Treason Play. Don Pendleton
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still stood in the recessed doorway of a nearby men’s clothing store, both trying to look like they hadn’t noticed Bolan. The bigger of the two men used a handkerchief to dab at the sweat beading on his forehead, then tugged at the collar of his shirt with his index finger to allow some heat to escape from inside his clothing. The man looked miserable.
Though Bolan couldn’t say for sure whether he posed a danger, the man definitely seemed out of place. A second man stood on the corner decked out in blue jeans, a baseball cap and a Hawaiian-style shirt, having an animated conversation on his cell phone. He shot a glance in Bolan’s direction, turned and stared into a glass window behind him, allowing him to monitor the soldier’s approach without looking directly at him.
Two more men, both wearing tan coveralls, with heavy leather tool belts wrapped around their waists, stood next to a panel van parked on the street. A casual glance would peg them as telephone or cable television repairman. But Bolan’s trained eye could see the telltale bulges of a handgun holstered in their armpits beneath their coveralls. One of the fake repairmen, a slender man with bushy muttonchop sideburns, carried an empty canvas satchel over one shoulder.
The soldier took a couple of steps and angled himself so he could get a better look at the van. Behind the wheel, he saw a silhouette with only a part profile visible from his vantage point. Bolan took out a pack of smokes, tapped one into his palm and pocketed the rest. With his other hand, he pulled out his lighter, clicked it open and torched the end of the cigarette. He didn’t smoke much these days, but a cigarette was a convenient prop. Tucking the lighter away, he pulled his baseball cap farther over his eyes and started for Gillen’s building.
One of the men looked up as Bolan approached. The soldier felt his muscles tense, but he didn’t break stride. Instead he continued walking right toward them. The man carrying the satchel looked at his partner and nodded politely as the other man spoke at a rapid tempo, occasionally punctuating the phrase with excited gestures from his hands. Bolan took a drag from the cigarette as he passed. He caught Mr. Sideburns’ eye, gave him a nod and kept moving until he reached the nearest intersection.
The Executioner turned right and rolled down the street, passing the panel van, which now stood to his left, ignoring the driver. Then he walked past the front of Gillen’s apartment building and kept going until he reached a nearby intersection, turned right and headed along the side of the building.
The building had a two-level parking garage beneath it that was accessible from the street. Bolan slipped into the parking garage. As he approached a glass door that led from the ground level of the garage, a woman was exiting the building. Smiling, she held the door open for Bolan. He thanked her and passed through it, stepping into the building’s air-conditioned interior.
He keyed the throat mike.
“Jack?”
“Go, Sarge.”
“There was a phone company van parked outside when I entered the building. How about now?”
“Gone, baby, gone.”
“You see it move?” Bolan asked.
“Yeah. It turned the corner a couple of minutes ago, just after the repair guys disappeared into the building.”
Bolan scowled. “You got it in sight?”
“Affirmative. It’s pulling into the parking garage.”
The soldier stopped and drew the Beretta from beneath his jacket. “Okay, my guess is it’s heading for the sixth floor to pick up the two guys and Gillen.”
“I’ll head that way,” the Stony Man pilot stated.
“Don’t engage unless you have to. They may already know they’ve been identified. Until then, let’s play it cool.”
“Clear. By the way—”
“What?” By now he was on the move again, hugging the walls in the hallway, pressing the Beretta against his thigh to keep it out of sight.
“Couple more guys came in after the chumps in the repair outfits. Maybe two minutes later. Both had been standing on the opposite side of the street, but they converged on the building in unison.”
“Sloppy.”
“Probably,” Grimaldi said. “But they’re probably headed your way.”
Bolan reached the end of the corridor. It branched off in two opposing directions, like the top of a T. Flattening against the wall, he peered around the corner and saw the two repairmen exit the elevator and turn in the direction of Gillen’s apartment. Bolan kept the Beretta low at his side and rounded the corner. He started for the men as they came to a stop in front of Gillen’s apartment.
THE SHARP KNOCK ON THE door startled Tamara Gillen. Who the hell could that be? she wondered. Kellogg? No way. There hadn’t been enough time for him to have traveled from the bureau to her apartment. Uncoiling from the chair, she moved to the door. The .22-caliber pistol was tucked into the waistband of her pants and covered by her shirttails.
“Who is it?” she called before reaching the door.
“Phone company,” a male voice replied.
Reaching the door, she peered through the peephole and saw two men in telephone company uniforms standing outside her door.
“I didn’t call you.”
“Of course you didn’t,” the man said with a laugh, “the phones are down.”
Gillen scowled and walked over to the cordless telephone that stood on a small table in her kitchen that doubled as a desk when she worked from home or paid bills. She returned the phone to its charging base and stared at it for a moment. Her pulse quickened. None of this made sense, she thought. If all the phones were down, why check each apartment? She reached underneath her shirt and drew the small pistol. She began backing away from the door, figuring she should find her bag and leave via the fire escape if these guys became too insistent.
“Hang on,” she said. “I need to put on a robe.”
Something thudded against the door, striking it just above the knob. She took in a sharp breath of air and backed away from the door, then brought the pistol up in a two-handed grip.
A second thud registered with her and the wood around the latch exploded into splinters before the door swung inward. One of the men surged into the apartment. In his hand, he gripped he a pistol and he was moving it around, looking for a target. The second man barreled through the door just a couple of steps behind the first.
So little space separated them that Gillen didn’t bother to yell for the men to stop. Her pistol popped twice and one of the intruders grunted as bullets drilled into him. However, his body continued to hurtle forward, powered by sheer momentum. She sidestepped him as a matador might move from the path of an angry bull, and he stumbled past her.
A dark blur flashed into her vision and something hard struck her wrist. She yelped, and the gun slipped from her fingers and hit the floor. Her attacker moved in close, grabbing a fistful of the fabric of her shirt, then hitting her in the ribs, hard, to knock her off balance. She stumbled back toward the wall. Her attacker grinned and stepped forward.
Then his head exploded in a fine red mist. His suddenly decapitated body lurched forward one more step before collapsing.
A big man stood behind the dead man’s former position, a pistol in his outstretched hand. Smoke curled up from the handgun’s barrel. The weapon coughed once more, sending a bullet into the man she’d shot a moment ago.
She saw the newcomer’s lips move, thought she heard noise, but the words didn’t register with her.
“Ms. Gillen. Tamara, we need to go,” he said.
The sound of her own name jarred her from the shock that had startled to settle over her. His words sank in as he pulled her to her feet. She jerked her arm from his grip. He didn’t resist.
“Who are you?”