Backlash

by Don Pendleton

  "What happened to him?"

  "If you want my opinion, it looks like he lost an argument with a dragon." Wade smiled sardonically.

  "Who the hell are you?" Arledge demanded.

  "Byron Wade. It's my stiff."

  "You find him?"

  Arledge stared at Wade for a long moment. His lips moved like those of a man having a seizure, but nothing came out. Finally he said, "Let's take a ride. Show me where."

  Wade looked at Parsons, who shrugged. "Why not?" Wade said. He got up slowly, shifting his muscular shoulders to fit more comfortably in his jacket, then opened the door and left without waiting to see whether Arledge followed him. There was no doubt in his mind.

  In the garage the lieutenant climbed into the two-year-old Plymouth and left the door open while he started the engine. Arledge tried the far door, but it was locked. Wade leaned over, opened it and closed his own door.

  Out in traffic Arledge seemed to relax a little. He lit a cigarette, then waved it at Wade. "You mind?" When the other man shook his head, Arledge took a drag. He opened the window to let the smoke out. When the cigarette was no more than a stub, he pinched off the light and tossed the filter out the window. "How'd you find the body?" he asked.

  The question took Wade by surprise. "Phone tip."

  "Anonymous?" The lieutenant hesitated. Before he could frame his answer, Arledge said, "Thought so. That's always the way."

  "It happens a lot."

  "Yeah, it does."

  "What was McDonough working on?" Wade asked.

  "I don't know."

  "Don't give me any of that need-to-know crap. I've been that route more than enough."

  Arledge sounded earnest. "I really don't know. He was just a contract agent, a local asset. He wasn't real Company."

  "He's real dead, though. I'll tell you that."

  Arledge nodded, then, as an afterthought, said, "I didn't know him. Never met him, in fact."

  Wade thought about that, turning it over in his mind like a man looking at something that might be gold and might just be pyrite. He wasn't sure he could tell the difference, and he wasn't sure he cared.

  They were on the open highway now, and Wade drove easily, letting one arm dangle out the window. Arledge stared into the marsh grass that stretched as far away as he could see, ending in the blunt, black tree line. Above it the stars glittered wickedly, flashing like a villain's teeth.

  "This could have waited until daylight," Wade suggested.

  "No time. I have to get my report in."

  "You guys don't really give a shit about this, do you?" Arledge kept silent. Wade sighed in exasperation. "You know, if you guys gave us a little more cooperation, it would be a lot easier. This damn city's a cesspool. It's full of little boys running around playing games, playing by the rules you guys taught them. They have the toys, and they want to play. If there's no game, they make one up."

  "It's not that simple," Arledge said.

  "Oh, but it is."

  "It's a two-way street, Wade. You know that. If you were a little more flexible, maybe we would be, too."

  "Flexible my ass. We have people running around here with more artillery than some Third World countries. What you didn't give them, you taught them how to get for themselves. Half the shit that goes down in Miami leads back to your Bureau of Public Roads."

  "No more."

  "The hell it doesn't."

  "No, I mean the sign. It doesn't say that anymore."

  "What's it say now? Little Red Schoolhouse?"

  Arledge started to answer, then, realizing the lieutenant was in no mood to listen, snapped his jaw shut. Wade spun the car into the gravel shoulder, braking a few feet from a Bronco sitting by the roadside on big balloon tires. It bore the Miami-Dade shield on the front door and sported a huge light rack.

  "What's this?" Arledge asked.

  "We have to go back aways. This is the best way." He opened his door and waved to a uniform leaning against the front fender. "Got to borrow the buggy, Tito. You mind?"

  The officer shook his head. "How long?" He glanced curiously at Arledge, but Wade made no attempt to introduce him. Tito turned away.

  The 4×4 rode high over the swampy water, rocking and rolling through small streams and over hummocks. Wade pushed the Bronco as hard as he dared, enjoying the queasy look on Arledge's face.

  When the remains of the launch exploded into view, Wade nudged the Bronco as close to the orange tape as he could, then jumped down onto to spongy grass. Arledge followed reluctantly.

  "Watch out for snakes," Wade warned, his smile clearly visible in the headlights. But Arledge didn't react. The policeman was starting to suspect that this guy was no desk jockey. He reached back into the Bronco and snatched a large flashlight. Clicking it on, he ducked under the tape and moved to the channel bank.

  "I don't know what you expect to find here," Wade said. "We went over the that pretty thoroughly."

  "Maybe nothing. But you know how it is sometimes. If you know what to look for, something turns up."

  "Oh, and what should we look for?"

  "I don't know. What did you find?"

  "The body, an arm, lots of bugs. The usual."

  "That's all?"

  "Far as I know." Wade hedged a little and hoped Arledge didn't notice.

  "And somebody called it in, you said?"

  Before Wade could answer, Arledge stepped over the gunwale and down into the boat.

  "Yeah. And don't fuck around with anything down there. I don't think the lab boys are finished."

  "Don't worry. The lab isn't going to have anything to do."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, we're taking this one ourselves."

  "You don't have jurisdiction. No domestic action. Remember the Church Committee, the Pike Committee, the…"

  "It's cleared through the Justice Department. Captain Parsons has been apprised. And now so have you."

  "Shit!"

  Arledge turned to grin at Wade. "Gotcha!" He laughed.

  "Maybe," Wade replied, clicking off the light.

  "Hey, Wade, what the fuck are you doing?"

  "Saving the citizens of Miami a couple of cents. Use your federal batteries if you want to see anything else."

  "You son of a bitch, Wade."

  "Gotcha!"

  Chapter Five

  Bolan sat at the table, peering through a fog of cigarette smoke and clouds of dry ice. The nearly impenetrable air, tinted blue, pink and yellow by swirling lights mounted high overhead, was what passed for atmosphere in trendy clubs in Miami. The music, loud and bottom heavy, made the ice in his drink rattle steadily against the glass.

  The band occupied a platform swathed in dense carbon dioxide wreaths. Their flashy outfits, liberally sprinkled with sequins and rhinestones, glittered intermittently whenever the fog cleared enough for some light to get through. Elevated above the dance floor, the bandstand loomed up like an iceberg out of the sea of smoke and darkness.

  Down below, those who had nothing better to do milled around on the dance floor. The dancers, wearing expensive clothes and as much gold as they could carry, seemed to fall into two groups, more or less evenly represented among the swirling throng. Half of them had no sense of rhythm, and the other half seemed oblivious to everything, including the heavy backbeat laid down by two full drum kits and a trio of leggy blondes rapping on everything from claves to tambourines. The music made up in volume what it lacked in subtlety. On the other hand, the narcotized dancers probably wouldn't have noticed if everything went dead at once.

  Bolan hated places like this. They represented a kind of mindless hedonism, too lame to pass for the end of civilization, and too boring to interest anyone but the most masochistic sociologist. But Wade had told him to try Chico's Pub and to look for a Hispanic Mr. Clean. It would have been nice to have more to go on, but small favors were better than none. With the courier a dead end this was where he had to start again, this time hoping for a better break on t
he back end.

  Glancing at his watch, Bolan realized he'd been there for a half hour. He saw the waitress eyeing him, downed the last of his ginger ale and hoisted the glass. She smiled, then pushed through the crowd, moving slowly, as if afraid the least exertion might raise what little there was of her skirt above the limit.

  "Another one?" she asked.

  Bolan nodded.

  "Sure you don't want to try something a little stronger?"

  "No, thanks."

  She walked off, tapping Bolan's empty glass against her tanned thigh, and disappeared into the melee. Bolan turned his attention back to the empty table in the corner. The warrior had seen the burly skinhead, a thick-necked Hispanic with a Fu Manchu mustache, but the guy had vanished almost as quickly as he'd materialized.

  Until Bolan got some feedback on the dead man and the papers he'd been carrying, there was time to kill, and this was the best place to do it in. If the skinhead panned out, he might get another thread to pull on, maybe unravel a little more of the dense fabric that seemed to shroud the drug ring so tightly.

  The band took a break, announcing it with a brassy fanfare and a drumroll that was both too long and too loud. Before the musicians hit the floor, the sound system switched to a DJ who grinned out over the crowd from a booth behind the bandstand.

  The waitress was back, another ginger ale in hand. She set it on the table with a crack, then smiled. "No way to drown your sorrows, honey. Not with that stuff."

  Bolan slipped her a five. "Keep the change," he said. She smiled more broadly, tucked the bill into her back pocket and disappeared.

  When Bolan turned back to Skinhead's table, it was occupied. The Hispanic wasn't there, but two men, one in an expensive suit, the other in a lime-green leisure suit, sat stiffly with their backs to the wall. Leisure Suit scanned the crowd, stretching his neck to raise his head as far as he could. The thick tendons on either side of his Adam's apple looked as if they would snap if he turned too quickly. Business Suit was less obvious in his survey, but no less attentive.

  Bolan sipped his drink, trying not to stare. A reeling blonde, on heels too high and too sharp to keep her stable, grabbed on to Bolan's table. "Can I have this?" she asked, jerking one of the three empty chairs by its back.

  The warrior nodded, and she staggered off, towing the chair behind on two of its legs. She had momentarily blocked his view, and when he could see Skinhead's table again, the man in the business suit was gone. Bolan stood casually, as if to stretch, but it was impossible to see anything in the sea of whirling bodies. Rather than call attention to himself, he elected to sit back down and wait for Skinhead.

  Five minutes later the man in the business suit was back, followed by Skinhead. Bolan nursed his ginger ale while the three men leaned their heads over the center of the table. Hearing anything was out of the question, and trying to read lips was pointless. But it was apparent that Skinhead was unhappy about something. He kept shaking his head. Once, he slammed a fist onto the table. The glasses and ashtray on the table jumped, but in the deafening roar of the nightclub, it was like watching a silent movie.

  Skinhead seemed to direct the bulk of his anger at the man in the business suit. Whenever the third man ventured to say something, Skinhead waved the words aside angrily, with impatience and contempt clearly visible in his face and the dismissive casualness of the gesture. As he grew more irritated, the scar on his scalp seemed to glow, as if molten metal coursed through a transparent vein.

  After a half hour, Skinhead stood so abruptly that his chair tipped over. He kicked it aside angrily, shattering one of the struts and sending the chair skidding out onto the dance floor. Then he left.

  Bolan was on his feet before Skinhead got halfway across the floor. By the time the burly man reached the front door, the Executioner was fifteen feet behind him, moving like a man who had just remembered something important.

  Skinhead was outside a moment later. When Bolan pushed through the crowd in the doorway, all he could see of his quarry was the dull glare of neon on the polished scalp. Bolan slowed down as Skinhead waved a hand. A moment later a stretch Cadillac pulled up. The back door swung open and the man ducked inside. Through the tinted glass, it wasn't possible to see who else occupied the vehicle. Bolan started moving toward his own car, pausing just long enough to note the license plate on the big car. He had expected it to be a local rental, but it was neither. The big car had Louisiana plates, and they were customized.

  Bolan sprinted through the fringes of the crowd and skipped through a side alley to the parking lot behind the building. His car was flush against the back wall between two cars. It was a tight fit and maneuvering out of the squeeze took precious time. By the time he got loose, the limousine was a block away.

  He raced the light, just beating it, then slowed to fall in behind the limo. The Cadillac moved slowly, its body seesawing awkwardly over each hump and pothole. Bolan let a van and a convertible full of kids slip in between him and his quarry, then settled back to see where Skinhead might be going. Heading east on Calle Ocho, they passed through Little Havana, but the limo kept rolling at a steady clip, working its way through the congestion toward the east side.

  Bolan nearly lost the Caddy once, just squeaking through an amber light. The convertible was long gone, but the van still hung in there. The warrior started wondering whether the van might be as interested in the limo as he was.

  The van slowed for a turn, and halfway through the vehicle stopped. Bolan hit the brakes and jerked his wheel to the left, narrowly missing the van's rear fender. As he started to move around it, the vehicle backed up, braked and spun to the left. A moment later the brake lights Hashed on again, and Bolan cursed as he was forced to swing wide. By the time he realized the limo was gone, the van had disappeared behind him.

  Bolan slapped the wheel angrily, then doubled back to the previous block. At the corner he had two choices. He could go right, toward the ocean and the estates down along the shore, or he could take the left toward the shabby south side. It didn't take much to convince him which way the limo would most likely have gone.

  A pair of taillights winked on and off about two blocks ahead, and the Executioner pushed his car to narrow the gap. If it was the limo, he couldn't afford to come up on it too quickly. But if it wasn't, the sooner he found out the better. He roared through another amber light, narrowly missing a Corvette that jumped the green on the side street. The sports car's horn blared behind him, and Bolan glanced in the mirror just as the gray van screamed out of an alley and rocked toward him.

  The van swung sideways, blocking his way. Bolan jammed the Buick into reverse. A cloud of burnt rubber swirled around him through the open window as he backed up, but the Corvette had swung into the side street now and stood astride the white line. There was little room on either side. The warrior slammed on his brakes and sat for a second, listening to his engine idle. Two men scurried out of the van and dropped to their knees in the middle of the street. Bolan didn't have to see the guns to know they were there.

  Kicking the vehicle into low, he swung up onto the curb between two parked cars and headed straight for the van. One man scrambled back into the vehicle while a second took aim over the hood of a parked car.

  Bolan hoisted the .44 Desert Eagle and braced it on the windowledge, steering with his right hand. The warrior fired wide, narrowly missing the gunner, who fell backward out of sight.

  At the corner his vehicle jumped off the curb, just missing a newspaper delivery truck, idling at a newsstand across the street. He fishtailed back into the side street and hit the gas hard. The van was no match for his speed, but there was no way he could hope to outrun the Corvette, not if the man behind the wheel had the faintest idea how to drive.

  At the next corner he slowed just enough to check out the traffic situation, then barreled through a red light. The street ahead was empty now, except for the telltale red of the Caddy's taillights far in the distance. The mirror was empty, too. The van
had vanished once again, and the Corvette — if it even was involved — had also chosen to disengage.

  Flooring the gas pedal, he roared after the limo, hearing at the back of his mind Byron Wade's voice. You have any idea about the hornet's nest you kicked open here?

  He did now.

  Chapter Six

  "Fuck you, man. I'm getting tired of this shit! You tell that asshole Gardner it's not his war. Not anymore. It's mine, and I'll fight it the way I want to."

  "Calm down, Willie, calm down. All I said was Gardner's getting a little antsy about the press."

  "You think I give a shit what's in the papers?"

  "That's easy for you to say. You don't have the Washington Post on your ass. Or the Intelligence Oversight Committee."

  "There's ways to handle the press. The committee, too."

  "Your ways are a little, shall we say, rough-hewn. I don't think Mr. Gardner can get away with that sort of thing. Look, we've got an election coming up in Nicaragua. The Arenas plan is a big deal on the Hill. And I don't think you ought to push so damn hard right now. Lay low on the drug shit."

  "Politics is Gardner's problem. I've got to raise money any way I can. If he can't handle Congress, I can handle my end. As far as the papers are concerned, he should take a lesson from Nicaragua. In my country if we don't like what the papers say, we shoot the editors. Hell, Somoza did it for years."

  "But it isn't your country anymore, is it, Willie?"

  "And whose fault is that? You think I let that happen? Oh, no, my friend. Not me. It was your Mr. Carter who was afraid of a little blood. Human rights, he said." Guillermo Pagan spit in disgust, grinding his foot on the floor and turning to face Arledge for the first time since the interview began. "Human rights. For a little thing like that he cuts off the money. He doesn't do that, no way we lose. But he did, and we lost. Now look…"

  "That's old news, Willie."

  "Well, I got some new news for you, Arledge. For you and your Mr. Gardner. I don't need your money anymore. I can pay my own way."