Rebel Force

by Don Pendleton

  Bolan drank a beer and made himself a sandwich from the pickings in the refrigerator. He surveyed his surroundings from every window in the place, looked in closets and behind closed doors until he felt like he knew the layout of the place well enough to navigate it in the dark, under fire if need be. He’d made the decision to delay his extraction until Hal Brognola and the Stony Man team could reconfigure operational alternatives based on the changed situation.

  Jack Grimaldi was poised to infiltrate Grozny from a merchant ship anchored in the Caspian. The ship was run under a triple sponsor program combining Naval Intelligence, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA. All offices were coordinated by the post 9/11 Director of National Intelligence office. Task Force 280, as it was coded, provided civilian-use cover of ocean-based assets for government operations. Brognola had managed to insert the veteran Stony Man pilot into the group with a minimum of fuss.

  Bolan paced, calm, but filled with a pent-up energy left over from his confrontation with the assassin. Across the room, where he had left it on the table while fixing himself something to eat, his sat phone began to buzz.

  Bolan crossed the room quickly and picked it up. He instantly recognized the gruff voice of Hal Brognola on the other end of the encrypted line. The soldier walked over and looked out the window at the quiet residential street from behind the window blinds. He turned his back on the scene and stepped farther into the old house.

  “Striker?” Brognola asked.

  “Go ahead,” Bolan answered.

  “You safe? Things quiet?”

  “For now. What do you have?”

  “I’ve got a whole bunch of questions and not too many answers,” the big Fed said.

  “You manage to get an ID off that print I sent you?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure did. We have a situation. The DNI has reacted to the intelligence and asked me to intervene in the matter.”

  “What problem would this be?”

  “The print you got off the shooter came back to one Andre Nicolov, former GRU commando.”

  “Okay, so he was with the Main Intelligence Directorate. Lots of ex-military types run for-profit ops these days,” Bolan said.

  “Problem is, this guy is known to be the chief operator for a player known as Sable, also ex-GRU, ex-SVR and now a freelance information broker. Sable has been the source of a CIA counterintelligence operation in Grozny. A consortium of ex-Soviet physicists and various research scientists of Chechen ethnicity opened a think tank group called the Caucasus Data Institute. The SVR, among others, was hot to get their hands on what they were cooking up. The CIA approached them undercover as a private firm about security in an effort to get our fingers into the pie.”

  “How does Sable fit into this?”

  “She ran a surveillance and procurement operation against the institute. By all accounts, the most successful one. She was always one step ahead of Grozny Station.”

  “She?” Bolan said. “Go on.”

  “Last year a field officer named Sanders was put on the case. He began making some headway, running stringers, planting misinformation, that sort of thing. Apparently, about two weeks ago, Sable went to Sanders and stated she wanted to explore life in the Federal Witness Protection Program. As a millionaire.”

  Bolan let a low, appreciative whistle. “Audacious. Her intel that good?”

  “Langley thought so. Only there was a problem.”

  “What’s new?”

  “Exactly. Sanders went around his chain of command at Grozny Station to alert the agency to the deal. He used an open channel, not the secure lines at the covert house. Immediately after making the call he disappeared and is still missing.”

  “What do they want me to do?” Bolan asked.

  “Sanders had set procedures for irregular contacts. Since you’re on the ground, we want you to try to meet with Sanders. Failing that, follow up on anything you can shake loose.”

  “Should be a piece of cake,” Bolan said dryly.

  “I know, Striker,” Brognola answered. “But there’s an operative out there who may be in trouble and a treasure trove of information that could be damaging to the U.S. if it falls into the wrong hands.”

  “Sable?”

  “Sable,” Brognola agreed. “We think she has Garabend’s laptop now.”

  “I’m a shooter, not a spy. You know that, Hal.”

  “This is Chechnya, Striker, you can’t be anything but a shooter and expect to make headway.”

  “All right, tell me everything I need to know.”

  5

  Bolan entered The Berliner casino.

  The place was full, but not crowded, and he heard the spinning of roulette wheels and the dissonance of slot machines over the more general noise of the crowd.

  Bolan gazed across the crowd. He kept his thoughts as unfocused and bland as the neutral expression on his face. He wasn’t looking for anything specific, he was simply soaking in details, waiting to see if his inner radar picked up any blips. He surveyed the casino from payout cage to bar, then from security desk to the table games.

  The guards Bolan saw looked hard. It was easy to come by veteran killers in Chechnya, though the real hard cases drifted into the heavily ex-military Russian syndicates. He saw a fat man with two blondes—each supporting improbably large breast implants—on each of his arms. He saw a nervous-looking Asian man puffing away on a cigarette as the dealer turned over cards and took his chips. A broad-shouldered guy with a crew cut leaned against an elegantly decorated pillar fiddling with a gold bracelet.

  The Berliner casino was a strange mix, influenced by the youth club in the basement of the property as well as the gaming floor. Wealthy clients mixed with the partygoers, young and old. The place was neither a dive nor too high end. There was a fair mix of Westerners in the crowd. Bolan nodded to himself. It was a good establishment to go unnoticed in, and he understood why Sanders had chosen it as a drop point and meet place.

  Bolan walked over to the bar. He watched pretty girls in revealing dresses or the sexy cocktail waitresses as a cover for his perpetual surveillance. He ordered a beer in a pint glass, left the bartender a tip and took his beer to the casino cage where he changed some cash into chips with the help of a brunette in a low cut uniform and too much eye shadow.

  The soldier shook his chips loosely in his hand and strolled toward the roulette table. He knew roulette was a sucker’s bet, but he’d do it the way Sanders wanted.

  As Bolan approached the table, he idly second-guessed himself, wondering if his decision to come unarmed was wise. He was still operating under his journalist cover and a weapons charge by overzealous police troops could unravel the whole operation at this point.

  Bolan eased up to the table and made eye contact with the croupier before putting the equivalent of a twenty-five-dollar token on Black 8.

  Barbara Price had informed him of the Agency’s covert station house location in the Grozny downtown where he could make contact and get equipment as he needed. Bolan had chosen to bypass ordinary channels, at least initially.

  Sanders had made his call from an emergency drop cutout phone and not from the Grozny to Moscow station line. There had been no explanation for this irregularity, and Bolan had chosen to follow Sanders’s lead in avoiding usual channels. Bolan’s paranoia was omnidirectional and hard earned.

  The croupier called Red 23 the winner and took Bolan’s money. The soldier slid another chip onto Black 8 to replace the one he’d lost. The big-shouldered guy with the crew cut wandered over to watch the wheel. The fat man said something, and the two blondes barked laughter like trained seals. The wheel spun and the white ball jumped and bounced its way across the device. After a moment the ball settled into one of the slots and the croupier called Red 11 the winner.

  Bolan had to admit the casino protocol was a wise set up despite the seeming cinematic feel of the practice. Someone could remain anonymous in the crowd, surveying the environment. The contact would make no discernible m
oves that threatened exposure if he was under surveillance. Either party could simply walk from the scene without commotion if something seemed askew.

  The Executioner eyed his watch, then slid another chip onto Black 8. He almost wanted to place another bet, just to make things interesting, but he was afraid the diversity could potentially throw off his contact. Sanders didn’t know him by sight, so any variation from the established contact routine would be stupid. The Asian man, eyes glassy, left the blackjack dealer and stumbled up to the table as Bolan lost again. Two security guards in ill-fitting jackets watched, seemingly bored. They were joined by a third after a moment.

  Bolan put his chip down on Black 8 again. The guy with the crew cut ordered a drink from a passing cocktail waitress. The Asian man changed Russian rubles into chips at the table and lit another cigarette. One of the blondes had moved behind the fat man and was whispering into his ear while she pressed her breasts against his back. The other woman leaned in beside him, hand in his lap under the table as he played.

  “Red 4,” the dealer said.

  Bolan put his chip on Black 8, once more.

  “Final time,” he said in passable Russian.

  There was a tense moment when the Asian man began throwing chips across the board, but he didn’t play Black 8 and Bolan relaxed as the croupier called an end to bets.

  This was it, Bolan reflected. The time for the meet in the prescribed manner was past. Sanders hadn’t shown. It was official. Grozny was a problem.

  Bolan watched the roulette ball bounce around the revolving wheel. As he watched it hit Green 00, nothing obvious had changed, but he smelled danger.

  Throwing a chip down for the croupier, Bolan rose.

  It seemed he could feel the weight of the sniper’s crosshairs on his exposed back, even though he knew that was ridiculous. Sanders hadn’t shown, but that didn’t necessarily mean the meet location had been compromised.

  Bolan was sure Sanders was in trouble. He was sitting on a top-level asset itching to defect. He had avoided his station command, used asymmetrical communications and had missed a last chance emergency meet. Bolan frowned as he walked. Something wasn’t right.

  He walked outside and flipped open his regular cell phone. He hit a number on his speed dial while hailing a taxi driver in a battered old Volvo. When the connection was made, he spoke briefly into the phone.

  “Black 8 was a bust, stage two.”

  Bolan hung up the phone, his cell line was open, and he’d relied upon brevity and obtuse langue for security. Such a protocol was better than getting caught in the open with a military satellite phone. Bolan climbed into the taxi.

  BOLAN STUFFED HIS HANDS inside the pockets of his jacket and headed into the train station. The very last of the workday commuters were going home, and the old building was clearing out quickly as he entered. He wove his way through the thinning crowd, pushing away from the passenger areas and toward the freight docks.

  Wire crates stuffed with chickens were set against the one wall. The smell of animals was strong. Bolan noted the hardy determination of the people in this war zone to continue on with their lives. He had seen it across the globe, but it never failed to give him hope for the human condition.

  Bolan got lost in the crowd, then turned back the way he’d come, exiting the building. He cut through dank alleys and dodged across busy streets until he’d made it about two blocks away from the central train station.

  He stopped in front of a window display filled with pictures of women in school uniforms being spanked or tied up. His eyes scanned the window, attempting to survey the street behind him in the reflection. The light was too bad for that, so he entered the porn shop.

  The inside of the shop was illuminated with garish light from neon tubes. Skin magazines and the box covers for movies were stuffed into cheap racks. A section on the far wall was filled with various sexual devices and toys. The main room was filled with furtive-eyed men who avoided any contact with one another.

  Bolan walked through the store, ignoring the other patrons. He entered the gloomy mouth to the hall where the peep shows were located. He could hear gasps and moans coming from behind the closed doors to the video monitor booths. He heard the slap of a hand on flesh and women’s cries—some in faux pleasure, many in pain. He moved past the doors. The layout for the coin-operated theaters was in a T-shaped hallway. He walked down the long leg of the T past the video booths.

  Along the back wall were the live-show booths. He turned left at the juncture and went to the second to last door. An out-of-date pop song was blasting through a cheap stereo system. The light above the booth door showed red, indicating it was occupied.

  The Executioner waited. After a few moments the song changed and a disheveled looking middle-aged man in a suit scurried out. He almost ran into Bolan and squeaked guiltily. He looked up, eyes appearing enormous behind thick glasses.

  Bolan snarled down at him and the man hurried out of the hall.

  The cramped booth stunk, and Bolan looked around, disgust on his face now that he was alone. He shoved the bolt on the door home, then fed a few coins into the wall slot to change the light outside to red.

  A narrow opening slid back and, through smeary glass, Bolan caught a glimpse of a nude woman in a room surrounded by coin-operated windows. Bolan reached into his pocket and pulled a credit card from his wallet. He turned away from the window and squatted.

  Using the edge of the credit card to spare his fingers any unpleasant contact, Bolan reached up under the seat mounted in the wall. The booth was known to be Sanders’s blind drop. He’d been running stringers in his surveillance operation against the institute and picking up hard copy materials from them in this booth.

  Bolan paused as he felt his card touch something other than the wooden underside of the filthy little bench. He reached under the seat and immediately frowned. Sanders had attached a thin metal sleeve to hold items and the drop was stuffed full of papers.

  In undercover intelligence work, drops were made in public places to explain movement patterns to unfriendly surveillance. They weren’t meant to be cache points. There was seldom longer than an hour between delivery and retrieval at such points, nor was one site usually meant for more than a single stringer.

  Bolan slid out five manila envelopes of varying thickness. He knew things were bad. Operational security was dissolving all around him. He stood and slid the envelopes into the inside pocket of his leather jacket. He needed to get out and away from the drop site. He had to assume he was made. That didn’t necessarily mean the operation was over. He decided that if he needed to do open source or interview-based investigations, then it was still better for him to do it than risk the cover of another operative.

  He wasn’t going to make it easy for the opposition, however.

  Bolan unlocked the door to the booth and stepped out into the gloomy hallway. He sensed movement at the intersection of the theatre hall and looked up. The broad-shouldered man with the crew cut from the casino rounded the corner. Their eyes met, locked in recognition.

  The soldier didn’t believe in coincidences. He couldn’t believe in them and continue to survive in a covert operations environment. He launched himself instantly, driving straight at the man, using his momentum to rise off the ground, swinging his right knee up. He drove his knee hard into the man’s ribs. The guy grunted and staggered backward from the impact.

  Bolan landed and swept his hands up to grip the back of the man’s head in a maneuver designed to control him. The man’s reflexes were lightening quick, and he struck the inside of Bolan’s right arm at the nerve cluster just behind the elbow. Pain flashed up the Executioner’s arm and it was knocked aside, leaving an opening.

  The crew cut man stepped forward and struck Bolan with a fist to his exposed ribs. The big American stumbled, bruised, hurt and surprised. He brought his arms up in front of him and instinctively turned to the side and raised a leg to ward off further blows.

  Instead of
pushing his advantage physically, the man from the casino shuffled backward and his right hand went for the small of his back. Bolan saw the movement and moved forward. The man’s hands reappeared holding a flat, black automatic pistol.

  The Executioner stepped forward, moving to the outside of the muscled killer’s arm. The tight space of the hallway hampered his movements, slowing him. He twisted so that he faced the man at a nearly ninety-degree angle. Bolan’s left hand caught his adversary’s wrist just behind the pistol and, using the man’s own forward motion, pulled him off balance. Bolan used his right hand to snap a straight punch into his opponent’s temple.

  The impact was loud in the confined space, and the man sagged under the sharp force. Bolan stepped away, twisting at the hips. The hand that had just delivered the brutal punch twisted to became a claw, sweeping the man’s head backward while Bolan pulled the gun hand back and thrust his chest out against the trapped arm, over extending the elbow.

  The gun clattered to the floor and the man dropped as well. Without thinking, operating on instinct, Bolan lifted his foot and drove his heel straight down into the man’s throat. The killer’s eyes startled open wide, then slid upward into his head.

  Bolan moved quickly. He glanced around him and saw no one. The altercation had lasted only heartbeats, and the computerized music system still blared out the same song. Bolan knelt and slid the man’s pistol into the small of his back before expertly patting down the body.

  He pulled out a wallet, a cell phone and a knife. Bolan pocketed the items and stood. He smoothed down the front of his jacket over the bulge made by the envelopes from Sanders’s drop point. He held his head up and coolly walked out of the dark hallway.

  Bolan’s nerves were on fire as he made his way for the door. He had no intention of being in the building when the body was found. He pushed through the door and out into the street. He looked around carefully. The point man might have had backup.