Deep Recon Read online

  As soon as he expired, he'd let go of it, and whatever charges he'd set would go off.

  Bolan turned and ran, increasing his pace to the elevator.

  As soon as it got him to the upper level, his heart sank, as there was a twenty-foot gap between the intact part of the catwalk and the airlock entrance.

  Moving to the rear of the elevator to give himself as much of a running start as possible, he leaped across the abyss, barely managing to gain purchase on the shredded metal of the catwalk segment that was still connected to the airlock entrance.

  His diver's hood was impaled on one of those shredded bits of metal, and only then did Bolan realize that his mask, breather and air tank, as well as those of Maxwell, had all fallen to the floor when the catwalk was destroyed.

  There was no way he'd have time to go back down and find the diving equipment.

  Raviv would be dead any minute, and Bolan would join him a second later.

  Slamming his hand on the button, the airlock opened and Bolan crawled in.

  He took half-a-dozen deep breaths in order to saturate his lungs with oxygen.

  Even as he did so, he knew that wasn't the risk. When you held your breath, it wasn't the lack of oxygen that did you in, but the buildup of carbon dioxide. Worse, he was going to have to swim back up to the surface without making a safety stop to shed excess nitrogen, which meant he risked nitrogen narcosis — a particular problem when he had to operate the Saint Marie when he got to the surface.

  But nitrogen narcosis was better than dead.

  He hit the button.

  The airlock started to fill with water, and Bolan took a few more deep breaths, saving the final one that he held for when the water was at his chin level.

  The worst part of the wait was having to tread water in the airlock while he waited for the pressure to equalize.

  As soon as the button turned green, he squeezed out of the slowly opening airlock door and swam for all he was worth.

  Survival was reduced to the imperative of windmilling his arms and pumping his legs to propel him faster, ever faster, toward the surface.

  When he caught sight of the sun poking through the water, he knew he was close.

  Then the base exploded.

  Several tons of displaced water shot upward, carrying Bolan on the shock wave. He burst through the surface in the middle of a massive water spout. He opened his mouth, expelling the deadly carbon dioxide, but not daring to inhale until he was out of the water.

  He also let his body go limp, hoping that when he came back down onto the surface of the Gulf, it wouldn't be hitting a brick wall.

  In fact, it was more like hitting a wooden wall: still very very painful. Bolan managed to get himself to float on the newly choppy water in his neoprene suit, his body feeling like one entire bruise. But with his head above water once again, he was able to breathe.

  He stayed that way for the better part of a minute, getting his breathing under control.

  Then he rolled himself ninety degrees and started treading water, even though fatigue made his limbs feel like they were made of lead. He caught sight of both the Grant and the Saint Marie. As he swam toward the latter, he thought about the eight crates that had been destroyed beneath the sea, and the two left on Dessens's boat.

  According to Danny Delgado, those weapons had been designated for destruction. Belatedly, that order had been carried out for eight of the ten crates, thanks to the Executioner's actions. He intended to make sure that it happened for the other two as well.

  Clambering into the Saint Marie, he paused to get his breath under control once again.

  Instead, he passed out.

  Epilogue

  Bolan came to on the bed in the Summerland Key safehouse, with Brognola standing over him.

  "Good to see that you're okay, Striker."

  Bolan tried to sit up, but Brognola put a gentle hand on his clavicle.

  "Not so fast there, Striker. We've got a doctor coming to look at you."

  "Not yet," Bolan said, gently brushing the hand aside. "I appreciate your concern, Hal, but the mission's not done yet."

  "I had the Coast Guard check up on the coordinates of Castro's Lawn when you didn't check in. They're still sifting through the wreckage, but they've found the remains of at least four people, one of whom is definitely Dessens, and another one of whom is Maxwell, unfortunately. All the major players are dead. The gun ring's broken, and you've done your duty. Now you can resume your R and R in Michigan."

  "Not quite," Bolan said. Only when he gingerly rose to his feet did he realize that he was only wearing a pair of briefs. He assumed that the Coast Guard had removed his neoprene.

  Walking to the closet, he took out some clothes to change into.

  "I have one more stop to make, Hal. Only three people should've known that Maxwell and I were in this safehouse — the two of us, and you. I know you didn't betray us, and I know there's no official record of us being there."

  "Yeah, but Dessens..." Then Brognola got it. "There's no way, even if she had her old access, she'd know we were there."

  "Unless it's from someone who saw us here."

  "You think that stripper.?.."

  Bolan shook his head as he shrugged into a button-down shirt. "No. Erica was a free agent that Delgado used for his own ends. I doubt Dessens even knew who she was."

  "Then who?"

  Rather than answer the question, Bolan said simply as he buttoned his shirt, "I need to contact someone in the DEA."

  * * *

  Marcus Fontaine sat in his apartment in Hialeah, waiting for a phone call that would never come.

  He'd done what he was supposed to do, and now Dessens was supposed to call him and tell him where to pick up the money.

  It was just one gambling debt. That was all. Fontaine had never really gone much for gambling until a coworker took him to one of the Indian casinos, and now he was hooked.

  Mostly everything had been fine, until he went into that Texas Hold 'Em no-limit game. He had pocket Aces, and he figured he was golden, especially since that other guy stayed in after the other player who was left in the tournament folded.

  Two more Aces showed up on the flop, and Fontaine knew that he had it in the bag. Only thing that could beat him was a straight flush, and the makings for that weren't on the board unless you had a two and a five suited in your hand. But nobody in their right mind would bet with that shitty a hand, so Fontaine knew all was well.

  His opponent went all in. But knowing he just had to be bluffing, Fontaine, who had fewer chips than the gentleman, went all in also.

  He had the two and the five suited to get the straight flush.

  Fontaine couldn't believe it. He'd been betting aggressively before the flop — but it was a stone cold bluff.

  Fontaine, who could stand in a room with hard-core drug kingpins and know exactly when they were telling the truth, had had no idea that this jackass had been bluffing out his ass.

  But the buy in for the tournament had been ten grand, which Fontaine didn't actually have. So he borrowed it, figuring he'd have no problem with the winnings, seeing as his luck had been going so well.

  After his big loss his luck only got worse. He couldn't even win at the damn slot machines, and his debt was accruing interest.

  But he couldn't stop. Gambling had become his addiction.

  Dessens then called him completely out of the blue, and offered to forgive his debt and keep him on her payroll — with the condition that he stayed with the DEA and fed her info when she needed it, or whenever he found something. He had a new habit to feed, so he said yes.

  This week, he'd thought his luck was finally changing. Dessens had told her people in the area to be on the lookout for some ex-deputy chick named Maxwell, and had circulated a picture of the woman. When Fontaine heard that the Summerland Key safehouse would be unavailable for the next few days, he wondered if there might be a connection, and so he drove out to the safehouse and waited for the gue
sts to arrive. His hunch was rewarded when Maxwell showed up with some guy. Fontaine casually left the house, got in his car and immediately called Dessens.

  Dessens was very happy, and promised him twenty thousand dollars. Which was good, as the damn Bucs had blown the spread again.

  But she hadn't called yet to give him a pickup for the cash.

  In the year that Fontaine had been secretly working for her, Dessens had never missed a phone call. She was reliable that way.

  Fontaine was startled by the buzz of the front doorbell.

  Getting up, he walked over and buzzed the person in. The intercom had stopped working years ago, but he'd never worried about fixing it. He had always figured that criminals wouldn't ring the bell anyway, and he could always intimidate salespeople and Jehovah's Witnesses with his badge and-or weapon.

  Fontaine opened the door, shocked to see the man from the safehouse walking up the stairs — the man he'd assumed was dead by now.

  Confused, Fontaine feigned lightheartedness and said, "Shit, what are you doing here? You didn't believe my apartment was really that bad, did you?"

  "May I come in?" Bolan asked.

  Shrugging, Fontaine opened the door wider. "Sure, why not?"

  Bolan entered, and Fontaine shut the door behind him. Moving toward the kitchen, he asked, "Can I get you something?"

  "I'm fine," Bolan said.

  "Well, if you want to hang out or something, that's fine, but I gotta warn you that I'm expecting a phone call that's kinda private, so..."

  "Dessens won't be calling you, Agent Fontaine."

  Fontaine suddenly developed a coughing fit. Once he got over it, he asked, "Excuse me?"

  "The phone call you're expecting is from Yvonne Dessens, who will call you to — well, I'm not sure. Discuss the terms of your next assignment? Tell you how much she's paying you for giving up me and Lola Maxwell? Arrange payment through a Cayman Islands account?"

  For a brief instant, Fontaine considered denying the charge.

  But he realized that that was foolish. If this guy was alive and Dessens hadn't called, it meant that whatever she'd intended to do to the man standing in front of him had failed, and whatever he'd done to Dessens had succeeded.

  "Actually," he said in a quiet, defeated voice, "she was gonna call to give me a drop for the cash. I don't have the clout for a Cayman Islands account, I'm just a working federal agent, y'know? So she gives me cash when I give her info."

  "She's not giving anyone anything anymore, Agent Fontaine," Bolan said in a simple monotone. "She's dead. Her organization is broken. There's just one loose end to tie off."

  Looking down, Fontaine shook his head.

  "I just had some gambling debts, you know? Didn't think anybody would get hurt." He chuckled. "You familiar with Bruce Springsteen?"

  "I've heard of him," Bolan said neutrally.

  "He says in one of his songs that he has debts no honest man could pay. Well, I'm not an honest man anymore, but I've got debts. So I did what I did. And I guess now I gotta be paying for it."

  Just then Fontaine quickly grabbed for something out of a kitchen drawer, but before he could properly aim his pistol, Bolan raised his SIG-Sauer and fatally shot Agent Fontaine in the head.

  "Yeah, Agent Fontaine. Yeah, you do."

  Moments later, Bolan walked out of an apartment building in Hialeah, having left a bloody corpse behind in Marcus Fontaine's apartment.

  Fontaine was the final loose end. The only other people who worked for Yvonne Dessens's gunrunning ring who still drew breath were too low-level to be of consequence. They were the types who'd either get killed on the streets, get arrested on an aggravated assault or murder charge, or get sick of the life and get out.

  Jean-Louis Faraday died of a postoperative infection. Bolan would attend his funeral, as well as that of Lola Maxwell, if he could.

  The only person who got a happy ending out of it was Erica "Star" Mayes. Before he died at the Executioner's hand, Danny Delgado had given Erica the money he'd promised her. So she was ten grand richer, and able to take a hiatus from Hot Keys the following semester and get her degree that much sooner.

  She'd also broken up with Xavier.

  Walking a few blocks through Miami, Bolan eventually got to the spot where he'd parked Maxwell's cherry-red 1965 Mustang. He'd picked it up from the mechanic that morning — it had been restored, good as new.

  Turning the engine over, it purred like a content cat. Bolan put it into gear and drove off.

  Eventually, he was going to drive the car back to Lola Maxwell's place. He was sure that one of her relatives would claim the car when her estate was settled.

  For now, though, he was going to have a final joy ride in it. He suspected that Maxwell would've wanted it that way.

  Table of Contents

  Don Pendleton's Deep Recon

  The Mack Bolan Legend

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  Epilogue