Firebase Seattle

from New York, both times, full head parties. I flew them in the executive jet. That's reserved for nothing but the top.'

'You flew them both in and out?'

'Yeah. Stayed a couple days, both times.'

'So they could have come on to Seattle by car. Both parties.'

'That's right,' Gremaldi said, sighing.

'Anybody meet them?'

'Oh sure. Red carpet reception.'

'Mob people?'

'None that I'd know,' the pilot replied.

'I guess it figures, then,' Bolan coldly commented.

'What figures?'

The big guy had produced his 'warbook' and was jotting down something for future reference. In an offhanded tone, he told his pilot, 'They're building a fort back there.'

'On that island?'

'Yeah.' Bolan was flipping the pages of the notebook, searching for something near the front. 'You say they're using the Spokane fair as a cover?'

'That was the feeling I got. What kind of fort?'

'A little Gibraltar. Complete with tunnels and stonewall bunkers.' Bolan had located the entry in his warbook. 'Tel Aviv, eh. You ever hear of a ship called the S.S. Piraeus Merchant?'

'What is that — not Israeli? — no, I never heard it mentioned.'

'It's Greek, and it's sitting down here in the Port of Seattle right now. Two weeks ago she picked up a cargo skid at Marseille, marked for storage-in-transit at Seattle. Has Expo '74 stickers all over it.'

'What — the ship?'

'The skid. Supposed to be a crate of machinery. It's consigned to Nyeburg.'

'Who?'

'Allan Nyeburg — the guy that bought Langley Island.'

'Oh, that Nyeburg,' Grimaldi replied, scowling. 'Never heard of him either, thanks.'

Bolan chuckled solemnly. 'Don't feel bad. Neither has anyone else. But they will.'

Grimaldi shivered slightly for poor Nyeburg, whoever the unfortunate soul might be.

Bolan sighed and closed the warbook, then glanced at his watch and took a look outside. 'I guess there's time,' he said.

Grimaldi was lining into the runway lights, on final approach, the field barely visible through the growing fog blanket below. He withheld comment until after the touch down. The fog was actually a blessing. There was no tower here — just a base operator's maintenance hangar and a tie-down area for private craft. Bolan had left his 'warwagon' concealed somewhere up beyond the end of the runway, where Grimaldi would drop him off.

He continued the landing roll to that point then swung clear and braked to a halt. 'Time for what?' he asked the big grim man beside him.

'Maybe a hard punch to the belly, before daylight.'

'Need me?' the pilot asked.

'Not for this one,' Bolan replied. He was getting his gear together.

'Thought you were staying soft for a while.'

'The soft drill is over, Jack,' Bolan told him.

'I see.' The guy who loved Mack Bolan like a brother tried and failed to smile. 'Are you telling me to get lost now?'

'I'd like for you to stick around for a day or two if you can. Could get hairy, Jack. I could need you.'

The grin worked this time. 'You know where I'll be,' Grimaldi said, quietly glowing.

Bolan gripped his hand, smiled as only a life-and-deather like Bolan can smile, and stepped out of the plane. A small bundle was left on his seat.

The pilot yelled, 'Hey! You left something!'

'It's not mine,' the big guy called back as he disappeared into the mists of the night.

Not his, bullshit. Ten grand, in hundred-dollar bills.

Grimaldi stuffed it inside his shirt and taxied on to the hangar. He wasn't working for Bolan's war chest bucks, dammit. That smile and that handshake was plenty payment enough. But Bolan would never have it that way. The guy liked to pay his tab. Nothing personal. No friendships, no debts, nothing asked and nothing accepted.

What a rotten way for a guy like Bolan to have to live!

Grimaldi would not argue with success, though. The guy was alive, and that was saying plenty right there. And Jack Grimaldi, the capi's flyboy, would gladly burn the whole ten grand for a ringside seat at Bolan's next blitz.

But, hell no — he would not argue with that guy's formula for success.

Grimaldi remembered Vegas — and the Caribbean — and Texas. He'd been there. Sure, he remembered. And he found himself feeling just a bit sorry for Seattle.

3 Personal touch

Bolan had scouted that wharf area several days earlier, shortly after the Greek ship had docked. He'd watched as they rigged the cargo booms and began the offloading, and he'd joined the stevedores down on the wharf as the stuff started coming ashore — working alongside them in Levi's and dungaree jacket. He'd also located the suspect shipment and put his mark on the crate as it moved along to the transit storage area in the warehouse. Later he'd split a hundred dollars between a couple of warehousemen to 'misplace' the crate for a few days — and he'd hung around long enough to watch where they put it.

He had not really known, at the moment, just why he should be especially interested in the shipment, or if it held any meaning whatever to the developments around Seattle. It was simply another of those isolated pieces of an international jigsaw puzzle which kept turning up in his intelligence notebook. Until then he had never heard of Allan Nyeburg or Langley Island. But he'd heard rumbles from several sources concerning 'a lot of stuff' moving by way of Marseille, the 'hot port' of Europe, and he'd been spot-checking shipping manifests from that area ever since the Texas campaign. So it could have been a stroke of luck — or the questing finger of fate — that turned this shipment to Bolan's attention just as he was opening his probe into Seattle.

The resulting investigation of Nyeburg himself had nothing to do with luck or fate. It had been a simple job of softshoe scouting, asking questions in the right places, getting access to certain files and records — and putting the package together.

It was an impressive one. And it had led directly to Langley Island.

Nyeburg was among the newest of the new wave of front men lately being fielded by the syndicate, around the world. He was 'clean,' well-educated, fairly young, considered brilliant in various areas of international trade and finance. In Bolan's notebook, Nyeburg was now acting as some sort of advance man for the big push at Seattle.

Discovery of the intrigue on Langley Island had served to sharpen Bolan's curiosity about the crate of 'machinery' from the S.S. Piraeus Merchant. So now he'd returned full circle to the beginning — and he intended to have a look at that shipment.

He came, this time, in blacksuit — with the .44 AutoMag in open display at his right hip, traveling light, the warwagon parked two blocks over and poised for a quick split.

The fog was in pretty good control of the wharf area, overlaying the blackness of the night like a damp woolen blanket and making dim haloes of the warehouse lights. The dark bulk of the Piraeus loomed mysterious and ghostly in the mist-shrouded dock, dim gangway lights twinkling like fireflies in