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  The Boss Enforcer was, by tradition, forbidden to operate business sidelines of his own which might represent a conflict of interest. This did not, however, prevent Jaunty Joe from establishing a “Super-chick Corps” to service the Dallas-Fort Worth area of big spenders. In the official book, “Superchick” was a “grease operation”—that is, for the entertainment of important officials in local governments and key industries—a bribery device. It was common knowledge, though, that the Superchicks were also providing a handsome sideline income for the Gestapo chief of Texas. The national bosses were aware of this, and it is a testament to Quaso’s popularity within the national council that none felt moved to slap the youngster down for the impropriety.

  Besides, the Superchicks had been a brilliant addition to the clout operations in the new territory. Money was, of course, king when it came to winning official friends and influencing important people. But not every man could be reached with money alone. Few, however, could resist the added allure of a full-boobed and high-assed Texas beauty, available upon request for a couple of spins upon the revolving bed. And then, even if the pigeon didn’t feel particularly grateful for the experience, there was always the very interesting cartridge film which inevitably recorded the event and which never failed to bring around the ungrateful ones.

  Quaso himself was not exactly immune to the charms of the Superchicks. It is said that one or two, sometimes three or four, were usually “in residence” at the Quaso pad. On a revolving basis, of course. Jaunty Joe could not stomach the same woman two nights in a row. There were times, it is also said, when nothing less than several at once could sufficiently “relax” the libidinous young Turk from Detroit and ensure him a decent night’s sleep.

  It was the added misfortune of Jim “The Animal” Tolucci that his early morning call from Klingman’s Wells came on the heels of a fitful and misspent night in that Dallas penthouse.

  Another of the problems lay in Tolucci’s own agitated state of mind.

  “What the hell are you telling me, Woofer?” Quaso said irritably into the telephone. He glanced at the clock in the control panel and groaned, then kicked the tousled bedcovers away and swung his feet to the floor. “Say that again, and calm down while you do it. I can’t hear a damn thing through all that growling. Do you know what time it is?”

  “Yessir, I know what time it is,” the Woofer barked back. “Calm down hell, sir. All hell has broke down here. Listen, I’m lucky I’m alive. That guy romped in here and—”

  “Wait, hold it. Start again. What guy?”

  “I told you, that Bolan bastard! He was here. He blew up the goddam hangar and shot the shit out of everything! I’m lucky I’m alive!”

  “I guess you are,” Quaso said tensely. He took time to light a cigarette, then interrupted another unintelligible rush of barks and growls to say, “Okay, shut up and listen to me. Cool it, now. I can’t understand a thing you’re saying. Is the guy dead or alive?”

  “What? What guy?”

  “Bolan, you dummy! What the hell—didn’t you say—?”

  “Yessir. It was him, all right. A dozen people saw him. I saw ’im myself, it was him. He come in here just about—”

  “Wait, damn it, Woofer, shut up!” Quaso was beginning to understand the message now, but he really did not wish to. “Are you saying the guy hit you and got away? Out there in the middle of fucking nowhere? He got away?”

  “Yessir. He flew, see. The bastard flew in and flew out. He flew. I didn’t see the damn—”

  “Woofer, shut up! Now shut up! Start all over again!”

  “… that Three-Ten out of Detroit, we think. And he took the broad.”

  “You squawking greaseball, shut up! I can’t understand a—what? He took what?”

  “Yessir, he took the broad. I guess. We searched everywhere. We can’t find—”

  “Woofer, he snatched the Klingman chick?”

  “Yessir, that’s all we can figure. But listen! We need to get after that plane. It was that Cessna out of—”

  “Woofer goddamn it shut up and just answer me when I tell you to. Now listen to me. You keep this quiet. Not a word, not a goddamned word, you hear me? You tell nobody. I’m sending you some reinforcements and I—”

  “Christ, sir, we don’t need ’em now. We need to—”

  “I said shut up! I’m taking it over. You just sit tight, I’m sending a crew over.”

  Quaso banged the receiver into its cradle then punched the call button for his house man and leapt to his feet. He was halfway to the bathroom when the bodyguard appeared in the other doorway.

  “Yeah, boss?” the tagman reported, his eyes averted from the display of bossly nudity.

  “Get ahold of that guy in Austin,” Quaso commanded. “Tell him to hold the phone, I’ll be right there. Try the home number first, he’s probably still in bed—oh, and also that guy on the airport commission. And get ahold of Larry Awful. Tell him it’s an alert, full scale, statewide. I want all his guns on the line. And call the Klingman drop. Tell them no privileges, especially no phone calls and no visitors until they hear from me again. Then roust the Superchicks and run them out of here. Oh, and you better get ahold of our man at city hall. Tell him I want him here in thirty minutes, no fail. Then—no, never mind, I’ll do the rest.”

  The houseman nodded his understanding of the instructions and went to the telephone.

  Quaso continued on to the bathroom. He stared darkly at his bladder-relieving waterfall and said, softly, to himself, “Okay, okay.”

  The honeymoon in Texas was over.

  It was time to start earning his keep.

  And, sure, it was going to be a pleasure. Better, even, than Superchicks.

  4: ONE MORE TIME

  Paul Hensley had just completed an unusually early morning round of his patients at Community Memorial Hospital. He signed out at the doctors’ desk, picked up his medical bag, and went out through the emergency entrance to the parking lot.

  He squinted briefly into the rising sun, thought briefly of the elderly lady in the cardiac ward who would probably die without seeing another sunrise, then sighed and went on toward his car.

  There were times when Hensley very decidedly disliked being a doctor. He had lost two patients during the night—and he was about to lose a third. All those grieved relatives—standing grimly by throughout the deathwatch—looking at him every time he entered the room with that look, that why-the-hell-can’t-you-do-something look.

  Anyone with a God complex should take up doctoring.

  It was one of the first things a physician must learn.

  He was not God.

  Splint, patch, bandage, cut, sew, swab—look, grunt, uh-uhm, prescribe—and after that, what?

  After that you stood helplessly by and watched them die, if die they must.

  Yes, there were times when Doctor Paul would rather be a plumber.

  He had one hand on the door of the car and was fishing for keys with the other hand when a tall young man appeared from nowhere and lightly touched his shoulder. Later, Hensley would remember the neat, tailored look of the sky-blue suit, the casual grace with which the man moved, the quiet force of his speech. At the moment, the doctor was simply in a lost-patient funk and in no frame of mind to consciously note such things. Also he was a bit irritated over the fact that the man was wearing smoked glasses, an obvious affectation at this time of day.

  “Are you a doctor?” the tall one asked him.

  Hensley’s eyes flicked to the medical bag which he had deposited on the roof of the car. For one bitterly silly moment he wanted to reply that no, he was not a doctor, he was a medical bag’s caddy. But he turned full around and stared at his own reflection in the smoked lens and told the sunglass kid, “Yes. Do you need attention?”

  “I don’t,” the man replied. “But a friend does. In a vehicle over here. Will you come with me?”

  The irritation became greater. Come wave a wand over someone’s head, eh? Pull somethin
g from the medical bag of tricks and perform a Godly chore? “That’s the emergency entrance right behind you,” he said aloud. “Take your friend in there. They’ll take care of him.”

  The man removed the sunglasses. Hensley was startled by the force of those eyes as the man asked him, “Does this face mean anything to you, Doctor?”

  Should it? Vaguely, something there which … in the newspapers?—a magazine cover, maybe? Hensley shook his head. “The emergency—”

  “My name is Bolan. Does that mean anything?”

  “You should take your friend—did you say Bolan?” Of course, of course. Suddenly nervous and flustered, now, the doctor reached for a cigarette, then hastily changed his mind and let the hand fall to his side in clear view.

  “I guess it does,” the tall one said. He replaced the sunglasses and handed another pair to Hensley. These had lenses of opaque black, curved in at the temples to completely shut out all light. “Put the glasses on, Doctor. Simple security. I won’t put a gun to your head. But my friend does need a medic. Will you come with me?”

  Without a word, Hensley donned the opaque lenses and held out an arm. The man took it and led him away.

  The doctor for some reason or other counted the paces. There were twenty-three. There was no conversation during the march. Except for the pressure of the hand on his arm, there was nothing even to mark the presence of the other man—no sound of footsteps other than his own, no rustling, no breathing, nothing.

  Then came the metallic sound of a door being opened. His guide instructed him to “step high, and watch the overhead.”

  And then Mack Bolan—the most hotly sought man in the country—removed the glasses from the doctor’s eyes and handed him the medical bag.

  They were inside a small van-type truck. The light in the van section was bad, but not so bad that Hensley could not see the blanket-draped figure on a fold-down bunk. It was a young woman with long blonde hair. She was unconscious. Above her, secured to the wall with metal clips, was a fantastic arsenal of weapons—all arranged in neat and handy rows. Something that looked suspiciously like the business end of a bazooka protruded from beneath the bunk on which the woman lay. All along the opposite wall were a miscellany of war munitions. Ammunition boxes and other stuff was neatly stacked on the floor, leaving very little standing room.

  Hensley opened his bag and crouched beside the bunk. “There’s not enough light in here,” he complained.

  Bolan flicked on a battery-operated lantern. “Best I can offer,” he said. “I’ve seen battlefield surgeons take a man apart and reassemble him in worse light than this.”

  “Yes,” Hensley murmured. “So have I.” He opened the blanket and took the girl’s pulse, then he peeled back an eyelid and tested for pupillary reflex.

  “She’s mildly comatose,” the doctor reported, flicking a glance at his interested host.

  “How mildly?”

  “She should be hospitalized.”

  “What would you do for her in there?”

  “Observation, medication. The usual things.” Uh-huh, and wait for God to make the disposition. Bolan was giving him that cold stare. He added, “We’d have to make tests. Then the treatment would depend upon what the tests revealed.”

  “Which battlefield do you remember, Doctor? Vietnam?”

  “No. Korea. I was a corpsman, Fleet Marine Force. Decided there was something better than dragging a stretcher across war-torn lands. Tried medical school, GI Bill. So here I am, having discovered that it’s all war-torn land. What brings you to our state, Mr. Bolan?”

  “Maybe she did,” the tall man replied, that penetrating gaze shifting to the girl. “Your cure could be her killing, Doctor—if it means you have to hospitalize her. I just pulled this girl out of some kind of hell. The people I took her from won’t be taking kindly to that. They’ll be trying to get her back. So we need a battlefield decision here.”

  “Just how good a friend is she?” the doctor wondered aloud.

  “We’ve never met,” the big guy replied. “I found her in this condition. But I’m not leaving her this way.”

  “I’m going to light a cigarette,” the doctor announced quietly.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I was just wondering if it was safe. I mean, on top of all this gunpowder.”

  “It’s safe,” the cold one assured him.

  Hensley lit the cigarette, glanced at the surgeon general’s warning on the pack, and muttered, “Everyone dies of something.” Then he told Bolan, “I don’t know what you’re doing in Texas, mister, but I can tell you that you’re better off somewhere else—anywhere else. The FBI and the local police have papered this whole area with artists’ sketches of your face—and it’s a pretty good likeness. They even sent one to my office—and I’m sure I saw one down at the admissions desk of this hospital.”

  “Like you said,” Bolan replied, “it’s all war-torn land.”

  The doctor shrugged and said, “True, true. Well …”

  “Let’s say that we’re in Korea,” Bolan said, “ten miles from the field hospital. We’re pinned down by enemy fire. What do we do for our patient?”

  The doctor sighed. He used his pencil-flash to examine the girl’s arms, then he sighed again. “Is she an addict?” he asked.

  “I don’t believe she gave herself those needle marks. She was a prisoner, under lock and key.”

  “Have you any idea at all what drug was being used?”

  Bolan shook his head. “No. But the idea, I guess, was to keep her quiet.”

  Hensley removed a syringe from the medical bag and told the other man, “You’re going to have to trust me, Mr. Bolan. For just about ten minutes. I want a blood analysis. I can’t prescribe without it.”

  The blue eyes flickered briefly and a silence descended.

  Hensley sucked on his cigarette.

  Presently the outlaw told the medic, “Okay. But I couldn’t trust my own mother, Doctor. I’ll have to go in with you. And I have to keep you in sight at all times.”

  “Fair enough,” Hensley murmured. He drew the blood sample, took another look into the patient’s eyes, and headed immediately for the door.

  Bolan thrust the dark glasses at him. “Security,” was all he said.

  Hensley nodded and donned the glasses. He opened the door and felt his way to the ground, then waited for the guiding hand.

  Twenty or so paces later—he’d lost interest in the count—the glasses were removed and he stepped on briskly without losing stride.

  The two men entered the hospital side by side. They went straight to the deserted lab, and the tall man stood with that fine grace fully intact and watched while Hensley ran his tests.

  Ten minutes later the quiet man with the interesting blue eyes murmured his thanks and accepted the written instructions and medicines which the doctor handed over.

  Hensley brushed aside the show of gratitude with a wave of the hand, saying, “I’m going to report this, of course. But it’s going to take me about another ten minutes to make up my mind that something is funny here, and then probably another five to find the telephone number for the police station. I don’t know what you’re all about, Mr. Bolan, but then neither do I know what I am all about. Good luck to you, sir.”

  The tall man grinned, the frostiness of those eyes melting to an incredible warmth.

  He said, “Live large, Doctor,” and spun away.

  Hensley stopped him at the lab door with a quiet call. “Sergeant Bolan! There’s a telephone number on those instructions I gave you. It’s an aid station, well clear of enemy fire. And the medic on duty does make house calls.”

  Another flash of friendly eyes and the phenomenon was gone.

  Hensley was not at all surprised to find that his own death funk had vanished.

  “What the hell have I done?” he wondered out loud.

  He dropped onto a stool and gazed at his hands.

  Human hands, not Godly ones.

  Who the hell e
ver said that medical doctors were supposed to be something a bit more than human?

  But then, human hands and human thought could do quite a bit—yes, quite a bit. If any one wanted to know just how much, then they could ask the indomitable Sergeant Bolan about it.

  The doctor picked up his bag, returned to the desk and signed back in, then went to take another look at that dying old woman in the cardiac ward.

  5: THE ALLY

  Bolan’s “base camp” was a Holiday Inn on Interstate 20 in the stretch between Big Spring and Abilene. It had been established some days earlier, and from there Bolan had operated during the reconnaissance phase of the strike into Texas.

  The disguised “war wagon,” an Econoline van that had been dandied up with colors and decals of a fictitious oil company, returned to base camp on that spring morning at shortly after eight o’clock—just in time to evade a state trooper’s checkpoint which at that very moment was being established along the exit from the interstate highway.

  The motel lay within sight of the roadblock.

  So, sure, Bolan had known that the girl would cost him. The cops were just reacting a bit quicker than had been anticipated.

  He parked the van right at his door and went inside for a quick check-out of the room, then he wandered over to the lobby for a brief and casual recon of that area, then on to the coffee shop.

  He bought a carry-out pot of coffee and a bag of Danish pastries and took them to the room. Then he brought the girl in, covered from head to toes and slung casually over a shoulder.

  It was not likely that anyone had noticed that operation. There was very little life around the motel at that hour. Most of the early risers had departed; the others were still on their pillows or in the coffee shop; the maids had not yet begun to stir.