Fire Eaters Page 2

  But Bolan knew there was a way. When it came to stealing from and murdering innocent people, these bums always found a way. Bolan could do no less when it came to delivering justice. Brognola had made the arrangements with Dr. Zimmer. And Bolan was certain that the doctor did not hesitate in agreeing to Hal Brognola's request. Knowing Danzig's reputation, Zimmer could not have been too pleased to have a man like him for a patient. Now, the rest was up to the Executioner.

  "Yes, indeed," Bolan said. "It's nice to know we can finally reverse the cruel joke nature has played on many men. Whatever hair pattern the men in your mother's family had, that's what the son would have. But now, well, thank God for Dr. Zimmer, eh?"

  "Just get on with it," Danzig said.

  "Right." Bolan nodded and picked up a scalpel from the medical tray.

  "Hey, what are you doing?" Danzig protested. "Zimmer never used no scalpel like that before. Besides, you're supposed to use a local anesthetic."

  Bolan smiled indulgently. "Now, now, Mr. Danzig. Just who's the doctor around here? Of course I'll use an anesthetic. But first I'm going to cut a strand of the transplanted hair and check it out under the microscope to examine its thickness and texture."

  Danzig hesitated.

  Out of the corner of his eye Bolan could see Donny setting his mug down, his hand drifting inside his jacket toward his gun.

  "Okay," Danzig finally said. "But quit screwing around."

  "Yes, sir," Bolan said, adjusting Danzig's chair by pumping one of the pedals near the base. It worked pretty much like a dentist's chair. Danzig flopped back, the blight light overhead shining off his bare scalp. "Ah, yes. Here are those new fellows. Very healthy looking. Now, let's test their strength." He saw Donny relax into his chair, pick up his mug of coffee. Bolan tucked the scalpel into the breast pocket of his lab jacket and reached over with both hands to gently grab two fistfuls of Danzig's hair. Delicately he squeezed. "Yes, very resilient. Does this hurt?"

  "No," Danzig said.

  "This?" Bolan closed his fist tighter around the hair.

  "No. A little."

  "What about this?" Bolan asked, clamping his fists so tight that Danzig yelped and lifted a little out of the chair. Bolan didn't stop.

  With a mighty jerk, he yanked up on his hands, ripping two large clumps of hair from Danzig's head. Danzig howled as the blood seeped up through his newly bald scalp.

  "You bastard!" Danzig screamed. "You're dead!"

  Donny tossed his mug aside and was reaching for his gun when Bolan shook the sticky clumps of hair loose, plucked the scalpel from his breast pocket and snapped it sidearm across the room. The razor-sharp blade punctured the back of Donny's huge hand, pinning it to his chest.

  Bolan reached under his lab jacket and drew the Beretta from its armpit speed-draw rig, pumping two rounds into Donny's round doughy face. The soggy toothpick disappeared along with his head.

  The door burst open and the other two goons, Ted and Granger, were charging in, guns drawn and looking for a target. Bolan ducked behind Danzig's chair, throwing an arm around Danzig's neck to keep him pinned there as a shield.

  "Kill him!" Danzig screamed hoarsely.

  But the bodyguards hesitated and Bolan's Beretta began carving their vital organs into soupy stew. A bullet drilled through Ted's stomach, spinning him around and slamming him face first into the wall. Another bullet in the lower spine brought him down with a thud. The other hardman, Granger, tried to dive behind Donny's mountainous body for cover, but Bolan pumped two smooth 9 mms into his lungs. He died in a crumpled wheezing heap.

  Bolan stood up.

  Danzig raged, tears of anger polishing his eyes to a knife-blade gleam. Blood dripped over his forehead from the weeded bald spot. "You're dead, asshole. I've got friends. They'll find you."

  "They're already looking," Bolan said, spinning the chair around so Danzig was facing him. The loan shark leaned forward, clawing for an ankle holster when Bolan pressed the Beretta against the top of Danzig's skull and fired. Danzig's head seemed to disintegrate all over the chair.

  Bolan heard the frightened chatter of patients and staff outside. Someone shouted for the police. Bolan stripped out of the blood-spattered lab jacket and ducked out the back way.

  As his feet slapped across the black macadam he remembered what Hal Brognola had said to him earlier about enjoying this stuff too much. He'd just killed four men and he felt nothing. But that wasn't entirely true, either. He did have one nagging feeling. He did sort of miss that old bulldog.

  2

  Bolan hung back among the cool smooth headstones and neatly trimmed grass of the cemetery. His foot rested on a copper sprinkler head.

  The rabbi stood at the head of the crowd of mourners, the open grave on one side, the simple wooden coffin on the other. Bolan felt a tightening at his throat and swallowed hard. It didn't help.

  He looked away. The headstone next to him came up to his chin. It said: To Our Beloved Daughter Ruth, 1965–1976. At the bottom were two short Hebrew words. Bolan didn't know what they meant, but he hoped they'd given the grieving parents some comfort.

  The rabbi was speaking in Hebrew now and many in the crowd were repeating his words. The sun was high and bright and as the mourners moved their heads, Bolan could see the sun glisten off the hundreds of tear-filled eyes.

  It had all happened so fast. Bolan had finished up with Danzig in La Jolla, followed his escape procedure back to Los Angeles and phoned in a report to Brognola from the airport while waiting for his plane to Boston. The big fed had acted strange right away.

  "Okay, Mack. Good job."

  "No lectures?"

  "No."

  "What's going on, Hal?"

  "Nothing. You'd better get out of Southern California fast. Danzig's people will be out in full force looking for you. They're probably on their way to the airports already."

  "I know. I'm just going to give Mrs. Danby a call and then I'm on my way."

  "Don't wait. Leave now."

  "My plane doesn't board for another twenty minutes."

  "Tell me the airline and the flight number and I'll make a call. You'll be on board in five minutes."

  "Hey, she's only in San Diego, only about a hundred miles down the road. Better to call her from here than the east coast."

  Brognola paused. When he spoke, his voice was low and throaty, as if filtering through a twenty-gallon aquarium. "He's dead, Mack."

  Bolan's expression didn't change. Someone watching him might think he was on hold, waiting for his party to return to the phone with some meaningless information. He was no stranger to the sudden, unexpected deaths of those close to him. That was the price he paid for the kind of life he chose.

  But this was different.

  Colonel Danby wasn't in this kind of business. He'd survived the years in Nam with nothing more than a permanent limp and a fondness for bad puns. He'd returned to his beautiful wife, Maria, their three-year-old son, Gregg, and had been living in San Diego for the past twelve years. The last Bolan had heard, Danby had hooked up with the CIA, but not as an agent.

  Now Daredevil Danby was dead.

  "How?" Bolan asked grimly.

  "I don't have all the details yet. Just that he was murdered."

  "You don't know who or why?"

  "Not yet. CIA's playing it pretty close to the vest right now. Something's wrong about the whole thing."

  "What was he doing?"

  "Codes. Making and breaking. Strictly an office job."

  "That's not dangerous."

  "Not supposed to be."

  Bolan didn't speak. He watched a young woman peel away from a throng of unloading passengers, run up to a tall young man. They hugged and kissed and laughed. Bolan tried to remember the last time he'd done all three of those things at once.

  Brognola's voice nudged him. "You think this has anything to do with why his wife has been trying to contact you?"

  "Don't you?"

  "Yeah, I guess so. I was just hoping
for coincidence."

  "Not in our business, guy." Bolan sighed. "Maria got in touch with you after the colonel's death, so maybe all she needs right now is a sturdy shoulder and someone to exchange memories with."

  "Anytime but now, Mack. You're not exactly low profile at the moment."

  Bolan wasn't listening.

  "What now?" Brognola asked, but the tone was resigned, as if he already knew the answer.

  "He was a friend, Hal. To me and a lot of other grunts in Nam."

  "You're hot right now, buddy. Danzig was connected. They're going to be looking for you. So will the cops. And if you start messing in Danby's case, his CIA buddies will be all over you. And let's not forget whoever killed Danby is still out there. Let's see, that makes it the Mafia, the CIA, the cops and a killer. That doesn't give you much breathing space."

  "I learned to hold my breath a long time ago."

  "Yeah," Brognola said. "Just as long as it's not a permanent condition."

  Bolan had waited a day, just to make sure it was safe to travel, then hopped a train to San Diego. He'd rented a Mercury, the only car they had left. After a call to the Danby household, an aged aunt whose severe arthritis prevented her from attending the funeral gave Bolan the location of the cemetery.

  They were lowering the casket into the dark hole. Somewhere behind Bolan a set of sprinklers suddenly hissed to life, spraying a mist of water over the graves. He could no longer hear the words of the rabbi. Once the casket was settled, a small ceremonial shovel was handed to Maria Danby. She scooped a small amount of dirt and emptied it into the grave gently, as if not to further hurt her husband. She was tall, slender, her face pale, her hair tied back with a simple black scarf.

  Next to her, her son stood at attention. Bolan calculated his age at about fifteen, but he wore a gray military uniform. Maria handed Gregg the shovel. He hesitated, his face quivering as he fought back emotion. He took the shovel, scooped up the dirt, emptied it into the grave. Sullenly, he took his place next to his mother.

  Directly behind Maria and Gregg stood two uniformed police officers, one man, one woman. Bolan wondered what they were doing there. Looking for the killer or guarding the colonel's family from the assassin? Or maybe just friends of Leland. He didn't make them easily, but when he did, they were his for life.

  Bolan tried to remember how many funerals he had been to. He decided not many, for a man whose constant companion was death.

  He reached out and touched the gravestone next to him, his fingers tracing the angled grooves of the strange Hebrew letters. The coolness of the granite and the mysteriousness of the words made him feel better. Maybe those two Hebrew words were an answer. For somebody. But not for Bolan. For him the only answer would be to find out who killed his friend. And pay him back.

  The rabbi finished. The mourners passed by Maria and Gregg, offering condolences. Bolan waited for the crowd to thin, hoping the cops would leave, too. But they didn't.

  He had hoped to approach Maria, set up a time and place to meet her, see what she could tell him about the colonel's murder. But not with the cops there. He'd have to call later. Bolan ambled across the thick green lawn, melting in with the other mourners as they climbed into their limos or cars.

  He started down the winding path toward his own rented car. When he got there, he glanced back at the grave site. What he saw made him stop and stare.

  The two cops slapped a pair of handcuffs on fifteen-year-old Gregg Danby's wrists and led him away to the patrol car.

  Maria Danby stood alone next to the grave and watched helplessly as her son was taken away.

  3

  "Any questions?" the young professor asked, turning away from the blackboard and facing his class.

  "Yeah," one student shouted out, "are you going to grade on a curve?"

  The professor smiled. "The curve hasn't been invented yet that dips down far enough to include you, Steve." The class laughed. "Any other questions?"

  Dave Grady raised his hand. "Is this paper to include a discussion of all three of Kierkegaard's levels of choice, or should we just concentrate on one?"

  The professor smiled. He could always count on Dave for an intelligent question. "One. Take your pick."

  Dave nodded thoughtfully. "Okay."

  "All right," the professor said to the whole class. "The paper's due in two weeks, no excuses."

  With that the class rose in one gangly movement, books tucked under various arms, voices raised in conversation, legs churning toward the door.

  "Hey, Dave," Libby Jenson called, squeezing past two hefty football guards.

  Dave looked up and smiled. "Hi, Lib."

  "A couple of us are going to the movies tonight. Wanna come along?"

  "What are you going to see?"

  "I don't know. Whatever's playing at the Lido."

  "Can't tonight," Dave said, glancing at his watch. "Got an appointment. How's tomorrow sound?"

  She hesitated. "I don't know about the others…"

  "I'm not asking the others. Just you."

  Her smile widened. "Sure. Great. Tomorrow." She stood there watching him meticulously gather his books, stacking them neatly as if they were fragile cut glass. Finally she shrugged and said, "Well, tomorrow then."

  "I'll call," he said.

  She nodded and hurried toward the exit.

  Dave unzipped his briefcase and carefully inserted his books, one at a time. For the fifth time that day he reached in and patted the concealed pocket. He could feel its hard sharp outline through the lining. He relaxed. The gun was still there.

  * * *

  Noah South looked at the digital clock entombed in a plastic cube on his desk. "Where is he?" He directed the question at Jimmy Drake, his bodyguard and the only other man in the room.

  "You know him. Never early, never late. Always on the dot."

  Noah South rubbed the top of his completely bald head. He was amused by the petulance in Drake's voice. "You don't like him?"

  "I think he's a nancy."

  "So? Bigalow was a nancy. He was one of our best till the FBI cornered him. Went down shooting, though."

  "Yeah, he was different. He was still one of us, even being gay and all. He came from the neighborhood, drank with us. Bowled a hell of a game. You know?"

  "We're not looking for goddamn bowlers. We're looking for assassins."

  "Sure, boss. I just figured what's the harm if they're both."

  The phone on Noah South's ultramodern desk buzzed. He picked up the receiver. "Yes, Trish? Send him in."

  Both men turned to face the door across the room. The muscles in Drake's neck bunched with tension.

  The door opened and Dave Grady walked in, his nineteen-year-old face all business. "So, gentlemen," he said. "Who do you want killed today?"

  Noah South gestured to the chair in front of his desk. "Sit down, kid."

  Dave Grady brushed a lock of sandy hair from his forehead as he sat. He wore a maroon wool tie and cardigan sweater that might have made him look a little older if it hadn't been for the button missing from one collar, the small dark stain on his tie.

  If Dave Grady even noticed these things, he didn't seem to care. He sat in front of one of the most powerful Mob figures in California and said, "Can we get on with it? I've got a lot of studying to do today."

  Drake started to make a move for Dave, but Noah South waved him away. "Let the boy alone, Drake. He speaks his mind. He doesn't waste time. I like that." Noah South picked up the brass letter opener and tapped it against the desk top.

  He opened a drawer, pulled out a plain white envelope with no writing on it. "That's twenty-five thousand dollars down, and you get the same again when you finish."

  "If you finish," Drake snorted.

  "What's his name?" Dave asked.

  Noah South shrugged. "We don't know for sure. We think it's Mack Bolan."

  "The Executioner?" Dave Grady smiled and threw the envelope back on the desk.

  "You refusing?" Noah
South asked. "I'm surprised. I've never known you to be afraid of anybody in the two years we've been doing business."

  "I'm not afraid now. But neither am I stupid. The Executioner will cost you ten times my usual."

  Drake sputtered. "Half a million! You're fucking nuts, punk."

  Dave ignored Drake. He faced Noah South with a cool, level stare. "I know the kind of damage this man has done to you over the years. He's cost you millions. Not to mention the loss of personnel. I'd say you're getting off cheap."

  Noah South studied the youth's smooth face, the boyish good looks. If the kid shaved more than twice a week, Noah South would have been surprised. "That's a lot of money to invest in a kid."

  Dave shrugged. "A kid who has successfully disposed of four of your enemies this year. Including one who lived on a Caribbean island and was surrounded by a small army."

  Noah South tapped his brass letter opener. "How much?"

  "I get $250,000 up front. If I fail, that means he's probably killed me, so you won't have to pay the rest. That seems a pretty small investment considering the possible dividends. Or you can wait for Bolan to come after you next, knowing the only thing between you and eternity is that lump of fatty tissues drenched in cologne." Dave pointed at Drake.

  Drake let out a guttural roar as he lunged his 248 pounds at Dave Grady's slender 145-pound frame. It was no match.

  Dave was out of his chair with one graceful step, allowing Drake to crash into the chair, and shatter it beneath his weight. Dave waited patiently for Drake to climb to his feet before moving again.

  "Goddamn punk," Drake growled and threw a wild haymaker.

  Dave dodged it with remarkable ease, but never lifted his own hands to return a punch. Nor did he reach for the gun in his briefcase. He merely smiled and moved, as if toying with Drake.

  Noah South leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers and watched. His right foot rested on a button that, when pushed, would bring five guys with Uzis charging into the room with orders to kill everything but Noah South. For now, though, he'd wait and watch.