Don Pendleton - Devil's Playground

The man bristled noticeably, but he held his tongue at reprimanding the Executioner. Bolan had a point about what was really needed. The lone warrior had assailed the leaders of drug cartels for years, doing fantastic amounts of damage, and instead of seizing upon the momentary advantage he supplied, laboriously moving government agencies stumbled, hemmed and hawed, allowing new batches of thugs to swarm in to replace the severed head.

“Governor Brujillo is a good man, and he is trying to implement more than a slash-and-burn approach to fighting drugs in his state,” the Mexican president replied. “He deserves all the help we can get.”

“He’ll get it, then,” Bolan replied. He tapped the overstuffed file folder in front of him. “I’ve got all the intel I need, and I have an appointment on the border tonight.”

“The border?” the Mexican leader asked.

“I have word of a military unit making a heroin run tonight,” Bolan explained. “They might not have been the ones behind Anibella Brujillo’s assassination attempt, but maybe they’ll give me a link to someone who would know.”

“You’ll be acting against my country’s military, Striker.”

“I’ll be acting against traitors. Nowhere in their oath of duty does it say they have to assist in peddling poison to other nations,” Bolan countered. “That doesn’t contribute to protecting Mexico. It only breaks the laws of your nation and mine. And you know firsthand how I deal with those kinds of men. Their sentence has been dictated by their own actions.”

The Executioner stood, took the file and left the two national leaders behind in the conference room to mull over his words. He had a flight to catch and drug smugglers to kill.

IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG for the fingerprints of the fallen Russian mafiya assassins to get back to Bolan. The Executioner had conducted an immediate inspection of the corpses, and using a digital camera, blood and a white sheet of paper, he was able to get the prints of a half dozen of the would-be killers before the federales arrived.

“Four of the six you nailed were former Spetznaz,” Aaron Kurtzman informed Bolan. “The other two were combat swimmers. All of them have records with Russian Intelligence linking them to organized crime as muscle. They dropped off the radar two years ago.”

“They moved to Acapulco to shore up mafiya ties with the Mexican cartels,” the Executioner surmised.

“A reasonable assumption, considering their bloody fingerprints are all over a sheet of paper you photographed for us,” Kurtzman replied.

“Any information on the Asado twins?” Bolan asked.

“Except for the sudden, recent accusations of Rosa being the head of a major drug gang while working out of Anibella Brujillo’s security detail, they’re clean, hardworking and exemplary lawmen, er, women,” Kurtzman stated. “Frankly, if they had been in U.S. law enforcement, we’d have had both of them through the blacksuit program. It’s just a shame that Mexico’s law-enforcement community is an old-boy network. They’d have gone even further.”

“One won’t,” Bolan mentioned. “And the other is on the run now.”

“Nobody ever accused the federales of being white knights,” Kurtzman mused. “There are plenty who are good and honest, but there’s enough who will buy into any story to protect their careers with the heat on.”

Bolan sighed. “It’s amazing that Mexican law enforcement gets as much done as it can.”

“The channels are tangled down there. I deal mostly in Internet, but this is Acapulco law enforcement. Word of mouth is still the most reliable means of these people getting in touch with each other, and if they’re putting anything in writing, it’s paper and ink, not digital,” Kurtzman said.

“That’s okay. I’ll shake answers loose the old-fashioned way,” Bolan replied. “Twist an arm, and listen to the music.”

Kurtzman made a sound of disgust. “Damn it. I forgot.”

“Something I said?” Bolan asked.

“Narcocorridos,” Kurtzman stated. “What you said about listening to the music.”

“Right. The tradition of putting the stories of crimes into song. Murderers and drug dealers keep their legends alive that way,” Bolan said. “If there was anything, we’d hear it in music.”

“I’ll see about what’s on the hit list,” Kurtzman offered. “Some of the songs make it onto the Internet.”

“Instead of pirated music, music about pirates,” Bolan mused sardonically.

“Bingo. I can also see if we have anyone who has their ears open on that particular community,” Kurtzman stated.

“It’ll be a needle in a haystack,” Bolan replied. “Murder is the flavor of choice for those songs. Drug dealers, while admittedly pretty sexy in that field, don’t get noticed for their brand-new street corner deal, just for putting the hit on someone in their way.”

“And anyone out to make Rosa Asado look bad will keep things mum about framing and murdering her,” Kurtzman concluded.

“Keep working that angle,” Bolan requested. “It’s an alternate form of intelligence.”

“What about the Santa Muerte angle that popped up?” Kurtzman asked.

“Digging into that is even further off the Internet grid,” Bolan said. “And for now, I’m on my own.”

“Wish we could get Rafael or Rosario to hit the streets for you down there,” Kurtzman said, “but Able and Phoenix are busy.”

“I have my own sources down here, Aaron,” Bolan replied.

“The running Asado twin?” Kurtzman asked.

Bolan looked around the office that Anibella Brujillo had provided for him in the governor’s mansion. He’d performed a thorough sweep of the room, and had found three active bugs so far. A small white-noise generator next to the laptop he was talking into would mask any sound he made as he used a headphone and jawbone-contact microphone unit plugged into the computer to communicate directly with Stony Man Farm. The contact mike, taped to his jaw, wouldn’t be affected by the white noise generator, since it picked up the vibrations of Bolan’s voice directly through his body, not the air. The cyberlink between the laptop and Kurtzman’s system was protected by powerful encryption software, so hacking the information flow would be difficult. Still, the Executioner wasn’t willing to discuss his contact with Blanca Asado even over an encrypted line, protected by a cocoon of bug-disorienting noise.

“I have my means. And suspicions,” Bolan returned. “Thanks for the background on the hitters. Any word on where they’ve been staying recently would help immensely.”

“I’ll track that, too,” Kurtzman promised. “Good luck, Striker.”

“Thanks,” Bolan said, signing off.

He turned off the laptop and disconnected from his headphone and contact mike. Anibella Brujillo would want an update, and he didn’t want to disappoint her.

BLANCA ASADO LOOKED at the business card that Agent Matt Cooper had flipped her in their brief encounter. Armando Diceverde took a sip of warm beer as he sat in the corner of the hotel room. The handsome little journalist had his laptop out and was hooked to the Internet via a satellite-capable modem.

“I’ve got nothing on Agent Matt Cooper of any agency,” Diceverde announced. “All results on his Justice files come up as access denied. Whatever he does is shoved into a deep hole that I can’t pull up.”

“There’s no doubt of that,” Asado returned. “But he has a voice mail and an e-mail contact.”

“Probably a secure drop he can tap when he needs to,” Diceverde mused. “Nothing we could actually use to check up on him.”

“Your implication?” Asado asked.

Diceverde took a deep breath. “He’s a spook.”