The sun eased into the western horizon, splashing the rugged beauty of snowcapped mountains a warm red.
Bolan crouched, checking his weapons and gear prior to moving out. Tarik Khan, Alja and the village jukiabkr approached him shortly after the traditionally light evening meal of flat bread and tea. Bolan quelled an immediate irritation at the arrogance with which the jukiabkr carried himself.
"It seems a Soviet convoy has chosen to camp for the night two kilometers from here," Tarik Khan told Bolan. "Trouble with one of their vehicles."
"Let them be," Bolan growled. "Let's move out. Our fight with the Russians is elsewhere."
"I, uh, quite agree. Unfortunately, it is the request of our host, the jukiabkr, and is as such a demand, that my force assist his in attacking the Soviet camp. To refuse would be interpreted as a direct insult after the hospitality they have extended us."
Bolan glanced at the jukiabkr. The village leader returned a glare of pointed rudeness but said nothing. "Does he speak English?"
"No, but I am compelled to render a faithful translation of all you say."
"Fine. Have you explained to him the importance of our mission?"
Alja spoke up before his commander could reply.
"I say we aid the jukiabkr. Are not the Russians to be slaughtered wherever we find them when they do not expect us? The reason these soldiers risk camping in this area at all and do not push on with their remaining vehicles is that they believe this village to be secure. We can take them in an hour's time and easily be on our way. Allah has placed these Russian pigs before us to be slaughtered in the holy name of Islam. Can we turn our backs on the will of Allah?"
Bolan delivered a chilled glare.
"Alja Malikyar, you are a brother in arms and a brave man in the field of combat, but your zealousness will get you killed."
"Then that, too, is Allah's will," the feisty hill fighter shot back. "I live to slay my enemy in His name and so shall I die."
Tarik Khan looked to Bolan.
"You see how it is, my friend. Many of my men feel this way."
"I thought you were in command of this force, Tarik Khan."
"I am. But we speak now, kuvii Bolan, of religion and tradition and the power they have to shape a man's destiny, something your Western cultures have forgotten."
The jukiabkr groused a belligerent demand in Pashto, the language in which Tarik Khan responded before translating for Bolan. "He wants to know if we, you and I, are with him. I have told the jukiabkr that I must discuss the matter with you."
"I appreciate that. And now that we've discussed it?"
"Do you appreciate my predicament, kuvii Bolan? Allah directs my fate, too. I have misgivings but it can be no other way in light of who and what I and my people are."
Bolan had not come all this distance to sacrifice the mission to these people's religious fervor. He had come to help, but he could not help them with themselves. But this was still his mission as well as theirs, and if they did not consider the mission objective he would have to for them.
He restrained his irritation and a strong urge to punch Hash Breath in the mouth.
He said to Tarik Khan, "You have surely noted the fogged mental condition of the jukiabkr. His men are in no better shape and they've been working in the fields all day. If we go into battle with them, it will be suicide for too many of your men no matter how good they are, and will cost us manpower we need to accomplish our objective." He refrained from mentioning details and Parachinar and hoped Tarik Khan and his men had done the same.
"This is a proud but foolish tribe," Tarik Khan explained to Bolan. "They would never allow us to do their fighting for them."
The village leader snarled an impatient demand that needed no translation.
Bolan resigned himself to the only possible course open to him if he wanted to salvage any hope at all for the Devil's Rain hit.
"Tell him I'm in," Bolan told Tarik Khan. "Advise him of my specialties; I have explosives. Tell the jukiabkr that I can infiltrate the Russians' encampment, then you and his mujahedeen can swoop in for the mop-up. With the damage I can do, that could cut our losses to nothing. If we come in blazing, those soldiers could defend their position and call in air support, which would take only minutes to arrive. We've got to level them with one decisive strike."
"You are right, of course," Tarik Khan said, nodding. He proceeded to translate Bolan's words to the jukiabkr. The village leader listened, scoffed in contempt, then turned and stalked away.
Alja Malikyar shook his head, watching the jukiabkr return to a cluster of his own men.
"It is indeed unfortunate we must ally ourselves with such unwashed creatures. I beseech your forgiveness, malik Tarik Khan, for so disrespectfully voicing my thoughts moments ago."
"What did Hash Breath just say?" Bolan asked.
Tarik Khan paused.
"He said he would not take orders from an infidel such as yourself. He will allow you to do as you suggest, but he is the one who will direct his men when to attack the Soviet convoy whether you have finished your placing of explosives or not. He said you will not live out this night."
Lieutenant Josef Bucheksky wondered if he had not made a grave error in judgment in ordering the fifteen-man unit under his command to encircle their vehicles — two BTR-40's, the GAZ tanker that had thrown a rod and the armored personnel carrier that had carried troops to guard the precious fuel delivered to the outpost in distant Baghlan to the north. A hundred kilometers from Kabul and they break down! Bucheksky had ordered his men to camp here for the night. Sergeant Lamskoy, the group's ranking noncom, immediately set up security measures within the circle of vehicles, which reminded the lieutenant of a scene he had once seen in a German-made, government-approved film about the American west; the twenty-three-year-old officer nursed a fascination with American history that he tactfully refrained from mentioning to those with whom he served.
Bucheksky fired a cigarette and tried to let the peacefulness of the night relax him. A man felt enveloped by the elements here in the wilderness, he thought, which is as a man should feel.
Then he reprimanded himself for entertaining such useless notions and returned his attention to the problem at hand.
Bucheksky had been in Afghanistan only a month and had yet to see combat. He recognized the queasiness in his stomach as fear. We should have pushed on, he thought for the hundredth time since the gloom of night had descended across this desolate valley less than an hour ago.
Camping here had seemed the right thing to do at the time, in the bright light of day. The only village nearby had never shown signs of antigovernment activity, had seemed friendly as some of the mountain tribes appeared to be; the sensible ones, thought Bucheksky.
The "highway" cutting through the valley toward Kabul, so badly in need of repair, was quite another matter and on further reflection the young officer decided he had made the right decision, especially taking into account the trouble in the capital last night that officers in the field had been notified of: a strike at the very heart of the high command. There were no actual details and it was too soon to tell if the assault had been an isolated incident. The mujahedeen had never struck at the nation's capital before; a suicide fringe could be responsible. Or was this the beginning of an orchestrated counteroffensive by a united Muslim front?
The lieutenant considered himself a man of letters marred by a personality flaw he had yet to overcome; he had the sensibilities of an artist but had not developed a strength of conviction necessary to achieve independence of thought and action — and he knew it. Bucheksky's father was a retired general and upon Josef's completing the state-required formal education there had been no question that he would follow in his father's and grandfather's footsteps to officers' training school and a career in the military service of Russia. At least Bucheksky had never questioned it and here he was, a man who knew he would one day pen the twentieth-century epic of his people, or so he hoped, and who had for the time being rationalized appeasing his father with the hope that a military career would at some not-too-distant point afford him the financial stability to subsidize such aspirations. Though a loyal soldier of the Soviet Union, Bucheksky remained a man who loved American jazz and detective stories when he could find them. But where was he now? In some desolate, primitive country, learning nothing but fear; facing his own cowardice before a real world that he tied to himself he understood and could write about.
Here stood Lieutenant Josef Bucheksky on his first true mission, though in reality it was nothing but a minor exercise and his superiors knew it, this routine accompanying of the fuel truck through a pacified countryside. But Bucheksky had read all too vividly the hostility in the eyes of every Afghan civilian they passed and the flutter in his stomach would not go away. Nor would the foreboding that he had made a mistake. Sergeant Lamskoy strode over. The noncom had twenty-two years' experience on the lieutenant, yet no conflict had developed between them. The elder soldier had responded to something in Bucheksky and had sort of taken the younger man under his wing, though their exchanges recognized their respective ranks.
Bucheksky felt a sense of security and safety just knowing Lamskoy was here tonight.
"The sentries will be rotating every two hours, sir," the sergeant reported. "That will keep them fresh. Kabul will send out mechanics and parts first thing in the morning."
"But not tonight, eh?
"This area..."
"Yes, I know, Sergeant. Friendly. Then I wonder why Kabul won't send us help tonight?"
"Probably don't want to spare any men after what happened last night," the noncom opined.
"I've got a feeling we're not being told the full story on that. I wonder why..." Bucheksky finished smoking his cigarette and flicked it into the darkness beyond the circle of vehicles. He watched the tiny red dot of the butt arc and for a minute sensed the presence of a breeze but there was no breeze. But the sensation was so momentary he dismissed it as nerves.
"When have we ever been told the whole truth, Sergeant?"
Lamskoy frowned.
"Excuse me for saying so, sir, but talk like that does not become an officer."
"Our civilians wait in endless lines for the barest necessities," Bucheksky went on, "and the only way a man can find security in a steady job is in military service. I sometimes think our country's expansionism has nothing to do with political ideology, Sergeant, but serves to save an economy that, if it fell, would mean many changes in our government at home. Then maybe we would have peace.
"But I suppose it is the soldier who always wants peace the most, is it not, for it is the soldier who is sent to fight and die when war comes.
"Why are we so far from home, Sergeant? Man to man. Why don't we all just march home? What would happen then? Would it be the end of the world?"
Lamskoy rested a hand on the younger man's arm.
"I do not hear your words. Speak no further. You are Russian. We are soldiers. We serve our motherland. It is our duty." At the instant Lamskoy spoke that last word, the world erupted with the fury of hell and Josef Bucheksky instinctively knew that his foreboding had been prophecy.
Explosions shattered reality from three of the vehicles across the encampment, balls of flame igniting the night.