"Did he talk of the attacks in Lebanon and Jamaica?"
"What? Our forces were attacked? By who, the Mossad?"
"In Lebanon, yes, perhaps. It is not known who struck in Jamaica. Two Cubans and a group of your fighters disappeared. I think the Americans."
"But the Russian said they would surrender. He said the Americans would not fight! How can we fight them? So many against so few of us?"
"Did Munoz not tell you of the city killing, that the Russian would kill cities?"
"He said it would not be necessary. He said—"
"Munoz said?"
"Yes, Munoz. He said the Americans would surrender. The Americans are soft. He said we would have an easy victory."
Yoshida scanned the horizon with binoculars for the United States Coast Guard. "They will surrender. But only after we have killed a city."
"Good! Death to America. Victory to our people—"
"Then we kill all the cities."
"Why do you say that? If they surrender, why continue the killing?"
Lowering the binoculars, Yoshida turned to face him with his wide face. For the second time he smiled.
"Why not?"
12
Miami
Friday
7:00 p.m.
(2400 Greenwich mean time)
WHEELS SCREECHING, a Gulfstream jet decelerated on the runway of the Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport. It was painted flat-black, and marked with multi-colored corporate logos.
In the cockpit, Grimaldi throttled down, letting the aircraft's momentum carry them to the last turn-off at the far end of the field. The former Mafia pilot swept the jet around, then hit a switch to unlock the boarding stairs. He hurried from the cockpit to join his passengers as they opened the cabin door.
"Miami was my old stomping grounds, Sarge," Grimaldi reminded his leader. "You sure you can't use me here?"
Bolan shook his head, glanced at Encizo. "You're on your way to Nicaragua. Brief Able Team, put them in motion."
"Adios, hermano," muttered Encizo.
"Watch out, you two," said Grimaldi. "Everything you hear about Miami is true."
"You're telling me?" Encizo laughed. He gave Grimaldi a brotherly punch in the chest as they stepped into the torrid Florida evening.
A Cadillac El Dorado convertible, its polished red finish alive with the lights of the airfield, squealed to a stop only a few feet from the jets folding stairs.
Bolan and Encizo carried heavy suitcases down the stairs. They stared when they saw the Cadillac's driver.
Her lustrous black hair flowed over a blouse of white satin. Light glistened on the deep red lipstick ol the lovely Hispanic woman who waited behind the wheel. Without comment, she returned their stares as they approached.
Bolan and Encizo set their heavy cases on the white leather of the back seat. Encizo swung over the convertible's side and sprawled on the back seat, leaning against the cases.
"Who are you?" Bolan asked as he took the front passenger side bucket seat.
"My name is Flor Trujillo. DEA."
"And like a flower you are." Encizo leaned forward to smell the scent of her hair and neck. "What a delicate flower, a beautiful flower . . ."
Flor jerked her head to shake away his hand. "Back off, you Cuban bozo!"
Encizo laughed.
"Thank you for delivering the car. Where can we drop you, Ms. Trujillo?" Bolan asked her.
"I'm your contact, gentlemen. It's my operation you're interrupting. I take you where you want to go, I make the introductions."
"We have Highest Authorization," Bolan reminded her. "You will follow your orders."
"And my orders are to take you there, make the introductions. I am this operation. If I don't go with you, no one will talk to you."
Bolan turned in the seat and looked at Encizo. The Cuban grinned, nodded. Bolan accepted her.
Spinning the steering wheel, Flor accelerated the huge convertible into a power drift across the asphalt. She straightened the car and hurtled for the gate at sixty miles an hour. Her raven-black hair glistened with lights as it flagged in the slip-wind.
"This vehicle have the equipment we requested?" Bolan asked her.
"Agency seized this car from a Colombian gang. Turbocharger. Steel armor. Bulletproof glass. Then we spent some money. Multi-band radio in the dash. False compartment in the trunk. Weapons inside. Uzis, magazines of 9mm in two bandoleers. An M-16 / 203 with tear gas and stun grenades."
Encizo chortled at the Drug Enforcement Agency arsenal. "We brought our own weapons, chiquita."
"I know who you are!" Bolan shouted to her over the roar of the slip wind. "You helped some friends of mine in the Caribbean. You remember Carl Morgan?"
Flor gave him a half-smile. "I remember him."
"He told me you are one hard-core professional. You caught a round from an M-60, still had it in you to join in a fire fight."
"Not really," she laughed. "Slug went through a brass railing and the yacht's wall. My Kevlar stopped it. It hurt, and my arm didn't work right for days. But you don't need both hands to fire a Colt AR. What else did Carl tell you?"
"Just that story."
A few short blocks brought them to Tarmarac and the ramp of Florida's turnpike. Swinging onto the broad highway, Flor stomped on the gas again. The acceleration of the turbocharged Cadillac snapped their necks back.
Bolan told the story of Able Team's Caribbean battle to Encizo. " . . . helicopter's door gunner was ripping up the boat with an M-60, point-blank fire. Flor gets hit. But she keeps putting out rounds with her commando rifle. Carl goes up on top of the yacht to punch out the helicopter with one of those XM-17 revolver grenade launchers, a wheel gun. He goes back to the pilot room, Flor's putting a cold can of beer against where she got hit. Then she pops the top and drinks the beer!"
Laughing, they sat back as Flor gunned the car down the turnpike as it swung west and then south, bypassing all traffic on the narrower roads. Out of Broward County into Dade County, they roared southward. At Pennsuco, near 125th Street, they exited the turnpike and picked up U.S. 27, Okeecho bee Road. They continued southeast past Hialeah and into the north-western part of Miami.
Just past Miami International Airport, they swung onto Route 122 through the city itself, exiting onto U.S. 195 and across the Julia Tuttle Causeway to Collins Avenue. When they left the causeway, Bolan said, "Flor, pull over. Now I drive."
Without a word, she parked at the curb. She opened the door, swung her legs out, then stopped. She reached back and pulled the keys from the ignition, then she left the car.
Flor walked around the front of the Cadillac. Her blouse billowed around the waist of her tight designer , jeans. Bolan moved to the driver's seat and took the keys as Flor got in.
Easing away from the curb, Bolan drove slowly through the Miami streets and boulevards. He scanned the sights like a tourist. But he was no tourist.
Collins Avenue. An address from another time and another battle. He had been here before—more than once—in the days when his war had been against the Mafia. Now he fought here again.
His ice-blue eyes scanned the lights and neon of the tall hotel fronts. Lined up on the avenue, the hotels' windows overlooked the sand beaches of the man-made island. Flor pointed to the newest high rise, the Imperial Colonnade.
"We booked reservations there," she said.
"The Colonnade! Just like old times, Mack!" Encizo reminded him.
"Yeah, that's where the action was," Bolan commented. "And is."
Inside one of his suitcases, Bolan carried an attaché case containing stacks of hundred-dollar bills with non-consecutive serial numbers. One hundred thousand dollars. A down payment in the universal currency of drug deals.
They swept into the curved, landscaped driveway of the luxury hotel. A uniformed doorman met them as the car came to a stop.
Bolan assumed his role. Casually tossing the doorman the keys, he commanded, "I want my luggage in my suite, pronto!" His voice
was loud, arrogant.
"Yes, sir!" The doorman snapped his fingers at a bellhop. As Bolan passed the doorman, he slipped a bill into the man's hand. The doorman glanced at the corner. One hundred dollars!
Playing her part, Flor took Bolan's arm and clung to him as they entered. She laughed softly at Bolan's act. "Who are you supposed to be? Some hotshot dealer from up North?"
"You got it."
Five minutes later, they entered the penthouse suite. Bolan snapped open one of his cases and switched on a counter electronic surveillance unit.
"I swept the rooms for transmitters," Flor told him.
Bolan extended the unit's "wand" and walked through the suite. It detected no electronic surveillance. Finally he sat down. But he left the unit's power on. Some designs of micro-transmitters avoided detection by remaining off until the operator activated the power by radio pulse. Bolan took no chances.
"We need information," he told Flor. "You work in the Cuban expatriate community. Your contacts include the paramilitary groups. We captured a pilot named Bru. You've received the names of the men we want."
"Why do you want them?"
"For questioning."
"But they work for you."
"What?"
"All the paras are Agency or ex-Agency. They dream of invading Cuba. Some of them finance their armies with the drug money. They operate in a gray area, moving back and forth between politics and crime. We always clear a target with Langley before busting them."
"We want that gang for questioning. You can use this as an opportunity to close them down without going through the, ah, process—"
"Without going due process of warrants, arrests, trials?" Flor completed the presentation.
Bolan nodded.
"But you want them alive? That will be difficult."
"Not all of them. Only the main man."
"Well, we can't get him. He'd be out at the camp."
"The Esperanza Camp?"
"The Cape Esperanza Youth Rehabilitation Center."
"What do you know about it?"
"Nothing at all. We thought it was an Agency operation. Didn't want to know about it."
"Can you set up a meeting at the camp?"
Flor shook her head. "No. It has to be a bar in town. Maybe we can take his lieutenant, but he'll have his men with him. There'll be shooting."
Encizo laughed, a quick, cynical hack. "Have no fear, nina . I will hold you in my arms, protect you from the bad men."
Flor stared at the Cuban, demanded, "The Agency wants them terminated? Is that the word for killing men who want to free their country but won't go along with Washington's political fads?"
"They're not Agency," said Bolan.
"Mister, I've read their files. All of the groups out there in the swamp are Agency. Fascists who fought for Batista. Socialists who fought with Fidel himself. Veterans of the invasion. Sons of men who didn't make it back from the torture chambers. They fight for the Agency, but all they get is betrayal after betrayal. And now liquidation, right?"
"What did you read in their files?" Bolan asked her.
"Well, not theirs. The Cape Esperanza gang has buried their past. I've never met the leader. And his officers have all the marks of first-class plastic surgery. We have nothing on them. But the Agency won't let them escape, right?"
"Wrong initials, Ms. Trujillo," said Encizo. "Not CIA. DGI. The DGI of the People's Republic of Cuba."
Flor blinked, realizing the error of her inter-departmental suspicion. "I did not understand."
"Now you do," said Encizo. "Now you know why this hotshot dealer from up North wants your co-operation. We all work for the same government. With that clarified, can we get this operation moving?"
"I'll make the calls," Flor answered, her voice quiet.
Encizo laughed again.
A NEON JUKE BOX blasted out the rhythm of an old rhumba. Bolan followed Flor through the dim club. He noted the few patrons at the tables and bar. Two middle-aged Hispanic men at a table saw Bolan, slapped money on the table and left. A man at the bar spoke quickly with the bartender before following the other men out the door. Flor continued to a doorway marked Private and pushed through the bead curtain. Bolan followed two steps behind her.
Two swarthy men in crisply pressed white suits and tropical print shirts looked up from their drinks and conversation.
"Why are you here, senorita?" the first Cuban asked.
"Business," Flor told them.
Swinging the briefcase onto the table, Bolan snapped it open. The Cubans looked at the money, their expressions unchanging.
"What business?"
"As we discussed on the telephone."
"We discussed nothing. We don't know you."
Flor laughed, throwing her head back, watching the Cubans. "It is your loss. Come, my friend. We go."
They pushed through the beads again. Flor caught Bolan's arm, pulled him to the bar. She leaned close to him, whispered, "The one that talked is Mujica."
"Who's the other one?"
"A soldier."
"When the time comes," Bolan told her, "I'll take care of the soldier. They'll need a few minutes for their other soldiers to move into position. You watch Mujica. I'll watch the door."
She signalled the bartender and ordered orange juice in rapid Spanish. "Why are you so sure they will shoot?"
Bolan scanned the interior. The last patron put money on the bar and left. Alone in the club with her, Bolan leaned up against Flor as if they were lovers, whispered, "They're hot for money. The smuggling operation has been fronting for the Cuban DGI, earning money for Communist crazies in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala. Recently, they shifted their base from Cuba to Miami. Last night in Jamaica, they murdered a drug gang to rip off a million in cash. Colombian and Bolivian authorities report a number of wipe-outs like that. Apparently, the DGI operation intends to cash out all its accounts. We believe the money's flowing into a KGB operation. We want to follow that flow if we can. If it's not too late."
A beep sounded in the earphone Bolan wore. He listened as Encizo's voice whispered to him. "Two cars out front, two gunmen each car."
"Are we ready to go?" Bolan asked Flor. "Anytime."
Bolan spoke to the mini-mike in his lapel. "We'll take our man. Don't let any of them make it in here."
"No problema, hermano."
His lips touching Flor's fragrant throat, he whispered, "Four gunmen out front. Stay low as we go out. Let's take him."
She moved her body against him. He felt a breast brush his arm. "They're DGI or KGB, right? No doubt about that?"
"Most definite."
"Let me go first."
"What are you intending to—"
Before Bolan finished his whispered question, Flor kissed him, spun away. Her heels clicked quickly on the barroom floor as she went to the private room. At the bead curtain, she turned as if to glance back to her lover. Her right hand went under her blouse, to her waistband.
A .45 ACP slug smashed through the face of the soldier, the impact bouncing him off the wall behind him, blood spraying from his shattered skull. The small-frame Detonics autoloader dropped on line as Flor rushed forward two steps and fired a second slug point-blank into the gunman's chest. Even as her arm arced upward with the heavy recoil, she turned to Mujica and slammed the small pistol down on the bridge of his nose. He froze with his hand under his coat. Blood trickled down his face.
"Puto de Stalin!" Flor spat into Mujica's face as Bolan rushed up behind her. Her hands and arms shivering with adrenaline rush, she held the Detonics on the Cuban's forehead. Bolan snatched the Colt Python out of Mujica's shoulder holster.
Whirling, Bolan double-actioned three rapid shots, the slugs destroying the glass beads in the doorway.
The bartender flew backward, a double-barrelled shotgun falling from his hands. It hit the floor in front of him, both barrels exploding, the simultaneous blasts of 12-gauge birdshot destroying his groin and abdomen, shattering bottles and mi
rrors behind him. Tissue sprayed the broken glass. Blood misted the air.
Flor still pointed the Detonics at their prisoner, her hands shaking. Bolan gave her a grin as he cinched the Cuban's hands behind him with plastic hand cuffs.
"Let's get him out of here."
As Bolan jerked Mujica out of the chair, Flor reached down to the dead gunman and found a Browning High-Power in his shoulder holster. She touched the ejector to confirm a round in the chamber.
Bolan strong-armed their prisoner through the bar. Flor stayed two steps ahead, her eyes flicking from side to side, the Detonics and Browning in her hands.
Shots popped outside. A gunman staggered through the door. Blood spurted from a chest wound and a gash across his forehead. He pointed an Uzi back at the street to spray 9mm slugs into the night.
Flor raised the pistols she held, but Bolan's .44 AutoMag thundered first. The impact of 240 grains of high-velocity hollow point slammed the gunman against the wall. The corpse collapsed in a tangle of dead arms and legs, tripping Mujica. Bolan and Flor struggled to drag their prisoner through the narrow entry.
On the street, Encizo sprinted across the asphalt, a Heckler & Koch MP5A2 9mm silenced submachine gun with a passive infrared night sight in his hands. He executed a wounded man crawling behind a car, the slug hitting the gunman's skull with only the sound of a slap.
In his peripheral vision, Encizo saw another gunman raise a pistol-grip 14-inch Remington 870.
The first blast of double-ought balls tore past his face. Even as he spun, desperately spraying low-velocity 9mm slugs to hammer car steel and smash tempered glass, Encizo waited for the shotgun's second blast to kill him.
Flor burst from the bar's entrance. With a pistol in each hand, she advanced on the shot gunner, fire flashing as she hit him again and again, the gunman's body slamming against the car, .45 blasts and the pops of 9mm shots echoing in the neighbourhood.
One step behind the deadly beauty, Bolan dragged out the man in the blood-splattered white suit. Running three steps, Bolan jerked Mujica off his feet and pitched him into the back seat of the El Dorado.
Super Bolan - 001 - Stony Man Doctrine Page 9