Death Metal

by Don Pendleton

  The president’s expression stopped him dead.

  Carefully the president formed his words, his voice ominously quiet. “So... It is not bad enough that one lone American runs rings around us. When it appears that he does need help, he uses one of our own. Why, pray, do you think this is amusing?”

  “I—I do not,” the security chief stammered. “I merely think that it is a sign of our quality that he needs inside help to—to—” His words faded in the cold glare of his superior.

  “You do not think at all. That is your problem. When this matter is resolved, then we will have words about your future. They will be all mine, and I promise you that they will not be good. But right now, I want you to do something for me without fucking it up. Do you think you could do that?”

  He stared at the security chief, who nodded dumbly.

  “Good. Now there is a file for decommissioned KGB officers—those who are not dead—which is on the database. There are some details I wish you to get for me. They are in a secured vault. I will give you the password. You will need to use my personal PC as the password is IP linked. If you do this, and hurry, then perhaps you may have a future. Of sorts.”

  * * *

  THE ROOM WAS DARK, shadows in every corner, hiding the three men in suits with conspicuous bulges who sat in large leather chairs. They were silent, slablike and bore a remarkable resemblance to Igor, the man they had replaced. Their employer sat behind his desk, poring over a ledger. To one side of him, a bank of monitors showed the outside of the building, while a computer terminal played soundless news from a Moscow TV station.

  One of the phones before him on his desk rang softly. Tapping ash from his cigarette, he grimaced and picked it up.

  “How nice to hear from you. It is not often that I get a call from someone as exalted as the president of Russia,” he said quietly.

  “Dimitri, you are not surprised? No, of course you are not. Tell me, how is my old charge Igor?”

  “Pretty good for a dead man, but then of course you knew that. I assume you want information?”

  “There is much I would want from you.”

  “Proof of my death being foremost. However, as long as I have my safe deposit box, my instructions with fourteen sets of solicitors across the globe and my backup files nestling in the inboxes of several interesting outlets—awaiting nothing more than a key word to be activated—you will have to settle for whatever intelligence I can offer you.”

  “How nice of you to remind me of all that, Dimitri. I see your desire to make a point with the subtlety of a sledgehammer still remains. It was never one of your more endearing characteristics.”

  Bulganin sighed. “I have no endearing characteristics. That is what has kept me alive. Now cut the crap.”

  There was a momentary silence at the other end of the line. Bulganin allowed himself a thin smile on his skull-like features. He could almost hear the click of tracers and the whirr of recorders, even though in this digital age that was no longer how it worked. Despite himself he felt a pleasant nostalgia for old times in hearing the Russian president’s voice again.

  “I could have you killed anyway and damn the consequences. Your house is not that impenetrable.”

  “Then it is like your mind,” Bulganin replied. “Allow me to fill in the blanks for you. Your people were too slow at the bunker, then in Finland and again in Norway. If they made it to here, then they were so late that they haven’t arrived yet. You are no doubt wondering why I allowed those boy soldiers to bring your old crap to my town?”

  “I assume it was because you wished to steal it from them and sell it back. Probably to me—that would appeal to your sense of humor.”

  Bulganin nodded to himself. “You are right. That would have been most amusing. But it would have gotten in the way of business. I dislike competition, and the last thing I want is people nosing around here, muddying waters I like to keep tranquil. I was happy for the American to rout them out and drive them away. I allowed Freedom Right to exist here because I could keep an eye on them, and because I like the fact that they bait you.

  “But their recklessness does them—any of us—no favors. I understand that they have picked up one of their remaining cells from near here and are headed your way by road, with their payload split in three. I have some reason to believe that the American and his Russian friend—a dangerous man to be at your side, so be warned—have a trail to follow.”

  “So I should direct the tardiest of the fools who claim to follow in our tradition to look for a convoy by road? You have other intelligence to back this, of course.”

  “Of course. As a gift I will send it to you. Personally.”

  “You can do this?” The Russian president sounded surprised, even though he tried to hide the fact.

  Bulganin grinned. “You have my number. Why should I not have yours?”

  The man let this ride, choosing another tack. “Their target is known to you?”

  “Alas, no. Believe me or not, I would actually choose to share that with you. However, my inside man was not privy to the intel before he became collateral damage. You will have to intercept them before they have the chance to show you for themselves.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Indeed. There is one more thing before you go, never to bother me again,” he added with an equally heavy emphasis.

  “That thing is?”

  “Freedom Right has shown a remarkable openness in declaring its intent. I understand that this is part of their point. However, I am not sure if they realize that their trail is so easy to follow or divine from their proclamations. I know of three other groups who have made inquiries about the bunker. I know that these three have sent teams to intercept. They are considerably brighter than the men they chase. Of course I think the American and his hired gun are better. But even they cannot be in three places at once.”

  “I understand,” the Russian president said tightly before disconnecting.

  Bulganin sat under the light of the lamp, drawing on his cigarette and looking at the gently humming receiver.

  “I hope you do.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “I thought the whole idea of getting a new car was that we could hit the road and try to catch up with these fools,” Dostoyevsky grumbled as he followed the GPS directions to a field twenty kilometers outside Oslo. “Pedal to the metal... You know, that sounds like Bachman-Turner Overdrive? I always suspected you were old-school American rock,” he added with a grimace.

  “Bachman-Turner Overdrive was a Canadian band,” Bolan pointed out. “And pedal to the metal was a good initial plan, until this came in—” he waved the cell at the Russian “—and a good general is adaptable.”

  “You promote yourself, Cooper? I like your army. Now pretend I am not just a grunt and tell me what the hell has changed your mind.”

  “Pull over when you reach the open plain, and I’ll show you,” the soldier said, indicating where he wanted the Russian to halt.

  As he parked, Bolan added, “You know, the change may not be a bad thing. The embassy guys think we’re on the road. I never got the chance to check this for a tracker, but even if it doesn’t have one—”

  “Then there was only one route we could take?” the Russian mused. “Makes sense. But that’s not your reason for this change, right?”

  Bolan shook his head before briefly outlining what had come through from Stony Man. The black truck from Tallinn had gone off radar for a short while, the assumption being that it had used smaller roads, perhaps holing up somewhere. What had occurred was an unknown quantity, but when it had come back on the radar, it had two other vehicles that followed it in a loose convoy, distant enough to seem separate to the naked eye but discernibly following when taken on a larger map.

  “I take it we assume they have spread th
e ordnance in the interim?” the Russian queried.

  Bolan nodded. “I figure if they do that now, then the trucks head to different locations in Moscow without any delay. It also means that if one gets taken down, there are still two others out there.”

  “Makes our task harder but not impossible. Surely it would be better if we try to take them out while they are still en route rather than wait until they have been absorbed into Moscow traffic?”

  “That would be the better option under standard operating circumstances. These are not.”

  The Russian frowned. “What has changed?”

  “We take out one vehicle en route, and there’s a possibility that it leaves us trailing the other two. If we were the only chasers, that wouldn’t be so bad. But we won’t be, and I don’t want to leave it wide open for them to jump in while we’re occupied. Look at this.”

  Bolan brought up some emails and video that had been forwarded to him, and it soon became apparent to the Russian that the lower reaches of the internet had been running alive with speculation about Freedom Right, the load they were carrying and the route they would take into the city. There was also much speculation about their targets. The Russian mulled that over.

  “How much is just talk, and how much is likely to result in action?”

  “You mean, are any of these armchair warriors going to get off their butts and come after us? Not any of these, I’d bet,” Bolan said with a grin. “It’s the ones who aren’t making a noise who are the problem.” He pulled up a detailed message from Aaron Kurtzman in which scanned communications had been analyzed, and that analysis from intelligence organizations had in itself been pulled, scanned and analyzed by the Stony Man team. When the Russian had finished reading it, he sat back in the driver’s seat, stroking his chin, deep in thought.

  “Perhaps it is as well that we did not go back and finish Dimitri when we had the chance. Do you think that he knows his network can be so easily accessed?”

  “Guys like Bulganin know that there’s no such thing as secrecy anymore. It’s only a matter of how long before the leak occurs. I think he made sure that this was going to be a very quick leak. He’s a cunning old fox, and he wants this merchandise off the market. Make no mistake, it’s still merchandise until it’s detonated. Any of the three groups identified could sell it to finance actions rather than use it. No one wants the Russians to get it back.”

  “I suppose it leaves him a clear marketplace.” The Russian shrugged. “But I would have thought seeing the old place go up, especially with the mad one in residence, would have been appealing to him.”

  “Old scores are one thing. But the start of a European theater of war as opposed to localized conflicts? Maybe not. It draws too much attention to a businessman who likes to stay in the shadows, and there’s always the risk of a scorched earth taking everything away from him. Besides, as you know yourself, Tallinn is not that far from Moscow.”

  Dostoyevsky laughed bitterly. “So the old guy sits in his library and moves us all around like pieces on a chessboard. Truly the emperor in his war, yes?”

  “Perhaps.” Bolan shrugged. “We don’t have to dance to his tune. We can have a little samba of our own.” He paused, figuring that maybe the Russian was rubbing off on him in odd ways. When was the last time—and to whoever else—he had used a phrase like that?

  “The important thing is that we accept the intel he offers and use it for our ends, not his. If they intersect, then that’s lucky for him.”

  “I guess so,” Dostoyevsky said. “You still haven’t told me why we’re here rather than anywhere else, though.”

  Bolan looked at his watch and then up to skies. In the distance, he could hear the rhythmic throb of a chopper approaching.

  “We’re taking a shortcut. And here it comes now.”

  * * *

  THE RUSSIAN HAD BEEN only too pleased to renew his acquaintance with Jack Grimaldi once more, and the pilot had wasted little time in helping Bolan and the Russian load up the hardware from the sedan into the belly of his chopper.

  “I figured that you might need a little more ordnance, Sarge, so I took the liberty of calling on one of your contacts before hopping across the Straits to get here.”

  “Not anyone with connections to Estonia?” Bolan asked pointedly.

  “Sarge, really?” Grimaldi treated that question with the contempt it deserved. “I’ve hopped the Urals to be on standby, and this is how you greet me? I’m up to speed, and you can never be too careful. You just check what I’ve picked up, select what you want and chill while I deliver you.”

  Bolan felt more relaxed once they were airborne. The Stony Man pilot had picked up enough hardware to start his own trading post, and it gave the soldier a wide range of weaponry for what would be a tough mission. While the Russian studied the intel that Bolan had been sent about the three groups they knew had set out in pursuit, Bolan used the quiet to reflect on the enemy and possible plans of action.

  First and foremost, in skipping ahead of the convoy in order to meet them head-on in Moscow, Bolan was taking two big chances. The first was that the chasing groups would not preempt him by opting for the same course of action Bolan had already dismissed. He doubted that they would want to take the same risk he was eschewing, but this did make the assumption that they all knew they were not alone in chasing the ordnance. They would have to be very stupid not to realize that, but one thing he had noted over the years was that intelligence was not the primary trait of the terrorist.

  The second chance he took was that, in waiting until they reached Moscow, he would be moving in the midst of the Russian security forces. They were prepared, they had the same intel that Bolan did, and they would be locking down the city in preparation—though they did not have the firsthand experience of Freedom Right that Bolan and his partner had, and he knew that they would be an inflexible, unwieldy force if past experience was any indication. Dostoyevsky and he would at least have the advantage of speed.

  Potential targets were many. That he would discuss with the Russian after he had mulled over the three groups that they knew were in pursuit.

  All three were from parts of Eastern Europe. The jihad men were from Chechnya, a Muslim fundamentalist group who wished to link its country with the Middle Eastern states that were in some ways closer culturally.

  Like many of their ilk, they were small and worked on a cell basis. Available intel on them showed that they were hard fighters, with a determination that belied the size of the group. The organization was underfunded, so its war chest was likely to be small, but unlike Freedom Right, the group did not include ex-soldiers and mercenaries who were as likely to be influenced by money as by ideology. That made this group particularly dangerous.

  White Zion had more in common with Freedom Right. Its members were fascists from the Slavic region who believed in white supremacy and had a desire to ethnically cleanse their land and finish the job that had been halted with the cessation of the Balkan war.

  Comprised of a few ideologues and a number of men who were ex-military—some on the run still for war crimes—they had pretensions to mainstream politics and were apt to play down their more hands-on activities. This made them cautious in ways that the jihad group would not be. It meant that enough of a public display in Moscow may just frighten them off. That could be a useful weapon in its own right, the soldier considered.

  The biggest threat, in Bolan’s opinion, would come from the last group: the Ukraine Democrats. Their name might have sounded like a soccer team, but their record belied the faintly comic moniker. Living next door to Russia, they had never forgiven the mother country for the way that Brezhnev had taken any self-determination from them during the Soviet era of the 1960s and 1970s, sucking them dry of any wealth they may have had and directing it toward Moscow.

  Many of the best minds of the region had b
een forced to migrate against their will, the brain drain being echoed by an economic drain that had seen the country struggle in the post-Soviet era. The Ukraine had some wealth of its own, but much was still tied up, not in Ukrainian hands, but in those of Russian oligarchs whose power derived from old Moscow connections.

  This group was right on top of the target area. They hated the Russians with a vengeance. They wanted to free their resources, take back and grab reparations, and exact revenge. If they wanted nothing more than to hijack the Freedom Right train as much as to derail it, it would come as no surprise to Bolan.

  They were fanatical, like the jihad men. They had the ex-military and mercenary chops of the Slavs. They were on location without having to travel vast distances. Their objectives were obscured by the fact that either outcome suited part of their purpose.

  Of the three groups, they were the ones he would place money on being the primary threat. Combating them would be the core around which he would build his strategy.

  “You are lost in thought, my friend. We will soon arrive,” the Russian said, breaking Bolan’s reverie.

  “You’ve read up on them?” the soldier returned, indicating his cell phone. The Russian nodded, and Bolan continued. “Then before we land, we need to discuss targets. What would be the prime objective?”

  The Russian smirked. “You’re asking me? You know how I feel—”

  “Where would you start?” Bolan finished.

  “Exactly...”

  “I know. You’d take it all down.” Bolan sighed. “They’ve got the firepower.”

  “Then we need to think not about what would cause the most damage necessarily, but which would make the biggest impression. What would put them on top of the news feeds, my friend? That is how they will be thinking. That is how we have to think.”

  Bolan looked out of the chopper as they homed in on the capital, with its forty-nine bridges that spanned the Moskva River along the city’s expansive banks. There were eleven million people down there, including a small handful who would try to reduce it to dust.