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  Ous translated as the man shouted out. “I am Major Noor! I demand, in the name of God and his Prophet Mohammed, and the Pakistani State that the village give up the American commando and the Afghani traitor to the faith who have violated Pakistani sovereign law and soil!”

  “Sanctuary has been granted!” Bilal shouted back. “Hospitality has been shown. If you are truly a Pakistani, you know we cannot give up these men, at least until the situation has been clarified. I implore you! Come into our village as an honored guest! Accept our hospitality, and present your case against these men.”

  The man stepped out of view for several moments. The villagers lining the wall muttered and nervously fondled their weapons. The soldier returned.

  “The surrender of the fugitives, as well as the surrender of the village, will be unconditional and immediate!”

  Ous broke translation and turned to Bolan. “There’s going to be a fight.”

  Bolan had guessed that. He still had a very bad feeling. The enemy had at most two squads of men, yet they seemed very confident that they could take the fortified village.

  Major Noor began shouting angrily. The fighters along the wall became more agitated. Ous shrugged. “It is not worth repeating except that he is threatening to level the village if Bilal and his people do not give us up.”

  The men along the wall went from agitated to angry.

  “And now?”

  “He has finished threatening. Now he has moved on to insult,” Ous stated.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, he is— Oh! Now, that was a good one, and it was directed at you.”

  “What did he say?” Bolan asked.

  “Some of the flourishes do not easily translate. However, he is strongly implying that you are the sort of American infidel who has sex with his sister on his mother’s grave while his retarded father watches from his wheelchair.”

  In a society where even the slightest taunt meant a killing and the killing result in a blood feud that might last for centuries, Pashtuns believed you might as well make your insults count. Bolan gave his adversary full marks. “Wow.”

  “Yes,” Ous agreed. “I particularly like the part about the wheelchair. It really tied it all together. I will have to remember that one should we leave this village alive.” Ous cocked his head in question. “Would you like me to impart anything in reply?”

  Bolan considered a few choice ones he had heard in his travels across the Middle East and passed them onto Ous.

  “Oh, they are very good!” Ous cupped his hands beside his mouth and happily shouted across the killing zone. Bilal and his men laughed out loud. Everyone on the wall whirled at the sound of an explosion at the top of the crags. The explosion was followed by the sound of crew-served weapon fire. Not the “dah-dah-dah-dah-dah!” of a heavy machine gun or the “Toof!” of a rocket launcher. It was tube noise.

  Mortars.

  Bilal began snarling.

  Ous shook his head. “Bilal says it is impossible. No one can climb the crags behind us, much less do so unseen.”

  Bolan shook his head. “Ninjas are famous for getting into impossible places, and doing so unseen.”

  Mortar bombs began falling on the village. Men and women screamed. The enemy was using white phosphorus. They were going to burn the village to the ground. Ous pushed off the safety on his rifle. “Bilal says there is one thing our enemies cannot know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The secret way to the top.”

  Bolan slung his rifle and drew his machine pistol. “Show me.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The shaft was nearly vertical. With a few sinuous deviations the natural chimney in the rock led straight up from behind the cliff section of village. Hand-and footholds carved into the shaft long ago presented a precarious route up through the rock. The shaft was widening as they reached top—wide enough to admit two men, but that only meant if you slipped there was nothing but air to fall back against. A man named Latif led the way with an old military flashlight lashed to his back. Ous couldn’t make the climb in his condition, so Bolan was going up with Latif and two men named Ali and Arian. They spoke no English. Bolan had given them their orders through Ous. He’d kept it simple.

  They were going up top to kill everyone who wasn’t local.

  Several strange, horizontal shafts of light crisscrossed at the top of the shaft. The villagers had taken heavy canvas and stiffened it with lime. The material was stretched over a wicker frame to artfully appear to be a boulder to a casual observer, particularly one who was airborne and looking down. The sneak attack above had perforated the camouflage in several places.

  Latif looked down and gave Bolan an unhappy look. The Executioner gestured with one hand that he was willing to switch places. The guide vehemently shook his head. The tribal warrior loosened his pistol in its holster and stuck his knife between his teeth. Islam’s war cry hissed from between Latif’s teeth as he threw back the wicker frame. “Allahu Ak—”

  Latif’s head flew off his shoulders in the single flash of a sword. Bolan hugged the walls as the decapitated head and the dagger Latif had held in his teeth fell down the shaft. Arian screamed as Latif’s head hit him in the face, and he lost his hold and fell down the shaft. Bolan was bathed in a curtain of blood as Latif’s body followed, and he nearly lost his hold on the rock ladder as Jadeed’s corpse collided with him in its descent down the shaft. The big American squinted up into the sunlight through the blood streaming in his eyes.

  A hand grenade dropped from above.

  Bolan reached out a hand and snatched the grenade out of the air. He tossed the fusing grenade back up and gritted his teeth. The munition just disappeared over the lip of the shaft and detonated. Bolan scrabbled for purchase on the blood-slick rock and went over the top, finding himself right among the mortars. They were commando mortars, 60 mm, small and light enough for a man to carry on his back. There were four two-man teams. The ninjas wore Pakistani special forces camouflage and had shemaghs wrapped around their faces. Most of them had been kneeling to load and fire down on the village, and to climb the cliff face they had abjured body armor.

  Bolan’s grenade-return service had wreaked havoc among them.

  Four lay on the ground dead or badly wounded. Two more were on hands and knees clawing at the wounds shredding their bodies. Two still had fight in them. They abandoned their mortar and bombs and reached for steel. The range was point-blank. Bolan’s machine pistol trip-hammered 3-round bursts into the shrouded faces. One of the wounded tried to rise, and the soldier hammered him back down without mercy.

  One of the “dead” ninjas popped up like a jumping jack.

  The long sound suppressor tube on his pistol hindered his lightning-fast draw. The ninja was fast but couldn’t take Bolan. He burned the rest of his magazine into the ninja’s center body mass. As the man fell, one of his comrades rose. This one wasn’t faking his wounds, yet his sword hissed from the sheath behind his back. Bolan’s pistol was racked open on a smoking empty chamber. He dropped the Stechkin and drew his blade.

  “Allahu Akbar!” Ali fired a dozen rounds from his AK into the ninja’s back. The attacker staggered, flapping his limbs under the onslaught. Several of the bullets passing through his body whip-cracked dangerously close to Bolan’s head. The perforated ninja fell on his face and lay unmoving. Ali roared in triumph. “Allahu Akbar!” Then shot the remaining ninjas.

  “Damn right,” Bolan agreed. He quickly surveyed the situation. The villagers who had been sent up to the peak had been caught by surprise. Their bodies lay in a pile off to one side. All bore shrapnel and blast wounds, and all of them had their throats cut. A Pakistani 12.7 mm air defense gun squatted on its tripod in a circle of piled rocks. Down below, the village was receiving mortar fire from Major Noor’s position. There was little the villagers could do about it. The ground between the ravine and the village was strewed with dead heroes who had tried to charge the hidden mortars. Fierce tears stained Al
i’s face as he shook his fist in rage. Bolan couldn’t quite see the mortars below, but mortars were indirect fire weapons, and their advantages worked both ways.

  Bolan righted one of the ninja’s pack mortars and examined it for damage. Ali didn’t speak English, but he didn’t need to. Bolan pointed. “Hey, Ali, pass me a mortar bomb.”

  Ali stopped short of clapping his hands. He gathered up the remaining six bombs. The mortar was a very simple affair. It had no bipod. You put your foot on the tube base and held the handle. A straight white line painted up the tube served as the sight, and a simple drum gave elevation. Bolan put his foot on the tube base and did a little math and applied a little Kentucky windage. “Now.”

  Ali dropped the bomb down the tube and jumped away.

  The mortar thumped and the bomb arced over the little valley. Bolan had aimed slightly behind Noor’s position. A plume of white phosphorus shot skyward and burning phosphorus arced through the air in streamers that cut off retreat down the ravine. Bolan adjusted the tube’s elevation a hair and held up three fingers. “Ali, again, three more!”

  Ali met his mortar team responsibilities with profound enthusiasm.

  The three bombs arced straight into the target area. Some of Noor’s men burst out of the ravine screaming and flailing at the fire clinging to their bodies and ran for the creek. It would do them no good. White Phosphorus burned under water. The villagers manning the wall ended their suffering in a deafening fusillade of automatic rifle fire. Smoldering bodies slowly drifted down the creek. They left behind the stench of burning metal and barbecued flesh. A secondary explosion and a pulse of smoke billowed out of the ravine. The black smoke from the hidden position told Bolan that Noor’s helicopter had burned and exploded.

  The Executioner walked over to the Pakistani air defense weapon and waited for the second helicopter.

  The graceful Dauphin streaked along ravines as it came in flying nap of the earth. Bolan racked back the big bolt and chambered a 12.7 mm round. He lowered the heavy machine gun’s muzzle and glared through the steel grid of the antiaircraft sight. He tracked the chopper as it streaked along the ridgeline. The pilot was good, but it seemed as if communication between the ninjas and their cohorts wasn’t what it could be. Once the ninjas had taken their objective, the helicopter crew seemed to have assumed the village’s heavy weapons had been disabled. They didn’t realize the big weapon had simply changed hands, and changed hands twice.

  Bolan eyed the twin rocket pods adorning the Dauphin’s lower fuselage. Maximum effective range was about eight thousand meters, depending on the warhead and the platform. The helicopter was coming in low and fast and would want to stay out of small arms range. Two thousand meters would be about right, and that was the about the maximum on the weapon Bolan held. He shook his head. The village might have to take the aerial bombardment before he could get a shot at the chopper.

  The pilot obliged Bolan by doing his firing pop-up at fifteen hundred.

  Bolan’s thumbs shoved down the paddle trigger. The big weapon rattled and roared, and tracers streamed across the valley. The helicopter was coming in nearly straight-on to deliver its rockets into the village proper. Bolan walked his tracers into the cockpit glass.

  “Allahu Akbar!” Ali roared.

  Bolan kept the trigger down until the weapon spit out the last, smoking empty brass shell casing. The helicopter dipped its nose and began its death spiral. It jerked and spun wildly as someone still living within tried to fight the controls left behind by the dead pilot. The rotors sheared off as the chopper stuck the wall of the canyon, and it instantly went from death spiral to dropping like a rock. The rotorless fuselage struck the valley floor and broke its back over a boulder.

  The village erupted into cheers.

  Bolan hooked a fresh can of ammo on the big gun and racked the bolt back on a new belt of ammo. Ali’s cell phone rang. He answered it eagerly and almost instantly pressed it into the Executioner’s hands.

  “How’s it going down there, brother?” Bolan asked.

  “Well, brother, first of all,” Ous replied, “Bilal wanted me to tell you that he now believes everything he has been told about the Mighty One.”

  “Would you please tell Bilal that the Mighty One respectfully asked if he might make a phone call to tell his people that he is all right and where they can meet him on the Afghani border?”

  “Brother, you may make your call,” Ous replied a moment later.

  BOLAN WALKED into the conference room. It had been a two-day hike out of the FATA. Bilal had been kind enough to provide an armed escort and a pair of litter-bearers for Ous. The soldier was exhausted, but he knew Keller was eager for a face-to-face debrief.

  Keller smiled as Bolan took a seat. “You know, I kind of miss the beard.”

  “What do you have on our Major Noor?”

  “The Pakistani Military says there are no Major Noors in their special forces. There are currently two Major Noors in the regular army, both accounted for, and neither answering your description.”

  “Any forensic luck on the village battle?”

  “We managed to insert a team. It took us a day. We asked Bilal to leave everything where it lay, but a third of the village was burned down and after their initial excitement at the victory they were in a bad mood. The bodies that weren’t burned beyond recognition were stripped and mutilated. We got there seventy-two hours later, and the bodies had been thrown in a pile and left in the sun. The vultures had been feasting.”

  “One of the helicopters was a burned-out hulk. The villagers had stripped the other down to the frame. The Pakistan Military claims it isn’t missing any choppers.”

  Bolan knew the answer to his next question, but he asked anyway. He was always willing to be surprised. “Have we contacted the Japanese?”

  Keller sighed. “The Japanese Public Security Intelligence Agency says there are no such things as ninjas, nor have there been since the feudal Shogunate.”

  It was the PSIA’s standard answer on that one. No surprise there. There were even rumors in certain circles that at least one ninja clan was an arms-length PSIA asset. “So, how’s my ninja?”

  “Inscrutable.”

  “They tend to be that way.”

  Keller smiled. “You’ve known many?”

  “A few.”

  Keller just shook her head. She was starting to believe in the Mighty One, as well. Her bemusement sank into a frown. “We’ve got some new data on Zurisaday.”

  “Yeah?”

  “We think we know who she is.”

  Bolan could tell by Keller’s face he wasn’t going to like the answer. “Who?”

  “Your friend ‘the Bear’ was kind enough to contact me after you went missing. He told me that he has it on good authority her name is Na’ama Shushan.”

  “That’s a Hebrew name,” Bolan stated.

  “Yes. You said it. Assassins, off the rack.”

  There was a group of people who could rival the ninjas when it came to infiltration, espionage, sabotage and assassination, and that group was the Israeli Mossad. Over the years Bolan and other members of Stony Man Farm had worked with the Mossad and its agents. They had some markers to call on. Kurtzman had had a hunch and called in all of them.

  “She must have been a real embarrassment to the Mossad,” Bolan said.

  “She disappeared during a mission. Since there was no ransom or prisoner exchange deal, it was assumed she’d been killed.”

  “She was captured.”

  “The Mossad currently believes that she was captured and turned.”

  Bolan could see why Israeli Intelligence hadn’t shared everything. Having one of their own turned by the enemy and using the skills they had taught her to kill Israeli targets was unthinkable. It seemed the unthinkable had happened. “What else did they give us?”

  “The Bear let them know that we had her. They immediately wanted to send an agent. When they found out she had escaped, they canceled the trip and cl
ammed up again. You were in-country and incommunicado when this happened. Your friend said this struck him as very odd, and I guess he did whatever he did to make them spill. They gave us the whole shebang on her. There were some flags on her psych profile, but you’d expect that on a woman who accepts the job of seducing and killing enemies of the state.”

  “I think she was much more excited about the seducing and killing rather than the protecting the State of Israel part.” Bolan considered his encounters with her. “Frankly, after she was captured, I don’t think it took much to turn her.”

  “Bitch probably took it as a golden opportunity,” Keller muttered.

  “And exactly the kind of woman whoever the new player on the scene would hire.”

  “That’s how I see it,” Keller agreed.

  Bolan reflected a moment. “I think she’s still in Pakistan.”

  “She and Saboor certainly know by now that you and Ous escaped. I’m betting they’re long gone.”

  “They have a target in Pakistan.”

  “There really aren’t a lot of high-priority Western targets in Pakistan.”

  “The target is Pakistan,” Bolan told her.

  “You’re saying everything that’s happened in Afghanistan was a feint?” Keller said.

  “No, they were targets. Good enough to keep you and me from looking east. Even when we knew they were in the FATA and I was among them, we were still trying to figure out how they could launch an attack into Afghanistan.”

  “Okay, now you’re scaring me. What kind of target?” Keller asked.

  “One that would turn Pakistan from the West, one so bad that the army wouldn’t be able to stop radical Islamists from taking over the country.” Bolan went worst-case scenario. “Or started a nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India.”

  “Tell me—the Mighty One has something up his sleeve?” Keller asked hopefully.