Don Pendleton - Whipsaw

"Pull over," he said.

Carlos turned to look at him as if he'd just been asked to do the impossible. He glanced at Marisa, but she was still lost in herself. She either hadn't heard Bolan's command or didn't care enough to object. Carlos shrugged, threw the transmission into neutral and coasted until he found a small open area off the left side of the road. The jeep rolled to a halt as branches began to scrape at its undercarriage.

"Now," Bolan said, "what's going on?"

Carlos shrugged again. "We had to leave, senor."

"Why?"

Carlos looked at Marisa again. Clearly he was waiting to see if she'd object to an answer. When she didn't say anything, he sighed.

"Senor McRae..."

"What about him?"

"Senora Colgan... she heard him talking."

"Spit it out, Carlos. What did she hear?"

"He was talking about you, senor. And he said... he was going to kill you, just like he did the boys. Only slower."

Bolan nodded. That figured. But why had Marisa intervened? And where had Colgan been while that had been going on?

"And Senora Colgan objected, is that it?"

"Si, senor, and Senor Colgan, too. He objected, too."

"And what did McRae do?"

"Nothing, senior. He left, that's all I know."

"Where did he go?"

"I don't know."

"Did anyone leave with him?"

"Si, senor. Three or four, maybe more. But I don't know where they went."

"Does anyone else know? Any of the other men?"

"I don't know, senor. I don't know anything more than I just told you."

Marisa stirred in her seat, and Bolan thought she was going to say something, but she just curled up and continued to shake. It was a noiseless tremor. Her whole body quivered as if she were inhabited by a silent motor.

"What about Senor Colgan? Where is he?"

"He went after Senor McRae..."

"Alone?"

"With two men. He took guns and he went. He didn't say when he would be back."

"Why did he go after McRae?"

Carlos shrugged and spread his hands in a helpless gesture.

Marisa unwound slowly, like a flower blooming in stopaction photography. She turned to Bolan but said nothing at first. In the darkness Bolan couldn't see her face very well, and he was grateful.

After swallowing hard, she started to speak hesitantly. "He accidentally found out something about McRae," she said. Her voice was cold, remote as the moon. "I don't know what it was."

"Didn't he say anything?"

"He was in a rage. Whatever it was, it must have been terrible. He said McRae was a traitor, that he had betrayed him and that he had to be stopped."

"Stopped from what?"

"I don't know."

"Did he say where McRae had gone? Anything that would tell us where to look?"

"We can't do that. McRae will kill you. He has several men with him. I don't know how many, but he was probably going to meet up with others. Who knows how many they could be? What can we do?"

"We can try to find your husband. He's not safe with McRae."

"McRae wouldn't dare hurt him. Thomas is frightful when he's angry, but he's not afraid of anyone or anything."

Bolan bent close to her, looking into her eyes intently. "Marisa, stop lying. If you know anything, you better tell me now."

She wrenched her head away. "There is nothing to tell."

"Your husband's life is at stake. He's gone after Harding, hasn't he? He knows where to find the man. And that's where McRae went, too, isn't it?"

"No!"

"Tell me!"

"I don't know, damn you, I don't know."

She jumped from the jeep and started to run. Within a half dozen steps, her feet became entangled in a vine, and she fell heavily. Bolan raced to her, but she kicked at him and rolled on her back. He caught one hand, then the other.

"Leave me alone."

"I just can't do that."

"It's your fault. All your fault. If you hadn't come here, none of this would have happened."

"I didn't come of my own free will. You know that, and you know why. That's more than I know. Now tell me what I want to know. Come on, Marisa, there's no time."

"He... he found out that McRae was working with the Leyte Brigade. They were going to attack the NPA camp we visited the other day. McRae was using Thomas, sabotaging everything he tried to do. Learning the location of NPA camps and passing them along to Harding."

"And what about Cordero? What do you know about him?"

"Nothing. He was here once, that's all."

"What do you know about Harding's plans to terrorise Manila?"

"Only that... Thomas said maybe something like that would happen. He was arguing with McRae and I over heard them. But it was a while ago, before Thomas learned what he later found. He, Thomas... It's got nothing to do with him. That's Harding."

"What else?"

"That's it, I swear..."

Bolan stared at her, struck dumb. He looked at Carlos, and thought of the three monkeys.

He knew which one he was.

Bolan leaned against the front fender of the jeep.

Behind him, Marisa and Carlos conversed in hoarse whispers. She had asked for a chance to talk to Carlos alone, and Bolan, hopeful that she would see just how limited her options were, had agreed.

The sounds of the night began to change as the sky started to brighten. The night creatures gradually settled into their burrows or found places to sleep high in the canopy. It was too early yet for the day shift, but it wouldn't be long. The whispers lost their intensity behind him, and Bolan sensed that Marisa had come to some agreement with Carlos. What it might be, he would soon find out.

The deep blue-black velvet turned milky gray, like a charcoal wash. The stars died away one by one, and the horizon began to sharpen; a white line, tinged with red, like a taut wire stretched from peak to peak along the Sierra Madre range. It looked as if the ocean had burst into flame and a tidal wave of molten color were sweeping across the trackless Pacific.

Then, so suddenly he couldn't believe it could be so silent, the sun appeared, a brilliant red mound in the east, and the sky caught fire. Far to the east, wispy red clouds, like huge pennants fluttering in impossibly slow motion, turned pink and bleached before his eyes.

He heard Marisa's soft approach. She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Mr. Belasko," she whispered, "you're right."

He turned to her with a sober look.

"We have to hurry, Senor Belasko," Carlos said, climbing into the jeep. When Bolan and Marisa climbed in, he started the engine.

Bolan sat on the jump seat beside the M-60.

He let one arm dangle over the big machine gun as the jeep lurched into the road. Directly ahead, the sky was wall-to-wall red. Then, as if someone had changed a filter, it turned orange. By the time they had gone a hundred yards, the orange had faded to yellow.

Morning was getting started in earnest, and Bolan felt as if something had changed. The world was somehow a different place. Overnight the script had been rewritten, and he felt as if his part had been expanded. A warning tingled down his spine. Such a change could mean only one thing.

And he didn't want to think about what that might be.

The jungle came alive as they passed, and Bolan had the sense that he was being watched. On the opposite side of the jeep, he spotted a pair of wooden crates banded with galvanized metal strips. He reached around the gun, pulled the top crate off its companion and scraped it along the floor of the jeep.

Marisa turned toward the sound as though she wanted to know what he was doing. He was thankful she didn't seem to notice the belt of ammunition as he grabbed the end and tugged it free. He locked it down with a sharp click, and Marisa nodded as if she had heard the sound before. She turned back to the front without saying anything, her head tilted at that odd angle he had grown used to.