Fire in the Sky

by Don Pendleton

  She began to cry in earnest. Bolan went to sit beside her on the bed. "It's natural for a survivor to feel guilt," he said. "It's natural, but not justified."

  She moved to him, sobbing, their arms went around each other, but her hand touched the Beretta holster and she drew back quickly, in aversion.

  "Don't psychoanalyze me." She turned away from him, sniffling. "If I want advice, I'll go to a shrink, not a hired gun."

  "Suit yourself." Bolan stood and shrugged out of his harness. "Just trying to help."

  He walked into the bathroom, pulling his sweater over his head and off. He turned on the hot water in the sink and splashed his face.

  Julie leaned against the doorframe. " Who are you trying to help?" she asked harshly.

  Bolan pulled a white, threadbare towel off the rack and began to dry his face. "What do you mean by that?" He brushed past her and into the room. She swiveled with his movements, one hand held stiffly behind her.

  She was behind him, talking to his back. "I mean, how do I know whose side you're on?" she asked loudly. "You think that I haven't noticed that people only care about Harry's notes? Maybe you're here to..."

  "What do you mean, people?" he asked, turning to face her.

  She had one of his guns, the Beretta, in her hand and was pointing it at him. "Bang, bang," she said. "You're dead."

  Anger washed over him as he walked up quickly to snatch the gun from her, his right hand instinctively balled into a fist. "Don't you ever do that again," he said through clenched teeth.

  "You gonna kill me, killer?" she taunted. "Why has the Justice Department left a killer to guard me? Why do we have to live together while I do the transcriptions? I think maybe my knowledge is the only thing keeping me alive right now."

  He tossed the gun on the bed, then reached out and took her by the shoulder. "Why did you say 'people' only care about the notes? Who did you tell besides Hal?"

  "You're hurting me!" she said, trying to break from his grasp.

  "Tell me!" he demanded.

  "Nobody!" she shot back. "It was just a figure of speech."

  "Who did you call yesterday?"

  Her face went slack. "Wh-what?"

  "When I checked out of the Holiday Inn they made me pay fifty cents for a phone call. Who was it?"

  "Time," she said, lips sputtering. "I called time."

  He let her go, and the woman fell, sobbing, onto her bed. Bolan stood over her helplessly, his mind torn between anger and compassion.

  "Look," he said softly, "I'm sorry. I'm not sure what I..."

  She suddenly jerked up from the bed, glaring at him, red-eyed, her wet cheeks streaked with mascara. "Has it ever occurred to you that your friend in Justice might have set us both up as bait on this thing?"

  "No," Bolan replied. "The man's..."

  "No?" she repeated. "Well, it sure looks like he'd already done a pretty good job the night Harry got shot. Maybe Hal is using us as tethered lambs to draw out the man-eaters. Or maybe he just wants to control our actions so he can take care of us quietly."

  "The guy's sticking his neck out a mile for you on this," Bolan replied. "You're a fool to suspect him."

  "And you're a fool not to," she said, then bent down to take off her shoes.

  "I want to make sure the car's locked up," he said, slipping the sweater over his head.

  Julie Arnold had her back to him and was undoing the belt that cinched her waist. Her back muscles moved flu-idly beneath the form-fitting dress, and Bolan had a sudden stab of longing for circumstances beyond the ones they were trapped in. Without a word, he picked up the room key from the desk and walked out the door.

  The hot air was rife with fishy harbor smells and sweaty music as he walked along the veranda and down the stairs to the parking lot. Julie's warning about Brognola had really gotten to him, not so much because she had raised the question, but because he had already thought of it himself. He had been set up once, why not again? But could he trust the woman, either? Her story about calling time made absolutely no sense — both of them had watches. But why would she lie?

  Bolan walked through the parking lot and around the side of the building where he'd left the Jeep. He had taken several long strides toward it before he saw the other car. It was parked on the drive with its headlights on, no more than five feet from the Jeep. A back door was open, a man halfway out.

  He tried to stop and slide back into the shadows, but it was too late. The driver of the car had spotted him.

  The car door slammed shut, the vehicle roaring off immediately. Bolan ran toward it, trying for a license tag, but the car had already screeched around the corner of the building.

  Bolan watched after the car for several minutes, but it was gone. Probably kids looking for something to rip off. Bolan walked over to the Jeep, giving it a quick but thorough going-over for signs of forced entry before locking it and walking back to his room.

  When he went back up the stairs the room was in darkness. As quietly as possible, he made his way to his bed. He could hear the woman's even breathing from the other bed. He stripped down and slid between the cool sheets. He thought about keeping watch, but no one, not even Brognola, was supposed to know where he was. The incident in the parking lot notwithstanding, he felt they were probably safe for the moment.

  He closed his eyes, welcoming the rest.

  In the other bed, Julie Arnold feigned sleep and listened patiently for the sounds of Bolan settling in for the night. She lay wide awake, her emotions strung up like an overwound mainspring, bottled up inside, unable to find any release. She was scared, mad and despondent, and the son of a bitch lying beside her only made matters worse. If only they had told her what to expect. If only she hadn't followed orders by marrying Harry...

  Chapter Five

  From the outside, through the binoculars, the Grolier Foundation looked just like any other place of business, albeit one that was a bit heavy on security. It was a five-story structure, plain and unornarnented, the windows done in reflective glass in keeping with current trends in minimalist architecture. A tall, chain link fence topped with rolled barbed wire surrounded the entire place a good fifty floodlit yards from the building. As the parking was underground, this fifty-yard, asphalt no-man's-land was the domain of the security people and their dogs, who seemed to prowl twenty-four hours a day.

  "I feel conspicuous standing out here," Julie said from beside Bolan.

  "We're not breaking any laws that I know about," Bolan returned, swinging the binoculars to take in the large billboard beside the main gate. It was just readable in the deepening twilight.

  "There," he said, handing the binoculars to her. "Look at that sign by the front gate and put that photographic memory to use."

  Puzzled, she took the field glasses from him and put them to her eyes, moving them in a wide circle, looking for the building.

  They were sitting atop an overpass on Interstate 4, in Orlando, Florida, looking to the east and Orlando Avenue as the late rush-hour traffic sped beneath them.

  "I don't see..." Julie was saying. "Oh, there it is. What do you want from me? The damned sign is only a listing of parent companies and subsidiaries of subsidiaries."

  "Fix it in your head," he told her, as a car moved rapidly past them. "The government subsidizes this place, but I know that most think-tank funding comes from major corporations or individuals who might have a commercial use for the ideas generated there."

  "Kind of like mine and Harry's work with the university," she said.

  "Right. There are very few pies in this country that have only one set of fingers in them."

  She handed him back the binoculars. "For what it's worth, I've got it."

  He nodded, glancing around again. "Okay. Let's get out of here."

  They drove off the overpass, heading west on Aloma Avenue. The small house that Brognola had provided was barely a ten-minute drive from there. It was so convenient to work that he couldn't help but wonder if Jerry Butler had liv
ed there.

  He glanced at his companion. She was busily absorbed in the reports Brognola had given them concerning the deaths of the other scientists. She had done little else but read them since they had left Alabama that morning. It was as if the killings, so lacking in reason and meaning, needed some kind of resolution in her mind before she could learn to live with them. She was hanging on emotionally by her fingernails, and it bothered him that he had done very little to understand that.

  "Since we've decided to take this thing on," he said, "maybe we should try to put aside our differences for a while. Life's going to be tough enough as it is."

  She looked up, her eyes barely touching him before fleeing to the relative safety of the view out the front windshield. "We're like oil and water, Bolan, but for once I agree with you. I still don't trust you, but I did accept this whole deal and the responsibilities that go along with it. If we can't be friends, we can at least be civil."

  "Right. I'm getting hungry. Want to stop and get groceries before we go home?"

  "I'll just do that later," she said, a little too quickly. "I suppose you'll want me to cook for you."

  "Your choice," he answered, turning down Avondale Drive and entering the lower-middle class neighborhood that would be their home. "I've been making my own dinner for a long time now. If you want to keep it separate, that's fine with me."

  "Separate but equal. We'll divide everything up like roommates."

  "Fine."

  Avondale was narrow but palm lined. It seemed to be the refuge of older people retired on small, fixed incomes and young families just starting out. The cottages were packed in tightly, twenty feet back from the road. They were either weathered frame or stucco and were invariably painted aqua or pale yellow. The Sparkses' was pale yellow stucco.

  As they pulled into the driveway, a youngster from next door rode past on a ten-speed bike much too large for him. He waved happily, nearly falling off. Julie smiled as the Jeep was backed into the carport.

  "Have you read any of the reports Mr. Brognola left with us?" Julie asked as they climbed out of the Jeep.

  "Haven't had much of a chance," he returned. "I've been driving, remember?"

  "The reports relating to Jerry's death are very strange."

  "In what way?"

  They walked to the door off the carport, and Bolan unlocked it, letting them into the kitchen.

  "It seems that several days before the shooting," she related, following him through the sparsely furnished house, "Jerry called a newspaper, the Titusville Banner, and told them that he had proof that contraband was being sent up on the space shuttle flights."

  "Titusville has grown from a nowhere burg to a major city because of its proximity to the Cape. I'll bet that went over well." Bolan had moved into the small living room. When he sat on the edge of a foam rubber daybed, a cloud of dust rose. "What sort of contraband?"

  Julie shook her head and took a chair across from him, the documentation on her lap. She frowned at the room's obviously inexpensive furnishings. "If my friends at Brandeis could see me now," she said quietly, then shrugged, her eyes fixing Bolan with deep blue. "It never came out. The Banner was totally unwilling to even talk to him about it. As you said, too much of the city's economy depended on NASA and the Cape to stir up any trouble."

  When she had a calm and placid look on her face, as she did now, Bolan found Julie Arnold to be one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Their eyes locked for just a second, then he looked away. "Wasn't there a reporter killed with him?" he asked.

  "I was getting to that," she said absently, shuffling through the stack of papers until she came up with the one she had been searching for. "The day after he called the Titusville paper, he called the Miami Herald and set up a meeting with a Mr….McMasters, telling him the same thing he'd told the Banner."

  "Namely that contraband was being flown by the shuttles, but not offering any proof," Bolan put in.

  "Basically," she replied, and turned to the next page. "He told McMasters that he would offer proof upon their meeting. The man was intrigued, but not convinced, especially since Jerry sounded distraught on the phone. McMasters got in touch with NASA on the spot, and they put him in touch with a General…" she consulted the paper "… Cronin, who was and is in charge of passenger and matériel manifests on the shuttle flights. The general said he'd never heard of anyone named Butler, but that matériel manifests had been declassified and were available to anyone who wanted to look at them. Further, he stated that equipment going on the shuttle was examined by any number of inspectors before being uploaded. He then offered to send McMasters a copy of the manifest on the spot."

  "And?"

  She shrugged, her face a blank. "And nothing. McMasters kept the appointment with Jerry, but confided to another reporter that it looked like he was just another crackpot. Jerry had moved to a bungalow in Titusville. The morning of the Challenger flight, both he and McMasters were killed and Jerry's house ransacked."

  Bolan pushed back on the bed and leaned against the wall. "I remember Hal telling us that angle had been checked."

  "The manifest was checked back to each company that had paid for space on the shuttle," she said, running a finger along the arm of her chair and then staring in distaste at the dirt her finger had picked up. "Now payloads are all military, but remember, at that time, commercial ventures from the private sector were being encouraged to pay for shuttle space. Everything checked out clean... except this damned house. How do they expect us to live here?"

  "They probably think we'll clean it," he replied.

  "My mama didn't raise me to be a maid," Julie retorted.

  "What did she raise you to be?" he asked.

  "You may have figured out that I'm not much of a trouper."

  "You haven't done so badly," he replied, and meant it.

  "What's this?" she asked, eyebrows raised. "A compliment from the original hard case?"

  "Is that how you see me?"

  She brought a finger to her lips, but pulled it back when she remembered how dirty things were. "I guess you're just doing your job."

  "What kind of a man was Butler?"

  "Brilliant, kind, gentle." She pulled her feet up into the chair, wrapping her arms around her legs. Her eyes were moist. "He couldn't have hurt a fly. He was guilelessly outspoken, especially on the topic of the military."

  "What do you mean?"

  "He hated and feared the military," she replied. "You have to understand that Jerry was the ultimate pacifist. Once, years before, he had apparently worked on a government grant developing electrical conductors that eventually found their way into DOD and the ballistic missile program. He felt dirty for having worked on weapons of destruction and eventually paid the government back every cent they'd put into the project. From then on he scrupulously checked out every government project he worked on, making absolutely sure his work would be used to help mankind, not destroy it."

  "He sounds like a man of high principles."

  "I'm surprised to hear you say that," she replied.

  They stared at each other, the silence deafening.

  The doorbell rang, loudly, startling them both.

  "Who could that be?" she asked, her voice strung tight.

  He shook his head, getting quietly to his feet. "Move into the back of the house." He pulled the Beretta from its holster, checking the load before moving to the door.

  "Bolan ...?"

  "Do it," he whispered harshly, glad they hadn't turned on the lights yet.

  As Julie disappeared into the hallway, he moved toward the front door, stealing a glance through the blinds on the picture window. An air express truck was parked in the driveway.

  He held the Beretta behind the door and opened it a crack to see a man dressed in what looked like a pilot's uniform standing on the porch with a clipboard in his hands. A large package was at his feet.

  "Yeah?" Bolan said through the crack.

  "Mr. Sparks?" the man asked.<
br />
  "That's me."

  The man smiled automatically. "I've got a package for you." He held out the clipboard. "Just sign on line fourteen."

  Bolan reached through the space with his free hand and signed the form.

  "Thank you, sir," the man said and left, the box resting forlornly on the porch.

  The man had backed out and was driving down the street before Bolan opened the door wide enough to drag the package inside. The postmark was Washington, but the return name and address were unfamiliar. He figured it to be Brognola using an assumed name.

  "Bolan!" came a voice from the back of the house. "Mack?"

  "Come on in!" he called, and reached down to tear open the package.

  She hurried back into the room. "What is it?" she asked as he ripped through the tape that held the box closed.

  "I think it's from Hal," he replied, pulling hard on the cardboard. "Something to get me started on a project at Grolier."

  The box came open, spilling an avalanche of Styrofoam packing noodles. Beyond those, he found a number of notebooks and chemistry handbooks. There were several tightly sealed metallic containers that had the single word, DANGER, printed on the outside. These Bolan left alone until he knew what he was dealing with. He took out a fistful of the notebooks and sat on the floor.

  "The thing that gets me about your friend Butler, is that I just can't see how he could possibly connect up with the space shuttle. If he was an independent researcher working at Grolier, it would seem his work would be theoretical. We'll check past manifests, but I've never heard talk of any work done in the field of liquid electricity being done aboard the shuttle. But that's not something I'd keep up on if it was happening."

  "Well, I do keep up with those things." Julie returned to her chair. She reached out and flicked on a lamp on a rickety wooden end table. "Believe me, there's never been any connection between what Jerry and I do... did, and the shuttle. It's totally incongruous."

  "Incongruous, but the chain of evidence is difficult to ignore or put off to chance. Look at the connections.