Blood Vendetta Read online

  Impatience gnawed at Bolan. He wanted to be moving, not jawboning.

  “Who does know?”

  “Yeah, that’s where it gets a little more interesting—and dangerous,” Mauldin said. “When he turned it down, Alexi suggested someone else for the job, someone who’s going to complicate the hell out of things.”

  “Explain.”

  “Does the name Shota Chernkova ring a bell?”

  Bolan pondered it for a few seconds. “Negative.”

  “Man, you need to get to this side of the world more. Anyway, Chernkova is what we call a logistics specialist.” Mauldin formed air quotes around “logistics specialist” as he spoke. “He has a small fleet of airplanes and he runs all kinds of contraband around the world. Ships weapons for a lot of the intelligence agencies.”

  “Including ours?”

  “Need-to-know basis, my friend,” Mauldin said, grinning. “Problem with him, he’s a little bit of a psychopath. Actually, a lot of a psychopath. Not quite Yezhov quality, but pretty damn close.”

  “We all fall short somewhere,” Bolan said.

  “Crap, was that a joke? Did you just make a funny? Must be the caffeine. Difference between him and Yezhov is he has a paranoia that outweighs his importance. Back when the Cold War ended, he bought a small airbase outside Moscow. It’s pretty tiny by military standards. Mostly was an aircraft-maintenance facility. Perfect for him, though. It had hangars and a couple of runways. Just what he needs for his smuggling operation. Runs a tight ship, too. The French, the Israelis, the British, all have tried to insert people in there. Failed miserably. Most of their guys ended up dead.”

  “You have any assets inside?”

  Mauldin grinned again, held up his right hand, first two fingers forming a V. “Two,” he said. “One’s a pilot, the other’s a mechanic. First guy’s a dick and he has a massive gambling problem. That means he owes lots of money to people, none of whom like him. The mechanic, I used an old-fashioned honey trap to catch him. He never saw it coming, if you’ll pardon the expression.”

  “Pardoned.”

  “He’s actually a decent guy. Family man who made a one-time mistake. I’d almost feel bad if he wasn’t helping to run guns to al Qaeda and Hezbollah. But he’s the maintenance manager. He sees all the paperwork for the flights.”

  “Perfect, call him,” Bolan said.

  Mauldin held up his hand, palm facing forward, in a halt gesture. “Here’s the problem. Chernkova runs the place like an armed camp. He keeps his people there sometimes for weeks at a time, limits their contact with the rest of the world. His people monitor staff phone calls, emails, family visits, the whole nine yards. It’s like a counterintelligence program on steroids. Crazy shit.”

  “When does the mechanic get a pass?”

  “Three days. We were supposed to meet in three days. We’ll have to wait.”

  Bolan shook his head. “I don’t have that kind of time,” he said. “I need another plan.”

  “Such as?”

  “I’m going in.”

  “Did you not hear me? The place is an armed camp,” Mauldin said.

  “Then I guess I’ll need more intel and more guns.”

  * * *

  MAULDIN SPENT THE NEXT four hours gathering both the information and gear that Bolan would require.

  In the meantime, Bolan sent an armored SUV to pick up McCarter and Grimaldi from the U.S. embassy and bring them to Mauldin’s office.

  When they arrived, Mauldin had broken away from his telephone and computer long enough to step out and grab carry-out food from an American burger chain located down the street. A copier/printer stood in the corner, making a humming noise as it spit out pages.

  McCarter bulled his way through the door. Bolan watched as his comrade halted and took the place in. The Phoenix Force commander paused over the caged bird and did the same with the pictures and statues of birds. While he gave the place a once-over, Grimaldi made a beeline for the coffeemaker.

  “Looks like a damn animal preserve,” the Briton groused. “Where’s my safari hat?”

  “I thought you Brits were polite,” Bolan said. “Grab a cup of coffee and sit.”

  “Just making an observation,” McCarter said.

  “Helpful,” Bolan replied.

  Ten minutes later, Mauldin returned and Bolan made vague introductions, using only McCarter’s and Grimaldi’s first names. As the Stony Man warriors downed food and coffee, Mauldin went to work. He grabbed an inch-thick stack of papers from the printer’s output tray, separated it into three piles and passed out the packets to his guests. He powered up his laptop computer and, while he waited, lowered a screen from the ceiling. An image of the PC’s desktop flashed on the screen

  “I brought them up to speed on Chernkova,” the Executioner said.

  “And your bird fetish,” Grimaldi added.

  “I prefer fixation,” Mauldin said. “Less of the ‘ick’ factor.”

  Bolan held up his copy of Mauldin’s report. “Brief us on this,” he said, getting to the matter at hand.

  “Okay, just one second,” Mauldin said. He maneuvered the arrow-shaped cursor onto a file name, clicked twice on it. A moment later an overhead shot of a large chunk of property filled the screen. From what he saw, Bolan guessed photo analysts already had pored over it. The property’s borders already had been highlighted with a thick white line. Estimated measurements in kilometers and yards were superimposed on the image, arrows pointed to buildings, identifying them as the control tower, the administrative headquarters, barracks, etc.

  “All right, ladies, here’s the broad brush. This image came from a commercial satellite-imagery firm. But the intel’s good. Langley’s greatest minds pored over it, then sent it back to me. I vetted the information with my people inside Chernkova’s facility, who confirmed most everything here.”

  Bolan nodded.

  “At any given time,” Mauldin continued, “Chernkova has between forty-five and fifty gunners on the property. An eclectic mix of mercenaries, soldiers and security pros. Most are exiled from their home countries, and a couple are the targets of arrest warrants from the Hague. Some are high-ranking rejects from the Egyptian, Libyan, Iraqi and Balkan militaries, as well as from some of Africa’s worst hellholes—Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia. When their strongman governments got busted down, poor bastards needed a place to go. Chernkova was happy to take them in.”

  “The kind-hearted patriarch,” McCarter muttered.

  “You will likely find about a dozen, maybe fifteen guys working at any one time. He runs them three shifts. That means you’ll catch some guys in the rack, some watching television, eating, torturing small animals. Whatever these creeps do in their spare time. That means you’ll surprise about two thirds of them. That’s the upside. Downside is, you’ll likely encounter more than one wave as they pull their heads from their asses. You don’t need me to school you in tactics, but I’d humbly suggest you hit fast and hit hard.”

  “That’s the plan,” Bolan said.

  Chapter 14

  The airfield seemed to rise out of nowhere, a cluster of concrete and steel in the middle of barren land covered with scrub brush, dirt and rock. During the Cold War, the sprawling facility had served as a place to fix Soviet fighter jets and military cargo planes. That period may be over, but the airfield still buzzed with activity. Antonov An-22 and Ilyushin IL-76 air freighters stood on the tarmac. Engines rumbled as the planes idled. The heat they gave off caused the air above the waiting planes to shimmer. Men and women dressed in midnight blue, insulated jumpsuits scurried around, loading planes, inspecting landing gear, watching as the planes refueled.

  Chernkova stood outside the squat, four-story building that housed his offices and watched the activity. A hand-rolled cigarette pinched between his lips
burned, emitting a curl of gray smoke. Stiff winds whipped over the wide expanses of open land, tousling his thinning gray hair and sending the cigarette smoke back into his eyes. The sting from the smoke caused him to squint involuntarily.

  A lanky man given to wearing blue jeans and casual shirts, Chernkova hardly looked like a millionaire, though he was several times over. His expression remained flat, impenetrable. Small, pale blue eyes took in everything, reacted to nothing. His emotional landscape was as barren as the one surrounding the airport, gray and featureless, save for occasional bouts of rage sparked by primal instincts for self-preservation.

  Kimber Twin pistols were sheathed in a custom shoulder rig wrapped around his slender torso and covered by a brown leather bomber jacket. The guns were a gift from a commander with Pakistani intelligence—a token of appreciation after Chernkova had made an eleventh-hour delivery of assault rifles, body armor and Semtex explosives to Lashkar-e-Taiba. He cared little about the commander’s gratitude, but he liked the guns and wore them whenever on the grounds. It telegraphed to his people that he was in charge, a man willing to go to war to protect what was his.

  “Sir?” The husky male voice came from behind. Chernkova spun around. A guard stood there, waiting. The man, togged in camouflage fatigues and a field jacket, stared down at Chernkova with dead eyes.

  “What?”

  “We need to get you inside,” the guard said.

  A cold finger of fear traced the length of Chernkova’s spine. “What is it, what’s going on?”

  “We have an unidentified chopper coming this way. It was flying too low for our radars to catch. One of our spotters caught a visual of it. We have no scheduled arrivals.”

  “You’re certain it’s coming here.”

  The man glanced left, then right at the open spaces that surrounded them. “Not much else out here, is there, sir?”

  Chernkova nodded, then asked, “Just one?”

  “Just one.”

  “ETA?”

  “Maybe five minutes. We need to get you inside.”

  By then, two more guards had appeared and positioned themselves on either side of Chernkova. He stared at the sky, saw nothing but steel-gray clouds overhead and a jagged line of mountains in the distance. It was a reflexive movement. But logic reminded him that, if the helicopter was several minutes away, catching it with the naked eye would be impossible. Doubt crept in for a moment. Was there really a helicopter? Was this a mistake? Were his own people testing him, wanting to see whether he would panic? Perhaps the motives were more sinister, an attempt to take him down, take what he had. He believed the term was “palace coup.” He looked at the guards, studied each of their stony visages, which betrayed nothing.

  With another glance at the sky, the moment of hesitation passed, swallowed up by Chernkova’s desire for self-preservation.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “Have you put the other shifts on alert?”

  “Already done. We’re trying to hail the chopper. If they don’t respond, we’ll take them out of the sky with shoulder-fired rockets,” the guard said.

  Chernkova nodded and started back for the door of his administrative headquarters. The basement of the drab building contained a small command center complete with a sealed room filled with provisions and weapons. If it came to a standoff, he was well prepared.

  And, in order for there to be a standoff, the intruders would have to penetrate a wall of more than two dozen well-armed, well-trained guards—a virtual impossibility.

  * * *

  MCCARTER FLUNG OPEN the helicopter’s side door before the craft reached Chernkova’s stronghold. The rotor wash from the main propeller whipped through the door, rippling the fabric of his black fatigues. Two fast ropes were coiled on the floor of the helicopter in front of the door, and Bolan was busy securing these hooked end of the ropes to steel loops built into the chooper’s floor. Giving the second rope a final tug, he judged it was secure. He looked up at McCarter and flashed the man a thumbs-up. McCarter acknowledged him with a nod.

  The soldier was togged in his black combat suit. The Desert Eagle rode in a thigh holster while the Beretta was snug in a shoulder holster. A Heckler & Koch MP-7 hung from a strap looped over his left shoulder. The assault weapon’s stock rested against the shoulder’s blade, while the muzzle pointed at the floor. A 40-round clip jutted from the sound-suppressed weapon’s grip. Grenades and a combat knife were clipped to his web gear, along with extra magazines for both the H&K and the two handguns. He carried garrotes, bandages, compresses and other gear in the pockets of his pants.

  Bolan glanced up at McCarter, who was slipping on gloves to protect his hands during the slide down the rope. Bolan knew the Briton had opted for a pair of Browning Hi-Power 9 mm handguns, and that he also planned to carry an M-4 assault rifle fixed with a grenade launcher into battle.

  Bolan slipped on his own gloves.

  A voice buzzed in his earpiece.

  “We’ll be in position in thirty seconds,” Grimaldi said. “I’m going to drop you two off and hit the friendly skies, as per Sarge’s orders.”

  Though Grimaldi could carry more than his weight in a fight, Bolan had ordered him to grab some distance from the drop site as quickly as possible. Mauldin’s intelligence had been good, particularly when it came to building layouts and profiles of the various players. But data on antiaircraft capabilities had been scant. The Executioner was sure an arms dealer with Chernkova’s reach had shoulder-fired rockets on the premises, if not in an armory and immediately accessible. Bolan wasn’t willing to put a friend’s life on the line just so he had an escape flight immediately handy. Besides, Grimaldi had another task to accomplish before he sought temporary cover, Bolan reminded himself.

  The soldier moved the H&K submachine gun from where it hung across his back so that it rested in front of his stomach, the pistol grip within easy reach.

  The helicopter cruised over the perimeter fence and hovered in midair. Bolan and McCarter tossed the ropes from the cabin door and watched them uncoil, stopping within feet of the hard-packed earth below. The rope gripped in both hands, Bolan lowered himself onto the landing skids, while McCarter crouched inside the cabin, the M-4 in his hand, barrel sweeping the ground for threats. The soldier jumped from the landing skids, hands gripping the rope, legs wrapped around it. The rotor wash pushed down hard on him, caused the rope to swing and the fabric of his clothes to ripple.

  Before he’d covered half his descent, Bolan spotted a pair of thugs emerging from the corner of a squat, one-story building—one of several dotting Chernkova’s stronghold. One of the men skidded to a halt, raised a gun-filled hand, drew a bead on the soldier.

  Before the gunner could squeeze off a shot, McCarter’s M-4 rattled. The compact assault rifle rained down death from above. A swarm of rounds stopped the guard in his tracks, stitching a diagonal line from groin to shoulder, the onslaught jerking the man’s body in a final death dance.

  Before the first gunman crashed to the ground in a dead heap, McCarter already had turned his weapon on the second shooter. McCarter aimed for center mass on the guy and a volley of bullets slammed into his torso. The slugs shredded the fabric of the man’s coat and he let loose with a pained cry.

  The guard backpedaled, tripping over a stone that jutted from the ground. But almost as soon as he’d hit the ground, Bolan caught sight of the first man trying to prop himself up on one elbow. A jagged muzzle flash flared from the man’s assault weapon, but only managed to cut through empty air. Bolan guessed the guy wore body armor beneath the heavy jacket that covered his torso.

  Bolan dropped into a crouch and squeezed off a punishing volley from the H&K submachine gun. The bullets tore into the downed shooter’s legs, chewing up fabric, flesh and bone. The man cut loose with a scream that was audible even with a helicopter thrumming overhead. The guard, injured, mind and
body seized by a primal urge to survive, answered Bolan’s onslaught with another burst from his own weapon. The response was a muted one, the fast-aimed fire whizzing over Bolan’s head. The soldier squeezed off a fast burst from the H&K, the slugs drilling into his opponent’s head and shoulders.

  Motion from the corner of his eye caught Bolan’s attention. He wheeled left and spotted three more gunmen pouring through the door of another barracks. Bolan triggered the H&K. The weapon rattled out a murderous barrage. The man from blood swept the weapon in a figure-eight pattern. Slugs from the gun drilled into the soldiers, halted their advance, lanced through flesh and jerked them in a macabre death dance. The third man broke away from his dying comrades and sprinted for the cover of a black SUV parked in front of the barracks. Bolan wheeled toward that man and triggered the H&K again. The bullets pierced the shooter’s torso, the bullets tearing through his flesh. The gunman crashed to the ground in front of the door to the barracks.

  Glass burst out from one of the barrack’s windows. The black muzzle of an assault rifle poked through the window frame. The weapon flared to life and bullets chewed into the ground, causing geysers of dirt to erupt skyward. Bolan swung the H&K toward this latest opponent, the SMG crackling through the rest of the 40-round magazine. The bullets punched through the window glass and an instant later the gun fell silent. The soldier ejected the 40-round magazine from the H&K weapon, practiced hands searching out a fresh one from his web gear while icy eyes surveyed his surroundings.

  Even as he fed another magazine into the weapon, Bolan saw the barrel of another assault rifle jut through the window. He noticed that a grenade launcher was fixed underneath the barrel, and the launcher’s wide opening was swinging in his direction.

  * * *

  A SHOOTER SPRINTED OUT from behind a concrete-block building to McCarter’s right. The stubby black submachine gun the guy cradled spit a line of fire at the Briton, steel-jacketed slugs pounding into concrete inches from his feet. McCarter squeezed the M-4’s trigger. A short burst caught the man in midstride and spun him halfway around.