Devil's Playground

“You’re preaching to the choir, Blanca,” Diceverde replied. “She’d been flagging things for me to look at. We’ve both noticed something new burrowing into Acapulco’s drug scene. Someone has been giving the Juarez Cartel a real knocking.”

“And this is why Rosa was killed? Brujillo and his wife have been working hard together to end the hold that the cartels have over Acapulco. Rosa told me that she was investigating all forms of threats detected against Madame Brujillo.”

“And on the surface, they seemed to be antigovernment attacks, but Rosa was curious about the sheer ferocity levied against the first lady,” Diceverde replied. “She sent me copies of her research into a new player on the drug scene, organized around a Santa Muerte cult.”

Blanca wrinkled her nose at the mention of the death cult, a popular subreligion that had sprung up in the underworld. Loosely based on Santería, Santa Muerte was a more ethically flexible religion, its morality open enough to allow drug dealers and murderers with faith issues to make amends for their wrongdoing with prayer and sacrifice, without hindering their more bloodthirsty and highly profitable activities. Suddenly the sins of dealing poison or mowing down another human being could be washed away with a moment’s contrition without renunciation of their previous crimes. Congregations sprung up in destitute slums and prison blocks across Mexico, and followers came from every walk of life, from the lowest gutter urchin to the most powerful drug baron.

“So if Rosa was picking up leads about Santa Muerte cultists taking over the state’s drug scene and trying to kill the governor and his wife…” Blanca began.

“The cultists have never made an attempt against Señora Brujillo,” Diceverde countered. “They have been hitting the Juarez Cartel and the smaller organizations hard, so much so that the Juarez group has been importing help from overseas.”

“So why would they accuse my sister of being part of this Santa Muerte cult and its takeover bid?” Asado asked. “Or of trying to murder the first lady?”

“We might never know,” Diceverde answered. “Maybe she saw something during the hit. There was a sighting of two men escaping the resort after the gunfight. An evidence technician I know also told me, off the record, that he was ordered to eliminate evidence of two 9 mm submachine guns from the battle scene.”

“Two 9 mm SMGs?” Asado asked. She did some mental arithmetic, looking at the reports of the fight. “The assassins were using Mexican-issue G3 rifles. The bodyguards had .45 and .38-caliber handguns and submachine guns. The first lady shot several assassins using a .38 owned by one of the protection detail…”

“And she shot your sister in the head,” Diceverde punctuated.

Asado took a deep breath. “After my sister might have been responsible for at least four dead assassins.”

“Too many shell casings to match with slugs,” Diceverde countered. “But you know Rosa and her baby Detonics .45s.”

“She was deadly with them,” Blanca replied. Her brow furrowed and her eyes began to sting. “Rosa wouldn’t have tried to shoot the first lady, even if she was responsible for a fake assassination attempt on herself. She wouldn’t have pulled a gun on her!”

“Everything that First Lady Brujillo is saying contradicts the hints that Rosa and I had been gathering,” Diceverde replied. His lips pulled into a tight line across his mouth. “Unfortunately, someone got to Rosa’s copies of the records when she died.”

“Someone on her protection detail who hadn’t been killed at the resort, most likely,” Asado said, her mind focusing on the problem.

“Not likely. The first lady liked to keep her personal staff close by. Anyone severed from her service usually ended up going somewhere far away,” Diceverde explained.

Asado frowned. “So that’s why the Feds want to talk to me.”

“If they’ve been fooled into thinking that Rosa was dirty, they might want to know how much she told you,” Diceverde added.

Asado took a deep breath. “I need to talk to someone about this. I know some people who know some people.”

“How many trust you enough to give you that kind of wiggle room?” Diceverde asked.

Asado’s shoulders fell.

The room was hot and cramped, bugs rattling against the rapidly disintegrating screen on the window. A small, naked bulb in a desk lamp glowed, throwing light on the reporter’s copies of Rosa Asado’s notes.

“The dent in the Juarez Cartel’s activity came when Governor Brujillo was elected,” Asado noted. “And it’s only become larger the more the governor cracked down on the cartel.”

“Circumstantial evidence. Nothing that would stand up in a court of law,” Diceverde admitted, regret weighing his words.

Bugs fluttered en masse from the screen, buzzing away into the night, drawing Asado’s attention. Something had frightened the tiny, sensitive creatures. Her hand slid under the loose tail of her blouse and she pulled out a hammerless .357 Magnum snub-nosed Ruger.

Diceverde’s eyes widened at the sight of the revolver. “What—”

Asado put a finger to her lips and shook her head. The journalist fell silent, hazel eyes going to the window. She pushed him to the wall and guided him to sit, protected by brick and masonry.

“I didn’t even see that,” Diceverde whispered.

“Well, if you had, then it wouldn’t be doing the job I wanted it to,” Asado replied. “Shush.”

A fist punched through the tattered windowscreen, an ugly, lime-shaped object locked in it. Asado clamped her hand over it, clenching it tight, and jammed the muzzle of the Ruger up into the wrist attached to it. Two thunderbolt blasts ripped through the confined room, the sheer power of the Magnum pistol enough to sever the appendage.

A howl of pain cut through the night and she hurled the disembodied hand back through the screen. A heartbeat later the brutal little round object exploded, rocking the walls and ceiling hard enough to rain dust in the room. Diceverde winced from the grenade blast, but realized that if the mysterious hand had let go of the bomb, the two of them would undoubtedly have been killed instantly.

Curses sounded outside and Asado swept the files off the table, stuffing them into Diceverde’s briefcase. “Come on, Armi.”

The journalist wasn’t waiting for a second invitation. He was up and on the woman’s heels in a flash. He paused long enough to retrieve a nickel-plated Colt 1911 from a drawer and thumbed the hammer back, short fingers wrapping easily around the slender autoloader’s grip. He jammed two spare magazines loaded with .38 Super rounds into his offside pocket.

Though it was against the law for civilians to own guns in Mexico, that didn’t stop people from breaking the law. As well, Diceverde had made enough enemies across his career as a reporter to know he needed a powerful and reliable handgun. They didn’t get much more powerful and reliable than the Colt in .38 Super.

Asado grabbed a handful of Diceverde’s shirt and shoved him through the door as an assault rifle poked through the window frame. She opened fire on the weapon in the portal, her pistol blazing like the sun. Bullets chopped just an inch over Diceverde’s head, letting him know just how close he had come to dying. His stocky legs propelled him through the doorway and the front door to the building opened, a black shadow appearing in front of him.

The journalist saw the unmistakable profile of an AK-47 in the man’s hands, and Diceverde triggered the Colt twice. The .38 Super roared in the darkness, creating bright strobes of light. The rifleman jerked, and Diceverde wasn’t sure if he had scored hits or not.

A muzzle-flash flared from the mouth of the AK, but it was stretched and elongated. Having been present for enough gunfights, the little reporter knew that the shots had been discharged into the ceiling. Diceverde triggered the Colt twice more, cracking out 125-grain hollow-point rounds at well over 1300 feet per second, aiming just behind the origin of the muzzle-flash. He was glad he’d spent the money on having night-sights installed on the shiny pistol. By following the vibrant neon-green dot hovering in the distance between the more indistinct yellow rear dots, he knew exactly where he was aiming.

A strangled cry filled the air and the rifle clattered to the floor.

Thunderbolts launched from behind Diceverde and he jerked his attention to another figure in the door, which was writhing as Magnum projectiles speared through his body, soft, exposed lead peeling apart on contact with fluid biomass and tunnelling horrendous cavities through the chest of another gunman.

Diceverde ran to the door and pressed his broad back to the wall to the side. He took the momentary break to drop his half-empty magazine and pocket it, feeding a new stick of nine shots into the Colt.

He heard the clicking of metal as somewhere in the shadows, Blanca Asado reloaded the partially spent AK-47.

“We’ll need the firepower,” Asado stated.

“Blanca…” Diceverde began.

The words he intended to say were ripped from his memory as the wall suddenly exploded behind him, concussive forces hurling him to the floor, his vision blurring.

CHAPTER TWO

The Executioner snipped chain links in the fence with his multitool, a sharp, powerful vise for cutting wire set at the base of the folding pliers. The circle of fence fell away, and he crawled through the hole.

He’d left his Barrett and the confiscated G3 behind in the truck, knowing that going in, he needed stealth and their added bulk would make his large, powerful frame even more noticeable. Still, he had the wicked Beretta 93-R machine pistol with its 20-round capacity and blunt suppressor under his arm, and the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle riding on his hip. Both handguns had been chosen by Bolan for their power and range. The Desert Eagle had proved itself a killer at out to two hundred yards, and the Beretta 93-R was a match for any submachine gun in his skilled hands, out to one hundred yards.

Though it was the Executioner’s plan to bring a fatal, final judgment to the commander of the smuggling forces who’d returned to the base, there was the possibility of uninvolved, honest Mexican soldiers staffing this facility. Opening fire without proper identification would put innocent blood on Bolan’s hands.

Luckily, aside from his pistols, Bolan also had various knives, garrottes and impact tools, truly silent means of delivering death. He saw the last of the trucks pull toward the motor pool, overladen with soldiers. All it would take would be one grenade to eliminate the smuggling military men, but before Bolan took out the enemy commander, he needed to get answers out of the man. A grenade might not leave enough left of the traitorous military leader to question, and an open gunfight would result in a conflict with soldiers whose duty was the defense of the base, not pushing heroin across the border.

Stalking closer, a shadow among shadows, Bolan closed on the group as soldiers disgorged from the truck.