Lethal Tribute

BOLAN WATCHED footage from the facility security cameras. The film was grainy black-and-white. It wasn’t particularly well focused and the video appeared to have tracking problems. Most convenience stores in the United States had security video of better quality. What the footage showed was shocking in the extreme.

The weapons facility was a small, heavily fortified building within a large Pakistani air force base, comfortably outside of Islamabad in case India launched a surgical nuclear strike against the weapons stored there. The weapons themselves were stored in hardened underground bunkers. Underground rail tunnels led out to the airfields, which allowed the weapons to be rapidly transferred to revetted Mirage III/5B supersonic fighter-bombers. If the balloon went up between the two Asian superpowers, the French-made jets would scramble across the border to devastate the Indian subcontinent.

At least, that was the plan.

The current problem with the plan was that three of those nuclear warheads had vanished.

Bolan watched the footage for the fourth time. Bored guards armed with Chinese Type 56-1 assault rifles manned the internal checkpoints. One by one they swiftly rose onto the tips of their toes, flailing, struggling and clawing at their throats. Bolan counted seconds. Each guard went limp at ten and then dropped after another thirty. It took approximately nine to ten seconds to strangle someone unconscious and an approximate total time of thirty to forty seconds of strangulation to make sure that victim never woke up again.

Supernatural or not, whoever had attacked the Al-Nouri facility had strangled each guard in their way with clocklike precision. “Autopsies would show strangulation as the cause of death.”

“Indeed,” Makhdoom agreed. “Except that we have no bodies.”

“The guards worked in pairs at the internal checkpoints within the facility. That would imply two-man elimination teams to eliminate them at the least, and four would be better.”

Makhdoom shook his head in frustration. “Where are these ‘elimination teams’ you speak of?” He waved an angry hand at the monitor. “Where? I see nothing!”

“They’re there.” Bolan pointed at the screen. “We just can’t see them.”

“I can accept that they attacked the video system, somehow erasing themselves from the camera footage, but you and I were out in the pass. You saw what I saw, and with your own eyes you did not see what I did not see, as well. They were not observable in night-vision equipment, nor were they observable to our naked eyes, even in the glare of a magnesium flare.” Makhdoom sagged in his chair. “Explain that.”

“I can’t. Not yet. But the answer is right here.” Bolan hit the rewind button again.

“Did any guards survive?” he went on.

“Most of the guards in the facility survived. Indeed, most were unaware that anything had happened until after the warheads and the men guarding them were discovered to be missing.”

“What about the men who were monitoring the video control area?”

“Gone.” The Pakistani sighed. “Presumed dead.”

Bolan let out a long breath. “There’s a mass grave, like the one we found in the tunnels, probably very nearby. If they were transporting the warheads, they would neither have had the time nor the manpower to drag them far.”

“Yes, I suspect you are right. I will have men sweep the outlying area.” Makhdoom leaned back in his chair. “What else do you suggest?”

“You say the rest of the staff here has already been interrogated?”

“Yes. Vigorously.”

Bolan nodded. “I propose we speak to them again.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Islamabad

The man in the cell wasn’t happy. He didn’t have a skylight. No one was bringing him barbecued goat kabobs. No one looked to have brought him anything but pain. His clothes were torn and bloodstained. His face was a misshapen lump of hamburger. A pair of guards stood over the miserable man, each with a tapered, leather-bound wooden club.

The bottoms of the prisoner’s feet were masses of purple bruising.

This was the twelfth such prisoner Bolan had seen. Pakistani justice, both military and civilian, was primitive, corrupt and brutal. One’s best hope was to be tried under Sharia—Islamic Law. The men Bolan had seen weren’t being tried. They were simply being tortured for information. Even if they knew nothing, their apparent failure at keeping the nuclear weapons in their charge secure justified their punishment in the minds of their jailers. Most had been wearing Pakistani army uniforms and had been guards at the Al-Nouri Weapons Facility. This man was dressed in civilian rags.

One of the guards looked up, saluted and shrugged at Makhdoom. He muttered a few words in Urdu, which Bolan didn’t need translated. The prisoner had been tortured extensively and he had nothing useful to say. Makhdoom let out a long breath. He clearly wasn’t pleased with the torturing of the prisoners, but neither was he raising any fuss about it. He had lost half a platoon of men and the fate of his nation could depend on what was discovered.

Whatever kid gloves of civility Makhdoom normally wore as an officer and a gentleman had come off in the past twenty-four hours.

Bolan examined the prisoner critically. He sat crumpled and hunched on the stone floor between the two guards, flinching with adrenaline reaction from his most recent beating and fear whenever either of the guards moved. He sniveled as one of the guards prodded him to demonstrate what a useless prisoner he was.

Bolan happened to be wearing the uniform of a Pakistani captain of special forces. His blue eyes were hidden behind dark glasses, even though they were in an underground cell. He had the reassuring weight of a loaded Browning Hi-Power pistol holstered on his hip. Bolan nodded at Makhdoom. It sickened him, but it was the only way.

Makhdoom nodded at the guards.

The prisoner shrieked as the bastinadoes of the guards fell upon him once more like rain. The beating went on for a few moments, then Makhdoom strode into the middle of it. He seized the prisoner by his shirtfront and slammed him against the wall of the cell. Spittle flew as Makhdoom screamed first in Urdu then in Sind. The man flinched and jerked as he was threatened with everything from castration to death. Makhdoom cut off his tirade and hurled the prisoner to the floor.

Bolan took off his sunglasses and strode forward.

The prisoner stared up into Bolan’s burning blue eyes and cringed in terror. The man flinched and pressed himself into the wall as Bolan crouched and cocked his hand back as if he were going to backhand him.

Bolan’s back was to Makhdoom and the guards. He didn’t backhand the prisoner. Instead he quickly passed his right hand down in front of his face. The prisoner’s eyes flew wide. Bolan whispered one of the two phrases in Hindi he had memorized this day.

“Greetings, Ali my brother.”

It was an ancient greeting, that members of the Cult of Kali had once used to identify fellow members in strange cities. The prisoner’s eyes flared wide at the words. Not with fear, nor with confusion, but with recognition.

Bolan had gotten a bite. He yanked on the hook to bury it deep and reeled the man in as he used his second phrase of Hindi. “Be strong. Be ready. We will come for you.”

The big American suddenly stood and yanked the prisoner up with him. He snarled a phrase in Urdu he had learned long ago during a mission in Asia, something about the prisoner enjoying relations with goats and how he particularly enjoyed allowing the goats to assume the dominant position in the relationship. The guards laughed uproariously. Bolan grabbed the prisoner by the throat and shoved him across the room. The prisoner collapsed into a heap in the corner. Bolan hated this aspect of role playing, but it was necessary.

Bolan spit on the man and fell into step with Makhdoom as they left the cell.

“You have a remarkable gift with languages,” the captain acknowledged.

“Thank you. You have a beautiful language filled with poetic metaphor.”

Makhdoom smiled for the first time in seventy-two hours. “And now?”

“Now? Now I think it’s time that you arranged a jailbreak.”

“Ah.”

Bolan cocked an eyebrow. “Do you speak Hindi, by the way?”

“I am a Pakistani special forces captain.” Makhdoom smiled slyly. “Infiltration was one of my specialities.”

Bolan nodded. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

The Prison, 4:00 a.m.

“SO WHO IS THIS GUY and what’s his story?” Bolan watched the bored guard pace outside.