Don Pendleton: Chicago Vendetta

“Maybe send a note in with his nurse? Call it police business.”

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Johnny. I’ve already made up my mind I’m gonna trust you on this one. But under one condition.”

“Which is?”

“You deal me in on the full story, no bullshit and no withholding anything.”

“Would you settle for 99 percent?”

“No, but I suppose I don’t have much choice. My career as a cop is on the line either way at this point.”

Johnny smiled. “Then we have a deal, Lakea.”

“Uh-huh. And why does it feel like I just made it with the Devil?”

* * *

The man who stood before Lakea Rusch no longer wore the garb of battle. He’d shed the skintight blacksuit and combat boots for blue jeans and a black V-necked pullover. A leather shoulder rig supported a pistol, and nearby on an oval table lay a stainless steel .44 Magnum Desert Eagle.

The weapons didn’t impress Rusch anywhere near as much as their owner. He moved and spoke with the air of a man in complete command of himself and his surroundings. She estimated he was well over six feet, maybe two hundred pounds, or a bit more, with dark hair. His eyes were a striking blue, and they seemed to appraise everything and everyone with the deadly menace of a tiger seeking prey.

The man had seemed pretty calm and collected when Johnny first introduced them in his rented condo. But she had questions, and plenty of them, and she wasn’t going to let him sidetrack her. She’d get answers, and if she didn’t like them, if everything didn’t seem like it was straight on the up-and-up, she’d put this dude in handcuffs and haul him downtown for interrogation.

* * *

Seated on the couch in the condo, the police sergeant introduced as Lakea Rusch crossed her legs and took in the view around her before looking at Johnny. “Pretty nice place for a private investigator, Johnny.”

He shrugged. “I told you, I’m good at my job.”

“I see.” Rusch turned her attention to Mack Bolan. “And you. I suppose if I asked for your name, you’d only lie to me.”

“You can call me Blanski. Or Mike, if you prefer.”

As Bolan took a seat at the table, Rusch said, “Johnny’s told me you’re here to help us.” When met with silence, she continued, “I’m counting on the fact he’s telling me the truth. I’ve disobeyed orders and failed to follow procedure on this entire thing since you guys breezed into town. My career is on the line.”

“It’s more than your career,” Bolan said. “Your life is on the line, along with the lives of your brothers and sisters in blue.”

“How many?”

“All of them, if Grec gets his way.”

“Who?” Rusch and Johnny echoed simultaneously.

“I’ve come across—” Bolan paused a moment and looked squarely at his brother “—that is, we have come across intel that suggests the incidents you linked together, Johnny, were all the brainchild of a man named Shalib Grec. Now, I could produce a litany of crimes he has committed, but since we’ve already determined he’s likely behind the deaths of police officers, there’s no point in airing out all of his lesser offenses. Bottom line, he needs to be stopped.”

“And you’re here to stop him,” Rusch interjected.

“I am.”

“So how did you know where to find us?” Johnny asked.

“I looked for you here, first, then at the station but had been told I’d just missed you. From there, I figured a call to our friend at the Farm would give me your position.”

Johnny nodded at his aha moment. “Of course...my laptop.”

“Your laptop,” Bolan repeated.

He returned his gaze to Rusch. “Johnny’s intuition about your man Esparza was correct. I got intel on the address to where you tailed him. It’s a former brewing company.”

“I knew that,” Rusch said. “I know my own city, Blanski.”

“Well, did you know that it’s supposedly an art warehouse now? One that’s owned by a shell corporation that’s linked back to Grec? The man isn’t an art dealer or brewer. He’s a smuggler, be it weapons, or sex slaves or drugs.” Bolan paused. “Or terrorists. He’s also one of the worst of his kind. Schooled by high-value insiders from ISIL to al Qaeda. He’s a radical Islamic who doesn’t actually practice the religion, and he’s probably responsible for the murder of hundreds if not thousands of innocent people, not to mention those he sees as his enemies. I think he was working with Axel Madera and set up the ambush at the neighborhood where two of your officers on the warrant squad were killed. I also think he hired the bomber who murdered the Walburn family.”

“Okay,” Rusch said. “Suppose you’re right? What proof do you have? We can’t just haul the guy in on supposition and conjecture.”

Bolan put an edge to his voice. “I have no intention of taking him into custody.”

* * *

Detective Javier Esparza wouldn’t have believed it had he not been watching the scene unfold before his eyes.

Axel Madera hadn’t been joking when he’d bragged about the video surveillance around the former brewery the employees of the drug lord’s associate had converted into an art warehouse with a loft apartment. Of course, Esparza had cited his address of record to be the home where his sister lived, but the warehouse was where he spent most of his evenings with his various lady friends either wrapped up in parties or just with their legs around him. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be going back there. He’d escaped through a basement tunnel that led to a boarded-up store next door, and with good reason. The man he knew only as muntaqim owned that property, too.

Esparza sighed. Living what amounted to a double life could be tiring. He knew he’d have to take a bucket of shit from Madera for letting his colleagues on the other side of the line tail him. Now as he sat in Madera’s safehouse and watched the video replay, he scratched his chin while trying not to slosh his drink.

Madera paused the video at one particular point that captured the grainy faces of all four of the enemy combatants who’d gone up against Madera’s guns.

“Recognize any of them?” Madera asked.

Esparza leaned forward and set the double bourbon on the lead crystal top of the coffee table. He squinted at the screen and then withdrew his glasses. He donned them and looked again.

“Two of them. The guy there in the jacket and tie is Hillman.” When Madera only stared at him, Esparza added quickly, “A TAC sergeant who moved over to IA after you smoked Brett and Taylor outside your house.”

“I’m sure I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” Madera said, although clearly agitated.

Esparza remain nonplussed as he looked back at the screen. “The woman is Hillman’s partner, Lakea Rusch. She’s also in IA, but she’s been there quite a while.”

“And the other two?”

“No idea,” Esparza said, shaking his head. He removed his glasses and put them away before grabbing his drink and leaning back on the couch. He kicked off his loafers with a sigh.

Madera looked at him for a time, and Esparza just stared absently into his glass, where the liquor made swirling patterns among the melting ice. Madera didn’t bother him. The guy was a big-time drug dealer, but just a two-bit hood in Esparza’s book. He’d taken down a dozen hoods like Madera without even breaking a sweat, a record that had earned him a detective’s shield and a permanent gig in CPD’s narcotics division for as long as he cared to stay.

The only thing that bothered Esparza was Madera’s connections to the mysterious muntaqim . The drug lord’s associate was obviously some sort of very high roller, maybe even a terrorist, and he had a hard-on for cops. He enjoyed killing them. When Esparza discovered that and saw the kind of resources at the man’s disposal, he’d opted to come over to the other side in order to keep breathing. Esparza hadn’t been involved in whatever had forced muntaqim ’s hand, but he thought he knew the particular incident in question. Esparza figured the identity of a principal character killed in that incident would probably give him firsthand knowledge about the identity of muntaqim , but so far Intelligence had been keeping that information tightly under wraps.