Colony Of Evil

“That’s right.”

“Is all arranged,” Guzman replied, and put the car in gear.

“THEY’RE CLEARING THE GARAGE right now,” Horst Krieger said, speaking into his handheld two-way radio. “Be ready when they pass you.”

“Yes, sir!” came the response from Arne Rauschman in the second car. No further conversation was required.

“Get after them!” snapped Krieger to his driver, Juan Pacheco. “Not too close, but keep the car in sight.”

“Sí, señor,” the driver said as he put the Volkswagen sedan in gear and rolled out in pursuit of Krieger’s targets.

Krieger thought it was excessive, sending eight men to deal with the two strangers he had briefly glimpsed as they’d driven past, but he never contested orders from his commander. Such insubordination went against the grain for Krieger, and it was the quickest way that he could think of to get killed.

Besides, he thought as they pursued the Fiat compact, Rauschman’s six-year-old Mercedes falling in behind the Volkswagen, if they faced any opposition from the targets, he could use the native hired muscle as cannon fodder, let them take the brunt of it, while he and Rauschman finished off the enemy.

The Fiat quite predictably took Avenida El Dorado from the airport into Bogotá. It was the city’s broadest, fastest highway, crossing on an east-west axis through the heart of Colombia’s capital.

It was early evening, with traffic at its peak, and Krieger worried that his driver might lose the Fiat through excessive caution.

“Faster!” he demanded “Close that gap! We’re covered by the other traffic here. Stay after them!”

He waited for the standard “Sí, señor,” and frowned when it was not forthcoming. He would have to teach Pacheco some respect, but now was clearly not the time. The Volkswagen surged forward, gaining on the Fiat, while cars that held no interest for Krieger wove in and out of the lanes between them.

Krieger turned in his seat, feeling the bite of his shoulder harness, the gouge of his Walther P-88 digging into his side as he craned for a view of Rauschman’s Mercedes. There it was, three cars back, holding steady.

At least, with a real soldier in each vehicle, the peasants he was forced to use as personnel would not give up and wander off somewhere for a siesta in the middle of the job. Krieger would see to that, and Rauschman could be trusted to control his crew, regardless of their innate failings.

Krieger couldn’t really blame them, after all. The peasants had been born inferior, and there was nothing they could do to change that fact, no matter how hard they might try.

But they could follow orders, to a point. Drive cars. Point guns. Pull triggers. What else were they good for? Why else even let them live?

Horst Krieger would be pleased to kill the two men he was following, although he’d never met them in his life and knew nothing about them. One of them looked Aryan, or possibly Italian, but the race alone meant nothing. There was also attitude, philosophy and politics to be considered.

All those who opposed the sacred cause must die.

Some sooner, as it happened, than the rest.

Speaking across his shoulder, Krieger told the two Colombians seated behind him, “Be ready, on my command.”

He heard the harsh click-clack of automatic weapons being cocked, and felt compelled to add, “Don’t fire until I say, and then be certain of your target.”

“No civilians,” one of them responded. “Sí, señor.”

“I don’t care shit about civilians,” Krieger answered. “But if one of you shoots me, I swear, that I’ll strangle you with your own guts before I die.”

The backseat shooters took him seriously, as they should have. Krieger meant precisely what he said.

Rauschman’s two gunners in the second car would have their weapons primed by now, as well, although the order had to come from Krieger, and he hadn’t found his kill zone yet. It might be best if they could pass the target vehicle on Calle 26, he thought, but then he wondered if it would be wiser to delay and follow them onto a smaller and less-crowded surface street.

Something to think about.

“You’re losing him!” Krieger barked, and the Volkswagen gained speed. Still no response from Juan Pacheco at the wheel.

That bit of insubordination would be more expensive than the driver realized. When they were finished with the job and safely back at headquarters, he had a date with Krieger and a hand-crank generator that was guaranteed to keep him on his toes.

Or writhing on the floor in agony.

The prospect made Horst Krieger smile, though on his finely sculpted face, the simple act of smiling had the aspect of a grimace. No one facing that expression would find any mirth in it, or anything at all to put their minds at ease.

“You see the signal?”

Up ahead, the Fiat’s amber left-turn signal light was flashing, as the driver veered across two lanes of traffic. He did not wait for the cars behind him to slow and make room in their lanes, but simply charged across in front of them, as if the signal would protect him from collisions.

Krieger’s wheelman cursed in Spanish and roared off in pursuit of their intended victims. Angry horns blared after them, but Pacheco paid them no heed.

Krieger considered warning Rauschman, but a backward glance told him that the Mercedes was already changing lanes, accelerating into the pursuit. Rauschman would not presume to pass Krieger’s VW, but neither would he let the marks escape.

“Stay after them!” Krieger snarled. “Your life is forfeit if they get away.”

“WE HAVE A TAIL,” Bolan said, turning to confirm what he’d already seen in his side mirror. Two cars, several lengths behind them, had swerved rapidly to match Guzman’s lane change.

“Maybe coincidence,” Guzman said as his dark eyes flickered back and forth between his rearview mirror and the crowded lanes in front of him.

“Maybe,” Bolan replied, but he wasn’t buying it. The nearest off-ramp was a mile or more ahead of them. Commuters would already know their exits. Tourists new to Bogotá would have their noses buried in guidebooks or street maps, and the odds that two of them would suddenly change lanes together without need were minuscule.

“You wouldn’t have a gun, by any chance?” Bolan asked. “Just to tide me over, through our little shopping trip.”

“Of course, señor,” his guide replied, and reached beneath his driver’s seat, drawing a pistol from some hidey-hole and handing it to Bolan.

Bolan recognized the IMBEL 45GC-MD1. He checked the chamber, found a round already loaded, pulled the magazine and counted fourteen more.

It could be worse.

Most .45s had straight-line magazines, and thus surrendered five to seven rounds on average to the staggered-box design employed by most 9 mm handguns. IMBEL had contrived a way to keep the old Colt’s knock-down power while increasing its capacity and sacrificing none of the prototype’s rugged endurance.

Bolan wished he might’ve had a good assault rifle instead, or at the very least a few spare magazines, but he was armed, and so felt vastly better than he had a heartbeat earlier.

“Two cars, you think?” Guzman asked.

Bolan looked again, in time to see a third change lanes, some thirty yards behind the second chase car. “Two, at least,” Bolan replied. “There might be three.”

“I took every precaution!” Guzman said defensively. “I swear, I was not followed.”

It was no time to start an argument. “Maybe they knew where you were going,” Bolan replied.

“How? I told no one!”

Grasping at straws, Bolan suggested, “We can check the car for GPS transmitters later. Right now, think of somewhere to take them without risking any bystanders.”

“There’s no such place in Bogotá, señor!”

“Calm down and reconsider. Last time I passed through town, there was a warehouse district, there were parks the decent people stayed away from after dark, commercial areas where everyone punched out at six o’clock.”

“Well…sí. Of course, we have such places.”

“Find one,” Bolan suggested. “And don’t let those chase cars pull alongside while we’re rolling, if you have a choice.”

“Would you prefer a warehouse or—”

“It’s your town,” Bolan cut him off. “I don’t care if you flip a coin. Just do it now.”

His tone spurred Guzman to a choice, although the driver kept it to himself. No matter. Bolan likely wouldn’t recognize street names, much less specific addresses, if Guzman offered him a running commentary all the way.

Bolan wanted results, and he would judge his guide’s choice by the outcome of the firefight that now seemed a certainty.

Headlights behind the Volkswagen sedan showed Bolan four men in the vehicle. He couldn’t see their backlit faces, and would not have recognized them anyway, unless they’d been featured in the photo lineup he’d viewed before leaving Miami. Still, he knew the enemy by sight, by smell, by intuition.

Even if the dark Mercedes and the smaller car behind it, which had changed lanes last, were wholly innocent, Bolan still had four shooters on his tail, almost before he’d scuffed shoe leather on their native soil. That was a poor start to his game, by any standard, and he had to deal with them as soon as possible.

If he could capture one alive, for questioning, so much the better. But he wasn’t counting on that kind of break, and wouldn’t pull his punches when the bloodletting began.

“All right, I know a place,” Guzman announced. “We take the first road on our left, ahead.”

“Suits me,” Bolan replied. “Sooner’s better than later.”

“You think that they will try to kill us?”

“They’re not the welcoming committee,” Bolan said. “Whether they want us dead or spilling everything we know, it doesn’t work for me.”

“There will be shooting, then?”

“I’d say you could bet money on it.”

“Very well.”

Guzman took one hand off the steering wheel, leaned forward and retrieved a pistol from his waistband, at the back. It was another IMBEL, possibly a twin to Bolan’s .45, although he couldn’t tell without a closer look. Guzman already had it cocked and locked. He left the safety on and wedged the gun beneath his right leg and the cushion of the driver’s seat.

“We’re ready now, I think,” he said.

“We’re getting there,” Bolan replied. “We need our place, first.”

“Soon,” Guzman assured him, speaking through a worried look that didn’t show much confidence. “Three miles, I think. If we are still alive.”

CHAPTER TWO

“It’s your ass if they get away!” Horst Krieger snapped at Juan Pacheco.

“Sí, señor.”

“But not too close!”

“Okay.”

It didn’t matter if his orders were confusing. Krieger thought the driver understood their need to keep the target vehicle in sight, without alarming their intended victims and precipitating a high-speed chase through the heart of Bogotá that would attract police.

Another backward glance showed Krieger that his backup car, with Arne Rauschman navigating, had followed them down the off-ramp from Avenida El Dorado. Krieger was surprised to see a third car exiting, as well—or fourth, if he counted his target—but he dismissed the fact as mere coincidence.

Some eight million people lived in Bogotá. Many more commuted to jobs in the city from outlying towns, and Krieger supposed that thousands arrived at the airport each day, for business or pleasure. It was no surprise, no cause for concern, that four cars should exit the city’s main highway at any given point.

“Where are they going?” Krieger asked, and instantly regretted it.

“I couldn’t say, señor,” Pacheco answered.

Was the bastard smirking at him? Krieger felt a sudden urge to smash his driver’s face, but knew such self-indulgence would derail his mission.

He drew the Walther pistol from its holster, holding it loosely in his right hand, stroking the smooth polished slide with his left. A simple action, but he felt some of the pent-up tension draining from him, as if it was transferred to the weapon in his hand.

The better to unleash hell on his enemies, when it was time.

Krieger had not bothered to memorize the streets of Bogotá, but he knew his way around the city. He could name the twenty “localities” of the great city’s Capital District and find them on a map, if need be. He knew all the major landmarks, plus the home addresses of those who mattered in his world. As for the rest, Krieger could read a map or tell his driver where to take him.

But uncertainty displeased him, and whatever happened to displease Horst Krieger also made him angry.

He was angry now.

He couldn’t tell if those he followed knew that he was trailing them, or if the exit off of Calle 26 had been their destination in the first place. And, in either case, he didn’t know where they were going at the moment, whether to a private residence, a restaurant or other public place, perhaps some rendezvous with other enemies, of whom Krieger was unaware.

The latter prospect worried Krieger most. He was prepared to stop and kill his targets anywhere that proved convenient, both in terms of an efficient execution and a clean escape. However, if he led his team into a trap, the eight of them might be outnumbered and outgunned.

Another backward glance showed Rauschman in the second car, holding position a half block behind the Volkswagen. Another car trailed Rauschman’s, hanging back a block or so, but Krieger couldn’t say with any certainty that it was the same car he’d seen departing Avenida El Dorado.

Ahead, his quarry made a left turn, drove two blocks, then turned off to his right. Krieger’s Volkswagen followed, leading the Mercedes-Benz. Unless the bastard at the wheel was drunk or stupid, he had to know by now that he was being followed.

Still, there came no burst of speed, no sudden zigzag steering into alleys or running against the traffic on one-way streets. If the target did know he was marked, he appeared not to care.

“I think he goes to Puenta Aranda, señor,” Pacheco said.

“You think?”

“We’re almost there.”

And Krieger realized that he was right. Ahead, he recognized the fringe of Bogotá’s industrial corridor, where factories produced much of the city’s—and the nation’s—textiles, chemicals, metal products and processed foods.

It was not a residential district, though Krieger supposed people lived there, as everywhere else in the city. There would be squatters, street people and beggars, the scum of the earth. Conversely, Krieger knew that some of the factories operated around the clock, which meant potential witnesses to anything that happened there, regardless of the time.

Too bad it wasn’t Christmas or Easter, the two days each year when the church-enslaved peasants were granted relief. On either of those “holy” days, Krieger could have killed a hundred men in plain sight, with no one the wiser until they returned the next morning.

This night, he would have to take care.

“Move in closer,” he ordered. “They must know we’re here, anyway.”

Palming the two-way radio, he told Rauschman, “Be ready when I move. I’ll choose the spot, then box them in.”

“Yes, sir,” came the laconic answer.

“There!” he told Pacheco, pointing. “Can you overtake them and—”

Without the slightest warning, Krieger’s prey suddenly bolted, tires squealing into a reckless left-hand turn, and sped into the darkened gap between two factories.

“Goddamn it! After them!”

BOLAN WAS BRACED and ready when he saw the opening he wanted, aimed an index finger to the left, and told Guzman, “In there! Hit it!”

Guzman was good behind the wheel. Not NASCAR-good, perhaps, but so far he had followed orders like a pro and handled his machine with total competency. Even on the unexpected left-hand turn, he kept all four tires on the road and lost only a little rubber to acceleration, in the stretch.

Great factories loomed over them on either side, their smoke stacks belching toxic filth into the sky. Bolan had no idea what kind of products either plant produced. It had no relevance to his survival in the next few minutes, so he put it out of mind.

“We’re looking for a place to stand and fight,” he told Guzman. “Some cover and some combat stretch.”

“What is this stretch?”

“I mean some room to move. So we’re not pinned, boxed in.”

“Of course.”

Bolan had leafed through Guzman’s dossier, the one provided by the DEA, but it had said nothing about his fighting ability. He carried guns, but so did many other people who had no idea what it was like to kill a man or even draw a piece in self-defense. He might freeze up, or waste all of his ammunition in the first few seconds, without hitting anyone.

Bolan would have to wait and see.

“There is a slaughterhouse ahead,” Guzman informed him. “On the railroad line. Beside it is a tannery. I think they may be what you’re looking for, señor.”

“Let’s take a look,” Bolan replied. “And call me Matt, since we’re about to get bloody together.”

“Bloody?” Guzman asked.

“Figure of speech.”

“Ah.” Guzman didn’t sound convinced.

Two sets of headlights trailed the Fiat through its final turn. No, make that three. The final car in line was playing catch-up, running just a bit behind.

“Sooner is better,” Bolan told Guzman.

As if in answer to his words, a muzzle-flash erupted from the passenger’s side of the leading chase car. The initial burst was hasty, not well aimed, but Bolan knew they would improve with practice.

“Are they shooting at us?” Guzman asked, sounding surprised.

“Affirmative. We’re running out of time.”

“Hang on!”

With only that as warning, Guzman cranked hard on the Fiat’s wheel and put them through a rubber-squealing left-hand turn. At first, Bolan thought he was taking them into some kind of parking lot, but then he saw lights far ahead and realized it was a narrow access road between the leather plant and yet another factory, much like its neighbor in the darkness, when its lighted windows were the only things that showed.

Somewhere behind him, Bolan thought that he heard the hopeless cries of cattle being herded into slaughter pens. It seemed appropriate, but did nothing to lighten Bolan’s mood.

“We still need—”

Guzman interrupted him without a spoken word, spinning the wheel again, feet busy with the gas pedal, the clutch, the brake. He took them through a long bootlegger’s turn, tires crying out in protest as they whipped through a 180-degree rotation and wound up facing toward their pursuers.

“Is there ‘stretch’ enough?” Guzman asked.

Bolan glanced to either side, saw waste ground stretching off into the night. The hulks of cast-off vehicles and large machines waiting for someone to remove them sat like gargoyles, casting shadows darker than the night itself.

“We’ll find out in a second,” Bolan said. “Give them your brights and find some cover.”

Leaping from the vehicle, Bolan ran to his right and crouched behind a generator easily as tall as he was, eight or ten feet long. Approaching headlights framed the Fiat, glinting off its chrome, but the pursuers would’ve lost Bolan as soon as he was off the pavement.

As for Guzman…

Bolan heard the crack of a 9 mm Parabellum pistol, saw the muzzle-flash from Guzman’s side of the Fiat. Downrange, there came the sound of glass breaking, and one of the onrushing headlights suddenly blacked out.

Not bad, if that was Guzman’s aim, but would he do as well with human targets that returned fire, with intent to kill?

Bolan supposed he’d find out any moment, now, and in the meantime he was moving, looking for a vantage point that would surprise his enemies while still allowing him substantial cover.

He assumed that some of them, at least, had seen him breaking toward their left, his right. He couldn’t help that, but he didn’t have to make it easy for them, either, popping up where they’d expect a frightened man to stand and fight.

Fear was a part of what he felt. No soldier who was sane ever completely lost that feeling when the bullets started flying, but he’d never given in to fear, let it control or paralyze him.

Fear, if properly controlled, made soldiers smart, kept them from being reckless when it did no good. The mastery of fear prevented them from freezing up, permitted them to risk their lives selectively, when it was time to do or die.

Like now.

“HE’S TURNING! Watch it!”

Krieger realized that he was shouting at Pacheco, but the driver didn’t seem to hear or understand him. How could the pathetic creature not see what was happening two hundred yards in front of him?

After its left-hand turn down another dark and narrow access road between two factories, the target vehicle had first accelerated, then spun through a racing turn that left its headlights pointing toward Krieger’s two-car caravan. At first, he thought the crazy bastard was about to charge head-on, but then he realized the other car had stopped. Its headlights blazed to high beams, briefly blinding him, as doors flew open on both sides.

“They’re getting out! Watch—There! And there!

He pointed, but Pacheco and the idiots seated behind him didn’t seem to understand. Pacheco held the wheel steady, but he was slowing as he approached the stationary vehicle they had followed from the airport.

“Christ! Will you be careful?”

Even as he spoke, a shot rang out and Krieger raised an arm to shield his face. The bullet drilled his windshield, clipped the rearview mirror from its post, but missed all four of those who occupied the Volkswagen.

“Get out, damn you!” he snapped at no one in particular, and flung his own door open, using it for cover as he rolled out of the car.

It wasn’t perfect, granted. Anyone who took his time and aimed could probably hit Krieger in the feet or lower legs—even a ricochet could cripple him—but all he needed was a little time to find himself a better vantage point.

He could’ve fired the Walther blindly, made a run for it, but Krieger hated wasting any of the pistol’s sixteen rounds. He had two extra magazines but hadn’t come prepared for any kind of siege and wanted every shot to count.

Both of his riflemen were firing now, short bursts from their CZ2000 Czech assault rifles. They had the carbine version, eighteen inches overall with wire butts folded, each packing a drum magazine with seventy-five 5.56 mm NATO rounds. The little guns resembled sawed-off AK-47s, but in modern times had been retooled to readily accept box magazines from the American M-16 rifle, as well as their own standard loads.

The CZ2000 fired at a cyclic rate of 800 rounds per minute, but Krieger and Rauschman had drilled the mestizos on conserving ammunition, firing aimed and measured bursts in spite of any panic they might feel. So far, it seemed they were remembering their lessons, taking turns as they popped up behind the Volkswagen and stitched holes in the Fiat.

Krieger saw his chance and made his move, sprinting into the midnight darkness of a field directly to his right. He’d seen enough in the periphery of headlights to determine that the field was presently a dumping ground for out-of-date or broken-down equipment. Krieger reckoned he could use the obstacles for cover.

As he crept along through dusty darkness, eardrums echoing to gunfire, Krieger took stock of his advantages. He had eight men, himself included, against two. As far as he could tell, his weapons were superior to those his enemies possessed. He should be able to destroy them without difficulty.

Now, the disadvantages, which every canny soldier had to keep in mind. Krieger was unfamiliar with the battleground, and he could see no better in the darkness than his adversaries could. Night-vision goggles would’ve helped, but how was he to know that they’d be needed?

Another deficit: his men, with one exception—Arne Rauschman—were mestizos, capable of murder but indifferent as soldiers. They obeyed Krieger and his superiors from greed, fear, or a combination of the two. Still, if their nerve broke and their tiny peasant minds were gripped by fear, they might desert him.