Recovery Force

The double wooden doors of the club swung outward again, their ornate carvings painted bright hues of red and black, the enamel shimmering under the streetlights. The three VIPs Bolan awaited stepped into the muggy air. All of them were gaudily dressed and accompanied by about a half-dozen bodyguards wearing slacks, silk shirts and black jackets. Each of the VIPs also had a woman on each arm.

At last, Bolan’s opportunity had presented itself.

He recognized one of those faces as he lined it up in the blue-green shorthairs of the 6 × 42 scope. A brainchild of Heckler & Koch, the Präzisionsschorfschützengewehr-1 sniper rifle dispatched the 7.62 × 51 mm NATO round at a muzzle velocity exceeding 2800 feet per second. With Bolan less than two hundred feet from the guy, he couldn't miss and a first-shot, first-kill probability was imminent.

Even as the first report thundered inside the confines of the truck bed, Bolan had confirmed the hit to the first target and was already working the silent bolt as he swept into acquisition of the next in line. No more than two seconds elapsed before Bolan had taken out the second target with a kill shot that struck the guy in the chest and caused his heart to burst. The bodyguards reacted with incredible enthusiasm—too bad their reactions were so utterly ineffective.

As the bodyguards fanned out and drew their weapons, Bolan was easing back the 3-pound trigger on the third and final target. The round struck the guy in the top of the head and blew his skull and most of his brain out the other side. However, the round struck at just such an angle that the impact sent the hood spinning and he twirled several times with all the grace of a drunken ballerina before collapsing to the pavement.

Bolan withdrew the rifle and pawed at the back of the pickup to lower the tailgate. He coiled his body before launching off the bed and rushing to the driver's side. Bolan hopped into the massive F-350, started the engine and rocketed down the street. He checked his rearview mirror as he did and felt some satisfaction as he saw four of the six gunners rush for a sedan.

Bolan made a hard left at the first street, proceeded two blocks and then made another hard left. He continued on until he passed the first street that would move beyond the club, and then the second, then made one more left. The last thing in the world the Los Negros thugs would think he would do is return to the scene. Not to mention they would have their own hands full in about a minute when a passel of Phoenix P.D. squad cars suddenly converged on them from every direction.

Bolan rounded the corner and found the two remaining gunmen seated on the curb, pistols dangling from their hands, neither of them completely recovered from what had transpired. Bolan bore down on their position and brought the truck to a screaming halt at the last second so that he was in a direct line of sight. He aimed out the window with the MP-5 that he'd left on the seat and triggered a sustained burst while sweeping the muzzle in a rising, corkscrew fashion.

Neither of the Los Negros gunners knew what happened. The first caught a volley that ripped him open from crotch to sternum and the second was nearly decapitated by two rounds that blew his head open. Not to mention the half-dozen or so rounds that stitched him across the chest.

The quintet of young women were still seated on the sidewalk or hiding behind whatever solid object they'd been able to find when the shooting started. Bolan collected them quickly and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the truck.

“Get in back,” he commanded them.

“No way, mister!” one of the young, frightened girls screamed and she began to sputter a flurry of curses. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

The others, who had started to comply, now hesitated and Bolan knew he had to act quickly. He lowered the MP-5 and raised one hand. “Look, I’m not here to hurt any of you. I’m here to bring you where it’s safe. I’m here to take you home.”

“I ain’t got no home!” the girl said in a shaky tone.

“Okay,” Bolan said. “Then I’ll take you wherever you want to go, wherever you feel safe. But you can’t tell me that’s here. These men have abused you. All of you. And those days are over for you.”

“Oh, yeah?” one of the other girls said. “And what’re you expecting in return?”

Bolan kept his voice low. “Nothing. I just want to get you out of here. These are bad men and eventually bad things would have happened to you. I’m giving you a second chance. You can trust me or you can take the risk you’ll be right back in a situation like this. Or worse, when their friends come looking for witnesses.”

That seemed to convince all but one of them and Bolan made one last, desperate plea, but the girl chose to turn and run. He noted it odd how fast she could run with heels on but then pressed his lips together, shook his head and went to assist the girls into the cab. Once everyone was in, he got behind the wheel and drove away.

“THAT’S YOUR IDEA OF gathering intelligence?”

Bolan shifted the pay-phone receiver to his other ear. “I told you it could get ugly, Hall.”

“Is that what you’re calling it? Ugly?” Hall sighed. “I’ve got a whole mess of bodies on my hands and very few answers. I told you before, Cooper, the politicos are breathing down my neck from the special ops chief up to the mayor. You know a representative from the governor’s office showed up here this morning, for crissakes? I thought we had an agreement.”

“We did,” Bolan replied. “And I’m sticking to it.”

“How so?”

“I noticed you mentioned the dead bodies but not the four live ones sitting in your jail cell.”

“You mean those four who lawyered up? What good are they going to be?”

Bolan clucked his tongue. “I can’t control what happens inside your house, Hall. So far I’ve delivered just what I promised—don’t try to back out.”

For a long time Hall didn’t say anything to that. Bolan hated having to bottom-line the cop but he didn’t have time for games. The fact remained he’d held up his end of the bargain and he was going to need Hall’s support.

“You realize what you’re asking me to do? You want me to look the other way while you start a war right here.”

“I’m trying to prevent a war, not start one,” Bolan reminded him. “The Los Negros aren’t going to just roll over any more than Los Zetas did in Nuevo Laredo. And you can bet Hector Casco’s burning up the phone lines right now trying to figure out what happened. That kind of traffic is sure to give you more leads. I know you have at least a few of their operating locations under surveillance.”

Hall chuckled. “Well I’ll be…”

“What?”

“I’d sure like to know where you get your information,” Hall said. “You obviously knew almost as much about our ops as I did. And you’re such an enigmatic bastard you don’t have any record. It’s like you don’t exist, Cooper. No fingerprints, no driver’s license and no financial records.”

“You checked on me.”

“Can you blame me?”

“No, I would have done the same.”

“So what do you have up your sleeve next? Run a tank through the Sinaloa cartel’s headquarters?”

“Nothing quite so dramatic,” Bolan replied. “As I said, I figure Casco will be making inquiries and he’ll probably be working up some sort of retaliation.”

“You want him to assume that Los Zetas did the hit.”

“Exactly. That’s why I took the girls off the streets, too.”

“What about the one that got away?”

“I’m hoping she’ll go underground,” Bolan said as a grim lump formed in his gut.

“If she tries to contact others inside Los Negros and gives up what actually happened, your plan might fall apart.”

“If she contacts them she’ll only end up dead, which unfortunately could be the very best to hope for. Casco won’t take this lying down. I believe he’ll respond and he’ll do it quickly. He can’t afford not to.”

“And how’s that going to help us?” Hall asked.

“Wherever Casco hits Los Zetas, he’s going to make noise doing it. That’s going to draw attention and when it goes down I’m going to be one of the first to hear about it.”

“How do you know that?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Bolan said.

The tone in Hall’s voice betrayed he wasn’t happy with Bolan’s response. “A relationship like ours is built on trust, Cooper. We got nothing else going for us.”

“I can’t tell you, so let’s leave it alone. What I can tell you is that when I do hear about Casco’s retaliation, it will come from the same place I heard your men were walking into a trap at that raid.”

“Well, that particular bit of information saved my life and those of about six good men. I guess it’ll have to be enough—but only for now.”

“I understand the position you’re in, Hall. I have a suggestion for you if you’d like to hear it.”

“Shoot.”

“Call the Department of Justice in Washington. Ask to talk to a guy named Brognola. Just explain your situation and ask him what he might be able to do to get some of the heat off your back. I can promise your troubles will abate by sundown.”

“Brognola, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Hall sighed again. “Okay, I’ll give that a shot.”

“As soon as I have something for you, I’ll call back.”

Bolan disconnected the call, field-stripped his cigarette and returned to his car. He couldn’t have risked making that call on his phone. The warrior didn’t doubt for a moment that one or more of Casco’s people monitored the airways. The Los Negros network was larger and more powerful than even Joseph Hall would have admitted, and Bolan couldn’t see risking his demise over sloppy tactics. Such decisions had saved his life many times before.

As he got behind the wheel, Bolan’s cell phone vibrated, demanding attention. He saw the number, recognized it and answered. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“Can you meet me?” Vince Gagliardi’s voice inquired.

“Where and when?”

“I’ll get back to you within an hour.”

Dead air followed and Bolan realized Gagliardi had hung up. He pushed the disconnect button, stared a moment at the screen and then tucked the phone in his shirt pocket. The call had all of Bolan’s senses on alert. The Executioner and Gagliardi had agreed that if the DEA agent sensed he might be in trouble or his cover blown, he’d contact Bolan with those words so that Bolan would know to stay clear. Their agreement was if something like that went down, no calls and no meetings.

Okay, so the heat was already ramping up. Bolan had figured that his assault on Casco’s three underbosses at the club might generate quite a bit of suspicion. After all, the police wouldn’t have conducted such an attack, which narrowed the possible source of information regarding Los Negros’s use of the club as an official meeting place for Casco’s people. That left either the hitters coming from Los Zetas or a traitor inside Los Negros. The search for a leak would eventually work its way into Los Zetas, as well, and that would put Gagliardi at risk irrespective of the fact he was still pretty low in the ranks.

Bolan had prepared for such an eventuality. He knew he’d have to tap some alternate sources of information. His first concern had to be Gagliardi, however. He didn’t want to blow the DEA agent’s cover but he also owed the guy a hell of a lot. He couldn’t just take the risk that Gagliardi would be discovered, never mind the fact that if Gagliardi got blown, Casco’s people would force him to talk. The DEA trained their undercover agents to resist many forms of torture, but every man had a breaking point: Gagliardi couldn’t hold out forever.

Bolan keyed in a number by heart and the voice of Aaron Kurtzman answered on the first ring. Affectionately known as “Bear” among his close friends and allies, Kurtzman served as Stony Man’s chief technical wizard. He was a specialist at computer programs, data manipulation and retrieval and cybersecurity; he commanded a team of some of the greatest technical minds ever assembled. The skills of his team rivaled even those in places like NASA, DARPA and the NSA.

“Striker, how are you?” Kurtzman greeted his friend.

“Doing good, Bear.” Bolan hadn’t planned to enlist his Stony Man friends but with the life of a DEA agent and good man on the line, he didn’t see much choice. “I need your help.”

“Name it.”

“I need to get a location on a DEA agent named Gagliardi, first name of Vincent. He’s currently working an undercover narco op here in Phoenix. His probable location should be recorded in the files of his case officer.”

“And you need me to crack it.”

“You mind?”

Kurtzman let out a booming laugh. “You kidding? Been looking for a little excitement since I got back from leave. How soon you need it?”

“Yesterday,” Bolan replied. “This guy’s in trouble, and I need to find him before his cover’s blown.”

“Give me a quarter-hour and I’ll call you back.”

“Roger that. And thanks, Bear.”

“Don’t mention it.”

True to his word, Kurtzman called fifteen minutes later with a location. Bolan hadn’t even bothered changing out of his blacksuit. He barely had time to return to his hotel and retrieve his equipment bag, where his full arsenal was stowed. There might not be another chance. The mission had gone into high gear. The stakes were up and the numbers were running down. A totality of the circumstances had dictated the parameters of the mission this time, and Bolan found little choice but to follow the trail Fate had laid ahead of him. Either way, it didn’t matter to Bolan. If he could create more chaos for Casco by hitting Los Zetas while buying Gagliardi time to break away from whatever mess he’d stepped in, so much the better.

Bolan had become an expert in improvisation long ago. From jungle hell-grounds to battlefields littered with Mafioso vermin, the Executioner forged a new kind of warfare. He’d learned to hit the enemy hard and fast, give them no corner. He continued his War Everlasting with the maintenance of one primal goal: put the enemy down and keep them there. And that’s what Bolan had come to Phoenix to do.

Yeah, the Sun City blitz had begun.

4

“I’m telling you, Rumaldo, this cabrón was no damned Zeta. This dude was some kind of soldier or something.”

Rumaldo Salto, enforcer and head of Hector Casco’s personal guard, folded his meaty arms and leaned against a pillar of the portico outside Casco’s home. “A soldier, eh?”

“Yeah,” Claudia Pacorbo said. “Like a commando, see. Dressed all in black. Big and mean. And he had some kind of special gun, you know, like an automatic gun.”

The story was too wild to make up and yet Salto had serious trouble believing her. For one thing, Pacorbo was known to do a little too much nose candy and that kind of habit didn’t promote clear thinking. Second, the boss had assigned him to stay put and watch the house and grounds while he sent his spies to the streets to get the full story. But nearly an hour before dawn, Pacorbo showed up at the front gate in a taxi cab without a dime to her name—Salto had to fork out nearly a hundred bucks for Pacorbo’s twenty-mile ride from south-central Phoenix to the east side of Scottsdale—with a cockamamie story about a commando dressed all in black and toting a machine gun.

Then again, Salto had already heard the first reports coming back as evidence that supported Pacorbo’s wild story. First, two of the guys assigned to protect Casco’s chief shot-callers were dead and riddled with too many bullets to have come from one or two guns. Second, the other girls had gotten into the truck this alleged commando had been driving under the promise he was going to “take them home.” That most definitely smelled of serious trouble. The only thing Salto wondered was if the trouble was coming from the cops, Los Zetas, or a freelance troublemaker looking to score some action.

“Okay…okay, chica. I’ll tell you what, I’ll talk to the boss and see if he’ll meet with you. But I’m telling you, girl, if you’re pulling my leg just to score some money for smack, you’re going to get a smack. And it won’t be the kind you’re thinking.”

“Fine,” Pacorbo said, tossing her dark hair over her shoulder with smug indifference. She folded her arms and added, “You go talk to Hector.”

Salto shot her a dirty look before turning to head inside. The cool air felt good against his face. Barely morning out there and it was already muggy and hot. Salto wasn’t much for the heat, a surprising twist of fate for a native-born Mexican raised near Juárez on the American-Mexican border. Before joining Los Negros, Salto had trained quite a while in the Sonoran Desert and resided for some time in Hermosillo. Eventually, like so many of his Los Negros brothers, Salto entered the U.S. illegally for the sole purpose of working in the employ of Hector Casco.

The honor was all Salto’s, no doubts there. Casco turned out to be one who ruled with a firm but fair hand, and while he didn’t pay that well, he treated each man with dignity. In fact, most wouldn’t have looked at a guy like Casco and marked him as the second ranking overseer of the Sinaloa cartel. Casco was known among certain circles as a man of distinct tastes who prepossessed a classic air of style and dignity. Additionally, Casco donated to a number of worthwhile charities—anonymously, of course, since it wouldn’t do for his enemies to know his true identity—while rubbing elbows with the social elite in Scottsdale under an assumed identity.

It was Casco’s ability to continue his charade of identity that amazed Salto most. The fact nobody had yet betrayed him spoke to his skill in this area. Actually no one, with the exception of the heads of the Sinaloa cartel, even knew the details of Casco’s alternate alias. They were not allowed to accompany him to the various social events in which he engaged, save for his driver, And neither Salto nor any of the house protection team were permitted to leave the grounds except when off duty.

Salto had once considered following Casco but decided against it as too risky. If he were discovered they would most certainly mark him as a cop or a traitor, and a traitor’s mark was not something he wanted to acquire while inside Los Negros. Not only could it mean death, but even if he were to explain it as mere curiosity he would also be ostracized and no longer enjoy the freedoms and protection of the organization. Salto had worked too hard, come too far, to ever let that happen.

Salto rapped on the slightly ajar door to Casco’s study, and then poked his head through the opening at a grunt of acknowledgement. Casco sat at his desk scribbling furiously on a notepad. There wasn’t a phone or computer in sight; Casco didn’t believe in such things as they could be traced back to him. There was a house phone but that was all. Any correspondence was either handwritten, output via a thermal typewriter or delivered in-person between Casco’s couriers.

A courier had been Salto’s first job after coming into Casco’s employ. The job was tough and extremely dangerous given the list of Casco’s innumerable enemies. A courier was nothing more than an information mule. He carried nothing of material value, but the knowledge a courier possessed was priceless to rival gangs, and particularly to Los Zetas. None of Casco’s enemies had ever caught a courier, which is probably why Casco continued to operate with the freedom he did. Still, he knew that luck wouldn’t last forever. Eventually, they’d get to a courier and the guy would spill his guts, and then Salto would have to start earning his money for real.

“What is it, Maldo?” Casco demanded, using a shortened form of Salto’s name. Nobody else but Hector called him that.

“Boss, the Pacorbo chick demands to see you.”

“I’m busy,” Casco snapped. “And I’m not about to give that bitch any more money. You tell her to go suck it off Julio or one of the clubbers. She ain’t going to get change from me. I know what a gold-hopping whore she is.”

“Uh, sure, boss…but—”

Casco had returned to his work as if he hadn’t heard Salto. Nearly a full minute passed before he looked up and noticed his house boss still standing there and pinned him with an icy stare.

Salto took a deep breath and blurted it out before he got in trouble. “She showed up here looking pretty hard, Hector. And she claims that what happened to our boys last night was not the doing of Los Zetas.”

“Bullshit.”

“That’s what I told her and she insisted.”

“And you believed her?”

“When she tells me to basically go fuck myself if I don’t let her see you, yeah, that gets me to start wondering. And then she tells me about this dude, the guy that she claims took them out, dressed all in black like some kind of commando, shooting this chatter gun and stuff. And she claims he took out all three of our guys from quite a distance, almost like a sniper or something.”

Casco’s pallor went a noticeable gray, and something flickered in his eyes. “Did you say he was dressed all in black?”

When Salto nodded, Casco’s mouth dropped open as if he wanted to say something.

“What is it, boss?”

“If that’s true, then that is a problem…a very serious fucking problem.”

It wasn’t often that Casco got excitable, but Salto could tell this had his boss on edge. He talked as if his mouth was dry as cotton, and some beads of sweat were visible as they glimmered in the light. Casco had a reputation of being a tough, fearless son of a bitch who didn’t worry about nothing or nobody. Yet every day the guy had to worry his enemies would track him down and kill him. He had to worry about underlings who might betray him, and rivals who might try to undercut his operations.

“You know who this guy is?”

“Maybe,” Casco said, clearing his throat. “Maybe I do. You remember Jose Carillo?”

“Panchos Carillo?”

When Casco slowly nodded, Salto felt a stabbing sensation to his chest. The very name conjured a cornucopia of memories. Most of it had been before Salto’s time, but he couldn’t imagine too many guys his age not hearing the legend of Jose “Panchos” Carillo. The deceased Mexican mob leader had brokered a deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia to provide protection for his massive drug-smuggling operations after the collapse of his only rival’s empire. Unfortunately, an equally determined faction of a Chinese triad known as the Kung Lok had set their sights on the American Southwest, as well.

As the story went, one man was credited with bringing down both sides in a bloodbath that lasted a couple of weeks and went from Las Vegas, Los Angeles and El Paso to Canada. It was even rumored that this same bastard—who dressed in black and used military tactics—took the fight to Hong Kong and closed the attempted Kung Lok operation into utter chaos. Carillo and his closest advisors were eliminated, along with some high-ranking officials in the American government, and this individual was credited with racking up a body count so great on both sides that they never recovered.

“You don’t think—”

Casco lifted a hand to cut him off. “We won’t make any assumptions. The first thing we must do is verify this. Go get the bitch.”

Salto turned and immediately retrieved Pacorbo. As they entered Casco’s study, Salto caught the strong odor of cigar smoke. This surprised him, since his boss didn’t typically smoke in his home. He chose to go outside to enjoy his cigars, and the fact he’d fired up inside the house—in his study, no less—told Salto all he needed to know about how his boss was taking this news.

“Have a seat,” he said to Pacorbo, gesturing to a nearby couch.

She practically fell into the plush cushions and propped her feet on the coffee table in a most disrespectful fashion. Salto looked in Casco’s direction with horror but it seemed his boss decided to overlook the indiscretion. He would have ordered the bottoms of the feet beaten of anyone else who had done such a thing. Casco appreciated fine furniture and didn’t tolerate anyone treating his possessions with indifference.

Casco sat on the edge of his desk and took a long mouthful of smoke, letting it out slowly before he addressed Pacorbo. “Maldo tells me you have some information about the man who killed three of my people last night.”