responses that were carved in stone, a law unto themselves.
If she appeared in any way unusual, Pahlavi would be doomed, as surely as if she had been fatally exposed to the materials they handled every day.
She pinched herself, a cruel twist of her flesh beneath the long sleeve of her lab coat. She had to remain focused. Any small distraction, any deviation from routine, might raise a red flag with security as she was leaving.
There was no innocent excuse for smuggling confidential data from the lab. Taking a box of paper clips was considered serious. Stealing the data at the very heart of their most secret program would be tantamount to suicide.
Pahlavi knew it wouldn’t be a quick death, either. They would want to ask her questions, find out how and why she dared to take such risks. Who was she working for? Had she accomplices? Being a woman, she would not impress interrogators as a ringleader, much less an operative who conceived and executed such activities alone. If nothing else, theft of the disks signaled that she planned to pass them on, reveal their secrets to some third party, whether for ideology or profit.
She wasn’t sure how long she could protect her brother and the rest, once the professionals began to work on her with chemicals or pure brute force. Her pain threshold had never been extraordinary, and fear had weakened her already, as if her own body was conspiring with her enemies.
Biting the inside of her cheek to make her brain focus on simple tasks, Pahlavi went through the same cleanup routine she had followed every day since starting at the lab. There was a place for everything, and everything had to wind up in its proper place before she could depart. Slovenly negligence invited criticism and a closer look from Dr. Mehran, which she definitely didn’t want.
Her fellow lab workers were chatting as they cleared their stations, making small talk that she couldn’t force her mind to follow. What did she care if a certain film was playing at the theater, or if a coworker’s insipid cousin had been jilted by his third fiancée in as many years? She was on a mission vitally important to them all.
After hanging up her lab coat, she retrieved her bag and trailed the others from the lab, toward the security checkpoint where guards routinely opened briefcases and purses, pawing through their contents, but were otherwise content to let the workers pass. Darice couldn’t recall the last time a lab employee had been frisked or asked to empty pockets.
It was with a sense of panic, then, that she beheld the guards in front of her this day. Two extra had been added to the team, a man and woman, both equipped with flat wands she recognized as handheld metal detectors.
Pahlavi was certain she would faint, but she recovered by sheer force of will. She couldn’t pass inspection with the wands, which left two choices. Either she could double back and ditch the CD-ROMs, or she could find another way out of the lab complex.
Was there another way?
Determined to find out, she turned, making a show of searching through her purse as if for something she’d misplaced, and quickly walked back toward the lab.
1
Southwestern Pakistan
“The trick,” they’d warned him, “isn’t getting in or out of Pakistan. It’s getting in and out.” Eight hours on the ground, and Mack Bolan already had a fair idea of what they’d meant. He’d been here before.
Aside from its northwestern quadrant, ruled by Pashto-speaking clans who’d never paid a rupee to the government in taxes and who’d rather strip an unknown visitor down to his skin than offer him the time of day, the bulk of Pakistan was long accustomed to a thriving tourist trade. British adventurers had led the way, when Pakistan was still a part of India, and during modern times there’d never been a dearth of hikers, mountain climbers, or exotic hippie-types who came to groove on Eastern vibes and drugs.
The country welcomed everyone, but getting out could be a challenge. Departure meant an exit visa, often challenged by venal immigration officers at the eleventh hour, when they noticed various “irregularities” that triggered new and unexpected fees or fines. Export of anything resembling antiquities could land a tourist in hot water, as much as the drugs and weapons that were sold as freely in most market towns as fresh produce. Rugs purchased in Pakistan required an export permit, even when the local vendors ardently denied it and refused to furnish them.
Getting in was easy, getting out required finesse.
But at the moment, Bolan’s main concern was how to stay alive while he completed his work in Pakistan.
The nation as a whole was dangerous, no doubt about it. Some observers ranked Karachi as the world’s most hazardous city, with an average of eight political murders each day, compounded by the toll of mercenary street crime.
Shopping for hardware in Karachi had been easy, once the Executioner found the dealer recommended to him by his contacts at Stony Man Farm, in Virginia. Many Pakistani arms merchants, like the drug traffickers, would sell to foreigners, then rat them out to the police for a reward on top of what they’d already been paid. Bolan’s contact, he’d been assured, was “straight.” He’d sell to anyone and squeal on no one, understanding that his business depended on discretion as the better part of valor.
In the dealer’s cramped back room, Bolan had surveyed the merchandise and had gone Russian for the rifle, picking out an AKMS with its folding metal stock, together with a dozen extra magazines. For antipersonnel grenades, he chose the reliable Russian RGD-5s. He’d gone Swiss for his side arm, choosing a SIG-Sauer P-226, the 9 mm with a 15-round magazine, its muzzle threaded to accept a sturdy sound suppressor. His final purchase was a fighting knife of uncertain ancestry, with a twelve-inch blade, serrated on the spine, and a brass pommel stud designed for cracking skulls. Once he’d put it all together in a duffel bag, he was good to go.
Go where?
He had directions and a detailed map, and a satellite phone in case he absolutely needed immediate help in English. If that happened, Bolan reckoned it would be before he met his contact.
If he met his contact.
Negotiating the Pakistani countryside was at least as perilous as crossing a chaotic street in downtown Lahore or Karachi. Dacoits—well-organized bandits who often worked straight jobs by day, then moonlighted as highwaymen—posed one potential obstacle to travelers. And local warlords might exact tribute from passersby while drug runners or traffickers in other forms of contraband were prone to spilling blood whenever they encountered a potential witness to their criminal activities. Plus, a thriving black market revolving around kidnapping for ransom, all ensured the backcountry was dangerous indeed.
But so was Bolan.
His potential adversaries simply didn’t know it yet.
The Executioner kept a keen eye out for bandits and for government patrols as he drove north from Karachi toward Bela. He was supposed to meet his contact, maybe plural, at a rest stop west of Bela, and he didn’t want police or soldiers stopping him along the way, perhaps searching his Land Rover and asking why he needed military weapons for a drive around the countryside. The less contact he had with men in uniform, the better for his mission.
Bela was nothing much to look at, once a visitor got past the gaudy marketplace, and Bolan had no need to stop or browse. He headed west from town, and fifteen minutes later saw the rest stop on his right, two hundred yards ahead, precisely where it had been indicated on his map.
