Omar Ous was a hero among mujahideen veterans and considered a lion of the Northern Alliance. He was also ethnically Tajik. He had no use for southerners, less for Pashtuns, and considered the Taliban and their creed of Islam an abomination to be crushed. Such a man would have no compunction about shooting up the Sangin bazaar, much less gunning down female assassins in burkas. It was also well-known that he didn’t like Westerners and that he considered accepting their soldiers and their assistance a necessary evil. Yet here, digitally captured, he was following the American’s nearly suicidal rules of engagement.
Daei had been fully prepared, even expecting the escaping Marine to be a trap. He had been well prepared in the village, and he had believed so yet here again in the Marine forward base. It was an unprecedented, indeed, anomalous string of failures, one after the other, blowing up in his face like a string of firecrackers. They all had one thing in common.
The same, unknown, American operator.
He watched the video of the big American again, whirling among the living martyrs like a dervish. He was fairly sure he could take the man in hand-to-hand combat, and part of him yearned to lock horns with the American, lock him up and choke him out, only to have him awake, mewling and screaming to the final sensations of having his head sawed from his body with knife. For the moment he was invulnerable. He was surrounded by several thousand United States Marines, had Omar Ous to warn him of dangers Westerners normally couldn’t see, and had the United States Navy and God knew whom else backing his play. The situation was quite simple. Omar Ous needed to be shown the error of his ways, and the American operator needed to be cut from the herd.
Daei’s huge teeth split his black beard.
It was always good when one could kill two birds with one stone.
Sangin Base, Suspect Unit
ZURISADAY’S SKETCHES did her no justice. Even with the left side of her face swollen she was mind-emptyingly erotic. The push into Helmand Province had provided some of the heaviest fighting of the Afghanistan conflict and had provided a great number of enemy captures. The Sangin base had its own unit for processing terror suspects before shipping them out to the Kabul facilities or the United States. Zurisaday sat in a prefab holding cell complete with one-way glass. She sat staring at the glass, unblinking, with an almost reptilian hatred. Bolan had seen such looks many times before. He could feel her eyes on the other side of the glass, and he knew she could feel his. The woman was much more than a religious fanatic.
She was a sociopath.
“She said anything?” Bolan asked.
Keller looked up from a file she was amending on her laptop. “Not a peep since we brought her in.”
Bolan nodded. It would take very advanced interrogation techniques and time they didn’t have to get anything out of her. “What do we know about her escorts?”
“They’ve clammed up. Farkas suggested we leave them together for about an hour before separating them.”
“And?”
“A little bit of pay dirt. They were just dumb enough to whisper to each other. They didn’t say much except ‘say nothing’ and ‘remember your duty,’ but that was enough to determine that they’re Afghani, Pashtun and local.”
“Anything else?”
Keller clicked on the file. “They were armed with cheap-ass, copies of Russian Borz submachine guns. The knife one them attacked you with was the same knife used to murder Corporal Convertino. Zurisaday’s prints were on it, as well. I’m predicting she was the one who actually did the decapitation.”
Bolan looked into the unblinking, inhuman eyes on the other side of the glass. “I’ll buy that.”
“Yeah, but the part I don’t get? You’d think the Taliban would just put some men under burkas and be done with it.”
“For one, even though he was unarmed, Corporal Convertino was a U.S. Marine and a dangerous individual. If he found Zurisaday with only a couple of apparently helpless women with her, he would have let his guard down.” Bolan smiled faintly. “You heard Ous. You can tell a lot about a woman by how she moves in a burka. Practiced eyes, and just about every Afghan male’s eyes seem practiced, would probably spot a man beneath that garment almost instantly, and they wanted to get her and the head to an extraction point.”
“Okay, you got me, but it’s still kinda odd. The Taliban hardly ever uses women for anything except punching bags.” She cocked her head at Bolan. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking about suicide bombers in Moscow.”
Keller blinked. “The Black Widows?”
“Right, women whose husbands were killed fighting the Russians in Chechnya, Dagestan and the Caucasus region republics. They get widowed, they get radicalized, and they go to Moscow and blow themselves up to rejoin their husbands as holy martyrs.”
“I know who they are, but it’s just not Taliban MO.”
“I know. This whole thing stinks of something a whole lot more than the local Taliban.”
“Like a whole lot more what?”
“Like either the local Taliban has had some kind of sea change, or there’s a new player involved.”
“Oh Jesus.” Keller shook her head. “A new player? Like who?”
“I don’t know. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen terrorists coopted by an outside party, either knowingly or unknowingly.”
“Thanks. I’m going to sleep a lot better tonight.”
“Where’s Ous?” Bolan asked.
“He pulled a fade. He doesn’t like spending the night on U.S. or coalition bases unless he absolutely has to. He’s got his own safehouses and his own web of informants.” Keller’s eyes narrowed slightly in irritation. “None of which he’s ever shown any inclination to share.”
Bolan could understand. Alliances often shifted and changed in Afghanistan, and those who fought beside the Western Coalition were all too aware of the fact that they were on a timetable to leave. They were lucky Ous was playing ball at all.
Keller shrugged. “He said he’d be back at dawn.”
“All right.” Bolan stretched out his arms and felt his shoulders creak. “I’ll see you then.”
“Yo, mystery man.”
Bolan turned. “Yes?”
“You got a snuggle buddy for the night?” Keller asked.
The left corner of Bolan’s mouth quirked. “Snuggle buddy?”
“I’m a lone female NCIS agent on a base full of horny United States Marines.”
“There’s always Farkas.”
“Farkas already made his move, and he’s married, and I don’t mess around with partners.”
Bolan laid his hands on his chest guilelessly. “We’re not partners?”
“You’re my liaison with every branch of government, with godlike powers.” Keller looked at Bolan seriously. “And Convertino fragged the infirmary. He may not be the only compromised Marine in this camp, and maybe I’d feel better with a tall dark stranger with a machine pistol watching over me tonight.”
“Well, I’m sharing a tent with a couple of lieutenants.”
“And I have an air-conditioned container unit to myself, and the two sergeants who shared it left their DVD collection behind when they were evicted in the name of NCIS.”
“Well…I don’t know.”
Keller’s eyes began to widen in bemused outrage. “I’ve had over a hundred Marines hit