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  His momentary self-absorption faded as he became aware that something was wrong.

  He locked eyes with the clerk, saw the fear buried in the anxious brown depths of the man's eyes.

  The prickling at the base of his neck shot through his system, swinging him dangerously close to taking action. "What's wrong with you?" he asked harshly.

  "N-nothing." The clerk stammered twice before he got the word out.

  Thornton looked at Simcoe Street, feeling the danger close in. Two boys parked their bicycles to the right of the double doors and came in talking about comic books. The wind rattling through the door gusted across the counter and made a paper taped to the freezer section of the cold-drink lower flutter. He looked at the paper, which was posted so only employees could see it easily, and noticed the official markings.

  He placed his palms on the counter and leaned across, and the clerk leaned back, raising his hands in self-defense.

  The black-and-white reproduction was grainy, caused partly by the retake and partly by the copying, but he could tell the man on the paper wore his face. He made out Ryan Thornton, Dangerous, Toronto Police Department, and Immediately. Then the wind gusted again and blew it out of sight. He looked back at the clerk as the fear built up inside of him.

  He took the .38 from his waistband and pointed it at the clerk. The man had taken note of him and had seen the pickup. Maybe the clerk had called the police already. Thornton's finger curled around the trigger, holding the pistol straight out, pointing at the man's head through his hands. He willed himself to pull the trigger, wanting to break a link in the chain that tied him to this store, to this now. He needed to be lost. Only for a couple more hours.

  "No, please don't shoot," the clerk said the closed eyes.

  Thornton felt the pressure in his arm — like an overfilled balloon winding the length of his arm — wanting to explode. He willed himself to pull the trigger, giving the intent greater action. He couldn't allow the man to live, to interfere with his plans. If he didn't kill the clerk, it would be like committing suicide when he went out on the streets. And the streets held his only chance of escape.

  The two boys had frozen, staring at him in openmouthed awe.

  Thad. As Thornton's mind registered the presence again, the name came into his mind, and with it, another influence.

  Thornton's hand shook. "Down on the floor, old man," he said through gritted teeth.

  The clerk lay on his stomach, still protecting his head with his hands.

  Thornton moved around the counter, keeping the .38 leveled before him. He ripped the paper from the drink tower and scanned it. There was no information about why he was wanted, but it did carry a tag line about his being armed and dangerous. Something twisted inside his mind, as if part of him couldn't believe it was his face he saw there. Not his. He wouldn't believe he could become one of the many he had seen during his years. He wadded the paper up and dropped it to the floor, forcing himself to think, to act. There was no question the photograph was of him, wearing a face he seemed to be more comfortable with than the one he had now. He tried to remember when the picture had been taken. He'd been arrested before, but the picture didn't look like it had been cribbed from police records. It looked like it had been obtained from an employee file of some sort. He'd seen enough of those in his time, too hadn't he? But where?

  Still moving, he ducked under the counter and ripped out the phone. If the clerk hadn't already called the police, he could at least delay the call after he left.

  Back on the other side of the counter, he fisted the orange juice and lifted the .38 up. He fired two shots, filling the store with shock waves of explosions and turning the monitor into twisted, shattered wreckage that barely hung from the support struts.

  Then he was through the door, racing for the pickup, pausing only long enough to rip the pay phone out. He hit the ignition after throwing the .38 and the orange juice onto the seat. Shifting into reverse, he backed out onto Simcoe Street, hoping the clerk wouldn't see his license number.

  His heart was pounding as he navigated the late-evening traffic. He brushed perspiration out of his eyes as he constantly checked his rearview and side mirrors. Armed and dangerous. Running for his goddamn life. Running from Corsini, from the Toronto cops, from whatever kept rattling around so uneasily in his head. He clenched his fists around the steering wheel, watching the lights spin crazily in the periphery of his vision, willing the waiting to be over and knowing it would be over too soon.

  * * *

  Bolan trailed in Corsini's wake, maintaining enough distance so as not to arouse attention yet staying close enough to keep his target in sight. He'd picked the man and his group up on the first floor in front of the elevators while mixing with the group of people attending a function in one of the hotel's banquet rooms. He wore a dark turtleneck and a charcoal-gray suit that looked carefully cared for and allowed him to merge effectively with the banquet crowd while maintaining surveillance over the bank of elevators. But a practiced eye could have seen the cut of the coat was a bit long, a bit too generous at the lapels so it would cover the hardware he was carrying.

  But Corsini's men had the only practiced eyes in the area and they were intent on getting their boss through the crowded lobby to the parking garage. There were four of them, running a basic two-two pattern around Corsini.

  Bolan clung to the outside of the lobby, smoothly and unobtrusively ducking, dodging and apologizing in polite undertones when necessary. Corsini's movement could mean only one thing: that the cocaine had surfaced somewhere and was on the move.

  He could feel the fatigue drop away from him as he tailed Corsini, knowing his body was automatically sliding into the battle high that could carry him for hours more yet demand a tremendous payback when the time came. He knew when a warrior started dealing with the devil in the hell-zones, it was usually with his own body, pushing it beyond its limits in the name of flag or cause or country. Not just staying alive. A goal like that was too thin to cast a shadow across the killgrounds that were a warrior's home. To live as a larger-than-life person in a battle zone, a warrior had to face a larger-than-life task. Survival was just taking care of the equipment.

  Finding the DEA's undercover agent in the mess of double-dealing that had arrived in Toronto would be harder than finding a needle in a haystack. And he had to keep that needle alive if at all possible, while everything else went up in a chain reaction.

  Corsini and his crew passed through the door leading to the adjacent parking area. When the last man paused to look back over his shoulder, Bolan became one of a small group talking around an ashtray, fitting an appropriately disarming smile on his face. The minute the guard had satisfied himself that no one was taking undue interest in Corsini and had passed through the door, the Executioner followed.

  He unbuttoned the jacket as he passed out into the parking garage, giving him instant access to either the 93-R or the heavier Desert Eagle. Numbers were falling. He could feel them. Corsini had seemed too self-assured, too ready for whatever had been set up.

  Yet if everything was going precisely as Corsini would have it, would the man show up anywhere around the cocaine? Bolan didn't think so. So far there was no legal evidence that could connect the drug shipment to the man. So it seemed unlikely that Corsini would voluntarily take the risk, unless he didn't have a choice and unless he was sure the DEA and the RCMP were going to be out of the way for the exchange.

  But if Thornton was the undercover cop, wouldn't he have called the DEA in for the exchange?

  Questions continued to assault Bolan's analytical mind, twisting and turning till he was sure there was no mental footing to even begin knowing what was going on. Nothing to base a strategy on. Only the immediacy of it was a certainty.

  The parking garage was well lighted in the center, trailing off to deeper shadows along the perimeters he stuck to. He paused behind a thick concrete support when Corsini came to a halt in the center of the open area. One of the
men separated from the group.

  Bolan kept moving, angling for the Jeep Cherokee he'd rented once he arrived at Toronto.

  Another car entered from the street, coasting to a stop in front of Corsini.

  Bolan shifted, coming closer to the group, hunkering down so his shadow wouldn't stand out against the car he was using for cover. A light came on in the dark sedan as the driver gestured to someone in the back seat. Bolan recognized the man as somebody who'd been around Corsini's room earlier. Then he recognized Piper Silverman in the back seat nearest him.

  Was she Corsini's inside connection with the law enforcement people? Bolan the man didn't want to think that way; Bolan the warrior had to take in every consideration, even the distasteful ones. And right now it was the warrior side of him that would keep him alive. He waited.

  Corsini leaned forward and said something through the open rear window. Silverman spit on him, struggling in a way that let Bolan know the woman had her hands cuffed behind her. A knot of apprehension he hadn't noticed dissolved in his belly. He'd made mistakes in judging people before, but not many. And he'd have hated to have been wrong about the gutsy lady.

  In response to the spitting, Corsini shook a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the spittle away. Then, still smiling, he reached inside the car and slapped the woman, rocking her head back.

  Bolan duck-walked closer, the .44 Magnum already in his hand, waiting for the opportunity. Acting too soon would cost Silverman her life. He felt himself tense and forced himself to relax, the numbers still falling softly all around him. He could still reach out and make them his own, shift the pattern to where everything reacted from him instead of to him. It was all in deciding the right moment to act.

  Pausing at the front of the station wagon parked near the open space of the parking area, he listened.

  "Give me five minutes," Corsini was telling the driver, "then start after me. Stay out of the immediate area until I call you. Got that?"

  Corsini then leaned forward and pointed across the driver's seat. "You're coming with me."

  Frank Judson climbed out on the other side as Corsini's car came to a halt behind him.

  The picture started to come together in Bolan's mind as he examined the possibilities implied by Judson's presence. If Judson was Corsini's man inside the DEA, it cleared up a lot of things, except for where the undercover agent fit in.

  Corsini and Judson climbed into the back of the dark blue Cadillac with the driver and another man. The remaining two followed in a late-model Chevy.

  The sedan with Silverman and the two men rolled forward, making a large circle.

  Bolan stepped away from the station wagon as the sedan came around to face him, holding the Desert Eagle behind his leg, eyes burning as he tried to stare through the bright headlights and smoke-tinted windshield. He knew it was going to go down fast and only hoped he could keep Silverman clear of the heat. She was obviously an important facet of whatever plan Corsini had in mind, so her captors wouldn't want to harm her. At least not yet.

  He was still forty feet away when the sedan faced him head-on. As he brought the .44 up into target acquisition, framing the driver's side, he heard the engine suddenly roar and the tires squeal as they surged forward.

  Standing his ground while the heavy car bore down on him, he placed four shots through the driver's side, knowing there wouldn't be enough power left in the powerful projectiles to bore through the man's body and the seat — they wouldn't be a danger to Silverman.

  Then the car was on him, and there was no time to run.

  12

  Piper Silverman recognized Belasko only a heartbeat before she saw the big pistol come up in the man's hand. Twisting instinctively, she fell across the seat, waiting for the sound of shots. The windshield shattered inward. She saw the spiderwebbed chunks of safety glass fly toward the back of the car. She flinched, then watched the view afforded by the gap between the bucket seats as the big man's shadow rolled over the hood of the sedan.

  She waited for the sound of that impact, too. But it didn't come. Then the shadow was gone as quickly as it came, leaving a broken and splintered panorama visible to her. The driver's arm dropped lifelessly between the seats.

  Unguided, the car floated out of control and smashed into a concrete pillar.

  She was thrown forward to collide with the back of the seat before being bounced back where she started. A coppery salt taste tainted her tongue as the lump on her temple threatened to explode her into unconsciousness again. She groaned, the sound barely audible above the roaring of the car's engine.

  "Who is that son of a bitch?" the man beside her growled.

  Silverman ignored him, trying to find a position that wouldn't bring pain to her cuffed wrists. Her hands and fingers felt slick, and she was sure she was bleeding from at least one of her arms.

  Her guard shifted, dragging a mammoth revolver from a shoulder holster. It was a Smith & Wesson .357 with an eight-inch barrel, and even in her precarious situation she couldn't help thinking that the hardguy had a definite need to impress.

  Silverman kicked her feet against the door, wanting to see if the impact had loosened the lock. Her feet pounded against it futilely, drawing her captor's attention at once.

  He pointed the .357 at her face, and she stopped moving.

  "Georgie!" the guard yelled. "Hey, Georgie!"

  With an arthritic shiver, the engine died and silence filled the interior of the car.

  "Georgie!" The guard reached forward, then jerked his blood-covered hand back instantly and gagged. He looked at her with fear-filled eyes. "He's dead! Georgie's dead! He ain't got no face."

  Silverman wondered where Belasko had gone to. She couldn't believe the big man had sacrificed himself on a half-baked rescue attempt. Belasko had seemed to be a man with all the right moves; he couldn't have gone down under the car.

  "Out of the car, bitch," her guard said, glancing apprehensively over his shoulder out the rear window. He looked back at her, noticing she hadn't moved. "I said get out of the car, bitch."

  Silverman forced her voice to remain calm. "I can't get out by myself," she said. "I'm handcuffed, remember? I'm going to need some help."

  The guard grabbed her by the links holding the handcuffs together, bringing her arms up between her shoulders and creating excruciating agony.

  "Do you know who that son of a bitch was?"

  "No." Silverman got to her knees, slipping and sliding across the car seat as the man dragged her out.

  "The car hit him, didn't it?"

  She bit back a cry of pain, reached down tentatively with her foot to establish her balance and hoped he wouldn't spill her facefirst across the concrete. The temple hurt bad enough by itself. "I think so."

  "Me, too. Only now I don't see no body."

  Both feet on the ground now, Silverman turned to look back the way the sedan had come, searching for Belasko.

  "C'mon, bitch," the guard said, "tell me who that big bastard was and be damn quick about it."

  "I don't know."

  Yanking her around, the guard locked an arm over her shoulders and across her breasts and pressed the muzzle of the .357 deep into her neck. "I don't believe you. That son of a bitch was after you. Me an' Georgie, we didn't know him. That leaves you."

  Silverman's eyes swept over the parked cars, searching, painfully aware of the gun pressing into her bruised flesh. "I don't know him."

  "Yeah, sure." The guard squeezed her breast hard, making her yelp despite her best efforts not to give him the satisfaction. "Hey, man!" the guard yelled over her shoulder. "I got this bitch you want so bad. See? And if you don't show yourself by the time I count to three, I'm gonna take her head off. Then it'll be just you an' me."

  Silverman swallowed hard, trying to divorce herself from the events, trying hard to find a shred of sanity and sense to cling to. "Maybe that's the way he wants it," she said in a calm voice. "Maybe he just wants it to be you and him."

  "Shut
up!" The guard shook her, putting pressure on her windpipe. "That what you want, man? You want me to kill this bitch?"

  Silverman saw the shadow come out of the darkness twenty feet away, moving from concealment behind a van. The big pistol was held at his side, pointing down. She felt her insides ice over as he approached.

  "Drop the piece, man," the guard ordered.

  Belasko shook his head, a grim look on his face.

  Silverman tried to look through the piercing blue of his eyes, tried to get an idea of what thoughts were cycling through his brain. But there was nothing she could see.

  "I said drop the piece," the guard repeated.

  Belasko shook his head. He took another step forward.

  "I'll kill her, man, I swear I will."

  Belasko smiled, a chilly and grim smile. Silverman thought the effort would have looked more at home on a shark's mouth. Don't give up the gun, she wanted to shriek, knowing that if Belasko did, they were both dead.

  "What would Vinnie say if he found out you killed the woman you were supposed to be guarding?" Belasko asked.

  When the guard didn't say anything, Belasko took another step forward. The .357 pressed harder against Silverman's neck.

  "Think Vinnie would just let it slide?" Belasko taunted. "Or do you think he'd kill you?" His lips curled back again tautly. "Personally I think he'd put a bullet in your head and drop you in a lake."

  With a cry of inarticulate rage, the guard took his weapon from Silverman's neck and pointed it toward Belasko.

  She caught a glimpse of movement as Belasko shifted, saw the muzzle-flash that exploded suddenly in his hand, and waited for the bullet to smack into her flesh, knowing he couldn't hit the man without hitting her first. Her eyes closed involuntarily, then she felt the guard yanked backward.

  With the breath caught in her throat, she turned to look at the dead man sprawled on the concrete behind her with the top of his head taken off.