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Bolan took out a flashlight and panned the beam at the far wall. The floor showed fresh scrapes where something very heavy had recently been dragged across the concrete. Other than that, the warehouse was as empty as the cavern above the pass. The lingering sweetness in the air was the only clue they had left. “There’s a truck dock in back?”
“Indeed.” Makhdoom shone his light around the room. “I am currently running a check on the building. This warehouse and the two next to it are owned by a reputable Pakistani cotton merchant. However, a year ago, he rented this space to another company. They are proving much harder to track down.”
Owning all three warehouses on the block would give the enemy a nice quite zone of control where they could do whatever they wanted. It was also a fine tactical setup for an ambush. “The company will be a cutout.” Bolan glanced around the room again. “They’ll be some kind of—”
Bolan froze at the sound of a scraping noise. He and Makhdoom swung their flashlights around the room, but there was nothing to see but bare corrugated walls and the concrete floor. Bolan had known it was a trap, and expected it, but the unknown was an opponent as ugly as they came. An unbidden chill ran down Bolan’s spine as the unseen came for them. Naqbi let out a whimper. Makhdoom clicked on the laser sight of his weapon. “Ready?”
Bolan reached into the pocket of his overcoat. He had reviewed the battle a thousand times in his mind.
And he had formulated a plan. “Now!”
It was time to see how the goddess of death enjoyed something a little stronger than the smell of incense. Bolan and Makhdoom ripped the pins from the CS tear-gas canisters and flung them to the floor. The riot grenades burst apart as they hit and the multiple skip-chaser bomblets skidded across the concrete hissing and spewing thick white smoke. Bolan and Makhdoom pulled their gas masks from under their coats and yanked them over their faces. Naqbi let out a shriek that was instantly choked off as he inhaled the riot gas.
Bolan shouted through his mask as the gas bloomed around them. “Back to back!”
“Striker!” Kurtzman’s voice rose in urgency. “What is your situation?”
“Bear, I need absolute quiet!”
Makhdoom turned and he and Bolan covered each other while Naqbi collapsed weeping and coughing between them. Bolan flicked on his laser and panned it across his section of the building. Once again he found himself searching for the enemies he couldn’t see.
Makhdoom’s snarl was muffled by his mask. “I see nothing!”
Neither could Bolan, but he knew the enemy was here. He listened for another rustle or scrape or any sound of movement. He particularly listened for the hacking or coughing of an enemy.
Naqbi screamed as Bolan cut loose with his weapon. The weapon shuddered in his hands as he ripped off a 20-round burst in a sweeping arc in front of him. The bullets punched holes in the corrugated sheet metal of the walls and rays of sunlight shone in bright shafts through the thickening gas. Behind him Makhdoom fired off a similar burst. When Naqbi wasn’t hacking and coughing, he was screaming.
“Doom!” Bolan desperately tracked for targets. “Shut him up!”
Makhdoom cut off the hysterics by driving his boot into Naqbi’s ribs.
Bolan stared into the gas. There was nothing he could see, but it was something suddenly missing that caught his eye. The shafts of sunlight came through the bullet holes in the walls and crisscrossed the room like lances of light. It could have been a trick of the conditions, but for a moment there seemed to be a shaft of light that stopped, disappeared and then resumed its course two feet away.
Bolan held his trigger down on full-auto. Flames stuttered from the muzzle of his weapon, spitting bullets in line with the laser sweeping the section of gas. The lines of sunlight broke and resumed diagonally toward the ground.
It was as if the invisible man had fallen.
Bolan tracked his weapon, spewing bullets through the projected path. Makhdoom’s weapon continued to chatter in short, searching bursts. Naqbi’s screaming and choking was suddenly cut off.
Bolan whirled.
The cultist was clutching at his throat and walk-flopping backward in a remarkable fashion across the warehouse. Bolan whipped his laser between Naqbi’s flailing legs and fired off a burst. He suddenly collapsed backward as whatever was holding him up failed.
“Doom!” Bolan shouted. The attack on Naqbi had been bait and Bolan had taken it. “Look out—”
The unseen reached out and seized Bolan by the throat. His carotid arteries were instantly cut off and a hard lump crushed into his larynx. Only Bolan’s body armor kept the massive blow he took to his kidneys from buckling him. Sick weakness washed through Bolan’s arms and legs as he was dragged backward. His arteries and air pipe were relentlessly constricted as he was choked and strangled at the same time. Bolan watched helplessly as Makhdoom’s back arched like a bow and the Pakistani’s weapon fell from his hands as he clawed at his throat. Every instinct in Bolan’s body screamed at him to fight the horrible grip on his throat as it bent him backward.
Instead Bolan let every ounce of his 200-plus pounds go limp. He hung himself as he dropped into the garrote. Something bumped into his back and a thick veil seemed to enfold him. Bolan’s vision narrowed to blackness as he flipped the muzzle of his Bison submachine gun over his shoulder and burned his magazine dry behind him.
The grip on his throat weakened and Bolan ripped at his throat as he heaved himself forward. He dropped his empty weapon and his knife rang from the sheath on his belt. Fabric bunched beneath Bolan’s hand and parted beneath his blade. Bolan sucked breath through the smothering filters of his mask. He couldn’t quite get enough to fill his lungs, but his vision cleared.
In his fist Bolan held a thick gray piece of dully glittering fabric.
Makhdoom’s knees buckled as his body began to fail him. Bolan lunged up and threw himself like an NFL linebacker at the empty space above Makhdoom’s head. His bones jarred as he slammed into what he couldn’t see. Bolan’s vision skewed as he felt something veil him. Whatever it was couldn’t stop the reinforced point of his combat knife. The blade punched into something solid and Bolan’s lips skinned back from his teeth as he recognized the feel of steel grating on ribs. He smelled human sweat and beneath it the sudden stink of pain and fear. Bolan rammed the blade home and ripped it back out, stabbing three more times rapidly. He heard the groan of a wounded man. Bolan raised his knife for the kill.
His vision exploded into blackness lit with pulsing purple pinpricks of light as something struck him in the back of the head.
Bolan rolled with the blow. His vision was tilting crazily, but his battle instincts had been hard won in conflicts on every continent on the planet. He rolled up to one knee and his hand found Makhdoom’s weapon at his feet. He scooped up the automatic and sprayed lead in an arc in front of him. His vision darkened and he nearly buckled as he stood. Bolan shook his head to clear it and took several tottering steps backward. He was rewarded as he bumped against corrugated steel wall.
The warehouse wall had Bolan’s back. His eyes glared out of the lenses of his mask as he swept his muzzle, looking for any sign of the enemy. Makhdoom was a few feet away. His hands were at his throat and his chest was heaving, trying to suck air past his mask and down his traumatized throat, but he was alive. Naqbi lay unmoving a few yards away. His eyes were rolled back in his head and his blackened tongue lolled out of his mouth.
Sunlight was pouring in from the back of the warehouse. The back door had been opened. Bolan fired a burst out the door and whipped his muzzle back to cover the rest of the room. The enemy had extracted. Bolan scanned the room again. He didn’t believe the enemy had brought gas masks. Anyone in the room would now be weeping and choking. Bolan made a fist around the piece of fabric in his left hand.
Even if they were thickly veiled by something, they would be affected by the gas by now.
“Doom!” Bolan shouted. “Can you hear me?”
The Pakistani captain pushed himself up painfully. His choking and gagging was plain to hear, but his masked head nodded. He crawled across the floor a few feet and scooped up Bolan’s weapon. He unhooked the spent drum and slid in a fresh one from under his jacket. He also picked up Bolan’s fallen knife. The soldier covered Makhdoom as he tottered over and sagged against the wall. The two men kept their weapons aimed into the billowing gas.
“Atta—” Makhdoom’s voice was a rasp “—appears to be dead.”
“Yeah,” Bolan wheezed.
“But we have learned something.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.” Makhdoom nodded. “Our enemies are not djinn.”
Bolan managed a wry smile beneath his mask. “You’re sure about that?”
“Yes.” He held up Bolan’s knife. The shallow curve of the Japanese-style fighting knife was stained to the hilt. The Pakistani’s red eyes glittered beneath his mask. “Djinns do not bleed.”
CHAPTER SIX
Islamabad
“You gave him a gun!” General Iskander Hussain’s voice rose into a scream. He may have been named after Alexander the Great, but the incredibly short, fat, little man in front of Bolan and Makhdoom didn’t meet the mark. When he stood up from his desk, he hardly seemed to have stood at all. He was capable of expanding in the horizontal plane. Hussain seemed to literally inflate with rage. Bolan thought he might burst the seams of his uniform, if he didn’t burst a blood vessel first. He screamed in English for Bolan’s benefit.
Makhdoom stood at ramrod-stiff attention. “Yes, General!”
“You took him to the Al-Nouri weapons site! You took him along on an unauthorized raid into Rawalpindi! You equipped him with automatic weapons and unauthorized war gas! An American saboteur and a spy!”
“A Pakistani ally, involved in a sensitive operation of mutual concern—”
“You gave him a gun!” Hussain’s rage went apoplectic. “Did it not occur to you he could escape! Idiot!”
“Indeed, General, I did give him weapons. It was he who generated the leads we have found so far. The act of arming him saved my life and the lives of my men. I do not regret—”
Spittle flew as General Hussain lost his English and began screaming so rapidly Bolan could no longer tell whether he was shrieking in Urdu or Sind.
Makhdoom clearly could understand. He stood like a rock but his cheek muscles flexed with tension as he was dressed down in ever-increasingly personal and inflammatory detail. The general gasped and stopped in midscream. He had to lean over and put both of his hands on his desk as he caught his breath from his outburst. He lifted his right hand after a moment and pointed an accusing finger at Bolan. “And you! You are—”
“Privileged to work with the officers under your command on a matter of mutual concern to my nation and our trusted friend, the Sovereign Republic of Pakistan,” Bolan finished.
Hussain blinked and then began to open his mouth.
Bolan beat him to the punch. “Is it the general’s pleasure to receive our report?”
“No! I do not wish to hear your bloody…” The general suddenly caught himself. “Yes! It is my pleasure to receive your report! Immediately!”
The general slammed his fat frame back down into his chair and glared at them in as menacing a fashion as he could muster. “I await! I am very interested! You have my undivided attention!”
Bolan swiftly sketched out the events in the Haji Pir Pass and everything that had happened subsequently at the Al-Nouri facility and then in Rawalpindi. He left nothing out other than his conversation with Kurtzman and exactly under what auspices of the United States government he was working for. Hussain’s facial expression slowly went from rage, to confusion, to disbelief to just a blank stare as Bolan finished. Hussain gazed off into space a moment, blinked, then turned his gaze to Makhdoom. The general’s head cocked slightly like a dog that has heard a noise it doesn’t understand. “Captain Makhdoom, do you agree with the facts of this report?”
“I do, General,” Makhdoom concurred. “All he says, I have seen with my own eyes and experienced personally.”
Hussain’s voice went flat. “You are saying our strategic nuclear weapons have been stolen by Hindu death worshipers who can turn themselves invisible?”
Makhdoom nodded once. “That is our current and best theory.”
“I do not believe I can have you shot for being insane, Captain, but given your other offenses—”
“General,” Bolan interrupted, “you have seen the videotape of the activity in the Al-Nouri facility when the weapons were stolen?”
“Of course.” Hussain shook his head. “But—”
“Other than djinns, General, how would you account for the disappearance of the weapons?”
“The videotape could have been doctored,” Hussain blustered, “or somehow overcome.”
“We also considered that possibility. However, in light of what happened in Rawalpindi we have reassessed the situation. We have come to grips with the enemy, and I assure you that we are dealing with far more than a doctored videotape. You also heard the radio transmissions from Musa Company during the battle in the pass?”
“You were attacked by invisible Hindu stranglers?” It was more than Hussain could deal with. “This is what you truly wish me to believe?”
Bolan pulled down the collar of his shirt and exposed the purple bruising mottling his throat. “Yes.”
Makhdoom pulled down his own collar. “The traitor, Atta Naqbi, is in the morgue. He bears similar marks, only he did not survive them.”
“Assuming I were to buy into this fantasy of yours, Captain, tell me why? Why would Hindu idol-worshipers do such a thing?”
“Why do idol-worshipers do anything?” Makhdoom shrugged. “Except to please their heathen gods.”
Bolan had a number of acquaintances around the world who worshiped idols, but he kept that to himself. “They have some sort of agenda, General. That is clear. They are also clearly well organized, funded and must have clandestine contacts high up within the Pakistani military.”
Hussain began to purple again with outrage.
Bolan cut off the general before he could detonate. “For that reason, Captain Makhdoom suggested that you were one of the few members of General Staff who can be trusted. He informs me that your service record and your loyalty to your country are unimpeachable.”
General Hussain ceased changing colors and relaxed back in his chair slightly.
This was an outright lie. Somehow, Hussain’s spies within the military had found out about Bolan’s and Makhdoom’s activities, and he had sent his own bodyguards to summon them to his offices. However, Bolan had decided to give Hussain a full report for the simple reason that the general was such a blustering egomaniac that whoever the enemy was, they would clearly not trust his involvement in stealing nuclear weapons.
Hussain made his first intelligent remark of the day. “Do you realize how insane this sounds?”
“I wouldn’t believe it myself, General, had I not seen and experienced what I had under Captain Makhdoom’s command.”
“This is all most unusual. I must admit I—”
“General, this is my suggestion. This conversation does not leave this room. Captain Makhdoom and I will coordinate our investigation through your offices. I will put you in contact with my superiors in the United States. If, indeed, members of the Pakistani High Command have been compromised, we must be able to present incontrovertible evidence to back up our accusations. When we have the proof we need, and the location of the stolen weapons, you will present the evidence to Military Command and the president.”
Hussain blinked at Bolan.
Makhdoom looked at Bolan as if he were insane.
“I…yes.” Hussain’s brows furrowed. “This is a matter of utmost security. The traitors must be ferreted out. Our stolen weapons must be located. We cannot afford incompetence. This effort shall be coordinated out of my offices and under my direct command.”
Makhdoom tried to keep the horror out of his voice. “General, I would like to assemble a picked team of men who I can—”
“No!” Hussain cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Nuclear weapons have been stolen, and it was clearly an inside job. Our enemy is unseen and has unknown contacts.” Hussain began reciting back Bolan’s report as if it were made up of his own experiences and opinions. He nodded to himself. “If we have traitors, they may well be members of the special forces.”
Makhdoom blanched but said nothing. “No, no members of Musa Company or the other special units. They often travel afar and who knows how they may have been corrupted.”
It was Makhdoom’s turn to start purpling.
Hussain was oblivious to Makhdoom’s outrage. “My service record and loyalty are unimpeachable. I choose my own men for the same reason. I will assemble you a team from among the most trusted men in my personal bodyguard.”
Makhdoom looked as though he wanted to shoot himself, if he didn’t shoot Bolan and General Hussain first.
“The contents of this meeting do not leave my office. Do not report back to your headquarters, Captain. Go home. The American will be under your supervision and will be your responsibility at all times. Report none of this to your superiors in special operations. I will contact you in the morning and we will begin our investigation properly.”
Hussain leaned back and steepled his fingers in deep thought. “You are dismissed.”
“YOU ARE INSANE! Do you know that?”
Bolan shrugged. Makhdoom had maintained a granite silence in the car ride all the way back to his house. He had stiffly asked his wife to make tea and bring refreshments. He had sat like a statue and watched Bolan drink a cup of tea and eat a piece of cake. Makhdoom had observed the laws of hospitality.
Then he had exploded.
“You are an idiot!”
Makhdoom’s wife, Zarah, was a lovely woman, and she looked on in horror as her husband screamed in rage at their guest.
“You turned our mission over to a man like Hussain?” The captain’s knuckles whitened as his hands clenched into fists. “Hussain is a cabbage! No! He is less than a cabbage! At least a cabbage can be boiled and eaten!”
He shook his fists at the ceiling. “Of what possible use is Hussain!”
Bolan was getting the impression that Makhdoom had had one or two run-ins with the general in the past.
