Roth shook his head. Now he was back in his one-man room. He didn't mind, really. That corporal was starting to get on his nerves. At least the little man had spunk. He was the kind of man who would weather POW camp and come out of it.
Roth was still uncertain what the colonel was trying to do. Talk, that's all they ever did. At first he thought the colonel was trying to set him up to steal an Air Force F-100 aircraft and fly it to China, or some such far-out scheme. Hell, maybe he was just a Russian doing his job, and he liked to talk about baseball.
The next day there were two bottles of Coke on the table in front of Colonel Moskalenko. Ludlow and the Russian colonel talked about baseball and the chances of the Dodgers, who were still a game and a half out. Ludlow finished both bottles of cola.
Now Moskalenko smiled as he watched the American fall under the hypnotic spell again. The man was a perfect subject, and he carried out posthypnotic suggestions to the letter. The murder of the corporal yesterday was the final test. Ludlow had passed with high marks and today had no recollection of it. Ideal! Now the continuing training would proceed, and the deep-seated, intense posthypnotic contact plan would be burned into Roth Ludlow's brain so that he would respond to it immediately even after twenty, perhaps thirty years.
"Roth Ludlow," Colonel Moskalenko began. "You will listen to me carefully and store this information away in your mind. Now listen: Roth Ludlow, you are needed. Roth Ludlow, you are needed. Roth Ludlow, you are needed. Repeat the phrase to me twenty-five times."
The colonel lit a cigar as he listened to the American robot obeying orders. Moskalenko did not count the repetitions. The man would do that automatically and stop when the right number had been reached. Ludlow had been the best student in his group of thirty-five so far. Out of this batch, the whole thing would be worthwhile if one or two of them could become useful later on.
When he had proposed the plan there had been immediate interest, but he had suggested they use tourists, visiting scientists, writers, educators. His superiors decided that would be too risky and would take too much time. However, with some cooperation with their Vietnamese friends where time was not a factor and permission was not needed for an interview, the results could be much better.
The colonel nodded as Ludlow finished.
"Good, good. Now repeat after me each sentence as I give it: I will be ready when I am needed. I will live a normal life, progress in my profession, but whenever I receive a call and the key words, 'baseball needs Roth Ludlow,' are spoken, I will do exactly as ordered."
The prisoner went over the sentences, saying each one out loud two hundred times. He had not faltered, blinked or made any signs of discomfort. It was enough for today. Another month and the intensive post-hypnotic suggestion program would be finished.
When he went back to his cell-like room, Ludlow found a two-week-old copy of the New York Times. He cried out in surprise and glee and grabbed it. He read every word on the sports page.
Then the pilot folded the sports section, carefully inserted it in its proper place in the complete newspaper and laid it on his bunk. He blinked back a sudden rush of tears. How he wanted to get out of this place! Some days he thought he would sell his soul to the devil, or to the Viet Cong, just to get back to Da Nang. Soon, dammit! He had to get out of there soon or go crazy!
A month later, Colonel Moskalenko decided that three of his charges were ready. He told them individually that they were being transferred to POW camps near the combat zones, where they would be used to help orient new prisoners who had been captured. He told them three had been selected for their intelligence, their ability to communicate well with other men and their stability under trying conditions. None of the three believed what he said, but a change, any change at that point, was good news.
Ludlow was anxious to go. A new camp meant different security. And if he was closer to the fighting, he would be closer to the American lines.
Colonel Moskalenko had given them a briefing on the war, how the North Vietnamese were winning, how they had captured several large towns and had pushed well beyond the old demilitarized zone just above Quang Tri. He said security would be tight, but as a "pacification officer" Ludlow would have certain privileges in the POW camp.
The three officers met for the first time on the morning they left. All wore crisp green uniforms with their rank on the collar. Ludlow was surprised to see captain's bars on his. Each had a kit bag with more basic necessities than they had seen in months: soap, razor, some dry rations, towel, water purification pills and a complete change of clothes. Then they were given Vietnamese boots that almost fit.
They traveled in a guarded truck for two days. They whispered about escaping but decided to wait until they were as far south as possible. They saw wounded being taken north, and a short time later had to abandon the truck as an air strike hit the trail. All three Americans cheered the Navy F-4 Phantom jet as it roared overhead on a strafing run. The truck was damaged but still ran.
Three miles farther down the trail in dense jungle, they had a flat tire. The three guards and driver worked at changing the tire. As they did so they got into an argument that led to a quick fist-fight, and the three Americans slipped away into the bush, heading due south. They heard shouts and then gunshots behind them. But the four North Vietnamese did not chase them.
A week later the three American officers stumbled on a U.S. search-and-destroy squadron six miles from Hue. The escaped ex-POWs were ill with fever, out of food and had no weapons. They returned with the unsuccessful mission to Hue and were flown at once to Saigon. They were debriefed and four days later they stepped on American soil in San Francisco.
Roth Ludlow knelt down and kissed the blacktop at the airport. "I'll never leave the United States of America again!" he said as tears of joy streamed down his face.
6
Bolan was up the next morning before the desert sun cleared the horizon.
He was sitting on a chair in the kitchen, studying a piece of paper, when Dr. Peterson came into the room.
"Got to thinking last night. You never did say, are you with the CIA?"
"You're right, I didn't say." Bolan held up the list of six phone numbers he had taken from Smith's safe. "Recognize any of these numbers?"
Dr. Peterson took the list and scanned it. "The last one is out at NWC, that's short for Naval Weapons Center. I know the exchange code." He stared at the number. "Yep, got it. That's the gym. Some of the older guys had formed a volleyball team and I was the skipper. I used to call to book a court when we wanted to practice."
"Gym. Where is it?"
"Blandy and Dibb Streets, near the commissary."
"Any of the other numbers familiar?"
"No, but they look like they all are in China Lake at the center, or in Ridgecrest."
After breakfast was over, Bolan asked Dr. Peterson for his office number. Next, the Executioner checked the equipment in his rented car. His black aluminum suitcase in the trunk held his weapons. Not the variety he once had; no more Stony Man to shower him with the latest and best in firepower.
Bolan felt more like the old Executioner, when he worked strictly alone. As he checked his weapons, those Pittsfield days so many years ago fired vividly to life.
Bolan was a member of the U.S. Army's Special Forces in Vietnam. He was on his second tour of duty as a sniper specialist when he received word that his parents and his sister were dead and his younger brother, Johnny, was critically wounded.
Bolan was granted emergency leave from the Southeast Asia hellgrounds where he had earned the name The Executioner, to bury his kin. When he returned home he learned that his father, Sam Bolan, had killed Mack's mother and sister. Then the senior Bolan had turned the gun on himself. Only Johnny Bolan had survived the manslaughter-suicide.
The Executioner discovered that the Mafia was the root cause of his family's demise.
As Bolan slammed the trunk lid, it struck him now that those early campaigns when he had confronted
the Mob's killer legions head-on were mere blueprints for greater missions to come.
With each successful hit, accomplished in the inimitable Bolan style, he was labeled a killer and a butcher. But on reflection, he suspected that those names were uttered by satisfied, smiling lips. He was hounded by law-enforcement agencies in almost every state and in several foreign countries.
The authorities realized there was only one way to soothe the wounded spirit of this rampaging tiger. A pardon.
Bolan was offered amnesty, to work within the law. He agreed — on condition. Because he wasn't finished yet. Uh-uh. He needed one more week to wrap up his Mafia blitz.
His blazing guns spoke the loudest then, spewing deathfire and hellrain on the Mob's six remaining strongholds.
Then, in a fake accident in New York's Central Park, Mack Bolan ceased to exist. But only in the eyes of the public. He was given covert government sanction, plastic surgery and a new identity: Colonel John Phoenix, retired. And by tacit agreement, almost by definition, he became the head of the Stony Man program, operating out of a farm complex and command center in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains.
Lifelong friendships were formed with men like Hal Brognola, the FBI agent who had approached Bolan with the Stony Man idea; Leo Turrin, a Justice Department man whom Bolan had met during his Mafia campaigns; Aaron Kurtzman, computer expert extraordinaire; Andrzej Konzaki, ace weaponsmith; and Jack Grimaldi, Mob pilot who decided to change employers when he crossed paths with The Executioner.
Then there was April Rose. If any of the women Bolan had ever met could truly lay claim to his heart, April was the one.
But once more sorrow would shroud the Executioner's existence. During a full-scale assault on Stony Man Farm, April died for the man she loved, cut down by an assassin's bullet.
Bereavement turned to blistering rage as Bolan vowed to seek out the culprit. The Executioner did not have far to go. Bolan smelled treachery as all indicators pointed to a sleeper mole planted in U.S. government circles.
By this time, Bolan was champing at the bit. He felt constrained by the Stony Man aegis. His "sponsors" also discerned a change in the bucking beast and they saddled Bolan with a mission to capture a Russian superhelicopter in Afghanistan.
The Executioner agreed, albeit reluctantly.
In his pursuit of the Dragonfire he killed its Soviet pilot, who happened to be the only son of Major-General Greb Strakhov, head of the KGB's Thirteenth Section.
Bolan was sent back to Russia again, to chaperon the daughter of a longtime friend at an invitational sports meet. Bolan as baby-sitter? The Executioner smiled at the recollection of Kelly Crawford, but his features became grim when he remembered what had followed.
This time ihe devil was waiting behind the Iron Curtain.
A brilliant plan was conceived and put into effect to trap the Executioner. The KGB created a Bolan look-alike from a Polish dissident languishing in the Gulag. The double was forced to assassinate a worker-party leader in a Russian satellite nation. United States authorities believed Bolan had sold out to the Soviets.
A liquidation mandate was immediately ordered: terminate Bolan on sight. Every intelligence agency was after the Executioner's head.
Bolan escaped from the Soviet Union, but not before wresting from that battleground a KGB master list of operatives and projects around the world. It was all coming together. Because of that list Bolan found the name of the mole who was instrumental in setting up the attack on Stony Man Farm in which April Rose was killed.
The Executioner returned to the States and in one blood-filled night of horror, leaving complete destruction in his wake, he found the mole and executed him in the Oval Office in front of the U.S. President.
Bolan was now beyond sanction. He was on his own once more, unhampered by any rules except his own, answerable to no one except himself. It was the way he liked it. It was the way it had to be.
Bolan mentally reviewed his weapons as he slipped into the rented car. He had his standbys, still in operating condition: his .44 AutoMag, the Beretta 93-R, the Childers Automatic Battle Shotgun, and a disassembled M-16 automatic rifle. He had the usual assortment of C-4 plastique, detonators, magazines and spare boxes of rounds. But he was short on hand grenades, thermite bombs and white phosphorous grenades. He would have to generate some new arms and explosives soon. Perhaps the U.S. Navy could assist him later on.
Bolan wanted to find a telephone other than Peterson's to call the numbers from Smith's safe and see what response he got. He stopped at a filling station and used one of three booths. It was hot out already. The desert day would be a scorcher.
He tried the gym number first.
"Gym office, Parnelli."
"Wilbur Masconi work there?"
"Not in the last three years. Parnelli does it all here, sir. What can I do for you?"
"Tell me where Masconi is. He said something about seeing Smith."
There was a hesitation, then the man laughed. "Thousands of Smiths, millions I guess. Sorry, can't help you, sir."
Bolan hung up. He would make it a point to see Parnelli. The next number rang six times and no one answered. The third number was grabbed on the first ring.
"Louis's Pool Room, but we ain't open yet."
"Louis there?"
"Speaking."
"Smith told me to call you."
"I'm listening."
"Something about some outside talent."
"I don't know nothing about that."
"Smith doesn't answer his phone."
"So tell me about it. He was supposed to call me here an hour ago."
"You got another number I could call, higher up?"
"Hell no! I don't even want to know if there is one."
"So what do I do now, keep my advance and go home?"
"Talk to Smith. Sometimes he gets busy."
"Like all night? My phone call was made on schedule at three in the morning. Who is busy that time of night?"
"Night people. Don't call me again." Louis hung up.
Interesting. Louis was on the list.
The next call was answered by a young woman.
"Good morning. This is Naval Weapons Center Security. May I help you?"
"Security? Hell, I was trying to get the Center commander's office."
"Sorry, sir." She found the number for him. Bolan mumbled his thanks and hung up.
Security? Why would Smith have such a number? Did he have someone from the security force on his payroll?
There was no answer at the next number and the last one was Dr. Ludlow's secretary. Bolan said he had a wrong number and hung up. Why Dr. Ludlow's secretary? Was she one of Smith's contacts?
The Executioner got back into his car and drove past the Smith house to see if anything was happening. There were no police cars. He pulled a U-turn down the block and came back. The KGB must have cleaned up the scene. But what about the woman? He had seen a woman's clothes in the bedroom. He had assumed a girl lived there.
As he drove toward the house a young woman ran out and hurried down the street ahead of him. Bolan sized her up. Pretty, maybe thirty, short brown hair, brown eyes, good figure. She looked back at him and then ran faster. She did not see the two-inch lift of the sidewalk where a tree root had raised it. Her toe caught on it and she sprawled on the cement.
Bolan stopped, walked over to her. He bent to help her to her feet.
"Are you okay?"
She jerked her arm away, then looked up with fear on her face. She nodded.
"Yes, I'm fine. Leave me alone."
"I was only trying to help. I thought maybe you hurt yourself." He turned away.
"Wait." She said it quickly, then looked as if she regretted it. "Do you know Mr. Smith?"
Bolan shook his head. "Sorry. I'm new here, don't know anybody but one man, and his name isn't Smith."
"Then you weren't waiting for me to come out?"
"Why would I be? I don't understand..."
"I really
need to get away from here. I... I expect someone will be looking for me. There aren't any buses. Could you... would you give me a lift to the center?"
"Of course," He kept holding her hand as he led her to the car.
Bolan opened the passenger door for her, then got in behind the wheel.
Her chin was forward, her soft brown eyes worried.
"Are you in some kind of trouble?" Bolan asked. "You must know this Mr. Smith you asked me about."
"Yes. I was in Los Angeles with some friends, and when I came in this morning he wasn't there. No note or anything. Then they called from his office. He isn't there either."
"What will you do?"
"I don't know. Sammy had a few weird friends, scary. I guess I should stay at a motel."
"You mean these friends of his are dangerous?"
"One of them always had a gun, stayed outside a lot, said it was his job to protect Sammy. I asked him what that meant and he said he couldn't tell me."
"That does sound strange."
"It's more than that, it's crazy. Sammy would have meetings in the middle of the night sometimes. Once I got up to go to the bathroom and there were three strange men staring at me."
"So you want a lift to the center?"
She pondered that. "No. I guess I better go to work." She nodded. "Yes, drop me off at the next corner. I work over there at Clancy's as a hostess. Come in tonight for a good lobster dinner."
"I might do that." Bolan held out his hand. "My name is Mack Scott."
She smiled for the first time.
"I'm Malia."
"Pretty name. Hawaiian, isn't it?"
"Yes, for Mary." She stared at him for a minute, then seemed to make up her mind. "Yes, Mack, come by tonight about six, I need to talk to someone." She slid out of the car and ran into the restaurant at the triangle where Inyokern Street and China Lake Avenue met.
Bolan watched her go. She had been living with Smith, she should know something about what he was doing, but she gave the impression that she did not. Still, she said she wanted to talk. He would be there at six.
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