"Hardly that," Gordeyev grumbled.
"If they knew we were here, there would be more of them, plus helicopters with searchlights," she argued, her heart lifting. "If they had captured those we are to meet, they would surely suspect and be looking for us with more force."
The searchlight aboard the approaching vehicle swung in a 180-degree sweep along the vehicle's backtrack to commence probing the gloom along the opposite stretch of road.
"You're right," Gordeyev said, nodding. "We've got a fifty-fifty chance that light won't even touch us."
"We've got to get away from this car in any case," Katrina told them. "If they spot the car, we can take off on foot in three directions before they can call in anyone. The chances are good we can make it safely."
"Nonsense!" Mikhalin snarled. A new strength, the determination of the mortally frightened, did things to his voice. "This is flatland all around here. Turn us around, Vladimir. We can drive across these fields and escape that way, without lights. They won't hear us because of the sounds of their own engine!"
Gordeyev shook his head.
The truck was almost upon them, and from its sound and estimated size Katrina knew it would be a half-ton troop carrier, the kind the army used to routinely patrol the countryside, generally with half a dozen men and a 7.62 mm SGMB submachine gun in a turret mounted behind the cab.
The searchlight continued probing the opposite stretch of highway, the truck's rumbling engine grumbling to less than a quarter kilometer from their position.
"Katrina is right, Andrei," Gordeyev said. "That searchlight may stay on the other side of the road, or it could be in the process of arcing around and miss us altogether as they pass. Or they may turn it off before they reach us. They seem to be randomly looking, no more."
"We shall leave, I tell you!" Mikhalin insisted, real panic claiming him now.
Katrina reached in, touching Mikhalin's shoulder.
"Andrei, you must calm yourself. They are almost upon us," she whispered. "Even if they play the light this way, they may be half asleep at this hour. The beam might escape us or they may not even see us. They would surely observe the searchlight reflected from a moving vehicle and would come after us. Come now, please. You must leave the car with Vladimir and I..."
Mikhalin wrenched his shoulder from her touch, tracking up the Uzi, yielding to his panic.
"If you fools won't drive us out of here, I will!" he snarled, aiming the Uzi at Gordeyev's head. "Get out, do you hear me! I'm taking the wheel. Do it or I'll kill you, Vladimir. I'm not going to die here! Out, I say..."
Gordeyev moved with lightning swiftness, shoving out with his left arm, knocking the Uzi in the direction of the windshield. He started to say something but was drowned out as Mikhalin's trigger finger squeezed off a quick 3-shot burst.
The noise was deafening within the confines of the car, 9 mm slugs disintegrating the Moskvitch's windshield, spraying shards of glass everywhere.
Gordeyev released his own weapon, reaching up to Mikhalin's gun hand in an attempt to wrestle the Uzi from his partner. Mikhalin started to scream something, frightened, panicky.
Katrina leaned into the car and delivered a fast, short chop with her pistol, the gun butt popping sharply against the base of Mikhalin's skull before anything else could happen.
The man sighed, a small bubbly sound, and went limp in the passenger seat. His arms relaxed beside him as he settled back against the car seat like a man who had suddenly fallen asleep.
Gordeyev holstered his pistol. He grabbed the unconscious Mikhalin's Uzi, looking in the same direction in which a tense Katrina already peered with apprehension.
"They heard the shot/' Katrina told him.
The Soviet half-ton braked to an abrupt halt for a moment only, the soldier manning the searchlight swinging it around to the side of the road in the direction of the Uzi's reports. The searchlight lanced the gloom, the men aboard the truck obviously holding tight for a moment, trying to locate the origin of the gunfire.
When the spotlight found nothing, the truck, still several hundred meters down the road, resumed moving forward at a slower, steadier pace, the searchlight arcing, probing, concentrating on the Moskvitch's side of the highway now, no more than thirty seconds away, closing in.
Gordeyev glared at the unconscious man beside him.
"Damn you, Andrei, you have gotten us all killed!" He worked open his door, grasping the Uzi in his left hand. He started to climb out of the Moskvitch, right arm wrapping around the chest of the unconscious man, pulling Andrei out of the car with him, saying to Katrina, around Mikhalin's unwieldy bulk, "We can't leave him here. They'll find him. He'll talk."
Katrina nodded. "And he is our friend."
She hurried around the car to assist Gordeyev in trying to get away from there with Andrei before the searchlight picked them out. The truck was now approaching a point on the highway parallel to where the Moskvitch sat in the cluster of trees.
Katrina moved quickly, and with everything else occupying her senses, knowing these next few heartbeats would determine freedom or capture or death, she somehow feared worst of all dying without having seen Mack Bolan once more, not knowing what had happened to him...
She reached the rear of the Moskvitch, angling as fast as she could around to the other side, when the spotlight atop the half-ton's cab swiveled along a fast-moving arc to come upon the Moskvitch and what was happening there.
"Down, Katrina!" Gordeyev shouted in her direction.
The searchlight centered in to cast a brilliant glare around the car.
Katrina dropped to the ground immediately behind the sedan. The car and the earth around it became surreal daylight, everything rendered an unnatural silverish hue that hurt her eyes.
She heard the engine of the troop carrier rev throatily. The driver of the half-ton wheeled the truck off the highway, rolling into high gear as he came toward the car. The man behind the searchlight worked the spot around to keep the target starkly revealed.
Katrina peered around the edge of the sedan's back bumper to see what Gordeyev was doing. He had managed to get Mikhalin out of the car, tugging his friend in a sort of fireman's carry. But an expression of mingled fear and effort appeared on Gordeyev's face as he stood, he and his unconscious cargo etched in the brilliant light of the half-ton, which rumbled to within several hundred meters of the Moskvitch.
A shouted command issued from the truck's cab.
"Halt!"
Gordeyev kept on moving from the passenger side of the car, pausing before turning to seek cover with his partner. He twisted around and triggered a blast from his Uzi in the direction of the truck, shouting over his shoulder in Katrina's direction.
"Run, Katrina! Run for your life!"
"Vladimir!" Katrina cried out.
She broke from her hiding spot behind the car to assist in hauling Mikhalin to cover, but even as she started to move heavy submachine gunfire hammered the night apart from atop the half-ton.
Katrina emitted a high-pitched shriek at the sight of an extended fusillade that ripped into the bodies of Mikhalin and Gordeyev. The heavy projectiles shredded the two men, splashing the Moskvitch with blood that glistened wet and black in the starlight.
The gunfire ceased abruptly, its ominous echoes receding like thunder across the farmland and inside Katrina's head as she watched both corpses collapse against the side of the car.
She jerked herself back down below cover of the vehicle.
A weird stillness reclaimed the scene.
A commanding voice from the cab of the half-ton ordered the troopers in the truck to climb out and scour the area.
Katrina fought for self-control, momentarily paralyzed from the shock of having witnessed the violent end of two decent, good and gentle men who had been her friends. She began to shiver uncontrollably.
She willed herself to turn from the Moskvitch, knowing she had practically no chance of escape. She moved stealthily away from the car and got several feet before th
e searchlight from the truck threw into vivid relief the figures of two soldiers in Russian uniforms, standing directly before her on a small ridge.
Both soldiers stood side by side, their legs spread, aiming AK-47 rifles at her.
"Stay where you are," one of them commanded.
She froze.
The second soldier called to the others beyond the car. "Lieutenant, over here. We found one of them... alive!"
Katrina knew the pistol she held was useless except for one thing.
She started to turn it on herself before either soldier could do anything to stop her.
Two terrible thunderclaps pounded the night in the instant before she could raise the pistol to her head.
She glanced up to see both soldiers pitch face first toward the ground, the back of each man's head rupturing into a fountaining ruination of blood and brains as they tumbled to the rich farm soil.
Katrina started to look around, unable to grasp what had happened.
A strong fist grabbed her wrist out of the darkness and yanked her forcefully to the ground, out of range of the soldiers on the other side of the Moskvitch.
A strong, commanding, unmistakable voice growled in Katrina's ear. "Stay down."
She saw nothing but the night around her here, away from the searchlight.
She sensed shifting shadows as the presence released her, moving away quickly in the direction of the truck.
The other soldiers, in the instant after the two thunderclaps of gunfire, shouted to one another in confusion.
And Katrina Mozzhechkov knew only one thing with any certainty.
She knew what had become of Mack Bolan.
The Executioner had arrived.
2
Bolan sprinted away from where Katrina crouched beneath the ridge of otherwise level terrain. He knew she would be safe there and out of the Soviet half-ton's line of fire.
He angled away from the car, away from the riddled bodies of the Russian dissidents, concentrating on the soldiers by the truck.
Bolan figured the lieutenant would be in the cab next to the driver, already radioing their base camp for support, most likely air cover. He would be jabbering like hell.
The driver inched open his door, easing himself out of the truck cab, an AK-47 assault rifle stuck out ahead of him like the twitching antenna of some insect.
The two soldiers standing in the bed of the half-ton appeared equally nervous in the indirect lighting of the high-intensity searchlight. One of them now manned the light, swiveling it in the direction of his two fallen comrades beyond the automobile, searching for a walking specter he could not see.
The second soldier in the rear of the half-ton stood behind the submachine gun mounted next to the searchlight. The gunner swiveled his heavy-duty weapon in this direction and that, finding nothing to fire at.
The specter that had brought down their comrades evaded the searchlight's glare. Bolan moved like a ghost, soundless, announcing his position while still on the move with another couple of rounds from the stainless-steel AutoMag.
The searchlight burst into almost as many flying bits as the head of the man behind it. The glare of the light was extinguished to the tinkling sound of shattering glass and the toppling sounds of the guy behind it. One of the slugs propelled the soldier backward, and he skidded out of the bed of the half-ton.
Darkness cloaked the scene.
Bolan continued to move, tracking the AutoMag on the spot where he remembered the Soviet lieutenant and his driver were when they had been lined in the spotlight's glow an instant ago. He pegged off two more rounds from Big Thunder.
The driver slammed into his officer inside the cab under the awesome impact of a bullet that cored his heart.
The AK-47 he had been pointing clattered to the ground.
The opposite door of the cab flung outward under the joint force of two dead men, the Russian officer catching the second bullet. Both dead bodies sagged to dangle half in, half out from that side of the cab.
The machine gunner wasted no time in swinging his heavy-duty deathspewer in the direction of the AutoMag's flashes. The gunner triggered off a lengthy burst at the spot where Bolan had been but was no more.
The Executioner landed on his belly, coming out of a roll into which he had pitched himself after taking out the two in the cab.
The hail from the submachine gun droned close over Bolan's head.
He aimed from where he lay stretched out on the ground, triggering off a shot from the .44 hawgleg, aiming at a spot just above the pounding submachine gun.
The firing ceased abruptly, and another dead man crashed the gates of hell, the gunner's corpse backflipping over the opposite side of the half-ton.
It took a few more seconds for this gunfire to mumble away into the distance, and by the time it did Bolan had already rushed back to Katrina's side.
The woman, a vaguely discernible figure in the night, leaped to her feet and ran forward to meet Bolan, embracing him with a frantic bear hug. She, in turn, was lifted off her feet for a moment when he returned it.
Bolan stepped back, his left arm around her trim waist, shapely as he remembered it. His AutoMag swept the night, illuminated now only by the headlights of the half-ton.
Utter silence reigned there again except for the squeaking of the branches as they rubbed against one another overhead in a wind that carried the yapping of a distant farm dog.
Bolan knew the peace would not last.
Katrina stepped back, getting an emotional hold on herself, but he could tell she could not stop the tremoring that shook her body.
"Th-thank you..." she said weakly to Bolan. "Vladimir... Andrei... oh, my God..."
Bolan gripped her arm above the elbow. This seemed to stabilize her.
"We can't help them, Katrina. I don't want to leave our dead, but this site will be swarming with helicopters within seconds."
"It... is so good to see you, Mack."
"Likewise, but save the amenities," he said with an additional squeeze that seemed to bring her around all the way. He released her. "How much do you know, Katrina? Do you know where you were supposed to take me — the next stop?"
"For you, yes... d-don't you know?"
"I'm being fed it piecemeal," he growled. "We've got to get there fast before we pick up a tail. I would guess Niktov."
She nodded, her breathing returned to normal.
Bolan was surprised to see Katrina here. He had thought he would never see her again after Afghanistan, such was the way of his world.
And here she was.
Quite a damn lady, yeah.
Her nod told him his guess about Niktov was right.
"We can drive to meet him in the Moskvitch," Katrina said, turning to the car, avoiding looking at any of the sprawled bodies, friend or foe.
Bolan touched her arm, halting her.
"The lieutenant had time to radio a description of the car."
"Then what..."
"The truck. Let's go."
"But..."
Bolan heard the first faint rotor throbs coming from the direction of the city.
A chopper.
It would be an Mi-24 Hind gunship, responding to the SOS relayed by the Soviet officer in the truck. And there would be more chopper gunships following the Hind.
Bolan grabbed Katrina's hand.
"The truck," he repeated. He took off in that direction, the lady keeping double-time pace with him, grasping his hand for dear life. He guided her to the driver's side of the half-ton. "Can you drive this thing?"
"Of course."
"Take the wheel."
Katrina hoisted herself into the cab. She caught a quick glimpse of the bloody, twisted corpses of the officer and driver leaning out of the opposite side.
Bolan hurried around. He tugged both bodies out of the truck, tossing them aside. He slammed the truck door and slapped it with his fist.
"Take us toward the city!" he shouted to Katrina.
Bolan hoisted h
imself up into the half-ton's bed, positioning himself behind the mounted submachine gun.
Katrina slipped the idling truck into gear, steering the military vehicle around in as tight a U-turn as possible, upshifting.
The half-ton bumped its way across the open field, away from the car and the cluster of trees and the dead bodies sprawled across the night-shrouded ground.
The truck reached the highway, Katrina turning the rig's wheel sharply and accelerating toward the distant twinkling lights of Moscow's suburbs.
Bolan had other lights to worry about — the flight lights of the approaching helicopter gunship that, now that it was closer, his trained eyes clearly recognized as a Hind.
The noisy gunship closed the distance to overfly the moving truck, banking around to hover about fifty meters overhead.
Bolan heard the dashboard radio crackle inside the half-ton's cab.
The chopper pilot had not yet spotted the fallen bodies in the darkness off the road. Not yet.
Bolan figured he had killed the Soviet lieutenant commanding the slain patrol before he could fully communicate anything more than that assistance was required.
But it had been enough to bring in this chopper with more, no doubt, standing by or already on their way here as backup. Still, the pilot of the Hind had to be confused: the truck calls in for help, help arrives and there's the truck, barreling back toward Moscow, not responding to the pilot and crew of the Hind trying to reach the lieutenant on the tac net.
The hovering copter continued tracking the truck for several more seconds along the highway. The radio inside the cab continued to crackle with increasingly irritable demands from the chopper above.
Bolan knew that the pilot would take some sort of action real soon unless the Executioner seized the initiative. He twisted his body into a low crouch as he swung the mounted submachine gun around and up, tracking on the chopper.
The helicopter was practically on top of them, the throbbing of its rotors enveloping the truck, pounding at Bolan's eardrums, the backwash causing him to blink rapidly.
He saw one of the crew aboard the chopper leaning well out from the aircraft as the pilot maintained his holding position above and just off to the truck's left.
Moscow Massacre Page 3