Don Pendleton - State Of War

TAKE NO PRISONERS

Death floods the streets of Florida as rival gangs kill for blood rights to the distribution of a new synthetic drug, Crocodil. The Russian substitute for heroin, it’s the ultimate prize in the drug turf wars—a cheap high that brings even cheaper death. As rival Mexican and Salvadoran cartels shoot it out for kingpin status, Mack Bolan joins the war. Unleashing incendiary hell on gang territory in Miami, he blasts his way through a pipeline that leads south to Guatemala, where a corrupt Swiss pharmaceutical company has set up manufacturing. Allied with a couple of locals equally dedicated to stopping this lethal fix before it hits Main Street, U.S.A., Bolan faces an army of hard-core mercenaries and miles of cartel blood lust. Outgunned but never outmaneuvered, the Executioner doesn’t soft-sell his brand of payback to these merchants of human misery. Bolan goes in hard and without mercy.

Bang scythed the grenadier’s legs out from under him

Bolan rose to one knee, swung up both .45s and emptied them into the remaining enemy gunner. He dropped his left-hand gun and clawed for his last magazine. The two surviving bikers tore away.

The soldier got to his feet and lurched into the street. The biker he had shot was crawling away. Most people didn’t crawl away with three .45’s in their back. That told Bolan the guy was wearing body armor.

The Executioner searched for his team. Kaino was helping Svarzkova to her feet and weeping from the CS stench she gave off. Bang had reloaded and was covering Bolan, who could barely hear his own voice as he shouted, “Banger, we’re taking this guy with us! Get the car. We’re out of here!”

State of War

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Junk is the ideal product… The ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through sewer and beg to buy.

—William S. Burroughs

There’s a new drug on the scene, one that consumes the addict’s flesh from within. What kind of madness is this? We must drive the people who promote this horror back to the sewers they emerged from. Permanently.

—Mack Bolan

Special thanks and acknowledgment to

Chuck Rogers for his contribution to this work.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

Miami Metropolitan Area, Florida

Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, slid into the unmarked car and stuck out his hand. “Evening, Master Sergeant.” Miami-Dade Police Master Sergeant Gadiel Kaino could have been Bill Cosby’s younger, bigger, redheaded brother who had been a prizefighter but let himself go. The Puerto Rican cop shook Bolan’s hand. “Call me Kaino.”

“Call me Cooper.”

“You sure you want to do this? They eat white men alive where you want to go, and they’ll eat me for aiding and abetting.”

Bolan had done his research. Kaino had a large reputation in the Miami Metropolitan Area for breaking rules, stepping on toes and being one of the toughest cops in the county. Bolan noted the small tattoo of a heart with a scrolling N inside it on the flesh between his right thumb and forefinger. Kaino had been a member of the Puerto Rican Netas gang in his youth. “I’m down if you are.”

Kaino was down. He stepped on the gas and the eighties-vintage Crown Victoria rumbled forward. Bolan could feel the tightness of the suspension as Kaino took them into the bowels of the Metro. Kaino was clearly wary of Bolan. “Justice Department Observation Liaison Officer?”

Bolan grinned. “That would be me.”

“You aren’t Marshals Service.”

“No, but I know some good marshals.”

“Yeah, me, too.” Kaino’s eyes narrowed. “You sure as hell aren’t a lawyer.”

“No.”

“Homeland Security?”

“Nope.”

Master Sergeant Kaino had come up through Miami-Dade during the explosion of cocaine and the war on drugs of the 1980s. He gave Bolan a disparaging look. “Tell me you aren’t CIA.”

“I’m not CIA,” Bolan confirmed.

“Okay, so, not to be a dick or anything...”

“But...?”

“Who the fuck are you?”

Bolan looked at the ID badge hanging over his chest. “I’m a Justice Department Observation Liaison Officer.”

Kaino made a noise. “That’s messed up.”

“Yeah, they’re usually a little more creative.”

“I hope you brought some heavy iron, man. Where we’re going isn’t good.”

Bolan glanced at his bulging gear bag in the back. “The hugest.”

Miami-Dade sweltered in the summer heat, and they instantly lost the breeze off the ocean as Kaino took them inland. The neighborhoods went from bad to worse to urban war zone. Groups of people on porches and street corners gave the Crown Vic very hard looks. Bolan noted a number of the hard cases gave Kaino wary nods of recognition and respect. A small minority waved. On a corner a pair of prostitutes dressed like aerobics instructors shrieked happily as they rolled by. “Hola, Kaino!” “Looking good, Papi!”

“Hola, Allana!” Kaino called. “And not as good as you, Bebe!”

Allana and Bebe fired off a string of sexually challenging remarks in Puerto Rican Spanish that Bolan wasn’t quite sure he wanted to understand. “Kaino, those girls are dudes.”

Kaino regarded Bolan with great seriousness. “I have a broad spectrum of support in the Miami-Dade Latino community.”

“Broad-spectrum support is good,” Bolan acknowledged.

Kaino pulled into what could only be described as urban Armageddon. A lonely gas station sat in the island of glare from the lights over its pumps. Most of the streetlights on the block around it had been shot out. Nearly all the telephone lines had shoes tied together thrown across them. Gang graffiti was everywhere.

Bolan regarded the little old-fashioned filling station with interest. “Interesting.”

“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

The soldier grabbed his gear bag, and Kaino led him around back. There was little to see other than a weed-choked lot and some warped and ancient picnic benches. Someone had smashed off the doorknob to the men’s room. Someone else had painted an X-rated fever dream of an Aztec priestess on the door. Even Bolan had to admit it was a triumph. It was such a work of art that no one had tagged it. He noted the security camera over the door hung by wires like a half-decapitated chicken. Kaino drew a pair of four-inch Smith & Wesson revolvers. Bolan carried a .50-caliber Desert Eagle in one hand and a Beretta 93-R machine pistol in the other.

Kaino regarded Bolan’s steel. “Jesus! You weren’t kidding!”

Bolan shrugged.

Kaino kicked the door. “Miami-Dade!”

The men’s room was empty.

Bolan mentally cataloged the wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-ceiling gang graffiti covering the bathroom. It appeared that Los Zetas, the Gulf Cartel and Mara Salvatrucha-13 all claimed this men’s room. Given the acts of gastrointestinal Armageddon covering the floor and the facilities, it appeared that none of the gangs felt compelled to take responsibility for the state of hygiene and maintenance of their claimed territory. Bolan gave Kaino a wry look. “The Netas don’t seem very well represented in this establishment, Kaino.”