Fire in the Sky

by Don Pendleton

  Brognola shook his head. "We've tried pentathol, Amytal, lie detectors, you name it. God, late last night we even tried scopolamine. He won't budge."

  "Everything but physical pain," Greggson replied.

  "Believe me," Brognola said. "People like our Captain Michaels just love the pain. We'd be wasting our time."

  "So, what now?"

  Brognola rubbed his face again. He'd been dead tired for days, but every time he lay down to sleep, GOG haunted him. "We've got an appointment with General Ferris later today…."

  "Head of the Joint Chiefs? Wow."

  "Yeah, 'wow' if we can convince him. We've begun to build up an amount of circumstantial evidence against Leland. Enough, anyway, so that an intelligent, thoughtful person could read the situation."

  "And you think that Ferris might be that person?"

  "He's a good man, Greg, as long as he hasn't already gone over to the other side." He inclined his head toward Ito. "Anything from our hacks?"

  Greggson tightened his lips. "They've walked right up to it, then backed off again," he replied. "Any further entry is going to take the password or the go-ahead from us that it's okay to experiment."

  Brognola shook his head. "I'm not ready to take that chance yet. We'll sit on it for a while."

  A phone rang at the other end of the table, one of the agents answering it. "A Mr. Bolan, for you, sir."

  He nodded gratefully, then pulled a phone over in front of him. "Mack! I've been worried about you."

  "You should've been," Bolan replied. "It got pretty hairy down there. GOG had a manufacturing plant just outside of Gila Bend."

  "What were they manufacturing?"

  "Laser weaponry," Bolan said, "using liquid electricity to run the damned things."

  "The woman..."

  "We're both all right — tired and sore — but still on two feet. I'm calling from the airport in Phoenix. What's happening in Wonderland?"

  "I've got some news for you," Brognola replied. "Various pieces of it. We intercepted some GOG communication. The project is set to go at 900 hours tomorrow."

  "Tomorrow!"

  "We still don't know exactly what it is, but we substituted one of our own agents for the courier. He went to Florida, but is now presumed lost in the Everglades."

  "Do you want me back down there?"

  "I've already chartered you a flight," Brognola said. "I was just waiting to hear from you. We'll need you to coordinate our effort down there since you know the territory. Check with a firm there called Arizona Execu-air. They've got a Lear jet with your name on it."

  "Anything else?"

  "Yes." Brognola wasn't anxious to bring the next point up. "We finished our research on Grolier."

  "What's wrong?" Bolan asked.

  "Peg Ackerman. She wasn't working for the other side, Mack. She was one of ours."

  "How's that possible?" Bolan said, his voice taut.

  "Justice sent her down after the death of Jerry Butler," was the reply. "She was picked from a pool of applicants who had science degrees. It didn't look like anything really big, just a little deep cover, you know?"

  "Then why the hell wasn't I told about her?" Bolan was angry, and the big Fed didn't blame him.

  "She was small potatoes, Mack. Once they put her down there, they... forgot about her."

  "Forgot her to death, you mean. And I helped."

  Yeah, they forgot her. It was always the soldiers, the little people, who got forgotten in wartime. No wonder she'd been so mysterious; she'd been trying to check him out, a guppy investigating a shark.

  "Mack..." Brognola said after a few seconds.

  "I'm thinking," Bolan replied, because the information on Peg Ackerman had reshuffled his thought patterns. "Listen. If Peg isn't the one who turned us in down there, it has to be somebody else. Only four other people heard me shooting off my mouth that morning. Of the four, Ike Silver is dead, Fred Haines helped me fight the SPs and Yuri Bonner is a walking cardiac case. That only leaves Robbie Hampton, Hal. He set me up from the word go. If there's anything to find out down there, he's the one to ask."

  "Go for it."

  "How about that dog tag?" Bolan asked. He looked out the window of the booth, watching as Julie walked into the coffee shop, a sad smile on her face. She looked in his direction, waving listlessly when he waved at her. Perhaps the shock was beginning to wear off and she was dealing with the emotional exhaustion.

  "LaMar Johnson had been assigned to General Albert Cronin's command at NASA at the Cape."

  "Cronin again!"

  "Yeah," Brognola replied. "We've made him positively as the head of Project GOG in Florida. When a routine check was run on the tag, Cronin's office said the man had lost his tag or it had been stolen."

  "That's a story that can't hold up long."

  "It only has to hold up, apparently, until tomorrow morning," Brognola said. "We've also tracked down Centurion Investments, the holding company that owns Baylor Goggle. Centurion has a paper board of directors, but the real owner is General Mordechai Leland. He bought the place about seven years ago. Once we've made all the connections, I think we'll find that the United States government provided the money to finance that operation."

  "No wonder this whole thing seems so well-heeled," Bolan said, watching Julie get a table. He made a motion to her, a pantomime of a man drinking coffee. She nodded. "The country's taxpayers are footing the bill."

  "And if this is anything like we think it is," Brognola said, "the bill that the taxpayers are footing is for their own funeral."

  * * *

  Julie Arnold sat in the coffee shop booth, watching as Bolan talked with his contact. The decor around her was all bright paint and phony plastic —flowers and wide bands of color meant to convey some sort of high-tech happy-face appeal to the endless chain of people moving past. She found it depressing.

  Her mind was loose and freewheeling right now, disconnected from anything to do with her body, a disassociation just as complete as the one Bolan had been trying to attain with the rats in his lab at the institute.

  An ultimate clash of values and ideals had rendered her senseless. The choice between love and duty — with life and death as the stakes — had finally stopped her from thinking altogether. Her problem was insoluble, her mind responding by going totally numb.

  "Here you are, honey," the waitress said, putting down two cups of coffee. She was dressed in bright pastels and wore a flower-printed apron, a human being who looked just as plastic as the fixtures. "You'll be ordering food when your friend gets off the phone?''

  "Yes," Julie answered mechanically, her eyes glued on Bolan.

  The woman bent slightly, staring at Julie. "Are you all right?" she asked.

  "Fine." Julie flashed the woman a mirthless smile and stirred sugar into her cup.

  "Well... I'll come back for the rest of your order in a few minutes."

  "Yes," Julie said again.

  Mercifully the woman left, and Julie sat staring at the empty seat across from her and the steaming coffee. Mack Bolan, the Executioner. Mack Bolan, her love. The two forces seemed absolutely incongruous to her. She couldn't believe that he was taking her in, and yet the evidence came from what she considered a totally reputable source. She remembered Mark Reilly's words, which, loosely translated, were "Take care of him before we take care of you." Perhaps that was the bottom line, her survival. Everything else was just politics, was just — what did Mark call it? — business.

  She pulled her purse onto her lap, digging through it until her hand wrapped around the small plastic bag containing the pill.

  Despite the numbness, her hand was shaking as she surreptitiously opened the bag, the smell of bitter almonds assailing her. Cyanide. She knew the toxicology from years of working in college science departments. Cyanide binds up the person's breathing apparatus, the body unable to use the blood's oxygen. The victim suffocates — quickly. Despite her attempts at controlling her thoughts, she couldn't help but pictur
e Bolan, choking, his skin turning pink, his eyes pleading with her in surprise and betrayal.

  Suppressing those thoughts, she pulled his coffee closer to her and dropped the pellet into the dark brew with a shaking hand. She pushed the cup back in place then sat back, exhausted from the ordeal. At age thirty-three, she was getting ready to poison the only man she'd ever loved. The irony was more than she could bear.

  Bolan hung up the phone. Even from this distance she could tell he was tired, though she knew he'd never admit it. He smiled at her and held up a finger, indicating he needed a minute more. Then he moved into the duty-free shop, and she knew he'd purchase a small suitcase to conceal his arsenal.

  Her gaze returned to his coffee cup. So innocent, it was almost possible for her to think that nothing would happen when he drank it. It was just coffee with a little something extra, like sweetener, added. He'd drink it, they'd have a nice afternoon, and she could tell the people in Washington that she tried the stuff but nothing happened. It was just a tiny pill, for heaven's sake. How could it kill someone? How could it snuff out the life and the love of the man she had watched take on a small army in the Arizona desert, the man she had given herself to completely by the crackling light of a scrub oak fire? Unthinkable.

  "Penny for your thoughts," came a voice, and she looked up. He was there, holding a small suitcase. "I guess we should have stopped at the campsite after all."

  She smiled uneasily. "How are things in Washington?"

  He sat down, looking around to make sure no one was listening. "Today's the day," he told her. "GOG is set for a go tomorrow. Whatever we do, it has to be done today."

  "Are you okay?" he asked, his fingers tracing the rim of the cup.

  She couldn't stand the tension. Couldn't he either drink it or leave it alone? "I...guess I'm just tired."

  He nodded and picked up the cup, a slight plume of steam still rising from the surface of the liquid. "Hal has chartered us a plane to go back to Florida. Maybe you can grab some sleep on the flight."

  "Maybe," she responded, trying to keep from screaming as he brought the cup to his lips. Every muscle in her body was tensed, her hands clenched into tight fists, her nails drawing blood.

  "And do you know something else?" he said, lowering the cup slightly to speak. "Peg Ackerman wasn't the GOG plant at the institute. It was Robbie."

  Words kept pouring from his lips, words that her mind wasn't even comprehending. He might as well be speaking Hindi. Then he stopped talking and she watched, in slow motion, as he brought the cup up, this time to drink.

  She saw him tilt the cup to his lips and caught his eyes, the same eyes that had looked into hers with such vulnerability and honesty when they'd made love.

  "No!" she shrieked, and she was on her feet, her arm swinging wildly, knocking the cup from his hands to crash loudly on the tiled floor.

  "Julie!" he yelled, taking her shoulders. "What is it?"

  She was crying, standing in the booth shaking, unable either to go to him or pull away. "P-poison," she choked out, panting. "I p-put it in...your c-coffee."

  There was horror in his eyes as his gaze burned through her. "Who are you?" he demanded. "Just who the hell are you?"

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Hal Brognola felt uncomfortable in the Marine Corps lieutenant's uniform he wore, watching General Ferris reading from the stack of documented evidence that was set before him. Greggson, dressed as an Army major, nervously puffed on a cigarette, his lawyer's brain no doubt upset by the lack of hard evidence in the case.

  The disguises had been Brognola's idea, not so much to hide them in Leland's territory, though that was a consideration, but more to protect General Ferris in these circumstances. There was not a shred of doubt in the big Fed's mind that, at this point, Leland would do anything to protect his target date in the morning.

  The office was large and comfortable. It was an imposing workplace for an imposing man, the second-highest ranking officer, beneath the commander in chief, of the armed forces. Brognola had gone to the top with his fears, and that move would either make or break their chances of stopping Leland.

  The general put down the last page of the brief, his angular face hard, the expression revealing the depth of his concern.

  "I've known Lee Leland for over thirty years," he said after a moment. "Ever since Korea. He might be the best Field officer I've ever seen."

  Brognola sat up straight, leaning forward to put an elbow on the general's desk. "I've only known him by reputation…" he pointed to the documentation "…and through this."

  Ferris tightened his lips. "You're trying to draw me back to your evidence. It's not necessary."

  "Yes, sir." Brognola backed off.

  "You gentlemen have come to me with a great concern," Ferris said, and the phone on his desk rang. He picked it up. "Hold the calls. No...no, I don't care. Cancel it." He hung up and stared at each of them.

  Ferris stood and walked to a small bar set at the side of the room. "Bourbon and water is what we drink in here, gentlemen. Is it all right with you?"

  Both affirmed the drink. They would have agreed to anything at that point.

  "Now," Ferris said as he settled behind his desk, "what exactly have you brought me?" He took a sip of the bourbon. "The existence of the GOG project is a fact. I can check that. I can call it up on my own screen using your methods if I want, though I can't physically get into the program. That Lee is the head of it is also a fact that can't be denied, as is the issuing of orders to implement the project. This is not outside the realm of standard operating procedure. At this point, everything is straightforward and on the up-and-up."

  "But…" The general held up a hand to silence Brognola.

  "Now we come to the other issues," Ferris continued, his face pained as he spoke. "The killing of your secretary. The attempts on your own life. The attack on your house. If I am to believe that these things really happened, it gives me a great deal of pause. But, in every one of these instances, your assailants remain unknown. And, Mr. Brognola, you are a man with a considerable number of enemies."

  Ferris sat back, hands behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. "The physical evidence tying your secretary to Baylor Goggle and Optical is, in my opinion, relatively solid, as is your tying Leland to that company and your speculation about the nature of his funding. It smacks of illegality even if it's not what you claim it to be, and that gentlemen, is where I begin to part company with General Leland."

  The man sipped his drink again, Brognola realizing that he was still holding a drink that had been forgotten in the excitement.

  "Your man, Bolan," Ferris said, "has firsthand experience with Givan and others involved with this. Unfortunately I don't know how well evidence given by a renegade like him is going to help your case."

  "Bolan's a good man."

  "I'm not implying otherwise. I'm simply looking at what we're up against in trying to prove anything with this."

  "Did you say, 'we'?" Greggson asked.

  The man nodded. "Something damned dirty is going on here. And to me it all hinges on Captain Norman Michaels and his orders to assume command of the White House security forces. There's no way that orders of this nature could be implemented unless the entire command structure had broken down. The thought that the President's safety could be in the hands of traitors, gentlemen, frankly frightens me to death."

  "Thank God." Brognola breathed a sigh of relief. "We were afraid…"

  "I know what you were afraid of," the general said. "I don't blame you. This is all circumstantial. And now, thanks to both of you, it has become my problem."

  "What do we do now?" Greggson asked.

  "From where I sit," Ferris said, "we do more of what we're already doing. I agree that we can't go public with this yet. It would do nothing to stop the project. We've got to take care of what we can, and hope to God that we find some way to stop the wheels that have been put in motion."

  "Will you confide in the President
?" Brognola asked.

  The general shook his head. "The President and General Leland are extremely close friends. He would never believe this unless we had more solid proof. Besides, I don't know whether or not we have the right to involve the President in our own illegal intelligence gathering, and if I was to tell him, that's exactly what we'd be doing. Are you beginning to understand where I'm coming from?"

  "Yes," Greg said, nodding slowly. "If this doesn't work out, all of us are going to jail for a long, long time."

  "Precisely." Ferris stood. "Anyone care to join me in another drink?"

  * * *

  Bolan sat at the Bee Line toll booth in the rented T-Bird, waiting for his change, so he could take the ramp onto Interstate 4 and make the short jump into Orlando.

  "No," Julie was saying, "my story about Harry and me is essentially true. I didn't like lying to you. I never wanted to."

  "There you are," the young blonde said as she handed back the change. "Three dollars and twenty-five cents."

  "Thanks," Bolan said, pocketing the money and driving on. He looked at Julie. "So, how did it happen?"

  She took a breath. "Okay. The CIA had approached me when I was working as Harry's assistant. Harry had originally come from Germany, and they felt he was something of a security risk. All they wanted me to do was keep an eye on him and his research, just to make sure he was coming clean to the government about what he was doing."

  "And you said yes." Bolan turned onto the I-4 ramp that skirted Disney World and headed north, inexorably closer to Robbie Hampton.

  "It was the government, Mack. Our government."

  "Plus they paid you," Bolan said.

  "They paid me more money than I'd ever known existed. They were even nice enough to put it in a Swiss bank so I wouldn't have to pay taxes on it. God, I was twenty-two years old. I was going to be a spy and get paid for it. It was as exciting as hell."

  "Then Harry asked you to marry him," Bolan stated.

  She sank down in the seat. "Everything has a price tag, doesn't it? At the time I was too young to realize it. They pushed me to accept him and upped the ante to make it worthwhile. I hemmed and hawed, but in the final analysis, I wanted the money more than I wanted true love." She reached out a hand to touch his arm. "I've since realized what a prison money is.