“Pretty macho torturing an unarmed man who you tied up first, aren’t you, Cooper!” Everado shouted. “Why don’t you try some of that shit now, huh!?” He let loose more rounds, their impact making the end of the desk closest to him fly apart. “Come on out, tough guy!”
Over or around, Bolan thought, trying to figure the best avenue of attack. He peeked out around the corner of the desk, hoping to catch the punk in the middle of reloading. Unfortunately, he didn’t see him at all. Where the hell’d he go?
“My father’s gonna burn this place to the ground, and gas those cabrons like this place was Dachau, you know? And there’s nothing you can do to stop it, puto!”
His ears were ringing even more now, making the kid sound like he was yelling while underwater. Bolan felt more than heard the thump of something hitting the desk. Then he heard a shot, followed by what felt like a footstep, then another shot.
“Show yourself, Cooper!” Everado’s voice was on the ragged edge of hysteria. Bolan knew it was due to a combination of excitement at hunting down his tormentor and rage and fear at being held powerless by another man, then being let go to slink back to his father, beaten and weak. In his current condition he was almost more dangerous than if he was in his right mind, likely to shoot at shadows or imagined sounds—or pulverize the desk Bolan happened to be using for cover.
The shots and steps continued as the Mexican got closer, with Bolan tensing to make his move, while switching the fire selector on his Beretta to 3-shot burst. Everado unleashed one more round, and that’s when Bolan went for it, turning and pushing away from the weakened desk while shooting so he could put some distance between the kill-crazy maniac and hopefully putting him down once and for all, too.
However, the moment he pushed off the desk, the entire structure, already stressed by the multiple holes shot through it, started to collapse. Everado flailed wildly as he lost his balance and toppled off the desktop as it broke into several large pieces and fell apart. Unfortunately, he fell just as Bolan was shooting at him, the bullets whizzing harmlessly past to hit the far wall dozens of yards away. The automatic shotgun sailed from his grasp as Everado tried to land on his feet, but failed, planting his face on the pile of shattered and broken wood that had once been a magnificent piece of furniture.
For a moment, they just stared at each other, Bolan holding his Beretta, still pointing into the air, Everado with empty hands and wide eyes watching him. The soldier moved first, pointing his pistol at the young man, only to realize the slide was locked back on an empty chamber.
Everado smiled, his eyes flicking to the shotgun a few yards away. His smile disappeared when Bolan ejected the empty magazine and grabbed a fresh one off his belt. He scrambled over the broken wood and dirty floor toward the gun, throwing himself forward in a frantic slide to grab the handle and whip it around—just in time to see the unblinking black muzzle of the Beretta’s sound suppressor stare back at him.
But the Mexican punk surprised Bolan again. Everado wasn’t trying to shoot his opponent; instead, he threw the autoshotgun at the other man. The weapon sailed through the air and smacked into Bolan’s hands, numbing them enough to jar the pistol loose. The gun hit the floor and slid a few feet away. The soldier sat up and was reaching for it when he was hit by a bantamweight freight train of fists and feet.
Someone had taught the kid to box at some point. Bolan had his hands full just blocking the kid’s flurry of punches. He tried to bring up a knee, but Everado blocked it with his thigh, all the while trying to turn the older man’s face into hamburger. Bolan put some distance between himself and the half-sized scrapper simply by grabbing his shoulders and hurling him off.
His nose and jaw smarting and his ribs aching from where the kid had planted a shoe on it, Bolan got up and faced Everado, who had also sprung to his feet and had his guard up, his shoes shuffling in the dirt. Heaving a weary sigh, Bolan raised his fists and started walking forward. Everado closed the distance, as well, and when he got within range, Bolan hauled off and kicked him right in the crotch with all his strength.
The effect was paralyzing. Everado’s expression changed from half-mad wolfish glee to pained agony in a heartbeat, his mouth locked open in a silent scream as he clutched his privates. With his face exposed, Bolan looped a powerful haymaker under his chin that knocked the wannabe thug right off his feet to the floor, instantly out cold.
Bolan took a deep breath, then got to his feet and walked over to his Beretta. Picking it up, he removed the empty magazine and replaced it with a full one—his last, he noted. Then he trudged over to the shotgun, picked it up, ejected the empty drum and walked back to the motionless young man. Poking around on his body, he uncovered a fully loaded drum. Inserting it into the receiver, Bolan charged the gun and headed for the double doors that led to the rest of the complex.
17
Kicking one of the doors open, Bolan sent a 3-round burst from the AA-12 down the hallway. After the thunderous echo of the blast died away, only silence greeted him. He began advancing down the corridor, alert for lights, movement, sound—anything that would tell him where the elder De Cavallos might be and what he was up to.
If I wanted to take out a pharmaceutical company—check that, industrial meth lab—with as big a bang as possible, where would I go? Bolan wondered. The answer came to him quickly: the production room. The only problem was that he didn’t know where it was. Shifting the AA-12 to one hand, Bolan dialed Stony Man Farm.
“Go, Striker.”
“Bear, I need a schematic of the Cristobal plant’s main building. Specifically, I need to know where the production vats are.”
“Akira brought up the blueprints about an hour ago. Where are you currently?”
“Past the main entry room, about twenty yards down the long hallway on the left.”
“Have you passed the dry chemical storage room yet?”
Bolan checked his position in the hall. “No, it’s two doors down.”
“Okay, you’re close. Proceed ahead approximately fifty yards, past four labs on your left and the storage room, which takes up all of the space to your right. If they followed the plans, the production vats capable of cooking up what looks like about a ton of meth at once will be through the fifth door on your left.”
“Thanks, Bear.” Bolan cut the call and continued down the hallway, counting off doors as he went. At the fifth one, he realized he could have skipped the call in the first place, since the air lock door was clearly marked: Chemical Compound Production Facilities—All Personnel Must Wear Proper Hazardous Material Protection Equipment Before Entering.
“Damn.” At the very least Bolan wanted to find a respirator before going in. No sense trying to kill the guy if you were going to have your lungs turned to goo at the same time. Remembering he’d seen an emergency mask container in the storage area, Bolan backtracked and slipped inside the huge room.
INSIDE THE EVEN larger compound production room, De Cavallos looked up as the faint sound of shotgun blasts reached his ears. He was bent over his jury-rigged detonator, interrupted in the process of attaching it to the main chemical production tank, which had been synthesizing about one thousand pounds of methamphetamine. He had halted the production process earlier that morning, and set up the huge metal vat to capture one of the byproducts of meth manufacture, phosphene gas, an odorless, colorless, highly flammable vapor.
A simple programmed timer would release the gas at the proper time—once De Cavallos and his guard were long gone—then another one would ignite a burner five minutes later. The resulting explosion would take out the factory and lay waste to the surrounding countryside, both in the physical damage it would cause, as well as the chemical contamination. All he needed was a few more minutes to ensure that the system would work as he’d planned, then it would be goodbye Cristobal and goodbye Quincyville.
De Cavallos had his personal security guard, Hector Arciera, with him. Formerly of the Mexican navy’s special forces group Fuerzas
Especiales, like many of his colleagues at Cristobel, he left the military for the more lucrative pay found in drug running. Currently he was guarding the door while his boss worked. When they both heard the repeated blasts of the automatic shotgun, De Cavallos had smiled. But a minute later, Hector, who was watching the hallway using a remote monitor slaved into the plant’s security system, frowned and got his boss’s attention.
“Chief, that Cooper guy is coming down the hall…he’s talking on a cell phone…he’s coming this way.”
“Kill that bastard once and for all, will you, but no shooting in here. Hit one of the tanks and we’re all dead!”
De Cavallos scooted around until he was behind the main tank, while Hector drew his Gerber double-edged fighting dagger and took a position behind the door, ready to stab the man as he came in. With everything in the room turned off, both men strained their ears to catch the footsteps of the man who had taken just less than twenty-four hours to destroy everything they had worked to build over the past several years.
They waited five seconds…ten…fifteen… But no one came through the air lock.
“Where is he?” De Cavallos hissed.
His bodyguard shrugged. “I don’t know. He should have been here by now.” He checked the monitor again. “Looks like he’s heading for the dry storage room.”
“Well, make sure he never comes out.”
With a nod, Hector checked the action on his H&K MP-5 and cycled through the air lock, heading down the corridor.
INSIDE THE CAVERNOUS room, Bolan crossed the empty space to the far wall near the door he had entered in earlier that morning. As he’d thought, there was a large yellow box on the wall marked Oxygen Respirators: Use In The Event Of Chemical Contamination.
Popping the box open, he grabbed the full-face mask and small yellow tank, slinging the oxygen supply over his shoulder and perching the mask on top of his head, then turned back toward the door—only to find himself in the sights of a submachine gun aimed by a man he’d never seen before.
The warrior dived to one side, tucking and rolling as the man blasted away at him. At that range, Bolan knew there was only about a fifty percent chance of hitting a moving target with an automatic weapon, even with training. He just had to reach some kind of cover, which he did with one more shoulder roll, skidding behind a large rack of metal shelves several stories high, each level holding pallets of various colored barrels. Hearing footsteps, Bolan didn’t stop, but ran down the narrow aisle formed by the high shelves, rounding a corner and running to the next intersection, then turning left again, back toward the rear exit.
He stopped for just a moment to make sure the canister was secure and undamaged, then looked up and began climbing, figuring the best way to get the drop on the guy would be from thirty feet in the air. With one last heave, he pulled himself onto a wooden pallet atop a cluster of green barrels. No sooner had he rolled over than a line of slugs chewed into the wood next to him, spraying him with splinters. Bolan looked up to see the mystery gunman standing on a similar platform twenty yards away, adjusting his aim. He rolled back off the platform, grabbing the edge with one hand but losing his grip on the shotgun, which fell to the floor with a loud clatter.
Bolan heard approaching footsteps shake the shelves as the shooter closed in. Seeing a narrow space between the top level and the full pallet below it, Bolan wriggled inside, pushing himself forward into the darkness. Shrugging off the oxygen tank, he wedged it into a corner, then tucked his legs up, drew his Beretta again and waited. He heard the man’s steps on the pallets above his head, listened to them recede and approach as he searched the surrounding area.
Holstering his pistol, Bolan spread his weight out on his hands and feet and slowly crawled to the back of the pallet, where the deep corridor formed by the two tall shelves of chemicals was shadowed in darkness. He waited until he heard the man cross to the far side again, then began climbing up the side of the topmost pallet, trying to move only when he heard the other man move. The strain on his already taxed muscles was terrific, but Bolan kept going, rising inch-by-inch until his head was almost level with the topmost pallet. Securing his feet on the lower pallet, he drew his pistol and peeked over the top.
The gunman stood a few feet away on his right, looking down at the floor where the shotgun had fallen. As Bolan started to bring up his pistol, the man turned and spotted his quarry staring at him from the back side of the shelf unit. He brought his submachine gun around and fired from the hip as Bolan triggered a 3-round burst of his own.
The Executioner’s steadiness was the only thing that saved him. The shooter’s burst chopped wood right next to him, making Bolan turn his head to prevent taking a sliver in the eye. His rounds hit the man square in the chest, making him sit down close to the edge, but not falling over. Steadying himself, the gunner aimed the MP-5 with one hand and loosed wild burst that made Bolan duck for cover, chips of wood flying over his head.
Damn, he’s wearing a vest, Bolan thought. Knowing every minute he was delayed with this gunman was one more minute De Cavallos had to finish sabotaging the plant, Bolan stuck his pistol up and fired several rounds blindly in his opponent’s direction. Hearing a startled curse, he figured he might have tagged him, or at least made him take cover as well. A clatter from the other side of the shelving caused Bolan to look down as the roar of subgun fire filled the room. He saw a flash light up the dim space as the gunman tried to hit him by firing through the space between the load and the level above.
Bolan was already scrambling up to try to catch the gunman from behind, but when he got to the top and burst over, pistol in hand, the soldier found the pallet deserted. Rising to his feet, he calmed the blood pounding in his ears and focused on locating his opponent’s position. His breath panted out between his teeth, and he was aware of beads of sweat trickling down the back of his neck.
Taking two stealthy steps to the right, Bolan strained to hear any sound that might give away the man’s hiding spot. Suddenly wood chips exploded from where he had previously stood as a burst of 9 mm rounds tore across the top of the platform. Bolan returned the favor and sent two 3-round bursts toward where the bullets had come from while stepping away from his previous position. The other man returned fire, raking the top of the platform again. Bolan could tell from the angle of the shots that he was firing from the side up. Figuring the best defense was a good offense, he ran over and was rewarded by seeing the man tucked into the space between two pallets, about to load another magazine into his MP-5.
“Hey.” Bolan pointed his pistol down and when the man glanced up instinctively, shot him in the left eye. Relaxing in death, the gunner’s body slid out of the crevice and tumbled to the floor.
Holstering his Beretta, Bolan jogged back to the corner of the shelf, retrieved his oxygen mask and canister, and climbed down. Slinging it over his shoulder, he picked up the shotgun, checked its action, then headed for the exit, pausing only to grab the dead man’s key card on the way.
Back in the hallway, he put on the mask and made sure the seal around his face was tight, then readied the shotgun and headed for the chemical production room. Swiping the card gained him instant access to the first door. Bolan edged inside, shotgun leading, and waited for the outer door to close before swiping the card through the second reader. The inner door opened, and he stepped inside.
The white, immaculate room wasn’t as large as the chemical storage room, but it was impressive nonetheless. Most of the space was taken up with three large vats, at least twenty feet tall, that lined the far side of the room. Beneath one of them lay the signs of planned destruction—a jury-rigged timer that was counting down from four minutes. It was attached to a valve that would vent gas from the first tank—something flammable, no doubt. All it would take was some kind of flame to ignite it, and the whole building would go up. And next to it was a simple Bunsen burner, the kind found in most high schools, that would provide the flame.
Glancing right and left, Bol
an started for the timer, intending to tear it right off the mounting. As he approached, a shadow fell over him, and he sensed someone behind him. Before he could turn, he felt agonizing pain course through his entire body, his eyes and hearing and other senses short-circuited by white-hot electricity.
His spine spasming from the jolt, Bolan fell to the floor, the shotgun kicked away from his numb fingers. He reached for it, but was blasted again with another searing jolt of electricity that made him curl up, his arms and legs twitching uselessly. Rolling onto his back, Bolan saw how De Cavallos had gotten the drop on him—the air lock extended into the room, giving him a small platform to climb to and jump down from.
“Mr. Cooper, somehow I had a feeling that it would be you coming through that door, not my man. I assume that you’ve killed him, along with my son. Therefore it is only fitting that you will die in here, too.”
He pressed the stun baton hard into Bolan’s chest a third time, the current making him arch his back and grit his teeth as the voltage coursed through him. De Cavallos held it there for several seconds, a thin, feral grin creasing his features.
“As I’d said in town, soon there will be one less hero in America.” He reached down and plucked the key card from Bolan’s pocket, then reached over and grabbed the shotgun off the floor. “Goodbye, Mr. Cooper.” He turned, swiped the card through the reader, then stepped through, smashing the end of the baton into the keypad inside the room. Bolan rolled over again to see him shatter the reader on the other side, then swipe the card through the outer door’s reader and leave.
Bolan pushed himself over onto his hands and knees, fighting the urge to throw up. His skin tingled with every movement, as if the shocks were still coursing through his body. Raising his head, he stared at the timer on the vat nozzle through eyes that were still coming into focus. It had just ticked down to under two minutes.
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