Assassin's Code Read online

  The only noise was the storm beyond the shattered walls and the mechanical noise of weapons being reloaded. They had loaded the MRAP to the gills with holy warriors, but Bolan knew there had to be more in the surrounding houses and alleys. “Farkas! Sitrep!”

  “Captain Yoshida’s okay!” Farkas called back. “But we’ve got enemy gunners coming up the alley behind us! I make it a baker’s dozen!”

  Keller wiped blood and dust from her face and glared out into the dust storm. “Christ, there must be a platoon of them!”

  “We’re out of here!” Bolan shouted.

  Keller looked around in confusion. “Where’re we gonna go?”

  Bolan clambered over the rubble on the MRAP. “The bus is leaving!”

  Farkas shuffled forward, giving Yoshida a shoulder to lean on. Bolan flung open the driver’s door. The interior was painted black with smoke, glinting with shrapnel gouges and swathed in blood spray. He pulled the nearly headless driver from behind the wheel. The man who had tried to replace him was torn up pretty badly from the grenade, but he was still alive. Bolan shoved him out of the way as the rest of the team began to climb in. “Can anyone drive this?”

  Yoshida gave a defiant wheeze. “I’ll fucking drive it out of here!”

  “Do it!” Bolan moved back into the cabin. “Farkas! Stabilize the prisoner if you can! Keller! Close that back door!”

  Bolan slid into the remote-weapon operator’s seat. Ugly scratches scored the monitor and everything was covered with smoke and blast residue, but the screen came to life as he clicked keys. The unmanned turret and the .50-caliber machine gun it carried whirred above him as he traversed rearward. Someone outside with ill intentions noticed the move, and Keller slammed the back door shut just as bullets began whining off the hull.

  Yoshida rammed the MRAP into Reverse. Clay and timbers shifted as the armored vehicle backed out of the rubble. Bullets began whining off the hull in bee swarms. Bolan tracked the remote .50-caliber gun through the gloom, silencing the enemy fire shooter by shooter. The soldier’s skin crawled in anticipation of the RPG hit that would turn the cabin into a blast furnace of superheated gas and molten metal. The MRAP lurched forward as Yoshida put the hammer down. Ous leaped from armored window to armored window. “Seven o’clock! Seven o’clock high!”

  The remote weapon whirled under Bolan’s command, the big .50-caliber weapon tearing the three men on the rooftop into rags.

  BOLAN CAUGHT THE FLASH of fire and smoke as the rocket roared past his gun camera. The rocket impacted a wall in a flash, and then the explosion and smoke was swallowed in the dust storm. Keller shook her head in mounting panic as she scanned out the portside windows. “Christ, they’re everywhere!”

  Yoshida roared in pain. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

  “The captain’s hit!” Farkas shouted.

  Bolan flicked a glance over to see the Marine captain sag, swearing, out of the driver’s seat. “Shit…”

  The Executioner was nearly thrown from his position as the MRAP swerved into a wall and stalled.

  “Bismillah!” Ous shouted. “Rocket! Rocket!”

  Bolan tracked the turret around just in time to see the rocket-propelled grenade fly straight into his crosshairs. “Everybody down!” Keller screamed. The interior lights went black as something seemed to slap the MRAP along its chassis. The turret overhead screamed as metal tore. Sparks flew from the wiring, and everything that wasn’t bolted down went flying. Ous tumbled into Bolan’s position and bounced off him. The Executioner’s ears rang, but battle instincts took over. The vehicle was still upright. The fire-suppression system hadn’t been activated, so they weren’t on fire, and the hull hadn’t been breached.

  The remote-weapon system was gone. Bullets continued slamming into the hull. Bolan scrambled over Yoshida and Farkas. One glance told him Yoshida was in bad shape. The driver’s position was a viscous swamp of blood from every man who had driven the vehicle this day.

  Bolan pulled down his goggles and slid into the death seat.

  The wind blasted dust through the shattered window. The soldier hit the starter button, and the engine grunted then stalled.

  “They come!” Ous yelled as he looked out the rear windows.

  The Executioner hit the starter again, and the Caterpillar diesel engine thundered back to life. He shoved the MRAP into Reverse and floored it. The howls of bloodlust turned to screams. Bolan was rewarded by the sound of bodies bouncing off armor.

  Ous went flying as the MRAP clipped the side of a house. Gears ground as the vehicle was cranked back into drive, then stalled. Thumps echoed hollowly from the roof as someone leaped from the rooftop and onto the MRAP. Bolan snarled as a hand appeared in the shattered driver’s window and dropped a grenade in his lap. The soldier snatched the grenade and shoved it back out the window.

  “Down!” Bolan flung himself below the level of the window as the frag grenade detonated on the hood and sent jagged bits of metal spitting in all directions. He rose to find someone trying to shove the muzzle of an AK through the window, and grabbed the barrel, yanking it aside. The weapon went hot in his hand as the owner fired a long burst into Bolan’s armrest. Drawing his Beretta, the Executioner put a 3-round burst into the attacker’s gun hand. Fingers flew apart and Bolan yanked the weapon away. He hit the starter button and the besieged MRAP coughed into life once again, but the engine didn’t sound good.

  People were still on the roof.

  Bolan floored it once more. The MRAP roared as it accelerated. When the speedometer hit twenty, the soldier stood on the brakes. Three men went flying into the street ahead as if they had wings. Bolan stomped on the accelerator and ground the killers beneath the vehicle’s massive all-terrain tires. He shoved the Beretta out the window and fired bursts at two men appearing out of an alleyway with AKs. One fell to Bolan’s fire, but the other leaped back. Bullets still struck the MRAP, but they all struck the rear rather than the front, sides and roof.

  Bolan burned out of the village and slowed as the storm engulfed them. “Farkas, how’s Yoshida?”

  “Bad.”

  “The prisoner?”

  “Worse.”

  “Grab the medical kit from the locker. It’s an hour back to base, and I need you to keep them both alive. Keller, help him.”

  Keller put a hand on Bolan’s shoulder. “Mister, you really kicked some ass.”

  Bolan grimaced through the dust blasting through the window. The fact was they’d been mauled, and it was thirty miles to the Marine forward base outside Sangin. “Ous, keep an eye out behind us.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sangin City, Base Camp Bravo

  Yoshida looked like hell.. He taken two rounds through the neck and trapezius, and a third had relieved him of his left ear. The fact that he still had a head, much less anything below that was still functioning, was a miracle. Bolan smiled down at the wounded warrior. “You look like shit, Captain.”

  The Marine gave Bolan a very weary smile back. “Count myself lucky to be looking like anything, Cooper.”

  “I’m sorry about your men.”

  “Thanks for hauling us out of there.” Yoshida sighed. “How are Farkas and Keller?”

  “Just bumps and bruises mostly.”

  “Yeah, that was a bumpy ride. How’s the prisoner?”

  “He’s stable,” Bolan said. “I’m about to go look in on him.”

  The Marine captain’s eyes went icy despite the fog of painkillers. “Yeah, well, you be sure to give him my regards when you do.”

  “Ous is dying to give him your regards. It’s been hard to hold him back,” Bolan admitted. “Speaking of which, what do you know about the man?”

  Yoshida sagged into his bed. “Not much. Word is he’s a real bad-ass, and he’s been real dark and spooky with the CIA. I hear that the Taliban has a one million afghan bounty on his head.”

  Bolan did a little math. At the moment one million afghans was about twenty thousand dollars U.S., plus change. Afghanistan
was about as dirt poor as nations got. The Taliban putting that kind of coin on a man’s head said something about Mr. Ous’s reputation and activities. “Can I get you anything?”

  “Bourbon,” Yoshida suggested. “And the assholes who did this.”

  “You’ll have the bourbon before Taps. You have my word on it.” Bolan smiled. “The assholes will have to be after Reveille tomorrow.”

  Yoshida’s eyes glazed over with the combination of wounds, drugs and exhaustion, and slowly closed. “Just get them…?.”

  Bolan nodded at the wounded, sleeping Marine. “You got my word on that, too, Captain.”

  The Executioner strode from the regular infirmary tent into the storm and walked across the lane to another hospital tent. It was much smaller and guarded by armed Marines. Bolan nodded at the two sentries and walked in the tent. The wind flapped and shuddered the walls. There was only one patient inside. He lay on a bed with tubes sticking out of him and was heavily swathed in bandages, but he was conscious and clearly very agitated. A short, similarly agitated Marine doctor stood between the prisoner and Ous. The Hippocratic oath and naked intimidation fought for the doctor’s soul, but he was a Marine and stood his ground. The doctor’s head snapped around at the new intrusion. When he saw Bolan’s uniform, he looked at him imploringly.

  “Can you please get this man out of here?”

  “Why?” Bolan asked.

  “He wants to interrogate my patient!”

  “I want to interrogate your patient.”

  The doctor waved his hands at the man on the bed and then toward heaven in mounting outrage. “You think this man is in any kind of condition for interrogation?”

  Ous gazed unblinkingly at the prisoner with his disturbingly wolflike eyes. “I believe the prisoner is in an ideal condition for interrogation.”

  The man on the bed flinched.

  The doctor was appalled. “Oh for God’s sake!”

  “I also believe this man speaks English,” Ous added.

  The prisoner flinched again. Bolan kept the smile off his face. Ous was good.

  “Taliban?” Bolan asked.

  The prisoner assumed a stone-faced stare at the roof of the tent.

  “It was so much easier when they marched through the streets, proudly wearing their black turbans,” Ous said. “But we killed so many of them they bared their heads so that they might hide in gutters like skulking dogs.”

  The prisoner’s cheek flexed.

  “Such a shocking lack of faith,” Ous concluded.

  Ous was literally inducing a facial tic on the prisoner.

  “Taliban?” Bolan asked again.

  The doctor was clearly upset. “Listen! I—”

  “Dr…?.?” Bolan inquired.

  “What? Oh, Early. Listen, I—”

  “Dr. Early, I understand the Hippocratic oath and I know this man is your patient, but I need a no-bullshit assessment. When will this man be well enough to be sent to the capital?”

  Dr. Early made a visible effort to control himself. “He’s torn up pretty badly. I saved his left leg, but I couldn’t save his left testicle. He was very lucky about the shrapnel in his abdomen. It was a miracle it didn’t tear up anything vital, but a lot of his real estate is being held together by stitches. If you put him on the road to Kabul, you’re going to bounce them open. Even if his stitches hold, his brains will most likely be applesauce by the time you get there. I want—hell, I demand that he not be moved for the next twenty-four hours while I monitor his concussion.”

  “I agree. He should only be moved by helicopter.” Bolan glanced at the tent walls as they vibrated. The storm was in its third day and showed no signs letting up. “We both know that isn’t going to happen today. But when you release him to me, I will absolutely guarantee his safety.”

  Dr. Early walked around to the other side of the bed and stared down at his patient. “More than the son of a bitch deserves, but I believe you when you say he’ll get it.”

  “Dr. Early, if it makes you feel any better I can get—” Bolan’s eyes flared as the wall of the tent lifted a few feet away from the doctor and the spherical, olive-drab shape of a U.S. M-67 hand grenade rolled to a stop at Early’s feet. “Grenade!”

  Dr. Early echoed the sentiment and promptly threw himself on top of it. Bolan seized the bed-frame. “Ous!”

  Ous grabbed the frame at the foot of the bed and together they heaved the bed toward them and dropped prone. The prisoner screamed as his IVs tore and he toppled to the floor. The grenade detonated with a muffled whip-crack and 6.5 ounces of Composition B tried to send its lethal cloud of steel splinters through Dr. Early’s body and fill the tent. It was partially successful. Medical equipment shattered and sparked. In the confines of the tent, the blast effect was like a blow to the head. The mattress bottom rippled and tufted as some splinters made it through.

  Bolan was up instantly. His ears rang, but his Beretta was in hand. Dr. Early was nothing but rags. The soldier snarled over his shoulder at Ous. “Guard the patient!”

  The Executioner rolled under the tent wall. The fact that it could be lifted told him it had been doctored for the fragging. He lunged up into the storm. Fifty yards ahead the dust swallowed a running figure.

  The big American broke into a dead sprint through the base’s back alleys, leaping tent ropes like an Olympic hurdler. Up ahead the man became visible again. He had stopped and was leaning on a tent rope to steady himself. Apparently he thought he was safe. He lifted his goggled head and saw Bolan bearing down on him like an avenging angel. The assassin whirled and promptly tripped over the rope. He lurched back up and took three stumbling steps. He shouted despairingly over the howling of the wind. “No! Wait! You don’t understand, man! No! I—” Part of Bolan’s brain noted the man was speaking with a Puerto Rican accent.

  The man suddenly seemed to remember the .45-caliber MEU pistol strapped to his leg.

  The pistol was half out of its holster when Bolan’s boot slammed up between the guy’s legs. The assassin screamed like a rabbit being killed and collapsed into Bolan’s embrace. The Executioner’s right arm snaked under the man’s chin and heaved upward as the man sagged from the testicular trauma. The big American locked his hands together and squeezed as well as lifted. The carotid artery shut off, and the more brutal trachea compression cut of his air.

  Marines charged out of the dust from all directions shouting contradictory orders and waving rifles. “Freeze! Let him go! Don’t move! I said drop him!” Bolan dropped the man as he went limp with unconsciousness.

  “On your knees!” a Marine screamed. His bayonet was fixed. “I said, on your knees!”

  Agent Keller appeared out of the dust and flashed her badge. “NCIS! Agent Keller! He’s with me!”

  Bolan glanced down at the motionless man at his feet. “He’s the one who fragged the infirmary.”

  The belligerent Marine lowered his weapon. Even with the wind and dust battering him his face went slack. “Oh…my…God…”

  Bolan felt the young Marine’s pain. The U.S. military had seen its share of atrocities: fraggings, crimes and massacres. Rightly or wrongly, the modern United States Marine Corps considered itself above such things. The motto of the Corps was Semper fidelis, Always Faithful.

  What this man had done was unthinkable.

  The man on the ground gasped as he roused back into consciousness. “Hook him and book him,” Bolan suggested.

  “Right.” An MP produced zip restraints. Ous appeared at Bolan’s elbow.

  “How’s the prisoner?” Bolan asked.

  “He is currently leaking clear fluids out of his eyes and ears, and his pupils are two different sizes. I fear the blast from the grenade was too much for his already beleaguered brain.” Ous sighed. “You are all right?”

  “I could use a cup of coffee,” Bolan admitted.

  Ous looked at Bolan with great seriousness. “You are a man of the West. I am sure what you require is beer.”

  Sangin Ba
zaar

  BOLAN AND OUS drank beer. Islam forbade the drinking of alcohol, however across the Muslim world the laws of hospitality were some of the most powerful on Earth. A large number of Muslim men Bolan had met had come to the happy, contorted conclusion that it would be unforgivable to not offer a Westerner his dissipation, and an even worse breach of honor to make him feel uncomfortable by frowning upon his misguided ways and not partaking.

  Ous did everything he could to make Bolan comfortable by keeping the bottles of beer flowing from the battered plastic cooler between them. They sat on stools in a tiny alcove curtained with a pair of rugs. Outside two enormously fat men who appeared to be twins blocked the entrance to the alcove. Their stall was piled high with oranges. Each man had an AK propped by his leg. The storm had died down, but it was still hot, windy, dusty, overcast and miserable outside. The orange trade was slow and the bazaar almost deserted.

  “So,” Bolan began, “you were Muj?”

  Ous cracked two fresh beers and waited until Bolan had sipped from his. “I answered the call to jihad against the Soviet invaders when I was twelve. My aged father, who resides in heaven, pressed his Lee-Enfield rifle and a bandolier of fifty rounds into my hands and implored me to martyr myself in God’s name. With the bayonet fixed, the rifle was taller than I was at the time. I failed to become a Holy Martyr, but I killed many, many Russians. At one point there was a ten-thousand-ruble reward out for my head.”

  “I understand the Taliban has a million on you at the moment,” Bolan observed.

  Ous shrugged modestly. “So I am told.”

  Bolan gave Ous a knowing look. “You were Northern Alliance?”

  “For a time,” Ous conceded. “I truly believed in jihad against the Soviets. God required them to be struck down. However, after liberation, I found that I had no use for the Taliban at all.”

  “They’re—”

  “They are foreign interlopers, and Wahhabist interlopers at that.” Ous spit. “Destroyers of shrines.”

  “You’re Sufi,” Bolan surmised.