State Of War

Bolan jerked his head aside as the revolver snapped and spit fire. The hair ripper behind him howled as he took a bullet in the shoulder. The soldier chopped his left hand into the shooter’s needle-tracked wrist and the revolver went flying. He took his bit of room and spun, his back fist unhinging the addict’s jaw. The drug-addled assassin dropped to his knees. Bolan slammed a knee up into his jaw and sent him into a temporarily blissful sleep.

Savacool’s rifle broke into rapid semiauto fire. Bolan heard tires squeal out on the street, but he had no time for it.

Kaino was suddenly beside him and he dropped junkies with Ali-worthy left jabs and Foreman-worthy rights.

The crowd fell back.

Bolan suddenly had space. He stood with his bloodied fists clenched. The mob’s moral check returned. The degenerate drug addicts reverberated between the two opposing poles of need and fear, but the battle dynamic in West Miami had changed. The dozen junkie croc-zombies still standing visibly deflated like balloons. Bolan’s voice was ice-cold. “Now, which one of you primate, screw heads lit up my ride?”

A frizzy-haired young man with a claw hammer in his hand dropped his weapon on Savacool’s lawn and fell to his knees in supplication. “Please...”

“All of you!” Bolan bellowed. “On your knees! Now!”

The standing junkies knelt. Some moved to hands and knees and others assumed the prone position with obvious practice. Savacool came down the steps with her weapon shouldered.

Bolan looked out onto the road. “He got away?”

“I didn’t want to risk firing into the crowd when he fired into you. I got a shot at him when the van screamed up, but I don’t know if I hit him. I gave the van the rest of my magazine.” Savacool shook her head unhappily. “He got away.”

Kaino stared at Bolan in awe. “I have never seen anything like it.”

Bolan took in the army of broken, moaning, drug-addicted and rotting humanity littering the field of battle by firelight. “Neither have I.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Mercy Hospital, Miami

The doctor was appalled, both by Bolan’s smell and by his condition. She shook her head at the massive, blackening contusions where Bolan’s armor had taken .44 Magnum hits and held. “These are firearm-related blunt trauma contusions, Mr. Cooper?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bolan replied.

“That one’s a knife?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Dr. Gubatan had already known the answers. She sucked in her breath as she looked at his neck, biceps and thigh. “These are human bite wounds?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m required to inform you that I must report this to the police.”

Agent Savacool held up her badge. “It’s already been reported to the FBI.”

Dr. Gubatan sniffed Bolan again. It was pretty clear it was a smell she had encountered before. “This wouldn’t happen to be related to an incident in the West Miami area that is blowing up across all channels?”

“Doctor, I’m afraid I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

There were few things E.R. doctors in Miami hadn’t seen. Dr. Gubatan was even shorter than Savacool but about five times as wide. She scowled at the FBI ID like it was a personal affront, but her features set into a grimace of concern as she prodded Bolan’s blackening biceps. “The bite wounds are already going septic.”

Bolan wasn’t surprised, but he just didn’t have time for hepatitis. Anything even more chilling that a krokodil addict’s bite might be carrying would just have to be dealt with later. “I’ll need a round of full spectrum antibiotics.”

“You’re telling me.” Dr. Gubatan left the room nearly at a sprint while rapidly typing into her tablet. A nurse came in and began cleaning the bites.

“You all right?” Savacool asked.

“I feel like a zombie crawl just stomped a mud hole in me and tried to chew it dry. With a few shootings and stabbings in the mix.”

“No, Cooper. You went down in that rotting crowd, and I was too scared to shoot into it. Are you okay?”

“That was bad,” Bolan admitted.

Savacool was about an inch from collapsing in tears. “I’m still shaking.”

Bolan nodded. “Me, too.”

Savacool laughed, but it was laced with tension. “Not you! You’re stone cold.”

“I shake on the inside. I don’t shake on the outside until the job is done.” Bolan winked. “And I’m someplace safe with someone I like.”

“You know? Speaking as a black female Southern FBI agent—you’re the first man of any color or description who ever made sensitive sound cool.”

“That’s how I roll.”

“So how are you?”

“Hungry. Where’s Kaino?”

“Well, he went all Muhammad Ali on anything that even came close to the porch. You should have seen it.”

“I caught a bit of it. He had my six when it was getting really bad. He was something to see.”

“I relieved him of porch patrol and he went to back your play on the run. I pulled a sweep around the mob and tried to stop the van. Anyway, he busted some knuckles. He’s getting his hands taken care of and Miami-Dade pooh-bahs are debriefing him hard.”

“How about you?”

“I have been sternly informed to report in first thing in the morning.”

Bolan looked at his swollen hands and was reminded of the damage he had wreaked. “How about Cocosino’s army?”

Savacool’s shoulders twitched in revulsion. “They’ve been isolated for obvious reasons, but I visited their ward.”

Bolan nodded. “Bad?”

“Cooper, you don’t want to see these people under bright lights, and I’m not even adding in what you did to them. I still see them when I close my eyes.” Tears spilled down Savacool’s cheeks. “I know why you did it the way you did, and I respect it. I just don’t know if you did them any favors.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Well, I already threw up,” Savacool said.