"When do you want me to leave?" Bolan asked, not bothering to ask the earlier, more obvious question.

Wilson dug inside his jacket and pulled out a crisp white envelope. He slipped it across the table.

Bolan looked at it without making a move to retrieve it. "Pretty sure of yourself, aren't you?" Wilson watched the big guy silently for a minute before continuing, "Brognola speaks very highly of you. He and I go way back. He told me there were certain things I could take for granted. I took him at his word." Bolan smiled the faintest of smiles. "As it happens, you'll be on the same flight as one Mr. Charles Harding. This time we don't want to lose him. You'll be going under diplomatic cover. The man to see in Manila is Frank Henson. I cabled him this afternoon. He knows you're coming, and he'll take care of contact on his end."

Wilson leaned across the table, extending one hand. Bolan took it in his own.

"You be damn careful over there, Belasko. Anything happens to you, Hal will have my balls in a vise. If he doesn't cut 'em off altogether."

"Thanks. I'll be careful."

"Look, Frank Henson's a good man. He's yours for the duration. He knows it and he's as faithful as the family dog. Use him. He expects it, and he'll bust his gut for you."

When the door closed, Wilson dropped into his chair with a sigh. "Poor son of a bitch," he mumbled.

"You say something?" Donny was busy putting his equipment back in the cabinet.

"Yeah, I said what a poor son of a bitch Belasko was."

"Don't worry about it."

"Sometimes I don't like the things I have to do in this job."

"Yes, you do, Rosebud. You love it. If you didn't, you wouldn't be half as good at your job as you are."

"But we're supposed to be on the same side."

"Walt," Donny said, snapping the cabinet door closed. "If cannon fodder didn't exist, you'd have to invent it. Belasko's cannon fodder, plain and simple. He works out, fine. He doesn't, hey, next case... it's just that simple." He shrugged and closed the door softly behind him.

Wilson sat for a long time, staring at the door.

Finally he turned off the light and left the office.

All in a day's work, he told himself. And he believed it.

3

Bolan spotted the man immediately. He was taller than average, and his slicked hair shone dully under the overhead light. The last few passengers took their seats after fumbling with carryons and shifted in the uncomfortable closeness of the plane. A slender blonde closed the door, then stepped back to let a male night attendant seal the hatch tightly.

Bolan watched his quarry out of one eye. The one good thing to be said for a plane was that he didn't have to worry about being shaken off. The blonde went through the mandatory routine, pointing out the various doors, dangling an oxygen mask from one ruby-nailed hand and delivering her spiel with a kind of bored precision just a notch above that of a computer.

When she was finished, she disappeared almost instantly. It was like a magic show. All that was missing was the smoke. Bolan felt warm, and wished tine plane's air conditioning would kick in. He had to keep his jacket on to cover the Desert Eagle in its shoulder holster. His diplomatic credentials allowed him to bypass the X-ray rigmarole, but he was almost sorry. He felt small beads of sweat trickle down the back of his neck, then collect at his collar. The sudden surge of air from the overhead vents was even warmer, and he reached up to close his off for a few minutes to give the compressor time to cool the air down.

Bolan buckled his seatbelt as the sign came on and the warning bell chimed softly somewhere behind him.

The engines of the 747 began to whine, the low rumble turning to a snarl, the pitch rising steadily. The cabin floor began to tremble as the big jet backed away from the terminal. Bolan glanced out the window at the drooping wings. As often as he'd flown, it still amazed him that something so huge and so heavy could move at all, let alone take to the air. The plane was lumbering now, its landing gear thumping over the oozing asphalt expansion joints in the apron.

The engines strained even harder as the plane lurched into the runway approach, then began to barrel straight ahead. Bolan watched the play of the flaps, the polished steel rods gleaming against a background of grease and dull metal. Then they were up, and the ground started to shrivel away. The pilot banked sharply, and the runways shrank to a pattern of crossed concrete lines. Los Angeles itself sprawled in every direction, as if some giant press had flattened a normal city and allowed the ruins to ooze out in every direction.

The cars on the freeways seemed to dissolve in the misty smog, their exhaust systems cooperating with the climate and adding to the mysterious disappearance. With the plane over Beverly Hills and Bel Air, the odd-shaped swimming pools winked up at him, nearly the only things visible on the ground now, their pale blue faces arrayed like some turquoise cryptogram.

Bolan turned away from the view to watch the back of Charles Harding's head. The stylish razor cut looked as if it had just been finished, every strand of hair in place. Harding was almost a cypher to Bolan, but it was his job to follow Harding. For three days, ever since Wilson had put him on the spoor, Bolan had been doing just that.

Whatever it was Harding was supposed to be guilty of, he had acted like a man without a care in the world. As Bolan watched, the older man tilted back in his seat, obviously planning to spend at least part of the long flight napping. The sound system chimed again, and the seatbelt light went out. The No Smoking light followed suit, and a flurry of flint wheels and matches behind him warned Bolan the air would shortly turn blue.

What Bolan knew about Charles Harding he could stuff into a gnat's ear and have room left over.

Wilson hadn't known, or at least hadn't admitted knowing, very much more. The files were not much more informative. A retired Air Force colonel, Harding had been a staffer to one of the more hawkish members of the current Senate. That had been a short-lived relationship, and Harding had dropped out of sight for nearly two years, then popped up again as the executive vice-president of an arms brokerage house, one with a pipeline to the military and the Congress. After two years in that position, Harding had resigned to become executive director of the Federalist Institute, a right-wing think tank based in Los Angeles.

That relationship, too, went by the boards.

He was now listed as a consultant by the Institute. Other than that, there was nothing.

According to Wilson, Harding had lately been doing more than thinking, and more than a few people on Capitol Hill wanted to know what.

Bolan had resisted the assignment initially. It sounded too much like baby-sitting, and Bolan had neither the inclination nor the patience for that sort of work.

He didn't like it, wasn't particularly good at it and usually begged off. But Wilson had done everything short of kowtowing to change his mind. Since Brognola had put Wilson on to him, and since he owed Brognola one or two, he agreed.

So Bolan sat there, ten rows behind Charles Harding.

And wondered why.

They were still three hours away from Manila when Harding stirred in his seat, popped the springs and let the seat bounce upright. He got to his feet and adjusted his shirt and tie before stepping into the aisle and moving back in Bolan's direction. Everything about Harding, from the rigidity of his spine to the precision of his steps, echoed his years in the Air Force. The service had a way of shaping clay, then baking it so hard that nothing could change it. Even under extreme stress, it would shatter before it would give way.