Assassin's Code

Bolan turned his head as a wave of dust slapped him in the face. The wind plucked at his clothing as the dust sought every fold and crevice. He slammed the door shut behind him and knocked twice on the fender for thanks and luck. The MRAP 4X4 rumbled off toward the temporary airmobile depot.

The soldier leaned into the wind and walked across the village’s single street to a blast-blackened native house. The wind and dust were making an earnest attempt at scrubbing the face of the house clean. What it couldn’t scour away were the pockmarks in the clay from dozens of bullet strikes and the bigger craters and divots from heavy machine guns and grenade blasts.

A pair of goggled, helmeted and scarf-faced Marines stood hunched at guard outside the door. A designated marksman on the roof was a sand-colored ghost in the gloom. The two Marines below nodded and opened what was left of the shattered, blue-painted wooden door. The wind dropped from a howl to a moan as Bolan stepped out of the storm and into a butcher’s yard.

United States Assistant Attaché Henry “Hank” Millard had died hard. He had risen to the rank of commander in the United States Navy and was a Defense Language Institute Hall of Famer who spoke excellent Dari Persian and Arabic. He had been sent to the blast furnace of Helmand province to deal directly with the tribal chieftains and to woo them away from the Taliban.

Only a few threads of flesh and gristle kept his head attached to his body.

Bolan pushed up his goggles, pulled down his shemagh and set down his bag with a muffled clank. A fully armed and armored member of the Marine Military Police openly scowled at him. A man and woman in plain battle fatigues looked at Bolan suspiciously. The SIG pistols strapped to their thighs told Bolan they were most likely Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents. Of interest was an Afghan man of indeterminate middle age standing slightly off by himself. He wore a mixture of Afghan and Western dress. The pakol on his head said he was probably from the northwest. He smoked a ten-inch church-warden-style briar pipe, and every time he puffed the NCIS agents glared at him, however they seemed unwilling or unable to demand that he cease smoking at a crime scene. The man carried an M-4 rifle crooked in his elbow.

He looked disturbingly like Clint Eastwood if the actor had a broken nose, grew a salt-and-pepper beard with matching long curling hair and had skin the color and complexion of cracked saddle leather. The man gazed at Bolan in open speculation with the inscrutable yellow eyes of a wolf.

Bolan turned his attention back to the decapitated attaché. Millard had been sent in with emergency haste to keep the very delicate and contentious negotiations going after the last envoy had been killed. A lot of peacemakers were being killed. Helmand Province was critical to the war effort. The President himself had asked for Stony Man Farm’s involvement, specifically Bolan’s. It wasn’t his usual activity, and babysitting was the soldier’s least favorite job, but he knew what the stakes were in Afghanistan and he had accepted the mission. He’d been twenty-four hours too late in arriving, and it had taken orders from the Man to keep Millard’s murder quiet for the ensuing twenty-four hours Bolan requested. He had twenty-four hours and counting to make something happen before the whole thing blew wide open.

The Marine MP continued to eyeball Bolan. “And just who the hell are you?”

It wasn’t an unreasonable question, but the Marine just wasn’t going to get a reasonable or what would qualify as a sane answer in his USMC world-view. Bolan gave the man a friendly smile anyway. “I’m your liaison, Captain Yoshida.”

Yoshida wasn’t impressed. “And just which branch of government are you—” the captain sought for a word “—liaising for me for, again, exactly, Mr…?.?” He trailed off as he scanned Bolan’s plain uniform in vain for ID, rank or insignia.

“Which branch of government do you require aid or assistance from, Captain?” Bolan countered.

The captain contemplated this strange offer. The Afghan suddenly smiled in a friendly fashion and stuck out his hand. “My name is Omar Ous.”

Bolan shook his hand. “Pleasure. Call me Cooper.”

The NCIS agents stepped forward. The woman arranged a professional look on her face. It was a nice face, with high cheekbones, a strong chin, big brown eyes and a short ponytail pulled through the back of her fatigue cap. “Kathryn Keller, and this is Agent Neil Farkas.”

Farkas was a gangling Ichabod Crane–looking individual with a slight stoop, a permanent number-four bad hair day haircut graying at the temples and an Adam’s apple that would cut glass. Bolan pressed the flesh all around and then gave the assassination scene a second go-over. The soldier wasn’t a detective, but his War Everlasting had taken him to firefights on every continent on Earth, and he could read a battle scene like an experienced hunter reading trail sign.

“It was an inside job,” he stated.

“You think?” Keller inquired.

“Millard was done execution style. His pistol is still strapped to his thigh,” Bolan continued. He looked at the four other bodies in the room. They’d all had their heads hammered apart at point-blank range with automatic weapons. “The bad guys literally just walked in and did this with complete surprise. How many servants did the attaché have?”

Captain Yoshida crossed his arms over the M-4 carbine slung across his chest. “Eight. We have two in custody. The other six disappeared. I have people—”

“The rest of the servants are dead. Don’t bother.”

For a moment there was no sound but the howl of the wind and the hiss of the dust outside. The motley crew of unlikely allies stood in the charnel house of death, each considering his or her own analysis. Farkas spoke first. “The man was a United States attaché, and he’s three spaghetti strings of gristle short of decapitation.”

Bolan nodded.

“So I got a question for you,” Farkas said.

“Shoot.”

Farkas gave Bolan a very questioning look. “How come this isn’t all over FOX news?”

“Because I asked the President to give me twenty-four hours,” Bolan replied.

That was good for several more moments of silence in the storm. Farkas shook his head. “You aren’t talking about the president of Afghanistan.”

“Well, I’m told he agreed to it,” Bolan said.

Farkas’s face went blank as machines far beyond his pay grade spun their cogs and wheels around him. “Jesus.”

Keller stared. “Buddy, you’re like straight out of a movie.”

Yoshida examined Bolan as if he were a spider the size of Shetland pony that had suddenly dropped into their midst. “More like a comic book.”

“I like him,” Ous opined.

Bolan inclined his head at Ous and got down to business. “Two attachés in two months. Someone’s trying to kill the peace process in Helmand Province. They want a stink. They want an uproar.”

Keller’s eyes widened as she started to understand what Bolan was getting at. “And we’re into day two with nothing on the news.”

Yoshida gave Bolan an infinitesimal nod. “And criminals can’t help but come back to the scene of the crime.”

“They’re going to want to know what went wrong,” Bolan said, nodding. “And what’s happening.”

Keller popped the retention strap on her holster. “You think they’re going to come snooping back?”

“They’re here now,” Bolan stated.

Ous tapped his pipe empty against the bottom of his boot and put the pipe in his tactical vest. He pushed off the safety of his M-4 with a click. “He is right. Now is the time of ambush. They come.”

Bolan knelt beside his gear bag. “Get your men inside, Captain.”

“Oh, for God’s sake…” Yoshida clicked his com unit and spoke to the guards outside. “Yo! Buzz! Munoz! You got anything suspicious, any movement at all out there?”

Outside the dust hissed against the side of the house like the amplified sound of writhing serpents.

“Buzz? Munoz?” Yoshida’s voice rose. “Come back!” No one came back across the tactical radio. The captain unslung his rifle and spoke to the man on the roof. “Plowman, come back!”

Nothing came back but the wind.

“God…damn it…” Yoshida unslung his carbine.

Bolan unzipped his rifle bag and took out his Beowulf entry weapon. It looked like Yoshida’s M-4 carbine on steroids. The village was just outside the city of Sangin, one of only three major cities in Helmand Province and one that had seen the most brutal urban warfare of almost the entire war in Afghanistan. Bolan’s Beowulf weapon was .500 caliber and was the equivalent of fully automatic buffalo rifle. His also had the unusual modification of a grenade launcher mounted beneath the barrel. He had come ready for a battle in the streets.

It seemed the battle was about to be joined.

Farkas scooped up a Joint Service Combat Shotgun leaned in the corner and Keller took a stubby black MP-5 K off the couch and pushed the selector to full-auto. Yoshida changed frequencies. “Camp Two, this is Envoy One, requesting immediate reinforcement. Come back.”

Nothing came back but the same hiss.