Whipsaw (4 page)

Bolan closed the door quickly. His eyes scanned the interior, and nothing looked out of place. But that didn't mean a thing. He knew that if they had gotten to Henson, they could get to him.

Breathing in slowly, holding it until his lungs were close to bursting, he checked the room carefully, his Desert Eagle at the ready. He peered in every conceivable place, from under the bed for a pressure switch to the medicine cabinet for a spring release.

When he had looked everywhere, he relaxed. He needed to free his mind so he could consider the situation at hand.

Cautiously he sat on the bed and examined the envelope. His name had been scrawled across it in black Magic Marker. The plain white envelope had been sealed with cellophane tape. It contained four sheets of paper. One was a grainy picture, apparently a Xerox of an old newspaper photograph, of Charles Harding. The second was a story, headline and all, about the incident at the airport. He scanned the story quickly, stopping at the underlined words, "an unknown American." Backing up, he read the entire paragraph and realised the phrase applied to him. There was no other mark on the page, just that short, thin line under the three words.

The third sheet was a map, roughly drawn in blue pencil, of Ongpin, Manila's Chinatown.

The map was highlighted by a single red dot at the intersection of Rizal and Santa Margarita. The last paper was a sheet of cheap typing paper. In the same hand as that on the envelope, the words "If you have to ask, you'll never know" had been scrawled with the same Magic Marker. Underneath the inscription wert the typewritten words, "twelve midnight." Bolan was mystified. Apparently someone wanted to meet him, someone who knew he had been at the airport that afternoon, and who also knew of his interest in Charles Harding. But who?

His head hurt and he couldn't think straight. He needed some rest, but there was no time. He glanced at the clock radio next to the bed. It read 11:17 in sickly green digits. He had less than an hour. He debated whether or not to keep the appointment, but it was no contest. Not really. There was no way in hell he could afford to pass up the invitation, and he knew it.

Cursing Walt Wilson for getting him into such a mess, he splashed cold water on his face and strapped on a second harness, this one for the Beretta. Stuffing a couple of extra clips into his coat pocket, one for each weapon, he stared at himself in the huge round mirror over the dresser. He looked exhausted, but was used to that.

He also looked confused, and that was cause for concern.

He was not accustomed to standing on such shifting sand. As if it hadn't been bad enough to travel halfway around the world on the tail of a man about whom he knew next to nothing, he was unsalted to meet someone unknown, who apparently knew a great deal about him.

He kept thinking back to Walt Wilson.

Henson had hinted that there was more to the picture than Wilson had given him. His own suspicions were simmering beneath the surface, but he had nothing to cool them or to bring them to a boil, either. Something wasn't right, and he couldn't avoid the suspicion that he'd been sent into a minefield wearing cast-iron shoes and a blindfold.

Slipping into his jacket again, tugging it down to fit comfortably over the artillery, he headed for the door. As he reached for the doorknob, it turned.

The motion had been slight, no more than a fraction of an inch or so, but genuine. He reached under his coat for the Desert Eagle and flattened himself against the wall.

He stared at the knob for a long minute, but it didn't move again. Straining his ears, Bolan listened for the slightest sound out in the carpeted hall.

He thought he heard footsteps, but the sound vanished almost as soon as it registered. He griped the latch with one palm and turned the lock. Jerking the door wide open, he checked one end of the hall, the Desert Eagle held against his right ear.

Switching sides, dropping the gun to belt level, he checked the other end of the hall. It, too, was empty. Cautiously he stuck his head out to make sure, but the hall was absolutely quiet. He took a tentative step into the corridor.

He heard a snick behind him and spun around just as the fire door at the end of the hall closed.

Sprinting on the thick carpet, he raced to the fire door and pressed an ear against it. He heard footsteps on the stairs and ripped the door open. The steps continued on down, and Bolan plunged into the stairwell just as another door, several floors below, banged shut.

Bolan took the stairs two at a time, knowing even as he raced down the second flight that he was too late. It wasn't possible to guess which door had slammed. Rather than waste time in a pointless search, he continued on down to the ground floor.

Slipping the Desert Eagle under his jacket, he stepped into the lobby. It, too, was empty, except for a clerk behind the bell desk, absorbed in a newspaper.

Outside, the traffic was still fairly heavy, considering the hour, and Bolan checked his watch as he headed for the door. Out in the muggy night, he spotted a cab at once and jumped in, giving the driver his destination even before closing the door. The cabby jerked the lever on his meter and swung away from the curb as Bolan slammed the door.

Without warning, the driver made a U-turn, to the amusement of a traffic cop who was sitting sidesaddle on a Honda scooter. The cabby waved, and the cop waved back. "My brother-in-law," the cabby explained.

Weaving expertly through the tangled traffic, the cabdriver threaded needle after needle. Gradually, as they moved away from the heart of downtown Manila, the only part of the city Western tourists cared to see after dark, the traffic thinned and its character changed. Instead of taxi cabs and fancy limousines, rolling collections of dents and rusted fenders began to predominate. Battered cars, vans and assorted commercial delivery trucks flowed steadily past, like the brown waters of a river slipping by the gunwales of a launch headed upstream.

"Got to make deliveries at night. Too much traffic in the daytime," the driver said without taking his eyes off the road.

Bolan was not in the mood for idle chatter, so he said nothing. The driver seemed to sense his mood, and set his jaw. At the appropriate corner, he pulled over to the edge of the walkway and announced the fare. Bolan paid him and slipped out on the street side.

He had thought it best to cover the last couple of blocks on foot. He'd been set up too often in the past to get careless and make it easy for the other side. The street was lined with shops on both sides, all bearing signs in Chinese ideograms and some also in English. Every window was dark. As he walked past, Bolan's eye caught the whole panoply of Far Eastern trade. Silks and ivory carvings, firecrackers and Japanese cameras, imported foods and homegrown crafts were piled helter-skelter in bins behind every pane of glass.

Twice he hesitated before crossing the mouth of a dark alley. The street was surprisingly clean.

He could just imagine the jungle the street would become in five or six hours, and marveled that not a single scrap of paper stirred in the slight, sticky breeze. Crossing a narrow side street, Bolan glanced in both directions, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. A striped cat darting in among the silent vans was the only living thing he saw.

Entering the last block, he wondered where he was supposed to go. All four corners were dark. He slowed his pace a little more, listening intently for the slightest sound. There was only the grinding of sand on the asphalt underfoot. Halfway down the block, he stopped and ducked into a doorway. His watch read 11:53. He scanned the two corner buildings on the opposite side of the street, but both were dark and closed up tight. Not even a window open to catch a little of the breeze broke the seamless face of either building.

Puzzled, he crossed the street and ducked into another doorway. He had the Desert Eagle in his hand now. He didn't like the quiet. He didn't like the darkness, either. The quiet seemed almost palpable, too perfect and too absolute. It reminded him of countless western streets Dodge City, Abilene, Tombstone in too many western movies. It was the calm before the final shootout, when every window was closed, and somebody peered into the silent street from behind every curtain.

He had the urge to shake things up. His eyes bored into the second pair of corner buildings, each as dark and silent as the other two.

He was getting close to that antsy frustration that assaulted him whenever things were totally out of control.

It was as if someone had handed him a perfectly smooth globe of polished obsidian and said, "Here, open it." In the unnatural quiet Bolan could hear his heart, its rhythm throbbing in his ears. He stared at the shop on the near corner. The English portion of its sign read "Fabrick," but he didn't smile at the misspelling. Like every thing else, it just seemed one more proof that things were out of whack.

He started to look away when something caught his eye. He riveted his gaze on the spot where it had been, but there was nothing there. It had been, or at least he thought it had been, a brief flicker, as if a candle had passed by or a match been struck and extinguished. Then again. It flashed, and he was certain this time.

He waited, aware that he was holding his breath, as if to exhale would kill the delicate glimmer behind the dusty glass. It had become steady, electric light rather than a flame, but it did nothing. Losing his patience, Bolan began to fidget in the doorway. When the light disappeared again, he sprinted across the street at an angle. Pressing his face to the glass, he tried to see inside, past the cascading silks. They tumbled over a rack in thick, almost seamless folds.

He tapped on the window with his knuckles, and the glass rattled in its peeling wooden frame. A chunk of putty fell from the bottom of the pane and hit his foot. He backed away from the glass to look down. He started to lean back in when he saw something behind him, reflected in the glass. He began to turn as the grey blur dissolved. He was halfway around when the window, now almost behind him, cracked.

Instinctively he fell to the ground. He looked for cover, but there was node to be had. He started to move, crabwalking under the window ledge to the corner, when something slammed into the wooden wall just above his head.

At the corner he scurried across the rounded concrete step and ducked in behind the far wall.

Desperately he scanned the silent row of shops across the street. The grey blurbs had seen was gone. In all probability, it had been the gunman. Cautiously he got to his knees, straining to see through the dark glass across the street.

The next shot tore a chunk of wood from the window frame just above his shoulder. Sharp splinters stabbed his left cheek, and he dropped to the ground again. He still didn't know where the shots had come from. The gun was silenced, and there hadn't been a flash, either.

Then he saw the gunman, just a block of dark grey in the mouth of an alley four shops from the corner. Inching forward, Bolan rested the muzzle of the Desert Eagle on the six-inch step. The shooter was being careful. He didn't leave much exposed. Bolan was about to squeeze the trigger when a second shadow moved, then a third.

Shifting his aim, he drew a bead on the nearest shadow, just a blob of darkness on the roof, blotting out a few stars. As he squeezed, the shadow opened up. Unfolding like a leaf, it stood erect and let loose with a burst of suppressed fire. The slugs chewed at the corner of the building, sparking where they hit the concrete, and Bolan cringed against the wall. When the firing stopped, he ducked back out and squeezed off two quick shots. The shadow on the roof folded back into itself, then toppled over the edge and landed with a dull thud on the pavement.

Bolan ducked back and took a deep breath.

There had been at least four shooters. They were one shy now, but that was cold comfort.

In the street behind him, a dull roar exploded into thunder. He turned to see where it came from just as another burst of lead clawed at the pavement in front of him. A blocky shadow hurtled toward him, its engine whining. It was a dark-colored van, one set of wheels on the curb the other still on the street.

Bolan scrambled to his feet. Emptying the Desert Eagle at the far side of the street, he squeezed into the doorway and smashed the window glass with his elbow. Diving through the shattered frame of the door, he landed heavily on his shoulder. The window to his left blew out, and a steady hail of fire chewed the window display to tatters. Bolan pressed himself against the wooden floor.

The van squealed to a halt outside as Bolan reloaded with quick and practiced hands. He looked over his shoulder to see the van parked across the doorway, blocking his way out.

The van's passenger door swung open, and another metallic slam, probably its rear doors, echoed inside the shattered shop. Bolan drew the AutoMag and started to back away from the broken window. He bumped into something he couldn't see in the dark and fell backward just as the shop's second window caved inward. The roar of cascading glass died away into a tinkle that was almost playful, like a windup music box.

As he struggled to regain his feet among the tangled bolts of cloth, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Come this way. Quickly!" It was a woman's voice, but he could see nothing in the pitch-black shop. She tugged again on his arm, and he followed her, stumbling twice as an assassin tumbled through the broken window and swept the darkness with an automatic rifle.

Bolan nearly knocked the woman down when she stopped suddenly. In a hoarse whisper, she told him to back up a step, and he heard a bolt being thrown. The squeak of metal hinges let him know she was opening a door, then she was pulling on his arm again. He banged his head on a hard surface, probably the door frame, and he staggered drunkenly until she pushed him against a wall by placing both palms flat against his chest.

"Don't move," she whispered. Her voice seemed to come from below his chest. He guessed she couldn't be any more than five two or five three.

The dull thud of footsteps pounded back in the direction they had come. He heard the hinges squeak again, and shouted voices that seemed to be swallowed by the darkness as the door swung closed.