"You think I'd be a more helpful person to us all if I put in an appearance at home occasionally, is that it?" he sighed.
"More or less," April replied, smiling slightly. "You do need a break, Hal. For the sake of your own family and for Stony Man."
"I'm thirty years older than you are, young lady. What do you know about an old man's needs? I never mention my family, they are my secret. But you're right. This tension is getting to me. We all need a support system...."
He looked at her sheepishly, his eyes now twinkling with humor. "Will you forgive me for yelling at you, Miss Rose?"
"I cracked and I'm the one who's sorry," said April, turning slightly to face the wall covered in charts, a map of the world and a map of the U.S. "It's just that I can't bear it when Mack is at the mercy of those who aid and abet terrorism. I do have personal feelings for him, yes, and I have done ever since he saved my life in Tennessee.''
Brognola nodded. It was an incredible time back then and he would never forget it. The episode April referred to was when the USJD had given Striker one week to hit six areas and finish off that particular bloody mile. In those days, of course, April was a fervent pacifist, and accepting an assignment as driver of the War Wagon was as aggressive as she would get. Until the Mob got its hands on her in Nashville and Bolan had to blaze his way to her rescue. Since then she had become a new woman.
"If there are people helping a hit team to operate in this country," she continued, "then I want us to take out those people now."
"Sure, April, I know," agreed Brognola, his respect for this strong woman confirmed by everything she said. "It's bad enough that we have a hit team in the country at all — definitely an event of the late seventies and eighties. It would have been unheard of at any other time. Makes me feel like an old man….
"But the truth is, we don't have any information on who their accomplices are. Yet. I'm reasonably certain that there are no pro-Iranian gunrunners and arms dealers among the new amateurs at that business. I mean any of those out-of-work Special Forces vets hanging around for some action in Fayetteville or Hawaii. It's my opinion that the supply route is through a different sort of organization altogether."
"That's interesting," said April, her eyebrows raised in anticipation.
"I think the arms source has been too skillfully covert, too successful, for a bunch of embittered ex-soldiers moaning about social neglect. I believe we'll find some old friends from civilian life involved in this. I look forward to the unraveling of it."
"You mean the Mob, don't you?" April was barely able to conceal her pleasure at identifying the enemy. And it was an enemy already decimated by Mack, it just needed to be hacked back every now and again. Great. This would be an adversary he could get his teeth into, deep into the carotid artery once more. Things were looking up at last. Her body responded with exhilaration at the thought of it, extinguishing exhaustion.
"Hal," she said, picking up a wrapped stogie from the head fed's desk and handing it over to him in a celebratory gesture. "Have another cigar."
For the first time that night, Hal smiled with something approximating real delight. "I think I will," he said, grinding the dead butt of his previous one in the ashtray. "And yourself?"
"Thanks, but no," grinned April Rose. "I'm trying to give them up."
"Good for you," grunted Hal, enjoying himself for this fleeting moment. "Come on, let's get some more coffee and fill in the time with some calls of our own. I've got an idea a little detective work is required of us."
6
Bolan had known physical giants who had been weak and as easily intimidated as lambs. Now here was a guy in a wheelchair, whom Bolan sized up immediately as probably one of the strongest, toughest, craftiest men he had ever confronted.
Sure, Bolan had seen his kind before. A cannibal. Blood brother to the Mafia dons that Bolan had deceived during his previous "life." A guy whose driving wheel was the lust to exploit and gain for his own ends, no matter what the cost to others. That lust was fueled by a strength of will that would only be conquered by death.
And somehow General Nazarour knew that Bolan had brought Carol Nazarour back to the grounds.
How much else did he know? Bolan wondered.
Finally he responded to Nazarour's query regarding the general's wife.
"Why not ask the lady herself?" Bolan grunted. "I'm not here to play question and answer, General. Nor to take orders. I'm here to protect your ass until dawn." He glanced across the room at the second Iranian. "Rafsanjani. I want you to take me on a tour of the house, then take me to your security chief."
Rafsanjani paused, looking at General Nazarour.
The general seemed to be considering something. Then he nodded and some of his coldness thawed. He seemed to Bolan like a jungle animal relaxing. But an animal of prey nonetheless.
"Forgive me, Colonel. Perhaps I was a bit presumptuous. But I would ask you to consider my situation and not 'stonewall' it, as you Americans amusingly say. My life is at stake here. You are a military man. I am a military man. I observe signs of a struggle about the knees of your slacks. I must know what I'm up against. Have you engaged the enemy?"
Bolan changed tactics, too. It would do no good to alienate Nazarour. The odds tonight were already stacked.
"I engaged someone," Bolan nodded. "Some men tried to abduct your wife. I intervened."
The general's face remained impassive. "Were they Iranian?"
"Not that I could see. We shot it out over in the Canal Park. I killed six of them."
Nazarour's eyes blazed. "You might have learned something from them," he snapped. "You could have questioned them."
"I had no choice. Any idea who they were?"
"None. Unless they were working in connection with this assassination team."
"That's not very likely," grunted Bolan. "From what I've heard, this team doesn't need any help. Now if you'll excuse me, General, I'll be about my business."
Rafsanjani stood by the door, holding it open for Bolan but with his eyes on Nazarour.
Nazarour read the unspoken question and nodded. "Show him everything he wishes to see," he instructed his aide. "And send my men in here."
"Yes, General."
Bolan stepped out into the corridor, and Rafsanjani followed, easing the study door shut behind him. Bolan glanced up and down the hallway. There was no sign of Carol Nazarour.
"How did the general know that Mrs. Nazarour and I came back together?" he asked the aide.
Rafsanjani's eyes were cold as polished marble. "The general is master of this house," he replied coolly. "My allegiance is to the general. I owe him my life. I would do anything for him." Here he paused for effect. "Please wait, Colonel, while I see to the guards. Then we shall begin our tour."
The old house was as much a museum as a residence. It had been modernized, of course, in all the necessary ways. But the renovation was so skillful and so complete that Bolan found Rafsanjani's tour of the premises to be almost like stepping into the past. Civil war decor graced one room, while another room was furnished in a turn-of-the-century motif. And above it all hovered emanations of still something else.