Warlord

buckshot shells. In close quarters, nothing was deadlier than the Judge.

Giving her the loaded gun, Brock had said, 'Remember, Sahira, in the eyes of Islamic militants, there are only two places for Muslim women. In the husband's home. And in the graveyard. Don't hesitate to use this thing.'

The good news was that Islamabad rolled up its sidewalks at ten o'clock each evening and there was normally little to no walk-in traffic at the hospital at this hour. So far, their luck was holding.

Hawke led his team past the four banks of gleaming elevators. He turned right, entering a long hallway. At the end was a set of stainless-steel swinging doors. The sign above read mortuary/restricted.

Inside the green-tiled morgue, the stinging stench was immediate and almost overpowering. The myriad, nameless chemicals of the constantly processed dead. It was then that Hawke remembered the old trick of rubbing Vick's VapoRub under one's nose, but it was too late. At least the place was empty, just as Hawke had hoped it would be.

They quickly moved past the banks of stainless-steel refrigerators to an area where all the mortuary chemicals and supplies were stored. Hawke quickly located the black steel panel in the wall that the VIP receptionist had described. There was a card reader beside the panel. He swiped the silver card she'd given him and the doors slid open.

Inside the elevator was an identical card reader in place of any buttons. Hawke swiped his card once more and felt his heels lifting in his shoes as the elevator dropped swiftly and smoothly. It was a long ride and Hawke sensed they were going deeply underground. Deep enough so that no American bunker-buster bomb could ever penetrate.

Hawke pulled his SIG P226 Tactical pistol from his thigh holster and chambered a round. The other two did the same. All three weapons had three-inch barrels and were fitted with noise suppressors. And all three men wore Kevlar body armor under their flowing robes.

An electronic ping announced their arrival. They came to a gentle stop and the doors opened on a small room with four opaque white glass walls. Against one wall stood a single wooden chair. A gaunt, bearded man with a gun was seated in that chair.

The lone guard, shocked at their appearance, raised his AK and demanded to know what these three doctors were doing in a secure area.

Brock erupted into a flurry of furious Urdu and Pashtu epithets, barking at the man in loud gibberish, enough to distract him for a moment.

Simultaneously, Hawke brought up his pistol in one fluid movement and put a silent round into the guard's right eye. The man toppled from the chair and dropped to the floor, blood pouring from his wound, his weapon clattering on the polished white marble floor, even as the three men stepped out of the elevator.

'Okay,' Harry Brock said, stepping nonchalantly over the corpse and looking around the bare room. 'Now what? No doors, no nothing. This is it, huh? The Headquarters of the Evil Empire?'

'Has to be something here,' Hawke said, running his hand over the smooth glass wall behind the chair. He moved to the adjacent wall to his right and repeated the process. 'Stoke, check that wall to your left.' Stoke did.

'Don't bother. Here it is,' Hawke said.

'Here's what?' Brock asked.

'Biometric screening device. Compares stored images of fingerprints with anyone desiring access.'

Hawke placed his hand against the barely visible screen and activated it. A green bar rolled down the small screen, scanning his five digits. It flashed red three times and then shut down.

'Stokely, do me a favor,' Hawke said. 'Bring that recently deceased fellow over here, will you please?'

'See that?' Stoke said to Harry as he dragged the corpse over to Hawke. 'That's called using your head. Put the guard's hand on the screen, right, you see what the man's thinking?'

Hawke grabbed the corpse's right wrist as Stoke lifted the lifeless body from the floor. He carefully placed the man's hand flat against the screen and pressed. Again, the rolling green bar. Again, the five red flashes.

'Shit,' Stoke said, and the three men looked at one another.

'He's wearing his watch on his right wrist,' Hawke said. 'He's a lefty. Bet on it.'

Hawke placed the dead man's left hand on the screen, the green bar rolled down, and the entire glass wall suddenly slid into the floor. 'That's what I'm talking about,' Stoke said, peering into the dimly lit corridor that lay beyond the room. Light was visible through the cracks in a pair of double doors at the far end. Hawke held up his hand for silence and began speaking in a calm, low voice.

'Heads up. We stack up outside the door,' Hawke said. 'Me, Stoke, then Harry. Assume the door is locked. Assume there will be enemy fire from within. Possible booby traps. Who the hell knows. I'll fire a short burst at the latch and kick both doors open. Got it?'

The two men nodded silently.

'As soon as the doors are open, I drop to one knee and Stoke skip-bounces a concussion grenade hard off the floor into the room so they can't toss it back. Then, Stoke, throw one smoke and two frags. I'll provide covering fire while you do it. Then you stack up again. Our grenades go in, I issue the verbal alert, 'Frag out.' If I see any incoming enemy grenades, the verbal alert is 'Grenades.' Pick them up and heave them back. Clear?'

'Clear,' Stoke said.

'Clear,' Brock said.

'We go in with weapons in the ready-carry position. Full auto. I'll cross the threshold, go left, and clear my immediate area. Stoke, you enter immediately following, buttonhook, and clear the adjacent sector. Once we're in position, I shout, 'Next man in.' Brock moves to one side of the door and establishes a center sector of fire coverage. Got it?'

'Got it.'

'We're going in now,' Hawke said, the pumping adrenaline obvious in his voice. 'Ready, go.'

The three men moved quickly to the door and stacked up one behind the other. Hawke fired a short burst into the door latch, took a step back, and kicked it wide open. Hawke took a knee. Stoke pulled the pin on the concussion grenade and overhanded it off the marble floor so hard that it bounced twice going into the room. Then he threw the two fragmentation grenades and a smoke. A good bit of hell broke loose and then some.

A skeleton crew of Taliban militants had been manning a bank of monitors on the far wall. Hawke instantly scanned the command and control room, left to right. The two frag grenades had killed or severely incapacitated some of the men. But Hawke saw six more soldiers who'd been playing cards seated at a round table far to the right. All were stunned, but they had survived unharmed and quickly recovered. Seeing Hawke, then Stokely and Brock enter the room, they grabbed their weapons, threw the heavy wooden table over for cover, raised their AKs, and started firing wildly.

'On your right,' Hawke said, seeing two men dive from behind the table and scramble for cover in a nearby alcove. 'Smoke 'em, Harry, and go to cover.'

Brock fired a sustained burst and the two men stopped shooting and living simultaneously. At that moment Harry sensed noise and movement from behind him. He whirled and saw the doors of another elevator opening into the room. Inside were three guys in green surgical scrubs carrying automatic weapons.

Harry began firing into the elevator car before the doors were fully opened. Two of the three Talibs inside never stood a chance. The third was unhurt and had Harry pinned down, crouching behind a very small wooden chair.

'Over here, mothercusser!' Stoke yelled at the last remaining elevator guy, diverting his focus away from Brock. 'I'm putting a fatwa on your ugly ass!'

The guy looked wide-eyed at Stoke's yawning black muzzle and that was his last look ever. Stoke saw Hawke signal and hurled himself across the room to join him.

Stoke and Hawke took cover behind a large slab of marble being used as a desk. Rounds were taking chunks out of the stone. Hawke got Stoke's attention, mimicked pulling the pin on a grenade, and snatched one from his webbed utility belt. He pulled the pin and let the frag grenade 'cook off' in his hand before heaving it over the upended table.

Stoke cringed at Hawke's decision. Cooking off grenades was an extremely dangerous thing to do since frag fuses were not completely reliable. On the other hand, this action eliminated any chance of the enemy hurling it back.

'One…two…and…' Hawke said before rising up and tossing it across the room where it dropped just behind the