Don Pendleton - Hellfire Code

“Good. Tell him I’ll meet him at our private hangar.” The wait in Washington would give Bolan a chance to catch some shuteye. “Is Hal there?”

“No, I finally ordered him to bed.”

Bolan grinned. “Now that’s an order from you I’d have no trouble following.”

“Watch it,” Price replied in a soft, teasing voice. “Anyway, what’s the news?”

“Very little,” Bolan said. “Hagen didn’t live long enough to tell me about anything he might have been working on for Downing. In fact, he gave me the whole righteous indignation act. Then Downing’s murder crew killed him before I could extract any real information.”

“What about this crew?”

“Same ones who did the job on that NCF house,” Bolan replied. “I managed to get one of them to talk before he died. I was surprised to find ID on all three of them. I’ll send you the names via up-link once I reach the airport.”

“We’ll be waiting,” Price said. “Anything else?”

“Downing’s behind this whole deal, no doubt there. But I don’t get the feeling he had direct control on this hit team.”

“Why not?”

“These guys were professionals, well-trained. Black ops all the way. Definitely a military man headed this crew.”

“Well, Downing does have a lot of connections from his NSA days,” Price said. “Maybe he’s got ex-military training his special teams.”

“Possible,” Bolan said. “There was something especially familiar about these teams, though. I can’t quite put a finger on it. Maybe it’ll come to me with time. For now, you can assume I’m going to push this all out.”

“What support do you need?”

“Have Cowboy send additional munitions reserves with Jack. In the meantime, I’ll try to stay out of trouble.”

“You do that,” Barbara Price replied.

A LARGE PART of the Filipino population would have said the Ninoy Aquino International Airport stood as the iconic symbol of the country’s poor economy. The few who would have disagreed with that view numbered those with questionable standards on what was “clean and modern.”

In any case, Bolan wasn’t here on a sightseeing tour so it didn’t matter to him. The heat and humidity assaulted him like a wet, wool cloak, and Bolan could understand why Grimaldi had chosen to stay behind in the comparatively cool interior of the jet. Not that he didn’t deserve the rest. Bolan would have preferred to bring the pilot along for backup, but he figured the guy deserved a respite after the long flight.

Bolan had changed into lighter wear for his arrival, and didn’t prompt a second look as he moved past the baggage claim and headed for the exit. He had learned long ago the value of role camouflage. He’d used it since nearly the start of his war with the Mafia. The soldier based it on the concept that careful study of an environment would reveal telltale clues of what others accepted as normal. It was then a simple matter of exploiting those details and appearing just as everyone would expect, thus blending into the setting and attracting as much or as little attention as required. Bolan had effectively applied the technique to penetrate everything from Mob Families to the narcotics underworld, even terrorist groups on occasion.

Bolan left the terminal and stepped onto the sidewalk bordering twin lanes jammed with cars of various makes, models and colors. Noxious fumes spewed from tailpipes throughout the long, covered port that made Bolan want to choke when mixed with the sweltering heat. One of the most popular vehicles in the country was the Jeepney. Bolan hailed a brightly colored one covered with bumper stickers and sporting a red-orange paint finish. It took him nearly a minute of broken conversation before he was satisfied the driver knew where he wanted to go.

As they left the hectic scene, Bolan reflected on the mission ahead. All leads pointed to Manila, and the natural place to start would be the downtown apartment where the CIA surveillance had located Roger Neely. According to official reports, Neely was on a scheduled two-week vacation. Bolan had no reason to think Neely’s choice to come here was anything other than it appeared. It didn’t seem an unusual choice for a vacation spot, since Neely’s career-Navy father had spent a long tour of service here. The woman and child he was reportedly spending time with was another matter entirely. Stony Man’s intelligence had dug up very little on the native woman, Malaya, or the mysterious child. Bolan suspected the most obvious: she was Neely’s mistress and the little girl was their daughter.

Bolan recalled his conversation with Barbara Price on the trip overseas.

“The apartment is rented in Malaya’s name,” Price said, “but from everything we can determine she doesn’t have a cent to her name. She doesn’t work, and she doesn’t collect any form of public assistance from the Filipino government.”

“So she has no income but somehow she survives,” Bolan replied.

“Exactly. I think it’s obvious where she gets her money, though.”

“Neely.”

“Well, we’ve determined over one-third of his salary is unaccounted for. He doesn’t live high off the hog, has only a modest balance in a savings account, and no real investments to speak of outside of his government pension fund. A name search shows he regularly uses a charge card to purchase international traveler’s checks, balance paid in full every month without fail. Those check purchases stopped three weeks ago.”

“Are the checks traceable?”

“Bear’s on it now, but he says it’ll take time.”

“Well, either his money’s going to this woman or he’s socking it away for a rainy day.”

“If he’s on Downing’s payroll, taking care of this Malaya might be part of the deal.”

“Possibly,” Bolan replied. “I’m still skeptical about that.”

“Why?”

“Seems to me a man as fanatical about duty and honor as Downing is would probably use this woman more as leverage to keep Neely in line. I’ve known Roger Neely for some time, and he never struck as me the kind seduced by greed or power. But do something to threaten his family, I think he might cooperate.”

“That’s assuming a lot,” Price replied.

“Like what?”

“Like this Malaya and her kid are Neely’s family.”

“Okay, maybe they are and maybe they aren’t,” Bolan said. “Just do me a favor and have Hal get the CIA to back off on the surveillance.”

“Sounds like you have a plan.”

“In a way,” Bolan said. “I’d rather handle it myself. Neely knows me and he trusts me, and right now that may be the only thing going for us. I don’t want to spook him.”

Yeah, Bolan had Neely figured. The NSA agent was a straight-lace guy all the way according to his performance reviews. Smart, educated and born into a family of old money, Neely joined the NSA as a junior analyst following six years with a U.S. Army Signal unit where he’d specialized in cryptography and domestic intelligence. He met the challenge with acclaimed success, making analyst in an unprecedented three years and senior analyst on the eve of his fortieth birthday.

Downing had some leverage on Neely and he was using it to his maximum benefit.

When they reached Neely’s apartment building, Bolan passed the cabbie twenty U.S. dollars and then exited the Jeepney without waiting for change. He pushed through the cheap front door and ascended a flight of rickety wooden steps. They creaked with every footfall, and Bolan figured if Neely hadn’t been expecting him he was now. The lack of security held no surprises for the Executioner, especially not in this part of town. There was little crime, mostly because the residents in this section of Manila had little if anything of value to steal.