Bolan had made a careful study of the Soviet encampment alongside the road and assessed its security as tight, formidable, set up by someone of seasoned field experience.
The outer perimeter consisted of four sentries, positioned a distance of fifty yards from one another outside the small camp, each holding an AK-47 as he patrolled a larger circumference, ten yards out from where the tanker, personnel carrier and two armored cars had been drawn into a circle.
The nightstalker made a third outer circle as he moved unnoticed to thoroughly reconnoiter and plan his one-man penetration of those defenses.
At the open spaces between each vehicle, inside the camp, stood another sentry.
Bolan discerned a Soviet officer who stood smoking a cigarette, staring out into the darkness. The man was unaware that close to sixty pairs of eyes from two separate groups were at that moment trained on him like a specimen under a microscope, from either side of this valley in which the Russians had been forced to spend the night.
Bolan counted sixteen soldiers down there, seven wrapped in sleeping bags on the ground in the center of the circle, no doubt resting up for their turn at standing guard. But Bolan knew the 50-to-16 odds were not overkill because those troopers were Soviet soldiers, among the very toughest in the world.
The thirty or so mujahedeen of Tarik Khan's force waited along the ridges and crests of the western wall of the small valley while twenty ragtag ruffians of the jukiabkr held the high ground to the east. After both sides had been deployed, Bolan had left Tarik Khan's group on a southeasterly approach to the camp on the valley floor. The penetration specialist had suppressed his misgivings about this hit and concentrated on a by the numbers infiltration between two of the outer sentries.
The only thing that mattered now was the success of the mission, which meant doing as much damage as he could and getting away without casualties to his own side.
When Bolan got past the patrolling sentries, he moved first to one of the BTR-40 armored cars.
He held some of the plastic explosive in his hands. He knelt silently before the hulking shadow of the war machine and wedged some death putty against the axle at the front tire.
The sentry posted between the BTR-40 and the armored personnel carrier did not even blink when shadows shifted before his eyes a couple of paces away.
The night-hit expert in black proceeded to plant more timed explosives in the three other vehicles.
He went undetected during the two-and-a-half-minute operation. When Bolan passed the juncture between the next BTR and the elongated shadows of the tanker, he noted through his NVD goggles that the officer had been joined by a tough-looking noncom.
Bolan caught enough of their exchange as he passed to remind the Man from Blood that these were human beings he had to kill tonight, not some targets in a game, the officer voicing a damn accurate assessment of the real reasons for the USSR'S globe grabbing.
Bolan heard the noncom urge his officer to cool it. There seemed an almost father-son regard between the two. Then the nightkiller blocked such thoughts and continued with his work.
He paused until a sentry strolled past, and when the Executioner saw an opening he broke from the tanker, as stealthy as a wraith. For a heartbeat Bolan thought his presence had been discovered when the Russian flicked a cigarette butt that arced to within a foot of him. The officer had watched it and Bolan thought he saw the man pause in his conversation with the noncom. The Executioner had remained still, fearing that the officer had sensed Bolan, but he guessed the officer decided it could only be the breeze or something and the Executioner got clear, past the sentries to several hundred yards away from where Tarik Khan's men waited.
Bolan flung himself in a forward dive to the valley floor one heartbeat before the plastique started ripping the night apart with hellfire behind him.
After the last of the clustered explosions finished, gas tanks of the vehicles mushrooming golden balls of flame in the night sky, the nighthitter stood, gripped his MAC-10 in firing position and moved in. The valley echoed with the unearthly shrieks of Allah's holy warriors as mujahedeen stormed down from either side of the valley to join the fray, each force reserving at least half of its men while the others rushed in firing weapons.
Chaos and confusion reigned within the circle of vehicles that had erupted into a circle of death and destruction.
When the first rapid series of explosions rumbled from the near distance like approaching thunder, Katrina Mozzhechkov experienced stomach spasms that matched those rumbles of doom note for note.
She sat on a chair near the door of a vacant farmhouse. The occupants had left, the man to fight with the mujahedeen, his wife to wait somewhere with the other village women, shunning Katrina as they had all day. Katrina felt afraid but she tried to fight her fear, to ride out the emotion, telling herself that because her moods had fluctuated so since last night, after what had happened to her lover, this fear would pass, too.
She feared also for the man known as the Executioner, and as she heard the faint secondary explosions, almost inaudible, she considered again what her fate among these people would be if Mack Bolan were killed in the raging battle or otherwise could not protect her. He had strongly requested she remain in the village. She understood he did not want her exposed to unnecessary danger, knowing she carried a new life within her. But she had insisted on taking her chances anyway, until he explained that there would be no way possible she could survive. He trusted Tarik Khan's men implicitly, but he feared the local men had probably already planned to kill her as an enemy of Allah and to claim it an enemy hit during the heat of the battle. Katrina knew the big American had to be right when she considered again the hatred with which she had been regarded all day in this strange, terrible place. And so she agreed to stay behind, but as she heard those rumbles of war, Katrina Mozzhechkov felt many things: fear, anger, loss... and a frustration that would not go away; a need to do something, not sit here on the sidelines.
She had to prove herself.
To the unborn child within her.
To the memory of her lost lover.
And most of all to herself.
She stood, gripping the M-16 that Bolan had left her, and started toward the door.
The force of the exploding about of the tanker pitched Sergeant Lamskoy into Lieutenant Bucheksky.
Bucheksky somehow registered the lucid thought, Thank God the tanker is empty! as he and the noncom toppled backward onto the ground toward the center of the circle of vehicles.
Dazed, the lieutenant started to his feet the instant they landed. He reached for his bolstered side arm and realized Sergeant Lamskoy made no such similar effort.
Bucheksky looked, knowing what he would find, and fought to hold back the cry of panic and the bile that threatened to spew from his throat when he saw what remained of the man who had been like a father to him.
Sergeant Lamskoy's corpse lay draped across the officer's lower legs, the sergeant's back a charred, shredded ruin, the tunic ripped away, all visible flesh seared into puckered, smoldering horror around a dark hole where a chunk of flaming shrapnel had skewered him.
Bucheksky scrambled to his feet, the Tokarev pistol in his fist. He crouched as he looked around frantically at the holocaust that had befallen his command: the screams of one man in flames razored the air, the soldier squealing as he rolled about on the ground. The stench of burned human flesh made Bucheksky nauseous. He saw the body of another soldier lying in an impossible position, the man's legs torn off at midthigh and nowhere to be seen; the man mercifully was dead or soon would be.
Flames licked the night sky as everything burned.
The soldiers in the center of the encampment stumbled to their feet, grabbing rifles with the confusion of men torn from deep sleep. Bucheksky felt an odd surreal objectivity grip him. He somehow felt oddly removed from the sounds and terror of battle, and although part of it, still able to observe it all and know exactly what he should do. Survival instinct, he thought, as he flared into action. His training replaced fear now that the battle raged.
More gunfire poured down on the flaming camp from the slopes of the valley. Battle cries in Pashto accompanied the red winking of automatic gunfire as rounds whistled into the camp.
A soldier near Bucheksky pitched sideways when the left side of his skull exploded from the impact of an incoming round into a dark mist against the firelight.
The sentries on the outside perimeter held, falling flat to the ground and firing auto bursts at the attacking waves of mujahedeen.
In the illumination from the fires, Bucheksky saw one of his soldiers lifted off the ground into a backward somersault as a bullet cored his face.
The lieutenant turned to shout something, anything, to his men who were now rushing to openings between the flaming vehicles, toward the attackers who had come within ten yards out there in the dark.
There would be no contacting Kabul by radio, Bucheksky knew; the explosions had effectively destroyed all his unit's communications equipment.
He had heard no incoming missiles but how could the explosives have been planted without detection by his men?
Before Bucheksky could encourage his men he saw something. His eyes had almost missed it until he focused to see it again. A shadow, a human shadow, darting past the glow of a flaming armored car. Not a soldier! Bucheksky realized.
A big apparition in combat black was striding past the fires, pumping a mercy round into the flaming soldier who had somehow stayed alive and kept squealing until the specter freed the man's soul.
Bucheksky moved in that direction, pistol up, searching for the phantom. Could one man have planted all these explosives?
Done all this damage? Who was this executioner of so many good soldiers? Bucheksky would stop him.
He saw the combat shadow again, too late. The specter tossed something that could only be a grenade and the ghost faded back into the night. The young officer angled away from the melee of his men returning fire at the mujahedeen.
The grenade exploded with a ferocity that blasted apart one soldier and hurled three others aside like a child's discarded toys. Two of the men got dazedly to their feet, and the third shuddered in death throes where he fell.
Gunfire and grunts of hand-to-hand combat from outside the circle of flame peppered the night.
"Move out of the circle! Disperse! We're easy targets down here!" Bucheksky shouted to his men.
The crisp authority carried across the melee, the men toting their AK's out of the flickering ring of dying flames to confront their attackers. Bucheksky fanned the night with his pistol. He cut into the direction where he guessed that the nightshadow would turn next if he continued the progression of his last two appearances.
The officer heard curses in Russian and Pashto all around him amid the noise of combat, but all that mattered to him at that instant was staying alive.
He sensed movement coming at him from his right, the opposite side from where he had guessed he would intercept the lone death-bringer in combat black.
Bucheksky crouched and tracked his pistol in the direction of the sound and glimpsed a mujahedeen guerrilla in traditional Afghan garb shouting something in Pashto and triggering off a burst of automatic fire in the lieutenant's direction.
The Russian officer dodged to the side in time and squeezed off one round from his Tokarev, the first time he had ever fired on a man. The guerrilla caught the bullet through his open mouth in midscream; the slug blew away the back of his skull.
Bucheksky felt nothing except the urge to stay alive. He turned in the direction where he had expected to see the nightscorcher and realized as he turned that his luck had run out and so had his life.
The shadow in black dashed past Josef Bucheksky on his way to another point in the battle.
The young officer brought up his pistol as quickly as he could. Without slowing the nightscorcher triggered a burst from an Ingram MAC-10 as he jogged past.
For twenty-three-year-old Josef Bucheksky, everything went black. The Executioner shifted combat-cool eyes from the toppling body of the officer to survey the battle winding down around him. The two mujahedeen forces had descended with a fury from higher ground upon the Russian encampment. The jukiabkr had held back the signal for his men to attack as Bolan had hoped he would until after the plastique had exploded.
After planting the puttylike charges, Bolan had held back as the mujahedeen delivered blistering salvos of autofire into the flaming camp during their charge to the valley floor from west and east. Bolan had stayed well out of the softening-up fire. He had fired on the outside sentry to the north, canceling that man before the guy could find suitable cover.
In no time the mujahedeen had overrun and taken out the other three sentries, two of the troopers falling in brutal hand-to-hand combat with men of Tarik Khan's force.
Hash Breath and his boys chose to hold well back, Bolan had noted, though their spotty fire into the camp toppled another of the Soviet infantrymen inside the ring of fire.
Bolan had next heard the snap of a pistol shot almost lost beneath the mix of close-quarter warfare and glanced as a young Soviet officer drilled and killed Alja Malikyar with a well-placed shot through Alja's open, screaming mouth. Alja had foolishly rushed the officer, shouting zealous Islamic phrases as many other mujahedeen fighters did, except Alja shouted too soon.
Damn fool, Bolan had thought sourly. So Alja is with his beloved Mohammed. What a waste. Bolan had taken out the officer with a burst from the MAC-10 before moving on.
The third sentry had made the mistake of angling away from the flame light right into the thickest of the jukiabkr's force where Hash Breath and some of his men had held the screaming soldier down on the ground and laughingly beat him to death with their rifle butts.
Bolan disciplined an urge to level those mujahedeen, but for once he had no choice in his allies in battle.
He catfooted back to the smoldering hulk of the wreck of the personnel carrier.
Three Russian soldiers remained alive, moving well away from one another in an attempt to secure cover that did not exist. They saw their executioner and tracked three AK-47's as one in his direction, but Bolan had the killing edge.
He delivered a fusillade of scything slugs that hammered two men, hurling them into the smoldering ruin of a BTR-40 where their dead flesh fried. The Executioner drew a bead with his M-16 on the last soldier, just as that one bought it from a hail of bullets from Tarik Khan's assault rifle.
The last Soviet soldier flew backward to the ground in a wide-armed sprawl with a line of holes tracked left to right across his chest.
With the fading battle sounds came the hubbub of the jukiabkr's men descending on the corpses like buzzards, stripping dead soldiers of everything from uniforms to weapons to money, mob-rule anarchy dominating the scene.
Bolan turned away in distaste. He slammed another magazine into his Ingram.
Tarik Khan did the same with his AK.
Bolan approached Tarik Khan's men, who were regrouped in subdued businesslike fashion, a striking contrast to the scavengers from the nearby village whom they regarded with contempt as they counted their own numbers.
"It seems the only loss we suffered was the unfortunate Alja, a noble man whose soul now knows a better place," Tarik Khan told Bolan. "My men and I thank you, kuvii Bolan, for the quick retribution you bestowed upon the infidel who took Alja's life. We shall move out at once to begin our march."
Bolan glanced over the malik's shoulder.
The village jukiabkr strode toward them, flanked by two of his men who gripped their weapons, old Lee-Enfields, with fingers on the triggers and tense eyes closely watching Bolan, Tarik Khan and the others.
The jukiabkr halted half a dozen paces from Bolan, as did his men, arrogantly, his belligerence nastier from the excitement of seeing bodies shredded and blood flowing.
The same as those cannibals who were about to torture Lansdale and enjoy it last night in Kabul, thought Bolan.
The jukiabkr snarled in Pashto, aiming his rifle at the ground. He did not have quite enough guts to raise it on Bolan. Yet. But recklessness shone in Hash Breath's glazed eyes.
Tarik Khan sensed Bolan tensing for a kill. The mujahedeen chief placed a hand upon Bolan's shoulder so as not to interfere with Bolan's response but to give the big guy reason to pause.
"Please, brother," he half-whispered to Bolan, his voice taut. "This is but one village, yes, but for you or one of my men to slay this man would result in a tribal feud that would do nothing but harm the cause of all mujahedeen."
Hash Breath snarled something with a vigorous nod in Bolan's direction. The men with the jukiabkr inched out to each side until Bolan's glance stopped them.
Tarik Khan translated.
"He knows who you are, my friend. He knows you are wanted by the Soviets and your own people. He demands that I assist him in killing you and turning in your head to the Russians for a reward. He can then blame you for tonight's attack and claim the reward offered for you."
The jukiabkr did not like Tarik Khan speaking in English to the American. He snarled again and made a gesture with his rifle, though he still did not pull the weapon up anywhere near a firing position.
Bolan kept his eyes on Hash Breath.
"And what is your decision this time, kuvii Tarik Khan?"
"You should not have to ask, my friend. Some things are worth a blood feud, such as friendship between men like ourselves. We disagreed about tonight's action; this does not mean I no longer consider you my brother. These are not my brothers; their own tribe would be disgraced by them."
The jukiabkr growled one more time, a single harsh grunt to build up his own courage and that of his two gunmen.
The confrontation crackled with tension.
"Tell this scumbag," Bolan said in precise, even tones, "that unless he shows me his back right now, he and his two boys are dead meat. They've got five seconds."
Tarik Khan's eyes smiled. He stepped away from Bolan but faced the other tribesmen to stand with his own rifle at the ready. He translated.
The jukiabkr's mouth tightened, his eyes shot anger at Tarik Khan for having tipped his hand to the American when the jukiabkr thought he had the malik in line and expected cooperation.
Four seconds dragged by like an eternity to Tarik Khan. He caught a, peripheral impression of the big American in blacksuit, like a statue, firm, unmoving, unstoppable, slit blue eyes like cold bits of ice, no fear of death.
The jukiabkr read those eyes, too.
The village leader turned abruptly and stalked off without a word, his men following him without hesitation.
The Executioner watched the jukiabkr's retreat, not lowering his Ingram.
"You are wise not to have killed him since you did not have to," Tarik Khan said. "You are wise in most things, it would seem, kuvii Bolan. But enough talk. My men are ready. We begin the march."
"Enough talk," Bolan agreed. "Let's move out."
None of the locals attempted to stop Tarik Khan or the icy-eyed American and their men as the malik's silent mujahedeen fell into a double file behind their leaders. They headed toward the village where the Russian woman was waiting, leaving the jukiabkr's men to paw over dead Soviet soldiers. Tarik Khan felt loathing from the jukiabkr and could sense his eyes burning holes into the malik's back. Tarik Khan knew the village leader would not take lightly the disgrace he suffered in the showdown with Bolan. The jukiabkr would not order his men to open fire, for these were a cowardly lot. But Tarik Khan had a slithering premonition that in some ways it would have been better for this mission if Bolan had killed the man he called Hash Breath, regardless of the strife among mountain tribes such an act would have caused. Tarik Khan's force could not afford another delay if they hoped to stop the Devil's Rain in time.
Before the war, Tarik Khan had lived in Mazar-iSharif, near the Soviet border. He had long ago reconciled himself to the fact that he would never see his hometown again. He no longer wanted to, knowing it could never be as he remembered it before infidels from the north came to pillage, plunder and rape, attacking the countryside in order to isolate any resistance movement, setting fire to crops and storage shelters. Settlements near the border had been the first to feel the wrath of the Soviet invaders.
The fools, Tarik Khan thought once again; they know nothing of the people they hoped to conquer or of the power of Islam. The area had been evacuated, true, but all survivors had united with other victims of Soviet aggression to wage a jihad, a holy war to the death, against these Russian pigs.
Tarik Khan had become their most powerful leader. He prayed to Allah, even as his mujahedeen commenced their withdrawal from this scene of slaughter, that they would reach Parachinar in time to attack the fort there. He hoped they could abort a holocaust that would surpass the atrocities of the Nazis or even the mass devastation these Russian invaders had already wrought upon Tarik Khan's beloved Afghanistan.
The mujahedeen leader knew that any faith at all he had in the success of this operation could only be placed in the hands of Allah, in the toughness and spirit of his men... and in the savage presence of an incredible human fighting machine, the American, Mack Bolan. The Executioner. But time was running out.
They could already be too late.