"What's that ODD?" asked the man from Jersey.
"That's what Scotland Yard calls their dick force, Criminal Investigation Division. They're worse news than the feds back home."
"So that's what you tell 'em," Giliamo quickly replied. "Tell 'em you want to take over, and that I'll stick around to help out."
"Okay. Let me think about it," the British enforcer said quietly. But he had already thought about it. Bolan would be a real plum, and at just about the right time. Nick Trigger had the British territory in much better shape than he'd let on to Danno Giliamo. Pretty soon he'd be needing to move onward and upward. And it wouldn't hurt a thing to come home looking two heads bigger than the Talifero brothers. Hell no, it wouldn't hurt a thing.
In an imposing building beside the Thames a group of grim faced men were sitting down to a new day with a rather large sized new problem confronting them. They were solemn, some sleepy and obviously newly awake. There was a minimum of conversation. The time was barely four o'clock.
Their leader stood stiffly in front of a wall chart of the city of London, his arms folded against his chest, and waited until all had been seated and the subdued greetings quietly exchanged. Then he dropped his arms to his side, advanced a couple of steps to a small rostrum, fiddled with a paper lying there, and said, "Well, it's a brisk hour to be starting the day, isn't it? I can see that we're all fired up and anxious to be cracking along, so I'll make this as brief as possible."
He paused, as though expecting some reaction to his dry humor. Receiving none, he plunged right in. "It's this chap Bolan, the American answer to overpopulation. We have good reason to believe that he entered this country at Dover late last night."
He received his reaction then. Sleepy eyes suddenly became wide-awake, a fellow at the rear closed his mouth in mid-yawn, others exchanged significant glances which meant that a rumor had just been confirmed.
"So you can understand the early hour call. There's much to be done and not nearly enough time, we fear, to get it all in. Please listen alertly, take notes, question anything that isn't crystal clear to you. Very quickly now, here are the facts as known at this…"
The meeting took forty minutes and revealed the full scope of Scotland Yard's reaction to the Bolan presence in England. All routine police business had been temporarily suspended, all furloughs indefinitely cancelled, shift rotations halted, and the full force of the most impressive police establishment in existence brought to bear directly upon the problem of Mack Bolan.
It was an extraordinary reaction, but a carefully considered one. Bolan's presence in France, and the resulting uproar there, had been closely noted by the men this side of the channel. The chance that Bolan would come to England had been weighed as a fifty-fifty question, and a rather thin security screen had been set up at all likely points of entry. Bolan had slipped in and in the space of a few hours two explosive and widely separated gun battles had erupted.
Contingency plans had been drawn up at Scotland Yard some days earlier, ready to be put into operation at a moment's notice. Already the machinery was in motion, the inexorable gears of British crime control meshing into the problem. Special squads were activated, undercover contacts alerted, and hot lines opened to underworld informers all about the city. All public transportation terminals were placed under close surveillance, car rental and taxicab companies were alerted, and a watch was established on all persons known or suspected to have connections with organized crime.
The battle for Britain was on, and the Executioner's jungle was again closing in on him.
Chapter Five
The running tide
Bolan had definitely not desired a hot war in London. He knew neither the land nor the people, and his intelligence concerning local Mafia activities was practically nil. There were several names in his target book, and that was all: he had no addresses, no rundown of activities, no feel whatever about the enemy. The only logical course of action that presented itself to him was to get the hell away from there, and with as little lost motion as possible. His intention upon his departure from France, had been to skim through England and quickly out again, U.S. bound. This initiative had been taken away from him, though, with the appearance of Ann Franklin into his life. For the moment, he had felt it best to run with the tide—and he had done so.
The brief skirmish outside the Museum de Sadewas now more than an hour behind him. He had been running loose since that time with no particular objective in mind except to keep moving. He had driven aimlessly, winding and circling through the maze-like metropolis while considering alternate plans of action.
Ann Franklin and old Charles kept crowding into his mind, along with the cocky little rooster who'd stood unarmed in his path in that upstairs clubroom and the anonymous men who had helped him out of Dover and through the police lines into London. Why? Why all of it? Why anyof it? The lengths they had gone to, all the planning and intrigue and personal danger… what manner of peril had prompted them into such a hazardous undertaking?
Bolan was feeling guilty about his treatment of the people of the de Sade. He recognized this, and attempted to combat the feeling with logic. Regardless of their motives, he argued, few things could be more perilous than an alignment with Mack Bolan. Recent history substantiated this conclusion. Everyone who had held out a hand of friendship to the Executioner had gotten that hand promptly chopped off, in one way or another. The Mafia did not take kindly to active sympathy for their enemies. Bolan's list of beloved dead stretched all the way back to the California battles, and hovered on his conscience like an open wound. And in France he had damn near…
He wrenched off the thought and flung it away. The Executioner could not afford the luxury of mourning. Following that heart-rending action in France, Bolan had sworn to never again allow himself any involvements with friendly units. And now he was reaffirming that position; he would not involve the Sades.
Case closed.
Next problem, get out of London. This could be no easy chore in a "hot" vehicle, especially a big foreign job that stood out like a neon sign.
As an additional complication, Bolan was lost. The appropriated car had come complete with a street map of the city, but only principal thoroughfares and notable landmarks were shown. Since his discovery of the map, Bolan had found nothing to offer him an orientation to the lay of the city and his relative position in the sprawling confusion.
After several minutes of travelling the maze, however, he came out on a broad avenue and shortly thereafter passed a planetarium and Madame Tussaud's wax-works. Now Bolan had his fix. He was on Marylebone Road, just south of Regent's Park and Zoological Gardens.
He swung into the park and stopped the car to study the map and develop some logic of the London layout. He was far north and a bit west of center. London Airport lay south and even further west. He quickly traced a street route between the two points; then, on impulse, he got out of the car and went back to inspect the trunk compartment.
As soon as he looked in Bolan knew that he had gained far more than a set of wheels; he'd inherited an arsenal. The trunk was crammed with weapons— among them a sawed-off shotgun, an efficient little Israeli Uzisubmachinegun, and an impressive high-powered bolt action piece, a Weatherby Mark V with a sniperscope and about fifty rounds of .460 Magnum heartstoppers. This last find evoked a low whistle from the arms expert. It came in a leather case vriaidi may have cost as much as the rifle itself; the gun was loaded and ready to roar, and it had been sighted-in with calibrations up to 1,000 yards. In a pocket of the guncase Bolan found a trajectory graph and a ballistics chart. This drew another appreciative response. According to the graph, trajectory drop was less than five inches at maximum calibrated range, and the point-blank range (no correction required) was a little better than 400 yards.
The Weatherby was a precision piece, and it had been further refined by a real craftsman. Bolan was not only happy to have the gun—he was damned glad that an enemy no longer had it. Anyone who cou
ld work-in a rifle like that would certainly know how to make the proper use of it. This item of knowledge also sharpened the Executioner's respect for the enemy. All were not clowns; some were masters of death, and the Weatherby served to remind him of this grim fact.
Now he had cause for wonder about the big Lincoln and its proposed role in the British squeeze on Bolan. These gunners had obviously come loaded for bear, and it seemed unlikely that a couple of brief firefights would deter them from their hunt.
Bolan resecured the weapons in the trunk and sent the car along to his next point of reference, the intersection of Marylebone Road and Baker Street, then along Baker to Oxford and over to the broad Park Lane at the eastern edge of Hyde Park. He passed the London Hilton and circled to Knightsbridge, then began angling toward Cromwell Road and London Airport.
His first port o' call would be the air express terminal to pick up the bag he had sent ahead from Paris. It contained items he could use immediately—such as a change of suits and a pair of shoes with both heels intact. There were also some special cosmetics he'd picked up in a shop at Marseilles which might prove beneficial.
As for the weapons now in the trunk of the Lincoln, Bolan had already written them off. If things worked out right he would not and could not make any use of them—Bolan was fading, not charging. There was a twinge of regret over the Weatherby. As for the other stuff, general weapons could be picked up anywhere, when and as the need arose. For the moment, the Beretta was weapon enough.
London Airport presented itself as a confusing sprawl. Overseas flights used one terminal, intra-European flights another. To complicate matters, the road signs directing traffic into the complex could have meant as much to Bolan if printed in Singhalese, and the fog was much worse in this area. After some twenty minutes of trial and error, he found his way to the freight terminal. Then he devoted another ten minutes to a soft recon of that part of the airpark. When finally he went inside to claim the bag, Bolan knew all the ways in and out and the Lincoln was ready for an unobstructed departure.
His business at the express office was conducted quickly and without difficulty. The customs formalities had been taken care of at the shipping point, and Bolan identified himself with a fake American passport he had purchased in Paris. He returned to the car and deposited the bag on the rear seat, then set off for the overseas passenger area. Here he parked in a zone reserved for buses from the BOAC Air Terminal in London, grabbed the bag, and walked briskly toward the flight facility.
When he was within a few yards of his goal, hurrying footsteps sounded at his side and a strained emotional voice advised him, "You musn't go in there, Mr. Bolan."
Ann Franklin, it seemed, was not yet entirely out of his life.
She was compellingly appealing in a London Fog minicoat, a jaunty little hat, and a very worried face. Bolan's hand slipped inside his jacket, and he growled, "Why not?"
"Charles thought you'd wish to know," she reported breathlessly. "The CID is out in force, searching for you. Here too. Charles says there will be an undercover man at each booking stall."
"At each what?"
"The ticketing windows—the places where you purchase… never mind, you simply cannot get out this way."
Bolan's decision was typically quick. He took the girl by the arm and returned to the parked car, put her and the bag inside, then slid in behind the wheel and quietly departed.
When they were clear of the airport proper he said, "Thanks again. But just how clean are you?"
"What?"
"You left the museum with a Mafia tail."
"Oh, that." She gave the lovely head a disdainful toss. "I left them chasing their own tails around Piccadilly."
Bolan turned her a warm grin. "You're something else," he said in a quietly respectful tone.
"In American, I hope that's good," she replied, smiling.
"Yeah, it is." He sighed and added, "How long have you been standing out in the cold waiting for me?"
"Not long," she assured him. "We weren't all that certain that you hadn't slipped out before. Charles rung me at just past four. I came straight out. Major Stone took the BOAC Terminal. Harry Parks, that's the large one who chauffeured us into London—Harry went to intercept you at the West London Terminal." She laughed nervously. "I think it perfectly fitting that Idrew the lucky spot."
Drily, Bolan said, "Yeah. Lucky you."
She ignored the sarcasm. "By the by, that was a smashing escape from Soho. Charles described it for me. We're all so very proud of you, you know."
Bolan was feeling more the heel with every passing moment. Very solemnly, he asked the girl, "What do you people want from me, Ann?"
"Just now," she told him, "all we want is that you remain alive. And we want you to allow us to help you accomplish just that."
Bolan could not argue a jungle logic into the situation. He smiled faintly, a barely visible twisting of the lips, and said, "Okay, we'll play it that way. For now. But keep one thing in mind. As long as you are friendly to me, you have inherited all my enemies—and those people play very rough games. On the other hand, if you turn out to be myenemy… well, I have my rough moments also."
"We understand all that," she replied in a small voice. "And we accept all risks."
Bolan had no ready response, and they drove in silence for several minutes, heading back toward London via Cromwell Road. Then Ann told him, "Gloucester Road is just ahead. Take a left there. We'll go up Paddington and cross to the north."
"Where's our destination?" Bolan muttered.
"Queen's House," she replied. "You have the key in your pocket, I believe."
"That's your place," he said.
"Yes, it's my place. My secretplace, count on that. It's safe there."
"Okay, I'll count on it," Bolan told her, staring stonily forward.
She leaned against him, resting her face on his arm. "Don't seem so grim, Mr. Bolan. It will be just you and me. And we will… get to know one another far better."
Bolan greeted the prospect with mixed emotions. A vision of the torture cells at Museum de Sadeflashed through his mind. He glanced down upon the lovely head at his shoulder and experienced a trickling little tightness in his guts.
"Let's hope," he murmured, "that our familiarity does not breed contempt."
"I have no worry about that," she whispered. But Bolan did. Which way, he wondered, was the tide running now?
Chapter Six
Crisis
Bolan dropped off to scout the area on foot while Ann Franklin circled about to put the car away in a garage at the rear of the building. Russell Square turned out to be an attractive little park in London's northeast section, close by the University of London and the British Museum. Queen's House headed a row of neat Georgian town houses which angled away to the south of the square, in what appeared to be a neighborhood of family hotels, pleasant rooming houses, and old but probably expensive apartment buildings. Bolan's recon was thorough but swift, and revealed no evidence of enemy presence. He met Ann at the garage, picked up his bag, and they went into the house through the rear entrance.
To Bolan's surprise, the girl's apartment was very plain. Somehow he had expected a continuation of the erotic motif at Museum de Sade. Instead he found minimal furnishings, an almost masculine austerity of decor, and a library atmosphere.
"Welcome to Ann's Retreat," the girl said quietly, then explained, "I don't live here, actually. It's my run-away-to place when I feel the need of privacy."
Bolan carried his bag on through the living room and paused at the windows to peer through a crack in the draperies. It was still dark out, thin fog haloing the street lamps in the park directly opposite.
"Bedroom is to the left, kitchen to the right," Ann announced. "Which are you most interested in, bed or board?"
Bolan turned to her with a sigh and said, "I'm suddenly running out of steam. Guess I'm pretty beat."
"The loo is off the bedroom," she told him.
"The what?"<
br />
She laughed. "Sorry, the bath. You look as though you'd love to have one."
"Thanks, I would." He went into the bedroom and placed his bag on a chair and opened it. The girl was watching him—rather nervously, he thought—from the doorway. He removed his jacket and asked her, "Okay if I put these things on some hangers?"
Her eyes were lingering on the gun harness at his chest. "Yes, of course," she replied in a near whisper. She pointed out the closet. "Over there."
The closet was totally bare except for a half-dozen wire hangers. Bolan put his jacket and his spare suit in there and said, "Ann's Retreat, eh?"
"Yes," she replied from the doorway. "I told you that I don't live here. I live with Major Stone."
"I see."
She came on into the room then and stood tensely by as Bolan continued unpacking. "I suppose I've given you a false impression," she told him. "Earlier, I mean. When I told you that we would… get to know each other. I did not mean… in bed."
Bolan showed her a tired smile. "Of course not," he said.
"But it's nothing personally against you," she hastened to add. "Actually I… well it's simply… that… I-I'm terrified of men, you see. All men, not just you."
Bolan stared at her through a moment of silence, then he nodded his head and said, "Okay."
He opened the false bottom of the suitcase and took out what remained of his "war chest." It had shrunk to a few thousand dollars, in bills of large denomination, and made a rather thin stack. He placed the money on a bedside table and lay the Beretta atop it, then came out of the harness and began removing his shirt.
Ann Franklin was fingering a nylon nightsuit he'd placed on the bed. "You wear black underwear?" she asked solemnly.
Bolan chuckled. "That's my combat uniform," he told her. "Some soldadosI met in Miami told me that it strikes fear into the hearts of my enemy. But that's not why I wear it. The color gives me a nighttime invisibility, and the skintight fit helps me in and out of tight places."
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