Day of Mourning

16

The vehicle driven by Susan Landry flew along the dark county road away from the Miller place.

Bolan bolstered his AutoMag in its fast-draw rig on his hip. He reclaimed and holstered his Beretta.

"My car is in that clump of trees," he told her as they approached the spot where he had concealed the vehicle. "I suggest you come with me. This car is your death warrant if these people have the connections I think they do."

Susan cut her speed and guided the Datsun over the gravel shoulder and among the trees that Bolan had indicated.

"Miller has connections," she acknowledged. "You're right, of course. Care to give a lady a lift?"

Bolan's rented wheels were right where he left them.

"Wouldn't have it any other way," Bolan assured her, already climbing from the station wagon.

Landry briskly kept pace with him, easing into the passenger seat as he kicked the engine over, backed out and continued their course toward MacArthur Boulevard and D.C.

He felt her eyes appraising him in the darkness as he drove.

"Thank you for saving my life," she said.

Those were the exact words Kelly Crawford had used less than two hours ago.

What a night.

Without looking up, he reached for the pack of cigarettes wedged behind the sun visor above his head, stuck one in his mouth and lit it with the dash lighter.

Susan Landry had gone through changes since he last encountered her in Cleveland several years ago. Then, she had been an idealistic young woman; an idealistic young journalist. The toughness had been there, but not the maturity, the inner strength that had come from years as a roving investigative reporter.

There were character lines around her eyes that made her more beautiful than she had ever been before she had earned them.

"You got us out of there in one piece,'' he reminded her as he caught MacArthur Boulevard heading back into the city. The street was virtually untraveled at this hour. "You're a hell of a wheelperson, Landry.''

He offered her a cigarette. She shook her head.

"I'm also a reporter," she said. "Even if I wasn't, I'd sure like to know what a man named Phoenix is doing stalking the wilds of Maryland like some jungle panther. Don't laugh. That's what you are, and mister, you look like pure trouble."

"Trust your instincts on this one, Susan. You're right. I am trouble."

"I'd say I was in a good deal more trouble before you showed up. I guess I will have a cigarette."

Her hands shook when she took the smoke from the pack and tried to light it.

"Let's trade," said Bolan.

"Fair enough. Ladies first, I assume."

Bolan grinned at her. He liked her style.

"Talk to me, Susan," Bolan said.

"I'm investigating the soldier-for-hire community that thrives in this city. Men with professional military training, soldiers, ex-government service people."

"Mercs," growled Bolan. "A real mixed bag."

Landry nodded. "And I drew the rottenest one."

"How did you hook up with Miller?"

"I was a disgruntled woman with a prison record. Bitter. Unable to find work. I knew some of the places in Washington where contracts for services in the merc community are lined up. I made sure I was in the right place at the right time. It goes with the territory."

"Miller must be pulling in some heavy bread to have a place like that in Potomac."

"He's paid well, but that house isn't really his. No one in the community knows that, of course. Say, this is the way to the airport...."

Bolan fired another cigarette. It was close. What he'd been tearing this town apart all night to find out.

"The house in Potomac. Did you trace it?"

"As far as a paper corporation operating out of an Arlington PO box. It dead-ended there. Why are we going to the airport?"

"I have a friend waiting there with a helicopter. What was Miller doing behind those walls with all that acreage?"

"He was training men for night commando work. Where are we going in a helicopter?"

"How many men does Miller have?"

"He bragged to me about that. About twenty for the raid, not counting those scumbags he left behind to watch his place tonight. They were going to rip him off while he was gone and — "

Her hand with the cigarette started shaking again. So did her voice.

Bolan knew she was thinking how close she came to being raped. "Easy," said the big man softly.

She snapped out of it. "And you didn't answer my question. I thought this was a trade. Where are we going in a helicopter?"

They crossed the Wilson Bridge and swung north onto Mount Vernon Highway parallel to the river. The lights of Washington National Airport came into view up ahead to the right.

"We are not going anywhere in a helicopter. Do you have any idea what kind of target Miller was training his men to hit?''

"Not going anywhere," she echoed. "Then I guess our little trade is off."

"Miller is taking orders from someone high up in the U.S. intelligence community," he told her.

He could feel her eyes spark with interest even in the dim interior of the car.

"Now we're trading. And I don't suppose you'll tell me who this person is?"

Bolan steered them into one of the airport approach lanes. He followed the curve away from the main terminal to the private landing area. He could see Jack Grimaldi's Hughes chopper waiting.

"I don't know who's giving Miller his orders," said Bolan.

Suspicions. They were all he had to go on right now and he could hardly breach the security of Lee Farnsworth, the CFB or General Crawford by dropping names to a journalist.

He braked the car to a stop near the chopper.

When Grimaldi saw who the driver was, he revved up the Hughes's engine. The rotors started whirling. The flight lights started blinking.

"I've only been... with Miller for two weeks," Landry told him, raising her voice to be heard above the throbbing rotor. "I've concentrated on the workings of his operation, the training of his men. I... assumed they were training for action in some other country. I never realized — "

Bolan had no more time. He opened his door and gave her a last look.

"Take the car, Susan. Go somewhere and find yourself a typewriter and write whatever you want about Miller."

"What about you?"

"If you write about me, some good people will have their cover blown and probably die."

"So it's like that?"

"That would be a hell of a way to repay me for saving your life, wouldn't it?"

She laughed. A nice sound.

"You bastard. You're used to having your own way, aren't you?"

He started out of the car.

"Take care, Susan. Good luck."

"Wait a minute, soldier. You are talking to the world's most hardheaded woman. I don't get off this easy."

He paused, not mistaking the determination in those sharp blues. He saw the same look in the mirror whenever he shaved.

"Susan, I can't take you with me. I know where Miller is planning his hit. You told me enough for me to know it's going down tonight. Or this morning. I've got to do what I can to stop it from happening."

"You are not going to stop me from going with you," said Landry, distinctly enunciating each word.

"Sorry, lady, but I've got to," said Bolan sincerely, and he formed a loose fist and popped her one on the jaw that pitched Landry's head against the seat. He felt the pulse and nodded, satisfied she was unconscious, but unhurt.

"Sorry, Susan."

Bolan left the car wondering if he and this lady would ever cross paths again.

He knew they would.

Grimaldi commenced lift-off the moment Bolan was half inside the chopper's bubble front.

The pilot chuckled, gave his passenger a disparaging look.

"You sure do have a way with the ladies, boss. You sure do."

"I'd rather have that lady unconscious for a while than dead permanently."

"What a guy, throwing away a woman like that."

"I've got a feeling we haven't seen the last of her," Bolan growled, reaching for the radio transceiver on the chopper's dash control cluster.

"Whereto?"

"The Farm, Jack, and don't spare the horses." Then, activating the transceiver, "Striker to Stony Man, come in Stony Man."

April's voice came over a backup shortwave setup at the Farm.

"This is Stony Man, go ahead Striker."

"I'm coming in. The hit will go down this morning before sunrise. Give it a ninety-nine percent probability. Commando unit, about twenty men."

"I'll pass the word."

"Anything turn up on that security scan on Captain Wade?"

"Negative. He appears to be clean all the way."

"Everyone is so clean but still there's so much dirt. Damn. Okay, lady, batten down the hatches. Jack and I are on our way in. Over and out."

"Hurry home, Striker. Over and out."

Static crackled in Bolan's headphones.

Grimaldi piloted the Hughes in a southwesterly course. The lights of residential Virginia thinned out as the flight took them over black patches of Blue Ridge mountain country. Toward Stony Man.

There was no inclination to talk.

A merc-gone-bad named Al Miller.

The next link in the chain.

Bolan would find Miller at Stony Man Farm.

He could have waited at the Farm all evening for Miller instead of tearing apart Wonderland on the Potomac, looking for the truth in a city of lies.

Sure.

Hindsight is 20-20.

But Bolan would have missed the privilege of dispatching the vermin he had encountered on this chase that was about to erupt at the very heart and soul of everything that meant anything to Bolan in his life as John Phoenix.

A commando assault on Stony Man Farm.

How many men had the Executioner killed this night?

Not nearly enough.