Hostile Odds

“Wouldn’t surprise me if he owned the whole town,” Bolan replied. “You find anything else connecting him to the ELF?”

“He’s funneling money through every business in the region. And what he’s bringing in doesn’t come close to matching the revenues for his business holdings. Weird thing is, Gowan has a lot of business holdings but all of this just comes down to a paper trail. In other words, a lot of unknown money coming into these businesses but very little goes out.”

“Sounds like money laundering.”

Johnny grunted assent.

Bolan continued, “What you’ve described to me sounds a lot like a reverse pyramid scheme.”

“What do you mean?”

“Gowan’s got business everywhere, most likely paper companies. He gets the common folks to invest, whether it be real estate, small-business buy-ins, stocks…whatever. He promises the money will come back but it never does. In this case, the average citizen around here doesn’t have the kind of money we’re talking about.”

“But an organization like the ELF would,” Johnny concluded.

“Yeah. I think Gowan’s taking their cash and running out on them. The ELF thinks it has funds to draw from so they increase activities. Unfortunately, they’re not likely to see a dime of it back, since nobody can really tie the Gowan Family directly to the money, so the ELF takes it out on innocent citizens who signed actual receivership.”

“Okay, but why shoot down military aircraft?”

“Military bases mean jobs for the surrounding communities,” Bolan said. “Put those bases on alert or attack private corporations and you decrease revenues. Ultimately, it adds up to unnecessary bloodshed and a breakdown in economic surplus.”

“That’s a hell of a way to stick it to the common man.”

“It’s also disastrous to public safety.”

“What’s your plan?”

“It sounds like it’s time to shake things up. I think I know where to start. I’ll be in touch.”

Bolan disconnected the call and drove into downtown Timber Vale. The streets were crowded with vehicles and an equal amount of foot traffic. He made a couple of passes before turning onto a side street and proceeding to an alleyway that ran along the back of a strip mall. He parked his rental in a discreet area and went EVA.

Something nagged at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He ran through the events since his arrival. None of this added up. If Gowan had his fingers into all of the local businesses and was making cash hand-over-fist from them, it wouldn’t encourage the guy to turn on the ELF. Even ecoterrorists knew how it worked. Gowan stood to make a lot more money from the local business trades in this area than he did from the cash holdings of a few small-time domestic terrorist outfits. It only made sense the ELF would focus its efforts on the local businesses if it discovered it was losing money. No, there had to be more to it than that. This town bothered him, as well. Things were almost too perfect here; everybody was friendly, willing to lend a stranger a helping hand. Men like Bolan still believed in the general goodness and charity of humankind, but that didn’t mean he took everything at face value. Some things required a closer, deeper inspection—the Executioner just couldn’t be sure where to focus his efforts.

And then it dawned on him: the waitress! She looked vaguely familiar to him, but he couldn’t figure why. Then he remembered he’d seen her before, earlier in the week at Tulelake at the FBI offices where Kellogg worked. She looked a lot older as a waitress, the heavier makeup and the world-weary expression, but he couldn’t forget the eyes. Bolan walked along the side of the building and crossed the street to the diner. A Closed sign hung on the door with a hand-scrawled note that read, “Sorry, Earl out sick.”

Not likely. He’d seen Earl just a few hours before and the guy looked fine.

Bolan cupped his hand to the door and peered inside; he saw a fleeting movement in back—something like two people struggling—and then descended from the narrow stoop and circled around back. He found a rear door marked for deliveries only and tried it. It opened without trouble. Bolan stuck his head into the semidark interior. He could hear angry voices inside, male voices, followed by a feminine yelp of pain.

The Executioner kicked it into high gear, opening the door just enough to slip inside as he brought the Beretta into play. He left the door ajar enough to let the morning sunlight illuminate his way and moved through the storage room to a set of swing doors. He cracked one enough to see two men standing with their backs to him. They were holding the waitress in check, and Bolan arrived just in time to see a third man slap her across the face.

Bolan shouldered through the swing doors and raised the Beretta. In a hard, cold voice he said, “Fun’s over, boys.”

One of the pair holding the waitress turned and emitted a yelp of surprise. The other stupidly clawed for something in the front of his pants. Bolan didn’t bother to see what it was. He leveled the sound-suppressed pistol nearly point-blank at the man’s head and squeezed the trigger. The subsonic cartridge let out a report not much louder than a cough, and the thug’s head immediately disappeared in a crimson spray of bone and brain matter. A large chunk splattered the side of his cohort’s face.

The second guy stumbled back and fumbled for his own weapon. The Executioner helped him along with a front kick that sent him reeling. The hood’s arms windmilled in an attempt to maintain his balance, but the momentum eventually got the better of him. He crashed into a side counter and brought a full plastic tray of silverware onto his head.

The remaining assailant went for cover, and Bolan saw the glint of light on metal in his hand. Bolan rushed forward and pulled the waitress out of the way just in time to prevent her from being struck by any of the five wild shots the gunman sent in her direction. He shoved her not too gently through the swing doors as he leveled the Beretta 93-R in the enemy’s direction and snapped off a pair of shots to keep the guy’s head down.

Bolan followed after the waitress and gestured toward the door as she recovered from his rough shove. “Head out the back.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Later. Now go,” he ordered.

She started to put her hands on her hips and stand there defiantly, but Bolan didn’t give her the chance to argue. He grabbed her arm and assisted her to the back, pushing her through the door with his bodyweight as he kept facing forward in anticipation the gunman would follow. The guy did just as Bolan predicted and burst through the swing doors. He leveled his Beretta and squeezed the trigger even as the gunman snapped off a shot of his own. The 9 mm round punched through the thug’s chest in a bloody spray, and the impact knocked him through the door. The shot he triggered went high above Bolan’s head and lodged in the wood frame of the doorway.

The Executioner emerged into the narrow alleyway in time to see a black SUV round a corner and roar toward them.

4

“Move!”

Bolan shoved the waitress away from the charging SUV and followed on her heels. They ran like hell and rounded the corner of the building in time to avoid being run down. Bolan heard the tires grind to a stop on the broken asphalt and crushed gravel of the alleyway, followed by the reports of automatic-weapons fire.

Louise emitted a sudden cry and stumbled, but Bolan caught her before she fell and helped her along the sidewalk. They reached the cover of the building front and then raced across the street. Bolan released her arm when he sensed she regained her balance. He took the lead and commanded her to follow him to his car.

As they climbed into the rental simultaneously and closed the doors, Bolan quipped, “Friends of yours?”

“I thought about asking you the same question,” she shot back.

Bolan bit off a reply as he peeled out to a side street, leaving hot rubber on the pavement. The SUV rolled up on their tail in no time flat. Bolan’s eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, then he glanced at the waitress. He didn’t fail to notice the very nice pair of legs that emerged from the skirt of her uniform. Not the legs of a middle-aged woman. From that distance he could also see there weren’t the usual facial wrinkles, which left him to deduce she wasn’t in her forties as he’d originally guessed.

“That’s a good makeup job,” he said. “Your FBI contacts have real talent.”

“You know who I am?” she asked, although she expressed only mild surprise.

Bolan nodded. “I recognized you from the field office in Siskiyou County.”

“I recognized you, too,” she said. “That’s why I’d hoped you poke around for a few days, get bored and leave.”

“Funny way of showing it,” Bolan replied. “Think you can handle the wheel?”

The back windows shattered under the impact of fresh autofire before she could answer. Glass shards rained onto the pair, but fortunately didn’t injure either of them. When Bolan did a closer inspection of his occupant, however, he noticed her bleeding from her right arm. She’d probably been grazed back at the restaurant when they were fleeing on foot.

“I can do better than that,” she said. “Give me your gun.”

“What?”

“Your pistol.”

Bolan shook his head curtly. “No dice.”

“Listen, mister, I’m grateful for all your help, but this is FBI business.”

“It’s my business,” Bolan said but on afterthought he decided to hand over his Beretta. “Okay, I’ll drive, you shoot.”

“Such a gentleman,” she teased.