Lethal Vengeance

by Don Pendleton

  But nothing. Just the hellish noise, much louder now that they had walls around them and a ceiling overhead. It was like plodding through the inside of a giant amplifier, almost deafening. The strobes weren’t blinding yet, but Bolan saw that they were coming from downstairs, erupting from an open door in what he took to be the kitchen, much like nonstop muzzle-flashes from a music video whose sound track was recorded at Damnation Studios.

  He had a mental picture of El Psicópata dancing to the music while he worked on Brognola, caught up in some kind of maniacal frenzy, part Saturnalia, part feeding frenzy, then snapped out of it a heartbeat later.

  Use his proper name, Bolan thought. He’s Lalo Posada, and he’s only human, even if he’s off-the-chart insane.

  Bolan paused once again, outside the kitchen entrance, pretty sure by now there were no booby traps inside the house, but needing to make sure. He checked quickly for tripwires, found none, and was forced to raise his voice over the blaring songs as he warned Vergara, “Be prepared for anything downstairs.”

  The sergeant nodded, raised his SMG so that its muzzle pointed toward the spackled and discolored kitchen ceiling, index finger pressed against the Spectre M-4’s trigger guard in preparation.

  Bolan reached the open doorway, with a flight of stairs descending from it into chaos. He considered looking for a switch to kill the sound-and-light show, but decided not to waste the time. Whatever might be going on downstairs, he guessed it had to be bad news for Brognola—unless the man from Justice was already dead, maybe sectioned and packed into a freezer, or planted somewhere in the desert that surrounded Ciudad Juárez.

  He didn’t want Helen Brognola to get that news.

  The stairs felt solid as he started down into the man-made maelstrom, but he tested each step individually, wary of one set up to pivot under human weight and pitch a trespasser headlong onto the concrete floor below. When none of them had buckled on him by the time he reached the halfway point, Bolan sped up a little, conscious of Miguel Vergara looming behind him, two or three risers higher up.

  Over the blaring music—or behind it, call it background noise—Bolan heard scuffling and a man’s voice swearing in Spanish. He understood most of it—hijo de perra and chinga tu madre—but didn’t get the rest. He was too busy wondering if there were two men fighting, was the second Hal Brognola or some other player Bolan knew nothing about?

  Canuto Castro

  “Turn here,” Rodolfo Garza ordered his driver. “Quick, don’t miss it!”

  “Which way, boss?” asked the wheelman, slowing Garza’s black Mercedes-Benz GLC SUV with gentle pressure on its brake pedal.

  “Which way?” Garza snapped at him. “To the left, you idiot! Do you see any roads off to the right?”

  “No, boss. I am so sorry.”

  “Turn, damn it! Turn and shove your ‘sorry’ up your ass!”

  While his driver powered through the left-hand turn, Garza craned his neck and looked beyond the back seat gunners to see other headlights trailing them. The next vehicle was a Lexus LX 450d, also black, with six soldiers packed inside. The last in line, bearing four passengers besides the driver, was a midsize BMW X5 SUV—and black again, the only color Garza purchased.

  So, sixteen shooters, counting Garza, who was carrying a SIG SG 553 assault rifle and wearing a Browning BDM pistol sheathed in a leather holster underneath his left arm. Whatever happened in the next few minutes, he had left nothing to chance.

  The money-grubbing DEA worm, Dean Jeffers, had phoned him with El Psicópata’s birth name and address, first asking five grand for what he’d referred to as the “favor,” telling Garza that if he was quick enough to kill the crazy bastard and retrieve his hostage still alive, it might earn Garza some “goodwill” from the US federal authorities. That sounded like a crock of shit, but this Lalo Posada lunatic was at the root of all his recent losses. Garza would be happy to eradicate him from the planet.

  Fast or slow, it hardly mattered to him—though, in truth, he would have loved to keep El Psicópata wide awake and screaming for a week, at least, before ending the misery he so richly deserved.

  “Is this the place, boss?” his driver asked.

  “How would I know?” Garza replied. “You think I recognize the house? Maybe I drove myself out here for cake and coffee sometime? Christ! Since it is the only house within a mile, you may be right, Plutarco. Kill the headlights!”

  Picking up a walkie-talkie from the console to his left, Garza passed the order to the vehicles behind him. “Headlights off. No shooting unless fired upon, or at my order.”

  Confirmation came back from the Lexus and the BMW in turn. Garza imagined weapons being cocked, safeties released, with every man alert to danger now.

  The action should start any moment, Garza reasoned, unless Jeffers had lied to him, believing he could cheat him with impunity. If that turned out to be the case, God help the bastard. The fate El Psicópata could have dealt him would pale beside the suffering Garza would inflict upon Jeffers if the man had deceived him.

  But before that, he would have a look inside El Psicópata’s murder house and find out for himself. As for returning the kidnapped American, Garza was indifferent. Whether the man was alive or dead meant less than nothing to him, just as long as he wasn’t accused of the assassination. And how could he be, when blame would fall upon the lunatic Posada?

  Garza’s vehicles were running without lights as they pulled up and stopped outside the ghoul’s retreat. The narco boss scrambled out of his Mercedes, index finger on the trigger of his SIG assault rifle, his soldiers lining up on either side of him. From where he stood, Garza could see the front door yawning open, its lock shattered by a powerful impact. Music of some kind blasted from within the dwelling, not the lilting mariachi strains Garza preferred, but heavy metal hammering that set his teeth on edge.

  “What’s this?” one of his men inquired. “A goddamn dance party?”

  “Crazy songs for a crazy bastard,” said another.

  “Shut up!” Garza snapped. “Be on alert for anything, understand? Julio and Hector, take the lead.”

  The chosen two exchanged glances then moved to mount the dwelling’s porch and make their way inside without complaint. When no gunshots or screams rang out above the throbbing music, Garza chose three more to follow his point men.

  “Luis, Fernando and Joaquín, you follow them,” he ordered. Once those three had cleared the open doorway without any gunfire greeting them, he said, “Good. Come on with me, the rest of you. If there’s any firing, mark your targets clearly. I don’t want you shooting one another.”

  Surrounded by ten of his best gunmen, Garza crossed the porch and waited while three more preceded him across the threshold. His ears pulsed in time to the repugnant music, while the flashing lights—closer and brighter now—left glowing pinpricks on his retinas.

  “It’s coming from below,” one of his men said, voice raised to be heard above the riotous, atonal din.

  A basement, Garza thought. Where better for a night crawler to hide?

  * * *

  After he kicked Captain Prieto down the basement stairs, Lalo Posada hurried down behind him, brandishing his chef’s knife. He could feel the stairs as he descended, but could not hear them, the raging sounds of Brujeria battering around inside his skull, lead vocalist Juan Brujo bellowing the lyrics of “Viva Presidente Trump.” Other death metal bands collected on the compact disc included Transmetal, Shub Niggurath, Unholier, Blood Reaping, Ravager and Cenotaph—but all Posada had in mind just now was death.

  Crumpled where he had landed at the bottom of the stairs, Prieto had his pistol drawn but hadn’t found a target, dazed by impact with the concrete and the blitz assault upon his senses from loudspeakers set in all four corners of the basement. Recognition in his rheumy eyes told Posada that the captain had spotted him, so he launched himself, plummeting toward
the twisted ragdoll figure below.

  One of his feet scored a direct hit on Prieto’s torso, ribs cracking, the other missing by a few inches just as the captain tried to fend him off. A shot roared in the stairwell, scorching Posada’s left thigh, but he thought that was only from the muzzle-flash, not impact from a slug. He slashed down with his long knife, but Prieto raised his left arm at the same time, squealing as the blade sheared through his forearm, stuck briefly between the radius and ulna then ripped free again.

  Blood sprayed across Posada’s face and chest, spurting from Prieto’s severed radial artery, or possibly the ulnar. To El Psicópata, it felt like a warm shower or a fresh spring rain. There was no time to relish it, however, as the wounded man’s gun was wobbling back into alignment with Posada’s face.

  The knife slashed down again, slicing across tendons, severing the right-hand radial and ulnar arteries this time. More blood exploded from the gash, Prieto wailing nearly incoherent curses as he felt the pistol slipping from his spastic fingers.

  Posada vaulted from his crouch astride the captain’s chest, landed upright on the concrete, catching just a quick glimpse of his captive on the operating table before he turned back to grab Prieto’s hair with his free hand. The captain tried to struggle, but both arms were virtually useless to him now and kicking at the stairs only sapped his remaining energy.

  The wriggling Prieto wasn’t easy to drag off the stairs onto the blood-slick floor. Although a relatively short man, barely five foot five, he weighed at least 190 pounds. Even nearly helpless now, he flopped around like a huge fish yanked from the water on a poorly seated hook.

  Once he was sprawled out on the floor, Posada wasted no more time on him. The chef’s knife rose and fell, then once again, plunging between his victim’s heaving ribs as if he’d been carving a Sunday ham or roast. As one thrust collapsed a lung, Prieto choked and started blowing crimson bubbles from his puckered trout lips, drooling gore across his pockmarked cheeks and double chins. The final strike found his aorta through protective layers of fat and muscle, severed it, and set a geyser spouting from Prieto’s shredded shirt.

  There was nothing left now but to watch the captain die. Posada stood above his victim, swaying to the music that surrounded him, vaguely aware that now Shub Niggurath was up, vocalist Carlos Lopez storming through the lyrics of a tribute to Cthulhu Mythos author H. P. Lovecraft, titled “Evilness and Darkness Prevails.”

  It might not be grammatically correct in any language, but the truth of it in Posada’s world could hardly be denied. It was as if his latest sacrifice had been accepted and appreciated by the Old Gods, whether mythical or poised to reign again on Earth.

  Catching his breath, Posada turned to his captive on the operating table and found the older man regarding him with narrowed eyes that held a world of animosity. Posada could easily relate to that. The white-hot flame of hatred had propelled him through a life that others might view as revolting but that fit him like an armored glove.

  Unbidden, he recalled something from a forgotten-titled film, some American Western movie. The line was spoken by a gunman when his friend voiced a desire to lead a normal life. “There’s no such thing as normal life, there’s only life...now get on with it!”

  Words of wisdom in a world gone mad.

  Smiling with blood-flecked lips, Posada raised his voice to make it heard over Shub Niggurath. “Now it’s your turn.”

  * * *

  Dean Jeffers sat in darkness, slumped low in the driver’s seat of his US Consulate sedan, watching Rodolfo Garza and his men assault El Psicópata’s house. Two guys he didn’t recognize had showed up moments earlier and kicked the door in, vanishing inside, but he saw nothing to be gained by worrying about them, trapped now as they were between a psycho killer and a troop of cartel soldiers coming for his head.

  All it had taken was a phone call. He hadn’t spilled the name or address till his offshore bank account was fattened with a cool five grand transferred from one of Garza’s money laundries electronically.

  It was damned near the easiest money Jeffers had ever earned, and all it had cost him was some tenderness around his knuckles from persuading his CI to share the info he’d been saving for a rainy day.

  Jeffers thought the deal he’d made was a win-win. He’d banked the cash and proved his value to the Sinaloa drug cartel. There wasn’t any downside he could think of. If the play blew up in Garza’s face, one of two things would happen: either his boss back in Culiacán Rosales would replace him with a leaner, meaner model—call him Narco 2.0—or the Sinaloans would decide Chihuahua wasn’t worth their trouble after all, and pull out the remnant of their mobile army. Jeffers could sell that to Kuno Carillo as a victory of the DEA agent’s own making, and his monthly payoffs should increase accordingly.

  No matter what went down tonight, El Psicópata’s cover would be blown to hell and gone, exposing him to every lawman worth his salt in Mexico. Helping to crack the Juárez women’s murders wasn’t part of Jeffers’s assignment, but headquarters would be quick to seize on any scrap of good PR they could. He had no doubt the DEA’s director would find some way to pretend the bust was a result of his great work, sitting behind a desk 3,100 miles away. The media would eat that up and in a week or two the Big Lie would morph into “common knowledge,” unassailable.

  And Jeffers? He might get promoted out of Mexico to somewhere kinder, gentler—maybe Montreal, where the Mafia still had a solid foothold, sufficient cash on hand to help him live in the manner to which he’d become accustomed. Nothing showy, mind you, but a hefty golden parachute for when he leaped into retirement or got canned for letting down his side.

  From across the road, Jeffers heard the muffled but still unmistakable snap-pop-crackle of gunfire. He sat upright behind his drab ride’s steering wheel, no risk of being spotted now by enemies inside Lalo Posada’s house since they’d engaged the enemy. Instead of dying out as he’d expected, though, the shooting escalated. Garza’s men, he guessed, colliding with the strangers who’d gone in ahead of them—or was it something else?

  Lalo Posada was supposed to be a freak who got his twisted jollies mutilating women, but that didn’t mean he might not have a firearms fetish on the side, did it? Some creeps, once drawn to weapons, wanted every kind that they could lay their grubby hands on.

  What if loopy Lalo had the hardware and cojones to eradicate the various invaders of his home then make his getaway scot-free? Killing the Garza gang would silence them as far as Jeffers’s involvement with the tip to Posada’s lair was concerned. As for the other two invaders, Jeffers hadn’t recognized them, so it stood to reason that they knew nothing of him.

  And yet...

  The only way to be entirely sure was if he manned up, here and now, to check it out and make damned sure that no one lived to spill even an altered, garbled version of the truth.

  “Goddamn it all to hell!”

  Taking his keys, he got out of the car, walked around behind it and opened up the trunk. He lifted out the Remington Model 870 pump-action shotgun that was standard issue for the DEA, 12-gauge, with one round in the chamber, seven more inside his tubular magazine. As an extra hedge, he tore open a box of buckshot rounds he’d stowed beside the scattergun, stuffing extra shells into his jacket pockets till they bulged.

  Bad move, a small voice in his head whispered.

  Maybe so. But it was still the only move Jeffers had.

  * * *

  Bolan heard gunshots from somewhere in Posada’s basement—likely from a handgun, semiauto or revolver—but the racket surging up to meet him made it difficult to tell for sure. He knew the killer hadn’t murdered anyone in Juárez with a gun, as far as anybody knew, but that revealed a preference rather than proved he didn’t own or have some skill with firearms.

  Either way, Bolan couldn’t stay where he was, just marking time.

  “You may not want to c
ontinue down there,” he warned Vergara.

  “Do you think I came to tidy up this ghoulish bastard’s kitchen?” the sergeant asked.

  Before Bolan could answer, Vergara finished up with, “No. I came to end this blight upon Juárez, if nothing else.”

  “Your call,” Bolan replied, and continued down the flight of stairs into a heavy metal version of Dante’s inferno, looking for the Devil in his pit.

  The first thing Bolan saw below him was a trail of blood shifting from black to bright red with the flashing strobes. It ended at a pair of flaccid, outstretched legs in dark trousers and brown wingtips. As he descended, broadening his view, he found those legs attached to the stout torso of a man whose suit was drenched with gore. Both out-flung arms ended in blood pools of their own, his once-white shirt shredded by stab wounds, crimson now.

  A badge glinted at Bolan from the corpse’s belt and he spotted a pistol lying off to one side of the body, where it must have tumbled from his right hand as he died. The star identified a member of the FIA, presumably a sergeant’s rank or higher, since he hadn’t died in standard-issue uniform.

  Behind him, his voice raised to be heard above the roar of music, Vergara said, “I know him. He was Captain Chalino Prieto, known throughout Chihuahua for corruption and his service to the drug cartels.”

  No loss then, Bolan thought, relieved he hadn’t been forced into a standoff with Prieto under circumstances where he might have missed the now dead officer’s connection to the FIA.

  One down.

  Bolan made it to the bottom of the stairs, Sergeant Vergara on his heels. He moved to one side as he stepped onto the bloodstained concrete floor, giving the sergeant room to fire his submachine gun, if it came to that, without obstructing him.

  The basement was a nightmare with a hellish soundtrack. Everywhere that Bolan looked, the walls were covered with a madman’s souvenirs. He saw a fair number of flyers bearing photographs of girls and women, all labeled Desaparecido. Disappeared. All around the flyers, photos had been artfully arranged, depicting victims as El Psicópata’s cutting tools had deconstructed them before and after death.