Fire Eaters Read online

  Denise stood next to Bolan, peering out with him. "Anybody out there?"

  "I don't see anyone. I kind of doubt it, though. They figured Leonard would be admitted and do his work without any problem."

  "They must have seen me at the school tonight."

  Bolan nodded. "In those pants you'd be hard to miss."

  She looked down at her tight black jeans. "From anyone else, that might be a compliment. From you, I don't know."

  Bolan didn't offer any explanation. He walked back to the middle of the room. Leonard Harwood was beginning to stir. Bolan bent over him and thumbed back one of the boy's eyelids. "Pupils are dilated."

  "PCP?"

  "That would explain the strength, the lack of pain, the erratic behavior. And it ties into what we know about Dysert and Fowley. But it doesn't explain why Leonard would try to kill you. PCP is unpredictable."

  "Up to now."

  Bolan gave her a hard look. "Yeah, up to now."

  Suddenly Harwood moaned. His eyes fluttered open. He stared at Bolan and Denise, uncomprehending. "Mr. Cummings, sir. What are you and Ms Portland doing in my room?"

  "Look again, soldier," Bolan said.

  Leonard turned his head, winced at the effort. His eyes seemed to focus with great difficulty. "Not… my… room."

  "It's my apartment, Lenny," Denise said softly.

  He looked at the broken door, the holes in the wall and floor. "Kinda messy," he said.

  Denise smiled. "I'm a slob."

  "How's the head?" Bolan asked.

  He tried to sit up and immediately flopped back down, his eyes rolling dizzily. "Hurts."

  "Well, you lie here for a while until it passes. Ms Portland and I will make you some hot coffee."

  Denise started for the kitchen. "Don't move until your head clears, okay?"

  "What happened? How did I get here?"

  "Coffee first," Bolan said.

  Harwood nodded and smiled weakly. Then his face looked grave, concerned. He looked over at Denise putting water on the stove in the kitchen and crooked a finger for Bolan to lean closer. "I didn't embarrass myself with Ms Portland, did I? I mean, I didn't try anything, uh, you know, sexual?"

  "No, nothing like that, Lenny."

  Leonard sighed with relief. "Thank God."

  Bolan joined Denise in the kitchen. They kept their voices low as they stared at the pot of water, waiting for it to boil.

  "He doesn't remember anything?" Denise whispered.

  Bolan shook his head.

  "You believe him?"

  "Yeah. He's been through too much to lie so convincingly."

  "Could be the drug."

  "Could be. I don't think so."

  Denise measured a spoonful of coffee and dumped it in the cup. She poured water and stirred. "Maybe he's been hypnotized."

  "I think it's something even deeper. A combination of the drug and conditioning and some posthypnotic suggestions. It's all been tried before. Every government has experimented with it in an effort to create a person who follows commands without question, has no fear, no conscience, feels no pain. The perfect soldier."

  "The perfect spy."

  They exchanged glances. At that moment, Bolan felt a connection with her that went beyond this case. It was as if he had suddenly been transported into her mind, her soul, and looking around saw that it was very much like his own.

  She had a hard, cynical exterior, but he could sense now the pain she felt inside for all the world's wrongs and injustices. Bolan could almost feel her hurt himself. But he could also feel her strength, her resolution to fight. It was like a mighty river of pure electrical energy pumping through her heart, charging up her blood.

  Denise Portland had a sense of good and evil, and though she knew those boundaries were sometimes blurred, she wasn't afraid to be a warrior for what she thought was right. And looking into her eyes right now, he knew she was thinking the same about him.

  The only sound was the clinking of her spoon stirring the coffee.

  "Let's check on our guest," Bolan said.

  Her lips parted slightly as if she wanted to say something. But she didn't. She shrugged, picked up the coffee cup.

  They turned toward the youth.

  He was standing now, his legs a little wobbly. He looked calm. He was smiling.

  Bolan didn't like it. The boy was too calm, his eyes seemed focused on some distant horizon.

  "Here's some hot coffee, Lenny. Sorry it had to be instant, but…"

  Suddenly Lenny was running. Hard as he could. Arms churning. Legs pumping. Head leaning forward.

  Straight for the window.

  Bolan leaped toward him. Denise threw the coffee cup aside and joined him.

  But it was a small apartment. Not enough room to catch him.

  Leonard Harwood ran full force through the living room window, his legs still pedaling in the air as he dropped the three stories to the sidewalk below.

  He glanced off the trunk of a huge palm tree, which sent him somersaulting toward the ground. He fell face first against the curb, just inches from Bolan's Harley-Davidson.

  Even from the third story window they could see the cracked skull, the spreading of dark blood.

  Denise's hand clutched Bolan's arm, her fingers digging deep into his muscles. It was her equivalent to a scream, all the emotion her training allowed her to express. A contraction of fingers.

  Bolan patted her hand, nodded at the phone.

  She looked at him, understood, took a deep breath and walked wearily to the phone. "Removals," she said, and gave them the address.

  "We'd better move him until they arrive. We don't want any more questions."

  There was a pounding on the door. "Hey, lady!" the man from down the hall barked. "What's with the fucking glass breaking?"

  "Just a slight argument," Denise said.

  "I don't care if the two of you kill each other. Just do it quietly. I got a bus to drive in a couple of hours."

  "Sorry," Denise said.

  They heard the man grumble and slam his door again.

  Bolan and Denise hurried downstairs, lifted Harwood's broken body and carried it into the bushes. It was late enough that no one was out walking and there was almost no traffic. One young couple pulled up and staggered drunkenly inside, giggling and stumbling the whole way.

  The Removals ambulance pulled up within ten minutes of the phone call. Quietly, without any questions, the attendants loaded Leonard Harwood's body on a stretcher, packed him away and drove off.

  Denise watched them drive away. "What do we tell Senator Harwood?"

  "Nothing yet. We don't have any answers, just educated guesses."

  She spun, looked him sharply in the eyes. "Since when have you needed more? You're the renegade here, Bolan. Charging in, busting down doors, shooting every goddamn thing that moves. That's your style, right?"

  "Sometimes."

  "Yeah, sometimes. Well, even sometimes is too often for us. We've got restraints, rules, laws to obey."

  "Like breaking into the school tonight?"

  She frowned. "Okay, sometimes we step over the line a little, but always with one foot firmly planted in the legal side, too. But you, Mr. Executioner, you've been wrong so long it's starting to look right."

  Bolan started for his motorcycle. It was an old argument, one he'd heard from many others. One he sometimes used on himself. But standing around in the middle of the street in his nightsuit, wearing his guns, wasn't going to help Gregg Danby. He pulled a light jacket out of the saddlebags, slipped it on over his guns. He straddled the bike, rocked it off its kickstand and kick-started it. "Let's go," he said to her.

  "Where?"

  "My place. Dysert and Fowley know about you. You're not safe here."

  "Maybe so, but that doesn't mean I'm going with you. I can call Control and be back in Washington by morning. I tell them what I know and this school will be shut down tomorrow."

  Bolan shook his head. "No way. Your bosses won't sh
ut it down until they know exactly what Dysert and Fowley have been up to. Obviously their little drug has some mind-controlling effects. What practical use is that for two headmasters? Think about it."

  Denise walked thoughtfully toward Bolan. "Right. They can use the kids to spy on their own parents. Considering who the parents are, just snatches of overheard conversations, quickly glimpsed papers in a briefcase, little things like that could add up to significant intelligence gathering."

  "That's probably what Gregg Danby was doing in the colonel's study. Looking over papers. When his father caught him, Gregg killed him. He didn't have any choice, he was programmed to do it."

  Bolan looked at the bloodstain on the curb. "And now they've perfected their programming so there are no loose ends. If the kid fails, he kills himself."

  Denise's face was grim with anger. "You're right about my bosses. They can't afford to shut this place down without a lot more answers, especially now that a senator's son has been killed. It will make them look too foolish. They'll set up surveillance, pretend they were on to these guys all along."

  "These kids don't have that long. Who knows how Dysert and Fowley will use them next?"

  A window above slammed open and a beefy head with mussed hair leaned out. It was the bus driver from down the hall. "Hey, buddy, either park it or drive away. I'm tired of listening to that damn engine." He noticed Denise now and shook his head. "I liked it better when you two was beating up on each other. It was quieter." He withdrew his head and closed the window.

  Denise Portland climbed on the motorcycle. Her arms locked around Bolan's chest as she pressed up close behind him. He could feel her body heat through his jacket.

  "You have a plan?" she asked.

  "Yeah."

  "Does it involve busting down doors and shooting everything that moves?"

  "Yeah."

  She nodded. "Then let's get going."

  16

  Bolan drove faster than he should. His wrist cranked the throttle another notch and the powerful bike thrust them both through the street with an exhilarating lurch.

  It was dumb, yeah, what with the chance some cop might pull him over and end everything right there. But it was two in the morning and the streets were empty. A foggy haze steamed up from the pavement. The bike made little twirling dervishes of fog as it raced through the streets.

  Denise's grip around his middle felt comfortable. Her thighs brushed his hips and that combined with the speed and crisp lashing of the wind against his face warmed his insides. He felt in control again. Not like when he had seen young Leonard Harwood plunging through Denise's window, cracking his head on the curb below. That was the whole problem with this operation so far. Out of control.

  He felt as if he were wandering through some shooting gallery with pop-up targets always jumping up and surprising him. That shooter from Noah South. Denise with the CIA. Leonard and his MAC-10. He was walking a tightrope while someone below pelted him with bricks.

  That would have to stop. Right now.

  He pulled onto his street, a nice residential neighborhood where most of the residents were retired couples or widowed singles. It was a neighborhood where the houses all needed a little touching up here and there. Things the residents were too old or careful to attempt. Yet the gardens were magnificent. Patches of blooming flowers tended daily circled most of the houses like brightly colored moats.

  Bolan had rented a converted garage that was originally occupied by the owners' son when he was a teenager, and then by the teenage grandson desperate to get away from his parents during the sixties. It had been empty for years. When her husband died, eighty-four-year-old Connie Jortner had some difficulty collecting Sam's social security, so she took to renting out the garage.

  Bolan was her first tenant. She hadn't advertised in the newspaper, but had posted some notices, handwritten on the backs of recipe cards, in the local churches. Bolan was familiar with this method of advertising and checked out several churches and synagogues before finding Connie Jortner's garage, immaculately clean. Someone hunting him would not even know such a place was available.

  Bolan cut the engine and coasted the rest of the way down the street, conscious of not disturbing anyone's sleep. Somewhere a small dog gave a half-hearted yelp, then shut up. Curtains parted slightly as cats peered out windows with bland expressions.

  On the doorstep of the garage was a plate with a roast beef sandwich and a couple of homemade cookies. The plate was wrapped in cellophane. A note from Connie said: "Eat hearty!"

  "Lives in a garage and has a cook," Denise said. "How nice."

  "You can have the cookies," Bolan said, handing them to her.

  She bit into one, started chewing, made a sour face. She stared at the cookie. "This is terrible."

  Bolan chuckled. "Yeah, she's the worst cook. Sometimes she gets the salt and sugar mixed up."

  She leaned her head out of the door and spit the half-chewed bite out.

  "But she's a great gal," Bolan said. "Treats me like I'm twelve. I kinda like it."

  "The mean ol' Executioner tamed by a grandmother." Denise looked around the Spartan but tidy garage. "Nice. There's even a window." She flopped down on the narrow bed with a long sigh. "Okay, what's your plan?"

  Bolan sat on an overstuffed chair. "It's going to be hard to bust in the school again. They'll have doubled and tripled the guard."

  "Agreed."

  "So we have to do something else."

  "I'm all ears."

  Bolan looked at Denise, her face flushed from the drive, her jaw tensed against emotion. But he could see in her moist eyes the sadness over young Leonard Harwood. She was a lot like Bolan: her sadness turned to anger, her thoughts to revenge. "We'll need to approach this as a…"

  The phone rang.

  Bolan gave it a sharp look. Only two people had a phone number for him, Hal Brognola and Maria Danby. And Maria didn't even have this number. She had a number that would be forwarded through two other pay phones before it reached Bolan. A little trick arranged by Brognola.

  Denise sat up, her body tense.

  Bolan snatched up the receiver. "Yeah?"

  "Mack?" It was Maria.

  "Yeah, hi. What's up?"

  There was a pause, a muffled sound, then another voice on the phone. A man's. "Mack Bolan?"

  Bolan didn't answer.

  "Don't be rude," the voice said. "It's not as if we haven't met. At the motel. You were taking a dip in the pool at the time. It was a hot day."

  Bolan's hand clutched the receiver tightly.

  "Sure, now you remember. Those twin girls. Original recipe and extra-crispy."

  "I remember."

  "Well, now that I've figured out what you're still doing around here, I've dropped in on your dead buddy's wife. She's a little old for me, of course, but I think we can find some ways to amuse ourselves until you and I can meet."

  "When and where?" Bolan said immediately.

  "Slow down. We don't want to rush this, do we?" He chuckled. "The thing is, you'll have to come up here to L. A. Yes, that's where your lady friend and I are now. See, when I finally do you, I'm taking your head over to Noah South and dumping it on his high-tech desk and picking up the rest of my bounty. If I killed you down there in San Diego, I'd have to drag your head with me all the way up here. Too risky. This way you're bringing it up for me. Like delivering pizza."

  "When and where?" Bolan repeated.

  The voice went cold and harsh. "When you arrive in L. A., call this number." He gave him a phone number. "And don't bother trying to trace it. You won't have any more luck than I did trying to trace your number. I've programmed in some call forwarding commands, just like you. Besides, my computer will tell me if a trace is being run."

  "What happens next? After I call you?"

  The voice laughed. "High Noon. You and I mano a mano. Isn't that what you want?"

  "Yeah," Bolan said. "That's what I want."

  17

  "Is this
wise?" the limo driver asked.

  "Wise?" Vladimir Godunov sighed from the back seat. "I no longer hope for wise, Mikhail. Merely competent."

  "But the American agents will know you have come here. There will be questions."

  "There will be questions anyway. Too much has happened. The Danby boy killing his father. And now this. These bunglers have let things get too far." Godunov shifted uncomfortably in the seat. Under his suit pants he still wore his pajama bottoms. The call had come in less than twenty minutes ago from a well-paid source in the CIA, a weasely man with a bad back who had joined the agency with visions of secret missions and exotic assignments. Instead he had been placed in communications in front of a telephone console. Now he manufactured his own intrigue. Boredom was espionage's greatest weapon, even more powerful than money.

  Godunov tugged on his pants again. He'd been awakened from a deep sleep following too many glasses of California wine at the party honoring the opening of the Soviet art show at the museum. Godunov's title of cultural attaché fooled no one, but everyone here pretended it did.

  Americans hated social awkwardness, he knew. They were like children showing off their manners to their stern parents, proving to the rest of the world they were not the crude hillbilly rubes they are thought to be. Yet there had been a few times when some tipsy American businessman had leaned conspiratorially close to Godunov at a party and winked, saying, "How's the spy game?"

  Godunov had always acted surprised, but inside he was amused by the audacity. Yes, everyone knew Vladimir Godunov was an officer with the GRU, the Kremlin's military intelligence arm of the KGB. And that his post in Southern California had been created to allow him access to the high technology that was abundant in this area. Many of the world's most important technological secrets were right here, between Disneyland and Sea World.

  Aircraft development, computer breakthroughs, all of that was happening right here. And Godunov's job was to find out what these developments were and send the information home. For one whole year he had concentrated on finding out how the tiles on the space shuttle, which protected it from the enormous reentry heat, were attached to the metal.