Enemies Within Read online

  “Good on the address?” Bolan asked as Grimaldi revved up the Mazda and began to roll.

  “Flame Tree Estates, if you can swallow that. Off Three Chop Lane Southwest. It’s plugged into the GPS. Who do you think dreams up these names?”

  “I’d guess that each one has a story back of it,” Bolan replied, and let it go.

  They found Juanita Alvarado’s apartment block in twenty minutes, give or take, took a parking spot reserved for visitors and then hiked around to reach her little walkup on the second floor of Building C.

  Climbing old metal stairs that creaked and trembled underfoot, Grimaldi lowered his voice a notch to ask, “You think we’ll find Menendez here?”

  “I doubt it,” Bolan said, “but stranger things have happened. Love, and all.”

  “I hear you.”

  On the fiancée’s doorstep, the Stony Man pilot tried the bell, but it was dead. He knocked next, right hand drifting toward his Glock 21 chambered in .45 ACP. In theory, it had more knockdown power than Bolan’s M-9, but the Executioner would have hated to live or die on the difference.

  A sound of footsteps echoed from within, first rushing to answer the knock then hesitant. A shadow blocked the door’s small fisheye peephole before a younger woman’s voice called through the pressboard paneling, “Who is it?”

  Bolan held his creds up to the peephole, saying, “Ma’am, Homeland Security.”

  The same young woman’s voice replied, “I don’t know what that is.”

  “We’re government investigators,” Bolan answered, “here to talk about your fiancé.”

  “Ernesto?” There was worry in the voice now. “Is he hurt? Was there some kind of accident on base?”

  “No, ma’am,” Bolan replied. “Not that we know of.”

  “So, what kind of questions, then?”

  “Ma’am, we’d prefer discussing this inside, if that’s all right. No reason to involve your neighbors at this stage.”

  “‘This stage’? You talk in riddles.” But she cracked the door enough to see them both and eyeball Grimaldi’s ID. Reluctantly she said, “Okay, come in. But I don’t have much time. I have to work, you know?”

  “At Tweety Pie’s, from five till closing. Yes, ma’am.”

  “So you know that, eh?” She stood aside to let them enter, shut the door and latched it after glancing out to verify they were alone, no nosy neighbors looking on. “You can stop with the ‘ma’am,’ all right? That was my mamacita, and she’s muerto. You most likely know that, too, I guess. Sit down, if you want to, but I got no drinks to offer you.”

  “We’re fine,” Bolan said as they sat. “As I already said, we’re here to ask about Ernesto—who, I stress again, is physically okay for now, as far as we can tell.”

  “‘For now.’ Another game you play. What are you asking me?”

  “To start, the last time that you saw or spoke to him,” Bolan replied.

  “Almost a week,” Alvarado answered. “We are comprometido. That’s engaged, but you already know that, calling him my fiancé. But if he isn’t hurt or dead—” she immediately crossed herself “—that has to mean you’ve lost him somehow, eh?”

  “You could say he’s lost us,” Bolan said. “And he hasn’t gone alone.”

  Roanoke, Virginia

  “Flame Tree Estates,” Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Knowlton said. “Off Three Chop Lane Southwest.”

  “I’ve got it memorized, sir,” Staff Sergeant Afif Rashid replied, “and locked into the GPS.”

  “Okay.”

  Rashid was driving one of their spare cars, a 2015 Toyota RAV4, with plates switched out from their stash. The AWOL Rangers were packing two M-4 carbines, sidearms and grenades, still hoping to pick off their target without a shot fired.

  “How do you think Ernesto will react to this?” Rashid inquired.

  Knowlton tried not to frown. “First thing, he’d better not know we had any hand in it.”

  “Goes without saying, sir.”

  “Beyond that, it could be a while before the news gets hold of it. They’ve got close to a hundred thousand residents in Roanoke. ‘Hispanic waitress misses work at Tweety Pie’s’ won’t be a top priority. If we don’t leave a mess, they may just think she’s flown the coop. High turnover in those shit jobs for lousy pay. We may be home and dry before he even learns about it or has time to think it through.”

  “But if he wants to take her with him, Colonel—”

  “Not our problem, Staff Sergeant.”

  “No, sir.”

  Knowlton wasn’t convinced Rashid had bought it absolutely, but who cared? When he—Knowlton—and Major Darby were long gone, nobody else would have the time to sweat it, anyway.

  “Okay, we’ve got it, sir,” Rashid announced. “Here’s Three Chop Lane Southwest.”

  “Three Chops at what, do you suppose?” Knowlton inquired.

  “Don’t know, don’t care, sir.”

  “Does it even run southwest?”

  “Yes, sir. If we can trust this ride’s direction finder, anyway.”

  “So the fiancée’s place is somewhere up ahead and on our right?”

  “Must be, unless she’s got a place over that strip mall on the left. Maybe the Laundromat, sir.”

  “I’ll watch street numbers.”

  “Yes, sir. Will we be leaving the M-4 carbines behind?”

  “Affirmative. Try IDs first, at least until we get inside her place, then—”

  “Niokomak!”

  “What’s that, Rashid?”

  Knowlton knew lots of Arabic profanity from contact with its native speakers, but he hadn’t counted on Afif Rashid unleashing one of the language’s foulest insults to his face.

  “Sorry, sir. Honestly. But just look over there!”

  Knowlton looked, saw two men in dark suits clear the door to Juanita Alvarado’s place before she shut it tight behind them.

  “Damn it all! Now, what the hell?”

  “Same guys from Barclay, yesterday, you think?” Rashid pressed on. “The ones who tried to get a jump on Junior and Moseley out at old man Tanner’s place?”

  “I wouldn’t bet against it,” Knowlton answered. “If it’s not them, somebody’s got more than one team working us.”

  “Figures.”

  “I need to call the major,” Knowlton said. “Get his advice. Whatever else, we can’t sit by and watch them leave with her.”

  “No, sir.”

  Knowlton took out his cell, speed dialed the boss and briefed him in a few terse sentences. Rashid could only hear Knowlton’s side of the conversation afterward. “Yes...No question...Same two or another pair from the same shop...Inside or out, repeat?...Understood...Nobody gets the girl...Right...Affirmative...Ten-four.”

  “So, what’s the word?” Rashid asked after Knowlton cut the link.

  “We watch and wait for now,” the colonel answered. “Can’t try getting ears inside that dump. Too late for it. If they try coming out with her...”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Major says do whatever’s necessary in that case. Try getting all three in the RAV. If they resist, forget the disappearance plan and switch up to close-quarters combat. Hose them down full-auto, grab the fiancée, no matter what, and haul ass out of here.”

  “Rendition style,” Rashid said.

  “Or Osama style. Whatever. Leave a bit of mystery, if possible. Cops get the address, but they waste time looking up the two dead guys before they get around to hunting for the girl. It isn’t much—bad press now unavoidable—but job one is to shut her up.”

  “You think she knows something?”

  “The major thinks she might. That’s all we need to know.”

  “Okay, then. Lock and load, sir.”

  Rashid snatched his M-4, jacked a round into the chamber,
set the weapon for 3-round bursts and put it back between his right leg and the RAV4’s console.

  Knowlton followed suit, bracing his autocarbine solidly across his lap and then seeing to his sidearm.

  Ready.

  Now the only thing that either one of them could do was wait.

  Chapter Six

  Sixth Avenue, Manhattan, New York City

  Lieutenant Tyrone Moseley waited for an answer on his brother’s cell, sufficient time for Jesse to be up and moving but before his first class of the morning at the Newark College of Engineering, then saw it cut to voice mail once again.

  “Goddamn it!”

  He’d been trying since last night and now had work to do, but he was getting nervous all the same. Jesse was regular in terms of hours, as far as Tyrone knew. Might have a little girlfriend whom he hadn’t shared with Ty, of course. Why not? That was a guy thing. But since Tyrone had gone over the wall with Major Darby and the rest, he’d felt a nagging urge to speak with Jesse one more time, maybe explain a little bit of what was going on.

  Not much, grant you, but just a slice. Put the kid’s mind at ease a little with the trash talk he’d be hearing all too soon enough. And if they never spoke again...well, that was life.

  But now Lieutenant Moseley had a job to do, and one he’d thought up for himself, no less. The gym bag he was carrying over his left shoulder contained six pounds of C-4 plastic explosive, resembling modeling clay, together with a detonator linked to Moseley’s burner phone, awaiting only its connection to a six-volt, heavy-duty lantern battery. With that link made, he’d only have to speed dial 9-1-1 to set the package off.

  But where?

  Moseley hadn’t decided yet.

  The inside pocket of his denim jacket held a pamphlet listing Central Park’s attractions, day and night.

  There was the zoo, of course, but Moseley didn’t like the thought of blasting helpless animals in cages, even if some of them might eat him alive if given the chance.

  There was the Arsenal, older than Central Park itself, which touched a chord. The thought of bringing down a red-brick building built in 1848 as something agents of the CID might think symbolic, even if it never was at all...

  There was the half dome of the Bandshell, no performance scheduled there until that evening, some kind of string quartet. Moseley could sneak around and leave his package there, blow it when he was clear, and leave the first responders scrambling. Dr. Martin Luther King had made a speech there, and somebody had later read a eulogy to John Lennon decades earlier, after some self-styled fan had gunned him down after Lennon was kind enough to smile and let him have an autograph.

  But no.

  He’d finally decided on the Cop Cot, for a little play on words: a modern reconstruction of a wooden shelter common in the park, nothing to do with cops who couldn’t stay awake during their shift, but rather from the Scottish meaning “little house on the crest of the hill.” Nobody slept there now, of course, and it was perfect for his needs, an easy in and out, drop off the bag, walk far enough for safety’s sake and blow it all to hell.

  He would be off and strolling—never running from a blast scene, mind you—and away from there before firefighters rolled up in their trucks with sirens wailing. There might even be some time to try Jesse again and finally make contact before heading back to meet his friends and settling down to business.

  Turning off the Avenue and passing through the famous Artist’s Gate, guarded by statues of South American heroes Jose San Martin, Simon Bolivar, and Jose Julian Marti—another cool touch, Moseley thought—and moments later he was crouching in the Cop Cot, out of sight from passersby, rigging his IED.

  He got to work while barely glancing in the gym bag, mind on Jesse and the more important job ahead.

  When it was done, Moseley evacuated, moving like a man with nowhere to go and all day to get there, taking his time as it seemed, without dawdling in fact. When he was back on Sixth Avenue, he palmed the burner phone and sent his signal racing through the greenery.

  Liftoff.

  Goodbye Cop Cot, hello confusion to his enemies.

  And off to reach his brother if he could.

  Flame Tree Estates, Roanoke, Virginia

  “He’s lost you? I don’t know what that even means,” Juanita Alvarado answered nervously.

  “Sergeant Menendez and a few more Rangers have jumped ship,” Bolan replied. “Of course, they weren’t on shipboard to begin with, but they’re AWOL. That’s—”

  “I know,” she said. “Absent without official leave. It’s like deserting, sí?”

  “Not quite,” Bolan replied. “Both fall under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, along with ‘missing movement,’ when a soldier fails to report for deployment on a certain date and time. AWOL is unauthorized absence from base. Of the three, desertion’s the most serious. In time of war, it can carry the death penalty.”

  “Muerte? Ejecución? What are you telling me right now?”

  “That your fiancé and his five companions are in trouble. Deep, abiding trouble. They’ve declared hostile intentions to our government and—”

  “No! That’s crazy. Loco. ’Nesto is a soldier and a patriot. He’d never—”

  “We have paperwork, communications. All six signed their names to it,” Bolan said, cutting off her protest.

  Almost a whimper this time, as she told him, “I don’t understand.”

  “Nor do we,” Bolan told her. “That’s why we’re investigating. At the moment, we’re concerned about you, too.”

  She blinked at that, a lone tear coursing down one cheek. “Why me? I’m not a soldier, just a waitress at a coffee shop, okay? I don’t know anything about these crazy things you’re telling me.”

  “That may be true,” Bolan replied. “I need to ask you if you’ve met one of his fellow Rangers, a Lieutenant Tyrone Moseley.”

  “Ty? One time I met him. He seemed nice enough, but didn’t have that much to say.”

  In for a penny, Bolan thought, then said, “Last night, someone shot Moseley’s younger brother on a roof in Newark. Killed him on the spot.”

  “Newark?” She made a little huffing sound. “I know I shouldn’t say it, but black people shoot each other in big cities all the time, verdad? Even right here in Roanoke, sometimes, but not so much as New York and the rest.”

  “Involving gangs and drugs,” Bolan agreed. “But Moseley’s brother was an engineering student, making As and Bs. He had no record with the law. Nothing.”

  “An accident maybe,” she said. “I hear of such things. Where my parents live, in Tamaulipas, the cartels—”

  He cut her off again. “Sorry. This wasn’t a cartel, Ms. Alvarado.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because another pair of men were found stalking another Ranger’s father from the missing team, just yesterday. As luck would have it, he’s an Anglo and a decorated military veteran. US Marines.”

  “You mean that someone’s killing off these AWOL soldiers’ relatives and—”

  “Loved ones, yes.”

  “So now you think I am in danger. But I don’t know anything!”

  “They may not know that, or they may not care. No point in taking chances, from the way they look at things.”

  “Ernesto wouldn’t let them harm me.”

  “Maybe not, if they discussed it with him in advance.”

  “What do you want from me?” she wailed.

  “To get you out of here,” Bolan replied. “Away to someplace safe.”

  “Away? I have a home! A job and bills to pay! I can’t just pack and—”

  “No. Don’t pack,” Bolan corrected her. “The sooner we go, the sooner you’ll be safe.”

  “And how do I know you are who you claim to be?” she challenged him. “Maybe the killers sent you and—”


  “We can arrange for a police escort. That takes more time and makes us easier to trail, but if it puts your mind at ease...”

  “Me cago en la hostia,” Alvarado muttered.

  Bolan knew it was a curse, and one that wouldn’t normally have passed her lips. “The safest way is really just to—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I am coming. Nothing packed. Let’s go, if we are going, eh?”

  * * *

  “They’re taking long enough in there,” Afif Rashid complained.

  “We both have watches, Sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry.”

  “If they come out without her,” Colonel Knowlton said, “that means she either told them what she knows, or else she had nothing to spill.”

  “And if she did know something?”

  “Then she must have heard it from Menendez. Only way it plays,” Knowlton stated.

  “Son of a bitch! I mean—”

  “I know exactly what you mean.”

  “But if she’s just some bubblehead, sir, and they leave her hanging...?” Rashid queried.

  “Then she’s either useless to them or she’s meant as bait.”

  “We won’t know until we’ve grilled her, right, sir?”

  “Or we’ve walked into their trap,” the colonel told him.

  “And if we have a chance to question her, suppose she gave Ernesto up...”

  “Then we’re in major shit, Sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir. I see that.”

  “All things considered, I suppose it’s best if they try leaving with her. Not the clean solution we were hoping for, but still...”

  “Makes sense, sir.”

  Knowlton wasn’t a man who fondled guns. He’d known some men in the service who did so and considered them peculiar. But it helped to have his big hands resting on the M-4 carbine in his lap now, drawing strength from it, or confidence, whatever.

  Would these be the same men who had tried to run down Captain Tanner and Lieutenant Moseley yesterday in Maryland? Maybe another pair cut from the same cloth at one of the federal alphabet agencies? Same guys might just be gun shy from the last encounter with a pair of Rangers, or they might come back ready to prove themselves this time, twice as hard as before.