Lethal Tribute

Throughout Islamabad, the believers turned westward toward Mecca and knelt in prayer. Makhdoom removed a small, rolled rug from the back seat of the Mercedes. “I must go to prayers. Then we will have breakfast.” His smile was expectant and ugly as he locked his gaze with Atta Naqbi.

“Then we shall have a talk. The three of us.”

Islamabad. The Christian Quarter

MAKHDOOM CONTINUED to surprise Bolan. Christians weren’t popular in Pakistan. That the man had friends in the quarter was interesting. It was the last place in the world one would expect to find a Pakistani special forces captain, much less an American commando and a worshiper of the goddess of death.

“The food here is outstanding.” Makhdoom stated as he deftly slid a massive chunk of lamb from his kabob. The meat steamed in the morning chill and dripped with clarified butter. The captain closed his eyes with a delight bordering on the sensual as he chewed the tender meat and swallowed it. Most people Bolan knew from the Middle East did not take big breakfasts. Makhdoom had ordered them a feast under the rising sun. He smiled at Bolan as if he had read the American’s mind.

“I was sent to train with United States Special Forces in 1989.” He sighed as he speared another piece of meat with his knife. “The Prophet Mohammed, all praises onto him, says a man should be moderate in his eating. But I have been to Fort Bragg, and to my ruin I have learned the joy of a hearty American breakfast.”

Bolan smiled. He had been to Fort Bragg. The boys there took their breakfasts with extreme seriousness. They often didn’t know how long it would be until their next one.

Makhdoom raised a dry eyebrow at Atta Naqbi over the rim of his teacup. “The menu is not to your liking?”

Naqbi said nothing as he stared down at his plate. The sauce around his cubed lamb tongue was congealing.

“Perhaps the prison gruel was more to your taste?” the captain suggested.

Naqbi’s shoulders twitched, but he didn’t look up or respond.

Makhdoom snarled. “Idol worshiper!”

The man jumped in his seat and stared down miserably.

“Ah, I see the problem. Since you are an idol-worshiping disciple of death, you are a vegetarian. Would you care for some vegetables?” He shoved the plate of carrots, celery and cauliflower toward Naqbi.

Makhdoom spoke conversationally. “You know, Islam is the religion of love.” He drank tea reflectively. “However, there are three people my religion tells me I must despise.” The captain withdrew his pistol and set it on the table. “Worshipers of idols, worshipers of fire, and those who engage in human sacrifice. Perhaps I should deposit you back into the prison and explain to the guards you are so far two for three.”

“Atta, if you go back to jail, you’re dead,” Bolan opined. “Then again we could just turn you loose. You have any guess what would happen to you then?”

Naqbi clutched the tabletop to stop himself from shuddering. Everyone at the table knew what would happen to him. He was damaged goods.

He had been compromised.

“There is a third option.” Bolan freshened Atta’s tea, as part of his “good cop” role.

Naqbi glanced up for the first time.

“You cooperate. You help us. You produce results, and we cut you loose. With money, a new identity, and we drop you any place you’d like. Bora Bora, Argentina, South Africa, the North Pole, you name it.”

Naqbi glanced at Bolan and actually met his eyes. The soldier didn’t like what he saw there. He saw the absolute ruin of despair. “You think you can protect me from a god?”

Makhdoom straightened in religious outrage.

“Do you think you can protect yourselves?” Naqbi’s shoulders rose and fell. “Kali will take us. She will take us all. We are all dead men.” His head shook back and forth in a slow-motion movement of helpless horror. “She shall have our flesh, she shall have our blood, she shall have our souls.”

“Speak not of demons!” Makhdoom snarled. “Only tell us where we can find their worshipers and the weapons they stole!”

“Kali is not a demon.” Naqbi no longer looked at Bolan or Makhdoom. He was staring off into the middle distance, into his own personal vision of hell and horror, and he spoke more to himself than anyone at the table. “She is the slayer of demons. When demons ruled Heaven and Earth, and all the gods and all the angels could not stand before them, they summoned Kali. All powerful, all conquering, goddess of the destruction…”

Naqbi received the back of Makhdoom’s hand. “There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet!”

“Goddess of the burning ground.” The young technician was unmoved. The world around him ceased to exist. Bolan had seen such expressions before in the faces of religious fanatics in crisis. Naqbi was zombifying himself into his own little insular hell of despair. Given a few more hours, he would lapse into catatonic depression.

Bolan couldn’t afford to let that happen. “What about your family, Atta?”

“My family.” He glanced up with fear sharpened eyes.

“Maybe we can’t stop a god—” Bolan shrugged meditatively “—but we can stop her followers from killing your family.”

“I…”

“You have to make a choice.”

Naqbi’s eyes flicked about in mounting panic. Bolan nodded to himself. Panic in an intelligence asset was good. Turning into a stalk of broccoli wasn’t.

“That’s air in your lungs, Atta. That’s food on your plate. Life is good. It’s worth living. It’s worth fighting for, even in the darkest moment. Your family is worth fighting for. But if you want to fight for them, you’re going to have to help us. You can give up on yourself, that’s your choice, but you have another decision to make.”

Atta Naqbi looked as though he might throw up.

Bolan’s burning blue eyes held Naqbi’s implacably. “Do you want us to try to help your family?”

Naqbi vomited.

Bolan nodded at Makhdoom. “I’m going to take that as a yes.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Rawalpindi, Pakistan

“This was the place of worship.”

Bolan kept his eyes on Naqbi for a moment. The young technician was looking green around the gills and his hands were shaking. Once more terror ruled his darting gaze. Bolan noted the man’s fear and was duly satisfied. He was terrified, and of more than just receiving a bullet through his brain from Bolan’s gun. The soldier frowned as he scanned the surroundings for the hundredth time. The problem was that the enemy had to know that Naqbi had been incarcerated. If they observed even the most basic of security protocols, they would have to assume that the man had been compromised.

The city of Rawalpindi was less than twenty kilometers from Islamabad and a light industry center. Naqbi’s place of worship appeared to be nothing more than a warehouse in the textile section of town. Makhdoom cradled a Russian-made Bison submachine gun and peered down the alley. “What do you think?”

“I don’t like it.” Bolan, too, held one of the Russian weapons. The stock had been removed for concealment and a laser sight had been slaved to the barrel. Both were modifications that Bolan didn’t particularly care for. It was a cowboy gun, suitable for little more than slaughtering the unsuspecting in phone booths. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. Operating while still technically under arrest presented unique logistical problems, and he would have to make do with what he was issued. Makhdoom was also operating on his own. He was fairly certain that some of his superiors had been compromised. Bolan was of the same opinion. Makhdoom had liberated the weapons, not requisitioned them, and no one except Kurtzman knew exactly where they were at the moment. The two of them were operating without a net. There would be no backup if things went south. Bolan hefted his weapon. The 64-round helical drum magazine, however, was comforting. Bolan turned to Naqbi. “How many guards?”

“Normally only a man or two at the door.” He shrugged nervously. “Perhaps a lookout up on the roof.”

Bolan held Naqbi’s eyes and was half satisfied. The young technician was telling the truth, as far as he knew, but Bolan suspected there would be one hell of a lot more to security than a couple of bouncers at the door and some guy smoking cigarettes up in the shingles. There was still the matter of invisible killers who could wipe out a platoon of special forces troops without being seen or leaving a drop of blood in their wake.

That was weighing heavily on Bolan’s mind.

It was weighing on Makhdoom’s, as well. “So, we go in?”

“It’s what we came here for. Leave the engine running.” Bolan slid out of the car and kept his Bison beneath his drab overcoat. He spoke into his throat mike. “Bear, we are going in.”

“Roger that, Striker,” Kurtzman acknowledged. “You be careful in there.”

“You!” Makhdoom jabbed Naqbi with the muzzle of his weapon. “Come!”

The cultist’s shoulders slumped in despair as he slid out of the car. The three of them walked down the alley. Pigeons cooed in the eaves. The alley was empty and the sky above the close-set buildings cobalt-blue. The three warehouses faced one another, turning the alley into a cul de sac. No bouncers stood on the steps below the sheet-metal door. No lookout stood upon the roof. Bolan crossed the street and tried the door. “It’s locked.”

Makhdoom shot a glance up and down the street. “How do you want to play—”

Bolan’s weapon stuttered in his hands as he put a burst into the lock. Naqbi nearly jumped out of his shoes. Sparks shrieked off the ancient metal and Bolan’s boot sent the sprung door flying back on its hinges.

“Very well.” Makhdoom nodded. “The direct approach, then.”

Bolan strode into the murky interior of the warehouse. Dim light filtered downward in hazy beams through the filthy skylights high above. “You smell that?” the Executioner asked.

“Sandalwood.” Makhdoom snuffed at the close air. “And nag champa.”

The air was thick with the cloying, sweet scent of devotional incense. “Not the usual smell of a textile warehouse.”

“No.”

Naqbi’s hand trembled as he pointed across the cavernous space. “The altar was there, and the idol behind it.”

Bolan took out a flashlight and panned the beam at the far wall. The floor showed fresh scrapes where something very heavy had recently been dragged across the concrete. Other than that, the warehouse was as empty as the cavern above the pass. The lingering sweetness in the air was the only clue they had left. “There’s a truck dock in back?”

“Indeed.” Makhdoom shone his light around the room. “I am currently running a check on the building. This warehouse and the two next to it are owned by a reputable Pakistani cotton merchant. However, a year ago, he rented this space to another company. They are proving much harder to track down.”

Owning all three warehouses on the block would give the enemy a nice quite zone of control where they could do whatever they wanted. It was also a fine tactical setup for an ambush. “The company will be a cutout.” Bolan glanced around the room again. “They’ll be some kind of—”

Bolan froze at the sound of a scraping noise. He and Makhdoom swung their flashlights around the room, but there was nothing to see but bare corrugated walls and the concrete floor. Bolan had known it was a trap, and expected it, but the unknown was an opponent as ugly as they came. An unbidden chill ran down Bolan’s spine as the unseen came for them. Naqbi let out a whimper. Makhdoom clicked on the laser sight of his weapon. “Ready?”

Bolan reached into the pocket of his overcoat. He had reviewed the battle a thousand times in his mind.

And he had formulated a plan. “Now!”

It was time to see how the goddess of death enjoyed something a little stronger than the smell of incense. Bolan and Makhdoom ripped the pins from the CS tear-gas canisters and flung them to the floor. The riot grenades burst apart as they hit and the multiple skip-chaser bomblets skidded across the concrete hissing and spewing thick white smoke. Bolan and Makhdoom pulled their gas masks from under their coats and yanked them over their faces. Naqbi let out a shriek that was instantly choked off as he inhaled the riot gas.

Bolan shouted through his mask as the gas bloomed around them. “Back to back!”

“Striker!” Kurtzman’s voice rose in urgency. “What is your situation?”

“Bear, I need absolute quiet!”

Makhdoom turned and he and Bolan covered each other while Naqbi collapsed weeping and coughing between them. Bolan flicked on his laser and panned it across his section of the building. Once again he found himself searching for the enemies he couldn’t see.

Makhdoom’s snarl was muffled by his mask. “I see nothing!”

Neither could Bolan, but he knew the enemy was here. He listened for another rustle or scrape or any sound of movement. He particularly listened for the hacking or coughing of an enemy.

Naqbi screamed as Bolan cut loose with his weapon. The weapon shuddered in his hands as he ripped off a 20-round burst in a sweeping arc in front of him. The bullets punched holes in the corrugated sheet metal of the walls and rays of sunlight shone in bright shafts through the thickening gas. Behind him Makhdoom fired off a similar burst. When Naqbi wasn’t hacking and coughing, he was screaming.

“Doom!” Bolan desperately tracked for targets. “Shut him up!”

Makhdoom cut off the hysterics by driving his boot into Naqbi’s ribs.

Bolan stared into the gas. There was nothing he could see, but it was something suddenly missing that caught his eye. The shafts of sunlight came through the bullet holes in the walls and crisscrossed the room like lances of light. It could have been a trick of the conditions, but for a moment there seemed to be a shaft of light that stopped, disappeared and then resumed its course two feet away.

Bolan held his trigger down on full-auto. Flames stuttered from the muzzle of his weapon, spitting bullets in line with the laser sweeping the section of gas. The lines of sunlight broke and resumed diagonally toward the ground.

It was as if the invisible man had fallen.

Bolan tracked his weapon, spewing bullets through the projected path. Makhdoom’s weapon continued to chatter in short, searching bursts. Naqbi’s screaming and choking was suddenly cut off.

Bolan whirled.

The cultist was clutching at his throat and walk-flopping backward in a remarkable fashion across the warehouse. Bolan whipped his laser between Naqbi’s flailing legs and fired off a burst. He suddenly collapsed backward as whatever was holding him up failed.

“Doom!” Bolan shouted. The attack on Naqbi had been bait and Bolan had taken it. “Look out—”

The unseen reached out and seized Bolan by the throat. His carotid arteries were instantly cut off and a hard lump crushed into his larynx. Only Bolan’s body armor kept the massive blow he took to his kidneys from buckling him. Sick weakness washed through Bolan’s arms and legs as he was dragged backward. His arteries and air pipe were relentlessly constricted as he was choked and strangled at the same time. Bolan watched helplessly as Makhdoom’s back arched like a bow and the Pakistani’s weapon fell from his hands as he clawed at his throat. Every instinct in Bolan’s body screamed at him to fight the horrible grip on his throat as it bent him backward.

Instead Bolan let every ounce of his 200-plus pounds go limp. He hung himself as he dropped into the garrote. Something bumped into his back and a thick veil seemed to enfold him. Bolan’s vision narrowed to blackness as he flipped the muzzle of his Bison submachine gun over his shoulder and burned his magazine dry behind him.

The grip on his throat weakened and Bolan ripped at his throat as he heaved himself forward. He dropped his empty weapon and his knife rang from the sheath on his belt. Fabric bunched beneath Bolan’s hand and parted beneath his blade. Bolan sucked breath through the smothering filters of his mask. He couldn’t quite get enough to fill his lungs, but his vision cleared.

In his fist Bolan held a thick gray piece of dully glittering fabric.

Makhdoom’s knees buckled as his body began to fail him. Bolan lunged up and threw himself like an NFL linebacker at the empty space above Makhdoom’s head. His bones jarred as he slammed into what he couldn’t see. Bolan’s vision skewed as he felt something veil him. Whatever it was couldn’t stop the reinforced point of his combat knife. The blade punched into something solid and Bolan’s lips skinned back from his teeth as he recognized the feel of steel grating on ribs. He smelled human sweat and beneath it the sudden stink of pain and fear. Bolan rammed the blade home and ripped it back out, stabbing three more times rapidly. He heard the groan of a wounded man. Bolan raised his knife for the kill.

His vision exploded into blackness lit with pulsing purple pinpricks of light as something struck him in the back of the head.

Bolan rolled with the blow. His vision was tilting crazily, but his battle instincts had been hard won in conflicts on every continent on the planet. He rolled up to one knee and his hand found Makhdoom’s weapon at his feet. He scooped up the automatic and sprayed lead in an arc in front of him. His vision darkened and he nearly buckled as he stood. Bolan shook his head to clear it and took several tottering steps backward. He was rewarded as he bumped against corrugated steel wall.

The warehouse wall had Bolan’s back. His eyes glared out of the lenses of his mask as he swept his muzzle, looking for any sign of the enemy. Makhdoom was a few feet away. His hands were at his throat and his chest was heaving, trying to suck air past his mask and down his traumatized throat, but he was alive. Naqbi lay unmoving a few yards away. His eyes were rolled back in his head and his blackened tongue lolled out of his mouth.

Sunlight was pouring in from the back of the warehouse. The back door had been opened. Bolan fired a burst out the door and whipped his muzzle back to cover the rest of the room. The enemy had extracted. Bolan scanned the room again. He didn’t believe the enemy had brought gas masks. Anyone in the room would now be weeping and choking. Bolan made a fist around the piece of fabric in his left hand.

Even if they were thickly veiled by something, they would be affected by the gas by now.

“Doom!” Bolan shouted. “Can you hear me?”

The Pakistani captain pushed himself up painfully. His choking and gagging was plain to hear, but his masked head nodded. He crawled across the floor a few feet and scooped up Bolan’s weapon. He unhooked the spent drum and slid in a fresh one from under his jacket. He also picked up Bolan’s fallen knife. The soldier covered Makhdoom as he tottered over and sagged against the wall. The two men kept their weapons aimed into the billowing gas.

“Atta—” Makhdoom’s voice was a rasp “—appears to be dead.”

“Yeah,” Bolan wheezed.

“But we have learned something.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.” Makhdoom nodded. “Our enemies are not djinn.”

Bolan managed a wry smile beneath his mask. “You’re sure about that?”

“Yes.” He held up Bolan’s knife. The shallow curve of the Japanese-style fighting knife was stained to the hilt. The Pakistani’s red eyes glittered beneath his mask. “Djinns do not bleed.”

CHAPTER SIX

Islamabad

“You gave him a gun!” General Iskander Hussain’s voice rose into a scream. He may have been named after Alexander the Great, but the incredibly short, fat, little man in front of Bolan and Makhdoom didn’t meet the mark. When he stood up from his desk, he hardly seemed to have stood at all. He was capable of expanding in the horizontal plane. Hussain seemed to literally inflate with rage. Bolan thought he might burst the seams of his uniform, if he didn’t burst a blood vessel first. He screamed in English for Bolan’s benefit.

Makhdoom stood at ramrod-stiff attention. “Yes, General!”

“You took him to the Al-Nouri weapons site! You took him along on an unauthorized raid into Rawalpindi! You equipped him with automatic weapons and unauthorized war gas! An American saboteur and a spy!”

“A Pakistani ally, involved in a sensitive operation of mutual concern—”

“You gave him a gun!” Hussain’s rage went apoplectic. “Did it not occur to you he could escape! Idiot!”

“Indeed, General, I did give him weapons. It was he who generated the leads we have found so far. The act of arming him saved my life and the lives of my men. I do not regret—”

Spittle flew as General Hussain lost his English and began screaming so rapidly Bolan could no longer tell whether he was shrieking in Urdu or Sind.

Makhdoom clearly could understand. He stood like a rock but his cheek muscles flexed with tension as he was dressed down in ever-increasingly personal and inflammatory detail. The general gasped and stopped in midscream. He had to lean over and put both of his hands on his desk as he caught his breath from his outburst. He lifted his right hand after a moment and pointed an accusing finger at Bolan. “And you! You are—”

“Privileged to work with the officers under your command on a matter of mutual concern to my nation and our trusted friend, the Sovereign Republic of Pakistan,” Bolan finished.

Hussain blinked and then began to open his mouth.

Bolan beat him to the punch. “Is it the general’s pleasure to receive our report?”

“No! I do not wish to hear your bloody…” The general suddenly caught himself. “Yes! It is my pleasure to receive your report! Immediately!”

The general slammed his fat frame back down into his chair and glared at them in as menacing a fashion as he could muster. “I await! I am very interested! You have my undivided attention!”

Bolan swiftly sketched out the events in the Haji Pir Pass and everything that had happened subsequently at the Al-Nouri facility and then in Rawalpindi. He left nothing out other than his conversation with Kurtzman and exactly under what auspices of the United States government he was working for. Hussain’s facial expression slowly went from rage, to confusion, to disbelief to just a blank stare as Bolan finished. Hussain gazed off into space a moment, blinked, then turned his gaze to Makhdoom. The general’s head cocked slightly like a dog that has heard a noise it doesn’t understand. “Captain Makhdoom, do you agree with the facts of this report?”

“I do, General,” Makhdoom concurred. “All he says, I have seen with my own eyes and experienced personally.”

Hussain’s voice went flat. “You are saying our strategic nuclear weapons have been stolen by Hindu death worshipers who can turn themselves invisible?”

Makhdoom nodded once. “That is our current and best theory.”

“I do not believe I can have you shot for being insane, Captain, but given your other offenses—”

“General,” Bolan interrupted, “you have seen the videotape of the activity in the Al-Nouri facility when the weapons were stolen?”

“Of course.” Hussain shook his head. “But—”

“Other than djinns, General, how would you account for the disappearance of the weapons?”

“The videotape could have been doctored,” Hussain blustered, “or somehow overcome.”

“We also considered that possibility. However, in light of what happened in Rawalpindi we have reassessed the situation. We have come to grips with the enemy, and I assure you that we are dealing with far more than a doctored videotape. You also heard the radio transmissions from Musa Company during the battle in the pass?”

“You were attacked by invisible Hindu stranglers?” It was more than Hussain could deal with. “This is what you truly wish me to believe?”

Bolan pulled down the collar of his shirt and exposed the purple bruising mottling his throat. “Yes.”

Makhdoom pulled down his own collar. “The traitor, Atta Naqbi, is in the morgue. He bears similar marks, only he did not survive them.”

“Assuming I were to buy into this fantasy of yours, Captain, tell me why? Why would Hindu idol-worshipers do such a thing?”