explosive. Now the homing device was sending a message back to its master.
Mack Bolan flipped the safety cap off the activator and sent a message back: Greetings from the Man from Hellfire.
Bolan slumped where he sat, drained. His chest felt like someone was holding a red-hot branding iron against it, and he was aware his breathing had become ragged. The numbers were toppling downright on him. But the mission awaited confirmation.
Hi forced his fingers to accomplish the operation of repacking the remote detonator, then moved to Vaughn's radio monitor and turned it on.
He clicked the channel selector, heard only routine communication until he hit the last frequency.
'Go ahead, TWA 1456,' a controller in the room below said. 'Ah, Heathrow, we've got a possible situation here.' The American pilot's voice had a faint Texas accent, cut by an obvious tension. He gave his coordinates, nearly the same ones Vaughn had announced for the Russian plane.
'Possible mid-air explosion,' the pilot went on about ten miles off the port wing, five thousand fee; lower. 'My copilot says he spotted a twin-engine just before it blew.' There was an audible intake of breath, but when the pilot went on his voice was still studiously calm. 'Ah, she just blew again, Heathrow, like the tanks just went. Please advise, Heathrow.'
Bolan flicked the channel selector again.
On another wavelength a woman controller's voice said, 'Transworld I/E SKBLEDHGD, please come in.' She was repeating the call when Bolan turned the set off.
'It appears you have accomplished what you set out to,' Drummond said without inflection.
Simply lifting his head to look at the other man had become a painful effort for Bolan.
Drummond smiled slightly and came fluidly out of the chair, lunged at Bolan, both arms outstretched.
Before his momentum could carry him across the desk, the Detonics was in Bolan's hand.
Drummond stopped himself short.
Bolan realized he had come damned close to firing. He was rapidly dropping below one hundred percent.
The other man realized it as well. 'You haven't forgotten your ah, promise, have you?' Drummond inquired carefully.
Bolan shook his head. 'You're the sell-out, Drummond. Not me.'
Drummond tried to reassemble the last shreds of his dignity. 'Now then, there is no call.'
Bolan gestured with the little .45. 'Let's get out of here,' he said wearily.
'It was a screw-up, Colonel Phoenix,' the American agent named Voorhis said.
5
'All right,' Bolan said. He winced involuntarily as the sting of antiseptic bit into the wound in his shoulder.
The doctor was a slightly built youthful looking man with bright red hair cut in an old-fashioned crew cut. He wore the insignia of a major in the regular British Army, Surgeon's Corps. The security clearance card clipped to his breast pocket read 'M. Goldstein, M.D.'
Voorhis leaned against one white wall, watching the doctor work. 'We contacted Whitehall,' he went on. 'We told them it was sensitive, that you'd have to go it alone after we collared Charon. They didn't like it, but they agreed.'
Dr. Goldstein jabbed a hypodermic needle into the hard muscle of Bolan's thigh. 'A synthetic antibiotic called Keflex,' he informed his patient. 'A precaution against blood infection.'
'The bodyguard, Lemon, he'd been kept in the dark about Drummond, like most everyone,' Voorhis said. 'SOP for MI5, just like us. The one you're really keeping in the dark is the mole. But just before it went down, Whitehall was supposed to tip Lemon and no one did. Damned sorry, Colonel.'
'Never mind,' Bolan said blankly.
The agent mistook Bolan's tone. 'Listen, Colonel, there'll be a complete report. Heads will roll, depend on it.'
Bolan sighed. 'A complete report' was the essence of every good bureaucracy. Why take direct action when you could dissect the problem from every angle in writing first? The only problem was that dissection never got you anywhere. But action sure as hell did.
In any case, there was no use dwelling on what was already irreversible. It was hardly the first time in all the years of warfare that Mack Bolan had been shot; it would likely not be the last. He would heal, and there would be other firefights to come.
The fighting man who tells you he has no belief whatsoever in luck is a liar. Mack Bolan was only thankful that so far in his good fight, little of his luck had been bad.
As for Lemon, the dedicated MI5 agent who risked his life to protect the man he believed to be his boss, Bolan held no rancor. In fact, his first inquiry had been about the guy, and he had been genuinely relieved to learn that the extent of Lemon's injuries was a bump on the head.
Wittingly or unwittingly, Bolan had never done harm to a soldier of the same side.
'Charon?' Bolan asked.
'He's here,' Voorhis said quickly. 'I think he's going to cooperate.'
'I'll want to talk to him.'
'I'll take care of it.' Voorhis seemed happy at the chance to leave the room.
The doctor was taping gauze dressings over the two wounds. Cautiously, Bolan tried flexing the shoulder. It was possible, but it hurt. 'You will want to take it easy for some time, sir.' The pain had not escaped Dr. Goldstein's notice. 'I'm going to immobilize your left arm with a simple sling, to promote healing.'
That would be okay, Bolan figured at least until a new mission forced him to go hard again.
'Any bullet wound is serious,' the doctor said, looping the sling over Bolan's right shoulder. 'You were lucky, sir. Although both the trapezius and pectoral muscles are torn to some extent, there is no organ damage or bone fracture. As a unit, your left arm is entire and operative, but the muscle trauma will decrease your control over the arm and your general mobility as well.' The doctor rummaged in a cabinet, came out with a vial of pills. 'This is oral Keflex. Take them until they are gone. I'll also prescribe some painkillers.'
'No thanks.' It had nothing to do with being stoic; Bolan could simply never afford to dull his senses with any drug.
'I see,' the doctor said, in tone that indicated he did not.
Bolan slid off the examining table and got his shirt a spare one of his own over his shoulders. 'Thanks, Doc.'
Dr. Goldstein flashed him a brisk salute.
Voorhis was waiting outside the infirmary. He led Bolan down a long white corridor, around a corner, and to an unmarked door. Bolan could hear the faint whirr of the ventilation that aired this underground London complex.
'Drummond?' Bolan said, palming the doorknob.
'Safe in the hands of MI5,' Voorhis said.
'At least safer than he'd be with his Russki pals.' Bolan nodded and went into the interrogation room.
Charon was composed, almost relaxed. He listened to what Bolan had to say, and offered neither objection nor defense. He seemed to view his defeat as simply another scientific phenomenon, a curiosity of life. Of course he would cooperate, if it meant the possibility of leniency, he told Bolan. It would be illogical to do otherwise.
Outside in the corridor, Bolan found himself shaking with anger. The bloodless detachment with which both Charon and Drummond seemed to view their treachery was awesome, and at the same time sad. The man who cannot understand treason, Bolan thought, neither can he understand patriotism. And the man without patriotism, without allegiance to the country of which he himself is an important part, is a lonely man indeed. According to the technicality of law, neither man was guilty of a capital crime. According to Mack Bolan's worldview — a worldview forged in contemplation and tempered in terrorist blood — both men were as good as murderers. The mercenary
