LITMIR.BIZ

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D.C.

      HAL BROGNOLA TOOK the call from California on his private, scrambled line. He recognized the voice at once and asked, “How’s Baja?”

      “Hot and dry,” Rosario Blancanales said. “I’ve got another problem, though. You ought to know about it.”

      “So, let’s hear it.”

      “Toni had two visitors at the home office earlier today. They claimed affiliation with the State Department, but she says they smelled like Company.”

      Brognola frowned at that. “How sure is she?”

      “Ninety to ninety-five percent.”

      “That sure. Okay.”

      “They asked about Brazil,” Blancanales said.

      “Asked what, specifically?”

      “Whether Team Able handles foreign clients, and by any chance is one of them Marta Enriquez?”

      “What did Toni say?”

      “She cited confidentiality. We often work for lawyers, so it’s covered unless they come back with a warrant. In which case, there’s nothing to find.”

      “But they still made the link,” Brognola said.

      “Exactly. I don’t know how they tagged us, but I’m working on it. Anyway, it made me think about our friend.”

      Brognola was thinking about Bolan, too. If the CIA had tracked Marta Enriquez from Brazil to San Diego, then it stood to reason they’d be waiting for her when she got back home. They might have Bolan’s face on film already, though it wouldn’t take them far. More troublesome, to Brognola’s mind, was the prospect of a hostile welcoming committee waiting for him in Brazil.

      The private task Bolan had taken upon himself for friendship’s sake was difficult enough, without yet another chef stirring the pot. And if Langley backtracked Bolan far enough, under one of his code names, would the trail lead back to Stony Man Farm?

      Brognola needed to check his firewalls, but first he asked Blancanales, “Did Toni get names?”

      “Smith and Thomas, if you can believe it.”

      He didn’t, but that was par for the course. The CIA had covert millions to spend, but Langley often suffered from a near-criminal lack of imagination. Mr. Smith, for God’s sake. Mr. Thomas.

      “I’ll do what I can on this end,” Brognola said. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

      “About our friend…”

      “No word, so far. I don’t really expect to hear from him, since this is unofficial.”

      “Then we won’t know if he hits a snag.”

      Brognola had considered that when Blancanales briefed him on the woman’s story, asking for a dossier on Dr. Nathan Weiss. It made him nervous, then and now, but there was little he could do about it. Part of Bolan’s deal with Washington and Stony Man included freedom to reject assignments, or to tackle missions of his own when he was off the clock. It hadn’t often been an issue in the past.

      But now…

      It galled Brognola, thinking that his best field agent, one of his oldest living friends, might come to fatal grief while handling a private errand on the side. He’d braced himself a hundred times for news of Bolan’s death, had privately rehearsed the secret eulogy, but this eventuality had troubled him beyond all else.

      The Executioner was only human, after all.

      Like all flesh, he was prey to accidents, disease and plain bad luck. The fact that he had led a more or less charmed life to this point didn’t mean it would continue.

      Luck could turn in a heartbeat.

      Life could stop on a dime.

      “I need to make some calls,” Brognola said. “Take care, and call me back if anybody gets in touch.”

      “Will do.”

      Brognola cradled the receiver, scowling at the modest clutter on his desktop. Life went on in Washington, no matter who was being threatened, maimed or killed halfway around the world.

      He started taking stock.

      Brognola knew where Bolan was, at least approximately, and he knew one contact’s name. He had a slim file on the man Bolan had gone to see, perhaps to extricate from trouble of the killing kind—and possibly in contravention of local authority. Now Langley had a fat thumb in the pie, and that potentially changed everything.

      Except the fact that Bolan’s mission was a private one, unsanctioned by Brognola’s superiors. And if Bolan’s personal pursuits placed him in conflict with the government, where did Brognola’s loyalty lie?

      His paychecks came from Uncle Sam, but Brognola had forged a bond with Bolan long ago, back in the days when the Executioner was a Top Ten fugitive and the big Fed had been assigned to bring him in, dead or alive. He’d bent the rules to work with Bolan then, against the Mafia—but could he do the same against the CIA, despite the closed-ranks posture of the War on Terror?

      Maybe. Maybe not.

      Before he made his choice, Brognola needed more hard information.

      And he needed it right now.

      Cuiabá, Brazil

      “I UNDERSTAND,” Anastasio Herreira said. In his rage, he clutched the telephone so tightly that his knuckles blanched from olive to a shade of ivory.

      “Do you?” the sharp voice in his ear demanded. “Do you really understand our problem? I’m not sure you grasp it, Major. I don’t think you’re up to speed on this at all.”

      Stiffly, cheeks aflame, Herreira answered, “Mr. Downey, I assure you that I’m doing everything within my power to locate this rogue American. He has invaded my country, not yours, where he would be at home. He serves my enemies, not those of the United States. And frankly—”

      “That’s exactly what I mean,” Downey said, interrupting him. “I hear you say something like that and I can tell you haven’t got a clue about the big picture. When we talk about big pictures in the States, we don’t mean giant paintings on the wall. Understand?”

      “Senhor Downey—”

      The caller forged ahead, oblivious. “When we say big picture, we’re talking the long view, wide-screen, all-inclusive. A man coughs in Moscow, they catch cold in China and sneeze in Manila. You get me?”

      “If you have some point to make—”

      “That is my point, amigo. Right there, in a nutshell. You’ve got creeping Red cancer in your country, and it’s going to eat you alive if you cut it out, root and branch. Now, if you think that only affects Brazil, and not the States—or the whole freaking world, for that matter—you’re not only blind, you’ve got your head stuck in your ass.”

      Major Herreira wasn’t sure how many more insults he could endure from the crude Yankee before he exploded in fury. That, of course, would jeopardize his agency’s relations with the CIA, which in turn would outrage his none too tolerant superiors. Better, perhaps, to rage in private and placate the Yankee. They were allies, after all, engaged in a common struggle.

      “What would you have me do?” Herreira asked Downey.

      “I’m sending a couple of men out to help you,” Downey said.

      Herreira bristled at the notion. He needed Yankee “helpers” as he needed jungle rot or syphilis—and having suffered both, the major knew the irritations they produced.

      “Senhor Downey—”

      “Before you get all territorial, they have information that can help you wrap this up, okay? They’ve seen the new kid on the block, this guy recruited by your woman for whatever reason.”

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