"Nice," Bolan said, looking up at Rita.

She smiled. "I still have some friends from the force. Get me a few specialty items."

Bolan studied her a moment. Tall, poised, hair light brown with an almost reddish tint. Her clothes were no more expensive or fancy than the other women's — black denim pants, blue sweater, black jersey vest — but she wore them with the easy grace of a model. She looked confident, sure of herself. Some of that came from her aristocratic background, no doubt, but a lot of it had been earned out on the streets as a cop. And in the department as a woman.

Bolan picked through the rest of the guns. A Remington Model 870 shotgun; an H&K 93 with retracting stock, bipod, scope and mount; a Stevens Model 520 shotgun, two Star Model PD. 45's, and two S&W Model 586 .357's with eight-inch barrels.

Better than he'd hoped for.

"Well?" Shawnee asked.

"It'll do." Bolan snatched up the black pants and black turtleneck sweater they'd bought for him on their way back from retrieving the guns.

"I'll change and we'll hit the road."

Lynn Booker stood up from the sofa, drinking from a can of cola. "Belinda wants to see you first. In the kitchen."

Bolan tucked his clothes under his arm and marched to the kitchen. The door was closed. When he entered, the radio was playing classical music. Belinda was sitting at the kitchen table humming along. Lined up on the table were a dozen grenades. They were standard Army olive with yellow lettering that said Hand Grenades, Frag M26, Comp B. "This what they taught you in home?" Bolan said.

Belinda laughed, twisting a lock of her short blond hair between her fingers. "The way to a man's heart and all that. Of course, these babies will remove that heart first." There was no phony country twang in her voice now, just pure New Jersey.

Bolan picked up one of the grenades.

"Where'd you get these?" he asked. "They're Army."

"We took 'em from one of Demoines's places we raided. Guess he stole them. Can you use them?"

Bolan looked at Belinda, sitting there, calmly discussing grenades. With those pale green eyes it was hard to believe she was part of the same Savannah Swingsaw that had been terrorizing the local Mafia kingpin, Clip Demoines.

Except that Shawnee had already told him Belinda's specialty was handling the chain saw.

Cut through a roulette table faster than a hot knife through butter.

"Yeah," Bolan replied. "They won't go to waste. Now get out of here and let me change. We leave in two minutes."

She smiled, ducked out of the room.

Bolan changed into the dark clothes and was back in the living room in less than a minute. "Who are the best shots?"

"Rita's the best," Shawnee said. "Then me."

"Then me," Lynn said. She stood in the middle of the room, the can of cola in one hand, the H&K 93 in the other.

Bolan looked at her pretty Vietnamese features and flashed back for a moment to Nam. He shook it off just as quickly. "Okay, that means Belinda waits for us at your safe house out in the country. Once we've snatched Dodge Reed, we'll be coming straight there, so have the second car ready and waiting. Also, the cash and change of clothes for everyone."

"Check," Belinda said.

"Good. Now, anybody got something we can carry those grenades in?"

Shawnee snapped her fingers.

"My bike pack. It's small, but they'll fit." She dashed down the hall into the bedroom and brought it back to Bolan. It was dark blue with a red reflector sewn onto the back. Bolan ripped the reflector off, loaded the grenades and swung the pack onto his back. He grabbed one of the S&W Model 586 .357's and stuck it in his pants under his sweater. He pocketed a box of shells.

Shawnee grabbed the other .357 as well as the Remington Model 870 shotgun. Rita took the Krico Super Sniper. They left the Stevens shotgun and the .45's for Belinda to take back to the cabin. The women looked tense, like a sports team right before a big game. Only more so.

"Relax," Bolan said, leading them out the door. "What's one more kidnapping among friends?"

14

"What's this all about?" Lyle Carrew asked the guard who was unlocking his cell.

"They wanna talk to you. That's all they told me."

Carrew wheeled out of the cell and started down the walk ahead of the guard. The guard knew better than to try to push the chair for Carrew, even down those four tricky stairs at the end. The guy let it be known he did things for himself, so that's the way it would be.

They arrived at the warden's office ten minutes later. The warden's secretary was close to seventy-five now, and looked at every prisoner, no matter his crime, with the same scolding expression, as if they were naughty boys up to no good.

"Go ahead in," she told Carrew. "And you behave yourself. Warden left instructions that everyone cooperate fully with that man in there. Governor's office and all."

"Okay, Mrs. Simpson," the black inmate said, opening the door and wheeling into the warden's office.

The man behind the warden's desk was not the warden, just as Mrs. Simpson had indicated. He was a tall thin man in a cheap, ill-fitting suit.

Although he looked to be in his late thirties, his hair was pure white. The dark brown eyes contrasted with the white hair and fair skin to give him an intense look. He sucked on a pipe, puffing bitter smoke into the air as Carrew rolled closer. "Come in, Mr. Carrew." He spoke with a lavish Southern accent, smiling around the stem of his pipe. "Preciate your coming in here and talking with me like this."

"What do you want, Colonel Sanders?"

The man looked confused for a moment, then chuckled.

"Oh, yes, Colonel Sanders. The white hair. Very funny." He chuckled again. "I'm Jacob Frye from the governor's office, Mr. Carrew. The governor's a little concerned about what's gone on here in the past twenty-four hours. Four prisoners murdered, one guard with his head bashed in who claims he didn't see nothin'. Another prisoner escapes." He spread his hands as if hopelessly confused. "What am I to think?"

"Beats me."

"Damon Blue was your cellmate."

"True." "He had a run-in with one of the murdered prisoners, Bertrand Stovell, also called Rodeo. Over another prisoner, uh..." He checked the open file folder on the desk. "Some kid, Dodge Reed."

"I don't know anything about that."

"You were there in the yard when it happened."

Carrew shrugged. "Big yard."

The man stood up, sighed with frustration. "The governor doesn't want some kind of Attica thing going on down here, not this close to election. We've had enough bad publicity about our prison system. Now if there are problems, let's hear about them. Let's talk reforms. If it's a racial thing, let's rap, work out the details. Just tell me what you know about Damon Blue. Who helped him escape?"

Carrew laughed. ""Let's rap that. Where you been, man, this is the eighties. You've been reading outdated books about the jargon of black Americans. Can you dig it, bro?"

The man shook his head sternly, picking at a loose thread on his jacket sleeve. "I'm sorry if you find my concern amusing, Mr. Carrew. Most of the men in here don't have the luxury of being able to get out to a comfortable university professorship. A university funded, I might point out, by state money. Money controlled to some degree by the governor."

"Are you threatening to have me fired, Mr. Frye?"

The man laughed softly, circling around the desk, walking behind Carrew's wheelchair. Carrew didn't bother turning around to look at the white-haired man. "No, no, Mr. Carrew. The governor never makes threats. It was merely a civics lesson, nothing more, I assure you." A moment of silence as Carrew felt the man's presence directly behind him. "The governor believes much more in the carrot than the stick."