Terminal Velocity

by Don Pendleton

  "Zubrovna," said Vichinsky. There was no point in concealing it anymore. In less than six hours they had an appointment to keep in Revolution Square.

  Boldin's upper lip was filmed with perspiration. He pressed the false mustache back in place.

  Lednev, the very best marksman in the Thirteenth Section, stared out into the darkness and cracked his knuckles in anticipation.

  18

  Kelly woke up when the door rattled open. She hadn't ordered a room-service breakfast and certainly wouldn't have done at this ungodly hour.

  She was about to complain when she caught sight of the single long-stemmed rose lying on a breakfast tray and an envelope with her name written on it. As soon as she was alone again she ripped open the letter.

  Dearest Kelly,

  Meet me in one hour outside the Church of St. Savior. Let's spend a little while together by ourselves — without the company of Mr. Bailey!

  In anticipation,

  Pierre

  Kelly plucked a strip of bacon off the plate and nibbled at it as she ran the bath.

  Forty minutes later she left the hotel. This time by the staff exit at the rear.

  Less than five minutes after Kelly's departure a maid entered the young woman's room. She scooped up the message supposedly written by Pierre Danjou, ripped it up and flushed the pieces down the toilet. Then she replaced it with a brief note that she had brought with her. The maid took a last look around the room, picked up the rose for herself and left.

  * * *

  Mack Bolan was nearly always awake before his wristwatch alarm went off. This morning was one of the rare exceptions. A buzz summoned him back to consciousness. It was six-twenty.

  He let the shower wash the sleep away, and with it the dreams and memories and unanswered questions that had disturbed his night. He had left a message for Kelly that he would meet her at seven. They were to go jogging in Zvedlo Park together.

  He was five minutes early when he knocked on the door.

  No reply.

  "Kelly, are you awake?"

  Still no sound from inside the room.

  Bolan tried the handle. The door swung open.

  He raced across the empty room and checked the bathroom. She was nowhere in sight.

  The remains of a pecked-at breakfast lay on the tray at the foot of her bed. He saw the note right away and picked it up.

  Mark,

  Pierre Danjou was right. I've gone to watch the rally in Revolution Square. It is history in the making.

  K

  Bolan scanned the note a second time, shaking his head at her foolishness, but quickly looked up. Georgi Radic was standing in the open doorway.

  "What the hell are you doing here?"

  The young photographer started to reply but Bolan cut him off. "Just how did you get up here? How come the desk clerk let you in?"

  "He didn't see me," Radic said, shrugging. "I parked at the back and used the service entrance."

  "You've got your own car? Out there now?"

  "Yes, but excuse me... Where is Miss Kelly?"

  "That's what we're going to find out. Come on, show me that entrance you used."

  Radic's car, an ancient Citroen 2CV, was parked in the alley.

  "Revolution Square, as fast as you can," ordered Bolan. The minute they pulled away, he asked, "And what were you doing at Kelly's door?"

  "I wanted to catch her before she went to practice," replied the cameraman. "I was going to ask if she would allow me to accompany her, to take more pictures for my photo essay, 'A day in the life of an American athlete.' I thought she liked me. I like her."

  They now headed directly toward a location both of them had wanted to avoid.

  The Citroen was rattling along in the general flow of the morning traffic. Bolan checked through the rear window. There was no sign at all of the Zastava, but then Fatman and Gloves weren't looking for him in a beat-up wreck belonging to a local journalist. As the car swept down the road toward the square, the press of vehicles became a fuming, honking flood of commuters.

  Radic stuck his head out of the window. "Looks like a detour ahead. They must have cordoned off the whole area around the square."

  An overworked policeman was waving all the cars to the right; the street behind him was already clogged with a slow-moving column of pedestrians. Obviously the authorities had not dissuaded too many people from attending the rally.

  "Hold on!" shouted Radic as he bumped over the curb and drove into a narrow side street.

  There was a butcher's shop at the corner ahead, with four floors of accommodation above it. "I live there," Radic said as he drove past. "Top floor."

  He turned to the left and pulled into a small courtyard. There was just enough room to park his car next to a rack of bicycles.

  Radic, camera case swinging from his shoulder, led the way down an alley, which brought them out on a boulevard leading back toward the square.

  "Why is Damien Macek taking this risk?" Bolan asked as they strode along the sidewalk.

  "He wants to show who is in control." There was an undercurrent of skepticism in Radic's voice that belied the image of Macek as every worker's hero, the image that had been portrayed in the Western media. "Not just the authorities; he wants to show that all of Unity is behind him, that it really is a united movement."

  "Isn't it?"

  "Well, some factions just want to work out a new deal with Moscow. Others want to develop stronger ties to the West."

  "And you? How did you get involved?"

  "I was working at the paper. One day the editor was ill, so I wrote the editorial. I'm still not sure which sentence offended them, but that's when I was relegated to sports reporter permanently. It's also the day I joined Unity."

  Two truckloads of soldiers were parked to one side of the street. They did not attempt to stop any of the passersby heading for the rally; they just watched everyone with hostile eyes.

  Bolan began looking for any sign of Kelly and Pierre, but he continued to question Radic. "Being a sports photographer can't be all that bad, can it?"

  "It does have some advantages. I enjoy a relative freedom of movement and that has been useful."

  "As a courier?"

  Radic quickly turned to look at Bolan. This tough foreigner was no more an assistant coach than Radic was merely a sports cameraman. But there was something about the man that instilled an implicit and immediate trust.

  The street ended, opening out into a broad square. Its proper name was Karadjordje Place, after a Serbian guerrilla who had rallied the resistance to Turkish rule, but everyone called it Revolution Square. There could not have been a more appropriate nor dangerous place in all of Zubrovna for Macek to stage his Unity rally.

  The crowd pushed forward, jostling Georgi Radic and his tall American companion. It was often difficult for the two men to make headway through the throng, but at least Bolan could see over the heads of most of the onlookers.

  The people were hushed as they listened carefully to the translation of a message from Lech Walesa that had been smuggled into the country. Bolan's eyes roved along the perimeter of the square, hoping that Danjou had enough sense to keep Kelly away from the middle of this crush.

  Radic did not look out of place among these office workers, tradesmen and students. In fact, Bolan spotted several of the photographers who had been at the airport. They all knew where the real story was this morning. He couldn't blame Kelly for coming along. This was history, in the raw.

  Bolan was about to suggest that he and Radic split up when he spotted Fatman and Gloves. They were on the steps of the war-memorial cenotaph, with a camera mounted on a tripod. But the 35mm Zenit was not focused on the slogan-covered speaker's stand; the long lens was pointed upward at a large building on the opposite side of the square.

  It was built in the seventeenth century, its classic architecture cluttered with baroque afterthoughts. In the prewar years it had been occupied by a French banking concern. The financial instit
ution had not been welcome in the new socialist state. Now it housed an obscure branch of the cultural affairs ministry.

  Bolan automatically swiveled to see what was attracting the attention of his two former shadows. What could be so important for them to photograph over there that they had abandoned the trail of a potentially suspicious American?

  "George, let me have your camera for a minute." The photographer looked puzzled but complied.

  Bolan used the zoom lens on Radic's camera to inspect the facade of the building. A clock over the left-hand entrance read seven-forty.

  Bolan swung his attention to the right, to a fifth-floor window. A movement caught his eye. He studied the shifting shadows behind the glass. He discerned two figures up there and thought there might be a third man standing behind them.

  They were looking down on the rostrum where Damien Macek was stepping forward to address his followers.

  The window slid open, the protective glare on the glass disappeared.

  The pale oval of the assassin's face was pressed against the hard dark lines of the sniper-scoped rifle. The ugly slits of the SVD's long flash suppressor poked over the sill. To the left, farther back and perhaps two feet higher, another gun was being brought to bear.

  Bolan could not believe it. The assassin was the spitting image of Bolan, right down to the new mustache!

  Fatman made a final adjustment to the focus of the Zenit's zoom lens.

  The sniper's finger curled around the trigger.

  "Find Kelly for me!" Bolan shouted as he pushed the camera back to Radic. But his instructions were drowned by the roar of the spectators as they returned the greetings of the Unity leader. The gut instinct of the news photographer made Radic snap off a shot just as Bolan turned to plunge into the crowd.

  The American elbowed his way forward. Several bystanders dodged aside as Bolan raced toward the entrance of the ministry building. He felt the comforting weight of the Beretta beneath his jacket as he charged the front door.

  Someone had only a few seconds left to live!

  19

  With his personalized Steyr-Mannlicher, Lednev could group three rounds within a one-inch spread at four hundred yards. But he was a dedicated marksman who specialized in the one-shot kill. The cross hairs of the Kahles scope tracked down from Damien Macek's face to settle on his chest. Lednev took a shallow breath and held it.

  The Unity leader was still trying to quiet the large crowd so that he could begin his speech. He raised both hands, palm outward, in a subduing motion...

  The 7.62mm bullet clipped the knuckle of his little finger, deflected downward and hit the cheekbone.

  Blood sprayed in a crimson arc over his wife's arm and the top of her cheap flowery dress. Instinctively she reached out and caught Macek as he staggered back. Their nine-year-old daughter screamed hysterically.

  A dream was dying as a nightmare came true.

  * * *

  Boldin swallowed the bile in his throat. Lednev alone was responsible.

  The Polish prisoner knew now that he could never have done it, no matter what he'd promised them. Boldin had spent long enough on the rifle range to tell what the difference in his weapon's recoil meant. Vichinsky kept him kneeling in the window for a fraction of a second longer.

  Fatman took his picture as pandemonium broke loose.

  The Russian colonel still held his pistol loosely. It wasn't pointed at the double, but Boldin knew Vichinsky would not hesitate to use it. He waggled the muzzle toward the door. "Quickly! Into the other room!"

  Lednev snapped shut the catches on his rifle case and ran for cover.

  * * *

  Bolan, taking the broad marble steps two at a time, heard the double report of the rifles in the room above. He pulled out the Beretta. A door opened... pounding feet. .. another door slammed shut. Breath rasping in his throat, Bolan raced up the last flight of the twisting staircase.

  * * *

  A student standing at the back of the crowd pointed at the ministry building and shouted the alarm. Then a factory hand who had been jostled as Bolan ran past added his cry. Gloves looked at Fatman, shrugged, and joined in the chorus.

  Two of the crowd-control police ran in the direction that several people now pointed out. A nearby army officer signaled for his patrol to follow him. Only Georgi Radic began walking quickly in the opposite direction.

  * * *

  The sound from outside was a muffled roar, punctuated by angry shouts of disbelief and wails of protest at the obscene horror of Macek's assassination.

  The top landing was deserted. The door to the room at the front was standing ajar. Every sense on alert, Bolan moved with speed and precision. He shoved the door open wider with his left hand and he came through fast and low, the 93-R sweeping the room. But it was empty.

  The place reeked of cordite.

  Bolan ran to the open window. The square was in total confusion. As a former sniper, the American dispassionately assessed the shot: tough angle, long range. Whoever did it knew his business. Someone down below saw him standing in the window and screamed, "Assassin!"

  The crowd really began to panic.

  Bolan instantly drew back, but in his hand he held one small key to the puzzle — a shell case that had landed on the inside window ledge. It wasn't a NATO round; it was a Russian-styled 7.62mm. There was no time to figure it out, but from the splintered crimping it looked like a blank!

  He was almost certain there had been at least three men up here. But which way had they gone? There were four other doors on the top-floor landing.

  Bolan heard boots stamping up the first flight of steps. Rifle bolts clicked as the soldiers levered live rounds into their weapons. The officer barked out a guttural order for his sergeant to lead the way.

  Bolan saw a decorative recess in which a large empty vase was standing on a plaster column. He grabbed it and tossed the container over the railing. It plummeted down the stairwell. The shattering vase would keep the men down there frozen for a few precious seconds.

  Bolan was already running toward the doors at the rear before the vase hit the tiled floor at the bottom and exploded into tiny porcelain fragments.

  He couldn't hang around to work out how the real hit team had vanished so completely. He was the one the police and soldiers were after now.

  Bolan tried the left-hand door. It was locked. The other one opened into a carpeted office. A plain wooden chair was standing against the wail. He spun it around and jammed the top edge under the door handle, then he crossed to the window.

  Behind the impressive houses that faced onto Karadjordje Place was a grubby maze of ancient dwellings. Bolan leaned out just as three small figures ran through the narrow alleyway below. They were not soldiers, just onlookers smart enough to escape from the melee in the square.

  The guttering didn't look as if it would take his weight. Besides, he didn't know who or what was up there or where the rooftop led; it might be a dead-end trap.

  He would have to risk the ledge that ran around the outside of the building. It didn't look safe, either, but it was better than staying where he was; a shoot-out here could only have one eventual outcome. Bolan holstered his gun, shoved the shell case in his pocket and swung a leg over the sill.

  The corner of the building was twenty feet to his right. In the other direction, but farther away, was a fire escape. He decided to go for the rusted ladder. His pursuers had reached the fifth floor. Bolan could hear them shouldering the door. With his cheek pressed against the crumbling brick, he began to inch his way along the ledge.

  The soot-stained structure on the other side of the alley might have been a warehouse; most of its broken windows were blocked with cardboard or old canvas. At least there was no one staring out at the big man who was testing each new step as he edged toward the escape ladder. Two more feet to go and he would have to pass in front of the window to the locked office.

  Bolan heard a door being smashed open. He hugged tighter to the masonry. Thr
ee men charged in, saw the place was empty, then two ran out. The last guy came over to check the window.

  Bolan's palm was pressed flat, his fingertips digging into the dusty mortar, as with his other hand he began to reach down for his ankle sheath. But caution cost time.

  The soldier stuck his head out the window, saw the fugitive balanced there and sucked in a breath to shout the alarm. Bolan struck with the speed of a cobra. His free hand snaked forward, fingers grabbing the man's windpipe.

  The scream was trapped in his throat. He felt only a hot giddying rush as Bolan twisted savagely. The big warrior pushed the unconscious body away, and the unwary soldier collapsed limply back inside the room.

  Bolan eased his way past the office window. A loose flake of tiling rattled down over the broken gutter. They were searching the roof above. And two more frightened demonstrators sprinted along the alley below. Bolan froze — he was still about fifteen feet short of the ladder.

  He reached up to steady himself. His hand closed on the heavy metal bracket supporting the ceramic insulators of two thick telephone cables that stretched across the alley. He used these few seconds to draw the razor-sharp combat knife from its sheath.

  Bolan glanced up and saw a policeman's head bobbing out over the eavestrough. The guy was standing directly over the fire escape.

  There was no time to weigh the options as the uniformed officer reached for his holster. Bolan hacked through the phone wires with three rapid strokes.

  The policeman yelled out that he'd found the man they were after; he was grinning as he drew his pistol.

  Bolan grabbed a firm hold of the two wires and launched himself from the ledge. He swung down in a sickeningly swift arc across the alleyway. The cop had only a second to snap off one hasty shot as he saw the fugitive smash feet first through a fourth-floor window of the warehouse opposite.

  Bolan landed bruisingly in a jumble of flapping cardboard and old sacks. Knees flexed, he had rolled forward to break his fall, becoming even more tangled in the sacking. His tumbling momentum came to an abrupt halt as he bumped into a musty jute-wrapped bale.