Don Pendleton - Citadel Of Fear

Up close, Gaz was a very ugly man. Someone had flattened his nose the way Manning had flattened Artyom’s, but he had never had it fixed. His thick-fingered hands were red and scarred. The mobster’s ugly face was blotched from years of heavy drinking. His thick, gray hair was Soviet-era cosmonaut. He smiled to reveal yellowed, crooked teeth and shrugged as if the matter was of no importance. “Sure, Nika. If it pleases you.” He lit a cigarette. “You look good.”

“You look as I remember you.”

“I will take this as compliment. Piles are killing me.”

“Too much easy living?” McCarter asked.

The Russian eyed McCarter.

McCarter noted that the Russian seemed utterly unperturbed and didn’t ask Propenko about his new friend.

Gaz grinned but his eyes were cold. “I had plenty hard labor in Siberia. Enough for lifetime.” Gaz deigned to glance at the Gazinskiy brothers sitting obediently on the couch. The mobster waved his cigarette to encompass Luffy-Land. “Speaking of soft life, you boys going into business? I tell you, Gazinskiys not made-men. Never will be, but they are paid up. Not sure Luffy-Land is worth headache for you.”

McCarter glanced around Luffy-Land’s dubious charms. The wiry guy was mad-dogging him but McCarter ignored him. “No, but it got us a meeting with you, Gospodin .”

Gaz made a noise. McCarter had just called him “sir.”

“Call me Gaz. my friends do.”

“Offer you a beer, Gaz?”

“Always!” Gaz raised a scarred eyebrow. “Unless there is something stronger?”

McCarter went behind the bar and poured three shots of Absolut. His was barely a splash. The three men downed them amiably.

Gaz smacked his lips. “So, Nika, word is you are unhappy.”

“None of us are happy,” McCarter remarked.

The young, skinny, agitated Russian took a step out of the skirmish line. “Who is this guy? Who cares if he is unhappy? He owes us money! He owes us blood!”

McCarter gave Gaz a patient look. Gaz sighed and spoke too low for the skinny man to hear. “That is the Pan Dory.”

McCarter nodded sympathetically. Pan was an ancient Slavic honorific for “royalty.” Dory was the diminutive for the Russian given name Dorofei. Russian honorifics and given name diminutives were never mixed, except with great affection or even greater condescension. Gaz had just sneered and called the man “The Little Lord.”

McCarter began to see the situation very clearly. “He is supposed to be learning from you?”

“Supposed to be. Father ranks rather high in certain circles in Kaliningrad.”

“And Luffy-Land is part of the little kingdom his father has given him,” McCarter concluded.

“Yes. I am afraid Gazinskiy brothers earn for Dory. You have taken Luffy-Land. As I say, we have slight problem.”

“Slight problem?” Dory stalked forward. “We have big problem! Who are these pricks?”

Manning stepped forward and intercepted him.

“And who is this smiling…” Dory trailed off.

McCarter was smiling at Dory. It was the special smile he reserved for intimidating unpleasant people. The smile that convinced very bad people that he was considering killing them and the deciding factor would be the next thing that came out of their mouth.

Dory met Manning’s gaze, blinked first and closed his mouth.

Gaz started dropping knowledge. He nodded at Propenko. “You know this man, and his reputation, Dory?”

“That is Nika—”

“Yes. Well, Nika Propenko is now mercenary and now doing jobs outside Russian Federation. Things went bad in Poland, and I am thinking he call upon his new Western friends.” Gaz put his hands on his chest and made an attempt at looking personally hurt by this development. “Instead of calling on old friends and homeboys.”

Propenko dragged deeply on his cigarette. “Hard to know who to trust.”

Dory regained a tiny amount of outrage. “Propenko brings foreign mercenaries into a place I control?” He shot a nervous, angry look at Manning. “And this smiling asshole is—”

Manning spoke the German he had been raised with. “Your worst nightmare.”

Gaz’s head snapped around. “German?”

Manning smiled menacingly. “Jah.”

McCarter watched wheels turn in Gaz’s mind.

The Berlin Wall had officially fallen in 1989. Before it had, East Germany had been an Orwellian nightmare. Their secret police and border guards had made the same services of their Soviet overlords look like mild-mannered milquetoasts, and in the Eastern bloc, East German organized crime was the worst of the worst and feared out of all relation to their numbers and actual influence. In Russia, even to this day, German was the language of the enemy. In Russian criminal circles, a smiling man speaking German was the Slavic version of the white devil.

Propenko had been doing work for criminals and parties unknown of late, and the fact that he had escaped from Poland, come back and kicked ass in Kaliningrad was causing shock waves. That he appeared to have a Nazi devil on a leash only added to the wampum he was walking with.

“Nika, my friend,” Gaz asked, “what is it you and your friends want?”

“Money,” McCarter suggested.

“Payback,” Propenko snarled.

Manning dropped the dead smile and shrugged. “A job?”

Gaz shoved out his shot glass and McCarter poured. The Russian leaned in and spoke low. “Listen, despite certain discrepancy and—” he looked back at Dory “—disrespect,

we can make this work out.” Gaz looked at McCarter warily and turned back to Propenko. “Forgive me, Nika. But you act like this man is your superior.”

Propenko simultaneously lied through his teeth and told the stone-cold truth at the same time. “The last time I took job from man in West?” He lifted his chin at McCarter. “I worked for him. He got me out of jam.”

Gaz chain-lit another cigarette. “I believe you. Your reputation is known. You say you want payback?”

“I was shot, captured and interrogated. Torture was amateurish, lightweight, Western. But as fighters these men were unbeatable.”

“You say you escaped?”

“I got myself out of that situation and made it across border. It beat being handcuffed to truck and waiting for Polish police.”

“I am a middleman, Nika, but I have been informed that certain parties would like to know much more about what happened in Poland. It was suggested that perhaps I scoop you up and bring you to them, or perhaps even show up with can of gasoline. I suggested I talk to you first.”

“Thank you.”

Gaz glanced at McCarter and Manning. “I am thinking I made correct choice. Tell me, Nika. These men who captured you and interrogated you… You think you can find them again? It will be worth great deal of money.”

“Perhaps. But if I can’t?” It was Propenko’s turn to glance at McCarter and Manning. “These men can.”

* * *

War Room, Stony Man Farm

“SO WE’RE BAIT,” Carl Lyons concluded.

It was a simple plan, but from where Lyons sat it sucked. Able Team was to go to Europe, to essentially pose as Phoenix Force to fool the enemy, while the real Phoenix Force led the enemy straight to Able Team.

“That’s about it,” Price confirmed. “I discussed it with Hal, and he agrees we’re boxed in.” Price was referring to Hal Brognola, Director of the Special Operations Group. Brognola was fully engaged running interference in Washington, DC, but was in constant touch with his mission controller. “Risky, yes, but it’s our best bet. And he’s got the President’s go-ahead.”

Rosario Blancanales shrugged and looked at Schwarz. “Wouldn’t be the first time we’re the cheese in the mousetrap.”