Mission: Apocalypse

“Who didn’t?” Dominico admitted diplomatically.

“But you? Santo Solomon? When my boys were young? You were their hero. I took them to see you wrestle El Monstro Rojo when you won the title.” Corso managed to curb his hero worship slightly. “Forgive me, but may I ask why you are here?”

Colonel Llosa stared at Dominico with a professional interest that had nothing to do with wrestling. “I also must admit I am intrigued.”

“It’s somewhat complicated,” Bolan said. “Dr. Corso, may I show him your patients?”

“Of course.” There were sixteen beds in the tent but only two were occupied, and monitors, drips and machines surrounded them. Dominico jarred to a halt as they got close. The two men inhabiting the beds hardly looked human. Neither was conscious and their breath was so shallow that only the mournful beeps of the vital signs monitor indicated they were alive. Dozens of tubes and wires were busy carrying out their most basic bodily functions for them while other machines monitored their impending death. They were as stick-thin as famine victims and open sores covered their bald, sunken skulls.

“You know what’s killing these guys, Memo?” Bolan inquired.

“I don’t know.” Dominico stared at the two dying men greenly. “AIDS?”

Bolan read Dominico’s body language and saw no deception. “No, radiation poisoning.”

“Radiation poisoning?” Again Dominico was clearly both confused and appalled. “How did they get radiation poisoning?”

“They were exposed to radioactive material,” Llosa answered dryly. “Dr. Corso is the head of Nuclear Medicine at the American British Cowdray Hospital Cancer Center here in Mexico City. Doctor?”

Corso tapped his chart. “Both men were exposed to lethal levels of radiation. Given the rapid onset of symptoms and the searing of the lungs I believe they breathed in contaminated dust, most likely from spent nuclear fuel rods that had been stored improperly. We will most likely never know. Both men were in an advanced state when they were dropped off in the parking lot at Mexico City General. Neither man was conscious at the time of admission and neither has regained consciousness since. They were initially misdiagnosed as victims of some sort of virus and put under quarantine. Luckily the head virologist had received federal nuclear, biological and chemical emergency training and recognized the symptoms of radiation poisoning. It then became a military matter. I was called in and the United States government contacted.”

“Any luck IDing them?” Bolan asked.

The colonel shook his head grimly. “As you know, neither man had any identification on their person. The federal police ran their prints and came up empty. Your FBI had no record of them, either. They lack any of the usual gang tattoos. If I had to bet? These men are campesinos from the countryside, day laborers who came to Mexico City looking for work. I would also wager neither man was told what he was handling and neither were any safety or decontamination protocols observed.” He shook his head sadly. “They were used and then thrown away.”

“There isn’t any radioactive material in Mexico!” Dominico objected.

“Not normally,” Bolan agreed. “In this case Mexico is a transshipment point.”

The colonel gave Dominico a severe look. “And you know all about transshipment points, don’t you, Memo?”

Dominico flinched.

Bolan steered the conversation back to business. “I believe these men were exposed to the same radioactive material that was being stored at your warehouse outside of Culiacán.”

“I told you man! It isn’t my warehouse anymore!”

Bolan gave Dominico a long, hard look. “Someone is using your routes and your contacts to smuggle nuclear materials through Mexico.”

Dominico shook his head vehemently. “No one is using my routes, man!”

“Yeah?” Bolan leaned in close. “Well, someone used the warehouse and the airstrip outside of Culiacán. Your old stomping grounds. You said yourself you gave out your territory when you retired.”

Dominico backed up a step. “No way, man! I said I gave up my piece of the action! I never gave up my routes, and I sure as hell never gave up my people or my contacts! I took care of my own!”

“You’re routes and your people are being used, Memo, and they’re going to start dying if this stuff is still being stored improperly. We don’t know where the material came from. All we know is that it was in Mexico City and then it was in Culiacán. It’s moving north, Memo, and at the end of the trail someone is going to build a bomb.”

Dominico gaped.

Bolan locked eyes with him. “I want your people, I want your old routes, I want your contacts and for that matter I want you. Everyone involved will go to ground when I start hunting, but they just might talk to King Solomon. You’re going to open some doors for me. With luck we might just stop something terrible from happening, and we might just save the lives of some people you care about along the way.” Bolan locked eyes with him. “You in or out?”

Dominico broke eye contact and stared over at the blistered, emaciated dying men in the beds. He looked back at Bolan and met his burning gaze. “I want a gun.”

Bolan shrugged. “What kind do you want?”

He blinked. “Uhh…an Uzi?”

“A bit old-fashioned these days.”

“First gun I had, when I started flying routes in the eighties. Nothing wrong with Hebrew steel.”

Bolan nodded at the wisdom of the statement. “Nothing at all.”

Culiacán New Airport

BOLAN PULLED AN UZI out of his gear bag. They were in a private hangar and Dominico had flown the Piper-Aztec from Mexico City. They were back in Sinaloa. Bolan had done some shopping at the CIA Mexico City station before their flight. “Here you go.”

“Damn, you weren’t kidding!” Dominico took the submachine and eyed the shortened barrel critically. “Why is it sawed off?”

“It’s an ex-U.S. Secret Service weapon. They removed a couple of inches of barrel so it would fit into their standard-issue briefcases. They called it ‘The Rabbi’ model.”

“Circumcised.” Dominico grinned and racked the action. The padded case Bolan handed him held the gun, an ex-Secret Service shoulder rig, six loaded magazines and a couple of boxes of spare ammo. Bolan pulled out a plain black windbreaker that had been cut to help conceal the rig.

They hadn’t spoken much on the flight. Bolan had given the man time to think things through. He’d been intimidated at the army medical facility, but Bolan didn’t want Memo Dominico intimidated or just turned. He wanted him dedicated to the fight. “So what are you thinking?”

Dominico scratched his chin. “I’m thinking we should go see a guy—Varjo. You said Salcido thought he was working for me. Any orders he’s taking these days would’ve probably have come through Varjo. I think maybe we should ask Varjo where he thinks his orders were coming from.”

“Varjo’s an old buddy of yours?”

“No way, man.” Dominico shook his head. “Varjo is a serious asshole, but when I was running things he always owed me a taste. When I left Sinaloa I heard he moved up. He’s one of the reasons I never gave anyone my contacts or my routes. He would have used them up, ripped them off and spent them like water, but he and Salcido were always thick. Both were always a little too dumb, and tried to make up for it by being too brutal. Salcido I could work with. He didn’t have any delusions of adequacy. Varjo on the other hand? He’s seen too many movies.”

Bolan got the picture.

“I figure we just drive right up and surprise him. You’re my bodyguard. If Varjo thinks he’s working for me, he should be a fucking gold mine of information. If he isn’t—” Dominico spread his hands as if casting their future to fate “—we’ll find out real quick.”

It wasn’t a bad plan.

The DEA presence in Sinaloa had been kind enough to have an unmarked Ford Bronco waiting for them on the tarmac, and the Farm had arranged for a full war load of equipment to be loaded in the back while Bolan had been in Mexico City. Bolan checked his weapons and put a Desert Eagle semiautomatic pistol in one shoulder holster and his machine pistol in the other. He pulled a leather jacket over his hardware and let Dominico drive.

Bolan scanned DEA files on his laptop.

Varjo Amilcar’s nickname was “El Martillo” or “The Hammer.” He had been a cruiserweight boxer of little distinction in the professional ranks but had taken what skills he had and traded them in as a freelance collection agent for various loan sharks in Sinaloa. His method was simple. His partner would hold a debtor in place while Amilcar worked them like a heavy bag. He had beaten several men to death and done a nickel standing on his head at the penal colony on Maria Madre Island. With his reputation made, he had used similar brutality and the connections he had made in prison to move into the drug trade. However Dominico’s estimation of Amilcar seemed accurate. In the drug war Amilcar just wasn’t officer material. Despite his elevated status he was still more of a muscle and go-to guy rather than a man who ran his own routes or had his own suppliers. Amilcar was strictly middle management. Dominico regarded him with professional contempt as well as the disdain most wrestlers had for boxers. Despite that both Bolan and Dominico were disturbed by the idea that Amilcar had somehow broken into Dominico’s old business circle.

He couldn’t have done it without help.

They drove north out of the city and paralleled the Humaya River. “I want to make a call,” Dominico said.

Bolan took out his phone and put it on speaker. “Go ahead.”