"How far?"
The agent thought about it long enough to know his life depended on the answer, its sincerity.
"We've got a safe house just outside of Sleepy Hollow. Maybe twenty minutes north, with traffic." Grymdyke rattled off an address, which the soldier memorized.
It was more like twenty-five without, but Bolan didn't quibble.
"One more question."
"Let me guess. You're looking for the sponsor, right?"
The soldier's eyes responded with a mute affirmative.
"It's Family business, guy. You're biting off a mouthful here."
"I'm interested in Gianelli's hot line to the Company."
He saw the agent flinch, was satisfied with the reaction.
"Hey, you know that much, you know I can't go into it."
"All right."
He was a microsecond from the final squeeze when Grymdyke raised both hands, palms outward, as if flesh could turn the parabellum round aside.
"Goddammit, wait!" His chest was heaving like a man experiencing cardiac arrest. "The bastard's not worth dying for."
"I'm listening."
"The sponsor's Cameron Cartwright, get it? He's the honcho at Clandestine Ops."
"What's his connection with the Family?"
"Who knows? Directions to the crapper in that place are need-to-know. I didn't ask, he didn't offer, get it?"
"Yeah."
It added up in Bolan's mind. If Cartwright had been managing the move against Brognola, he would not enlighten his subordinates beyond the bare essentials necessary for completion of their individual assignments. They would not be privy to his motives, his associations, the potential payoffs of his scheme. In retrospect, it was unusual for Grymdyke to be conscious of the Mafia connection, but his background with Clandestine Operations, his propensity for wet work had undoubtedly familiarized the man with CIA connections to the syndicate.
But time was running out, and Bolan had to disengage. He might be able to prevent the worst, but only if he moved without delay. The problem lay in leaving Grymdyke, knowing that the man could not be trusted under any circumstances. He would call ahead, alert the gunners, ruin everything. If Bolan ripped the phones out, wasting precious time, he only had to run next door or cross the street. If he was able.
All of this flashed through Mack Bolan's mind, and in that instant he observed the sidelong glance that Grymdyke cast in the direction of a nightstand on his left. The single glance told Bolan everything he had to know, and he could not afford to let the opportunity escape.
He drifted toward the open window, lowering the Beretta carelessly, aware that Grymdyke would be waiting for an opening. The guy would read his move as overconfidence, the kind of error that could get a soldier killed at times like this. He saw the muscles bunch in Grymdyke's shoulders, in his thighs, as he prepared to make his move.
And when it came, the spook was quicker, more adept than Bolan had expected. He had been rehearsing, planning for a moment such as this when he would have an opportunity to test himself. He reached the drawer and ripped it open in a single fluid motion, dipped inside and drew the long-slide .45, already tracking into target acquisition in perhaps a second and a half.
It very nearly saved his life.
The 93-R whispered once, and Bolan knew immediately that it was not a mortal wound. The parabellum round ripped into Grymdyke's ribcage, spun him sideways and the .45 exploded in his fist. Somewhere behind him Bolan heard the slug hit plaster, and a little yelping scream escaped the confines of the closet.
Bolan fired again, impacting on a pallid cheek and boring through to find the brain. His target folded, lifeless fingers loosening around the .45, lifeblood already forming pools among the folds of shiny satin underneath.
A backward glance informed him that the woman was safe and sound. The single round from Grymdyke's .45 had missed her closet sanctuary by at least a yard, and she was snuffling now, awaiting further gunplay in the sheltered darkness of her cubicle.
He left her to it, picking up the beside telephone and dialing information for the number of the hospital where Hal had taken Leo. When he raised the nurse on duty in emergency he had Brognola paged and waited, cursing to himself, while several moments passed in wasted silence. Finally he recognized the big Fed's voice and let him have the Sleepy Hollow address, waiting while Brognola gave it back verbatim.
"Twenty minutes," Bolan told him, glancing at his watch. "We're on a deadline."
"Dammit, that's not long enough."
"You're wasting time."
He cradled the receiver, going out the same way he had come, descending swiftly, pushing off the trellis halfway down and sprinting back in the direction of the gate and his rental car. He had precisely eighteen minutes left when he slid in behind the wheel.
And Hal was right: it wasn't long enough. He didn't have a hope in hell of reaching Sleepy Hollow, tracking down the address and attempting any sort of rescue by a half-past one. It was a washout, doomed to failure from the outset — but if Bolan had no hope, he also had no viable alternative. But he had to try, and only when he saw the mortal evidence of failure lying at his feet would he be free to seek revenge.
Against the Gianelli family for openers. Against the honcho at Clandestine Ops who put the ball in play and caused so much unbridled havoc in the lives of decent folk. The bastard would be sorry he had started with Brognola, sorry he was ever born, before the Executioner was finished with him. He would plead for death, accept it as a blessing when it came.
Mack Bolan was surprised by the intensity of hate that welled up inside him. How long since he had braced himself to kill from righteous anger? Had it been Detroit? Miami? Pittsfield? Had it been so long since he allowed himself to feel? The question nagged at him taunting, and for an instant he wondered whether he had grown inured to suffering, immune to pain.
And in that instant, he immediately knew the answer. He had not forgotten how to feel. Pain had been a part of Bolan's war from the beginning, from the moment when he stood before a row of graves in Massachusetts, saying his farewells to home and family. He had survived the pain and learned to cope when lesser men might easily have sought escape through drunkenness or death. He had survived to turn that pain around and forge from it a weapon to destroy his enemies. With each new wound he suffered, each new loss, the soldier braced himself to wreak vengeance on the savages arrayed against him. In a world of dog-eat-dog, it was the swiftest, most ferocious hound who led the pack. It might already be too late to salvage anything from Sleepy Hollow. Bolan would not write Brognola's wife and children off, but neither would he count on miracles. If they were dead before he reached them, if the nightmare become reality, there still might be a chance for him to overtake the cleanup crew. From there, he had a date with Nicky Gianelli, and another with the honcho from Clandestine Ops.
There would be nothing he could say to Hal. The man from Justice had not asked for any promises, aware that they were impossible to keep. His sorrow would be boundless, and eradication of the animals responsible would not assuage his grief.
But it would help the Executioner.
His private pain was forged from equal parts of loss and anger now, with anger grappling for the upper hand. And it would help him to watch a bullet rip through Nicky Gianelli's face. To lock his fingers tight around the throat of Cameron Cartwright, squeezing out the breath of life until the man's tongue protruded and his eyes rolled blindly back into his head. It would be good to kill again.
Relax, Bolan told himself. The anger, he knew, could get him killed if he allowed it to control his actions. If he reached the safe house before the occupants departed, he would be outmanned, outgunned, and he would need his wits about him if he hoped to see another sunrise.