But he was not satisfied.
Channer craved wealth beyond his wildest dreams—and, he admitted to himself, his dreams were truly wild. He’d watched Scarface twenty-seven times, so far, and memorized the layout of Tony Montana’s vast mansion, his fleet of sleek cars, not to mention the arsenal stashed in his closet.
If he could kill Jean Brouard, crush his clique in Miami and capture his turf, Channer would have no further use for Quarrie, sitting back at home in Kingston. He could call the shots, become a legend in his own young lifetime. All he had to do was strike without remorse, eradicate his enemies and claim the city as his own.
* * *
GARCELLE BROUARD HAD left Haiti hoping she’d never be reminded of it again, but here she was in Little Haiti, a hostage of her father’s stubborn refusal to leave the old ways behind. He could easily afford a mansion—even two or three—in South Beach, on Fisher Island or nearby Star Island, but he remained in the old neighborhood, albeit living in a degree of luxury unknown to most of Little Haiti’s inhabitants, insisting that proximity kept him in touch with the things that mattered.
Now, after hours in captivity, Garcelle was coming “home” to a place she despised.
Armed guards were waiting when she stepped out of the black Lincoln Navigator. One took her bag and the others surrounded her, escorting her into the house while neighbors peered from their windows. She couldn’t stop them gawking at her, or prevent them from phoning Winston Channer to report her whereabouts, but she believed her father’s reputation would make the greediest among them hesitate before betraying him.
They knew the grim price of disloyalty.
Inside the house, thank heavens, it smelled nothing like the streets. Her father was particular about the air-conditioning, to keep away the damp, mold and pervasive odors of the neighborhood. It couldn’t always scrub the air completely clean, but on this night, after her near miss with the Viper Posse, Garcelle found the atmosphere relaxing and invigorating, all at once.
“My beautiful daughter,” her father said. The bodyguards stood back, their eyes averted, as his arms enfolded her. “I was afraid I might never see you in this world again, or else, that we would have our last reunion at the morgue.”
“Worried for nothing, Papa. Here I am.”
“But not without some help, I understand.”
Garcelle surveyed the men surrounding them and said, “We should discuss that privately.”
“Of course.” Her father gestured to the guards and told them, “Leave us.” They left immediately, without speaking.
When the door had closed behind them, Garcelle said, “It was a white man. Have you heard?”
Her father frowned. “Who was he?”
Garcelle shrugged. “He calls himself Matt Cooper. I assume it’s short for Matthew, but…”
“You don’t believe him.”
“Why should I? By my count, he killed more than a dozen men tonight, with no attempt at first arresting them.”
“It’s double that or more, by now,” her father said. “Your white man, or another, has been busy since he left you.”
“All against the Viper Posse?”
“So far.”
“Then he’s doing our work for us,” she replied.
Her father shrugged. “Perhaps. I would feel better if he left us, all the same.”
“Perhaps I can arrange that.”
“Oh?”
“He has invited me to call him, if I need his help.”
“And do you? Need him?”
Garcelle smiled. “I might.”
* * *
Country Walk, Dade County, Florida
THE VIPER POSSE HAD set up shop on Southwest 141st Street. They didn’t have an office per se, just a house where they stashed guns and crack cocaine, bedrooms converted to a barracks for the soldiers left to guard the merchandise. Neighbors were wise enough to keep their mouths shut, for the most part, after one suspicious fire claimed a family of four. That case was still unsolved, but Bolan didn’t do investigations of the legal kind.
He got the facts then acted on them, cutting out a slew of useless middlemen.
As he was acting now.
GPS led Bolan to the neighborhood he wanted, and he saw no suspicious lurkers at the target address on his drive-by.
Wishful thinking on the posse’s part? Or had they bailed out on receiving news of Bolan’s other recent raids?
There was only one way to find out.
Light rain was falling as he parked the Mercury Marauder and went EVA, the Steyr riding easy on a shoulder sling beneath his thin raincoat. A Tilley hat in olive drab kept the drizzle out of his eyes and shadowed his face as he passed beneath streetlights, walking a long block to his target.
Still no guards outside, but music was coming from the house, and the windows at the back were lit. Bolan couldn’t tell if they were partying inside, or mourning for their lately fallen comrades. Either way, they were distracted, which made his job easier.
He stopped and whistled softly at a backyard gate, waiting to see if any dogs appeared, and entered when they didn’t. The Bermuda grass back there was ankle high, in need of mowing, but it clearly wasn’t a priority. It wet his shoes and trouser cuffs as Bolan walked around behind the house, to reach a screened-in porch where light and tunes were spilling from an open back door.
Three posse goons were lounging on the porch, passing a joint around, before he stepped out of the night to startle them. One of them cried out and bolted to his feet, so high on ganja that he stumbled as he turned and tried to reach an automatic rifle propped against the wall, behind his wicker chair. The other two were slower on the uptake, rising from their seats with awkward, lurching moves as Bolan brought them under fire.
The Steyr spat its nearly silent 3-round bursts, catching the first man up below his shoulder blade, mangling his lung and heart before he did a solid face plant on the porch’s decking. Bolan swung around to catch the others drawing handguns, sent one’s Rasta cap flying with half of his skull still inside it, and pulverized the other’s sternum, dropping him onto a small glass-topped table that shattered beneath him.
A heartbeat later, he was through the flapping screen door and inside the house, catching another groggy member of the posse blinking at him from a ratty sofa. Bolan killed him where he sat and moved on, past the thumping stereo, in search of other prey. He found none but did turn up a suitcase filled with little bags of rock in one of the four bedrooms. Bolan took it to the kitchen, emptied it onto the burners of a Frigidaire gas range and turned the burners on. He cleared the room before the plastic melted and the crack began to sizzle, breaking down.
The last he’d heard, crack sold on the streets for around forty dollars per quarter-gram—call it one hundred sixty thousand dollars per kilogram to the junkies who smoked it. The suitcase had weighed thirteen kilograms, minimum, so that was better than two million dollars sizzling on the stovetop behind him, filling the kitchen with poisonous fumes. Not a fortune, to dealers, but something.
On his way out, Bolan stopped and set fire to the living room curtains, waiting till they caught and sent flames leaping toward the ceiling. Finished, he retreated the way he’d come, through the gate and along the street, back to his car.
Already thinking of the next stop on his blitzkrieg trail and wondering, in one small corner of his mind, about Garcelle Brouard.
* * *
Southwest 117th Avenue, Northbound
BOLAN WAS ON HIS WAY to hit a Tamiami whorehouse when his cell phone vibrated. Checking his rearview mirror for patrol cars, he retrieved it from a pocket and took the call.
“Hello?”
“Is that you, Mr. Cooper? Matt?”
He was surprised to hear from her, much less so soon after he’d dropped her in Coral Gables. “Any trouble?” he inquired, not using names.
“There might be.” Garcelle sounded anxious. Not unexpected, after her recent experience, but was there something more to it?
>
“What’s the problem?” he inquired.
“I tried to reach my father, but I can’t get hold of him.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Very. There’s always someone with a number or an address.”
“It’s been hectic,” he reminded her. “Maybe he’s lying low.”
“He does not hide from me.”
“I’ve got my hands full,” Bolan said. “There’s not much I can do for you right now.”
“Not much? Or nothing?”
He thought about it for a second and said, “There might be someplace I could take you, but I’d have to make some calls.”
“I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
“Don’t count on anything,” he cautioned her. “It could go either way.”
“Of course.”
“And if you’re taken in, there may be questions.”
“About Channer?”
“And your father.”
“Ah. Well, that’s all right. I never wanted any part of that life.”
“Are you sure?”
“You don’t know how often I’ve tried to break away from him.”
“That means a change in everything you know and take for granted,” Bolan said.
“A change is what I need,” Garcelle replied.
“Okay. Give me your number there. I’ll call you back.”
She rattled off nine digits. He repeated them, committing them to memory. “Stay there,” he said, at last. “I don’t know how long this will take.”
“Please hurry,” Garcelle urged, and cut the link.
Stowing his cell, he wondered what was going on in Garcelle’s mind. Her father dropping out of touch might rattle her, but would it turn her into an informant, just like that? Was this the break she’d been waiting for? Or was something else at work, behind the scenes?
It might, he realized, turn out to be a trap. He didn’t know the lady well enough to judge her heart or mind, could only say for sure that she’d been raised in luxury, on blood money, for twenty-something years. Had she attempted to escape the family before? Was she sincere now, or was it a sham?
He’d make the necessary calls, get back to her as soon as possible, but Bolan wasn’t sending anybody else to make the pickup when the time came. If a trap was waiting for him, he alone would step into it and respond accordingly. A two-front war was fine with Bolan. Truth be told, he preferred it.
He’d start with Hal, explain the situation and his doubts and ask for a referral to the FBI or United States Marshals Service in Miami, someone Hal knew well enough to trust. His second call would wake whoever Hal had recommended, and he’d tell the story once again, redacted to include only the bare essentials. If the case agent agreed—and it was possible that he or she would not—Bolan would call Garcelle back to arrange a pickup.
And if something led Hal’s contact to refuse? What, then?
Bolan would think of something, do whatever he could manage for Garcelle, without putting his mission on the line. He had a job to do, and it took precedence over the rescue of a mobster’s daughter. Her father was a target, though a secondary one, and there was still a chance he’d have to orphan her before he wrapped Miami and moved on.
But he would try to get her out alive, if she’d let him.
And if it turned out he couldn’t trust her…well, the lady would be on her own.
* * *
Little Haiti, Miami
THE CALLBACK CAME within twenty-five minutes. Garcelle picked up on the first ring, her stomach aflutter, which pleased her unexpectedly. Emotion, though it could be detrimental if allowed to run unchecked, was sometimes a sweet fringe benefit of doing business.
“Matthew?” Just the right tone of anxiety, she thought, a little breathless.
“We have contact,” Bolan said. “I need a time and place for pickup.”
“Who will I be meeting?”
“Me. The handoff follows afterward.”
“It sounds very…impersonal.” Too coy? She was afraid she might have overplayed her hand.
Cooper sidestepped it, telling her, “You’ll be secure. I don’t have any other details for you.”
Putting on a pouty face, although he could not see it through the telephone, she said, “As long as you’ll be meeting me.”
“That’s what I said.”
Was there an edge to Cooper’s voice? Did he suspect something? No matter. She’d planned the rest of it and had a script to follow.
“I was thinking you could pick me up at Williams Park,” she said. “Do you know where that is?”
“Northwest 17th Street,” he replied, surprising her. “Near Overtown.”
“Exactly. There’s a bus stop by the baseball field, the southeast corner of the park where 17th Street intersects Northwest 4th Avenue.”
“I’ll be there,” Bolan said. “How long?”
“I’ll need the best part of an hour,” Garcelle told him.
“See you then.” And he was gone.
“A man of few words,” her father observed. He was seated on the far end of the sofa. He’d been silent as she spoke to Cooper and was frowning now. “Do you think he suspects anything?”
“Why would he?”
A casual shrug. “Men like this, the survivors, take nothing for granted, Garcelle.”
“Was I not convincing?”
“Personally, I would say your performance was above reproach. You must be careful, nonetheless.”
“I always am.”
“I wish that were the case,” he said. “But you were captured by our enemies, if you recall.”
“I’m not likely to forget it.”
“Which created the present situation,” he went on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Now, I ask if you are ready to proceed, or if I should arrange a substitute for your protection.”
“Substitute?”
“We need a woman at the meeting who resembles you on casual inspection. If I sent Monique—”
“Monique does not resemble me!”
“She’s close enough to serve as bait. She also has experience in matters of this kind.”
“You don’t think I can do the job, Father?”
He answered with a question of his own. “Am I correct in thinking that you have not killed a man before?”
“Not yet.”
“To start with someone so experienced, who also saved your life, might be considered…problematic.”
“It’s no problem for me.”
“You’re sure of that? Quite certain?”
“Absolutely. Let me prove myself to you.”
“No proof of this sort is required. I give you everything you need.”
That line again. “I want to earn my way,” she told him, feeling anger warm her cheeks.
“This man might kill you. Then what shall I do, without an heir?”
“As I’ve suspected all along, Father. You’ll simply live forever.”
“Ah. If only that were possible.”
“Let me do this. I promise not to disappoint you.”
He was slowly yielding. “Very well,” he said. “But under Abner’s supervision.”
“I don’t need—”
“It’s settled. My terms, or I send Monique.”
“An offer I cannot refuse?”
“The only kind worth making.”
Garcelle forced a smile. “In that case, I agree. And I must hurry, or I’ll miss him.”
“That would be a disappointment. Watch your back, daughter.”
“I always do,” she said, and left him sitting by himself.
It rankled that her father didn’t trust her fully with a simple task, but she supposed his doubt was unavoidable. He was a chauvinist, of course, unlikely to outgrow it at his age. He knew women were capable of killing—take that bitch Monique, for instance—but he didn’t wish to think the stains on his hands were inherited.
Too bad. For once, she was about to teach her father something.
&nb
sp; And he would ignore the lesson at his peril.
5
Williams Park, Miami
Bolan rolled past St. Peter’s Antiochian Orthodox Church, southbound on Northwest 4th Court, toward the park. He was early but didn’t have time for the thorough recon he would have preferred. Ahead of him, the park was cloaked in darkness, none of its floodlights blazing over the baseball field.
At this hour, the park was deserted—or so it would seem. He followed the road he was on through a curve to the west, driving past the basketball courts and a small parking lot to catch Northwest 5th Avenue southbound. He was supposed to meet Garcelle Brouard at a bus stop, but the whole block was lined with trees that could shelter snipers—if the meeting was a trap.
Why would she play it that way?
Bolan didn’t know, but he’d learned you can’t truly understand another person’s mind or heart on short acquaintance. Allies had betrayed him in the past, with terrible results. Why should he trust a total stranger, just because he’d stumbled across her in a vulnerable moment and had saved her life?
Instead of driving past the bus stop, Bolan parked in the deserted lot of Town Park, opposite the scheduled rendezvous location. The smaller park was even darker than its neighbor, an invitation to nefarious deeds, but he had the lot to himself as he switched off the Marauder’s engine and prepared to go from there on foot.
She wouldn’t be expecting that. Neither would anyone she might have brought along.
It didn’t bother Bolan that Garcelle might try to have him killed or captured. He was well-informed about her family, its violent roots in Haiti.
Bolan was dressed for battle, wearing black from head to toe. Both sidearms were snugged in quick-draw holsters, with his Steyr AUG ready to rock and roll. He hoped the precaution was unnecessary, but experience had taught him that a soldier usually died because of something he’d failed to do, an underestimation of his enemies.
And Jean Brouard was Bolan’s enemy. He’d planned on shaking up the Haitian mob while he was in Miami, maybe using them against the Viper Posse if the opportunity arose. Now, thanks to a coincidence, he had to treat the outfit as a clear and present threat.
Blood Rites Page 5