“Russians believe their tanks invincible.”

  “Maybe. We’d better separate. I’ll cross to the opposite cliff.”

  Rambo shoved the radio transmitter into the knapsack on his back, slung his combination rifle-grenade launcher over his shoulder, and squirmed over the cliff. It had ample outcrops for hand and footholds.

  “You fight with us. Now you are one of us,” Mousa said.

  4

  He was halfway across the road when the startling clank of tank treads echoed from the pass. Amplified by the narrow cliffs, the crunch of metal over stone seemed very near. Diesel engines roared, becoming louder with dismaying speed.

  No!

  He broke into a run. At the side of the road, he dived, crawled frantically over jagged stones, and huddled behind a chest-high rock.

  A cannon barrel emerged from the pass. At fifty miles an hour, an armored personnel carrier sped into view, its treads a blur. The armored carrier was long, low, and narrow, an antitank missile on top of its cannon, a machine-gun barrel on its turret, other machine guns on its front. It was built to hold a crew of five, along with six soldiers in a passenger compartment.

  Another emerged. And another. Then a tank, dwarving the armored carriers. Trucks filled with soldiers sped out of the pass. Four, five, six. Five others were still in the pass. And farther back were another tank and two more armored carriers.

  They lunged into sight so quickly that Rambo didn’t have time to tug the knapsack off his back, yank out the radio transmitter, dial to the number he wanted, and push the button.

  Blow the charges, Mousa!

  But nothing happened.

  Rambo suddenly understood. Mousa’s afraid I’m too close to the charges.

  Push the button, Mousa!

  Rambo tugged at his knapsack. Do it, Mousa!

  A stunning blast knocked him backward. A second blast walloped his ears. As he scrambled to return to the boulder, flying rocks cracked against it. Shards tore up sand around him, a chunk of stone bouncing past his knee. Amid smoke and debris, the cliffs heaved, shattered, and fell, tons of stone plummeting onto the five trucks, the two armored carriers, and the tank still in the pass. Metal cracked. Dust billowed.

  Rambo sensed more than saw and heard this. Disoriented by the force of the blasts, he managed to free the knapsack from his back. Transmitter in one hand, rifle in the other, he raced toward a boulder twenty yards behind him.

  The vehicles that were out of the pass halted. Soldiers jumped out of six trucks, burly Speznaz commandos firing as they landed and crouched. Turrets pivoted on the two armored carriers. Machine guns fired from the front of the tank.

  The holy warriors had thrown off their sand-colored blankets and started firing the moment the cliffs exploded. The single cracks of Enfield rifles could barely be heard amid the clatter of M-16s. Even louder was the persistent staccato of a twenty-year-old Chinese machine gun.

  Speznaz soldiers fell, but most reached the cover of boulders, returning fire with their AK-47s. An armored carrier fired its cannon. An instant later the tank jerked as its larger cannon roared. The ground shook. Boulders disintegrated..

  In the pass, the fallen cliff walls had only partially done their job. Three trucks and one armored carrier had been squeezed by rocks but not destroyed. Soldiers scurried out of them, clambering over piles of rubble, anxious to join the fight.

  Rambo twisted the dial on his transmitter. Locked on the number he wanted, he pushed the button. Another section of cliff exploded, thrusting rocks down on the screaming soldiers. He twisted the dial to another number, but before he could press the button, the opposite side of the pass blasted outward, toppling more rocks on the soldiers. That explosion had been caused by Mousa, Rambo realized, and pushed the number that he himself had dialed. Whoom! More rocks cascaded.

  A rapid volley of bullets ricocheted off the boulder he used for cover. Sand flew up around him. The armored carrier had spotted him.

  Rambo hurriedly dialed to five and pressed the button on his transmitter. Thunder heaved the sand before the carrier, rocks clattering over metal, but the carrier hadn’t been damaged. He hadn’t expected it would be. The charge had been too far ahead. But the swirl of sand from the blast would hamper the gunner’s vision and give Rambo a chance to reach better cover.

  Running backward, firing his rifle with disciplined bursts, he bumped against a boulder and frantically slumped behind it as the armored carrier boomed. Its gunner had decided to shoot, even if he couldn’t see his target. The boulder that Rambo had fled blew into pieces, smoke wafting over him, stinging his nostrils.

  The Afghans kept shooting. A shell from a much-repaired eighty-eight-millimeter recoilless rifle struck the tank. The wallop was fierce but not enough to split the tank’s massive armor. The tank’s machine guns strafed the warriors.

  Rambo fired his rifle’s grenade launcher at Speznaz soldiers shooting from a cluster of rocks. Meanwhile, the tank’s cannon struck several Afghans.

  Whoom! The mouth of the pass turned into rubble, burying Soviets who’d found cover near it. Mousa again!

  Rambo kept firing.

  Abruptly, the explosions and gunfire around him were muted by a whoosh from the sky. A smoke-streaming rocket streaked into the valley. In a jolting burst, a clump of boulders became a crater. Cannons thundered from above the demolished pass. Rebels disintegrated. High ahead, Gatling guns sprayed one hundred bullets a second, cutting a trench through the sand, atomizing everything they touched.

  A Soviet gunship. The almost deafening noise of battle had prevented Rambo from hearing the roar of the MI-24’s approach. Despairingly huge, it surged above what had once been the pass and swooped toward the valley. Its grotesque wings flashed, launching two more rockets, its Gatling guns streaming fire.

  The attack turned into chaos. The earth shook. The rebels faced flaming, churning, exploding death wherever they looked.

  As the gunship rushed over the battle, the wind from its rotors raised swirling dust. The Soviets pressed their counterattack, multiplying the confusion. The rebels retreated.

  Rambo now understood what had troubled him when he’d studied the pass before the Soviets came through. The pass was so obvious a trap that the Soviets would have wanted air surveillance. The bird of death was probably supposed to check the pass before the column came through, but something must have detained it, forcing it to arrive a minute too late.

  Too late at least to subdue the attack, but not too late to destroy the attackers.

  The gunship circled the battle, skirting the bluff upon which Rambo had studied the pass, coming back for another devastating run. As it swooped down again, its underwing weapons firing, Rambo fought to steady himself on the shuddering ground. Rebels shot M-16s at the gunship, their effort useless. Even if their bullets somehow struck the speeding gunship, the hits would do no damage to its armor.

  But something else could. Pulse hammering behind his ears, Rambo twisted the transmitter’s dial. Enveloped by smoke and dust, he could barely see the number he wanted. His body trembled from explosions around him. The rumbling gunship again passed overhead. Again it circled the battle zone. Again, as smoke cleared, Rambo saw it skirt the bluff adjacent to the pass.

  He pushed the transmitter’s button. The bluff erupted. Hurriedly he switched the dial to another number. He pushed the button again. Another explosion. While he’d waited for Mousa and the six moujahideen to place their charges, he’d set charges on his own, burying them along the top of that bluff.

  In case the battle spread in that direction. In case the rebels had to retreat across it and needed something to delay the enemy.

  In case. Always plan for the unexpected.

  Trautman had taught him that.

  Trautman.

  Rambo dialed and pressed the button again.

  The first explosion had jolted the gunship. But the gunship kept moving.

  The second explosion had turned the gunship on its side. But the gunship kept speeding.

  The third explosion turned the gunship all the way over. Its upside-down thrashing rotors couldn’t support the tons of weight pressing down on them.

  The boxcar with wings managed to hang in the air for a second longer. Then it fell as if in slow motion.

  But the flaming blast on impact came very quickly. A massive eruption of fire scorched the side of the bluff. The concussion made Rambo flinch. Is Mousa near that bluff? Did I kill him?

  Rambo flinched once more, this time from an armored carrier’s booming cannon. The shell hit twenty yards behind him. As the shouting rebels suspended their retreat and ran forward, again attacking, the armored carrier clanked ahead to meet them. An explosion beneath it tore off a tread and ruptured its belly. Flames gushed.

  The blast could have only one cause. A charge that Mousa had detonated. Mousa was still alive!

  An Afghan held the only rocket-propelled granade launcher these rebels had, a weapon to be hoarded until just the right time when its shooter was absolutely certain the projectile couldn’t fail to miss its mark. He fired the metal-piercing rocket and destroyed the second armored carrier, its ruptured hulk heaving as fuel and ammunition exploded within it.

  The remaining Soviet soldiers raced to escape through the rubble of the pass. Rebels chased them, shooting.

  But the tank moved forward, its machine guns firing.

  A wounded Afghan pulled the pin on a satchel charge and threw it before he died. Fuse smoking, the charge landed five feet from his hand. The tank kept coming, but it wouldn’t get close enough to be harmed when the charge went off. Rebels fired useless bullets at it.

  Rambo surged to his feet and raced toward the smoking satchel. He grabbed it and rushed toward the tank. Machine-gun fire forced him to dive. He threw the satchel onto the turret. The tank’s shadow reached him, its belly lumbering over him. Treads clanked fiercely on each side. Seeing sudden daylight at the rear of the tank, he rolled to his feet and raced, his legs straining. The blast knocked him forward. A hot wind singed his neck.

  The tank’s turret hung off its mount. The barrel tilted toward the ground. Flames gushed upward from the tank’s interior.

  When a shadow hovered over him, Rambo grabbed for his knife—and stopped when he saw Akram grinning, reaching down to help him stand.

  5

  Sporadic shots echoed from the pass, not the rattle of automatic weapons, instead the single cracks of bolt-action Enfield rifles. The rebels were chasing the retreating remnant of the Soviet force over the rubble that blocked the pass. Dust settled. Rebels scurried among the carnage, collecting Soviet weapons and ammunition.

  An Afghan slit a wounded Russian’s throat.

  Rambo looked away.

  It’s not my war!

  These people can barely feed themselves, let alone feed prisoners. They’ve got too many wounded of their own to spare medical supplies for wounded Russians. If they let their prisoners go, these Russians will return to kill more rebels. The rebels don’t have a choice. They’ve got to kill their prisoners.

  All the same…

  It’s not my war!

  A commotion made him turn. To the left, quite a distance from the battle zone, the rebels had formed an excited circle and jeered at something in the middle.

  Akram ran toward the jabbering crowd. Khalid and Rahim quickly joined him, shoving to reach the center.

  Rambo hurried there, also. When he saw what the rebels jeered at, he almost turned away. A Russian soldier—twenty years old at most—lay huddled on the sand, his arms clutched around his head, trying to shield himself from the stones that the Afghans hurled at him.

  A moujahideen pulled the Russian’s arms from his head. The young soldier risked a frightened glance upward. He reminded Rambo of a dog that had lost its spirit from too many beatings. Blond, blue-eyed, boyish, he had soft features fresh with the innocence of a victim, not an attacker.

  The rebels grabbed the Russian’s shoulders and spun him like a top. The Russian swirled in the sand and was struck with more pebbles. An Afghan drew a knife, grabbed the prisoner’s hair, jerked the victim’s head back to expose his throat, and slashed the knife toward…

  Rambo lunged through the crowd and grabbed the Afghan’s wrist an instant before the blade would have severed flesh. The knife’s glinting edge trembled a quarter inch from the Russian’s jugular vein, the Afghan straining against Rambo’s grip, Rambo applying more pressure to pull back the knife.

  The Afghan growled. Rambo twisted the knife from his grasp.

  The Afghan lurched back and aimed his rifle at Rambo’s chest.

  Khalid surged out of the crowd and pushed the barrel toward the ground. He blurted angry objections to the Afghan and spun toward Rambo, speaking even more angrily.

  “He say he save your life. He say he make up for you saving his daughter’s life. You should not have interfered,” an out-of-breath voice said with effort.

  Rambo turned and saw Mousa, but there wasn’t time to say, Thank God, you’re alive!

  The Afghans scowled harder, tension making them rigid.

  Rahim spoke with fury.

  Mousa translated. “You take this man’s knife. You dishonor him. Insult must be punished.”

  “I didn’t mean to insult him.”

  “Afghan never attack Afghan.”

  “But I’m not one of you. I don’t understand your ways!”

  “Keep voice low,” Mousa warned. “Afghan never shout. Use force of words. Shout is insult.”

  Rambo struggled to calm his voice. “Tell him I meant no dishonor. I respect his bravery. He’s a mighty warrior. But I couldn’t let him kill the prisoner. I wouldn’t have interfered without a good reason. If he’ll just listen…”

  The Afghan whose knife Rambo had taken trembled with rage.

  “Tell him I apologize. This is how much I humble myself before him.”

  Rambo pressed the knife against his own forearm and slowly sliced the blade across his flesh.

  Rambo’s blood welled.

  The Afghan straightened.

  Rambo handed the knife, butt forward, toward the Afghan. “I am deeply sorry. Your honor remains intact. You did not draw your knife in vain. It did taste blood.”

  The Afghan hesitated.

  “To forgive is to place me in your debt,” Rambo said.

  Blood dripped from Rambo’s arm.

  The warrior brooded, shuddered with indignance, and took the knife.

  “Thank you,” Rambo said.

  The Afghans murmured in approval.

  Rambo’s shoulders relaxed.

  The warrior spoke gruffly.

  “He say better this way,” Mousa tanslated. “Obey Koran. Have trial. Assess. Be just. And then kill Soviet.”

  Rahim said, “No. The Koran demands a trial only for fellow Muslims. Infidels are not protected by our laws. This soldier is worse than an infidel. He is an atheist and a coward. When we attacked, he ran to these rocks and hid. He does not deserve the dignity of a trial. The executioner should remove this dog-scum from our sight and behead him.”

  The Afghans nodded. The lean executioner stepped forward with his ax.

  “Mousa, tell them no.” Rambo emphasized his words, straining not to shout. “Tell them I need this man. Tell them I think he can help me save my friend.”

  “We will discuss this in council,” Akram said.

  “And discuss something else while you’re at it,” Rambo said. “Since I got here, I’ve been doing everybody favors. It’s time someone did me a favor. You promised to help me find my friend. You keep talking about your honor. Obey your promise. If this man can help me, let him live.”

  The Afghans looked astonished.

  “It is bad,” Mousa said. “You should not question their word. They have only two choices now. To kill you or do what you ask.”

  Akram stepped forward. “You claim I will not keep my promise?”

  “I’m reminding you of it.”

  “You know what you risk by speaking so bluntly?”

  Ramnbo nodded.

  “Your friend must mean a great deal to you.”

  Rambo nodded again.

  Akram studied him. “You have the loyalty of an Afghan. We will spare this man for you. But if he does not help, it is you who will need to behead him.”

  6

  Trautman lifted his swollen face from a pool of blood. In the blinding glare of his cell, he squinted toward the small barred window in the door. He heard noises out there, reverberating along the corridor. Trautman struggled to concentrate.

  Footsteps.

  Yes. But not the confident march of Colonel Zaysan and Sergeant Kourov coming back to question and beat him again.

  No, these footsteps shuffled.

  Many of them. Someone fell. A club struck flesh. A man groaned. Another pleaded. The club struck more flesh. A guard snapped orders. The footsteps continued shuffling.

  Trautman groped to his hands and knees. Clutching the wall, he managed to raise himself and groped toward the window in his door.

  Through its bars, he saw Afghans stumbling past, pushed by guards. Although his vision was fuzzy, Trautman managed to count at least ten prisoners, and although his thoughts were cloudy, he retained sufficient presence of mind to realize that the prisoners hadn’t just arrived. They weren’t being shoved toward cells. The opposite. The guards were herding them in the direction from which Colonel Zaysan always came.

  Toward the door through which Trautman had been carried here.

  Toward the fortress courtyard.

  Trautman’s legs refused to support him. He slid down from the window, his face against metal, his mangled lips trailing a smear of blood.

  He felt a sickening premonition.

  As he slumped on the floor, he knew that if the Soviets were releasing these prisoners, the guards would have treated them differently. And the prisoners would not have resisted, would not have begged.

  It was hardly likely that ten prisoners would be questioned together.