Читать книгу Hostile Odds - Don Pendleton - Страница 11

With the waitress’s help, Mack Bolan managed to find a place to stay for the night. The shabby motel on the edge of town would make a remote and unobtrusive base of operations, but he politely declined Louise’s offer to join him. Once settled, Bolan stripped, showered and then crawled between the sheets for a few hours of sleep. The rest did him well, and he was up and moving by dawn.

Bolan dressed in his best working-man duds, a pair of jeans and plaid flannel work shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, and then drove to the address on the card. He didn’t know what to expect or even whom to ask for, but that didn’t seem to matter; the three large men who met Bolan at the gate had apparently been told to expect him. One man offered to park his car. Bolan agreed without reservation, since he’d elected to pack the Beretta 93-R in a modified shoulder holster that rode high under his left armpit, its bulk concealed by the loose flannel shirt jacket, and nothing remained in the vehicle that would betray his identity. He’d even left some fast-food bags and a few empty beer cans under the seat just to reinforce the cover.

The remaining pair escorted Bolan to a security guard for sign-in and then handed him a hardhat and hearing protection. He declined the muffs with a shake of his head, but one of the men insisted it was policy. Bolan shrugged and donned the equipment. They continued through the mill, and the Executioner used the opportunity to study his surroundings. The earmuffs did a lot to decrease the piercing buzz and whine of saws cutting through massive logs. A few separate areas were crowded with workers running band saws, jigs and even a couple of lathes.

At the other end of the mill, the men escorted Bolan up a flight of metal steps to a second-story landing. They followed a catwalk that eventually terminated at a massive office with a large glass overlooking the mill floor below. An old-fashioned potbelly coal stove stood in one corner. The men showed Bolan to a seat where they indicated he could take off the safety equipment and then made their exit through a side door.

Bolan sat in one of the three chairs positioned beneath the glass window. A young woman with blond hair and blue eyes sat at a computer terminal. He detected a faint clacking sound as the secretary’s fingers almost danced over the keyboard. Other than a single furtive glance and a smile she completely ignored him. Bolan considered speaking to her, but the sound of a door opening distracted him. He looked up to see a large man step out. He had red hair, large lips, square jaw and a broad face. He stood at least six-foot-six with meaty forearms and broad shoulders, and he moved powerfully.

His face broke into a grin and he extended a hand as Bolan stood. “How ya be, laddie? Come on in.”

Bolan stepped through the doorway into an expansive office that he could only have described as a first-rate pigsty. Books and papers were strewed across a massive desk and equally large tabletop such that no part of their surfaces went untouched. The garbage can overflowed, and the room reeked of cheap whiskey and cigarette smoke. Bolan took a seat as the man wedged himself into a chair about two sizes too small between his desktop and credenza.

“The name’s Fagan MacDermott,” he began. The Irish accent when he pronounced his name left no doubts in Bolan’s mind whom MacDermott worked for. “I understand you’re new in town. Maybe lookin’ for work?”

Bolan showed him a wan smile. “Word travels fast.”

MacDermott shrugged in way of explanation and said, “No more than usual for a small town like this one.”

“I noticed you got quite a crew out there. Everybody work for the mill?”

“Hell, pal, the mill’s what keeps this town running!” MacDermott burst into laughter.

Bolan considered him uncharacteristically cheerful, but he decided not to push. Not yet. “I’m Matt Cooper. I’ve been on the road quite a bit, doing some odd jobs here and there.”

“On the run from the law?”

“No,” Bolan said.

MacDermott fished a cigarette from the pack on his desk, lit it, then sat back in his chair and studied Bolan through a cloud of smoke.

The Executioner remained impassive. He got the impression that if he’d said he was on the run, it probably wouldn’t make any difference but he decided not to make it up as he went along. He wasn’t working this one for Stony Man and thus he didn’t have time to put a real cover in place. If MacDermott decided to look into his criminal history, he figured it was better not to state he had one and then have to explain later why “Matt Cooper” not only had no record, but also had no fingerprints on file.

“It don’t make no difference if you got something to hide,” MacDermott said. “Best to be honest with me, Coop.”

“I’ve got nothing to hide,” Bolan said with a sigh. “And I’m not running from the law. Just looking for maybe a place to settle down. Sleeping and eating out of my car gets a bit old after a while.”

MacDermott studied Bolan a moment longer, and then leaned forward and tapped his smoke into a beanbag ashtray. “Yeah, I’m sure it does. Okay, so you’re not on the lam and you ain’t done nothing to be guilty for, and that’s good enough for me. You see, I trust my people and expect loyalty in return. Who sent you?”

“A guy named Buck Nordstrom.”

MacDermott took another long drag and then stubbed out his smoke in the overflowing ashtray. “Yeah, Nordstrom’s a pretty good guy for a Swede. Not much for inside milling, but he’s a hell of a powder monkey.”

Bolan recognized the term for an explosives man. “Done a bit of that myself in times past.”

“Oh, yeah? When’s that?”

“Military.”

MacDermott nodded, but it didn’t seem to impress him one way or another. “Well, afraid I got no use for another explosives guy. How you think you could handle a position as a chaser?”

“Sorry, not up on these logging terms yet.”

“You’d work on the yarding line…that’s basically where they bring the logs into the mill here. You’d be responsible for disconnecting the chokers and seeing the logs get onto the right conveyers. It’s a tough job, but it’s what I got and you look big enough to handle it.”

“I’ll give it a shot.”

“Fine, pal, that’ll be just fine.” He lit another cigarette before adding, “How you want to be paid?”

“I prefer cash,” Bolan said.

That brought a smile to MacDermott’s face. “You know what? I do, too! You’re hired.”

Bolan stood with him. “Just like that?”

“Just like that,” MacDermott said. “You’ll find I’m firm but fair. You’ll hear a lot of those in the yard call me Mad Mac. I know about it, and it don’t mean nothing, just a bit o’ harmless fun on their parts. But they don’t do it to my face. You show me respect—I’ll show you respect. You see?”

Bolan nodded.

MacDermott came around the desk and crossed in front of Bolan to open his office door. “Now, you give your details to Sally out there, and she’ll make sure you get on the payroll.”

“Okay, but how much?”

“You want to know the pay. Don’t worry about that, you’ll be well-compensated…more, much more than I think you’ll be expecting. Just go out and talk to Sally there and she’ll take care of you. Okay?”

Bolan decided to play a card and see where it led him. “Can I ask you a question, Mr. MacDermott?”

“Ya can call me Fagan when we’re alone, pal.”

“Okay. I’ve heard Mickey Gowan owns this mill. Is that true?”

Something dulled in MacDermott’s green eyes, and his expression flattened. A wisp of smoke curled off the cigarette that dangled from his mouth and caught his eye, but his face barely twitched. He studied Bolan for a long time, and the Executioner wondered for a moment if he’d called MacDermott too soon. Then the mill foreman seemed to move past whatever had struck the nerve and clapped Bolan on the back.

“Yeah, that’s right. Mr. Gowan owns this mill, but I’m the push. Ya take your orders from me, mind your p’s and q’s and you’ll be fine. We straight?”

“Yes, sir,” Bolan said. “I just wondered, is all.”

MacDermott nodded and then waved Bolan out the door.

After he gave his cover credentials to the blond named Sally, Bolan’s escorts reappeared and took him out the same way they came in. They left the mill and stopped at the yarding line, where one of the pair gave him a brief rundown of what he’d be doing, introduced him to the only other chaser they had and then led him to his car. Bolan had no doubt they had thoroughly searched it in his absence, but he gave no hint he knew it.

“Be here tomorrow at six o’clock sharp,” one of the men instructed.

Bolan drove out of the mill and as soon as he topped the hill just beyond the front gate, the Executioner reached for the cell phone on his belt. He dialed Johnny, who answered immediately.

“I’m in,” the Executioner said. He gave his brother the address.

Bolan listened to the clack of a keyboard for a moment, then Johnny said, “Yeah, Mickey Gowan definitely owns that mill.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me if he owned the whole town,” Bolan replied. “You find anything else connecting him to the ELF?”

“He’s funneling money through every business in the region. And what he’s bringing in doesn’t come close to matching the revenues for his business holdings. Weird thing is, Gowan has a lot of business holdings but all of this just comes down to a paper trail. In other words, a lot of unknown money coming into these businesses but very little goes out.”

“Sounds like money laundering.”

Johnny grunted assent.

Bolan continued, “What you’ve described to me sounds a lot like a reverse pyramid scheme.”

“What do you mean?”

“Gowan’s got business everywhere, most likely paper companies. He gets the common folks to invest, whether it be real estate, small-business buy-ins, stocks…whatever. He promises the money will come back but it never does. In this case, the average citizen around here doesn’t have the kind of money we’re talking about.”

“But an organization like the ELF would,” Johnny concluded.

“Yeah. I think Gowan’s taking their cash and running out on them. The ELF thinks it has funds to draw from so they increase activities. Unfortunately, they’re not likely to see a dime of it back, since nobody can really tie the Gowan Family directly to the money, so the ELF takes it out on innocent citizens who signed actual receivership.”

“Okay, but why shoot down military aircraft?”

“Military bases mean jobs for the surrounding communities,” Bolan said. “Put those bases on alert or attack private corporations and you decrease revenues. Ultimately, it adds up to unnecessary bloodshed and a breakdown in economic surplus.”

“That’s a hell of a way to stick it to the common man.”

“It’s also disastrous to public safety.”

“What’s your plan?”

“It sounds like it’s time to shake things up. I think I know where to start. I’ll be in touch.”

Bolan disconnected the call and drove into downtown Timber Vale. The streets were crowded with vehicles and an equal amount of foot traffic. He made a couple of passes before turning onto a side street and proceeding to an alleyway that ran along the back of a strip mall. He parked his rental in a discreet area and went EVA.

Something nagged at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He ran through the events since his arrival. None of this added up. If Gowan had his fingers into all of the local businesses and was making cash hand-over-fist from them, it wouldn’t encourage the guy to turn on the ELF. Even ecoterrorists knew how it worked. Gowan stood to make a lot more money from the local business trades in this area than he did from the cash holdings of a few small-time domestic terrorist outfits. It only made sense the ELF would focus its efforts on the local businesses if it discovered it was losing money. No, there had to be more to it than that. This town bothered him, as well. Things were almost too perfect here; everybody was friendly, willing to lend a stranger a helping hand. Men like Bolan still believed in the general goodness and charity of humankind, but that didn’t mean he took everything at face value. Some things required a closer, deeper inspection—the Executioner just couldn’t be sure where to focus his efforts.

And then it dawned on him: the waitress! She looked vaguely familiar to him, but he couldn’t figure why. Then he remembered he’d seen her before, earlier in the week at Tulelake at the FBI offices where Kellogg worked. She looked a lot older as a waitress, the heavier makeup and the world-weary expression, but he couldn’t forget the eyes. Bolan walked along the side of the building and crossed the street to the diner. A Closed sign hung on the door with a hand-scrawled note that read, “Sorry, Earl out sick.”

Not likely. He’d seen Earl just a few hours before and the guy looked fine.

Bolan cupped his hand to the door and peered inside; he saw a fleeting movement in back—something like two people struggling—and then descended from the narrow stoop and circled around back. He found a rear door marked for deliveries only and tried it. It opened without trouble. Bolan stuck his head into the semidark interior. He could hear angry voices inside, male voices, followed by a feminine yelp of pain.

The Executioner kicked it into high gear, opening the door just enough to slip inside as he brought the Beretta into play. He left the door ajar enough to let the morning sunlight illuminate his way and moved through the storage room to a set of swing doors. He cracked one enough to see two men standing with their backs to him. They were holding the waitress in check, and Bolan arrived just in time to see a third man slap her across the face.

Bolan shouldered through the swing doors and raised the Beretta. In a hard, cold voice he said, “Fun’s over, boys.”

One of the pair holding the waitress turned and emitted a yelp of surprise. The other stupidly clawed for something in the front of his pants. Bolan didn’t bother to see what it was. He leveled the sound-suppressed pistol nearly point-blank at the man’s head and squeezed the trigger. The subsonic cartridge let out a report not much louder than a cough, and the thug’s head immediately disappeared in a crimson spray of bone and brain matter. A large chunk splattered the side of his cohort’s face.

The second guy stumbled back and fumbled for his own weapon. The Executioner helped him along with a front kick that sent him reeling. The hood’s arms windmilled in an attempt to maintain his balance, but the momentum eventually got the better of him. He crashed into a side counter and brought a full plastic tray of silverware onto his head.

The remaining assailant went for cover, and Bolan saw the glint of light on metal in his hand. Bolan rushed forward and pulled the waitress out of the way just in time to prevent her from being struck by any of the five wild shots the gunman sent in her direction. He shoved her not too gently through the swing doors as he leveled the Beretta 93-R in the enemy’s direction and snapped off a pair of shots to keep the guy’s head down.

Bolan followed after the waitress and gestured toward the door as she recovered from his rough shove. “Head out the back.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Later. Now go,” he ordered.

She started to put her hands on her hips and stand there defiantly, but Bolan didn’t give her the chance to argue. He grabbed her arm and assisted her to the back, pushing her through the door with his bodyweight as he kept facing forward in anticipation the gunman would follow. The guy did just as Bolan predicted and burst through the swing doors. He leveled his Beretta and squeezed the trigger even as the gunman snapped off a shot of his own. The 9 mm round punched through the thug’s chest in a bloody spray, and the impact knocked him through the door. The shot he triggered went high above Bolan’s head and lodged in the wood frame of the doorway.

The Executioner emerged into the narrow alleyway in time to see a black SUV round a corner and roar toward them.