Automatic rifle fire suddenly opened up on their position from low ground to the left. More mujahedeen crumpled. Bolan and the guerrilla band returned fire. The night blazed with staccato hellfire. Bolan was togged in standard Afghan male attire: lajus, the dark cotton robe of the Muslim hillmen, and turban. His high cheekbones, firm, squarish jaw and stoic, piercing eyes made the Executioner appear at first and even second glance to be one of these tribal freedom fighters.

He required no facial makeup for his role as a mujahedeen. Beneath the lajus, within easy access, rode the hip-holstered stainless steel .44 AutoMag, Big Thunder. Bolan also toted a silenced Ingram MAC10 submachine gun, slung over his left shoulder, while he pumped off fast auto bursts from his M-16 assault rifle at the winking weapons two hundred yards off.

The mujahedeen kept up their fierce fire with everything from World War I vintage Lee-Enfield rifles to Chinese Type 56 SMG'S and captured Soviet AK-47'S.

Bolan heard death grunts from a few more men near him in the darkness. Incoming rounds razored in dangerously close to his position, one projectile whining off into the night, ricocheted from the granite rock. Then Bolan heard the Hinds returning for another strafing swoop, spewing more machine-gun fire and rockets that gulped up the terrain with ground-shuddering explosions.

Bolan twisted onto his back to fire at the choppers as they thundered by overhead, but in the moment before he could trigger a burst he saw two Afghan fighters stand boldly from their scant cover, each man hurriedly setting up an SA-7 Strella surface-to-air missile launcher.

Machine-gun fire from one Hind gunship spewed twin lines of geysering slugs that took one of the men across his chest, almost splitting the guy in two. The other fighter triggered his missile launcher.