Some of the tension left and the corners of her mouth tipped in a bittersweet smile.

"I think I fell in love with him at that moment, and when he contacted me later and asked for a dinner engagement I knew the attraction was mutual. From there an attachment blossomed between us, a beautiful thing.

"When he told me who and what he really was it was after we had fallen in love and he trusted me enough to tell me. I told him then I could not betray the position of trust I had been put in. I realize now how they must have learned about me.

"Captain Zhegolov was one of his informers but even this I was never told. His work, my work, had no place between us. I cannot explain it."

"You don't have to. He felt the same way about you. No one can judge what you two had."

"And now that I have no choice, now that I cannot return, I worry about my family in Russia more than ever, and yet I feel a freedom almost as great as love itself. Do you understand this? And yet I am not free of what has happened, of my fate... of the life I carry in my womb."

"Your family may be all right," Bolan said. "For now that's all you can go on. I have many connections, Katrina. Some in Russia. We'll do what we can for them."

"I will accept what help you can give," she said, gazing at the Executioner, "but seeing one's love killed the way I did... I don't know what to think, what to feet, but I know I must do something to... after my acceptance and part in what my country is doing here."

"You're right about one thing, Katrina. You don't know what to think. Not this soon after last night. You may feel normal in some ways, but believe me, you are in shock from what you witnessed and what you were called on to do. You're tough enough to stay hard, I can see that, but call off making any decisions, okay? You owe it to the new life inside you."

"Do I owe his child a coward for a mother?" she asked, and did not wait for his response but touched his arm with fingertips that last night had triggered death from a blazing M-16, but right now transmitted the human touch, nothing sexual, not anything except caring. "The loyalty I felt to my country... I now feel for his memory. That is how it is. Thank you for listening to a woman analyze her soul aloud, Mack Bolan. And for not judging."

He could say nothing to that. He watched her turn and walk away. The village seemed nearly deserted during the day except for Tarik Khan's men who lounged about in attitudes of anticipation; the "hurry up and wait" syndrome of all military operations everywhere, even among guerrillas such as these.

Bolan preferred working alone or with only a small, select team. He had lost too many allies, from his early death squad days against the Mafia when he had enlisted the ill-fated members of his Nam combat team, right up to that terrible moment when April stopped a bullet meant for him.

Bolan felt he would give anything to have that one moment repeated so he could know the bullet was coming and take it instead of her. He found himself realizing more and more as time put distance between now and then that the bullet that killed April had killed a part of Mack Bolan, too.

He still had friends he cared about as human beings, most of them hellgrounders who had served with him in one capacity or another during the Executioner's bloody miles, but Bolan recognized that something within himself had changed, possibly disappeared forever, though he hoped not. A sense of humanness, yeah, that was it. The human fighting machine had risked everything more than once, pulling off the impossible over and over again in battlefields around the world, stopping the cannibals. For love.

It might sound corny but people were the only thing that really mattered, Bolan knew; what they could aspire to and become and the promise of a better world someday, somehow, every time lovers touched. April Rose had been all of that and more to Mack Samuel Bolan, and when she died... yeah, something real big in the big guy named Bolan died, too, and all life held for him now was the fight itself.

But, bet on it, when it came to stopping cannibals and something called the Devil's Rain, this guy's war everlasting was reward enough.

10

The sun eased into the western horizon, splashing the rugged beauty of snowcapped mountains a warm red.

Bolan crouched, checking his weapons and gear prior to moving out. Tarik Khan, Alja and the village jukiabkr approached him shortly after the traditionally light evening meal of flat bread and tea. Bolan quelled an immediate irritation at the arrogance with which the jukiabkr carried himself.

"It seems a Soviet convoy has chosen to camp for the night two kilometers from here," Tarik Khan told Bolan. "Trouble with one of their vehicles."

"Let them be," Bolan growled. "Let's move out. Our fight with the Russians is elsewhere."

"I, uh, quite agree. Unfortunately, it is the request of our host, the jukiabkr, and is as such a demand, that my force assist his in attacking the Soviet camp. To refuse would be interpreted as a direct insult after the hospitality they have extended us."

Bolan glanced at the jukiabkr. The village leader returned a glare of pointed rudeness but said nothing. "Does he speak English?"

"No, but I am compelled to render a faithful translation of all you say."

"Fine. Have you explained to him the importance of our mission?"

Alja spoke up before his commander could reply.

"I say we aid the jukiabkr. Are not the Russians to be slaughtered wherever we find them when they do not expect us? The reason these soldiers risk camping in this area at all and do not push on with their remaining vehicles is that they believe this village to be secure. We can take them in an hour's time and easily be on our way. Allah has placed these Russian pigs before us to be slaughtered in the holy name of Islam. Can we turn our backs on the will of Allah?"

Bolan delivered a chilled glare.

"Alja Malikyar, you are a brother in arms and a brave man in the field of combat, but your zealousness will get you killed."

"Then that, too, is Allah's will," the feisty hill fighter shot back. "I live to slay my enemy in His name and so shall I die."

Tarik Khan looked to Bolan.

"You see how it is, my friend. Many of my men feel this way."

"I thought you were in command of this force, Tarik Khan."

"I am. But we speak now, kuvii Bolan, of religion and tradition and the power they have to shape a man's destiny, something your Western cultures have forgotten."

The jukiabkr groused a belligerent demand in Pashto, the language in which Tarik Khan responded before translating for Bolan. "He wants to know if we, you and I, are with him. I have told the jukiabkr that I must discuss the matter with you."

"I appreciate that. And now that we've discussed it?"

"Do you appreciate my predicament, kuvii Bolan? Allah directs my fate, too. I have misgivings but it can be no other way in light of who and what I and my people are."

Bolan had not come all this distance to sacrifice the mission to these people's religious fervor. He had come to help, but he could not help them with themselves. But this was still his mission as well as theirs, and if they did not consider the mission objective he would have to for them.

He restrained his irritation and a strong urge to punch Hash Breath in the mouth.

He said to Tarik Khan, "You have surely noted the fogged mental condition of the jukiabkr. His men are in no better shape and they've been working in the fields all day. If we go into battle with them, it will be suicide for too many of your men no matter how good they are, and will cost us manpower we need to accomplish our objective." He refrained from mentioning details and Parachinar and hoped Tarik Khan and his men had done the same.