He didn't want to face Rachel. Eli was dead, he knew. There was no way in hell he could have survived the burst of cannon fire that took him down. Rachel was bent over her brother's body.
His head was cradled in her arms, and she was rocking back and forth. She crooned softly, as if to a child.
Bolan knelt beside her. He put his hand on her shoulder. She turned her face toward him for a moment but said nothing. Her face was streaked with blood and tears. Her lips moved spasmodically for an instant, as if she wanted to speak. But when the words didn't come, she turned back to her brother, bending low over the motionless body, and kissed him softly on the forehead.
"Please, go away," she whispered.
Bolan knew he had no choice.
Epilogue
Thunder Mountain was down, but not out. The extensive damage would take years to repair. The cleanup years more. But the Hudson had been spared, thanks to guts and quick thinking on the part of Stan Robbins. Matt Stevens was appointed to a special Congressional panel on nuclear power security. He had lived through hell and was better able than anyone else to advise on how a recurrence might be prevented. For Mack Bolan, though, it was another battle in the endless war. But a special battle. Thunder Mountain would haunt him. There were times when he would wake in the night, the sound of a surging flood filling his ears.
It had been close. Closer than he cared to think about. But the image that would stay with him the longest was the one he could bear the least. Rachel Peres, and the empty look in her cold eyes as she glanced away from Eli's lifeless form lying there in the cold snow. For them, the battle would never be over. Never mind the war. And Rachel Peres? She had gone back to Israel. She thought Mossad was something she wanted to get away from. It was a part of her past.
The contract assignment for the CIA was to be her last job. Until that night. There in the darkness, she came to understand that a real warrior doesn't walk away from a war. War doesn't let go that easily, and the warrior doesn't quit while there's something worth fighting for.
And if Mack Bolan knew anything at all, he knew that there would always be something worth fighting for. And he knew that somebody had to stand up and lead the battle. Somebody had to draw the line.
Somebody had to say "enough." And most of all, Mack Bolan knew, even if no one else did, that he would be that person. As often as he had to. Until the war was over. Or until he stopped breathing.