Cold Fury. Don Pendleton

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      “Why did it take you so long to answer the damn phone?” Rokva demanded.

      “I am busy. You think I was out admiring the moon?”

      Lebed’s insolence sent a spurt of anger through him. “Don’t be a smart-ass. Is everything ready?”

      “As ready as it can be. One of the planes has mechanical problems. It is down.”

      Rokva felt his anger heighten. “Why was I not advised of this sooner?”

      “Listen, you try dealing with these damn Eskimos. They are difficult.” Lebed’s voice sounded weary yet tinctured with a slur. The son of a bitch must have been imbibing again. Rokva decided Sergei could deal with the drunken bastard when they arrived.

      “Charter another plane,” he ordered.

      “What?”

      “Another DHC-6. Make sure it can hold at least twenty-five.”

      Lebed snorted. “Oh, all right. Anything else you’d like me to do?”

      “Is Wladimir with you?”

      “Of course.”

      More insolence. This flippant asshole was going to pay for his effrontery.

      “May I assume the third plane is ready for him?” Rokva asked.

      He heard Lebed heave a heavy breath before answering. “Yes.”

      “Good. I want him to be ready to leave with the samples as soon as we arrive.”

      “Anything else? Boss.”

      The impudent lilt in Lebed’s voice as he added the last word sealed his fate. Rokva waited a few beats before responding to be certain he had eliminated any trace of the building rage in his reply. “We will be there soon. Keep me apprised of the situation.” He then terminated the call and looked back at Sergei, who was smirking.

      “Drunk?” he asked.

      Rokva nodded.

      “I told you before, did I not?” Sergei held up the bottle of vodka. “Some men can handle the juice, others let it handle them.”

      “We will deal with that idiot later. Find Boris Kazak and make sure he has everything properly labeled and categorized. And tell him to get ready to split up the shipment for a partial harvest. We’ll need to alter our plan.”

      “That is my Nikoloz,” Sergei said. “Always planning ahead.”

      “Life is like a game of chess. A true master must always be thinking several moves ahead of what is before him on the board.”

      Seattle, Washington

      “Russian,” Grimaldi said, nodding. “Yep, I had these guys pegged from the get-go. But I thought the bikers and the Russians didn’t get along up around these parts?”

      Bolan was aware that a rather protracted and brutal conflict had occurred between Russian organized crime and the biker gangs in Seattle and Vancouver several years ago, but he also knew that new profits and criminal enterprises often supplanted old grudges and rivalries.

      “Maybe they’ve patched things up,” Bolan said as he walked the length of the truck.

      Something was bothering him. He used his secure cell to contact Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman at Stony Man Farm. The cyber wizard answered on the second ring.

      “What’s up, Striker?”

      He gave Kurtzman a quick rundown of what had transpired and gave him the plates on both the SUV and the truck. “But before you do that, we’re going to call you on the dead guy’s sat phone. See if you can run a trace on where the last call came from. I’m also emailing you a picture of a Cyrillic text.”

      “Okay, piece of cake.”

      Bolan handed the dead Russian’s satellite phone to Grimaldi and told him to call Kurtzman’s number.

      “Aaron, give me a call back when you get something,” Bolan said.

      “You want to hold on? It shouldn’t take me that long. You’re talking to the fastest keyboard on the east coast.”

      “Just call me back,” Bolan said. “I want to check something out.”

      Grimaldi finished dialing and made a thumbs-up gesture.

      “Okay,” Kurtzman said. “I’m getting your unidentified sat phone call. I’ll get back to you.”

      Bolan terminated the call and returned his cell phone to its pouch. He walked to the back of the trailer, pulled open the rear door and stared into the boxed bed.

      Grimaldi joined him. “What, you got a taste for noodles?”

      Bolan partially closed the rear door and leaned back, studying the outside of the truck and then looking back inside.

      “What?” Grimaldi asked.

      “Cover me,” Bolan said, hopping up into the rear compartment and taking out his knife. He moved down the narrow center aisle again, going slowly and measuring his steps. When he got to the end, he looked back at Grimaldi, who was holding his MP-5 at combat ready. Bolan turned and drew his arm back, pressing the blade into one of the boxes at the end of the aisle. It went in only a few inches and stopped. He withdrew the knife and began feeling the other boxes, stopping about halfway down and pressing the blade into the cardboard again. This time when the blade hit something solid, the Executioner rotated the knife, cutting away the surface material. A lever-like handle became visible.

      Bolan cut vertically on the boxes on both sides of the aisle and then slashed the top and the bottom. He pulled the false wall of cardboard away and tossed it to the rear. Grimaldi reached in with his left hand, grabbed it and jerked it out of the truck. He immediately brought the submachine gun up to the ready again as Bolan withdrew his Beretta 93-R and switched on the flashlight attachment. With his left hand, Bolan grabbed the lever and twisted it, pushing the door to the right. It slid behind the façade of stacked cardboard boxes, revealing a hidden compartment.

      As Bolan shone the light inside, his nostrils were assailed with a combination of body odor and human waste. The beam swept over twelve frightened women. They shielded their eyes from the brightness and Bolan saw that they were all relatively young and clothed in filthy garments. One muttered something in what Bolan felt certain was Russian.

      “Don’t be afraid,” he said in Russian. “We won’t hurt you.” He motioned for them to exit the confined space.

      Once the women had filed out, Bolan swept the light over the inside of the cramped enclosure. From the smell of it, they’d been confined in there for some time. Two buckets full of what appeared to be human waste had been pushed to the side, contributing to the rank odor. Plastic water bottles were scattered on the floor along with torn noodle packages. Apparently the women had been subsisting on hard, uncooked noodles. Bolan shook his head as he moved back to the opening at the rear of the truck.

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