Don Pendleton - Savannah Swingsaw

"They'll kill us, man!" one of the convicts whined to Bolan.

"No, they won't," Bolan assured him. "Once we're gone, their interest in you will be gone too. When you guys don't show up at the prison within the next ten minutes, they'll be sending a few squad cars after you. If you were free, they might think you had something to do with killing those guards. That would make you an accessory."

"Big fucking deal," one of them snapped. But the others, realizing that a manhunt for escaped cons involved in killing guards could result in their getting shot on sight, decided maybe it wasn't such a good idea to get out. Bolan didn't care what they thought. He shoved Reed out of the van, nudged Shawnee to follow and brought up the rear. They ran for Shawnee's Celica, hidden under brush farther down the road.

Zavlin's eyes hurt from pressing the binoculars so tightly against his face. But he couldn't stop. Not now. Not while he watched his men pinned down under a barrage of fire in a vulnerable location. Not while the man in black and the athletic woman stole Dodge Reed away.

He focused on the man in black, on the long square jaw that jutted out like the prow of some battleship. And those dark, menacing eyes, glowing with concentration as he ran, guiding the woman and Reed.

Those were the eyes of a professional.

Zavlin kept the binoculars aimed at the man in black, studying him as a hunter studies a new prey, until the dark-clad figure disappeared into the brush.

Zavlin swung the binoculars back to his two men. Their position was undefendable. They were lucky that the two women didn't stalk after them, were satisfied with merely keeping them immobile. Then one of Zavlin's men, obviously frustrated, began to move. His comrade tried to stop him, but he shook off the restraining hand and crawled belly first from behind the brush. What's he doing, Zavlin wondered, running one hand through his white hair. Now the two women were beginning to move. The Oriental looked at her watch and shouted something to her tall companion with the wicked-looking sniper rifle. The tall woman nodded and the two of them started in the same direction as the man in black.

Zavlin's angry assassin was gaining some high ground, climbing up to a clump of trees, shinnying up the trunk to a thick branch and taking aim with his rifle.

A shot thunder-clapped in the valley.

Zavlin swung the binoculars around just in time to see the short Oriental woman spin around and tumble into the brush. The tall woman with the reddish hair immediately dropped to her knee, snapped the rifle to her shoulder, surveyed the hillside with her scope and triggered a round. The agent in the tree returned fire. His bullet kicked up dirt three feet to the left of the woman. But she didn't move. She methodically adjusted her scope, aimed again and squeezed the trigger. No return fire.

Zavlin whipped the binoculars around again, saw his man hanging at an awkward angle from the tree branch, the leg he'd wedged between branches for support now keeping him from falling. The front of his shirt was sopping with blood. There was a hole in his chest that looked as if a giant bird had been pecking at his heart.

The tall woman was helping the Oriental woman to her feet. Zavlin watched as she tore a strip of material from her blouse and wrapped it around the wounded woman's arm. Minor damage.

They started off again, following the man in black.

Zavlin searched for his remaining agent, still hunched in the brush, waiting. He alone had done the right thing, waiting until the firing stopped before making any move. The white-haired killer got up from his folding chair and picked up the SIG PE-57 assault rifle he'd leaned against the shady tree. Squinting to protect his sensitive eyes from the sun, he chambered a 7.55mm Swiss cartridge, braced the stock against his shoulder and screwed his right eye to the scope. He tightened his hand around the black rubberlike pistol grip, and focused on his target.

He squeezed the trigger.

Through the scope he watched the shocked expression on his own KGB agent's face as his chest erupted in a sudden red mist. The man's thick Russian features stretched thin and rubbery from screaming, then went flaccid as his body flopped into the brush.

A shame, Zavlin thought, but necessary. The others were out of range, so there was nothing he could do about them. But he couldn't take a chance of his own man being caught by American authorities. Nor did he want him to tell KGB officials what had happened.

It would reflect badly on Zavlin that some American agent had outguessed the KGB's top assassin, beating him to the target.

No. Zavlin would take care of the matter himself.

He would find out more about Dodge Reed and the man in prison who had befriended him, Damon Blue.

In the meantime, he would think about the man in black.

Replay the humiliation he suffered today at that man's hands. And think of how he would kill him next time they met.

"I don't know anything. I swear!"

"Think harder," Bolan said.

Dodge Reed shook his head. "I don't know what you want."

"I want to know what information you have. The kind the KGB would be interested in."

"I don't have any information. Not for the KGB or anyone else."

Bolan blew an exasperated sigh and stamped harder on the gas pedal. The Toyota zipped around another curb on the way to the secluded cabin. Next to Bolan sat Dodge Reed, nervous, fidgeting with a loose piece of paper sticking out of the glove compartment. In the back seat, Rita kept watch out the rear window while Shawnee practiced her nursing on Lynn's arm.

"How is she?" Bolan asked Shawnee, watching her in the rearview mirror. "Not too bad. Some blood loss, but nothing serious."

"That's easy for you to say," Lynn deadpanned.

Shawnee smiled. "I thought you Orientals are supposed to be strong silent types. No complaints. You lose face or something."

"Hey, losing face is one thing, but losing six inches of skin and half a pint of blood, even we Asians draw the line there."

Bolan watched Shawnee finish taping the bandage around Lynn's forearm. Some blood was already seeping through, but Shawnee had done a first-rate job and the bleeding would stop soon. He turned his attention back to Dodge Reed.

"Listen, son. By now you must know we saved you from the people who killed the guards back there."

"Maybe," Reed said, "but maybe you got the wrong guy. There were a bunch of other fellas in that van. Maybe you want one of them."

Bolan caught a glimpse of Shawnee's expression in the mirror. She looked doubtful, as though she wondered if maybe the kid was right, and he had made a mistake. The thing was, Dodge Reed was convincing. Bolan tended to believe him. But the KGB didn't make mistakes like that.

If they wanted him dead, he knew something, something very important. Even if he didn't know that he knew.

"Let's take it from the top, kid."

Dodge Reed groaned. "Listen, Mr. Blue, I wanna help, I truly do. I appreciate you getting me away from those assassins and all, and if I knew what you wanted, I'd surely tell you. Out of sheer gratitude."

"Turn left up here," Shawnee interrupted.

"Where?"

She reached her arm over his shoulder and pointed to a narrow dirt road almost hidden by brush. It was an unmarked route that looked as if it had been hacked out of the brush with a butter knife.

Branches scraped along the sides of the car as Bolan geared down to negotiate the trail. "Go on, kid," Bolan said to Reed.

"Like I said, I'd tell you anything you wanted to know. But I honestly think you got the wrong guy. I'm just some college student studying computers at night and working in a record store during the day."