Fire in the Sky

by Don Pendleton

  He wondered how she got the offer from Boston College with her small experience and slender record, and he wondered why someone wielding such a key administrative job would chuck it to return to pure research. It wasn't the way the careers had gone for the other researchers, each of whom had exhibited a total addiction and devotion to his field of study to the exclusion of everything else.

  It was all confusing, just like Jerry Butler's second set of code words. Bolan had spent the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday trying to make a dent in that code without success. Meanwhile, in Washington, Brognola had been in danger as he searched for the truth. One thing the Fed had said in their Saturday conversation that made sense to Bolan was the notion that something was going to happen soon. With the attempts on Brognola's life and the killing of Marie Price, it seemed obvious that the enemy was drawing in bold strokes, bold enough that the reasons behind the attacks could be uncovered before very long. Apparently the opposition wasn't worried about anyone drawing conclusions and tracking them down. Something, in other words, was almost ready to happen. But what? And when?

  He looked at the screen again, knowing that he was going to have to move faster and push harder if he was to learn anything. That thought in mind, he picked up the telephone and dialed Robbie's extension. He didn't trust any of his co-workers completely, but he trusted Robbie more than most and decided to use the man to provide some vital data.

  The man answered after the third ring. "It's your dime," he said, voice light.

  "Robbie... David Sparks."

  "Good morning, David. You're at work bright and early this morning."

  "You ought to know. Your car was here when I got in today."

  "Never made it home last night is why. Yuri had me up half the night working on harvesting techniques for his new food."

  "You doing anything special right now?" Bolan asked.

  "Yeah," the man answered. "Trying to put enough coffee in myself to stay awake through the day."

  Bolan laughed. "Why don't you bring that coffeepot in here for a few minutes and I'll see if I can help you stay awake. I left the door ajar."

  "Sounds good. I've got a couple of books to put away, then I’ll be right there."

  "See you," Bolan said, holding the receiver in his hand and cutting off the connection with an index finger. He hated to depend on Julie for anything, but he needed her feedback on Ackerman's record. He raised his finger and dialed an outside line, then home.

  The phone rang seven times before Julie answered. "What's wrong?" he said, when she finally picked up the receiver.

  "I was busy. I knew it was either you or a wrong number, so I got it when I could. What's up?"

  He calmed himself for a moment, angry that she'd keep him on the hook when she knew how precarious and volatile their situation was.

  "Any problems?"

  "Of course not. Everything's fine. I've been transcribing Jerry's notes."

  "How's it going?"

  "Are you kidding? This is the real McCoy, Dr. Sparks. When this gets out it will change the way we live. Just imagine an airplane that doesn't need to carry thousands of gallons of flammable fuel, or a rocket whose engines run off a pint of water with absolutely no danger of explosions or complications."

  "Yeah," Bolan said. "But think about all the gas stations it will put out of business."

  "Gas stations don't make money on their gas anyway," she returned. "You'll still need tires and tune-ups."

  "You've researched all this."

  "For years."

  "Let me ask you something that has nothing to do with what you're working on," he said, reaching out a hand to scroll to the information he needed. "Listen to this…"

  Bolan proceeded to read Ackerman's employment record, Julie squealing slightly when he read the part about Boston College. "What do you think?" he asked when he had finished. "Pretty odd?"

  "It's worse than odd, roommate," she said. "It's a downright lie. I was involved with the university community for over ten years through my association with Penn State and got to know a great many people. Donovan Phelps was a great friend of Harry's and he's headed BC's bi-chem department for at least fifteen years. Maybe more. He's an institution up there. Has been. Still is."

  "Then Peg Ackerman couldn't have worked there?"

  "She could have worked there," Julie amended, "that's possible. But she never headed the department — ever."

  "Ho!" Bolan heard a call from across the lab, and he looked up to sec Robbie coming in, coffeepot and cup in hand.

  "Well, thanks, Bernice," he said, waving Robbie over to the office. "This is all very interesting."

  "You're welcome. Get the bad guys, okay?"

  "Soon as I can tell them from the good guys," Bolan said. "Bye."

  He hung up just as Robbie came into the room. He had stopped at one of the lab tables and had brought a stool with him because Bolan's office had only one chair.

  "Well, neighbor," Robbie said, "how are our mice today?"

  "Still associated." Bolan reached out and dimmed his computer screen. "I've found, though, that if I subject my compound to heat before spraying it, more of the reactant material gets into the bloodstream. Unfortunately, that counteracts some of the effect of the atropine."

  Robbie nodded, as he situated his stool and poured Bolan a cup of coffee. "I thought I noticed one less mouse when I came in."

  "Yeah. Brunhilde was my first casualty."

  Robbie handed Bolan his coffee. "She gave her life in the cause of science," he said, smiling. "Better the mouse than a human subject. You know, I've been thinking about your peace bomb, and it seems to me that a better use for it than in a war would simply be as a domestic crowd- control device. Say, you've got a riot on your hands — racial, students, whatever — how much better to simply put the little darlings into, what's your word... disassociation, than to beat them up or teargas them or arrest them. You simply blanket the area with gas, put them out of commission for an hour or so, then let them pick themselves up and go home on shaky legs, sadder but wiser. No Geneva Convention to worry about, no wrongful death suits or police brutality. Just polite, passive restraint. In other words, maybe this needs to be taken out of the hands of the military completely."

  Bolan opened his arms wide. "You've got me convinced. Now just convince the Air Force of that."

  "Not impossible. Stranger things have happened."

  "On that subject," Bolan said, taking his opening, "I've never worked for the government before. How, exactly, do they go about checking our research? Do they trust us to fill them in, or what?"

  "What brings this up?" Robbie asked, narrowing his gaze.

  "I've been thinking about your friend, Jerry Butler," Bolan said, and took a sip of the coffee. "You said that he made a breakthrough, but perhaps wanted to keep it away from the Air Force. Could he really do that?"

  "A touchy subject," Robbie said, his jovial face straining to a less dignified expression. "We all like to believe that our experiments will lead to world improvement and not add to the fund of destructive possibilities. Jerry, for example, accepted this post because he believed the Air Force was developing a new jet engine to run on liquid electricity, and that it would benefit the whole world to the tune of hundreds if not thousands of lives a year."

  "He believed?"

  Robbie put up a hand. "Let me finish the thought. Jerry never confided in me, but I had to think, given his dovishness, that he found something that changed his mind about their intentions. How else to explain his actions? But anyway, back to the point. We all like to believe that we're doing good, yet, ultimately, where's the good of any discovery? Einstein thought about the humanitarian possibilities of unlimited energy when he came up with the theory of relativity at age twenty-six; yet it was Einstein himself who urged Roosevelt to mobilize the U.S. to produce the atomic bomb. The yin and the yang. Everything has a good and a bad side. It's unfortunate that Jerry didn't understand that fact."

  "You still ha
ven't answered my question."

  "In a sense I have," Robbie replied, getting off the stool to look through the plate-glass window into the lab. "I think all of us need to understand the fact that change has no morality, that change is beyond morality. Jerry would probably still be alive if he had understood that fact."

  "Are you saying that the Air Force killed him?"

  Robbie turned then, and fixed Bolan with sad eyes. "They don't trust us to fill out the proper reports and keep them current. They feel we're too independent to be trusted. I found a listening device in my office one time. I examined it, then put it back. It's still there. They may use spies, or hidden cameras. Hell, David, they own us — our brains and our morality. And how our discoveries are used is a lot more important to them than it is to us. They take the games seriously."

  "Then how did Butler find out about them?"

  Robbie shrugged, then turned back to stare out the window. "Maybe he found a listening device, or caught someone going through his stuff. Maybe he just became paranoid for no reason at all. It's all flexible, David. All plastic. Nothing's real. Everything is open to speculation."

  The phone rang, startling both men. Bolan picked it up. "Sparks."

  He was greeted by Howard Davis's hysterical voice. "Get in here, quick! Please hurry!"

  "What..." Bolan began, but the boy had already hung up.

  Bolan jumped to his feet and moved to the door.

  "What is it?"

  "Some kind of trouble in Howard's lab," Bolan explained, and hurried out, Robbie on his heels.

  Howard's door banged open as the boy charged out of his lab and hall. "Thank God," he said, and grabbed Bolan by the arm, hurrying him inside.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Quickly...the tank," the boy said, his eyes wide in terror. "It's Morty."

  They rushed to the tank, Bolan peering over the side as Howard climbed the stairs. One of the dolphins was dormant in the water, its body stiffened into a painful-looking S-shape, its head underwater.

  "I think he's caught a virus," Howard said quickly. "If we don't get his head above water, he'll drown."

  Bolan was already kicking off his shoes, his hands working at the buttons of his shirt. "Is there something you can do?" he asked, watching two other dolphins swimming languidly at the far end of the pool.

  "While you hold him up, I'm going to try a massive injection of antibodies."

  Bolan, stripped to his pants, hurried up the steps and jumped into the forty-foot-diameter pool, the water coral-reef warm.

  "Talk to him," Howard urged as he prepared a large hypodermic needle. "He's a reasonable creature. Tell him what you're going to do."

  Bolan looked at the beautiful grayish-blue mammal, its skin tone turning to a sickly off-white. He moved in close and saw the pitiful eyes of a creature desperately crying out for help. And he responded.

  "Come on, Morty," he said gently, soothingly. "I don't want to hurt you. I only want to help."

  The dolphin was the size of a small man and far more powerful looking. It chirped sadly as it strained unsuccessfully to get and keep its head above water.

  "I just want to help you," Bolan repeated, and slid his arms under its belly, lifting gently, Morty allowing him free rein.

  The dolphin was heavy, but the water's buoyancy helped, as Bolan twisted back slightly to get Morty's head up. He held the heavy animal close as it cried out softly to him.

  "You got some muscles, Nam boy," Fred Haines said from behind him. He turned slightly to see Haines and Peg Ackerman standing side by side at the water's edge, the wall of the pool almost level with their heads.

  "And some scars," Ackerman observed. "A couple even look like healed bullet wounds."

  Ike Silver joined them. "It looks like our poison-gasser has got some feelings after all."

  There was a splash as Howard jumped in. He carried the large syringe above his head as he waded over to Bolan.

  "Good, Dr. Sparks," he said low. "Morty likes you... you're doing fine... fine."

  Tears welled up in the boy's eyes as he stroked the suffering dolphin. "Oh baby," he cried, "I'm so sorry. This will hurt a little bit, but maybe we can help you."

  He injected the dolphin near its dorsal fin, the creature crying loudly as the needle went in. The other dolphins in the tank became agitated, swimming faster.

  The boy sobbed as he injected Morty, and Bolan saw an empathy in him that he would scarcely have thought possible from the sullen youth who had spray-painted the institute walls.

  Howard removed the syringe and wrapped his arms around Morty's head, the dolphin chirping to him in its fear and its pain. The boy responded in equal measure with clicks and whistles of his own, and Bolan's own feelings about the closeness of a researcher to his work strengthened.

  "Quite a take-charge guy," Haines said. "Maybe we should give him a medal."

  "I didn't see you jumping in."

  "Why should I when we've got a bona fide hero working here?" the man replied, smiling widely.

  "Leave him alone." Howard looked up at Bolan with childlike trust in his eyes. "Do you think he'll be okay?" he added, referring to Morty.

  "You're the expert, Howard, but he seems to have relaxed a bit already."

  Howard smiled wanly and went back to stroking Morty and soothing him in dolphin language. Bolan could have sworn that the dolphin was listening and responding.

  All at once, one of the other dolphins charged at them, dipping underwater to come up below Morty's tail, just scraping it with his dorsal fin. Morty jerked from reflex, nearly knocking Bolan down. He had barely regained his balance and got Morty back in his arms when the other dolphin charged them, doing the same thing.

  Morty twitched wildly in Bolan's arms, and this time he did lose his balance, splashing backward and losing the dolphin.

  He crested water and tried to retrieve Morty.

  "Leave him!" Howard ordered, holding out his arms. "I think they're helping."

  Bolan stood spellbound as the dolphins repeated their seeming attack on Morty. Each time they brushed the base of his tail with their dorsal fins, he jerked from reflex, bringing his head out of the water for breath. It was an amazing act of kindness and lifesaving prowess.

  Howard had already climbed out of the water and rolled a large tripod with a video camera over to the water's edge, where he began to photograph the phenomenon.

  Bolan hefted himself onto the lip of the pool, wondering whether, if three people found themselves in the same situation as the dolphins, two of them would be willing to spend all of their time trying to save the drowning one.

  Life could be so simple if people would just allow it to be.

  He eased over the side of the tank and stepped onto the floor, dripping water. Howard ran and grabbed a towel, which the soldier took gratefully, wrapping it around his shoulders to hide, too late, his warrior's body.

  "I'll never forget this," Howard vowed.

  "I just hope Morty's okay," Bolan replied, drying his hair with the towel.

  "It's out of our hands now."

  Bolan smiled at him. "You know, kid, you're all right." He held out his right hand. Howard, beaming, shook it; and if there was, indeed a list of suspects in Jerry Butler's demise, Bolan had just crossed the boy's name off the List. Great. That only left everybody else.

  Bolan was beginning to get cold from the rush of the air-conditioning on his wet body. He needed to change pants and dry off completely.

  He turned to Robbie, who was busy looking through the viewfinder of the camera. "Know where I can get some dry clothes?" he asked.

  Robbie turned, smiling at him. "I've got clothes here if you think you can get into them."

  "I'll give it a try. I'm going down to my office to dry off."

  Robbie nodded, moving away from the tripod. "I'll see what I can scare up and bring it down to you."

  "Great."

  Bolan walked to the door, wondering what they would have done if the other dolphins hadn't
helped. He might have stood in the pool all day. He walked into the hall and noticed that someone else must have thought the same thing.

  Peg Ackerman was just leaving his office, closing the door behind her. Her mouth dropped open when she saw Bolan looking at her, then hardened to a tight slash. She set her face and walked resolutely up to him, trying to simply pass him.

  He grabbed her arm. "Give me the key," he demanded.

  "I don't know what you're…"

  "Give me the key, Peg," he repeated, "or I'll search you right here."

  Her eyes flashed hatred as she dug a key out of the pocket of her lab coat and thrust it into his hand.

  "Now let me…" she began, trying to jerk her arm away, but Bolan tightened his grip.

  "What were you doing in there?"

  "Nothing."

  "Tell me now, Peggy. Or you're not going to be very happy.''

  "I just wanted to see what you were doing," she said through clenched teeth. "I wanted to see...who you were."

  "Where did you get the key?"

  Her eyes met his, and if looks could kill, he would have been hanging on a meat hook somewhere. "They gave it to me when I started to work here. I never gave it back."

  He stuck the key in his pocket and let her go. "Just focus on your own work and stay out of my lab."

  "Just who the hell are you?" she rasped.

  "Just who the hell are you?" he returned.

  She turned on her heel and stomped away, never giving him a backward glance.

  * * *

  Mark Reilly drove the borrowed utility truck slowly past the house where Julie Arnold was living with the operative from Justice. The driveway was empty; Bolan was at the Grolier Foundation. Good. He drove another block and parked under an aging palm tree, taking a minute to check out the neighborhood before stepping from the truck.

  General Leland had told him to take charge of the woman personally, and that's just what he intended to do. Opportunities to stand out didn't come along that often, and this was the perfect chance to show the general his ability and loyalty. The general had given him a chance despite his past record, and he intended to reward the man's trust. Historic changes were in the works, and Mark Reilly fully intended to be at the forefront and a part of those changes.