Assassin's Code. Don Pendleton

Marine gave Bolan a very weary smile back. “Count myself lucky to be looking like anything, Cooper.”

      “I’m sorry about your men.”

      “Thanks for hauling us out of there.” Yoshida sighed. “How are Farkas and Keller?”

      “Just bumps and bruises mostly.”

      “Yeah, that was a bumpy ride. How’s the prisoner?”

      “He’s stable,” Bolan said. “I’m about to go look in on him.”

      The Marine captain’s eyes went icy despite the fog of painkillers. “Yeah, well, you be sure to give him my regards when you do.”

      “Ous is dying to give him your regards. It’s been hard to hold him back,” Bolan admitted. “Speaking of which, what do you know about the man?”

      Yoshida sagged into his bed. “Not much. Word is he’s a real bad-ass, and he’s been real dark and spooky with the CIA. I hear that the Taliban has a one million afghan bounty on his head.”

      Bolan did a little math. At the moment one million afghans was about twenty thousand dollars U.S., plus change. Afghanistan was about as dirt poor as nations got. The Taliban putting that kind of coin on a man’s head said something about Mr. Ous’s reputation and activities. “Can I get you anything?”

      “Bourbon,” Yoshida suggested. “And the assholes who did this.”

      “You’ll have the bourbon before Taps. You have my word on it.” Bolan smiled. “The assholes will have to be after Reveille tomorrow.”

      Yoshida’s eyes glazed over with the combination of wounds, drugs and exhaustion, and slowly closed. “Just get them…?.”

      Bolan nodded at the wounded, sleeping Marine. “You got my word on that, too, Captain.”

      The Executioner strode from the regular infirmary tent into the storm and walked across the lane to another hospital tent. It was much smaller and guarded by armed Marines. Bolan nodded at the two sentries and walked in the tent. The wind flapped and shuddered the walls. There was only one patient inside. He lay on a bed with tubes sticking out of him and was heavily swathed in bandages, but he was conscious and clearly very agitated. A short, similarly agitated Marine doctor stood between the prisoner and Ous. The Hippocratic oath and naked intimidation fought for the doctor’s soul, but he was a Marine and stood his ground. The doctor’s head snapped around at the new intrusion. When he saw Bolan’s uniform, he looked at him imploringly.

      “Can you please get this man out of here?”

      “Why?” Bolan asked.

      “He wants to interrogate my patient!”

      “I want to interrogate your patient.”

      The doctor waved his hands at the man on the bed and then toward heaven in mounting outrage. “You think this man is in any kind of condition for interrogation?”

      Ous gazed unblinkingly at the prisoner with his disturbingly wolflike eyes. “I believe the prisoner is in an ideal condition for interrogation.”

      The man on the bed flinched.

      The doctor was appalled. “Oh for God’s sake!”

      “I also believe this man speaks English,” Ous added.

      The prisoner flinched again. Bolan kept the smile off his face. Ous was good.

      “Taliban?” Bolan asked.

      The prisoner assumed a stone-faced stare at the roof of the tent.

      “It was so much easier when they marched through the streets, proudly wearing their black turbans,” Ous said. “But we killed so many of them they bared their heads so that they might hide in gutters like skulking dogs.”

      The prisoner’s cheek flexed.

      “Such a shocking lack of faith,” Ous concluded.

      Ous was literally inducing a facial tic on the prisoner.

      “Taliban?” Bolan asked again.

      The doctor was clearly upset. “Listen! I—”

      “Dr…?.?” Bolan inquired.

      “What? Oh, Early. Listen, I—”

      “Dr. Early, I understand the Hippocratic oath and I know this man is your patient, but I need a no-bullshit assessment. When will this man be well enough to be sent to the capital?”

      Dr. Early made a visible effort to control himself. “He’s torn up pretty badly. I saved his left leg, but I couldn’t save his left testicle. He was very lucky about the shrapnel in his abdomen. It was a miracle it didn’t tear up anything vital, but a lot of his real estate is being held together by stitches. If you put him on the road to Kabul, you’re going to bounce them open. Even if his stitches hold, his brains will most likely be applesauce by the time you get there. I want—hell, I demand that he not be moved for the next twenty-four hours while I monitor his concussion.”

      “I agree. He should only be moved by helicopter.” Bolan glanced at the tent walls as they vibrated. The storm was in its third day and showed no signs letting up. “We both know that isn’t going to happen today. But when you release him to me, I will absolutely guarantee his safety.”

      Dr. Early walked around to the other side of the bed and stared down at his patient. “More than the son of a bitch deserves, but I believe you when you say he’ll get it.”

      “Dr. Early, if it makes you feel any better I can get—” Bolan’s eyes flared as the wall of the tent lifted a few feet away from the doctor and the spherical, olive-drab shape of a U.S. M-67 hand grenade rolled to a stop at Early’s feet. “Grenade!”

      Dr. Early echoed the sentiment and promptly threw himself on top of it. Bolan seized the bed-frame. “Ous!”

      Ous grabbed the frame at the foot of the bed and together they heaved the bed toward them and dropped prone. The prisoner screamed as his IVs tore and he toppled to the floor. The grenade detonated with a muffled whip-crack and 6.5 ounces of Composition B tried to send its lethal cloud of steel splinters through Dr. Early’s body and fill the tent. It was partially successful. Medical equipment shattered and sparked. In the confines of the tent, the blast effect was like a blow to the head. The mattress bottom rippled and tufted as some splinters made it through.

      Bolan was up instantly. His ears rang, but his Beretta was in hand. Dr. Early was nothing but rags. The soldier snarled over his shoulder at Ous. “Guard the patient!”

      The Executioner rolled under the tent wall. The fact that it could be lifted told him it had been doctored for the fragging. He lunged up into the storm. Fifty yards ahead the dust swallowed a running figure.

      The big American broke into a dead sprint through the base’s back alleys, leaping tent ropes like an Olympic hurdler. Up ahead the man became visible again. He had stopped and was leaning on a tent rope to steady himself. Apparently he thought he was safe. He lifted his goggled head and saw Bolan bearing down on him like an avenging angel. The assassin whirled and promptly tripped over the rope. He lurched back up and took three stumbling steps. He shouted despairingly over the howling of the wind. “No! Wait! You don’t understand, man! No! I—” Part of Bolan’s brain noted the man was speaking with a Puerto Rican accent.

      The man suddenly seemed to remember the .45-caliber MEU pistol strapped to his leg.

      The pistol was half out of its holster when Bolan’s boot slammed up between the guy’s legs. The assassin screamed like a rabbit being killed and collapsed into Bolan’s embrace. The Executioner’s right arm snaked under the man’s chin and heaved upward as the man sagged from the testicular trauma. The big American locked his hands together and squeezed as well as lifted. The carotid artery shut off, and the more brutal trachea compression cut of his air.

      Marines charged out of the dust from all directions shouting contradictory