Death Gamble Read online

  The glare of headlights washed through the streets and announced the arrival of two black Lincoln crew wagons and a Mercedes. Experience told Bolan that his quarry most likely was in the middle vehicle—the Mercedes—while the Lincolns protected their boss’s front and rear.

  Bolan knew he had to hit fast and hard, avoid innocent casualties and encounters with the law. Of course Brognola would run interference for him if he got in trouble with the law. But the Executioner had no time to waste cooling his heels in a holding cell while the big Fed pulled rank with the local police. Not this night.

  When he made his play, he had no margin for error.

  Gates sprang open, and as the first vehicle rolled into the fenced area, Bolan shouldered the rocket and sighted in on the third vehicle. The weapon hissed out its deadly payload, burying it in the vehicle’s back end. The projectile exploded, emitting an ear-shattering boom. The blast transformed the car into a mass of flame and twisted metal.

  The force of the explosion heaved the wreckage several feet in the air before the carcass dropped back to earth, landing on the driver’s side. Flames leaped out from every opening, crackling and licking up toward the skies.

  Discarding the spent launch tube, Bolan grabbed the M-16/M-203 combo and in quick succession launched a fragmentation round and then a smoke grenade into the fenced area. Outnumbered and outgunned, he wanted fear and confusion to reign when they blitzed the kill zone.

  Bolan and Rytova crept across the road and through the gate. The soldier felt a wave of heat strike him as he passed the burning vehicle. Bullets lanced out of the smoke obscuring the strike zone while men shouted commands or cries for help in Russian.

  Bolan dropped into a crouch and swept the M-16 left to right. The weapon chugged out a blazing line of 5.56 mm tumblers that ripped into shadowy figures, whipsawing them before leaving them to crash to the ground. Bolan kept the shooting tight so that stray rounds would slam into the massive casino or one of the other buildings looming before him, rather than buzzing into the streets and possibly injuring bystanders.

  Rytova disappeared from view as a gunner stumbled from the smoke. A dark smear covered his left shoulder, and his arm hung limp at his side. Shouting obscenities, he raised a Glock clutched in his right hand and snapped off two shots at Bolan. The warrior dived off the firing line even as the man’s arm came up. Bolan unleashed a second burst from the M-16. The volley of bullets burned at an upward angle, catching the man in his midsection.

  A second gunner sprinted from the oily black smoke. He tried to insert himself between Bolan and the Mercedes, bolstering the soldier’s theory that it was Ivanov’s vehicle.

  The guard triggered his stubby SMG and autofire blazed toward Bolan, landing just shy of him but ripping a jagged line through the asphalt that lay several feet ahead. The Executioner replied by tapping out a quick burst that cleaved the air just inches from the shooter’s torso but didn’t connect with flesh.

  Both men raced to correct their aim, with Bolan winning by a microsecond. The M-16 rattled out a swarm of bullets that tunneled into the man’s chest and shoulders and dropped him in his tracks.

  The Mercedes growled as the driver gunned its power plant and made a bid to flee the carnage. Rubber screamed and smoked against the pavement as the car whipped backward in a long J-turn that left the vehicle’s nose turned in Bolan’s direction. The still-burning wreckage had blocked the gate and made escape that way impossible. But Bolan knew that with a good running start the Mercedes could make its own exit by smashing through the fence.

  Before he could react to the Mercedes’s moves, the doors of the remaining Lincoln flipped open and shooters disgorged from the vehicle. A withering hail of pistol and machine-gun fire burned its way toward the Executioner as the gunners spotted him and tried to take him out.

  Emptying the M-16’s clip as he moved, Bolan bolted to his left and thrust himself behind a stack of bricks.

  The soldier cracked a new magazine into the assault rifle. Autofire sizzled overhead or pounded into the makeshift brick wall, and Bolan found himself pinned down. He heard what sounded like a separate gun battle and guessed that Rytova was also under fire. Glancing across the parking lot and to his right, he saw Rytova mow down two men with a sustained burst from her Uzi.

  Footsteps sounded from behind. Whirling, Bolan peered around the barrier and caught a pair of hardmen approaching, weapons extended in front of them. The gunners had distanced themselves from each other and were converging on Bolan from separate directions.

  The Executioner knew the chance of delivering a one-two punch and eliminating both men with the M-16 before taking a bullet himself was virtually nil.

  At the same time the Mercedes’ engine revved again, announcing to Bolan and everyone else that Ivanov planned to bow out early. If the mobster got his way, he’d split, disappear and leave Bolan back at square one.

  Spotting the soldier, the first of the two approaching gunners squeezed off a round from his pistol. The guy was a damn good shot, and the bullet whistled just inches from Bolan’s ear. The soldier’s M-16 erupted, hurling out a quick blast of tumblers. Crimson spots blossomed on the white shirt of Bolan’s opponent as the bullets pierced his ribs to the right of his sternum and knocked him to the ground as though bludgeoned by an invisible hammer.

  Bolan began swiveling toward the next shooter, knowing he wouldn’t make it in time. At the same time, the shooter aimed his Uzi at his adversary and prepared to fire. Suddenly, his body pitched forward in a burst of crimson and gray. Bolan looked toward the source of the shot and saw Rytova clutching a handgun. She turned and waded back into her own battle.

  Bolan did likewise, looking for his next opponent while also moving closer to the Mercedes. A man built like an Olympic weight lifter, his lumpy head shaved clean and reflecting light like a waxed apple, rocketed up from behind the empty crew wagon. Resting massive arms across the trunk, the guy clutched a pistol in a two-handed grip and sighted down on Bolan.

  Caught in the open, the Executioner hosed down the Lincoln and the muscle man with a firestorm from the M-16. The weapon went dry and Bolan reloaded it.

  Bolan ran for the Lincoln, surveying the damage as he went. Bodies were strewed everywhere. Fire continued to ravage the remains of the crew wagon that Bolan had destroyed with the rocket. Terrified screams pierced the air outside the fence, and sirens wailed in the distance.

  The Mercedes slowed and a gunner leaped from the rear driver’s-side door of the still-rolling sedan. Bellowing a guttural war cry, the hardman triggered his subgun and sliced a fiery semicircle in the air meant to drive any opponents under cover. Bolan shouldered the assault rifle and dispatched the guy to hell with a single shot between the eyes.

  The Mercedes’ engine gained steam and roared across the parking lot. The driver plowed the vehicle over the remains of his fallen comrades as he navigated out of the hell zone.

  Coming around the rear of the Lincoln, which still had its engine idling, Bolan tossed his weapon into the car, crawled into the driver’s seat and slammed the door behind him. Strapping himself in, he gunned the engine and sped toward the Mercedes as it closed in the gate.

  The warrior’s mind ran through the scenario even as his foot slammed against the accelerator. He knew he couldn’t stop the Mercedes with small-arms fire. A straight-on T-bone crash, where his grille struck the Mercedes in the middle could be devastating, even between two armored cars, leaving all the occupants critically wounded or dead.

  Bolan had accepted his mortality a long time ago and lived with death at his right hand every minute. Still, he knew he’d do no one any good if his ticket got punched too soon.

  The Mercedes darted across Bolan’s path like a shadow. The driver was smart enough to know he couldn’t plow past the wreckage blocking the gate and was driving his vehicle straight through the plywood-covered chain-link fence.

  With the engine’s whine filling his ears as the Lincoln gained speed, Bolan steered the big
vehicle toward the Mercedes. He had to get the timing just right or forget it. There’d be no second chances.

  Guiding the Lincoln, he smashed the vehicle’s right tip hard against the Mercedes’ rear end. Metal ground into metal, setting off sparks and filling Bolan’s car with an ear-piercing screech. The impact knocked the Mercedes off course. Its back end skidded out from behind it, and the front end swept sideways until it smacked into the Lincoln.

  The force of the collision pressed Bolan against his seat, and he gripped the steering wheel hard to keep the vehicle under control. The car spun before he was able to bring it to a stop.

  The Mercedes driver had also brought his vehicle under control and was cutting a new path for the fence. Because of the cramped quarters, Bolan estimated the other vehicle hadn’t broken the twenty miles per hour mark.

  The Lincoln knifed across the parking lot, the right front corner striking against the Mercedes’ tail. Gunning the engine, Bolan continued to press his advantage and shoved the Mercedes up against an overloaded trash bin. The big container shook under the impact, and ragged sheets of drywall and floor timbers rained down upon the Mercedes and bounced across the Lincoln’s hood.

  Freeing himself from the car, Bolan fisted his Beretta. Approaching the Mercedes with the pistol extended in a two-handed grip, he saw that two men occupied the vehicle. The Mercedes’ driver had been knocked unconscious. The man seated in the back of the vehicle was scrambling for a lost gun.

  Bolan whipped open the passenger’s-side door and shoved the Beretta into the mobster’s face.

  Ivanov flashed Bolan a hard gaze, but instinct told Bolan his quarry wasn’t about to take this one-on-one confrontation all the way.

  “You and I need to talk,” the warrior said.

  “KISS MY ASS,” Sergei Ivanov said. “I know my rights and you have trampled them. I will sue the United States government for this atrocity. You have done a great deal of damage to my businesses and my reputation.”

  Seated behind a table and chain-smoking Marlboros, Ivanov gave Bolan a fierce look. The Russian Mob boss was slim, six feet two inches tall, and had a thick head of hair, as white as the Siberian snow. The combined cost of his tan summer-weight suit and the gold jewelry he wore probably equaled the gross domestic product of some developing nations.

  He tapped manicured fingers against the tabletop. Even in captivity, his dark brown eyes regarded Bolan and Rytova with an arrogance that indicated he considered himself the master.

  Getting Ivanov, Rytova and Bolan from the kill zone hadn’t been a problem. A chopper had been on standby waiting to airlift them from the scene. A cleanup team from Stony Man Farm had been waiting in the wings to take care of Bolan’s rental. Brognola, backed by the weight of presidential authority, was working hard to smooth ruffled feathers in Las Vegas.

  That left Bolan and Rytova to interrogate Ivanov.

  The trio was locked down in a suburban Las Vegas safehouse, one of several held nationwide by the Sensitive Operations Group. Blacksuits were positioned throughout the house, ready to take down Ivanov’s men if they came to reclaim Bolan’s prize. The room, a ten-foot-by-ten foot cube, was soundproofed. Bolan could keep in touch with the blacksuits waiting outside via a handheld radio.

  Anger electrified Bolan as he rose up from his chair, letting it crash to the floor behind him. A challenge flickered in Ivanov’s eyes and he smiled. He was at least two decades older than Bolan and didn’t have the warrior’s build. But, according to information supplied by Aaron Kurtzman and Hal Brognola, he was no pushover. Ivanov had handled wet work for the KGB for years before immigrating to America and adding the title Mafia boss to his résumé. No doubt Ivanov was tough. But Bolan was tougher.

  Bolan fixed Ivanov with a steely glare. “So Sergei, enlighten me on what Nikolai Kursk is doing.”

  Ivanov stubbed out his cigarette. “Make me a deal,” he said.

  Bolan was ready to reply, but a hand on his shoulder caused him to stop cold. He jerked his head around, looked down and saw Rytova standing behind him. “Please,” she said. “Let me handle this.”

  Bolan looked at her for a moment, nodded and stepped away.

  Ivanov roared with derisive laughter. He slapped a palm against his knee with a loud crack and shook his head.

  “Yes, please. Let the woman do your fighting for you. You are so obviously outclassed here, big man,” he taunted.

  Rytova drew the SIG-Sauer P-239 from her hip. Giving Ivanov a cold look, she screwed a sound suppressor into the pistol’s barrel.

  “Silence,” she said in Russian.

  Ivanov’s face hardened. “I do not take orders from a woman,” he said. “Especially not a crazy one.”

  Without a word, Rytova raised her shooting hand and the pistol sneezed twice. The 9 mm Parabellum rounds slapped into the seat of the wooden chair, pounding out a short line that led to his groin. His eyes burst from slits into wide circles.

  In rapid fire, she squeezed off two more shots, each round traveling less than an inch as it passed by Ivanov’s right, then left ears.

  Rytova spoke in English. “You will take orders from me now.”

  “You will not kill me.” His voice sounded smaller, less sure.

  “I don’t have to,” Rytova said. “A well-placed round to the knees could leave you painfully crippled. Or I could shoot you in a more private spot. That would not kill you. You’d just wish you were dead. Or perhaps you will bleed to death. No real man would want to die so passively as that.”

  The mobster stared at her for a moment. Her gaze never wavered. The last vestiges of bravado cracked and his forehead pinched tight as he seemed to agonize for a moment, weighing his next best move. As far as Bolan was concerned, the guy had one option.

  “What do you want to know?” Ivanov asked reluctantly.

  “Nikolai Kursk. What does he plan to do in this country?” Rytova asked.

  Ivanov started to protest but checked himself.

  “You know of the plane?”

  Rytova nodded.

  “He plans to steal it. There are teams of men assembling right now to do so. The raid happens tonight.”

  Rytova continued to press. “How will he steal it? The base has tight security. How will he get the craft out of there?”

  Ivanov shrugged. “It is simple. He has people inside who will help him breach security. Then he will fly the plane out of there. And Kursk himself will not even be there. He’s not even in the country.”

  “There’s maybe a half dozen people in the United States capable of flying that plane,” Bolan interjected. “How in hell does he plan to fly the Nightwind out of the base?”

  “As I said, he has inside help,” Ivanov said.

  He lit another cigarette, took a long deep drag. He stared at his shiny black loafers, bent and brushed away an imaginary speck of dust, before looking up again. Stripped of his arrogance, he looked smaller and older.

  “He has one of the pilots in his custody even as we speak. A man named Jon Haley. He works for Sentinel Industries. Nikolai is exerting pressure on the man so he will fly the plane out of the base.”

  Bolan felt a burning in his gut as it twisted up with anger. But he held his tongue and let Rytova continue the interrogation.

  “What kind of pressure?” she asked.

  “We have his family. If Haley doesn’t comply with our demands, we will kill them. He saw us take them, and he knows what we want of him.”

  “Where are they?”

  “In Las Vegas.” Ivanov gave her the address.

  “What about the base?” Bolan interjected again.

  “We have been planning this for months,” Ivanov said. “Recruiting Dade was part of a much larger plan. We watched Haley for months and hacked into his military and his personnel files. We saw he was the best pilot to fly the craft under adverse conditions. We knew we couldn’t buy the man off, so we grabbed the strongest leverage we could find.”

  “His family,” Bolan said.
/>   “Yes. As Ms. Rytova will tell you, families are fair game. For us, it’s just business. Nothing personal.”

  The dig caused Rytova to stiffen. Otherwise, her gaze stayed stony. The woman was a real pro, Bolan thought.

  “What makes Kursk think any country would buy the plane once it’s stolen?” Bolan asked.

  Ivanov dropped the cigarette to the carpet and crushed it into the fibers with a shoe.

  “Everyone wants it,” he said. “The Russians, the Chinese. Even Iran and North Korea want it. Those two have not forgotten that Axis of Evil comment that branded them. They worry that your government will try to topple their regimes, covertly if not overtly. And Iran has the resources to pay the price tag.”

  “Which is?”

  “A cool one and a half billion. We have very low overhead on this deal, so it’s pure profit. It is Nikolai’s big score, so to speak. Plus the resulting tension is sure to create other ancillary conflicts, which is good for business.”

  “Tension? You mean from the plane theft?”

  Ivanov nodded. “Yes. Of course. America will have to admit to the existence of the plane, something it created without the knowledge of its own people. Something it has denied was even scientifically feasible given the current technology. Your leaders don’t have the political will to do that. So they’d probably wage a secret war or broker a deal behind closed doors to get the plane back. Or they will lie about the base’s purpose, blame its destruction on terrorists and retaliate against someone, never explaining the real reason why. We have Soviet jet fighters, submarines, helicopters, even suitcase nukes ready to sell. We just want people to fight. When politicians talk, we make no money. You’re obviously a soldier. I was a soldier. Surely we can agree that war is a state in which we’re both happiest. It is a necessary evil.”

  “Real soldiers fight for peace. Not for the sake of fighting,” Bolan replied.

  “Real soldiers die. Sometimes they die for a cause, sometimes they die in vain. Tonight many will be killed on the battlefield, and they will never know what hit them. Consider it a friendly fire incident of sorts.”