Terrorist Dispatch

CRIMEAN DEADLOCK

Ukrainian militants are the initial suspects in a terrorist attack on Washington, DC, until rumors surface suggesting Moscow was behind the bombing. But the investigation only raises more questions. Was the attack an attempt to mute US criticism of Russia, or a call to action to help suppress Ukrainian dissidents? Only one man can solve the riddle and mete out appropriate punishment: Mack Bolan.

From Manhattan’s Little Ukraine to the war-torn country itself, Bolan blazes a path of truth and justice to neutralize the threat...and prevent another slaughter on American soil even as the danger increases with enemies and allies emerging on both sides of the Crimean conflict. But the Executioner is no middleman; he has his own war to fight, and he won’t stop until his opponents are ashes.

Brusilov made it easy for him by trying to escape in the cruiser.

Bolan’s sniper’s mind ticked off the necessary calculations in a heartbeat: range, velocity, the distance he would have to lead his target for a hit.

He took a breath, released half of it, held the rest. His index finger curled around the Remington’s trigger, eased it back until he felt it break, then rode the recoil, eye glued to the reticle.

Downrange, a burst of scarlet splashed over the cruiser’s dashboard. Without a seat belt to restrain him, Brusilov slumped to the right and out of Bolan’s view.

Bolan didn’t stick around to see what happened when the cops arrived. He had removed the viper’s head, and while it would inevitably sprout a new one, that was not his concern this night.

The Executioner had another hand to play in the East Village, and he was already running late.

Terrorist Dispatch

The Executioner_® Don Pendleton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

There is no place in a fanatic’s head where reason can enter.

—Napoleon I, Maxims

I reason with fanatics in the only language they understand.

—Mack Bolan

Nothing less than a war could have fashioned the destiny of the man called Mack Bolan. Bolan earned the Executioner title in the jungle hell of Vietnam.

But this soldier also wore another name—Sergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.

Mack Bolan’s second tour of duty ended prematurely when he was given emergency leave to return home and bury his family, victims of the Mob. Then he declared a one-man war against the Mafia.

He confronted the Families head-on from coast to coast, and soon a hope of victory began to appear. But Bolan had broken society’s every rule. That same society started gunning for this elusive warrior—to no avail.

So Bolan was offered amnesty to work within the system against terrorism. This time, as an employee of Uncle Sam, Bolan became Colonel John Phoenix. With a command center at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, he and his new allies—Able Team and Phoenix Force—waged relentless war on a new adversary: the KGB.

But when his one true love, April Rose, died at the hands of the Soviet terror machine, Bolan severed all ties with Establishment authority.

Now, after a lengthy lone-wolf struggle and much soul-searching, the Executioner has agreed to enter an “arm’s-length” alliance with his government once more, reserving the right to pursue personal missions in his Everlasting War.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

Quote

Legend

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

Copyright

Prologue

Lincoln Memorial, National Mall, Washington, DC

The choice was obvious, when Oleg Banakh thought about it. Six million tourists viewed the shrine each year, according to the pamphlet he had studied while preparing for his final day on Earth. That averaged out to—what? Well over sixteen thousand visiting on any given day, year-round.

He had to kill only a fraction of that number to secure his place in history.

The homemade vest that Banakh wore beneath his thrift-shop raincoat made his neck and shoulders cramp, but it was fleeting, temporary pain. Each of its six hand-stitched pockets contained five pounds of C-4 plastic explosive, bristling with old rusty nails, screws, nuts and bolts added to serve as shrapnel. A nine-volt battery hung between his shoulder blades. Its wires snaked out to half a dozen detonators, twin leads trailing down his left sleeve to the simple detonator switch that dangled from Banakh’s cuff. Add the Mini-Uzi slung over his right shoulder, also beneath the coat, with extra magazines filling his pants pockets, and Banakh was packing more than forty pounds of sudden death on this bright autumn afternoon.

The detonator, he had been assured, was considered foolproof. It had two colored plastic buttons: green to arm the system, red to detonate the charges Banakh carried, blasting him to smithereens and Paradise, while any enemies within the killing radius received a one-way ticket to their special place in hell.

It was intended that he use the Mini-Uzi first, exhaust the magazines he carried if he had the chance, without allowing Secret Service agents or police to take him down before he had unleashed the C-4 storm. Gunshots would scatter any tourists who survived the first ferocious fusillade, but they would also draw in law-enforcement officers, ranging from street patrolmen to the special units that abounded in the nation’s capital, protecting the fat, decadent servants of the Great Satan.

Folded inside the raincoat’s deep interior breast pocket was the manifesto of his cause, three pages typed, meticulously spell-checked, all inserted in a plastic sleeve designed to keep the message safe amid the storm of battle.

Those who came to kill Banakh would be dealing with the other members of his team: five seasoned fighters armed with automatic weapons, each man prepared—make that expecting—to be killed before the sun went down.

A loyal member of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, Banakh knelt before the huge statue of Lincoln, mouthed a silent prayer, then rose and set the manifesto carefully in place, well back between the giant’s shoes, where it would not be damaged by the detonation of his vest or gunshots fired into the monument by officers outside. The message would survive, and if no one took heed, their foolishness would only bring more grief upon their heads, upon their families.

Banakh turned to face bright sunshine on the steps where Martin Luther King once stood and spoke of dreams unrealized. His hands trembled as he unfastened the buttons of his raincoat, drawing back the right flap so that he could grasp the Mini-Uzi on its shoulder sling. A woman standing nearby had watched Banakh curiously as he’d prayed. Now she clutched her male companion’s arm and shouted, “He’s got a gun!”

“I do,” he told her. “And you haven’t seen anything yet.”

* * *

EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAM lieutenant Rick Malone was wolfing down a meatball sub at a sandwich shop on 18th Street Northwest when his radio squawked to announce shots fired at the Lincoln Memorial.

Malone left his lunch on the table and ran to his cruiser, then gunned it from his parking space with the rooftop light bar already flashing, his siren winding up before he palmed the dashboard microphone and cut into the storm of chatter.

“ERT Malone responding to the shooting from the eleven hundred block of 18th Street Northwest. My ETA is ten minutes, with any luck.”

“Copy that, Lieutenant,” the dispatcher answered back. “Your team’s en route.”

Ten minutes if his luck held, and how many tourists would be killed or wounded in that span of time? Malone knew that depended largely on the shooter’s choice of weapons, his—or her—proficiency with firearms, and the quantity of ammunition he—or she—was packing. In the country’s present state, its fever pitch of anger, coupled with an obsessive love of lethal toys, Malone knew damn near anyone could snap at any time, for reasons only a psychiatrist could grasp.

Traffic was typically congested on the route Malone had chosen to the Mall, yielding reluctantly to lights and siren, slowing his progress toward the scene where people might be dying, even as he swerved around slow-moving trucks and buses, startled rubber-necking tourists, and sent cyclists clad in racing outfits veering toward the sidewalk. Three blocks out, with his window down, Malone could hear the loud snap-crackle-pop of automatic weapons fire. And not a single weapon, either, but a full-blown symphony of death.

* * *

OLEG BANAKH HAD watched two of his comrades die and wished them rapid transit into Heaven. The other three had found a measure of concealment—two in shrubbery around the monument’s retaining wall, the third behind one of its massive Doric columns. Banakh was inside, crouched between the giant seated statue and one of the columns that divided the memorial’s interior into three distinct chambers. Half a dozen bodies lay unmoving where they’d fallen when he’d gunned them down, and more were draped upon the marble steps outside.

Not bad for one day’s work, but Banakh and his team were not finished yet.

He had already put the manifesto in its place. Now all he had to do was to wait for reinforcements to arrive, with television crews, before he took his last walk in the sun.

His mission was already a success for the most part. That was obvious from the wailing sirens, the flashing lights, the vehicles and personnel from half a dozen law-enforcement agencies gathered outside, below the memorial’s staircase. More cars and vans, more uniforms and guns, were rolling in each moment. Banakh welcomed them, hoping a fair percentage of the officers would find their way inside the C-4’s lethal zone.

So far, only a scattering of shots had been directed toward his hiding place, the shooters swiftly chastised by superiors. Banakh knew that his enemies revered their monuments to fallen leaders, drawing vicarious pleasure from the heroism that eluded them in daily life. Most would never join a righteous cause or fire a shot in anger, but it pleased them to recall that others of their species, long since dead and gone, had done great things.

This day, that changed.

Banakh glanced at his watch and saw that it was time for him to die. Smiling because his destiny had nearly run its course, he rose, clutching the detonator in his left hand, the freshly loaded Mini-Uzi in his right. His bullets might not reach the cars below, or any of the officers crouched behind them, but he hoped to keep their heads down, with some help from his surviving comrades.

All he needed was one final, shining moment on the stage, before he vaporized and vanished into history.

“Slukhay mene!” he shouted as he cleared the shadows, blushing with embarrassment before he caught himself and translated from Ukrainian. “Listen to me!”

Downrange below him, scores of faces watched from behind a hedge of weapons. Banakh started down the marble steps, ignoring calls for him to drop his weapon.

“Today,” he bellowed, “you have an opportunity to learn from past mistakes!”

The first shot struck low, an inch or so above his groin. Banakh began to fall, grimacing as he pressed the detonator’s bright red button and his world dissolved into a blast of white-hot light.

* * *

FIVE MINUTES LATER it was done. The three remaining shooters rushed the Secret Service line, spraying full-auto fire, and died without inflicting any casualties. Rick Malone moved up among them as the echoes faded, breathing the burned-powder smell of battle with an undertone of copper from the terrorists’ blood spilled on the steps.

Or make that sprayed, where their apparent leader had been vaporized as he went down.

The blast had partially deafened Malone. Shouting orders to his ERT team, hearing them answer as they stormed the monument to clear it, he had time to worry whether that would be a permanent condition. That would mean restricted duty, if it didn’t bump him off the job entirely, and he gladly would have kicked the bomber’s lifeless ass if any part of it were left intact.

One of his agents stepped back into sunlight, calling down to him. The muffled voice announced, “Got something you should look at, Lieut.”

“What’s that?” Malone called back.

“Looks like the crazy bastards left a note.”

1

Lincoln Memorial, One day later

What a difference a day made. Twenty-four hours after what the media was calling “the worst massacre in the capital’s history,” Mack Bolan saw few traces of the carnage that had taken place. There were a few chips in the marble columns, which the reparation crew had yet to patch, but otherwise the monument appeared pristine: no blood, no scorch marks from a C-4 blast, no lingering stench of explosives or offal to send tourists scurrying off to the next attraction. An untrained eye would never guess that nineteen people had been killed here, terrorists included, or that fifteen more were suffering at hospitals around the city, four of them unlikely to survive.

The monument had changed, however. There was no denying that.

Throughout the day and night preceding his arrival, Bolan saw that visitors had thronged the place, likely eclipsing any turnout for a single day since it was dedicated, back in 1922. Many had come, he knew, to capture photographs before the site was purged of bloody residue, although the Secret Service and the United States Capitol Police would have restrained the ghouls and kept them at a distance. Later, with the cleanup done, a pilgrimage had started, lasting through the night, not finished yet.

The signs were obvious. Along the rising steps, flanking a path left clear for any visitors who felt a need to go inside, mourners had left floral bouquets and wreaths in wild profusion, many bearing cards. Besides the flowers, other tokens had been left, as well: a dozen teddy bears in different hues and sizes, for the children who had fallen; Bibles, some of them left open to highlighted passages; sealed letters that would be removed, likely unread, expressing sorrow, rage and empty promises of retribution; several pairs of baby shoes; and standing tall amid the jumble, wholly out of place, a plastic pink flamingo.

Who could truly claim to understand the human heart?

It was approaching twelve o’clock, a normal workday, but there was still a crowd in front of the memorial. They stood in silence, for the most part, several of them gently swaying as if caught up in some private rapture, most just staring at the scene where people they would never know had died under the gun.

It struck Bolan that this was now a double monument of sorts. In the short run, before the public’s brief attention span expired, it represented both a martyred President who sacrificed himself to save a fractured nation, and a group of strangers who, by accident, had stained a page of history with their life’s blood. Their memory would fade, of course, as new atrocities demanded airing in prime time. The previous day’s slaughter would be relegated to a thirty-second sound bite aired on anniversaries, for the next three years or so, until it lost all relevance to anyone except the wounded and immediate survivors of the dead.

“Bitchin’,” a voice said, almost at his elbow. “Man, I wish we’d seen it.”

Bolan half turned, taking in a pair of pimply teenage boys who should have been in school. They would have ditched to taste a bit of modern history, unmindful of its import. Raised on mindless action films and video games, they had no concept of mayhem beyond what they saw as entertainment value.

Bolan could have dropped them both without breaking a sweat. Two punches, lightning fast, and they would learn the stark reality of pain—albeit just a taste—but what would be the point? He couldn’t save the wasted dregs of a lost generation, even if he’d been inclined to try.

And he had other work to do.

His visit to the killing ground was not coincidence. He hadn’t been in town on other business—hadn’t decided on a detour to sate his morbid curiosity. In fact, he’d crossed the continent to be there, flying through the night from San Francisco, but it wasn’t any kind of gesture to the dead.

He was expected there, at noon, and had arrived ahead of time, as was his habit. That gave Bolan time to scan the crowd and traffic flowing on Lincoln Memorial Circle, checking for traps, looking for enemies. It was the way he lived, although in this case it was wasted effort. Only one man living knew he would be in the nation’s capital this day, and that man was a trusted friend.

As for his enemies of old, the few who still survived, none even knew he was alive. Bolan had “died” some years ago, quite publicly—on live TV, in fact—and every trace of him had been expunged from law-enforcement files across the country, a concerted purge that left no file intact. If one of his remaining foes from yesteryear should pass him on the street this day, or sit beside him in a dingy bar somewhere, they wouldn’t recognize his face or wonder, even for a heartbeat, if he still might be alive.

For all intents and purposes, he had ceased to exist.

Which didn’t mean he was a ghost, by any means. He could reach out and touch his foes anytime he wanted to. Then they became the ghosts.

“It’s something, eh?” a new voice, at his other elbow, said.

“Something,” Bolan granted, with a sidelong glance at his friend Hal Brognola, who was a high-ranking honcho in the Justice Department.

“Let’s take a walk,” the big Fed said.

“I thought you’d never ask,” Bolan replied.

They walked, clearing the crowd of pilgrims, moving east toward the Reflecting Pool that stretched for more than one-third of a mile through the heart of the National Mall, between the Lincoln Memorial and the towering Washington Monument. Brognola waited until they had some breathing room before he spoke again.

“You’ve followed all of this, I guess.”

“I caught some of the live footage in Frisco,” Bolan said, “and got the rest while I was in the air. They talked about Ukrainians on CNN.”

“And they were right, for once.”

“Some kind of manifesto left behind?”

“That leaked out of the Capital Police,” Brognola groused. “When I find out who let it slip, there will be consequences.”

Bolan let that go by, waiting for Brognola to fill him in. Another moment passed before his second-oldest living friend asked, “How much do you know about the war that they’ve got going in Ukraine?”

“Started in April 2014,” Bolan answered, “spinning off their February revolution against what’s-his-name, Yanukovych?”

“That’s him.”

“Russia weighed in to crush protests against the old regime, and that caused wider rifts within the government. By March, pro-Russian mobs were clashing with antigovernment marchers all over the country, organizing paramilitary outfits on both sides. Russian regulars crossed the border in August, then they tried a cease-fire in September. Didn’t get far with it. In November, separatists won a big election in the eastern sector, a place that sounds like ‘Dumbass.’”

“Donbass,” Brognola corrected, smiling.

“Right. Which brought pro-Russian forces out in strength, supposedly directed by more regulars the Russian president was slipping in illegally.”

“Forget ‘supposedly,’” Brognola said. “He’s in it up to his eyebrows.”

“So, today you’ve got militias, warlords, regulars, all at each other’s throats, with normal folks caught in the middle. Russian troops are massed along the border, and Ukraine’s responding in kind. Is that about the size of it?”

The big Fed nodded, then asked another question. “What about Crimea?”

“A peninsula south of Ukraine and east of Russia,” Bolan said, feeling a bit as if he was back in his ninth grade geography class. “Disputed territory going back through history, for its strategic value. Seaports and natural gas fields. A majority of the population are ethnic Russians, but Ukrainians controlled the government until they got distracted by their February revolution. In March, something like 96 percent of voters backed a referendum to split with Ukraine and become part of Russia. The UN and the European Union ruled the referendum fraudulent. Russian regulars ‘temporarily’ occupied Crimea in April and haven’t gone home yet. Pro-Ukrainian resistance groups are putting up a fight.”

“Correct,” Brognola said. “Which brings us back to yesterday. The pricks who pulled it off claimed affiliation with the Right Sector, a Ukrainian nationalist party founded in November 2013. Depending on who you ask, their political orientation ranges from ultra-conservative to neo-fascist. They call their paramilitary arm the Volunteered Ukrainian Corps. It acts in conjunction with terrorist groups such as White Hammer, accused of perpetrating war crimes.”

“What’s their angle in the States?” Bolan inquired.

“Long story short, they’ve been clamoring for military aid, getting nowhere with Congress or the White House—one rare thing that the White House and Republicans agree on. Their half-assed manifesto boils down to a blackmail note. More incidents like yesterday unless we arm their side and put them on a par with Russia’s regulars.”

“Which isn’t happening,” Bolan surmised.

“Not even close.”

“They need discouraging.”

“And then some,” Brognola confirmed. “Our only lead, so far, is to an outfit in Manhattan’s East Village led by a transplanted gangster named Stepan Melnyk.”

“Never heard of him,” Bolan said.

“I’m not surprised. He swings a big stick in Little Ukraine there, but he hasn’t made much headway so far, butting heads with the russkaya mafiya operating out of Brighton Beach. Melnyk says he’s apolitical, of course, but ATF’s connected him to gunrunning between New Jersey and Kiev.”

“Why don’t they bust him?”

“It’s all tenuous, as usual. The Coast Guard grabbed a shipment six or seven months ago, some hardware stolen from Fort Dix, but nothing in the paperwork could hang Melnyk. If his small fry take a fall, they keep their mouths shut. Or they die. Simple and tidy.”

“And you think he armed the crew from yesterday?”

“Call it a hunch. We know he’s in communication with his old homeboys. From there, it’s just a short step to the Right Sector.”

“I’ll need more details,” Bolan said.

“I’ve got you covered.” Brognola removed a memory stick from an inside pocket of his coat and handed it to Bolan. “Everything we have is on there—Melnyk and the Russian opposition, Stepan’s buddies in the old country. If you have any questions...”

“I know where to find you,” Bolan said.

“Still doing business at the same old stand,” Brognola said.

“I’ll leave tonight, after I pick up some equipment.”

“Going to load up at the Farm?” the big Fed inquired. In addition to his Justice Department duties, Brognola was the director of the clandestine Sensitive Operations Group, based at Stony Man Farm, Virginia.

“Nope. But I’ll stock up in Virginia. It keeps things simple.”

“Glory, hallelujah. So, you’re driving up?”

“Three hours, give or take. I’ll be in town by dinnertime.”

“Bon appétit,” Brognola said.

Arlington, Virginia

VIRGINIA WAS ADMIRED or hated for its gun laws, all depending on a person’s point of view. No permit was required to purchase any firearm, or to carry one exposed within a public venue. Permits were required to carry hidden pistols—unless, of course, it was stashed in the glove compartment of a person’s car, in which case it was permissible. Background checks on out-of-state buyers was a measly five dollars, conducted by computer at the time of sale without a pesky waiting period, which made the Old Dominion State a magnet for gangbangers throughout the Northeast.

Bolan had no problem at the gun shop he selected, located in a strip mall on Washington Boulevard. He walked in with cash and a New York driver’s license in the name of Matthew Cooper, who had no arrests, convictions, or outstanding warrants listed with Virginia’s state police or the FBI’s National Crime Information Center. Twenty minutes later he walked out with a Colt AR-15 carbine; a Remington Model 700 rifle chambered in .300 Magnum Winchester ammo, mounted with a Leupold Mark 4 LR/T 3.5-10 x 40 mm scope; a Remington Model 870 pump-action shotgun; a Glock 23 pistol chambered in .40 S&W ammo, plus a shoulder holster and enough spare rounds and magazines to start a war.

Which was exactly what he had in mind.

Before he started, though, he needed sustenance and information. For the food, he chose a drive-through burger joint two blocks away from the gun store, bought three cheeseburgers with everything, a chocolate shake and fries. He chowed down in the parking lot, his laptop open on the shotgun seat, and reviewed Brognola’s files, which provided background information on the outfit he was tackling.

First up was Stepan Melnyk in Manhattan’s East Village, a neighborhood known as “Little Ukraine” for its latest influx of expatriates. Melnyk was forty-five, had served time in the old country for armed assault and smuggling contraband, then came to test his mettle in a brave new world. Like most immigrant gangsters, he began by preying on his fellow countrymen, running protection rackets, muscling storeowners to carry smuggled cigarettes and liquor, anything that might have fallen off a truck on any given day. From there, he had expanded into drugs and prostitution, human trafficking, gunrunning—all the staples of an up-and-coming hardman yearning to breathe free.

His number two was thirty-five-year-old Dmytro Levytsky—“Dimo” to his friends—another ex-con from Ukraine who blamed his arrests back home on political persecution. The State Department had been mulling over his petition for asylum for the past four years, which Bolan took as evidence that they were either being paid to let him stay, or else were mentally incompetent—a possibility he couldn’t automatically rule out, based on his personal experience with members of that sage department’s staff.

Opposing Melnyk’s effort to expand was one Alexey Brusilov, lately of Brighton Beach, a Russian enclave at the southern tip of Brooklyn, on the shore of Sheepshead Bay. Most people didn’t know the bay was named for a breed of fish, not a decapitated ruminant. Mack Bolan had acquired that bit of information somewhere and it had risen to the forefront of his mind unbidden.

Brusilov was well established in his Brooklyn fiefdom, had defeated two indictments on assorted federal charges, and was well connected to the Solntsevskaya Bratva outfit based in Moscow, boasting some nine thousand members that the FBI could list by name. He was a stone-cold killer, though no one had ever proved it in a court of law, and had impressed New York’s Five Families enough to forge a treaty of collaboration with them, rather than engaging in a messy, pointless turf war that would be good for nobody. The Russian’s stock in trade was much the same as Stepan Melnyk’s: drugs and guns, women and gambling, neighborhood extortion, smuggling anyone or anything that could be packed into a semi trailer for the long haul.

Brusilov’s most able second in command was Georgy Vize, a young enforcer who was said to favor blades but didn’t mind a good old-fashioned gunfight if the odds were on his side. He was a person of interest in three unsolved murders, but willing witnesses in Brighton Beach were an endangered species. Raised from birth to mistrust the police at home, they’d had no better luck with New York’s finest on arrival in the Big Apple and mostly kept their stories to themselves.

Why stick your neck out, when the mobsters only killed each other, anyway?

And if they iced one of your neighbors by mistake, that was life.

Bolan saw opportunity in the uneasiness between Melnyk and Brusilov. It was the kind of rift that he could work with, maybe widen and exploit with careful handling, playing one side off against the other. War was bad for business in the underworld, but it was good for Bolan, just as long as he could keep the blood from slopping over onto innocents.

And that could be a problem, sure, since neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians were known for their discrimination when the bullets started to fly. Where an older generation of the Mob had certain basic rules, albeit often honored more in the breach than in the observance, Baltic gangs had more in common with outlaws from south of the border. They were full-bore savages, respecters of no one and nothing, as likely to wipe out a family as to bide their time and take down one offending member on his own.

So Bolan had his work cut out for him, and that was nothing new.

He finished off his last burger and hit the road.

Northbound on Interstate 95

THE MAIN DRAG from Washington, DC, to New York City was the I-95, a more or less straight shot for 225 miles, four hours’ steady driving at the posted legal speed.

Bolan used the travel time to think and plan, which were not necessarily the same thing. Planning was a kind of thinking, sure, but it required at least some basic information on terrain, opposing personnel, police proximity and average response time. Even weather factored in. A wild-ass warrior pulling raids with nothing in his head but hope and good intentions might as well eliminate the middleman and simply shoot himself.