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 meaclass="underline" 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 feudal 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."