Appointment in Kabul (9 page)

"Kabul must surmise as much," Voukelitch snapped again, impatient now for this to be over. As he spoke he angled toward the car. The jukiabkr accompanied him, the smuggler's bodyguards remaining at a suitable distance. "Tarik Khan is known to operate in the hills between Kabul and the Pass."

"An American traveled with Tarik Khan and his force, my General."

Voukelitch felt interest flicker in his eyes.

"What was his name?"

"One of my people heard him referred to as Bolan. I have heard of this man, as have you, eh, General? Is this information not worth a handsome price?"

Voukelitch paused next to the rear door of the ZIL. The Afghan did the same.

Voukelitch quelled a mixture of reactions, all of them indicating his immediate return to the base.

The Russian general had been willing to pass up his visit to the brothel in Parachinar for what he would do to Katrina Mozzhechkov. He had considered not turning her in exchange for certain favors. Then perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in a few days, he would contact Kabul after he grew bored with her.

Everything changed when he heard the name Bolan.

The general knew all about the Executioner's war against the KGB. He could not accept that the Executioner's presence in Afghanistan, and the Devil's Rain project, which was about to begin, were unconnected. It all made sense now: the man Lansdale, killed during a breakout staged, or so reports from Kabul claimed, by one man. This was not told to the rank and file, of course. But Voukelitch knew and had been too preoccupied with final preparations for tomorrow for it to register. But it registered now, and he knew he must make fast work of the jukiabkr and his men and the Mozzhechkov woman.

Security at the fort could not be left in the hands of the imbecile, Ghazi.

Bolan could already be in the area!

The KGB man paused for a moment with the jukiabkr beside the limo. He reached into a pocket and produced his cigarette holder and cigarettes as if idly fiddling while he considered. In fact, the lighting of the cigarette would be Corporal Fet's signal to open fire.

Voukelitch figured separating the leader from his bodyguards would be best. Katrina Mozzhechkov was the perfect bait, the only pity being that he would now have Fet kill her, too. Voukelitch had no time for dalliances, not with Mack Bolan in the area, and anyway, he reasoned, Kabul would be just as happy with a dead traitor as a live one.

He stepped nonchalantly away from the smuggler and reached for his lighter. "Yes, I would say you have earned payment," he said, nodding as if reaching his decision, all the while easing back farther, pretending to make way for the jukiabkr's access to the car. "I shall speak to my man about arranging payment. In the meantime..." Voukelitch motioned graciously to the car door "...amuse yourself with the woman. Do as you please. She is yours."

The jukiabkr smacked his lips noisier, sloppier than before. "With pleasure, General." He reached forward and opened the door.

The interior light went on to bathe Katrina Mozzhechkov in its spill. She was sitting with her back to the opposite door, facing the jukiabkr, one hand dipped into the purse she held against her like a shield. Voukelitch raised his lighter but did not flick it. Not yet. Corporal Fet leaned with his back against the front of the car in a casual pose, like a bored grunt waiting on his officer, but close to the open front window on the driver's side of the limo. Fet watched Voukelitch. He would not make his move until the lighter flared.

The general expected the jukiabkr to yank the woman from the limousine, then when Fet opened fire they would be done in at the same time as the bodyguards.

The Afghan hillman's eyes popped with surprise and his jaw dropped when he got a better look at the woman. He started to turn toward Voukelitch. The jukiabkr began, "She is the..." Katrina drew the pistol from her purse and rapidly fired two shots. The gunfire echoed hollowly inside the ZIL.

The bullets caught the hillman on the side of his head, pitching him to the ground; the surprised look stayed on his dead face. Katrina scrambled from the far side of the ZIL.

The Afghan bodyguards, unable to tell from their position exactly what had happened, swung their rifles around as they dashed forward. Voukelitch forgot about signals and the lighter and pawed for his side arm. He raced around the back of the car in an attempt to intercept the woman.

"Do it," the officer snarled at Fet. "Now!"

Fet snaked a hand in through the car window and withdrew a Czech Model 23 submachine gun. He stepped away from the front of the car and planted himself squarely to open fire across the hood at the two hillmen. The Afghans saw too late what Fet was up to, both starting to turn and track rifles in his direction with frantic pleas for him not to shoot. He opened fire, the impact of so many bullets flinging the men off their feet into shrubbery nearby where only their legs protruded, tremulous in death.

General Voukelitch rounded the car with enough dispatch to intercept Katrina before she could bolt away from the vehicle. He closed in on her. She turned and stood her ground, raising the pistol at him. The officer rushed her before she could pull the trigger. He swatted the weapon from her hand with his own automatic.

Katrina's gun flew into the darkness. This time she turned, desperately trying to escape.

Voukelitch moved in before she could. He closed the distance, grabbed one of her wrists with his left hand and yanked her brutally so that she sprang back into him with an indignant, angry gasp. He wrenched her wrist hard around her body against the small of her back and painfully jerked her even more tightly against him.

She struggled to break free until he pressed the snout of his pistol's barrel against her temple.

She felt it and stopped squirming. Voukelitch glanced at Corporal Fet, who had turned from massacring the Afghans. Fet held his fire when he saw the general had control of the situation.

The KGB man applied more pressure to emphasize his snarl close to Katrina's ear.

"The pig recognized you; that is why you shot him, is that not correct, my dear?"

"No! No! I hate these people. The way he looked at me..."

"Forget your deception," he raged, fighting back the urge to blow her head apart here and now, the treacherous bitch! "Katrina Mozzhechkov, enemy of the state. Yes, I know all about you, my pretty. You killed our friend the jukiabkr because he recognized you. You were with the man Bolan last night. And in Kabul?"

"Please, you are hurting me... it is all a mistake..." Voukelitch's finger tensed around the trigger.

"It would be a mistake for you not to tell me what you know, Katrina. I want Bolan."

Pytyour Voukelitch then felt the end of a pistol barrel pressed to his own temple.

"Surprise, comrade," growled a cold voice from hell. "You've got me."

The combined tracking skills of Bolan and Tarik Khan had traced the direction Katrina took from the last point any of the mujahedeen remembered having seen her, downhill toward the highway.

Her trail was easy enough for both men to read even in the dark that remained before the first hint of dawn to the east spread itself across the land.

Tarik Khan had at first been reluctant to follow the woman. "My men can function here well on their own," he explained to Bolan, "but to my mind, the woman's disappearance but confirms what I have suspected from the beginning. She has never stopped being an agent for the Soviets. As for Mr. Lansdale: a ruse also. She knows you at least will follow and if you are isolated and killed, my people are back where we started with little chance of stopping the Devil's Rain in time without your assistance."

"I'm sorry, Tarik Khan," Bolan had replied respectfully, sincerely, "but I have to go with what I feel in my gut and in my heart as well as my head, as do you. And all three tell me Katrina is what she appears to be, a confused young woman who now has some idea of helping us on her own. But maybe all she'll do is blow our strategy to hell. She will definitely die if we don't get to her in time."

"But the mission... The attack on the garrison...""

If I don't catch up with her in fifteen minutes, I'll return and we'll continue with the original plan. Set it back twenty-five minutes, that's all. I know time is short but we can afford this. I've got to afford it and I should be doing it instead of talking about it." The guerrilla nodded.

"If you must, you should." He fell into step alongside the Executioner. They started out of the camp. "I have never known you to be wrong, kuvii Bolan. I know you from the field of battle and so I know you. Your intuition and compassion equal your bravery and skill. I will not let you go alone."

They had not gone far along the sloping terrain when they saw distant headlights leaving the Afghan army installation to turn in the direction of town.

When they saw the vehicle stop briefly, Bolan used his binoculars and at a distance of a half mile he witnessed the scene of Katrina intercepting the ZIL limo.

Katrina, you brave, irrational fool, thought Bolan. He swallowed the lump of concern that constricted his throat and swung into action before the limo down there started rolling again.

"We've got to head off that car," he told Tarik Khan. Both warriors hoped they would intercept the ZIL, considering the car's stop, some curves in the road that would slow its progress and the direct line taken by Tarik Khan and the Executioner who galloped to make good time across the rocky slope.

Bolan and Tarik Khan pulled up again when the limo, after traveling no more than a quarter mile, slowed for a turn off the highway to a point well in and concealed from the main road.

Bolan and the hillman had almost made it to the clearing where the ZIL had stopped when they heard the faint snap of muffled pistol shots followed by the louder sustained chatter of a submachine gun. The gunfire sounded to Bolan's trained ears like an Uzi or a Czech Model 23, and for a moment he feared he and Tarik Khan were too late. Then they made it over a rise and Bolan's NVD eyesight told him they had not arrived too late but not one damn microsecond too soon, either.

Bolan hand-signaled a maneuver.

Tarik Khan nodded his understanding and split off from the Executioner. The two advanced undetected from different angles on an unfolding scene of action that Bolan took in at a glance: three dead Afghans, the Russian corporal at the front of the limo with the submachine gun and the Soviet officer grappling with Katrina, yanking her to him with his pistol to her temple. The officer, a general no less, was so busy struggling with the wildcat that he did not hear Bolan at all.

The Executioner pressed the muzzle of Big Thunder to the guy's temple and everything changed.

"Drop your weapon," Ice Voice growled. "Release the woman."

The Russian officer did both with alacrity, yet no panic showed in the man's movements. Bolan knew from this as much as from the photograph he had seen of his target that this was the man he had come to Afghanistan to kill.

The corporal, still clutching the SMG, did not fire for fear of hitting his superior.

A shadow materialized behind the corporal.

Tarik Khan.

The corporal was completely oblivious of anyone behind him until the Afghan hill fighter snaked his left forearm around the man's neck.

Tarik Khan tilted the head forward into the crook of his arm, then applied a fast open-handed punch behind the man's ear.

The dry snap of the corporal's neck breaking sounded like a pistol shot across the clearing.

Tarik Khan released the body and let it fall to the ground. Then he turned to watch the others.

Katrina was standing a few feet away while Bolan kept the 11.5inch stainless steel cannon aimed in a straightarmed stance at the Soviet officer's temple. The Executioner was far enough away so the general could not try swinging around into Bolan or diving away from the gun.

With the bodyguard taken care of, Bolan stepped back from the officer, but the barrel of Big Thunder never wavered from the Russian's head. "Turn around, comrade," Bolan ordered. "General Voukelitch, I presume."

The officer turned with deliberate movement to acknowledge Bolan with a nod.

"The infamous Executioner," Voukelitch returned with cool formality. "You have a habit, it would seem, of appearing when and where you are least expected."

Bolan glanced at Tarik Khan, who reached down almost absently to relieve the dead corporal of his SMG and ammo clips before moving to the car, where an Afghan lay sprawled in death.

"We are a good team, you and I," the mujahedeen leader gruffed. He used one foot to flop the corpse over onto its back so he could get a look at the dead face. "We knew this one, kuvii Bolan. Allah has a sense of justice, you see. It is your friend of the Hash Breath."

Bolan glanced at Katrina.

"Are you okay?"

She nodded, found her H&K automatic where it had fallen and retrieved it. "The jukiabkr is an informer and a smuggler of drugs. They were going to..." Her voice faltered at what had almost happened. She looked to Bolan for understanding. "...I wanted to..."

"The thing that matters now is that you have proved yourself to malik Tarik Khan," Bolan interrupted kindly.

He glanced at the hill chief who sauntered over.

Tarik Khan grunted with a last look at the dead jukiabkr. "She has proved herself," he agreed.

General Voukelitch cleared his throat.

"Pardon my impertinence, gentlemen, but may I inquire what is to become of me? Am I to be murdered like my driver?"

"Not if you cooperate," Bolan white-lied to the cannibal. "There's a reason I suggested my friend use his hands to kill the corporal. You're my ticket onto that fort, comrade. Cover him, Tarik Khan. If he so much as twitches an eye wrong, kill him. We can find another way onto the base."

Tarik Khan centered his rifle on the general's heart. "It will be difficult to restrain myself."

"Do your best." Bolan walked over to the sprawled corpse of the driver. "Looks like a close enough fit to pass."

Voukelitch raised his hands to assure Tarik Khan that he meant to cooperate. The officer retained the expression of a stone wall but his apprehension under malik Khan's close-up loathing said he almost preferred the cool-eyed aim behind the AutoMag.

Bolan hurriedly shed his combat webbing and lightweight munitions and equipment and shucked them through the open driver's window onto the floor of the ZIL, along with his silenced MAC-10.

He made quick work of stripping the trousers and tunic from the dead soldier. He slipped them over his blacksuit. He had instructed Tarik Khan with hand signals to slay the soldier without a weapon so as not to get any blood on the uniform.

Voukelitch watched Bolan.

When the Executioner returned to the group the general risked a snicker as Bolan pulled off his NVD goggles and slid them into a pocket of the blacksuit before buttoning up the tunic.

"You hope to bluff your way onto the installation?"

"With your help, General. Maybe not if it was a Soviet base, but I saw this vehicle slide out of there a while ago without even stopping for the guards at the gate. The militia sentries saw you coming and had the gate open to salute you through as nice as you please. That's the way they'll do it on your way back in."

Voukelitch lowered his upraised hands. Steel prodded his spine. "I am a Soviet officer. I will not betray..." Katrina interrupted.

"He deals in hashish," she said, glaring in accusation. "He has a brick of it on his person. He paid the hillman for it. These pigs barter in all manner of death; violent, and the kind that rots a civilization from within."

"We'll let the general keep his hash," Bolan decided. He unholstered Big Thunder again and the .44's muzzle retracked to the cannibal. "If he dies today, it will give them a little more to cover up and reorganize and panic about and I like that."

Tarik Khan glanced at his wristwatch.

"Has anything... changed?" he asked Bolan, careful not to divulge reference to the scheduled assault.

"Nothing, except spare the choppers at the landing pad. They're mine."

The hillman's brow furrowed but he nodded.

"As you say, my brother. And the woman?"

"Take her with you." Bolan glanced at Katrina. "You must go with him."

She nodded without hesitation.

"I will. A soul has been redeemed here... and I am wiser for it."

"No more talk. Good luck, both of you. You had best return," he advised Tarik Khan.

"And so we shall." The Afghan fighter stalked off.

Katrina looked as if she wanted to say something to the nightfighter who had saved her life but she knew Bolan was right. She followed Tarik Khan into the gloom.