False Front. Don Pendleton

      Backing up, Bolan and Latham continued to cut their own route toward the highway.

      The moon was still hidden in the sky when they finally reached the houses across the road from the stilt shacks. Peering through the leaves, Bolan could see the backsides of the crudely built sheds, chicken coops and shabby homes. Dropping their machetes, they darted from the jungle into the darkness, crouching as they made their way from building to building, stopping to check for curious eyes each time they reached new concealment.

      It took twenty minutes to reach the rear of a splintering outdoor toilet the Executioner estimated to be halfway down the row of stilt houses across the road. Peering around the edge of the foul-smelling outhouse, he stared between two houses in front of him. The clouds had moved and by the dim light of a quarter moon he could just make out the shadowy stilt structures on the other side of the highway.

      The Executioner stared at the ramshackle structures. He had decided that the best course of action was to wait on Subing, then tail him back to the hostages when he left his uncle’s house. Of course there was no guarantee the terrorist leader would even show up this night and there was every chance in the world that as daybreak neared he and Latham would have to sneak back to their vehicle and find a place to hide out until tomorrow night. If that happened, he would give the plan one more night. And if Subing still failed to appear, he would interrogate the man’s uncle.

      It wasn’t an idea the Executioner relished, Mario Subing was reported to be an old man. But when he weighed one man against the lives of the hostages and all of the other innocents the Liberty Tigers would kill if allowed to go unchecked, a little fright put into the heart of an octogenarian didn’t seem all that cruel.

      Turning to Latham, he kept his voice low. “Stay here. There’s no sense in both of us going.”

      “I don’t mind—”

      The Executioner shook his head. “I know you don’t mind going. There’s just no sense in both of us taking the chance of being seen. Two men hiding in the dark are twice as likely to be spotted as one.”

      Latham obviously didn’t like the idea of staying back, but he was smart enough to see the logic behind the Executioner’s order. He nodded in the darkness.

      Bolan stole forward again, keeping low and thankful that they’d encountered none of the stray dogs he’d seen earlier. Barks and a few growls had sounded in the distance as they’d moved through the jungle but they had been the common sounds all dogs made at night, not the warning alerts wild canines sent their prey when they were on the hunt.

      Reaching the side of the residence directly in front of the outhouse, the Executioner slid his back along the wall toward a window. Dim light flickered from the screenless, shutterless opening and when he reached it he dropped to his knees. Risking a quick glance over the windowsill, his eyes took in the candle flame dancing on the wooden table inside. Mosquito nets hung over moldy bare mattresses on the packed-earth floor. Six small children huddled in sleep on one of the threadbare beds. A man and a woman, looking far older than they could have possibly been if these children had come from their loins, sat listlessly at the table, staring silently off into space.

      Bolan rose to his feet as soon as he’d passed the window and crept to the front corner of the house. Now the shoreline was more visible, and he saw that he was far past the center of the stilt village. Light—open candles and a few lanterns—glowed from some of the structures, glimmering off the water below. Others stilt houses stood in darkness, looking as dead as the faces of the man and woman the Executioner had just seen through the window.

      Bolan started at the end and counted to twenty-one. A lantern hung from the porch of Mario Subing’s house and through the window behind it he could see what looked like the silhouette of a man.

      Turning back to where he’d left Latham, the Executioner ducked past the window and hurried back to the outhouse. Silently he pointed in the direction from which he’d just come, waited until he saw Latham’s nod of acknowledgment, then crept back along the houses. A few seconds later he dropped to one knee again and looked out between the houses. Across the asphalt road he saw the same lantern. And the same silhouette still sat in the shadows at the window. But now Subing was looking outward into the darkness.

      Waiting for his nephew? Maybe.

      The Executioner turned back to Latham. “I’m going closer again,” he whispered. “There may be another way into the house we can’t see. Subing could slip in and out of the house and we’d never know.”

      Latham shrugged. “And I suppose you want me to stay here again,” he said in a voice that made it clear he would prefer moving up with the Executioner.

      “Right,” the Executioner whispered. “Cover our rear and flanks.” Without another word he turned away from the Texan and crept forward.

      Another house; another side window in the same place. But this window was dark. The Executioner dropped to all fours anyway, staying below the line of sight in case anyone inside might still be awake and watching. But the deep snores that drifted through the opening told him that wasn’t the case. Passing the window, he stopped just short of the front of the house and dropped to one knee. Leaning against the splintered boards at his side, he settled in to study the stilt house across the road.

      Not all of Rio Hondo was asleep yet and in the shadows and flickering lights of the mounted candles and lanterns the Executioner saw men, women and children moving back and forth between the structures that stood precariously above the water.

      Three doors down from Mario’s, the Executioner watched the walkway dip, bounce and creak under the weight of several children as they played back and forth along the ramps. Their area was better lit than most of the poverty-level stilt houses with both candles and lanterns hanging from wires suspended from the roofs. Laugher and an occasional scream met the Executioner’s ears.

      As soon as he was certain he’d not been seen, Bolan lowered himself into a sitting position, his back against the wall of the house. The snoring, punctuated by an occasional cough, continued to float through the window, reassuring him that the occupants had no knowledge of his presence a mere five feet or so from where they slept.

      As he waited, Bolan’s mind drifted back to the men who had exited the mosque and stopped to examine the Buick. Depending on exactly who they were, how they reacted and what else they might have to do tonight, they’d either pass the car off lightly or start asking questions. Worst-case scenario would be that they smelled trouble and would begin scouring the village for whoever had parked it. And in a town this small—even in the dark—it wouldn’t take long for them to find Bolan and Latham.

      The Executioner silently prayed that wouldn’t happen. He had no desire to injure innocent men who would think they were simply protecting their town from outsiders. But there was little he could do to forestall that situation at this point. If it happened, it happened. As he had always done, he would deal with any specific trouble that came up when it came up.

      THE MAN IN THE NEW custom-tailored Italian suit caught a glimpse of himself as he opened the glass door of the restaurant. The suit looked good on him, he decided. Made him look slimmer. Not that slim was anything he put much stock in. The fact was, he had grown up as a poor hungry child and slim had been unavoidable. He considered the corpulence he had achieved during the past twenty years as a sign of his success, and he never intended to be hungry again.

      The maître d’ in the black tuxedo greeted him as soon as he stepped inside. “Good evening, Mr. Mikelsson,” he said with the broad grin of a man who knew he would receive a large tip before the night ended.

      “Good evening to you, Hugo,” Lars Mikelsson responded, following the maître d’.

      As the man held his chair out for him, Mikelsson said, “I am expecting a few calls, Hugo. Please notify me immediately.” Silently he hoped the calls would come between courses. Better yet, not until he had finished eating altogether.

      “Of course, Mr. Mikelsson,” Hugo replied, then hurried away.

      Mikelsson had barely