At the corner, Sevaron checked his pistol’s load while counting to five under his breath, then surged forward, gun out and ready to cut the female shooter down the instant he saw her...
Only she wasn’t behind the smoking wreckage of the trash container anymore. He saw Zimin from the corner of his eye, and knew she was covering her side. He also knew she didn’t see the woman either, or she’d be shooting.
He did see the lifeless bodies of Sergei Bershov and Illya Krivov on the ground nearby. Sevaron’s mouth tightened at the sight, and he scanned the area, looking for any evidence of which way she’d gone.
Screams and shouts, followed by a pair of gunshots farther down the plaza, alerted them to her escape route. Figuring Cooper and Palomer had the other one under control, the two Russians took off into the corridor formed by the two buildings, where several people were huddled against the wall, and two were bent over a woman who had either fallen or been shot to the ground, he wasn’t sure which.
“Police, police!” he exclaimed in Spanish as he ran up to them. “Which way did she go?”
The man pointed, and Sevaron said, “Help will be here soon!” as he took off after her.
Feet pounding on the pavement, the two Russians sprinted toward the street at the end of the block. They burst out onto the sidewalk in time to see a blurred figure run up over the roof of a cab, the driver honking its horn angrily. “Come on!” he shouted as he took off after her again.
“Police! Police! Get down! Get down!” he shouted in Spanish as they ran down the crowded sidewalk, both to get people out of their way as well as avoid them getting shot if the assassin suddenly decided to turn and open fire on them. But right now she seemed intent on just trying to put as much distance between her and them as possible.
They chased the shooter for another two blocks, dodging locals and tourists alike, until they came to a construction site where a new skyscraper was going up. The woman cut across traffic in the middle of the street, nearly getting herself run over twice, and setting off a furious fusillade of screeching tires and honking horns.
“Go, go, go!” Sevaron urged, running into the street after her. The cars had just started moving when he appeared, one of them coming so close that its wheel tagged his shoe, almost sending him sprawling. Staggering forward, Sevaron regained his balance and kept moving, clearing the last lane just in time to spot his quarry climbing the security fence ringing the construction site.
“Stop!” he shouted, raising his pistol and firing three rounds at her. But his aim was off from the running, and the bullets punched into the boards around her, one possibly grazing her, but not hitting anything vital. Zimin also fired as she ran up to her partner, but the woman raced to the top of the fence like a monkey and dropped out of sight on the other side.
“After her!” he panted, running to the fence and leaping up to grab the top edge. He was about to pull himself up when a weight tackled him from below, and he lost his grip and fell off. As he did, thunder sounded from the other side of the fence, and several holes appeared in the slats where he had been hanging.
Sevaron hit the sidewalk hard and looked up to see Zimin half on top of him, shaking her head. In his eagerness to catch the assassin, he had almost gotten shot. “Thank you.”
“You can thank me when this bitch is dead,” she replied. “Now come on!”
They got to their feet and climbed the fence more carefully this time, entering the construction site after their quarry.
Chapter Eighteen
Carefully drawing a line of epoxy around the edge of the ninth box, Alexei Panshin, aka Samantha George, affixed it in a shadowed corner formed by the end of a row of lights and the side of a support beam running the length of the room.
So far, everything was going exactly as planned. Just as he expected, no one bothered the lighting tech just going around doing “her” job. To keep it real, Panshin had also stopped off at the light board and played with a few programs, checking the status of the system and its controls to ensure that everything was working properly. But the bulk of the past few hours had been spent climbing on the catwalks all around the top of the room, attaching the cubes to the ceiling in precisely calculated places for maximum impact.
By his estimation, he was actually a few minutes ahead of schedule. As he pressed this latest box into place, Panshin wondered how Amani and Kisu were doing. There had been no sign of the dark-haired American or his female partner, nor of the other Russians anywhere here, so he assumed they had been successful in distracting the others, leaving him to complete their mission. Even if they had to sacrifice one or both of their lives, they understood the risks of the job, and would not hesitate to do so—exactly as they had been trained to do.
With the box securely in place, Panshin headed back down the stepladder he had been using to reach the ceiling, and started walking back along the catwalk toward the main ladder to the floor below.
“Hey, Samantha.” Javier Toset stood near the ladder, looking up at Panshin. He nodded at him as he descended, noting the increased activity in the room now. At least a dozen people milled about, some setting up name placards in front of chairs, others helping with last-minute setup of the front area.
“Hi, Javier. Can I help you?”
“Just stopped by to see how things are going. Is there anything you need to be ready for tomorrow morning? Any supplies or assistance?”
He looked down at the podium, then up at the lights that would be illuminating the speakers. “Not at the moment, thank you. Everything is in excellent shape, and Sara has been a great help to me.” He actually hadn’t contacted Sara at all, but in all the rush, it was doubtful the woman would remember who she had or hadn’t talked to during the prep. “Also, my compliments to your team. They’ve really done a fantastic job here. In a couple hours I’ll be ready for some lighting checks, but I can probably just borrow one or two of the staff members as stand-ins at that time.”
“Many of us will be working late into the night, so feel free to grab anyone who’s available when you need them.” Toset’s pocket vibrated. He grabbed his phone and glanced at it with a barely stifled groan. “A manager’s job is never done. I have to run. Again, if you need anything, just ask.”
“I will, and thank you again, Javier. Together, we’re going to make this conference one to remember.”
“I certainly hope so,” he called over his shoulder as he walked away.
Panshin’s smile was absolutely genuine—though not at all for the reasons Toset’s was. With a last scan of the area, he turned back to his work.
* * *
AS HE BORE the other man to the ground, Bolan tried to keep his weight on top so he could incapacitate the guy, but he was like an eel coated in petroleum jelly—slippery as hell.
The second both men hit the ground the assassin bucked up hard, nearly dislodging Bolan, who just barely managed to hang on. Then he threw a knee into Bolan’s back, making the area explode with pain. Letting out a grunt, he grabbed for the man’s neck with both hands and choked him—or tried to.
The man’s windpipe had been reinforced with some sort of highly resistant material that refused to budge under Bolan’s hands. Feeling what he was trying to do, the operative actually chuckled at his ineffective efforts. “Weird, isn’t it?” he said in unaccented English as he drove his knee hard into Bolan’s back again. “Squeeze as much as you want. It will only grow more stiff as you do. But enough of this.”
His leg flipped up again, but this time it caught Bolan across the chest and levered him back. That, along with slipping a hand between his forearms and flipping them apart, broke Bolan’s hold and sent him flying backward.
The turbaned man did another effortless rising handspring that put him on his feet. “My partner let us know about your encounter with him in the subway,” he said as he bounced back and forth on
the balls of his feet, hands held loosely at his sides. “I must confess I was looking forward to testing myself against you, but now that you are here, I see he was right—you are obsolete.”
Bolan had ended up flat on his back during the assassin’s little speech, and now he got up slowly, his lower back feeling like it was on fire. “I wouldn’t count me out just yet—”
A nearby blast in a planter rocked the area, shaking them both. The turbaned man glanced over just long enough for Bolan to take advantage, and he stepped forward and swung his foot up with all of his strength, aiming for the one spot on any man that was sure to take even the biggest thug down—right between his legs.
He landed a solid hit to the guy’s crotch, feeling the impact all the way up his own leg. His opponent seemed to jackknife over at the attack, but when Bolan tried to extricate his foot, he found it caught firmly between the man’s legs.
“The first thing that was modified on us was all vulnerable points,” the man said as he drove an elbow into Bolan’s knee, making him nearly shout in near-blinding pain as the joint hyperflexed under the impact. “Now during times of stress, the penis and testicles partially retract into the body.” Grabbing Bolan’s leg, he shoved it up while stepping forward and sweeping his other leg out from under him. He then shoved on Bolan’s body, pile-driving him into the ground with a thud that cracked two ribs. “That provides almost complete protection for them, rendering an assault like yours meaningless.”
Flat on his back for the third time in less than two minutes, Bolan could only wheeze in response. “I very much doubt, however, that you have such built-in protections,” his assailant said as he raised his foot and brought it down to crush Bolan’s throat. However, the Executioner wasn’t there to take it, managing to move aside just enough so that the foot stomped down on the concrete right next to him, leaving the man’s knee exposed.
Bolan supposed Utkin may have replaced the cap with a titanium version to increase its striking power, and maybe he’d woven something into the muscles to make them stronger too, but he was pretty sure there wasn’t much he could do to improve on the ball and socket joint that already existed—a joint that was very susceptible to off-angle pressure.
He hauled off and fired the heel of his hand at the side of his adversary’s knee with every bit of strength he could muster.
The crack of the joint breaking was the sweetest sound he’d heard in a long time. The second sweetest was the strangled cry of the man as his leg buckled, and he nearly fell over.
Nearly fell, but didn’t.
His face was strained now, however, and red stained his formerly white pant leg where a bone had broken through the skin. However, instead of being incapacitated like Bolan had hoped, the injury just seemed to make him furious.
“You think that will stop me!” he said as he leaped into the air with his good knee aimed down to ram into Bolan’s chest. He couldn’t hope to block that, but he could redirect the force, lashing a foot up to kick at the leg as hard as he could. The knee shot out toward his head, and the man fell on top of him, still crushing his breath out, but not nearly as devastating as having the knee and 190 pounds of falling man landing on him. He punched the assassin’s head over and over, raining blows on his cheeks, nose and jaw, but none of the shots even phased him.
“Enough. I will end this by finding out how soft your throat is!” Brushing aside Bolan’s attacks, the man smoothly pivoted to sit atop him and reached for his throat. Bolan bucked and twisted, but his adversary stayed on him as if glued there. His fingers clamped around the Executioner’s windpipe and began to squeeze.
Bolan tried the same hold-breaking move the man had pulled on him, but it didn’t work—he just twisted out of it and kept putting on the pressure.
His vision was starting to blur, and in desperation he clawed at the operative’s face, catching a corner of his left eye socket and digging in with all his remaining strength. The other man grunted and pulled his face back, but Bolan had long, strong arms and he gouged deeper into the socket, eventually scooping the eye out entirely.
The man growled through gritted teeth and redoubled his efforts. Bolan was only a few seconds from unconsciousness now, and pulled futilely at his iron-rigid fingers. He turned his head away from the grotesque sight of the man’s eyeball dangling from the optic nerve on his cheek, and there, less than three feet away, was his pistol on the ground.
As blackness crept in, he scrabbled for it, fingers straining to close around the grips. And then he had it, bringing it up with the last of his strength and squeezing the trigger over and over, feeling something warm and wet spray over his face even as he lost consciousness...
Chapter Nineteen
Sevaron and Zimin expected bullets to fly at them any second. But that didn’t happen; instead, they heard shouts and two gunshots from closer to the half-completed building.
They ran over there, dodging forklifts and trucks hauling materials around the lot. Near a large open space at the front, a group of men in hard hats and yellow vests were clustered around a man lying on the ground. The two Russians crossed to them quickly.
When the men saw the armed pair, they closed ranks around the wounded man, waving them into the building. “We’re police,” Sevaron said in Spanish. “Did the armed woman go in there?” The men nodded. “Call an ambulance for him.” The Russians then headed into the building.
The interior was framed and the floors and walls were up, but it was all bare wallboard and studs. They swept the ground floor, thinking the assassin may have just slipped out the back, but then they heard two shots above their heads.
Running back to the stairs, they began charging up, sweeping and clearing every floor entrance, in case the operative had doubled back and set up an ambush. Five stories up, they met two panicked men and a woman coming down fast. A quick interrogation confirmed that an armed woman was on the eighth floor. Thanking them and sending them down, Sevaron and Zimin continued going up until they reached the eighth floor. Taking positions on either side of the doorway, they cleared the entrance, then proceeded inside.
Plastic sheets had been hung from floor to ceiling to create rough rooms, letting light in, but only allowing partial, blurred vision through them. The wind swept in from the open sides, rustling the sheets and making it hard to hear any other noises.
Dividing the floor into sections, they began clearing a piece at a time. The first part was empty, but as they walked toward the next quadrant, shots rang out, and they dived to the floor, but not fast enough. A trail of fire burned down Sevaron’s back as a bullet grazed him, and he felt warm blood begin to flow. The second he hit the floor, he returned fire, bullets slicing through the plastic where the woman had been, but revealing nothing but bare floor and shell casings.
Getting up, they heard footsteps and gave chase. The other side of the building was divided into smaller rooms, and the plastic lining the rough corridors created a kind of maze. Sevaron and Zimin began creeping up and down the crude passageways, their senses alert, straining to get the merest glimpse or catch the faintest noise that would give them an edge.
Movement on his right caught Sevaron’s eye, and he glanced at it, starting to bring up his weapon before realizing it was just more flapping plastic. He turned back, only to see a dark shadow moving on his other side, and then the assassin was firing through the plastic at him.
He threw himself back as bullets punched through nearby, one striking his hand. Zimin was there in a second, shooting at the woman even as she ran across the hallway and through another plastic sheet.
Sevaron got to his feet again, holding his hand tight against his body. The bullet had smashed into his middle finger, tearing out a large chunk and rendering his hand useless. He switched his pistol to his other hand.
Seeing his injury, Zimin started to move ahead of him to take the lead, but was stopped by
Sevaron’s arm. “Nyet.”
He proceeded ahead of her, pistol at the ready. When they came to the section where the assassin had launched her ambush, he bent and touched his fingers to a splatter of red droplets on the floor. Blood. He rose with a smile. “You hit her.”
They began to follow the blood trail. It seemed to be leading back to the stairway, and they quickened their pace, although still trying to move carefully.
Again, the plastic rustled more loudly around them, making it hard to hear. Sevaron had just cleared another room when he turned a corner and saw the operative standing a couple yards down the passageway, aiming her pistol at him. He tried bringing his around, but she squeezed first.
Click. A misfire.
He was still bringing his gun on line when she ran toward him—so fast!—and threw her useless weapon at his head. He ducked out of the way, trying to shoot her at the same time, but she was on him too quickly, and swatted the pistol out of the way as she drove in to attack.
Her first jab was straight at his wounded hand, and the pain as her fist hit it nearly made him black out. It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to it—he’d endured his share during training—but the blow was so savage and powerful it broke the bones in his hand.
He fell backward, with her following up the assault with another series of punches and kicks. His retreat, however, brought them both to an entrance into another room—where Zimin lay in wait.
When Sevaron had fallen back far enough, she stepped forward, thrusting her pistol out until it was only an inch from the other woman’s head, and squeezed the trigger as fast as she could. Even so, the assassin’s incredible reflexes almost allowed her to avoid the bullets.
Almost.
The rounds sparked and careened off her reinforced skull, gouging furrows through her hair and scalp as they carved through flesh and slammed into metal and bone. The curve of her head was enough to deflect most of them, but she still took a good deal of damage from that assault. Even so, she retained enough ability to palm strike Zimin hard enough to shove her back across the room.
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