Powder Burn

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.”