Blood Vendetta

by Don Pendleton

  “Normally, I hate stakeouts,” McCarter said, grinning. “Don’t like to sit still this long. But considering the view, I am willing to make the sacrifice.”

  Bolan nodded, but said nothing. No doubt, the women who’d stopped by the car were attractive. They’d dutifully flirted and joked with the two men until it became apparent they were not going to make a sale. Then they’d moved on.

  “You two are either cops or fags,” a young redhead had snapped.

  “Wrong on both counts,” McCarter had called after her.

  Finally, thirty minutes later, the women had stopped coming by.

  McCarter again turned to Bolan. “You know, it’s going to look suspicious, us just sitting out here. Being a John isn’t a spectator sport, last I checked. We’re going to get pegged as cops.”

  “You thinking of sampling the merchandise?”

  “Anything for the cause,” McCarter said. “No, I’m just thinking we may want to move on, if nothing happens. Maybe find another spot to watch the goings on.”

  Bolan nodded. “You’re probably right.”

  McCarter grabbed the ignition key. But before he could turn it, a black SUV cruised by, streetlights gleaming white on the vehicle’s tinted windows. The SUV slowed at the mouth of an alley next to Lockwood’s strip club, turned. Bolan glanced at McCarter, who was also watching the vehicle. Then he popped open his door and went EVA.

  He darted across the street. Tires squealed against the pavement as drivers braked hard to avoid hitting the warrior. Irritated drivers honked their horns or flashed their bright headlights at Bolan. The soldier tuned them out and focused his attention on the alley.

  Once he’d made it to the sidewalk, he noticed the tail end of McCarter’s Jaguar as the vehicle sped to the nearest corner, slowed and turned. He unzipped his coat, reached inside and drew the Beretta from its shoulder holster, but kept the gun hidden beneath the jacket.

  Bolan walked along the front of Lockwood’s club. When he reached the alley, he stopped and peered around the corner. The black SUV stood in the alley. The vehicle’s engine idled, belching a whitish exhaust from the tailpipe.

  Two shadows disembarked from the vehicle and walked toward the club. One of them opened the club’s side door and both figures disappeared through it.

  Bolan keyed his throat microphone.

  “Two just went inside,” he said. “Unsure if we have any more in the vehicle.”

  “Roger that,” McCarter replied.

  Bolan heard a door latch click and he froze. The soldier melted into the shadows and pressed his body against the club.

  The rear passenger’s-side door flipped open and a man stepped from the vehicle. The guy was tall and lanky. His bald pate gleamed under the glow from the single exposed bulb moored to the club. An unlit cigarette dangled from his lips. He slammed his door. A second man stepped from the driver’s seat, a pump shotgun held in his hands. He rounded the rear of the SUV and moved toward the other guy.

  “Hope Lockwood’s here,” said the guy with the shotgun. Bolan noticed the man spoke English with a thick accent. “Malakov’s going to have our asses if we don’t bring this guy back with us.”

  “Don’t worry,” the bald guy replied. “Lockwood’s here. He’s not the type to run.”

  “Gutsy?”

  Mr. Shotgun laughed and shook his head. “Try greedy. He’s got his club. He’s got a couple of flats in London and some collectible cars. He won’t leave all that behind. He’d try to swim with gold bricks in his pocket, if he could.”

  Bolan ran the numbers. He figured the two guys inside likely would make it to Lockwood’s office in less than a minute.

  The soldier stepped from the shadows. The man holding the shotgun apparently caught the movement from the corner of his eye, wheeled toward Bolan’s direction and raised the weapon to his shoulder in one fluid movement. But Bolan had the drop on the guy and triggered the Beretta. The handgun chugged out a tri-burst, the bullets ripping into the guy’s torso. The impact caused him to backpedal a couple of steps before he crumpled to the ground in a boneless heap.

  The second guy, eyes wide with surprise, clawed underneath his jacket for hardware. The Beretta coughed out another burst and the slugs drilled into the thug’s chest. Even as the guy folded to the ground, Bolan stalked past him to the club’s side door.

  The Executioner opened the door and saw it led into a storage room at the rear of the club. The Beretta poised before him, he stepped inside, closed the door. Steel shelves stood one behind the next, loaded with boxes of liquor and snacks. He strained his ears for signs of the two other gunners. The only sound he heard was heavy metal music, muffled but discernible, as it ground out of the club’s sound system. Exiting the storeroom, he stepped into a brightly lit corridor, the same one he’d been through earlier that led to Lockwood’s office.

  The Executioner glided down the corridor, past the doors of what he assumed were rooms for private shows. When he got within a dozen steps or so of Lockwood’s office, he heard Lockwood’s voice, taut and loud, emanating through the closed door.

  “The bloke had a gun on me, what was I supposed to do?”

  “Quiet!”

  His fingers wrapped around the knob, the soldier gave it a gentle twist. It moved a quarter inch or so, stopped. It was locked.

  The big American stepped back, aimed the Beretta’s muzzle on the lock, fired. The bullet pierced the steel, destroying the lock. Bolan raised his foot, slammed it against the door. It swung inward, the soldier following behind it.

  Even as he barreled through the door, Bolan sized up the situation. Lockwood remained, where Bolan had left him earlier, trussed up to the chair. His bodyguard still lay on the floor, sleeping off the beating he’d received less than an hour ago from McCarter. One of the Russians stood before Lockwood, left fist cocked on his hip, right hand clutching a Glock with a sound suppressor screwed into the barrel. The other stood forty-five degrees to Bolan’s right. His back was to Lockwood, while he stared at a small bank of television monitors that Bolan had noticed earlier. Cameras feeding the monitors peeked into the private rooms. An MP-5 submachine gun filled his right hand. The barrel, also fixed with a sound suppressor, was pointed toward the floor. But the commotion finally yanked his attention from the skin show unfolding on the monitors. His gaze was whipping in Bolan’s direction and he was flicking the cigarette away as the MP-5 swung up.

  The Beretta sighed once and a hole opened in the Russian’s forehead. The Executioner watched as the man’s body went slack. Even as the shooter collapsed to the ground, a bullet sizzled past Bolan’s neck. The soldier whirled toward the second Russian, the Beretta tracking in on the man. The handgun coughed once and a 9 mm slug lanced into the guy’s shoulder. A cry erupted from his lips and the Glock tumbled to the ground.

  To his credit, the man recovered quickly from the pain of the gunshot, he bent down to get the pistol.

  But with a couple of long strides, Bolan closed the distance between them and drove a foot into the man’s chest. The Russian shooter fell onto his behind with a grunt. The Executioner set his booted foot onto the man’s lost weapon and centered the Beretta’s muzzle on the man’s forehead.

  “Stop,” Bolan said.

  Instinctively, the man tried to raise his hands. He winced, grunted and stuck his good hand in the air. The guy glanced at the injury. Bolan looked at it, too, saw a dark shiny stain had formed around the bullet’s entry point. The man shifted his gaze to Bolan.

  “I’m bleeding,” he said.

  “And I bleed for you,” Bolan said.

  McCarter’s voice buzzed in Bolan’s earpiece. In the same instant, both Lockwood and the Russian began peppering Bolan with expletive-filled tirades. The soldier tuned them out and keyed his microphone.

  “Go,” Bolan said.

  �
��Outside’s still clear,” McCarter said. “Need me to come in?”

  Bolan did and told him so.

  Signing off, Bolan turned to the Russian. The guy’s skin had paled from the blood loss and Bolan guessed the man would go into shock soon. He had to move quickly.

  “How are you feeling?” Bolan asked.

  “I told you I am bleeding, you fuck,” the guy replied. “I’m going to bleed to death.”

  Bolan shook his head. “Doubt it,” he said. “Not from that wound. Oh, you’ll bleed. But it would take a while before you actually bleed out.”

  Bolan paused a couple of beats. Then he waved the Beretta. “This is a Beretta 93-R. Shoots 9 millimeter rounds. Whisper-quiet, which is nice. I like that. But what I really like is that it fires three bullets at a time. Very handy.”

  The man’s gaze was intent on Bolan, but he didn’t seem to be following what the soldier was saying.

  “Now the gutshot?” he said. “The one I am about to give you? That’s going to really screw you up. Three bullets can tear the hell out of your organs. Maybe pierce your spine. I’m not a doctor, but you get a wound like that—” Bolan shrugged “—bleeding is the least of your worries.”

  Another pause.

  “Upside is, you won’t have to worry long. You’ll welcome death.”

  Bolan saw the light go on in the guy’s eyes. The Russian licked his lips.

  “What do you want?” the man said.

  “Information.”

  “Fine.”

  * * *

  THE HINTON TOWER stood among the office towers in London’s financial district. It’s hide of mirrored windows caught the spectrum of lights emanating from traffic signals and streetlights, and corporate signs moored to neighboring office towers.

  The Executioner stepped from the shadows of an alley that ran between the Hinton Tower and its closest neighbor, a skyscraper that housed a global bank. A black nylon briefcase hung from his right shoulder. McCarter emerged a heartbeat later, a nearly identical briefcase slung over his shoulder.

  Bolan’s ice-blue eyes surveyed the building’s exterior, matched it with the intelligence he’d gained. The thug who had given them this intel worked for a man named Malakov—who just so happened to be a high-ranking associate of Mikhail Yezhov. Malakov, once a tenant in the building, had bought it out of receivership after the bottom fell out of London’s commercial real estate market. That transaction had allowed him to install a tighter security. This included plainclothes, armed guards in the lobby, tougher firewalls on the computers managing the security system and a rooftop helipad to allow for private departures.

  “Nice digs,” McCarter muttered.

  Bolan nodded.

  “You think our boy’s information was good?”

  “He was about to bleed out,” Bolan replied. “What do you think?”

  “Impending death makes for a hell of a truth serum. Good job bandaging him up, by the way.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Seems a little counterproductive, this whole shooting-people-then-tending-to-their-wounds thing,” McCarter said.

  Bolan shrugged. “Made a deal with the guy. Not sure he deserved to live, but I made a deal. I don’t think he’s going to bother anybody for a while. MI5 was going to send in a cleanup team, take him to a hospital. They’ll extradite him.”

  “So we can shoot him again, at another time in another place.”

  “Gives us something to look forward to,” Bolan said.

  “True that.”

  By this point, the soldier and McCarter had reached the line of glass doors leading into the tower’s lobby. Despite the hour, the revolving door spun easily, spitting Bolan, then McCarter, into the lobby. A handful of men and women, well-groomed professional people in suits, strode purposefully in a dozen different directions through the lobby. This didn’t surprise Bolan. The Russian had told him that Malakov ran a massive energy-and-stock futures operation on the building’s first two floors. With the staff making trades globally, people populated the building around the clock.

  A pair of burly men togged in navy blue sport coats, gray slacks and red ties were seated behind an information desk that stood in the middle of the lobby. The Stony Man warriors approached the desk. The guards, who’d been talking, fell silent and looked at Bolan and McCarter.

  “Help you?” the younger man asked.

  “Have some documents to drop off,” McCarter said. He patted his briefcase to emphasize the point.

  “Documents for who?”

  “Apex Trading,” McCarter said. “On the twenty-second floor.”

  “I know what floor it’s on,” the man said. “Who at Apex?”

  “Ed Haggar.” Kurtzman had grabbed the names with an internet search and fed them to Bolan.

  The young man shook his head. “Don’t know him.”

  “Your loss.” McCarter nodded at a phone. “Want to call him and verify?”

  The guard seemed to contemplate this for a couple of seconds, then shook his head.

  “Nah,” he said. “Sign in, go on up.”

  The guard handed them a clipboard with a sign-up sheet on it. They dutifully signed fake personal and employer names. Handing the clipboard back to the guard, they headed for the elevators.

  “So much for the tighter security. Thanks for doing the talking,” Bolan said as they walked away.

  “My British accent versus your Yank accent gives them one less red flag.”

  “I could’ve faked it.”

  “And sounded like a constipated butler from central bloody casting? No, thanks.”

  “Let’s step it up,” Bolan said. “They’re going to figure out their people aren’t coming back soon. Things’ll heat up then.”

  They rode the elevator to the twenty-second floor, exited and climbed the stairs another seven stories, in case the guards bothered to monitor the elevator traffic. The twenty-ninth floor contained Malokov’s personal offices, while his penthouse was located on the floor above that. They stepped into the reception area, which was fully carpeted and paneled with caramel-colored wood. While fully lit, the area stood empty and silent.

  The Russian at the strip club had given Bolan a brief description of the building’s top two floors. The cyberwarriors at Stony Man Farm had done their best to confirm as many details as possible. Bolan surveyed his surroundings and saw behind a receptionist’s desk stood a double door. From what the Executioner knew, the doors led into the inner offices of Malakov’s operations. A private elevator to the Russian mobster’s penthouse was also beyond the door.

  The soldier nudged McCarter with an elbow and nodded in return toward the door. McCarter nodded. Bolan unzipped the nylon case he carried, dipped a hand inside and felt around for the pistol grip of the Heckler & Koch MP-5 submachine gun. Sliding the weapon out, he next pulled a sound suppressor from the bag, and threaded it into the SMG’s barrel. McCarter had pulled a similar weapon from his own briefcase and was also outfitting it with a sound suppressor.

  The big American slipped the MP-5’s safety off. Silent as a wraith, he glided across the office to the door. From beyond the door, he heard the murmur of voices. A quick glance over his shoulder at McCarter elicited a nod from the Briton, indicating that he heard the voices, too.

  The soldier carefully gripped the doorknob and gave it a gentle twist. It turned easily. He pushed the door inward, saw a long corridor lay ahead. Doors branched off from either side, presumably leading into offices. The MP-5 poised at shoulder level, the soldier pressed ahead. The first couple of doors he passed were closed, the interior lights extinguished, but the voices continued to grow louder.

  As he took several long strides, the voices—both male—became louder. They spoke in a language Bolan recognized as Russian, though he only understood a phrase or two f
rom their conversation. A door stood open a few paces ahead and to his right. Cigarette smoke wafted from the room and into the hallway.

  Bolan peered around the door frame. Inside the room, a trim middle-aged man stared out the window, puffing on a cigarette. Bolan noted the pistol holstered in the small his back. The man’s fists were cocked on his hips and he was speaking.

  A second man sat on the edge of a desk, one leg extended until his foot touched the floor, the other foot dangling well off the floor, swinging like a pendulum. A salt-and-pepper beard, trimmed close, covered the lower half of his face. He held his pump shotgun by its pistol grip, the tip of his index finger tapping against the outer front curve of the trigger guard. The slide rested on the top of his right thigh.

  The man who’d been staring out the window suddenly fell silent. Bolan realized the guy had caught sight of Bolan’s reflection in the window.

  Cigarette still clenched in his jaw, the thug wheeled around, his hand clawing for the holstered pistol. Bolan’s MP-5 chugged out a quick burst. The bullets punched into the guy’s chest and shoved him against the window. Even as the corpse collapsed to the floor in a boneless heap, the bearded man with the shotgun responded with the reflexes of a pro, his weapon in motion, muzzle hunting a target.

  Bolan whipped toward the second shooter. Before the warrior could line up a shot, the other man’s weapon thundered. The hastily placed round flew wide of Bolan, ripping through the door frame and Sheetrock to the Executioner’s left. Splintered wood bit into Bolan’s cheek and his left hand—the hand holding the weapon’s front stock. A fast burst lashed from the MP-5’s muzzle. The 9 mm manglers buzzed just past the shooter’s ear. He thrust himself from the desktop, fired once more while in motion. In the same instant, Bolan spun away from the doorway, and the shotgun blast tore through the space where he had just stood.

  From inside the room, Bolan heard the metallic snick of a shotgun slide being worked as his enemy chambered another round. The soldier, still in a crouch, rounded the door frame. In the same instant, he spotted the shotgun’s muzzle swinging back in his direction as the thug drew down on the door. Bolan squeezed the MP-5’s trigger, letting loose with a burst of parabellum rounds that slammed into the man’s rib cage, and spun him a quarter turn. Shock etched on his face, the shooter staggered back a couple of steps before he collapsed to the ground.