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Relax, he told himself again.

Forget about the intervening miles and concentrate on distance covered, time remaining. Bolan knew the folly of defeatist thinking, realized the fatal error of giving up before the battle had been joined. If anger ruled his mind, he would be little better than a bullet fired at random, free to ricochet around the battlefield until it spent its force and fell to earth in vain. He needed something more along the order of a guided missile now, a death machine complete with built-in homing instinct that would let him find the necessary targets, root them out and burn them down with surgical precision. Forget about an old friend's family on the line, he counseled himself, and concentrate on picking off the savages. Make it count. And if the final sacrifice was necessary, take as many of the bastards with you as you could.

It was the only way to wage a war, and Bolan knew enough of living on the edge to realize that death was never far away. If this was all the time remaining to him here tonight, then he would use that time to best advantage, running up a score against the enemy before they took him down.

And he would teach them all a thing or two about the costs of everlasting war while he was at it. Offer them a lesson in the grim reality of suffering.

He stood on the accelerator, felt the car grudgingly respond, its engine laboring. Another fifteen minutes, and he wondered if Brognola had the slightest chance of showing up before the roof fell in. For once, he almost hoped that Hal would be late.

The man should not be forced to watch his family die.

There would be ample opportunity for him to witness death before the sun rose over Washington again. This one time, though, if there was any mercy in the universe, the soldier hoped Brognola might be spared.

But it was not a night for mercy.

It was a night for blood.

22

"He's late!"

"Take it easy. We've got time."

"He should've called by now."

"I'll give him ten more minutes."

"Dammit, Blake, the man said half-past one."

"And I said give him ten, so just relax."

The quarreling voices were distinct enough that Helen had been able to identify the speakers. Blake would be the blond one, the leader of the team, and he was standing firm against his two accomplices — for the moment. Their contact — someone calling with instructions? orders? — had already overrun his deadline, and the two gorillas were becoming restive, anxious to be on about their business.

Helen knew only too well what that business was, and she kept the dark suspicion to herself. The only call their captors might anticipate would deal with their release... or execution. She cherished no illusions of eleventh-hour stays, no last reprieve. The call, when it was finally made, would seal their fates, and any small delay could only provide an inkling of hope.

Whatever came they were prepared to fight and die with something close to dignity. Her Catholic background had prepared her to believe in miracles, but Helen recognized the odds against success. They would be facing automatic weapons in the hands of trained professionals, their only armament consisting of a wooden staff, a shower rod-cum-javelin, and the internal hardware from a toilet tank. No point in calculating odds; the melancholy end result would only weaken her resolve, and at the moment Helen needed every ounce of strength that she possessed.

She was determined to resist, if not in hopes of breaking free, then merely for resistance as an end unto itself. She would not let herself or her children be methodically eliminated like a string of brainless sheep marched off to slaughter. If they could strike one blow, or kill one of their enemies, they would have left some mark behind, a sign of their humanity, their will to live. Surrender at the final instant was unthinkable, a crime against Hal's memory and their life together.

No sounds came from the other room, and Helen stood back from the door, her children's eyes upon her as she turned to face them. They were waiting, tense, expectant, and the tears in Eileen's eyes were tears of anger mixed with fear. Jeff's face had aged impossibly, and Helen cursed their captors for the theft of innocence from both her children.

Were they innocent? Was anybody innocent today? In a society conditioned to accept a toll of sixty murders each and every day, six violent rapes per hour, was there even such a thing as innocence? Could children weaned on television news and splatter movies ever grasp the concept of a life immune to fear? It did not matter in the end. They were her children. And as far as she was concerned, they would always be innocent.

For bringing fear and grief into their lives, she owed the gunners any pain that she would finally be able to inflict. For snuffing out their lives, she owed the bastards more — and knew that she would never have the strength, the opportunity, to pay her debt in full.

If Hal was with her now...

God, no.

If Hal was with her, then the bastards would have all of it, her family and life itself wrapped up in one large bundle, ready for disposal. While he lived, while he was able to pursue their captors and make them scurry for their lives, then justice was a living breathing possibility.

And Hal was still alive. She sensed it, knew instinctively that his survival was the reason for her captors' agitation, the delay in their receipt of final orders. A meeting had been set for Arlington at midnight; Helen knew that much from listening to one-sided conversations on the telephone. Whatever had transpired, her man had walked away from it intact. If he was dead the gunners would have heard the news by now. The three of them would have been dead by now.

Which meant they still had time.

The leader, Blake, had said ten minutes. Gino and the one called Carmine were reluctant, but they both had gone along... from fear, uncertainty, whatever.

It was incredible, this measuring of life in minutes, knowing that you would be dead by, say, 1:45. Unless Blake stalled his comrades one more time. Unless a call came through.

"Be ready," Helen told her children in a whisper. "We take the first one through the door."

"Right on." Jeff's knuckles whitened where he gripped the wooden closet rod, converted to a makeshift fighting staff.

"I'm ready." Armed with metal slats extracted from the toilet tank, Eileen looked very soft and frail, a princess dressed in blue jeans and a checkered flannel shirt.

"All right."

The shower rod was cool and slick in Helen's hands, its tip already bent and flattened into something like a clumsy spear point. She would not be winning any prizes for originality or manual dexterity, but it would have to do. If she could reach soft flesh, perhaps a vital spot...

It was enough to fight. The killing, if she got that far, would be a bonus. No, a miracle.

And while her background had prepared her to believe in miracles, tonight Helen Brognola knew that she was on her own.

* * *

"They're still inside?"

Brognola's voice was strained, almost inaudible, and he was winded from the final sprint that had delivered him to Bolan's side. They looked away, his eyes returning to the lighted windows of the safe house.

"Could be they're waiting for a call."

"From Grymdyke?"

Bolan shrugged. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

"If they're alive..."

"Not now."

Brognola got the message and nodded solemnly. "How do we play it?"

"You stake out the front. I'll take the rear approach."