168 Blood price by Don Pendleton

Author:Don Pendleton
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE NIGHT WAS COOL and the countryside wasn't difficult to cross. The team moved through flocks without disturbing them enough to raise an alarm. Once they crossed a paved road.

"The main highway to Saravabad," Barnes commented.

As it turned out, Barnes was a good man to have along. He hadn't spent as many years in Karachistan as Behzad or Zabara and his daughter, but he had a rough knowledge of the country. And, better than that, it was the kind of knowledge a mercenary soldier picked up: where to purchase certain items, their price. Also, he'd seen parts of Saravabad that Anahita and Raima, and most likely Suleiman, hadn't seen: the sinks and brothels that weren't supposed to exist, the barracks, the arsenals, the antiaircraft missile sites.

What was more, he was totally cynical. He didn't hate the Karachistanis. His main aim was not to let himself be outsmarted by them. Or defeated.

At dawn the team took refuge in two unroofed barns of mud brick. When they were settled and the first shift of sentries posted, Bolan went to Behzad and told her he wanted to go into the city.

Half an hour later they left the barn and walked to the road—Behzad wearing a long black chador that covered her from head to toe, Bolan dressed in the tattered wool robe, of a shepherd, with a turban wound for him by Sadir. His military boots would have given him away, so he had smeared his feet with dust and was wearing a pair of sandals Sadir had been carrying in the expectation that he, not Bolan, would to this probe. His face was tanned enough that his complexion wouldn't give him away, especially after a thorough rubbing of dust—although his blue eyes certainly would if he forgot to keep them cast down as he walked. Both he and Behzad carried Berettas under their robes.

From outside the city it was obvious that Saravabad was an artificial town with no real reason for existence other than Nassim's decree that it be built and that the government of Karachistan be conducted from there. In any real Karachistani town in the morning herders and farmers would be bringing their lambs to market, carrying a few vegetables, a little fruit, a few measures of corn. Merchants would be settling down in their places on the streets to sell the 'collection of odds and ends that typified Middle Eastern bazaars. The air should have been heavy with dust, the stink of manure, the perfume of strong coffee, the smells of street cooking.

Saravabad was different. The streets were lined with spare, square buildings, almost deserted except for detachments of Cobras and officious-looking men striding in a hurry from one building to another.

Only near the mosque was Saravabad anything like a normal Middle Eastern town. Near the mosque a few merchants squatted on the pavement, a few tiny shops offered coffee and tobacco, a few tethered lambs bawled in terror.

Entering the courtyard of the mosque, Bolan kept his eyes down, careful not to gaze into anyone's face.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.