Ripple Effect. Don Pendleton

the switch complete. From that point onward, only a direct comparison of vehicle registration numbers would prove that the plates on their car were mismatched.

      A quiet place to park, no witnesses, nothing to make a round-eye draw attention while he touched up small details about his vehicle. Bolan was looking for the perfect spot when Dixon asked, “What will you do with Talmadge?”

      “That depends on him,” Bolan replied. It wasn’t quite a lie.

      “Because I had a briefing on the Justice ruling, back in 1990-something, authorizing federal agents to arrest suspected terrorists on foreign soil, without a warrant from the local courts. We’re clear on that.”

      Bolan suppressed a smile as he replied, “You think the Indonesians might consider that kidnapping? Did they get the memo? Does an order signed in Washington trump local law out here?”

      “It does in my book,” Dixon answered. “We’re at war.”

      “You’ll get no argument from me on that score,” Bolan told him, “but it didn’t start on 9/11, and it won’t end if and when we bag Osama. As for orders out of Justice, please refrain from telling any local cops or soldiers that you got your go-ahead from the attorney general of the United States. You’ll only make them laugh before they put a bullet in your head.”

      “So, what you’re saying is—”

      “We’re not in Kansas anymore. This isn’t U.S. soil and never has been. People here salute a different flag, and they’re not bound by anything the President or members of his cabinet may say. We’re fugitives right now, and most of what we do from this point on will be illegal.”

      “In the strictest sense, of course, but—”

      “In the only sense that matters,” Bolan interrupted him. “We’ve killed nine men. The penalty for murder here is death by hanging or by firing squad. You get a choice, but no appeal. Maybe you think the embassy will intervene if you’re arrested.”

      “No,” Dixon said, sounding more subdued. “They made a special point of clarifying that.”

      “We’re clear, then,” Bolan said. “You have to watch your step. Forget about what some attorney general said ten years ago, and focus on surviving, here and now.”

      “I hear you.”

      “Good.”

      He found a residential lane where streetlights were in short supply and parked the car. Five minutes later, they were on the move again, wearing the license plates from Bolan’s rental.

      It was still a problem, but at least he’d bought some time. Their new car would be flagged as stolen when its owner finished shopping at the mall, but with so many Japanese compacts thronging Jakarta’s streets, its tags would be the main identifier. Those were gone, and by the time some clerk at Bolan’s rental agency decided to report the other car missing, he hoped his work in the vicinity would be completed.

      “Next stop,” he said to Dixon, “Talmadge’s apartment.”

      “It’s across town,” Dixon told him. “On the west side, off Tomang Raja, near the Banjir Canal.”

      “Okay.” A careful U-turn got them headed back in the direction they had come from.

      “But I’m still not clear,” Dixon said, “on what you—what we—intend to do with Talmadge.”

      “We intend to question him, ideally,” Bolan said.

      “And if the circumstances aren’t ideal?”

      “Our bottom-line assignment is to stop him doing any further favors for his latest batch of clients. Period.”

      “Kill him, you mean.”

      “It’s possible,” Bolan allowed.

      “Because he’s dangerous. To the United States.”

      “He’s dangerous to everyone right now,” Bolan replied. “Al Qaeda and Hamas don’t limit their attacks to the U.S. or Israel. They’ve bombed London, Spain, Kenya and Tanzania. They’re full-service murderers.”

      “That’s good.” Dixon was nodding like an athlete getting pumped up for the big game of the season. “Right. That’s very good.”

      “Just keep your eyes and ears open,” Bolan suggested. “You’ve already proved yourself. You didn’t freeze. Whatever happens next, you’ll be all right.”

      “I’m good,” said Dixon. “We’re the good guys, right?”

      “That’s what it says on my white hat,” Bolan replied.

      THEIR TARGET’S SMALL apartment house off Tomang Raja stood among a hundred others that were more or less the same, distinguished by their faded colors more than anything unique about their architecture. They reminded Bolan of a minicity he had seen at LEGOLAND in Europe, on another job. Instead of plastic pieces, though, these look-alike apartment houses had been built with lath and plaster, cheaply painted, then abandoned to begin their slow decomposition in the tropic climate.

      Sun and rain would do the rest, assisted by the tenants who cared nothing for a landlord’s property, and sometimes precious little for themselves.

      Bolan wasn’t surprised that Talmadge would’ve chosen such a neighborhood in which to live. He wouldn’t fear the neighbors—quite the opposite, in fact, if they were wise—and living in a downscale area helped to preserve his anonymity. He would desire a low profile, waiting to make a bigger splash when he retired.

      And Talmadge would have enemies, like any other mercenary who had shopped his skills around the troubled planet. There was never time or opportunity to kill them all, as Bolan knew from personal experience. No matter how he tried, regardless of his scorched-earth tactics, there would always be survivors hungry for revenge.

      Still, with a new address, new name, new face, new history, he just might pull it off.

      Somehow. Someday.

      “Garage stalls in the back,” Dixon explained, “along a kind of alley fronting the canal. No parking lot.”

      “It’s not a problem,” Bolan said. He’d noticed empty parking spaces on the street and didn’t mind a short walk back from wherever they had to leave the car.

      “So, what’s the drill?” Dixon asked.

      “We go in and knock,” Bolan said. “Say hello and ask if he can spare a cup of java.”

      “Like Jehovah’s Witnesses?”

      “Without the Bibles,” Bolan said.

      “Okay with me,” his contact said. And then, “You sure?”

      “What were you thinking?” Bolan asked him. “Climb a drainpipe? Go in through the bathroom window?”

      “I don’t know what I was thinking,” Dixon granted. “But it seems to me, he may be waiting for us. Well, not us, but someone. He’s a killer, right?”

      “A soldier,” Bolan said.

      “Ex-soldier. And a terrorist.”

      “You’re thinking he may shoot us,” Bolan said.

      “It crossed my mind. Suppose he’s sitting on an arsenal up there? Then what?”

      “Has anybody looked inside? The team that bugged his place?”

      “They didn’t want to risk it. Went in through the neighbors’ flats and put mikes in the walls.”

      Which meant that Talmadge could be sitting on an arsenal—or nothing. Bolan didn’t think he’d be unarmed. It went too much against the grain, against his lifelong training and experience, but there were countless levels of preparedness. It was a waste of time to sit and speculate.

      He parked the stolen car a block