Bolan rose from the bed and walked into the bathroom. He twisted the tap in the sink, leaned down and splashed cold water onto his face. Looking up into the mirror, he stared at the dark circles beneath his eyes.

  He had to sleep sometime, and if the opportunity ever presented itself, Bolan decided he would.

  3

  The light bulb in the L of the Starlight Inn's neon sign flickered twice, then died as Bolan pulled the rented Corvette into the parking lot. He cut the engine, removed the keys and opened the door, feeling the torrid heat of the southern Arizona evening hit his face like a left hook.

  The inn lay, dying a slow death, on the northern edge of Yuma, Arizona. The odor of strong, heavily seasoned cooking wafted steadily through the open door as Bolan crossed the gravel lot to room 113.

  He had mixed emotions as he raised a fist to knock. It would have been foolish to slowly track down the cartel installations in Mexico from the scant evidence he knew he'd find at the ranch. Sure, he'd eventually find the links needed to close the gap between the Rodriguez ranch and the kingpins in Colombia. He didn't need a broken-down, slovenly mercenary to make the connection. But Buddy Taylor could have time, valuable time that could then be spent in countless other areas of Bolan's continuing war. And the Vampire Bat commander had firsthand knowledge of the strike zones. That knowledge could prove invaluable in planning each attack.

  If Taylor could be trusted.

  The Executioner had been on the cutting edge long enough to know that an informant's motivation rarely came from the goodness in his heart. Good «snitches» weren't recruited from the rolls of Sunday school classes. An informant who had never been dirty himself rarely had the inside knowledge necessary to be of value.

  They were a necessary evil, Bolan supposed, but he'd never get used to the idea of teaming up with men like Buddy Taylor — small-time mercenaries, semiskilled, semiorganized, semitrustworthy.

  Bolan recalled their abduction of the Cessna. They had been only too ready to desert one another in the heat of battle. The Beechcraft's pilot had flown off without Taylor, and Taylor had not only deserted his fallen comrade but attempted to protect his own identity by firing at the wounded man.

  Facts to remember, Bolan told himself, as he heard the lock thrown back inside the room. He was surprised when the door opened to reveal a tall, striking woman in her mid-twenties. Her canary yellow hair cascaded in layered ringlets past shoulders left bare by a cherry-red tube top. Bolan briefly noted the bare midriff before his battle senses went on alert.

  It was all too obvious what was about to happen.

  Smiling sexily, the woman inched the door wider. "Come on in, sugar. Been waiting for you… so long."

  Bolan almost yawned. He could have written the script for the scene he knew would follow. Stepping through the doorway into the obvious trap, he waited patiently until he felt the cold steel of a gun barrel make contact with his left temple.

  "Don't even breathe," said a raspy smoker's voice from behind the door.

  The Executioner brought his left arm up and over in an arc, sweeping the gun from his head in one smooth movement. Turning to face the voice, he grabbed the short barrel of a .357 and twisted it away from his body. He heard a surprised shriek as the man's index finger caught in the trigger guard. Changing the angle of twist slightly, he spared the gunman a broken finger and pulled the revolver neatly from his grasp. Bolan encircled the other man's neck in a headlock and jammed the barrel of the gun tightly against the balding scalp.

  The bathroom door flew open and two men armed with shotguns burst into the room, grinning. The grins faded as they ground to a halt, confronting a reversal of the scene they'd expected.

  "Drop the scatterguns in the corner," Bolan commanded. The two men, one Caucasian and the other Hispanic, carefully leaned their shotguns against the wall next to the desk.

  "Now, any other weapons," Bolan said.

  The short, stocky Hispanic dropped a Browning HiPower and a stag-handled Bowie knife next to the shotguns. The Caucasian's sparse, unruly mustache drooped as he added a Government Model .45, a Colt Mustang .38 and a Gerber Guardian boot knife to the pile.

  Bolan shook his head. "You boys and your toys." He motioned them toward the far wall of the room, then pressed the revolver into his prisoner's spine as he shook the man down, finding only an Al Mar SERE combat blade in a pouch on his belt.

  "What? No grenades?" Bolan asked, then shoved the man across the room toward his comrades. He glanced quickly at the tight clothing on the woman, determined it provided little opportunity for concealment, then met her eyes. She returned his look with a smile of surprise and admiration.

  Bolan walked to the corner where the weapons were piled and tossed the snubbie .357 into the heap. Drawing the Desert Eagle, he turned the desk chair around and sat down, arms hanging over the backrest. The massive .44 dangled casually from his right hand. "One of you combat experts is Taylor, I assume?"

  The paunchy man he'd held prisoner stepped forward, red-faced and breathing hard. "Me," he growled.

  "Good. Let's get a few things straight up front. First, I get the definite impression that this little drama you orchestrated was to make it clear who's in charge. Well, it did." He waited for a reply. When no one spoke, he continued. "Second, I get the feeling that you're not crazy about working with me."

  "You got that right, Pollock," Taylor said, using the cover name Bolan had selected for this mission.

  "That's fine, too," Bolan answered. "I'm not thrilled with the situation, either. As far as I'm concerned, you're not a half length higher on the food chain than the scum you steal planes from. You're sitting on a load of coke that you'd have already turned if you were smart enough to know how. That makes you two things in my book — criminal and stupid. Your performances just now confirmed the stupid part."

  Taylor grunted and took a half step forward, then changed his mind, his eyes falling to the huge weapon filling the Executioner's hand.

  Bolan smiled and returned the Desert Eagle to the holster beneath his coat. "Okay. Now that we're clear on the chain of command and our feelings about each other, let's get down to business. You can pick up your toys now."

  Slowly and unsurely, like schoolboys in the principal's office, the three men retrieved the various weapons and took seats around the room. Taylor introduced both Gus Jackson and Felipe Valdez. None of the men shook hands.

  Bolan looked at the woman reclining seductively on the bed.

  "This is Janie Brewer," Taylor told him. "Part-time singer, part-time model."

  Janie smiled coyly at Bolan, uncrossing her legs and raising one knee slightly.

  "And full-time whore," Taylor finished, oblivious to the look Janie shot his way. "She turns tricks when she's broke, and she works with me when I need a woman." Taylor laughed boorishly. "In more ways than one."

  "In your dreams, old man," Janie scoffed. She turned to Bolan. "I'm a damn good actress. Both on and off stage. But I'm broke most of the time. If you need me for anything…" Janie's tongue licked her lower lip, leaving a shiny wet glow"…I'm available."

  Bolan ignored her and turned back to the men. "We begin tomorrow morning. I want to strike hard and fast. To put it simply, we hit every drug compound you're familiar with, then follow whatever trails we find back to Colombia. There's bound to be big names on the other end. I don't know what those names are yet, but I will by the time we're through in Mexico."

  "Hey, wait a minute," Taylor said. "Our deal was to show you where to go. Not go with you."

  "That's fine, Taylor. To tell you the truth, I'd prefer it that way myself. I don't need a lot of drugstore soldiers weighing me down when it hits the fan. But unfortunately you'll have to be there. I won't have time to drop you off at the local cantina after you've fingered the strike zones. Whether you fire a shot or not is up to you. But stay the hell out of my way."

  Bolan turned to Valdez. "All intelligence indicates that the prime cartel distribution point is on the Baja Peninsula, probably near La Paz. You're Cuban, right?"

  "Sí. A patriot."

  Bolan raised his eyebrows in surprise. The man's accent was that of northern Mexico. While they might speak a common language, the difference in Cuban and Mexican pronunciation was as marked as that of a London cockney and an Alabama farm boy. "What's your training background?" he asked Valdez.

  "Recon. Infiltration and communications," the Cuban said proudly. Straightening in his chair, he added, "I was with Alpha 66."

  Bolan nodded. Valdez's association with Alpha 66 explained the Mexican accent. Linguists, provided by the CIA, would have removed all traces of Cuban pronunciation with hours of grueling speech lessons.

  He remembered what Brognola had told him about Valdez's dismissal from Alpha and wondered again if this might be just a good man gone wrong.

  "Can you pass as a Mexican?" Bolan asked the Cuban.

  "Easily." Valdez smiled. "I have done so many times."

  "Good. Because you're on your way to La Paz."

  The Cuban nodded.

  Bolan rose from the chair and crossed the room to the door. Then, turning back to the woman on the bed, he said, "Have you eaten yet?"

  "Eaten who?" Taylor snickered.

  Janie shot him a dirty look, then returned her eyes to Bolan. A surprised expression replaced her anger. "No," she said, standing up. "I haven't."

  Bolan opened the door and waited while she crossed the room, oblivious to the obscene leers of Taylor and Jackson.

  "Hell, at least the son of a bitch is human," he heard Taylor drawl as he closed the door behind them.

  * * *

  The Wagon Wheel Café was located across the gravel parking lot of the Starlight Inn. A chalkboard in the grease-stained window claimed it had remained open round-the-clock for the past thirty-two years, four months and six days.

  Bolan's steak tasted like it had been broiled during the Wagon Wheel's grand opening and rewarmed after the waitress took his order.

  He pushed the leatherlike strip to the side and chewed on a french fry while he studied the hand-scrawled cardboard signs on the wall. They announced, in misspelled words, both the daily specials and the fact that service would be refused to anyone not wearing shoes and a shirt. In the booth behind Janie Brewer, two unshaven men in baseball caps argued sex, ranching and politics in no particular order of importance. On the far side of the room, a young deputy sheriff divided his attention between a bowl of chili and sporadic attempts to catch Janie's eyes.

  Bolan watched silently as Janie picked at her taco salad. She had become more subdued since his dinner invitation but seemed to be enjoying herself. He poured coffee into both cups from the plastic pot on the table. Janie smiled up in surprise.

  It was all too obvious how the world had broken this woman. Like a mongrel dog, kicked and beaten by its master, she was now willing to lick the hand of anyone showing her even the smallest semblance of kindness.

  Janie gave up on the salad and dabbed her lips with a napkin. "Thank you," she said.

  Bolan smiled. "Not exactly the Ritz, is it?"

  "I don't mean for the food. You're right. It's pretty awful. I mean… thank you for bringing me here. Getting me out of there for a while."

  Bolan nodded. "I'm not usually a big one for clichés," he said. "But under the circumstances, this one seems unavoidable."

  Janie laughed. " 'What's a nice girl like me' and all that?"

  "Exactly."

  "I'm a performer." Janie shrugged. "I'm good. But it takes more than talent. You've got to have luck, too. And so far, I haven't. I guess I've never been in the right place at the right time." Janie's eyes fell to her plate as her cheeks reddened. "And a girl has to eat somehow."

  "How'd you meet Taylor?" Bolan asked.

  She paused, then lifted her eyes to meet his. "Well, I was dating a guy who worked for him. Nice guy. I wasn't in love or anything, but he treated me well."

  "Jackson?" Bolan wondered. Somehow it didn't seem to fit.

  "No, Lord no," Janie said, laughing quickly. "I've never been that hungry. It was another guy." She raised her water glass to her lips, then returned it to the table. "He got shot in one of the early missions. Right out of the sky, I guess. It was when they used to parachute in."

  Bolan frowned. "That doesn't explain your involvement."

  Janie fumbled briefly with the cellophane on a package of crackers before setting it down. "It's not always airplanes, you know. Taylor got a different kind of job shortly after my boyfriend got killed. He'd recovered a plane for this guy earlier, I guess. Well, the guy was married to a Mexican woman. She took off with their baby and went back home. No legal way he could get his son back, so he hired Taylor again."

  Janie stopped as the waitress reappeared to fill their water glasses. When the woman left, she continued. "Taylor hired me to go along and lake care of the baby on the way back. I was between jobs… so I went."

  Bolan stared at the woman across the table. The story had holes in it from top to bottom. He said nothing.

  Janie picked the crackers up again and nervously struggled for the opening before slamming them back to the table. "Okay, dammit. I was hooking. I was tired of working, slinging hash in hellholes like this one and waiting to hit the big time. There wasn't any boyfriend, and there wasn't any baby. Taylor was one of my tricks. That's how I met him."

  Bolan remained silent. He had guessed that Taylor's accusations concerning Janie's prostitution were accurate, and he hadn't believed the unlikely story about the baby. But it had not been until Janie actually admitted the lie and her true meeting with Taylor that the Executioner had drawn the painful parallel that now tore at his soul.

  Bolan's mind drifted back over the years to the events that had spawned his lifelong quest to eradicate evil, to another innocent girl, younger than Janie, who'd been forced onto the deadly, one-way road of prostitution. Forced not by the dream of stardom, but by a more immediate threat: the Mafia.

  Bolan's sister had sold herself in an attempt to save their father from the wrath of the Mob. It hadn't worked.

  A soft tap on his clenched fist brought Bolan back to the present.

  "Hey, you in there?" Janie asked.

  Bolan returned his attention to the woman across from him. "Sorry," he told her. "My mind drifted for a minute."

  "I told you I was a good actress. You almost bought the part about the baby, didn't you?"

  Bolan smiled. "Almost."

  Janie giggled, an innocent, girlish brightness transforming her face. It was suddenly replaced by a pleading expression. "I'm not really one of them," she said softly. "Not really."

  Bolan studied her face as she returned her attention to the salad, poking uneasily with her fork. "Tell me about Valdez," he said.

  "He's different, too. I know he worked for that Cuban bunch in Florida or somewhere. Against Castro, I think. He's nicer than the others. Sad, though. The other Cubans kicked him out."

  Bolan frowned. "He tell you all that?"

  Janie shrugged her shoulders and stared guiltily back at her plate. "We… became close for a while. He got drunk one night and cried and told me the whole story. He just wanted to get his sister out of Cuba. He was ashamed. She'd been forced to become the mistress of somebody high up in the government. He never said who. That's what the money was for. He wasn't going to keep it or anything."

  Bolan nodded. "Did she escape?"

  Janie shook her head. "No. Something happened. Felipe never said what. I don't know… I guess she's still in Cuba." Janie paused. "Taylor doesn't trust him."

  "Why's that?"

  "I overheard him talking to Jackson, once. Valdez is still dedicated to the cause. He's dedicated to something other than money. That's bound to be something Buddy can't understand, right there. I guess the old man's afraid Valdez's principles might get in the way someday."

  The waitress shuffled over. "Get you anything else?" she asked.

  Bolan saw Janie glanced from his cardboard steak to her uneaten salad before answering. "No, thanks," she said. "My system's taken enough chances for one night."

  The waitress shrugged, slapped a grease-splattered check upside down on the table and staggered away.

  Bolan set her tip by the unfinished steak and they rose to leave.

  "What about Jackson?" he asked as they crossed the lot back to the Starlight Inn.

  Janie stiffened. "Sort of a Buddy Taylor clone. Not as smart, but just as mean." She stopped, grasping Bolan's arm before self-consciously dropping it again. Looking up into the big man's eyes, she added, "I wouldn't trust either one of them. Not if I were you."

  Bolan escorted Janie up the stairs to her room on the Starlight's second floor. She fished through her purse, came up with the key and inserted it into the lock. She turned to face Bolan once again. "Would you…like to come in?" she asked. The flush of red he'd seen earlier rushed to her cheeks. "For a drink or something… I mean… for a drink?"

  "Thanks," Bolan said, "but I've got a lot of things to do before tomorrow."

  Janie bit her bottom lip and nodded. "We could… just talk some more."

  Bolan shook his head. "I'm sorry," he told her.

  Janie smiled sadly, said good-night and closed the door.

  * * *

  The pedestrian line at the border was long but moving steadily as Bolan fell in at the end. Directly ahead of him, two Oriental men in gaudy print beach shirts snapped photographs as they meandered along, indiscriminately recording everything they saw. Instinctively Bolan turned sideways and rubbed both eyes to conceal his face as their cameras turned randomly on him.

  Jackson had crossed earlier that morning. Bolan and Taylor had watched him through binoculars from a third-story motel room two blocks away. It had gone smoothly and without incident. That, combined with the speed with which the line was moving, reassured the Executioner that there was no serious search being conducted at the crossing.

  There rarely was. Contraband and illegal aliens travelled north across the Rio Grande, not south.

 

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