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  That left only one place where the presence he had felt could be hiding. Dropping lower behind the canvases, the Executioner began making his way toward the small office.

  As he neared the staircase, a swarthy figure suddenly appeared at the top of the steps. The Desert Eagle rose. But a second later, Bolan made out the broad figure of Johnny Seven. The DEA man held his SIG-Sauer in his right hand, the 7-round Taurus in his left. He was about to start back down the stairs.

  The Executioner raised his empty hand and shook it violently over his head to catch Seven’s eye in the dim light. Johnny Seven saw him and froze in place. The Executioner’s index finger moved down to his lips for silence, then pointed toward the rear office.

  Seven understood, and nodded. He trained both his autopistol and revolver toward the rear of the building.

  Bolan motioned for him to stay where he was, then crept on, making his way through the forest of canvas and easels. In his mind he heard breathing, but he knew that was the only place it could be—in his mind. The gallery was still a cacophony of diverse racket that would have covered such sounds even if they’d been right next to him.

  The Executioner stopped at the last row of paintings before the office. By his count, he had fired six rounds from the big .44 Magnum. He had two left. Not wanting to be disarmed—even for the second or so it would take to drop the nearly spent magazine and replace it with a fresh box—he curled his left hand under his jacket and pulled the Beretta 93-R from under his arm. He flipped the selector switch of the sound-suppressed machine pistol to burst mode, then moved on.

  A muzzle-flash partially blinded the Executioner as he stepped around the last row of paintings. A split second later, an explosion sounded over the screech of the alarm, the pounding rain and the ever nearing sirens. He reacted rather than acted, firing with both right and left hands simultaneously, and sending a deafening .44 Magnum hollowpoint round as well as a sound-suppressed trio of 9 mm slugs back at the flash.

  An obscure specter that had stepped into the doorway leading to the office was driven back against the wall next to the door. Still half-blinded by the sudden light, the Executioner watched it slump to a sitting position on the floor before rolling over onto its side.

  Bolan crouched low as he hurried on through the doorway, squinting both ways, hoping his suddenly contracted pupils would pick up any more gunmen who might be hiding in the office. But he was alone.

  With another dead body.

  As his eyes began to readjust to the darkness, the Executioner saw that the door to the rear parking lot was slightly ajar. Part of the wooden frame had been ripped from the wall, and what must have happened suddenly became clear. The gunman had kicked in the door after the alarm went off. The roar coming from the speakers around the gallery had masked the noise.

  Bolan hurried back to the main room and found Johnny Seven at the bottom of the steps. The DEA man could see through the doorway to the office and knew what had happened. Seven knelt next to the dead man who had worn the bomber jacket and began going through his pockets.

  “Don’t waste your time,” Bolan said. “They won’t have ID on them.” He hurried back to the steps and yelled up to the second floor. “Luiza! Come down! We’ve got to go!” When he got no response, he took the stairs in three long leaps and found the Russian woman in her living room. She was sitting with her back against the wall, her hands clasped in front of her, shaking violently.

  Bolan knelt next to her and took her in his arms. For a moment, he held her. Then, as she began to calm, he leaned back to arm’s reach and said, “Come on. It’s over. But we’ve got to go.”

  Polyakova felt like a limp rag as she let Bolan help her to her feet. Barely audible under her breath, he heard her say, “It will never be over. But what cannot be overcome or escaped must be endured.”

  The words sounded strangely formal under the circumstances, as if she might be quoting the line from a book or a play. Under other conditions Bolan would have been tempted to inquire further, but the sirens were growing louder now as the NYPD raced closer, and the burglar alarm continued to squeal.

  Bolan helped the Russian woman down the stairs, thinking of how she had punched the first female convict who had tried to kill her on Rikers Island. The incident stood out in bold relief against seeing her just shaking in terror. But Bolan was reminded that she was like most people when it came to courage. Sometimes it was just there. Sometimes it just wasn’t. And often it came only when a person’s back was against the wall and there was no one else to help.

  “Let’s go,” the Executioner said as he passed Johnny Seven, still on the floor.

  “The cops will be here in a minute and—”

  “That’s why we’ve got to go. Grab the suitcase.” Bolan had no more intention of answering questions the rest of the night than he had of keeping the appointment with Deputy Commissioner Kasparak and the Rikers investigators in a few hours.

  The Desert Eagle in one hand, Luiza Polyakova in the other, Bolan hurried to the back door and swung it open. He peered outside. When he was satisfied that the area around the gallery was clear, he hauled the woman across the lot to the Highlander. He had her in the passenger’s seat and was halfway behind the wheel by the time Seven opened the door and jumped in the back.

  Bolan hit the window wipers as he pulled out of the alley onto the street.

  “So,” Seven said as they passed the front of the gallery, “I take it we don’t intend to stick around and explain to the locals what happened.”

  “You’ve got it,” Bolan replied.

  “Well, it’s not as if you didn’t warn me,” the DEA man stated from the back seat.

  “You can still take off if you want,” the soldier said.

  Behind Bolan, Seven snorted loudly. “You kidding?” he said. “I’m having the time of my life. There’s just one thing I’d like to ask of you, though.”

  “What’s that?” Bolan asked.

  “Next time, let me kill one of the scumbags, okay?”

  “You’ll just have to be faster,” Bolan answered.

  A block from the gallery, the Highlander met two black-and white squad cars going the other way.

  3

  The Red Brick Hotel was actually one of New York City’s famous brownstones. The layer of bricklike shingling covering the front of the building around the entryway was apparently enough to warrant the name.

  It sat a few blocks from Polyakova’s gallery. Bolan remembered the hotel from years before as a modestly priced place several steps below the Hilton but an equal number above a Bowery flophouse. What he remembered best—and what was most important now—was the fact that the Red Brick had enclosed parking.

  At least one of the attackers—maybe more—had been at the gallery and escaped. That meant the Highlander had to be considered exposed, and if they planned to stay somewhere for any length of time, Bolan wanted to get it off the streets and out of sight.

  Bolan sent Seven up the concrete steps and into the lobby to secure a room. He and Luiza Polyakova stayed in the vehicle, double-parked along the street. Bolan kept one eye forward along the street, the other on the rearview mirror, as they waited.

  The rain hadn’t let up and it pounded the roof and windshield of the light SUV. The wind was unusually strong for the city, and now and then a gust rocked the Highlander. What little hair Johnny Seven had on the sides of his head was soaking wet and blown over his ears when he returned a few minutes later holding a key. The DEA man got in. Bolan twisted the steering wheel and guided them down a narrow drive between the hotel and a small grocery store to the rear of the building, then up a ramp.

  They found an empty space on the second floor of the parking garage. The Executioner killed the engine, grabbed Polyakova’s suitcase and got out.

  Five minutes later they all stood inside the room on the third floor. Sparsely furnished, it consisted of a double bed, a desk, small table and mismatched chairs. All of the furnishings looked as if they might ha
ve been picked up at a garage sale. Bolan set the suitcase down on the floor next to the wall and pulled the chair out from the desk. When he turned around, Seven was coming out of the bathroom with a towel and began drying the straggly hair at the sides of his head as he took a seat on the edge of the bed next to the Russian woman.

  “Okay. Luiza, I need you to go over it all again. And this time, don’t leave anything out. No matter how small or how unimportant some detail might seem, I need to know.” He paused a moment and looked into her emerald eyes. “After all that’s happened in the past few hours, I think you can figure out where you stand. You’re smart enough to know that unless we help you, you’re going to die. And the only way we can help you is by finding whoever wants you dead.”

  Bolan sat waiting, expecting another flood of tears that would rival the storm raging outside, but the impending shower didn’t happen. Instead, Polyakova’s deep green eyes took on a weary, resigned look.

  “Where do you want me to start?” she asked.

  “At the beginning. Tell me how you met the men who forced you to help them.”

  Polyakova sighed. “It seems so long ago,” she said, and for a moment her voice sounded like a little girl’s. “I had opened my gallery here in New York only two years ago. I had been making a modest living, and I was happy. I am not a person who demands wealth. If it comes, fine, but it has little to do with happiness.”

  Bolan and Johnny Seven sat quietly, listening.

  “Then a childhood friend of mine—an art dealer in Moscow—called me,” Polyakova went on. “He offered me an extraordinary price on several dozen paintings that he couldn’t sell in Russia because of the lagging economy. I went home to Moscow to arrange for shipment and to visit my family.” She stopped speaking for a moment and shivered. Whether it was from the rain or the memory, Bolan couldn’t be sure. “I was leaving the art dealer’s office when I was approached on the street by a man. It was Rabashka.”

  Polyakova paused, took a deep breath, then continued. “Rabashka explained what he wanted me to do. He had paintings of his own that he wanted to ship with mine. I knew they must be stolen and I suspected they wanted to smuggle drugs of some kind, as well. The words ‘stolen’ and ‘drugs’ were never used by him, you understand. He claimed it would simply allow him to avoid unnecessary and tedious paperwork and excessive import fees. He always used the word ‘he’ rather than ‘us,’ but even from the beginning I knew he could be only a messenger. Nestor Rabashka was terrifying.” She shuddered again, and this time Bolan knew it wasn’t from the rain. “But he wasn’t the sort of man to manage such an intricate operation. I knew what he wanted to do had to be illegal and I told him I wouldn’t do it.”

  Bolan waited. More was coming. And while he didn’t know exactly what it would be, he’d have bet his life he could have laid out the general scenario. When the woman had refused, they would have done something to frighten and intimidate her.

  “Two days passed and nothing happened. I forgot about the repulsive man.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then went on. “Then, the day before I was to fly back to New York, we were awakened to find my parents’ cocker spaniel dead on the kitchen table. His throat had been cut and his…private parts were in his…” The recollection was too terrible for her to go on. She leaned forward, covering her face with both hands.

  Johnny Seven, who hadn’t shown any compassion toward the woman when they were in the interrogation room, now reached to his side and took her hand. He looked up at Bolan and shook his head grimly, his face telling the soldier that if these men were within his reach right now they’d already be dead.

  “You can skip the rest of the details,” Bolan told her. “We get the picture.”

  Polyakova pulled her hands away from her face, but still no tears formed in her eyes. She had cried her tear ducts dry, and now her beautiful face just looked tired. “No, there is more that you must know,” she said. “My sister and brother-in-law lived in the same building. They had a cat. He was treated similarly. His head was cut off and he was left under the covers in their bed while they were at work.”

  Seven’s jaw tightened even further. The angry red returned to his face and the top of his head, his breathing deepened and he looked as if he was either going to find the men responsible for such atrocities within the next thirty seconds or have a stoke, one or the other. He did neither, however, and the Russian continued.

  “The message was clear enough,” she said in a weak voice. “I received a phone call that evening. It was a strange voice I had never heard before, and have never heard since. It said, ‘Families are as easy to kill as family pets.’” She stopped again, took a tissue from her purse and blew her nose. “I had already paid my friend the art dealer and we had agreed that he would ship the paintings the following week. But now I called him and said there was a change of plans. I instructed him to turn my paintings over to Rabashka, who would make all of the arrangements. Then I flew back to New York. A week later, when I went to the airport to take possession of the shipment, Rabashka was there. And he has accompanied every shipment since.”

  Bolan nodded silently to himself. It wasn’t a bad scheme. Polyakova had no criminal record and ran a well-respected business. While anyone was subject to search by customs, officials would have no reason to flag her for any special attention. As he understood it, the bust at the airport the day before had been nothing but pure dumb luck. Something about rats eating into the paintings and spilling the heroin onto the floor. Then an anthrax scare before they found out what the white powder actually was. “How many shipments have they brought in since then?” Bolan asked.

  The woman laughed again, even more sarcastically than before. “Twenty? Forty? I’ve lost count. I tried not to think about it in between. I can check my records if it is important.”

  “All from Russia to New York?” Bolan asked.

  She shook her head. “No. Some have come from other cities. London. Paris. Prague. But Rabashka has always been with them, no matter where they originated.”

  Bolan nodded. It sounded as if whoever was behind all this was based in Moscow but had markets in America and all over Europe. “When the shipments came here from cities other than Moscow,” he said, “were there always stolen paintings involved in addition to the heroin?”

  Polyakova looked up at the ceiling, frowning. “I…think so,” she said. “But it is not something I could swear to.”

  “Think hard,” Bolan coaxed her. “It’s important. I suspect the main moneymaker on this deal is the heroin and the stolen art is just a profitable sideline. But it would be a whole different market, and it might give us a lead we wouldn’t get otherwise.”

  The beautiful Russian woman closed her eyes and frowned again. “Yes,” she finally said. “Yes, in addition to the bags of white powder—which he always put in a large gym bag—I distinctly remember Ontomanov taking paintings away with him from my gallery. At least most of the time. I am certain of it.”

  “Ontomanov?” Bolan prompted.

  “Yes. I believe his first name is Agafonka. He is the man who always came by the gallery to take away the drugs.”

  “And these are the only two men you had contact with?”

  She nodded.

  Johnny Seven still held her hand in a brotherly fashion. “What were you paid to do all this?” he asked now.

  Polyakova turned to him, shaking her head passionately. Although she held his hand, the Russian woman hadn’t completely forgiven Seven for the initial interrogation on Rikers. “I was paid nothing, Mr. Jameson,” she said through clenched teeth. “My reward for helping them was that my family and I continued living.” Now she pulled her hand back away and placed it in her lap.

  “How did you contact them when you needed to?” Bolan asked.

  Polyakova turned back to him. “I didn’t,” she said. “They contacted me. And Rabashka must have been in touch with Ontomanov because whenever I returned from the airport he would be waiting at the galle
ry.”

  The Executioner didn’t doubt her, but he had been around criminal enterprises that exploited honest people before, and he knew they would have given Polyakova a number to call in case of emergencies. “They didn’t want you contacting them?” Bolan asked.

  “No. Not unless it was an extreme emergency. They gave me a number but I have never used it.” She crossed her legs and Bolan was again reminded what a desirable woman she really was. “No emergencies came up. Until today. And I wanted no more contact with either man than I had to have.”

  “You have the number with you?” Bolan asked.

  Polyakova nodded at her purse, then turned back. “I am sorry, Mr. Cooper,” she said. “You really are trying to help me, and you have risked your life to do so.” She looked hesitantly at Johnny Seven next to her, then took his hand again. “As have you, Mr. Jameson. And I am sorry I can’t remember more details about the shipments.”

  Bolan nodded. “That’s okay. The important shipment is the next one,” he said.

  Polyakova and Seven both looked at Bolan as if he’d lost his mind. Both of them knew that whoever was behind Rabashka wasn’t going to trust Polyakova now that she’d been busted. The fact was, they were trying to kill her, and a person usually didn’t try to kill the one he planned to continue doing business with.

  Rather than explain, Bolan stood up and walked to the phone. He took a seat on the edge of the bed, his back to the beautiful Russian woman. Pulling out a calling card, he tapped a number into the instrument. As he waited, he glanced at his watch. It was long past the time the Justice Department building shut down for the night, but Brognola was often there burning the midnight oil. A moment later, however, he got a recording. “You have reached the office of Hal—”

  Bolan pushed the button down to disconnect the line, then hung up and entered another number. If Brognola wasn’t wearing his Justice Department hat, the Executioner knew there was a good chance his Stony Man Farm helmet was atop his head. Again, he waited for the line to connect, but this time he knew it would take longer. First the call had to be bounced to confuse any possible intercepts. He listened to the strange series of beeps and clicks as it did.