Godunov sighed and took a seat. “What’s your price?”
“I’ll take twenty-five g’s for the genius there,” Bolan said. “And a job.”
“I’m not sure I have a place for you directly in my organization,” Godunov replied.
“Don’t be sly, pal.”
“Not at all.” Godunov reached carefully for a card on his desk and extended it to Bolan. “But I believe I know someone who would be interested in your work.”
Bolan cast a cautionary glance at Lutrova before walking to Godunov’s desk and snatching the card. He studied it a moment, a plain white card with only a phone number. “What’s this supposed to do for me?”
“Call that number and ask for the Wolf.”
Bolan cocked his head with skepticism. “You pull anything on me and I’ll kill you, friend. You can bank on it.”
“Again, we agreed that any relationship should be built on trust.”
Bolan gestured toward the two corpses on the carpet. “Like that? That’s your idea of trust?”
“Surely a man of your talents must understand my position. I have gotten this far by being cautious. The people I work for absolutely demand this. If I weren’t, neither my life nor that of our friend here—” he waved at Lutrova “—would be worth anything.”
Bolan nodded and pocketed the card. “Fine. I’ll just hold on to my catch until you have the money.”
“No need.” Godunov reached into a drawer, again careful not to make any sudden moves, and withdrew three one-hundred-dollar-bill bundles. He tossed them on the desk and said, “There’s thirty thousand in cash. Let’s call the added five a measure of my good faith.”
Bolan didn’t hesitate before scooping them off the desk and pocketing them. “Fine. Consider us square.”
He wheeled around and headed for the exit.
“One more thing,” Godunov said as Bolan reached the office door. “I will be looking into your background. If you are not who you say you are, I will find out. And when I do, you would be better to take the money and disappear rather than attempt to deceive me.”
Bolan flashed a cocksure grin and replied, “Yeah. You do that.”
ONCE BOLAN LEFT the building, he walked several blocks past the parking garage to check for marks. Nobody appeared to be tailing him, so he circled back to the garage and retrieved his rental. He contacted Stony Man after putting some distance between him and Godunov’s offices.
Barbara Price answered. “How did it go?”
“I think I’m in,” Bolan said. “I need another favor. Do some looking into any mercenary groups operating in the U.S.”
“Sure. Are we looking for anything in particular?”
“Not certain yet, but I have a moniker called ‘the Wolf.’ I don’t know if it means anything, but I if you cross-reference it with known freelancers, you may come up with something solid.”
“Will do. Hal’s here now, too. Anything else you can tell us?”
“Godunov’s definitely careful,” Bolan replied, “but I don’t think he’s calling all the shots with the RBN. He specifically mentioned that the people he works for expect him to be careful, which tells me someone sits above him in the ranks. Still, I get the impression he’s close to the top.”
“Any idea what he’s up to, Striker?” Brognola asked.
“Hard to tell this early on,” Bolan said. “He’s going to check into my background, and I gave him the Lambretta cover just as we discussed. Bear’s got that tightened up?”
“Definitely.”
“So what do you have in mind for your next move?” Price asked.
“I’m going to get in touch with this contact he called the Wolf,” Bolan said. “See where that leads me.”
“You could be walking into a trap.”
“Probably. But I’m banking on the fact that whoever this contact is, he’ll be chomping at the bit to recruit some new talent, particularly since those I took out in Boston were likely part of his team. One thing’s for sure—Godunov doles out all the wet work to specialists. I don’t think he’s got any internal people other than for personal security. So the sooner you can get me some intel on this contact I’m supposed to make, the easier it will be to gain a picture.”
“We’ll get on it right away,” Brognola promised. “Give us two hours?”
“Fine,” Bolan said. “I can lie low for that long.”
“What about Lutrova?”
“I left him there for a price,” Bolan said. “That should firm up my cover some as being in this strictly for profit. I just hope our timing’s good.”
“Well,” Price said, “we’ve done some other snooping into Godunov’s background. He’s operated here in the U.S. for about the past five years. That’s left significant paper trails, even if they only lead back to shell or paper companies.”
“I imagine he’s attempted to deal in smaller transactions?” Bolan inquired.
“You’re absolutely correct,” Price replied. “After 9/11, the federal government instituted new policies relative to financial transactions. Any single transaction of ten thousand dollars or more requires the receiving institution to generate what’s known as a currency transaction report. The CTRs are typically routed to the compliance departments for those banks, who then file them with a central database. These CTRs are then analyzed and flagged against a list of known financiers for terrorist or other national and international criminal organizations.”
“So Godunov’s managed to slip through the cracks by keeping the amounts of his transactions low?”
“Exactly. And since he’s never directly involved, his name has never been on the list,” she explained.
“We’ve taken care of that, though,” Brognola interjected. “We had him added as soon as you contacted us with Lutrova’s story. Speaking of which, do you think he’ll roll on you?”
“It’s always a possibility, but I’m confident he’s scared enough to keep his mouth shut. He knows if he tells Godunov that he was coerced into cooperating with us, it will likely cost him his life. I think he’ll pull through it.”
“Agreed,” Brognola said. “It’s not like he has a choice.”
“Well, we still don’t know what Godunov plans to use him for,” Price said.
“We know Lutrova’s an expert hacker and a technology genius. I think Godunov plans to exploit his talents in some way, and I’m guessing it has something to do with the funds they’re channeling through all the bogus investment accounts.”
“You think it’s money being used to fund RBN operations overseas?”
“Why not?” Bolan said. “It makes complete sense in light of what you’ve uncovered.”
“You could be on to something, Striker,” Price replied. “Given the state of the world economy, it’s likely they’re starting to see a rapid depletion of funds. The only way for them to continue their efforts would be if they get more money from their investors, or find new ones. The latter would take too long, so for the sake of expedience they may be attempting to tap the current list.”
“Which means they’d need to get all the financial data they could on those financiers,” Brognola concluded.
“Right,” Bolan