Without a word the pale-faced woman handed the weapon to Bolan.

"I don't like this part of the job," she whispered.

"I never thought that I would ever have to kill." "When the choice is between you and them, there's only one possible decision," he said in sympathy.

The word filtered back to the Tamil chieftain about his sister's death.

"How did she die?" His aide hesitated, then replied.

"Sirimavo died well. She swallowed a cyanide capsule." "Lalith, why did she take the capsule?" "Does it matter, Thamby?" "Yes, it does." "She had been tortured by camp guards." "Then how did she find the free moment for the capsule?" "According to what was reported to us from contacts in the prison camp, some American broke in and killed the torturers." The Tamil Tiger head knew who the man was a"Michael Belasko. He had instructed Madi Kirbal to give him the information about his sister.

The American had failed to save the Indian woman or his sister. The penalty for failure was death.

"Lalith, do we know how to find this American?" "No, but we know he has been friendly with a clerk at the American Emba.s.sy. We can bring her in," Lalith offered.

Thamby weighed the suggestion. "No, that might enrage the Americans even more. Have her followed." He thought of something else. "How did the Boosa butchers know which one of their prisoners was my sister?" "Someone must have told them," his aide commented.

"Perhaps someone who has a member of their family being held in the camp." Thamby nodded. "I want a complete list of every Tiger who has family interned in the Boosa camp." As Bolan waited for the young emba.s.sy woman to come out of her apartment building on the south end of the city, he felt the presence of danger.

Looking around in the intense late-afternoon sunlight, he saw no one watching him. Only a moving van, parked at the curb.

Sirindikha walked out of the front door, dressed in a short black c.o.c.ktail dress, and hurried down the steps, running until she reached Bolan's car.

Getting in, she looked at him. "You look very presentable in civilian clothes," she commented admiringly.

She had suggested Bolan buy some clothes at a department store suitable to attend a high-level birthday party. He had insisted that the fitter make one concession, despite the tailor's loud objection.

The jacket had to be loose-fitting. He didn't explain to the small Englishman that the garment had to accommodate a shoulder holster.

As he started the engine, he said, "Before we parted company last night, you mentioned a contact you had in Jaffna. were you able to reach him?" "He was out of the city on business. I'll try him again later." Pulling away from the curb, he asked her to guide him to Bandaran's estate.

"It's on the north end, about twenty miles outside of the city." She suggested they get on the highway edging Colombo. "There's hardly ever any traffic on it after the local rush hour." Glancing in the rearview mirror, Bolan saw the moving van pull away from the curb. As they drove slowly through the city traffic, he kept looking in the side-view mirror.

The van was still behind them. The Executioner wondered if it was a coincidence or was it following them.

The wariness returned. Bolan didn't believe in coincidences.

As they approached the highway, he decided to slow and see if it pa.s.sed him. It maintained its position behind him.

Glancing back, he saw the two expressionless men wearing fatigues in the front seats.

Trying not to alarm his companion, he eased the Beretta from under his jacket and tucked it between his thighs.

Traffic was almost nonexistent. Only one cara" a small Toyota sedana"was coming toward him on the opposite side of the road. There were no vehicles behind the truck.

Bolan pushed down hard on the gas pedal, and the compact emba.s.sy car raced forward.

Sirindikha was shoved back by the sudden acceleration, and she started to ask a question, then stopped when she saw the grim expression on his face.

Instead she turned her head and looked out the rear window.

He heard the roar of a powerful engine, and looking in the side-view mirror, Bolan saw that the large vehicle was moving quickly to catch up.

Now he knew. The young woman and he were the targets. Or, at least, one of them was.

He could slam on the brakes, Jump out and try to eliminate the two men following him. But there was always the chance that a stray slug would hit his companion.

The risk was too great. He'd have to outrun them.

He could hear the protesting squeal of tires behind him as the other driver tried to keep up with his erratic bursts of speed.

The woman turned quickly from the rear window and looked at Bolan.

"What's that they're holding out the window?" He glanced in his rearview mirror. A flash of reflected sunlight bounced off a metal object being held out of the front window of the van.

Bolan couldn't make out what kind of gun it was.

Probably a 9 mm Uzi or Skorpion.

He didn't waste time worrying about the brand. It didn't matter. Either could kill.

Over the rush of wind slamming against his car, he could hear the soft thud of slugs glancing off his vehicle.

Trying as hard as he could, the Executioner couldn't pull away from the van. He had decided to try another tactic. He jammed on the brakes.

The pursuit vehicle almost slammed into his back end, then swerved and moved up to parallel his window.

Steering one-handed, Bolan shoved the Beretta out his window. As he emptied the clip at the other vehicle, he saw the wide-faced man framed in the opened pa.s.senger window drop his submachine gun and grab for his cheek and scream at the sudden pain.

The soldier couldn't risk an accident by taking his eyes off the road.

Guessing at the direction, he rapidly pumped two more rounds at the sound of the screaming man.

He heard the plinking sound of bra.s.s cases bouncing against his door, and the high-pitched whine as one of the slugs ricocheted from the edge of the window, deep into the man's left eye.

As he risked glancing at the van briefly, Bolan saw the man slide down out of view.

The driver, an angry-looking man with a scar traversing his face, raised his subgun and started to fire wildly at the Nissan. The big American tried to return fire, but heard the ominous click of metal hitting metal.

There was no time to drop the empty clip and snap in a new one. All he could do was try to outrun the other car.

"Lean back!" Sirindikha shouted.

He felt a burning tail of lead sear the air in front of his face as he pushed his head back against the rest on his seat. Two 9 mm parabellum slugs flew through the open window and hit the narrow metal trim around the other vehicle's window.

Bolan glanced at the young emba.s.sy clerk and saw the compact 9 mm automatic she was steadying in her hands. Her eyes were hard, shiny b.a.l.l.s of light, focused on the car to his left.

All the Executioner could do to help was to keep the two vehicles parallel.

"Hang on," he yelled as he twisted the steering wheel from one side to the other, trying to close the gap between the two vehicles.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his companion fire three more rounds at their adversaries. The driver of the van slumped forward, as if he had just decided he needed to take a nap, and the driverless vehicle started to swerve out of control.

"Brace yourself," Bolan shouted as he slammed on the brakes and let the other vehicle pull ahead.

Like an enraged elephant, the van went berserk, twisting its way in a sinuous motion across the road, narrowly missing a donkey pulling a wagon coming in the opposite direction.

As the soldier and the woman watched, the metallic behemoth crashed at full speed into a wire barrier on the edge of the road, stopping momentarily.

Suddenly the gas tank ruptured and exploded into a brilliant ball of flame.

A body flew through the metal framework that had once held a front windshield and rolled across the road, stopping a few feet from the emba.s.sy car.

Bolan rammed a fresh clip into the Beretta, shoved open his door and got out, Sirindikha mirroring him on the other side of the vehicle.

Together they cautiously approached the still form on the ground.

The Executioner nudged the body with a toe.

Satisfied the gunman wasn't playing dead, he kneeled and turned him over. What remained of the face was covered with blood-soaked dirt. Much of the neck had been shot away.

He looked at the overturned van and saw the other body trapped inside the twisted metal, then turned and glanced at the emba.s.sy clerk. Her face revealed no emotions, but he sensed she was satisfied.

Bolan understood how she had to feel. He had felt the same way many times. Killing was an ugly but necessary part of his job. He didn't have to like doing it, but when it had to be done, better that it was him doing it to someone else than having someone else do it to him.

It was the philosophy of professionals who sometimes had to kill in the line of duty. It was his philosophy. And he now had no doubts that Chandra Sirindikha was a professional. They heard the roar of approaching engines. He tapped her arm and pointed to the battered Nissan. They got in and drove away before anyone arrived and started asking questions. Neither one of them spoke as Bolan pointed the vehicle in the direction of the suburb where the minister of internal security lived. There wasn't anything to say. At least, not until they found out which one of them had been the target. And why.

In a building on the edge of the city of Jaffna, near the string of islets that led to the state of Tamil Nadu, a middle-aged man was being questioned. "No, please. Not again!" Samil Tambimuttu watched in terror as the short, wide, bare-chested man moved toward him again. He still gripped the two copper rods in his rubber-gloved hands. The thin man struggled with the chains that held him to the slimy brick wall. He could feel the torture of the metal chafing against his open wounds his wrists had become.

Turning his head, he could see the two thick wires that attached the copper sticks to a truck battery sitting on the ground. He screamed out the question for a hundredth time. "What did I do?" There was no response to the plea. He tried to see who was standing in the shadows across the room, but it was too dark.

His eyes opened wider as the copper weapons moved closer.

"No!" he screeched as surges of electricity tore through his genitals.

The searing fire made his body jerk as it burned its way through his nervous system. He started to weep.

He could hear voices whisper from the shadows. He shouted out desperately, "Who are you? Why are you doing this to me?" They had brought him to the stone building just outside of Jaffna in the afternoon and spent the next several hours asking him about his brother, who was a prisoner in the Boosa Camp.

"I have never heard from him since the government arrested him. I swear!" It was obvious they didn't believe him. When night came, they led him down a narrow flight of stairs into a windowless bas.e.m.e.nt. He could smell the stale stench of a room that had never been exposed to fresh air.

Despite the closeness of the room, he could feel the dampness from outside creeping through the concrete blocks that formed the outer walls.

He looked down at himself. The precious suit he had saved up for two years to buy was torn and covered with blood. His blood!

Where was he? He had never seen a place like this.

It was like a dungeon in h.e.l.l.

Who would do such a thing to a simple man like himself?

Perhaps the Tiger leadership blamed him for leaking information about them. But he hadn't. He had nothing to share.

It had to be the Tigers. But what did they want?

He began to shiver with the fear of suddenly knowing where he was. This was an interrogation room of the Tigers.

He had heard what happened to others brought to such places.

He stared at the man with the copper rods. He had to know if this had something to do with his hotheaded brother.

He had begged him not to become a guerrilla. His brother had to have told someone what he had said.

"Are you the Tigers?" "Yes." The word came from a figure hidden in the shadows of the room.

"I am innocent. There must be some mistake. I am a loyal Tamil. I voted for the Tamil candidates in the last election," he cried.

"The Tigers never make mistakes," the voice replied.

The bare-chested man wiped the sweat from his forehead.

His hairy chest was drenched with perspiration. He turned away and peered into the darkness, then turned back, as if he had been given additional instructions, and rammed the rods against the sides of his victim's neck.

It seemed as if a thousand snakes had bitten him. His body leaped into the air, trying to escape the waves of unimaginable agony.

He screeched, and the rods pulled away. He let his head slump. Maybe he wouldn't have to wake again.

The sweating man studied his face. "He is unconscious, Commander," he called out.

A figure emerged from the shadows. It was a small man, in his fifties, dressed in tailored fatigues. Jayewar Vamil stared at the chained form, then turned to the man holding the electrical rods.

Vamil was one of Thamby's key aides. He helped the Tamil leader run the guerrilla camps around the city of Jaffna. "Tell me when you think he's ready to be questioned," he told the interrogator.

"He'll be unconscious for at least five minutes." "That long?" A second figure emerged from the shadows. He was a tall, thin man with hardened features. Like the smaller man, he was wearing fatigues, only his looked as though he'd slept in them.

"At least that long," the interrogator replied with certainty. He had been an interrogator for the Tigers for more than fifteen years. Visitors didn't often come to view his work. Not one as prominent as the heavyset man.

He had recognized him immediately. He was one of the three supreme commanders of the Tigers, Rajiv Thamby.

"We'll wait," Thamby said, sighing.

"I don't think he knows anything," Vamil commented.

The stout man leaned over and spoke softly.

"We must be absolutely certain that he did not pa.s.s on information to the STP in exchange for certain privileges his brother has received from them." "Get him ready for questioning," Vamil ordered.

Nodding, the other man picked up the copper sticks and touched them to each other. Sparks exploded as they made contact.