Blood of the Lion

by Don Pendleton

  "And you sent a handful of these special ops down to Brazil to do some scouting?"

  "Not me. The division did. They've been down there the past two months setting up checkpoint stations, living, hacking their way through the jungle... until they found this."

  Bolan slid the two-dozen eleven-by-eight black-and-white pics out of the envelope. The first picture showed a tall, slim Hispanic man in green camous.

  "Those pics are in order of my brief, so let me fill you in on some history as we go. That Spanish guy on top is one Colonel Hector Alchupa. I'm assuming it was his voice we heard on the tape. Formerly of the Colombian army, Alchupa, like a lot of the hotshot brass and politicos down there, had his hands dug deep into the cocaine trade. When Uncle Sam went to pay Alchupa a visit eight months back, and by visit I mean they were going to extradite him back to the States on drug trafficking charges, the colonel suddenly upped and disappeared."

  "Someone tipped off Alchupa about the bust."

  "Yeah, who, we don't know, but when we find out, the son of a bitch will hang by his thumbs."

  "That same someone could have pointed the guns in my direction. Someone in this Special Operations Division of the DEA."

  "Yeah. Since they were hiring from their so-called freelance arenas, it's highly likely that there's a mole."

  "Maybe even one of Alchupa's people who infiltrated SOD. Tell me more about this colonel. How was he discovered hiding out in Brazil?"

  "It was a simple matter of tightening the screws to what we call probable marks, politicos, Colombian army officers, policemen we suspect have a hand in the cocaine traffic but can't quite pin any charges on because they cover their tracks. Still, we had enough on a few probable marks to make them sweat. One name led to another, which led us to the DAS, the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad — that's the Colombian secret police — and they went so far as to tell us that Alchupa was last seen in Brasilia with a cadre of international thugs. It turns out Alchupa's wanted back in Bogota for the execution of more than a dozen policemen who either got too greedy for his liking, or wanted out, or were blackmailing him.

  "Now, it's not hard to see how Alchupa could set up shop in Brazil, or anywhere in South America for that matter. This fat cat cocaine kingpin was pulling in more than twenty-five million dollars a year just in kickbacks to protect the druglords down there in Bogota. When Alchupa vanished, so did a lot of soldiers loyal to his particular twisted cause. Where the cocaine dollars go, so go Alchupa and his goons. And so does corruption, graft, bribery, murder, the whole goddamn cannibals' pot. Alchupa is garbage, and he has to be cleaned off the face of the earth. There's no telling what this Anaconda really intends to do."

  "It stands to reason our renegade Colombian colonel can pay for the best hitters on the market," Bolan mused, scanning the next few photos. The pics showed gunboats and outboard canoes being loaded with what Bolan assumed were kilo bales of coke. Green-camoued soldiers with AK-47 assault rifles were supervising the onloading. "With that kind of tax-free income, the guy can buy and sell entire countries. All he has to do is say jump."

  "And they ask, how high?"

  "Yeah... now if the Colombian colonel wants somebody iced, all the vultures have to do is gather for the feast."

  "Bingo, buddy. Which is why that type is worrying the hell out of me."

  "You said something about shark baiting, Hal."

  "What do you have in mind?"

  "That I draw the sharks to me."

  A thin smile ghosted Brognola's lips. "I've never known you to sit back and wait for the guns to come to you."

  "I'll have to make an exception this time. We have a name and a place but no targets. If it's strictly drug-dealing out of Brazil, then I'll set fire to the nest and flush out the vipers. But after seeing these pics, I think the hydra here reaches out a lot farther than the Amazon. Somebody's been bought. And you can bet I'll be paying them a visit."

  Bolan laid the photos down on the desk. Three of the pics showed Hispanic men in suits talking to Alchupa on a dirt runway. Along the runway were six helicopter gunships, maybe a dozen jeeps with .50-caliber machine guns and enough heavily armed soldiers to field a small South American army.

  "This is one big Anaconda," Bolan said through tightly-compressed lips. "We may be talking about corruption of government officials high up in the Brazilian political system. Somebody's backing Alchupa, financing his operation while he hides out in the jungle. Bank on it."

  "And your hunch is maybe he's doing more than just hiding out?"

  "Yeah."

  "What then? A coup, maybe? Is Alchupa exporting terrorism?"

  "Thai's what I intend to find out. How about the op who brought back this evidence?" Bolan asked, searching for a starting point.

  "Don Thomas. He never made it back — he's one of the missing ops. Thomas's contact, one Pete McBride, was part of the checkpoint system down the river. McBride took the package from Thomas when Thomas dug out of his hole in the bush near the Anaconda base by Alchupa's cutthroats. McBride was then chased all the way downriver for a week straight by Alchupa's guns, and he was killed the day he arrived in Belém while waiting for the exfiltration team to show up and snatch him out. Luckily the guy had guts, and he did manage to transfer the evidence to another agent at the last minute, then made his last-ditch stand to hold off Alchupa's goons while the transfer man evacuated."

  "Where's the transfer man now?"

  A grim smile cut Brognola's features. "Holed up in a safehouse, a cabin in the Rockies about seventy-five miles southwest of Denver. He's been put through a thorough debrief by yours truly. Then I had to turn him over to SOD. Now he's being watchdogged by a couple of these new division operatives, since this guy, Anthony Spiraldi, has been told he'll be paid a visit by you."

  A dry chuckle rumbled from Bolan's throat. "Is my MO becoming predictable?"

  "Your MO's always been dictated by logic, Striker. Cold, hard logic born of experience."

  "And it's logical that the sharks will come biting for the transfer man. Spiraldi's my start, and maybe my ticket into the jungle."

  Brognola bit down on his cigar, his gaze dark with concern. "Yeah. I just hope your Denver start isn't the finish. I don't like it. Striker. You're a sitting duck. The guns are coming, and you're leaving yourself wide open."

  "I'm looking to bag a vulture, Hal. If I can bring the buzzards to me, then I can pick them off, one by one..."

  "Or by the dozens."

  "Whatever's necessary. I don't want to go down to Brazil empty-handed. I'll take this one as the numbers tumble. First, I need more intel than what we've got. A loose tongue might just help me drown this Anaconda. That's why I need to bag a snake."

  "I hear you. I'll get you the directions to the safehouse and have you on the next flight out of Dulles to Denver."

  "One more thing, Hal. I'll be going up the Amazon River within the next few days, depending on how long it takes to weed out the snakes. How about these checkpoint stations?"

  "SOD pulled everybody out. But I can arrange to have the stations set up again. You'll need the guides. You're talking about canvasing one of the deadliest places on the face of the earth."

  "I'll call you when I'm ready for the guides. Anything else?"

  "Yeah. Some facts and some bad gut feeling. I'll tell you about it on the way to Dulles."

  "I need to know something about who heads this Special Operations Division, too. Maybe he's dirty, and if he is, he'll come clean... one way or another."

  "I'll give you everything I know. I'm in the dark about a number of things myself. Something's shaping up, and my gut feeling's telling me all isn't what it appears to be with SOD."

  "If there's a cancer in SOD, I'll find it, Hal."

  "And cut it out. Roger on that, big guy."

  2

  He liked to think of them as his assassins from the four corners of the earth. And they were his. After all, he was the man who was going to pay for the head of a man whose ver
y existence could jeopardize the plans for his revolution.

  As Colonel Hector Alchupa stood on the wharf, staring downstream and watching the gunboat as it cut through the water, he fell the fierce sunshine suddenly burn through his sweat-stained khakis, a fire that seemed to sear his insides with the tips of invisible branding irons. He was hot, all right. Hot for the blood of the lion. Hot for the blood of one Mack Bolan.

  Religiously Alchupa had followed the exploits of the Executioner over the past four years through his own Anaconda intelligence network. Even the thatched walls of his command HQ there in the Amazon jungle were covered with newspaper clippings about the Executioner's infamous forays into countries all over the world. If there was one man who could crush Anaconda before they got the revolution under way, it was this Mack Bolan — one tough gringo who had to be hunted down and killed.

  There were other reasons why he wanted Bolan terminated. The most important, Alchupa imagined, was the glory such a kill would bring to him, the crown of gold he would earn. Any competitors in the cocaine web of South America would think twice about fucking with him when they heard that he, Hector Alchupa, had been the man to finally end the Bolan reign of terror.

  It hadn't been hard for Alchupa to have Bolan tracked down. Anaconda, he knew, reached far and wide, from Brazil, up through Central America, Mexico and into the States. When the DEA had begun recruiting mercenary types for this new Special Operations Division of theirs, Alchupa had bought out one agent with cold cash and infiltrated two of his own men into the ranks of the DEA SOD.

  Wiping the sweat off his thick black mustache with the back of his hand, the diamond ring on his little finger glinting in the sunlight, Alchupa smiled to himself as his custom-built seventy-foot gunboat slid up to the pier. Soldiers were manning the .50caliber machine guns, bow and stern. And the precious cargo of killers looked anxious to disembark.

  "It took some time. Colonel. More than a year to find all of these men you wanted. Time is critical to our operation. Failure now could mean our funds being cut off. Let us only hope that these men are worth the money you intend to pay them."

  Alchupa glanced at Pablo Diaz. The big, beefy Colombian was a sight every bit as eerie and frightening as the jungle itself, and every bit as dangerous as the Amazon, too. As bald as a cue ball, Diaz wore a black mustache that drooped down the sides of his mouth. Tattoos of bushmasters, caimans with gaping maws, swords, machetes and other weapons covered every inch of his massive arms and his corded knots of shoulder muscle. Like some bandit riding with Pancho Villa, he wore crossed bandoliers over his hairy chest, the shells 7.62 mm for the M-60 machine gun Diaz cherished with an almost childlike obsession. A machete, its blade honed to razor sharpness, was tucked inside Diaz's brown leather sash. That machete was used for more than just hacking away at the jungle brush. On more than one occasion, Alchupa had seen the heads of his enemies pile up at Diaz's feet when the tattooed man wanted to see blood geyser from the stumps of necks. Diaz was Alchupa's second in command, and the colonel liked and respected the tattooed soldier.

  "We shall see, Pablo. I have not as yet revealed all of my plan to you or any of my men. Hiring these men will be the start. You see, we have still to convince some of our people in Brasilia that we are to be feared. If they fear us, they will respect us. Changes... changes, Pablo. Our image is at stake here."

  With pride in eyes that were as dark as coal, Alchupa looked around at his cadre of soldiers. AK-47s slung around their shoulders, Alchupa's soldiers lined the wharf and stood watch along the bank of the stream. They were handpicked men who had spilled blood in El Salvador and Nicaragua, contrabandistas who understood the lure and seduction of the White Lady, cocaine. Good, hard men who were loyal to Anaconda and would fight to the death, if necessary. Someday soon, necessary would become a grim reality.

  But first, Alchupa was anxious to get on with this Bolan kill. Bolan's execution would be the blood genesis of the Anaconda revolution.

  A warning signal.

  The beginning of the end of Yankee imperialism in the lower Americas.

  Feeling the sweat trickle down his back like ice water, Alchupa watched with mounting impatience as his assassins stepped onto the wharf. At Belém they had been given their Anaconda jungle uniform, standard-issue khakis that anyone associated with Anaconda had to wear. Hector Alchupa believed in uniformity, order and strength through the power of brutal violence. Anyone who resisted Anaconda would be crushed.

  The first of the five assassins Alchupa laid eyes on was a tall, handsome man with blond hair and hawkish features — the Swede, Alchupa recalled from his file on Rolaff the Headhunter. Rolaff's specialties were car bombings and assassinating high-ranking European government officials, NATO military brass and politicians whose ideologies clashed with his Marxist-Leninist beliefs. To date, the Swede had fifty-two kills to his credit. While under Anaconda "field observation," he had proved himself to be fearless and pitiless. The Anaconda report on Rolaff, furnished to Alchupa by one of his agents overseas in Europe, was clear and to the point: "Rolaff kills quickly and cleanly. He likes to shoot for the head. He can vanish from the scene of a kill like a ghost. He covers his tracks. He's cold and very professional. A good choice for Anaconda."

  Alchupa felt his confidence swell with each passing moment. Cold and quick were the catchwords Alchupa had been looking for in the tracksheets for prospective employees. No mercy for the hunted. Ability to slay with the wrath of an unchained demon, then disappear into thin air like a wisp of smoke.

  The next assassin was a short, wiry, swarthy man with a thick black beard. That would be the Arab, Mohammed al-Rhabin. An independent contractor, the Syrian assassin bad done work for the PLO and a dozen other terrorist organizations across the face of North Africa and Europe that had left him at the very top of Interpol's most wanted list. And Interpol's most dangerous list, too. Al-Rhabin liked to kill up close with his favored weapon, the jambiya, the Arab fighting knife that had led to Muslim conquest across three continents.

  "Bit hot today, wouldn't you say, mate?"

  Alchupa felt his jawline tighten as he looked at the man who'd made the crack about the heat. That would be the Brit, Geoffrey Godfried. Formerly of British MI-5, Godfried, Alchupa recalled from the dossiers, had been bought out by the KGB and used as an assassin, performing wet work for the Kremlin throughout the United Kingdom. Belfast was a particularly hot "breeding ground" for Godfried's skills.

  For a long moment Alchupa studied the Brit as Godfried appeared to size up the Anaconda soldiers on the wharf. The Brit was smiling, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. There was fire and steel behind his cold gray eyes, and Alchupa saw the look of a man sizing up an opponent and deciding how he could kill him. Godfried, Alchupa thought as he saw the Brit scouring the wharf and its perimeter with a critical eye, was trying to make some evaluation of the Anaconda forces.

  The British accent was the only thing that distinguished Godfried from the gringo behind him. Alchupa did not know the short, stocky crew-cut man by his real name. But few, the Colombian colonel knew, had ever been able to discover that gringo's true identity. He was called the Viper. The Viper was one of the many CIA assassins who had sprung up recently in Central and South America. The CIA killers were like a plague, a blight on the lower Americas. Like a virus, they bred in the festering sores of ongoing political strife. Blood seemed to be the only thing that fueled their black souls. And allegiance meant serving the man who paid the most for their deadly skills.

  The last man was short and dark with black shoulder-length hair and a pencil-thin wispy mustache that hung well below a chinless jaw. Liao Khan. The Mongol. The assassin from the Far East looked uncomfortable in khakis, scanning the faces of Alchupa's warriors through eyes hidden behind hooded lids. In a way, Alchupa could appreciate Khan's discomfort, his skepticism and obvious unease. A warrior from the steppes of the Golden Horde, Alchupa thought, would be as out of place in the world's deadliest jungle as he himself would be on th
e endless sweeping plains of Mongolia. Khan was often used by the KGB for "specialized wet work" in Afghanistan, China, India and Pakistan. Alchupa had studied the history of the Mongols, admired what the Golden Horde had done in Persia and Russia. The Mongols had been the greatest conquerors of all time, warriors who had taken and controlled more territory than even the Romans and the German Nazis. Alchupa had sought out Khan not so much because he needed the Mongol's lethal skills, but because he was fascinated by the fierce steppe warriors who had invented and perfected military tactics that had been copied and used by invading armies since the high tide of the Golden Horde in the thirteenth century.

  As his assassins gathered before him, Alchupa sucked in a deep breath and smiled. He felt an affinity toward these men already. They were like him in many ways. Tough. Hard. Blooded in the eye of death, they would never ask for mercy, and they would never show mercy. Mercy, Alchupa believed, was for the weak willed. Compassion was intolerable.

  "You didn't tell us we'd be in competition with each other, Colonel."

  Alchupa looked the Viper dead in the eye, and the smile vanished from the colonel's lips. He was in no mood to bicker or squabble over details. The next thing he knew, they'd be asking him about money.

  "You are not in competition with each other. Let me explain. There is a serious problem I have called you here to deal with. A knife that, so to speak, has been driven into the sides of many men around the world that I have admired."