An objection died on the proprietor's lips when Ris leaned forward. The man rubbed his fingers and thumb together.
"Later," Ris promised, "after we talk."
Reaching below the counter, the man placed a glass before Ris and poured a shot of arrack.
Ris ignored the rumlike liquor, knowing the fiery concoction would knot up his stomach in his present emotional state.
"You are alone?"
Ris nodded.
"The man you want has companions."
"Here?"
"Yes."
"The man is still here?"
"Yes."
Ris tried hard to control his exultation. So close to Helene. So close. "The white men?" He moved his thumb in front of him so that the men at the table behind him wouldn't see the gesture.
"They," the proprietor said, "as well as the South African."
Ris tapped the picture. "Who is he?"
"They call him Callahan. He is the leader in their arms-dealing organization."
"They're small-time," Ris said, indicating their diminutive stature with his forefinger and thumb. Otherwise he would know of than.
The proprietor took the statement as a question and answered it with a nod. "Small-time as well as new. They parade their money around but drive very hard bargains in the bazaar. They lack a certain class."
"But their money is good. That's why you allow them to stay here."
The proprietor shrugged.
Ris noticed one of the men get up and approach the counter. "What room is Callahan in?"
"Three. At the top of the stairs."
Folding the pound notes, Ris slid them toward the proprietor and watched them disappear under the man's sleeve. He was sure the man behind him never saw the transaction. Pushing away from the counter, he looked at the narrow wooden stairs that led to the second floor. There were only four rooms across the back of the café, each opening out onto the runway overlooking the table area.
Ris moved up the stairs, feeling the eyes of the men on him. There would be little time once his intentions were divined. But he couldn't make himself turn away. Behind the bleak deadness of the wooden door, Helene could be waiting.
Why had she involved herself with someone like Callahan? The man looked inefficient and unkempt, from his long brown hair and cheap gold necklace to the stained camouflage jacket he wore in the photograph. Helene would never be interested in a man like that, would she?
He pushed the questions to another part of his mind, bringing the trained predator forward, the beast that his father had created during what had seemed like endless hours of grueling physical punishment.
He moved without hesitation, drawing the SIG-Sauer when he reached the top of the stairs, keeping it out of sight until he raised a big foot and sent it crashing through the door of room 3.
The lock splintered through the wood. A girl's startled yelp came to his ears, sending his adrenaline soaring.
Gripping the pistol in both hands, he swung into the room. For a moment the sight of the naked woman scrambling across the bed drew his attention. He drank in the sight of her, from the sculptured calves, the tanned thighs, the whiteness of her rounded buttocks, the impudent upthrust of her small breasts. Helene? Then he saw the face, framed by long brunette hair. Helene was blond.
He placed two shots just under the girl's left breast so that he wouldn't have to worry about her movements during the coming conflict, watching in satisfaction as her blood sprayed over the dingy yellow wallpaper behind her.
Then he aimed at Callahan as the arms runner fumbled for a mini-Uzi cached between the mattresses of the bed. Moving the open sights from the chin covered by a three-day growth of beard, Ris dispassionately shot the man through the right shoulder.
Callahan gave a pained grunt and spun away from the machine pistol, falling across the corpse of the girl.
Ris moved across the room and scooped up the weapon, settling it comfortably in his left hand.
"Goddamn son of a bitch," Callahan screamed as he launched himself from the bed. He had his arms spread wide, and blood spurted from the shoulder wound.
Shifting his weight, Ris dealt the arms dealer a roundhouse kick that propelled the man backward into the wall. He fitted himself into the meager shelter offered by the door and levered the mini-Uzi into target acquisition.
The machine pistol stuttered into life as Callahan's two companions came charging up the stairs to aid their comrade. The clip ran dry as Ris moved it in a flesh-shredding figure eight that blew both men over the second-floor railing.
Ris had to step forward to find the South African. He tossed the mini-Uzi over the broken railing and raised the SIG-Sauer. Sighting carefully, moving the open sights after the fleeing man, he squeezed softly when he had the man's neck centered. The bullet drove the man's spine into the back of his throat and pitched him facefirst onto the floor.
There was no sign of the proprietor.
Ris returned to the room just as Callahan was throwing a leg over the open window. He triggered another round, which crashed through the man's right knee.
Callahan toppled to the floor, writhing in agony. Harsh screams, filled with pain and anger, ripped from his lips. "You're dead, you bastard. You're dead."
Placing the heated barrel of the SIG-Sauer to Callahan's forehead, Ris forced the man's head to the floor.
Callahan closed his eyes, whimpering.
Ris let the man wait.
Then, after the sobbing had subsided somewhat and because he knew it would only be a matter of minutes before the Tourist Police arrived from the bazaar, he asked in a soft voice, "Where's the girl?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, man," Callahan screamed. "You killed the girl. Christ."
"Where's the girl?" Ris repeated. "The blonde?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Moving the pistol, Ris triggered a round that dug splinters from the wooden floor beside the man's left ear. Callahan squirmed away from the floor, screaming in renewed agony.
"The girl," Ris demanded. Painful images of Callahan and Helene making love tumbled through his mind. "Where's Helene?"
"Christ, I don't know, man. Honest I don't. She picked me up at this café two days ago. She said she needed me and talked me into letting her stay the night. When I woke up, she was gone, and so was my money belt. I've been looking for her, too, but it's like she dropped off the edge of the world."
For the first time since Helene had escaped two days ago, Ris felt a cold chill penetrate his gut. Was she dead, then? No. He pushed the thought away. No, if she was dead, he would have felt it. She was out there somewhere. Still running.
He returned his attention to Callahan. "Did you enjoy making love to her, American?"
Blood seeped through Callahan's fingers from his shoulder wound. "I didn't touch her. She wouldn't let me. She damn near scratched my eyes out when I got close to her." He indicated days-old scratches on his forehead with a bloody finger.
"Good," Ris said, then emptied his pistol's clip methodically into Callahan's face.
4
Leo Turrin dropped the AK-47 and ran, following the line of police cars to the front of the video arcade. Kirby Howell limped after him. The whirling cherry glare of the patrol cars' flashing lights ignited the scene for Turrin, splashing haphazardly over the shocked and angry faces of the jeans-clad clientele staring at the broken windows of the building. Smoke eddied gently from the windows, pulled along by the hot, dry wind.
The Fed cut across the street into oncoming traffic. Brakes locked and screeched as drivers swerved to miss him. Once he had to place his hands on the hood of an older Chevy to keep from falling under its wheels. Then he was across.
Mack couldn't be dead, Turrin told himself. But the smashed and broken windows told another story. Flames still licked at the tiled ceiling overhead, and the smoke inside was too thick to allow his vision to penetrate much more than a yard or two at best. Not Mack. The guy was supposed t
o be indestructible. How many times had he seen the big guy square off against impossible odds only to walk away the winner? Images chased themselves through his mind, from the time in Pittsfield when the Executioner was putting the finishing touches on Sergio Frenchi's Mob to the events in the office building down the street. Always Bolan had escaped to fight another day. A walking nightmare in executioner black.
A beefy policeman with a florid face and iron-gray hair stepped in front of Turrin and grabbed him by the shoulder. "Hold on now, mister," the cop said as Turrin struggled free. "You just stand back out of the way."
Turrin flashed his Justice credentials. He looked past the cop, trying to see some sign of Bolan. "I've got a friend in there, damn it."
The cop drew back with an apologetic look.
The Fed brushed by the man, pulling a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and clamping it over his nose and mouth as he entered the building. He bent low, searching through the layers of smoke with tearing eyes. What the hell had happened? He scanned the wreckage of the video machines. An explosion, sure, but where had it come from?
Judging from the pockmarked holes in the walls where bits of flame still clung tenaciously, Turrin assumed the bomb had been incendiary in nature.
His left foot shot out from under him, and he almost went down, his left hand taking the weight of the fall. The greasy texture of blood covered his fingers, and he dragged his hand across his pant leg without looking.
A dark shadow swirled in the smoke before him, and he fell back into the cover of a nearby video machine, arm extended with the Bodyguard at the end of it.
"Easy, Leo," said a familiar voice.
"Mack?"
"Yeah."
"You okay?"
"I think so."
"What happened?"
"I caught the guy I was after," Bolan explained as he moved forward.
Leo saw the big warrior weave uncertainly for a moment, then shake his head as if to clear it. It was hard to separate Bolan's smudged features from the clouded air.
"He blew himself up when he saw there was no way out. A girl stepped between us, trying to keep me away from the guy. She took the brunt of the explosion. I guess I was out for a few minutes."
Moving forward, Turrin took one of Bolan's arms across his shoulders, helping support the bigger man as they weaved through the burned out husks of the game machines. At first Bolan tried to resist the help, stubbornly trying to make it on his own. Turrin knew it was more a survival mechanism than a macho hang-up. Bolan wasn't used to operating in an environment where helping hands were extended without a price or without treachery in mind.
"Lean on me, Mack. It's a wonder you're on your feet at all." Then he was guiding them through the door, bolstering the .38 to produce the Justice credentials for the waiting cops, bitching loudly when one of the uniforms didn't clear the area fast enough. He demanded a car and got one, then helped the warrior into the back seat. Turrin sat beside him after rolling the windows down, feeling the burning ache deep in his lungs and knowing Bolan's had to be in worse shape.
He saw the warrior pry his eyes open to look at him, saw the wary hunter glinting in the volcanic blue. He knew Bolan was out on his feet but refused to stay under until he reached some safe harbor.
"Chill out, Sarge," Turrin encouraged quietly. "I got this watch." He laid the .38 across his thighs meaningfully.
Bolan nodded and closed his eyes.
* * *
Hal Brognola stood just inside the darkened office, feeling the stress and the hours of tiredness wash over him. There was a sense of comfort in the room, though, because Bolan would be sitting behind the desk in the morning poring over the security plans for the Russians' visit. And even though the man had yet to set foot in the room, Brognola had no trouble imagining him sitting in the swivel chair.
Taking a cigar from an inside jacket pocket, Brognola peeled off the wrapper and stuck the cigar into a corner of his mouth, experiencing an almost spiritual moment of relief from the action. He checked his watch again. Good. It was still another thirty minutes until the press conference took place downstairs. Time enough for him to get his head together before going full-tilt against the reporters who would be waiting for the no-news that would be the only thing they would be given. So far no one had tipped to anything definite about a threat against Gorbachev's life. Which, considering how many of the alphabet agencies in the capital knew, was pretty goddamn amazing.
Even though there was a certain satisfaction in the President's decision to coordinate activities with and through the Justice Department, Brognola was shouldering a lot of the weight of responsibility. In light of the black eye Justice received during the previous President's tenure, the big Fed was glad for the opportunity to garner a little praise while the visit was in the limelight, start building a more positive image for the Department.
As long as nothing went wrong.
A shadow drifted across the light spilling into Brognola's office, letting him know he wasn't alone anymore. He shifted the unlit cigar and turned slowly.
The expression on Greg Bowen's face was more of a smirk than a smile, and it irritated Brognola that the younger man had slipped up on him undetected.
Bowen was as tall as Brognola, but thinner, possessing the broad chest of a weight lifter and tapering down to a narrow waist. As a section chief for the CIA on this operation, Bowen held an almost equal rank with the head Fed, even though he hadn't seen thirty yet. Brognola wasn't sure which bothered him most in their two-week-old relationship: the way Bowen looked in the expensive clothes he wore, or the insouciant grin that habitually played with the man's lips.
"Penny for your thoughts, Hal," Bowen said as Brognola stepped from the office and locked the door behind him.
"You'd be overspending," Brognola replied, "even in these inflationary times."
Bowen folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall by the office door.
Brognola looked for a telltale crease in the jacket that would reveal the agent's shoulder holster, thinking he might sink a barb about the guy finding a new tailor. But there wasn't one.
The grin stayed on Bowen's face. "I'm told this Belasko guy is going to be operating directly with your group on this."
Brognola nodded warily, wondering where the conversation was heading. Kurtzman had kept him up on all the investigative attempts the different agencies had made to penetrate the wall of biographies and manufactured history that had been grafted onto Bolan's cover. There had been dozens. The interest, expected as it had been, had still almost been enough to shake the Man's resolve to include Bolan in the security net.
"So, tell me, Hal," Bowen said, "just between you and me. What's the deal with Belasko?"
"He's here as a security consultant, at the President's request."
"Yeah, I know ail that, Hal. I even know his grandmother's maiden name. On both sides of the family tree. What I don't know is why I've never heard of this guy if he's so good."
Brognola flashed the younger man an easy smile of his own. It felt good to be one up on Bowen. He'd be damned if he'd admit it to anyone, but it did feel good. "Belasko operates under a low profile." He started down the hallway toward the elevator.
Bowen fell into step beside him. "I operate under a low profile, too, but people have heard of me."
"Maybe it's because you've got a better tailor or better hairdresser."
"Maybe it's because I'm good at what I do," Bowen said. "You know many section chiefs in the Central Intelligence Agency that made section chief before they hit thirty?"
"So what are we talking about here, kid? Professional jealousy? You looking to make your bones on this one, or what?" Brognola had to give the younger man credit, though, because Bowen showed no visible reaction to his taunt.
"You got the professional part right, Hal. That's what keeps bugging me about your guy, Belasko. I've been planning this little caper for a couple of months. I knew about you at that time. I knew about th
e FBI people who were going to be involved. I dug up profiles on the NSA heads who were slated to handle this visit. I had a handle on every one of them at least a month ago. But not one word trickled into these sensitive little ears of mine about a Michael Belasko until the day before yesterday."
Brognola pushed the button for the elevator and looked at Bowen. "That's when I got the call through to him."
"How long had you been indecisive about calling him in to ramrod this for you?"
"So now we're going to talk about my professionalism?" Brognola let a little hardness creep into his voice. The kid was sharp and determined, but by pursuing his present line of questioning he could very well upset one of the best defenses the Russians could have.
"Indecisiveness is a bad sign, Hal. If you were going to call Belasko in, I don't understand why you didn't do it earlier. Seems to me, a guy with the kind of reputation Mr. Belasko enjoys wouldn't be able to drop everything he was doing and come running at a moment's notice."
"We got lucky," Brognola replied, and meant it. It had taken Bolan almost twenty-four hours to return his call.
"Two days ago," Bowen went on, "I start hearing Mike Belasko's name. Two days ago I start hearing little tidbits about a suspected assassination attempt. Now tell me, is that a coincidence or what?"
Placing a big hand on the open elevator doors, Brognola leaned forward, invading the younger man's space, breathing hard on the CIA man's cheek. "Don't ever let me get the idea you're accusing me or my department of one goddamn thing," he said in a low voice, "or I'll kick your skinny ass."
Bowen's hazel eyes frosted over and his smile tightened. "You're giving away a lot of years, Granddad."
"And all of them well spent in learning how to kick the ass of every young pup who annoyed me."
Glancing at the diamond-studded Rolex at the end of his arm, Bowen said, "We better get a move on if we're going to make the press conference. We can feel each other's muscles on the way down."
Brognola stepped inside the cage and made room for Bowen. He stabbed the floor number.
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