Don Pendleton - Deep Recon

This just made Maxwell angrier. She followed him in and said, “I can’t believe this. What gives you the right to—”

But Bolan had grabbed a piece of paper off the notepad that Maxwell kept on a corkboard near the front door. She generally used it for shopping lists and notes for herself or Faraday. “What’s the name and address of the place where you get bodywork done?”

Maxwell blinked. “What?”

The Executioner repeated the question, at which point a confused Lola gave an answer. “Ellis Body-works—it’s on Avenue G on Fat Deer Key. Every local cop, every county deputy, and every state trooper in the Keys has their car serviced there. Why, you offering to pay to fix it?”

As he wrote that information down, Bolan said, “Yes.”

Again, Maxwell found herself brought up short by an answer she wasn’t expecting from this man. “Really?”

“I need to make a phone call.” He folded the piece of paper and pulled a sat phone out of his jacket pocket. “After that, you can take the Mustang to Ellis and leave it there. Pick it up when they’re done, and don’t worry about the cost.”

Maxwell was impressed. She’d been in this game a long time, and she never knew of any op that had the budget to do car repairs on the level necessary for this. In fact, just in case, she asked, “You do realize that this is a very old car that they don’t make new parts for it, right? Just replacing that side-view mirror will be fifty bucks, before labor, and that’s the cheapest repair on there.”

“It’s fine,” he said, moving back toward the bedroom. “Excuse me.”

He went into her bedroom and closed the door. Confusion receded in Maxwell, the outrage coming back full force. She yanked the door open to see the man entering information into the sat phone.

“This is my bedroom!” This time, Maxwell straightened her back, making sure Cooper got an eyefull of her chest.

He didn’t once look below her neck. “I’m aware of this room’s function. This call is private. Please close the door.”

Maxwell let out a noise that sounded like a pipe bursting. But she did leave the room and closed the door, which was all Bolan cared about.

HE’D BEEN UP ALL NIGHT, making sure the truck crash was contained and dealt with. Brognola had sent a cleanup crew, and also used his contacts in the FBI to get someone from the Monroe County Field Office to take charge of the investigation, making sure that the Executioner’s role was kept out of any official reports by the local cops, the Feds, or the National Transportation Safety Bureau, not to mention the company that owned the truck, who’d probably do an investigation of its own.

Complicating matters was the fact that the person in the Aveo didn’t have any ID on him, and the credit card and driver’s license he’d used with the rental car company belonged to a ninety-three-year-old retired plumber from Hialeah who’d died a week earlier.

Now Bolan needed a good-night’s sleep before following up on the only lead he had—the “Delgado” person that Kenny V mentioned during the last phone call of his life—but first he had to contact Brognola.

Once he had been connected to the head of Stony Man, Bolan provided Brognola with the information about Ellis Auto Body.

“We’ll take care of it, Striker,” Brognola assured him.

“I should’ve just rented a car,” Bolan said. “I know you said to work with this woman, but I question her professionalism.”

“She knows the players, Striker. And her reputation is sterling.”

“That’s what I heard, too, but all the evidence I’ve seen doesn’t even come close to supporting that reputation, Hal.”

“Be that as it may, she’s a valuable asset. Without her, you’ll have a much harder time of it. And now that Lee knows BATF is on to him, he may circle the wagons and we’ll have lost our chance to put him away. Time is of the essence here.”

“Fine.” Bolan had raised his objection, and Brognola had noted it. There was no point in arguing it further. “Any word on our assassin?”

“Yes, and it’s not good,” Brognola said. “We’ve ID’d him as a merc named Ward Dayton. We were only able to get a positive on him because he’s in the CIA database.”

“As a person of interest or a contractor?”

“The latter, unfortunately. They’ve used him for wet work on any number of occasions in Cuba, Nicaragua, Chile and a few times in North Africa. In fact, my guy at the Company wasn’t exactly pleased that you’d killed him.”

“I’m only disappointed that he got himself killed before I could find out why he was doing Kenny Valentino—though I have a pretty good guess.” Bolan paused before continuing. “Why is the CIA’s Central and South American go-to guy putting bullets in two-bit errand boys for gunrunners?”

“That’s a good question, Striker. You need to find the answer, but my guess is that this is the first step in that wagon-circling I was just talking about.”

“Valentino had a rep for shooting his mouth off, and unlike Ms. Maxwell’s rep, it was one I have little trouble believing he earned, and that’s based only on the ninety seconds I saw of him before he bought it. If Lee wants to close ranks, Valentino would almost definitely have been near the top of the list of potential loose ends to tie off.”

“What’s your next move?” Brognola asked.

“Kenny mentioned a lieutenant of Lee’s named Delgado. I’m going to pay him a visit. I’ll keep you posted.”

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