Savannah Swingsaw (6 page)

Rodeo doubled over, and Bolan threw a right hook and left uppercut combination that rocked Rodeo back into the wall. Blood seeped out over his lip and down his chin. It looked as if he'd been chewing raw meat. The Executioner tried a spinning kick into the kneecap to disable him, but Rodeo was ready this time. He flung himself off the wall and swung his right fist at Bolan's temple. The Executioner managed to raise his left arm to block the punch, but the brass spikes punctured his arm at the triceps. Pain flamed through the arm, numbing it from wrist to shoulder. When he pulled away, he saw Rodeo grinning, holding his triumphant fist high. Blood capped each brass spike like melting red snow.

"Come here, little eyeballs," Rodeo sneered, stalking closer. Bolan's left arm was useless.

He still had no weapon. And the damage he'd done to Rodeo so far was minor, barely slowing him down.

He looked past Rodeo and saw Carrew loading another dart into his blowpipe. He was tempted to say nothing, pretend he didn't even see it.

Right now a dart in Rodeo would be just the distraction he'd need. Carrew placed the pipe to his lips, stared into Bolan's eyes. And Mack Bolan shook his head. No.

Carrew hesitated, then lowered the pipe.

Bolan had no intention of losing this fight.

He'd fought tougher, smarter opponents before.

He'd been a prisoner before. But being in prison, the institution, had dulled him. The boredom had allowed the possibility of failure to creep into his thoughts. What if he failed? He'd be locked in here for years. He'd never worried about the consequences of a mission before. But this time he had without even being aware of it. No more.

He forced a cold wind through his mind, a cleansing bracing breeze. Rodeo stepped in for another attack. His looping right glanced off Bolan's shoulder, the brass teeth biting a chunk of flesh from the shoulder. Bolan ignored the pain, stepping closer to Rodeo, slipping under a punch, wrapping his right arm around Rodeo's waist, pulling the giant up over his hip and flinging him to the ground.

Without pause, Bolan loaded all his weight into one knee and dropped full force onto Rodeo's breastbone, cracking it like a lobster's shell. Rodeo's eyes widened with pain and Bolan raised his right hand like a claw above the giant's face. Rodeo's face cringed with terror as the realization of what was about to happen jangled through his brain. He opened his mouth to scream, but by then Bolan was already moving again, driving his stiffened thumb straight down into Rodeo's right eye, squeezing past the gel of the eyeball, plunging deep into the brain, destroying nervous-system functions. Killing the brain.

Beneath him, Rodeo convulsed slightly, tensed, gagged, relaxed into death with a sigh.

Bolan withdrew the thumb, wiped it on Rodeo's shirt and walked with a slow exhausted gait toward Carrew, stepping over bodies as he walked. "How do we explain all this?" he asked.

Carrew shrugged. "Mass suicide?"

Bolan smiled grimly as Carrew led him away. The numbness in his left arm was worse. He tried to rub some feeling back into it. He wasn't too worried about a prison investigation. By the time officials got around to him, he and Reed would already have made their escape. Or would have been shot trying.

"We'd better get back to our cell," Bolan said. Ninety minutes to go before the breakout.

"Sure thing," Carrew said, muscling his wheelchair along. "But there's just one detour we need to make." He stopped, spun the chair around to face Bolan.

"Detour?" Bolan asked. "Where?"

Carrew smiled. "That's a surprise."

Bolan felt a little alarm jangle in his head.

Something was wrong. He closed his fists and started for Carrew. But he was too late. The first gunman appeared behind him, the second popped out of the storage closet in front. Both were dressed in black hoods. Each had a Star Model PD .45 pointed at him.

He felt the pinch of a needle as the gunman behind him stabbed his arm with a hypo. There was nothing to do now.

Fighting would be useless. They didn't intend to kill him, at least not yet, or they would have done so already.

Perhaps they just wanted information. But who were they? How did they get in here? What was Lyle Carrew's connection? What did they...

Bolan's eyes closed and he dropped endlessly through black space, past the floating bodies of all the friends and enemies who had died violently during the past years.

They stared as he dropped past them. Some cried out to him in warning. Others laughed and waved for him to join their ranks.

Bolan was conscious but he didn't dare open his eyes. He used his other senses to assess the danger, study his predicament. He was naked to the waist and could feel the fresh bandages taped to his body. Knife cut on left shoulder, puncture wounds from Rodeo's spiked knuckles on his left triceps, a chunk the size of a rat bite on his right shoulder, the slash across his shin.

A radio played in another room. A commercial for a popular wine. Faintly, Bolan heard a young woman's voice harmonizing with the jingle. She was pretty good.

Onions. He sniffed the tangy scent of cooked onions, his mouth watering involuntarily, his stomach churning from hunger. How long had he been out?

Beneath him, movement. He dug his fingertips into the bed he was lying on and felt the mattress shift like Jell-O. A water bed. "How long you gonna keep playing this game, Mack Bolan?" a woman's voice drawled. He pedigreed that sassy voice from a lifetime ago. Bolan opened his eyes and stared into the face of the same beautiful woman he'd seen earlier at the jail with Lyle Carrew.

"Hi, Shawnee," he said.

"Hi yourself." She walked over to the bedroom door, leaned her head out into the hallway and shouted, "He's awake." Footsteps pattered down the hallway.

Three other equally gorgeous women huddled anxiously around the doorway. A leggy blonde, a tall dark-haired woman, a petite Asian.

They stared at him as if he was a visitor from another galaxy.

"You all right, Mr. Bolan?" the one with the short blond hair asked. "I hope we didn't hurt y'all none."

Bolan lifted himself up to his elbows. His head was still a little cottony, which the rolling of the water bed didn't help. He nodded at her. "I'm fine."

"Of course he's fine," Shawnee said. "He was in expert hands."

"You stuck me with the needle, right?"

She smiled. "Of course, Mack. You deserve the very best." She turned to the other women. "Okay, you've seen him. Introductions later. Right now Mack and me got some catching up to do." The three women nodded and left. The blonde began singing along with the radio again. Bolan struggled to the edge of the shifting bed, waiting for the grogginess to clear. It didn't.

"I know what you need," Shawnee said. She sat next to Bolan and began rubbing his neck and shoulders. Her long fingers were hard as the prongs of a rake as they expertly worked his tired muscles, avoiding the bandaged areas. "How's that?"

"Haven't lost the touch, huh?"

"About the only thing I haven't lost." Bolan looked her up and down appreciatively. Her Jenim cutoffs and T-shirt didn't hide much.

"I noticed. Must be about forty pounds."

"Yep. I'd gained about thirty of them my first year in Nam. That's when we met. Took me years to get rid of them."

"You look good."

"Good? Hell, I look great." Bolan laughed. "I stand corrected."

"You didn't even recognize me, did you? Admit it. When you saw me at the jail today with Lyle, you didn't know who I was."

"You looked familiar. But it wasn't until I heard your voice just now that I placed a name with the face."

She gave him a serious look, her long black hair intensifying her expression. "It took me a while to place you, too. Had some alterations done to your face, huh?"

"A few. You know why."

"Yeah, I know. Who doesn't? Your name and escapades aren't exactly a national secret. But I heard you'd died."

"Came close enough."

She laughed. "I don't think I ever believed it, though. Not really. Any man who could survive what you did back in Nam — well, he wasn't about to get killed by mere cops or mobsters."

"Nam was a long time ago, Shawnee. We were both a lot younger."

"Dumber. Otherwise you and I wouldn't have lost touch." She paused. "I guess you know Billy died."

"I heard." Billy was Shawnee's brother, a medic who had served briefly with Bolan before getting wounded by a sniper.

Bolan had killed the sniper and carried Billy back to camp and a "dust-off" chopper. Billy had been transferred to a Saigon hospital and Bolan had looked him up on a three-day pass.

It was there the Executioner had met Billy's sister, Shawnee, an Army nurse with the 24th Evac Hospital in Tan Sa Nhut.

Plump, sassy, intelligent, she and Bolan had become pals, spending most of his three-day pass together, visiting Billy, dining out, just talking.

They'd corresponded whenever possible, maintaining their friendship, right up until the day Bolan had come home to bury his father, mother and teenage sister.

The day he stepped out of one war into another.

Shawnee stopped massaging his shoulders.

Bolan stood up. His body felt better now, his strength returning. "Why'd you bust me out?"

"Why?" She looked surprised. "Because, despite your little facial surgery, I recognized you. Your walk, your eyes, your, well, presence. Women sense these things. When I asked Lyle about you he told me your name was Damon Blue, so I figured the authorities didn't know who they had yet. But when they did, they'd throw you in the Atlanta penitentiary so fast you'd have bar burns on your palms. And once you were in there, you'd never come out alive. Lots of Mafia guys in the Big A would just love to get their hands on you."

"Since when do you know anything about breaking people out of jails? That the latest in nurses' training?"

"I'm not a nurse any longer, Mack. Oh, I do some volunteer work at the VA hospital — that's where I met Lyle a couple years ago — but that's all."

Bolan walked over to the window of the bedroom.

He pawed aside the curtain and looked out over Atlanta, submerged in darkness. Electric lights glittered as in every big city, though Atlanta had a small-town feeling to it. A fuzzy aura of light seeped up over the horizon. It would soon be dawn.

He faced Shawnee. "You made a mistake breaking me out of jail."

"But..."

"I appreciate the motive, Shawnee, but I was in there for a reason, trying to keep someone alive. Now he's alone and exposed."

"Gee, Mack, I'm sorry. I didn't know."

He placed his rough hand on her cheek. "I know."

"Well, you can't just turn yourself in and claim you were kidnapped. They'd toss you in solitary."

"I wouldn't be much use there."

"So what are you going to do now?"

Bolan frowned. "Only thing I can do, I guess. Break him out, too."

"You'll need help."

"No." Bolan shook his head.

"We got you out, didn't we?" She went to the door and shouted, "Everybody. Come here." The other three women entered the room. "About time for introductions, Mack," Shawnee said. "This here is Belinda Hoyt."

Belinda stepped forward with a big smile. Her short blond hair framed her narrow face in a slight tomboy cut. But there was nothing else tomboyish about her. Her sleek body couldn't be hidden even under the gray sweatshirt and bib overalls.

"Howdy, Mr. Bolan."

"Belinda's from New Jersey," Shawnee explained, "so all that "howdy" and "shucks" stuff is just her rap. She wants to be a country singer."

Belinda's smile widened. "When in Rome, right?"

Shawnee continued. "This is Lynn Booker. Our legal adviser."

"Not much of a job since everything we do is illegal," Lynn said, looking straight at Bolan. Her Eurasian features were accented by the shadows in the dimly lit room. She was short, barely five feet, with straight, shiny black hair chopped off at the shoulders. The angled eyes and thin mouth only enhanced her beauty.

"Vietnamese?" Bolan asked.

"Half," Lynn said with no trace of accent. "GI father, Vietnamese mother. They knew each other for one night, if that long. My mother disappeared when I was thirteen. I was adopted by Gerald and Martha Booker of St. Petersburg, Florida. Got my law degree and passed the bar exam last year." Her tone was clipped, businesslike.

"Last and least," Shawnee said, "Rita St. Clair. Big-bucks Boston family. Banking or something."

"Insurance," Rita said.

"Whatever. Anyway, Rita chucks the whole debutantest Vassarst married-to-an-ambassador crap to become — get this — a cop."

Bolan's jaw flexed.

"Relax," Rita told Bolan, "I'm not a cop now. Not that I ever really was one. After all my Academy training in Boston, I get this job in Coolidge, Georgia. Five-person police department. In Boston I'd dragged bodies out of the river, been shot at, even stabbed by some junkie with a hunk of mirror. Here they make me a meter maid. Fine, I'm willing to pay my dues like anyone else. But every time there's a promotion, they give it to one of the men, guys with less experience, less seniority. I'd gone into police work because I wanted to make a difference, and I sought out a small town so I could at least see the difference. But it never happened. So I quit."

"Well, not completely quit," Shawnee said, a huge grin arcing her lips. "She joined with us."

"Us?" Bolan said. "Who's us?"

"Us," Shawnee said, gesturing with her hand to include the four women. "We're the Savannah Swingsaw. And we, Mack Bolan, are gonna help you bust your friend out of jail."

The man with one blue and one brown eye walked among the dusty antiques, some authentic, some merely old junk. He picked up various objectsrusting swords, musty hats, carved ivory chess pieces — examined them carefully, then replaced them. Never making a sound.

The shop owner, Giles Tandy, a native Atlantan whose father had started the store and tried to teach its intricacies to his unwilling son, had inherited the business two years before, following his father's third heart attack. By that time, Giles had already been an unsuccessful insurance salesman, unsuccessful swimming pool salesman and unsuccessful truck salesman.

Since his father had always been successful, Giles decided to try his hand at Daddy's antique business. His mother, who helped out part-time, tried to argue with him to maintain the same business integrity as his father, but Giles was indifferent to integrity. He added shoddy garage-sale crap to the quality items his father had carefully purchased, making the store what it was today. A mixture of superb antiques and castaway junk. He thought the dust added an air of authenticity.

"Help you, sir?" he said to the man with one blue eye and one brown eye. Hadn't even noticed the stranger sneaking around back here so damn quiet.

He looked at the man's expensive suit, the quiet manner, figured him for some kind of banker or accountant and turned on the charm. "We got the finest antiques this side of the Mississippi, sir. Indeed, the best on either side." The man continued to browse, ignoring Giles.

On the other side of the store an elderly lady was pawing through the cheap bric-a-brac. At most, she'd spend ten dollars. He decided to stay with the money man. Giles shivered slightly when he looked at the man's face. His eyes were spooky, not just because of the different colors, but just the way they looked at Giles, as if he wasn't there. As if Giles was a bug and he was trying to decide whether or not to squash him. Still, the man obviously had money. The watch and ring were gold.

Giles was having trouble maintaining his smile while the tall thin man ignored him. The old lady had left, leaving just the two of them in the store.

The browser ran his hand along one of the music boxes on the glass showcase that Giles had bought from a bankrupt bakery. He watched the fingers and shuddered. They were long and skinny, like the legs of a spider.

"Now that's a hell of a choice, sir," Giles said enthusiastically. "That there music box comes out of France, made around 1683. A present from the French to, uh, Spain."

The thin tall man turned his head and stared at Giles. It was like being slapped in the face. Giles swallowed nervously.

"You are a liar, sir," the man said. His voice was soft, almost a whisper. His English was precise yet without tone, not American, yet having no identifiable accent. "The music box was not invented until about 1770, probably in Switzerland. Second, in 1683, France and Spain were at war." The man turned away and continued through the store, examining other items. Giles felt sweat trickle behind his ears. Hell, he'd been called a liar before, but never with such a menacing, threatening tone. Okay, so he'd made up a date and some history for the customer. He did it all the time. Was that such a crime?

"Anything in particular you're looking for, sir?"

The man looked up again. He smiled, his teeth small even squares. "Branding irons."

Damn nuisance, Giles thought, wondering what the guy wanted with a branding iron. But then he smiled because he remembered they actually did have a couple of irons his father had bought from a ranch that had been plowed under into an eighteenhole golf course. "Er, yes, we've got branding irons. All kinds. Just take me a minute." Giles went into the back, rummaged through one of the storage lockers and returned to the display area with three rusty branding irons. "Quite a history here," he started to say, but stopped abruptly when the man's eyes met his with an unspoken warning.

The three branding irons looked completely different. One had a long handle with a reversed K on one end. The K had little upward angles at the bottom, like feet. The second iron was much shorter, with an ornate heart around the letter N. The third iron merely had a curve or hook at the end, no symbol.

Giles thought maybe the third one had lost its branding symbol. "I'm sure I can find the rest of it out back," he offered. "Just take me a second."

The man's thin mouth curved downward in distaste. "You are not only a liar, but also a fool."

"Now look here, mister..."

The man raised the third branding iron and pressed it against Giles's forehead. Though the metal was cold, Giles winced as if it was glowing red. Still, he didn't dare move.

"You see," the man explained patiently, "originally in this country, brands were used chiefly to punish humans. Runaway slaves, indentured servants who tried to escape. Not until the expansion into the West did branding cattle become common."

"Well, uh..." Giles swallowed.

"The brand..." he pressed it harder against Giles's forehead, cutting into the skin "...called a running iron, was used to draw a brand on a hide, rather than just stamp it on like these others. It was favored by cattle rustlers because it allowed them to change brands so easily. This branding iron has been outlawed in several states." He lowered the iron, stroked the metal.

Giles took a deep breath. "Oh."

"How much?" the man asked.

"Sir?"

"For the branding irons. All three."

"Well," Giles drawled, figuring in his head, "lots of history here. Cattle rustlers and all. Worth a lot of money."

The man with one blue eye and one brown eye opened his wallet, pulled out two crisp hundreddollar bills, laid them on the counter, picked up the irons and walked toward the door.

Though he figured they might be worth more, something told Giles not to argue this one time. He rubbed the indentation on his forehead where the man had ground the branding iron.

As he reached the front door, the man glanced at his watch, turned to Giles and asked, "Pay phone?"

Giles pointed. "Half a block down, next to the grocery store."

Outside in the early morning sun, Zavlin blinked his sensitive eyes and quickly put his sunglasses on. He glanced at his watch again. Still a few minutes before he was due to call in. He was in a good mood, having picked up three additional items for his collection of Western memorabilia. He had perhaps the largest collection of branding irons in the world. On more than one occasion, he'd had the opportunity to actually use his irons, firing them up over coals until they glowed a fierce orange. Then pressing them against the skin of a yelping man, woman or child from whom he had requested information.

Eventually, they all spoke, begged to answer his questions. There was nothing like the stench of sizzling flesh to persuade a stubborn tongue.

Zavlin found the public telephone, inserted his coins and began dialing. The voice at the other end was crisp, formal. "Identify, please."

"The Gamesman."

"One moment." The line crackled with static for a few seconds.

Then another voice spoke. "Gamesman?"

"Yes," Zavlin answered. "I am in position."

"Strategy change. Your opponent has altered his defense."

"What do you mean?" Zavlin demanded.

His control sighed. "A prisoner escaped last night."

"Who?"

"No one to concern us. Someone named Damon Blue."

"Did you run a check?"

"Of course, Gamesman." The voice was insulted. "Petty criminal. No relationship to your assignment."

"What is the current status?"

"Security increased. Lock-down throughout. Some prisoners transferred."

"The pawn?"

"He remains. I have some contacts that I can pressure to make sure."

"No."

"What?"

"No," Zavlin repeated, his voice whipping through the wire like an icy wind. "In fact, make certain he is transferred, it does not matter where. Just find out when the transfer will take place. While he is on his way, that is when I shall strike."

"But the original plan, the one already approved..."

"Impossible. This Damon Blue has ruined that now. They will be alerted inside. I would have to wait another week for security to ease."

"That would be too late."

"Exactly."

There was a long pause as Zavlin's control went through the motions of making a decision. Zavlin waited patiently, knowing there was only one way to decide, that this pause was only a matter of saving face. A show of false power.

"Yes, Gamesman. Play as you see fit."

Zavlin chuckled into the phone, allowing his control to hear him as he hung up. He hurried back to his hotel room to prepare. Control would have the information as to when Dodge Reed would be transferred, undoubtedly this very day.

By tonight, the boy would be dead.