Devil's Mark

Villaluz was doing the same on the passenger side. “I have a marked man, amigo.”

“Same here.” Bolan went through his corpse’s pockets but all he found was ammo and enough knives to justify the word fetish. “You know we lit them up like the Fourth of July and they still kept coming.”

“Yes, I noticed.”

Bolan stood and waited for Smiley to bring the small forensics kit they had packed. “You ever seen that kind of zeal here in Mexico?”

“To be honest, no. One hears of such stories, but only during the Mexican Revolution. Men charging the cannons and the Gatling guns.” Villaluz rose up creakily and looked at Bolan over the RAV’s chassis. “But I will tell you, I am not as young as I once was, and like many men my age, more and more I find myself watching the History Channel on cable TV.” Villaluz shrugged. “I swear, like senility, it is unavoidable.”

Bolan let the man talk.

“And one sees many such stories on the History Channel. The kamikazes of the Japanese Air Force. The juramentado, oath takers during the Moro Wars in the Philippines. The assassins of ancient Persia during the Crusades. All with a single trait in common.”

“Fanaticism,” Bolan said. It was something he had run into too many times before.

“Yes, fanatics,” the inspector agreed. “Utterly willing to die in the attempt to kill the enemies of their god or emperor.”

“And our fanatics all bear the mark of the beast.”

“Yes, and I will tell you something else. This is Mexico. We have you yanquis beat on occultism. Santeria, Aztec worship, voodoo, even satanism. I have seen it all. But these cultists are mostly interested in orgies, drugs and playing dress-up. Once in a great while their foolishness gets someone killed. But I tell you, they do not load up into SUVs by the bushel and make suicide assaults on pueblos in the Laguna Salada they have no business knowing about.”

“So what do you think?”

“I do not know what to think. All I can tell you is that this situation is new, anomalous, and, as Señorita Bree said, it is beginning to…creep me out. To be honest? I will tell you. I am scared.”

Bolan regarded Villaluz over the RAV. It took a lot for a man like him to say something like that. The Executioner wasn’t scared. He had seen things far darker than this. But this situation was promising to get darker still, and he was willing to admit to being profoundly troubled. “We have to get Balthazar Gomez to the States.”

“We are in agreement. However we are in a box canyon without transportation.”

“I’m really hoping Fausto has something up his sleeve.”

Villaluz smiled very tiredly. “I could tell you stories about the cornucopia of things Fausto has had up his sleeves.”

“Over beer and shots, in the States, on me.”