LITMIR.BIZ

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bastard,” one of the professionals snarled, returning his response in Georgian-accented Russian. “Who do you think you are?”

      Bolan met his gaze. “A thirsty man in front of two jackbooted thugs. Two pathetic leftovers of a dead regime if my eyes serve me right!”

      “You don’t look Russian,” the other hardman said in English. His accent was flawless, further proof that these men weren’t just pulled off the street. “What relation are you to Alexandronin?”

      “Brothers in blood,” Bolan returned. “What is your interest?”

      “That man is a traitor,” the Georgian gritted in Russian. “And if you consider him your brother—”

      “Shut your mouth!” the English speaker said to his companion. He glared at Bolan. “Walk away from this if you value your life, ‘brother.’”

      Bolan smirked. “I was just about to suggest the same thing to you.”

      Behind him, Bolan could tell that Alexandronin was moving because the Georgian’s interest was suddenly locked on to the booth.

      “Trying to distract us?” the Georgian asked.

      Bolan snapped his arm straight, the palmed shot glass shattering against the Georgian’s cheekbone. Broken glass slashed ragged wounds through his eyeball and cheek. The other hardman stepped back, driving his hand into his jacket for the heavy chatterbox concealed beneath. Bolan kicked out, catching the English speaker in the side of his knee, folding the man’s leg with the crack and pop of dislocating cartilage and unsprung tendons.

      The background drone of the bar suddenly went silent as the millisecond of explosive action brought a spray of blood and the ugly crunch of a shattered knee joint to the patrons’ awareness. The Georgian screamed, half blind from the broken splinters sticking out of his punctured eyeball. Alexandronin slipped up behind him, grabbed a handful of collar and twisted. The tightened neck of his shirt smothered the Georgian hit man’s agony as fabric garroted across his windpipe.

      The blunt, short barrel of Alexandronin’s P7 jammed into the Georgian’s kidney. “You reach for the weapon under your coat, and your kidney will end up decorating the floor.”

      Bolan helped his broken-kneed opponent to both feet, reaching under the man’s jacket to use the grip of the harnessed machine pistol he wore as a handle to maneuver him. From feel, Bolan recognized it as an Uzi of some form. A good tug let his captive know that Bolan had command of the situation.

      The bartender looked under the counter at some form of fight-pacifying weaponry, but the sheer speed and violence of action dissuaded him reaching for it. Whoever the barkeep thought Bolan was, he had the reflexes to counteract anything that he kept under the bar. “Please, guv’nuh, take it outside.”

      “That was my plan,” Bolan told him.

      Alexandronin tossed some folded pound notes in front of the bartender. “Another bottle of potato juice for the road.”

      The Georgian gurgled as the bartender put a bottle on the counter. Alexandronin leaned in toward his captive, smiling. “Grab my vodka for me, friend.”

      The Georgian picked up the bottle and the four people left the confines of the bar. Both Bolan and Alexandronin held their prisoners directly in front of them as human shields. By the time they were outside, Bolan had his man’s Uzi well in hand and down by his thigh, safety selector clicked to full automatic.

      “Let your rifleman know that he’d better hold his fire,” Bolan warned as they stood under the bar’s overhang. “Unless you wouldn’t mind having a new orifice torn in you.”

      The limping, agonized Slav spoke into a collar microphone, speaking quickly. The hardman was straightforward, as Bolan had proven his fluency in Russian, making it clear that any deception would be futile. Bolan couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation because his prisoner wore an earphone, but the hostage explained that he had been compromised.

      “Where’s your shooter?” Bolan asked.

      “There are two of them,” the hobbled prisoner replied.

      “The bar’s quiet again,” Alexandronin noted. He pocketed the bottle of vodka, no longer needing a chokehold on his prisoner as the man was busy holding the tattered remnants of his glass-shredded face together. “The backdoor team is likely moving up.”

      “Point the way,” Bolan ordered. “Vitaly, stay sharp.”

       “Da,” Alexandronin said.

      A distant rifle cracked instantly, and the black-clad human shield jerked violently against Bolan. The prisoner’s blood gushed out of a hole torn into his breastbone, arterial spray spurting through the centralized chest wound like a fountain. Now a deadweight in Bolan’s arms, the corpse still provided some use as a protective barrier, and the Executioner pushed out into the street. Alexandronin forced his prisoner ahead of him, as well, but the riflemen focused on Bolan, their bullets crashing into the unfeeling form of the dead man.

      Bolan spotted a muzzle flash, lined up his Uzi and fired the submachine gun. The chatterbox had a range of 200 yards in trained hands, and no living man was more familiar with the stubby Israeli machine pistol than the Executioner. The distant gunmen stopped shooting, but Bolan didn’t feel as if he had scored a hit. Suppressive fire, however, still was worth the spent ammunition, and Bolan looked for the second rifleman. Alexandronin stumbled, the Georgian bending backward as the Russian’s P7 discharged. Alexandronin’s claim of spraying the hit man’s kidney across the bar floor didn’t quite come true as the 9 mm round missed the organ completely. The deadly slug, however, still tore through Alexandronin’s opponent, slashing a stretch of aorta apart.

      “Vitaly!” Bolan called.

      “Their round went through my thigh,” Alexandronin said, limping to cover.

      Bolan began snatching items from the dead man’s pockets, spare magazines and a radio specifically. He let the body tumble lifelessly to the ground as he rushed to scoop up his ally. Together they ducked between a couple of buildings. The leg injury was a shallow furrow along the outside of Alexandronin’s thigh. The bullet had struck far from the femur or the femoral artery, meaning that the man could still walk, though his leg was drenched. Bolan recognized the smell of the rotten vodka they had been drinking. A bone injury would have been crippling, but had the blood vessel been nicked, Alexandronin’s life would be measured in seconds. Bolan looked his friend in the eye. “Bad news. You lost the vodka.”

      Alexandronin grinned. “A tragedy, Mikhail. I can still walk.”

      Bolan dumped the spent magazine from his Uzi, feeding it a full one he’d plucked from its former owner. The savvy warrior also took a moment to secure the earpiece and the body of his hostage’s radio to his harness. Being able to listen in on the conversation of his enemies would be a force multiplier.

      The bar front opened and Bolan caught a glimpse of four men bursting through the doors, scrambling to cover. Bolan fired off a short burst that sent the dark-clad assassins deeper behind their cover.

      “Get to a safer position,” Bolan ordered Alexandronin. “I’ll cover you.”

      The Russian shook his head. “This is my fight, too, Mikhail.”

      “You’re hurt and slowed down,” Bolan argued.

      “I can turret,” Alexandronin replied. “You can still move quickly. Together we can surround them.”

      Bolan didn’t have time to argue about tactics, especially since Alexandronin was right. He handed his friend the Uzi and the remaining spare magazine. “Don’t die.”

      The Russian smiled. “I have men to kill before I rest, Mikhail.”

      “Remember that,” the soldier said, drawing his Beretta.

      The Executioner raced across the street, covered by a spray of rapid shots from Alexandronin.

      Once

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