Cold Fury

by Don Pendleton

  Dimitri’s eyes widened and he started to reply, but Kournikova told him in Russian to do as he was told.

  Her partner scowled as he pulled back his BDU and exposed the Tokarev.

  Eldridge reached over, unsnapped the weapon and removed it from its holster. “I’ll take yours, as well, Cooper.”

  Sharp stepped forward and shook his head. “Orders from the PM’s office. They’re authorized.”

  Eldridge looked surprised, then frowned.

  Dimitri pulled Valunski along after the Canadian officer.

  “Look,” Eldridge said, turning toward Bolan. “I don’t know who you are, or how you’ve managed to swing as much clout as you’ve gotten, but let’s get something straight. This is Canada, not the US. We have the—”

  A commotion and cacophony of voices came from inside the hangar. They all rushed over to the large, open door and saw the uniformed officer and Dimitri standing over Valunski’s supine figure. The man on floor convulsed several times, his mouth gaping open and spittle mixed with blood dribbled down the side of his face, which was quickly becoming a combination of red and blue.

  One of the other officers went over to assist and tried to hold the man down.

  “What happened?” Eldridge asked.

  No one spoke for several seconds and then Dimitri said, “After we removed the handcuffs, he came after us. He tried to grab his gun.” He motioned toward the Canadian officer. The man nodded. “I struck him in the throat.”

  “Base, we’ll need an ambulance over at hangar number 12,” Eldridge said into his radio. “Hurry it up.”

  Valunski’s breathing wheezed in and out, making a gurgling sound like a buzz saw.

  “Clear his airway,” Sharp said.

  The officer stuck his fingers into the Russian’s mouth and worked them inside.

  “He needs a tracheotomy.” Bolan stepped forward, glanced around and plucked a ballpoint pen from Eldridge’s pocket. He withdrew and snapped open his Espada knife and used the blade to chop off both ends of the pen. Bolan pulled out the ink cartridge and then placed the tip of the knife at Valunski’s throat.

  “Hold him down,” Bolan said.

  The two Canadians complied, and Bolan made an X-shaped slice at the base of Valunski’s throat. The man’s body shook uncontrollably. Bolan held the hollowed-out pen vertically above the cut and pressed it into the flesh. Blood streamed down the sides of the criminal’s neck and onto the concrete floor underneath him. For a few more seconds nothing seemed to change, and then a loud exhalation was audible, followed by the whistling of an inhalation.

  The bluish coloring seemed to lessen in man’s face, and although his eyes stayed semi closed, his ragged breathing was now obvious.

  Bolan stood.

  “Keep him from touching that trach,” he said. “And tell those paramedics to hurry up.”

  After about half a minute, one of the officers holding Valunski said, “He’s stable, sir.”

  “Nice going, Cooper,” Eldridge said.

  Dimitri snorted. “You should have let him die. He is a piece of shit.”

  “And lose the only lead we’ve got to finding the rest of them, pal?” Grimaldi said. “Not a smart move.”

  Dimitri glared at him.

  Bolan felt the frustration building. He hadn’t foreseen this possibility. As he blew out a slow breath, he could almost feel the fatigue of the past forty hours weighing on him like a load of bricks.

  “Maybe I’ve got something,” Eldridge said, holding up his smartphone. “My base just texted me. The Learjet landed at Wright Field, which is about forty kilometers from here, about an hour ago.”

  “That fits the time frame,” Bolan said. “Are they still there?”

  Eldridge sent a text. “We’re using texting in case the Russians are monitoring our police radio band.”

  Bolan indicated his approval.

  The text came back and Eldridge shook his head. “The plane’s there, but I’m afraid the occupants are long gone. Nothing but a bunch of used barf bags and a dozen or so crushed-out Russian cigarettes.”

  Another near miss.

  “Have them quarantine the area. And get a hazmat team over to decontaminate that plane. You were advised of the bubonic plague danger, right?”

  Eldridge nodded and sent another text.

  “Any idea where they might be heading now?” Bolan asked. “This is your city.”

  Eldridge and Sharp exchanged glances.

  “Most of our crime occurs in the downtown east side,” Eldridge said. “There are a lot of flop houses and transients.”

  “Valunski mentioned something about a warehouse near a river,” Bolan said.

  Eldridge’s expression brightened a bit. “That could be the Fraser River. It’s in south Vancouver. Mostly industrial. Lots of warehouses.”

  “That sort of fits,” Bolan said. “This whole thing started down in Seattle when we were staking out some bikers in a warehouse.”

  “Bikers?” Sharp said. “What does that remind you of, John?”

  Eldridge’s eyes narrowed. “About a decade ago we had a local war between the bikers and the Russian mafiya. The bikers came out on top and the Russians faded into the woodwork.”

  “Like cockroaches,” Sharp added. “But lately, there have been rumors that the roaches have returned and the two sides have formed an alliance of sorts.”

  “An alliance of convenience.” Eldridge punched in a number on his smartphone. “We’ve got a special detail assigned to keep tabs on our biker friends. Let me see if they can give us anything.”

  Bolan thought about the twenty-two lives that hung in the balance.

  It was a race to find a needle in a haystack and they didn’t even know where the haystack was.

  Knight Street Warehouse

  South Vancouver

  Rokva drew deeply on his cigarette as he waited patiently for the big overhead door to roll down, sealing off the outside world once again. The warehouse had a high ceiling and an expansive center aisle, with machines and wooden boxes stacked against the walls. The building, a medical supply facility once used as meat packaging company, had been closed for several months.

  The two Harley-Davidson motorcycles pulled up to him, their engines reverberating with that percussive noise, their shiny black frames gleaming under the large mercury vapor lights on the ceiling of the warehouse.

  He glanced around to make sure that Igoshin had whisked the cargo into one of the back locker rooms where they could begin the cleanup. Rokva had told them to strip the cargo down and wash any telltale traces of vomit, feces or blood from them. The long-abandoned metallic tables and drains of the former slaughterhouse would soon be put to good use, as would the showers. If he needed a little extra to close this new deal, he could show the buyer their pristine, nude, alabaster bodies... But only for a moment. That would be all that would be needed. Patel would no doubt be transfixed by the sight. And the Indian was due to arrive shortly.

  “Spray them down,” Rokva shouted to Alexander, who was standing outside the locker room. “Make sure they’re clean-looking. And push any shit down the drain.”

  Alexander waved an acknowledgment. Rokva blew out a plume of smoke and turned to the heavyset biker across from him and the other man with arms the size of ham hocks. The Georgian didn’t trust these motorcycle-worshipping cretins and was glad that he had Sergei by his side.

  “So where is this doctor you have brought me?” he asked.

  The biker, who was clad in a well-worn jacket covered with sewn-on insignias, stood there with a sneer on his face. His large gut hung over the front of his pants like a misplaced pillow. The butt of a pistol jutted from the man’s beltline and pressed against the flab at the front of his pants. “Where’s the money you promised us?”

  Rokva wanted to lash out, or better yet have S
ergei do it, and put this obese bastard onto his knees, but the clock was ticking and time was of the essence. He had to make sure everything was in place first.

  Business before pleasure, he thought.

  “I have told you. I am in the process of a negotiation. A delicate negotiation. You will be paid. You have my word.”

  The biker smirked a bit, shook his head.

  “Okay, but don’t try nothing funny,” he said, taking out his cell phone and punching in a number. He paused as the call was apparently answered and then said, “Bring him in.” He slipped the phone back into his pocket and rolled his tongue over his teeth. “He’s on the way. Open the big door.”

  Rokva waved his hand up and down, and his man at the door pressed the button to raise it.

  “We delivered,” the biker said. “And now we wanna get paid. And don’t forget how we kicked your Russian asses all over this town before.”

  “We did not forget,” Rokva said, taking one last drag on his cigarette before dropping it to the floor and grinding it under the sole of his shoe. “Did we, Sergei?”

  The former Spetsnaz commando’s face showed no emotion. He watched as a van rolled in, stopped, and three large men got out. Two of them looked like bikers and were dressed in the familiar regalia. The other one was almost as beefy, with a white apron stretched over the prominent girth of his belly. He had a short, flat face that looked smug under a brown watch cap.

  Rokva smirked. “Which one of them is your doctor?”

  The biker snorted. “I told your man before, he ain’t no real doctor. He’s a butcher. How many times I gotta tell you?”

  “I was being what you might call facetious.”

  “Fa—what?”

  “Never mind. Which one is he?”

  “The guy with the fucking cap and apron on. Whatcha think?”

  “It is as I assumed. But he still does not look much like a doctor. Did I not tell you to clean him up a bit?”

  “What the fuck do you want?” the biker snarled. “He’s the closest thing we could find on short notice. What happened to your regular guy, anyway?”

  “He became a liability,” Rokva said, his voice increasing in loudness and intensity. “I do not like liabilities.”

  His men at the door picked up on the signal and began drifting backward.

  He looked to Sergei, who stepped forward in a blurring motion, his hand swinging upward from his belt and hurling a heavy knife at the ham-hock biker. The blade struck him in the throat and his hands scrambled to grab at it. A crimson flood streamed down the front of his T-shirt and over the big belly. The other biker reached down for the gun in the front of his pants, but Sergei’s powerful hand was already curling over the other man’s.

  “Let me show you why you should never carry your weapon there,” Sergei said as his fingers continued to squeeze the biker’s hand.

  The loud sound of a gun being discharged was accompanied seconds later by a high-pitched scream.

  A darkening stain began to spread outward from the biker’s crotch as his face twisted into a pitiful expression.

  Sergei pulled the pistol, a large K-framed Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum, from the biker’s grasp and pushed the man down. The Russian pivoted slightly and aimed the revolver at the three men who had just gotten out of the van.

  With two rapid shots, one after the other, Sergei dropped both of the bikers who crouched on either side of the butcher. The ear-piercing roar of the gunfire echoed in the large-framed building.

  “Come here, my friend,” Rokva called to the butcher. He looked like he was about to piss his pants and the man stood rooted to the spot.

  “Come, Doctor. Come.” The mafiya captain’s ears had that familiar ringing in them now, due to the high-decibel intrusion, but he knew it would soon pass. “You have your first four patients. I want all of their salvageable organs removed immediately and placed in the containers we will give you.”

  The fat butcher stood there frozen, his face as white as the apron he wore.

  “Move your ass!” Rokva shouted.

  The butcher hurried forward, carrying a brown suitcase.

  “Excellent shooting, Sergei,” the Georgian said. “We now have four more sets of goods to increase our profit margin.”

  Sergei grinned and he hefted the weapon. “I knew these bastards would be good for something.”

  The sound of two quick toots of an automobile horn came from beyond the overhead door. One of his men opened the side door a crack and said, “It’s the Indians. They are outside in a van.”

  Rokva shouted orders for his subordinates to quickly remove the bodies of the four dead bikers and take them and the butcher into one of the side rooms. There was no need to alert Patel as to where these new donations had come from, or that these partners in the venture had been eliminated. It might unduly alarm him, and business deals were based on trust.

  Igoshin took over the yelling and another Russian drove down the main aisle in a forklift. He stopped by the van and two more men loaded the heavy bodies onto the forks.

  The horn outside sounded again and then Rokva’s phone vibrated with an incoming call. He glanced at the number and saw the Canadian exchange.

  He answered and the Indian’s nervous voice squawked in his ear. “We’re outside. Why don’t you open the door?”

  Rokva purposely did not answer for several seconds. “Did you bring the extra money, as I instructed?”

  It was Patel’s turn to be coy. After a few moments of silence, he said, “It is close by. After I have inspected the...merchandise, I will have it brought to you.”

  He couldn’t fault the man for being careful, and he had no need to be stubborn about the money at this juncture. Let the Indian inspect the organs. Let him disseminate them into the black market of Canada. It didn’t pay to burn all of one’s bridges in one night. Unless it became a necessity.

  The forklift whisked past him, carrying the four dead men.

  Once they were out of sight, Rokva motioned for the overhead door to be raised.

  “Come in, my friend,” he said into the phone. “Welcome.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Parking Garage

  Vancouver International Airport

  As they stood in the seclusion of the parking garage, Eldridge passed four radios with ear mics to Bolan, Grimaldi, Dimitri and Kournikova, but his expression remained austere. It was clear that he had more than just a few misgivings about this new quartet accompanying him and his team. Bolan sensed that as he slipped on his ballistic vest and removed the MP-5 from his backpack.

  “Let’s get one thing straight,” Eldridge said. “This is our city, and we have regulations and procedures that must be followed. Plus, we’ll take the lead on any raids.”

  “Hey, these guys play rough, Sergeant,” Grimaldi said, pulling on his vest, as well. “And we’ve been tangling with them over half of Alaska. Believe me, you’re gonna need all the help you can get. They don’t play by your rules.”

  “There’s also the plague factor,” Bolan said. He gestured to himself and the three others. “We’re the only ones who’ve been inoculated. Having your men go in first is going to risk exposing them to a highly contagious and deadly pathogen.”

  “This isn’t some American movie where you can just go breaking down doors and go in shooting,” Eldridge said. “We’ve got laws and procedures that must be followed.”

  “The clock’s ticking, pal,” Grimaldi said. “You waste time trying to get a warrant or permission or whatever you call it up here, the monster’s gonna get out of the cage.”

  “He’s got a point, John,” Sharp said.

  “Let us take lead,” Bolan said. “Go in first. We’ll let you know what the odds are, and then we can figure out the best assault tactics.”

  “It’ll also give you a chance to get some hazmat
teams in place,” Grimaldi said. “You’re gonna need them.”

  Eldridge took in a deep breath and then looked at Sharp, who nodded.

  “All right,” Eldridge said. “We’ll reassess things once we locate them.”

  Bolan checked the magazine, slapped it in place, set the weapon on safe mode, then placed two more fully loaded mags into the specially designed pockets of his vest. “How far is this place where your surveillance team saw those bikers?”

  “It’s about ten minutes away by vehicle,” Eldridge said. “Kent’s a winding street that runs east and west. The place we’re looking at is on Knight Street.”

  Kournikova and Dimitri stood looking expectantly, and Eldridge heaved a sigh and popped the tailgate on his Tahoe. He strode past the two of them and began sorting through several boxes of equipment.

  “Here you go, miss.” He pulled out a ballistic vest and held it toward the Russian agent. “This should fit you, albeit a bit awkwardly.”

  She smiled and thanked him.

  “And here’s one for you.” Eldridge handed another vest to Dimitri. “I assume you have more of your own weapons in that?”

  “We do,” Dimitri said. He held up his backpack and unzipped it. The folded metal stock of an AK-47 was visible.

  “Just take care where you point it,” Eldridge said.

  “We can vouch for them,” Bolan said. “We’ve been through a few tough ones together.”

  Eldridge glanced at Sharp and then back to the Executioner.

  “All right,” he said. “Covert surveillance, and then you report back to me before you take any action. Understood?”

  “We’ll do our best,” Bolan said.

  Knight Street Warehouse

  South Vancouver

  Rokva watched the Indian’s nose wrinkle in displeasure at the sight of the cigarettes. Smiling, the mafiya captain held the pack toward him and offered him one. Patel shook his head.

  “I happen to be allergic to tobacco smoke,” he said in a huffy voice.

  Seeing this as a chance to assert a bit more of his dominance into the game, Rokva removed one, then offered the pack to Sergei, who grabbed one, as well.