Dragon's Den

“So let me get this straight. There’s been major drugs recovered at a number of key locations in the past few months, and now all of the sudden you get paid a visit from the DEA.”

“Right,” she said, “and I got in touch with some friends in Washington about this Cooper, just to be sure it wasn’t some kind of trap. Maybe put there by the sheriff to spy on me.”

“You figure if he’s legitimate he wouldn’t prefer you keep quiet. He’d want you to make some noise.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But if the guy your gangbanger describes is Cooper, then there might be another way to look at this.”

“How’s that?”

“Maybe Cooper’s DEA, maybe he isn’t,” she said. “I’d guess he’s some sort of special operator in town to rattle cages. He figures it’s probably one of the local gangs trying to get the corner on the market here in L.A., or maybe even a rival faction.”

“So he shakes some trees to see who falls out,” Lareza concluded. “And he doesn’t want you to tell your higher-ups in case they’re involved somehow.”

“Or maybe he just doesn’t want local interference. He might have his own leads to follow. Hell, Cooper might not even be interested in the drugs at all. This could be about something else entirely. He did tell me he wasn’t here to step on our toes.”

“Oh, bullshit! They always say that, Rhonda.”

“I don’t know, maybe you’re right. But I swear to you, Nesto, there was just something different about this guy. Don’t ask me to explain it. I can’t. I just know—” she stopped and chewed her lip a moment “—I just know he’s not like most other men.”

Lareza expressed surprise. “Get serious! You’re starting to sound like you’ve fallen head-over-heels for this Cooper.”

That caused her to laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous. I just have this sense about him. It’s only a feeling, but I get the notion he’s really a good man.”

“Well, good man or not, he just blew peace between the gangs wide-open, and that only stands to make more trouble.” Lareza wagged his finger at her almost as if reminding her of another time, a time back during the gang riots following the announcement that vindicated several police officers charged with nearly beating to death a black man.

Amherst waved away the notion. “This situation is entirely different, and you know it. There will never be peace between these gangs. Especially if drugs continue to flood the market at the current rate.”

“Seems to me this is about way more than drugs,” Lareza said, sitting back and folding his arms in resolve.

Amherst cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“You just said it yourself,” Lareza said. “Let’s suppose this Cooper’s a real federal cop, or even some kind of special troubleshooter.”

The concept intrigued Amherst. “You mean, special ops.”

“Right. It’s no secret every federal agency in this country was required to lend resources when the administration formed Homeland Security. They all work together now. Task forces and suchlike are very common.”

“I might agree there was something to what you were saying. But then that leaves me with one question where Cooper’s concerned. How come he came alone?”

“You don’t know for a fact he’s operating alone,” Lareza replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “Maybe that’s what he wanted you to think.”

Amherst certainly couldn’t deny the possibility, so she chose to keep any further thoughts about Cooper to herself and turned the conversation to other things. They made small talk for a while, bantered a few war stories and discussed the latest gossip within the department.

The digital clock read 1:42 a.m. by the time Amherst climbed behind the wheel and started for home. The quiet caused her mind to wander some, and her head ached with the echoes of nearly two hours of continuous loud music and having to shout now and again to be heard.

As she continued toward home her thoughts turned toward Cooper. Why couldn’t she get the guy out of her head? For the first time in a while she found herself unsure of what to do next. She supposed she could issue a BOLO, but if he found out she had people looking for him he might get spooked. Then again he didn’t really have any reason to run anywhere if he was legit.

The sudden squawks of activity over a dash-mounted scanner demanded her attention. She listened carefully for what lay behind the general tones of panic underlying the radio traffic. Something major had just gone down over on Lincoln Boulevard, a few blocks from Fox Hills Mall in Culver City.

Amherst knew immediately what it meant. Whoever had taken the heat to Pratt had just unleashed some more on the smaller Hispanic gangs neighboring Ladera Heights—gangs that had close ties to the fabled La Eme.

Amherst turned her SUV around and headed straight for Lincoln Boulevard.

4

Mack Bolan had never intended to bring war to the gangs of Los Angeles.

Kurtzman’s intelligence had pointed to gang activities in Culver City, and after Bolan’s investigation of Antoine Pratt didn’t reveal much, the Executioner opted to look elsewhere for his answers. The enemies Bolan now faced were clearly members of the Thirteenth Street Gang, an up-and-coming group with purported ties to the famous La Eme. An acronym for La Muerta, La Eme had grown into the largest Hispanic prison gang in the country with outside connections to Hispanic gangs in major cities like Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago.

It stood to reason only a major gang could coordinate such mass shipments of opium into the country, but so far Bolan’s intelligence hadn’t pointed to any specific gang. The slaughter of those on the yacht coupled with the reluctant attitude of leaders high in the ranks of local government, told Bolan the shippers were getting major cooperation. Most of the gangs in L.A. depended on violence and intimidation, and of late Americans had not taken lightly to the general attitude that law-abiding citizens were just a pushover. It hadn’t worked for terrorists and it wouldn’t work for gangs.

The battle had been joined just minutes after Bolan left the tavern hangout of Javier Nuñez, the number-one guy inside the Thirteenth Street Gang who used the local watering hole as a base of operations. Bolan had solicited no more cooperation from Nuñez than he had from Pratt, and in this case the gang leader had the extra muscle to back his claims on most of the Culver City territory. Not that it mattered. Bolan didn’t recognize Nuñez’s reign over Culver City any more than he recognized Pratt’s over Ladera Heights. Los Angeles belonged to its law-abiding citizens, and if Bolan had to take a brief timeout from his mission to teach that lesson to Nuñez, then that was just the hand he’d been dealt and he’d play it any way he could.

At the moment, however, the numbers were running off in his head. He’d been in town for six hours now, and come no closer to discovering the source of the drugs flooding the market. All he’d encountered so far were thugs bent on murder and destruction. But his trip hadn’t been entirely for naught. He’d come to an assured conclusion the L.A. gangs were not behind the drug shipments.

Nuñez’s crew had followed Bolan out of their home neighborhood, and then a chase ensued down Lincoln Boulevard before eventually terminating in the parking lot of a major mall. Bolan had learned a few things in his years of soldiering experience. One of those lessons involved securing a strategic holding position when preparing to launch an assault against an enemy of superior numbers.

Tonight had proved no exception.

From the limited cover of his vehicle, the Executioner swung the FN FNC into target acquisition on one of his gangland targets and squeezed the trigger. The weapon chattered as a flurry of 5.56 mm NATO rounds zipped through the young banger’s chest and ripped exit holes in his back. The youth left his feet and his body slammed into the Lincoln “ghetto-cruiser” behind him. This impact broke the side mirror of the black, flashy Lincoln, and he left a gory streak on the window.

Bolan turned to his next target, a hood with a teardrop tattoo and twin pistols clutched in his fists. The warrior grimaced a moment as the kid didn’t look more than sixteen or seventeen. It was hardly Bolan’s preference to shoot teenagers and misguided youths, but he also knew the gang member knew right from wrong and had chosen a path. And whether the Executioner liked it or not, the gleaming. 45-caliber semiautomatics clutched in his fist were real, and Bolan had to assume they were loaded with real bullets. Bolan triggered a second short burst from the FNC. The rounds cut a deep swathe in the gangbanger’s gut and dropped him to the pavement.

Another gangland cruiser pulled up and Bolan decided to go EVA. He’d parked his car in a strategic position in the dark, deserted parking lot of the mall, which would give him the angling room he needed to deal with this new threat. The thudding in his ears of exertion drowned out the sounds of his boots slapping the serpentine sidewalk that wound through the exterior landscape of the mall. Bolan could barely make out the sounds of pursuit.

To the casual observer it would have appeared the quartet of gang members that bailed from the second vehicle were chasing down their quarry, but, in fact, Bolan had a plan. He would draw them into an ambush and turn the tables on them when they least expected it. Bolan quickly located a point near the main entrance doors of the mall that would provide adequate cover but take his pursuers by surprise. He didn’t have to wait long. The foursome rounded the corner, and Bolan let loose with the FNC.

The first one to fall took two full bursts, one in the stomach and the other in the chest. The high-velocity rounds threw him into the gangbanger at his heels and the two violently thrashed about. The other pair began to run in circles, the shock and unbelief apparent on their faces, which glowed with ghostly pallor even in the poor lighting from faraway streetlights. Bolan caught the pair with a controlled, sustained firestorm from the FNC. The two gang members twisted and screamed with the repeated impact of slugs in tender flesh.

Bolan dropped the nearly spent magazine from its well and loaded a fresh one. He put the FNC in battery and heard the scuffle of feet behind him. The warrior dropped as he turned and swung the muzzle of his assault rifle to deal with any threat. Bolan’s eyes tracked to the source of the noise as he started to squeeze the trigger. He let off just in time to keep from gunning down Captain Rhonda Amherst.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded.

Bolan noticed she hadn’t lowered her pistol so he didn’t let the FNC waver. “I could ask you the same question.”

“I’m responding to a call.” She cocked her head. “Are you the call?”

“Probably,” he replied in a grim tone.

She gave a curt nod and finally lowered her sidearm. “I think we better talk.”

“Sure, but right now my hands are full.”

She shook her head and jabbed her thumb in the direction of her SUV. “I have a scanner. There won’t be any more trouble. Two of our units just stopped a car headed this way filled with Thirteenth Street Gang reinforcements.”

Bolan lowered his own weapon now. “Fine. My car’s back there.”

“Leave it. This place will crawl with both my people and LAPD in less than a minute.”

“So what?”

“They’re going to have questions. You want to be around here to answer them? I don’t. And I sure as hell can’t keep you being here quiet if you’re going to draw this much attention to yourself.”

Bolan got to his feet. “It wasn’t by design.”

“Maybe not, but it is what it is.”

He couldn’t argue with her logic. Bolan said, “Let’s go.”

Amherst nodded and then led him to her SUV. Bolan took shotgun. Amherst had just cleared the parking lot on the north side of the mall when they heard the first reports from units arriving at the scene of the Executioner’s conflagration with members of the Thirteenth Street Gang. One of officers called in a make on the license plate of Bolan’s rental less than a minute later.

Amherst cleared her throat as she rolled under the interchange and merged onto Slauson Avenue. “You mind telling me what the hell is going on?”

“I told you today why I’m here,” Bolan said, deciding to play his cards close to vest. He liked her, but he didn’t yet trust her.

“Yeah, I know. I got the party line about truth, justice and the American way. Listen, Cooper, if you want my cooperation you’re going to need to start leveling with me. Do you really work for the DEA?”

Bolan smiled coolly and looked at her in the illumination from the dash lights. “Even if we were to say hypothetically that I don’t, you know I couldn’t tell you the truth.”

“You could if you trusted me.”

“I never said I didn’t,” Bolan said.

“You never said you did, either,” she fired back.

The Executioner sighed. Okay, so he couldn’t easily fool her. Amherst had been around awhile and he didn’t have time for games. His instincts told him she wouldn’t let up. She wouldn’t interfere but she had enough intelligence and spunk to try digging into this thing without his confidence, and that wasn’t something he could afford this early in his mission.

“Okay, here it is,” Bolan said. “I work for people you don’t know anything about, and trust me when I say it’s better we keep it like that. As to why I’m here, it’s simple. The kind of drugs you’re talking about means major players are involved. I know one of the deceased on that boat was Kara Lipinski, and I also know everyone thinks these drugs are about gang rivalries and control over distribution territories. Given the recent number of successes you’ve had with minimizing gang activities, the last thing your higher-ups want to do is draw attention. But after what I learned tonight, I think you’re way off.”

“About what?”

“This isn’t about gangs or local politics. This goes deeper…way deeper.”

“Deeper how?”

“I don’t know yet. What I do know is the gangs of Los Angeles don’t have anything to do with it.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Simple,” Bolan said with a shrug. “Neither of the two bigwigs knew anything about the drugs. They were genuinely surprised when I mentioned pure heroin and opium.”

“What makes you think it wasn’t all an act?”

“I’ve been in this business awhile, lady,” Bolan replied. “And that’s not ego talking, it’s fact. I’ve learned to read people pretty well, and I have an instinct for liars.”

“So it was you who hit Antoine Pratt’s place.”

Bolan nodded and pressed his lips together in a grim mask. “I’m not trying to turn this town on its ear.”

“Could have fooled me,” Amherst said. She did nothing to hide the sarcasm in her voice. More gently, she added, “Although, that part of Ladera Heights you hit isn’t within my jurisdiction, so it’s no skin off my nose.”

“How did you find out about Pratt?” Bolan asked.

She laughed. “I have ears all over L.A., Cooper. One of Pratt’s men described a guy dressed, oh…a hell of a lot like you are right now. What I don’t get anymore is exactly what you are doing here. You told me this afternoon Washington sent you here to run down the source of all this opium and heroin. You say you don’t want me to tell my superiors you’re here, but then you start firing up major gang leaders with explosives and automatic weapons, no pun intended. Just what’s your angle?”

“You think I owe you an answer.”

“I think I’m entitled.”

“Not really, but your question’s fair enough. I’ve been trying to decide if you’re trustworthy.”

“You haven’t left me a whole lot of choices, either,” she challenged.

“You want the truth, fine. I’m here to find out where these drugs are coming from. My guess is somewhere in Micronesia.”

“Are you sure?”

“I will be as soon as I check out one more angle. The only question that remains after that is why the sudden rush.”

“That’s a good question,” Amherst interjected. “Someone opened the flood gates and their timing’s impeccable. It’s not like I don’t have enough problems on my hands. I’m short staffed right now due to budget cuts, and I have backlogged cases stacked as tall as Magic Johnson. To add to my worries, I have one mysterious DEA agent running around playing soldier.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Bolan countered. “I’m not playing.”

“Neither am I,” she said. “I won’t keep pulling your bacon out of the fire, Cooper. DEA agent or not, fellow cop or not, this is your only freebie. Please don’t ask me to continue keeping my mouth shut while you go around shooting up half the city. My loyalties to duty only extend so far, and I can’t protect you forever even if what you’re doing is right.”

A tough mask fell across the Executioner’s face. “I don’t remember asking for protection. And I don’t need your permission. You seem like a good cop, Amherst, but understand I have a job to do and that takes precedence.”

“Look, I don’t—”

“Someone’s following us,” Bolan cut in.

“What?” The Executioner saw her eyes go to first her rearview mirror and then her side mirror, but she didn’t move her head. “How do you know?”

“Part of that instinct I mentioned earlier.”

“Who do you think it is?”

“I can’t be positive but I think I have a pretty good idea,” Bolan replied.

“What do you want to do?”

“Turn right at the next intersection,” Bolan replied. “We need some running room.”

“D AMN IT , B ART !” Howard Starkey exclaimed. “They told us to lay off this guy. We should be back at the apartment watching TV or something.”

Bart Wikert dragged a greasy palm across his face and cursed the heat. The air conditioner in their loaner unit had broken two days earlier, and their assignment hadn’t permitted them time to wait at the Bureau’s downtown offices while the motor-pool guys fixed it. Now he had to sit in this infernal metal sauna while listening to his partner bitch incessantly.

“Christ! This is great weather…if you’re a fern.”

Starkey chuckled at that and shook his head. “You’re not very resilient to the heat, pal.”

Wikert stared incredulously at his partner behind the wheel. “I’m from Vermont, moron! What’s the big surprise?”

Starkey didn’t reply, instead focusing on the road ahead, and Wikert decided to let it rest. The encounter with their alleged DEA cohort earlier in the day hadn’t exactly left him in the spirit of cooperation. The ass-chewing he took from Wonderland earlier that day had put him in this foul mood. Who was Cooper that they should just stay out of his way? The events of the day, coupled with this heat, made him feel downright irritable enough to shoot the first stranger to piss him off. Wikert reconsidered the point and shook it off, almost laughing aloud at his ruminations.

“You know, buddy, this whole thing’s ridiculous,” Starkey said, intruding on his thoughts.

“Yeah,” Wikert mumbled. “But I’m not going to accept we should just sit back and twiddle our thumbs. I don’t give a damn what the DDO says.”

The deputy director of operations for Homeland Security had instructed them to back off in no uncertain terms. “Don’t rock the boat,” he’d said, and that had been that. And all because somebody in the Oval Office had apparently called him within an hour of their meeting Matt Cooper and threatened to stick a hot poker into a private and uncomfortable place if they got another phone call. Well, Bart Wikert had nearly fifteen years with the FBI and he knew when something stank. This thing had one big odor.

“Listen, Bart, all we’ve done for the past six hours is watch Cooper run around this city and break practically every law known to man. Well, I for one am not going to just sit on my ass and do nothing. If the guy actually does hold legitimate employment with one of our agencies, then he’s not following protocols. And if he works for the CIA, then he’s operating illegally because we know they can’t do shit within U.S. borders. So let’s actually do something useful for once, get off our collective asses and get into the war.”

“I didn’t know we were fighting a war,” Starkey replied quietly. There were moments that soft-spoken mannerism seemed so out of place on a guy of Starkey’s size. In fact, it seemed almost feminine against that six-foot-four, 250-pound frame squeezed behind the wheel.

“Keep your eyes on them—they’re turning onto that side street,” Wikert replied. Then he continued, “It’s a war as far as I’m concerned. This Cooper is breaking all the rules. So he has some clout with someone in D.C., so what! He obviously thinks he’s a law unto himself and can break all the rules. Well, pride goes before the fall and I’m going to make sure we’re there when he trips up.”

As soon as they rounded the corner, Starkey had to stand on the brakes to avoid rear-ending the SUV they’d been tailing. The sudden stop nearly sent Wikert through the front windshield, since he would only wear a seat belt during high-speed pursuits. Wikert threw his right hand forward and caught his body with the dash, then let out a yelp of pain when he sprained his wrist.

Cooper emerged from the shadows of a commercial building with a pistol in his fist. He lowered the weapon as soon as it became apparent he recognized the pair. Wikert quickly recovered and rolled down his window when Cooper rapped his knuckles against it and gestured in a downward motion.

“What are you doing?” Cooper asked.

“What does it look like, asshole?” Wikert said. “We’re tailing you.”

“I thought we already settled this.”

“Maybe you settled it. It’s not settled for me yet. Not by a long shot.”

“You’re biting off way more than you can chew, pal,” Cooper said. “If you’re looking to borrow trouble, you’ve come to the right place. I know you have orders to keep out of my way, and I’d advise you to follow them.”

“I don’t take orders from you.”

“I won’t repeat this,” Cooper said. “Back off.”

With that, he turned and got into the SUV, and the vehicle drove away.

“Should I follow them?” Starkey asked.

Wikert said something under his breath but shook his head. There were other ways.

5

“What was that all about?” Amherst asked as she drove away.

“Some old friends,” Bolan replied. He saw her check her mirrors again. “Don’t worry. They won’t follow us.”

Amherst nodded. “So what’s next?”

“Like I said before, I have one more thing to check out.”

“I think I hear a but coming,” she interjected.

“You do,” the Executioner replied. “I need you to get me on that boat.”

She let out a whistle. “You don’t ask much, do you? Well, just so you know, I don’t think I can get you onto that boat. It hasn’t been fully processed by our crime-scene people, and as such it’s considered to be in evidentiary lockup. I could only gain access now with a court order.”

“Look, you’ve probably figured out by now I could make a phone call and get verbal authorization to get on that boat within ten minutes. But that would mean involving your superiors, and if they’re in on this I don’t want them knowing someone other than locals are involved. It would jeopardize my mission, and it would put you in a compromising position, too. So let’s say we do this my way.”

“Okay, but it isn’t going to be easy. It’s under constant guard. Even if my people agree to let me on board, they sure as hell aren’t going to let you past, federal badge or not.”

Mack Bolan grinned. “Who said anything about asking them?”

T HE LUMINOUS GREEN NUMBERS on the digital wall clock read 3:23 a.m.

Although Barbara Price had perused Kurtzman’s intelligence four times in preparation for briefing Hal Brognola, it still frustrated her. The mission controller shook her head as she scrolled through the data displayed on the twenty-three-inch LCD monitor in the Computer Room of the Annex at Stony Man Farm.

Price got frustrated when she couldn’t seem to put her finger directly on something, even though she knew the answers were staring her in the face. Bolan, and the others in the field, Able Team and Phoenix Force, relied heavily upon her assessments. As mission controller, she gave the orders, after all. She had less of a hand where it concerned the Executioner—he called his own shots and they had an agreement on that particular subject—but he relied on Stony Man for his support. They couldn’t mandate what missions Bolan could take or not take. The choices were utterly his. Yet he never hesitated to lend a hand when called upon, and so at the very least they owed him good, solid intelligence when he asked for it.