Devil's Mark. Don Pendleton
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!”
Bolan was already charging. The sedan behind them roared with acceleration. The Executioner burned half his clip into the stricken Marquis’s windshield from the hip-assault position. He leaped onto the hood and helped up his companions. “Go!” They slipped over the hood and down the trunk. Bolan turned toward the oncoming juggernaut and emptied his weapon into the windshield. His rifle clacked open on a smoking empty chamber as the sedan hurtled in. Bolan jumped.
The brown sedan beneath his boots disappeared backward and was replaced by a black one. Metal flew. The black Mercury slammed to a stop and Bolan landed on the hood. The occupants were barely discernable behind the tinted glass. He reloaded his rifle and began to fire into the driver’s side point-blank. The twenty steel-core rounds bit into the armored glass, the last five punching through.
Bolan pulled his last frag, armed it and shoved the bomb through the coffee-cup-diameter hole his rifle rounds had dug.
The interior of the Mercury flashed yellow, then sprayed red; it filled with scything shrapnel with nowhere to go. Bolan reloaded his rifle, jumped down and clambered across the shattered vehicle. Smiley and LeCaesar were street side, and he trotted up and joined them. No cars were immediately in sight. Bolan took out his phone and made a called the Farm.
Back in Virginia, Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman answered on the first ring. “Striker! Where are you? We’ve been monitoring the DEA com link. It’s blowing up, and Tijuana looks like a war zone.”
“We were made the second we left the safe house. We’re down eight DEA men and we lost the package. We got our hats handed to us, Bear, and right now I got a federale in real bad shape. I need you to vector me to a hospital, and I don’t want to meet bad guys, federales or anybody else on the way.”
“That’s going to be easier said than done. I have the real-time feed from the satellite the DEA is using. The streets are swarming with cops and soldiers. All Mexican police and federal frequencies are blowing up.”
“I figured.” Bolan glanced at a manhole. “Pull up a schematic of the Tijuana sewer system. I’m extracting underground.”
“Interesting.” Bolan could hear keys clicking on the Kurtzman’s side. “Give me a minute.”
“Copy that.” Bolan broke cover and walked over to the manhole. It looked as if it hadn’t been moved in years. It was baked into the street, and he didn’t have time to wrestle with it. The Executioner pulled an offensive grenade from his bandolier, pulled the pin and dropped the bomb. “Fire in the hole!” He ran back to the car and slid across the hood to cover. The night flashed orange. People in their homes screamed and every dog in the neighborhood started barking. Bolan rose from cover followed by his battered team. The manhole cover was gone and the hole it had covered had been somewhat enlarged. “You got something for me, Bear?”
“Yeah, I’m not sure about sewer reception with your rig, so I’m just going to download the route to your phone. You’ll be on your own until you surface.”
“Copy that.” Smoke rolled out of the hole but even the acrid smell of burned high explosive couldn’t cover the septic stench that awaited them down in the darkness. Bolan watched as a dull green grid of lines began to scroll on the screen of his phone. His route suddenly highlighted in red. “Got it. Bree, Mole, c’mon.”
Smiley and LeCaesar limped to the hole and both of them wrinkled their noses in unison.
“Shit,” the DEA agent said.
“Mierda,” LeCaesar echoed.
Bolan considered the evening’s activities. Shit was right, and shit was all they had. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER TWO
Bree Smiley wasn’t smiling. She wouldn’t be quirking her eyebrow at anyone anytime soon, either. Blood leaked down her cheek as the Mexican intern sewed her left eyebrow back onto her face. Despite the blood and swelling, the DEA agent’s thoughts were clearly written on her face. She wasn’t happy. Bolan leaned in the door frame with his left hand bandaged. “You did good, Smiley.”
“We lost our prisoner and eight agents.”
“You survived.”
Smiley rolled an eye at the needle going in and out of her brow. “I got mutilated.”
“Scars are sexy.”
“Sicko.” Bree snorted and the effort made her wince. “How’s Mole?”
“He got tossed around pretty good in the crash. Busted ribs, his kidneys are bleeding. His left lung didn’t deflate, but it’s lacerated. Good news is the doctor doesn’t want to operate. They were most worried about infection from our septic stroll down below. They taped him up, put him on antibiotics and sedated him. Rest is what he needs most.”
Smiley looked around without moving her head. “Pretty swank digs for Tijuana. Your controller did good.”
Bolan smiled. Kurtzman would be amused at being referred to as Bolan’s “controller,” but Smiley was right. He had chosen wisely. Hospital Angeles had been built by the Medical Tourism Corporation specifically to cater to patients visiting from the United States and Canada. It was pretty much medical colonialism, but Bolan wasn’t complaining and he doubted LeCaesar would, either. It was a thoroughly modern facility, and the best treatment anyone who had been in a gunfight in Tijuana was likely to get.
“Where are the rest of my boys?” Smiley asked.
Bolan had made some calls. “They’re at the morgue along with what’s left of Cuah and the dead perps. Your men are being prepped for transport to the States. Cuah and company are staying here.”
“What about you?”
Bolan shrugged. “What about me?”
“Well, Cuah’s dead. What’s the status of your liaison-observer apparatus now?”
“Status is I’m going to stick around for a while. Hope you don’t mind.”
Smiley was visibly relieved. “I was kind of hoping you’d say that. You know, if you hadn’t been there Mole and I wouldn’t have made it out alive.”
“Yeah,” Bolan agreed.
“Humble, too.”
He shrugged.
The woman looked at Bolan sincerely through her bruises. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
The intern dabbed away the remaining blood with a wipe and stepped back to admire his handiwork. “There.”
“What’s the prognosis?” Bolan asked.
“Twelve stitches.” He gave Agent Smiley a sympathetic look. “There will be a scar.”
“Scars are sexy.” Bree regarded Bolan dryly. “Or so I’m told.”
“Dr. Reyes suspects there may be concussion. It might be best if we kept you for observation until morning and scheduled you for an MRI. Do you—”
“Screw that.”
“Mmm.” The intern looked back and forth between Smiley and Bolan. “Somehow I suspected you would say that. Very well, I recommend you see your personal physician when you get back to the United States as soon as you can. If you experience nausea or dizziness before you return to the United States, come back here immediately.”
“Right, thanks.”
The intern took his clipboard, made some notes and left.
“Right.” Smiley stood up, made an unhappy noise and sat back down again. “Jesus…”
“Take it