Ripple Effect

“Because he’s dangerous. To the United States.”

“He’s dangerous to everyone right now,” Bolan replied. “Al Qaeda and Hamas don’t limit their attacks to the U.S. or Israel. They’ve bombed London, Spain, Kenya and Tanzania. They’re full-service murderers.”

“That’s good.” Dixon was nodding like an athlete getting pumped up for the big game of the season. “Right. That’s very good.”

“Just keep your eyes and ears open,” Bolan suggested. “You’ve already proved yourself. You didn’t freeze. Whatever happens next, you’ll be all right.”

“I’m good,” said Dixon. “We’re the good guys, right?”

“That’s what it says on my white hat,” Bolan replied.

THEIR TARGET’S SMALL apartment house off Tomang Raja stood among a hundred others that were more or less the same, distinguished by their faded colors more than anything unique about their architecture. They reminded Bolan of a minicity he had seen at LEGOLAND in Europe, on another job. Instead of plastic pieces, though, these look-alike apartment houses had been built with lath and plaster, cheaply painted, then abandoned to begin their slow decomposition in the tropic climate.

Sun and rain would do the rest, assisted by the tenants who cared nothing for a landlord’s property, and sometimes precious little for themselves.

Bolan wasn’t surprised that Talmadge would’ve chosen such a neighborhood in which to live. He wouldn’t fear the neighbors—quite the opposite, in fact, if they were wise—and living in a downscale area helped to preserve his anonymity. He would desire a low profile, waiting to make a bigger splash when he retired.

And Talmadge would have enemies, like any other mercenary who had shopped his skills around the troubled planet. There was never time or opportunity to kill them all, as Bolan knew from personal experience. No matter how he tried, regardless of his scorched-earth tactics, there would always be survivors hungry for revenge.

Still, with a new address, new name, new face, new history, he just might pull it off.

Somehow. Someday.

“Garage stalls in the back,” Dixon explained, “along a kind of alley fronting the canal. No parking lot.”

“It’s not a problem,” Bolan said. He’d noticed empty parking spaces on the street and didn’t mind a short walk back from wherever they had to leave the car.

“So, what’s the drill?” Dixon asked.

“We go in and knock,” Bolan said. “Say hello and ask if he can spare a cup of java.”

“Like Jehovah’s Witnesses?”

“Without the Bibles,” Bolan said.

“Okay with me,” his contact said. And then, “You sure?”

“What were you thinking?” Bolan asked him. “Climb a drainpipe? Go in through the bathroom window?”

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Dixon granted. “But it seems to me, he may be waiting for us. Well, not us, but someone. He’s a killer, right?”

“A soldier,” Bolan said.

“Ex-soldier. And a terrorist.”

“You’re thinking he may shoot us,” Bolan said.

“It crossed my mind. Suppose he’s sitting on an arsenal up there? Then what?”

“Has anybody looked inside? The team that bugged his place?”

“They didn’t want to risk it. Went in through the neighbors’ flats and put mikes in the walls.”

Which meant that Talmadge could be sitting on an arsenal—or nothing. Bolan didn’t think he’d be unarmed. It went too much against the grain, against his lifelong training and experience, but there were countless levels of preparedness. It was a waste of time to sit and speculate.

He parked the stolen car a block west of the target, locked its doors and took the slender shim along with him, for when they doubled back. It might look strange, him fiddling with the window when he wanted to get back inside, but Bolan chose that option over leaving it unlocked and trusting thieves to stay away.

Losing a stolen car was one thing, but he wouldn’t risk the hardware in its trunk until he’d had his money’s worth out of the mobile arsenal.

“Just pistols?” Dixon asked him as they left the car and crossed the street.

“If we need more than that,” Bolan replied, “our plan is seriously flawed.”

“About this knocking thing…”

“It’s how they play it, in polite society.”

“Is that what this is?” Dixon asked.

“Hope springs eternal.”

“Right.”

He had a point, of course. Maybe they should’ve loaded up for bear and smashed through Talmadge’s front door with automatic weapons blazing, but the job—at least in Bolan’s mind—was more than simply taking out a soldier who’d gone bad.

They were supposed to find out what Talmadge was doing for his latest sponsors, what their move was meant to be against the country they called Satan. Simply dropping Talmadge in his tracks might stall the plan, but on the other hand, there was a decent chance it could proceed with other personnel and reap the same results.

Whatever those were.

Count on chaos and destruction, maybe catastrophic loss of life, or else selective murders of specific targets carried out with surgical precision. Either way, the zealots who were renting Talmadge and his expertise would want the most bang for their bucks. And at the moment, only Talmadge could reveal who his employers were.

Only the man they’d come to see could give them details of the plan.

Assuming they could make him talk.

That would be easier if he was breathing when they started asking questions, but in games like this the target often literally called the shots. If Talmadge chose to make a fight of it, resisting with the same skills Bolan had and using any weapons within reach, taking the man alive might not be possible.

And if he forced their hands, what then?

Where did they go for answers?

Wait and see. Don’t count him out.

Not yet.

They walked around the block, came in behind the building, with the broad canal exuding stagnant odors on their right, stucco and curtained windows on the left. Bolan counted the buildings, picking out the paint job, and the back door opened at his touch.

So far, so good.