Heavy drops of rain hit the windshield. It came hard and fast out of a sky suddenly dark with thick cloud, drumming against his vehicle, quickly wetting the road ahead.
The SUV vanished from sight around another sharp bend. Bolan powered up to it and held the rental steady as it slid through the curve.
The green canopy formed by the heavy trees flanking the road shadowed it. Off to the right Bolan saw water gleaming. A broad stream, or river.
He straightened out of the bend and spied the SUV a distance ahead, sitting at an angle across the narrow road. A rear door was open. A shooter faced him, the stubby SMG in his hands clearly visible.
Bolan stomped on the brake, and the vehicle shuddered, its tires burning as they fought to grip the rain-slicked road. He smelled burning rubber.
Then the soldier heard the P90 cut loose. Slugs bounced off the road, then hit the hood of the vehicle as the shooter raised his weapon. The slugs cracked against the windshield. Bolan spun the wheel, and his vehicle skidded sideways. He heard bullets hit his door. Something burned across his left hip, and the soldier felt a flash of pain.
The front wheels hit the soft shoulder and the vehicle lifted as it sped forward. In the scant seconds left to him, Bolan saw the massive trunk of a huge tree looming in front of him. Then his SUV slammed into the wide trunk.
The impact hurled Bolan forward, his body twisting, thudding against the inside of the door. He was unable to stop himself from being slammed into the steel upright of the doorframe, his head impacting with terrible force. He bounced back from it, half-across the passenger seat.
He didn’t hear the SUV’s door slam. Or the sound of the engine as it sped away. At that moment he could hear nothing.
See nothing.
Feel nothing...
Chapter 1
The man had walked out of the darkness, as if the torrential rain had been little more than a slight drizzle. It was one of the hardest rainstorms in months, and it swept down Hardesty’s main street, bouncing off the blacktop and drumming against the few vehicles parked against the curb. The man moved slowly, and when he saw the lights of the diner he turned toward the eatery with the directness of a homing missile.
“Will you look at that,” Vern Mitchell said. He paused from pouring more coffee into the cup on the counter in front of him. “That feller looks half drowned.”
The newcomer paused at the entrance, as if he wasn’t certain he should step inside. Then he pushed the door open and entered. The door swung shut behind him, reducing the sound of the storm to a low murmur. He scanned the interior, seeing there were no more than five people in the place.
He looked in the direction of the long counter.
A man was in the act of pouring coffee.
Farther along, and also behind the counter, a young woman stood watching him.
It was Mitchell who broke the silence.
“I’d guess you could use a coffee, son.”
He finished filling the mug in front of him, then reached for a fresh one and filled that.
The man crossed to the counter and eased himself onto one of the stools. He left a trail of water across the floor. For a moment he sat staring at the steaming coffee, then reached out to lift the mug.
“Laura, go fetch the man a towel.”
The young woman he spoke to turned and vanished behind the serving area.
“Hell of a night,” Mitchell said. “You look like you walked a piece.”
The man took a deep swallow of the coffee before he spoke.
“Some,” he said. Then added, “I think.”
His voice was deep. When he raised his head Mitchell saw his eyes were blue, with a startling intensity that kept his attention. The thick head of black hair was plastered against his skull. Mitchell saw an ugly large bruise that started on the guy’s upper forehead and ran down the side of his face almost to his cheekbone.
“Some bruise you got. Accident? You have a car accident? That why you’re on foot?”
Laura returned with a towel. She handed it to the man and he wiped his face, scrubbed at his thick, wet hair.
“That piece of road north of here can be tricky when it’s wet. Since they built the bridge it got kind of sidelined. County doesn’t pay it much mind anymore.”
That statement came from the man on the next stool. Sam Jarvis was a local man in his late seventies. He had spent most of his life in the town, watching it prosper, then fade when the new highway sucked the life out of it. He knew every inch of the highway in both directions for a lot of miles.
The newcomer drained his mug and placed it back on the counter.
“I’d appreciate some more coffee,” he said. He pushed a hand into his pants pocket and pulled out a crumpled fold of notes. He peeled off a ten and placed it on the counter. He watched as his mug was refilled. “Food smells good. What’s the cook’s special?”
Jarvis grinned. “Whatever she cooks,” he said, jerking a thumb in the direction of the young woman. “That girl is a wonder in the kitchen. That right, Laura?”
The young woman allowed an embarrassed smile to show.
“I manage,” she said.
The newcomer smiled back. “How about managing me something, then,” he said. “Be obliged.”
“You like ham and eggs? Side of fried onions and potatoes? Maybe some hot biscuits?”
The man nodded. “Real down-home cooking. That would be fine.”
The woman turned and moved into the kitchen area.
“You sound hungry, mister,” Sam Jarvis said. “Hope so because that girl cooks something fierce. If she was in a big city, she’d be earning top dollar.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Name’s Sam Jarvis,” the old man said. He stuck out a bony hand. “I run the local gas station and auto repair shop.”
“Matt Cooper.”
Mack Bolan took the offered hand, felt the strong grip Jarvis offered. He felt the older man’s piercing gaze and knew he was being assessed. He held Jarvis’s stare until his hand was released.
“So what happened, Mr. Cooper? You come off the road?”
“Something like that, Mr. Jarvis.”
Jarvis smiled. “Hell, only one who calls me mister is my bank manager. It’s just plain Sam.”
“Sam it is, then.”
“Now, I’m not trying to drum up business, son, but I do operate a tow truck, and if you need help just say the word.”
“Give the man a chance to dry down and eat, Sam,” Vern Mitchell said.
“I appreciate the offer, Sam,” Bolan said. “But I have no idea where my car is right now.”
“It got stole, or something?” Jarvis asked.
“Or something,” Bolan said. “It’s a long story I wouldn’t want to bore you with.”
Mitchell laughed. “Hell, son, things get so quiet around here any story would be welcome.”
“Ever since they built the bridge across the river and joined it up with the interstate we kind of got shunted aside,” Jarvis volunteered. “Town’s kind of hanging on by the skin of its teeth. I’m just about ready to hang out the for-sale sign.”
“Hell, Sam, don’t you get started on that,” Mitchell said good-naturedly. “He gets on his favorite subject you’ll be here come next Christmas.”
Bolan managed a smile despite the bone-numbing tiredness still threatening to drag him down. He couldn’t figure out why he was so damn tired.
He pushed his hands through his still-damp hair. He was still trying to make sense of the events of the last... Even that small fact was evading Bolan. Just how long had he been in his current condition?
Bolan drank the rest of the coffee. Maybe the caffeine rush would jolt his memory. He touched the sore spot on the side of his head. H
e couldn’t even recall how he had gained the bruise. Had it been an accident with his car? Or something else? He did know it had affected his memory recall.
Of what?
Where had he been?
Who had he been involved with and why?
He reached his right hand across his body and began to rub the sore spot on his left arm. Above the elbow. It felt like another bruise.
“Son, you look like a man carrying a heavy weight on his shoulders,” Jarvis said.
“Some,” Bolan said.
Yeah, some, but what?
A young couple in a far booth got up and crossed to the counter to pay their bill. Then they left, running across to their parked car. It was a lovingly restored 1958 Ford Fairlane 500.
“We still had an American auto industry when they made that,” Jarvis said, a trace of regret in his voice.
Bolan watched until the car had turned out of the lot and vanished up the street. A suspicion had flashed across his mind. Then he dismissed it. The young couple couldn’t have been involved in his current problem. They were just a couple of kids out for a ride. He excused the suspicion as an aberration brought on by his overwhelming weariness, making him wary in case they were part of the problem.
Whatever the problem was.
He was becoming suspicious of everyone around him.
Yet he felt no doubt in his mind that the people in the diner were nothing but genuine. He couldn’t explain the way he felt, just that he trusted them. There did come a point where reality had to stand above paranoia. And Bolan knew that the three people in the diner with him could be trusted.
Yet something else nagged at the edges of his reasoning. It had something to do with the safety of these people. The need to protect them.
Again, though, from what?
From him?
That much he understood, though he wasn’t sure why.
Was he a danger to them?
Would he harm them?
He denied the thought. There was no way he would put these people in danger.
But maybe you already have, he thought, just by coming here. Walking in through that door could have dragged them into the fire zone.
Bolan turned on the stool to stare out the rain-streaked window. The scene was distorted by the runnels of water. He touched a hand across his eyes as pain swelled in his skull in a rising pulse, dull but intense. It left him unsteady, and he swayed on the edge of the stool.
He needed to go, to get away from this place before he drew trouble to these people. “I have to move on,” Bolan said. “I need to go....”
He placed his mug on the counter and slid off the stool, dropping his feet to the floor. But it was suddenly too far down to reach and he just kept sinking.
Bolan wasn’t aware he had fallen facedown on the diner’s floor, felt no pain when his cheek hit the tile.
Everything closed in around him and he was swallowed by darkness yet again....
Chapter 2
“Tell me they found Bremner?” Greg Rackham said. “Please tell me those cretins managed to locate one man and grab him?”
“Yeah, we got Bremner. He’s on his way in now. But some guy showed when we went to pick him up. He took down some of our people.”
“If this was a TV movie of the week, I wouldn’t believe it,” Rackham said. “This guy turns up out of the blue to back up Bremner and makes you people look like monkeys.”
“He was better than we thought.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? We’re professionals. Never screwed a contract before. Not good, Nash. Not good at all.”
“I feel bad about it myself.”
“That’s okay, then. You feel bad. It doesn’t wash, Nash. If we were still in the service, I’d have had you up on charges.”
Rackham listened to the silence over the phone. He had scored a point with Nash, and it made him feel good.
“So say it, Nash. Tell me we’re not in the service any longer. Tell me I can’t talk to you like that. Go ahead and I’ll show you how I feel.”
Nash figured now was the time to keep his mouth closed. Bucking Rackham was never a smart thing. The man wielded authority like a weapon, a weapon he could use to great effect. And the man had a point. Nash had screwed up. One man made his team look bad.
“So who the hell was he?”
“No clue,” Nash said, and even he thought that sounded lame.
“There has to be a reason this guy dealt himself in.”
“He must have been another Fed, sent to back up Bremner.”
“Did you handle him?”
“I figured Bremner was more important. So we grabbed him and took off. The new guy followed us but we fired on his vehicle and he hit a tree head-on. He had to have been hurt.”
“And?”
“We kept going. We should be back in a while. Sooner we get Bremner under lock and key the better. Right?”
Rackham contained himself. “As soon as you drop Bremner off, you get back on the road and find that guy. Do it before he causes any more damage. Understand? He could bring all kinds of crap down on us. And send a cleanup crew to move the bodies. Last thing we need is somebody spotting them.”
* * *
“HOW DID RACKHAM TAKE it?” Zeke Macchio asked when Rick Nash pocketed his cell phone.
“Not well,” Nash said. “He wants that new guy dealt with.”
“We still got Bremner here in the car,” Macchio protested. “And this rain isn’t going to make it easy to track him.”
“We deliver Bremner to base, then take off and look for the guy,” Nash said. “Or do you want to tell Rackham to go screw himself?”
Macchio shook his head. “No. I’m just a grunt who takes orders.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
Macchio looked out the SUV’s side window. Rain was sweeping in beyond the glass, and the heavy cloud formations were closing in across the area.
“It’ll be dark in a couple hours, and it isn’t going to be easy tracking in the dark in the middle of a storm. All those trees won’t make it any easier.”
Nash couldn’t argue the point. “Let me have a word with Rackham when we get back. I’ll try to talk some sense into him.”
From the rear of the vehicle one of the team said, “Hey, good luck with that.”
Even Nash managed a thin smile. It wasn’t going to be an easy meet. When Greg Rackham turned ugly, reason went out the window. But even he had to see the sense. Nash and his team wouldn’t be able to track anyone in the pitch-black and in the middle of a storm. It made tactical sense to wait until first light before they returned to where Bremner’s buddy had rammed his car into that damned big tree. If the guy wasn’t dead he had to be hurt, and he would have been forced to take shelter once darkness fell.
Strangely Rackham turned out to be in a better mood once he saw Bremner. He listened to what Nash had to say, offering little comment and actually nodding in agreement when Nash suggested a dawn start.
“Just get your team on the road as soon as it’s light. Find this bastard. Bring him back so we can question him. We don’t have time for problems just now. The deal is too close to completion.”
Movement at the far side of Rackham’s office caught Nash’s attention, and he recognized the tall, black-clad figure of Lise Delaware. She was listening, observing in the silent way she always did. It was unnerving and left Nash with an uneasy feeling.
Her presence disturbed him. Nash was no impressionable novice. He had seen action, had done his share of killing, but there was something about Delaware’s manner that made his skin crawl. She very rarely spoke directly to Nash, or any of the men. Her focus was on Rackham. Always Rackham, and the intimacy of that closeness was what creeped him out. He couldn
’t prove it, but he felt sure there was a sexual connection between the pair.
It was known that Delaware held a high position in the organization. She reported to its leadership and passed their orders back to Rackham. He followed any instructions she gave. Like Nash, Rackham had a military past. He exuded authority, yet he followed the woman’s lead without question.
She was scary, Nash accepted, with her slow and deliberate way of moving: the cold gleam in her eyes; the way she flaunted her lithe, sensual body in those clinging black clothes.... She never wore anything but tight black pants and shirts, along with ankle-cut boots, and when she went outside Delaware favored a long, black leather coat. Nash could imagine her devouring her young, and even briefly imagining her and Rackham together unsettled him.
He knew that once he left the office she would express her thoughts to Rackham.
Well, the hell with her, Nash decided. If she thought so highly of herself, she should get out into the field and show them how it should be done. Sitting on her butt, no matter how good it looked, didn’t prove a thing. Nash was under no illusions about the woman. She was there to watch over them and report back to the organization. He had no doubts that his monthly assessment wasn’t going to earn him very many brownie points.
“I was thinking he might go to Hardesty. It’s the closest town in the area. He could be looking for medical attention. Jacobi thinks he might have caught him with a bullet. He put some through the driver’s door.”
“So get your team in the area. Start from where he totaled his vehicle. Get your crew out there by first light. Do it, Nash.”
“What about...?”
“Anyone gets in your way, handle it.”
“Do we want to involve civilians? Could bring heavy heat down on us.”
“Initiative,” Rackham said. “Use it.”
* * *
BACK IN THE CREW ROOM Nash repeated Rackham’s instructions. He added, “Just keep repeating Rackham’s name to yourselves. That should do the trick.” Nash took a swallow from his glass, his thoughts overlapping as he considered what lay in front of them. “We need to close this mess down before it grows. This is a big operation, guys. If we screw this up, our buddies won’t be the only ones dead.
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