told their ugly tale. The Redcaps inexorably got the upper hand, as well as an arm and ankle lock. Then the truncheons began falling on Dirk like rain. They continued to fall until he stopped moving. The Redcaps snapped on the handcuffs and kept Dirk pinned while Brigadier Toler’s aide stood. The young man was shaking with adrenaline reaction, and his broken nose hung on his face like a flattened squid. “Prisoner is secure, sir!”

“Very good, Mr. Pitt. Have him placed in the brig and confined in full restraints. Once he’s properly shackled, fetch a medic around to have a look at him.”

“Yes, sir!”

Captain Fairfax’s face was ashen. “This is intolerable. That man is an American officer!”

“That man will require a lawyer.” Toler’s voice dropped to reptilian coldness. “As his commanding officer, I suggest it is your immediate duty to see to it.”

U.S. military stockade, Kabul

BOLAN WALKED INTO THE CELL and handed Lieutenant Dirk a short, two-page document. “Here you go.”

Dirk took the paper. The Redcaps hadn’t been gentle. His face was lumped as though he’d been attacked by a swarm of Alaskan mosquitoes. He quickly read the first page and flipped to the second and looked at the signatures and seals. “Jesus, I really am eatin’ the big chicken dinner.”

Bolan smiled. “You want salt with that?”

Dirk rolled his eyes ruefully. The big chicken dinner was U.S. military slang for a bad-conduct discharge. Dirk had dodged the bullet. The fix had been put in, but not everyone was in on it. There had been a chance the court-martial could have gone wrong and Dirk could have gotten the full dishonorable discharge. That was something that followed a man around like a pet for the rest of his life. A dishonorable discharge was one of the few stigmas left in American life that was like the mark of Cain. The United States Military was an all-volunteer organization. A person had to want to join up. To be dishonorably discharged implied that you had dishonored your country and the service. Nearly every application for employment in the United States first asked if you had ever served in the United States armed forces and if you had been honorably or dishonorably discharged. Given a choice, it seemed as if most employers would rather hire a thief, a murderer or a pedophile before they would give a job to a man with a dishonorable discharge hanging over his head.

The good news was that despite Brigadier Toler’s highly credible Old Testament thunder, the United States would not let its soldiers be tried by foreign military tribunals whether or not they had the NATO or United Nations stamp of approval. The court-martial had been one of the swiftest ones in recent history. The reasons for the lieutenant’s actions were considered top secret. Mission information leading up to the incident had been redacted. His two Silver Stars for conspicuous bravery had been mentioned early and often, as was the fact that while Brigadier Toler may well have been a superior officer, he was but an officer in the service of the United Kingdom rather than the United States and not Lieutenant Dirk’s commanding officer. Dirk had been uncomfortable with it, but the question of race had been brought up in relation to Dirk’s brutal beating at the hands of the Royal Military Police.

Dirk had gotten the big chicken dinner.

Bad conduct didn’t go on your employment record. While a bad conduct discharge also implied that a person had screwed up—screwed up royally, no doubt of that—at least the person hadn’t dishonored the country. But one look at Dirk’s face told Bolan the big chicken dinner did not taste good. Dirk had devoted his life to serving his fellow citizens, and he had just been handed his walking papers. He was no longer a Delta Force lieutenant. He was now citizen Richard Lincoln Dirk.

Dirk gave Bolan one last, long, hard look. “Full presidential pardon?”

“Full pardon, reinstatement and promotion to captain. Guaranteed.”

“I don’t suppose you can you get that for me in writing?”

“The President has expressed his willingness to do it in his office and invite your mother.” Bolan handed Dirk a second piece of paper with the presidential seal on it. “But yeah, you can have it in writing.”

“Damn…” Dirk looked at the signature on the presidential stationery. “You really can make the magic happen. I’ve seen a few sealed orders in the past two years, and that is the Man’s John Hancock.”

“Check the small print. Pardon, reinstatement and promotion posthumously should you die during the course of this mission. I insisted on that.”

“That’s mighty considerate of you.”

Bolan shrugged. “You ready to get out of here?”

“Damn straight. I know a kebab place two blocks from here that treats soldiers right, and the girls upstairs treat ’em even better. The owner imports them from Germany, and if you want to meet mercs, that’s where they hang out to get hired.”

“It’s on me.”

“Goddamn right it is,” Dirk agreed. “And get me a gun. I’m feelin’ kind of naked here.”

Bolan drew a 9 mm Beretta Model 92 from the back of his belt. “Hold on to this. It was the first thing I could lay my hands on. Give me twenty-four hours, and I can get you anything else you want on special order.”

“You sweet man.” Dirk took the pistol and checked the loads. “Let’s party.”

Lars Shishlik Haus

KEBABS AND BLONDES weren’t the only advantages of the Shishlik Haus. A half German, half Afghan named Lars Obiada ran the establishment, and he could only be described as a war profiteer. Soldiers at war always had their paychecks in their pockets and very little to spend them on. They were always looking for women and liquor. Both were hard to come by in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Obiada provided both, as well as some of the best hashish available. He had lived in Germany for the first twenty years of his life and served in the Bundeswehr, so any German coalition soldier in Afghanistan got his first drink on the house. The Shishlik was always dripping with German soldiers on leave, as well as soldiers from other coalition countries.

The blondes and hash were upstairs, black-market goods and gambling were in the back and the opium den was in the basement. The smell of the best kebabs in Kabul hit you the second you walked through the front door, and the bar was only ten steps away.

Bolan and Dirk gave their handguns to the coat-check thug at the door and took a seat at the crowded bar. Angry German rap music vibrated the walls. The proprietor was a huge man, and his Teutonic Afghan ancestry made for an interesting mix of blond hair, black eyes and a biker’s black mustache and beard. He threw his arms wide as he became aware of Dirk. “The Diggler!”

“My man, Lars!” Dirk grinned.

Obiada poured two shots of whiskey into a glass without being asked. “And for your friend?”

Bolan peered at the row of bottles behind the bar. All were German imports. “I’ll take a liter of the Paulaner hefeweizen.”

The proprietor filled a massive mug full of cloudy yellow beer, dropped in two lemon slices and slid it Bolan’s way. “We have not seen Lieutenant Diggler in some time.”

“That’s citizen Diggler to you, Lars. Hell, I ain’t even the Diggler no more. I’m just…Dick.” Dirk sighed and took a massive swallow of whiskey. “That’s who I am and what I got right now. Dick.”

“How could such thing happen? You are good soldier.”

“I ate the big chicken dinner.” Dirk downed the rest of his drink with a grimace and slid the glass forward for another. “Can you believe that shit?”

“I had heard this, and could not believe.” Obiada leaned his bulk in conspiratorially as he poured brandy. “Is it true you struck British major?”

“No, oh hell, no.” Dirk grinned and spoke a little too loud. “I bitch-slapped a goddamn brigadier!”

Bolan noticed a pair of heads turn their way down the bar.

“You do everything in style.” Obiada laughed and turned an eye on Bolan. “And who is friend?”

Bolan stuck out his hand. “Cooper.”

The bartender pumped Bolan’s hand with pleasure. “Cooper. You, too, were involved in the…altercation?”

Bolan played a card. “Let’s just say it influenced me to not renew my contract.”

Wheels moved behind Lars Obiada’s eyes at the word contract. “I am sorry to hear. First round is on me.”

“You’re a gentleman and a scholar,” Dirk pronounced.

“I am scholar of life. As for gentleman…” Obiada suddenly frowned. “I think you have attracted attention of gentlemen at end of bar.”

A voice with a Welsh accent snarled over the music. “’Ey, you.”

Dirk and Bolan ignored him.

“’Ey you! Blackie!”

Just about the entire bar turned. Dirk let out a long sigh and brought his hands to his chest. “Who? Me?”

“Yeah, you.” A lanky man leaned forward and thrust out his jaw. He and his companion wore the green beret of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines. “Was that you I ’eard bragging about sucker punching our beloved brigadier, then?”

Dirk raised his hands and gestured at his bruised and battered face. “Listen, man, I already took my lumps from the RMPs and got busted out of the service. I’m a civilian now. You already won. Let it go. I’ll buy your next round.”

The other marine was a skinny little rat-faced man, but he had a mean look about him. “Colour Sergeant, I believe the word he used was ‘bitch-slap,’ and he smiled when he said it, didn’t he, then?”

“Mmm.” The colour sergeant rose, and his head nearly brushed the ceiling. “You know, Jonesy? I don’t believe he’s repentant, not in the least.”

Bolan lowered his liter of beer. “Listen, fellas, we don’t want any trouble.”

“You don’t want trouble, Yank? You’d better stay out of it, then, shouldn’t you?”

“I’m afraid the man’s with me.”

“Really?” The skinny one smiled unpleasantly. “Who’s pitchin’ and who’s catchin’, then?”

Bolan smiled back. “I hear the queen does both.”

The colour sergeant took a moment to do the math, and a beatific smile spread across his face. So far it had just been an exchange of pleasantries. Now? The stomping was on.

“Aw, now. Who’s a clever dick?” The sergeant pointed a finger at Bolan. “It’s ’im, isn’t it, Jonesy? ’Ee’s—”

Bolan shot-putted his beer. It wasn’t a heavy blow, but it was a thick, cut-glass liter mug full to the brim, and the Executioner fired it forward, mouth first. The sergeant took the stein across the bridge of the nose, and beer and lemon juice filled his eyes. Dirk spun on his stool and snap-kicked him in the groin, which dropped him to his knees clutching his crotch in beer-blinded agony. Dirk stepped up onto the sergeant’s shoulder to gain some altitude, and rat-face Jones took Dirk’s heel through his teeth.

“I swear to God!” Dirk boomed. “If one more English asshole so much as—damn it!”

Four English sailors in full white middy shirts, trousers and hats came roaring forward.

Bolan stood and scooped up his bar stool. He raised it high and then pitched it low into the leading man’s legs, sending him tumbling to the tiles. The man behind him tripped and fell over his fellow sailor. The third sailor did a credible hurdle over the mass of Englishmen littering the floor, but the second he touched down, he took Dirk’s fist to the jaw and joined them. The fourth sailor took a step back and yelled for assistance to the room at large. “Tommy! Queue up!”

The UK was the second-largest supplier of coalition troops to the Afghanistan situation. There were a lot of Tommys at the Shishlik Haus at any given time. British soldiers, sailors and airmen rose from their tables.

Bolan upped the ante. “I need every dogface in this shit hole to stand tall!”

American soldiers came crawling out of the woodwork.

This brawl was going to clear the benches. The only thing missing was the piano player diving out the window. Everyone froze as Lars Obiada emptied half a magazine from a Stechkin machine pistol into the roof. “Sit down!”

The potential gladiators sat back down to their liquor and kebabs. The remaining English sailor pointed a finger at Bolan. “This ain’t over, mate.”

Bolan ignored the sailor and took his seat as the bouncers arrived to clear the carnage.

“Not you two. You know my rule about brawls.”

Dirk shrugged. “Wasn’t a brawl, Lars. More like a friendly beat down between allies.”

“No fighting.”

“All right, we’ll go.”

“No, not out front. Go through back. This way.”

Bolan and Dirk exchanged looks and followed Obiada through a door behind the bar. A narrow passageway led them past the kitchen, and a turbaned goon stood in front of a heavy wooden door at the end of the hall. He gave Obiada a bow and opened it. The room was small and low, and several games of poker were in progress. A big man pulled in a pile of chips and looked up with a grin. His salt-and-pepper hair was buzzed short on the sides and slightly long on the top like a lot of Eastern European soldiers. It was clear he hadn’t done any PT in a while, but he was built like a refrigerator and radiated strength. He wore the almost universal khaki load-bearing vest of a private contractor, but the pockets were empty at the moment save for the bulge of a cell phone. The big man pointed a thick finger at a row of flat screen TVs on the wall. One was showing FOX news, another an adult film and a third showed security camera feed where Shishlik Haus employees were carrying out British servicemen in various states of disrepair. The man spoke with a Slavic accent.

“I enjoyed floor show. Much better than belly dancers. Even better than taking money from these losers.”

Two Italian airmen who sat bereft of chips gave the big man a sour look but wisely kept their thoughts to themselves. Bolan had the man pegged for a Pole. “GROM?”

“Good!” The man grinned. “Very good!”

GROM was the acronym for Poland’s Grupa Reagowania Operacyjno-Manewrowego, or Operational Mobile Reaction Group. The acronym also formed the word thunder in Polish. Poland had been one of the first Eastern European nations to sign up for operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and their special forces had been the first people they sent. GROM was their best, and while somewhat inexperienced, their best had the reputation of not being bad, and they were busy soaking up operational lessons the hard way in the fiery crucibles of the Middle East and Asia.

The Pole turned to the Italians. “Why do you still sit here? What do you intend to wager with? Your pants?” He jerked his head toward the door. “Go!”

The two airmen stopped just short of running. The big man shook his head as they left and returned to business. “The lieutenant, we know something of. You—” the big Pole shrugged at Bolan “—I do not know, but if you are with Dirk, this speaks well of you.”

“Thanks. GROM spells badass anyplace I’ve ever been.”

The Pole smiled modestly. “You are too kind.” He pulled a business card out of his vest. “My name is Dobrus, Dobrus Stanislawski. Why do not you and the lieutenant come by the office tomorrow?”

Bolan took the card. It read Dobrus Stanislawski, Security Consultant, Shield Security Services and gave a phone number, e-mail and address in Kabul. He handed it to Dirk.

The former Delta Force commando nodded. “We gonna get lunch out of this? I been in the stockade eatin’ MREs for a week, and I didn’t get my kebabs tonight.”

Stanislawski waved a hand around the premises. “Take-out from here?”

“You got a date, sex machine.”

3

“Dick Diggler, agent of Shield.” Dirk clearly enjoyed the sound of it. “Think we’ll get our own business cards?”

“We don’t have the job yet.”

“Dude, we’re shoo-ins.”

Bolan and Dirk climbed out of the cab with their hands never far from their concealed Berettas. Shield’s Kabul office was part of the new construction going on in the capital. Prevailing conditions favored thick concrete walls and few windows. The walls were pockmarked with bullet strikes and the occasional deeper crater of an RPG hit. Shield provided private security for businessmen, politicians and foreign dignitaries in war-torn Afghanistan, and that made the office itself something of a target. Strategically placed concrete pylons on the surrounding sidewalk prevented anyone driving a car bomb from getting up a head of steam at the building. The few windows were all upstairs and were more like the firing slits of a medieval castle than ornamentation or sources of natural light.

Bolan pressed the button on the steel security door and stared up into a camera lens. The intercom crackled and a woman’s voice spoke. “Mr. Dirk and Mr. Cooper?”

“That’s us.”

The intercom buzzed and the door unlocked. They had to pass through a switchback series of three Kevlar panels before reaching the foyer. A beautiful young Afghan woman in a gray business suit and skirt sat behind a teak desk with the Shield logo behind her. “Would you gentlemen care for coffee?”

Stanislawski came through a door behind her. “They have beer and take-out waiting for them upstairs. Follow me, boys.”

Bolan and Dirk followed the big Pole through a hall. It opened into a fairly spacious gym area with treadmills and weight machines. Dirk muttered appreciatively under his breath. “Goddamn…”

Dirk had a good eye. A woman in gray sweats was walking sideways on a stair-stepper machine. Wavy brown hair fell around a glowing face sheened with a healthy sweat. Savage work in the gym had turned her hourglass figure into sculpture, but not so much that she had lost any of her curves. She had big blue eyes, and her lips, nose and chin were sensuously sculpted.

Stanislawski called out jovially. “Connie! How long have you been on that machine?”

The woman’s eyes never wavered from some middle-distance point of concentration. “Forty-five minutes.”

“You are sick, little girl.”

A smile spread across her face. “I still have to do the other side. This old ass just turned forty-two.”

Bolan was sure many a woman in her twenties would have killed to have Connie’s rock-hard behind, but he kept that to himself for the moment. Stanislawski led them down another hall. The second they turned the corner, Dirk burst out eagerly. “Man! What’s her story?”

“Connie is our pilot. She flew Black Hawk helicopters for United States Army. She passed U.S. Army Ranger training, but of course was not allowed in ground combat. However, she flew combat missions in Desert Storm. Won Silver Star for bravery. Besides pilot, sometimes woman is useful in security missions. She can put on burka and blend with population or pose as Western nanny or tutor in ‘babysitting’ situations when armed man would be awkward.” Stanislawski raised a knowing eyebrow. “Very useful girl.”

“Oh, I got some uses for her.” Dirk grinned.

“Like others—” the Pole grinned back “—you will try.” He took them to the elevator, and they went to the third floor. The office at the end of the hall had “executive suite” written all over it. Stanislawski opened the door, and Bolan came face-to-face with a legend.

“Hello, men!”

Former Marine sniper David Dinatale had earned the moniker “Deadshot Dave” doing some very black operations work in Central America during the 1980s. During the 1990s, a mercenary soldiers’ magazine had done a story on him, giving him and his rifle the cover photo with the headline The Most Dangerous Man In Desert Storm. A framed copy of the cover shot hung on the wall behind him, as well as the United States Congressional Medal of Honor, pictures of him shaking hands with two presidents and a copy of his bestselling, semiautobiographical novel. Above all, in the place of honor, hung the battered Remington 700 sniper rifle with which he had done his damage and earned his accolades.

Like a lot of the world’s most dangerous men, Dinatale didn’t particularly look the part. He was a short, wiry man with sandy hair that was swiftly turning gray. He had a glowing tan and a generous smile that could sell toothpaste. Sitting in his shirtsleeves, he looked like a highly successful car salesman. However, there were certain signs of the operator about him. He sat in his leather chair with the lazy ease of a predator at rest and looked as if he could crank off a hundred push-ups without breaking a sweat. There was something very sniperlike around the eyes. He shot to his feet and stuck out his hand. “Thanks for coming around.”

“Morning, Mr. Dinatale.” Dirk stuck out his hand. “I must say this is an honor. I loved your book. It’s required reading over at Delta.”

“You keep up that kind of talk, and you’re gonna get yourself a date to the prom.”

He held out his hand to Bolan. “Cooper, is it?”

“Yes, sir, and it is an honor. You don’t get to meet a legend every day.”

“Jesus, you boys are butt-kissers!” Dinatale waggled his eyebrows. “But I like that in an employee! You taking notes there, Toe-jam, you Polack son of a bitch?”

Dobrus Stanislawski snorted.

Bolan smiled despite himself. Most snipers were quiet, introspective men. Dinatale was the exception that proved the rule, and he exuded the frat-boy charm of a lovable rogue. Bolan reminded himself that Deadshot Dave had forty confirmed kills, and those were just the ones that weren’t classified. Dinatale waved a hand at the cardboard boxes of take-out kebabs and roasted rice. A bucket of Moosehead beers on ice sat next to them. “Well, let’s tuck in and talk a little business.”

Everyone took a seat and began tearing into the cubed lamb and rice. Stanislawski took beers out of the bucket, twisted off the caps and passed them around.

“Well, now, gentlemen, I’ll tell you I’ve got a line of applicants stretched from here to Baghdad. I got Alaskan National Guardsmen who’ve never done anything but paint snow in Nome sending me love letters. The good news is this. Dirk? Delta Force says it all. I’d be a fool not to hire you. Short of Navy SEAL, you just don’t get a better résumé in this line of business.”

Dirk grabbed a fresh box of kebab. “SEALs are pussies.”

Beer nearly spewed out of Dinatale’s nose. “Well…like I said, Dirk. I’ve checked your bona fides, and save for a certain incident with a British brigadier, you’re rock solid.”

Dirk stiffened, but Dinatale dismissed the incident with a wave of his beer. “Hell, my one regret is that I’m going to go to my grave without ever having punched out a superior officer. That’s one you’ve got on me. Man! How’d that feel?”

“Well, at the expense of shooting myself in the foot?” Dirk smiled and shook his head. “Fantastic.”

Dinatale sighed in envy. “The good news is if you take the job I’m not your superior officer. I’m your boss. You don’t have to kick my ass. You can quit any time you want.”

“I appreciate that, Mr. Dinatale. I like your style.”

“Thanks. So let me ask you a question.”

“What’s that, Mr. Dinatale?”

“Call me Dino—everyone does.”

“Okay, Dino, shoot.”

Dinatale’s eyes went hard as he looked at Bolan. “Who’s this civilian son of a bitch?”

Dirk didn’t bat an eye. “He’s the baddest asshole you’re likely to meet today, and you already met me, so that’s sayin’ somethin’.”

“Well, that is sweet,” Dinatale admitted, but he kept his eyes unblinkingly on Bolan. Few human beings could do the hard-stare harder than a veteran sniper. “But who are you, cowboy?”

Bolan was a veteran sniper himself, and he didn’t blink. “Short version, I’m a spook without a contract.”

Dinatale broke the staring contest with a sigh and leaned back in his chair. “You got a single reference I can check?”

“Well…I done dastardly deeds with the Diggler,” Bolan suggested hopefully.

Dinatale rolled his eyes in defeat. “I’ve heard a couple people say that recently, and I must admit it does give me something of a chubby.” The CEO of Shield turned to Dirk. “So you’re willing to vouch for this spook son of a bitch?”

“He’s the only white man I currently like, present company included, of course.”

“I’ll buy that, but for the moment. On your good word, Dirk. But he’s your responsibility. It’s like he’s on parole. Got it?”

“Trust must be earned,” Dirk agreed.

“Truer words were never spoken.” The former sniper measured the two of them. “I dig you, Diggler, and I want to dig him. I really want to.”

“Give him time.” Dirk cracked himself open another beer. “He grows on you.”

Dinatale laughed. “Well, I’ll look forward to it, then.”

Dirk put on his poker face. “Forgive my impertinence, Dino, but we don’t look forward to nothin’ till we talk cash money.”

“Fair enough. You’re ex-Delta, Dirk. ’Nough said. I’ll start you at a thousand dollars a day.”

“God…damn.”

“And since you’re holding Cooper’s parole, I’ll start him at the same and give you both a thousand up front. Deal?”

“Oh, hell, yes.”

Dinatale’s eyes were on Bolan. “Coop?”

Bolan put a little eagerness in his voice. “Oh, I’m in.”

“Good enough. We’re negotiating a job right now. You may be getting your feet wet as early as tomorrow night. Meanwhile, what are you boys carrying?”

Dirk pulled out his Model 92. “Cooper got his hands on a couple of Army Berettas, but they ain’t my first choice.”

“Well, here at Shield we have a weapons-standardization policy.”

Dirk’s face soured. Delta Force personnel were used to being allowed to carry whatever they thought they required. “You gotta be shitting me.”

“No, I’m not.” Dinatale grinned. “But it isn’t to please any bean counters back in the States or for the sake of uniformity.”

“Then what are you talking about, Dino?”

Dinatale held up a happy finger. “Did you know Shield is the first private security group to have corporate sponsorship?”

Even Bolan hadn’t heard that. “Really.”

“Show ’em, Dob.”

Stanislawski went to a painted steel panel in the wall and punched in a key code. The door slid open to reveal a walk-in arms closet. The Pole pulled out an automatic carbine with a grin. “Polish Mini-Beryl short assault weapon.”

Dinatale smiled happily. “Dob’s our resident gun bunny and armorer here in the Kabul office. He used to be GROM, and with Shield’s reputation, he got the Zaklady Metalowe company of Poland to provide us with all the small arms and ammo we can use as long as every time the U.S. merc magazines, that French rag or the evening news runs a story on Shield our boys are festooned with Polish steel. Zaklady Metalowe manufactures almost all the small arms the Polish military uses and exports widely. They give us everything from pocket pistols to antitank rockets. It’s really not a bad deal. It’s good kit, and it’s done well by us here in Afghanistan and in our sister operation in Iraq.”

Bolan had used Polish weapons, as well as been on the wrong end of them. Zaklady Metalowe weapons were nothing if not reliable, and the Polish designers had brought their version of the venerable AK into the twenty-first century with all the latest electronic sights and modifications.

“Dob’ll get you checked out on all our current issue equipment tomorrow. Speaking of which, where’re you boys staying?”

Dirk scowled. “Well, I spent the last week in the stockade, and I’m still picking lice from the inn we stayed at last night.”

“We actually have a suite of room downstairs and hold down a floor in an apartment block two buildings down. We like to keep our people together in case of emergencies, and quite frankly, once it’s known around town you’re Shield, you’re as much of a target as the people we’re paid to protect. We’ll put you up here tonight.”

“Thanks, Dino.”

“No problem. Dob will draw two grand from petty cash to give you some walking-around money.”

Bolan nodded. “Not a problem, and thanks.”

“Good, all settled, then.” Dinatale nodded to Stanislawski, who rose to show Bolan and Dirk out of the office.

4

The assault rifle racked open on a smoking empty chamber, and the last spent brass casing tinkled to the concrete floor of the Shield shooting range. Dirk unshouldered the weapon and blew on the smoke oozing from the action. The silhouette target downrange had been torn to shreds by his series of 5-round bursts. “Ain’t bad. Ain’t bad.”

Bolan lowered his own smoking weapon and turned to Stanislawski. “We’ll take them.”

“Ha!” The Pole clenched a meaty fist. “Polish steel, the best!”

Bolan and Dirk had raided the Shield armory. Each man now had a .223-caliber Mini-Beryl automatic carbine to call his own. The carbines came equipped with EO Tech holographic optical sights. The stubby carbines were too short to mount grenade launchers, but both weapons had launching rings for Polish Dezamet rifle grenades machined onto their barrels. Grenades, whether hand, rifle, rocket propelled or otherwise, were issued on an as-needed basis at Shield. Everything else was available at a kid-in-the-candy-store level of need.

Dirk had selected a polymer framed WIST-94 automatic pistol. Bolan had gone for an all-steel MAG-95. He’d also picked up a little P-64 pocket automatic. The pistol was just about the size and shape of James Bond’s famous Walther PPK, only chambered for the far more powerful 9 mm Makarov round. The little gun kicked like a mule and was inaccurate beyond spitting distance, but it was a lethal little surprise to pull from deep cover, and Bolan had learned long ago that drawing a second gun was faster than reloading.

Bolan laid his rifle down on the shooting bench. Stanislawski did good work. Both the optical and iron sights were dead-on. The basement level beneath the Shield offices was split between an underground parking lot and an indoor fifty-meter shooting range.

The Pole was eyeing Bolan shrewdly. “You are excellent shot.”

“Fifty meters, a carbine with an optical sight.” Bolan shrugged. “It isn’t hard.”

“No, but your every move upon range betrays you as marksman.”

“Well, I’m no Deadshot Dave, but I try to keep my hand in.”

Stanislawski laughed. “Who is?”

A woman’s voice rang out across the range. “I’ll give the son of a bitch a run for his money if he’s man enough to bring a six-gun.” Connie Zanotto walked up to the shooting bench, unzipped her range bag and pulled out a pair of revolvers.

Bolan peered at them. At first glance they looked like Smith & Wesson .38s but the grip angles were slightly wrong, as were the fixed sights.

Zanotto looked at Bolan challengingly. “You know, I told them I didn’t want some Polish jamamatic. I told them I’d been using a four-inch Smith since I made pilot back in the eighties. So what does fat boy do?” She looked ruefully at Stanislawski.

“Zaklady Metalowe?” Bolan suggested.

“Yup, Gward .38.” Zanotto twirled the Polish revolvers around her fingers like a gunfighter. “They work just fine. I swear, you work for Shield long enough and you end up with a hard-on for Polish steel.”

“I already have a hard-on,” Dirk admitted.

Zanotto favored the commando with a very appraising look. “Oh, I’m sure you do. I hear they call you the Diggler.”

Dirk flinched at the nickname. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

“I was kinda hoping what I heard was true.”

Stanislawski shook his head. “The .38. Old-fashioned. Underpowered.”

“You know, big man? I shot exactly two Iraqis back in the day, and they didn’t complain. As a matter of fact, all they did was fall down. And revolvers? They don’t jam.”

Stanislawski shook his head derisively. “This is why women should not be in combat.”

“This is why you never get laid.”

The big Pole sighed heavily. “She always wins these conversations.”

“Back to business. I had a talk with Dino this morning.” Connie Zanotto took out a speed loader and slid six shells into one of her revolvers. “We got a job.”

Bolan broke down his MAG and began cleaning it. “What kind of job?”

“Babysitting. Local political VIP. Her name is Zahari Ziaee. Her husband was a secular reformist in the Afghan parliament. The Taliban blew his head off. So Mrs. Ziaee decided to run for his seat.”

Dirk frowned. “The Taliban must love that.”

“Word is they have a real hard-on for her. She stands no chance of being elected, but by their code her temerity has to be punished, and she has to be made an example of to other women who might likewise be tempted. They’ve put out the word they want her and her daughters gang-raped and beheaded, but they’ll settle for the whole family perishing in flames.”

Stanislawski spit out onto the range. “Taliban. Animals.”

“She has three kids,” Zanotto continued. “Camila is sixteen, Daywa is ten and the little boy, Gul Mir, is five. Since she’s a single woman with a teenage daughter, I’m going to be the one who stays close to the family. Cooper, you, Dirk, Boner and Frame will be doing roof and perimeter duty on the ranch.”

Dirk perked an eyebrow. “Boner?”

“Bonaventura. Ex-Marine. He’s a newbie with Shield, but he’s solid.”

“Where’s the ranch?” Bolan asked.

“Actually, it’s more of a camel farm. The Ziaee family does a pretty decent trade in livestock when they’re not getting themselves killed in the name of democracy. It’s about twenty klicks outside the city.”

“Anything else we need to know?”

“Yeah, Mrs. Ziaee has some local muscle on location. Supposedly former Northern Alliance vets. Supposed to be real trigger-happy badasses. We have no read on how reliable they may be. I’ll have a file on the entire situation worked up for you by noon. Meantime, I’d grab a nap if I were you. We expect to roll out of here by six.”

Dirk slid his carbine into a leather gun case with the Shield logo on it. “Actually, now that Coop and I are fat with cash, I thought we might buy some threads.”

“Well, most of the contractors around here buy over the Internet or through catalogs, but there’s a decent men’s store downtown.” Zanotto scrawled an address on the corner of a bull’s-eye target and tore it off. “Here, give this to the cabdriver, and come straight back.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Zanotto put on her hearing protectors and a pair of shooting glasses and began methodically punching holes in the black at fifty meters.

Dirk waved his little scrap of paper. “Let’s go shopping!”

“WHAT HAVE YOU GOT for me, Bear?” Bolan typed. He sat in an Internet café in downtown Kabul. He’d taken a workstation with his back to the wall, and Dirk stood guard. Information scrolled down the chat window.

“Dobrus Stanislawski achieved the rank of sergeant and then was accepted into GROM. He achieved the rank of chorazy, which is like a warrant officer but different. Sort of more than a sergeant but less than a lieutenant. He served in Iraq. GROM wanted him to reenlist but he went private, went to Afghanistan and Shield snapped him up. He was also on the Polish army’s Olympic weight-lifting team.”

So far Dob was living up to his profile. “What about the Zanotto woman?” Bolan typed.

“Constantina Zanotto achieved the rank of second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. One of the first women to pass the Ranger training school. Also one of the first women rated to fly a Black Hawk helicopter. She flew some pretty hairy missions in Iraq delivering and retrieving Rangers. She also won a few Miss Fitness competitions. Her shtick was to wear a camouflage bikini and combat boots. About ten years ago, she left the Army. She went to Hollywood, did some stunt work and got a few bit parts in some TV action shows. Then she got into celebrity bodyguard work. About five years ago, Shield decided they needed some qualified women on the payroll. I guess she missed the action and flying. She signed up. The other rumor I dug up is that she and Dinatale were an item for the first year or two.”

Bolan filed that one away. “What about Mrs. Ziaee?”

“She’s a marked woman, Striker. The Taliban hated her husband, but her? They consider her a personal affront to God. They want her head, literally. And another thing you should know. I’ve been researching Shield operations over the past two years. There’s a reason every guy who ever served wants to sign up with them. They’re the highest paying and most professional outfit of their type. They go to the worst trouble spots of the world and see a lot of action, but despite their reputation they’ve lost some high-profile clients in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Bolan frowned. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying there’s a pattern here. I can’t put my finger on it, but I don’t like it. And when Shield has lost men, it’s always the newbies who get killed. I’m saying you better be careful.”

Bolan checked his watch. “Dirk and I have to roll. I’ll check back in when I can.”

“Copy that.”

Bolan rose. “Dirk, you ready to roll?”

“Yeah.” Dirk finished his coffee. “So what’s the good news?”

“There’s a good chance me, you and Mrs. Ziaee are gonna get fed to the lions tonight.”

Shorkot village

“CAMELS…” Dirk wrinkled his nose in disgust.

Bolan had been around the beasts on more than one occasion, and they were nothing if not fragrant. “You get used to it.”

“What if I don’t want to get used to it?”

The Ziaee summerhouse was typical old-world Afghan clay cube construction, though on a grander scale than most of the other homes dotting the hillsides. Roughly a hundred camels lowed and groaned behind a ramshackle enclosure that looked as if it had been made out of rope and driftwood. Goats and chickens ranged freely. Dusk was falling. Bolan powered up his night-vision monocular and scanned the hillsides. Camels grunted. Goats bleated. The chickens were roosting for the night. A few children still ran and played as the sky turned purple.

Dirk checked his own night-vision equipment. “Coop?”

“Yeah.”

“I got a bad feeling.”

When a former Delta Force commando got a bad feeling, it was a good idea to listen, and Bolan himself had been having bad feelings for the past hour. “Me, too.”

“Remember what you said about us getting fed to the lions?”

“Yeah.”

“In my experience, when the lions come they bring RPGs.”

“Yeah, that’s my experience, too.”

Dirk reached behind a hay bale and pulled out a pair of Dezamet rifle grenades. “Here, have some lion insurance.”

Bolan took the dual-purpose 40 mm weapon. “How’d you get a hold of these?”

“Stole ’em from Dob’s stash.”

“How’d you sneak them past him?” Bolan considered himself a past master at scrounging, but he was impressed. “Dob was with us the whole time.”

“I shoved them down my pants.” Dirk grinned from ear to ear. “And who’s going to suspect they weren’t just more of me?”

Bolan jerked his head toward the back door. “Stand tall. We got company.”

Camila Ziaee came out bearing a silver tea service. Zahari Ziaee was a handsome woman. Her daughter Camila was nothing short of stunning. She was the kohl-eyed tawny beauty of every merchant sailor’s fevered dream. She spoke in halting English. “The…gentlemen? Will take tea?”

“Oh, hell, yeah,” Dirk replied eagerly.

“Dirk…”

“I mean, yes, please, Miss Ziaee.” Dirk smiled angelically. “That would be lovely.”

Camila blushed charmingly, placed the tray on the hay bale and poured steaming tea into tiny silver cups. Bolan nodded. “Thank you, Camila.”

Camila Ziaee blushed brighter. “Welcome.”

“Camila!” Mrs. Ziaee called out from the back door. “Miss Connie wishes you in the house!”

Bolan knew she was speaking English for his and Dirk’s benefit.

Camila shot Bolan a tentative smile. “You defend us. Thank you.” She left the tray and ran back to the house. Mrs. Ziaee waited until her daughter was ensconced and walked out.

Bolan scanned the perimeter. “Mrs. Ziaee, neither you or your daughter should be outside after dark.”

“This is my home. I will not be a prisoner in it.”

“I’m not saying you’re a prisoner. You’re a target.” Bolan glanced around the rocky hills. “And any Taliban with a telescopic sight can reach out and touch you. Mr. Dirk and I will kill him, guaranteed, but unless we’re very lucky the Taliban will get the first shot. Do you understand?”

Mrs. Ziaee had seen forty years of war and been widowed at gunpoint. Hard lines of suffering had been etched onto her face. She looked into Bolan’s eyes openly. “You are kind to my family. You are kind to our servants. You are a good man, Cooper. I was right to go to Shield.”

Mrs. Ziaee refused to wear the burka, but part of her political strategy was to wear the full robe and apron ensemble of a respectable Afghan housewife when she wasn’t wearing a Western women’s business suit. Beneath the apron Bolan could see the bulge of a pistol. Bolan reached down to his ankle holster and drew his P-64 pocket pistol. “Give this to your daughter. It’s loaded with a round in the chamber. The safety is off. All she has to do is squeeze the trigger. Tell her if they get past us to shoot any man who comes for her in the face.”

Mrs. Ziaee’s jaw set. “You think the Taliban will come tonight.”

“Mr. Dirk has a bad feeling.” Bolan glanced around the little valley. There were a million places to hide. “And I think they are already here. Stay with Connie.”

Mrs. Ziaee took the pistol and drew her own Tokarev pistol from beneath her apron. “As you say, so shall it be done.” Mrs. Ziaee went back into the house with a pistol in each hand.

“Don’t look around or anything, but—” Dirk flicked off the safety of his carbine “—you’re right. They’re here.”

Bolan clicked the tactical radio on his vest. “Boner, I think we got company.”

Arcelio Bonaventura was concealed up on the roof. The former Marine marksman had a full-length Beryl rifle rather than a carbine, and it was equipped with a PCS-6 passive night-vision scope. “Coop, I don’t see nada.”

“Frame?”

Jimmy Frame was out front watching the dirt road that led to the house. Frame was formerly 101st Army Airborne. “Nothing on the road, Coop.”

Connie Zanotto appeared at the door cradling a Glauberyt submachine gun with a laser designator mounted beneath the barrel. “What’s going on, Cooper?”

“I think we’re about to get hit.”

“Anyone see anything?”

“Nope.”

“So…” Zanotto considered this. “What? ‘By the pricking of my thumbs something wicked this way comes’?”

Bolan smiled slightly. It seemed everyone in Afghanistan was quoting MacBeth these days. “Yeah, something like that.”

Zanotto glanced around the ring of hills. Darkness was falling across the little valley like a blanket. “It’s over a thousand yards for a sniper shot. Even Dino would have a problem with this one. What’re you thinking, mortars?”

“No, they’re not outside looking down. They’re inside already.”

“How?”

Bolan gazed at the lights of the village winking on a few hundred yards away. “This valley was owned by the Taliban until the boys from the Tenth Mountain Division kicked them out. I think some of them never left. They just melted back into the population. I’m thinking there’s a Taliban cell here, and they’ve been reactivated.”

“Yeah, so how are they going to come?”

“Hard and fast. Once the firefight starts, gunships can be here from Kabul in twenty minutes. They don’t have time for a siege. I’m thinking a storm of RPGs and then they human-wave the place. With any luck, they take Mrs. Ziaee and her children alive, drag them to some cave and make a movie while they cut off their heads. Ours, too. On the other hand, they don’t think we have any heavy weapons. A car bomb wouldn’t be out of the question.”

Zanotto looked at Bolan quizzically. “We don’t have any heavy weapons.”

Technically, she was right. Rifle grenades were light-support weapons, but Bolan wasn’t going to contradict her or let her know they’d been filching Shield ordnance until it became necessary. “Yeah.”

“Well, you’re just full of good news, aren’t you?” Zanotto motioned toward the front of the house. “What are you thinking? We load up the family wagon and bolt?”

Shield bought nothing but the best. The team had arrived in an International Armoring Corporation Ford Expedition. The SUV was armored to Threat Level V and would stop an armor-piercing 30.06 rifle round. A rocket-propelled grenade, on the other hand, would light it up like the Fourth of July.

“No, the village will be a shooting gallery. We’d get greased in the cross fire,” Bolan argued.

“So, what’s the plan?”

“We kill them as they come. I counted four vehicles in the village. Two pickups, an open jeep and a VW Bug. The minute they move, we know.”

Boner spoke from the roof. “Connie?”

“What ya got, Boner?”

“I got headlights. In the village. I—”

Boner was interrupted by a dull thud and a puff of yellow flame from an alley on the edge of town.

“Shit!” Frame shouted aloud, no longer bothering with the radio. “Connie! Someone’s fired some kind of—”

The roof lit up in a yellow halo of fire, and Boner screamed. A pair of headlights tore out of the village, followed by another and another. Bolan raised his rifle but kept his sights on the dark recesses between the closely packed mud houses, scanning for the grenadier. Dirk’s carbine opened up, as well as Frame’s from the front of the house. Tracers streamed toward the oncoming vehicles. The VW was leading the pack down the dirt road, and a pair of pickups bounced and jolted across the rocky terrain like outriders. The jeep followed behind, completing the diamond formation.

Connie Zanotto shouted in her radio. “Shield Home, this is Connie Z at Shorkot village! We are under heavy attack! Boner is down! Alert the military we are under Taliban attack!”

“RPGs!” Dirk shouted. “In the trucks!”

“Forget the trucks.” Bolan slid his rifle grenade over the muzzle of his weapon and kept his eyes on the edge of town. “The car—take the car.”

The VW was burning toward them at fifty miles per hour. Bolan could see only one occupant crouched behind the wheel, and he was pretty sure the driver had no intention of stopping.

“Copy that!” Dirk clicked his own grenade onto his carbine and flipped up the sight. Bullets ripped from the oncoming vehicles, seeking out the team. Dirk crouched immobile as stone, carbine leveled. He had only one shot, and he was waiting for it.

Zanotto’s submachine began ripping long bursts at the oncoming vehicles. An RPG-7 rocket hissed from the back of one of the pickups in response, and the Ziaee family screamed within as the antitank weapon slammed into the side of the house. The ancient construction of the house was their best defense. Antitank weapons were designed to burn through the steel hulls of armored vehicles and incinerate the men within. Thick clay walls were as good a defense as any, save that they were brittle and successive hits would crumble them. Kalashnikov rifles crackled from the jeeps and trucks, and tracers streamed toward the house.

“Taking the shot!” Dirk boomed. The rifle grenade thumped away from his carbine at two hundred feet per second and spiraled between the oncoming VW’s headlights.

The Bug blew sky-high.

Dirk had taken his shot at a hundred yards, but even from that distance Bolan squinted against the wash of heat from the blast wave. There was nothing left of the vehicle. Bolan figured there had to have been at least fifty kilograms of high explosive, but that was the least of his concerns. He was waiting for a shot of his own.

Zanotto’s voice was an angry snarl. “Christ, Cooper! Why aren’t you shooting?”

Bolan’s eyes suddenly went to slits as he caught sight of his target. The grenade’s report was drowned out by the sound of gunfire, but he caught the pale yellow flash from the village. Bolan squeezed his trigger, and the little carbine recoiled brutally against his shoulder as it hurled the grenade toward the village. He had no time to gauge its effect.

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