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