"Hello?"

  She didn't recognize the voice at first, but its message arrested her, commanded her attention, wiping every trace of irritation from her mind.

  "Who is this? How did you get this number?"

  He told her, and the answer was simplicity itself.

  "If this is some kind of joke..."

  The quiet voice assured her otherwise, and Susan caught the tone of urgency, communicated through the long-distance wire like a tingling electric shock. She felt the gooseflesh rising on her arms, despite the steamy heat that radiated through the open bathroom doorway.

  Susan Landry dropped her towel and sat on the bed's rumpled sheets and blankets, resting her elbows on her knees. She felt as if the room was spinning momentarily, but then the feeling passed and she was back in cool control.

  "How long ago?"

  That long. There were connections to be made, and she was running out of time.

  "All right. I'll see what I can do. Thanks for calling."

  And thank you for disrupting everything — the biggest story of the year, a normal life, the comforting day-to-day routine.

  Mack Bolan in jail? In Texas yet. They had him on a murder charge except that no one seemed to know precisely who he was. The caller wanted her to check it out, and she had instantly agreed, forgetting Marco Gianelli and his bribery trial — forgetting everything, in fact, except the grim emergency mechanics of securing a flight to Texas now.

  There hadn't been a choice once she had convinced herself that it was not a scam.

  If Bolan was in jail, his life in peril, she had to go and check it out. She had to see what she could do, and if nothing else, chronicle the final moments of a warrior run to ground.

  The man had saved her life a couple of times when there appeared to be no hope at all. She owed him that at least, aside from any private feelings of her own.

  The lady shivered, knowing it had nothing whatsoever to do with the temperature of her motel room.

  Susan Landry was a trained professional, adept at separating her emotions from the job at hand. Except, perhaps, where one Mack Bolan was concerned.

  She was afraid, for Bolan, for herself. If he was caged, then pure deductive reasoning informed her that the end was near. The jailhouse grapevine would inform his enemies, providing that they didn't know already, and providing that they hadn't staged his arrest in the first place. Inside a cage, the Phoenix warrior was as good as dead.

  There might be something she could do.

  The lady knew her limits, although she never let them restrict her from attempting the impossible. She would do everything within her power to assist Mack, and failing that, she was prepared to write the man one hell of an obituary.

  Susan Landry owed him that as well, no matter what the cost to her career might be.

  Her bureau chief would not be pleased when she informed him she was bugging out on Gianelli's trial, but he would cope.

  Susan retrieved her fallen towel and dried herself briskly, rubbing harder than she needed to, trying to restore the feeling to her body. The news of Mack's arrest had numbed her like a shot of Novocain, but she was recovering.

  Mack Bolan needed her. If she could help him out from under, fine. If not... there were some king-sized whistles waiting to be blown, and Susan Landry was prepared to bring some houses down.

  She owed the soldier that much, too, and she was on her way to pay some debts.

  * * *

  Hal Brognola was stoking his first cigar of the morning when his secretary buzzed him on the intercom.

  "Line three."

  "Who is it, Sandy?"

  "A Johnny Gray. It's new to me. He says it's an emergency, but I can put him off."

  A little chill had started at the base of Brognola's skull, and it was spreading out across his scalp, bringing the short hairs erect on the back of his neck.

  "No, thafs all right." He hoped it sounded casual. "I'll talk to him."

  Another moment passed and then the lines connected with a faint, long-distance hissing in his ear.

  "Good morning, John."

  "I'm sorry it had to be the office, Hal. I tried your house, but you were gone."

  "Early meeting," the grizzled Fed answered. "You just caught me."

  "I won't be long. My brother's been arrested on a murder charge."

  Brognola's stomach dropped in the direction of his shoes. It took a moment for his mind and voice to function as a team.

  "Where is he? When?"

  "McLary, Texas. That's the southwest part. And I got the call about an hour ago."

  The clock on Hal Brognola's desk read 9:05. He did some quick subtraction for the time zones and arrived at an approximation.

  "How much do you know?"

  "You've heard it all. I'm on my way, but it'll take some time. I have a hunch I might get there too late."

  Brognola understood. "I won't." Unless it's too damned late already. "I'll scare up a pilot and head on down there."

  "Thanks."

  "I didn't hear that, son. Hang up now, we've got work to do."

  Goddamn it!

  He had dreaded this since he had turned from hunting Bolan to assisting him, covertly in the early days, then with the blessings of the President, and now, again, beyond the pale. How many times had he expected Bolan to be busted or killed by overzealous lawmen in the field? Too goddamn many times, for sure.

  And yet somehow Brognola never quite believed that it would happen. Not this way. The hellfire warrior might be shot and killed, might even sacrifice himself rather than fire on police, but never in his wildest dreams had Hal believed that Bolan would be taken in alive.

  It was a miracle, of sorts... and a potential tragedy. Confined, the soldier was deprived of any combat strength, the edge that had ensured his tenuous survival up to now. Without that room to run, he was a sitting target, and there were countless enemies who would not leave him sitting still for long.

  There was a limit, certainly, to what Brognola could achieve by flying south. A federal presence might ensure an extra measure of security, but after that his hands were tied. It would be hard enough for him to justify the flight for openers. If he began to interfere in local cases, some indignant sheriff just might raise a howl that echoed all the way back to Washington — and the administration was averse to stepping on local toes of late.

  As for the Bolan angle, he would be kissing off an almost-thirty-year career if anyone got wind of what the hell was going on. it gave Brognola pause, but only long enough to get another start on his cigar. The risks were frightening, but the alternative was sheer anathema.

  He couldn't leave the soldier sitting in the lion's den without attempting to assist him, legally or otherwise. It would have been betrayal of the crassest sort — betrayal of their friendship, of the cause that they had served with every fiber of their beings from the day their lives had become entwined.

  Bolan was a friend, and more. He was a valued comrade in the grim, one-sided war against the savages. Brognola might not have the power to save him now, but it was in his power to try, and he would do his best before he laid the burden down. If his career became a casualty along the way, so be it. If it blew up in his face, the chances were that he would not survive to read the reprimands in any case.

  Brognola shook his head. It was incredible the way a thirty-second phone call could upend your world and send it spinning off through space in the twinkling of an eye. If he had missed the call somehow, by accident or otherwise...

  But he hadn't.

  The message had come through, loud and clear and inescapable.

  The man from Justice had a job to do, and he was going to miss that early meeting. The rest would carry on without him. There was nothing on his desk that couldn't wait... except the matter of a friend in jail.

  Brognola snared the phone and started barking at his secretary, startling the sweet young thing with brisk demands to raise a pilot, cancel his appointments for the next few days, accumulate some things that he would need before he left.

  McLary, Texas?

  Right.

  The big Fed had a date that he could not afford to miss. Not even if it meant his badge. Not even if it meant his life.

  4

  "We've got enough right now to fry his a... I mean to say..."

  "I know exactly what you mean to say."

  The prosecutor smiled, and Sheriff Bo Kendricks felt the color rising in his cheeks. Dammit, he would never grow accustomed to the women who were moving in on law enforcement, taking over jobs that had traditionally belonged to men.

  It wasn't that he doubted these gals' abilities — unless it came to wrestling some psycho or some hopped-up biker for a weapon — but they definitely cramped his style. You couldn't talk to women like you could to men, for instance, sharing your experiences in a language that the two of you could relate to from the gut.

  Bo Kendricks didn't see himself as any kind of chauvinist. He had respected women from his youth, and part of that respect was in believing there were certain jobs a woman shouldn't soil her hands with. Lubing cars was one example. Picking over mutilated corpses was another.

  Amy Stone, the new assistant prosecutor for McLary County, would have disagreed had Kendricks given her the chance. The sheriff had been wise enough to keep his observations to himself so far, however, and if she could read them in his face, his attitude, she likewise kept her own opinions under wraps. From what he knew of Amy Stone, the sheriff rated her a slick professional... but she was stepping into an entirely different ball game now.

  In office seven months, the lady prosecutor had a string of courtroom victories behind her, and a growing reputation that might give her boss second thoughts around election time. Appointed to fulfill a campaign promise to McLary County's female voters, Amy Stone had proved herself a slick professional indeed, but this would be her first involvement in a murder case, and it was shaping up to be a three-ring horror show.

  "Have we identified the victim yet?"

  Her question startled Kendricks. She had caught him staring at her, and the sheriff blushed again. The prosecutor was attractive, with her honey-colored hair and fashion model's clean good looks. But he was old enough to be her father, dammit, and he had to keep his mind on business now. He cleared his throat and shuffled through the papers on his desk, grateful for the distraction.

  "Alma Jennings. Been in town a year, eighteen months. She was a regular at Manny's and a coupla the other joints."

  "A working girl?"

  Bo Kendricks shrugged, embarrassed by the casual reference to prostitution coming from a woman.

  "No priors, but that just means we never caught her on the job. I'll have my people check it out."

  "Okay. I'll need to see the body."

  Kendricks felt his stomach rolling. He had seen the body, dammit, and he didn't ever want to see its like again.

  "You ought to know... I mean..."

  "I understand the nature of the damage, Sheriff. Thank you." She was smiling at him now, but there was steel beneath the velvet. "It's my job to study all the evidence."

  "Doc Ferris has her now. We could run over there... or you could take a look at these."

  He pushed a flat manila envelope across the desk, using his fingertips as if he feared contamination from contact with the evidence inside.

  "Photographs from the scene?"

  Kendricks nodded, watching her closely.

  She picked up the envelope, opened it and withdrew the sheaf of glossy eight-by-tens. One glance and the color seemed to drain out of her face. She stiffened, nostrils flaring as she took a swift, deep breath.

  The sheriff half expected her to put the photos back inside the envelope once she had seen the first, the mildest of the batch. It was a distance shot, encompassing the bedroom with its grisly centerpiece. The other shots were more detailed, a string of anatomic close-ups meant for use at trial when it was jury-shocking time.

  The lady prosecutor looked at each and every photograph, not once, but twice. Her face was pale and haggard when she finished, but her fingers didn't tremble as she carefully replaced the evidence and slid the packet back across his desk.

  "I'll need a set of those," she said.

  "Okay."

  The sheriff felt a grudging new respect for Amy Stone. The lady had some guts to go along with all the rest of it.

  "What kind of man would do a thing like that?"

  "You mean, is he a nut?" The sheriff shook his head. "Not so you'd notice, anyway. A psycho, sure, no fu — no doubt about it, but he knew what he was doing when he sliced her up. The FBI boys in Washington are calling 'em recreational killers. His kind hunt people, women mostly. It's like a sport."

  'That sounds insane."

  "Abnormal, maybe, but the law defines insanity."

  "I know the legal definition, Sheriff." The irritation in her voice was not very subtle, and Kendricks knew that he had overstepped his bounds. "I'm interested in what compels a man like this to kill. What makes him tick?"

  "Who knows? Remember Bundy, down in Florida? He was a straight-A law student till his girlfriend dumped him and somethin' snapped inside. You look at pictures of the girls he killed — before he killed 'em, anyway — and anyone of 'em could pass for the one who put him down."

  "So, it's the woman's fault?"

  "Hell, no. I don't mean that at all. Some of these freaks are workin' out a hatred for their mothers, some of them are homosexual. Remember that Gacy fella up north there? He bagged thirty-three boys before the smell comin' out of his basement gave him away."

  "All of those were in some major city. Why McLary County, Bo?"

  He shrugged, secretly pleased that she had called him by his first name.

  "Hard to say. You remember Lucas an' Toole? They killed more'n three hundred people, coast to coast, most of 'em in small towns like this. Now the Mounties think they may've done another hundred up in Canada. Toole used to eat part of the bodies, but Lucas wouldn't touch it. Know what he told the Rangers when they asked him why?"

  The lady shook her head.

  "He said, 'I don't like barbecue sauce.'"

  Another shade of pale emerged beneath the light cosmetics.

  "That's revolting."

  "Sure it is. But is it crazy? Every one of them I named was competent for trial, according to the courts, an' every one of 'em is sitting on death row right now, waiting to fry."

  "I'll want a psychiatric workup on this Blanski, anyway."

  "You bet. No point in lettin' the defense attorney get first crack."

  "Has he requested counsel yet?"

  The sheriff shook his head.

  "My guess is they'll appoint one for him at this afternoon's arraignment."

  The prosecutor nodded.

  "Your preliminary paperwork makes reference to weapons at the scene."

  "Tha's right. We took a knife away from him — it's on its way to Austin for a blood-type match — but he was also packing automatic weapons and a load of other shi — other munitions."

  Scanning down a sheet of yellow legal paper, Kendricks started reading off the list.

  "One Beretta selective-fire pistol, 9 mm, model 93-R. One Uzi submachine gun, also 9 mm, Israeli manufacture. One M-16 assault rifle, .223 caliber. One .44 Magnum AutoMag handgun, semi-automatic. Twelve hand grenades, fragmentation variety. Assorted ammunition magazines, fully loaded, together with approximately thirteen hundred rounds, assorted calibers."

  "Sounds like he was looking for a war."

  "Could be."

  Amy Stone was frowning thoughtfully. "Does that seem out of character to you?"

  "Wha's that?"

  "This Blanski has enough military hardware to take out half the town and yet he kills his victim with a knife?"

  Kendricks shrugged again. "So, figure nuts."

  "You said he wasn't crazy, Bo."

  "I never said that he was rational."

  "All right. We've been discussing homicidal maniacs. Repeat killers. Is there anything to indicate our Mr. Blanski fits that category?"

  "From the nature of the injuries sustained by Alma Jennings, I would say she's not his first. It takes a while to generate that kind of hate."

  "Makes sense. But can we back it up in court?"

  "I'm checking other jurisdictions now for similarities. Off the record, I've got my eye on half a dozen murders north of here, extending into Oklahoma."

  Amy Stone's eyes widened in surprise. "The I-40 killings?"

  Kendricks smiled thinly. "Off the record, remember. There are similarities."

  "You think that Blanski..."

  "It's a possibility. Right now, that's all it is."

  "Well, dammit."

  "Yes, indeed."

  "If we could crack the 1-40 killings..."

  She let it trail away, but Kendricks saw the wheels turning behind her eyes. This was one ambitious, in addition to being damned sexy, woman. She would recognize the inherent potential in breaking the state's biggest multiple-murder case of the year.

  "We'll need substantial evidence to sew it up."

  "I have a hunch our suspect might confess."

  Amy Stone eyed him closely. "Careful, Sheriff. I don't want any heavy-handed third-degree to spoil this case."

  Bo Kendricks was offended and didn't try to hide it. "We're no sloppy rednecks here," he told her bluntly. "I've never beaten a confession out of any prisoner, and I never will. One of my deputies tries it, they'll take him out of here in a sandwich bag."

  "I was out of line. I apologize."

  The smile was charming, and he felt himself beginning to melt inside. "Okay. An' what I meant to say was that these types confess a lot, you see? They like publicity... that is, when they're convinced that they can't get away. They'll cop to anything."

  "Including things they haven't done?"

  "I'll triple-check whatever might shake loose. Leave that to me."

  "It's in your hands."

  The eyes were still uneasy, and he recognized that Amy Stone was troubled by the case, though it could be just the aftershock of seeing Alma Jennings gutted like a deer.

 

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