Fire in the Sky

by Don Pendleton

  "I really must go," Floyd Bacon said, standing slowly, just as he did everything slowly. "My office will take care of the publicity on this thing, Yuri. Congratulations."

  Yuri hurried over to help the old man across the floor. "My appropriations for next year..."

  "Should be helped considerably by this project," the director said, moving toward the lab door. Chuck abandoned the coffee machine to walk the old man out and unlock the elevator doors.

  Yuri walked back to the table, reaching beneath its top where the director had been sitting. "Excuse a minute... please," he said, then laterally slid the table's granite top back a foot to expose a small amount of storage space beneath. Manuals and charts filled the space.

  The man removed a picture and slid it toward Bolan. "This is my real work."

  Peg Ackerman was staring at the storage drawer. "I didn't know the tables could do that."

  "Sure," Yuri said. "Is handy, huh?"

  Bolan returned his gaze to the picture. It was an artist's rendering of a field full of what looked like cacti without the prickles.

  "What is it?" Bolan asked.

  "Is...food," Yuri said, shrugging. "Cross tobacco genes with animal genes, breed out need for much water and grow in any soil." The man smiled. "Is good for you, easy to raise and tastes good, too. I will feed many hungry with this."

  "You can fatten'em up," Ackerman jeered, "while Sparks mows'em down."

  "You're not being fair, Peg," Robbie admonished, talking a sip of his coffee. "You have no idea what David's research entails."

  "What are you talking about?" Peg said, her eyes never leaving Bolan. "He's here shilling for DOD in chemical warfare. Hell, his field of experimentation isn't even legal!"

  "Manufacturing isn't legal," Robbie said, "and field use isn't legal. Experimentation is open. Besides, David isn't working on those kinds of weapons."

  Yuri slid the top closed. "What kind is he working on?"

  "Peaceful weapons," Bolan said.

  "An oxymoron," Howard observed. "Contradiction in terms."

  "Is it?" Bolan said choosing his words carefully. "When I was in Nam, we field-tested a gas that made enemy troops nauseated. They simply threw down their guns and got sick and surrendered. No one was hurt. No one was killed. An international outcry was raised against our use of chemical weapons and we were forced to stop. We went back to more 'humane' methods: M-16s, bouncy bettys, napalm, search-and-destroy. Even if my research is never applied, at least I know it can't be used to hurt people. The rest of you can't say the same thing."

  Howard Davis stood, his young face contorted in anger. "I resent that. I'd never let my research be used wrongly."

  "You all live in a dreamworld," Bolan growled. "We're all working for the same government, and they can use our findings to do anything they want."

  "Not mine," Howard vowed. "Never."

  "I saw something else when I was in Nam," Bolan said. "A squad of dolphins with bombs strapped to them. They were used to mine Hanoi harbor."

  "No!" Howard said loudly, and swept his arm across the table, knocking his plate and coffee onto the floor. "I don't believe you!"

  The boy stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

  "I think I can understand the morality of banning the nausea gas," Robbie said, sitting back and chewing on his pipe. "If we must have wars, they should be ugly, horrible things. If we can't be repulsed by them, we'll never understand their uselessness."

  "You're thinking in a vacuum," Bolan said. "People have never gotten along during the course of the entire history of the world. Maybe if we can fight our wars painlessly, we'll start doing other things painlessly and stop the cycles of violence and revenge that lead to war."

  Ike Silver laughed. "You're all idiots. The stupid creatures who run this world will never be happy until they've destroyed it and sent us back to the oblivion we deserve."

  "That's your answer to everything, isn't it?" Bolan suggested. "I feel sorry for you and all the simple joys in life you must have missed." He was getting carried away and knew it, but he didn't care at this point. While good people scratched like animals in the dirt just so their families could have a meal, Ike Silver sat above it all, passing judgment in his ivory tower, all of his wants taken care of.

  "Save it for church, pal." Silver's smile had disappeared from his face.

  "How long were you in Vietnam?" Fred Haines asked, his eyes boring into Bolan.

  "What difference does it make?"

  "Well, it's just unusual," Peg Ackerman noted, a look of relaxed superiority now lining her face. "It's unusual for people with our... backgrounds, to have spent time in the service."

  "Especially in a war zone," Haines added, and smiled to show Bolan he wasn't just stabbing in the dark. "Although, I guess to think of it, you're not like us in a number of ways."

  Bolan looked over at Robbie. The man had leaned back, deep in thought, his teeth clenched hard on the pipe.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Bolan asked.

  The woman slid forward in her chair. "It means you're a square peg in a round hole, Dr. Sparks, an incongruity."

  Bolan's battle senses began tingling. Like bloodhounds on the hunt, they were with each step losing the false trail and closing in on him. But did it mean anything?

  "Sometimes I wonder," Haines said, "if Dr. Sparks is really what he says he is."

  Bolan returned the man's unwavering gaze. He was looking into the eyes of a hard man, something they both shared and understood. "Suppose you tell me what I am," he invited.

  Haines shrugged. "Maybe an investigator sent to check up on us to see if we're doing a good job."

  "Maybe someone checking into the death of Jerry Butler," Ackerman suggested, smiling when Bolan's eyes jerked in her direction.

  "I think you're all being extremely inhospitable," Robbie admonished. "I'm surprised at every one of you. Dr. Sparks and I worked on his project just this morning, and I assure you, it's quite interesting and viable."

  "Sure it is," Ackerman said. "Perhaps, then, David, you and I can have a little discussion about the chemistry involved."

  Bolan, almost caught earlier by Robbie's layman's knowledge of what he was doing, knew he could never pass Ackerman's scrutiny.

  "I don't need to pass your little test, Peggy," he said, standing abruptly. "You're not my boss, and I'll be damned if I'm going to give you access to my project so you can steal it."

  Haines laughed. "Maybe he is one of us!"

  Bolan looked at Yuri. "Thanks for the cake. Good luck with your project."

  With that, he walked away from the table and out the door, turning immediately in the direction of his lab. Actually the argument was a godsend. He'd been trying to think of a way to get out of Yuri's quarters and back to his own lab. He wanted to check the storage drawers in his own tables.

  He moved quickly, passing Howard's door, which was partly open. Hearing something besides dolphin noises within, he stopped and peered through the crack.

  The entire center of the lab was filled with a tank five feet high with stairs leading up to it. Howard sat at the top of the stairs, leaning his arms against the edge of the tank. He was crying, sobbing. Beside him, two dolphins had poked their upper torsos out of the water and were chirping softly, nudging the boy. It looked for all the world as if they were comforting him.

  Bolan backed away from the door and used the key to get inside his lab. Even away from the confrontation, his nerves were still on edge.

  He was suspected. His cover, if not blown, was rapidly deflating.

  Earlier he'd been looking for a catalyst. Well, he'd found it the easy way. He'd become the sacrificial goat. It was time to start looking over his shoulder. He liked meeting trouble head-on, on his own terms. Watching his rear was something that never appealed. But this was one game he didn't get to play on his own terms.

  He shut the door, listening to the reassuring click of the lock. He hadn't found any bugs since that first day,
and he performed a routine sweep daily. He didn't trust his coworkers any more than they trusted him.

  There were six granite-topped tables in the lab, six chances of success and failure. He picked one at random and walked to it, searching beneath the overhang of the top for the same latch that Yuri had sprung. His fingers found a small flange, no larger than a screw head. He pushed it, immediately feeling the release of tension in the tabletop.

  The top slid back easily, exposing the drawer. It was empty.

  He slid the top closed again, moving to the next table, where he repeated the process to the same result. Table number three opened to several spiderwebs, the hulk of a dead cockroach trapped in one of the webs.

  But table four, the one closest to the lab office, was a different story. A white box meant to hold typing paper lay within. He stared at it for a moment, wondering if this was the buildup to a great letdown. Finally he reached in and took it out, its weight reassuring him that something was, indeed, inside.

  He set it up on the table and slid the tabletop closed. The box was dusty, only Bolan's fingerprints marring its coated surface. It had obviously stayed within the drawer for a long time.

  He reached out and took the top off the box, revealing a strange assortment of odds and ends. He took them out one at a time. There was a notebook filled with equations. He thumbed through it quickly, understanding none of it. There was a road map of the state of Arizona, an equipment manifest for the fateful Challenger flight and, finally, a sheet of paper filled with numbers arranged in groups like words — a code?

  He stood there staring at the tangible evidence of Jerry Butler's fears and suspicions. It was all real now, every bit of it, and still it made no sense.

  What did make sense was that Jerry Butler had suspected something nasty was going on, enough so that he began to research in private and to hide his results, even couching them in code. The man had then apparently found answers to his suspicions, and had, just as apparently, been killed for them.

  Those answers were now in the hands of Mack Bolan — and Mack Bolan was in enemy territory. He didn't know anything about chemistry, but he knew a killzone when he saw one.

  Chapter Ten

  The intensity of Julie's face stood out sharply in the yellow-orange glow of the flame of the disposable lighter she held over the page.

  "Good God, Mack," she said, her voice low and reverential. "I had no idea he'd progressed this far."

  "She can make sense out of the equations," Bolan said into the receiver. "She thinks he came up with something."

  "Keep her on it, Striker," Hal Brognola said on the other end, his voice heavy with concern. "I think we're on to something big here. Are you still secure there at the institute?"

  "Ouch!" the woman said, the flame winking out as she dropped the lighter. "That thing gets hot!"

  They were sitting in the Jeep in the carport, the pink-veined sky darkening by degrees all around them.

  "Not really." Bolan shushed the woman with a finger to his lips. "They suspect me already. It's liable to come unraveled at any point. Did you get that intel I asked you for?"

  "Yeah, finally," the Fed replied. "Though I had to move heaven and earth to get the authorization. Somebody tied the security up there so tight, I practically needed a crowbar to get into the files. You ready?"

  "Shoot."

  Julie had thumbed the lighter again, the flame casting a glow on the inside of the cab. "Good God...good God." She was flying through the pages, her eyes quickly scanning the lines of numbers. "Oh Mack."

  "On one Fred Haines," Brognola said. "Quite an interesting history. Slow student as a child, diagnosed as learning disabled, recommended special schooling but not funded. Only went to fourth grade. Lived on the streets... tough kid... hell of a rap sheet. Joined Black Panther organization in 1966... imprisoned for armed robbery and conspiracy in 1970. IQ tested as genius while in prison, 1972, and transferred to federal minimum security facility where he received educational and vocational training. Became fascinated by the politics of energy and turned his attention to clean energy sources, focusing on solar. Developed 'orbiting island' theory of solar to electric transfer in 1978. Paroled in 1979 and offered research position at Grolier Foundation, which he has kept until present. Nice friends you've got."

  The light flickered out again. Julie reached over to grab Bolan's arm with shaking hands. "I think he did it, Mack. My God, I think he did it. He suspended the liquid in a negative ion shell. The charge had nowhere to dissipate to!"

  "She says he broke through," Bolan told Brognola.

  "That's what I was afraid of. If he did, indeed, find the key to this thing, whoever is using it has killed off the other researchers so no one else will have the knowledge. This is important, Striker. That notebook is our only link to a whole branch of knowledge. Guard it, whatever you do. Have Julie stop transcribing her own stuff and start transcribing that notebook into readable English."

  "If they've read me over at Grolier," Bolan said, "we're liable to have a whole army down on us."

  "So far, nobody knows you have the book. I think you might be safe as long as that information stays underground."

  "Got it. How about Yuri Bonner?"

  "Short and sweet," Brognola replied. "Soviet geneticist...and Jewish. Continually denied emigration visa on security grounds. Sentenced to ten years in the gulag for dissident activities connected with the monitoring of the

  Helsinki Accord. Released in 1979, emigrated to Israel where he lived on a kibbutz. Came to U.S. in 1984 and was swept immediately into Grolier. Considered the world expert on hybrid plant and animal life."

  "Good," Bolan said. "Thanks, my friend."

  "What about the code you found? Want me to run it through the computers up here?"

  "I'd have to get it to you, wouldn't I?" Bolan answered. He watched out the windshield as the kid next door played Frisbee with his father. "It looks like a simple position code to me. I haven't had too much time with it yet, but if I can't crack it in a couple of days, we'll figure out some way to get it up there."

  "Okay. What do you need me to do?"

  "I think you need to tear through the manifest," Bolan answered. "Track down every company. Look back through the past manifests and see if any commercial enterprise repeats a number of times and check those first."

  "What do you mean, check them?"

  "How do I know? I have no idea what we're even looking for... just anything that doesn't seem to be on the up-and-up. At least see what everybody sent on the flights. Any more on the GOG project?"

  "No," Brognola answered. "And it may be difficult to find much."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I've tracked it through the system. It's connected up somehow with DOD and their unearmarked funds." A deep weariness ran through Brognola's voice.

  "What are unearmarked funds?" Bolan asked, glancing at Julie, who was totally absorbed in the notebook.

  "Taxpayer money is always accountable...almost. But there is a certain amount of money, up in the billions each year, that slips into the Department of Defense budget to go toward secret projects and developments and is protected under the umbrella of national security."

  "There's no accountability of the funds?" Bolan asked.

  "Well, one must assume that there is somewhere," Brognola answered. "Some chain of command understands and authorizes the spending, linking to the President through the NSC."

  "But the potential for abuse..."

  "I know. Anyway, as near as I can figure, this GOG thing is a 'special project' in the research and development area, under the control of General Leland of the Pentagon."

  "Kit Givan's boss," Bolan said. "Great. There's no way you can crack it?"

  "I'm trying, Striker. That's the best I can do. Do you have any ideas concerning that Arizona map you found with the other stuff?"

  Bolan looked into the rearview mirror. A late-model Chevy van with tinted black windows had pulled up across the street, but no
one had emerged from it.

  "None," he replied. "Maybe it means nothing. I keep looking for the key that ties all this together, but I haven't come up with anything. Can I get you to check on some of the others at the institute?"

  "I can do you better than that. I've got the authorization code that will let you into the personnel records there. You can just use your office terminal to find anything you want. Ready for the number?"

  "Just a minute." Bolan turned to Julie. "Can you memorize something for me?"

  She stopped reading, reluctantly stifling the lighter, and turned to him, nodding. "Go ahead."

  "Let's have it," Bolan said into the receiver.

  "Okay," Hal said. "It's 2Q2-1719."

  Bolan repeated the number to Julie.

  "Got it," she said, going back to her reading.

  Bolan checked the rearview again. The van was still there.

  "There's something I don't quite understand," he said to the Fed. "If GOG is a government-sanctioned project and Givan was acting under orders when he attacked us in the woods, then isn't it possible that we're lining up against the government on this thing?"

  "No. The government would never sanction the killing of innocents like this."

  "We're talking degrees, Hal. Governments sanction all sorts of unsavory…"

  "No! If I believed for one minute that the government I've devoted my life to was behind these killings, I'd commit suicide."

  "Hal…"

  "I mean it, Striker. Sure, strange things go on. Running a country and conducting worldwide foreign policy leads us down a lot of pretty unbelievable avenues, but this is nothing more than cold-blooded murder for selfish gain. Someone in the government may be behind it, but not as a policy-implementing arm of our republic. We're bedrock in a world of quicksand, my friend. Believe that, and trust me."

  "Then, what the hell's going on?"

  "I've got a theory," Brognola replied. "But it's too... frightening to say out loud yet."

  "I feel like we're playing chicken with a steamroller."

  The head Fed chuckled softly. "Just as usual, Striker. Getting soft in your old age?"

  "No. Maybe just worrying about someone besides myself for a change. What are you doing with the weekend?"