Even if a guy planned every number down the line, one glitch could throw those numbers straight to hell. Maybe Lemon was a Russian double too. Maybe someone just screwed up, never informed him. But those answers would have to wait.
Sir Philip regarded Bolan dispassionately. Moving slowly and deliberately, he got out his cigarette case and lit up.
Bolan knew the guy had spent a lifetime walking the edge of the knife. The aristocratic polish was simply a superficial shell over a hard and dangerous man.
With the play now on a blood-soaked heartbeat, Bolan had to show him what hard and dangerous really meant.
"When do the Russians pick up the prototype?" Bolan asked, his voice flat, icy. His left arm refused to cooperate in the simplest action. He applied all his will to ignoring what already felt like it was no longer there. The Britisher was good all right. The traitor did not bother with any "I-don't-know-what-you-are-talking-about" routine.
He just shook his head and gave Bolan the merest smile.
Bolan leaned across the desk and leveled the Detonics into Drummond's face, six inches away. "You broke the rules, Drummond," the Man from Ice said. "But I'll go you one better." Bolan laid the muzzle of the Detonics on the bridge of the British traitor's nose. "I'm not playing by any rules at all," he said.
The smile washed out of Drummond's expression, and what took its place said the guy had become a believer. Every word Bolan had said was truth and Drummond knew it.
"You're turned up, Drummond," Bolan went on relentlessly. "You are blown. I know, and MI5 knows. Pretty soon your pals in the Kremlin will know. Think they'll like that?" Bolan knew that Drummond had been around long enough to understand what this meant. Now he was worthless as a Russian agent. If his KGB masters got their hands on him, they would begin by interrogating him, and their methods would be the methods of the Beast. In short order Drummond would have told them everything of any conceivable value he had learned during his career with British Intelligence.
But that would not stop the torture. The agony would continue, and so would Drummond, babbling out anything that came to mind, making up stories from whole cloth, beyond response or understanding, wanting only that the torment be over.
It would be over only when Drummond was dead.
But before that event, a hellish forever would pass.
Bolan could see the knowledge of Drummond's fate pass across the treasonous bastard's features.
"You are going to answer my questions," Bolan told him, "and after that your friends-the friends you tried to betray, they take over. They promise not to turn you over. You get to spend the rest of your life in some cozy military prison, which is a hell of a lot more than you deserve."
"How civilized," Drummond murmured.
Bolan pushed the barrel of the Detonics into Drummond's high forehead, forcing his head back.
"At 11:35, an American-made Beechcraft C-12A Super King Air turboprop will land," the Englishman began tonelessly. "It has been converted for light cargo and bears Transworld Import/export markings, although it is not one of MI5's. The pilot is Captain L. Rouballin of the KGB, and he will file a return flight plan for Leningrad."
"The prototype is here?"
Drummond nodded.
"Give me the envelope."
Drummond hesitated a moment, then pulled it out of his inside coat pocket. Reaching for it cost Bolan a serious spasm of pain in his left shoulder. He felt fresh stickiness on the wad of turtleneck that he was holding against the wound.
The envelope contained a single piece of 4-by-6-inch microfiche film. Bolan slipped it in the back pocket of his slacks, grimacing slightly as he did so.
Excellent. So far, so good. All that remained was to deal with the guidance-system prototype that the Russians were so hot for. As a piece of hardware it was not especially valuable; it was one of several which had been bread-boarded. It was the revealed technology that the Soviets wanted. The prototype sang openly of the secret history that had gone into its making. He would prevent this hemorrhage of data by keeping the thing out of their hands.
He would do this by giving it to them.
Of course, Bolan planned to make it a little bit too hot for them to handle.
Drummond was making it clear to the Russian that he did not appreciate being pressed into service as a stevedore. He had helped the KGBer load the prototype into the C-12A, but he was expressing his displeasure in no uncertain terms.
In the hangar office, Mack Bolan looked on grimly. The guy was good, all right, but then he had to be. He was playing for his life. Bolan had showed him the face of his potential Executioner.
4
Agent Lemon still lay against the wall, unconscious but breathing regularly.
From the receiver on the desk in front of Bolan, Rouballin said, "Where is specifications manual?" The Russian pilot's voice was guttural and thick with a Slavic accent. There was a pause, and then Rouballin demanded, "What is meaning of this?" From the anger in his tone, Bolan knew Drummond had handed over the attache case — the case that Bolan had been carrying.
"The manual is inside," Drummond's voice said suavely. "I will be most pleased to give you the combination to that lock as soon as I am able to verify that the agreed upon funds have been transferred to the account, in restitution for the advance I was compelled to make to the American, Mr. Charon."
"You not get away with..."
"Of course, if you like you are free to break the case open," Drummond interrupted smoothly.
"However, you should do so with a great deal of care. Do I make myself clear, old chap?" The radio-another product of Gadgets Schwarz's fertile imagination and electronic wizardry went silent for a moment; it was tuned to the frequency of a transmitting body-mike installed on Drummond.
"If I were you, Captain Rouballin," the Brit went on, "I would consider my mission here accomplished. I suggest you get back in your craft and fly away home."
The KGB pilot muttered something in Russian that quickly faded to silent as he moved out of the microphone's range. Time passed, and then Bolan heard the sound of a PT6 engine turning over.
The bullet wound in his shoulder was a pulsing dull ache now. When Bolan peered under the improvised bandage, he found the redness looking angrier. But at least the bleeding was almost stopped. As he was recovering it, Drummond came into the office.
There was a thin sheen of sweat across the double agent's forehead, but he had lost none of his composure. In a way, it was easier to deal with a professional like Drummond, who had enough years of tradecraft behind him to realize that his fate was dictated by his obedience now. From outside they heard the Beechcraft taxi by the hangar, the sound drifting into the distance, then coming back again, passing more quickly this time as the plane accelerated into takeoff.
Drummond listened to Bolan's instructions wordlessly.
Five minutes later Bolan had shed his bloody coat and the remnants of his turtleneck for the shirt and jacket of Lemon. It was a tight fit, but it would pass. The MI5 agent had regained consciousness, but some electrical wire and a rag from the hangar's maintenance shop insured his immobility and silence for now.
What was less sure, at least to the man who was engineering the play, was if he would last until the finale. The wound was a pounding presence now, and Bolan knew that without treatment he would descend into shock within minutes.
But there was still one more loose end to clean up before the mission would be history.
Shock would have to wait until then.
The control tower chief was a brisk efficient man in starched uniform shirtsleeves and forest-green slacks. He wore a mustache and full beard, both neatly trimmed, and a nameplate that identified him as "V. Vaughn." The tower rose from the midpoint of the three terminals, and through the panoramic windows Bolan could see 270 degrees worth of aprons and runways. The tower chief glared at the camera case slung over Bolan's good shoulder and said, "No pictures," rather sharply. Then he frowned at the identification card in his hand for longer than necessary before handing it back to Sir Philip Drummond.