State Of War

Kaino leaned back in his chair. “If Bruno had his place wired, how come only one pic?”

Bolan eyed the shooter up on the screen. “The attackers knew where the security cameras were. The shooter must have been forced past that camera during the firefight, or he hadn’t knocked it out yet.” Bolan turned to Savacool. “I gather the house was stripped of security?”

“All the security systems were destroyed. Bruno reached his safe room, but they breached it with explosives and gutted its security suite. We have this pic because Bruno’s security system had a wireless backup and transmitted to an outside data storage facility.”

“There was nothing from any of the other cameras?”

“Oh, there was plenty. Pictures of the grounds and perimeter. All show everything right as rain until they suddenly start going dead. The outside cameras were taken out with precision rifle fire.”

“The attackers didn’t leave anything behind at all?” Kaino asked.

“The only things they left behind were bullets and bodies. They even took the time to clean up their spent brass.”

“I’m going to need everything you have on this Bruno character and what he was up to for the year before his killing.”

Savacool held out a blue flash drive with the FBI logo on it. “I figured you might say that. It also has contact information for Mexican officials pertinent to the investigation. The drive also contains everything Forensics has so far on your boys down in the morgue.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that.”

“So what are you going to do now, Mr. Cooper?”

“Oh, I don’t know, just be myself.”

Kaino snorted in amusement.

Savacool was not amused. “You know you can’t just run around pulling a Terminator in the streets of Miami.”

Bolan shrugged. “I needed a few ass-kickings to start busting things open.”

“You do realize, Mr. Cooper, that the FBI doesn’t usually think in terms of ass-kickings to bust things open?”

“Yeah, but admit it, you wish they did.”

“Mr. Cooper, from what I’ve read, I will freely admit that it would be more fun than a barrel of monkeys to roll with you, throwing local, state and federal law out the window and laying down the hurt on the bad guys.” She shot Kaino a look. “And apparently armed with a ‘get out of jail free’ card issued from God on High to boot. But you have to understand, you—”

Bolan made his decision. “You want to?”

Savacool’s face went uncharacteristically blank. “Do I want to what?”

“Would you like to roll with me, Special Agent Savacool?”

“You have got to be kidding.”

“I can arrange it—” Bolan snapped his fingers “—like that.”

“I’m on an open-ended, paid, consulting leave of absence,” Kaino confirmed. “It’s been pretty educational.”

Savacool just stared.

“Sophie,” Bolan asked, “do you speak Spanish?”

“Spanish, French, Russian and I’m currently taking courses in Arabic at the Miami University Middletown campus.”

“Oh, she’s good.” Kaino nodded happily. “Dude, we totally want her on the team. Sophie, you want to join the home team?”

“The winning team?” Bolan added.

“I...” Savacool was literally at a loss for words. “I’d have to take that up with my superiors.”

Bolan took out a blank business card and wrote two phone numbers on it. “You can direct any questions you may have to the top number.”

Savacool took the card. She was FBI and she knew the Washington, D.C., 202 area code on the first one like an old friend. “And the bottom one?”

“You can call me anytime.”

Savacool nodded, then she stood and left the conference room.

Kaino nodded judiciously. “She likes you.”

Bolan took the flash drive and plugged it into his phone. “Who doesn’t?”

“Salami?” Kaino suggested.

“He just doesn’t know me well enough yet.” Bolan’s phone peeped at him. The Farm’s own cybernetic wunderkind, Akira Tokaido, had developed the phone’s security suite personally, and Tokaido’s security applications examined the flash drive for bugs, malware or any kind of FBI shenanigans and proclaimed the files were clean. Bolan hit Send and the info went straight to Kurtzman back in the Computer Room in Virginia. “Let’s go.”

Kaino fell into formation with Bolan. They were a pair of large and dangerous-looking men, and FBI personnel unconsciously moved to get out of their way.

Kaino sighed as they reached the foyer and his FBI adventure came to a close. “You think Savacool will join the winning team?”

“Definitely.”

The Miami afternoon heat hit them like a wall as they stepped out of the FBI office and crossed the parking lot. “What now?” Kaino asked.

“I have people processing the information Agent Savacool gave us. They’ll contact me when they have anything useful.” Bolan glanced up at the sun and knew it was about noon. “You know a good place to eat?”

“I know a place in Little San Juan that makes goat stew like murder, man.”

“On me.”

“Cool.”

They stopped in front of Bolan’s ride. The shiny black Signature L Lincoln Town Car had been violated. Bolan took in the almost childlike graffito of a crocodile painted in electric-pink spray paint across his hood. Kaino spit in disgust. Some genuine dread crept into his voice. “I told you he’d be coming for you.”

The noontime, midsummer Miami air was brutally hot, heavy and still. Bolan sniffed it. “You smell that?”

Kaino’s nose wrinkled and his face made a fist of disgust. “Yeah, I smell it, and I told you! Didn’t I?”

Bolan slowly nodded. “You did.” Bolan tasted the turgid, humid air again—the two entwined scents were unmistakable. One was the acrid, burned metal by way of nail-polish remover smell of iodine.

The other was the stench of rotting flesh.

Bolan punched in Savacool’s business card number from memory. She answered on the first ring, and had apparently memorized Bolan’s number, as well. “What’s happening, Cooper?”

“I’m going to need your parking-lot surveillance video, specifically the south side, from within the last forty-five minutes.”

“I have been told to give you my full cooperation. However my superiors have been adamant that I report all contacts with you.”

“I feel you,” Bolan replied.

Savacool snorted. “Please state the nature of your emergency, Mr. Cooper.”

“Cocosino just tagged my ride.”

Every ounce of fun dropped from Savacool’s voice. “Oh my God...”

CHAPTER SIX

Little San Juan, Miami

The goat stew was excellent, and the restaurant’s little patio was shady and cool, but only Bolan seemed to be truly enjoying it. Kaino and Savacool regarded Bolan gravely over their plates. The agent shook her head. “I’ll give you credit, Cooper. You know how to pick your friends, but you sure know how to make some serious enemies.”

Bolan sopped up goat gravy with an immense chunk of Puerto Rican water bread. “They’re complementary talents.”

“Well, I have to give you this, too. You gave Miami law enforcement our first picture of Cocosino.”

Bolan watched the FBI security camera footage again on his phone. The video clip wasn’t much to go on. A man in filthy black jeans, filthy black combat boots and a filthy black hoodie with a baseball cap underneath that hid his face had walked up, tagged Bolan’s Town Car and walked away. Gloves and a black bandanna and dark glasses completed his camouflage. It was of interest that Cocosino had violated Bolan’s car in broad daylight in an FBI parking lot. “You don’t mess with a man’s ride.”

“That’s just wrong,” Kaino agreed.

Bolan watched the video again. The FBI had a swell suite of cameras covering all the angles. “I’m figuring five-seven? He couldn’t be more than 150 pounds dripping wet.”

“We ran identification software on the tape. The computer puts him at about those measurements.”

Kaino sipped his coffee with little pleasure. “Don’t be fooled by his size. That junkie piece of shit has left a trail of bodies across Miami.”

Bolan wasn’t selling the killer short. He had found out long ago that it wasn’t the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog. Worst of all was one with the gift of emptiness. A killer who didn’t care was as dangerous as they came.

“Sophie, you say he does most of his damage with a machete?”

“That’s his preferred MO,” Savacool confirmed. “But he’s also made some serious mayhem with a .44 Magnum when he’s had multiple targets.”

“Does he take heads?”

“You’d think he would,” Kaino muttered. “That’s real popular with the Mexican cartels these days, but no, our boy prefers to chop his victims beyond recognition. Even without the stench, everyone recognizes a Cocosino crime scene. What I want to know is, how does he pull his vanishing act looking and smelling like that?”

“Probably goes back and lies in his grave until the next job comes along,” Savacool said. “Man’s a goddamn ghoul if you ask me.”

“You’re not far off the mark,” Bolan said. “This guy doesn’t go out. He doesn’t have friends. Wherever he’s holed up is most likely not much more than a hole. Cocosino only lives for three things—to kill, get paid for it and fix. He most likely has a handler who transports him and brings him food, drugs and jobs.”

“And who the hell would handle a zombie like him?” Kaino asked.

“Someone just like him, but can still pass for human at first glance.”

“Jesus,” Savacool said. “That’s the most horrible life I can imagine.”

Bolan nodded. He and Kaino had smelled Cocosino, and if the assassin was really was addicted to krokodil, then some part of him probably relished the idea of being killed and ending his suffering. Savacool was also right about another thing. After a year of krokodil addiction and paying for it with murder, Cocosino was now more ghoul than man in more ways than one.

Now Bolan and Kaino were his prime targets.

“What now?” Kaino inquired. “The safehouse is trashed and definitely not safe. Unless you want to go back and let them take another swing at us.”

“I doubt they’d try it again, particularly since they saw us visit the FBI office. Then again, our enemies don’t know where we are at the moment, and I want to keep it that way. I have my people working up the info Sophie was kind enough to give us. I want to take the files on the Zetas you have and the info we got out of Salami and work up our next plan of attack. Like you said last night, we’re taking this up to the distributor level.”

“Ass-kickings to bust things loose?” Savacool mused.

“I offered you a spot on the team. First string.”

“We’ll get to that in a minute. The good news is I think I may be in a position to help you on the safehouse front. You have Cocosino after you, and he is as gutter level as it gets. On top of that you were attacked by some kind of very professional international hit squad. Whoever is pulling all this together has a pretty extensive reach.” Savacool grinned. “But I doubt they know about my great-aunt’s place in the suburbs.”

Kaino smiled happily. “She’s on the team!”

“Actually, after the tagging in the parking lot my superiors have ordered me to, and I quote, ‘wear you two like underwear.’ I’m your babysitter in Miami as of now and for the duration.” Savacool gave Bolan a very frank look. “Mr. Cooper, that was one fascinating phone number you gave us, I must admit. The Miami office’s cooperation with you has been given a very high sense of urgency. But I expect you to be honest with me at all times. You don’t pull any more James Bond shit without telling me first. We may have to cooperate with you, but that cooperation could quickly become...how shall I put it? Less than enthusiastic?”

“Agent Savacool, I understand the position of you and your office completely. I can’t tell you who I am or reveal most of my sources. But I can tell you this. We’re on the same team. You’re at every meeting. Your input on investigation and strategy is not only welcomed but encouraged. I have no authority over you. My only requirement is that in a combat situation you let me lead, and I say that simply because I have the most experience at it. The second you can’t hang with me or my methods, you can walk and report me to your superiors, no hard feelings.”

“He gave me the same deal,” Kaino affirmed.

“You know, I thought for sure you were going to get mad.”

“He doesn’t get mad.” Kaino resumed attacking his goat stew with gusto. “He gets all spooky and shit, and then he goes all Action Jackson.”

Bolan smiled. That was one way of putting it.

Savacool wrote an address on a napkin. “It’s on the edge of the Everglades. The roads get a little twisty and dark, but most map apps can find it.”

Kaino looked up from his plate. “You’re not coming with us?”

“I need to report in, and pick up a few things. I’ll meet up with you tonight.” Savacool turned to leave. “The key is under the gnome.”

Bolan and Kaino watched Savacool walk to her car. Kaino frowned. Bolan frowned in return. “I thought you liked her.”

“I do.”

“Then what up?”

Kaino was doing some kind of Puerto Rican mathematics as he watched Savacool’s chiseled calves. “She’s awfully damn skinny.”

“So?”

“So we’re spending the night.”

“And?”

Despite having mostly demolished a heaping plate of goat stew, the master sergeant’s right hand reflexively went to his belly. “You think she can cook?”

Miami Beach

S ALAMI POPPED MORE painkillers, washed them down with half a glass of wine and tried not to vomit at the stench pervading his beach house retreat. It radiated off the visitors sitting on his couch. Through his haze of pain, he was thinking he would have to have the sofa disinfected. He might just have to have the whole house fumigated. He might just have to move.

Salami’s guest of honor hid his features under a hoodie, hat, sunglasses and a bandanna. A woman who looked like a Latina vampire-stripper who had been buried alive for a hundred years sat beside him. From what little Salami had gleaned, she was Cocosino’s “handler,” and few steps farther from the grave than he was. She wore a black turtleneck sweater despite the heat.

Salami tossed back the rest of his glass and poured himself another. “So, you saw him? You saw El Hombre?”

The wraparound dark glasses focused on the amber prescription bottle on the coffee table. Cocosino’s voice was a tuberculotic rasp. “What’s that? Percocet?”

“Yeah, doctor’s orders.”

A horrible sound came out from under the bandanna that Salami realized was laughter. “I got something that will make you feel a lot better.”

Salami cringed in horror. “No, man, I’m good. El Hombre? You saw him?”

“Saw him. Tagged him. I like him.”

“You like him?”

“You know, people think I’m just a degenerate junkie.”

Salami withheld comment.

“And I am a degenerate junkie, but I am not just a degenerate junkie.”

The gangbanger wanted more wine and drugs, but he didn’t want to appear weak. “Oh?”

“I think about things. I have lots of time to think. I’ve read the newspapers. I watch TV and heard what they’re saying on the street. I’ve listened to what you and others have told me.”

“Yeah?”

“There’s an El Hombre who’s rampaged through Mexico on several occasions.”

“I’ve heard that.”

Cocosino cocked his masked, rotting head in question. “Did you know the first time I fixed on krokodil, I bought it from you?”

Salami flinched so hard it hurt his cracked joints.

“Anyway, this El Hombre, I think he has a real problem with shedding innocent blood. He’s got a code. I watched him and Master Sergeant Kaino. It’s like some bad buddy movie. They have a code.”

“So what are you saying?”

“So I want to give them a surprise. Something they’re not going to like. Something they have no answer for.”

“Yeah?”

Cocosino turned his mummy-wrapped head. “Delilah.”

Delilah leaned forward, and the stench coming off her was unbearable. She slid a piece of paper across the coffee table. Salami stared at the laundry list. “¡Madre de Dios!”

“It’s not too much to ask,” Cocosino rasped. “Considering.”

“Okay, give me a day or two and—”

“I need it by tonight.”

Salami nearly strangled on his wine. “And what are you going to do with all this shit?”

“I’m going to give El Hombre something that will haunt his dreams, even if he survives it.”

“And how are you going to find him again?”

“There’s something in the paint I tagged his car with. Something that satellites can see and people can’t.”

Salami stared at the rotting killer on his couch. “You have a satellite watching El Hombre?”

Delilah smiled and spoke for the first time.

“No, but someone else who wants him dead does.”

West Miami

T HE KEY WAS UNDER the gnome.

Special Agent Savacool could cook. Kaino happily held out his plate for a second chicken-fried steak. “You know, I really like breakfast for dinner.”

“Most men do,” Savacool agreed. She seemed to appreciate men with hearty appetites. Her great-aunt’s abode was a solid, brick house of Shaker-style built in the housing boom after World War II. Savacool had kept with the clean simple lines of the builder but added all modern appurtenances. The river was close by. A pleasing breeze blew off it and Savacool had opened up the house to receive it. The houses on the winding lane were few and far apart, and none had fences. The streetlights were few, ancient and dim. Spanish moss hung from the huge live oaks in swaths of Southern Gothic glory.

Savacool smiled as Bolan finished his meal. “You like fried steak?”

“Haven’t had one since the last time I was in Argentina.”

Savacool cocked her head. “How do they do it?”

“Well, there’s no gravy or biscuits. They fry it in oil and squeeze lemons on it. Usually have French fries on the side.”

Savacool made a noise. “Savages.”

“They’ll put fried eggs on top if you ask.”

“Well, at least that’s progress.”

Kaino suddenly snapped his head up. “You smell that?”

Bolan snuffed the air. “What?”

Savacool’s face contracted in disgust. “Oh, yeah, I was in New York in 2010 for the blooming of the corpse flower. It just about knocked me off my feet. Nice nose, Kaino.”

“I’m a gourmet and a gourmand, man. My nose takes me where I need to go.” Kaino pulled one of his .357s.

Bolan caught the sent of rotting mammal on the breeze and what lay beneath it. He rose and pulled his Beretta. “Iodine. Cocosino is here.”

Kaino took out his second .357. “Go for the head. Nothing else will stop him.”

“No.” It sickened Bolan to say it, but Cocosino was one of their few active leads. “Take his legs off if you can. I want him alive, and if he really is a krokodil addict, twenty-four hours without a fix will leave him willing to tell us anything we want to know.”

Savacool pulled her .40-caliber FBI-issue Glock and checked the load by reflex. “Hardcore, Cooper.”

Bolan took in the architecture. “Fuse box in the basement?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s kill the lights before he does and call 9-1-1.” Bolan sniffed the air again. The stench was becoming more powerful. It was unfortunate that all the windows and doors were open. “Be careful coming back up. If he’s close enough to smell, he’ll be in the house in moments.”

Savacool ran at a crouch to kill the lights. Bolan and Kaino stayed low and reached into their gear bags.

Kaino sniffed the air and nearly gagged. “Jesus, it smells like a dead wildebeest rotting on the savannah!”

“Didn’t know you were a poet, Kaino.”

“Yeah, well, you know.” Kaino pulled his NVG on top of his head and nearly gagged again.

Bolan had been exposed to dead bodies that ranged from fresh to mummified and every shade in between. It had long ago lost any power over his nose or his stomach. But Kaino was right. The stench was so strong it was almost anomalous.

The lights cut out. Bolan and Kaino pulled down their NVGs. A second later the agent’s voice spoke softly at the top of the stairs. “Savacool.”

“Clear.”

Savacool crouched beside the kitchen island cradling an M-4 carbine.

Bolan tapped an icon on his phone. “Bear, I need satellite on my position, stat.”

“I thought you’d gone dark on the Savacool family estate?”

“Stat, Bear.”

“One second. Checking available satellites. Have one with window. Nonessential shore surveillance. Assuming priority...now.” Kurtzman’s voice rose in instant alarm. “Striker! Be advised! You are surrounded!”

“Show me.” Bolan’s screen filled with an overhead thermal image of Great-Aunt Savacool’s manse. It was surrounded by what looked like between thirty and forty individuals. They formed an arc, cutting off the house from the road. The river behind blocked any escape out the back.

Bolan’s eyes narrowed. “Show me my car.”

The satellite zoomed on the hood of the Town Car. Cocosino’s crocodile graffito glowed like a neon sign. Kaino glowered beneath his goggles. “Jesus, when Cocosino tagged your car, Coop, he really tagged your car.”

Savacool risked a peek over the kitchen island and out the window. She didn’t have any NVGs, but it was a clear night. The ancient and poorly dispersed streetlights threw small islands of yellow light. The huge, spreading live oaks threw pools of blackness. She popped down grimacing in the dark of the kitchen. “It’s like Night of the Living Dead out there.”

Bolan rose and took a quick look. In his NVGs the world was lit in green and gray. Savacool wasn’t far off the mark. Dozens of figures were literally shambling toward the house. However, the walking dead didn’t usually carry bats, knives and other improvised hand weapons. They also didn’t usually have a universal uniform of a black hoodie.

Even for Bolan the smell was starting to become overpowering.

Savacool clicked off the safety on her carbine.

Bolan shook his head. “No.”

Savacool was appalled. “No? What do you mean, no?”

“They’re junkies.”

Kaino quietly exploded. “So fucking what? I’m with Cool! We cut our way to the car and—”

Glass shattered outside and fire spread across the hood of Bolan’s ride.

“Oh, that’s just grand!” Kaino snarled.

Bolan read his opponent’s mind. “He wants us to start shooting.”

“I want to start shooting!”

“These people are krokodil junkies. I suspect he gave them all a nice fat fix hours ago and bused them in while they were flying high. Now they’re coming down and they’re hurting for it, and the price of free fixes for life is our heads.”

Savacool’s voice was quiet but firm. “Cooper, that is the sickest thing I have ever heard, and I feel for those poor souls outside, but I am not going to be dragged down and torn apart by rotting junkies.”

Another Molotov looped through the air. It fell just short of the porch and broke on the flagstones.

Kaino spoke through clenched teeth. “Coop, they’re going to burn us out!”

“Cocosino wants a massacre, and while it’s going on he’s waiting to take his shot.”

Savacool gave Bolan a desperate plan. “Tell me you have a plan.”

“I do.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m going out there.”

The FBI agent and the Miami-Dade master sergeant spoke in unison. “What the fuck!”

“Cool, you’re going onto the porch with your rifle. Cocosino is camouflaged, just another skell in an army of them. When he takes his shot at me, you take him down. Kaino, you’re going to defend the porch. I suspect some of these guys are going to get past me.”

“And if I’m not allowed to shoot, how am I supposed to do that?”

“Unless someone shoots at you, you’re doing it with your fists.”

“Jesus!”

“We’re out of time.” Bolan shrugged into his vest. He wished he had a full raid suit of rip stop material gloves and a helmet. He belted his Beretta to his thigh and cinched the retaining strap so it couldn’t be taken from him in a clinch. “Let’s go.”