Dragon's Den

She laughed. “I have ears all over L.A., Cooper. One of Pratt’s men described a guy dressed, oh…a hell of a lot like you are right now. What I don’t get anymore is exactly what you are doing here. You told me this afternoon Washington sent you here to run down the source of all this opium and heroin. You say you don’t want me to tell my superiors you’re here, but then you start firing up major gang leaders with explosives and automatic weapons, no pun intended. Just what’s your angle?”

“You think I owe you an answer.”

“I think I’m entitled.”

“Not really, but your question’s fair enough. I’ve been trying to decide if you’re trustworthy.”

“You haven’t left me a whole lot of choices, either,” she challenged.

“You want the truth, fine. I’m here to find out where these drugs are coming from. My guess is somewhere in Micronesia.”

“Are you sure?”

“I will be as soon as I check out one more angle. The only question that remains after that is why the sudden rush.”

“That’s a good question,” Amherst interjected. “Someone opened the flood gates and their timing’s impeccable. It’s not like I don’t have enough problems on my hands. I’m short staffed right now due to budget cuts, and I have backlogged cases stacked as tall as Magic Johnson. To add to my worries, I have one mysterious DEA agent running around playing soldier.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Bolan countered. “I’m not playing.”

“Neither am I,” she said. “I won’t keep pulling your bacon out of the fire, Cooper. DEA agent or not, fellow cop or not, this is your only freebie. Please don’t ask me to continue keeping my mouth shut while you go around shooting up half the city. My loyalties to duty only extend so far, and I can’t protect you forever even if what you’re doing is right.”

A tough mask fell across the Executioner’s face. “I don’t remember asking for protection. And I don’t need your permission. You seem like a good cop, Amherst, but understand I have a job to do and that takes precedence.”

“Look, I don’t—”

“Someone’s following us,” Bolan cut in.

“What?” The Executioner saw her eyes go to first her rearview mirror and then her side mirror, but she didn’t move her head. “How do you know?”

“Part of that instinct I mentioned earlier.”

“Who do you think it is?”

“I can’t be positive but I think I have a pretty good idea,” Bolan replied.

“What do you want to do?”

“Turn right at the next intersection,” Bolan replied. “We need some running room.”

“D AMN IT , B ART !” Howard Starkey exclaimed. “They told us to lay off this guy. We should be back at the apartment watching TV or something.”

Bart Wikert dragged a greasy palm across his face and cursed the heat. The air conditioner in their loaner unit had broken two days earlier, and their assignment hadn’t permitted them time to wait at the Bureau’s downtown offices while the motor-pool guys fixed it. Now he had to sit in this infernal metal sauna while listening to his partner bitch incessantly.

“Christ! This is great weather…if you’re a fern.”

Starkey chuckled at that and shook his head. “You’re not very resilient to the heat, pal.”

Wikert stared incredulously at his partner behind the wheel. “I’m from Vermont, moron! What’s the big surprise?”

Starkey didn’t reply, instead focusing on the road ahead, and Wikert decided to let it rest. The encounter with their alleged DEA cohort earlier in the day hadn’t exactly left him in the spirit of cooperation. The ass-chewing he took from Wonderland earlier that day had put him in this foul mood. Who was Cooper that they should just stay out of his way? The events of the day, coupled with this heat, made him feel downright irritable enough to shoot the first stranger to piss him off. Wikert reconsidered the point and shook it off, almost laughing aloud at his ruminations.

“You know, buddy, this whole thing’s ridiculous,” Starkey said, intruding on his thoughts.

“Yeah,” Wikert mumbled. “But I’m not going to accept we should just sit back and twiddle our thumbs. I don’t give a damn what the DDO says.”

The deputy director of operations for Homeland Security had instructed them to back off in no uncertain terms. “Don’t rock the boat,” he’d said, and that had been that. And all because somebody in the Oval Office had apparently called him within an hour of their meeting Matt Cooper and threatened to stick a hot poker into a private and uncomfortable place if they got another phone call. Well, Bart Wikert had nearly fifteen years with the FBI and he knew when something stank. This thing had one big odor.

“Listen, Bart, all we’ve done for the past six hours is watch Cooper run around this city and break practically every law known to man. Well, I for one am not going to just sit on my ass and do nothing. If the guy actually does hold legitimate employment with one of our agencies, then he’s not following protocols. And if he works for the CIA, then he’s operating illegally because we know they can’t do shit within U.S. borders. So let’s actually do something useful for once, get off our collective asses and get into the war.”

“I didn’t know we were fighting a war,” Starkey replied quietly. There were moments that soft-spoken mannerism seemed so out of place on a guy of Starkey’s size. In fact, it seemed almost feminine against that six-foot-four, 250-pound frame squeezed behind the wheel.

“Keep your eyes on them—they’re turning onto that side street,” Wikert replied. Then he continued, “It’s a war as far as I’m concerned. This Cooper is breaking all the rules. So he has some clout with someone in D.C., so what! He obviously thinks he’s a law unto himself and can break all the rules. Well, pride goes before the fall and I’m going to make sure we’re there when he trips up.”

As soon as they rounded the corner, Starkey had to stand on the brakes to avoid rear-ending the SUV they’d been tailing. The sudden stop nearly sent Wikert through the front windshield, since he would only wear a seat belt during high-speed pursuits. Wikert threw his right hand forward and caught his body with the dash, then let out a yelp of pain when he sprained his wrist.

Cooper emerged from the shadows of a commercial building with a pistol in his fist. He lowered the weapon as soon as it became apparent he recognized the pair. Wikert quickly recovered and rolled down his window when Cooper rapped his knuckles against it and gestured in a downward motion.

“What are you doing?” Cooper asked.

“What does it look like, asshole?” Wikert said. “We’re tailing you.”

“I thought we already settled this.”

“Maybe you settled it. It’s not settled for me yet. Not by a long shot.”

“You’re biting off way more than you can chew, pal,” Cooper said. “If you’re looking to borrow trouble, you’ve come to the right place. I know you have orders to keep out of my way, and I’d advise you to follow them.”

“I don’t take orders from you.”

“I won’t repeat this,” Cooper said. “Back off.”

With that, he turned and got into the SUV, and the vehicle drove away.

“Should I follow them?” Starkey asked.

Wikert said something under his breath but shook his head. There were other ways.

5

“What was that all about?” Amherst asked as she drove away.

“Some old friends,” Bolan replied. He saw her check her mirrors again. “Don’t worry. They won’t follow us.”

Amherst nodded. “So what’s next?”

“Like I said before, I have one more thing to check out.”

“I think I hear a but coming,” she interjected.