Deep Recon

by Don Pendleton

  She'd been in position for hours. She was cold from the breeze blowing in off the Atlantic Ocean, even with the fleece-lined jacket and thick tights she wore. She was hungry, having eaten all three energy bars she'd brought with her hours ago. She was thirsty, having drained the canteen right after the last energy bar. And she had to pee, because damned if she was going to use the glass jar Bolan had insisted she bring along.

  Maxwell could have just sprayed the area with fire to confuse people long enough for Bolan to kill them, but the ammo for this thing was expensive, and she wasn't sure if she'd be able to expense anything on this particular op, given how badly everything had gone.

  Besides, Cooper, she knew, could deal with Delgado and that guy with the glasses. There was only one target Maxwell cared about.

  Unfortunately, when he'd backed up, he'd moved between the two palm trees, which made it difficult for her to get a proper shot.

  "You are not leaving this place alive, you son of a bitch," Maxwell muttered. "You killed Johnny, and you must die for that."

  Cooper was hiding behind Faraday's car while Delgado and the other guy fired at him. Maxwell figured that the man could take care of himself.

  All Lee had to do was move a little and she'd have a clear shot.

  Finally, she grew tired of waiting, especially since she was about five seconds from peeing into her tights. So even as Delgado started to move around to the other side of the Olds to nail Bolan in a cross fire, she took aim at the tree that Lee was hiding behind.

  The first shot glanced off the tree, sending bits of palm tree bark shrapnel flying off in all directions.

  Instinctively, as Maxwell had hoped would happen, Lee ducked his head. This left him vulnerable, as the palm tree only provided cover while he was standing straight. With his head now poking out from behind the tree, she had a perfect shot at his head.

  "This is for Johnny, asshole."

  The 7.62 mm round flew through the air. Lee had put his hands up near his head when he ducked, so the bullet hit his right hand first, breaking the metacarpus in two as it cut through, proceeding through to his neck.

  To Maxwell's disappointment, Lee's hand had retarded the bullet's momentum enough that the round didn't go all the way through his neck.

  That disappointment vanished quickly though, as she saw blood spurt out of Lee's neck.

  He tried to scream — searing pain shot through his right hand and his neck — but it only came out as a bloody gurgle.

  Maxwell decided that this was better. Through the Pentax, she watched as Lee fell to the ground, his left hand futilely trying to stop the flow of blood from his neck, his eyes bugged out, his mouth struggling to scream, his right hand utterly destroyed.

  It took him the better part of a minute to die. Maxwell enjoyed watching every second.

  Meanwhile, Delgado had run out of ammo first, followed by the man with the glasses half a second later. Once Bolan heard both the Beretta and the H&K dry firing, he rose, pointed the Desert Eagle at the man with the glasses and pulled the trigger.

  Half a second later, the man didn't have a chest. The .357 round had destroyed his entire thoracic region, killing him instantly.

  As he did so, Bolan also caught sight of Lee writhing on the ground. He retracted his earlier mental praise of Maxwell, as her thirst for revenge had just cost the Executioner a valuable interrogation.

  Bolan had taken out the other man first, as he figured Delgado might still have some value alive.

  But the time it took to take the shot, be pissed at Maxwell, and turn around was enough for Delgado to have reloaded.

  Both men pointed their handguns at each other. Bolan stared down the muzzle of the H&K while the Desert Eagle was aimed right between Delgado's eyes.

  "Dammit, Mike, I thought we were brothers. So much for semper fi, huh?"

  "That's a Marine saying," Bolan said, using his own clinical tones rather than the more freewheeling speaking pattern of Mike Burns. "A good soldier would never say that."

  "Army, huh?" Delgado shook his head. "Figures. Betcha didn't serve in the desert, either."

  "You'd be right."

  Again, Delgado shook his head. "Well, these past two days have sucked. Who you workin' for, anyhow, Mikey?"

  "That was my question for you, Danny."

  "I can't tell you that, Mikey."

  "Can't or won't?"

  "Both. If I could, I wouldn't — but I honestly don't have the first clue. I just worked for the lieutenant. He never told me who it was calling the shots, and I never asked. Chain of command, you know? Only one who dealt with the big boss was the lieutenant." Delgado smiled. "You can ask him, but it looks like that ain't an option."

  "So now what?" Bolan asked. "We stand here all night? I may not be a Marine, but I was a rifleman, same as you. We're both good shots, and we both have powerful enough weapons that being a good shot is irrelevant. Do we kill each other?"

  "Yeah, well, maybe one of us lives. That land mine in Afghanistan did a lot worse to me than that hand cannon of yours could do if you don't hit the heart or head. I'm used to living with pain."

  "Living how? Your boss is dead, your organization is pretty much shattered. You've got nowhere to go and nothing to do. Worse, you're liable for any number of criminal charges, and even if you kill me, that doesn't get the heat off you. For one thing, I'm not working alone. For another, there's a dancer at Hot Keys who can tell a wonderful story about a conspiracy to commit the murder of Jean-Louis Faraday."

  Delgado's eyes went wide. "Son of a..." Then he chuckled. "It was you, wasn't it? You nailed Favre, Hawkins and Brand?"

  "We did, yes," Bolan said to remind Delgado that he wasn't in this alone.

  "Shit."

  On the dock roof, Maxwell gritted her teeth. She had a clear shot on Delgado, but, relative to her position, Bolan was right behind him, and standing only a yard or so away. It was pretty likely that any shot she took would go through and through and hit Cooper as well.

  So she watched the Mexican standoff and hoped that it ended soon.

  "So what'll it be, Danny?" Bolan asked. "We just had a very loud, very impressive shootout. Sooner or later, someone will show up to investigate it. Once that happens, it's over for you. For starters, I'm legally permitted to have this weapon."

  Delgado smiled. "Yeah, looks like I'm pretty well fucked, doesn't it?"

  His wrist bent, and Bolan assumed he was about to lower his weapon and surrender.

  Instead he turned the H&K around and placed the muzzle in his mouth, pulling the trigger. Blood, skull fragments and brain matter flew upward into the air behind Delgado as the bullet tore the top of his head off.

  The Executioner sighed. Delgado's behavior wasn't surprising, but it might have been useful to have someone he could hand to BATF alive.

  Still, it wasn't a priority, and Delgado didn't have the information Bolan needed.

  However, the person who did have that intel was lying dead in his own blood between two palm trees.

  Bolan waited for the person responsible for that to make her appearance, and within five minutes, Maxwell arrived, a very big smile on her face. "A job well done, I'd say. Sorry I couldn't help with Danny, but I didn't have a clear shot at..."

  She cut herself off when Bolan turned around with a look that could kill.

  "What the hell?" she asked. "You're welcome!"

  "It was good that you took out Martinez," Bolan said, "but you also killed Kevin Lee."

  "Wasn't that kind of the idea?" Maxwell asked in genuine confusion.

  "Lee was the only one who could tell us where to find his boss."

  "His what?" Lola's confusion was only growing.

  Bolan let out a long breath.

  "Lee's the public face," Bolan explained. "He has a boss. But I can't ask him who it is, now, because you killed him."

  "When did you find this out, exactly?"

  "About five minutes before everyone started firing."

  "And I was
supposed to know this, how, exactly? I can't read lips, and you didn't give me a way of listening in. I thought the whole idea here was to take Lee down."

  "The idea is to take the organization down. After all, this, the person running things can easily pack up and start over somewhere else, and all this will have been for nothing. You got caught up in your own vendetta and forgot the bigger picture."

  Maxwell cursed. She couldn't believe that Lee wasn't the top man. In all the months she and Johnny had been working this case, there was never the slightest hint that there was anyone over Lee.

  But then, that was probably the point. And also why the operation was so successful.

  "Okay, fine, so we've got more work to do."

  "No, 'we' don't," Bolan said harshly. "You've gotten your revenge. For you, this is over."

  "Like hell. I want the person who gave the order, not the person who did the deed. I know Lee didn't shoot Johnny himself — that was probably Pooky, and he's already dead. I wanted whoever gave Pooky his marching orders. I thought that was Lee, but I was wrong."

  "We all were," the Executioner muttered. "We need to check out Lee's yacht."

  "It's not in this dock," Maxwell said, having seen it from her vantage point. "The Coast Guard keeps an eye on him as much as they can. I've got a friend over there."

  "Fine, call your friend," Bolan said reluctantly, having realized that he was stuck with Maxwell for the time being. He might as well take advantage of her contacts.

  While she did so, Bolan went to the Olds and pulled his sat phone out of the glove compartment. He needed Brognola to get a cleanup crew here before someone really did respond to the gunshots. He didn't have time to hand-hold the locals just now.

  13

  Lee's yacht, according to Maxwell's friend in the Coast Guard, was called Fidelis, and it was docked at a marina in Key Largo, all the way on the other end of the Keys.

  Bolan figured that it had made sense for Lee to keep the guns as distant from him as possible while still being near enough to retrieve them.

  "According to Steve, it just docked there a few hours ago, coming up from the south. That's all they know for sure."

  "All right, let's go."

  They got into the Olds, driving through all the Keys until they arrived at the northernmost of them, and last one before the mainland, Key Largo.

  It didn't take long to find the marina in question, and even less time to find the Fidelis.

  Of course, it was guarded. From the parking lot, Bolan and Maxwell could see a large bald man with a goatee, earbuds in his ears and a rifle slung over his shoulder.

  "You know him?" the Executioner asked.

  Maxwell shook her head. "Which can work in our favor."

  She had already removed her jacket since coming down off the dock roof, and now she removed the button-down flannel shirt she'd been wearing under it, revealing a tube top. She then peeled off her tights to reveal a pair of boxer briefs.

  Smiling at Bolan, she said, "Give me five minutes."

  Even as the much-less-dressed Maxwell jogged down to the marina — her breasts leaping about trying to free themselves from the tube top and almost succeeding — Bolan also got out of the car and took aim with his 5.56 mm RRA Tactical Entry rifle.

  He'd give Maxwell a chance, but it would be a very brief one.

  * * *

  The sentry himself was named Paul Thompson. He had been a star hockey player in high school, and was even entertaining offers from NHL scouts, when he got into a fight with some dude in a bar. How was Paul supposed to know that girl was with him? It wasn't like she was turning Paul away or anything.

  In any case, Paul was willing to let bygones be bygones once it was clear that the pretty girl was with the dude, but the dude had other ideas. He followed Paul out the door and whipped out a piece. It was just a cheap Walther PPK, but as the guy tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, he shot Paul's calf near the ankle.

  He recovered, but his left ankle was much weaker now. He'd never be able to ice skate again, which meant no hockey.

  Hockey had been Paul's life. Since he was four, he wanted to be a hockey player. He only listened to Canadian music, because Canadians liked hockey better than Americans. He made a bunch of playlists on his MP3 player, but the only one he ever actually played was the hockey mix, which was all bands from Canada.

  Without being able to play anymore, Paul wasn't sure what to do with himself. Like any good hockey player, he knew how to brawl, so he got work as a bouncer at some of the local clubs, most frequently at O'Sullivan's Bar. That led to more work, mostly watching stuff on the docks that needed watching — not so much from law-abiding citizens, but from the law.

  Paul hated guns, since one ruined his life, but this particular job — for some guy down in Key West, who'd hired him through O'Sullivan — required him to be armed. So he'd borrowed a shotgun from a friend. He didn't even know how to use it, but he figured it would intimidate people.

  Thank God they let him bring his MP3 player. If he'd had to just stand there all night watching this stupid yacht, he'd have gone crazy.

  But as long as he had his hockey mix playing on shuffle, he was cool.

  It was right in the middle of a Rush song that he saw the girl.

  No, screw that, this was a woman. Some of his bouncer gigs were in strip joints, and Paul hated those because the women in there were all fake. Perfectly made up, surgically enhanced, and not at all like real women.

  This, though, this was a real woman. Her curves were all natural.

  And Paul could see all of them, since she was just wearing what looked like a two-piece bathing suit — and sneakers. She appeared to be jogging, and Paul swore she looked like Lynda Carter in the old Wonder Woman TV show, just bouncing along. In fact, the only flaw she had was a bandage around her left biceps.

  She slowed as she approached Paul, and for that, he pulled out the earbuds. Rush was great, but this was better.

  "Hey," Maxwell said breathlessly. "Not used to seeing people on the dock here. I was just going out for a jog."

  "Nice night for it," Paul said. "I'm just keeping an eye on this boat for someone."

  "That why you've got the big gun?"

  "Oh, I got myself a real big gun, sweetheart. And I also have this shotgun."

  Somehow, Maxwell managed not to groan. "Really? Well, I wouldn't mind seeing it."

  Paul slipped the strap off his shoulder and let the weapon clatter to the wooden deck, then moved to undo his shorts. He never once took his eyes off Maxwell's cleavage.

  She laughed. "I meant the shotgun, silly."

  Paul blushed. "Oh."

  "Though we can talk about looking at the other one, too." She added a feral grin.

  He bent to pick up the shotgun from the ground, and for the first time he took his eyes off her.

  As soon as he did, she kicked him in the side of the head.

  Spots exploded in Paul's eyes as his hands moved up to steady his head, which suddenly started swimming.

  Maxwell, meanwhile, snatched up Paul's shotgun, noticing that it wasn't even loaded properly. If she pulled the trigger, it'd blow up in her face. If she had known that, she would have goaded him to shoot her.

  That option was off the table, so she aimed the gun at him, hoping he wouldn't goad her to do likewise.

  "Get out of here."

  Paul struggled to his feet, still clutching his head. "I don't — I don't…"

  Maxwell lifted the gun up to her neck, hoping it made her look more threatening. "I said get out of here, hot pants! Or I use this gun to get rid of that gun."

  Hesitating only because the shotgun belonged to his buddy, and he was going to be realty pissed that he'd lost it, Paul finally agreed and ran down the marina toward the parking lot where his car was parked.

  He figured he wasn't getting paid enough for this.

  Bolan shouldered his rifle and joined Maxwell at the Fidelis.

  "Nicely done," he said.

&nb
sp; "He's probably just some local schmuck they hired to keep an eye on the boat," Maxwell said.

  Eager to move on to the next order of business, Bolan said, "Let's see what we've got."

  The yacht was beautifully appointed, with all the furnishings either in mahogany or brass.

  The first place Bolan went was the cargo hold.

  Unfortunately, it was empty.

  If the Fidelis had come into Key Largo that afternoon, it probably meant that, once everything had gone bad the previous night and that morning, Lee sent it to wherever the cache of merchandise was stored, and then directed the boat itself to Largo.

  Maxwell, meanwhile, checked Lee's room, but there was nothing. Just a bed, some clothes and an impressive wet bar. There was no documentation of any kind.

  They reunited at the wheel, where they discovered a computerized navigation system. Unfortunately, the logs had been wiped. As far as the computer was concerned, the Fidelis had never moved from this spot in its life.

  Maxwell looked up at Bolan.

  "Okay, boss man, now what?"

  Bolan rubbed his eyes with the palm heels of his hands before responding. He was suddenly very tired.

  "We head back to the safehouse and get a good night's sleep. We'll figure out our next move in the morning."

  14

  Bolan slept.

  He'd let Maxwell drive back to Summerland Key in the Olds while he retreated to the backseat and used the sat phone to contact Brognola. A Stony Man crew had come in and taken care of the scene of the shootout at Cow Key Marina. Lee, Delgado and their three guns for hire were all declared dead, but the manner of their deaths was classified. The former meant that they were officially deceased so that they would no longer be in the system. Among other things, this meant that Lee and Delgado would no longer receive their veterans' benefits, which would have continued if they were not so declared. And the latter forestalled any official investigation into their deaths.

  The only potential issue might be if anyone received insurance benefits from their deaths, but Bolan and Brognola both considered that to be extremely unlikely.