Читать книгу Rebel Force - Don Pendleton - Страница 12

Bolan entered The Berliner casino.

The place was full, but not crowded, and he heard the spinning of roulette wheels and the dissonance of slot machines over the more general noise of the crowd.

Bolan gazed across the crowd. He kept his thoughts as unfocused and bland as the neutral expression on his face. He wasn’t looking for anything specific, he was simply soaking in details, waiting to see if his inner radar picked up any blips. He surveyed the casino from payout cage to bar, then from security desk to the table games.

The guards Bolan saw looked hard. It was easy to come by veteran killers in Chechnya, though the real hard cases drifted into the heavily ex-military Russian syndicates. He saw a fat man with two blondes—each supporting improbably large breast implants—on each of his arms. He saw a nervous-looking Asian man puffing away on a cigarette as the dealer turned over cards and took his chips. A broad-shouldered guy with a crew cut leaned against an elegantly decorated pillar fiddling with a gold bracelet.

The Berliner casino was a strange mix, influenced by the youth club in the basement of the property as well as the gaming floor. Wealthy clients mixed with the partygoers, young and old. The place was neither a dive nor too high end. There was a fair mix of Westerners in the crowd. Bolan nodded to himself. It was a good establishment to go unnoticed in, and he understood why Sanders had chosen it as a drop point and meet place.

Bolan walked over to the bar. He watched pretty girls in revealing dresses or the sexy cocktail waitresses as a cover for his perpetual surveillance. He ordered a beer in a pint glass, left the bartender a tip and took his beer to the casino cage where he changed some cash into chips with the help of a brunette in a low cut uniform and too much eye shadow.

The soldier shook his chips loosely in his hand and strolled toward the roulette table. He knew roulette was a sucker’s bet, but he’d do it the way Sanders wanted.

As Bolan approached the table, he idly second-guessed himself, wondering if his decision to come unarmed was wise. He was still operating under his journalist cover and a weapons charge by overzealous police troops could unravel the whole operation at this point.

Bolan eased up to the table and made eye contact with the croupier before putting the equivalent of a twenty-five-dollar token on Black 8.

Barbara Price had informed him of the Agency’s covert station house location in the Grozny downtown where he could make contact and get equipment as he needed. Bolan had chosen to bypass ordinary channels, at least initially.

Sanders had made his call from an emergency drop cutout phone and not from the Grozny to Moscow station line. There had been no explanation for this irregularity, and Bolan had chosen to follow Sanders’s lead in avoiding usual channels. Bolan’s paranoia was omnidirectional and hard earned.

The croupier called Red 23 the winner and took Bolan’s money. The soldier slid another chip onto Black 8 to replace the one he’d lost. The big-shouldered guy with the crew cut wandered over to watch the wheel. The fat man said something, and the two blondes barked laughter like trained seals. The wheel spun and the white ball jumped and bounced its way across the device. After a moment the ball settled into one of the slots and the croupier called Red 11 the winner.

Bolan had to admit the casino protocol was a wise set up despite the seeming cinematic feel of the practice. Someone could remain anonymous in the crowd, surveying the environment. The contact would make no discernible moves that threatened exposure if he was under surveillance. Either party could simply walk from the scene without commotion if something seemed askew.

The Executioner eyed his watch, then slid another chip onto Black 8. He almost wanted to place another bet, just to make things interesting, but he was afraid the diversity could potentially throw off his contact. Sanders didn’t know him by sight, so any variation from the established contact routine would be stupid. The Asian man, eyes glassy, left the blackjack dealer and stumbled up to the table as Bolan lost again. Two security guards in ill-fitting jackets watched, seemingly bored. They were joined by a third after a moment.

Bolan put his chip down on Black 8 again. The guy with the crew cut ordered a drink from a passing cocktail waitress. The Asian man changed Russian rubles into chips at the table and lit another cigarette. One of the blondes had moved behind the fat man and was whispering into his ear while she pressed her breasts against his back. The other woman leaned in beside him, hand in his lap under the table as he played.

“Red 4,” the dealer said.

Bolan put his chip on Black 8, once more.

“Final time,” he said in passable Russian.

There was a tense moment when the Asian man began throwing chips across the board, but he didn’t play Black 8 and Bolan relaxed as the croupier called an end to bets.

This was it, Bolan reflected. The time for the meet in the prescribed manner was past. Sanders hadn’t shown. It was official. Grozny was a problem.

Bolan watched the roulette ball bounce around the revolving wheel. As he watched it hit Green 00, nothing obvious had changed, but he smelled danger.

Throwing a chip down for the croupier, Bolan rose.

It seemed he could feel the weight of the sniper’s crosshairs on his exposed back, even though he knew that was ridiculous. Sanders hadn’t shown, but that didn’t necessarily mean the meet location had been compromised.

Bolan was sure Sanders was in trouble. He was sitting on a top-level asset itching to defect. He had avoided his station command, used asymmetrical communications and had missed a last chance emergency meet. Bolan frowned as he walked. Something wasn’t right.

He walked outside and flipped open his regular cell phone. He hit a number on his speed dial while hailing a taxi driver in a battered old Volvo. When the connection was made, he spoke briefly into the phone.

“Black 8 was a bust, stage two.”

Bolan hung up the phone, his cell line was open, and he’d relied upon brevity and obtuse langue for security. Such a protocol was better than getting caught in the open with a military satellite phone. Bolan climbed into the taxi.

BOLAN STUFFED HIS HANDS inside the pockets of his jacket and headed into the train station. The very last of the workday commuters were going home, and the old building was clearing out quickly as he entered. He wove his way through the thinning crowd, pushing away from the passenger areas and toward the freight docks.

Wire crates stuffed with chickens were set against the one wall. The smell of animals was strong. Bolan noted the hardy determination of the people in this war zone to continue on with their lives. He had seen it across the globe, but it never failed to give him hope for the human condition.

Bolan got lost in the crowd, then turned back the way he’d come, exiting the building. He cut through dank alleys and dodged across busy streets until he’d made it about two blocks away from the central train station.

He stopped in front of a window display filled with pictures of women in school uniforms being spanked or tied up. His eyes scanned the window, attempting to survey the street behind him in the reflection. The light was too bad for that, so he entered the porn shop.

The inside of the shop was illuminated with garish light from neon tubes. Skin magazines and the box covers for movies were stuffed into cheap racks. A section on the far wall was filled with various sexual devices and toys. The main room was filled with furtive-eyed men who avoided any contact with one another.

Bolan walked through the store, ignoring the other patrons. He entered the gloomy mouth to the hall where the peep shows were located. He could hear gasps and moans coming from behind the closed doors to the video monitor booths. He heard the slap of a hand on flesh and women’s cries—some in faux pleasure, many in pain. He moved past the doors. The layout for the coin-operated theaters was in a T-shaped hallway. He walked down the long leg of the T past the video booths.

Along the back wall were the live-show booths. He turned left at the juncture and went to the second to last door. An out-of-date pop song was blasting through a cheap stereo system. The light above the booth door showed red, indicating it was occupied.

The Executioner waited. After a few moments the song changed and a disheveled looking middle-aged man in a suit scurried out. He almost ran into Bolan and squeaked guiltily. He looked up, eyes appearing enormous behind thick glasses.

Bolan snarled down at him and the man hurried out of the hall.

The cramped booth stunk, and Bolan looked around, disgust on his face now that he was alone. He shoved the bolt on the door home, then fed a few coins into the wall slot to change the light outside to red.

A narrow opening slid back and, through smeary glass, Bolan caught a glimpse of a nude woman in a room surrounded by coin-operated windows. Bolan reached into his pocket and pulled a credit card from his wallet. He turned away from the window and squatted.

Using the edge of the credit card to spare his fingers any unpleasant contact, Bolan reached up under the seat mounted in the wall. The booth was known to be Sanders’s blind drop. He’d been running stringers in his surveillance operation against the institute and picking up hard copy materials from them in this booth.

Bolan paused as he felt his card touch something other than the wooden underside of the filthy little bench. He reached under the seat and immediately frowned. Sanders had attached a thin metal sleeve to hold items and the drop was stuffed full of papers.

In undercover intelligence work, drops were made in public places to explain movement patterns to unfriendly surveillance. They weren’t meant to be cache points. There was seldom longer than an hour between delivery and retrieval at such points, nor was one site usually meant for more than a single stringer.

Bolan slid out five manila envelopes of varying thickness. He knew things were bad. Operational security was dissolving all around him. He stood and slid the envelopes into the inside pocket of his leather jacket. He needed to get out and away from the drop site. He had to assume he was made. That didn’t necessarily mean the operation was over. He decided that if he needed to do open source or interview-based investigations, then it was still better for him to do it than risk the cover of another operative.

He wasn’t going to make it easy for the opposition, however.

Bolan unlocked the door to the booth and stepped out into the gloomy hallway. He sensed movement at the intersection of the theatre hall and looked up. The broad-shouldered man with the crew cut from the casino rounded the corner. Their eyes met, locked in recognition.

The soldier didn’t believe in coincidences. He couldn’t believe in them and continue to survive in a covert operations environment. He launched himself instantly, driving straight at the man, using his momentum to rise off the ground, swinging his right knee up. He drove his knee hard into the man’s ribs. The guy grunted and staggered backward from the impact.

Bolan landed and swept his hands up to grip the back of the man’s head in a maneuver designed to control him. The man’s reflexes were lightening quick, and he struck the inside of Bolan’s right arm at the nerve cluster just behind the elbow. Pain flashed up the Executioner’s arm and it was knocked aside, leaving an opening.

The crew cut man stepped forward and struck Bolan with a fist to his exposed ribs. The big American stumbled, bruised, hurt and surprised. He brought his arms up in front of him and instinctively turned to the side and raised a leg to ward off further blows.

Instead of pushing his advantage physically, the man from the casino shuffled backward and his right hand went for the small of his back. Bolan saw the movement and moved forward. The man’s hands reappeared holding a flat, black automatic pistol.

The Executioner stepped forward, moving to the outside of the muscled killer’s arm. The tight space of the hallway hampered his movements, slowing him. He twisted so that he faced the man at a nearly ninety-degree angle. Bolan’s left hand caught his adversary’s wrist just behind the pistol and, using the man’s own forward motion, pulled him off balance. Bolan used his right hand to snap a straight punch into his opponent’s temple.

The impact was loud in the confined space, and the man sagged under the sharp force. Bolan stepped away, twisting at the hips. The hand that had just delivered the brutal punch twisted to became a claw, sweeping the man’s head backward while Bolan pulled the gun hand back and thrust his chest out against the trapped arm, over extending the elbow.

The gun clattered to the floor and the man dropped as well. Without thinking, operating on instinct, Bolan lifted his foot and drove his heel straight down into the man’s throat. The killer’s eyes startled open wide, then slid upward into his head.

Bolan moved quickly. He glanced around him and saw no one. The altercation had lasted only heartbeats, and the computerized music system still blared out the same song. Bolan knelt and slid the man’s pistol into the small of his back before expertly patting down the body.

He pulled out a wallet, a cell phone and a knife. Bolan pocketed the items and stood. He smoothed down the front of his jacket over the bulge made by the envelopes from Sanders’s drop point. He held his head up and coolly walked out of the dark hallway.

Bolan’s nerves were on fire as he made his way for the door. He had no intention of being in the building when the body was found. He pushed through the door and out into the street. He looked around carefully. The point man might have had backup.

The soldier started walking, looking for a taxi. It was possible the man had been assigned surveillance and had decided to take Bolan out on his own. If he was a Russian stringer, then it was even possible he had been working alone on a “zone defense” surveillance. Bolan had no intention of taking that possibility for granted, however.

He needed to get to his safehouse and take stock of what he’d learned since hitting the ground in Chechnya, just four hours earlier. Bolan pushed his way through a lively crowd as he looked for a taxi. He didn’t see one, and he decided to head back toward the train station. He’d have his choice of taxis there, and the walk would give him a chance to shake out anyone shadowing him.

He crossed the busy strip, ignoring angry shouts and beeping horns. Such things were commonplace. This section of the city stank, and the cold, seasonal damp made him feel like his skin was covered in a greasy film. Reaching the other side of the street, Bolan ducked into the alley he’d used to reach the porn shop.

He stepped passed an unconscious man sprawled in the mouth of the alley. The man reeked of strong, cheap booze. Bolan entered alley, his nostrils flaring at the stench of rotting garbage and piles of refuse. Halfway down the alley he turned to look over his shoulder. No preternatural combat sense had warned him, just good tradecraft. A simple matter of being careful. He saw a silhouette enter the alley and he spun, dropping to one knee. He pulled his pistol free and crouched.

The figure at the end of the alley already had his pistol out and it barked twice. Two rounds buzzed through the air above Bolan’s head, just where his heart would have been were he still standing. He answered with a trio of 9 mm rounds.

His vision was blurred by the blinding flash of the weapon and his ears buzzed from the sudden, sharp reports. At the end of the alley he had a sense of a figure spinning away. He heard the sleeping man shout in surprise and saw him sit up.

Realizing that the figure was going for the cover of the building edge, Bolan popped up and shuffled quickly backward. The figure came around the edge of the alley and got off a hasty shot that sang wide. Bolan answered with a single shot designed to impact the wall near the figure’s head and spray chips. His round drove the gunman back behind cover and Bolan took his opportunity to escape out of the alley.

The Executioner hit the street running, shouldering his way through the crowd like a running back pushing for open field. He knocked several pedestrians to the ground, ignoring their cries of outrage.

He reached the front of the train station and jogged over to the line of waiting taxis, leaned forward and pushed some folded bills into the driver’s waiting hand. He rattled off an address to get the man moving and leaned back into the ratty seat as the driver pulled out into traffic.

The pistol was warm against the small of his back and its weight was reassuring. Finally the taxi driver made it out into the heavy traffic and Bolan allowed himself to relax. The driver said something at him in what he thought was a Georgian accent, and Bolan responded in colloquial Russian.

He reached into his jacket and felt the envelopes there. Brognola wasn’t going to be happy about this.