dorm rooms. I'm a professor of anthropology at the university.'
'You're kidding?'
'Not at all.'
'How come they don't fire you for this?'
Carrew laughed. 'Tenure. Besides, they need me for other reasons. Aside from being a brilliant instructor and a minor authority in my field, I'm good advertising. They like showing me off as their equal-opportunity employee. Here's our crippled, black, war-veteran professor. Hell, I'm an institution.'
Carrew fell silent for a moment. Suddenly he wheeled around, facing the bars, his back to Bolan.
'Rodeo's going to kill you, Blue. Going to do it soon, just as he promised. Probably won't come at you alone.'
'For a college professor, you sure know a lot about prison survival.'
'Three months as a POW, then eight months in a VA hospital, Blue. In some ways the hospital was worse. Not because of the staff, most of whom were terrific. But over there I saw guys struggle against impossible odds and survive, only to come home to a VA hospital and kill themselves within six weeks. Loss of hope is powerful stuff, man. Now I'm a black man in a wheelchair. That's two life sentences. I know how to play rough to survive.'
Bolan believed him.
'I also know enough not to get involved in your beef. I gave the cops a hard time when they arrested me, which is why I'm in here. But when things cool down and I roll in front of the judge in my suit and tie and diplomas and medals, promising never to do such a thing again, I'll be back on campus watching the girls get younger every year. In other words, you're on your own.'
Bolan grinned. 'Always have been, Lyle.'
'Yeah.' Carrew nodded. 'I had a feeling.'
They heard the guards' boots clomping along the metal catwalks outside their cell. Bolan and Carrew were on the first tier, to accommodate Carrew's wheelchair. The guards on each tier were selecting the first shift for open visitation, visitors and prisoners mingling in the courtyard.
'This happens on Sundays only,' Carrew explained, 'and then only for the least threatening residents. Something new.'
The guard strolled by their cell and pounded his hickory baton on the bars. 'Let's go. You got visitors.'
Carrew wheeled to the bars and waited. The doors on the whole row would be opened simultaneously.
'Enjoy,' Bolan said, hopping up on his bunk.
'You bet,' Carrew said.
'You, too, Blue. Got a visitor. Move it.'
'Me?'
'That's what I said. And change that shirt. It's torn.'
Bolan was surprised as he jumped down from the bunk, changed shirts and waited at the cell door next to Carrew. A visitor would mean Brognola. And he would only come if there was bad news. Bolan couldn't imagine things being much worse than they already were.
He was wrong.
8
'Trouble,' Brognola said, frowning. 'Big trouble.'
Bolan laughed. 'Is there any other kind?'
'Not for us, I guess. Sort of comes with the territory.'
The big Fed popped an antacid tablet into his mouth and chewed. He had a pained expression at first, but after a few minutes, he began to look better. Bolan led him silently to a far corner of the compound courtyard, on a patch of brown grass desperate for water. Bolan gestured at the pack of tablets.
'When did you start with those?'
'These?' Brognola shrugged, looked a little embarrassed and slipped them into his jacket pocket. 'Something I ate.'
Bolan gave him a patient look.
'Okay, okay. I've been having a little stomach problem for a couple months now.'
'About the same time Stony Man Farm was destroyed. And April killed.' Bolan looked sympathetically at his friend. Yeah, things had been tough on the Executioner, but he could see where they might even be tougher on Hal, who was left to deal with the stress of working within the system, yet still helping Bolan underground.
At least when Bolan got mad, he could get even directly. Grab the AutoMag and blast the bad guys to hell. But Brognola couldn't. He had to keep it all bottled up.
'I didn't come here to talk about my stomach,' Brognola said gruffly. 'We have a small matter of assassination to discuss.'
'Go ahead.'
'He's here. Zavlin.'
Bolan's jaw clenched. 'Here where? In the prison?'
'Maybe. He was spotted in Atlanta five hours ago.'
Bolan looked around the courtyard at the other prisoners, scrutinizing each face.
'That won't help,' Brognola said. 'He could be any of them, male or female.'
'Yeah, you're right. I know about all that master-of-disguise crap. Expert with makeup and forged documents.' Bolan kept scanning the compound. 'There are a few things that usually aren't disguised because most people don't pay close enough attention, but....' Bolan saw Lyle Carrew over by a wooden picnic table, talking to a woman.
They were both staring at Bolan.
The Executioner felt a strange chill at the nape of his neck. The woman was looking at him with a hard intensity, studying him, not flinching from his gaze. At the same time there was something familiar about her. He didn't recognize her exactly; she had the kind of looks you didn't easily forget.
Her hair was long and raven black, dipping to a sharp widow's peak on her forehead. She was wearing oversize sunglasses despite a cloudy sky.
Her mouth was straight, the lips full. The combination produced a pouty smirk that was exceptionally attractive.
Her body was even more exceptional, not just slim and shapely. What was revealed by her short sleeves and shorts proved to be tanned and toned, with sinewy muscles outlined like a relief map of rough terrain. They looked like long smooth sand dunes along a wet beach. She was perhaps the most striking woman Bolan had ever seen. And she was still staring at him, saying something to Carrew, who was digging into her picnic basket, biting into some corn bread, shrugging or replying to her.
'You know her?' Brognola said, a hint of admiration creeping into his voice.
'I know the guy with her. My cellmate.'
'Looks like he knows how to handle himself.'
Bolan nodded. 'In more ways than one.'
'Where's Reed?'
'Behind us about fifty yards. Talking with his girlfriend.'
'How's he holding up?'
Bolan told him about Rodeo. The fight. The threats.
'Hell!' Brognola popped another antacid tablet. '...in here one day and you've already got the meanest mother in the place after you. I know you work fast, but...'
'Couldn't be helped. Put a fresh-faced kid like Dodge Reed in here and something was bound to happen. Besides, it was a good way to get him to trust me.'
'Fine. Only how are you going to bust out of here? I could still pull a few strings, get some official
