Interception. Don Pendleton

of a three-star general in the U.S. Army. The man himself had brutal, peasant stock features.

      “That’s Victor Bout,” Brognola said. “The man himself.” Bolan saw a square-faced Caucasian with short, almost bristling salt-and-pepper hair, and narrow-set eyes over a thick nose. The man had a lantern jaw, and he wasn’t smiling. “He used to command his own internal security division in the GRU, the Soviet Military Intelligence.”

      Bolan grunted. He had tangled with more than one GRU and former GRU agent in his day. They tended to be even more brutal and direct-action prone than their KGB counterparts. “Let me guess,” Bolan offered. “He turned to criminal enterprise when the Communists lost power?”

      “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” Kurtzman stated.

      “He’s more than that, though,” Price interrupted. It was her turn to nod at Kurtzman. Instantly the picture on the screen was replaced by four. Victor Bout was in a slick dark blue power suit instead of an olive-drab uniform, his military haircut and regulation mustache replaced by a modest ponytail and a full but well-groomed beard. In another picture the barrel-chested man was standing in swimming trunks on the bridge of a private yacht. Two beautiful women with perfect bodies and eyes so vapid they came out clear as diamonds in the pixilated image, lounged behind him, drinks in hand. In the third, Bout was sitting at the table of some obviously expensive restaurant talking to a mahogany-skinned man in his twenties.

      “Who’s Bout talking to?” Bolan asked.

      “That is the son of the head of the financial projects committee of the United Nations,” Kurtzman answered.

      “Oil-for-food?”

      “Oil-for-food,” Brognola acknowledged.

      The second man in the fourth picture needed no identification. It was the president of Venezuela.

      “Well, that’s no problem,” Bolan said dryly. “I just saw on the international news how the guy isn’t a rogue leader at all. He’s just someone who disagrees with the U.S. on oil policy.”

      “Sure,” Price said. “Suspend the constitution, muffle the press, jail dissidents, start a war with Colombia…whatever.”

      “I do get the point,” Bolan stated, turning away from the screen. “Our good Mr. Bout is a very powerful, very well-connected gentleman.”

      “And he’s only third in command of his syndicate,” Brognola said, leaning forward. “He is the principal adviser to one of the premier oligarchs in Russia today, a man in control of Siberian oil fields, Moscow central banking and Black Sea shipping. Colonel-General Bout’s last-known location, Split, Croatia. Status, currently missing.”

      “Okay, he’s missing. But he didn’t just pop up because he’s next on some hit list,” Bolan pointed out.

      “Bear,” Price said.

      Kurtzman hit the space bar then the Ctrl and Tab buttons on his keypad with a practiced motion. The screen changed. Now there was an image of a lanky, disheveled man of some obvious height.

      In the picture he stood next to a red Mini-Cooper on a European or Mediterranean city cobblestone street. He had to have been close to seven feet tall.

      “Akhilesh Pandey,” Brognola announced.

      “Mr. Pandey,” Price continued, “is the premier researcher of cloning technology in India today.”

      “Current status, also missing. Last-known location, Split, Croatia,” Kurtzman stated.

      “Ah,” Bolan said. “I’m sensing a perfect storm.”

      “Sort of. Well,” Price allowed, “if you factor in the location, then you’re exactly right. This a perfect storm. Bear, let’s talk Prisni Prijatelji.”

      The cyberwizard again worked his keyboard. First a map of the world appeared in greens and blues on the screen, overlaid with lines of latitude and longitude. Then the perspective of the screen shifted smoothly. Bolan watched as it zeroed in on the Mediterranean, then slid past the boot of Italy to tighten focus on the Adriatic Sea. It shifted to the Croatian coastline, played south and settled on the city of Split.

      Once in place, the screen’s software put a white box around the city and began cycling its resolution, pulling it into focus. A street map from satellite imagery stamped with the discreet logo of the National Reconnaissance Office appeared. From an overview of the entire city Kurtzman quickly clicked down the area of observation into tighter and tighter resolution until an area of five square urban blocks filled the screen.

      “I was less than three blocks away when I hit the triad in that warehouse,” Bolan commented.

      Frowning as the others murmured their agreement, Bolan leaned forward. The western edge of the built-up area consisted of wharfs and industrial piers as well as several large, squared-off jetties. Beyond that, to the north, south and west the area bordered the other streets of the city of Split. Inside the designated area there was a mixture of buildings from commercial to hospitality to warehouses.

      Bolan turned and cocked an eyebrow in question to the leadership cadre of Stony Man Farm. “Prisni Prijatelji?” he asked.

      “Prisni Prijatelji,” Price confirmed.

      Settling back in his chair Bolan took another drink of his coffee. “Explain.”

      “Split has taken over from Berlin as ground zero where east means west. Hell, what East means now is something a lot different from what it meant in the bad old days of the Soviet Empire,” Brognola began. “But, for purposes of the War on Terror to our intelligence services, Split is a very important place. As important as Islamabad and more important than Damascus, Beirut or Amman. European and Middle Eastern businessmen mix there in prolific numbers, forming a smoke screen of legitimacy for the thriving black markets beneath the surface.”

      “Oil money meets former Soviet stockpiles of weapons?” Bolan offered.

      “Sure,” Price broke in. “Plenty of that going on. But Asian and South American drug pipelines into Europe intersect there. Terrorist cells and fugitives purchase papers and forged documents. Mercenaries cavort. International banking uses Croatian cutout companies to laundry money. As you discovered, there are thriving white slavery rings running girls from Asia into Eastern Europe and girls the other way back out again. It’s a flipping strip mall of international criminal activity from the pettiest to the largest.”

      “Which is why Bout was there,” Bolan observed. “He was serving as an intermediary for his banker boss?”

      “That’s what we think,” Brognola agreed. “But as bad as Split is, in general that area along the waterfront—” he indicated the neighborhood with a blunt fingertip “—is the epicenter. Ground zero, part criminal-free fire zone and part intelligence DMZ.”

      “What do you mean?” Bolan asked.

      “That neighborhood is one massive front. Fronts for criminals, fronts for intelligence operatives keeping an eye on the international syndicates…and each other. Success begets success. Once the big players realized how much information there was to be gleaned from this little neighborhood in Split, the services of half a dozen countries began to lean on their governments to look the other way. Let the snakes play in a nest all together so that we could get them in other places.”

      Price spoke up. “Once word of the hand-off approach leaked out of the tier one agencies to their second tier allies, on both sides, it really began to heat up as every two-bit station chief from any third world country saw opportunities to get their own cut with the geopolitical immunity. Bribes and payoffs began pouring out of the sector. Enough to ensure the local and Croatian federal police keep their noses clear.”

      “UN peacekeepers?” Bolan asked.

      “Some,” Price admitted. Then she shrugged. “They’re positioned closer to the main industrial docks and the rail lines. They’re mostly just symbolic now in Split anyway.