Soviet Specter

by Don Pendleton

  A pair of quick bursts ripped from the Calico toward a well-illuminated target—a gunman wearing a light tan trench coat that reflected both the park lights and the moon. Bolan saw all six holes appear in the chest area, and for a second they looked like additional buttons on the coat. Then the blood—black rather than red in the darkness—shot forth, ruining the illusion. The man in the trench coat went down.

  But another gunner just to his side, a short, squat man with what looked like a .45-caliber Strayer-Voigt pistol, swung his weapon the Executioner’s way. Bolan shifted his point of aim and pulled the trigger again. Another staccato of fire caught the man on the left side of his chest. The force twirled him halfway around. Bolan’s next series of rounds stitched up and down his back. A dark baseball cap fell from his head as he toppled away.

  Bolan rolled again, coming to a halt behind another bench. The slatted wood offered little concealment and no cover—all it could do was further distort his outline in the darkness. But it was the best he had. Bringing the Calico up into play again, he reached out with his left hand and grasped the fore grip just in front of the downward ejection port. Hot brass sailed past his wrist as a full-auto stream of 9 mm hollowpoint slugs blasted from the barrel. Two, maybe three rounds—it was impossible to be certain in the dim light—struck a man wearing a linen bomber jacket in the left thigh. A bloodcurdling howl escaped his lips as he fell to one knee. Bolan didn’t even have to change his point of aim as the man lowered his more vital areas into the steady stream of fire. A dozen 9 mm rounds stitched through the gunner’s intestines, lungs, heart and other organs. He, too, fell to the grass.

  Return fire splintered the bench, throwing sharp slivers of wood into the side of Bolan’s neck. He rolled again, this time maneuvering toward a concrete birdbath ten feet away. The concrete was the first cover of any kind he’d had since the gunfight began. But over half his body was still exposed to the enemy.

  The Executioner was about to bring the Calico back up into play when he heard an emphatic voice scream, “Stop! Wait! We weren’t sent here to kill you!”

  Bolan had already taken up the short slack in the trigger. His finger jerked to a halt, less than a pound of pressure away from unleashing yet another burst of fire.

  “Ivan started this!” the same voice squealed. “It is his fault, not ours! You killed his brother!”

  Silence fell over the small park again as the roar of the gunfire died down. The rank smell of cordite filled the air as the five men still standing froze in place. They gave every indication of wanting to end the battle, and an idea began to form in the Executioner’s mind.

  “You!” Bolan shouted. “Talking man! Lower your gun and step forward!”

  Slowly, hesitantly—no doubt wondering if the Executioner just wanted a better angle of fire—the man obeyed. He cleared his throat nervously. “There is no need for us to fight,” he said. “Ivan was acting on his own. We were sent here to retrieve the briefcase. Nothing more.” He was silhouetted against a streetlight behind him on Duane Street, and Bolan saw him look down and to his left.

  The briefcase lay on its side, still grasped in the dead hand of the fat man who had been named Ivan.

  Bolan waited, thinking, his instincts telling him the man spoke the truth. The Russians had been in the process of leaving when Ivan turned back and drew the pistol. It was as if he had fought the urge to revenge his brother earlier, beaten it, then finally given in to it at the last second. The bottom line was that one man had started the gunfight for personal reasons and the others had gotten caught up in it.

  Suddenly the Executioner saw a way out of one of his dilemmas.

  Bolan glanced toward the briefcase, then slowly stood, keeping the Calico trained at the center of the five men still scattered around the small park. As he walked forward, one of them moved slightly. Bolan swung the Calico his way and the man froze again.

  Stepping up to the briefcase, the Executioner leaned down and lifted it with his left hand. He moved two steps back toward the bench he had originally sat on, and dropped the briefcase onto the seat. A light wind was blowing through the park, hitting the Executioner in the face as he aimed the 9 mm machine pistol back at the man who had spoken. “You,” he said, then swung his head around in an arc to indicate the other men. “And the rest of you. Come in here. Closer. Now.”

  The Russians moved reluctantly forward. The man who had been speaking was of medium height and weight. He wore a loose-fitting sport coat and pleated slacks. “Don’t try to trick us,” he said, his voice trembling slightly. “You are good. Very good, in fact. But don’t forget there are still five of us.”

  The Executioner swung the Calico over the ground, around the dead bodies. “And don’t you forget what happened to these five,” he said. His eyes moved along the line. The Russians had all dropped their weapons to arm’s length.

  The man in the pleated slacks nodded. “We don’t wish to kill you,” he said. “Or to die ourselves. Just give us the briefcase as Gregor ordered. We will explain to him that this was Ivan’s fault, not yours.”

  Bolan chuckled softly, just loud enough to be sure they heard him. “You could do that,” he said. “But that’s not enough. Gregor made a mistake by letting Ivan out without his leash. And when you make mistakes, you have to pay for them.” The Calico stayed in place as his left hand reached down, flipped the catches on the briefcase, then opened the lid to reveal the five plastic bags of heroin. Reaching under his jacket, he snapped the Loner knife out of its Concealex sheath and held the blade up in front of him. Then Bolan turned slightly and sliced downward into the case.

  Five times the knife rose and fell, and when he had finished the quintet of kilos lay open. Lifting them one by one, Bolan shook them in the air and let the wind take the powder away into the night behind him.

  One of the men gasped. “Gregor won’t like this,” he said.

  “You can tell Gregor I don’t like people trying to kill me,” the Executioner said. “And you can tell Gregor if he wants me dead, he’d better send better men than you.” He suppressed a smile. The opportunity he had hoped for had come. He had kept the heroin off the streets and still looked like a criminal. But he would have to play it smart from then on. He wasn’t likely to be so lucky again.

  Turning back to the man who had spoken, Bolan said, “Did you get it all on tape?”

  “What do you mean?” the man asked innocently.

  “Don’t play stupid,” Bolan said. “Like at the restaurant. Gregor wants footage of me breaking the law to prove I’m on his side. Who’s the cameraman?”

  A red-haired, ruddy-complexioned Russian was standing almost directly under one of the park lights. Now he slowly pulled his coat. A small video camera was slung over his shoulder. “I got nothing once the shooting started,” he said.

  “That’s a shame,” Bolan said. “But I think we can fix it.” He looked up and down the line of men. Every one of them was involved in the heroin trade. Each played a part in bringing in the poison that went into the veins of Americans, not only creating addicts but also resulting in crimes against innocent citizens so the junkies could score money for more. Each of these men was directly responsible for ruining the lives of children, for the mugging of elderly citizens, for the murders of decent people trying to get a few dollars from an ATM and every other abominable act brought forth by the addiction to their white powder.

  And each deserved the death penalty as far as the Executioner was concerned.

  Bolan kept the Calico aimed along the line of men as he walked back and forth, looking them each in the eye. Few could meet his gaze, and most looked down or away. But the man standing next to the speaker stared back at the Executioner with a dead, hate-filled glare. Evil emanated from every pore of his body, and the knuckles of his gun hand were clamped white around the grip of a mammoth Wildey automatic pistol. Bolan couldn’t be sure of the caliber in the darkness, but the Wildey could be as powerful as a .475 Magnum.

  The Exe
cutioner stopped three feet in front of the man. Then he turned toward the red-haired man with the camera. “Focus over here,” he said. “On us.”

  A puzzled look came over the cameraman’s face, but he swung the lens that way and lifted the camera to look through the viewfinder.

  Bolan looked straight into the lens. “You want proof I’m on the other side of the law, Gregor? You want me to do something no cop would do if he planned on busting you?” He paused a second, took a breath, then went on. “You want something you can threaten me with if I ever try to arrest you? Well, get ready.”

  The Executioner dropped the Calico to the end of the sling. Still looking at the camera, he said, “I’m going to count to three. Then I’m going to shoot this slimy piece of crap standing in front of me giving me the evil eye. You ready?”

  Bolan continued to stare into the camera but watched the man in front of him in his peripheral vision. “One,” he said into the lens. He waited a second, then said, “Two.” As he had suspected would happen, the man with the Wildey moved as soon as the word was out of his mouth.

  The big automatic pistol began to rise from the end of his arm.

  The Executioner grabbed the grip of the Calico and squeezed the trigger, sending a steady stream of rounds peppering from the barrel. Brass ejected down, hitting the tops of his boots and glistening gold in the white park lights.

  The man with the Wildey jerked like a marionette on the end of the strings of a demented puppet master. The big gun flipped up into the air, then fell to the grass. The man fell on top of it.

  Looking back into the lens, he said, “I hope you got that, cameraman. Of course if you didn’t, I suppose we can always do it again.” He glanced down the line at the remaining men.

  “I got it,” said the Russian with the camera.

  The Executioner waved his hand toward the parked cars across the street, and without another word the Russians took off. He kept the Calico trained on their backs until all three vehicles had driven away.

  DAWN HAD BROKEN over New York by the time Mack Bolan arrived back at the hotel where Polyakova, Ontomanov and Seven waited. The soldier had planned to use it as his new base of operations, but after what had transpired at the park, he knew another phone call from Gregor would be forthcoming. And the only place the Russian could contact him was at Ontomanov’s apartment. So, in spite of the danger to Polyakova, it was back to Ontomanov’s.

  Bolan left the other three in the hallway outside the apartment and went in first. There was every chance that after the surviving Russians told Gregor their story, the mobster and his boss in Moscow would decide just to kill all of them and be done with it. That, the Executioner thought, would be the wisest thing for them to do. The drug smugglers appeared to have multiple outlets for their illegal fare in America and Europe, and Polyakova’s little corner of the trade couldn’t have cut into their overall profits that much. There was only one thing he could hope for, one human emotion that might still make Gregor and his contact in Moscow willing to take a chance. Greed.

  As soon as he’d checked all of the potential hiding places within the apartment, Bolan returned to the hall and ushered the others inside. He bolted the door behind them and they took seats around Ontomanov’s garishly decorated living room. Polyakova sat alone on a couch, her nail file in hand once more. The Executioner had noticed that she used the manicure tool to keep her hands busy when she was nervous.

  Johnny Seven, who had been assigned the task of being Ontomanov’s permanent baby-sitter, kept an eye on him as the Russian fidgeted in a reclining chair.

  They had been there less than half an hour when the phone rang. Bolan picked it up but didn’t speak. Finally Gregor said, “Cooper?”

  “It’s me.”

  The familiar gravelly chuckle came over the line. “You keep costing me men,” the Russian said. “Every time I turn around, you kill a few more.”

  “It’s hard to find good help these days,” Bolan replied. “But I wasn’t the one who started the shooting.”

  “So they told me. Ivan was touchy where family was concerned.”

  “He won’t be anymore.”

  “No, I guess not. But like I said, I’m beginning to run short of soldiers.”

  Bolan glanced across the room at Seven. The DEA man was still seated on the couch, keeping his eye on Ontomanov. For his part, the Russian continued to move about nervously in his chair, crossing and uncrossing his legs every few seconds. Turning his attention back to the phone, the Executioner said, “Look at it this way, Gregor. The two men you’ve just acquired are worth a lot more than all of the ones you’ve lost.”

  The chuckle came again. “You have a point.”

  “I think it’s time we quit playing games,” the Executioner said. “I’ve proven myself. And my partner’s with me. It’s time we started making some money.”

  “I agree,” Gregor answered. “But keep in mind, I’ve got tape of you taking the heroin, then turning it over to the other men. Illegal distribution of dangerous controlled substances, I believe it’s called in the U.S. A Schedule I drug if I’m not mistaken.”

  “So you’ve read your law books,” Bolan said. “Good for you.”

  Gregor ignored him. “In case you try to trade sides again, this tape will be tucked away in a very safe place. Don’t think you can write the drug deal off as part of some elaborate undercover act, either. I’ve also got footage of you killing one of my men.”

  “Self-defense,” Bolan stated. “He drew first.”

  “Self-defense?” Gregor asked. His chuckle turned into a raspy laugh. “Your ego overcame your ass on that one, Cooper. It comes off on tape like one of your Old West quick-draw shoot-outs. It ought to take a jury ten, maybe fifteen seconds to find you guilty and recommend a lethal injection.”

  “Can the threats, Gregor,” said the Executioner. “No one plans to switch sides again. My partner and I have a plan. We all work together for a few years, get rich, then Johnny and I retire from the DEA and Justice Department and just fade off into the sunset.”

  “I’ve got a similar plan myself,” Gregor replied.

  “I’m sure you do, so let’s get on with our plans. It’s time you and I met each other.”

  The chuckling came again. “That’s not the way we play the game around here. No one knows anything or anybody they don’t have to know. That’s how we keep from getting caught.”

  Bolan’s laugh was sarcastic. “It doesn’t seem to have worked all that well for you, Gregor.” He turned and glanced across the room as Ontomanov stood, crossed the room and took a seat again, this time in one of the leather chairs. Seven’s eyes followed him the entire way. The woman was still nervously working on her nails. “I’m standing here looking at a woman of yours who got busted yesterday. And another guy who’d be in jail if I was actually the devoted law-enforcement officer I’m supposed to be.”

  “Cannon fodder,” Gregor said. “Both of them. I said the way we play it is how we—meaning men like you, me and your partner—stay out of jail. Not them.”

  Bolan waited silently. He knew there would be more. Finally it came.

  “I have one last test for you.”

  “I’m finished jumping through hoops for you.”

  “This will be a last test of loyalty. But it will pay you well, too.”

  “What more do you need?” Bolan demanded. “I moved your drugs and I killed a man on tape for you. You think cops do that as a matter of course?”

  “No,” Gregor replied. “Normal police don’t. But the very talents you exhibited at the park prove you’re anything but normal. You could be with the CIA, Defense Department, Homeland Security, any number of little groups who don’t play by the same rules the police do.” He chuckled again, the sound like ball bearings rolling on a driveway. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to prove yourself to me over a longer period of time. And I’ve got another test before I meet you.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Bolan said, making his voi
ce sound weary.

  “I want you to kill a man for me. A man you don’t know, in a city you won’t know about until the last minute. The job will pay a half million.”

  It was an unexpected development, but the Executioner had learned to expect the unexpected. As always he would play it by ear as he went.

  “A half million sounds fine,” Bolan said. “For me. But remember I have a partner.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Gregor responded. “So far, he’s been a silent partner. I haven’t seen jack out of him.” He drew in a short breath. “The job pays five hundred large. You can cut it up between the two of you however you see fit.”

  “Let us talk it over for a minute,” the Executioner said. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. It would do this man good to think Seven had to be consulted first, and it would give Bolan a chance to think things over, as well. A strange feeling was beginning to come over him concerning Gregor. The more he listened to the man speak, the more he noted that the man’s vocabulary was filled with Americanisms. Expressions like “I haven’t seen jack” and “five hundred large” and the pun about Seven being a “silent partner.” That depth of understanding of the language, and the use of such slang, meant he’d been in the U.S. a long time, and that he’d spent a good portion of that time around the American criminal element.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Bolan saw Ontomanov stand again. “I must go to the rest room,” he told Seven.

  “Sit back down,” the DEA man said.

  Bolan half watched the two men as he continued to ponder Gregor. Who was he? If he had to guess, the Executioner would have said there was a better than even chance the man had once been a KGB officer assigned to the U.S. in some fashion. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Bolan had come across several such men who, like their brethren in Moscow, had switched their focus from espionage to racketeering when the statue of Lenin came down. The change hadn’t been difficult. The main difference was that they made more money now.

  Capitalism paid better than communism.