Cold War Reprise. Don Pendleton

too close to the wall, the murderous power of the bombs had been smothered.

      Bolan helped the woman to her feet, one hand under the back of her head to keep her stable. “Are you all right?”

      “I’m Annette Brideshead,” she answered, large brown eyes blurry and unfocused. “I’m the medical examiner in charge of this shift.”

      Bolan supported her, sliding his arm under her shoulder to keep her upright. Obviously she was mentally disconnected, not answering the question offered. “Can you walk?”

      Brideshead’s unfocused eyes danced across Bolan’s face. He knew that her head would be wobbly atop her neck if he hadn’t been holding her. “I’m forty-five years old. I’ve been walking most of…Oh, dear.”

      Bolan turned and saw that the leader of the cleanup crew was sandwiched between a storage hatch and the twisted wreckage of an autopsy table. At least Bolan assumed it was the leader. The ragged, bloody stump of a neck was all that remained above the shoulders. “Sorry for the mess, Annette.”

      “The doors…You said those were bombs. Poison gas doesn’t act like that when it’s released, does it?” Brideshead inquired.

      “Not gas, not like you thought. But it was good that you shut down the negative air pressure in the drawers,” Bolan replied. He didn’t want to think of the destruction that would have occurred if the aerosolized fuel had spread to the ventilation system, sucked up by the intake valves.

      A policeman, the one Bolan had joked with only moments before, entered. He had a Glock 17 in hand and was ready for action. The bobby relaxed upon seeing Bolan ministering to Brideshead. “I thought you were only kidding about rocket launchers.”

      Bolan looked around the corpse-strewed, blast-shaken morgue. He sat Brideshead down and folded his jacket to cushion her head. “Someone didn’t want me looking at the bodies stored here.”

      “Haven’t these chaps heard of court orders?” the bobby asked as he holstered his pistol.

      “That’s not the way these people operate,” Bolan replied. “Are there paramedics on the way?”

      “Yes. Was that you that gave me mate a straw in the neck?” the officer asked.

      “Headless over there crushed his trachea. He all right?” Bolan asked.

      “Well, he was already laying down when the building bounced. He’s mighty thankful to you, Agent Cooper,” the cop said. Looking around at the mess, he sighed. “And for saving the rest of us from a right nasty bump, I’m adding my thanks, too.”

      Bolan nodded in appreciation. “The sad thing is, I’m not done here.”

      The British cop chuckled. “If it’s all the same, I won’t go running to any Russian restaurants for a while, Mr. Mafiya task force member.”

      Bolan managed a weak smile for the officer. He patted the notebook in his pocket, unable to keep such a promise.

      I T HAD TAKEN HOURS for Bolan to be cleared after the battle of the morgue. It took that long for the London Metropolitan police to be convinced of the order of events, especially the slicing open of the windpipe of a fellow officer, even with a crushed trachea. It also took that much time for the lawmen to return Bolan’s Desert Eagle, not that the Executioner hadn’t had spares stored back at his safehouse.

      At least Bolan got a couple of mugs of coffee out of the interview process, which he followed up with an order of fish and chips to fill his empty stomach. Bolan tossed a French fry out the car window and picked up his PDA, dialing the Farm.

      “Talked your way out of another mess, Striker?” Hal Brognola’s voice came over the line. Brognola was the director of the Sensitive Operations Group, based at Stony Man Farm, Virginia.

      “Can’t go running to Daddy every time I stub my toe. I handled it,” Bolan replied. “I suppose Aaron let you in on my progress so far.”

      “Two gun battles in less than twenty-four hours. He couldn’t keep me out of the loop after that. I’m sorry, Striker, but as much as you want to keep this away from government interference, this has become an issue of national security,” the big Fed told him.

      “What have you picked up on this thing?” Bolan inquired.

      “The two faces you sent Aaron belong to Spetsnaz troopers reported killed in action by the Russian Department of Defense,” Brognola stated. “Officially, you didn’t kill anyone.”

      “So I’m fighting the Special Forces of the living dead?” Bolan asked. He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “I knew the trend in horror movies was for smarter and faster walking dead, but they’re as much corpses as I am, Hal.”

      “Now they really are dead.” Brognola sighed. “Of course, you remember your friends in Russian Intelligence.”

      “Friends for real, Hal?” Bolan asked. “I’m a little too tired for wordplay.”

      “No. Real friends,” Brognola emphasized. “A Russian Intel operative named Kaya Laserka just avoided being killed by a couple of thugs.”

      “Laserka? She was Alexandronin’s trainee and partner. Did she get an e-mail from Vitaly?”

      “Apparently so. She reported the incident and a friendly operator to Stony Man gave the report to us,” Brognola said. “She couldn’t get directly involved, and I don’t want to compromise her identity.”

      “A friendly Russian agent?” Bolan asked. That lifted his mood some. “And a woman, so that really doesn’t narrow things down. Where is she?”

      “Well, she’s holed up in her apartment for now. She was given a quick ‘how-to’ on going to ground. Barb gave her the lesson.”

      “Barb” was Barbara Price, mission controller at Stony Man.

      “And my description, so she doesn’t put a bullet in my head?” Bolan asked.

      “Yes. I’ve got a flight for you leaving in two hours,” Brognola said.

      “Get me one around midnight, Hal,” Bolan requested. “I’ve got one or two more stops to make here in London.”

      “Damn it, Striker. What now?” Brognola complained.

      “One of the men who was sent to kill Vitaly got away last night,” Bolan said. “He’s the only living witness that I have to what’s going on. I need some answers.”

      “And you can’t let a guilty party stroll away from a murder attempt on a friend,” Brognola added.

      “If I can’t protect the people who I care about, I can at least make certain that those who meant them harm get the punishment they deserve,” Bolan said.

      “Does it quiet the ghosts?” Brognola asked.

      “It placates my guilt,” Bolan answered. “Some.”

      “All right. The plane will wait as long as it takes for you to show up, Striker. It’s a private charter, so he can delay for you,” Brognola told him. “Good hunting.”

      “Thanks, Hal,” Bolan said. He closed the PDA, fired up the engine and drove toward the next battle in his War Everlasting.

      K AYA L ASERKA PUT the phone down after the call from the woman named Barbara. She had arranged for a hotel room, quietly, and informed Laserka to expect to meet with a man who went by the identity of FBI Agent Matt Cooper. The Russian woman didn’t like that idea. “There was one man, several years ago. His name was Belasko.”

      “You’ll find that Cooper is everything you’re expecting from Belasko,” Price told her.

      “Everything?” Laserka inquired. “I doubt that anyone could match the man I knew. All right, what does Cooper look like?”

      “Six three, black hair, powerful