“As do I,” Tuerto said, pushing the door open and startling Sweets. Behind the one-eyed man was another of his men, the big man named Fahd. “Perhaps our questions are the same, eh?”
“Maybe, but I’m asking mine right now, so why don’t you get lost,” Sweets said, rising to his feet.
“I think not. In fact, I am contemplating cutting you out of the equation entirely, my friend,” Tuerto said. Sweets flushed.
“Yeah? That so?”
“What would you do in my place?” Tuerto shrugged eloquently, hands spread. “It is obvious that your operation is not so watertight as you assured me. What other assurances, then, should I question?”
“Maybe you should look at your own guys,” Sweets said. “Interpol don’t concern itself with illegals, last I looked.”
It was Tuerto’s turn to flush. A muscle in his jaw jumped and Sweets laughed.
“Quiet,” Tuerto said.
Sweets chuckled. “Nah, I like to talk.” He raised his hands. “Know what, though? I got me some work to do thanks to Cousin Frank here, so you have at it,” he said. “But...” He pivoted and backhanded Bolan, rocking the chair and causing sparks to flash behind Bolan’s eyes. “That’s for trying to shoot my brother.” He stalked out, leaving Bolan alone with the two mujahedeen.
“I apologize. That was uncalled for,” Tuerto said, dragging Bolan’s chair around.
Bolan spat a wad of blood onto the floor and shook his head to clear it. “Depends on your perspective,” he said. He rotated his wrists, grabbing onto the back of the chair. A combination of age and the desert climate had weakened the wood. He couldn’t break the chains, but if he had a bit of time, he could damn well break the chair. He needed to keep them talking and distracted.
“And just what is your perspective, Mr. LaMancha? Or should I call you, ah, what was it, Cooper? Is that your name?” Tuerto said.
“Is your name really One-Eye?” Bolan said.
Tuerto laughed. “Ha! No, no not really. Yes. There’s little need for secret identities at this juncture, eh? Allow me to introduce myself, Mr. Cooper. I am Tariq Ibn Tumart.”
“Berber,” Bolan said. “You’re a long way from home, Tariq.” Splinters dug into his fingers as he worked at the wood.
“Ma’sa’Allah,” Tuerto said, inclining his head. “If you must wage war, wage it in enemy lands.’”
“Abd al-Rahman,” Bolan said. “A wise man, for his time.”
Tuerto’s eyes widened slightly. “You’re a well-read man, I see.” He clucked his tongue. “Most disappointing. I have so little opportunity to discuss literature in my line. The ghazi are not big on books, save one. Isn’t that right, Fahd?” The big man made a grunt of what might have been assent. Tuerto turned back to Bolan. “You see? I find it an almost painful irony that the warriors of God have so little appreciation for the words and poetry of those inspired by him.”
“It’s a sign of the times,” Bolan said, speaking louder to hide the sound of the chair’s back crumbling in his hands. “People think Cervantes is a type of quesadilla.”
“Cervantes? I take it back. You have terrible taste in books,” Tuerto said, stepping back. He frowned. “Who are you really?”
“The Man from LaMancha,” Bolan said, smiling slightly.
Tuerto snorted. “Amusing, but I think not. Are you with Interpol?”
“They don’t do enough tilting at windmills for my taste,” Bolan said.
“It will go hard for you if you continue,” he said, hands behind his back. “If you are not Interpol, then are you CIA? Are you FBI? NSA? How much do you know?”
Bolan said nothing. His muscles tensed, preparing. Tuerto nodded sharply. “I was hoping that you would make this easy for both of us, Mr. Cooper. But I have ever been disappointed by men like you.” Tuerto snapped his fingers and Bolan felt something hard crash into the back of his skull.
He made the leap anyway, dizzy as he was. The chair snapped and broke and his fingertips brushed across Tuerto’s throat. The mercenary stepped back, eyes widening slightly. His hands flashed, quicker than Bolan could follow in his current state, and the Executioner sagged to the floor, his body refusing to respond to his commands.
“We have a tried-and-true method of dealing with enemies with stubborn tongues in my country, Mr. Cooper.” Tuerto sank to his haunches and leaned close. “We let them boil in their own sins.”
Chapter 11
Amira Tanzir watched from the stifling room she and the others had been forced into by Sweets’s men. It had been a dance hall at one time but presently it was an empty wreck. Most of the windows had been painted over, but she was able to see out of one, though not by much. When the gunfire started, she almost leaped to her feet. She resisted the urge, however, and merely joined a few of the others at the window. Cramming her face against it, she had watched as her contact was surrounded by Sweets’s followers, and a familiar icy fear gripped her heart.
She had been a part of more than one undercover operation that had gone wrong, and it always ended in blood and tears. She had hoped this one would go differently. Obviously, her hopes had been in vain. Her first instinct had been to help in some way. Her second had been to do nothing. Like a good agent, she had chosen the second. The mission came first. It always came first. But she still felt sick. She needed confirmation that she’d made the right call.
Turning her face from the window, she tapped the bead in her ear and murmured, “Control?”
A burst of interference greeted her. Then, “—eport,” Control hissed.
“Agent James’s cover has been blown,” she said simply.
There was a moment of silence, and then, “Yours?”
“I’m still in place,” she said, hating herself even as she said it. She should have at least tried to help. But, to what end? No. No, she had to focus. Only the mission mattered. Nothing else.
“Good,” Control said. “You’re on your own. Try not to get killed.”
“What about Agent James?”
“He’s not your priority. Tuerto is.” Control fell silent. She heard the click of the line being closed a few moments later and she frowned. It was true, James wasn’t her priority. She didn’t have to like it, though. She sat and watched shadows move and dance and die on the walls, and wondered who was doing which of those acts at that moment outside. After a time, she slumped down, trying not to think of anything in particular.
“What do you think is going on?” someone said in a hushed voice. The gunfire had long since gone quiet, but no one had checked on them.
“Do you think it’s the cartels?” a woman said, clutching her meager possessions closer to her. More voices spilled forth then as people began shouting questions and concerns at one another in growing fear. The climate of hysteria bubbled and frothed around Tanzir and her skin crawled at the naked confusion rising from the others.
She understood it completely. She had seen it before, in North African cargo containers, the holds of Libyan fishing boats and on Russian tankers. Men and women fleeing the bad and often ending up smack-dab in the middle of the worst. The world had grown too small to accommodate the desire for someplace better. Every country in the world was slamming its borders shut, out of fear or necessity. Sometimes the one amounted to the other. Yet people still tried to cross borders, rivers, mountains, oceans in pursuit of something approaching a better way of life.
Forced by circumstance to deal with criminals, whether they were coyotes or snakeheads or some other species of smuggler, the lucky ones made it to the so-called Promised Land carrying only a bit of hard debt. Others were forced to act as unwilling couriers for illicit goods or substances—guns, secrets, heroin, cocaine, everything under the sun—or to sell themselves to pay for their trip. She had seen men sign away their own organs to see to their family’s safety, and women as y
oung as twelve forced into prostitution to pay for a three-day ride in a cramped and stinking ship’s hold.
Her knuckles went white as the shooting stopped. Silence fell, and the voices of the others fell with them. Ten agonizing minutes later, the door opened and a man stepped inside. Big, bigger than any man Tanzir had ever seen, with fists coated in dried blood. Animal eyes swept the crowd. “Settle down,” he said, his voice strangely high-pitched for a man of his size. It was a little boy’s voice, issuing from a brute’s mouth. “Nothing is going on, everything is fine,” he continued. His gaze fell on Tanzir, and her skin prickled and crawled at the naked lust she saw there.
She looked away, wondering whether he was one of those men for whom violence was an aphrodisiac. She wished she had a weapon, but was confident of her ability to procure one, if it became necessary. She forced her fingers to straighten, to droop. Tension was her enemy, as much as Tuerto.
The newcomer’s eyes stayed on her for long minutes and then he wheeled around and stomped out, slamming the door behind him. She heard padlocks click into place and the jangle of chains. The coyotes weren’t taking any chances.
Tanzir closed her eyes again, and settled back to wait.
* * *
JORGE’S HEAD SNAPPED BACK and blood spattered across the floor. The big Arab stepped forward and grabbed the man’s hair, jerking his head forward before punching him again. Pain splintered James’s thoughts, keeping him conscious despite his wishes. He was tied to a chair and his looks weren’t so good anymore.
“That bullet wound looks like it hurts, Mr. James,” Tuerto said from the room’s sole piece of furniture, a busted-up bed. The Berber lounged back against the wall, smoking a cigarette. “We can get you medical attention, if you simply answer a few questions.”
“G-go to hell,” James grunted.
“Fahd,” Tuerto said. The fist smashed down, and the agent’s jaw felt as if it had been caught in a car door. He nearly fell over, chair and all, but the big Arab caught the back of the seat and set him back up. “Fahd was a torturer, you know, for the Republican Guard. He doesn’t talk much, but he is eloquent with his hands.” Tuerto stubbed the cigarette out on the wall and pushed himself up with languid ease. “You are with the United States Border Patrol, yes? But not your friend Cooper, I think.”
“Go blow,” James said, grinning, his teeth red with his own blood. Again came the fist, this time in an uppercut that sent his teeth sawing into his own tongue. Gagging, he jerked back. A foot hooked the leg of the chair and righted him.
“Rude,” Tuerto said. “Was this serendipity? Coincidence? Or are there larger forces at work?” he said, almost to himself. “Who are you working with, my friend?”
“Jack Bauer,” James gurgled.
“I quite like that show. Hit him, Fahd.”
Fahd did, again and again and again. Blows fell like raindrops, and James felt his face go loose like a bag of gravel.
“Your friend Cooper is dead,” Tuerto said. “You do not betray him by telling us what we want to know. Not now.”
James looked away. It was all the defiance he could muster. Tuerto sighed. “Fine. Fahd, make him talk. When you have what I need, kill him. Don’t linger,” he said, turning to leave. “Goodbye, Mr. James.”
“Be seeing you, Tuerto,” James croaked as the door closed. He looked up at Fahd and smiled gamely through split lips. “Now, let’s you and I get acquainted, shall we?”
Fahd’s only reply was a gap-toothed grin. Then, raising his fists, he began again.
* * *
TUERTO CLOSED THE DOOR and blew out a breath. Sweets was waiting for him, a sly smile on his face. “Not talking, is he? Ol’ Jorge has unplumbed reserves of testicular fortitude, I’ll give him that much, the lousy little backstabber.”
“No, he is not talking. Neither is Cooper, bad cess to the man.” Tuerto stroked his beard, thinking. “But until we know what they know, we cannot risk moving.”
“Look before you leap, huh?” Sweets said. “I can dig it. It’s gonna cost extra, though.”
“What?”
“Extra. As in, ‘money.’ Cash preferably, but we’ll take a money order.”
“Our current arrangement suits me better,” Tuerto said.
“How about that?” Sweets said. “Not me. Us, I mean.” He waved a hand. Several of the surviving coyotes waited on the stairs, ostensibly not looking at them, but holding their weapons in such a way as to give lie to their indifference. Tariq felt a thin smile spread across his features.
“I have a hundred men.”
“Little less than that, I think,” Sweets said, his own smile staying in place. “Me, I got, what? Eight? Of course, all of yours are downstairs, but four of my guys are right fucking there, Mr. One-Eye.” Sweets spread his hands. “Double or nothing, we stay on. You jerk us around, we leave in the one working vehicle. You and the beaners can eat each other for all I care. Or try to make it on foot. That desert will kill you faster than a bullet, Arab or not.”
“I am a Berber,” Tuerto said mildly. He glanced back at the door, then at Sweets. “Not an Arab.”
“Same difference,” Sweets said.
“Not to Berbers and Arabs,” Tuerto said. He sighed. “Fine, it will take a day to make the arrangements.”
“We got time,” Sweets said. “Cooper fucked them trucks up but good.”
“Cooper,” Tuerto growled, fists clenching.
Sweets laughed. “Should just let Digger have him. Maybe you could learn a few things, watching him work.”
“No. We have our own methods of punishment. Torture, for its own sake, has never appealed to me,” the man with one eye said.
“Are you squeamish?” Sweets said.
“Merely efficient,” Tuerto said, waving a hand. “Butchery should be left to butchers, as the saying goes. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he went on, stepping past Sweets.
“Where are you going?”
“Taking our Mr. Cooper to his final resting place,” Tuerto said without turning around.
Chapter 12
Bolan knew that it was much later when he opened his eyes again. He did so with reluctance, not to mention some difficulty. Dried blood cracked and flaked down his cheeks as he glared up at the sun. Every limb and joint was aching and throbbing, his skin tight, and there was a red heat creeping up behind his eyes. Even his hair hurt, right down to the roots. He licked dry, cracked lips with a tongue that felt as if it was wrapped in steel wool, and tested the nylon cords that held his wrists and ankles flat against the unpleasantly warm surface of the roof of the stripped and gutted hulk of a car.
There was no telling how long he had been there in the middle of the desert, nor did he remember the trip. The only things he recalled were fists and feet and rifle butts working him over like an overenthusiastic butcher wielding a meat tenderizer as Tuerto left the room. He wondered how long he’d been unconscious. Head blows were bad news, and the aftereffects could crop up when you least needed them. Blinking against the light, he took in his situation.
Arms and legs spread, Bolan was at the mercy of the elements. There was sand in every crevice and his throat was as dry as the ground. Bruises and contusions were already forming on his bare torso, and he was finding it hard to breathe. He closed his eyes and pushed the pain aside, trying to organize his thoughts. But the sun beating down on his head like a hammer and the bone-deep pain that riddled his battered body made any clear thoughts difficult.
“Well,” he croaked, “this is another fine mess you’ve gotten me into.” His comment was swallowed up by the desert, answered only by the distant cry of a bird of prey. If Bolan had believed in omens, he might have wondered about that. Other things occupied his mind at the moment, though. Like the fact that the rusted roof was fast heating up and his skin was beginning to burn.
Fighting to control the instinctive urge to thrash, Bolan tested each limb, first legs and then arms, pulling on his bonds. The nylon bit into his sweaty flesh like smooth teeth. His eyelids felt hot, but he kept his eyes closed, trying to ignore the orange spots dancing through the black of his vision. With a grunt of effort, he twisted his shoulder joint until it creaked, rotating his right wrist until his fingers could tap the top of the car’s door frame. The nylon had been threaded through the busted-out windows, leaving him spread-eagled on the roof.
His fingers, dangerously numb, clawed at the door. If he could find a shard of glass or a loose flake of metal, anything with an edge, he might be able to cut his way free. He had to stop after his shoulder began to complain. A spasm spread through his abused body like ripples in a lake, and he took a minute to rest.
“They really did a number on you, old man,” he grunted softly. His stomach lurched and he tasted bile. Images of his stomach acids beginning to bubble and turn to gas in his belly filled his head. He tried to work up enough spittle to wet the inside of his mouth, but there was none to be had.
His fingertip brushed something painfully sharp and drew a hiss from him. A twist of splintered metal, probably created during whatever accident had left this wreck in its current condition. Unfortunately, he couldn’t quite reach it. Thinking quickly, he took a long breath and shifted his opposite shoulder. It dislocated with an unpleasant sound and Bolan couldn’t manage to restrain a sharp cry. A coiling pain slithered up and down the limb as the twitching fingers of its twin fastened around the shank of metal and pulled on it. With the extra bit of reach the dislocation had granted him, he managed to jerk the shank free, though it cut his fingers to the bone. Shifting the sharp twist of metal through his blood-slickened fingers, Bolan brought the far tip against the cords fastened around his right wrist. Breathing heavily from pain and effort, he began to saw at the nylon.
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