Built from scratch by John “Cowboy” Kissinger, Bolan hauled out what the Farm’s armorer tagged the Blaster 61. Roughly the length and look of a military shotgun, the ominous difference was the five stainless-steel cylindrical chambers attached beneath the fat bore, dead even with the trigger of the pistol grip. A crank handle near the muzzle to rotate the chambers, and Bolan could pump out the full load of 61 mm rounds in whatever desired decimating effect in about six seconds. He had each chamber slotted with HE rounds.
The Executioner hung the Blaster 61 around his shoulder. He was marching through the opening in the retaining wall, rolling hard up the walk, M-16 hung by his leg, when the death squad duo spotted him and made their move. They were flinging away the party favors, losing the smokes and bringing their G-3s online, a noise like shock croaking from one of their mouths, when Bolan tagged them with a full-auto burst, stitching them, left to right, gouging out ragged divots in their chests. No sooner were they flopping to the ground, sprawled out on the stoop like a heap of limp noodles than Bolan bullrushed the door. A 3-round burst to the handle on the fly, shearing off metal and gouging wood where catch met jamb, and the warrior hit the barrier with a thundering kick. Two steps in, combat senses torqued to overdrive, and Bolan took in the scene.
The short hallway fanned out into a large warehouse, no doors leading the way to hide combatants, but with catwalks and offices uptop, west side. Dead ahead, at roughly forty yards, he found a group of five men, leaping from a table littered with bottles, poker chips and small mirrors humped with the white controlled substance of choice. Cards flew from their hands as they grabbed G-3s and Uzi submachine guns. And directly to their rear Bolan spotted pallets stacked with fifty-five-gallon drums.
The Executioner hung the M-16 around his shoulder, filled his hand with the Blaster 61, caressed the trigger and sent the first missile streaking downrange with a loud chug. They were hitting triggers, winging short wild bursts his way in panic-stricken hope and pray, when he scored a direct hit on the drums behind the five hardmen. The blast rocked the warehouse with ear-splitting thunder, smoke and flames shooting over the hardforce, at least three of them, he glimpsed, sailing for the roof, all screams and windmilling but mangled limbs.
Then the anticipated gruesome wrath descended.
As the toxic brew showered armed shadows the warrior spotted charging from a nearby pocket, banshee shrieks flaying the air, Bolan jacked the handle, rotated another 61 mm projectile into place and pumped out another hellbomb. No point in pulling punches, Bolan decided, no sense fretting about noise and police swarming the block.
The Executioner was moving in to run and gun, as another batch of drums puked away toxic loads on a roaring ball of fire to douse a few more cannibals in what amounted to the fires of hell on earth.
There went the neighborhood.
13
Naim Ali Zhabat, a.k.a. Andrew Zabatarsky of Poland, as stated in his passport and visa, found the infidel’s offer most intriguing.
The Iraqi had the divan to himself. His men, armed with HK 33 assault rifles, grouped in twos and threes around the large living room, glaring daggers into the lean infidel with the buzzard’s face framed under the black beret with swooping hawk insignia. Zhabat knew virtually nothing about the black beret, other than he helped run a classified prison across the Brazilian border. If reports from his own sources and handlers overseas and in Paraguay were correct, it was a torture chamber for fellow jihad fighters captured by American commandos. The way he heard it, they were taken by force from Afghanistan to Iraq to Turkey. From his own experience fighting the occupation forces, he had no reason to doubt the intelligence. He already despised the black beret.
The Brazilian colonel, on the other hand, was a man whose reputation for moving contraband preceded him, he knew, and Poscalar could have uses, regarding weapons, military or intelligence contacts in the city. In due course, deciding to hear the infidel out, Zhabat would determine both their fates. One might live.
Smoking, one leg crossed over the other, an arm laid atop the divan, he wanted to give the infidel calling himself Turkle the impression he was in complete control of man and moment, that maybe he needed convincing, perhaps some groveling from the American, if he was to undertake the task being proposed. He had not offered them a seat, disarming Turkle as soon as he entered the apartment, secretly enjoyed the unease. The infidel’s fixed scowl told him he didn’t appreciate the lack of hospitality, or found it beneath him to breathe the same air, whereas the Brazilian Colonel seemed agitated, casting glances at his fighters, as if he couldn’t wait to bolt out the door.
Zhabat heard how the infidel would pay them three thousand per warrior to attack the prison, but they were to slay only the Marines, hands-off all black berets. The breach into the compound would be taken care of for them, with sabotage of the comm center assuring no SOS brought in the cavalry, but they would go only on Turkle’s orders. They would see an aircraft when they hit the grounds, a VIP executive-style jet, parked near the fuel tankers by the hangar. It was imperative they hit the craft before storming the prison complex—they would get help from other black berets—and make certain all occupants, in particular a tall dark man, were killed.
Zhabat then heard Turkle rattle off a few names of freedom fighters he recognized from his own intelligence sources. It was an impressive list, he decided, of fighters sorely needed in the struggle against the infidel occupation force back home. At least two names he recognized from Mosul, where he had been previously engaged in striking back at the Americans with his small guerrilla force.
Bitter about the recent past, he recalled how his name had found its way into the hands of American Special Forces in the area, where he was branded a resistance leader, bomb maker, a savage killer responsible for many deaths of Americans and several Western journalists. An informant—shot by his own hand hours after he discovered the treachery—had accepted infidel blood money to hand him over. Good fortune or the will of Allah, though, had spared him the disgrace of capture, or worse. With funds accumulated from the bounty placed on the heads of Americans by former regime members in hiding, he bought safe passage to Syria. There, he found other warriors, among them officers and top officials who had been granted refuge by the Syrians. They had a plan, he learned. They were biding their time…
Zhabat suddenly noticed the black beret glaring, inquiring if he was boring him.
“Continue,” Zhabat said, matching the infidel’s scowl.
As further compensation, the Brazilian colonel, Turkle said, was storing a toxic cargo that would make any dirty bomb they could slap together seem like a firecracker in comparison. The Brazilian, he noted, was shifting from foot to foot, as if he’d been dumped on the hot seat. They would receive a portion of this special cargo as a gift, but only for successful services rendered. The prisoners were going to be freed, he heard, and flown to their countries of origin…eventually. When Zhabat lifted an eyebrow at that, Turkle told him there was one stop in Turkey before their release. And it involved what Zhabat already knew was smuggled out of his country before the infidels began raining their smart bombs on Baghdad. The American and his people wanted a large haul out of what was stashed in Turkey, were prepared to divvy it up, however, according to which side did how much of the dirty work to get it. No tricks, no trap, Turkle vowed. Ahabat figured if American Special Ops wanted him and his troops in the bag, they would have come through the front door already.
“What’s your answer?” Turkle asked.
Zhabat decided to take his time before speaking. He unfolded his legs, leaned toward the coffee table and stabbed out his smoke. “I should seek counsel from my men before I give you an answer,” he said.
“There’s no time. In or out? Look, I read you as an up-and-comer in whatever organization you pledge allegiance to, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Warrior Sons of Islam, I don’t care. Think about it. This could be a major coup for you and your troops. You free your own, see them home safely and you�
��ve got infidel scalps on your belts to show for yourselves. You’d be a hero.”
Persuasive, Zhabat thought, and true. But there were other considerations, beyond selfish ambition. There were operations on the table, but they were still in the preliminary stages, months, if not a year or more away from being launched. Say he accepted, would it delay or even derail future operations, for which he had been sent to Paraguay to oversee? Then there were his brothers in captivity to consider, potentially to be freed at last to fight the infidel evil again, and all of whom would surely praise his name if he followed through with a successful attack on Camp Triangle. There was Turkey to factor in. He was aware of how valuable that special ordnance would prove in the fight against the occupiers if he could get his hands on, at worst, a small portion of it. Last and far from least, there was his own hatred of the infidels who had ravaged his country, killed, maimed, or captured and shamed his Sunni brothers and their leaders.
Zhabat decided he had seen far too many of his brothers in jihad slain by the infidels to let this opportunity to avenge their blood pass him by.
“Done,” Zhabat answered.
Turkle looked around the room. “I was hoping for more than eight shooters.”
“I have five more men nearby I can round up.”
“Send a man, but have the others meet you,” Turkle said.
Zhabat didn’t like the sound of that, watching carefully as the American produced a folded piece of paper and handed it to him.
“Directions to where you are to sit tight and wait for my return.”
Zhabat chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was thinking I would take you or the colonel with me,” he said, watching Poscalar as he snapped him a startled look, “just in case, you understand, all does not go accordingly.”
“No, I don’t understand, and that’s not happening. The two of us have some other business here in town before we make the big show. That’s nonnegotiable.”
Zhabat considered backing out, having both men shot where they stood. But, there was too much riding on this unusual deal. Perhaps, he decided, Allah was handing him a divine gift, unfurling a mysterious path where he could prove himself an invaluable, even holy asset to the coming victory of jihad.
“We’ll do it your way,” Zhabat said. “Now, I believe you mentioned something about money?” he added, watching as Turkle dug a thick wad of rubber-banded hundred-dollar bills from his jacket pocket.
He flipped it on the coffee table.
“That’s fifty grand. Count it on your own time.”
MUCH TO HIS SQUAD’S chagrin, Aurelio “the Zippo” Salvadore had sent the whores packing for the night, but with two ounces of snow just in from the lab and one hundred U.S. apiece in their pocketbooks for whatever time they felt they’d wasted. Granted, the gesture was pretty much show for the troops, in case the whores proved snippy about stopping by the next time they were called, and the blame for the inconvenience landed on his shoulders.
It was a tough job, he thought, keeping everybody happy.
Through the open door to his upstairs office, he heard one of his crew bark a vicious curse, the man no doubt folding another losing hand. If he thought about the moment the anger would rise like an invisible fire, from belly to brain, until no amount of whiskey or pure powder electrifying and sharpening his senses to superhuman limits cooled the flames. There he was, manning the phone, waiting for Colonel Poscalar’s promised callback once he was inside the city, and his men couldn’t stop indulging their whims and wants long enough to get their hearts and minds on business.
Exactly what job Poscalar had on tap for them, though, he couldn’t or wouldn’t say, and that only wound the wire tighter on his agitation and anxiety. Their commander had sounded strange on the phone, afraid perhaps, if he judged correctly the vague quiver he recalled in Poscalar’s voice. Given what irons he knew were in the fire, he surmised Poscalar’s anticipated visit had to do with either the latest shipment from the Bolivian traffickers or the mysterious cargo they were sitting on for the American colonel. Whichever it was, it involved money—primarily another man’s—and Salvadore found himself wishing for simpler times.
Not to mention the hope of returning home to Rio, with his alleged crimes pardoned.
Another shot of whiskey down the hatch, another nose full of product huffed up through the sleek gold tube, and he palmed the television remote, easing back in his leather swivel chair. He snapped on the giant screen TV, hoping the porno flick would distract him from the gnawing paranoia that something was about to go terribly wrong. He considered storming out onto the catwalk to demand his crew stop playing with themselves, watch the damn store, inside and out. But he realized he would appear petty, denying them their simple pleasures while they rode out the wait for Poscalar.
And wasn’t he just like them, even though he was second in command below Poscalar? A fugitive in hiding, a former military policeman of respect and prominence who had only been doing what was necessary to get ahead.
Cursing, quickly rewinding the lesbian scene, he sat up, chomped down on a Cuban cigar. He took up the ivory Zippo lighter, clacked the lid open and rolled the wheel. The flame leaped up before his eyes, large and dancing, orange with a sort of blue aura, he thought, so very beautiful to behold. Mesmerizing. The soft caress of a beautiful woman. Almost as if, yes, it was a living thing, calling him to use it on something, anything…anyone.
Precisely when he had fallen under the awe and rapture of fire was a memory he did not cherish. Feeling his cheeks flush hot with shame, he recalled tracking his wife to the seaside villa of her lover. So enraged and humiliated over the sight of their coupling, the idea had come out of nowhere, leaping into his thoughts, just like the fire he now stared into, as he touched it to the cigar tip, puffing slowly, working up a fat boiling cloud. At gunpoint, he remembered forcing her to tie up her lover, then binding her beside him. They lay together, they could die together. He emptied a five-gallon can of gasoline on and around the bed. A few last words delivered, a bitter eulogy, indeed, then he lit the soaking sheet with his Zippo lighter.
From that moment on, he came to understand the all-cleansing power and righteous fury of fire. Oh, but the first time, he recalled, had felt like a magical purifying rite of passage. It emboldened him with a vision he was destined to use fire, like a divine scourge, to rid Brazil of all its iniquities.
Salvadore noticed he was trembling. He told himself to calm down, focus, the future would take care of itself. He was drawing hard and deep on the cigar, one eye on the celluloid female coupling, his mind flaming with fantasies of what he wished to do the next time the whores trooped in when—It felt like an eternity for the ungodly racket down on the warehouse floor to register in his mind for what it was. Gunfire, shouts of panic pounded through the doorway, the sum total of the din warning him they were being hit by a small armed force. But who? What bastards would dare attack them with such brazenness? They had jealous rivals in the city, to be certain. They were up-and-coming criminal rabble, he knew, having used several of them back east for tasks best suited for flunkies. They had transplanted their scroungy lot here from Rio and São Paulo, now seeking, if he heard correctly from informants, to cut their way into the Triangle’s flourishing drug trade. But was this, what sounded a full-frontal assault, the warrior style of what was essentially a pack of hyenas?
No, he decided, this was an attack by lions.
Salvadore was up, vaguely aware the cigar was falling from his gaping mouth, when the first explosion erupted. His mind screamed at him how absurd it was, how it was impossible for such a monstrous thing to be happening, as he felt the floor trembling beneath him, glimpsed the boiling smoke cloud beyond the door, the ragged figures sailing for the roof, the rising fifty-five-gallon drums looking warped and spewing their contents.
Insanity! The injustice of it all!
They were protected by the corrupt Paraguayan police, the greedy piranhas so heavily p
aid from drug money every week. They were ordered to not venture anywhere near the neighborhood, lest they felt they could make themselves too at home, pilfer merchandise, demand a bigger cut. No, the police wouldn’t cut their own throats this way.
Salvadore froze when he heard the screams. They were hellish sounds he knew all too well from the ghosts of his own past, that piercing shriek when flesh was burned off bone, the screamer howling for death to end the agony. Another massive blast muted for a moment all that wailing, but he feared that earthshaker would not only bring the walls down but vaporize the Bolivian merchandise.
He was moving somehow, afraid to venture beyond the door, but he had to know, had to do something to save the night as he grabbed his assault rifle from the corner. Bounding onto the catwalk, two of his men sweeping by, weapons extended but ready to shoot at what he couldn’t determine, he felt his knees buckle as he breathed in the stench. He nearly retched, as the vile unfamiliar odor that smelled of sulfuric acid and raw sewage but many times worse, assaulted his senses.
Horrified by what he saw next, Salvadore stood, watching as some green oily wave began falling over three of his men below. They were flailing about, clawing at their faces, thrashing on the floor next, with more drums thudding down, off the concrete floor, bouncing and splattering them with still more of the substance. Whatever it was, it acted like an invisible fire, consuming flesh, just the same. Salvadore thought he saw skin melting off their faces.
He heard his men firing downrange, turned, found them shooting down at the invaders, but who and how many was impossible to determine, as the smoke cloud boiled in that direction, providing cover for the enemy. The screams chilling him to the bone, Salvadore was moving to join his men, twenty paces and counting, when the catwalk vanished in a volcanic upheaval of fire and smoke. He was falling next, the gray world of smoke veiled by flying debris, wreckage slamming off his skull, white stars exploding in his eyes, but imploding back darkness at the same instant. He hammered the floor on his back, the air punched from his lungs, as he felt the sharp edges of raining trash pelt the length of his body. The screams, blessedly fading now—
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