"Do you read me, Striker?"
There followed a longer pause than Grimaldi expected.
Then Bolan responded in that same iced metal voice.
"I read you, buddy. Thanks. Let's set these babies down. I want to get away from here."
"Roger. Mack, listen... I don't know what to say. About Eve, I mean. The bastards..."
"I know how you feel, Jack. It's almost over."
"Almost?"
"I thought it would end at Aujila," said Bolan. "That wasn't the last step. It's the next to last step."
"There's one more hit?"
"One more hit," acknowledged the grim guy piloting the Huey as the chopper and V/STOL continued their northeasterly flight. "There's a Tripoli address on the pilot's flight pad in this chopper. That's got to mean something. I'm going to find out what."
Cruising at three thousand feet through the cold Sahara night, Jack Grimaldi thought that if Death had a voice, it would sound exactly like the Executioner when Mack Bolan spoke those words.
Bolan did not continue the conversation.
Grimaldi signed off, leaving the big warrior alone with his thoughts.
All words were empty at a time like this, thought Grimaldi.
Only the pain inside was real.
Time magazine, in a cover story, had coined him The Most Wanted Fugitive in the World.
He stood at the half-open French windows of the penthouse terrace, overlooking the view of Tripoli by night, and chuckled at the thought of that magazine sobriquet.
Leonard Jericho had acquired such distinction without ever having killed a man.
He finished his drink, a very strong whiskey and soda, and moved from the French windows to the portable bar to fix himself another.
He decided that it might be a good idea to strap on the Walther PPK .380 automatic that was now wrapped in its shoulder holster in the top desk drawer.
He would feel better, armed.
Leonard Jericho was a man of precautions. The nature of his business dealings placed him in a vulnerable position relative to various law enforcement agencies, to say nothing of his own business associates, past and present, many of whom thought they would, or could, gain much from his demise.
All due precautions had been taken, here in Tripoli as everywhere his dealings took him, including a guard out on the terrace and more armed men in the vestibule outside the front door of the penthouse.
And of course there were those two plastic surgery doubles he had used. There was Carlyle in the Bahamas. Gifford had taken his place at the Aujila rendezvous with Colonel Shahkhia. Jericho trusted no one, least of all treacherous desert rats like the buyer for that virus. Jericho would not be surprised if Shahkhia thought he had some foolproof plan for kidnapping "Leonard Jericho" at the oasis and holding him for billions in ransom. Jericho had chosen not to give Shahkhia the opportunity. He sent Gifford instead.
But there had been no word from the Aujila base!
Leonard Jericho sensed that something had gone wrong.
At this moment, he was awaiting word that his car had been brought around to the Tripoli safehouse from which The Most Wanted Fugitive in the World had been operating under the guise of an anonymous U.S. oil-company lackey.
He walked to the desk across the room and opened a drawer to reveal the leathered, small automatic... when he heard a peculiar sound from beyond the French windows to the terrace.
Jericho fisted his palm around the Walther's butt and started to yank the automatic from its holster as he looked up toward the windows.
When he did look up, the feel of that gun butt in his hand was the last physical sensation he experienced.
A figure in combat black hulked into the room from the terrace. The intruder's presence filled the penthouse like a jungle lord suddenly unleashed amid lesser beings. The man was heavy with armament. But at the moment, all he held in a one-handed grip was a long stainless steel AutoMag that was drawing a bead on the area between Leonard Jericho's eyes.
Jericho instinctively yanked the automatic from its leather, his senses short-circuiting with panic.
The .44 in the big man's fist belched fire in a strong grip.
And in his final microsecond of existence, Leonard Jericho had a crystalized curiosity. Would death be as powerful as the orgasm he had emptied into the Puerto Rican bitch last night on his private plane while Santos had done things to her with his knife?
Everything turned black with a hot splash that was no real pain at all.
They found Jericho's body minutes later, well after his executioner was gone. The skull was blown open. The top half of it was tilted at a crazy angle against the bar with brains staining the expensive carpet.
The real Leonard Jericho was dead.
Epilogue
From Mack Bo/an's private journaclass="underline"
A part of me died tonight.
The hurt is so bad that I can barely force myself to write these words. But I must write while the emotions are hot. These words are my grief.
The real Leonard Jericho is dead. His Libya connection has been destroyed. The Strain-7 virus is on its way back to the States, and so am I. And maybe, just maybe, the score has been settled for Eve Aguilar.
But the lady is still dead.
And gone forever.
And the only damn thing that keeps me going and caring at all right now is the knowledge that Big Eve didn't stop until they stopped her. She gave it all to the good fight. Everything.
Big Eve died for our sins.
For the evolutionary process.
Goodbye, lady.
I will carry you with me wherever the good fight takes me.
You meant plenty in life.
Your memory means something now too, by God;
Live on, Evita. Wherever you are.
It does matter.
It does.