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  Their time together had been sparse, as always, during recent months. He tried to phone the San Diego base at weekly intervals, but visits were another thing entirely. Months slid by without a glimpse of Johnny, and despite the fact that he had grown accustomed to their distance over time, it never ceased to rankle Bolan that his sole surviving relative was out of reach, effectively off-limits. When they met, necessity demanded that he keep it brief — a few short hours now and then, perhaps an overnight on special holidays if neither was committed to another cause.

  It rankled, sure, but Bolan had been conscious of the terms before he signed the contract, picking out a life-style that would separate him from the world of friends and family, perhaps forever. There had been a time when Johnny was completely out of touch, the sketchy details of his life relayed by Hal or Leo Turrin, secondhand. The warrior understood and gave his blessing to a scheme that changed the family name, providing Johnny with the chance to live a normal life.

  The last thing on his mind in those days had been using brother Johnny as backup on the kind of missions that were recognized as Bolan's specialty. It had happened more than once, and John had saved his life in Texas — once again in Arizona — but he couldn't grow accustomed to the feeling. It seemed wrong, somehow, to gamble with his brother's life, no matter if "the kid" freely volunteered to play the game.

  A disembodied voice announced the flight's arrival, and he moved to stand before the giant windows, watching as a Boeing 727 taxied into its approach. A member of the ground crew, dressed in yellow coveralls and waving flags that looked like Ping-Pong paddles, led the airship to her berth and waited while the loading bridge was locked into position. Bolan felt anticipation mounting as the engines died, and rumpled passengers began to make their way along the tunnel.

  Johnny was the twenty-second face in line, and Bolan met him at the gate, a handshake standing in for the embrace both might have favored in less public circumstances.

  "Decent flight?"

  "No problems."

  "Baggage?"

  Johnny cracked a smile and raised a fat Adidas tote bag. "What you see is what I've got."

  "You travel light."

  "I couldn't think of any way to check the hardware through."

  They moved along the concourse at a steady pace, bypassed the escalator leading to the baggage carousels and exited into sunshine.

  "Still no inkling on the gig?" Johnny asked as they approached the car.

  The warrior shook his head.

  "A two-man job is all I've heard. Right now, you know as much as I do."

  "That's a comfort."

  "Right. You ever get the feeling you're a mushroom?"

  "You mean where everybody keeps me in the dark and feeds me bullshit?"

  "That's the one."

  "I feel that way from time to time."

  "I almost didn't call you."

  "There's a vote of confidence."

  "I almost didn't come myself."

  "Who's feeding who?"

  "Okay, but I don't have to like it."

  "We don't have to do it, bro'. The problem is, they've got me curious."

  Relief. No doubt about it.

  "Yeah," the soldier said. "Me, too."

  * * *

  The Tropical Motel had been a local showplace once upon a time, but something like a quarter century had passed since it was anything but drab and ordinary. Neon palm trees advertised the place out front, but they looked cheap and lifeless in the daylight. Johnny had a feeling they would look the same by night.

  "Some kind of super meeting place they've got here," he remarked.

  "At least it's quiet."

  "Dead would sum it up, I think."

  Two cars beside their own were standing in the parking lot. An aging station wagon sat outside the office, faded Nixon stickers peeling on the bumper, rust beginning to devour paint and chrome around the wheel wells. Bolan pulled in and parked beside a standard «unmarked» government sedan, its paint job, license plate and whip antenna readily identifying it for anyone with eyes to see.

  "We late?"

  Bolan shook his head. "You're early."

  They didn't have a chance to knock before the door swung open. Hal Brognola filled the portel, putting on a cautious smile and quickly stepping back to let them pass.

  "I'm glad you both could make it."

  Johnny nodded in response. The man from Washington had changed since their first meeting, in San Louis, during Bolan's one-man campaign against the Mafia. A teenager in those days, Johnny had seen Brognola several times since then — most recently when the Executioner had gone on trial in Texas — but there hadn't been a sit-down conversation in a long, long time.

  Two other faces waited on the sidelines, and Brognola made the introductions, careful to rely on code names where appropriate. While Johnny was familiar with the name of Leo Turrin, they'd never met before. He shook the federal agent's hand and read a faint suggestion of uneasiness — perhaps anxiety — in Leo's smile.

  "I've heard a lot about you," Johnny said.

  "That goes both ways. It's good to have you on the team."

  "Not yet," Bolan interjected. "First we have to hear the game plan."

  "That's where I come in."

  The voice of number three was laced with gravel. Johnny thought it matched his face, a weathered oval lined by too much bitterness, a sandy crew cut bristling on top.

  "Felix Pratt, with the DEA," Brognola offered, fading back to snag himself a chair. "It's his production. He can fill you in on all the details."

  "Right. We might as well get comfortable." They were seated while he opened up a briefcase and retrieved a fat manila folder. "I assume you're both familiar with Ernesto Vos?"

  "Colombia," Bolan replied. "A major mover in the coke trade."

  "That's our boy." Pratt's smile was brittle plastic. "We've had warrants on the bastard for a year, but they're no good in Bogotá. He used to travel stateside five, six times a year, but since we filed indictments, he's been hanging close to home."

  "I'm not surprised."

  "To make a long rap short, we got ourselves a handle on his main man out of Dade. A dealer called Aguire, first name Carlos. Caught him with his pants down on a smuggling operation that was strictly off the record with his boss. He got three choices: thirty years hard time, a word to Vos that he was selling out the side, or one day's work for Uncle Sam."

  "He bit?"

  "Like Jaws. He figures he can find someplace to hide and burrow in before Vos puts an army on his track."

  "You don't?"

  "Who cares? He staged a phony meet that put Vos in the bag on Friday, and we'll keep him healthy long enough to testify. From there, he's on his own."

  "You're beautiful," Brognola said. "A sweetheart."

  "I'm a realist," Pratt answered, shrugging off the criticism. "Hell, Aguire knew the risks before he started selling coke to kids in junior high school. Fuck him."

  "This is fascinating," Johnny interrupted, "but we could have caught it on the evening news. You want to spell out your problem?"

  "That's why I'm here. We couldn't spring the trap without Vos knowing that Aguire set him up. Our boy can put Vos in Atlanta through the next millenium, but he's a sitting duck right now. I need him breathing for the trial."

  Bolan frowned. "The last I heard, you had a few safehouses stashed around."

  "There's no such thing as 'safe' with Vos involved."

  "The DEA can't guard one man?"

  "We're taking steps, of course, but we've had… problems in the recent past."

  "What kind of problems?"

  "Leaks, primarily. We stage a raid and come up empty, or we set an undercover buy with some of Vos's people and the rats don't show. I'm working on it, but we don't have time to work the bugs out in the next four days."

  "Who set the deadline?"

  "The judicial system. Justice won a change of venue to Los Angeles, on grounds of possible corruption locally, an
d pretrial action starts on Thursday. If Aguire isn't there on time, we're down the tube."

  "So, what's the problem?" Johnny asked. "Why don't you stick him on an airplane?"

  "There's a question of security." The man from the DEA put on a sour face and swallowed bitter medicine. "Can I be frank? The plain truth is, I don't know who to trust around the office. Hell, with this much riding on the line I don't trust anybody. There, I've said it. I'm prepared to eat crow all day long if it will help."

  "Help how?"

  "We're flying Vos out Wednesday afternoon," Pratt said. "No problem there. He'll play along because he's counting on Aguire to be dead before the gavel falls on Thursday. What I need is someone clean, above suspicion — and outside the agency — to make delivery on time."

  "May I assume you've got a plan in mind?" Bolan asked.

  "The overland express. A three-day drive from Jacksonville to La-La Land. You navigate. We'll ante up the wheels and hardware if you like. No one outside this room will know your route or ETA. It should be simple."

  "Should be."

  "Well…"

  "Diversions?"

  Pratt examined Johnny's youthful face with something closer to appreciation.

  "They're already in the works," he answered. "Once we're set on a departure time, I activate Plan B. We've got a halfway double for Aguire under wraps, and he'll be flying west about the time you leave. With any luck, the shooters ought to follow him, and you can make your crossing while they chase their tails around L.A."

  "Sounds simple," Johnny said.

  "I won't pretend it's foolproof, but I think we've minimized the risk."

  "You're not obliged to take this on," Brognola cautioned from the sidelines. "It's an option, nothing more."

  "We choose the route," Bolan said.

  "Affirmative."

  "And if we should encounter opposition on the way?"

  "You take whatever steps are necessary to assure delivery," Pratt said.

  "How many local agencies are in the picture?"

  "None at all. If I have doubts about my owned damned stuff, I'm not about to trust some sheriff's deputy in Hicksville."

  "So, they won't be standing by to lend a hand in case of trouble."

  "You'll be on your own," Pratt told them both. "I make no bones about it. It's the only way to play this hand."

  Bolan turned to his brother, as their eyes met, something passed between them. Johnny understood his brother's reservations, and he shared those doubts across the board, but he wasn't prepared to walk away because of the risks involved. After another moment he nodded, smiling.

  "Right," the Executioner told Felix Pratt. "We're in."

  * * *

  An hour later, once the details had been covered, the brothers found a restaurant two miles away from the Tropical Motel. They took a booth in back and ordered steak with all the trimmings, knowing that they might not have another chance to eat a decent meal before they reached Los Angeles.

  Assuming they both lived that long.

  "You buy Pratt's story?" Johnny asked.

  The warrior thought about it for a moment, frowning. "For the moment. It's safe to say he's playing down the trouble in his own backyard. The DEA's as jealous of its territory as the Bureau for the Company. For Pratt to ask Hal in at all, he must be looking at a major hassle."

  "And if things are that bad…"

  "There's no telling what we might run into on the road. You guessed it, little brother."

  Johnny smiled indulgently. "You turned in quite a shopping list back there. Expecting heavy opposition?"

  "Every day. I thought we'd better pack the bare essentials, just in case."

  "I'm not complaining, mind you. I just like to know what's going down."

  "We won't know that until we're on the road. I have a nasty feeling."

  "Yeah. I know the one."

  "You know, there's still no need for you to come along on this. We've built in rest stops, and I don't imagine that Aguire will be anxious to go thumbing on his own with every gun on Vos's payroll itching for a shot. No reason why you shouldn't go back home and hold the fort."

  "Well, I can think of one."

  The soldier waited while their steaks were laid before them and the waitress moved away. "I'm listening."

  "You want me out. That means you think I might be needed. I appreciate the thought, but if it's all the same, I'll stick around."

  "Goddammit, Johnny…"

  "Hey, don't thank me, bro'. My treat."

  "I hope it's not your funeral."

  "Well, if it is, I ought to be there, don't you think?"

  "What makes you so damned stubborn, anyway?"

  "I think it's in my blood."

  The Bolan blood, he thought, and cut himself a slice of steak in lieu of further comment. Once Johnny made up his mind, an argument was futile. And he was correct in his assessment of the problem. Bolan feared his brother would be needed on the road, which meant he wished the young man to be anywhere other than the expected free-fire zone.

  Something had been missing from Felix Pratt's story, and while he couldn't put his finger on the missing item, Bolan had a sneaking hunch it might be critical to their survival once they took delivery of their prisoner and started west. Three days could be a lifetime, and he wasn't anxious for his brother to assume the role of human sacrifice.

  The kid — the man — had been through so damned much already, that in Bolan's mind he shouldn't have been called upon to go the extra mile for strangers. Johnny had paid his dues, from the explosive carnage that had claimed the other members of their family, leaving teenaged Johnny Bolan wounded, to the new life he'd built as Johnny Gray. It seemed unfair to ask for more.

  The choice, however, wasn't Bolan's… and it might not be his brother's, either. Sometimes, the Executioner knew, the Universe reached out and chose warriors independently of human hopes and dreams. Sometimes a fighting man got drafted, and he went along regardless of the cost because he simply had no choice.

  Sometimes.

  Like now.

  3

  The county jail in Jacksonville is geared to handle many different types of prisoners, from common drunks to psychopaths in need of constant physical restraint. The easy in-and-out brigade of alcoholic vagrants, drifters, petty thieves and other misdemeanants are confined in holding pens — called tanks — where they can mingle freely in their misery while sleeping off a drunk or waiting for the bondsman to arrive. When juveniles are taken into custody, they are secured within another wing and segregated racially theoretically to protect them from the threat of rape by older prisoners, gang violence and assorted other dangers that persist inside the wails. There is a medical facility for walking wounded at the jail, a psychiatric wing with padded cells and orderlies on standby, plus an isolation tier for prisoners who turn state's evidence against their one-time friends. On top of everything, perched in the architectural equivalent of the penthouse, there is a block of maximum-security cells known collectively to guards and prisoners alike as High Power.

  High Power is reserved for the worst of the lot, the crème de la crime. Inmates are selected for the block on various criteria, but all are ranked as dangerous and unpredictable, explosive, capable of any violent act. Suspected serial killers are confined in High Power, provided their crimes have been brutal and numerous enough to qualify for special handling. The other High Power alumni include child-killers, violent serial rapists, habitual escape artists and the odd mafioso.

  In High Power, prisoners shave with locked safety razors, and guards carry electronic stun guns in addition to their riot batons. Food trays are delivered and retrieved through locking "mail slots" in the doors of individual cells, and inmates are subjected to twenty-four hour surveillance against the triple threat of suicide, escape and outside attack. There is no such thing as an exercise period in High Power, but inmates who behave themselves are granted weekly shower privileges. If they begin to smell between-times, body odor
is regarded as a minor price to pay for personal security.

  From the beginning, there had been no real debate about Ernesto Vos's qualification for High Power. Suspected in an estimated fifty stateside murders — including two of federal drug enforcement agents — Vos was rated both as a primary escape risk and a probable target of assassination attempts by his competitors in the narcotics trade. From High Power, it was suggested, Vos could neither reach outside the walls nor could he be reached. It was a brave attempt, but every system must, inevitably, have a flaw. In this case, it would be the sixth amendment to the Constitution.

  Nathan Trask had been defending criminals in court for twenty-seven years. He viewed it as an avocation, something thrust upon him by his destiny. The fact that serving criminals had also made him filthy rich was secondary in the lawyer's mind. His clients paid no more than he was worth, and for their money they acquired the services of an outstanding legal mind. They also purchased access to his contacts in the courts, the legislative branch of government, in law enforcement and the media. By hiring Nathan Trask, they hired an army.

  Most suspected felons wound up pleading poverty and working with a public defender fresh out of law school, happy to see burglary or rape charges bargained down to larceny and simple assault in the interest of clearing a court calendar. The vast majority of criminals couldn't afford to speak with one of Trask's junior partners, let alone retain the man himself and see him take their cases into court. The legal eagle's time was valuable and he charged accordingly.

  In Nathan Trask's opinion, no crime was too vile, abhorrent or repulsive to deserve a strong defense… provided that the vile, abhorrent and repulsive criminal could pay his way. At three hundred dollars an hour, that narrowed the field of competition considerably. But Trask was never short of clients.

  Ernesto Vos had been Trask's client for the better part of eighteen months, since agents of the FBI, the DEA and IRS had launched a wave of harassing attacks against the drug lord's stateside empire. With indictments in the wind, Vos couldn't visit the United States and cope with legal problems on his own, but he respected talent and he was determined to employ the best. In Nathan Trask he found a topflight legal mind with friends across the board in government, prepared at any time of day or night to challenge warrants, file restraining orders or injunctions, and obstruct the seizure of assorted autos, airplanes, boats and houses.