Resurgence

“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.”

She smiled and asked, “Are you afraid of monsters, Mr. Cooper?”

There’d been no harm he could see in giving her the standard cover name. Bolan had plentiful ID to back it up—a valid driver’s license, passport, credit cards—but she’d made no attempt to verify his name.

In fact, she likely didn’t care.

For all he knew, her real name could be Anna Khrushchev or Josefina Stalin. As long as she was fairly straight with him and they were moving in the same direction, toward a common goal, what difference did it make?

The cover world was all about illusions, anyway.

“The monsters I’m familiar with are human beings,” Bolan said. “They haven’t scared me yet.”

That wasn’t strictly true, of course. A soldier who denied ever experiencing fear was either lying or a stone-cold psychopath. Her could have been more accurate and said the human monsters in his past had never scared him off a mission, but Natalia got the point.

“Cako has a house in the Pine Barrens,” she informed him. “Not on state land, but nearby. There are no neighbors. It is his retreat, what you might call a home away from home, yes? He can do things there that might be dangerous in East Keansburg. I’m confident that he will be there now, perhaps with those who came to see him for the auction.”

“And the women,” Bolan said.

“Most probably. Whatever he decides to do with them, tonight has taught him to proceed with greater privacy.”

Whatever he decides to do with them.

They could be dead already, Bolan realized. It might be Cako’s smartest move, eliminating witnesses and evidence, but there was still a chance that the Albanian would try to turn a profit on the deal that had gone sideways for him, thanks to Bolan.

And the mobster would be wondering who was responsible for his embarrassment. Somebody higher up the food chain would be riding him for answers, breathing down his neck in the pursuit of sweet revenge.

“You know where I can find this home away from home?” Bolan inquired.

“I know where we can find it, Mr. Cooper.”

“It’s Matt,” he said. “And no offense, but all I’ve seen from you so far is fancy driving. I appreciate the lift and all, but if we’re talking penetration of a well-defended hardsite, that’s another story altogether.”

Sitting on the bed, leaning toward Bolan where he occupied the small room’s only chair, she said, “So far, all I have seen from you, Matt, is a chase you nearly lost, together with your life. I spent four years in the Russian army, three of them with Spetznaz, before moving to the FSB. I was a member of the Special Operations Service and participated in my share of actions against Chechen terrorists.”

Spetznaz was Russia’s equivalent of the Green Berets, well respected worldwide for their training, skill and demonstrated ruthlessness. Sometimes they went overboard, as in the Moscow theater siege of 2002, when critics blamed Spetznaz troops for killing a hundred-odd hostages along with thirty-three Chechen militants.

Bolan wondered if Volkova had been there, a part of the action, and decided not to ask.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll take it that you have the nerve to pull a trigger. Do you have directions to the target? Better yet, a layout of the house and grounds?”

She smiled and tapped her temple with an index finger as she answered, “Right in here.”

ARBEN KURTI HAD CHANGED his mind. After a transatlantic phone call that had literally left his ears burning, he had decided—or, to be precise, Rahim Berisha had decided for him—that he could not leave his buyers solely in the hands of Lorik Cako. This underling had been capable enough until this day, but one mistake was often fatal in the world Kurti inhabited.

And if a head had to roll, Kurti didn’t intend it to be his.

So he was driving with a dozen of his soldiers through the night, with a surprise for Cako. The man would resent it, but if he was smart he’d keep his mouth shut and accept the wisdom of his betters as his own best chance to stay alive.

Kurti was taking over.

He would charm the foreign buyers, salve their wounded feelings with whatever balm it might require. He had no end of alcohol and drugs available, and Kurti might even allow them to take turns sampling the merchandise. Enough, at least, to whet their appetites for more.

At a reduced price, certainly.

But not too much reduced.

Life was a business, after all. And so was death.

Kurti had only visited the vast Pine Barrens once before. On that occasion, two of his unruly soldiers had required a dose of special discipline. Kurti had driven them to Cako’s woodland hideaway, where no one but the members of a hand-picked audience could hear them scream.

And scream.

For hours on end.

Kurti pretended to derive no pleasure from such terminal events, because excessive lust for blood could be a weakness, just as surely as a fear of spilling any blood at all. A man should manage to control his base emotions at all times—except, perhaps, at the climactic moment of his rutting with a whore.

And even then he should be able to react effectively if threatened by an enemy, confronted by some crisis.

Anyone who lost control completely was a fool.

And easy meat for adversaries.

He was counting on a certain weakness in the men who’d flown halfway around the world to bid on human merchandise. They had been shaken up this night, endangered, and would naturally be irate. Their dignity was ruffled, even if they’d suffered no real injury.

In situations such as this, dealing with ruthless men of power, Kurti knew certain concessions had to be made. He would admit responsibility for their discomfort, to a point, and offer his assurance that the insult would be punished. He might tape that punishment, as it unfolded, and provide free copies for the personal amusement of his guests.

As for the women, they were still available. Still lovely and unsullied by the incident that had disrupted Cako’s first attempt to sell them off. Would any of the buyers choose to go home empty-handed and declare their trips a total waste?

Kurti thought not.

His thirty-year career in crime, devoted to obtaining profit from the misery of others, had taught Kurti not to miss a trick along the way. Instead of granting his unhappy guests access to any of the merchandise, he thought it might be fun to stage a little show for them. Let them observe the girls with one another.

Wait until their lust took over, and no discounts were required.

He might even increase the asking price.

Why not?

His buyers were men who lived by the rule of supply and demand.

And sometimes died by it.

It had crossed Kurti’s mind that the men who had raided Cako’s estate might follow up with a strike at the Pine Barrens site. He deemed it unlikely, but part of him hoped that it would come to pass.

That way, Kurti could avoid expensive, time-consuming searches that exposed his men to greater risks from both their unknown enemy and the authorities. He had been lucky so far, with the FBI and DEA, whose focus on Albanians had cracked the Rudaj syndicate in Queens but left the group that Kurti served intact.

That luck had been too good to last, perhaps, but Kurti meant to take advantage of it while he could.

By this time tomorrow, he hoped to have good news for Rahim Berisha at home.

And to save his own life in the process.

VOLKOVA USED a piece of motel stationery to sketch a map of Lorik Cako’s place in the Pine Barrens, giving Bolan a bird’s-eye view of the spread and its lone access road.

“You’ve flown over the place?” he inquired.

“But of course,” she answered, smiling. “Several companies advertise tours of the region. I chose Jersey Devil Airlines. Their pilot was most attentive.”

“I’m not surprised. No photos, though?”

“I did not wish to give him food for thought, yes?”

“Right. Good thinking.”

Bolan guessed that he could trust her memory, considering the fact that she was set to bet her own life on it. What the drawing didn’t offer was a head count of the staff on-site or any hint concerning Cako’s possible security precautions.

“It’s a good-size house,” he said. “And that’s a barn?”

“Apparently. Of course, it may have been converted into lodging, or for other purposes.”

Like selling kidnapped women off as slaves.

Or chopping captives into bite-size pieces for the local forest scavengers.

“It’s too bad that I lost my rental car,” Bolan observed. “I had some gear stashed in the trunk that could’ve come in handy.”

“More than this?” she asked, half smiling, as she nodded toward his carbine and assorted other hardware piled beside his chair.

“More ammunition,” Bolan said. “A sniper rifle. And an M-32 MGL.”

“The grenade launcher? Forty millimeter, I believe.”

“That’s it,” Bolan concurred.

“It would be useful. I suggest we go back for your car, after we sleep.”

He had to frown at that. “Sounds like we’re wasting time.”

“Cako will need that time to calm his customers, if they’re still with him. If they’re not, we have lost nothing.”

“Nothing but the women,” Bolan said.

“You think he will dispose of them?”

“He might.”

“Cako may be a zhopa—what you call an asshole—but he’s first a businessman. He won’t dispose of valuable merchandise without good reason. More importantly, his masters would resent it.”

“After last night, he may think he has a reason,” Bolan said.

“I doubt it. Certainly, he faces inquiries from the authorities. His house may need repairs. But who can link him to the women or even prove they exist? In his mind, I assure you—and in Arben Kurti’s mind, as well—the living women still have value. Now, if they were rescued by police and were prepared to testify…”

She didn’t have to finish it.

“Okay,” Bolan agreed. “Let’s say you’re right. I have to get it done this time. Clear out the hostages and deal with Cako, then take Kurti out before he slips away.”

“You’re an ambitious man,” Volkova said.

“I dropped the ball tonight,” Bolan replied. “Call it damage control.”

“And I will help you.”

“Won’t your people be upset?” Bolan inquired. “I don’t imagine you were sent to hunt down the Albanians this way.”

She shrugged and told him, “My superiors appreciate results. There was no realistic prospect of collaborating with your FBI toward prosecution of Kurti or Cako. I’m more likely to be charged myself, for some infringement on homeland security.”

“I take it you don’t have a diplomatic pass?”

“Only a simple tourist visa, as it happens.”

Simple tourist. Right.

“Okay. We give the other side some time to pacify their customers, then see about my car when everybody’s heading off to work. Sound fair?”

“I’ll change now,” Volkova said, “to save some time.”

He watched her take some items from a dresser drawer and disappear into the small bathroom. Ten minutes later she was back, dressed in a tight black turtleneck and matching jeans, hair tied back in a ponytail. All that she needed was some war paint to cover her peaches-and-cream complexion, but Bolan wasn’t complaining.

“You’ve come prepared,” he said.

“I do,” she told him, ducking to retrieve a duffel bag from underneath her bed. She set it on the bedspread, opened it and pulled out an AKS-74U carbine. The U stood for Ukorochenniy—“shortened,” in Russian—and the stubby piece lived up to its name. It was a standard Kalashnikov AK-74 assault rifle, truncated to fire from an 8.3-inch barrel, with a skeletal folding stock. Ammo-wise, it chambered 5.45 mm rounds with the same magazines holding thirty or forty-five cartridges, with an effective range of six hundred yards and a full-auto cyclic rate of 650 rounds per minute.

“You didn’t pack that flying coach,” Bolan said.

“Indeed not,” Volkova replied. “The diplomatic pouch is good for something, yes?”

“Seems so. About that sleep…”

“We are adult enough to share the bed, I think.”

“Suits me,” the Executioner agreed.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Pine Barrens

Lorik Cako seethed internally but dared not let his anger or embarrassment be visible. He viewed Kurti’s surprise arrival as a calculated insult, an expression of his leader’s sense that Cako couldn’t handle any of the problems that confronted them, but there was nothing he could do about it at the moment.

Not with Kurti’s hard-eyed men surrounding him.

Cako was forced to smile and nod and play along, ever the dutiful subordinate who wouldn’t harbor any disloyal thoughts regardless of the provocation. Total crap, but it was a way to stay alive.

For now.

He trailed Kurti around the house, flanked by the soldiers who had invaded his home. Of course, it wasn’t actually Cako’s home, either on paper or in fact. A phony corporation formed for that specific purpose held the deed, while Kurti and the syndicate they served had paid the tab. Still, Kurti only visited the rural house on rare occasions, so it felt like home to Cako—more than the defiled abode in East Keansburg—and he resented the intrusion he was suffering this day.

And still he smiled, watching his master work.

Arben Kurti could be a suave and charming man when circumstance demanded it. He had a way with ladies, for example, that beguiled them into thinking that he was a gentleman steeped in the kind of chivalry enshrined by romance novels. Once they had surrendered to him, though, it was another story altogether. Some endured him. Others fled.

A few had not survived.

This morning, with the first pale light of dawn just visible over the barrens, Kurti used his charm to placate Cako’s foreign customers. He sympathized, commiserated, nodding as they bitched and moaned to him about their disappointment and the peril they had suffered.

Never mind that none of them could show a scratch for all their trials and tribulations.

Granted, they had been disturbed and caught a whiff of gunsmoke as they left the other house. What of it? Each and every one of them were murderers, notorious for their brutality. Their whining angered Cako nearly as much as the raid on his house at the shore.

But Kurti had a way with men, as well as women. He was bringing them around, no doubt about it. Alternately frowning, nodding and joking with the clients, he’d managed to convince them that they shouldn’t write their trips off as a total waste. Why turn around and leave without the merchandise they’d hoped to purchase in the first place, when it still remained available?

Within arm’s reach, in fact.

By breakfast he had charmed them all. Cako’s personal chef prepared a feast, skipping the ham and bacon on the Muslim plates as ordered, and the waiters offered whiskey for those diners who desired to spike their morning coffee as a special treat.

“To get the juices flowing,” Kurti told them.

He had saved the day—but was it anything Cako himself couldn’t have done? How would they ever know, when he wasn’t allowed to try?

For the first time in their association, spanning seven years, Cako felt hatred for the man who pulled his strings. When Kurti told this story to Rahim Berisha—and he would, no doubt—all of the credit would be his, while Cako took the blame.

That was, if Kurti lived to tell the tale.

With enemies at large and staging vicious raids, who could predict how long he might survive? And if by some chance he was slain, together with his bodyguards, Berisha would be forced to trust Cako’s accounting of events.

Who would be left to contradict him, after all?

“Come, come! Enjoy!” He beamed at his guests, matching his own enthusiasm to Kurti’s. “We have great surprises in store!”

“WE STOP HERE,” Volkova said, “and proceed on foot.”

“Sounds fair,” Bolan replied.

The Porsche Boxster wasn’t an off-road vehicle by any means, but Volkova nosed it cautiously into a copse that offered her a hiding place of sorts. Determined searchers would be sure to find the car, but passing drivers had a decent chance of overlooking it.

So far, they’d met no other traffic on the two-lane forest road, which helped their odds of passing unobserved.

The trip to Bolan’s rental car had thankfully been uneventful. By the time they drove past Cako’s mansion in East Keansburg, nearly all of the police had left. A sleepy uniformed patrolman on the gate ignored them going east, and showed no greater interest when the Porsche returned short minutes later, with a Prius trailing after it.

The rest was easy.

Bolan found a nice, anonymous open parking garage, stashed his car and moved what he needed to the Boxster’s trunk. They were off with time to spare.

Volkova took them southward on the Garden State Parkway, skirting the eastern border of the barrens, then cut over to the west on State Road 72, leaving civilization behind. Using the map in her head, she’d brought them to their present point, standing beside the Porsche and suiting up for war.

“If anything should happen—”

“Don’t start that,” he rudely cut her off. “You’ll jinx yourself.”

“I simply wish to ask that you contact my embassy.”

“No promises.”

She wouldn’t let it go. “And if I called, for you?”

“There won’t be anybody home,” Bolan replied. “Let’s saddle up.”

He was as equipped for this raid as he was the previous night, except for the addition of a Milkor M-32 grenade launcher and a bandolier of 40 mm rounds to feed its 6-shot revolving cylinder. The M-32 resembled a space-age version of the 1920s Tommy gun, complete with foregrip, shoulder stock and drum. Its payload was vastly more dangerous, though, including high-explosive, HEAT, buckshot, incendiary and chemical irritant rounds. Operating on the same principle as a double-action revolver, the Milkor could empty its load in three seconds in rapid-fire, with an Armson Occluded Eye Gunsight providing optimum accuracy out to four hundred yards.

With the M-4 carbine and his sidearms for backup, Bolan felt ready to meet any challenge Cako might throw at him.

And then some. Damn right.

Watching out for copperheads and timber rattlesnakes along the way, he let Volkova lead him toward the larger serpent’s den.

“YOU SEE?” Arben Kurti said. “All is fine.”

“Of course,” Cako replied, swallowing bitter bile.

“These people are putty in my hands. You must know how to deal with people, Lorik.”

“As you say.”

It might be true their customers were fools, but Cako thought that Kurti was the biggest fool of all. How could he look at Cako with that stupid grin and not feel the radiant heat of his subordinate’s anger? Was he blind?

“You need to get the merchandise ready, Lorik. This lot will be done stuffing their faces soon, and we can’t keep them waiting any longer.”

“I’ll see to it,” Cako replied through clenched teeth. Turning away, he spied Qemal Hoxha and beckoned him across the dining room. A moment later Hoxha was beside him, waiting for instructions.

“Is the merchandise prepared?” Cako asked.

“Ready, as you ordered,” Hoxha answered.

“When the clients finish gorging, they’ll be moving on to the display room. Watch for stragglers and—”

At first, he thought the sound was thunder, but a rattling of glassware told Cako that he was mistaken. He glanced back at Kurti and saw the smile wiped from his face.

An explosion!

Against all logic, Lorik Cako felt a welling of sensation that resembled gratitude. Or was it pure relief?

Could it be true? Had his enemies somehow pursued him here, of all places, arriving at the moment when he needed them?

Was this his golden opportunity to punish them for his humiliation, and to rid himself of Arben Kurti at the same time, with a perfect scapegoat for his treachery?

“Lorik—”

“Forget the women,” Cako snapped at Hoxha. “Get our men together. Now!”

Qemal ran off to call the gunners, just in case some might have missed the first shot of the battle. Cako reached inside his jacket, drew the pistol that he carried in a custom-tailored shoulder holster, holding it against his thigh as he turned back toward Kurti.

Not yet.

Not with all these witnesses.

It would be helpful to him if the foreign customers survived, but that was secondary in his thoughts. Beyond the first imperative of personal survival, Cako focused on eliminating Arben Kurti and his unknown enemies.

As for the latter, he would love to capture one of them alive. Find out exactly who they were—or who they worked for—and report the information to Rahim Berisha as an indication of his competency. Moving on from that point, as the syndicate’s new chieftain in America, Cako could mount a campaign of reprisal.

Seek and find the men responsible.

Destroy them, root and branch.

“Lorik! Come here!” The sound of Kurti’s voice was like sandpaper on his nerves.

“I’m coming,” he responded, putting on a solemn traitor’s face.

THE FIRST GRENADE was Bolan’s wake-up call for Cako and his soldiers. After closing to a range of fifty yards, seeing the limousines and SUVs standing in ranks outside of the Albanian’s pineland retreat, he had decided that a stealthy probe wasn’t the way to go.