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  He put the girl to bed, hung a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door, and moved the war wagon to an open spot on the back of the lot, to which he would have an unobstructed view from his room.

  The doctor had assured him that the girl would be okay. The drug in her system was “a simple sedative.” Bolan should allow her to “just sleep it off.” The medicines provided were no more than high-potency vitamins and “something to combat a possible nausea.”

  The Executioner had no intention whatever of allowing Judith Klingman to “just sleep it off.” There was no time for sleeping.

  He returned to the room and stripped to his underwear. Then he wrapped a towel around the girl and cinched it in tight at her waist.

  He carried her into the shower and held her beneath a spray which was several degrees below comfortable temperature, talked to her, and gently patted her face.

  He took her out of there as soon as she began to stir and lay her on the carpeted floor, soaking wet. He worked on her, then, with the wet towel, vigorously rubbing and massaging from the soles of her feet upward, talking to her all the while in reassuring tones.

  The girl was tingling red all over and beginning to quiver when he switched from wet to dry and started buffing her with a fresh towel. She came out of it fighting, arms and legs flailing, eyes as round as saucers and scared as hell.

  He had a hand ready to shut off any screams, but the terrified girl had not yet found her voice, and Bolan’s own gentle tones turned the trick.

  “Stop that,” he commanded, quietly but firmly. “Behave yourself. I’m not your enemy, Miss Klingman.”

  She fell back to the floor, chest heaving, relaxed in surrender but eyes still locked to his. “Wh-what’re you doing?” she gasped in a hoarse whisper.

  Bolan told her, “Trying to get you off your back and on your feet, believe it or not.” He smiled and draped the towel lengthwise upon her body. “You’ve been out of it. I’ve just been trying to bring you back.”

  Sure, she was some kind of beauty. Don’t even notice the long, beautifully tapered legs and flaring thighs, the creamy little mashed-potato belly and voluptuous quarterdeck. It was that Texas co-ed face with the deep-pool eyes that seized Bolan’s emotions and made him aware of his own seminude condition.

  He left her lying there and snared a towel for himself from the bathroom rack, knotted it about his waist, and went for a cigarette.

  When next he checked she was sitting upright, the towel held in tight little fists just beneath her chin, giving him a frankly curious stare.

  He asked, “How do you feel?”

  “All over,” she replied.

  Bolan chuckled. “Hope I didn’t wear away any skin. I, uh, had to …”

  “Yes, I understand. Thank you.”

  It was a nice voice, intelligent, with it—despite the drug fuzzies. Very definitely Texan, pleasingly so.

  He told her, “I have plenty of coffee. Some pastries, too, if you’d like. And if you’re feeling a bit seasick, I even have something for that.”

  “Coffee sounds fine,” she said.

  Those eyes had not left him.

  He found a couple of cups and poured the coffee; then he went to the bathroom and tossed her another towel. “Only thing I can offer in two-piece ensembles,” he said. “Sorry, it’s that or nothing.”

  She said, “I’ve had plenty of nothing.”

  Great. A sense of humor could be her greatest asset at the moment.

  He turned his back to give her modesty a fighting chance but then had to whirl and grab her as she stumbled to her feet and pitched forward. He held her there, upright but swaying, and affixed the towels to her himself.

  She smiled drunkenly and murmured, “Pretty much of a wasted effort by now, isn’t it?”

  Bolan said, “Believe me, it’s not.”

  He led her to the dresser and anchored her there. “Stay on your feet,” he advised. “The swimming will stop if you’ll fight it through.”

  Her eyes were trying to focus on the black skin suit and the Beretta rig which Bolan had laid out on the bed. She said, “No dream.”

  “What?”

  “I thought it was a dream. The black knight. No dream.”

  He understood, although not completely. “I pulled you out of the Wells,” he explained, trying to fill in blanks for her.

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  He held the coffee to her lips and she sipped it. Pretty soon she was gulping it, and then holding it for herself, watching him with luminous eyes above the rim of the cup.

  He told her, “When the room stabilizes, you might try walking some.”

  “You’re not a policemen, are you.”

  He shook his head. “I’m Mack Bolan.”

  “My gosh!” She set the cup down with a clatter and beat a staggering path to the bed, sat down, sprang right back up, and walked a circle of the room. “The wobblies are leaving,” she announced.

  Bolan told her, “You’re pretty tough.”

  “So are you. I should have known—I would have known if I’d been in my right mind—I mean, the minute you came crashing in. I’ve been following your—your career almost from the start. You are quite a famous man, you know.”

  “Notorious,” he replied, “is the word.”

  “No. Famous, too. Lots of people are rooting for you, Mr.—oh, no, this won’t do, this mister and miss business. I mean, not with nothing but a couple of towels between us.”

  She was sounding giddy, and seemed to be having trouble with the focus of her eyes.

  Bolan suggested, “Too much too fast, Miss Klingman. Cool it a little. Try some more coffee.”

  “But I can’t call you Mack, can I? It just doesn’t sound like a whole name.”

  “It’s all I’ve ever had,” he assured her. “Come on. Coffee time again.”

  She lurched toward the dresser. Bolan had to steady her while she went to work on the second cup.

  Those eyes were working him over again, too. He grinned at her. She grinned back and grimly stuck with the coffee.

  Between gulps she told him, “I feel honored.”

  He said, “Well, that makes us even.”

  “I kept expecting someone to rescue me. But my gosh. Look who came.”

  He asked, “How long were you there?”

  “Oh, well, since—what day is this?”

  Bolan told her.

  The deep-pool eyes flattened out somewhat but then bounced back quickly. “Well, no wonder it seemed like forever,” she said.

  Bolan was digging this girl more and more by the minute.

  “I guess it was about—well, a week ago. When they started jabbing the needles at me. I almost escaped. Daddy will be very proud of that. But they were furious. They took all my clothes away and locked me in. And started the march of the needles. Every time I’d start rising up out of the fuzzies, wham, another needle. I figured I was growing old and haggy in that darned room. Maybe I did.” She craned her head toward the mirror, made a face at it, and said, “Yep. Damn them.”

  Bolan chuckled and told her, “You look great. Are you saying that you were held for only a week?”

  “Oh, no. I’ve been out there since January. Under house arrest. Can you imagine? Right here in the United States of America? Right here in the heart of Texas? Something like that happening? I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t. And then I had to, because it just went on and on.”

  He asked, “Why were they holding you?”

  “You don’t know why?”

  He replied, “No. I’m asking you.”

  Those eyes had gone just a trifle wary. She said, “Well, I don’t know why.”

  Bolan said, “Baloney.”

  “Some people think that you’re secretly working with the government,” she said.

  “I’m not.”

  “Some people think so. So I’d better just keep quiet. For now.”

  He told her, “You’d better not. Look, Miss Klingman, you’re in a bad spot
. The only reason you’re alive right now is because the Mafia figured to gain something through the fact that you are alive. They—”

  “The Mafia!” she gasped.

  He blinked at her and said, “Who did you think? These people don’t play silly games. They play for keeps. The mere fact that you are back into the world again could make you chief candidate for a hit.”

  The girl was still having trouble with that first idea. “The Mafia?” Her eyes were round and horror-stricken.

  It could not have been an act. Bolan knew it could not, especially considering the state of her drug-impacted mind.

  He said, “I assumed you knew that much.”

  “What have they done to my father?”

  “As of about twelve hours ago, your father was alive and well in Dallas.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “It’s my business to know,” he told her. “But I need to know a lot more. And I need your help. I need your help, Miss Klingman, like the flowers need the sun.”

  She pushed the empty cup toward him. “Fill ’er up,” she demanded—and Bolan knew that some deep dimension of this girl was beginning to respond to the heavy reality of her situation.

  He said, “You will help me, won’t you?”

  “Help you,” she said. “I’ll carry you piggyback all the way to Dallas.”

  Bolan had no doubts whatever that she meant precisely what she said.

  And she was about to get a chance to prove it.

  The parking lot outside was suddenly filling with cops.

  6: TRIPLE OPTION

  Judith Klingman tumbled into the bed and pulled the sheet up to her chin, then whipped off her towels and fired them at Bolan. He relayed them to the bathroom and invested a few seconds of precious time on the girl’s positioning.

  The master of “role camouflage” knew that proper staging was all-important to the success of any illusion.

  He stacked the pillows at her back and lifted her half-upright, then rearranged the covering sheet so that the top hem lay squarely across the ample bosom.

  Finally he placed a Danish pastry in her hand, said, “Take a bite,” and went immediately to the bathroom, taking skin suit and Beretta with him for concealment there.

  He stepped into the shower and wet himself down, patted shaving lather on his face, draped a towel across his shoulders and cinched one about his waist, set the hot water tap of the basin to a slow trickle, and waited for the inevitable visitation at the front door.

  He’d freshened the lather twice and Judith had choked down half of the Danish before the law presented itself.

  Bolan slumped his shoulders into a rounded curl and gave the girl a reassuring wink as he stepped past the bed to answer the summons.

  She looked scared. He murmured, “Just cool it. Play it by ear, and off my cues.”

  She nodded.

  He let the callers rap once more before he called through the closed door in a surly voice, “What? No maid, not now. See the sign?”

  A respectful Texas drawl responded with, “Police, sir. Please open the door.”

  Bolan waited a couple of beats, then turned the latch and cracked the door to the limit of the chain travel.

  “I didn’t call any police,” he muttered, peering through the crack. “How do I know…?”

  An eye met his through the opening, a troubled eye with apology and regret radiating from it, belonging to a diffident youth in a motel uniform.

  “It’s the sheriff’s office, sir. I’m sorry. It’s some sort of routine check. They’d appreciate your cooperation.”

  Bolan grunted and closed the door, released the chain lock, then opened wide and stepped back.

  Cops with shotguns were prowling the parking area, peering into cars. The young clerk at Bolan’s door was accompanied by two men in spit ’n’ polish khaki and heavy leather, roll-brim Western hats and immaculate boots. The uniform shirts fairly blazed with impressive insignia and flap-pocket decorations. Both men were rather young and nearly as ill-at-ease as the clerk.

  Bolan’s reception of the invasion of privacy was a skilled mixture of irritation and willingness to cooperate. “My wife’s still in bed,” he growled. “What’s going on?”

  The clerk was riffling a thin stack of registry cards.

  One of the deputies told the Executioner: “We’ve had reports of a dangerous fugitive in the county, sir. We’re checking out all the public places. Sorry for the inconvenience but—you know how these things go—we have to look.”

  Both officers had stepped across the threshold into the room. The clerk remained outside, nervously shuffling his cards.

  Bolan mentally shook his head over their “procedure.” They were blocking the doorway, framed in it, with all the light behind them, sitting ducks for any “dangerous fugitive” who might wish to blast his way out of that corner.

  He snapped on the overhead lights and waved his arm in an invitational sweep of the premises. “Have at it,” he said.

  The official eyes had gone magnetically to the appealingly staged “bed scene” but did not linger there more than a split second.

  One of the lawmen wandered through toward the bathroom, mumbling an eyes-averted apology to the lady in bed. The other was scrutinizing the motel card on which Bolan had registered his occupancy several days earlier.

  “Name, sir?” he murmured.

  Bolan replied, “Edwards. You want identification?”

  “No, sir. Is that your Porsche parked just outside?”

  “One-third mine, two-thirds the Cotton State Bank’s.”

  The deputy grinned. “Yes sir. Do you happen to remember the license number?”

  Bolan told him, then asked, “Didn’t I put that on the card?”

  “Yessir, just checking. Uh, you didn’t register your wife, Mr. Edwards.”

  “Didn’t I?” Bolan clucked his tongue. “Too long a bachelor, I guess. I keep forgetting.”

  “Yessir.” The deputy shot a quick glance toward the bed. Judith was glowering at her half-devoured Danish, pouting.

  The other officer returned from his hasty inspection of the steamy bathroom, snapped a sideways glance at Bolan, and went on outside.

  The spokesman for the law said, “Sorry to trouble you, Mr. Edwards. We appreciate the cooperation.” He made a little half-salute toward the bed. “Mrs. Edwards.” He paused in the open doorway for another glance at the bed. “Uh, it’s state law, sir. Each adult occupant is supposed to be registered by name.”

  Bolan smiled through the hardening shaving lather. “I’ll stop by the office and fix it,” he assured the young officer.

  The guy touched his hat again and stepped outside.

  Bolan closed the door and turned a smile toward the girl.

  She released a long sigh and said, “Wow. Easy as pie. Just the same I’ll take my suspense in the movies, thanks.”

  “It only seemed easy because it worked,” Bolan corrected her. “A false breath, one wrong word, and the roof would have fallen in. You did great. But the suspense has hardly begun.”

  Five minutes later he was fully dressed, the Beretta snug in her usual place of concealment beneath his left arm.

  The girl remained as Bolan had placed her, nude beneath the thin sheet, propped onto the pillow, the half-eaten Danish in her hand, watching him with mounting curiosity.

  “Yes, you’re a mighty tough guy, Mack Bolan,” she observed. “So sweet one minute and so—so deadly the next. I’ll bet you’re going out looking for blood, aren’t you.”

  He said, “Something like that.”

  “What about me?” she asked in a little-girl voice.

  “That’s your option,” he replied. “You’re in no shape to travel and you’re certainly not dressed for it. I don’t know how far a couple of towels would get you. From where I stand, though, you have three choices. You can pick up that phone and call the law, tell them what’s happened, demand protection. Or you can try to contact your father, expose yourse
lf to the people who are holding him, and end up right back in their hands. Either way, even if you call the cops, you’ll probably wind up right back where I came in.”

  “You said three choices,” she murmured.

  “The third is probably the toughest, maybe even the most dangerous. The third choice is me, Judith. You can tell me all you know. Then you can stay right where you are until I’ve had a chance to clear a place for you out there in that no-man’s-land. But there’s no assurance that I’ll ever get back. And it has to be your decision, not mine.”

  She showed him a wan smile. “It’s like I’m a quarterback. I have to call the play. No help from the bench.”

  Bolan nodded. “Third down. And it’s your option. You can pass, keep, or hand off.”

  “Let’s huddle and talk this over,” she said solemnly.

  “No way. It’s a two-minute drill, third-and-ten situation. The play has already been called and I’m up front, in the pit. It’s a sweep to the strong side, quarterback option.”

  “You’re my right tackle,” the girl murmured.

  He said, “I see you understand the game.”

  “This is football country, Mack.” She gave him a long, unblinking gaze, then sighed and added, “It’s the one thing Daddy and I always had in common. Yes, I understand the damn game. But this isn’t a game of football, is it.”

  Bolan said, “Very much the same. Call it.”

  She fluttered her eyelids and said, “You’re going to pull and block for a strong-side sweep. I can follow my blocker or I can exercise my options.”

  “That’s about it.”

  “But your assignment is fixed. Preordained. You go with or without me.”

  “Right.”

  Her eyes were brave but the voice just a bit trembly with the decision. “Okay. I’ll keep.”

  He twirled a chair around and straddled it, gazing at the girl across folded hands. “Welcome aboard. You’ve got about five minutes to tell me everything you know.”

  The telling was painful, often choking, sometimes teary—and it took quite a bit more than five minutes.

  But when the Executioner stepped out of that motel room, he carried with him very clear directions to the front. He knew, within certain limits, the name of the Mafia game in Texas—and, no, it was not football. It was a game for keeps—for control, maybe, of the entire Western world.