He simply knew that Jadoon and al-Bari had collaborated to perpetuate a reign of terror, orchestrated from al Qaeda’s sanctuary here, in Pakistan. It was enough, but Bolan had to know that this was his intended target, not some hired hand chowing down while Jadoon snoozed in his bedroom.
“Bahaar Jadoon?” he asked.
The man’s head whipped around, smearing a streak of chocolate across his right cheek from his upraised spoon. He looked at the gun in Bolan’s hand and froze, but responded with a question of his own that was gibberish to Bolan’s ears.
“You speak English?”
“Of course,” the seated man replied.
“You are Bahaar Jadoon?”
“I’m Brigadier Jadoon,” the officer replied, as if his rank would save him, sitting in his skivvies with a spoonful of melting ice cream in hand.
“Just so there’s no mistake,” Bolan said.
“I know you,” Jadoon said. “You are the foreigner. Is the traitor here, as well?”
“I’m here,” Gorshani said from somewhere behind Bolan. “And I say you are the traitor, joining with al Qaeda to betray our homeland.”
“This won’t help you,” Jadoon said, addressing both of them. “Kill me, and you’ll still be trapped in Pakistan. Where will you hide? For how long?”
“That’s my concern, not yours,” Bolan said, already tiring of the dialogue.
“You should be concerned,” Jadoon said. “Spare me, and I can help you—”
Then Jadoon made a fatal mistake—he reached for the gun in the waistband of his boxers. Bolan’s bullet drilled through the brigadier’s forehead and churned its vicious way through gray matter, coming to rest against his occipital bone. Jadoon managed a final blink in parting, then slumped over with his right cheek resting on the open ice cream carton.
“We’re out of here,” he told Gorshani. “Same way we came in, but twice as quiet.”
Despite Bolan preparing him for this moment, explaining why they’d come, Gorshani still looked slightly dazed. Or was that anger, frustrated by removal of its target?
“Leaving now,” Bolan informed him, brushing past Gorshani toward the parlor and their exit on the right. Before he reached the sliding door, he heard the Pakistani following.
“I would have done it,” Gorshani said, once they’d cleared the fence and scrambled down into the weeds.
“I had the silencer,” Bolan reminded him.
“Of course.”
When they were halfway down the length of the ravine, Gorshani stopped and said, “He’s right, you know. You’re both right. I have no home, now. There’s nowhere I can hide.”
“Not here,” Bolan replied. “At least, not now.” Lifting the sat phone from his belt, he said, “I’ll book a second ticket on the next flight out.”
“They will be watching all the airlines,” Gorshani said.
“Not the one I have in mind,” Bolan replied.
a cognizant original v5 release october 09 2010
Epilogue
The hardest part of Jack Grimaldi’s job, once he’d received the sat-phone call, was staying grounded in Afghanistan while Bolan drove from Rawalpindi to their designated pickup point.
It was about 180 miles—three hours over decent highways, driving at a normal sixty miles per hour, but Grimaldi guessed the roads Bolan would travel weren’t on par with any U.S. freeway. Another drawback was the need to keep a low profile, and not attract the soldiers and police who had to be swarming everywhere, like driver ants, throughout the North-West Frontier Province.
Anyway, the waiting was a bitch.
Grimaldi’s second-hardest job would be extracting Bolan and his unexpected ride-along if they were spotted, either on radar or by the troops who had to be hunting Bolan, even now.
Pickups were always harder than deliveries.
At the start of his mission, Bolan had jumped from a highflying fixed-wing aircraft, and Grimaldi had been clear from the moment that Bolan leaped into space. Retrieval meant a touchdown, or the next thing to it, during which they would be well in range of any spotter with a rifle or a handgun.
So, no altitude to spare them, and they couldn’t count on speed, at least during the pickup.
This time around, Grimaldi would be piloting a Bell ARH-70. The ARH stood for Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter—the U.S. Army’s replacement for the obsolete OH-58D Kiowa Warrior. His gunship had been painted black, obliterating all insignia and call numbers, but if he got shot down in Pakistan, the hostiles would have no great difficulty calculating where he’d come from.
The solution—don’t let any of the bastards shoot you down.
The ARH-70 normally seated a two-man crew, but Grimaldi could fly it alone with no problem. Six passenger seats were four more than he needed for Bolan and guest. The chopper’s Honeywell HTS900–2 turboshaft engine let it cruise at 130 mph, with an official top speed of 161 mph, and a maximum range of 186 miles.
The Bell couldn’t outrun a bullet or surface-to-air missile, but it wasn’t defenseless, either. They called it an armed recon chopper because it packed two deadly punches of its own—a GAU-19 .50-caliber Gatling gun and four pods of Hydra 70 2.75-inch rockets. The Gatling gun fired two thousand rounds per minute, with a killing range of 1,800 meters. The Hydras carried ten-pound high-explosive warheads that would cripple most vehicles and play bloody hell with infantry.
Grimaldi gave himself an hour for the flight across Afghanistan’s frontier to Pakistan. He had Bolan’s coordinates programmed into the helicopter’s GPS system, his only worry now was hostile contact from the ground or in the air.
Pakistan’s air force had a mixed combat record prior to 1990, when the U.S. imposed an eleven-year military embargo in response to the country’s program of nuclear weapons development. China picked up some of the slack, and the air force now had an estimated five hundred jet fighters—mainly the JF-17 Thunder model, known in its native China as the Chengdu FC-1 Xiaolong.
Some of those would certainly be stationed at Peshawar Airbase, but their threat to Grimaldi and Bolan depended on whether Grimaldi was spotted crossing the border.
The first step toward avoidance would be flying below radar, hugging the deck as best he could from takeoff to his final on-target approach. Beyond that, if Grimaldi felt that he’d been spotted by a military unit while en route to rendezvous, he’d deal with it then, no regrets.
His immediate priority was bringing Bolan out alive. He would accomplish that, regardless of the risks involved, in transit or upon arrival at the landing zone.
And anyone who tried to interfere would pay the price.
THEY LEFT the stolen car two hills away from the selected pickup point and jogged over, still carrying their rifles, handguns and, in Bolan’s case, a bandolier of 40 mm rounds for his GP-25 grenade launcher.
They were close to getting out, but you could never be too careful. There was still a chance their enemies would find them, close in for the kill before Grimaldi came to pick them up.
And if he didn’t come? Then, what?
It was a possibility, as Bolan realized. Each time the pilot crossed a hostile border without authorization, he risked being shot from the sky by ground troops or the other side’s air force. Jack’s survival owed almost as much to luck, as skill.
And everybody’s luck ran out, sooner or later.
“There should be someone on hand to meet you when we touch down,” Bolan told Gorshani, killing time without making it obvious. “If not, I’ll wait until they show.”
“It feels strange,” Gorshani said. “I must leave my home forever, and my last sight of it is these hills.”
His eyes scanned slopes with no features of interest, unless he was into dry, brown grass.
“It could be worse,” Bolan replied.
“Of course. I simply wondered whether anyone will even notice I am gone.”
“The men who want to kill you will,” Bolan assured him. “You can reach out to the rest when you get set
tled on the other side.”
“Perhaps,” Gorshani said. “But after all the grief I brought down on Sanjrani and my people, maybe it is best that they forget me soon.”
“Your call,” Bolan said, “but you ought to give them credit where it’s due.”
“Meaning?”
“They chose to help you, shelter you and keep your secret from the soldiers. That was nothing you forced onto them. Even if you decide to cut them loose, you might want to hang on to that. Remember that they cared.”
Gorshani’s somber silence stretched into the distance, where a sound intruded on Bolan’s consciousness. At first, it was subliminal, almost a feeling, rather than a sound he could interpret and identify. Then, moments later, Bolan had it.
“Here we go,” he told Gorshani.
There was still a chance he could be wrong, of course. All helicopters sounded roughly the same, from miles away. This could turn out to be a Pakistani army chopper on patrol, or some kind of commercial flight.
But Bolan didn’t think so.
He saw the whirlybird when it was still nearly a mile away. Not clearly, or in detail, but as a speck growing continuously larger in his field of vision, flying low to the horizon. It was painted some dark color—make that black—and sunlight glinted on its windshield.
“Is this your friend?” Gorshani asked.
“Either that,” Bolan said, “or the end of the world as we know it.”
At two hundred yards he recognized the Bell ARH-70. Not the specific war bird, of course, since its markings were masked and its paint job wasn’t army-olive drab, but there was no mistaking the type or the hardware it carried.
Grimaldi circled once around their hilltop, checking the neighborhood for hostiles, then found his mark, hovered a hundred feet above their heads, and settled noisily to earth.
Bolan and Gorshani crouched below the whirling blur of rotor blades, eyes narrowed to slits in the storm of wind, dust and grass that the chopper whipped into their faces. When Grimaldi got the side door open, the men ran forward, Bolan following Gorshani to prevent a sudden change of heart, and crawled aboard.
A moment later, they were buckled in and rising from the deck, tilting away as Grimaldi turned back in the direction he had come from—toward the frontier of Afghanistan.
Without earphones, there was no hope for conversation. So Bolan settled back and closed his eyes, thankful that he was finished with another mission, that he had survived, and that he’d soon be going home.
Wherever that turned out to be, this week.
He thought about Gorshani for another moment, knowing there was little he could do to smooth the Pakistani’s transit from one country to another, but then fatigue stepped up to claim him and sleep carried away every conscious thought.
Nari District, Kunar Province, Afghanistan
TWO VEHICLES STOOD waiting at the landing zone. One was a military Jeep, the other a commercial brand.
The nearest, on Gorshani’s left as he disembarked from the black helicopter, was an open-topped military vehicle with three men standing beside it. Two wore jumpsuits and carried pilots’ crash helmets, while the third was dressed in ordinary fatigues and a cap.
The second Jeep was a Grand Cherokee, black beneath a heavy layer of road dust. Its driver remained in his seat, door open, his legs dangling outside, his eyes invisible behind mirrored sunglasses.
“Looks like your ride’s here,” the big American told him, as their pilot joined them on the ground. “Be careful what you let him sell you.”
“Yes, I will.”
The two pilots approached, nodding to Cooper and the man Gorshani knew only as Jack. Gorshani watched Cooper and Jack move toward the waiting army Jeep, as the new pilots boarded the helicopter for the flight back to who knew where. At first, Gorshani thought that Cooper was deserting him, but then he realized his future was for him to choose.
“Matt!”
Gorshani reached him as the tall American was shedding weapons, stacking them in the back of the small open Jeep. He thought that Cooper looked quite different, without guns, grenades and knives strapped all over his body.
Still, when he looked into the man’s eyes, there was a silent darkness lurking that would never be mistaken for benevolence.
“I wish to thank you now, while there is time,” Gorshani said. “For everything.”
“Hey, you helped me.”
“I think you understand me,” he replied.
The soldier held his eyes, then nodded.
“Yes, I do.”
They shook hands, then Gorshani turned to Grimaldi, thanked him and turned away to meet the stranger who now stood beside his dusty black Jeep, waiting.
“Mr. Gorshani,” the stranger said, as Gorshani joined him. “Or is it Hussein? It wouldn’t be the first time someone bitched the paperwork.”
“Hussein Gorshani.”
“Right. Okay. Ready to take a ride?”
Gorshani hesitated, standing by his open door.
“What about this?” he asked the driver, holding up his rifle.
“Toss it in the back, together with whatever else you’re carrying. I’ve got a blanket on the floor, back there, to cover up. Someone will ditch it later, maybe send it back with interest to the other side.”
“What if we’re stopped?” Gorshani asked.
“No sweat,” the stranger told him. “Diplomatic plates.”
Gorshani placed his weapons on the rear floorboards and covered them, then slid into the shotgun seat and closed his door. The Jeep was new and still smelled it, despite the hot day and its heavy layer of dust.
Through tinted glass, he saw the army Jeep already off and rolling, but a dust swirl from the helicopter’s lift-off blurred Gorshani’s vision. He could not tell whether Cooper or the pilot looked in his direction as they left.
“So, did you have a good flight in?” Gorshani’s driver asked him. “I guess that’s a stupid question, eh?”
Gorshani shrugged, unwilling to insult the man before he even knew his name.
As if reading his mind, the stranger said, “I’m Jack Armstrong, in case you’re wondering. At least, I am today.” He smiled at his own joke. “This time tomorrow, hey! Who knows?”
“You represent Central Intelligence?” Gorshani asked.
“Hey, ouch! We don’t say that out loud, okay? Not outside Langley, anyway. It’s just the Company.”
“Of course.”
Jack Armstrong revved the Grand Cherokee’s engine, put it in gear and followed the dust plume of Matt Cooper’s dwindling Jeep.
“We’ve got a couple hours on the road,” said Armstrong, still wearing his cocky smile. “Why don’t we talk about your future, eh? I’ve got some opportunities you may want to consider. Hell, you play your cards right, we might even find a way to send you home eventually.”
Arlington National Cemetery
THE ROUND BLACK SIGN read Silence and Respect. Beyond it, more than 290,000 white markers stood in neatly ordered rows, stretching as far as eyes could see across 640 acres.
The road from Arlington’s entrance, called Memorial Drive, ran across the Potomac River to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, linking the giant statue of America’s sixteenth president to the cemetery established in June 1864, ten months before an assassin’s point-blank pistol killed Abraham Lincoln.
Bolan was not averse to following that road or driving through the capital where he had once been hunted by a small army of law-enforcement officers. The meet at Arlington was Hal Brognola’s choice.
Bolan suspected that his old friend liked to stand among the fallen heroes while they talked, because it helped remind him of their reasons for pursuing what both recognized as war everlasting. The men and women buried here had given everything they had.
Bolan and Brognola could do no less.
He saw Brognola coming from a hundred yards away, his snap-brim hat almost an artifact from bygone days. The big Fed took his time, first scanning markers, t
hen homing in on Bolan’s figure with determined strides. No one who saw him—if they had been close enough—would have taken him for a common tourist.
“So,” Brognola said, when he was close enough to reach for Bolan’s hand. “You’ve kept up with the news, I guess.”
A nod from Bolan. It was hard to miss the stories coming from Islamabad, spun first by PTV News to give the story a pro-government slant, then snatched from the airwaves and tweaked by Western news outlets, hammered by pundits of the right and left, finally driven into the ground by late-night comedians.
In broad strokes, Pakistan’s leaders had first stalled for time, then announced their “heroic” defeat of an al Qaeda faction led by none other than Akram Ben Abd al-Bari, the second-most wanted fugitive terrorist on Earth. Al-Bari and his followers had died, along with an uncertain number of Pakistani soldiers and civilians.
“No diplomatic rumbles, then?” he asked Brognola.
Brognola frowned, mock-concentrating. “There was something,” he replied, stretching the words out. “Oh, right. Our embassy in Kabul got a vague protest about violations of Pakistani airspace. It sounded serious, but there were no specifics as to type of aircraft or what have you. I suppose the consul’s office round-filed it.”
“Jack’s very smooth,” Bolan said.
“Jack?” Brognola cocked a brow. “Who’s Jack?”
They strolled past markers dating from what Time magazine had called “the Last Good War.” Bolan knew what the writers had in mind, but having fought his share of wars—and then some—he could say with certainty that none were good.
Perhaps good came from some of them. But he’d leave that judgment to the historians.
“No word about Gorshani, I suppose?”
Brognola paused before a snow-white Star of David, flanked by crosses.
“None expected, none received,” he said. “You left him with a fellow from the Company, I take it?”
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