“Who knew about our meeting?” the Executioner asked

“You think someone inside the CNP betrayed us.” Lieutenant Pureza didn’t phrase it as a question.

“If the bomb had been a random thing, I wouldn’t ask,” Bolan replied. “But when they follow up with shooters, it’s specific. No one tailed me from the airport, so there has to be a leak.”

“You’re right,” Pureza said. “What’s your solution, then?”

“A solo op,” Bolan replied. “Or a duet, if you’re still in.”

“You think I’d leave you at this stage?” Pureza asked. “I must still live with myself—the one person I can absolutely trust. But you understand I represent the law?” she asked.

“You walk. We’ll try to stay out of each other’s way.”

“And Macario wins.”

“No, he’s done, either way,” Bolan said.

Pureza took another moment, making up her mind, then nodded. “Right,” she said. “Where do we start?”

Powder Burn

The Executioner®

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For Sergeant First Class Jared Christopher Monti

3rd Squadron, 71st Calvary

Gowardesh, Afghanistan

June 21, 2006

How does one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot a spectre through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by its spectral throat?

—Joseph Conrad 1847–1924 Lord Jim

I can’t kill fear, but I can touch the men responsible for terrorizing innocents and pay them back in kind, before they die. For now, maybe that’s good enough.

—Mack Bolan

THE MACK BOLAN LEGEND

Nothing less than a war could have fashioned the destiny of the man called Mack Bolan. Bolan earned the Executioner title in the jungle hell of Vietnam.

But this soldier also wore another name—Sergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.

Mack Bolan’s second tour of duty ended prematurely when he was given emergency leave to return home and bury his family, victims of the Mob. Then he declared a one-man war against the Mafia.

He confronted the Families head-on from coast to coast, and soon a hope of victory began to appear. But Bolan had broken society’s every rule. That same society started gunning for this elusive warrior—to no avail.

So Bolan was offered amnesty to work within the system against terrorism. This time, as an employee of Uncle Sam, Bolan became Colonel John Phoenix. With a command center at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, he and his new allies—Able Team and Phoenix Force—waged relentless war on a new adversary: the KGB.

But when his one true love, April Rose, died at the hands of the Soviet terror machine, Bolan severed all ties with Establishment authority.

Now, after a lengthy lone-wolf struggle and much soul-searching, the Executioner has agreed to enter an “arm’s-length” alliance with his government once more, reserving the right to pursue personal missions in his Everlasting War.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Epilogue

Prologue

Bogotá, Colombia

“How are we doing on time?” Drake Webb asked his companion.

“Fifteen minutes early, sir,” Otto Glass said.

Webb wore a watch, of course—and a Rolex, at that—but demanding mundane information from lesser mortals was one of the perqs that came with a counselor’s rank in the U.S. Senior Foreign Service. Otto Glass, as chief of station for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Colombia, understood the rules and followed them.

Their limousine rolled northward, passing the Plaza de Bolívar on Webb’s left, with the stately Catedral Primada on his right. Ahead, he saw the looming Palace of Justice, surrounded by uniformed guards armed with automatic weapons.

Webb hated talking drugs with the Colombians, but it consumed most of his time. Cocaine and coffee were Colombia’s main exports to the States—one of those having sparked a war that never seemed to end. For the ten thousandth time, Webb wished that he’d been posted somewhere nice and quiet, where the worst problem he had to deal with was a silly tourist’s missing passport.

“Do you think they’ll go for it?” he asked the DEA man seated next to him.

“Yes, sir. If foreign aid’s contingent on cooperation, they don’t have a lot of choice.”

“Except the old standby,” Webb answered. “They could tell us, ‘Yanqui, go home.’”

“That’s unlikely, sir.”

“Right,” Webb agreed, and thought, More’s the pity.

Being shown the door would make one headache go away, but it would cause a slew of other problems, starting with the ignominious demise of Webb’s career. He hadn’t waded through red tape and diplomatic crap for the better part of thirty years to simply flush it all away.

He wouldn’t be the Man Who Lost Colombia, by God.

And drugs were critical to U.S. foreign policy—had been for decades. Webb knew that, agreed with all the reasons that had been explained to him when he was rising through the ranks, watching the hypocrites in Washington get ripped at parties after blasting dealers and their customers in speeches redolent of hellfire and brimstone. He fully understood political reality.

It didn’t matter that the current President’s drug czar had told America the “war on drugs” was over, that the government would focus more on education, rehabilitation and the other touchy-feely bits, rather than on SWAT teams and no-knock warrants. On the front lines, in the trenches where it mattered, Webb knew that the war on drugs was only getting worse.

And he was in the midst of it.

Ground Zero, if you please.

“Okay, sir,” Glass was saying, as their limo pulled up to the curb, suddenly dwarfed by the Palace of Justice, surrounded by green uniforms. “Step lively till we’re well inside, and everything should be okay.”

Step lively, hell. Did Glass think either one of them could outrun bullets? Or the shrapnel from a car bomb, if it came to that?

Tight-lipped, Webb said, “I’ll do my best, Otto.”

“Yes, sir.”

A second later the door opened. Webb’s bodyguards spilled from the limo, mingled with the uniforms, then Glass was out and Webb was following. They ran a gauntlet of machine guns toward the granite steps.

Webb braced himself for impact, wondering if it was true that no one ever heard the shot that killed them. Almost hoping it was true, to spare himself the last indignity of panic in the face of death.

And then they were inside, doors closed behind them, slowing to a normal walk. The welcoming committee was approaching, smiling, hands outstretched in greeting.

More red tape, Webb thought. More bullshit.

Situation normal.

“ALL POINTS READY. MOVE on my command.”

Manolo Vergara heard no tremor in his own voice as he spoke into the Bluetooth wireless microphone. Despite the rush of raw adrenaline, his hands were steady on the broom he pushed across a highly polished marble floor.

Vergara heard his soldiers answer briskly, one by one, their voices small and disembodied in his earpiece. All were ready, stationed in their proper places, waiting for his signal to begin.

The baggy coveralls draping Vergara’s slender form were large enough to hide a multitude of sins. In this case, more specifically, the denim cloth concealed a micro-Uzi submachine gun dangling from a leather sling beneath his right arm, and belt around his waist, made heavy by grenades. Each of his five commandos, likewise, had arrived for work that morning dressed to kill.

And none had been detected. No one had sounded an alarm.

A quarter century had passed since the last attack on Bogotá’s Toma del Palacio de Justicia, and that had been a full-scale frontal assault by thirty-five members of the Movimiento 19 de Abril—M-19. No one believed that such a thing could be repeated in this modern day and age.

They were correct, of course.

Outside, police and military guards ensured that no strike force could storm the Palace of Justice. Anyone who tried it would be cut down in the street or on the steps, before they crossed the threshold.

But who really looked at janitors these days?

Who gave a second thought to peasants taking out the trash?

What thirty men could not accomplish by brute force, a bold half dozen might achieve by stealth. Vergara’s handpicked team had infiltrated the building’s custodial staff one by one, over the past eleven months, performing scut work and pretending they were grateful for the opportunity to serve.

Until this day.

The order had been given. They were privileged to strike against the enemy that morning, each emboldened by the knowledge that if he should fall, his loved ones would be handsomely rewarded. Set for life, in fact.

They each had El Padrino’s word on that.

Vergara steered his broom in the direction of the conference rooms, where soon his enemies would be assembled. They were already in the building. He knew their habits, their compulsion to be punctual. He could almost smell them, drawing closer to their destiny.

Delivered by a peasant’s hand.

Perhaps there was some justice, after all.

OTTO GLASS HADN’T FELT relaxed since he was transferred to Colombia as chief of station for the DEA. But for the moment, after the predictably tense limo ride and the virtual sprint from curbside to relative safety, his stomach was beginning to un-clench.

Glass lived by one simple rule: no one was safe in Colombia, period. Sudden death could strike anyone, anywhere, at any time. And those least secure of the lot were Americans working on drug interdiction programs.

Meaning Glass and his agents, for starters.

He’d been on the job for seven months and had survived three attempts on his life, while another half dozen supposed murder plots were logged and filed from native informants. Glass wore Kevlar whenever he set foot outside his office or downtown apartment, and slept with armed guards at his door.

This day, inside the Palace of Justice with Counselor Webb and a retinue of smiling Colombian officials, Glass felt as safe as he had at any time since he’d stepped off his flight from New York, at El Dorado International Airport.

Everyone had settled into chairs around the highly polished conference table. A deputy vice-minister of the interior and justice sat at the table’s head, flanked by deputy commanders of the Policía Nacional de Colombia and the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad. A deputy assistant from La Fiscalía General de la Nación—the attorney general’s office—was also present. All of them had aides with tape recorders, legal pads and pens laid out in front of them. All of them were deputies for higher-ups who couldn’t be bothered to show, or who feared being forced to make a decision on the record before witnesses from rival departments.

“I welcome all of you to this historic meeting,” the vice-minister of the interior and justice said, beaming down the table with artificially whitened teeth. “I know all present share my wish that—”

When the door clicked, somewhere to his left rear, Glass turned toward the sound. He saw a slender, squirrel-faced man decked out in coveralls, bracing a push broom with his left hand. Glass had time to wonder why the coveralls were open nearly to his crotch, before he saw the janitor’s right hand and recognized what it was holding.

“Down!” Glass shouted, lunging at Counselor Webb and dragging the startled diplomat down with him, seeking any cover he could find, as two more doors swung open and all hell broke loose.

The close-range gunfire numbed his ears, as Glass half rolled, half dragged Webb under the broad conference table. Glass drew his pistol, clutching it white-knuckled, and discovered that he didn’t have a shot.

The frag grenade came out of nowhere, bouncing on the table, spinning once on impact with the floor, then wobbling toward him like an odd, green-painted Easter egg.

And in the final seconds of his life, all Otto Glass could do was pray.

1

El Dorado International Airport, Bogotá

Mack Bolan traveled light. His carry-on contained some extra clothes, sparse toiletries, a guidebook to the city and surrounding countryside. Nothing that might alarm security and raise red flags at either end of his long flight from the United States, with a short stopover in Mexico City.

No weapons, for instance, although he’d be needing them soon.

Bolan was early, by design. His contacts were expecting him for early dinner, in the city’s northern quarter known as Chapinero, but he needed solo time before they met, in order to prepare himself.

First up, the wheels. He had a Pontiac G6 reserved with Budget in the main airport terminal. The smiling girl behind the counter photocopied “Matthew Cooper’s” California driver’s license, swiped his credit card—all bills meticulously paid on time, in full—and gave Bolan his keys.

Ten minutes later, he was rolling eastward on Avenida El Dorado, keeping pace with high-speed traffic as he left the airport’s small city behind him. Downtown Bogotá lay nine miles distant from the airport, and he could’ve covered it within five minutes flat, except for a preliminary stop.

He made that stop in Ciudad Kennedy, a district in southwestern Bogotá named for the martyred American president. Bolan’s guidebook told him that the area was Bogotá’s most populous district, home to fourteen percent of the city’s population, but he was only interested in one inhabitant.

The man had a pawn shop two blocks north of Calle Primero de Mayo. He introduced himself as José and accepted Bolan’s nom de guerre without question. José’s shop was a place where money talked, and the merchandise that Bolan sought wasn’t displayed for public scrutiny. A visit to the backroom set him up and took a bite out of his war chest, but the case had been donated by a kiddie pimp in Jacksonville before he shuffled off the mortal coil, and there was always more where that came from.

When Bolan left the shop, he carried two fat duffel bags that might have clanked a bit, if anyone was listening. He also wore a Glock 23 semiauto pistol in a fast-draw sling beneath his left armpit, two extra 13-round magazines pouched on the right for balance. A Benchmade Stryker automatic knife with four-inch Tanto blade was clipped on to his belt, for easy access.

Bolan put the duffels in the Pontiac’s trunk, locked them down and he was good to go.

Traveling naked always made the Executioner uneasy. He could kill a man two dozen ways barehanded, but most shooters wouldn’t close within arm’s reach if they had a choice. And as for tackling more than two or three at once, if they were armed, forget about it.

He was covered for all foreseeable contingencies: two rifles, one for distance and one for assault work; a submachine gun with suppressor for close quarters battle where stealth was required; a combat shotgun, just because; assorted hand grenades, spare ammo for the different weapons, with accessories including jungle camouflage fatigues and hiking boots.

His destination was Chapinero. Bogotá’s most affluent district, and the capital’s banking and financial center, ranged along Calle 72. Bolan wasn’t on a banking mission at the moment, though. No hefty deposits or gunpoint withdrawals. His target was the stylish Andino Mall on Carrera 11 in Bogotá’s Zona Rosa.

The Pink Zone.

He supposed the district had been named for its high concentration of gay bars and other amenities serving the bulk of Bogotá’s LGBT community. There was more to the Pink Zone than gay life, however, including some of Bogotá’s most popular restaurants, nightclubs and stylish hotels.

Still homeless in the city, Bolan didn’t plan on checking into the Victoria Regia, the Andino Royal or any of their posh competitors. His contacts would be waiting for him at a relatively small sidewalk café, where they could watch the street and get to know each other briefly, prior to moving on.

Bolan would recognize his contacts from the photos Hal Brognola had provided, with their dossiers. One agent from DEA and one from the Colombian National Police, teamed to collaborate with Bolan in an atmosphere where trust was hard to come by and the lifespan of an honest law enforcement officer was often short.

Together, Bolan hoped they could accomplish something.

But if necessary, he could soldier on alone.

It wouldn’t be the first time—or, with any luck, the last.

Bolan spotted the Andino Mall and made a drive-by, picking out the open-air café, sighting his contacts at a table set back from the curb ten feet or so. Three chairs, and one still empty. Waiting.

The soldier drove around the block and found a parking garage, grabbed a ticket and parked three floors above street level, overlooking Carrera 11. He locked the Pontiac and pocketed his keys, then found the outer stairwell and descended toward the busy street.

“THIS MAN WE ARE SUPPOSED to meet. What was his name, again?”

Jack Styles resisted the impulse to smile. He knew damned well that his companion hadn’t forgotten the name. Arcelia Pureza never forgot anything.

“Matt Cooper,” Styles replied, adding, “That’s all I’ve got, aside from my HQ’s assurance that he’s pro material, experienced and off-the-books.”

“Clandestine operations,” Pureza said with a pretty frown.

“What else? After the latest…incident,” Styles said, resisting the temptation to say massacre or slaughter, “Washington isn’t about to send another diplomat.”

“You understand my delicate position in this matter,” Pureza said, telling, not asking, him.

“I understand your people have signed off on it,” Styles said. “Or so I was led to believe.”

“In the spirit, of course, they agree,” his companion replied. “But in practice—”

“It’s practice that matters,” Styles told her. “If spirit could win this thing, we’d have had it wrapped up years ago.”

Pureza nodded, toying with her wineglass on the tabletop. “Of course, you’re right. But you must understand the mind-set, Jack. After the killings, it became a matter of machismo, yes? A case of proving that the government cannot be frightened or intimidated.”

“But?”

“But anger fades,” she said. “And resolution, too, verdad?”

“Sadly, that’s true,” Styles granted. “Which is why we’re moving fast, before the brass can get cold feet.”

She nodded, sipped her wine, then said, “It goes beyond that, though. My people may regret what they have set in motion, if the resolution is not swift and sure. If there is…how do you say it? Collateral damage?”

“That’s how we say it.”

“In which case,” Pureza warned him, “the powers that be may attempt to distance themselves from the choice they have made. They may assert deniability, and leave us grabbing the sack.” Styles did smile then. “Holding the bag,” he said, gently correcting her. “And, sure, I’ve seen it done. The trick is to deliver, make it quick and clean—or quick, at least—and then get the hell out of Dodge.”

“Your Wild West, sí,” Pureza said. “Let us hope that your plan does not become our Alamo, eh?”

“I’ll drink to that,” Styles said, and drained his beer mug, flagging down the waiter for a refill. While he waited, Styles scanned the street, checked out the foot traffic, focused on men who fit the soldier profile.

Whatever in hell that might be.

Styles wished he had a photo of Matt Cooper, to confirm ID on sight, but the guy was too hush-hush for that, apparently. Or maybe someone in the States was worried about leaks, a very real concern with any operation undertaken in Colombia.

So Styles was flying blind, with Pureza riding his tailwind on faith.

He hoped they wouldn’t crash and burn.

“What time is it?” Pureza asked. She wore a watch, of course, but obviously had a point to make.

“He’s got five minutes,” Styles replied, after a quick glance at his Timex.

“And then we leave?”

Styles felt his temper fraying. “If you’re getting nervous, you can bail out anytime.”

“And leave you here alone?”

“I’m touched by your concern,” he said, letting the sarcasm leak through, “but I can handle it.”

“Support from my superiors is still conditional—”

“On letting you participate,” Styles interrupted her. “I got the memo. But who are we kidding?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Look, I know that your government cares about drugs. The folks on top are pissed about what’s been happening because it makes Colombia look bad. But face it, half the people offering condolences today are on the cartel’s payroll, and they’ll still be picking up their cash next week, next month, next year.”

“Unless we stop them,” Pureza said, with a glint of anger in her striking azure eyes.

“This shit’s been going on, with variations, since the 1970s,” Styles said. “I was in third grade when the Dadeland massacre gave Florida a wakeup call in 1979. You weren’t even born, for Christ’s sake!”

“And your point is?” He thought she looked pretty, even in her anger, trying to pretend she didn’t understand him.

“The names and faces change,” Styles said. “Lehder, Ochoa, Escobar, Londoño, Renteria—and Macario. They come and go, but none of them could operate for two weeks if your leaders really wanted to put them away.”

“And in your own country?” she challenged him.

“Corrupt as hell, no doubt about it,” Styles admitted. “But we don’t build special prisons so that drug lords can maintain their lifestyle in the joint, then give them weekend leave to the Bahamas. We don’t have Mafia bosses running for Congress or blowing up airplanes with a hundred people on board to kill one snitch.”

Pureza aimed a finger at his face. “Listen, Jack—”

But she was interrupted as a shadow fell across their table and a deep voice asked them, “Am I interrupting something?”

“IS THAT HIM?” JAIME Fajardo asked.

“It must be. He’s sitting down,” Germán Mutis replied.

“Let me see him again!”

Fajardo sounded excited, reaching for the compact binoculars Mutis was using to spy on the sidewalk café from two blocks away. Murder always excited Fajardo, but he liked the big, important killings best.

“He’s an American, all right,” Fajardo announced.

“I think so, too,” Mutis agreed.

They’d been expecting an American, another of the endless meddling gringos, but with no description that would help them spot him. Still, it was enough that the stranger would come from nowhere and sit down with two known enemies, Fajardo thought, a gringo DEA man and the cocky bitch from CNP headquarters.

“Shall I give the word?” Fajardo asked.

“Not yet,” Mutis said.

“But—”

“Not yet! Are you deaf?”

Fajardo slumped back into a sulk. Mutis held out an open hand, received the field glasses and raised them to his eyes once more.

There was no rush to give the word. Mutis observed the new arrival, watched him order from a smiling waitress who seemed taken with his looks. Mutis hired women when he wanted them, and didn’t have to ask if they were put off by his many scars.

And yet what was he waiting for? The weapon was in place, with Carlos Mondragón on station, waiting for the order to trigger it by remote control. Mutis was using a mallet to smash a mosquito, but he was a soldier who followed orders. His padrino wanted a message sent back to El Norte, and Mutis was not in the business of second-guessing his masters.

So, why not proceed?

It wasn’t squeamishness. Mutis had built and detonated bigger bombs, inflicting scores of casualties on demand. He cared no more for the men, women and children passing along Carrera 11 than he might for a nest of ants in his yard. They meant less than nothing to Mutis. He was indifferent to their suffering and death.

But the targets intrigued him.

Germán Mutis derived no quasi-erotic pleasure from his work, as did Jaime Fajardo. Beyond the satisfaction of a job well done, he felt nothing when one of his bombs shattered buildings and lives.

He was, however, fascinated by his targets. It soothed him, in some way Mutis could not define, to see them, watch them go about the final moments of their business, and persuade himself that they were worthy of his best efforts.

This day the weapon was a classic ammonium nitrate and fuel oil—ANFO—bomb. It lacked the sophistication of C-4 or Semtex, but it was cheap and easy to make. More to the point, it delivered predictable impact on target.

The bomb, though relatively small by ANFO standards at a mere two hundred pounds, would send the message that El Padrino desired. It was packed in the trunk of a Volvo sedan, surrounded by jars filled with nails and scrap iron. The Volvo itself would provide further shrapnel, along with the flames from its shattered fuel tank. Parked across the street from the Andino Mall, it was well within range of his prey and ready to go.

As soon as Mutis gave the word.

But there was no rush. The gringos and their bitch weren’t going anywhere. Mutis wished he could eavesdrop on their conversation, listen to them scheming, making plans to topple El Padrino unaware that their lives had been measured out in minutes on a ticking clock.

This was the part that Mutis loved, if truth be told. The power to reach out and cancel lives in progress, possibly to change the course of history itself. How many of the strangers whom he killed today might have gone on to greatness or produced child prodigies, if given time? Was a doctor strolling down the pavement who could cure AIDS or cancer? A footballer who was loved by millions—or who might have been, next year?

At such a moment, Germán Mutis felt like God.

And he could well afford to savor it a moment longer.

“YOU’RE COOPER,” THE man from DEA said, as Bolan took his seat.

“I am,” Bolan agreed. “Been waiting long?”

“You’re right on time,” the harried-looking agent said, reaching for Bolan’s hand. “Jack Styles. And this is Lieutenant Arcelia Pureza, of the Colombian National Police.”

“Narcotics Division,” the woman added, as she touched Bolan’s hand, there and gone.

“Okay, so everyone’s on board with this?” Bolan asked.

“I think that it would help,” Styles said, “if we could clarify exactly what ‘this’ is.”

Before Bolan could answer that, a waitress appeared at his elbow. He paused, tossed a mental dart at the menu before him and ordered tamales to be on the safe side, with Club Colombia beer for a chaser.

When the waitress wandered out of earshot, Bolan asked, “Which part are you unclear about?”

Styles glanced at his native counterpart, frowning, then turned back to Bolan and said, “The whole thing, I suppose. Look, we took a bad hit at the Palace of Justice, no question about it. I lost my chief of station, not to mention Counselor Webb. The Colombians, Jesus…the whole second tier of their federal law enforcement network was gone in one swoop.”

“And the shooters were political?”

“Supposedly,” Styles said.

“All six were members of the AUC,” Lieutenant Pureza advised him. “That is the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia. The United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. We have confirmed their records and affiliations.”

“And the AUC’s a right-wing group,” Bolan said.

“As in ultranationalist, pushing neo-Nazi,” Styles replied.

“And you suspect they’re working for Naldo Macario’s cartel?”

“It’s more than mere suspicion,” Pureza said. “We have documented cartel contact and collaboration with the AUC. Macario supports the group with cash and cocaine, which members of the AUC then sell abroad or trade for weapons.”

“And in exchange for that?” Bolan asked.

Frowning, the young lieutenant answered, “Members of the AUC protect his coca crops and his refining plants, harass his competition and dispose of troublesome officials.”

“So, you know all this, and no one’s crushed the operation…why, again?”

“There are complexities,” she said, and glanced away, avoiding Bolan’s gaze.

“Well, there you go,” Bolan said. “I’m the ax that cuts red tape.”

“And what’s involved in that, exactly?” Styles inquired.

The waitress brought his beer. Bolan sipped it, savored it, then set the frosty mug back on the tabletop.

“The law’s not working for you,” he replied. “It really hasn’t worked for decades, right?” Pureza was about to protest, but he raised a hand to silence her. “I understand, it’s relative. Reform follows a cycle, like the weather. People make adjustments and decide how much corruption they can tolerate. But this Macario has thrown the playbook out the window. He’s like Escobar on crank, no better than a rabid animal. While your two agencies are following the rules, playing connect the dots and trying to indict him, he keeps running people through the meat grinder, making Colombia look like a cut-rate slaughterhouse.”

“We’ve done our best,” Pureza said.

“It isn’t good enough,” Bolan replied. “If he was only murdering Colombians, the folks in Washington could hem and haw, debate some kind of sanctions, stall it out and hope he dies from cancer or gets flattened by a bus. But now he’s killing U.S. diplomats and federal agents, reaching out to pull the same crap in the States that he’s been doing here. That’s absolutely unacceptable.”

“We’re with you,” Styles replied. “I’m simply asking what you plan to—”

Bolan never heard the rest of it. A shock wave struck them, billowing across the street as thunder roared and sheets of window glass came crashing down on every side. The air was full of shrapnel, flying furniture and bodies, as he struck the pavement, rolling, covering his head instinctively with upraised arms.

The aftermath of any great explosion was a ringing silence, like the void of outer space. It took a heartbeat, sometimes two or three, before sound filtered back to traumatized eardrums. During the same brief gap, nostrils picked out the intermingled smells of smoke, dust, blood and burning flesh.

Bolan knew he was hit. Something had stung his left biceps and scored his thigh on the same side, but neither wound was serious. He’d leak, but he would live.

Unless there was a follow-up.

Squirming around on pavement strewed with bits of scrap and shattered concrete, Bolan looked for his companions. Styles was laid out on his back, unmoving, with the bright head of a nail protruding from his forehead, just above a glazed left eye. There was no need to check his pulse to verify that he was gone.

Arcelia Pureza was alive and coughing, fingers probing at a raw slice at her jawline. Bolan went to her on hands and knees, clutching her arm.

“Come on,” he said. “We need to move.”

“What? Move? Why move?”

The gunfire started then.

“That’s why,” he said, and yanked the woman to her feet.

2

The ANFO blast shattered windows for a block in each direction, paving Carrera 11 with a crystal layer of glass. Smoke roiled along the street and sidewalks, human figures lurching in and out of it like the undead in a horror film. Most of them looked like zombies, too, with vacant eyes in bloody faces, caked with dust and grime as if they’d just climbed out of graves.

“Goddamn it!” Germán Mutis snarled. “I can’t see anything!”

“It’s finally clearing,” Jaime Fajardo said.

And he was right. After a lapse of seconds that seemed painfully protracted, Mutis saw the dust was settling, the smoke rising and drifting eastward on a breeze. He snatched the glasses back from Fajardo’s hand and trained them on the spot where he’d last seen his three intended targets.

The chic sidewalk café was definitely out of business. Shrapnel had flayed the bright facade, turned plate glass windows into a million shattered pieces, and a compact car had vaulted from the curb, propelled by the concussive blast, to land inverted on the café’s threshold. Bodies sprawled across the dining patio, twisted in boneless attitudes of death.

“No one could live through that,” Fajardo advised.

But some of them were living. Mutis saw them rising from the dust and rubble, teetering on legs that had forgotten how to hold them upright, gaping with their dusty scarecrow faces at the carnage all around them.

Never mind the drones. Where were the three he’d meant to kill?

If they were down, his mission was successful.

If they lived….

He focused on a body that had worn a charcoal business suit before the blast. What still remained of it may well have been the DEA man’s garb. One leg was bare now, flayed of cloth and quantities of flesh, but Mutis scanned along the torso, found the bloodied face with something odd protruding from the forehead.

So, the nails had worked.

One down. And if the gringo policeman had died at his table, the other two had to be nearby.

He sought the woman first. Her clothing, while conservative, had been more colorful than anything worn by her male companions. Was the color known as mauve? He wasn’t sure, but knew that he would recognize it when he saw it.

If it wasn’t blown completely off her body.

It pleased Mutis to think of her as both dead and embarrassed, though the concepts struck him as a contradiction. Rather, the CNP would be humiliated by the vision of its agent lying nude and bloody on the street.

“I want to see!” Fajardo said, almost whimpering.

“Shut up!” Mutis snapped. “Is that…? Mother Mary! She’s alive! The bitch is— And the other gringo!”

Mutis swiveled in his seat, barely aware when Fajardo snatched the glasses from his hand. In the backseat, Jorge Serna and Edgar Abello sat with automatic weapons in their laps, regarding him impassively.

“Get after them,” Mutis snapped. “They must not escape! Quickly!”

The shooters moved as if their lives depended on it, which was, in fact, the case. A simple, mundane order had been given—take three lives and snuff them out. So far, Mutis had accomplished only one-third of his mission.

El Padrino would not understand.

He would not be amused.

Within the cartel Mutis served, success was commonly rewarded and failure was invariably punished. He had witnessed El Padrino’s punishments on several occasions—had been drafted to participate in one of them, a grisly business—and did not intend to suffer such a fate.

Better to kill the bitch and gringo, or die in the attempt.

Mutis sat watching as his gunmen crossed Carrera 11, jogging in and out of bomb haze toward the epicenter of the blast. He took the glasses back from Fajardo, focused them again to suit his eyes and found the blasted killing ground of the café.

Both of his targets had regained their feet. They had been bloodied, seemed disoriented at the moment, but their wounds were superficial. Neither one of them was bleeding out, goddamn it.

Even though he was expecting it, Mutis still flinched when Serna opened fire, followed a heartbeat later by the sound of Abello’s weapon. Neither found their mark the first time, and their two targets started running.

“What are you waiting for?” he raged at Fajardo. “For the love of Christ, get after them!”

BOLAN HADN’T SEEN THE shooters yet and didn’t care to. If he could avoid them for the moment, reach his car and get the hell away from there before police arrived, he’d be satisfied.

Payback could wait.

And so he ran, pulling Arcelia Pureza behind him until she could run on her own and jerked free of his grip.

“Where’s Jack?” she asked him, as they reached an intersection, traffic stalled by the explosion, driver’s gaping.

“Dead,” Bolan replied. “Come on!”

She kept pace with him, had to have heard the automatic weapons fire behind them, but still asked, “Where are we going?”

“The garage up here,” he said. “I have a car. Save your breath!”

A bullet crackled past him, making Bolan duck and dodge. He couldn’t outrun bullets, but in the confusion of the aftershock, with all the dust and smoke, the shooters likely wouldn’t do their best.

Halfway across the street, a taxi driver took his best shot, swerved around the van in front of him and tried to jump the intersection, going nowhere fast. A stutter burst from Bolan’s rear stitched holes across the taxi’s windshield, nailed the driver to his seat and froze his dead foot on the cab’s accelerator. Bolan and Pureza cleared the lane before the taxi shot across and plowed into a storefront on the south side of the street.

“Ahead and on the left!” he told Pureza, in case she’d missed the thirty-foot bilingual sign that read Estacionamiento/Parking.

They reached the open doorway that served the garage’s stairwell, and Bolan steered Pureza inside. “Third level,” he told her. “Look for a gray Pontiac G6.”

“You’re not coming?” she asked him.

“I’ll be right behind you.”

As he spoke, Bolan drew his Glock and turned to face the intersection they’d just crossed. No other motorists had replicated the cabbie’s mistake. From where the soldier stood, the cars within his line of sight looked empty, their occupants either lying low or already out and running away from the gunfire.

Bolan caught his first glimpse of the shooters, a mismatched pair, the tall one with lanky hair down to his shoulders, the short one crew-cut to the point where he looked like a skinhead. Both carried weapons that resembled AKS-74U assault rifles. They could be knockoffs, but it wouldn’t matter if the men behind them found their mark.

Bolan squeezed off a shot at the tall guy, saw him jerk and stumble, then regain his balance for a loping run that took him out of sight behind a minivan. The short one, when he swung around that way, had already found cover of his own. Too bad.

Bolan had missed his chance to end it here, but he still hoped escape was possible. It would be inconvenient—not to mention costly—if he had to leave the rented car with all his hardware in the trunk and start again from scratch.

Still better than a bullet in the head, but damned annoying anyway.

He took the concrete stairs three at a time, sprinting to catch up with Pureza and make the most of their dwindling lead.

ARCELIA PUREZA WAS FRIGHTENED. No point in denying it, as she was running away from a slaughterhouse scene with gunmen behind her, trying to finish her off. Styles was dead, she was injured, though not very badly, and she was stuck with a stranger who might or might not have a clue as to how to keep them alive.

She had not drawn her SIG Sauer SP 2022 pistol while running after Cooper on the street, but Pureza did so now, as she mounted the stairs to the parking garage’s third level. Logic told her there were probably no gunmen waiting for her inside the garage, and yet…

Pureza reached a door marked with a two-foot number “3” in yellow paint and paused to peer through its small window of glass and wire mesh. The view was limited, but she saw no one lurking anywhere within her line of sight.

She entered the garage proper, holding her pistol down against her right thigh, index finger curled around its double-action trigger and ready to fire at the first hint of danger. Pureza had never shot another human being, but her recent brush with death convinced her that she would not hesitate.

She started scanning vehicles, looking for the Pontiac G6. He’d said that it was gray, but for the life of her, Pureza couldn’t picture the car in her mind. So many modern sedans resembled one another, regardless of make and model. Cars used to be distinctive, almost works of art, but these days they came in cookie-cutter shapes, distinguished only by their small insignia.

Where was Cooper when she needed him?

As if on cue, the metal door banged open at her back. Pureza spun around, raising her SIG in a two-handed shooter’s stance and framed the big American in her sights before she recognized him, saw his hands rise with a pistol in the right and let her own gun drop.

“Down there,” he said, and pointed to his right along the line of cars nosed into numbered parking slots facing the street they’d left behind. “About halfway.”

Bolan keyed the doors, making the taillights flash with a short beep-beep sound for people who couldn’t find their car.

Pureza didn’t stand on chivalry. She got in on the passenger’s side, still holding her SIG at the ready, while Cooper slid into the driver’s seat.

“I saw two shooters,” he informed her, as he turned the key and revved the car’s engine. “May have winged one, but I can’t say for sure. If they’re climbing the stairs, we may miss them.”

“Unless there are more on the street,” she replied.

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Right, then.”

Pureza found the proper button on the armrest of her door and lowered her window, while Cooper did the same on his side. Rental cars didn’t have bulletproof glass, so the windows would be of no help in a fight. Also, raised windows would hamper defense and might spray blinding glass if they shattered.

Cooper backed out of his slot, shifted gears, and then they were rolling, following big yellow arrows spray-painted on pavement and wall signs that read Salida/Exit. Pureza knew they were starting on the third level, but it still seemed to take forever, circling around and around past cars that all looked the same.

Then she saw daylight, people flocking past the entryway to the parking garage, mostly hurrying toward the blast zone. Were they planning to help? Loot the dead? Simply gawk at crimson remains of catastrophe?

Cooper leaned on the Pontiac’s horn, made no effort to brake as they sped toward the exit. She saw no cashier in the booth to their left, no one to raise the slender mechanical arm that was blocking their path. Beyond that fragile barrier, Pureza saw faces turned toward the sound of their horn and growling engine, people scattering.

And one who stood his ground, raising a gun.

“WHERE ARE THEY? CAN you see them?” Mutis barked into the mouthpiece of his hands-free two-way radio.

Static alone replied, at first, then one of his advance men—maybe it was Mondragón—answered, “They’re inside the garage. One of them, the man, took a shot at Edgar.”

“I’m all right,” Abello said, interrupting. “The bastard just grazed my arm. I’m on the street exit.”

“I’m going up to find them,” Serna added, sounding short of breath. “We have them now.”

“Make sure of it,” Mutis commanded, then swiveled to face his driver. “Why in hell aren’t we moving?”

“You see the street,” Fajardo said. “All that glass, eh? We can’t chase gringos on flat tires.”

“Then back up and go around the block, for Christ’s sake! Must I drive, as well as think?”

“No, sir!” Fajardo muttered something else as well, but Mutis couldn’t hear it and the car was moving, so he didn’t care. By then, he’d drawn a Walther MPK submachine gun from the gym bag at his feet, leaving its wire buttstock folded as he cocked the L-shaped bolt and set the selector switch for full-auto fire.

Fajardo boxed the block, first making an awkward and illegal U-turn in the middle of Carrera 11, then powered back to Calle 182, turned right and roared through the long block leading to Carrera 12. Another right turn there, and they were weaving in and out of traffic, letting pedestrians fend for themselves, in a mad rush northward to Avenida 82. There, he made a final right-hand turn and aimed the Mercedes back toward Carrera 11.

Time elapsed: five precious minutes.

“What is happening?” Mutis demanded, fairly shouting into the mouthpiece, although he knew it was unnecessary.

Hissing silence was the only answer for a moment, then Mondragón came back on the air, cursing bitterly. “Shit! They got out! Edgar’s down, maybe dead. I can’t tell.”

“Which way are they going?” Mutis asked, teeth clenched in his rage.

“Northbound, toward—”

Mutis lost the rest of it, as Fajardo shouted, “There!” He saw a grayish car speed past on Carrera 11, barely glimpsed the gringo driver’s profile in passing.

“Get after them!” he snapped at Fajardo. Then, into the mouthpiece, “You, too, Carlos! Run them down!”

“I’m on it!” Mondragón replied, with snarling engine sounds for background music.

Mondragón flashed past them in his blue Toyota Avalon, stolen for use as a spotter or crash car, as needed. He drove like a racer—and had been, on various tracks, before he recognized that El Padrino paid his drivers more than one could make on any local track.

Fajardo was talking to himself under his breath as he tromped down on the accelerator and sent the Benz squealing in pursuit. Mutis hoped that he wouldn’t spoil the paint job, but if forced to make a choice, he would protect his own skin every time.

Missing the targets with a bomb, by chance, could be explained. Letting them get away when they were dazed and wounded was another matter, altogether. And if they had killed one of his men…

Mutis refused to think about the punishment that might await him if he took that news back to Naldo Macario. Better to shoot himself first and be done with it, skipping the pain.

But better, still, to finish the job he had started and step on his targets like insects, grinding them under his heel.

The thought made Mutis smile.

SO FAR, SO GOOD.

Bolan had crashed through the garage retaining arm with no great difficulty, while Pureza took down the gunner who had challenged them with a decisive double tap. Falling, the guy had fired a burst that ricocheted from concrete overhead but missed the Pontiac completely, then they made the left-hand jog onto Carrera 11 and started the long northbound run.

It took only a moment for the first chase car to show up in the rearview mirror. Bolan knew it wasn’t just another car headed in their direction, from the way it raced to overtake them, nearly sideswiping a pickup and a motorcycle in the driver’s rush toward Andino Royal.

“We’ve got a tail,” he told Pureza, then saw a larger black car closely following the blue Toyota. “Make that two.”

“It’s best if we do not involve the Bogotá police,” Pureza said.

“Or any others,” Bolan added. “Right, then. Are you up for fighting?”

“We’re already fighting,” she replied.

“Good point.”

He held a straight course on Carrera 11 until they passed a large estate with wooded grounds on the right, then made a hard right-hand turn onto Calle 88 eastbound. More trees on both sides of the road, but Bolan knew that they were running out of residential neighborhood, with Avenida Alberto Lleras Camargo four blocks ahead. He’d have to make a move before that intersection, or risk carrying their firefight into rush hour traffic.

“On our right,” he said. “Hang on.”

Bolan swerved into a parking lot that served a cluster of high-rise apartment buildings, putting the Pontiac through a tight 180 that made its tires squeal and left Bolan facing back toward the street they’d just left.

The one-man chase car wasn’t far behind, making the turn into the parking lot with room to spare. The driver had his window open, left arm angling some kind of stubby SMG toward the G6, where Bolan and his shotgun rider crouched behind their open doors with pistols leveled.

They squeezed off together, three rounds apiece, peppering the Toyota’s windshield. Behind the glass, a screaming face flushed crimson and the blue car swerved away, leaping the curb of a divider, plowing over grass and slamming hard into a row of parked vehicles.

No one emerged from the wreckage, and Bolan dismissed it, turning back toward the parking lot’s entrance. A black Mercedes-Benz appeared, nosing in a bit more cautiously than the Toyota, but determined to advance. Its passenger was firing by the time the Benz finished its turn, a compact submachine gun stuttering full-auto fire.

The natural reaction was to flinch from those incoming rounds, but the Executioner stood his ground, framing the shooter in his Glock’s sights with a steady six-o’clock hold. Ten rounds remained in the pistol, and he triggered four in as many seconds, watching the 165 grain Speer Gold Dot JHP slugs strike home with 484 foot-pounds of destructive energy.

His first shot tore into the gunman’s shoulder, while his second sent the SMG tumbling from spastic fingers. Number three drilled the guy’s howling face, and the fourth shot was lost through the Benz’s windshield. Good enough.

In the meantime, Lieutenant Pureza was nailing the driver with one-two-three shots through the windshield, another swerve starting, this one to their left. The Benz passed Bolan’s door with two feet to spare, losing momentum on the drive-by, but still traveling fast enough to buckle its grille when it struck one of the parking lot’s tall lampposts.

“Are we done?” Pureza asked him, as the echoes faded.

“Done,” Bolan said. “Let’s get out of here.”

3

Usaquén District, Bogotá

Jorge Serna was nervous. Not excited, as he’d always thought that he might be if he was called to meet with El Padrino. Not at all convinced that he would even manage to survive their meeting.

Survival, under certain circumstances, was a grave mistake.

He should have been impressed at passing by the lavish Country Club de Bogotá with its vast golf course, so close to the Mercado de las Pulgas flea market, but a world apart from bargain shoppers. Serna should have been dazzled by the sight of Unicentro, one of Colombia’s largest shopping malls, or the elite shops at Santa Ana Centro Comercial, but all of it was lost on him.

His last day?

That still remained to be seen.

El Padrino’s estate was surrounded by seven-foot walls topped by broken glass set in concrete. The only access, through an ornate wrought-iron gate, was guarded by armed men around the clock. Their number varied: never less than two, sometimes six or seven if the need arose.

On this day, he counted five men on the gate, armed with the same Tavor TAR-21 assault rifles carried by members of Colombia’s Urban Counter-Terrorism Special Forces Group. The guns resembled something from a science fiction film, but Serna knew they were deadly, with a cyclic rate of 750 to 900 rounds per minute on full-auto fire.

Only the best for El Padrino’s personal guards.

As the limousine approached, one of the guards rolled back the gate by hand. Small talk within the family claimed that the gate had once been operated by remote control, with a motor and pulleys, until a power failure made El Padrino a captive within his own walls. Workmen had been routed from bed after midnight, in the midst of a fierce thunderstorm, to overhaul the system and return it to manual control.

Passing through that gate, Serna wondered if he would be breathing when he left the property. Or whether he would ever leave.

Another rumor claimed that El Padrino had a private cemetery on the grounds, or that he fed the bodies of the soldiers who displeased him into the red-hot maw of a specially designed incinerator, sending them off in a dark cloud of smoke.

Serna had smiled at those stories, with everyone else.

But he wasn’t smiling at this moment.

He barely registered the vast house, wooded grounds or soldiers on patrol in pairs, some leading dogs. The limo whisked along a driveway, circling the mansion to deposit Serna and his escorts at a service entrance, at the rear. Another pair of soldiers met them there and nodded for them to go inside.

At the last moment, as they crossed the threshold, Serna felt a sudden urge to bolt, run for his life, but where could he go? Surrounded by walls and by men like himself, who would kill without a heartbeat’s hesitation, what would be the point?

To make it quick, he thought, and shuddered.

“Are you cold, Jorge?” one of his escorts asked. The others laughed.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“We’ll see.”

They ushered him into a large room—were there any small rooms in the house?—with bookshelves on the walls rising from floor to ceiling. At the center of the room stood El Padrino, paging through a massive tome atop a bookstand. It looked like maps or some kind of atlas.

“Jorge,” Naldo Macario said, “thanks for coming.”

As if I had a choice, Serna thought. But he answered, “De nada, Padrino.”

“You’ve had a bad day,” his master said. “It shows on your face. May I offer you something? Tequila? Cerveza?”

“No, thank you, sir.”

“So, direct to business then.” Macario approached him, smiling underneath a thick moustache, hair glistening with oil and combed back from his chiseled face. “You failed me, yes?”

Serna could see no point in lying. “That is true, Godfather.”

“I send five men to perform a simple task, and four are dead. The job is still unfinished. Only you remain, Jorge.”

“I’m very sorry, sir.”

Apologies were clearly pointless, but what else could he say? He had failed and survived, the worst combination of all.

“I know you’re sorry,” Macario said. “I see it in your eyes. But failure must have consequences, yes?”

Serna’s voice failed him, refused to pronounce his own death sentence, but he gave a jerky little nod.

“Of course you understand,” Macario went on. “Under normal circumstances, I would have you taken to the basement, and perhaps even filmed your punishment as an example to my other soldiers.”

Serna felt his knees go weak. It was a challenge to remain upright.

“But these,” El Padrino said, “are not normal circumstances, eh? For all your failings, it appears that I still need your help.”

“My help, sir?”

“You saw the American, yes? Before he killed the others and escaped, you saw his face?”

“I did, sir.”

“And you would recognize him if you met again?”

“I would.” He nodded to emphasize the point, seeing a small, faint gleam of hope.

“Then it appears that you must live…for the moment,” Macario replied. “Correct your error, find this gringo for me, and you may yet be redeemed.”

“Find him, sir?”

“Not by yourself, of course.” His lord and master smiled at that, the notion’s sheer absurdity. “With help. And when you find him, do what must be done.”

“I will, sir. You can count on it.”

“His life for yours, Jorge. Don’t fail a second time.”

THE SAFEHOUSE WAS AVERAGE size, painted beige, located on a cul-de-sac north of El Lago Park in Barrios Unidos. Bolan turned off Avenida de La Esmeralda and followed Pureza’s directions from there. She unlocked the garage, stood back to let him park the Pontiac, then closed the door from the inside.

They had been lucky with the G6, in the circumstances. It had taken only two hits, one of them a graze along the left front fender that could pass for careless damage from a parking lot, the other low down on the driver’s door. Nothing to raise eyebrows in Bogotá, where mayhem was a daily fact of life.

Pureza led the way inside, through a connecting door that kept the neighbors from observing anyone who came and went around the safehouse. They entered through a laundry room, into a combination kitchen–dining room that smelled of spices slowly going stale.

“You use this place for witnesses?” he asked Pureza.

“That, or for emergencies. I think this qualifies.”

“No clearance needed in advance?”

“If you are asking who knows we are here, the answer would be no one.”

“No drop-ins expected?”

“None.”

“Okay. Who knew about our meeting?” Bolan asked.

“You think someone inside the CNP betrayed us.” The lieutenant didn’t phrase it as a question.

“If the bomb had been a random thing, I wouldn’t ask,” Bolan replied. “But when they follow up with shooters, it’s specific. No one tailed me from the airport, so there has to be a leak.”

“Why must it be on my side?”

“I’d be asking Styles the same thing,” Bolan said, “if he was here. My only contact with the DEA is dead.”

“So you’re stuck on me.”

“The phrase would be ‘stuck with you,’ and that isn’t what I said. You’ve done a good job, so far. I’m impressed, okay? But someone had to tip the other side about our meet.”

“You’re right,” Pureza said, relaxing from her previous defensive posture. “I was assigned by my commander, Captain Rodrigo Celedón. Above him, I can’t say who might have known.”

“You trust your captain?”

“With my life,” she said.

“Be sure of that before you talk to him again. Because it is your life.”

“The DEA may have a leak, as well.”

“It happens,” Bolan granted. “But they’re getting whittled down in Bogotá these days, and I don’t picture Styles setting himself up to be hit.”

“What’s your solution, then?”

“A solo op,” Bolan replied. “Or a duet, if you’re still in.”

“You think I’d leave you at this stage?”

“It wouldn’t be the dumbest thing you ever did,” he told her frankly.

“I must still live with myself,” Pureza said. “One person I can absolutely trust.”

“And you’re on board with what I have to do?”

“That part has been…shall I say vague? I was assigned to help with what is called a ‘special case.’ Beyond that, all I know is that the cartel wants you dead. And me, as well, apparently.”

“That sums it up,” Bolan said. “Naldo Macario wore out his welcome with the massacre at your Palace of Justice. It’s crunch time. I’m the last resort.”

Pureza held his gaze for a long moment before speaking. “So, we aren’t building a case for trial,” she said at last.

“The trial’s been held. The verdict’s in. Macario’s outfit is marked.”

“You understand I represent the law?”

“The system’s broken down,” Bolan replied. “We’re trying an alternative.”

“If I refuse?”

“You walk. We try to stay out of each other’s way.”

“And Macario wins.”

“No, he’s done, either way.”

The lieutenant took another moment, making up her mind, then nodded. “Right,” she said. “Where do we start?”

Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

THE TELEPHONE CAUGHT Hal Brognola reaching for his hat. It was an hour and a half past quitting time, and he was taking more work home, as usual. He might have let the call go through to voice mail if it hadn’t been his private line. Leaving his gray fedora on its wall hook, Brognola snagged the receiver midway through its third insistent ring.

“Hello?”

“Sorry to catch you headed out the door,” the familiar voice said from somewhere warm and far away.

“So you’re into remote viewing now?” Brognola inquired.

“Just safe bets,” Bolan replied. “When was the last time you cleared the office on time?”

“Thirteenth of Never,” Brognola acknowledged. “I forget the year. Aught-something. How’s it going where you are?”

The private line was scrambled, but Brognola took no chances. Paranoia wasn’t just a state of mind in Washington—it was a tried and true survival mechanism.

“Heating up,” Bolan said in reply. “There was an unexpected welcoming committee and we lost our guy from pharmaceuticals.”

Meaning Jack Styles from DEA. Brognola hadn’t known him personally—the agency had something like fifty-five hundred sworn agents, more than twice that many employees in all—but he still felt the sharp pang of loss.

Once a cop, always a cop.

“So, you need a new contact?” he asked.

“Negative, at least for the time being,” Bolan replied. “I’ve got some local help. We’ll try to muddle through.”

“If there’s a problem with the local shop…”

Brognola paused and Bolan filled the gap. “We’ve talked about it. This one’s good, so far. Not sure about the rest.”

“Okay,” he said reluctantly. “If you need any help, I should be able to provide it.”

He slipped in the reference to Able Team, who’d gone to bat with the Executioner more than once, their link preceding Brognola’s promotion at Justice and the creation of Stony Man Farm. Bolan and two of the Able Team warriors had traveled through hell together as outlaws, before they dropped off the grid to help Uncle Sam with his worst dirty jobs.

“I hope that won’t be necessary,” Bolan answered, “but I’ve got your number.”

“Right,” Brognola said. “But don’t let the competition get yours.”

“I’m still unlisted,” Bolan said, and the big Fed could almost sense him smiling. “Later.”

“Later,” Brognola agreed, and cradled the receiver.

So the bad news from Colombia continued. The Justice man supposed he’d get a call from Stony Man Farm before too long, reporting details of the “unexpected welcome” Bolan had received in Bogotá. There’d be a call from DEA, as well, likely complaining that they never should have asked for Brognola’s help in the first place.

As if it had been the agency’s idea.

As far as Brognola knew, the DEA’s top brass had no idea that Stony Man existed, much less what it actually did. The program was beyond top secret, authorized and created by a former President of the United States, maintained by that commander in chief’s successors to deal with extraordinary situations.

If and when the program was exposed to public scrutiny, some heads were bound to roll, Brognola’s and the current President’s among them. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution provided for creation of a black-ops force like Stony Man, and while Brognola could defend it till doomsday on moral and practical grounds, the program didn’t have a legal leg to stand on.

Virtually everything his warriors did was criminal, albeit for the classic greater good.

This time, Brognola grabbed his hat and put it on before another phone call could delay him. Stony Man, the DEA, or anybody else who sought a piece of him this night could reach him on his cell phone. He’d take the bad news as it came, meet the complaints head-on, without referring them upstairs. Unless it fell apart completely and his team could not complete a mission—something which, thank God, hadn’t happened yet—he took calls from the Man upstairs, but didn’t dial the hotline for a conversation on his own initiative.

It simply wasn’t done.

Which put Brognola in mind of a saying he’d heard for the first time long years ago, as an agent in training at the FBI Academy.

Shit rolls downhill.

When Brognola’s superiors, the President or the Attorney General, found something stinky in his in-box that demanded prompt covert attention, it came down to Brognola. Who, in turn, passed it down to Bolan, Able Team or Phoenix Force, depending on the circumstances. From there, with any luck, the worst load landed on the nation’s enemies and buried them for good.

With any luck, Brognola thought. And hoped that Bolan’s luck was holding in Colombia, where absolutely anyone could prove to be a lethal enemy.

LIEUTENANT ARCELIA PUREZA heard Cooper returning from the smaller bedroom of the safehouse, where he’d gone to make a call in private. She had resisted the burning temptation to eavesdrop, conscious that trust was their sole fragile bond.

But could she really trust this stranger?

The bombing and subsequent shoot-out in Chapinero had shocked her. Despite the fact that violence was commonplace in Bogotá and nationwide, Pureza had been personally spared until that day. Not only was Jack Styles dead, and their best connection to the DEA was severed, but Pureza had also nearly been taken out—and she herself had killed for the first time.

It had been automatic in the given circumstances, a matter of instinct and reflex, where training and self-preservation combined. She was a bit surprised to feel no sense of guilt, but guessed that there might be delayed reactions, possibly reflected in her dreams.

Meanwhile, she had to think about Matt Cooper.

He was quick to point the finger of suspicion for the ambush at the CNP or DEA, but Pureza knew nothing of his own organization. Not even its name, for God’s sake. How did she know that someone in the States—or the big American himself, for that matter—was not the traitor?

But she had to scratch Cooper off the list, since it was ridiculous to think he’d risk a bomb blast, then kill his own comrades, if he wanted Styles and Pureza dead. The wise thing would have been to dawdle, turn up late enough to let the bomb and gunmen do their work, then tell his headquarters that traffic had delayed him.

Better luck next time.

As for whoever might have sent him from the north to Colombia…

“All clear, then?” she inquired, as the man stepped into the living room once more.

“We’re square with Washington,” he said. “And you?”

“I still think that you’re right. It’s best if I don’t call the CNP just yet.”

And there, she’d done it. It was just the two of them, adrift in Bogotá and facing off against Macario’s cartel, against the AUC, and anyone else El Padrino could think of to send against them.

Hundreds, at least. All happy to kill for a handful of pesos, or simply to curry Macario’s favor. To earn a seat at his table.

Maybe thousands, then, instead of hundreds.

“Have you thought it through?” Bolan asked. “I mean, really?”

Pureza nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I’m obviously marked. Macario never relents, once he’s decided someone needs to die. My only hope, apparently, is pushing on with you.”

“A stranger you don’t know from Adam,” he said, half-smiling. “And whom you have no good reason to trust.”

“I didn’t want to say it,” she replied. “But, yes.”

“It’s only natural,” the soldier replied. “If you weren’t suspicious, I’d think you were crazy.”

“Call me sane, then.”

“Good. As for the trust, we’ve started building it. I can’t believe you’d sit there waiting for the bomb, then drop those shooters, if you were on Macario’s payroll.”

Pureza felt her cheeks warm at the sound of her own thoughts, spoken by this man. “I can say the same for you,” she said.

“Okay. We’re straight on that, then. Next, you have to ask yourself what one man—or the two of us together—can possibly accomplish in the face of killer odds.”

“You should become a mind reader,” she said.

“I’m sticking to the obvious,” Bolan said. “We’ve already cleared the first hurdle, trashed Macario’s plan and sent four of his hardmen home in body bags. He’ll be angry over that, and sometimes anger breeds mistakes.”

“You’re right about the anger,” Pureza said. “His rage is almost legendary, and the punishments he metes out are…extreme. As for mistakes, he’s made none yet that I’m aware of.”

“Wrong. We’ve seen the first already,” he said. “We’re still alive.”

“Is that a victory?”

“Damn right. Now all we have to do is stay alive and keep hitting Macario where it hurts most, until he runs out of steam.”

“Perhaps you underestimate him,” she suggested.

“I’ve been up against his kind before,” Bolan replied. “They’re tough, no doubt about it. But they’re only human. Humans die.”

“It’s all-out war, then?”

“To the bitter end. If you want out, the time to bail is now.”

“And spend the rest of my short life in hiding? No, thank you.”

Her answer seemed to satisfy him. Bolan simply said, “Okay. We’re good to go.”

“One thing you must remember, Mr. Cooper.”

“Make it ‘Matt.’”

“All right. One thing you must remember, Matt.”

“Which is?”

“We’re only human, too.”

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