Outback Assault. Don Pendleton

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      Since no Chinese gunmen popped out of the woodwork, Berettas blazing, Bolan felt secure going to the public lockers. He felt under the one he’d been directed to in the attachment to the e-mail containing the electronic ticket he’d ridden in on. The key was taped under a metal lip, and he plucked it free. Inside the locker were two envelopes. One was a large manila, stuffed with what looked like a file. The other was a smaller padded envelope containing a cellular phone. Bolan tucked the file into his carry-on and retrieved the phone. He hit the speed dial.

      “Finally made it,” came the voice on the other end.

      “I was just getting back from other business,” Bolan said, imitating Augustyn’s voice.

      When Bobby Yeung spoke again, he gave no indication of noting any difference. “Say no more. How long will it take for you to get equipped for your safari?”

      “Give me till dusk to get what I need,” Bolan said.

      “Good. We’ve got a situation. We might need you prowling in Darwin first. I’ve got my people out and about, but…”

      Bolan walked over to a table in the concourse food court and took a seat. He pulled out the file and set it before him, opening it. “There’s a picture of them in my file?”

      “Naturally,” the Black Rose man said.

      “Which one?” Bolan asked.

      “The girl. She escaped, and we need to put her down fast.”

      “You can’t find her?” Bolan pressed. He looked at the young woman. She was pretty, with big beautiful brown eyes. The name scrawled in the margin of the photo was Arana Wangara. It was right next to a photograph of an older man labeled Grandfather Wangara. In red marker, across Grandfather’s face, was written Troublemaker.

      “She disappeared in Alice Springs. We had hoped to catch up with her, but—”

      “But they didn’t think that she could blend in with a crowd because she was just an Abo, right?”

      The Chinese mobster chuckled. Bolan’s derision of his people’s bigoted arrogance wasn’t lost on him. “It wasn’t my people. We’d had a couple of thick-headed whites doing the legwork. I’ll have some real talent searching the bus stations in Darwin—including you.”

      “If you’ve got your act together, what do you need me for?” Bolan asked.

      “Because I’m still stuck in the middle of absolute nowhere. And I need someone smart making sure this little chickie is put down,” the triad spokesman said.

      “I don’t do bus station detail,” Bolan replied. “Even in Australia, there’s too much of a urine smell.”

      “How about you roll up a few thousand yen and stick them up your damn nose to filter out the piss-stink?” the Chinese bartered.

      “A few thousand yen’s pocket change,” Bolan countered.

      “Dollars?” the gangster offered.

      “Pounds sterling,” Bolan said.

      “You’re killin’ me!” Yeung exclaimed.

      “You should be so important,” Bolan warned. “Come to think of it, why are we killing a young woman?”

      “Because she’s a liability,” the mobster explained, sounding as if he were talking to a child.

      “Well, if you want me to bust my ass for a week hunting down Grandpa Abo, you’re paying by the day,” Bolan reminded him. “Frankly, I’d rather make my job easier.”

      The Chinese man hissed in frustration. “Can you get this kind of information out of the girl?”

      “Only if she stays alive,” Bolan admonished. “And stays healthy.”

      “Healthy,” the mob boss repeated.

      “As in untouched. If she goes catatonic because some of your boys took a piece, my work is going to be a lot harder. And they personally won’t like me when I have to work harder,” Bolan growled. “Got it?”

      “You kill my men—”

      “What? You called me in because you couldn’t handle this. What makes you think you can handle me?” Bolan asked. “Because if you can handle me, some old man shouldn’t be the top page of your hit list.”

      “That’s because they say he’s one of their shaman…whatevers. He walks in the Dreamtime or some such. Keeping up with him is impossible,” Yeung answered.

      “You called me in to exterminate fifteen unarmed Aboriginal activists,” Bolan said.

      “They’re not Chinese. What do we care?”

      “You got me. As long as I get my cash,” Bolan replied.

      “I’ll get a message to my boys,” Bobby Yeung replied. “You’ll get your bonus for catching the girl.”

      Bolan hung up the phone and examined the files after getting something to drink at one of the counters on the food court.

      From the description of the targets, it didn’t take the Executioner long to figure out that the triads were clearing a tract of land for a large facility, and the heads on the list were community activists trying to maintain their tribal lands. Considering the space being opened up by the Chinese mobsters, Bolan wouldn’t have put it past them to build an airport that would be a stopover to “sanitize” overseas shipments, a form of relay that would keep customs from looking too closely at repackaged contraband.

      It was a perfect setup for anything from knockoff goods to drugs. Remembering his basic knowledge of the Australian outback, and the fact that he was going to clean house a hundred or so miles from the famous Uluru mound, he’d be operating in a desert environment. The file requested that everything be made to look as if it were the act of a lone psychotic with a powerful hunting rifle.

      Bolan finished his drink, bought a sandwich wrap to go and switched to the cell phone he had taken from Eugene Waylon. It was programmed with Augustyn’s Darwin contacts.

      He flipped open the phone, and typed in a quick text message to the assassin’s arms dealer in northern Australia. The response was immediate.

      “Meet me in a half an hour.” An address was provided with the response. Bolan pocketed the phone and went to a shop for some items he knew he’d need for the upcoming meeting with the gun seller. It’d have to be enough until he got his hands on some real firearms.

      ARANA WANGARA GOT OFF the bus and kept her head low. She tried to blend in as a bored teenage tourist, keeping sullenly to herself as she tucked her knapsack tightly under her arm. Wangara scanned the crowd for signs of the Asian musclemen working for the mobsters who’d ordered her home torched.

      She’d loaded a couple of rocks in the bottom of her bag as a crude weapon. The weighted sack would at least knock a bad guy off his feet, if not break a jaw or cheekbone. It wasn’t a shotgun, but at least it was something. Seeing her unarmed might actually lull her hunters into СКАЧАТЬ