'Now comes the hard part,' Hawke said, walking over to the nearest camel. First, he removed the leather saddlebags from the animal and threw them to the ground. Then he put his pistol to the side of the beast's head and pulled the trigger. The camel shuddered and dropped right on top of the berm. Hawke then cinched the saddlebags to the camel's carcass facing outward. All those leather packs and saddles full of water and canned goods would afford a little more protection.
He turned and beckoned Patoo toward him.
'Patoo, I want you to go make sure absolutely every one of your men is armed to the teeth, has plenty of ammunition, and is positioned shoulder to shoulder inside this circle in five minutes. Run!'
'Yes, sir!'
'This is how you do it,' he said to his men, moving on to the next mule, raising his pistol to the animal's head and repeating the process. In five minutes he, Brock, Stoke, and a couple of others had killed all the animals, creating a makeshift breastworks around the diameter that now stood about five feet in height. High enough to provide protection, low enough to fire over. It was hardly an ideal fortification, Hawke thought, surveying it, but it would simply have to do under the circumstances.
At least he'd fight with good men at his side.
One look at the dark-eyed and heavily bearded militia and he knew Patoo had chosen his small band of fighters carefully. Hawke had been constantly studying them, assessing their willingness to fight when things got spicy.
Then he'd seen the looks on their faces as the battle drew nigh. He'd never seen such volcanic hatred in men's eyes. These were men-and boys-who'd seen the Taliban stone their sisters and mothers to death for sport, or cut off the fingers of anyone caught smoking. Seen Taliban thugs drag their fathers and brothers from their houses into the streets. Where they were castrated and then beheaded and left to rot where they died. Their brothers' heads mounted on pikes on the roads that led into their villages, welcoming them home with empty eye sockets.
At night, the Taliban would roam the streets, amusing themselves with a game they laughingly called the 'Dance of the Dead.'
They would prop a beheaded corpse upright and pour gasoline into the open neck. When they set them afire, the dead would jerk their limbs spasmodically and kick their hideously bent legs outward before collapsing into the street. This blasphemy, the self-righteous Taliban seemed to find endlessly amusing.
The militiamen now standing with Hawke had seen this kind of thing happen to their families for decades. They would fight to the last man.
Five minutes later, Hawke's entire army was in readiness, standing side by side inside the perimeter of the hastily built breastworks. The tension was palpable and Hawke stepped to the center. He felt it necessary to say a few words.
'We are reasonably well protected. We have enormous firepower and unlimited ammunition. The men who are coming for us will be on horseback and they will fight to the death, which, for them, is the ultimate reward. I want each of you to pick individual targets and stay with them until the kill before moving on to the next. Make every shot count. Shoot the horses out from under them if necessary. When the fighters get up, kill them quickly before they can charge us on foot. I guess that's it. Good luck, God bless you, and good shooting.'
He went silently around the circle, shaking hands with each and every one of them, looking them in the eye, showing his confidence in them with his eyes and his smile. When he got to Sahira, he held her hand a little longer and bent his head toward her ear.
'Listen carefully. I am sure we will be all right. But if the worst should happen, you should know that under no circumstances will I let these barbarians take you alive. Do you clearly understand what I am saying? What I will have to do?'
'I do, Alex. And I appreciate your concern.'
'It's more than concern, Sahira,' Hawke said with a gentle smile before walking away to take his place among the men standing at the breastworks.
THEY SAW THE RISING CLOUD of dust long before they heard the thunderous pounding of hoofbeats drawing nearer. Stokely Jones, who was standing to Hawke's immediate right, was leaning over the berm, peering through a pair of tripod-mounted, extremely high-powered Zeiss 8X30 binocs, his well-used M24 SWS sniper rifle at the ready beside him.
He would see the enemy long before the enemy saw the tiny band of fighters taking a desperate stand behind a pitiful mound of sand, the carcasses of dead animals, and old leather saddlebags. Stoke was a trained ex-SEAL sniper and it was said he could shoot the wings off a firefly at a hundred paces. He would start picking off the enemy in the vanguard as soon as they appeared in his lenses. The opposition's day always got off to a bad start seeing their commanding officers toppling from their saddles before they'd seen, or even engaged, the foe.
'See anything yet?' Hawke asked Stoke. He'd been looking around at his defenders, all of them doing last- minute weapons checks, adjusting their Kevlar flak vests for the tenth time, getting mentally prepared for battle.
Praying.
'Just the dust cloud,' Stoke said. 'Big damn dust cloud, though, and moving fast in this direction.'
'As soon as you acquire a target, start shooting. Pick off as many of the obvious commanders as you can. As soon as the main body is in range of our weapons, I'll give the order to fire at will.'
Hawke saw Abdul at the breastworks, speaking quietly with Sahira. Earlier that morning he'd asked his reliable new friend to stick by her during the battle, no matter what, afford her all the protection he could. Dakkon had proven his bravery and loyalty beyond question. Hawke knew the man would lay down his life for any of them.
Harry Brock, at his station to Hawke's left, had pulled a battered harmonica from his vest pocket and was playing it softly. Hawke recognized the plaintive American Civil War tune, even recalled some of the lyrics, sung to him as a child long ago by his American mother. 'Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord…'
'What's that song called, Harry?' Hawke asked.
''The Battle Hymn of the Republic.''
'It's lovely. Don't stop.'
Harry played on as the massive twister of swirling dust and sand drew nearer and nearer.
Faces appeared out of the dust, hard faces with hooded black eyes and tangled black beards, tattered robes flapping wildly behind them in the wind. Glittering belts of ammo criss-crossed their chests. Their mouths were torn black holes in their fierce faces; but their murderous war cries went unheard, obliterated by the pounding hooves and the sudden explosion of gunfire.
At the forefront of the charge was a big bearded man in flowing black robes that were wildly whipping and snapping behind him. The commander was beating his horse, urging his steed to gallop even faster. He had his rifle raised above his head, exhorting his troops onward with fierce battle cries.
'Who is that man leading the charge, Patoo?' Hawke asked.
'That is the legendary Colonel Abu Zazi, sir. He is Sheik al-Rashad's brilliant and brutal second in command. He was born in the United Kingdom and graduated with honors from Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He is now responsible for the worst of the suicide bombings in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He leads an alliance of Taliban, Punjabi militants, al Qaeda, and the former Mehsud fighters.'
'He looks fearsome enough, I'd say.'
Dakkon said, 'Colonel Zazi has a price on his head of US$5 million, sir. He was among the assassins who murdered Pakistan's beloved premier Benazir Bhutto.'
Looking through his binoculars, Hawke clearly saw the face of his enemy. And knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that he was in for the fight of his life. Outwardly he awaited the battle with composure and confidence. This was one of those times that called for stern tranquillity.
'NOW I KNOW HOW GENERAL George Armstrong Custer must have felt,' Harry Brock said, firing as rapidly as he could. The mad horde of wildly galloping Taliban fighters, shouting and screaming their war cries, had completely encircled them. There had to be at least a hundred of them, riding around and around at full gallop, directing the fire of their AK-47s at the vastly outnumbered men inside the pathetic and hastily built fortification.
It may have been pathetic, but it seemed to be working, Hawke thought, as he slammed another mag into his weapon, welded the stock to his cheek, and rapidly killed as many men as he could before pausing to reload. Bullets filled the air, whistling overhead, thudding into the berm, and sometimes finding his men. He already had two of his fearless militiamen dead, and four badly wounded.
But Patoo's gravely wounded Pakistani militiamen stood their ground and kept fighting. They were not fighting
