Unable to stand and only half conscious, Turabi was dragged off toward the mass grave. He heard shouting and then gunshots behind him, followed by laughter, some shouted words in Turkmen, some screams, more gunshots, and more laughter. His men were being slaughtered trying to save him. He especially heard Orazov’s screeching, high-pitched laugh, more like a young girl’s than a man’s. “You will have plenty of company in hell, Colonel,” Orazov shouted with glee. “Your men seem more than willing to sacrifice themselves trying to save you!”
Turabi shut his eyes to try to erase Orazov’s bizarre little shrieking laugh out of his head, but it was impossible. If anything, the sound started to grow louder and louder, until Turabi thought his head would explode from the pressure.
And then, suddenly, the entire world around him did explode.
Orazov’s armored vehicle disappeared in a burst of fire and smoke not twenty meters away. Turabi and his captors were tossed off their feet by the blast. An earthmover on the other side of the mass grave exploded seconds later, followed by a light tank parked about a hundred meters away.
It was then that Turabi recognized that screeching sound, what he’d thought was Orazov’s laughter — it was the same sound he remembered hearing what seemed like eons ago, when their little band of Taliban fighters was attacked by American unmanned drones. But it couldn’t be. The Americans were not involved in this. Could it be the Russians…?
Turabi’s captors ran off to find cover, leaving him by himself. Still dazed and hurt, he needed all his strength to drag himself by his elbows and knees toward the mound of sand surrounding the grave. It was the only cover he could—
“No!” he heard a voice shout behind him. “You will not get away so easily!” And suddenly Aman Orazov was sitting on Turabi’s back, his hands under his chin, pulling backward and trying to break his neck, or his back, or both. “I promised I would finish you off, and I will!”
“Bastard!” Turabi shouted. Using the last of his strength, he bucked Orazov off his back. Struggling to his hands and knees, with pieces of burned metal and hot debris digging into his skin, Turabi withdrew his knife from its sheath.
But Orazov was on top of him again in an instant, and he quickly and easily took the knife away from Turabi. Exhausted, Turabi was powerless to stop Orazov from rolling him over on his back.
“This is the better way to die, I think — hand-to-hand, face-to-face, by your own blade.” Orazov raised the knife….
But it did not come down. Turabi looked up — and saw a figure in a dark gray outfit, a bug-eyed helmet, and what appeared to be small tubes running along his arms, legs, and torso. He held Orazov’s upraised arm in his hand, and no matter how hard Orazov struggled, the stranger held his arm with ease.
With a shock Turabi realized he recognized the stranger. It was the same one he had encountered south of Kiyzl-arvat when he went out to investigate the drone crash.
“Prasteetye,” the stranger said in Russian in an eerie, electronically synthesized voice. “Ya eeshchyoo Jalaluddin Turabi.”
“Shto eta znachyeet?” Orazov shouted. “Who in hell are you?”
With Orazov distracted, Turabi was able to respond, “I am Turabi. Good to see you again, sir.”
The stranger nodded, then flipped his wrist. Orazov screamed and flew back as if hit by a bull charging at full force, his right arm twisted unnaturally. Turabi unsteadily crawled across the scorched sand, picked up a rock, and started to crawl over to where Orazov was lying holding his arm. “What are you doing?” the stranger asked in Russian.
“I must kill this man, to avenge my mission leader.”
“You are barely conscious, and he is like an injured animal,” the armored stranger said. “Better leave him alone.”
“I am honor-bound to avenge my leader’s death.”
“We have more important things to do.”
“I cannot think about saving my own life while my leader lies murdered in a shallow grave in the desert, betrayed by that man, whom he trusted,” Turabi said. “This I cannot stand.”
“The fate of a nation may be in your hands, Turabi,” the stranger said. “Why not go after him later? Or I will have him taken into custody, and you can deal with him later.”
“That is not the law,” Turabi replied. He was still crawling toward Orazov. The Turkmen soldier was now on his feet, muttering something. Orazov had slipped his broken arm inside his shirt to support it. Within seconds he had found the knife and held it before him, ready to defend himself or attack if presented the opportunity. He was warily eyeing the big stranger, wondering if he was going to intervene in their fight, but because the stranger was no longer even looking at him, Orazov decided he was going to let the Afghan and the Turkman fight it out.
“Nike, this is Taurus, I still show you at the objective point,” Colonel Hal Briggs radioed a few moments later via their secure satellite commlink. “What’s the holdup?”
“We have a slight cultural dilemma to address here first, sir,” Sergeant Major Chris Wohl replied.
“At the moment I don’t care about cultural dilemmas — I want our target exfiled out of there now,” Briggs said. “We’re on a tight timetable. Move out.”
“Yes, sir.” Wohl went over to Turabi, picked him up by his load-bearing harness, and said, “Sorry, sir, but you have to come with me, right now.”
“No!” Turabi screamed. “Put me down!”
Orazov incorrectly interpreted Wohl’s action as coming to his rescue. He shouted happily and charged, the knife raised high. Turabi tried to kick free, but he couldn’t break Wohl’s microhydraulically assisted grip.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Wohl muttered. “Some bozos just don’t know when to quit.”
As he held Turabi aloft with his right hand, he grabbed the knife away from Orazov’s right hand, then butted the Turkman with his left forearm. Dazed, Orazov dropped to the ground. Wohl dropped Turabi, who fell onto his knees, still weak from the fuel-air explosive attack — and then he dropped the knife right in front of Turabi.
“Finish him off, sir,” Wohl said in electronically translated Russian. “And I’ll have you know, sir, that if you let him kill you, my ass will be in a sling.”
For a moment it looked as if Turabi would just kill the guy, and they could be off. But the Turkmen traitor fought like a bull, and he knew that Turabi was still weak. Turabi pounced on Orazov and was just a few inches from plunging the blade into the traitor’s chest, but Orazov was able to grab his wrist and hold the blade away.
“You can’t kill me, Turabi,” Orazov said, laughing. He glanced at the armored stranger and smiled when he realized he wasn’t going to make a move to help either side. “Die like a man in front of that outsider. Roll over on your back and drop the knife. I’ll make it quick — just like I did Zarazi.”
That was not the correct thing to say to a man bent on revenge. Turabi’s eyes blazed, he let out a loud, animal-like howl, and then head-butted Orazov on his nose. Orazov’s vision exploded into a field of stars — but then went instantly dark as Turabi thrust the knife into the Turkman’s chest.