Whipsaw by Don Pendleton Read Free Book Online

was no contest. Not really. There was no way in hell he could afford to pass up the invitation, and he knew it.
    Cursing Walt Wilson for getting him into such a mess, he splashed cold water on his face and strapped on a second harness, this one for the Beretta. Stuffing a couple of extra clips into his coat pocket, one for each weapon, he stared at himself in the huge round mirror over the dresser. He looked exhausted, but was used to that.
    He also looked confused, and that was cause for concern.
    He was not accustomed to standing on such shifting sand. As if it hadn't been bad enough to travel halfway around the world on the tail of a man about whom he knew next to nothing, he was unsalted to meet someone unknown, who apparently knew a great deal about him.
    He kept thinking back to Walt Wilson.
    Henson had hinted that there was more to the picture than Wilson had given him. His own suspicions were simmering beneath the surface, but he had nothing to cool them or to bring them to a boil, either. Something wasn't right, and he couldn't avoid the suspicion that he'd been sent into a minefield wearing cast-iron shoes and a blindfold.
    Slipping into his jacket again, tugging it down to fit comfortably over the artillery, he headed for the door. As he reached for the doorknob, it turned.
    The motion had been slight, no more than a fraction of an inch or so, but genuine. He reached under his coat for the Desert Eagle and flattened himself against the wall.
    He stared at the knob for a long minute, but it didn't move again. Straining his ears, Bolan listened for the slightest sound out in the carpeted hall.
    He thought he heard footsteps, but the sound vanished almost as soon as it registered. He griped the latch with one palm and turned the lock. Jerking the door wide open, he checked one end of the hall, the Desert Eagle held against his right ear.
    Switching sides, dropping the gun to belt level, he checked the other end of the hall. It, too, was empty. Cautiously he stuck his head out to make sure, but the hall was absolutely quiet. He took a tentative step into the corridor.
    He heard a snick behind him and spun around just as the fire door at the end of the hall closed.
    Sprinting on the thick carpet, he raced to the fire door and pressed an ear against it. He heard footsteps on the stairs and ripped the door open. The steps continued on down, and Bolan plunged into the stairwell just as another door, several floors below, banged shut.
    Bolan took the stairs two at a time, knowing even as he raced down the second flight that he was too late. It wasn't possible to guess which door had slammed. Rather than waste time in a pointless search, he continued on down to the ground floor.
    Slipping the Desert Eagle under his jacket, he stepped into the lobby. It, too, was empty, except for a clerk behind the bell desk, absorbed in a newspaper.
    Outside, the traffic was still fairly heavy, considering the hour, and Bolan checked his watch as he headed for the door. Out in the muggy night, he spotted a cab at once and jumped in, giving the driver his destination even before closing the door. The cabby jerked the lever on his meter and swung away from the curb as Bolan slammed the door.
    Without warning, the driver made a U-turn, to the amusement of a traffic cop who was sitting sidesaddle on a Honda scooter. The cabby waved, and the cop waved back. "My brother-in-law," the cabby explained.
    Weaving expertly through the tangled traffic, the cabdriver threaded needle after needle. Gradually, as they moved away from the heart of downtown Manila, the only part of the city Western tourists cared to see after dark, the traffic thinned and its character changed. Instead of taxi cabs and fancy limousines, rolling collections of dents and rusted fenders began to predominate. Battered cars, vans and assorted commercial delivery trucks flowed steadily past, like the brown waters of a river slipping by the gunwales of a launch headed upstream.
    "Got