Murder Island. Don Pendleton

He looked down at the three unconscious criminals and then at Mr. Regmi’s grinning face. The old man pushed aside the blanket he’d been huddling under to reveal a revolver.

      “How long have you had that?” Bolan asked.

      Regmi shrugged and set the weapon aside. It looked like an old Pryse Army revolver, which meant it was an antique. It seemed well cared for, at least.

      “And why didn’t you use it?”

      “I’ve only got four bullets,” Regmi said. “I did not want to waste them.” He patted the table in front of him as the crowd began to disperse. “Sit down. I owe you a rematch.” The Mahjong board had already been set up.

      “Not tonight, I’m afraid,” Bolan said. “I have to leave in the morning.”

      “Oh?” Regmi said slyly. “Well, at least you had time for a visit.”

      Bolan smiled. “Would you like me to get rid of them?” he asked, gesturing to the three would-be extortionists. The air was damp with the hint of rain and Bolan looked up at the night sky where dark clouds were gathering strength.

      Regmi waved a hand as he examined the Mahjong board in front of him. “No, lying in the rain will be a good lesson for them.” He looked up. “Are you sure I cannot tempt you to a game?”

      “Sorry, Mr. Regmi,” Bolan said as he headed toward the stairs.

      “You are a good neighbor, Mr. Ortega,” Regmi shouted after him.

      When he got back to his room, Bolan heard the sound of his satellite phone. He answered it and the rough, rumbling voice of Hal Brognola filled his ear.

      “Striker, are you busy?”

      “Packing up to get out of country tomorrow, why?”

      “We’ve got a problem. It looks like Spence never showed up in Tokyo.” Brognola hesitated. And then said, “We think the plane went down.”

      “Went down? Where?” Bolan asked. He had a sick feeling in his gut.

      “Striker, if I knew that, would I be calling?” Brognola snapped.

      Bolan took no offense. He could hear the tension in Brognola’s voice, even through the static-laden sat link. Brognola occupied a twilight realm where “on the books” met off, and his job was as much political as it was organizational. There was no telling what sort of pressure he was under, and Bolan was just as happy not to know.

      “Have you alerted Spence’s superiors?”

      “They won’t be able to get a search operation organized until they wrangle permission from the Chinese, who aren’t happy about this, as you might guess. They want to know what we were doing and why. I doubt your safehouse is compromised, but you might want to catch a flight to Tokyo or Melbourne.”

      It was rare that Brognola sounded so worried. Bolan couldn’t blame him. The plan had been a good one, but it appeared to have gone completely off the rails.

      “Why don’t I head up the initial search effort? I can get a plane.”

      “Striker, I can’t authorize that—you’re off the books and I want to keep it that way. That means we need you out of there. This situation is already shot to hell. It’s too unstable to…”

      Bolan laughed mirthlessly. “To what? Throw some gasoline on the fire?”

      “That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Brognola said.

      “It’ll be off the books, Hal. I can get a pilot and a plane, but I’ll need the transponder code and their last coordinates. If I can find them, I’ll get them out.”

      Brognola hesitated again. Bolan knew what his old ally was about to say, and he could tell Brognola didn’t want to say it. Bolan saved him the trouble. “Cloud’s the important one, I know. If it comes down to it…”

      “You’ll do what you think is best, Striker. You always do.” Brognola paused. “Before we lost contact with him, Spence said there’d been trouble.”

      “Someone tried to stop the plane,” Bolan said. “Given the situation, I figured it didn’t matter who they were.”

      “Ops like this leak like sieves, you know that. And chances are, word about the plane vanishing has already spread. That means you might not be alone in your search. Think you can handle that?”

      “Definitely,” Bolan said.

      “If you wait, I can have Lyons and the others—”

      “We don’t have time, Hal. I’m our best shot and you know it.” He sighed. “If I need help, I’ll call. You know that.”

      “I know, Striker.” Brognola sounded tired. “Be careful. Call me back when you’re ready to go and I’ll have those coordinates for you.”

      “Always am, and I will,” Bolan said and hung up. It looked as if his reckoning with Gapon was going to be postponed a little while longer.

      He sat for a moment, the phone in his hand, considering his options. He couldn’t charter a flight legally—not without adding to the plethora of complications—which meant he had to find a pilot who didn’t mind working off the books. He also needed someone who knew the area, which narrowed his pool of candidates substantially. He knew a few pilots with those qualifications, but he didn’t have time to track them all down to see whether they were free. The longer he went without finding Spence’s plane, the less likely it was he’d ever find it, if it had crashed. There was a lot of ocean between Hong Kong and Tokyo.

      He tossed the phone onto the bed. That was the question, however. Had the plane crashed? Or had it gone off course and, if so, why? It was a mystery, and Bolan hated mysteries.

      His job right now was to find a pilot, and quick. And he knew just the man who could help him.

      With a sigh, Bolan left his apartment and went back upstairs. The three thugs were gone and the rain was coming down steadily, pooling ankle-deep on the roof. Mr. Regmi was still at his table, examining his Mahjong board. He looked up as Bolan sat across from him.

      “I might have time for a game, after all,” Bolan said.