At the risk of being spotted and mistaken for the enemy, he pushed away from the half-submerged tree and circled around the peninsula, then slowly swam toward the far shore of the small lake. By the time he reached it, the Little Bird had let up on its offensive. The chopper was about to drift toward the precipice when it suddenly shifted course. Its halogen searchlight swept across the lake, falling on Bolan as he pulled himself from the water. The Executioner straggled ashore, half-numbed by the cold water but still able to feel countless bruises he’d sustained since first going over the side of the ridgeline.
The chopper dropped to within a few yards of the embankment. The copilot reached out and helped Bolan up onto the skid.
“Don’t think we can squeeze you in here,” the copilot shouted over the blare of the rotors.
“I’m fine here,” Bolan replied, taking hold of the open door frame as the copter pulled away from the lake, listing at a slight angle to compensate for his added weight.
“There were a couple snipers above the ridgeline,” he told the copilot, a Native American in his late twenties.
“Didn’t see ’em,” the other man told him, “but they’ll have to wait. We’ve got an SOS from Team Five. Taliban popped up out of nowhere and have ’em pinned.”
Bolan changed the subject. “You got a dry weapon in there?”
“Sure thing.” The copilot reached behind his seat and handed Bolan a foot-long Heckler & Koch MP-5 K submachine gun. The H&K was larger than his Beretta but still fit snugly in his right palm. It packed a greater wallop, too. Bolan knew that if he kept the weapon close-bolted, he’d be able to fire from the skid with minimal kickback, ensuring better accuracy.
“Where’s O’Brien?” the copilot asked.
“Caught a land mine up on the ridge,” Bolan told him. “Snipers started in on us before I could call for help. He’s gone.”
The copilot spit and readied one hand on the trigger operating the Little Bird’s outer machine gun. “Bastards!”
The men fell silent as the AH-6J banked into the clouds, using them for cover en route to the distant skirmish. Peering down through the mist, Bolan spotted another of the U.S. commando squads spread out in a column, threading their way along one of the mountain trails. They still had a few switchbacks to negotiate, however, and the Executioner doubted they’d reach the battle in time to be a factor.
Once they emerged from the cloud cover, Bolan saw a CH-47 Chinook hovering in place a quarter mile ahead over terrain that looked much the same as the area he’d just left—half-barren mountains ribboned with narrow trails and pocked by bombs and mortar fire. The Chinook’s tail gunner dispensed fire into the brush along a footpath high up near the top of a steep gorge. As they drew closer, Bolan saw a shadowed figure take a hit and plummet into the crevasse. Close by, a second Taliban crouched behind a large boulder, unseen by the tail gunner, drawing a bead on the Chinook with a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher. The Executioner whipped his H&K into firing position and steadied himself on the Little Bird’s skid. He cut loose with a single round, striking the boulder. When the Taliban turned toward him, Bolan was ready with a follow-up shot. This time he didn’t miss.
“Beat me to him,” the copilot shouted to Bolan. “Nice shot.”
Bolan pointed to the trail leading away from where he’d dropped the insurgent. “That looks like their way out,” he yelled. “Get me as close as you can!”
Bolan’s command was relayed to the pilot. The AH-6J promptly swerved right, then dipped toward the trail. Bolan crouched on the skid and waited until the chopper drew closer, then, clutching the MP-5, he pushed clear and dropped to the ground. He landed hard and felt a sharp pain in his right ankle as he lurched away from where the trailed dropped off into the abyss. He struck the rock facing just off the trail and winced as jagged gneiss bit through his shirt, drawing blood. Bolan ignored the wound and braced himself, ready to face the enemy.
3
Aden Saleh cursed as he watched one of his fellow warriors keel into the ravine, the victim of rounds fired from the large American warbird thundering out in the misty night air before him. The hope had been that dust storms forecast for the evening would have reached far enough into the mountains to thwart visibility and keep gunships from responding to the Taliban assault. Such had not been the case, now Saleh’s men were paying the price. Yes, they’d managed to take the enemy by surprise and decimate those who would have done the same to them, but the arrival of the helicopters threatened their chances of making a safe retreat to the tunnels through which they’d been able to reach the attack site undetected.
Saleh, a lean, grim-faced man who’d spent nearly half his thirty years rising up through the Taliban ranks, directed his wrath at the hovering Chinook, emptying the last rounds from his Kalashnikov, to little effect. His ammunition spent, he cast the assault rifle aside and yanked a 9 mm Ruger from his waistband. Fifty yards to his left, a smaller chopper had just deposited a soldier on the same footpath where he now stood. The entrance to the tunnel lay between them, but Saleh was closer to it and had no intention of letting the other man prevent him from making his getaway. He whirled and fired, forcing the enemy to cover, then charged forward, mere steps ahead of a strafing round fired his way from the Chinook.
Halfway to the bend where he’d last seen the American, Saleh threw himself to the ground and crawled off the path. He squeezed past a mound of holly just off the trail, then bellied his way beneath a rock formation protruding from the canyon wall. There, in the cold darkness, a manhole-size opening yawned its welcome. Saleh burrowed through the gap and wriggled past a loose boulder, following a narrow shaft to the point where it widened enough for him to rise to his knees. He had no interest in backtracking to reset the boulder that had earlier helped conceal the opening. If anything, at this point he hoped his pursuer would find the entrance and come after him.
Saleh crawled a few more yards, then squirmed clear of the shaft, entering a larger tunnel tall enough to stand in. He quickly brushed himself off, then made his way to the first turn. There he stopped and shoved the Ruger back in his waistband, and pulled from beneath the folds of his shirt a Soviet-made F-1 fragmentation grenade. He thumbed loose the cotter ring, then, pressing the safety lever, he drew in a breath, hoping to soothe the loud clamor of his racing heart. He needed to be able to hear the infidel’s approach, so that he would know when to let fly with the limonka and turn the entrance shaft into a death trap.
BOLAN STAYED PUT once the insurgent’s 9 mm serenade drove him to cover. There was no way for him to round the bend without placing himself back in the line of fire. By the same token, he figured the enemy would be unable to flee any farther without coming his way. Judging from the hail of gunfire spewing from the two choppers, the Executioner also thought there was a good chance any of the retreating Taliban would be dispensed with before they reached him.
As he awaited his next move, Bolan felt the warm trickle of blood running down his shoulder. He shrugged it off and tested his arm, then tried putting his full weight on his right foot. The ankle felt sprained, but not severely enough to hinder him, and he was certain that, at worse, he’d only need a couple stitches in his shoulder. He’d fought on countless times in the past with far worse injuries.
The firefight went on without him, but not for long. Soon the only shots were being fired from the helicopters, and then their guns fell silent, as well. As the Chinook lumbered away, the Little Bird pulled back from its firing position and briefly shone its light on the trail leading to the attack site, then slowly drifted Bolan’s way. Once the chopper was within shouting range, the copilot called out to Bolan.
“I
