departure.
Bolan was still thinking about Kevin as he pulled away from the curb. He doubted that the youngster had drawn up those blueprints for a homemade bomb in order to demonstrate the nuclear industry's lack of security. More likely that was just a lawyer's argument to get him off the hook.
Bolan figured that Kevin Baker had probably done it to show his classmates he wasn't simply smarter than them but that he was light-years ahead. It was the same with the computer break-in-maybe he had done it to impress a special girl, maybe just to attract attention.
Well, the boy had drawn attention to himself all right... from the wrong kind of people. And Bolan had attracted notice by his visit to the Bakers.
Someone else was logging the comings and goings from the Belleair estate.
Bolan cruised at moderate speed along the edge of the golf course, keeping a careful watch in the rearview mirror. The dark blue van that had been following him turned back; an Audi took its place. When Bolan turned right the other car did the same, carefully adjusting its speed to maintain a constant distance. A coincidence? Or were they tailing him? It was time to find out. Bolan pushed the pedal to the floor.
Bolan felt the surge of power push him back into the cushioned seat. He scanned the deserted street ahead. The road he was on ended at a junction barely four hundred yards away.
The lights turned to a green signal arrow.
The tires screeched in protest as he spun the wheel in a slithering high-speed turn.
Bolan's unexpected acceleration had caught the other driver off guard; now the Audi was racing to catch up.
It could not have been the police or the FBI.
Bolan was sure of it. If Chapman had used the red phone to check him out, the cops would have scooped him up at the house. Anyway, it wasn't their kind of car.
And he doubted if it was the Mob. No, the Mafia would have gotten straight down to business, looking for a fast return on their risk, either by ransoming the boy or squeezing the information they wanted out of him.
Unlike the Bear, Bolan could think of several disturbing reasons why organized crime might want to get their hands on a nuclear device. But it was unlikely they would hang around the neighborhood to monitor the investigation.
Of course a political kidnapping was a whole different ball game. Anyone treading that dangerously close to creating an explosive international incident would be very interested in knowing exactly how the investigation was proceeding.
The Executioner was nearly three blocks in the lead. There was a small shopping plaza coming up.
He jerked the wheel to the right and plunged into the quiet backwater of a light-industrial zone. The foreign car took a tire-smoldering shortcut through the plaza car park in an effort to slice their quarry's lead time. The car swerved past a small girl bicycling across to the convenience store, clipped an abandoned shopping cart, which went spinning into a lamppost, and flew into the roadway beyond.
Red warning lights were flashing ahead. A slowmoving short-haul freight was coming through from the right.
Bolan gunned the last ounce of juice from the engine.
He swung over into the left-hand lanes and raced the lumbering diesel for the right-of-way. There was no room for error — a cinder-block warehouse filled the land right to the edge of the tracks — and no leeway for a loss of nerve. The rental car bounced over the tracks as the engineer sounded a desperate warning.
Bolan squeezed through the narrowing gap and jetted into the street like a cork shot from a bottle.
A fiery trail of sparks hissed out as the heavy vehicle landed, fishtailed and straightened out on the right side of the highway.
The train blocked his view in the mirror.
Bolan hit the brakes and gritted his teeth. He was doing everything in his power to lose his pursuers, but playing chicken with a freight train was cutting things too close.
He turned north, running parallel to 19, then swung across toward the long causeway.
He spotted the Audi again. It must have cut over a couple of blocks and beaten the startled engineer to the next crossing. His trackers were cruising the slow lane now, but gave away the fact that they had made him again by abruptly moving out and accelerating. The causeway was quiet. The rush hour was long finished and the late- night crowd were not yet heading home.
Bolan set a blistering pace along the narrow hump of the water-lapped roadway. A picnic area flashed past. A night fisherman dropped his rod as he spun to see this madman roar past.
Bolan reached forward and doused the lights, lifting his foot from the pedal as he coasted along the shoulder — another dark blotch of a recreation area loomed ahead.
He bumped down onto the banked sand, ran on past a concession stand and rolled to a halt behind a clump of palm trees. Bolan tore the key from the ignition and ran for the cover of the waist-high scrub that grew in a triangular wedge at the far end of the island. The sand sucked at his shoes and the sparse twigs snatched at his clothes as the Executioner sought cover.
A truck rumbled by in the opposite direction, and a few moments later the Audi sidled to a halt at the turnout entrance. Bolan, gun in hand, crouched in the semidarkness.
The causeway lights twinkled off the windshield as the hunters' car left the road. They drew up alongside the shuttered pop stand. Bolan heard a car door click, followed by a harshly whispered exchange... but how many men were there, two or three?
One stealthy shadow padded down to the water's edge, then slowly turned toward Bolan's hiding place.
Bolan poised, knees flexed, his gun hand extended and balanced lightly by the other palm.
The bushes gave a warning crackle, marking the approach of a second man sweeping the ground to Bolan's right. He was partially obscured by the tangled scrub.
The Executioner figured the odds, decided to take out the guy on the beach first. The man was dimly silhouetted by the dull sheen of the distant city lights on the satin water. Slowly the coiled death shadow lowered the muzzle to settle on target.
The sixth sense that had saved his life so often suddenly triggered its alarm. Bolan swung about, his arm traversing right, seeking the danger above him.
'Drop your piece!' There was a third man.
Bolan frowned. The guy must have moved swiftly along the road to position himself on the ribbon of grass behind Bolan's shoulder. He held the high ground — and a mini-Uzi.
The wicked little SMG was trained on the Executioner's chest. 'Throw it down... now!'
Bolan shrugged and let the weapon fall. The gunner who was now on his left relaxed at seeing their opponent disarmed. 'Walk up the slope toward me. Slowly.' His voice was authoritative, the accent refined.
Bolan began to climb up the short, steep incline. His progress zigzagged between the bushes. He balanced his right foot on a tussock of salt grass and tugged on a nearby branch to assist his balance. He was bending slightly forward now, hunched to present the smallest profile. Then his right hand snaked down and plucked the second pistol from its ankle holster.
He straightened up and fired in one fluid motion. The crew boss gave one painful yelp and tumbled headfirst into the undergrowth. Bolan swiveled left and snapped off another shot. The second target took the hit low, rocking back to collapse on the sand.
The last of the hunting crew turned and fled, racing diagonally up from the beach in a heart-pounding effort to reach the car. Bolan fired again, the third bullet gouging a jagged chunk of palm trunk as the man twisted past it. The last shot smacked into the back of his skull, blew out his forehead and splattered a streak of mushy gore across the hood of the Audi.
Bolan ran the last few steps up the slope.
He scooped up the Uzi and shoved the body with his foot. The corpse tumbled loosely down under the bushes. He moved quickly to the left to check the other goon. The hapless gunman was twisted uncomfortably to the side, propped on one elbow, shuddering with each shallow, rasping breath. His weapon, a Walther PPK, was lying where he'd dropped it; Bolan tossed it into the bay.
He glanced over at the other man, who was sprawled facedown with his shattered head nestled in the
