Don Pendleton - Twisted Path

But the secret was knowing how much to leave to chance.

In half an hour the workmen had finished packing the illegal arms. The bearded guy emerged from the office to inspect the handiwork, and after a cursory check, he gave his okay. One of the crew jumped aboard a parked forklift, rewed it up and loaded the truck.

Bolan decided that this was the best opportunity he'd have. Unleathering the Beretta, he padded down the stairs, eyes fixed on the chatting group. He was conscious of the stairs creaking under his feet, although the noise couldn't penetrate far above the roar of machinery.

He found an ideal spotting post behind a large old boiler, which afforded a clear view of the office and the single exit, as well as the area around the truck.

When the last crate was stowed, the driver switched off the lift and joined his friends. Bits of conversation drifted to Bolan's hideout, informing him that the guard was to be relieved in eight hours.

Three of the workmen departed while the remaining two made themselves comfortable for the long watch ahead. One pulled a holstered pistol and a small radio from a cloth bag and settled them on a box. He lit a cigarette and tuned in to an L.A. Kings game.

The other gunman sat beside his Uzi and pulled a comic book from a shopping bag.

The two gunners were on the opposite side of the warehouse, near the office entrance. Both were facing the door, although "watching" was too strong a word for the minimal attention they were paying to their job.

Bolan waited another few minutes to be sure that one of the other three wouldn't return for some reason, then began his stalk.

Circling wide to the far end, he eased his way through the dimly lit edges of the warehouse.

Part of his attention was focused on the lazy guards and part was required to make sure that he didn't slip on any of the abundant oil slicks or walk into cast-off bits of garbage.

It would be so easy to just pick off the thugs, seize the weapons and turn them over to an openmouthed Kline. But the agent had been adamant that the big guy keep his hands clean and leave the muscle to the Bureau.

Bolan had to smile as he recalled his brief conversation with Special Agent Kline from a telephone booth at the commuter terminal of San Francisco International.

"Kline? Blanski. I want you to get your team together and be ready to move at my signal. I've got a few things to check out first, and then we should have McIntyre in the bag."

The announcement for the flight to L.A. interrupted him as he was about to sign off, giving the Fed an opening.

"What the hell are you talking about, Blanski? Where are you? I didn't authorize any of this." Bolan could almost feel the receiver heat up in his hand as Kline's anger was transmitted across the connection. "Blanski, I want an explanation and full details."

"You'll get what I give you, and that's all you're getting now."

"Who the hell do you think you are? There are procedures that must be followed, and I'm not about to blow this case on account of some undisciplined renegade, even if you are connected." The sarcastic emphasis on the last word was not lost to Bolan.

Kline clearly had no appreciation of Bolan's take-charge way of doing things. He obviously hadn't learned that procedure was of little value when the top-ranked crime mongers were involved. The criminal elite were rats, clever and wary, and if you gave them even a second's head start, they would take advantage of the delay and scramble back into the gutters and garbage piles where they'd come from.

Still, a little PR wouldn't hurt, but he had better be fast. The last call for Flight 602 to L.A. rang through the busy terminal. Bolan softened his tone slightly. "Don't worry, Kline. I'm just going to recce the situation and relay back. Then you can swoop in for the kill."

The agent seemed slightly mollified; either that or he recognized when he was outmatched.

"Listen up, Blanski, and listen good. I want this reconnaissance of yours clean."

Here it comes, Bolan reflected, the FBI by-the-book lecture. He knew it by heart and had to restrain himself from just dropping the receiver and letting Kline ramble on to himself.

"In other words, look but don't touch. The minute, and I mean the very minute that you have anything, I expect this phone to ring. Make no mistake, if you so much as muss the hair of any of the suspects your ass will be wrapped so tight in interagency paperwork that you'll be lucky if you ever get out from under. And I don't care who you're working for. You got that?"

"I heard you, Kline." Bolan hung up and ran for the plane.

He shoved Kline's warning into his mental file under C, for crap, then coiled for action.

Fifteen feet away from the two guards, Bolan let loose with the Beretta, one silenced round exploding the radio into chips of circuit board and flying plastic.

"Don't even think about it," Bolan growled as the two men spun to face him. The man on the left, the older of the two, settled back with an expression of anger written across his face as he slowly raised his hands above his head. He didn't spare a glance for the holstered pistol three feet in front of him.

The second guard was young, long-haired and muscular. Eyes flickering back and forth between Bolan and the Uzi just beyond arm's reach telegraphed the kid's foolish impulse.

"Get your..." Bolan barked, but the kid made his move anyway, falling to his left. Battle-trained reflexes gave the proper response, and the Beretta spit a 3-round burst as the guy dived for the Uzi.

All three rounds grouped around the gunner's left ear, blowing his brains in a red hail over his bag of superhero comics. Bolan felt no remorse. The kid's own stupidity in making a suicide play had killed him.

That's what happened when comic-book fantasy was confused with real life.

The surviving gunner raised his hands a little higher, eyes bulging as his companion collapsed across the Uzi.

Bolan knotted the other man's hands behind his back and rapped him behind the ear with the Beretta. He collapsed onto the floor, without a sound.

The Executioner looked down at the two bodies. "Sorry, Kline." He then padded into the office and rifled the drawers. The only item of note was a clipboard containing the manifest of the shipment. Bingo!

Bolan rolled back the warehouse doors and drove the deuce-and-a-half into the night, pausing to shut the doors behind him. He gunned the rig toward the gate, fingering the FBI badge in the name of Michael Blanski that he would use if the gatekeeper gave him any trouble. He still had a lot of ground to cover before morning. As the warrior roared away, the office phone began to ring.

Bolan had plenty of time for thought on the lonely drive up the coast. This end of the pipeline was closed or would be when he caught up with McIntyre so the mission was just about wrapped up.

Or was it?

The load he carried convinced Bolan that this was only a part of the mission he had set for himself, a mission that didn't confine itself to borders or briefings or favors for the Justice Department.

If these weapons didn't arrive, it would only be a matter of time before some other greedy vermin passed a cargo of death into the hands of the Shining Path.

Bolan wasn't so naive as to believe that only he could make a difference, or that he could settle a problem that had an entire country teetering on the brink of civil war.

The big man had known of the Shining Path for some time now, and he had despised their fanaticism, a mania that led to murder in the name of freedom. Holding the truths of justice and equality as their banner, the Shining Path had become a twisted path leading to destruction.

The ideals they once stood for had become corrupt in the withered, skeleton hands that reached out to the oppressed peasants, a knife clasped to slit the throats of anyone who didn't want their particular brand of comradeship. Justice and freedom had been forgotten long ago, reduced to meaningless phrases mouthed by crazies whose only reality was a smoking gun.