The warrior checked his wristwatch, punching up the luminous display. Less than three hours until daybreak dispelled his misty curtain of invisibility.
A lifetime, sure.
He heard the sound of water lapping at the pier and across the bay a foghorn mournfully sounded. Behind him, along the Embarcadero, sporadic traffic whispered through the night.
Bolan was in blacksuit and military harness, his Beretta and the AutoMag holstered in their customary places. The Ingram — fitted with a special foot-long silencer — dangled from his shoulder on a leather strap. The pistol belt was weighted down with extra magazines for all three weapons.
He had completed a preliminary search, firming his first impressions of the layout, seeking any last-minute changes or additions. If Minh's battered troops laid a trap for him, the soldier didn't want to stumble blindly into it.
The warehouse was a long, low, prefabricated structure with a huge sign proclaiming it the property of something called "United Merchandising, Inc." Bolan recognized the name of Minh's ersatz holding company — one of several used as buffers for his Bay Area operations. United Merchandising was designed to launder cash and move selected products — including drugs and weapons, if Brognola was correct in his suspicions.
The plant had facilities along the pier for unloading merchandise from ships, and in the rear there was a loading dock for trucks. Now, instead of eighteen-wheelers, three black crew wagons nosed against the dock; a fourth was parked on the pier, adjacent to a ramp with glass double doors marked: Customer Relations. Bolan marked it as the entrance to a suite of offices, but questioned whether ordinary customers had ever sought service through those doors.
He concentrated on the four crew wagons, sitting dark and silent in the night.
That meant at least a dozen guns, perhaps twice as many if the tanks were fully loaded on arrival.
Too many for a single soldier to battle.
Mack Bolan was no ordinary soldier.
Friend and foe alike dubbed the Executioner "a one-man army." His strength and presence, combined with his fine-honed ability to seize an enemy's mistakes, had allowed him to prevail over vastly larger forces on more than one occasion.
Incredibly, the "elders" hadn't posted any pickets outside the warehouse. Despite their recent mauling in Haight-Ashbury — or perhaps because of it — they were dropping their guard.
A mistake, yeah.
Bolan didn't stop to ponder motives. He planned to take advantage of their carelessness. As he moved, a plan was already forming in his mind.
Reconnaissance had revealed an access door beside the loading dock. Bolan worked around the warehouse, eyes darting behind the Nitefinders, probing at the mist, searching for an enemy who was nowhere to be found.
They would be waiting for him on the inside, certainly, with guns to spare. Bolan was about to swat a hornets' nest, and he ran the risk of being stung.
When the hornets' nest became a problem, there was only one thing to do. You burned them out, and tried your best to make sure none escaped. If they escaped...
Bolan reached the metal door and peered in a high window. He saw a burglar alarm, but gambled that with troops moving in and out, the system would be temporarily turned off.
Beyond the window, a narrow corridor ran for perhaps twenty feet, then turned left. The corridor was empty, lit by a single caged bulb.
Bolan tried the doorknob and found it locked. Fair enough. It would be too much to ask to have the whole thing handed over on a silver platter.
He would have to work for it, right.
Bolan plied his flexible pick, hoping the door wasn't bolted on the inside as well as being locked. Another heartbeat, the knob turned and the door swung slowly, silently inward.
Poised on the threshold, Bolan let the combat feelers go ahead of him, probing for the enemy and catching the sound of voices. Make that one voice, somewhere around the dogleg of the corridor.
He entered, moving catlike along the hallway, Ingram nosing ahead of him to meet all comers. There was an empty glassed-in office to his right, and a men's room to his left. Bolan nudged the door open and quickly scanned the stalls before moving on, satisfied no one was behind him.
Approaching the corner, he made out a gruff male voice engaged in conversation. One of Minh's "elders" was reporting in by telephone, and the long pauses indicated someone on the other end was doing most of the talking. Bolan stopped, tapping in to the short end of the dialogue.
"No, no... she's safe," the guy insisted. "Don't worry about that."
The gunner waited, listening. There was a note of irritation in his voice when he spoke again.
"Jesus, I don't know," he said. "I only saw one guy, but it coulda been a dozen from the way he was kickin' ass."
Bolan smiled. As long as they were off balance, he was points ahead.
"I'm telling you, nobody followed us," the nervous "elder" said. "Your boy's probably dead by now, anyway. That Caddy was a fuckin' sieve when he took it out of there."
Someone was dishing out instructions at the other end, and Bolan's man was saying little.
"Okay," he said at last. "We'll be ready for the boat."
Bolan risked looking around the corner, but quickly ducked back again, images imprinted on his memory.
Six or eight feet along the corridor, a man was standing with his back to Bolan, holding a telephone receiver. Beyond him, the hallway opened into the warehouse. Bolan saw three other hardmen, one seated on a folding chair, cradling his bandaged head in both hands.
There was no sign of Amy Culp, but he knew from the "elder's" conversation she was nearby. Under guard, certainly — the men had said she was safe — but that didn't make her inaccessible. The problem was to find her and get her out of there — alive.
He was down to the wire, and there would only be one chance. If he missed the lady now...
Bolan hated going in blind. It was a wild-ass warrior's tactic, sure, but there were times when no choice remained — times when a soldier had to play the cards as they were dealt, with no real means to improve his hand.
If the stakes were high enough, a gutsy soldier gambled and played it through without a backward glance. With any luck at all, he might find a way to bend the rules and give himself an edge.
The telephone receiver crashed in its cradle, and the gunner cursed under his breath. Bolan knew he had perhaps a heartbeat to map strategy and put it into action.
The man in black poked his head around the corner, intent on the hardman's retreating back. He whistled softly, barely loud enough to bridge the space between them, then swiftly retreated from sight.
He could picture the gunner, hesitating in the corridor, glancing back at his companions and wondering if he could trust his ears or whether he should call a backup to help him check things out.
It could go either way, Bolan knew. The guy could pass it off as nothing and go about his business, or he might fetch a squad to join him in the check. Ideally, he would be curious and confident enough to run the check alone. If he did, there was a chance the Executioner could buy some precious numbers for himself and for Amy.
The alternative — blasting in without an inkling of the odds — would be foolish.
Foolishly fatal. Sure.
He would play the game, and take it to the limit, but his fearlessness did not include a disregard for danger.
Bolan ticked off a dozen numbers in his mind before the gunner made his choice. Another muffled curse, and then footsteps were coming closer, not receding as the Executioner feared.