ONE
St. Petersburg, Russia
Mack Bolan gazed out his hotel-room window and saw four armed men exit a sedan in front of the building. He immediately moved from the window to the nearby table, where he shrugged into the nylon shoulder holster that bore his Beretta 93-R. Then he donned a cream-colored sports jacket to hide the weapon.
As Bolan left the room and headed for a set of back stairs that provided the fastest unobstructed route to the first floor, he thought back on Hal Brognola’s briefing.
“HER NAME IS Kisa Naryshkin,” said Hal Brognola, director of the Sensitive Operations group, America’s ultra-covert antiterrorist organization based at Stony Man Farm in Virginia. “And according to our intelligence, she’s the only link we have to Leonid Rostov and Sergei Cherenko.
“While this one falls totally under the jurisdiction of the CIA, we would feel a whole lot better with you there to act as backup, Striker,” Brognola had told him.
“You’re worried this might go hard,” Bolan replied.
Brognola nodded. “Yeah. The guy they have there to oversee the transfer is Lyle Carron, and he’s got a lot of years with the Company. He’s one of their top agents on the Russian desk, as I understand it. George Balford’s another story, though. The guy’s only three months out of Langley, background in accounting.”
Bolan frowned. “When is the CIA going to learn that bean counters aren’t exactly the best choice for these types of operations? A sensitive case like this requires a certain expertise.”
“That was our assessment, as well,” said Barbara Price, Stony Man’s mission controller. “That’s why we felt it was best to call you in on this one. Rostov and Cherenko claim to have information critical to uncovering some type of terrorist attack against the United States by the Jemaah al-Islamiyah. Apparently the Sevooborot Molodjozhny, also known as both the Youth Revolution and the SMJ, has made some type of handshake agreement with them, where the JI will provide the SMJ arms and training.”
“For what?” Bolan asked.
“That’s what we don’t know,” Brognola replied. “All Rostov and Cherenko can tell us right now is that this has something to do with a plot against America.”
“Sounds thin,” Bolan said. “If the JI’s planning a terrorist attack against us, I don’t see any logical connection to a militant youth organization inside Russia.”
“Maybe not, but the President thinks it’s vital we keep our thumb on this one until the transfer’s complete. That’s where you come in.”
Under other circumstances Mack Bolan might have passed, but something in his gut told him this went deep enough that he needed to get closer. And as he had no love for either militant Russian youths or Islamic terrorists—especially since both groups were quite outspoken of their hatred for America and her people—the Executioner decided to accept the mission and see what came of it.
THE EXECUTIONER PUSHED through the door at the first-floor landing that opened onto a hallway running along the east-side front of the hotel. He got his first view of the scene unfolding ahead. The doors were closed, shooting and screams had ensued, and a lone armed man had crouched at the door leading into the conference room, apparently unsure of what to do next. Bolan catfooted up the hall and entered through the double doors of an adjoining conference room. In the early hours of that morning, he’d paced the empty halls and accessed each conference room—mapping the approximate square footage and other important details of this wing—and then returned to his room where he sketched the layout. From his recon, Bolan had made some tactical decisions and picked the lock of the door leading to the room adjoining the one where the CIA agents would be waiting to rendezvous with Rostov and Cherenko. It was at that point Bolan had detached the divider separating the two conference rooms and left it slightly ajar to facilitate an alternate entrance and access if it became necessary.
Unfortunately it had.
Bolan let the door close behind him with a barely audible click. He waited long enough for his eyes to adjust to the light that emanated from the adjoining conference room, then made his way to the divider. Sidling up to the break in the divider, he took in the site with a practiced eye. The four men had moved the hostages to the back wall and lined them up single file on their knees with their hands on top of their heads. Good. That would keep the innocents out of his line of fire.
He then noticed the bloodied body of a young, fresh-faced man, a pistol lying just out of reach. It was George Balford. He recognized the face from the dossier provided by Stony Man. The poor kid hadn’t even known what hit him, probably, and if he had, he certainly hadn’t expected such a short career. So that meant Carron was out of the room when the gunmen had entered.
Bolan moved the divider slightly as the gunmen paced up and down the line, shouting at their hostages in a mix of Russian and English. He sighted on the closest gunman first, took a deep breath, let out half and then squeezed the trigger. The Beretta coughed discreetly as the 9 mm subsonic bullet crossed the expanse in a millisecond and punched through the target’s throat. The SMG clattered on the floor as the gunner raised his hands to his throat, then staggered.
The Executioner already had the second man in his sights before the body of the first hit the ground, and he squeezed off another shot. The round punched into the gunner’s breastbone and continued into his lung. The impact drove the man backward into his partner, who was apparently reacting to the falling body of the first man. While the third man tried to disentangle himself from his falling partner, the fourth gunman realized something was wrong and reacted, furiously scanning the area, fanning his weapon left and right.
The sound of a door flying open briefly drew everyone’s attention from the carnage. Bolan’s eyes flicked toward the front in time to see Carron burst through the doorway. The fourth man at the far end now had a visible target and swung his SMG into target acquisition, but he was too late. The .45-caliber pistol in Carron’s grip boomed twice. Both rounds landed on target, punching through the man’s stomach. Bolan gritted his teeth against the possibility one of them might continue through and strike a hostage, but his fears were never realized.
Bolan reacquired a sight picture on the remaining gunner as the man triggered a burst in Carron’s direction that sent the CIA agent diving for cover. The weapon skewed upward and delivered a flurry of rounds harmlessly into the corkboard ceiling as the Executioner pumped two slugs through the man’s skull. The bullets split his head clean open and dumped him to the floor.
In a snap decision, Bolan backed from the divider and raced across the room. He opened the door, peered into the hallway and then made for the steps when he verified it was empty. As the Executioner pushed through the door and climbed the stairwell he considered the situation at hand. The St. Petersburg police would undoubtedly swarm the building in the next ten minutes, which didn’t give him much time. He couldn’t remain in his room—they would conduct a door-to-door search, to be sure, and that meant a lot of uncomfortable questions. He would have to exit by the first-floor window of the rear stairwell. He could stow the pistol in a locker of one of the nearby train stations, so if they cordoned the area he wouldn’t get caught with a weapon.
Bolan went quickly through his room, left the clothes hanging in the closet and the bag of toiletries on the sink, and removed only his forged identification and passport and heavy overcoat. He made his exit through the rear stairwell window unobserved, donned the overcoat once outside, then headed to a nearby pay-phone. He dialed the hotel, asked if he had any messages, then hung up immediately. That would probably provide a fairly decent alibi if he was questioned by police at any later point. Bolan then headed for the train station where he could dump his armament.
Then it would become a waiting game. He would need to touch base with Stony Man at some point to see if he could get a line on Carron. There was no point in keeping his cover. He would need some backup in his search for the two missing contacts, and Carron seemed the most sensible one to provide that given he was out to accomplish the same end as Bolan. Things were shaping up just as they