“Nigel?”
The guy turned and looked at Bolan.
“Who?”
“I’m a friend,” Bolan said. “Friend of yours. Friend of Jennifer’s.”
“Fuck.”
“What?” Bolan said.
“Jennifer.”
“What about her?”
“Terrible?” he replied. “Did something terrible...”
“What did you do?”
“Cell phone. Gave it to her. They can track her.”
“Who?”
“Yezhov.”
By now, Bolan had grabbed a folded T-shirt and was pressing it against Lawson’s wound. But the guy looked pale, his eyes unfocused, his breath unsteady.
“I’ll call for help,” Bolan said.
“Forget it,” Lawson said. “Tell, tell, tell her I’m sorry. Coming for family.”
Pushing aside the bed, the soldier stretched Lawson out on the floor. A final death rattle escaped the guy’s lungs and he slipped into death.
Chapter 8
Jennifer Davis threaded her way through the crush of people populating the dance club.
The place throbbed with the pounding rhythms of a techno-dance song. Cigarette smoke and artificial fog hung in the air, stung her eyes. She swept her eyes over the club’s interior. She’d received an urgent text message from Lawson, asking her to come here. That he’d asked to meet her had surprised her. Lawson wasn’t the dance-club type. Had he gotten cold feet or, worse, had something happened to him?
Her hand reached down to the purse she carried and unzipped it. As she did, the last song faded and the intro to a new one blared through the sound system. Immediately, she recognized the sampled guitar riffs and preprogrammed drumbeats. Grief squeezed her heart and spurred a dull ache in her throat.
Her sister, Jessica, had loved clubs, had loved to dance. As young women, they’d spent countless hours dancing in clubs. As time had moved on, though, the girls’ nights on the town had diminished more with each passing year. Jennifer had her career, and so did Jessica, of course, but her attention increasingly was focused on her marriage.
Davis continued walking through the London club, but her surroundings faded away, replaced by the Blind Lemon, a New York dance club. Seated across from Jessica. A waitress had just set a stem glass on a cocktail napkin on the table in front of Jennifer before bustling away. Unlike previous outings, where the crush of daily living increasingly had forced them to schedule time together, this meeting was impromptu. Jessica had called just after lunch. She had important news. Could they meet for drinks? No, she wouldn’t say any more. Just show up!
Davis still could feel the excitement that fluttered in her stomach that afternoon. She knew her sister had been trying for months to get pregnant. She had hoped that was the news.
A glass filled with a clear liquid and a slice of lime was on the table in front of her sister. Jennifer had nodded at the glass.
“Gin and tonic? Since when do you drink gin?”
Her sister, already smiling, shook her head.
“Not gin,” she said. “Club soda.”
“You’re not drinking.”
“Can’t.”
Her sister’s smile widened and tears welled up in her eyes.
Davis had screamed and jumped from her stool. Her twin did likewise. They threw their arms around one another and Jessica whispered in her sister’s ear, “You’re going to be an auntie.”
She had started to cry.
For a moment, she wasn’t aware of the strong fingers wrapped around her biceps. When she realized there was a big man with ice-blue eyes and close-cropped black hair standing next to her, it startled her. Over the years, she’d gained an almost infallible sixth sense capable of picking up on danger. She tried to jerk her arm free, but he kept his grip firm.
“Jennifer,” the man said, “we need to talk. I’m here to help.”
* * *
DAVIS PULLED HER ARM away again. This time, Bolan let it go. She took a step back. He held up his hands, palms facing her, in mock surrender.
“We’re here to help,” he repeated.
“Bull,” she said. “I don’t even know you. Why should I trust you?”
Because I’m your only chance. The words careened through Bolan’s mind, but he didn’t utter them. He knew the woman had been on the run for years, alternatively plundering and running from bad guys. Within the past couple of days, she’d come dangerously close to dying. Though obviously a brave woman, she was scared and in over her head.
“Nigel sent us,” Bolan said.
“Now I know you’re lying,” she responded, her disbelief audible in her voice. “Nigel wouldn’t send anyone for me. He’d come for me himself.”
“He couldn’t,” Bolan said. “Not tonight. I was the one who sent the text message.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s dead,” Bolan said.
It was hard to tell in the club’s lighting, but Bolan thought he saw the woman’s face turn pale. Her hand flew up and she rested her palm on her chest.
“How do you know?”
“We were there when it happened,” Bolan said.
Her eyes narrowed. “You mean you killed him.” Her hand drifted downward and her fingertips slipped into the right hip pocket of her overcoat.
Bolan knew what she was thinking. He shook his head.
“You don’t want to do that,” Bolan said. “We’re here to help you.”
Her hand froze and her lips pressed into a tight line. She studied Bolan for a stretched second before she drew her fingers from her pocket and let her arm hang at her side.
Bolan moved his hand slowly and flipped open a black-leather badge case. The card identified him as Matt Cooper, an agent with the Justice Department. She studied it for a few minutes.
“Matt Cooper, huh?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Are you here to arrest me?”
“Do I have to?”
She fell silent again.
“Look,” Bolan said, “you can’t do this. It’s bigger than you.”
Her features softened, the deep furrows in her forehead melting away. One corner of her mouth twitched. She examined the DOJ credentials once more, then nodded slowly.
“Okay,” she said, “let’s go.”
* * *
OUTSIDE THE CLUB, the black BMW sport-utility vehicle idled at the curb, black-tinted windows impenetrable, headlights extinguished. Parked behind the SUV was McCarter’s Jaguar, also running, with the Phoenix Force commander sitting behind the wheel. When he saw Bolan, he acknowledged the American with a nod.
“Friends of yours?” Davis asked.
“Some of the few,” Bolan said.
He opened the rear passenger’s-side door and gestured for Davis to climb into the SUV. He watched as she peered inside, hesitated for a few seconds before climbing in. Bolan shut the door behind her and walked around the back of the vehicle to the rear door on the driver’s side. He barely had settled into his seat when he extended his right hand toward her, palm facing up.
“I need your cell phone,” he said.
“What?”
“Your phone,” he said. “Give it to me.”
She opened her mouth to reply.
“Please,” Bolan said. “And your tablet computer.”
Her lips pressed into a hard line and she studied Bolan’s face. “This is crap,” she said, finally. Her hand lashed out and took hold of the door handle. She pulled up on it, but found it wouldn’t open. She pulled a couple more times and tried to work the locking mechanism. She whipped her head back toward Bolan. Anger flashed in her eyes.
“What the hell is this?” she demanded.
“
The phone,” Bolan said.
“What the hell? The door’s locked. You want me to give up my phone, my computer. I thought I was coming voluntarily.”
“You did come voluntarily.”
“And now I’m locked in your car.”
“If you were a prisoner,” Bolan said, “I would have taken your gun. The one on your right hip, hidden by the hem of your coat.”
Her eyes automatically flicked to her right, then snapped back in Bolan’s direction. Bolan wondered for a moment whether she might deny the gun’s existence. Instead, she heaved a sigh and her shoulders drooped. She reached into her jacket, drew out the phone and passed it to Bolan. The soldier took it from her with one hand and with the index finger of his other hand, punched the button that opened his window. The window lowered. McCarter stepped into view and Bolan passed the phone through the window to him and closed the window.
“Your phone was bugged,” Bolan said. “They’ve been tracking you by GPS for the past hour or so, at least.”
Even as Bolan spoke, Grimaldi dropped the SUV into gear and eased it into traffic.
The Executioner saw that Davis was looking at him—almost seemed to be looking through him. Finally, she shook her head from side to side, slowly, as though refusing to let reality sink in.
“Nigel left the phone for me. He wouldn’t do that to me. We’ve known each other for years.”
“He did do it.”
“But why? Why would he want to do that?” she asked.
“I don’t think he wanted to.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“He has family in the States?” Bolan asked.
“California. So?”
“So, the people hunting you figured it out. Once they had your name and Nigel’s name, they did some legwork and realized he had people close to him. They hunted him down. They told him they wanted him to play on their side and made sure he knew that refusing to do so would be harmful to the health of a lot of people.”
She raked her fingers through her hair, wrapped them around the back of her neck and squeezed it gently. “He had to choose between them and me?”
“Yes,” Bolan said.
“He had to choose them, of course. All those lives.”
“Right.”
“Because he knew me, helped me.”
“To a point.”
She turned her head and stared at Bolan.
“To a point? Not to a point,” she said. “Those people would have died because they were close to Nigel. He was close to me, helping me. This isn’t rocket science. His family members were going to get killed because of me.”
“They were going to get killed because the people you are fighting are bad people. They have no problem going after innocent people if it gets them some leverage. That’s not your fault.”
“But—”
“But they wouldn’t go after Nigel’s family if they weren’t trying to get you? Agreed.”
“I never meant for any of this to happen.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
She drew in a sharp breath.
“Shit,” she said, “I have family, too. If they know I am alive—”
Bolan cut her off. “It’s been dealt with.”
“How?” she asked, eyeing Bolan warily.
“We’ve dispatched protective teams to your family, at least the most immediate relatives—parents, aunts, uncles. We put out alerts to the hometown cops where you have other close relatives. You have first cousins in Cleveland and Dayton, right?”
She nodded.
“I don’t think anyone’s going any deeper than that,” Bolan said. “At least not right now. If it starts to look like we need to worry, we can have protective details moved into those other places, too.”
“How quickly?”
“I have connections. My connections have even bigger connections. Speed won’t be a problem.”
“It’s not a permanent fix.”
“It’s enough for now. Don’t worry, I won’t leave any loose ends hanging around.”
“My family, do they know I’m alive?”
Bolan shook his head. “We’re telling them it has to do with some associates of Khallad Mukhtar, the man who killed your sister. Hopefully, they won’t ask too many other questions.”
Bolan noticed the corners of her lips were turned down and she’d returned to studying her fingernails. He guessed she was conflicted, wanting her family to know she was alive, to have at least a moment’s connection with them. At the same time, she knew full well that letting them know she still walked the earth could make them into targets for every hood wanting to settle a score with her.
At least on some level, the Executioner understood her quandary. As far as the public was concerned, Mack Samuel Bolan as such had died years ago. His brother, Johnny, had been a boy when Bolan had launched his Everlasting War. Now a full-grown man working as a private detective, the younger Bolan occasionally called on his older brother for help.
“As long as I am around,” she said, “they’re not going to leave my family, my friends alone. I knew that from the start. It’s why I faked my own death.”
“Believe me, I understand why you’ve done the things you have,” he said.
“What? Stealing from crooks and killers? I don’t apologize for that.”
“Good, you shouldn’t.”
She silently stared at Bolan for several seconds. It seemed she was searching for something, though Bolan couldn’t guess what it was.
“You’re different.”
“Tell me about it.”
“No, really. You’re not judging me for what I’ve done.”
“True.”
“You’re not a cop.”
“Never said I was,” Bolan said simply.
“You said you’re with the Justice Department.”
“I did.”
“But you’re not an FBI agent, a cop.”
“No.”
“Jesus, you make no sense.”
“Hope you like your men mysterious,” Grimaldi called over his shoulder.
“Like’s not a word I’d use with you two.”
“And she goes for the jugular,” the pilot said.
“Here’s the thing,” Bolan said. “I think you ought to keep doing what you’ve been doing. Just come in from the wilds and do it with government cover. Stop living on the run.”
“I can’t keep doing this,” she said. “Not if it’s going to put my family in harm’s way. Now that people know I am alive, they will always have a score to settle.”
“Like I said, I get it. I understand why you wanted revenge. Why you concocted the whole house explosion to cover your trail. You didn’t do that for yourself, did you?” he said. “I get the stress of living on the run. Trust me, I get all of it. Here’s the thing, I can offer you an easier way. It won’t necessarily be easy, just easier.”
She nodded.
“We can go back to the States, set you up somewhere to do your work. I’m not sure where, what agency you’d work for. That’s secondary, frankly. The important thing is you wouldn’t have to run anymore.”
“What about my family?”
Bolan shrugged. “We’ll take care of them, don’t worry. Like I said, we already have people moving right now to make sure they’ll be okay.”
“People? Like you?”
“Something like that.”
“Will I be able to see them again?” she asked.
“No,” Bolan said, “you won’t.”
Her cheeks flushed red. “Why the hell not? If I’m giving all this up, why can’t I see them?”
“We both already know the answer to that, Jennifer.”
She inhaled deep
ly, let it out in a long sigh.
“Because I’ll always be a risk to them.”
Bolan nodded. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“I guess I chose this path.”
Bolan shrugged again. “Maybe. Maybe it chose you. I’m not smart enough to know that. What I do know is you’re already walking it. It’s too late to change now. You’re in too deep.”
“Okay,” she said, “what happens to me?”
“You stay underground, at least as far as your old life is concerned,” Bolan said. “I’m guessing you’ll get set up with a new identity. Maybe give you a cover job somewhere so you can continue your work without having to look over your shoulder all the time. You’ll be alone and disconnected, at least from your old ties.”
“But I’m already that.”
“Exactly.”
Davis studied the fingernails of her left hand for several moments.
“When do we leave?”
“Tonight,” Bolan said. “We have a jet waiting.”
Davis shook her head.
“Not tonight,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“I need to stay until tomorrow.”
“We can’t—”
“I came here for a reason,” she said. “To London, I mean. Think about it. If I really wanted to fall off the grid, there are a lot of places better than London. I can think of half a dozen African countries where I could get lost. That’s just for starters. I came here because I wanted to be here.”
“Because of your sister.”
She nodded. “Yes, my sister. Her husband. My niece.”
“I didn’t realize you had a niece.”
“My sister was pregnant when she was killed. Look, I’ll spare you my sob story. I’ve already replayed that movie a million times in my head. It never ends any differently. I don’t plan to drag it out for you and your friend here to see.”
“Fair enough,” Bolan said.
“But I’m not going anywhere until tomorrow. It’s the anniversary of her death and I want to go to the bombing site, the train station, and leave some roses. Let me do that, and I’ll be happy to go back to the States with you. Tell me no and I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Bolan considered the woman’s words. His gut told him it was a bad play. The sooner they got out of London, returned her to American soil and handed Davis over to Brognola, the better off they’d all be. She could take on a new life. Bolan could move ahead to the next mission.
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