and moved on, leaving the forest ablaze around Boise. Trying to catch them near the fires in Nevada was also a foolâs errand. He would arrive too late to do anything more than tramp through forests turned to charcoal.
âStriker, we have transport for you, but youâll have to share the ride.â
âWhen and where?â Bolan got his answer, but he didnât like it.
âSO WHO ARE YOU?â the small, wiry lawman demanded, coal-black eyes sharp and hard as they fixed on Bolan. He had a gray mustache waxed to sharp points and sported a ten-gallon cowboy hat with a snakeskin band straight out of some B western. He wore his sidearm in an Old Westâstyle hard leather holster. From where he stood, Bolan could not see the make of the gun but thought it was probably a replica of the old .44 Peacemaker.
âNames donât matter.â
âI didnât ask your name. I donât give two hoots and a holler about what you call yourselfâor what somebody told you to call yourself. Who are you? Not FBI. They come waltzing in, lording it over everybody. First words out of their mouths are âIâm Special Agent Who Doesnât Give a Shit,â and youâre not local. Not with the pressure coming down on me. You canât be CIA. They donât operate inside the country. So, Iâll ask again, not quite so polite this time. Who the hell are you?â
âIâm the cargo youâll get to Oakland, Marshal Phillips.â
âClosemouthed,â the U.S. marshal said. For the first time a small smile curled the corners of his mouth. It didnât last long. âYouâre taking me off my assignment, you know.â
Bolan had walked miles and finally had reached a spot where he jumped onto a freight train to ride into Boise. From the rail yards he had gone directly to the U.S. marshalsâ office, as Kurtzman had told him to do.
âWeâre on the same team,â Bolan simply said.
âA good thing since youâre bigger ân me. Not that I havenât had to deal with that problem most of my life. Danged near everyoneâs bigger ân me. Iâm only five-foot-eight. Didnât keep me outta the SEALs, though. Never weighed over one-fifty, either.â
âIs that with or without the mustache?â
Phillips laughed with some obvious enjoyment at the verbal riposte. Then his face went hard, and he pushed past Bolan to look into the outer office.
âNo time to lollygag, mister. Our rideâs ready.â As Phillips strode through the office, men and women thrust things into his hands. He glanced at a couple folders and dropped them back onto desks. He kept several others and tucked them under his arm. Bolan followed in his wake, ignored by the deputies. That suited him fine. It gave him a chance to glance at the manila folders Phillips had discarded. All carried the Department of Homeland Security logo and dealt with recent terrorist activities.
Bolan barely settled into the backseat of a standard-issue black SUV with tinted windows as the driver floored it. He was pressed back into the seat beside the marshal.
âHere, read this,â Phillips said, passing over the files he had kept after his quick exit from the office. âWhat more can you tell me about the sons of bitches who set those fires?â
Bolan had started to dismiss the man again but took a closer look at what he had been handed. Two of the files were jackets on the pair he had dispatched before they had blown up the truck. The third file carried a picture of someone he had seen before in a Top Secret file at Stony Man Farm.
âDonât know these two, except I killed both of them. This oneâs a known commodity. Jacques Lecroix. Did wet work in Algeria for anyone who paid his price. He dropped off the radar screen two years ago.â
âYou know your PMC recruits, mister.â Phillips didnât miss a beat. âIs there anything more current you know about him?â
âHe worked for a private military company out of Paris before he disappeared.â Bolan worked through all the threads of memory connected to Lecroix. âAfrica. Thatâs all I remember. He might have been seen last in South Africa.â
âWe got a lead on him from some wino along the Boise skid row. Not sure what Lecroix wanted, but it was obvious even to a whiskey-besotted derelict that he was being recruited as cannon fodder. I suspect Lecroix wanted to send a few of Boiseâs less fortunate into the rail yard to flush out the security.â
âHe could reconnoiter himself and not leave a trail,â Bolan pointed out.
âHe was behind schedule, at least that was the impression. If he is hanging out with men like these twoââ the marshal tapped the other files ââheâs not into finding locals to do the real dirty work for him. One was an explosives expert. The other worked for a PMC in Iraq until six months ago when he upped and disappeared. His boss thought he might have gotten a better offer and just left without giving notice.â
Bolan nodded. Allegiances were bought and paid for, and some former employers might not look favorably on anyone leaving their service for a competitor. He scanned Lecroixâs file again, trying to piece together the unrelated bits. Chances were good the mercenary had gone to work for a PMC in Africa, since his earlier training had been in the northern tier of the continent. But, as those things went, northern Africa was peaceful enough at the moment. Not more than a few abortive uprisings and rebel attacks that never amounted to anything had been reported in the past couple years. This was hardly the place for an ambitious soldier of fortune like Jacques Lecroix.
He pulled out his satellite phone and called Stony Man. Aaron Kurtzman answered immediately.
âIâm with Marshal Phillips on the way to the airport,â Bolan said, letting Kurtzman know he had to watch everything he said. âThe marshal has identified the two I killed, along with Jacques Lecroix. What can you tell me about him?â
âThe Katanga Swords,â came the measured answer.
âIâve heard of the group. A PMC,â Phillips supplied, making no effort to conceal his eavesdropping. Bolanâs estimation of him went up a little. The marshal wasnât into playing games. He knew Bolan expected him to listen to everything said and didnât pretend otherwise.
âOut of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,â Kurtzman said. âWeâre working on more.â
Bolan signed off and tucked the phone away. He had thought this mission was a nonstarter at first. Tracking down a firebug who got his rocks off watching trees go up in flame had hardly seemed a reasonable use of his time. Once he had seen the clockwork precision of how the fires had been set and appreciated the scale of the resulting theft, he had been more favorably inclined toward the mission. Learning a mercenary of Lecroixâs caliber headed up the operation made this a high-priority item. Lecroix did not come cheap and did not waste his time unless there was a challenge in the mission. He killed as much to relieve boredom as he did to amass great wealth, but more than these casual motives, he appreciated a challenge. A man driven only by greed was vulnerable. Lecroix was more dangerous because he sought out goals other than riches.
What
