Читать книгу Cold War Reprise - Don Pendleton - Страница 7

Mack Bolan was no stranger to the London night, having come to the grand old city early in his war against organized crime and returning for multiple engagements since. Yet the Executioner was not on a hunt this night, nor was he being pursued.

Bolan had the collar of his black wool long coat turned up against the cold, his arctic-blue eyes scanning the dock for trouble. He was walking with a light load, relatively speaking, carrying only a Beretta Px4 Storm in his shoulder holster, with a compact version of the same model tucked into his waistband at the small of his back for backup. The two sidearms accepted 17-round standard or 20-round extended magazines, equaling the firepower of his usual standard, the Beretta 93R machine pistol, while fitting into a smaller profile.

With his instincts at full alertness, Bolan spotted ordinary potential threats—drunken soccer hooligans, knife-armed thugs on the prowl for mugging victims and smugglers awaiting their contacts. The London dockyards were a wilderness, but as long as the Executioner was there to keep an appointment, he had to maintain a low profile.

Bolan sidestepped a pair of drunken sailors who staggered out through the door of a musky-smelling dive. Sweat, alcohol, cigarettes and even a few whiffs of marijuana thrown in for good measure assaulted Bolan’s nostrils as he went into the dockyard bar. The crowd turned its attention to the newcomer, who was over six feet tall, powerfully built, clad in black with chilling blue eyes that cut like lasers through the gloom of the tavern. A jukebox and a television set struggled against the undercurrent of slurred and hushed conversations, failing to do more than contribute to the wall of white noise. That was the point, though. No one sound carried farther than a tabletop, allowing plotters to plot and cheaters to cheat without being overheard by interested parties.

A stocky Slavic man gestured from his corner booth. Two shot glasses bracketed a bottle of clear liquor in front of him, and to one side, an ashtray was overflowing with crushed-out butts. Bolan knifed through the bar as the Slav poured the booze into his shot glasses, pushing one of the little servings of the clear stuff to what was to be Bolan’s seat. Bleary, smoke-stung eyes looked up at the Executioner.

“Mikhail Belasko,” Vitaly Alexandronin greeted, lighting another cigarette as Bolan slid into the booth.

“The name’s Cooper, now,” Bolan corrected, taking a sip. It was a bitter, foul version of vodka that tasted as if it had been filtered through sweat-crusted socks. “Couldn’t find anything better?”

“Tastes just like the crap I distilled in Afghanistan,” Alexandronin replied. “Except British feet stink a bit more.”

Bolan chuckled. Alexandronin offered him an unfiltered cigarette and Bolan accepted it. The Russian’s lighter fired it up, and Bolan took a single puff before resting the cigarette between the knuckles of his left hand. He didn’t want to offend Alexandronin’s hospitality, and Bolan had the discipline to avoid slipping back into a nicotine habit. “Bad booze and worse cigarettes? This is war mode for you, Vitaly.”

“Why else would I invite you by for a drink?” Alexandronin asked. “It’s not for my health.”

Bolan frowned, but he wouldn’t interrupt the Russian, breaking the rule of polite conversation by going for hard data right off the bat. He could see that Alexandronin was ragged, his jowls hanging loosely as if he hadn’t eaten for a month. The Russian’s fingertips were completely bronzed by nicotine stains, but the last time Bolan had interacted with the defected former KGB agent, his skin had been a healthier shade due to quitting smoking. Lack of sleep darkened Alexandronin’s eyes into an impenetrable shadow. “Is it about Catherine?”

Alexandronin took a long pull off of his cigarette, blowing the smoke through his wide, blunt nostrils. His brow crinkled and Bolan knew he’d touched a raw nerve. “The pitiful excuse for lawmen in this damned city claim that she was jumped by soccer hooligans. The thugs broke Catherine to pieces, and she lingered in a hospital for the last of her days.”

Catherine Alexandronin was not a name on the Stony Man watch-list database, but Bolan cursed himself for not keeping an eye out for her. He had last known her as Catherine Rozuika, a TASS journalist who had helped Bolan and Alexandronin derail an effort to turn back the democratic processes of the early Commonwealth of independent states. The hard-liners were not willing to give way to the end of the old Soviet Republic and freely and blatantly killed anyone in their path. The Executioner had stopped the plot and through his Stony Man contacts, had arranged for a new life for the pair in London.

Catherine had been a beautiful woman. Back then, Bolan had enjoyed a few moments of tenderness with the lady reporter. The news of her death by a brutal beating was like a knife in the soldier’s heart. Something, though, had sparked Alexandronin’s paranoia. “You said the police ‘claimed.’ You don’t buy that story.”

Alexandronin knocked back his glass of vodka. “The law looks at the ambush of an investigative reporter as just another case of drunk sports fans. But this was not the work of alcohol-besotted misanthropes.”

A stack of photos plopped in front of Bolan and he leafed through them, studying the photographic records taken at the emergency room and during her autopsy. Bolan’s sharp mind already spotted inconsistencies between the police reports and reality.

“Pay attention to the broken right arm,” Alexandronin said.

“The end result of a standard Spetsnaz cross-forearm disarmament snap,” Bolan replied. “Using one limb as a fulcrum, the gun hand is deflected, the force shattering the ulnar bones. Catherine was armed, and she pulled her weapon to defend herself.”

“We have enemies,” Alexandronin replied. “Mere hooligans would have just picked up the gun and shot her with it.”

“They were sending a message,” Bolan suggested. “Stop snooping. Question is, what was she snooping into?”

“The newspaper she worked for ‘misplaced’ her most recent notes,” Alexandronin added. “None of her coworkers will even stay in the same room as I am in.”

Alexandronin opened his shirt. A bloody bandage was on his upper chest. “I’m still snooping and I nearly caught all six inches of the blade that did this.”

“You find out anything about what she was looking into?” Bolan asked as the man buttoned his shirt.

“It was initially a fluff piece, allegedly, talking to Chechen refugees who had emigrated here to England. They’re trying to escape the troubles back home,” Alexandronin answered. “But she confided in me that the refugees were scared.”

“Of the Russian government or their own people?” Bolan asked. “Chechen rebels are hardly saints, even if the world is admitting that Moscow is longing for the good old days of the cold war.”

“Russia has changed some, but not enough,” Alexandronin said. He poured himself a fresh shot of vodka, then hammered it down in one gulp. “There is a group in Moscow, a highly trained antiterrorism special branch.”

“They call themselves the Curved Knife,” Bolan mused. He flicked a tower of ashes off his untouched cigarette. “Doesn’t take too much imagination to see that the Curved Knife is an allusion to the old Sickle that crossed the Hammer as the symbol of the Communist party.”

“The Sickle symbolism is not lost on anyone who’s aware of them,” Alexandronin said. “They are no more than the midnight knockers from the old days of the KGB. They are the same type of bastards who picked up those considered unfaithful to the Party and helped them to disappear.”

“Usually with a bullet in the head, and a trip to the bottom of a bulldozed pit,” Bolan added. He took a token puff on the cigarette, washing the foul taste away with the bitter liquor. He looked down at the glass, then held it out for Alexandronin to refill.

“The stuff grows on you,” the Russian noted with a chuckle, pouring another round.

“Helps to keep the bad taste of this news out of my mouth,” Bolan answered. “Catherine lived a few days after the beating?”

Alexandronin nodded. “She never recovered consciousness. Internal hemorrhaging finally took its toll. I told the doctors to pull the plug. Russians live, or Russians die. The limbo of being trapped in a coma is neither, and it traps the soul in a broken sack of flesh.”

Bolan nodded. “She never said anything about what happened to her in that case.”

Alexandronin sighed. “She didn’t even say goodbye. Not out loud.”

He pushed an envelope toward Bolan. The name “Mike” was scrawled on the front, a reference to his old identity of Mike Belasko, long since discarded. In the dive, its scene of strawberries was an island of freshness. “She wrote one for me, as well, my friend. I didn’t look at yours.”

Bolan glanced down at the slender envelope, then sliced it open with his pocketknife. Catherine’s strawberry-scented perfume filled his nostrils, bringing him back to their time together, entwined in each other’s limbs. There was a small, folded slip of paper within.

“‘My soldier, I could never replace your lost rose. May you someday find peace, and never forget the night we shared. Cat.’”

Bolan folded the slip and put it back in its envelope. He fought off the heartache those simple words left in their wake. He met Alexandronin’s gaze.

“It was never a secret that you two had been lovers,” the Russian told him. “That didn’t mean she was less of a devoted wife to me.”

“I feel your pain, Vitaly,” Bolan told him. “And I’ll help find her murderers.”

“No, comrade. I will help you,” Alexandronin replied. “My race is nearly run, and I miss Catherine far too much to want to live in a world without her.”

“That’s the melancholy talking, Vitaly,” Bolan said, but not too forcefully. “Keep her memory alive.”

Alexandronin’s attention was seized by movement at the door. His hand slid off the table, resting on his belly, just above his belt line. Bolan looked at the reflection of the two men in the surface of the vodka bottle. They both had Slavic features and were dressed in black. Their hawk-sharp eyes scanned the bar patrons, seeking out their designated prey.

“I assume you are armed, Mikhail,” Alexandronin said.

Bolan nodded. “The two at the front are just the flush team. If we cut through the back, we’ll run straight into the trap team.”

“Sharp as always, my friend,” Alexandronin mused. “So we go through those two?”

“Provided they don’t have someone hanging back behind them. They could be supported by another trap team or even snipers,” Bolan said. “That’s how I’d do it if I were setting this trap.”

“So what is our plan?” Alexandronin asked.

“Let me talk to those two,” Bolan told him. “Maybe I can head off any violence. This place isn’t choir practice, but I’d hate for bystanders to get hurt.”

“As is your way, comrade. Precision and concern for those around you,” Alexandronin stated. He patted the old Heckler & Koch P7 stuffed into his belt. “Respect for accuracy is another thing we have shared, my friend.”

“Can the past tense, Vitaly. The Russian government has an agency off the leash, so I’m going to need your help,” Bolan admonished. “You get killed, who do I tap for intel?”

“Remember Kaya?” Alexandronin asked. “She’s still with the government. Russian Intelligence.”

Bolan winced. “Do you really want to risk her life?”

“She risks it keeping in covert contact with me, Mikhail,” Alexandronin explained.

“Three heads are better than two. Stick with me.”

Alexandronin’s eyes narrowed, his lips turning up into a smile. “You have done more with much less, Mikhail.”

“Focus,” Bolan warned.

Alexandronin nodded. “I am.”

Bolan stubbed out his cigarette, burying it with the other stubby butts in the pile flowing over the top of the ashtray. The soldier palmed his shot glass and got out of the booth. The two black-clad Slavs eyed Bolan suspiciously, confirming to the Executioner that the men were professionals. They focused on him like antiradiation missiles launched at a radar installation. The pair wore their jackets loosely in contrast to Bolan’s snugly fitted wool long coat. The custom-tailoring of Bolan’s coat hid his two Berettas completely, but the lumpy loose jackets worn by the two Russians indicated that the pair were armed with more than flat, sleek auto pistols. Their eyes locked on the glass in Bolan’s hand.

Bolan passed between the pair, shoving them rudely aside. His elbow connected with something big and heavy hidden under the lapels of one jacket. Bolan cursed the pair in Russian. “Move aside, you sons of whores. I need more vodka!”

“Fucking bastard,” one of the professionals snarled, returning his response in Georgian-accented Russian. “Who do you think you are?”

Bolan met his gaze. “A thirsty man in front of two jackbooted thugs. Two pathetic leftovers of a dead regime if my eyes serve me right!”

“You don’t look Russian,” the other hardman said in English. His accent was flawless, further proof that these men weren’t just pulled off the street. “What relation are you to Alexandronin?”

“Brothers in blood,” Bolan returned. “What is your interest?”

“That man is a traitor,” the Georgian gritted in Russian. “And if you consider him your brother—”

“Shut your mouth!” the English speaker said to his companion. He glared at Bolan. “Walk away from this if you value your life, ‘brother.’”

Bolan smirked. “I was just about to suggest the same thing to you.”

Behind him, Bolan could tell that Alexandronin was moving because the Georgian’s interest was suddenly locked on to the booth.

“Trying to distract us?” the Georgian asked.

Bolan snapped his arm straight, the palmed shot glass shattering against the Georgian’s cheekbone. Broken glass slashed ragged wounds through his eyeball and cheek. The other hardman stepped back, driving his hand into his jacket for the heavy chatterbox concealed beneath. Bolan kicked out, catching the English speaker in the side of his knee, folding the man’s leg with the crack and pop of dislocating cartilage and unsprung tendons.

The background drone of the bar suddenly went silent as the millisecond of explosive action brought a spray of blood and the ugly crunch of a shattered knee joint to the patrons’ awareness. The Georgian screamed, half blind from the broken splinters sticking out of his punctured eyeball. Alexandronin slipped up behind him, grabbed a handful of collar and twisted. The tightened neck of his shirt smothered the Georgian hit man’s agony as fabric garroted across his windpipe.

The blunt, short barrel of Alexandronin’s P7 jammed into the Georgian’s kidney. “You reach for the weapon under your coat, and your kidney will end up decorating the floor.”

Bolan helped his broken-kneed opponent to both feet, reaching under the man’s jacket to use the grip of the harnessed machine pistol he wore as a handle to maneuver him. From feel, Bolan recognized it as an Uzi of some form. A good tug let his captive know that Bolan had command of the situation.

The bartender looked under the counter at some form of fight-pacifying weaponry, but the sheer speed and violence of action dissuaded him reaching for it. Whoever the barkeep thought Bolan was, he had the reflexes to counteract anything that he kept under the bar. “Please, guv’nuh, take it outside.”

“That was my plan,” Bolan told him.

Alexandronin tossed some folded pound notes in front of the bartender. “Another bottle of potato juice for the road.”

The Georgian gurgled as the bartender put a bottle on the counter. Alexandronin leaned in toward his captive, smiling. “Grab my vodka for me, friend.”

The Georgian picked up the bottle and the four people left the confines of the bar. Both Bolan and Alexandronin held their prisoners directly in front of them as human shields. By the time they were outside, Bolan had his man’s Uzi well in hand and down by his thigh, safety selector clicked to full automatic.

“Let your rifleman know that he’d better hold his fire,” Bolan warned as they stood under the bar’s overhang. “Unless you wouldn’t mind having a new orifice torn in you.”

The limping, agonized Slav spoke into a collar microphone, speaking quickly. The hardman was straightforward, as Bolan had proven his fluency in Russian, making it clear that any deception would be futile. Bolan couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation because his prisoner wore an earphone, but the hostage explained that he had been compromised.

“Where’s your shooter?” Bolan asked.

“There are two of them,” the hobbled prisoner replied.

“The bar’s quiet again,” Alexandronin noted. He pocketed the bottle of vodka, no longer needing a chokehold on his prisoner as the man was busy holding the tattered remnants of his glass-shredded face together. “The backdoor team is likely moving up.”

“Point the way,” Bolan ordered. “Vitaly, stay sharp.”

“Da,” Alexandronin said.

A distant rifle cracked instantly, and the black-clad human shield jerked violently against Bolan. The prisoner’s blood gushed out of a hole torn into his breastbone, arterial spray spurting through the centralized chest wound like a fountain. Now a deadweight in Bolan’s arms, the corpse still provided some use as a protective barrier, and the Executioner pushed out into the street. Alexandronin forced his prisoner ahead of him, as well, but the riflemen focused on Bolan, their bullets crashing into the unfeeling form of the dead man.

Bolan spotted a muzzle flash, lined up his Uzi and fired the submachine gun. The chatterbox had a range of 200 yards in trained hands, and no living man was more familiar with the stubby Israeli machine pistol than the Executioner. The distant gunmen stopped shooting, but Bolan didn’t feel as if he had scored a hit. Suppressive fire, however, still was worth the spent ammunition, and Bolan looked for the second rifleman. Alexandronin stumbled, the Georgian bending backward as the Russian’s P7 discharged. Alexandronin’s claim of spraying the hit man’s kidney across the bar floor didn’t quite come true as the 9 mm round missed the organ completely. The deadly slug, however, still tore through Alexandronin’s opponent, slashing a stretch of aorta apart.

“Vitaly!” Bolan called.

“Their round went through my thigh,” Alexandronin said, limping to cover.

Bolan began snatching items from the dead man’s pockets, spare magazines and a radio specifically. He let the body tumble lifelessly to the ground as he rushed to scoop up his ally. Together they ducked between a couple of buildings. The leg injury was a shallow furrow along the outside of Alexandronin’s thigh. The bullet had struck far from the femur or the femoral artery, meaning that the man could still walk, though his leg was drenched. Bolan recognized the smell of the rotten vodka they had been drinking. A bone injury would have been crippling, but had the blood vessel been nicked, Alexandronin’s life would be measured in seconds. Bolan looked his friend in the eye. “Bad news. You lost the vodka.”

Alexandronin grinned. “A tragedy, Mikhail. I can still walk.”

Bolan dumped the spent magazine from his Uzi, feeding it a full one he’d plucked from its former owner. The savvy warrior also took a moment to secure the earpiece and the body of his hostage’s radio to his harness. Being able to listen in on the conversation of his enemies would be a force multiplier.

The bar front opened and Bolan caught a glimpse of four men bursting through the doors, scrambling to cover. Bolan fired off a short burst that sent the dark-clad assassins deeper behind their cover.

“Get to a safer position,” Bolan ordered Alexandronin. “I’ll cover you.”

The Russian shook his head. “This is my fight, too, Mikhail.”

“You’re hurt and slowed down,” Bolan argued.

“I can turret,” Alexandronin replied. “You can still move quickly. Together we can surround them.”

Bolan didn’t have time to argue about tactics, especially since Alexandronin was right. He handed his friend the Uzi and the remaining spare magazine. “Don’t die.”

The Russian smiled. “I have men to kill before I rest, Mikhail.”

“Remember that,” the soldier said, drawing his Beretta.

The Executioner raced across the street, covered by a spray of rapid shots from Alexandronin.

Once more, London was a host to Bolan’s cleansing flame.