These three had their attention focused on stealing cautious glances over the ridge at the higher ground where the mujahedeen had dug in and so abruptly stopped shooting.

The darkness of night seemed to shift slightly, nothing more, and Death came at the two closest to Bolan when he plowed into them from above and at an angle. He wrapped an arm around each of them and took the men with him in a tumbling fall that keeled over the third in a startled series of grunts that were lost beneath the gunfire from the remaining badmash. Bolan grabbed the skull of each man he had dragged down, gripping their heads like a pair of stones. Then he cracked them with all his strength.

The two dazed men toppled to either side, their brains leaking from their ears, faces frozen masks of death.

The third bandit reacted as fast as a striking scorpion, his wiry body scrambling on all fours trying to escape Bolan, mouth opening to shout warning to the others that Death had come for them. Bolan left the two kills and moved faster. He grabbed the guy by the ankle and tugged with enough strength to flip him onto the ground. Then the Executioner pounced, his combat knife slashing before this one's squeal of surprise and fear could reach his lips. Bolan pinned the man, then turned him with one strong movement. Blood spurted across the ground as one back-swipe of the blade brought instant death... and bought a few more heartbeats of advantage for the nightstalker named Bolan. He cleaned blood off the blade on the robe of one of the corpses, then sheathed the blade on the move and shouldered the silenced MAC-10 SMG. He estimated he had another thirty to thirty-five seconds before Alja's men would recommence firing.

He started for the dividing rock formation that blocked his attack from view of the other bandits, some of whom continued to pull off single shots across the clearing. He almost reached the cluster of boulders when battle-honed senses caught movement coming around the far side of the heap of stone. Bolan fell into a low crouch, icy eyes and ready weapon probing the night. One of the hill bandits coming over with a message from the boss man.

The guy saw Bolan and started to open his mouth to shout, at the same time swinging his AK-47 around at Bolan.

The Executioner triggered a silenced blast from the MAC-10 that widened the guy's mouth into a big black hole that gushed black blood, the killing and the dying both silent enough to be lost beneath the sniping fire of the cannibals on the other side of the rock.

Bolan hurried to the summit of rock and stayed in a low crouch. He opened fire on the six men huddled beneath a continuation of the ridge. The two nearest Bolan died instantly, plunging face forward into the rock, backs shredded and gushing blood.

The next two down the line began swinging around in Bolan's direction, looking for targets, but their night vision goggles could not discern their attacker.

The second duo at the far end tried falling away from what they knew to be coming, tracking their AK'S forward into firing positions, backpedaling to seek-cover.

Bolan took out the first pair with quick bursts.

The two had their rifles halfway tracked on target. The impact of the lethal hail lifted them off their feet and slammed them onto their backs and into Hell or Paradise, Bolan did not give a damn. The last two managed to bring their weapons around to firing position. They fanned apart from each other. The one on the right unleashed a burst.

Bolan had already dived sideways in a combat roll and came up well out of the bandits' line of fire.

The bandits crouched, tense, looking around with night-vision-goggled eyes, the snouts of their rifles panning the gloom. They did not step close enough together, figuring they'd be taken out with a single quick barrage from the MAC-10; to take out one meant Bolan must pinpoint his position to the other.

The Executioner triggered a blast that sent the guy on the right into a wide-armed deadfall to the ground.

The other man saw the winking Ingram and fired, but he missed Bolan because the nightfighter had already gone into another roll. The Executioner came out of the roll with the MAC-10 blazing, his hands shuddering from the motion of the cooking SMG as the deadly stream of silenced sizzlers pulped the last hill bandit.

Alja Malikyar glanced nervously at the luminous dials of the Russian wristwatch that he'd taken from the body of a Soviet major after the ambush of an armored column six months ago on the "black road," the Kabul-Jalalabad highway.

Six seconds... and Alja intended to order his four surviving men to open fire on the position of the badmash, even though the sniping from the hill bandits had ceased at least half a minute ago.

Alja decided to give the American an additional fifteen seconds. The mujahedeen team leader wanted the "combat specialist" from across the ocean to have every last edge, but Alja somehow sensed that it was already too late for someone.

Death hung in the air.

Then he heard the American call just loud enough for stony words to carry on the night wind.

"Alja, it's finished down here. I'm coming up. Tell your men."

Alja translated Bolan's words into Pashto for those of his team who did not speak English. Then he called back to the darkness. "They will not fire. Come forward, kuvii Bolan."

Alja relaxed. A sense of finality as well as death filled the hellzone. The big American's voice clearly told who had won out there. Alja Malikyar strained his eyes but could neither see nor hear the approaching soldier.

Alja had grown up working the fields with his father and brother in a village near Gardez, the capital of Pakitia province. When the resistance struggle gathered momentum even before the Soviet Union intervened, Alja joined the mujahedeen in the mountains. He often worried about his father, too old and obstinate to leave the village, but his mother and brothers had gone to a refugee camp in Bannu in Pakistan.

At that moment, the darkness somehow seemed to shift and the American materialized, sliding up the night vision goggles as he reached the mujahedeen. "Well done, my friends."

"And you, kuvii Bolan. You must truly have some Afghan blood in you."

"We must hurry to make up for lost time, kuvii Malikyar. We leave our dead."

Alja nodded.

"And so we shall, for their souls are already in Paradise with Mohammed-martyrs of Islam."

Bolan nodded his understanding of Muslim belief and slipped the NVD goggles back into place, again one with the dark.

"Let's move out."

"As you say."

Alja issued orders to his surviving men and the whittled-down patrol continued on through the night across terrain that became more rugged every step of the way.

Alja Malikyar needed no prompting. Malik Tarik Khan had stressed the importance of their rendezvous in the mountains over Kabul, still a several-hour march away.

Hundreds of thousands of Afghan lives are at stake, malik Khan had emphasized to Alja before sending him to meet and return with Bolan. Their fate rides on the shoulders of one man, the one called the Executioner, and he may already be too late.

Alja felt an eerie chill as he jogged alongside this man in blacksuit whom he could not see and could barely hear. It was as if the shadow of Allah's angel of Death ran with Alja.