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  Guzman did as he was told. And while there were several curious looks thrown their way from the men in the other Mercedes, the cartel leader’s bodyguards did as they were told.

  Guzman’s suite of offices were on the first floor of the tall skyscraper, and the fat man waddled toward a door which announced Guzman Imports & Exports. A moment later they were inside the front office and passing an attractive young woman who sat working at a computer.

  “Good day, Anita,” Guzman said as he led the way past her desk to the door just to her side.

  “Good day, Mr. Guzman,” the woman said in Spanish, barely looking up.

  The four men entered Guzman’s private office, and the fat man went directly to the safe behind his desk. Bolan nodded toward it, shifting the revolver in his coat pocket slightly for emphasis.

  Guzman saw the movement, but so did Luis and Pedro.

  Bolan could see the concerned looks on both men’s faces. They could sense that something was wrong, but they weren’t sure what.

  The odds against the Executioner, however, had dwindled. Instead of facing six men armed with submachine guns and assault rifles and having nothing but his hands to fight them, Bolan had all of his own weapons back, and the two men were reduced to whatever pistols they had hidden under their suits. The soldier had no doubt he could outdraw and kill them both if it came to it. But that would mean a running gunfight all the way from downtown Bogotá to the airport, and facing police and military guards before he and Grimaldi could take off.

  The Executioner didn’t like those odds any better than he had the earlier ones back at the salt mines. No, he thought, this was still a time for stealth rather than direct action.

  At least for as long as he could pull it off.

  Bolan let go of Guzman’s .38 and removed his hand from his coat pocket. But in the same motion, he casually grasped the lapel of his jacket, ready to draw the sound-suppressed Beretta. If he had to resort to that here, perhaps he could at least keep the noise down so the men outside in the other car didn’t hear it.

  Guzman struggled onto his knees to work the combination lock on the safe, as Bolan’s mind and course of attack shifted gears from the .38 as his first line of attack to the Beretta in his shoulder holster. He studied the faces of Luis and Pedro and saw their concerned looks relax. At least partially.

  “Señor Guzman and I are entering into a very large-scale transaction,” Bolan told the two men whose expressions were begging an explanation. “We don’t have time to tell you the details right now.”

  Guzman was working the dial on the safe. “But it will mean a very large bonus for you and the men outside,” he added on his own accord. His words reminded Bolan that the man was still scared out of his wits and more than willing to play along with the charade.

  “If you would, gentlemen,” Bolan said as the safe door finally swung open. “Find us several briefcases. Empty some out if need be. We’re going to need them.”

  Luis and Pedro exchanged glances and again their faces looked puzzled. Bolan knew it was only a matter of time before the tension in the room caused one or both of them to start asking questions that couldn’t be answered. And he had another logistical problem, if he had to kill the two men inside the office. Even if he could do so with the quiet Beretta, he would have to hide the bodies and call in at least two more of Guzman henchmen to help carry the money from the safe.

  Thirty million dollars, even if it was all in hundred-dollar bills, was going to be far too much for two men to carry. Especially if Bolan had to keep his gun hand ready at all times, which he would in case this “good friend” cover went south.

  A few minutes later, the money—it had been wrapped with brown paper bands in stacks of ten thousand dollars each—had been transferred to a half-dozen briefcases and other carriers.

  But the sight of so much money, and the fact that the safe was suddenly empty, had brought the curious tension back to the faces of Pedro and Luis. “Boss,” Luis said, “are you certain this is what you want to do?”

  Guzman didn’t even have to glance at Bolan to know what to say. “Who is in charge here?” he demanded in a forced-gruff tone of voice.

  “You are, sir,” Pedro said quickly.

  “Then do as I tell you and do not ask questions.”

  Luis and Pedro simply nodded.

  Lifting the briefcases, the four men strode back out past Anita and through the office building lobby to the twin Mercedes. They loaded the cash in the lead car’s trunk and backseat. By the time they were finished, there was barely room for Bolan and Guzman to get in.

  “Tell the other car to stay here,” Bolan said under his breath to Guzman, and the fat cartel boss turned and gave the order. The look on the faces of the four gunmen in the matching Mercedes-Benz told Bolan they needed to get out of there before the men had too much time to think.

  “Let’s go,” he said quietly again.

  “Drive quickly, Pedro,” Bolan said as the man returned to the wheel of their vehicle. “There are great things ahead, and we’re on a tight time schedule.”

  But by this point, both Luis and Pedro had witnessed too many “little” things that didn’t quite add up. Luis turned in the passenger’s seat and said, “Is that correct, boss?”

  Guzman glanced at Bolan. Then he said simply, “Sí.”

  As the lone Mercedes made its way out of downtown Bogotá toward the airport, Bolan leaned forward. “You guys need to relax,” he said gently. “Señor Guzman and I are working on a deal that’s is going to make everybody rich, including you. So bear with us if things seem a little out of the ordinary.”

  The men in the front seat were no different than most career criminals. They were greedy. And the opportunity for great wealth outweighed their common sense. Just like Bolan had found with most outlaws during his career of fighting them, they believed what they wanted to believe.

  Twenty minutes later, the same colonel who had met them on landing escorted the Mercedes across the airport in his jeep. He stayed in his seat as Luis and Pedro helped Bolan and Guzman load the money onto the Learjet while Jack Grimaldi warmed up the airplane.

  “Señor Guzman will be going with us,” Bolan told the two henchmen when they’d finished. “Isn’t that right, Eduardo?”

  “Sí, sí,” Guzman said. “Go back and await my orders.”

  Bolan helped the fat man onto the plane and into the seat right behind the one he would take.

  Ten seconds later, the Learjet was racing down the runway and rising into the air.

  Guzman didn’t speak until they were over Panama.

  “Señor Cooper,” he finally said, leaning forward to talk to Bolan. “You can keep the money.”

  “Thank you,” the Executioner said. “Of course I was planning to do so anyway.”

  “Just drop me off somewhere. I have no desire to spend the rest of my life in an American prison.” He was sweating profusely by then. “I can get you even more money if you like.”

  “No, thanks,” Bolan said. “I think this’ll be enough.”

  For a moment, a look of hope replaced the fear on Guzman’s face. “Then you will not take me back to the U.S. for prosecution?” he said.

  The Executioner was about to answer the man when he noticed Guzman reaching behind his back. But before the drug boss could fully retrieve his weapon, Bolan shot him between the eyes with Guzman’s own .38. Don Eduardo was officially out of the drug business.

  20

  Bolan took four million dollars in two of the briefcases and left the rest of the money in the Learjet with Grimaldi. The ace pilot would take it back to Stony Man Farm, and it would go a long way in helping to finance the destruction of other criminal and terrorist organizations around the world.

  Bolan stopped at the condo McFarley had provided for him for a moment, picked up a small-but-essential piece of equipment, then drove to the Hotel Lafitte. Greg Kunkle was waiting, chomping at the bit from his time confined in the room, and ready to get ba
ck into action in an attempt to show repentance for his past sins.

  “You’re going to have to stay hidden in the car,” Bolan said as they drove toward McFarley’s brothel-mansion. “We’re coming close to the end game now, and I don’t know exactly what McFarley knows about what happened in Bogotá. But my guess is he’s been tipped off as to what actually went down, and I don’t want anyone inside the house recognizing you.”

  Kunkle had been disappointed, but he understood.

  Bolan wasn’t surprised when two new faces—both who looked like they’d taken their share of punches in the boxing ring—met him at the front door of the brothel. They escorted him up the elevator, then stopped in the hall just outside McFarley’s office.

  “We have orders to search you,” one of the men said. His nose seemed to have been knocked permanently to the left side of his face.

  That didn’t surprise Bolan, but he felt he had to act like it did. “I thought we were past all that,” he said. “We starting over again?”

  The man with the crooked nose just looked him in the eye. “Orders are orders,” he said.

  The fact that they wanted his weapons again before he met with McFarley told Bolan a good deal about the situation. Someone from Bogotá—probably one of the guards in the second Mercedes—had called McFarley and given him the heads-up that his guy Cooper had killed some of their men and taken Guzman with him. Something fishy was going on. And, as always, McFarley was taking no chances.

  Bolan knew that Grimaldi’s Learjet was fast, but it would never be able to outrun a phone call or email.

  Bolan willingly handed over the Beretta, Desert Eagle, NAA Pug and the Espada. The two new men had also taken the two briefcases that contained the four million dollars McFarley was expecting.

  Bolan was ushered past the secretary’s desk and into McFarley’s office.

  The criminal mastermind sat in his usual place behind his desk. The only difference was that instead of the gold-plated nail clipper he usually held in his hand, he gripped the pearl-handled .455 Webley.

  And it was aimed directly at the Executioner.

  McFarley didn’t waste time. “You’re a man of tremendous talent,” he told Bolan. “But every step of the way, every job I’ve given you, there’s always been some kind of unusual outcome. Always something that had to be explained. One or two discrepancies I could overlook. But when you put them all together…” His voice trailed off and he shook his head.

  “So what’s the problem this time?” Bolan asked.

  “The problem is, I told you to only take four million dollars from Guzman so we could resume our smuggling arrangement after all this blew over and tempers cooled. Instead, you take his whole thirty million. Thirty million may seem like a lot to you, Cooper, but it’s not. Working together, Guzman and I could have made that much every month. But not now. And what’s more, you bring me only the four million I asked for. I told you before. I have people watching everyone who works for me.”

  “I kind of looked at the rest of the money as a bonus for a job well done,” Bolan said.

  “I might have given you a bonus if you’d brought it all in, but you didn’t. So all you’re going to get now is a .455-inch round of lead.” The Irishman cocked the Webley and kept it aimed at Bolan. “You’re just a little too good for your own health,” he said.

  “So I’ll get you the rest of the money and we’ll go from there.”

  “It’s not that simple,” McFarley grunted. “Word of what happened will get around. You see how fast I learned about it? My firearms connections, the people whose whores I import, everyone I do business with is going to hear about this and treat me like a leper for a while. Nobody will trust me. At least not for a long time.”

  Bolan’s smile grew slightly. “I think you can still live pretty well on what you’ve got,” he said. Casually, he hooked a thumb over his belt buckle.

  McFarley slammed his empty hand down on his desk. “That’s not the point, you son of a bitch!” he shouted. “I like what I do.” His whole body was trembling—he was losing control. Bolan knew that it wouldn’t be much longer before he pulled the Webley’s trigger.

  “I like the power!” the Irishman screamed at the top of his lungs.

  “Guys like you always do,” Bolan said calmly. Then, just as calmly he quickly stepped to the side and drew a second NAA Pug—the one he had picked up from his condo before going to get Kunkle—from behind his belt buckle, cocked the single-action mechanism and sent a .22 Magnum hollowpoint bullet drilling through Tommy McFarley’s left eye.

  The explosion shocked the two men in the room, and Bolan took advantage of their surprise to cock the tiny firearm again. The man with the crooked nose took his next round in one of his twisted nostrils, and the third man dropped to another shot in the center of his forehead.

  The Executioner had known he was likely to be frisked again if word of what he’d done in Colombia had come back to McFarley. And the Pug was too well known within McFarley’s circle to be a hideout. But Bolan had gambled that the presence of two of the tiny wheel guns would not have crossed the minds of any new, dim-witted punch-drunk lackeys McFarley might have employed in his absence.

  And that bet had paid off.

  Bolan dropped to one knee, gathering up the other weapons McFarley’s two goons had taken from him. Then he walked quickly to where McFarley’s corpse still sat in his chair, threw the body unceremoniously to the floor and took a seat at the former kingpin’s computer.

  A few minutes later, every file on the Irishman’s hard drive was on its way to Kurtzman’s vast computer network at Stony Man Farm.

  Bolan expected there would be enough evidence gathered from them to keep him, Phoenix Force and Able Team busy for a long time.

  As soon as the files had been sent, Bolan exited the office and went directly to the elevator. Sugar, dressed in black lingerie, was waiting for him. The women downstairs had obviously heard the shots. But until that moment, they had no idea who had been shot.

  Bolan looked at the woman. “You and the girls should find another job, Sugar,” he said as they reached the ground floor and Bolan started out of the house. “Preferably in another type of profession. McFarley is out of business.”

  Kunkle’s head popped up from the backseat as Bolan opened the driver’s door and got in. The detective’s SIG-Sauer was in his hand.

  As they drove away from the mansion, Kunkle said, “I don’t know what to do now that it’s over.”

  Bolan turned to look at the man. He was one-hundred-percent convinced that Kunkle had truly experienced the life-changing experience he claimed to have had. And nothing was going to change this new man who, the Executioner could sense, would spend the rest of his life doing good.

  Unless this same good man was confined to prison.

  “You ever kill anybody?” Bolan asked.

  “Well, sure, you know I—”

  “I meant outside the line of duty. Murder.”

  “No,” Kunkle said. “All I did was take payoffs to turn my head on illegal gambling, a few marijuana runs, and that sort of thing.”

  “Then I’ve got an idea for you,” Bolan said.

  “What’s that?” Kunkle asked.

  “How about just going back to your job and being an honest cop from now on?” the Executioner said.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-8232-2

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to Jerry VanCook for his contribution to this work.

  DAMAGE RADIUS

  Copyright © 2011 by Worldwide Library

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