Death Gamble

by Don Pendleton

  His former CIA handlers knew it. Nikolai Kursk knew it. Anyone else encountering him learned it in short order, usually to their peril.

  Cole had been more soldier than killer, and it had cost him his life. He’d taken a bullet for a man he hated because the guy promised him some money. He’d fought alongside his men like a commander. His mistake.

  Given the chance, Armstrong would have dropped napalm by the ton over every square inch of Kursk’s precious little island, burned every last blade of grass and sacrificed every man there if it meant killing that bastard from the Justice Department. Scorched earth suited him fine as long as it produced results.

  He considered his men the chess pieces and himself the chess master. He’d gladly sacrifice dozens of his own people to get in one good lick on the enemy, to win the game.

  His headset crackled to life and he heard the pilot’s voice. The guy sounded cool and calm, like a commercial airliner pilot urging passengers to put their trays in the upright position before he landed the plane.

  “Thirty seconds to target, sir.”

  “Right,” Armstrong said. “Any resistance?”

  “Token. Our ground crew took out the patrol choppers with surface-to-air weapons. Our insider killed a large part of the security team with the bomb. But we still have pockets of resistance popping up.”

  “That’s why you’ve got machine guns on this bird,” Armstrong said. “Lay down some cover fire and then put us on the ground.”

  A pause. “Clear.”

  The helicopter began its descent. Armstrong hauled himself to his feet and braced himself. The other men stayed seated, waiting for his orders. He stared through the cockpit window as they went down and saw a vision of hell. Flames ravaged the wreckage of helicopters shot down by his fighters and raged through overturned vehicles. Dark shadows ran along the ground. Muzzle-flashes flared against the black backdrop, and red tracer rounds wound their way through the air. The din of gunfire could be heard even over the beating propellers and throbbing engines.

  The craft jerked for a moment as the wheels touched the ground. A crew member opened the door, and fighters poured from the Black Hawk’s belly. Armstrong crossed the chopper’s interior, grabbed Haley by the shirt and hauled him to his feet. As Haley got his footing, Armstrong grabbed a Kevlar helmet and shoved into the pilot’s hands.

  “Put it on,” he growled.

  The orders had been explicit: Haley was to be protected at all costs. Everyone else could go to hell.

  That was fine with Armstrong. He’d see that they did just that.

  A CHILD’S WAILING snagged Rytova’s attention immediately.

  Hidden behind a fire-engine red PT Cruiser parked curbside, she listened to the sounds emanating from the Haley’s two-story house. The crying came and went quickly and had sounded like the normal noises of a hungry baby. The Russian woman thought briefly of her lost child, her lost family, and anger coursed through her.

  These bastards wouldn’t cost another person their family. She’d damn well see to that.

  She listened again and the house returned to silence.

  Still dressed in black street clothing, she had smeared her face with black camou cosmetics. She crouched lower, hoping the vehicle’s bulk would shield her from view. As she hunkered down, she felt the micro-Uzi riding in a shoulder holster dig into her ribs. Her jacket slipped up a bit, revealing the muzzle of the SIG-Sauer P-239 holstered on her right hip. She also carried magazines for both weapons. She wore a Kevlar vest underneath the oversized jacket.

  A car with a bad muffler rumbled a few streets away. Three houses north of her, a big dog sensing something amiss barked incessantly. Occasionally, the owner shouted the dog’s name, silencing it for a moment before it resumed making noise. Rytova cursed under her breath. At this hour, the disturbance might prompt one of the Haleys’ captors to peer through the windows or step outside and compromise her approach.

  She listened through her headset as her backup team positioned themselves, ticking off their names as they did. Cooper’s men—he’d simply referred to them as blacksuits—had cordoned off a three-block perimeter around the street to prevent innocent motorists or Ivanov’s men from happening upon the rescue attempt. With a couple of phone calls, the blacksuits had secured vans and uniforms from the local utility company and were warning people away with stories of a major gas leak.

  Rytova checked her watch and realized that in another two minutes the action would begin. Crews would shut off power to the house, the team would storm inside and save the Haleys.

  Maybe.

  The notion of negotiations had been scratched. They needed to rescue the family even as Cooper pulled off his own mission. The gunners at the Haven needed to believe everything was going to plan to preserve as many lives as possible. It was a high-wire act in which a misstep could have lethal results.

  She checked her watch again, realized only thirty seconds had passed. She felt impatience begin to overtake her.

  Where the hell were the others? When would they give the signal?

  Shelving the questions, the Russian tried to focus on the moment at hand. She needed to keep her senses about her. Lives depended on it.

  She looked at the house, saw light shining through two of the second-story windows. The bluish glow of a television screen danced behind the white lace curtains obscuring a first-floor picture window. An occasional shadow passed by a window, but otherwise nothing seemed amiss.

  Then a scream pierced the silence and things began to move quickly.

  “YOU SURE YOU DON’T want me to go in with you, Sarge?” Jack Grimaldi asked. He patted a Beretta 92-F holstered on his right hip. An Uzi submachine gun rested just inches out of the Stony Man pilot’s reach. “You say the word, I’m ready to rock-and-roll.”

  Bolan gave his friend a grim smile.

  The two men had hooked up at Nellis Air Force base and Grimaldi was flying Bolan to the hardsite in an Apache helicopter. A second chopper followed behind them. They’d left Route 93 behind several minutes earlier and were traveling over open desert toward the Haven.

  “I need you in the air on this one, Jack. If they produce more air hardware, I’m going to need someone to cover my ass. Don’t worry. You’ll get your time on the ground, too.”

  “Right. I saw a team of pilots warming up at Nellis. Does that mean what I think it does?” Grimaldi asked.

  Bolan nodded. “If the Nightwind leaves the ground, they move. Word’s come down from the Man. That plane doesn’t get past our southern border. If it gets to that point, Jon Haley’s a dead man and the aircraft goes with him. But those could be the least of our worries if Kursk sets off a one kiloton nuke on American soil.”

  Grimaldi forced a grin. “At least the stakes are high on this one, huh?”

  Bolan couldn’t even muster another smile. When he spoke, the weariness in his voice surprised him. “They always are.”

  Grimaldi said nothing but punched his old friend on the shoulder. “Time to go dark, Sarge.”

  Both men slipped their night-vision goggles into place and Grimaldi relayed the same command to the chopper tailing them. During the next few minutes, they passed over the desert in silence, flying at low altitudes and without lights.

  “There’s the access road, Sarge,” Grimaldi said.

  “Put her down here, Jack,” Bolan replied.

  Within minutes, Bolan was grabbing his gear and disembarking from the combat chopper. He removed his night-vision goggles and relied on the moon’s glare to illuminate the scene.

  The second chopper touched down behind the first. A pair of soldiers had jumped out and stood, assault rifles at the ready, on the access road. Another soldier rolled a motorcycle down a ramp and brought it to Bolan. The guy was about Bolan’s height with a medium build and intense brown eyes. He stopped five feet from Bolan, secured the bike on its kickstand and gave Bolan a hard stare.

  “It’s not too late, Striker,” the man said. “We can all go in,
hit them from all sides. I don’t have to tell you there’s strength in numbers. There’s no need for you to play lone wolf here.”

  Bolan shook his head. “Forget it. You people are here to do a mission, and it doesn’t involve being commandos. If I lose you, the whole thing’s scrubbed. I can’t deactivate the suitcase nuke.”

  The soldier, a U.S. Air Force captain, nodded. “That’s fine—for now. But if something happens to you, I’m not wasting my time waiting on Washington to clear us for action. I’m going in. I’ve got a wife, two kids and a lot of friends sitting a couple of hours downwind from this place. I’ll risk a court-martial to keep them safe.”

  Bolan took the bike from the captain’s hands, straddled it and looked back at him. “I hope we don’t have to go there.”

  The warrior fitted the night-vision goggles in place and the world went green. He fired the bike to life and roared off down the access road. As the bike gained speed, Bolan felt the cool desert air whipping against his black leather jacket and the exposed parts of his face. On any other night he’d have enjoyed a ride through untamed country. This night he only could think of the mission at hand.

  Ear-shattering explosions tore through the night, illuminating the sky ahead of Bolan as passed between a pair of towering rock formations bordering both sides of the access road. Taking the bike to the side of the road, he killed the engine, laid the vehicle down and sprinted up the nearest incline.

  Cresting the hill, he scrambled to a ridge, hoping to gain a bird’s-eye view of the source of the explosions. Along the way, he found the slumped-over forms of two Sentinel Industries guards, both dead from gunshot wounds.

  He slipped the NVGs from his face and stared down at the hell zone. Flames engulfed wrecked choppers, belching thick plumes of smoke into the air. A team of commandos dressed in camou fatigues exchanged fire with what Bolan assumed were Sentinel’s security forces. Panicked civilian workers bolted across open areas, seeking refuge, but finding death as crisscrossing hails of autofire cut them down. Bolan guessed that at least a dozen bodies were strewed about the grounds. Even from his position, he could see the faces of the wounded contorted in agony, smell the oily black smoke and cordite odors rising from the besieged camp.

  He’d seen enough. Kursk’s people obviously had overwhelmed the security team.

  The Russian’s greed and his pursuit of the high-tech jet fighter had already shattered too many lives.

  It was time for the Executioner to tip the scales in favor of justice. He slipped out of the bomber jacket and let it fall to the ground. He wore his black combat suit, combat webbing and carried the Beretta, the Desert Eagle and the Colt Python. Returning to the motorcycle, he retrieved the M-16/M-203 combo and an Uzi. He checked both weapons, wanting to make sure they were ready to deal out death.

  Without a doubt, he was.

  12

  Natasha Rytova pushed aside the six-foot wooden gate and stepped into the backyard. She held her breath, worried the gate would squeak on its rusted hinges. It didn’t, and she vowed not to squander her good fortune. Shutting it behind her, she continued moving along the driveway that led through the gate, her SIG-Sauer ready.

  Her first impressions were of the smells of cigarette smoke and cheap aftershave. Wrapping herself in a blanket of shadows, she knelt and scanned her surroundings.

  The driveway led to a detached two-car garage clad in the same sunbaked, warped cedar siding that covered the house. The garage door was rolled up, and Rytova saw a big sedan and a small yellow sports car sitting inside. A bulky man stood between the two cars, smoothing his hair as he stared into the sedan’s side mirror.

  White light suddenly cut through the backyard, causing Rytova to scramble to the side of the house. Someone had turned on a patio light, and Rytova heard a glass door sliding along its track as it came open.

  “You look like shit,” the man said in heavily accented English. He released a big belly laugh. The sudden infusions of light and noise startled the other man, and he whirled toward the house. He glared at the other man.

  “I look like shit? Me? Your wife, she looks like shit,” he said.

  “I know,” the other man replied. “That’s why I keep two girlfriends.”

  Another rumble of laughter. “Get inside. We cannot reach the others and Joseph is worried something happened. Plus our guests are getting restless.”

  The sentry scowled but made a beeline for the house. As he moved inside, he glided his fingertips over perfectly coiffed hair and tugged at his suit jacket to straighten the fabric. Just like Sergei Ivanov in miniature, Rytova thought.

  A voice sounded in her headset. She recognized it as belonging to Dale Gilmore, the team leader.

  “Ripper team in place, Natasha. Can’t get a visual on you. Where the hell are you?”

  “I’m in the backyard,” she replied. “I heard a scream. I went to investigate.”

  “Negative. That’s not the plan, Natasha, and you know it,” Gilmore said.

  “Stand fast,” Rytova said, stressing each syllable.

  Perspiration slid down from her hairline and stung her still-healing head wound, causing her to wince. She heard the glass door slide open again and heard footsteps as one, then a second man stepped outside. Gilmore’s voice filled the headset as he began to argue. Rytova expelled a quick “shh” from between clenched teeth and the radio went silent.

  The dapper man from the garage and a second person she didn’t recognize both stepped into view. The second man—tall, slim with a hawkish face—dug a pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his shirt and tapped out two smokes. Taking one, he offered the second to the pretty boy, who snatched it away and jabbed it between his lips.

  “I thought you said Joseph was worried,” the smaller man said.

  The hawk-faced one shrugged. “How was I to know Sergei called? I was here with you.”

  “So he is okay?”

  “He says he got held up somewhere. He will be here soon enough. He said to sit tight.”

  Rytova knew that much was true. She’d arranged for the Russian mobster to call his people, assure them of his safety so they wouldn’t panic and flee from the house, either taking the Haleys with them or killing them on the spot. A cleanup team sent from Washington had taken control of the casino shooting scene and was trying to clamp down on media coverage for as long as possible. Cooper’s people were leaning on Ivanov, forcing him to pump his people full of lies so they’d stay put and let the Haleys live.

  “I heard the woman scream,” Pretty Boy said. “What happened?”

  “She sneaked into a bedroom, picked up a phone,” the other thug said. “Do not look worried. We caught her before she could dial a number. But we decided to take some of the fire out of her. Joseph hit her in the face, broke her nose. She screamed.”

  “He let her off easy.”

  “Not so. Last I saw he had filled the bathtub with steaming hot water and held her head under it. Joseph is feeling nasty tonight.”

  The smaller man snorted. “Joseph is nasty every night. I just hope we get to have time with her before tonight ends. She’s got fire. I will put it out.”

  “But my friend, you have such a small hose.” The bigger man again erupted into laughter and slapped Pretty Boy on the back. The smaller man took the blow between the shoulder blades and stumbled forward under the impact. He caught his footing but dropped his cigarette.

  Rytova felt nauseous as she listened to their callous banter. Then white-hot rage overtook her. She’d heard enough. Earlier tonight, she had started to go soft on these killers, to doubt her mission. There was no room for that, she decided with certainty.

  She raised the SIG-Sauer, triggered it twice. The first round burned past Pretty Boy’s face. The second crashed into his skull, just above his ear before the hollowpoint round tunneled out the other side of his head. Blood and brain matter splattered over the hawk-faced man’s shoulder. He grabbed for a hidden handgun, began to whip around and open his
mouth to shout a warning. A 9 mm round whacked into his open mouth, whipping his head back hard before ripping away the back of it. He crumpled to the ground, falling on top of the other man.

  Pulling the two men out of the yard, she hid them in the shadows. No one had looked out the windows during the precious seconds it took to move the bodies. “I’ve got two of Ivanov’s men down. We need to go in now before the others find them.”

  “Right,” Gilmore said. He sounded exasperated with Natasha. “Stay put. We’re coming in.”

  Another scream sounded from within, and Rytova decided she could no longer wait.

  Sliding the patio door, she peered inside, saw the room was empty and slipped inside. The mobsters had furnished the room with a threadbare chocolate brown couch, six empty pizza boxes, overstuffed ashtrays and empty beer cans. They’d turned the air conditioner down to what seemed like meat-locker temperatures, and Rytova shivered involuntarily as she crossed the room.

  She cleared the kitchen and the dining room. The muscles of her rib cage tightened, constricting her breathing as she heard the sloshing of water and a woman’s pleadings from upstairs. She stepped into the entryway, peered into the living room, alive with the television screen’s dancing glow. Her heart told her to rush up the stairs, but her head told her to clear the final first-floor room.

  Her head won. Pressing against the wall, she snatched a peek inside the living room and saw one man sitting on the couch. Despite the ruckus upstairs, the man’s head lolled to one side and rattled out long snores. The room stank of alcohol, and Rytova assumed the man had drunk himself into oblivion. How else could anyone sleep through the horrible cries? With a closer look, she saw more than a half dozen beer bottles, all empty, standing on a small coffee table in front of the man. She guessed her hunch was right.

  Switching the SIG-Sauer to her left hand, she filled her right with the micro-Uzi, setting it for single-shot mode as she did. She wasn’t going to risk spraying down the hallways with 9 mm bursts with at least four innocent people crammed in a confined space. Steel struck bone as she smacked the drunk in the back of the head with the Uzi, shoving him deeper into unconsciousness.