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Grimaldi reloaded his weapon and got to his feet. He peered furtively around the wall, trying to present as small a target as possible. He saw the vehicle on its side, corpses spread around it.
He felt something behind him, turned, his muscles tensing for another confrontation.
“Easy, Jack,” Bolan said.
Grimaldi relaxed, grinned. “Easy? Easy my ass. This is some of my best work.”
MINUTES LATER Mack Bolan shoved his POW hard into a chair, causing it to creak and slide back several inches. The man, a Pakistani dressed in jeans and a gray athletic sweatshirt, glowered at his captors. A few extra minutes of drawing breath apparently had emboldened him into thinking he was in the clear.
Bolan was about to show him the error of his ways.
“Shallallab. Where was he going?” Bolan asked.
The man sat mute.
“Was he going to see Ramsi al-Shoud?”
A flicker of recognition lighted the man’s eyes before fear doused it back out. He remained silent.
“Where is al-Shoud?”
Nothing.
Grimaldi spoke. “The problem with you, Striker, is, you give people too damn much leeway.”
“Shut up, Ace,” Bolan growled.
“I’m just saying—”
“I’m just saying shut up. So shut up.”
“Maybe he doesn’t speak English.”
“He speaks English.”
Grimaldi turned back to the man. Raising his voice, he asked, “You speekie English?”
The man looked insulted, but said nothing. “I think you’re wrong,” Grimaldi said. “He doesn’t speak English. Hell, he doesn’t seem smart enough to speak his own language.”
“Bullshit,” Bolan said. “He spoke English like a pro ten minutes ago. He’s just playing stupid.”
“Doing a good job of it, too,” Grimaldi said. “So I suppose we’re going to sit here all night, coddling this dumb-ass until he decides to talk. Him. A guy that doesn’t speak English. I’m telling you, you’re wasting your damn time with this.”
Bolan made a grim face, turned away from the prisoner. “So what the hell do you suggest?”
“Remember Kabul?”
“Don’t even go there with me, Jack.”
“See that’s what I’m talking about. You’re too soft on these people.”
“And you’re mental.”
“I’m just saying it worked in Kabul. It’ll work here. That guy suddenly remembered his English really good after we did that to him.”
“I’m not letting you cut this guy’s balls off, Ace. It’s not going to happen.”
Bolan glanced over his shoulder, saw the man sitting stiff, eyes about to pop out of their sockets.
“What about his ears?” Grimaldi asked. “Can I cut them off?”
Bolan thought about it for a moment. Finally he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “That’s not so bad. You know, you can’t just go around cutting off a guy’s privates. Not right out of the gate, anyway. You gotta at least give him a chance to cooperate. It’s only fair.”
Grimaldi pulled a switchblade from his jacket pocket. He clicked it open with a metallic snick, held it up to the light so it glinted.
“But the ear’s okay?”
Bolan shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”
An evil grin twisted at Grimaldi’s lips. “Righteous,” he said.
The words practically exploded from the man’s lips. “Please,” he said. “I will talk about Shallallab and al-Shoud. I want to tell everything.”
And he did.
BOLAN AND GRIMALDI climbed aboard a Black Hawk helicopter and slipped into the front seats. Each man carried a heavy gear bag packed with weapons and equipment, Bolan had laid his next to his seat, allowing him to perform a last-minute weapons check during the flight.
His right foot positioned on the gear bag to keep it from shifting in flight, Bolan loaded his Heckler & Koch with a sound suppressor and attached extra clips to his web gear. Grimaldi ran a preflight check on the craft.
“I’m glad that guy talked,” Grimaldi said.
“Me, too,” Bolan said. “I was afraid he’d call our bluff.”
“Who said I was bluffing?” Grimaldi joked.
Bolan shook his head. “Forget it. An old tomcat like you could never do that.”
“Your buddy didn’t tell us a lot,” Grimaldi said.
Bolan nodded. “Foot soldier,” he said. “Probably doesn’t know a whole lot.”
Fifteen minutes later, the Black Hawk was aloft with Grimaldi guiding it expertly toward Waziristan, a Pakistani territory.
Straining against the harness holding him in place, Bolan reached into his equipment bag and withdrew a laptop. The pressure of the straps against his recently bruised skin, even through the Kevlar vest, kicked up jolts of pain. He winced, ground his teeth and ignored it. During his War Everlasting, the soldier had suffered much worse, and had the scarred flesh to prove it.
Setting the laptop on his thighs, Bolan popped it open and powered it up. Within minutes he’d lock into a Stony Man computer dump system via an encrypted wireless connection. A digital camera would eventually carry his and Grimaldi’s images electronically to the Computer Room. After a few more keystrokes, Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman appeared on the screen.
“Striker,” Kurtzman said.
“You get the coordinates I sent earlier?” Bolan asked.
“Right,” Kurtzman replied. “I ran them through the National Security Agency’s database and liberated a few things for our use. I’ll send you the satellite pics while we talk. But your guy told the truth. There’s something there, an encampment of some sort, right on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. It was an al Qaeda camp at one time before a CIA paramilitary team shut it down a few years ago. After the team arrested the inhabitants, seized all their computers and documents, a couple of F-18s bombed the buildings to rubble.”
“Our boy told us they’ve been setting up the place for months,” Bolan said. “On the surface it looks like an agriculture operation, with animals and the whole thing. They do all their training inside a series of nearby caves to help avoid satellite scrutiny. No outdoor firing ranges, or anything like that. They do a lot of hand-to-hand combat training, classroom work, that sort of thing. There’s also a large concrete building that houses their command functions.”
Kurtzman nodded. “That tracks with what I found out. The intelligence community had tagged the site as suspicious because of its history. But without any hard intel, they had to knock it pretty far down on the priority list. Plus, it’s a crappy target.”
“What do you mean?”
“Guess al-Shoud and his people brought their families along with them. Women, kids, elderly.”
Bolan’s brow furrowed, his lips formed a tight line as he considered the implications. “Lots of innocents on the firing line,” he said finally.
“Right,” Kurtzman said.
“We don’t have much of a choice in this one,” Bolan said.
“Just laying out the facts,” Kurtzman replied. “Hey, Hal wants to speak with you.”
“Go.”
Kurtzman disappeared from view. An instant later Brognola’s weary features appeared on the screen. Since Bolan had last seen him, the big Fed had lost his necktie, but judging by the coffee stain on his right breast, he still wore the same shirt, now unbuttoned at the collar.
“Striker,” Brognola said, “what’s the word on Jennifer Kinsey?”
“Nothing yet,” Bolan stated. “The man we spoke with knew nothing about her.”
“Could he have been lying?”
Grimaldi cut in. “He was pretty motivated to be honest.”
Brognola drank some coffee from a foam cup. “I don’t even want to know what that means.”
“That’s why we wanted to find Shallallab,” Bolan said, “the finance guy. He’s high enough up that he’d know whether she was there. Al-Shoud considers him a confidant.”
“But you’ve got a good fix on al-Shoud?”
“Yeah,” Bolan said. “Bear says we’ve got apparent innocents in the way. I plan to make this a soft probe until I learn more.”
“Keep Barb and Aaron posted,” Brognola said. “I won’t be around.”
“Why?”
“We have an antiterrorism summit at an undisclosed location,” Brognola replied. “Heads of state from Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are expected to be there. So are their intelligence chiefs. We’re going to share information, try to expand cooperation, all that sort of thing.”
“Hal the politician,” Grimaldi said.
Brognola smiled around his stogie. “Yeah, I’m loving it, too,” he said. “I’d stand naked in Times Square, but it’s a command performance. The Man wants me there, so I’m going.”
“Barb’ll take good care of us,” Bolan said.
“I have no doubt,” Brognola said. “Look, the minute you get a line on Jennifer Kinsey, let us know. If she’s still among the living, we’d very much like to bring her home.”
Bolan nodded. “Feeling’s mutual. We’ll do what we can.”
“No doubt, Striker,” Brognola said. “Just watch your ass. Al-Shoud’s operation may be small, but he’s not small-time. Most of his men are former intelligence agents who’ve pulled some serious black ops in India. Badasses all. If this turns nasty, do your best—hell, do your worst—and come home.”
“We’re on it,” Bolan said. Killing the connection, he and Grimaldi began scanning the satellite images and other intel provided by Stony Man’s cyberteam, preparing themselves for what needed to be a short, precise confrontation.
CHAPTER TWO
Jennifer Kinsey saw the U.S. Embassy compound from about two blocks away. Another block ahead of her, state police armed with automatic weapons had blocked all roads leading to the embassy with wooden sawhorses and officers. She guessed the Marines and Diplomatic Security Service agents also had doubled up their efforts since James Lee’s murder.
A shudder that had nothing to do with the biting cold seized her. Unconsciously she pulled the burqa’s heavy fabric tighter around her, as if doing so would protect her from homicidal bastard that had pursued her now for how long? Three days? Four days?
Underneath the thick black robes, she still wore her navy-blue business suit and white silk blouse, both stained dark crimson by James Lee’s blood. She chewed at her lower lip for a moment as unbidden memories of Lee’s death flooded her consciousness.
Almost immediately, she shook her head to purge the memories. Stay strong, she told herself. If you want to fall apart, that’s fine. God knows you deserve it. But do it after you’ve gotten inside the embassy. Not before. You’ve been through worse and you’ll survive this, too. Just stay strong.
Kinsey bowed her head and started walking. She had bought the burqa from a young woman. It had cost her all the two hundred dollars in emergency cash that she carried in a small belt under the waist of her skirt, but had been a worthwhile purchase. In her right hand, she clutched a .25-caliber pistol that she normally kept strapped to her thigh. She could handle much more substantial ordnance. But the State Department frowned on their people carrying weapons, regardless of what hellhole they sent you to. So, from her way of thinking, carrying a smaller weapon was a compromise of sorts. The stubby weapon was no good at distances, but she knew she could jam it into an attacker’s throat or eye and inflict plenty of damage.
She hoped it didn’t have to go that far.
She began threading through the sea of people gathered outside the embassy. It took a conscious effort to not push past people, particularly men who’d stand in a woman’s way on principle. It rankled her to be so passive, to walk seemingly without a purpose, to yield to anyone. Jennifer Kinsey hadn’t climbed the ranks of the CIA or the State Department by being submissive. She’d fought tooth and nail for every promotion, every letter of commendation.
Now she was fighting for her life.
A man bumped into her, knocking her off her feet. She fell to the ground, banging her knees and skinning her hands. Her cheeks grew hot with anger as she stayed on all fours a moment. The man continued on, not bothering to offer a hand or to apologize. She chewed her lip and took a deep breath to clear her head. Let it go, she told herself. Get to the embassy and tell them what you saw.
Of course, she didn’t expect them to believe it. She hardly believed it herself. That a group of Islamic extremists would attack her and Lee—or any American, for that matter—came as little surprise to Kinsey. Any U.S. diplomat who stepped into the country and expected a warm welcome, needed her head examined. Or at least needed to read a damn newspaper.
But Lee had been slain by a comrade. Not a friend, but one of his own.
Several of his own, in fact.
Hugging her arms tightly around her midsection, Kinsey found herself within forty yards of the nearest police checkpoint. She hurried toward it.
Again she could smell the smoke, hear the voices.
See the face.
It had been sheer pandemonium. The limousine’s front end pinned against the wall, shoved there by another car. When Kinsey first felt the impact, heard the grind of metal on metal, the explosion of radio traffic from the security team, she wondered if they’d been the target of a car bomb.
In some ways it might have been better that way, she thought.
The DSS agents had put up a valiant fight, of course. Stay in the car, they’d said. We’ll call for help, fight these guys off.
A swarm of militants, all dressed in civilian clothes, most armed with AK-47s, faces obscured by hoods, had set upon Lee’s vehicle almost immediately. The DSS agents had given little ground, burning down half a dozen of the bastards in the first few seconds of the fight. They were well trained, well armed, quite simply, the best.
But Kinsey was convinced that a person couldn’t be trained to survive a live frag grenade dropped just out of reach, particularly when an opponent was willing to sacrifice a few of his own men to kill you.
Grabbing an abandoned 9 mm SIG-Sauer, Kinsey had stepped from the vehicle, staking herself as the last line of defense between Lee and his attackers. Old habits died hard, she supposed. And she’d fought like the damn devil to nail a few of the guys, hoping against hope that help would arrive. Her life for Lee’s. It had seemed like a fair trade at the time.
She’d exhausted the SIG-Sauer’s fifteen rounds in no time. With those gone, the remaining militants had set upon her, beating her with rifle butts, fists and feet.
“She goes alive,” a voice had called out. “She’s mine.”
The words had caused Kinsey to freeze, a sensation she was unaccustomed to. Turning her head, she saw a big man standing near the shattered limo. He looked at her as he aimed a Browning Hi-Power at the back of a kneeling Lee’s neck.
“I said, she’s mine.”
Jon Stone. Here, in Islamabad. Killing his former boss.
Why?
She had shuddered at the words then and did so now. He turned his attention to Lee. She kicked one man in the balls, crushed a second’s windpipe and fled. The gunshot that murdered Lee rang in her ears as she’d run away.
She still wondered—no, obsessed was more like it—about whether she’d done enough to save Lee. What she knew for sure was that Stone, a former teammate, had assassinated a government official and probably wanted to do likewise to her.
So she could second-guess the hell out of herself all she wanted—later. After she took care of the job at hand.
The closer she came to the police checkpoint, the less regard she had for maintaining her disguise. Maybe it was fatigue or hunger. She hadn’t slept at all and had only eaten a few scraps of food along the way. Maybe she just wanted the sweet relief of her home territory.
Regardless, she almost missed the warning signs.
A Pakistani man came in close, a blade clutched in his right hand. He grabbed her arm and stepped just a few inches away. He kept the blade pointed into her stomach.
“Come with me,” he snarled.
In response she shoved the stubby pistol into his groin and fired it. Blood spurted over her hand, hot against her cold, chapped skin. With the muzzle shoved hard against him, his body and his clothing absorbed most of the sound. A shocked look overtook his features and he stumbled back.
A glint of steel flashed to Kinsey’s right. Taking a step back, Kinsey caught the faint impression of a man stepping in on her, knife cutting its way to her. She brought her arm down hard, letting her wrist collide with her opponent’s and knocking the jab off course.
The man pressed his attack, swinging the knife blade at her in wide slashes. By now, people had begun to see the altercation and were clearing away, most looking elsewhere. Kinsey sidestepped the knife thrust, bringing her almost face-to-face with the man. Bringing up the pistol, she jabbed it into the soft flesh under the man’s chin and fired it.
As the man folded, she heard a screech of tires as a car came around the corner in a skidding turn. Hooded men stepped from the vehicle and began to rake the air with autofire. People screamed and scattered or dived for cover.
Kinsey tried to use the pandemonium to her advantage, melting into a wave of fleeing people. Looking up, she saw a big Caucasian threading his way through the oncoming throngs of people toward her.
She raised the small handgun to fire. As she did, something struck her skull, causing a white flash of light to explode behind her eyes. She stumbled forward and a swimmy feeling overtook her. She whirled to retaliate and found herself looking into Stone’s dead-eyed stare.
“Hi, Jen,” he said. A massive fist struck her once more in the temple and she sank to her knees. A moment later everything went black.
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