Lethal Tribute. Don Pendleton

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

       CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

       CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

       CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

       CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

       CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

       CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

      CHAPTER ONE

      Haji Pir Pass, Pakistan-Kashmir Border

      Musa Company was moving.

      Mack Bolan shadowed them in the inky black of the cloudless night.

      The ugly rumor at the Pentagon was that Pakistan had lost control of several of its nuclear warheads. Such a happening had long been an established fear in the West, as nuclear security protocols in Pakistan were a fluid situation at the best of times. The Pakistani government vigorously denied through both public and private channels that any warheads were missing. They claimed the CIA had its own agenda, had fabricated lies so that the United States and her United Nations lackeys could invade Pakistan and wrest away her sovereign power. Such action would, thus, lay Pakistan open to the political and military machinations of their true nemesis, India.

      Nuclear warheads passing from Pakistan into the disputed region of Kashmir was a worst-case scenario for a catastrophic meltdown between the two nuclear nations. One that could light a fire throughout all of East Asia.

      The rumors in Washington were confusing. Some sources claimed that ultra-fundamentalist factions in the Pakistani government and military had engineered the grab. Other rumors indicated the warheads had been taken, humiliatingly, right out from under the Pakistani military’s nose.

      Bolan watched Musa Company move, and he began to think that Pakistan was as worried as the West.

      Named for the Prophet Moses, Musa Company was Pakistan’s elite counterterrorist unit. They had received training from the British SAS and in the past had sent personnel to the United States for special warfare and airborne training. Bolan had suspected that whoever came down through the Haji Pir Pass would be involved in transporting and security for the weapons. His first guess had been that the grab had to have been an inside job.

      But Musa Company wasn’t transporting nuclear warheads.

      They had been instrumental in quelling rioting and dissension between Pakistan’s fractious factions. Musa Company would be the last unit to betray their country and to let Pakistan’s nuclear weapons loose into the world. Their loyalty was unquestionable. Nor were the men below passing themselves off as travelers or pilgrims. They carried no baggage and they were well off the roads. Bolan had watched as they had perilously engaged in a night jump down into the high crags of the pass. They now moved through the nearly vertical terrain, wearing night-camouflage body armor, night-vision goggles and carrying Heckler & Koch MP-5 SD-3 silenced submachine guns. They moved as silently and swiftly as wolves.

      Musa Company was definitely on the hunt.

      Bolan judged by the way they were fanned out and leapfrogging from cover to cover that their quarry had to be very close. They were being very careful, as they were very close to the disputed border with India. Indian armored and airborne troops were barely two miles away and always on alert. The disputed area was a flashpoint, any mistake could easily lead to a renewal of war.

      Bolan subvocalized into his throat mike sat link. “Bear, what have you got?”

      Back in Virginia, Aaron and his entire cybernetic team worked furiously. They were directly linked with the “Puzzle Palace” within the National Security Agency. Unless Musa Company had gone rogue, they had to be in touch with someone. “Striker, we are detecting radio communications. Very narrow bandwidth. We are adjusting values. One moment.” Bolan waited while Kurtzman made his moves. Pakistan had nothing much in the way of sophisticated communication satellites. The best they had for special operations was a narrow bandwidth radio using security encryption protocols.

      A secure radio channel was far from secure when Aaron Kurtzman and his team were on the job.

      Kurtzman paused a moment as several of the National Security Agency’s most sophisticated Signal Intelligence satellites tried to break in to eavesdrop on the Pakistanis’ conversation. “We have it triangulated. One contact point is right below you. Everyone in the Musa Company team is individually wired. The second transmission point is a signal station. Definitely Islamabad. Their orders are coming straight from the capital. NSA says they are using encrypted audio.”

      Bolan nodded to himself. Whatever Musa Company’s orders, they were receiving them in real time and they were coming straight from the top. “You’ve broken in?”

      “One moment, Striker. Encryption broken. We’re in,” Kurtzman confirmed. “Patching you in passively.”

      Bolan’s earpiece crackled as he was connected to the Pakistani secure radio frequency. The Puzzle Palace had done its work. Whatever encryption code the Pakistani military was using wasn’t up to the giant supercomputers in the bowels of the NSA building. Bolan listened as voices spoke in the quiet, clipped tones of soldiers giving and receiving data across a military channel. Bolan frowned slightly. He had been in Pakistan before and could speak enough words in the dominant language to get by as a tourist. He didn’t recognize the language being spoken. “Bear, that’s not Urdu.”

      “Confirmed, Striker. One moment.” Pakistan was a large country split by mountains, deserts and river valleys. The people of Pakistan spoke several major languages and had innumerable dialects. “Switching translators.”

      Bolan watched Musa Company creep forward, disappearing and reappearing from behind rocks and boulders below. They were slowing as they approached their target.

      “Striker, they’re speaking Sind. Patching in standby translator.” Halfway across the world Kurtzman sat in Virginia and opened a satellite conference call with the NSA translator in Washington, D.C. “Translator is in. I am squelching the dialogue on your end.”

      The sound of the Pakistani commandos faded from Bolan’s earpiece and was replaced by a woman’s voice speaking with an English accent. “Striker, this is Translator 2, I am receiving.”

      “Affirmative, Translator 2. What are they saying?”

      The woman listened for a moment and began translating. “Musa—Approaching objective. Islamabad—What are your observations? Musa—No movement. No activity observed.”

      Bolan crouched in the rocks, scanning through the electro-optical sight of his sound-suppressed M-1 A scout rifle. Musa Company was converging on something.

      “Musa—Objective in sight. Islamabad—What do you see?” The translator spoke clearly and rapidly in Bolan’s ear. “Musa—No movement. No apparent sentries.”

      Bolan scanned for an objective, but the craggy, boulder-strewed terrain showed nothing but rock peaks and shadows.

      The translator’s voice rose slightly. “Musa—Bunker found!”

      Bolan’s eyes slightly widened and he strained to see a bunker entrance. It was more likely to be a fortified cave. The mountains of Kashmir were riddled with them. “I’m moving closer.”

      “Affirmative, Striker,” Kurtzman replied.

      Bolan picked his path through the piled mounds and erupting knife edges of rock. “Bear, what can you see?”