Читать книгу Treason Play - Don Pendleton - Страница 14

Aleksander Mazorov knew he needed to move fast.

The big Russian raced up the stairs with a stealth that belied his size. In his right hand, he clutched a Browning Hi-Power. He heard a door snap closed from a couple of flights of stairs above. A smile ghosted his lips. He guessed, hoped, that the woman was coming his way, perhaps with the bastard who’d shot his men right at her side. His grip on the Browning tightened, but he kept it flat against his thigh while he continued to climb the steps. He needed to grab the woman and get the hell out of the building as soon as possible, before the local police arrived and he either got scooped up by them or had to shoot his way out of the situation.

From above, he could see a shadow moving over the wall, could hear the slap of her feet against the stairs as she rushed down.

He raised the Browning. A heartbeat later he saw calves clad in dark slacks fall across his line of sight. When the woman came into view, her eyes seemed to look first at the gun barrel and widen with surprise and terror as she realized what she’d come up against. She froze. Mazorov guessed her mind was racing, ticking through her options, weighing whether to pivot and run or to perhaps rush him. Or she could just be frozen with terror, though he somehow doubted it. Considering that she’d met her initial attackers with a pistol, he guessed she wasn’t the shrinking violet type.

Maybe, he decided, she just needed some prompting.

“Hands up,” he said. “Or I’ll kill you.”

She brought her hands up slowly, elbows cocked at nearly ninety-degree angles. He stepped to one side and motioned for her to move down the stairs. She brushed past him and continued down the steps.

He allowed himself a tight smile. Mission accomplished.

GRIMALDI CROUCHED BETWEEN a pair of parked cars. Peering around the rear of one of the cars, a red BMW, he watched as the panel van’s rear door fanned open and four shooters piled from the vehicle onto the concrete. He keyed his throat mike.

“Striker?”

“Go.”

“The van has more hostiles unloading. I count four.”

“They coming my way?”

“Not if I can help it,” Grimaldi said.

“Clear. Thanks.”

With the Colt Commando leading the way, the lanky Stony Man pilot came up in a crouch and closed the distance between himself and the group of shooters. As he neared them, he heard snatches of muttered conversation. He recognized a couple of words as Russian. What the hell was going on? he wondered. What did the Russians have to do with this? Where they Russian mafiya?

One of the gunners gestured at the door leading from the garage into the apartment building. The others stood by, listening to his orders. Grimaldi listened just long enough to realize he’d garner no good information from them as long as they continued to speak Russian. He came up from the shadows, raised the Commando to his shoulder, the retractable buttstock snug against his body.

One of the hardmen saw him. The Russian simultaneously opened his mouth to shout a warning and brought up his hand, which clutched a submachine gun. Grimaldi triggered the Commando and unleashed a swarm of 5.56 mm rippers from the weapon that drilled into the guy’s chest. His target jerked in place for a moment under the onslaught of autofire. Grimaldi turned slightly and caught a second hardman under a withering hail of fiery death.

Simultaneously the man who’d been handing out orders moved into action. He spun in Grimaldi’s direction, dropped into a crouch and loosed a burst of autofire from an Uzi. The rounds hammered into the concrete just in front of Grimaldi. While the guy tried to improve his aim, the Stony Man pilot returned the favor with another burst from the Commando. The bullets sliced the air just past the man’s face. Though they missed flesh, the guy jerked back hard to get out of the line of fire, and the motion caused him to lose his balance and stumble back a couple of steps. In the same instant Grimaldi triggered his weapon again. The ensuing burst stitched across the guy’s torso, causing a trail of crimson geysers to explode from his chest before he collapsed to the ground.

Tires squealed, and Grimaldi responded by wheeling around toward the noise. The van was hurtling toward him, quickly gaining speed. The pilot dived sideways, throwing his body between a pair of cars. He grunted when his body hit the concrete, and bolts of pain shot out from his shoulder where it collided with the ground. The van roared by, just missing him.

Pulling himself to his feet, Grimaldi caught sight of the van. Brake lights glowed red and rubber squealed against concrete as the vehicle slowed. He rested the Commando on the roof of the parked car in front of him and tapped the trigger. The 5.56 mm slugs hammered into the van, sparking off its steel skin.

The weapon ran dry, and Grimaldi let the weapon hang on its strap while he replaced it with the Beretta 92 that rode in a shoulder holster. He raised the weapon and tried to draw a bead on the van. Before he could line up a good shot, the vehicle had turned a corner and was rolling down a ramp to a lower floor.

The pilot sprinted forward, but by the time he reached the ramp, the van had disappeared. He heard tires squealing from the floor below him. Whoever was driving obviously wanted to get the hell out of the garage and put some distance between themselves and the firefight.

Grimaldi ran to the nearest stairwell and sprinted down to the ground floor. Hitting the release bar on the door, he burst through the doorway, into another level of parking. He arrived in time to see the van hurtling out of the garage.

BOLAN GLIDED DOWN THE steps, the Beretta in a two-handed grip. A voice rose up from the floors below and the soldier froze, straining to hear. The voice definitely sounded female, and he guessed it was Gillen.

He had to descend another flight of steps before the voices gained more clarity.

“I told you,” he heard Gillen say, “I don’t know where Lang is.”

“And I told you, I don’t care. You’re coming with me.”

“Damn it!”

A sharp slapping sound reached Bolan’s ears. Gillen yelped in surprise and pain. Bolan felt his face and neck flush hot with anger and his jaw clenched tight. By now, he had moved about one floor above Gillen and her captor. He deliberately slowed his pace so he could monitor the situation without alarming the gunman and putting Gillen in greater danger. They were continuing to descend the stairwell.

The sound of someone pressing on a door’s release bar reached Bolan. He walked around the landing, spotted the man pushing open the door with one hand and motioning Gillen to go through it with the hand holding a gun. The Executioner stood fast for a couple of seconds to give Gillen enough time to pass through the door.

In the meantime, the big American locked the Beretta’s barrel on Gillen’s captor. Bolan cleared his throat.

The man spun, his pistol hunting for a target. Bolan tapped the Beretta’s trigger and a triburst lanced into the guy’s ribs, breaking bone and drilling into his torso. The hardman staggered back a step, hitting the wall behind him, then raised his weapon and snapped off a wild shot that sounded like a thunderclap in the cramped confines of the stairwell.

The Beretta sighed again. This time, the slugs punched into the man’s heart and killed him. His body slammed against the wall, leaving a crimson smear as it slid to the floor.

Bolan raced down the steps and was through the door in seconds. He found himself on the bottom floor of the garage. The sound of footfalls thudding against the concrete reached him. He looked forty-five degrees to the right and saw Gillen moving at a dead run to get away from him. Before he could call out to her, she stole a glance over her shoulder, saw him standing there and kicked the speed up another notch.

The soldier muttered a curse and raced after her. He couldn’t blame her for running. Despite his assurances that he was there to help, he was a complete stranger and she’d watched several people die violently at his hands in a short span of time. She’d also almost gotten kidnapped while under his “protection.”

So, no, he couldn’t blame her for running away. But it made his job much harder. The soldier poured on the speed to try to bridge the distance between them. He also holstered the Beretta, guessing that the sight of a gun wasn’t helping matters, either. He began to gain on her, the distance between them shrinking to about ten yards. He could hear her breathing, loud, but measured, as though she’d trained as a runner.

She turned right and ran for an exit. The turn cost her some speed and she took it wide, providing Bolan a chance to pivot and head after her diagonally. She stopped to pull open the door and he was able to close in on her, wrapping his arms around her upper body and pinning her arms against her.

“Let me go,” she shouted as she struggled.

“Gillen,” Bolan said, “I’m here to help.”

She continued to struggle. Raising her foot, she stomped down hard on the ground, just missing Bolan’s foot.

“Damn it. Stop!”

Sirens wailed in the distance. From his peripheral vision, Bolan saw someone approaching. He whipped his head around, anticipating trouble. He found Grimaldi walking toward them, the Colt Commando slung over his shoulder, a wide grin playing on his lips.

“Unhand her, knave,” Grimaldi said.

Bolan figured the struggle wasn’t helping and he let her go. She’d been straining to break his grip and her suddenly free body hurtled forward, causing her to stumble a couple of steps before she stopped.

She wheeled around, her cheeks and neck scarlet with exertion and anger. She took a step forward and raised an open hand to deliver a hard slap at Bolan. The soldier noticed her hand was shaking and he guessed it was because of the adrenaline coursing through her. She didn’t take another step, but the anger and fear didn’t drain from her face, either.

“What the hell is the matter with you? You come into my apartment, my home, and start shooting people? Manhandle me?”

Bolan held up his hands, palms forward, in a placating gesturing. The sound of the sirens continued to grow louder.

“We need to go,” he said. “You’re in danger.”

“Yeah, from you! I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.”

Bolan shook his head. “Not now. Not here. You need to trust me.”

She threw up her hands in frustration. “I don’t even know you.”

“If we stay here, we’ll get picked up by the police. If my friend and I end up in jail, we can’t help you. We lose valuable time. And Terry Lang died for nothing.”

She opened her mouth to reply, hesitated. Her mouth closed and she shook her head slowly.

“Fine, damn it. Let’s go.”

“You won’t regret this,” Bolan said.

“Too late.”

BOLAN WAS PACING THE hallway in the safehouse, speaking to Potts by cell phone.

“You realize you’re giving me an ulcer,” Potts said.

“Sorry.”

“Oh, problem solved then.”

“Look,” Bolan replied, “just smooth things over with the locals. The last thing I need is them breathing down my neck while I’m trying to work on this. Will you handle it?”

Potts paused a couple of seconds. “Okay.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re going to give me a heart attack. You know that? A big fat, fucking coronary. Which one of my ex-wives sent you here, anyway?”

“I thought I was giving you an ulcer,” Bolan said, ending the call and slipping the phone into his pocket.

He walked to the kitchen, where he found Grimaldi and Gillen seated at a table. She’d pulled her long hair back into a ponytail and secured it with a rubber band. Her face looked freshly scrubbed, and she wore a white T-shirt that was too big for her. Flecks of blood had spattered on her other clothes and her exposed arms during the altercation at her apartment building.

A cup of coffee sat on the table in front of her. She’d wrapped her fingers around it and was staring glumly into the cup. When Bolan entered the room, she peered up at him, her expression stony.

“I gave her one of your extra shirts,” Grimaldi said. “And some coffee.”

Bolan pulled one of the chairs out from the table, spun it and sat on it. He rested his forearms on the top of the chair’s back and looked at Gillen.

“Say it,” she said.

“What?”

“Whatever the hell you’re thinking, just spit it out.”

“How well did you know Terry Lang?”

She thought about it for a couple of seconds, then shrugged. “We knew each other two years, maybe three. Worked together off and on during that time.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Her eyes dipped toward her coffee cup again. “We spent a lot of time together,” she said.

Bolan detected something in her voice, maybe sadness, though he couldn’t be sure.

“Were you sleeping together?”

Anger flashed in her eyes. She opened her mouth to say something, but the soldier cut her off.

“You’re hiding something,” he said. “If your big secret is that you two were lovers, then please spare me the modesty. I’m not a priest.”

She pressed her lips together, forming a bloodless line.

“I feel violated,” she said.

“I don’t care,” Bolan said.

“You’re a son of a bitch.”

Bolan said nothing. Grimaldi kept his mouth shut, but turned his gaze from one to the other, as though he was watching a tennis match.

Finally she heaved a sigh and her shoulders sagged.

“We were sleeping together.”

“And?”

She looked up a him. “And what?”

“What else? I mean, that’s the big confession? What else is going on?”

Her face flushed and she crossed her arms over her chest.

“Look, he was married. Sleeping with him isn’t something I’m proud of. We worked together, collaborated on a few things. It just happened.”

“Maybe you weren’t looking for it,” Bolan said. “But Terry apparently was looking for it all over. Now some people are trying to kill you. Maybe it was because he was your bunk mate. Maybe not. Regardless, Terry’s dead and someone apparently wants to kill you, too.”

“Or at least capture you,” Grimaldi added. “That wouldn’t be pleasant, either.”

“Did he tell you anything?” Bolan asked. “Say he was worried for his life?”

She hesitated. “The man, the one you shot on the stairs. We saw him a couple of days ago at a hotel. It really bothered Terry, unnerved him like I’d never seen before.”

“He say why?” Bolan asked.

She shook her head. “No. I just noticed the change in him once he saw the guy. He got nervous, edgy. In retrospect, I can see why. The guy back there was a killer. He would have killed me.”

Bolan nodded his agreement.

She raised her coffee mug to her lips, took a deep swallow and returned it to the table. Bolan noticed a small shudder pass through her and she hugged herself again.

“That’s not the first close call,” she said. “I was in Iraq, working for the wire services. The unit I was embedded with got ambushed. The soldiers I was with were killed, shot by a sniper. I was pinned down and scared out of my mind. Fortunately, another unit rolled in at the last minute and killed the snipers. I almost died that day.”

“You were fortunate,” Bolan said.

Nodding, she reached into the pocket of her jeans, fished around a couple of seconds and pulled her hand back out. She set a silver key on the table.

“What’s it for?” Grimaldi asked.

“Not sure,” she said with a shrug. “After we saw the Russians back at the hotel, Terry gave it to me. He told me to hang on to it, but that was all he said. He could be like that.”

“And you didn’t press him?” Grimaldi asked.

“No. Terry and I have known each other for a while. When he wasn’t going to explain something, he made it obvious. You didn’t force him to talk about something until he was ready.”

Bolan nodded his understanding, though his gut told him the woman was still holding something back. He decided to take another stab in the dark.

“What are you working on right now?”

“Excuse me?” Gillen said.

“Stories. What stories are you working on.”

Her eyes narrowed. “None of your business.”

“Right now, it is. Were you collaborating on anything with Lang?” Bolan pressed.

She shook her head no.

“Working on any crime stories?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” she replied. “Since I’m in a bureau, it has to be a big deal for me to cover a crime. If some guy gets mad and kills his brother-in-law, readers in London or Washington, D.C., don’t want to know about it. Occasionally, some money guy or someone with a charity may get busted for shipping money to al Qaeda. When that happens, my editors want it. Over here, though, most of what I write about is commercial real estate and growth. The financial stuff, that’s what people in London and Washington want to know about.”

“Sure. How about Terry? What was he working on?”

Again, she shook her head. “Not sure,” she replied. “We never talked about work.”

“Bullshit.”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You heard what I said. You can’t tell me that you two never talked shop, ever. You can’t put two reporters in a room together for thirty seconds without them talking about work.”

She’d been hugging herself, fingers encircling biceps. Bolan noticed her hands tighten and she leaned farther back in her chair.

“We didn’t do that.”

The soldier exhaled loudly. With his forefinger and thumb, he pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. Pulling his hand away, he opened his eyes and looked at the reporter.

“You must think you’re extremely clever or I’m extremely stupid,” he said. “Whatever. Either way, you’re lying to me.”

She licked her lips and stared at Bolan, her eyes not bulging, but wide enough to tell Bolan something was wrong. “I’m telling the truth.”

The soldier nodded. Standing, he walked over to the coffee machine and poured himself a cup of coffee. He brought the cup to his lips, blew on it and stared ahead, studying the swirls in the wood grain of the cabinet doors.

“They peeled his skin off,” Bolan said.

“What?”

“The people who took Terry, they peeled his skin off, while he was alive. They stabbed him more times than I can count. Not fatal wounds, mind you. Just enough and in the right spots to put him through agony. I’d guess he was miserable his last hours on Earth.”

She turned in her seat and gave Bolan a look of shock and horror. “Why are you telling me this? What’s wrong with you?”

Bolan set the coffee on the counter and turned slowly to face the woman.

“I’m not sure what your game is,” he said. “But I know you’re not being straight with me. Why, is anybody’s guess. You haven’t told me anything useful. Apparently you don’t care that Lang’s dead. So I figured why not share a few more details? You don’t give a shit anyway.”

“You’re a bastard!”

“Sure I am,” the soldier said. “Here’s the thing, though. I’m trying to figure out what happened to Terry, find out who killed him and why. It bothers me that he died the way he did. You, on the other hand, seem at peace with the whole thing. So I thought I’d unburden myself. It worked. I feel better already.”

With his hands, Bolan pushed off the counter and started across the room.

“Wait!” she called after him. “You can’t keep me here. Am I under arrest? If not, then you can’t keep me here.”

His hand on the doorknob, Bolan paused, then shrugged. “So leave.”

He opened the door, stepped out into the hallway and kept on walking. Grimaldi followed behind him a couple of heartbeats later.

“Wow,” the pilot said, “which nugget of information should we follow up on first?”

“I’d send her packing,” Bolan said. “But I think that’d be like putting a bullet in her head. Whoever tried to find her earlier, is going to come for her again. I’m sure of it.”

“So what next?”

“You stay here,” Bolan said. He handed Grimaldi the key that the woman reporter had provided him. “If you can get her to spill her guts, great. In the meantime, I need to keep looking for Khan.”