Soviet Specter

by Don Pendleton

  Mack Bolan leaned around the door and fired the Desert Eagle

  He was driven back once more by return fire. Behind him, he heard the steady release of .223 rounds from Seven’s M-16, and the constant pounding from the roof across the alley hadn’t let up since the sniper had climbed the ladder to a better position.

  Sooner or later, the sniper behind them was going to find his groove. He’d get Seven first, then Bolan. Allowing his partner across the hall to have full access to Luiza Polyakova.

  Bolan checked his extra ammo. He had enough to keep the stalemate going at least a little longer. The bottom line was that if something drastic didn’t happen soon, they were going to die.

  MACK BOLAN®

  The Executioner

  #229 Zero Tolerance

  #230 Deep Attack

  #231 Slaughter Squad

  #232 Jackal Hunt

  #233 Tough Justice

  #234 Target Command

  #235 Plague Wind

  #236 Vengeance Rising

  #237 Hellfire Trigger

  #238 Crimson Tide

  #239 Hostile Proximity

  #240 Devil’s Guard

  #241 Evil Reborn

  #242 Doomsday Conspiracy

  #243 Assault Reflex

  #244 Judas Kill

  #245 Virtual Destruction

  #246 Blood of the Earth

  #247 Black Dawn Rising

  #248 Rolling Death

  #249 Shadow Target

  #250 Warning Shot

  #251 Kill Radius

  #252 Death Line

  #253 Risk Factor

  #254 Chill Effect

  #255 War Bird

  #256 Point of Impact

  #257 Precision Play

  #258 Target Lock

  #259 Nightfire

  #260 Dayhunt

  #261 Dawnkill

  #262 Trigger Point

  #263 Skysniper

  #264 Iron Fist

  #265 Freedom Force

  #266 Ultimate Price

  #267 Invisible Invader

  #268 Shattered Trust

  #269 Shifting Shadows

  #270 Judgment Day

  #271 Cyberhunt

  #272 Stealth Striker

  #273 UForce

  #274 Rogue Target

  #275 Crossed Borders

  #276 Leviathan

  #277 Dirty Mission

  #278 Triple Reverse

  #279 Fire Wind

  #280 Fear Rally

  #281 Blood Stone

  #282 Jungle Conflict

  #283 Ring of Retaliation

  #284 Devil’s Army

  #285 Final Strike

  #286 Armageddon Exit

  #287 Rogue Warrior

  #288 Arctic Blast

  #289 Vendetta Force

  #290 Pursued

  #291 Blood Trade

  #292 Savage Game

  #293 Death Merchants

  #294 Scorpion Rising

  #295 Hostile Alliance

  #296 Nuclear Game

  #297 Deadly Pursuit

  #298 Final Play

  #299 Dangerous Encounter

  #300 Warrior’s Requiem

  #301 Blast Radius

  #302 Shadow Search

  #303 Sea of Terror

  #304 Soviet Specter

  Don Pendleton’s

  The Executioner®

  SOVIET SPECTER

  Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this.

  —Ecclesiastes VII, 10

  The best prophet of the future is the past.

  —John Sherman, speech in the Senate,

  June 5, 1890

  Stop evil in one way and it just comes back in another. My job is to eliminate evil men and delay its return.

  —Mack Bolan

  For Bob Smith

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Prologue

  With trembling fingers Luiza Polyakova pulled the bottle of antacid tablets from her purse and dumped four into her palm. The same shaking hand somehow got them to her mouth without dropping them.

  She placed the bottle back into her handbag, chewed and tried to swallow. The tiny flakes of powder felt like fire-dipped cannonballs burning her throat and threatening to choke off her air. She covered her mouth with both hands and coughed, silently praying no one around her would notice the state she was in. Finally her throat relaxed and she could breathe again.

  Polyakova felt the medicine enter her stomach and hoped it would bring relief from the terror that was centered there. But there were no pills for her quivering hands or the anxiety that encompassed her entire body and made her skin prickle. She closed her eyes.

  What she really wanted to do was turn and run out of the building, but she knew she couldn’t. Instead she crossed her arms tightly beneath her breasts and dug her fingernails into her ribs. The sharp nails in her flesh brought their own pain. But it was better than the horror that flooded her soul.

  Polyakova stared through the huge glass windows at the runway a quarter of a mile from the terminal, across an open field. She watched the cargo plane with the Russian markings touch down on the tarmac and slow, its flaps fighting the air resistance of the plane’s own creation. The sight sent her fingers even deeper into her sides, and a moan threatened to escape her lips. But she didn’t dare make a sound or loosen her grip. She couldn’t do anything that might draw the attention of the men in uniform.

  “It is always like this,” the Russian said under her breath. “Every time. And I will never get used to it.” Tears threatened to form in her eyes but she blinked them away. In her mind, she heard her father’s voice say, “You must be strong, Luiza.”

  For a moment she was transported back in time and was suddenly five years old again. She was about to leave for her first year at the Soviet training school for girls. She would be away from her family for months before seeing them again, and then only for a short visit. At five, there was no blinking away tears no matter how she tried, and she was crying openly in her father’s arms.

  Her mind jerked back to the present as she watched the plane taxi toward the U.S. Customs hangar. In the back of her brain, she still heard her father’s voice—the voice she had heard that day so long ago. “Luiza, my darling,” her father had said as he wiped away her tears with his handkerchief. “What cannot be overcome or escaped must be endured.”

  The Russian woman continued to watch the plane. “And there is no overcoming this,” she whispered. “From this, there is no escape.”

  “Pardon me?” A deep voice just to her side broke into Polyakova’s terror-induced half dream. She turned stiffly to see exactly what she had most feared—a U.S. Customs officer. He had stepped up next to her while her eyes were on the runway and her mind had been in the Soviet Union of thirty years ago.

  But the man was smiling, and as she turned she saw his eyes fall briefly to her breasts before shooting back up to meet her eyes. Polyakova almost gasped out a breath of relief. He wasn’t there to arrest her. He was only hoping to strike up a conversation that would eventually lead her into his bedroom. She caught the breath and forced a smile, hoping it didn’t look as false as it felt. “Oh,” she said coyly. “Did I say something?”

  “Something,” the officer said. “But I couldn’t make out what it was.” He had short-cropped blond hair and was actually quite handsome. Under other circumstances, with less grievous problems to occupy her mind, sh
e might even have been interested. But such was not the case at the moment.

  “It must not have been important,” Polyakova said, keeping the smile frozen in place. “Because I can’t remember what it was myself.”

  The man with the short blond hair laughed. “They say it’s okay,” he said.

  She frowned. “What is okay?”

  “It’s okay if you talk to yourself. They say it’s only crazy when you start answering.”

  Polyakova kept the smile in place and even managed a soft laugh. “I will remember that,” she said. She turned back to face the window. In her peripheral vision, she saw the Customs man start to say something else. Then he stopped. His face betrayed the fact that he had given her up for a lost cause. He turned and walked away.

  The Russian cargo plane reached the customs dock and ground to a halt. Polyakova saw more men in uniform come out onto the loading area with clipboards in their hands. She turned and began making her way down the concourse toward the office where she would be required to fill out forms. On them, she would swear under oath that she was receiving a shipment of oil paintings for sale at her Greenwich Village art gallery. As always, Nestor Rabashka, who had accompanied the shipment from Moscow, would meet her there to do his own paperwork before turning the consignment over to her.

  Her high heels clicked along the tile as she thought of Rabashka. Even thinking about the short, portly man with the single gray eyebrow stretching across his forehead made her shudder. And when she was actually forced to see Rabashka it was all she could do to keep from screaming.

  As she neared the door below the U.S. Customs sign, Polyakova thought of the cargo she was about to take into her possession. There would be the oil paintings, of course—paintings that she had purchased at bargain prices because they hadn’t sold well in her native Moscow’s depressed economy. But mixed in randomly among these paintings would be other stolen works of art. And hidden in all of the frames, regardless of whether the pictures were legitimate or not, would be the white powder.

  What was it? Polyakova wondered as she continued on along the tile toward the door. Cocaine? Heroin? She had never seen either drug, and wouldn’t recognize either if she did. And she had never asked Rabashka, not wanting to know. Agafonka Ontomanov—who she suspected had once been KGB or Soviet military—would then meet her at her art gallery in Greenwich Village. There, Ontomanov would collect the stolen paintings, then go through the frames, retrieving the small, tightly wrapped plastic bags.

  Pushing her way through the glass door into the office, Polyakova was somewhat comforted to see a familiar face behind the counter. Henry Something. She didn’t know his last name and never had. He looked up as she entered and smiled.

  “Hello, Luiza,” he said. “Good to see you again.” Like the other customs man earlier, Henry couldn’t resist a quick downward glance at her chest. Another time, another place, Polyakova might have found it irritating. But again, at this moment, she had far more important matters to consider than the fact that she had been well gifted in that department.

  Henry turned and searched through a wall of small wooden shelves, finally picking out three forms and turning back to hand them to her. “Need something to write with?” he asked, his hand moving automatically to the pocket of his uniform.

  The Russian shook her head. She took the forms, then retired across the room to take a seat at one of the small classroom-like desks against the opposite wall. She pulled a gold pen from her purse and began filling in the blanks. She had done so enough times in the past that she suspected she could have completed the forms blindfolded.

  Which didn’t seem like such a bad idea when Nestor Rabashka pushed through the glass door a moment later. Had she been blindfolded she wouldn’t have had to see him or feel the inevitable tingling of horror his presence sent surging down her spine. As always Rabashka’s brown suit appeared to have been slept in. His black-turning-white hair looked as if he had combed it with a wrench, and that lone eyebrow seemed to wiggle across the top of his face like a hairy worm. He wasn’t close enough yet but Polyakova knew she would soon be assaulted by the stench of garlic and cabbage. She had never seen Rabashka when he wasn’t wearing both the brown suit and the odor.

  Henry greeted the Russian with the same smile he’d given Polyakova. The customs man didn’t seem to mind Rabashka as much as she did. But he had no reason to loathe Nestor Rabashka. Henry didn’t know that the dowdy man in the brown suit would show or feel no more emotion plunging a dagger into his heart than he showed filling out the customs forms. Turning his back again, Henry picked out several other pages and handed them across the counter. The Russian took them and made his way across the room.

  The garlic-cabbage scent was mixed with a whiff of peppermint, and the combination was especially noxious. Rabashka sat in the desk next to Polyakova without a word and pulled a pen from somewhere inside the brown jacket.

  Polyakova had just signed her name when the phone on the counter suddenly rang. The shrill sound in the formerly quiet office caused her to jerk. She glanced up but Henry hadn’t seen her. He already had the receiver at his ear.

  A moment later the smile on the customs man’s face flickered down into a frown. Then, almost as quickly, it returned to a smile. But it was a different kind of smile than he’d worn before. Fake. It reminded Polyakova of the false expressions of humor and friendliness into which she’d contorted her own face when talking to the handsome blond customs officer.

  The phone still against his ear, Henry glanced up for an instant and Polyakova saw the wooden grin of a marionette. “All right,” the customs man said into the phone. He paused, then nodded his head. “I’ll tell them.” He dropped the receiver back into the cradle. “Seems to be some delay, Luiza. No big deal—they’re probably just backed up on the docks. You know how it is these days after 9/11.”

  Polyakova nodded. The explanation was logical. Still, she couldn’t help wondering if Henry’s excuse for the delay was as phony as his smile. The possibility brought on a whole new flood of ice water in her veins. Was she just being paranoid? She didn’t know, and it didn’t really matter at this point. It was too late to run. What would happen, would happen.

  The Russian art dealer dropped her pen back in her purse and pulled out a small compact to keep her hands busy while she waited. Flipping the lid, she looked into the small mirror and saw the terror in her eyes. Calm yourself, she ordered. You have done this countless times before. You are always frightened but everything always turns out all right.

  You are a well-respected art importer, and you never receive more than a cursory check at customs. There is never any problem.

  But from somewhere deep in her soul Polyakova heard a voice that reminded her that there was a first time for everything. Her hands started to shake again, and she gripped the sides of her purse.

  A quick glance upward, through the glass walls leading to the hallway outside, did nothing to ease her fear. When she had come into the office, the hallway had been deserted. But now, close to a dozen men—all dressed in dark suits—stood along the corridor. They appeared to be trying just a little too hard to look casual. Trying a little too hard not to appear to be together when their suits were as telltale as uniforms.

  Her eyes darted toward Rabashka. Maybe she was just being paranoid. But if so, so was the ugly Russian. He had fidgeted slightly when Henry announced the delay. But now Polyakova saw the huge beetle brow drop toward his nose. “I must go to the men’s room,” Rabashka said in his gravelly Russian accent. He stood. “I will be back.” He turned and started out of the office.

  The men outside saw him coming through the glass and all turned toward the door. They began to converge on the office as Rabashka pushed through into the hallway. Their hands disappeared beneath their jackets.

  Rabashka’s own hand went into the side pocket of the brown suit coat and came out holding a small handgun. He raised his arm before any of the men could draw their weapons.

  Tw
o explosions roared through the still open glass door, and the man closest to the Russian went down. Then what sounded like a symphony from hell broke out in the hallway as the men in the suits poured round after round into Nestor Rabashka.

  Polyakova sat frozen to her desk. It was as if she were in a theater, watching a movie she wished she hadn’t come to see. But she no longer doubted her fears.

  This wasn’t her imagination. It wasn’t paranoia.

  This was real.

  Two of the men knelt next to Rabashka’s body. One of them grabbed the pistol and pried it from the Russian’s hand. The other held a finger to the prostrate man’s throat, then looked up and shook his head. Four more of the suits came crashing into the office, their guns still drawn and aimed at Polyakova. As they closed in on her, one of them held up a black wallet with a badge pinned to it. “Luiza Polyakova?” the man asked.

  Polyakova wasn’t sure whether she had nodded or not, but it didn’t seem to matter. The man continued.

  “Luiza Polyakova. United States Customs. You’re under arrest.”

  As she was handcuffed behind her back and led out of the office, Polyakova heard the same man saying something about her having the right to remain silent.

  1

  The big man in the dark gray suit held a briefcase in his hand. He was staring through the one-way glass. Inside the small interrogation room he saw the woman seated on one side of the steel table bolted to the floor. She was unusually attractive with high Slavic cheekbones, sensuous lips and a smooth, fair complexion. Even in the loose-fitting jailhouse coveralls, it was impossible to avoid noticing her breasts. They appeared to have been meant for a much larger woman.

  Tears streaked down her face, smearing the woman’s makeup as she stared across the table. Across from her sat a middle-aged man with a balding scalp. He was overweight—but with the “hard fat” of someone who still remained active. His short-sleeved shirt was tucked into his navy blue slacks. A holster was visible on his belt. Although empty, the open-top friction retention leather showed the clear profile of a SIG-Sauer semiautomatic pistol.