He had still seen no signs of life as he reached the steps. But Zdorovye felt eyes upon him. Watching. Waiting.
The Russian’s mind flew back to Afghanistan. So long ago, it seemed now. He had first met Movlid Akhmatov when he’d been stationed there with the tank crew. Akhmatov and several other drunken Spetsnaz troopers had come into a bar the Russians had set up. It hadn’t taken too many shots of vodka before a fight had broken out, and the Spetsnaz crew had cleared out the room. But that hadn’t been enough for Akhmatov. The fight seemed only to have whetted his appetite for blood, and as soon as the last regular soldier was down he had turned on his own men. Akhmatov had been the last man standing. The crazed Chechen had even beaten two of his own Spetsnaz brothers to death.
Zdorovye had been lucky. He had been knocked to the floor early during the encounter, and feigned unconsciousness beneath a table during the remainder of the battle.
There couldn’t have been more than twenty steps leading up to the ramshackle house, but it seemed to take hours as the man from Moscow lifted one foot after the other. Brawling, he remembered, had been the least of Akhmatov’s crimes in Afghanistan. Not long after the fight in the bar, the Chechen had been found guilty of rape and murder in a court-martial. By then, he was already famous for such acts, but up until that time his only victims had been Afghan women. When he performed the same atrocities upon a Russian colonel’s secretary, his acts could no longer be swept under the rug. He had been sent to Siberia, where he could kill fellow prisoners and no one would bat an eye.
In a tree farther up the mountain, a bird suddenly took flight and Zdorovye’s hand shot toward the gun in his belt. He wiped his palm on the leg of his pants, knowing the watching eyes had seen. He had betrayed his fear—never a good thing to do when a vicious animal was watching.
Akhmatov had spent less than six months in the Siberian gulag. The KGB, having heard of him, decided on an experiment. They wouldn’t have to train him to kill as they trained other men. To Movlid Akhmatov, killing came as naturally as breathing. With Akhmatov they would attempt to tone down rather than train. Much like a lion tamer trying to gentle a lion, they would see if they could somehow direct his ferociousness in the directions they wished it to go.
Zdorovye reached the top of the stone staircase and started up the crumbling wooden steps to the front porch. For the most part, the thousands of hours and rubles spent on Akhmatov had been successful. By the time Zdorovye left the Soviet army for the KGB, Akhmatov had already been an active field operative for nearly two years. His specialties, which came as no surprise to Zdorovye, were assassination and immoderate interrogation—a KGB euphemism for torture. He was rumored to take special delight in such interrogations, and when Zdorovye once stumbled upon one of the Chechen’s efficiency reports, the supervisor had noted that the man was “exceptionally creative.”
Such simple words, Zdorovye had thought. But so telling.
The Russian knocked on the door. He waited, knowing that Akhmatov knew he was there. The man had been watching him and still was. He would answer the door when he decided to do so.
More politically powerful than even the Soviet army, and with far less qualms about civilian death, the KGB had had no trouble covering up Akhmatov’s frequent indiscretions with civilian women. After all, what was a dead woman here and there compared to the good of the Soviet Union? Viewed through the broad lens, what difference did the occasional dissected mother or strangled sister or wife really make? Toward the end, there had even been rumors of cannibalism on Akhmatov’s part. But Zdorovye found that hard to believe, even from a man like the Chechen. At some point, legend really did take over and surpass even the most vicious of killers.
Inside the house, footsteps padded softly toward the door. Zdorovye felt his stomach muscles tighten. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Akhmatov had returned to his native Chechnya and worked for his families—first in the Ostantinsky, and then the Central crime syndicates. But that hadn’t lasted. With his peculiar tastes and lusts, Akhmatov had found an everyday life of crime far too mundane. Soon, he was on his own and hiring out his gun—and knife, and garrote and bare hands—to the highest bidder. Zdorovye had never heard the Central or Ostantinsky side of the story, but he couldn’t help suspecting that both Families were more than happy to see him go.
Finally he heard a sound on the other side of the door. Zdorovye waited, wishing one of his last thoughts before the door opened hadn’t been about the cannibalism rumors, false as they must be.
A stench the likes of which Zdorovye had never experienced before blew out the door as it opened. It was a sweet, sickly odor that seemed to carry its own tangible aura of evil. The man from Moscow stood waiting, having to will his hand to stay away from the hidden pistol. The gun would do him no good, he knew suddenly. If the Chechen decided to kill him, he would never see it coming.
The door swung back slowly. “Come in, Anton,” said an unseen voice that Zdorovye would have sworn had fire and brimstone attached to it.
The stench from within the house was almost unbearable, but Zdorovye didn’t intend to offend the Chechen. He stepped inside. Trying to will his mind away from the smell, he forced a smile. “It is good to see you again, Movlid,” he said.
Akhmatov had his own smile, and he used it often. It had very little, if any, humor in it. Though he had never actually witnessed any of the Chechen’s immoderate interrogations or his depredations with women, Zdorovye could imagine the man using a smile exactly like this one when he performed such acts.
The house was dark. From somewhere in the corner, Zdorovye heard a painful mewing sound. At first, he thought it must be a cat that was sick or injured. But as the whimpering continued, he realized the sounds were human—female.
Akhmatov saw him looking that way. The Chechen jerked his head in that direction, as well. The humorless smile became a scowl that would have stopped Satan in his tracks. Though he didn’t say a word, the whimpering in the corner suddenly cut off.
Akhmatov turned back and the leer returned to his face. “Come in,” he said to Zdorovye. “Sit down. I will bring us vodka and tea.”
The very thought of any substance in the house entering his bloodstream horrified Zdorovye. He raised his wrist toward his face and looked at his watch. “I wish I could, Movlid,” he said, “but I am running late.” The nauseous odor that had first hit him when the door opened continued to fill his sinuses, and Zdorovye became convinced that such a smell must itself be toxic. “There are two men who must die in America,” he told Akhmatov. “And a woman.”
As soon as he had said “woman,” the Chechen’s eyes lit up. “Tell me more,” he said.
Zdorovye did, running down the entire situation. “She must die before she can testify. And you won’t be able to get to her without going through them.”
“But you said she knows very little.”
“She knows enough that, together with other things the Americans may learn, we could have problems.” He stopped, drew a deep breath and regretted it immediately as the reek in the room threatened to gag him. Before he could stop himself, he had blurted out, “Movlid, what is that smell?”
The lecherous smile stayed in place on the Chechen’s face. “Cooking,” he said. He turned briefly toward the corner where the whimpering had been. “Go check on it,” he ordered, and immediately the sounds of someone crawling, or perhaps sliding, across the floor could be heard.
Akhmatov turned back to Zdorovye. “Dinner,” he said. “We are having something very special tonight. You are invited.”
Zdorovye’s wristwatch shot to his eyes again. “I’m sorry, Movlid, but like I said, time is a problem.” He tried to take the next breath in through his mouth, shallowly. “You will have to go to America,” he said. “All expenses, of course, will be covered. And I will pay you one hundred thousand American dollars apiece. That is a total of three hundred thousand.”
Akhmatov chuckled, the sound seeming to rumble from the depths of hell d
eep within his chest. “I can add,” he said. “But you are wrong. You will pay me two hundred thousand dollars apiece. For a total of four hundred thousand.”
For a moment, Zdorovye was quiet, wondering how the Chechen could claim the ability to add in one breath and then contradict the statement with a faulty sum the next. Then he understood.
And that understanding must have shown on his face. For with another rumbling laugh, Movlid Akhmatov said, “Yes, old friend. The woman is free.”
LUIZA POLYAKOVA HAD TAKEN a nail file from her purse and busied herself working on her nails as they waited. The sudden ring of the telephone startled the Russian woman, causing the file to tumble from her hand onto the black leather sofa. She jumped up, then leaned down to retrieve the file, and as she did, her skirt rode up high along the back of her thighs.
Bolan turned away, moving toward the phone on the table. The woman was beautiful—there was no denying that fact—but this was no time to allow himself to be distracted. He watched silently as Johnny Seven grabbed Ontomanov’s arm and ushered him to the extension phone in the bedroom. The Russian had been tight-lipped since realizing his only chance of survival was to cooperate, refusing to talk unless asked a direct question and answering with nothing more than a nod or shake of the head whenever possible. That was fine with Bolan—as long as the nods and shakes came at the right times.
Bolan leaned down with his hand over the receiver and waited. A few seconds later, the soldier heard the DEA man say “Okay…now” from the bedroom. He lifted the phone and placed his free hand over the mouthpiece before holding it against his ear.
How they played it from this point depended upon whether or not this mystery man Gregor knew that Ontomanov was in the hands of U.S. agents. If he didn’t, Ontomanov had been instructed to try to set up an emergency meeting with him. Bolan and Seven would be surprise guests. But if Gregor already knew the Executioner had Ontomanov, Bolan would come on the line and take over negotiations.
From the bedroom came Ontomanov’s voice. “Hello?”
“Hello,” said the voice on the other end. “Are you alone?” The accent was Russian but the words were clear and precise. It was the voice of a Russian who had spoken English for many years and knew it well.
“No,” Ontomanov said. “I am with two American policemen.”
Bolan nodded silently. Good. Ontomanov had done what he’d been instructed to do. The man on the other end wouldn’t have asked the question if he didn’t already know they had Ontomanov in custody. So there was no sense in trying to lie. Not when they were about to attempt to gain the mystery man’s trust.
“What do they want?” asked the voice.
Bolan could see Polyakova sitting nervously on the couch, holding her breath. He dropped his hand away from the mouthpiece and said, “Let’s cut out the middleman. I’m Cooper. What do I call you?”
On the other end of the line all he heard was breathing. Finally the voice said, “You may call me Gregor. But I suspect our mutual friend there has already told you that.”
“We can cut out the formalities and the B.S., too.” the Executioner answered. “There are two ways to work this. Luiza can go back to jail, I can cut Ontomanov’s throat and then come after you.” He waited a second to let it sink in, then said, “You like that plan, Gregor?”
A soft, gravelly chuckle came from the other end of the line. “You Americans always sound like your Hollywood movies. You have no idea who I am, where I am or how to find me. Torture Ontomanov all you want. He doesn’t know, either.”
“Maybe we can find you, maybe we can’t,” Bolan said. “But it’s something you’ll have to think about from now on, because I promise I’ll spend the rest of my life looking for you. So, sleep well, if you decide that’s the way you want to go.”
Gregor’s low, rattling chuckle came over the line once more, but it sounded a little more hesitant, as if he actually was considering the fact that looking over his shoulder the rest of his life might take the fun out of things.
“There’s another option,” Bolan stated. “With it, you get a full night’s rest every night. And we all get rich.”
“I am already rich,” Gregor replied. “But I will keep the sleeping part in mind. Go on.”
Bolan didn’t expect the man to go for what he was about to propose—at least not at first. To do so, Gregor would have to be a fool, and fools didn’t succeed in the drug-smuggling business as he had. No, the Russian would insist on proof that what the Executioner was about to propose was sincere. “You have a nice little setup going,” Bolan said. “All my partner and I want is a part of it.”
What had been a coarse chuckle on the other end now blossomed into a full-blown belly laugh. “Ah,” the man said, and now even the trace of Russian accent was gone. “You want to be in business with us?” The laughing continued. “You must take me for a complete moron, Agent Cooper.”
“No,” Bolan stated. “But I take you to be greedy enough to chance it.” He waited a second before continuing on. “Think about it. You’d have a Justice Department agent and a DEA agent on the payroll. Between the two of us, we could get any information you’d ever need. If the heat’s on in New York, you can switch deliveries to Miami. If something’s coming down in Miami, you change to Chicago or Los Angeles, and so on.” He stopped for a moment, then added, “If you’d had us on the payroll yesterday when the rat chewed through your painting, we could have even found a way to cover that up.”
Silence fell over the phone line again.
Bolan waited. The man was thinking about it. Weighing the risks, the pros and cons.
“This could be a setup,” Gregor said. “In fact, I’d lay nine-to-one odds that it is.”
“If short odds paid off, everybody at the racetrack would go home a winner.”
Once more a slow and steady breathing was all that came over the line. Then Gregor said, “I am aware of the way you police officers work. When you are using an informant, he must prove his reliability before you trust him. So, I will work it that way myself. Before I begin to trust you, we must find some way for you to prove you are reliable.”
“I’ve already thought that one out,” Bolan said. “And it’s simple. We do a drug deal with you. You have your people bring in another load, and my partner and I take possession of it. Then we turn it over to your buyers here in the States. You following me?”
“Go on.”
“By having us take possession, and then distribute it to your dealers, we get our hands dirty. We break the law. You can stay out of the whole thing and just watch so it’s no risk to you.” He waited a second, then added. “If you’re right, and it is a setup, all you’ve lost are a few men who work for you.”
The breathing on the other end of the line went on again for several seconds. Then Gregor said, “There’s one major hole in your plan.”
“Where?” Bolan asked. But he knew what was coming, and already had an answer for it, as well.
“Now that she’s been busted, customs is going to go through everything headed for Luiza Polyakova’s art gallery with a fine-tooth comb.”
“That’s easy, too. Once the evidence of the bust gets lost and the case has to be dropped, every cop who was involved is going to be mad as hell. They’ll want Luiza worse than turkey on Thanksgiving. So they’ll hang back and follow orders when we tell them there’s still a top secret investigation going on, and they need to steer clear of her so she doesn’t get suspicious.”
“No, they’ll want to be part of the investigation,” Gregor said.
“Of course they will,” the soldier replied. “But they’ll understand when they aren’t. If we have to let somebody in on things for whatever reason, we’ll send them on rabbit chases that will still keep them a long way from the action.”
Yet another long pause, and Bolan knew the man was thinking it over. But he suspected Gregor was about to take the bait. It was a good plan—just complex enough to catch the interest and sound feasible. And Gregor
could see that if he and Seven really could be trusted, they’d all have one sweet deal lined up for a long time to come. There was still some risk on Gregor’s part, but drug dealers were used to calculated risk, and Bolan was betting that the man’s greed would win out in the end and he’d chance it.
“We’re all getting older,” Bolan finally said. “What’s your answer?”
“You have a partner, and so do I,” Gregor said. “Give me fifteen minutes. I need to make another phone call.” He hung up.
The grin on Bolan’s face was still there as he placed the receiver back in the cradle. He walked over to the couch and sat next to Polyakova. A moment later, Seven pushed Ontomanov back in and they found seats.
Almost exactly fifteen minutes had gone by when the phone rang again. Bolan grabbed it.
“It’s a go,” Gregor said. “But we’re going to keep this first deal small. The men I don’t mind risking. Money, that’s another thing. I’m willing to risk five kilos that this isn’t some cheap Fed trick. You will take possession of the heroin, then you will turn it over to our buyers and take their money. Then you will give the money back to us. Do you understand?”
“I should,” Bolan answered. “It was my idea.”
“I’ll call you back again with the details as soon as it’s arranged,” Gregor said. “Now, let me talk to Luiza.”
The soldier has suspected that was coming, and he didn’t like it. The woman had been exposed to more violence and terror in the past twenty-four hours than most people experienced in a lifetime. She was still shaky, and a slip on her part now could blow the whole deal. “She’s not available at the moment,” Bolan said. He looked across the room to where the woman was nervously working her fingers with the nail file. Gregor, too, knew she would be frightened, and he wanted to exploit that fright with more threats against her family. He knew that if the Executioner’s proposal really was some elaborate trap, she was likely to come clean in order to protect them.
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