Cartel Clash

by Don Pendleton

  “Tell him to have a little more patience,” Bolan said.

  Brognola gave a short chuckle. “You want me to say that to the President of the United States? Striker, I like my job and I want to hang on to it for a while longer.”

  “You have any feedback from the shoot-out at the packing plant?”

  “Feedback? Yeah. Cops found the dead and wounded, and others just standing around wondering why the sky fell in on them. When they were indentified, there were guys from Dembrow’s crew and some Rojas Cartel members. DEA was over the moon with the coke they found. It was splashed all over the local news. Nationals got wind of it, too, so if you want I’ll put your name forward and you can be this week’s instant celebrity.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “A certain person who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue said the news was a complete surprise to him, but considers it a victory in the fight against drug trafficking.”

  “Good for him,” Bolan said dryly.

  “Hey, no sulking, big guy.”

  Bolan gave a soft laugh.

  “You might not hear from me for a while,” he said. “It’s time for a visit to the Dembrow head office. I need to hit while they’re still nervous.”

  “You got everything you need?”

  “I need some additional ordnance, and someone who can deliver, then give me a backup ride if I need it. I want to hit hard and fast while they’re jumping at shadows.”

  “Tell me what you need and I’ll get it to you quick as I can.”

  “This needs winding up. The Rojas Cartel has to be leveled, north and south chapters.”

  “Striker, watch yourself. Nervous or not, these bastards are killers. They don’t play around. You invade their home base and they’ll fight back.”

  “I’m expecting that.”

  20

  Bolan sat in the shadows, concealed by dry, dusty scrub oak, scanning the layout of Marshal Dembrow’s home base through binoculars. The generously proportioned ranch-style split-level structure was situated about twenty-five miles from Cooter’s Crossing, isolated in open country. An amalgam of natural stone and timber blended to form a large house that extended into the surrounding garden, with wide lawns and an even wider patio area. There was an eight-car garage and, beyond the rear of the house itself, a helicopter landing pad. An annex built on the north side of the main house had a cluster of aerials and a rotating radar scanner rising from the roof. The house sat on a parcel of land that stood higher than the surrounding terrain. Bolan imagined that had been a deliberate move during the planning stage.

  A number of vehicles were parked at the front of the house, and Bolan saw armed men around the entire perimeter.

  It was almost dark. Bolan had reached his current location a couple of hours ago, having parked his newly acquired transport in a dry wash a couple of miles to the south, well away from the approach road. He had suited up with weapons and a large backpack holding additional armament.

  The package he had received from Stony Man Farm held some heavy ordnance Bolan had requested in order to back up his standard weapons. He had worked out what he required, doubling up on his request for the follow-up to his hit against Dembrow. The matter of Benito Rojas still had to be resolved, and Bolan wouldn’t be waiting around for a second delivery.

  His grab bag contained a half-dozen LAWs, incendiary grenades, HE grenades for the M-16/M-203 combo he had asked for, and the Desert Eagle on his hip. His Tanto knife was sheathed on his left side, and his Beretta 93-R was in its customary place in his shoulder leather.

  Bolan had met the light aircraft bringing in his ordnance at a civilian airfield a two-hour ride from Cooter’s Crossing. He had been waiting when the pilot had rolled the Cessna twin-engine to the standing area.

  Bud Casper—a backup pilot originally brought in by Grimaldi for an earlier Executioner mission—owned his own small charter business. Casper had almost died at the end of his first mission with Bolan, but the experience had done nothing to curb his need for action. Casper’s aircraft had been totaled at the end of that mission, and Stony Man Farm had replaced it. The tall, lean former Air Force fighter pilot had assisted Bolan on another mission, and had responded positively when asked to fly in some ordnance for Bolan. Jack Grimaldi had been away from the Farm on another mission, so Bolan had no hesitation asking for Casper. He had complete confidence in the man’s abilities and his judgment when it came to keeping his mouth shut.

  Casper helped Bolan transfer the package to the 4x4.

  “Bud, we need to talk,” Bolan said.

  “Sounds ominous.”

  In the small café attached to the airfield, Casper had listened as Bolan outlined his upcoming strike against the cartel and the reason for his discretion.

  “This is all off the books,” Bolan said. “And I mean way off. I’m working this without the knowledge of any agency, or government sanction, because there’s no way to get these bastards lawfully. Understand me, Bud, nothing about this has to be linked to the administration.”

  “You’ve got my vote, buddy. I know how these drug people work, what they’ll do to stay in business. As far as I can see, they don’t warrant any consideration. So anything I can do, just ask. And it’s between me, you and this coffee mug.”

  “At this moment you can stick around here and wait for my call. This looks like it’s going to be a two-pronged attack—Marshal Dembrow here in Texas, then the main man over in Mexico. You got any aversion to jumping the border?”

  Casper raised his coffee mug. “I love Mexico.”

  BOLAN WATCHED the sun go down, the long shadows merging until the landscape vanished under the night. He saw lights come on around the Dembrow property and settled back to wait. He wanted to stretch the situation, allow Dembrow a little more time to debate what had been happening over the past few days. News of Bolan’s escape from the warehouse and the death and destruction he had left behind would have reached Dembrow by this point. Something else for him to think on.

  He pulled a water bottle from his pack and took a sip, watching the movement below.

  And waited.

  21

  Dembrow wasn’t as vocal as he had been following the diner incident. The recent events had made him reassess his situation. Too much too soon, and it had brought on a mood of self-doubt. Dembrow had looked around him, at his phalanx of armed men, and figured it was going to take more than he had to stop the guy causing his misery.

  He couldn’t get over how things had progressed, from the diner shoot-out to the interception of the coke delivery with its attendant death toll. And then the man they knew simply as Cooper had faced off with Preacher and Choirboy and walked away leaving them dead. To cap it all, the bastard had taken the drug consignment along with Preacher’s classic Lincoln Continental. The embarrassment of the setup in the old meat-packing plant, with Dembrow and Rojas’s men shooting at one another, had been made worse when Malloy tracked the guy down, snatched him from his hotel room and took him to the storage warehouse. The slippery son of a bitch had turned the tables, killing Malloy’s boys and wiping out Dembrow’s warehouse team before blowing the contraband stash to hell. And the stolen drug consignment had been snatched by the DEA.

  No one could find Cooper—he seemed to have gone to ground. Planning what? It was the not knowing that unnerved Dembrow. He was used to having his finger on the pulse, knowing every move made in his territory. Cooper had changed all that. He had stirred the pot, pushed everyone to the edge and left them high and dry.

  Dembrow had a bad feeling that Cooper was working something that would explode in their faces. The drug lord had pulled in as many of his people to the house as he could and had put extra guards on the grounds. If Cooper wanted a fight to the finish, he would have to come to Dembrow’s home ground for it.

  Even so, he was nervous. He admitted he’d been drinking too much, but he needed something to settle his mood. The trouble was it didn’t seem to be working.

  When someone rap
ped on his study door, Dembrow jerked around, spilling some of the contents from his tumbler onto the carpet.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s me.”

  Billy Joe Rankin. The voice was unmistakable.

  “What?”

  “You got a visitor,” Rankin said, pushing open the door.

  Chris Malloy followed Rankin into the study. The cop looked worse for wear, his clothing wrinkled and his face drawn. He looked to have aged ten years.

  “Jesus, you look fuckin’ terrible,” Dembrow said, almost relieved to see someone in a worse state then he was. “But after what you did I’m not surprised. You blew our only chance of getting rid of Cooper. Your dumb-ass boys let the guy walk after he had trashed my warehouse. You realize how much that stuff was worth?”

  Dembrow spun and hurled his tumbler at the closest wall. It shattered and sprayed glass and whisky across the floor.

  “Goddamn it, what were you screwing around with him for? Once you had him at the warehouse all it needed was a bullet in the back of his head. What the hell were you doing?”

  “It was a chance to get information out of him. We needed to find out what he had on us. Who sent him,” Malloy said.

  “No. You should have finished him. Dead he would have been out of my fucking hair. I told you to get rid of him, not play supercop. Christ, Malloy, you stopped being a cop a long time ago.”

  “Yeah? If it hadn’t been for me, you might not have realized you had a Fed in your organization. You wouldn’t have gotten your hands on him if I hadn’t passed the information on. I don’t give a shit what you think of me as a cop. It wasn’t me who let a DEA agent sucker me.”

  Even Rankin was surprised at Dembrow’s speed as he lunged for Malloy. His bunched right fist slammed into the cop’s face, tearing at his cheekbone as flesh split. Blood welled from the raw wound. The terrible force behind the blow sent Malloy staggering, his mouth gaping in shock. He crashed against Dembrow’s heavy desk, twisting in pain as his left hip took the impact. Dembrow was on him before he could recover. His fists pounded Malloy’s face and body, and before Rankin could drag his employer away, Malloy was sagging to his knees, moaning. His face was a mask of bloody flesh. It ran from the wounds, dripping down his shirtfront. He held up a hand in a silent plea for mercy, but Dembrow simply rained more blows on the man, using his feet, delivering crippling blows to Malloy’s body.

  “Son of a bitch comes into my house and insults me. He blames me for what’s been happening. He takes my money and screws up, then blames me.”

  “Easy, Marshal. Easy,” Rankin cautioned. “He’s not worth it. The man is finished anyhow. That’s why he came out here.”

  “Say what?”

  Dembrow stepped away from Malloy, leaving the shaking, sobbing, bloody figure curled up on the floor.

  “When he had Cooper at the warehouse,” Rankin said, “the guy told Malloy they had found his bank accounts. The ones where he deposited the money you paid him. Cooper said the money had been frozen. That he couldn’t get to it. It was true. When Malloy tried to access his accounts, they had been emptied. He came to see you for help.”

  Dembrow laughed. “He wants me to help him? He lets Cooper walk, then crawls to me? Don’t I have enough to deal with?”

  Rankin saw a look in Dembrow’s eyes that he hadn’t seen in a long time. It made him realize the state of his boss’s mind. When the man reached under the back of his jacket, Rankin knew exactly what was going to happen.

  “Marshal.”

  Dembrow ignored him.

  He produced a brushed steel pistol, his thumb pushing off the safety, turned the weapon at the back of Malloy’s skull and triggered two shots. The 9 mm slugs blew out the front, creating bloody, bone-sharded exit wounds. Malloy jerked forward, slamming against the desk, and slumped loosely, his arms flapping for a time.

  The crash of footsteps sounded. The study door flew open and armed figures crowded into the room.

  “It’s okay,” Dembrow said. “Somebody get this mess out of here.”

  “Hell, Marshal, did that have to happen?” Rankin asked.

  “He was on the edge. Ready to give it all up. If he got himself cornered, he would have been telling everything he knew just to save himself. And he knew a lot.” Dembrow smiled. “The DEA would have been wetting its pants with the stuff Malloy could have told them. So I made sure that couldn’t happen.”

  Rankin wasn’t disturbed by the actual killing. It wasn’t the first time he had witnessed violent death. He was more concerned at the way Dembrow was acting. The man showed a tough face and had a commanding presence. Rankin had known him a long time. He understood Dembrow better than most and he was aware of the man’s weakness when it came to dealing with stress. In truth, Dembrow was not very good at keeping it together. Killing Malloy was an indication that the overall situation was getting under his skin.

  Rankin watched Malloy’s bloody corpse as it was carried from the study. He touched Dembrow’s arm. “Put the gun away, Marshal. Okay? Let’s go relax. Maybe get a sandwich. Some coffee.”

  The expression on Dembrow’s broad face eased, his color returning to normal. He slid the pistol back under his jacket and followed Rankin out of the room.

  “I’ve got to get things sorted. All this crap with this Lone Ranger running around. And Rojas. Okay, I figured Cooper pointed us at each other over the coke stash. But I still don’t trust Rojas. All this goin’ on and the bastard hasn’t spoken to me once. We’re supposed to be partners for Chrissake. I just keep thinking about this missile thing he’s trucking in. He could bounce us all the way out of fuckin’ Texas with one of those things. We can’t ignore the fact, Billy Joe.”

  As they moved in the direction of the kitchen, Dembrow stopped and stared out of a large window.

  “What?” Rankin asked.

  “Just a feeling that bastard Cooper is around somewhere. Better tell the boys to be extra sharp tonight.”

  “Whatever you want, Marshal. Let’s go get that coffee, then I’ll put the word out.”

  22

  Bolan had noticed the compound standing some way off the main property. It consisted of a few huts and a communal cookhouse. Dembrow would not have tolerated a private community so close to his house, so Bolan thought it housed the domestic staff who catered to the trafficker’s needs. The Executioner had studied the grounds before it got too dark. He worked his way around to the compound, taking time to fully observe the inhabitants. He figured there were about ten to fifteen workers. They were all Mexican, with about an equal number of men and women, and several young children. He could hear music playing, coming from one of the huts. He smelled the rich aroma of food wafting from the cookhouse, where three of the women were working. There were no signs of any form of transport around the compound. Dembrow most likely wouldn’t want any of his domestic staff wandering far from the house. Bolan suspected that these people were probably illegals, here under sufferance. As long as they remained in Dembrow’s employ, he would keep them safe from the authorities. It was an educated guess but Bolan was confident he was right.

  He watched as a lone figure wandered across the open compound to perch himself on an upturned wooden pail. The man was elderly, his thick hair starting to gray. He pulled a long, thin cigar from the pocket of his faded denim shirt, lit it and took a slow drag, savoring the aroma.

  Bolan eased himself over the crumbling wall and stepped up behind the man. As quiet as he was, Bolan knew he had been sensed as the man’s shoulder raised slightly.

  “I am a friend. I will not harm you,” Bolan said in Spanish, speaking slowly to get the words correct.

  “Then show yourself,” the man said in clear, accented English.

  Bolan walked around the seated man. He was fully armed, so he kept both hands well clear of his body. The old man took in the tall, black-clad figure, missing nothing as he looked over the weapons hanging from Bolan’s body. He drew on his cigar. When he finally stared into Bolan’s eyes, a gen
tle smile curved his lips.

  “You would not need so many guns if you had come to kill us,” he said. “We would not offer any resistance. So I must assume you have come to rid us of the cucarachas who live in the big house? The grand house.”

  “I have work there.” Bolan studied the old man, trying to sense any degree of animosity. There was none. “Dembrow gives you shelter. Employs you. If I succeed, you will have no more work.”

  The old man found that amusing. He gestured at the huts. “He allows us to live here and gives us rations and allows us the privilege of caring for his house and the people who live there. So you think we should be grateful that he knows we cannot leave? Or speak to the policía? We came to America as illegals. His men caught us at the border. They brought us here and said as long as we work at the house we were safe. So we have no choice, señor. Is it not funny? We crossed into this country to be free. Instead we became slaves for these traffickers. These sellers of poison.”

  “I don’t wish to bring you more bad luck.”

  The old man shrugged. “If God wishes,” he said.

  “Tell me. Are any of your people in the house tonight?”

  “No. Once our main work was complete Dembrow sent us back here. He insisted we stay away. Does he know you are coming?”

  “Maybe he has a premonition.”

  “For the past few days he has been acting strangely. I have seen this myself. He has been a nervous man. Tell me, my friend, is this your doing?”

  “I may have had something to do with it.”

  “Then visit them with the wrath of God. They are evil men. They should be treated without pity. In that house I have seen how they force themselves on our women. The young ones especially. Animals would not behave this way to one another.”

  “Keep your people close tonight. Make sure they do not stray outside the compound. Whatever you see or hear, stay away. Understand?”