Nuclear Reaction

“Of course.” Pahlavi thought about it for a moment, suddenly uneasy. “But if what you say is true, then we are doomed.”

“Not necessarily,” Bolan replied. “First thing, remember that I’m only saying if. What if there was a mole inside. Then he or she may not know where we’d go, in case the setup fell apart. Be careful who you trust, is all I’m saying.”

“But you ask me to trust you,” Pahlavi said in challenge.

“The difference is that you called me, and I’m from the outside. You’ve also seen me stand against your enemies. A double agent wouldn’t do that. Couldn’t risk it.”

To that logic, there was no response. Pahlavi knew that the American was correct. No traitor working inside Ohm would kill soldiers to keep his cover story solid. His superiors surely would punish such an act with death, perhaps the execution of the man’s whole family.

Or woman’s, Pahlavi thought, riven with suspicion. His mind had moved along those lines before, of course, but each time he’d found some excuse to tell himself it was impossible. No traitors could exist within the group he’d come to trust with everything—his life, his sister and his sanity.

Pahlavi would have cursed Cooper for raising all those ugly doubts again, but the American was simply speaking honestly, forcing Pahlavi to confront a possibility that he had been remiss in overlooking previously.

“Now, I’ll ask again,” Bolan said. “What’s our destination?”

“Still my village,” Pahlavi said. “It is not Ohm that we run to, but the people I grew up with. If they betray me, then it’s better that I simply die.”

“Your call on that,” Bolan remarked. “But if it’s not too much to ask, try not to take me with you, okay?”

“You need not fear my people, Mr. Cooper.”

That brought no response from the American, but it suddenly occurred to Pahlavi that if the people of his village failed him, they might have something to fear from the American. He had already seen the man in action, killing all but three or four of the soldiers who had been slain that afternoon.

It hit Pahlavi full force that he was not the same man he had been that morning. In the meantime, he had killed and watched friends die. He was a fugitive now, from whatever passed for justice in his homeland. The authorities could not stop heroin from passing through the country on its way to Europe, and they might be scheming to ignite another war with India for no good reason, but they would be out in force to find him, because of this day’s bloody work.

And now, he might be bringing sudden death into the very village where he had been born and raised.

But where else could he go?

Nowhere.

“You have nothing to fear,” Pahlavi said again. And hoped that it was true.

“Another thing you need to think about,” Bolan remarked. “We don’t know when they’ll find the bodies, but it may not be too long. For all we know, they may have sent out bulletins while they were chasing us, before we led them off the road. If they know how to run a search, they’ll work out from the killing ground and won’t give up until they find something. If you’re already on a list, and they know where you came from, well…”

He left the statement dangling, let Pahlavi finish it himself. There was another risk to which he would expose his people, but he still had no alternative. If he could not run back to Ohm, which had no central headquarters in any case, then only in his native village could he hope for sanctuary.

“We will not stay long,” Pahlavi said. A compromise. “Just long enough to get supplies, and then…”

Pahlavi hesitated. He was fresh out of ideas. It shamed and angered him that he could not present a finished plan to the American. But if he’d known exactly what to do and could complete the mission on his own, the American would not be there.

“Let’s try a different angle of attack,” Bolan said. “Tell me what you know about the lab and Project X.”

6

“Explain to me what happened,” Cyrus Shabou said. “I wish to understand how such a thing occurs.”

A grim-faced man in full-dress military uniform sat opposite the deputy minister for defense, separated from Shabou by the wide teak plateau of his handmade desk. The gleaming emblems on his collar marked him as a colonel. He was, in fact, Anish Dalal, commander of all counterterrorism actions in the western third of Pakistan. And clearly, he did not enjoy a summons from the civilians who controlled the very life or death of his career.

“Deputy Minster,” Dalal began, “I am unable to supply as full an explanation as you might expect, and as I would prefer to give. From all appearances, Lieutenant Sachi Chandaka was leading a routine patrol when he encountered someone on the highway west of Bela.”

“Someone?” Shabou interrupted. “He encountered someone?”

“If I may continue, sir?”

“By all means, do so. And explain yourself.”

“At 1420—that would be—”

“I know the military clock, Colonel. Proceed.”

“Yes, sir. At 1420, Lieutenant Chandaka broadcast a brief message, reporting himself in pursuit of two unidentified vehicles, each with two or more male occupants. They were reportedly proceeding northward, but there were no further bulletins. At 1900, Lieutenant Chandaka’s patrol was officially late, without word of progress or location. Radio queries went unanswered. We finally received a call from a police outpost in Balochistan. They’d located a civilian vehicle with two dead men inside and evidence of gunfire. We launched a local search immediately and we found the rest.”

Shabou frowned and tapped a manicured index finger on the printout set before him, on his desktop. “Thirty-two men dead, including the lieutenant, and three military vehicles destroyed. Is that correct?”

“Essentially,” Dalal replied. “The truck was not destroyed, as I’m given to understand the term, but it was damaged. Yes, sir.”

“And you still have no idea at all who may have been responsible for this?”

“Sir, we’ve begun with the assumption that the dead civilians on the highway are related to the massacre.”

“That seems a logical conclusion, Colonel,” Shabou replied.

“Yes, sir. Both were armed, of course. Their weapons had been fired, but further tests will be required to tell if any of their bullets actually struck Chandaka’s vehicles. In any case, their car was found roughly three miles away from where the others died.”

“Have you identified these two?”

“We have, sir. Their names were Sanjiv Dushkriti and Adi Lusila. Both in their twenties, the first born in Karachi, the other in Hyderabad. Dushkriti served six months as a student for hashish possession. Lusila was clean. They were driving his car. Nothing else in the vehicle, besides their weapons, to suggest a criminal intent.”

“And what of politics?”

“They’re not on file, Deputy Minister. There were no manifestos in the vehicle. No drugs or extra weapons, as if they were trafficking. My guess would be that they were highway bandits, interrupted by the sight of a patrol. They run, Chandaka chases them, and there’s a fight.”

“A fight? Is that how you describe the loss of thirty-two trained men, with only two dead on the other side?”

“Perhaps my choice of words—”

“I would describe it as a massacre,” Shabou pressed him. “Do you agree?”

“In retrospect…yes, sir.”

“And is it common for a pair of highwaymen to massacre so many soldiers, then escape unharmed?”