Death Metal

by Don Pendleton

  When he was finished, he spit on the ground and turned to the security chief and unit commander. He spoke softly but with a flat tone that barely suppressed his anger.

  “We will talk of what happened here later. Two men? Unbelievable... We still have one chance, yes?” He paused.

  The security chief eagerly agreed.

  “Good. You had better make the most of this. Remember what used to happen to failures in the bad old days? There was a point to that.”

  He strode past the front-end loader, aiming a desultory kick at it as he passed, and went immediately to the waiting chopper. Under his orders, it was already warming up to take to the air as the security chief scrambled to follow.

  This was the final countdown.

  * * *

  “THEY MUST HAVE a death wish,” the Russian said flatly as he hit the accelerator and piloted a weaving path through the central Moscow traffic.

  “With these weapons, their chances of getting clear are pretty slim anyway, so why not?” Bolan shrugged. “Suicide missions for the greater glory are nothing new.”

  “True, but they usually have at least a chance, a plan of some kind, for getting into the target area for their attack. Only a fool would come to Moscow and think they could bomb Red Square and the Kremlin.”

  “I don’t think they will. Sure, they want to hit close to the Kremlin, but remember the power of these babies,” Bolan said, casting a glance to the rear of the truck. “Look, they want something symbolic. It doesn’t get any more symbolic in Moscow than the Kremlin. The trackers have them going that way, but they don’t have to be heading directly into the belly of the beast.”

  “Of course...they can go next door to the beast and still make their point.”

  Bolan considered their course of action as Dostoyevsky sped through the new Moscow, headed into the heart of the old. In the last decade almost one-third of this sector had been knocked down, rebuilt and remodeled. This both modernized the old and furnished luxury apartment buildings and nightlife for the oligarchs who had taken Communist incompetence and fashioned it into new Capitalist wealth.

  While that was true, there was still a great beating heart at the center of the city that defied the modernizers, at least for the present. It was into this heart that Freedom Right intended to strike. They did not need to hit the Kremlin or Red Square full-on.

  An equally potent target was the Seven Sisters in Kudrinskaya Square, which overlooked both the mayor of Moscow’s headquarters, which had once been the Comecon building, and the government building from which the whole of Russia was administered. Hit those, and the heart would be taken out of the city and the country.

  As Dostoyevsky took them into the old quarter that housed these institutions, away from the concrete and glass of the modern and into the constructivist vision of the recent past, Bolan felt not just the buildings close in on them but also the weight of history.

  He could feel the iron fist of the KGB and the Joint State Political Directorate tighten around his throat. It was more than phantoms that they had to outrun, even assuming they could get the last of the weapons, a task that immediately took center stage as they came within view of the Seven Sisters, and found a truck much like their own headed directly for them....

  * * *

  ANDRUS HAD TRIED not to let his nerves show as his men took the mobile armory through the newer sections of the city, around the second ring and then through a maze of freeways and older roads in order to come to the mayor’s building by a roundabout route.

  They were careful to check that they were not being followed, doubling back on themselves to catch anyone in pursuit. It was only when they were certain that they drove the last short hop between the mayor’s building and the Seven Sisters.

  When the truck came to a halt, Andrus sat silent for a few moments, catching his breath and steeling himself for what was about to come. He had been prepared for this moment, but still it was overwhelming.

  This was the blow at the heart of the hated Russia that he had planned for so long; this was the moment when his movement would be taken seriously. The only shame was that he doubted they would get away to glory in the moment. No matter. His name would live on in martyrdom, and there would be many ready to follow in his wake.

  “Is there a problem?” the driver asked anxiously.

  Andrus smiled weakly. “No problem. Just remembering the moment when we sowed the seed of our triumph.” The smile on the driver’s face made it a worthwhile lie.

  The four Estonians got out of the truck, and while three of them spread out and kept watch, Andrus opened the rear doors and climbed inside. Before him was a row of cylinders, beside them the trigger mechanisms, old-fashioned LED timers blank and waiting to be activated. Outside, in the watery sun of late afternoon, the streets were thronged with Muscovites going about their everyday business, taking no notice of the black truck that had pulled to the curb, and barely registering the three men who lounged on the street corner and along the sidewalk. Their HKs were concealed under dusters that were entirely suited to the brisk climate of the season.

  In the rear of the truck, Andrus began his task, laboriously attaching triggers to cylinders and programming in the code for the detonation countdown.

  As long as there were no interruptions, he should be able to complete the task quickly.

  * * *

  “VISUAL CONTACT. I’ve got two.”

  He looked just like anyone else on the street using his cell phone. As the man spoke into the handset, he gesticulated as though having an argument. It marked him in the crowd for his compatriot who was walking in the opposite direction. Both men were in their late thirties, and both had the iron-hard faces of mercenaries. They wore expensive suits and carried briefcases, like businessmen between meetings.

  Listening in on the conference call were two other men, who sat waiting a block away in a tan Mercedes sedan. They also wore expensive clothes and granite expressions. They could have been oligarchs resting between conferences to decide the fate of nations, or they could have been exactly what they were: hired guns.

  The Ukraine Democrats had money behind them; and as well as men who believed in the cause, they had the cash to hire the best mercenaries in their particular fields. In this case, the two men on the sidewalk were dedicated to the cause, while the two in the sedan were not so bothered about the ideology but liked the dollars.

  It helped that the men had moved in similar circles during their working lives, and so understood each other. Surveillance had been the specialty of the men in the Mercedes, and they had picked up on the convoy of trucks in the same way as Stony Man.

  Just as Bolan had received a feed on the progress of each truck, so they had delivered an identical feed to their employers. Their advantage was that they had opted to take down one truck and liberate the merchandise, so they had the luxury of time to keep track at a distance and choose their moment.

  As the cameras on the cell phones picked up the street scene from two separate angles and relayed them to the men in the Mercedes, they were able to see the three Freedom Right men—two from one camera, the third in the frame of the other—and the area around the truck. They were able to place their compatriots and judge the moment for attack.

  “Hold your positions. Move when we come in sight,” murmured one of the suits, tracking both terrorists on his tablet. As he spoke, his partner slipped the Mercedes into gear and pulled smoothly away from the sidewalk, slipping into the flow of traffic. He maneuvered quickly between the streams of cars, coming round to move into position in the lane closest to where the truck was parked.

  Watching, the two mercenaries on the street waited until the Mercedes was almost level and then made their move.

  * * *

  DESPITE THE ADRENALINE and anxiety that pounded through them, the Freedom Right guards we
re not as alert as they had believed. They were right about not being followed, yet it had not occurred to them that there were other ways of being tracked.

  That was a fatal error. Two of them were puzzled and then shocked as each of them was suddenly faced by a suited businessman who stopped, slipped his phone into a jacket pocket and with the same fluid motion opened the briefcase he was carrying, letting it fall to the floor, to reveal a MAC-10 in hand. Before their blunted reactions had a chance to snap into focus, a tap on the trigger had brought a burst that stitched each man and took him out of the game.

  The sudden violent explosions threw Kudrinskaya Square into chaos, as screaming civilians collided with one another—those close wanting to get away from the action, those farther away drawn in by morbid curiosity.

  In this confusion, the Freedom Right fighter nearest the truck moved in, trying to pinpoint in the crowd the two men who had taken out his compatriots. In the midst of a jostling, panicked throng it was impossible to pick them out, and in concentrating, he failed to spot the Mercedes slow as the traffic was halted by people spilling into the road. By the time he had realized what was happening, both occupants were out of the vehicle, and one of them had a Beretta leveled at his gut.

  Two silenced shots drilled into him, forcing him to the ground. He saw his attackers step past him, but pain numbed him from grabbing his weapon and preventing them from wrenching open the rear of the truck. He saw them bodily drag Andrus from the interior, pulling him backward so that he fell to the ground, his face upward as the Beretta coughed out a round from point-blank range, ending ignominiously his dream before he had completed priming the weapons.

  The last thing the fighter saw as his vision narrowed to a black tunnel was the two men who had taken down his compatriots climb into the front of the truck, while the two men from the Mercedes climbed into the rear and slammed the doors shut, then the engine firing and echoing in his head as everything went black.

  * * *

  “DAMMIT, THE ASSHOLE has already started priming the bombs—how do we stop it?” one of the mercenaries yelled, panic rising as he saw himself vaporized in a small nuclear detonation.

  “Look at the timers—how long do we have?” the driver asked as he plowed through the milling crowd, driving a wedge between those alert enough to move out of the way or bumping ominously against those who were not quick enough, throwing them into the crowd.

  “I don’t know—I don’t—wait...” the mercenary stammered, staring at the timers and seeing nothing that made sense to him in his fear. He was pushed out of the way by his compatriot, who studied the dials.

  “He’s set time, but not date. That still reads a row of zeros,” he stated.

  “Don’t leave it—it will automatically default. Set it for next year. It’ll just happily tick away until then. Don’t try and disconnect, it may be booby-trapped,” he added hurriedly.

  In the back of the truck, the mercenary carefully set the date on the three devices that Andrus had already primed and then heaved a sigh of relief as he sat back on his haunches. “Thanks for that,” he whispered. “Now let’s just get out of here.”

  His wish was not to be easily granted. The driver swung the truck out of Kudrinskaya Square and onto a stretch of road that was clearer than the chaos in the square itself. Yet he slammed his foot on the gas, and as the vehicle lurched forward, his jaw dropped and he swore loudly.

  Headed straight toward him at high speed was a truck identical to the one they had just taken.

  * * *

  “I AM THINKING that at least we won’t have to deal with two opposing enemies this time,” the Russian said wryly. “How long since you played a game of chicken, Cooper?”

  “Not long enough,” the soldier replied, his mind racing. It was obvious that Freedom Right and the rival terrorist group had already crossed swords, with the Estonians losing out. There was no other reason why the truck should be leaving the scene. Bolan and his partner had the Russian authorities at their back and a moving target in front of them.

  A target that, if it did not move and quick, would wipe both crews and half of Moscow off the map, and spread a cloud of death over hundreds of miles.

  Bolan realized this. The Russian realized it, too. But did the men coming toward them?

  As the two vehicles neared, it seemed as though the world around them melted away so that there was nothing except the identical trucks closing in on each other, head-on and walled in to the same lane by the traffic that flowed around them. Dostoyevsky’s stare was blank and unreadable, unblinking as he maintained his speed.

  Sweat beaded his brow and that of Bolan’s as he leaned over the seat. Both men were thinking the same thing: one of the trucks would have to turn away, but there was little space in the flow around them. Even if the drivers flanking them wanted to get out of the way, the situation was unfolding so rapidly that it was hard to know how many any realized what was happening.

  “Not enough time to brake now,” the Russian whispered.

  The soldier said nothing. He was braced for what seemed to be the inevitable, when without any warning—or even a sense of relief—he was flung sideways as the Russian skewed the wheel of the truck, hard on the tail of the opposing vehicle as it had found a gap and had flung itself into the space.

  Neither man had the chance to heave a sigh of relief as they hammered the gas in hot pursuit of the truck as it plowed against the flow of traffic.

  * * *

  AS VEHICLES SCATTERED before the mercenaries, the driver cursed long and loudly, trying to cut through the flow and gain ground on the truck on their tail.

  “Who are they? Who the hell are they?” he kept repeating.

  Behind them, the Russian nosed his truck up against the rear fender of the mercenaries’ vehicle, trying to deflect them off the road and up onto the sidewalk. Behind him, Bolan cradled an Uzi.

  “Careful,” Bolan murmured. “If that hits a building and goes up—”

  “Don’t worry, Cooper. I have no wish to die without a fight. If I had wanted to ram them, I would have. Now this, on the other hand—”

  Dostoyevsky threw the truck into an open space that had suddenly appeared as a number of drivers coming toward them had, in desperation, cut across the oncoming traffic. Using that gap, the Russian took the initiative and hit the accelerator, taking his truck in front of the vehicle they had been tailing, boxing it in as he passed, so that the driver, attempting to pull out, hit metal on metal, raising sparks and veering wildly, had to fight to control his vehicle.

  “Hit the brake and we take them down,” Bolan told him.

  “Where to then?” the Russian asked.

  “I’ll let you know. Keep your cell open...”

  “Okay. And—now,” the Russian yelled, hitting the brake so that his truck slowed quickly, but just enough to stop the collision being more than jarring. Bolan braced himself and was out of the truck before the impact had died away.

  The mercenaries had been prepared, but even so, they were thrown against the frame of the truck, buying Bolan and the Russian just that fraction of a second that they needed.

  And they needed it more than they knew.

  * * *

  “DISTURBANCE OVER BY Kudrinskaya Square,” the security chief yelled over the noise of the chopper. “Two trucks this time, both the same as the one we are pursuing.”

  The Russian leader, who had taken control of the chopper, grinned like a shark. “Government building... Assholes. Let us take them out of the game.” He chuckled as he swung the chopper around.

  The security chief heaved a sigh of relief. The men on the ground had lost the truck on CCTV as it raced along Third Ring Road, a defective camera furnishing a gap in which the truck had seemingly disappeared, leaving the pursuing vehicles chasing thin air. Up above his increasingly irate boss had wr
estled the controls of the chopper from his pilot and had been circling over the city, growing more and more restless.

  Now he had a purpose. He turned the chopper and angled it downward so that it swooped into the gaps between the skyscrapers, moving into the old quarter where the lower level of the buildings enabled him to get closer to the streets beneath, scanning the traffic for any sign of the two trucks.

  He yelled in triumph as he saw them below, jockeying for position against the flow of vehicles. His yell turned to one of anger as he saw one pull out and bring the other to a forced stop.

  Two men jumped out, clutching SMGs and heading for the truck behind them.

  “Bastards—where are your men?” the Russian leader roared at the security chief. “Get them here now—or do we have to go down ourselves?”

  * * *

  BOLAN AND DOSTOYEVSKY ran down the sides of their truck, keeping tight as they used the vehicle for cover. As they got the truck behind into their sights, Bolan put a blast of gunfire through the windshield of the truck, angling his fire upward so that it would hit the roof of the cab, not shoot through to the rear.

  He had no idea yet how many men were inside, but it was necessary to take out as many as possible to cut the numbers. As he fired, his partner moved past him toward the rear of the vehicle. Bolan put a burst of gunfire into the side door as cover, and as Dostoyevsky attained the rear, the Executioner saw the back doors of the enemy’s vehicle swing open.

  On either side of the trucks, the traffic flow had frozen, jammed up by drivers halting and fleeing in the face of the developing firefight. There was just enough space for Dostoyevsky to step between two cars and get an angle that enabled him to fire at the mercenaries as they spilled out of the truck.