Fire Eaters

by Don Pendleton

  "Pick up the phone," Bolan said, pointing the gun at South's head.

  Quickly, South snatched up the receiver. "Who am I calling?"

  "Your junior hit man. The mechanic you put on me."

  South sneered. "So you know our young Mr. Grady."

  "We met."

  "Yes, yes. Clumsy attempt. Not what we've come to expect from him. He's never missed before. Not once."

  Bolan waved the gun. "Dial." Bolan told him the number.

  Noah South started to punch in the numbers.

  Drake stood in the corner of the room. He'd been watching everything, brooding. He realized he'd have to make his move soon. His lips still hurt from the staple that punk, Grady, had put through them. But the pain wasn't just in his lips. It was in his guts. Every time he thought about Grady, a hot wave would wash through his stomach and he'd feel a little queasy. Since that day Noah had been sarcastic to him, making fun of him as a bodyguard. He'd even brought in a couple of new guys to help out. The dead guys in the garage. So much for them, Mr. South. If anyone was going to get Noah out of this mess, it would have to be Drake. It was now or never.

  Drake made a grab for Denise Portland's gun.

  His hand closed over hers so tightly she couldn't maneuver the gun to aim or fire. He jerked her hard, pulling her against his body as a shield from Bolan's gun. His other arm locked against the woman's throat, choking her.

  Bolan looked over at the struggle. He kept his gun pointed at South. He shook his head. "Quit fooling around, Denise. We're on a timetable."

  Her eyes flared angrily. She gurgled in response. Though the words were garbled, he could make out their general tone. Despite her height and muscularity, she was dwarfed within the confines of Drake's massive body.

  "Drop the gun, Bolan," Drake screamed. "Or I'll snap her fucking neck. I swear it."

  Bolan didn't respond. He looked at South. "Good help must be hard to find."

  South didn't say anything. He watched with no more interest than if he were looking down at something on the sidewalk twenty-three floors below.

  "I'll wring it," Drake said. "Bust it clean off her fucking neck!"

  Bolan shrugged. "Go ahead."

  Bolan's answer startled Drake, just enough that his grip eased for a moment. Enough for Denise to grab hold of his little finger, snap it back until it cracked. Drake howled with pain, releasing his grip from her throat. She spun around, flexed his wrist backward until he released his hold on her other hand with the gun. He dropped to his knees in agony. Immediately she stepped behind him, wrapping her hands around his head, turning just enough to immobilize him with excruciating pain.

  "We need this guy anymore?" she asked.

  "Nope. He was just window dressing to get into this office."

  "Good." Denise yanked sharply. Drake's head pivoted around sharply, the bones in his neck cracking. His body went slack and she let the corpse fall. She stood up, rubbed her throat. "Thanks for the hand."

  "Sure," Bolan said with a straight face.

  Noah South was pale. His tough veneer was starting to crack. "Money. As much as you want."

  Bolan pointed to the phone with his gun. "Dial."

  "A million dollars. Cash. I make a call and it will be here in ten, no, five minutes. Two million, for Chrissakes. Cash!"

  "Dial," Bolan said.

  Noah South, still holding the receiver, started to walk around his desk toward the chair. "Can I at least sit?" He pulled out his chair.

  "Sure," Bolan said.

  South sat, pushed himself up to his desk. His foot edged slowly toward the button that would bring his men into the room. Then all he'd have to do was duck behind his bulletproof desk. Afterward, they'd have to wash these two out of the room with a hose.

  "You know, Denise," Bolan said casually. "I don't think I've ever been in one of these offices that didn't have some kind of silent alarm button or pedal under the desk."

  "That so?" Denise said.

  "Yeah. They're supposed to summon help. Let's see. There are three doors to this office. The one we came through, plus one on either side that lead to adjoining offices. Once that button is hit, all three of those doors are supposed to fill up with gunmen opening fire."

  "Wow. Sounds exciting."

  Bolan aimed his gun directly at Noah South's right eye. "Problem is, in those situations someone always gets to die first."

  Noah South's foot stopped inching toward the button. He dialed the number Bolan had given him. "Dave? It's Noah South."

  Bolan grabbed the phone away. "Grady? I'm in your boss's office."

  "Really?" Grady said. "Pretty tacky, isn't it?"

  Bolan was surprised by the calmness in the young man's voice. Bolan had a sickening feeling that he had made a big mistake. "I want to talk trade. South for Maria."

  Grady laughed. "You see the phone across the room?"

  "Yeah."

  "Why don't you use that one? Put Mr. South back on his desk phone. You'll both want to hear this."

  There was no point in arguing. Something was wrong here but Bolan would have to play these cards out to the end. He'd already bet everything on them. He handed the phone to South, then gestured to Denise to follow him to the other phone across the room. She listened at the receiver with him.

  "We're both on," Bolan said. "What's your answer?"

  "My answer is what would I want with Noah South? No offense, Mr. South."

  "Listen, you crazy son of a bitch," South blustered at Grady. "You do exactly what this guy Bolan tells you to do. There's an extra million in it for you."

  Dave Grady whistled respectfully. "Not bad. How about two million? Or three?"

  "Okay, three million," South said. Sweat had bunched along his brow now.

  "What about ten million?" Grady asked.

  "Listen to me, kid…" South said.

  Grady laughed. "He doesn't understand, Mr. Bolan. This isn't about money. Or Noah South. Or the lovely wife of your dead friend. It's about you and me. And you dead."

  "You little punk," South said. "You do what I tell you or there'll be a hundred mechanics on your ass."

  Bolan knew it was lost. Grady wasn't just doing a job, he was proving something. What it was didn't matter. Still, Bolan gave it one last try. "Take his money, kid. Make the swap. I'll still be around for you to try again. Only you'll be richer."

  Grady's laugh this time was harsh, nasty. "I'm already rich, Mr. Bolan. I'm talking about something greater now, an existentialist experiment in power and control. I learned about power from my visits to Mr. South's office, sitting there in front of his desk. That desk, like the flight deck of a jet. Power! Oh, yes, I learned. But I don't want you to think I just took without giving something back." Grady chuckled. "You want to swap? Here's my answer."

  "Grady, you bastard," Noah South yelled. "You listen to me…"

  "Listen to this," Grady said. A loud high-pitched frequency hummed through the telephone.

  Noah South's receiver exploded, ripping his head half off the neck. What was left was a soggy bag of gushing pulp flopping against his back. The chair he was sitting in swiveled around, spraying the walls with a mist of blood.

  The three doors to the office burst open and automatic fire began to fill the room.

  Bolan knocked Denise to the ground. She rolled with the motion, coming to a stop with her gun outstretched. She fired twice at the front door, then once at the left door. One man in each doorway dropped.

  Bolan felt a spray of automatic fire nipping at his heels and he ran across the office and vaulted over the desk, knocking Noah South's headless body to the floor. He jumped up again and fired his Beretta at the door on the right. Another hood tumbled dead into the room.

  Still more came running in.

  Denise dropped one but a 9 mm Uzi slug chewed up the carpeting in front of her face and she was forced to roll away.

  Bolan counted five men in the room now, lined up and firing. He snapped out the AutoMag and blasted away at the t
wo on the end of the row. They flew backward, bounced off the wall and fell together in a tangled heap of arms and legs.

  This brought the remaining three pivoting toward Bolan, their bullets smacking harmlessly against the bulletproof desk.

  Denise finally stopped rolling when she bumped into the wall. She fired again. The first bullet missed. One of the men turned his MAC-10 on her. A leaden hail streamed toward her. All missed but one. The last one creased her scalp, laying open a bloody gash before it continued on into the wall behind her.

  She fired at the gunner, hitting him in the throat. He dropped his weapon, more interested in plugging the spurting wound. Her next shot ended that and all his other worries.

  The two other hardmen were still concentrating on Bolan, or more accurately, on the desk.

  Bolan reached behind him, grabbed South's empty chair and swung it around the side of the desk. It rolled toward the two men. One of them, surprised by the movement, turned his gun on the chair. It disintegrated in a cloud of leather and foam padding.

  Bolan moved from cover behind the desk and fired the AutoMag at the man who had just shattered the chair. The slug caught the man in the chest and slammed him against a wall. He slid to the floor, but remained seated with his head at an awkward angle.

  The single remaining man, unsure whom to fire at first, sprayed the whole room in a wide arc.

  Bolan and Denise both shot at him at the same time. Her bullet dug into his chest; Bolan's opened a hole in the stomach. Either would have been fatal.

  Bolan could hear the shouting and screaming outside as the regular employees scrambled for the elevators and fire exits. They weren't exactly innocents, probably quite aware of where Noah South's money came from. But they also weren't gunmen. And they were running away.

  "What's this do to your plan?" Denise said. She dabbed the wound on her scalp, glanced at the blood on her fingertips.

  "It changes it," Bolan said, helping her up.

  "Yeah, I figured that much. But what now?"

  Bolan looked over at the telephone receiver he'd used, now dangling from the small table. He picked it up. "Grady?"

  "Still here," Grady said.

  "I'll meet you. Where?"

  "Frenchman's Cove. At the beach. You know where it is?"

  "I'll find it."

  Silence. "I knew they couldn't take you, Bolan. I knew you'd survive."

  "You think you'll do any better?" Bolan said.

  "That's what we're going to find out, eh?" Dave Grady laughed and hung up.

  19

  Dave Grady sprinkled some cologne on his hands, rubbed them together and slapped them against his face. "How do I look?"

  Maria Danby said nothing. She sat on the metal folding chair, her hands tied tightly behind her back.

  "You think this tie works?" He held the maroon-and-gray-striped tie against his plaid shirt. "The conventional wisdom has always been not to mix stripes and plaids. But you see it all the time now."

  Though her wrists were scraped raw by the rough rope, Maria continued to twist them, trying to loosen her bonds. She could feel her skin peel away, feel the warm blood trickle over the rope. Still, she tried.

  She was weak. She'd had nothing to eat since he'd kidnapped her. No water. Then there were the bruises. The black eye, swollen and tender. A sore patch on her jaw like the soft dark spot on a too-ripe peach. And the other parts, aching and brutalized from when he'd raped her. Funny, she thought, despite the thirst and hunger, what she wanted now more than anything was a scalding hot bath and a scrub brush. She'd already resigned herself to the fact that she was going to die. Still, that bath would have been nice.

  Grady finished knotting his tie and slipped on a gray sport jacket. He couldn't remember when he'd felt happier. He was finally going to kill Bolan, the man who'd robbed him of the pleasure — no, it was more than pleasure, it was necessity — of killing his own father.

  Grady liked this feeling. He could do anything. A Superman, just as the German philosopher Nietzsche, had predicted a hundred years ago when he'd said, "I want to teach men the sense of their existence, which is the Superman, the lightning out of the dark cloud man."

  Yes, Grady thought, that was what he was. The lightning. All others are the dark cloud.

  Except maybe Bolan. He, too, was lightning. And when Grady destroyed him, that power would be his. It was as simple as a flower blooming. Bolan will not let me just get away, Grady thought, he will try to kill me. Good.

  He won't be expecting my little surprise.

  "So," he said happily to Maria, "let's go meet your boyfriend."

  * * *

  Bolan walked barefoot on the beach. He was also bare-chested, wearing only the dark pants he'd had on at Noah South's office. He carried no weapon. No guns, no concealed knives. Nothing.

  That would save time later.

  If Bolan had been fully dressed with the possibility of hidden weapons, Grady might have decided not to take any chances and kill him on the spot. He didn't want to give the kid any reason to get nervous. Give him a chance to draw this out, to talk, to savor it.

  It was still early in the day and the fog was just starting to burn off the ocean. The beach was almost deserted except for a group of surfers bobbing up and down as they straddled their boards in the water. Some wore wet suits, hoods, boots. Others wore only vests and swimsuits. A lone jogger ran on the wet sand, his collie splashing in the surf beside him.

  There was Maria.

  She was lying in a beach chair, her legs stretched out on the sand. A blanket was bundled up over her body, tucked tightly around her throat. Her arms were hidden under the blanket.

  Bolan walked slowly toward her. "Hey, beautiful."

  She didn't turn her head and for a moment the hairs on Bolan's neck bristled at the thought that she was dead. He rushed around in front of her. She looked up at him through flat eyes. He was relieved to see her alive, though he winced at the dark bruises, the pale skin. He didn't have to ask what had happened. He knew.

  "Hey, hero," she said weakly.

  "Where is he?"

  "I don't know. But he's crazy, Mack. Really crazy."

  "They all are." He looked around, saw a young man in a suit walking toward him. He'd been hiding behind a clump of shrubbery. "Snappy dresser," Bolan said.

  "He's got this thing on me, Mack. This collar." She jiggled a little. The blanket slipped an inch revealing a thick dog collar with some exposed wires attached.

  "Are your hands tied?"

  "Yes."

  "Feet?"

  "No."

  "Can you run?"

  "Can a turkey trot?"

  He smiled at her. "The car's up over that ridge. The keys are under the driver's seat. BMW."

  "Okay."

  Bolan patted her shoulder affectionately. She had the same tough courage her husband had had. The world needed more like her and fewer like the punk in the suit walking up to him now.

  "Be careful, Mr. Bolan," Grady said with a grin. "That collar is packed with the same substance that set that motel swimming pool on fire. Jiggle it wrong, or if I press this button…" he removed a remote control unit from his pocket and rested his thumb on the button"…and whoosh! Her head goes up in flames."

  "Let's get on with it."

  "With what? You're here. I'm going to kill you. Like lightning out of the dark cloud man."

  Bolan laughed.

  Grady's face darkened. "What's so funny?"

  "You. Guys like you. They always have some quote, some authority they like to wave around like a college pennant. With some guys it's Marx. Or Mao or Che. With some it's Thomas Jefferson. They're just looking for someone to justify their actions. Make it nice and tidy. With you it's Nietzsche."

  "You've read him."

  Bolan shrugged. April Rose had once quoted something to him: "Careful, Mack," she'd said. "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. " And she'd kissed him. He could feel that kiss
now, hear her voice, cherish her concern.

  Out in the water a big wave was lifting the surfers high on their boards. A few wiped out quickly. Others rode long and easily, their feet dancing across the board for balance and speed.

  One hooded surfer walked out of the boiling surf carrying a board under one arm and unzipping the front of the wet suit with the other.

  "I knew I would be the one," Grady said. "The one to finally kill you. No one else had the brains."

  Bolan stared at Grady's thumb resting on the button. Any attempt to charge him would result in Marla's collar exploding. But if he waited much longer, Grady would kill him anyway.

  Everything was timing.

  And the time was now.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Bolan saw the approaching surfer drop to one knee, the hand emerging from the wet suit with a gun. Saw Denise taking aim. The angle was such that Grady couldn't see her. But Bolan knew Grady wasn't worried about snipers, not as long as he had the detonator in his hand. Even if he were shot, his thumb would reflex against the button and all three of them would go up.

  But Denise didn't know that!

  As she zeroed the gun sight on Grady's back, Bolan suddenly stepped aside just enough to cause Grady to turn. Denise's gun fired and the bullet zipped by Grady's shoulder. A second earlier and it would have gone through his heart.

  Bolan used the moment to attack. He stepped quickly into Grady, grabbing the kid's wrist and digging his thumb hard into the hollow under Grady's thumb. Grady's fingers opened and froze in that position. Bolan plucked the detonator away and elbowed Grady in the face, knocking him to the ground. Bolan set the detonator on Maria's lap and turned to face Grady.

  Denise was running toward them with her gun, but the two men were circling each other so closely, it was hard to get off a clear shot.

  "Hey, man," a huge surfer wearing a vest called from nearby. He and his buddy were carrying their boards back to their cars. "What's going on?"

  "They attacked me," Grady yelled convincingly. "Help me!"