Don Pendleton - California Hit

"But what?"

"I don't want you to get all upset. I mean, maybe it's nothing at all."

A chill chased itself down Bolan's spine. He said, "Let's have it."

"Well, Johnny and Val have taken off somewhere."

Something ticked loose in Bolan's brain. He said, "Since when?"

"Since I tried to get in touch this morning. I wanted them to know I'd talked to you. They... just aren't there, Sarge. No one at the school remembers seeing either of them since early last night."

Bolan's guts were coming unglued. "Their clothes, Leo, what about..."

"Hard to tell. They left some behind, yeah, but there's no way of knowing if they took any away with them. I mean..."

Bolan's ears were roaring. Woodenly, he said, "You mean they could have been snatched."

"It's possible. But there are a lot of other possibilities, too. You remember I told you Val was agitating for a meet. They could have bugged out of there early this morning. The Frisco news was all over the television — you know how the home town follows you. I mean, I think maybe they're headed that way, Sarge. I think Val just decided, hell, to set up her own meet."

Bolan muttered, "I don't believe Val would do that. Not with Johnny along, anyway. She knows what a risk it is. No. I can't buy that, Leo."

The panic was edging clearly into Turrin's voice now. "God, I've been living with my ear to the ground all day, Sarge. I haven't heard a rumble from the boys. Not one. If somebody got to them, then they're being mighty damn quiet about it"

Bolan's voice was very cold and lifeless as he said, "Leo, please keep that ear busy. If you hear anything, the tiniest whisper, get word to me immediately."

"Okay, you know I will. What's the best path?"

"Call that television correspondent in New York. We have an arrangement. Just tell him it's a windmill emergency. He'll understand, and hell get the message on the network newscast. You know the guy?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"Okay."

"Sarge... Mack... Goddammit. I'm sorry."

"Not your fault, Leo. I guess I've always known this might happen someday. I..."

"We don't know for sure it's happened yet."

"Right, you're right. Uh, thanks for — thanks, Leo. Keep alert, eh?"

"I will. And I'll get this other thing into Augie Marinello right away."

"I'll appreciate it"

"Yeah."

Bolan hung up. He stared thoughtfully at his hands for a moment, then he left the phone booth and rejoined Mary Ching on the sidewalk.

Her eyes searched his face, then she slipped a hand into his and said, "It didn't go well."

"It went swell," he told her.

"But you're wearing the death mask."

"I am?"

"You are. Was it a hard sell?"

"It was an easy sell," he replied quietly.

"What, then?"

"A personal matter. Forget it, let me do the worrying."

"Nothing's changed?"

"Nothing," he assured her, "is changed. The hit is on."

"What's next?" she wondered aloud, still giving him the searching gaze.

"The porno girls."

"What? — oh! The kids."

"Yeah. I just want to reassure myself about them. It can be a hell of a tough world for kids."

She whispered, "Yes, it can."

Something, Mary Ching knew, was very much out of place inside Mack Bolan. It was like, suddenly, he was a total stranger. Cold, hard... deadly.

She pressed against him as they went up the street, and she told him, "Hey, tough guy, I wish I knew what that contact said to you on the phone."

Bolan did not reply.

She tried again. "I mean, okay, you sold him your package. But what did he sell you in exchange?"

"He sold me," Bolan quietly told her, "the idea that this is one hell of a lousy war. Especially for women and children."

Whatever that meant. Mary felt a prickling at her scalp. It wasn't what Mr. Tough said... it was the voice he said it with.

In a small voice, she asked him, "After you've reassured yourself about the kids... what's next after that?"

"Brushfire," he said.

"What?"

He showed her a smile which was more like death stretching itself. "A Brushfire is next after that, Mary."

She knew it was an understatement. What was next, she was convinced, was a roaring conflagration.

It was three o'clock and only ten hours into the California battle when the warwagon crept to the curb outside the production studio on upper Geary Street. Bolan was wearing slacks and a shirt open at the neck, crepe soled shoes, a conservative blazer, and the Beretta Belle snugged within easy access.

He parked in a loading zone directly in front of the studio and gave Mary Ching a curt nod of the head. "Try it," he said.

She exited and went to the studio entrance, then returned quickly to the vehicle. Her eyes were large and worried as she reported, "Closed, locked. Shouldn't be. They're usually working right into the early evening."

He asked, "Could they have finished, wrapped it up?"

Worriedly, she replied, "Hardly. Just started yesterday."

He said, "Okay. Here's what you do. Sit right here. Don't budge for anything and don't let anybody move you away. If you hear gunfire, though, beat it quick. Go exactly one block north on Van Ness and wait for me there, even if you have to double park. Time it, and if I'm not there within two minutes, then you split. Every hour on the hour after that, cruise past the corner of Powell and Geary. You have that?"

"I have it," she assured him.

Bolan left her then and proceeded directly to the studio entrance.

The door was mostly glass, not designed for extraordinary security precautions, with an ordinary mechanical lock, the type that is built into the inner hardware. It silently came apart under the first probe of his handy little tool, and he let himself in.

There was a reception area with a low wrought-iron railing to one side, a freight counter on the other. Behind the railing was a desk and a couple of cheap couches; swung off farther into the reception area were two private offices, an unfamiliar Italian name lettered upon each one.

There were no signs of life in that forward area.

Set into the far wall was a rugged looking door of solid construction, no visible hardware. Stenciled across it in thick white letters was the admonition:

STUDIO

ABSOLUTELY NO ENTRY

Bolan found the secret to the door at the reception desk, via a push-button which was hung to the underside. He pressed it. The door hummed a brief note and cracked open.

He went through without pause and into the darkened interior of the studio. It was a bit larger than he'd expected, long but rather narrow in the approaches with — probably — dressing rooms and offices to either side. At the far rear everything opened up again and it was a single large warehouse-like sound stage with overhead lofts and scattered with photographic and sound equipment.

Bolan noted three small "sets" — one had a thin layer of sand spread along the cardboard backdrop of what might pass as an ocean if something of more optical interest were placed in front of it — like, say, a beautiful nude young body. The other two sets were mockups of, respectively, a bedroom and a living room. Both were rather grim scenes; Bolan would not have liked to live there.

The only lights in present operation were a pair of white spots on the bedroom set.

A cluster of guys were standing across the front of the set and blocking most of the view into the bedroom. It wasn't so blocked, though, that Bolan couldn't catch a glimpse of a couple of scared looking lads seated cross-legged on the bed. They wore white terry-cloth robes which probably would have bottomed out around their thighs if they'd been standing, and that's all they were wearing.

The guys were mostly in shadow, but Bolan could see that they were not dressed for either bedroom or studio work. There were six of them, and the suits they were wearing were not silk, but they may as well have been. These were Chinese boys, and they looked as ornery as anything Franco Laurentis could have fielded.