Bolan had accepted that. So were the boys she was playing with. And it was possible for her cover to have been blown in a hundred ways. Some of them she would recognize, some would escape her. So Big Thunder would be riding his hip, just like always. And the Beretta would tag along.
When the guns were cleaned and oiled, he slipped them into their holsters. He had under an hour now, and it would take twenty minutes to make the rendezvous point. It was time to go. As always, Mack Bolan wanted to be early. There were too many loopholes, too many places for people to hide. If a man wanted to stay alive in this line of work, he plugged the loopholes, and flushed out the hiding places before it mattered. Otherwise it could be too late.
The meeting had been set for the southwest corner of Central Park. There were too many eyes in New York, too many people could see you when you couldn't see them. The safest place to be was someplace where only a fool, or a criminal, would go. That meant Central Park at night. In the winter.
Outside his hotel, Mack Bolan caught a cab for the ride to Columbus Circle. He watched the traffic, but there was no sign that he was being followed. At the Circle he left the cab, attracting little, if any, attention. The fountain plaza was less crowded than usual. Even society's derelicts sought refuge from the cold.
Rachel was going to wait for him in the park on the bridle path. The shadows under the roadway overpass would be appropriate cover for their meeting. Most New Yorkers avoided such places even at high noon on a summer day.
No one with legitimate business would be around.
Bolan entered the park followed by jeers and a sales pitch or two, most of which would have been offensive if they had been intelligible. He watched carefully to see whether anyone had paid more than the expected attention. Even a drunk should have noticed a well-dressed man entering the park at night. No one seemed overly interested. Once inside, it was immediately dark. What few lights there were had long been dead. Vandals accounted for their fair share, and muggers had done away with the rest. The leaves underfoot crunched in the cold, and stray papers blew across the pavement. The wind was brisk, and that was bad. The noise would make it easier for a tail to hide his presence. At a fork in the walk he paused against a light stanchion to survey the area to his rear. Anything a flitting shadow, a thud, even a breaking twig could make the difference.
Satisfied that no one was following, he moved deeper into the park.
Bearing to the right, he approached the bridle path.
The black dirt was frozen, and the crust looked undisturbed. No one had passed that way recently. Once on the path, he increased his vigilance. The walkway was overhung by trees on both sides, making it a gloomy tunnel. For some reason that escaped both the New York police and Mack Bolan, people insisted on walking that way at night, and muggers kept right on waiting.
After about seventy yards, Bolan's attuned sense of hearing registered something. It was a whisper.
That meant one of two things. Either someone was talking to himself or, more likely, two people were hidden in the trees to his left. Bolan turned to look behind him. The prick of cold steel on his cheek came as no surprise. Holding an urge to retaliate in check, he waited for the second punk to step in front of him.
"Hey, man, you lost?" The sneer was obvious, even in the shadows.
"No. Are you?" Bolan felt the knife a second time.
"You looking for drugs, I bet. You ain't out for the air, is you my man?"
"As a matter of fact I am." Bolan dropped quickly to the bridle path, spinning on his back as he did. His left foot flashed out and caught one punk in the groin, doubling him over. The second mugger stepped forward, but he was too slow. Bolan caught his extended arm, reaching in behind the blade. He pulled forward, using the momentum to snap the punk's arm at the elbow. He looked at the two of them, no more than kids, and shook his head in disgust. "You guys shouldn't be out here. Don't you have anything better to do?"
"Man, you broke my goddamn arm. What'd you do that for?"
"If you want to keep the other one, get out of here, and take that garbage with you. Now."
"Let's go, man," the nut-busted mugger groaned. "That son of a bitch'll kill us, man."
Bolan watched them stagger off toward the light and wondered if they'd ever know how lucky they'd been.
Another night, and he might have taught them a lesson they'd never forget. This one they'd probably just chalk up to experience and maybe take it out on their next victim. Maybe. There was nothing Mack Bolan could do about that. Not now. He quickened his pace to make up for lost time. Reaching the overpass five minutes before the appointed hour, he gave it a quick once-over. Rachel wasn't there yet. No reason she should be. And, better yet, the place was deserted. He pressed back into the shadows to wait. On the dot of nine he flicked his lighter on and off. An answering glow flashed among the trees, and a moment later Rachel joined him.
"You all right?" Bolan asked.
"So far."
"What's up? Your message was urgent."
"I'm not sure. There's a lot going on, and I'm not sure I like it. It's too easy."
"What do you mean?" Bolan knew what she was going to say.
"I can't believe they trust me as much as they seem to. It makes no sense. They're up to something big. I know that. But I don't know what. On the other hand, they've let me in on some penny-ante stuff."
"Such as?" Rachel quickly sketched the details of three operations that Malcolm Parsons had personally briefed her on. All were scheduled for the next two weeks, and none seemed particularly momentous.
Bolan didn't like it. Not a bit.
"What do you think they're up to?" he asked.
"I don't know. There was a new guy around. I never saw him before. He and Parsons locked themselves up in the library, sometimes for hours at a time."
"Any idea who he is?"
"No. I don't even know his name. They call him Peter, but that's all I know. He's tall, thinning hair. Sounds English, but I'm not certain."
"Try to find out what they're up to. Don't take any unnecessary risks, but do what you can. I think we're being set up."
"But how? Why?"
"How, I don't know. Why I can guess. They're onto me, and they want me. They're trying to smoke me out. The guy at Hanley's, the one who got away. He must have gotten a better look at me than I thought. If they ran that past the boys in the Kremlin, they probably got a make on me. I don't know. It's just a hunch."
"What about me?"
"Watch yourself. They don't trust you. That's obvious. And they'll try to use you to get to me if they make a connection. Are you sure you weren't followed tonight?"
"As sure as I could be. There's always a chance, of course."
The darkness of the overpass suddenly deepened.
Bolan glanced toward the mouth of the tunnel and saw two men advancing toward them. Two more entered at the other end. It was a trap, and a good one.
"Get back against the wall and lie down," Bolan hissed, pressing Rachel against the stone. "We've got company."
He unslung the Beretta and dropped to the ground. Their only chance was to clean out one end of the tunnel, fast. And that would just reduce the odds.
Bolan hoped they didn't have lights.
As if on cue, one end of the tunnel was bathed in illumination. He snapped a shot at the hand-held torch. He missed the light, but not the man behind it.
With a groan, the man dropped the lamp, falling forward to cover it. The Executioner fired again, aiming between the twin points of light escaping from under the man's body. The slug hit home. Looking over his shoulder, he gauged the distance to the other two men, who seemed to have waited at the mouth of the tunnel. Turning his attention back to the first team, he sighted in on the remaining gunman.