Assault on Soho

infantryman's feet. They get as tender as anybody's, and I've been on mine all night. Now what's going on?'

She murmured, 'Thank goodness your tender feet are no concern of mine.'

He said, 'Forget the feet, it's tough shoulders that count. Particularly the gun shoulder. When those big pieces go off they buck into you like an enraged bull. I've known guys to come off the firing line with fractured collarbones.'

'I've handled firearms before,' she assured him.

Bolan did not like the icy stare she was giving him. He wondered, but would not ask, where Major Stone was at the moment. He said, 'Where have you handled firearms? On the clay pigeon line?' He shook his head. 'That's no pop gun you're holding there, Lady Gunner. It was made to deliver a killing punch at better than a thousand yards. That's three thousand feet, better than half a mile, or roughly one kilometer, to put it in your terms. That kind of killing power requires a muzzle energy of more than four thousand pounds— that's where the enraged bull comes from—and it takes a bullet of at least 300 grains. No military style steel jackets on those jobbies, either. That Weatherby is a big game rifle, meaning the bullets are blunt-nose expanders, designed for high shocking power. They mushroom on impact, and they tear through like a small bomb. You pop me with that charge from where you're sitting and you'll be cleaning pieces of me off of every wall in the room, and maybe even some out in the hall. If you want to try for something really gory, then lay it in right between my eyes. You might get some scrambled brains clear into your frying pan. Or if—'

'That will be quite enough of that,' she interrupted. Her face had gone white and a nervous tic was beginning to work at the corner of her mouth.

Bolan said, 'I think so, too. So if you really mean to shoot me, then why don't you put the clip in?'

'The what?'

'The ammo clip. Why didn't you load the gun?'

A distressed look crossed her face. She said, 'Oh,' and glanced down at the rifle.

Bolan stepped forward and took it away from her.

'How stupid of me,' she murmured.

'Not at all,' Bolan said solemnly. 'As a matter of fact, it is loaded. This piece doesn't use a clip.' He pulled the bolt and ejected a long wicked looking bullet. It whizzed past the girl's face and struck the floor with a heavy clatter. 'That's a magnum,' he explained, 'and it has a hell of a lot more than 300 grains.'

She winced and stared at the shell as though spellbound by it.

He told her, 'You know, I'm getting just a bit fed up with your whole nutty bunch.'

'Obviously,' she replied in a small voice.

'Now just what does that mean?'

Her lip quivered and she said, 'I told you that Charles was harmless. There was really no need at all to kill him. It was wanton and violent and… and inexcusable.'

Bolan's face showed his disgust with her. He said, 'Lady, if you think I killed that poor old man then you're clear off your pole.'

He carried the rifle into the bedroom and began snatching his things out of the closet. He was stuffing the Weatherby into its case when the girl appeared in the doorway.

She said, 'Mack…' in a soft voice.

He turned a harsh glare on her. Her eyes faltered and she slowly entered the room to stand uneasily at the foot of the bed. Bolan was thinking that she had performed that exact same maneuver the night before, and he had to wonder if it was sheer coincidence.

Gruffly, he told her, 'Okay, so maybe you had a right to think it. You're right, I am a killer. In fact, I killed about a dozen men tonight, maybe two. Hell, I don't even bodycount anymore. But I don't murder doddering old men by bending them over a hot iron. That's not exactly cricket in my circles, lady. Yours, maybe, but not mine.'

She flinched and softly replied, 'All right, I deserved that. Now will you forgive me?'

'I already did.' He was carelessly throwing his things into the suitcase. 'But it's time I was moving on. Too long in one spot makes me nervous. Thanks, and all that.' He snapped the bag shut and dropped it to the floor, then finished securing-in the Weatherby.

'Where will you go?'

'I'll find something.'

'There's really no need for all this, you know. You're perfectly welcome to remain here.'

'It's better that I don't,' he assured her.

'Then you're just ditching us, leaving us all alone to solve an impossible problem, and after all we've done to help you.'

Quietly, Bolan said, 'That's right, you've helped a lot, haven't you. You brought me to an ambush in Dover, then you brought me to an ambush in Soho, not once but twice. You people keep helping me, Ann, and you're going to help me right into a grave.'

She took a deep breath, let it all out, and said, 'If you didn't kill Charles, then who did?'

Bolan's eyes clashed with hers. He sat down on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette, then muttered, 'I wish I knew.'

She said, 'He died hideously. I was there, I saw it. The CID was there also. And I'm under technical arrest.'

'What does that mean?'

'It means that I'm not to leave London until the investigation is completed. It's a technicality. CID is convinced that you are the murder. They seem to think that the museum is part of a Mafia racket. They think that you tortured Charles to get information out of him, then when the gangsters came, you killed them all in a Shootout.'

Bolan grunted and said, 'It figures. I guess I'd be thinking along those same lines if I were a cop.' He took a long pull at the cigarette and slowly exhaled. 'Actually,' he said thoughtfully, 'I was hung up on the same kind of error, at first. I automatically concluded that the Mafiosikilled the old man. That tied everything into a neat bundle, see.'

She shook her head. 'No, I don't see. What do you mean?'

'Well, you stop thinking of motives and that sort of thing the minute you settle for a gang killing. But I'm convinced now that the mob didn't do it. And I didn't do it. So that takes us back to whoand why—and especially the why. You tell me, Ann. Whywas Charles killed?'

The girl sat down beside Bolan, clasped her hands between her knees, and stared broodingly at the floor. 'I haven't the foggiest,' she said, sighing.

He asked her, 'Isthat museum part of a Mafia racket?'

Her eyelids fluttered as she replied, 'Only in the way that I've already explained. We are being blackmailed.'

'So how did Charles figure into that angle?'

Her lips quivered. She leaned against Bolan and told him, 'He was simply a sweet old love who enjoyed puttering about with electronics. Actually he was more of a maintenance electrician than anything else. Charles had absolutely no connection with any of the club's business.'

'He didn't operate that peepshow console in the basement?'

'It's largely self-operative. Charles merely saw to it.'

'Did Charles install the cameras and the other gadgets?'

'Install them?' She shook her head. 'Oh no, not the original equipment. That was all done quite some time before Charles came to us.'

'And when did he come to you?'

She wrinkled her brow and replied, 'Some months back. Three, perhaps four.'

'Was that before or after the blackmail started?'

'Oh it was after. I'm positive of that. It was because of that trouble that the Major decided to have a full time watchman about the place. Charles lived in, you see. Had his own flat in the cellar.'

'And how did the Major happen to pick Charles for the job?'

Her eyes blanked and she said, 'I haven't the foggiest notion.'