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Or they could simply open up the gate.
How long before one of them thought of that? Five seconds? Ten?
When life was measured by a stopwatch counting down, it clarified the mind. Bolan was ready for the flame-out, reaching for another frag grenade, determined to eliminate as many of the shooters as he could before he fell.
With all the gunfire ringing in his ears, he almost didn’t hear the Porsche Boxster approaching, only recognized it as the jet-black convertible slid to a halt on the road some twenty feet from where he crouched. There was a woman in the driver’s seat, leaning across to shout at Bolan through her open window.
“Need a lift?”
He didn’t hesitate. Pulling the frag grenade’s pin, Bolan lofted the bomb over the gate and sat tight for six seconds until the charge blew. Then he broke from cover, firing backward with the M-4, one-handed, not looking or caring to see where his bullets might strike.
The Boxster’s passenger door swung open to greet him. Bolan dropped into the deep bucket seat, slammed the door and felt sudden acceleration press him backward into leather.
Glancing at him while she drove, the woman said, “I’d call that quite a cock-up. Wouldn’t you?”
CHAPTER FOUR
New Jersey Turnpike, northbound
“I didn’t catch your name back there,” Bolan said when they’d covered several miles with no sign of pursuit.
“Natalia Volkova,” the lady said.
That pegged her accent. Russian.
“Okay,” Bolan replied. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful that you helped me out back there. But could you tell me how you happened by?”
She glanced at him around a spill of auburn hair that draped the shoulders of her conservative suit. She hardly needed makeup, but she wore dark lipstick and some eye shadow. Bolan couldn’t be sure of colors in the red-orange dashboard light.
“I did not, as you say it, ‘happen by,’” Volkova corrected him. “I have been watching these Albanian mudaki for nearly six weeks.”
“Mudaki?” Bolan echoed.
“A figure of speech,” she replied with a hint of a smile. “My point is that I am investigating them, not saving you. You understand?”
“I’m getting there. One thing’s still a little hazy, though. Which agency is it you’re representing here, again?”
She lost the smile, so tenuous to start with. “You would argue jurisdiction now? Perhaps I should deliver you back to the place I found you, eh?”
“Relax,” Bolan suggested. “I just want to know where I should send my thank-you note.”
After a silent mile, she said, “I am not from your country, yes? I think you know this.”
“It was sinking in,” Bolan agreed.
“Lorik Cako and those he serves are not only a problem in your great New Jersey and New York. They plague a list of countries, mine among them.”
“Which would be?” As if he didn’t know.
She missed a beat, then said, “The Russian Federation. Are you frightened now? You wish to jump out of my car?”
“I’ll stick at least until we hit a Waffle House,” Bolan said. “So, what are you? FIS or FSB?”
“FSB,” she replied, in a voice that almost made it sexy.
“Aren’t you supposed to operate primarily inside the federation?”
“Primarily,” she said. “But like your FBI, we are empowered to pursue domestic cases when they lead abroad.”
“So Washington knows that you’re here, and what you’re doing?” Bolan asked.
“I’m an investigator, not a diplomat,” Natalia said. “I follow orders, leaving all negotiations in the hands of my superiors. And you?”
“No one’s ever accused me of diplomacy,” Bolan replied.
“From what I saw tonight, you are a man of action. Not entirely legal action, granted. But I envy you a little.”
It was Bolan’s turn to frown. “Be careful what you wish for,” he replied.
“Sorry?”
“Forget it. After what you saw and heard tonight, why did you pick me up?”
“Perhaps because you’ve done what I have wished to do since I began tracking these animals. Perhaps I hoped that we could share intelligence and bring them down together. That sounds foolish, I suppose?”
“Not necessarily,” Bolan said. He’d collaborated with the FSB before, but had to ask, “What will your people say?”
Volkova shrugged. “Sometimes, what they don’t know won’t hurt me, eh?”
“I hear that,” Bolan said. “It’s risky, though.”
“You seem to favor risk.”
“The calculated ones, at least,” Bolan stated. “I’ve never cared for jumping off a cliff blindfolded.”
“Did you know what to expect at Cako’s house tonight?” she asked.
“An auction.”
“Da. That bastard sells women and children as if they were cattle. I hoped to gather evidence and give it to your FBI if all else fails. But now…”
“I know. Tonight I missed the women and the buyers,” Bolan said.
“The limousines?” Volkova asked.
“Long gone,” Bolan replied.
“Perhaps not,” the Russian agent said.
“Meaning?”
“First things first,” she answered. “You did not walk out to Cako’s home tonight, with all those guns. Where is your car?”
“Back in East Keansburg,” Bolan said. “A rental. Nothing in it that can hurt me, but I’ve lost my clothes, some extra hardware.”
“We can go back for it,” she said.
“Tonight? Police will have the neighborhood staked out and locked down tight.”
“Perhaps tomorrow, then. Or we can get another car. As for your clothes—”
“About those limousines,” he interrupted her. “What did you mean?”
“I know Cako’s buyers,” Volkova replied. “Every one of them a foreigner, like me. They won’t fly out tonight, for Hong Kong, Bogotá, wherever they come from. First they will wish to shout at Cako, then relax and sleep. Perhaps, when they have slept, even complete the business that they came to do.”
Bolan considered it. Something to hope for, anyway. Better than abject failure.
“Are you on to something?” he inquired. “Or is this wishful thinking?”
“I can tell you where the customers are registered,” Volkova said. “A few calls will confirm if they’ve gone back to their hotel rooms. And if not, I know where Cako is most likely to conceal them.”
“And the women?” Bolan asked.
“They’re valuable merchandise,” she said. “Why throw it all away, if he can make a profit for his masters, after all?”
New Jersey Pine Barrens
LORIK CAKO HAD stepped outside his house to make the call, smelling the pitch pines all around him. He was glad now that he’d left to come outside, as Arben Kurti’s shouting through the cell phone made his ear ache.
“What do you mean, you don’t know who’s responsible?”
“Arben—”
“I have police already calling me, now on their way with questions. What am I supposed to tell them, Lorik?”
“Tell them nothing, Arben. You know nothing. It’s true! They can’t break you on that.”
“Break me? Break me? No one breaks me, you punk!”
Cako cringed and answered, “No, sir. Of course not.”
“What about the women, then? Are they safe?”
“The buyers were my first concern.”
“It should have been security,” Kurti replied. “You’re sure these weren’t police?”
“Impossible,” Cako replied with perfect confidence. “American police don’t come in shooting. They bring warrants, helicopters, lights and cameras. Reporters follow them. It’s not at all the same.”
“Which leaves my question still unanswered,” Kurti said.
“I’ll find out who it was,” Cako assured his lord and master. “You can trust me.”
“I’ve already trusted you,” Kurti said. “Now I wonder if I should regret that choice.”
“I cannot tell you what to think,” Cako replied, bluffing it out. “But if you let me prove myself, you won’t be disappointed, sir.”
Kurti considered it and offered no direct response. Instead, he said, “The sale is ruined, I suppose. We’ll have to pay the clients back for traveling so far for nothing.”
“I believe we can proceed,” Cako suggested, “once I’ve calmed them down. Some discounts may be necessary, but I think that they would hate to go home empty-handed.”
Kurti spent another silent moment on the line, then said, “Do what you can with them. The merchandise cost nothing, after all. Disposing of it may create more problems than a discount sale.”
“My thought exactly, sir.”
“And find the people who caused me this headache,” Kurti said. “I want them alive if it’s possible. Dead, just as good. But be sure, understand?”
“Absolutely.”
“Your job now depends on it. As does your life.”
“Understood.”
Despite the warm night, Cako felt goose bumps rise on his arms, as a chill snaked its way down his spine. Before he had the chance to speak again, try ending their talk on a slightly more positive note, Kurti broke the connection. Cako heard the dial tone buzzing in his ear and killed his cell phone.
He couldn’t fault Kurti for his anger. All Cako could do now was fulfill his promises and hope that his success restored the confidence he had enjoyed before tonight.
First, calm his buyers and persuade them to permit another showing of the merchandise, perhaps at bargain prices. He would have to lay on more security, assure them of their safety—but where better to conduct the sale than in the vast Pine Barrens, shielded from the eyes of man and God alike?
Next, Cako knew he had to identify the bastards who had stormed his home, humiliated him and put his life doubly at risk. They’d failed to kill him outright, as was plainly their intent, but he was still in danger from his own captain if he could not find some swift way to rectify the situation.
Failure in this case was not an option.
It was do or die.
And when it came to agonizing death, Lorik Cako believed that it was best to give, rather than to receive.
THE ROOM WAS SMALL but tidy, had a lived-in look about it and smelled pleasantly of Volkova’s perfume. Bolan was no connoisseur of ladies’ fragrances, but thought this one had some kind of flower etched on blue glass bottles, which presumably helped to boost the price.
Whatever. Under different circumstances, he imagined it would do the trick when skillfully applied to someone who resembled his companion.
In the full light of her motel room, Natalia Volkova lived up to Bolan’s first impression—and then some. She was what the British tabloid page-three writers like to call a “stunna,” see-worthy in any setting.
But this night she was all business.
“You know the Pine Barrens?” she asked, while Bolan sipped a cup of halfway decent java from the coffeemaker that the motel provided for its guests.
“I know of it,” he said. “Pine trees and cranberries, with very few inhabitants than anybody bothers counting. Something like a million acres of it is a national reserve. Odd animals. Some say the Jersey Devil hangs around out there.”
