Blood Vortex

by Don Pendleton

  One guy he’d marked down as an enemy was thirty-something, moderately tall, standing beside an Audi Q7 full-size luxury SUV of navy blue, coincidentally matching the driver’s suit. He looked official, although out of uniform, and Bolan reckoned he would try to spare the driver on the off chance he might be an undercover cop.

  Some might have noted that the guy was aiding terrorists and let it go at that, after they’d put him down, but Bolan lived by private rules and deemed them sacrosanct.

  Today, he only hoped they wouldn’t get him killed.

  * * *

  Sergeant Ilan Canónico was not a cop, in fact, and would have felt insulted to be labeled one. He served SEBIN, and therefore placed himself a cut above the normal law-enforcement drones who spent their time arresting thieves and drug traffickers, detaining pickpockets and hassling riffraff under Venezuela’s vaguely worded “vagrants and thugs” legislation.

  Truth be told, Canónico privately thought of himself as a real-life James Bond, including the license to kill, which he had used on various occasions in defense of his homeland.

  So what if the whining radicals of Amnesty International called those killings extrajudicial murders? Sergeant Canónico followed orders to the letter and he harbored no self-doubts, lost no sleep over anything he’d done to punish terrorists.

  And if his present job involved supporting foreign terrorists, as some critics might claim, that left him untroubled by cognitive dissonance. In war, ends justified the means, and anyone who wasn’t on SEBIN’s side automatically became an enemy.

  Sergeant Canónico spotted the men he had been sent to meet as their sleek, go-fast boat drew into port and angled toward the berth reserved for it. Their faces matched the mug shots he had studied then returned to SEBIN’s files. They were allegedly tough customers, but that did not concern Canónico.

  Today, perhaps for just a short time, they would be comrades in arms.

  And if that changed, should he receive new orders, he would deal with them accordingly.

  Canónico approached the new arrivals as they left their cigarette boat moored against the pier, each man hauling a heavy-looking duffel bag together with a well-worn plastic suitcase. They stopped short to study him as he drew near, relaxing only when he introduced himself and offered them an empty hand to shake, each man in turn.

  “Sergeant Canónico, from SEBIN covert services,” he said. “I trust you had a pleasant trip?” Without giving them a breather to respond, he forged ahead, saying, “You are, of course, Señors José Cantú and Saturnino Flores, yes?”

  Those were only passport names, the sergeant understood. He had no interest in real names at the moment, which would be on file at headquarters in any case. If matters took a sudden turn and he was forced to execute these two, they’d have no grave markers, no earthly use for names at all.

  Responsibility for that decision rested with Canónico’s superiors—and likely would not reach his ears until the several delegates had all descended on their scheduled meeting place. For now, it was enough the he—

  The gunshot seemed to come from nowhere, its projectile striking Flores in the left shoulder and spinning him a full one hundred eighty degrees before he collapsed on the pier. Blood jetting from his wound spattered Sergeant Canónico’s suit jacket, one hot dollop clinging to his cheek.

  Cantú reacted swiftly, dropping to a crouch beside his wounded traveling companion, opening his duffel bag, its zipper whirring down as he rummaged inside. Canónico had drawn his pistol in the meantime—a semiautomatic .40-caliber Browning Hi-Power.

  All thoughts of a routine pickup and delivery vanished in a heartbeat. Canónico’s focus shifted to the task of self-defense.

  And the defense of those he was supposed to be escorting.

  With one of them already down, wounded and maybe dying, the SEBIN sergeant could almost smell his future going up in smoke.

  * * *

  The first shot, from a pistol, startled Bolan, never a reaction he appreciated at the onset of a firefight. Someone else was shooting at the terrorists he’d come to kill, and he was determined to find out who the shooter was.

  Assigning motives to the act could damned well wait its turn.

  He pivoted, seeking a target as a second shot rang out across the docks. People were running every which way now, including stevedores and boaters, couples of various ages, here and there an unattended child. Within a split second, he’d homed in on the gunman, only to discover that “he” was a woman, dark hair tied back in a ponytail. She was wearing a guayabera shirt and blue jeans, aiming downrange with a semiauto pistol in a firm two-handed grip.

  Bolan could probably have tagged her then and there if she was an enemy, but curiosity stepped in to stay his hand. As she squeezed off her third shot, he glanced back toward the two CPP/NPA terrorists and found their escort had produced his own sidearm, aiming to take the female shooter down.

  Bad luck for him as he proved just a trifle sluggish and a bullet from her pistol caught him in the upper chest and slammed him over backward on the pier. Bolan could not have said how badly he was wounded, but the Filipino gunmen chose that moment to distract him—both the one unscathed and his injured sidekick—hauling AK101 assault rifles from their matching duffel bags.

  They clearly had the woman spotted now, as she was taking no pains to conceal herself. Seemingly fearless, or at least determined to a fault, she stood her ground while they lined up their weapons to eliminate her.

  After that, their cover well and truly blown, there was no telling how they hoped to make their getaway. Whatever scheme they had conceived beforehand for a foul-up in the making, Bolan didn’t know or care.

  He had to take them out, then try his best to identify the lethal lady—and what she wanted with the men he’d traveled better than two thousand miles to kill.

  He raised the muzzle-heavy Glock, sighted along its slide, and squeezed the weapon’s trigger twice in rapid fire. From sixty feet, he scored a double tap with more spread than he’d wished for, but both rounds were potential killers, one drilling the older gunman’s throat, the other punching through his upper chest above the clavicle, on target to clip the subscapular artery.

  A gush of bright blood showed Bolan that he had nailed his mark, and then the terrorist already wounded had his rifle primed and spitting random bursts along the busy pier.

  * * *

  Pascual Sandico—alias José Cantú—had no clue as to what was happening. The first shots, taking down Captain Baes and their SEBIN escort, had drawn his eyes to a female assailant whom he might have found attractive under other circumstances, if she were not bent on killing him and cutting short his mission on day one.

  But as it was, she had to die. It was Sandico’s only chance to slip away, find somewhere to hide before the dock was overrun with uniformed police and army troops. With Captain Baes dead and bleeding out in front of him, Sandico had to contact CPP/NPA headquarters and ask for new instructions, whether he should try to flee the country or remain and carry on as best he could without Baes.

  But first, Sandico had to make it through the next few minutes without getting killed.

  And that would be no easy task.

  After the woman’s first shots, just as Captain Baes drew his AK101 out of its duffel bag, another round had struck him, this one silent, leaving no echo behind to help Sandico track its source.

  Instinctively, he’d dropped flat on the pier, scanning to find a second enemy, distracted when another gunshot, muted somewhat, sprayed his face with splintered concrete shards.

  Stung and furious, he cursed aloud in Filipino. At the same time, scanning cars and faces in the nearby parking lot, Sandico glimpsed the enemy who’d fired the silenced shot his way.

  This one was a man—tall, muscular, suntanned, of indeterminate ethnicity.

  If the assassins were a team, why was the woman n
ot equipped with a sound suppressor for her weapon? And in that case, were there others yet to be heard from, holding their fire until Sandico stood and presented a better target?

  To save himself, the sergeant would do no such thing.

  He lay midway between the boat that had delivered him to Maiquetía and the Audi SUV his late escort had driven to the waterfront. Whether retreating to the boat or crawling forward to the car, Sandico had roughly the same distance to travel under fire. But if he made it to the SUV, only to find its keys were in the dead SEBIN officer’s pocket, then he would be trapped without recourse.

  Back to the speedboat then. The only choice that still remained for him.

  Sandico started crawling backward, lizard-like, and traversed approximately half the distance when he bolted upright, fired a long burst from his AK101 then turned and ran.

  Twin bullets caught him in midstride and punched him forward, rolling off the pier’s edge into water that received him, drawing him down into its lukewarm depths.

  * * *

  As soon as Bolan saw the fleeing gunman drop and roll, then vanish overboard, he spun around to find the female shooter breaking for the parking lot. People were screaming, stampeding in all directions, and he heard the wail of a distant siren, drawing gradually closer as he sprinted in pursuit.

  It took another moment, but he saw the woman raise a key fob and press one of its buttons. A chirp accompanied by flashing taillights told him she was headed for a black Toyota Avalon parked three rows back from the position from where she’d opened fire on Bolan’s enemies—her own, as well, apparently.

  Who was she? What had prompted the attack?

  The only way to answer those questions was to confront her, and she had already demonstrated willingness to kill. She had not fired at Bolan, though, even when he’d intruded on her waterfront action.

  Why not?

  Another urgent question only she could answer, if she didn’t change her mind and try to take him out.

  To head her off, Bolan tried a shortcut. Half rolling, half sliding on the hood of a Ford Focus parked directly in his path, he tried to play catchup. The woman must have heard him coming. She shot a glance over her shoulder, mouthing what he took to be a curse before she picked up speed toward the Toyota Avalon.

  Not firing at him, even now. And yet again, he had to ask himself, Why not?

  She was a stranger to him—couldn’t recognize him if her very life depended on it. But she’d spared him twice now, even with him virtually breathing down her neck.

  No more than fifteen yards behind her now, Glock still in hand, Bolan put on a final burst of speed. She made it to the Avalon, was reaching for the driver’s door handle, when Bolan pulled up short.

  “That’s far enough.”

  She pivoted to face him, gripping her sidearm but not yet raising it.

  Frowning at Bolan through the spill of her dark hair, she asked, “American?”

  “That’s one for one,” he answered back.

  “You would be wise to walk away, señor.”

  “Not happening.”

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  Bolan gave her his current alias. “Matt Cooper. And you are...?”

  She hesitated for another heartbeat, making up her mind whether to answer him or to use her pistol. Head cocked, she scowled at the approaching sound of multiple sirens.

  “Adira Geller,” she replied at last. “I am a captain with Metsada.”

  Bolan recognized the name—not hers, but of the agency she served.

  Metsada was a unit of Mossad, whose secret manual described it as existing to seek and eliminate the enemies of Israel with “small units of combatants,” using tactics that included “assassination and sabotage.”

  “Sounds like we need to have a talk,” Bolan replied. “Your place or mine?”

  Chapter Four

  Aragua State, Venezuela

  The Mil Mi-17—known to its Russian manufacturers as the Mi-8M series, to NATO as “Hip”—was a medium twin-turbine transport helicopter powered by twin Isotov TV3-117VM engines designed for use in “hot and high” conditions. The chopper carried a crew of three, with a capacity for twenty-four passengers, but this morning its load had been greatly reduced.

  Crew aside, the Mil Mi-17 was hauling four civilians and one soldier, the latter manning an M60 machine gun, pintle-mounted, in the large door on the aircraft’s right-hand side. Heat-and impact-resistant panels of aramid fibers shielded the cockpit and engines, while passengers made do with personal Kevlar and prayer.

  Today, the helicopter carried four peculiar VIPs as it flew toward Las Palmas, a resort located seventy-six miles southwest of Caracas. Normally a high-priced playground for the rich and pampered, Las Palmas was expecting very different clientele this week, encouraged to accept them by a brigadier general of SEBIN who seldom took no for an answer.

  Those who persisted in refusing him were an endangered species, prone to disappear.

  Flying today were representatives of Gama’a al-Islamiyya and al-Shabaab, uneasy company paired off because their groups were both rooted in Africa. Omar Mourad and Kamla Halim were Egyptians; their companions for the flight were Ifrah Tako, from Somalia, and his Yemeni second-in-command, Boushra Damari. Little conversation passed between them, partially because the helicopter’s noise was thunderous inside the cabin, also because their respective groups had been at odds on various occasions, to the point of spilling blood.

  If all went well this weekend, sponsors of the summit meeting hoped that situation might resolve itself.

  The Mil Mi-17 had a service ceiling of 19,690 feet, but its pilots were flying at treetop level, the better to keep from revealing their presence on radar. Although their mission was official, it was not widely known even among commanders of the FANB—Venezuela’s National Bolivarian Armed Forces. In time, that knowledge might be shared more widely or, depending on El Presidente’s whim, that might not be the case.

  Whatever happened in the next four days, the meeting’s outcome would be felt worldwide.

  Either participants would join hands to collaborate in a campaign that changed the face of global politics and life itself, or they might well cease to exist. Each man on board was driven by commitment to his cause and by compelling personal ambition. At the same time, each among them was restrained by certain knowledge that their hosts, while outwardly collegial, could shift gears in a heartbeat and become their mortal enemies.

  This would not be the first time any one of them had stepped into the jaws of death with eyes wide-open, braced for anything that might occur.

  However, this time they were going in unarmed—at least, in theory.

  A pilot’s voice sounded over the headsets worn by all four covert passengers, announcing, “Gentlemen, we have begun final approach. Touchdown is estimated within fifteen minutes.”

  To a man, and likely for the first time in their lives, the fliers shared a common thought. It was about damned time.

  El Topo, Miranda State, Venezuela

  Mack Bolan and Adira Geller sat in his Toyota Land Cruiser outside a fast-food restaurant, eating takeout and watching traffic flow past on the Autopista Caracas–La Guaira. Her four-door Avalon was parked beside his ride, both vehicles facing the highway for a rapid getaway at need.

  El Topo was located seven miles southwest of Maiquetía, a short drive from their point of contact on the docks. Bolan had trailed Geller there, knowing she couldn’t leave her car at what was now a crime scene swarming with police, willing to risk that she would keep her word at least as far as pausing for a conversation with him once they cleared the dragnet’s range.

  He didn’t need to ask what brought an antiterrorist Metsada agent to the neighborhood, since it could only be the same alarm that had placed Bolan on the firing line. As to her basic orders, they were also obvious: disrup
tion and elimination of the mayhem-minded activists convening under the Venezuelan president’s aegis for a sit-down that could only end in more blood being spilled across both hemispheres.

  With that in mind, he cut directly to the chase.

  “I take it that we’re here for the same reason,” Bolan said.

  “If you mean to disrupt collaboration between terrorists who pose a constant threat to my homeland...there is a possibility that you’re correct.”

  Her smile was almost teasing for a second there, but Bolan was not letting her distract him.

  “As to your instructions—” he began before Geller interrupted him.

  “I’m not at liberty to say. And I imagine that the same holds true for you, Mr. Cooper?” Just a hint of emphasis let Bolan know she understood the surname wasn’t one that he’d been born with.

  “And I wouldn’t ask you to betray that confidence,” he countered. “But I’m wondering if standing orders from your brass prohibit us cooperating.”

  “Not per se,” she answered. “And yours?”

  “It wasn’t contemplated, so it hasn’t been ruled out specifically.”

  “In that case, what do you propose?” she asked.

  “I think we’d get more done if we were moving in the same direction,” Bolan replied. “But if that won’t work, at least we can avoid another mix-up like that circus on the docks.”

  “It was unsettling, I agree,” Geller said, “but I have no complaints concerning the result.”

  “You don’t see any problem taking out a Venezuelan plainclothes cop?”