Altered State

Beyond that basic airborne armament, each member of the strike team carried either some variant of the M-16 assault rifle or a Mossberg 590-A1 12-gauge shotgun loaded with No. 4 buckshot—averaging seven hits per round on a man-size target at fifty yards. Most carried pistols of their own selection, chambered for 9 mm Parabellum or .45ACP, and all were packing grenades.

Just in case.

Most of the villagers in Uzra were awake and eating breakfast when the war birds fell upon them, dropping from the newly risen sun to skim at rooftop level, starting with a solid strafing run to soften up the target. The M-60D was brutally efficient, spitting death at a cyclic rate of 550 rounds per minute, but its stutter was eclipsed by the high-tech buzz of the Minigun shredding roofs, walls and bodies below.

Uzra was on the smallish side, for an Afghani village. Its population estimates waffled between 150 and 200 residents in winter, when the sheep stayed close to home. But this was spring, so an even hundred would be a closer count.

The inconvenience caused by Uzra’s citizens was out of all proportion to their numbers and position in Afghan society. Someone had not impressed them with their innate insignificance, and now they had to pay the price for stepping out of bounds.

Ten seconds, circling once around the place with weapons spraying in full-auto mode, turned Uzra into a chaotic shambles. Men, women and children ran or staggered from their riddled dwellings, seeking shelter they would never find, some of them dropping in their tracks to rise no more.

“That’s plenty,” said the strike team leader to his pilot. “Put us on the deck.”

Phase Two was mopping up and making sure that no one lived to profit from the lesson they had learned that morning.

Uzra, after all, was not a classroom.

It was an example.

Touchdown was a gentle bump in the midst of a dusty whirlwind whipped by the Black Hawk’s spinning rotors. Rising from his seat, the strike team leader faced his soldiers and reminded them, “No prisoners!”

They rushed past him toward the open bay, some snarling, others smiling as they jumped off into Hell on Earth.

CHAPTER ONE

Kabul, Afghanistan

Mack Bolan turned his rented car off Jadayi Maiwand, putting the Rudkhane-ye-Kabul River behind him as he entered the Old City, Sharh-e-Khone. He started looking for a place to park after he passed the giant Abnecina Hospital, aware that driving through the Old City without a guide could get him lost, despite the maps he carried.

It might even get him killed.

He found a fenced-in public parking lot, paid the young attendant one hundred Afghanis up front—about two dollars, U.S.—and received a numbered ticket in return. The young man smiled and seemed to wish him well as Bolan left the lot.

How did you say “good luck” in Dari or Pashto?

Bolan didn’t have a clue.

There’d been no time for him to study either of Afghanistan’s official languages, much less the other forty-five in use throughout the country. He would need a skilled interpreter and guide, which brought him to the heart of old Kabul, with soldiers in the streets.

Some of them were American, still hunting Taliban and terrorists nearly a decade after the invasion that was meant to punish those responsible for 9/11. Bolan had a diplomatic passport in his pocket that should answer any questions asked by U.S. soldiers who might stop him on the street.

As for the native military and police, if they tried to detain him, he would have a simple choice: either resist or bluff it out.

He definitely needed that interpreter.

The simple map of Sharh-e-Khone that he had memorized included streets and major landmarks, but it didn’t give the flavor of the Old City. It didn’t simmer with the tension Bolan felt around him, didn’t indicate the spots where bullets, fire and bomb fragments had scarred ancient walls.

Passing along the old wall that had once defended Kabul from its enemies outside, Bolan was conscious of the irony. This day, no matter which side you were on, the city’s enemies were all inside . Whether they strapped plastic explosives to their bodies or wore military uniforms, they were combatants in a struggle dating back, at least, to the Soviet invasion of the country in the latter 1970s.

Or should he take it further back, into the early nineteenth century, when British troops had made themselves at home here, in the midst of a society they never really understood? Where did the grim cycle of kill-or-be-killed have its roots?

Passing a line of busy market stalls, Bolan watched for tails, even as he was scouting for his next landmark along the route to locate his interpreter and guide.

The man he sought wasn’t supposed to be alone.

It was a two-for-one deal, this time, which compounded Bolan’s risk. Without even addressing trust issues, two contacts made it twice as likely that they would be followed to the meeting place. If Bolan’s guide was not under surveillance, then it stood to reason that the guide’s control—a DEA spook from the States—would be.

Bolan could only hope that one or both was smart enough to watch their backs and deal with anyone who tried to crash their rendezvous in Sharh-e-Khone.

In case they weren’t, he’d come prepared.

The pistol slung beneath his left arm was a Jericho 941, the simple but elegant Israeli-made 9 mm semiautomatic. It was slightly shorter than his usual Beretta, held one extra Parabellum round, and had its muzzle threaded for a sound suppressor.

Of course, the supressor was back in Bolan’s car, along with all the other martial hardware he’d acquired upon arrival, prior to seeking out his guide.

A soldier had to deal with first things first.

Now, as he passed a bank of aromatic food stalls, keeping track of each turn in his mind, he hoped the day that had begun with jet lag wouldn’t end with blood. A simple meeting and agreement to collaborate would suit him fine.

The killing would come soon enough.

It was, after all, his reason for being in Kabul to start with. The land that his country was making “safe for democracy” still had some serious problems. Negotiation might solve some of them. As for the rest…

Enter the Executioner.

“I WAS AFRAID HE MIGHT be late,” said Edris Barialy.

Deirdre Falk replied, “He isn’t late. Your watch is fast. Again.”

It was a challenge for him, working with a woman. Make that, working for a woman, since the slim brunette American was certainly in charge. She told him where to go and what to do, approved his weekly pay and judged when it was time for him to risk his life.

Like now.

As a strong Muslim—well, an adequate Muslim—Edris Barialy recognized the subordinate state of womankind established by God when He said, “Be” and created all things. Men were supposed to be the rulers of their homes and of the world, but things had changed a great deal in the world outside Afghanistan.

When Barialy had joined his first protest against the growing Afghan heroin trade, he had not expected covert contact from the American Drug Enforcement Administration. And when he accepted the DEA’s offer of part-time employment, using his freedom as a licensed tourist guide to gather intelligence on smugglers, he had not expected that his control officer would be female.

It was strange how things worked out sometimes.

Now here he stood in Sharh-e-Khone, waiting to meet yet another American. A specialist, as Deirdre Falk had described him.

But in what?

Nervous as he was about the meeting and whatever might ensue from it, Barialy had armed himself with a venerable Webley Mk IV .38/200 revolver. It weighed nearly three pounds and pulled down his slacks at the rear, where he wore it tucked under his belt, but Barialy felt better for having the gun close at hand.

He also prayed that he would not be called upon to use it.

Deirdre Falk carried a pistol, too, of course. Barialy had seen it but could not identify the weapon as to brand or caliber. It was some kind of automatic, presumably she had been trained to handle it.