Richard Spellman had been tagged and was awaiting his turn. Though he was strapped to a stretcher with an IV plugged into his arm, he kept twisting to look at the ex-hostages, searching every woman’s face as she appeared, trying to catch a glimpse of Mary Hamilton.
“Richard!” he heard a woman scream, and he turned to see Mary Hamilton running toward him. When a medic moved in to hold her back, she brushed past him and threw herself on the wounded man.
“Oh, Richard,” she sobbed as she held him in a bear hug that threatened to break the rest of his ribs.
“Careful,” he cautioned.
“Oh, God,” she said as she pulled back. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, no, I’m okay.”
“But where have you been?”
“Well,” he said, “there’s this man who got on board somehow, some kind of secret-agent commando, and he kept me from being killed. Then we teamed up and he started killing the terrorists. Then, when the ship pulled into the harbor, we both started…”
Hamilton looked in wonderment at the man she had so misjudged. When she’d first met him, she’d thought that he was a nice man, witty and interesting enough to hold her attention, but more or less what she expected from a researcher. In a word, bland and harmless. A medi-nerd in the common vernacular. That he had somehow managed to turn into a commando was a revelation, and it made her smile. Bland and harmless was all fine and good, but there was something exciting about a man who had the courage and fortitude to stand and put his life on the line when the circumstances required it.
She knew that was just her most primitive DNA talking, but she’d take a commando over a researcher anyday.
“You want to get married in the hospital?” she asked. “Or do you want to wait until you’re released?”
Spellman smiled. “Whatever floats your boat.”
“Don’t you ever use that word to me again,” she mock snapped.
“Yes, dear.”
HAL BROGNOLA was waiting dockside when Mack Bolan stepped off one of the rescue boats. The Executioner looked as if he’d been dragged behind a pickup at high speed down several miles of bad road. Nonetheless, the characteristic demeanor that marked him hadn’t been beaten down.
“The next time we think about doing something like this,” Brognola said, “we’ve got to make sure that we’ve got our com links with us.”
Bolan agreed that a lack of communication had been the most serious obstacle they’d had to overcome. But he had a better solution to the problem than keeping a Stony Man com link in his back pocket at all times. Much better.
“I’ll tell you what,” Bolan said as he put his arm around his old friend’s shoulders. “I’ve got something that will guarantee that you’ll never have to go through something like this again.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s real simple, Hal. When I get done making a report to the Man, your ass is never going to be out of eyesight of your bodyguard team unless you’re locked in a first-class latrine on a 747 at thirty-eight thousand feet.”
“Give me a break, Mack!” Brognola was shocked. “You can’t even suggest something like that to him. My life’s bad enough as it is without having to tow a Secret Service Personal Protection Team in my wake.”
“I can’t?” Bolan smiled slowly. “Watch me.”
ISBN: 978-1-4603-7448-1
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Michael Kasner for his contribution to this work.
SILENT RUNNING
Copyright © 2004 by Worldwide Library.
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