Don Pendleton - Whipsaw

"And here?"

"I'm not sure. Some stores, a concert hall, a museum."

"Here?"

"The Supreme Court is on one side of the square, the south side. On the north, some government buildings, city government, mostly..."

"Take this to Captain Roman Collazo, the Military Police building. Give it to him and tell him there could be a bomb at every one of those circles. I'm not sure which buildings, and I don't even know for sure whether they've been planted already or not. I only know that Harding has plans for those locations, and Cordero's probably been to half of them maybe the ones that have an 'It' on them. Tell him I'll be in touch."

"What about Senora Colgan?"

"She's coming with me. I need her help."

"Where are you going, senor?"

"Underground, Carlos. I have a feeling Mr. Harding is expecting me..."

"Marisa, you don't have to do this if you don't want to." Bolan watched her face closely, but she betrayed no hesitation.

"Of course not, but I want to."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes... I... I know what you thought of my husband, Mr. Belasko, but I still think he was right. He stood for something. I have to see that Harding pays for that. For Thomas. If you can make that happen."

Bolan nodded gravely. "All right, then, let's go. You know the tunnels. Where do you think Harding would be? Where would he feel the most secure?"

"I can only guess."

"That's all we've got, Marisa. And we don't have time to guess wrong."

She nodded. "I'm ready." Bolan waited while she took a deep breath.

She placed a hand on his forearm for a moment, and he moved toward the door. He stopped at the mouth of the tunnel and made sure his flashlight was working. He clicked it on and trained it into the darkness. The beam was steady and, unlike the smaller torch, its light was clear and white.

"You'd better not use that."

She was right, so he clicked the light off, tucked it into his pocket and stepped through the opening. Marisa squeezed past him to take the lead.

In the darkness he could hear her fingers brushing the wall, and her steps were measured and slow, as if she were counting paces. It was so unlike his first passage through the underground, the breakneck pace even more incredible now that she moved so deliberately.

In a hoarse whisper she said, "I'm sorry to be so slow, but I'm not as familiar with this tunnel as I am with some of the others. I don't quite know where we'll end up, but if Harding came this way, we'll find him. There are just so many tunnels, just so many places he could be." Her whisper died away, its echo drifting back from far down the tunnel like the shame of soft paper in small hands. Bolan felt blind in the darkness, but they couldn't run the risk of a light. It was up to Marisa, and they both knew it.

"Just do what you can," Bolan said softly. He didn't have high hopes for their success but didn't want to discourage her.

Every step seemed to take a century as they groped through the tunnel. Neither of them spoke, and Bolan found himself wondering about Marisa. In some way he couldn't quite explain, she seemed different, more like an automaton than the fiercely independent woman she had been before her husband's death. She had changed, as if part of her strength had come from him.

She seemed narrowed somehow, focused in a way he had seen before, had even sensed in himself on occasion. He recognized that part of Marisa had reduced the population of the planet to two people alone: herself and Charles Harding. To Bolan, it was a misplaced devotion to Thomas Colgan. But to Marisa, and he couldn't argue with her feelings, it was retribution mandated by a law she neither controlled nor understood. She was running on pure courage, with one thought in her mind: make the bastard pay.

Bolan sensed something of that same fierce concentration in himself. He had seen the handiwork of the man and thought Charles Harding had a price to pay, exacted in the only currency that mattered. For Bolan, as for Marisa, an eye required an eye, a tooth demanded a tooth.

Cordero, of course, was part of the mix, but Bolan considered him secondary, an implement more than a man, something that Harding would use and throw away. It was the age of disposables, in everything from paper plates to hypodermics. Why should an instrument of terror be any different?

Take Harding down, and Cordero would wither, an unpicked fruit in an abandoned garden.

Take Harding down, Bolan thought the only way to go. But first, he reminded himself, you had to find him.

"Wait a minute," Marisa whispered, her voice almost reverent, as if she were in the nave of some gloomy cathedral instead of a catacomb under a city on the brink of annihilation. "It should be here." She let go of Bolan's arm, and he heard her feet shuffle on the damp stone underfoot, the faint splash of her shoe in the shallow stream coursing through the tunnel. "It has to be here."

"What are you looking for?"

"There is supposed to be an outlet here, on the right. Let me go a little farther."

Her feet scraped on the stone again, scattering little splashing sounds as she moved. Her palm slapped against the damp stone, its sound swallowed after a single dull echo.

"Where is it?" She sounded almost petulant, as though someone had found something she had hidden and thought secure. The palm slapped harder against the stone. Her voice tightened and rose in pitch, just a notch, but Bolan caught it.

Don't lose it now, Marisa not now, he thought.

"Maybe the light..."

"No! I don't need light. It's here or it isn't." Bolan pulled the flashlight out of his pocket.

Muffling the switch, he clicked it on and trained it on the wall. And it stared him in the face. She was right, there should have been an opening. There was, in fact a new section of wall, the mortar still bright, the surface of the stone almost free of lichens.

"Forget about it. We'll have to find some other way." She shook her head angrily.

"What do we do now?" Bolan asked.

"We have to go out of our way, that's all."

Bolan clicked the light off again. "Lead the way," he said.

He heard Marisa move away. She no longer reached back for him; it was as though she was trying to separate herself from him, perhaps to prove something to him, or to herself. She was setting a faster pace, either because she knew they had some distance to cover or because she wanted to show that she, too, was aware of the urgency of their purpose.

Bolan was glad to see that independent streak, an awareness of herself, an awareness that there was still more to her life than simple vengeance.

The bricked-up wall bothered him. It gave Harding an elusive edge. By changing the ground rules, he was taking charge of the situation. It also meant that Harding might be leading them on, funneling them to some place where that advantage would do him the most good. But that awareness did not change anything. Bolan had no choice, and Harding knew it.

It was a goading kind of challenge. It amounted to saying try to beat me with a stacked deck, big guy. I dare you.

Every step brought them closer to the last hand, and Bolan only had a single edge: he knew Harding wasn't bluffing.

Marisa had settled into a steady rhythm, and they were making good time. Bolan was relieved, at least, that the uncertainty was gone. He had been boarding the lion in his den, and the lion had finally been heard from. With that out of the way, there was simply the matter of staying alive. And he thought of the camp, the high-tech defences, and his blood went cold.

"Marisa, stop!" he said urgently, then clicked on the light and aimed it far down the tunnel. Marisa flinched at the sudden glare, but said nothing. Bolan chewed on his lower lip, trying to sort things out. "I want you to stay here," he said at last.