“The hell with that,” Marino said. “It would be worth it to just get rid of you.”
Lyons felt something pushed against his hand. It was Cujo’s big hunting knife, the one he had passed to Rafiq. The kid was returning the knife from where he had it tucked behind his belt. Lyons grasped the handle in his right hand, feeling its solid weight. Rafiq was giving him a chance. A slender one. Maybe the only one they might get.
Marino had moved closer, his UMG still centered on Rafiq.
“You kill me, your employer isn’t going to be very pleased.”
“He won’t be pleased? How the hell do you think I feel?” Marino snapped. “My crew is dead. My friends.”
“You should have chosen better,” Lyons said.
The muzzle of Marino’s weapon wavered slightly.
“Boy, step aside. I’m going to blow that fucker away.”
“Rafiq, move your butt,” Lyons growled, and used his left arm to push him to one side.
Lyons’s right hand raised the knife to shoulder height, then snapped forward, releasing it in the same moment Marino realized what was happening.
The steel blade spun through the air.
Marino pulled the H&K’s trigger as Lyons dropped to his knees. The .45 slugs slammed into the cave wall over Lyons’s head.
The heavy knife buried half its length in Marino’s right shoulder. He howled in pain as the keen steel penetrated flesh and muscle.
Clenching his teeth as he pushed to his feet, Lyons went for the merc as Marino’s weapon sagged in his grasp.
They came together in a savage embrace. Lyons grabbed at the handle of Cujo’s knife and worked it back and forth. Marino screamed in agony. The subgun slipped from his fingers. Blood was gushing from the deep wound. Marino slammed a hard knee into Lyons’s side, the blow knocking the Stony Man commando off balance. His wounded leg was threatening to give way and when Marino retaliated, pushing Lyons backward, he was unable to resist.
Marino came at him in a rush, catching Lyons full-on and slamming him back against the cave wall. Air was jolted from his lungs. Lyons grunted on impact, sucking breath back into his body. He lost his grip on the knife handle and Marino reached up with his left hand. He grasped the knife and dragged it from his flesh with a wild roar of defiance, turning it back on Lyons.
The big ex-cop saw it coming and swayed away from the keen edge of the bloody blade. He followed with a blinding strike from his right fist that slammed across Marino’s jaw. The blow was powerful, delivered with all of Lyons’s strength. It pushed the merc off balance and gave Lyons the momentum to follow through. He lunged forward, grabbing Marino’s knife wrist and forcing the arm away. Marino recovered quickly, ignoring the pain engulfing his lower face and spitting blood from his mouth. He slammed a bunched fist into Lyons’s side, over his ribs, drawing a gasp from his opponent’s lips. Lyons countered, delivering a forearm slam into Marino’s throat, then braced his good leg against the cave wall and pushed forward, forcing Marino to step back.
The moment Marino shifted his footing, Lyons hooked his right foot between the merc’s legs and kicked the left foot off the ground. With Marino disadvantaged, Lyons about-faced, dragging the knife arm across his shoulder, used his hip to boost Marino off the cave floor and threw him over his shoulder. They were still close to the cave wall and Marino slammed into it. He dropped to the ground in a struggling heap, immediately turning his body to come to his feet. Lyons moved in quickly, stamping down hard on the hand holding Cujo’s knife. Bone snapped and flesh split. The knife slid from Marino’s grasp. Lyons kicked it out of reach.
Blood streaked Marino’s face. His front was sodden with blood from the pulsing knife wound. Despite his injuries Marino was far from defeated. He rose to his feet, big hands clawing for a grip on Lyons. The Stony Man commando had no intention of getting into a close-quarter clinch with the man. Marino was a strong man and he was no beginner at close combat. Carl Lyons had a simple credo when it came to such situations. When the other guy was intent on doing harm, there were no gentlemanly rules to apply. It was a simple case of one dying and one living. Lyons had no death wish. With him it was do whatever was necessary to end the conflict.
Do it fast.
Do it hard.
And do it to the other guy.
Marino’s stance told Lyons he was about to launch himself into some martial arts attack. If this had been one of those dumb movies Lyons would patiently wait until his opponent delivered his fancy move. Only this wasn’t make-believe and Lyons had no thoughts on letting it happen. He took a quick forward step and blocked the merc’s arm with his own. Lyons felt the force behind the strike the second he delivered his own punch. A hard fist that impacted against Marino’s nose with extreme force, crushing it flat. Blood spurted in all directions, flowing down over Marino’s mouth and jaw, spilling across his already blood-soaked shirtfront. The extreme pain stopped Marino in his tracks, and Lyons used the momentary paralysis to his advantage. He closed in on Marino and encircled his neck, gripping his own wrist to complete the move. He increased pressure, crushing down on Marino’s neck until he heard the crunch of the spine. The merc struggled in an attempt to lessen the effect, his hands reaching up to paw at Lyons’s arms. The outcome was inevitable. Lyons braced himself, maintained his hold and gave a final, brutal twist. Marino arched briefly, his body shuddering, then became a limp weight in Lyons’s arms. The Stony Man commando released his grip. Marino dropped to the cave floor, all resistance gone, in the formless way that only the dead could exhibit.
Leaning back against the cave wall, Lyons glanced across at Rafiq. He was motionless, his gaze flickering back and forth between Lyons and Marino.
Lyons decided he’d had enough and let himself slip to the cave floor, his back to the wall. He felt around in his back pocket and took out the butterfly knife he’d had there since leaving the cabin. He spun the knife, opening it and held it out to Rafiq.
“What?”
“Go cut some strips off his pant leg. Use them to make a pad and tie it over this damn bullet hole. If we can stop the bleeding, I can take a rest for a while.”
Rafiq looked unsure but he did what Lyons told him. When he came back his face was pale.
“I could have done without that,” he said, holding up the strips of material.
“I’ll apologize later. Now cut my pants so we can get at the wound.”
“What next? Are you going to ask me to cut out the bullet?”
“Not while your hand is shaking like that,” Lyons said.
Rafiq managed a weak smile. He watched as Lyons did what he could to bind the wound.
“One last thing,” Lyons said. “Go check those bodies. See if they have any water bottles on their belts. After that I won’t ask for anything else.”
Rafiq returned with two water bottles. He passed one to Lyons.
“Sit down, Rafiq,” Lyons said, taking the bottle and drinking. “Warm, but at least it’s wet.”
“Benning, we look a mess,” Rafiq said. “Dirty. Bloody. I’m hungry and I don’t think I’ll ever be clean again.”
“You’ll feel better later. Believe me.”
“I can’t say it’s been fun, Benning, but thanks for what you’ve done.”
Lyons smiled briefly, leaned his head back and rested for a while. He still felt weak, bruised from head to toe, but decided he could walk.
“I think it’s time we got the hell out these woods, kid. You up for that?”
“Best thing I’ve heard in days,” Rafiq replied.
They made their way through the cave and emerged on the far side.
“We still heading west?” Rafiq asked.
“One thing for sure,” Lyons said, “I’m not walking all the way back to that damn cabin.”
Rafiq handed over one of the UMGs, now fully loaded.
“You think we might need this?”
Lyons took the weapon and checked it.
“Never can tell,” he said.
Rafiq had picked up Cujo’s knife, as well. When they reached the trees again he hunted around until he found a suitable lower limb. He chopped it from the tree and lopped off the smaller twigs, fashioning a crude crutch for Lyons.
“Hell, Rafiq, we’ll make a mountain man out of you yet.”
Sometime later they heard the distant sound of a helicopter. Lyons drew them into cover.
“You think it’s that same one as yesterday?” Rafiq asked.
“Could be. We’ll stay here until we know one way or another.”
Lyons watched the chopper descend. It was casting back and forth and after a while he realized it was flying a search pattern. When it got close enough to identify, Lyons realized it was a police search and rescue unit. He pushed to his feet and stepped into the open, waving his arms. Rafiq joined him and they saw the helicopter turn in their direction, starting to fly lower.
“When we get out of here,” Rafiq said, “can you ask them to fly us over the ocean? Just for a look. I’m sick of the sight of trees.”
“Rafiq, you’ve got a deal.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“While I was trailing Bouvier, I took photographs of the places he went, the people he met with. I think there are some shots your people might be able to make use of. I haven’t had time to sit down and review the shots myself, but you’re welcome to check them out.”
“Sounds good,” Bolan said.
“We could download the images to your people,” Sharon said. “Let them have a look and run them through their image databases. They might pick up something I’ve missed.”
Bolan nodded. The images were loaded from Sharon’s digital camera into the laptop. Bolan placed them in a folder and sent them in an encrypted form to Kurtzman. His accompanying e-mail asked for a full analysis and ID of anyone in the photographs. He received a reply confirming the arrival of the file and a promise to get back if anything showed up of interest.
“WE IDENTIFIED this guy straight off,” Kurtzman said. “Mullah Wazir Homani. Radical guy. Lays into anyone and everything that is not strictly Muslim. There’s no half-measures here. According to his way of thinking, we should all be wiped out. Scary guy. Definitely not on our list of friends.”
“Isn’t he connected to Mahoud?” Price asked.
“Yes, but not in the way you might expect.”
Kurtzman swung his wheelchair around, catching Akira Tokaido’s eye. Tokaido was Stony Man’s ace computer hacker.
“Put them out of their misery,” he said.
Tokaido tapped his keyboard, transferring from his monitor to one of the large wall screens. A number of photo images were displayed. Plainly taken through a long-distance lens, the shots were still sharp enough for identification.
“According to the date on the images, these shots were taken a few weeks back. Now the guy in black is Homani. Behind him in white we guess is one of his followers. The two in the badly fitting suits are his bodyguards. Younger guy next to Homani is Sharon’s mark, Mohan Bouvier. The one I want you to look at closely is the woman with the group.”
Brognola pushed to his feet and moved a little closer to the screen. He examined the image, turning to stare across the room at Barbara Price.
“Am I seeing right?” he asked her.
Price nodded. “I guess you are, Hal.”
The young woman was Raika Mahoud.
“That isn’t everything,” Kurtzman said. “Look at the icing on the cake.” He used his keyboard to move across the screen. “Almost missed this first time around.”
“What are we looking for?” Brognola asked.
“This,” the computer expert said.
He isolated a portion of the screen and began to enlarge it. The high-definition monitor on the wall held their attention as the captured image expanded under Kurtzman’s skilled fingers. The section he was enlarging was of the rear door of the car. As the image grew, still hazy, Kurtzman cleaned it up, sharpening the outline and increasing the detail until he had an identifiable face.
“I know that face,” Brognola said.
“You should,” Kurtzman said. “Just to be sure we ran it through our facial recognition database and came up with a positive match. It’s Corey Mandelson.”
“And he runs the CIA’s Paris section house,” Brognola finished. He stepped up closer to the wall monitor. “What the hell is he doing with Homani, Bouvier and Raika Mahoud?”
“Good question,” Price said. “I wish we had the answer.”
“Aaron, you find out everything you can on all. I don’t care whose toes you tread on. I want to know the connection. You know the drill.”
“Hal, what about Mack and Carl? If there’s something going on here, we need to find out if it’s going to affect them.”
Brognola glanced at her. “You think? Anyone managed to make contact with Carl yet?”
“No,” Tokaido said. “I have a repeat signal going out to his phone, but it’s still dead.”
“Damn. All this cutting-edge technology and we can’t even talk to the guy.”
“Nothing we can do.”
“So we sit around and twiddle our thumbs?” Brognola said testily.
Price crossed the room and faced him. “Hal, take five. Go have a walk outside. Let us do our jobs. Go call the President and update him.”
“Yeah. I’ll go call the Man and tell him we have squat. Nada,” Brognola stated.
He walked out of the room, leaving a protracted silence in his wake. The tension could almost be felt.
“That went well,” Carmen Delahunt, the former FBI agent, said solemnly.
Silence again until Price rounded on her.
“Oh yeah,” she said, and then promptly burst out laughing.
Moments later the whole crew joined in.
“I think I’d better go find Hal,” Price said as the laughter died down. “Guys, keep digging. We need some answers.”
“We’re on it,” Kurtzman said.
PRICE MADE HER WAY outside and went looking for Brognola. She found him leaning against a fence, chewing ferociously on a cold cigar. She stood beside him and they remained silent for a couple of minutes.
“Hal, they’re doing their best, and concerned about Mack and Carl. Every one of them has been at their station ’round the clock since things started happening. If they could pull results out of the air, don’t you think they’d do it?”
Brognola took the cigar out of his mouth and stared at the frayed end, rolling it back and forth between his fingers.
“I used to love smoking these things. Every time I feel like firing one up I get a guilty feeling.” He cleared his throat. “Just like I’m getting right now.” He threw the cigar on the ground and crushed it under his shoe. He ran his fingers through his hair and smoothed his jacket down, turning to face her. “Is my tie straight, Miss Price?”
She adjusted the knot and arranged his shirt collar as she said, “It is now, Mr. Brognola.”
They returned to the main building and made their way back toward the cyberunit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Sounds serious,” Sharon said.
“As it can get,” Bolan replied.
The Israeli turned from the open window. He was aware of Bolan’s unease.
“I’m listening.”
“It concerns Raika Mahoud,” Bolan said. “Hear me out, Ben, then give me your opinion, because I could be way off. I hope to God I am, because if not this is going to hurt some good people.”
Bolan crossed to the steaming coffeepot and poured himself a refill. He took a long swallow.
“From day one, when I meet Mahoud’s family in Afghanistan, Raika has been a step away from everyone, as if she’s removed from what’s been happening. Nothing I could pin down. Just that she was remote, distant. She made it clear I wasn’t included in her circle of friends. I put it down to the situation at first. She had a shell around her, isolating her from everything.
“Then we were deliberately targeted at th
e U.S. base when the Taliban hit. Again at the château and when Mahoud and I went to pick up his data from the bank.”
“With you so far,” Sharon said.
“The run of security breakdowns,” Bolan said, “got me thinking someone close had been passing locations to interested parties.”
Now it was Sharon’s turn to show concern as Bolan’s unspoken assumptions crystallized. He studied Bolan closely, saw the expression in the man’s eyes and full realization slammed home.
“You believe Raika has been passing out locations, betraying her own father?”
Bolan took out the note Raika had left behind. Sharon read it, glanced at Bolan.
“Is it genuine?” he asked.
“Leila conformed the writing is her daughter’s.”
“You believe Raika left willingly?”
“Yes. Ben, read the message again.”
Sharon scanned the note. “So what is it I’m missing?”
“Last line.”
“…tell Father I ask his forgiveness…so she regrets leaving.”
“You notice there’s no mention of her mother?”
Sharon acknowledged with a brief nod. “Okay, maybe a little odd.”
“I’m stepping way out of the box here, Ben. I think that last line is a plea to Mahoud. Raika is asking forgiveness for something she’s planning to do. To her father.”
Sharon digested the statement.
“You believe Raika is involved with the opposition planning to assassinate her father? She’s been feeding them information?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time loyalty has shifted within a family.”
Sharon smiled at the truism. “I can’t disagree there, but it doesn’t have to mean betrayal. What about the boyfriend angle? Maybe Raika has run off to be with him. To get married even. That’s happened before, too.”
“A possibility. But I rate it pretty thin backed up against the rest of my evidence.”
“Something I missed?”
Bolan nodded. “I wanted your input before I showed you this. It came through on my cell earlier. From my people after they ran through the download of your pictures.”
Betrayed Page 21
