Devil's Mark

Bolan snaked down out of the sunroof. He reached over the seat and hauled LeCaesar back inside. He had half a heartbeat to ram his feet against the floorboards and slam his free hand against the roof as the brights from another pickup roared out of a side street and lit up Vector 1 like stalag lights. “Brace for impact!”

The cartel pickup hit them broadside.

Smiley swore and took a brutal head bounce that cracked her window. Nigris screamed. LeCaesar and the prisoner tumbled around the backseat like two rag dolls thrown in on spin cycle. Bolan gritted his teeth as glass from his shattered window flew in his face. He lost his grip on the roof, and blood spurted from his hand as it sheared away the dome light. His stomach lurched as the Bronco went up on two wheels. Smiley gasped as it landed on its side and Bolan landed on top of her. Grenades and spare mags were everywhere. A frag spun like a top on the edge of the center armrest. Bolan grabbed it. He was risking a burn if gasoline was leaking, but he could hear boots pounding the pavement. As bullets began rattling against the overturned truck he pulled the pin with a bloody hand and tossed the grenade up and out of the shattered passenger window. “Frag out!”

Someone outside yelled ¡Granada! and the shouts turned to screams as the grenade spewed shrapnel in all directions. LeCaesar crawled out the sunroof dragging a mewling Nigris with him. Bolan grabbed his rifle and a bandolier and helped push the prisoner’s limp body out the sunroof. Smiley blinked and gasped. Bolan grabbed her and hauled her out of the Bronco. He reached back inside and pulled her carbine out of its rack.

“Smiley! You all right?” The agent stared at Bolan out of a mask of blood. Her left eyebrow was hanging off her face. Bolan held up his middle finger. “How many you see?”

“Screw you!” Smiley replied.

Bolan shoved her carbine into her arms. “You’re gonna be all right!”

LeCaesar slapped Nigris forehand and back, but the killer seemed catatonic. Bolan didn’t think it had much to do with the crash. LeCaesar made a terrible face as he tossed the prisoner across his shoulders like a sack of corn. The PFP agent was hurt. Bolan jacked a fresh grenade into his launcher. “Mole!”

“¡De nada!” Mole rose to his feet with a groan. “Go! Go! Go!”

Bolan looked up the street. A rocket attack had left Vector 2 a burning hulk. It didn’t look as if anyone had gotten out. Behind them Vector 3 had left the last enemy SUV riddled like Swiss cheese. Bolan slung one of Smiley’s arms over his shoulder and clicked his com unit. “Vector 3! We need you!”

“Copy that!”

“Control! This is Vector 1! Convoy under heavy attack! Vector 3 vehicle damaged! Package intact! Vector 2 is gone with all aboard! Repeat! Vector 2 is gone!”

“Copy that, Vector 1.” The voice of the DEA controller in California was grim. “Helicopter inbound. Sending Vector 3 extraction route now!”

Vector 3 came roaring up the block victoriously. A dark blue Ford F-150 came screaming down the road to meet them. Instincts honed in battle on every continent on earth roared up and down Bolan’s spine. “Vector 3! Abort! Take evasive action! Get out of here!”

“Negative Vector 1!” DEA agents sprouted out of the windows of Vector 3 and fire chattered from the muzzles of their carbines. They tore forward in an eight-cylinder, automatic-weapon jousting match. “We don’t leave people behind!”

The enemy wasn’t jousting. They were playing chicken, and Bolan’s guts told him they weren’t going to blink. Bolan dropped Smiley and brought up his rifle as the Ford flew by. Fire strobed from the muzzle and spent casings flew as he held the trigger down on full-auto, ripping the Ford’s rear tires. Vector 3 realized a heartbeat too late what the Ford’s intentions were. Vector 3 swerved at the last second, and the F-150 turned to meet them.

The vehicles collided head-on at a combined speed of over 100 mph.

The DEA men firing out of the windows of Vector 3 snapped like kindling from the impact. The assassin riding shotgun in the Ford flew through his windshield like a rocket of flesh and blood and plowed through Vector 3’s windshield, as well. The two 4x4s bounced apart like mountain goat rams that had crippled each other with one apocalyptic hit. Both vehicles were crumpled like tin cans. Bolan’s blood went cold as he reloaded and slapped his rifle’s bolt into battery. No one was getting out of either vehicle. Drug muscle wasn’t known for going kamikaze. Something was terribly wrong. “We gotta go. We gotta go now.”

“Jesus…” Smiley used her carbine to lever herself up.

LeCaesar groaned beneath Nigris’s deadweight.

“Give him to me.”

LeCaesar snarled. Nigris was still officially his prisoner until he was handed over to U.S. authorities. “Go!”

Bolan clicked his com. “Control, this is Vector 1. All convoy vehicles disabled. Vector 3 is gone. Package intact. We need extraction now or nev—”

Two Mercury Grand Marquis, one black, one brown, both with tinted windows, cruised down the street. They weren’t suicide sleds like the first wave of attack. They were cruising slow, prowling, the clean-up squad. “Bree, Mole, we got company.”

“Jesus!” Smiley flipped her carbine’s selector lever to full-auto. “How many of these guys are there?”

Too many, Bolan thought. He led his team down a side street as the two sedans slid around the burning hulk of Vector 2. They ducked down one narrow street and then another. The streets turned into alleys and barrios swiftly turned into unlighted, two-story adobes, huddled together with dirt for streets and lines of laundry stretched between them. The stars and a few strands of Christmas lights were the only light save occasional votive candles on stoops. Nigris squeaked as he tipped off LeCaesar’s back and landed in a fetid puddle. The agent’s weapon clattered as the man dropped to his hands and knees. Bolan kept an eye on the maze as Smiley dropped to a knee beside the Mexican agent. “You okay, amigo?”

LeCaesar mumbled in Spanish that it was nothing and he was fine. Then he threw up. Smiley wiped his chin and grimaced at the dark stain on her hand. “He got busted up in the crash. He’s bleeding inside. We need to call—”

“We don’t call anybody.”

“What do you mean—”

“I mean all bets are off.” Bolan turned off his com. “I don’t trust anybody but you and him.”

LeCaesar pushed himself to his knees and wiped blood from his chin. “The gringo is right. We trust no one.”

Bolan cocked his head at Smiley. “How come she’s not a gringa?”

LeCaesar rose with her help. “She’s mexicana honoraria.”

“How do I get to be an honorary Mexican?”

The agent flashed bloody teeth. “You have made progress tonight.”

“Great. Can I have Cuah’s keys?”

LeCaesar’s smile fell from his face. “That man is a killer and a cannibal. I am not so sure that is a good idea.”

“I don’t want to carry him and you can’t.” Bolan shrugged. “Just his legs. So he can haul his own freight.”

The agent looked at Smiley, who nodded. LeCaesar agreed. “Sí.” He pulled a dog-tag chain bearing handcuff keys from beneath his armor.

Bolan unlocked Nigris’s hobble and leaned in close. “Don’t even think about it.” Nigris whimpered. Bolan could smell the fear on him sweating through his clothes, and he didn’t like it at all.

“Mole, I thought this guy was supposed to be a genuine badass.”

“He is.” LeCaesar didn’t like it either. “Or at least he was.”

Bolan hauled Nigris to his feet. “We need to find a vehicle.”

LeCaesar grabbed Nigris by the scruff of the neck and jammed his weapon in his back. “The next main street is that way.”

Headlights suddenly flared to brights as if on cue. The black sedan filled the narrow alleyway the way they had come. Smiley and LeCaesar opened up. Sparks walked across the Mercury’s hood and bullets chipped glass. “They’re armored!” Smiley shouted. Brights hit them from the other end of the alley and they were pinned between the rapidly closing bumpers. Bolan was out of antiarmor rounds for his grenade launcher.

Nigris broke free of LeCaesar and ran screaming down the alley, waving his arms. “¡Maricon!” the agent snarled, but he wasn’t willing to shoot his suspect.

“Cuah!” Bolan roared.

The black sedan accelerated. Nigris froze like a deer and the vehicle ran him down. He flew ten feet and the Mercury followed, grinding him to paste beneath its wheels. Both sedans advanced, putting Bolan, Smiley and LeCaesar in the big squeeze. The two agents fired without effect. There was nowhere to go. Bolan pulled a high-explosive grenade. Most civilian vehicle armor jobs were armored in the windows and body panels. Only the highest end military and diplomatic vehicles’ undersides were mine-proofed.

Bolan pulled the pin and went bowling for bad guys.

He counted down one second of fuse time and underhanded the grenade down the alley. It bounced beneath the bumper of the oncoming brown Mercury. The front of the Marquis lifted higher than any low-rider dared dream as the undercarriage was annihilated. “C’mon!”