swollen. One of the veiled men crouched next to her. The teenager cried and flinched as the man ran his fingers through her lustrous dark hair. His other hand held a knife to the girl’s throat as he whispered ugly, cooing endearments in a guttural voice. He had but one moment to widen his eyes in horror as Omar Ous filled the door to his daughter’s bedroom.
Ous burned his entire magazine into the offender.
At that range the sound of the bullets striking flesh and clothing was louder than the coughing and clicking of the silenced weapon. The silenced MP-5 cycled like a sewing machine knitting living flesh. Spent brass fell to the thick carpet. The veiled man shuddered and shook as he took twenty-nine rounds in the chest. Ous’s weapon clicked open on empty, and smoke oozed from the muzzle of the suppressor as he reloaded. He arched one eyebrow at his daughter in a question and she shook her head. Ous nodded once. His daughter nodded back and took the dead man’s pistol from his sash.
Ous spoke very quietly. “This man with me is a friend. We will speak English for his benefit.”
Afshan nodded.
“Where is your mother?” Ous asked.
“Downstairs.”
“Where is your little brother?”
“Downstairs. They beat him and tied him up when he resisted,” Afshan replied.
“Where is your grandmother?”
Afshan’s eyes filled with fresh tears. “She stabbed one of the bad men. They shot her.”
“Where are the servants?”
“They shot them and put their bodies in the stable.”
“Where are my hounds?”
“They shot them, too, Father.”
A mighty scowl passed across Ous’s face. “I see.”
Bolan knelt beside the girl. “How many are they?”
“Twelve or so took the house, I think. Then perhaps half of them left.”
“Are they local?” Bolan asked.
Afshan blinked.
“Ah.” Ous nodded and put a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “Were they men of Kunduz? Did they speak Tajik? Pashto or Dari Persian?”
“They spoke Arabic among themselves. I believe the men who stayed are southerners. The men who left were foreigners. Forgive me, but from where, I do not know.”
“At least six were left upon the premises,” Ous surmised.
“And between us we’ve taken two.”
Ous rose. “Stay here, little rose.”
Afshan clutched at her father and shook her head. Bolan caught her gaze and held it. “Your father and I are going to fetch your mother and your little brother. I want you to go up on the roof. Take the pistol. If we fail, shoot anyone who comes up the hatch. No matter what happens, in half an hour American soldiers will come, but do not let anyone up unless they say ‘Rambo.’ Do you understand?”
The barest hint of a smile tried to quirk one corner of Afshan’s mouth. “The password is Rambo.”
“Good, now obey your father. Go.”
The Russian-made Gyruza pistol was huge in the girl’s tiny hands as she ran in a whirl of skirts for the roof ladder. Ous’s eyes glimmered. “She is a good girl.”
“An honor to her family,” Bolan agreed.
“What is the plan?”
“We rescue your wife and son,” the soldier replied.
“Do you wish prisoners?”
“Not at your family’s expense.”
“Very good.”
“Half of the raid team left and they haven’t posted any sentries,” Bolan said. “I think they’re waiting for the phone call that I’m dead and you’re dead or captured. If they do have any sentries, they’re down in the village watching the road.”
“An intelligent assessment, I agree.”
“Where would they most likely be in the house on a low state of alert?” Bolan asked.
“If they are like this one—” Ous gestured at the riddled corpse “—and seek diversions? Most likely in my parlor. It has a television and opens into the kitchen.”
“By all means, Ous, show me to your parlor.”
Bolan followed the man downstairs and into the darkened courtyard. They walked across it and glanced through the window into the kitchen. The light was on, and in the summer night the kitchen window was open. Bolan could see where Ous’s daughter got her good looks. Mrs. Ous was stirring something on the stove with a very unhappy look on her face. One of the veiled man sat at the kitchen table. He had uncovered his mouth and busily shoved down yellow rice with raisins and peas with his fingers. From somewhere out of sight Bolan could hear Bollywood-style music playing.
The soldier put a single silenced bullet through the eye slit of the eater’s veil.
Mrs. Ous didn’t notice. She only turned at the sound of the man slumping with his face in his bowl. In an incredible show of calm she walked over to the slumped man, lifted his head by his turban and noted the copious blood flooding into his food. She lowered his head back down and walked to the kitchen window. Ous spoke in English. “Wife, where is our son?”
“Husband, our son is in the parlor with the intruders, to make sure I do not attempt anything with a kitchen knife as my mother did.” Her fists clenched. “Two men are upstairs with our daughter.”
“Our daughter is safe. We have killed the two men upstairs. How many remain here below?”
“Three.”
“They are all in the parlor?”
“Watching television.”
“Let us in.”
Mrs. Ous disappeared and a door to the patio opened. Bolan followed Ous through a laundry room and into the kitchen, which opened into a Western style dining room. The dining room led to a capacious parlor. A series of sofas formed a U shape facing a large-screen TV. Three of the veiled men sat around the sofas watching a Bollywood song-and-dance number on the television with great interest. Ous’s son lay on the floor hog-tied and gagged. One of the intruders was using him for an ottoman.
“Leave the one in the middle,” Bolan whispered.
The Executioner and Ous gunned down the two men on the flanking couches. The last intruder stared up their smoking suppressor tubes and made a small unhappy sound.
“Take your feet off my son before I cut them off.”
The man obeyed
