Devil's Mark

Nigris flinched under Bolan’s scrutiny.

Babysitting was one of Bolan’s least favorite activities, particularly when the mark was a torturer and cannibal, but the powers that be in the Justice Department wanted Nigris, and they wanted him badly. He was a potential goldmine of information. Three of the four were dead. The Justice Department wanted some life insurance for Nigris and Hal Brognola had asked Mack Bolan to be the man’s personal policy.

Bolan sized up the policyholder.

Cuah Nigris was a light heavyweight in size and stature. Gang tattoos crawled over most exposed surfaces of his body, including his shaved head. His almond-shaped eyes revealed his Aztec heritage, and at the moment they were flared wide in fear as he sat shackled hand and foot in the back of the SUV.

Policía Federal Preventiva agent Majandro “Mole” LeCaesar sat next to him. The PFP agent was armed and armored and wearing black battle fatigues. His dark skin and brownish-red Afro betrayed a lot of African blood, and “Mole,” the national chocolate sauce of Mexico, was a nickname he wore with pride. Bolan had liked the man immediately. LeCaesar in return regarded the mysterious American with the gravest of suspicion. It was a sign of how desperate things were getting that the PFP would allow an agent to go dark on an American prisoner transfer. LeCaesar kept the muzzle of his MP-5 jammed into Nigris’s ribs and his eyes on the streets.

Bolan turned his attention to Agent Smiley.

It wasn’t the most onerous task in the world.

Drug Enforcement Administration agent Cambrianna “Bree” Smiley was short and dark with big brown eyes, big cheekbones, big lips and pretty much a big everything packed into a small frame. She was a woman who looked good in body armor. The words Mexican firecracker came to mind except for the fact that she was Irish and happened to tan well. Just about every national law enforcement and intelligence agency in the world kept a few lookers on the roster. Certain situations worked best with a beautiful woman on the team, but Smiley was more than window dressing. She had done a tour in Afghanistan in 2007 with the DEA’s Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support Teams, or FAST, and Bree Smiley won a reputation as a problem solver.

And in fact there was a significant problem on the U.S. border with Mexico. A problem so bad the President of the United States had turned Mack Bolan onto it, as well. Bolan was used to being an enigma to federal agents and their not liking it. Smiley was taking it better than most. She wouldn’t admit it, but things had gotten spooky lately and she was secretly pleased to have the backup. Agent Smiley gave Bolan a lopsided grin without taking her eyes off the road. “You getting a good look, Blue Eyes?”

“Something is about to go down,” Bolan said.

“Impossible.” Smiley shook her head while constantly scanning the road ahead. “I planned this transfer. We sent out the decoy Cuah at 7:00 a.m. yesterday, under guard like he was the Mexican president himself. Our decoy is a ringer, and he reached the border and was delivered into custody without a hitch. No one knows about tonight’s little excursion except people I trust with my life, and that includes Mole. No one knows our route except me, and if we’re being tailed, then they’re better than you and me both. Cuah Nigris is coming to America and he’s going to sing like a bird for me.”

Nigris whimpered in the backseat of the Bronco as they swung out of the red-light district and headed north for the border. Bolan’s spine spoke to him and long ago he had learned to listen to it. “We’re gonna get hit.”

“No way.” Bree’s back went up. “I planned this op.”

“And you planned it well,” Bolan agreed. “But we’re gonna get hit.”

“And how do you figure that?”

“Because your skin is crawling just like mine.” Bolan turned to the backseat. “You happy, Mole?”

LeCaesar shook his head. “No, señor. I am not happy. I have a bad feeling.”

“What about you, Cuah?” Bolan asked.

Nigris moaned.

Bolan turned back to Smiley. “It’s unanimous.”

Smiley sighed. “And just who are you again?”

Bolan shrugged.

The woman’s shoulders sagged. “Tell me you’re Justice Department.”

“I’ve been associated with the Justice Department,” Bolan admitted.

“Associated?” Agent Smiley finally took her eyes off the road and quirked an eyebrow at Bolan. “Dude, you’re kind of spooky.”

Bolan shrugged. “I’ve been spooky—and scary, too.”

“Okay, Carnac. You got me. I got a real bad feeling right about now.” Smiley’s voice sank an octave in irritation. “So you tell me, Mr. Interdepartmental X-Files Liaison mystery man, you got any suggestions?”

Bolan unzipped the duffel between his feet and pulled out his current car gun. Agent Smiley’s eyes flew wide. “Jesus…”

Even LeCaesar was impressed. “¡Madre de Dios!”

The SCAR-H—Special Forces Combat Assault Rifle–Heavy—was about as brutal as black rifles got. The stock was folded, the barrel had been lopped to thirteen inches for close-quarters combat and a 40 mm grenade launcher was slaved beneath the forestock. The accessory rails along the top and sides were loaded with an optical sight, a laser pointer and a Taser unit in case Nigris suddenly became restless. The magazine was stoked with .30-caliber tungsten-steel-core armor-piercing bullets. Bolan had ten more mags loaded with the same and a spread of grenades specially picked for just this situation. Bolan jacked an antiarmor round into the launcher.

“Nice end-of-the-world weapon you got there, slick.”

Bolan checked the loads. “I was a Boy Scout.”

Smiley’s grin lit back up. “I was a Girl Scout!”

“I know.” Bolan nodded. “I read your file.”

“Okay, now you’re getting creepy again.”

Bolan scanned the streets of Tijuana. He had an intense dislike for fighting out of cars. They were bullet magnets. The window frames and your fellow passengers got in your way when you tried to shoot back, and if the bad guys had the balls it took only one or two enemy vehicles to run you off the road or pin you to a standstill and do you like Bonnie and Clyde. “You got a route B?”

“Route B, C and D,” Smiley confirmed. “I got Z if it comes to it.”

Bolan checked their lead vehicle. The caravan was in loose convoy. The lead unit was a block ahead and had four armed and armored DEA men inside. The tail unit was about a block behind and similarly loaded with a DEA Fast Reaction team. It would take a very good observer up in a helicopter or a string of spotters on rooftops to make the Nigris train as it wound its way through Tijuana for the border. “I want route X.”

“I’m all ears,” Smiley said.

“Tell A and B units to continue on primary route. If we’re blown, I say you and I go random. Screw silent running. We go O.J. mode and run. Have Control call in a chopper and vector us to the nearest garage with a rooftop. We fly our asses out of here, deliver Cuah to San Diego Branch, and we’re eating pancakes at the IHOP by dawn.”

“Like the way you think, Tall, Dark and Spooky.” Smiley cranked the wheel and thumbed her com unit. “Control, this is Vector 1. Suspect ambush. Breaking formation. Suggest Vector 2 and 3 continue primary route. I need a rooftop and helicopter extraction for package ASAP.”

The DEA controlling agent was across the border in a communications van watching the transfer by satellite. “Copy that, Vector 1. Working up a route. Break east for highway. Vector 2 and 3 continue—”

“Here they come!” Bolan watched two black SUVs and a pickup come boiling out of a side street in his sideview mirror. He clicked his com unit. “Vector 3! Right behind you!”

The three black vehicles formed a wedge filling both lanes of the road and forcing vehicles off the road. The pickup formed the tip of the spear and the truck bed was packed with gunmen. Bolan hit the button on the sunroof. “Mole,” Bolan said. The federale didn’t need to be told twice. Nigris squeaked as LeCaesar shoved him to the floor of the Bronco and stepped on his neck to keep him there. The agent lowered his window and leaned out into the night with his submachine gun in hand. Bolan stood up in the sunroof. He unfolded his rifle’s stock and shouldered the weapon. His eyes flared as a man in the back of the pickup leveled a green metal tube about a meter and a half long and sighted at Vector 3.

“Vector 3!” Bolan shouted into his com. “Rocket! Rocket! Rocket!”

Vector 3 went up on two wheels as the DEA driver cranked the wheel in desperate evasive action. LeCaesar’s weapon chattered into life and sparks walked across the pickup’s hood. Bolan flipped up his grenade launcher sight and took a second to aim. The weapon slammed against his shoulder as the grenade launcher belched 40 mm fire. The antiarmor round punched dead on into the pickup’s gleaming grillwork. The windows blasted out as the shaped-charge warhead turned a significant section of the V-8 engine into molten metal and superheated gas that filled the cab with fire. The men in the truck bed screamed as the truck lifted up off its chassis and came down without front wheels. The truck flipped and men were smeared onto the road like insects. The SUV drivers floored it to escape the burning, tumbling hulk.

LeCaesar roared into the night as if he was at a Club Tijuana home game. “Goal! Goal! Goooal!” He punctuated each outburst of pleasure with a burst from his weapon. “C’mon, cabrons!”

Bolan put his sights on the closest SUV and burned half his mag into the grille. Steam blasted out from beneath the hood. Bolan raised his aim and put the other half into the driver’s side windshield. The SUV instantly veered hard left and plowed into the brown adobe wall of a brothel. The wall cracked. The SUV crumpled like an accordion, spewing glass and bits of body panel like shrapnel.

Bolan slapped in a fresh mag. The remaining SUV suddenly found that Vector 3 had three windows open and outraged DEA Fast Reaction men pumping rounds into them from their assault rifles. LeCaesar grinned up at Bolan. “Cartel pussies, they—”

Both men lurched in the window frames as Agent Smiley hit the gas. She shouted back at them. “Down! Down! Down!”