Killing Trade

by Don Pendleton

  “You killed West? Not NLI?”

  “What have I told you?” Almarone said angrily. “I had him killed thinking this would draw Stevens out of hiding. I had hoped he would have to start representing himself, at least in dealing with Taveras. As I say, we have people on the inside. Once we identified him we could kill him, too, or perhaps capture him and persuade him to help us instead of Taveras. I do not know why he chose sides in our little war. I would think the most money to be made is made by selling to both, no?”

  Bolan said nothing. Almarone was making sense. West was killed, if the timeline was correct, just before Bolan was to meet him in Bryant Park. Perhaps West was acting on Stevens’s orders and trying to find a new market to sell his product. Perhaps West was acting on his own, trying to score a payday on the side without Stevens’s knowledge. Either way, he’d been killed before he could meet with Bolan.

  “When you killed West, did your people search his home? His computer?”

  “We did,” Almarone admitted, “but West was good at some things. His computer we could not crack. He was very bad at other things, however. He left himself a note, telling of a meeting with a new client.”

  “In Bryant Park.”

  “Yes,” Almarone said. “We discussed this, Luis and I,” Almarone admitted, “but we could see no profit in meeting more potential enemies. It was thought perhaps Stevens would come out of hiding to meet with this new buyer, but we dared not make a move then and there.”

  “Why not?”

  “The Caquetas have one war to fight already. Were we to blunder into the deal and shoot it out with these new people whom West had been courting, we’d have to fight on two fronts. The Caquetas are not weak, but we have our limits. Our fight is with El Cráneo.”

  “In other words,” Bolan translated, “you’re already losing to Taveras and you don’t have the resources to take on another hostile group, the dimensions of which you didn’t yet know.”

  “As you say,” Almarone said through gritted teeth.

  Bolan thought over what he’d just learned. He had assumed that NLI had found out about West and killed him to keep him quiet, then followed up on the meet to kill whomever might have had contact with West. That made sense; it closed the trail leading back to NLI, a corporation whose motives Bolan understood well enough. If the Caquetas had found West, however, how did NLI get the information? How had they known of the Bryant Park meet—and how did the timing of Basil Price’s break-in fit?

  “You now have everything Luis, Razor and I knew of this Stevens and his organization,” Almarone said. “If telling you is in our best interests, prove it to me. Leave now.”

  Bolan looked down at the drug lord. “I think you misunderstand,” he said evenly. “You and your men are responsible for a lot of innocent deaths. I’m here to put a stop to that.”

  “You said you wished to stop Stevens from selling his ammunition!”

  “Yes, I do,” Bolan said, the Desert Eagle rock solid in his fist as he extended his arm toward Almarone. “But you’re not going to do any more killing, Almarone.”

  Almarone jerked his hand toward the pillow, clawing for his hidden weapon.

  Bolan’s finger tightened on the trigger of the Desert Eagle.

  Suddenly, a smoking grenade canister punched through the bedroom’s window and bounced across the carpeted floor.

  7

  Bolan caught a whiff of the tear gas as the stinging smoke filled the room. Almarone found the .45 automatic pistol he’d been reaching for, snapping off a pair of shots in Bolan’s direction. The Executioner pumped the four-poster full of .44 Magnum slugs as he retreated from the bedroom, stepping over Ruiz as he did so.

  As he took the steps two at a time, Bolan heard tear-gas canisters being fired into the windows of the ground floor. The house soon began to fill with acrid, white smoke. No stranger to the effects of such gas, Bolan was not troubled by it, though his eyes did water considerably. He reloaded and holstered the Desert Eagle before bringing up the Ultimax on its shoulder strap. He took a moment to swap out the M-16 magazine for a 100-round drum from his bag.

  When the first operatives broke through the front door, Bolan was ready for them.

  Wearing full black combat gear and load-bearing vests, the gunmen opened fire as soon as the front door was down. Bolan was convinced that these were mercenaries. Their equipment, their tactics and their demeanor all pointed to it. He returned fire, the Ultimax spitting 62-grain steel-core bullets, cutting the doorway at an angle and chopping down the gunners before they could bring their AR-15s to bear on him. Swiveling, Bolan sent a blast back the other way, knowing the operatives would enter from both sides to catch him in the cross fire. The Executioner heard someone scream above the gunfire as he held the Ultimax by its pistol grips, hosing first the kitchen, then the front doorway through the family room. Then he broke through the knot of fallen men in the kitchen and shouldered his way through the side door leading to the attached garage.

  Almarone’s Mercedes-Benz S550 squatted on its tires like a well-fed beast of prey. Bolan let the Ultimax fall to its sling and under his coat as he fished the car keys from his pocket. He let himself in and fired up the car’s engine. Three hundred and eighty-two horses rumbled back at him from under the hood. He shifted the automatic transmission into Drive and crushed the accelerator under his steel-shank combat boot. The rear wheels bit and the car hurtled forward.

  When the Mercedes crashed through the lightweight garage door, it caught two of the mercenaries. They were standing in the driveway, covering the house as more of their team poured from a pair of black cargo vans parked in front, when Bolan’s commandeered vehicle smashed into them. There was a sickening crunch as one of the men was caught under the front wheels. The other was brutally shoved to the driveway after the vehicle’s front fender plowed into him, breaking the headlight on that side.

  Bolan had no time to hunt for window controls. As he whipped around the two parked vans, the hired guns on the front lawn and in the vehicles began snapping shots at him. He yanked the Desert Eagle from its holster and brought it up, aiming through his own passenger window. The blast from the hand cannon was deafening within the car. Bolan punched shots through the window and into the flanks of the vans, taking out two tires on one but failing to score a disabling hit on the other. Then he was rocketing down the suburban street, hearing 5.56 mm bullets tear into the trunk and spiderweb the rear window as the heavy Mercedes’ engine pushed it to sixty miles per hour in under six seconds. The high-tech speedometer kept climbing as the Executioner sped away.

  Then he heard the chopper.

  Bolan caught sight of the OH-6A “Little Bird” helicopter as it rose high above the houses to his left. The chopper, battle-proved and agile, bore two M-134 miniguns, one of the six-barreled guns on either side. The 7.62 mm rounds would chop up his borrowed luxury car with little difficulty. He pressed the accelerator to the floor with all his weight.

  The pilot brought the aircraft around in a tight arc that put Bolan’s car in position for a quick kill. The soldier wrenched the steering wheel as the guns opened up, tearing up the road behind the Mercedes as it shot around a corner and down a side street. Bolan was grateful for the relatively light traffic. He could not afford to draw the chopper into noncombatants.

  The Executioner found what he was looking for, dodging back and forth across the road as the Little Bird tried to pin him with its guns. The profusion of telephone poles and the tightly spaced houses worked in his favor as he tore erratically through the neighborhood. The chopper’s pilot couldn’t get a clear shot at him and was, for the moment, reluctant to start firing through houses or civilian cars.

  Bolan knew from too much recent experience that the pilot would grow desperate and start using less caution. The soldier sped toward the overpass of the ramp to the Garden State Parkway. Estimating the distance, he slammed on the brakes, skidding the Mercedes to a stop under the shelter of the overpass, as close to its center
as he could. He threw open his door and brought up the Ultimax.

  The pilot brought the chopper in fast, both miniguns burning, walking the 7.62 mm NATO rounds in under the overpass to rip the Mercedes to shreds. He was a skilled pilot, but he lacked patience. Bolan had seen such target fixation before. The parked car was not the threat. The target, and the real threat, was the man who’d been driving. The Executioner, from the other side of the underpass, opened fire with the Ultimax.

  From his vantage point flanking the hovering chopper, Bolan targeted the tail rotor through his mounted red-dot scope. He fired through the rest of the 100-round drum as the Ultimax vibrated in his hands. The Little Bird started to turn to bring its guns to bear on him.

  It kept turning, as the damaged tail rotor gave, sending the chopper into a spin. The pilot tried to put the wounded bird down but overcompensated, tilting wildly to one side. The main rotor dug into the asphalt and broke apart, whipping the helicopter under the overpass like a skipping stone. It came to rest in a crumpled heap on the other side before exploding, raining the area with scraps of metal.

  The van Bolan had failed to damage was closing in. The side door was open, and a gunner with an AR-15 was shooting. Bolan made for the shelter of the underpass, bracing himself against the concrete wall. He drew the Desert Eagle again and punched hole after hole in the windshield of the oncoming van, fouling the driver’s vision or hitting him outright. The van swerved, hesitated and then accelerated, as if deadweight pinned the gas pedal. Finally, the vehicle rammed nose-first into the concrete wall of the overpass opposite Bolan.

  The Executioner reloaded his Desert Eagle and advanced on the wrecked van, the big pistol in both fists. A mercenary stumbled out the side door, holding a Colt .45 in his left hand. Bolan tracked him with the Desert Eagle.

  “Drop it!” he ordered.

  The man brought the .45 up and on target. Bolan triggered a single shot that drilled him through the chest, dumping him on the road. As he got closer, he saw movement within the van. Another survivor began spraying unaimed fire through the open side door.

  Bolan emptied the Desert Eagle into the cargo compartment, moving laterally as he did so. He holstered the big handgun and drew the Beretta 93-R in one fluid motion, unclipping his combat light and holding it in his support hand as he swept the doorway of the vehicle. Nothing moved inside. At his feet, the man with the .45 was clearly dead, staring up from a puddle of blood.

  “Hey!” someone shouted.

  Bolan felt the kick coming and rotated with it, absorbing most of the powerful roundhouse. The Beretta was knocked from his hand. He came back with a hammer fist to his adversary’s temple. The man ducked and backed off a pace, adopting some sort of martial-arts stance as he drew a knife from his web gear.

  Bolan kept his distance, his hands open and low near his body. The mercenary who’d been hiding behind the van was young, with dirty blond hair and a desperate look. He was bleeding from a nasty scalp wound. He couldn’t be much more than nineteen or twenty, the Executioner decided—full of ideas about seeing the world and having adventures, probably. It might just be possible to talk him out of this.

  “Look,” Bolan said, careful to keep himself positioned to evade or counter as the young man made tentative slashing motions with his knife, “you can walk away from this.”

  “In handcuffs, maybe,” the kid growled, poking the air with his knife in Bolan’s general direction.

  “Don’t,” Bolan warned. “You aren’t going to win.”

  “I have orders,” the young man insisted. “Take you down and don’t get caught, no alternatives. If I get caught, I die.”

  “What sort of hold do they have over you?” Bolan asked.

  “Man, you have no idea,” the kid said. He lunged with the knife.

  Bolan slapped and checked the knife arm, moving to the inside and driving his elbow into the kid’s throat. The young man went down gagging, losing his knife in the process. Bolan dropped a boot on his stomach, careful not to do it too hard. The kid doubled up, turning white. He rolled over and retched.

  Bolan spotted his Beretta and scooped it up. He stood over the kid, aiming the machine pistol.

  “Get up,” he ordered. “Do it slowly. You can live through this. You don’t have to die for Blackjack.”

  “Yeah,” the kid said, curled into a ball with his back to Bolan. “Yeah, I do.”

  He rolled over suddenly, and Bolan saw the glint of metal in his hand. The Beretta spit flame once. The young mercenary was still.

  The soldier leaned over the dead man and checked the body. There was nothing in his pockets, of course, and certainly no identifying materials of any kind. In his hand he clutched a tiny 5-shot, .22-caliber North American Arms minirevolver. Bolan took it, pulled the cylinder pin and checked the loads. Then he reloaded the tiny gun, set the single-action hammer on one of the safety notches between chambers and dropped the little gun in his pocket.

  He looked back at the dead man. He was young to have chosen the life that had gotten him killed—but he was old enough to have chosen wrong over right. He had paid the price accordingly.

  When the Crown Victoria came roaring up, Bolan brought the 93-R up to cover it before he realized it was Burnett behind the wheel.

  “Hey, Cooper. Need a lift?” Burnett asked.

  “How did you find me?”

  “Are you kidding?” The detective jerked his chin in the direction of the wrecked helicopter. Heavy black smoke was rising from the mangled craft. “You leave a trail a blind man could follow. Well, a half-blind man.”

  “You okay to drive?” the Executioner asked as he got in on the passenger side.

  “Sure,” Burnett said. “I just can’t take any turns to that side.” He pointed to his bandaged eye. “You know what they say. ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right, but three lefts do.’”

  Bolan looked at him incredulously.

  “Sorry.” Burnett’s lopsided grin said he wasn’t sorry at all.

  Burnett’s mood sobered as they neared the safe house. The building was not on fire, but white smoke or tear gas wafted from the windows and the building was badly damaged by gunfire. The garage door lay in pieces on the driveway, where a local police car was parked. There were no dead men littering the lawn or driveway; it was likely the mercenaries had taken any casualties with them. Two police officers were speaking to a crowd of civilians, who could only be neighbors giving their statements. The cops eyed Burnett and Bolan suspiciously as they drove up.

  “Let me handle this,” Burnett said. “I speak the language.”

  Bolan waited in the car as Burnett conferred with the cops. He scanned the area, feeling uncomfortably vulnerable in the parked car. The cargo van he had damaged was nowhere to be seen. It was likely the mercenaries had simply driven it away on the rims. Men motivated enough to kill themselves—and each other—rather than risk capture and interrogation would think little of damaging a vehicle to effect their getaway.

  The Executioner had no doubt that running ID checks on the dead men in the van under the overpass would turn up individuals with backgrounds similar to those of Reynolds and Price—career soldiers of fortune with no direct ties to Blackjack Group and Norris Labs International. The helicopter might be more promising, as a check on its serial numbers might turn up a link to an owner who could eventually be traced to Blackjack. It was unlikely to be anything definitive, however, nor could Bolan see the information coming through in time to be of any real help.

  Burnett gestured for Bolan, the two cops leaving the detective to return to questioning the witnesses.

  Bolan climbed carefully out of the Crown Victoria, making sure the Ultimax and his other hardware remained concealed. There was no need to get the police on-site any more nervous than they already were, with the evidence of open war smoking in the midst of a previously quiet neighborhood.

  “They don’t like it,” Burnett said as Bolan walked up, “but they’re buying my authority for now. We can check
out the house, for all the good that will do.”

  Bolan nodded. The two men walked up the heavily damaged front porch and stepped inside. The interior still reeked of tear gas, making Burnett cough and wheeze.

  “Why don’t you step outside?” Bolan suggested. “It won’t take both of us to look.”

  Burnett nodded and made himself scarce. Bolan went room by room, searching for any sign of Ruiz or Almarone.

  He found Ruiz on the kitchen floor. The walls and floors were red with blood. Ruiz was clutching a kitchen knife in one dead hand, something he’d obviously grabbed from the countertop. His eyes were open and his face twisted in a look of shock and disbelief. There was no way to count the number of wounds he’d suffered. To Bolan he looked as if he couldn’t quite accept that hell had come for him at last.

  Almarone had never made it downstairs. Bolan followed a trail of blood smeared on the carpet, leading from the master bedroom to another of the bedrooms down the hall. The drug lord was slumped in a corner. One hand still clutched at a neck wound, while the other was wrapped around the pistol with which he’d tried to kill Bolan. The slide of the .45 was locked open.

  There was an entry wound in Almarone’s forehead. The mercenaries had clipped him as he fired back, then let him drag himself down the hall before following him and finishing him.

  There was little else for the Executioner to do.

  He found Burnett out front, conferring with the officers.

  “They’ve got it under control now,” Burnett told him as they walked back to the Crown Victoria. “The local boys will be crawling over this before the other agencies get into the act. They’ll be arguing who did what for months if not years. I downplayed your involvement.”

  “I appreciate that,” Bolan said as he got in. “I’ll drive.”

  “Works for me. Where are we driving to?”

  Bolan considered that for a moment. There was the address in Swedesboro, but there was no telling if that would turn up anything and he was reluctant to move that far away from the city on so little possibility of payoff. Given that the heads had just been cut off the Caqueta Cartel nest of serpents, with more possibly headed into town, he wanted to get back to New York to see what shook loose.