The engine rumbled and the copter lifted off. Bolan gave Tarik Khan a last salute from on high that the resistance fighter returned, then the hillman turned to join his men and Bolan control-stacked them up and away from there.

He piloted the chopper at full throttle across the blue sky of a new day, skimming the jagged, treacherous terrain low enough to avoid Soviet radar.

Toward the border frontier. Toward Pakistan.

Mission completed, yeah. And toward the mourning of too many lost in the name of freedom that fired a strange, savage, noble people to resist impossible odds. Lansdale. Alja Malikyar. So many more. They had not died in vain. Their sacrifice kept the flame alive and it would burn longer and more brightly now without Devil's Rain to douse it. Yeah, Tarik Khan, thought Executioner Bolan. Until next time.