Recovery Force

“That would make sense. If Casco can gain sole control of the pipeline from Nogales to Phoenix, he’d have an operation equal to or even exceeding the one out of Nuevo Laredo.”

“Right,” Gagliardi said. “But now the Home Invasion and Kidnapping Enforcement squad within the Phoenix P.D. has obtained information about this pharmacy. Word has it that a major meet is scheduled there three days from today. And according to everything I can gather this HIKE squad plans to be there for it. There’s even talk Casco’s going to make a personal appearance.”

“Yeah. But for what reason?” Bolan said. “If your intelligence is good, they wouldn’t risk such a meeting without some purpose.”

“That I can’t tell you,” Gagliardi said. “But I can tell you my intel comes from pretty high up. I’d be very surprised if this wasn’t the real thing.”

Bolan had nodded in understanding. He couldn’t bring himself to doubt the information because Gagliardi had risked a lot to get it to him. It also made some sense in that it appeared Hector Casco was out to make a name for himself; Casco obviously wanted a larger cut of the action if nothing else. Those two facts alone made it important enough to check out. Bolan’s only choice, then, would be to do a soft probe of the place and see what turned up.

With Ann-Elise McCormack out of danger, Bolan felt the time had come to explore this a bit further. By this point, the police would be at the cartel residence on the other side of town in force, not to mention swarming the McCormack and Montera homes. That left the field wide open and bought Bolan a little more time to check out Gagliardi’s intelligence.

Bolan pulled his vehicle into the back parking lot of a diner positioned directly across from the corner pharmacy. He stepped into the cool interior, sat down and ordered a sandwich. As he waited, the warrior studied the facade. The place looked plain, unremarkable really, save for the striped awnings that jutted from above the pair of large plate-glass windows—one each facing the cross streets. That old-fashioned look seemed out of place in this kind of “upscale” neighborhood and yet Bolan saw some wisdom in that. It made it seem like another friendly, neighborhood drugstore, maybe something out of Norman Rockwell.

Then the glint of light catching on metal from the rooftop of the three-story building across the street caught Bolan’s eye. He watched with interest, never taking his eyes from the building save for a brief acknowledgement of the waitress, who set the plate on the table with a clank.

“Can I get you anything else, honey?” she asked, tossing her blond hair as she cracked her gum.

By the time Bolan answered her, he’d spotted a second rooftop enemy position and three more at street level. “There a pay phone around here?”

She nodded. “Out back.”

Bolan held up a ten as he slid out of the booth and said, “Keep the change.”

“Wow, a whole dollar-twenty-five,” the waitress said with mock admiration. “Thanks, sir. Hey! What about your sandwich?”

But Bolan was already out the door and walking casually along the side of the building. He could have called from his cell phone but he didn’t want any of the diner occupants to overhear him. Beside the fact, the pay phone would be at least a bit more secure for Gagliardi. If anyone traced the call to the undercover agent’s own mobile phone, at least they wouldn’t be able to tie it to anything solid.

Gagliardi answered on the first ring. “Yeah?”

“It’s me,” Bolan replied. “Can you talk?”

“At the moment. What’s up?”

“You said the other day that rumor control had it Casco was going to be at this meet.”

“Right.”

“Any idea what time it was planned for?”

“Not a clue. I only know it was supposed to go down today.”

“You know how to reach this guy who’s heading up the HIKE squad?”

“Nope, but I got a name.”

“What is it?”

“Captain Joseph Hall. Why?”

“Because I think he and his team are about to walk into a trap,” Bolan replied.

2

No sooner had the words left the Executioner’s mouth than he heard the squeal of tires on pavement.

He bid Gagliardi a hasty farewell, then skirted the building until he reached the corner and risked a glance in the direction of the pharmacy. Two unmarked units had arrived and parked on the sidewalk, flanked by two uniform squads blocking the intersection. A large police van arrived a moment later, probably dispatched to haul away whomever the cops took into custody.

Bolan whipped the Beretta from his shoulder holster and dashed along the side of the diner until the first rooftop sentry he’d spotted came into view. The warrior had only seconds to take the guy down before the sentry started sniping at the cops. He was packing SJHPs, subsonic to suppress noise, but at only 125-grain apiece it would also severely limit the chances for a first-hit kill. Bolan thumbed the selector to 3-round-burst mode. He then sighted on the shadowy figure visible just above the parapet and squeezed the trigger. A trio of 9 mm Parabellum rounds hit home, one striking the rifle mounted to a bipod while the other two slammed into the sentry’s head. The guy dropped from sight in a red spray brightened by the blazing midday sun.

The muzzle of Bolan’s 93-R attended the second rooftop position but he found it vacant. Either the sniper there had seen Bolan moving or he’d gone to alert the others at the arrival of Hall’s squad.

Bolan turned his attention to the three ground-level heavies. One of them was using the door of a black SUV for cover as he sighted down the barrel of an assault rifle. From that vantage point, Bolan couldn’t tell what kind of rifle it was but he knew that mattered very little. The gunner could intend only one thing and if he had enough guts to level a rifle at the police in broad daylight on a busy street, he sure as hell had the guts to use it.

Bolan didn’t plan to give him that chance. He dashed across the street in the direction of the cops massed outside the front doors of the pharmacy and prepared to make tactical entry. Bolan sighted down the slide of the pistol and triggered a 3-round burst on the run. He nearly reached the sidewalk before triggering a second and then a third. None of the rounds hit but they came close enough to distract the hood holding the rifle. The staccato of autofire echoed through the air as the rounds went high and wide of the cloistered cops.

Bolan leaped onto the sidewalk as he dropped a clip into his palm, pocketed it and slammed home a fresh one. He body-checked an older, white-haired guy donned in a Kevlar vest. The impact sent the cop into one of his colleagues who was suited in full tactical gear just as a fresh volley of rounds chewed up the wall where the cop had been standing a moment earlier.

Bolan ignored the cops who shouted at him and turned their weapons, instead rolling away from them and coming up behind the grill of the police van. Bolan skirted around it and pressed toward the position of the guy yielding the rifle. The shooter still hadn’t seemed to notice Bolan—he acted like the cops had spotted him and were shooting back—so the Executioner’s fast approach went unchecked. By the time the hood realized his mistake Bolan had drawn close enough he couldn’t miss. And he didn’t. A trio of rounds perforated the man’s left chest, cutting through heart and lungs with a fury. The man’s rifle clattered to the pavement and he staggered backward under the impact, blood flowing freely from not only the wounds, but also the corners of his mouth. The enemy gunner, appearing to be a man of twenty or twenty-one, dropped to the ground and expired with a shudder.

By that time, the cops realized Bolan wasn’t shooting at them and that their real enemy had sprung an ambush that the Executioner, friend or foe, seemed bent on putting to rest before the party got wound up. And by all accounts it looked to them like the warrior was doing a damned good job of it.

Bolan swung the muzzle of the Beretta 93-R until he acquired target number two in his sights and delivered another volley of slugs. While they might have been subsonic, the rounds did the job of neutralizing the gunman. The guy triggered a burst skyward before dropping his weapon and hitting a wall. He fell in almost slow motion, his eyes wide open in a vacant expression of death as blood seeped from the third eye left by one of Bolan’s rounds.

The last gunner saw that within a moment the odds had been narrowed by two-thirds, and it didn’t look like he stood much of a chance against the Executioner and the cops. He decided to take his chances with Bolan. He believed he could take this guy—he had the firepower and the guts. The hood raised his machine pistol, an older-model mini-Uzi, and sprayed in the direction of Bolan indiscriminately. The Executioner took cover and grimaced at the off-chance an innocent bystander might get in the way.

Unfortunately for the gun-toting hood, he’d never have the chance to kill Bolan or a noncombatant.

The man’s body began to rock under the impact of the half-dozen or so police weapons suddenly aimed at him. The cops doled out a fury of destructive autofire from their Colt AR-15s and pistols. The thug staggered a moment and then collapsed to the pavement.

Bolan continued in motion around the corner and sprinted down the street. He would have to lie low for a while, come back later to retrieve his vehicle. The warrior knew he still needed to make contact with Joseph Hall, but he had to do it on his own time and his own way. For the moment they would only try to apprehend Bolan, and the Executioner didn’t feel like spending the next twenty-four hours in a police lockup under interrogation. He still had a lot to do in Phoenix.

The mission had only just begun.

JOE HALL, CAPTAIN OF the Home Invasion and Kidnapping Enforcement squad, stared with angst at the mess of bodies strewn along the streets of downtown Phoenix. This was his city, and the mysterious stranger who had saved his life managed to disappear without a trace. No, the raid on the pharmacy hadn’t gone as planned. They had five corpses, all of whom Hall assumed would eventually be tied back to affiliations with either a local street gang or Los Negros. In spite of the sudden change in plans, they had managed to round up everyone inside the pharmacy, a total of three employees and one manager, but he didn’t think anything would come of it. They had no evidence of wrongdoing on the parts of any of the pharmacy workers, and all of the bad guys, any one of whom he might have coerced into talking, were all deceased.

Sergeant Larry Murach joined Hall as he stood over one of the dead. The coroner had arrived quickly enough and at least managed to get the bodies covered. It wasn’t as if Hall cared much about protecting their dignity, but dead was still dead and it helped cut down the number of free gapers. A large crowd had formed but with the place taped off and the backup on scene, the uniforms were doing a pretty good job of keeping the looky-loos and press hounds at bay.

“What do you have?” Hall asked Murach, not taking his eyes off the covered body.

“Not much,” Murach said, flipping through the couple of small pages of notes he’d taken. “All four of the deceased are gangbangers. Two actually have some ink that marks them as members of Los Negros, the other two are wearing colors but nothing else.”

“Witnesses?”

“Nobody I talked to is really sure what the hell happened. I guess whoever saw these guys decided to stay healthy by giving them a wide berth.”

And the only man with enough smarts to have spotted them ahead of time somehow managed to slip through our fingers, Hall thought. “What about our mystery man?”

“I canvassed that diner over there,” Murach said, pointing at it. “A waitress there says a guy came in about ten minutes before the shooting started. Says he ordered a sandwich and then got up and left without eating it.”

Hall looked sharply at Murach. “Why?”

“She wasn’t sure,” Murach said with a shrug. “She said he ordered and then when she brought the food he asked for a pay phone and split. Paid for the meal but apparently isn’t much of a tipper.”

“She give you a description?”

Murach didn’t bother referencing his notes. “Big with dark hair. That’s about all I got.”

“I could have told you that much.”

“She was more pissed about the tip than anything else. That’s all she really talked about. Just kept bitching about the tip.”

And now here was Murach bitching about the waitress bitching. “You got her name and address?”

“Yeah.”

Hall looked at the body again. “I’ll go by later. See if I can get something more out of her. In the meantime, let’s get this place cleaned up as quickly as possible.”

“What about the shooting team?”

“Screw them assholes,” Hall said. “I don’t have time for that right now.”

BOLAN ENTERED THROUGH the frosted-glass doors of the HIKE squad room at the Phoenix P.D. headquarters on the heels of a uniformed female cop.

A single plainclothes officer occupied one of the many desks within the squad room, and he barely gave them a cursory inspection as they passed before returning his attention to a newspaper. The rest of the room appeared abandoned—quiet as a morgue, almost. The officer led Bolan to an office in back and rapped on the closed door. At the sound of a muffled reply she opened it and poked her head in.

“Someone here to see you, sir,” she said.

“Who is it?” the voice asked with an impatient tone.

“Says his name is Cooper. Claims he has information about the shootings today.”

“Have him give his statement to Murach.”

“Sergeant Murach stepped out, sir,” the officer replied with some trepidation.

“Oh, for crissakes, don’t—” The man broke off and said, “All right, send him in.”

The officer stepped aside and smiled, obviously a bit uncomfortable, and gestured for Bolan to enter.

The Executioner smiled back and nodded as he stepped through the doorway and far enough into the room that the young woman could close the door behind him. The man who stood and came around the desk wasn’t anywhere near Bolan’s imposing height, maybe five foot ten, and Bolan immediately recognized him as the lead officer he’d shoved out of the way of enemy gunfire earlier that day. Bolan wondered if that man was Captain Joseph Hall, but the letters stenciled on the door of his office had now confirmed it.

The guy reached out a hand and Bolan shook it. Scrutiny, not recognition, flashed in Hall’s eyes and Bolan eased out the breath he’d been holding. Hall hadn’t gotten a look at his face.

“Have a seat, sir,” Hall said.

Bolan casually plopped into the chair as Hall returned to his desk and adjusted his tie. “You have information about what happened today?”

“I was part of what happened today,” Bolan replied easily.

Hall’s eyes flicked up from his desk and locked on Bolan with a hard stare. Then something dawned on him, something like a realization, and his body tensed.

Bolan held up a palm. “Easy, Hall. I’m not looking for trouble.”

“Then you shouldn’t have walked in here.”

Bolan remained impassive.

Hall continued, “You realize I can arrest you right here just on the suspicion that you were involved in today’s incident?”

“As long as you realize I’m the one who spared your wife and kids a lot of grief today,” Bolan said.

“That’s the only reason you’re not in handcuffs yet.”

“You don’t want to do that.”

“No. And why not?”

“Let’s just say that we’re on the same team.”

“How do I know that? You a cop?”

“Not exactly.”

“Work for the government?”

“Sometimes.”

Hall chuckled and sat back in his chair a little, although Bolan noted he still hadn’t let down his guard. The Executioner didn’t doubt Hall had a gun in reach. “You care to show me some kind of identification to prove that? An authorization signed by the FBI or Justice Department, perhaps?”

Bolan smiled. “Let’s pretend for this moment that I’m telling you the truth. Give me five minutes to explain. After that, if you’re not convinced, you can do what you like.”

“Why should I?”

“The intelligence you got on that meet today was bogus,” Bolan said. “The Sinaloa cartel was setting a trap and you walked right into it. If I hadn’t intervened when I did, you’d all be dead. That enough reason?”

Hall sat in stony silence for a while before finally saying, “Fine…you got your five minutes.”

“Hector Casco wasn’t going to be at that meet,” Bolan continued. “In fact, I doubt there was any meet at all. I got there before you and I marked five scouts, two above, three at street level.”

“It was you at the diner?”

Bolan nodded.

“Yeah, you were a real hit for the waitress there,” Hall said matter-of-factly and scratched his neck. He smiled at Bolan and then said, “You care to elaborate on how you know about Hector Casco?”

“I have sources of my own,” Bolan said. “I called one of them right before your raid went down. My source told me that this was some of the best hard evidence you’d obtained since the beginning of this year. When I heard that, I figured you’d be itching to jump on it and that you’d do whatever was needed to obtain a warrant. Problem is, Hector Casco had already figured that out.”

“So you still haven’t answered my question,” Hall said. “What do you know about it?”

“A lot. Casco’s recent activities here make it obvious he’s trying to take over the pipeline from Nogales. Only trouble is, he’s playing for keeps, which means he’s not looking to take on partners or put up with the competition.”

“What’s your point, Cooper?”

“That you’re about to get in over your head,” Bolan said. “Take Ann-Elise McCormack. You think that was about ransom money?”

“Why not?” Hall asked. “What happened this morning. That you, too?”

Bolan nodded. “Montera was already gone when I arrived, but yeah, I’m the one who took down the kidnappers and returned the girl to her home.”

“She’s one tough kid,” Hall replied. “Apparently, every time the FBI asked who it was that rescued her she’d just start crying, insisting she really didn’t remember.”

“She was grateful,” Bolan said. “Look, the fact is that if Casco plans to take control of the drug and gun-running action in this area, things will heat up quickly between him and the competition. Before you know it, you’ll have a war on these streets between Los Negros and Los Zetas that’ll make what’s happening down in Mexico pale by comparison. You’ve already gotten a taste of how little they care for innocent bystanders.”

“So what are you offering?”

“At this point, a sort of partnership,” Bolan said. “You can still handle the cases the way you feel you need to, and any intelligence I gather during my own operations, I’ll screen and pass on to you if I think it’s relevant.”

“If it’s not enough to get warrants, it does me no good. I got plenty of CI’s out there willing to rat out a nickel-and-dime-bag crook for a few bucks. I don’t need any more of those.”

“It’ll be more than enough,” Bolan said. “And at least you can rest assured it’ll be accurate.”

“So you still haven’t told me why I should work with you,” Hall said. “Or even trust you, for that matter. For all I know you could be working for Casco.”

“The current case count for your squad is up to what now, Hall, maybe a hundred-sixty?” Bolan calmly asked.

“Something like that, yeah.”

“At that rate, I wouldn’t be turning down any help.”

“But how do I know you’re legit.”

“I could have let you die today,” Bolan said and gestured with the flat of his hand. “I could have just walked away and left you and your men to deal on your own.”

“What does that prove?”

“Look, Hall, I threw you one lifeline this morning and I’m throwing a second one this evening. The difference is, are you smart enough to reach for it? You’re not convinced for the sake of your own life, then at least be convinced for the sake of those you’re responsible to protect. There’s a war about to break out right here in Phoenix. Maybe I can’t stop it, but I might be able to contain it long enough for the spark to die. And I can give you some breathing room to operate so that when you do step in to take down Casco, at least it’ll count for something.”

Hall fell silent and Bolan gave him the time to let the wheels turn. He could empathize with the policeman but he also didn’t have time for games. If Hall didn’t go for it, Bolan knew he might end up in a cell. He’d taken a risk doing this, but like most things, the Executioner was playing a hunch and it was one he figured would pay off. Hall and his team had been at it a while and had come up empty-handed, so far. That couldn’t be looking good on Hall, a career-minded cop if Bolan didn’t miss his guess, and that had to be eating up the guy’s insides. Through the years Bolan had become a very good reader of people, and his gut told him Hall would take the deal.

As usual, his gut was right.

“All right, Cooper,” Hall said. “We’ll try this your way and see where it leads. Where do we start?”

3

The Executioner peered through the night-vision scope of the PSG-1 sniper rifle.

Night had overtaken Phoenix several hours earlier, and Bolan began to feel weariness ebb into his body. In spite of it, his mind remained fully alert to any dangers. There would be plenty of chances to rest later—at least that’s what he told himself during the more time-critical missions—but at the moment he needed to stay at peak operational readiness.

The lives of several young women depended on it.

The girls were working in a club owned by Los Negros. When most people heard that name, they typically thought of the Afromestizos group seeking to be recognized as a third ethnic voice within Mexico, a country that had not become a truly pluralist society until the 1990s in order to buy in to the good graces of the United States.

Most didn’t know about the other Los Negros, a group that had kidnapped, murdered and terrorized the American Southwest. Even with major successes by the DEA and joint agencies in operations like Xcellerator in 2009—the genesis of which began in Imperial County, California, and ultimately spanned more than twenty-five states and seized approximately one billion dollars in Sinaloa cartel assets—the fight continued. Like all such organizations, Los Negros continued to rear its ugly faces like the multiheaded monster it was. Well, Bolan had something for the Hydra, something that it would not soon forget. He had a battle plan, the opening of which involved Bolan behind the sniper rifle, concealed by a tarp over the bed of a large pickup truck. While it might have seemed a crude way of establishing a point from which to strike, it provided Bolan with the position he needed and would buy him the element of surprise. Plus from his vantage point, Bolan had a perfect view of the club entrance.

Initially Hall hadn’t been keen on Bolan’s plan to turn Los Negros on its ear, but eventually he listened to reason. Bolan convinced him by outlining the wisdom of such a move. There was only one way to keep a guy like Hector Casco from establishing a foothold in Phoenix and that was to turn his operation upside down. And keeping the enemy off balance and teetering on the brink of chaos was what the Executioner did best.

The skintight blacksuit Bolan wore exacerbated the stifling heat. He made a final adjustment to the scope and then pulled his eye away from it long enough to inspect the luminescent hands of his watch. It was nearing 0230 hours and the club had pretty much emptied of the majority of partiers. A few stragglers had emerged in the past thirty minutes—some single men and a few couples, but not Bolan’s targets. The warrior realized he could have a very long wait and that wouldn’t do, considering the sweat that soaked his body and had on more than one occasion run into his eyes.