"Is it... the Devil's Rain?" she asked quietly.

"What do you know about that?" Bolan asked quickly, reaching forward to grab her by the shoulders.

"Only that you asked me about those words when we first met... and I know in my heart it is the reason my man is dead." She made a decision and changed the way she looked at him. "We have been through too much together this night, you and I, for us not to trust each other."

"We'll travel to Charikar," he told her.

"But we'll have to find another vehicle first. Our biggest problem will be Soviet patrols."

"There are several ways to get from Kabul to Charikar," the Russian woman told him. "I know them all. There is one way; it will be several hours longer but the patrols will overlook it."

Soviet patrols have attempted to secure it in the past and have never been seen or heard from again. Bolan considered.

Tarik Khan's force would pull away from their position in the foothills near Kabul the instant they received word of the Executioner's blitz on the Soviet high command. The mujahedeen would wait in Charikar, as Tarik Khan had promised, for word from Bolan on the site where a target named Voukelitch prepared a mass horror called the Devil's Rain.

Parachinar.

That is where the big hit would go down.

If Bolan could trust Katrina Mozzhechkov, a person he wanted to trust, a human being he liked already, probably too much.

A lot of what would happen from here on in depended on Lansdale's dying word as relayed by this woman.

Lansdale had trusted her, true, but one fact could not be denied no matter how positively Bolan reacted to the woman.

Lansdale was dead.

Bolan would trust Katrina, sure.

Up to a point.

Far more, though, he would trust his own instincts and combat prowess to keep him alive to the payoff of this mission.

He would shake this hell to its very foundations.

9

"I say we do not trust the woman," Alja Malikyar opined when asked. Bolan crouched with Alja and Tarik Khan around the smoldering embers of the morning cooking fire.

The three men sipped coffee sweetened with peppermint from tin cups. Bolan and Katrina had reached Charikar an hour before dawn in the third hotwired vehicle Bolan had "appropriated" to get them there following Katrina's directions.

Tarik Khan and his men had welcomed Bolan warmly but they had viewed the woman with undisguised suspicion from the beginning. Bolan had grabbed a ninety-minute catnap once he made sure Katrina was safely ensconced in the temporary mujahedeen camp. Tarik Khan arranged for her accommodation out of deference to Bolan.

The catnap proved more than sufficient to recharge Bolan's batteries and now, at 09.00 hours, he was discussing what he had learned last night and what they must do next if they had any hope at all of stopping the Devil's Rain before it began.

Tarik Khan had changed from his gaudy embroidered vest into garb that matched that of his men, the patu, a thin wool blanket that serves Afghans as shawl, coat, bed cover and prayer mat.

The mujahedeen malik had asked his second-incommand for input after hearing Bolan's precise account of last night's events in Kabul and of agent Lansdale's dying message via the woman.

Bolan could see malik Tarik Khan weighing Alja's thoughts on the matter. He spoke to counter them.

"If the Russians are developing the Devil's Rain at Parachinar and if we get there in time to stop them, then Katrina Mozzhechkov is responsible for saving the lives of untold thousands of your people, Tarik Khan."

"And if she is a Soviet spy?" Alja asked. "If she relays only information the Russians wished the man, Lansdale, and us, to have? The woman could be leading us to a massacre!"

Bolan played the card that had swayed his decision. "And what choice do we have?" he asked both men. "I say we hit Parachinar. I will bear full responsibility for the woman until she is vindicated or condemned by what happens when we reach the fort."

The malik nodded, absorbing both points of view. At last the guerrilla leader spoke.

"Very well, kuvii Bolan, the woman shall accompany us. We begin the march at dusk. But you must realize the Russian woman is our mortal enemy and will be considered as such by my men. And by myself until she has proved herself. It can be no other way."

"As long as she isn't harmed," Bolan said, trying not to make it sound like a threat, only a statement of fact and condition, out of respect to the mujahedeen leader.

Tarik Khan nodded.

"So it shall be, kuvii Bolan. You have my word." The village consisted of a motley collection of weathered-wood houses propped up by long poles.

The day had started shortly after dawn with prayers.

The settlement had no electricity, no running water, no telephone; a single lantern provided all the light in the hut where Bolan had slept.

He had observed few signs of modern life: Soviet weapons and a few portable radios.

Bolan and the men had eaten of the traditionally hearty Afghan morning meal: chicken, mutton, bread, grapes and yogurt, before most of the villagers left to tend their crops and sheep as if a war did not rage around them.

Social life in the Afghan countryside is dictated by ancient feudal patterns. The Afghans are a diverse people including both Pashto speakers and Dari speakers; several disparate sects of Muslims; political leaders who like the way Iran is governed and would like the same for Afghanistan; and tribes that have always hated each other over blood feuds that have endured for centuries.

Though the differences between such groups are dramatic, their one unifying aspect is the ancient Afghan code of behavior known as pushtanwalli, characterized by clear-cut obligations of hospitality to travelers and fugitives, revenge against enemies of tribe and family and adherence to manly courage.

The most important part of this code is melmasua, which deals with hospitality. And so Tarik Khan's force was given shelter by a tribe other than its own.

Bolan felt restless to move on but appreciated the necessity of a force the size of Tarik Khan's traveling only at night.

The ranks of the mujahedeen had swollen to nearly thirty men since Bolan and Tarik Khan had parted last night outside Kabul. The guerrilla attack force comprised the full spectrum of Afghan society, from former white-collar professionals to farmers and herdsmen. The local jukiabkr, the leader of the village council, and his tribe, ignored Tarik Khan's group. That appeared to be okay with the malik's group, the clear-eyed assault force Bolan would be working with.

The jukiabkr, a barrel-chested man with a handlebar mustache, seemed to live on hashish, like so many of the Afghan hill people. Right after morning prayers Bolan saw the guy take shavings from a block of the resinous drug and smoke it in a water pipe. Bolan saw the jukiabkr the rest of the day smoking his hash mixed with tobacco and rolled into cigarettes. Bolan would feel damn glad to be out of here.

The American ached for action and cursed the slow pace of the sun's progress across the sky.

Katrina stepped up to stand beside him as he stood gazing out over the ruggedly beautiful countryside from an overlook near the outskirts of the village.

"I do not wish to be a burden," she began. "I can feel the hatred in their eyes when they look my way."

Bolan offered her a cigarette but she declined.

"You're Russian. You've got to expect it."

"I expect it. I was a good Russian soldier, you see." Tense, she worried her lower lip between her teeth. "What happened between... the man Lansdale and myself... it had nothing to do with his work. It is right that you should understand this. At first, yes, he met me through Captain Zhegolov when he had the gall to impersonate a Russian officer and attend a dinner party at a general's home."