False Front. Don Pendleton

Bolan saw Latham standing next to the open driver’s door. The Texan held his Browning in both hands, sending a slow but steady stream of .40-caliber hollowpoint rounds into the parked vehicles. At this distance, the laser sight was unusable in the bright sun, but Latham was proving he could shoot without it.

      The Executioner turned away from the road, leaping over the body of a man he’d shot earlier and darting into the leaves and vines. Quickly, while the men behind the vehicles were concentrating on Latham, he made his away through the foliage until he had gone past the point where the cars were parked.

      From there, it was easy.

      The Executioner saw that Latham had indeed hit one of the men high in the arm. The man had ripped half his shirt off and tied it around the wound in an attempt to staunch the blood. But the makeshift bandage wasn’t working; crimson fluid drained past his elbow and along the limp limb before splattering onto the asphalt.

      Bolan flipped the Beretta selector switch to single shot. With plenty of time to use the sight, he lined the weapon up on the injured man and squeezed the trigger.

      A lone 9 mm round streaked from the 93-R into the injured man’s temple.

      The other man behind the car whipped his face over his shoulder to stare at the Executioner in shock. The reality of what was happening suddenly spread across his face and he tried to turn farther, swinging his pistol around with him. He didn’t make it.

      A second 9 mm round entered his open mouth and blew out the back of his skull.

      Suddenly what had sounded like a Chinatown fireworks factory exploding became as quiet as a graveyard. Bolan stepped out of the trees and walked forward. Quickly he stopped by each man he passed to be sure none of the bodies would suddenly rise from the grave to shoot again. All were dead.

      The Executioner met Latham between the kidnappers’s parked cars and the Cherokee. “We’ve got to clean this place up and hope one of the vehicles still works,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to see the Ford Fairlaine resting on its rims, all four tires blown out. The Chevy had lost only one tire but water dripped from the punctured radiator. When he stepped forward, the distinct odor of gasoline filled the air. Turning back to the Cherokee, he saw that while the body was riddled with holes, all four tires were still intact. Bolan nodded at the vehicle. “See if it still starts,” he ordered Latham. “And while you’re there, grab my sound suppressor off the ground behind the rear bumper.”

      As the Texan walked toward the Cherokee, Bolan began to lift the bodies and drag them toward the jungle. Behind him, he heard Latham’s car cough to life. Or at least a half life. Something beneath the hood had been hit and the timing was off. And a periodic ping meant the half life wouldn’t be long, either.

      The Executioner tossed another body into the brush, reached down and sent the AK-47 the man had wielded flying out of sight. In addition to no longer having any faith in the engine, the bullet-ridden Cherokee would be a mobile sign attracting attention they didn’t need. It was time for another change in plans. He’d just have to hope this vehicle would get them out of the immediate vicinity and back into town where they could appropriate a more reliable and less conspicuous mode of transportation.

      With the engine still choking and coughing, Latham joined the Executioner in hiding the bodies. When all but two of the attackers had been hidden, they pushed first the Ford, then the Chevy off the road onto the shoulders. Setting a body behind both steering wheels, they turned the dead eyes to face each other across the highway.

      To anyone passing, it would look as if two drivers had met on the road and pulled off to have a quick conversation. At least it would look that way as long as no one noticed the pools of blood spotting the asphalt.

      Bolan glanced at the mutilated autobody as he hurried to the Cherokee again. Latham’s Jeep looked as if someone had methodically gone over it with an awl, punching holes every half inch into the body. He ducked inside as the Texan took his place behind the wheel again.

      “This thing’s gonna stand out in Rio Hondo like an ex-husband at the bride’s second wedding,” Latham said.

      The Executioner shook his head. “Change in plans,” he said. “Turn us back toward Zamboanga. We need some new wheels.”

      Latham immediately saw the wisdom in the order and didn’t argue. He threw the Cherokee into drive, made a U-turn in the highway and started back toward the city. As soon as they were moving he stuck his tongue into his tobacco can. Twice.

      Miraculously, there had been no traffic during the few minutes of the gunfight. But now, having gone less than a hundred yards, a rusty, primer-painted Datsun topped the hill, heading toward them. As the war-damaged Cherokee chugged on, Bolan adjusted the rearview mirror and watched the reaction of the elderly Filipino behind the wheel.

      The old man passed the parked cars without giving either of the dead drivers a second look.

      As they drove away from the scene, Latham frowned.

      “You okay?” Bolan asked. The man had proved himself to be a more than adequate warrior, living up to what Hawkins had promised.

      “Yeah, I’m okay,” Latham said. “Just trying to remember something.”

      It was Bolan’s turn to frown now. “What?” he asked.

      “Whether or not I made my last auto insurance payment,” the Texan said.

      The Executioner’s frown curled into a grin.

      CHAPTER TWO

      Bolan was faced with a problem: ditching the bullet-ridden Cherokee and finding a set of wheels that blended with the local atmosphere of Rio Hondo. He and Charlie Latham were going to look out of place as soon as they stepped out of any vehicle. He didn’t need a stand-out car to announce their presence ahead of time adding to that problem.

      Dusk fell over the island of Mindanao as Latham drove past Fort Pilar and Bolan pointed toward an intersecting road. He had studied a map during the flight to the Philippines and knew the road curved around the southeast corner of Zamboanga, eventually merging with General V. Alvarez Street and leading to the heart of the city. By the time they reached the downtown area twilight had become nighttime.

      Beggars and gangs of youths began to appear on the streets as they drove. The Executioner was reminded that every city, in every country, in all of the world, had its share of “night people,” men and women who were never seen when the sun was in the sky but emerged from robber’s dens, crack houses and from under rocks as soon as darkness fell. Zamboanga seemed to have more than its share of such people.

      But not all of the night people were evil, Bolan knew. Many were simply unfortunate.

      The soldier pointed Latham into a left turn onto Lorenzo and more groups of shiftless teenaged boys appeared in front of the stores and other businesses lining both sides of the street. Angry black eyes set in berry-brown faces stared into the Cherokee as they passed. The Executioner could understand their anger. They had been born into a world of poverty and sorrow with little hope of ever escaping. But anger alone changed nothing. Anger put no food on the table. It purchased no medicine for the sick. It didn’t change a dirt-floored house into one with tile or carpet. And now, the loathing in the black teenage eyes that watched the Cherokee pass changed to fury, which Bolan knew would produce tomorrow’s terrorists if men like him didn’t work for change.

      Latham had finally had enough silence. “What are we looking for?”

      Bolan started to answer, then stopped as the Buick Century Custom they’d been following for the past several blocks pulled over and parked on the street a half block ahead. “That,” he told Latham, nodding toward the windshield. As the driver’s door opened, the Executioner’s eyes turned toward the sidewalk where yet another gang of teenagers leaned slothfully against the plate-glass window of a small café. As he watched, a dark-skinned man wearing a black-and-white checkered shirt stepped away from his cohorts and grinned at the car. The man was incredibly tall by Filipino standards—probably