Blood Vortex

by Don Pendleton

  “Another way of saying it was shite,” O’Banion smilingly confirmed.

  “Some of ’em might mean part of what they said, at least,” McGarry stated. “With emphasis on might.”

  “Forget about the Arabs, though, says I. They’ve done nothing to help out people since the early eighties, anyway.”

  “You weren’t even born then, Dara.”

  “So what? I can read, you know, and I heard all about it from a few of the old-timers, even if they’re not around these days.”

  In point of fact, McGarry knew, there weren’t too many staunch republican combatants left today, of any age.

  The CIRA had been organized in 1986, one year before his own birth in Omagh, the seat of County Tyrone. Even then, after it split from the Provisional IRA, their faction had not mobilized for battle until 1994, with the PIRA’s agreement to a ceasefire with the so-called “loyalists,” striking primarily at members of the British Army, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Linked to the political party Republican Sinn Féin—translated as “ourselves alone”—they had used mortars, rockets, car bombs and assorted small arms in a series of attacks, but lately the CIRA had fallen on hard times at home.

  Still, its members fought on, expelling and executing Belfast leader Tommy Crossan for switching to the Real IRA in April 2014, planting bombs at PSNI stations in Craigavon, County Armagh, and Wattlebridge, County Fermanagh, just last summer. More helpful publicity had come with designation as an international terrorist group by Washington, as well as the United Kingdom and far-off New Zealand, where no CIRA member had been spotted yet, as far as McGarry knew.

  He had no plans to shift allegiance, after all the shite he’d been through for the cause, but others might. And when that happened, if he could identify the traitors, he would gladly take them out himself.

  But first, he had this errand to perform, on orders from Belfast, and he would see it through—unless, of course, some gobshite traitor tried to do him in.

  In which case, all bets would be off and McGarry would kill anyone who tried to put him down.

  And he would damned well relish it.

  * * *

  Bolan had compromised on clothing for his first strike, locating a housekeeping room with a door labeled “Gestión Interna” and slipping inside unseen by any passersby. Within, he’d found a rack of navy blazers for male staffers, with “Las Palmas” stitched on the breast pockets, and chosen one that would serve him well enough, despite its sleeves being a little short.

  He’d left his Steyr AUG and various grenades with Geller, hiding in a deeply shadowed corner of the property’s resplendent garden, carrying only his Glock fitted with the Cobra M2 suppressor, plus two backup magazines of fifteen rounds apiece. If Bolan couldn’t drop two enemies with forty-six hot .40-caliber S&W rounds, he supposed that he had picked the wrong game and deserved to be dealt out.

  Moving with purpose to the door of suite 221, Bolan knocked sharply, drew his Glock, and waited for one of the Irish terrorists to answer him.

  * * *

  “Now who the feck is that?” Brendan McGarry asked.

  Dara O’Banion, reaching for another can of Guinness in the minifridge, replied, “How would I know? Did you call out for a doxy while I was in the loo?”

  “Bite me, ye son of a bitch,” McGarry answered back.

  “That would be her job, mate, not mine,” O’Banion said, laughing.

  McGarry almost took the compact FN P90 along with him, but thought it a waste of time, likely for some maid bringing spare towels for the shower. Finishing his beer with one long swig, he rose and crossed the spacious room, remembering to use the door’s peephole before he opened up.

  Outside, a man he’d never seen before stood peering back at him. He was clean-shaved and well groomed, could easily have been a light-skinned Venezuelan or an Anglo with a tan. Rising on tiptoes, McGarry saw that the unexpected visitor was decked out in a navy blazer with “Las Palmas” stitched onto its breast pocket.

  No worries, then. And yet...

  “Yeah?” he called through the door, still dead-bolted on his side. “What’s this, then?”

  Responding in a deep voice, no accent, the staffer said, “Tequila, sir. With compliments of the establishment.”

  “We didn’t order any,” McGarry answered, still not reaching for the dead bolt or doorknob.

  “No, sir,” the man outside replied. “It’s free of charge. Most of the guests have been refusing alcohol.”

  Those Muslims, Brendan mused silently. They don’t know what they’re missing half the time.

  “Well, if it’s free, then...”

  Behind him, O’Banion chimed in, calling, “Free tequila! Bring it on!”

  Casting a glance and grin over his shoulder, McGarry cleared the dead bolt then released the latch lock, turned the knob and swung open the door. He just had time to realize the man outside carried no tray, no liquor bottle, glasses, limes or ice before the black butt of a pistol struck his forehead and the terrorist reeled back toward the bed where he’d been seated moments earlier.

  He thought immediately of the borrowed SMG lying atop the king-size comforter and used his stumbling momentum from the head blow to propel himself forward in a rush. Some twenty feet away, O’Banion had already reached his KS-23 shotgun and pumped a buckshot round into its chamber, pistol grip clutched in his right hand, braced against his hip, prepared to fire.

  Even at that, the man who’d stunned McGarry was considerably faster, kicking shut the door without a backward glance to see if it engaged, his weapon—muzzle heavy with a sound suppressor attached—coughed twice. O’Banion fell over backward then, taking the shotgun with him, triggering a blast into the ceiling that obliterated two acoustic tiles, their fragments raining down on top of him.

  McGarry reached his submachine gun, verified its safety resting in the Off position, index finger curling through the trigger guard as he turned to bring his nameless adversary under fire.

  Whoever this bastard might be, he wasn’t any delegate to the group meeting called by the Venezuelan president’s flunkies. Neither did McGarry think he was a Las Palmas employee who had gone berserk and had a suppressed weapon handy when his grip on sanity let go.

  Then, who in hell—

  The tall intruder’s pistol coughed once more, and McGarry’s world went black.

  * * *

  Adira Geller heard the shotgun blast, muffled by intervening walls and distance, but still loud enough to rouse the occupants of nearby suites in the east wing.

  Clutching her M4A1 carbine with its safety off, finger outside the weapon’s trigger guard for safety’s sake, she huddled in the shrubbery, shielded by darkness and looming elephant-ear plants cultivated half a world away from their home in Southeast Asia. She could not see suite 221 from where she crouched, much less see Matt Cooper exiting the slaughterhouse—that was, until he suddenly appeared beside her, whispering, “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Geller followed him and heard some other tenants of the east wing spilling from their suites, while armed guards from SEBIN began approaching, following two paths that would be bathed in sunshine during daylight hours, amber now under yellowish halogen fixtures. Geckoes skittered up walls, startled from their hunt for nocturnal insects as the two armed figures passed them, jogging.

  When they’d gained some distance from the shooting scene, briefly secure inside a utility room whose lock proved no match for the American’s combat knife, they relaxed enough to catch their breath and speak in whispers.

  Geller did not state the obvious—that her companion had survived unwounded—but she did say, “Well? Tell me.”

  “Two down, as expected,” Bolan said. “Both of them were armed, a submachine gun and a shotgun. I suppose you heard the one shot that one of them managed to get off.”

 
Geller bobbed her head affirmatively. “And by now they have an audience,” she said. “What now?”

  In fact, they had discussed that and she knew his answer, but still felt obliged to ask the question—to say something in the wake of violence to reassure her that the game was not completely and irrevocably blown.

  “We work the plan,” Bolan answered, as expected. “They’ve got nothing to suggest a shooter from outside, but guards are bound to search the property regardless. We just stay out of their way until it’s time to hit again.”

  She thought about the surviving terrorists, all armed now, courtesy of their SEBIN watchdogs, every one of them already paranoid by definition, bound to be on edge and doubly dangerous as word spread of the double killing at Las Palmas.

  “Will the guards disarm them now?” she asked.

  “Let them try,” he answered, smiling in the faint glow of the room’s night-light. “That ought to be the last straw for their little get-together.”

  He was right, of course. With two more delegates cut down, this pair under the very noses of the conference attendees, any move to confiscate the weapons handed to them only hours earlier would raise the specter of betrayal and accelerate the internecine carnage Matt Cooper had in mind.

  “So, who next?” she inquired.

  They had not planned that part, preferring to see how the first attack played out.

  “Targets of opportunity,” Bolan said. “Maybe a guard or two, maybe another pair of delegates. Just stir the pot and bring it to a boil.”

  At first, Geller thought her unexpected ally was enjoying this, but then, on second thought, she recognized the truth. He was, like her, a warrior following vague orders he’d been given, making up the details as he went along. And from what she had observed so far, she’d have to say he was first-rate.

  But any warrior—anywhere, at any time—might fail.

  And if that happened, Geller knew she would have to carry on alone.

  Suite 221

  Colonel Pérez felt Major Khosa watching from the doorway as Pérez surveyed the east wing suite, flanked by Captain Romulo Zavala, second-in-command of the SEBIN detail assigned to guard Las Palmas during the covert assemblage of fugitive guests.

  The Irishmen were dead; O’Banion drilled by two shots, while a single round had taken out McGarry. Both had died with SEBIN weapons in their hands, but only one of them had fired his borrowed piece—a shotgun blast that had inflicted costly damage on the suite’s ceiling. The flat-screen television played one of Radio Caracas Televisión’s popular game shows, but someone had thankfully muted the volume before Pérez arrived with Khosa in tow.

  “What evidence have you recovered, Captain?” Pérez asked.

  “Three cartridge casings, sir. All Smith & Wesson .40-caliber. As you can see, the targets made no adequate response with either of their weapons.”

  “And how many shots were heard?”

  “Only the shotgun, sir.”

  “The shooter used a suppressor, then,” Pérez said.

  “I’m certain of it, Colonel.”

  Pérez already knew that no suppressors had been issued to invited delegates when they had selected weapons from the SEBIN armory, a few short hours earlier. Nor had the firearms handed out to visitors for self-defense have muzzles threaded to accept a suppressor.

  And that meant...what, precisely?

  Pérez had Las Palmas under guard, his team on-site a full day in advance of any delegate’s arrival, while resort staff made their final preparations for the meeting. On that day, a final search of the facility had been completed and the luggage carried by attendees had been closely checked upon arrival in the country, with an eye toward maximum security.

  “A shooter from outside, then?” Pérez asked Zavala.

  “Sir, I’d like to say it was impossible, but...”

  “You cannot deny the obvious.”

  A silent shrug was all Captain Zavala had to offer in reply.

  “We have our work cut out for us, Captain. First, to secure and reassure surviving visitors. Second, to mount another search, while questioning each guard for any lapse occurring up to now.”

  “They won’t admit to any, sir,” Zavala noted.

  “You must impress them with the urgency of a response, Captain. Be crystal-clear that while an accidental lapse may be excused, albeit with some penalty as yet to be determined, willful lying from this point onward means death without recourse.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If nothing else, a traitor in the ranks may seek to flee Las Palmas and thereby reveal himself.”

  “And if a guard was not involved, sir?”

  Scowling back at his subordinate, Pérez replied, “All of our guests are murderers. Some harbor personal and philosophical grudges against others. If one or more of them has somehow done this thing, we must identify and isolate them.”

  “Sir, that still leaves an intruder from outside.”

  “I am aware of that, damn it! Take it one step at a time and leave no stone unturned.”

  “Yes, Colonel!”

  “And pray if you still can, Captain, that nothing else goes wrong.”

  * * *

  Major Riaz Khosa waited his turn, though restlessly, letting Captain Zavala go about his business before asking Pérez, “What are your thoughts on this development, Colonel?”

  “The same as yours, I should imagine, Major. If the conference proceeds from now on, it will be something of a miracle.”

  “Will you advise the president of what has happened, then?”

  “What other option do I have?” Pérez replied. Clearly, he was not relishing the thought of facing the man’s legendary wrath. “And you, Major? Shall you inform Islamabad?”

  “Failure to do so would be insubordinate,” Khosa replied.

  “We share a mutual problema then, it seems.”

  “But if we could resolve the situation swiftly, in good order, I might not be forced to sound alarms unnecessarily.”

  “Swiftly, in good order?” his cohost repeated, sounding rather like a stranger to the language, mouthing unfamiliar words, fearing he’d be misunderstood.

  “By which, Colonel, I mean eliminate the threat and hopefully divine its source before contacting anyone at all. Present them with a fait accompli rather than a difficulty passed off to superiors.”

  “And if we find another guest or more than one to be responsible? What then?”

  “Perhaps it would be preferable, Colonel, if the meeting never had occurred at all.”

  “You mean...?”

  “But only as a very last resort, of course. And that decision would be yours alone to make—or, should I say, your president’s? I obviously have no legal standing here, and anything beyond simple advice would be...completely inappropriate.”

  “And they would simply disappear?” Pérez sounded like someone questioning himself.

  “Who knows?” Khosa replied. “When hunted fugitives decide to travel far from home, their enemies—Americans, the Brits, whoever—may strike without warning. No doubt you will recall Osama bin Laden?”

  “Assassinated by the savages of SEAL Team Six, buried at sea.”

  “Or somewhere just as inaccessible.”

  “Resultant problems might be daunting,” Pérez warned.

  Now he was clearly thinking of recriminations from the various groups invited to attend the president’s conference, the havoc they might wreak on Venezuelan property and citizens if one or more of them suspected treachery by the regime in power.

  “Once again, Colonel, it’s not for me to say.”

  “There might also be problems with the hotel’s staff, its management.”

  “If one believes the foreign press,” Khosa replied, “SEBIN has an established history of coping with dissent effectively.”

&nbs
p; As if he had decided something in his mind, Pérez nodded, frowning, then forced a smile for Khosa’s benefit. “I have much to consider,” he stated. “But in the meantime, we proceed with searching for the man or men responsible for this.”

  “And don’t rule out a certain woman, either,” Khosa urged.

  “I seriously doubt that Carolina Salazar—”

  “Is capable of murder?” Khosa interrupted. He already knew the truth of that, the svelte Colombian’s participation in at least a dozen homicides and twice that many bombings in her homeland.

  “Well...”

  “Simply instruct me as to how I may assist you, Colonel,” Khosa said. “I am at your command.”

  Chapter Eight

  Las Palmas, East Wing

  Huddled outside and thirty feet west of the gaping door to suite 221, four men spoke urgently to one another in hushed tones.

  They were the last four delegates from Europe at Las Palmas: Xabier Biscailuz and Sabino Urkullu from ETA, with Marios Lekka and Georgios Xenakis of the Revolutionary Struggle. All four were armed and they made no secret of it, Xenakis going so far as to keep his borrowed Russian KS-23 in hand, its muzzle pointed toward the floor.

  “How did this happen?” Biscailuz asked.

  Lekka countered with a question of his own. “How could it happen, without the complicity of those assigned to our security?”

  The same notion had clearly troubled all four, but Urkullu still winced when he heard the words spoken aloud.

  “Why would the Venezuelans do it,” he inquired, “when they invited us to meet here in the first place?”

  “I’ve considered that,” Lekka replied. “We now have four dead, when we count the Filipinos murdered on arrival. Might that not be the original, concealed design?”

  “Explain,” Biscailuz said brusquely.