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  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.

  6

  The town house was in an upscale, international resident section of the city, adjacent to the old financial district. Bolan had the taxi driver drop him a couple of blocks away, and he approached from the rear making use of the clean, wide alleys running between the houses.

  It was a quiet neighborhood, and Bolan didn’t notice anyone up and moving about at such a late hour. It was place of good security due to the high concentration of foreign businessmen from the petroleum and mining industries. People here, Bolan knew, lived a hell of a lot better than they did in the rest of the Grozny metropolis.

  At the back gate Bolan punched the code Barbara Price had given him into the keypad hidden behind a false plaque and disabled the alarm system. He entered the little walkway and shut the gate tightly behind him. At the back door of the safehouse, Bolan tipped up a bird feeder hanging from a low tree branch and got the key to the dead-bolt lock.

  Once inside the two-story house he locked the door behind him and reengaged the alarm system. He went into the Western-style kitchen and pulled open the fridge door. The fridge was well stocked, and he pulled out a bright red Coca-Cola can. He leaned against the counter, guzzled the soda and tossed the empty can into the nearby garbage bin.

  Bolan pulled the envelopes free of his jacket pocket and threw them on the kitchen table. He removed the handgun from the small of his back and set it next to the envelopes. He took off his jacket and sat down.

  Bolan sighed and leaned forward, putting his head in his hands and closing his eyes for a moment. His knuckles were still slightly sore from where they’d struck the man in the porn shop.

  After a moment he pulled the first of the five manila envelopes over to him. He reached behind him and drew the knife he had taken from the man he’d killed. He opened the folding handles with practiced flicks of his wrist, then used the knife blade to open the first envelope.

  Inside Bolan found computer printouts. He shifted them around, studying the details. It was a schematic diagram. He frowned, knowing he didn’t have the technical expertise to know what the blueprints showed. Perhaps they were the electronics to the guidance systems DNI had been so worried Sable had procured. Perhaps they were something else.

  Bolan pushed the schematic printout aside and opened up the next envelope. It contained more of the same. The third one showed a list of numbers running down a spreadsheet. He knew he was looking at an accounting ledger. The numbers showed transactions, dates, amounts and specific account numbers.

  “You were getting some good stuff,” Bolan murmured to the absent Sanders.

  He threw the papers on top of the pile of information, set the knife on the table and rubbed his eyes. He breathed deeply.

  He picked up the next to the last envelope and opened it quickly. Several photos spilled out across the desk. He sat up, suddenly alert, completely surprised by what he was seeing.

  In the photos two women were locked together, naked, on a bed. Bolan held them up. It showed a pretty, younger Asian woman kissing a blond woman. The Asian was attractive, but the blonde had an icy beauty, as hard as diamonds, that Bolan had only seen in expensive call girls.

  He looked at the rest of the pictures. The women, already naked, progressed quickly beyond the kissing stage. In one shot the brunette had her face buried between the blonde’s smooth thighs. The blonde was looking down on the younger woman, her face haughty as she pulled at the woman’s hair.

  “What’s this all about, Sanders?” Bolan wondered.

  Bolan pulled two photos out of the pile and set them in front of him. He slid the rest back into their envelope. The two photos he kept out each showed close shots of the women’s faces. Bolan studied them intently, memorizing every detail. When he was satisfied he’d recognize them in person, he put them away and opened the final envelope from the drop.

  Inside the envelope was folded piece of stationery. Bolan unfolded it and looked at what was written there. It was a simple series of numbers.

  Bolan frowned. If the drop was a fast turnover situation, then it was possible the code was a simple system meant for Sanders to decipher quickly and then destroy, rather than sophisticated encryption.

  The soldier got up and stretched. He went back out into the living area where he had seen a desk with a computer on it. It might help with research, but the house had been set up as a hideaway, not a field operations center, and communications were not infallibly secure. There were the cyberequivalents of blind drops, but Bolan had no intention of using them from this location unless absolutely necessary.

  Bolan needed a good, down and dirty, field code Sanders might have instructed a stringer in. From the numbers, it seemed to be a replacement code of some sort. Bolan got to work with pen and paper. He was in Operational Theater Six. He added that to the last digit of the day of the date of the drop, then transposed the numbe
rs with letters of the alphabet.

  He tried the day Sanders had made his call, got a jumble of alphabet letters, then tried switching the letters out with the next letter in the alphabet. Nothing. He tried it with the letter prior and came up empty. He snarled in frustration and thrust the sheets of paper away.

  Bolan got up and went to the refrigerator. He reached in and pulled out a green bottle of Heineken. He idly wondered what poor schmuck had gone all the way through college CIA recruitment only to find himself putting his security clearance to use stocking the fridge in some rarely used safehouse.

  Bolan sat the beer down unopened. His mind was cluttered with images, snapshot memories of a hundred different events and a thousand different days from his past. He walked over to the doorway and reached up to grab the lip of the frame at the top. He dug his fingers in tightly and began to pull himself up in slow, deliberate movements. The exercise was an old rock climbing movement designed to strengthen the hands and forearms as much as the biceps and back.

  After an easy fifteen chin-ups to get his blood moving, Bolan lowered himself and walked back to the table. He clenched and unclenched his fists, loosening the muscles of his grip. He shrugged back to stretch his shoulders and looked down at the table.

  Bolan shook random thoughts away and sat, pulling his notes toward him. He looked at the numbers. They sat there, stubbornly refusing to give up their secrets. Then a slow smile slid across his face.

  The soldier stood and crossed to the computer where he immediately logged on. He set his notes beside him at the desk and signed on to the Internet. He pulled up a Russian-English dictionary Website. He typed a word from his notes into the computer. The word came back unknown. Bolan threw that sheet down and picked up the sheet where he had transposed the letter corresponding with the number abstraction with the letter directly following it.

  He hurriedly typed the series of letters into the computer. He got a match. He wrote the match down, then typed in each word until he translated the note in its entirety. When he was done he leaned back, feeling satisfied despite himself.

  He read the note.

  Tan is a dupe. Break all contact.

  7

  Bolan got out of the taxi on a secondary street in Grozny’s renovated financial district. The gigantic, gutted structure of the old Oil Ministry building cast long shadows over the Meltzer Import Export Emporium. The covert station house was a tasteful, discreet building with darkened, lead-lined windows and subdued walls.

  The soldier surveyed the building. He’d tried to avoid making contact with Grozny station only because Sanders himself had avoided using the place in making contact with higher authority. Bolan would have preferred to slip in and out of this operations region without officially entering the fiefdom of the local station.

  But Sanders’ failure to show for the meet and subsequent events had made such an approach unworkable. Bolan had no intention of leaving the drop envelopes with them. He’d put them in a safe at the secure house before taking a shower and going to bed.

  Bolan entered the austere offices and approached a pretty receptionist behind a massive desk. A plaque on her desk read Ms. Pong, and her face seemed locked in a mask of perpetual boredom. She regarded Bolan with a disinterested stare. He smiled his good morning.

  “You speak English?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I have a question about goods.”

  “Yes?”

  “I was wondering if you could tell me whether or not the futures in Chechen oil could be considered robust?”

  The receptionist didn’t blink at the covert parole code. She stared up at Bolan with expressionless, black eyes. Her voice was monotone when she answered.

  “I wouldn’t know. We only handle manufactured goods,” she said. “Please wait in there.”

  The receptionist indicated a door set discreetly in the wall toward the back of the lobby, away from the elevator banks and half-hidden by a potted rubber tree plant. She reached a well-manicured hand under her desktop, and a muted buzzer sounded.

  Bolan crossed the room quickly and went through the door. He heard an electronically controlled dead bolt slide into place as the door swung closed behind him. He looked around.

  He was in a short, well-lit hallway. A line of comfortable chairs sat against a wall decorated in muted tones. Bolan sat, looking for the security cameras. Unable to spot them, he decided they were using telescopic fiber optics.

  A door in the hallway opened and a man walked out. Bolan sized him up and didn’t like the vibe he picked up. He was Caucasian and big. Big in the way Eastern Europeans and Russians seemed to get as they slipped into middle age. The man stood almost a full head taller than Bolan and had to have weighted in at close to three hundred pounds. He looked like a bear right before hibernation—powerful muscles covered by copious amounts of fat.

  The man wore a mustache and beard, shot through with gray, and his hairline receded prodigiously. His suit was expensive-looking, as was his gold watch. He strode up and stopped before Bolan, who had risen at the man’s approach.

  “You are from the DNI,” the man said.

  It wasn’t a question and he didn’t offer to shake hands.

  “I already know that. Who are you?” Bolan said calmly.

  The man stepped forward into Bolan’s space in a maneuver clearly designed to intimidate the newcomer. It was the kind of bluster that occurred every day in boardrooms, but it was a disrespectful move that could get a person killed in a prison yard or the wrong kind of bar.

  Bolan stepped into the looming approach and both men stopped within a hairbreadth of butting chests. The man’s gut was considerable, but up close he looked strong enough to wrestle tigers. Bolan didn’t back down. The pair locked fierce gazes, neither man blinking.

  “I see you’ve met case officer Kubrick,” a cultured voice from behind them said.

  Bolan’s eyes flickered away, and he took in the second man who had just emerged from one of the office doorways. A mousy woman stood behind him, arms hugging a massive pile of folders and paperwork.

  “You are here about the Sanders situation, correct?” the new arrival asked.

  “Yes,” Bolan replied.

  Bolan turned and put his shoulder into that of the man identified as Kubrick. He stepped forward, dipping slightly at the knees as he did so. As the Executioner stepped past Kubrick, he rose up and caught the heavier man in the ribs with his shoulder, where he had a leverage advantage. Bolan brushed past the larger man, unbalancing him so that he stumbled.

  Kubrick swore, and Bolan turned his back on him as the second man addressed him.

  “I am Claus Lich, station principal.”

  “Matt Cooper,” Bolan said, extending his hand.

  “That is my director of operations, Herman Kubrick. He’s been running the institute case.” Lich met Bolan’s eyes with his own unaffected gaze. “He’ll be your liaison in this matter. Herman?”

  “Yes, Mr. Lich?”

  Kubrick stepped forward, brushing down the front of his suit where Bolan’s nudge had left him disheveled.

  “Please show Mr. Cooper every courtesy. Bring him up to speed and then provide him with whatever help we can offer.”

  Lich turned and ushered the tepid little woman into his open office door ahead of him. He turned back before he followed her in. He looked at Bolan like a lab tech trying to classify a distasteful, but possibly deadly, new strain of virus.

  “Cooper.” Lich nodded.

  Bolan nodded back.

  Lich gave Bolan a freezing smile before disappearing into his office. He’d never looked toward Kubrick again after giving his instructions.

  Bolan frowned reflectively as he watched the station principal’s door bang shut. He turned and looked at Kubrick.

  “Well, Herman, we going to get this done?” Bolan said.

  “Call me Kubrick, asshole. Follow me.”

  Kubrick turned and walked toward the end of the hall where Bola
n had entered. He moved fast for such a big man and he didn’t look back to see if Bolan was following him.

  The Executioner looked impassively at the man’s retreating back before relenting and following him. Someone had tried to kill him, and Bolan wasn’t going to let macho posturing or turf wars keep him from his mission. Something was wrong in Grozny, and he meant to find out what.

  “HOLD MY CALLS,” Kubrick said into his cell phone. “Tell them I have a breakfast meeting. I shouldn’t be gone long.” Kubrick hung up.

  “Where are we going?” Bolan asked.

  “I’m hungry. I know a place where we won’t be interrupted and the help knows how to mind their own business.”

  “I imagine you know quite a bit about the restaurant scene,” Bolan remarked.

  “Screw you.”

  Kubrick navigated Grozny efficiently, using diplomatic credentials to pass quickly through security checkpoints. The Chechen insurgents had, for the most part, been pushed into the Caucasus Mountains and the bulk of combat operations were taking place along the Georgian border.

  Bolan looked out the tinted windows of Kubrick’s Mercedes. He watched landmarks slide by they drove across the busy, modern streets of the city center. He had a feeling Kubrick didn’t spend too much time in the slums or out in the bush.

  He and Kubrick were like two bulls in a field and butting heads came naturally to them. Bolan was an interloper on Kubrick’s turf, and Lich’s for that matter. Bolan had done his homework at the safehouse, and he was nominally well versed in the history of both men.

  Lich had come up through the ranks old school. He’d been a logistics officer for Air America operations in the Asian theater during the sixties and had then been assigned to Berlin, running counterintelligence operations against Communist incursions on all levels. He’d made his bones working the iron curtain and he’d stayed there.

  Other than that cursory background, Brognola hadn’t been able to access Lich’s agency file—a fact the big Fed had found very troubling. Lich’s background was buried so deep that Bolan, through Brognola, had been frozen out.