Don Pendleton - Blood Testament

But yes, the man had saved her life. Again.

He finished with the photographs but did not pass them back to her at once. When several heartbeats passed in silence, Susan took it on herself to break the ice.

"Familiar faces?"

"What?" It seemed as if her voice had brought him back from somewhere. He shrugged. "A few."

"I guess they're syndicate."

"Does that come from DeVries?"

She nodded, wondering how much she could afford to give away.

"I don't know how much else he had, but he was banking on indictment and conviction."

"Any names?"

"He didn't have the time. I planned to trace the numbers through Ma Bell."

Had she said planned! Why was she talking in the past tense? Nothing she had seen so far tonight had changed her mind.

"I'd like to show these to a friend," he said, so softly that she almost had to strain to catch the words.

"Brognola?"

She had hoped to take him by surprise, but Bolan only frowned, the graveyard eyes unflinching, locked with her own. "I can't go into that."

She felt the sudden anger flaring, made no real attempt to rein it in. "For heaven's sake," she blurted, "I've already spoken to him once. And just in case you missed it, I was almost murdered earlier tonight."

"While working on a story."

"No!" She hesitated, startled by her own response. She had been working on a story, hadn't she? When she spoke again it was as if in answer to herself. "Not just a story."

"Oh?"

"I thought I could help... somehow."

"You didn't help DeVries."

"I didn't kill him, either. But I'll bet my life that someone in those pictures did."

"Don't bet with anything you can't afford to lose."

"You think I'm wrong?"

"I think I'd like to run these past a friend and hear him out before I make up my mind, either way."

"Okay, let's go."

There was a trace of humor in his smile. "I'll drop you at a pay phone. You can take a cab back to your car, but you'd be smart to wait a while and let the bluesuits finish up."

"I'll stick with you."

"It's not an option."

She turned away from him and faced the darkness, concentrating on her own reflection in the windowpane and trying to collect her thoughts.

"You owe me one," she said. "You wouldn't have those pictures if I hadn't gone to interview DeVries."

"I'd say we're even."

"There are ways that I can help you... and your friend."

"If I keep wasting time, you'll have a chance to help me out with an obituary."

"Dammit, I know people in this town! If you need information, I can get it for you."

Susan stopped herself, aware that she was offering to join him, in effect become a part of the mystery and bloodshed that surrounded him. But she had already become a part of it... how long ago? Had she been anything but part of it since Cleveland? Since McLary County?

There was something in his silence that unnerved her. "So?" she asked.

"What do you know about Lee Farnsworth?"

"I know you killed him."

"What about associates?"

"Inside the Company?"

"That's right."

"Well... I could make some calls. I know some people out at Langley. But it's give and take. You've got to let me in."

Hesitation while he thought it over, then, "It isn't my decision."

Susan tasted victory, a flavor so elusive that she swallowed it at once.

"So, make your calls."

"My friends may not be interested," he said.

"I'll take the chance. They turn me down, I'm out. Case closed."

"And out means out?"

"What can I tell you? You've got all my evidence for what it's worth, and there's a little matter of some unsolved homicides."

"They wouldn't hold you overnight."

"They wouldn't give me bupkus for my story, either. Dammit, I need you as much as you need me."

And even as she spoke the words she wondered whether Bolan needed her at all. That line about Lee Farnsworth was intriguing, but...

"I'll make some calls."

She felt like cheering, but she kept it to herself as Bolan put the car in motion, pulling out of the deserted filling station into spotty evening traffic. There was still a chance that she might be rejected by his "friends" — Brognola and whoever else was presently involved — but her acceptance by the soldier was a triumph in itself.

As for Lee Farnsworth, his connections in the Company, there would be ways to tap that well of information — to a point. The CIA was so damned secretive that some directors never knew precisely what was going on within the ranks, but Farnsworth was — had been — a renegade. His lethal games had been a rank embarrassment to veterans in the Agency, inspiring oversight committees that had poked around inside the nooks and crannies. There would be secrets left intact, of course; you couldn't make the Company go public any more than you could make the syndicate go straight. But agents on the right side of the line would be concerned about a repetition of the Farnsworth episode. They might cooperate in weeding out another renegade, if he could be identified.

And where had that thought come from? There was nothing in the circumstances of Brognola's case to indicate an Agency involvement, nothing in the murder of DeVries that smacked of anything but Mafia. If Bolan hadn't mentioned Farnsworth...

But he had, and Susan knew the soldier well enough to realize that he would have his reasons. He had not survived this long by chasing phantoms of his own creation. If he had a lead on some of Farnsworth's cronies, other rotten apples at Langley, and if any of it was connected with the moves against Brognola...

Jesus, it could be the story of the year!

The lady kept her fingers crossed and prayed that Bolan's friends would not reject her offer of assistance, bar her from the game. It was a death game now, and there would be more killing before the final score was toted up and verified. It crossed her mind that she might be among the dead, but she put the prospect out of mind. The risk was part of her profession, and a part of it that Susan Landry secretly enjoyed.

She would enjoy the chance to work with Bolan, and that was no one's secret. Even as she offered up her prayer for personal success, another was already forming in her mind. She prayed for Bolan's safety through this night, at least, and hoped with all her heart that she would not be called upon to watch him die.

Because she needed him a damn sight more than Bolan needed her.

And that was one dark secret she might carry to her grave.

The photographs had worried Bolan most of all. Their mere existence proved that Hal was being closely shadowed, and together with the phone logs they presented Bolan with the picture of a tight surveillance that had obviously been conducted over several months. At first he was surprised that Hal had failed to recognize the tail, but with the new equipment readily available to governments and individuals, surveillance had become a whole new ball game in the eighties. Telephoto lenses were the least of it, he realized, and half a dozen agencies might listen in on private calls without a hint of any warning to the person being scrutinized.

The how of it was rendered insignificant by Bolan's curiosity about the who and why. If Hal was truly under government surveillance, then the Feds had not received their money's worth. The evidence against him would not stand in court, nor even bring indictments once Brognola told his side. It was the other possibility — the probability — that worried Bolan now. If the surveillance of Brognola was in fact conducted at the urging of the syndicate, then Gianelli or some other ranking mafioso would have access to the logs and photographs. And that spelled danger.