Ripple Effect. Don Pendleton

were dead, East Timor’s meager infrastructure lay in ruins and the mostly agricultural economy was belly-up.

      “Which side?” Bolan asked.

      “Hard to say. The rumors go both ways,” Dixon replied. “Since then, our boy has mostly been a gun-for-hire and part-time training officer for outfits like Hamas, al Qaeda and the Islamic Jihad. No Muslim background that we know of, but he likes those petrodollars. Has three bank accounts, one each in Switzerland, the Caymans and Sri Lanka.”

      “It’s a small world, after all,” Bolan remarked.

      “And getting smaller all the time, apparently,” Dixon said. “In the past eleven months, Talmadge has logged close to a half a million frequent-flyer miles. We’ve tracked him back and forth to different parts of Europe, to Australia and New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, and once to Canada—B.C., specifically. He’s literally all over the map. Some of it’s visits to his banks. The rest, we’re guessing meets with his employers and some contract jobs that just coincidentally occur when he’s nearby.”

      “Has anybody thought of handing him to Interpol?” Bolan asked.

      “Thought about it, sure. But on what charge? His bank deposits are straightforward, nothing to suggest a laundry operation. He’s not moving contraband, as far as anyone can tell. The people we can prove he’s spoken to aren’t fugitives—at least not in the countries where they’re living at the moment. On the hits, we can’t prove anything beyond proximity.”

      “And now, this Gitmo thing,” Bolan said.

      “Right. He’s up to something for the AQ crowd, but what? We’ve covered his apartment in Jakarta. Bugs and taps, the whole megillah, but he doesn’t use the telephone for anything important, and his only visitors are hookers. Once a week, like clockwork, he gets laid if he’s in town. Tonight’s the night.”

      “Maybe we ought to crash the party.”

      “It’s a thought. Take flowers, maybe?”

      “Maybe lilies. But we need another car, first thing.”

      “You won’t be trading this one in, I take it,” Dixon said.

      “I don’t think so.”

      “Okay.” The younger man considered that, then said, “I’ve never hot-wired anything before. I mean, they didn’t teach car theft or anything like that in training.”

      “I’ll take care of that,” Bolan said. “What we need right now is somewhere we can drop this one and not be noticed while we switch the plates to something suitable.”

      “My first thought would be HPK,” Dixon replied. “Halim Perdana Kusuma. The airport.”

      Bolan thought about it, judging distances. It meant driving three miles or so, across Jakarta, without being noticed by police. “What’s closer?” he inquired.

      “There’s Kemayoran, formerly the local airport,” Dixon said. “They’ve turned it into some kind of outlandish shopping mall, but there are parking lots.”

      Closer, the warrior knew, from memorizing street maps in advance. “Okay. Let’s try that first.”

      “Suits me. You know the way?”

      “I’ve got it,” Bolan said. “But just the same, correct me if you see I’m heading off toward Borneo or something.”

      “Right.” It was the first time he had seen Tom Dixon smile. “About just now…in case you couldn’t tell, I’ve never killed a man before.”

      Bolan could have replied, “First time for everything,” but that would be both flippant and a lie. Most people never killed another human being. Soldiers, cops and criminals were those most likely to take lives, but even then it was a relatively rare event. Millions of soldiers served their tours of duty in peacetime and never fired a shot in anger. Most cops never pulled the trigger on a suspect, making those who did so more than once immediately suspect in the eyes of their superiors. Even most criminals had never killed, restricting their activities to theft, white-collar crimes or petty drug offenses.

      Without planning it, Tom Dixon had been drafted into a fraternity whose members shared a single trait: the rare experience of canceling another human being’s ticket to the great arcade of life. Some members of that clique enjoyed it; others never quite forgave themselves. The rest, who spilled blood in the line of duty forced upon them by their times, their conscience or their personality, learned how to live with it.

      Bolan couldn’t predict which kind of killer Dixon might turn out to be. In fact, he didn’t care, as long as Dixon managed to perform his duties adequately for the next few hours or days.

      Once Bolan left, he could break down and weep, become a raving psychopath or simply go back to his paper-pushing job. It wouldn’t matter to the Executioner.

      This day, this job was all that mattered.

      But they had blown their cover big time. Everything beyond that point would be a catch-up game.

      And Bolan feared that they were running out of time.