"Do it," the officer snarled at Fet. "Now!"

Fet snaked a hand in through the car window and withdrew a Czech Model 23 submachine gun. He stepped away from the front of the car and planted himself squarely to open fire across the hood at the two hillmen. The Afghans saw too late what Fet was up to, both starting to turn and track rifles in his direction with frantic pleas for him not to shoot. He opened fire, the impact of so many bullets flinging the men off their feet into shrubbery nearby where only their legs protruded, tremulous in death.

General Voukelitch rounded the car with enough dispatch to intercept Katrina before she could bolt away from the vehicle. He closed in on her. She turned and stood her ground, raising the pistol at him. The officer rushed her before she could pull the trigger. He swatted the weapon from her hand with his own automatic.

Katrina's gun flew into the darkness. This time she turned, desperately trying to escape.

Voukelitch moved in before she could. He closed the distance, grabbed one of her wrists with his left hand and yanked her brutally so that she sprang back into him with an indignant, angry gasp. He wrenched her wrist hard around her body against the small of her back and painfully jerked her even more tightly against him.

She struggled to break free until he pressed the snout of his pistol's barrel against her temple.

She felt it and stopped squirming. Voukelitch glanced at Corporal Fet, who had turned from massacring the Afghans. Fet held his fire when he saw the general had control of the situation.

The KGB man applied more pressure to emphasize his snarl close to Katrina's ear.

"The pig recognized you; that is why you shot him, is that not correct, my dear?"

"No! No! I hate these people. The way he looked at me..."

"Forget your deception," he raged, fighting back the urge to blow her head apart here and now, the treacherous bitch! "Katrina Mozzhechkov, enemy of the state. Yes, I know all about you, my pretty. You killed our friend the jukiabkr because he recognized you. You were with the man Bolan last night. And in Kabul?"

"Please, you are hurting me... it is all a mistake..." Voukelitch's finger tensed around the trigger.

"It would be a mistake for you not to tell me what you know, Katrina. I want Bolan."

Pytyour Voukelitch then felt the end of a pistol barrel pressed to his own temple.

"Surprise, comrade," growled a cold voice from hell. "You've got me."

15

The combined tracking skills of Bolan and Tarik Khan had traced the direction Katrina took from the last point any of the mujahedeen remembered having seen her, downhill toward the highway.

Her trail was easy enough for both men to read even in the dark that remained before the first hint of dawn to the east spread itself across the land.

Tarik Khan had at first been reluctant to follow the woman. "My men can function here well on their own," he explained to Bolan, "but to my mind, the woman's disappearance but confirms what I have suspected from the beginning. She has never stopped being an agent for the Soviets. As for Mr. Lansdale: a ruse also. She knows you at least will follow and if you are isolated and killed, my people are back where we started with little chance of stopping the Devil's Rain in time without your assistance."

"I'm sorry, Tarik Khan," Bolan had replied respectfully, sincerely, "but I have to go with what I feel in my gut and in my heart as well as my head, as do you. And all three tell me Katrina is what she appears to be, a confused young woman who now has some idea of helping us on her own. But maybe all she'll do is blow our strategy to hell. She will definitely die if we don't get to her in time."

"But the mission... The attack on the garrison...""

If I don't catch up with her in fifteen minutes, I'll return and we'll continue with the original plan. Set it back twenty-five minutes, that's all. I know time is short but we can afford this. I've got to afford it and I should be doing it instead of talking about it." The guerrilla nodded.

"If you must, you should." He fell into step alongside the Executioner. They started out of the camp. "I have never known you to be wrong, kuvii Bolan. I know you from the field of battle and so I know you. Your intuition and compassion equal your bravery and skill. I will not let you go alone."

They had not gone far along the sloping terrain when they saw distant headlights leaving the Afghan army installation to turn in the direction of town.

When they saw the vehicle stop briefly, Bolan used his binoculars and at a distance of a half mile he witnessed the scene of Katrina intercepting the ZIL limo.

Katrina, you brave, irrational fool, thought Bolan. He swallowed the lump of concern that constricted his throat and swung into action before the limo down there started rolling again.

"We've got to head off that car," he told Tarik Khan. Both warriors hoped they would intercept the ZIL, considering the car's stop, some curves in the road that would slow its progress and the direct line taken by Tarik Khan and the Executioner who galloped to make good time across the rocky slope.

Bolan and Tarik Khan pulled up again when the limo, after traveling no more than a quarter mile, slowed for a turn off the highway to a point well in and concealed from the main road.

Bolan and the hillman had almost made it to the clearing where the ZIL had stopped when they heard the faint snap of muffled pistol shots followed by the louder sustained chatter of a submachine gun. The gunfire sounded to Bolan's trained ears like an Uzi or a Czech Model 23, and for a moment he feared he and Tarik Khan were too late. Then they made it over a rise and Bolan's NVD eyesight told him they had not arrived too late but not one damn microsecond too soon, either.

Bolan hand-signaled a maneuver.

Tarik Khan nodded his understanding and split off from the Executioner. The two advanced undetected from different angles on an unfolding scene of action that Bolan took in at a glance: three dead Afghans, the Russian corporal at the front of the limo with the submachine gun and the Soviet officer grappling with Katrina, yanking her to him with his pistol to her temple. The officer, a general no less, was so busy struggling with the wildcat that he did not hear Bolan at all.

The Executioner pressed the muzzle of Big Thunder to the guy's temple and everything changed.

"Drop your weapon," Ice Voice growled. "Release the woman."

The Russian officer did both with alacrity, yet no panic showed in the man's movements. Bolan knew from this as much as from the photograph he had seen of his target that this was the man he had come to Afghanistan to kill.

The corporal, still clutching the SMG, did not fire for fear of hitting his superior.

A shadow materialized behind the corporal.

Tarik Khan.

The corporal was completely oblivious of anyone behind him until the Afghan hill fighter snaked his left forearm around the man's neck.

Tarik Khan tilted the head forward into the crook of his arm, then applied a fast open-handed punch behind the man's ear.

The dry snap of the corporal's neck breaking sounded like a pistol shot across the clearing.

Tarik Khan released the body and let it fall to the ground. Then he turned to watch the others.

Katrina was standing a few feet away while Bolan kept the 11.5inch stainless steel cannon aimed in a straightarmed stance at the Soviet officer's temple. The Executioner was far enough away so the general could not try swinging around into Bolan or diving away from the gun.

With the bodyguard taken care of, Bolan stepped back from the officer, but the barrel of Big Thunder never wavered from the Russian's head. "Turn around, comrade," Bolan ordered. "General Voukelitch, I presume."