Don Pendleton - Meltdown

"But how? Why?"

"How, I don't know. Why I can guess. They're onto me, and they want me. They're trying to smoke me out. The guy at Hanley's, the one who got away. He must have gotten a better look at me than I thought. If they ran that past the boys in the Kremlin, they probably got a make on me. I don't know. It's just a hunch."

"What about me?"

"Watch yourself. They don't trust you. That's obvious. And they'll try to use you to get to me if they make a connection. Are you sure you weren't followed tonight?"

"As sure as I could be. There's always a chance, of course."

The darkness of the overpass suddenly deepened.

Bolan glanced toward the mouth of the tunnel and saw two men advancing toward them. Two more entered at the other end. It was a trap, and a good one.

"Get back against the wall and lie down," Bolan hissed, pressing Rachel against the stone. "We've got company."

He unslung the Beretta and dropped to the ground. Their only chance was to clean out one end of the tunnel, fast. And that would just reduce the odds.

Bolan hoped they didn't have lights.

As if on cue, one end of the tunnel was bathed in illumination. He snapped a shot at the hand-held torch. He missed the light, but not the man behind it.

With a groan, the man dropped the lamp, falling forward to cover it. The Executioner fired again, aiming between the twin points of light escaping from under the man's body. The slug hit home. Looking over his shoulder, he gauged the distance to the other two men, who seemed to have waited at the mouth of the tunnel. Turning his attention back to the first team, he sighted in on the remaining gunman.

So far the newcomers hadn't fired a single shot.

But Bolan knew he couldn't count on the situation remaining one-sided. He fired twice, the Beretta whispering death from the shadows. The slugs found their target. They punched the guy twice, once in the forehead and once in the throat. He fell backward, slamming his head against the frozen earth of the bridle path.

The remaining pair still blocked the other end of the overpass. It was almost as if they wanted Bolan and Rachel Peres to escape. But Bolan knew the best defense was a good offense. What's true in football is also true in war, Bolan thought.

He couldn't let the two men escape. They could confirm that he had met with Rachel. Suspicion was one thing; proof was another. It would finish her career with Parsons, and it would endanger her life.

The Executioner rolled across the cold earth to the opposite wall. So far the surviving team hadn't produced a light of its own. Maybe they thought they'd need only the one. Okay, Bolan thought, so they'd learn something. Against the far wall Bolan peered into the darkness. That end of the tunnel, the park end, was much dimmer. The shadows of the two men were motionless, almost indistinguishable from the surrounding gloom. As he watched, he heard the whine of a slug. It narrowly missed him, chipping the stone just above his head.

These guys were pros. No noise, no light.

Just spitting death. At him. He'd have to move in, and quickly. Setting the Beretta for a three-shot burst, he aimed into the heart of the darkness. The surprised hiss told him he'd found his mark. The dark shape slid down the wall. It didn't move.

He wormed forward, trying not to rasp his clothes against the wall. The guy couldn't see him. If his opponent heard him, Bolan would be in trouble. The guy was barely visible, and then he was gone. Bolan heard footsteps. The gunner had split.

Unless he was waiting just beyond the mouth of the tunnel.

If Bolan rushed into the light, he'd be a sitting duck. Or a dead one. Well, there was no other way, Bolan thought. He stood up and yanked Big Thunder from its sling. He slipped the Beretta under his coat and ran for the opening.

The guy's footsteps were pounding on the bridle path straight ahead. Bolan raced after him. He was gaining ground rapidly. The guy was out of shape.

He didn't even have sense enough to head into the trees.

As the Executioner narrowed the gap, the guy tried to sprint, but he didn't have it in him. Bolan caught up with him at a fork in the bridle path in a thick stand of trees. The guy was a game one. He turned and aimed his weapon as Bolan leaped. Aiming a fist at the guy's jaw, Bolan bore into him with a shoulder. They went down in a heap.

Bolan knew that it would be useful to hang on to this one. He could tell them a lot they needed to know.

Getting to his feet, Bolan grabbed at the guy and hauled. The man was breathing like a beached whale.

All the fight had gone out of him. This was going to be easier than Bolan had hoped. Suddenly the guy sagged, and the weight was more than Bolan could handle.

And then Bolan caught the scent of almonds.

Cyanide. The guy was a pro. And for somebody heavy. Bolan bent over the supine body and clicked his lighter. The man's features were twisted by the poison, but there was no mistaking their origin, or that of the ill-fitting suit. They were Eastern cut. Bulgaria probably. That made one thing certain: hit men of this caliber weren't sent out just to keep an eye on some wayward antinuker. They were onto Rachel. And onto Mack Bolan.

"Shit, I hate physical inventory." Dave Jennings slammed a clipboard onto his desk and flipped his pencil high in the air. He missed the catch, sending the pencil skittering off into a corner of the office.

"You don't like anything physical, Dave. Inventory or otherwise." Pete Collins was anything but sympathetic.

"Hell, I'm as physical as the next guy. In the right circumstances. But putting on a rubber suit to stand around and count tubes of hot metal isn't physical. And it isn't fun."

"Maybe not, but we got to do it, so let's get it done." Collins laughed quietly while he slipped on his protective gear. Jennings was having trouble getting into his own suit, but Collins enjoyed the scene too much to offer to help.

Jennings was still fuming. "You know, every three months, we do the same damn thing. And every three months we come up with the same numbers. Since Number 2 went down, we haven't used a single fuel rod."

"Maybe not, but how would we know that if nobody counted 'em?"

"You're starting to sound like one of those NRC guys, Pete. You doing some sort of consulting work on the side?"

"Wish to hell I did, man. You know, consulting is where it's at. You get paid big bucks and all you got to do is tell somebody something he already knows."

Jennings finally smiled. Both men were ready to enter the fuel dump. Collins secretly agreed with his partner. The work was boring. There was rarely any suspense to break up the monotony, and there was certainly no glamour. But rules were rules. And the rules were that you counted the radioactive material in your possession. You counted carefully and you counted often.

Like Jennings, Collins sometimes wished that a discrepancy would show in their figures. It would mean they'd have to go back and do it all over again. But at least the numbers would mean something. In the three and a half years since the TVA Station 2 reactor had been out of service, they had been getting the same result every time they counted.

"You ready, Pete?" Jennings asked.

Collins nodded. Jennings punched the combination into the electronic lock on Fuel Repository Number I and waited for the huge door to swing open.

Collins stood to the side with a calculator in one hand and a clipboard in the other. When the door was open, the men stepped through and Collins punched in the closing combination.

Neither man knew both combinations. The theory behind this security measure was that it would make theft and sabotage more difficult. There was no real reason for it, since the problem was not access to the fuel rods as much as getting them past the heavy security and radiation detectors at the main gate. The rods were long and pencil thin. You couldn't disassemble them, and you sure as hell couldn't hide them under your clothes.