Don Pendleton - Extraordinary Rendition

Bazhov would ask her, if he had the chance.

Before he put a bullet in her brain.

Somewhere behind him, Malevich and Surikov were racing to catch up and join the chase. Two cars might box the woman’s vehicle. Better than one, in any case. With one, all he could do was ram her, sideswipe her, or try to shoot her off the road.

And if Bazhov should kill his sacred target in the process, it would be his ass. He couldn’t blame his men for the mistake, when he gave them their orders.

“Osip!” he barked. “Can you catch her, or not?”

“I can!”

“You’re sure it isn’t too much trouble?”

“No, Yuri!”

“All right, then. Will you do it, for Christ’s sake?”

Bek’s cheeks flushed crimson at the insult, but he offered no response. Instead, he let the BMW do his talking for him, surging forward as he found more power somehow, somewhere underneath its hood.

Clutching his pistol in a fierce, white-knuckled grip, Bazhov prepared himself for battle.

“ALMOST THERE,” Anzhela Pilkin told her silent passenger.

“The park there, on the left?” he asked.

“That’s it.”

Despite its grim-faced reputation, Moscow was a “green” city. It boasted ninety-six parks and eighteen public gardens, comprising 174 square miles of green zones and thirty-nine square miles of forest. Each citizen of Moscow was blessed with 290 square feet of parkland, versus nine in New York, seven in London and six in Paris. Thousands enjoyed the parks each day.

But few by night.

Pilkin counted on the fear of crime that kept most of her fellow Muscovites away from dark, secluded places after nightfall. There was risk enough of being mugged, robbed, raped, or shot by accident in daylight, without tempting Fate.

She found the side street she was looking for and swung her VAZ sportster off Chertanovskaya Street, leaving the main flow of traffic behind. She lost the rest turning in to the park, killing her lights at once and watching for the chase car in her rearview mirror.

Was there any chance that her pursuers would be fooled and drive past?

No. There they were, making the left-hand turn, and then the right.

“So much for losing them,” she said. “We’ll have to fight the bastards.”

“Ready when you are,” he replied.

Pilkin sped along a narrow drive that ran halfway around the park, dead-ending in a parking lot located at the north end of a man-made lake. Arriving in the lot, she put the VAZ through a squealing one-eighty, then killed its engine.

“I’d rather meet them on foot,” she told Bolan.

“Sounds good,” he replied, and was out of his door in a flash.

They ran into darkness, away from her car, which she knew the pursuers would make their first target. Pilkin hoped it wouldn’t be destroyed. She was dreading the paperwork required to explain any damage to state property. There’d be enough just for the shooting, without car repairs on top of it.

She thumbed off her pistol’s safety, crouching next to Bolan in the shadow of a hedge, watching the headlights of the enemy’s vehicle sweep across the parking lot and focus on her VAZ.

“Now!” she told Bolan, squeezing off three rounds in rapid fire, aimed at the driver’s deeply tinted window.

Pilkin heard glass smash as she fired, then Bolan’s borrowed pistol barked in unison with hers. The chase car’s driver hit his brakes, then switched to the accelerator in a heartbeat, revving past her VAZ, on toward the lake.

Go in! Go in, she urged them silently.

But it stopped just short of splashdown, and the engine died.

YURI BAZHOV FLINCHED from the first crash of gunfire, cursing as something wet and warm spattered the left side of his face. Bek was gagging, choking in the driver’s seat, still clinging to the steering wheel as dark blood spurted from his neck, streaking the windshield and dashboard.

The BMW jerked, then powered forward as Bek slumped in his seat, his right foot jammed on the accelerator. Bazhov saw that they were headed for the lake, and he envisioned sinking with the car into its strangling depths.

He cursed the dead or dying man beside him, who was once a friend of sorts. When a hard slap had no effect on Bek, Bazhov bent to grab his right leg, slammed his head against the steering wheel and cursed again, then wrenched Bek’s foot sideways and off the gas pedal.

The BMW slowed, stuttered and stalled. Peering across the hood, Bazhov could see that they had stopped with yards to spare before taking the final plunge.

More bullets struck the car, cracking its rear window, drumming against the trunk and left-rear fender. Perov and Radko shouted from the backseat, angling to return fire, finding no immediate targets.

“Get out!” Bazhov ordered. Feeling absurd, he added, “And remember! Do not kill the man!”

Bazhov nearly dropped his cell phone, stumbling from the car, while Perov and Radko unlimbered their guns. He speed-dialed Pavel Malevich, and this time got an answer on the second ring.

“What’s happening?” Malevich asked.

Bazhov raised his phone and let the man hear staccato gunfire.

“That’s what’s happening, idiot! Do you hear it? Osip’s dead, and where in hell are you?”

“On Chertanovskaya Street. You said—”

“Look for a park,” Bazhov said, interrupting him. “I don’t know what they call it. On your left, somewhere. It has a lake. Listen for gunfire. Move your ass!”

A bullet struck the car within a foot of Bazhov’s head and ricocheted into the darkness with a sound that nearly made him wet himself. He had been under fire before, of course, and more than once. But this, somehow, felt different.

It felt like his last moments of life.

In which case, what did he have to lose?

Morozov could hardly punish him if he was dead. There was no pain beyond the final moment of oblivion…unless the priests were right about hellfire.

Bazhov could only face one peril at a time, on one plane of existence. If the fires of hell were waiting for him, by God, let them wait.

Edging around the BMW’s right-rear fender, Bazhov risked a peek in search of targets. He saw muzzle-flashes, moving closer, and heard more rounds strike the car.

Thankfully, the BMW had been stolen. It was no great loss, nothing for Morozov to be angry about, he thought. Letting the stranger from the airport slip away, however, was another story altogether.

Bazhov saw his targets now—a man and woman, racing through the night, advancing as if totally devoid of fear. They used the shadows as a cloak, but still came on to meet their enemies.

Bazhov admired that, in his way, but admiration wouldn’t interfere with duty. Aiming at the woman, he fired two quick shots, then ducked back under cover as a bullet struck the BMW’s taillight inches from his face.

FOUR SHOTS GONE, and Bolan wasn’t sure that he’d hit anyone. He’d definitely hit the BMW, and it wasn’t armored, but that didn’t mean he’d scored on any of its occupants.

Time to get serious.

Pilkin dodged two hasty shots from someone crouching at the Beemer’s rear, and Bolan drove the shooter under cover with a round that blew out the right-hand taillight. Almost simultaneously, two guys popped up to fire across the sedan’s sleek hood.

One had a pistol, the other one some kind of stubby submachine gun. Possibly a Bizon, with its 64-round magazine, or the smaller PP-2000. As he hit the dirt and rolled, his ears told Bolan that the stuttergun was no Kalashnikov. It was 9 mm, tops, but no less deadly for its caliber.

He came up firing, two quick rounds to make the shooters duck, then rushed them. It was the only option available, since Bolan couldn’t linger where he was, and a retreat would only let them shoot him in the back.