LITMIR.BIZ

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him less than ten minutes to roust his contacts for the address tied to the license plate. As Bolan had suspected, it was a rental. “We’re back-tracing the credit card that was used to rent it,” Brognola said. “It’s probably a fraudulent account, but we’ll put a trace on it, just in case they use it again.” He gave Bolan the address and added, “Are you sure you don’t want to wait for backup? According to the Reno PD, your playmate used that SUV to bull through a barricade. He nearly ran down several officers and ditched it in a parking garage.”

      “Someone picked him up,” Bolan said. It wasn’t a question.

      “Which means it wasn’t just those three,” Brognola said. “You’re looking at multiple hostiles who’ve already shown they don’t particularly care about starting a public ruckus.”

      “Then the sooner they’re taken off the board, the better,” Bolan said firmly.

      Brognola sighed. “Be careful, Striker.”

      “Always am,” Bolan said and hung up.

      Satisfied, he tossed the phone onto the bed. Then, without hurry, he began to dress for the battle to come.

       Chapter 4

      Sparrow stared at the phone as if it were a snake preparing to strike. He gnawed his bottom lip. Mervin wasn’t going to like hearing that his meticulously crafted plans had fallen through. At least Kraft was safely in Anchorage with the psychotic little android and not anywhere close enough to wring Sparrow’s neck.

      To say that things had not gone well was an understatement. No one should have known about Ackroyd, save themselves. But someone had been there, and that someone had made quite an impression. Indeed, thanks to the nameless antagonist’s interference, Sparrow had almost been caught by the Reno police before he’d managed to abandon the SUV and meet with the others. He hoped that their unknown attacker—Ackroyd had sworn he didn’t recognize the man—was now just a greasy spot on the street.

      Luckily, the license tag for the SUV had vanished during the chase. That meant they had some time before the police tracked the vehicle to the rental agency and then traced the credit card they’d used. The card would lead the authorities back here—to the SunCo warehouse they were using as a base—and to the company itself, one of a dozen Society fronts in the greater United States.

      Mervin had assured Sparrow that even if the authorities discovered the credit card and the identities attached to it, they could always burn the warehouse. To Mervin’s way of thinking, most things could be solved by the proper application of bullets and/or gasoline. He was a straight-ahead thinker, Mervin.

      It was all about speed with him, a speed and precision that escaped most of the soldiers the Society employed. Mervin was inhuman, and so was Kraft, come to think of it, but those who followed Mervin’s orders were only too mortal, Sparrow reflected sourly, and he included himself in that estimation.

      Sparrow had joined the Society of Thylea as a young man. His father had been a member, and his father’s father. It was a tradition, and a good one, since the Society offered more than any church or political movement. It wasn’t just talk. The Society was determined to bring back the age of titans, free of the shackles imposed by lesser, weaker races.

      Sparrow deeply, desperately wanted to be a hero. And he would be, if they succeeded. He and the others would be the heroes of a new age, venerated and immortalized in song and film. He comforted himself with the thought of what was to come.

      “It’s not going to get better, the longer you hesitate,” Alexi said, leaning against the office door. “Just call him.”

      Sparrow looked at Alexi and frowned. The big Russian was a bottle blond, with a face like a mattock and shoulders like a stretched coat hanger. There was more Eurasian in him than the Society normally liked, but between the hair dye and his ability to recite the Volsunga Saga, people made allowances. He’d been a member of some Moscow-based Neo-Nazi group before he’d joined the Society, and the tattoos that covered his arms told a story as brutal as any old Aryan saga.

      Behind Alexi, out in the warehouse proper, Sparrow could see the others. They were packing up their gear and preparing for the exodus to come. Counting Alexi and himself, there were only eight men. There had been ten, but their mysterious attacker had seen to Horst and Bridges. Sparrow felt a flicker of guilt for abandoning Horst. The big German had been right, of course. The mission was the only important thing. Their lives meant nothing next to the resurrection of Thylea. Still, it nagged at him. He’d left a fellow paladin—a fellow servant of the holy cause—to die by an assassin’s hand. No man blamed him, but Sparrow still felt slightly sick thinking of it.

      “Maybe you should call him,” Sparrow said acidly.

      Alexi made shooing motions with his big, scarred hands. “Oh, no, you are in charge, my friend. Man in charge calls the Tick-Tock Man. Those are the rules.”

      “Don’t call him that,” Sparrow said.

      “Why? He isn’t here. He wouldn’t care even if he was.” Alexi shrugged. “He is—ah—‘tick tock,’ yes? Crazy,” he said.

      Sparrow couldn’t argue. Mervin was crazy. Not crazy violent or crazy fanatical, but crazy all the same. At some point, Saul Mervin’s clockwork had sprung its track and now he bobbed along like a crippled toy. He wasn’t a person anymore, but a machine. An abacus with a two-pack-a-day habit.

      Nonetheless, the Sun-Koh—ruling body of the Society of Thylea—had entrusted many of their operations to Mervin. It was through Mervin that their will was directed and accomplished. The Tick-Tock Man, as Alexi called him, was the Sword of Thylea, and his word was law. It was through him that the Coming World would be revealed. That was why they had come to Reno, in pursuit of the old man. That was why they had been searching for any word of HYPERBOREA, which Sparrow had been half convinced was just a myth concocted by conspiracy theorists.

      But Mervin had believed. And now they had found it—the spear they would thrust into the belly of the fallen world, to spill an ocean of blood from which a new, stronger world would be born.

      Nonetheless, Mervin was, as Alexi had so eloquently stated, crazy.

      “Yes, Alexi, he’s crazy. Hence my hesitation,” Sparrow grunted. He expelled a shaky breath. Someone had to make a status report. And unfortunately, that someone was him. “Fine, give me the office.”

      Alexi nodded and stepped out, closing the door behind him. Sparrow cursed softly and picked up the phone. Mervin answered on the first ring. Sparrow shivered, imagining Mervin’s pale eyes staring at the phone, waiting for it to ring. It really was like waiting for a snake to strike. “We got him,” he said.

      “You’re late,” Mervin replied. His voice was a hollow chirp, high-pitched and mechanical, but not amusing. It stung Sparrow’s ears and pride.

      “There was interference.”

      “Inconsequential,” Mervin said.

      “Decidedly not,” Sparrow answered. “Horst and Bridges are dead. Someone was watching Ackroyd—a bodyguard, maybe. Or someone’s rumbled us.”

      “Inconceivable,” Mervin said. Then, “Describe them.”

      “Him,” Sparrow corrected. “Just one man. He was lethal, fast, effective. Dressed like a bum, but moved like—well, like Kraft.”

      “Identity?” Mervin asked. That was how he spoke to everyone who wasn’t Kraft—terse, wasting no words. With Kraft, he was practically loquacious. Sometimes Sparrow pitied Kraft.

      “No clue—he didn’t identify himself. He just did his level best to kill us.”

      Mervin was silent for a long moment. Then, “But you have Ackroyd?”

      “I do.”

      “Satisfactory. I wish to speak to him.”

      Sparrow let out

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