Payback

Bolan immediately got up and moved toward the cockpit. Through the windshield the soldier saw something rustling against the darkened sky in the distance. He flipped down the visor for his night-vision goggles. Three helicopters, UH-60s from the looks of them, were leaving the area.

What the hell were birds like that doing down here? Bolan wondered.

Something else caught his eye: a thin trail of dark smoke drifting upward over the trees.

Grimaldi was right. Something was off. He turned back to his team and pressed the button to activate his throat mike.

“Something’s up. We saw three helicopters in the vicinity of the target. There’s a smoke trail, too. I’ll need three volunteers to fast-rope down with me to do a recon.”

All the men raised their hands and Bolan grinned. No shortage of motivation in this group. He chose three at random, motioning them forward, and squatted as he unfolded the paper map of the target.

“I’ll be Red One,” he said, then tapped each man consecutively. “You’re Red Two, Three and Four. We’ll drop in here.” He pointed to a spot near the corner of big house. “Red Two and I will go left, Red Three and Four right. Move and cover. Remember our primary mission is hostage rescue. We take down any hostiles in our way and search. But it looks like the mission’s been compromised.” He glanced up at the rest of the group. “You all hook up and be ready to deploy should we need help. Be ready. We’ll determine the status of the situation and then either proceed or evacuate.”

The team members nodded.

Bolan turned back toward Grimaldi. “You getting this?’

“Loud and clear,” the pilot said. “Just show me where you want to be dropped off.”

The Executioner’s uneasiness increased as Grimaldi took the helicopter in for a preliminary fly-by. Normally, they wouldn’t have risked announcing their presence, but the smoke and the departing choppers were a game-changer. Besides, Bolan doubted that De la Noval would have the firepower to take out a Black Hawk. The smoke was emanating from what appeared to be several small fires inside the mansion itself. Yellow flames licked at shattered windows and broken doors. The infrared night-vision goggles showed two prone bodies by the front gate. Several more were scattered over the expansive yard leading to the house. From the lack of movement and the twisted positioning, they appeared to be casualties. The place had already been hit by some kind of tactical assault. Bolan told Grimaldi to keep the chopper in a hover, and he and the other three team members hooked the nylon ropes through their D-rings and backed out of the open doors.

Zipping downward, Bolan didn’t brake until he was almost to the ground. Once his feet were on solid earth, he unclipped the D-ring and kept his M-4 in the ready position as he advanced. His peripheral vision told him his teammates had made it down safely. They split up, each moving through the darkened yard with practiced ease.

Thoughts of the failed Cat’s Cradle mission flitted through Bolan’s mind. The similarities of this setup and the one in Colombia screamed for caution. Same general compound design, same trek through an expansive yard, same last name of the bad guy. From what he’d heard, younger brother Jesús was even more treacherous than Vincente had ever been.

The flickering light from the fires made Bolan’s night-vision goggles practically useless, but nothing seemed to move in the flat, greenish tincture in front of him. No adversaries presented themselves. He kept an eye out for trip wires, scanning the grounds as he went, but it turned out to be a cakewalk. When he got to the side of the building, he saw why.

Two more bodies were sprawled inside the open patio doors. The interior walls burned with yellow flames, and a slew of bullet-riddled corpses littered the floor. The smell of burning flesh mingled with the scent of burned wood and gunpowder.

Bolan pressed his throat mike. “Red Three and Four, check for survivors outside. Watch out for booby traps. Red Two, you’re inside with me.”

Three acknowledgments came over the radio. Bolan stepped inside and tried to move forward, but the thick smoke obscured his vision and made it difficult to breathe. He kept moving quickly, scanning the faces of the dead men. Most had numerous body wounds, but each had been dealt at least one shot to the head, as well. Execution style. Whoever did this had a take-no-prisoners mentality.

A large bamboo cage sat in the middle of the big lounge area. The thick bars looked strong enough to house a tiger, but the pair of chain shackles was obviously designed to fit a man. The cage was empty. Bolan saw splashes of blood on the solid metal floor. An assortment of knives, bludgeons and what appeared to be a fireplace poker lay next to the cage. The sharp edge of the poker was blackened, as if it’d been heated in a flame. A lot of unpleasant thoughts flashed through Bolan’s mind. He scanned the rest of the room. None of the nearby bodies appeared to be that of Chris Avelia.

Covering as much of the house as they could, Bolan found no one alive. He pushed into what appeared to be the master bedroom, seeing that several of the bodies in there were young, scantily dressed women. Hookers, probably, judging from their clothes. They, too, had been dealt execution-style gunshots to the head. Bolan felt the smoke beginning to gag him. He coughed as he said into his throat mike, “Sitrep. Respond in sequence. Any sign of Avelia?”

“Red One, Red Two.” The transmission was punctuated by a cough. “Nothing here. No one alive. No hostage, far as I can tell.”

“Red Three here,” another voice said. “No survivors out here. Red Four’s with me.”

“Roger that. Any of them look like Jesús De la Noval?”

“Hard to say.”

Bolan could taste the smoke in his mouth and paused to cough again, and then spit. The heat, smoke and stench were nearly unbearable. “Let’s get out of here.”

He used the muzzle of his M-4 to smash the glass of the nearest window, and climbed through. The cool clarity of the night air seemed like heaven. He took a few tentative breaths as he moved farther from the inferno, then drew in some deeper ones. When his chest felt clear, he pressed the throat mike and told his men to move to the landing zone, adding, “You copy that, Jack?”

“Roger that,” Grimaldi’s voice said. “One pickup on the way.”

Bolan turned and saw his team trotting toward De la Noval’s helipad. He told them to check it and secure it before touchdown.

The three men replied in the affirmative.

Bolan turned and took one more look at the mansion, which was now almost fully engulfed in flames. Although he hadn’t taken the time to check each body, none appeared to have been Chris Avelia’s. That didn’t mean that Chris had survived, only that they hadn’t found him.

An empty target house...and an empty tiger cage.

Was this another example of bad intel? Then he remembered those departing choppers.

Maybe somebody else had beaten them to the punch.

South Tucson, Arizona

JOHN LASSITERTRACED his fingers over his Fu Manchu mustache as he watched the men off-loading the cargo in the dark field next to the road. He took inventory: one beat-to-hell drug cartel informant, ten suitcases filled with portraits of good old Benjamin Franklin, and a couple more filled with Mexican brown heroin. Lassiter didn’t care about the drugs, other than they were part of his instructions. The instructions, which had come in their customary fashion—a text from “GOD,” always from an unknown number—included the recovery of the weapons that were supposed to be delivered to De la Noval, as well. Lassiter knew GOD was the code name for Anthony Godfrey, formerly of the Agency and now a civilian go-between.

This wasn’t his first transaction with the drug lord. It was, however, supposed to be his last, but somehow De la Noval had slipped away. Lassiter recalled way too many missions where they ended up arming one side in a conflict, only to face down the road the same firepower he’d delivered, and keeping weapons of this level of sophistication out of the cartel’s hands seemed like a good idea. But it wasn’t his place to set policy or make those kinds of decisions. As always, he only followed orders. He’d been doing that his whole life. Guys like Benedict called the shots, and got rich along with the guys producing the goods, like Godfrey.

One of Lassiter’s men was using a forklift to remove the heavy stack of crates from the helicopter for transfer to the trailer. It would be one well-packed semi, that was for sure. He glanced at his watch. Everything was on schedule. Another fifteen minutes and they’d be able to take the copters back.

Not a bad haul, he thought, although a couple things bothered him slightly. Not nailing Jesús De la Noval for one thing. Killing those women for another. He sighed. It wasn’t like they were neophytes or anything. Sure, they were hookers, but they were still civilians in a war zone. Collateral damage. Hanging out with scum like De la Noval, they had to know that death was their sorority sister. But Lassiter still felt bad about killing them.

The women had deserved better, even if it was all about the orders. Collateral damage wasn’t something new to him. Still, it was beginning to bother him more and more. He knew he’d see their twisted faces and hear their piercing screams in his dreams for many nights to come. They’d have plenty of company there.

And then there was the captive. The idea of turning over the semiconscious, beaten-to-a-pulp, barely alive informant to the Wolves wasn’t a pleasant thought, either, although the guy had looked so bad that death would probably be a relief. But he had been involved with the cartel and was getting what he deserved. Just like the Afghan traitors in Afghanistan, the ones who’d tried to play both sides of the fence. Still, Lassiter couldn’t help but think about the fate awaiting this poor bastard. Better to put a bullet in the guy’s brain now and spare him any further suffering. But his orders had been explicit in that regard, too. Bring the man back alive; turn him over to the Wolves. They were troubling orders, but orders just the same.

A lot of things had begun to bother Lassiter lately. Maybe it was time to get out.

Morris, his second in command, came jogging up to him and saluted. “The cargo’s been successfully off-loaded, sir.”

Lassiter thought about telling him to can the salute, but the kid was new to wetworks and fresh from military service in his last deployment. Lassiter had been right there once, just like him. Loyal to a fault and totally by the book. Before he got officially “killed in action” a few years ago, that was. He grinned. Shit, why should any of this matter to “a dead man”? He told Morris to relax, adding, “Don’t call me ‘sir’ and don’t salute me. I work for a living, remember?”

Morris nodded tentatively.

“What’s the status of the prisoner?” Lassiter asked.

“He’s pretty banged up, si—”

Good, Lassiter thought. The kid’s learning. “Go on.”

“I had Marquis give him some first aid. He’s slipping in and out of consciousness.” Morris paused, and then added, “Those two motorcycle guys want to take him and the stuff now.”

“So give him to them. Our orders are to hold on to the rest until tomorrow.”

Morris hesitated again.

“Is there a problem?” Lassiter asked.

“The prisoner.” Morris blew out an audible breath. “He mumbled something like ‘not part of cartel.’ I’m wondering if maybe he’s a Mexican Fed. Undercover or something.”

“People say a lot of things when they’re desperate.”

Lassiter’s cell phone vibrated with an incoming text, but this one wasn’t from Unknown. It was from Ellen.

Are you there?

He glanced at his watch: 0222. He’d assumed she’d be sleeping. Maybe she was just anxious to see him, to talk to him, among other things. He smiled as he texted her back: You’re up early. Or should I say late?

Been waiting for you. Are you back?

I am.

I need to see you ASAP.

He texted her back: Busy now.

It’s important, she replied.

Ok forty mikes. The regular?

Yes. ASAP, her return text said. Very important.

Ok. Be there with bells on.

Lassiter turned to Morris. “I’ve got to go meet someone. Secure the Mexican brown and the money in my car, return the choppers and take the van back to base. I’ll tag up with you at 0700 tomorrow for debrief.”

“What about the prisoner, sir?” Morris asked.

Lassiter shrugged. Could the guy possibly be a Fed? Godfrey would have told him if that was the case. So the poor bastard was probably lying through his teeth. If he had any left. He was practically half-dead, anyway, and he’d made his own bed. Now it was time to die in it.

“Give him to them.”

“But what if he’s really one of the good guys?”

“You do this long enough, Morris,” Lassiter said, “you’ll learn one thing. There are no good guys.”

Morris nodded, turned and left. Lassiter watched him walk away, knowing his doubt still lingered. Could the prisoner be telling the truth? Could he be a Fed? But why would they send them with explicit orders to grab the guy from De la Noval, only to have him turned over to the motorcycle goons? If the guy really was a Fed, Benedict or Godfrey would have known. They’d only said the guy had been playing both sides of the fence. More than likely he was somebody’s low-level snitch who probably knew a few of the players higher up. The guy looked Mexican, too. Maybe he was one of their crooked cops. It was hard to tell. Besides, keeping a prisoner wasn’t something Lassiter had the desire or the facilities to do. Better to get rid of him sooner rather than later. More collateral damage.

Lassiter’s cell vibrated again.

Are you coming?

On the way, he texted back.

As soon as I make the call, he thought, and punched in the number. As he listened to the ringing, he took a deep breath as he pictured her beautiful face and body moving toward him in a translucent glow of the motel’s small lamps. It would be the perfect ending to a semi-successful mission.

Fairfax County, Virginia

ANTHONY GODFREY SET down the disposable cell phone and ground his teeth as he poured more of the amber liquid into his glass. He was careful that none of the liquid spilled on his desk, which was made of high quality teak and imported from Europe, a remnant of the court of King Louis XVI. The whiskey tasted smooth going down, but left just enough of a burn to remind him that everything, as Lassiter said, had not gone according to plan. Jesús De la Noval had slipped away before being terminated, but hopefully he would not find resurrection like his namesake.

But Godfrey would cross that bridge when he came to it. If he came to it. One thing he’d learned during his years as a deputy assistant secretary of state was not to worry about the intangibles. Just deal with them if and when they came up. He tried to let that philosophy carry over to his civilian mind-set now that he’d left government service and taken over the family business, GDF Industries, after the death of his father.

Don’t sweat the small stuff, he could almost hear the old man saying. It had served them both well in the long run.

Godfrey sipped some more of the whiskey, savored it and swallowed. He needed to call the future president of the United States, even if it was five-twenty in the morning. Smiling, he picked up his own cell phone, scrolled to the number for Brent Hutchcraft and pressed the selection button. The senator answered after the third ring, sounding wide-awake and cheerful, but then again Hutchcraft made it a point to go for a three-mile run every morning, rain or shine.

“Tony,” Hutchcraft said. “What are you doing up so early? Or is it more of a late night?” This guy was as cool as dry ice.

“How did you know it was me?” Godfrey asked.

“You’re using the same disposable number that comes up as GOD on my phone,” Hutchcraft said. “Who else would have such audacity?”

Godfrey forced a laugh. Best to sound courteous, deferential and matter-of-fact, just in case someone out there was listening. He didn’t think anyone was, and if they were, he’d most likely already know about it, but the secret of survival was to adhere to security procedures at all times, until they became second nature.

“I was hoping I’d catch you before your morning jog,” Godfrey said. “Want to grab some breakfast?”

This was their customary code for calling a meeting.

“I’m on a diet of egg whites and a protein shake this week,” Hutchcraft said. “The D.C. Triathlon’s coming up in three weeks. Besides, I’m announcing this week, and how would it look if some reporter saw me having breakfast with the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock?”

Godfrey bristled at Hutchcraft’s comparison of him to the deceased filmmaker, although he did recognize that the resemblance was striking. He said nothing.

Hutchcraft chuckled. “Sorry. How about you, me and Dirk in a game of racquetball at the club at three?”

Godfrey said he’d have his secretary make the reservation, and wished Hutchcraft well on his training run. Why the man sought to punish himself to such a degree by entering triathlons at the age of forty-four was beyond Godfrey. Still, image and looking fit were a big part of running for president.

After he’d clicked off he reached for the disposable cell phone to place his last call of the night. He punched in the number and Animal answered with his usual belligerent, “What?” Godfrey hated dealing with this motorcycle moron, but sometimes life left a person little choice. And Godfrey was, for the most part, used to lowlifes and ignorant bastards. He’d dealt with enough politicians.

“It’s me,” he said. “Just checking to see if the package arrived.”

“Yeah,” Animal replied. “But I ain’t getting much. He’s pretty beat up already. Plus I ain’t seen no Benjamins, or no guns and roses, neither.”

Godfrey considered that. It meant that Lassiter still had the money, the weapons and the heroin, which was just as he’d said in his report. Godfrey was big on confirmation. He’d learned that during his tenure in the State Department and the Agency during the cold war. Trust, but verify, as many times as you could, until you were certain. Turning all the goodies over to Animal prematurely wasn’t in the cards.

The DEA man was a different story. The quicker they found out what he knew, and to whom he’d told it, the better. As far as Avelia being worked over, Del la Noval had to have done some preliminary interrogation before the strike team intervened. Maybe that’s how he’d figured the team’s imminent arrival and realized it was safer to boogie. That guy Jesús was as crafty as an alley cat, but it was a moot point now. Godfrey would deal with that loose end later. The bird in the hand had to be eliminated.

“Get whatever you can find out and dispose of him,” Godfrey said. “But do it in a judicious manner.” He wondered seconds later if a guy like Animal would know what judicious meant.

“Yeah, yeah, I know how to deal with a snitch. What about the goodies?”

The “goodies” meant the drugs, along with the twenty Stinger missiles, two-hundred M-72 LAWs, fifty Barrett sniper rifles, five-hundred M-4 rifles, accompanying ammunition, assorted grenades, starlight scopes, claymore mines, and five hundred level-four body armor flak jackets that were supposed to be delivered to De la Noval for a cool ten million dollars. Instead, the drug lord got a shipment of full-metal jackets, courtesy of Lassiter and his group.

“That should proceed as planned.”

“So we’re still on for tomorrow night then?” Animal asked.

“Most assuredly,” Godfrey said. “I’ll get hold of you tomorrow.” He pressed the end button without waiting for a reply or acknowledgment. He needed to make sure Benedict’s cleanup wet team was set to take care of this one. Looking out the window, he watched the nascent sky changing from pink to a gray, almost colorless hue that he knew would inevitably turn to a robin’s egg blue. The monuments and landmarks of the nation’s capital still had that faintly orange glow. Hutchcraft was probably out running in the Virginia woods near his house, enjoying the crisp morning air.

Well, goody goody for him, Godfrey thought. And goody goody for me.

He had more worlds to conquer.

CHAPTER TWO

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

Bolan watched as Hal Brognola poured himself a cup of coffee. The big Fed took a sip, shook his head with a disgusted expression and asked Bolan if he wanted a cup. It was closing in on 6:00 a.m., and Bolan had barely slept on the plane ride from Mexico to Stony Man Farm.

“No, thanks,” he said. “I want to hit the sack for a few and then the range later on.”

“The range? I figured you’d want to sleep for a week after your abrupt trip south of the border.”

Bolan shrugged. “Have to keep in practice. We didn’t fire a shot down there.”

Part of the reason he was in the office Brognola sometimes used when he was at Stony Man Farm was to give his old friend the briefing so he could, in turn, brief the President. The other part was to get some answers. Bolan wished he had better news. He’d given Brognola a partial sitrep by sat phone on the flight back. Sleep had proved elusive after that, and even Grimaldi’s attempts at humor as he piloted the plane hadn’t shaken the darkness from Bolan’s introspection.

“No sign of Avelia, eh?” Brognola said as he set the cup on his desk. His face showed the fatigue and creases of little or no sleep, so Bolan knew he was in good company.

“Like I said on the phone, somebody beat us there. They hit the place hard, left a bunch of bodies and an empty tiger cage that I assume they’d been using to hold Chris.”

“A tiger cage?” Brognola shook his head. “I thought those things went out a couple of wars ago.”

“Evidently not,” Bolan said. “It looks like they tortured him, too.”

The big Fed winced. “Damn. No sign of Jesús De la Noval, either?”

“As far as we could tell,” Bolan said. “We checked as many bodies as best we could, and didn’t see him. But at that point I figured, since things had already gone to hell in a handbasket, there was no sense sticking around waiting for company.”

Brognola nodded. He picked up the coffee cup and took another sip. “Ah, Aaron outdid himself making this batch. You could run a deuce-and-a-half on it. I knew I should have declined his offer to make a fresh pot of coffee before he headed back to the computer room.”

Even Brognola’s attempts to lighten the mood talking about Aaron Kurtzman’s legendarily terrible coffee did little to lift Bolan’s spirits. The big Fed seemed to sense that. “I’m sorry we missed finding Chris. Do you think there’s any chance he may still be alive?”

The fact the tiger cage had been empty, except for the shackles, meant that Avelia had most probably been there, but had then been removed at some point prior to Bolan’s arrival. Too much time had elapsed between the discovery of his capture and the rescue mission. Somebody had messed up on this one. Badly.

“It’s hard to say,” Bolan said. “Did you find out what Chris was working on?”

“Not a lead in sight, but Aaron’s keeping at it.”

Bolan shook his head. “They hung him out to dry.”

“Yeah.” The sadness was evident on Brognola’s tired face. “That’s obvious.”

“A couple more things are obvious,” the soldier said, holding up two fingers. He tapped the first one. “They should’ve pulled him sooner. Or had a react team on standby in the area. Whoever was in charge of putting him in there undercover dropped the ball as far as scheduling the rescue, and needs to be fired.” He clenched his fingers into a fist. “Or worse.”

“Damn straight,” Brognola said.

“And,” Bolan continued, “somebody who knew we were going in there had advance notice and sent in another team to beat us to the punch. I don’t know if they got Chris, but it’s a likely probability.”