Lethal Tribute

CHAPTER TWO

Islamabad, Pakistan

Bolan had been in worse cells. This one actually had a sunroof. Bolan peered up through the three iron bars in the ceiling. The late-morning sun threw shadows against the western wall of the cell, and he idly wondered what happened to the occupants when it rained. He ate the last bite of mystery meat he had been served and was wiping the remaining couscous from his bowl when someone hammered on the battered steel door of the cell.

“Prisoner! Step away from the door!”

Bolan was already sitting in a half-lotus position on the opposite side of the cell, but he decided cooperation was his best gambit for the moment. “I am away from the door.”

A slot in the steel door shot back and a glowering, bearded face noted his location. “Do not move!”

“I won’t.”

Keys turned in the massive lock and the door swung open. A hulking guard with a pistol on his hip filled the entryway. He carried a three-foot length of roughly turned wood wrapped in leather. Bolan knew that such truncheons were most often used in the Middle East for beating the bottoms of the feet of prisoners. A man with collapsed arches was unlikely to make trouble, much less attempt any escape. The guards had taken his boots upon incarceration. Bolan eyed the club in the man’s hands.

The guard should have brought backup.

The guard moved aside as Captain Makhdoom entered the cell. Bolan nodded. “Captain.”

The Pakistani frowned. “You have put me in a very difficult position.”

“I saved your life,” Bolan countered.

“Yes.” The captain nodded solemnly. “Which puts me in a very difficult position.”

“I see.” Bolan smiled in a friendly fashion. “How may I be of further assistance to you?”

“Um, yes.” The special forces captain shifted uncomfortably. “The United States government denies any knowledge of your existence, much less any legitimate reason for you to be lurking, illegally, and armed, within the borders of Pakistan.”

Bolan shrugged. It was a very old story.

Makhdoom shrugged in return. “And yet, my superiors have received—” the captain raised a troubled eyebrow “—intimations, from very, shall we say, oblique sources, that any consideration shown you will be appreciated.”

Bolan kept the smile off his face. “I’m prepared to assist you in any reasonable fashion within my means.”

The guard stared back and forth between Bolan and Makhdoom. His bludgeon creaked in his fists. He clearly yearned to do away with the pleasantries and beat Bolan into paste.

“Captain, may we speak privately for a moment?”

Makhdoom waved the guard away. “Corporal, you may wait for me down the hall.”

The guard’s face twisted in indignation as he gnashed his teeth and stormed from the cell.

Makhdoom’s voice went grim. “I cannot vouchsafe your safety in this place. There are those who wish to see you dealt with severely.”

“Captain, your government is missing some nuclear warheads. No one’s safety can be guaranteed.”

Makhdoom peered up unhappily through the narrow bars in the ceiling.

Bolan continued. “The United States government is aware of your missing warheads and is gravely concerned. You and I both know that whoever took them is most likely to be a dedicated enemy of the United States, Israel and Europe.” Bolan gazed at the captain critically. “Unless of course, the weapons weren’t stolen, but given away by members of your government to further the agenda of terrorists, or the liberation of Kashmir.”

Makhdoom flared. “The warheads were not given to anyone! They were taken! Despite every security precaution!”

“Taken?” Bolan eyes narrowed. “You mean, by force?”

“Taken,” Makhdoom affirmed. The anger in the Pakistani captain’s eyes was tempered by a certain dread. “As my men were taken last night. As you and I were almost taken. The guards at the facility were taken by something unseen. The warheads taken by the unseen. The guards on duty were gone. The weapons littered the floor, unfired. No trace was left.”

Bolan regarded Makhdoom. Pakistani special forces were nowhere near as sophisticated as U.S. Navy SEALs, the British SAS or the German GSG-9. The Pakistani government often used their special forces as shock troops and a number of their “sensitive” operations had turned into bloodbaths. They did, however, have a well-deserved reputation for toughness. Even Bolan had been disturbed by what he’d seen.

Makhdoom was genuinely afraid, and of more than loose nuclear weapons.

Bolan took the captain’s gaze and held it. “If the missing weapons can’t be contained or accounted for, the United States and others may be forced to take action, drastic action, very possibly within your national borders.”

Makhdoom stared into an ugly future. “There are those who say the first step in avoiding such a confrontation with the U.S. would be getting rid of you. Quickly and quietly.”

“I’m sure it’s been suggested.” Bolan nodded. “But I believe we both know that your first, best recourse would be to go back to the site of last night’s—” he considered the inexplicable events “—incident, pick up whatever information we can and proceed from there.”

Makhdoom’s head snapped around. “We?”

“You and I are last evening’s only two survivors. We also have a mutual problem.” Bolan opened his hands. “It’s only reasonable that we pool our resources.”

Makhdoom stared at Bolan long and hard. “Guard!”

The guard roared back into the room with his club cocked back in his hands for a blow. He seemed as giddy as a schoolgirl with the prospect of beating Bolan into oblivion.

Makhdoom let out a heavy sigh. “Fetch this man’s boots. He is coming with me.”

Northeast Pakistani Border

THE MI-8 HELICOPTER thundered across the sere mountains. It was summer in Pakistan and even up in the mountains the land beneath the aircraft was blast-furnace hot. Bolan sat back and enjoyed the breeze through the open doors. The flight of helicopters carried a full platoon of Musa Company special forces soldiers. A pair of Hind gunships flew in escort of the transports. Bolan wore tan Pakistani fatigues that didn’t quite fit, and a steel-pot helmet woven with camouflage netting. Russian-made body armor of titanium plates sandwiched between spun fiberglass fabric encased his torso. Musa Company was no longer creeping around in the dark. It was in assault mode and wanted payback.

Gone were the silenced submachine guns, night-vision goggles and black balaclavas. Each man carried a G-3 automatic rifle with a 40 mm grenade launcher slaved beneath the barrel. One man in each squad carried a light machine gun and another carried a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Every man was also festooned with a personal assortment of pistols, knives and grenades.

Bolan cradled his own weapon. The German G-3 was long and heavy, but it fired the NATO 7.62 mm high-power rifle round and was hell for tough. While dated, all of the Pakistani equipment was solid kit. Bolan could think of worse weapons, and worse people, for that matter, with whom to assault the unknown. He vainly wished he had his satellite link so he could communicate with the Farm, but that wasn’t forthcoming. Everything he had brought into Pakistan had been confiscated. Still, the fact that they had brought him along, much less armed him, showed just how desperate the Pakistanis were. Bolan glanced up as the copilot leaned back in his seat and yelled at Makhdoom over the rotor noise. Bolan didn’t need translation. He had been watching the terrain fly by beneath them.

They were approaching their target.

The Mi-8s dropped toward the plateau like stones. The Hind gunships clawed upward into the sky and orbited the site with their machine cannons and rocket pods ready. The red dust of the mountains flew up as the transports landed.

Musa Company debarked the Mi-8s and fanned out by sections across the plateau. Bolan leaped out behind Makhdoom. He had no orders other than to stick to the captain like glue. As Bolan examined the plateau, he could see spalling and bullet strikes scoring the rocks from the previous night’s one-sided battle. Several spots were scorched by the high explosive of rifle grenades. The single, lonesome shrub lay blackened and burned.

Musa Company maintained radio silence. Makhdoom chopped his hand forward and his men went by sections, two by two, to the edge of the plateau and began to descend the mountainside toward their objective.

In the night the land had been a lunar landscape. By day the arid, vertical hillsides could have passed for a bad patch on Mars. The platoon swiftly descended. A man held up the spent flare and parachute of Bolan’s illuminating round. They leapfrogged from cover to cover, constantly sweeping the surroundings, still encountering nothing. They stopped as they reached the area where Section 2 had been lost. Bolan scanned the recent battlefield. Brass shell casings and spent bullets lay in the sand and gravel, deformed where they had struck rock. There were no bodies.

There was no blood.

Makhdoom moved forward, his rifle at the ready. Musa Company followed. They swiftly came upon their target. Bolan examined the objective. Beneath an overhang of rock there was an opening in the mountainside. It was squared off, clearly man-made, and lined with stone. Just inside lay a heavy wooden door reinforced with iron bands. Its hinges were gone where they had been cut with flexible-shaped charge. Bolan stared at the square, black hole in the mountain.

It looked like the back door to hell.

Makhdoom’s eyes burned into the inky blackness within. Bolan quickly looked around at Musa Company. They had joked of djinns on the flight in. Now no one was laughing. Each man here was one of the most trusted soldiers in Pakistan. Each had been briefed about the nuclear warheads that had vanished without a trace and the guards who had disappeared with them, their weapons scattered and unfired. Each man had also heard the radio tapes of the battle the night before, listening as half a platoon of Musa Company had been wiped out to a man, one by one, by an enemy unseen. They had heard the terror in comrades’ voices as they had been taken.

Musa Company stared at the black hole in the mountain and their fear was palpable.

Bolan spoke very quietly just behind Makhdoom. “Captain.”

Makhdoom didn’t look away from the entrance. “Yes?”

“May I make a suggestion?”

The captain peered backward. “I am very open to suggestions at the moment.”

“Have your men fix bayonets.”

Makhdoom’s mustache lifted. His lips skinned back from his teeth in a feral smile. He turned to let his men see it, then snarled in guttural English, “Bayonets!”

Two dozen bayonets rasped from their sheaths in a single motion. Makhdoom snarled again, “Fix!”

The bayonets clicked into place. Cold iron glittered in the afternoon sun. Musa Company’s determination ratcheted up by a factor of ten. Few things centered a soldier’s aggressiveness more than having his commanding officer give the order to fix sharpened steel to the business end of his rifle.

“Lights!” Musa Company pulled miniflashlights from their web gear and affixed them to clips on their rifles’ handguards. “All sections, set rifles on full automatic. Maintain radio silence unless you see something to report. Sections 3 and 4 secure the perimeter. Sections 1 and 2—” Makhdoom stared grimly at the dark doorway “—follow me.”

Bolan followed Makhdoom and Musa Company into the earth.

The passage into the mountain was square, and just large enough for men to walk two by two. Once inside, the heat of desert fell away as if they had stepped into what seemed to be an air-conditioned building—except that the air within was fetid, clammy and cold. Bolan played his light across the walls and examined the stonework. There were places upon the earth, old battlefields, ruins, places in the wilderness, which resonated with what had transpired. Bolan had long ago learned to trust his instincts, and to feel the vibe.

“This place is very old.” Bolan didn’t need to add that terrible things had happened here.

Makhdoom nodded as he shone his light ahead. Niches carved into the walls on either side of the passage stretched down the corridor facing each other. “I have seen the like before,” he stated. “Before the words of Mohammed the Prophet reached these lands, there were many pagan sects. These niches probably once held idols, or the dead.”

Bolan paused as brass shell casings glittered in the light of his rifle. He knelt and picked one up. They were subsonic 9 mms, fired from the weapon of Musa Company the night before. He glanced around, gazing at the niches. They were certainly large enough to hold a man, and it was clear that this spot was where many of Musa Company had met their doom. Bolan dug his bayonet into the dirt floor of a niche.

Musa Company held position while Bolan worked. Makhdoom nodded. “Trapdoors?”

“None that I can find.” Bolan poked at the ceiling of the niche. It was solid rock. “Let’s go a little farther.”

Bolan and Makhdoom led, the points of their bayonets preceding them. The corridor opened into a larger, low-ceilinged room. They paused at the entryway.

“Your men didn’t mention a room.”

Makhdoom kept his muzzle covering the room ahead. “No, I do not believe any of them survived this far.”

Bolan caught the smell of something he didn’t recognize, a bare lingering of something that was both acrid and sickly sweet. The sense of dread solidified as Musa Company entered the room.

A disk of carved stone dominated the middle of the room. Bolan approached it warily, playing his light across it. The stone was three feet tall and nearly six feet around. It was very old. In his rifle light Bolan could see that there were fresh scratches on the top.

“It is an altar.” Makhdoom ran his finger along a scratch in the rocket. “Something was moved.”

“More likely removed.” Bolan tested the stone with his hands. The altar probably weighed several tons. Bolan checked the floor but he could see no sign that the massive stone itself had been moved or rotated. He and Musa Company moved farther back into the dark space.

The only sound was that of their boots and the wind moaning down the corridor behind them.

Bolan pointed. “There.”

In the far corner of the room was an incongruously modern object—a heavy wooden pallet. Musa Company fanned out to surround the object. The pallet was of thick construction, meant to support something heavy. Bolan knelt without touching the pallet and gazed at the dirt around it. In the harsh light of the flashlight beam he could see that the pallet had sunk several inches into the dirt floor. The pallet had recently held something heavy, and whatever the load had been, it was gone.

“I think your warheads were here, Captain, perhaps as recently as last night.”

Makhdoom shook his head wearily. They were too late. “And what of my men?”

“That’s a good question.” Bolan considered the passageway and the single room. “If I were you, I would get a platoon of combat engineers in here and have them go over every inch of the place. I’m thinking there must be a bolt-hole.”

Makhdoom broke radio silence. He spent long minutes speaking with his superiors in Islamabad, then clicked off his radio with a sigh. “Combat engineers are on the way.”

Bolan frowned at the room around them. “Whoever the enemy was had to get out of here fast, taking three warheads and disposing of nearly two dozen bodies.”