Don Pendleton - Extraordinary Rendition

The next face up on Bolan’s laptop monitor belonged to Ruslan Kozlov, a sixty-year-old colonel general in Russia’s ground forces. The CIA pegged Kozlov as Gennady Sokolov’s primary source of Russian “surplus” military hardware, up to and including stray nuclear warheads. There would be other rogue suppliers scattered far and wide around the globe, but Kozlov was the source closest to home.

The general’s face was bland, with full cheeks, gray eyes under snowy brows, and a flat, Slavic nose. He had led troops in Afghanistan, commanded Russian forces in the Chechen wars, and had reportedly given the order for Spetznaz to gas Moscow’s House of Culture theater in October 2002, after Chechen separatists seized the building with nine hundred hostages. The gas and subsequent Spetznaz assault had killed the forty-two terrorists and at least 129 hostages, injuring an estimated seven hundred others.

The last face up on Bolan’s screen belonged to his contact, Lieutenant Anzhela Pilkin of the FSB. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d worked with a Russian agent, when Washington’s interests overlapped Moscow’s, and while none had betrayed him so far, Bolan always felt as if he was waiting for the other boot to drop.

The lieutenant was thirty years old, auburn-haired, with a grim sort of beauty that might be less rigid in person. Five-seven and 130 pounds, well versed in martial arts and skilled with standard Russian firearms, bilingual in Russian and English. According to Brognola’s dossier, she’d joined the FSB five years earlier, after a stint with the military. She’d been promoted to sergeant in that post, after killing a Ukrainian gangster during a drug raid, and had polished off two more sent by the first thug’s boss to punish her. The boss, one Mikola Hunczak, had made the next attempt himself and currently resided in Moscow’s Mitinskoe Cemetery.

Overall, not bad.

Bolan assumed Lieutenant Pilkin would cooperate with him as ordered by her FSB superiors. But going in, he had no fix on what her orders might entail. When working with Russians—or with anyone outside the normal crew at Stony Man, for that matter—he always kept his guard up, conscious of the fact that while he went about his business, others might be marching in pursuit of separate agendas.

Why, for instance, would the FSB collaborate in Sokolov’s extraction, when the government refused to simply extradite him? Was there something to be gained, some face to save, by ordering covert removal? Who was in the know concerning Bolan’s mission? Who on the official side might still oppose him?

Colonel General Kozlov could supply an army on short notice to protect his business partner, if he wasn’t ordered to stand down. Smart money said that Sokolov would also have his share of allies in the Russian Mafiya, who might resent him being snatched and packed off to the States.

And, as the FBI had learned the hard way, Sokolov had to have his own hardforce of mercenaries, paid to keep him safe and sound in Moscow, or his dacha near Saint Petersburg.

Against those odds—and the military, whose officers would do their best to cage or kill him, if and when they were aware of Bolan’s presence in their homeland—he would pit his own skills and the still-untested talents of his FSB contact.

Two against how many? Dozens? Hundreds?

Situation normal for the Executioner.

He prepped the files and tapped a button on the laptop’s keyboard to erase Brognola’s disk. When that was done, he’d break it into half a dozen pieces, just in case. There was no point in taking chances yet, even before he caught his flight across the polar cap to Moscow.

There’d be time enough to risk his life tomorrow.

Every day beyond that would be icing on the cake.

Domodedovo International Airport, the present

Bolan slid into the sports car’s shotgun seat. Sudden acceleration slammed his door and pushed him backward, made him miss his seat belt on the first try. Bolan’s side mirror revealed his shadows spilling from the terminal, one of them speaking into a cell phone as the sportster sped away.

“I hope we’re cleared for takeoff,” he remarked.

“We are supposed to use the passwords,” his auburn-haired savior reminded him.

“Think we can skip it?”

“Under the circumstances,” she replied, “I believe that we can. I am Lieutenant Pilkin, FSB.”

“Matt Cooper,” he replied, without alluding to a rank or government affiliation. Likewise, Bolan didn’t mention that he recognized her face from photographs on file.

In these days of cell phone cameras and surveillance equipment, Bolan couldn’t be certain that there were no photographs of him.

“I thought we’d have more time,” she said.

“For what?”

“Before they broke your cover.”

“And ‘they’ would be…?”

Pilkin shrugged, a good thing, Bolan thought, in the clingy turtleneck she wore. “Who knows? The man you’re looking for has many friends. Whether they like him or he buys them, it is all the same.”

“That’s we,” he said, correcting her.

“Excuse me?”

“Not the man I’m looking for. The man we’re looking for.”

“Of course. Exactly.”

“They picked me up first thing, out of the gate,” he said. “It’s doubtful they have photos, but a name cross-checked against the airline’s manifest would do it, if they got a nod from customs or passport control.”

“Such things are possible. The man we seek—”

“Can we just use his name?” Bolan asked, interrupting.

“Certainly.” A note of irritation was in her voice, tugging the corner of her mouth down on the side Bolan could see. “Gennady Sokolov is, as you know, a smuggler. It would not be unexpected for him to have contacts at our major airports.”

“You could sweat the officers who passed me through and find out if they’re dirty. Crack one of them, and you’ll find out who he’s dealing with.”

“And if they’re innocent?”

“No harm done,” Bolan said. “I’ll send word back to triple-check whoever knew about my travel plans on our side. One way or another, something had to leak.”

“And I’m afraid that it’s still leaking,” Pilkin replied.

Another glance at Bolan’s mirror showed him headlights following their car. That wasn’t any kind of shocking revelation at a busy airport, but the vehicle in question was performing risky moves to keep Pilkin’s car in sight and close the gap between them.

“That was quick,” he said.

“They must have had a driver waiting.”

“Too bad they’re so organized.”

“Too bad for them,” she said, and flashed a wicked little smile before she shifted, then floored the gas pedal, giving Bolan another taste of Newton’s third law of motion in action.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what’s the plan?” Bolan inquired.

“Evade them, if we can. If not…eliminate them.”

“I’d be more help on the last bit if I wasn’t naked.”

“What?” Pilkin shot a sidelong glance at Bolan, making sure.

“Unarmed,” he said. “Airline security, you know?”

“Of course,” she answered. “Try the glove box.”

Bolan opened it and found what he presumed to be her backup duty gun, an MP-443 Grach semiauto pistol, also known as the Yarygin PYa for its inventor. The Grach was a double-action piece with polymer grips, chambered for 9 mm Parabellum rounds and packing ten or eighteen in detachable box magazines. Its resemblance to the more famous Glock ended with a partially exposed hammer and an external ambidextrous safety.

Bolan pulled the magazine, relieved to find that it was one of the high-capacity staggered-box models. A nineteenth cartridge nestled in the firing chamber.