Rebel Force. Don Pendleton

admit the casino protocol was a wise set up despite the seeming cinematic feel of the practice. Someone could remain anonymous in the crowd, surveying the environment. The contact would make no discernible moves that threatened exposure if he was under surveillance. Either party could simply walk from the scene without commotion if something seemed askew.

      The Executioner eyed his watch, then slid another chip onto Black 8. He almost wanted to place another bet, just to make things interesting, but he was afraid the diversity could potentially throw off his contact. Sanders didn’t know him by sight, so any variation from the established contact routine would be stupid. The Asian man, eyes glassy, left the blackjack dealer and stumbled up to the table as Bolan lost again. Two security guards in ill-fitting jackets watched, seemingly bored. They were joined by a third after a moment.

      Bolan put his chip down on Black 8 again. The guy with the crew cut ordered a drink from a passing cocktail waitress. The Asian man changed Russian rubles into chips at the table and lit another cigarette. One of the blondes had moved behind the fat man and was whispering into his ear while she pressed her breasts against his back. The other woman leaned in beside him, hand in his lap under the table as he played.

      “Red 4,” the dealer said.

      Bolan put his chip on Black 8, once more.

      “Final time,” he said in passable Russian.

      There was a tense moment when the Asian man began throwing chips across the board, but he didn’t play Black 8 and Bolan relaxed as the croupier called an end to bets.

      This was it, Bolan reflected. The time for the meet in the prescribed manner was past. Sanders hadn’t shown. It was official. Grozny was a problem.

      Bolan watched the roulette ball bounce around the revolving wheel. As he watched it hit Green 00, nothing obvious had changed, but he smelled danger.

      Throwing a chip down for the croupier, Bolan rose.

      It seemed he could feel the weight of the sniper’s crosshairs on his exposed back, even though he knew that was ridiculous. Sanders hadn’t shown, but that didn’t necessarily mean the meet location had been compromised.

      Bolan was sure Sanders was in trouble. He was sitting on a top-level asset itching to defect. He had avoided his station command, used asymmetrical communications and had missed a last chance emergency meet. Bolan frowned as he walked. Something wasn’t right.

      He walked outside and flipped open his regular cell phone. He hit a number on his speed dial while hailing a taxi driver in a battered old Volvo. When the connection was made, he spoke briefly into the phone.

      “Black 8 was a bust, stage two.”

      Bolan hung up the phone, his cell line was open, and he’d relied upon brevity and obtuse langue for security. Such a protocol was better than getting caught in the open with a military satellite phone. Bolan climbed into the taxi.

      BOLAN STUFFED HIS HANDS inside the pockets of his jacket and headed into the train station. The very last of the workday commuters were going home, and the old building was clearing out quickly as he entered. He wove his way through the thinning crowd, pushing away from the passenger areas and toward the freight docks.

      Wire crates stuffed with chickens were set against the one wall. The smell of animals was strong. Bolan noted the hardy determination of the people in this war zone to continue on with their lives. He had seen it across the globe, but it never failed to give him hope for the human condition.

      Bolan got lost in the crowd, then turned back the way he’d come, exiting the building. He cut through dank alleys and dodged across busy streets until he’d made it about two blocks away from the central train station.

      He stopped in front of a window display filled with pictures of women in school uniforms being spanked or tied up. His eyes scanned the window, attempting to survey the street behind him in the reflection. The light was too bad for that, so he entered the porn shop.

      The inside of the shop was illuminated with garish light from neon tubes. Skin magazines and the box covers for movies were stuffed into cheap racks. A section on the far wall was filled with various sexual devices and toys. The main room was filled with furtive-eyed men who avoided any contact with one another.

      Bolan walked through the store, ignoring the other patrons. He entered the gloomy mouth to the hall where the peep shows were located. He could hear gasps and moans coming from behind the closed doors to the video monitor booths. He heard the slap of a hand on flesh and women’s cries—some in faux pleasure, many in pain. He moved past the doors. The layout for the coin-operated theaters was in a T-shaped hallway. He walked down the long leg of the T past the video booths.

      Along the back wall were the live-show booths. He turned left at the juncture and went to the second to last door. An out-of-date pop song was blasting through a cheap stereo system. The light above the booth door showed red, indicating it was occupied.

      The Executioner waited. After a few moments the song changed and a disheveled looking middle-aged man in a suit scurried out. He almost ran into Bolan and squeaked guiltily. He looked up, eyes appearing enormous behind thick glasses.

      Bolan snarled down at him and the man hurried out of the hall.

      The cramped booth stunk, and Bolan looked around, disgust on his face now that he was alone. He shoved the bolt on the door home, then fed a few coins into the wall slot to change the light outside to red.

      A narrow opening slid back and, through smeary glass, Bolan caught a glimpse of a nude woman in a room surrounded by coin-operated windows. Bolan reached into his pocket and pulled a credit card from his wallet. He turned away from the window and squatted.

      Using the edge of the credit card to spare his fingers any unpleasant contact, Bolan reached up under the seat mounted in the wall. The booth was known to be Sanders’s blind drop. He’d been running stringers in his surveillance operation against the institute and picking up hard copy materials from them in this booth.

      Bolan paused as he felt his card touch something other than the wooden underside of the filthy little bench. He reached under the seat and immediately frowned. Sanders had attached a thin metal sleeve to hold items and the drop was stuffed full of papers.

      In undercover intelligence work, drops were made in public places to explain movement patterns to unfriendly surveillance. They weren’t meant to be cache points. There was seldom longer than an hour between delivery and retrieval at such points, nor was one site usually meant for more than a single stringer.

      Bolan slid out five manila envelopes of varying thickness. He knew things were bad. Operational security was dissolving all around him. He stood and slid the envelopes into the inside pocket of his leather jacket. He needed to get out and away from the drop site. He had to assume he was made. That didn’t necessarily mean the operation was over. He decided that if he needed to do open source or interview-based investigations, then it was still better for him to do it than risk the cover of another operative.

      He wasn’t going to make it easy for the opposition, however.

      Bolan unlocked the door to the booth and stepped out into the gloomy hallway. He sensed movement at the intersection of the theatre hall and looked up. The broad-shouldered man with the crew cut from the casino rounded the corner. Their eyes met, locked in recognition.

      The soldier didn’t believe in coincidences. He couldn’t believe in them and continue to survive in a covert operations environment. He launched himself instantly, driving straight at the man, using his momentum to rise off the ground, swinging his right knee up. He drove his knee hard into the man’s ribs. The guy grunted and staggered backward from the impact.

      Bolan landed and swept his hands up to grip the back of the man’s head in a maneuver designed to control him. The man’s reflexes were lightening quick, and he struck the inside of Bolan’s right arm at the nerve cluster just behind the elbow. Pain flashed up the Executioner’s arm and it was knocked aside, leaving an opening.

      The crew cut man stepped forward and struck Bolan with a fist to his