Appointment in Kabul te-73 Page 6

  Katrina turned around, too. She reached around to touch her lifeless lover in the back seat but she shed no tears.

  "They will pay," she said quietly, not to Bolan, as if voicing a thought to the universe.

  Bolan recognized the three words with a clarity that made his knuckles tighten around the steering wheel.

  He had spoken those same words moments after April Rose had died in his arms; the declaration of his one-man outlaw war against the KGB.

  "I know how you feel, Katrina," he told the woman. "I feel the same way. But you've got to think cool and precise right now. We both do or we're dead." He eased into what he wanted to know, not wanting to blow it at a delicate moment like this.

  "You're pretty good with that M-16."

  She accepted the fresh magazine he handed her and fed it into the rifle. "The military gave defensive weapons training before sending me here, was she replied vaguely. "There... is no turning back for me now, is there?"

  "They already knew about you. Lansdale and I were going to warn you. That was good timing, you showing up back there."

  "You told me what you would do. When I left his home, I chanced the drive to wait near the base. You attempted impossible odds but... there is something about you that inspires confidence. There should be more people like you in the world to do what needs to be done. Now... there is one less." She reached across and gently lifted one of Lansdale's hands, pressed it to her cheek for one brief moment and kissed her lover's soul goodbye for the last time, then Katrina Mozzhechkov turned in the front seat to stare out the windshield.

  "They'll have the city corked tight in no time, if they haven't already," said Bolan. "A description of you and this car will be going out on the air right now. We'll have to find other transportation. You should come with me, Katrina. They'll kill you if you stay in Kabul." He braked the Tatra along a dark stretch in the suburbs where clusters of trees provided a good enough hiding spot for the car at least until dawn.

  "You are right, of course." She nodded and Bolan could see she was grappling with inner demons.

  But he had to know.

  "Before we go any further, Katrina, you've got to tell me. Lansdale spoke to you when you helped him into the back seat right before he died, didn't he? I've got to know what he said."

  She turned to eye him with open speculation.

  "You ask me to trust you, Mack Bolan. Do you trust me?"

  "Countless lives are at stake, Katrina. Every second counts. I trust you, yes."

  "He spoke the name of a town. Parachinar."

  Bolan nodded, his mental intel file clicking up the essentials. "On the Pakistan border. A militia garrison is stationed there. That would be the place, all right. It would do them fine."

  "Is it... the Devil's Rain?" she asked quietly.

  "What do you know about that?" Bolan asked quickly, reaching forward to grab her by the shoulders.

  "Only that you asked me about those words when we first met... and I know in my heart it is the reason my man is dead." She made a decision and changed the way she looked at him. "We have been through too much together this night, you and I, for us not to trust each other."

  "We'll travel to Charikar," he told her.

  "But we'll have to find another vehicle first. Our biggest problem will be Soviet patrols."

  "There are several ways to get from Kabul to Charikar," the Russian woman told him. "I know them all. There is one way; it will be several hours longer but the patrols will overlook it."

  Soviet patrols have attempted to secure it in the past and have never been seen or heard from again. Bolan considered.

  Tarik Khan's force would pull away from their position in the foothills near Kabul the instant they received word of the Executioner's blitz on the Soviet high command. The mujahedeen would wait in Charikar, as Tarik Khan had promised, for word from Bolan on the site where a target named Voukelitch prepared a mass horror called the Devil's Rain.

  Parachinar.

  That is where the big hit would go down.

  If Bolan could trust Katrina Mozzhechkov, a person he wanted to trust, a human being he liked already, probably too much.

  A lot of what would happen from here on in depended on Lansdale's dying word as relayed by this woman.

  Lansdale had trusted her, true, but one fact could not be denied no matter how positively Bolan reacted to the woman.

  Lansdale was dead.

  Bolan would trust Katrina, sure.

  Up to a point.

  Far more, though, he would trust his own instincts and combat prowess to keep him alive to the payoff of this mission.

  He would shake this hell to its very foundations.

  9

  "I say we do not trust the woman," Alja Malikyar opined when asked. Bolan crouched with Alja and Tarik Khan around the smoldering embers of the morning cooking fire.

  The three men sipped coffee sweetened with peppermint from tin cups. Bolan and Katrina had reached Charikar an hour before dawn in the third hotwired vehicle Bolan had "appropriated" to get them there following Katrina's directions.

  Tarik Khan and his men had welcomed Bolan warmly but they had viewed the woman with undisguised suspicion from the beginning. Bolan had grabbed a ninety-minute catnap once he made sure Katrina was safely ensconced in the temporary mujahedeen camp. Tarik Khan arranged for her accommodation out of deference to Bolan.

  The catnap proved more than sufficient to recharge Bolan's batteries and now, at 09.00 hours, he was discussing what he had learned last night and what they must do next if they had any hope at all of stopping the Devil's Rain before it began.

  Tarik Khan had changed from his gaudy embroidered vest into garb that matched that of his men, the patu, a thin wool blanket that serves Afghans as shawl, coat, bed cover and prayer mat.

  The mujahedeen malik had asked his second-incommand for input after hearing Bolan's precise account of last night's events in Kabul and of agent Lansdale's dying message via the woman.

  Bolan could see malik Tarik Khan weighing Alja's thoughts on the matter. He spoke to counter them.

  "If the Russians are developing the Devil's Rain at Parachinar and if we get there in time to stop them, then Katrina Mozzhechkov is responsible for saving the lives of untold thousands of your people, Tarik Khan."

  "And if she is a Soviet spy?" Alja asked. "If she relays only information the Russians wished the man, Lansdale, and us, to have? The woman could be leading us to a massacre!"

  Bolan played the card that had swayed his decision. "And what choice do we have?" he asked both men. "I say we hit Parachinar. I will bear full responsibility for the woman until she is vindicated or condemned by what happens when we reach the fort."

  The malik nodded, absorbing both points of view. At last the guerrilla leader spoke.

  "Very well, kuvii Bolan, the woman shall accompany us. We begin the march at dusk. But you must realize the Russian woman is our mortal enemy and will be considered as such by my men. And by myself until she has proved herself. It can be no other way."

  "As long as she isn't harmed," Bolan said, trying not to make it sound like a threat, only a statement of fact and condition, out of respect to the mujahedeen leader.

  Tarik Khan nodded.

  "So it shall be, kuvii Bolan. You have my word." The village consisted of a motley collection of weathered-wood houses propped up by long poles.

  * * *

  The day had started shortly after dawn with prayers.

  The settlement had no electricity, no running water, no telephone; a single lantern provided all the light in the hut where Bolan had slept.

  He had observed few signs of modern life: Soviet weapons and a few portable radios.

  Bolan and the men had eaten of the traditionally hearty Afghan morning meal: chicken, mutton, bread, grapes and yogurt, before most of the villagers left to tend their crops and sheep as if a war did not rage around them.

  Social life in the Afghan countryside is dictated by ancient feu
dal patterns. The Afghans are a diverse people including both Pashto speakers and Dari speakers; several disparate sects of Muslims; political leaders who like the way Iran is governed and would like the same for Afghanistan; and tribes that have always hated each other over blood feuds that have endured for centuries.

  Though the differences between such groups are dramatic, their one unifying aspect is the ancient Afghan code of behavior known as pushtanwalli, characterized by clear-cut obligations of hospitality to travelers and fugitives, revenge against enemies of tribe and family and adherence to manly courage.

  The most important part of this code is melmasua, which deals with hospitality. And so Tarik Khan's force was given shelter by a tribe other than its own.

  Bolan felt restless to move on but appreciated the necessity of a force the size of Tarik Khan's traveling only at night.

  The ranks of the mujahedeen had swollen to nearly thirty men since Bolan and Tarik Khan had parted last night outside Kabul. The guerrilla attack force comprised the full spectrum of Afghan society, from former white-collar professionals to farmers and herdsmen. The local jukiabkr, the leader of the village council, and his tribe, ignored Tarik Khan's group. That appeared to be okay with the malik's group, the clear-eyed assault force Bolan would be working with.

  The jukiabkr, a barrel-chested man with a handlebar mustache, seemed to live on hashish, like so many of the Afghan hill people. Right after morning prayers Bolan saw the guy take shavings from a block of the resinous drug and smoke it in a water pipe. Bolan saw the jukiabkr the rest of the day smoking his hash mixed with tobacco and rolled into cigarettes. Bolan would feel damn glad to be out of here.

  The American ached for action and cursed the slow pace of the sun's progress across the sky.

  Katrina stepped up to stand beside him as he stood gazing out over the ruggedly beautiful countryside from an overlook near the outskirts of the village.

  "I do not wish to be a burden," she began. "I can feel the hatred in their eyes when they look my way."

  Bolan offered her a cigarette but she declined.

  "You're Russian. You've got to expect it."

  "I expect it. I was a good Russian soldier, you see." Tense, she worried her lower lip between her teeth. "What happened between... the man Lansdale and myself... it had nothing to do with his work. It is right that you should understand this. At first, yes, he met me through Captain Zhegolov when he had the gall to impersonate a Russian officer and attend a dinner party at a general's home."

  Some of the tension left and the corners of her mouth tipped in a bittersweet smile.

  "I think I fell in love with him at that moment, and when he contacted me later and asked for a dinner engagement I knew the attraction was mutual. From there an attachment blossomed between us, a beautiful thing.

  "When he told me who and what he really was it was after we had fallen in love and he trusted me enough to tell me. I told him then I could not betray the position of trust I had been put in. I realize now how they must have learned about me.

  "Captain Zhegolov was one of his informers but even this I was never told. His work, my work, had no place between us. I cannot explain it."

  "You don't have to. He felt the same way about you. No one can judge what you two had."

  "And now that I have no choice, now that I cannot return, I worry about my family in Russia more than ever, and yet I feel a freedom almost as great as love itself. Do you understand this? And yet I am not free of what has happened, of my fate... of the life I carry in my womb."

  "Your family may be all right," Bolan said. "For now that's all you can go on. I have many connections, Katrina. Some in Russia. We'll do what we can for them."

  "I will accept what help you can give," she said, gazing at the Executioner, "but seeing one's love killed the way I did... I don't know what to think, what to feet, but I know I must do something to... after my acceptance and part in what my country is doing here."

  "You're right about one thing, Katrina. You don't know what to think. Not this soon after last night. You may feel normal in some ways, but believe me, you are in shock from what you witnessed and what you were called on to do. You're tough enough to stay hard, I can see that, but call off making any decisions, okay? You owe it to the new life inside you."

  "Do I owe his child a coward for a mother?" she asked, and did not wait for his response but touched his arm with fingertips that last night had triggered death from a blazing M-16, but right now transmitted the human touch, nothing sexual, not anything except caring. "The loyalty I felt to my country... I now feel for his memory. That is how it is. Thank you for listening to a woman analyze her soul aloud, Mack Bolan. And for not judging."

  He could say nothing to that. He watched her turn and walk away. The village seemed nearly deserted during the day except for Tarik Khan's men who lounged about in attitudes of anticipation; the "hurry up and wait" syndrome of all military operations everywhere, even among guerrillas such as these.

  Bolan preferred working alone or with only a small, select team. He had lost too many allies, from his early death squad days against the Mafia when he had enlisted the ill-fated members of his Nam combat team, right up to that terrible moment when April stopped a bullet meant for him.

  Bolan felt he would give anything to have that one moment repeated so he could know the bullet was coming and take it instead of her. He found himself realizing more and more as time put distance between now and then that the bullet that killed April had killed a part of Mack Bolan, too.

  He still had friends he cared about as human beings, most of them hellgrounders who had served with him in one capacity or another during the Executioner's bloody miles, but Bolan recognized that something within himself had changed, possibly disappeared forever, though he hoped not. A sense of humanness, yeah, that was it. The human fighting machine had risked everything more than once, pulling off the impossible over and over again in battlefields around the world, stopping the cannibals. For love.

  It might sound corny but people were the only thing that really mattered, Bolan knew; what they could aspire to and become and the promise of a better world someday, somehow, every time lovers touched. April Rose had been all of that and more to Mack Samuel Bolan, and when she died... yeah, something real big in the big guy named Bolan died, too, and all life held for him now was the fight itself.

  But, bet on it, when it came to stopping cannibals and something called the Devil's Rain, this guy's war everlasting was reward enough.

  10

  The sun eased into the western horizon, splashing the rugged beauty of snowcapped mountains a warm red.

  Bolan crouched, checking his weapons and gear prior to moving out. Tarik Khan, Alja and the village jukiabkr approached him shortly after the traditionally light evening meal of flat bread and tea. Bolan quelled an immediate irritation at the arrogance with which the jukiabkr carried himself.

  "It seems a Soviet convoy has chosen to camp for the night two kilometers from here," Tarik Khan told Bolan. "Trouble with one of their vehicles."

  "Let them be," Bolan growled. "Let's move out. Our fight with the Russians is elsewhere."

  "I, uh, quite agree. Unfortunately, it is the request of our host, the jukiabkr, and is as such a demand, that my force assist his in attacking the Soviet camp. To refuse would be interpreted as a direct insult after the hospitality they have extended us."

  Bolan glanced at the jukiabkr. The village leader returned a glare of pointed rudeness but said nothing. "Does he speak English?"

  "No, but I am compelled to render a faithful translation of all you say."

  "Fine. Have you explained to him the importance of our mission?"

  Alja spoke up before his commander could reply.

  "I say we aid the jukiabkr. Are not the Russians to be slaughtered wherever we find them when they do not expect us? The reason these soldiers risk camping in this area at all and do not push on with their remaining vehicles is that they believe this
village to be secure. We can take them in an hour's time and easily be on our way. Allah has placed these Russian pigs before us to be slaughtered in the holy name of Islam. Can we turn our backs on the will of Allah?"

  Bolan delivered a chilled glare.

  "Alja Malikyar, you are a brother in arms and a brave man in the field of combat, but your zealousness will get you killed."

  "Then that, too, is Allah's will," the feisty hill fighter shot back. "I live to slay my enemy in His name and so shall I die."

  Tarik Khan looked to Bolan.

  "You see how it is, my friend. Many of my men feel this way."

  "I thought you were in command of this force, Tarik Khan."

  "I am. But we speak now, kuvii Bolan, of religion and tradition and the power they have to shape a man's destiny, something your Western cultures have forgotten."

  The jukiabkr groused a belligerent demand in Pashto, the language in which Tarik Khan responded before translating for Bolan. "He wants to know if we, you and I, are with him. I have told the jukiabkr that I must discuss the matter with you."

  "I appreciate that. And now that we've discussed it?"

  "Do you appreciate my predicament, kuvii Bolan? Allah directs my fate, too. I have misgivings but it can be no other way in light of who and what I and my people are."

  Bolan had not come all this distance to sacrifice the mission to these people's religious fervor. He had come to help, but he could not help them with themselves. But this was still his mission as well as theirs, and if they did not consider the mission objective he would have to for them.

  He restrained his irritation and a strong urge to punch Hash Breath in the mouth.

  He said to Tarik Khan, "You have surely noted the fogged mental condition of the jukiabkr. His men are in no better shape and they've been working in the fields all day. If we go into battle with them, it will be suicide for too many of your men no matter how good they are, and will cost us manpower we need to accomplish our objective." He refrained from mentioning details and Parachinar and hoped Tarik Khan and his men had done the same.