'I can't afford to take you. There's no way for me to guarantee your safety.'
Evangelina let him see a cryptic little smile.
'There's no way you can guarantee another.' And then she played her ace. 'You leave me here, I follow you. There's nothing you can do to keep me here.'
He mulled that over for a moment, finally making up his mind.
'All right. I want your word you'll stick with me and do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you. Agreed?'
Hannon disappeared into a narrow hallway leading to the bedrooms. When he reemerged he was wearing a jacket and there was a revolver in his hand. He broke the cylinder and checked the load, then slipped it into a holster that he wore beneath his jacket, on his belt. The eyes that met hers across the room were made of flint.
'You armed?'
Evangelina nodded. She produced a small automatic pistol that she carried in her handbag.
As Hannon showed her out and locked the door behind them, Evangelina's mind was racing on ahead. She wondered if she had the strength and courage that it took to kill a man; if she was equal to the challenge posed to her by the man she knew as El Matador. Perhaps she would lose her nerve, get herself and Hannon killed through cowardice or stupidity.
The young woman stiffened, shaking off the fears. Inside, she knew that she would do whatever might be necessary to avenge her sister, to become a part of Matador's unending battle.
And it finally seemed, in spite of everything, that she might have an active part to play in that crusade. She looked forward to the opportunity — and not without a trace of fear — but she would not permit John Hannon,
Her sister, Margarita, had died in this cause. Now Evangelina had a chance to live for it, and she was holding on with both hands, refusing to let go while life remained.
The Chevy was a loaner. Hannon's car would not be patched up before Monday, and in the meantime he insisted on remaining mobile. Now pushing borrowed wheels south along the Dixie Highway, he was thankful that he had insisted on the car when his was towed off from the shooting scene.
He had not recognized the caller's voice. It had been a different voice from the one that had suckered him the day before, but Hannon knew that the identity of individual callers probably meant next to nothing.
It was the message that had riveted him instantly, compelled him to risk another ambush, violate the trust that had been placed upon his shoulders. He could hear the words inside his mind, as if the caller had been sitting in the back seat, whispering in his ear.
'You looking for some trucks? Some guns? I know where you can find them.'
The caller had provided the directions for a meeting, and Hannon, dammit, had agreed to everything.
Of course, the meet could be another trap. He recognized the risk; his memories of his brush with death were vivid in his mind. He knew the possibility — hell, the probability — that he was walking into mortal danger... but at least this time he would be going into it with both eyes open, armed and ready.
The woman, now, she was a problem for him. Bolan had surprised him with her, dumping her into his lap that way. And Hannon now had compounded the problem by dragging her along on what could prove to be a lethal wild-goose chase.
The lady was a veteran of sorts, by Bolan's own admission. Hannon would watch out for her as best he could, but in the last analysis it would be every man or woman fighting solo for survival.
The way it had always been, sure.
They were following the Dixie Highway, crossing out of Broward County into Dade, when Hannon picked out the Caddy crew wagon in his rearview mirror. He felt the old familiar chill race up his spine, his palms suddenly moist where they gripped the steering wheel.
The tail was gaining. He could make out hostile faces behind the broad, tinted windshield. Reaching inside his jacket he drew the Colt Python .357 Magnum out of its holster and laid it on the seat beside him.
The woman saw his move and craned around in her seat, following Hannon's gaze, picking up the tail through the window.
And Hannon was surprised at the look of grim determination on her face as she pulled the little nickel- plated autoloader from her handbag, jacking back the slide to chamber up a live one.
Their eyes met briefly, and he found something inside there that he had seldom seen in the eyes of combat-hardened veterans. Strength, a hard, indomitable will — all tempered by a healthy fear of what was coming.
Some lady, right.
They shared a fleeting smile and then his eyes were on the road, his mind fully occupied with their immediate predicament. He milked some more speed from the Chevy's straining engine, but the more powerful Caddy was chewing up the distance between the two vehicles. The crew wagon's grill was inches from their bumper now, and Hannon flirted with the thought of slamming on his brakes, forcing them into a collision and coming out with all guns blazing while they were still dazed.
Just as quickly he saw the gun muzzles nosing up above the dashboard, recognized the automatic weapons back there and abandoned the idea.
Any chance they had remained in flight now. Standing still, they could only be cut to ribbons by the gun crew.
Suddenly the Caddy surged around them, gaining on the driver's side, pulling abreast. In his side mirror, then through the window itself, Hannon could see weapons jutting from the power windows as they slid down, opening a field of fire.
John Hannon cranked desperately on his own window handle, using all his strength, and he had the glass almost halfway down before the handle came off in his hand with a resounding snap. Cursing wildly, he dropped the useless crank and snared his Python from the seat beside him, lifting it and trying hopelessly to find an angle through the half-open window.
He was tightening into the squeeze when the guns in the Caddy erupted, raking his Chevy with a shattering broadside. Glass flew everywhere, jagged shards embedding themselves in his cheek and throat. Bullets drilled through the door and bodywork, one of them tracing fire across his thighs, another boring deep into his side, reaming vital organs along the way.
Hannon lost control of the Chevy, doubling over the wheel as the car jounced across the shoulder, swerving off pavement onto gravel, finally grass. The Caddy swept on past them, one parting burst turning the windshield into crystals, the glass suddenly imploding in a thousand pebbled pieces.
On the seat beside him he heard Evangelina scream, then the car was plowing shrubbery under, straining at the leafy barrier and finally stalling out amidst the ruins of a demolished hedgerow.
Through a haze of pain John Hannon was aware of everything around him. He could feel the blood puddling in his lap, the throbbing of his wounds, a creeping chill that could only mean one thing.
As if from far away he heard the engine ticking, slowly cooling down, and beneath the hood, a steady dripping from the hoses severed by the broadside fusillade. It might be gasoline, he knew, but suddenly it did not seem to matter.
Something was holding his legs down, and Hannon realized that his gun arm was also pinned against his side. Glancing down, vision blurry from the blood of ragged scalp wounds streaming across his face, he recognized the girl.
She had fallen toward him when the Chevy came to rest. Now her head was resting in his lap, her shoulder jammed against his forearm, pinning it against his seat.
It took only a glance to tell the veteran of Homicide that she was gone. The bullet's entry wound above one eye was tiny, but the fist-sized exit pit behind her ear had taken everything inside and scattered it across the back seat of his loaner.
She was dead as hell, and rising through the pain, John Hannon felt a sudden sense of failure. He had promised Bolan that he would protect the girl, and now he was directly responsible for killing her. He might as well
