Assassin's Code Read online

  A series of rather painful, shaped-silicon injections had seamed the lumped lines of scar tissue across the left side of his face, throat and head. Further pigment injections over the silicon had turned them into the dulled pinks and shiny grays of the scar tissue that would explain why he couldn’t talk and needed a hearing aid. It was an outstanding grooming. Bolan wore the full regalia of an Afghani tribal guerrilla and except for the arctic-blue eyes burning out of his weathered, bushy and brutally scarred countenance even Bolan’s worst enemies wouldn’t have recognized him—if they still lived.

  Ous had performed only three changes, but they were spectacular. He had combed out and stiffened his beard and dyed it a bright orange-red with henna. It was said the Prophet Mohammed and his Caliphs had dyed their beards, and some of the ultraorthodox, particularly pockets of them in Central Asia, followed the custom. Ous had shaved his head and swapped out his omnipresent, rolled pakol for a woolly, Fezlike Karakul hat. It was quite possible Ous’s mother might not have recognized him, and between them, Bolan and Ous looked mad, bad and dangerous to know. They looked like the last two men a person would ever want to meet in a ravine in Afghanistan.

  Bolan’s cover was simple. His name was Makeen. He was deaf in one ear and could barely hear out the other. The same U.S. bomb strike that had robbed him of most of his hearing had also torn his vocal cords and left him unable to speak. It had also killed most of his family. Ous would stress that all of these things had made him an even more dangerous sniper than he’d been before, and it was Ous who knew how to point him in the right direction.

  Bolan spread his arms and did a turn. “And?”

  “Super hot,” Keller proclaimed. “Bind my feet, put me back in the burka and take me to your tent.”

  “Chinese bound women’s feet,” Bolan corrected.

  “So?” Keller flipped her hair. “Bind my feet and take me to your tent anyway.”

  Ous grunted bemusedly.

  Keller pointed at their route on the map. “From what we got out of Motahmed, there’s some spooky recruiting going on here in the border region with Pakistan. Ous learned Motahmed was from Badakhshan, so that fits.”

  “And that part of the border—” Farkas shook his head “—is funhouse central.”

  Farkas wasn’t far off in his assessment. Pakistan basically had four administrative units. Four were provinces, one was the Federal Capital Territory, and then there was that unique piece of border real estate beneath Keller’s finger. It was generally known by the acronym FATA, for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The “Federally Administered” part of the designation could be charitably described as “hopeful.” The “Tribal” part was spot on. FATA was the most impoverished part of Pakistan. The overwhelming majority of the people were rural and pastoral. The main cities could barely claim the title. Most major transactions outside them were brokered in goats, guns or opium. The Taliban presence there was powerful and well entrenched. FATA really was funhouse central, and the trifecta of God, AK-47s and tribal custom decided just about everything. There appeared to be a new player in the game who was playing the region’s proclivities for all they were worth.

  It was Bolan and Ous’s next destination.

  Ous combed his fingers through his newly orange beard. “Tell me about our insertion.”

  Bolan didn’t figure insertion into the area would be problem. “I want to hear about extraction.”

  Badakshan/FATA border

  BOLAN AND OUS fell out of the cabbage truck and landed among a herd of goats. They dusted themselves off as a flatbed full of disreputable individuals cascaded onto the dirt road behind them. Goats baaed and their bells tinkled. One section of Central Asia pretty much looked like another. This section was distinguished by the fact that just about every man over the age of twelve was carrying a rifle and there was nary a woman to be seen; not even in full black regalia and accompanied by male family members. Bolan and Ous walked down the single dirt lane of the village.

  The village looked like hell, Bolan thought.

  The side of just about every building, including the tiny mosque, was scarred by bullet strikes and the black flash burns of recent high-explosives that the rains hadn’t yet washed away. Despite the forbidding aspect of the village and its inhabitants, the improbably large number of trucks, motorcycles and people wielding cell phones spoke of the wealth the village derived from the smuggling trade.

  Other than the battered mosque, the teahouse was the hotbed of civic activity. Bolan and Ous went inside. Most of the tables were taken and they took a seat on a rug in the corner. The teahouse sported a satellite dish and the Al Jazeera news network played on a flat-screen television. Interestingly enough FOX news played on another. Despite the fact that it was broadcast in English, the blonde news anchor seemed to be drawing the majority of patrons’ attention and speculation. Bolan and Ous ordered tea and dumplings to break their fast. The tea was heavy with cardamom, the dumplings swam in yogurt and dill, and the bread was still hot from the oven. It was the best breakfast Bolan had eaten in days.

  “What do you think?” he murmured through a mouthful of bread sopped in the dumpling sauce.

  Ous spoke into his teacup. “We are already attracting a great deal of attention.”

  The looks they were attracting were just short of hostile. The Pashtun people were regarded as one of the most hospitable cultures on Earth. It was ingrained in their culture through Pashtunwali, or “the way of the Pashtuns.” A Pashtun was required to show hospitality and profound respect to any visitor or guest, regardless of their tribe, race, religion or creed, and to do so with no hope of reward. Under a flag of truce this hospitality was shown even to sworn enemies. They were also required to give sanctuary to all who sincerely applied for it and to give them protection from their enemies, even if the applicant was a sworn enemy himself. It was one of the main reasons why it was so difficult to catch al Qaeda and Taliban operatives.

  Once an al Qaeda or Taliban operative or group had been shown hospitality or asked for sanctuary, no Pashtun would give them up for any reason, and they would fight to the death to protect them. Pashtunwali was also the reason that it was almost impossible to infiltrate Pashtun Taliban organizations. The code took precedent over everything, even religion. Anyone who broke Pashtunwali would be considered not Pashtun, not human, and would be killed or cast out. As far as Bolan knew, neither the British colonials, the Soviet invaders, nor U.S. and coalition forces had ever successfully conducted an undercover operation among Pashtun guerrilla fighters.

  Bolan suspected he and Ous were most likely the first to try it in some time; and at the moment the two warriors were neither guests, enemies under a flag of truce nor individuals seeking sanctuary.

  They were strangers.

  They did have one card to play. The coming of the Taliban had rocked traditional Pashtun culture. It had initially started with the Soviet invasion but particularly after the toppling of the Taliban and the guerrilla war that ensued, the concept of foreign fighters had seeped into Afghan warfare. So had the concept of shuffling guerrilla fighters from one area to another. Bolan and Ous were depending on this unusual break from millennia of tribal custom. Ous looked like a mad mullah and Bolan simply looked mad. For good or ill they were bound to attract attention in all the right circles, or the wrong ones, depending on one’s point of view.

  Attention wasn’t long in coming.

  A lanky man with severe chicken pox scars and whose nose had been broken so badly it sat on his face like a flattened squid approached. Bolan had taken note of him ordering the help around, and Bolan made him out to be the proprietor. The big American scratched his ear to tell his translators to look sharp. Pock-face took in Ous’s hennaed beard, shaved head and woolly hat. “Peace, imam. My name is Saboor. As long as it pleases God, I am the owner of this establishment.”

  “Peace be upon you, Saboor. I thank you for your praise and the pleasure of this house. However, I am no imam. I am but a sim
ple mullah, little more than one who only barely managed to memorize the Holy Koran.”

  The man took in Bolan’s shaggy appearance and the road map of battle damage the CIA groomer had drawn upon his head and neck. “And your companion?”

  “My only disciple.”

  “Forgive my impertinence, mullah, but you seem to have journeyed far. May I ask what province you are from?”

  “Since I let go the plow and took up the Holy Koran, I have known the dust of thirty-four provinces beneath my shoes. My only home now is the Province of God.” Ous smiled in a kindly fashion. “However, since you ask, long ago, long before you were born, I was born out of the dust of Farah.”

  Saboor contemplated this. Afghanistan had thirty-four provinces. The province of Farah was on the western edge of Afghanistan. It was about as far away as you could get from the FATA region without wandering into Iran. However both Afghanistan and Pakistan had long and storied traditions of mendicant monks and mullahs who wandered far and wide following wherever the whisper of God led them.

  “And your companion?”

  Ous sighed sadly and gestured at Bolan’s brutally scarred visage. “To be very honest, brother, I do not know. He cannot speak, he can barely hear and he is illiterate.”

  “May I ask what brings you to our poor village?”

  “The call of God.”

  “Is it permitted for me to ask what God calls for?”

  “Martyrdom.”

  Saboor was taken aback. “Martyrdom?”

  “In jihad, against the infidel invaders.”

  Saboor gazed upon Ous long and hard, and finally nodded. “I might know of a man whom you might meet.”

  Ous gave Saboor the mad mullah smile. “Every man I meet has been put upon my path by God.”

  Saboor’s eyes widened. Bolan kept the smile off of his face. Ous had a career in the theater if he was still alive after this. “Would you meet with this man?”

  “I would,” Ous replied.

  “Do you possess a cell phone?”

  “I do.”

  “Would you give it to me?” Saboor asked.

  “I am sworn to give whatever I have to any believer who asks.”

  Saboor bowed at the show of piety. “And your companion?”

  “You may have all that he possesses except his rifle. I fear if you wish to relieve him of that you must do so at your peril.”

  Saboor nodded. “Would you take a journey with me?”

  “I would, brother.” Ous took his cell phone and nodded at Bolan, who took his phone out of his vest and held it out.

  Saboor looked at Ous askance. “You say your friend cannot speak, and can barely hear?”

  “Sadly, it is true.”

  “And he knows not the written word?” Saboor queried.

  “Sadly, this also is true.”

  “Then pray why does he own a cell phone?”

  “He took it from a Russian who gave us great offense, and it pleases him to take pictures,” Ous said.

  Saboor took the phone and gave Bolan’s picture file a cursory once-over. Kurtzman had filled the phone’s picture file with stills of dozens of mosques from over a dozen Afghani provinces. Saboor grunted. “Then I bid you take your fill, take your ease and accept the hospitality of my poor establishment. The journey is not long but it will not be comfortable.”

  Bolan made a polite gesture at his empty plate for more dumplings. He was going to take his ease and his fill while the easing and the filling were good. His instincts told him things were about to get distinctly uncomfortable for the foreseeable future.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Federally Administered Tribal Area

  “All…righty then.” The woman translating for Bolan back at the Pentagon sounded very unhappy. “Do you see two men talking?” Bolan did indeed. Most of the men in the truck were dozing or smoking as the ancient, Soviet-era two-and-a-half-ton bounced over the brutal single-lane, dirt-and-rock road. Everyone was armed and phoneless. The congregation looked suspiciously like a squad.

  Two dark, young, barely bearded men who looked like brothers were squatting behind the cab. They were talking in low voices and passing a thermos of tea between them. Bolan didn’t understand a word of what they were saying, and Ous was puffing on his pipe unconcernedly. The soldier casually scratched his head above the hearing aid and gave it two taps in acknowledgment that he had eyes on the suspects in question. “Okay, well,” the translator continued, “you caught a break. I have a decent grasp of Nuristani. It’s usually classified in the Dardic languages branch of the Indo-Aryan language family. Its relation to—”

  Bolan rapidly scratched his ear, which was the agreed-upon sign to get to the point. The translators he was working with were some of the top in the field of Central Asian languages. However they were professors and scholars who had been abruptly pulled out of academia for this mission with a heady mixture of carrots and sticks, rather than Pentagon or CIA agents.

  The translator cleared her throat. “Okay, pertinent point. Nuristani is only spoken by tribal peoples in extremely isolated mountain regions in the Hindu Kush, it’s no wonder that Ous doesn’t know what’s being said. In fact they are counting on the fact that you don’t. What they’re saying is, ‘The silent one cannot be trusted.’”

  Bolan glanced at the two men. They noticed him looking at them and smiled and nodded at him. The translator continued. “Some of the words I don’t get but my impression is that they are planning to do you a serious mischief once you get to your destination.”

  The Executioner slowly lowered his head, let his eyes widen beneath his brows and leered at the two men as his finger curled around the trigger of his rifle. He lowered the muzzle in their direction.

  One brother strangled on his tea. The other almost swallowed his cigarette. Since Bolan had the translators and the satellite link, the soldier and Ous had an agreement that if the Executioner took unilateral action, Ous would back his play without hesitation. Ous glanced at the two men, gave them an equally horrible smile, and spoke in Pashto. Bolan’s translator translated in real time.

  “You give my friend offense?”

  The brothers began wringing their hands in caught-red-handed horror and spoke back in Pashto. “Mullah! Who is this man who does not speak? We do not know him! No one knows him! You vouch for him, but no one knows him!” A number of the men crowded in the trunk grumbled in agreement.

  Ous went with the script. “He is touched by God.”

  That was met with incredulous silence.

  “He is God’s instrument, and does his will.”

  Saboor gave Ous a very long hard look. Every man in the truck was a volunteer who was willing to martyr himself against the Western invaders, but this was pushing it. “Forgive me, mullah. I mean no offense, but what do you mean by this?”

  “I mean that when the infidel invaders took his ears and his tongue, he took up the rifle in God’s name, and since that day his every bullet has taken an invader or one of those who aid him. He does not miss.”

  A dozen eyes fell on Bolan in open speculation. Since time immemorial, Afghan tribal warriors had garnered a fearsome reputation for marksmanship. Afghan mujahideen warriors had wreaked havoc on Soviet infantry, often armed with old, WW II vintage rifles. It was true that with the coming of the Taliban and the widespread availability of automatic weapons standards had slipped, but it was still a heady proclamation to make in present company.

  Bolan just kept smiling insanely.

  The truck ground to a halt. Saboor nodded. “If God wills, we shall see.”

  The men piled out of the truck. They were in a camp rather than a village. The camp lay in a narrow arroyo with camouflage netting stretched above and native felt tents beneath. The men broke up into little cliques of associates and moved into the shade of the netting. The few loners sat by themselves looking nervous. Bolan and Ous were still drawing stares. Saboor disappeared into a U.S. military tent.

  Bolan and Ous took a se
at on a small carpet beneath the netting and leaned against the canyon wall. The Executioner murmured into his fake beard. “Touched by God?”

  “Yes. I believe I can say with a straight face that God must favor you.”

  “I never miss?”

  “I have never known you to do so,” Ous countered.

  “That’s a mighty big check you’ve written on my account,” Bolan stated.

  “And I fear you will have to cash it.”

  Saboor walked out of the tent with two men. One was the most physically intimidating specimen Bolan had seen in a long while. If he’d had smoke for legs, he could have passed for a genie come out of the bottle—a genie that specialized in breaking legs and smashing skulls rather than granting wishes. Despite being a physical giant the man carried himself like an athlete. The second man was his polar opposite, small and wiry with Asiatic eyes and a short, wispy Fu Manchu-style mustache and beard.

  Bolan and Ous rose as the three men walked straight toward them. The soldier gave his ear a short scratch to let his translators know an important conversation was imminent, and they got to work as the giant spoke.

  He nodded politely to Ous. “Peace be upon you, mullah.”

  “And upon you be peace, brother.”

  The giant stroked his beard. “I must say, one finds fighting mullahs quite rare in these modern times.”

  “It was once said that in times of peace a mullah carries the Holy Koran in his hand and preaches in the madrassa. In times of war he must carry the Holy Koran in his heart and fill his hand with a sword.”

  “I must say, learned one, I find your attitude quite refreshing. The old ways are always the best ways.”

  “You are wise,” Ous agreed.

  The smaller man stared at Bolan. Despite his diminutive stature, the power of the little man’s hooded, almost hawklike eyes was like a left to the jaw. Bolan gave him the arctic-blue stare back. Neither man flinched. The giant noted the ocular exchange with interest. “Mullah, may I inquire of your friend?”