Assassin's Code. Don Pendleton

      Agent Keller appeared out of the dust and flashed her badge. “NCIS! Agent Keller! He’s with me!”

      Bolan glanced down at the motionless man at his feet. “He’s the one who fragged the infirmary.”

      The belligerent Marine lowered his weapon. Even with the wind and dust battering him his face went slack. “Oh…my…God…”

      Bolan felt the young Marine’s pain. The U.S. military had seen its share of atrocities: fraggings, crimes and massacres. Rightly or wrongly, the modern United States Marine Corps considered itself above such things. The motto of the Corps was Semper fidelis, Always Faithful.

      What this man had done was unthinkable.

      The man on the ground gasped as he roused back into consciousness. “Hook him and book him,” Bolan suggested.

      “Right.” An MP produced zip restraints. Ous appeared at Bolan’s elbow.

      “How’s the prisoner?” Bolan asked.

      “He is currently leaking clear fluids out of his eyes and ears, and his pupils are two different sizes. I fear the blast from the grenade was too much for his already beleaguered brain.” Ous sighed. “You are all right?”

      “I could use a cup of coffee,” Bolan admitted.

      Ous looked at Bolan with great seriousness. “You are a man of the West. I am sure what you require is beer.”

      Sangin Bazaar

      BOLAN AND OUS drank beer. Islam forbade the drinking of alcohol, however across the Muslim world the laws of hospitality were some of the most powerful on Earth. A large number of Muslim men Bolan had met had come to the happy, contorted conclusion that it would be unforgivable to not offer a Westerner his dissipation, and an even worse breach of honor to make him feel uncomfortable by frowning upon his misguided ways and not partaking.

      Ous did everything he could to make Bolan comfortable by keeping the bottles of beer flowing from the battered plastic cooler between them. They sat on stools in a tiny alcove curtained with a pair of rugs. Outside two enormously fat men who appeared to be twins blocked the entrance to the alcove. Their stall was piled high with oranges. Each man had an AK propped by his leg. The storm had died down, but it was still hot, windy, dusty, overcast and miserable outside. The orange trade was slow and the bazaar almost deserted.

      “So,” Bolan began, “you were Muj?”

      Ous cracked two fresh beers and waited until Bolan had sipped from his. “I answered the call to jihad against the Soviet invaders when I was twelve. My aged father, who resides in heaven, pressed his Lee-Enfield rifle and a bandolier of fifty rounds into my hands and implored me to martyr myself in God’s name. With the bayonet fixed, the rifle was taller than I was at the time. I failed to become a Holy Martyr, but I killed many, many Russians. At one point there was a ten-thousand-ruble reward out for my head.”

      “I understand the Taliban has a million on you at the moment,” Bolan observed.

      Ous shrugged modestly. “So I am told.”

      Bolan gave Ous a knowing look. “You were Northern Alliance?”

      “For a time,” Ous conceded. “I truly believed in jihad against the Soviets. God required them to be struck down. However, after liberation, I found that I had no use for the Taliban at all.”

      “They’re—”

      “They are foreign interlopers, and Wahhabist interlopers at that.” Ous spit. “Destroyers of shrines.”

      “You’re Sufi,” Bolan surmised.

      “Ismaili,” Ous allowed.

      Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab had been an eighteenth-century scholar from Arabia. He considered anything but the strictest adherence to Sunni Islam and Sharia Law to be “innovations” that needed ruthless and violent crushing. The Taliban took much of their doctrine from Abd al-Wahhab’s teachings and had applied it with fanatic zeal during their five-year reign of religious terror as the governing body of Afghanistan.

      “The attack in the village yesterday wasn’t exactly what I would call Taliban standard tactical procedure,” Bolan ventured.

      “Both the attack against us and the slaying of your envoy were very unorthodox.” Ous puffed his pipe for a contemplative moment. “I have operated with the United States Marine Corps in the past. I found this morning’s incident profoundly disturbing.”

      Soldiers refusing to take prisoners during the war on terror wasn’t unknown. Some prisoners had been mistreated. A U.S. Marine fragging an infirmary with U.S. personnel inside was positively anomalous. Ous took another sip of beer. “What have you learned?”

      There wasn’t much. “Corporal Saulito Convertino, from New York City, a strict Catholic. The chaplain says he attended services every Sunday. No known radical, terrorist or criminal affiliations. Was recommended for the Bronze Star in action during the surge into Helmand.”

      “And his disposition now?”

      “In custody, not talking to his appointed lawyer, not talking to anyone.”

      Ous eyes narrowed. “You said he was weeping when you apprehended him?”

      “Yeah.” Bolan nodded very slowly. “Yeah, he was.”

      “You fear he was coerced,” Ous surmised.

      “It’s the only thing that makes sense. But he didn’t owe anybody money, wasn’t on drugs, the preliminary FBI investigation back in New York states his family is fine and has no idea how this could have happened.”

      “You believe the coercion had to be local,” Ous suggested.

      “We brought in the prisoner last night and he got fragged this morning. Corporal Convertino hadn’t been planning this, he was activated.”

      “Sleeper cells,” Ous said incredulously, “in the United States Marine Corps?”

      “More like a mole.”

      “So how was he recruited, locally, as it were?”

      “I can think of only one thing, Convertino was an exemplary Marine except for one thing,” Bolan said. “Oh?”

      “On three separate occasions he was found AWOL, but each time the statement of charges was dropped.”

      “And why should this be?” Ous asked.

      “Because Convertino was a scrounger.”

      “I am not aware of this term.”

      “He was good at getting things,” Bolan explained. “I spoke with a few of the men on his squad. If you wanted beer or liquor in Afghanistan, he’d find a way. If you couldn’t find any Marlboro, he’d get you Tajiki Kahons at half the price. U.S. and European pornography is almost impossible to sneak into Afghanistan, but if you wanted some, he could find you the Russian stuff that flows down through the northern border by the bushel basket. Every unit has a scrounger, and by all accounts Convertino was a scrounger par excellence. He was born in Puerto Rico, and they’re the last bastion of bartering culture in the United States. From what I hear he had the gift of gab, everybody liked him, and he had been to the language school and spoke some Arabic.”

      “So why would the statement of charges be dropped if he was dealing in contraband?”

      “Because he acquired contraband for his superiors,” Bolan said.

      “Ah, yes, I see. Truly the world is the same all over. So, you believe it was in the midst of this scrounging that he was seduced?”

      “I’m thinking seduced is exactly the right word. When he was in Iraq, Convertino had the reputation of being one hell of a charming horn dog. Female soldiers and Iraqi women liked him, a lot. Here in Afghanistan the female soldiers are a lot fewer, the Afghanis are far more violent about protecting their