'Yes. Yes, that is true.'
Zavlin grinned. Control was nervous, quite willing to relinquish all responsibility into Zavlin's capable hands. 'All we must do now is wait for our contacts to report. Our network of paid informers is second to none. Once they are spotted, I will go there and kill them.'
'Indeed,' Control said, gathering some of his courage again. 'We can afford no more failures.'
That word again, Zavlin grimaced and hung up.
He brushed a hand through his white hair. He would make the man in black pay with more than his life for allowing the word 'failure' to be spoken in the same breath as the name of Zavlin.
19
'Forget it!' Rita St. Clair said. 'I'm not doing it!'
Lynn Booker, holding her wounded arm, agreed. 'Neither am I. It's stupid.'
'It's not stupid,' Bolan said patiently. 'It's good sense. They're going to be on the lookout for us all through this state and Florida. Look at us. Traveling together we're not too hard to spot.'
Rita shook her head. 'Okay, then we split up and meet in Miami.'
'No. You travel separately, each in a different direction. Except south. That's where they'll be looking for you.'
They were parked by the side of the road with a map of Georgia spread out on the hood. The car was a blue Nova they'd hotwired and driven off a used car lot a couple of hours before. They'd switched plates at a roadside diner.
Shawnee looked up from the map at the two women. 'Mack's right,' she said sadly. 'We have to split up for now. Rita can go up and visit her folks.'
'Swell,' Rita said bleakly.
'Lynn, you take off for San Francisco. Get lost in the Asian community.'
The Oriental nodded.
'Let's get moving,' Shawnee said, 'we've got some plane tickets to buy. At different terminals, of course.'
Rita, Lynn and Dodge Reed climbed back into the car. Bolan folded the map and looked at Shawnee. 'Thanks for helping me convince them. I can do this better alone,' he said.
Shawnee lowered her voice. 'Like hell. You don't think I believed that crap, Mack? Sure, I think they should get to safety, but I'm still going with you.'
'Uh-uh!' Bolan said.
'They won't be looking for a couple. It'll be an cinch to sneak by them.'
'You don't believe that?'
She shrugged. 'Maybe not, but I'm going along anyway.'
Bolan realized there was no point in arguing. She would do what she wanted and short of knocking her out, he couldn't stop her. Part of him was pleased.
'What about me?' Dodge Reed asked as Bolan pulled the car back onto the highway.
Bolan patted the folded paper in his pocket.
'Is this page everything you can remember from the computer?'
'Yeah, I wrote it all down.'
'You positive this is the right address?'
Reed hesitated. 'I think so.'
'Okay,' Bolan said. 'You better pick a state with a friendly climate, because that's where you're going until this is all over.'
'I've got a girl in Atlanta. Can I at least call her, tell her I'm going'? Ask her to get my class assignments?'
Bolan laughed harshly.
'I wouldn't, Dodge. For the next few days anyway, school is definitely out.'
The car hissed and steamed, smoke snorting from the seams of the hood. 'Damn, what now?' Shawnee said, pulling over to the side of the road.
Bolan woke from his light nap, his eyes immediately wide awake. 'Trouble?'
Shawnee gave him a disgusted look.
'Just the kind of trouble you'd expect from a car stolen from Sam Friendly's Used Car Lot.'
Bolan looked at the odometer. She'd taken them another 127 miles. This state seemed endless. But Bolan knew they were close to the Florida border, just outside of Waycross, near the Okefenokee swamplands. Down the road a quarter mile from their steaming car was a sign announcing the nearby Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and Wilderness Area. Bolan popped the hood and jumped back to let the steam spray into the air.
'How bad is it?' Shawnee asked.
'Can't tell yet.'
'Looks like a hose.'
Bolan fanned away some of the steam and leaned over the engine. There was a rip in one of the ancient radiator hoses. Bolan loosened the clamp to examine the hose.
'Not too bad,' Shawnee observed. 'Fixable.'
'Got a knife?'
Shawnee shook her head. She patted her pockets and pulled out a fingernail clipper. 'Will this do?'
Bolan frowned. 'It'll have to.' He sawed the split end of the hose off and refastened the clamp.
It would hold. But he was more disturbed by what else he discovered. Sam Friendly hadn't exactly gone all out on fixing up this used car. The wires were frayed and loose, the engine gritty, the hoses cracking.
'Problems,' he said.
'What?'
'Looks like this engine's been driven through the swamp a few times.'
'Maybe a'shiner's.'
'Moonshiner's?'
'Yeah. They don't make the stuff much anymore, but they do their share of hauling booze and cigarettes up north without the tax stamps on it. Make a lot of money.'
Bolan pointed to a wire leading from the distributor cap. 'The steam from the busted hose finished off what was already a pretty sad spark-plug wire. It'll run, but we've got to get it to a service station.'
'We passed Patterson a few miles back.
'What's ahead?'
Shawnee shrugged. 'Blackshear, then Waycross.'
'Okay, let's drive into Blackshear, get this fixed, then get the hell out of there.'
'What if we're spotted?'
Bolan gave her a hard look. 'It's a chance we'll have to take. No other choice.'
Twenty minutes later they rolled into Blackshear. Bolan spotted a service station with a phone booth at the paved entrance. He told Shawnee to look for a mechanic as he slipped out of the car.
Bolan stood next to the pay phone and played with the coin-return button. As soon as the phone rang he snatched it up.
'Yeah?'
'Can't a guy even go to the damn john without getting beeped?' Brognola's voice was gruff, but Bolan could hear the relief in it. 'So, I guess you're still alive.'
'Most of us.' He explained what had happened.
'That's it?' Brognola asked, when Bolan finished speaking. 'All this over some dumpy address in Miami?'
'Apparently.'
