The Cobra

"I've heard so much about you," Lana told him. "The Cobra. I can't believe it." She smiled at Blake. "I always pictured the Cobra as a big ugly brute with scars. You look so clean-cut and . . . handsome."

"Thanks," he said. He felt pleased and slightly embarrassed that she found him good-looking. More than that, he was relieved that she had bought his identity. Decker had told him that very few members of the People's Strike Force had ever seen the Cobra. The group's chief assassin worked alone, taking his orders straight from Carlos. Show her the pistol, Decker had said, and you're in. Thank goodness he was right.

"What were you doing in the restaurant?" Lana asked.

"Trying to eat. Then you walked in. Small world."

"Are you in town for a hit?" she asked.

"I can't talk about that."

"No," she said. "Of course not."

"Look, we'd better get off the streets."

"We've got a safe-house," Lana said. "Over on Taylor, just above North Beach. Let's go there. You can meet the others."

Blake frowned, but his heart raced. This is what they had hoped for. Lana was not only willing but eager to take him to meet the members of her attack group. But he knew he shouldn't show he was eager. "I don't know," he muttered. "It's bad enough that you've seen my face. The fewer people who can recognize me, the more I like it."

"You can trust them," she said.

"How many are there?"

"Four others," Lana told him. "They're all good people, dedicated to the cause. You can trust them," she repeated.

"I'll be the one to decide who I can trust. Name them."

"Willie Jackson, Irma Getz, Blitzer Hogan and Herb Leonard."

Blake nodded. "I've heard good things about Getz and Hogan," he said. He had heard of those two, all right, but nothing good. The pair was on the FBI's "Most Wanted" list for more than a dozen bank robberies. They had shot two guards. It came as news to Blake, however, that they were with the PSF. They weren't just a couple of greedy stickup artists, after all. They were terrorists stealing to buy weapons for their "movement." If he could bust those two . . . This was almost too good to be true.

"If there's you, Getz and Hogan," he said, "you must be planning a bank hit."

"The First Federal on Grant Street. Tomorrow. So how about it? I know they'd be really honored to meet you. You're something of a legend, you know."

"If you think I'm going in on the bank hit with you," Blake said, "forget it. That's not my job."

"No. I would never ask you to do that. You're much too important to be risked in a hold-up."

"All right, then. Point the way."

Lana gave him directions. A few minutes later, he turned onto Taylor Street. The road, above the Broadway tunnel leading to North Beach, slanted steeply upward between two rows of apartment houses. When he swung toward the curb to park, the car tipped so much that his stomach lurched. He thought for a moment that the car might flip over, but it didn't.

He opened his door. Its surprising weight jerked the handle from his grip.

The door flew wide, slamming into a black van parked a yard downhill. He climbed out. Lana didn't even try to push open the passenger door. Instead, she slipped across the seats and got out on Blake's side.

"This way," Lana said.

He followed her up the sidewalk. Turning around, she took a few backward steps and smiled at him. The breeze blew her long hair across her face. Returning her smile, Blake felt a pang of regret. Such a shame, he thought. She's so beautiful. He could easily get to like her. But how could he like a cold-blooded terrorist?

"She's a snake," Decker had said.

She didn't look at all like a snake.

But Blake had a job to do. He would do it, no matter what she looked like.

He followed her across a walkway to the entrance of the house.