Road Of Bones. Don Pendleton

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      CHAPTER THREE

      Yakutsk

      Bolan drove aimlessly, letting the woman calm down. She was hurting, of course. He’d seen the marks of torture on her flesh before she dressed, and while they all looked superficial, he knew he couldn’t judge her pain threshold or personal resilience on such short acquaintance.

       “You’re safe now,” he told her.

       “Safe?” She made a little hissing sound that could have been sarcastic laughter filtered through exhaustion. “What is safe?”

       “We’re getting out of here,” he said.

       “You think so?”

       “That’s the plan.”

       After a silent interval, she said, “I told them nothing. It was close, though. If the dry ice had arrived…”

       Bolan recalled the first goon he had met, the plastic cooler leaking smoky vapor as he dropped.

       “You showed them how strong you are,” Bolan said.

       “Then why do I feel weak?”

       “You’re losing the adrenaline rush.”

       In fact, it didn’t matter if she’d cracked or not, as long as she survived and followed through on testifying when the time came. The opposition had to have a fair idea of what Anuchin and her partner had uncovered, and the use to which it would be put. The torture was to verify her knowledge, prior to silencing the final witness and securing—as they hoped—a free pass on impending charges.

       “I am cold, as well.”

       “That’s shock,” he said. “You need to rest. Stay warm. I wish we had a place where you could shower, maybe get some better clothes.”

       “There is a place,” she told him, sounding groggy. “Keep on this way, then turn north on Ordzhonikidze Street.”

       “You’ll stay awake and help me spot the sign?” he asked, not teasing her.

       “I’ll try. If not, you’ll see a large Pervaya Pomosch pharmacy located on the northwest corner of the intersection. Let it be your guide.”

       “And after that?”

       “I’ll be awake, don’t worry. I have too much pain for sleep.”

       He let that pass, knowing from personal experience that a commiserative stranger couldn’t help. Instead, he asked, “Is this a safehouse that we’re going to?”

       “I hope so,” she replied, forcing the vestige of a smile.

       “It isn’t FSB?” he asked.

       “Private,” she informed him. “Rented with Sergey so we could meet, collect our evidence, discuss what we had learned without an ear in every corner.”

       Bolan wondered if there had been more between the partners than idealism and a scheme for cleaning up the agency they served. Maybe the safehouse doubled as a love nest when they felt the need.

       And if it had, so what?

       If Anuchin and the late Dollezhal were hoping for a long-term cleanup of the FSB—much less the Russian Federation—Bolan pegged them as naive. Assuming they could bring down the top men, clean house beyond the normal game of hanging scapegoats out to dry, what then? Had either one of them imagined that they would be welcomed back as heroes to resume their duties for a grateful state?

       Fat chance.

       Still, they had tried. And Anuchin might succeed to some extent, if he could get her out of Russia in one piece and safely back to the United States.

       Huge if.

       He saw the pharmacy, turned north and drove another quarter mile before the woman had him turn again, and yet again, running parallel to Ordzhonikidze Street through a residential neighborhood. Six houses down, she had him pull in on the left.

       “I have a key to the garage, unless they took it,” Anuchin told him, rummaging around inside her bag. “No, here it is.”

       Bolan accepted it, unlocked the small attached garage and raised its door. No gunmen waited in the glare of headlights. He walked back to the GAZ and nosed it inside. Anuchin got out, found a light switch and stood by waiting until he had closed the door, then turned it on.

       “In case someone is watching,” she explained unnecessarily.

       “I think they would have jumped us,” Bolan said.

       “You’ll think I’m paranoid,” she suggested.

       “After tonight? Not even close,” he promised.

       Nodding almost thankfully, she turned and led the way into the house.

      Moscow

      “WHAT DO YOU mean, ‘all dead’?” Eugene Marshak demanded.

       “Just what I say, sir,” Stephan Levshin replied. “All dead. Our men, that is.”

       Marshak might have slapped Levshin if they hadn’t been separated by three СКАЧАТЬ