Bolan's eyes locked with Hal's across the briefing room.
'When do I leave?'
4
The 'handle' was avoiding Bolan, checking out the small apartment and its meager furnishings. He let her have the moment, waiting and watching while she got her bearings.
The drop was a walk-up flat in a four-story brown-stone, identical to others lining both sides of the street. Three blocks east of Golden Gate Park, it stood in the heart of Haight-Ashbury, aging and anonymous. The flat was secured by a phone call from Stony Man Farm to Able Team's base of operations. It was 'safe' — and expendable, if worse came to worst.
In the sixties, the neighborhood gave birth to a new, restless generation, young people searching for love and peace with no strings attached. Without tools or blueprints, they tried to erect Utopia in the heart of San Francisco. In their youthful inexperience they lost direction and soon bogged down in an underworld of drugs and empty revolutionary rhetoric.
Sheep attract predators, and the Flower Generation had its share of cannibals. Bikers and bomb-builders, closet Satanists and self-styled urban guerillas — the movers and shakers of a new wave that never quite arrived. The Haight became a mecca for the mindless, burned-out drones seeking someone, anyone who could lead them to the light.
Even now there are some still seeking easy answers in a complicated universe, turning on to drugs and cults — everything from Zen and Krishna to the Universal Devotees.
It started there, in The Haight, while a younger Bolan sought answers of his own in another kind of jungle, half a world away. They had come together now, at last, and it was from The Haight that Bolan planned to launch his new offensive on the savages.
The neighborhood had changed with time, but it was still a haven for the rootless and disaffected. A person could get lost there — deliberately or otherwise — and it could shelter Amy Culp while Bolan dealt with Minh and his Universal Devotees.
He ditched the battered Cadillac, retrieving his rental car with weapons and equipment in the trunk. The nondescript sedan would merge better with the neighborhood, and by abandoning the Caddy he gave Minh something else to puzzle over. Another dead end for his bloodhounds to pursue.
The warrior had observed a change in Amy as they drove. She had lost the hunted look, but there was caution in her manner, and he caught her looking suspiciously at him. At their destination, she reluctantly followed him inside and up the dingy stairs, wary of betrayal.
Bolan couldn't fault the lady for her caution. It was overdue, but she was learning.
The hard way, yeah.
And now that she was building up the wall, he would have to find a way to get inside.
The lady turned to find him watching her. Her eyes shifted, glancing toward the single bed, and she forced a little smile.
'Okay, I'm ready.'
She was opening her denim shirt, slowly and with resignation. Bolan's voice stopped her at the second button.
'Forget it, Amy.'
There was confusion on her face, but she bluffed it out.
'Hey, it's all right,' she told him. 'I don't expect a free ride.'
Bolan shook his head.
'You've paid enough already. Have a seat.'
Amy perched herself on a corner of the bed, hands clasped between her knees, looking every bit a little girl as Bolan stood before her. A very frightened little girl, stranded in a woman's body.
It took a moment for the woman-child to find her voice.
'What is it that you want?'
'What
Amy laughed, a bitter sound.
'The only thing I want is out,' she told him.
'You've got it,' he replied.
'Just like that.'
There was no disguising the skepticism in her tone.
Bolan nodded.
'Take it home, Amy.'
'Home?' The voice was different, faraway. 'That's funny. I used to think the church was home.'
She looked up at Bolan, searching his face. He let her run with it.
'You know, I heard Minh the first time at UCLA. It seemed like... I don't know, like he had all the answers. When he left, I went with him.'
She put on a little deprecating smile and shrugged.
'School was going nowhere. Anyway, I wanted Minh to notice me. It wasn't hard.'
The smile disappeared. She wasn't watching Bolan anymore.
'I was his favorite,' she said. 'One of them, anyway. He liked me well enough to set me up for certain visitors — the ones Mitch Carter brought around. I got to see and hear things...'
Her voice trailed away into nothing, and Bolan finished for her.
'You saw too much. Minh couldn't afford to let you go.'
'He still can't,' Amy told him. 'Listen, Minh's got an army. He calls them 'elders,' but they're different. Hard. You met some of them tonight.'
'How many are there?' Bolan asked.
The lady bit her lip, thoughtful.
'It's hard to say,' she answered. 'They come and go. I guess thirty... maybe more.''
An army, right.
If her estimate was accurate, Bolan had reduced their number by a third already.
If the estimate was wrong...
But it didn't matter, either way. The warrior had a job to do. He was committed.
'I'm going out for a while,' he told her. 'You're safe here. Keep the door locked, stay off the telephone.' Bolan checked his watch. 'I'll be back for you by sunrise.'
'What, uh, what if you're not?'
There was a tremor in her voice.
Bolan handed her a card. The number on it would connect her with a telephone cutout arranged by Able Team. Any effort at a trace would terminate the linkup automatically.
'If I'm not here by six o'clock.'' he told her, 'call that number. They'll be expecting you. Ask for a pickup at the Phoenix nest.'
'Phoenix,' she repeated. 'Like the bird?'
'Close enough.'
Bolan let himself out and locked the door. As he hit the stairs, he was already thinking beyond the girl.
Amy was secure if she kept her head and followed his instructions. Whatever happened, she was taken care of.
The Executioner had problems of his own.
Like an army, twenty men or more, armed and ready to defend the Devotees.
'Elders,' right. Read 'gunners,' and you have the makings of a potent hard force at Minh's estate.
Something Amy said was nagging at him. Bolan dredged it up.
