Enemy agents, p.5
Enemy Agents, page 5
He also didn’t want to tailgate Halsey’s two-car motorcade in case his target had some kind of treachery in mind. It seemed unlikely, but he hadn’t stayed alive this long by taking stupid risks.
Only the calculated kind. When there was time to calculate.
Scoots was ten miles or so behind them when the Hummer signaled a left turn and swung onto a northbound access road. The Ford Explorer followed, Bolan bringing up the rear. Another mile and change brought them to a tin-roofed structure built from cinder blocks, painted some kind of beige that almost matched the desert soil.
Bolan pulled in and parked beside the Hummer, switched off the Nightster and waited for Halsey to exit his vehicle. The militia chief was favoring his left leg just a little, watching while the others dragged themselves out of their seats, some grimacing with pain.
“I didn’t get your name back there in the excitement,” Halsey said.
“Matt Cooper.”
Halsey’s grip on Bolan’s hand was firm, but not a bone crusher. Maybe he’d seen enough to let the schoolyard challenge slide.
“This is our home away from home,” Halsey explained, jangling a ring of keys as he approached the building’s plain front door. “I guarantee we won’t be interrupted here by any kind of trash.”
Inside, the place was sparsely decorated, with a table in the center of its main room, half-a-dozen metal folding chairs lined up along each side and more stacked against one wall. No signs or posters on the wall to give it any character. A line of plain black filing cabinets stood along the room’s south wall. Two other doors faced Bolan from a wall directly opposite the entrance. Both were closed, blocking his view of any other rooms beyond.
“About that drink,” Halsey said, moving toward the filing cabinets and opening one of the drawers. “Is single malt all right?”
“Perfect,” Bolan replied.
Halsey produced a bottle, while another of his men ducked into one of the backrooms, returning with three glasses in each hand.
“Matt Cooper, meet the boys you helped to rescue from humiliation. Bryan Doolan, Steve Webb, Larry Mosier, Tommy Gruber.”
Bolan matched the names to faces and shook their hands, refraining from displays of camaraderie that might ring false. While Halsey poured the single malt, he asked, “So, did you know those clowns back there? Some kind of feud?”
“If only life made that much sense,” Halsey replied. “You may have noticed that we’re in a world of shit these days. With crime and the economy, the War on Terror bogged down in a sandpit on the wrong side of the world, resources drying up. These are trying times.”
“Not just a bunch of drunks?”
“A symptom of society’s decline.”
Bolan sipped his whiskey, found it smooth and strong.
“You need some first aid on that cheek,” Halsey observed.
“I’ll deal with it when I get back to the motel,” Bolan replied.
“Where are you staying?” Mosier asked.
“Place outside Apple Valley with a neon palm tree on the sign.”
“The Desert Palms,” Doolan said. “Cheap, but clean.”
“Cheap suits me well enough these days,” Bolan informed him.
“Out on a limb here,” Halsey interjected, “but I count myself a decent judge of people. And I’d say you have a solid military background.”
“Emphasis on back,” Bolan said.
“Army?”
“Special Forces. Fifteen years.”
“You don’t move like a soldier who’s been pensioned off for disability,” Halsey said.
“Let’s just say the brass and I agreed to disagree.”
“On what?”
“Whatever. It’s all ancient history.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Halsey suggested, cutting glances toward the other men around the table. All of them were watching Bolan closely, though Gruber had to do it through one eye, the other being swollen nearly shut.
“Can’t say I follow you,” Bolan replied.
“We,” Halsey said, spreading his hands to indicate the other four, “are patriots with serious concerns about the nation’s health. Make that survival. Every day, we see America diminished, basic values slipping through our fingers. Precepts of the Constitution used for toilet paper by a clique of radical extremists who’ve decided that America should be a melting pot for every cult and culture on the planet.”
“Seems to me I’ve heard that phrase before,” Bolan said, playing hard to get. “From my history teacher in junior-high school.”
“Right!” Halsey snapped, leaning forward on his elbows. “But the melting pot we read about in school absorbed the other creeds and cultures, turning all of them into Americans. You can’t believe that’s happening today, with street signs in a dozen languages and ballots that look like foreign VCR owners’ manuals. Not when criminals who botch looting the country get their money back with interest from the taxpayers. Not when our border’s leaking like a sieve and terrorist alerts from Washington are stuck on orange forever.”
“Well…”
“Look, here’s the deal,” Halsey said. “We’re a group of men who care about America. The real America. The way it used to be before too many tails started wagging the dog. We have some friends who feel the same, with numbers growing every day. I’m thinking we could use a man like you.”
“Is this some kind of study group?” Bolan asked, playing dumb.
“Hardly.”
“Because I move around these days,” he said, “and listening to lectures or debates sounds like a boring waste of time.”
“Damn right,” Doolan said, through a pair of puffy, scabbing lips.
“We take a more…direct approach,” Halsey explained. “And men of your experience are highly valued. You could train recruits, advise on matters of logistics.”
“What logistics? Train recruits for what?”
“It’s getting late,” Halsey advised. “Some of my friends here need attention from our medic. But I’d like to follow up with you on this, if you’re available tomorrow.”
Bolan stalled, pretending to consider it, weighing the pros and cons, then shrugged. “Why not?”
Halsey produced a business card and handed it to Bolan. It offered only three initials and a four-digit address on Highway 18.
“That’s near Victorville,” Bolan observed. Already well aware of the address.
“You know the area?” Halsey asked.
“Like I said,” Bolan replied, “I get around. What’s ‘NMM’?”
“Tomorrow, soldier.”
“Major,” Bolan said, with just the right amount of injured pride. “At least, it used to be.”
“I stand corrected, Major. You can find your own way back?”
“No sweat. What time tomorrow, then?”
“Say, noon?”
“I’ll see you then.”
The Nightster took him back past Scoots, with squad cars still outside, their colored lights revolving, to the Desert Palms Motel. Bolan entered his room and double locked the door behind him, stripping off his leather jacket, then proceeding to the tiny bathroom. Its unsparing light revealed a slit on Bolan’s cheek, crusted with dried blood.
He’d finished cleaning it and was closing the cut with a butterfly bandage when somebody knocked on his door. The Desert Palms had no café, much less room service, and he hadn’t ordered takeout. Bolan picked up his Beretta Model 92 as he approached the door, peered through its fish-eye lens and saw a woman standing just outside.
In spite of the distorting lens, he made her roughly thirty years of age, attractive in a no-frills kind of way, with short blond hair that had a touseled look. He couldn’t see her hands, but reckoned it was safe enough to take a chance.
Bolan opened the door, keeping his pistol out of sight, and said, “Can I help you?”
“Maybe the other way around,” the stranger said. One of the hands he hadn’t seen lifted a wallet with a badge and ID card exposed. “Grace Corwin, ATF. We need to talk.”
4
“What’s ATF?” Bolan inquired.
The woman managed not to smirk at him as she replied, “U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.”
“You’re short a few letters, then,” Bolan replied.
“Yeah. We’ve had budget cuts.”
“Things are tough all over.”
“Getting tougher all the time,” she said.
“No doubt. Why should I want to talk with anybody from the USBATFE?”
“You never know. Might save your life.”
“Is that a threat, Ms. Corwin?”
“Special Agent Corwin.”
“Not just agent. Special agent.”
“Bet on it.”
“That’s not an answer to my question.”
“I don’t threaten anybody. I ask questions. On occasion, I may give advice. The folks who take it normally come out okay.”
“Meaning some don’t,” Bolan replied.
“You can’t please everybody all the time.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Bolan said, as he began to shut the door. “Good night.”
Grace Corwin literally blocked it with her foot.
“I’m here about your newfound friends,” she said.
Bolan answered without widening the gap. “I’m new in town. No friends at all.”
“So, let’s call them acquaintances. You helped them out tonight. One thing I’m fuzzy on.”
“Just one?”
“To start with,” she replied. “I can’t imagine why a bunch of DEA agents dressed as bikers would be fighting with civilians in a joint like Scoots. Think you can help me out with that one, Mr. Cooper?”
Bolan decided they should take their conversation off the doorstep, frowning at her use of his name. Opening the door again, he asked her, “Do you want to step inside? I’ve got one chair, or you can take the bed.”
“Chair’s fine,” Corwin said, brushing past him with her right hand drifting toward the Glock that rode her hip in high-ride leather.
“Make yourself at home,” he said.
“No company tonight?” She moved toward the open bathroom door.
“Nope,” Bolan replied.
She checked the closet, rattling empty hangers on the pole. “You travel light.”
He said, “I’m ditching excess baggage all the time,” and closed the door. “Alone at last.”
“Nobody stopping by from Halsey’s crew?”
“He has a crew? I didn’t see the boat.”
“That’s cute. You should be on the stage, Matthew. Maybe the next one leaving town.”
“Is that the ATF’s position, Grace?”
“Just some of that advice I mentioned.” Agent Corwin settled in the room’s one chair. “I don’t know what your game is, but you’re buying trouble with the NMM.”
“Ah. More initials.”
“We both know Clay Halsey is the generalisimo of the New Minuteman Militia. I’m dying to know why someone of your background is trying to hook up with him—and how you’ve got the pull to bring it off that way.”
“My background?” Bolan didn’t have to fake his frown.
“Major Matthew Cooper, U.S. Army Special Forces, retired. Under fire, I believe. Or should that be under a cloud? Too much sass for the brass, trash-talking your commander in chief and all that. So, you ditch the real Army to play in a sandbox with psychos? The whole thing has a certain air about it. What’s the word I’m looking for? Oh, right—bullshit.”
“You cared enough to pull my file,” Bolan replied. “Okay, I’m flattered. If you’re here to spin some weird conspiracy theory out of thin air, I guess I’ll have to say good-night. Again.”
Ignoring him, she said, “It’s strange about computer files, you know? All this was new to me, but there’s a lot of stuff the geeks and nerds call noise in a computer file. I mean, in any file, regardless of its size or subject matter.”
“Noise.”
“Um-hmm. It’s what they call the stuff you never see. All kinds of funky coding that takes a special kind of mind and special software to unravel. Once you’ve done that, you can tell when a file was created, updated, whatever. The dates shown on documents inside the file can be changed with a keystroke, even fabricated altogether, but the noise never lies.”
“And the moral of this story is…?”
“That someone with your long, illustrious career in military service shouldn’t have a file created yesterday. Discussion? Thoughts?”
“One thought,” Bolan replied. “You haven’t thought this through.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you’d kicked this upstairs for review and approval, you wouldn’t be here,” Bolan said. “You’re out on a limb, and I hear a chain saw.”
“The agent didn’t respond.”
“No one knows you’re here. If they did, they’d already be yanking your leash.”
Corwin’s hand was back on her gun. “If you’ve got any funny ideas—”
“No one’s laughing,” Bolan said. “If you’re half as smart as you seem, you’ll get out of here. Now.”
“Call me dumb, then,” she answered. “You’re flirting with killers. I’m trying to put them away.”
“So, maybe you’re right, then,” he said.
“About what?”
“That we do need to talk.”
GRACE CORWIN FELT AS if she’d fallen down a rabbit hole, but this wasn’t Wonderland, and she sure as hell wasn’t Alice. Keeping a hand on her Glock 22, she replied, “Great. So talk.”
“You go first,” Bolan said.
“What’s this, second grade, Cooper?”
“It’s my game,” he said. “We can play by my rules, or pick up a phone and see how fast you’re transferred to Juno, Alaska.”
“You skipped Option B,” she suggested.
“Which is?”
“I cuff you, and you spend the night locked up. Whether we talk or not, the word gets back to Halsey that you’re hanging with the ATF. Anything you’ve got in the works automatically crashes and burns.”
“Let’s do that,” he said.
Corwin blinked at him. “What?”
“Lock me up. I could use a night’s rest. By tomorrow, when you’re unemployed, the people who sent me will have someone else on the job.”
“Just like that.”
He shrugged. “Sure, you’ll ruin my gig. While you’re job-hunting, hoping somebody will hire you despite the black mark in your file, you can take satisfaction in that. Your treat, letting killers skate free a while longer.”
“Who are you?”
“You’ve been through my file,” he replied.
“And it’s crap, like I said.”
“The bulk of it’s more or less true,” Bolan said.
“More or less?”
“Need to know,” Bolan said. “And you don’t.”
“Oh? Says who?”
“People above your pay grade.”
“Right. What are you? FBI? ICE? DHS?”
“I’m not playing the alphabet game.”
“So, you’re saying that I can just pick up that phone on the nightstand and—”
“Blow your career. Be my guest.”
Corwin supposed that Matt Cooper—if that was his name—could be bluffing. But she didn’t think so. Goddammit, she just didn’t think so at all.
Which meant that she likely had nothing to lose by telling the truth.
“Okay, listen. You’re right. I’m here on my own. I’ve been covering Halsey’s private army since they first went public, tracking arms shipments, building a case. I had an informant—”
“Joe Gittes,” Bolan said.
“For Christ’s sake! You know him?”
“Know of him,” the big man corrected her. “So, are you after justice or revenge?”
“Sometimes,” she replied, “there’s no practical difference.”
“If you believe that, you’re in the wrong business.”
“And what’s yours?” she challenged him. “You infiltrate Halsey’s crew—and then, what? Come out at their trial five years later, like Donnie Brasco?”
“Don’t ask questions,” he warned, “unless you’re sure you can handle the answers.”
“Is that supposed to be scary?”
“I’m not playing games,” he replied. “If you’re smart, you’ll back off. Or, at least have a word with your boss and find out what you’ve stepped in. He won’t have the details, but he can advise you on how to proceed.”
“Meaning leave it alone.”
“The smart move,” Bolan said.
“And if I’m not that smart?”
“Some roads,” he told her, “only run one way. Choose one of those paths, you can never turn around. Never go back. Where you’ll end up is anybody’s guess, but most folks don’t enjoy the ride.”
“Some kind of spook deal, eh? You’re hoping I’ll forget about Joe Gittes. Just walk out and leave you to it.”
“No, you won’t forget him. You’ve assumed responsibility, despite the fact that Gittes came to you and volunteered. Despite the fact that he screwed up somehow and tipped his killers.”
“Shows how much you know,” she answered bitterly. “I made him wear a wire.”
“Standard procedure,” Bolan said.
“And it’s what got him killed. I can’t prove it, naturally, but I’d bet my life on that.”
“Step into my world,” he told her, “and it’s not just a figure of speech. You do bet your life.”
“And we take them down, right?”
“That’s the plan. No results guaranteed.”
“Hey, what else is new, right? So, the gig’s what? You bore from within? Catch the bastards red-handed in some dirty deed?”
“Not exactly.”
“What, then?”
“I dismantle the network,” Bolan said.
“That’s it?”
