Читать книгу Survival Mission - Don Pendleton - Страница 8

The stranger was out of his element, running on animal rage and a vestige of hope that grew fainter with each hour’s passage. He didn’t know the city but could read a map. He didn’t speak the country’s foremost language but had drilled sufficiently in German and Russian as a younger man to get along. Locals would take him for a tourist if he didn’t push his luck too far, come down on them too hard.

That was the rough part, trying to act casual when every instinct he possessed was telling him to run amok and burn the goddamned city down if that was what it took to reach his goal. How many lives was he prepared to sacrifice in the pursuit of one he still held precious?

Pick a number. Any number. Were there seven billion people on the planet yet?

The only one that mattered was beyond his grasp so far, but he was getting closer.

He could feel it, with the ache inside that marked her loss.

He didn’t know if she was still alive, or what condition he would find her in, if she was. Had she been lost beyond all doubt, there would have been no reason for the marginal display of calm he somehow managed to project. Under those circumstances, he could have let his fury off its leash and slaughtered everyone he met, until he found the ones responsible.

And introduced them to a taste of living hell on earth.

But for the moment, he was still Joe Tourist, soaking up the sights, dropping an offhand question into conversation here and there. His face was not a memorable one; the mirror in his hotel room confirmed it. If he hit no panic buttons, sounded no alarms, he should be able to get closer.

Maybe even close enough.

The first real hurdle had been finding the specific tools he needed in a foreign city, but he’d managed. Anywhere you went, worldwide, the managers of seedy bars and brothels were the secretkeepers. Taxi drivers could direct you to the action for a fee, and once you wormed your way into the pulsing heart of decadence, debased yourself enough to rule out any thought that you might be an undercover cop, the only thing that mattered was the price tag.

Anyplace on earth, a man—or woman—with sufficient cash in hand could find the means of degradation or the weapons of destruction. Name your poison. If a twisted mind was able to conceive it, currency could make the nightmare real.

So he was armed, not necessarily as well as he’d have liked, but adequately. He could kill a small battalion if his luck held, and he clung to the advantage of surprise. They shouldn’t know that he was hunting them, not yet, but in the real world nothing could be taken on blind faith.

The arms dealer, for instance, would have underworld connections. Absolutely, beyond doubt. If he was talkative, told someone of the hardware he’d furnished to a foreigner—more to the point, a westerner—the ripples might begin to spread. Nothing that would identify the hunter yet, but once suspicion had been raised, the creatures dwelling in the city’s netherworld would be alert. Watching and listening, reporting back to someone at the center of the loathsome spiderweb.

It was the spider that he wanted. Maybe more than one. But he’d be satisfied to save the gnat they’d snared, if only he could rescue her unharmed.

But if he’d come too late, as he feared—if she had been defiled, or worse—the stranger reckoned that a life or two in recompense might not be satisfactory.

He’d have to wait and see, after he checked the address he’d obtained from a young woman of the streets. She hadn’t been insulted when he told her that seventeen or eighteen years placed her beyond the pale of his desires. In her profession, he supposed that she had heard and seen it all. Of course, he had to pay the normal hourly rate and more besides, but once the deal was struck she had been happy to oblige.

Or simply bored and sending one more pervert on his way.

Whatever.

Motive didn’t matter to the stranger. All that counted was the end result.

The street was named for some war hero of a bygone century who would have been forgotten, otherwise. He didn’t rate a statue, but they’d loaned his name to seven seedy blocks that boasted tattoo parlors, pawnshops, hot-sheet hotels and diners whose special was ptomaine roulette.

He’d spotted the red door, confirmed its street number. No sign on the filthy brick wall to explain what went on inside the three-story building. But then, he supposed, if you had this address there was no explanation required.

He rang the bell, waited and kept his face deadpan as someone scrutinized him through a peephole. Thirty seconds later the door opened to reveal a bullet-headed, no-neck slab of muscle in a pin-striped suit who glowered at the new arrival from behind an often-broken nose.

“Kdo jste?” he inquired. “Co chceš?”

Tone dictates meaning, and the stranger on the stoop replied in German.

“Ich bekam diese Adresse finden sie ein Mädchen.”

The man with the bullet-shaped head considered it, then stood aside. He switched to German.

“Hereinkommen.”

Stepping past him, waiting for the door to close, the stranger timed his move, drawing his pistol, turning on his heel to swing it as a bludgeon. But the target had already moved, a big fist looping toward the gunman’s face to strike him with explosive force. He fell, half-conscious, clinging to the pistol for a moment, until more men suddenly surrounded him and wrenched it from his grasp.

The man with the bullet-shaped head leaned close enough for drops of spittle to make impact as he spoke. English this time.

“You’re one dumb bastard, eh? Who helps your little girlie now?”