Bolan had been relieved to find her safe and waiting for them but had not missed the pain-racked look in her eyes. He had also observed an attitude of withdrawal about her that indicated a deep inner turmoil, but that did not deter her from a march that would have done in most American women and men Bolan knew.

His respect for Katrina made him care. He welcomed the chance to communicate with her and maybe help.

"We will reach Parachinar soon," she began. She gestured with the M-16 she toted. "I must do something. I can no longer sit by idly."

"Katrina, we've been over that."

"In the village during the attack on the convoy... I started toward that battle three separate times but I... I could not leave the hut. I was afraid."

"Any person would be."

"Are you afraid of death?"

"I risk it, I don't invite it. You're no coward, Katrina. I've seen you fight."

She nodded. "Thank you for understanding."

Then it came time to move out and resume silence during a stretch of the march through a somewhat populated area. Bolan had an uncomfortable hunch that he had not said the right thing at all to a woman who remained an unknown quantity, an enigma, who, yeah, could be one of the enemy, who could be a damn good actress playing a convincing part. But in any case Katrina Mozzhechkov was certainly a woman capable of anything.

Bolan and the mujahedeen reached the vicinity of the installation near Parachinar at 04.00 hours.

The mountain fighters appeared little worse from the wear of the seven hours of constant movement.

The Executioner was wearing the traditional Afghan headgear that he had borrowed from Tarik Khan.

Tarik Khan chose a position along an irregular ridge of scattered spearmint bushes and mountain scrub trees; ideal for the placement of the heavy tripod machine guns that would be primarily for defense against Soviet air power, which the government forces would call for immediately after the assault began.

The first order of business, though, was to secure the area, which meant searching for mines. This was done by pressing the cheek to the ground to look for shallow depressions where the dirt had been scraped out to conceal a mine; it was a slow operation that could not be hurried, which proved a good thing. Bolan himself led the exercise and after a few minutes of careful probing, he used wire cutters to defuse the first Russian explosive. The mujahedeen also found two mines in the vicinity. They used sticks and twigs to carefully probe and gently push away the dirt until the mines could be safely lifted out.

"The area for miles around the fort will be mined," Tarik Khan told Bolan. "These evil ones do not care whom they kill." The mujahedeen leader deployed his men effectively along the ridge with a complete absence of any sound save the occasional soft clinking and clanking as missile launchers and heavy machine guns were positioned. "Come," Tarik Khan told Bolan as preparations for the attack continued around them. "We shall observe our target together."

They crouched down at a cluster of shrubbery that offered an unobstructed view of the fort: a square white structure resembling the walled outposts Bolan remembered from films about the old French Foreign Legion outposts in the deserts of North Africa.

Thirty-foot cement walls rose sheer with brick watchtowers at each corner. Six sentries in each, manning heavy machine guns, scanned the one approach to the fort, crossing fifty yards of flat terrain to a blacktopped two-lane road that bisected the scene from north to south.

Bolan saw a helicopter pad and maintenance area.

The fortress had been constructed on an open plain, the floor of a wide valley.

Occasional structures, private residences, dotted the two-lane at irregular intervals as did the dark shapes of clusters of trees. The fortress, especially the ground at the outside base of the walls, was bright from high-intensity floodlights but the overall impression to Bolan as he scanned with NVD goggles through binoculars was of a world asleep, not in any particular hurry to wake up to the grim realities of another day.

There was no traffic along the road at this hour.

Bolan had sprawled belly down beside Tarik Khan. Both men lowered their binoculars.

"It is one of three fortresses along the highway," Tarik Khan informed him. "This road is one of the army's major supply routes. They know the country belongs to us at night."

"What is their number down there?"

"It changes as the Soviets order the militia redeployed about the country. They will be mostly Afghan regulars. General Voukelitch chooses an unimportant place for his work, much as a spider spins his web where the light of day will not reveal it."

Bolan nodded.

"The spider's web is a trap and that could be a trap down there whether they know it or not. I've got to go in solo again, Tarik Khan. If I can destroy the laboratory where they make and store this Devil's Rain, the attack by you and your men could serve as the diversion I'll need to get clear."

The guerrilla studied Bolan.

"After your work in Kabul I would say it is the way you work best and it is for your abilities that I chose to summon you. There will be much danger for you but you will not be up against Russian soldiers. The militia is made up of untrustworthy draftees who defect daily." Tarik Khan raised his binoculars again to study the fort and its environs. "The landing area must be my men's first target, of course. We are for the most part helpless against Soviet air power, but we will stop these before they get off the ground."

"I see only helicopter gunships," Bolan noted. "They'll have MiGs here within minutes. I'm sure they have a landing strip not far from here."

"They do," the guerrilla said with a nod, "but we still have time to operate. They hope to control too much territory with too little."

Bolan knew the Soviets fought their war here on the cheap, figuring they had time on their side, and they were probably right. Only two percent of Soviet defense spending goes to waging the Afghanistan war; only six percent of their army divisions are deployed in Afghanistan. As for their Kabul-regime allies, Tarik Khan had hit the nail on the head: those kidnapped into military service by an occupying invasion force rarely make good soldiers.

Bolan went through a last-minute check of his weapons and equipment. "Give me ninety minutes, then hit them with everything you've got. Unless you hear fireworks from down there any time before then, which will mean I'm in trouble and need all the firepower I can get."

They synchronized their watches.

Time to move out.

Time to do it.

Bolan and Tarik Khan drew back from the ridge and stood to exchange the traditional handshake of farewell.

"Good luck, brother," the mujahedeen leader grunted solemnly. "May Allah guide you on the right path. And may we meet at the end of this battle. Our cause is just. Allah is with us."

"Live large, malik Tarik Khan," Bolan acknowledged, and he turned to say goodbye to Katrina Mozzhechkov.

The Russian woman had remained at his side until he and Tarik Khan had bellied to the ridge to reconnoiter.

She was nowhere in sight and Bolan cursed inside when he realized it. Katrina was gone.