Don Pendleton - Devil's Playground

MACK BOLAN’S CURIOSITY about Anibella Brujillo was put on hold with the distinct rattle of an automatic weapon in the distance. In a heartbeat he had the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle out of its quick-draw leather, safety off, finger resting in register against the trigger guard. It took only a moment of hesitation to call out in Spanish to Governor Emilio Brujillo’s bodyguards to get him to safety immediately.

Anibella pulled a Glock from underneath the breakfast table. She didn’t rack the slide, and her finger was off the trigger, muzzle aimed at the ground.

“That means you, too, ma’am,” Bolan snapped.

Her hazel eyes flashed brightly with indignity. “They are attacking my home, Mr. Cooper, and I have been trained by the best commandos Mexico has.”

“They’re also heavily armed,” Bolan countered. He knew that the first lady hadn’t run at the previous assassination attempt. Indeed, she’d picked up a handgun belonging to one of her fallen bodyguards and proceeded to fight back with savage proficiency. “If you want to help, protect your husband and fall back along with his security detail.”

“But…” Anibella began, but the Executioner had no time to waste in debating with her. He took off in a long, loping run, keeping to the concealment of a row of planter-based hedges. The concrete would provide him with cover and he found a good position where he’d have protected fields of fire to control the rear entrance of the mansion.

A shape crouched beside him and from the smell of Anibella’s perfume, he didn’t even have to look to identify her.

“Not going to yell at me?” the woman asked, finding a notch in the concrete planter she kneeled against.

“It’s too late now, and I’d give away my position,” Bolan returned, containing the urge to growl at her. “It’s your funeral.”

Her wide lips curved upward in a smirk. “I don’t think you’ll allow that—”

“Incoming,” Bolan cut her off. He took careful aim with the Desert Eagle, the front sight cutting across the forehead of a gunman. He was mildly surprised at the Slavic features of the hitter, as well as the Uzi submachine gun in his hands. However, that didn’t slow his pull of the trigger, nor the screaming 240-grain jacketed hollow-point round he punched through the Russian’s skull at more than 1300 feet per second. The dome of bone and scalp that had been the top of the assassin’s head flipped back on strips of stretchy flesh.

Other mafiya goons dived wildly for cover as the Executioner tracked a second Uzi-armed killer and popped another .44 Magnum slug through his rib cage. Eight hundred foot-pounds of energy tore the Russian’s heart in two, killing him instantly. Anibella’s Glock .40 barked off to Bolan’s right, taking down a third gunman with a double-tap to the upper chest.

Three down so far, but a half dozen SMGs ripped out a sheet of return fire that drove them both back behind the protection of concrete garden decorations.

“You wouldn’t happen to have anything heavier…or maybe some grenades, would you?” First Lady Brujillo asked.

“Not right now,” Bolan replied, shifting his position to the end of a long marble bench. Swinging around the side, he tapped off four quick shots that took two of the hit men off guard from their flank. Cut down by the Magnum heartstoppers, he drew the attention of the remaining four shooters. Bolan was letting the marble absorb the fire lancing in his direction, allowing the gunmen to burn up their reserves of ammunition on bulletproof stone. Suddenly, he noticed movement in his peripheral vision.

Anibella’s Glock ripped off several quick shots toward a knot of Russians who were trying to slip up on Bolan’s blind side. The Executioner’s left hand ripped his Beretta from its shoulder holster as he emptied his Desert Eagle toward the mobsters, helping to keep them down. One of the shooters jerked violently, his neck geysering out a fountain of arterial blood as a .44 Magnum round ripped through it. Finally the 93-R machine pistol snapped out at full extension on his left arm. On semiauto, the six-and-a-half-inch barrel of the Beretta spun a 9 mm shot through the face of a second of the newcomers. The 93-R’s extra barrel length gave him enough accuracy to make lethal shots at forty yards, while the 9 mm bullet still had enough velocity to cause major damage.

There was more gunfire in the distance, automatic weapons chattering on an exchange of fire that gave the Executioner pause. From his memorization of the mansion’s layout, none of the other security on the scene would have been in a position to engage in combat with the invaders. Someone else had entered this conflict, and Bolan wasn’t certain exactly who.

“Fall back to the house,” Bolan ordered, capping off a pair of Parabellum rounds into the face of a Russian hitter. A gory splash churned up the assassin’s features, whipping him to the ground like a sack of garbage.

“Why?” Anibella Brujillo asked. Her Glock roared twice more, fat bullets tearing through the shoulder of a second Uzi-packing killer. She bore down and finished off the wounded man with three more shots into his center of mass, 180-grain bullets churning internal organs into pureed slush.

“Do it!” the Executioner growled. He popped the empty magazine from his Desert Eagle, stuffed it into his waistband, slapped in a fresh stick and brought the weapon to bear with one hand, all while punching out two more accurate shots from his Beretta. “I’ll cover you. Go!”

The first lady took off. Bolan rose, both handguns blazing. He was firing to draw the assassins’ attention, but even as he sidestepped along the planters, Beretta and Desert Eagle barking almost in unison, he managed to tag two more of the mafiya gunmen, dropping their corpses to the lawn, leaking from multiple wounds.

The full-auto gunfight around the corner was growing closer, and Bolan didn’t want to have to deal with a mysterious newcomer and the governor’s decisively lethal wife at the same time.

Anibella Brujillo reached the back entrance to the mansion, security team members in the doorway with machine pistols barking. Uzis chattered angrily and one of the Mexican bodyguards let out a gargled cry of pain, collapsing to his knees. Brujillo whirled and hooked the injured Mexican under his arm and pulled him to cover as Bolan ripped out 9 mm and .44 Magnum retribution against the knot of gunmen opening fire on the first lady.

“Hurry up!” Anibella shouted.

“Get him to cover!” Bolan snapped. He stuffed the Desert Eagle into his waistband and dropped behind the concrete planter. His index finger stabbed the release on the Beretta, and the 20-round magazine slid freely to the ground. A spare stick snapped into place, and he released the slide to get the machine pistol into battery. The whole move took a second and a half, and he was up and shooting, 9 mm slugs punching into the heart of a bold Russian gunman rushing his position.

The Executioner swung from the dropped assassin and struck another mafiya thug in the throat. Vertebrae exploded from the back of the gunman’s neck.

He turned and saw an auburn-haired woman step into view at the corner of the mansion. She had an Uzi in her hands, exchanging fire with one of the armed raiders. She stitched him from crotch to throat, dropping the Russian like a sack of laundry. She whirled and was feeding her partially spent machine pistol a fresh magazine, when she saw the Executioner. There was a moment of hesitation on her face.

Bolan recognized the woman instantly. He knew the face of the dead bodyguard from the resort assault, Rosa Asado. But, having read the dead woman’s file, he also knew she was one of a pair of identical twins. This had to be Blanca Asado. He remembered, from his briefing with Hal Brognola, that Blanca was wanted for questioning about her sister’s alleged activities as the mastermind behind the first kill-attempt against the governor’s wife.