Lethal Vengeance Read online

  “Look at the mess you’ve made,” he said. “I hate to waste good food. When I am finished here—”

  Above them, barely audible, a doorbell chimed.

  Canuto Castro

  Bolan spotted Miguel Vergara’s Volkswagen Clásico parked at curbside and nosed up behind him, dousing the RAV4’s headlights. The sergeant met him in the street between their vehicles, lights from a nearby oil refinery contending with the wan glow of a waning moon. Scanning the oilfield and discovering no homes in sight, he asked Vergara, “So, where is it?”

  “Two blocks farther on, around the next corner. I thought it better for your friend if we did not drive up and park outside.”

  Assuming Hal was even still alive.

  Instead of voicing that, Bolan replied, “Okay. What are we looking at?”

  “An old two-story house,” Vergara answered, “with a basement underneath.”

  “You saw that from the street, just driving by?”

  “I have a friend at headquarters who knows computers better than I ever will. The blueprints have been digitized, she says.”

  “And this Lalo Posada? How sure are you that he’s our guy?”

  “El Psicópata? I managed to persuade a guy who admires him to give up the name and address.”

  Bolan understood that psycho killers often had fan clubs these days. The antisocial media was overrun with them, cheering the killers on while they were still at large, sending them mash notes, treats and proposals of marriage once they were locked up. Another symptom of society imploding, said some pundits like the ghouls who gathered to applaud a would-be jumper in the final moments of his life on a high ledge.

  “When you say an admirer, could this other guy be an accomplice?” Bolan asked.

  Vergara shook his head. “No nerve for it. He was a child molester with delusions of advancing to another plane.”

  “Was?”

  “Accidents will happen, eh?”

  Bolan let that pass, didn’t ask and didn’t want to know. “I only need a second with my gear,” he said. “Did you bring anything along?”

  “Indeed.”

  Vergara retreated to his car while Bolan buckled on his pistols, took the Steyr from its duffel bag behind the driver’s seat but didn’t bother with grenades this time. He’d finished putting on a bandoleer of extra magazines just as Vergara came back carrying a Spectre M-4 submachine gun.

  “This, and my pistol, should be all I need,” he said.

  “Suits me.”

  They moved off from the cars, crossing waste ground outside an eight-foot fence with razor wire on top, a hedge against intruders on the Pemex oilfield. Bolan’s first glimpse of the target two-story revealed no neighbors on the street as far as he could see.

  “Guy likes his privacy,” Bolan remarked.

  “He needs it,” Vergara said. “Also, from my friend at work I know a little of the history behind this house. When Pemex started buying up the land to drill on, one old man refused to sell. He had a fortune in his own right, and they couldn’t buy him off. As a condition of his will, he barred inheritance by any relative who ever sold the property.”

  Determination, Bolan thought, or just an overload of spite.

  The pumping derricks all around them, some within a hundred yards or less of the old house, provided noise and stench enough to guarantee no passersby would notice any screaming from inside, especially if it occurred below ground level. There was irony at work here: when the company had tried to drive a stubborn local from his home, they had unwittingly prepared the perfect future hideout of El Psicópata.

  “What’s the word on this Posada character?” Bolan asked.

  “Nothing that would appear significant,” Vergara said. “An orphan out of Zacatecas, about twelve hundred miles south of Juárez. Orphaned by a house fire at an early age, raised in state facilities and foster homes until the state gave up on him at seventeen.”

  “Abused?”

  Vergara shrugged. “No record of it, but I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “A history of violence?”

  “The fourth and next to last of his appointed homes burned down, killing the parents and two children of their own, while Lalo managed to escape. Coincidence? Who knows. From there, he left no record moving north to reach Chihuahua, where it seems he’s found his calling.”

  “Killing women.”

  “With a sideline in disposal for whoever meets his price, apparently.”

  Bolan possessed a working knowledge of how childhood trauma twisted some kids into monsters, growing up to replicate and far surpass the helpless suffering they had endured. He understood, but it was no excuse. For every psychopath who spun out of a miserable childhood, hundreds—make that thousands—more survived to find a niche within society, whether as criminals or politicians, cheating husbands or monastic priests, used car salesmen or scientific geniuses.

  When it came down to molding future adults, there was no one-size-fits-all.

  A block out from the grim old house, Bolan said, “I don’t know whether my friend’s alive or not, whether he’s even here. If we don’t find him, then I need to ask some questions, and a dead man can’t answer.”

  “Do what you must,” Vergara said. “But I have to tell you, I don’t wish to die tonight because un loco doesn’t want to speak with you.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And if you have a chance to question him? If his response is unsatisfactory?”

  “Same end, no matter what he says or doesn’t say,” Bolan replied. “El Psicópata’s going down tonight.”

  Calle Aluvial

  Captain Prieto parked his cruiser two blocks north of his intended destination, on a street named for detritus left behind by flowing water. Like so many other thoroughfares around Juárez, the name seemed to have been plucked from a hat, with no regard to the geography or any other relevant factor.

  If Prieto had his way, all streets without exception would be tagged with letters of the alphabet or simple numbers, based upon direction. That was more convenient for police, instead of making them keep street directories on hand or trying to find an address on computers in their cars.

  Before leaving his vehicle, the captain reached into the glove compartment—who wore gloves these days, or even owned a pair, except to complement dress uniforms?—and lifted out his throwaway weapon, a .380 AMT Backup automatic pistol that he’d confiscated from a gringo tourist some months back. He’d use his Jericho 941 to put El Psicópata down then fire a round or two out of the smaller weapon, wipe his prints off and plant some of his target’s on the piece before he called it in to headquarters.

  No sweat, as the Americans liked to say. He’d pulled this trick more than a dozen times before, using a firearm or a knife that was untraceable to him. No questions had been asked so far, nor was Prieto fearful of an inquiry this time. Mexican law entitled officers to fire at any fleeing suspects, regardless of the crime allegedly involved. If any armed civilian threatened a policeman, no significant inquiry would occur before the shooting was deemed justifiable. And if the ventilated corpse turned out to be El Psicópata...well, Prieto might well be in line for a promotion.

  He approached Lalo Posada’s lair through darkness, no lampposts along the street where his intended victim’s house stood on its own. Whatever happened there was best conducted in the dark, and so, appropriately, would the monster’s story end.

  Prieto wasn’t worried about booby traps as he approached the house. Posada treasured privacy, but he wasn’t crazy enough to lay out snares of any kind on Pemex property. One roughneck injured, much less killed, would bring the police down upon him in a flash, to pacify the company. Once inside his den, they would no doubt uncover evidence enough to lock him up for sixty years on each count of premeditated murder they could prove. Even with sentences running concurrently, he’d be an old
man before he breathed free air again, assuming he survived for any length of time inside.

  This way was best for all concerned, Captain Prieto thought. Better for him, of course; better for all of Juárez at large, and better even for the tortured soul of Lalo Posada. As for the American whom Prieto’s idiotic sergeants had abducted by mistake, he’d enter history as the last victim of El Psicópata, tragically murdered just before his would-be rescuer arrived.

  The only hitch would be explaining why Prieto hadn’t called for backup, but he had a story that should cover his apparent lapse of judgment. He would plead an emergency that, by its very definition, had prevented him from following procedural guidelines. While working overtime on the cartel murders around Juárez, he’d stumbled onto evidence of a kidnapped American being held and under threat of death. Upon arrival at the scene, there’d been no time for him to summon reinforcements, much less a negotiating team.

  He would, of course, be more surprised than anyone to learn that the kidnapper was in fact El Psicópata. Who could even calculate the odds of that? It was regrettable that the sadistic ghoul had slain his final victim moments before Prieto arrived to take him by surprise, but then he’d drawn a pistol and, as some forgotten scribe once wrote, the rest was history.

  A medal for Captain Prieto? Surely not, when he had only done his duty as required by law...but if the president and the FIA’s commissioner insisted, who was he, a humble public servant, to insult them by refusing?

  Some fifty yards out from the house, Prieto stopped to double-check his Jericho 941. It had a live round in the chamber, twelve more in its magazine, ready to fire in double-action mode as soon as he applied a trigger pull. Unless he scored a lethal head shot first time out, Prieto planned on firing half a dozen .40 Smith & Wesson rounds to finish off his prey.

  And who could blame him, when he was confronted with a pistol in a madman’s grasp?

  The old house had a covered wooden porch running the full length of its street façade. Prieto climbed over a railing at the north end, nearly toppling backward when the rail wobbled under his weight, its ancient nails nearly eaten away by rust. He caught himself at the last second, landing on one knee and cursing as the warped boards groaned beneath his sudden weight.

  He froze there for a moment, one hand on his holstered pistol’s butt, alert to any signs of life inside the house, but there were none.

  A flaw in his plan struck Prieto then. What if Posada wasn’t home? Suppose he’d gone out for the evening, the gringo hostage long since dead and buried somewhere safe, perhaps after Posada torched the corpse to forestall recognition? If his scheme came down to nothing and evaporated, then what?

  Then nothing.

  The captain planned to wait all night if necessary, either hidden in the house or masked by shadows on the nearby grounds, until Posada finally returned. It wasn’t like El Psicópata held a normal job to fill the time he didn’t spend hunting and killing. Even something menial—a janitor or garbage man—would interfere with his pursuit of pleasure on the dark side.

  Try the doorbell, Prieto thought. If it doesn’t work, then knock. Think positively and be ready when the dead man walking shows himself.

  Crossing the porch with greater confidence, Captain Prieto jabbed the doorbell with his thumb.

  * * *

  “I’m coming!” Lalo Posada shouted as the doorbell rang a second time. “I’m coming!” He had never tried the bell before, and now wished he’d disconnected it upon taking possession of the house. Why had he just assumed that it was broken?

  Moving through the kitchen, where the basement stairs were hidden by a door resembling the entrance to a broom closet, he detoured past a free-standing butcher-block table. Lifting a chef’s knife with a nine-inch blade out of the rack there, he tucked it behind him, between the waistband of his trousers and his woven leather belt.

  Posada reached the parlor, saw a man-size shadow through the front door’s pane of frosted glass. The hour was preposterous for visitors, even if he had occupied a normal residential street with neighbors all around. Out where he lived, with nothing but oil wells and scrawny cottontail rabbits for company, he would have said the odds against an unexpected stranger dropping by were astronomical.

  And yet...

  Who knew where to locate him in Juárez? The Realtor from whom he’d bought the house, of course. But he had known Posada as “Lalo Pobrito,” full payment for the property in cash eliminating any need for credit checks or or other scrutiny of his background.

  At least two federal agents knew what Posada was, one of them having come close to arresting him before they’d struck a deal of mutual convenience. That said, he’d changed his residence without informing them, under the alias he’d given to his Realtor, and when the police had fresh work for him these days—as with the gringo tied down in his basement now—they got in touch with him by phone, for meetings on some neutral ground. Posada had taken pains to drive a freshly stolen car each time they met, taking extreme care against being followed afterward.

  So who in hell was at his door, ringing the bell?

  The front door’s frosted glass distorted images, preventing any clear glimpse of a person standing on the other side. Approaching it across the dark parlor, Posada had no fear of being recognized. If enemies had found him, in defiance of all odds, they could shoot him despite the front door being shut, but from his early childhood onward, he had expected to die violently. He had no fear of Hell or hope of Heaven, only certainty that death meant ultimate oblivion.

  Standing a yard back from the door, he asked, “Who’s that?”

  The voice that answered him was recognizable at once. “Captain Prieto. Open up!”

  Posada had a choice now: flee out through the back or stay and fight. He’d grown tired of running as a child, except in the pursuit of human game.

  He opened the front door, smiling. “Captain! What brings you out at this hour?”

  “Time means so little in my line of work,” Prieto answered. “We should speak inside.”

  Not asking Posada; telling him what he had to do in his own house.

  Still smiling, he stepped aside to let the captain pass, closing the door and latching it without giving Prieto any chance to see the knife behind his back. “Tequila?” he suggested, “or mezcal?”

  Prieto shook his head and answered, “Nothing for me.”

  “Then straight to business,” Posada said, “whatever that might be.”

  “The American taken from El Paso. What’s become of him?”

  “Nothing yet,” Posada answered. “But his time is short. He’s just downstairs if you desire to question him.”

  “You’ve done nothing with him so far?” Prieto seemed surprised.

  “I had other commitments, but he’s next up on my list. Perhaps you’d like to watch?”

  Prieto’s flickering expression of disgust told Posada everything he had to know about the captain. While Prieto might have killed, even repeatedly, disguising it as “duty,” he did not possess the nerve or stomach for Posada’s kind of sacrifice.

  “Now that you mention it, Lalo,” Prieto said, “there is something that I should ask him.”

  “As you wish.”

  “How do we reach the basement?”

  “Through the kitchen, straight ahead. Open the first door on your left.”

  “Perhaps you’d show me?”

  “After you,” Posada replied. “You see the kitchen entrance just ahead?”

  “This door?”

  “The very one.” Posada braced for anything, wondering if the captain was a fool.

  He trailed Prieto to the kitchen, watched him look around as if expecting horrors strewed across the butcher-block and counters. Idiot. They awaited him downstairs.

  “This door?” the captain asked him, glancing back over his left shoulder.

&nb
sp; “The very one. There is a light switch just beyond. Be careful on the stairs.”

  Prieto pulled the door open and found the switch then hesitated on the threshold. “What’s that stench?”

  “The smell? Oh, I’ve grown used to it. A faulty sump extractor in need of repair.”

  “Uh-huh.” Prieto started down the narrow wooden staircase, one hand on its rail, the other trying to be unobtrusive as it slipped inside his jacket.

  Posada stood one step behind him and above. His left hand found a toggle switch and flipped it, setting off a pandemonium of flashing strobes and deafening music from below. The captain tried to save himself, drawing a pistol as he half turned on the stairs, but he hadn’t reckoned on Posada’s speed as the man kicked his upper chest and sent Prieto somersaulting backward down the stairs.

  Chapter Twelve

  Bolan and Vergara heard the racket start when they were thirty-odd yards from their target. Saw it, too, via flashing lights of some kind from inside the house, set back some distance from the front door and its curtained windows. Bolan knew that Mexico had raves, just like the States, but why El Psicópata would be throwing one at home, well past the witching hour, was beyond him.

  Anyway, he clearly had no neighbors to offend with things like strobes, music cranked up to wake the dead, or tortured screams.

  “Hurry!” Vergara said. “This can’t be good.”

  “Agreed, but watch for traps regardless. This guy’s crazy, not stupid.”

  Mounting the porch, they closed in on the front door, treading cautiously and half expecting the next board one of them stepped on to collapse, revealing spikes or deadly snakes below. When that didn’t happen, Bolan took the lead, kicking the front door in with force enough to rip its dead bolt free and send long cracks like lightning flashes snaking out across the pane of frosted glass.

  More flashing on the inside as they cleared the threshold, Bolan ducking as he entered, just in case the tenant had prepared a trap gun for unwanted guests, maybe rigging an ax or sledgehammer to swoop down from one side and crush or sever skulls.