Detroit Deathwatch

blinding and humiliating her, followed swiftly by detestably weak damn feminine gulps and gobbles as she fought to shut it off and tuck it all back in.

Bolan reached for her, and she slapped his hand away. He grabbed her anyway and jerked her over against him, then held her there in an enfolding arm, her head on his chest.

She cried, 'Damn you, Bolan!' then melted into the embrace, allowing herself to be comforted as every woman has a right to be from time to time.

'It's okay,' he told her in an incredibly soft voice.

'The hell it is,' she blubbered. 'I'm a cop, damn you. How many cops have you ever done this for?'

'Men cry, Toby,' he said, and there was nothing impersonal, grim, or unyielding in that quiet declaration. It was a confession, a statement of equality, not condescending comfort.

She saw the man then, the true man, in a blinding flash of understanding. And the tragedy of his life deepened in that understanding. It had to do with personal versus impersonal and a paradox in those terms. A man with genuine human warmth and depth cloaked himself in cold purpose and grim necessity, then went out to kill and destroy in a purely impersonal crusade, yet somehow managing to retain that deeply personal dimension of self that could and probably did often revolt against the grim game.

But the man on the stage of death was the impersonal one.

In contrast, a brutal, mad dog of a man, totally lacking in human qualities, could masquerade as a genuine human being to spread misery wherever his strongly personal desires focused, and without once experiencing a revolt of personality.

Men cry, Toby.

Yes, sure they did. Real men.

Mack Bolan was real, this was Toby's illumination. Her tears ceased almost immediately, and she snuggled into the reality of the man, accepting him, accepting herself, saving the revolt for those who deserved it.

They drove silently on, the journey ending a few minutes later in a modern apartment complex somewhere on the north side. He put the car in an underground garage, and they shared a silent elevator to the twelfth floor of the highrise, then he led her to a nicely appointed efficiency apartment that overlooked the city.

'Who'd you have to hit to get this?' she asked him.

'Sublet, one week,' he told her. 'No questions asked, just lots of money.'

She inspected the place with a personal interest, looking for further clues to the man, realizing almost at once that she would find none. The warrior lived here, not the man.

Next-to-invisible threads on doors and windows revealed his preoccupation with security against undetected callers.

He traveled light.

A single change of clothing was all the closet held. The bathroom boasted toothbrush and toothpaste, razor, comb, bar of soap, and towel.

He had gone directly to the studio kitchen and was making coffee.

She watched him for a moment, then asked, 'Are you inviting me to stay? Or did I miss something?'

Without looking up from his task, he told her, 'I'm suggesting that you do.'

'Why?'

He said, 'I goofed. Allowed Charley Fever to walk away with a light hit. He'll be wondering about you. And me. Might put something together.' He looked up then, fixing her with a sober gaze. 'That is, unless you'd rather chuck your cover and put on your badge. Even then, he could decide to put you on contract. These guys are edgy.'

She bit her lip and thought about that.

'I'll stay,' she decided. 'Flip you for the first shower.'

'I was hoping we could have a cooperative venture,' he said, showing her the first genuine smile of the night.

She edged a hip against a wall and folded her arms across her chest, very soberly. Her eyes studied the floor as she replied, 'Just what did you have in mind?'

'Forget it. I thought we were both pros, that's all.'

'Yes?'

He turned back to the coffee and said, 'Sorry. Forget it.'

'Captain Bluff,' she said, half angrily.

'Go to hell,' he said.

'If you're going to start it, you should finish it.'

'You're the cop. You finish it.'

She tossed her head and moved away from the wall, arms remaining folded over the chest. 'What kind of pros are we?'

Bolan lit a cigarette and blew smoke toward the coffeepot. 'I said, forget it.'

She could not. 'If that was a cheap shot, Mack, I'm terribly disappointed in you.'

'No shot at all,' he muttered.

'Okay. I'm a pro. A whore with a badge. Is that what you meant? I've been playing bedsy with Tony the Louse Quaso for the past month. If you expect me to apologize for that, forget it, just you forget it.'

He told her quietly, 'Toby, I've killed more men this week than you've screwed in a lifetime. And I don't have a badge. I'm not throwing stones your way.'

She said, miserably, 'Damn it. Just damn it.'

He watched her through a moment of silence, then dropped his cigarette in the sink and ran water on it. 'Look,' he said, finally, 'I felt a sudden desire to scrub your back. Okay? Person to person, man to woman, and to hell with everything else for a little while. What I said about professionals had nothing to do with whoring and killing. I simply meant that people like you and me lead a special sort of existence. There's no time or opportunity for all the cute romancing, for waltzing around the floor 'til dawn, gazing deeply into each other's eyes. We live on an entirely different level. We have to love on that level, or not at all. That's what I meant, and that's all I meant.'

'Did you say love?'

'Yeah,' he growled. 'Remember what that is?'

'I do,' she replied solemnly. 'Do you love me?'

'Tonight, Toby, I could love Dracula's mother. No, uh, comparison intended.'

She giggled. 'Okay, Captain Pro. Flip you for the first back scrub.'

'You're on,' he said.

And then she was being lifted off her feet, clasped in strong arms, carried to the doorway of a very special reality.

Emergency coexistence, that was it ... for mutual survival. And personal … wow, was it personal!

Captain Virile could and would wash away the revolting stage stains of Tony the Louse.

Mack Bolan was for real.

9 Diverted

He awoke with the dawn, knowing that it could be his last, aware and thankful that he was here for this one.

The woman beside him was now a very special leaf in his growing book of life. He had known her in various guises, liked and respected her in each. Now he knew her in her essences, having gained that knowledge in the only