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  Bolan and Kengo inclined their heads and toasted.

  The Persian put down his water and sighed. “That is very reasonable of you. However, the maiming of V. is considered unacceptable.”

  V. flinched.

  “He was at your mercy, and you mutilated him. This was costly in several ways to friends of ours.”

  Singh folded his mighty arms across his chest.

  The meeting had just turned into a poker game. The stakes were life and death. It was time to pull a mutually agreed upon wild card. Bolan and Kengo looked at each other for long moments. Kengo nodded, and the soldier rose.

  “There is a dagger in my bag.” The Persian blinked. Bolan jerked his head at the security man, who looked at the Persian. The Persian nodded. Singh’s hand went under his tunic. The guard went and rummaged through Bolan’s bag, returning with the kubikiri. Bolan took the blade with a slight bow and unsheathed it. For a clean cut Bolan laid his outstretched little finger on the table. He placed the edge of the blade on the third knuckle of his finger and locked his gaze with V.

  V. gasped.

  The Persian looked at Bolan askance.

  Shushan was positively glowing.

  Bolan gave V. a single nod. “Forgive us.”

  Kengo rose. “No, the offense was mine.” He took the dagger and put the first knuckle length of his left little finger on the table. “I will require the use of my hand for the duration of the mission. You may have the rest of the finger when our business is concluded.” Kengo sheared off the tip of his middle finger with a single cut. He took a napkin from the fruit plate, wrapped the fingertip with origami-like precision and placed it in front of V. with a bow.

  Bolan took out his pocket square, snapped it and handed it to Kengo. He arranged his features into an even more powerful scowl. “Let us return to business.”

  The Persian leaned back in his chair and appeared to be reevaluating the ninjas. “I believe our business for this evening is finished. We will contact you in the morning.”

  Bolan had a deep suspicion the Persian desperately wanted to contact his superiors. The Executioner and Kengo both bowed. The big American produced a card. “We are staying here. Please have our things delivered there at your most immediate convenience.” They turned on their heels and walked out of the Floatel as bold as brass. They passed one of the outdoor cafés. Omar Ous sat sipping coffee and reading an English copy of the Times of India. He snapped it and turned the page by way of acknowledgment.

  The two men walked out of Millennium Plaza. Bolan broke the silence as he hailed a cab. “How’s your hand?”

  “It hurts like hell. Goddamn Yakuza. They set a precedent for asking forgiveness the rest of us have to live with.”

  “The good news?”

  Kengo shook his head. “I am desperate to hear the good news.”

  “I’m pretty sure we passed the second audition.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Kolkata, safehouse

  Shushan’s perfume preceded her. She placed a pistol on the bedstand and slid into Bolan’s bed. He slid his own weapon back under his pillow, sighing in the dark. “You got past my ninja.”

  Shushan spooned in. “Not without a rather thorough check for a wire.”

  “I told him I didn’t want to be disturbed unless it was an emergency.”

  “Ken-san also believes it is to our advantage to have the enemy think we are sleeping together, and I thought you would like a briefing on what went on at the Floatel.”

  Shushan laid her head on Bolan’s chest. He lay equally naked beneath the sheets. She placed a very familiar hand low on the soldier’s stomach. “They were impressed. I personally found the whole performance somewhat theatrical. Then again, in my experience, Thuggees and Ismaili Assassins are somewhat predictable.”

  “You have a lot of experience with them?”

  “Perhaps not as much as you…” Shushan countered. “But Ismailis are Muslim. Thuggees worship Kali. Distorted as their versions of their religions have become, they are fanatics and their religions predicate their actions. Ninjas? Who knows what a ninja might do? Your behavior dovetailed with all of their preconceived notions.”

  “Who’s the Persian?”

  “The only name I have is Karrar. I believe he is an Ismaili.”

  “And the Sikh?”

  “I believe Singh is a Thuggee.”

  “Isn’t that a little unusual?”

  “Thuggees are Hindu worshippers of Kali, and yet it was not unknown to have Muslim and even Sikh converts. The Thuggees have their ways.”

  Bolan knew from very hard personal experience about Thuggee conversion methods.

  “Oh, by the way,” she added. “V. is in love with you.”

  “Who isn’t?”

  Shushan laughed.

  “Tell me about the giant.”

  “You are right. He is not in love with you.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “He is very interesting. I have worked closely with him. He is an Ismaili, and Persian. I have heard others refer to Daei as ‘Tiractur’ in private.”

  “Tractor?”

  “That is the corruption of the word in the Middle East. The man has spent many long years training in the Zurkhaneh.”

  Bolan knew the word. It was Persian and it meant “House of Strength.” It was the house where traditional Persian martial arts were performed with a heavy emphasis on wrestling and strength-building.

  “His strength is inhuman. Even Ken-san would be in a great deal of trouble if he came within arm’s reach of Daei. I will tell you something else. He hates you and wishes to lay his hands upon you. Your disguise is magnificent, but Daei is as suspicious as he is strong, and do not underestimate his intelligence. He is a master planner. I would be very careful around him. If you find yourself in his presence, I would let Ken-san do all the talking.”

  “What more can you tell me about their real mission?” Bolan asked.

  “This resurrected branch of the Ismailis have embraced jihad against the West. The Thuggees want the end of the world. Ninjas work for money or their own inscrutable objectives.”

  Bolan smiled in the dark. “Ismailis, Thuggees and ninjas…”

  “Oh my,” Shushan finished. “What are you thinking?”

  “Afghanistan, Pakistan.”

  “You think these actions were a ruse?” Shushan shook her head. “All of their targets seemed legitimate.”

  “I agree, breaking up the peace process in Afghanistan, emplacing blackmail rings in our military bases, stirring up the FATA and getting their hands in the Mid-East heroin trade—all of that furthers their aims.”

  Shushan searched for the thread. “Useful feints?”

  “You’ve been too busy enjoying your job rather than thinking about it.”

  Shushan made an amused noise. “There may be some truth in that. So what are you saying these activities represent?”

  Bolan let out a long breath. “Prep work, for what’s to come.”

  “For a global caliphate?” Shushan’s tone made it clear she didn’t lend much credence to the idea. “Really?”

  “At least it’s prep work for the kick-off party.”

  “And what do you believe this kick-off party will be?”

  “Ismailis, Thuggees, Ninjas, even you. You all have one thing in common.”

  Shushan lifted her head, and Bolan felt her one eye upon him in the dark. “We are assassins.”

  “I think they intend to assassinate somebody.”

  “Who?”

  “What would constitute the biggest assassination of all time?”

  “That is easy,” Shushan said. “A standing American President.”

  “And the President of the United States is currently in Australia,” Bolan stated.

  “And according to the schedule of his diplomatic tour, your President will be in India at the end of the week.”

  Bolan rolled the waman aside and rose. “I need to make a phone call.”
r />   AARON KURTZMAN stared across the link. Hal Brognola, the Farm’s director and link to the White House, sat in a chair in his home on an inset window, glowering. Bolan wasn’t surprised to see him on the link.

  “You’re telling me Ismaili Assassins, Thuggees and ninjas want to take out the President?” Brognola asked.

  “The Assassins and the Thuggees do.” Bolan nodded toward Kengo. “Us ninjas are just the hired help.”

  “Yeah, and what about renegade Mossad assassins?”

  Bolan glanced at Shushan. “They’re doing it for love.”

  Shushan’s mouth quirked in amusement.

  Brognola wasn’t amused. “How exactly do you want me to put that to the President, again?”

  “I’d try the truth. You tell him that when he comes to India an attempt is going to be made on his life, and it’s going to be made by ringers with thousands of years of cumulative practice.”

  Kengo sat across the table beside Shushan. They could hear Aaron Kurtzman and Brognola through the laptop speakers, but from their position couldn’t see their faces. Kengo nodded. “Sir, I’m surprised by this theory, as well, but I have to admit it makes as much sense as anything. The target is certainly big enough, and the effects certainly politically destabilizing.”

  The big Fed stopped short of gnashing his teeth. He always got a little more irked than usual when his boss’s life was threatened. “Very well, Mr….Ninja?”

  “Ken-san.”

  “Well, tell you what, Ken-san. You’re the ninja. The President is going to be surrounded by a small army of Secret Service agents, not to mention a small army of Indian army personnel. Given that scenario, how would you snuff him?”

  Kengo considered the question. “For me, as a ninja, this would be a suicide mission. This is generally not in our purview. For a ninja to be caught or identified during his mission is a disaster, for himself, the mission and his clan. Ninjas only engage in suicide missions in extreme situations.”

  “Extreme situations…” Brognola scoffed. “Seems like a pretty vague distinction to me. Things seem pretty extreme as it is. Of course, I’m just a civil servant. How about maybe a ninja defines ‘extreme’ for me, particularly given the current circumstances?”

  Kengo appeared to take no offense. “Of course. For example, no ninja would accept a mission to kill the President of the United States unless our nations were at war. Such an action would bring about the destruction of his clan and be a blow to the State of Japan from which it might never recover.”

  “Nice.” Brognola still wasn’t impressed. “But what about these Whispering Pine ninjas?”

  “Ninjas only in name, and that, sir, is the answer to your question. The Whispering Pine collective, through their shameless behavior, have implicated the ninja clans and the State of Japan in an attempt to destabilize the Middle East and Central Asia and possibly an assassination attempt on the President of the United States. That is your extreme situation. My clan has ordered me to erase this threat. I am completely willing to die should circumstances require it to fulfill this mission. Last night I cut off the tip of my finger. The rest of that digit is promised. Had the enemy required me to rip my belly, I would have done so to maintain Cooper-san’s cover. I am on a suicide mission. I do not expect to leave India alive.”

  It was hard to be flip in the face of such selfless resolve. “I appreciate that, but my question stands. How would you do it?”

  “Ninjas wouldn’t. Particularly in India, it is the Thuggees and the Ismailis who would stand the best chance. Thuggees will only use the rumal. It is hard for me to imagine a situation where they could get close enough to the President to employ them, much less do so without your Secret Service cutting them to shreds while they tried.”

  Aaron Kurtzman chimed in. “I’ve been doing research. The Ismailis were famous for infiltrating a group or community, killing their target with a dagger when the time was right, and then calmly waiting for the authorities. The President will be meeting, greeting and glad-handing hundreds of Indian businessmen, politicians, military brass and local glitterati. I think they’re your best-threat scenario. The Ismailis may have been embedding operatives in India for years for just such an opportunity.”

  Bolan agreed. “The President is coming to Kolkata.”

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact he is.”

  “Is the first lady coming?” Bolan asked.

  Brognola began to drum his fingers on his tabletop. “Yeah.”

  “I think you should get ready to tell him to cancel the India leg, and be ready to do so at the last second. I need you to give me as much time as possible to get inside these guys and their plan.”

  “I don’t have to tell you that news like that is going to go over like a French kiss at a family reunion,” Brognola said. The President is counting on coming back with a new round of trade agreements with India.”

  “I know.”

  “He needs a win. America needs a win. India needs a win. Cancelling at the very last second is going to be taken as lack of faith and commitment by the Indians. Not to mention a grave insult. The Indian prime minister wants his photo op.”

  “I know. He’s in danger, too.”

  Brognola stabbed a finger at the camera on his side of the link. “Listen, I’m not complaining. I agree with you. I want to cancel the trip right now. This is just a sample of the ear-screwing I’m going to get!”

  “I know,” Bolan repeated.

  “You’ve met the Man. Even if I can get your ‘ninjas and Thuggees and Ismalis, oh my’ mantra through his head, I give you ten to one odds he just ups security and says the United States of America does not alter its course or abandon its strategic partners in the face of possible threats. He’ll say that’s what the enemy wants, and if he cancels they win.”

  “If he cancels they lose,” Bolan stated.

  “Not on the world stage.”

  “Better than POTUS and FLOTUS being strangled or gutted like fish. We’ve faced the Ismaili Assassins before, Hal. Their daggers are like ninja’s swords. Mostly for tradition and terrorizing people. They don’t have any religious prohibitions against automatic weapons or explosives. The method of attack could be conventional or unconventional, and given the nature of the players involved, expect the attack to be layered.” Bolan gave the big Fed a frank look across the link. “You really need to talk to the President.”

  BOLAN GAVE KELLER the pertinent details. He and Kengo were about as deep undercover as it got, so there was no way they could afford a clandestine meeting with Keller, Ous, Babar or Farkas. The members of Bolan’s ad hoc strike team were cooling their heels and getting cabin fever in the CIA Kolkata station. Agent Keller’s glower across the link rivaled Brognola’s but she was whole lot prettier doing it. Keller was U.S. Navy and she didn’t respond well to her commander in chief being threatened. “The President.”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “Well, he’s going to be here in a few days. What are you and Ken going to do about it?”

  “Ken-san and I agree that there’s only one choice. We need to make ourselves indispensable to their mission.”

  “Listen, your disguise is fantastic, but you and Ken are still Whispering Pine flunkies. I mean, you’re ninjas, and that’s groovy, but like you said, you’re the hired help. How do you propose to make yourselves integral to the mission?”

  “Easy. We need to goose them, freak them out so they panic and make some mistakes. At the same time we need to screw up their operation so badly that they can’t complete their operation without us. That gets us on the inside to stop it, but, at the same time, we have to do all that without them knowing it was Ken-san and I who did it. Oh, and I want to pull Daei out of the shadows. He’s the highest up player we know. We need to engineer a hands-on Daei intervention.”

  Keller glanced from side to side as if she was waiting for the rub. “And you engineer that how?”

  “We’re going to have to engineer a slaugh
ter,” Bolan said.

  “A slaughter?”

  “Right, among their ranks.”

  “And how are you going to avoid the blame for that and get Daei to put his ass on the line?” Keller asked.

  “There’s only one guy I know who can do all that.”

  Keller made a face. “Okay, I give up. Who?”

  “Why…” Bolan cracked his knuckles. “The Mighty One.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Kolkata

  Bolan and Kengo followed Singh through the maze of catacombs. They didn’t know how sophisticated the enemy’s countersurveillance was. Electronics weren’t part of Shushan’s purview, but she had described what she had seen so far as “top of the line.” It put them at a disadvantage, but Bolan and Kengo had decided the risks outweighed the benefits.

  Keller and the team had followed in a loose tail as they had driven out into the sticks. Once Singh had taken them into an old office building and led them down into the earth, Bolan and Kengo had lost any hope of backup.

  They had been trudging through the muck for about half an hour.

  Bolan glanced at the foulness both old and new creeping down the walls. That and the ankle-deep water told him they were very close to the Hooghly. Bolan gave it a good chance they might actually be underneath one of the tributaries of the dark and ancient river. The Hooghly was a holy river, often called Ma Ganga, or “Mother Ganges” by the locals. The same population who worshipped it didn’t blink an eye about dumping their sewage into it. Industrial cities farther north dumped chemical waste into the river in breathtaking tonnages.

  The smell in the catacombs was horrific.

  By the glare of the flashlights, the crumbling walls looked ancient. The tunnels were extensive. They weren’t British Raj–era sewers or some ancient Indian irrigation system. Someone had dug these tunnels long ago for their own purpose, and Bolan suspected only the Death Goddess Kali and her worshippers knew why.

  A phalanx of Ismaili Assassins flanked Bolan and Kengo, four in front and four in back. It was a strange-looking troop of very dangerous men in casual wear and duck-waders trudging through the muck. The only thing that would have completed the picture would have been if they were carrying torches. Bolan doubted you could get a torch to burn in the miasma of fumes beneath the earth. That, or one spark would detonate the catacombs like a gas main.