Don Pendleton - Border Offensive

“Sorry. Instinct, man,” James said, letting his pistol spin around his trigger finger until the butt was facing Bolan. “You can have it back now.”

“Keep it,” Bolan said simply.

Chapter 2

“He’s legit,” Hal Brognola said, his voice echoing oddly through the receiver of the satellite phone. “He’s been with the United States Border Patrol for ten years, straight out of college. He’s a good one, Striker.”

“He mentioned Interpol,” Bolan said.

“Seconded, recently,” the big Fed said. “He and his partner.”

“Partner?” Bolan looked at James, where he squatted beside Ernesto’s body, going through the man’s pockets. “He didn’t mention a partner.”

“Why would he? He doesn’t know if you’re legit, either, Striker,” Brognola said, sounding amused. Bolan grunted. There was truth in that.

“I guess I don’t have one of those faces, huh?”

“Not even close.” Brognola cleared his throat. “From what I can tell, you just dropped into the middle of something that’s been in play for a while, barring recent changes.”

“I’m not going to like this, am I?” Bolan said.

“No, not really. It’s a mess, and only going to get messier. Interpol’s involved, Border Patrol wants the coyotes shut down and all the other federal agencies are screaming about being kept out of the loop. No one really knows what’s going on out there.”

“Including us,” Bolan said.

“How is that new?” Brognola said.

“It’s not,” Bolan said. “Well, whatever the game is, I’m dealing myself in.”

“Why did I have a feeling you’d say that?” Brognola sighed. “Look, I’ll try to find out what’s going on, on my end. Keep me posted on yours. Oh, and, Striker? Let’s keep the property damage to a minimum until we know whose field we’re playing in, okay?”

“Sure thing,” Bolan said and turned off the phone. He clipped it back on his rig and started toward James. “You didn’t tell me you had a partner,” he said. The border patrol agent stood, clapping dirt off his pants.

“Figured if you were really who you said you were, you’d find out, Cooper.” He rubbed his cheek. Bolan had given James the name of his Justice Department cover identity, Agent Matt Cooper, reasoning that it was the quickest way to get the man to trust him. So far, it seemed to have worked.

“Well, I have. Who is he?”

“He’s a ‘she,’ actually. Her name’s Amira Tanzir, with Interpol. She’s working things from the back end.” James watched curiously as Bolan knelt and grabbed Ernesto’s legs. “What are you doing?”

“I’m moving the bodies onto the truck. Jihadists,” Bolan said, dragging the body up into the truck. Clapping his hands together, he hopped down and made for another one.

“Maybe—that’s the rumor at any rate,” James said, rubbing his throat. “Hell, I don’t know, I just go where they tell me, Cooper.”

“But that’s the rumor.”

“Yeah,” he said. Bolan looked at him as he got another body onto the truck. According to Brognola, Jimmy-Jorge James was a veteran of countless border skirmishes with smugglers of all types of cargo—including humans. He’d made his bones taking down snakehead rings in California before gravitating east to the Mexican front, and the troubles there.

Presently he was acting as a dogsbody for Interpol. Bolan could tell that it grated on the man, and the Executioner allowed himself a quick smile. He knew that feeling well. You grew used to working alone, to following your own initiative. It made it hard to follow orders, when it became time to do so again. That was one of the reasons for his current arrangement with the Stony Man organization. That, and the fact that Bolan felt that he was simply more effective on his own. He moved the last body onto the tailgate of the truck and shut it, flipping the body onto the others.

“How long have you been under?” Bolan said, rounding the truck and sinking to his haunches. He unsheathed his KA-BAR and punctured the gas tank with one swift, economical strike. Rising to his feet, he looked at James.

“Only a few months,” the young agent said. “We got word that some of the cartels were using coyotes to get pigment—”

“Pigment?” Bolan said, stepping away from the thin trail of gasoline carving a swath through the dirt of the street. “Step back.”

“Black tar heroin,” James said, backing up toward his van. “Are you sure about this?”

“You’d rather I leave it here?”

“I’d rather you let me call my bosses and let them come confiscate it. Have you ever heard of chain of evidence?”

“No guarantees they’d get to it before someone else did. I’d hate to have gone through all this trouble just to see this crap wind up right where it was going anyway,” Bolan said, pulling a box of matches out of one of the pockets on his combat rig.

“Yeah, about that,” James said. “What the hell was this about? You guys could have let us know you were planning an operation on our patch.”

“No time, I’m afraid. Jihadists,” Bolan said, trying to steer the conversation back on topic and away from dangerous shoals.

“Yeah, well, same shit, different angle. I got myself established as a coyote. I got some routes, made friends, that kind of thing.” James leaned against the side of his van, arms crossed. “I met Sweets.”

“Who’s Sweets?” Bolan said, lighting a match. He dropped it and stepped back in a hurry. The tiny flame caught and zipped back along the gasoline trickle.

“Sweets is Django Sweets. Big-time king coyote. Runs people, drugs, guns, car parts, whatever you want, whichever direction you want them going in. Coyotes have sort of an informal union, if you can believe it.”

Bolan could. He’d seen it again and again with various types of criminals. Someone invariably put themselves on top. “Yes,” he said. When he didn’t elaborate, James went on.

“Sweets put himself in the top spot a few months back. He’s in slick with the cartels, and, unfortunately, it looks like he’s got an in with us as well. He’s been running mules—illegal migrants carrying drugs—into Tucson and such, and he’s skated out of at least two sure-thing sting operations.”

“So you are saying you have a leak?” Bolan said. The truck was engulfed in flames, taking the heroin and the bodies of the transporters with it.

“Worse. We think Sweets has got people covering for him. Don’t know who though. We were hoping to scoop them up in the middle of all this.”

“All what?” Bolan said. “All my contact knew was that it was a mess.”

“Sweets was contacted a few weeks ago by a guy named Tuerto,” James said.

Bolan blinked. “One-Eye?” he said, translating.

“Mr. One-Eye, actually, or at least, that’s how Sweets referred to him.” James shook his head. “We had no clue who he was at the time, but then we got a panicky shout-out from Interpol.”

“Terrorist?”

“Worse. He’s a mercenary, and a good one. His sticky fingerprints are all over a number of incidents going from one end of the world to the other.” James shrugged. “At least, that’s what Interpol said. And they should know, because they’ve been tracking him for three years.”

“Your partner,” Bolan said, reading between the lines. James nodded.

“Yeah, she’s some hot shit, according to her bosses. Undercover work, tactical assault, all that jazz.”

“And what do you make of her?” Bolan asked shrewdly. Tanzir sounded competent, if nothing else.

James was silent for a moment. Bolan could practically see the gears turning in his head. When he finally answered, he chose his words with care. “She’s...intense. Tuerto’s...” He trailed off. “Listen, have you ever read any Melville?”