Mack Bolan
Stony Man #28 Blood Star


PROLOGUE

Moscow

A drizzling rain had fallen on the city for the past three
hours, !eeching warmth from those pedestrians unfor-
tunate enough to be abroad on such a night. Rain made
the streets and sidewalks glisten, but no long-term res-
ident of Russia's capital would be deceived by the
illusion. It was still the same drab, heartless city un-
derneath the temporary sheen.
    Lieutenant Leonid Gromylko lit another cigarette--
American, thank God; rank had its privileges--and
stared out through the rain-streaked windshield of his
black sedan. Beside him, wedged behind the steering
wheel, his partner of eleven years was eating chestnuts
from a paper bag and glaring at the night.
  "He's late," Alexei Churbanov remarked.
    There was no need to check the cheap watch on his
hairy wrist. Their quarry had been due an hour earlier,
and Sergeant Churbanov had been remarking on the
subject's tardiness at fifteen-minute intervals, since
nine o'clock.
    "He'll be here," said Gromylko. "Everybody else
is here. He wouldn't stand them up."




    "Why not?" his partner asked. "The bastard thinks
he's God. He thinks his shit smells like a rose garden.
He wouldn't mind insulting Third World peasants."
      "Too much money on the table," the lieutenant
said. "His greed won't let him stay away."
  "Where is he, then?"
  "Just wait a bit."
    The others had been waiting since 8:55 p.m. Gro-
mylko and his partner had been waiting, watching, as
the visitors arrived. The two Colombians were trav-
eling with an interpreter and half a dozen body-
guards--four of their countrymen and two tough
Chechens loaned out by the Moscow syndicate to
make them feel secure. A welcoming committee from
the local mafiya had been on hand to greet them at the
safe house, off Scolkovskoie Sosse, but the man whom
they had come so far to see was running overtime.
  "Where is he, Leonid?"
    "I wouldn't be surprised if he was still in bed,"
Gromylko said. "You've seen his little playmate."
      "He can do that anytime," Churbanov said. "The
man should keep his mind on business."  "What are you, his manager?"
  "I'm sick of waiting for him, that's all."
  "He'll be coming soon."
    The truth was that Gromylko had grown sick and
tired of waiting, too. He worded that they would be
noticed, parked a half block from the safe house in the
standard-issue Zil sedan of the militsiya. It stood out
like a sore thumb in the Goljanovo district of north-
eastern Moscow, where the residents leaned more to-
ward foreign cars, selected with an eye to luxury. The

Goljanovo precinct was entirely ignorant of the im-
pending raid, kept in the dark because Gromylko
feared the level of corruption that had spread like can-
cer through the ranks of the militsiya in recent years.
    It had been one thing, when the Communists were
in control, and some degree of bribery was accepted
as a fact of life. But now, with the deregulation and
the leap in crime statistics, violence in the streets and
payoffs to police, Moscow was rapidly emerging as a
clone of Chicago in the 1920s. It was never safe to
trust a stranger these days just because he wore a
matching uniform.
    One of the men responsible for that corruption was
the object of their stakeout on that rainy night in Mos-
cow. Gregori Vasiliev was one of the top-ranking
criminals in all of Russia, known as a vor v zakonye--
a godfather----~)f the Vorovskoi Mir, the Thieves' So-
ciety. In fact, some said he was first among equals on
the Bratskaya Semyorka--the fabled Brotherhood of
Seven said to rule the Russian syndicate. Vasiliev
maintained a range of interests in the world of crime,
but his acknowledged specialty was narco-bizness. He
supplied Muscovite addicts with a range of drugs, in-
cluding anasha, or hashish, khimka, or Manchurian
hemp, and mak, which was a weak opium derivative,
typically ingested in liquid form. More recently, it was
reported by informers on the street, Vasiliev was in-
terested in large-scale shipments of cocaine imported
from Colombia. To that end he had fixed a meeting
with the spokesmen from Cali who waited for him
now--and none too patiently, Gromylko thought--
across the street and four doors down.




    "What's this?" Churbanov pointed with his free
hand, through the rain-slick windshield, toward a pair
of headlights moving slowly down the street.
    Gromylko was reminded of a cat's eyes shining in
the dark, the mental image of a stalking panther large
enough to swallow him without a second thought, and
he felt the goose bumps rising on his arms.  "Let's wait and see," he said.
    The car had slowed down to a crawl as it ap-
proached the safe house. Would the driver see them,
sitting there and watching him? Gromylko fought the
sudden urge to duck down, out of sight, aware that it
would only make him more suspicious in appearance,
if the new arrival noticed him at all. The best thing he
could do was take his own advice, to wait and see
what happened next.  "He's stopping!"
    "I see that, Alexei." The lieutenant made a con-
scious effort to conceal his own excitement. If it was
Vasiliev, they had their man. If not...  "Wipers," Gromylko said.
    His partner twisted the ignition key and gave the
windshield wipers one quick sweep, enough to clear
the streaks of rain away without attracting undue no-
tice from the new arrivals. Even as the rubber blades
swept back and forth across the glass, Gromylko lifted
the night glasses to his eyes and focused on the gray
Mercedes-Benz downrange.
    He saw a stocky man emerge on the passenger side,
opening a black umbrella as he straightened up and
closed the door behind him. Two strides brought him
to the rear door of the Benz. He glanced each way

along the street before he opened it, positioning the
umbrella to shield the next man who stepped out of
the car.
  It was Vasiliev.
  "We've got the bastard."
    "Yes!" Churbanov reached out for the radio, but
hesitated when Gromyiko caught his wrist.
    "Not yet, Alexei. Let him go inside, relax a little.
Put his money on the table."
    "Right. We've waited this long, I can last a few
more minutes." Even so, Churbanov couldn't hide the
tension in his voice.
    Gromylko watched Vasiliev until the mobster and
his escort disappeared from view. There was at least
one man remaining in the Benz, and he would cer-
tainly be armed, as were the several bodyguards inside
the house. They could anticipate resistance when they
made their move, and they had come prepared for
meeting force with force.
    Two blocks away in each direction, north and south,
another pair of black sedans stood, each with five po-
licemen waiting in the dark. All ten were armed with
pistols, shotguns, and AK-74 assault rifles, the folding-
stock models chambered in 5.45 mm, produced as lat-
ter-day replacements for the venerable AK-47. Gro-
mylko and Churbanov had handpicked the raiders,
selecting officers they trusted, men above reproach, of
unquestioned courage. There had been no leaks before
the raid, and if they met resistance going in, his chosen
troops were not afraid of fighting fire with fire.
    It might be better that way, thought Gromylko, to
avoid the Russian legal system with its quirks and




loopholes, corrupt judges and terrorized witnesses.
Dead men couldn't arrange a bargain with the court
or buy their way out of a criminal indictment.
  "Now?" Churbanov asked after several moments.
  ' 'Now.' '
    His partner raised the microphone and mashed
down the transmitter button with his thumb. "Move
in!" he growled. "Repeat, move in!"
    Gromylko drew his Makarov 9 mm pistol, flicked
the safety off and macbed across his body with his left
hand, opening the door. His thinning hair was plas-
tered down with rain before he straightened up beside
the car, the cold water running down his collar making
him grit his teeth. Churbanov slammed his own door,
moving swiftly toward the gray Mercedes-Benz, Gro-
mylko falling into step beside him, thumbing back the
hammer on his Makarov.
    Incredibly the driver didn't see them until they were
right on top of him. When he noticed the two police-
men looming over him, he mouthed a curse behind the
glass and gave a long blast on the horn to warn his
friends inside the house.
    Churbanov swung his Makarov against the driver's
window, shattering the glass and reaching through to
strike the driver hard, across the face. The horn fell
silent, but the damage had been done. Rushing toward
the house with Churbanov behind him, Gromylko
heard the hiss of tires on dampened pavement. The
support troops would have to catch up as best they
could.
 They had no time to waste.
 A hulking shadow moved behind the curtains of a

lighted window to his left. He spun in that direction,
calling out to Churbanov and raising his pistol as the
curtain was swept aside and a gun barrel jabbed
through the glass. His finger tightened on the trigger
as a burst of yellow flame erupted from the muzzle of
the weapon in the window, and he flinched at the stac-
cato sound of a Kalashnikov.
    Gromylko fired two rounds. The Makarov jumped
in his hand, its sharp reports barely audible over the
rattle and crash of automatic fire. He heard Churbanov
firing, glimpsed his partner's chunky outline from the
comer of his eye as the man ran toward the house, his
pistol spitting fire.
    One of their shots hit the gunman silhouetted in the
window, and he lurched backward, dragging flimsy
curtains with him, the AK spitting more erratically as
it withdrew.
    Gromylko cleared the front steps in a rash and
raised his leg to kick the heavy door with all his
strength and weight behind it, slamming three times
beside the latch before it gave.
    The door swung open, and Gromylko saw a shadow
just beyond the threshold, ducked in time to save him-
self and called his partner's name as he was diving to
the floor. Another automatic weapon stuttered, this one
lighter, sounding like a submachine gun, probably
9 ram. Bullets sizzled overhead as the lieutenant
hugged the floor and squeezed off aimless rounds in
answer to the hostile fusillade. Churbanov gave a star-
tled cry behind him, and he heard the gunman grunt
once.
  He fired another roundmtwo cartridges remaining




in his pistol, damn it!--and there could be no mistak-
ing it this time, the sound a falling body makes on
impact with the floor. He risked a glance ahead and
found himself staring at the soles of the gunman's
shoes, an inch or two of hairy calf protruding from
each pant leg.
    Scrambling to his feet, Gromylko kept the fallen
gunman covered, checked to see if he was breathing,
but couldn't be sure. The shooter's weapon was an Uzi
SMG, and the lieutenant hastily retrieved it from the
floor beside his adversary's outstretched hand.
    Feeling more secure with a substantial weapon in
his grasp, Gromylko turned to call his partner and
spotted Churbanov reclining with his back against the
doorjamb, knees drawn up against his chest, a dazed
expression on his face.
    "Come on, Alexei! There's no time for sitting on
your backside--"
    Churbanov's feet slid out in front of him, knees
dropping, to reveal the crimson blotches on his shirt.
As the lieutenant stood there watching, they expanded,
dark blood soaking into the material, the separate
stains combining into one. Churbanov tried to speak,
lips moving, but he couldn't seem to catch his breath
or form the necessary words. Before Gromylko came
out of his trance and moved to help his partner, Chur-
banov put everything he had into a simple shrug and
then slumped over on his side.
    Gromylko checked his old friend for a pulse and
thought he had it for a moment, faint and fading, but
he lost it seconds later, and the precious beat of life
didn't return. Churbanov's eyes were open, stating

into space, until Gromylko closed them with his fin-
gertips. His own eyes blurred and stung with sudden
tears, but he couldn't allow himself to be immobilized
by shock or grief. Not now, when everything--his life
itself--depended on his personal reaction time.
    Three of his men were charging up the sidewalk,
toward the door. They stopped short at the sight of
Churbanov stretched out across the threshold, and
Gromylko snapped at them.
  "Come on! You've all seen dead men!"
    One or two of them would have the driver of the
Benz in custody outside, while the remainder of the
strike force would have rushed to close the other exits
from the safe house, trying to make sure that no one
slipped away. Gromylko wondered if they might al-
ready be too late, if his best friend of fifteen years had
given up his life for nothing.
    Not He would not let Vasiliev slip through his fin-
gers. Not this time.
    Gromylko lumbered to his feet and led the way in-
side the house, the captured Uzi warm against his skin.
He ached to use it, feel the power rippling through his
hands and through the weapon as he cut the bastards
down and left them sprawled in blood. One provoca-
tion, anything at all, and he would---
    Sudden gunfire from the rear part of the house
alerted him to danger. He was on the move in a
crouch, past open doorways and empty rooms. The
house was large by Moscow standards, but it wasn't
the palatial dwelling of a millionaire or former com-
missar. A passing glance into the parlor showed the
chairs and table carefully arranged for a meeting, with




some of the chairs tipped over in haste when the shoot-
ing had begun. There was no sign of anyone remaining
in the house, other than the bodies he had left behind,
and so Gromylko concentrated on the sound of gun-
fire, moving toward its source.
    The fight had spilled into the darkened yard before
he got there. Several gunmen from the house ex-
changed bursts of autofire with members of the raiding
party still outside. Gromylko saw no one resembling
Vasiliev before he started firing with the Uzi, heard
his men cut loose behind him with their AK-74s. The
storm of bullets ripped into gunmen who were taken
by surprise, cut down before they could defend them-
selves.
  Just like Alexei, da.
    Outside, the shooting sputtered on for several sec-
onds more, then silence fell across the scene. Gro-
mylko closed his eyes for just a moment, breathing in
the smell of gun smoke, blood and loosened bowels--
the telltale odors of a battlefield. The first time he had
smelled it, in Afghanistan, the stench had sickened
him, but he was used to it these days.
    Gromylko called a warning to his men outside, be-
fore he stepped across the bloody threshold. There was
no point getting killed by friendly fire if he could help
it. There were bodies scattered on the lawn, at least
one of them a policeman who appeared to be alive.
    "Somebody call an ambulance," Gromylko said.
"And check the bodies for ID."
    He turned back to the dead men sprawled around
the back door of the safe house, watching as his raiders
turned the bodies over so that each was facing toward

the ceiling. Two of them were swarthy Latin types--
Colombians, he recognized. The other two were
Chechens, bullnecked thugs, undoubtedly the same
two who had been assigned as escorts to the visitors
from Cali. There would be no questioning them now,
but that didn't concern Gromylko. These weren't the
sort of men who blurted out confessions once they
were in custody. A prison term for the attempted mur-
der of policemen wouldn't have frightened them. Any-
way, there would have been a fair chance they could
beat the rap, as the Americans would say, once high-
priced lawyers started twisting facts and spinning fairy
tales in court.
    No, it was better this way. The lieutenant only
hoped that they would find Vasiliev among the dead
outside. And yet, almost before the thought took
shape, he knew it was too much to hope for. They
were short on bodies; he could see that at a glance.
And if anyone escaped, gut instinct told Gromylko that
his longtime quarry was the man to pull it off.
    The ambulance took thirteen minutes to arrive, a
record in Gromylko's personal experience, no doubt
accelerated by the combination of a call from the mil-
itsiya and the Goijanovo address. It may have disap-
pointed the attendants to find out that they were haul-
ing a policeman to the hospital instead of a celebrity,
but they were wise enough to keep their mouths shut
in the presence of so many angry officers with auto-
matic weapons in their hands.
    Colonel Yuri Renko reached the scene eight
minutes later, stepping from his four-door Zil sedan as
the forensic team from headquarters was setting up its




floodlights and unpacking cameras. Gromylko met
him on the porch without saluting, since both men
were in civilian clothes. Displays of military courtesy
were normally reserved for formal situations, when the
parties were in uniform.
    "I heard about Alexei on the radio," said Renko.
"You have my condolences."
    "Spaseeba, Colonel. Corporal Andropov was
wounded, also."
    "Ah. I'll check on his condition at the hospital
when we are finished here. What happened, Leonid?"
    Gromylko gave a brief recap of the events: the dri-
ver's warning to his comrades, the exchange of fire as
they approached the house, the flight of Gregori Vas-
iliev and two Colombians before Gromylko's men
were in position to prevent them from escaping out
the back.
    "So," Renko summarized the information, "you
have one dead and one wounded on your side, against
eight dead and one in custody, while all the big fish
got away. Is that about the size of it?"
    Gromylko frowned. "I wouldn't put it that way,"
he replied.
    "I daresay," Renko answered, "but the facts seem
plain enough. I shall look forward to your full report.
This morning, if you please."  "Yes, sir."
  "I'll leave you to it, then. Spakoyni nochie."
  "Good night, sir."
    And to hell with you, Gromylko thought before he
turned back toward the charnel house to finish with
the dead.

CHAPTER ONE

Upstate New York

A two-lane road, flanked by trees on either side, ran
north from Cannon Comers to the border. The black-
top had been patched repeatedly where winter sleet
and ice had eaten potholes in its surface, creating a
kind of sloppy checkerboard effect. Nobody special
occupied the last four miles before New York turned
into Canada, and highway maintenance had never been
a top priority in that neck of the woods. In early-
morning darkness, driving with his headlights off,
Mack Bolan felt as if he could have been the last man
on the planet, cruising toward a rendezvous with
death.
  The latter part, at least, was accurate.
    He had the tip from "sources known for past reli-
ability." The word had come to him from Hal Brog-
nola, via Stony Man, and Bolan hadn't asked about its
origins in any greater detail. Whether the alert was
gleaned from wiretaps, physical surveillance or a mole
within the syndicate, it made no difference to the Ex-
ecutioner. He knew enough to trust the information.
That was all he needed, all he could expect.




    It was supposed to be a relatively simple drug trans-
action, cut and dried. If anything distinguished the oc-
<asion, it would have to be the volume of narcotics
riding on the line. A semitrailer filled with kilo bags
of uncut China white was coming in from Canada,
escorted by a troop of soldiers from the Russian ma-
fiya, for delivery to agents of the Balderone crime fam-
ily in New York. The rumored wholesale price for two
tons of Asian heroin was forty million dollars, cash.
That amounted to roughly ten percent of what the New
York mob would realize from street sales once they
finished stepping on the smack and pushing it in nickel
bags.
    It was the kind of bust any agent of the DEA would
sell his sainted mother for, but Hal Brognola had his
 easons for involving Bolan rather than delivering the
stash and cash for interdiction by more common
means.
    The Russians were a major part of it, thought Bolan.
It was coming up to ten years since the Soviet regime
had crumbled into dust, and crime was still the largest
single export of the Russian commonwealth. The ma-
.fiya, or Thieves' Society, had pointmen working over-
time from Eastern Europe to the States and Canada,
throughout the Third World, firming up alliances with
mobsters in Japan and Southeast Asia, Sicily and Cor-
sica, Colombia and Mexico, the Middle East--you
name it. They were smuggling everything from weap-
ons to undocumented immigrants and weapons-grade
plutonium, but drugs were still the single largest mon-
eymaker. That was true whether they were pushing
them on Moscow's streets or acting as the middlemen

for deals between American importers and the outlaw
growers of the Golden Triangle. It was a multibillion-
dollar industry, effectively immune to prosecution,
thanks to payoffs in the millions in a dozen different
countries.
    There was only so much one man could expect to
do against an operation of that size, but some of that
depended on the man. Thus far the Russians and their
allies in the States had given no thought to the Exe-
cutioner.
  They were about to learn from their mistake.
    He checked the dashboard clock and saw that he
had sixty-seven minutes left. It shouldn't be much far-
ther to the access road where he would leave his car
to make the last two hundred yards of the approach
on foot. A deeper patch of darkness came at Bolan,
on his left, and he confirmed it with a quick flash of
his headlights, braking as he cranked the steering
wheel and nosed his car into the unpaved country lane.
    His gear was in the trunk. Five minutes saw him
changed from street clothes into camouflage fatigues
and dressed to kill. The rest of it was simply hiking
north, the highway on his right to keep him oriented,
and his targets would be waiting for him at the border.
    Waiting for the semitrailer filled with poison to ar-
five.
    He planned to join the welcoming committee, and
to make it an occasion none of those on hand was
likely to forget.
 Assuming they survived.

MINNIE LUPO normally slept in till nine o'clock, but
this was business, and he didn't plan to let his capo




down. When Tony Sicca told his men to hit the road
at 4:00 a.m., they hit the fucking road, no questions
asked. And when the job involved delivery of a forty-
million-dollar payoff--five suitcases stuffed with hun-
dred-dollar bills--everyone involved made sure he had
his eyes wide open, all the way. That kind of money
made the trigger finger itchy, and a damn good thing.
One slipup, with that kind of bankroll on the table,
and the guy who blew it wouldn't just be killed. He
would be fucking vaporized.
    More to the point, the cash was only part of it. They
had the forty million dollars going, and a semi full of
pure skag coming back. It boggled Vinnie Lupo's
mind to think how much two tons of dope was worth,
but if the family was paying forty million to bring it
in, you had to figure they were getting ten or maybe
fifteen times that much back from the street.
    Drop off the cash and bring the dope back home.
Before they finished, Vinnie Lupo knew he would be
ready for a good stiff drink, and then some. Heavy-
duty tension always left him wired and anxious to un-
wind. He thought of Marcie, waiting for him back in
Queens, and reckoned that he might have something
good and stiff for her when he got home.  Damn right.
    For now, though, he would have to keep his mind
on business. He had two crew wagons, twelve men
altogether, one of them the driver who would take the
semi over from the Russkies once they made the swap.
Vinnie was set on riding shotgun in the truck, with
one car leading by a quarter mile or so, the other right

behind him all the way. His men were packing shot-
guns, M-16s and Uzis, in addition to their side arms.
Ten or fifteen federal violations on the guns alone, but
that would be the least of Vinnie's problems if they
ran into the heat.
    Tony had spelled it out for him in no uncertain
terms: You lose the money or the smack, you're fuck-
ing dead.
    Okay. It was the kind of stipulation Vinnie Lupo
understood. If anybody tried to stop him, they were
fucking dead, and Vinnie didn't care if they were
wearing federal badges or a bunch of clown suits from
the circus. Lupo had his orders, and he never, ever, let
the family down.
    There was a mean chill in the air, but Vinnie had
the Lincoln's engine running, with the heater on, to
keep his soldiers warm. Some other time it might have
made him drowsy, but the thought of forty million
dollars in the trunk, two tons of China white approach-
ing on the narrow highway up ahead, kept Lupo and
the others on their toes. The Lincoln smelled like cig-
arettes and gun oil, two familiar odors that were part
of Vinnie's trade. Some people might have been re-
pulsed, but it made Vinnie Lupo feel at home.
"Whazzis?" the driver asked nobody in particular.
Headlights appeared a mile or so in front of them,
still on the wrong side of the border. Vinnie had a
sudden feeling that he had to take a leak, and concen-
trated on the job at hand to make it go away. He had
an Ingram submachine gun in his lap, no silencer--it
wouldn't matter if the shit came down--and now he




closed the fingers of his right hand tight around the
pistol grip.
  "Be ready."
    Vinnie waited till he knew for sure it was a semi,
not some jerkoff farmer on his way to market at the
crack of dawn. When he was positive, he had his
driver flash the Lincoln's headlights in the signal they
had arranged: two shorts, one long, another short. The
semi slowed, its high beams flashing out the recogni-
tion signal.  Cool.
    The breeze cut through his jacket as he stepped out
of the car and closed the door behind him, standing
with the Ingram pressed against his leg. He didn't
want to make the semi driver or his escorts nervous,
but you didn't dick around with forty million and a
couple tons of skag. No way.
    A car he hadn't seen before pulled up to pass the
semi now, and slowed when it was thirty paces from
the waiting crew wagons. Between the headlights in
his eyes and tinted windows on the car, he gave up
counting heads, but Vinnie calculated there could be
no more than half a dozen soldiers in the escort ve-
hicle. He gave the Russkies points for nerve and won-
dered if they took it as seriously as he did.
    Vinnie Lupo stood and waited while the escorts
climbed out of their car on either side, the hardware
showing. He saw dries, shotguns, pretty much the
same as what his men were packing, spread out on the
road behind him like a military firing squad. If some-
one popped a cap by accident, there would be hell to
pay, with Vinnie in the middle of it. But he wasn't

overly concerned. The Russkies were supposed to be
professionals. What could go wrong?
    He got his answer as the leader of the Russian escort
team was moving forward, one hand raised in greeting,
while the other held a pistol at his side. A comet came
from nowhere, moving left to right across Lupo's field
of vision, homing on the semi rig. On impact it ex-
ploded in a blinding ball of fire that flattened several
of the Russian escorts where they stood, the shock
wave rocking Vinnie Lupo on his heels.
    There was barely time for him to think of what was
happening before all hell broke loose.

THERE WAS NO RECOIL tO speak of from the LAW
rocket as its back-flash slipped over Bolan's shoulder,
blooming from the rear end of the disposable launch-
ing tube. He dropped the fiberglass tube even as the
hurtling rocket struck home, erupting in a ball of fire
that tore the semitrailer open on the starboard side and
left it twisted, like a toy made out of tinfoil. Reaching
down beside him, while his enemies were scrambling
for their lives, he found the Colt Commando and pre-
pared to make his move.
    The rifle is a smaller version of the classic M-16,
with a shortened barrel and a telescoping stock, but all
the deadly firepower of the original. In this case, it
was loaded with a 100-round drum magazine, a live
round in the chamber, with the safety off. The firelight
helped him find a target, and he stroked the rifle's
trigger lightly, sending off a 4-round burst that found
one of the shadow men and spun him like a top before
he fell.




    The gunfire broke whatever spell the rocket's blast
had cast over his enemies. The leaders started shouting
orders--some in Russian, some in Brooklyn English--
as they tried to rally the survivors and present a unified
defense. The raw chaos in the aftermath of the explo-
sion left both sides confused about exactly who was
killing whom, which was fine with Bolan as he rose
from hiding and advanced to meet the foe.
    So far his targets had been members of the Russian
team, and Bolan kept it going that way as he found
the next mark, sprinting for the cover of a jet black
BMW four-door, parked between the burning semi-
trailer and a pair of Continental crew wagons. From
its position, the direction it was pointing, Bolan knew
it had to be the escort for the two-ton heroin consign-
ment, and he guessed it would have held six soldiers--
seven, tops--but numbers weren't Bolan's primary
concern.
    The Executioner was firing for effect, and that
meant a psychological, as well as physical, compo-
nent. If anyone survived his strike, by luck or other-
wise, Bolan was determined he should take a story
home consistent with a violent break between two
criminal fraternities. It was supposed to have the
strong smell of a double cross, for all concerned.
    He squeezed the Colt Commando's trigger, saw the
runner stumble, tripped by some invisible obstruction,
as he went down sprawling on his face. A couple of
the New York boys were firing now, in the direction
of the trees, but they had yet to find a solid target.
Bolan's flash hider had done its work so far, and they
were firing in the general direction of the rocket's

glide path, yards to Bolan's left along the road. It
made the five or six surviving Russians duck and
cover, looking for a place to hide while they decided
whether they were under fire or being rescued by the
New York troopS.
    Bolan was first into the gap between uneasy allies,
firing as he came. Another Russian staggered, clutch-
ing at his punctured chest and slumping back against
the semi's grille. He slithered down the polished steel
until he wound up seated on the blacktop, with his
head cocked to one side, dead eyes locked open in the
firelight. Seconds later hungry flames found diesel
fuel, and an explosion flipped the semi cab so it was
standing on its head, the lifeless Russian ground to
paste beneath a ton of metal.
    More shots came from the scattered soldiers, bullets
hissing through the night. From his position at the tree
line, Bolan saw a shadow breaking from the cover of
the BMW, running back in the direction of the burning
semi and the border, some three-quarters of a mile
beyond. He just had time to drop the runner, had him
in the Colt Commando's sights...and let him go.
    One messenger was perfect. Let him spread the
word of New York's treachery, while Bolan finished
mopping up the rest. His face was grim as he went
back to work.

SERGEI SHIKULOV wasn't a religious man. His parents
had been Communists--a calculated ploy to keep their
jobs secure and get a break on state-owned housing--
and their only son was educated to believe that God
was fabricated by oppressors to delude the proletariat,




keep workers focused on the beauties of the afterlife
while they were treated like a pack of slaves on earth.
He still believed that, more or less, although his bent
toward crime and personal reward had drawn him far
afield from other party teachings ever since he'd been
old enough to smash a window, grab a can of meat or
loaf of bread and run away. But there were times when
Shi~,lov wished that he knew how to pray.  Like now.
    He was the leader of the Russian escort, charged
with dropping off the semitrailer filled with heroin and
picking up the payoff. Forty million U.S. dollars, he
was told. The captain of his troop wasn't concerned
that Shikulov and the others would go into business
for themselves, take off and split the cash. That would
have been five million dollars each, unless they
snuffed the semi driver, but it made no difference.
Each and every one of them had seen firsthand the
vengeance meted out to traitors by the family.
  Five million dollars simply wasn't worth the risk.
  But now...
    Shikulov ducked behind the BMW, grimacing as
bullets ricocheted above his head. He clutched a
Czech-made Skorpion machine pistol, still unfired,
since he hadn't found a target yet and he worried about
wasting precious ammunition when his life might yet
depend on every round.
    It had to be the gunmen from New York, he rea-
soned. The American police came in with lights and
sirens, bullhorns amplifying voices till they sounded
like a race of angry robots. Shikulov had observed that
much on CNN and in the movies. Everybody knew

that the Amerikanski pigs were bound by law to read
your rights before they started shooting--and they
wouldn't use a rocket launcher even then.
    That part of it confused Sergei. Why would the gun-
men from New York incinerate two tons of heroin if
they were bent on stealing it? An accident, perhaps. If
the appointed marksman was a novice with a rocket
launcher, or if he got frightened at the crucial moment,
it was possible that he was aiming for the BMW, got
it wrong somehow and blew the truck instead.
    Another burst of automatic fire distracted Sergei
Shikuiov from private thoughts. Behind him Pavel
Bagdasarian squeezed off a burst from his Kalashni-
kov in the direction of the long, black Lincoln Con-
tinentals.
    "Bastards!" Bagdasarian muttered as he ducked
back under cover of the car. "They set us up."
    "We've lost the merchandise," Shikulov said. "We
have to try and get the money now."
  "There are too many!" his partner answered.
    "Even so. Would you go back without it, empty-
handed?"
    Bagdasarian thought about that question for a mo-
ment, making his decision. "Nyet."
  "All right, then. What are we to do?"
  "It's not for me to say, Sergei."
"How many of us still remain?" asked Shikuiov.
Bagdasarian glanced at the men behind him, shel-
tered by the car. Two more that he could see, and one
of them the lorry driver, crouching with a pistol in his
hand.
  "It looks like four."




    Against a dozen, maybe more, thought Shikulov. He
also thought about the grim alternative, returning to
his captain and attempting to explain that he had lost
two tons of heroin and forty million dollars, without
doing anything to mitigate the double tragedy. Shik-
ulov thought he would be lucky if the family's tor-
pedoes only tortured him for six or seven days before
they let him die.
    "You know what we must do," he said to Pavel
Bagdasarian.
  "I know," the gunner said, "but I don't like it."
  "We don't have to like it, Pavel."
      "Da." The soldier's voice was grim, befitting the
occasion. "We should get it over with, in that case."
  "Right."
    Sergei Shikulov snapped an order to the other men,
waited to hear if either one of them had an objection
to the suicidal plan and nodded when they chose to
keep their mouths shut.
    "After me," he said, and rose from cover, making
out a line of shadow men with weapons blazing in
their hands before he cut loose with the Skorpion. Be-
hind him Bagdasarian and the other two were up and
firing, two more automatic weapons and the handgun
barking out staccato messages of death.
    He saw one of the ten or twelve Italians fall, im-
mediately followed by another, jerking as the bullets
ripped into their bodies, spinning them around. Some
of the others were turning even as he fired, the muzzles
of their guns still spitting flame. In his direction now,
instead of toward the trees.

    Why were they firing at the trees? Sergei Shikulov
wondered.
    It would be his last coherent thought on earth, be-
fore he died.

FOR SEVERAL SECONDS Bolan watched the New York
gunners trading fire with the depleted force of Rus-
sians. Two of Balderone's men went down in the ini-
tial exchange, a third staggering and dropping to his
knees a heartbeat later, but the Russians were still out-
numbered two to one, despite the casualties they had
inflicted on their would-be allies, now their mortal en-
emies. A spray of automatic fire ripped through their
ranks, stray bullets gouging divots in the BMW's paint
job, shattering the windows, flattening both starboard
tires. The Russians went down kicking, jerking,
squeezing off their final rounds at nothing as they fell.
    A sudden hush fell on the scene, but Bolan wouldn't
let it last. He palreed a frag grenade and yanked the
safety pin, wound up and threw it overhand. It landed
between the Lincoln crew wagons, a yard or so behind
the New York firing squad. Nobody seemed to notice
it until the lethal egg exploded, shrapnel peppering the
mafiosi where they stood, the shock wave dropping all
but two of them.
    One of the men who kept his balance had blood
streaming from a ragged scalp wound, while the other
seemed unscathed but shaken, looking for a target in
the smoky no-man's-land. He held a stubby SMG, and
as Bolan watched, he fired a long burst toward the tree
line, obviously still convinced the premier danger
came from that direction.




  He was right.
    A burst of 5.56 mm parabe!lum tumblers ripped into
his chest and slammed him backward, draping him
across the fender of the nearest Lincoln Continental.
    Bolan stepped out of the shadows, moving toward
the middle of the battlefield. Three of the gunners
dropped by his grenade were dead before they hit the
ground, another on his way, with shrapnel in his belly,
chest and face. That left two others dazed and groggy,
bleeding from assorted lesser wounds, but still in
shape to fight.
    As Bolan reached them, one of the gunners was on
all fours and reaching for the submachine gun he had
dropped when he went down. He never made it, as a
single round from Bolan's Colt Commando drilled a
hole behind his ear and punched him facedown on the
pavement.
    That left one, a stocky soldier, on his knees and
fumbling in a pocket filled with shotgun shells. He
brought a handful out, dropped most of them, but kept
his grip on two, inserting one into the loading port of
what appeared to be a,l 2-gauge riot gun with a folding
stock. He was about to load the second round when
Bolan shot him from a range of fifteen feet and
punched him backward in a boneless sprawl.
    All done with killing for the moment, Bolan
checked the cars. There would be cash in one of them.
When he found no luggage in the passenger compart-
ments of the Lincolns, he walked back to check the
trunks. Instead of searching corpses for the keys, he
used the universal lockpick, firing one round from his
rifle into each keyhole. When the trunks were open,

Bolan found three suitcases in one, two in the other.
They were matching Samsonites, jet black, and none
of them was locked.
    He stood and stared at forty million dollars for a
moment, doing the division, finally extracting one suit-
case from each crew wagon, while he left the others
open, in their places. Stepping back, he placed the two
bags in the middle of the road, then turned and fired
a short burst from his rifle into each cat's trunk. In
seconds flat he heard the trickling, dripping sound of
gasoline as it began to drain from punctured tanks. He
lit a book of matches, dropped it on the pavement,
stepping backward as the winking flames met fumes
and both cars were engulfed by fire.
    Money to burn, Bolan thought, and now he had
money to spend. Something in the neighborhood of
sixteen million dollars, if they split the stash up evenly
among five bags. No matter if it fell a little short; he
had his war chest for the rest of the campaign, and
then some.
  Time to go.
    He slung the Colt Commando, took a heavy bag in
each hand and began the long, dark walk back to his
car.




CHAPTER TWO

Manhattan

The predawn raid had been a fitting prelude for the
Executioner's campaign in New York City. It wasn't
the end of anything, but rather the beginning of a new
defensive effort, heading off a double threat to the
United States.
    The home-grown Mafia had put down roots in New
York City sometime in the nineteenth century, and it
had prospered ever since, to varying degrees. Of late
a rash of state and federal prosecutions had created
vacuums at the top of the traditional Five Families,
reorganizing the established power structure with a
vengeance. It had been inevitable, Bolan realized, that
someone from the ranks would try to grab the reins
and pull himself into the saddle.
 That someone was Louis Balderone.
    It was a testament to federal law enforcement and
the Executioner's long battle of attrition that a man
like Balderone could even hope to boss the New York
underworld. A lowly capo before John Gotti went
away and other bosses found themselves in court or
on a slab, Louis the Louse---as he was known behind

his back to many "brothers" in La Cosa Nostra--had
been elevated in the Brooklyn family almost by de-
fault. Of course, he had ambition and a ruthless style
that helped him rise, but those were standard attributes
of every mafiosi worth his salt. Intelligence and cour-
age were the qualities that kept a godfather on top, and
no one in New York was betting heavily on Balderone
to reach a ripe old age once he attained the pinnacle
of power in the mob.
      Which meant that there would be no losers, other
than Balderone himself, when he bought the farm.
  Too bad.
    It would have pleased the Executioner to cost his
enemies more money, but it was more than he had any
right to hope for. The Manhattan gig was only part of
it, another step along the hellfire trail, and Bolan had
no plans to tarry in the Apple any longer than was
absolutely necessary.
    At 10:15 a.m. he had a fair idea of where Don Bal-
derone should be and what he would be doing. Where
was the penthouse office suite on West Sixty-sixth
Street, a block north of the Metropolitan Opera House.
What was dissecting the moming's action near Cannon
Comers, trying to find out how he had lost his forty
million dollars and two tons of uncut China white. To
get those answers, Balderone would be asking ques-
tions, none too gently. Regardless of the answers he
received, there would be hell to pay.
 That much the Executioner could guarantee.
    The parking in Manhattan is a bitch, as anyone
who's ever driven something larger than a bicycle
around the city will attest. It helps to have a service




vehicle and multiple permits, the kind of cover items
Bolan had secured within an hour, after speaking on
the telephone to Washington. The logo on his three-
year-old Dodge van announced that he was part of
Acme Heating/Air-Conditioning Repair, a nonexistent
firm whose phone number, if dialed, would offer the
weather forecast for the afternoon.
    He wondered briefly if the "Acme" tag was taken
from an old Three Stooges movie or the series of car-
toons where a coyote ordered tools and bombs by mail
in his attempts to snare a beeping roadrunner. Bolan
wouldn't have put it past the brains at Stony Man, a
little joke to make him smile as he was knocking on
Death's door, but it made zero difference either way.
    There had been two options to approach Don Bal-
derone and make the tag: up close or from a distance.
Bolan could have called on him at home, but he had
opted for the office, judging that a high-rise suite
downtown would mean a smaller number of civilian
bystanders than going after Balderone in a residential
neighborhood. As for the manner of approach, he
chose long-distance over close and personal, another
safety measure for bystanders and himse!fi
  Reach out and touch someone, damn right.
    The New York tour guides will tell you that there
are no alleys in Manhattan. Every outdoor passage-
way, no matter how unkempt or claustrophobic, is of-
ficially regarded as a street. It was semantic bullshit,
but Bolan didn't care if New York's alleyways were
paved in gold and named for passages of scripture.
  All he wanted was a place to park the van.
  He found it three doors down and across the street

from Balderone's high rise. He nosed into the alley
and killed the engine, zipped his denim jumpsuit al-
most to the throat and reached back for the heavy
metal box of tools behind the driver's seat. He locked
the driver's door behind him, paused to open up the
double doors in back and lifted out a pair of bright
orange rubber cones, which he deposited behind the
van, in plain view from the street beyond. It made the
setting look more official, and would hopefully pre-
vent some jerk from cutting in and rear-ending the van
while he was gone.
    He grabbed the toolbox, hefting it as if the heavy
iron inside weighed nothing, and began his walk back
toward the sniper's nest.

Louis THE LOUSE was pissed. He got that way some-
times--in fact, his rage was legendary--but there were
degrees of anger, some more serious for the souls un-
fortunate enough to be within his orbit when he lost
his cool.
  Today his rage was off the scale.
    "What do you fuckin' mean, nobody knows what
happened?"
    Louis Balderone's three underbosses were assem-
bled in a semicircle, facing him across the antique
desk that was a shade too small to let a Piper Cub
touch down and taxi on its polished surface.
    Philip Sacco, Anthony Sarducci, Tommy Vega--all
were glancing nervously at one another, none of them
exactly eager to respond.
 Louis the Louse slammed down an open palm




against the desktop, doing his impression of a pistol
shot. "I asked a fuckin' question, people!"
    "Well, uh..." Sacco hesitated, swallowed hard and
tried again. "Nobody knows what happened, boss, be-
cause our people didn't make it back."
    "I know that, shithead! Do you think I'm fuckin'
stupid?"
  "No, sir."
    "Then don't treat me like I'm fuckin' stupid, 'kay?
I want to know what happened to our people, that they
don't come back."
    "They all got wasted," Tommy Vega answered,
smiling like a little kid who gets the answer fight in
class for the first time in his life.
    The open hand came down three times in swift suc-
cession. Baiderone watched his underbosses jump as
if their chairs were hot-wired to a generator.
    "'They all got wasted,'" Balderone whined as he
mimicked Vega's answer. "You must really think I'm
fuckin' stupid if you're gonna tell me shit like that."
  "No, boss. No fuckin' way."
    "Well, iemme see. I know they all got wasted,
fight? Somebody woke me up at fuckin' 3:00 a.m. to
tell me they got wasted, and I lost my forty million
dollars, plus the China white. I know all that, but you
keep tellin' me the same thing, Tommy, so I'd say
you gotta think I'm fuckin' stupid."
    "Maybe I disunderstood the question," Tommy
Vega muttered.
    Balderone swore through gritted teeth. "I wanna
know who killed my people, 'kay? I wanna know who
stole my forty mil. Who torched a semitrailer full of

 uncut skag from Bangkok. Are we on the same page,
 now?"
    "My money's on the fuckin' Russkies," Anthony
Sarducci said.
  "How's that? They lost their people, too."
    "They lost some people, sure, but we don't know
how many they sent out. It could be Vinnie and his
boys got lucky with a few, before the others took 'era
out."
    "And why would they be doin' this, the Russians?"
Balderone asked.
      "Same reason I would, in their place," Sarducci
said. "They grab the forty mil for riothin', fight?"
  "So, what about the merchandise they lost?"
  "They lost a truck is all I know for sure. Could be
  it was an empty truck. Or maybe they put just enough
  skag in there so it shows up when the pigs go through
  the ashes with their scientific shit, you know? I mean,
  why not?"
  "A fuckin' setup, huh?"
  "It's what I'd do."
    "That's twice you said that, Anthony. You make
me wonder."
  "Huh? Hey, boss--"
    "Relax, I'm playin' with ya. You may have the
fight idea on this thing, after all."
  "We oughta check it out," Phil Sacco said.
  "No shit, Sherlock."
  "How would we do that, do ya think?"
    The question came from Tommy Vega, making
Balderone smile against his will. A guy like Vega got
promoted for his muscle and his loyalty, not his brains.




In fact, Louis the Louse was wise enough to know that
underbosses shouldn't be too smart, or they would
start to scheme against their chief and try to grab the
whole thing for themselves. He liked them loyal and
stupid, with a hint of panic when he blew his stack,
but stupid was a drawback when it came to plotting
strategy.
  "First thing you do---"
    The thought was right there, balanced on his tongue,
but Balderone never got it out. Before he had a chance
to finish, something struck the picture window to his
right, and Tommy Vega's head exploded like a melon
with a cherry bomb inside. One second he was leaning
forward, hanging on his capo's every word, and then
his tattered neck was spewing blood and shit like a
volcano, while his body started flopping, jerking from
his chair, down to the floor.
    Louis the Louse had time to curse once more before
his whole world went to hell.

THE WALTHER WA2000 is the sniper's weapon of the
Space Age, built for accuracy and convenience. It's a
jungle fighter's weapon, more a match piece with a
lethal edge, but Bolan had become accustomed to it,
using one whenever it was handy and his mission
called for killing from a distance. A semiautomatic
rifle of the short, bullpup design, the Walther sported
a 25-inch barrel fluted for cooling and reduction of
vibrations, clamped fore and aft for stability. It fed
.300 Winchester Magnum rounds from a 6-shot de-
tachable box magazine, with a Schmidt & Binder
2.5 X 10-power scope providing the optical edge.

    Peering through the telescopic sight, Bolan almost
felt as if he were inside the office with Don Balderone
and his three lieutenants. He was no lip-reader, but it
didn't take an expert to know that Louis the Louse
was ripping his underbosses up one side and down the
other, looking for solutions to the massacre at Cannon
Corners. Bolan waited for the tirade to wind down a
little, chose one of the don's lieutenants on a whim
and fixed the crosshairs on his anxious-looking face.
  Show time.
    The Walther's trigger had a three-pound pull, and
Bolan waited for the kick against his shoulder, watch-
ing through the scope as his first steel-jacketed round
drilled through double-pane glass and found its target
on the other side. The guy was dead before he knew
what hit him, more or less decapitated by the Magnum
round that cored a hole below his nose and sheared
off most of what was located above the impact point.
  One down and three to go.
    He swiveled back toward Balderone, in time to see
the capo gaping, at a sudden loss for words. His target
pushed back from the desk, prepared to dive for cover,
but Louis the Louse had run out of time. The second
round was dead on target from a hundred yards,
punching through Balderone's chest and slamming
him back against the nearest wall, high-backed swivel
chair and all. The capo's mouth fell open in astonish-
ment, as if his last thought was a rage of disbelief that
anyone could reach him in his inner sanctum. Too
damn late to tighten his security by that time, as his
body seemed to lose its substance, giving in to gravity
and sliding toward the floor.




    The two survivors had gained a fair idea of what
was happening, and both were on their feet as Bolan
pivoted to find them with his telescopic sight. At times
like this, the Walther's semiautomatic action was a
blessing, sparing him the time it would have taken to
finesse a standard bolt action between his shots. Line
up and squeeze, no sweat, the taller of the targets
vaulting forward as a bullet slammed between his
shoulder blades. He struck the office door facefirst and
left a crimson smear from flattened nostrils as he slith-
ered to the deck.
    His buddy reached the doorknob, gave a tug and
found the door obstructed by the latest corpse. He
reached down for the dead man, mouthing silent curses
as the crosshairs found his profile, locking in. The shot
that killed him bored a tidy hole about an inch below
his temple, on the left, before the right side of his head
erupted in a crimson spray that blotched the door and
wall with gore.
  Four up, four down.
    It took a moment, breaking down the Walther and
replacing it in the toolbox, a metal tray of wrenches,
screwdrivers and pliers fitting over it to hide the killing
instrument. Bolan rode the service elevator down and
had it to himself, walked back to find the Dodge van
unmolested, with no parking ticket on the windshield.
  Perfect.
    He was on a roll, but Bolan wasn't finished yet. He
had another team to deal with before he wrapped the
action in New York, and anything could happen in the
second half.
  In fact, the Executioner was counting on it.

MIKHAIL VASILIEV was troubled, pacing restlessly
around his hotel suite and shooting glances at the si-
lent telephone. He was expecting news at any moment,
a report that it was safe for him to leave the Belve-
dere-in fact, to leave the city, putting it behind him
while he still had time. He felt himself in danger, and
while he wasn't afraid, he didn't relish staying in Man-
hattan any longer than he absolutely had to, now that
any chance of an agreement with the New York syn-
dicate had been destroyed.
    One member of the team he had dispatched to guard
the China white and bring his money back had man-
aged to survive the carnage in upstate New York. The
man described an ambush, with a rocket launcher used
to detonate the semitrailer with its tons of heroin in-
side, while automatic weapons cut loose on the Rus-
sian escorts. It was madness, but he understood the
ruthless mind behind such actions, and was willing to
agree that the initial rocket may have been misplaced
by a distracted marksman. If that were the case, he
would assume that Louis Balderone had already killed
the man responsible. It was exactly what Mikhail Vas-
iliev would have done in his place.
    The upshot was that he, Vasiliev, was out two tons
of heroin and forty million dollars in cash. His brother,
back in Moscow, would be furious when he found out,
and while Mikhail wasn't actually afraid of Gregori,
he was relieved that he could break the news by trans-
atlantic telephone. Let someone else endure the
screaming tantrum that was sure to follow. By the time
Mikhail was safely back in Canada, his older brother




would have calmed himself enough to set about de-
vising suitable revenge.
    This much Mikhail could say with certainty: Greg-
ori's vengeance would be ruthless and extreme. His
brother was predictable in that respect, had been from
childhood, when the slightest insult prompted him to
sudden, brutal violence. Mikhail had wondered more
than once if Gregori might be possessed of something
in the nature of a fractured personality, enabling him
to charm a woman or negotiate a multimillion-ruble
business deal one moment, while exploding into hom-
icidal savagery the next. In any case, his personality
had served them well as they were rising up the ladder
of Vorovskoi Mir to reach their current prominence.
Mikhail tried hard to emulate his brother and was
fairly good at it by now, but he could never truly rival
Gregori's apparent fearlessness where violence was in-
volved.
    Today, for instance. He was jumpy, anxious to be
gone, put New York City far behind him and leave
Louis Baiderone to gloat over his triumph for a while,
until Gregori's plans were finalized and the ax fell on
Balderone's neck. The city was a death trap for him
in the meantime. The Italians would think nothing of
eliminating one Vasiliev when they had gone this far
to place the brothers on the brink of war.
    He veered off track, still pacing, moving toward the
telephone that mocked him with its silence. Viktor
should have had the limousine downstairs by now. Ar-
kady should have called to tell him everything was
ready for departure. Brooding in his suite, Mikhail
Vasiliev imagined that some new disaster had befallen

his remaining soldiers. What if Balderone had found
out where the limousine was kept and sent his gunmen
out to lie in wait? What if Mikhail was alone in New
York City, stranded, miles from the safe haven he had
found in Canada, with no way to get back?
    He pulled his thoughts up short, his anger focused
inward now. It was one thing to hide from enemies of
flesh and blood when you were visibly outnumbered
and outgunned, but fabricating adversaries out of thin
air was a sign of cowardice. Mikhail Vasiliev wasn't
a coward, and he wouldn't let himself fall prey to idle
fears.
    As if on cue, the telephone demanded his attention,
shrill and strident. Mikhail answered on the second
ring, made no attempt to mask the tension in his voice.
' 'Annof"
    "The car is here," Arkady told him, speaking from
the hotel lobby. "I've already checked the street."
    "Well, check again," Mikhail instructed his chief
bodyguard. "I'm coming down."
    Three soldiers waited for him in the main room of
his suite, expensive jackets looking bulky and mis-
shapen with the military hardware underneath. They
were prepared for anything, he thought, and there were
three more guns downstairs. He was as safe as he
could ever hope to be, until they crossed the border
once more, passing into Canada.
    A few short hours now. Perhaps one stop for gas
on the way, and he could let himself relax again until
the orders came from Gregori and it was time to pun-
ish those responsible for his embarrassment. Mikhail
was looking forward to that opportunity.




    "Let's go," he told the gunmen, waiting while they
lumbered to their feet and moved before him out into
the hallway and toward the elevator. In another mo-
ment they were all descending toward the street and
freedom, anxious to be out of there and gone.

HE COULD HAVE SNIPED the Russians, but the idea of
shooting toward the sidewalk and a crush of innocent
civilians left Bolan cold. Instead, he opted for the more
direct approach, with all of its inherent risks, and
planned his move accordingly.
    The stakeout was no problem. No one really noticed
one man standing on the sidewalk of West Twenty-
eighth Street. He was caught up in window-shopping
at a lingerie shop, maybe checking out a present for
his mistress, killing time before he went back to the
office to complete the daily grind. If anyone gave him
a second glance, it may have been a woman passing
by, intrigued by Bolan's looks and by the seeming
focus of his interest, maybe wishing she could be on
the receiving end of such a gift from such a man. None
dared approach him, though--not in a city where you
could be murdered on the street, with several dozen
people watching it, none caring enough to get in-
volved.
    Bolan saw the limousine pull up and stop in a no-
parking zone. A stocky gunner moved from the hotel
lobby to the curb and leaned in to check the car, the
driver, for himself. After the massacre upstate, it
seemed the Russians weren't taking any chances.
    Bolan slipped open the single button on his jacket,
reached inside to touch the grip of the Beretta 93-R

automatic pistol nestled in its custom shoulder rig. The
holster was designed to take a pistol with a compact
silencer attached, and while his plan left little chance
that passersby would fail to notice him, the natural
confusion of the moment, coupled with the silence of
his weapon, would at least confuse descriptions from
the handful who would remain to speak with the police
when he was done.
    He drifted slowly toward the hotel entrance, stalling,
knowing it would be a grave mistake to get there pre-
maturely. On the other hand, he couldn't give his tar-
gets too much room; he would then have to sprint
along behind them, drawing more attention to himself.
It was a matter of finesse, split-second timing. A mis-
take in one direction or the other would be fatal to
him.
    Bolan was thirty feet east of the hotel entrance wken
the stock gunner reappeared, trailing others in his
wake. Four bodyguards were behind him, in a rough
diamond formation, with a fifth man in the middle,
covering all sides. That made six shooters, if they had
the driver packing, plus the one man he couldn't afford
to miss. The Beretta's magazine held twenty parabel-
lum rounds, with one more in the chamber. It would have to be enough.
    He drew the pistol, tried to keep the movement un-
obtrusive, walking toward the Russian party with his
weapon down against his thigh. The target's escorts
looked in all directions, but they had no reason to sus-
pect a well-dressed businessman, his side arm blocked
from view by an obese man running interference.
 Perfect.




    At the final instant, Bolan sidestepped, raising the
Beretta in a firm two-handed grip. The piece was ca-
pable of 3-round bursts, but he couldn't afford to
waste his rounds on automatic fire. He went for head
shots, quick and clean, within three paces of his targets
when he opened up.
    The first two bodyguards died before the others had
a clue that anything was wrong. Blood spattered anx-
ious faces as the shocked survivors tried to close
ranks, reaching for their hardware, knowing it was too
damn late to save their boss, no matter what they did
from that point on.
    His next two rounds were allocated for Mikhail
Vasiliev, one shot between the eyes, another to the
heart, before the RussJan's brain could register the fact
of death. A couple of the bodyguards had guns in hand
by that time, lining up their shots, but Bolan stood his
ground, aware that any movement to avoid the con-
frontation would place unarmed bystanders at even
greater risk. Instead of running for his life, he put his
faith in Kevlar and a steady hand.
    His fifth shot plugged one of Vasiliev's torpedoes
right between the eyes, a submachine gun tumbling
from the dead man's grasp before he had a chance to
fire. Half turning toward the last two, on his left, Bolan
saw a muzzle-flash and staggered as the close-range
bullet slammed into his Kevlar vest with all the impact
of a hammer blow. It took iron will to keep him on
his feet and firing back, but Bolan pulled it off, the
shooter sprawling backward as a parabellum round
drilled through his chest.
  That left the stocky leader of the team, still grap-

 pling with a pistol that had stuck inside his waistband,
 and the driver, even now emerging from the limousine.
 A head shot put the grappler down and out, but Bolan
 waited for the wheelman to expose himself, unwilling
 to waste bullets on the bodywork and windows of an
 armored car.
    The driver was a young man, with more bails than
brains. He rushed around the vehicle to meet his ad-
versary, squeezing off a wild round from his nickel-
plated pistol as he came. The sidewalk crowd was
scattering by then, recoiling from the scene of carnage,
footsteps smearing blood that spread across the pave-
ment, screams and curses rising from the lips of pan-
icked men and women.
    It took three shots to stop the driver, not because he
was a large man, but because momentum kept him
moving forward, even with two bullets in his chest.
The third round drilled his heart and punched him
through an awkward pirouette, legs tangled as he fell.
All done.
    The Executioner returned his pistol to its holster,
pressed against his aching ribs, and swiftly lost himself
in the disorder of the crowd.




CHAPTER THREE

Stony Man Farm

The little Cessna was a switch from military and com-
mercial aircraft. There was no more leg room, but the
crowding didn't make Bolan feel as if he had been
crammed into a sardine can. Despite their many safety
features, Bolan always thought of flying in a small
prop plane as more of an adventure, tempting fate--
as if he didn't get enough of that in daily life. He
understood the Cessna's physics and mechanics well
enough, but still experienced the unexpected thrill of
turbulence the way a child looks forward to his next
ride on a roller coaster.
    "Getting there," the pilot said unnecessarily. He
didn't know his silent passenger from Adam, and the
odds were excellent they would never meet again. He
had no way of knowing that the Executioner had made
this trip, by land and air, on numerous occasions in
the past.
    They followed Skyline Drive along the rugged
backbone of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in Virginia,
less than fifty miles southwest of Washington, D.C. A
casual observer would never make the capital connec-

 tion, staring out the Cessna's window at the twodane
 highway down below and the forest that pressed close
 on either side. It was impossible to look upon that
 wilderness and postulate a concrete world of scheming
 politicians, limousines and bodyguards, high-rise ho-
 tels and reeking slums.
    The Farm looked somewhat out of place when stud-
ied from a bird's-eye view. It seemed incongruous that
someone would clear acreage here when he could
drive a few miles east or west and find much larger
tracts of open land, but that was Southern farmers for
you. Once the first surprise wore off, the farm that Hal
Brognola christened Stony Man, after a nearby moun-
tain, seemed predictably routine in all respects. There
was a farmhouse, cultivated fields and orchards, out-
buildings, even a mobile home, some distance from
the other buildings, where the hired help would bed
down.
    Special clearance was needed for anyone to be
briefed on what went on inside those buildings. Sim-
ilarly, what appeared to be a long, bare stretch of fal-
low ground was actually an airstrip, camouflaged with
paint and a thin layer of topsoil, carefully maintained.
The "mobile home" that sat astride the north-south
runway was, in fact, a spotter's post and gun emplace-
ment, mounting radar and a quad of 20 mm Gatling
guns, concealed behind hinged walls, that could lay
down a concentrated fire exceeding 20,000 rounds per
minute in emergencies. Any uninvited pilot trying for
a touchdown on the Stony Man airstrip would discover
that the trailer blocked his best approach. If he per-

sisted anyway, he could expect to have a catastrophic
accident.
    The Cessna was expected, though, and as they cir-
cled once above the Farm, a tractor was already cou-
pled to the double-wide command post, moving it
aside to let the small plane land. A narrow road ran
from the airstrip to the central complex, and a Chevy
Blazer was approaching as the pilot leveled into his
approach and throttled back, the little aircraft touching
down without a hitch.
    "Smooth ride," said Bolan as they taxied through
a U-turn and he reached back for his duffel bag.
      "We aim to please," the pilot answered with a
cocky smile.  Flyboys.
    Deplaning, Bolan recognized the Blazer's wheel-
man, and smiled with real pleasure at the stocky, gray-
haired man. "You're looking good," he said.
    "This is retirement?" Yakov Katzenelenbogen
grumbled, putting on his gruff act one more time. "A
chauffeur now, I am. I should have let them shoot me
while I had the chance."
  "The job's all right, I take it?"
    "It beats working," Katz replied. "I can't com-
plain."
    They shook left-handed, since the tough Israeli's
right hand had been a casualty of war, long years ago.
His grip was firm, and he was smiling now, despite
himself.
     "We'd better go," Katz said. "The natives have
 been getting restless since you called."

 THE WAR ROOM was downstairs, with access via el-
 evator from the ground floor of the farmhouse. The
 remainder of the basement level was reserved for of-
 fice space, auxiliary communications and a well-
 stocked arsenal, a generator and the storage of sup-
 plies. A conference table occupied the center of the
 room, six chairs on either side, while Hal Brognola
 took his place at the table's head. Three of the dozen
 chairs were occupied, by Bolan, Katz, and Barbara
 Price, the Farm's honey blond mission controller.
 Aaron "the Bear" Kurtzman sat off to one side in his
 wheelchair, manning a high-tech console that con-
 trolled the room's lights and audiovisual displays.
    "That was a good job in New York," Brognola said
when everyone was settled, steaming mugs of coffee
close at hand. "I wish that was the end of it."
    Bolan waited, knowing there was bad news on the
way. It was the only kind delivered in this room.
    "But," Hal continued, "we've got problems with
the Russian mob that won't be settled by eliminating
Louis Balderone and company."  "I'm listening."
    Brognola nodded to the Bear, and Kurtzman stroked
a button on his console, bringing down the lights. An-
other tap, and Bolan watched a slab of paneling slide
back to reveal a six-foot TV screen. The first face that
came into focus was familiar, round and scarred from
teenage acne, sandy hair buzzed in a crew cut that was
better suited for low maintenance than any sense of
style. The last time he had seen that face, thought Bo-
lan, it was streaming crimson from a fresh hole in the
forehead.




    "You met this one in New York," Brognola said.
"Mikhail Vasiliev. He was the front man for the so-
called Chechen Mafia in North America. In case
you're not up on your Russian sociology, the Chech-
ens--out of Chechnya, no less--are the Sicilians of
the Eastern Bloc. They raise their kids to honor family
above all else and treat outsiders like they have the
plague. That led to problems with the KGB and the
militia in the bad old days, and Chechens were among
the first real Russian gangsters, well before the country
fell apart in '89. By then, in fact, they were the richest
criminals in Moscow, and considered some of the most
ruthless. These days they're involved in everything
from drugs and vice to bootleg nukes. They're in the
forefront of the move to spread the Russian mob
around the world, making alliances with hoods from
Sicily and Tokyo to Medellin and Queens."
  "Vasiliev?" said Bolan, prodding.
    "Right. The guy you dusted in Manhattan was the
younger brother of a hard-nosed pair. Gregori calls the
shots in Moscow--not without some competition,
granted, but he's generally regarded as a vor v za-
konye, literally a 'thief within the code,' or what our
friends from Sicily would call a godfather."
     "He won't be pleased about his brother," Katze-
 nelenbogen said.
     "Bet on it," Brognola replied. "Of course, the
 chances are he'll blame the Balderone connection. Not
 much he can do to Louis now."
     "He won't stop pushing for a foothold in the States,
 though," Bolan advised.
  "Hell, he's already got a foothold," said Brognola.

 "You know all about the FBI's exchange program, I
 guess?"
  "The basics," Bolan answered.
     "Okay. Long story short, they've got a team in
 Moscow as we speak. Been there for better than a
 year, rotating agents in and out to help the Russians
 get their act together on the org-crime angle. Nothing
 in the Soviet experience prepared them for the crime
 explosion they've seen since Yeltsin blew the party
 off. It's like Chicago in the 1920s, ten times over.
 They've got neighborhoods in Moscow and St. Pe-
 tersburg where you can pick up rocket launchers and
 machine guns off the street. The dealers line up in their
 cars and try to undersell the competition like some
 kind of Arab street bazaar."
    "Which helps explain the body count," said Bar-
bara Price.
    "In spades," Brognola agreed. "The other thing is
runaway inflation. Everybody wants 'hard currency,'
which basically means dollars, though they won't turn
up their noses at a deutsche mark, either. Anybody
keeping up on the inflation rate in Russia these days?"
  "I just know it's high," said Bolan.
    "That's the understatement of the century, my
friend. In November 1990, one ruble was equal to a
dollar seventy~five in U.S. currency. By September
1992, a dollar bought two hundred rubles. Today it's
closer to thirty-five hundred. Imagine living in a coun-
try where the value of your income dropped from
twenty grand to the equivalent of six or seven bucks
a year. You have to be a millionaire to pay the rent."




    "It sounds like Germany after the Treaty of Ver-
sailles," said Kurtzman.
    "Close enough," Hal said. "Which helps explain a
strong trend toward religion as the hope runs out, plus
all the far-right groups that have sprung up in Russia
in the past few years. Some of the neo-fascist crowd
are so extreme they dig black magic on the side and
talk the same old anti-Jewish crap that got Hitler roll-
ing back in 1933. Toss in the old guard, who can't
wait to take another shot at communism, and I'm tell-
ing you, the whole damn place is one huge powder
keg."
    "And I'm supposed to light the fuse," said Bolan,
smiling ruefully.
    "Not quite," Brognola said. "We're hoping that a
clean, strategic move against the syndicate may help
defuse the situation--or a part of it, at least. The Rus-
sians obviously have to clean their own house, with
some foreign aid to help them buy the mops and
brooms, but this particular unsightly mess is slopping
over to the States, big time. The drugs are only part
of it, as you're aware. The Russian mob will deal with
anybody for a price, and that includes your half-assed
terrorist who won't mind robbing six or seven banks
to get the money for a pocket nuke. We know the
Russian Mafia has no respect for anyone or anything
beyond itselfi It's time they learned a little healthy
fear."
  "So, what's the plan?" asked Bolan.
    "One of Gregori Vasiliev's most valued contacts is
a Turkish poppy grower, Kenan Bey. His fields alone
provide approximately one-third of the heroin con-

sumed in Moscow at the present time. If you decide
to take this job, your first priority is shutting down the
Turkish pipeline. You'll have Phoenix Force on loan,
along with someone from the Russian team. They tell
me he's a little on the rough side, by militia standards.
Spetsnaz training as a background, lost his partner not
too long ago. A drug raid went to hell, with the Vas-
ilievs behind it. These days he's the man they use for
no-win situations."
    "That's encouraging," said Bolan. "And what hap-
pens after Turkey?"
    "You let nature take its course," Brognola replied.
"Officially the Russians won't know anything about
the operation. They'll be going through the motions to
preserve the peace, but it's primarily a new excuse to
clean house on the syndicate."
    "I see." The Executioner considered it for all of
thirty seconds, then he said, "Okay. I'm in."

"You COULD HAVE TURNED the mission down, you
know."
    "And miss a free trip to the Russian Common-
wealth?"
    "I'm serious," said Barbara Price. "This whole
thing smells."
  "That's just the borscht," said Bolan.
  "God, you're hopeless."
  "So I'm told."
    They were alone in Price's quarters, on the second
floor, directly over the computer room. A subtle, sexy
fragrance permeated every comer of the room.
  "You will be careful, right?"




  "My middle name."
  "Bullshit."
  "Such language, from a lady."
    Price smiled and tugged the zipper on her jumpsuit
downward to her waist. "You ain't heard nothing
yet," she said.
  "Is that a promise?"
  "Yes, indeed."
    She stepped into his arms and kissed him deeply,
meeting Bolan's tongue with hers, her fingers busy
with the buttons of his shirt. He drew the jumpsuit's
zipper down a few more inches, slipped his hands in-
side and felt her shudder as he cupped her breasts, the
nipples stiffening as he began to tease them with his
thumbs. She whimpered into Bolan's open mouth and
struggled with the jumpsuit, desperate to be free of it.
He helped her with the sleeves, then knelt before her,
sliding fabric down across her hips and thighs, her
panties going with it, leaning in to taste her. Her fin-
gers tangled in his hair, and Price arched her back to
meet his lips, unable to suppress a moan.
    Bolan cupped her buttocks, holding her upright as
her legs began to tremble, shudders rippling through
her body. When she was on the verge of falling, nearly
helpless to control herself, he drew his lips away and
rose, led her to the nearby bed. She sat down on the
mattress, tried to help him with his clothing, but her
hands were trembling so that Bolan took a short step
back and finished undressing himself.
  "Oh, my," she said. "Is that for me?"
  "Assuming that you want it," Bolan said.
  "Yes, please."

    She scooted backward on the mattress, stretched out
on her back and raised her knees as Bolan joined her.
Reaching down between their bodies, she found him,
showing him the way.  "Oh, God!"
    He moved against her, cautiously at first, and then
with greater urgency as she opened for him, locked
her ankles tight behind his buttocks, pressing down-
ward with her heels. She made good on her promise
in a breathless whisper, telling Bolan everything she
wanted him to do, explicit details spilling from her lips
as she began to pant, her body writhing, squirming,
matching Bolan's lusty rhythm thrust for thrust.
    He tried to make it last, but there is only so much
pleasure mortal flesh can tolerate. He felt Price's con-
vulsions starting, heard her gasp his name and then his
climax overtook him in a rush. They clung together,
straining toward the ultimate release, until the tide of
passion crested, ebbed and left them stranded in the
afterglow.
      "Not bad," she told him moments later, when she
had her voice back. "For the first time, anyway."
  "Excuse me?"
  "I mean, we're just getting started, right?"
  "Well, I--"
    "That's what I thought." She grinned and reached
for him, trapped him with her fingers, working at his
tender flesh.
  "I wouldn't hope for much right now," he said.
  "There's always hope."
  "I wouldn't be so sure."
  "Where there's a will..."




     He felt an unexpected stirring, glanced down at her
hand. "You may be right," he said.  "I told you so."
  "Be gentle with me," Bolan said.
    Her smile turned wicked as she rolled him over on
his back.
  "I'm sure."

CHAPTER FOUR

Istanbul

Once upon a time, this city of over six million was
called Constantinople, after Constantine the Great, an
emperor of Rome. It is the last outpost of Eastern Eu-
rope, perched upon the Bosporus and facing eastward
into Asia Minor. Even so, the atmosphere is predom-
inantly Eastern here, with the vast majority of all in-
habitants professing their allegiance to the Muslim
faith. The sights and sounds and smells are those of
Asia, and the same could easily be said of the pre-
vailing attitude toward human life.
    The cultivation, processing and sale of opium is
banned in Turkey, where a first arrest for transporta-
tion of narcotics means a prison sentence in conditions
said to rival Devil's Island. Even so, raw opium and
processed heroin remain two of the largest Turkish
exports, right up there with coffee and tobacco. Drugs
mean money, in the East as in the West, and Turkish
cops are no more incorruptible than any of their col-
leagues in the States.
    The sun was setting over Istanbul as Bolan moved
along a narrow street in the Samatya district, near the




waterfront. A soft breeze blew in from the Sea of Mar-
mara, carrying the salt-and-fish smell to his nostrils,
mingling with the fragrances of cooking food that
wafted out of kitchens close at hand. He had a sense
of being watched, and hoped that it was only T. J.
Hawkins, waiting in the car.
    Hawkins had filled the empty slot in Phoenix Force
when Yakov Katzenelenbogen shifted to the staff at
Stony Man. A thirty-something veteran of the Rangers
who had seen his share of action in Grenada, Panama
and Desert Storm--the latter conflict earning him a
Silver Star--he had been separated from the service
after executing a Somalian warlord to protect a group
of unarmed villagers. A threat of murder charges had
evaporated in the face of bad publicity, and Hawkins
had been honorably discharged from the Army, sign-
ing on with Phoenix Force once Hal Brognola and a
friend from Delta Force convinced him the appoint-
ment meant he would see action on the firing line, and
not behind a desk in Washington.
    It had been Bolan's choice to break the six-man
party into teams of two, thus covering more ground
and saving time on their campaign in Istanbul. The
others would be busy, even now, as he approached his
target on the waterfront, the stubby MP-5K subman
chine gun snug beneath his jacket on its swivel rig.
    The target was a Turkish "travel agency" that
booked no tours and sold no tickets, even though it
did a multimillion-dollar business every year. Its cus-
tomers were Europeans and Americans who repre-
sented various narcotics syndicates, arranging ship-
ments in the guise of tour bookings, with the prices

 registered in fractions of the actual amount. Thus, a
 booking for six at two thousand dollars a head denoted
 sixty kilos of pure Turkish heroin, delivered at a price
 of twenty thousand dollars per kilo. It was a thriving
 business for the godfather of Istanbul, one Kenan Bey,
 but Bolan meant to change all that.
    It was five minutes short of closing time when Bo-
lan stepped into the office, his arrival heralded by a
brass bell suspended from the door frame. One look
at the young receptionist, and he decided she should
live, if only as a witness to the fate awaiting Kenan
Bey's associates. Her smile went sour as he flashed
the submachine gun, standing back and nodding to-
ward the door.
    "Gitmek hemen.t" said Bolan, using one of several
Turkish phrases he had memorized for such emergen-
cies.
    The lady blinked at him and followed orders, head-
ing swiftly for the street and safety.
    Bolan watched her go, then moved beyond her desk,
in the direction of the private offices in back. He fol-
lowed voices, muffled laughter, to a door that stood
ajar, emblazoned with a placard and a name he
couldn't read.
    As he toed the door wide open, Bolan recognized
the men he had come looking for. He didn't know
their faces, but the type had grown familiar from the
first days of his one-man war against the syndicate
back home. Rough faces, even with the perfect hair-
cuts, suniamp tans and waxed mustaches. There were
three of them, and Bolan thought that they would all




look more at home on Wanted posters than in three-
piece suits, pretending to be honest businessmen.
    They started scrambling at first sight of Bolan's
weapon, one man grabbing for a pistol in his top desk
drawer, the others breaking right and left, both wishing
they were armed. He shot them anyway, short bursts
that spun them off in opposite directions, one man
bouncing off a filing cabinet, while the other kissed a
wall and slumped down to his knees, a praying sup-
plicant with nothing left to ask the Man upstairs.
    That left the owner of the office, caught with one
hand in the open drawer, his other braced against the
desk. He looked Death in the face and tried to snarl
defiance, but it came out sounding like a whimper,
covered by the racket of a burst that slammed him
back against the wall and left him lolling boneless in
his swivel chair.
    It was another thirty seconds' work to empty out
the filing cabinets, yanking drawers and dumping great
handfuls of paper on the floor, with no attempt to read
or sort it out. The plan was slash and burn, with Bolan
hoping that the loss of active files might cause some
inconvenience down the road for Kenan Bey and com-
pany. He palmed a slim incendiary stick and dropped
it on the heap of papers in the middle of the floor,
retreating as it popped and sizzled into life.
    Smoke followed him outside, and Bolan walked
back to the car, ignoring the pedestrians who passed
him on his way. It made no difference if some of them
recalled his face, as long as he and Hawkins were
away from there when the police arrived.

    "No problems?" Hawkins asked as he slid into the
shotgun seat.
  "We're one for one," the Executioner replied.
  "All right."

 "I'M IN," David McCarter, the Phoenix Force leader,
 told the little hand-held radio. "Two minutes, start-
 ing...now."
     He switched the two-way off to keep stray bursts of
 static from betraying him to any nearby ears, and
 slipped it back into the inside pocket of his coat. The
 micro-Uzi that replaced it in his hand was fitted with
 a silencer that made it muzzle heavy, prompting him
 to favor a two-handed grip.
    The brothel, a longtime fixture in the Haskfy dis-
trict, was owned by Kenan Bey and managed for him
by a second cousin on his mother's side to keep it in
the family. McCarter had gained entry through the
basement, pausing briefly at the foot of wooden stairs
that led up to a door. If his nose was not mistaken,
the door opened on a kitchen presently in use. The
live-in hookers occupied three floors above the swank
ground level, where they advertised their wares and
were selected by the paying customers before a trip
upstairs to show what they could do.  So much for romance, fight.
    McCarter had been elevated to the leadership of
Phoenix Force when Katz retired from active field-
work--though the gruff Israeli's job at Stony Man
could hardly be called retirement--but the change in
rank hadn't removed McCarter from the firing line.
Each member of the team was fully operational on




every mission, barring injuries, and McCarter's expe-
rience in combat with the SAS had taught him early
on that it was easier to lead men than to shove them
from behind.
    Besides, he thought, without the action, what in
bloody hell would be the point?
    He trusted Rafael Encizo to be glancing at his watch
outside, waiting for the proper moment to come
knocking on the brothel's door. The Cuban passed for
Turkish at a glance, as long as no one drew him into
conversation, and between the two of them, McCarter
thought they stood a decent chance of bringing down
the house.
    Of course, there was a chance that something un-
foreseen could still go wrong, but that was what made
life more interesting.
    He took the stairs two at a time and tried the door-
knob with his left hand, balancing the silenced Uzi in
his right. The knob turned easily, without resistance,
and McCarter edged the door back inch by inch. He
was awash in spicy cooking smells that brought saliva
to his mouth, but he dismissed the sudden craving,
concentrating on the three chefs who were busy at the
stove, their backs turned toward the doorway where
he stood. It would have been no trick to kill them, but
McCarter drew the line at shooting innocent civilians
in cold blood. They had one chance to live, and if they
blew it, he would send them off to meet Allah without
a second thought.
    He whistled softly, catching their attention, waiting
for all three to turn and face him. He didn't speak
Turkish, but ~ got the message loud and clear, dis-

 carding floppy hats and aprons as they made a beeline
 for the nearest exit, following McCarter's nod and ges-
 ture with the gun.
     He left a giant pot of something simmering behind
 him, stepped into an empty dining room and kept on
 going toward the lounge, Cigar smoke, clinking
 glasses and recorded music waited for him on the far
 side of the door. He hesitated, checked his watch and
 started counting off the thirty seconds left before En-
 cizo made his play at the front door.
    The bell rang right on time, and startled voices told
him Encizo had flashed the hardware. Pushing through
the tall door from the dining room, McCarter joined
his partner, ready to complete the cross fire if their
momentary hostages had any kind of violent disobe-
dience in mind. He counted off six women wearing
next to nothing, plus the older madam, a bartender and
four male customers with fading bulges in their slacks.
  No more party time.
    McCarter faced the madam. "Something tells me
you speak English, yes?"
    "I do." Her voice was gritty with the sound of too
much alcohol, too many cigarettes.
  "How many more upstairs?" McCarter asked.
  "Four girls, three customers," she said.
    "I hate to spoil a party, but it's time to bring them
down."
    "Is this a robbery?" the madam asked. "If so,
you're making a mistake."
    "I'11 risk the consequences," McCarter declared,
"but we didn't come for money."
  "No? What, then?"




    "We've got a message for your boss," McCarter
said. "That would be Kenan Bey?" When she made
no reply, McCarter said, "He's going out of business,
love. It starts right here, right now."  "You're fools," she snapped.
    "That may turn out to be the case. Just now, though,
we're the fools in charge. Now, would you like to
bring the others down, or shall I burn the place with
them upstairs?"
    The madam passed in front of him to reach a button
mounted on the wall, beside the mantel of a decorative
fireplace. When she pressed it, muffled chimes began
to sound upstairs, and they heard footsteps scrambling
overhead. In moments flat the other girls were in the
parlor, three of them stark naked, while the fourth was
decked out in a low-cut mockery of a nurse's uniform.
The three johns took a little longer, grappling with
their clothes, but they made decent time responding to
the sound of an alarm that probably had been installed
for the event of raids by the police.
    "This is your lucky day," McCarter told them,
wondering how many members of his audience could
understand a word he said. "You can go home right
now, instead of getting shot or fried. Of course, if
anybody wants to stay and argue, we'll be glad to kill
you where you stand."
    As the madam translated, McCarter watched fright-
ened faces lose what little color they had left after they
saw the automatic weapons. Still, nobody moved, as
if they thought his offer was some kind of deadly trick.
At last he fired a muffled burst into the ceiling, shout-

 ing, "Got" and watched them stampede toward the
 street.
    The madam was a trifle slower, pausing in the foyer
to glance back and frown at him. "You'll die for
this," she said.
    McCarter shrugged. "We all die, ma'am," he re-
sponded. "If we know why, I reckon that's a lucky
break."
    The madam shook her head and turned away, pro-
ceeding to the door and out into the night. When she
was gone, McCarter reached inside his jacket and un-
clipped the thermite canister that weighted down his
belt.
  "What was that cowboy song again?" he asked.
    Encizo smiled. "You mean 'There'll Be a Hot Time
in the Old Town Tonight'?"
    "Just so," McCarter said, and pulled the pin. "I
wouldn't miss it for the world."

RAGE SWEPT OVER KENAN BEY in waves, another
surge of livid anger cresting in his brain just when he
thought he had managed to control himself, think
clearly once again. The raki didn't help, but he drank
anyway from force of habit, welcoming the fire it lit
inside his stomach to compete with that already burn-
ing in his skull.
    How could this happen? Who would dare insult him
in this way, right there in Istanbul, where it was known
the word of Kenan Bey--indeed, his very whim--pos-
sessed the force of law?
    Of course, the Turkish mobster had his enemies, and
some of them were reckless men, but none of them




was suicidal... were they? There were thugs whom he
expected to lay plots behind his back, to steal from
him in minor ways and hope they wouldn't be caught.
He knew them all, and tolerated them when he was in
the mood, because corruption made the world go
around.
  But this...
    It had been years, more than a decade, since he had
been called upon to face this kind of challenge. He
could only think that someone had misjudged him out
of ignorance, or else the men involved were simply
not afraid to die.
  Such men were dangerous.
    He knew that it was more than one man, since the
raids had been coordinated, carried out in different
parts of Istanbul on a schedule that wouldn't have al-
lowed the same man to rush from one scene to another
in the necessary time. Also his Hask6y whores had
seen two men inside the brothel, which told Bey that
his enemies were working in teams.
    How many were there? Why were they attacking
him? And why now?
    The obvious answers revolved around the wealth
and power Bey had managed to accumulate in Istan-
bul--m all of Turkey, for that matter. He was known
to be a wealthy man, something of a celebrity, in fact.
By definition he was envied by the lower classes--
which included ninety-five percent of all his fellow
Turks--and it was only logical that some of them,
somewhere, would seek to steal what Kenan Bey had
worked long years to earn. It happened every day, in
little ways, a lira here, five lira there. Sometimes, if

 the amount was small enough, the thief particularly
 clever---or, at least, respectful in defeat--he let it go.
 But this...
     There was no petty theft of cash or merchandise
 involved this time, no room for generosity, much less
 forgiveness. This was nothing less than an all-out fron-
 tal assault on Bey himself, his reputation and his em-
 pire, challenging the man whom all of Turkey feared
 to prove himself once more.
    The business had been relatively quiet lately. Six or
seven months had passed since he'd been forced to
order anybody's death, and it was nearly three years
since Bey had killed a man himselfi You never lost
the skill, of course, but he had hoped that part of it
was well behind him. Bey would have been perfectly
content to spend the remainder of his years counting
money and women, letting the business details take
care of themselves, but that was clearly not his fate.
Instead, to stay on top, he must display once more the
powers that had put him there to start with.
    And he had one trick up his sleeve that hadn't been
there in the old days. He could call on the authorities
to help him, rather than avoiding them as if they were
the plague. He was paying them enough each month
to let him operate in peace, and nothing that had hap-
pened in the past two hours could be logically de-
scribed as peaceful. There were wild men in the streets
of Istanbul, committing brutal murders, starting fires,
endangering the lives and livelihoods of men and
women whose prosperity was constantly reflected in
the secret envelopes of cash distributed by ranking of-
ricers among their men.




    Now it was time for them to earn their money by
decisive action, not just by looking in the wrong di~
rection as a truck rolled past. He might offer a tidy
bonus, in addition to the glory that would reward
whichever man or men destroyed these menaces to
Istanbul society.
    The thought calmed Bey enough for him to pour
another glass of raki, but his hands were trembling
slightly as he drank. That brought the anger back full
force, and made him clench the glass until it shattered
in his hand, sharp slivers gouging at his palm. Blood
mingled with the raki dripping on his carpet, but the
godfather of Istanbul was too pissed off to care.
    He wanted blood, all right, but it would have to
come from someone else. And soon.
    He had a reputation to protect at any cost, and the
embarrassment inflicted on him by a pack of snarling
jackals had already gone on long enough.

"MY TURN.'?" asked T. J. Hawkins.
    Bolan thought about it, shrugged and told him, "Be
my guest."
    Hawkins stepped out of the car and felt it rock as
Bolan slid into the driver's seat. The MP-5 SD-3 sub-
machine gun slung beneath his long coat weighed al-
most nine pounds, but it felt featherlight as Hawkins
moved along the sidewalk, savoring the rush that came
from knowing he was just about to cross that line into
a situation where the stakes were life-and-death. He
wondered sometimes if his father had experienced that
same rush when he went to Vietnam, or on those last
hours of the Tet Offensive, when he lost it all.

    But living in the past was one sure way to become
part of it. One slipup on the firing line, and you were
history. He had enough experience with killing--and
of almost being killed--to know when it was time for
him to put the memories away, lock in on here and
now.
    The target was a warehouse on the Yenikapi water-
front. They had it figured for a one-man job, with in-
stant wheels on tap, and Hawkins had no problem let-
ting Bolan sit it out. His greatest difficulty so far, as
the new kid on a five-man team, had been in nailing
down his fair share of the action. Not that Hawkins
relished killing for its own sake, but he loved the way
plans came together, heading off the bad guys at the
pass, presumably inflicting damage on a predator who
could be snacking down on him tomorrow if the good
guys let him roam at will.
    Another forty yards to reach the warehouse, and he
glanced back at the car. He could see Bolan sitting
ramrod straight behind the wheel. It was supposed to
be a one-man show, and Hawk didn't anticipate a
problem. There were no lookouts in evidence, no gun-
men hiding in the shadows of the loading dock as he
approached. A light was showing from inside, but well
back from the tiny window in the first door he ap-
proached. The door was locked, but Hawkins checked
it out and beat the lock in thirty seconds, once he knew
there was no opposition waiting on the other side.
    Across the threshold, he pursued the sound of finny
Arab music emanating from a cheap boom box. It led
him to an office cubicle constructed out of cheap ply-
wood partitions, with no wall on the side that faced




the warehouse proper. Lounging at the desk, a fat slob
of a watchman showed more interest in his sandwich,
made of stringy meat and pita bread, than in security.
He gaped at Hawkins as the younger man appeared,
his submachine gun leveled at the watchman's face.
  "Do you speak English?" Hawkins asked.
  The fat man shrugged and said, "A leetie, yez."
  "Okay. You want to die?"
  "Neyir! No, sir!"
      "Then take the gun out of your holster, nice and
easy. Leave it on the desk, and take a hike."
  "A hike?"
  "Get out!"
    A jerky nod was followed by the thunk of an an-
tique revolver on the desktop. Hawkins blocked the fat
man's path and pressed his silencer against the flabby
chest.
      "Next time you see your boss," he said, "I've got
a message for him."  "Message?"
    "Tell him that he's going out of business. Can you
do that?"
  "Yez, sir."
  "Fair enough."
    He stood aside and let the fat man go, suspecting
he would place a call to his superiors as soon as he
was safely out of killing range--by which time it
would be too late.
    The Yenikapi warehouse, owned by Kenan Bey,
was well-known as a depot for assorted contraband
both entering and leaving Istanbul. Hawk had no way
of knowing whether there were drugs around the place

this night, nor did he care. It was enough to strike
another costly blow at Kenan Bey's machine--and at
the man himself--as they proceeded with the Turkish
phase of the campaign.
    Beneath his jacket two round themite canisters
were clipped onto his belt. He let his submachine gun
dangle from its shoulder strap and took one in each
hand, released the safety pins and lobbed them in op-
posite directions from where he stood, outside the of-
fice cubicle. When they went off, in six or seven sec-
onds, the erupting white-hot coals would get a fair
spread through the warehouse, eating through concrete
and steel, along with any other substance in their path,
igniting fires that water wouldn't drown.
    Hawk took himself away from there before they
blew, was halfway to the car before the first pale ten-
tacles of smoke began to wriggle from the open door-
way on the loading dock. It didn't matter if the ware-
house had a sprinkler system, or if someone passing
by should call the fire brigade fight now. The place
would be a total loss, one more slap at the godfather
of Istanbul.
    "Who was the uniform?" asked Bolan as he twisted
the ignition key.
    "Some rent-a-cop. He'd rather switch than fight. I
left the word."
    "Sounds fair," the Executioner replied, and
switched the headlights on, already rolling toward an-
other mark.

"You KNOW, I don't exactly fit the local color
scheme," said Calvin James.




    The comment brought a smile to Gary Manning's
face. "No problem, Cal," he said. "If anybody asks,
I'll tell them you're my personal valet."
    The black man made a sour face. "I've got your
personal valet right here," he said.
  "Now, now. Can't we all get along?"
    "You're watching that Bill Maher again," said
James. "I knew it."
  "Not at all. I simply think---"
    "Heads up," James interrupted him. "We've got a
visual."
    Across the street two young men were emerging
from the entrance of a nightclub, pausing on the nar-
row sidewalk as they both lit cigarettes. Bright neon
from the club behind them highlighted their faces, but
it didn't reach the alleyway where James and Manning
waited in their small Fiat sedan.
"That's Maras on the left," James said.
"Looks like. The other one must be a shooter."
Achmed Maras was described by sources in the
know as one of three top-ranking officers in the crime
syndicate controlled by Kenan Bey. His nightly habits
were predictable--a fatal error for a man who made
his living with a knife and gun--which meant that on
a Tuesday evening he would be found killing time at
Club Barsaklarim.
    "You ready?" James asked, one hand on the igni-
tion key.
    Beside him Manning switched the safety off the Uzi
submachine gun in his lap and said, "I feel like Sly
Stallone."
  "You look like Sly Stallone," James said.

  "There's no excuse for rudeness, Calvin."
  "Sorry."
  "There they go."
  "I see 'em."
    Maras and his friend had turned right, moving north
along the street, in the direction of a smallish parking
lot. They would have wheels there, waiting for them,
and the last thing Manning wanted was a running bat-
tle through those narrow streets.
  "Let's do it."
  "Right."
    The Fiat's engine came to life, and James nosed out
of the alley, turning left to put the marks on Manning's
side. Manning had cranked his window down while
they were waiting in the alley, thankful for a breeze
that dried the perspiration on his forehead. He was
ready now, the Uzi's muzzle braced across his win-
dowsill.
  "We're sure about this guy, correct?"
      "You memorized the snaps," James said, "the
same as me."  "Okay."
    James kept the headlights off until the final moment,
pulling up beside the targets. Manning spoke to Maras
from his open window, calling him by name, and saw
the dark face swivel toward his own. It was enough.
He depressed the Uzi's trigger, hosing both men with
a stream of parabellum manglers where they stood,
their bodies twitching, dancing from the impact of the
slugs.
    James stood on the accelerator, taking them away
from there before the echoes died away. Behind them




two discarded rag dolls huddled on the sidewalk under
winking lights, dark pools of blood beneath them
changing color in the garish neon.
    "Scratch one underboss," James said, and aimed
the Fiat through the darkness, rolling toward the next
live target on their list.

CHAPTER RVE

The yacht was moored at Samataya. Bolan navigated
by the light of a three-quarter moon and cut his head-
lights. There was no point in warning anyone ahead
of time, and it stood to reason that the yacht would
have at least some marginal security on board, to
guard against theft and vandalism.
    "I could come along," T. J. Hawkins offered as he
watched Bolan's profile in the darkness of the car.
      "Thanks anyway," Bolan replied, "but I'd rather
know for sure I have a ride."  "Okay. Your call."
    "It's made." He took a canvas satchel, from the
back seat as he left the car.
    The yacht was named Karbizim, and it measured out
to forty meters of conspicuous consumption. Kenan
Bey had let his fantasies run wild and piled on every
luxury that he could think of, from a radar dish to hot
tubs in the cabins, an elaborate galley that could turn
out gourmet fare, a full gym and a helipad located near
the stem. The good ship Karbizim had set him back
at least two million dollars, and Kenan Bey could live
at sea for weeks if he was so inclined.
 In fact, word had it that he rarely used the yacht




these days. A weekend outing now and then, but rarely
more than half a dozen trips per year. His business
with the Russians lately had been taking up more of
his time... and fattening his bank account at such a rate
that he couldn't afford to let his wits go drifting with
the tide.
    Still, if the yacht was an abandoned toy, it still re-
mained a damn expensive one, and Bolan knew that
Bey would feel its loss, especially if it was taken from
him in a manner that cast doubt upon his knack for
taking care of business.
    Striding boldly down the dock toward the Karbizim,
Bolan saw the gangplank lowered, as if ready to re-
ceive arriving passengers. He slipped a hand into the
outer pocket of his lightweight overcoat and found the
MP-5K hanging on its swivel mount. His fingers
wrapped around the pistol grip, and Bolan thumbed
the safety off. He climbed the gangplank, scanning left
and right along the rail in search of lookouts, but he
reached the deck before a swarthy shooter popped out
of a doorway to his left and challenged him.
    He didn't understand the gunman's words, but there
was nothing in the tone or scowl that called for an
interpreter. The young man had a pistol in his hand,
some kind of European semiauto piece, and Bolan
didn't wait for him to raise it from his side. The
MP-5K nosed its way into the night and spit a 3-round
burst from twenty feet away. The gunman lurched
backward and collapsed on the deck.
    That tore it. Bolan moved with grim determination
toward the doorway where his adversary had emerged
a moment earlier. The sounds of running feet and star-

 tied, anxious voices reached his ears from somewhere
 down below--the reinforcements, coming to investi-
 gate the sound of gunfire.
    Bolan waited for them at the head of the compan-
ionway, his compact submachine gun braced in a two-
handed grip. There was a risk in facing several guns
at once in a restricted space, but it wouldn't help Bolan
if he let them scatter and surround him; they would
then move through the passageways and cabins of a
ship they knew by heart, while he would be fighting
for his life on unfamiliar ground.
    There was a light below, not brilliant but enough to
cast the shadows of his enemies in front of them as
they came racing toward the stairs. He had them lined
up as they showed themselves, stood waiting as the
three of them rushed up the steps, discovering their
danger just a beat too late to make a difference. Bolan
held the MP-5K's trigger down and swung the stubby
muzzle in a zigzag pattern, making sure each one of
the defenders got his share.
    They fell together at the bottom of the stairway in
a tangled mass of arms and legs, dead faces turned up
toward the ceiling. Bolan ditched the empty magazine,
reloading as he started down the stairs to check them
out. No signs of life were visible as he stood over
them, and he resisted the temptation to supply a point-
blank coup de grace.
    Instead, he moved along the corridor immediately
to their right, in the direction of the engine room. Kar-
bizim's power plant was silent at the moment, its sur-
roundings spotless, spit and polish the apparent order
of the day. He reached inside the canvas satchel hang-




ing from his shoulder, lifted out a half-pound Semtex
charge with timer and detonator already in place and
placed it where he thought it would do the most harm
to the big yacht's heart. He gave himself fifteen
minutes on the clock, retraced his steps to forward,
past the dead men, moving toward the master's cabin
with determined strides.
    He left a larger Semtex charge in Kenan Bey's plush
home away from home, pressed tight against the hull
where it would detonate a foot or so above the water-
line. A glance at Bolan's watch told him two minutes
had elapsed. He set the timer's simple clock accord-
ingly and left the cabin, moving aft, back toward the
stairway that would lead him to the deck and freedom.
On the way he planted two more plastic charges in
guest cabins, one on either side of the Karbizim, and
synchronized the timers for a simultaneous explosion
that would lift the yacht clear of the water just before
it settled to the bottom of the bay.
    Topside he took the time to look for any watchdogs
who might have been hanging back, relying on an am-
bush to succeed where their impetuous associates had
failed. He had the deck all to himself, no sign of any
passersby attracted by the sounds of gunfire, and he
hurried down the gangplank, turning back in the di-
rection of the car, where Hawk was waiting.  "Did you want to wait.'?" Hawk asked.
    "No need," the Executioner replied. "We've still
got work to do."

MAHOMET HISARONU YAWNED and checked his wrist-
watch, scowling as he saw that he had four more hours

 left on watch before he would be relieved to go back
 home to sleep. It was an easy job but boring, standing
 watch outside a pawnshop in the Kuruqesme neigh-
 borhood in case an enemy of Kenan Bey should come
 around and try to raid the place.
    It was the guns that worried his boss, of course. The
pawnshop was a blind for one of Master Kenan's pri-
vate arsenals in Istanbul, a stockpile that included ev-
erything from small arms and their ammunition to ex-
plosives. There was probably enough hardware inside
the place to fight a minor war. There wasn't that much
call for paramilitary weapons anymore--anyway,
there hadn't been before tonight--but Master Bey be-
lieved in preparation as a hedge against his enemies.
    And they were out in force tonight, from all ap-
pearances. Hisar6nu didn't have the details, but he
knew there had been several violent strikes against the
property of Master Bey, in Istanbul. He wondered, as
he sat there killing time, what kind of men were brave
enough---or fool enough--to challenge Master Bey on
his home ground.
    It takes all kinds, he thought, and shifted in the shot-
gun seat of the Peugeot. The pawnshop was across the
street, all dark and shuttered. In the driver's seat beside
him, Turhan Bitlis lit another cigarette and filled the
little car with smoke. HisarOnu rolled his window
down another inch or two but offered no complaint.
  "This is a waste of time," Bitlis complained.
  "Maybe so."
    "We should be out there looking for the bastards,"
Bitlis insisted.
 "We were told to wait," his panner reminded him.




    "I know what we were told. I'm saying it's a waste
of time."
  "The guns--"
    "Nobody knows about the guns," Bitlis interrupted
him. "They're safe, and we're stuck here while others
get the glory."
    There was probably some truth to that, Hisarbnu
thought, but then who outside the family had known
about the other targets hit so far? He had been trained
to follow orders without question, knowing that his life
was forfeit if he disobeyed. It didn't matter if his dis-
obedience caused problems for the family or not. He
could be executed for an act of insubordination that
resulted in a benefit to Bey as easily as for an act that
harmed his master. There was nothing more important
than obedience and loyalty.
    "I should call Malik and tell him nothing's happen-
ing," the driver grumbled, dragging on his cigarette,
not caring when the ash fell in his lap.
    "Call if you want," Hisar6nu said. "Just leave me
out of it."
  "I'm telling you--"
    Whatever Turhan Bitlis had in mind, he lost his
train of thought as the pawnshop exploded, yellow
flame erupting from the plate-glass windows, the front
door projected from its mountings to the middle of the
street. The shock wave rocked their car, and Bitlis
dropped his cigarette somewhere between his legs, un-
mindful of it as he focused on the larger fire across
the street.
  "Allah preserve us!"
  Bitlis bolted from the car, taking his s~bmachine

gun with him, moving toward the middle of the street.
Hisar6nu followed him, his pistol drawn, but heat kept
them well back from the demolished pawnshop. In an-
other moment they could hear the sharp, staccato pop-
ping sound of ammunition detonating in the tire. A
few more seconds and the darkened side street would
become a combat zone, with phantom warriors dueling
in the heart of the inferno.
  "Let's get out of here," Hisar6nu urged.
    No sooner had he spoken than a silhouette detached
itself from shadows cast by one of the surviving shops
across the street. It ran in the direction of the nearest
cross street, gaining speed. Bitlis was startled, but re-
covered quickly, following the runner with his sub-
machine gun, squeezing off a burst before he had a
chance to aim.
    "Don't stand there like a fool!" the driver snapped.
"We have to stop him!"
    That made sense. Hisar6nu raised his pistol, sighting
down the slide, but something struck him in the legs
before he fired. The impact toppled him, dark pave-
ment rushing up to meet his face. He heard the shots
a heartbeat later, raised his head in time to catch a
glimpse of Turhan Bitlis reeling, clutching at his chest
and going down.
    Incredibly the shooter was on their side of the street.
Hisar6nu saw him step out of the shadows there, his
automatic weapon leveled from the waist. He seemed
to be an African, but it was difficult to say with any
certainty, between the firelight and the shadows, the
shock and pain. He knew he was bleeding badly, felt
the blood soaking through the fabric of his slacks, but




there was nothing he could do about it at the moment.
First he had to stop this man from killing him, assum-
ing he had not already done the job.
    Hisar6nu raised his pistol, braced his elbow on the
pavement, but his hand was trembling with the effort,
and he couldn't find his mark. His eyes swam in and
out of focus, while the firelight tried to trick him, cast-
ing giant leaping shadows on the walls around his en-
emy.
    He managed two wild shots and knew that they
were wasted even as they left the muzzle of his gun.
The black man--if he was a black man----didn't even
bother trying to avoid the bullets. Standing fast, he
fired another short burst from his submachine gun,
muzzle-flashes winking, speeding death toward where
Hisar6nu lay.
    Incredibly the rounds that struck him in the chest
produced no pain. There was a stunning impact, pitch-
ing him onto his back, but nothing more. Instead of
pain, an icy numbness settled over him, and while he
couldn't move his arms or legs, it didn't seem to mat-
ter anymore.
    A killer from the age of sixteen years, Mahomet
Hisar6nu had been moved to wonder, more than once,
exactly how it felt to die.
  And suddenly he knew.

"HIJO DE CHINGAD&" Rafael Encizo muttered under-
neath his breath. "Come on and move your sorry ass."
    The object of his anger was a young man standing
in the shadows, several yards in front of him, just
lighting up another cigarette. He was the kind whose

 visage came to mind when you said "punk" in any
 language: greasy hair and sallow, sunken cheeks; a
 pair of shifty eyes; lips curled in what appeared to be
 a constant sneer. In Cuban jails you would expect a
 kid like that to be the one who grabbed his ankles for
 the bully boys and tried to stick a shiv in anyone who
 laughed about it afterward. As long as he could stab
 them in the back.
    Right now the kid was an obstruction. He was
standing watch outside the back door of a Topkapi
nightclub owned by Kenan Bey, and Encizo had two
minutes left before he had to be inside. McCarter
would be starting the festivities without him if he
didn't hurry, and Encizo didn't plan to let his partner
down.
    "Tough luck, kid," Encizo spoke softly as he
crossed the two-lane blacktop. "Lo siento mucho."
    As he walked, he drew the long, bone-handled
switchblade he had purchased at a market stall that
afternoon and snapped it open, holding it against his
leg and out of sight. The young punk saw him coming,
squared his shoulders, putting on his personal impres-
sion of a soldier to be reckoned with. The flat bulge
of a pistol undemeath his shirttail was the only thing
that kept his act from being laughable.
    Encizo started speaking Spanish to him as he hit the
sidewalk, saw incomprehension in the young man's
eyes. It changed to shock a moment later as Encizo
rushed him, slammed him back against the brick wall
with a forearm locked across his throat, his free hand
pumping with the switchblade down below. It took
two thrusts to do the job, a third to satisfy Encizo that




the kid wasn't about to drag himself away somewhere
and summon help before he died.
    He propped the punk against a nearby Dumpster,
hidden by its shadow, wiped the switchblade on the
dead man's shirt and stowed it in his pocket. Reaching
underneath his windbreaker, Encizo drew the mini-Uzi
from concealment, still attached to its all-purpose
shoulder rig. There was a live round in the chamber,
spare mags in the inside pockets of his windbreaker.
He thumbed the safety off and let himself in through
the back door of the club to join the party that was
coming down in less than ninety seconds.
    The club was open to the public, and although they
didn't plan a general slaughter, there would be guns
inside, as well. The message they were sending back
to Bey required disruption of the Turkish mobster's
day-to-day routine, a forceful interdiction of his cash
flow, with whatever that entailed. If some high rollers
suffered nervous trauma in the process, that was too
damn bad.
    The Cuban passed the kitchen, where a group of
sweaty teenagers was working underneath the watch-
ful eye of a middle-aged cheil Encizo left them to it,
seeing no threat them, convinced that they would scat-
ter when the lead began to fly. He trailed the sound
of music to a doorway masked by hanging st~ngs of
beads, and peered out into the main room of the club.
The joint was obviously SRO, with several dozen
booths and tables occupied, a four-piece band onstage,
two dark-haired women grinding through a version of
the dance of seven veils.
  Encizo watched them for a moment, then went back

to looking for McCarter. His companion was supposed
to come in through the front, posing as a customer,
and wait until eleven-thirty to begin the party. It was
coming up on time, and Encizo was feeling more than
slightly nervous when he spied McCarter, seated at a
table by himself off to the left.
    Encizo had his earplugs already in place, the kind
favored by shooters, which protect the eardrums from
explosive sounds while still allowing normal conver-
sation to proceed. McCarter wore a pair, as well, un-
noticed by his fellow customers and waiters in the dim
light of the club. A harder trick was hiding the con-
cussion bombs--without a bulge to show for it--be-
neath the jacket of his suit, so he had taped them to
his calves. Encizo smiled as he saw the Briton cross
his legs and grimace, wincing as the tape uprooted
hair.
    Encizo stepped back from the doorway, standing
with the mini-Uzi ready in his hand, and closed his
eyes. The flash produced by stun grenades was every
bit as dangerous as the concussion--not that there was
any lasting damage, but the brilliant light caused tem-
porary blindness, lasting several moments, and a sol-
dier on the firing line couldn't afford to lose his sight.
    Encizo waited, pictured McCarter priming one of
the grenades and rolling it away from him, across the
floor, before he ducked his head as if to fetch a fallen
napkin from the floor. The blast felt like a swift punch
to the solar plexus, even with the plaster wall protect-
ing him, and Encizo could only hope McCarter was in
good shape to continue with his work. The second




bomb could use a windup pitch, and the Cuban was
moving in as his partner lobbed it toward the bar.
    Encizo ducked behind a table as it blew and came
up in time to see a pair of groggy-looking shooters
moving toward McCarter from the general direction of
the cloakroom, shiny pistols in their hands.
    It was a tricky shot, with dazed and blinded people
staggering across his field of fire, but Encizo couldn't
afford to hesitate. He hit the forward gunner with a
3-round burst that mined his tuxedo for all time and
pitched him over backward in a lifeless sprawl.
    The second shooter had enough wits left to know
that he was under fire, but tracking down the source
was something else again. Encizo waited while a
woman and her escort lurched in front of him, and
found the gunman standing in the same place, not
quite crouching, dark eyes searching desperately for
somebody to kill. The burst that took him down was
neat and clean, no wasted rounds, no through-and-
through to jeopardize civilians on the other side,
    McCarter had his own gun out by now, unleashing
several rounds in the direction of the roof. He started
shouting at the crowd in English, anything that came
to mind, the added element of chaos prompting a stam-
pede in the direction of the nearest exit. Encizo stayed
where he was, alert to any sign of other gunmen on
the premises, and watched the cream of Istanbul so-
ciety brawl shamelessly for access to the street.
    McCarter saw him, had begun to move in his direc-
tion when another shooter popped up from behind the
bar. His first round missed its mark by six or seven
feet, and McCarter pivoted to bring him under fire

before Encizo could respond. A burst from the Phoe-
nix Force leader's automatic weapon took the soldier
down and dropped him out of sight back behind the
bar.
    "Ready?" asked McCarter with a grin as he drew
closer.
  "I believe the party's over," Encizo replied.
      "Life's one big party, if you just know where to
go," McCarter said.  "Shall we?"
 Another grin. "I thought you'd never ask."

LEONID GROMYLKO TOOK a sip of coffee, grimaced as
it burned his tongue and set the cup back down. In-
stead of anger he felt weariness, but he couldn't blame
jet lag for the feeling. There was only one hour's dif-
ference between Istanbul and Moscow, not enough to
make him feel as if he had been going strong for days
without a wink of sleep.
    It was a deep soul-weariness, Gromylko realized,
which had afflicted him in varying degrees since the
night Alexei Churbanov was killed, the night Vasiliev
and his Colombian associates had given them the slip.
It wouldn't pass, he realized, until he found a way to
make things right, avenge himself against the Chechen
godfather once and for all.
    That knowledge had encouraged him to make the
flight to Istanbul. It hadn't been an order--not ex-
actly-but the news that the Americans were inter-
ested in taking on Vasiliev had galvanized him. There
was no way he could pass on the assignment once it
was offered to him. He couldn't expect another officer




to share his personal commitment to dismantling Vas-
iliev's corrupt empire and seeing justice done at any
cost. Some officers of the militsiya were certainly cor-
rupt, while others had a vested interest in preserving
their careers, in going by the book. All that had
changed for Leonid Gromylko on the night his partner
died.
    He had no wife or children to protect, no living
relatives the syndicate could threaten, use as pawns in
an attempt to slow him down. It would require a bomb
or blade or bullet, and he knew Vasiliev wouldn't stop
short of murdering one more policeman.  But the bastard had to find him first.
    It was true that working in Istanbul had certain ad-
vantages. Gromylko was away from Moscow for the
moment, but still in position to damage Vasiliev and
the rest of the Thieves' Society at the same time. It
remained to be seen how the Americans would shape
up, but they were clearly not running the standard FBI
operation, with reams of paperwork to file and slim
results to show for it. Unless Gromylko missed his
guess, the recent spate of violence rocking Istanbul
had much to do with the American campaign, a no-
holds-barred approach to shutting down the Turkish
drug pipeline that meshed well with Gromylko's per-
sonal aversion to going by the book. He would be
pleased to help them if he could, as long as they
agreed upon the common goal of crushing Gregori
Vasiliev.
    Gromylko wondered how the rough approach would
fare when they were back in Russia, how his various
superiors in the militsiya would take to having armed

Amerikanski running wild in their backyard and tar-
geting the very criminals who made such huge in-
vestments in the system, via massive bribes. He pic-
tured Colonel Yuri Renko looking down his crooked
nose and scowling at the notion, taking steps to inter-
vene wherever possible and put the Yankees in their
placemperhaps a prison cell, perhaps a shallow grave.
And if Gromylko should be cut down in the cross fire,
he suspected Renko would spend little time in mourn-
ing.
    Still, the new approach was worth a try. He had
considered trying something of the sort alone, but
knew it would be suicide. This way there would be
others on his side, to watch his back, and they would
have at least the theoretical support of certain ranking
officers in the militsiya. With any luck it might just be
enough to keep the likes of Renko and his men at bay,
but Gromylko wouldn't bet his life on that. Not yet.
    Before he started trusting the Amerikanski, he would
have to wait and see.




CHAPTER SIX

There was still an hour left before the break of day as
Bolan made his way along the sidewalk, moving to-
ward the massive monument to Ataturk. He was five
minutes early, but he felt like scouting out the territory
on his own after surveillance from a distance through
a sniper scope. He knew that Hawkins would be track-
ing him with field glasses, perhaps the Walther
WA2000's telescopic sight, with frequent sweeps to
check for any evidence that he was entering a trap.
    Too late, in any case, thought Bolan as he neared
the point selected for the predawn rendezvous. If there
were shooters waiting for him, they were hidden well
enough that he had failed to spot them, and presum-
ably they would elude Hawk's scrutiny, as well--at
least, until they opened tire. By that time there
wouldn't be much his one-man backup could achieve
in terms of saving Bolan's ass, but he could still repay
the enemy in kind.
    And sometimes payback was the best that you could
hope for.
    Sometimes, in the real world, vengeance was
enough.
 Almost.

    He tried to sketch a mental picture of the Russian
and came up with a laughable caricature: double chin,
bushy eyebrows, pale complexion underneath a round
fur hat, with a militia uniform in gray or olive drab.
That much, at least, he knew couldn't be accurate. The
officer detailed to meet him was a long way from his
lawful jurisdiction now, and he wouldn't be advertis-
ing his connection to the Russian state police.
    It was a sign of Moscow's desperation that the
proud militia would not only welcome help from the
United States--a precedent established earlier, when
doors were opened to the FBImbut that it would co-
operate with Bolan's style of war against the home-
grown mafiya. He knew that crime was running wild
in Russia, and that syndicate activities abroad were
threatening the foreign aid that Moscow's present rul-
ers needed to survive, but it was still a quantum leap
from borrowing a team of Washington advisers to the
kind of blitz that Bolan had in mind.
    He wondered if the men behind the scenes in Russia
had really known what they were getting into when
they cut their deal with Hal and Stony Man. If not,
they would find out before the smoke had cleared in
Turkey, and there would be time enough for them to
weasel out if they were so inclined.
    In which case, Bolan thought, he might be forced
to go ahead without official sanction. It would multi-
ply the risks a thousandfold, but that was SOP in Bo-
lan's kind of war. He weighed the risks at the begin-
ning, figured out if the potential gain was worth it and
then he went ahead, with no more personal regard than




any other soldier, cop or fireman when the chips were
down.
It was the only way to fly, and it had served him
well so far.
    He checked the plaza, peering into shadows that de-
fied the nearest streetlights, wondering if death were
waiting for him there. It made no sense to think the
Russians would prepare an ambush for him here, in
Istanbul. He had opposed their interests in the past,
under the Soviet regime, but that was ancient history,
and those in power now had no idea who Bolan was,
much less that Hal would send him on this mission to
assist their government.
    He found a bench a few yards from the looming
monument and sat down at one end, placing a portion
of the plaza at his back. There was little he could do
about that, short of staying on his feet and moving
constantly, like some demented street person jumping
at shadows. He would trust Hawkins to watch his
back, and let it go at that. As for the Russian, if he
brought a tail... well, they would have to deal with that
event if and when it occurred.
    In the meantime there was nothing for the Execu-
tioner to do but sit and wait to see what happened next.

GROMYLKO PARKED his rented car three blocks from
the appointed rendezvous, sacrificing convenience in
the interest of security and personal survival. Walking
three blocks to the monument, he would have ample
time to see if he was being followed or observed, and
no one could pursue him in a vehicle without creeping

 along at the curb, making himself painfully obvious in
 the process.
    Before he left the car, he double-checked his Mak-
arov and slipped it down inside the waistband of his
trousers, at the back, where he could reach it easily
with either hand. The gun had passed unnoticed in his
check-through luggage, hidden in a hardback copy of
War and Peace that he had hollowed out specifically
for moving contraband. The crude system wouldn't
defeat a metal detector or X-ray device, but few air-
ports other than Israel still X-rayed luggage that was
destined for the cargo hold. If he was caught, he would
plead ignorance of local laws and flash the diplomatic
passport that had been provided for his trip to Istanbul.
    The special paperwork said much about how the
militsiya brass regarded his present assignment. It was
important enough for them to pull strings with the Of-
fice of Passport Control and the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, but Gromylko still wondered exactly how
much support he could expect if things went sour in
Turkey. The diplomatic passport would prevent him
from being jailed, but Gromylko still had to consider
the consequences of any embarrassment once he got
home.
  If he got home.
    The course of action he had chosen could well result
in his death. Gromylko had no illusions on that score,
nor did the prospect of impending mayhem intimidate
him. Whatever squeamishness remained after seven-
teen years in the service, he had lost it in the aftermath
of Churbanov's murder.
 Lately he was focused more precisely on revenge.




    He didn't know if the Amerikanski operatives could
even help him when it counted. They had done all
fight so far, assuming they were actually responsible
for the recent series of attacks in Istanbul, but they
were fighting Turks, an altogether different breed from
Chechen mobsters. Gromylko was happy to give them
a chance, the benefit of the doubt...but in the death
game they were playing, there would be no second
chance, and doubts could get you killed.
    He wondered whom the bold Amerikanski repre-
sented, which one of the alphabet agencies spawned
by Washington they were assigned to serve. The
Yanks had several elite military units--the Rangers,
Special Forces, Navy SEALs, the black berets of Delta
Force--but none of them was normally assigned to
stalking ordinary criminals. Their specialty was coun-
terterrorism, plucking hostages from danger, crushing
Third World revolutions. They were more like the
Spetsnaz in his homeland, which would gladly kill the
people of Afghanistan or even Georgia, but wouldn't
feel at home in Moscow, trailing homegrown villains
through the streets and alleyways. Who, then?
    There was a time when Leonid Gromylko would
have guessed at CIA involvement, but he knew
enough of politics in the United States since Nixon to
believe that Langley's old swashbuckling days were
gone forever, lost beyond recall. The Company no
doubt had gunmen on its payroll, more than likely con-
tract agents from some criminal fraternity to rent for
certain dirty jobs, but oversight from Congress had
derailed the CIA's ability to mount extensive covert

operations, much less active paramilitary teams like
those rocking Istanbul since early afternoon.
    Still, the Yankees already had Gromylko's admira-
tion. He had lost count of all the times he wished that
he could simply walk up to a criminal, pull out his
Makarov and shoot the bastard dead, without the pa-
perwork and second-guessing from his own superiors.
In Russia the militsiya had much more freedom than
American police--to search without a warrant, for ex-
ample, or to hold a suspect for extended questioning--
but the demise of communism was inevitably bringing
on reforms. Some of the changes were long overdue,
in Gromylko's opinion, while others simply hampered
the police in their attempts to deal with violent crime.
The end result, he feared, would be a stronger syndi-
cate, greater corruption in the ranks of government and
law enforcement, greater violence in the streets.
    Unless the man he was supposed to meet had a so-
lution for the problem tucked under his hat.
    It was unlikely, Gromylko told himself. Americans
had simple notions about life in Russia, some of them
encouraged by the very rulers of the USSR under com-
munism. In the Western eye, most Russians were le-
thargic, vodka-swilling trolls who waited endlessly in
line to get a piece of moldy cheese, whose women
either mainlined steroids to become athletic prodigies,
or else gained ninety pounds the morning after they
were married and began an endless round of cooking,
cleaning house and giving birth.
    Gromylko, for his part, had never owned or worn a
fur hat in his life, and he had never joined the Com-
munist Party, even though his reluctance meant he




would never rise above the rank of first lieutenant in
his chosen field. He did drink vodka, but there was
some truth in every caricature, every stereotype. It was
how the distorted generalizations got started in the first
place.
    The monument to Ataturk was half a block ahead.
Gromylko slowed his pace and glanced behind him
one more time to satisfy himself that he hadn't been
followed. There was no good reason to believe that
anyone employed by Gregori Vasiliev knew where he
was, much less why he had come to Istanbul, but there
was no such thing as too much caution.
    He began to sweep the plaza with his eyes, picked
out a solitary figure seated on a bench perhaps a hun-
dred yards to the south. He had no physical description
of his contact, but the big man matched Gromylko's
general impression of Americans. His mind dredged
up the coded ID phrase he had been given back in
Moscow, and he started toward the bench. His wind-
breaker hung open, granting speedy access to the Mak-
arov.
    Gromylko hoped the gun wouldn't turn out to be
his only friend in Istanbul.

HIS ROOFTOP pERCH let T. J. Hawkins cover all four
comers of the plaza down below, and he had checked
the square repeatedly with night glasses before and
after Bolan took up his position on the bench. The
Walther WA2000 sat beside his elbow, muzzle ele-
vated by the bipod that was factory standard on the
Space Age rifles. If a target showed itself below him,
he could switch from night glasses to the Walther's

telescopic sight in a heartbeat, covering Bolan's retreat
all the way.
  If Bolan was in any shape to get away.
    The very notion of the rendezvous didn't sit well
with Hawkins. He didn't mind the place, but he ob-
jected to the hour--too damn early for civilians to be
running interference, too damn dark to let him abso-
lutely guarantee a safe approach--and he had argued
that they ought to push it back an hour, maybe two or
three, at least until the sun came up. Bolan was ada-
mant about the timing, even though they had a backup
rendezvous arranged. They would proceed on sched-
ule, do their best to minimize the risk and let the chips
fall where they may.
    But Hawkins didn't have to like it. Not even a little
bit.
    He didn't trust the Russians; that was one thing.
Thirteen years in active military service, most of that
under the Reagan-Bush administrations, and he knew
the Russians wanted power, just like everybody else.
He had been up against a number of their Cuban flun-
kies in Grenada, dodging bullets from Russian
AK-47s and machine guns. Even granting that the
Communist regime in Moscow was no more, the die-
hard Marxists had controlled Russia for almost three-
quarters of a century. Thousands, maybe tens of
thousands, had mourned the old order's demise,
watching their party perks and privileges evaporate be-
fore their eyes. The KGB was forced to change its
name, if not its mission. It would be fatally naive, in
Hawk's humble opinion, to believe that every Russian
had experienced a sudden change of heart, transform-




ing Moscow and the Kremlin into a new cradle of
world liberty.
    In Hawk's experience the lust for power tran-
scended political parties and traditional ideology. Re-
pression of dissent, for instance, was common to both
right- and left-wing regimes around the world. You
only had to glance around the Balkan states, of late,
to get a clue that Russia hadn't wholly changed her
ways.
    Still, Hawkins didn't mind assisting Moscow with
specific problems, like the arresting of the spread of
syndicated crime---especially where that problem was
exported to the States. He couldn't make himself be-
lieve that one campaign would slam the door on Rus-
sian mafiosi spreading into Europe and America, but
it was well past time to make a start on cleaning up
the mess.
    There were a few pedestrians at large despite the
hour, heading off to early-morning jobs, and Hawkins
studied each of them who crossed the plaza down be-
low. If anything went wrong for Bolan, it wouldn't be
due to negligence on his part. Hawkins had discre-
tionary power to remove approaching targets if he sat-
isfied himself that they posed a threat to Bolan. Tech-
nically he wasn't bound to let the suspect draw a
weapon and take aim before he intervened, but he
wasn't about to turn the square into a shooting gallery
without good reason, either.
    Bolan was a pro at this, Hawk realized. The guy
had lived through shit that would have made another
soldier's hair turn white, and he was still around, still
going strong. Somewhere along the line, of course, the

odds caught up with every man. It was inevitable, na-
ture's way, but T. J. Hawkins was determined that it
wouldn't happen on his watch.
  Not this time.
  Not today.
    He saw a lone man coming from the north, ap-
proaching Bolan's bench. He looked like anybody else
from that distance, nothing obvious to set him apart,
like a hammer-and-sickle armband or a nice pair of
horns atop his head. Still, there was something about
him ....
    Hawkins laid his night glasses aside and scooted
over to the Walther, wrapped his hand around the
sculpted pistol grip and found his target with the
scope.
    Say cheese, he thought, and waited, trying to decide
if this man he had never seen before should live or
die.

"TURKEY IS WARM this time of year," the stranger
said.
    Bolan returned his level gaze and said, "But
weather changes by the day."
    "That's why I always carry an umbrella," replied
the stranger, who had no umbrella in his hands.
    Their ID ritual complete, the Russian sat down next
to Bolan, leaving some two feet of empty space be-
tween them on the bench. He studied Bolan's face for
several moments, frowning to himself, then said, "I've
never cared much for this cloak-and-dagger business."
"No," said Bolan, "but at least it does the job."




    "I am Lieutenant Leonid Gromylko," the Russian
stated.
"Mike Belasko," Bolan replied. "No rank, per se."
Gromylko's grip was firm and dry, possessed of
strength without the need to demonstrate by grinding
knuckles. "Have you been in Turkey long?" he asked.
  "About twelve hours," Bolan said.
  "You have been busy, I believe."
    "We had some time to kill before the meeting,"
Bolan said. "I didn't want to waste it, so we intro-
duced ourselves to Kenan Bey."
    "And quite effectively, from what I've made out of
the local news. When you say 'we,' how many men
are you referring to?"
    Bolan considered lying to Gromylko, but he
couldn't see the point. The trust had to begin some-
where. "Six guns, including mine."
"Regretfully I've come alone," Gromylko said.
"No sweat. I'm counting on you more for infor-
mation and direction than a frontline presence," Bolan
said.
      The Russian frowned at that, his disappointment ob-
vious. "I plan to do my share."  "I only thought--"
    "Three months ago my parmer was assassinated
during an attempt to pick up Gregori Vasiliev in Mos-
cow. Since then, my superiors in the militsiya have
done their best to keep me at a desk, coordinating
paperwork and chasing information on the telephone,
I'm only here because they can spare no one else...
and no one else knows the bandity as I do. My infor-
mation is at your disposal, but I have a price."

  "Which is?"
    "I want--how you say it?--a piece of the action.
You don't handle me with kid gloves or expect me to
watch idly from the sidelines."
  "Fair enough. You know the risks involved."
  "My parmer knew them, too."
    "I've been there," Bolan told him, "but I don't
advise you let your heart start thinking for your head."
    'Tve thought enough," Gromylko said. "It's time
to act."
  "You know the Turkish action?"
    "Well enough. You've done all right so far, from
what I know."
    "We're moving on to Ankara this morning," Bolan
said. "My information is that Kenan Bey is headed
for his home away from home. He thinks the capital
may be a little cooler for him, with the heat in Istan-
bul."
    "So, now you plan on turning up the heat in An-
kara?' '
    "That's it. When we get done with this end of the
pipeline, we'll be ready to change theaters of opera-
tion. After that it's your show all the way. You call
the shots."
  "I'd rather make the shots."
    "Well," Bolan said, "there's no time like the pres-
ent to get started, if you want to take a look at An-
kara."
    Gromylko smiled. "I understand it's warm this time
of year."
    "And getting warmer all the time," the Executioner
replied.




  "One question," Gromylko said.
  "What?"
  "We're covered, I assume?"
  "That's right. You mind?"
    Gromylko shook his head. "It's reassuring," he told
Bolan. "I prefer to risk my life with men who know
their business."
  "Then you've come to the right place."
  "I hope so."
  "One way to find out," Bolan said.
  "Shall we take my car?"
  "Where is it?"
    "Three blocks that way." Gromylko pointed to the
north.
  "Another cautious man."
  "I'm still alive."
  "Let's try to keep it that way."
    "For a time, at least," Gromylko said. "I still have
work to do."
    "I'll wait here while you get the car, then we can
have mine brought around."
 Gromylko rose. "Ten minutes, then."
  "Ten minutes."
    Bolan watched him turn away, retrace his steps.
Hawk would be watching, too, but they were clear for
now. He didn't trust the Russian absolutely, but he was
prepared to give the guy a chance.
 Ankara would provide the testing ground.
    And anyone who failed wouldn't be coming out
alive.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ankara

"This is it?" Hawkins asked.  "Right."
    It was another warehouse, this one on the outskirts
of the Turkish capital. The deed and other legal pa-
perwork might not reveal the name of Kenan Bey, but
Stony Man had verified the link through Interpol, and
Bolan was prepared to take it at face value. One more
stop on the circuitous route for all manner of contra-
band, including drugs and weapons, stolen property
and bootleg articles, even the occasional fugitive from
justice. As in Istanbul, he had no way of knowing what
the warehouse held right now, nor did it matter. It was
enough to know that Bey would suffer from the loss
of anything inside.
  "You're armed?" he asked Gromylko.
    "Da." The Russian flipped his jacket aside to show
a semiauto pistol tucked inside his waistband at the
back.
  "That's it?"
    Gromylko shrugged. "I must admit, I didn't come
prepared for total war."




    "We did," Hawkins said, reaching back into a gym
bag on the floor behind the driver's seat. He came out
with a loaded mini-Uzi and reached back again to find
its matching silencer, together with a pair of extra
magazines.
    "You've handled one of these before?" Bolan
asked.
      "I can manage," Gromylko replied as he screwed
the silencer onto the Uzi's threaded muzzle.  "Then I guess we're set."
    Gromylko pocketed the two spare magazines and
tucked the Uzi underneath his jacket as he left the
vehicle. Hawkins stayed behind the wheel and kept the
engine running as his partners crossed the street and
closed in on the warehouse, painfully aware that day-
light made them easy targets. There had been no sign
of lookouts on their drive-by, but you never really
knew about a place until you made your move.
    And by the time all hell broke lose, it was too late
to change your mind.
    Two canvas-covered trucks were parked against the
loading dock, with a Mercedes-Benz sedan around the
west side of the aging warehouse. Leaving trucks
would be routine, but Bolan seriously doubted that
anyone would leave a Benz unguarded overnight. That
told him there were men inside, but he would have to
find out for himself if they were armed and dangerous.
  No turning back.
    They left the loading dock alone and found a door
around in back. The lock was no great challenge, and
the door hadn't been wired with an alarm as far as
Bolan could determine. As it closed behind them, Gro-

 mylko drew the borrowed submachine gun from be-
 neath his jacket, flicking off the safety with his thumb.
    The warehouse was three-quarters filled with wood-
en crates and cardboard boxes, stacked up halfway to
the ceiling, leaving aisles between them wide enough
to let a forklift pass. Bolan couldn't read the labels,
but it hardly mattered if the tags were fraudulent. They
stood and listened for a moment, picked up on the
sound of an electric motor several aisles away, and
Bolan moved in that direction, carrying his
MP-5K with the custom silencer attached.
    They met the forklift operator in the third aisle over
from the door where they had slipped into the ware-
house. He wore denim coverails and a black shoulder
holster, with a heavy autoloader slung beneath his left
arm for a cross-hand draw. The Turk's eyes widened
at the sight of strangers on his turf, and he released
the throttle of his clumsy vehicle, his right hand grop-
ing for the pistol in a reflex action.
    Bolan shot him in the chest, a 3-round burst that
slapped him off the driver's seat, one foot hung up so
that he dangled like a fallen scarecrow from the rear
deck of the forklift. Passing by the vehicle, Gromylko
switched the motor off. It hadn't been that loud, and
yet the sudden silence seemed oppressive as they
moved along the aisle together, toward the north end
of the warehouse.
    It wasn't completely silent, though. The sound of
muted voices drew them onward to the far end of the
aisle. Bolan took a brief glance around a wooden crate
the size of an industrial refrigerator and saw four men
sitting at a card table. Three of them were smoking,




all four wearing pistols and playing some card game
Bolan didn't recognize.
    He turned back toward Gromylko and raised four
fingers. The Russian nodded in reply, then they
stepped out of the aisle together, spreading out enough
that they wouldn't present a single target to the four
cardplayers. Even then, it took another moment for the
Turks to notice them.
    The fat man facing Bolan and Gromylko glanced
upward from his cards and lost his cigar stub as his
mouth dropped open. Porky blurted out a warning to
his friends.
    The others turned and reached for their side arms,
but the effort was too little and too late.
    Bolan and his companion cut loose with their
SMGs, the muffled sound reminiscent of playing cards
fanned by the spokes of a bicycle wheel rather than
gunfire. A storm of 9 mm parabellum rounds ripped
into flesh and fabric, spinning the cardplayers around,
one bringing the flimsy table down beneath his weight,
the others sprawling out beside it, spilling crimson on
the concrete floor.
    Gromylko moved to stand above them, checking vi-
sually for signs of life. When he was satisfied that they
were dead, with no more shooters waiting in the
wings, he turned back to the Executioner and nodded.
Bolan took a thermite canister from underneath his
coat and tossed it to the Russian.  "Be my guest."
  "A fire sale, I believe you call it?"
  "More or less."
  Gromylko yanked the pin and lobbed the canister

downrange, toward the far end of the warehouse. By
the time it blew, they were outside and jogging toward
the car.
    "So, this is how you fight your war," the Russian
said.
    "It's how we start," Bolan replied as he took the
shotgun seat and closed the door behind him.
    T. J. Hawkins met Gromylko's flat gaze in the rear-
view mirror. "You ain't seen nothing, yet," Hawkins
said.

TaE HOUSE would have been advertised as ranch-style
in America. David McCarter didn't have a clue what
they would call the architectural design in Turkey, and
he frankly didn't give a damn. The dwelling was a
bloody target, nothing more.
    Located in a northern suburb of Ankara, it stood on
three or four acres of land, screened from its neighbors
by strategically located trees, surrounded by a wall of
sun-bleached brick, with broken glass on top, lodged
in concrete. There were no other visible security de-
vices, but McCarter wasn't taking any chances. He had
opted for a long-range strike, across the wall, which
had the added benefit of helping with a speedy get-
away.
    The target was a high-priced thug named S/ileyman
Izmir, described by Stony Man and Interpol as number
two in Kenan Bey's crime family. It would have taken
more than luck to tag him in his own backyard in
broad daylight, but it was easier to hurt him where it
mattered--his pride and pocketbook.
 McCarter's weapon of choice was a Russian




RPG-7, part of the mobile arsenal they had acquired
from savvy "businessmen" in Istanbul, surrendered
on a strictly cash-and-carry basis. Bolan had paid the
tab from what he called his private war chest, and
McCarter hadn't argued. Now, as he prepared to
launch his strike on Izmir, McCarter was relieved that
they had come prepared.
    The RPG launcher is one meter in length, a 40 mm
weapon constructed on the classic bazooka design. Its
rockets weigh five pounds apiece, and are so bulky in
construction that the warhead protrudes from the
RPG's muzzle like a football loaded with high explo-
sives. The effective range for stationary targets is rated
at five hundred meters, with a muzzle velocity of 120
meters per second. There is no recoil, since all the
back-flash is expelled behind the shooter--to the ev-
erlasting detriment of anyone who stands too close.
    McCarter balanced atop the cab of a track they had
"borrowed" for the occasion, sighting the RPG while
Rafael Encizo sat behind the wheel below and kept
the engine running for a swift departure. Extra rockets,
three in all, were nestled in a canvas satchel slung
across McCarter's left shoulder, while the launcher
was braced on his right.
    He didn't know the floor plan of the house, so he
broke it down logically, aiming his first HE round at
the tall double doors. He squeezed the trigger, smelled
a whiff of dragon's breath and was reloading by the
time the rocket found its mark, erupting into smoke
and flame downrange.
    McCarter shifted targets for his second shot, lined
up the RPG's sights on the northwest comer of the

house, aiming at the broad windows that offered easy
access to the room beyond. Concern for innocent ci-
vilians was tempered by information that Izmir was a
bachelor with no children, no live-in family of any
kind. As for the staff, those workers who weren't em-
ployed to carry guns and keep the master safe drew
their paychecks from the number-two gangster in Tur-
key. McCarter reckoned they could take their chances
with the boss.
    Two away, and he watched the fiery comet find its
mark, punching through fragile glass to detonate inside
the house, spewing smoke and shrapnel from the shat-
tered window. Drawing the third rocket from his
satchel, McCarter reloaded, watching and waiting for
the inevitable reaction.
    It came as he was lining up the penultimate shot. A
half-dozen men charged around from the back of the
house, all armed with shotguns or rifles. They gaped
at the house, then turned in McCarter's direction, seek-
ing the source of so much destruction, squinting in
brilliant sunlight.
    McCarter helped them with another rocket, ignoring
the soldiers as he put a third HE round into the house,
this one midway between the first two impact sites.
Three rockets would probably not destroy Izmir's
house, even if they started more-extensive fires, but
there would be one hell of a mess to clean up. And
more importantly, Bey's number-two would carry the
message back to his master that no one was safe, not
even at home behind walls and hired guns.
    Beyond the initial shock now, the soldiers were re-
acting, big time. Two started sprinting for the wall,


their starting point perhaps a hundred yards from
where McCarter stood atop the truck, while their four
companions piled into a gray sedan, revving its engine
and rolling toward the gate.
    The RPG's effective range for moving targets is
roughly half the distance recommended for stationary
marks, but McCarter was well within the limit. Even
so, it took a hunter's eye to lead the gray sedan, time
the release of rocket number four so that it flew to
meet the racing vehicle instead of missing clean and
hurtling on through empty air.
    McCarter took his time about it, ignoring the gun-
ners on foot, who were already firing from the hip,
well beyond their own effective range. He had all the
time he needed to do it right, and his hand was steady
as he squeezed the trigger one last time, dispatching
sudden death to meet his enemies.
    The gray sedan was halfway to the main gate of the
property when it exploded, swerving violently off
course from the impact of the rocket, trailing flames
and oily smoke as it limped to a halt. McCarter saw
one man bail out and run for it before the gas tank
blew, then he was scrambling down from his high
perch, sliding into the shotgun seat as Encizo put the
truck in gear.
  "All done?" the Cuban asked.
  "I doubt they'll invite us back," McCarter said.

Tim ~-EWS HIT Kenan Bey like a swift punch in the
solar plexus, stealing his breath away for a moment as
he listened to Izmir ranting on the telephone. The
younger man was livid, frantic, calling from a public

 telephone because his own had been knocked out by
 rockets of all things. The house that Izmir doted on
 was in a shambles, with damage running into the mil-
 lions of lira, while his pride and personal sense of
 security lay in smoking ruins.
    "Enough!" Bey interrupted him, cutting off the an-
gry, frightened flow of words. "Find a safe place for
yourself and your men. Call me when you're settled.
I will deal with the police."
    Police were not the problem, Bey decided. Every-
body knew that there were violent dissidents in Tur-
key-Kurds among them, if not foremost in the cast
of characters--and that they often vented mindless
rage against the affluent, including lawyers, politicians
and respected businessmen. The risk of terrorist attack
explained why Izmir had armed guards on his prop-
erty. Police who had been paid for years to overlook
the foreign trade in heroin and other contraband
weren't about to suddenly regain their eyesight now.
    The move to Ankara had been designed to take the
heat off Bey while the police and his own men tracked
down the individuals responsible for his embarrass-
ment in Istanbul. Now, it appeared, the problem had
pursued him to the capital, three more attacks within
the past two hours, telling him in no uncertain terms
that there was nowhere he could hide.
    He had not been fond of running in the first place.
Instinct told him he should stand and fight, but that
required at least some notion of the enemy's identity.
There was no man, no weapon, that could kill a
shadow. If he could not find his enemies, he could not
fight.




    A nagging dread told Kenan Bey that finding his
assailants wouldn't be a problem in the long run. They
would come to him in time. He must be ready for
them, see-to his defenses and prepare himself to snatch
victory from the jaws of apparent defeat.
    And that meant knowing who they were, if not pre-
cisely where.
    Kerim Ktirek was one possibility, a tough drug run-
ner from Kars, near the Armenian border. They had
clashed on more than one occasion over customers and
territory, Ktirek always managing to smell the traps
arranged by Kenan Bey and save himself before his
head was in the noose. Kiirek had shown himself ca-
pable of violent reprisals in the past, but the recent
attacks had been too well organized, too military to be
Ktirek's handiwork. The drive-by shooting that had
taken Achmed Maras might have been arranged by
Kiirek, but as for the rest of it...  If not Kiirek, then who?
    It was a point of pride with Bey that few of his true
enemies were still alive, and fewer still posed any sig-
nificant threat to his illicit empire. Death came swift
and soon to those who jeopardized his profit margin,
much less his personal safety. The downside of Bey's
scorched-earth policy, however, was the fact that it left
a severely depleted field of suspects when anything
went wrong.
  Like now.
    He thought of the Sicilians next. There had been
disagreements lately over price, but Bey was still their
major source of heroin, despite increasing trade be-
tween the Mafia and Chinese Triads moving China

 white. His price per kilogram wasn't unreasonable,
 and he never failed to strike a bargain with his favored
 customers. Polite disputes aside, it seemed unlikely
 that the mafiosi would attempt to kill him---even less
 likely that they would mount such a determined, wide-
 ranging campaign on Turkish soil.
    The Russians? Kenan Bey was almost moved to
smile at the idea. They were his new, best customers,
and Gregori Vasiliev seemed eminently satisfied with
both the price and quality of merchandise. He
wouldn't put it past the wily Chechen to attempt a
coup, eliminate the middleman if it was feasible, but
such an effort would require Vasiliev to run the Turk-
ish operation on his own, and that was so improbable
that it produced a barking laugh from Bey.
    The change of mood was short-lived, instantly ex-
tinguished as the Turkish mobster realized that he had
come full circle, back to total ignorance of who his
adversaries were and why they would attempt to ruin
everything that he had worked and fought for.
    It was damn frustrating, this lack of crucial knowl-
edge, when his life was riding on the line. How could
he hope to save himself and hold his world intact if
he had no idea of who was trying to subvert him? Raw
determination might not be enough, even with luck to
help him out. He needed information and a gesture
that would build new confidence within the ranks of
his employees, his defenders.
 Most of all, he needed time.
    It galled the Turkish godfather to think of running,
hiding like a frightened child, but the attack on Izmir
had shown him that a house, a wall and bodyguards




might not protect a man from those committed to de-
stroying him. Some distance would be helpful. If a
change of cities didn't do the trick, then Bey would
choose his own ground for the showdown.
    As it so happened, Kenan Bey had such a place in
mind.
    He would allow his enemies to find him, if they had
the wits and courage to confront him on the killing
ground he chose.
  And it would be their last mistake.

THE OPERATION of a hashish parlor is illegal in An-
kara, as throughout the country, but such parlors still
exist. Their thriving trade is an open secret in Turkish
society, as well-known to police as to any civilian on
the street. From time to time a new wave of reform
demands that they be raided, closed and padlocked,
but the rules of play are understood by all concerned.
The hashish parlors easily relocate, at a moderate ex-
pense to management, while the police forfeit their
standard bribes during a "cleanup," ranking officers
content to reap the harvest of publicity that makes
them look efficient in the public eye. Within a week
or less, business returns to normal, and the status quo
is left inviolate.
    The hashish parlor located in downtown Ankara
was one of Turkey's largest, certainly the largest in
the city, with a list of clients including businessmen
and politicians who preferred to have their fun in cir-
cumstances that were easily, effectively controlled, in-
stead of taking trouble home at night. Because of its

 exalted clientele, this parlor had gone seven years
 without a raid.  Until today.
     The gas mask was uncomfortable, but it would be
 helpful once he got inside the place, thought Calvin
 James. He made a last adjustment to the tight elastic
 straps, then checked his wristwatch, verifying that he
 still had twenty seconds left.
    He had already picked the cheap lock on the base-
ment access door, and had his MP-5 SD-3 ready, with
a live round in the firing chamber and the safety off.
Another eighteen seconds now, and Gary Manning
should be coming through the skylight, making it a
pincer movement, catching their intended targets in a
deadly squeeze. The parlor's management and guards
should be discernible from customers by armament
and attitude, if not attire. Whatever happened in the
next few moments, the ex-SEAL told himself that any-
one who fell had brought it on himself.
    Drugs were a major sore point for the soldier from
Chicago, ever since his only sister died from an over-
dose. James didn't blame the world at large for her
mistake, but he had seen too much of suffering around
the Windy City, later on a broader scale, to regard the
organized drug trade as "victimless" crime.
    Now it was time to move. James crossed the thresh-
old with his submachine gun ready, closing the door
behind him, and followed a faint light to the nearby
stairs. Taking the steps three at a time, he poked his
head into a kind of pantry. Seeing that he had it to
himself, he closed the second door and kept on moving




through an empty kitchen, following a muffled sound
of voices to the party room.
    The hashish parlor offered privacy for bashful cus-
tomers, but several had collected in a kind of sunken
living room, just off the corridor to James's left. Their
fancy water pipes were percolating merrily, and a pun-
gent smoke cloud was hanging overhead. James
couldn't smell it with his mask on, but he had inhaled
enough secondhand weed in his time to know what he
was missing.
    He stood and watched the patrons for a moment,
wondering which ones were so-called civil servants,
which were taking time away from industry and com-
merce to relax with some imported hemp. The women,
dressed in next to nothing, were employees of the
house, dubbed "hostesses," who dealt with any crav-
ings the hashish failed to satisfy. They left the smok-
ing to their "guests" and concentrated on a lot of
sweet talk, making sure the pipes stayed full and busy,
running up the tab.
    One of the women noticed James in the doorway,
with his mask and SMG. She gave a little cry that
failed to rouse the groggy patrons, but it captured the
attention of two bruisers to the left, the first watchdogs
he had seen since entering the house. Both men
reached for pistols underneath their stylish jackets as
they caught a glimpse of James and knew they had
bad trouble on their hands.
    It was too easy, pivoting to meet them with the sub-
machine gun, squeezing off a silent burst that toppled
both men, flinging them away like broken manne-
quins. The pair went down without a protest, guns still

 holstered, crimson streamers painted on the wall near
 where they had stood a heartbeat earlier.
    A couple of the women started screaming, loud
enough to let their guests know something was amiss.
A fat man, middle-aged and balding, staggered to his
feet and tipped his hookah over in the process, blurting
out an angry challenge that he never would have made
if he was sober. James was in his face with two long
strides, the muzzle of his weapon lashing out to wipe
the sneer from Tubby's face and slam him back down
to the sofa.
    Shouts and more screaming from upstairs told
James that Manning had announced himself. A heart-
beat later pistol shots rang out, and he was ready as a
shooter burst into view on the second-floor landing,
pausing at the head of the stairs to line up another
shot.
    James stitched him with a burst that sent him tum-
bling headlong down the stairs. The shooter landed in
a heap, limbs crumpled underneath him like the bent
legs of a dying spider. Another short burst pinned him
there and guaranteed that he wouldn't get up again.
    A rush of half-dressed men and naked women fol-
lowed. James watched as they pounded down the stairs
and leaped across the fallen shooter. Bringing up the
rear was Gary Manning. The tall Canadian resembled
an escapee from a sci-fi movie in his mask, and those
he drove before him were plainly worded that their
last day on the planet had arrived.
    James gambled on the odds that some of them spoke
English. He waved toward the nearest exit with his
SMG and shouted through the gas mask, telling them




to get the hell out in the street. They got the point, but
James had to stop a couple of the women in their rush
and send them back to help the fat man he had sub-
dued moments earlier. They were the last three out the
door, two slender figures struggling under Tubby's
weight.
    "That's it?" James asked as Manning reached the
sunken living room.
  "One more upstairs. I think he was the manager."
    Past tense, which meant the man was past coming
down.
  "Okay," James said. "Let's light her up."
    A thermite canister was in his hand before he fin-
ished speaking, and Manning withdrew another from
beneath his jacket. The Canadian pitched his up to-
ward the second floor, while James was satisfied to
drop his on the sofa, in the center of the party room.
    Five seconds doesn't feel like much, especially
when you're running to escape a blast of searing heat.
They made it to the alley out in back and slowed down
for the walk back to their car, removing gas masks
and tucking weapons out of sight. Behind them, still
unseen, the white-hot flames had started to consume
another property of Kenan Bey.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The information wasn't that hard to come by when
they got down to it. Bolan had been watching Kenan
Bey's estate with Hawkins and Gromylko for about
three hours, with no sign of Mr. Big, when they de-
cided it was time to try another angle of attack. The
Chechen syndicate was known to have a unit based in
Turkey, for coordination of deliveries. Gromylko had
no trouble spotting one of them--a piece of muscle
named Piotr Kubichek--when they drove by a favored
Russian hangout. Pulling off the lift with three on one
was child's play, and Hawk and Bolan left their new
comrade with the hostage for three-quarters of an hour
once he was secured.  It worked.
    After he had spent a little time in private with Gro-
mylko, the Chechen leg-breaker suddenly remembered
that his boss, one Vladimir Mikhasevich, had gone to
visit Bey at a major processing plant a few miles north
of Ankara. Mikhasevich had joked about the call from
Bey, explaining that he had to hold the Turkish mob-
ster's hand and help him through a rough time he was
having with some competition from the hinterlands.
Directions to the hardsite were included, free of




 charge, with Kubichek surmising that he had a chance
 to save himself by spilling everything he knew.  It was his last mistake.
    The drive took fifteen minutes, with another ten to
scout the place, before they left the car and suited up
for battle. Gromylko took his introduction to the rest
of Phoenix Force in stride, concealing any apprehen-
sion that he may have felt at being outnumbered by
Western agents. The troop had no fatigues to fit him,
but his denims passed inspection well enough, and he
borrowed an AK-47 and a bandoiler of extra maga-
zines from Bolan's mobile arsenal.
    A quarter of an hour later they were in position,
covering the rural compound from all sides. The hard-
site stood on twenty acres, mostly wooded, which af-
forded decent cover for the team's approach. For rea-
sons best known to the man in charge, there were no
spotters in the woods, though sentries prowled the
open ground around a clutch of buildings that com-
prised the processing facility. They carded automatic
weapons, and the Executioner stopped counting when
he got to twenty-five.
    It made no difference. Bolan and his colleagues had
come prepared, and they were going in regardless of
the odds.
    The layout could have been mistaken for a ranch on
cursory inspection. Bolan eyed the house, a kind of
barn and several other outbuildings, including a de-
tached four-car garage. He calculated that the opium
processing would be carried out inside the "barn,"
though it could just as easily be for storage or quarters
for live-in troops. In any case both the house and the

barn were marked for long-range hits before they
made their rush against the plant.
    Their arsenal included three RPG-7 launchers, one
of which was braced on Bolan's shoulder while he
sighted on the broad doors of the barn downrange.
McCarter and James had placed the other launchers
for triangulated fire, while Hawkins, Manning, Encizo
and Gromylko were stationed around the perimeter
with automatic weapons, prepared to move in when
the shit hit the fan.
  Any second now, right.
    It had been raining earlier, so the ground was damp,
and Bolan saw no danger that the back-flash from his
RPG would set the woods on fire. With that threat
banished from his mind, he took a breath and held it,
stroked the weapon's trigger and was reaching for a
second rocket as the first one sailed toward impact,
riding on a tongue of fire.
    He saw a couple of the sentries glance in his direc-
tion, trying to decipher what was happening before the
missile found its mark and detonated in a smoky thun-
derclap. By that time two more rockets from different
points on the perimeter were already hurtling toward
selected targets, and holy hell was breaking loose
down there.
     Reloading in a single, practiced motion, Bolan
found his second mark and let the rocket go.
  He wished his adversaries luck.
  All bad.

GROMYLKO HAD BEEN WAITING for the rockets, but the
first one startled him, regardless. Streaking out of no-




where, it ripped through the wide doors of the barn
and spewed shards of broken, smoking lumber much
like shrapnel from a fragmentation bomb. The next
two RPG rounds came almost immediately, striking at
the house from different angles, one explosive war-
head peeling back a comer of the roof, the other plow-
ing through a window and exploding well inside.
    The guards were going crazy, several of them firing
toward the tree line, even though they had no targets.
Lying prone in shadow, the militsiya lieutenant picked
one of the gunmen out at random, fixed the AK-47's
sights upon his chest and triggered off a 4-round burst
that knocked his human target sprawling on the grass.
    It was amazing to Gromylko, how the killing came
so easily, despite his years of service to the law. He
had killed men before, but always in the line of duty
as defined by the militsiya manuals and prevailing
Russian law. This time, despite the tacit blessing of
his own superiors and the Americans who were his
allies of the moment, it felt different. Liberating. Al-
most therapeutic.
    It was frightening, how much he liked the feeling
of the weapon in his hands, the targets scurrying be-
fore him, knowing that he didn't have to build a case
in court and watch some perjured witness ruin every-
thing with unadulterated bullshit. Gromylko thought
the feeling could become addictive, and a part of him
already wondered whether anything about his life
would ever be the same again.
    Instead of dwelling on his doubts just then, Gro-
mylko concentrated on his marksmanship. From
counting sentries, estimating how many might be in-

side the house and barn, he reckoned that they were
outnumbered by a minimum of five or six to one. Be-
yond a certain point the numbers hardly mattered. Gro-
mylko simply knew that he must shave the odds as
much as possible, by any means at his disposal, while
they still had time.
  Before they rushed the enemy.
    He watched more soldiers spilling from the dam-
aged, smoking house, all armed with automatic rifles,
submachine guns, shotguns. Gromylko raised his es-
timate of opposition to the range of eight or nine to
one, and then immediately did his best to forget about
the odds as he sighted down the Kalashnikov's barrel,
his index finger taking up the trigger slack.
    The range was seventy-five or eighty yards, with the
open ground falling slightly away from Gromylko's
position at the tree line, and he adjusted his aim. The
rifle bucked against his shoulder, but he held it steady,
sweeping the field before him with a burst that tracked
from left to right. Another sentry stumbled, spinning
as he fell, collapsing in a rag-doll attitude upon the
grass. Beyond him others ducked and scattered, dodg-
ing rifle fire or shrapnel from the latest round of RPG
projectiles.
    A handful of the gunmen seemed to have him spot-
ted now. Three dropped prone and hosed automatic
fire toward his position, while two others started mov-
ing toward the tree line, closing in.
    Gromylko squinted as a stream of bullets raked the
tree trunk overhead and showered him with shards of
bark. He had done well to hide himself in shadow, and
his enemies were firing with the bright sun in their




 eyes, thus spoiling their aim. Still, they were doing
 fairly well, and he couldn't afford to take them lightly,
 not if he wanted to survive.  The pointmen first.
     Gromylko framed the nearer of them in his sights
 and fired a burst that opened up the gunman's chest
 and propelled him backward in a spray of crimson
 mist. The man was dead before he hit the ground, but
 he kept firing as he fell, and stopped only when his
 lifeless fingers lost their purchase on the weapon.
    The other brave man hesitated, dropping to a
crouch, but there was no way he could hide himself.
Gromylko grimaced as a burst of submachine-gun fire
came closer than the rest so far, but he held steady
with the AK-47, sighting carefully and squeezing off,
remembering that it would spoil his aim to jerk the
trigger.
    Five rounds stitched the crouching gunman's torso
in a ragged line, slamming him down on his backside
and through a clumsy backward somersault. The dead
man wound up lying on his stomach, with his weapon
pinned beneath him, and Gromylko shifted his atten-
tion to the three men giving cover.
    Two of them were up and running by the time their
second comrade hit the ground, apparently deciding to
save themselves. Gromylko chased them with a burst
that dropped one sprawling in his tracks and missed
the other by at least a yard, then the lieutenant swung
his piece around to face the one man who had held
his post, still firing from a prone position on the lawn.
    It felt like shooting at a mirror image of himself,
but while Gromylko had the trees and shade to cover

him, his adversary lay in sunlight, totally exposed. The
Turk appeared to recognize his danger, but he had no
recourse now that he was under fire. The last rounds
from Gromylko's magazine tipped through the shoot-
er's face and shoulders, scattering his brains across the
lawn.
    Gromylko's hands were trembling slightly as he fed
another magazine to the Kalashnikov and chambered
up a live round, ready to resume his duel with death.
Downrange the Turkish sentries were retreating, seek-
ing cover, as Converging streams of fire and three more
rockets tore into their ranks.
    Perhaps, Gromylko thought, the odds wouldn't be
such a problem after all.
    Then it was time to go, and he was on the move,
legs pumping, heading toward the clustered buildings
of the compound on the strength of nerve alone.

CALVIN JAMES WAS on his feet as the last of nine
rockets exploded in the middle of the compound, tak-
ing out approximately half the front porch of the
house. It vaporized two gunners in the process, and
James watched them die, already moving out at a dead
ran, cutting a diagonal across the broad expanse of
lawn.
    Before he had covered much ground, four guns
were closing in to intercept him. James saw them com-
ing, felt the vulnerability of his position out there in
the open. But retreat would only give them a clear shot
at his back, while leaving Bolan and the rest with
greater obstacles to overcome.
 So James kept going, firing from the hip with his




?

,i

Kalashnikov and taking down the closest of the four
men, on his left, with a rising burst from knee-level
to throat.
  And that left three, for starters.
    James kept firing short precision bursts as he con-
tinued on his long run toward the southwest comer of
the damaged house. He heard bullets humming in the
air around him, felt one pluck his sleeve, but slowing
down would only give his enemies a stationary target.
If he was meant to die this afternoon, James intended
to go down fighting, taking as many of the opposition
with him as he could.
    He took a second adversary with a burst to the chest,
saw the 7.62 mm bullets ripping through the gunman's
flimsy shirt, blood spurting from the wounds as the
gunner vaulted over backward, going down. A last
burst from the shooter's submachine gun was directed
toward the cloudless sky.
    The third man was too busy shouting and shooting
to be conscious of the fate that had befallen his com-
panions. Charging on a collision course with James,
he emptied his magazine in one long burst, then
seemed incredulous when the bolt of his weapon
locked open on an empty chamber.
    Stopping to reload meant instant death. The shooter
knew it, and he chose the only viable option, reversing
the SMG in his grip and charging with a throaty battle
cry, brandishing his useless firearm like a club. James
shot him in the face without breaking stride, caught
his fall from the corner of one eye as he ran past,
continuing on his way toward the house.
 Each member of Phoenix Force had studied recent

photographs of Kenan Bey. There would be no mis-
taking him if one of them should meet him on the
battlefield. Assuming he was in the house, James
thought the Turkish godfather would be intent on get-
ting out by now. The place was on fire after several
RPG hits, and while much of the structure was brick,
the roof would bum, collapse and bury those inside
unless they made a prompt escape.
    James didn't know or care if he would be the one
who met and finished Bey. He wasn't on a trophy
hunt, but rather fighting for a cause--and for his life.
Defeat meant more than simple failure; it meant death.
    The house was fifty yards ahead of him. Smoke
poured from beneath the eaves on one side, to the
north, while James was upwind. His visibility wasn't
impaired so far, but that meant that the field of fire
was open for his enemies, as well.
    At once, as if in answer to his silent thoughts, two
weapons opened up on James, one from a window to
his left, off toward the nearest comer of the house,
while the second was situated on the roof itself. He
had a clear view of the rooftop sniper, who was down
on one knee with a rifle braced against his shoulder,
silhouetted by the open sky behind him.
    The Phoenix pro fired by reflex, let the years of
training and experience direct him as he swung the
AK-47 up and squeezed off six or seven rounds. The
rooftop gunman seemed to shiver, as if stricken with
a sudden chill, then lost his balance and pitched off
the sloping roof. James saw him hit the ground and
turned his full attention to the live gunner who was
sniping at him from the window on his left.




    Another moment and his angle of approach would
take him well beyond the shootefts line of sight, but
that would leave an adversary who could track him
down and point him out to others, still alive and dan-
gerous. He hosed the window with a long burst from
his AK-47, saw the bullets flinging brick dust high and
low. Then the gunman caught his share and lurched
back from the open window, arms outflung, his
weapon toppling to the flower bed outside.
    James reached the wall and pressed his back against
it, breathing heavily. He used the moment to inspect
his rifle's magazine, replacing it when he discovered
only three rounds left. For what came next, he would
need every break he could get.
  Beginning now.

"I SHOULDN'T EVEN BE HERE, damn it!" Vladimir
Mikhasevich was seething as he glared at Kenan Bey.
"This is your fight, not mine."
    "It's our fight now," the Turk informed him, sniff-
ing at the air and almost smiling as he spoke. "They
want to cook us both, you see?"
    So, now the goddamn house was burning, thought
Mikhasevich. He cursed the impulse that had brought
him there to hold the damn Turk's hand and comfort
him while he was running from his enemies. It had
been foolish to expose himself that way, and it seemed
he was about to pay the price--unless he left the los-
ing game.
  "I'm getting out of here," the Russian said.
    "You think they'll let you?" Bey asked. He snorted
laughter, finishing his glass of raki in a single gulp

 and flinging it aside to smash against the nearest wail.
 "We're all in this together, comrade."
    "Then you'd better move your ass," Mikhasevich
shot back, "because I don't intend to wait for you."
    The good news was that he had his own car parked
outside. It was a classic Porsche convertible, ideally
suited to the sunny Turkish climate, though he could
have wished for something more appropriate--perhaps
an armored limousine--just now. In any case it was a
fast car and had never failed him yet.  If he could only reach it.
    If the bastards hadn't blown it into pieces with their
rockets.
    Mikhasevich was halfway to the door and moving
swiftly when his host retrieved two automatic rifles
from a cabinet on the wall and fell in step behind him.
    "If we're going," Bey remarked, "we ought to be
prepared."
    Mikhasevich accepted one of the Kalashnikovs and
cocked it, scowling at the Turk. "If you had been pre-
pared," he said, "we wouldn't be in this position
HOW.' '
"For all I know, it's someone after you," Bey re-
plied.
    "That's why they hunt your men all over Istanbul
and Ankara, of course." Mikhasevich made no attempt
to hide the scorn he felt for Bey.
    The Turk had been a prime connection in the early
days, when the Vasilievs were building up their empire
in the Russian homeland, reaching out for merchandise
from any source available. These days, however, they
could boy a better grade of heroin at cheaper rates




i:~ ,,

from Triad dealers in the East. Progress was whittling
down the Turkish portion of their business, and today
might be as good a time as any to sever the connec-
tion.
    Mikhasevich was tempted. All he had to do was turn
around and shoot the bastard point-blank in the chest,
and that would finish it. Unfortunately he would still
be trapped inside the burning house, with unknown
enemies outside. There was a possibility that Bey
could help with his escape, but only if he lived.
    When they were well away, though, that would be
a different matter. There would be nothing to restrain
his homicidal impulse then, and he could always tell
his master that the Turk was killed by those who
hunted him from Istanbul to Ankara. Vasiliev might
not be pleased at first, but in the long run it would
make things easier, switching to dealing strictly with
the Chinese for their product from the Golden Trian-
gle.
    Drugs were better than oil these days on the inter-
national market. As a constantly renewable product,
they would never run out, and the retail price was
vastly higher. Drugs caused no air pollution, nor dam-
age to the environment--in fact, they were a clear-cut
part of nature's plan, derived from poppies, coca
leaves, whatever. Better yet, drugs reached a wider
market, including countless addicts who were still too
young to drive a vehicle.
    As Mikhasevich opened the door, an acrid stench of
smoke recalled his mind to the here and now. His im-
mediate problem was survival, not economics. If his
thoughts began to wander, he would end up dead, and

he would be the cause of air pollution as his body
rotted underneath the Turkish sun.
    But not today, he told himself, and took a firmer
grip on the Kalashnikov. Even if his car had been
damaged, there were other vehicles about--a veritable
fleet, in fact. Should all else fail, he could escape on
foot. All he'd have to do was make it to the trees and
find a place to hide, while Bey's unknown assailants
finished mopping up around the place.
    Mikhasevich felt certain that the Turks would lose
this battle. They had suffered too much damage in the
first few moments, and while he had no idea how
many gunners had been killed or wounded, his instinct
told him they were losing. They might not be wiped
out, but if enough men broke and ran, it would achieve
the same effect.
    I'm running, thought Mikhasevich, and felt no
shame. A man was obligated to defend his honor, but
there was no Russian honor riding on the line in An-
kara. The only loss of face he stood to suffer in the
present situation was if he allowed himself to be
dragged down with Kenan Bey.
 And that wasn't about to happen.
    Not as long as Vladimir Mikhasevich could point a
gun.

McCARTER DROPPED the RPG and grabbed his
AK-47, rising from the cover of a fern bed that was
withered from the heat of rockets fired two feet above
ground level. He had slammed two HE rounds into the
house and one into the barn, and now it was time to
move in close and finish off the job.




    It would have been a better gig at nighttime, but the
darkness would have given him away as he was firing
with the RPG. In fact there was no perfect time to
rush a compound occupied by armed and angry men.
To some extent the battlefield was what each soldier
made of it, with private courage, individual experience
and expertise. In this case the advantage of surprise
had let them whittle down the odds a bit, and while
the opposition still had greater numbers, they were
scattered, dazed, disorganized.
    McCarter reckoned there would never be a better
time to strike.
    He broke for the detached garage, which had been
spared from RPG projectiles on the theory that it might
attract important targets if they managed to escape the
house. A pair of groggy-looking shooters stood be-
tween McCarter and his destination, both blinking at
him as he burst out of the tree line, running on a col-
lision course with them.
    They managed to recover fairly rapidly, their weap-
ons swinging up and into target acquisition as Mc-
Carter closed the gap between them. He fired from the
hip at a range of thirty yards, nailing the shooter on
his right with a short burst that staggered him, slam-
ming the SMG from his hands as he fell over back-
ward and sprawled on the ground.
    The other Turk dropped to a crouch and swiveled
sideways, trying to reduce the target area he offered
to his enemy. It was a good idea, but poorly executed,
as he lost his target fix and sent the next burst from
his weapon flying off some distance to McCarter's left.
In other circumstances the mistake might have been

something he could live with, but McCarter wasn't
playing war games, and he had an unforgiving nature
when his life was on the line.
    A second burst from the Kalashnikov he carried
struck the Turk around chest level, rising until two or
three rounds hit him in the face. He wriggled on the
grass, but in a few more seconds he lay still.
    The long four-car garage was fifty yards in front of
him. McCarter ran with his head down, watching out
for adversaries even as he poured on speed, his knees
and elbows pumping as he ran. It seemed that he had
found a window on the killing ground, poorly de-
fended, while the great majority of sentries fell back
on the house and guarded the direct approaches to its
three main entrances. Since none of those was visible
from where McCarter stood, he had discovered some-
thing of a fluke, a veritable no-man's-land.
 Now all he had to do was get to the garage alive.
 And wait to see who came along.

GARY MANNING DROPPED the empty magazine from
his MP-5 submachine gun and reloaded on the run. No
more than thirty paces from the smoking barn now, he
had left four Turks dead in his wake. His left biceps
was burning from a bullet graze, and blood was soak-
ing through his sleeve, but the wound was nothing
serious.
    It could have been a good deal worse, he realized,
if his assailant had been thinking clearly, taking time
to aim before he jerked the trigger on his SMG. Of
half a dozen rounds or so, at least five had been
wasted, while the last one made enough contact to




,X

 startle him, jar him fractionally off course and make
 him spend the last rounds in his MP-5's magazine to
 neutralize the threat.
    The barn was burning when he got there, flames
from the initial RPG round fueled by something stored
inside. It smelled of chemicals, and Manning knew
that he had found the opium-processing plant that
turned out better than one-third of all the heroin
shipped out by Kenan Bey. It would be death to ven-
ture in there, with the flames and poisonous, poten-
tially explosive fumes. There could be Turks inside,
but Manning reckoned they would soon be well be-
yond participating in the fight if not already dead.
The tall Canadian decided he would let them burn.
Manning was falling back when the explosion came.
At first he heard the whoosh, as if someone had !it the
burner on a giant gas range. Then the barn appeared
to swell, as if a huge balloon were being rapidly in-
flated on the inside, bowing boards and straining rusty
nails. A heartbeat later, when it blew apart with a ti-
tanic thunderclap, Manning was diving headlong for
the turf to save himself. The shock wave struck him
like a draft from hell, flames rushing overhead and
sucking oxygen out of the air before they dissipated
in the daylight. Blackened shards of lumber started
raining down around him, falling to the earth with
twisted bits and pieces of the smack lab and remnants
of the building's occupants.
    Manning was shaken, breathless, as he staggered to
his feet. His ears were ringing, and he was nearly deaf-
ened by the blast. His skin felt sunburned, and his
eardrums ached, as if he had been slapped by giant

hands on each side of his head. The hair around his
nape was singed, but it could have been much worse,
he realized. If he'd been standing upright when the
blast went off, he could have been transformed into a
screaming human torch.
    The lab was trashed beyond repair, but Phoenix
Force still wasn't finished yet. The central target of
the strike was Kenan Bey, with second-place honors
reserved for his Russian sidekick, Vladimir Mikhas-
evich. They had no photos of the Russian, but the
militia lieutenant, Grolnylko, had assured them he
would know the man on sight.
Which made no difference to Gary Manning at all.
The rule was simple: anything that moved, aside
from other members of the Stony Man team, was
marked for death. Manning assumed there were no
innocent civilians in the compound, given its illicit
operation and the circumstances that had driven Bey
to make the plant his sanctuary. Any noncombatants
on the property must have realized that they were in
the wrong place at the worst time possible, but Man-
ning didn't let the outside possibility deter him as he
started moving toward the house.
    There were a few outbuildings he could check along
the way, to satisfy himself that none of Kenan Bey's
hired guns was hiding there, preparing for an ambush
when his back was turned. The first one proved to be
a toolshed, with a power lawn mower inside, all kinds
of shovels, rakes and other handheld implements in
racks against the walls. He backed out into sunlight,
checked his flanks and moved on to the next shed,




where the door stood open several inches, beckoning
into the dark beyond.
    On impulse Manning braced the stock of his MP-5
against his hip and sprayed the shed with a four-
second burst. When he edged forward, drawing back
the door with one hand, while his other held the sub-
gun steady, Manning glimpsed the muddy soles of
gym shoes, denim cuffs, the dark shape of a stocky
body farther back. The guy was down and out, no rise
and fall of respiration underneath the bloody shirt he
wore, and Manning wrote him off without a coup de
grace to make the guarantee.
    Scratch one more member of the home team, and
the odds were getting better by the moment, but they
weren't done yet. The big fish were still out there,
swimming free, as far as Manning knew.
    And if he played his cards right, he could be the
one to find them first.

GROMYLKO SPOTrED a familiar face when he was still
some thirty paces from the house, approaching from
the east. Although he was expecting Vladimir Mik-
hasevich, it still took him by surprise to see the mob-
ster appearing in the flesh like that, with Turks on
either side of him. The three men hesitated for a mo-
ment, just outside the doorway that had been their exit
from the burning house, then began to move toward
the Porsche convertible parked several yards away.
    Gromylko saw his chance and snapped the AK-47
to his shoulder, sighting hastily before he pulled the
trigger. He'd rushed it, and his first rounds ripped into
the taller of the Turks, a young man with a thick mus-

tache. The bullets tore into his chest and slammed him
sideways, jostling the second Turk, both of them fall-
ing as Mikhasevich took off at a dead run.
    Gromylko followed him, unmindful of the risk. It
was the first time since his partner's murder that he
had a member of the Chechen syndicate directly in his
sights, and he didn't intend to let the golden oppor-
tunity slip through his fingers. Pounding after Vladimir
Mikhasevich, he saw the mobster swerve around a cor-
ner of the house and disappear from view. Gromylko's
bullets flayed the wall where he had been a heartbeat
earlier, but it was wasted effort, wasted rounds.
    Gromylko reached the corner where his man had
vanished, poked his head around it for a hasty glance
and jumped back instantly. But no bullets flew to meet
him, and his brain held the impression of his quarry
running all-out, racing for his life. Gromylko charged
around the corner, breathing heavily and sweating like
a marathoner, promising himself that his intended prey
would not escape.
    Between them, closing with Gromylko on a hard
collision course, a pair of Turkish sentries clearly had
another plan in mind. Gromylko opened fire with his
Kalashnikov at forty paces from the nearest runner and
cut the gunman's legs from under him. Any threat
from that quarter ended as the tumbling body felt
across his line of fire.
    The second shooter was still advancing in a zigzag
pattern, firing as he came with what appeared to be an
Uzi SMG. That gave Gromylko an advantage, on both
range and stopping power, though an Uzi hit could be
the death of him. In this competition the lieutenant




 proved a better shot. A 5-round burst from the hip
 went home on target, left a dazed expression on the
 Turkish gunner's face as he collapsed onto the lawn.
   He still had to deal with Mikhasevich.
    Despite Gromylko's constant forward motion, he
had slowed while he dealt with Bey's guards, and now
he saw that his quarry had gained an extra six or seven
yards. Mikhasevich had seemingly abandoned any
hope of picking up a car. He bypassed two without a
glance to see if there were keys in the ignition, and
his course would take him to the tree line if Gromylko
let him get that far.
    It was a judgment call, and the lieutenant made it
in the length of time it takes to formulate coherent
thought. Gromylko stopped dead in his tracks, chest
heaving from the sprint, and brought the AK-47 to his
shoulder one more time. Mind closed to any other
threat, he sighted down the barrel, found Mikhasevich
and locked on to a point between his shoulder blades.
He stroked the trigger once, twice, three times, know-
ing it was overkill but not caring in the least.
    At least some of his bullets found Mikhasevich.
Gromylko saw the fabric of his jacket ripple with the
impact. Crimson spouted from the entry wounds as the
Chechen pitched forward, arms stretched out to catch
himself.
  It didn't work.
    The mobster went down on his face. Gromylko
glanced around to satisfy himself that he wouldn't
come under fire within the next few seconds, then he
moved to check the body out for signs of life.
 It was a wasted effort. As Gromylko turned the

body over, he recognized the eerie, boneless feeling
of it, as if he could take this giant puppet home and
pose it to his heart's content.
    This much is done at least, he told himself. If only
one of them could do the same for Kenan Bey, they
could pull back with the knowledge of a job well done.
But they would have to find the mobster first.
    The truth hit home with Leonid Gromylko, and he
cursed himself. Of course! Who else would be escap-
ing with Mikhasevich, deserting those who served him
under fire? The face, glimpsed only in a fleeting pro-
file, suddenly came back to him.
    It had been Kenan Bey, and he'd missed his chance
for a clean sweep, taking out another member of the
Turkish syndicate while concentrating on the end of
Vladimir Mikhasevich. Meanwhile, Bey had managed
to escape.
 Or maybe not.
    Gromylko left his Russian adversary stretched out
on the grass and ran back toward the place where he
had first glimpsed Mikhasevich, together with the two
armed Turks.
 Was it too late?
    Gromylko blanked the thought out of his mind,
stayed focused on his mission as he strove for greater
speed.

THE GUNNER THRASHED and squirmed on the ground
as blood flowed from his mortal wounds, and Bolan
spent a mercy round to finish him. The Executioner
was on his feet and moving toward the southeast cor-




,,111,',,

ner of the house when he heard noises of an engine
revving, drawing closer by the moment, gaining speed.
    He stood his ground and waited as a bright red Fiat
came around the comer, spewing gravel from its tires
as it fishtailed, nearly running onto the grass. The driv-
er's face was nothing but a blur behind the windshield,
and in that moment instinct cautioned Bolan that he
shouldn't let the man escape.
    Instead of trying to avoid the sports car, Bolan
stepped into the middle of the driveway and hoisted
his Kalashnikov to draw a bead. A moment later, as
the Fiat straightened out and started gaining speed, he
had his first clear vision of the driver's face. The lower
part of it was still obscured behind the steering wheel,
but Bolan made the eyes and knew that he was facing
Kenan Bey.
    He held the AK-47's trigger down and swung the
muzzle back and forth, in short, flat ares. His bullets
swarmed across the Fiat's windshield, drilling glass,
then blowing it away. Behind that flimsy screen, the
Turkish mobster's face became a bloody fright mask,
bits and pieces of it airborne as the hot rounds tore
into his flesh and skull.
    The Fiat swerved to starboard, back in the direction
of the house, as Bey's deadweight hauled on the steer-
ing wheel. Bolan held his fire and watched it pass him
by, rolling on with a lifeless foot on the accelerator,
crashing into the wall at some forty-five miles per
hour.
    The front end of the Fiat buckled, and momentum
did the rest, propelling Kenan Bey out through the
shattered windshield, slamming him headfirst into the

wall, so that his body draped the crumpled hood like
a morbid hunting trophy. Seconds later, when the leak-
age from a raptured fuel line blossomed into flame and
started racing for the gas tank, Bolan knew his job
was done.
    He palmed the compact walkie-talkie he carried on
his belt and thumbed down the transmitter button,
beaming out the signal to withdraw, alerting every
member of his strike force that their mission was ful-
filled. He was already moving toward the tree line as
the confirmations started coming in, and he didn't re-
lax until all were present and accounted for.  So far.
    Before they started popping any champagne corks,
however, they would have to find a safe way out of
Turkey and complete the next phase of their task.
    And there was still no guarantee that all----or any--
of them would be going home alive when it was done.




7; ;~,b,

CHAPTER NINE

Tbilisi, Georgia

Entering the Republic of Georgia, Leonid Gromylko
didn't feel that he was coming home. Never a willing
part of Russia, the territory had been annexed in 1801,
touching off a nine-year war between the Russian czar
and Persia. Absorbed by the Soviet Union in 1922 and
granted the status of a constituent republic in 1936,
 Georgia had been the sight of a violent independence
movement in 1989, finally winning its freedom when
the USSR disbanded two years later. Even then, fight-
ing continued, much of it spawned by ethnic Abkha-
zians, allegedly supported from Russia, who had
seized most of the republic's ten'itory by late 1993.
Peace of a sort was restored the following year, with
agreements granting Russian "peacekeepers" free ac-
cess to the territory, and Georgia had accepted mem-
bership in the Russian-dominated Commonwealth of
Independent States.
    Crime-wise, Georgia had produced her own crop of
native gangsters, known for ruthless violence in their
everyday affairs. The small republic was a seIler's
market for military hardware, and homegrown crimi-

nals had turned up on the presidential staff as key ad-
visers to the fledgling government. Georgia's position
on the Turkish border made it a natural point of entry
for heroin shipments, despite repeated assertions that
most Georgians were devout Christians who shunned
the narco trade as mortal sin. On those occasions when
the locals did get squeamish, there were always
Chechen mobsters waiting in the wings to take up any
momentary slack.
    Ivan Storzhenko was the Chechen front man in Tbi-
lisi, watching out for Gregori Vasiliev's financial in-
terests in the area. He had managed heroin imports
with Vladimir Mikhasevich and Kenan Bey in Turkey.
He also sold weapons stolen from a list of military
arsenals in Russia, quoting prices that depended on his
customers and their ability to pay. A local peasant
might pay two or three months' salary for a Kalash-
nikov in working order, while a better price on bulk
orders was readily negotiated with the likes of Arab
terrorists or left-wing "freedom fighters" dropping by
from sub-Saharan Africa.
    Gromylko knew the major names and faces, both in
crime and Georgian law enforcement, but his rank in
the militsiya would do him no good here. If anything,
it might increase the risk he faced if his official link
to Moscow was revealed. The officers he served had
no authority in Georgia, and any effort to invoke their
names would no doubt spawn resentment from the lo-
cals. Worse, there was r~o way to know which Geor-
gian officers to trust and which had been paid off by
membe~ of the mqfiyr~ to file reports on any strangers
seeking Jnformatier: on tl~.e Thieves' Society.




C
C"k: . %

     Besides, the sort of no-holds-barred campaign Gro-
 mylko was pursuing with the six Americans broke
 every major law he could think of, whether in the
 Georgian state or back at home in Moscow. Noble
 aims aside, Gromylko was a criminal for the duration,
 and he must begin to think as such if he intended to
 survive.
    The border crossing was no problem. The Ameri-
cans had first-rate forged travel documents, and Gro-
mylko did the talking. It required a minor bribe to keep
their cars from being searched, but that was routine.
It would have been embarrassing to have the weapons
found, but no one at the border checkpoint cared
enough to look once the militsiya lieutenant greased
their palms.
    It was no wonder that narcotics flowed through
Georgia like an endless poisoned river, moving north-
ward into Russia proper and the nations of the former
Eastern Bloc. Some of that flow had been replaced
with China white in recent months, but it would never
stop entirely, not while poppies bloomed across the
Turkish countryside. The deaths of Kenan Bey and
Vladimir Mikhasevich would slow the trade, but only
for a little while. Gromytko knew that there would
always be new dealers waiting in the wings, prepared
to take up where the dead left off. The narco business
fed upon itself, and it was never satisfied.
    It gave him cause to wonder whether he was really
doing any good, with Mike Belasko and the rest. No
matter whom or how many they killed, the moment
they stopped firing, other predators would take up the
slack. It was an endless struggle, and the men who

fought for law and order always seemed to lose out in
the end.
    But he wouldn't stop fighting. Not while life and
will remained. If nothing else, Gromylko still had
debts to pay, and would see them settled yet.
 In blood.

"So FAR SO GOOD," said Aaron Kurtzman as he fin-
ished scanning the report from Ankara. "They did all
right."
    "They're barely getting started," Barbara Price re-
minded him.
  "What's on your mind?"
      "Nothing specific. You want to know the truth, the
whole damn thing smells bad to me."  "That's pretty vague."
    They sat together in the dining area, with a table in
between them, topped by mugs of steaming coffee.
Price glanced around the empty room and shrugged.
    "It's nothing I can put my finger on," she said. "I
mean, just look at the big picture. Where they're go-
ing, leaders of the syndicate aren't satisfied with brib-
ing politicians. Over there they run for office, and they
win. If someone blows the whistle on their mob con-
nections, they actually get more votes than they would
have otherwise. It makes Chicago in the twenties look
like some kind of Utopia."
"Well, it's a challenge, I agree," said Kurtzman.
"Challenge, right." The blond mission controller
shook her head. "Another thing I don't like is this guy
from the militia, this Gromylko. Who's to say he isn't
really working for the other side?"




'?i?ii:

  "You mean the mob?"
     "Why not? We know they've got a major in with
 the militia, right? Payoffs don't cover it. Some of the
 ranking officers are members of the Thieves' Society,
 for God's sake."
     "It's a gamble, I admit," said Kurtzman, "but we
 checked this joker out the best we could."
     "Which means we read the file they sent us, plus
 some clippings from the newspaper that they provided,
 telling how his partner got rubbed out."  "You think they faked all that?"
    "My point is, we don't know. Assuming this Gro-
mylko's partner did get murdered on a drug raid, are
we sure that means he's clean? Hell, we've known
cops here in the States to take their partners out for
stepping on a juicy deal, or just because they wouldn't
look the other way."
  "You're reaching, Barbara."
    "I get paid to reach," she said. "We both do,
right?"
"May I assume you raised these points with Hal?"
"Damn right I did. He recognizes all the problems,
but he's under pressure from the Man. This Russian
mafiya invasion has the Bureau going nuts right now.
They're sending experts off to Moscow when we can't
control the problem here at home. They haven't had
much help from Interpol so far, and anytime they ask
the Company for information, they get tied up in red
tape."
    "The same old song and dance," Kurtzman com-
mented.
  "With a major difference," Barbara said. "When

the Colombians rang up for help, the government was
under siege. All kinds of violence in the street, with
car bombs going off and judges being shot, mass
prison breaks, the whole nine yards. I always had a
feeling that the politicians at the top----or most of them,
at least--were being honest when they said they
wanted the cartels to go away."
    "But you think something's hinky with the Rus-
sians?"
    "Think? I know it's hinky. So do you. They've got
known members of the syndicate drawing paychecks
on the president's staff in Georgia, and more in the
Russian legislature. I could make an argument that the
government is the mob, and vice versa."
  "I understand your feelings, but we're in it now."
  "Some of us are."
    "You think that it would help if you were in the
field?"
  "I didn't say that."
  "So, I'm psychic."
  "Right."
      "We're doing everything we can," he told her. "If
you think of something else, let's try it on for size."
  "There's nothing else," she said. "Not yet."
  "Well, then, you may as well relax."
  "How does that work exactly?" Price asked.
    The Bear was frowning as he shook his head. "I
wouldn't know."
    She sat and watched the steam rise from her coffee
as she said, "One thing I'!1 do---speak to Hal to make
sure we have all and any backup on hand in case they




need to extract fast." She nodded to herself. "It's not
much, but more than nothing."

 IVAN STORZHENKO LIT his first cigar of the day and
blew a stream of smoke toward the sluggish ceiling
fan. His office was equipped with air-conditioning, but
fans were something of a fetish with the Balkan con-
tractors and decorators who did everything within their
power to make several thousand offices look just the
same. Storzhenko didn't mind the architectural mo-
notony so much--he was a Russian native, after all,
and had known nothing else from childhood--but
there was a part of him that hated waste. There was
no reason for a ceiling fan in air-conditioned rooms,
and that meant someone had been paid good money
to perform unnecessary work. If it had been Storzhen-
ko's call, his money, he would happily have tracked
the planner down and smashed his kneecaps with a
length of pipe.
    Storzhenko was a man of action, and despised the
deskbound side of his assignment in the Georgian re-
public. He almost wished for trouble from competing
syndicates so that he might enjoy the process of chas-
tising those who lost their wits and tried to undermine
him, frustrate his intentions. He had thrived on conflict
in the past, a trait that led in large part to the choice
that put him where he was today. A man who had the
knack for settling problems swiftly, even brutally, with
no expensive comebacks for the family.
    And now it seemed that he might see some action
after all. The very thought of it improved the taste of
his cigar and made Storzhenko smile.

    The call had come from Gregori Vasiliev in Mos-
cow. How he got the news was anybody's guess; Stor-
zhenko didn't care. It was enough to know that Vas-
iliev would not have called unless the facts were
verified and double-checked, unless he thought there
was a reasonable chance that Storzhenko's people
would be called upon to fight.
    The basic facts were simple: Gregori's brother and
some of his men had been killed in the United States,
by enemies unknown. Now, mere days later, Vladimir
Mikhasevich was dead in Turkey, along with Kenan
Bey and several dozen Turkish gunmen whom the
godfather of Istanbul had trusted to preserve his life.
  So much for trust.
    Vasiliev's assumption, based on simple logic, was
that enemies from Turkey might be tempted to attack
the family's interests in Georgia. Geographic prox-
imity was part of it, and Ivan Storzhenko was willing
to admit that any number of people knew about the
heroin pipeline through Georgia and his connection to
Mikhasevich and Bey. The police knew, of course, on
both sides of the border, but they were paid not to
know, not to see. It was the kind of system that facil-
itated business, but it also raised the possibility of
leaks and unpredictable reactions on the part of some
unknowns who might acquire the information second-
hand.
    The Vorovskoi Mir was powerful, well-known for
its policy of exacting revenge against enemies at any
cost, but there was always one more out there who
enjoyed the danger, thrived on risk, cared less for win-
ning than the game itself. A psychopath, perhaps, or




ii'"

some of the punks who were too young and stupid to
believe that they would ever die. These days, with all
the drugs around, the Western influence from films and
television, every teenage idiot thought he was a gang-
ster if he stole a knife or gun and robbed old ladies in
the street. They ran in packs, spun violent fantasies
based on smoke and celluloid. Some managed to con-
vince themselves that they were brilliant, indestructi-
ble. The fact that they were plainly wrong on both
counts was no barrier to attempting wild, outrageous
things. Drug bums and daylight robberies that turned
into a Wild West shooting spree. Kidnappings with
demands for ransom, which predictably wound up
with murdered hostages and empty pockets. Some of
the punks actively aspired to places in the mafiya,
while others tried to beat the system, showed their
lunatic bravado by going into business for themselves.
    Storzhenko didn't think punks were responsible for
the events in Turkey, much less the United States. If
the assassinations of Mikhail Vasiliev and Vladimir
Mikhasevich were linked, it meant an international
conspiracy, with weapons, cash and expert personnel
available at need. He ruled out Yakuza and Triads au-
tomatically, since no one had reported seeing any Ori-
entals near the murder scenes in Turkey. That left the
Italians, Corsicans, perhaps one of the South American
cartels...or someone else.
    He would consider it a challenge to identify the men
responsible if they invaded Georgia. Privately Stor-
zhenko thought there was no better than a fifty-fifty
chance of that occurring, but he meant to be prepared
in any case. His men were on alert, well armed, all

holidays suspended until further notice. If and when
the enemy revealed himself, Storzhenko and his peo-
ple would be ready.
    He would crush them like so many insects under-
foot.
 The prospect made Ivan Storzhenko smile.

BOLAN REMEMBERED RUSSIA from the old days, when
it was the heartland of the Evil Empire, seeking dom-
ination of the globe. His introduction to the subject
came from civics classes, newspapers, the television
in his parents' living room. When he had gone away
to war, against another race of Communists, the spec-
ter of the Russian bear was always present, lurking in
the background, limiting the military options he and
other soldiers like him could employ to wrestle victory
from chaos. Later, on his own, the Soviet shadow had
fallen many times across his path, the KGB supporting
terrorists and "liberation armies" anywhere a crackpot
leader reared his head and babbled out the rudiments
of a coherent cause.
    It was a different world these days, and Bolan still
had trouble believing it sometimes. The KGB had
changed its name, if not its mind-set, and the Russian
Communists were banished to the sidelines. He won-
dered often if the effort had been more successful than
the halfhearted attempt to "de-Nazify" Germany after
the Second World War. In that case, as in the farcical
attempt of Howard Hughes to run the mob out of Las
Vegas in the 1960s, well-known criminals remained in
place, their power intact, for one specific reason: they
knew how to get things done. Most of the judges and




,,,'7

policemen who had served Hitler had died off even-
tually, but relatively few had been removed from of-
fice by Allied authorities. And Bolan had a sneaking
suspicion that much the same game had been played
in Moscow. Armed dissidents had been suppressed, of
course--their leaders had committed "suicide" or suf-
fered lethal "accidents"--but even that was business
as usual in the former Soviet Union. While the Balkan
provinces seethed with revolt, Mother Russia still de-
pended on the tried and tested ruling class of the for-
mer "classless" society to make the system work.
    After seventy-four years of Communist rule, who
else knew how to do the job?
    The mafiya was glad to help, of course. There had
been outlaw syndicates in the USSR, as in every other
nation on earth, cooperating and corrupting, but the
collapse of communism had brought a definite change
in the Russian pecking order. It was perhaps one of
the greatest and most revolutionary changes seen in
Russia since those hectic days of 1991. Organized
crime was out of the closet in Russia today, as no-
where else on the planet. Corruption might be fife in
Bangkok or Palermo, while intimidation was the rule
in Bogota and Port-au-Prince, but nowhere outside
Russia had known members of the syndicate been
voted into legislative office by the public, nowhere
else were they appointed to positions on the state po-
lice or presidential cabinets.
    It was a new world, fight, and Bolan wasn't alto-
gether thrilled with the direction that new world was
taking. He would never be mistaken for a prude or a
reactionary, but he did cling stolidly to certain values

in his life. One of which demanded that the human
predators among us should be punished rather than
rewarded. Men and women of authority who helped
the savages prey on society at large were traitors to
the human race, and they deserved no mercy. Bolan
drew the line at firing on police, no matter how corrupt
or brutal they might be, but he had dropped some pol-
iticians in his time and might again.
    It all depended on what happened in the next few
days.
    He thought about Gromylko, wondering to what ex-
tent the Russian could be trusted. It had been all fight
so far, with Gromylko's baptism by fire--and Bolan
gave him credit for eliminating Vladimir Mikhase-
vich--but they were no longer in Turkey. Georgia had
been part of the Soviet Union for almost sixty years
before the great collapse, and some would say that it
was under Russian domination even now. They were
returning to Gromylko's native turf', where his supe-
riors might well have an agenda of their own, and
Bolan had to wonder if their aliy of tile moment had
his own personal ax to grind.
    When they were done in Georgia, if they lived that
long, the Stony Man warriors were scheduled to pro-
ceed against the syndicate and Gregori Vasiliev in
Moscow. Hal Brognola had discussed the possibility
of fall-back options if things got rocky, but the plan
was vague, deliberately ill defined. The FBI had men
in Moscow, working from the U.S. Embassy, but they
could hardly be expected to support a group of vigi-
lantes who were violating every major statute on the
books. In fact, Bolan knew that if anything at all went




di,"

wrong in Russia, they would all be up Shit Creek in
a leaky canoe, with no paddle in sight.
    Bolan derailed the train of thought before it took
him any farther down the line toward self-doubt and
despair. One of the basic weapons in a frontline sol-
dier's arsenal was confidence that he could do the job.
Self-confidence was not confused with arrogance or
egotism--either one of which could drive a man to
foolish or suicidal risks with no real prospect of suc-
cess. A soldier who had faith in his ability and training
also knew when he was overmatched, and would re-
spond accordingly. He knew when it was time to save
himself and fight another day.
    But they hadn't reached that point yet with Leonid
Gromylko. So far they were on a roll, and Bolan's
apprehension was the product of a cautious mind. He
made a habit of expecting trouble and was rarely dis-
appointed; when his expectations let him down, it was
always a pleasant surprise.
    And he expected trouble from the mafiya in Geor-
gia. Such men wouldn't turn tail and run simply be-
cause their adversaries made a little noise. Their honor
would demand that they stand up and fight.
    The Executioner wouldn't have had it any other
way.

Moscow

THERE IS A TIME FOR GRIEF, thought Gregori Vasiliev,
but not today. He knew his brother would have un-
derstood and approved his choice to put the business
first. One death, or several dozen, mattered less than

what befell the family at large. Vasiliev had known
that when he won the rank of vor v zakonye in the
Thieves' Society. He would avenge his brother's mur-
der in due time, but not until he had secured the future
of the larger enterprise.
    The recent events in Turkey were disturbing. Vladi-
mir Mikhasevich had been a friend for many years,
and Kenan Bey--while rude and troublesome at
times--had been a valuable associate. It would take
time and a substantial expenditure of cash to reestab-
lish the heroin pipeline from Turkey once the locals
finished sorting out their problems and appointed a
new leader for the syndicate.
    Vasiliev considered breaking off relations with the
Turks entirely, but it wouldn't do to bum his bridges
yet. He didn't trust the Chinese Triads well enough to
give them a monopoly on heroin shipped into Russia.
It might come to that eventually, but he hadn't become
a godfather by rushing into things, taking unnecessary
risks. The Turkish product was a staple, and a bit of
trouble on that front was not enough to scare a
Chechen off the scent of money.
    He was naturally concerned about the possibility of
links between his brother's death in the United States
and the unpleasantness in Turkey. It defied coinci-
dence for two such outbursts to occur within a few
days of each other. Nothing in Vasiliev's experience
accounted for such happenstance, except the knowl-
edge that sometimes, especially in his domain, there
really were conspiracies.
    Which meant that he would have to take steps to
defend himself and everything that he had worked for




 ;4

~i i,,

through the years. It wasn't his style to be a sitting
target for some enemy he did not even recognize. Be-
fore one of his adversaries bragged about defeating
Gregori Vasiliev, the stupid upstag would have a grim
fight on his hands.
    He had been planning for this moment all his life,
convinced that he would someday stand atop the pin-
nacle of power, knowing others would be anxious to
depose him, steal his treasures, strip his life of every-
thing he valued. He had never known exactly what
form the assault would take or how much loot he
would be called on to defend, how many men would
stand behind him when the moment came. Now, with
an army at his back and a vast empire at his feet,
Vasiliev would give the battle everything he had.
    The Georgian outpost was defended by Storzhenko
and could not have been in better hands, unless Vas-
iliev had taken up the cause himself. There was a
chance his nameless enemies would bypass the repub-
lic, but its close proximity to Turkey would be tempt-
ing, with the transit routes for heroin we!l-known on
both sides of the law. If he was lucky, his assailants
might bog down in Georgia, waste their strength and
let themselves be cut off by Storzhenko's men. It
would make matters so much simpler, but Vasiliev
wasn't prepared to count on luck alone.
    His life so far had called for effort, guile and careful
strategy in every move he made. Vasiliev hadn't sur-
vived this long or risen to his present rank within the
syndicate by giving in to circumstance, leaving his
progress up to fate. Each man made his own luck,
Vasiliev believed, and those who failed in life were

simply less efficient, less ambitious than their brothers
who succeeded over time.  Less ruthless, too.
    The first time he had killed a man, at seventeen,
Vasiliev had been surprised by the emotions it pro-
duced, the heady sense of power and accomplishment.
Three decades later he had known that feeling more
than a dozen times, and it had never paled. Perhaps,
before the latest war was over, he would have a chance
to know that rush again. But it could wait.
    For now, a wise commander would remain behind
the lines and let his troops absorb the shocks of com-
bat while he came to know his enemy. When he was
educated perfectly in that regard, it would be time for
him to strike--but only then.
    Vasiliev took solace in the thought that it would not
be long before that moment finally arrived.




!5!

it?

CHAPTER TEN

It was a whole new game in Georgia, where they
couldn't even sound the street signs out phonetically,
but every member of the Stony Man team had come
prepared with maps printed in English, and they took
directions from Gromylko as they separated, moving
toward their several targets. Bolan, teamed with T. J.
Hawkins, sent Gromylko off with Calvin James and
Rafael Encizo, on the theory that a Cuban and a black
American would be the two most likely members of
the team to hit a glitch in this particular arena. Mc-
Carter and Manning formed the third team, though
their targets were outside the city.
    Now, as he climbed up the rickety fire escape at-
tached to the back wall of the old hotel that was his
target, Bolan wished they had more Russians standing
by to help each two-man Stony Man team in case of
language problems on the street. Security had trimmed
the number down to one, however, and that one could
be too many if the game went sour down the line.
    At some point in its checkered past, the aging edi-
fice had been a small but comfortable hotel. It had
gone out of business years before, and squatters had
infested it until the army and police came in to rout

them. These days it was officially abandoned, but the
property was owned by Ivan Storzhenko, front man
for the Chechen mafiya in Georgia, and smart money
had it that the building was employed as a narcotics
depot, sometimes also as a hideaway for gastrolyor--
the visiting shooters, or "guest artists," who were im-
ported for specific, high-priority killings. Whatever, it
was part of Gregori Vasiliev's beachhead in Georgia,
and the place was coming down if Bolan had his way.
    The canvas satchel slung across his back held
twenty pounds of Semtex, sliced up into four-pound
charges, each one with a timer and a blasting cap at-
tached. The charges were secure until he armed the
detonators and set the timers ticking down to dooms-
day.
    He could have set the charges from outside and
brought the building down that way, but Bolan meant
to have a look around inside before it blew. With Haw-
kins standing watch across the street, he gave himself
ten minutes, in and out, to get it done. Much longer,
Bolan realized, and he would have a major problem
on his hands.
    The neighborhood was sparsely populated, with
more than a few condemned buildings on both sides
of the street. That minimized the risk of harming in-
nocent civilians or of the police showing up and in-
terfering with Bolan's plan, but it increased the risk
of lookouts in surrounding windows. They had scouted
out the street before he parked and left the car, but
beyond that, it was all a gamble.
    He used a glass cutter to enter through a fourth-floor
window, moving with the darkness, dim lights waiting


for him on the far side of a door that stood ajar. The
room he chose had obviously been unoccupied for
months, with thick dust over everything, no furniture
except a shabby chest of drawers that stood against
one wall.
    Outside, a hallway branched to left and right. The
light was to his left, in the direction of another open
doorway, with the stairs beyond. He went that way,
his MP-5 SD-3 submachine gun leading him along the
murky corridor. A muttered sound of voices told him
there were at least two men inside the room that had
become his first stop on the tour.
    Bolan glanced through the doorway, saw two
chunky hoodlum types sitting in their undershirts and
jeans, handguns tucked into the waistbands, smoking
something pungent. There were weapons on the floor,
and a wooden crate served as a makeshift table before
the swaybacked sofa they occupied. On the crate was
a plastic bag filled with hash, a box of matches and
some rolling papers.
    Bolan shot them where they sat, eliminating some
extra gunners from the equation. The business of erad-
icating predators couldn't be that selective, and there
was no time to weigh if they were small-time crooks
or sharks still growing teeth.
    He found no more wildlife awaiting him on the
fourth floor, and made his way one level down cau-
tiously, eyes and ears working in concert, while his
nostrils flared, alert to any scent that would betray a
human presence. Bolan met one shooter stepping from
another shabby room and waxed him where he stood,

his body sprawling across the threshold to prevent the
door from closing on its own.
  Three down. How many left?
    The numbers game in this instance went in his favor
for a change. All the rest--he counted seven, peering
from the stairs--were gathered in the ground-floor
lobby. An argument was going on that had irritated
several to the point of shaking fists at no one in par-
ticular. Five of the seven sported side arms worn in
plain sight, three shoulder holsters with no jackets and
a couple who preferred guns tucked inside their belts.
    He had expended roughly one-third of the subma-
chine gun's 30-round box magazine, which meant he
had approximately three slugs left for each of the as-
sailants he could see, before he had to stop to reload.
Instead, he palmed a Russian frag grenade and placed
it with an underhanded toss, then ducked under cover
of an intervening wall. With an alarmed yell, a couple
of the shooters recognized the object, but none was
quick enough to outrun the explosive charge or shrap-
nel.
    Some of them were still alive but not far from the
end. Once Bolan was satisfied that none of them would
rise again without substantial help, he checked his
watch and made a hasty circuit of the ground floor,
planting charges here and there for maximum effect,
arming the detonators as he went. That done, he made
a beeline for the door and took himself away from
there, felt Hawkins watching him as he approached the
waiting vehicle.
    They were a half block out and roiling when the
charges blew, and the decrepit building gracefully col-




2.,

:~L!

lapsed, the upper stories dropping to entomb whatever
lay below.

A HUNDRED DIFFERENT things could still go wrong,
Gromylko thought, but he had planned ahead as best
he could. A hasty survey of the target area had marked
the lookouts and pedestrian approaches to the target,
while the three-man raiding team was unobserved.
    It had been fairly easy, covering the Cuban. He
could pass without much difficulty as a swarthy Slav,
provided that he kept his mouth shut, but his partner
was a real concern. Black faces weren't unknown in
Georgia, but they were unusual enough to attract at-
tention on the street. Gromylko solved the problem,
after a fashion, by dressing the black warrior as an
Arab. The costume had three selling points: it helped
explain the curiosity of a black man in Tbilisi; it al-
lowed the Phoenix warrior to conceal a portion of his
face at will; and the outfit provided ample room for
hidden weapons.
    The target was a clothing store that did no business
with the public. There were shabby suits and dresses
hanging in the window, tagged with prices that would
be discouraging in any economic climate, and the rare
potential customers who crossed the threshold were
politely intercepted by a "greeter" who informed
them that the shop was closed, or there was nothing
in the patron's size--whatever it required to see the
stranger out and on his way. This afternoon the pres-
ence of armed guards outside the shop informed Gro-
mylko that Ivan Storzhenko was on full alert.
 He approached the shop with his "Arab" partner,

their heads together, muttering in tones the sentries
couldn't overhear. He trusted that the Cuban had them
covered from his rooftop sniper's nest across the street
and two floors up. Once they were inside the shop,
that cover would not help them, but getting in and out
were moments critical to any raid.
    Both warriors carried semiautomatic pistols fitted
out with silencers, which came in handy as the outside
gunners moved to intercept them at the door. Two
muffled coughing sounds, and the invaders pushed
their way inside the shop, past fresh corpses huddled
on the doorstep.
    Leonid Gromylko didn't know the man behind the
counter, but he recognized the type. A hoodlum,
reaching underneath for what might prove to be a
panic button or a hidden gun. It made no difference
either way. More popping sounds, and he was flung
into oblivion, collapsing from his metal stool.
    They rushed into the back room of the shop together
and caught three men unpacking leather suitcases. The
floor was strewed with clothes, and two of the sur-
prised men held penknives, each working on the
stitches that secured false bottoms in the suitcases. The
third had finished and was busily unloading plastic
bags of powdered heroin. If they were kilo bags, as
usual, each suitcase would contain approximately fif-
teen bags of uncut skag.
    The three goons froze, gaping at the new arrivals
when Gromylko and his "Arab" sidekick opened fire.
Three head shots, and the smugglers went down where
they stood. James reached into his pocket and pro-
duced a handful of incendiary sticks, priming each




with a twist as he dropped one into each false-
bottomed suitcase, saving one for the plastic bags
stacked up on the table. It was overkill, but there was
no point leaving anything to chance.
    The fire would spread if it had time, and so Gro-
mylko spent a moment on the sidewalk, looking for
the nearest fire alarm. He spotted it on a lamppost,
crossed the street and yanked the handle prior to mov-
ing back in the direction of their car. They drove
around the block and found Encizo waiting for them
on the next street over, with his folding-stock Kalash-
nikov concealed inside a bulky shopping bag.
    "We have ignition," James informed the Cuban as
he slid into the car's back seat.

STORZHENKO DID HIS BEST tO keep from roaring
through the telephone as he received the news. It was
the third call in the space of half an hour, all from
different sections of the city, each unique and yet de-
pressingly alike. Two bombings and a fire so far, and
he had already lost twenty men. There were no
wounded, as Storzhenko normally expected in a clash
of armed combatants, and as far as he could tell, his
nameless enemy had yet to suffer any casualties. The
bastards seemed to strike at will, throughout Tbilisi,
as if daring him to hunt them down.
  It was a challenge he intended to accept.
    There was no way to keep the bad news from Vas-
iliev in Moscow, but Storzhenko didn't have to make
the call right now. He could use his own best judg-
ment, as the recognized commander on the scene, and
wait until he had some good reports to mitigate the

bad. Once he had found out who the bastards were
and started whittling down their numbers, it wouldn't
be so embarrassing to call back home.
    Unfortunately there was still one m~or problem
with his plan. Storzhenko was in the dark, without a
clue to the identity of his assailants, nor had anyone
suggested a reliable technique for him to use in break-
ing down that wall of secrecy. Storzhenko had already
reached out to his men on the police force, but the
brass was clueless. They had no idea who was re-
sponsible for the attacks, had no clear fix on how more
raids could be prevented. Even with patrols out on the
street, Storzhenko had no reason to believe that any
Georgian officer would solve the case. They were a
simpleminded lot, and even more corrupt than the mil-
itsiya in Moscow. It wouldn't have shocked Stor~
zhenko to discover that his enemies were also paying
off the local musor, purchasing a license to assassinate
his men.
    If that turned out to be the case, he would take plea-
sure in exacting sweet revenge, but it would have to
wait until he solved the larger problem and fulfilled
his mission on behalf of the Vorovskoi Mir. But he needed a place to start.
    Storzhenko had informers at all levels in the city,
from addicts on the street to taxi drivers, hotel porters,
nurses, waitresses, bartenders, prostitutes and pimps,
sneak thieves and muggers. At his command, they had
been known to locate men and women who didn't
wish to he found, sometimes within an hour or less.
But so far, in the present case, his extra eyes were
blind.




7."

    It was a galling situation, but he wasn't ready to
give up. Defeat was unprecedented for Storzhenko and
totally unthinkable. If he couldn't control the action in
Tbilisi, then he would be worthless to the family. Vas-
iliev would remove him from command, and there
would be no second chance. Demotion, in such cir-
cumstances, meant a bullet in the head if you were
lucky. Otherwise, if the disposal team had time to
spare, the punishment for failure could be days of
screaming agony.
    The one and only way to save himself, Storzhenko
realized, would be to locate and exterminate the en-
emy before Vasiliev started getting nervous. There
was still a chance to pull it off, but he had no more
time to waste, and he could ill afford another string of
raids that cost the family soldiers, merchandise and
money.
    It was past time for him to seize the initiative, no
simple task when he was fighting shadows. Still, he
had an opportunity to strengthen his defenses even
now. It was never too late to beef up the line, put more
soldiers into the trenches. If his adversaries kept en-
countering resistance each and every time they struck,
the law of averages dictated that they must sustain
some casualties. There were no supermen, no ghosts.
    He took a pistol from his top desk drawer and
slipped it down into the waistband of his slacks. It
made him feel more warlike, helped him get into the
mood for what was coming. There would be more
bloodshed in Tbilisi, but the city was already used to
that. Its people were accustomed to the sights and
sounds of war.

    It was just as well, Ivan Storzhenko thought, be-
cause the killing wasn't finished yet.

Batumi

MCCARTER AND MANNING had drawn the short straw
on assignments this time. It was a three-hour drive
from Tbilisi to the largest Georgian seaport, at Batumi.
They had targets there, along the waterfront and else-
where, relevant to drugs and other smuggled merchan-
dise that didn't travel overland. Some of the heroin
from Turkey came by ship, instead of risking customs
checkpoints at the several border crossings, and Ba-
tumi was also the port of departure for various items,
including military hardware shipped to terrorists in Eu-
rope and the Middle East. Authorities occasionally
seized contraband along the docks, mostly from in-
dependent operators, but they never made a dent in the
illicit traffic flowing through Batumi's busy port.
    The Phoenix warriors meant to change all that, at
least to some extent. They couldn't hope to close the
port, of course, nor would their efforts wholly block
the east-west pipeline for narcotics. They could make
the trade more costly, though, and that they meant to
do, beginning with a Turkish freighter called the Merne
Gariiltal#~
    Finding the ship was easy, since it was moored
against the dock, but the approach was something else.
They could have damaged it with RPGs, but there was
no clear vantage point for firing, short of standing in
the middle of the busy street and blasting at the
freighter with their rocket launchers. They could have




tried to walk on board with satchel charges, but the
Meme Giiriilt~ilii had two crewmen posted on the
gangplank to discourage uninvited visitors, and drop-
ping them would only bring the others out to fight.
    That left Plan C, which called for one of them to
swim in from a distance, plant a Semtex charge against
the freighter's hull and get the hell away from there
before the detonator blew.
    The water was a lukewarm seventy degrees, but it
felt chilly to Manning when he first submerged, heat
draining from his body through the skin. No one had
thought to purchase diving gear when they were
choosing their equipment for the mission, so he swam
in jockey shorts, no wet suit, fins or face mask. The
heavy satchel slung across his chest tended to pull him
down, but he was stronger, swimming powerfully, re-
maining close beneath the piers whenever possible to
keep from being seen.
    It was a hundred yards or better from the point
where McCarter waited with their car and all the guns,
due north along the shore from where the Meme Ggi-
riiltiilii was docked. Swimming southward, laboring
against the satcheFs weight and the demand that he
remain close to the surface, rising constantly to
breathe, Manning felt his muscles straining, burning,
even as his flesh began to chill.
    There was no immediate danger from hypothermia;
he would need several hours in the water at that tem-
perature before he was at risk. Still, it was wearing on
him, and it made him wish that he were dressed for
diving, anything to give his body insulation from the
chill.

    Exertion was the key, he told himself, and concen-
trated on each kick, each long stroke of his arms. It
took him twenty minutes, fighting currents underneath
the docks, but then he saw the dark hull of the
freighter looming to his right. He jackknifed under-
neath the scummy surface, salt water stinging his eyes
as he felt his way along the hull and chose a point
below the waterline, where his Sembex would do the
most harm.
    He had to surface twice for air before he finished
up the job and set the timer counting backward toward
the holocaust. He gave himself half an hour for get-
away time, counting on fatigue to slow him down on
the return trip to his starting point. Manning scowled
as swarms of pinpricks tortured muscles in his shoul-
ders, arms and legs. He couldn't linger near the
freighter, resting, while his time ran out.
    The swim back seemed to take him twice as long.
In fact, he barely reached the pier where McCarter
waited for him, scrambling up a knotted rope to clear
the water in the shadow of an old, decrepit warehouse,
when the Semtex blew.
    He faced due south and watched an oily geyser
spout beside the wounded freighter, while the Meme
Giiriiltiilii started rolling over on her side, to port. The
water rushing through the jagged wound to fill her
hold would soon consign her to the bottom.
     He took the towel from McCarter's hand as they
moved back in the direction of the car.  "That's one," McCarter said.
    "And counting," Manning added as he slid into the
rental's shotgun seat and reached back for his clothes.




HAWKINS HAD his AK-47 ready when the first track
came around the comer, moving slowly down the nar-
row street. There was another close behind it, two men
in each cab, four gunners in a black sedan behind the
second truck to watch the tail end of the little convoy.
    If their information was correct, the trucks were
hauling military-surplus weapons, ammunition and
grenades that had been stolen from an arsenal near
Stavropol. The hardware would be stockpiled in Tbi-
lisi or a suburb, while the word went out to various
prospective buyers that another shipment had arrived.
From there the bidding would begin, with Palestinians,
Iranians, perhaps even some Eastern European radicals
competing for the prize.
    Except that there would be no merchandise to bid
on if the Executioner and Hawkins had their way.
    When it was clear that there were no more vehicles
behind the black sedan, Hawk reached beneath his
jacket and took out a frag grenade. He thumbed the
pin free, let it drop and stepped out of the alleyway
where he had hidden, waiting for his enemies to show
themselves. The pavement sloped a little from the
point where he was standing, and Hawk had to use a
little extra force with the grenade to send it wobbling
toward the target. By the time the driver saw him, tried
to figure out exactly what was happening, it was too
late.
    The hand grenade exploded underneath the lead
truck's bumper. Shrapnel ripped into belts and hoses,
punctured the radiator, spilled gasoline that instantly
caught fire, flames racing back along the undercar-
riage. The driver and his shotgun rider hurried to bail

out, but Hawk was waiting for them, peering through
the sights of his Kalashnikov.
    His first shots nailed the gunner who was riding
shotgun, slammed him back against the dusty fender
of the track and dropped him in a heap amid the
spreading flames. The driver was apparently unarmed
and running for his life. Hawk let him go and concen-
trated on the second truck in line, while yet another
blast told him that Bolan had the chase car nailed.
    The street became a shooting gallery. There were at
least two gunmen still alive in the sedan, both firing
wildly, up and down the sidewalk, seeking targets nei-
ther one of them could clearly see. The shooter in the
second truck was stepping down, unloading with a
compact submachine gun, fanning slugs in Hawk's di-
rection as he hit the pavement running.
    Hawkins stood his ground and squinted through a
haze of brick dust as the hostile rounds swept past him.
He stroked a short burst from his AK-47, saw the run-
ner jerk, then lurch toward a doorway he would never
reach in life. The man fell six feet short from safety,
fresh blood streaming out across the sidewalk where
he lay.
    The second driver had more fight in him than his
predecessor, emerging from the truck's cab with a pis-
tol in his hand. He managed two quick shots before
Hawk nailed him with a tight burst to the chest and
slammed him backward, out of sight behind his rig.
    Hawk turned to face the black sedan, but it was over
by the time he found a target. Bolan used a second
frag grenade to silence his opponents, and the car went
up in flames, more fuel splashed on the street, spread-




ing fingers of liquid fire. In seconds flat the middle
vehicle was burning, helped along by an incendiary
stick that Bolan pitched across the tailgate.
 Another job well done, and it was time to go.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Rafael Encizo watched the gunmen come and go, still
counting heads and wishing he were somewhere in the
Western Hemisphere, where he could speak to strang-
ers without involving an interpreter. It wasn't even that
so much as that they only had the one guy to depend
on, and no one really knew how solid he would be if
things went wrong.
    Gromylko had been straight enough when they were
up against the Turks and then the Georgians, but he
wasn't really home. Not yet. Encizo couldn't stop one
portion of his brain from wondering, despite himself,
if maybe it would all turn out to be a setup, someone
with a grudge hung over from the bad old days, hoping
to settle the score. It was improbable, he realized, with
all the various security precautions they employed, but
stranger things had happened. Bolan and the rest of
them had dealt with more than one unhappy ghost be-
fore, and this would be the wrong place and the worst
of times for another drop-in from the past.
    Encizo brought his mind back to the moment, add-
ing two more gunners to the head count. That made
seventeen who had gone in while he was watching,
versus three entirely different faces that had left. He




would assume a bedrock minimum of twenty guns in-
side, and pray it didn't turn out double or even triple
that.
    The place was large enough, and then some. A di-
lapidated theater, long closed, it would have seated
better than three hundred in its day. That day was long
since past, however, and the Chechen mob had bought
the property for next to nothing, left the theater intact
and used it for occasional meetings when Ivan Stor-
zhenko had to lay down the law.
    There was no sign yet of Storzhenko tonight, and a
glance at his watch told Encizo it was almost time to
move. He brought the little two-way out from under
cover, thumbed the button down and told the night,
"We're clear out front. I make it seventeen arrivals,
but there must be more inside. Three others bailed.
Can't say if they'll be coming back."
    "I heard that." James's voice was small and
scratchy, coming from the little two-way's speaker.
  "We should go ahead as planned," Gromylko said.
  "Affirmative," James replied.
  "I'm there," Encizo added.
    The Cuban switched the two-way off and stashed it
in an outside pocket of his trench coat, reaching back
inside to find the Uzi SMG with its foot-long silencer
attached. Encizo flicked the safety off, leaving a live
round in the chamber as he made his way across the
street.
    He didn't have a clue as to the kind of gathering
that had drawn twenty-odd Storzhenko soldiers to one
place while they were very obviously needed else-
where, and he didn't care. It was an opportunity to hit

Storzhenko's private army in a major way, and they
weren't about to pass on that without compelling rea-
sons.
    Do or die, the Cuban told himself, and kept a firm
grip on the Uzi as he closed in on the theater. Assigned
to watch the front door, he was also going in that way
unless somebody stopped him cold--as in stone dead.
James would take the back door, while Gromylko used
an alley entrance on the east side of the building. That
would cover all the exits they could see and trap their
targets in a killing pen...but things could still go
wrong.
    Encizo found that out as he was reaching for the
handle on one set of double doors in front. A few feet
to his right, the other set of doors swung open, and a
pair of husky shooters came outside. The nearer of
them spotted Encizo at once and muttered something
that didn't require translation as he reached for his
piece.
    Encizo slid the Uzi underneath his outstretched arm
and hosed them with a stream of parabellum shockers.
His assailants did a jerky little dance along the side-
walk, reeling from the impact of the bullets, sprawling
to the pavement when he let the trigger go. No time to waste.
    Encizo shouldered through the door, went in behind
his SMG, prepared to deal with anybody who got in
his way.

T,E RPG WAS tOO flamboyant for a drive-by and
might actually set the car on fire, so Bolan opted for
grenades. It meant that he would have to walk up to




the target, but he didn't mind. Most of the patrons
would be regular civilians, and he had a feeling that
between himself and Hawkins, he could take care of
the rest.
    The cafd had a doorman who was big enough to
double as a bouncer if the need arose. It wouldn't hap-
pen often, given the sort of clientele who patronized
the place, but something in the Executioner's de-
meanor made the man rise to his full height, sticking
out his chest and sucking in his gut. The whole act
fell apart as Bolan showed him the Beretta 93-R and
thumbed the hammer back, click-clack.
    The slugger raised his hands and closed his eyes, as
if he didn't want to see it coming. Bolan swung his
left fist up and over, slamming right into the bouncer's
nose with force enough to crunch his skull against the
brick wall at his back. The bouncer's eyelids fluttered,
showing white, and then he melted to the sidewalk,
ending in a heap at Bolan's feet.
    As Bolan crossed the threshold, he was busy reach-
ing back inside his jacket for a stun grenade. He
wouldn't use a frag bomb with so many innocent ci-
vilians in the way, but giving them a headache
wouldn't trouble him at all. When the effects wore off,
they would have something new to talk about, and in
the meantime Bolan would have dealt with those who
carried arms and served Ivan Storzhenko for their
daily bread.
    Storzhenko--or his Russian backers--owned the
restaurant where many of Tbilisi's "better" citizens
turned out to see and let themselves be seen. It wasn't
21 or Planet Hollywood by any means, but this was

 not the States. What passed for high society in Georgia
 was a group of leading businessmen and politicians,
 some holdovers from the Communist regime and the
 trophy wives or mistresses they brought along to give
 the place some color.
    Bolan had the safety pin out of his stun grenade
before the hostess came to greet him, losing her smile
as she saw the hardware in his hands. The proper
phrase eluded him, so Bolan simply pointed toward
the street with his Beretta, and kept on moving toward
the main room of the restaurant. He pitched the can-
ister overhand, well toward the back of the room, and
sidestepped to put a wall between himself and the ex-
plosion, raising hands to cup his ears, eyes closed.
Despite those measures, Bolan felt the jolt of the con-
cussion, heard the screams of patrons as they toppled
from their chairs, some dragging tablecloths and
dishes with them when they fell.
    There should be no real injuries so far, maybe some
scrapes and bruises, Bolan calculated. When he moved
back toward the open doorway of the dining room, he
stayed to one side, knowing that the rush for daylight
would begin as soon as people started lurching to their
feet. A few were on the move already, visibly disori-
ented, but he wasn't focused on the diners now. Eyes
tracking, he was seeking out the soldiers who were
bound to be somewhere around the premises.
    Almost immediately he spotted two of them off to
his left. Both men had pistols in their hands, one weav-
ing slightly on his feet, his free hand pressed against
his forehead. Bolan leveled the Beretta, slammed a
bullet through that hand and watched the gunner's




head snap back, eyes rolling upward as he died, still
on his feet. The pistol was unsilenced, and its sharp
report cut through the wailing of the frightened cus-
tomers, increasing panic, prompting more of them to
stampede for the exits. Bolan pressed himself against
the wall and got a shot off at the second gunman while
he still had time, rewarded with a splash of crimson
on the stucco as his target fell.
    A handgun answered from his right, a startled
woman shrieking as the wild shot pierced her thigh
and dropped her, squalling, on her backside. Bolan
spun to face his adversary, saw a short man weaving
through the crowd and knew it would be dangerous to
risk a shot. The gunner didn't seem to care about the
caf6's patrons, though, still taking wild shots as he
closed the gap between them, wounding two more in-
nocents before the crowd cleared out in front of him.
    It was a one-time-only opportunity, and Bolan
didn't waste it. Squeezing off two shots, he nailed the
little man through the jaw and larynx, spinning him
around with such force that his head and shoulders
struck the floor before his hips and legs. The body
shivered once, and then lay still.
    The crowd was frozen now, paralyzed by their fear
of the explosion on the far side of the room and Bo-
lan's pistol at the nearest exit. Bolan could see no
more shooters in the crowd, so he retreated, breaking
for the street, and heard the caf6 patrons rushing after
him. He hit the sidewalk running, the Beretta out of
sight, and turned back toward the car where Hawkins
waited for him with the engine running. Frightened
diners poured out of the restaurant and scattered, run-

ning off in all directions, many of them screaming for
police.
    "A little something unexpected on hhe menu,"
Hawkins said.
 Bolan responded with a smile.

T~E KEFmYEtJ HE WORE made Calvin James feel like
an extra in a cheap Biblical epic, but he kept it on as
he pushed through the back door of the one-time the-
ater, aware that it would alter the perception of any
survivors who glimpsed him in action. Leaving wit-
nesses wasn't part of the plan, but shit happens, and
enemies are sometimes overlooked in war.
 Especially those who run away and hide.
    The Skorpion machine pistol he carried had a si-
lencer attached to the muzzle, nearly doubling the
length of the gun, but its bulk gave him something to
hold on to with his left hand for stability, and the rig
still fit easily beneath his bulky jacket. But it was in
his hands now, cocked and ready, as he moved along
a murky corridor and horned in on the murmuring of
voices somewhere up ahead.
    James would have been backstage, except there was
no stage, as such, in movie theaters. Backscreen was
closer to the truth, with curtained doorways leading
off to either side, into the main part of the theater.
James peered out through a crack between the curtain
and the wall, saw twenty-odd thug types already
lounging in the seats or standing in the aisle, some of
them smoking, several conversations going on at once.
Their voices reached him loud and clear, but all of




them were speaking in what may as well have been
Chinese.
    He didn't need to understand them, though; that was
the beauty of it. All he had to do was find them, and
that task had been accomplished. Now, as he stood
waiting for the others to arrive, James raised the si-
lenced Skorpion until its muzzle pressed against the
curtain fabric, aiming at the mobsters in the nearest
row of seats.
    He was expecting Leonid Gromylko to begin the
party when he got into position, and the sudden uproar
from the lobby startled James. The street approach was
Encizo's, and all that yelling had to mean someone
had spotted him. Which accelerated the pace for sure.
    There were a few stray pistol shots, and then more
yelling, coupled with what sounded like a cry of pain.
That voice wasn't Encizo's, which meant that he was
fighting back and scoring hits. It also meant that their
precision plan had sprung a leak, and James couldn't
postpone his entry to the fray while waiting for Gro-
mylko to jump in.  Okay.
    He whipped the curtain back and strafed the front-
row gunners just as they were lurching to their feet.
His spray of bullets toppled three before they fully
gained their balance or had time to reach their guns.
Thanks to the silencer, most of the thugs, already turn-
ing toward the lobby doors behind them, missed his
entrance to the theater while they were focused on the
sounds of combat from the general direction of the
street.
  Most, but not all.

    A couple of the Russian mafiosi, seated near his
early kills, had seen their comrades fall and marked
the source of gunfire that had cut them down. They
both had pistols out and were blasting as James lunged
into the theater, their first shots high and wide, but
getting closer all the time. James answered them with
short bursts from the Skorpion and dived for cover
behind the nearest seats, with bodies sprawled around
him, leaking crimson on the floor.
    The rest of the Storzhenko soldiers had a fix on
what was happening by now, although they had no
way of knowing who was on their case or why. That
added up to what James liked to call the "rattle fac-
tor," anything that could unhinge the-opposition,
make them jump at shadows, give them second
thoughts to slow down their reaction time.
    Not that it helped a great deal when the odds were
twenty-some to one, and he was pinned down under
fire, with barely enough cover to absorb the first few
hostile rounds. It would be suicide to pop up and re-
turn fire at the moment. If he didn't catch a break
within the next few seconds, James knew he was on
a fast track to the grave.
    The break came when he needed it the most and
least expected it. At first he almost missed the different
sound of gunfire, with so many pistols barking at him,
but a warrior with experience on modern battlefields
never forgets the sound of a Kalashnikov. James didn't
miss the cries of pain and anger from his adversaries,
either, as the automatic fire ripped through their ranks.
Gromylko!
 James didn't care if he was early, late or right on




time. The only thing that mattered was that he was
there and doing what he had to do, against the odds.
  And making all the difference in the world.
    James braced himself on knees and elbows, took a
breath and gripped the Skorpion in both hands, letting
out a bellow as he rose to face his enemies.

 GRAY DUSK WAS FALLING on the two-lane road that
 linked Batumi, on the Black Sea, with Tbilisi, to the
 east. It felt to Gary Manning as if they were running
 from the last warm rays of sunshine, racing into dark-
 ness with a vengeance, but he uttered no complaint.
 The dark road was familiar to him, from experience,
 and he could find his way around that territory without
 getting lost.
     He was relieved to have the seaport well behind
 them, with Bolan and his other comrades drawing
 closer, mile by mile. McCarter had the wheel, and he
 was focused on a silent contemplation of the highway,
 flicking glances now and then at the speedometer and
 rearview mirror. They couldn't afford a traffic stop
 right now, much less a high-speed chase with the po-
 lice, but every passing moment wore on Manning;s
nerves like sandpaper on sunburned flesh.  And they weren't even finished yet.
    Midway between Batumi and Tbilisi was another
target on their list, a farm owned by Storzhenko, where
a local peasant crew went through the motions--plant-
ing, waiting, harvesting--while others used the place
for a drop. It was one more depot on the Russian ma-
fiya's underground railroad of poison, roiling east and
north from the Turkish poppy fields and processing

plants, through makeshift labs where it was "stepped
on," to the veins and nostrils of an estimated one mil-
lion addicts in Mother Russia. And that was a conser-
vative estimate, in a country where addicts committed
sixty percent of all property crime and forty percent
of all violent assaults.
    The farm was settling down to rest when they ar-
rived and parked their car well out on the perimeter,
lights off, unloading gear and changing quickly into
camouflage fatigues of NATO style. Their rifles were
Russian AK-47s, their pistols Italian Berettas. If one
or both of them got killed, it would be virtually im-
possible for anyone to establish an ID on the body.
Any record of their fingerprints had been expunged
outside the files at Stony Man, while military-service
records and the like had been rerouted and strictly
classified.
    It made Gary Manning feel a bit like a ghost some-
times, when he suited up for battle. Not that it troubled
him particularly, but he wondered on occasion what
his mother and his sister would be told, what expla-
nation would be offered when his luck ran out.
    The wheat field was a safe bet to be clear of any
high-tech security paraphernalia, what with hired
hands and their farm machinery around. It also offered
good concealment as the Phoenix warriors made their
long trek toward the house and barn. It took ten
minutes, but they got there, pausing at the edge of
cultivated land to check the target out, up close and
personal.
    Two men cannot surround a house, nor would they
try. There were no sentries posted on the property as




 far as Manning could make out, perhaps because the
 farm was deemed secure or remote enough to miss out
 on the action lately breaking in Batumi and Tbilisi. In
 either case, their strategy remained the same. They
 opted for a more direct approach, ignored the darkened
 barn and split up only as they neared the house,
 McCarter jogging toward the front, while Manning
 slipped around in back.
    There were no standard porches on the house, as is
the rule in rural North America. As Manning peered
in through a window at the back, he found himself no
more than six or seven feet from half a dozen bullet-
headed types whose bulging muscles might denote a
lifetime working on the farm or pumping iron in
prison. Checking out the pistols on their hips or slung
in shoulder holsters, Manning guessed the verdict
could go either way.
    The goons were hunched around a wooden table,
spooning stew into their faces, chasing it with some
clear beverage that could have been water, but was
probably vodka. One of them would speak from time
to time, still chewing, and produce a comment or a
bray of laughter from his comrades.
    With so much house between them, there had been
no way for Manning and McCarter to arrange a signal.
Rather, Manning checked his watch and saw that he
had fifteen seconds left before the stuff hit the fan. No
matter what else happened then, he would assume
McCarter to be kicking in the front door on the stroke
of 6:05 p.m., and he would move accordingly.
  Ten seconds.
  Five.

    On one, he stepped up to the door, reared back and
gave a solid kick to slam it open, barging through with
his Kalashnikov while the six gunners at the table
whipped their bullet heads around to face him, slack-
jawed, gaping in surprise. A burst of automatic fire
from the direction of the parlor told him that McCarter
had arrived on time, and Manning held the trigger of
his AK-47 down, raking the table with a deadly stream
of bullets. Left to right and back again.
    A couple of his targets tried to rise and draw their
guns, but none got very far. He had them at a lethal
disadvantage, and their legs tangled up with chairs,
knees banging underneath the table, dishes flying,
swept away by angry hands or flying bullets. One of
them went over backward in his chair, flipping the
table away from him, on top of another gunman. Be-
fore the last one toppled, Manning heard the sound of
footsteps coming toward him, down a hallway leading
from the front part of the house.
    He swiveled, bringing the Kalashnikov around, and
tried to guess how many rounds were still left in his
magazine. No more than five or six, he thought, but it
could be enough. A start, at least, to buy a little time.
    "It's me," McCarter warned him, standing well
back from the open doorway.
    "Come ahead," said Manning as he let himself re-
lax. "We're done in here."

GROMYLKO CAUGHT one of the Chechens breaking for
an exit and dropped him with a short burst from his
folding-stock Kalashnikov. Two other gunmen opened
fire with pistols in response, and he ducked back into




 the alcove that had sheltered him since he engaged the
 enemy brief moments earlier.
     It seemed like hours, but time's passage was decep-
 tive in a crisis situation, sometimes lagging in slow
 motion, otherwise racing impossibly fast. Whichever
 way it felt, though, Gromylko knew that they were
 swiftly running out of time. It wouldn't be long before
 one of their adversaries scored a lucky hit or the police
 arrived to cut off their retreat.
    There would be hell to pay in that case, on the off
chance that Gromylko managed to survive. He could
forget about explaining to the Georgian cops about
how a militsiya lieutenant wound up several hundred
miles from home, without his badge or any vestige of
authority, assassinating Chechen gangsters in Tbilisi.
They would laugh and beat him senseless, then sit
down and list the charges he would have to answer at
his murder trial.
  No, thank you very much.
    Gromylko reached into an outside pocket of his coat
and found one of the frag grenades he carried for in-
surance. As he pulled the pin, he called a warning to
his comrades, speaking English.  "Hand grenade!"
    If any of the Chechens understood him, that was
fine. He lobbed the fat green egg and ducked back
under cover, bullets humming in the air around him,
chipping plaster inches from his face. He had no spe-
cial target marked for the grenade, cared little where
it fell, as long as there was noise, confusion, some-
thing that would give Gromylko and his friends an
edge they needed to survive.

    He waited for the blast, then came out firing, even
while the jagged bits of shrapnel were still airborne,
ripping flesh or tearing into theater seats and gouging
divots in the walls. He was in time to see a pair of
Chechen gunners tumbling through the air, twisting
awkwardly as they crashed among the rows of seats.
No problem from those two, he guessed, and concen-
trated on the living.
    Calvin James and Rafael Encizo both responded to
his warning cry, quickly diving for cover, coming back
with weapons blazing while their enemies were still
disoriented from the blast. Triangulated fire swept
through the theater, two silenced weapons joining with
Gromylko's loud Kalashnikov, selecting targets as
they tried to duck and hide or break out toward the
exits. The lieutenant estimated they had cut the num-
ber of their enemies by more than half, and it was
falling steadily, as were the jerking, lurching bodies,
torn by bullets, sprawling over seats and in the aisles.
    It was a massacre, and in another moment it was
done.
    Gromylko fed another magazine into his AK-47,
watching as the others moved to join him, on the west
side of the theater that had become a charnel house.
The keffiyeh James wore had come undone, and he was
cursing as he fumbled to replace it, working at the job
one-handed, while his other kept a firm grip on the
Skorpion he carried. Encizo had a grim expression on
his face, as if the slaughter didn't suit his taste, but he
had done his work efficiently and uttered no com-
plaint.
 "You have the Semtex?" the Cuban asked.




    "Yes," Gromylko said. "Let's finish this. We
haven't got much time."
    Six minutes later they were on the street and rolling,
turning left, then left again, to put some ground be-
tween themselves and what would soon become a heap
of smoking rubble. Riding in the back, Gromylko tried
to clear his mind, look forward to the next stop on
their list.
 And found that he could hardly wait.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The last report was finally too much, with the slaugh-
ter of twenty men, their meeting place destroyed by
Semtex charges, burying their corpses in the rubble.
Two or three more days would pass before the search
teams had recovered all the bodies, but Ivan Stor-
zhenko was preoccupied with what might happen in
the next two hours. There was nothing he could do to
help the dead, but he must think of those who served
him and were still alive.
 Above all else, he had to save himself.
    He knew that it was time to ask for help, but the
very act of reaching out to Moscow must be done in
such a way that it would minimize his damage. He
couldn't tell Gregori Vasiliev that nearly half his sol-
diers had been killed within a span of several hours,
while he still had no idea who was doing it or why.
Such an admission of incompetence would be his
death warrant, Storzhenko realized, and he had no de-
sire to die. Not yet. Not in Tbilisi.
    He would twist the facts around a bit, not lying
outright to the godfather, but using just enough dis-
cretion that he didn't come off sounding like a total
idiot. And if Vasiliev somehow got the notion that




 Storzhenko was about to solve the problem, could
 eradicate the family's nightmare if he only had a few
 more men and guns on hand...well, it was only for
 the good of all concerned.
    How would it benefit the Thieves' Society to have
its leader thinking, falsely, that the Georgian outpost
had been lost? There was no telling what Vasiliev
might do in such a case, since his mind and nerves
were already tested to the limit by his brother's death
and the events in Turkey. It was only good, sound
strategy for Storzhenko to accentuate the positive, let
Vasiliev believe that everything would be all right, if
only Storzhenko had sufficient troops to do a proper
job.
It was, Storzhenko told himself, the simple truth.
If he somehow failed against all odds, the extra time
he purchased for himself would help to save his life.
Ivan Storzhenko was no fool. He had been planning
for the worst, preparing for it, from the day he was
assigned to man the outpost in Tbilisi. With the Geor-
gians in a constant uproar over politics, religion and
whatever else it was that peasants fought about, he
couldn't guarantee from one day to the next what
would become of syndicate investments in the unsta-
ble republic. Nor, in the event of a disaster, was Stor-
zhenko ready to accept responsibility for someone
else's failure. He didn't intend to play the role of sac-
rificial victim for anyone.
    There was a limit to his loyalty, after all. A wise
man always plans ahead, prepares himself for all even-
tualities.
 Storzhenko drank another glass of vodka, straight,

before he sat behind his desk and reached out for the
telephone. Vasiliev should still be wide-awake, in
Moscow. It was early yet, and no conscientious god-
father would sleep while his family was under fire
from unknown enemies.
    Storzhenko had no fear of the authorities in Georgia,
since he had been paying most of them quite hand-
somely since his arrival in Tbilisi, but he had a scram-
bler on his private line as extra insurance. Vasiliev had
one just like it on his telephone at home, and in the
downtown Moscow office where he spent three after-
noons a week, in normal times.
    These times were far from normal, and the news
Storzhenko had to share would still be grim enough
to make his boss hit the roof. But Storzhenko would
remind the godfather of his first duty to the family:
the presentation of a calm and self-assured exterior, to
reassure the troops that everything was still under con-
trol and running smoothly in their outlaw world.
    No matter if that self-assurance was exaggerated or
an outright lie. The truth had little or nothing to do
with daily life in the Vorovskoi Mir. A mobster's life
was based on falsehood and deception, after all. Why
should the godfather be any different in dealings with
his various subordinates? God knew he himself had
been lied to frequently enough throughout the years.
Now he was simply going to return the favor. He was doing it to save himself.
    And that, he thought, was still the most important
cause of all.




Moscow

 GREGOR! VASILIEV was no one's fool. He didn't have
 to read Storzhenko's mind to understand his game:
 self-preservation was the first law of the jungle, and
 he couldn't blame his underling for trying to obtain
 some extra time. It showed that he was on his toes,
 still thinking, but it would have been more gratifying
 to Vasiliev if Storzhenko could have put a finger on
 their common enemy.
     There were still more soldiers he could send to
 Georgia, though he planned to keep the best at home
 to watch his own back in this troubled time. Stor-
 zhenko might indeed be able to destroy their adver-
 saries with a bit more help, but if he failed, there
 would be bloody work to do in Moscow, and soon.
    Vasiliev had tapped his source with Interpol to see
if there was any indication of official moves against
his family, from the United States or Britain, but there
was no information that would help him either way.
It was predictable, to some extent: a covert movement
by some hostile government wouldn't be telegraphed
to Interpol, which had no real enforcement powers
anyway and was known throughout the world for glar-
ing breaches of security.
    Right now he needed men and information he could
trust. If trouble came to him at home, it would be
useful if he had something beyond his own body-
guards. All the better if he could rely on the police to
do his killing for him, and avoid all personal involve-
ment in a shooting war. It would be difficult, he re-
alized, to stand outside the action and remain aloof,
but he would do his best. He had more than one rep-
utation to protect: the image of a thriving businessman,

among his friends in high society, together with his
image as a ruthless killer on the streets.
    He didn't fear a threat from those around him, al-
though clearly there were individuals within the family
who wouldn't mourn his passing. Still, if one of them
had found the nerve to move against Vasiliev, the
move would almost certainly have come in Russia, not
in the United States or Turkey, not even in Georgia.
To Vasiliev that meant an enemy from somewhere
else, and it was galling him that he couldn't discover
who was after him or where the bastards came from.
    It was curiosity verging on desperation, then, that
made Vasiliev reach out for his top man in the milit-
siya. In normal circumstances they avoided any con-
tact; even phone calls were relayed through trusted
intermediaries, generally in code. The past five years
Vasiliev could remember only two occasions when the
officer had met him face-to-face, Tonight would be the third.
    Vasiliev couldn't meet with the officer in his pent-
house apartment, nor could they be seen together at
his dacha northwest of Moscow. The continued use-
fulness of an employee at that level meant that more
than the illusion of security must be maintained.
Should their connection be revealed in public, it would
mean more than a trifling embarrassment for all con-
cemed. The officer would certainly be mined, hounded
from his post, while some "reformer" in the new re-
gime might even have some questions for Vasiliev.
Bad business all around, but easily avoided if he only
thought about it for a moment, used his wits as he had
always done when there were obstacles before him.




    It was simple when he thought about it. They would
meet at a hotel Vasiliev had purchased from its one-
time owners after they were driven into bankruptcy by
labor problems. Two adjoining suites with a connect-
ing door would do the trick. Vasiliev would make sure
to arrive at least an hour early, just in case his contact
had an unexpected tail, and he would let the officer
leave first. Bring up a prostitute to occupy the soldier's
empty room and watch TV, all for appearances, while
they were talking in the suite next door. When they
were done, if Vasiliev's companion wanted her, she
would be paid for in advance. A touch of realism, that,
but he would make sure that his contact was long gone
before he ventured out of the hotel.
    It was decided, then. Once Gregori Vasiliev made
up his mind, there were no arguments, no second-
guessing.
 Satisfied, he reached out for the telephone.

Washington, D.C.

EIGHT HOURS BEHIND MOSCOW, Hal Brognola sat be-
hind his desk and wondered if he ought to go for
lunch. He had no appetite to speak of, but experience
had taught him that it sometimes helped just to go
through the motions of a normal day. He could go out,
pick up a chili dog, pile on the onions, maybe crack
a beer to wash it down and...  Jesus!
    Brognola could feel his stomach roiling at the
thought of it, and then his mind snapped back to the
reports he had been catching out of Georgia, via Stony

Man. They had their ears on at the Farm, and kept him
up to date, although he could have done without the
running body count right now.
    Brognola had resisted the idea of sending Bolan and
the Phoenix warriors into Russian territory at the pres-
ent time. It wouldn't be their first incursion into what
was once Iron Curtain territory, but for all its danger,
things had been more stable under the old Soviet re-
gime. In those days you could readily identify the
players, give or take a double agent here and there.
Since the collapse of communism, though, with all the
geographic and political divisions that had come to
pass, you had more two- and three-faced characters in
Russia than between the covers of a Batman comic.
There were cops and politicians working for the mob,
die-hard Communists who would do anything within
their power to subvert the new regime, a growing
fringe of right-wing loonies who made neo-Nazis in
the States look like the very soul of moderation and a
whole crop of religious players--ranging from the or-
thodox to weird black-magic cults--so long sup-
pressed that they were making up for lost time with a
vengeance, launching into business, education, politics
as if there were no tomorrow.
Which, Brognola thought, there might not be.
Some of his friends at the State Department had
been predicting civil war since it was first announced
the ruling party was dissolved. The one attempted
coup, so far, had been aborted, those who planned it
shuffled off to mental institutions, prison cells or shal-
low graves, but there was no such thing as coup in-
surance for the Russians, not when you had bloody




 insurrections raging in the Balkan states. That kind of
 atmosphere was tailor made for opportunists like the
 Russian mafiya, the kind of parasites that could infest
 a not altogether healthy body, leaving it functional
 from all outward appearances, while they were boring
 from within, sapping the organism's raw vitality. They
 never killed the host outright, since the parasite
 couldn't survive outside, in broad daylight, but what
 remained was never healthy, never vital.  Never clean.
    Brognola threw a mental switch and sent his train
of thought off on a siding. He wasn't concerned about
the state of Russian politics or economics at the mo-
ment. That was someone else's problem, and had no
more impact on his daily life than, say, the price of
caviar. What did concern Brognola, though, was the
increased potential danger that his men in Georgia
were facing now, thanks to the unstable situation with
regard to politics and crime, the military and police.
    Brognola understood the threat to U.S. interests
from the Russian mafiya. The FBI had been concerned
enough to open up a branch office in Moscow, and
there had been no refusing when the Man gave Brog-
nola a mission no one else could handle. Hell, it was
a mission no one else would touch, because it was
illegal all the way. In these days of congressional over-
sight and spot audits by the General Accounting Of-
rice, veteran officers of the FBI, CIA, NSA and mili-
tary intelligence were walking on eggshells, looking
over their shoulders every time they had an impure
thought. Between the budget cuts and imposition of
political correctness from the top, covert activities

were often doomed before they started. In the old days
any number of competing agencies would have been
standing by to deal with someone like Vasiliev, fair
means or foul, but times had changed. Brognola and
his team at Stony Man were now the secret court of
last resort.
    Which meant that Brognola couldn't reject the dirty
jobs, no matter how they troubled him or went against
his own best instincts. Bolan could have turned him
down, as he had done on rare occasions in the past,
but the big Fed would have sent Phoenix Force re-
gardless. There was work to do, and it was his job,
come what may. It was the only reason Stony Man
existed in the first place, to take out the trash and
handle any dirty work that could not be reported on
the public record.
    Nothing in the tidy rationale could stop his mind
from working overtime, however, looking for the weak
point in their plan and trying to anticipate the enemy.
The problem this time was that there were too damn
many weak points: distance, language, numbers, local
politics that fluctuated like the weather, their reliance
on a single officer from the militia who might still turn
out to be some kind of killer mole.  And if they failed...
    Brognola stopped himself right there. It was un-
thinkable, no matter that he had to think about it any-
way. He would postpone that morbid chore until he
knew that it was absolutely necessary. And with any
luck at all, it never would be.
  But if anything went wrong...
  In that case, he decided, a lot of heads would roll.




 "You LIKE THE WOMAN, Yuri?"
     Colonel Renko shrugged, indifference personified.
 "I have a wife at home," he said.
     "We all do," Gregori Vasiliev replied. "A little
 something extra never hurts, though, eh?"
 "You called me here on business, I believe."
 And that was what galled Renko more than any-
 thing. Vasiliev had summoned him, as if he were a
 lowly private from the ranks, or one of the bandity
 who owed his allegiance to the Thieves' Society. It
 was not fitting for a full colonel to be treated in that
 fashion, even if the money he received from Gregori
 Vasiliev each year was more then double his official
 salary. There were proprieties to be observed, a certain
 minimum of courtesy.
     "There is no reason why we can't enjoy our busi-
 ness, Yuri, eh?"
    Another shrug. The last thing Renko planned to do
was bow and scrape before the man who pulled his
strings. Vasiliev might be the boss, might own his very
soul, but Renko still had to live with himself, face
himself in the mirror each morning and night.
    "I would prefer to just get on with it," the colonel
said.
    "Of course." Vasiliev didn't appear insulted. He
still wore the plastic smile that was his trademark, like
a politician's brain-dead grin. "You weren't followed,
I presume?"
  "Of course not!"
    Vasiliev was wasting time with foolish small talk
now. He knew that Renko was the one with more to
lose if anyone found out about their business dealings.

He would certainly be court-martialed, might possibly
wind up in prison if the secret was revealed. As far as
Renko knew, he was the highest-ranking officer in the
militsiya who drew a secret paycheck from Vasiliev,
but even if there were some others higher up the lad-
der, they would not step in to help him. It would be
each man for himself, and some would certainly be
glad to see him go, a vacancy in rank leaving hope
for a promotion.
    "Very well." Vasiliev seemed satisfied at last.
"You've heard what happened to my brother in Amer-
ica?"
 A nod from Renko. "Da. You have my sympathy."
      "Spaseeba, Yuri. I'm afraid that it was not an iso-
lated incident, however."  "No?"
    Vasiliev had lost his smile, replaced with an ex-
pression that was neutral, solemn, stopping just short
of a frown. "There have been incidents in Turkey,"
he continued. "Vladimir Mikhasevich is dead, along
with Kenan Bey and a considerable number of his
men."
  "And you believe the incidents are linked?"
    "I'm sure of it," Vasiliev replied, "since the at-
tacks began in Georgia earlier today."
    Renko could only frown at that. The militsiya no
longer had any jurisdiction in the Balkan republics, but
he tried to keep track of their criminal trends, on the
theory that problems from one district were likely to
infect others. He had been unaware of the events Vas-
iliev described, and Renko didn't enjoy being the last
one to know.




  "Attacks?"
     "Assassinations, bombings, arson." There was no
 animation in Vasiliev's voice. He could have been dis-
 cussing items on a grocery list, instead of violent acts
 directed at his own subordinates. "Ivan had asked for
 help."
     That made it serious, thought Renko. If Ivan Stor-
 zhenko needed help to crush an enemy, the man---or
 men--involved must be a prodigious fighter.
     "You believe the trouble may be on its way to Mos-
 cow," he suggested, cutting to the chase.
    "If Ivan fails to stop it in Tbilisi, anything is pos-
sible." Vasiliev was frowning now, the effort carving
furrows in his cheeks beneath the sunlamp tan. "In
that event I'll need your full cooperation to contain
and minimize the damage."
    "It would help," said Renko, "if I knew who was
responsible."
    "Indeed! I'm hoping you may be of some assistance
with that aspect of the problem," said Vasiliev.
    "You don't know who it is?" Renko felt laughter
rising in his throat, but swallowed it before it could
escape.
      "Unfortunately, no. From the techniques employed,
the range involved, it may be an official effort."
  "The Americans?"
    Vasiliev considered that, then shook his head. "Not
CIA," he said. "It's not their style. Frankly I doubt
they could coordinate this kind of effort with their
present capabilities."  "Then who?"
  "Yuri, I'd hoped that something might occur to

you. There may be someone you can ask, some avenue
of exploration that is closed to me."
    A notion came to Renko, tugging at the comers of
his mouth, but he was quick enough to hide the smile.
"There may be something I can do," he said at last.
  "I hope so. It would naturally mean a bonus."
  "I will do my best."
    "As always," said Vasiliev, recapturing his smile.
"I shall look forward to heating from you. And,
please, take your time with the girl. Consider her a
token of my friendship."
  "Very well," the colonel said. "If you insist."

"YOU'VE CONFIRMED the reinforcements?" Bolan
asked.
    Gromylko nodded, sipped his coffee, sat back in one
of the hotel room's straight-backed wooden chairs.
David McCarter occupied the other, while other mem-
bers of the team sat on the bed or on the floor.
    "It's definite," Gromylko said. "A charter flight
from Moscow landed half an hour ago. There were
eighteen men on board, with luggage. As a private
charter flight, their baggage was checked through
without the usual security precautions."
    "Meaning they brought hardware," Gary Manning
said.
  "I am inclined to think so, yes."
    "We must have hurt Storzhenko, if he's called the
cavalry," said Calvin James.
    "One way to look at it," said Bolan. "On the flip
side, if he's got reserves up the wazoo, there's only
so much damage we can do."


      "Unless we wrap it up and take him out right now,"
 McCarter said. "He won't be calling anybody then."
   "We'll have to pin him down," said Bolan.
  "I believe I've done that," Gromylko interjected.
  "Oh?"
     "Ivan Storzhenko owns a small block of apartments
 in the northwest corner of Tbilisi. One whole floor is
 his--the top floor, I believe--with the remaining fiats
 reserved for his security detachment. They'll be dou-
 bling up now, with the Muscovites in town...unless
 they've lost so many men that they have vacancies to
 spare."
    The Executioner considered it. He shared the sense
of urgency his comrades felt, a need to finish up the
Georgian end of their campaign and take the war
where it belonged, directly to the doorstep of Vasiliev
and company in Moscow. It would call for one last
push, and with Storzhenko's army reinforced by new,
fresh guns, but he could think of no good reason to
delay the move.
    "How many soldiers does this give Storzhenko,
with the new bunch?" Bolan asked Gromylko.
    The lieutenant shrugged. "I've only seen the basic
numbers estimated, anywhere from sixty-five to
eighty," he replied. "Assume that we've eliminated
roughly half the men he started with, then add back
the eighteen. He should have fifty soldiers, maybe
sixty."
    "Damn." Encizo's smile wasn't reflected in his
tone of voice. "And here I thought we had been mak-
ing progress."
  "You were right," Bolan said. "Sixty soldiers

doesn't mean he's got them all together. Even granting
that he'll have a solid force around his digs, Stor-
zhenko still has other enterprises in the city he'll be
wanting to protect. We haven't swept the list yet, and
he'll have to spread the guns around, unless he plans
on sacrificing everything he has."
    "We'd better do it while we can," Gary Manning
commented. "If he thinks about it long enough, there
may be more planes on the way."
    "Agreed," said Bolan. "Anybody think we ought
to try some other way?"
    He had expected no dissenting votes, and got none.
Bolan knew that no one on his team was thrilled by
the idea of storming yet another hardsite, facing killer
odds again, but Manning was correct in saying that
delays might only make things worse. Another couple
planeloads of imported mercenaries, and they might
lose any chance they had of taking out Storzhenko. He
might even slip away while they were busy hitting
peripheral targets around Tbilisi.
  It was time to finish what they started, and move
on.
  "All right," Bolan said, "let's get it done."




CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 Ivan Storzhenko lit a Turkish cigarette and inhaled
 deeply, savoring the taste. The nicotine should soothe
 him, but he wasn't convinced that it would be enough.
 He needed alcohol to speed the process up, but that
 could be a fatal error. There was every chance that he
 would need his wits about him in the next few hours,
 and if that meant suffering anxiety along the way, so
 be it.
    It was better now that he had troops from Moscow.
They wouldn't entirely replace the men that he had
lost, but another eighteen guns was bound to help. He
had assigned the new men to key pieces of his prop-
erty around Tbilisi, using them to free up more famil-
iar veterans of his own brigade for palace duty, to
protect himself. It was a selfish act, of course, but what
else was there? He hadn't been working, fighting all
these years, to sacrifice himself without good reason,
to an unknown enemy. The rest of it could be re-
placed--the cars and buildings, contraband, even the
soldiers--but without a leader, it was all in vain, a
total waste.
    The old apartment block wasn't a large one. It had
fifteen units, with a ground-floor laundry room and

carport at the back. Storzhenko occupied the top floor,
three flats joined by knocking out the intervening walls
and sealing off two of the original doors. The top floor
was accessible by stairs or elevator, and he now had
gunmen watching both, while others occupied the
lower floors and took turns standing watch around the
clock. Throughout the building he had twenty-seven
soldiers, each one totally prepared to die in his de-
fense.
 Storzhenko hoped that it would be enough.
    He normally undressed for bed, but he had grave
doubts as to whether he would sleep this night. A
woman might have helped, or maybe two, but he
wouldn't risk letting any strangers past his personal
defenses while his enemies were still at large. For all
he knew, they might have ways of tracking him, and
if they found him here...
 Then that would be the end of it.
    Ivan Storzhenko had enough self-confidence to
think that he could pull it off if only he could meet
the men who hunted him. While he wasn't invinci-
ble-no man on earth could make that claim--he was
experienced enough to know the tricks that kept a man
alive in mortal combat with a ruthless enemy. At forty-
two, he had already buried most of those who thought
they could destroy him. Two or three were still alive,
but they had fled for parts unknown, while those who
aided them went down in flames.
    Storzhenko's weapons were laid out on the coffee
table before him, a Makarov semiautomatic pistol to
the left, with a Skorpion beside it and a folding-stock
Katashnikov next in line. He was taking no chances;




 spare magazines for each weapon were stacked up at
 both ends of the table and ready to go. Theoretically
 he could hold off an army without leaving his couch,
 but Storzhenko knew there would be more to it than
 that, when the shooting started.  If it started.
     A part of him still hoped his enemies might miss
 him, run into his soldiers somewhere in the city and
 be killed before they ever got this far. It was a long
 shot, he decided, but still possible.
    They were determined, ruthless men, these faceless
strangers who were stalking him. He knew that much,
and harbored grudging admiration for the way they
had cut through his army so far, like a sword through
paper. Given half a chance, he would have hired the
bastards and promoted them to be his private body-
guards and hunters.
    Storzhenko knew that that would never happen,
though.
    His unknown enemies were fixated on crushing him,
perhaps the family he served, but it would hardly mat-
ter where they went or what they did once he was
dead. Storzhenko couldn't think beyond himself, had
never tried, and saw no reason why he should begin
tonight.
    He reached out for a weapon, chose the Skorpion
and placed it in his lap. That done, he settled back to
watch and wait.

THERE WAS A SENTRY on the roof, and it came as no
surprise to Bolan. Storzhenko hadn't lived this long
among his fellow predators by letting simple details

slide. He had two other guards outside, downstairs,
with one in front and one in back. Eliminating them
was but the first step in dismantling his defenses and
getting to the man himself.
    Hawk lay beside Bolan in the darkness, watching as
the sentry walked his beat around the broad, flat roofi
There was an air-conditioning unit up there, along with
a satellite dish and a small, shedlike structure that
would offer access to the stairs and floors below. The
sentry walked and smoked and kept his eyes wide
open, carrying an AK-47 in the crook of one arm. If
he was bored or sleepy, he concealed it well.
    Each pass the sentry made brought him within ten
paces of the Executioner and Hawkins. They were
stretched out prone on the adjacent roof, due west of
the apartment block Storzhenko had appropriated for
himself. Both men were dressed in black, their hands
and faces darkened with combat cosmetics, their
weapons, extra magazines and hand grenades secured
by military webbing. Bolan's wristwatch showed they
still had forty seconds left before the others would
begin their probe downstairs.
  And that meant it was time to go.
    "My treat," Hawk whispered, drawing a Beretta
autoloader from the tied-down holster on his thigh. It
had a chunky silencer attached, and since it was a
double-action weapon, Hawkins didn't have to risk the
sharp metallic sound of drawing back the hammer with
his thumb.
    He waited for the sentry to complete another round
and move back into easy range. The shooter's cigarette
glowed like an ember in the darkness, but his face




 seemed blurred and gray, almost devoid of human fea-
 tures as he walked his lonely beat. They couldn't see
 the eyes dart back and forth, in search of enemies that
 he would never see in time to save himself.
     There was no more than twenty feet between them
 when the black Beretta snorted once, its pop remind-
 ing Bolan of an air gun. The parabeilum round went
 in on target, snapped the soldier's head back, stag-
 gered him, before his legs gave out and dumped him
 on his back. The AK47 spun away from lifeless fin-
 gers, clattering across the roof.
    Would that noise have been audible downstairs? It
was unlikely, with the intervening layers of stucco,
wood, tar paper, metal, insulation, but there was an
outside chance that someone may have heard it. What
if this sentry had been scheduled for replacement? His
relief could be approaching, climbing up the stairs
fight now, this very minute.
    Bolan was moving by the time the thought took
shape, Hawk right beside him as they dropped onto
the lower roof and scuttled past the sentry's corpse. It
was a waste of time and energy to check for vital
signs. Downstairs the others would be moving in, a
three-man team out front, another team in the back,
their watches synchronized. Delays were more than
risky now--they were potentially disastrous.
    Bolan wore his AK47 on a shoulder sling, braced
in a tight one-handed grip as he reached out to find
the doorknob. It turned at once, a small convenience
that would come back to haunt Storzhenko now. If
Bolan had been placed in charge of site security, he
would have had that door secured from the inside.

There was no outer keyhole, and the metal door was
fairly solid. By the time they blasted through it, every-
one downstairs would be on full alert.
 Unless someone forgot to lock it, fight.
    The door swung back on well-oiled hinges, granting
access to the stairs. There was a dim light down below,
but it did little to relieve the darkness of the staircase.
Bolan led the way, with one hand on the metal railing
bolted to the wall beside him, while the other gripped
his weapon. Hawkins followed cautiously, a few steps
back, prepared for anything. The light below seemed
brighter once they were within the deeper darkness of
the stairwell, but it was a matter of degree. The cast
of shadows placed it somewhere off to Bolan's left,
with only darkness to the right. He didn't know if there
were lookouts down there waiting for him, but the
only way to find out was to move ahead and check it
out.
    The stairs were made of concrete, with lateral strips
of some substance that felt like sandpaper added for
better traction. Bolan walked on the balls of his feet
to avoid scraping sounds, still sliding one hand down
the banister as he progressed. He didn't check on
Hawkins, knowing T. J. would be right behind him all
the way.
    When he was nearly at the bottom, Bolan's ears
picked up the muted sound of voices coming from his
left, in the direction of the light. He paused, glanced
back at Hawkins, and the Phoenix warrior nodded, in-
dicating he heard them, too.
    Bolan released the metal banister and gripped his
AK-47 in both hands. Another three steps down, and




he would be exposed to anyone who occupied the cor-
ridor. His only hope, from that point on, was the ad-
vantage of surprise.
 He took a breath and walked into the light.

 MCCARTER STEPPED ACROSS the prostrate body of the
gunman who had been detailed to watch the rear of
the apartment house. A neat hole in the middle of the
dead man's forehead made it look almost as if he had
three eyes, all staring blankly at the dark sky overhead.
McCarter slipped his silent pistol back into its armpit
holster and continued toward the back door, their point
of entry to the building.
    It was locked, but Manning beat it in ten seconds
flat, a poor lock that surrendered quickly to his picks.
Storzhenko seemingly put more faith in his soldiers
than in hardware when it came down to security.
McCarter waited for the tall Canadian to enter first,
then followed him inside.
    The laundry room was on their left, unoccupied,
four washers and two dryers standing silently against
the stucco walls. McCarter double-checked the room
to make sure no one had been overlooked, a lurker
who would pop out and surprise them when their
backs were turned. That done, they moved along a
corridor that took them past a smallish recreation
room, a billiard table standing unattended, with the
lights off. There was noise ahead of them, a radio or
television set, male voices talking over it, as if in the
midst of some friendly dispute.
    McCarter was shoulder4o-shoulder with Manning
as they closed in on their targets, moving silently

along the corridor. No need to check his watch again
to know that it was time--the others would be in the
house by now and ready to begin their sweep. If some-
thing had delayed them, it was still McCarter's duty
to proceed on schedule, get the action rolling and nail
as many of the Russian gunners as he could.
    Ahead of them, on Manning's left, a door stood
open, spilling light into the hallway. From the looks
of it, the glimpse McCarter had, it may have been the
rental office at one time, converted into security cen-
tral when Storzhenko took over the flats. Two men
were standing in the room, a third one seated, watch-
ing a karate tournament on a portable TV. They took
tums jeering at the tiny fighters, sometimes striking
poses, demonstrating how they would have handled
this or that maneuver if they had been battling in the
ring. McCarter couldn't understand their words, but
their clumsy gestures told him they were talking crap.
    The former SAS man cleared his throat and tapped
the muzzle of his AK-47 twice against the doorjamb,
grinning broadly as the three heads snapped around.
Both rifles stuttered, rattling off short bursts that
crossed, diverged and then came back again to drop
the jerking, twitching soldiers where they stood. Spent
casings pattered on the carpeting around McCarter's
feet, while the reports of gunfire echoed in his ears.
    McCafret turned to face the sound of running feet,
Manning beside him, and they met another pair of
gunmen bursting from the door of an apartment two
doors farther down the hallway, on the right. Both men
had slacks on, one bare-chested, running in his socks,




 the other with a long-sleeved shirt unbuttoned, flap-
 ping, barefoot on the carpet.
    Mr. Topless had an Uzi, cocking it as he camo into
view, while Barefoot pumped the slide on what ap-
peared to be a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun. Both of
them stopped short as they caught sight of the intrud-
ers, breaking off to either side and lowering their
weapons into target acquisition as they tried to save
themselves.
    McCarter went down firing, braced on knees and
elbows as he hit the carpet in a prone position, while
the shotgun hammered at him, buckshot swarming
overhead like angry bees. His bullets stitched the bare-
foot gunner in a ragged line from groin to solar plexus,
slammed him over backward in a lifeless sprawl.
    The topless gunner got a short burst off at Manning,
but his haste resulted in the bullets going high and
wide, etching a zigzag pattern on the wall. Before the
shooter could correct his faulty aim, a burst from the
Canadian's AK tore through his chest and dropped
him to his knees. He toppled slowly forward, leaning
on the Uzi like a stubby walking stick and firing half
a magazine into the floor as he collapsed.
    The corridor smelled powerfully of cordire and was
littered with spent casings as McCarter scrambled to
his feet. The old, familiar sights and smells were en-
ergizing, driving him to hun3~. With Manning at his
side, he stepped around the sprawling bodies and ig-
nored the squelching sound his own feet made on
blood-soaked carpeting. Explosive sounds of gunfire
reached his ears from the direction of the street in
front, and muffled noise from somewhere overhead

told him the other members of his team were on the
job, engaging hostile troops.
    McCarter checked his rifle's magazine, replaced it
with a fresh one and went off to find the war.

STORZHENKO CROUCHED behind the sofa, wincing as
the pistol in his pocket gouged him through the fabric
of his slacks. He held the AK-47 with its muzzle
braced across the low back of the couch, aimed toward
the door of his apartment, where his enemies would
have to enter if they wanted him. No matter what went
on outside the flat, no matter how many of his de-
fenders were cut down, Storzhenko's adversaries had
to see him face-to-face if they meant to finish it.
    Unless they used explosive charges or set the place
on fire. Tear gas could flush him out, or maybe smoke
grenades.
    Whatever happened, he wasn't about to make it
easy for them. They would have to kill his body-
guards, then force their way into his flat and deal with
him. Storzhenko would admit that he was out of prac-
tice when it came to killing, but the act itself was
much like making love or pedaling a bicycle: once you
learned how to do it, no one ever really lost the knack.
It came back in a flash, with all the old self-confidence
that seemed to make the years melt from his shoulders,
just like that.
    Storzhenko squinted over gun sights, covering the
door, and wondered what was keeping them. Perhaps
his men were better than he thought, and they were
winning, driving the invaders back. It seemed too
much to hope for, after all the damage he had suffered




 lately, since the faceless enemies began the raids
 around Tbilisi. It had come to this, Storzhenko cor-
 nered in his own apartment, while the soldiers he had
 begged from Moscow sat around a warehouse and the
 office of a trucking company he had suspected would
 be tempting targets for his enemies. But then, they had
 made their own plans.
    Storzhenko grimaced at the smell of smoke, afraid
the house was burning, but he recognized the stench
of cordire in another moment, welcoming the recog-
nition with a measure of reliefi At least he didn't have
to flee his hiding place just yet. The battle was not
finished. There was still a chance his chosen body-
guards might earn the bonus he had promised to the
ones who laid the lifeless bodies of his enemies before
him.
    It might not be enough, of course. His men were
mostly peasant bullies, if he thought about it seriously.
They were killers, certainly, but they had grown ac-
customed to confronting others like themselves or
spineless hustlers who had stolen from the family. But
those situations required more brawn than brains. If
they were matched against trained soldiers now, or the
equivalent, Storzhenko couldn't be assured of victory.
Or of survival.
    When he realized that he was frightened, it enraged
Ivan Storzhenko. He hadn't acknowledged fear since
he was nine or ten years old, the first time he had
fought a larger, older boy with knives. Fear was a
weakness, sometimes fatal in its consequences. If he
gave in to it now, Storzhenko knew he might not live
to see another day.

    The shock wave of a powerful explosion shook the
building, brought a large oil portrait crashing down
behind Storzhenko, while the smell of cordire from the
hallway mixed with something else--a similar aroma
but distinct. Not Semtex, he decided; that would smell
like marzipan. Perhaps a hand grenade or dynamite.
    Outside his flat someone was hitting high notes, cry-
ing out in agony. He was certain his troops were not
armed with hand grenades or other explosives, since
he didn't want them bringing down the house or bring-
ing in police if it could possibly be helped. That meant
the blast had been touched off by one of his assailants,
that the enemy was better armed than his defenders.
    And it meant they didn't give a damn what hap-
pened with the cops as long as they wreaked havoc
on Storzhenko and his men. They would do anything
to reach him, anything to bring him down.
    Ivan Storzhenko almost panicked in that moment,
but he caught himself before the fear could run amok
and send him racing out of the apartment. It was time
for him to flee--no doubt about it. But he couldn't
rush madly through the hallways, down the stairs,
much less stand waiting for the elevator like a station-
ary target. He would need a plan, and he admitted that
his options were distinctly limited if he intended to
survive.
    At that moment survival was the most important
thing on earth to Ivan Storzhenko. He didn't think
about Vasiliev or his duty to the Thieves' Society.
Self-preservation was the only problem on his mind.
He mustn't let himself be killed or captured by his
faceless enemies.




    Step one was getting out, but he would have to do
it carefully, no slipups. One false step, Storzhenko re-
alized, and he was dead.
    Reluctantly he stood up from behind the couch and
started moving toward the door.

FOUR SENTRIES on the front, all armed with automatic
weapons, but Calvin James had the feeling none of
them really believed they would be called upon to
fight, much less to die. He saw it in their attitudes,
when they first glimpsed him barging through the
door, with Rafael Encizo and Gromylko close behind
him, recognition of their sudden danger wiping smug
grins off their faces as they grappled with their weap-
ons, trying to defend themselves.  Too late.
    Converging streams of fire from three Kalashnikovs
ripped through them, tossed their bodies left and right
like crash-test dummies. Blood was spattered on the
walls in a random pattern around the lobby.
    "That tears it," James remarked. He was clad in a
nightsuit and his military webbing, all in black.
    As if in answer to his words, he heard rough, ex-
cited voices drawing swiftly closer. Five or six men,
by the sound of it, though he couldn't be sure until
they showed themselves. James turned to face a hall-
way running straight back from the lobby, toward the
rear part of the building, where he knew that Manning
and McCarter should have made their way inside by
now. Upstairs the last two members of their team
should have penetrated to the interior, unless stopped
by resistance.

    No time to think about the others, as the enemy
came into view. He counted seven guns before they
all cut loose at once, and he was forced to dive for
cover near the bank of mailboxes and hunched down
behind a potted palm.
    The racket in the lobby almost deafened him, with
ten guns blasting all at once. It seemed miraculous that
anyone survived the first five seconds of that roaring
fusillade, but everyone appeared to be intact when
Calvin James poked his head around the stout base of
the palm to look for targets.
    The defenders had already recognized their weak-
ness, having charged into the lobby with no thought
for cover, trusting speed and firepower to sweep their
enemies before them. When it failed and bullets started
flying back the other way, they found themselves ex-
posed, like lizards sunning on a rock. The lobby had
been long since stripped of furniture, and there was
nowhere they could hide unless they drew back
through the corridor that had delivered them to danger
in the first place.
    Picking out his mark, James fired a short burst from
his AK-47, feeling hasty, doubting he would score un-
til he saw file burst of scarlet from the gunman's hip
and watched him fall. Cursing and sobbing with the
pain, his target tried to drag himself across the floor,
back toward the hallway and the only hope he had of
getting out alive. James aimed this time, and sent an-
other 3-round burst to finish it. The wounded soldier
shuddered on impact, then collapsed like an empty suit
of clothes.




    Incoming bullets clipped palm fronds above James's
head and rattled on the wall behind him, pale dust
streaming down from divots in the stucco. Ducking
low, he let loose a burst, and heard Gromylko call out
a warning as he cocked his arm to pitch a hand gre-
nade. James ducked back under cover, tried to brace
himself in preparation for the blast and still felt as if
someone had slapped cupped palms over both his ears
with stunning force.
    He knew the screams that followed were not coming
from a distance, but they sounded that way to his ring-
ing ears. He risked a glance around the smoky waste-
!and of the lobby first, then rose from cover, following
the muzzle of his AK-47 toward the point where bod-
ies thrashed and wriggled on the floor.
    They might be dying--there was blood enough for
him to think so---but he couldn't take the chance. If
even one of them survived, came up behind him when
he was distracted, fighting someone else, he would be
finished. All of them could die if he showed any mercy
to the wounded now.
    James started firing at those bodies on the floor, saw
bullets striking flesh, dark blood exploding from the
wounds. The sound of his own weapon was remote
and muffled, but he felt its lethal power pulsing
through his arms and shoulders. Someone else was at
his side now, also firing, but he didn't look to see who
it might be. Encizo or Gromylko, maybe both of them
together, helping with the brutal, heartless task of
making sure.
    A cautious adversary could have killed James then,
but there was none to try it. Moments later they

sighted figures moving down the hallway through a
haze of gun smoke, drawing closer. It was Manning
and McCarter, finished with their bloody work out
back. Grim faces smeared with greasepaint, none of
them was inclined to smile. And when James sought
out the RussJan's face, he saw Gromylko looking
blood-weary but determined.
    No words were necessary as James turned and
moved in the direction of the stairs.

T~E FRAG GRENADE OPENED jagged holes in the hall-
way walls and ceiling, shrapnel ripping into plaster
and flesh with abandon at ground zero. Bolan heard
one of the gunners wail as he was airborne, flung
against a wall by the concussion of the blast. The Ex-
ecutioner was moving out before the echoes died
away, his AK47 seeking targets, Hawkins coming up
to join him from the far side of the corridor.
    They had shot three men before the reinforcements
started charging up the stairwell at the far end of the
hall, unloading aimlessly with everything they had.
Now Bolan counted seven bodies in the hallway, three
of them still moving fitfully, despite their ghastly
wounds.
    One slumped against a wall, legs folded under him
at awkward angles, kneeling in a pool of blood. He
still clung to a lightweight submachine gun, though,
and he was trying desperately to lift it from the floor
beside him as he saw his enemies approaching through
the haze of smoke. His muscles weren't responding,
and his time ran out as Hawkins fired a short burst




 from the hip, a stream of bullets tipping through the
 shirt already stained with blood and ending it.
    The other two who still showed signs of life were
both on Bolan's side: one on all fours, head hanging
like a wounded animal, and the other lying on his side,
braced up on one elbow, reaching for a pistol several
feet in front of him.
    A short burst from the AK-47 nailed the gunner,
slapped him over on his back and left him there. The
other looked up through a screen of blood that
streamed from ragged wounds along his hairline, find-
ing strength and guts enough to snarl before he died.
    The way was open. Bolan headed for the one apart-
ment door that he could see, with Hawk beside him
all the way. He didn't try the knob, but hosed it down
with automatic fire and watched it swing open. Charg-
ing forward, Bolan went in low and fast, expecting
hostile fire and feeling bullets fan the air above him
as he powered through a shoulder roll, came up behind
a heavy easy chair. He was aware of Hawkins enter~
ing, a short burst from his friend's Kalashnikov re-
sponding to the fire that emanated from behind a long,
plush sofa.
    There was no point trying to communicate with the
godfather of Tbilisi. Language barriers aside, he had
no information Bolan needed, and their time was run-
ning short. The task was to root out Storzhenko in the
time they had, instead of letting him delay them while
police rushed to the scene. It took about a quarter of
a second for the Executioner to make his choice.
  "Grenade," he said.
 Hawk crouched behind a matching easy chair, some

twenty feet away from Bolan and to his right. "Let's
make it two," he said.
    They made the pitch in unison, hunched down be-
hind their makeshift barriers and waited through the
countdown, heard Storzhenko give a cry of panic as
he vaulted to his feet and tried to reach the nearby
bedroom door.
  He almost made it.
    Then twin blasts hit like a massive one-two punch,
upending and smashing him against the nearest wall.
Storzhenko's body left a crimson imprint before he
slithered to the floor. With all that blood, the way his
head was cocked at a crazy angle, Bolan didn't have
to check his pulse to see if he was done.  Scratch one gorilla.
  "Is everyone okay in there?"
    McCarter's voice came through the open doorway
to the corridor. His face appeared seconds later, after
Bolan's, "All clear."
  "Storzhenko?" Gromylko asked.
  "He's wallpaper," answered Hawkins.
    "We should probably be going, then," McCarter
said.
    And he was tight. It was a long way to Moscow,
and they weren't finished with their job. In fact, if
Bolan didn't miss his guess, the worst of it was yet to
come.




CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The phone call from Tbilisi awakened Gregori Vasi-
liev at 3:15 a.m. He didn't bother cursing at the young
man on the other end for the delay. There had appar-
ently been much for him to do, and he was still dis-
oriented by Storzhenko's murder. Overall, Vasiliev
considered it a wonder he was notified before he read
about it in the morning newspaper.
    Storzhenko's death depressed Vasiliev. They
weren't friends, in any normal sense of the word, but
he had been counting on Storzhenko to prevent their
common enemies from penetrating Russia if they took
the Georgian route. Now he had failed and lost his
life--along with close to thirty soldierswin the pro-
cess. That left more than sixty dead in Georgia, adding
to the carnage that Vasiliev had suffered since the
morning when his brother died.
    But his losses looked bad, and those who doubted
his ability to lead would start to talk among themselves
before much longer, if they hadn't already. He would
have to watch his back, henceforth, as well as hunt for
the strangers who had come to stalk him from outside.
    The last thing that he needed was a two-front war.
It would be best if he could trace his adversaries now

and wipe them out, before the shock waves from Stor-
zhenko's death emboldened his so-called comrades to
take some hostile action of their own. He had an edge,
a few more hours, but it was foolish to believe that he
could track the strangers down in that amount of time,
when they had managed to elude him for this long.
    They would be on their way to Russia; that was
obvious. They hadn't gone to all this trouble, traveled
this far from America, to kill Ivan Storzhenko and his
men, then turn around and go back home. But if Vas-
iliev couldn't prevent them from coming after him, at
least he could be ready for the sons of whores when
they arrived. His troops would be on full alert, and so
would his confederates in the militsiya.
    He trusted Yuri Renko just as far as he could see
the colonel, which was anywhere in Russia, if he
wanted to. The mafiya had eyes and ears throughout
the country and beyond. If Renko tried to trick him--
hold back crucial information, for example--then Vas-
iliev would soon find out, and Yuri would regret the
day he was born. An officer who kept his nose clean
and opposed the Thieves' Society was one thing, an
expected risk of doing business, but one who took cash
from Vasiliev and then failed to deliver on demand
was asking for a one-way ticket to the slaughterhouse.
    In fact, Vasiliev wasn't concerned that Renko might
betray him. Rather, he was worried that the informa-
tion he required might lie beyond the colonel's reach.
If Renko tried his best and still came up with nothing,
he was useless, and the problem of defending Moscow
would become that much more complicated.
 Vasiliev would count on the militsiya to do its best




when trouble started, but the force had no real training
in guerrilla warfare. Their elite strike force was pat-
temed on the SWAT teams in America, recruiting of-
ricers with military training, preferably with Spetsnaz,
but they were primarily employed against drug labs
and houses or in neighborhoods where gangs terror-
ized the old people. Vasiliev had no idea how they
would fare in confrontation with committed, well
trained soldiers, mercenaries or whatever else his ad-
versaties might turn out to be.
    Of course, it could be helpful if a few young officers
were killed. That made it personal, and it would drive
the rest into a frenzy, while he could sit back and
watch the fun.
    Still, it would be better for his reputation if he could
solve the problem on his own, present the heads of his
assailants to the Thieves' Society at large. There
would be no doubt of his competence when that was
done, and any bastard who attempted to depose him
would be doomed before he started.
    Either way, though, Gregori Vasiliev intended to
survive. Whatever it required, he would not let mali-
cious strangers rob him of his life or of the empire he
had built from nothing with his own two hands. They
had already killed his brother, along with Ivan Stor-
zhenko and a rising number of his soldiers.
 It was time--past time--for them to pay.

IT TOOK SOME DIGGING, but the facts were there just
waiting for him. All he had to do was ask the proper
questions in the proper way, and give a twist to certain
arms when no one else was looking. Yuri Renko was

a master at coercion, whether it was physical or the
subtle, office-politics variety. His years in the militsiya
had taught him which toes he could step on with im-
punity and which he must avoid. He only needed
ninety minutes of concerted effort to discover Leonid
Gromylko's mission.
    He had been curious at first, when the lieutenant
was dispatched to Turkey, but it was a sweet relief to
have him gone, if only for a few short days. Renko
assumed that the special assignment had been busy-
work to keep Gromylko occupied and help him cope
with his partner's death. Of course, that was before the
violence had broken out in Istanbul.
    It could have been coincidence, but then came
Georgia. Quite by accident, Renko had seen a copy of
a memo to the general in charge of his division, lying
on the general's desk while Renko was reporting pro-
gress on another case. One of the tricks he had ac-
quired through years of practice was the art of reading
upside down.
    The memo said that Gromylko was in transit to Tbi-
lisi.
    That had been two days ago, and Renko had dis-
missed the matter from his mind...until Vasiliev had
briefed him on the raids in Georgia and Storzhenko's
death. It seemed to Renko more than mere coincidence
that Gromylko should be in two countries where a sud-
den rash of violence wiped out local operations of the
Chechen mafiya. That kind of circumstance smelled of
conspiracy, and with pressure from Vasiliev to urge
him on, Renko had begun to sniff around headquarters,
looking for a weak point where he could apply the




necessary leverage to prove his theory either right or
wrong.
    As luck would have it, an assistant to the general's
private secretary had a dirty little secret that he didn't
care to advertise. The facts were known to Renko, but
he reassured the corporal that they would be known
to no one else...as long as he cooperated in a search
for certain information vital to the maintenance of
state security. The young man had been happy to
oblige, and thus Renko had learned of Gromylko's
mission to collaborate with the Americans in an attack
upon the Thieves' Society.
    Renko still had no ID on the Americans, but he
knew the link must be official. The militsiya was
working with the FBI these days, and while this kind
of operation didn't fit the Bureau's style, there was no
end of secret agencies controlled from Washington.
The colonel knew that much from what he had been
taught before the Russian system fell apart and com-
munism was declared obsolete. If things had changed
in Russia, though, it didn't follow automatically that
the Americans had changed their stripes. The only dif-
ference was that the Russian state was opening its
doors to Western gunmen in an effort to control the
mafiya.
    In other circumstances Renko might have welcomed
the assistance, even cheered them on, but he had taken
too much money from Vasiliev and his associates to
sneak by with a posture of neutrality. The godfather
demanded information he could use to stop the hit
team, and now Renko had enough to get him started.
Itwould cost his life if he couldn't deliver on demand.

    The bright side of the situation was that he could
be rid of Gromylko once and for all. Renko was sick
of the man's holier-than-thou approach to fighting
crime, the pretense that he never felt temptation in his
dealings with the syndicate, the easy money that con-
fronted ranking officers of the militsiya from day to
day. Before his partner died, the two of them had been
insufferable, always trying to outdo the rest of the di-
vision with their drug arrests and harassing business-
men who would be better left alone. There had been
no way to restrain them, short of taking action that
would leave Renko exposed for what he was, but he
had celebrated in his heart the night Alexei Churbanov
was killed.
    Gromylko had been different since it happened,
more reserved, as if uncertain what he should do next.
Now Renko understood his strategy: the bastard had
been waiting for his chance to pull out all the stops,
and it had been delivered to him on a silver platter,
courtesy of the Americans. But he wasn't done yet.
    If Yuri Renko had his way, Gromylko's triumph
would be brief.
    The maverick lieutenant was an accident waiting to
happen, and it was about to happen.
 Soon.

Voroshilovgrad

THE tONG DRIVE rqORt, was a concession to security.
There had been too much paperwork involved in char-
tering a plane, with customs waiting when they got to




Moscow, and the hardware they were hauling would
defy explanation. The result was a trip that would have
taken them three hours tops by air was taking them
two days. Over a thousand miles from Georgia north
to Moscow, three men per car, and all of them alert
to any sign of trouble on the road.
    They found a take-out restaurant in Voroshilovgrad
and sent Gromylko in to order. He came back with
roasted chicken, potatoes, steaming cups of coffee and
a pint of medicinal vodka. They pulled over at a rest
stop on the edge of town, and wolfed the meal while
talking over plans for Moscow and sipping coffee.
    The basic plan was simple: find their marks in Mos-
cow and start kicking ass till someone squealed. They
had cooperation of a sort from the militia, through
Gromylko and the brass behind him, but the state po-
lice couldn't be seen to stand aloof while blood was
flowing in the streets. They would be going through
the motions of preventing further violence, and since
no more than a handful of the ranking officers had any
clue to what was happening, it stood to reason that the
street cops Bolan and his people met in Moscow
would he deadly serious about their jobs.
Which meant that it was not so simple after all.
Police aside, they knew that Gregori Vasiliev had
been aware of trouble since his brother bought the
farm more than a week ago. The hits in Turkey and
in Georgia gave the Chechen godfather a fair idea
where his enemies were coming from, and their long
drive to Moscow gave him two more days in which
to strengthen his defenses, batten down his hatches for
the coming storm. He had dispatched a squad of re-

inforcements to Tbilisi, indicating that the Moscow
mob had men and guns to spare. Whatever happened
once they hit the Russian capital, there was no ques-
tion of an easy victory.
    The Phoenix team was clear on Bolan's absolute
refusal to use deadly force against police, regardless
of their nationality, political philosophy or their in-
volvement in corrupt activities. Another time and
place, he might have made a personal exception for
Gestapo agents, but the rule was carved in stone as far
as Bolan was concerned.
    As for the others, they were free to make the rules
up as they went along.
    "What kind of heat can we expect from the mili-
tia?" Manning asked when he was finished with his
meal.
    Gromylko frowned. "I'm acting under orders," he
replied, "but they are strictly confidential. It would be
a grave mistake to look for help from the authorities."
    "More plausible deniability," McCarter said, and
sipped his coffee.
    "Hell, you can't expect the government to 'less up
on a deal like this," Calvin James added. "Ours damn
sure wouldn't, if the shoe was on the other foot."
    "I still don't fancy getting shot down by the same
blokes who invited us," McCarter said.
    "Consider it a challenge." Hawk was grinning as
he spoke.
    "I will," McCarter acknowledged. "It's enough to
make one nervous, though. I don't like being ner-
vous. ' '
  "I'd like to keep this job as clean as possible,"




Bolan remarked, "if we get the chance. Our target's
still the Chechen mob and Gregori Vasiliev."
    "Your comrade has a point, of course," Gromylko
said. "It's well-known that the Thieves' Society has
paid off some militsiya officers to look the other way,
or worse. Those who oppose us may be acting in ac-
cordance with their oath of duty, or they may have
other motives."
    "And there's no quick way to tell the two apart,"
McCarter said.
    "Unfortunately, no." Gromylko stared into his cof-
fee for a moment, then went on. "I would expect you
to protect yourselves at any cost."
    That silenced everyone for several seconds while
they thought about his words and what it must have
cost him, as an officer of the militia, just to say that
much.
    "Thanks for the warning," Bolan said. "And now
we should get a move on. We've still got at least nine
hours on the road."
    "And miles to go before we sleep," McCarter said.
'TI1 drive the next bit, if no one objects."
    "That makes it my turn," Calvin James said, speak-
ing for the second car.
    "You need your keffiyeh," Encizo reminded him,
putting on a grin.
    "I've got your keffiyeh right here," James an-
swered, smiling back.
    The sour mood was broken for the moment, but it
left the basic problem unresolved. When they were on
the spot in Moscow, and push came to shove, each
man would have a choice to make.

    And as always, on the killing ground it would come
down to each man for himselfi

"No womb?" Barbara Price asked.
    "Still on the road," Kurtzman replied. A touch of
the controls brought his wheelchair around to face her.
Kurtzman recognized the worry written on her face,
and knew she would prefer that he not see it. "We'll
hear something when they get to Moscow," he con-
cluded.
  "It was pretty clean in Georgia."
    "Clean, and then some," he agreed. "The big fish
won't be easy to replace. I had the sat-link up with
Interpol this morning. They were pleasantly surprised,
to say the least. Storzhenko was the number-four man
on their Top Ten list of narco dealers for the European
theater, but they could never catch him out of the
country. They'll be popping corks on this one--un-
officially, of course."
    That won a fleeting smile, but it was gone almost
before it had a chance to register. "I wish we had a
better in with the militia," Price said.
    "Me, too," Kurtzman agreed, "but they're all hung
up on rank. You know their man will only talk to
Hal."
    "Their man," she said. "That's just the problem.
Any time you get this kind of covert action, where the
left and right hands are completely out of sync, it's
flirting with disaster."
    She was right, of course, but it was nothing new. In
fact, considering the kind of operations run from Stony
Man, Kurtzman would have called it SOP.




    "Their man's a general, remember," Kurtzman
said. "If he can't pull it off--"
    "We're screwed," she finished for him. "I'd feel
better if the Russian outfit wasn't so well integrated
with the government and cops."
  "They wouldn't need us, otherwise," he said.
  "My point exactly."
    "What's the word on Able Team?" asked Kurtz-
man, hoping to distract her.
    "What? Oh, nothing new since last night's check-
in. Still in Guatemala City, waiting for their contact.
He's twelve hours overdue."
    The Able warriors had a job as dicey, in its own
way, as the mission that had drawn Mack Bolan and
the men of Phoenix Force to Russia, hunting fight-
wing narcotraficantes with a taste for terrorism that
included strikes at U.S. diplomats and tourists. They
were counting on assistance from a disaffected mem-
ber of the group, but he was running late for contact
now, and Kurtzman had a sneaking hunch that he was
history.
  "How long until their next check-in?" he asked.
    "They're coming up at 0900 hours," Price said.
"I'll take it if you want."
  He checked his watch. Another sixteen minutes.
      '"Kay. I'll grab some coffee or whatever, and come
back in half an hour."  "Fine."
    It was the waiting that could get you, Kurtzman
reflected as he wheeled himself past banks of monitors
and terminals, heading for the exit that would lead him
to the dining area. Working at the Farm, you didn't

face much risk of being killed in action--not these
days, at least--but there were other perils. Such as
watching from behind the lines as old friends put
themselves directly in harm's way, time after time,
when there was little you could do to help beyond
processing and coordinating information, answering
their questions from the field and manning sat-links
for intelligence around the clock. Sometimes you lost
one, but the war went on.
 The damn war had a way of always going on.
    Like now, for instance, putting his best friends in
the world out on the firing line.
 God keep, he thought, and then said it aloud.
 "God keep."

Voronezh

THEY HAD FINISHED nearly two-thirds of the drive to
Moscow, and the trip was wearing painfully on Gro-
mylko's nerves. It had been all fight up to now--a
strange, cathartic marathon of violence--but the closer
they approached to Moscow and his headquarters, the
more Gromylko felt that he had crossed a line.
  Perhaps it was the point of no return.
    All of his training, from the early days of childhood
to the military and his years with the militsiya, ran
counter to the orgy of destruction he had witnessed
and assisted in the past few days.
    And yet he felt no guilt. The feeling that kept nag-
ging at him was apprehension. He was worded about
what would happen when they got to Moscow,
whether the Americans or he would be compelled to




fire upon militsiya officers in the performance of their
duty.
    Granted, there were certain officers he knew, more
than a handful, who had sold their souls to Gregori
Vasiliev and company. Gromylko would not mind if
some of them were forcibly removed from office, but
the notion ran against his grain, for its implied insult
to the authority and the respectability of the militsiya.
No matter that the men in question brought dishonor
on themselves. They had defiled their uniform, as well,
and that brought shame on every honest man or
woman who was working overtime each day to help
restore the rule of law in Mother Russia.
    Gromylko had already made his mind up that he
wouldn't interfere if one of the Americans were forced
to shoot an officer in self-defense. He hoped it
wouldn't come to that, but his instructions from the
general had come with no proviso for abandoning the
mission if it started getting rough. The nature of the
struggle had presumably been understood before he
was dispatched to Istanbul. Accordingly it stood to
reason that his own superiors must know what to ex-
pect when he and his companions got to Moscow.
    They were counting on a fireworks show, but that
didn't mean he would be immune to criticism if the
game got out of hand. From long experience he knew
that the bureaucracy--in Russia, as in any other na-
tion--had an infinite capacity for shifting with the tide
of public sentiment, while politicians scrambled for
their lifeboats at the first sign of a storm cloud in the
sky. Someone had voted to approve the plan that put
him where he was, and someone else could just as

easily rescind it if the danger of embarrassment be-
came too great. In that case, the lieutenant knew, his
own life and the others' would be forfeit.
Would they go so far as to eliminate the general?
It was doubtful, in the modem day, though he
wouldn't have said so a few years earlier, before the
big changes.
    Someone had written that the more things change,
the more they stay the same. A Western author, and
the name eluded him, but he could still appreciate the
truth behind the words.
    Gromylko closed his eyes and tried to push the grim
thoughts from his mind. There would be time enough
to worry when they got to Moscow. For the moment
they were still together, still alive.
    But he was moved to wonder how much longer it
would last.




CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The main streets in the Russian capital are laid out in
concentric, if somewhat uneven, rings. A bird's-eye
view presents the image of a giant pond, with tipples
spreading from the epicenter where a stone has
dropped. There used to be a standing joke with pilots
serving the Strategic Air Command, back in the 1950s,
that Americans should thank the Russians for their
thoughtfulness in painting a bull's-eye on Moscow.
    The Cold War history meant nothing to Mack Bolan
at the moment, and geography was simply one more
tool to use in the destruction of his enemies. They
were on Gromylko's home turf now, and he expected
full cooperation from the Russian officer, no matter
what it cost in terms of second thoughts, misgivings,
guilty spasms in the middle of some dark and stormy
night a year from now.
 Assuming any of them lived that long.
    They had split into teams again, which left them
right back at the language barrier, but Gromylko had
spent a goodly portion of the long drive drilling them
on basic Russian phrases, with a lightning course in
Russian profanity that no Berlitz instructor would have
recognized. It wouldn't win them entry to a cocktail

party at the Kremlin, but it ought to see them through
if one of them should be pulled over by a traffic cop
or have to stop for gas along the way.
    Right now, though, Bolan's mind was miles away
from studies in vocabulary. His first target was a seedy
building in a neighborhood that may have been ap-
pealing once, around the time when Josef Stalin was
in power. Years had passed since anyone took pride
in where they lived; the place was run-down and filthy
and graffiti scarred. It could have been some portions
of New York, Chicago, or Detroit, except for street
signs in Cyrillic and an almost total absence of black
faces on the street.
    The building was, at least ostensibly, a rooming
house. In fact, despite Moscow's growing homeless
problem, there were only three rooms in the building
occupied by persons who would pass for normal ten-
ants. All of those were gunmen serving Gregori Vas-
iliev. Their mission--watch the place and keep up
tight security.
    Above all else, Vasiliev didn't want strangers peek-
ing at the upstairs lab he used to process and cut heroin
prior to distribution on the street. The pure shit would
be mixed with everything from baby laxatives to bak-
ing soda--anything, in fact, to give it the appearance
and approximate consistency of first-rate skag.
    Hawk took the roof this time, while Bolan went in
through the front. The mini-Uzi in his hand was fitted
with a silencer, to keep the noise down while he found
his way around and got to know the home team.
    Two of them were waiting for him when he breezed
in off the street, tall bruisers, built like Russian bears




and wearing fur, enough to round out the illusion.
Bears don't carry leather blackjacks, though---or drop
them in a hurry when they glimpse a weapon, reaching
underneath their coats for hardware that was obviously
tucked away too well for a fast draw.
    Bolan killed them where they stood, one sweeping
burst to tag them both and slam them back against the
wall behind them, pinned them there for just an in-
stant, then allowed their bulky forms to settle with the
draw of gravity.
    There seemed to be no elevator, so he used the stair-
way the dead men had been guarding. If Gromylko's
information was correct, the drug lab was on the fourth
floor, perhaps with more security on two and three,
plus lots of empty storage space on five. At this rate
Hawk should reach the lab before he did, unless that
attic storage area turned out to hold surprises for the
uninvited visitor.
    The sound of an explosion overhead told him Hawk
was on his way. Bolan slipped his face mask on in
case the skag dust blew downstairs or started dribbling
down through shrapnel holes.
    On the stairs between the third and second floors,
he heard a rush of footsteps from behind: two or three
men, coming on the run. He turned and waited for
them, balancing the Uzi in his hands, around waist
level. They stopped short, three faces gaping at his
mask, his jet black overcoat, the automatic weapon in
his hands. All three were packing, two side arms and
a Kalashnikov, but by the time they thought of using
all that hardware, it was too damn late.
  The Uzi whispered to them, blowing lethal kisses

from a range of twelve to fourteen feet. There was no
question of a miss; he didn't really even have to aim.
Their bodies jerked and reeled on impact, finally tum-
bling backward down the staircase.
    He was proceeding cautiously upstairs, toward four,
when Hawkins stepped out on the landing just above
him. Bolan could tell that he was smiling from his
eyes, despite the mask that hid his nose and mouth.
  "All done?"
    "Except the blowout," Hawkins told him, glancing
at his watch. "Five minutes to go."
    They were outside and almost to their waiting car
before the Semtex charges blew. With any luck at all,
the smoke and flame would wipe out any drifting
cloud of heroin that otherwise might settle on the
slowly dying neighborhood.

THE TRUCKING COMPANY was situated south of down-
town Moscow, in the Cer'omuski district. Driving out
there, Gary Manning took his time. McCarter rode in
the shotgun seat, and their RPGs were stowed in back,
beneath a thrift-shop blanket. Watching out for land-
marks rather than the street signs that he couldn't read,
the tall Canadian asked questions now and then,
McCarter coming up with answers from the English-
language city map he had unfolded on his lap.
  "We're almost there," Mcearter said.
    "It's about time," Manning commented, con-
sciously relaxing his white-knuckled grip on the steer-
ing wheel.
    In fact, the trucking plant was exactly where it
should have been, from listening to Gromylko plot




their route ahead of time. There was an eight-foot
chain-link fence around the property, with coils of
shiny razor wire on top. The warning signs, hung
every twenty feet or so along the fence, were all in
Russian, but the lightning-bolt design conveyed their
message loud and clear: no trespassing, unless you
want to fry.
 Well, that was fine.
    The Phoenix warriors didn't plan to set foot on the
property. They had a clear view of the warehouse and
garage from where they sat across the street, and Man-
ning counted seven semi figs lined up and waiting for
the order to depart with shipments of God knew what.
The cargo might not be illicit each and every time they
left the lot, but Manning didn't care if they ran only
one load of narcotics in a thousand trips. The trucks
and property were owned by Gregori Vasiliev, and that
was all he had to know.
    "Let's do it," McCarter said, opening his door and
stepping out. Manning was right behind him, checking
up and down the two-lane access road for witnesses
before he opened up the back door on the driver's side.
    The RPGs were ready; it had been risky business
driving with them loaded, but at least they had en-
gaged the safety on each launcher. McCarter joined
him on the driver's side of the car, shouldering his
launcher, both men resting their elbows on the roof of
the car for support and stability while they were aim-
ing.
    It was difficult to miss at that distance, about one-
third of the effective range for stationary targets with
an RPG. A man would have to shut his eyes and stag-

ger like a drunkard if he meant to miss at that range,
and the chain-link fence would be no obstacle at all,
too frail to set the rockets off or even spoil their aim.
  "I'll take the first truck on the left," Manning said.
      "Loading dock," McCarter added. "Come back
and meet you in the middle."  "Right."
    He sighted quickly, didn't wait to hear the loud
whoosh from McCarter's launcher, squeezing off a
heartbeat in advance of his companion. It was still
exciting, after all that he had seen and done, to watch
the rocket sail downrange, fire streaming out behind
it, punching through the tall fence like a bullet through
a hair net, detonating with a smoky thunderclap as it
ripped through the big truck's grille.
    McCarter's round went home an instant later, open-
ing a new doorway between the loading dock and
warehouse proper as it blew a great hole in the con-
crete wall. A cloud of smoke and dust rolled out of
there, reminding Manning of those Western movies
where the silver mine caves in and miners rush out
coughing, gagging, running for their lives.
    Except that no one was emerging from McCarter's
man-made cave.
    Reloading as his partner reached out for his second
rocket, Manning worried that it all seemed just a bit
too easy. Where were all the sentries, set to pounce
on anyone who posed a threat to Gregori Vasiliev?
Had they withdrawn to more-strategic sites, or had the
Russian godfather evacuated Moscow altogether,
thereby giving them the slip.
 I'll think about that later, Manning told himself, and




concentrated on his aim. Next truck in line, a trailer
with no tractor rig in front. Most likely empty, but it
still had cost Vasiliev a pretty ruble, all the same.
  It had to go.
    Manning was smiling as he squeezed the trigger and
his rocket sizzled off downrange.

IT HAD BEGUN.
    There was no doubt of that, no matter how Vasiliev
attempted to deceive himself, pretend that the initial
incidents were unrelated to the recent massacres in
Turkey and Tbilisi. Even with his best men and the
eyes of the militsiya watching, his elusive enemies had
found their way to Moscow, and they felt secure
enough on his own turf to launch a new round of at-
tacks.
    Gregori Vasiliev wasn't some teenage punk from
the streets, who could be frightened off by fireworks.
He had killed men with his own two hands and felt
their warm blood splatter on his face. He had seen
comrades cut down while they stood beside him, close
enough to touch, and he was still alive. His courage
was a combination of self-confidence, experience in
dealing death and a determination formed in adoles-
cence that it was a true man's lot to stand and die, if
necessary, while the yellow-livered cowards ran away.
    Whatever happened in the next few hours or days,
he wouldn't let himself be driven out of Moscow like
some stelat kozyol, one of the bitches used by stronger,
abler men in prison. If the game went badly for him,
if he lost, the pigs would find him where he fell in
battle, with an empty weapon in his hand.

    It was the only fitting way for a vor v zakonye to
die.
    But he wasn't conceding victory to his opponents
yet, by any means. Vasiliev still had a few tricks up
his sleeve, still had an army to defend him, with some
help from the militsiya. As far as anyone could prove
in court, he was a law-abiding citizen, deserving of
the same protection as any nine-to-five drone, and he
wouldn't be shy about demanding his due. After all,
he had paid more police salaries in his time than any
other taxpayer in Russia.
    And he reckoned it was time to see what he was
paying for.
    He had already lost commercial property worth sev-
eral hundred million rubies, not to mention soldiers
gunned down like so many cutout targets on a shoot-
ing range. For all the good those men had done him,
Vasiliev may as well have killed them himself.
    At least, he thought, their deaths might serve as an
example to the others, keep the scared survivors on
their toes. He didn't grieve for those who died--they
were employees, after all, not friends, and easily re-
placed--but he regretted that it was beyond his power
to punish those who failed him.
    An opening skirmish or two did not predict the out-
come of the war. If that were true, the last two gen-
erations of Americans would all be speaking Japanese.
    Vasiliev had time, but he would have to use it
wisely.
 Starting now.

GROMYLKO HAD BEEN dreading the telephone call for
hours, before they ever got to Moscow. He knew it




was inevitable, but that made the task no less onerous.
Risking his own life was one thing, but it was some-
thing else entirely when he started risking other lives
in the cause.
    Besides, there weren't that many people he could
trust these days, and even fewer whom he would count
as friends. Sergeant Vanya Dobrinin was one such,
and it weighed heavily on Gromylko's mind that he
was placing a friend in mortal danger. It brought back
grim memories of his partner, sprawled dead on the
ground.
    Still, duty called, and Dobrinin was an officer in the
militsiya, sworn to pursue the enemies of justice. More
to the point, as Gromylko's friend, he would have been
insulted---even furious--if he was arbitrarily excluded
from the last phase of the plan.
    Gromylko could have reached out for the general
personally, but he knew how sensitive the campaign
would become. There were already special bulletins
on radio and television, airing details of the early
strikes in Moscow, guessing at the motives or fabri-
cating them from thin air. The handful of command-
grade officers involved in the campaign would be
walking on eggshells and jumping at shadows until it
was finished, desperate to present the appearance of
policemen doing their jobs by the book, while covertly
supporting the crime wave. Gromylko knew he must
avoid contact with the general at all cost, except in the
most extreme emergency.
    But Dobrinin could assist him, had agreed before
Gromylko left for Turkey. It had been a violation of

his orders and a flagrant breach of operational security
to tell Dobrinin anything about his mission, even with-
holding the fact that he was working with Americans.
Dobrinin might not understand the full extent of what
was happening--indeed, he probably wouldn't believe
the things Gromylko had been up to in the past four
days---but he knew enough to understand that any help
he offered to Gromylko must be strictly unofficial, and
provided at the risk of his career.
      The telephone rang twice before Dobrinin's gruff,
familiar voice came on the line. "Anno!"  "It's me," Gromylko said.
    The brusque tone hardly changed, but Gromylko
could tell the difference. His friend was worded,
maybe even frightened. "Ah," Dobrinin said, "so
there you are."
  "Is this line safe?" Gromylko asked.
  "Who knows these days? Are you safe?"
    "More or less," Gromylko said. "I need your help,
though, and it can't wait long."
    "We live to serve." The note of sarcasm made
Dobrinin sound a bit more normal, as if he was starting
to recover his composure. "What exactly did you have
in mind?"
    "I need a copy of the file on Gregori Vasiliev," he
said. "Specifically the details on his business interests,
personal connectionsrenames and addresses."
    He knew the basics, but there had been too much
in the file for him to memorize. If they were going to
destroy the Thieves' Society or make a decent try at
it, Gromylko wanted all the major targets at his tin-
genips.




    "That's quite an order," Dobrinin said, but he
didn't seem put off by the task. "It can't just disap-
pear, you understand. I'll have to make some copies
on the sly."
  "How long?"
    The sergeant thought about it for a moment. Finally
he said, "We're into lunchtime now. Most of the brass
is gone. If no one catches me, I should have what you
need within the hour."
  "I can't stop in there to pick it up."
    "I didn't think so. Listen, by the time the rest of
them get back, it will be my turn to go eat. They'll
hear my stomach growling all the way to Gorky Park.
I'll bring the stuff along, and we can meet."
  "Meet where?" Gromylko asked.
    "Let's see... I can't go far. There won't be time for
me to drive all over town, and it would be suspicious
if I took a car."
    "Somewhere in walking distance, then," Gromylko
said.
    Another moment slipped away while Dobrinin
thought about the problem, then he said, "Let's meet
at the museum."
    Gromylko didn't have to ask which one. Dobrinin
had to mean the huge Museum of the Revolution, on
Leningradski Prospekt. Even in these days, when com-
munism was discredited with the majority of Russians
and historical nostalgia had set in for some, the bold
events of 1917 were still a point of pride, as if the
Russian mind could seize on one event and somehow
manage to forget the countless others it had brought

to pass, the despotism that had sprung full-blown from
a crusade to wipe out tyranny.
  "What time?" Gromylko asked.
    "Let's say two-thirty. If I'm not there by two forty-
five," Dobrinin said, "you'll know I won't be com-
ing."
    Gromylko didn't like the sound of that, but he knew
what Dobrinin meant. There were a hundred different
things that could go wrong around the office, short of
the sergeant being caught while he was copying the
files. He might be swamped with paperwork when his
superiors returned from lunch--especially if the
Americans kept striking at their present rate and leav-
ing bodies in their wake.
    Our wake, Gromylko thought, correcting himself.
He was as much a part of it as anyone. The blood was
on his hands, as well.
  "I'll see you then," he said. "Be careful."
  "Always."
    With a click the link was broken, and he left the
phone booth, walking back to where the Americans
waited for him in the car.
    "We have a date at the museum," Gromylko told
them, "but not just yet. With any luck we should have
time for one more stop along the way."

"You MANAGED THAT quite well," Yuri Renko said,
putting on a mirthless smile.
    Vanya Dobrinin's answer was reluctant. "Thank
you, Colonel."
  "I'm aware of your regard for the lieutenant,"




Renko said. "It does you credit that you can distin~
guish between friendship and your duty."
    "I can't think what must have driven him to this,"
Dobrinin said. "Perhaps when Churbanov--"
    "In any case," Renko said, interrupting him,
"we're forced to work with circumstances as they are,
not as we wish they might have been. It's quite ap-
parent that Lieutenant Gromylko has violated his oath
of office. He is certainly involved in murder and a list
of other crimes. He must be stopped before he can do
further damage to the public or the reputation of this
unit."
  "Yes, sir."
    "You will meet him at the museum, as arranged.
You should have no great difficulty holding him in
conversation while our officers move in. He will be
taken quietly, assuming he doesn't resist. And as for
you, your service to the unit will not be forgotten. I
can personally guarantee that you will be rewarded for
cooperating in this most unpleasant matter."
  "Thank you, sir."
    Dobrinin clearly wasn't happy with the thought of
earning a reward for giving up his friend, but Renko
didn't give a damn about the sergeant's tender sensi-
bilities. He simply had to follow orders, and the trap
would be successful.
  "I won't need any papers, then, sir?"
    "Papers?" Renko frowned, uncertain what the fool
was babbling on about.
  "The file on Gregori Vasiliev," Dobrinin said.
    "Don't be ridiculous. It's foolish to believe that the
rnilitsiya would ever give approval for a vigilante ac-

tion like the one Gromylko claims to be involved in.
Anyone with half a brain can see what's happened--
either he's become unbalanced from the grief of losing
Churbanov, or he's sold out to some competing faction
of the mafiya that wants Vasiliev destroyed. In either
case we can't allow the madness to continue."
  "No, sir."
    "You will take a briefcase with you to allay sus-
picion, but we certainly won't send any confidential
files outside the office on a job like this. Think of
security."
  "Yes, sir. I simply thoughtm"
    "Don't think!" the colonel snapped. "It only gets
you into trouble. Soldiers follow orders. Are we clear
on that, Lieutenant?"  "Yes, sir. I--"
    Dobrinin blinked twice rapidly, before a guilty-
looking smile turned up the comers of his mouth.
  "Yes, sir," he said again with greater confidence.
    "In that case go prepare yourself. You have a ren-
dezvous to keep."
    The colonel's smile turned predatory as he watched
the office door close, leaving him alone. He reached
out for the telephone, and was relieved to find his hand
was steady as a rock.




CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Vanya Dobrinin walked to the museum, departing
from his office at the stroke of two. He wore civilian
clothes--an inexpensive suit and tie, blue polyester,
with brown shoes. His fashion sense wasn't refined,
and he cared nothing for his personal appearance at
the moment. He had left his uniform behind to make
the meeting less conspicuous, but he was armed, the
Makarov's butt and hammer gouging into the small of
his back with every other step he took. The simulated-
leather briefcase he carried in his hand contained a
folded newspaper.
    Dobrinin was acutely conscious of his treachery as
he moved north on Leningradski Prospekt toward the
rendezvous with Leonid Gromylko. Years of friend-
ship were about to be destroyed, a major portion of
his life unraveled like a shoddy sweater. It was a con-
scious choice, and afterward he would never be able
to look back on the moment with any hope of shirking
personal responsibility.
    He had been foolish, Dobrinin realized, to swallow
the bizarre tale in the first place. Why would ranking
officers of the militsiya select Gromylko for a secret
one-man mission to destroy the Chechen mafiya, and

how could his friend have hoped to see the mission
through alive if it were true? Dobrinin realized that he
had wanted to believe the fantasy, because it seemed
in those few moments that he had his friend back, the
Gromylko he had known before Alexei Churbanov
was killed, and everything began to fall apart in Leo-
nid's life. He had the old fire and determination back,
without the nervous edge of paranoia that had come
to feel like second nature.
    Still, the whole thing was preposterous. In retrospect
Dobrinin wanted to believe his friend was on a private
vigilante mission, striking back at those who killed his
partner, but in that case how had he survived this long?
Assuming he possessed the skill and the equipment,
somehow evading the hunters dispatched to cut him
down, Gromylko still couldn't appear at two or three
points simultaneously, as the Moscow raiders had been
seen to do. The most determined zealot in the world
couldn't ignore the laws of physics, time and space.
    Which meant that he had allies, and since they were
not from the militia, that meant he had found help
somewhere else. Who better to assist Gromylko in a
move against Vasiliev than someone on the wrong side
of the law who wished the Chechens dead---or driven
out of power? It could be one of the local Muscovite
gangs, maybe the Ukralnians or even someone politi-
cal perhaps. The details would come out once Gro-
mylko was safely locked away and Colonel Renko had
the time to question him at length.
    Gromylko would blame Dobrinin, naturally, and
that was only proper. Any act of personal betrayal had
its price, regardless of the traitor's good intentions. It




was something that Dobrinin would be forced to live
with, something he would see etched on his features
in the mirror every day until he died.
    They hadn't specified a meeting place in the mu-
seum, because it was unnecessary. Dobrinin and Gro-
mylko had used the museum for quiet meetings more
than once in bygone days. There was an open court-
yard at the center of the complex, trees and benches,
with a smallish plot of grass to give the concrete some
reliefi Gromylko would be coming there to meet him,
as he had before.
    And Dobrinin would be waiting for his old friend
with a briefcase full of newspapers. He would be wait-
ing with the Judas kiss.
    Dobrinin didn't know how many officers were de-
tailed to surround the meeting place and keep Gro-
mylko from escaping. He had seen none of them so
far, but that simply meant that Renko had assigned
surveillance experts to the job. If Dobrinin saw them
coming, so would Gromylko, and that would ruin ev-
erything.
    Dobrinin checked his watch. Another fifteen
minutes, give or take, and it would all be over. He
could walk back to the office with his briefcase and
resume his paperwork, secure in the knowledge that
he had performed his duty and betrayed a friend.
  But it wasn't a total waste.
    Lieutenant Dobrinin. Yes, he liked the sound of
that.
    In ten or fifteen years Dobrinin thought he might be
able to forget what it had cost him, moving up the
ladder of success.

GROMYLKO TOOK HIS TIME on the approach. His
nerves were jangling, he was anxious to be gone, but
there was no point in rushing it. He had to prepare for
the eventuality that some last-minute delay might well
keep Dobrinin from delivering the file on schedule. If
that happened, he would have to call again, arrange
another meeting at the sergeant's earliest convenience.
And in the meantime his companions would be turning
up the heat on Gregori Vasiliev.
    The raids in Moscow had gone well enough. The
godfather himself was nowhere to be seen, but that
wasn't unusual. It was predictable that Vasiliev would
go to ground, direct his army from a safe place, well
back from the firing line. The trick would be to flush
him out from cover--or alternatively, to find his hid-
ing place and kill him there.
    The six Americans appeared to be in no great hurry
when it came to taking out the man in charge. Rather,
they seemed intent on tearing down his empire, piece
by piece, before they swept the dragon from his lair.
It was a commonsense approach, in terms of doing
major damage to the syndicate--a godfather could al-
ways be replaced, with no great inconvenience to the
Thieves' Society--but Gromylko was worded that
they might delay the final strike too long, allow their
adversaries one too many chances to strike back.
    They had been lucky so far, and he recognized that
fact. Gromylko also understood that luck was tran-
sient, and could never last indefinitely. They were
overdue for a reversal or a setback, and he wished
something could be done to wrap the mission up be-
fore that came to pass.




Perhaps, he thought, the information Dobrinin
brought to him would make the difference.
    There were always people in the courtyard, a pop-
ular retreat for clerks and secretaries fleeing stuffy of-
rices, to eat their lunches out of paper bags, surrounded
by their nation's history. That stately aura still hung
on, regardless of the fact that the museum was basi-
cally a monument to communism, now discredited and
passed away. Gromylko felt it, passing through the
tall, arched doorway, footsteps ringing on the marble
floors as he proceeded to the courtyard.
    Dobrinin sat there, waiting for him. They weren't
alone, of course. As long as the museum was open,
there would always be at least a few spectators lolling
about, resting up between exhibits or waiting for a
guided tour to begin. It made no difference to Gro-
mylko if they had an audience. No one would overhear
their conversation; there was no more KGB to watch
and eavesdrop in such places---or, if so, at least the
name and the initials had been changed, and presum-
ably the mission, too.
    He headed directly toward the bench where his
friend sat, put on a smile, then almost lost it when he
saw the way Dobrinin looked at him. His friend
seemed nervous, almost to the point of flinching when
he saw Gromylko, even though their meeting had been
arranged. The short hairs on Gromylko's nape were
bristling as he closed the gap between them, but he
told himself that Dobrinin had good reason to be ill at
ease. The information in the briefcase resting at his
feet was classified; he could be punished with dis-

missal and a prison sentence for removing it from
headquarters, even at the request of a superior officer.
    Gromylko settled on the bench beside his friend,
stuck out his hand and felt the sweat in Dobrinin's
palm as they shook hands.
    "You look well, all things considered," Dobrinin
said.
  "I'm still alive. You seem...uneasy."
    "I'm fine," Dobrinin said hastily. "It was a close
thing getting here, that's all. They have a flap on, with
these raids against Vasiliev."
"I would imagine so. You have the information?"
"Yes, right here." Dobrinin's eyes flicked back and
forth around the courtyard as he bent to lift the brief-
case.
  "Vanya?"
  "Da?"
  "Is something--?"
  Wrong.
    Before the word could pass Gromylko's lips, his
friend lurched backward, gasping, eyes wide open in
astonishment. A splotch of crimson blossomed on his
shirt, immediately followed by a second, and Gro-
mylko heard the bullets slapping home, although there
was no sound of gunshots in the courtyard.
    Instinct saved him, and he pushed off with his legs
and vaulted backward, dropping on his side behind the
bench. A third shot struck the painted wood and
gouged a hole there as Gromylko palmed his Makarov.
    Too late he realized the cause of Vanya's nervous-
ness. The trap was sprung, and there was no way to
be sure that he could wriggle out of it alive.


THE FIRST SHOT came as a surprise to Rafael Encizo,
even though he had been ready for any kind of treach-
ery. The major fear had been a tail from headquarters,
in case Gromylko's friend was spotted photocopying
the files. In that event, Encizo would have expected
uniforms or a plainclothes team that would converge
with badges, nabbing two suspects instead of one. He
was prepared to intervene if that went down, but it had
never crossed Encizo's mind, after Gromylko gave the
buildup on his friend, that a hit team would show up
at the museum.
  But he was wrong.
    The sergeant was already dead before Encizo got
his pistol out and started scanning for the source of
gunfire. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Gro-
mylko diving under cover, flattening himself behind
the heavy bench where his late associate was sprawled
out in a crimson spill of blood. The third shot came
from somewhere to Encizo's right, and he was quick
enough to spot the two shooters--both average men
in average clothes--as they advanced in the direction
of the bench. Their pistols were equipped with silenc-
ers, but they were all done trying to be subtle and
strode forward with the weapons plainly visible.
    Encizo lined up on the nearer gunman, squeezing
off the standard double tap to make it stick. The
shooter lurched against his buddy as the slugs drilled
through his chest, the impact rocking both of them
before the dead man folded, sprawling in a heap and
nearly taking his partner down with him.  Nearly but not quite.
 The survivor swung around toward Encizo's posi-

 tion, no target clearly visible, but firing anyway on
 instinct. He came damn close. One bullet hissed past
 Encizo's ear, while the second sprayed chips of ma-
 sonry into his face from the column beside him. En-
 cizo ducked backward, crouching, cursing underneath
 his breath and hoping for another shot before the gun-
 man broke and ran.
    But his intended target wasn't going anywhere. The
next incoming round hit so close to Encizo's knee that
he initially believed his man was charging, but a hasty
glance around the column showed the Russian stand-
ing fast. Two more rounds chipped the column near
his head, but the gunner was facing toward Gromylko
now, apparently intent on finishing his job.  Then who the hell was firing?
    Encizo glimpsed movement on the far side of the
courtyard. Two or three more bodies rushing toward
him, though he couldn't be certain of the count. It may
as well have been an army, in the circumstances. All
they had to do was pin him down while their associate
rubbed out Gromylko, and the Moscow strike was fin-
ished, even if Encizo managed to escape. Without
Gromylko they were stranded.
 They were well and truly screwed.
    Encizo rolled from cover on the left side of the col-
umn, firing from a prone position, his Beretta steady
in a two-handed grip. He blew the first shot, even so,
but scored on one of his assailants with the second,
saw a blur of crimson as the gunman staggered, then
went down. The other two cut loose with silenced pis-
tols from a range of forty feet or so, still rushing, dar-
ing the Cuban to stop them if he could.




    Three rounds in rapid-tire reached out to catch the
second shooter in midstride and spin him in a tight
spiral. Before he hit the deck, Encizo was already
tracking on the sole survivor of the trio, trading shots
with him and praying he was better, quicker than the
Russian--anything to give himself an edge before the
shooter scored a hit.
    Encizo saw his bullets strike their target: one, two,
three red geysers spouting from the Russian's chest
and throat before he toppled over backward, legs still
pumping for a moment as his muscles tried to overfide
the lethal message from a dying brain.
    Encizo came up on his elbows just in time to catch
the action as Gromylko dropped the second gunman
who'd initiated the tirefight, pumping two rounds un-
derneath the bench at ankle height, then rising up to
finish it with two more in the chest. It looked like
victory, a short reach for the briefcase, and they could
be out of there before the other museum visitors re-
covered from their shock sufficiently to summon the
police.
    He was halfway to his feet when automatic-weapons
fire erupted in the courtyard, bullets chipping pave-
ment as they flew from somewhere overhead. No si-
lencer this time. No pretense of avoiding panic. All
the shooter wanted was to do his job at any cost.
    Encizo made a dive for cover, back behind the col-
umn, cursing bitterly and hoping Calvin James could
make the save. If he was late--or already dead--then
Encizo's future, and Gromylko's, would be very brief.

THEY HAD AGREED that James should take the second
floor and check out the exhibits there, ready to observe

the handoff from a balcony that overlooked the court-
yard on all sides. No ambush was expected when they
made the plan, but it was common sense to have a
spotter on the high ground. It was supposed to be a
milk run. Once the briefcase had been passed, James
could retrace his steps and meet them at the exit for a
short walk to the car.
  But then the whole thing went to hell.
    He missed the first shots, since he was drifting ca-
sually along the rail and trying not to be obvious about
surveillance on the courtyard. James saw Gromylko
take his seat, then cruised back in the direction of the
gallery to check for any spotters on that level. It was
only when he heard a woman scream down below that
he doubled back in time to see Encizo finish off his
adversaries, while Gromylko popped up from behind
the bench and dropped another in his tracks.
    That should have been the end of it, but then an
automatic weapon started firing from the balcony to
James's left, halfway around the courtyard. Swiveling
in that direction, he could see a bullnecked gunner
leaning out across the rail and tiring short bursts from
a submachine gun, first at Encizo, then at Gromylko,
pinning both men down.
    James fired a quick shot to distract the gunner, rush-
ing toward the comer that would put him on the same
side of the balcony as his intended target. Running all
out, he was nearly at the comer when a woman
stepped in front of him and aimed a swift kick at his
groin.
 He sidestepped, felt her shoe slam solidly against




his thigh before he straight-armed her with force
enough to send her sprawling. At the moment he was
less concerned about what made her intervene, or
whether she was injured, than with taking out the
shooter on the north side of the balcony. Another burst
of fire directed toward the courtyard added urgency to
James's mission, so he shrugged off the cramped pain
in his left leg as he ran.
    The bullet coming from behind him nearly ended it.
He heard the shot and ducked his head, already weav-
ing, dodging to the side, before the slug struck metal
on the railing, chipping paint and whining into space.
James spun around in time to see the woman on her
knees, a shiny autoloader in her right hand, lining up
another shot. Her nose was bleeding from the impact
of his open hand, her lips and chin dark crimson.
    But she wasn't just some would-be vigilante, James
realized. She had to be a kind of backup spotter for
the hit team, standing by for situations just like this.
    He crouched and squeezed off two quick shots,
trusting instinct and the close range of his target. The
lady's sweater rippled as the slugs went home, and she
went over backward, triggering a last shot toward the
ceiling as she fell.
    He went around the comer belly-down in a long
slide, as if the last mn in a crucial baseball game de-
pended on him stealing home. His enemy was facing
him and firing from the hip, the bullets swarming over
the Phoenix pro's head. Returning fire, he pumped off
four rounds, watching as his target staggered, reeling,
back against the rail. Another heartbeat, and the Rus-

sian toppled over, plummeting some twenty feet to
strike the pavement in the courtyard.
    Downstairs he saw Encizo and Gromylko up and
running, headed for the nearest exit. James retreated
past the crumpled figure of the woman, tucked his pis-
tol out of sight but kept his fingers wrapped around
the grip.
    Someone had set them up, and there were questions
that Gromylko ought to answer before they went ahead
with any further strikes in Moscow. First, though, they
would have to get the hell away from the museum,
before they ended up as fresh exhibits. The police
would be arriving any moment now, and there might
still be other gunners skulking in the shadows.
 Either way they had been lucky, more or less.
    But luck would only stretch so far, and Calvin
James could almost hear his ripping as he quick-
stepped toward the stairs.

"IT LOOKS LIKE your amigo set you up," Encizo said.
His voice was flat, devoid of any emotion as he con-
centrated on his driving, watching out for squad cars
or civilian hunters in the rearview mirror.
    "That's impossible," Gromylko said, though with
less than full conviction. "I saw his face before he
died. Vanya was taken by surprise."
    "I'll bet," James muttered from the seat behind
Gromylko. "He was counting on you getting dusted,
not himself."
    "He wouldn't do that," the lieutenant said. "In all
the years we worked together, Vanya never took a
robie from the mafiya. I'd stake my life on that."




     "In case you didn't notice," James reminded him,
 "your life is riding on the line."
    "How else do you explain the firing squad?" En-
cizo asked. "Unless your friend tipped someone
off..."
  "Impossible," Gromylko said again.
    "So, check the briefcase out," James said. "If he
delivered what you asked for, maybe we can work out
some alternative to how the shooters found you. Oth-
erwise, I'd say your man's on the hook."
    Gromylko raised the briefcase from between his feet
and placed it on his lap. He hesitated, with his thumbs
pressed to the twin latch buttons, suddenly reluctant
to find out what was inside. It wouldn't be a bomb, of
course--that was ridiculous--but if the file on Gregori
Vasiliev was missing from the case, it meant that he
was wrong about Dobrinin.
    He snapped the latches open, raised the lid and
scowled at the newspaper lying neatly folded in the
briefcase. With a whispered curse, he closed the case
and latched it.
    "So." There was no mocking irony in James's
voice. It sounded more like sadness, tempered with
fatigue.
    "He scammed you, then," Encizo said. "If we as-
sume he wasn't working for Vasiliev--"
    "I won't believe that," Gromylko insisted stub-
bomly.
    "Then who couM talk him into breaking trust that
way? There must be someone you can think of, some
idea of why he'd set you up."
  "Perhaps..."

  "We're listening," James said.
    "If he'd been convinced that I was working with
the mafiya, that I had somehow lied to him," Gro-
mylko said. "Vanya would not have brought assassins
with him, but there is a chance he would have brought
detectives. People whom he believed to be detectives,
I should say."
    "If we assume that's true," Encizo said, "who
would have set it up?"
    Gromylko puzzled over that one for a moment. It
couldn't have been the general in charge of his divi-
sion, since the plan had originated from his office. If
he was anxious to betray Gromylko and the others for
some unknown reason, he could easily have set a trap
before they ever got to Moscow. That meant it was
someone else, perhaps unaware of the general's role,
the very details of the plan. Someone who sought to
help Vasiliev and kill Gromylko in a single stroke.
Someone with rank and close ties to the Chechen syn-
dicate.
  Someone like Yuri Renko.
  "There may be someone ...."
  "So," James said, "let's have a name."
    "I must be sure before I act," Gromylko said. "He
is a well-respected officer of the rnilitsiya."
    "Sounds like the man needs to retire," James mut-
tered.
  "If I am correct, I will take care of it myself."
    "That's risky business, comrade. You're already
way across the line."
  "Vanya Dobrinin was my friend, no matter what he




thought of me in his last days. I owe him this much,
at the very least," Gromylko said.
    "A sense of duty is noble," James said, "but don't
forget what this is all about. Vasiliev and company,
remember?"
    "I will not forget," Gromylko promised him. "I
owe Vasiliev too much already."
    "Well, I hope you get the chance to pay him back
real soon."
  "I'm counting on it," Leonid Gromylko said.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The worst thing about bad news, Yuri Renko thought,
was when a circumstance demanded that it be passed
on. He wasn't troubled by the usual emotional aspect
of sharing morbid tidings, since emotions--barring
lust and anger--were entirely foreign to his nature.
Rather, it disturbed the colonel when he had to break
bad news to someone who was both more powerful
and potentially more destructive than himself.  As in the present case.
    He had the word from his militsiya investigators on
the scene at the museum. There was no doubt that
eight persons were dead--Vanya Dobrinin and the
seven members of the hit team sent by Gregori Vasi-
liev to finish Leonid Gromylko. One of those turned
out to be a woman--not that Renko cared, but he was
curious about the choice, what made Vasiliev decide
that these particular incompetents should do the job.
    It would be simple, Renko thought, for him to stall
until the grim news reached Vasiliev by radio or tele-
vision, even word of mouth, but it would also be bad
form. His man had been the Judas goat; the plan, es-
sentially, was his. It didn't matter that Vasiliev's hired
guns had failed to carry out a simple hit-and-run. The




Chechen godfather wasn't a man who readily admitted
errors in judgment, much less in a matter of such great
importance that his whole empire--indeed, perhaps
his very life--depended on a satisfactory result.
    He would be looking for a scapegoat, someone he
could scream at, blame and punish for the failure of
his own subordinates. If Renko had to bear some mea-
sure of the heat, he was prepared to live with that, but
he wasn't about to be the only one. In fact, if things
went badly in the next few hours, he might be needing
scapegoats and a sanctuary of his own.
    Already Renko knew the briefcase that Dobrinin
carried was not found at the museum. Since no one
from the hit team had survived, and none of them
would logically have grabbed the case, he assumed
that Gromylko must have snatched it as he fled. And
that, in turn, would verify Dobrinin's role in setting
up the trap.
    So what? the colonel asked himselfi It would be
better, with Dobrinin dead and gone, to let him bear
the brunt of any anger on Gromylko's part. Unfortu-
nately Renko knew Gromylko's style. He understood
that the lieutenant wouldn't simply curse his late, la-
mented friend and let it go at that. He would be look-
ing for whoever was behind Dobrinin, those who had
the power and influence to make him sell a friend.
    And how long would it take before Gromylko
thought of Yuri Renko's name?
    The question now, in Renko's mind, wasn't ifGro-
mylko would make the link, but when. More to the
point, once he made the connection in his mind, what
would he do? In ordinary circumstances Renko

wouldn't have been too concerned...but these were far
from ordinary times. Gromylko wasn't entirely ra-
tional, if he believed that he could stand against the
Thieves' Society. He might try anything.
    More to the point, he wasn't operating by himself.
The colonel still had no idea how many others were
helping him, but there had been enough strength in
numbers at the museum to kill seven of Vasiliev's
hired guns. There had also been enough of them to
take out Kenan Bey in Turkey, and Ivan Storzhenko
with his private army down in Georgia.
    For certain there would be enough to kill one rank-
ing officer of the rnilitsiycL
    He needed help and couldn't count on his superiors
this time. There was no explanation for his sudden
fear, without a full confession of his ties to Gregori
Vasiliev, his role in setting up the massacre at the
museum. If he confessed all that, the general would
"protect" him in a prison cell, and Renko would be
lucky if he didn't end up with a death sentence. In
Russia that meant something. There was no long-
winded system of appeals, delays, postponements. The
condemned had one chance to appeal, immediately af-
ter the conviction, and the judgment of the court was
almost always negative. A few days after that, the in-
mate was escorted to a "shower room" that featured
no amenities except a small drain in the middle of the
floor, and he or she was rubbed out with a pistol bullet
in the head.
    It was a tidy and efficient system. Renko loved it,
but he didn't plan to be on the receiving end. Not
while he had a single trick left up his sleeve.




    To really be protected from Gromylko, he would
have to disappear, clean out his secret bank account
in Liechtenstein and find another place to live. In fact,
he had the false ID already, waiting for the day he
could retire and start another life. Renko had counted
on a few more years in uniform to fatten up that num-
bered bank account, but it was fat enough already for
his needs. He could survive quite nicely for a decade,
at the very least, on what he had already earned from
Gregori Vasiliev.
    And now Vasiliev would do him one more favor, a
parting gift, as it were. But they couldn't discuss it on
the telephone.
    Which meant that Renko would be forced to break
his news in person.
 And he had to do it without delay.

"ARE WE ALL RIGHT without the files?" asked Bolan.
    Gromylko nodded thoughtfully. "We still have all
the major targets," he replied. "The list I sought from
Vanya would have doubled, maybe tripled, what we
have, but principally with smaller places, home ad-
dresses for a number of Vasiliev's associates. We
should be fine."
  "About that leak you've got back at the office--"
    "That is my affair," Gromylko said. "I'll deal with
him myself."
    "I know the feeling," Bolan told him truthfully.
"You're welcome to him, but that's not the problem
I was thinking of."
  "What, then?" Gromylko asked.
  "It seems to me he's got a handle on the opera-

 tion," Bolan explained. "There's no way to predict
 how much he knows or where he got his information,
 but you could be compromised right to the top."
   "I don't believe that," the lieutenant said.
     "You didn't think your friend would screw you,
 either," Calvin James reminded him.
     "I still don't think he knew there would be shoot-
 ing."
    "Say you're right," Bolan put in. "That means
you've got somebody in your office who's killed one
militia officer and tried to make it two. My guess is
that he won't be satisfied or feel secure until you're
dead, along with everybody else connected to the op-
eration. He's exposed right now. You come in from
the cold, he's history."
  "Depends on who he is," said Gary Manning.
  "What?" Gromylko looked confused.
    "Well, you've said there are just a few men at the
top who know what you've been doing for the past
few days." The tall Canadian was frowning now.
"Suppose that one or more of them are being paid off
by Vasiliev. They slam the door behind you, and you
can't come in."
    "That brings to mind a film I saw," McCarter said
to no one in particular. "A chap goes into prison un-
dercover, and the only man who knows his true iden-
tity-"
  "We've seen it," Manning interrupted.
  "Bloody cheek."
    "You think the general is involved in this?" Gro-
mylko asked. His head was shaking even as he spoke,
a grim, emphatic negative.




    "He said 'what if,'" the Executioner replied. "It
doesn't matter, from the angle of assistance, since you
can't get help from any of your buddies anyway. But
it could make a major difference in the way militia
forces are deployed. They wind up covering Vasiliev,
it multiplies our problems."
    "No," Gromylko said again. "I don't believe that.
There is one man---he's a colonel, my superior--who
has been taking money from the mafiya for years."
  "Just one?" McCarter sounded skeptical.
    "One who despises me enough to want me gone by
any means available. One who could find a way to
raid the general's secret files and learn the truth."
    "Which means Vasiliev would know," Calvin
James said.
    "He may know what and make a decent guess at
why," Bolan argued, "but he can't know who or
where. That still gives us an edge."
  "So, what's the plan?" Encizo asked.
    "We rock the town," said Bolan. "Turn it upside
down, if necessary, till Vasiliev has no choice but to
stand and fight or run for cover." He faced Gromylko.
"Is there someplace he might go?"
  "I know a place," Gromylko said.
  "Then that's the plan."
  "When do we start?" Gromylko asked.
  "Right now."

Stony Man Farm

THE COM-SAT LINK was perfect, the reception loud and
clear. Of course, you couldn't make out squat by Ils-

tening to the transmission as it reached the farm. A
high-pitched squeal, twelve-hundredths of a second
long, it sounded like an insect buzzing past, perhaps
a taste of feedback from the speakers, there and gone.
You had to take the tape and slow it down, way down,
before the words of the encrypted message were dis-
cemible, and then you had to know the daily code
before those words made any kind of sense at all.
  Technology.
    A few years back it would have taken a transmitter
with a dish some six or seven feet across to beam that
message out of Russia, bounce it off a satellite in space
and back down to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Vir-
ginia. The recording gear needed to compress a mes-
sage and emit the high-speed pulse of sound would
probably have weighed a hundred pounds and filled a
good-sized suitcase. Nowadays the tape deck was the
size of a transistor radio--a small one--and the fold-
ing dish looked like an average-sized umbrella, with
the lining made of shiny foil. Assembly took two
minutes, if the operator dragged his feet. The gear
could be set up, a message broadcast and the rig dis-
mantled in the time it took to smoke a cigarette.
    Decoding was no problem, either, if you knew what
you were doing. Aaron Kurtzman had a full year's
worth of daily codes programmed into his IBM. A few
keystrokes, and Bolan's message was replayed with no
distortion of the sender's voice. He sounded fit
enough.
 The message was disturbing, though.
 He listened to it twice before he buzzed for Barbara




Price and Yakov Katzenelenbogen, sitting through the
tape twice more while they absorbed it.
    "I don't like the sound of this," said Katz.
"They've got a major problem if their man with the
militia sold them out."
  "He didn't say that," Kurtzman noted.
    "Not exactly." Price's voice was grim. "That's
what it sounds like, though."
    "One way to look at this," Kurtzman said, "is that
if the link is broken, they'll have trouble bailing out,
the same as if they hang around."
    "Depends on how you work the odds," Barbara
Price stated. "If their militia man's rolled over, that
could put another army on the street, besides Vasi-
liev's. You know Mack's problem with the cops."
    "I don't think he regards it as a problem," Kurtz-
man said.
    "Whatever. When they're shooting at you, and you
won't shoot back, I'd say it stacks the odds."
    "One thing," Katz said. "Regardless of what's go-
ing on with the militia link, the only Russian who can
finger any member of the team is still connected.
That's a plus. The brass hats know they're working
with a team from the United States, but that's the limit.
They've got nothing when it comes to faces, names,
the rest of it."
  "Small favors," Barbara said.
    "And sometimes they're enough." The gruff Israe-
li's smile had years of grim experience behind it.
"Keep in mind that Russia's not the closed society it
used to be. Our people have been in there when it
wasn't open to the public, and they made it back. It's

 not as easy spotting foreigners in Moscow as it used
 to be--much less a group of first-rate pros who're tak-
 ing pains to keep a low profile."
  "You call shooting up the capital a low profile?"
    Katz didn't lose his smile. "They had an invitation,
Barbara, remember?"
    "Which may well have been revoked." She turned
to Kurtzman. "Bear, how long before we have another
contact window open?"
      "Midnight through half-past." And he didn't need
to add, If they can make it.  "Damn!"
    "If anybody asked me," Kurtzman said, "I'd say
they're doing the right thing. Pushing it this way, they
keep Vasiliev disorganized. For all we know, he's on
the run right now. On the militia end, it's even money.
I'd be happier if they were in Bermuda, soaking up
the sun, but I'm not ready to start playing taps."
    Silence hung between them for a moment, broken
finally when Price said, "We'd better patch this
through to Hal. He'll have a cow if we don't clue him
in."
    "He'll have the whole damn herd," Kurtzman said.
"I'll get on it right away."
    There was a telephone within his reach, but Kurtz-
man turned his chair around and toototed toward an-
other console on the far side of the room. He sensed
that Price could use some time with Katz, and Kurtz-
man hoped the ex-commando could provide some of
the reassurances she craved.
    That was the problem when it started getting per-
sonal, when you had friends and loved ones on the




firing line. He could have warned her off, but what
would be the point? A sterile life, without human con-
nections, barely qualified as life at all. Sometimes you
had to take your chances, reach out and touch someone
to verify that you were still alive. And if it blew up
in your face somewhere along the line, the pain was
validation of another kind.
    Life was a gamble, from the first breath to the last,
with nothing certain but the final outcome of the game.
There were no winners, in the sense of gaining youth
eternal or the secrets of the universe, but you could
rack up points along the way, depending on your style
of play. The race was sometimes to the swift, and
sometimes to the dogged runner who refused to stop
for obstacles.
    And sometimes, Kurtzman thought, it was enough
to just keep kicking ass.

THE HEADACHE HAD BEGUN almost precisely on the
stroke of noon, a grim reminder to Vasiliev that he
was halfway through another day without identifying
his persistent enemies. Each time the telephone de-
manded his attention, it was more bad news, another
of his people dead, another piece of property de-
stroyed.
  And now he had to deal with Yuri Renko.
    They had blown it with the trap at the museum.
Seven guns should have been ample for the job, but
something had gone wrong. Now the authorities were
raging over the elimination of a sergeant who was no
more than a secretary, shuffling paperwork and fetch-
ing coffee in the office. Seven to one, when they were

 finished counting bodies, and the pigs still wanted
 their revenge. Some of the officers Vasiliev had pur-
 chased years ago were shunning him this afternoon, as
 if he had the plague. It did no good for him to threaten
 them, since any leak about the bribes would implicate
 himself, as well.
  But Renko was the worst of it.
    There was no mystery to why the man would panic.
Basically Vasiliev expected nothing less. In his esti-
mation the kind of man who had to hide behind a
badge and uniform had no real courage of his own.
Exercise of authority went to a coward's head and
made him reckless sometimes, but it didn't make him
brave. It was one thing to throw your weight around
when you were backed up by an army, quite another
when you had to face the enemy alone. Vasiliev had
seen both sides, and while he much preferred his pres-
ent state, he didn't rank himself with men like Yuri
Renko, who derived their strength from numbers and
were lost if forced to stand alone.
    He could have driven Renko out the moment he had
finished spilling out the details of the massacre at the
museum, but something stopped Vasiliev from send-
ing him away. The man might still be useful in the
proper circumstances. If his various superiors in the
militsiya didn't know that he was running yet--and
Renko swore that they did not--Vasiliev could picture
situations where the colonel might assist him in the
final contest with their enemy.
 If only he could find out who the bastards were!
    Americans, he thought, and shook his head disgust-
edly. That told him nothing as to whether they were




mercenaries or clandestine agents of the government
with an official sanction. In either case they had al-
ready proved that they were dangerous in the extreme,
completely ruthless--worthy of his admiration if the
circumstances had been different.
    The only thing that mattered now was crushing
them like insects, rapidly, before they had a chance to
damage any more of Gregori Vasiliev's empire or rep-
utation. There were mutterings already in the family--
behind his back, but loud enough for him to hear--
that said he might have lost his touch. It might be time
for someone else to take the helm and lead the
Thieves' Society in new directions, time to sacrifice
Vasiliev before he brought them all down in defeat.
    But he wasn't defeated yet. He still had better than
a hundred of his Chechen soldiers spread throughout
the city, some on guard at special properties, while
others combed the streets for any information that
would lead them to the enemy. He didn't trust his eyes
in the militsiya just now, but knew the uniforms were
out there looking, too. If they got lucky, it was all the
same to him, as long as his assailants were removed
from circulation--permanently.
    Death was all that mattered in the end. Vasiliev
wasn't concerned about who pulled the trigger, just as
long as it was done effectively.  And soon.
    Meanwhile he would provide the colonel with a
place to hide, on the condition that his services were
still available as needed. It was a good deal all around,
and there was ample time to cut Renko loose when
they had dealt with their opponents once and for all.

    When that was done, the colonel would be expend-
able. Vasiliev would have to flip a coin and see if he
should drop the colonel in a shallow grave or let him
slink away and find himself another hiding place.
Whatever he decided, there would be no trail to lead
detectives to his doorstep. Not this time.
    The Chechen godfather was burning bridges with a
vengeance, and the smell of smoke was sweet.

THE HOTEL ROOM was nearly small enough to qualify
as claustrophobic, but Gromylko didn't care. He sat
on one end of the double bed and checked his weap-
ons, starting with the pistol, moving on to the Kalash-
nikov, spare magazines and finally the grenades. He
didn't want the pins to stick in an emergency. It helped
to loosen them a little, getting ready for the moment
when he had no time to spare.
    Around him his associates were doing likewise,
barely speaking as they field-stripped weapons, reas-
sembled them and loaded up. Gromylko watched them
working, and he tried to understand why any one of
them would take the risk of coming to Russia for a
shot at Gregori Vasiliev. He knew the Russian mafiya
had found its way to the United States, competing with
the homegrown gangsten there, but that wasn't
enough to bring these men so far from home. They
were prepared to sacrifice their lives, if necessary, to
complete the job, and that was more than he could say
for many of the officers in Russia who were sworn to
help enforce the laws.
 Whatever motivated them, Gromylko thanked his




not-so-lucky stars that they were on his side. Without
them, he might still have tried to break Vasiliev, but
he had tried before, and it had cost his partner's life.
Alone, he knew the odds against him would be insur-
mountable. Indeed, they still might be, but he no
longer felt the helplessness of fighting on his own,
while everyone around ,him talked about lost causes
and attempted to divert him to some other course.
    He thought of Yuri Renko, then--the bastard's
smirking face--and knew that he couldn't live with
himself until the colonel paid for Dobrinin's death. For
all Gromylko knew, there might be some connection
between Renko and Churbanov's murder, too, al-
though it seemed unlikely that Vasiliev had been
tipped off about their raid. In that case he would al-
most certainly have stayed away to spare himself the
risk.
    It was enough that Renko was responsible for Do-
brinin's death, however. There was no hard proof, but
the lieutenant wasn't working up a case for trial. He
knew how Renko operated, understood the colonel's
mind and realized that Dobrinin's life meant nothing
to him in the scheme of things. Vasiliev would merely
have to make a call, and Renko would perform like
any other animal that has been trained to jump, play
dead, sit up and beg.
    The question nagging at Gromylko now was how
the colonel could have known what he was up to.
Reaching Dobrinin wouldn't have been a problem, but
the why of it was still a riddle. Had the general, after
all, decided he should share the details of their project
with a fellow officer, perhaps to be prepared for the

events in Moscow when they broke? Had Renko
tapped the files himself, without the general's knowl-
edge, and reported on Gromylko's mission to Vasi-
liev?
    The latter option seemed more likely, but again
Gromylko was not overly concerned with how. It was
enough that he knew who, within a moral certainty,
and that he had a chance to make it right, no matter
what it cost him in the end.
    Gromylko saw no way to salvage his career, with
all that he had seen and done the past few days. He
was prepared to find himself a quiet line of work,
somewhere away from Moscow if he could, but not
before he finished with the job that he had started.
  Not until the Chechen godfather was crushed.
    And Yuri Renko. He wouldn't forget the colonel if
he lived to be a hundred.
    Which, considering the way he planned to spend the
next few hours, was a most unlikely prospect.
"I'm all done," he said to no one in particular.
The others were completing preparations even as he
spoke. It took another moment to conceal their weap-
ons in the suitcases and duffel bags that they would
use to carry them downstairs.
    "In that case," said the tall American who led the
team, "let's hit the bricks."




CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The repair shop in the Degunino district, north of
downtown Moscow, was supposed to specialize in the
repair of small appliances. It had been documented
that the men in charge did some such work, though
not enough to keep themselves in groceries. The shop
closed down at least three days a week on average,
and it wasn't uncommon for a housewife with a bro-
ken toaster to be told that she would have to wait a
week or two before the item could be fixed. In Russia
such delays were not unheard of, but in this case they
had less to do with simple inefficiency than with the
shop owner's preoccupation in another area.
    Civilian ownership of timarms in Russia is restricted
to the point of virtual nonexistence. In the past, exalted
Communist Party members had been able to acquire
the necessary permits for sporting rifles and shotguns,
while pistols and paramilitary hardware were, at least
in theory, the exclusive province of the state. Today
permits are still required, and those with high positions
in society are first to be approved by the militsiya. In
practice, though, Moscow has turned into a full-scale
arms bazaar, with military-surplus weapons readily
available to anyone with ample cash on hand. In prac-

tice that means criminals and wealthy men who live
in fear of crime. It is a thriving business for the Rus-
sian mafiya and shows no signs of fading in the stretch.
    The small appliance shop in Degunino specialized
in guns. Its three technicians removed serial numbers,
shortened or replaced barrels, converted semiauto-
matic weapons to full-auto, fabricated silencers and
threaded muzzles to receive them--in short, performed
the full range of underworld gunsmithing. As an ar-
morer himself, Bolan admired their enterprise and
skill. As a committed enemy of those they served, he
was prepared to wipe them off the map.
    It sounded like a one-man job, so Hawkins waited
in the car and kept the engine running. Bolan wore an
Uzi underneath his topcoat, on a swivel sling, and
flicked the safety off when he was several paces from
the door of the appliance shop. He couldn't read the
sign to see if they were closed or open, but he tried
the door, found it unlocked and heard a small bell
jingle overhead as he stepped through.
    A stocky, crew-cut man in his late thirties stared at
Bolan from behind a long display case, where assorted
new and secondhand appliances had been arranged
without much thought to visual appeal. The shop's
proprietor spoke gruffly, but his words were lost on
Bolan. Rather than attempt to answer him, the Exe-
cutioner exposed his weapon, muzzle pointed at the
Russian's chest.
    In retrospect he had to give the fellow points for
nerve. Confronted with a submachine gun, he still tried
to reach a weapon underneath the register. He shouted
something, a threat or a warning, and then his voice




was silenced by a burst of parabellum manglers rip-
ping through his chest and throat. The impact hurled
him backward, smashing him into shelves with force
enough to bring down an avalanche of ancient-looking
appliances.
    The Executioner kept moving, made his way around
the near end of the counter, headed for an open door-
way leading to the back, where shuffling sounds told
him there was at least one other enemy to deal with.
Instinct sent him through the doorway fast and low, a
spray of bullets whipping through the empty space
above his head.
    It wasn't a Kalashnikov; the sound and muzzle-
flashes told him that. Perhaps a Skorpion or something
similar. In any case it would be big and bad enough
to do the job, if Bolan gave the shooter time to find
his mark.
    But the next second he made target acquisition, and
the Uzi stuttered, bullets flying in a zigzag pattern,
rising from the floor, stitching the gunner from his
ankles to his throat before be toppled over backward.
    There seemed to be nobody else around the place,
and that was fine with Bolan. Rising to his feet, he
took a moment to reload the Uzi, then removed an
incendiary grenade from one of his overcoat pockets
and dropped the safety pin. Before he let it go, a
glance around the workshop showed him racks of mil-
itary hardware that would easily bring several billion
rubles on the street, allowing for the current rate of
exchange.
    "And now it's garbage," Bolan told the dead man,
tossing the grenade. When it went off, the white-hot

chemicals would start a fire that water couldn't
quench, a blaze that would consume concrete and
steel, as well as flesh and bone.
    Before that happened, he was on the sidewalk, mov-
ing swiftly toward the car. It rolled to meet him, Haw-
kins braking at the curb while Bolan slid into the shot-
gun seat. A glance back toward the shop showed eerie,
dancing lights inside, intensifying by the moment.
    "Looks like another careless smoker," Hawkins
said, and put the car in gear.

GROMYLKO'S TARGET on the west side of the city, the
KuntsSvo district, was an automotive shop that han-
dled both mechanical repairs and bodywork. Behind
the scenes it doubled as a chop shop for disposal of
hot cars, remodeled others so they met the special
needs of smugglers or assassins and maintained the
private vehicles of ranking members in the Thieves'
Society. It was a Chechen operation, owned by Gre-
god Vasiliev, but the technicians would serve anyone
who paid in cash and demonstrated an ability to keep
a secret. They were very democratic that way, in the
mold of Russia's new regime.
    Encizo flipped a coin to see who would remain to
watch the car. The Cuban lost and muttered something
underneath his breath in Spanish as he slipped his pis-
tol from its shoulder holster, hiding it beneath the
newspaper that he had folded in his lap. Gromylko slid
out of the car and waited in the street for Calvin James
to join him.
    It was dark by now, and lights were showing from
inside the auto shop, through smallish windows at one




end. Gromylko didn't try to hide the folding-stock Ka-
lashnikov he carried, daring anyone who crossed his
path to try to stop him from proceeding with his mis-
sion of the moment. Calvin James was left to scan the
street in each direction, watching out for witnesses, but
there was no one visible in this commercial neighbor-
hood, where nearly all the shops had closed down for
the day.
    They passed the front door by and walked around
to the rear, Gromylko leading. At the back door he
stepped up close and knocked--three raps, a pause,
two more, another pause, then two again. A step back
from the door, and he was ready, with his AK-47 lev-
eled from the waist, when it was opened by a porky
man in grease-stained coverails.
    Gromylko shot the Chechen gangster three times in
the chest and blew him backward, landing with a solid
thump against the concrete floor. A heartbeat later
Gromylko and James were both inside the auto shop
and facing off with three more surly types in oily
denim jumpsuits. They were grouped around a Zil se-
dan, hood raised, and while the wrenches in their
hands might qualify as deadly weapons in a brawl,
Gromylko was more conscious of the shotgun and four
pistols spread out on the workbench several paces to
the right.
    One of the mob mechanics hurled his wrench at
Calvin James as all three broke in the direction of the
workbench arsenal. Gromylko tracked them with his
AK-47, firing from the hip, while his companion cut
loose from a crouch. Twin streams of automatic fire
converged on the runners, tearing into them before

 they reached their guns. Another moment and they lay
 together on the floor of the garage, bright crimson
 pooled beneath them, beading on the oily concrete as
 it spread.
    A smell of cordite filled Gromylko's nostrils as he
moved among the dead and made sure they were fin-
ished. Checking out the car, he saw that they had been
engaged in customizing the engine compartment, re-
modeling its interior to accommodate a fair amount of
hidden contraband. Drugs could have filled the twin
compartments fashioned there, perhaps handguns or
stolen jewelry.
    There was a single gasoline pump out in back.
James stretched the hose out to its limit, stopping short
some ten feet from the open door of the garage, and
locked open the trigger on its nozzle, which was lying
on the ground and aimed in the direction of the build-
ing. Pungent fuel came gushing out and quickly
formed a river, some of which spread out along the
back wall of the auto shop, while still more made its
way inside. The warriors stood and watched it for a
moment longer, then Gromylko unclipped an incen-
diary grenade from his belt, pulled the pin and tossed
it through the open doorway with an underhanded
pitch.
    "Let's go," he said, and they retreated to the car
in a hurry. When they got there, flames rushed through
the shop and lit the stream of gasoline that led outside.
The pump exploded, spewing flames like a volcano as
it burned.
  "Not bad," Calvin James remarked.
  "How do you say it in America?" Gromylko asked,




then answered for himself. "You ain't seen nothing
yet."

VASILIEV WAS IN A RAGE. He had been on the tele-
phone almost nonstop for better than three hours now,
relaying orders to his soldiers on the street, consulting
with subordinates and trying to instill some courage in
the weaker individuals, who wanted to evacuate while
they were still in shape to travel. He had cowed them
for the moment with his threats and promises, but each
new word of some disaster from the streets increased
the danger that his men would start to panic--worse,
that some of them might soon start thinking for them-
selves.
    Not that Vasiliev could blame them when he
thought about it. He was on the verge of bailing out
himself.
    Evacuating Moscow would require a measure of fi-
nesse, however, if he didn't wish the other ranking
members of the Thieves' Society to scorn him as a
coward and unfit to lead. He must give a strong im-
pression that he possessed a plan to trap and crush
their enemies, and furthermore, that his departure from
the city was a crucial aspect of the plan's success. He
must present himself as living bait and make it seem
that he was offering himself to those who hunted him,
risking his life for the good of the order he served.
    Meanwhile his troops in Moscow would be under
orders to redouble their efforts, take any steps neces-
sary to find and destroy the men responsible for his
embarrassment. Vasiliev didn't really intend to sacri-
fice himself, any more than he intended to orbit the

 moon on a broomstick. But appearances were every-
 thing, and when his soldiers stopped the enemy in
 Moscow--if they did--the honors would accrue to
 Gregori Vasiliev.
    Meanwhile he would be safe and sound, well out of
danger at his dacha in the country. By tomorrow eve-
ning it would make no difference if his enemies
burned Moscow to the ground. Assuming that his sol-
diers and the whole militsiya couldn't stop them, they
would still have no clear shot at Gregori Vasiliev. The
Chechen godfather would be long gone.
    His change of heart concerning last-ditch stands in
Moscow was an evolutionary process. Simply stated,
he had watched so many of his soldiers die within the
past few days, that he no longer thought himself in-
vincible. The fact of personal mortality was driven
home to him each time the phone rang, with another
grim report of his subordinates blown up, gunned
down, cremated in the string of raids that never
seemed to end. Vasiliev, while still concerned about
potential loss of face among his fellow mobsters, had
begun to rank survival as his first priority.
    He would be taking Yuri Renko with him when he
left. It was distasteful, but Vasiliev still thought some
situation might arise where it would serve him well to
have the colonel close by. If nothing else, should the
police come knocking on his door with questions,
Renko could assure them that he had the matter well
in hand. It was a flimsy stall and wouldn't last for
long, but if it came to that, Vasiliev wasn't too proud
to grasp at straws.
 He thought about his brother, murdered in America,




and cursed the day their business had expanded to the
States. It was the largest market for the Russian mafiya
these days, and there had been no way to dodge the
risky enterprise, but twenty-twenty hindsight made
him wish that he had left the field to others. Not so
much because Mikhail was lost to him, as for the dan-
ger he was now facing alone.
    Throughout his life Vasiliev had taken pride in fol-
lowing his brain instead of acting on crude instinct. It
was the difference that had kept him out of prison all
these years and made him fabulously rich, while others
were convicted, sometimes executed or else weeded
out in gang wars, slaughtered by their own. No one
had ever managed to intimidate Vasiliev.  Before today.
    He told himself that leaving Moscow under fire
wasn't the same as running. Wise men chose their bat-
tlegrounds and lived to fight another day, while fools
rushed in and spilled their blood in clashes that were
soon forgotten, wasting energy and lives. So many of
his enemies had fallen, men whose balls were larger
than their brains, who wouldn't hesitate to kill or be
killed on the basis of a passing insult, eager for the
smell of blood instead of taking time to think things
through and find a way to gain both vengeance and a
tidy profit on the side. Vasiliev had seen them come
and go, the dinosaurs of crime, and he didn't intend
to join them on the list of vanished species.
  Not if he could find a way to save himself.
    But he wasn't prepared to leave just yet. There were
some final preparations to be made, an outside chance
that he would catch a break and see his adversaries

run to earth before he was required to flee. In that
event Vasiliev would be prepared to welcome the con-
gratulations of his colleagues in the Thieves' Society.
    But he would still be on his feet and breathing when
the smoke cleared, come what may. It was a promise
to himself, the only person he could trust in life.
    Whatever happened in the next few hours, he in-
tended to survive.

HAWKINS THOUGHT the whorehouse could have passed
for a hotel, perhaps a small but stylish convalescent
home. Its placement in the upper-middle-class Chimki-
Chovrino district was no accident, but rather a con-
cession to the kind of clients who could well afford
the services it offered, even in these days of runaway
inflation. At that rate, classy whores--or any whores,
for that matter--were well beyond the budget of the
common workingman. You wouldn't get far on the
stroll, with smiles and promises in lieu of cash, much
less among the silk-and-satin set who plied their trade
indoors.
    It was traditional for customers to call ahead instead
of simply dropping by, but Hawk and Bolan had no
time for the niceties. Their schedule was a trifle
cramped for setting up appointments... and they didn't
speak the language.
    To hell with it, Hawk thought as he approached the
back door of the house. Sometimes the party crashers
had more fun than those with invitations, anyway.
    He checked his watch and saw that Bolan should be
on the front step now, his finger on the bell. Hawk
tried the back door and was pleasantly surprised to feel




the knob turn at his touch. It was the kind of break-
down in security that seldom preyed on a civilian's
mind until it was too late.
    He stepped inside and closed the door behind him
softly, standing with his AK-47 braced against his hip,
one-handed. There was no one to oppose him as he
moved along a hallway decorated with erotic paintings
that resembled outtakes from the Kama Sutra, with a
Russian twist. The women tended toward a Ruben-
esque ideal, except for the contorted faces, painted to
appear as if they couldn't get enough, no matter what
bizarre activities they were engaged in at the time.
    Hawk smiled. I may not know much about art, he
thought, but I know what I like.
    He was still smiling when a door ten feet in front
of him swung open, and a man stepped out into the
hall. The guy wore two-thirds of a three-piece suit,
without the jacket, so that Hawk could see his shoulder
holster and the shiny autoloader slung beneath his arm.
Perhaps two seconds ticked away before the shooter
tried to reach it, dying for his trouble as a 3-round
burst tore through his chest and slammed him back
against the doorjamb, toppling awkwardly across the
threshold back into the room behind him.
    That tore it. Hawkins started double-timing toward
the sound of startled voices, just about the time more
gunfire echoed from the street side of the house. That
led to women screaming and male voices shouting
curses and questions, something Hawkins couldn't
even start to understand.
    He was on it, rolling, chopping down a gunner who
came charging out in front of him from what was

probably a bathroom, brandishing a pistol in his right
hand, holding up his trousers with the left. He never
saw death coming, but took it in the back and went
down flopping, on his face.  To hell with chivalry.
    The upstairs rooms had emptied by the time Hawk
made it to the parlor. Bolan had four women and a
couple of their johns lined up against one wall, another
handful edging down the stairs, all eyes on his Ka-
lashnikov. Behind him in the foyer lay the bodies of
two gunmen who had failed to do their job. Blood
soaked into the sky blue carpet, making purple
splotches that would never wash away.
    They didn't bother asking for a volunteer inter-
preter. Instead of trying to communicate in spoken lan-
guage, Bolan stood aside and waved the muzzle of his
AK-47 toward the open exit to the street. It took about
three seconds for the girls to catch his drift and take
off running, while the johns were slower on the up-
take, huddling like a group of frightened schoolboys
as they scuttled toward the door.
    When they were gone, the Executioner turned back
to Hawkins. "One more thing. We need a run-through
of all the rooms, checking any wardrobes, under beds,
any hiding places. Somebody may have crawled away,
and we don't want them here for the fireworks."
    Hawkins nodded and went off at a run to make a
sweep of the place. When he came back to give the
all clear, Bolan said, "Okay, let's do it."
    Hawkins palmed a thermite canister and primed it,
pitched it back in the direction he had come from,
moving toward the street as Bolan lobbed a second




tirebomb toward the second-story landing. Smoke and
flames were visible before they reached the curb, but
none of those they had evicted from the whorehouse
could be seen.
    "You know, way we're going," Hawkins said,
"someone's gonna be pissed off."
    That brought a smile from Bolan, as he answered,
"Hold that thought."

THE PRIVATE AIRFIELD on the outskirts of the Nikulino
district, in southwestern Moscow, was another prop-
erty controlled by Gregori Vasiliev. Since commu-
nism's fall it was permitted for selected wealthy busi-
nessmen to purchase private planes and helicopters,
and to travel as they liked, without advance permission
from the government. The new regime encouraged
spending, capital investment, all the things its prede-
cessors had presumably despised for some three-
quarters of a century. Of course, with freedom came
new risks, new opportunities to steal and smuggle,
none of which was overlooked by Gregori Vasiliev
and his blood brothers in the Russian mafiya.
    It came as no surprise to Calvin James, therefore,
when he was told that drugs and other contraband were
frequently delivered or dispatched on flights arriving
and departing from the Nikulino airfield. While Vas-
iliev maintained a staff to fake the necessary paper-
work and keep the aircraft fit to fly, he also doled out
bribes to the inspectors charged with making sure that
private pilots carefully observed the letter of the law.
For every ruble spent on bribes, he made a thousand

back on dirty business operated from the airstrip, so
that everyone was happy in the end.
  Except for Calvin James and company.
    The field was dark when they arrived, no evidence
of any guards on duty. That was almost certainly be-
cause Vasiliev maintained the airfield through a paper
corporation, with a pair of front men listed as propri-
etors of record. If he had to guess, James would have
said the last thing on the Russian mobster's mind
would be his adversaries sniffing out the airfield, tak-
ing steps to scratch it off the master list of targets they
were carrying.
The rub was that he would have been dead wrong.
They left the car and fanned out in the darkness,
checked the buildings first to verify that they were all
alone. From there it was a short walk to the apron
where Vasiliev had two planes parked: an Antonov
An-28 fifteen-seat prop plane, and a larger Yakolev
Yak-40 jet, with seating for twenty-seven, plus flight
crew.
    It took five minutes to rig up the Semtex charges
on the planes, then they walked back to the office, set
the timer on another fist-size charge and wedged it in
the mail slot. One more block of plastic explosives for
the twin fuel pumps that stood outside the hangar, after
they had satisfied themselves that there were no more
planes inside, and they were finished. James drove
ninety yards before he stopped the car and waited,
glancing back and forth between his wristwatch and
the darkened airstrip, waiting for the fireworks to be-
gin.
 The timers had been set to blow in unison, and they




were right on time. Both planes, the office and the fuel
pumps went together, fireballs leaping skyward in the
night, while James grimaced, squinting at the sudden
flare of brilliant light. The shock wave reached them
next; it felt as if a giant hand had slapped the car just
hard enough to capture their attention, without break-
ing anything. In s<onds flat the smoke from burning
oil and gasoline obscured the airstrip, blocking the
view of the destruction they had caused.
    "Not bad," James said. "Our boy has any travel
plans, he'll have to wait in line for tickets, just like
everybody else."
    "He won't be flying where he needs to go," Gro-
mylko declared.
  "You've got it figured out already, then?"
    The Russian smiled at James, his face pale in the
dashboard light, and said, "I would not be surprised."

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Ostankino smoking parlor, north of downtown
Moscow, was the kind of dive where those enslaved
by drugs gathered to do more ruin to their bodies.
Depending on their choice of poisons--and the cash
they managed to scrounge up or collect by begging,
strong-arm robbery or fencing stolen goods--they
could procure anasha, mak or khimka on the premises
and smoke it to their hearts' content---or until their
cash ran out. At that point they were on the street and
on their own.
    Police were paid to look the other way with regard
to smoking parlors, as with so much else that hap-
pened in the new Russia. On occasion, when a raid
was called for to promote some candidate's political
campaign, a call from headquarters would warn the
principals involved and give them time to clear the
premises before police arrived. If some of their befud-
dled customers were carted off to jail, it made a dandy
photo opportunity for the politicians.
    There would be no warning call tonight, but Bolan
felt quite certain that the clients in the place would
have no interest in standing in his way. Their main




concern would be to get away, and not have their es-
ca~ m narco-heaven disrupted.
    He went in through the front, an Uzi flat agmnst his
thigh until he cleared the threshold and the first strong-
man tried to stop him. Igor X was puffing out his chest
~d swaggering until he saw the submachine gun, then
he made the worst choice of his miserable life and
tried to reach a pistol holstered underneath his jacket.
Bolan shot him in the he~, three parabellum rounds
that painted abstract patterns on the wall.
    The Uzi wasn't silenced, and there was no time to
waste as Bolan moved on past the co~se in search of
other targets. It was smoky in the main room of the
building, but the real stench came from smaller r~ms
that o~n~ off the large central chamber. There, he
knew, the users would be segregated by their drag of
choice, as many as a dozen in a r~m, to smoke their
brains out--literally--while a team of Chechen thugs
sm~ gu~d.
    A couple of the heavies were advancing on him
now, both drawing pistols as they lumbered into view.
They must have heard the gunfire, but they didn't
know quite what to make of it until they glimpsed the
Ex~utioner and realized their buddy on the door was
histo~.
    They broke in opposite directions. They were heavy
on ~eir feet, but quick enough m make it challenging.
The one on Bolan's right was a ~eater threat, since
he was aiming as he ran.
    Bolan squeezed off another sho~ burst from his Uzi,
and he saw the gunman stagger, clutching at his stom-
ach with his fr~ hand, while he wasted two pathetic

shots. Momentum and the pull of gravity t~k over,
brought him down, and Bolan swiveled to confront the
s<ond gunner, dropping into a defensive crouch.
    The Chechen's first shot sailed a f~t above his head
~d struck the wall somewhere behind Mm. Number
two was closer, but not close enough. The Uzi had a
target fix by then, and it was hammering a stream of
manglers into flesh and bone. The sh~ter reeled, then
sprawled over backward in a lifeless heap.
    A glance back toward the other gunman showed that
he was still alive, if not exactly hcking. Down on
hands and knees, blo~ streaming from the belly
wounds that would eventually kill him, he was reach-
ing for the pistol he had lost, his face a twisted study
in dete~ination. Bolan didn't feel like risking it, and
so he stroked the submachine gun's trigger lightly,
dropped the wounded shooter on the blood-slick floor.
    A number of the parlor's clients had emerged from
different rooms, all checking out the action, most of
them recoiling from the sight and smell of death. But
a handful hung in there, trying hard to stare the warrior
down with bleary eyes. One of them found the nerve
to come at Bolan from the left, a shiny cuthroat razor
flashing in his hand as he advanced with lurching
steps.
    It would have been no trick to kill him where he
stood, but Bolan exercised restraint. He ducked the
first swing of the razor, hooked the Uzi's muzzle in
below his adversairys ribs and heard the smoky breath
explode from heaving lungs. Before the junkie could
collapse, the Uzi whipped around and met his teeth on


 the upswing, with force enough to flip him over on
 his back, out cold.
    It was enough to make the others do a rapid fade,
back into smoke and shadows. Bolan had considered
burning out the place, but now he thought there were
enough bum-outs already on the scene, he left a mil-
itary smoke grenade behind to flush them out of hiding
once he'd gone, and put the place behind him, walking
swiftly back to Hawkins and the waiting car.
    "Smells like you found the party," Hawk remarked
when they had covered half a block.
    "It wasn't that much fun," said Bolan, staring out
his window at the Russian night. "No snacks, no
band."
    "You take a chance on that shit when you're not
invited."
    "You ever think of doing comedy?" he asked the
newest member of the Phoenix team.
    "I might, at that," said Hawkins. 'Tin a stand-up
kinda guy."

THE STAUNCHLY middle-class Z'uzino district lies due
south of downtown Moscow, a preserve of clerks and
secretaries, public servants who will never head their
own departments, but who keep the wheels in motion,
even when it seems sometimes that Russian govern-
ment must shudder to a halt. Z'uzino's kind of crime
isn't the sort that leaves fresh bodies in the gutter
every morning or places hookers on the comers of its
residential streets, but there are always drugs around,
as well as out-call services that deliver playmates of
the gender specified to those with means to pay.

    Z'uzino's four-year-old athletic club wasn't a place
where local residents spent any time. In fact, it was a
private operation, membership by invitation only, and
as luck would have it, all the members were associated
with the Chechen mafiya. Not thugs and bruisers, but
the rough equivalent of middle management, who
went about their business every day and kept a sharp
eye on the men above them, waiting for a slipup that
would make room on the next rung of the ladder. Dog
eat dog.
    In normal times the mobsters hung around the club
to let their hair down and relax, work out with weights
or take a swim, steam off a few pounds in the sauna.
On a night like this--and they were rare these days--
the club became a staging area, where phone calls
were received and orders issued, teams dispatched to
meet the latest threat or chase a lead on the elusive
enemy.
    There had been no real leads to speak of, though,
since the attacks began in Moscow, and the club was
operating with a skeleton crew when Rafael Encizo let
himself in through the back door at 12:15 a.m. A pun-
gent odor of cigar smoke helped him navigate along
unlighted corridors until a spill of pale fluorescent
lighting brought him to an office. The presence of sev-
eral voices told him there were two or three men in
the room, at least. Encizo held his AK-47 ready as he
stepped up to the open door.
    James and Gromylko would be waiting for him on
the street out front to deal with any who got past him
and escaped in that direction. Encizo didn't intend to
give them any, but you never knew how something




 might play out once you were in the middle of the
 game. It wasn't as if they had a hard, fast rule of play,
 with everyone on both sides willing to abide by certain
 rules. Once the manure hit the fan, there was no telling
 which way it would blow.
    He stepped into the office doorway, counting three
gunners at a desk, all sitting down, two of them smok-
ing, while the third used a penknife to clean under-
neath his tingemails. Encizo cleared his throat to cap-
ture their attention, giving them a chance to see death
coming, even if they had no time to save themselves.
    At that, one of the smokers kicked back in his chair,
hand groping for a pistol on his belt, while his com-
panions ducked for cover. Half a dozen rounds from
the Cuban's Kalashnikov ripped through the smoking
shooter's chest, his body slamming to the floor, still
seated in his metal folding chair.
    The others had nowhere to hide, but they were try-
ing. Mr. Clean was desperate enough to fling his pen-
knife at Encizo, but it flew on past him, out the door,
and rattled in the hallway. Three rounds from the
AK-47 hurled him against a watercooler in the comer,
the spill of water helping to wash his blood away.
  And that left one.
    The guy behind the desk was on his knees and fum-
bling in the top drawer, looking for a weapon, when
Encizo walked around to face him. He started bab-
bling, then raised both hands as if he wanted to sur-
render on the spot.
    "Too late," Encizo said, and flattened him with
three rounds to the chest.
 He was retreating from the office when a bullet

struck the wall six inches from his face. Encizo hit a
fighting crouch and spun in the direction of the pistol
shot. A naked fat man was standing in the middle of
the hallway, dripping sweat, a shiny automatic wob-
bling in his left hand, while the right secured a terry
towel around his waist.
    Encizo didn't know if he was coming from the
sauna or the swimming pool, nor did he care. The
AK47 stuttered as he found his target, stitching
bloody vents across the mobster's bloated stomach, up
across his chest, the last two rounds exploding in his
face. The impact swept him off his feet and dropped
him on his backside with a heavy thud.
    Encizo took another moment checking out the place
and making sure he was alone, then placed his Serorex
charges, set the times, made his exit through the front
door of the club. The car was waiting when he got
there, James at the wheel, Gromylko in the shotgun
seat.
  "All clear. Let's roll," Encizo said.

VASILIEV WAS TROUBLED. He couldn't help but think
that he was running out of luck. Until his brother's
death, he would have said his life was charmed; at
least it had been from the time he took control of it
and climbed up from the gutter to command respect
from those who made a business of devouring the
weak and helpless. He wasn't a man to trifle with, by
any means, but in the past two weeks his whole life
had turned upside down. He wondered if his brother's
death had been an omen of disaster for himself, as
well.




    Vasiliev knew nothing of religion. He had grown
up under communism, educated by the state and on
the streets, and while he was not a committed atheist,
he had seen little to persuade him that a loving, caring
deity had anything to do with men's affairs. If people
did not live and die by chance, they had their wits to
thank for anything they gained along the way. Strong
men with brains inevitably prospered if they kept their
guard up and didn't allow themselves to be cut down
by cunning peasants.
    Even without the prospect of reward and retribution
in an afterlife, Vasiliev was forced to wonder if his
late misfortunes might betray the hand of fate. Some
of his cronies in the Thieves' Society were supersti-
tious to the point that they would kill a black cat rather
than allow the creature to cross their paths. They made
a fetish of avoiding certain numbers, colors, anything
at all they perceived to be bad luck. Vasiliev had spent
a lifetime laughing at their peasant foolishness, but
now he had to wonder if there might not be another
guiding hand at work behind the scenes.
    But then, he scoffed, if God was truly in His heaven,
how could he allow the mafiya to flourish or create
such crops as opium, cocaine and hashish for the
drones to use and syndicates to sell?
    Still, even lacking God, that did not rule out...
something else. Some force that could decide, from
time to time, to meddle in affairs of men and shift the
balance just enough to topple empires, while the peas-
ants had their day.
    Vasiliev was tired of thinking. It was time for him
to act, and all that he could think of at the moment

was evacuation from the city that had turned into a
smoking battleground. He hadn't been alive when
German troops laid siege to Moscow during World
War II, but he imagined that the residents must have
felt similar to how he felt, this night. His dreams were
going up in smoke around him, and cold logic told
him he would die, if he didn't escape without delay.
    Taking Yuri Renko with him was a mild annoyance,
but Vasiliev would find a way around that problem
when he did not need the colonel any longer. And the
more he thought about it now, the more he told him-
self that Renko had no right to simply disappear, run
off and live his life as if he were a normal man. He
would be dangerous to Gregori Vasiliev and every
other member of the Thieves' Society as long as he
survived. Such risks were better dealt with swiftly and
decisively rather than allowing them to linger, preying
on the mind until something went wrong.
    That settled, the godfather finished packing for his
trip. He wouldn't carry luggage--that would be be-
neath him--but he always packed it for himself, with-
out relying on his servants. No one else knew what he
wanted on a trip; they would be guessing, drawing on
their own preferences instead of his, and that was un-
acceptable.
    He might be running, but Vasiliev would run in
style. The limousine was parked downstairs, his sol-
diers waiting in the hall outside his suite, with more
around the car. Another vehicle was on its way to fetch
the colonel from his temporary hideout. No one knew
where Renko was except Vasiliev, and if the enemy




should find him somehow...well, he would have to let
nature take its course.
    The main thing now was getting out of town as
rapidly as possible. His dacha was secure, more read-
ily defended than the Moscow penthouse, safe from
interference by authorities if he was called upon to
fight. It wouldn't come to that, he told himself, but it
was better to be safe than sorry. When he finished
packing, in a few more moments, he would be away
from Moscow, and his enemies could chase their tails
forever---or until their luck ran out and they were
killed by Chechen gunmen or police. In either case they would be dead.
 And Gregori Vasiliev would still be king.
 He felt it in his bones.

PERVERSION NEVER SLEEPS. It plots and schemes
around the clock, observes no holidays, takes no va-
cations. It is ravenous, insatiable. It cannot rest.
    The house in Kuz'mink, east of central Moscow,
had been renovated by the latest occupants, but they
were less concerned with style than with security.
Soundproofing had been added, double thick to guar-
antee the necessary privacy, and good-size trees had
been trucked in and transplanted for the extra shelter
they provided on the grounds. The neighbors were im-
pressed at so much money being spent, at least in part
to beautify their neighborhood, that few remarked on
how the house had seemed to disappear, no longer
visible to those who lived on either side of it, a bare
glimpse possible from straight across the street or driv-
ing by.

    The tenants needed privacy, in fact; their trade de-
manded it. If anyone in the exclusive neighborhood
had seen through their facade, revulsion would have
been immediately followed by a call to the militsiya,
and someone would have gone to jail, regardless of
the bribes that had been spread around downtown.
  For there were children's lives at stake.
    The tenants were no pedophiles themselves, but
they were plugged into the network of "child loversTM
and abusers--sometimes killers--who would pay hard
currency to anyone who made their sick, perverted
fantasies come true. Most of the customers were
men--and women, too, a small but growing number--
who could pass you on the street without a second
glance, unless you were impressed by their apparent
wealth, the cultivated air of high society that clung to
them like the aroma of a sweet perfume. Their crimes
against humanity were no more obvious, during a face-
to-face encounter, than a virus coursing through their
blood.
    It had the same effect, though. They were incurable
because they did not want a cure, immune to psychi-
atric treatment, threats of punishment--the whole nine
yards.
    McCarter knew the type, and he despised them even
more than terrorists. With a religious or political fa-
natic, you could always tell yourself the bomber or the
triggerman believed that he was doing good for some-
one--members of his race, religion, ethnic group,
whatever. With the scum who preyed on children,
though, it was a twisted sex-and-power trip, their
brains wired so that nothing mattered but their own




needs and desires. If someone else should suffer while
they had their fun, so much the better.
    He was looking forward to this strike with grim an-
ticipation. Any adults in the house were guilty, simply
by the fact of being there. He did not have to check
ID or wait for someone to produce a gun.  No prisoners.
    Gromylko had assisted with a phone call to arrange
McCarter's "date," though he would not be with them
on the raid. The language barrier meant nothing to
McCarter as he rang the doorbell, hoping Gary Man-
ning had had time to make his way around in back.
Whatever, it was time to roll. He couldn't wait a mo-
ment longer.
    Bigfoot's cousin opened up the door, huge body
stuffed into a suit that seemed about to rip along the
seams, his brute face frowning at McCarter. The ex-
pression changed immediately when McCarter shot
him in the groin, his trousers smoking from the
AK-47's point-black muzzle blast. The hulk lurched
backward, gasping as he fought to keep his balance,
but a second round zipped through one nostril, and the
whole top of his head came off.
    "Don't bother to announce me," McCarter said as
he stepped across the corpse and made his way inside.
    Another man was moving toward him, shoulder hol-
ster over shirtsleeves, reaching for the pistol as he
came. McCarter shot him in the chest with the Ka-
lashnikov, three rounds in semiauto mode, conserving
ammunition, moving on without a moment's hesitation
as the shooter sprawled out on the floor.
 It would have been a beautiful two-story house, ex-

cept for what went on inside. McCarter couldn't hear
the children, and suspected they couldn't hear him:
each room was soundproofed individually, with the
convenience of the customer in mind. McCarter reck-
oned he could fire off ten or fifteen magazines down-
stairs and never wake the prisoners who slept upstairs.
    There was a panic button, though, installed to give
the customers and staff alike some kind of edge if they
were raided. One of his intended targets had a fat
thumb on the button, poised to mash it, when Mc-
Carter stepped in front of him, the AK47 pointed at
his chest.
  "Please do," McCarter said.
    The Russian looked at him uncertainly, the pistol in
his hand still pointed at the floor between his shoes.
He didn't press the button, but his hand remained in
place. At last McCarter nodded to him, cocked his
head in the direction of the button, using pantomime
as if he were attempting to communicate with a ba-
boon. Except, he thought, that would have been a
grievous insult to baboons.
    The gunman blinked once more and pressed the but-
ton. No alarm was audible downstairs, but they would
hear it in the rooms above, and that was all that mat-
tered. Two rounds from McCarter's AK-47 punched
his target over backward, dead before he hit the floor,
the pistol still unfired as lifeless fingers lost their grip
and let it fall.
    McCarter waited by the stairs, where he could also
keep watch on the hallway to his left. A sound of
automatic-weapons fire from that direction told him
Manning had flushed out more enemies. It was another




 AK firing, but they were too common in Russia for
 the sound to mean anything by itself. He would still
 have to keep his eyes open, watch his back.
    Meanwhile the parade had started, three men rush-
ing down the stairs in various states of undress, clutch-
ing shirts, slacks, jackets, shoes, all stopping short as
they beheld death waiting for them, standing with an
automatic rifle in his hands.
    McCarter couldn't think of anything to say, nor
would the slimy bastards understand him if he spoke.
Instead of trying to communicate, he simply shot them
where they stood, not caring whether they were busi-
nessmen or clergy, young or old, intimidated or defi-
ant. When they tumbled down to join him, they left
crimson blotches on the wall. Their blood all looked
the same, and he wouldn't have touched it with a ten-
foot pole.
    A sound behind him made McCarter turn, relaxing
at the sight of Gary Manning. "What about the kids?"
his fellow warrior asked.
  "Upstairs," McCarter said.
    He took a piece of paper from his pocket and un-
folded it as he was walking to the telephone. There
was a number written down, with several sentences in
English characters, the Russian words and phrases
sounded out phonetically. McCarter dialed the num-
ber, waited for an officer to answer and began to read.
He took his time, ignoring interruptions, then hung up
and left the note beside the telephone.
    "We're finished here," McCarter said, and almost
felt that he were talking to himself.

GROMYLKO RESERVED one of the fattest targets for
himself. Not literally, of course--the man was tall and
lean, far from obese, but his authority within the
Chechen mafiya was second only to the power held by
Gregori Vasiliev himself. He was Gennadiy Zanilov,
a longtime pimp, narcotics dealer and "suspected"
murderer who doubtless had mixed feelings when it
came to the events in Moscow. He wouldn't be
pleased about the carnage suffered by the family, but
at the same time part of him was bound to look ahead,
imagining his own promotion to the role of godfather
if something fatal happened to Vasiliev. He was the
next in line to rule the roost...assuming he was still
alive.
    The Sokol'niki district, in northeastern Moscow,
was another privileged enclave, once a neighborhood
of ranking Communist Party members, now the home
of up-and-coming businessmen, since communism's
unexpected fall. Bank balances were more important
than credentials, though the neighborhood was not en-
tirely blind to class. Gennadiy Zanilov was known as
an investment banker to his neighbors, always smiling
when they chanced to meet in public, never taking
time to mingle with them socially. He was a busy man,
they understood, and dedicated to the hot pursuit of
material wealth.
    But at the moment Zanilov was more concerned
with living through the night than rolling up a fortune.
Dead men had no use for money, after all.
     A phone call flushed the target out from under
 cover. Leonid Gromyiko didn't give his name, but
 simply told the man who answered that his boss was




 marked to die. Gunmen were on the way, and if the
 Chechen doubted him, he read off the address to prove
 his point. The target had no way of knowing that the
 call came from a mobile telephone, or that Gromylko
 and his two companions were already waiting on the
 street outside his home.
    Zanilov sent two men out in front of him, one to
start the car while the other stood guard in the shad-
ows, posing with a Skorpion machine pistol behind his
back. Gromylko watched and waited, peering through
the sights of his Kalashnikov, wedged in the stout fork
of a tree across the street. It was uncomfortable, but
he didn't care, as long as he could make the shot. His
two companions had the flanks, one stationed half a
block in each direction, to prevent the mark from slip-
ping past in case Gromylko missed.  In case he died.
    The car was running now. Its driver stayed behind
the wheel and sent the gunner back to fetch their boss,
along with any other soldiers who were waiting in the
house. A moment later the lieutenant saw his man
emerging, two men leading him, while two more fol-
lowed on his heels, one pausing long enough to lock
the door behind them. That made six guns altogether,
but Gromylko concentrated on the one man he had
come to kill, whatever else might happen there tonight.
    He framed Zanilov directly in his sights and fol-
lowed the tall man along the concrete walk that led
his party to the waiting car. When they had covered
half the distance from the front door to the vehicle,
Gromylko fired a long burst from his rifle, saw the
gangster lurch and stagger as a stream of bullets ripped

into his shoulder, neck and face. One of the soldiers
close behind him soaked up three rounds for himself,
and then the rest of them were firing, sighting on the
muzzle-flashes from Gromylko's AK-47.
    Bullets struck the tree trunk, inches from his face,
and ripped the leaves apart on either side of him. He
felt his balance going, toppled over backward from his
perch and saw the ground rush up to meet him as he
fell. Gromylko clutched his weapon, twisting in midair
to land feetfirst, and still the shock of impact drove
him to all fours. The stout tree stood between him and
his enemies, but they were rushing toward him now.
Gromylko knew he didn't have a prayer of dropping
them all before they got at least one lucky shot and
brought him down.
    He struggled to his feet regardless, grimacing as
pain lanced through one ankle. He was turning toward
the enemy when his American partners opened fire
from either side, their bullets slicing through the
Chechen gunmen, breaking up their charge and leav-
ing bodies scattered in the street like so much overripe
fruit.
      Moving in to check on him, the black man told Gro-
 mylko, "Hey, I didn't know you were an acrobat."
   "Neither did I," Gromylko said.
   "You're limping. Can you make it?"
   "Da. I won't be stopped that easily."
     "Okay, your call. Right now I think we'd better
 split."
     "By all means," Gromylko agreed. "We have work
 to do."




 BOLAN CONSIDERED that it would seem a waste of
 time to trash the downtown office where Vasiliev did
 business with the world at large. The place was ob-
 viously shut down and deserted in the predawn hours,
 and whatever paperwork a fire might manage to de-
 stroy, the chances were that Gregori Vasiliev would
 have it all backed up on a computer somewhere else.
    But he was going in, regardless. It was something
Bolan felt he had to do, a gesture to the Chechen god-
father, to tell Vasiliev in no uncertain terms that noth-
ing he possessed, no private sanctum, was secure
against the grim, implacable opponents who were
stalking him.
    Two uniforms were posted in the lobby, the equiv-
alent of rent-a-cops in the United States, with pistols
on their hips but no great urge to use them in their
hearts. They gave up quickly when the Executioner
and Hawkins showed their weapons, and another mo-
ment saw them handcuffed, lying on the floor, their
radio disabled and the telephone unplugged. Hawk
watched the lobby, just in case, while Bolan rode the
elevator up to nine and made his way to Vasiliev's
public office.
    The door was glass, and there was no alarm tape
showing, since they posted guards downstairs at clos-
ing time. Two rounds from Bolan's AK-47 blew the
lock apart, and he was well inside the office in a heart-
beat, checking out the place. The OD canvas satchel
slung across his shoulder held four Semtex charges,
two pounds each, with detonators you could set so that
a silent signal flashed from one would blow the others
all at once.

 The marvels of technology.
    He placed one charge atop the spacious desk where
a receptionist would normally be seated, greeting any
visitors. The door was locked, and Bolan used another
round from the Kalashnikov to open it, intruding on
the space where Gregori Vasiliev spent six or seven
hours on an average business day. One charge could
easily have done the job, but Bolan used all three--
one underneath the desk, one in the private bathroom,
one wedged in between two heavy filing cabinets.
There would be no repairing this place once the smoke
cleared, and he didn't care much what the impact on
adjoining offices might be, since Vasiliev owned the
whole building.
    On his way out through the outer office, Bolan
paused to set the detonator that would spark the others,
giving himself enough time to get back downstairs be-
fore it blew. His plans did not include a long night
stranded in an elevator if he could avoid it. Hawk was
waiting for him in the lobby, talking to the rent-a-cops
as if they had a clue what he was saying, telling them
a joke about a horse who tries to order whiskey in a
bar.
  "And the bartender says, 'Why the long face?'"
  "You finished?" Bolan asked him.
    "Just about. These guys have trouble with the
punch lines."
"Maybe it's a problem with delivery," Bolan said.
Hawk looked stricken, tugging an imaginary necktie
into place as he fell into step with Bolan. "See," the
young man complained, "I don't get no respect."




CHAPTER TWENTY

The dacha forty miles northwest of Moscow was de-
signed for pleasure, but it served as well in war. The
house was isolated from its neighbors--no one else
within two miles--and since the spacious grounds
were wooded, it could not be seen by passersby. There
was a metal gate across the entrance to the driveway,
guarded at all times, so that attackers would be forced
to either crash the barricade or reach the house on foot
by crossing several hundred yards of rugged ground.
    And still Vasiliev felt unsafe. He did feel better than
he had in Moscow, more secure, but all security was
relative. If there were men out there who hated him
enough to throw their lives away, just for the sake of
killing him, then he would not be safe on board a
submarine beneath the polar ice cap. There is always
some way to reach out and kill another human being.
Always.
    Vasiliev was glad that Yuri Renko had retired im-
mediately after supper, leaving him alone. Their drive
from Moscow, in the predawn hours, had been tiring
in itself; then came the daylight hours while they sat
around and waited for the other shoe to drop. Reports

from Moscow told him that Gennadiy Zanilov was
dead, and also that the violence had ceased, from all
appearances. Police were still investigating, but there
had been no more raids since dawn.
    What did it mean? The press reported nothing on
the capture of the terrorists, and when Vasiliev reached
out for his lieutenants who were still alive in Moscow,
none of them had any word of casualties on the other
side. Of course, there was an outside possibility his
enemies had suffered losses that prevented them from
pressing the attack, somehow contrived to take their
dead and wounded with them when they fled, but he
wasn't inclined to think so.
    They were on the move, but what did that mean?
Were they tracking him or pulling back? The tension
brought his throbbing headache back to life with a
vengeance, making his skull feel as if it would burst.
He would allow the pills a few more minutes to kick
in before he went to have a soak in the Jacuzzi, but
he wasn't sure that anything would help--except per-
haps the personal extermination of his enemies.
    Assuming they had given up and he was in the
clear, Vasiliev knew it was still too early to assess his
damages, in terms of his standing with his fellow
bosses in the Thieves' Society. If it was over, even
though he lived, Vasiliev would doubtless be per-
ceived as someone who had failed to solve a major
problem, losing men and merchandise on every side,
while total strangers taunted him at will. The damage
to his reputation might well be irreparable, but he
would have to wait and see.




     One thing was certain: he would need more soldiers
 in the days and weeks ahead. If any of his mafiya
 associates should feel like muscling in on him while
 he was still recovering from the attacks in Moscow
 and abroad, Vasiliev would need to be prepared. Half-
 hearted measures would not do. If challenged, he
 would have to go all out, respond with savage force
 and thereby demonstrate that he was still in firm con-
 trol.
  But not tonight.
    He would consider all those problems in the morn-
ing, when he had survived another night. Right now
his mind was still on those who might be hunting him
across the darkened countryside.
    How could they know where he had gone? The da-
cha was no secret, in the sense that many of his sol-
diers knew about it, as did other members of the
Thieves' Society and almost certainly some officers of
the militsiya. He hadn't used a front to make the pur-
chase, but he kept the house swept clean of bugs and
wiretaps, with technicians checking twice a week
when he wasn't in residence and three times a day
when he was on the property. It may have been ex-
cessive, but he took no chances. Paranoia served him
well as a security device.
    Vasiliev topped off his glass of vodka, thinking of
the forty soldiers he had stationed in the house and on
the grounds, all armed and linked by two-way radios.
He wouldn't say it was impossible for an outsider to
surprise him there, but it would be damn difficult.
 He willed himself to finally relax. From all appear-

ances the storm had passed him by. Survival did not
equal winning, but it was the most important thing,
and he couldn't be rightly labeled as a loser if his
enemies gave up and ran away.
    A few more peaceful hours, Gregori Vasiliev de-
cided, and he would declare a victory, perhaps make
up some tale of wiping out his adversaries in a secret
ambush, cleaning up the evidence to hide it from po-
lice. Who could dispute him if the raids didn't resume?
    Besides, he told himself, the Russians had a long
tradition of rewriting history.

THE DAYLIGHT HOURS seemed to last forever. Bolan
and his friends deliberately abstained from a new
round of attacks, but finally the sun went down, and
they were on their way. Gromylko marked their maps
ahead of time and navigated from the lead car, Haw-
kins driving, Bolan seated in the back with Calvin
James. McCarter, Manning and Encizo had the second
car, their military hardware evenly split up between
the two. Three-quarters of an hour after leaving Mos-
cow, they were on the site and cruising with their
lights off, looking for a place to hide the cars.
    A narrow access road that wandered through the
forest offered adequate concealment from the high-
way, and they found a turn-out where the cars would
not obstruct whatever traffic came along. Gromylko
put Milits(?a stickers on the dashboard of each vehicle
and hoped that any farmers passing by would show
respect instead of venting peasant anger and defiance




in a fit of vandalism. Either way it was the best that
he could do.
    They suited up in camouflage fatigues, strapped on
their gear and primed their weapons, hiking eastward,
using Bolan's compass as a guide. Another twenty
minutes, and there could be little doubt that they were
trespassing on Gregori Vasiliev's retreat. A final quar-
ter of an hour, and they saw the house, ablaze with
lights, cars in the driveway, gunmen on patrol around
the grounds.
    Each man was detailed to command an arc of the
perimeter, like wedges on a pie chart, so that they
would have the house surrounded. They agreed that
fifteen minutes should be adequate for all of them to
take up their positions and be ready when the signal
came for their attack. The three men packing RPGs--
James, Hawkins and McCarter--would initiate the
strike at 2230 hours.
    It all came down to this, thought Bolan as he
crouched in shadows, waiting for the first wave of tri-
angulated rocket tire. It was a long way from New
York to Turkey, farther yet to Moscow and beyond.
How many men had died since he stood waiting in
another darkened forest, waiting for the proper time to
strike? How much blood had been spilled in the pur-
suit of justice? Not enough.
    The dragon was alive, inside his lair, but Bolan still
had one more chance to bring him down. The odds
were with his enemy, but that wasn't unusual; in fact,
it was routine. The Executioner did not fear the num-

bers, though he would respect them, take nothing for
granted as he moved into the killing ground.
    Bolan checked his watch again, glanced back in the
direction of the house and braced himself. There had
been no guntire so far to indicate that any members
of his team had been discovered by the enemy. If they
were in their places, the attack should be begin-
ning...now.t
    Three rockets blazed through the darkness, sizzling
toward the house and leaving trails of fire. He saw
them detonate and waited for the shock waves of their
thunderclaps to reach him, watching as the Russian
sentries started to react downrange. They had no tar-
gets yet, only a vague idea of where the missiles came
from, but a few of them were firing anyway, off to-
ward the tree line.
    Bolan waited for the next barrage to make his move.
Before the RPG rounds reached their target, he was
on his feet and breaking toward the house. A hundred
yards or so to Bolan's right, another running figure
left the shadows, Gary Manning holding up his end.
    The sentries hadn't seen them yet, no doubt preoc-
cupied with two more rockets as they slammed into
the house, a third round taking one of the cars parked
in the driveway. It wouldn't be long, though, until
someone saw the infantry advancing and responded
with defensive fire.
    As if in answer to Bolan's thoughts, one of the
Chechen gunners pointed toward Manning, shouted
something to his fellows and began unloading with a
submachine gun, firing from the hip. The range was




long for pistol ammunition, and a trick of lighting had
betrayed the shooter, showing him a distant target in
the flare of an explosion, while the Executioner moved
closer, unobserved.
    Before the nearest gunmen could find their mark,
Bolan unleashed a burst from his Kalashnikov. His
bullets dropped the shooter with the SMG and startled
two of his companions into losing track of Gary Man-
ning as they turned back to face the nearer threat. They
both had automatic weapons, and while Bolan was
within their range, they were too shaken at the moment
to respond effectively. He cut them down while they
stood gawking at him, and swept past their huddled
corpses toward the house.

THE DACHA WAS BURNING. When he stuck his head
outside the bedroom where he had been quartered,
Yuri Renko smelled the smoke and heard men shout-
ing as they tried to stop the fire from spreading.
  Clearly it was time for him to cut and run.
    He had been dozing, groggy from fatigue and too
much vodka, when the first set of explosions rocked
the house, but he was wide-awake and stone-cold so-
ber now. In all of his experience, there was nothing
like the close proximity of violent death to cut through
mental haze and bring the faculties to full alert.
    The colonel fumbled with his trousers, finally got
them on and stuffed bare feet into his boots. The
leather would leave blisters on his heels, but he didn't
have time to hunt around the unfamiliar room and find
where he had tossed his socks when he stripped for

bed. The Makarov was more important at the moment,
and he found it instantly, still waiting for him on the
nightstand, with the safety off.
    Where could he go? It hardly seemed to matter now.
Step one would be for him to find a way out of the
house and off the property, out of harm's way. Beyond
that he would trust himself to find the nearest town,
obtain some form of transportation, even if he had to
steal a car at gunpoint to escape. The niceties of law
and order were the last thing on his mind right now.
    The colonel shrugged his jacket on--no point in
freezing when he got outside--and checked the cor-
ridor outside his room again. One of Vasiliev's hired
guns ran past, some fifty feet away, without a glance
at Renko. He was carrying a fire extinguisher in one
hand and an AK-47 in the other, cursing as he passed.
  And there would never be a better time to slip away.
  Renko closed the door behind him, softly, as if
  frightened that he might awaken some imaginary
  roommate. Renko guessed that no one would come
  looking for him, but he didn't wish to telegraph the
  fact that he was gone. It would be difficult, perhaps,
  to dodge the gunmen who were stationed all over the
  grounds, but they were smart enough to know that he
  wasn't the enemy.
 He hoped so, anyway.
    The hall ran north and south, with most of the com-
motion emanating from the southern end, toward the
front of the house. Renko turned north, to his left, and
moved along the corridor with hurried strides. No time
to waste. He felt it running out.




    Ideally he would try to find a car outside with keys
in the ignition. Failing that, he was prepared to walk
all night, if necessary, until he could find the highway,
pick a safe direction and proceed to the next house or
town. His overcoat would hide the Makarov if he had
to knock on any doors. And once he was inside, the
colonel could decide if pulling rank or pulling guns
seemed like the way to go.
    One of Vasiliev's people came around the comer up
ahead, and slowed down to a rapid walk as he ap-
proached the colonel. He stared hard at Renko for a
moment, but the man had other problems on his mind,
and kept going, passing by with a silent nod of ac-
knowledgment.
    Renko was just about to congratulate himself on
clearing one small hurdle when another explosion
rocked the house. Grenades? It felt more powerful than
that, but Renko drew a momentary blank on weapons
nomenclature.
    The key right now was to avoid involvement with
the enemy, no matter what hardware the bastards
might be carrying. Renko was not a frontdine soldier
anymore. Rank had its privileges, and one of those was
to avoid the trenches, where a man could get his ass
shot off for almost anything at all. Renko told himself
that he hadn't entirely lost the killer instinct of his
youth, so finely honed when he was in the military,
but he had his doubts. It had been years--hell, dec-
ades--since he fired a shot in anger. The mechanics
were familiar to him, as was the feeling in his gut, but
any skill needs practice to ensure proficiency.

    But he would do his best. There was no other
choice, no one he could rely on to assist him in this
hour of need. He couldn't trust Vasiliev to help him,
knowing that the mobster only cared about himself,
his interests. That was understandable, of course, since
Renko felt the same. And at the moment Yuri Renko's
interest was in living through the night.
    He reached an exit without meeting any more of
Vasiliev's soldiers and hesitated for a moment with
one hand on the knob, the other clutching his weapon.
Finally the smell of smoke made up his mind, and
Renko stepped outside. There was nowhere to go but
forward, in the darkness, whether it should lead to life
or death.

MCCARTER'S FINAL ROCKET stood a limousine on end
and dropped it back into a roiling lake of fire. He saw
a sentry running, trailing flames and flapping arms that
suddenly resembled bright orange wings. The mnner's
comrades ducked and sidestepped, dodging, leaving
him to bum.
    McCarter dropped his empty RPG and picked up
the Kalashnikov. A couple of Vasiliev's defenders had
him spotted, tracking the muzzle-flashes, and he
watched them moving closer, squeezing off short
bursts at random as they came. They didn't have a
perfect fix, but knew where he had crouched a moment
earlier, when he unleashed his last round from the
rocket launcher, and they hosed the tree line down for
ten or fifteen feet on either side.
  Unfortunately for the shooters, their intended prey




had faded ten yards or so to the left, and he already
had them covered as they closed the gap. McCarter's
first rounds took the nearer gunman, ripped the
AK-47 from his hands and swept him off his feet be-
fore the pull of gravity took over and he went down
in a boneless sprawl.
    The other watchdog saw his comrade die and tried
to rethink his attack, but there was no time left.
McCarter's weapon rattled off another burst and
dropped the shooter where he stood, his last rounds
churning sod around his feet as he collapsed.
    McCarter left the trees and started moving toward
the burning line of cars where he had spent his last
two rockets, touching off a veritable bonfire of the
vanities. He knew about conspicuous consumption--
rich folks showing off their wealth with cars that cost
the same as houses, watches worth enough to feed a
peasant family for life--and he would never tire of
putting such men in their place by blowing up their
toys.
    McCarter wasn't opposed to wealth per se, but
rather to the means some persons used to fatten up
their bank accounts. No moralist as such, he still knew
where to draw the line between aggressive business-
men and predators in human form.
    Another of Vasiliev's defenders was advancing
from McCarter's left, the firelight casting a gigantic
shadow out in front of him. He was a small man, but
size in this case would be measured by the semiauto
shotgun that he carried, squeezing off his first shot in
a rush, before he came within effective range.

    One of the pellets stung McCarter, drew blood
where it had creased his thigh through the fatigues. If
his assailant had been any closer, he would probably
have scored a torso hit or two, with potentially fatal
results. It was time to shut the gunner down, before
his aim or luck improved.
    McCarter framed the runner in his rifle sights and
stroked the AK-47's trigger, rattling off a 6-round
burst that caught his target lining up another shot. The
Russian looked surprised as bullets tore into his rib
cage, punched him backward several paces, dumping
him like so much dirty laundry on the grass.
    Several of Vasiliev's hired goons were trying hard
to save the cars. Of six vehicles lined up nose to tail,
two were not burning yet, and drivers were attempting
to extract them from the spreading lake of fire. Three
other men were running up and down the line of cars
with fire extinguishers, as if they had a prayer of sal-
vaging the twisted wreckage left by rocket blasts.
    McCarter veered in that direction, bent on finishing
what he had started with his RPG. One of the more
or less undamaged cars was almost out of line now,
scraping past the bumper of the smoking hulk in front
of it, the driver craning forward for a better view.
McCarter shot him through the tinted windshield, saw
his head snap back and heard the engine as his lifeless
foot jammed down on the accelerator. With a grating
sound the car leaped free and started off across the
lawn, tires scoring turf, until it met a tree and jolted
to a halt, the engine stalling out.
  The second driver, still focused on the task of sal-




vaging his vehicle, was oblivious to his companion's
plight. McCarter had already closed the gap to forty
feet, and knew the foot soldiers had spotted him, but
still he concentrated on the wheelman, lining up his
shot. Another burst from the Kalashnikov smashed
windshield glass, the dead man slumped across his
steering wheel and the machine lurched backward,
nudging one behind it that was already in flames.
    That left the motley firefighters. McCarter turned on
them with a vengeance, raking them with automatic
fire. They tried to stand and fight to save themselves,
but nothing in a life of bullying the helpless had pre-
pared them for such wrath. Two were cut down before
they had a chance to use their weapons, while the third
broke ranks and ran.
    McCarter tracked him with the AK47, put a
3-round burst between his shoulder blades, turned
away before his human target hit the ground. He had
more-pressing work to do than counting bodies, and
the job would not get done unless he put his ass in
gear.
  So many enemies, so little time.
    McCarter fed another magazine into his AK and
went off to find the war.

GROMYLKO FELT as if his whole life had been leading
to this moment. How often he had wondered what it
must have felt like for another generation of his peo-
ple, in the Great Patriotic War, to risk their lives in
desperate battle with a ruthless enemy who plotted the
destruction of their homeland.

 Now he knew.
    He didn't feel heroic--whatever that meant--nor
was he terrified of dying at the hands of strangers. He
was somewhere in between, a man of flesh and blood
who intended to succeed or die in the attempt to honor
his duty. He almost felt as if it were expected of him,
something that humanity required--a way of paying
dues, as the Americans would say.
    A burst from his Kalashnikov surprised two of Vas-
iliev's hired guns, as they were facing in the opposite
direction. The lieutenant felt no qualms about shooting
them in the back. This wasn't a Western movie, after
all, where good guys always let their enemies shoot
first, to prove that they were fighting on the side of
truth and justice. In real-life combat situations, hesi-
tation was a killer, and the man who let his enemy
shoot first couldn't expect to live and fight another
day.
    He stepped around the bodies, drawing closer to the
house. A pall of smoke obscured the dacha, but it
wasn't thick enough to hide the leaping flames that
had begun to spread from rocket impact sites, endan-
gering the house at large. Another twenty minutes,
give or take, and the lieutenant guessed that there
would be no saving anyone inside the house.
    That wasn't good enough, of course. He wasn't
ready to presume his adversaries dead; Gromylko had
to see them dead. Only then would his need be satis-
fied, the debt he owed Alexei Churbanov repaid. He
felt as if this moment had been sneaking up on him
for years, and now that it had finally arrived, Gro-




 mylko would not flinch from whatever he was required
 to do.
    A bullet warmed the air beside his face. Gromylko
turned toward its source, the echo of a gunshot ringing
in his ears. The shooter held his pistol in a stiff two-
handed grip, like something he had seen on television,
but his hands were shaking, and the perspiration on
his face might be produced by heat from the expand-
ing fire or by a killer case of nerves.
    Gromyiko ducked beneath the second shot and rat-
tled off a hasty burst from his Kalashnikov. He almost
missed the target, but a round or two struck home
below the Chechen's belt, a hip shot, dropping him to
one knee with a cry of pain. The man was wounded
but still dangerous, as he immediately proved by
squeezing off another round.
    Gromylko forced himself to take his time, line up
.the shot and do it right. His next burst found the gun-
man's chest and slammed him over backward, to the
ground. Gromylko started forward, through the smoke,
intent on getting to the house while there was still a
chance for him to have a look inside.  He almost made it.
    There was someone coming at him through the
smoke. Gromylko hesitated, wanting to be sure it was
an enemy before he opened fire. He had six comrades
on the field, somewhere, if all of them were still alive,
and he didn't intend to let his zeal cost any one of
them a life. He could afford to wait and glimpse the
face, before--
  ' 'Lieutenant."

    Yuri Renko didn't sound surprised to see him. He
was out of uniform, but still well dressed, considering
the circumstances of their meeting. One cheek
smudged with soot didn't detract from his normal im-
perious bearing. Fear had done no damage to his ram-
rod spine. The pistol he held pressed against his right
leg didn't rise as he approached Gromylko, moving
cautiously.
  "That's far enough," Gromylko said.
    "I don't suppose we can discuss this," Renko said,
A small, sardonic smile twisted one comer of his
mouth.
  "There's nothing to discuss."
  "I thought perhaps--"
  "You murdered Vanya."
    "Technically you're wrong," Renko said. "He was
sent to mark you for the others. I had no idea Vasiliev
was planning to kill both of you."
  "Would it have mattered, Colonel?"
    Renko thought about it for perhaps two seconds.
"No."
  "I didn't think so. What about Alexei?"
    "That's on your head," Renko told him. "How
would your Americans describe it? I believe the saying
is, 'You bit off more than you could chew.'"
  "You did not warn Vasiliev?"
    "There wasn't time. Your damn impromptu raid
prevented it. I might have saved your partner for you,
if you'd only gone through channels. Now you simply
have to live with it. In time the nightmares will begin
to fade."




    "I will sleep well tonight," Gromylko promised
him.
  "Sleep well, and long."
    The colonel brought his pistol up and fired in one
quick motion, pumping off three rounds in rapid fire.
Gromylko felt a bullet strike his ribs, the impact mak-
ing him stagger, but there was no real pain to speak
of as he held the AK-47's trigger down. The jagged
bolts of lightning from its muzzle seemed to make his
target dance, Renko disintegrating, bits and pieces of
him flying off in all directions. Even so, he managed
one more shot, a wasted round, before he fell.
    Gromylko's legs refused to hold him up, and he
wound up on his knees, one hand clasped to his
wounded side, the other bracing his Kalashnikov as if
it were a stubby walking stick. The pain was coming
now, exacerbated by the hot blood spilling through his
fingers.
    The lieutenant wondered whether he was dying,
thought he wouldn't care and suddenly discovered his
mistake. It mattered very much, though why he
couldn't say.
    Gromylko simply knew that he was desperate to
survive.

HAWKINS WENT IN LOW, beneath the hanging pall of
smoke. They taught you that in basic: hot air rises,
and the smoke goes with it, filling up the ceiling space
before it works its way down to the floor. In burning
houses hug the deck and keep your ass in motion. If

you stay in one place too long, it's a safe bet that
you'll fry.
    The place was coming down around his ears, and:
while it would have been a safer bet to stand outside
and watch it burn, Hawk had surrendered to an urge
that drove him past the edge of common sense. He
had to have a look inside, find out if Gregori Vasiliev
was in there--or at least be able to report that he had
made the try.
    At first he took the sound of shots for ammunition
detonating in the fire, like lethal popcorn, but the bul-
lets came his way with a consistency that ruled out
chance. Not close enough to graze him yet, but they
were getting there. He peered ahead and saw a crouch-
ing shadow in the doorway leading to a corridor, some
twenty feet in front of him. One of Vasiliev's defend-
ers, unwilling to desert his post no matter what.
    Hawkins returned fire from the prone position,
missed his shifting target, but the AK rounds came
close enough to make the gunner duckwalk backward,
looking for a place to hide. The young American
edged forward, pushing it, convinced that in the pres-
ent situation, backing off would only have a tendency
to get him killed.
    He fired another short burst into smoky darkness,
knowing it was wasted, hoping that he might provoke
his adversary into some mistake and thus tip the bal-
ance in Hawkins's favor. You could never tell.
    The screaming, when it came, was not produced by
one of his AK rounds striking home. The Russian gun-
man burst from cover, charging forward, wreathed




in flames from head to toe, a living human torch. A
heartbeat from collision and the burning man's em-
brace of death, Hawk shot him in the chest and
dropped him in midstride, the screams cut off as if
someone had slammed a soundproof door.
    And it was hopeless to advance, Hawkins realized.
The dacha was becoming an inferno, portions of the
roof already crumbling inward, while the walls began
to sag. There might be other angles of attack, but they
would all stop short of penetrating far enough for him
to really check the house. If Gregori Vasiliev was still
inside the dacha, he would have to find an exit now.
    Hawkins retreated, crawling backward on his stom-
ach till he reached the foyer, rising to a crouch from
there and homing on the door. Three of Vasiliev's
house troops were standing back to watch the house
burn from several yards away as he emerged. The
smoke obscured his face and clothing, giving Hawk
time to level his Kalashnikov as one of them called
out to him, taking him for yet another member of the
home team.
    Hawkins killed them where they stood, emptied his
magazine as they went down, reloading as he put the
burning house behind him. It was hot enough to bake
fight through his clothes, and he already felt as if his
face were sunburned. He was grateful when the night
breeze shifted, blowing toward the fire and sparing
him a measure of the heat. He thought about Vasiliev
and wondered how it felt to have your dreams go up
in smoke.
 Life's hard, he told himself, and then you fry.

"No way I'm going in there," Calvin James declared.
"No way."
    Encizo frowned agreement. "No one could survive
that."
    "Maybe in a fire suit," James said, "but I forgot
to pack mine when I left the house."
    "Let's check the other buildings," Encizo sug-
gested.
  "I heard that."
    Besides the dacha, there was still a rustic-style de-
tached garage, together with a larger building, not un-
like a barn, although the property was clearly not a
farm. James and Encizo moved toward the garage,
which had been spared by rocket hits as all three sol-
diers armed with RPGs had concentrated on the house
and cars outside.
    "I should have nuked this place while I was at it,"
James muttered to himself. But it was too late now. If
there was anyone in the garage, they would be forced
to root the bastards out by force and take them one-
on-one.
  Or maybe not.
    As if in answer to his thoughts, the wide door
opened on its own. A black sedan burst through the
opening, impatient with the door's slow progress,
smashing wood to splinters with its grille. Behind it,
coming loud and fast, two motorcycles cleared the
open maw of the garage and raced off parallel to the
sedan, their drivers hunched low over stubby handle-
bars.
  "I've got the bikes?' Encizo shouted, breaking off




to intercept them, firing with his AK-47 as he ran and
leaving James to face the car.  "Well, shit!"
    He stitched a rising burst across the grille, then un-
leashed another on the windshield. Cracks like spider-
webs were visible before the glass blew inward, and
the car began to swerve, its rear tires spewing gravel
from the driveway, then digging into grass and sod for
better traction, taking off across the lawn.
    Wondering if Vasiliev was in the car, James fol-
lowed in a headlong sprint, still firing at the car, re-
warded with another crash of glass from the rear win-
dow. Shiny patches marked the body where his bullets
struck, but he couldn't keep up the pace. His lungs
were bursting, and his heart was thumping solidly
against his fibs, as if it wanted to escape.
    James veered off track to give himself a clear shot
from the right side of the car. He halted, aimed and
fired off half a magazine before he got results. The
starboard tires exploded, rubber flapping on the rims
as they were torn apart. The vehicle began to swerve
again, and then it flipped into a roll, kept rolling--
two, three, four, five times.
    It came to rest upside down, its two good tires still
spinning. James reloaded as he closed in on the wreck,
and he was ready when a body started worming out
through the back window, crawling hand over hand,
wriggling clear of the auto and trying to stand. His
next burst, from a range of forty feet, undid the lean
survivor's progress, left him stretched out on the turf.
 James crouched to check the car and counted two

more dead inside. They both had faces---one of them
just barely--and he saw that neither was Vasiliev.
Ditto the gunner who had almost managed to escape.
  "Damn it!"
    Angry, James turned back toward the sound of au-
tomatic-title fire in time to see Encizo finish off the
second biker. It would have amazed him to find out
that one of them was Gregori Vasiliev.  And he was not amazed.
    "Let's finish it," James said, unclipping a grenade
from his combat harness as he advanced on the garage.
He yanked the pin and made his pitch from thirty feet,
stood back and waited for the blast that tore a new
door in the wall.
    He went in through the smoke, Encizo close behind
him, to discover that the place was empty. Five men
had escaped the house, to seek refuge in the garage,
and now all five of them were dead.
    Vasiliev was either toasting in the dacha, even now,
or he was still at large.
  "We're not done yet," Encizo said.
    The barn. James nodded, wondering if there was
such a thing as any kind of limit on bad luck. They
were alive, of course, and that was excellent, but he
wouldn't be satisfied until he knew the purpose of their
strike had been achieved. The barn.
    "Let's go," he said, and moved back toward the
killing ground.

IT WAS A FLUKE that Bolan ever saw Vasiliev at all.
Another moment either way, and he would certainly




have missed the three men charging through a side
door of the house, stampeding toward the barnlike
structure thirty yards away. He had been pinned down
by a pair of gunners on the east side of the dacha,
touch and go until he faked them out by playing dead
and then surprised them with the fact that he was still
alive.
    Back on his feet and closing on the house that had
become a burning ruin, Bolan was surprised to see
three figures exit in a puff of smoke that trailed them
through the open doorway. None of them was injured,
from the way they ran, and it was all that he could do
to keep pace with them as they sprinted toward the
barn.
  The middle of the three was Gregori Vasiliev.
    He chased them with a burst from his Kalashnikov
and missed all three, but still got their attention. Two
of them kept running, but the third man stopped and
turned to face him, firing from the hip with a compact
SMG. Bolan returned the fire and saw his target stag-
ger, reeling, going down on one knee, crimson
blotches spreading on his shirt. Still, he kept firing,
forcing Bolan to expend a few more rounds to finish
it and stretch him on the grass.
    By then, his two companions had already disap-
peared inside the barn.
    It was a dangerous approach, but Bolan had no
choice. He didn't have the luxury of hanging back and
waiting for old age to claim his enemies. Both men
were armed, and they might have more weapons

stockpiled in the barn. More to the point, they might
have vehicles in there, a chance to leave him in the
dust and flee to God knew where.
    Even with that in mind, it came as a surprise to
Bolan when the bam's roof suddenly began to open
like the jaws of a titanic clam. His ears picked up an
old, familiar sound, and Bolan cursed, began to sprint
the last few yards, afraid that he was already too late.
    The helicopter rose up into view, a giant prehistoric
insect shape against the velvet Russian sky. It should
have kept on rising, but the pilot hesitated, hovering,
and Bolan saw his last, best chance.
    He started firing, held the AK-47's trigger down and
gave it everything he had. When two more rifles joined
the fusillade, he didn't turn to see which members of
his team were firing, simply knew that if the bullets
were not striking him, it must be friendly fire. Con-
verging streams of armor-piercing rounds tattooed the
underbelly of the helicopter, ripping through the floor
and fuselage, exploding through the windscreen, strik-
ing bright sparks from the engine cowling and the ro-
tor blades. Another moment, and the chopper farted
thick black smoke, then plummeted straight down and
disappeared once more inside the barn.
    The crash was loud enough, but even that was lost
in the explosion that immediately followed, flattening
the four walls of the barn and spewing fire in all di-
rections. Bolan, James and Rafael Encizo hastily re-
treated, putting space between themselves and the ra-
pacious funeral pyre.




    "Vasiliev?" James asked when he could make him-
self be heard.
    "He's done," Bolan said, reaching for the little
two-way on his belt. He raised it to his lips and
thumbed the button down. "Break off," he said. "Re-
peat, break off. Confirm!"
  "Confirmed," McCarter told him seconds later.
    "Done," Gary Manning added, sounding small and
faraway.
  "I hear you," Hawkins said.
    They stood waiting for another moment, Bolan
frowning at the silence, feeling sweet relief uncoil in-
side him at the sound of one more voice.
      "Confirming that," said Leonid Gromylko. "But
I'm not sure I can join you at the moment."
  "Are you hit?" Bolan asked.
  "So it would appear."
  "Where are you?"
    "On the south side of the house," Gromylko an-
swered. "I'm keeping Comrade Renko company."
    "I'm there," said Hawkins, picking up on the
exchange.
"Two minutes," Gary Manning promised.
Between the two of them, Gromylko would be in
good hands. There was no point in everybody rushing
over to inspect his wounds, especially while there were
Chechen gunners still alive and prowling in the neigh-
borhood.
    "We'll meet you back on the perimeter," Bolan
said, and returned the little two-way to his belt. He

found the others watching him, and finally allowed
himself a smile.
  "Okay," he said, "who's ready to go home?"




EPILOGUE

"The word is, you'll be out of here by Thursday,
maybe Friday at the latest."
    Bolan stood beside Gromytko's hospital bed, half
turned so he could keep a sharp eye on the door. The
guard outside had let him in, but despite the years of
change it was still an eerie feeling, counting on a ally
in a Russian uniform.
 Old habits die hard. Old enemies, too.
    "I should not have to stay at all," Gromylko said.
"The bullet barely grazed me."
    "Tell that to your lung," said Bolan. "You could
use a rest."
    "Perhaps." Gromylko didn't sound convinced, and
there was clearly something on his mind. "They're
making me a captain."  "So I understand."
  "They think I should return to duty."
  "Was there ever any doubt?" asked Bolan.
    "I have doubts," Gromylko said. "I've seen and
done too much. It's like I'm on the other side now,
with the bastards I've been fighting half my life?'

    "Not even close," the Executioner replied. "I know
the sickness when I see it. You're no carder."
      Gromyiko scowled and shook his head. "My work
will never be the same."  "Is that so bad?"
    "You still don't understand," the Russian said. "I
liked what we were doing. Can you grasp that? Every
time I pulled the trigger, saw one of them fall, I loved
it."
    "Maybe, maybe not," said Bolan. "You could use
some distance, take some time to think it through. I
have a hunch it won't look quite the same this time
next week."
  "And if you're wrong?"
    "Whatever happens," Bolan said, "you've got a
job to do. You've done it by the book for years.
There's no law saying that you can't keep right on
doing it that way. The past week was a detour into
hell, but you survived it. Give yourself some credit."
  "Credit? I'm a killer," said Gromylko.
    "You're a soldier, doing what you have to do.
You'd do the same again."
"And that's what wordes me," Gromylko said.
"The difference being, that you may not have to,"
Bolan explained. "You've made a difference, Leonid.
Believe it. Maybe it's enough to get things back on
track.' '
    "Americans. I'll miss our little chats." Gromylko
chuckled to himself.
  "You'll have your hands full," Bolan said. "Be-




sides, the general still knows how to get in touch if
necessary."
    "Maybe for a talk sometime," Gromylko said. "As
for the rest..."
  'TII keep my fingers crossed."
  "But not your trigger fingers, eh?"
    "That wouldn't do." Bolan glanced at his watch.
"I hate to run, but--"
      "You have business," Leonid Gromylko said. "Of
course. We all have work to do."  "Good luck."
    "I make my own," the Russian said. "Is that not
right?"
  "That's right," the Executioner replied.
 And thought, Damn right.






