And he'd told Sara, in the still hours of one of those endless nights, "When I sleep, I dream. And when I dream, I think I'm more awake than at any other time. Life is like that, Sara. Paradoxical. Every hurt carries the seed of some great joy. And every great moment has but one place to go from there, and that's back down to the valley of despair. But we live in neither place, you know. We live in the middle, and we visit the other places from time to time. Try living in the extremes—either one, Sara —and you're resigning from life."
Bolan was no preacher man. He didn't even know whether or not the things he felt made sense to anyone else, but he did feel them very strongly, and he quietly got in his points with Sara and Bruno whenever he could.
To an outside observer, it may have seemed as though Mack Bolan had been "sent" to the Tassilys. As he mended, so too did they—in so many subtle ways.
By the third day, Bruno had become much more talkative, less solemn and brooding, even humorous and playful at times.
Sara had definitely become aware of Bolan as a man. She'd taken to doing things with her hair, wearing a hint of makeup, and she'd even abandoned the blue jeans in favour of a couple of bright little fashions which she'd whipped out on her sewing machine while Bolan slept.
On that third day, also, Bruno took his chicken truck off to Manhattan on an urgent errand for his star boarder. He left at daybreak, promising to return by nightfall—otherwise, "ring the bells and say a prayer for the rummy Romanian."
Bolan was not overly worried about the safety of the mission. Bruno frequently took his own birds to market. This trip into the city would appear to be routine, in case anyone was keeping watch over the comings and goings at that farm. And he was sending the guy to a trusted friend.
They had moved Bolan back to a loft in the brooder house, which now was alive with thousands of cheeping baby chicks—the move being made at Bolan's insistence. He also took along the remainders of his war armaments—the empty Beretta, the nearly empty AutoMag, and the Talifero revolver with three live chambers.
Bruno had built him a hideaway bunk in the loft above the chicks and padded it down with clean straw covered with a couple of heavy quilts. It was very comfortable. His medications were out there, as was a variety of high-protein "nibblings"— cheeses, boiled eggs, and so on. In addition to that, Sara came out every couple of hours and poked a ration of hot food into him.
On the morning which saw Bruno off to Manhattan, Sara came to the loft at eight o'clock with tape measure, pad, and pencil in hand.
"What's that for?" Bolan had growled at her.
"To see where you're at, with what," she'd replied, twinkling, and took his measurements at every conceivable point and angle.
A couple of times during that operation their eyes locked for overlong periods, and it seemed that things were getting a bit out of hand.
She'd gone out of there without another word, though, and at ten o'clock she was back, with a very close copy of his favoured combat outfit—a black, skin-tight two-piecer with all the handy pockets in the right places.
Bolan was deeply impressed.
"How'd you do that?" he marvelled.
"Just a little something I whipped up," the girl replied, trying to conceal her pride in the production. "It wasn't all that hard."
She handed him a folded sheet of heavy paper.
He recognized it immediately as coming from the large writing tablet which he'd seen in her possession so often. Obviously the tablet was an artist's sketchpad, and she had very artistically sketched Bolan, probably as he lay sleeping in her presence, but as she'd imagined him to look in full combat regalia. All of it was there—the weapons, the utility belts, the gadgets—and she'd captured a catlike poise in that rangy body as well as a savagely snarling face which somehow still had a somewhat saintly cast to it.
Very quietly he asked her, "Is that the way I look to you?"
"Yes," she replied, just as quietly.
"How'd you get the combat rig?" he asked.
She shrugged daintily. "Lifted it. I guess you've been sketched by every police artist in the country. I've seen it many times, in the papers."
He said, "I see."
"Try it on. The suit!'
"Later," he told her, sighing.
"I've seen your pinky toes before, plenty of tones."
"Later, just the same," he murmured.
"Mack Bolan, I believe you're a hopeless prude," she told him. She leaned across the bunk and pulled the sheet away from him, all the way, fastidiously folding it at his feet.
This, Bolan was thinking, was where he'd come
in.
Except that now there was not even a towel to protect his sense of modesty.
This was, however, very obviously no time for modesty.
Sara was removing her dress, carefully folding it with the same studied movements with which she'd handled the bed sheet. She laid the dress atop the packing crate that Bolan was using as a night stand, then went to the window for a quick peek outside.
"Am I ready for this?" he asked her, feeling silly with the words even as they left his mouth.
"I don't know about you," she replied, turning to him with a solemn smile. "But I sure am." "Well, hell . . ."
Sara was removing her bra as she retraced the path to Bolan's bunk. It was odd, he was thinking, how clothing made some girls look so underdeveloped when in fact they were not . . . like this one. She was beautifully put together. The breasts were on the delicate side, but perfectly formed, stiffish, and tightly packed—incredibly glossy.
She put the bra with the dress, then hooked both thumbs into the waistband of her panties and just stood there gazing at him with those limpid eyes.
She seemed frozen there, suddenly, the panties ever so slightly lowered, a statue in glowing flesh tones.
Bolan noticed, then, that those hands were trembling. He took one in his and told her, "Be sure you know what you're doing. This is very probably your last chance to back out."
"You're not helping a bit," she protested faintly in a wobbly voice. "I rehearsed and rehearsed. Had it all figured out—what I'd say, what you'd say— and you're not doing it."
He said, "No rehearsals needed, Sara. Not if this is what you truly want."
She cried, "Oh, God, I do!" And with that she broke down completely, hiding her face in her hands and bawling her heart out.
He pulled her on down with him, and gently made room for her, and consoled her with loving touches and reassuring words, and she very quickly became fully a woman in his arms as each to their own need they found that special healing which somehow seems to justify the pains of the world.
And, some time later, Bolan admiringly told her, "You were right, Sara. You're sure no kid."
They lay in slack embrace and talked of various things for quite a while—serious things, silly things, man-woman things—and after they'd run out of words they simply clung to each other in a silent communion outside of time.
Later he donned the black suit for her pleased inspection, then left it on as they snuggled into another quiet mood.
Somewhere along toward early afternoon, Bolan fell into a deep sleep. It was probably his most peaceful rest in weeks, and he did not know when Sarah left.
He awoke with a start, alone, with the sun low in the sky and perfectly framed in his window—and with some animal comprehension of danger.
There had been an outcry from down by the house—a human cry or shout or something—coming in right at the edge of his consciousness, but weakly commanding attention.
He carried the AutoMag to the window and gazed down upon the familiar scene, normally so tranquil.
This time, though, the view sent combat hormones leaping into his bloodstream and coursing immediately to every reach of his system.
A strange vehicle was parked in the drive, near the house. Two guys in fancy silk threads were down there in open view, standing beside the car. One of them was holding a door open, and the other was tryin
g to force a grimly struggling Sara Henderson into the vehicle.
It was one of those sudden-confrontation situations that allow for no combat brief, no tactical planning, no exercise of the intellect whatsoever. And it was sheer conditioned reflex of the combat sense that sent the AutoMag crashing through that flimsy pane of glass, that lined up those doomsday sights, that squeezed the fist that closed the switch that sent 240 grains of screaming death sizzling across that forty-yard range to the target.
The big magnum bullet tore past within inches of that lovely face he'd kissed so tenderly such a short while ago and thwacked home between two startled eyes with what Sara would later describe as "a horrible sucking sound."
Even as that first round was impacting target, the big silver hog leg was roaring another angry bellow, and missile number two was annihilating another fire track; the dude at the car door found himself with an inexplicably exploding throat, and the two of them died hardly a gasp apart.
Sara had collapsed onto her knees. She was kneeling there in the gore surrounding her, hands clasped in her lap, looking up at him and screaming something unintelligible.
She had quieted down somewhat by the time he reached her, but she was still kneeling there between those two citations of sudden death, and her first anguished words for the Executioner were: "No, Mack, God, no, you shouldn't have! Now they've found you!"
He plucked her out of there and steered her toward the house as he replied to that.
"They have," he said icily. "The hard way."
4 THE MESSAGE
He gave her brandy and scrubbed the blood spatterings from that beloved flesh as she chatteringly related the happening for his interested ears.
The two Mafiosi had barged in and searched the house, for the third time that week. They'd even checked the dirty laundry, counted toothbrushes in the bathroom, and pawed through the garbage cans.
The younger one had been ordered to search the outbuildings, but according to Sara, he'd done no more than stroll nervously about the grounds and peer warily through partially open doorways.
Then the big one had started pushing Sara about and trying to scare her with broad hints about the penalty "for harbouring fugitives."
They'd tried to pass themselves off as "detectives."
It proved to be Sara's undoing.
She unloaded a pile of outrage upon them and finished off by denouncing them as "two-bit hoods."
Apparently it had seemed to the boys that she protested too much.
They decided to "take her downtown" for "further questioning," and that was where Bolan entered the scene.
He was damned glad he had.
There was seldom any return from those "trips downtown" with the Taliferi.
He asked Sara, "The big guy seemed to be in charge?"
She replied, "Uh-huh."
"Was his name ever mentioned? What was he called?"
"Hugger. Yes, he called him Hugger."
Bolan showed her a thin smile and said, "Great. Now, let's get the voice. Where was it pitched? Here? Here?"
He was giving her a scale of probabilities, and she stopped him at about middle C.
"Good girl. This could be important, so let's make sure we get it right. How about tonal quality? Did he talk like this?" He'd offered her an example of a nasal sound; then he tried her with a grating foghorn: "Or more like this?"
Sara was shaking her head and watching him with growing interest, thoroughly captivated by the virtuoso performance. He finally satisfied her on the basics, then went into accent and diction.
He was speaking with both lips stiffened and the chin nearly frozen when she nodded and whispered, "Yes, yes, that's him?"
Holding that same voice, he suggested, "But not exactly, right? Right, chick? There's no personality in this voice, is there? I mean—"
"Whine a little," she excitedly suggested. "Not overmuch, but sort of . . . sort of frustrated and mad at the same time, but you're trying to keep it under control."
"Right. Right, dolly. Whatta I got to do, honey, kick the hell right outta you? Is that what you want?"
Sara shivered. Her eyes dropped, and she told him, "That's just too real for comfort."
Bolan was guessing that it was no more than an approximation—but that was all most people heard, anyway. Something notable, something to hang an imperfect perception onto—it was that natural human frailty which made Bolan's masquerades possible.
She was asking him, "But what ... why do you need . . . ?"
He told her, "Come and see."
They returned to the outside, and Sara stood stiffly in the drive, pointedly ignoring the crumpled bodies at her feet, as Bolan leaned into the vehicle and came out holding a microphone.
He smiled at her as he depressed the mike button, pulled on his "Hugger" face, and started his act. "Hey! Wake up!" he snarled.
A voice responded immediately from somewhere beneath the dashboard. "Who's that?"
"It's Little Red Riding Hood," Bolan replied nastily. "Skipping merrily through the goddamn countryside. Who the hell you think it is?"
"What you got, Hugger?"
Bolan tossed the girl a salute as he replied, "What does it sound like I got?"
"Okay, it's the same everywhere. Boss says go on to the next place. Waitaminnit' Hold it!"
Bolan told Sara in his own voice, "Maybe I blew it."
The other voice returned a moment later. "Okay, Hugger. Just got a report on th'other net. That farmer's on his way back, just came off the turnpike at Hightstown. We want you to stay there and check 'im out."
"What for?" Bolan/Hugger snarled back. "Smuggling chickens shit back into Jersey?"
"Boss says we check 'im coming and going, Hugger."
Bolan grimly smiled at Sara and replied, "Okay, but I think I'll meet 'im on the way.
Gettin' dark soon. I don't wanta be out here in the dark with a daylight crew."
"Sure. Whatever makes you feel safe, Hugger." It was a sarcastic sign-off.
Bolan was smiling coldly when he returned the microphone to its clip. He took the keys from the ignition and went around to open the trunk.
The girl followed him, questions in her eyes. "What was that all about?" she wanted to know.
"It's called covering tracks," he informed her. "When these boys come down missing in action, we don't want their buddies beginning the search here, do we?"
She soundlessly framed the reply "No" and moved out of his way as Bolan began the unpleasant task of stowing limp bodies and cleaning up gory evidence from the driveway. That job completed, he banged the lid on his cooling cargo, got into the car, and moved it to a place of concealment behind one of the sheds.
As he strode back to the house, he felt the spring returning to his step, and he knew that his combat quickness was settling in on him again.
He was healed and ready for battle.
Almost ready.
Sara was waiting in the precise spot where he'd left her.
In a small voice she asked him, "What now, Mr. Bolan?"
"Now, love," he replied quietly, "we wait for the farmer. And his precious cargo from Manhattan."
The sun was disappearing into a red veil of smaze along the western horizon when Bruno Tassily wheeled his live-produce transporter with its empty cages into the farmyard.
The girl fled to her brother's arms and allowed herself a few luxurious tears as she greeted him; then she backed away, gave Bolan a somewhat embarrassed gaze, and ran into the house to quit that man's world for a while.
The men shook hands, and Bolan asked the big fellow, "How'd it go?"
"Directly on your numbers, Sarge," Bruno reported with a tired grin. "The stuff is in the tool well."
"Get it all?"
"Yeah. Uh, that Meyer boy . . . you didn't tell me. He's a double amputee. But, hell, he—"
"Yeah, he does all right, doesn't he?" Bolan said quietly.
"Like gangbusters, that's all. Uh, he gave me a message for you. Says business
is booming all of a sudden, the past few days. Selling to guys he never heard of before.
Says the word's out all over town.
They're recruiting guys right off the damn street corners. And he's having a run on guns like he never had before."
Bolan was smiling, but only with his lips. "Guns for Jersey, eh?"
"That's the impression Meyer has. He thinks they're fielding an army over here. And listen. I contacted that other friend of yours, too. He says . . . well, wait till we get inside. I have it written down."
Pendleton, Don - Executioner 17 - Jersey Guns Page 3