Extraordinary Rendition. Don Pendleton

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      Marx led the way, as usual. He was his own point man, never asking any other member of the HRT to do a job he personally shunned. Another thirty yards or so, and they’d have cover from the dacha’s seven-car garage while they prepared for entry.

      Just a little farther, and—

      The night vanished around them in a blaze of metal halide lamps. A deep metallic voice demanded their immediate surrender, first in Russian, then in English.

      Marx reacted while the faceless drone was midway through his spiel, raising his SMG and firing at the nearest bank of lights. His team responded instantly, blazing away to either side. Their submachine guns whispered, while the big Benelli shotgun thundered. From a distance, Marx’s snipers opened up, but they were short on living targets.

      Half the halide lamps were dark and smoking when the muzzle-flashes started winking all around the FBI strike team. Marx staggered as a bullet struck his body armor, bruising his chest underneath the Kevlar vest. He shifted targets, firing at live enemies instead of floodlights now, seeing the mission go to hell and praying that he could still get his team out intact.

      But two of them were down already, Jurecki and Zvirbulis—their two Russian-speakers—sprawled on the driveway’s pavement, deathly still. Marx didn’t want to see the pools of crimson spreading underneath their supine forms, steaming from contact with the frigid air.

      Marx felt his magazine run dry and dropped it, reaching for a fresh one. He’d withdrawn the new mag halfway from its pouch on his tactical vest when a slug punched through his armpit, slipping past the armor, tumbling through his rib cage and right lung.

      The shock of impact dropped Marx to the pavement. Numb fingers lost their grip on his SMG, and he heard it clatter out of reach. Around him, twitching, jerking, he could see the other members of his team dropping like shattered mannequins.

      Maybe the snipers could escape in time and reach the waiting chopper. If they weren’t cut off on their retreat and—

      Marx blinked as a shadow fell between him and the halide lamps that hadn’t been shot out. It took the last of his remaining strength to turn and face the weapon leveled at him.

      “Goodbye, American,” the gunman said.

      CHAPTER ONE

      Moscow, Russia

      Mack Bolan had the Beatles in his head, Paul and John singing “Back in the USSR” as his Aeroflot Airbus A330-200 circled in a holding pattern over Domodedovo International Airport.

      But it wasn’t the USSR anymore. Now, it was the Russian Federation, totally divorced from all the cold-war crimes of communism, prosperous and overflowing with democracy for all.

      Sure thing.

      And if you bought that, there were time-share contracts on the Brooklyn Bridge that ought to make your eyes light up, big-time.

      This wasn’t Bolan’s first visit to Russia, but familiarity didn’t relieve the tightening he felt inside, as if someone had found the winding stem to his internal clock and given it a sudden twist. Nerves wouldn’t show on Bolan’s face or in his mannerisms, but they registered their agitation in his gut and in his head.

      Russia had always been the big, bad Bear when he was growing up, serving his country as a Green Beret, and moving on from there to wage a one-man war against the Mafia. Moscow, the Kremlin and the KGB—under its varied names—had lurked behind a number of the plots Bolan had privately unraveled, and had spawned a fair percentage of the threats he’d faced after his government created Stony Man Farm and its off-the-books response to terrorism.

      Then, as if by magic, virtually overnight, that “evil empire” had been neutralized. Governments fell, the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union shattered like crockery dropped on concrete.

      Threat neutralized?

      Hardly.

      In some ways, from the global export of its vicious Mafiya to home-grown civil wars, continued spying and subversion, and free-floating swarms of ex-government agents peddling the tools of Armageddon, Mother Russia was more dangerous than ever.

      And Bolan was going in to face the Bear unarmed.

      Well, not the whole Bear, if his mission briefing had been accurate. More like a litter of rabid cubs, protecting a rogue wolverine.

      Bolan broke that train. His enemies this time—like every other time—were men, not animals.

      No other animal on Earth would kill thousands for profit. Or for pleasure.

      The pilot’s disembodied voice informed him that their flight was cleared for landing. Finally.

      Domodedovo was one of three airports serving Moscow, the others being Sheremetyevo International and Vnukovo International. Among them, the three handled forty-odd-million passengers per year. It should be relatively easy, in that crush, for one pseudo-Canadian to pass unnoticed on his way.

      Should be.

      Bolan had flown from Montreal to London with a Canadian passport in the name of Matthew Cooper. He was carrying sufficient ID to support that cover, including an Ontario driver’s license, Social Insurance card and functional platinum plastic. He also came prepared with Canadian currency.

      So far, so good.

      But Bolan wasn’t on the ground yet, hadn’t met his contact from the Federal Protective Service—FSB—Russia’s equivalent of the FBI.

      So, what had changed?

      Russian relations with America, perhaps. Depending on the day and hour when you turned on CNN to find out which world leaders were at odds with whom, and why. This week, it seemed, the Russians needed help and weren’t afraid to say so.

      More or less.

      But as for what Bolan would find waiting in Moscow, he would simply have to wait and see.

      And not much longer now.

      With an ungainly thump and snarl, the Airbus A330-200 touched down.

      The Executioner was on the ground in Moscow, one more time.

      YURI BAZHOV DISLIKED airports. He didn’t care for travel, generally, and he hated flying, but the main reason for his dislike of airports was their fetish for security. They teemed with uniforms and guns that he could see, while other police were undoubtedly lurking in plainclothes or hiding in back rooms and watching the concourse with closed-circuit cameras.

      Bazhov stopped short of spitting on the floor, which would have drawn attention to himself. The last thing he needed, standing with a GSh-18 automatic pistol tucked under his belt at the small of his back, was for some cop or militiaman to stop and frisk him on vague suspicion.

      The job had to be important, he supposed, although it didn’t sound like much. Taras Morozov didn’t send a six-man team out to the airport every day, with orders to collect a stranger flying in from Canada.

      Not greet him, mind you. Just collect him.

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