Whipsaw (14 page)

Far across the cellar, a wedge of light shone for a second, and someone shouted. The light vanished, and a hollow boom rolled across the dark floor. A door had opened for the briefest instant, then been slammed shut. He'd seen it immediately and felt certain that no one had slipped through. A man would have to be thin as a sheet of paper to manage an entry through that narrow opening.

The shout had come from the gunman, he guessed. But in the renewed darkness, he was no better off than he had been before the door opened. Groping his way past the wooden crate, he kept low and moved as quickly as he could. Something smacked into his right arm, just below the wound, and he groaned involuntarily.

Two quick shots cracked, and he didn't even see any light. Both bullets thudded into the wooden crate, which was just a foot or two behind him.

It had been close, and he knew he was lucky the gunman was content to fire single shots. A spurt of automatic fire would probably find him. The gunman was good. He hadn't missed by much with any of the four shots.

Bolan realised his opponent had some unexplained advantage, and as that fact sank in, the cellar seemed to shrink around him, propelling him even closer to the gunman. The gun barked again, and the report was louder, as if the gunman had drawn closer. Bolan fired twice. One shot pinged off something metal, striking it obliquely then slapping into a solid obstacle far across the chamber. The second seemed to disappear without a trace. No sound of bullet on unyielding wood, stone or metal, no groan from wounded flesh, drifted back to him. It was as if the darkness had swallowed the bullet completely.

Bolan thought about that for a few seconds, and came to the only conclusion possible. Somewhere almost dead ahead of him, the chamber was open. Perhaps the room narrowed into a tunnel, like the one Marisa had taken him through, or maybe an open door let the bullet pass through and find something soft beyond it.

He started to back up, the Desert Eagle in his left hand, his nearly useless right stroking the cold wall. Quickly, he backtracked, stopping only when his butt slammed into the right-angled wall. He knew the stairwell was just to his left, and started inching toward it. As his right hand brushed against the free wall of the stairwell, he groped gingerly with his foot. A misstep might get him killed or, at the very least, alert the gunman to his whereabouts.

As the sole of his boot found the rough stone of the bottom step, all his care was rendered pointless. The cellar flooded with light. He dove straight ahead, just ahead of a hail of gunfire.

As he started up the stairs, he tripped and fell.

It saved his life.

A flurry of shots, this time not from any handgun, punched through the hollow cinder blocks, scattering fragments all over the stairs and raining sharp chips and dust down over his head and shoulders.

Bolan turned, lying on the stairs stiff as a board, his spine straddling three steps. He swung the Desert Eagle around in a two-handed grip and waited, breathing shallowly and ignoring the hard stone digging at his backbone. He heard them coming, their feet slapping the stone floor as they raced toward the stairs.

He didn't have to wait long. Two men, running flat out, jostled one another as they turned the corner and Bolan fired four shots. The Desert Eagle spat ferociously, and the lead man threw up his hands. His weapon, an AK-47, started up, then dropped straight down as it slipped from his grip. He fell backward, a brand new and very ugly hole just over his left eye. The remaining three shots had taken the second man in the right shoulder and in the throat. He, too, lost his weapon as his hand flew up to his neck and closed around the most serious wound. He only had strength for making a horrible rattling sound in his throat.

The lead man, who appeared to be Chinese, was considerably shorter than his companion, and his collapsing body slammed into his partner's knees.

The runner-up, a skinny Anglo built like a stork, all gawky limbs and sharp features, smacked his head on the wall behind as he fell with the weight of the Chinese added to his own. A sharp crack echoed up the stairwell as he hit, and his head sat at a funny angle as he slid the rest of the way to the floor. If the bullets hadn't killed him, the broken neck would have.

Bolan scrambled back a step or two, still lying on the stairs and bumping his vertebrae against the lip of the step as he pushed with his heels. It was suddenly silent in the cellar, and Bolan panted short, sharp breaths. In the confined stairwell, they sounded like sandpaper on soft stone.

He slowly gathered his legs under him before rising. He took one step down, then another.

It remained quiet, but the man with the silenced pistol hadn't been accounted for. The two men lying in an obscene heap in front of him both had automatic rifles.

Bending down, he tugged the AK up by its muzzle, then grabbed the handgrip and picked it up.

He made sure it was operable, and that the magazine was at least partially loaded. Muffling the click of the reinserted magazine, he leapt to the cellar floor and swept the muzzle of the AK in a semicircle, his finger on the trigger.

A man had been caught in the hail of 7.62 mm slugs. He looked at the rip in his stomach with surprise. His right hand dropped an ugly-looking Makarov, hung in the air for a moment, then fluttered toward the dark red stains across his blue cotton shirt. He glanced at Bolan as he fell back and slammed hard into the floor.

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

Behind him, across the stone floor, a door yawned darkly. It was the same one that had teen cracked open briefly. Bolan jerked the magazine from the second AK and started toward the open door.

As he drew close, he realized that yet another door was ajar at the far end of the chamber. It must have been the spot that had swallowed the missing shot. He would have to check it out, but first things first.

Poking into the first door, he swept a palm along the wall. A fluorescent light pinged and flashed on. At first Bolan thought it was nothing more than a simple office.

Then he saw the map.

Bolan stared at the map for a long moment, leaning closer and reaching out to touch it. Small red circles peppered the center of Manila. A quick count showed thirty-three. All but five had been crosshatched by a makeshift star or crude asterisk. None of the locations meant anything to Bolan, who did not have that comprehensive a knowledge of the city.

Pinned to a corkboard by a half-dozen pushpins, the map appeared to be standard issue. Nearly three feet long on each side, it was creased in several places, indicating a regular fold, almost like an American road map, but the segments were twice the size. Bolan jerked the pushpins free, one by one, then folded the map carefully. He backed out of the of flee and climbed the stairs to the first floor.

He dialed in a hurry, then waited for someone to pick up. The phone rang several times, and Bolan impatiently waited for Marisa to answer.

Finally the receiver on the other end rattled out of its cradle.

"Bring Carlos," he said, "quickly. You know where. I'll meet you out front." Bolan slammed the phone down and moved toward the front door. It was far too late to worry about caution. He stood in the front hall, pulling a plain cloth curtain aside and tucking it behind the doorknob so he could watch the street.

It was quiet out there, almost too quiet, but he couldn't afford to worry about that, either. He killed time by committing the ammo from both AK's into one magazine, then tossed the empty into a brown metal wastebasket next to a small utility table.

His arm was beginning to throb again, and he wished he had some painkillers. He squeezed the thickly bandaged wound, trying to shut out the stabbing ache. While he waited, he considered his options. They were few and unattractive. The first image of the map kept floating into his mind's eye like a dust mote and darting away every time he tried to stare at it directly.

Without a timetable, he had to assume the worst.

There was no doubt at all in his mind that the red circles were significant. If Cordero was in the picture, and Bolan was certain of that, he could guess just what that significance was. But it wasn't something he could handle by himself. Even if he, Carlos and Marisa split up, they had eleven sites each to cover. But where would they begin to look without quite knowing what to look for?

On a hunch, Bolan dashed back up to the third floor without using a light. Kneeling in front of the single window in the center of the front room, he eased the shade up a fraction of an inch, then leaned forward with his chin on the sill. Despite the darkness, the sky made a decent backdrop for the broken line of rooftops across the narrow street. The buildings lay hard up against one another, allowing a determined man to make his way the length of the block by way of the roofs.

Bolan started at the corner, twisting his neck to see the building all the way on the left. One by one, he checked each roof, letting his gaze linger a minute or so. He didn't know what he was looking for, or even if there was anything to see, but there was no point in being careless.

He'd checked the first eight buildings without noticing anything out of place. The ninth, too, was still. His eyes were adjusted to the gloom, and the slight blue cast of the sky seemed brighter behind the stark black of the shadowy buildings. The tenth was almost directly across the street, offset by half its width. Like the others, it had a low parapet extending the front wall a couple of feet above the roof. But it, too, seemed lifeless.

A bright glare off to the left distracted him, and light washed up and over the storefronts as a vehicle entered the street a block away. It was moving slowly, and he was still unable to see it when the light went out for a moment, then flashed back on. Bolan moved to the edge of the window, trying to get a fix on the vehicle, but it seemed to have stopped on the far side of the cross street. The lights went out, and a door slammed.

For three minutes he heard nothing more. He went back to scanning the roof across the street. His eyes had to readjust after the brightness of the headlights. He thought he saw something that hadn't been there before, but he wasn't sure. Blinking to wash away the lingering effect of the light, he squeezed his lids down tight and held them there for ten or fifteen seconds.

When he looked back, the thing he'd seen was gone, if it had ever been there. Checking his watch, he realized he only had ten minutes before Carlos and Marisa were due to arrive. He inspected the next building and the next, then darted his eyes back to the eleventh. Something had moved, he was certain of it.

Backing away from the window, he started to run, slowing only when he sensed the door frame. He reached for it, brushed it with a hand as he went by and clicked on the flashlight as he reached the head of the stairs. Taking the steps two at a time in the pale tangerine wash of the dying torch, he made the turn, sprinted down the second-floor hall and headed into the last just as the light died altogether.

He found the back door locked with one of those double-key affairs. Bolan moved to the nearest window and ripped the curtain aside. The window was barred, but the lock didn't look all that secure.

He raised the sash, planted a foot on the widnowgate and shoved. The gate popped out of its channel, but didn't give.

Pushing again, he felt it spring back and forth like a trampoline under his foot, but he wasn't getting enough leverage to force it loose.

Using his foot again, he forced the gate out far enough to slip the AK between it and the sill.

Handling the Russian rifle like a crowbar, he managed to get the latch twisted out of shape, but it still wouldn't give. He couldn't use the front, and he didn't want to risk too much noise at the back.

Running back up to the ungated second-floor window, he raised the sash and swung out over the weedy garden below. Pushing off with his feet, he launched himself into a clump of shrubbery. The bushes broke his fall, and he untangled himself with just a handful of scratches. Sprinting down the back alley, he reached the corner and skidded into a turn.

A dog barked in one of the buildings as he ran past.

The side street was black and empty as an abandoned mine. A single light burned far down the next block as Bolan reached the intersection.

As fast as he could, he covered the open space to the far side and moved on down to the alley behind the opposing row of buildings. Two doors in, he spotted a fire escape and hurdled a small fence into another garden.

Bolan had to leap to catch hold of the metal ladder and, grimacing at the pain in his wounded arm, grabbed on and hauled himself up to the first landing. He tried to mume the sound of his boots on the metal grating and the stairs leading to the third floor.

Balancing on the railing, he could reach over the roof far enough to grab the inner side of the low brick wall and pull himself up and over.

The roof was a wilderness of pipes and little stone walls, vents wearing coolie hats and black boxes lined with glass reflecting starlight through the rain-spotted dust. Quickly Bolan approached to within two roofs of the building that had so fascinated him. He remembered his last time in this part of Manila and the shadows flitting along the roofline.

They had caught him by surprise that time, and if it hadn't been for Marisa, who knew how it would have ended. But this time the joke was on them.

As he stopped carefully over another of the diminutive walls, lights flashed into the streets below. The sound of an idling engine drifted through the night, and Bolan picked up his pace. As he ducked behind the stubby chimney, he heard the faint scuffing of feet against the sandy tar ahead of him.

He knelt to peer around the roughly mortared stone.

Three men, strung across the parapet on their knees, trained rifles on the street below.

The AK was the only solution.

Bolan jerked the assault rifle off his shoulder and swung the muzzle around. The sound of the approaching jeep grew louder, echoing up from the narrow street and rambling across the roof.

Its headlights splashed on the tops of the buildings across the street, and Bolan found himself wondering how the assassins knew to be there, but he didn't have to wonder long. It struck him with an almost physical force, like a blow in the chest. Harding was still one step ahead of him. He must have a tap on the phone. He must have guessed that Bolan, if he escaped the ambush in the cellar, might use the phone.

But Bolan pushed the thought aside. At this point it really didn't matter how the hell they came to be there. What counted now was taking them out. The jeep in the street below stopped with a squeak of its brakes as Bolan started his move. He could see the nearest gunman tense, then lean forward a little farther. Bolan squeezed the AK's trigger and swept the muzzle in a vicious line, just about even with the top of the parapet. Any higher, and the stray slugs would rip into the buildings across the street.

Any lower, and they wouldn't be lethal.

The assassin on the left gave a startled "oohh" and tried to rise, then fell backward. His gun pitched forward over the wall, and Bolan heard it slam onto the pavement below as his deadly burst stretched along the wall, chipping at the concrete slab on its top and sparking in bright showers.

The second gunman had started to turn as Bolan opened up, almost as if some instinct had heard something not yet audible. Clean as a straight razor, the AK sliced across his midsection just above the hips, and he fell over the wall.

The third man had time to turn all the way around, his own rifle clutched in one hand. He started to roll, losing his grip on the gun and leaving it behind as he tumbled across the tar. The AK gouged the tar and chewed its way toward him faster than he could roll. One hand reached up and out toward Bolan as if the man wanted to ask him for a favor.

But it was far too late for favors of any kind, and certainly for mercy. Bolan had seen too many lifeless bodies in the final insult of early and violent death. The third gunner's body twitched like a spastic puppet, his legs bouncing off the tar once or twice before he lay still.

Bolan dashed to the wall and looked down into the street. Carlos and Marisa crouched behind the jeep, Carlos sweeping his M-16 back and forth, waiting for something to shoot at while Marisa clapped her hands over her ears. Her mouth was open as if she were shouting, but he heard nothing.

In the dark street he could see little more than that and ducked away just as Carlos spotted him and snapped off a single shot. The concrete cracked, and a sliver sliced through Bolan's sleeve as he fell back out of the way. Crawling on his back for a few feet, he jumped up and sprinted back toward the fire escape.

Not worrying about the noise anymore, he landed with a thud on the top landing, then half stepped and half slid down the two flights of iron stairs.

Not bothering with the ladder, he dropped into the garden and leapt back over the wall into the alley.

He reached the street in a half-dozen strides, skidded onto the pavement and raced to the corner.

Shielding himself, he called out and saw Carlos turn to look toward him. He waved a hand, and Carlos brought his gun around but didn't fire. Cautiously Bolan stepped into the street. He heard Marisa whisper something, and Carlos muttered an answer before standing.

Bolan waved him to the corner and he saw Carlos tug Marisa to her feet as he rushed past and down to the back alley. Bolan waited just long enough to see Carlos wheel around the corner, Marisa right behind him. He dashed to the rear of Harding's building and leapt the fence. Carlos helped Marisa over, then took her hand again and joined Bolan on the stairs.

Bolan fired a short burst through the door, then ripped it open and pushed it aside for Carlos and Marisa. He followed them inside, leaving the door ajar. Taking the lead, he barged into the stairwell and down to the still brightly lit cellar.

In the small of rice, he pulled the map from his pocket and spread it on the desk.

"Look at this," he said.

Carlos braced himself with a hand on either side of the map and leaned forward to get a closer look.

Bolan stabbed a finger at one of the circles.

"Where is this? What's there, what sort of building?"

"The train station, Senor Belasko."

"And here?"

"I'm not sure. Some stores, a concert hall, a museum."

"Here?"

"The Supreme Court is on one side of the square, the south side. On the north, some government buildings, city government, mostly..."

"Take this to Captain Roman Collazo, the Military Police building. Give it to him and tell him there could be a bomb at every one of those circles. I'm not sure which buildings, and I don't even know for sure whether they've been planted already or not. I only know that Harding has plans for those locations, and Cordero's probably been to half of them maybe the ones that have an 'It' on them. Tell him I'll be in touch."

"What about Senora Colgan?"

"She's coming with me. I need her help."

"Where are you going, senor?"

"Underground, Carlos. I have a feeling Mr. Harding is expecting me..."