Bolan saw the body of a dark-haired man in a suit lying near the Lincoln. Five big, bearded men lay interspersed between the sedan and two vans. Another slimmer, bespectacled man, carrying a suitcase, turned and ran down one of the aisles toward the rear of the warehouse.
From the description that Kournikova had given him, Bolan figured it was Nikoloz Rokva.
The Executioner checked the position of his nearest adversaries and decided it was safe to move. He ran in a crouch toward the end of the walkway. Its juncture formed a right angle with the aisle the man with the suitcase had taken. As Bolan got to the end, he glanced below.
The man he assumed was Rokva darted below him and Bolan squeezed the trigger, but the guy had disappeared. His MP-5 locked on empty. Having no remaining magazines, he dropped the weapon and took out his Beretta. High stacks of cartons lined both sides of the aisle and Bolan estimated the tops were perhaps twelve to fifteen feet below him. Vaulting over the metal banister, he felt himself in free-fall for no more than a few seconds before landing on the cardboard boxes. He went down on his left side and rolled to the edge of the stack.
The aisle was clear below. The drop to the floor would be at least fifteen feet.
More rounds exploded in the main section to his left. Voices shouting commands, this time in English, were a welcome sound.
Then he heard a child’s scream.
Bolan pushed off the edge and dropped to the floor, feeling impact of landing on the hard concrete travel upward through his legs.
Another scream, followed by a visceral growl.
Bolan moved toward the sounds and saw the bespectacled runner, Rokva, holding a small boy. The man had a Tokarev pistol pressed against the youth’s head. The suitcase the man had been carrying lay open on its side, the contents, bundles of money, were scattered over the floor.
The man swore at the boy in Russian and struck him with the pistol. He suddenly turned and looked at Bolan with a harried, wild expression, then lifted the squirming boy upward to partially shield himself.
“It’s over.” Bolan leveled the Beretta at the man’s head. He wasn’t sure he could make the shot without hitting the child. “Drop your weapon and let the boy go, Rokva.”
A flicker of something, a sudden realization perhaps, flashed behind the lenses of the man’s glasses.
“Ah, at last we meet,” he said in English as a malevolent smile traced over his lips. “You have played a good game. A worthy opponent.”
The smile turned into a feral snarl and he turned the Tokarev toward Bolan.
The Executioner had only a second and squeezed the trigger of his Beretta. The left lens of the mafiya captain’s glasses exploded in seeming slow motion, accompanied by a scarlet mist forming a halo around his skull. As he fell to the floor, the boy’s eyes, still wide with terror, fixed on Bolan.
The big American lowered his weapon and beckoned the boy forward in what he hoped would seem like a nonthreatening manner. He was about to reassure the child, but the youth opened his mouth and emitted a terror-filled gasp.
Sensing something behind him, Bolan whirled and caught a glimpse of a large man hurtling toward him only seconds before the two collided. The impact knocked the Beretta from Bolan’s hand as his back slammed against the concrete floor. The other man struck him several times with his fists, but the Executioner managed to thrust his left knee into his assailant’s side to shake him off. Both of them rolled to their feet, facing each other like two big jungle cats. The other man’s right hand darted toward his side and came up with a large knife. Bolan reached for his Espada and snapped it open. A smile consumed the other man’s mouth as he moved forward, holding the big Ka-Bar in front of him.
“You die now,” the man proclaimed.
Bolan knew he was once again outmatched as far as weaponry, being that his powerful opponent’s fixed-blade Ka-Bar was the far superior weapon.
But the Executioner knew that weaponry wasn’t everything.
The two men circled each other, seemingly oblivious to the ongoing battle in the main part of the warehouse. The scattered bundles of money lay in the aisle around them. The large Russian made a quick thrust and Bolan slipped back, bringing his own blade whipping forward to draw first blood from the inner flesh of his adversary’s forearm. That seemed to have little effect.
Again they circled, both attacking with a forward thrust. Bolan missed and suddenly felt the sting as the blade sliced his forearm. He pulled back, but powerful fingers encircled his wrist. The other man’s blade shot toward the Executioner’s chest. He managed to grab his opponent’s wrist just as the tip of the Ka-Bar drove through several layers of Kevlar. The Russian’s face twisted with exertion and Bolan sought to free his knife hand, now slippery with a coating of blood.
Bolan brought his leg around, smashing his instep against his opponent’s left thigh. The other man answered with a hard kick of his own to Bolan’s left knee. Like two competing dancers, they whirled into the open expanse of the aisle, each struggling for dominance. Red droplets from their bloody arms dappled the concrete as they continued to struggle.
The Russian managed to pull his wrist from Bolan’s grip, but the Executioner was able to rip his away, as well. The circling continued, each searching for an opening. The other man’s foot stepped onto one of the bundles of cash and he momentarily see-sawed to regain his balance. Bolan shot forward and drove the point of the Espada down into the base of the other man’s neck. The Russian’s smile transformed into a grimace, and his body seemed to lose all resiliency as his knees buckled and his once formidable body collapsed in stages onto the unforgiving hardness of the floor.
Bolan kicked the knife away from his fallen foe as consciousness fade from the man’s eyes.
The boy cowered across the way, his face an abject portrait of fear.
The noise behind them had ceased and Bolan’s hearing was returning to a semi state of normalcy. He heard shouting and then Jack’s voice calling to him.
He turned to see Grimaldi and Kournikova running down the aisle.
As they got to him, the Stony Man pilot asked, “You okay?”
Bolan nodded. “What’s the situation?”
Grimaldi clucked his tongue. “Eldridge’s boys came through real good. It’s all over but the crying.”
“You’re bleeding,” Kournikova said, pointing to Bolan’s arm.
“It’s nothing.” He gestured to the boy. “See if you can talk to him. My Russian vocabulary might not have the soothing words he needs to hear.”
Kournikova began speaking in slow, deliberate tones, approaching the child by increments. The boy remained frozen until she placed her arms around him, then he buried his face against her leg. She pointed toward the bespectacled man’s body.
“That one is Nikoloz Rokva,” she said.
“So I thought.” Bolan gestured at the other dead man. “His partner was one tough son of a bitch.”
“I do not doubt it,” she said. “He is Sergei Dankovich.”
“It just goes to show,” Grimaldi said. “You mess with the best, you die like the rest.”
Bolan felt the weariness beginning to wash over him like an incoming tide as he peeled back his torn sleeve to check his wound. It was going to need stitches, but that could wait.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go help Eldridge and Sharp make sense out of this mess.”
Epilogue
Forty-eight hours later
“Well,” Eldridge said as they stopped by the special diplomatic gate at the Vancouver International Airport. “It’s been a hell of a ride, but I can’t really say I’m sorry to see you go.” His white teeth flashed under his dark mustache. “Maybe things will get back to normal now and we can get back to catching criminals instead of getting into firefights.”
Bolan smiled and shook Eldridge’s hand. He turned to Sergeant Sharp.
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“It was good working with you, as well.”
“Same here,” Sharp said. “And that goes for your Russian friends, too.”
The two men shook hands as Nikita Kournikova smiled. “I take it that you will not forget to have the backpacks containing our weapons delivered to the Russian embassy along with Mikhal Valunski when he is released from the hospital?”
“You’ll be welcome to him,” Sharp said. “But as far as your Kalashnikovs, I’m afraid those things are a no-no for Russian diplomats in Canada. They’re being confiscated.”
Eldridge nodded. “They’ll be safe and sound in our police evidence room for a good bit of time, in case your government wants to formally appeal.”
He turned to Bolan. “Along with your two MP-5s, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Grimaldi said. “Combat loss. As long as you didn’t take our babies.” He patted his backpack containing their pistols. “Especially his. It’s practically an antique.”
After thanking Eldridge and Sharp for their help, and saying their goodbyes, Bolan, Grimaldi, Kournikova and Dimitri went through the gate leading to the international flights. They paused midway and stood facing each other.
Dimitri eyed the backpacks containing their weapons that Bolan and Grimaldi carried. The Russians were both empty-handed and Dimitri’s sour expression didn’t fade as he said, “Do svidaniya,” turned and walked off toward the Russian airliner.
“Isn’t he the sourpuss,” Grimaldi said. “You’d think he’d show a little gratitude for us saving his bacon all those times.”
“He and Markov were very close,” Kournikova told him.
“Everyone grieves in his own way,” Bolan said.
“But do not pay attention to Dimitri.” The Russian agent flashed one of her high-wattage, dazzling smiles. “You have my gratitude instead.”
Well.” Grimaldi puffed his chest up. “In that case, I guess I’ll collect. How about a hot goodbye kiss for a weary warrior who just happens to be the best damn pilot in the world?”
Kournikova laughed and then reached forward with both hands, grabbing his head. “But of course.” Moving in closer, until their faces were only inches apart, she said, “Are you ready?”
“Am I ever,” Grimaldi said. He grinned and ran his tongue over his lips.
She pulled his head forward, but twisted it to the side at the last moment and planted a kiss solidly on Grimaldi’s upper cheek.
“Jack,” she said, “you will always have a special place in my heart.”
Her kiss had left a fully visible red outline of two lips on his cheekbone.
“That’s all I get?” he asked.
“Perhaps the next time we meet, I will do better.” She winked and turned to Bolan.
“And now you, my friend,” she said, wrapping her arms around his powerful neck and shoulders.
Bolan felt her body pressing against his. The kiss was sweet and lingering. When they separated, she looked up into his eyes, and Bolan thought he saw a flicker of something there. Gratitude? Regret? Or perhaps a mixture of both.
Slowly she uncoiled her arms from around him and stepped back.
They stared at each other for several seconds and then she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she was smiling.
“Until the next time, l’vionak.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask what that means,” Bolan told her.
She winked. “My lion.”
Then Nikita Kournikova turned and walked away.
They both watched her go.
“Man, what a gal,” Grimaldi said. “Think we’ll ever see her again?”
“Well,” the Executioner said, his thoughts of her already fading as the precedence of his War Everlasting began to settle back into place. “Again has turned out to be the operative word on this one, hasn’t it?”
Grimaldi laughed. “Okay. Just promise me one thing. You won’t tell anybody about that Indian woman, okay? It’d ruin my image.”
Bolan picked up his backpack and headed for the gate where their Learjet waited.
“Come on, Jack,” he said. “It’s time to go home.”
* * *
Special thanks and acknowledgments are given to Michael A. Black for his contribution to this work.
Cold Fury
ISBN-13: 978-1-488-05562-1
Copyright © 2019 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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