Lethal Tribute

Makhdoom snarled. “Idol worshiper!”

The man jumped in his seat and stared down miserably.

“Ah, I see the problem. Since you are an idol-worshiping disciple of death, you are a vegetarian. Would you care for some vegetables?” He shoved the plate of carrots, celery and cauliflower toward Naqbi.

Makhdoom spoke conversationally. “You know, Islam is the religion of love.” He drank tea reflectively. “However, there are three people my religion tells me I must despise.” The captain withdrew his pistol and set it on the table. “Worshipers of idols, worshipers of fire, and those who engage in human sacrifice. Perhaps I should deposit you back into the prison and explain to the guards you are so far two for three.”

“Atta, if you go back to jail, you’re dead,” Bolan opined. “Then again we could just turn you loose. You have any guess what would happen to you then?”

Naqbi clutched the tabletop to stop himself from shuddering. Everyone at the table knew what would happen to him. He was damaged goods.

He had been compromised.

“There is a third option.” Bolan freshened Atta’s tea, as part of his “good cop” role.

Naqbi glanced up for the first time.

“You cooperate. You help us. You produce results, and we cut you loose. With money, a new identity, and we drop you any place you’d like. Bora Bora, Argentina, South Africa, the North Pole, you name it.”

Naqbi glanced at Bolan and actually met his eyes. The soldier didn’t like what he saw there. He saw the absolute ruin of despair. “You think you can protect me from a god?”

Makhdoom straightened in religious outrage.

“Do you think you can protect yourselves?” Naqbi’s shoulders rose and fell. “Kali will take us. She will take us all. We are all dead men.” His head shook back and forth in a slow-motion movement of helpless horror. “She shall have our flesh, she shall have our blood, she shall have our souls.”

“Speak not of demons!” Makhdoom snarled. “Only tell us where we can find their worshipers and the weapons they stole!”

“Kali is not a demon.” Naqbi no longer looked at Bolan or Makhdoom. He was staring off into the middle distance, into his own personal vision of hell and horror, and he spoke more to himself than anyone at the table. “She is the slayer of demons. When demons ruled Heaven and Earth, and all the gods and all the angels could not stand before them, they summoned Kali. All powerful, all conquering, goddess of the destruction…”

Naqbi received the back of Makhdoom’s hand. “There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet!”

“Goddess of the burning ground.” The young technician was unmoved. The world around him ceased to exist. Bolan had seen such expressions before in the faces of religious fanatics in crisis. Naqbi was zombifying himself into his own little insular hell of despair. Given a few more hours, he would lapse into catatonic depression.

Bolan couldn’t afford to let that happen. “What about your family, Atta?”

“My family.” He glanced up with fear sharpened eyes.

“Maybe we can’t stop a god—” Bolan shrugged meditatively “—but we can stop her followers from killing your family.”

“I…”

“You have to make a choice.”

Naqbi’s eyes flicked about in mounting panic. Bolan nodded to himself. Panic in an intelligence asset was good. Turning into a stalk of broccoli wasn’t.

“That’s air in your lungs, Atta. That’s food on your plate. Life is good. It’s worth living. It’s worth fighting for, even in the darkest moment. Your family is worth fighting for. But if you want to fight for them, you’re going to have to help us. You can give up on yourself, that’s your choice, but you have another decision to make.”

Atta Naqbi looked as though he might throw up.

Bolan’s burning blue eyes held Naqbi’s implacably. “Do you want us to try to help your family?”

Naqbi vomited.

Bolan nodded at Makhdoom. “I’m going to take that as a yes.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Rawalpindi, Pakistan

“This was the place of worship.”

Bolan kept his eyes on Naqbi for a moment. The young technician was looking green around the gills and his hands were shaking. Once more terror ruled his darting gaze. Bolan noted the man’s fear and was duly satisfied. He was terrified, and of more than just receiving a bullet through his brain from Bolan’s gun. The soldier frowned as he scanned the surroundings for the hundredth time. The problem was that the enemy had to know that Naqbi had been incarcerated. If they observed even the most basic of security protocols, they would have to assume that the man had been compromised.

The city of Rawalpindi was less than twenty kilometers from Islamabad and a light industry center. Naqbi’s place of worship appeared to be nothing more than a warehouse in the textile section of town. Makhdoom cradled a Russian-made Bison submachine gun and peered down the alley. “What do you think?”

“I don’t like it.” Bolan, too, held one of the Russian weapons. The stock had been removed for concealment and a laser sight had been slaved to the barrel. Both were modifications that Bolan didn’t particularly care for. It was a cowboy gun, suitable for little more than slaughtering the unsuspecting in phone booths. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. Operating while still technically under arrest presented unique logistical problems, and he would have to make do with what he was issued. Makhdoom was also operating on his own. He was fairly certain that some of his superiors had been compromised. Bolan was of the same opinion. Makhdoom had liberated the weapons, not requisitioned them, and no one except Kurtzman knew exactly where they were at the moment. The two of them were operating without a net. There would be no backup if things went south. Bolan hefted his weapon. The 64-round helical drum magazine, however, was comforting. Bolan turned to Naqbi. “How many guards?”

“Normally only a man or two at the door.” He shrugged nervously. “Perhaps a lookout up on the roof.”

Bolan held Naqbi’s eyes and was half satisfied. The young technician was telling the truth, as far as he knew, but Bolan suspected there would be one hell of a lot more to security than a couple of bouncers at the door and some guy smoking cigarettes up in the shingles. There was still the matter of invisible killers who could wipe out a platoon of special forces troops without being seen or leaving a drop of blood in their wake.

That was weighing heavily on Bolan’s mind.

It was weighing on Makhdoom’s, as well. “So, we go in?”

“It’s what we came here for. Leave the engine running.” Bolan slid out of the car and kept his Bison beneath his drab overcoat. He spoke into his throat mike. “Bear, we are going in.”

“Roger that, Striker,” Kurtzman acknowledged. “You be careful in there.”

“You!” Makhdoom jabbed Naqbi with the muzzle of his weapon. “Come!”

The cultist’s shoulders slumped in despair as he slid out of the car. The three of them walked down the alley. Pigeons cooed in the eaves. The alley was empty and the sky above the close-set buildings cobalt-blue. The three warehouses faced one another, turning the alley into a cul de sac. No bouncers stood on the steps below the sheet-metal door. No lookout stood upon the roof. Bolan crossed the street and tried the door. “It’s locked.”

Makhdoom shot a glance up and down the street. “How do you want to play—”

Bolan’s weapon stuttered in his hands as he put a burst into the lock. Naqbi nearly jumped out of his shoes. Sparks shrieked off the ancient metal and Bolan’s boot sent the sprung door flying back on its hinges.

“Very well.” Makhdoom nodded. “The direct approach, then.”

Bolan strode into the murky interior of the warehouse. Dim light filtered downward in hazy beams through the filthy skylights high above. “You smell that?” the Executioner asked.

“Sandalwood.” Makhdoom snuffed at the close air. “And nag champa.”

The air was thick with the cloying, sweet scent of devotional incense. “Not the usual smell of a textile warehouse.”

“No.”

Naqbi’s hand trembled as he pointed across the cavernous space. “The altar was there, and the idol behind it.”