Assassin's Code. Don Pendleton

individual with a slight stoop, a permanent number-four bad hair day haircut graying at the temples and an Adam’s apple that would cut glass. Bolan pressed the flesh all around and then gave the assassination scene a second go-over. The soldier wasn’t a detective, but his War Everlasting had taken him to firefights on every continent on Earth, and he could read a battle scene like an experienced hunter reading trail sign.

      “It was an inside job,” he stated.

      “You think?” Keller inquired.

      “Millard was done execution style. His pistol is still strapped to his thigh,” Bolan continued. He looked at the four other bodies in the room. They’d all had their heads hammered apart at point-blank range with automatic weapons. “The bad guys literally just walked in and did this with complete surprise. How many servants did the attaché have?”

      Captain Yoshida crossed his arms over the M-4 carbine slung across his chest. “Eight. We have two in custody. The other six disappeared. I have people—”

      “The rest of the servants are dead. Don’t bother.”

      For a moment there was no sound but the howl of the wind and the hiss of the dust outside. The motley crew of unlikely allies stood in the charnel house of death, each considering his or her own analysis. Farkas spoke first. “The man was a United States attaché, and he’s three spaghetti strings of gristle short of decapitation.”

      Bolan nodded.

      “So I got a question for you,” Farkas said.

      “Shoot.”

      Farkas gave Bolan a very questioning look. “How come this isn’t all over FOX news?”

      “Because I asked the President to give me twenty-four hours,” Bolan replied.

      That was good for several more moments of silence in the storm. Farkas shook his head. “You aren’t talking about the president of Afghanistan.”

      “Well, I’m told he agreed to it,” Bolan said.

      Farkas’s face went blank as machines far beyond his pay grade spun their cogs and wheels around him. “Jesus.”

      Keller stared. “Buddy, you’re like straight out of a movie.”

      Yoshida examined Bolan as if he were a spider the size of Shetland pony that had suddenly dropped into their midst. “More like a comic book.”

      “I like him,” Ous opined.

      Bolan inclined his head at Ous and got down to business. “Two attachés in two months. Someone’s trying to kill the peace process in Helmand Province. They want a stink. They want an uproar.”

      Keller’s eyes widened as she started to understand what Bolan was getting at. “And we’re into day two with nothing on the news.”

      Yoshida gave Bolan an infinitesimal nod. “And criminals can’t help but come back to the scene of the crime.”

      “They’re going to want to know what went wrong,” Bolan said, nodding. “And what’s happening.”

      Keller popped the retention strap on her holster. “You think they’re going to come snooping back?”

      “They’re here now,” Bolan stated.

      Ous tapped his pipe empty against the bottom of his boot and put the pipe in his tactical vest. He pushed off the safety of his M-4 with a click. “He is right. Now is the time of ambush. They come.”

      Bolan knelt beside his gear bag. “Get your men inside, Captain.”

      “Oh, for God’s sake…” Yoshida clicked his com unit and spoke to the guards outside. “Yo! Buzz! Munoz! You got anything suspicious, any movement at all out there?”

      Outside the dust hissed against the side of the house like the amplified sound of writhing serpents.

      “Buzz? Munoz?” Yoshida’s voice rose. “Come back!” No one came back across the tactical radio. The captain unslung his rifle and spoke to the man on the roof. “Plowman, come back!”

      Nothing came back but the wind.

      “God…damn it…” Yoshida unslung his carbine.

      Bolan unzipped his rifle bag and took out his Beowulf entry weapon. It looked like Yoshida’s M-4 carbine on steroids. The village was just outside the city of Sangin, one of only three major cities in Helmand Province and one that had seen the most brutal urban warfare of almost the entire war in Afghanistan. Bolan’s Beowulf weapon was .500 caliber and was the equivalent of fully automatic buffalo rifle. His also had the unusual modification of a grenade launcher mounted beneath the barrel. He had come ready for a battle in the streets.

      It seemed the battle was about to be joined.

      Farkas scooped up a Joint Service Combat Shotgun leaned in the corner and Keller took a stubby black MP-5 K off the couch and pushed the selector to full-auto. Yoshida changed frequencies. “Camp Two, this is Envoy One, requesting immediate reinforcement. Come back.”

      Nothing came back but the same hiss.

      Bolan slung a bandolier of grenades and spare mags over his shoulder. “You’re being jammed across all frequencies.”

      Yoshida was appalled. “When was the last time the Taliban could jam U.S. military com links?”

      Bolan loaded a fragmentation round into his grenade launcher. “Puzzler, isn’t it?”

      Yoshida’s face set in a ferocious scowl. “I’m going outside. I have to find my men. Anyone coming with me?”

      “Whoever took them in this storm did it point-blank,” Bolan cautioned. “They’re right outside.”

      “Plowman’s on the roof. You can’t see from rooftop to rooftop, he’s—”

      “They’re on the roof, too.”

      “Shit,” Keller observed.

      “Crap,” Farkas agreed.

      Ous smiled the smile of a warrior who had given himself over to violence and intended to enjoy it. “Shit-crap!”

      Bolan took three steps and kicked the front door open.

      Shit-crap was right.

      The MRAP was roaring straight toward the door. The gears ground as someone unused to driving an MRAP built a full head of steam. Luckily whoever was in charge seemed to have no idea how to use the remote-weapon station and bring the .50-caliber weapon to bear. Bolan vainly wished he’d loaded an antiarmor round, but he sent the frag grenade flying into the armor-glass windshield and lunged back. “Get back! Get back!”

      The MRAP hit the house in a forty-mile-per-hour, fourteen-ton car wreck. The door, the jamb and a significant chunk of the wall came down in an eruption of shattering clay. A chunk of wall hit Yoshida in his armored chest and knocked him into the next room. Keller screamed as a section of roof fell in, Plowman’s body falling on top of her. Two screaming, flailing terrorists followed as the ceiling dropped in a cascade. Bolan’s Beowulf thunder-clapped twice as he gave each killer a .500-caliber sledgehammer to the chest.

      Ous’s M-4 made a distinctive clack as he pushed the usually deactivated selector switch to full-auto. The glass on an MRAP was rated to stop shell splinters, the blast effect of roadside improvised explosive devices and hits from .30-caliber rifle rounds. Ous’s weapon was .30 caliber, but the range was point-blank and he emptied his 20-round mag on full-auto. Armor glass geysered and cracked beneath the onslaught.

      Bolan batted cleanup as he sent his eight remaining rounds through the driver’s window and shattered it. Arterial spray followed the glass shrapnel. The engine died at the same time as the driver, and the vehicle stood stalled in wreckage. Armored doors clanged open and the cry of “Allahu Akbar!” howled above the storm as killers boiled out the back door and made for the breach on either side of the vehicle. Others came over