Don Pendleton - State Of War

“You think they’re under observation,” Kaino stated.

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“You think we got observed going in?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me at all,” Bolan said.

“Great, we’ve been made.”

“You worried about getting slap-jacked the same way?”

“Hell no.” Kaino grinned and reached into the bag he had taken from his apartment. He pulled out a twelve inch beavertail sap that was scuffed from long use, dry from long storage but shined with recent buffing. “I’m looking forward to meeting the competition.”

“I thought you said Miami-Dade banned those.”

“I’m on an open-ended, paid, consulting leave of absence. I’m interpreting that to mean I have a great deal of leeway in my operational and equipment requirement paradigms.

“So, you want to drop in on Los Zetas, anyway?”

“I think we’ll start with the local affiliates and work our way up the food chain. I’m looking at you for a place to start.”

“Oh, I got a place we can start.” Kaino slapped the sap into his palm.

* * *

B OLAN EYED THE DRUG fortress. It was an old, brick, two-story business building that had once housed an accounting firm. The windows were now barred and boarded. The front door was shiny stainless steel with a security camera above it, and a requisite oversize gangbanger stood in front mad-dogging anyone who walked by. The street was busy, but the locals made an extra effort to cross the street and not walk by. “Who lives here again?”

“A Zeta asshole named Salami.” Kaino handed Bolan a file.

Walter “Salami” Salemo had hair halfway down his back, wore a big white pirate shirt and stared into the mug shot camera with brown-eyed earnestness. The Salami looked like he should have been playing The Beatles’ “Rocky Raccoon” on a twelve-string guitar in a coffee bar someplace instead of being one of Miami-Dade’s most notorious meth distributors. According to the file, Salami had recently moved into moving crocodile.

Kaino waved his hand impatiently at the photo. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, but don’t let the noble-faired, long-haired, leaping-gnome look fool you. This guy Salami is a total dick.” Kaino poked a puckered scar on his chin Bolan had assumed was from his boxing career. “I got the scars to prove it. This guy will fool you. He nearly took my head off a few years back. Practices capoeira and shit.”

Bolan duly noted Salami’s martial arts background and raised an eyebrow at the man’s résumé. “Argentine?”

“The South Americans love coming to Florida.”

“Don’t I know it,” Bolan replied.

“So, you kicked the shit out of three gangs last night. You kicked the crap out of the Russians this morning. What’s on the agenda for the afternoon? You going to walk up to the door and start kicking the crap out of Salami and his people?”

“That was my first plan of attack. You got a better one?” the soldier asked.

“Listen, no one respects how you roll more than me.”

“Glad to hear that.”

“But sooner or later this ‘biggest dick on the block’ routine of yours is going to get us in some real trouble.”

“Well, all right, then. Wait until I’ve breached the door.”

“Your funeral.”

“Not if you can help it, Kaino.”

“Here we go again...”

Bolan took the baseball out of the box he had received by courier and slid out of the car. He set the modified Pittsburg Pirates cap on his head and walked across the street toward Salami’s fortress of narcatude. He wore earth sandals, cargo shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. By his own admission Bolan looked like a total rube. The gangbanger watching the door was built like a sumo wrestler. His tracksuit was blinding white and he had an Army Ranger high and tight haircut. Zeta tattoos covered his throat. Bolan walked up and gave the door guard a happy wave. “Howdy!”

“Basta, gringo.”

Bolan tilted his head like a dog hearing a sound it didn’t recognize. “What?”

The doorman gave Bolan a pitying look. “Fuck off.”

Bolan stared at the door guard like he might start crying. “But...I...”

“Madre de Dios...” The gangbanger rolled his eyes. “Fuck off.”

Bolan dropped to one knee and drove his fist three inches below the gangbanger’s belt line.

The fat man slowly sagged as his bladder hemorrhaged. “Oh, God...”

Bolan’s uppercut ripped the guard into unconsciousness. The soldier took out his Beretta 93-R. He gave the security camera the middle finger and then gave it a 3-round burst. The security camera burst apart. Bolan took a moment to take an indelible marker out of his pocket and wrote “El Hombre” on the fatman’s forehead.

Kaino shouted in Bolan’s earpiece. “You sick fuck!”

“Bank on it, Kaino.”

Dim sounds of consternation occurred behind the security door. Bolan pushed a thumbnail-size lozenge of plastic explosive into the lock and jammed a detonator pin into the mix. He took out his phone and hit an app.

“Fire in the hole!” Bolan pressed the icon and a fat chunk of fire left the doorknob in ruins. He pulled the pin on a grenade. “Any time, Kaino.”

Bolan kicked the door. Rage-faced gangbangers pulling guns confronted him. Rage turned to horror as the grenade clattered to the floor at their feet. The soldier waved and stepped back outside around the doorway. The sting-ball grenade detonated to the screams of the blunt-trauma beaten. He pulled the pin on a flash-bang and tossed it in. The foyer flashed with several thousand candlepowers of light and an Olympian thunder crack of sound.

Bolan stepped inside.

The sensory overloaded gangbangers were barely aware as Bolan put the mark of El Hombre on their foreheads. Kaino charged in with guns drawn and took in the scene. “You fascinate me.”

Bolan moved toward the stairs. The charging Zeta thugs had been stupid enough to leave the steel security gate to the stair open behind them. Bolan shouted up the stairs. “Yo! Ham-slice! Let’s talk!”

A torrent of Spanish insults echoed down the stairs. Bolan lobbed a sting-ball grenade up to the second-story landing. He stepped back as the cloud of rubber buckshot partially expanded back down the stairs. Bolan followed it with a flash-bang and the stairwell turned into the Norse god Thor’s personal thunder tunnel. “On my six, Kaino.”

Bolan took the steps three at a time.

A gunman crawled across the floor, blind and stunned, with his AK abandoned. Bolan gave him a lash across the left kidney with the slide of his Beretta to keep him honest and moved toward Salami’s inner sanctum. Kaino reached the second floor and kept his weapons trained behind them.

“Kaino,” Bolan called. “Give me a quick sweep.”

Kaino swept the stripped offices. “Empty!” He gave the steel door at the end of the hall a significant look. “They’ve gone all safety room on us. Probably calling in reinforcements.”

Bolan concurred and walked up to the steel door.

“What are you going to do?”

Bolan dramatically pulled out a short cylinder of flexible charge and made a fist. He put the cylinder between his middle and ring fingers and held it up to the security camera like a high explosive middle finger.

“Here we go...” Kaino muttered.

Bolan gave the hapless video device a 3-round burst from the Beretta, pressed the adhesive side of the explosive against the door lock and stuck in the detonator pin. “Fire in the hole.”

Bolan pressed the app on his phone and flexible charge cut a blackened crescent around the lock. The crack of the HE died as the soldier came to a decision. “Kaino, I need Salami alive. I’m going to try to take him. If it all goes to shit, you do what you have to do.”