Bolan settled the sights on the first target, estimated the windage and calculated the distance of the bullet drop. He then took a deep breath, let it out, took a second and let out half. His timing was perfect as the roving sentry came into view, and just as his shoulder entered the outside of the scope, Bolan eased back the trigger. The bullet left the muzzle with barely a sound, thanks to the suppressor attached to it. A heartbeat later, he watched the man’s head explode with the impact, and he dropped from sight.
Scratch one.
Bolan took a cleansing breath and let it go slowly, waiting for the second sentry to make his appearance. He could hear his heart thudding in his chest, and he tried to ignore it, putting all his focus and energy into being one with the rifle. The second sentry came into view, unaware that his comrade was down. Bolan squeezed the trigger once more. Like its predecessor, the round took the target in the head. He dropped like a stone.
Scratch two.
Bolan put the rifle aside, climbed to his feet and sprinted toward the boundaries of the estate with satchel in hand. The satchel was packed with all the ordnance he could find within the miniature armory aboard the Gulfstream C-35. It had included ten one-pound sticks of C4 plastique, two five-pound sticks of the same, an ammonium nitrate cratering charge and a pair of M86 Pursuit Deterrent Munition antipersonnel mines attached to a special bandoleer.
He reached the large wall near a wrought-iron gate, then dipped his hand into the bag and pulled out a thin piece of cord lined with a loose plastic sheath painted olive drab. The cord was primarily designed to prime C4 explosives, but it doubled as a tool to cut through metal. The Executioner could have just used explosives to blow the door off its hinges, but that would have made entirely too much noise, forcing him to contend with more guards before he ever reached the house.
Bolan quickly and quietly primed the two hinges with the cord, stood with his back to the nearby wall and triggered the remote switch. There were a couple points where sparks flew, and then the gate dropped to the ground. The soldier caught it as it started to fall. He eased the gate out of the way,then inspected the area immediately behind it. That took some doing in the darkness, but Bolan eventually spotted what he’d been looking for, an electric eye positioned about halfway up the wall with a receiver at the other end.
He got on his hands and knees and crawled under the sensor, careful not to break the invisible laser beam that connected the two devices. Once on the other side, he rose and sprinted to a small copse. Bolan pulled a compact, portable night scope from his web belt and pointed it toward the front door. It looked just as it had the day he’d visited: guards and a houseman, although the guard complement had been doubled. He wondered if that was by design after nightfall or just due to the impending arrival of the visitors.
Whatever the case, the Executioner knew he’d have to deal with them first.
* * *
IT WASN’T EXACTLY what Jeff Gross had expected when they arrived at the estate, but he was nonetheless impressed by it. Obviously, Vlad had some influential friends to be invited to a spread like this on an island that Gross knew had a population of mostly poor people. It wasn’t until Vlad introduced him to the master of the house, though, that Gross recognized the name of Davis Haglemann.
Haglemann shook his hand. “Welcome to my humble abode.”
“Humble?” Gross snorted with disbelief. “This is a frigging palace compared to most of the huts on this island.”
“Oh? You’re familiar with Adak?”
Gross shrugged. “I’ve been here a time or two. Once on a tour while I was off duty.”
“I see you’re in the Coast Guard.”
“I was in the Coast Guard,” he said. “Now I’m a civilian.”
“What he really means is he’s AWOL,” Moscovich said.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got any civvies I could change into? Some place to clean up, maybe?” Gross inquired.
Haglemann nodded at one of his men who stepped up immediately and gestured for Gross to follow him. Once they were gone, Moscovich relaxed, and Haglemann took notice. He knew the Coast Guard man had helped the Russians in some way. He didn’t know exactly the guy’s involvement, but then he didn’t really need to. He didn’t give a damn.
“So,” Haglemann began. “I notice your grand little plan didn’t come off quite as you’d expected.”
“It did not succeed in every area I would have liked,” Moscovich replied. “But it wasn’t entirely a failure. We’ve learned enough that I can continue with my plans.”
“I think it’s interesting that before you thought of me as little more than a buffoon. And now you’ve actually come crawling here for my help. Typical.”
“I didn’t come crawling in here,” Moscovich replied. “I walked in under my own power.”
“And what of your friend?”
“We had a deal,” Moscovich said. “He did his part, and I’m holding up my end now.”
“I get the feeling that your end somehow involves me, too.”
Moscovich shrugged. “I did my part to get him this far. You’ve been well compensated. And since I surmise you’ll be leaving soon, I don’t see any reason why you can’t take him with you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Oh, come now, Haglemann.” Moscovich snickered. “You aren’t really going to try to convince me that it’s in your best interests to stay around here. Frankly, I’m surprised you’re still alive.”
“Ah, I see. You’re talking about the guy you sent to protect me,” Haglemann said. “You actually think I owe you one now.”
“What guy? I didn’t send anybody to protect you. Two of our men were here, and it got them killed. And your people, who promised to protect mine on Unalaska until we could get away with the tech from the Coast Guard ship, couldn’t even do that much. What makes you think we’d send anyone else here to watch out for you?”
Haglemann’s gut seemed to turn to stone, and by the expression on Moscovich’s face, he could immediately tell he’d been duped. “You don’t know a man named Blansky.”
“I never heard of him.”
“You didn’t send him?”
“Like I said,” Moscovich repeated, “I never heard of him.”
“So that means—”
“It means that you let somebody inside. Why the hell didn’t you contact me to verify?”
“I’d planned to but...”
“You stupid son of a bitch.” Moscovich said something else in Russian and began to shake his head. “You screwed up this entire thing! I’d planned to pay you extra to help me get off this island and get into the United States. Now we’re stuck here.”
“Just shut the fuck up!” Haglemann could feel his face flush. “Just let me think about this a minute. We’re not stuck here. I have a chopper. It’s on the way, right now. It’ll be here any minute. We can get out of here. You and me. I can arrange for a plane to take you anywhere you want.”
“We can’t leave here in a chopper!” Moscovich spit. “The nearest damn civilized airport is almost five hundred miles from here!”
“I have a jet. It’s hidden on a neighboring island at a secure air field. I put it there for emergencies. It has more than enough range to get us to the US. I’ll take you there.”
Moscovich nodded, and Haglemann thought the man was apparently giving it serious consideration. Then he abruptly reached inside his coat, produced a .32-caliber pistol, aimed it at the lone bodyguard standing nearby and shot the man in the face. The bullet traveled through the brain pan and exploded out the back, splattering the bookshelves with blood and gray matter. Haglemann felt the terror well in his throat in the form of a pool of bile. He’d known it might come to this, but he hadn’t expected it would be so soon.
“Now wait just a goddamn minute!” Hagl
emann protested, raising his hands. “You’ve got nothing to fear from me! I’m not going to betray you. I never planned to betray you!”
“You’re right, you’re not,” Moscovich said. “You see, this is trouble. You know entirely too much about our operation. You’re a liability, and I can no longer afford it. The time has come to end our relationship. But I do appreciate the information you’ve provided regarding the jet. I think it will come in very handy. No?”
Haglemann started to open his mouth, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Moscovich was convinced that his death was the only way out of their situation, and nothing Haglemann said would convince him otherwise. He waited for the moment of death, not stopping to wonder if he would hear the shot that killed him, but then fortunes changed. The heat and blast that came didn’t emanate from Moscovich’s pistol—it came from just outside the window of Haglemann’s study, and it blew the glass out and send a whippet of flame into the room, igniting one of the curtains.
The distraction was enough to present an opportunity of escape, and fear propelled Haglemann. He sprinted from the room while Moscovich, who had been much closer to the window, recovered from the shock of the blast. Haglemann made the hallway and ordered the three men stationed there to cover his escape. He told the fourth, who’d just returned from showing Gross into a guest room on the second floor, to accompany him to the helipad.
His timing had been impeccable, and Haglemann congratulated himself on his timely escape. The fact that he hadn’t had a thing to do with it didn’t even occur to him as he ascended the stairs with his bodyguard in tow. He was headed for freedom. Yes, he’d cheated death once again.
* * *
IT MAY HAVE seemed preposterous to go through the front door, but Bolan thrived on being unpredictable. The last thing the enemy would have expected was a frontal assault, and that’s exactly what Mack Bolan was going to give them. Maybe these men were well trained, but they weren’t prepared for the all-out kind of blitz Bolan had in mind.
The Executioner charged from the trees with his weapon held low and sprinted across the grounds in a crouch on an angled approach to the front door. When he got within thirty yards, he detached one of the DM51 grenades from his harness, yanked the pin and lobbed the bomb underhand so that it hit the pavement and skittered to a stop beneath the Hummer. The men guarding the front entrance to the house looked puzzled. One of them seemed to spot Bolan at the last second and pointed at him, raising his SMG.
Too little, too late.
The grenade blew beneath the Hummer with enough force to lift the vehicle a half-foot or so off the ground. Red-orange flame whooshed from the undercarriage to lick hungrily at two of the guards close enough to feel its wrath. Their polyester pants were immediately charred and flash-burned to their skin, producing screams of terror mixed with agony. At the same moment, flaming pieces of metal soared through the air, most of them missing the sentries on duty but a few leaving cuts and burns as they penetrated skin.
The concussion of the HE did enough damage to cost one man an upper limb, but the remainder somehow managed to avoid the deadly shrapnel. The noise and heat were other matters, entirely, and the explosion had done more than enough to distract them from the Executioner’s approach. As usual, Bolan took advantage of that distraction to deliver a crushing blow to the survivors.
The first two he took down with a series of short bursts from his FN-FNC. Target Number One got a belly full of 5.56 mm rounds, churning his guts to mincemeat and driving him back until he came to a seated position on the sidewalk with his back to the wall. Number Two got pummeled with two rounds to the chest and a third that opened his throat. A stray round from another volley secured the job by smashing through his skull and brains. His body stiffened a moment and then the half-headed corpse collapsed.
One of the guards who had managed to evade blast and bullets took cover behind a massive potted fern and leveled his SMG at the approaching wraith-like form of Mack Bolan. He opened up on full-auto, another clue that he didn’t have the training or experience of his opponent, and bullets sprayed wildly off target. One round just clipped Bolan’s arm, a graze that didn’t dissuade him from his course.
He’d known a hell of a lot worse, so Bolan ignored it. He raised his carbine and delivered a return blast on the run. The fern did nothing to stop the flurry of rounds. The gunner’s body twitched and danced and knocked him out of his crouched position. His body hit the pavement, blood oozing from better than a half-dozen holes.
Only two guards were still on their feet and had gained some sense of their predicament. Unfortunately for them, Bolan was now on top of them, and they had no time to counteract his assault. Bolan had his own issue, having expended the remainder of his magazine on Fern Guy with no time to reload.
The Executioner continued in forward motion and planted a running front kick that drove the first of his two opponents into the wall. He switched the carbine to his left hand, drew the Beretta 93-R and in one, smooth motion snap-aimed and squeezed the trigger. The weapon spit a single 158-grain slug that hit the guy in the center of his chest.
Bolan wheeled to his right to see the other guard charge him with a bloodcurdling scream. He swung the FNC around as he sidestepped the charge and caught the point of the stock on the side of the man’s head. The blow was glancing, however, because the man turned and charged again. The speed at which he’d recovered took Bolan a little by surprise, and before he knew it the man had his hands wrapped around Bolan’s wrists. The pair was evenly matched regarding height and weight, so the soldier knew to spend any time grappling with the guy could force him to pay high dividends in time and energy.
He decided to let the man’s energy do his work. The Executioner went limp and dropped on to his back in a judo circle throw. It was an old trick, but still worked on occasion. And while his enemy might have had strength and size in his favor, he didn’t have much in the coordination department. The maneuver took the guy utterly unaware, and as Bolan fired the kick into his solar plexus and took him up and over, the air left the man’s lungs with a forceful wheeze. The motion of the arc continued, and the man’s body sailed over Bolan in a loop-de-loop that landed the back of the guy’s skull on the pavement.
The fight was over before it had barely begun.
Bolan holstered the Beretta he’d still been holding, and then scrambled to his feet. He picked up and inspected the FNC, which he’d dropped to keep from getting his fingers broken or pinned beneath it. There were some scratches and a chip in the stock, but the action seemed fine. Bolan dropped the magazine from the well, added a fresh one and put the weapon in battery before slinging it across his back.
He then hurried to the front door, which was constructed of heavy oak, with reinforced hinges and wrought-iron handles. While it might have resisted a kick or battering ram, it would be no match for C4 plastique. The Executioner quickly wired it, set the explosives, found cover behind a massive stone flower bed and triggered the detonator. The blast not only took the door off its hinges, it blew the oak into splinters as if it were plywood.
Bolan waited a few seconds to ensure the enemy hadn’t set up an ambush on the other side of the door, then he proceeded through the smoky hole with his .44 Magnum Desert Eagle in the lead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Gross couldn’t believe his luck. He’d barely managed to step out of his filthy, stinking uniform and headed toward the shower when he heard the blast. Cursing, he left the bathroom and rushed to the clothes the big bruiser who’d accompanied him had scrounged up. They weren’t exactly top-of-the-line but they were serviceable. A pair of jeans, flannel shirt and black stocking cap. It had to be better than nothing, and Gross figured he could get something more appropriate for his new financial standing once he was safely away from this place.
He jumped into the clothes and got his boots on. The blast had been followed by some sh
ooting, and Gross didn’t know what to do. He had two options as he saw it. He could hide in the room and wait for a lull, then try to make a break for it, or he could find the house guards and get some direction. In any case, it didn’t seem wise to hang the hell around this place. Something heavy was transpiring out there, and he didn’t really care to stick around and see who came out the victor. It might not be someone on his side.
Gross jumped from the bed after lacing his boots, grabbed his pistol and headed to the door. He opened it and peered out just in time to see the guy who’d been with him come up the stairs and into view accompanying the main dude, Haglemann. He didn’t know who this guy was, but he knew he had money, and he knew he had influence. Those were two very powerful things in combination, and it seemed only smart to follow him.
He looked down the hall, and when he saw nobody coming from the opposite direction, Gross stepped out of the room and followed his new ticket out of there.
* * *
MOSCOVICH SHOOK HIS head clear, trying to eliminate the cobwebs in the forefront of his mind. His eyes blurred as he tried to focus, and he noticed that there were a few cuts on his left hand. He turned his head slowly to the left and spotted the window that had blown out from the explosion. From the flames and the general direction, he guessed it was their Hummer that had blown up. Had someone thought to kill him and the American, Gross, or had this been an attempt on Haglemann’s life?
Whatever the specifics, Moscovich knew things had officially gone bad for him. There would be no turning back from this now. He needed to escape, and he would probably have to affect some other way off Adak Island. The jet plane Haglemann had described was close, but how to get to it before he did would be next to impossible. The only way would be to commandeer whatever means he had for getting to that location. The chopper! Moscovich’s mind began to clear as he overcame the initial shock of the explosion.
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