Assault on Soho

you a false impression,' she told him. 'Earlier, I mean. When I told you that we would… get to know each other. I did not mean… in bed.'

Bolan showed her a tired smile. 'Of course not,' he said.

'But it's nothing personally against you,' she hastened to add. 'Actually I… well it's simply… that… I-I'm terrified of men, you see. All men, not just you.'

Bolan stared at her through a moment of silence, then he nodded his head and said, 'Okay.'

He opened the false bottom of the suitcase and took out what remained of his 'war chest.' It had shrunk to a few thousand dollars, in bills of large denomination, and made a rather thin stack. He placed the money on a bedside table and lay the Beretta atop it, then came out of the harness and began removing his shirt.

Ann Franklin was fingering a nylon nightsuit he'd placed on the bed. 'You wear black underwear?' she asked solemnly.

Bolan chuckled. 'That's my combat uniform,' he told her. 'Some soldadosI met in Miami told me that it strikes fear into the hearts of my enemy. But that's not why I wear it. The color gives me a nighttime invisibility, and the skintight fit helps me in and out of tight places.'

'Like the commandos,' she commented.

'I guess so. That was before my time, though.'

She nodded. 'Mine also.' Their conversation was becoming less strained, more comradely. The girl had unfolded the suit and was holding it to her body. 'Does it keep you warm?'

'Pretty well,' Bolan replied. He was seated on the edge of the bed, removing shoes and socks. 'It's a thermal suit.'

'I see.'

'Did, uh, you really mean that… about men?'

She colored visibly and dropped the suit to the bed. 'Yes I—it's silly, I know. I suppose it's… the men I've known.'

'Like Major Stone, eh,' Bolan said quietly.

'Don't misunderstand that,' she quickly replied. 'Major Stone is the only father I've known. He's raised me from the age of 12.'

'Uh-huh.' Bolan pawed through the bag for his electric shaver.

She seemed to have a need to explain. 'Major Stone has never mistreated me, never. He's protected me from… all that. And he's always given me the best of everything.'

'Good for him,' Bolan murmured. He was suddenly very tired. 'I don't suppose you'd have any coffee around here.'

'Oh, yes,' she said, moving toward the doorway. 'You get your bath, and I'll be doing things in the kitchen.'

Bolan watched her out of sight, troubling thoughts nagging at him. None of this, he was thinking, made any sense at all. He was becoming too fatigued to care, however. He finished undressing and removed his watch, noting the time at close to seven o'clock. It had been a long night. It was cold in the bedroom, but Bolan was too tired to shiver. He picked up the Beretta and the shaving case and went into the bathroom.

Ten minutes later, Ann Franklin rapped lightly on the bathroom door and walked in. She carried a tray and was humming softly under her breath. Bolan was lying back in a tub of steaming water, seemingly utterly relaxed and half asleep in a sea of suds, but half-closed eyes were watching the girl's every movement.

She maneuvered a low stool alongside the tub and set the tray on it. Her eyes found the Beretta, jammed into a towel rack within Bolan's easy reach. Whimsically, she said, 'I've heard of sleepingwith one's pistol, Mr. Bolan, but isn't this a bit ridiculous?' The comradely tone was gone, Bolan noted, replaced by the earlier tense nervousness.

'Survival,' he replied, his speech slurring a bit, 'is never ridiculous.'

Her eyes fell and she said, 'Of course you would know more about that than I. Well,' she added, with a forced perkiness, 'I have bere coffee and muffins, which are also a matter of survival. Shall we break bread over the tub?'

Bolan grinned and reached for the coffee. She placed the cup in his hand and asked him, 'How long since you've slept?'

He carefully sipped the coffee, then replied, 'I forget.'

'Then it's been much too long.' She knelt on the floor beside the tub, broke a muffin, and held it to his lips. He ate, realizing that it had also been some time since that event. She told him, 'You are an unusual person, Mr. Bolan.'

'Not really,' he murmured. 'I'm an ordinary person in unusual circumstances. Are you still afraid of me?'

She hesitated, then whispered, 'As a person, no, I suppose not.'

'I'm afraid of you,' he told her.

Another pause, then: 'I don't find that particularly flattering.'

Bolan sighed. 'It's the survival instinct,' he explained, grinning tiredly. 'I have to suspect the very worst in everybody.'

'Then why survive?' she asked dully. 'I mean…'

After a brief and almost embarrassed silence, Bolan said, 'I know what you mean.' He had asked himself the same question, many times. Though Ann Franklin apparently could not, some thinker had long ago expressed her idea rather well: when love and trust are dead, then the man himself is dead and awaiting only official notification of the fact. Yeah, Bolan had considered the idea. And rejected it. He told the girl, 'I have a job to do. I live to do that job. That's what survival means to me.'

Small-voiced, she replied, 'You're speaking of your job as executioner.'

He sighed. 'Yes. That's the job.'

'You live only to Mil.'

'That's about it.' He finished the coffee and returned the cup to her hand.

'I simply cannot believe that,' she told him.

He shrugged. 'Then don't.'

'If you came to believe that I were your enemy, you would kill me?'

He smiled faintly. 'Are you my enemy?'

'No.'

He said, 'I've never killed a friend.'

She gazed at him with sad eyes, then got to her feet with a loud sigh. 'You have no truefriends in England, Mr. Bolan. I suggest that you simply slaughter the entire population straightaway, and leave as quickly as possible.'

She went out, lightly closing the door behind her.

Well hell, Bolan told himself. She'd been trying to get him to open himself up, to give her something to admire, perhaps something to pity. For what? Games of conscience. She was mixed up in something she did not like, and she wanted someone to tell her it was all worthwhile.

Well, she would not get it from Bolan. He had a hard enough time keeping himself convinced. Right now, for example, it would be so easy to simply slip beneath the warm water and give it all up. No more fear, no more pain, no more blood, just blissful euphoria and quiet oblivion in the soothing warmth of Ann Franklin's bath. Why not? After all, who the hell was Mack Bolan to appoint himself physician to a sick society? So what if the Mafia cancer was spreading into vital tissues?—weren't there other surgeons around who were better equipped than Bolan for the job?

Wasn't it sheer ego that kept him on the job? They'd called him a Quixote in the press. They should have called him a cockalorum—yeah, that would be more like it—Sergeant Self-importance, self-appointed Saviour of the Western World.

Bolan had gone for more than sixty hours without sleep. During that period he had been under constant stress, harassed by lawmen and the underworld alike while effecting a 'tactical retreat' covering hundreds of miles and many different modes of transport. He had fought his way out of four death traps and eluded the police of three nations, yet he had failed to make his way back to 'safe' territory. And now he was at the point of complete physical and mental exhaustion, his last bit of reserve strength fully gone, occupying a narrow ledge of questionable