Damage Radius. Don Pendleton

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      “Your DEA man in Cleveland,” Bolan asked. “How much does he know?”

      “Not much. He’s a good man. He understands the need-to-know concept and realizes he doesn’t need to know anything past recommending you, alias ‘Matt Cooper’ of course, for the New Orleans job.”

      “You think this rumor-passing stunt is going to work?” Bolan asked.

      “I think so,” Brognola said. “Guys like McFarley are always on the lookout for men with Matt Cooper’s experience.”

      A tap on the glass door to his office caused Bolan to look up. When he did, he saw a man wearing striped overalls and a tool belt, with a paint can in his hand. Bolan knew what he was there to do, and he nodded.

      The man in the overalls set the can down, pulled a razor-bladed paint scraper from his tool belt and began scraping Sy Lennon’s name off the glass door. In its place, he would paint Bolan’s undercover ID—Matt Cooper.

      “Okay,” Bolan said, turning his attention back to the phone. “I guess all I can do right now is wait.”

      “It shouldn’t take long,” Brognola came back.

      Without further words, Bolan disconnected the line.

      He looked up again just in time to see a blurry form through the glass. It shoved the man in the overalls aside and pushed through the door.

      Jake Jackson, the fighter the Executioner had KO’d only a few minutes earlier, strode angrily into the office. A cotton ball was shoved into his left nostril and flecks of dried blood still stuck to the skin around his nose. A welt was forming on his forehead between his eyes, and while he’d lost the boxing gloves from his hands, dirty-white tape was still wrapped around his palm and wrists.

      “Something more I can help you with, Jake?” Bolan said as he set down the cell phone.

      “Yeah,” the man across the desk said. His lips were curved down in an angry frown, and his eyes shot daggers through Bolan. “I don’t like getting whipped by a trainer,” he growled.

      Bolan glanced at the man’s midsection. He was a heavyweight, but there was a thin layer of fat covering his abdominal muscles. “I don’t blame you,” the soldier said. “So if I was you I’d train harder, drink less beer and get into fighting shape.”

      The words only angered the man further. “I grew up here,” he said in a heavy Cajun accent. “In the back streets of the French Quarter.” He paused and eyed Bolan even harder. “And I can’t help but think there’d be a much different outcome if you and I were to fight without gloves and rules.” By this point Jackson had inched his way around the side of Bolan’s desk.

      The soldier swiveled slowly in his chair to face him. “There’s only one way to find out, Jake,” he said with a pleasant smile on his face.

      The heavyweight lunged suddenly with both hands aimed at Bolan’s throat. Still seated, the Executioner flicked his foot up and out, catching the other man squarely in the groin with the top of his flat-soled boxing shoes. The cup Jackson wore cushioned a lot of the blow, but not enough to keep him from grunting in surprise and pain.

      As he rose from his chair, Bolan drove a forearm into the man’s face. Blood spurted from the heavyweight’s nose, shooting the cotton from his nostril like a tiny rocket and driving his head back upward. In his peripheral vision, Bolan saw that most of the other fighters had gathered around the glass front of the office to watch.

      Jackson had obviously announced his intentions to “teach Matt Cooper a lesson” before he’d come into the office.

      Bolan reached forward and clasped his hands together behind Jackson’s neck. As he bent the man forward again, he drove a knee upward into his belly in a classic Muay Thai movement. Dropping his foot to the ground, he lifted his other knee and struck the groin area again.

      By now, Jackson’s plastic cup had cracked in two. And with the third knee strike, the fighter’s groan became a scream.

      Bolan stepped back and drove the same right cross into the man’s chin that had knocked him out in the ring.

      The effect was the same, and Jackson fell to the floor next to the desk.

      Bolan didn’t hesitate. Grabbing a handful of the man’s sweaty hair with his left hand, he dragged him back around the desk and opened the door with his other hand. Then, pushing the unconscious man through the doorway, he let him fall on his face against the concrete.

      The Executioner looked up. “I’m getting sick of this,” he told the stunned fighters who had watched the encounter. “How many times do I have to knock this guy out? Let’s get it all over with right now. I beat him in the ring, with rules. And I just beat him in a streetfight, without rules. Does anybody want to wrestle? Karate? Judo? Maybe do a little head-on tackling practice like in football?” He paused to let his words sink in. “Like I said, I’m through proving myself. If any of the rest of you want to fight, in any way you want, step up now.” He paused again because he knew his next words would fall on the ears of his audience as the most important. “But I’m warning you,” he finally said. “The next time, I’m going to kill my challenger.”

      The gym grew even more silent than it had been earlier.

      Finally, a man who looked to be around welterweight size stepped forward. He had the coffee-colored skin of the true Creole, and was wearing sweatpants and bag gloves. He smiled at Bolan, then turned to face the other men. “I think it’s high time we welcomed Mr. Cooper as our new manager,” he said.

      The rest of the heads nodded. Some enthusiastically, others grudgingly. But one way or another, they all affirmed Bolan’s leadership.

      The soldier nodded back to them also, then turned back into his office. A door at the rear of the room led to the small sleeping quarters that had served as Lennon’s home, and would temporarily house the Executioner—at least during the beginning of this mission.

      Just before he stepped into the small bedroom, Bolan glanced back over his shoulder.

      The men around the gym were working out even harder than before. And the painter in the striped overalls was just beginning the second T in the name “Matt Cooper.”

      3

      The call on the black rotary phone came just after the Executioner had ushered the last fighter out of the gym and locked the door behind him. Hearing it through the glass, he hustled around the ring in the center of the room, past a series of heavy bags and striking balls, and through the glass door into the office. “Cooper,” he said as he pressed the old-fashioned receiver to his ear.

      “How am I supposed to book fighters if you keep beating them up?” a laughing voice on the other end of the line asked in a thick Irish brogue.

      Bolan knew it had to be McFarley. The man had immigrated to America from Northern Ireland, and still had his accent. But since it had been one of his underlings who had actually hired “Matt Cooper” to manage the gym, the Executioner pretended not to recognize the voice. “Who is this?” he asked.

      “Your boss,” McFarley said. “Your employer. Tommy McFarley, boyo.”

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