He looked back as he rounded the corner to the elevators, and she was still there in the doorway and he thought
Downstairs, he made a production out of opening the side door to the micro-bus and rattling the bag around as he stowed it, then he tossed a wave toward the attendant's shack and called over, 'Groove, dad, mission accomplished.'
The guy ignored him. Bolan climbed into the VW and took his time lighting a cigarette before he cranked the engine and turned on his lights and got the windshield wipers in motion, then he eased out the clutch and circled onto the exit ramp.
A blur of motion to his left was the only warning, and then Rachel Silver ran into his path and stood there daring him to run her down. She wore a bulky maxi-coat and high-heeled boots, and Bolan was betting nothing else. He hit the brakes and shifted into neutral and crossed his arms atop the steering wheel, and then the door opened and she slid in beside him.
'I'm going with you,' she announced, lips trembling and gasping for breath.
'The hell you are,' he told her.
The attendant had come out of his office and was standing just outside giving Bolan a direct stare.
Rachel said, 'If I'm not, then get ready for the loudest screaming fit of your life.'
Bolan sighed and put the VW into motion. 'I guess you're going with me,' he muttered.
She snuggled toward him and her lips quivered as she told him, 'I saw you dead.'
He eased carefully onto the snowpacked surface of the street and asked her, 'And when was that?'
'About an hour ago. You were lying face down in blood and two men were standing over you and laughing.'
Tightly, Bolan said, 'Wrong guy. As you see, I'm still here.'
'It was a vision,' she explained, shivering violently and scooting closer to him. The coat gaped open momentarily and, yeah, Bolan won the bet, she wasn't wearing a damned thing beneath it. 'A
'Well, thanks for the tip,' he said. 'But I get visions like that all the time.'
'Don't joke about it,' she warned him. Both hands went around his arm and she gave it a desperate little squeeze. 'Before you die, Mack Bolan, you're going to give me love.'
Very quietly he told her, 'I think I've already given you love, Rachel. The only kind I'm able to give. You don't want a dying man, you want a living one. I'm going to circle the block, and I want you to get out, and I want you to go home.'
She shook her head adamantly, the lovely head bobbing about on his shoulder. 'I'll take what you have to give,' she told him.
Bolan's mind had been about eighty per cent on the girl, the other fraction on his driving. Suddenly, though, the balance reversed with the heavy end being directed at the snow-blurred rear-vision mirror mounted on the outside doorpost, and on the pair of headlamps that had followed him out of the garage.
He muttered, 'Don't settle for crumbs, Rachel. Go for the full feast.' He made the turn at the corner and watched the headlamps in the mirror do the same thing.
The girl was telling him, 'You may as well save your circling. You're not going to talk me out of it.'
'I might not have to,' he growled as he swung into the next turn and the faithful followers tagged right along.
He shook the girl loose from his gun arm and commanded, 'Get on the floor and stay there.'
'What is it?' she asked calmly.
'Maybe nothing,' he muttered. 'And maybe that vision of yours is coming due. Don't backtalk. Dammit, just get on the floor!'
She dammit got on the floor and she was peering up at him with frightened eyes as he threw the VW into a reckless advance along the slippery street.
'I love you, Mack,' she quietly declared.
He reached for the Beretta and told her, 'I love you too, Rachel.'
And, at the moment anyway, he meant it.
He wanted to love somebody, anybody, for at least a little while.
His soul was sick to death of survival.
Chapter Nine
Worlds
A looming blob of the city's snow-removal machinery spun around the corner directly in Bolan's path and hogging the intersection, flashing yellow lights trying to tell him what he already knew, but a moment too late. He cranked the wheel and stomped the gas pedal, putting himself into a crabbing slide through the intersection and clearing the behemoth by inches. It whirred on past him and the VW continued in an uncontrolled skid at quarter- broadside, the rear wheels digging futilely at the icy slope along the curbing, front wheels vainly trying to show the way back to the proper track. And then he was really in trouble. The curbing flanged off into a dipping driveway to an underground garage; the VW slipped into it, spun, and came to rest with one rear wheel edged into the curbing at the far side, positioned front-end-out with absolutely nowhere to go.
And moving cautiously past the snow-remover less than a half-block to the rear, came the persistent headlamps of the tail car.
Bolan commanded Rachel to stay put, and leapt out and ran down the street to meet them, intent on keeping the firelight as far from the VW as possible. The tail car passed beneath the overhead lighting of the intersection, Bolan could see that it was one of the stubby quasi-sportscars of foreign make — hardly typical of mob wheels. At a time like this, though, one did not take chances. He raised the Beretta and rapidfired a line of holes across the top of the windshield in a left to right scan.
The little car immediately went into a spin, the horn sounded briefly, front wheels hit the curbing in a sideways slam and jumped it, and the vehicle came to rest broadside across the sidewalk. Bolan was on the hump of the road, the Beretta at arm's length, sighting down through the swirling snow at pointblank range. A window on the driver's side cracked open and a quavery voice yelled, 'Hey God hold your fire! We're friendly!'
'Come out of there backwards!' Bolan commanded. 'One at a time! Hands on the roof before I see the rest of you!'
The driver came out of there thusly, scrambling in his hurry to comply with the instructions. After his feet became grounded, he started to turn around but Bolan froze him with an 'Huh-uh! Stay! Arm's length from the car and lean on it, feet apart! And move away from that door!'
He followed instructions to the letter. A moment later another man came scrambling out feet first and went through the same routine.
Bolan moved forward and frisked them, then stepped back and ordered, 'All right, turn around and show me those faces.'
They were young faces — early twenties, Bolan guessed — and very, very frightened. The boy who had been driving reacted suddenly to something behind Bolan and yelled, 'Rachel, for God's sake tell this guy who we are!'
The girl was moving up behind Bolan. He gave her a quick snap of the eyes and growled, 'I told you to stay put.'
'I couldn't,' she replied. The voice was coming out jerky and weird — the eyes were big and sort of haunted, and she was giving Bolan that rve-never-truly-seen-you-before look.
He softened his tone and asked her, 'Do you know these people?'
'I don't recall the names,' she murmured lethargically. 'They're friends of Evie.'
The Beretta stayed right where it was and Bolan addressed himself to the men.
'Why were you tailing me?'
'We didn't even know it was you,' replied the driver, a blond youth. 'It was Rachel we were tailing.'
'Why?'
