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CHAPTER FIVE

It took them more than an hour meandering along some unkempt back streets to avoid roadblocks before they reached the airport in St. Petersburg. Under normal circumstances it wouldn’t have been difficult, but the recent outbreak of violence had the local cops scrambling to choke roadways with random inspection teams. Bolan elected to ride shotgun and let Kisa Naryshkin take the wheel. He might have considered driving in other circumstances, but this was her territory and she knew it much better than he did.

He could also keep his eyes open for tails.

For most of the drive they didn’t speak to each other, and then when they did it was small-talk. Bolan couldn’t say he minded all that much. This was the first combat stretch he’d allowed himself since his encounter with the SMJ at the hotel more than nine hours before. That was okay, though, since the trip to Murmansk would take a few hours by plane—there would be plenty of time for chitchat.

Bolan had thought about using his cell phone to contact Stony Man but decided against it. He’d already phoned Jack Grimaldi and advised they would be leaving for Murmansk. The Stony Man pilot promised flight readiness by the time they arrived, and it wouldn’t be difficult to get flight clearance since they were flying within the country. All he’d have to do would be to file an amended flight plan. Business travel between the two cities by private jet wasn’t all that much out of the ordinary, although the time of morning might have set a few of the more curious types wondering. Still, Grimaldi had indicated to Bolan it wouldn’t be a problem.

When they arrived at the airport, they left Naryshkin’s car in a long-term parking garage and took a shuttle to the main terminal. They then passed through a checkpoint where neither of their documents got more than a cursory inspection. Bolan’s cover story as an American businessmen and Naryshkin posing as his interpreter seemed legitimate enough. Especially when the young woman showed her government credentials, which allowed her to travel unhindered through most of the country with considerable immunity from detainment. Bolan couldn’t help but wonder if the relatively few questions and disinterested scrutiny they experienced might not have been the result of a phone call or two being made by a certain former member of the GRU.

Whatever the case, they were airborne in no time and they settled in for their flight over coffee and a sandwich for Bolan, while Naryshkin consumed a hot cocoa and a pair of cheese Danishes with the voracity of someone who hadn’t eaten in a week. Bolan let her food settle some before turning their conversation to the topic at hand.

“You’re sure that Leo and Sergei will take a train to Murmansk?” he began.

Naryshkin nodded as she licked the remnants of her food from her fingers. “It is the plan we had discussed. And if you’re correct about the estimated time they left, it would make perfect sense. There was a train that left the Ladoga Station in St. Petersburg for Murmansk at 5:50 p.m.”

“What time does it arrive?”

“I cannot recall exactly, but we will be plenty ahead of them. About 10:00 p.m. tomorrow, I believe.”

Bolan whistled. “Yeah, that’s a long haul.”

“There is one stop in between,” she said, looking at her watch, “but I believe we are too late for that.”

“Where’s the stop?”

“A passenger station in Petrozavodsk.”

Bolan nodded as he looked at his own watch. It was just going on 0200 hours. “Didn’t they worry the SMJ would be covering the train stations?”

“The passenger trains, yes. But this is an express cargo carrier. I was able to arrange for those seats just for times like these. Those in the Sevooborot would not have ever thought to look at a cargo train, because there is very little room for other than crews to travel on them. We figured it was the safest way to go since the chances were pretty good they knew nothing of my involvement.”

“I have to admit I’m impressed.”

Naryshkin smiled and lowered her head, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. “I wish I could say that I had not learned a trick or two from Father growing up, but then I would be lying.”

“You don’t have to be ashamed,” Bolan replied. “We’re all a product of our upbringing in one way or another. It’s what we choose to do with it that counts.”

“When we reach Murmansk, if we find them, you will let me see Leo?”

“I promise to do my best. But understand my first duty is to make sure you come through this alive. I gave my word to your father and I intend to keep it.”

The Russian expressed her disappointment. “I understand. No guarantees.”

“You should try to get some sleep,” Bolan counseled her. “You’re going to need it.”

She nodded and immediately inclined her seat and closed her eyes. Within ten minutes she was out like a light.

Unable to sleep, Bolan took the time to further study the files of Rostov and Cherenko. He’d already reviewed them twice in his hotel and knew they contained scant information. He had to admit that predicting their next move hadn’t been easy once the meet had gone to hell at the hotel. The other consideration was how the SMJ had beaten him at nearly every turn. There could have been a mole inside the Company, although Bolan figured it would have to be someone pretty high in the food chain, not to mention he doubted the SMJ had enough money to make it worth the risk.

That left Bolan considering the strong possibility that Rostov and Cherenko had been on the level when they cited a partnership between the SMJ and JI. Maybe a group of young revolutionaries didn’t have the resources to get inside the American intelligence community, but the JI certainly did, and they had proved it on more than one occasion. Bolan recalled the alliance the JI had formed with Japanese terrorists resulting in the theft of an entire U.S. aircraft with a top-secret, unmanned combat airplane aboard. Had it not been for the combined efforts of Able Team and Phoenix Force, they might have gotten away with it.

What Bolan still couldn’t piece together centered on how an alliance with the SMJ could benefit the Islamic terrorist group. That mystery probably couldn’t be solved until Rostov and Cherenko were safely in custody and on their way to the States. And until he found them, Bolan could do little more than run interference and hope this time around the information from Kisa Naryshkin would put him one step ahead of the competition.

The Executioner sensed his mission had barely begun.

JURG KOVLUN WALKED along the back lane of the underground shooting range and watched with satisfaction as the trainees grouped their shots on the paper targets with admirable precision. His training, coupled with the weapons provided by their contacts in the Jemaah al-Islamiyah, had produced the most excellent results. These were the results that the colonel should have been congratulating him for instead of criticizing him for the handling of two Russian punks who weren’t under his control to begin with.

Why couldn’t the SMJ police their own screw-ups? What did he look like, anyway? He was a professional soldier, a Spetsnaz veteran, not a nanny! There were moments when Kovlun wondered if it had ever been worth his time to join this crazy plan of the colonel’s. While he believed in Anatoly Satyev’s genius as a businessman, he’d never much trusted the man’s military tactics or strategic abilities. Fighting a war like this one took more than simple money-changing and cheap disinformation campaigns. Such a cause as theirs required sound battle plans and the ability to position men appropriately. For example, why conduct business with the JI in Russia on their terms? Why not do the business dealings on neutral ground? And why, especially, had they chosen to involve young revolutionaries? Weren’t seasoned professionals more appropriate for the tasks at hand?

Well, Kovlun couldn’t deny that the results had been greater than he expected. Of course, Satyev had permitted him a free hand in the training of these gang members, and it hadn’t taken much effort to bring the impressionable trainers in the Sevooborot around to his way of doing things. Through sheer discipline and the transfer of knowledge, Kovlun had turned more than forty SMJ recruits posing as American gang-bangers into a fighting force ready to do the colonel’s bidding.

They had also chosen this particular location for a very good reason. Portland, Oregon, would serve as a proving ground, of sorts, since the police department here sponsored a local FBI office that specialized in gang activity. These officers and special agents were better trained and equipped to combat gang violence than those in just about any other city in America, Los Angeles included; Kovlun knew that was saying a lot. If these young men could put down the police resistance here, they would be unstoppable anywhere else. The other thing they had going for this plan was a general denial by Americans that gang violence wasn’t a serious problem except in the largest cities. The flaw in that theory, aside from its mass acceptance, was that America had one of the worst gang problems in the world and, per capita, more gang-related murders, robberies and rapes than any other country. This wasn’t exactly a statistic the nation would accept easily, and by that fact alone Kovlun figured the colonel’s plan had a marginal chance at succeeding.

Kovlun finished his inspection and then ordered the range master to wrap it up before heading upstairs to the club. It lay dark and relatively empty, being only ten o’clock in the morning, but in twelve more hours it would be filled to capacity with teenagers and young adults, the perfect cover from which to launch their first major strike.

Kovlun nodded in greeting at his two lieutenants, Mikhail Pilkin and Aleksander Briansky. Pilkin had been in the Sevooborot since a very young man, actually a second-generation revolutionary of his father—one of the co-founding members of the organization and now a statistic in the files of the Moscow special police unit appointed to combat youth gangs. Briansky, a former native of the Ukraine, had fled his country and come to St. Petersburg for work, only to discover there was a lot more money to be made with his special affinity for guns. Briansky remained the chief armorer for the group, as well as a unit leader, and Pilkin oversaw most of the tactical operations based on Kovlun’s orders.

The two were hunkered over a map of Portland spread across the stage at the front of the club.

“What say you?” Briansky greeted Kovlun in traditional fashion.

Kovlun nodded and replied, “Their shooting. It is much improved.”

Pilkin was smoking a cigarette and in a cloud of exhaled smoke he replied, “Aleks performed a few modifications on the guns we received from the Arabs. They’re much tighter now.”

“We also took out the rattle in some of them,” Briansky added. “It wouldn’t do to have them making noise during the operation, Comrade.”

Kovlun furrowed his brown at hearing about the defect. “I agree. That was good thinking. I will have to speak with our supplier.”

“Would it not be better if we were to just shoot him between the eyes the next time he gives us crap weapons?” Pilkin asked.

“Save the hard-on for your many girlfriends, Mikhail,” Kovlun warned.

“Sorry, Comrade, but I don’t much trust the Arabs.”

“I don’t trust them, either, but for now we’re forced to work with them. I have assurances from my people that once we’ve accomplished this mission we will no longer have to deal with them.”

Briansky’s eyebrows rose. “Does that mean we will also be able to start choosing our own targets?”

“I choose our targets,” Kovlun countered. “Now and in the future. Not you, not anybody else. Got it?”

Briansky nodded.

Kovlun didn’t like having to slap them down—they had actually turned out to be fairly competent operatives despite their youth—but he’d learned as a leader that young men full of piss and iron who were anxious for a fight occasionally needed to have their reins jerked so they didn’t go off half-cocked and do something stupid.

“Have you heard the status on the little problem I brought to you earlier, Mikhail?”

Pilkin shook his head. “We’re still working on it. Which reminds me that we may have another problem with that.”

“I don’t want to hear of any more problems. I’ve already had my ass torn apart one time for this and I don’t want to bear any further criticism. Cherenko and Rostov are part of the Sevooborot, not part of this unit, and that means they shouldn’t be my problem. I thought I’d made that clear the first time.”

“You did, but this is a new development, and I have to tell you about it, especially when there’s a chance it could compromise our operations here.”

Kovlun’s hair stood on the back of his neck. “And what is that?”

“An American agent,” Pilkin replied. “Not the two men from the CIA. We managed to take care of them easily enough. This is another man, one we do not recognize and who doesn’t show up on file with any of our contacts inside the intelligence networks. Even the Brit who made the initial contact with Kisa Naryshkin can’t tell us who this man is.”

“So what?” Kovlun said. “I don’t see the problem. He’s one man.”

“Yes,” Briansky interjected. “But this ‘one man’ has already taken out more than two dozen of our best operatives. So he may be one man but he fights like an army! Unless, of course, the reports we’ve received are exaggerated.”

Pilkin continued, “Not to mention that he somehow found out about the idea you had to grab Kisa Naryshkin and hold her out as bait until Leo Rostov came calling for her. Now the American’s disappeared with her and we have no idea where they’ve gone.”

“What about her old man?” Kovlun demanded.

“He’s onto us, too. He’s got so many guns watching him now there’s no way we could get to him even if we wanted to. And he’s chosen to protect this American by claiming it was him who took out all of the men at the house.”

“Yeah, as if anyone would actually believe that,” Briansky added with a disgusted wheeze.

Kovlun had lit a cigarette and begun to pace the floor. “Oh, they’ll believe whatever General Tolenka Naryshkin tells them to believe, you can be sure of that. I’m not even confident my people can get their hooks into him. And if he’s covering for the American, your resources will never be able to track a man who doesn’t allegedly exist.”

“The cops are too busy cleaning up the mess of bodies this man has already left behind,” Briansky pointed out.

Not to mention that most of them are Sevooborot, Kovlun thought. Which meant they wouldn’t be looking too hard for the perpetrator, especially not when they heard stories about some lone, shadowy American who committed all these heinous acts. The St. Petersburg police didn’t have much cause to feel empathetic when a young revolutionary fell under violent means. They had certainly committed enough acts of violence against others, many of them low-ranking members of the Russian government. The Sevooborot couldn’t very well expect the full weight of justice to rush to their aid when the tables were turned. Kovlun understood that, and he’d never really been a fan of civilian revolutionaries trying to overthrow the government by force of arms. That was better left to those trained for that kind of activity.

Finally, Kovlun said, “I would agree this does present a bit of a problem. Very well. I’ll make some phone calls and see what I can find out about your mysterious American. In the meantime, the shooting drills are wrapping up and I want inspections on equipment and weapons to start immediately after lunch. Your units will depart for their respective targets at 2000 hours sharp. The men are free to engage in recreation on site once inspections are completed, but nobody leaves and no alcohol from now until we’ve returned. Any man caught sneaking a drink will be shot on sight. The same goes for drugs.”

“Yes, Comrade,” the men declared in unison.

Kovlun wheeled and headed for the club exit. He needed to head downtown, find a decent place to have a late breakfast. On his way, he would make those phone calls. Yes, he would find this American, if he even existed.

And then he would destroy him.

CHAPTER SIX

“Coffee?” Barbara Price inquired, the carafe poised over Hal Brognola’s cup.

The big Fed pulled the unlit cigar from his mouth and held up a hand. “No thanks, and especially no thanks if Bear made it. His coffee’s strong enough to straighten the prehensile toes on a chimp.”

Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman, head of the Farm’s cyberteam, looked up from where he’d busied himself at the computer terminal and frowned. “I’m hurt, Hal. I thought everybody liked my coffee.”

“Everybody does like your coffee, Aaron,” Price said, arching one eyebrow and fixing Brognola with an amused gaze. “But not everyone has Ironman’s constitution.”

Brognola shrugged and chuckled, then felt the rise of heartburn in his chest and tugged a roll of antacids from his vest pocket. He popped three, studied the package for a moment, then sampled one more for good measure before returning the half roll to his pocket. The burn started to subside almost instantaneously, as it always did, and Brognola sighed with relief. At least now he could focus on the briefing.

“Okay, let’s get started,” Price said after topping off Kurtzman’s cup. Price was Stony Man’s mission controller and often held the lives of the Farm’s action teams in her capable hands.

Kurtzman tapped a key on the terminal and the lights dimmed as the face of a young man in the uniform of a Soviet army officer materialized on the massive screen on the far wall.

“Bear has compiled every scrap of intelligence we have on the SMJ, aka the Youth Revolution,” Price began, “and cross-referenced that with potential suspects who might have some reason to profit from their activities. We pulled quite a number of names out of the hat, but this man is our prime candidate.”

“Anatoly Satyev,” Brognola interjected.

“You know him,” Price said.

“You bet. He would have been one of my first choices, too. High-ranking officer, colonel as I recall, in the KGB and a first-rate pain in this country’s butt. Current location?”

Price shook her head. “We’re not sure. Satyev dropped off the radar for quite some time after the fall of the Soviet Union. About seven years, actually. He resurfaced in 1998 with an entirely new agenda, new credentials, the works. Even with our extensive resources we haven’t been able to pinpoint him or his source of operations. We know he maintains several businesses, some paper corporations and a few legit, under a variety of pseudonyms. He’s appointed CEOs for every company he ever started, though.”

“Pardon the interruption,” Kurtzman chimed in, “but there are a lot of suspicions from agencies like the NSA and FBI that he may be here in the United States. We just haven’t been able to find him.”

“What about photo recognition?” Brognola asked. “Surely the guy has to have a driver’s license or passport…something to identify him.”

“Well, if he does, he hasn’t gone through official channels of any kind to obtain those identities.”

“A guy like Satyev would go through the best paper guys in world, anyway,” Price continued, “the vast majority of whom we have under surveillance. In all that time we’ve seen nothing, which leads us to conclude either he has others do all his work and monitor his business interests for him or he’s altered his appearance.”

Brognola grunted. “Keep working on it, Bear. I want to know where this guy is as soon as possible. What else?”

Price nodded to Kurtzman and he displayed the photograph of a second man, this one much younger and wearing the uniform of a Spetsnaz commando.

“This man we have identified as Jurg Kovlun, although he’s using the alias Georg Mirovich here in the U.S., according to the California DMV,” Price said.

“What’s his connection?” Brognola inquired.

“There is none that we can ascertain, at least not to the SMJ, although he did work for a special detail that operated under none other than Colonel Satyev.”

“Too much to be a coincidence.”

“Right.” Price pulled a manila folder from the stack on the table in front of her and passed it to Brognola. “This contains a complete dossier on Kovlun’s activities. To no great surprise, he’s been under observation by the FBI off and on for the past couple of years, and then one day they just dropped it and nobody’s been on to him since.”

Brognola furrowed his brow. “Why?”

“I wish we could tell you. Call it bureaucratic red tape or just plain apathy, but none of our sources inside the FBI can give us the first clue why their agents stopped following him. In fact, nobody could even tell me why they’d initiated a surveillance order to begin with. There’s no originating paperwork on it, and no follow-up orders from the offices by any of their agents in charge.”

“What about any agents assigned to the case?” Brognola asked.

“There were two and they’re both dead,” Kurtzman replied grimly. “One was killed during an operation a few years ago. The other died mysteriously just three weeks ago by what a medical examiner ruled as, and I quote, ‘a coronary event of indeterminate origin,’ end quote.”

“Heart attack?” Brognola said. “A thirty-six-year-old FBI agent? Why do I not buy that?”

“We don’t, either,” Price said. “But it would be very difficult to get an order to exhume his body for a second opinion without very strong, incontrovertible evidence, especially when we don’t think such activities will tell us much more than we know now.”

“Damn,” Brognola grumbled. “I wish Striker were here right now. I’d bet he’d have some insight.”

“He hasn’t checked in lately?”

Brognola shook his head. “No, and frankly I’m growing concerned. Oh, I’m not worried about him personally, mind you.” Brognola dismissed the thought with a wave. “Striker’s proved he can take care of himself without any help from us. What bothers me is that I think something’s about to break wide open, and it doesn’t appear we’re any closer to this thing than we were forty-eight hours ago.”

Price frowned. “Well, if you have any suggestions on how we might proceed, I’d be glad to hear them.”

Brognola shook his head. “I’m sure you’ve hit every avenue you know. Tell me more about the plausibility of this theory the SMJ might be working with the JI.”

“We did encounter some rumblings from British intelligence done by MI-6 agents currently inside Russia that there might be a connection, although none of our own intelligence assets inside Moscow can confirm it one way or the other,” Price stated.

“Didn’t Kisa Naryshkin originally make contact with us through a British agent?”

Price nodded and leaned forward in her seat to flip through the folders until she came upon the one she wanted and slid it neatly from the stack. She opened it and thumbed through a couple of pages before finding the details she sought. “Yes, it’s here. The agent’s name is Carson Barbour, former Russian translator for three years with MI-5 before he was transferred to counterespionage in MI-6. And by order of the Crown, no less. Seems he had a few friends in the highest circles of Parliament.”

“Sounds like,” Brognola agreed.

“We learned of Kisa Naryshkin’s offer when Barbour first debriefed her about two months ago. He passed the information to our own case officers, who then took it to their superiors at the Company for evaluation,” Kurtzman added helpfully.

“And then they told their two friends who told their two friends…” Brognola sighed deeply. “I get it. Still, Striker’s last report indicated a leak in the information chain somewhere. I want you two to work up everybody involved with this operation, from the director of the CIA on down. And let’s start with Barbour. Put a tail on him, if you have to, but I want that guy watched. He’s closer to Striker than anyone, and if we can’t be there to help him we can at least cover his backside. What frustrates me most is this thing might have cracked open anywhere.”

“And isn’t it funny how right after we make the transfer arrangements, the only man who could give us some idea of Kovlun’s activities winds up on an ME’s table in Washington, D.C.?”

“He’s got a point there, Hal,” Price said, “and it’s too much to be mere coincidence, which is why we started looking at Kovlun.”

Brognola had begun to skim the reports. “I noticed here that Kovlun went incommunicado about the same time as Satyev, by the way.”

Price nodded. “There’s no question these men are up to something. We think they’re both in the U.S. right now, and we believe if they’re working together they just might have had a hand in masterminding this deal between the SMJ and the JI.”

“Okay, let’s assume we’re right about this,” Brognola said. “The only thing I see the JI could offer the SMJ is support for their cause in Russia. Arms and intelligence, primarily, and maybe even some manpower. They might also create a sanctuary network for them in Islamic nations near Russia. But how the SMJ could make a return on the JI’s investment is the biggest mystery, and yet Rostov and Cherenko swore this alliance is based on some terrorist plot against America. None of it makes sense.”

“Maybe we’re trying too hard,” Kurtzman said.

Price looked askance. “What do you mean?”

“Sometimes in a situation like this we just don’t have enough intelligence to form a cogent theory. Maybe what we’re going to have to do is wait it out and see what happens.”

“I think Bear has a good point,” Brognola agreed. “In his last report, Striker said he felt like he was real close to scooping up Rostov and Cherenko. Since they’re the only ones who can really tell us anything useful, we’re probably wasting good time discussing this. I think we ought to proceed on what we have. Let’s get something in the National Crime Information Center for both Satyev and Kovlun. Make it a minor infraction, failure to appear on a traffic citation, something like that. That should be enough to filter it to all the local agencies but not send up major flags.”

“I agree,” Price said. “We don’t want any eager beavers spooking them.”

“Is that wise?” Kurtzman asked. “Kovlun and Satyev are well-trained, former military. Things could get ugly if some unsuspecting state trooper pulls one of them over and tries to apprehend him.”

“Put it out as a report-only,” Brognola said. “That should minimize the risks to local police agencies.”

Kurtzman nodded and headed to the Computer Room where he could work on drafting the bogus warrant. Price brought him up to speed on other minor items and then set about her own business, leaving the Stony Man chief alone with his thoughts. Brognola couldn’t help feeling frustrated; they would have put together a more solid theory by now on most missions. This one had been handed to them pretty quick, though, with not a lot of time for planning. All they could do now was to put out the national alert net and see what happened. It was like sitting on their hands, hedging a long-odds bet, but he knew they had no other choice.

Brognola could only hope Mack Bolan was having better luck.

CARSON BARBOUR HAD NEVER expected a call like the one he received while at his residence, packing for a one-way trip.

His part of this entire deal should have been closed, but instead he was now embroiled in a search for a lone American and the daughter of a powerful former Russian officer in the GRU. And the American was potentially a ghost. Wasn’t that the word his unnamed Russian contact had used? Yes, by jove, he had called this mysterious American a ghost. Barbour should have been getting ready to get on the private flight he’d chartered under an assumed identity and get out of this accursed, frozen country. Instead this new development had forced a change of plans and now he was bound for Murmansk.

In one respect, it surprised Barbour that Kisa Naryshkin had actually used a real identity card with inspectors at the airport. This, coupled with the two calls her father had made over his home phone wiretapped by MI-6, spelled out their plan in no uncertain terms. Barbour hadn’t figured Tolenka Naryshkin would let his daughter travel alone—plus there was no way he bought the man’s story about taking on six armed gunmen when he made his call to St. Petersburg police headquarters—which meant the girl was probably accompanied by either some of Naryshkin’s men or this American.

Barbour also had to wonder who it was behind the recent outbreak of violence in the city against the SMJ. He didn’t buy all of that chaos as the handiwork of the CIA man, Carron. There had to be another explanation, and they were now expecting Barbour to figure it out. The only problem was that Carson Barbour couldn’t even be sure who he was working for. That was strictly against his policy most of the time, although he’d made an exception in this case because the money was so good. While the SMJ had considerable resources throughout Russia, he didn’t believe they had the kind of intelligence and bank account he’d sampled. Barbour had never met any of his contacts face-to-face, but things were always in the drop locations he was given and always accompanied by a generous amount of untraceable euros in small notes.

Well, at least his command of the language and its culture would get him around the country with relative ease; this, and his excellent forged credentials as a Russian citizen provided by MI-6 had served him well. And whoever he’d been working for this past two years provided him with enough money to make up for his requirements to live modestly as a citizen in a middle-class neighborhood. It had taken Barbour many months, years really, to settle into the community—enough that people didn’t pay him much mind but not so much that if he turned up missing somebody would immediately call the police.