The sentry's right hand moved to the trigger of his shoulder-strapped AK-47.
"The orders say there are supposed to be two of you," he snarled at Bolan in Russian.
"Where is the other man? Tell me. Immediately!"
6
Colonel Pavl Uttkin, ranking GRU officer attached to the 40th Army in Kabul, resented having to wait for Boris Lyalin, his KGB counterpart, before commencing interrogation of Lansdale, the American agent Uttkin had apprehended less than an hour ago. But the Soviet military intelligence boss had no choice and he knew it.
But now it would begin and Uttkin felt the familiar pleasant warmth of anticipation course through him.
The moment Lyalin had arrived in his chauffeured ZIL, they marched Lansdale down along the basement hallway toward the torture chamber where other work had been going on this night.
They had Lansdale in handcuffs clamped too tight behind his back, each of the CIA man's arms in the viselike grip of a stocky raydoviki armed with an AK-47 assault rifle.
Colonel Uttkin hated Afghanistan.
He hated himself.
He knew the Central Committee and the General Staff used him only because he got results even though they loathed him for the methods he used.
His skills had led him to this hellhole of a country that reminded him too much of his childhood home in Bukhara, where the wasteland of desert meets the desolate frontier of the mountains; where he had turned in his parents as enemies of the state when he was thirteen. His parents had killed themselves rather than face slow death in a concentration camp. Pavl Uttkin had existed ever since hoping he would be the next to die, and until then the only pleasure he could find was in the screams and pain of others.
Uttkin led the way to the door of the "interrogation room."
"Brief me," Lyalin snapped irritably. "Can this not wait until morning?"
"It cannot. Not with... General Voukelitch's orders that all such interrogations be carried out immediately. Voukelitch may be in Parachinar but he has eyes and ears in Kabul."
Lyalin glared at Uttkin, with a nod indicating the handcuffed American. "You had, uh, best concentrate on the matter at hand, Colonel."
"Do not worry, comrade," Uttkin assured the KGB man as they reached the door to the torture chamber. "Mr. Lansdale shall not repeat what he hears to anyone. Not in this life, I can assure you. He will not leave this room alive."
They stood aside to allow the soldiers to open the door and forcibly push the American in.
A glare illuminated the room with operating-room brilliance. A long wooden table with foot and wrist straps occupied the center of the room directly beneath tube lights, the table unoccupied at the moment but smeared with fresh blood.
A naked male corpse in a corner had obviously been unceremoniously rolled off the table and kicked away. The dead man had no eyes; they were smeared bowls of horror, the rictus of death indicated he had died screaming. Parts of his body were butchered, his fingers all broken, the ends thing but gory stumps.
The room stank of a sick sweetness that Uttkin loved. He forced his eyes away from what remained of the man he had watched tortured, trying to keep his voice steady so as not to betray the excitement he felt.
"What remains of Captain Zhegolov of the security staff. We discovered he has been passing along secret military information, deployment of troops, comings and goings here at the base, that sort of thing. After some, ah, persuading, we learned from Zhegolov the identity of the man to whom he has been passing this information. Mr. Lansdale."
Lyalin glared at the American.
"It would be far better, far easier for you to voluntarily tell us what we want to know. Surely you can appreciate that. Your life could be spared."
Lansdale returned the stare. He said nothing.
"He will not talk without persuasion," Uttkin opined. "I know his kind." To Lansdale's face he sneered, "These Americans think they are very tough but they all scream and tell me what I want to know before they die."
"Begin then," the KGB man ordered.
"Of course." Uttkin turned to the soldiers holding Lansdale. He snapped his fingers and made a motion toward the blood-smeared table.
The guards understood. They removed Lansdale's handcuffs and roughly strapped him to the table, giving the American no opportunity to resist. Lansdale felt his clothes stick to his skin with sweat. The table felt clammy beneath him; the light above him was blinding. He wondered if he should bite the cyanide pill he carried inside his mouth. He could see no other way out and he was damned if he would die screaming the way poor Zhegolov obviously had. Lansdale knew these butchers could make anyone scream with their knives and scalpels and beg for the mercy of death.
At least Katrina was safe.
Lansdale made his decision.
The pill.
The idling of the two-and-a-half-ton supply carrier was the only sound in the Kabul night between the gate guard's demand and the Executioner's response. Bolan made his voice tired.
"The baby-sitter they sent along asked me to drop him off where he lives on the way through town," he answered the sentry in Russian.
"Don't you know that's against regulations?"
"That's what I told him. Look, comrade, he wasn't my responsibility, was he? I'm only the driver and I'm damned tired, I don't mind telling you." Bolan, the role-camouflage expert, played it with the perfect note and tone.
The sentry saw what Bolan wanted him to think he saw in the less than half-light at the high command's front gate. Bolan kept to the shadows of the truck's cab.
The soldier considered the orders he held a few more seconds, made up his mind and handed the papers back up to the shadowy driver in Soviet jacket and headgear.
"Proceed." The sentry stepped away from the truck and signaled to the men behind the bulletproof glass of the guard station.
The iron-grille gate slid sideways. The sentry waved the truck through. Bolan smiled as he put the vehicle into gear and rolled onto the base.
Piece of cake.
Sure.
Getting out would be the difficult part, but the nighthitter had already formulated a strategy for withdrawal, with plenty of room for improvisation. The Executioner's first, his only, priority right now was to find Lansdale, pull him out and find out where these cannibals manufactured the nightmare they called the Devil's Rain. He steered the truck toward the headquarters building. The grille gate whirred mechanically shut behind him like the jaws of a trap.
Yeah, exactly like the jaws of a trap.
For an instant Bolan wondered if he had trusted Katrina Mozzhechkov too much.
He braked the truck in front of the headquarters' main entrance, which opened onto a lighted hallway the width of the two-story building.
An oblong patch of light fell across the walkway from the doorway. Inside there the Man from Blood knew he would find the orderly room and the answer to where they had taken Lansdale after bringing him here.
The width of the building showed no lighted office windows at this predawn hour. The only light came from the open entranceway. He doused the truck's headlights but left the supply carrier running, then lowered himself from the cab, the truck blocking him from view of the building.
He saw a two-man roving sentry patrol walk in the opposite direction, paying little attention to a military vehicle that had cleared two checkpoints.