for him.'
Hinshaw shook his head as Worthy swore softly and said, 'He just might do it.'
'Not a chance,' Hinshaw snapped. 'We know the enemy now, and we can use that knowledge to advantage.' He turned back to Morales. 'Was Kaufman buying the truce?'
'He was thinking it over, Jim. He didn't say yes or no but ... well ... I think it's a go.'
'So we play it that way. We can pull the rug while he's sitting on his hands.'
'What about Bolan?' Worthy asked. 'He won't be sitting on his hands.'
'If we work it right, we can play them off against each other. While they chase each other around the block, we bag ourselves a territory,. With luck they'll kill each other off. If not, we'll be waiting for the winner before he can catch his breath.'
'How do you plan to run it down?' Worthy asked.
'We need a wedge, Floyd. Bolan offered the deal, so we have to play him up as the back-stabber.' Hinshaw thought for a long moment in silence. When he spoke again, his voice was firm with self-assurance. 'Stay close to the wires on Kaufman and Weiss. I want to know every move they make before it's made. Everybody's on edge, and mistakes are inevitable. When they make one, we'll have our handle.'
The other men grinned and rose to leave. Floyd Worthy paused in the doorway, turning for one final comment. 'You know, man, if Kaufman doesn't put Bolan away, it's us against the sarge.'
'I wouldn't have it any other way,' Hinshaw told him solemnly.
Alone again, the soldier let his mind dwell on the possibility of a confrontation with Mack the Bastard Bolan. A second confrontation, and the last one, too, one way or another.
Hinshaw's first meeting with Bolan had been long ago and thousands of miles away in another world and time. That meeting had brought the curtain down on the single sweetest experience of Hinshaw's life, cutting it off short. Not to mention the six months' stockade time and a less than honorable discharge, the only blots on an otherwise impeccable military record. Somebody had to pay for that disgrace. Somebody named Bolan. And Hinshaw had been waiting a long time to collect that tab. Waiting and hoping for another chance at Mack the Bastard. But lately, as he almost compulsively followed Bolan's campaigns in the newspapers and on television, his lust for the confrontation had begun to fade.
Wiping moist palms against his trousers, Jim Hinshaw wondered if Moe Kaufman would be able to take Bolan out. It would make everything so much ... simpler, yeah ... simpler and safer. He bitterly rejected the thought and its unsettling Implications. He was not afraid of Bolan, dammit, he was just ... cautious. Yeah, cautious. Everything that Hinshaw was or ever hoped to be was riding on this operation, not to mention Mr. Bonelli's money, time, and trust. Hinshaw had a duty, to repay that trust with success.
Duty, yeah, you could never get away from it. Hinshaw fervently hoped that Kaufman would be up to handling the Bolan challenge, but a nagging apprehension grew in the back of his mind, setting his teeth on edge. Us against the sarge. Sure, and that would mean Hinshaw against Bolan.
'No sweat,' he told the empty room, repeating it for emphasis. 'No sweat! But he was lying to himself and he knew it.
Hinshaw's Palms were moist again. It was a hell of a sweat.
Chapter 9
Sucking
Mack Bolan was a supreme military strategist, his expertise acquired in the crucible of Southeast Asia. He had long ago learned that the best offensive tactic is seldom a wild-assed charge into the stronghold of an unknown enemy. Such kamikaze tactics might suffice on certain rare occasions but generally tended to be suicidal. Discretion often was the better part of valor, and the Executioner knew from practical experience that an overzealous enemy may sometimes be lured into a rash offensive with suitable bait. Invested with a false sense of progress, the enemy may be sucked to his doom in a prearranged ambush. The tactic was especially useful when the enemy was successful in camouflaging his base of operations, as Nick Bonelli's strike force had done so far.
Yeah, a suck play was clearly indicated. It remained only for the Executioner to choose the site and the bait.
The site was a shallow horseshoe basin on the western fringe of Echo Canyon Park, a miniature valley, really, bisected by a two-lane highway with lightly wooded hills on three sides. He parked the warwagon atop a shaded knoll on the left or northern tip of the horseshoe, nose toward the highway and rocket pod elevated. From his Position he held a commanding view of the basin and the highway leading into it, ready to unleash his lethal firebirds on selected targets as they Presented themselves.
Next on tap was the matter of bait.
He made the necessary call and again received instant pickup. 'Ranch.'
'It's me again. Put the man on.'
'That was some damn fancy shooting, mister. Just a minute.'
It was not a minute but a mere second before another instrument clicked into the line and Kaufman, very subdued, said, 'Okay, you proved your point. We need to talk. Let's meet. You say where.'
Bolan told him where, adding, 'Ten minutes. If You're later than that, I won't be there.'
'I can make that. I'll, uh, have some people with me.'
'I strongly advise it. Bonelli has troops out scouring the countryside for you. You'd better travel heavy. But this is the way you do it. Two-'
'Wait a minute!'
'Shut up and listen. It's this way or no way. Two cars. Yourself and a wheelman in the first. A backup crew following at 100 yards. The second car keeps its distance.'
'How do I know?'
'Use your head,' Bolan said disgustedly. 'If I wanted it, I'd have had it instead of your telephone. I'm not your present hazard. Do we meet or don't we?'
'We meet,' was the instant response. 'Your way. But it better be cool.'
'Ten minutes from right now,' Bolan said and hung up.
It was a gamble, sure. Chancey as hell. A guy with Kaufman's resources could pull a lot of fancy strings in ten minutes. He could send police helicopters. He could probably field a makeshift force of forty to fifty men on a moment's notice, even should he elect to keep the cops out of it. And that was only half the risk.
He was gambling also on Nick Bonelli's field forces, practically certain that the telephone surveillance wires on Phoenix were Bonelli's wires but decidedly uncertain as to the number of guns in the Phoenix task force and their deployment.
It was purely an educated estimate that Bonelli could send no more than two or three cars to any point around the city with no more than ten minute's notice. If that estimate should prove wrong ... then Bolan knew who could just as easily get sucked into this one.
It was possible, even, that he would be contending with two massive forces, one from each side of the set. And that could be curtains, for sure.
He had tried to foresee and to prepare for any contingency to the limit of his combat capabilities. But only the 'meet' itself could tell the final tale.
He used the ten-minute wait for final preparations. The rocketry was 'enabled' by electronic command, automatically superimposing the control system upon the optics, the electronic grid glowing red from the viewscreen. From the console: Fire Enable Go.
He set it up for manual command and made a slight adjustment to the optics, refining the focus, narrowing the vision field to a fifty-yard radius surrounding that fated slot on the desert floor.
Target selection, now, would be 'gunner's choice.' Wherever the optics wandered and settled, a simple bang on the knee would dispatch a firebird unerringly to the target centered there. Combat capability was limited to four birds, how ever. A reload would require sixty to ninety seconds at best — and many a battle had been lost in a single heartbeat.
But he settled into the wait with a satisfied mind. He had done all within his power to set the contest. The
