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  Bolan shook his head to clear it and growled, “Wait a minute, now.”

  “She felt that she had to at least try.”

  “Try what?”

  “Stop the killing.”

  “And how would she go about doing that?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea. But she felt compelled to try.”

  “You’re lying to me, Margaret,” Bolan decided. “You didn’t advise Dianna to do anything of the sort. You didn’t ‘send’ her anywhere.”

  The gaze wavered and broke. The lady sighed. She said, “I suppose I’m not a very good liar. You’re right, of course. I tried every piece of logic at my command—but Dy makes her own decisions, ill-based though they may often be.” The artful version of Dianna Webb raised creamy shoulders slightly and dropped them. “She left here barely an hour behind you. I promised her that I would remain at least until morning, in case you should return.”

  “She didn’t expect me to return, did she?”

  Margaret’s gaze returned level to his. “No.”

  “She was going to turn me over.”

  “I believe that was the general intent.”

  “How was she going to do that?”

  “Don’t blame her too strongly, Mr. Bolan. She is quite young. And confused about love.”

  Bolan said, “Yeah. How?”

  “She had a rather detailed description of your—your motor home.”

  A moth to the candle, yeah. Bolan got up quickly and killed the lights in the living area. “Get dressed!” he commanded.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t even try. Just do as I say. I’m taking your life back into my hands, Margaret. Now come on! Do you go dressed or do you go like that?”

  “I’ll dress,” she whispered.

  Bolan’s guts were now yelling in forty forked tongues. He growled, “Second thought, forget it!” He grabbed her by the arm and hustled her to the screen porch, then pushed her low and led her through the doorway, taking her by the hand there and urgently whispering, “Run!”

  They broke cover at the front corner and plunged blindly into the mists toward the water on a dead run, and they had not covered twenty yards when the chilling staccato of choppers in concert tore the silence behind them.

  Margaret faltered and almost fell. Bolan jerked her on and put an arm about her to keep her moving.

  Three and possibly four Thompsons were taking that house apart at close range—and the lady understood the implications of that as well as Bolan did.

  “Oh Dy, Dy!” she moaned.

  “She couldn’t have known,” Bolan assured her.

  They were circling toward the drive when flames shot skyward back there along the water and a rumbling explosion shook the ground beneath their feet.

  The death crew had come to “stop the killing.” Apparently they’d known that Bolan was in there, and they were leaving no stone unturned nor board unburnt.

  Scorched earth, sure.

  A lone gunner had been posted at Bolan’s rented Fairlane. He took the guy from behind, with a garrote—and the moth and the lady shook the flames of that place from their wings.

  Close, yeah. Too damned close for chuckles.

  12: VALUABLES

  Leo Turrin sent his tagman on with the rest of the crew to handle the formalities of registration while he stopped off at the message desk.

  But there were no messages for “Joe Petrillo.”

  He proceeded on to a telephone booth at the far side of the lobby and made a coin call to his unlisted “cold drop” in Pittsfield, an automated answering system.

  The connection was made and he fed in the verbal coder which would trigger the electronic brain to a release of messages stored since the last check-in.

  There was but one, very brief—but the one which Turrin had been anxiously awaiting all day.

  “This is Striker,” announced a familiar voice. “Tap me at the floater, Seattle, two thousand and two hundred.”

  That was it, but it was plenty.

  Turrin hung up and gazed at his watch. Twenty-two hundred meant ten o’clock. What the guy really meant, though, was ten minutes past that hour. He would answer no ring except at that precise moment.

  “Floater” was, of course, the mobile number in the guy’s vehicle.

  You didn’t simply pick up a phone and call Mack Bolan—not even if you happened to be the guy’s only contact with the straight world. You called at ten past ten, if that’s what the man wanted, then you called every hour after that until you connected.

  It was now nine fifty, Seattle time.

  Turrin went into the smoke shop and bought some cigars, then returned to the lobby in time to intercept the dumb but loyal tagman, Jocko Frensi.

  “Go on up with the stuff,” Turrin instructed him. “I’m going to hang around and make a few calls without switchboards. What’s our room?”

  “Ten hundred,” Fresni reported with a woebegone frown. “Man says it’s the best in the joint, but I dunno, it’s only got one teevee. Uh, don’t you think I better stay down here with you?”

  “Naw, it’s okay. Go on. You look beat. Boys on the same floor?”

  “Yeh. We can open the doors and connect with them if we wanta. Pers’nally, boss, I don’t wanta.”

  Fresni had once ridden some of the best mounts in thoroughbred racing circles. That was years ago. The little guy’s last horse died under him, literally, and Jocko damn near died with him. He’d never been right in the head, since. Fast man with a blaster, though, and as loyal a bodyguard as would be found anywhere. And he really did look beat.

  Turrin stepped over to his chief torpedo and told him, “See that Jocko goes right to bed. You guys leave ’im alone. Stay in your own damn rooms.”

  “Yeh, sure,” the guy growled back. “We’re going to get some broads, anyway. What’re you going to be doing?”

  “Nosing around. Stay close to the rooms.”

  “You want a broad?”

  Turrin seemed to be considering the idea before he replied, “Guess not. What do they call that—jet lag? Hell it’s about one o’clock back home.”

  The head cock laughed and said, “You’re getting old, Leo.”

  Turrin allowed that kind of familiarity. Many bosses didn’t. But Leo had a loyal crew. They knew what they could and couldn’t—there was no need for squeezing their tails in the bargain.

  He chuckled and tipped the bellman in advance then watched men and luggage into the elevator before turning away and looking for somewhere to kill another fifteen minutes.

  His wandering took him outside to sample the air. The damn town was pregnant. It was about to give birth to something, that was sure. That atmosphere was loaded with something more than moisture.

  He went back inside—located the bar, the coffee shop, barbers, main dining room—then found his way back to the pay telephones at precisely ten-oh-nine.

  He dialed the mobile operator, gave her the number, and sat back with an eye to the sweep second hand of his watch.

  Bingo—he got the connection at precisely ten-ten.

  “Yeh, who’d you want?”

  “Guy name Striker, also known as Tony.” Which meant there was no gun at Leo Turrin’s head.

  “That was quick,” Bolan’s normal voice replied. “I just filed the request thirty minutes ago and hauled down for a long wait.”

  “Got it twenty minutes ago. I’m in town. What’s on?”

  “Damned if I know,” the big one replied soberly. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “All I know is, for sure, about two hundred descending for head. You got a spare one?”

  Bolan chuckled, but it was a dry sound—like steel on steel. “Not lately. Two hundred, eh? Heavy?”

  “You’d better believe heavy. Best in the west. What the hell’re you up to?”

  “I think we’d better meet. I don’t like these mobiles.”

  “Know what you mean. Okay. When and where?”

 
“How flexible are you?”

  “Not very. I’m in party. But you name it, I’ll be there. Somehow.”

  “Okay, let’s give it a couple of hours. Make it three. Pick you up at the science fair building, by the fountains. Say one o’clock.”

  “Okay. Uh, Bigpush may want to come along. Okay?”

  The Bolan voice flattened somewhat as he inquired, “He here, too?”

  “Supposed to be. We haven’t connected yet but probably will before one.”

  “What’d he bring?”

  “Fifty. Maybe another fifty, shortly.”

  “Come to play, or to watch?”

  “To play, I think. With a big worry.”

  “Okay. Bring him if it’s his idea.”

  “Gotcha. Say, man. Stay hard.”

  “You too.”

  Turrin patted the telephone and hung it up, then crossed the lobby to the message desk for another check-in.

  And, yeah—it was there that time, Brognola’s side of the equation.

  He strolled back to the phone booths, casually tossing a dime and reflecting on the crazy life he led.

  At the edge of a knife, sure—balanced precariously between two worlds, and none whatever for himself.

  So why’d he do it?

  Why did singers sing and dancers dance? Leo Turrin was no philosopher.

  A guy simply did what he did best.

  Bolan turned away from the mobile phone and lay a friendly gaze on his guest of necessity, Margaret Nyeburg. “Feeling better?” he asked, unnecessarily. It was quite obvious that she was.

  The lady was perched atop his plotting table in the war room, fresh from a renewing if brief shower—legs crossed and feet drawn up under her, dwarfed and childlike in Bolan’s dungaree jacket which was the only thing between them at the moment. Lovely, vulnerable, strongly appealing. Bolan found himself regretting even more strongly than ever his earlier involvement with the daughter. Some things just wouldn’t work. A mother-daughter situation was one of those things.

  A mug of scalding coffee was cooling precariously between her thighs. Bolan moved it, noting her silence, and said, “I guess you are. Feeling better. Eh?”

  She sniffed and said, “I just hope I haven’t caught a nasty cold. You’re a strong young man, Mack. Thank you. That’s silly, isn’t it? How can I thank you?”

  He’d caught that “young man” coder, and understood. She was telling him to keep away. He intended to.

  He told her, “We’re alive. That’s thanks enough.”

  “For you, good. For me—well, it seems the least of consolations.”

  He growled, “Hey, hey.”

  “I can’t help it. It’s just all so miserable, so impossible.”

  He said, for about the tenth time, “Margaret—Dianna did not know what she was getting you into. Believe that.”

  “I guess you’re right,” she said, sighing. “I have to believe it, don’t I? Dy is all I have in the world.”

  His gaze shifted. “That’s very sad.”

  “Is it? Why? Some people don’t have that much.”

  “You’re what?—thirty-eight?—forty?”

  She wrinkled her nose and replied, “Squarely between those two. Diplomacy isn’t one of your strong points, is it?”

  “Not usually. At the age of thirty-nine, Margaret, all you have of value to your life is a daughter?”

  She fidgeted under that penetrating scrutiny. “Well … okay. I was being dramatic. No, dammit, I wasn’t. What else do I have to brag about? Why not be honest with one’s self? What do I have, Mack?”

  He raised a hand and ticked off the points on his fingers as he called to her attention, “Frustration, self-pity, lack of direction, isolation, death instinct. That’s five negatives.” He raised the other hand. “Now you count me off five positives to balance that—and I’ll tell you what you’ve got, lady.”

  “You’re doing fine,” she replied in a muffled voice, obviously offended by his tone. “Keep counting.”

  “Okay. You’ve got beauty, brains, heart, ethics, and a desire to be happy. I could probably count twenty more positives. You want to know what you’ve got? You’ve got the world by the very ass, lovely lady.”

  She flinched. “That’s what I said, you’re no diplomat.”

  “And you’re no valid object of pity,” he growled.

  “What was it Dy called you? A tough guy? You are! Tough as an angry old bull, aren’t you! And you expect everyone else to be just as tough!”

  “That’s right,” he said softly. “I do. When it comes to standing up and proclaiming life, I sure do.”

  “You’re preparing me for something,” she decided, eyes flaring. “What is it?”

  “Don’t base it all on your daughter,” he muttered. “That’s all I’m getting at. Life goes on, Margaret. Base it on yourself, and what you can do with it.”

  Fear began at the eyes and radiated to the entire face. “What are you saying? Is Dianna …?”

  He turned away from that naked terror. No, he was no damned diplomat—nor was he a dreamer. He’d been there, many times, at the finish of too, many Diannas—and, sure, he knew the realities. And he’d decided long ago that there were those times when deception and half-truths in the name of mercy were more painful in the long run than squarely facing the truth.

  He told Dianna’s mother, “I couldn’t get longshot odds from even a guy like Jimmy the Greek on that girl’s chances, Margaret.”

  “But surely …”

  “Here’s a surely,” he said coldly. “She’s playing with brutes, she’ll be brutalized.”

  “John is not a brute! John is a …!” Those eyes flared again, fizzled, fell, and she finished with a whispered, “Oh well.”

  “John, huh. Nice guy, huh. Okay, Margaret, you tell me all about nice guy John. This time you hold back nothing. Hear me? Nothing! This is no cute parlor game, dammit. Your daughter’s life is hanging over the edge. You saw how those guys operate! I’ve seen a lifetime of it! Now dammit, give me the key! Give it to me! Give me the damned key, Margaret!”

  “You’d still help her? After all …?”

  “Oh for God’s crying children! What the hell am I? We’re talking about a kid! Your kid!”

  “All right!” The lady was weeping. “Ill tell you. I’ll give you your damned key!”

  In the back of his brain, Bolan knew that an important domino had just toppled.

  Up front, however, that was the least consideration.

  More than dominoes, right now, he wanted Dianna Webb—alive and whole. Even if he had to drag her out of there screaming and kicking.

  13: HOPE

  Seattle was a town that had seen its highs and lows—and was right now sitting somewhere in the middle, but with great hopes.

  Beginning as a small lumber settlement in mid-nineteenth century and named after a local Indian chief, it received first substantial growth with the coming of the railroad in post-Civil War days then boomed into the turn of the century via the Alaskan gold rush, serving as chief port of supply and support during those fevered times, establishing itself as a major seaport for all times.

  Growth had been mostly upward throughout the twentieth century, except for a few bad moments from time to time. Principal city of the Pacific Northwest, she’d surged mightily during W.W. II as a major shipping and shipbuilding center, then gone into the expansive semi-peacetime era as the seat of a growing military-industrial complex—with emphasis on aerospace and related technological sophistries.

  Recent problems in the American aerospace industry had been particularly hard felt in Seattle—where a single large company had employed more than 100,000 skilled and professional workers only to drop its payroll to a lean force of 30,000 during a slump that still was evident. Dependent segments of the local economy were as badly hit, and the entire area was impacted by this mini-depression.

  It was a town with guts, though, and a brave past. There were few outward signs of a city in trouble. She wor
e a happy face even if the guts were strained a bit—and Bolan liked the town. The beauty of the natural setting was unequalled anywhere. Built on seven hills and containing within her own boundaries four lakes and forty-five parks, majestically flanked by the Cascades east and the Olympics west—this beautiful city on Puget Sound held something worthwhile for any taste and every pursuit.

  And that, at the moment, was what worried Mack Bolan.

  In times of strain, overanxious city fathers would be more inclined to support rather than spurn new hope in the economic sector. They would, perhaps, rush to embrace without first closely scrutinizing.

  And, yes, based on the meager revelations of Margaret Nyeburg alone, this appeared to be precisely the case at hand.

  John Franciscus was a man with “an open past” but a peculiarly clouded present. If Nyeburg had been the face of the mob encroachment here, then Franciscus was most probably the muscle.

  And that was a bit difficult to square with the known record. The guy was about Bolan’s age. Like Bolan, he’d spent most of his adult life in the military—but with a difference. Franciscus was a West Pointer. He’d been a combat soldier, not a politician. Yet he seemed to have many political and social contacts, plenty of money, seemingly unlimited resources. He did not work, had not been born wealthy, and was not visibly attached to any business or financial concerns.

  Margaret referred to him as “that playboy.”

  Allan, though, had been “frightened” by him, Dianna “clearly unbalanced” by him, and certain civic officials seemingly over-responsive to his “promotions.”

  Why that last? What was the guy offering Seattle that she did not already possess? Margaret could not answer that. Bolan thought that perhaps he could—with just a few more pieces of the puzzle in place.