Soviet Specter

by Don Pendleton

  Finally the call connected at the top-secret Stony Man Farm counterterrorism installation. The voice that answered said simply, “Hello.” It was Barbara Price, the Farm’s mission controller.

  “Hello yourself,” Bolan said.

  “Well, well, well,” the honey blonde said.

  Bolan pictured the woman on the other end of the call in his mind. He and Price had a very special relationship, and it was the closest thing to romance a man with Bolan’s fast and furious lifestyle would ever be permitted. “Hal around?”

  “I’ll put you through.”

  A moment later, Hal Brognola used Bolan’s mission code name to greet him. “How are you, Striker?”

  “I’m still alive. But I need some help.”

  “Ask,” Brognola said around the ever present stump of an unlit but well-chewed cigar in the corner of his mouth, “and ye shall receive.”

  “Item One—we had a little incident at Rikers earlier in the day.”

  “So I heard,” Brognola said. “If I got the right score, the game ended with good guys 2, convicts 0. I’m not counting the women you had to fight.”

  “They weren’t hurt,” Bolan said. “But a few more points got scored at Polyakova’s art gallery about an hour ago. Four more, to be exact.”

  “I figured that had to be you,” Brognola replied. “Need me to fade the heat with the cops on both counts?”

  “Right. I’m scheduled to report back to Rikers and talk to the investigators in the morning. I won’t be there. And the cops were arriving at the gallery when we left. They’ll eventually put two and two together.” He paused to draw a breath, then said, “I don’t have any idea where we’ll end up before all this is over, Hal. Almost certainly Russia. Maybe some other places. I don’t need any over-enthusiastic cops who don’t know what’s going on getting warrants out for me because I didn’t let them interview me.”

  “Not a problem, Striker,” the head Fed answered. “Now, you said, ‘Item One,’ inferring more than one item, but you lost me. Was all that Item One or were they Items One and Two and now we’re ready for three?”

  “We’re ready for Two. Three and Four will be coming up. First I’m taking DEA Agent John Jameson along to cover my back. Can you get him temporarily on loan to Justice?”

  “That’s no sweat. The new DEA director is an old friend. Tell Jameson he’s covered. Next item?”

  “Hang on a second.” Bolan turned away from the receiver and looked at Polyakova. “Find me that emergency number Rabashka gave you,” he stated. Returning to the phone, he continued, “Got a number I’d like Aaron to try to run down,” Bolan said, referring to Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman, Stony Man’s computer genius. “My guess is it won’t lead anywhere useful but it’s worth a try. And here’s a name for you while she’s finding the number—Ontomanov. Agafonka Ontomanov.”

  On the other end of the line Bolan could hear Brognola start to write. “You want to spell that, Striker?” he asked.

  The soldier complied. By the time he’d finished, Polyakova was handing him an address book. She had opened it to the letter E and was pointing to an entry that said simply, “Emergency.” Bolan read the number over the phone and listened as the Stony Man Farm director of Special Ops Group wrote it down along with the name. “I’ll see what the Bear can find for you, big guy,” he said. “Anything else?”

  “Not at the moment. Tell Aaron to move as quickly as he can. I need the info ASAP.”

  “Consider it done. You’d better get busy, Striker. That’s why we pay you the big bucks.”

  Bolan couldn’t help but grin as he hung up. He had never been paid big bucks. The fact was, he had never been paid at all. He was a loner, a crusader for justice who had embarked upon his own personal war, for his own personal reasons, long ago. He answered to no one, although he had an arm’s-length relationship with both Stony Man Farm and the U.S. Department of Justice. Sometimes they financed his missions; other times he robbed from the criminally rich and used that money to save the innocent poor they mistreated. But either way, he had been on his own, calling his own shots, since the beginning. And he would still be on his own when the bitter end inevitably came.

  Bolan turned back around on the bed so he could see both Polyakova and Seven. “You’re temporarily assigned to a Department of Justice task force,” he said.

  “And the rest of that task force is where?” Seven asked, but his face reflected that he already knew the answer.

  “You’re looking at it,” Bolan said. He stood and moved back to the chair. Pulling it closer to the bed, he leaned forward and took Polyakova’s hands again. The emerald eyes seemed to widen as they met his. “I have a plan,” the soldier said.

  The beautiful Russian woman sat quietly, waiting.

  “It has to involve you. And I won’t lie to you. There’s more than a little danger and risk involved.”

  Her eyebrows rose slightly. “You are telling me there was no risk and danger today?”

  “No,” he answered. “There was plenty of risk and danger today. I’m telling you there’ll be more.”

  “Today was more dangerous than any day I have ever known before,” the woman said. She stopped and a serious look brought the eyebrows back down. “But I don’t think it was such an extraordinary day for you. I think you must’ve had many days like this.”

  For a brief second, Bolan felt the same fatigue he saw on Luiza Polyakova’s face. It fell over him like a heavy wave of warm sea water. “More of them than I can remember,” he replied. “But what my life is like is not the topic of discussion here. I want to make sure that you know from the beginning what you’re getting into. And if you don’t want to do it, I’m not going to make you.” He stopped to let the gravity of her situation sink in before she made her decision. “Yes, today was risky, but if you say yes to my offer, tomorrow is likely to get worse.”

  Polyakova squeezed his hands. “It seems to me that every day from now on will be worse if I don’t help you,” she said. “My alternative is what? Return to jail?”

  “Not necessarily,” Bolan answered. “I could probably arrange it so that you stayed at home if you promised to be available as a witness.”

  The woman laughed softly—a nervous laugh of resignation. “Ah, yes, I could stay at home. That home with the broken windows downstairs that let in the rain and men with guns. How long do you think I would be home before I was killed?”

  “Not long.”

  “And how long do you think I would last if I went back to jail?”

  “Not even as long as at home. Whoever the puppet master is who’s pulling the strings of men like Rabashka and Ontomanov has long arms. And they’ll reach out to someone else at Rikers.”

  She nodded. In contrast to the way she had behaved during the attempts on her life, she was staying calm, weighing her options rationally without panicking or showing any emotion whatsoever. “I could return to Moscow,” she said.

  “Yes, you could,” Bolan agreed.

  The Russian laughed skittishly again. “But I think that would be like going straight inside—how do you say it?—going straight inside the place where the lion lives.”

  Bolan smiled. “Right into the lion’s den,” he said.

  “His den, his living room, his bedroom, whatever.” Polyakova might not be able to word the old aphorism correctly, but she had no problem with the basic concept. “What it means is that Moscow is where the man lives who wants me dead most of all.”

  “That would be my guess.”

  “Then I will stay with you,” she said firmly. “At least when they try to shoot me, I will be with a man who can shoot back.”

  Next to her, Johnny Seven cleared his throat. After practically causing the beautiful Russian woman to have a nervous breakdown earlier in the day, he had spent the entire time they had been in the hotel room trying to make peace with her. He wasn’t sure it had worked.

  Polyakova turned to look at Seven, and finally a smile that wasn’t spawned
by fear or restlessness broke across her face. In the emerald eyes the Executioner now saw forgiveness for the man next to her—a man she now realized had just been doing his job to the best of his ability. But in the same eyes he also saw hope, hope for her own future.

  The Russian woman took Johnny Seven’s hand again. “All right,” she said. “I will be with two men who can shoot back.”

  Seven laughed with his own mixture of emotions—gratitude and embarrassment.

  Polyakova turned back to the Executioner. “So,” she said, “tell me what you want me to do first.”

  Bolan did. But by the time he had finished, Luiza Polyakova was no longer smiling.

  THE BAD GUYS KNEW the rules of the game just as well as the good guys.

  Seated in the chair next to the desk at the Red Brick Hotel, Bolan lifted a slice of pizza to his mouth. Whoever was behind the stolen art and heroin shipments that Rabashka had escorted to Polyakova’s art gallery obviously knew Polyakova had taken a fall. He knew the law would be pressuring her to help them, and he was doing his best to see that she died before that could happen.

  The Executioner took a bite, thinking while he chewed. All he had to do was somehow convince that man—whoever he was—that he not only shouldn’t kill the beautiful Russian woman but that she had somehow convinced two federal agents to defect and enter the drug trade with her. In other words, all he had to do was convince the man to ignore all conventional wisdom and throw common sense completely out the window concerning him and Johnny Seven.

  No problem. Piece of cake.

  Across the room, still sitting on the bed, Luiza Polyakova played with her pizza more than ate it. Knowing they would have to wait on the return call from Stony Man Farm, and since none of them had eaten since morning, Bolan had sent Seven out to get food. The man had come back with more pizza than the Executioner had thought twice as many people could eat. But Seven sat at the desk now, finishing the last of it.

  Bolan had just taken a drink from a can of cola when the phone rang. He stood and walked over to the bed, lifted the receiver, then sat back down in the same spot where he’d been when he’d made the original call an hour earlier. “Hello,” he said.

  “And how are you?” The voice was that of Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman. The Executioner had expected it to be the computer wizard who called back.

  “I’m fine,” Bolan said. “What’ve you got?”

  “Good news and bad news. Which first?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Bad news, then. The phone number, as I’m sure we both expected it would, traces to a cell phone. I could run the details down to you about exactly how that means it could be anywhere, with anyone, but you already know that, too.”

  “It was a long shot but worth a try, Bear,” Bolan said. “Okay, I’m ready for the good news.”

  “It wasn’t hard to find out who Agafonka Ontomanov is,” Kurtzman came back. “Young. Twenty-seven. Came over from St. Petersburg when he was fifteen with his parents and he’s been involved in the art business one way or another ever since. No arrests unless you want to count a few speeding tickets and one reckless driving. He races cars as a hobby, and I guess he does the same on the highway.”

  “If he’s never been arrested, how’d you come up with all this so fast?” the Executioner asked.

  “Elementary, my dear Striker,” Kurtzman answered. “He’s been in the legitimate art business—buying, selling and he’s even been an auctioneer at times—all these years but he’s also been suspected of dealing in stolen works of art and running drugs. I hacked into the customs and DEA database and cross-referenced his name. He’s mentioned in several intel reports as a suspect, and the narcs even have an intelligence file on him.” He paused. “Aren’t you working with a DEA dude? He didn’t know anything about Ontomanov’s file?”

  “No,” the soldier replied. “But if he hadn’t worked any cases the man was suspected in, he’d have no reason to. Anything else about the guy?”

  “Just about what you’d expect,” the computer man said. “He’s a high roller. Likes to gamble but doesn’t have a problem with it. Toots a little coke now and then, but he seems to be handling that, too—so far. I already mentioned the fast cars, and he likes fast women, too.”

  “No connection you can find between him and the phone number I gave you?” Bolan asked.

  “Nope. No links that I found. Which doesn’t mean it isn’t his phone. May very well be.”

  “Okay, Bear. Tell everybody hello for me.”

  “I will. Come tell us yourself sometime. It’s been a while.”

  “No rest for the wicked,” the Executioner said.

  “Not when you’re after them, there isn’t.” Kurtzman hung up.

  Bolan dropped the receiver back into the cradle. Polyakova had moved closer to him on the bed while he talked to Kurtzman and now, as he turned toward her, his knee slid up against hers. A jolt of electricity seemed to pass through the soldier, and in the green eyes that now turned his way he could see she’d felt it, too. Casually moving his leg back away, he ignored the sensation and said, “Okay, how good of an actress are you?”

  The woman shrugged. “I don’t know. I suspect it depends on the part.”

  “The first role is pretty easy,” Bolan said. “All you’ve got to do is play yourself. Call the emergency number and see who answers. Did Rabashka tell you it would be Ontomanov?”

  “No.”

  “But he didn’t say it wouldn’t be, either?”

  “No.”

  “Then maybe it will, maybe it won’t,” Bolan said. He continued to stare into the Russian woman’s eyes. In them he saw the trust she had placed in him. “Act frightened.”

  “That shouldn’t be hard.”

  “Tell them you were arrested and that Rabashka was killed.”

  For a moment, she looked puzzled. “But…surely they must already know—”

  “They do but you’re playing dumb. Tell whoever it is that people are trying to kill you and you need help.”

  A look of understanding came over Polyakova’s face. “They will offer to come get me.”

  “I’d stake my life on it,” Bolan agreed.

  “You are staking both of our lives on it.” She glanced up at Seven, who had finished the pizza and was dropping the empty box into the trash next to the desk. “All three of our lives.”

  “Yes, I am. There’s no other way.”

  Slowly she nodded. She looked at the phone. “Now?”

  “Now,” Bolan said.

  The two changed places and the Russian tapped the numbers into the phone. Bolan moved closer, pressing his face close to hers so he could hear what was said on the other end of the line. Again he felt the electricity brought on by the nearness of the woman. Polyakova turned her head to the side and let out a nervous cough.

  A moment later a voice said, “Hello.”

  “Who am I speaking to?” Polyakova said in a half-panicked voice. “Is this Agafonka Ontomanov?”

  “Ah, Luiza,” the voice said pleasantly. “I have been waiting for your call.”

  “I was arrested!” she blurted out. “Rabashka was shot down and killed in front of me!”

  Bolan grabbed a notepad and pencil from the stand by the phone. “Ontomanov?” he wrote on the paper, then held it in front of her.

  The Russian woman nodded.

  “Yes, I know all that,” Ontomanov said quietly. “Where are you now?”

  The woman ignored the question. “People are trying to kill me!” she more or less screamed into the instrument.

  Bolan suppressed a smile. She was doing a good job so far. Playing her part just dumb enough that there was a chance Ontomanov would buy it.

  “Where are you now, Luiza?” the Russian on the other end of the line asked again. “I will come and get you.”

  Bolan leaned back to catch the woman’s eye and shook his head. He didn’t want her playing things that dumb or Ontomanov would smell a rat.

&nb
sp; Polyakova caught on immediately. “I won’t tell you!” she said, her tone coming out both angry and terrified at the same time. “For all I know it is you who have sent the people to kill me!”

  Ontomanov laughed softly and confidently on the other end of the line. “Luiza,” he said. “That is ridiculous. Who knows if anyone is trying to kill you? Maybe it is your imagination, eh? But it’s not me. We are partners. Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you and protect you.”

  Bolan had held on to the notepad and pencil, and now he wrote “Tell him you’ll meet him somewhere” as fast as he could.

  “I will meet you somewhere,” she said.

  “Where?” Ontomanov asked.

  By then, Bolan had written, “Romeo’s Submarine.” Romeo’s was a large, well-lit, all-night sandwich shop a half mile from the Red Brick Hotel. Below the name of the restaurant, the Executioner had scribbled, “Do you know it? If so, give directions.”

  Polyakova nodded. “Do you know where Romeo’s Submarine is?” she asked Ontomanov.

  Bolan had pressed his head against Polyakova’s. “Of course,” he heard the young Russian say. “When can you be there?”

  Bolan held up one finger.

  “I will be there in an hour,” she said.

  “Come alone,” Ontomanov stated.

  “Of course I will come alone!” the woman practically screamed into the telephone. “Everyone else in the city is trying to kill me!”

  Both the Executioner and Polyakova heard clicks in their ears as Ontomanov hung up his end.

  Bolan moved back away from the woman on the bed next to him. In one hour, they would meet the only contact Polyakova still had who could lead them to the Russian in charge. Ontomanov would be expecting her to be alone. And he would be expecting to take her away from the public eye and either kill her himself or have someone else do it for him.

  Again the Executioner knew his job was simple. All he had to do was keep that from happening, and at the same time not have to kill Ontomanov in the process. If the young Russian died, they ran straight into a brick wall as far as further ins to the organization went.