"High school, huh? In Chicago?"
"Akron."
"Oh, right." Now she studied him, her eyes chipping away at him like two steel-blue chisels. "You're taking a lot of chances for an old high school chum. You her first love or something?"
Bolan watched her waiting for some reaction. He didn't give her any. "We played football together. She was our school quarterback."
She chuckled. "Yeah, all right. I'll stop if you will. It doesn't matter who we are. Everybody seems to have some kind of mercenary or ex-cop or tough guy in their closet. Maybe you're just a private detective protecting his license. I don't care. We both have something on each other, and since we both want the same thing, we're stuck with each other. But tonight only. This is a one-shot partnership. After you've perused these files, you're on your own."
"Suits me. So what have you got?"
She leaned forward across the counter and started reading some of the files. "Not a lot. The guys down at Danby's office say he was a prince. His kid, Gregg, was a little messed-up, but nothing serious. In fact, since he's hit Ridgemont, he's been pretty straight. Until he shot his father."
"What do you know about our bosses? Dysert and Fowley."
She smiled. "Now there's a pair. Their rank of colonel is of course honorary, conferred by the school, not the result of any military duty. Fowley did serve in the Coast Guard for a year, but was discharged for medical reasons. Busted eardrum or bad back, something like that."
Bolan grinned. "I thought we were going to stop playing games."
She laughed. "Reflex. I hate giving anything away, especially information. Okay, he got out with a severed toe from a shipboard accident. Other than that, they're both clean technically. I mean, no criminal records. Both taught at various schools before winding up at the same one. People remember Fowley as a mediocre biology teacher with no friends among faculty or students. Until Dysert. Now that's one for the books. Dysert is a looker who qualifies in anybody's hunk-of-the-month club and he hangs around with a wart like Fowley.".
Bolan stood up, opened the freezer, pulled out an ice tray, grabbed a dish towel from the counter and wrapped it around the ice tray. He handed it to Denise. "Got a bruise on your cheek."
"Thanks," she said, taking the wrapped ice tray. When she pressed it up against her swollen cheek, she winced.
Bolan spread the files out in front of them. "You're holding out."
"They're all here," she protested.
"I mean information. What else do you know?"
She looked him in the eyes, a grin on her lips. "You're pretty good for a hometown boy. High school friend, huh?"
"Right. Football."
"Yeah, right. Okay, we've got rumors, nothing substantiated. Seems Fowley and Dysert had a little side business at their last school, or so we heard. PCP. Dysert was a chemistry teacher and used to whip up the junk right at school. They made a fortune."
"But?"
"But the school got wind of it and talked them into leaving. Gave them excellent references, too. They didn't want their parents knowing what had been going on under their noses all that time."
"Sounds like your bosses."
She took the ice tray from her cheek. "Bosses are the same everywhere, right?"
"I don't have a boss."
"Lucky man."
"What else you know?"
"That's it. Fowley and Dysert came out here to run the place for the owner, General Lowrey. Real general. Army. He doesn't have anything to do with the day-today stuff. Just a figurehead really, a military rank they can put on the letterhead to attract business."
Bolan patted the files. "Apparently business is booming. How did such a remote school get such an exclusive clientele?"
"It's the new chic. Give your kids the discipline you neglected to teach them, send them to a military academy. Makes parents feel like they're doing good by their kids while getting them out of the house. It's practically a fad in Washington."
"But why this place? There are plenty of schools, military academies with better reputations."
She shrugged. "What's a reputation? Someone tells someone else who tells someone else. That's what happened here. Hey, Ridgemont has a very good reputation. Its students score very highly in academic tests."
Bolan studied the files. "There's something else to it. The place seemed to go from a modest school for middle-class incorrigibles to a residential hotel for the children of the rich and powerful almost overnight. Look at these dates when these well-connected kids started arriving."
"Yeah, about eighteen months ago. Almost a year after Dysert and Fowley arrived. So? It just means they're good at hustling up business."
"Maybe." Bolan continued to study the files, reading through each one separately, then fanning them out in front for comparison.
"Take right over, why don't you?" Denise said.
Bolan looked up. "What do I call you? Denise? Christopher? What?"
"Denise Portland is my maiden name. Christopher was my husband's name."
"Divorced?"
"Dead. He was the double agent at Langley who killed the two hostages."
Bolan stared at her. "What happened to him?"
"I shot him as he was running past the cafeteria, still dragging Ginny Lawson's stabbed body. She hadn't died yet. That took another week in coma. My husband died right away."
"Tough break."
She put the ice tray back on her cheek. "Not so bad. He left me with some heavy house payments. But the company gave me his pension, so it all worked out." She paused, some distant emotion flickering in her eyes. "Except that I loved him. I really did."
Bolan nodded and returned the files. He thought he saw moisture beginning to well up in her eyes and he didn't want her to think he'd noticed. She'd had a rough time of it already and needed the hard shell of her exterior the way some insects' tough skin acts as their skeleton, holding all their internal organs in place. She was holding in place, living with a reputation that was horrible, but living with a truth that was worse.
They continued studying the files for another two hours, moving from the kitchen counter to the barren living room without furniture. They spread out the files on the floor and hunched over them like two students cramming for an early-morning exam.
Denise yawned and looked at her watch. "I think our partnership has about run its course, mister. We have students to face in a few hours."
"How long are you going to continue your investigation?"
She stretched, rubbed her eyes. "If nothing more shows up, a couple more days. That's all we're budgeted for in a case like this."
"Case like what?" he said angrily.
"Don't be a hardass. A case in which there's no evidence contrary to what the police have found. In such instances we let local justice run its course."
"And Gregg Danby goes to jail or some mental institution."
"Maybe that's where he belongs. Maybe he's a danger to his mother, too. You ever think about that?"
Yeah, Bolan had thought about that. Thought long and hard and into the night about how he was maybe wasting his time and risking his life for nothing. And not just his own life. That mechanic Noah South sent had already killed two people while hunting for Bolan. He could still feel the weight of the dead twin in his arms, the blistering heat like the hot breath of hell sweeping over the pool, peeling back the skin of their mother. The cops were involved. The CIA was double-checking. If there was anything to find out, wouldn't they discover it?
Maybe.
And maybe not.
Dysert and Fowley were dirty, Bolan knew that. He had known just standing in their office with them, staring into Fowley's cruel face, the face of a crouching reptile, tongue coiled and waiting. And Dysert, the charmer, with the boyish good looks of an actor, a game show host. But the eyes were rotten. Pluck them out and festering green sludge would pour from the sockets in steaming putrid puddles.
But where did it all connect?
"Once more," B
olan said. He gathered all the files for another go-through.
"Oh, okay," Denise groaned, flopping facedown into the carpet.
They went through it again. And again. Three times more before Bolan finally spotted it.
"There it is," he said, stabbing his finger into the pile of papers. "The spore."
"The spore?"
"Yeah. The common denominator. So small, so minute it's easily overlooked. We've been doing it for hours. But it's so important, everything grows from it. Every plan has a spore."
"What's the spore here?" She yawned again, not convinced.
"What do these kids have in common?" Bolan asked.
"They come from powerful families. If this school were hit by a bomb, the federal government, half the Fortune 500 companies, the military and several Hollywood studios would close down in mourning."
Bolan shook his head. "What else?"
"C'mon, man. It's too late for guessing games."
"Criminal records."
She made a face. "They don't have any. Oh, Senator Harwood's kid, yeah, but that was no big deal. That apartheid thing. The rest had been picked up for possession of some grass, creating a disturbance, shoplifting for kicks. Kid stuff mostly. Hell, you can't be a teenager and not break the law in some way. No official arrests. A warning and a slap on the wrist."
"Funny that they were even picked up in the first place. I mean, what are the odds that almost a dozen children from such influential families would be picked up?"
She leaned forward, starting to see his point. "Not good."
"Right. It's almost as if they were waiting for them, watching them."
"So what are you saying? Some international conspiracy is afoot just to get kids to go to Ridgemont? Pretty far-fetched."
"Look at the names of the officers' reports on each of these pickups. Right here." He pointed at the page, then at another page, and another.
" 'Anonymous tip, " she read.
"The same two words on every report whether it was in Washington, New York, Los Angeles, wherever. Somebody watched them, waiting for an opportunity, maybe even encouraged them, sold them drugs or gave them drinks, invited them to a party, drove with an open bottle in the car. Then an anonymous call to the cops, the kids are picked up, parents are called and everything goes on. A brochure arrives from Ridgemont, maybe even Dysert calls, warns them about declining morals of today's kids, that whole line of crap. All he has to do is sell one or two big shots. The others will follow. Soon he's got a nice little handful."
"Okay, say that's exactly what happened. But toward what end? What is there to gain other than more business? This is a pretty risky and expensive promotional device, wouldn't you say?"
"There's more to it. That's where Gregg Danby is involved."
"How?"
"That's what I've got to find out."
Denise stood and walked back into the kitchen, rummaging through the fruit bowl, pushing bananas and peaches aside, moving pears. "I don't think so. I think you've done all you're going to do. This is an official U. S. government investigation, and I don't want you meddling."
"I don't care what you want," Bolan said, standing. "Now that I've got a handle on these two guys, I'm going to bust this thing open."
"A lot of powerful people are involved. If you go mucking about, bad publicity could burn all of them, including my favorite spy shop."
Bolan headed for the door. "That's not my problem."
"Sure it is," Denise said. When her hand came out of the fruit bowl, it was clutching a 9 mm Walther P-5. It was pointed at Bolan. "The bullets are as fresh as these pears," she said, "so don't force anything, Mr. Bolan."
Bolan didn't let the surprise show on his face. Neither did he move. He saw that she held the gun loose and comfortable, her body balanced, but feet ready to spring if they had to get out of the way of return fire. He thought about denying who he was, but there was no point. She was too much the pro for that. "Hunch?"
"Partly. And partly knowing people. I read Colonel Danby's file. All suspicious people are tagged and cross-referenced. Your name was on the list. No one else on it would have the experience or the nerve to pull this kind of infiltration or the bust-in tonight. Looks like I'll be able to close two files this time. Danby's and the Executioner's."
"Old poker rule, don't count your money until you've left the table."
She laughed. "I think I've just been dealt out this hand, Mr. Bolan." She waved the gun. "Dump the cannon on the carpet. And the shoulder gun too."
Bolan carefully eased the AutoMag out of its holster and lowered it to the floor. The Beretta followed.
The woman eased toward the wall phone in the kitchen, her gun hand resting on the counter. She lifted the receiver, punched in a number. "Christopher here. Get me Removals." A brief pause. "Removals? I've got a pickup… alive… address is…"
A loud knock on the door tensed her muscles. She went into a half crouch, swinging the gun up at Bolan's chest. "Who is it?" she hollered.
"Ms Portland?" came the young voice.
"Yes."
"It's Leonard Harwood. Can I talk to you?"
"Leonard? It's very late. How did you get off campus?"
"It's important. Please." His voice sounded panicky. "Something at school you need to know about. I overheard Colonels Dysert and Fowley talking about you. About what happened at school tonight."
She held the receiver for a moment. Bolan could see her weighing choices, playing out the possibilities. Finally she spoke into the phone. "Cancel order." She hung up. To Bolan she said, "Back off. Keep your hands up." She moved to the door. She didn't unlock the chain when she opened it up, speaking in a phony sleepy voice to sound as if she'd just been awakened. "It's late, Leon…" she started to say, but her eyes went wide as she looked through the crack. Suddenly she was diving to the side.
She barely got out of the way when the door began jumping and vibrating as a hail of slugs chewed it up. The sound was a mere putt-putt, like a small motor scooter, but the door imploded as if all the air had suddenly been sucked out of the room.
And leaping into the room through a haze of gunsmoke, his hands full of a MAC-10 with a sound suppressor nozzled onto the barrel, came Leonard Harwood. He kept shooting.
15
Bolan launched himself through the air, flopping onto the floor and skidding across the shag carpet toward Leonard Harwood's legs. The boy didn't seem to be aware of Bolan's presence. Instead, he was completely focused on the woman, spinning around with his MAC-10, looking for his target.
Denise Portland was on the move. Her earlier sudden dive out of Harwood's way had resulted in her hand smacking into the wall and her gun bouncing out of her hand. Now she was rolling toward it, being chased across the carpet by the youth's MAC-10 bullets. Each round disappeared into the deep shag, sending up a puff of dust behind it like a tiny smoke signal.
Bolan's huge hands gripped Harwood around the ankles and yanked. The boy's hands flew up, the MAC-10 catapulted into the ceiling with a thud, sending down a flurry of plaster. Harwood fell backward, slamming into the shredded front door, then sliding to the floor.
Bolan quickly straddled him, pinning his arms to the ground. Harwood's face was devoid of expression, no fear, no anger, no sorrow. Nothing. His pupils were slightly dilated. He lay dazed a moment, staring.
"He okay?" Denise said, hovering over Bolan's shoulder.
As soon as Harwood saw Denise, he erupted with a fury. His body bucked and flailed. Incredibly, Bolan had his hands full trying to keep control of this much smaller boy. Harwood's strength seemed enormous, magnified by his uncontrollable rage. Frustrated by Bolan's restraint, he began knocking his own head against the floor.
"Grab his head!" Bolan snapped.
Denise dropped to her knees and cradled the boy's head in her hands. He responded to her touch as if her fingers were hot brands searing his flesh. He shook his head and moaned, then tried to bite her fingers. His teeth snapped like a rabid dog's.
>
"Christ, what's wrong with him?" Denise asked.
Bolan grabbed Harwood's jacket collar with both hands and suddenly turned his knuckles in against the boy's throat. He pressed them deep into the soft flesh. Leonard gasped for air once, then his eyes rolled up and he passed out.
Bolan stood up.
From down the hall a voice called with a mixture of nervousness and bravado. "What the fuck's going on in there, lady?"
Denise leaned out into the hallway. "Sorry. My husband had a little too much to drink."
"Yeah, well, tell him to hold it down or I'll clean his clock. We're trying to get some sleep here. I gotta be to work in four hours."
Bolan watched Denise wave and smile and say, "It's okay now, he's passed out."
"Lucky him," the man said. He slammed his door.
Denise nodded at Bolan. "Give me a hand here." She tried to fit the busted door over the doorway.
"Forget it. It's too damaged."
"I can't have an open doorway here. Anybody who comes by can just walk right in!"
"Got a screwdriver and a hammer?"
"Sure, man. The two things I always bring when I'm going undercover."
Bolan pulled out his pocketknife and opened a screwdriver blade. It took him only a few minutes to remove the bathroom door and put it on the front door hinges. He opened and closed it a couple of times. "Most apartment doors are interchangeable. But I wouldn't count too much on this flimsy lock."
Denise picked up her gun from the floor and pointed it at Bolan. "Now, where were we?"
Bolan walked across the room, picked up the MAC-10 and yanked out the clip. Then he gathered his AutoMag and Beretta, holstered them and continued on to the living room window.
Denise sighed, lowered her gun. "I hate a man who lacks confidence."
"You wouldn't shoot," Bolan said. He eased the curtain aside with one finger and peered down the three stories into the street.
"Why? Because you saved my life? You think I'm so unprofessional that I'd let that matter?"
"No. I think you're professional enough to know that there's a hell of a lot more to this Danby case than there is to the Executioner case. Sure, you could bring in other agents now, but there's probably not time. Leonard's coming here tonight proved that. Whoever sent him is desperate."
Fire Eaters Page 11