Death Gamble

by Don Pendleton

  Brognola sandwiched the phone between his ear and his shoulder, and rubbed tired eyes with his fists. The President would skewer him for this, and Brognola told his old friend as much.

  “Forget it, Hal. The guy was dirty. The only tragedy here is that he didn’t get heaved out years ago before he could endanger the entire Nightwind program.”

  “If you say so, Striker, then I agree. Let’s just hope the Man sees it that way, too. I guess the real concern is whether Kursk has copies of the stolen plans.”

  “It goes deeper than that,” Bolan said. “Dade said something bad was coming to the United States. But he died before he could explain what.”

  A hollow pit opened in Brognola’s stomach. “Pretty cryptic, Striker. Any thoughts on what the hell he was talking about?”

  The big soldier didn’t miss a beat. He’d anticipated the question. “Could mean a lot of things. Regardless, I need to get back there. The rescue choppers are headed here from Freetown as we speak. I can probably catch a military flight back to the States ASAP. It’ll just take time.”

  “We should probably fly you to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada,” Brognola said. “There might be a couple of leads in Vegas for you to track down.”

  “I’m listening,” Bolan replied.

  “Hang on.” Brognola reached across his desk, grabbed an intelligence report gathered by Aaron Kurtzman and pulled it in front of him. He leafed through a couple of pages until he found the section he wanted.

  “Here it is. I already told you about Dade’s buddy, Sergei Ivanov. We’ve been running the traps on him. The guy runs casinos, adult bookstores and strip clubs in Vegas. Those are his legitimate businesses, and he probably uses them to launder massive amounts of money. But Bear dug deeper and found confidential ATF and DEA reports accusing the guy of running guns and drugs worldwide. A check with Interpol confirmed it.”

  “Any ties with Kursk?”

  Brognola shifted a couple more papers around, refreshed his memory on a couple of facts.

  “Most of the ties are old,” he said. “They served together in the Soviet army back in the 1970s. After that, Kursk joined the KGB, and he all but disappeared. Ivanov immigrated here in the late 1980s, allegedly because he was fleeing religious persecution in the motherland. Within a year, he’d opened his first strip club just outside Washington, D.C.”

  “Welcome to the land of opportunity,” Bolan said.

  Brognola cracked a smile. “Theory is he was being propped up with Soviet money, though no one could ever prove it. According to old classified documents that Bear unearthed, some FBI agents started frequenting his strip club. One of the special agents in charge finally had to smack the guys across the knuckles for it.”

  “So chances were he came over here as a spy,” Bolan said. “And if so, he might have been in contact with Nikolai Kursk.”

  “That’s my line of reasoning,” Brognola said. “We know Trevor Dade was one of Ivanov’s regular customers. My guess is the connection goes even deeper. And here’s another interesting wrinkle.”

  “Go.”

  “We’re hearing rumblings about a former CIA agent named William Armstrong. He could be very important. He conducted black ops in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion. He supplied weapons and communications equipment and trained the mujahideen in combat techniques. Did that for several years. Then he just disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “Disappeared. During the final days of the war, the Soviets shelled an Afghan command post that was supposed to be secret. Ended up killing several of the locals. Allegedly Armstrong was there, but they never found his body. Flash to the present and some CIA guy who knew Armstrong back in the day is in Vegas on vacation. He’s playing the slots at a casino when suddenly he sees what he swears is an older version of William Armstrong. He tries to track the guy down, loses him and files a report the next day. Since he was three sheets to the wind at that point, the Company dismissed it as the ranting of a drunk.”

  “I guess it’s not a wild leap to assume that Ivanov owns that particular casino,” Bolan said.

  “You stole my punch line, Striker.”

  “So where’s Ivanov now?” Bolan asked.

  “We don’t know.”

  “What?”

  “I figured you’d want to know, so I asked the FBI’s Vegas field office to track him. He was under surveillance for a while, but then he and a cadre of his lieutenants disappeared. The guy’s still connected. So he probably leaned on the right people, got them to turn their heads while he took a powder. The special agent in charge is investigating the incident, of course.”

  “Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic is more like it,” Bolan said. “I assume security for the Nightwind project has been stepped up, too.”

  “Right. Sentinel is doing all it can on that front. We’ve offered to bolster their security with some military support, but thus far the company has declined.”

  “Why?”

  “They don’t want a contingent of troops flooding the base and setting their people on edge. They also don’t want an overnight military buildup drawing undue attention to the facility. The Man hasn’t taken the option off the table, but he also isn’t ready to commit to it, either. Sentinel’s former chairman is a member of the presidential cabinet and, in my opinion, is exerting some undue influence over the situation.”

  “Nice,” Bolan said. “I’ll let you handle the political sensitivities. That’s not my strong suit.”

  “Agreed,” Brognola said. “You just find Kursk. Or at least figure out what the bastard’s up to. That means tracking down Ivanov.”

  “Don’t worry,” Bolan said, “I know precisely how to bring Sergei Ivanov out of hiding. I’ll just hit him where he lives.”

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  “I APPRECIATE THIS,” Natasha Rytova said. “Your letting me come with you, I mean.”

  Bolan gave her a tight smile and nodded before returning his gaze to the world passing by outside their rented Firebird. The pair had arrived at Nellis Air Force Base after what had seemed to be a never-ending string of flights. They’d barely spoken to each other during the trip, opting instead to sleep or put new dressings on old wounds.

  Bolan sipped some coffee from a foam cup. It tasted like sewer water, but he took another drink, knowing he needed the caffeine.

  “It goes against my better judgment,” he said. “I prefer to work alone. Partners usually mean more people to worry about. But you proved yourself in Africa.”

  “As did you.”

  Bolan grinned at her. “Touché.”

  The lady had guts and the soldier was starting to like her in spite of himself. He shifted a bit as pressure from the car’s seat caused the Desert Eagle to dig into his side. A Justice Department agent had met them at the air base and provided them with fresh civilian clothes, additional weapons and identification, all courtesy of Brognola. Both were traveling as Justice employees; Bolan as an agent, Rytova as an interpreter.

  Along with the Desert Eagle, the soldier carried his Beretta 93-R in shoulder leather. Both weapons were hidden beneath a light windbreaker worn over a black T-shirt. He also carried a pair of throwing knives and some lock picks in special pockets in the jacket’s lining. His other combat gear—an M-16/M-203 combination, an Ithaca shotgun, an Uzi submachine gun, thermite grenades and other explosives—were locked in the Firebird’s trunk.

  Dressed in black denims and a matching T-shirt, Rytova had gathered her ash blond hair into a ponytail and stuck it up under a navy blue baseball cap. Per Bolan’s request, the Justice agent had supplied her with a pair of SIG-Sauer P-239s and the necessary accessories. She carried one in a shoulder rig and the other on her hip and had filled her pockets with extra magazines.

  Bolan needed to get Ivanov’s attention. And he’d learned a long time ago that the best way to get an audience with a mobster was to hack at the guy’s lifeline—his money. With the cyberteam’s assistance, Brognola had located sev
eral of Ivanov’s businesses and passed the intel on to Bolan. Brognola was also working to freeze all of Ivanov’s personal and business bank accounts.

  The soldier parked the car along the curb of the small, suburban industrial park, killed the lights and the engine.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  He exited the car, grabbing a small satchel as he went and slinging it over his shoulder. Bolan locked the car and set the alarm via remote control. The car chirped when he did, and he gave the vehicle one last look before walking away. If the numbers fell the way he hoped, they’d only have to leave it and its lethal contents unattended for a few minutes.

  He unleathered the Beretta and held it in close to him as he started into the industrial park.

  Making their way through a maze of small warehouses and manufacturers, he and Rytova came to a two-story warehouse surrounded by an eight-foot fence. Most of the grime-streaked structure sat dark, though lights burned in a couple of the first-floor windows.

  Like a dark wraith, Bolan silently scrambled up and over the fence with Rytova following. Coming down in a crouch, they ran across the parking lot and sought refuge behind a pair of large trash bins. The pungent odor of warm, rotting garbage assailed Bolan’s senses, and he involuntarily wrinkled his nose in a vain attempt to repel it.

  An ocean of broken, oil-splotched asphalt surrounded the warehouse. Street lamps posted in three corners of the fenced area cast whitish cones on the property, and Bolan watched as swarms of insects danced in the light.

  A shoe scuffled against the asphalt. Once. Twice. It was the halting gait of a bored sentry performing his rounds by rote. The footsteps stopped and Bolan peered around the steel trash container, trying not to create a silhouette as he did. The guard sat on concrete steps leading up to a door illuminated by a single light bulb. The man peeled the golden skin from an apple with a switchblade and occasionally slapped at bugs. Those two acts seemed to demand all his attention.

  A trilling noise caught the man’s attention, stopping him in midslap. Pulling a digital phone from his jacket, he opened it, uttered a greeting and listened, occasionally interjecting something. After a few more seconds, the man clicked off the phone and hauled himself to his feet. Pocketing the phone, he dropped the apple, ascended the stairs and disappeared inside the building.

  Bolan looked at Rytova who nodded back at him. They waited several moments and then surged across the asphalt until they came to the door. Rytova tried the handle while Bolan watched their backs, but she found it locked. Bolan handed her a set of lock picks from his jacket pocket, and she went to work on the handle. Within moments, it yielded.

  Keeping the Beretta out, Bolan fisted the Desert Eagle as they entered the building. The warehouse’s storage area rose the full two stories and covered most of the building’s footprint. Cardboard boxes marked Peas, Lima Beans and Cereal were stacked five or six high on pallets positioned all over the room. Light cast a dull sheen as it reflected off the plastic sheeting holding together the stacked boxes. Two forklifts sat idle.

  A small, rectangular structure stood in the warehouse’s southwest corner, shades drawn, lights burning inside. Bolan ran his gaze over the building’s interior, but saw no security cameras or other equipment that might betray their presence.

  Leaving several feet between them, Bolan and Rytova silently closed in on what the soldier assumed was an office. As he neared the structure, he overheard a heated exchange between two men speaking Russian. Bolan understood enough of the language to know the argument involved division of labor.

  Rytova came up next to Bolan and whispered in his ear. “Apparently, this is the guard’s fourth night walking the grounds. He’s not happy about it.”

  “It’s about to become the least of his worries,” Bolan said. “Are you ready?”

  Rytova nodded. Ducking under the shaded windows, the Executioner ran in a crouch along the length of the office. Once he passed the door, he brought himself to his full height and glimpsed through a slit between the blinds and the window, trying to determine the strength of his opposition. Thus far, he’d only heard two distinct voices and saw two silhouettes, arms waving dramatically as they argued.

  He had expected more gunners and the opposition’s apparent strength—or lack thereof—didn’t sit well with him. His combat senses were telling him something. A phone rang inside and one of the hotheads answered it. His voice almost immediately dropped to an inaudible level.

  It came to Bolan more as a feeling, an instinct, than a thought. Someone was watching him from overhead.

  He wheeled and caught a pair of gunners coming into view on a series of catwalks that crisscrossed above him. Each man cradled a submachine gun and was acquiring a target, ready to deal out death.

  “Go!” Bolan yelled.

  Chugging in unison, the Beretta and the Desert Eagle spit flame and lead. The warrior’s first shots sparked off the metal catwalk, careering into the darkness. As the hardmen began to fire at Bolan and Rytova, the Executioner tapped out a pair of tribursts from the Beretta that shredded one of the attacker’s legs. The man convulsed under the onslaught before falling over the railing, plummeting headfirst to the concrete floor. At the same time, Rytova was moving in a crouch, acquiring her own target with one of the SIG-Sauers. Bolan heard the gun crack twice, the echoes nearly drowning out the cries of pain as 9 mm rounds drilled into flesh.

  More gunfire erupted from behind Bolan, tearing through the walls of the office. He whirled and returned fire as he backed away to get some cover. The Beretta locked open, and the Desert Eagle had two shots left. Hurling himself behind some boxes, the warrior reloaded both weapons. He heard the steady crackle of Rytova emptying the SIG-Sauers.

  His opponents continued peppering the room with a hail of autofire. The wild hails of gunfire were fast eroding the office’s facade and shredding the warehouse’s interior. Bullets hammered into the boxes of food surrounding Bolan, slicking the floor with vegetable juices. Judging by the undisciplined shooting, Bolan guessed he was facing untrained thugs rather than the elite troops Kursk threw at him in Africa. These guys seemed to rely more on the spray-and-pray method than real combat shooting techniques.

  Digging in his satchel, Bolan palmed a flash-stun grenade but waited to throw it until after he located Rytova. He caught a glimpse of her about twenty feet to his left, hiding behind an overturned desk as she reloaded her pistol. The din of gunfire had died, and from within the office Bolan could hear the metallic clicking of weapons being locked and loaded.

  Coming around the side of his protective barrier, Bolan tossed the grenade into the sagging office and returned to his cover behind the boxes. A flash of white was accompanied by a peal of thunder at his back. He was on his feet and cautiously moving on the office. Gunshots rang out, punching wildly through the walls and heading at an upward angle.

  Bolan waited out the hostile fire and heard someone swear as his gun went dry.

  The Executioner moved in low, taking in the scene as he went. The man who’d been closest to the stun grenade lay on the floor, pressing his fists against his eyes and groaning. The other hardman, the guard who minutes ago had been eating an apple, was blindly trying to put a new clip into his pistol. The Beretta whispered once and Bolan cored a round through the guy’s shoulder. He screamed, dropped his weapon and grabbed at his shoulder. Blood stained the white shirt crimson and trailed down the good fingers of the man’s hand as he applied pressure to the wound.

  Bolan crossed the room in quick strides and kicked away the gun. Rytova came in just behind him, both pistols leveled rock steady as she scanned the room. Bolan grabbed the wounded shooter and tried to roll the man onto his stomach. The Russian shooter wasn’t about to give up easy and kicked wildly at the Executioner to keep him at bay. His patience worn to a frazzle, Bolan caught the swinging leg and drove the edge of his own foot into the man’s wounded shoulder with bone-snapping impact. A scream erupted from the shooter’s mouth and he rolled onto his unin
jured side, whimpering in pain.

  Bolan pocketed the man’s weapon and glimpsed Rytova securing her prisoner with plastic handcuffs.

  “Watch them,” Bolan ordered.

  Sliding the Beretta back inside his jacket, the warrior returned to the warehouse and made his way through the maze of stacked pallets. He passed them by, figuring they were a smoke screen for the real prize. Glancing down the length of the warehouse, he spotted three trailers that had been driven into the loading bay and sealed inside the sprawling building.

  Bolan knew the clock was ticking. The nearest occupied building was a plastics manufacturer located in the same industrial park but four blocks from the warehouse. He’d noticed cars parked outside it and lights on inside the building when they’d passed by earlier.

  If he was lucky, machine noise and distance had conspired to mask the gunfire. If not, Bolan could expect police intervention at any minute. He could find himself face-to-face with nervous street cops, or an entire SWAT team, for that matter. He considered both scenarios unacceptable.

  Moving to the trailers, he inspected all three and found each locked.

  At the last trailer, Bolan aimed the Desert Eagle at the steel padlocks sealing the trailer door. The big bore pistol roared twice, shattering the lock and the door latch. Swinging open the trailer’s doors, Bolan played the flashlight’s beam over several stacks of wooden crates set at the back. A quick search turned up a crowbar and he took it with him as he climbed inside the big trailer.

  Arm and shoulder muscles bunching against the fabric of his jacket, Bolan pried one of the crates open. A glint of metal and the smell of oil betrayed the contents even before Bolan illuminated the box’s interior with his flashlight.

  AK-47s and plenty of them. It was a deadly inventory that Bolan was about to liquidate in a blaze of hellfire. Working quickly, he packed wedges of C-4 explosives around the boxes and jabbed detonators into the material. Minutes later, he had rigged all three trucks to blow.