# Devil's Playground

Don Pendleton

Warrior StateWhen Emilio Brujillo, governor of Mexico's Guerro state, finds himself under siege by the Juarez cartel, he turns to the U.S. for help against one of the most brutal narcotraficante organizations. Working undercover to stem the escalating violence, Mack Bolan is surrounded by corrupt military officials, Russian organized crime and a renegade cult that engages in ritual sacrifice. But the deadliest threat that Bolan faces is the seductive governor's wife, who is also the secret leader of a Santeria cult. Anibella Brujillo is leaking information on Bolan's activities to the enemy while playing her husband, her government and its people with skill and cunning. Mack Bolan is willing to swallow the lady's bait, see where it leads…especially if its straight to the darkest hellholes of human depravity.

## Devil’s Playground. Mack Bolan®. Don Pendleton’s


www.mirabooks.co.uk

## CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Special thanks and acknowledgment to

Douglas P. Wojtowicz for his contribution to this work.

## PROLOGUE

Even in the bright Acapulco sunlight, Rosa Asado felt invisible. Less than invisible, really. As part of Governor Brujillo’s executive protection team, she was supposed to keep to the background, ever vigilant.

While Asado was an attractive woman, she was just second-rate compared to this crowd. A slender blond American singer with a vacuous smile laughed at Anibella Brujillo’s latest witticism. The governor’s wife was a stunning woman in her late thirties, with long, black silky hair. Brujillo’s face was lean, with full lips that moved with facile ease as she spoke cultured English with a deep, husky breathlessness that sharply contrasted with the American songstress’s cackles and nasal-braying speech. It was no surprise, Asado thought. While the young blonde was popular in the United States, Anibella Brujillo had been a national heroine in her younger days, achieving international fame from Argentina to Ontario with fans of latin music. She had even achieved crossover success with several Top 10 hits in the U.S. between the time she was eighteen and twenty-nine, when Anibella finally officially retired from pop superstardom and married a young, up-and-coming politician in Guerrero’s state politics.

Brujillo’s voice could be described in one word—spellbinding.

Asado’s wide-brimmed hat, dark sunglasses and brunette curls were arranged to conceal the unobtrusive earpiece and throat microphone that kept her in touch with the rest of the executive protection team. If there was a battle, Asado wouldn’t be alone.

“We’ve got movement at the gates of the resort. Military vehicles,” a voice cut in on her concentration.

Asado’s hand rested on her thigh, not far from a pocket containing one of her twin Detonics .45 CombatMaster pistols. “I thought we had a report of a base arranging transport through the area.”

“They’re off the given path,” another one of the Mexican security team stated. “And I don’t know about you, but I’m not keen on having jeeps with machine guns passing too close to the command trailer.”

Asado’s brow furrowed and her fingertips played around the snap of her pocket. While the mobile command center was armor-plated, against a .50-caliber machine gun that protection might as well be tissue paper. “Ricky…”

She was about to give a quiet admonishment to be careful when distant thunder rumbled through the air, the earpiece shrieking through her skull as Ricardo Bonases howled in agony, shrieking something about his arm being severed.

Other members of the protection team closed in around Anibella Brujillo and Asado tore the pistol from her right pocket, thumbing down the safety lever. At the sight of armed men and women around her, the governor’s wife cut off her story in midword, green eyes scanning the area.

Asado caught Anibella’s glance toward two men at one far corner of the pool area, reinforcing her suspicions about the two men who seemed to be stalking the first lady. Veteran members of the detail had dismissed Asado’s warning about the pair, and others like them, pronounced as being harmless after background checks. Asado had been ordered to drop any inquiries about the mysterious shadows, and rumors among the rest of the security team had said those orders had come from Anibella Brujillo herself.

Right now, Asado didn’t know who exactly the pair were, but at least she felt secure that they wouldn’t make an effort to kill the governor’s wife.

An explosion rocked Asado as she closed with the first lady, the shock wave knocking her to the marble-tiled deck and pushing her into the water. Caught off guard, Asado sucked in a lungful of water. She lost the first pistol in her grasp from the concussion or from striking the marble pool deck. Either way, her reflexes took over, powerful legs kicking off the pool bottom and driving her head above the water. With a vomitous exhalation, she voided water through her mouth. Her slender but tightly muscled arms reached for the terra-cotta lip of the pool to brace herself as she took a ragged gasp of life-giving oxygen into her chest. As she surfaced, she spotted green-and brown-mottled shapes with assault rifles rushing through a cloud of smoke and debris from the explosion.

Asado tucked down, holding her breath this time as bullets pierced the pool’s surface, riding on spears of bubbles. She tore the other Detonics CombatMaster from her pocket, transferring it to her right hand and thumbing off the safety. With another kick, she broke the surface, spotting a Mexican soldier with a G3 assault rifle firing a short burst at the other end of the pool. Asado didn’t waste any time identifying the target. Instead she punched out two fat 230-grain hollow-point rounds into the camouflage-wearing gunman’s groin and lower belly. Wide-mouthed cavities scooped aside flesh and blood, hydrostatic pressure peeling back the bowl-like lips of the bullets and spreading them apart on impact, smashing out deep divots from the Mexican’s pelvic bone.

Robbed of the skeletal structure he needed to stand, the rifleman tumbled headfirst into the pool, his rifle clattering to the tile.

Asado surged for the deck, firing another shot at a second armed gunman who raked a burst of automatic fire across the governor’s wife and her party. Realizing that she heard nothing over her ear radio, Asado wondered if the water had shorted out the system when she was dunked. She would have to check on the radio, but not before she seized the enemy’s rifle. The Detonics .45 was powerful, but nothing beat a rifle when it came to killing people engaged in homicide. With a hard shove, she flopped onto the deck and grabbed the grip of the Heckler & Koch G3.

Water suction and gravity dragged Asado back into the pool, just in time to avoid being cut in two by another assassin. As she sliced into the water, she kicked back from the edge, aimed the rifle and fired. Heavy recoil shook the weapon in her fist, but at a range of only ten feet, she was able to stitch the uniformed soldier from navel to throat with a 3-round burst of 7.62 mm bullets. The assassin jerked backward violently, as if propelled from a cannon, the rifle slugs coring through his torso as if it were made of soft cheese.

Asado spun and kicked for the far side of the pool. When she did, she saw that the table where Anibella Brujillo had been sitting was surrounded with corpses, other tables overturned in a scene of carnage. Spearing the rifle ahead of her, Asado knifed through the water like a torpedo. Muzzle-flashes blazed around the side of one table, showing that some of her comrades were still alive and fighting. Asado clamped her hand on the lip of the pool and yanked herself up on deck. She stayed prone, rolling onto her belly so that she could take aim with the G3 rifle at any newcomers.

The two mystery men suddenly entered the fray, Uzi submachine guns blazing as they ambushed the marauding assassins. Raking fingers of 9 mm gunfire laced into the assassins with brutal efficiency as Asado discarded her empty G3 and reloaded her CombatMaster. Kneeling behind a stone planter, she fired three shots into a rifle-armed soldier, striking him in the upper chest and stopping him cold. Collarbone and ribs shattered by 230-grain bullets, his thoracic cavity was suddenly filled with rocketing shrapnel of deformed hollow-point rounds and bone splinters. Blood vomited from the dying man’s lips as he collapsed limply to the ground.

Asado pivoted, looking for more targets when she saw Anibella Brujillo, armed with a gleaming, nickel-plated pistol, fire a shot into a dying assassin’s face as she stood over him. Asado recognized the pistol as belonging to Montero, one of the protection team. Montero was sprawled on the pool deck, most of his face missing and his brains forming a fan around the cavern that used to be his skull. Physical pain speared through Asado’s chest at the sight of her murdered comrade.

Anibella fired two more shots, taking a fleeing rifleman between the shoulder blades, and she spit a curse. “Culo.”

Rosa Asado stood, glaring at Anibella Brujillo.

“You survived?” Brujillo asked.

“No thanks to the gangsters on your payroll,” Asado answered, nodding toward the Uzi-armed gunmen who were escaping over the fence.

“My dear, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Anibella stated. “All I see are two killers you allowed to escape.”

Asado clamped her teeth in her lower lip to restrain the urge to throttle the woman. She thumbed the safety up on her CombatMaster. “I don’t know what this is all about, but I’m certain it has something to do with your links to those gangsters.”

Anibella shook her head. “They were trying to murder me, because my husband is working hard to bring down the Juarez Cartel. This is proof that we are on the right track.”

Asado took a deep breath and looked around. Except for Anibella, she was the only one standing. The blond American singer was facedown in a puddle of blood. However, looking at the wounds in the young woman’s back, she could tell that they were too neat to have been made by a G3’s rifle slug. They looked more like the bullets from a .38 Super, just like the one that Brujillo held.

Asado looked up to see the silvery muzzle of Montero’s 1911 pistol leveled at her. A flower of fire appeared, and in that dying moment Rosa thought of her twin sister, Blanca, and how she’d never see her again.

A 125-grain slug smashed into her forehead and puffed out the wet tresses at the back of her skull.

The bodyguard collapsed in a jumble of limbs, eyes bulging in their sockets, staring vacantly at the clear skies of the Acapulco paradise.

“OH, SAINT MARTHA,” Anibella Brujillo whispered, calling the goddess of death, Santa Muerte, by her nickname. “What a waste of a good scapegoat.”

She flipped the nickel-plated 1911 back to Montero’s side.

The two Uzi-packers were gangsters, but they were also Anibella’s devotees. As the high priestess of the Santa Muerte cult in the state, she was never far from the protection of her flock members. She was a shepherdess not of sheep, but of Mexican wolves, predators who infested the drug gangs and lorded over neighborhoods.

It would take some time for the authorities to arrive, but she already had her followers acting on her plans to implicate Rosa Asado as the real perpetrator of this recent attack.

The Juarez Cartel was stepping up its aggression, and Asado had been correct. The drug lords were seeking to eliminate her not because her husband was a crusading politician, but because she was the heart and soul of the Santa Muerte cult conquering the heroin trade in Acapulco.

Anibella’s brow furrowed. She would deflect attention for now, but the Juarez Cartel was still not going to give up so easily. A full paramilitary assault was only one sign of the extremes that Juarez was willing to go to, to eliminate her and the cult.

She needed an advantage over one of the most tenacious and lethal drug gangs in Mexico. The Mexican president had dropped a hint to her husband. A few years back, when the new president was under assault from multiple factions, an American operative had been assigned to assist him against drug gangs and military officers seeking to stage a coup.

This lone man was like an army unto himself. Anibella had heard rumors of a more recent savage conflict between Colombian cartels and the Hong Kong triads on Mexican soil, involving a similar one-man battalion. The president gave governor Emilio Brujillo a contact number to bring in this solitary crusader.

Anibella Brujillo knew that if anyone could level the playing field against the Juarez Cartel, even if they could arrange an army assault, it would be the mysterious lone warrior.

## CHAPTER ONE

Jon Dever was tempted to pull a cigarette from the glove compartment of the U.S. Border Patrol Ford Bronco, but he was trying to quit. His partner, Daniel Hogan, saw Dever’s gaze fall on the glove compartment door and smirked.

“Don’t start, Dan,” Dever muttered.

Hogan’s smirk continued to grow. “You should try some nicotine gum, Jon.”

“I did. Ate a whole pack at once and nearly puked my guts out,” Dever grumbled. “Besides, if I light up, they’ll smell the smoke a country mile away, even if they can’t make it out through the windshield.”

Hogan nodded sagely. That had been the younger man’s intent, to push his older partner into rationalizing against taking another cigarette. Dever was twelve years older than Hogan, who was in his early thirties, and had about seventy pounds on the younger man. Most of it was muscle, but enough was the result of the thickening of age.

Hogan put his night-vision glasses to his eyes again. “Got a visual.”

Dever picked up his glasses and looked. “Three trucks. They look military but—”

“Either the Mexican army’s making extra cash selling surplus to heroin smugglers, or they went in for steady employment by doing the transportation themselves,” Hogan surmised. “Either way, our orders are not to fire on anyone wearing a Mexican uniform.”

“This is bullshit,” Dever said. “My training officer would have had an aneurysm if he’d been told to let those bastards shoot at him without returning fire.”

“Hey. Washington doesn’t have a spine anymore. They’d rather beat their chests in a foreign country, but let the psychos next door do as they please,” Hogan snarled.

Dever took a long, deep breath, then got out a digital camcorder with a low-light optical filter on the lens. At least they could document any efforts by the neighboring nation’s military in breaking international law.

Dever’s brow furrowed.

“What’s wrong?” Hogan asked. He eyed the M-4 carbine locked in its clamp against the dashboard. It, and the Heckler & Koch .40-caliber pistol on his hip, would give any opponent a run for his money, if only his trigger finger hadn’t been restrained by insipid rules of engagement. The official attitude was to not spark a border war, but apparently the men wearing army uniforms and carrying Mexican-issue rifles were under no such restriction.

Several Border Patrol agents had been injured in increasingly tense encounters across the past few years. It was only a matter of time before the bastards had collected the final breath of an American law-enforcement agent. Some had called for the end of the Border Patrol due to its failure to control or act against foreign invaders. Others had wanted the National Guard to step in. Still more took their own weapons and camped out at major thoroughfares for migrating illegal aliens, seeking to take the law into their own hands. The fact that the American Minutemen were looking only to turn back illegal aliens, and not gun down unarmed intruders who were coming merely to seek jobs had kept the situation from surging to a flash-point of violence.

It had come close a couple of times. Military forces and federal agents had dealt with a crisis for the then-new Mexican president as powerful smuggling alliances actually engaged in brutal assault on American lawmen. Only the actions of people who existed in whispered rumor had prevented a second Mexican-American war from ripping the continent apart.

Hogan sighed. He hoped that the men who didn’t exist would make their presence felt again to push back the encroaching and increasingly bold and deadly smugglers.

Dever looked at the feed on the screen. “Something is moving out in the desert behind the trucks, but I can’t quite make it out. It might be a person. It’s about the right mass, but it doesn’t…No, it disappeared.”

Hogan chuckled nervously. “Maybe you saw a Chupacabra.”

“Not too many goats for a goat-sucker to feed on out there, Dan,” Dever returned. “Nothing. I just see bupkis.”

Hogan nodded. “We’ll review the DVR later. Maybe image enhancement will—”

“Down!” Dever shouted, and Hogan’s head slammed against the driver’s window. The windshield cracked violently as something crashed into it. Plings and plunks of rifle fire sounded on the Bronco’s metallic skin. Dever had his double-action-only USP .40 out, but instead of rising above the dashboard, he stayed hunched over the younger agent.

“Damn bureaucrats are going to murder us,” Dever snarled.

“They will if we don’t shoot back,” Hogan said. He felt a knot rising on his battered skull, but he was in no more of a mood to rise and engage the enemy than Dever.

M-16s and the Heckler & Koch pistols were hot stuff against poorly trained “coyotes” armed with AK-47s. The human smugglers couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn at one hundred yards, while both the Border Patrol’s chosen pistol and rifle could score head shots at that same distance. Unfortunately, the enemy gunmen across the border were three hundred yards out. The short-barreled M-4s came up as inferior at that distance when compared to the older but vastly more powerful Heckler & Koch G3 battle rifles. The G3’s 7.62 mm NATO bullet could kill at over eight hundred yards. Only the armor plating and the heavy engine of the USBP Ford Bronco had managed to stop the high-powered slugs from drilling into the two agents.

The windshield finally gave up the ghost and disintegrated into diamondlike cubes of broken glass that rained down upon the pair.

“Damn!” Dever shouted.

Suddenly, from across the border, another weapon discharged. It was deep and powerful, thundering across the plains. The Mexican rifles stopped firing.

Dever poked the camera up over the dashboard, the LED screen rotated so that he could use it as an electronic periscope. G3 rifles crackled again from the trucks, but the tongues of muzzle-flashes licked out into the desert behind them.

Someone else had entered the fray.

MACK BOLAN HAD INTENDED to make his incursion against the alleged Mexican military forces covertly, but the lives of two American lawmen were on the line. The Executioner rapidly pulled the suppressor off his Barrett M-98 rifle and mounted the muzzle brake. He was going to need to make noise to redirect the murderous gunmen’s attention.

With his first pull of the trigger, the M-98 spit a .338 Lapua Magnum round into the head of one of the riflemen. The result was instant decapitation as the 300-grain slug detonated the Mexican’s skull with hydrostatic overpressure.

Sprayed with gore, stringy brain mass and bone fragments, the other gunmen in the truck were struck momentarily numb. Bolan’s first target slid over the rail of the truck, plopping to the desert sand below.

There was no doubt now that the enemy soldiers knew where the rifle shot came from. The Lapua Magnum round was designed to kill humans at over a mile and a half away, or punch through the engine of a lightly armored vehicle at closer range. That kind of power was accompanied by a throaty roar and a flash like lightning.

Just to make certain, the gunman right next to the first target caught a second Barrett round at the center of his clavicle. Windmilling backward as a fountain of blood vomited through the .338-inch hole in his upper chest, the Mexican was dumped next to the first target in the sand. G3s ripped to life, but the Executioner was in motion, leaving the area he’d fired from.

The semiautomatic Barrett punched out another slug as Bolan fired from the hip, catching a third smuggler through the center of his torso. The dying Mexican folded like a cheap shirt, collapsing as a grapefruit-size crater formed when the Magnum bullet excavated two vertibrae through the skin of his back.

Panic and screams had taken over the smuggling crew and one of the trucks fired up its engine. Bolan shouldered the Barrett and tapped off two .338 rounds which smashed through its grille. The engine seized up as the heavyweight slugs tore through gears and pistons. A commanding voice cut through the howls of fear.

“Track and fire! Split up! We’re too easy a target in the trucks!”

Bolan slung the mighty Barrett and drew his Beretta 93-R machine pistol from its spot under his left armpit. Suppressed, its muzzle-flash would disappear in the desert battleground. Now that he had their attention, he needed stealth and the protective curtain of nighttime shadows. The foregrip lever folded down, and he flipped the selector to 3-round burst. A snarl of silenced Parabellum rounds coughed from the end of the Beretta’s can, ripping into a man standing nearest to the leader shouting orders.

The leader of this group reacted not as a frightened smuggler but as a cold-blooded professional, pulling Bolan’s quiet kill in front of him as a human shield. Whether the Mexican had been dead or alive, his commander had deemed his own existence more important. Bolan popped off another triburst that forced the enemy headman behind the cover of his vehicle, 9 mm rounds eliciting jerks from his human shield.

A grenade sailed high and wide of the Executioner’s position, but he wasn’t going to stay upright. The minibomb detonated, shrapnel singing through the air in a sheet of razor wire over his fallen form. Bolan sighted on the legs of another rifleman and chewed his kneecaps off with another burst. The gunman howled in agony, collapsing facefirst in the sand. Strangled sobs of pain resounded from the fallen soldier.

“Aqui!” a Mexican rifleman shouted. Bolan rolled quickly out of the path of a salvo of bullets, triggering a trio of 9 mm slugs into the shooter’s chest.

Bolan took a momentary disadvantage and profited from it, grabbing the fallen rifleman’s G3 and a bandolier of ammunition off him. He dumped the magazine and slapped a 20-round box into the battle rifle. A Mexican rushed toward Bolan, too close and too fast for the Executioner to shoot, but the heavy wooden stock was as lethal as any bullet. With a sickening crunch, the heavy rifle butt caved in the gunner’s jaw on its way to splitting his palate and facial structure. Shards of jagged bone speared the unfortunate thug’s brain, dropping him instantly into a pile of dying human meat in the border sand.

A second man burst into view and Bolan brought the stock down hard into the side of the newcomer’s neck. The gunman’s neck released a wet, stomach-churning snap as it failed to absorb the lethal impact. Spine crushed, the Mexican collapsed at the Executioner’s feet.

Another truck engine turned over, and the Executioner whirled, burning off a half dozen slugs through the driver’s door. The wheelman jerked violently as bullets exploded through sheet metal and soft flesh. A river of blood poured from his lips as he slid out the door.

“Fall back! Fall back!” the enemy commander shouted. He jumped from the bed of the driverless vehicle toward the third truck. He laid down a sheet of covering fire to keep the Executioner at bay, but Bolan didn’t want to cut off the last vehicle.

Instead, he waited, letting the commander and the remnants of his group pack into the back of the remaining vehicle. A mad roostertail shot from under the wheels as the truck sought traction, driver in a panic and applying too much gas. Finally the treads bit into the sand and the vehicle lurched away from the death grounds.

Overloaded with men, it swayed as it made a wild turn back to its base, but the low center of gravity won out, keeping all the wheels on the ground. Bolan yanked the lifeless driver out of the cab. The Mexican riding shotgun with him was slumped, coughing up blood from lethal injuries. There was no way that Bolan could treat the horrific wounds inflicted by the powerful rifle. He unleathered the Desert Eagle and ended the gunman’s suffering with a 240-grain skull smasher. He pushed the corpse out of the cab and started the truck.

The Border Patrol agents, hundreds of yards away, had gotten out of their vehicle, watching in consternation. They’d just seen nearly a dozen men who’d tried to kill them left dead or wounded on the desert sand, their black-clad savior commandeering the Mexican truck to take up pursuit.

Bolan hated to leave the patrolmen in the lurch, their vehicle destroyed. He opened his satellite phone, linking up to Stony Man Farm.

“Bear, send a recovery team. We have two Border Patrol agents who’ll have a long walk unless they get a new ride,” the Executioner said. He slipped on a pair of night-vision goggles so that he could watch the road without resorting to headlights, which would betray to the escaping enemy that they were being hunted.

“We’re on it. Satellite imagery is following the remaining truck, if you should lose it,” Aaron Kurtzman responded.

“Not likely,” Bolan returned. “I put the fear of hell itself into them. The enemy driver is plowing up countryside as if there were no tomorrow.”

“ETA for the pickup on your agents is about five minutes. Satellite imagery shows that they’re unharmed. Both are moving around normally.”

“Great news,” Bolan said. “I hated to blow the element of surprise, but I couldn’t just stand by and let two lawmen be murdered.”

“Now we get to see where the rabbits hole up,” Kurtzman told him. “You were right, though, Striker. They couldn’t be easier to track if they had a neon sign on them.”

The Mexicans’ truck bounced and charged across the terrain several hundred yards away from Bolan’s vehicle. Finally, the two-and-a-half-ton truck swerved. It almost tipped again, two wheels rising a couple of feet into the air, but the driver recovered the vehicle’s balance.

“They’re on a road now, Striker,” Kurtzman informed him.

Bolan eased his “borrowed” ride onto the road with far more grace than his quarry. Though the road was paved, there were no lights along it, or even rails on either side, just soft, gravel-filled shoulders. The fewer lights, the better. He didn’t need his terrorized prey to realize that he was still with them. As it was, he let off the gas enough to increase the gap.

Judging by the speed and distance traveled, they’d already gone twenty miles past the Arizona-Mexico border. The G3 and the powerful Barret M-98 rested on the bloody seat, in case he was being drawn into a trap. It was hours from dawn. Hopefully, he’d arrive at his intended destination before sunrise so that he could make a covert insertion.

If not, Bolan would do the best he could, even in broad daylight, though he doubted that his quarry had much farther to go. Already, they had dropped from nearly eighty miles an hour to half that. Bolan matched their speed, and saw them turn onto another road. There was a sign at the intersection. The Executioner paused long enough to read that the road led to an Army base.

“What’s the status on this base?” Bolan asked, reading off the name to Kurtzman.

“It’s fully active, Striker. It’s mostly a supply and transport depot, and according to reports, it’s been on the bubble as far as closing. There isn’t enough money to keep it going, with rising gasoline prices and the Mexican government just barely out of the red,” Kurtzman explained.

“So they’re taking odd jobs to keep the gates open?” Bolan asked.

Kurtzman sighed. “Sounds like it. A little dilemma.”

“No dilemma at all,” Bolan replied. “They tried to kill American lawmen. I’ve fought enough top-secret U.S. groups funded by drug money who murdered anyone in their way and shut them down. Slaughtering people and selling addictive poison isn’t a valid option for any group to fund itself.”

“Not everyone on the base is in on the cocaine cowboy rodeo,” Kurtzman stated.

“I’ve got a face and a voice,” Bolan returned. “When I cut off the head, the rest will die. I’m closing this connection now, Bear. Places to go. Things to break. Catch you later.”

He turned off the sat phone and pulled the truck off the road as he saw the supply depot’s lights in the distance.

The rest of this trip was going to be on foot.

BLANCA ASADO PUSHED HER auburn hair off of her forehead, kneading the skin below her hairline as she looked at the photograph of her twin sister lying on the morgue table. She squeezed her brow until it felt as if her skull was going to crack under the pressure, her eyes burning with tears. A swirl of sickness spun in her guts and air in the room felt unbreathable, despite the open window and the fact that Armando Diceverde wasn’t smoking.

“Blanca…” Diceverde began. “Blanca, are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” Asado replied. Rosa’s eyes had been closed, but she could tell by the way they had been shut that the force of a .38 Super slug to the brain had nearly disgorged the orbs from their sockets.

Diceverde wasn’t a tall man, and he only came up to Blanca Asado’s shoulder. The fact that Blanca was looking at the remains of her sister and best friend only made him feel spiritually smaller. A choked sob escaped Asado’s lips and she shook her head.

“Rosa wasn’t into making money with drugs. We’ve both seen what that shit does to good people,” Asado explained.

“You’re preaching to the choir, Blanca,” Diceverde replied. “She’d been flagging things for me to look at. We’ve both noticed something new burrowing into Acapulco’s drug scene. Someone has been giving the Juarez Cartel a real knocking.”

“And this is why Rosa was killed? Brujillo and his wife have been working hard together to end the hold that the cartels have over Acapulco. Rosa told me that she was investigating all forms of threats detected against Madame Brujillo.”

“And on the surface, they seemed to be antigovernment attacks, but Rosa was curious about the sheer ferocity levied against the first lady,” Diceverde replied. “She sent me copies of her research into a new player on the drug scene, organized around a Santa Muerte cult.”

Blanca wrinkled her nose at the mention of the death cult, a popular subreligion that had sprung up in the underworld. Loosely based on Santería, Santa Muerte was a more ethically flexible religion, its morality open enough to allow drug dealers and murderers with faith issues to make amends for their wrongdoing with prayer and sacrifice, without hindering their more bloodthirsty and highly profitable activities. Suddenly the sins of dealing poison or mowing down another human being could be washed away with a moment’s contrition without renunciation of their previous crimes. Congregations sprung up in destitute slums and prison blocks across Mexico, and followers came from every walk of life, from the lowest gutter urchin to the most powerful drug baron.

“So if Rosa was picking up leads about Santa Muerte cultists taking over the state’s drug scene and trying to kill the governor and his wife…” Blanca began.

“The cultists have never made an attempt against Señora Brujillo,” Diceverde countered. “They have been hitting the Juarez Cartel and the smaller organizations hard, so much so that the Juarez group has been importing help from overseas.”

“So why would they accuse my sister of being part of this Santa Muerte cult and its takeover bid?” Asado asked. “Or of trying to murder the first lady?”

“We might never know,” Diceverde answered. “Maybe she saw something during the hit. There was a sighting of two men escaping the resort after the gunfight. An evidence technician I know also told me, off the record, that he was ordered to eliminate evidence of two 9 mm submachine guns from the battle scene.”

“Two 9 mm SMGs?” Asado asked. She did some mental arithmetic, looking at the reports of the fight. “The assassins were using Mexican-issue G3 rifles. The bodyguards had .45 and .38-caliber handguns and submachine guns. The first lady shot several assassins using a .38 owned by one of the protection detail…”

“And she shot your sister in the head,” Diceverde punctuated.

Asado took a deep breath. “After my sister might have been responsible for at least four dead assassins.”

“Too many shell casings to match with slugs,” Diceverde countered. “But you know Rosa and her baby Detonics .45s.”

“She was deadly with them,” Blanca replied. Her brow furrowed and her eyes began to sting. “Rosa wouldn’t have tried to shoot the first lady, even if she was responsible for a fake assassination attempt on herself. She wouldn’t have pulled a gun on her!”

“Everything that First Lady Brujillo is saying contradicts the hints that Rosa and I had been gathering,” Diceverde replied. His lips pulled into a tight line across his mouth. “Unfortunately, someone got to Rosa’s copies of the records when she died.”

“Someone on her protection detail who hadn’t been killed at the resort, most likely,” Asado said, her mind focusing on the problem.

“Not likely. The first lady liked to keep her personal staff close by. Anyone severed from her service usually ended up going somewhere far away,” Diceverde explained.

Asado frowned. “So that’s why the Feds want to talk to me.”

“If they’ve been fooled into thinking that Rosa was dirty, they might want to know how much she told you,” Diceverde added.

Asado took a deep breath. “I need to talk to someone about this. I know some people who know some people.”

“How many trust you enough to give you that kind of wiggle room?” Diceverde asked.

Asado’s shoulders fell.

The room was hot and cramped, bugs rattling against the rapidly disintegrating screen on the window. A small, naked bulb in a desk lamp glowed, throwing light on the reporter’s copies of Rosa Asado’s notes.

“The dent in the Juarez Cartel’s activity came when Governor Brujillo was elected,” Asado noted. “And it’s only become larger the more the governor cracked down on the cartel.”

“Circumstantial evidence. Nothing that would stand up in a court of law,” Diceverde admitted, regret weighing his words.

Bugs fluttered en masse from the screen, buzzing away into the night, drawing Asado’s attention. Something had frightened the tiny, sensitive creatures. Her hand slid under the loose tail of her blouse and she pulled out a hammerless .357 Magnum snub-nosed Ruger.

Diceverde’s eyes widened at the sight of the revolver. “What—”

Asado put a finger to her lips and shook her head. The journalist fell silent, hazel eyes going to the window. She pushed him to the wall and guided him to sit, protected by brick and masonry.

“I didn’t even see that,” Diceverde whispered.

“Well, if you had, then it wouldn’t be doing the job I wanted it to,” Asado replied. “Shush.”

A fist punched through the tattered windowscreen, an ugly, lime-shaped object locked in it. Asado clamped her hand over it, clenching it tight, and jammed the muzzle of the Ruger up into the wrist attached to it. Two thunderbolt blasts ripped through the confined room, the sheer power of the Magnum pistol enough to sever the appendage.

A howl of pain cut through the night and she hurled the disembodied hand back through the screen. A heartbeat later the brutal little round object exploded, rocking the walls and ceiling hard enough to rain dust in the room. Diceverde winced from the grenade blast, but realized that if the mysterious hand had let go of the bomb, the two of them would undoubtedly have been killed instantly.

Curses sounded outside and Asado swept the files off the table, stuffing them into Diceverde’s briefcase. “Come on, Armi.”

The journalist wasn’t waiting for a second invitation. He was up and on the woman’s heels in a flash. He paused long enough to retrieve a nickel-plated Colt 1911 from a drawer and thumbed the hammer back, short fingers wrapping easily around the slender autoloader’s grip. He jammed two spare magazines loaded with .38 Super rounds into his offside pocket.

Though it was against the law for civilians to own guns in Mexico, that didn’t stop people from breaking the law. As well, Diceverde had made enough enemies across his career as a reporter to know he needed a powerful and reliable handgun. They didn’t get much more powerful and reliable than the Colt in .38 Super.

Asado grabbed a handful of Diceverde’s shirt and shoved him through the door as an assault rifle poked through the window frame. She opened fire on the weapon in the portal, her pistol blazing like the sun. Bullets chopped just an inch over Diceverde’s head, letting him know just how close he had come to dying. His stocky legs propelled him through the doorway and the front door to the building opened, a black shadow appearing in front of him.

The journalist saw the unmistakable profile of an AK-47 in the man’s hands, and Diceverde triggered the Colt twice. The .38 Super roared in the darkness, creating bright strobes of light. The rifleman jerked, and Diceverde wasn’t sure if he had scored hits or not.

A muzzle-flash flared from the mouth of the AK, but it was stretched and elongated. Having been present for enough gunfights, the little reporter knew that the shots had been discharged into the ceiling. Diceverde triggered the Colt twice more, cracking out 125-grain hollow-point rounds at well over 1300 feet per second, aiming just behind the origin of the muzzle-flash. He was glad he’d spent the money on having night-sights installed on the shiny pistol. By following the vibrant neon-green dot hovering in the distance between the more indistinct yellow rear dots, he knew exactly where he was aiming.

A strangled cry filled the air and the rifle clattered to the floor.

Thunderbolts launched from behind Diceverde and he jerked his attention to another figure in the door, which was writhing as Magnum projectiles speared through his body, soft, exposed lead peeling apart on contact with fluid biomass and tunnelling horrendous cavities through the chest of another gunman.

Diceverde ran to the door and pressed his broad back to the wall to the side. He took the momentary break to drop his half-empty magazine and pocket it, feeding a new stick of nine shots into the Colt.

He heard the clicking of metal as somewhere in the shadows, Blanca Asado reloaded the partially spent AK-47.

“We’ll need the firepower,” Asado stated.

“Blanca…” Diceverde began.

The words he intended to say were ripped from his memory as the wall suddenly exploded behind him, concussive forces hurling him to the floor, his vision blurring.

## CHAPTER TWO

The Executioner snipped chain links in the fence with his multitool, a sharp, powerful vise for cutting wire set at the base of the folding pliers. The circle of fence fell away, and he crawled through the hole.

He’d left his Barrett and the confiscated G3 behind in the truck, knowing that going in, he needed stealth and their added bulk would make his large, powerful frame even more noticeable. Still, he had the wicked Beretta 93-R machine pistol with its 20-round capacity and blunt suppressor under his arm, and the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle riding on his hip. Both handguns had been chosen by Bolan for their power and range. The Desert Eagle had proved itself a killer at out to two hundred yards, and the Beretta 93-R was a match for any submachine gun in his skilled hands, out to one hundred yards.

Though it was the Executioner’s plan to bring a fatal, final judgment to the commander of the smuggling forces who’d returned to the base, there was the possibility of uninvolved, honest Mexican soldiers staffing this facility. Opening fire without proper identification would put innocent blood on Bolan’s hands.

Luckily, aside from his pistols, Bolan also had various knives, garrottes and impact tools, truly silent means of delivering death. He saw the last of the trucks pull toward the motor pool, overladen with soldiers. All it would take would be one grenade to eliminate the smuggling military men, but before Bolan took out the enemy commander, he needed to get answers out of the man. A grenade might not leave enough left of the traitorous military leader to question, and an open gunfight would result in a conflict with soldiers whose duty was the defense of the base, not pushing heroin across the border.

Stalking closer, a shadow among shadows, Bolan closed on the group as soldiers disgorged from the truck.

He got within ten yards of the milling soldiers, his comprehension of Spanish more than sufficient to understand what was being said.

“We lost a third of the heroin,” one of the men reported.

“Juarez is going to be mad as hell,” the commander replied. “What the hell are we going to do?”

“We? You’re the one who ran away from one man,” the subordinate countered.

“Is that so?” the commander asked.

“Wait. Munoz…Hold on…”

A muzzle-flash lit up the accuser’s face an instant before it dissolved into a crater of spongy gore. Munoz lowered his .50-caliber Desert Eagle and looked around. “Any of the rest of you want to accuse me of running away?”

“No!” came the unanimous response.

“Good,” Munoz replied. “I’ll be in my office, contacting the cartel about the difficulties we’ve had tonight. In my version, we were struck by a significant force. It seemed as if they were Santa Muerte cultists.”

The soldiers nodded.

“Get the heroin stored away for our next trip. We’ll see if the part of the shipment left behind was touched. I doubt it. The Border Patrol wouldn’t cross two hundred yards into our territory to take out 150 kilos of Mexican Brown,” Munoz concluded. “Remember—Santa Muerte cultists ambushed us.”

It was one way for the commander to save face. The punctuation of his statement remained the dead man, his skull hollowed out by a thundering 350-grain bullet. Any deviation and the corpse would be joined by more. And apparently Munoz was in such a position of power that he could get away with burning his own men to the ground with impunity.

“I’m going to hit the bathroom,” another man said. His authority among the others was sufficient that he was able to slack off menial tasks to take care of biological functions, and the minions below him didn’t dare do more than grumble under their breath.

Bolan decided to shadow the loner instead of going right to Munoz. Kurtzman would contact him via his vibrating pager if anything of urgent interest were reported. The Farm undoubtedly had hacked into the phone system to spy on any communications coming in or going out, sifting for nuggets of gold in the streams of data running along fiber-optic wires.

The second in command had stepped into the latrine and begun to relieve himself when the Executioner snapped a powerful arm around his throat, pressure on his larynx strangling off a cry of dismay. Bolan rested the sharp edge of his commando knife across the Mexican’s brow and cheek.

“If you make a sound other than to answer my questions, I’ll carve out your left eye and saw off your nose in one slice. Comprende?” Bolan inquired.

“Yes,” the Mexican soldier rasped softly in English. Facial mutilation, especially the threat to his eye, had cowed the smuggler for now.

“How many on the base are in on the heroin pipeline?” Bolan asked.

“There used to be a dozen more,” the man began.

A hard push and blood trickled from the officer’s brow into his eye. A strangled whimper escaped.

“Minus them,” Bolan advised.

“Me. Colonel Munoz. The gate guards on duty. And the dozen or so unloading the truck,” the officer stated.

The answer sounded plausible, and the tremors in his captive’s voice had added a sense of truth to the confession.

The Executioner tugged his forearm tighter against his captive’s throat. “Let the survivors in your little bunch know that there’s an American who disapproves of your moonlighting.”

He jammed his thumb under the ear of the captive, pressing hard on the carotid artery long enough to render the smuggler unconscious without imparting any long-term harm.

Bolan turned the unconscious soldier around and deposited him on the seat of the toilet. He paused long enough to use a strip of plastic tape to take the man’s thumbprint, preserving it by pressing it to a three-by-five card for later scanning.

He had business to attend to.

Fourteen men were unloading heroin from the truck, several pushing a rolling pallet toward the depths of a storage building. Others worked on cleaning the blood spatter off their vehicle and picking up Munoz’s executed victim.

Bolan followed silently and stealthily after the quartet with the heroin. There were more than two hundred kilos on the pallet, meaning that Munoz’s declaration of half was either an understatement or he was delivering for more than just the Juarez Cartel.

The Executioner made a mental note to get that information out of the colonel before he died.

One straggler in the group had hung back. His task had to have been rear security, and since he gripped a rifle in both hands, he was Bolan’s first target. In two long strides, the wraith in black clamped a crushing hand around the throat of the soldier, cutting off any voiced protests just before spearing the seven-inch blade of his combat knife into the base of the gunman’s skull. Speared right through his brain, the major trunk of his central nervous system destroyed by the razor-sharp edge, he instantly turned into dead, dangling weight in the Executioner’s hand with only a whispered “squelch” of steel grating on bone betraying the swift kill.

The blade whipped out of the dead man’s neck, and Bolan shoved the corpse against one of the two men pushing on the trolley, both bodies collapsing to the ground as the warrior closed in behind the second drug pusher. Slick blood was the only thing glinting on the nonreflective battle knife, and even the dully glistening fluid disappeared when the Executioner plunged the unyielding steel into the Mexican soldier’s right kidney. A tortured sputter of pain was all that the smuggler had time to release before renal shock killed him. With a twist and a hard slice, the blade was free as the remaining pallet pusher grunted, shoving his lifeless friend off of him. There was a moment of complaint about the fool “playing around” before the Mexican realized he was complaining to a corpse.

He whipped his head around, but he only saw the waffle-tread of Bolan’s combat boot filling his world. The side kick smashed the Mexican smuggler’s nose flat, driving bone fragments back into his brain even as his neck snapped under the thunderous force of the blow.

The sickening crack that signaled the pallet pusher’s death alerted the man at the lead of the group and he whirled, reaching for a handgun in a flap holster.

Only the Executioner’s battle-honed reflexes gave him the advantage in beating the trooper’s quick draw. The black commando-style Bowie knife whistled through the air like a shard of night come alive. The gunman had snapped open his holster and stopped, fingers clawing up to the handle of the weapon jutting from his windpipe. Lips worked noiselessly as the last of the transport crew suffocated with an inch-and-a-half width of steel cutting off his air.

Bolan ripped a smaller, ring-handled knife from an inconspicuous sheath on his harness and charged in, two fingers through the loop base of the blade. A two-and-a-half-inch wedge of steel raked across both of the choking smuggler’s eyes, the stocky knife swung with enough force to splinter bone and carve a furrow in his forebrain. Bolan took the handle of the commando knife as the Mexican soldier slid off the black-phosphate blade to flop to the floor.

In the space of a few moments, four men lay dead, blood spreading in puddles on the concrete.

Bolan had to deal with the two hundred kilograms of heroin on the pallet, without resorting to a fire that would alert the remaining smugglers or Munoz in his office.

It took only a short time to locate a janitor’s closet, and bring back several cartons of cleaning supplies. He sliced open the necks of the bottled bleach, then punched air holes in their bottoms and upended them onto the packets of heroin. The air holes would allow the bleach to drain into the heroin more quickly to soak it into a useless morass of chemical paste. The perfectly squared blocks of black tar heroin deformed and swelled under the bleach’s assault. It wouldn’t take long for most of the remaining heroin to be ruined. And with the loss of the drugs near the border, the cartels that Munoz did business with would be enraged.

Though Munoz wouldn’t live to see the morning, the thought of losing a million dollars in heroin to the incompetence of the Mexican army would slow the cartels in doing further business with them. It was a small pause, a tiny impediment. But in the long run, it would give the DEA and the Border Patrol time to shore up their defenses against this particular batch of smugglers.

In the meantime, Bolan had a visit to pay and information to get.

BLANCA ASADO HATED to admit it, gripping the handle of the AK-47, but she was back in her element. Dealing with the emotional crush of her sister’s murder had kicked her around until she couldn’t think straight. In a way, she wanted to thank the faceless marauders who were swarming Armando Diceverde’s small motel room. She thrived on conflict, and because of that she was able to spend years struggling, alongside her sister, rising through the ranks of Mexican law enforcement before she quit and became a private security contractor.

Dread and sorrow were things she couldn’t control, but gunmen coming after her was something she did know how to handle. It would put the agony of losing her sister on hold for a while.

The sight of another masked gunman focused her and she ripped off a short burst from the AK, a row of bullet wounds blossoming from his belt to his throat as she zipped him up the center with the assault rifle. With the stock welded to her shoulder, the recoil was controllable. No ammunition wasted, and through her peripheral vision over the top of the sights, she was able to see other targets popping into view.

Unfortunately, an explosion threw her off as a grenade detonated just outside the door. Diceverde toppled backward, taking the brunt of the concussion, and Asado had to take a couple of steps to regain her balance. Her ears rang, and she cursed herself for not equalizing the pressure in her skull with a loud shout.

Another pair of gunmen appeared in the doorway, expecting their stun grenade to have flattened all opposition within. They were cocky, and their weapons were held low, fingers off the trigger, staring at the flattened photojournalist as he struggled to recover his senses.

“Easy pickings,” one man said.

“So you think,” Asado growled, pulling the trigger on the AK-47 and letting the weapon buck and kick against her shoulder. She held on tight, though, fighting against the muzzle’s rise just enough to keep from emptying rounds into the ceiling, slicing the cocky gunman up through his torso with a stream of 7.62 mm leaden scythes. The shooter slammed into his partner, giving Asado a moment to release the trigger, shift her aim and then tap it again. A trio of bullets spit into the face of the staggered second assassin, his hair and scalp flying back as though someone had thrown open a trapdoor.

Asado reached under Diceverde’s arm. “Come on, Armando.”

Diceverde got to his feet. He hadn’t lost control of his Colt, but he wisely kept it pointed at the ground. His senses were scrambled by the concussion grenade, and if the bomb had gone off inside the apartment, instead of in the doorway, the compression wave would have left them both far more than merely stunned. Asado helped pull Diceverde onto the balcony, and by the time he reached for the railing, he no longer needed assistance.

There were no more signs of enemy activity, but that could have been a lull in the action, Asado thought.

“My car is down there. Follow me,” Asado stated.

“Lead the way,” Diceverde replied. He picked up speed as they reached the stairs.

Asado jumped when she was five steps from the bottom, landing on the sidewalk in a crouch, using her forward momentum to throw her against the fender of her sedan. Gunfire sparked, and Diceverde’s Colt cracked into the darkness. The journalist ducked, having drawn the attention of the hit men, and Asado spotted the muzzle-flash, pinpointing the enemy gunners. She fired another burst, giving Diceverde a break to join her at the car.

Asado threw open the door and ripped off the last of the AK’s load to cover for Diceverde as he crawled into the passenger seat. She let the empty rifle clatter to the ground and slid in behind the wheel. A twist of the key and the engine roared to life. Throwing the car into Reverse, she peeled straight toward the assassins as they rushed her. Diceverde lurched up after reloading his pistol, but Asado stomped on the gas and the Chevy Impala’s rear bumper struck one of the gunmen. The Chevy shook, and Diceverde’s shot missed the charging gunmen as the car rolled over one and quickly past the other.

The other gunman had thrown himself out of the way and Asado stood on the brake, momentum whipping the nose of the Impala around as she ground the gearshift into drive. With a tromp on the gas, she was off, shooting into the street as gunfire banged against the car.

Diceverde shouted in pain, his gun falling into the seatwell.

“Armando?”

“Took one in shoulder,” he rasped.

“Just hang on,” Asado told him. “I’ll get you to some help.”

“Feels like my arm is broken, but there’s not much bleeding,” Diceverde said, pained.

“I’m sorry I got you into this,” Asado replied, swinging around a corner. She wanted to make certain no one followed her.

Once she was sure that they had no tail, she pulled off onto the side of the road and reached under her seat for the first-aid kit. She packed the gunshot wound with gauze and taped it in place to control the bleeding. Diceverde was right; there wasn’t much blood. She taped his forearm against his stomach to hold it in place, then worked up an improvised sling from seat belt straps in the backseat, always keeping an eye out for enemies who would try to finish the job.

Blanca Asado couldn’t believe she’d lost both her sister and her trust in her country in the same night.

COLONEL JAVIER MUNOZ put down the phone and massaged his brow. His mind reeled from the threats his Juarez connection had growled at him. He looked at the big chrome Desert Eagle on the desk next to him. If he didn’t recover the lost heroin, they’d thread his tongue out his throat and staple his genitals to it, before giving him the sweet release of death.

He rested his hand on the pebbled rubber grips of the massive handgun. One pull of the trigger and he’d hammer out a .50-caliber slug. He’d never shot anyone with it before this day, and Sosa’s death was illuminating. The man’s head had been cored violently, brains squirting out the back in a fountain of human destruction. But even the power of the Desert Eagle might not be enough against the gunmen of the Juarez Cartel. Maybe if he put the muzzle between his lips and squeezed, he wouldn’t feel it.

Something scraped behind him, a movement just outside the cone of yellowed light from his desk lamp. Munoz’s fingers clawed the big handgun closer when another Desert Eagle chopped down like an ax, crushing his carpal bones between two slabs of heavy steel. A hand clamped over the colonel’s mouth before he could let out a cry of pain over his shattered limb, bones floating freely in pulped meat. Munoz’s eyes bulged in their sockets and he was stretched hard backward out of the chair, neck bones creaking against each other.

“Nice pistol,” came a dry, grim voice. “Trouble is, I can lift mine.”

Munoz’s throat burned as his muffled howl of agony tried to force its way past his lips.

His attacker’s Desert Eagle disappeared with the ruffle of steel sheathing itself in leather.

Bolan reached out and picked up the massive .50-caliber weapon, thumbing back the hammer, then sliding on the safety. “In your next lifetime, if Desert Eagles are still around, this is how you should carry it.”

Munoz swallowed as the huge weapon’s muzzle pressed to his cheek. He wanted to struggle, but with Bolan’s knee shoved into the back of his chair, and hundreds of pounds of leverage hauling on his chin and stressing his spine, the colonel was left helpless and paralyzed with pain. His good hand clawed at the hand over his mouth as he struggled to speak past Bolan’s restraining fingers.

“You’ve got something to tell me?” Bolan asked, loosening his grip. “Just remember, you call for help, I put one in your stomach, so it’ll take you a long time to die.”

“Yes, sir,” Munoz whispered, making sure his voice didn’t rise. His windpipe still felt choked off, but this time from fear not physical force. Tears burned down the colonel’s cheeks.

“I listened to your phone call. Your bosses don’t think very much of your performance tonight,” Bolan taunted softly. “After all, losing nearly a dozen men to one enemy combatant?”

“You didn’t fight fair…” Munoz protested, his voice a harsh, ragged exhalation.

“And you did, opening fire on two American lawmen forbidden to return fire against you?” Bolan asked. Munoz’s neck twisted until he was looking at a pair of cold, merciless blue eyes. At first he was going to cry out in pain, but the icy gaze froze his soul.

“Skip the ‘poor me’ whining, Munoz,” Bolan informed him. “All I want to know is who am I sparing the trouble of mutilating you by putting a bullet in your head?”

“Roderigo Montoya-Juarez,” Munoz replied.

“Right,” Bolan returned. “As if Montoya-Juarez would get any of your foul fluids on his fingers. Tell me another joke.”

“I swear. I swear!” Munoz replied, his voice rising.

Bolan ground the steel of the barrel hard against Munoz’s cheek, the ridge of the bone crunching against the unyielding metal. His hand clamped tighter over the colonel’s mouth. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear that you were trying to make some noise in order to call for help.”

“I’m not,” Munoz whispered. “I’m not…I just don’t want to die.”

“You’ve done everything you can to convince me otherwise,” the Executioner informed him. “You know how light the trigger is on these pistols, right?”

Munoz heard the metallic clink of the safety catch snapping off. His pants grew hot and wet as his bladder cut loose. “Please…”

“You’re not giving me anything to make me want to spare your life,” Bolan said. “But, considering I just emptied twelve gallons of bleach into what was left of your heroin, I could just spare myself some hearing damage and let Montoya-Juarez have you.”

Munoz’s dark eyes bulged, irises narrowing to pinpricks in sheer horror.

Bolan released the colonel and flicked on the Desert Eagle’s safety.

“Wait…”

“For what?” Bolan asked.

“Juarez has competition,” Munoz replied.

“I know the layout,” Bolan told him. “There are six other cartels sweating Montoya-Juarez right now.”

“A new player who only popped up recently,” Munoz stated. “I gave Juarez a hookup to make a move the other day.”

“With who?” Bolan pressed.

“Army officer by the name of Salvada,” Munoz confessed. “Salvada called in some ex-soldiers to make the hit, but equipped them.”

The Executioner regarded him coldly as Munoz ran the numbers in his head. Nearly one hundred pints of bleach would completely ruin one hundred pounds of heroin instantly. That was a quarter of the two hundred kilograms he had left. Together with the 150 lost at the border, and even more seepage, Munoz could kiss any chance of making it up to the cartel.

Bolan dropped the magazine and racked the slide, then lobbed the empty Desert Eagle onto the desk. “All yours, Colonel. I suggest you run like hell. You’ve got a few hours before Montoya-Juarez stops waiting for you.”

Munoz nodded, looking at the gun.

“Who knows, maybe you can find mercy with the government and military you betrayed. Or you could trust that the Border Patrol won’t kill you on sight,” Bolan suggested. He lobbed one of the fat .50-caliber bullets to Munoz. “Or, you could find your own way out.”

The Executioner turned and left the office. He’d gotten halfway down the hall when he heard the solitary roar of the Mexican’s pistol, followed by the thud of a limp body striking the floor.

He was working his way up the Juarez Cartel, but now he heard about another player in this game.

One that might have been the reason why the governor of Guerrero State wanted the Executioner to join the conflict.

He’d cross that bridge when he got to it.

## CHAPTER THREE

Anibella Brujillo looked over the railing of the patio at the tall American who was walking up the marble stone path. Over six feet tall, he had deeply tanned skin and a lean, powerful frame. His denim jacket was tight at the shoulders, but hung loosely enough at the waist to inform her that he had to have concealed at least one large handgun in its folds. Clear, ice-blue eyes looked her over and she smiled softly, her wide, lush lips curving as her eyes narrowed invitingly. Emilio Brujillo didn’t even notice the man walking up the path until she gently cleared her throat.

“The American is here, darling,” Anibella said, resting her hand on his thigh, delicate fingers giving his linen-sheathed leg a tender scratch.

Brujillo looked up from his newspaper, nodding absently. “Thank you, darling.”

Brujillo was about twenty years older than Anibella, but even for being only in his midfifties, he was gray and wrinkled, a worn-down man. His run for the governorship of Guerrero had been long and hard, and his work since being in office had been relentless. It was as if the beautiful Mexican singer had married a withered old grandfather, instead of a vibrant, crusading politician. Physically, he looked a wreck, but he still managed to speak in a strong, forceful timbre. Some of her high-society friends seemed scandalized by her public displays of affection with the shrivelled politician, despite knowing about her dalliances on the side.

Emilio Brujillo walked toward the man his friend in the U.S. Justice Department had called Agent Matt Cooper. Anibella assumed it wasn’t his real name, more likely a cover for someone who had a far more sinister history. She looked him over, seeing signs of faint scar tissue on the man’s callused hands and the bit of forearm visible under the light, summer-weight denim jacket. He looked at her, and though his face carried an ageless quality, the glance carried the weight of a man who had been through more than one lifetime.

Brujillo shook Bolan’s hand, and despite the wear and tear on the Mexican governor’s features, his grip was strong, but not challenging. “Welcome to Acapulco, Señor Cooper.”

“Thank you, sir,” Bolan replied, nodding.

“This is my wife, Anibella,” Brujillo introduced. “Anything you can say to me, you can say in front of her. She is a part of my government, and is one of my most trusted confidants.”

Bolan looked at Anibella again, studying her. She reined in her charming, playful nature, instead presenting a curious and innocent facade. The Executioner tensed, watching the change wash over her, and Anibella realized that he was observant, noting the sudden shift in her outward nature. Anibella dropped the charade and simply smiled.

“A pleasure to meet you,” Bolan said, burying his suspicion out of her sight. He was as facile in controlling his emotions as she had been, which set her on edge.

“A pleasure to meet such a man who has earned our president’s trust as an ally,” Anibella replied.

Bolan nodded, looking to Brujillo. “I generally operate off the grid, and alone. Perhaps if you had a trusted operative…”

“I was thinking of having you work with my wife,” Brujillo began.

Bolan raised an eyebrow, glancing to her. “I’m sorry, sir, but…”

Anibella could sense his distrust, and her control over him slipping away.

That was when the Saint of Death tipped her hand, granting the high priestess her advantage back.

BLANCA ASADO RUBBED HER EYES and sighed. She hadn’t gotten much sleep after making certain that Armando Diceverde was patched up and hidden in a safe place. She didn’t want her friend to end up as a statistic or a victim of an overzealous assassin. Asado knew that the men who had struck the night before weren’t federales. Even though she’d engaged in a few “black” SWAT-style operations with the police, they would have had the hotel more tightly sewn up, and wouldn’t have even bothered with grenades through the window. They’d have simply opened up with some powerful rifles, not the relatively weak AK-47s, and just hosed through the walls for thirty seconds, then gone in and policed the corpses. The AKs would have penetrated the hotel walls, but these were gangsters, not working with the best knowledge of what a powerful weapon could do.

Asado’s home was being watched by the police. She recognized the unmarked cars and the stakeout teams, not because she knew the men personally, but because she knew their style. That was all right. Blanca had fresh clothing and some tools in the trunk of her Impala. She’d showered and changed at a public beach. While she had a Remington 12-gauge shotgun and a Heckler & Koch MP-5 machine pistol in her trunk, taking the place of her spare tire, she’d left them alone.

Instead, she’d reloaded her stubby little Ruger and pocketed two speedloaders for it. The pocket-size .357 Magnum revolver was a good gun, but she needed something easier to reload and shoot quickly and accurately. For that, she went with Armando’s Colt .38 Super. It was fast and powerful, but much more manageable in the recoil department. She would be able to conceal the flat pistol, as well. Considering that the .38 Super 1911 was one of the most popular handguns in Mexico, due to laws keeping citizens from owning military calibers like .45 auto or 9 mm, it would be easy to get spare ammunition and magazines.

Asado watched the gates of the governor’s mansion, noting the arrival of a man in a rental car. As he waited for the gate to open, he scanned around. Taking a look through a pair of compact binoculars, she caught his face. The blue eyes betrayed him as a North American. He caught sight of her and made eye contact for several moments.

Her hand dropped to the chrome pistol on the seat next to her, lips drawn tightly.

Could Anibella Brujillo have hired an American assassin to clean up her affairs?

No. She saw the badge and Justice Department ID card that he’d flashed. He was here in an official capacity. Of course, that wouldn’t exclude his presence as a CIA assassin sent to silence a potential threat to the first lady. But try as she might, she couldn’t reconcile her paranoia with her instincts and experience.

The rental car went through the gates unhindered, and Asado relaxed. She had a knot of tension balled up between her shoulder blades that sent a spike of pain spearing out through her forehead. She wondered, idly, if it was anything approaching the pain her sister felt when she’d been shot. Blanca had been the skeptic of the pair, doubting Rosa’s so-called psychic flashes. The phantom pain was still there, and Asado couldn’t unkink her shoulders though she had already swallowed half a dozen painkillers.

After several minutes of discomfort, Asado tilted and stretched her neck and as she did so, the pain between her shoulders disappeared with a click. Out of her peripheral vision, she spotted movement and she instantly slouched in her seat.

It was a pair of black vans, quickly rolling up the street. Since this particular road led nowhere, there was no need for speeding. In a heartbeat, her hand flashed to the grips of the chrome Colt resting on the seat, the safety snapped off with a click that echoed the release of her tightened tendons in her neck. If it was a psychic message sent through her pain centers, she wished that she’d been able to tell Rosa about it. Maybe, though, it was her dead twin, warning her from beyond.

The lead van accelerated past her Impala, gunfire flashing out the passenger window. The guard at the gate jerked violently as he was torn crotch to throat by a line of automatic fire. He slammed back into the ground and the front grille of the van connected with wrought-iron bars. Peeled from their frame and their runners, the metal sliding gates hurled out of the path of the speeding vehicle. It jolted and rolled to a halt just beyond. The second van swerved around it as men disgorged from the rear of the stalled lead vehicle.

Asado fired up the ignition, but just before the engine turned over, she heard a shout in what sounded like Russian. Her stomach twisted as she realized that the Juarez Cartel had to have brought in outside muscle, namely the mafiya. The Russian organized crime Families were deadly men, culling the ranks of the Soviet military and intelligence to get their most ruthless soldiers and assassins.

As much as this seemed like an opportunity for the first lady to pay for framing her sister as a drug smuggler, Asado couldn’t ignore the fact that innocent bystanders would be caught and killed in the cross fire.

And then there was that blue-eyed American. He was a mystery in this equation, as was Anibella Brujillo. Joining the conflict would give her a vantage point on the questions popping up in her mind.

She gunned the Impala and aimed for one of the men who had rushed to watch the gate. The man was pasty and blond, an obvious Russian, but the Uzi in his hands spoke its message understandable in any language. A volley of 9 mm bullets deflected off the streamlined hood and windshield of the Chevy before the gunner could compensate his angle of fire. Asado put the pedal to the metal and felt the jarring impact of her front fender against the mafiya thug, bones shattering on impact as he launched into her windshield and smeared torn flesh and gore across the cracked safety glass.

Asado regretted losing the Impala, but lives were at stake. She dived out of the driver’s seat after popping the rear trunk. The MP-5 and a bag of magazines came immediately to hand, and she threw the satchel over her shoulder like a lethal purse.

Only one of the Russians had stayed behind to watch the gate, meaning that the killers had a plan to be in and out before a prolonged firefight could break out.

Thunder crashed in the distance, the deep and throaty bark of a .44 Magnum pistol cracking loudly as a counterpoint to the softer chatter of machine pistols.

The American had come, and he was prepared for a fight.

MACK BOLAN’S CURIOSITY about Anibella Brujillo was put on hold with the distinct rattle of an automatic weapon in the distance. In a heartbeat he had the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle out of its quick-draw leather, safety off, finger resting in register against the trigger guard. It took only a moment of hesitation to call out in Spanish to Governor Emilio Brujillo’s bodyguards to get him to safety immediately.

Anibella pulled a Glock from underneath the breakfast table. She didn’t rack the slide, and her finger was off the trigger, muzzle aimed at the ground.

“That means you, too, ma’am,” Bolan snapped.

Her hazel eyes flashed brightly with indignity. “They are attacking my home, Mr. Cooper, and I have been trained by the best commandos Mexico has.”

“They’re also heavily armed,” Bolan countered. He knew that the first lady hadn’t run at the previous assassination attempt. Indeed, she’d picked up a handgun belonging to one of her fallen bodyguards and proceeded to fight back with savage proficiency. “If you want to help, protect your husband and fall back along with his security detail.”

“But…” Anibella began, but the Executioner had no time to waste in debating with her. He took off in a long, loping run, keeping to the concealment of a row of planter-based hedges. The concrete would provide him with cover and he found a good position where he’d have protected fields of fire to control the rear entrance of the mansion.

A shape crouched beside him and from the smell of Anibella’s perfume, he didn’t even have to look to identify her.

“Not going to yell at me?” the woman asked, finding a notch in the concrete planter she kneeled against.

“It’s too late now, and I’d give away my position,” Bolan returned, containing the urge to growl at her. “It’s your funeral.”

Her wide lips curved upward in a smirk. “I don’t think you’ll allow that—”

“Incoming,” Bolan cut her off. He took careful aim with the Desert Eagle, the front sight cutting across the forehead of a gunman. He was mildly surprised at the Slavic features of the hitter, as well as the Uzi submachine gun in his hands. However, that didn’t slow his pull of the trigger, nor the screaming 240-grain jacketed hollow-point round he punched through the Russian’s skull at more than 1300 feet per second. The dome of bone and scalp that had been the top of the assassin’s head flipped back on strips of stretchy flesh.

Other mafiya goons dived wildly for cover as the Executioner tracked a second Uzi-armed killer and popped another .44 Magnum slug through his rib cage. Eight hundred foot-pounds of energy tore the Russian’s heart in two, killing him instantly. Anibella’s Glock .40 barked off to Bolan’s right, taking down a third gunman with a double-tap to the upper chest.

Three down so far, but a half dozen SMGs ripped out a sheet of return fire that drove them both back behind the protection of concrete garden decorations.

“You wouldn’t happen to have anything heavier…or maybe some grenades, would you?” First Lady Brujillo asked.

“Not right now,” Bolan replied, shifting his position to the end of a long marble bench. Swinging around the side, he tapped off four quick shots that took two of the hit men off guard from their flank. Cut down by the Magnum heartstoppers, he drew the attention of the remaining four shooters. Bolan was letting the marble absorb the fire lancing in his direction, allowing the gunmen to burn up their reserves of ammunition on bulletproof stone. Suddenly, he noticed movement in his peripheral vision.

Anibella’s Glock ripped off several quick shots toward a knot of Russians who were trying to slip up on Bolan’s blind side. The Executioner’s left hand ripped his Beretta from its shoulder holster as he emptied his Desert Eagle toward the mobsters, helping to keep them down. One of the shooters jerked violently, his neck geysering out a fountain of arterial blood as a .44 Magnum round ripped through it. Finally the 93-R machine pistol snapped out at full extension on his left arm. On semiauto, the six-and-a-half-inch barrel of the Beretta spun a 9 mm shot through the face of a second of the newcomers. The 93-R’s extra barrel length gave him enough accuracy to make lethal shots at forty yards, while the 9 mm bullet still had enough velocity to cause major damage.

There was more gunfire in the distance, automatic weapons chattering on an exchange of fire that gave the Executioner pause. From his memorization of the mansion’s layout, none of the other security on the scene would have been in a position to engage in combat with the invaders. Someone else had entered this conflict, and Bolan wasn’t certain exactly who.

“Fall back to the house,” Bolan ordered, capping off a pair of Parabellum rounds into the face of a Russian hitter. A gory splash churned up the assassin’s features, whipping him to the ground like a sack of garbage.

“Why?” Anibella Brujillo asked. Her Glock roared twice more, fat bullets tearing through the shoulder of a second Uzi-packing killer. She bore down and finished off the wounded man with three more shots into his center of mass, 180-grain bullets churning internal organs into pureed slush.

“Do it!” the Executioner growled. He popped the empty magazine from his Desert Eagle, stuffed it into his waistband, slapped in a fresh stick and brought the weapon to bear with one hand, all while punching out two more accurate shots from his Beretta. “I’ll cover you. Go!”

The first lady took off. Bolan rose, both handguns blazing. He was firing to draw the assassins’ attention, but even as he sidestepped along the planters, Beretta and Desert Eagle barking almost in unison, he managed to tag two more of the mafiya gunmen, dropping their corpses to the lawn, leaking from multiple wounds.

The full-auto gunfight around the corner was growing closer, and Bolan didn’t want to have to deal with a mysterious newcomer and the governor’s decisively lethal wife at the same time.

Anibella Brujillo reached the back entrance to the mansion, security team members in the doorway with machine pistols barking. Uzis chattered angrily and one of the Mexican bodyguards let out a gargled cry of pain, collapsing to his knees. Brujillo whirled and hooked the injured Mexican under his arm and pulled him to cover as Bolan ripped out 9 mm and .44 Magnum retribution against the knot of gunmen opening fire on the first lady.

“Hurry up!” Anibella shouted.

“Get him to cover!” Bolan snapped. He stuffed the Desert Eagle into his waistband and dropped behind the concrete planter. His index finger stabbed the release on the Beretta, and the 20-round magazine slid freely to the ground. A spare stick snapped into place, and he released the slide to get the machine pistol into battery. The whole move took a second and a half, and he was up and shooting, 9 mm slugs punching into the heart of a bold Russian gunman rushing his position.

The Executioner swung from the dropped assassin and struck another mafiya thug in the throat. Vertebrae exploded from the back of the gunman’s neck.

He turned and saw an auburn-haired woman step into view at the corner of the mansion. She had an Uzi in her hands, exchanging fire with one of the armed raiders. She stitched him from crotch to throat, dropping the Russian like a sack of laundry. She whirled and was feeding her partially spent machine pistol a fresh magazine, when she saw the Executioner. There was a moment of hesitation on her face.

Bolan recognized the woman instantly. He knew the face of the dead bodyguard from the resort assault, Rosa Asado. But, having read the dead woman’s file, he also knew she was one of a pair of identical twins. This had to be Blanca Asado. He remembered, from his briefing with Hal Brognola, that Blanca was wanted for questioning about her sister’s alleged activities as the mastermind behind the first kill-attempt against the governor’s wife.

If the Asado family wanted the first lady dead, then why in hell was Asado here, shooting it out with Russian hired guns when they could have exacted revenge for the murdered twin?

Brognola had surmised, during the briefing, that the Russians and the murdered Asado had been at cross purposes, both seeking the death of Mrs. Brujillo.

All this flashed in a single moment of recognition, and Bolan left the questions to be asked later when he spotted another mafiya gunman sneaking up on Asado’s blind side. Bolan pulled his Desert Eagle from his waistband and punched out a single 240-grain slug that took the Russian at the V of his collarbone. Windpipe, aorta and spine torn out by the heavyweight bulldozer of lead and copper, the gunman flopped to the ground in a bloody mess.

Asado exchanged a quick, wordless glance with the Executioner before her eyes scanned for other opposition.

“Gracias,” she called.

Bolan scrambled, cutting the distance between the two of them, staying alert for any of the mafiya goons who might have retreated to regroup for another attack. He took advantage of the pause to feed the hungry Desert Eagle again, returning it to his hip holster before transferring the 93-R to his right hand. “Blanca?”

“You have the advantage over me, sir,” Asado returned.

“You out for vengeance for your sister?” Bolan pressed.

“I’d like to know who I’m talking to,” Asado answered, her eyes scanning the grounds.

“Agent Matt Cooper,” Bolan introduced. “You here for blood?”

“I’m here for answers,” Asado stated. She had the Uzi pointed between Bolan’s feet, a gesture not lost on the warrior. She didn’t trust him.

“So am I,” Bolan replied. “The one answer I want is, are you looking for payback for your sister?”

Asado’s eyes narrowed, lightning sparking behind them at the accusation. “Someone framed my sister, and now she’s dead, and the police want to ‘question’ me. And you know how they ask questions in a Mexican jail.”

Bolan’s lips drew into a tight line. “So do you want to stick around and find out the truth?”

Asado glanced toward the mansion. “You think you can pull the fangs on Anibella Brujillo?”

Bolan looked over his shoulder, then back to Asado. He fished a business card out of his pocket and flipped it to her. “Contact me if you can. Use the voice-mail line. It’s secure.”

“You sure about that?” Asado asked.

“It’s ironclad,” Bolan told her. “Get out of here.”

Asado let the Uzi drop to the ground between them. “I’m trusting you for now.”

She took off around the corner, heading for the front gate. Sirens wailed in the distance. Asado was going to have to hoof it to disappear before the law showed up, but with the strides she was taking, she’d have enough time to reach whatever wheels she had stashed away. He’d noticed a vehicle parked not far from the mansion’s entrance, and with her appearance, he realized the occupant of the unknown car. Strewed corpses were testimony to the odds that she’d helped to cut down.

The Executioner was glad for the assistance, but Asado’s presence was worrying. She was on the run, and she was convinced her sister had been set up. That she was willing to hang back and trust Bolan to keep her in the loop was an advantage he possessed now. He looked back to the mansion and saw Anibella Brujillo, packing an MP-5 from the injured bodyguard. Her eyes locked on him with smoldering suspicion, but Bolan knew how to play it cool and close to the vest.

The first lady wanted in on his hunt for the people out to kill her, at least on the surface, but she was getting a little too cozy for Bolan’s tastes. Having someone out from under Anibella Brujillo’s thumb would allow him some wiggle room.

It was going to be tricky, but when he’d been recruited by Brognola for this, he was expecting a maze of deception. For now, he had a string to lead him back out if he wandered in too deeply.

## CHAPTER FOUR

Thirty-six hours earlier

“I’m glad you could take this meeting, Striker,” Hal Brognola said as Bolan sat at the end of the polished oak conference table. Monitors displaying satellite-and computer-generated maps flickered, bathing the dimly lit room in a blue glow that conflicted with the low-powered amber bulbs built into the smooth railings around the sides of the conference room, the woodgrain and luster of the rail matching that of the finely made table that Bolan sat at. The two friends were in the operations center beneath Camp David.

“I had a little downtime after my last mission,” the Executioner replied.

“You get damned little enough R and R,” Brognola stated.

Bolan simply shrugged. “I’m no good at relaxing.”

“That’s because you need more practice,” Brognola grumbled. “Unfortunately, this has the makings of a major crisis, and the Mexican president asked for help from ‘Striker.’”

Bolan’s brow furrowed at the memories of what had been dubbed by the press as the Border Fire crisis. It had flavored the more recent dissent against the illegal immigration problem that followed. Bolan had worked almost side by side with the Mexican president, fending off several factions attempting to overthrow him and bring Mexico into open conflict with the United States. Only the combined forces of Stony Man Farm had brought the crisis to an end, battling wildly disparate forces.

The lights built into the oaken rail flared brighter and lines built into the ceiling added to the illumination, dispersing shadow and heralding the approach of the President of the United States and his guest, the Mexican president.

“Striker,” the Man greeted Bolan. “I believe you know my guest.”

“Good to see you in good health, sir,” Bolan greeted the Mexican president.

“I wish that we could have been reunited under more cordial circumstances, my friend,” the Mexican leader replied. “But I am glad to see you are still healthy, as well.”

“I know you’re not one for small talk, so we’ll get down to the basics, Striker,” the President said. “There’s a cartel war going on in the Acapulco area, Guerrero State.”

“And it’s struck uncomfortably close to home with your friend, Governor Brujillo?” Bolan asked.

“You must have your finger on the pulse of my nation,” the Mexican president stated.

“It helps to know where trouble occurs,” Bolan explained. “I put the Acapulco situation in the forefront of my mind.”

“Because of the American singer who was murdered?” the Hispanic official asked.

“Because it appeared that an army unit was involved in trying to murder a government official in a blatant terrorist attack,” Bolan corrected. “First Lady Brujillo is the governor’s face on the war on drugs in the Acapulco area.”

“With Americans going down there for vacations, it’s one of the hotspots that cartels are competing for control of,” the U.S. President noted. “And unfortunately, there’s nothing constitutional that we can do to limit that sort of demand.”

“I’m more interested in containing the violence that the cartels inflict upon people,” Bolan stated. “Unfortunately, between street level control of neighborhood dealers to attempted assassinations of government leaders, that kind of violence can smother nations and continents. Believe me, for all the heads I’ve killed, the body still manages to live on and grow a new one.”

“Sounds like you get discouraged,” the Mexican leader commented.

“It takes more than me burning a cartel to the ground to end your problems,” Bolan returned, no bitterness in his voice. “Treat the disease and forget about picking at the bandage I applied.”

The man bristled noticeably, but he held his tongue at reprimanding the Executioner. Bolan had a point about what was really needed. The lone warrior had assailed the leaders of drug cartels for years, doing fantastic amounts of damage, and instead of seizing upon the momentary advantage he supplied, laboriously moving government agencies stumbled, hemmed and hawed, allowing new batches of thugs to swarm in to replace the severed head.

“Governor Brujillo is a good man, and he is trying to implement more than a slash-and-burn approach to fighting drugs in his state,” the Mexican president replied. “He deserves all the help we can get.”

“He’ll get it, then,” Bolan replied. He tapped the overstuffed file folder in front of him. “I’ve got all the intel I need, and I have an appointment on the border tonight.”

“The border?” the Mexican leader asked.

“I have word of a military unit making a heroin run tonight,” Bolan explained. “They might not have been the ones behind Anibella Brujillo’s assassination attempt, but maybe they’ll give me a link to someone who would know.”

“You’ll be acting against my country’s military, Striker.”

“I’ll be acting against traitors. Nowhere in their oath of duty does it say they have to assist in peddling poison to other nations,” Bolan countered. “That doesn’t contribute to protecting Mexico. It only breaks the laws of your nation and mine. And you know firsthand how I deal with those kinds of men. Their sentence has been dictated by their own actions.”

The Executioner stood, took the file and left the two national leaders behind in the conference room to mull over his words. He had a flight to catch and drug smugglers to kill.

IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG for the fingerprints of the fallen Russian mafiya assassins to get back to Bolan. The Executioner had conducted an immediate inspection of the corpses, and using a digital camera, blood and a white sheet of paper, he was able to get the prints of a half dozen of the would-be killers before the federales arrived.

“Four of the six you nailed were former Spetznaz,” Aaron Kurtzman informed Bolan. “The other two were combat swimmers. All of them have records with Russian Intelligence linking them to organized crime as muscle. They dropped off the radar two years ago.”

“They moved to Acapulco to shore up mafiya ties with the Mexican cartels,” the Executioner surmised.

“A reasonable assumption, considering their bloody fingerprints are all over a sheet of paper you photographed for us,” Kurtzman replied.

“Any information on the Asado twins?” Bolan asked.

“Except for the sudden, recent accusations of Rosa being the head of a major drug gang while working out of Anibella Brujillo’s security detail, they’re clean, hardworking and exemplary lawmen, er, women,” Kurtzman stated. “Frankly, if they had been in U.S. law enforcement, we’d have had both of them through the blacksuit program. It’s just a shame that Mexico’s law-enforcement community is an old-boy network. They’d have gone even further.”

“One won’t,” Bolan mentioned. “And the other is on the run now.”

“Nobody ever accused the federales of being white knights,” Kurtzman mused. “There are plenty who are good and honest, but there’s enough who will buy into any story to protect their careers with the heat on.”

Bolan sighed. “It’s amazing that Mexican law enforcement gets as much done as it can.”

“The channels are tangled down there. I deal mostly in Internet, but this is Acapulco law enforcement. Word of mouth is still the most reliable means of these people getting in touch with each other, and if they’re putting anything in writing, it’s paper and ink, not digital,” Kurtzman said.

“That’s okay. I’ll shake answers loose the old-fashioned way,” Bolan replied. “Twist an arm, and listen to the music.”

Kurtzman made a sound of disgust. “Damn it. I forgot.”

“Something I said?” Bolan asked.

“Narcocorridos,” Kurtzman stated. “What you said about listening to the music.”

“Right. The tradition of putting the stories of crimes into song. Murderers and drug dealers keep their legends alive that way,” Bolan said. “If there was anything, we’d hear it in music.”

“I’ll see about what’s on the hit list,” Kurtzman offered. “Some of the songs make it onto the Internet.”

“Instead of pirated music, music about pirates,” Bolan mused sardonically.

“Bingo. I can also see if we have anyone who has their ears open on that particular community,” Kurtzman stated.

“It’ll be a needle in a haystack,” Bolan replied. “Murder is the flavor of choice for those songs. Drug dealers, while admittedly pretty sexy in that field, don’t get noticed for their brand-new street corner deal, just for putting the hit on someone in their way.”

“And anyone out to make Rosa Asado look bad will keep things mum about framing and murdering her,” Kurtzman concluded.

“Keep working that angle,” Bolan requested. “It’s an alternate form of intelligence.”

“What about the Santa Muerte angle that popped up?” Kurtzman asked.

“Digging into that is even further off the Internet grid,” Bolan said. “And for now, I’m on my own.”

“Wish we could get Rafael or Rosario to hit the streets for you down there,” Kurtzman said, “but Able and Phoenix are busy.”

“I have my own sources down here, Aaron,” Bolan replied.

“The running Asado twin?” Kurtzman asked.

Bolan looked around the office that Anibella Brujillo had provided for him in the governor’s mansion. He’d performed a thorough sweep of the room, and had found three active bugs so far. A small white-noise generator next to the laptop he was talking into would mask any sound he made as he used a headphone and jawbone-contact microphone unit plugged into the computer to communicate directly with Stony Man Farm. The contact mike, taped to his jaw, wouldn’t be affected by the white noise generator, since it picked up the vibrations of Bolan’s voice directly through his body, not the air. The cyberlink between the laptop and Kurtzman’s system was protected by powerful encryption software, so hacking the information flow would be difficult. Still, the Executioner wasn’t willing to discuss his contact with Blanca Asado even over an encrypted line, protected by a cocoon of bug-disorienting noise.

“I have my means. And suspicions,” Bolan returned. “Thanks for the background on the hitters. Any word on where they’ve been staying recently would help immensely.”

“I’ll track that, too,” Kurtzman promised. “Good luck, Striker.”

“Thanks,” Bolan said, signing off.

He turned off the laptop and disconnected from his headphone and contact mike. Anibella Brujillo would want an update, and he didn’t want to disappoint her.

BLANCA ASADO LOOKED at the business card that Agent Matt Cooper had flipped her in their brief encounter. Armando Diceverde took a sip of warm beer as he sat in the corner of the hotel room. The handsome little journalist had his laptop out and was hooked to the Internet via a satellite-capable modem.

“I’ve got nothing on Agent Matt Cooper of any agency,” Diceverde announced. “All results on his Justice files come up as access denied. Whatever he does is shoved into a deep hole that I can’t pull up.”

“There’s no doubt of that,” Asado returned. “But he has a voice mail and an e-mail contact.”

“Probably a secure drop he can tap when he needs to,” Diceverde mused. “Nothing we could actually use to check up on him.”

“Your implication?” Asado asked.

Diceverde took a deep breath. “He’s a spook.”

“Oh,” Asado answered, rolling her eyes. “That’s news to me.”

“Sarcasm will get you nowhere,” Diceverde mumbled. He took another sip.

“Beer and painkillers don’t go well together,” Asado warned for the third time.

“Says you,” Diceverde answered. “I’m feeling a nice buzz here.”

Asado looked at the arm that hung in the sling around the reporter’s neck. If the bullet had struck any closer to the joint, he’d have needed a serious hospital stay, and amputation would have been an option. The little journalist had been lucky, and she couldn’t begrudge him his minor alcohol-and-painkiller-induced high.

“Want one?” Diceverde asked, motioning the base of his bottle toward the remnants of a six-pack she’d brought him.

“I’m good,” Asado answered. “E-mail him.”

“Cooper’s people would be able to track us easily in that case,” Diceverde warned.

“He could have put a bullet in my head instead of giving me his calling card,” Asado countered. “I’ll trust him. For now.”

“You type, then,” Diceverde said. “I’m good at using a search engine typing one-handed, but doing anything more is testing my limits.”

Asado patted him on his good shoulder. “Take a rest from typing. I’ll send the e-mail.”

Diceverde sucked down a long pull of his beer before getting up and plopping on the bed, letting the woman take his place at the desk.

“Establishing contact,” she typed into the header and body of the e-mail. She sat back and waited for a response. Considering Cooper’s mysterious air, he obviously had a large organization behind him. They’d be watching for any e-mails to his contact address.

She wasn’t surprised when the phone rang after a minute. Plucking it off the cradle, she put it to her ear.

“Blanca Asado?” a woman asked on the other end.

“Speaking,” she answered.

“You made an attempt to contact Agent Matt Cooper by e-mail.”

“You’re his secretary?” Blanca inquired dryly.

From the sound of Barbara Price clearing her throat, Asado knew that she’d struck a nerve. “I’m a liaison.”

“I figured he’s busy elsewhere,” Asado continued. “Perhaps you can arrange a meeting for us, if you’re not going to drop a team of federales into my lap.”

“You’re a Fed yourself, Blanca,” Price countered. “And we’re talking a Mexican Fed to boot. We’ve got, what, a fifty-fifty chance that you’re crooked?”

“If that’s the case, then why didn’t I just take out the governor and his wife with the rest of those Commie soldiers?” Asado asked.

“A different faction,” Price mused. “You’re an unknown quantity to us.”

“You’ve done a lot to earn my trust so far,” Asado said, not bothering to keep the sneer out of her voice.

“If your sister was anything like you, no wonder she ended up dead,” Price answered. “Don’t trust authority, free-thinking, looking for what’s right. It’d be a real wrench in the works of anyone trying to run something crooked.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Asado retorted. “So how are we going to arrange contact with Cooper?”

“Do you have a cell phone?” Price asked. “Using the hotel’s landline is secure, but it’ll limit your mobility.”

“I tossed mine last night,” Asado explained. “Too easy to track.”

“The airport’s only a couple of miles away. Locker 171J will have something we can establish secure communications with.”

“You have a key?” Asado asked.

“It’s locked, but the key is in a secure area. Section D of the parking lot, space 44,” Price answered. “We have the key lodged in a disguised box in the concrete pylon. The patch of concrete over it is marked with a rather large smear of bird crap.”

“That’s one way to keep someone from feeling around on it,” Asado returned. “This would have been Cooper’s ‘backup’?”

“There is a cell phone and a few survival tools in a handbag,” Price explained. “We have secure communications with you.”

“And a GPS tracker presumably,” Asado added.

“Actually, it’s deactivated. The GPS signal could possibly give his position away on a stealth insertion,” Price told her. “The tools are clean, as well. We’ll contact you when you recover what you need.”

“Very generous with someone else’s equipment,” Asado stated.

“This was a redundant supply drop,” Price said. “He has other means of reequipping. Call us on Autodial 1 when you retrieve the phone.”

Price hung up and Blanca Asado set down the receiver.

“Well, they got the e-mail,” Diceverde said. “You going to take them up on their offer?”

“What choice do I have?” Asado asked. “You’re hurt, so if we get into trouble, you won’t be able to effectively protect yourself.”

“Rosa was my friend, too,” Diceverde protested.

“Kicking ass isn’t your specialty, though. Finding things out, that’s where you’re strongest. I need to follow this conspiracy smearing my sister, and you can cut through that mess far better than I could,” Asado explained. “I need a source of information that isn’t tied to Cooper.”

“You don’t trust him?” Diceverde asked.

“I don’t trust the people on the other end of that phone,” Asado told him. “But I met Cooper face-to-face, and he seems like a good man. I’m going to get the stuff.”

She handed him her revolver. “It’s stuffed with .38s, so you can control it with your dumb hand.”

“Thanks,” Diceverde replied.

“I just hope you don’t have to use it,” Asado added, heading out to the car.

“IF WE’RE GOING TO BE WORKING together,” Anibella Brujillo began, putting two cigarettes between her luscious lips and lighting them both, “we’re going to need to be open and honest with each other.”

She took one cigarette out and turned it over to Bolan. He accepted it and could taste her. Bolan shrugged. “What makes you think I’m hiding anything?”

“Your birth name isn’t Matt Cooper,” Anibella cooed.

“It’s the name I go by,” Bolan returned, keeping irritation out of his voice.

Anibella took a deep breath, then sighed. “And who was outside helping us?”

“I exchanged fire with someone in the treeline. I couldn’t get a good look, but whoever it was was interested in taking out the Russians, too.”

“Ah…that’s the thing. Russians,” Anibella replied.

Bolan handed her a printout. “My people pulled the records on a few I got fingerprints on.”

The first lady nodded in approval as she looked at the file. “Your people work quickly.”

“Kind of a necessity in my line of work,” Bolan said. “Quick intelligence can mean the difference between success and death.”

“You seem to have both in droves, Agent Cooper. Quickness and intelligence.”

Bolan nodded, keeping his mind off of the smoldering, seductive stare that the woman burned into him. “I’d rather work independently. Being shackled to a bureaucracy will only limit my ability to hunt down those responsible for your assassination attempts.”

“You think this was round two?” the woman asked.

“Round two of what we know so far. There might have been more attacks foiled by law enforcement that didn’t filter up through your grapevine. These efforts seemed like acts of desperation,” Bolan replied.

Anibella nodded, licking her upper lip. “I am the one who is the figurehead of the antidrug campaign here in Acapulco, Matt.”

Bolan shrugged. “It’s a possibility.”

“I have a sizable dossier on local organizations, including drug processing and distribution centers, which we do not have enough evidence on to constitutionally take action,” Anibella told him, her eyes glimmering. The glimmer sparked an even hotter fire as Bolan realized that his facial expression changed ever so slightly. She’d read him, the flicker of anticipation. She’d been trying, all conversation, to find a chink in his emotional armor to pull him in to her grasp.

A guide to good hunting, just outside of the law, had been the chink she was looking for. Her obvious sensuality hadn’t been enough to bend him toward her, but now that she had the Executioner’s measure, she thought she was in control.

He’d allow her to believe that. A less perceptive man would have been oblivious to her attempts at manipulation.

“I’ll get to work on this. Maybe I’ll shake something loose,” Bolan answered.

Anibella Brujillo smiled, and despite her efforts to make it warm and friendly, Bolan felt a creeping cold sinking into his heart.