Blood Vendetta - Don Pendleton

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Kurtzman said. “I’m not saying otherwise. I’m not suggesting otherwise. But there were extenuating circumstances. His wife was killed. Not by Yezhov, but a couple of his shooters. At least that was the working theory of the Russian investigators. Not a far-fetched theory, either. But the Russians didn’t want to go after Yezhov, so they let the whole thing go. Salisbury’s wife was a criminal justice professor and taught at Georgetown University. She’d written a couple of papers on Yezhov’s network and then she turned up dead.”

      “The Justice Department tried to get the Russians off the dime on this thing,” Brognola added, “but they wouldn’t budge. Apparently, Yezhov rates top-level protection in his country.”

      “You think Salisbury got pissed off enough to steal information?” Bolan asked.

      “And pass it along to Nightingale? Yeah, I do. That’s the theory. And our two dead friends have links to Yezhov, too.”

      “Clearly,” Brognola said, “we think Salisbury killed himself. The forensic evidence says so. His coworkers and friends confirmed that he was despondent after his wife’s murder. That he couldn’t at least get a little closure likely only made things worse.”

      “So he takes matters into his own hands,” Bolan said. “He gets caught and loses his security clearance and his reputation. And kills himself.”

      “Right,” Brognola said.

      “A month before the ceiling fell in on the guy, he took a trip to London,” Kurtzman said. “We’re assuming he took the intelligence he stole to England and passed it to someone else.”

      “But we don’t know who for sure?” Bolan asked.

      “No,” Kurtzman said, “we don’t. But we are hedging our bets that it was Nightingale. Yezhov likely sent these two thugs out to exact a little revenge, but they obviously underestimated Nightingale’s skill.”

      “Will you take the assignment, Striker?” Brognola asked.

      “What if I find Nightingale and he or she tells me to go to hell?”

      “Then they do,” Brognola said. “Technically, the Nightingale is a fugitive. But you’re not a cop. Besides, I am guessing you have no interest in strong-arming someone just because Washington wants a chat with them.”

      “Good guess.”

      “You can say no,” Brognola said.

      Bolan nodded. He’d always kept an arm’s-length relationship with the federal government and could turn down assignments that came his way. But his gut told him this one was important. He agreed to take it.

      Chapter 2

      Mikhail Yezhov wanted to smash something.

      The man who stood before him, armpits of his shirt darkened with perspiration, breathing audible, seemed to sense it. Yezhov, fists clenched, a deep scarlet coloring his neck, circled the man, staring at him. The occasional flinch, or flicker of fear in the man’s eyes, caused a warm sense of satisfaction to well up inside Yezhov.

      Decked out in a five-thousand-dollar suit, surrounded by shelves of leather-bound books, and mahogany wood-paneled walls, Yezhov looked like a Wall Street investment banker or a shipping magnate. He was neither. Though he had once posed as a stockbroker in London as an agent with Soviet intelligence during the waning days of the Cold War. But his background wasn’t in business; he’d been a Soviet soldier and a military intelligence officer during his brief career. Once the Communist state went belly up, he’d moved into the private sector, where he could use his talents as a spy to whip up mayhem for his clients against their competitors. He always guaranteed results and, on the rare occasions when he couldn’t deliver, it made him see red.

      Like the present.

      Like Yezhov, the man who stood before him was Russian. That was where the similarities ended as far as Yezhov was concerned. This foot soldier—was his name Josef or Dmitri?—had a slight frame compared to Yezhov’s bulk, big eyes that made him look surprised even in the calmest moments and acne that would embarrass a fourteen-year-old boy. His suit jacket hung limply from his narrow shoulders and beads of sweat had formed on his upper lip. All this only intensified his air of akwardness, in Yezhov’s opinion. When the man swallowed, his Adam’s apple popped audibly in the deathly quiet room.

      Yezhov moved in front of the man, stopped circling. He pinned the guy under his gaze.

      “What now?”

      “Our sources in Scotland Yard said they identified the two bodies,” the man said.

      “Hardly a surprise.”

      “Sir?”

      “You hired known criminals to kill this woman. Neither was high-profile, but both had criminal records. It’s no surprise the police identified them. It was only a matter of time.”

      The man opened his mouth to protest, apparently thought better of it, and slammed his jaw shut.

      “Now, we have two corpses and a home that has been shot all to hell.”

      “Yes.”

      “And the woman lives.”

      “Yes, she does.”

      “And we have no idea where she is.”

      The man paused, studied his black wingtip shoes for a couple of seconds before nodding in agreement.

      “We have people looking for her,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time—”

      “Before you mess this up even more.”

      The man replied, but Yezhov didn’t bother to listen. He turned and saw his own reflection in a mirror that ran the length of the wall behind his desk. The rectangular mirror stretched from about the middle of the wall up to a foot short of the ceiling. It was one-way glass, on the other side of which was a small room packed with a console that controlled an array of audio and visual recording equipment. While he didn’t record every meeting, this one included, the setup came in handy when he gathered with high-level business executives and government officials from Russia and other countries, allowing him to gather blackmail material on the participants. As he’d said in rare unguarded moments, he had no business partners, only future victims.

      Yezhov saw plenty in his reflection to admire. Though he stood a couple of inches below six feet, he was broad in the chest and shoulders, straining the fabric of his shirt. Arms crossed over his chest were thick, corded with muscles created with an exacting exercise regiment and anabolic steroids. His head was shaved clean. Small hazel-colored eyes, set far apart, peered out from his wide face, and were separated by a large nose that had been broken twice, once in combat and once in a bar fight.

      For some reason, the annoying buzz of the other man’s words reached Yezhov, prompted him to turn back around and face the man.

      “We’ll find her,” he said.

      “No,” Yezhov said, shaking his head, “we’ll find her. You’ll have no part in this.”

      Surprise registered on the other man’s face.

      “Sir?”

      “You’re done.”

      “But—”

      “But nothing. You had a location. You had a name. You had money, my fucking money. You fucked it up. You’re done.”

      The man opened his mouth to speak. Yezhov silenced him with a gesture.

      “Shut. The. Fuck. Up,” he said. “This was a simple operation. A snatch-and-grab. One woman. The bitch was a banker, not a soldier. You hired two criminals, neither of whom apparently was up to the challenge.” He came around the desk and put himself between it and the other man. “I sent you to solve a problem, one fucking problem. Instead, you created more for me.”

      “Sir...”

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