“Hold on.” The man set down his telephone and went off growling Spanish insults about Bolan and his mother.
Thirty seconds later, give or take, another voice came on the line. “Who is this?”
“Never mind, Kuno,” Bolan answered. “I just called to give you one last chance.”
“For what?”
“To save your factory and tunnel.”
“Is that all? You made Pablito think that it was something serious.”
“Have it your own way. Come and get the bodies after your siesta.”
“Bodies? I think you’re crazy, man.”
“You may be right. It would’ve been a simple thing to give my friend back to me, safe and sound, but since you’d rather play dumb—”
“Your friend? Should I know what that means?”
“Only if you have your finger on the pulse of Juárez like I’ve heard you do. Or maybe that’s just smoke.”
“I know enough!” the voice of wounded pride told him. “This friend you talk about, though, I think you’re mixed up. You hear me?”
“I hear you fine,” Bolan replied. “Now you hear me. Call up the hotline for emergencies. That’s 9-1-1, same as the States. Tell them you need a fire brigade and ambulances. You already know the address, right?”
“If you think—”
Bolan cut him off again. “I guess you’d better call those federal agents you’ve been paying, too. Maybe Captain Prieto, yeah? Let him explain about your tunnel and your merchandise if anybody comes around with questions from the DEA, whatever.”
The Executioner killed the link before Carillo could respond, picked up his AUG and slung a satchel of grenades over his shoulder. Sundown meant the factory’s innocent staff had all cleared out, and he’d already seen two trucks arrive, their cargo draped in canvas.
Anyone inside the Sunshine Clothing Factory at this point was fair game.
Bulevar Francisco Villarreal Torres
Miguel Vergara had returned to his apartment. He’d showered quickly, changed his clothes, and now stood over the police scanner that sat beside the coffeemaker in his small kitchen.
Alarms were going out from Puerto de Anapra, summoning police, firetrucks and ambulances to one of the addresses he had provided to the American who’d extracted him from Sinaloa’s cocaine cutting plant—could it be true?—no more than forty minutes earlier. All law enforcement agencies were presently responding, as were Chihuahua’s medical examiner and coroner, one to determine cause of death, the other to move corpses from the scene to Star Medica Hospital for autopsy.
Vergara wondered what he’d set in motion with the man he knew as Captain Joshua Brinkman—certainly an alias. Was he, Miguel Vergara, now a murderer or, at the very least, a criminal accomplice to mass homicide?
By failing to report his meeting with Brinkman and the violence that followed it, Vergara knew he was in violation of the oath he’d taken when he’d joined the FMP. He had committed other lesser crimes while working undercover, but those lapses were expected in performance of his duty, tacitly approved by Colonel Bravo in advance: juggling Rodolfo Garza’s double set of ledgers, guarding the cartel’s former cutting plant from time to time, smoking a little weed so that Garza’s soldiers had no reason to suspect him...all of that and more.
But now...
What would his supervisor say—what could he say?—if Sergeant Vergara’s next report contained the whole truth without any cosmetic manipulation? For his own protection, Colonel Bravo doubtless would shut down their covert operation, shred and burn its files. Vergara likely could expect a transfer to the hinterlands, perhaps far-off Chiapas, where the Zapatista rebels still raised hell occasionally, or Quintana Roo, where he would sweat his ass of in the jungle.
Maybe he would simply disappear.
But if he helped Brinkman find his kidnapped friend and liberate him, maybe linked Captain Prieto to the drug cartels—or even to El Psicópata—it could mean promotion and a feeling of professional success.
At least until the drug lords of Juárez sought their revenge.
Vergara took a yellow legal pad and started listing ways that he could possibly achieve his goal, helping Brinkman in the process, while—he hoped—avoiding sudden death. The American wouldn’t identify his missing friend, citing the strictures placed on him by US national security, but did Vergara even need the captive’s name? How many American lawmen had been kidnapped from El Paso overnight?
Vergara would have bet his life and his career—in fact, he had—that there’d been only one. With that in mind, someone had to know where Mr. X was being held. According to Brinkman, at least two men had executed the abduction, and they had to know where they’d dropped off the hostage. The man or men who’d ordered the abduction also knew, and if the captive had been moved from his original location in Juárez, they’d know where he’d wound up, alive or dead.
And if the unnamed man was dead, Vergara knew he didn’t want to be caught standing between Joshua Brinkman and the ones responsible for murdering his friend.
From what Vergara knew, the American soldier had killed some two dozen cartel gunmen and other employees in his first two raids. Now the bulletins from Puerto de Anapra sounded like the death toll might hit forty or beyond.
Vergara wondered if it was enough for him to simply stand on the sidelines, watching.
He knew some of Brinkman’s targets in advance, since he’d provided the addresses. If he got a move on, as the Americans liked to say, he could catch up without great difficulty, maybe even turn up at one of the sites before Brinkman arrived.
And then?
Without parsing the answer to that question, he passed from the kitchen to his bedroom, opened up the closet there, lifted the carpeting and drew an army footlocker out of its hiding place below. A key opened the padlock to reveal what lay inside. First up, a Spectre M-4 submachine gun of Italian manufacture, fourteen inches long with its stock folded, weighing 6.4 pounds without one of its unique casket magazines, each packed with fifty 9 mm Parabellum rounds.
Next out of the box, a vintage Beretta 92 semiauto pistol, same caliber as the Spectre, lately phased out as a federal service weapon. This one’s muzzle had been threaded to accept an Osprey Model 9 sound suppressor that he’d confiscated from a cartel gunman four years earlier and never gotten around to logging in as evidence. The Osprey measured seven inches, weighed about ten ounces and shaved thirty-three decibels off the normal report of a gunshot. Packing subsonic rounds into the 92’s staggered box magazines reduced the sound further, though it would never be a truly “silent” piece.
Sometimes a little was enough.
The last piece of equipment in Vergara’s box was a Mark I trench knife, first issued to American soldiers in World War I and carried on through World War II. Its blade was seven inches long and double-edged, blued with a black oxide finish. Its knuckle-duster handle was brass, chemically blackened, secured with a conical steel nut that functioned well for cracking skulls. Each knuckle also sported a cast spike designed for tearing flesh and crunching bone.
He double-checked his gear, put on the knife and pistol, and stowed the Spectre and spare magazines inside a gym bag. Locking up his apartment, Vergara rode the elevator down to street level and climbed into his old VW, which Brinkman had assisted in retrieving after snatching him at gunpoint from the cutting plant. Returning for it had been dicey, but confusion at the scene had aided his escape.
Now running through the mental roll of names and addresses he’d listed for the American, Vergara couldn’t be sure where Brinkman would strike next. He did know that the factory in Anapara was the first place he had written down. If the man meant to strike at targets in their order of appearance on that list...
Vergara couldn’t guarantee it, but it was the only lead he had. What else could he do?
Pemex District
Hal Brognola heard his captor return home—if this was home—after some time away. He’d tried to count the minutes but had lost track while straining futilely against his bonds. Now footsteps were descending to his chamber and he saw no point in feigning sleep.
The freak who’d taken off his blindfold had a woman with him. No, correct that. He was carrying a woman draped over one shoulder, coming down the stairs with no apparent difficulty, passing Brognola’s table and laying out his latest catch on the remaining steel table, fastening the straps to hold her fast.
Finished with that and turning, he noticed Brognola watching him and smiled with crooked teeth. The big Fed didn’t think he’d ever seen that shade of tan inside another human’s mouth before...but did his jailer qualify as human?
Sure. Despite his obvious malignant madness, he was human to the nth degree, made doubly dangerous by that.
“You like your new roommate? She’s pretty, no? Ignore the blood. She was reluctant to come in, but I persuaded her.”
“It’s not too late to let her go,” Brognola said. “She is an innocent. You can let us both go.”
Laughter greeted that suggestion, as if he’d just told a loopy knock-knock joke. It took a moment to subside and then the creep replied, “You’re wrong, my friend. She is far from an innocent. And it’s much too late for all of us, I think. No turning back for me, not that I wish to. No escape for you or this one.”
The big Fed’s stomach roiled, knowing he was helpless, that he could do nothing to save the young woman on the table next to him.
He switched gears and asked, although afraid to hear the answer, “What’s on tap for me, then?”
“I am still—how do you say?—considering my options. My instructions grant some flexibility in your disposal.”
“Meaning?”
The maniac shrugged lazily. “It’s safe to say your execution was intended but not specified. I’ve been considering who else might wish to own a leader of the Department of Justice.”
“Not a leader,” he replied. “More like a middleman.”
“Leader or middleman.” The headcase shrugged again. “It makes no difference to me, nor likely to the person who might purchase you.”
“Might want to check your calendar,” Brognola said. “I’m pretty sure that slavery’s been abolished, pal.”
Another laugh. “In this country? You obviously haven’t seen our factories and fields. I’m glad you think of us as pals, though. It’s the same thing as friends, eh?”
Brognola took a chance and pushed it. “What if no one wants to meet your price?”
“Then you shall meet a most unpleasant end, I think. Well, bad for you, though I will quite enjoy it.”
“Listen—”
“First, though, this young woman demands my full attention. Feel free to observe and learn.”
Calle Navojoa
“Take care of these two, Lieutenant,” Prieto said. “I have urgent business elsewhere.”
“More urgent than these traitors, Captain?” Bernal inquired, sounding upset.
“Beyond your understanding and your pay grade,” Prieto replied. “Do as you’re told.”
Squaring his shoulders, chin lifted, the lieutenant said, “I can’t dispose of them all by myself.”
“So leave them here. They tried to make a drug deal and it blew up in their faces. Two less corrupt policemen to concern our mutual superiors.”
“But—”
“Just remember not to use your service pistol, eh?”
Like many other law enforcement agencies of any size, the FIA test-fired its weapons on arrival at the federal armory, preserving sample bullets to be checked against those fired in altercations with Mexico’s many criminals—and, based on the department’s checkered history, to be compared with slugs from unsolved homicides.
“And after this?” Bernal asked him.
Without turning, already halfway to the door, Prieto said over his shoulder, “Check with headquarters. They may have further need of you tonight.”
He left the body shop—grasping the irony of that, but too distracted to enjoy it—and drove off in the official vehicle he’d parked around back. If any passing witnesses had seen the cars out front and later dared to share that information with Juárez detectives, none would point a finger at Captain Prieto. The two sergeants would be dead inside, perhaps flyblown before they were discovered, and Prieto trusted Silvio Bernal to stage the scene like any other gangland execution.
Which, in fact, it was.
Forget all that. Prieto’s mind was buzzing from the phone call he’d received while questioning Allende and Solana. From the unknown caller’s lack of accent and command of English, he was clearly a gringo—and one possessed of information no stranger to Ciudad Juárez should have. Prieto reckoned that meant highly placed official contacts, but he couldn’t form any coherent thought beyond that point.
He knew the way American law enforcement operated in his country: awkwardly and rarely forceful, bending over backward to not irritate their hosts, even in these days of tension between respective governments. Without lawful authority below the Rio Grande, the DEA and FBI had no power to make arrests unless they were accompanied by Mexican police, with full approval of Mexico City or, at least, the relevant state capital. To make a bust without collaboration, they could only hope to lure suspects into the United States by one ruse or another—something that had rarely been successful in the past.
As for the furious assaults on cartel properties this evening—outright murders, bombing, arson—that was far beyond the pale for any law-abiding officer. Not that federal law enforcement hadn’t done such things themselves, most recently this very hour, but Americans generally shied away from public violence in foreign lands.
More than anything, Prieto was disturbed that his anonymous caller knew him by name and had broadly hinted at his link to the cartels. In truth, that wasn’t such a risky guess, considering the number of corrupt police in Mexico, but this damned gringo seemed to have specific knowledge—or, at least, a well-founded suspicion—that Prieto was involved in last night’s botched abduction from El Paso. Should Kuno Carillo or Rodolfo Garza learn Prieto’s part in bringing on the mayhem now assailing them...
If you decide to live, the caller had declared, I’ll let you have my contact number. Memorize it.
Driving aimlessly, Prieto thought he’d managed that, at least, but then a flash of panic overcame him. What if he’d jumbled the numbers while he’d listened to them, his interrogator saying he would not repeat himself? He had to get only one digit wrong and there’d be no way to communicate with the gringo assassin. And in that case, all was lost.
Prieto rattled off the numbers verbally, repeated them, their order coming out the same both times. He’d have to trust his memory.
But just remembering the phone number wasn’t enough. Prieto could discreetly contact headquarters, order some tech with the Intelligence Research Division to discreetly trace the caller’s telephone, however that was done. Prieto doubted that would work, suspecting that his enemy had thought about that danger in advance, but failure to attempt it would be idiotic.
And if that failed, what recourse was left to him?
He had to try to retrieve the gringo kidnapped by mistake before El Psicópata butchered and disposed of him.
“Sure thing,” he said bitterly, speaking aloud.
And if that worked, Prieto reckoned he should keep a sharp eye out for rainbows over Juárez, hoping to unearth a magic pot of gold.
Chapter Eight
Calle Septima
Bolan’s fourth target in Juárez belonged to the Sinaloa Cartel. It was supposed to be a restaurant supply house, but from Vergara—double-checked through Stony Man’s extensive covert database—he knew the business rarely dealt with any public eateries and did most of its business after clo
sing time, receiving and unloading shipments of prime flake from farther south.
Calling the Farm hadn’t done anything for Bolan’s mood. Barbara Price had answered, pressing him for any leads on Brognola. Telling her the search was still a work in progress had failed to put her mind at ease. For now, he had to put Barb and her worried crew out of his mind and focus on the job at hand.
The seedy neighborhood’s planners didn’t have much imagination when they’d started naming streets, most of them simply marked with letters of the alphabet or numbers, this one translating to Seventh Street. The district was as violent as any other low-rent sector of Juárez, its most distinctive recent crime the drive-by massacre of half a dozen soccer fans who’d gathered to cheer on the Mexican National Football Team. The slaughter’s motive was unknown, but in Chihuahua, mayhem frequently made little sense.
Tonight’s hit, though, like those that had preceded it since Bolan came to town, was meant to send a message, loud and clear.
For starters, Bolan found a vantage point that offered him a clear shot at the parking lot of Restaurant Solutions Inc., nearly as many vehicles lined up in rows at 10:00 p.m. as during normal business hours when the day shift was on-site. The last one pulling in had been a tanker truck, which didn’t seem to fit the building or its public purpose, but it wouldn’t be the first one used to smuggle shrink-wrapped drugs and other contraband submerged in gasoline or diesel fuel. Such tankers turned a double profit for cartels employing them, drained of petroleum for sale to service stations before hidden cargos were removed elsewhere—and if the law closed in, a small incendiary charge would wipe out any evidence.
But not this time.
Bolan lined up the tanker in his Steyr’s telescopic sight and sent an HE rifle grenade downrange, its impact lighting up the night for blocks around. A secondary blast spread blazing fuel around a dozen other vehicles, all soon engulfed by flame and going off like giant firecrackers.
That brought a slew of cartel soldiers and their supervisors streaming from the building, cringing from the conflagration’s heat and blinding light. The Sinaloan shooters milled around, looking for targets in the night, not firing yet. The men in charge huddled at the joint’s back door, talking excitedly, with no shortage of hand gestures.
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