windowless building, then the door swung shut. Bolan gave them twenty beats before following. The key he had been provided by MI5 turned noiselessly in the lock. He also came equipped with a neat little .45 Detonics, the cut-down gun so good for concealability.
The inside of the hangar was a single cavernous room, except for a line of offices along one wall. Light showed there behind a frosted glass door. Close up, Bolan could hear the soft murmur of Sir Philip's voice. Bolan soundlessly eased the Detonics free of leather, raised it head-high and slammed the barrel into the frosted glass.
Sir Philip was seated behind a chipped scarred desk, holding a telephone receiver. He recradled it, looked up at the gun-toting stranger framed by the jagged shards still clinging to the window frame, and murmured fatuously.
The MI5 bodyguard was to Bolan's left, his back to the wall, hands loose at his side, unmoving. He stared at Bolan expressionlessly.
Bolan turned the inside doorknob and came into the office. Glass crunched underfoot.
Without looking in the bodyguard's direction, Bolan said, "All right, Lemon, you know what to do." From the corner of his eye, Bolan caught the flash of gunmetal. He whirled, but Lemon had already dropped to a crouch. Bolan started a defensive roll.
Lemon shot him in the left shoulder.
Bolan felt the shock of the bullet furrow into his flesh, but seconds would pass before pain followed.
Only a fraction of the first second was gone when Bolan roared up and struck the young-blood bodyguard.
Lemon fired again, but Bolan's shoulder shoved into Lemon's arm, and the slug buried itself in the ceiling as Bolan's full weight pinned the man in a sprawl against the wall. Lemon tried to get a knee between Bolan's legs. Bolan twisted clear. This time pain lanced savagely through his shoulder.
Then his right hand was free. He smashed the barrel of the little Detonics against the British agent's temple, and the man went down. Bolan rolled clear. Sir Philip was halfway out of his desk chair. "Don't." Bolan waved the .45. Sir Philip sat down again. The body on the floor lay motionless.
Lemon's gun, an Enfield .38 revolver with a two-inch barrel, was still in his outflung hand.
Bolan plucked it away, stood, tucked it into his belt.
Because of Lemon's crouch and Bolan's roll, the slug that had hit The Executioner had entered at an upward angle. The exit wound was almost at the shoulder. There was not too much blood. Bolan transferred the Detonics to his left hand, pressed a scrap of the ragged turtleneck over the rear bullet hole with his right.
Even if a guy planned every number down the line, one glitch could throw those numbers straight to hell. Maybe Lemon was a Russian double too. Maybe someone just screwed up, never informed him. But those answers would have to wait.
Sir Philip regarded Bolan dispassionately. Moving slowly and deliberately, he got out his cigarette case and lit up.
Bolan knew the guy had spent a lifetime walking the edge of the knife. The aristocratic polish was simply a superficial shell over a hard and dangerous man.
With the play now on a blood-soaked heartbeat, Bolan had to show him what hard and dangerous really meant.
"When do the Russians pick up the prototype?" Bolan asked, his voice flat, icy. His left arm refused to cooperate in the simplest action. He applied all his will to ignoring what already felt like it was no longer there. The Britisher was good all right. The traitor did not bother with any "I-don't-know-what-you-are-talking-about" routine.
He just shook his head and gave Bolan the merest smile.
Bolan leaned across the desk and leveled the Detonics into Drummond's face, six inches away. "You broke the rules, Drummond," the Man from Ice said. "But I'll go you one better." Bolan laid the muzzle of the Detonics on the bridge of the British traitor's nose. "I'm not playing by any rules at all," he said.
The smile washed out of Drummond's expression, and what took its