Читать книгу Enemy Agents - Don Pendleton - Страница 9

Apple Valley, California

The motorcycle was a Harley Davidson Nightster, that sinister offspring of the classic Sportster produced in 2007 by designer Rich Christoph, who had said in the press that he wanted people to wonder if the bike was legal. Mission accomplished.

The Nightster’s paint was billed as “vivid black,” from chopped fenders and gas tank to the ventilated chain guard to the matte-finished 1200 cc Evolution engine itself. The bike had black steel-laced wheels, black low-rise handlebars, black front-fork gaiters, and a black seat mounted barely two feet off the pavement. The only hints of chrome showed on the rear springs and the dual slash-cut exhausts.

This night, Mack Bolan had the Nightster up to eighty-something miles per hour on a desert highway going anywhere and nowhere, arrow-straight as far as the headlight could burn through the darkness. He savored the cooling breeze on his face, in his hair, creeping under the worn leather jacket he wore over nondescript T-shirt and jeans.

He sensed that the desert was seething with life—and with death—around him, but it sparked no fear. For the moment, at least, he was the baddest thing in the valley.

He saw the roadhouse up ahead, putting it just two miles outside town. The neon sign out front read Scoots. With no apostrophe, he didn’t know if it had been misspelled or was supposed to be a verb.

Bolan had two-wheeled it from Los Angeles, seventy-odd miles behind him now, to find this rundown dive. It wasn’t the kind of place where he’d normally drop in to sample the brew.

This night was work, not playtime. He had buzzed through L.A. traffic, through its eastern suburbs and into the wasteland of San Bernardino County to locate a target.

The mission, as always, was search and destroy—but he couldn’t be hasty.

This outing required some finesse.

Approaching Scoots, he scanned the parking lot. It had the standard vehicle assortment for a rural juke joint—dusty pickups, desert-bleached sedans—and two new SUVs. The only other bike, an old Japanese model, had been parked around the west side of the roadhouse, chained to a steel hitching post.

Bolan rumbled into the lot, smelling beer on the breeze before he was clear of the two-lane blacktop. Music was playing in the bar, but all he got was base line, like the heartbeat of a drowsy dinosaur. Inside, it would be loud and smoky.

Cruising the lot, he eyed the SUVs, one Hummer H2 and one Ford Explorer, both shiny beneath a patina of dust that no ride in the desert could ever escape. Bolan rolled past them, backed into an unmarked space near a cage filled with squat propane tanks and switched off the motorcycle.

He dismounted, pocketed the Harley’s key, and let his fingers stray for just a second to the black KA-BAR Bowie knife sheathed on his hip. State law in California granted him permission for the fighting knife, as long as it was not concealed. It made a statement, right up front, and if the message didn’t come across, its nine-inch blade could emphasize the point.

Bolan moved to the bar’s stout front door, steel-toed Red Wing 988 motorcycle boots crunching sand and cracked concrete under thick soles. He pulled the door open, stepped into the racket and haze.

Scoots was like any other low-end roadhouse found from coast-to-coast, border-to-border. Same songs on the juke box, same signs advertising basic beers and whiskeys for the drinker who came in without a plan in mind. There was a kitchen in the back that smelled all right, considering. Bolan supposed the burgers would be safe enough, and felt his stomach growl in answer to the thought.

Scoots had a fair crowd for the time of night, still short of nine o’clock. He found an empty booth midway along the south wall, made a beeline for it without meeting anybody’s gaze along the way.

Some of the drinkers checked him out, while others were already drifting on an alcoholic tide toward sweet oblivion. Two bartenders were working, one of them a porky bouncer-type who hadn’t shaved in several days, the other a willowy redhead who seemed a cut or two above the level of her customers. One barmaid for the tables, circulating constantly with no apparent time to rest.

Before he sat, Bolan already had his targets marked.

All he had to do was wait.

“NEW GUY,” LARRY MOSIER said around a bite of porterhouse.

Clay Halsey glanced up from his T-bone, toward the stranger, taking in his chiseled face and rangy build. He looked like another drifter, passing through.

“Nobody,” he replied.

“Can’t have the same old faces every night,” Steve Webb chimed in.

“Some of them never change,” Mosier said.

“’Cept for getting uglier and older,” Tommy Gruber added, reaching out for his Corona longneck.

Including Brian Doolan, they were five in number at a table near the middle of the room. Halsey supposed they were considered regulars, spending at least one night a week at Scoots when they were in the area, but he would never put himself in the same class as those who always seemed to have a bar stool claimed whenever he stopped by. Scoots was a place for Halsey to relax, wash down a steak with beer from time to time, but it would never be a lifestyle.

He felt certain he would always stand apart from, the sweaty laborers and farmhands who had nowhere else to go after they clocked out from another working day. He was their natural superior.

Not that he’d ever say that to their faces.

It was all about equality these days—at least, for people of a certain kind, he thought, a common breed and background. There were no blacks in the bar. No Asians or Hispanics, either. Scoots had no sign on the door forbidding them to enter—which, of course, would violate the law and bring the Feds to crack their whips—but most people knew where they’re welcome.

And where they’re not.

“So, anyway,” Webb said, “about the shipment—”

“I’m still working on it,” Halsey interrupted.

“All I’m saying is, they got the money, and—”

“I know they got the money, Steve. I paid them. And we’ll get the product, one way or another.”

“Okay, then. Because the German—”

“Can I eat my steak in peace? Is that too much to ask?”

“No. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just relax and change the subject.”

“I’m looking forward to the exercise this weekend,” Doolan said. “Try out that new HK416. The rotary diopter sight’s supposed to make a world of difference.”

“If you can shoot to start with,” Gruber said.

“I’ve got a Franklin says I shade you on the range, when ever.”

“I could use the money,” Gruber told him. “Where and when?”

“You fellas aren’t about to drop your trousers, are you?” Mosier asked. “Because I’m eating, here.”

“Eat me, why don’t you?” Doolan offered.

“Can’t,” Mosier replied. “I’m cutting back on fat.”

That got a laugh around the table, Doolan being just a little on the porky side, compared to his companions. He was working on a comeback, getting nowhere with it, when the front door groaned again and trouble walked into the bar.

“Well, shit,” Gruber said.

Six, no, seven bikers entered, dressed in faded denim bearing one-percenter patches, swastikas and lightning bolts. Two of them were long hairs and all sported some variation of sideburns, mustaches, or beards. Their jewelry mixed gold and stainless steel, running toward heavy rings and chains that dangled from their vests or belts.

They all wore knives.

“Are they—?”

Before Mosier could finish it, one of the bikers half turned to address the others, giving Halsey and his crew a clear view of the rockers on his back.

“Not Comancheros,” Halsey said.

“Okay. So just a friggin’ eyesore,” Gruber said.

“Don’t sweat it,” Halsey ordered. “Assholes have to eat, the same as anybody else.”

“But do they have to eat with us?”

“Don’t borrow trouble,” Mosier said. “We’ve got enough of it, already.”

“Nothing we can’t handle,” Halsey said. “We’ll get what’s coming to us. Everybody will.”

“I like the sound of that,” Doolan said, scooping up another spoonful of three-alarm chili. He chased it with beer, which emptied his bottle. “Who wants a refill?”

“I could use one,” Gruber said.

“Me, too,” Mosier added.

“I’m all right,” Halsey answered.

“Same here,” Webb replied.

“Three it is,” Doolan said. He looked around for the waitress and saw she was serving the guy who’d come in by himself earlier. “Hell, I’ll get ’em myself. Save the tip.”

“That’s the spirit,” Halsey said, and watched Doolin head for the bar.

BOLAN’S HAMBURGER LOOKED GOOD, smelled good and tasted better. He chewed slowly, fleetingly regretting he hadn’t had time to finish before the contingent of bikers had entered.

They wore Diableros colors, which fit with the San Berdoo turf, green patches depicting Loki, the Norse god of mischief. Bolan knew the gang had been investigated by the FBI and ATF, resulting in a series of arrests including counts of robbery, assault, extortion, drug and weapons violations.

Situation normal for the “one-percent” fraternity.

He wondered who they were and where they’d come from, how Brognola or his contacts had collected and prepared them, then delivered them in time to fit his schedule.

Unless…

It crossed his mind that these might be real bikers, after all. Bolan hadn’t made a detailed study of the subject, but he knew that there were “outlaw” motorcycle gangs—OMGs in FBI parlance—scattered worldwide. According to the Feds, they earned at least one billion dollars yearly in the States alone, from various illegal enterprises. Dominated by the “Big Four”—Hells Angels, Outlaws, Bandidos and Pagans—some three hundred gangs claimed turf from coast-to-coast, with others roaming from Canada through Britain and Europe, as far afield as Australia and New Zealand.

The odds of meeting random real-life bikers in a place like Scoots on any given night?

Pretty damned good.

Which could be problematic for Bolan’s plan. If these were faux bikers, cast by Brognola or someone else at Justice to play the part for one night, then Bolan was right on track. Conversely, if it turned out they were members of a real club passing through, his scheme could be derailed.

Bolan used the time to finish his burger and make a good start on the fries, while he watched the maybe-bikers make room at the bar by elbowing other drinkers aside. No one complained, including the burly bartender, who clearly knew a stacked deck when he saw one.

How would it play?

If these were Brognola’s men, they’d been sent to start a fight with Bolan’s targets, giving him a chance to lend a hand and make new friends. He normally preferred a more direct approach, without the playacting and subterfuge, but the Executioner was versatile.

He’d even played the role of a Mafia “black ace” for several months, back in his old life, and had sold it to the toughest critics in the world.

Before he buried them.

This night’s job should be simple by comparison, if he could use that term for any mission where his life was balanced on a razor’s edge. All Bolan had to do was watch and wait.

The bikers would start something with his targets, or they wouldn’t. If they did, he’d have to hope that they were agents, not a group of thugs strung out on meth and alcohol, picking a fight just for the hell of it. Real bikers would be more of a challenge, and they wouldn’t hesitate to stick a knife between his ribs or put a bullet in his head, if Bolan interfered with their idea of fun.

See how it goes, he thought, still working on his fries. Either way he’d get the job done. The waitress passed by, asking if he needed anything. A little flirty smile to sell it, and he asked her for a refill on the coffee. As she poured it, raucous laughter echoed from the bar. Her smile became a nervous frown.

“Bad news?” he asked.

“Could be.”

“Are those guys regulars?”

“We get the type a lot,” she said. “Same patches, too. But I don’t recognize them.”

“Thanks,” Bolan said, when she’d finished topping off his mug. “Be careful, eh?”

“I’m always careful, mister.”

Words to live by.

Bolan sipped his coffee, while the bikers downed their first round of beers and called for refills, telling the beefy bartender to run a tab. Again, he didn’t argue.

Could be trouble there, if they refused to pay, but nothing helpful. Bolan wasn’t there to serve Scoots as a cooler or to collect its bar bills. If the might-be outlaws didn’t drag his targets into it, he’d have no play.

Just then, one of the long-haired bikers turned with beer in hand, back to the bar, and scanned the room. He looked a little bleary-eyed, which could’ve been an act or the combined effect of chemicals and desert night-riding. From Bolan’s angle on the sidelines, he was ill-equipped to judge.

But he felt hopeful when the guy nudged one of his companions, pointing toward the table where five men hunched over plates of food, and said, “Well, lookee here. Those pricks are in our seats.”

“AW, SHIT!”

“What is it now?” Clay Halsey asked.

“They’re coming over here,” Doolin replied. “Who is?”

“Those punks. Who do you think?”

“Just chill,” Halsey advised. “We’re in a public place. The rule of law prevails.”

“You think so?” Gruber asked him.

“So they tell me,” Halsey said. “Until it doesn’t, anyway.”

“And when’s that?” Webb asked.

“When I say so.”

Halsey didn’t turn to watch the motorcycle scum advancing on him. He could hear them coming, and a moment later he could smell them. Sweat and motor oil, a mix Halsey sometimes thought of as Eau de White Trash.

Not that he’d ever say as much out loud. Too many good ol’ boys might take offense and look for someone else to stoke their rage.

Halsey ignored the bikers as they ranged themselves behind him, concentrating on his meal. He’d see a sucker punch before it landed, telegraphed by the expressions of his four dinner companions, and the steak knife in his hand could do some wicked damage in a pinch.

But Halsey hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

The very last thing that he needed was another incident involving cops and bad publicity. The media was after him already, snapping at his heels, sniffing around for dirt. As for police—

“You’re in our seats,” one of the bikers said, somewhere behind Halsey and well above him.

“Our seats,” another of them echoed, sounding like an idiot.

Halsey swallowed the bite of steak that he’d been chewing, half turned in his seat, keeping his knife and fork in hand.

“I think there must be some mistake,” he told the long-haired man who appeared to be the leader of this motley pack.

“You made it,” the biker said, grinning through a salt-and-pepper mustache and goatee.

“I mean to say,” Halsey explained, “that we’ve been here for something like an hour and a half. You just walked in.”

“Don’t matter,” the leader said. “They’re reserved.”

“Someone forgot to post it, then,” replied Halsey, feeling heat rise in his face. “You need to take it up with management.”

“We need this table and these friggin’ chairs,” the biker said with a sneer. “And management ain’t sittin’ in ’em.”

“We’ll be pleased to move,” Halsey replied. “As soon as we’re all finished with our dinner. And dessert.”

He knew the afterthought was pushing it, but figured why not?

Sometimes a spot of trouble couldn’t be avoided after all.

“You’re finished now,” the long-haired biker said, then spat a stream of brown tobacco juice directly onto Halsey’s plate.

“Looks done to me,” another biker observed.

Halsey considered stabbing the tobacco-chewer, but he knew the penalty for using deadly force unless his life was clearly threatened. Stifling the killer urge, he said, “That’s inconvenient. Now I’ll have to get another steak and start from scratch.”

“He’s fuckin’ with you, man,” one of the bikers told his chief.

“You think so?” the leader asked.

“Hell, yeah,” another said.

“That’s one stupid-ass mistake,” the leader said. Addressing Halsey, he inquired, “Is that right, boy? You fuckin’ with me?”

“I can’t imagine anything less appetizing,” Halsey said.

“You got a smart mouth, for a citizen.”

While Halsey understood the slang term for a working stiff of square, he found the comeback irresistible.

“So, what are you?” he asked. “Some kind of wetback?”

With a snarl, the long-haired biker lunged for him, surprised Halsey by clutching his right wrist with one hand, twisting, forcing him to drop the knife, while the biker’s right hand grabbed Halsey’s shirt and hoisted him out of his chair, as if he weighed nothing at all.

“Smart mouth,” the biker said. “Dumbass.”

And then Halsey was airborne, tumbling across the table through clattering plates, silverware and bottles of beer, on his way toward impact with the floor.

BOLAN PUSHED HIS PLATE and coffee cup aside. So far, so good.

He’d watched the seven grungy outlaws swagger toward the table where his targets sat and then interrupt their meal. He’d worried for a moment that the bikers might stand back and wait for one of their intended marks to throw the first punch, when the seated diners didn’t seem inclined to do so, but it worked out in the end. The spokesman for the group lipped off just enough to get himself picked up and tossed across the table.

Bolan stayed where he was watching, waiting.

He couldn’t jump in yet. If it turned out that the targets could handle themselves and were giving the bikers a beating, his uninvited help would be superfluous. Suspicious, even. It could blow his only shot at breaking in.

He had to hope his targets lost the fight—or, rather, started losing in a clear, decisive manner. Bolan couldn’t sit and wait to see them punched unconscious or delay until the cops showed up.

The bartender already had a cell phone open in his hand, but Bolan knew response time was an issue. Apple Valley was an incorporated township sprawling over seventy-odd square miles, with law enforcement covered by a police department composed of fifty-five San Bernardino County sheriff’s officers. Of those, four were administrators, five were detectives and eight were patrol supervisors—which left twelve officers per eight-hour shift, less those with days off or vacation time scheduled.

Bolan had learned all that from the internet, within ten minutes of discovering that he’d be meeting his intended marks in Apple Valley. Now, his first trick would be staying out of jail.

Brognola had arranged the setup—if these were, in fact, his bikers—but he hadn’t shared their secret with the locals. Bolan had no reason to believe that any of the Apple Valley cops were tied to Halsey’s crowd in any way, but small towns thrived on gossip. It was a rule of life.

And anywhere you went, the walls had ears.

So, he’d be going for a ride in cuffs if Apple Valley’s finest caught him brawling with a bunch of thugs in Scoots. He could plead self-defense, of course, then post bail and take a hike. But Bolan didn’t want his face in any mug-shot files, his fingerprints in the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System—IAFIS—or any other data bank.

He was a dead man, after all.

And planned to stay that way, as long as he was breathing.

The bikers weren’t pulling their punches with Clay Halsey’s men, but the casual diners weren’t punching bags, either. They gave back as good as they got—well, almost—and two of the Diableros were bloodied already, though still on their feet and swinging. One of Halsey’s guys, by contrast, had been punched or booted in the ribs and lay off to one side, hunched in a fetal curl.

Bolan checked his watch—one minute gone and counting. The barkeep was still on his phone, likely giving details to the AVPD dispatcher. Any second, a prowl car would receive instructions, fire up lights and siren, and race through the desert night toward Scoots.

With how many others to follow?

They wouldn’t send one cop to handle a dozen-odd brawlers. More likely, the night shift would roll out en masse, unless some of the shift’s personnel were already scattered on other duties. With approximately seventy-three thousand residents counted in its last census, Apple Valley would have the normal complement of burglaries, car thefts, domestic beefs and nuisance calls distracting officers on any given shift.

Say eight or nine incoming, then, within the next five minutes. As for times on-site, there would be stragglers. Some patrolling at a distance from the roadhouse, others eating fast food with their radios turned on, maybe a bathroom break or two.

A little breathing room.

But if his marks didn’t start losing soon…

Bolan was ready, waiting, when Halsey charged into the middle of the fight and caught a haymaker dead center in his face. It might not be a nose breaker, but there was force enough behind the punch to send Halsey flying again. He hit the floor hard, no table to break his fall this time, and Bolan worried that the man he needed to impress might be unconscious.

No. Halsey was shaking it off, rolling over and wiping a dark smear of blood from his nostrils with his sleeve. Face flushed with impact and anger, he lurched to his feet, wobbled into a fair fighting crouch and began to advance with fists clenched.

Going back in for more.

It was enough.

Bolan slipped from his booth, feeling the rush of battle in his blood. He reached the battleground in four long, loping strides, grabbed Halsey’s adversary by one arm and spun him, scowling as he drove a fist into the biker’s face.