She gunned the Honda into life and aimed it toward the heart of Washington. Her answer, or the clues to finding a solution, would be waiting for her there. Brognola might not know it yet, but Susan Landry meant to help him if she could. And failing that, she meant to share his story with the world.
The gunner's last instructions had been brief and to the point: "We've set the meet for midnight. It's at Arlington. You're visiting the Unknown Soldier. Bring the lists. You miss this meet, you've missed it all."
Just that. No chance to speak with Helen or his children, to verify their safety. Then a kind of menace to the buzzing dial tone until he slammed down the receiver with enough force to crack the plastic. It had taken several moments for Brognola to recover his composure, or what little of it still remained, and he was certain Susan Landry had been picking up the bad vibrations loud and clear.
He put the reporter out of mind. Someone had obviously tipped her to the stink at Justice, and she had been following her nose. Brognola hadn't thought to ask her how she had acquired his address, and he didn't care. He had too many more important things to think about.
Like Helen, Jeff and Eileen.
They might be dead already, discarded as a hazard to security. If they were still alive, their hours would be numbered now. He could not think of any reason for the gunners to let them live past the midnight drop. Once Hal delivered — once he pulled whatever damned fool stunt his fevered mind was able to devise — they would be so much excess baggage, useless to their captors and a certain liability to any clean escape. They could be dead before he made the drop, assuming always that the gunners didn't plan to kill him, too.
It was entirely possible, of course, although the scheme struck Hal as too elaborate for an assassination. There were countless opportunities each day for a determined hitter to score: at work, in transit, at the supermarket or at home. The syndicate had never lacked in opportunities to kill Brognola, and he had to think that there was something more involved. The murder of a ranking Justice officer would generate tremendous heat, and anyone involved would have to insulate himself sufficiently before he risked the flames.
Unless the sudden shadow over Hal's career might prove sufficient to diffuse the heat, convince a cynical establishment that he had gotten only what he bargained for in dealing with the Mob. But what of his family? If he was murdered while apparently cooperating in delivery of the secret witness list, how would annihilation of his wife and children be explained?
Brognola couldn't crack the riddle, and he finally gave it up, convinced that there was some other motive in the move against his family. If only he could crack the riddle...
But he didn't have the time for puzzles now. Six hours, give or take, before he was expected to present himself at Arlington, to do or die with everything that mattered to him in the world depending on his choice of a reaction.
And the man from Justice realized that he had been engaging in some artful self-deception. Everything depended on Mack Bolan now, and nothing Brognola did would matter in the least if Bolan muffed it. The Executioner was every hope and prayer Brognola had, and the guy was out there at that very moment, kicking ass and taking names. He would be raising hell with Gianelli's troops, with anybody else who tried to block his path, and Hal could almost feel a grudging sympathy for Bolan's human prey.
Almost.
The soldier's enemies were now Brognola's enemies, as well. The violent world outside had forcibly intruded on his private space, and only a strategic escalation of the violence could secure his family's safe release. Brognola's world was resting in Bolan's hands tonight, and if the soldier fell, Brognola's universe would tumble down around him.
There was nothing he could do but wait and chart the grim alternatives that would remain if Bolan failed. If something happened to the warrior, if Brognola was compelled to face the enemy alone, he knew that he would keep the midnight rendezvous prepared to die. With nothing left to lose, aware that Helen and the kids were doomed whichever way he broke, it would be left for Hal to track the bastards on his own. He might not ever see the members of his family again, but if he lived past Arlington, if he was able to secure the identities of their abductors, he would have a short-range motive for survival till the job was finished.
As for the future... He couldn't focus on the days and weeks beyond. Reality had shrunk to the here and now; there was no future after midnight, nothing tangible beyond his scheduled face-to-face with death.
Brognola meant to keep that grim appointment, take his private pain and ram it down the throats of those who had already traumatized his world. And if it was the last thing that he ever did, well, he could live with that — or die with it — and screw the rest.
But for the moment there was Bolan, out there in the darkness, stalking.
Hal Brognola said a silent prayer for all concerned and went to clean his guns.
12
Raenelle Gireau had not been blessed with beauty. The ugly duckling of her class in any given year, she waited patiently at first, and then with mounting irritation, for the transformation that would make her into a graceful swan. Her parents and a host of doting relatives made light of her concerns, assuring her that she was a "late bloomer," destined to achieve a beauty all her own... in time.
But time had not cooperated, and at twenty years of age, Raenelle had finally decided that the hand of nature needed some assistance from the hands of man.
Raenelle admitted to herself that she was plain, and early on she had determined to be beautiful. What she had lacked in glamour, the young woman more than compensated for in keen intelligence, and she had found a way of earning money for the magic transformation she desired. In junior college, she had introduced herself to half a dozen independent prostitutes in Buffalo, New York, and offered them her services as manager, accountant, general troubleshooter. With her knowledge of computers, she had organized a thriving out-call service, booking contacts in advance and reinvesting income for "her girls" at only ten percent commission. Word had spread like wildfire on the streets, and at the end of Raenelle's second year in business, she was managing a ring of more than sixty girls full-time.
She had been able to afford the plastic surgery that had turned her into someone her parents wouldn't have recognized. It scarcely mattered, since they had already learned of her activities at college and had disowned her. They would not take her calls, her letters were returned unopened and she finally stopped trying to secure their approval. She had finally blossomed, but no thanks were due to them, and when Raenelle lost her virginity at twenty-three, it was the first completely happy day of her life.
In time, the out-call service had attracted more than customers. The local Family was interested in anything that turned a profit on the far side of the law, and after an examination of the books, their representative had made an offer that Raenelle could not refuse. The syndicate absorbed her operation, bought her out at a substantial profit and installed her in the nation's capital. In three short years, she had become the ranking madam in a three-state area, with roots in Washington itself. Her girls had serviced diplomats from half the countries of the world, and they had not been overlooked by the domestic crop of politicians, either.
Raenelle's base of operations was the Venus Spa and Health Club, a retreat with membership reserved for an exclusive clientele. No member of the club had ever lifted weights or done aerobics on the premises, but that is not to say that they refrained from working out. Raenelle employed a staff of nubile "therapists" who were adept at handling the kinks their clients had developed in the course of diplomatic service. Stressing hands-on therapy and frequent repetition of procedures that produced the best result, her staff had never failed to satisfy.