antenna erected beside one of them gave Bolan a clue to its primary purpose. He felt safe in assuming that he had found the nerve center behind the 'ears' in Phoenix ... the alert and deadly head of a serpent whose heart lay to the south in Tucson.
A penetration was indicated. More, it was mandatory at this stage of the Executioner's Phoenix campaign. The suck play had now fulfilled its purpose by leading Bolan to his ultimate target in the desert city, and he meant to strike against that serpent's head before the brain could recover from earlier stunning blows to marshal a venomous counter-stroke.
Bolan was formulating his strategy as he turned away from that and tableau and retraced his steps to the battle cruiser.
An effective strike would require an effective penetration — and that could be tricky with a pro like Hinshaw. But Bolan was not going for a simple hit-and-run, he was hoping for the knockout — a quick one-two — not just to the head of this beast but to the entire fetid structure. That would call for a bit of audacity. Audacity, hell, he had plenty of it.
Chapter 11
The message
Hinshaw's voice was tense, taut — dangerous. 'From the top, Angel. What went sour?'
'It all went sour, Jim,' Morales replied with a disgusted gesture. 'I think it started sour. It was a suck play straight from the jungle book.'
'You said a rocket attack?'
'Yeah. They sucked us into a horseshoe slot, then layed into us from the high ground. There was no way to save it. I'm damn lucky I got out. Poor Floyd ...'
Hinshaw kicked the desk and raised his eyes to the ceiling. 'Bastard!' he growled. 'He must have tumbled to the telephone tap. How cute. Did you eyeball the bastard?'
The little Latin shook his head and said, 'All I eyeballed was them damn rockets whooshing down from the heights. He's got some kind of fancy firepower. Forget them fucking LAWS, this was big stuff. More like guided missiles.'
Hinshaw muttered, 'So he's teamed up with Kaufman.'
'Looks that way,' Morales quietly agreed. 'You know what this means.'
'Yeah,' Morales said, sighing. 'And we're running about 70 percent casualties as of right now, man.'
'So what are you reading?' Hinshaw growled.
'I'm reading scratch,' the surviving lieutenant replied. 'We can't pull it now. Not without reinforcements anyway.'
'You ready to tuck your tail?' Hinshaw asked heavily, 'and slink back to Tucson? You ready to face the old man with that?'
'You should've seen what I faced a little while ago, Jim. Listen. That guy deserves his reputation.'
'So does Bonelli,' Hinshaw said worriedly.
'Well, shit.' Morales threw up his hands and walked nervously about the room waving them as though seeking applause from some invisible audience. 'This is crazy. I say we call out the hole card and tell them all to go to hell.'
'Not yet,' Hinshaw said. He gnawed on his lower lip for a moment, then added: 'We can still pull it out, maybe.' His eyes gleamed with silent speculation, then: 'There's a million bucks on Bolan's head. Right?'
'You know why the bounty is a million?' Morales inquired quietly. 'It's a million because the meanest guys in the mob haven't been able to take the guy. That's why. I wish you'd been out there with me awhile ago. I wish you had.'
'He's just a soldier,' Hinshaw mused. 'What the hell, Angel ... he's just another soldier.'
'Go tell that to Floyd and B Troop,' Morales replied bitterly. 'With a cool million on his head.'
'Shit.'
The debate was interrupted by a knuckle rap at the door. A squad leader poked his head in to report, 'We got company.' His gaze flicked to the window. 'You better see.'
A big guy in Levi's was standing outside the fence, jawing with a sentry.
Hinshaw turned from the window to scowl at the squad leader. 'What is it?'
'He walked in. We spotted him about three minutes out. Walking the phone line. He says we got trouble. Do we have trouble?'
Hinshaw picked up the telephone, listened to it for a moment, then put it down and said, 'Yeah. Sounds like eggs frying on there. Dammit! No wonder I got no-how long has it been out?'
The squad leader shrugged. 'I didn't know it was until the guy came along.'
'Okay, let him in,' Hinshaw growled. 'Make sure somebody sticks with him. Give the guy a beer. He looks hot and bothered.'
'Shit, it's about a hundred out there in the shade, if you can find shade,' the squad leader commented. He went out muttering, 'I wouldn't have that guy's fucking job on a ...'
Morales was standing at the window, silently gazing out, hands stuffed into his pockets. 'What d'you suppose a job like that pays?' he said with quiet reflection. 'Couple hundred a week? — maybe two-fifty?'
'You thinking of joining up?' Hinshaw asked heavily.
'Look at the guy. Probably been out there all day in that heat. For what? Tell me for what, Jim.'
'Maybe he lost his nerve,' Hinshaw pointedly replied. 'Maybe he never had any. How 'bout you? Ready to trade it all for a timeclock and a pile of bills?'
'Hell no,' Morales said quietly.
But he remained at the window and watched 'the telephone guy' go about his little duties. The guy went up the pole, carrying a bag of tools and crap with him.
'What a dummy,' Morales commented softly. 'Can you beat it?'
'We're doing it, aren't we?' Hinshaw replied. 'We're beating it. Right?'
Morales turned around with a grin. 'Sure, man. We're beating it.'
'Go keep an eye on the guy, huh? Just for safe? I have to call old man Bonelli.'
'You're forgetting the phone.'
Hinshaw chuckled. The tensions were gone. Angel was back and they'd pull it out together somehow. 'We're going to collect that million, Angel. Us. We're going to bag a bonus baby. Go watch the dummy. Let me know as soon as the line is restored. I need a parley with our noble benefactor in south Arizona. I want him to get his bank ready.'
Angel laughed and repeated his little applause routine as he headed outside to keep an eye on 'the dummy.'
But that dummy, be sure, was no dummy.
'The dummy' now stood on a little ridge far removed from, but overlooking the base camp. He'd gone down there and rubbed shoulders with the enemy, sampled their iced beer, played games with their telephones, traded a couple of tall stories while getting their numbers and reading their strengths and weaknesses — and closing the adventure on a note of a most ludicrous melodrama.
Angel Morales had tried to recruit him. It had been a deft try, full of veiled promises while devoid of job description — but certainly a recruiting pitch to anyone 'in the know' and able to decipher the doubletalk. Bolan played dumb and, in the process, bought himself enough time to complete the mission in proper fashion — thanks entirely to Morales.
Of course, in all fairness to the guy, Angel Morales had never actually 'known' Sergeant Mack Bolan. They had crossed gazes a couple of times in 'Nam but that had been a long time ago; also, since then, Bolan had undergone surgical alterations to the facial structure to the point where a close friend from the old days would pass him by without recognition.
Still, it was quietly satisfying to Bolan that he could successfully penetrate a professional camp. There were no false illusions regarding the expertise and military capability of men such as Hinshaw and Morales. Renegades,
