Road Of Bones. Don Pendleton

“Just me.”

       “I fear it’s hopeless, then,” she told him.

       “That’s the spirit.”

       Anuchin sat and began to dry her short hair with the towel.

       “There are two ways to reach or leave Yakutsk,” she said. “If not by air, then over the Kolyma Highway, which begins at Nizhny Bestyakh, on the east bank of the Lena. We can only reach Nizhny Bestyakh by ferry, which my enemies will also watch.”

       “Let’s try the charter first,” Bolan replied, “before we count it out.”

       “Of course,” she said. “But you must be prepared to fail.”

       “If that’s the way you feel,” he said, “you should have thought about it at the start, before you put your own neck and your partner’s on the chopping block.”

       That obviously stung her, but she took it, nodding.

       “You’re correct. We were a pair of fools.”

       “It’s never foolish when you try to do the right thing,” Bolan said. “Sometimes it has a price, but that’s the way things work.”

       “A great price, yes?” Anuchin said. “First, Sergey’s life. Now yours and mine.”

       “We’re not dead yet,” Bolan reminded her. “A little confidence could help you stay alive. But if you’re giving up, why don’t you tell me now. I don’t need any deadweight on my shoulders while I’m running.”

       “Confidence, of course,” she said. “And weapons, yes?”

       “I’ve got a fair stash from the warehouse,” Bolan said.

       She tried a smile and said, “Let’s see them, then.”

      * * *

      NIKOLAY MILESCU SIPPED a cup of bitter coffee he had purchased at a kiosk in the international arrivals and departures terminal, watching the travelers who scurried past him, hoping for a glimpse of a familiar face—the person he’d been sent to capture, or to kill, if all else failed.

       Milescu had a photo on his cell phone of the woman he was hunting. She wasn’t the type he favored, though he wouldn’t kick her out of bed. Too bad for her, she’d never get to know him in that way and learn how he could please a woman.

       All the future held in store for her was pain.

       The problem: she was hard to hold.

       In fact, the woman had been picked up once already, at that very airport, but she had been liberated by a man or men who left the snatch team dead. Milescu’s boss said one man was responsible, but why take chances? So he’d sent four other guns along, put Milescu in charge and promised them a fat reward if they secured the fugitives.

       Alive or dead.

       Milescu personally didn’t think it likely that the woman would return to catch another flight, after she had been kidnapped from the terminal the previous night, but people frequently did stupid things. He would remain alert and stay in contact with his soldiers, placed strategically around the airport.

       With that in mind, he palmed his Motorola phone, the Tundra model that combined normal calling and web access with push-to-talk service, effectively making the cell phone a small walkie-talkie. Keying the button to contact all four men at once, he commanded, “Report in by number.”

       “Number two,” Vasily Ryumin answered. “Nothing yet in the domestic terminal.”

       “Three here,” Naum Izvolsky said. “Baggage claim is clear.”

       “Number four,” Viktor Gramotkin replied. “Nothing but peasants in the parking lot.”

       Milescu waited to hear from Gennady Stolypin, stationed on the roof to watch the charter hangars through binoculars. When half a minute passed with no response, he keyed the phone again.

       “Waiting for check-in, Number Five.”

       “Hold on,” Stolypin answered him belatedly, ignoring all decorum. “I have someone just arriving… Can’t see who it is yet.”

       “Where?” Milescu asked. “Which hangar?”

       “Private Jets,” Stolypin answered. “Wait a second, while I… It’s a GAZ four-door. Can’t say what model from this distance. There, it’s stopped. The driver’s getting out…a man. And now, a woman. Let me check the photo. Yes! It’s her! I can take them down from here!”

       Stolypin had a VSK-94 sniper’s rifle with him on the roof, the silenced model, semiautomatic, with a 20-round box magazine of 9 mm SPP rounds.

       “No!” Milescu snapped over his walkie-talkie, up and moving toward the nearest exit. “Do not fire! You know the order.”

       “Yes,” Stolypin answered back. “Alive or dead.”

       “With higher pay if she’s alive. Just watch and wait, until we get there.” To the others then, in case they weren’t in motion yet, he said, “All hands to Private Jets, south of the terminal!”

       His men confirmed with clicking signals, staying off the air. They would be closing on the target, moving swiftly but without a frantic sprint to draw attention from the terminal’s police officers.

       Milescu reckoned he should thank the woman, if he got the chance. Her desperate stupidity had saved him from a long day sitting at the airport, wasting time while someone else hogged all the glory.

       Now, his task was simple—neutralize the woman’s escort, one way or another, and collect her for the boss. Take both alive, if possible.

       And deliver them to a fate worse than death.

      Private Jets Charter Service

      “I DON’T SEE ANYONE,” Tatyana said. “Do you?”

       “Not yet,” Bolan replied.

       Which proved precisely nothing. They could be under surveillance from a distance, and he wouldn’t know it until bullets from a sniper’s rifle dropped them on the tarmac, dead or dying by the time the echo of the shots arrived. The Executioner had done that sort of work himself, times beyond counting, and he knew the risks involved.

       But sitting in the sedan, outside the hangar, wouldn’t keep them safe.

       “Sit tight a minute,” Bolan said, and stepped out of the car. He left the key in the ignition for her, just in case, but saw no adversaries as he scanned the runway. No one lurking in the hangar’s shadow. No vehicles close enough to box them in.

       The problem now: they had to discard their weapons prior to boarding, or they’d run afoul of customs when they got to Tokyo. Japanese law forbade private possession of firearms, except for strictly regulated sporting shotguns and air rifles, with maximum penalties of ten years in prison and a fine of one million yen per offense.

       Bolan nodded, alert as Anuchin stepped out of the car. The hangar stood no more than thirty feet away, their Hawker 800 already rolled out and prepared for departure. In profile, it was nearly eight feet shorter than the Learjet 60 Bolan had arrived on, but its wingspan ten feet greater.

       Eighteen minutes to boarding, by Bolan’s watch, if they got through the sign-in procedure on time. And from there—

       Bolan knew a curse in Russian when he heard one. He followed Anuchin’s gaze and saw two men approaching at a run from the direction of the airport terminal. As he watched, a third man cleared the exit, laboring to catch the other two.

       So much for signing in.

       “Come on!” he snapped, turning back toward the car. When he was halfway there, a sharp crack on the pavement marked a near-miss from a distant rifle, somewhere high and well beyond the runners.

       Bolan dropped into the driver’s seat and gunned the sedan’s engine. Anuchin