LITMIR.BIZ

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the boardwalk, the two men turned inland and crossed the street. Pausing for a traffic light, Bolan suddenly took out his cell phone. “Cooper here,” he said, using a favored alias.

      Watching the ebb and flow of humanity, Kirkland waited patently until Bolan finished the call.

      “What was hit?” Kirkland asked, waving off an approaching taxi.

      “An army battalion in Afghanistan,” Bolan replied. “Everybody was killed, and even the vehicles were destroyed—trucks, tanks and gunships.”

      “The sons of bitches are getting bold,” Kirkland growled, glancing at the fleecy white clouds in the blue sky.

      “There’s no reason why they shouldn’t be,” Bolan replied, taking a sip from the water bottle.

      “Think the strike was advertising?” Kirkland asked with a scowl. “Show the world what they could do to the mighty United States?”

      “Unlikely. Afghanistan is too remote to receive proper TV coverage.”

      “Now, we could go there in person,” Kirkland suggested, as a group of kids in tight formation zoomed by on roller skates. “But there are far too many terrorist groups in that part of the world for us to question. It would take years.”

      “I have something else in mind,” Bolan said.

      “Hey, there it is!” Kirkland said suddenly, pointing across a busy intersection.

      Nestled among the rows of T-shirt emporiums, yogurt shops, hair salons and bars was a three-story building that occupied half of the block. A sign on top merely had the single word Montenegro.

      “Let’s go,” Bolan said, starting across the street.

      “Why did she paint the building pink?” Kirkland asked. “That doesn’t really seem her style.”

      “Look around, brother. Most of the larger buildings are pink or blue,” Bolan said, waving a hand. “I think the mayor wants the city to look the way it does in movies.”

      “Bloody tourists,” Kirkland growled, as if expelling a piece of rotten fruit from his mouth.

      Bolan laughed. “This from a man who runs a casino hotel?”

      “Hey, my dice and wheels are honest! Tourists pay a lot for nothing. That just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

      “Ever been to a museum?”

      “Sure…okay, point taken. But I still don’t like them and all their damn cameras!”

      As they started toward the pink building, Bolan had a strong feeling that that was the real source of Kirkland’s dislike. Undercover DEA agents, covert ops, spies and mercenaries had all taken a big hit the day the cell phone camera was invented. Jamming devices helped a lot, but nothing could stop all of them. There were just too many.

      The row of windows along the top floor of the building were open, and as Bolan and Kirkland got closer they could hear the assorted cries, slaps and grunts of hard physical exercise in progress.

      “We need her,” Bolan said, pulling open the glass door. “So keep the safety locked on that smart-ass mouth.”

      “I’ll do my best, Sarge,” Kirkland said. “But no promises.”

      The lobby inside was cool and crisp, with potted ferns in every corner, and the walls covered with photographs of famous clients: professional athletes, politicians and a lot of movie stars.

      “The woman is good,” Kirkland said grudgingly.

      “Few better,” Bolan stated, going to the front desk.

      “Hello, can I help you gentlemen?” the receptionist asked, switching her gaze back and forth between the two men.

      A mature woman with mocha-colored skin and ebony hair, she was wearing a flower-print skirt, but above the waist a skin-tight leotard displayed her firm figure to its full advantage.

      Any tighter and Bolan would have been able to see her religion. “We’re here to meet Heather,” he said. “We’re old friends from out of town.”

      “How nice, Mr… .” She waited.

      “Dupree, Roger Dupree,” Bolan said.

      “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Dupree.”

      “Roger, please.”

      She smiled, revealing unexpected dimples. “Hitesri Chandra… Sherry to my friends.”

      “A pleasure to meet you, Sherry.”

      She glanced at Kirkland.

      He grinned. “Lamont Cranston.”

      She arched an eyebrow at that. “Is Ms. Montenegro expecting you?” Sherry asked hesitantly.

      “No, this is a surprise visit,” Bolan said.

      “However, we did leave a message at her AA meeting,” Kirkland suddenly added with a straight face.

      Frowning at that, Sherry turned to look only at Bolan. “Well, I’m sorry, but Ms. Montenegro is conducting a private class at the moment. But if you’d care to wait…” She smiled invitingly and didn’t finish the sentence.

      “Mind if we just go straight up?” Kirkland asked, pulling open the stairwell door.

      “Sir, that’s not allowed!” Sherry shouted, reaching out a hand.

      But Kirkland was already gone, taking the steps two at a time.

      “Please excuse my friend,” Bolan apologized, heading for the open doorway. “He was raised in a cave by bears.”

      “Pity they didn’t eat him,” Sherry muttered, sitting back down.

      At the top of the stairs, a small landing led to a changing room lined with lockers. There were private showers, a steam room, and from down a short hallway came the familiar sounds of a fight in progress.

      Heading that way, Bolan and Kirkland caught the smells of sweat, blood and some sort of stringent herbal compound.

      “Ah, Tiger Balm, just the smell makes me ache,” Kirkland said wistfully. “You know, I still carry some of the stuff in my bag?”

      “Who doesn’t?” Bolan replied, as they proceeded along the hallway.

      “I just wish it didn’t reek like the southern end of a northbound rhinosaurus.”

      As they’d expected, the room wasn’t a gymnasium, but a dojo, a martial arts studio. Although it was large and well-lit by ceiling fixtures, there was no furniture of any kind, just thick mats covering the floor and punching bags hanging in every corner. On the walls were racks of blunt bamboo poles, cushioned wooden sticks, then uncushioned sticks, knives and swords, followed by a wide variety of more exotic weaponry. The only decorations were framed pictographs in Japanese, Chinese and Korean extolling the virtues of honor and courage.

      There were a dozen people of various ages sitting on the mats. Everybody was barefoot and wearing a loose cotton judo uniform, the twill jackets held shut with twisted cloth belts. Most of the students wore the red belts of advanced pupils, but there were also a few beginners in white belts and one high-ranking brown belt.

      Standing at the front of the class was a tall woman with flaming red hair tied off her face with a strip of rawhide. She was completely without cosmetics and strikingly beautiful, with a full mouth and slightly slanting eyes of emerald-green that spoke of a mixed ancestry. Her white uniform was edged with black piping, and she wore the black belt of a teacher tied around a trim waist.

      “So that’s the deal. The first person to physically touch me gets a full refund on all of their fees,” Heather Montenegro said, tightening her belt.

      “That’s all?” a burly black man asked suspiciously. “Just touch you? Not put you down or draw blood?”

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