They had just returned from the orphanage, where they had been dispatched to investigate the violence there.
They had found a lot of scared children and adults and dead bodies.
Bolan, for sure.
The description given to them by the wounded intern matched.
"He was like a stalking giant," the intern had said, even the pain not enough to mask the awe in his voice. "So it was Bolan, huh? I never believed one man could do all the things they say he's done. Now I believe!"
Griff had not taken an active role in the visit to the orphanage, Laymon remembered, but instead had stood around chewing on his dumb stomach tablets, his face expressionless, as if his mind was distracted by something else entirely. He had been the same on the drive back to headquarters.
Laymon sipped the strong coffee. He decided he could not put up with this any longer.
It was time for a showdown.
He swallowed the rest of the cup's contents, tossed the Styrofoam container into a wastebasket and stalked over to Griff's desk.
Griff hung up the phone as Laymon approached.
This did not surprise Laymon. Griff didn't want him to know whom he was talking to. Laymon's anger grew.
He leaned over Griff's desk and rested his palms on the cluttered surface.
"I think it's time we had a talk, old buddy."
Griff looked up.
"About what?"
"Come on, Les. Something's tearing you apart and I, goddammit, want to know what it is."
Griff shook his head.
"You're all wrong..."
"Don't give me that. You either tell me what's going on in that head of yours, partner, or we're taking a walk down to IAD to find out the hard way!"
That got through.
Griff, his face a taut mask, glared at Laymon.
"You think I've gone bad, is that it? You think I'm dirty?"
"I don't want to think that, Griff," Laymon countered quickly. "You've just been acting so damn weird lately, making these mysterious phone calls, and it's like you're not quite there half the time when I'm talking to you."
"You're supposed to trust your partner," said Griff, the sharpness of accusation and budding resentment in his voice.
"I want to trust you, Les. You're just making it so damn difficult, what with the Bolan thing going down and..."
Griff interrupted by putting his palms on the desk to push himself to his feet, his face only inches from Laymon's.
"It just so happens that I am ready to let you in on it, Harry. Or at least I was until you went all screwy on me."
"Me, screwy? What about you?"
"I had good reason for everything I've been doing. I can explain it."
"So let's hear it. I'm all ears."
Some of the other cops in the squad room were starting to look curiously at the obvious confrontation taking place between the two partners.
Laymon and Griff both pulled back, appearing to relax somewhat, but kept their voices pitched low enough so that no one else in the busy squad room could overhear them.
"You still think I'm on the take, don't you?" Griff grunted. "You jump to too many conclusions, old buddy. Come with me."
"Where to?"
"To the captain's office."
Laymon stared.
"The captain's office?"
"That's right. I've got something to tell him."
Griff turned and stalked away, heading toward the closed door of an office on the other side of the squad room.
Laymon watched him for a moment, then hurried to catch up, more curious than ever, wishing he knew what the hell was going on and knowing he was about to find out.
Griff was knocking on the frosted glass door.
A gruff voice called to them to come in.
Griff cast another look at Laymon, then turned the doorknob and strode into the office.
Laymon followed him.
The harried-looking captain looked up from a desk covered with paper. He frowned, which made him resemble a basset hound.
"What do you guys want? It better be good and it better be Bolan. The commish just finished chewing my ass, again."
"It's Bolan," Griff promised, "and it's the ugliest damn story you ever heard..."
David Parelli stood at the window of the trucking company office, staring into the night.
"That's not very smart, David," his mother admonished mildly from the desk where she sat. "You never know who's going to be lurking out there."
Parelli did not step away from the window.
The brittle cold area outside looked like any other such suburban shipping business, closed at this hour. Tractor trailer trucks and loading equipment were parked here and there in the dim illumination that made more shadows than light, but there was no trace of movement.
"You mean Bolan," Parelli said flatly.
"That's exactly what I mean," Denise said. "He could be out there with a rifle right now, the sights trained on your head. I didn't take so much time and trouble raising you that I want to see your brains splattered all over the wall, David."
Parelli grimaced.
"I don't remember you taking so much time and trouble raising me."
She glared at him and sighed wearily.
The office was uncomfortably cold, she thought. She was glad this would be the last shipment of children for a while. It was a profitable sideline, and she liked to take a personal hand in the running of this operation, as she did in all family business, but the Bolan presence in Chicago had changed everything.
They were alone at the moment, the night man of the truck yard having gone outside to supervise the hooking up of a tractor rig to a long trailer.
A trailer that would soon be loaded with human beings.
For the moment, the living cargo was under guard in the spacious warehouse next to the office building.
There were more guards, around the perimeter of the complex, patrolling barbed wire fence.
She glanced at her watch.
11:45.
They were running right on schedule. The brats would be on their way no later than midnight.
"I'll be glad when this night is over," she heard herself saying to her son's back.
He turned to face her.
"I don't know why. Bolan will still be around."
She picked up her purse and took a cigarette from a solid silver case. She waited pointedly, the cigarette poised in her fingers, for David to come over and light it for her.
"He won't have anything against us on this," she said. "You and I are going to keep a very low profile for a while, David. Bolan never stays in one place for very long. He'll be gone soon."
"Yeah, well, don't forget, Bolan came to town to get me. We've got this town wired, the cops are after him, but... well, I just hope you're right, Ma. We've taken all the precautions possible."
"Wallace is dead, Owens is dead." There was no regret in her voice as she mentioned the porn director's name, "and Dutton knows that he will be, too, if he doesn't keep his mouth shut and keep on going along with us, just like the others we've put in our pocket in Washington."
Parelli lit his mother's cigarette, then one of his own, blowing smoke toward the tiled ceiling.
"We can handle Bolan because we've got the leverage."
"The Garner bitch," Denise agreed. "Yes, I think that could make Bolan see things our way and leave us alone. We'll see, won't we? So far, so good."
The office door swung open and a heavy-jowled man in a baseball cap poked his head inside.
"The truck's ready to go, Mr. Parelli."
"Right," David Parelli snapped. "About goddamn time, too."
"Anything else I can do for you, sir?"
"No, just see that everything gets under way as soon as possible."
The foreman nodded, touched the bill of his cap and left.
Denise wondered if they should have him killed, too.
The man wasn't one of their soldiers; most of the time he was just a legitimate employee of a legitimate business. He did know, though, that the owners of this business sometimes used it for other purposes... purposes that were not so legitimate.