Don Pendleton - Extraordinary Rendition

Bolan followed the flow of humanity past more arrival gates, following the multilingual signs directing passengers to immigration and passport control, to customs, baggage claim and ground transportation. His only baggage was a carry-on, and he was expecting a ride at the end of his hike through the concourse, but there was no mistaking the rest.

Bolan showed his passport to an immigration officer whose cropped hair, military uniform and plain face conspired to disguise her sex. She held the passport up beside his face, her eyes flicking back and forth between the photo and its living counterpart, then asked him the obligatory questions. Bolan answered truthfully that he didn’t intend to spend more than a week on Russian soil, and that he had no fixed address in mind.

“So, traveling?” she asked.

“That’s right.”

Frowning, the agent stamped his passport with a vehemence the task scarcely deserved, and passed him on to customs. There, a portly officer with triple chins pawed through the contents of his carry-on, presumably in search of contraband.

“No other bags?” he asked.

“That’s it,” Bolan replied.

“And if you need more clothes?”

“American Express.”

Apparently disgruntled at his failure to discover some incriminating bit of evidence, the agent scowled at Bolan’s passport stamp, then nodded him along to clear the station.

Thirty feet ahead of Bolan stood a wall of frosted glass, preventing those who gathered on the other side from seeing what went on at customs. Bits of faces showed each time the exit door opened and closed, but Bolan didn’t think his contact would be pushing up to head the line.

He cleared the doorway, with a hefty woman and her two unruly children close behind him. Bolan let them take the lead, converging on a thin, small-headed man whose pale face registered despair at the sight of them.

The joys of coming home.

Bolan was looking for his contact when he saw the skinhead on his left, leaning against a wall there, staring hard at Bolan’s face until their eyes met. Caught, be broke contact and made a show of checking out the other passengers, while muttering some comment to the collar of his leather jacket.

Glancing to his right, Bolan picked out another front man of the not-so-welcoming committee, nodding in response to something no one else could hear, hand raised to press an earpiece home.

Clumsy.

But in his present situation, Bolan thought, how good did his opponents really need to be?

“I THINK HE SPOTTED us!” Yuri Bazhov stated.

“So, he has eyes,” Evgeny Surikov replied, his voice a tinny sneer through Bazhov’s earpiece. “What’s the difference?”

Seething with anger yet afraid to make a spectacle in public, Bazhov hissed at the small microphone concealed on his lapel. “What do you think, idiot? That we should take him here, in front of everyone?”

“Why not?” Danil Perov chimed in.

Turning away from customs, Bazhov fell in step a dozen yards behind his target. “I don’t want the damned militia coming down on us,” he said into the microphone. “Whoever wants to be arrested, do it somewhere else. You can explain to Taras personally, if you don’t like following his orders.”

That silenced the bellyachers for now. Bazhov followed his man, still unsure where the stranger would lead him. The target carried a bag, but might have other luggage awaiting attention downstairs. Who flew to Moscow with a single bag, even if he was only staying for the night?

Who was this man? Why did he matter to the Family?

Nobody tells me anything, Bazhov thought, frowning to himself.

All right, the bosses didn’t owe him any explanation, but he should be told enough to let him do his job effectively and safely. What if this one was some kind of kung fu expert, for example? What if he was carrying a deadly virus in his blood or sputum? Bazhov and his men could wind up beaten to a pulp, infected with some damned thing that would kill them slowly.

Before it came to that, he’d use the GSh-18 and damn the consequences. But it was a last resort, and if he had to kill the stranger, Bazhov might consider saving one round for himself.

The target didn’t turn to see if anyone was following his path along the concourse. He played it cool, but Bazhov was convinced that he’d been spotted, maybe Surikov, as well. That made the job more difficult, but not impossible, by any means.

With odds of six to one, how could they lose him?

They took the escalator down toward the baggage claim and ground transportation area, and the other services designed to hasten new arrivals from the airport. Bazhov couldn’t help scowling as his target reached the bottom and turned left, away from the long bank of luggage carousels.

“No bags,” he told the microphone. “Repeat! No bags. Vasily, Pavel, come rejoin us.”

“On my way,” Vasily Radko answered.

“Coming,” Pavel Malevich replied.

Apparently, their target meant to hire a car. He had no less than half a dozen agencies to choose from, but he might have reservations with a car already standing by. In either case, they had to intercept him, before he vanished into city traffic.

Domodedovo International stood twenty-two miles from downtown Moscow. Call it a half-hour’s drive if nobody was speeding, drawing attention from traffic police. In the worst-case scenario, Bazhov could stop the mark’s car in transit, stage an accident if need be and lift him before the militia arrived.

Better to take him at the airport, though, perhaps in the garage where the hired cars were kept shiny-clean, with their dents and scratches inventoried for insurance purposes. There would be fewer witnesses, none likely to step forward and defend a stranger in the face of guns.

“Close in,” Bazhov commanded. “We will take him when he goes to fetch his car.”

ANZHELA PILKIN SMELLED the trap before she saw it closing on the stranger she had come to meet. She seemed to have a sixth sense for such things—so much so, if the truth be told, that fellow agents of the FSB sometimes referred to her as wed’ma.

Witch.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t a witch, only an FSB lieutenant who couldn’t work magic on a whim. She couldn’t twirl a wand and make the thugs who had staked out her contact disappear.

But in a pinch, she could draw her Yarygin PYa pistol and make them die.

Lieutenant Pilkin hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Her mission was covert, and her superiors would frown on gunplay at the airport. It was something they expected from Chicago, New York City—anywhere but Moscow, in the midst of a top-secret operation. Public killing that involved police would spoil the play.

And it would do no good for her career.

She watched the procession pass by, concealed behind a tourist information kiosk, shifting her position to prevent herself from being seen. It was impossible to say if the American now traveling as Matthew Cooper had discovered he was being followed. And while Pilkin hoped so—hoped that he wasn’t oblivious to such an obvious approach—she also dreaded what might happen if he tried to ditch the trackers on his own.

Pilkin visualized a free-for-all, fists flying, maybe weapons drawn, and what would happen next? When the militia came, what could she do?

Follow her contact to his holding cell, perhaps, and try to talk him out of custody? She might be able to pull rank on the militia, but to what end? Exposure of the man would automatically abort their mission, and she knew that her superiors likely wouldn’t permit a second effort.

So, whatever she attempted, it would have to be unauthorized and hidden from the brass at FSB headquarters.

She was on her own.

Pilkin watched the tall American bypass the sign directing him to the baggage claim and head off toward the bank of kiosks that dispensed hired cars. She knew he was expecting her to pick him up, which meant that his diversion was precisely that: a stall, either to locate her, throw off his enemies, or both.