Terrorist Dispatch by Don Pendleton

Author:Don Pendleton [Pendleton, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Worldwide Library
Published: 2016-08-31T23:00:00+00:00

Kiev, Ukraine

“I HEARD ABOUT your comrade’s difficulty in New York,” Bogdan Britnev said, frowning at the speakerphone in front of him. “My friends also have had some...difficulties.”

“Coincidence, you think?” his caller asked.

“It’s always possible,” Britnev allowed. “But likely? I am skeptical.”

“As I am,” Pavlo Voloshyn replied.

“The problem with such things is—”

“Distance,” Voloshyn finished for him.

“Exactly. I have other people in the neighborhood who could investigate, perhaps, but do I risk them? Is it easier and wiser just to wait and see what happens next?”

“That’s why I’m calling.”

“Ah.” Now they were getting to the crux of it.

“I have received a message from Manhattan. One of Melnyk’s people. Did you ever meet Stepan?”

“I never had the pleasure,” Britnev said.

“I wouldn’t go that far, but he was competent—or so I thought.”

“The message?” Britnev prodded him.

“From one of the survivors.”

“Naturally.” How could dead men make a trans-Atlantic call?

“He thought one man, or possibly a small group, might have been responsible for what befell my friends, and yours.”

Britnev considered that. “Official?” he inquired.

“There was no indication of it. No arrests until the bodies started falling. Only now are members of the FBI beginning to investigate.”

“A covert agency, perhaps?” Britnev suggested.

“If it had happened here,” Voloshyn said, “I might suspect the police. Americans, for the most part, only behave that way in other countries, I believe.”

“But now, you think...?”

“I’m not sure. If there was a motive...”

“Something like the incident in Washington, perhaps?”

“That was not my affair!”

“Of course. I understand.” Britnev smiled at the speakerphone. “But it could easily be misinterpreted.”

“In which case, why attack your interests, as well?” Voloshyn asked.

And that was troubling. It suggested knowledge no one should possess. “I have no answer,” Britnev finally admitted.

“Then, I think we both should be on guard.”

“Here? In Kiev?”

“Until we know there is no danger from outside,” Voloshyn said.

Stating the obvious, Britnev replied, “I am always on guard.”

“But more than normal, eh? Until this passes, or we manage to explain it.”

Britnev tried to see the angles, figure out how Voloshyn’s alarmism could injure him, but saw nothing. “There’s never any harm in being cautious,” he agreed.

“And we should stay in touch.”

“As usual, comrade.”

“Good day, then.”

“And to you.”

Britnev switched off the speakerphone and rocked back in his chair, scowled at the vaulted ceiling of his office for a while, and then reached out to make the first of several urgent calls.

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