The half-ton obviously showed no indication of slowing or responding to the chopper's demands for a response.
The pilot and crew had to know something was wrong in the twenty seconds or less since the truck had hit the highway and the copter had sailed in to make contact, trying to eyeball the speeding half-ton up close.
Bolan registered one split-second impression of eyes and mouths widening inside the chopper, reacting when they saw his quick swing around of the mounted machine gun. The pilot worked his stick into an evasive maneuver, the big bird wobbling slightly, starting to bank up and away. Too late.
Bolan opened fire with the machine gun, the mighty weapon's reports piercing through the rotoring racket of the copter. The Executioner's entire frame vibrated from the recoil as he rode a very long, concentrated hail of fire.
The warbird took the murderous fusillade from close enough range to riddle the fuel tanks, the rotor mechanism and the men inside, and the gunship disintegrated into an eye-searing fireball that illuminated the night like sunlight.
The explosion was forceful enough to almost flip the speeding half-ton onto its side. The troop truck tilted dangerously without slackening its speed, the pressure of the blast pushing sideways at the half-ton.
Bolan gripped the gun mount, bracing his wide-legged stance against the truck bed, dodging flaming debris from the exploding chopper.
Inside the carrier's cab, Katrina fought the wheel to maintain the vehicle's balance as she upshifted, increasing the truck's speed with all the expertise of a professional driver handling a big runaway rig.
The charred remains of the chopper plummeted to earth alongside the road, receding behind the half-ton that rocketed through the rural countryside. Katrina straightened their course, regaining full control of the vehicle.
Bolan swung his machine gun around on its mount toward the north, toward the city. He saw no signs of any other approaching gunships.
There could be more on the way, certainly, depending on how much of the chopper pilot's demands of the truck had been monitored by the base, which would then be curious about the abrupt end of communication from the chopper. But for now the night sky was clear of everything except stars.
Bolan left the machine gun, negotiated his way over the side of the truck bed and eased himself in through the open side window of the cab.
Katrina was all business, barely glancing sideways as he joined her, focusing her attention on handling the truck, which slammed on through the unpopulated countryside.
"What shall we do now?" she asked him in a steely, controlled tone. "We cannot go far in this truck."
"We'll have to hot-wire the first car we see."
She turned to look at him quizzically. "Hot-wire?"
"Borrow," he translated.
"An automobile is a luxury in Russia," she reminded him. "Not as commonplace as in America."
"The owner will get it back. You're right. We have to ditch these wheels." He glanced ahead toward the outer perimeter of Moscow, the lights of the suburbs drawing closer with every kilometer. Silhouetted in the glow of the skyline, they could discern new neighborhoods of high-rise apartment buildings. "We'll find one within a few klicks."
The woman's eyes scanned the night as she piloted them through the darkness at an excessive speed toward the city.
"We seem to have gotten away," she said.
Bolan nodded, allowing himself to relax a bit. "We seem to," he agreed in Russian. He looked at the lady behind the wheel, studying her for the first time. "It's good to see you again, Katrina," he continued, "although it is quite a surprise."
"It is good to see you, Mack," she replied. "But I wish the circumstances could be... different. Poor Vladimir and Andrei."
"I'm sorry I didn't reach you in time. I was traveling on foot from where my last contact dropped me two klicks up that road."
"I understand," she said. "The cells of our pipeline operate strictly apart from each other, though for a common cause, but our activities are directed by the central group. It is the only way. Informers are everywhere."
'The truck passed me, and I was hoping they'd miss you. They killed your friends before I could reach you."
"Andrei and Vladimir were good men," she said solemnly. "They will be missed. Andrei... what happened, the soldiers being alerted, was his fault, but I do not blame him. I blame those who twisted Andrei. He was a victim of his oppressors as are all Russians these days."
"What of your family?" Bolan asked. "Your parents and sisters. What became of them after your defection in Kabul? And what of the child you carried at the time?"
"My mother and sisters raise her. They live in South America now. I helped them to escape this massive gulag our motherland has become. Shortly after you and I parted ways in Pakistan, I came into contact with Russian expatriates to support and assist what there is of an organized underground in Russia. I offered my services, and they helped me to smuggle my mother and sisters to the west through the same pipeline that brought you in."
"You are a brave woman, Katrina."
"My family had of late been sorely disillusioned by those problems Russia will not face, will not deal with," she said. "My father and mother lost their jobs because of what happened to me, and there was talk of worse happening to them if they did not cooperate in turning me in to the authorities. This more than anything made them want to flee."
"Your father?"
"He and I stayed on here, offering our services to the underground. We smuggle Jews out of Russia and black market goods in. It took us some time to be accepted by the cell we asked to join, but father and I were able to prove ourselves to them.
"My father was killed that first week when a KGB informer reported a truckload of contraband coming in and the truck was stopped," Katrina told Bolan with a sad matter-of-factness. "There was fighting and shooting. My father caught a bullet. His death was swift, for which I am grateful."
"I'm sorry."
"It was the way he would have wanted to die," she said quietly, eyes on the road ahead, "after he saw what our leaders are doing to a great people. He was more alive than I'd ever seen him during the short time we worked together with the underground. I continue to fight in honor of a great man's memory and sacrifice. And because I have nothing else to lose."
Bolan experienced a sudden, profound inner sadness and a sense of deep respect and identification with this courageous soul, with her loss and subsequent commitment to a war that had to be fought, though it could never be won.
Taking on impossible odds was not the point, Bolan knew. For a just cause, regardless of the outcome, the winning was in the fighting.
"You must miss your baby," he said quietly.
"She has a better life," Katrina said, sadness in her voice again. "I do what I do for her also, and those of her generation. The future begins now." She turned to look at Bolan. "You speak Russian better than many of our citizens."
He chuckled without much humor, willing to change the subject if she was. "Thanks for that belongs to the man who taught me. I have friends in the States. They provided me with a new method used by the CIA and NSA to learn languages. It's something I've been working on for a long time."
"Since Strakhov," she said, nodding. "Is he what this is about, your coming into Russia like this?"
"Strakhov is always what it's about," Bolan growled. "Until I get him or he gets me."
Suddenly out of nowhere, a Mi-24 Hind, identical to the one Bolan had brought down several klicks behind them, zoomed low overhead in the direction of the firefight.
At the same time, Katrina nodded in the direction she and Bolan were heading. "We will find a car soon."
Bolan withdrew his attention from the flight of the chopper and saw that the first of the residential and business structures of suburban Moscow were now less than one kilometer ahead, replacing the endless flatlands of farms.
"That chopper will be back after us as soon as he finds what we left for him." Bolan told her.
"Step on it, Katrina. We need all the time and luck we can get our hands on."
She nodded, coaxing more speed from the racing half-ton.
The vehicle's headlights probed the darkness ahead of them like two luminous fingers pointing the way.
Yeah.
Deeper into hell.
Into the heart of the enemy.
Into Moscow.
The Executioner had come to shake hell to its very foundations tonight, and the hellfire had already begun, to be followed damn soon by more, much more blood and thunder.
* * *
KGB Headquarters in Moscow is a six-level building with a ten-story addition constructed by German prisoners and slave labor after World War II. The structure overlooks Dzerzhinsky Square, which is named after Felix Dzerzhinsky, first chief of the Russian secret political police after the Bolshevik Revolution.
The center of operations for the Thirteenth Section has the musty, tomblike atmosphere of the rest of the highly guarded complex, which is closely patrolled by a full complement of armed sentries — raydoviki, the tough, well-trained army veterans.
Inside, the complex has the look, permeated with tired desperation, seen in most centers of bureaucracy around the world: cramped offices, dingy green corridors lined with frayed red carpet, peopled by apathetic human cogs in a great soulless machine.
The office of Greb Strakhov, head of the Thirteenth Section, was somewhat larger than that of his subordinates, as befitting a man of the Major General's rank, though it was no more well-appointed than any of the other offices in KGB headquarters.
Strakhov retained a military bearing that belied his age, and now he stood brooding at the wide window behind his desk. He sipped tea from his cup, narrowed eyes in his broad, square face seemingly concentrating on the floodlit cupolas and domed grandeur of the Kremlin by night less than half a dozen blocks away.
Strakhov thought about Mack Bolan and how he, Strakhov, would soon have the vengeance he had nursed for so long.
Bolan's death was not far off now.
Strakhov felt it as surely as he knew the sun must rise tomorrow.
Bolan's blood will flow and I shall have my vengeance.
A discreet though brisk knock at his office door brought the KGB commander out of his reverie. He became a bit irritated when he realized that he had somehow lost track of time, so vivid had his thoughts been of a man's imminent death and a score to settle, and how it could well happen before the night ended.
Strakhov returned to the tall chair at his desk and seated himself. He finished sipping his tea, setting the cup down on a saucer next to a second saucer full of lemon wedges.
"Enter."
Major Anton Petrovsky stepped into his commander's office, approached the Major General's desk and handed him a folded, sealed printout.
"This just came in, Comrade General. Code two, for your eyes only."
Strakhov took the message, broke the seal, read its contents and grunted, tossing the sheet of paper aside onto the desk.
"They've lost him. He arrived in Helsinki yesterday afternoon and gave them the slip."
"Then Bolan could be... anywhere," Petrovsky said thoughtfully. "If our previous intelligence is correct, we know he will attempt to penetrate Russia."
Strakhov extended stubby fingers to pick up one of the lemon wedges and bring it to his mouth. He sucked on the tart slice as was his custom when some particularly pressing problem vexed him.
"You are new to your appointment, Major, yet you should know something of this fiend who calls himself the Executioner."
"I am cognizant of what my security clearance has allowed me to review, sir."
"Then you know what Bolan wants in Russia. He wants me. He wants us." The section head rose from his chair and stepped toward the window again, letting his gaze take in the Moscow night. With hands clasped behind his broad back, he continued to address Petrovsky. "And it is what /want, Major. I want Mack Bolan in Moscow. It is a mistake he and those who sent him will regret, no matter how prepared they think they are."
"Sir?"
"We know Bolan is penetrating the Soviet Union with no connections on the outside to whom he may turn for help once he is inside Russia, do we not?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then he is walking into a trap from which there will be no escape. I shall see to this personally. I shall see to his death."
The younger officer cleared his throat. "There is, uh, one report you may be interested in, Comrade General."
"Yes, yes, let's hear it. What have you got?"
"A patrol... it isn't clear yet... on the outskirts... a routine patrol, backed up by a helicopter from their base."
Strakhov experienced a strange quickening of his pulse. He turned again to face Petrovsky.
"What happened?"
"There was... some sort of fight."
"Fight?"
Petrovsky nodded, appearing uncomfortable before Strakhov's piercing gaze from cold, razorlike slits.
"Yes, Major General. A... battle of some sort. Everyone dead, including two bodies identified as known dissidents."
Strakhov sat down, fighting the excitement and anticipation he felt coursing through him.
"Not everyone was killed, Major."
"Sir?"
"The one who killed them, imbecile."
"The... one, sir? But there were six soldiers dead on the ground. A helicopter brought down with its entire crew. Could even this Executioner have done so much damage?"
"He has done it more than once, many times," Strakhov grated. "He is in Moscow already. Alert the army, the militia, the police and all of our units, uniformed and plainclothes. I want Moscow sealed so tightly a bird could not escape without notice. Set up roadblocks on all major and secondary arteries out of the city, and double — no, triple — plainclothes personnel assigned to monitor all public transportation."
"With a manhunt of that size," Petrovsky interjected delicately, "we may run into some complications. Coordinating an operation this big on such short notice without actual hard proof that our man is in Moscow..."
Strakhov slammed a clenched fist angrily on his desktop, rattling the saucers and teacup.
"He is not our man, Major. He is my man. I am going to see Bolan dead within the next twelve hours because it is personal and because he is the Executioner and because of the havoc he has inflicted against Soviet interests. I shall utilize all of the considerable resources at my command and that includes the army, the militia and the police."
"Yes, sir." Petrovsky nodded weakly, contritely, breaking out in a sweat.
"And because I am Major General Greb Strakhov," he finished in the same angry snarl, "they shall do precisely what I desire or heads will roll and careers will be cut short and time will be spent in the prison camps for some and you — you, Major — will be at the head of that list. I will get Mack Bolan, and no one will stand in my way. Have I made myself perfectly clear?"
"Yes, sir. Perfectly."
"Then see to it that my orders are carried out. At once."
"Yes, Major General."
Petrovsky rendered a precisioned salute, which his commander acknowledged with a short nod, then the uniformed KGB officer about-faced smartly and exited the office.
Strakhov crossed to the electric hot water pot, pinched a tea bag from alongside it and filled his cup with water that was kept at a constant boil on the custom-designed setup installed to service the section head's addiction for strong black tea.
While he waited for the tea to steep, Strakhov returned to his desk and opened the lower left-hand drawer. He withdrew the holstered Walther PPK kept there but rarely worn or used in the long years since Greb Strakhov had "come in from the cold" to assume his present job behind this desk.
He hefted the automatic, experiencing the barely remembered headiness he always felt when he palmed the small weapon. Strakhov enjoyed the feel, the touch, of the Walther's butt in his palm, like the renewing of an acquaintance with an old friend not
seen in a long time yet with all old bonds renewed at the moment of contact.
He reached farther into the desk drawer to withdraw rag, oil and tools and went about dismantling and cleaning the pistol while he thought more about Bolan. He had been obsessed with Bolan for too long, he realized. The first time was when one of the Executioner's missions had sent Bolan to hijack a new Russian helicopter of top secret design.
Bolan had been successful, then, and many times since. But that first time the American had killed the test pilot of the prototype chopper.
That pilot's name had been Kyril Strakhov.
Beloved son of Greb.
The son's mother had died during childbirth when the boy was born.
Strakhov realized that Kyril's death had snuffed out something inside, something that he couldn't name at the time, but now knew to be his final, tenuous link to any semblance of caring or kindness or any other emotion in a cruel, godless world.
Now he was consumed by hate and revenge and the desire to get Bolan to settle the blood debt.
In Strakhov's official capacity he also meant to punish the American for all of the damage he had inflicted upon KGB operations around the world. These included both those "officially sanctioned" operations Bolan had meddled in as well as the "private" KGB activities waged by Strakhov's own power block within the far-flung agency.
The Executioner's one-man guerrilla campaigns had taken their toll, yes, but it was mostly because of Kyril that Strakhov knew he could not rest until Bolan was dead.
The eyes of the Thirteenth Section's chief took on a glazed look as he anticipated the Executioner's end, preferably slow and humiliating, as painful as the agony of emptiness Strakhov had carried inside himself since receiving word of his only son's demise.
Bolan, yes.
Strakhov finished cleaning the Walther PPK, then reassembled it. He did not reholster the deadly little pistol at first. He caressed the automatic, gazing down at it in his hand, savoring the feel of it.
The first indications from intercepted U.S. communications had been borne out.
The Executioner had returned to Russia.
Moscow Massacre Page 4