Bolan stood his ground until the final instant when the knifeman could advance no farther short of contact with his prey. The stranger's eyes were glittering with excitement and a primal hunger that was deep and savage and barely in control. He was clearly enjoying the unaccustomed challenge, drawing out the moment like a lover's fond caress.

  "Okay."

  The voice was deep, surprising in its softness. Bolan almost had to strain his ears to catch the single word.

  And then another.

  "Now."

  The hitter rushed the soldier, knife hand thrusting up and out to lead the charge, and Bolan let him come. Split-second timing was required to make it work, and he heard the numbers falling, felt them in his soul as he remained immobile for another heartbeat, making himself the perfect target for that whispering steel.

  Far enough.

  Bolan sidestepped, feinting left, then ducking to the right beneath the blade. His left leg shot out, a muscled rocket streaking forward, sinking his heel inch-deep into the hard pectorals. Gasping, his opponent staggered backward, almost lost his balance, then finally lost the knife instead. It clattered on the floor, spun once and came to rest between them, razor tip directed primly toward a neutral corner of the cell.

  With arms outstretched, the soldier thrust forward his fingers, straining for the steel. But through his pain the silent adversary saw it coming and knew that if he couldn't save the weapon for himself he must at least deny it to the enemy. A sloppy backward kick sent the slim stiletto spinning through a gap between the bars and concrete floor and halfway across the corridor outside.

  The thrust became a flying tackle, and Bolan's human target was off balance now, unable to resist the force that lifted him and drove him hard against the bars a second time. The edge of a bony hand impacted Bolan's shoulder blade, and excruciating pain exploded down his arm, preventing him from following up the tackle with a lethal jab. He grunted, tasting blood and bitter failure on his tongue before he rolled away.

  The hitter crouched where Bolan's rush had driven him, his back against the bars, knees bent, as if some nonexistent chair supported him. Across the cell and out of reach, the Executioner was down on one knee, flexing numbed fingers, willing them to respond.

  His adversary wasn't smiling now, and Bolan took some momentary satisfaction from the blood that smeared the hitter's nostrils, streaming from a broken nose. They spent another minute sucking wind and staring at each other silently before the hitter spoke.

  "You're good. I knew you would be."

  Bolan didn't waste his breath on any answer. He was already circling, seeking the angle he would need to make it work this time. And it would have to work this time, he realized, if it was going to work at all.

  He had already taken punishment that might have killed a weaker man, and it was little consolation that his adversary felt the pain as well. A weary, battered soldier makes mistakes, and when the battle was hand to hand a single slip was all it took to bring the curtain down.

  The hitter followed Bolan's moves, appearing rested despite the blood that smeared his mouth and chin. The guy was hurting, but he had learned to hide it, projecting strength and confidence to shake an adversary's resolve. Bolan wondered just how many times the trick had worked.

  Another moment passed and they reversed positions once again, with Bolan's back against the bars, his enemy in a ready half-crouch near the stainless-steel commode.

  Suddenly the hitter rushed, and the move might have taken lesser opposition by surprise. But Bolan had been waiting for it, and now he let his adversary come until the guy was close enough to kiss, his hands outstretched to lock around the soldier's throat.

  Except the soldier wasn't there. He had already sidestepped, bringing up a knee hard against the guy's solar plexus, emptying his lungs and stomach simultaneously. The big man doubled over, driven by his own momentum on a hard collision course toward steel and stone.

  With fingers interlaced, Bolan hammered a double-handed blow against the hardman's skull behind one ear, slamming his bloody face against the bars. A pivot, and he was behind the kneeling enemy, one arm encircling his throat, a knee pressed tight between the shoulder blades. He twisted, put his weight behind the move... and knew that it was finished when the straining vertebrae responded with a sickly crunch. He was a deadweight now in Bolan's arms. The soldier stepped away and let him fall.

  There was another sound, barely audible above the pulse that hammered in his ears, and Bolan listened to the surreptitious footsteps drawing closer to his cage. Adrenaline was racing through his system as he caught his second wind, preparing himself instinctively for fight or flight — except that there was nowhere left to run, no way the soldier could defend himself against an armed assault by any mop-up team.

  He backed away until his legs collided with the bunk. Bolan took a deep breath, held it briefly and let the air escape between clenched teeth. His enemies might watch him die, but there was no damned way that they would ever see him cringe and hide. No way at all.

  A portly man in uniform appeared outside the cell, his features indistinct in the fluorescent backlight. Even so, the Executioner could read the stunned surprise on his face, surprise that told Bolan everything he had to know.

  The deputy had set him up, supplied the hitter with forbidden access to the target's cage, and now he was recoiling from a score gone sour. There would be some awkward questions, no matter how it played from this point on.

  "You lose," he told the quaking uniform.

  And that was all it took. The jailer bolted back along the corridor and through the outer access doors, pausing only long enough to throw the switch that slammed them shut behind him.

  Any way it played, the deputy was on a hook now, swinging in the wind, and it could only hurt Bolan's enemies to have the plot exposed. They would not be deterred from their attempts to murder him. Slowed down, perhaps, but ancient enmities ran deep and dark, too strong to be diverted by a single botched attempt.

  At best a new investigation might succeed in buying him some time. And he would use that time to best advantage, aware that every moment yet to come might be his last.

  There were a thousand ways to reach him in his cell.

  But they had failed this time, and for the moment that would have to do.

  Bolan was determined to make use of every moment left.

  Determined to keep fighting while life remained.

  Determined that his case would come to trial before a poisoned meal or sniper's bullet brought a hasty verdict in ahead of time.

  The Executioner would have his day in court.

  9

  Bo Kendricks was angry when the telephone woke him from a particularly vivid dream involving prosecutor Amy Stone. His anger deepened as he listened to the night man's jabbering explanation of what had happened at the jail, an explanation that required Kendricks to insist that the night man repeat the whole damned thing.

  Before he finished pulling on his uniform, the sheriff had progressed from angry to furious, and he was livid by the time he nosed the cruiser into his reserved space in the courthouse parking lot. The deskman read suspension on the sheriff's face and wisely kept his eyes averted, concentrating on his duty log.

  The station was alive with deputies recalled for extra shifts, and Kendricks shook his head in sour disgust. Too late, goddamn it.

  Someone was going to pay for this. Some frigging heads were going to roll for letting shit like this come down inside his jail. A prisoner assault was bad enough, but an assault upon this prisoner was news from coast to coast.

  He detoured by the watercooler, stalling, making time to let himself cool down. The way he felt right now he was as likely to assault the night-shift jailer as to question him, and Kendricks wanted everything precisely by the book. No loopholes for the media or state investigators or the FBI to poke their noses into, sniffing for something rotten in the wind. If someone had fucked up — and someone definitely had — Kendricks was prepared to nail them on his own, without assistance from a troop of meddling strangers.

  And he was looking forward to it in a twisted sort of way. There were so many open questions now, all begging to be answered yesterday.

  Precisely who had tried to kill Mack Bolan in his cell?

  What had possessed the jailer to incarcerate a stranger with the Executioner when there were half a dozen empty cells available? Was it incompetence or something worse?

  Was the attack spontaneous, or should he be prepared for more determined bids the next day?

  And Kendricks knew the answer to the last question.

  As long as Bolan was a prisoner in his jail, he should be ready for the worst. A goddamn fortress would have been appropriate, but he would have to work with what he had.

  The sheriff spied Hank Musgrove at the far end of the corridor in urgent conversation with Jim Kephart, night-shift deputy in charge. They heard him coming, and both of them shut up, swiveling to face him as he closed the gap. Hank Musgrove was in civvies, having been recalled from home short hours after clocking out, and Kendricks smelled the beer on his breath. The deputy in charge was waiting for the worst, a nervous tic beneath one eye.

  "Let's have it from the top."

  The night man cleared his throat and winked a half dozen times before he found his voice.

  "Sylvester and Nash popped a drunk down at Roxie's two hours ago. I've got copies of their reports. White male, six-three, about two hundred..."

  "I can read."

  "Yes, sir."

  Another wink as Kephart hesitated, skimming through his notes.

  "They checked him in through booking at half past ten. He gave his name as Joseph Smith. Subject carried no id, but we were going to run his prints tomorrow."

  "Do it now."

  "It's on the wire." Another hesitation while the night man found his place. "The prisoner was issued blues and taken downstairs."

  "Who's on tonight down there?"

  "Uh... that was Putnam, sir."

  "Go on."

  An edge of steel had crept into his voice, and both men standing there in front of him could feel it rasp across their nerves. They would not have exchanged their lot in life with Billy Putnam now at any price.

  "Apparently, when Billy checked the subject in he put him into Bolan's cell. We still don't know exactly how it happened."

  "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

  "He's gone."

  "Goddammit, who's gone?"

  "Putnam."

  "What?"

  "He spotted what had happened, after... well, when it was over... and he rang in the alarm before he... left."

  "Left where?"

  "Left here. I figured he would go straight home, but we've been calling and he doesn't pick it up. He could be anywhere, I guess."

  "You guess." Bo Kendricks didn't try to veil the anger and disgust that filled his voice. "So, what about this Joseph Smith?"

  "Doc Ferris has him down in number three. They'll take him out as soon as he can finish the preliminaries."

  "Bolan?"

  "Minor cuts and bruises. He was lucky, too, considering the knife."

  "What knife?"

  "The one Smith tried to gut him with."

  "You're telling me a prisoner was checked in here tonight without id and someone missed a knife, for Christ's sake? Are you telling me that someone here could be so fucking stupid?"

  "Well..."

  "Shut up." He turned to Musgrove, feeling angry color in his cheeks and fighting to control his tone. "I want those prints run through the national computer on a top priority. Pull any strings you have to and refer the questions back to me."

  "It's done."

  "I want the two arresting officers here within the hour for a full debriefing on this mess."

  "They're on the way."

  "Keep trying Putnam's house and send a cruiser by there for a look-see. If he's home — if anybody's home — I want to know about it, but the deputies should not approach."

  Jim Kephart shifted anxiously. "We ought to pull him in, and..."

  "No. He's mine. I want to see his face when I come knocking on his door."

  And when I kick his sorry ass, the sheriff thought, but kept the notion to himself.

  "Dan Fleming been around?"

  The night man shook his head. "We haven't called him yet."

  "Do it now. We're knee-deep in the shit already. No damn point in adding Sixth Amendment problems to the rest of it."

  "Okay." And Kephart was beginning to relax a bit until the sheriff's eyes met his and bored on through to find his quaking soul. "I mean, yes, sir."

  The night man scuttled off along the corridor to try and save his job. Bo Kendricks had already made up his mind not to fire the man, but it would serve him right to keep him guessing for a while.

  "Let's go."

  Hank Musgrove trailed him to the elevators, and they made the short ride down in silence, each man occupied with private thoughts. For Kendricks it was still incomprehensible that this had happened in his jail. There were precautions to prevent this kind of thing from taking place. The sheriff could not make himself believe that all of it had taken place by sheer coincidence. There would be more — it had the smell — but he would wait until he spoke with the arresting officers, until he got his hands on Billy Putnam's scruffy throat, before he made up his mind.

  He could wait that long before he started lifting scalps.

  The other part of it, however, couldn't wait at all.

  They found Doc Ferris emerging from the cell that had become a makeshift morgue. He was slipping his jacket on, making ready to depart. Approaching sixty, he looked ten years older beneath the cold fluorescent lights.

  "Some mess you got here, Bo."

  "I guess."

  A glance inside the cell told Kendricks all he had to know about the cause of death. Their "Joseph Smith" was stretched out on a bunk, the white mortician's sheet pulled up no farther than his waist, his denim jailhouse shirt discolored with the rusty stains of drying blood.

  His face was turned away from Kendricks — all the way — and the sheriff didn't need a coroner's report to diagnose the broken neck. A lot of power was required to kill that way, and Kendricks grimaced now, imagining the sound as bones gave way and separated, ripping through the spinal column, snuffing conscious thought, sensation, life, in one excruciating flash of pain.

  Goddamn, why did it have to happen in his jail?

  "What can you tell me, Doc?"

  "I'll need to get the particulars, but off the cuff I'd say they fought an' this one lost. His neck's been wrung like Sunday's chicken dinner, Bo."

  "Your other patient holding up?"

  "He'll live... for now. A slice across the ribs from this, but it was superficial."

  As he spoke, the doctor lifted up a plastic sandwich bag and let Kendricks see the wicked knife inside. The blade was double-edged, commando style, and it was no damned homemade shank.

  "Where was it?"

  "In the corridor. From all appearances it got kicked out between the bars somehow."

  "A lucky thing for Bolan," Musgrove offered, sounding sullen.

  "That one makes his own luck, boy," Doc Ferris answered. "He's a cool one, right enough."

  "He tell you anything?"

  "Just where it hurts. He took some lumps. Don't get me wrong. A lesser man just might have cashed it in. But there's some fight in that one yet."

  "I'll keep that fact in mind."

  "You do that, Sheriff."

  Ferris brushed on past them, heading for the exit. He left "Joseph Smith" uncovered to the waist.

  "Get rid of that," Kendricks ordered Musgrove, nodding in the corpse's direction. He was moving toward Bolan's cell before the deputy could form a suitable reply.

  In the last cell on the right, Bolan lay stretched out on the bunk, his new shirt open to reveal the bandage taped across his ribs. A mottled bruise was forming beneath one eye, but otherwise the prisoner appeared unharmed.

  "We need to talk," Bo Kendricks said.

  "I don't have anything to say."

  "Well, you can listen then. Your lawyer's on his way, and I'm conducting an investigation into what happened here tonight." He read the subtle incredulity on Bolan's face and felt the anger flaring up inside him again. "I won't have shit like this inside my jail."

  The prisoner sat up and swiveled toward him, flinching slightly when the movement cost him pain.

  "You're just a little late," Bolan said.

  Bo Kendricks frowned. "Before I'm done, I'll know what happened here and why."

  "You know the what and why already. Sheriff. All that's missing is the who."

  "I won't believe that anyone in my department would conspire to pull a stunt like this," he snapped. But even as he spoke the lawman felt a nagging pang of doubt.

  "Believe whatever makes you happy," Bolan answered. "Maybe it'll help you sleep at night."

  "I sleep just fine."

  "Well, that explains it then."

  "Explains what, dammit?"

  "You're asleep right now. In fact, you're dreaming if you think that your department is immune to the corruption that's been documented in a thousand other places, coast to coast."

  "My force is clean."

  "Okay."

  "You don't believe me."

  Bolan's smile was hard, ironic. "Does it matter, Sheriff?"

  Kendricks felt the color rushing back into his cheeks. "I came down here to offer my apologies... for everything."

  "No need," the Executioner replied. "You're not responsible."

  "It happened in my jail."

  "Forget it, Sheriff. Go on home. Go back to sleep."

  Bo Kendricks watched for a moment as the former soldier lay back and closed his eyes. The sheriff wanted to respond, but he couldn't think of anything else to say.

  The goddamned guy was right of course.

  No accident, no simple negligence, was able to explain away what had happened here tonight. He didn't like what he was thinking, but he had to face it anyway.

 

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