False Front. Don Pendleton

alleyway as the gleaming blade flew from the gang-banger’s hand to clatter onto the ground.

      The Executioner jammed the bore of the big .44 into the man’s forehead. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Latham had drawn his Browning. The red laser-dot moved back and forth from chest to chest as the Texan covered the rest of the gang.

      Bolan turned to face the other men. “My turn on stage,” he said.

      Somewhere along the way the wolfish smile had disappeared and now the man in the checkered shirt looked like a boa constrictor with an elephant caught in his throat. He nodded slowly.

      “Nothing fancy on my part,” Bolan said. “Just give me the keys to the Buick. And move slowly. Very, very slowly.” He pressed the Desert Eagle into the man’s face a little harder to serve as an exclamation point at the end of the sentence.

      The gangster got the message. His hand moved into the pocket of his dirty blue jeans with the speed of a stoned sloth. The key ring came out and he extended it timidly forward. Bolan took the keys with his free hand and dropped them into his pocket.

      “Charlie, you got the keys to the Cherokee?”

      He felt the Texan move in to his side. A second later Latham’s hand dropped the keys into the breast pocket of the black-and-white checkered shirt.

      “A wise businessman once told me that the best deals are the ones where both parties walk away happy,” the Executioner said, still holding the .44 between the gang leader’s eyebrows. “So. Are you happy?”

      The man in the checkered shirt nodded slowly. The barrel of the Desert Eagle moved up to the man’s hairline, down to the bridge of his nose, then up again.

      “Good,” Bolan said. “I’m happy, too.” Quickly he stepped away from the leader and turned to the rest of the young men, waving them toward the wall as he and Latham backed out of the alley.

      After transferring their possessions from the Cherokee, they were driving away from downtown Zamboanga with Bolan behind the wheel of the Buick Century Custom.

      THE NIGHT HAD DARKENED even more by the time they returned to spot where they’d been attacked on the road. The Chevy and Ford still stood where they’d been left, the dead drivers appearing to be engaged in an across-the-road conversation. The moon had disappeared behind the clouds and Bolan drove on headlights alone.

      Bolan let up on the accelerator, slowing the Buick as they entered the outskirts of Rio Hondo. Latham sat silently next to him as they drove past a long row of stilt houses built out from the shore over the water. According to intel, there were forty-six of the dwellings crammed so close together that they almost appeared to be one long structure. Candido Subing’s uncle—Mario Subing—lived in one of the rickety shanties near the center. While neither Stony Man Farm nor the CIA believed Mario was directly involved with the Tigers himself, the old man was perfectly willing to harbor his nephew. His was the twenty-first stilt house from the edge of town. Bolan counted the dilapidated dwellings as they passed.

      Uncle Mario’s place looked no different than any of the other raised dwellings as it blurred into the rest of the long row in the Buick’s rearview mirror. The Executioner knew he’d have to count again when he returned later that night.

      The rumor of the “big-time strike” in the U.S. floated through Bolan’s mind again. And again, he couldn’t see how such a small organization could pull off such an expensive enterprise. If there was such an operation in motion, the Tigers had to be linked up with some other group.

      A half dozen elderly men in front of what appeared to be a café were the only ones who seemed to take notice of the Buick as they drove through the village. Bolan kept his eyes on the mosque to his left, finally turning off the asphalt highway and cutting back inland on a gravel road. Mentally he mapped the layout of the village for future reference, noting that behind the houses across the road from the stilt dwellings lay jungle and the most direct foot path between the mosque and Mario Subing’s place would be to cut through the thick leaves and vines. The jungle would also provide even better cover than the darkness for much of their approach. There might even be a spot inside the trees where they could set up surveillance.

      The Executioner passed a small brown man and woman holding hands as they walked away from the mosque. They stared at the Buick, an unfamiliar car in the small settlement. That was the primary drawback to his plan—the car. Even if the Rio Hondans didn’t look inside the Buick and see the light-skinned men they were bound to take notice of any unknown vehicles that entered the village. The best plan was to find a parking place as close to the jungle as possible, then get out of the car and into the trees before they were spotted.

      The Buick crunched over the gravel toward the towering sphere atop the mosque. If they were spotted, they’d do their best to pass themselves off as lost tourists. But that story was so thin it could have been anorexic. Latham had informed him that all of the tourist manuals and western government travel advisories discouraged visitors from visiting Rio Hondo during the day and just flat-out told them they’d be out of their minds to be in such an area after the sun went down. There was just too much crime. Visitors were encouraged to stick close to their lodgings from dusk until dawn.

      Charlie Latham had to be thinking along the same lines because as the Executioner drove on he pulled the straw cowboy hat from his head and dropped it on the floor at his feet. Not knowing whether the mosque would be open when they arrived, they had nevertheless been aware of the fact that wearing shorts in the area would definitely be frowned on by Islamic leaders. So they had stopped along the road soon after acquiring the Buick and Latham now wore a faded pair of denim jeans he’d pulled out of the rear of the Cherokee. A well-worn pair of Nike running shoes had replaced his flipping and flopping sandals.

      The gravel road led into a parking lot where several other vehicles already stood. Lights could be seen through the mosque windows. Bolan pulled the Buick quickly between two other cars, hoping they might serve as at least partial camouflage. Word that an unknown car was in Rio Hondo would travel fast enough. He didn’t see any sense in hurrying it up any faster than he had to.

      The Executioner cut the engine and killed the headlights. He estimated them to be roughly half a mile from the stilt houses.

      Through an open door leading into the mosque Bolan could see several men kneeling in prayer. As he and Latham quietly exited the car, he saw the men rise to their feet and begin talking with one another. That meant that they’d be leaving in a few more minutes, returning to the parking lot to get into their vehicles and go home for the night.

      Which, in turn, meant Bolan and Latham needed to hit the jungle even faster than he’d thought.

      Bolan opened the car door and closed it quietly behind him, Latham doing the same on his side. Crouching slightly, the two men jogged away from the mosque. The Executioner’s eyes swept left and right, but he saw no one looking back at him. As soon as they reached the trees they ducked inside, then turned to peer back out through the foliage.

      The men who had been at their prayers were now leaving. Some of them took off on foot, others walked toward the parking lot. Two of the men stopped at the Buick, looking it up and down. Thought he was too far away to hear their words, the Executioner saw their lips moving and their arms waving up and down in animated conversation. He knew the news was about to spread throughout the village; how fast it went from house to house depended upon just how unique the sight of an unknown vehicle happened to be. But there was no reason to worry about that now. He would deal with whatever consequences the Buick brought when, and if, he encountered them.

      Bolan motioned to Latham to follow, then took off through the jungle. The Texan had kept two rusty-but-shaving-sharp machetes in the Cherokee, which they now used to cut their way through the heavy growth toward the sea. Fifteen yards into the trees, they suddenly found themselves intersecting with a well-traveled footpath and halted in their tracks.

      For a moment the Executioner considered taking the path, for it no doubt led in the direction he was headed. But the fact that it was obviously often used warned him away. He didn’t want to encounter any innocent Rio Hondans who might, regardless