Lethal Vengeance

by Don Pendleton

  “By the time they finish up, it will be too damned late.”

  “Bingo.”

  Bolan went for the long shot. “Cell phone?”

  “In his room. We can’t track him by GPS.”

  “So it comes down to who might want to kidnap him, and why.”

  “Cartels to start,” Price said. “Since 1997, the Juárez Cartel’s been under fire from both the Gulf and Sinaloa outfits, trying to control the city. That explains Chihuahua’s death toll in the Mexican drug war, and many of the killings in El Paso County.”

  Bolan had crossed paths with each of those cartels at one time or another, but a nagging question still remained. “Would any of them know him? His connection to the Farm or covert missions?”

  “They shouldn’t,” Price replied, “but when you’ve got billions to spend, I won’t pretend security in Wonderland is all that it should be.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I hate to even mention it, but yes...maybe.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Most residents call Ciudad Juárez Paso del Norte and one magazine calls it the ‘City of the Future,’ but it has another nickname, too.”

  “Which is?”

  “The Serial Killers’ Playground.”

  “The women, right?”

  “Primarily,” Price said. “No two sources can agree on numbers, but at least four hundred have been murdered since the nineties, with about as many missing. There have been so many killed, in fact, they’ve come up with a special name for it. Feminicidio. Mostly young women, even girls, some of them prostitutes, the rest mainly sweatshop workers, underpaid and easy to replace.”

  “You see the problem there,” Bolan said.

  “Sure. Hal’s not a female and he isn’t young. Before we rule it out completely, though, remember that some serials switch-hit on victimology. They don’t all stick to one age, race or sex, much less to pattern victims who all look alike, drive the same make of car, whatever.”

  “Still...”

  “I grant you, it’s a long shot, but remember Mark Kilroy.”

  “The kid snatched out of Brownsville by that cult in the late eighties.”

  Price nodded. “One of an estimated thirty victims they took out before police caught on to them. They dealt drugs for a living, but also conducted human sacrifices, thinking that black magic made them bulletproof and physically invisible to enemies, including cops.”

  “That didn’t work so well, as I recall.”

  “Amen. One dipshit drove through a police roadblock, thinking they couldn’t see him or his car even when officers pursued him with their lights flashing. He led them straight back to the cult’s home base outside Matamoros, and it fell apart from there.”

  “Most of them died, if I remember right.”

  “Or got sent away for sixty years, the maximum in Mexico. My point is, you can have an evil person or a group of them mixing business with pleasure as the opportunities arise. And don’t forget, two of that cult’s top members were federales. One of them, the top narcotics officer in Mexico City, pulled twenty-five years at his trial. The other, who’d moved on to Interpol, murdered his second wife then shot himself. People are still debating whether his first wife committed suicide by hanging or if hubby tied the noose himself.”

  “I hear you. Damn near anyone can kill for any reason. And in pairs?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time, by a long shot. Cults aside, the Hillside stranglers were cousins. Same thing with Dave Gore and Fred Waterfield in Florida. In Philadelphia, Joe Kallinger would take his fifteen-year-old son along to help. Lucas and Toole were part-time lovers, traveling from coast to coast,” Price told him.

  “You’ve studied up,” Bolan observed.

  “Know the enemy. Never let anybody tell you they’re all carbon-copy, cut and dried.”

  “So, if a pair of psychos snatched Hal, he could well be dead by now and we have no way to start looking for them. Two Latinos in Mexico? Try looking for a needle in a needle factory.”

  “I know. We have to try, though.”

  “Right. First thing,” Bolan observed, “will be acquiring hardware on the wrong side of the border.”

  Mexico had strict laws regulating guns, at least on paper, restricting possession of most types and calibers to the military and law enforcement. The country’s only legal gun store—the Directorate of Arms and Munitions Sales—stood behind walls on a military base outside Mexico City. Its customers had to undergo months of background checks, involving six separate documents, and were frisked on arrival by uniformed soldiers.

  That said, Mexico’s version of the US Second Amendment, written in 1857, guaranteed all citizens and legal foreign residents the right to bear arms, but stipulated that federal law “will determine the cases, conditions, requirements and places” of gun ownership. The net result: while the one and only army gun store sold an average of thirty-eight firearms per day to civilians, smugglers brought an estimated 580 weapons into Mexico from the United States. Others doubtless arrived on flights of foreign origin or passed through Mexico’s forty-one seaports on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

  The results of that traffic in arms—and in drugs—had been making global headlines for the past thirteen years, since officials acknowledged their chaotic, ongoing drug war. At last rough count, the butcher’s bill included 250,000 dead and 30,000 missing, with 1.6 million persons displaced from their homes. The official body count so far included 12,456 cartel members; 4,020 federal, state and municipal police officers; plus 395 soldiers slain and 137 missing, presumed dead.

  Hell on Earth, in simple terms—and that was without adding in the daily slaughter of civilians in places like Ciudad Juárez and Matamoros by human predators for the sheer love of killing.

  “Tell me more about the killers’ playground,” Bolan said.

  “Feminicide covers a world of kinks and fetishes,” Price said. “As I mentioned, no one really knows how many girls and women have been killed or when it started ramping up. Local authorities downplay it with an eye toward tourism and foreign investment in factories, and the victims never found go on the books as runaways. Officially, Chihuahua police admit 260 murders since they started keeping track in 1993, claiming only seventy-six fit ‘serial’ parameters with rape, torture and mutilation. But that’s ridiculous. Women’s groups peg the total somewhere between four and fifteen hundred when they add in missing persons.”

  “How bad is it, really?” Bolan asked.

  “Amnesty International counted 370 by 2005. Chihuahua prosecutors finally admitted 270 murders statewide in 2010, with 247 inside Juárez. They logged another 300-plus in 2011, with 59 percent in the state capital. Since then, the yearly stats go up and down like yo-yos, depending on who you trust.”

  “With no convictions?”

  “Sure, a few. In 1996 Omar Sharif—a bus driver from Egypt, not the actor—went down for three murders, sentenced to thirty years, but the killings escalated after he went away. At that point, cops claimed he was part of a gang called Los Rebeldes—that’s ‘The Rebels’—who kept killing after he was put away. Police arrested five of his alleged accomplices then cut them loose for lack of evidence. Sharif died during his fourth year in prison.”

  “Any others?”

  “A few. In 2001, police nabbed an alleged pair of team killers and charged them with eight homicides. One died during interrogation. Then his buddy confessed but later recanted, claiming police torture, and out goes that case.

  “In 2008, prosecutors charged Sergio Barraza with killing one teenage girl, but the court acquitted him for lack of evidence and he split for parts unknown. They later tried him again in absentia—that’s a thing down here, no double jeopardy—and he was convicted, but they still haven’t found him. Meanwhile his victim’s mother was assass
inated by an unknown gunman while picketing the governor’s palace—shot once in the head at point-blank range.”

  Bolan rarely swore but now said, “Sounds like a steaming crock of shit.”

  “And still continuing today, although most of the press in Mexico has tried to play it down,” Price said.

  “Sounds like they need a wakeup call.”

  “I’d say. And then some.” She frowned and asked, “What are you packing?”

  “Flying in from LA?” he replied. “Not a thing.”

  “Just as well. We’ve got a friend at the US Consulate in Ciudad Juárez. He’s CIA, name’s Tim Ross.”

  As she spoke, Price handed Bolan what appeared to be a passport photo of a white man, late twenties, with hair a little on the long side and a well-trimmed Vandyke. Bolan committed the face to memory and passed the photo back to her, asking, “What does he know?”

  “Nothing about the program, you or Hal. He helps us out from time to time with hardware, paperwork, whatever. He pulled two tours in the sandbox with the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines before he joined the Company, but I’d discourage getting him involved beyond delivery of gear when you arrive.”

  “You’ll make the contact?”

  “That’s affirmative. Just let me have your wish list.”

  There were cocktail napkins in a slot beside the folding table. Bolan took out a pen, filled up half of one and then handed Price his list.

  She read it over. “You’re pulling out all the stops.”

  “I don’t see any other way to play it.”

  “Right,” she said. “You’re driving over, then?”

  “I’ve got a rental in the airport’s short-term parking lot.”

  “Okay. I’ll set a meeting on the other side for you and Ross, then text you an address.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Thoughts on the process, once you’ve gone across?”

  “No suspects and no motive,” Bolan said. “The only way I see to play that hand is to bet the limit and keep raising until somebody folds.”

  “You know we can’t help with the federal or state police across the line. Even if we could tell them what you’re doing over there, who knows which officers are trustworthy?”

  “I know of at least one. But for this mission I’ll figure none of them and work from there,” Bolan replied.

  It was, he knew, a decent rule of thumb for Mexico. The federales were divided into two departments. The Federal Judicial Police, founded in 1928, was disbanded in 2002 due to its own rampant corruption and criminal activity. It was replaced by the Federal Investigative Agency and attached to Mexico’s Secretariat of Public Safety as a “preventive” force against crime. Its counterpart, the Federal Ministerial Police, an investigative force tasked with fighting corruption and organized crime, was created in 2009 along FBI lines, directed by the Attorney General’s Office. Bolan would be ignoring the country’s third federal force: the Mexico City Police, which had no national reach, its officers confined to handling matters inside the Federal district. It would take a crystal ball to tell which members of the policing agencies were also drawing paychecks from the drug cartels.

  “If you’re successful—” Price began, then caught herself. “When you’re successful, if there’s too much heat for you and Hal to handle on your own, Tim Ross can likely help you with the exfiltration.”

  “Good to know. As long as he’s not privy to my moves beforehand.”

  “Not a chance,” she answered back.

  “And while we’re on that subject, I agree with you not sending Jack along.”

  Grimaldi, that would be. Bolan’s literal wingman since his first campaign against the Mafia in Las Vegas. The go-to guy for all things aerial.

  “I nearly didn’t go that way,” Price told him. “But then I thought about the built-in problems, flying out of Mexico and back across the border without one or both sides scrambling gunships, fighter planes or ground-to-air missiles.”

  “You’re right. The last thing I want to do is get shot down or blown out of the sky with Hal, after...whatever he’s been through.”

  Price leaned across the fold-down table, taking one of Bolan’s hands, eyes locked on his. “I know you well enough to have no doubt you’ll find him. What I’m not sure of is whether you’ll find him alive.”

  “Well, now...”

  “You know it’s true, Mack. Nothing’s guaranteed. If he was snatched by one of the cartels, they’ll have lines of communication to the DEA, maybe to Justice, too. They’ll know the heat is coming down, big-time, and hanging on to him would be the ultimate in stupid. We should all be ready if this thing goes south—no pun intended.”

  “I’ve lost good friends before,” Bolan reminded her. “No one’s immortal, and me least of all. But I won’t think Hal dead until I’ve seen him dead or have enough forensic evidence to seal the deal.”

  “Agreed. But then what?”

  “Then I do what I do best,” Bolan replied, “and make the bastards pay with every drop of blood they have.”

  Chapter Two

  Bridge of the Americas

  Despite its name, El Paso’s Bridge of the Americas actually included four bridges: two with four lanes each bearing passenger vehicles north and south, with sidewalks for pedestrians; and another pair with two lanes each for trucks alone, one flow of traffic headed each direction. The city’s newest international bridge, completed in 1998, channeled southbound traffic from I-110, routing the northbound tide from MX 45. Together the bridges transported an average of $650 billion in international trade, moving 4 million passenger vehicles, 5 million trucks and 400,000 pedestrians.

  It was easy to get lost in all that traffic. Bolan counted on it heading south, although he had nothing to fear from customs or cops on either side of the border so far. His passport and driver’s license were impeccable—though false. He had the proper rental contract for his Toyota RAV4 compact SUV and nothing in the vehicle as yet should excite any drug-or explosive-sniffing dog.

  The worst part about crossing was the time required. Each minute passing on the RAV4’s dashboard clock reminded Bolan that his oldest living friend was running out of time—assuming that he still had any left.

  Barbara Price appeared to trust his contact on the other side, Tim Ross from Langley, even if she kept him in the dark and at arm’s length. Their meeting, time approximate and flexible, was set to occur near Parque Borunda in the La Chaveña neighborhood of Ciudad Juárez. Bolan knew La Chaveña meant “The Keyhole,” but he didn’t know or care how it had acquired the name.

  La Chaveña was a working-class district, its best-known landmarks a nineteenth-century plaza with a fountain called “the Font of the Keyhole” and Parque Borunda with its carnival layout including thrill rides, gaming arcades and countless food kiosks.

  Bolan, for his part, was embarking on a thrill ride of his own, with no amusement in the forecast.

  He found the designated shopping mall, two blocks west of Parque Borunda, across the street from a funeral home. Hoping that wouldn’t turn out to be an omen, he pulled into the lot, parked and exited the SUV.

  Tim Ross emerged from a standard government-issue sedan.

  Facing each other in the sunshine, heat rising around them from the asphalt, they shook hands.

  Ross introduced himself and followed with a question. “Captain Joshua Brinkman?”

  “Close enough,” Bolan said. The false name was a throwaway he’d never use again on a mission.

  “I managed to get all the items from your shopping list. Sounds like you’re throwing quite a party.”

  “Need to know,” Bolan replied. “You know?”

  “I do indeed. You want to check the items over?”

  “Absolutely.” Bolan popped the RAV4’s fifth door, while Ross opened the trunk of his sedan. Their bodies scr
eened the trunk’s contents from random passersby—but if someone Bolan couldn’t see already had the meet under surveillance...well, he figured he was screwed.

  Inside the trunk, black duffel bags of sundry size took up most of the space. Ross unzipped one of them and held it open for inspection, asking Bolan, “Good on this one?”

  “I’d say so.”

  The bag contained a Steyr AUG bullpup assault rifle, factory-equipped with a Swarovski 1.5x telescopic sight, plus an integral flash hider doubling as a launcher for 22 mm rifle grenades of the NATO standardized nonbullet trap variety. Also inside the bag was an assortment of grenades—HE, smoke and incendiary—and a stack of translucent magazines packing forty-two 5.56 mm NATO rounds apiece.

  Satisfied, Bolan zipped the bag and shifted it to the RAV4’s cargo area.

  The second duffel bag contained a Benelli M-4 Super 90 semiautomatic tactical shotgun, packing seven 12-gauge rounds in its tubular magazine plus one in the chamber. With its collapsible buttstock extended, the piece measured just under three feet, tipping the scales at nine pounds loaded.

  “This looks fine,” Bolan allowed, shifting over the second bag.

  The third contained a Heckler & Koch MP-5K submachine gun. The “K” stood for kurz, German for “short,” and this classic was a compact version of H&K’s classic MP-5, used by military and law enforcement units in roughly one hundred nations worldwide. The MP-5K had a vertical foregrip in place of its parent’s handguard, measured 12.6 inches with its stock collapsed, and weighed 4.4 pounds empty. That weight increased significantly when you added a Beta C-Mag drum magazine loaded with 100 rounds of 9 mm Parabellum ammo.

  Nodding his satisfaction, Bolan added that bag to the others in his SUV.

  The fourth duffel held three sidearms and holsters to accommodate them. The largest was an MRI Desert Eagle chambered in .44 Magnum, weighing nearly five pounds with eight rounds in its mag and one up the spout. The other two handguns were Glock 22s chambered in .40 Smith & Wesson, identical except that one’s muzzle was threaded to accept a sound suppressor. Bolan had added the backup in hopes that he’d find Hal Brognola alive and fit to pull his weight during a fight.