Don Pendleton - Treason Play

She scanned the room. Should she pack her clothes? No time. It was best for her to simply get the hell out of the apartment, get out into the open where people would see if something happened to her. She could take a cab to the Messenger’s office and surround herself with colleagues and friends. It may not make her safer, but it at least would make her feel safer, which was no small thing. And she might be able to dig up some more information. Maybe someone had heard from Terry or they might know something about the key.

Her cell phone beeped and the sudden, sharp noise in the midst of silence caused her heart to skip a beat. By the third ring, she’d regained her breath and shook her head disgustedly at her edginess.

“Tammy, it’s Kellogg.”

It was Mike Kellogg, the Messenger’s bureau chief. The sound of a familiar voice should have relaxed her. But she heard the tension in his voice and it only stoked more fear in her.

“Mike, what’s going on?”

“Terry’s gone.”

She hesitated for a moment and said, “I know.”

“You knew? What the hell. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“What’s the big deal? You know Terry. He’s like a cat. He disappears, and you don’t see him for a few days and then he resurfaces.”

“This is different,” Kellogg said.

“Different how?”

“Couple of guys came around looking for him. They asked a lot of questions.”

“Questions? Like?”

“Like, had we heard from him? Did we know who he’d been talking to? Where had he gone? They took Bonham into his office for a while and grilled him. He came out of there red-faced and sweating, like he’d run a damn marathon with these bastards.”

“They didn’t identify themselves?”

“Not to me they didn’t. I’m sure they told Bonham who they were, but he wasn’t in the mood to talk after they left. He shut his door and turned on the Do Not Disturb light on his phone. But he looked pretty shook up when it was all said and done.”

“Damn,” she said.

“What?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Last I saw Terry, it was two days ago. He was acting nervous, almost scared.”

“Terry? Bullshit. That guy always was on an even keel.”

“Not this time. Seriously, he was worried. Scared. I never saw anything like it. And now these guys show up looking for him. That worries me.”

“What had him so scared?” Kellogg asked.

“I don’t know for sure.”

“For sure?”

“I mean, I don’t know,” she lied.

“Maybe he just overreacted. The guy was working his ass off. Maybe he just got edgy, a little paranoid. Could happen to anyone.”

“Sure,” Gillen replied, not at all convinced.

“Look, you sound pretty shook up. You at the apartment? How about I come over? It’s no trouble.”

She thought about the two men waiting outside the building for her. On the one hand, it seemed an attractive proposition. Maybe if they saw her leave the building with someone instead of by herself, they’d keep their distance from her. Maybe. Or perhaps they’d just come after Kellogg, too. And that assumed that they’d be content to wait outside until Kellogg arrived, which wasn’t a certainty in and of itself. No, she needed to take care of herself and do it right now.

“I’m fine.”

“Really, it’s no trouble,” Kellogg stated.

“I’m fine,” she repeated, this time in a no-nonsense tone.

“Hey, I can take a hint,” Kellogg said. The good-natured tone of his voice sounded forced. Was he angry or just trying to cover for his wounded ego? At this point, she had no time to worry about such a thing. She needed to act.

“Look,” she said, “I’ll call later. Is that okay?”

“So you’re staying put?”

The question struck her as odd. “Sure,” she said.

They said their goodbyes and hung up.

BOLAN ROLLED UP THE SIDEWALK toward Gillen’s apartment building, a glass-and-steel monstrosity that jutted toward Dubai’s clear, blue skies. He’d been watching the place, getting a feel for the property and its surroundings for an hour. Almost from the moment he’d arrived, he’d been struck by the neighborhood’s Western feel. Gleaming apartment and office buildings lined either side of the street. Restaurants and shops, many of them the same fast-food restaurants and department stores found in the United States, lined the streets. If it wasn’t for traffic and other signs written in Arabic or an occasional group of women, their features obscured behind veils, Bolan could just have easily been in any major U.S. city.

Beneath his black nylon windbreaker, which he wore unzipped, as a small concession to the heat, the soldier carried the Beretta 93-R in a shoulder rig. The Desert Eagle rode on his hip, obscured by the tails of his windbreaker.

It was his second trip around the block now. The two men who’d initially caught his attention still stood in the recessed doorway of a nearby men’s clothing store, both trying to look like they hadn’t noticed Bolan. The bigger of the two men used a handkerchief to dab at the sweat beading on his forehead, then tugged at the collar of his shirt with his index finger to allow some heat to escape from inside his clothing. The man looked miserable.

Though Bolan couldn’t say for sure whether he posed a danger, the man definitely seemed out of place. A second man stood on the corner decked out in blue jeans, a baseball cap and a Hawaiian-style shirt, having an animated conversation on his cell phone. He shot a glance in Bolan’s direction, turned and stared into a glass window behind him, allowing him to monitor the soldier’s approach without looking directly at him.

Two more men, both wearing tan coveralls, with heavy leather tool belts wrapped around their waists, stood next to a panel van parked on the street. A casual glance would peg them as telephone or cable television repairman. But Bolan’s trained eye could see the telltale bulges of a handgun holstered in their armpits beneath their coveralls. One of the fake repairmen, a slender man with bushy muttonchop sideburns, carried an empty canvas satchel over one shoulder.

The soldier took a couple of steps and angled himself so he could get a better look at the van. Behind the wheel, he saw a silhouette with only a part profile visible from his vantage point. Bolan took out a pack of smokes, tapped one into his palm and pocketed the rest. With his other hand, he pulled out his lighter, clicked it open and torched the end of the cigarette. He didn’t smoke much these days, but a cigarette was a convenient prop. Tucking the lighter away, he pulled his baseball cap farther over his eyes and started for Gillen’s building.

One of the men looked up as Bolan approached. The soldier felt his muscles tense, but he didn’t break stride. Instead he continued walking right toward them. The man carrying the satchel looked at his partner and nodded politely as the other man spoke at a rapid tempo, occasionally punctuating the phrase with excited gestures from his hands. Bolan took a drag from the cigarette as he passed. He caught Mr. Sideburns’ eye, gave him a nod and kept moving until he reached the nearest intersection.

The Executioner turned right and rolled down the street, passing the panel van, which now stood to his left, ignoring the driver. Then he walked past the front of Gillen’s apartment building and kept going until he reached a nearby intersection, turned right and headed along the side of the building.

The building had a two-level parking garage beneath it that was accessible from the street. Bolan slipped into the parking garage. As he approached a glass door that led from the ground level of the garage, a woman was exiting the building. Smiling, she held the door open for Bolan. He thanked her and passed through it, stepping into the building’s air-conditioned interior.