He saw the combat shadow again, too late. The specter tossed something that could only be a grenade and the ghost faded back into the night. The young officer angled away from the melee of his men returning fire at the mujahedeen.
The grenade exploded with a ferocity that blasted apart one soldier and hurled three others aside like a child's discarded toys. Two of the men got dazedly to their feet, and the third shuddered in death throes where he fell.
Gunfire and grunts of hand-to-hand combat from outside the circle of flame peppered the night.
"Move out of the circle! Disperse! We're easy targets down here!" Bucheksky shouted to his men.
The crisp authority carried across the melee, the men toting their AK's out of the flickering ring of dying flames to confront their attackers. Bucheksky fanned the night with his pistol. He cut into the direction where he guessed that the nightshadow would turn next if he continued the progression of his last two appearances.
The officer heard curses in Russian and Pashto all around him amid the noise of combat, but all that mattered to him at that instant was staying alive.
He sensed movement coming at him from his right, the opposite side from where he had guessed he would intercept the lone death-bringer in combat black.
Bucheksky crouched and tracked his pistol in the direction of the sound and glimpsed a mujahedeen guerrilla in traditional Afghan garb shouting something in Pashto and triggering off a burst of automatic fire in the lieutenant's direction.
The Russian officer dodged to the side in time and squeezed off one round from his Tokarev, the first time he had ever fired on a man. The guerrilla caught the bullet through his open mouth in midscream; the slug blew away the back of his skull.
Bucheksky felt nothing except the urge to stay alive. He turned in the direction where he had expected to see the nightscorcher and realized as he turned that his luck had run out and so had his life.
The shadow in black dashed past Josef Bucheksky on his way to another point in the battle.
The young officer brought up his pistol as quickly as he could. Without slowing the nightscorcher triggered a burst from an Ingram MAC-10 as he jogged past.
For twenty-three-year-old Josef Bucheksky, everything went black. The Executioner shifted combat-cool eyes from the toppling body of the officer to survey the battle winding down around him. The two mujahedeen forces had descended with a fury from higher ground upon the Russian encampment. The jukiabkr had held back the signal for his men to attack as Bolan had hoped he would until after the plastique had exploded.
After planting the puttylike charges, Bolan had held back as the mujahedeen delivered blistering salvos of autofire into the flaming camp during their charge to the valley floor from west and east. Bolan had stayed well out of the softening-up fire. He had fired on the outside sentry to the north, canceling that man before the guy could find suitable cover.
In no time the mujahedeen had overrun and taken out the other three sentries, two of the troopers falling in brutal hand-to-hand combat with men of Tarik Khan's force.
Hash Breath and his boys chose to hold well back, Bolan had noted, though their spotty fire into the camp toppled another of the Soviet infantrymen inside the ring of fire.
Bolan had next heard the snap of a pistol shot almost lost beneath the mix of close-quarter warfare and glanced as a young Soviet officer drilled and killed Alja Malikyar with a well-placed shot through Alja's open, screaming mouth. Alja had foolishly rushed the officer, shouting zealous Islamic phrases as many other mujahedeen fighters did, except Alja shouted too soon.
Damn fool, Bolan had thought sourly. So Alja is with his beloved Mohammed. What a waste. Bolan had taken out the officer with a burst from the MAC-10 before moving on.
The third sentry had made the mistake of angling away from the flame light right into the thickest of the jukiabkr's force where Hash Breath and some of his men had held the screaming soldier down on the ground and laughingly beat him to death with their rifle butts.
Bolan disciplined an urge to level those mujahedeen, but for once he had no choice in his allies in battle.
He catfooted back to the smoldering hulk of the wreck of the personnel carrier.
Three Russian soldiers remained alive, moving well away from one another in an attempt to secure cover that did not exist. They saw their executioner and tracked three AK-47's as one in his direction, but Bolan had the killing edge.
He delivered a fusillade of scything slugs that hammered two men, hurling them into the smoldering ruin of a BTR-40 where their dead flesh fried. The Executioner drew a bead with his M-16 on the last soldier, just as that one bought it from a hail of bullets from Tarik Khan's assault rifle.
The last Soviet soldier flew backward to the ground in a wide-armed sprawl with a line of holes tracked left to right across his chest.
With the fading battle sounds came the hubbub of the jukiabkr's men descending on the corpses like buzzards, stripping dead soldiers of everything from uniforms to weapons to money, mob-rule anarchy dominating the scene.
Bolan turned away in distaste. He slammed another magazine into his Ingram.
Tarik Khan did the same with his AK.
Bolan approached Tarik Khan's men, who were regrouped in subdued businesslike fashion, a striking contrast to the scavengers from the nearby village whom they regarded with contempt as they counted their own numbers.
"It seems the only loss we suffered was the unfortunate Alja, a noble man whose soul now knows a better place," Tarik Khan told Bolan. "My men and I thank you, kuvii Bolan, for the quick retribution you bestowed upon the infidel who took Alja's life. We shall move out at once to begin our march."
Bolan glanced over the malik's shoulder.
The village jukiabkr strode toward them, flanked by two of his men who gripped their weapons, old Lee-Enfields, with fingers on the triggers and tense eyes closely watching Bolan, Tarik Khan and the others.
The jukiabkr halted half a dozen paces from Bolan, as did his men, arrogantly, his belligerence nastier from the excitement of seeing bodies shredded and blood flowing.
The same as those cannibals who were about to torture Lansdale and enjoy it last night in Kabul, thought Bolan.
The jukiabkr snarled in Pashto, aiming his rifle at the ground. He did not have quite enough guts to raise it on Bolan. Yet. But recklessness shone in Hash Breath's glazed eyes.
Tarik Khan sensed Bolan tensing for a kill. The mujahedeen chief placed a hand upon Bolan's shoulder so as not to interfere with Bolan's response but to give the big guy reason to pause.
"Please, brother," he half-whispered to Bolan, his voice taut. "This is but one village, yes, but for you or one of my men to slay this man would result in a tribal feud that would do nothing but harm the cause of all mujahedeen."
Hash Breath snarled something with a vigorous nod in Bolan's direction. The men with the jukiabkr inched out to each side until Bolan's glance stopped them.
Tarik Khan translated.
"He knows who you are, my friend. He knows you are wanted by the Soviets and your own people. He demands that I assist him in killing you and turning in your head to the Russians for a reward. He can then blame you for tonight's attack and claim the reward offered for you."
The jukiabkr did not like Tarik Khan speaking in English to the American. He snarled again and made a gesture with his rifle, though he still did not pull the weapon up anywhere near a firing position.
Bolan kept his eyes on Hash Breath.
"And what is your decision this time, kuvii Tarik Khan?"
"You should not have to ask, my friend. Some things are worth a blood feud, such as friendship between men like ourselves. We disagreed about tonight's action; this does not mean I no longer consider you my brother. These are not my brothers; their own tribe would be disgraced by them."