He would discuss this change of plan with Danny, shower, grab a catnap and leave unnoticed.

He'd be deep in the desert before any more of Hassan Zayoud's spies figured out he was missing.

Bolan drove past the floodlit display of fountains in front of the International and turned into the narrow lane leading to the rear. He glanced left and spotted a likely looking place around a shadowy corner beyond the garbage dumpsters.

Damn, another car was already parked back there.

Then he noticed that the driver was looking anxiously at the building, checking his watch, nervously signaling to the people coming out from... Two Arab hoods were holding Danny captive!

Bolan raced forward, working the wheel, accelerator and brake pedal down to force a last-minute skid. The Hog slammed sideways into the thugs car. The broken body of the driver was flung back inside across the seat, his head lolling at an unnatural angle.

Using the roll bar for a handhold, the Executioner vaulted from the Hog. He came hurtling out in a drop kick aimed straight at the face of the small gunman. The pistol slithered across the concrete paving as the guy went down with his nose smeared into bleeding pulp. Danny had shoved her full body weight into the goon who was holding her, catching him off balance. He staggered back against the wall. The gorilla grunted with pain as the blonde brought up her knee like a sledgehammer between his legs.

Bolan had scooped up the gun and now chopped the big guy viciously behind the ear. Steel split flesh to the bone. His knees buckled and the strong-arm specialist subsided in an untidy heap.

"Watch out!" Danny shouted.

The other hood spit out a bloody curse through broken teeth. Bolan clipped him hard with the gun butt. He fell back on top of his partner.

Danny leaped into the Hog and scrambled into the passenger seat. Bolan was right behind her. The door fell off the getaway car as the Hog pulled away, exposing the dangling feet of the crushed driver. The other two were still huddled in an unconscious tangle as Bolan exited at the far end of the alley and slipped into the evening traffic.

"Are you all right?" Bolan's first concern was for her well-being.

"Yes, I think so... just a little shaken up, I guess," gasped Danny. "Thank you. Thank goodness you arrived in time."

"Almost didn't. Two guys followed me, too."

"What happened?"

"We had a game of off-road tag." Bolan grinned and patted the dash above the complex instrument panel. "The Hog won." Then his face became serious. "What happened back there?"

"I was in my room waiting for you to show. Knock on the door... and those two baboons were there with an invitation I couldn't refuse. They shoved me into the elevator and, well, everything was so fast when you got there..."

"You handled yourself pretty well."

"Yes, but suppose you hadn't shown up in time? I hate to think what they would have done to me."

Bolan was forced to slow down as another police car drove past. They were still in the westernized downtown area — two foreign visitors who could have been going anywhere.

Actually Bolan was taking a deliberately convoluted route out to the main road that ringed the city limits. He was constantly alert for the sign of anyone who might be following them, revising his strategy yet again and still holding a conversation with Danny.

"I don't believe they were going to kill you, if that's what you're thinking," Bolan reassured her. "We've both had teams set on us with orders to shake us up, scare us into leaving."

"There would be no reason for Hassan to suspect we were anything other than what we claimed to bean archaeological team."

"That's why I say these guys were just trying to frighten us off. Only now, when they report in — and it's probably all radioed back to Hassan — they're going to guess we might be here for a different purpose than to root around Haufari."

"Does this mean... are you going to call it off?"

"Nope. But I am changing the plan. We're going in tonight. Right now."

Danny glanced across at him. "Did you say "we"?"

"Yeah," Bolan replied. "There's no choice. I can't leave you on your own down the coast. Even with Abdel and his brother around, it's still too much of a risk. I have no option but to take you with me."

9

Danny awoke to find the very worst of the day's heat was over. The sun had dipped low enough to send a blinding shaft spearing down beneath the overhanging ledge that protected them. She lay there for a moment, her head resting on a folded blanket, staring up at the weathered pink rock above her.

She could still feel the effects of last night's drive in every bone of her body. Danny felt like one great big bruise. It had been a long pummeling ride across the moonlit desert.

They had reached the outskirts of town without further incident. Then Bolan had driven south, looping toward the junction with the coastal route to Haufari, but on a deserted stretch of the highway he abruptly plunged off into the scrub and circled wide around the back of the airfield. Using the shielded headlights only when absolutely necessary, he had tried to steer a course that would eventually intersect with the line of march he'd originally intended to take.

The going had been relatively easy at first.

They had kept up a good speed across the hard-baked mud flats — which were only softened once a year by spring rains, if they fell at all — but this featureless plain gave way all too soon to the rising slope of a bleached flintstone desert dotted here and there with low patches of coarse, brittle weeds.

Irregular bumps had gradually become treacherous ridges, which Bolan navigated in the darkness with some uncanny skill that had left Danny baffled.

They hadn't talked much. She knew he had been concentrating on putting as much distance as possible between them and the city by dawn. Twice they had ended in impassable gullies; patiently Bolan backtracked and tried another route. The almost-full moon cast a cold glow over this weird lunar landscape. And the ride got still rougher.

Bolan had woven cautiously between tortured spurs of rock as sunrise streaked the sky. The awesome beauty of it took Danny's breath away: at first it was merely a lilac blush, then smudges of rose and amethyst lit up, until finally a far-off bank of clouds was transformed into flaring banners of gold.

They had stopped more frequently then. Bolan double-checked the maps, until he found this dead-end fissure with its overhanging lip to shield them from watching eyes and the full glare of the daytime sun. The Hog was covered with camouflage netting.

Bolan was already up and about and seemed well rested. He had the maps spread out on a flat rock in front of him. He glanced back at her the moment she stirred.

"Stiff?"

She nodded, but even that small gesture hurt.

"Here." He poured out a careful measure of water for her. "That's your ration for this stop. I was only carrying enough for myself on the way in — and I even cut back on that to make room for an extra can of gas."

Gratefully Danny took a small sip, swilled it around slowly and then swallowed it.

"Where are we?" she asked, carefully balancing the rest of her water while crouching down to look at the map.

"I figure we've reached this spot here." He tapped a point about thirty miles or almost a third the length of the country, inland from the shore of the gulf.

"Is that all we've covered? I feel as if we drove about two hundred miles!"

"It was sixty-eight miles to be precise, following along this diagonal from the city. Those last three hours were slow going and we took more than one blind turn." Bolan waved his hand to the west of their present position. "We're still five or six miles off the track I had intended to take up from Haufari."