From his vantage point he could see the loading dock and the wide roll-up door. Then he slid down in the seat, stretched out his legs and played a waiting game. A pickup pulled up to the dock, loaded with two crates. Bolan figured they could be legitimate goods bound for a gun club or a shooting range. The driver did not enter the building.
There was a small hut attached to the warehouse, where a man filled out papers and serviced clients.
One more truck used the dock in the next hour.
Bolan drove to a nearby phone booth and tried Johnny's room at the hotel. There was no answer. He did not leave a message, but returned to the vacant lot.
Big signs at the retail gun store listed its hours as eight to five, and Bolan hoped that covered the warehouse section. At 5:15 P.M., he locked the Thunderbird and walked through the deserted lot, across a dirt track and toward the rear of Northwest Guns, Inc.
Fifty feet from the back door he paused behind some brush. A blacktop circled the building and became a parking lot, probably for employees and delivery trucks. No rigs were in the lot.
Clouds had been darkening overhead all day, and as he moved forward again, rain came down in a steady drizzle. Bolan ran for the small shed by the loading dock and checked the hut. Empty.
He tried the small door beside the roll-up: locked. There were no windows.
He dug out his lock picks and worked over the tumblers for a minute. Then he tried it and the latch slipped free. The Executioner eased the door open slowly. It was dark inside. He slid in, turning the knob on the night latch so the lock engaged as he closed the door.
He took out his pencil flash and flicked it on.
He was in a warehouse with twelve-foot shelves only partly filled.
He checked the first series of shelves and found a box with four Uzi submachine guns. They were fully automatic, with overhung bolts and 32-round magazines.
The next rack showed a pair of familiar M-16 rifles. They were fully automatic, not the semiautos civilians can legally own.
So the store was a front; the big money was in the back shop, where the Mafia stored illegal arms it could sell to whoever had cash to buy them.
Bolan heard a door creak open, and he dodged behind a stack of crates just as a pair of overhead floodlights came on. It was not the full set of lights, for which Bolan was thankful. Crouching low, he saw a night watchman with a key box in his belt. Bolan relaxed. The guard was making his rounds.
The watchman strolled to both sides of the dimly lit warehouse and evidently used keys there, then returned to the door through which he had entered. He extinguished the fights and continued into another section of the building.
The Executioner had seen what he wanted to.
He picked up one of the Uzis, put four loaded 32-round magazines inside his shirt and headed for the back door. He might as well restock his own arsenal while he was there. The nightstalker slid out the rear door, heard the lock snap into place and walked in the rain to his Thunderbird. There was no one around to observe the drenched figure in the twilight.
It was time to chat with Lieutenant Dunbar about the arms shipment. As one of the Law Enforcement Agencies that received briefings, the PPD might have some late information to share. Bolan stopped at a phone booth in a filling station and called Dunbar.
The detective answered.
Bolan did not identify himself, just asked a question.
'What do you know about a large shipment of illegal weapons headed for the West Coast right now?'
Dunbar knew the voice. 'Nothing. Are the arms coming in here?'
'What I heard. Don't your people read their LEA notices?'
'I never see them.'
Mack hung up, suddenly tired. He drove to his hotel on the west side, flopped on the bed and did not hear the phone when it rang four times about midnight.
At six A.M. Mack Bolan was sitting in his rented Thunderbird across from Northwest Guns, Inc., watching the parking spot labeled Reserved-Manager.
It had stopped raining. Gray clouds still moved overhead on their way to eastern Oregon and Idaho.
Bolan left his car and jogged to the Cadillac that was pulling into the reserved spot. He leaned both hands against the door and stared at the small man behind the wheel. He was about forty, and a touch of fear flamed in his eyes as he looked up.
'You the manager?'
'Yes. Nate Enright. May I get out?'
'Yeah, sure.' Bolan backed up, playing the country bumpkin.
'What can I do for you?'
'Fire-insurance investigator. Need to look around. See if you sell black powder, how you handle it, the usual.'
'We just sent our policy payment in.'
'Right, but our new corporate owner has made some changes. I'm sure you know how that is.'
'No, I don't know how it is. The insurance agent is my brother. His company has not changed hands. You're lying about this whole insurance scam.'
'Who owns the gun shop?'
'I do.'
'You run the warehouse in back of your store?'
'No, I rent the front half of the building.'
'Who do you rent from?'
'Northwest Warehouses, Incorporated, a local outfit.'
'Which is owned by Gino Canzonari. You don't know who he is?'
'Never met him. I hear he's associated with organized crime. But that doesn't paint me with the same stripes. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do.'
'I'm sorry for any inconvenience. My mistake.'
'No problem.' Enright marched off to the front door, where two employees were waiting.
No wonder the front part of the store looked so damn legal. It was! Bolan checked the time. A little after six. At the phone booth down the block he called Johnny.
'I'll be there in fifteen minutes.'
Mack hung up and wheeled the Thunderbird downtown.
The Executioner did not intend to make mistakes. In his occupation, they meant death. Bolan had learned this early in Vietnam.
It was in Nam that he was nicknamed 'Executioner,' and the name clung to him as his kill total mounted and he became known and respected from the Mekong Delta to Hanoi.
The other side of the Executioner was not so well-known. The common people of Vietnam, caught between a grinding war machine and the desire to live at peace, often found this Executioner to be a merciful friend.
He put his own life in danger time after time to rescue children and women in the line of fire. To these people he became known as Sergeant Mercy.
Bolan found no contradictions in the two labels. He did each part of his job with equal determination.
He performed his duty as he saw it, and was proud of the job he did.
Until that terrible tragedy that yanked him from the jungle and thrust him on a plane with an emergency leave in his pocket, to return home to find the members of his family either dead or hospitalized.
Bolan discovered the reason behind his family's tragedy and at once began to set the matter right. His first engagement was the Mafia loan sharks in his hometown, Pittsfield. Soon Mob families all over the country were feeling the Executioner's wrath as he utilized all his skill from the Southeast Asian hellground.
Bolan had fought thirty-eight campaigns against the Mafia when, to the consternation and embarrassment of the U.S. at not being able to control this rampaging tiger, the President issued a pardon. After Bolan's war wagon
