“I take it that the military doesn’t interfere,” he said.
“Rarely,” Gorshani answered, almost gasping. “If a terrorist parades himself too openly, he risks arrest. But otherwise…”
“You mean, ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“And do you have some extremists inside the military itself?”
“Almost assuredly.”
That would explain the government’s persistent inability to trace fugitive terrorist leaders “hiding” in Pakistan, or to arrest the men behind domestic suicide bombings.
“How extensive do you think the infiltration is?” Bolan asked.
On the trail in front of him, Gorshani paused to catch his breath, then labored onward, answering over his shoulder.
“When I was in the army, we were never told to help al Qaeda or the other groups. Nor were we sent to rub them out. And I never heard discussion of them in the barracks, unless there had been a bombing.”
“Someone must determine policy,” Bolan replied. “There’s always one man at the top, or close to it, who calls the tune.”
After another twenty yards, Gorshani said, “Perhaps…it may be…Brigadier Jadoon.”
“Who’s that?” Bolan asked, picking up his pace to ride on Gorshani’s heels.
“His name is mentioned in the newspapers, sometimes on television, when there is a bombing or a skirmish with the rebels. His brigade, I think, is meant to deal with such things.”
“And how’s he doing?”
Bolan’s guide found strength enough to shrug.
“He is not criticized, of course. I think where common bandits are concerned, he is effective.”
“And with terrorists?”
“Again, it would depend on who they are. Those who attack the government, of course, are doomed. But if they only strike at Jews or infidels, they are unlikely to be charged.”
“And this Jadoon works out of Rawalpindi?”
“I assume so. Army headquarters is there.”
Something to think about, before he left the country. Bolan wasn’t sure that taking out the man in charge of giving terrorists a free pass would have any lasting impact on state policy, but it was worth a try.
“The trail is narrowing,” Gorshani said.
Bolan had seen it coming, but he wasn’t worried yet. At least there was a trail. They weren’t dangling from ropes, like spiders on a strand of silk, with no options for movement if their adversaries spotted them.
Which adversaries?
Down below, he knew more soldiers would be hunting them. Whether they traced the APCs back to Sanjrani and got information there, or worked out that the trail was leading north and they then scoured the countryside in that direction, Bolan recognized the risk of being overtaken by more Pakistani regulars or paramilitary troops. A battle on the mountainside, especially if they committed aircraft to the hunt, would likely be a losing proposition.
On the other hand, there was no doubt that when they reached al-Bari’s hideout, they would find it guarded by the toughest gunmen that al Qaeda could recruit. Bolan expected nothing less than absolute resistance to the death, and he was willing to accommodate all comers.
But he needed the advantage of surprise.
So, as the rugged mountain trail grew steeper, he dug in and did everything within his power to ignore the protests from his aching muscles. If and when they had to use the ropes and pitons, the Executioner would grit his teeth and do the job he’d been assigned without complaint.
A spider’s nest was waiting for him near the peak of Mount Khakwani, and he meant to clean it out, once and for all. From there, well, he would have to wait and see what happened next.
But he would keep the Pakistani brigadier in mind.
And, given half a chance, he’d teach the friend of terrorists what it was like to live in a terror of his own.
11
Lieutenant Colonel Raheem Davi left the village of Sanjrani with the information he required. He also left behind a broken headman and the corpses of two younger peasants who had tried to interrupt Davi’s interrogation of Armin Mojtaba.
He had finished off the dead men personally, after they were wounded by his soldiers. Davi felt that it was necessary to establish a rapport between himself and those who served him, and to build his reputation as an officer who stopped at nothing to achieve his goals.
Sanjrani’s villagers would fear him now, and if that fear was tinged with hatred, what of it? More to the point, Davi’s own men would know that he was not afraid to soil his hands, and that he would not try to blame them for the killings later, if an inquest was convened.
But there would be no inquest—Davi was sure of that. The information he’d obtained from Mojtaba identified one of the men responsible for wiping out Colonel Salim Laghari’s unit—and, most likely, slaughtering Second Lieutenant Tarik Naseer’s patrol the previous day.
Hussein Gorshani.
It was not a name that Davi would forget. He had already radioed the news to Peshawar, and had contacted Brigadier Jadoon in Rawalpindi. Davi did not plan to let an intermediary give Jadoon the traitor’s name, and possibly claim credit for securing it. Careers were built in such ways, and if anyone advanced for this day’s work, Davi meant for that person to be him.
No one in Sanjrani had been able to identify Gorshani’s traveling companion, but they had agreed that he was ajnabi, a foreigner. Beyond that, they could only say that he was a white man, but the fine point of his nationality had eluded them.
American or British?
Davi understood that the Americans were the prime movers in the so-called war on terror. London usually followed any course laid out by Washington, to preserve their special relationship, but British soldiers were unlikely to come hunting with a Pakistan traitor in the North-West Frontier Province.
As to who they hunted, Davi had a fairly good idea. He knew that refugees from the American invasion of Afghanistan were sheltered in his country, many of them right here in this very province. He assumed that some of them were criminals, in Western terms, though Shiite fundamentalists might disagree.
The killers Davi sought were hunting agents of al Qaeda—and not just any agents. No American would risk his life in Pakistan to kill a bomb maker or some midlevel officer. They were, Davi had been informed, making their way toward Mount Khakwani, where rumor had it some of the top men in al Qaeda might be found.
Not the top man, of course.
His hideout would be known to only half a dozen people in the world, none of them wearing Pakistani uniforms. He, who had fired the first great salvos at America nearly a decade earlier, would not trust any government official with the knowledge of his whereabouts at any given time. The price placed on his head—in dollars, and in other equally valuable currency—was far too large and tempting for the common man or woman to resist.
But there were others, Davi knew, a step or two below the top man, who were slightly more accessible. And if they could be found, they could be killed.
And should Davi attempt to stop it?
His primary goal, of course, had to be to find and punish those responsible for killing more than forty of his fellow officers and soldiers in a single day. Already, based on information he’d provided, agents of the FIA and ISI would be dissecting Hussein Gorshani’s life, poring over any dossiers they might possess, or starting files, if none existed. Soon, they would know every member of his family, alive or dead, and those still living would regret their family ties to an enemy of the state.
As for Gorshani’s still unnamed companion, the foreigner, there was nowhere to begin searching for his identity. Only when Davi had the stranger in his grasp, or lying dead before him, could the task of learning who he was and who he represented finally begin.
So, they were bound for Mount Khakwani, in pursuit of two known terrorists and murderers. Davi hadn’t asked for permission to pursue them. It was part of his assignment, or at the very lea
st implicit in the orders he’d received from Brigadier Bahaar Jadoon.
Locate the killers. Capture or destroy them.
Simple.
Davi could decide about the other targets—what to do with them, and how it would affect his prospects for promotion—if and when his quarry led him to their mountain sanctuary.
In the meantime, he would focus simply on the kill.
THE TRAIL HAD TURNED into a narrow track that mountain goats might find convenient, but every step that Bolan took reminded him that it was only six or seven inches wider than the waffle soles of his rough-out combat boots.
Plenty of room for walking—as long as you placed one foot directly in front of the other and avoided any sideslip-page as if your life depended on it.
Which it did.
They had covered roughly half the ground required to reach their final target, and a stumble here meant plummeting three thousand feet—and the remains among the rocks and trees below would be unrecognizable as human, but for the shreds of clothing and twisted, shattered gear.
Bolan was not afraid of heights, but there was no point looking down into the vast chasm below him. Rather, he preferred to focus on Gorshani, still leading, although the altitude and angle of the grade had slowed his pace.
The narrow ledge offered no place for them to rest.
The simple act of crouching would be perilous, particularly with the gear that Bolan carried. Gusts of mountain wind already threatened to propel them from their perch. Bolan guessed that they would likely find a resting place somewhere above, before the trail ended.
If he was wrong on that score, they would just keep climbing through the bone-numbing fatigue and be prepared to fight when they arrived.
If they arrived.
Each passing moment made pursuit more likely for the killings at Sanjrani, and the ones before it. How long would it be before some officer or agent managed to identify Gorshani? Bolan would have bet that certain people in the village knew where he was going with Gorshani, even if they had no grasp of why.
But motive didn’t matter, if the enemy could track his movements. It would then turn into a horse race. Perhaps it already had.
“We need to speed this up,” he told Gorshani.
“I will try.”
“You know what happens if they catch us out here, in the open.”
“Yes.”
“Dig down and show me something.”
With a gasp that might’ve been a sob, Gorshani found some small reserve of strength inside himself and struck a faster pace. They weren’t exactly double-timing—which, in any case, would probably have sent them plunging into space within a hundred yards—but they were doing better. Making better time.
Small favors, Bolan thought, and matched his weary guide’s pace step for step.
He had considered leaving Gorshani at the base of the mountain. The guide part of Gorshani’s job was basically over once they’d started up the one and only alternative track to Mount Khakwani’s summit. Bolan doubted he’d need a translator when he arrived.
He didn’t plan on questioning Akram Ben Abd al-Bari or the others, when they met, much less suggesting any deals. His mission was straightforward search and destroy, with no option for discussion or surrender. Anything al-Bari or his cronies had to say could be said with their guns.
And Bolan would reply in kind.
In fact, if all went well and Bolan saw them first, they’d have no time to work out who was killing them.
So, yes, a case could be made that he should’ve left Gorshani with the SUV, but when he’d floated the suggestion, Bolan’s driver had appeared to feel insulted.
In the crunch, Gorshani argued that he’d proved himself in battle, and that Bolan would be foolish to reject an extra pair of hands—an extra gun—when he was facing lethal odds.
He was correct on both points, and there’d been nothing to gain by cutting him from the team. Now, even though Bolan might wish Gorshani was behind him on the narrow sloping trail, he knew the Pakistani would be helpful once they reached their target.
They were going in with no intelligence beyond the general location of al-Bari’s cave and the belief that he would be in residence. They didn’t know how many shooters would be ranged against them, or if there’d be booby traps planted along the way.
It was a live-and-learn experience.
Bolan could only hope that it would not be learn and die.
BRIGADIER BAHAAR Jadoon knew that he should be pleased to have learned the name of one of the men responsible for so much of his trouble in the past twenty-four hours, but he could not find the strength to smile.
He had, of course, congratulated Raheem Davi on discovering the name and filed that mental credit slip away for future reference. There would be no preventing Davi’s elevation to full colonel now, unless he bungled the remainder of his task so badly that the blame would be attached to him alone.
Or, if by chance, he did not make it back alive.
Jadoon knew where his enemies were going, now. Davi might overtake them on the road, but it seemed doubtful, with the lead that they had to have. In fact, they should have already reached the mountain, and perhaps be scaling it by one means or another, to complete what he assumed to be their task.
The question now was should Brigadier Jadoon attempt to stop them?
Davi, obviously, would pursue the killers with his flying squad of troops, but these men had already annihilated two patrols of equal size. There was a real chance that Lieutenant Colonel Davi might, himself, meet with the same fate as Salim Laghari and the others who had preceded him.
And what of it?
Jadoon bore no animosity toward Davi, nor did he treasure him. Junior officers were perfectly expendable. Risk came with delegation of responsibility.
Why else did they exist?
Jadoon’s thoughts focused, rather, on the danger to Akram Ben Abd al-Bari and his circle of subordinates. If they were killed by traitors, or by someone from outside Pakistan, how would it harm or profit him?
Officially, al-Bari and the other leaders of al Qaeda were not acknowledged as existing anywhere inside the country. Thus, their liquidation might be buried as a nonevent, unless it was reported to the world at large.
Would the Americans or Brits crow over such a victory?
Perhaps. But without proof…
Deniability was critical. There had to be, at all cost, no photographs, videotapes, or any other concrete record of al-Bari’s life or death in Pakistan. His execution, if it was the will of Allah, could not be established as a fact.
That meant preventing the assassins from escaping, after they had done the deed, and confiscating—no, destroying—any evidence collected in the process.
As for al Qaeda itself, Jadoon thought that he might be better off if this Gorshani person and his unknown friend succeeded in their quest to kill al-Bari, Rashad and the rest of them. How better to lift the curse that had haunted Jadoon and colored all parts of his life, both professional and private? His debts to al Qaeda would die with al-Bari, leaving Jadoon free at last.
He could not ask Davi to delay pursuit of the assassins, naturally. That would light a new fuse of suspicion leading back to Brigadier Jadoon himself. But he could pray with new, unrivaled fervor that Allah would lead Davi astray, just long enough to let Gorshani and the foreigner achieve their goal.
At which point, they had to be destroyed without having an opportunity to speak.
It was for spies and politicians to determine who had sent the killers, to debate it endlessly, then finally ignore it or accuse someone in print, perhaps before the General Assembly of the United Nations. Jadoon doubted that it would come to that, but it did not concern him, either way.
His mission was to stop the killers…just as long as he did not stop them too soon.
His phone rang, and Jadoon answered with weary resignation. It would likely be someone of higher rank, calling to harass him with questions and suggestions, or some n
ew report about Gorshani’s family, his background, his—
“We need to meet,” Majabein said.
Mouthing a silent curse, Jadoon—aware of the possibility that his words were being overheard—said, “I’m afraid that won’t be possible, just now. I’m in the midst of something critical.”
“And perhaps I can assist you,” Majabein replied.
“Perhaps?”
“Nothing in life is guaranteed, but death.”
“I cannot spare much time.”
“I don’t require much time,” Majabein said. “Simply a message…for your ears, alone.”
Jadoon resigned himself to one more meeting with the little ferret. Allah willing, it would be their last.
“The same place, then?” he asked.
“In half an hour,” Majabein replied, and broke the link.
That didn’t leave Jadoon much time, but it should be enough. Locking his office door, he told his orderly that he would be available by cell phone for the next hour or so, and then would be returning to his office. Waiting for the elevator, Jadoon checked the pistol tucked inside his belt, beneath his uniform jacket, and felt for the spring-loaded knife in his pocket.
As ready now as he would ever be, Bahaar Jadoon prepared to face his final summons from al Qaeda.
RAWALPINDI’S LARGEST marketplace was thronged with shoppers at midday. Police moved through the crush in pairs, but Arzou Majabein knew they were merely watching out for thieves, pickpockets and the like. If someone had been hunting him, it would be soldiers dressed in olive drab, not khaki shirts and polished badges, whistles draped around their necks.
It had been risky, calling Brigadier Jadoon at headquarters in the midst of a full-scale manhunt, but what choice did he have? Al-Bari had commanded it, and disobedience meant death.
He wondered if the old men were afraid, sitting inside their dreary cave while strangers slaughtered forty, fifty Pakistani troops to reach them. All to kill them.
After being hunted for a decade, living with the threat of sudden death on an hourly basis, did fear still exist? Might the end, when it came and released them to Allah, not be a relief?
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