"Stand by, Hotel One," came the instant response.
While Holzer "stood by," his gaze swung magnetically along the still growing row of sheet-draped litters across that lawn.
"Stand by, hell," he muttered into the night.
Then his connection came through, and he commenced the broadcast that had become a part of the contingency plans of every law enforcement agency in the area, including federal and Canadian.
The alert was on.
The hunter had become the hunted.
And, for this one, there was nothing to be envied. There would be no red tape and no official legalities. The plan was clear. Mack Bolan was to be shot on sight.
8
Realized
Toby hated to admit it even to herself, but she definitely felt better with the big fellow around. He was a nice solid rock to lean upon, and it just didn't make any sense to fight him. Toby needed a rock to lean on at the moment ... and it felt good just to acknowledge that fact.
She watched from the background as he silently and methodically disposed of the guard at the southern boundary, then she trotted beside him for what seemed a mile. It was too much effort to attempt conversation, and there was not that much to be said. He slid her a reassuring glance from time to time and paused twice to wait for her while she made necessary adjustments to the ridiculous shoes she was wearing.
She was beginning to wonder if he intended to lope all the way to town, when he suddenly took a ninety-degree swerve and led her inland through the darkened grounds of a large estate. The place appeared deserted. He had stashed a car in there, close to Lake Shore Drive — and she had an opportunity to again watch the man at work, in the grimmest business of all — survival.
He pressed her to the ground beside a prickly shrub, within sight of the car, quietly commanded her to "stay put," and then he simply vanished. One moment she was watching his circular advance toward a stand of trees lining the driveway; the next moment he just wasn't there. It was not all that dark a night. She began to fidget with uneasiness as time lengthened and no perceptions of the man crossed her senses. Then she caught a glimpse of a fleeting movement out near the roadway, and she understood what he was doing.
In the military, they would call it reconnoitering.
Mack Bolan probably called it surviving.
Very grim, yes, this man's business.
He reappeared beside her a couple of minutes after that, showing her a reassuring flash of eyes and teeth, and she went with him to the stashed vehicle.
He held the door for her, then went to the rear and opened the luggage compartment.
She heard heavy items being deposited back there and suddenly realized that the big quiet man had carried a lot of extra weight along that mile's worth of run. Toby herself was just beginning to breathe normally. She weighed a hundred and ten pounds and enjoyed the superb conditioning of a professional dancer. What fantastic sort of conditioning did this man enjoy?
A glimpse of bare torso reflected in the car mirror went a long way toward answering that question; telling her, also, that he was changing clothes. She quickly angled the mirror for a few adjustments to her own appearance, which was somewhat the worse for this night's work, and tried to forget that stolen glimpse of Captain Beautiful. It was a damn silly time to get a rush over a male body, especially that one.
Don't be dopey, Toby, she scolded herself. You're on opposite sides of the fence. Mack Bolan is a hunted fugitive. A tragic, tragic man. Emergency coexistence for mutual survival is one thing, it's forgivable. But don't entertain dreamy ideas about Captain Hormone back there. That man is riding a one-way ticket to hell. That man …
He slid in beside her, destroying that mental lecture. He now wore slacks and a dark shirt, open at the neck. Draped about the shoulders was a towel that he was using to remove that black makeup.
She told him, "I'll do that. Let's go."
He tossed the towel to her and started the car moving, easing onto Lake Shore Drive and turning smoothly southward. She came to her knees on the seat and leaned against him as she dabbed the cosmetic away from that granite face.
"Well... it's been a lovely evening," she said. "Where now, Captain Marvelous? Your place or mine?"
He slid his gaze toward her and replied, "I can drop you wherever you'd like."
Toby let the matter hang while she vigorously scrubbed his forehead. It was necessary, of course, to get him in a headlock to hold that stubborn head steady under the assault. And she could not resist planting moist lips in the heart of the clean spot. Then she did his face and hung a couple of swift ones there, also.
"Call it thanks," she murmured. "I was in a bad spot. Thanks."
"Forget it," he growled.
She flung the towel at him and said, "Okay, so I spoiled your timing or something tonight. But I didn't ask you for a damn thing. Why are you always so surly with me, Mack Bolan?"
He showed her an obviously forced smile, and the voice was softer as he replied, "Sorry. Nothing personal, Toby."
Sure. She understood. Nothing personal. All business, grim, unyielding. Boy, she'd had a hope chest full of that! She experienced a sudden desire to just start screaming and bawling all at once.
She flounced to the far corner, murmuring, "What a lousy life you lead, Mack Bolan."
"We lead," he reminded her.
Hell, that was all it took. She let it out, then, not as the screaming fit she desired but as silent tears blinding and humiliating her, followed swiftly by detestably weak damn feminine gulps and gobbles as she fought to shut it off and tuck it all back in.
Bolan reached for her, and she slapped his hand away. He grabbed her anyway and jerked her over against him, then held her there in an enfolding arm, her head on his chest.
She cried, "Damn you, Bolan!" then melted into the embrace, allowing herself to be comforted as every woman has a right to be from time to time.
"It's okay," he told her in an incredibly soft voice.
"The hell it is," she blubbered. "I'm a cop, damn you. How many cops have you ever done this for?"
"Men cry, Toby," he said, and there was nothing impersonal, grim, or unyielding in that quiet declaration. It was a confession, a statement of equality, not condescending comfort.
She saw the man then, the true man, in a blinding flash of understanding. And the tragedy of his life deepened in that understanding. It had to do with personal versus impersonal and a paradox in those terms. A man with genuine human warmth and depth cloaked himself in cold purpose and grim necessity, then went out to kill and destroy in a purely impersonal crusade, yet somehow managing to retain that deeply personal dimension of self that could and probably did often revolt against the grim game.
But the man on the stage of death was the impersonal one.
In contrast, a brutal, mad dog of a man, totally lacking in human qualities, could masquerade as a genuine human being to spread misery wherever his strongly personal desires focused, and without once experiencing a revolt of personality.
Men cry, Toby.
Yes, sure they did. Real men.
Mack Bolan was real, this was Toby's illumination. Her tears ceased almost immediately, and she snuggled into the reality of the man, accepting him, accepting herself, saving the revolt for those who deserved it.
They drove silently on, the journey ending a few minutes later in a modern apartment complex somewhere on the north side. He put the car in an underground garage, and they shared a silent elevator to the twelfth floor of the highrise, then he led her to a nicely appointed efficiency apartment that overlooked the city.
"Who'd you have to hit to get this?" she asked him.
"Sublet, one week," he told her. "No questions asked, just lots of money."
She inspected the place with a personal interest, looking for further clues to the man, realizing almost at once that she would find none. The warrior lived here, not the man.
Next-to-invisible threads on doors and windows revealed his preoccupation with security against undetected callers.
He traveled light.
A single change of clothing was all the closet held. The bathroom boasted toothbrush and toothpaste, razor, comb, bar of soap, and towel.
He had gone directly to the studio kitchen and was making coffee.
She watched him for a moment, then asked, "Are you inviting me to stay? Or did I miss something?"
Without looking up from his task, he told her, "I'm suggesting that you do."
"Why?"
He said, "I goofed. Allowed Charley Fever to walk away with a light hit. He'll be wondering about you. And me. Might put something together." He looked up then, fixing her with a sober gaze. "That is, unless you'd rather chuck your cover and put on your badge. Even then, he could decide to put you on contract. These guys are edgy."
She bit her lip and thought about that.
"I'll stay," she decided. "Flip you for the first shower."
"I was hoping we could have a cooperative venture," he said, showing her the first genuine smile of the night.
She edged a hip against a wall and folded her arms across her chest, very soberly. Her eyes studied the floor as she replied, "Just what did you have in mind?"
"Forget it. I thought we were both pros, that's all."
"Yes?"
He turned back to the coffee and said, "Sorry. Forget it."
"Captain Bluff," she said, half angrily.
"Go to hell," he said.
"If you're going to start it, you should finish it."
"You're the cop. You finish it."
She tossed her head and moved away from the wall, arms remaining folded over the chest. "What kind of pros are we?"
Bolan lit a cigarette and blew smoke toward the coffeepot. "I said, forget it."
She could not. "If that was a cheap shot, Mack, I'm terribly disappointed in you."
"No shot at all," he muttered.
"Okay. I'm a pro. A whore with a badge. Is that what you meant? I've been playing bedsy with Tony the Louse Quaso for the past month. If you expect me to apologize for that, forget it, just you forget it."
He told her quietly, "Toby, I've killed more men this week than you've screwed in a lifetime. And I don't have a badge. I'm not throwing stones your way."
She said, miserably, "Damn it. Just damn it."
He watched her through a moment of silence, then dropped his cigarette in the sink and ran water on it. "Look," he said, finally, "I felt a sudden desire to scrub your back. Okay? Person to person, man to woman, and to hell with everything else for a little while. What I said about professionals had nothing to do with whoring and killing. I simply meant that people like you and me lead a special sort of existence. There's no time or opportunity for all the cute romancing, for waltzing around the floor 'til dawn, gazing deeply into each other's eyes. We live on an entirely different level. We have to love on that level, or not at all. That's what I meant, and that's all I meant."
"Did you say love?"
"Yeah," he growled. "Remember what that is?"
"I do," she replied solemnly. "Do you love me?"
"Tonight, Toby, I could love Dracula's mother. No, uh, comparison intended."
She giggled. "Okay, Captain Pro. Flip you for the first back scrub."
"You're on," he said.
And then she was being lifted off her feet, clasped in strong arms, carried to the doorway of a very special reality.
Emergency coexistence, that was it ... for mutual survival. And personal … wow, was it personal!
Captain Virile could and would wash away the revolting stage stains of Tony the Louse.
Mack Bolan was for real.