Brognola recognized Sokolov for what he was
The man was a player and a pawn. He armed the killers, but he also served them. And above him, shadowing his every move, were men and women who could take him off the board at any time. He lived because they found him useful for the advancement of their agendas.
The big Fed knew that removing Sokolov from circulation was a good thing. Putting him on public trial, revealing some of those he served might also benefit humanity. It wouldnât stop the global arms trade or any of the slaughter that resulted from it, but it might slow the pace of killing. For a while.
If anyone could do the job, Mack Bolan was the man.
Kotlin Island, Gulf of Finland
Special Agent Robert Marx thought it was funny how things seemed to change but actually stayed the same. Staring across the dark, cold water of the gulf before him, he could see the bright lights of Saint Petersburg. Founded under its present name in 1703, the regal city had been renamed Petrograd in 1914, changed to Leningrad in 1924, then had become Saint Petersburg once more in 1991.
The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
Take extraordinary rendition, for instance.
It was a fancy name for kidnapping, dreamed up by some Washington bureaucrat back in the eighties, a means of returning international fugitives to America for trial, even when they were sheltered by a hostile state. After 9/11 the phrase had morphed into a euphemism for shipping terrorist suspects off to friendly nations where âaggressive questioningâ was commonplace.
Another euphemism. Why not call it torture?
Regardless, the pendulum had swung again, and the Justice Department was saving rendition for hard-case felons whose wealth and/or political connections placed them effectively beyond the lawâs reach.
Scumbags like Gennady Sokolov.
For his sake, Special Agent Marx and seven other members of the FBIâs elite Hostage Rescue Team were standing in the icy early-morning darkness of Kotlin Island, twenty miles west of Saint Petersburg and a mile west of the Kronstadt seaport.
There were no hostages at risk this night. The mission was a basic find-and-snatch.
Extraordinary rendition.
Their target was a dacha built by Sokolov as a retreat from the daily grind of his murderous business. The team had helicoptered in from the mainland, and their chopper was waiting to take them back again, plus one. A charter jet was also standing by at Pulkovo II International Airport, eleven miles from downtown Saint Petersburg, with its flight plan to London on file.
From there, it was home to the States.
If they lived through the night.
Marx had handpicked his team, choosing only the best. He had two seasoned snipers, one packing a Remington M-40 A-1 .308 sniper rifle fitted with a Unertl target scope, and the other armed with a Barrett M-86 A-1 âlight Fiftyâ in case they had to take out any armored cars. Chuck Osborne carried a Benelli M-4 Super 90 semiauto shotgun, for opening doors and flattening humans. Marx and the other four men on his team were armed with Heckler & Koch MP-5 SD-6 submachine guns, with retractable stocks, integrated suppressor and 3-round-burst trigger groups. As sidearms, all HRT members carried the âBureau Modelâ Springfield Armory TRP-PRO in .45 caliber.
Good to go.
Theyâd waited two hours for Sokolov and his men to fall asleep. Now it was time to make the grab and get the hell off Kotlin, before they ran out of luck.
The snipers were deployed, already covering the grand three-story house, as Marx led his team through the dark toward their selected entry point. It might not be an easy snatch, considering the target, but theyâd trained on a scale model of the house, built back at Quantico specially for their mission.
They were as ready as theyâd ever be.
Marx led the way, as usual. He was his own point man, never asking any other member of the HRT to do a job he personally shunned. Another thirty yards or so, and theyâd have cover from the dachaâs seven-car garage while they prepared for entry.