'Y-yes, sir.'
'Well, don't be too glad, because it may be a very temporary situation.'
'I see, sir.'
'I'm going to give it to you straight, and then you're going to give it to me straight.'
'Yessir.'
Bolan stared icily into the boy's eyes.
'You're the one who passed on the report about this location and the meeting to the authorities. Right?'
'Yessir.'
'Why? And don't waste my time with rationallations or excuses.'
'No, sir, I won't.' Cottonwood swallowed something thick in his throat. 'I work the VT100 computer terminal for incoming shipments of everything from toilet paper to tanks. Sergeant Grendal approached me a couple months ago with his idea of how to program the computer so that it kicked out certain supply orders as duplicate shipments. Hell, CFU is the most common explanation for anything that goes wrong over here.'
'CFU...'
'Computer foul up.'
Bolan nodded.
'Whenever we showed a duplicate supply of something, we had orders to crate and store the supplies in the warehouse, because you never knew when the CFU would go the other way and short us. That was General Wilson's idea. Once you got something, never return it. He'd always say that. It was Billy Tomlin's and Sergeant Grendal's job to crate the stuff and store it. Except that they started to sell the stuff on the black market.' Bolan leaned forward, his eyes boring into the nervous private like a laser beam through the neocortex.
'It was just small stuff at first... food mostly... then auto parts... then...'
'Weapons.' Bolan-finished the halting sentence for him.
'Yeah,' the private said, uselessly.
Bolan stood up, his gun still aimed at the kid's chest. 'So what happened to you? Lose your guts and decided to fink out on your buddies? They weren't cutting you in for enough of the take? What's your story, kid?'
PFC Cottonwood looked up.
His voice was clear for the first time, his eyes even.
'I know this might be hard for you to believe, sir. Especially now. At first I was in it for the money.... You know the horror stories about how hard it is to live over here on what we're paid. Especially if you're married, like I was planning on doing this summer... so the money looked good in the beginning. But then I didn't like it anymore. I didn't. Like I said, you, probably won't believe me, but so what.'
Bolan glared at the soldier who was fast becoming defiant as he unburdened himself of his confession. He thight make a good soldier yet.
'Your report said the meeting with the Zwilling Horde was set for tonight.'
'Yes, sir.' PFC Cottonwood looked at his watch. 'They're supposed to show up here in another three hours, at 04.30.'
'Aren't you guys a little early for the meet?'
Cottonwood nodded. 'The sarge had never met these people face-up before, so he was a little anxious.' The young soldier shivered involuntarily amid the unscheduled wreckage that surrounded him. 'Besides, the sarge didn't trust us out of his sight. He was afraid Billy would go off and get drunk or laid and not show up.'
'Come on, guy,' Bolan said, waving him to his feet.
'Where to, sir?'
'In less than three hours, killers in the butcher class, some of the most bestial in modem history, true man-eaters are going to be coming through that door. And I am going to be ready for them.' Bolan's lips twisted into something less than a smile. PFC Cottonwood was simply very glad that he would no longer be numbered among those about to be on the wrong side of this man. No way could he stand it. The sprung tension that emanated from the blacksuit was like all of America's destiny coiled within one single individual.
The misguided but well-meaning private was enacting a surrender he had had in his mind as soon as the night-garbed apparition had come hurtling through the window. He knew instantly he was in the wrong league. The explosion of the window still sounded in his mind behind the sharper reports of the killing that followed it.
This big stranger clearly embodied more than the vast majority of men could hope to enact in a lifetime — he seemed to represent in his presence, his manners, his dark and profound look, the manifest destiny that no longer could be spared on the frontiers of the American West but which was a gift to the Old World now, to tame and to teach the primitives of a new generation who should know already that the lessons of American history are written in blood.
PFC Cottonwood was only too happy to give in to that history and be accountable, at least, for his own blood. He would watch this stranger with manifest awe.
And he would serve him if he could.
2
April Rose hovered over the Diablo 1650 printer as it spat out information, printwheel clattering across the paper like a machine gun. She read each line twice, then shook her head grimly. She reached over and picked up a stack of the according paper and let it unfold to her feet as she scanned quickly for something encouraging. But all she could do was shake her head again. It was getting worse and worse.
Someone unfamiliar with operations at Stony Man Farm might take one look at her and wonder if some fancy glamour magazine was shooting a special fashion layout. Maybe a Hollywood film crew was shooting a scene for a high-class thriller? Why else would such a beautiful young woman be isolated out here in Shenandoah Country with her finger on the pulse of international terrorism.
But April Rose had her finger on a pulse much more important to her personally. The pulse of Mack Bolan.
At the other end of the communications room a door was flung open and Hal Brognola marched in.
'Any word yet from Striker?' April shook her head, continued reading.
'Damn,' Brognola muttered. He patted his jacket for a cigar and finding none, looked over April's shoulder at the TeleCom data. The big fed laid a gentle hand on April's shoulder. 'Don't worry, he'll call in.'
She forced a smile. 'He'd better. He absolutely needs this new information before he proceeds. The whole plan will have to be changed.'
'The whole thing stinks,' Brognola decided gruffly. He looked at his watch and felt a thin layer of sweat spreading across his forehead.
It was already ten minutes past Striker's contact time. There were a lot of reasons for Colonel John Phoenix to be late, including the one that neither of them would mention but both of them feared.
Brognola took a deep breath and patted his pockets again for a cigar, still coming up empty.
No, nothing could have happened to the big guy. Not now. Especially not now, after what they had just discovered about the Zwilling Horde. As the White House liaison on this project, Brognola had already been in touch with the president. Even the Man was worried, insisting that the ex-fed handle the situation as promptly as possible and as quietly as possible.
So Mack Bolan had better damn well be all right. Most of all because Brognola and Bolan were friends. One ex-FBI agent in a three-piece suit who looked like the vice-president of IBM, and one black-clad warrior reeking of sweat, cordite, combat. An uneasy friendship, sure, but powerful and deeply committed.
An electronic buzz sounded. Half a dozen bright colored lights flashed across the telephone console. April ran over, clamped the headset over her cars, began flipping switches. These feed lines were the same as used in the White House; once the caller connected with the console, the conversation could not be tapped through the lines. She gestured at the spare headset which Brognola donned immediately. 'Striker?' Brognola growled.
'You copy?' Bolan's voice was clear. 'You know, that's just what my high school teacher asked me when I
