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  Chavez was only one of those crime bosses, but he was one who was proving to be thorn in the side of the homeland. He had developed a Messianic tendency as a result of the largesse his dirty money bestowed on the populace, and he was building up to becoming the first crime boss to openly defy the law and run for president as an independent. The U.S. Embassy had kept its ear to the ground and reported that there was a groundswell of support that, even if it did not bring him victory, would at the very least prove him a viable public and political figure.

  If this was to be the case, then it could possibly create a domino effect across the whole of South and Central America that would be unprecedented, and could lead to the U.S. having on its borders a slew of nations run by openly criminal leaders. Chavez had been an economic problem for some time; his operations had been giving the DEA a king-size headache, and without the political implications, it was obvious that a man with such clout running a drug operation into the homeland would be a logistical headache that many involved parties could well do without.

  So Chavez had to be eliminated. He was a threat that was growing, and the only way to prevent this nasty boil coming to a painful and pus-filled head was to lance it now.

  There was something about missions like these that nagged at Bolan’s sense of democracy, yet he also knew that only by such covert actions was it sometimes possible to maintain the equilibrium that democracy needed to grow and prosper. At the end of the day—hopefully this day and if he was still alive—the pragmatist in him held sway. Besides, the country was better off with one less crime lord. This was why he found himself in charge of five Marines who had combat experience in the Middle and Far East, and who had been hand-picked by Hal Brognola to accompany him on this mission. The landscape may change, but the tactics remained basically the same.

  Rendezvous had been in Lima. Getting the ordnance into the country had been the major problem. Three of the men had come via conventional transport means, and were, to all intents and purposes, just tourists or business travelers. A day or two on their alleged business, which allowed them to scout the land, and they were ready to meet up with the others. One had traveled as a member of the embassy staff—a temporary replacement for a worker on vacation—and would return to the embassy if undetected to resume his post and assumed identity to monitor closely the situation following the—hopefully—successful result.

  Bolan and Billy Symes, the man with who he was now assembling the Dragunov, had come the hard way. Over land and river with a beat-up truck that was loaded with fruit and vegetables, the ordnance stashed in compartments built into the body of the truck, the two men had braved the semi-tropical season and the hostile eye of the villagers whom they had passed. In the dense vegetation and forest that flanked the roads, it was hard to tell if they were being watched or followed, but the finally honed instincts of the solider—and the combat-sharpened senses of his companion—had given them the necessary edge.

  Hijack and robbery for fruit, vegetables or a beat-up old truck was unlikely, especially as they seemed to be the worst traders known to man: when stopping to sell and maintain their cover, they struck poor deals, and word of these idiots soon spread. They were looked on as fools, and because they were known to have little money they became poor targets for robbery. By the same token, with little cash for bribery or extortion, the military and local police who may have been tempted to stop them would mutter insults and let them pass.

  By such subterfuge had they reached Lima with their real cargo intact, having escaped any serious attention from potential enemies. Timed so they arrived on the day of mission delivery, they’d had no need to worry about cover stories. They’d headed straight for the rendezvous.

  Reno Starrit and Gates Tymon, two of the Marines, had made contact with Rey Suarez, identified by embassy intelligence as the weak link in Chavez’s chain. Making his acquaintance had been simple: he liked clubs, coke and prostitutes. Top quality, or at least as top quality as could be found in Lima. Which, to be fair, was pretty good quality for all three: there was enough crime cash floating around to subsidize a high standard. Certainly high enough to entice two alleged businessmen, in town and bored. Suarez was easy to find, and easy enough to befriend, especially as they had a war chest to buy merchandise, which they then shared with him, taking care to ensure that in truth he was the only one getting wasted.

  Once he was in that condition, the resentment that had been reported started to come to the fore. He was a peon, nothing more, and treated as such by that bastard Chavez who only came from the same village. They had started out together in the crime organization, and now he was the gofer while Chavez handed out orders. His bitterness was forthcoming, as were the details pried from him without his knowing.

  When he awoke in Starrit’s hotel suite the next day, with a thumping head, dry mouth and the clothing of two hookers strewed around him, he was presented with cash from the war chest and a warning: his big mouth had gotten him into trouble; he had accepted cash for his betrayal. Any attempt to backtrack and plead with Chavez would only mean his own painful death while Starrit and Tymon had a chance of escape. Any attempt by Suarez to run was doomed to failure—either from the two Americans and their unspecified allies, who he wouldn’t see coming, or from Chavez’s men, who knew him all too well.

  Faced with such a fait accompli, Suarez could only go along with the Americans. He had already detailed the drug baron’s movements and habits, and now he agreed to trigger an alert that would bring the man out into the open that night, his escape plan to be—with no little irony—his death warrant.

  Letting him scuttle back to his rat’s nest, the Marines had linked up with their companions as planned and briefed them. In the privacy of a safehouse provided by the embassy, the six men had mapped out their actions. The execution was to be down to Symes, who was a crack shot chosen for his particular skill. Bolan was to direct the other four men as they flanked the drug baron’s estate, neutralizing as many of the perimeter defenses as possible, in preparation for the moment when Suarez raised an alarm. This was to be when a routine patrol did not report in, having been eliminated by Bolan’s men. Suarez knew the time they should report, and knew when he had to act. If he didn’t, then his reluctance would raise suspicion when the men were inevitably found. Damned either way, he had little option but to stick to the prescribed schedule and hope he could escape detection or death in the ensuing melee, knowing that the Americans, at least, would spare him.

  When twilight began to spread over Lima, the six-man party moved to their target area. They traveled in three groups of two, with Bolan and Symes taking the truck. On rendezvous, the area was secured from prying eyes and the truck’s compartments swiftly unloaded. Each man was issued a FARA 83 assault rifle with folding stock and enough ammunition to reload at least three times. The folding stock made the rifle easy to carry, and its Argentinian origins had been deliberately chosen to make the source of the attack harder to trace.

  For the same reason, they were also issued Chilean SAF machine pistols, the BSM/9Ml Uzi knock-off being ideal for close combat work. They also carried some concussion and smoke grenades to lay down cover, as well as Benchmade Auto Stryker knives, the four-inch Tanto blades an essential piece of equipment for the kind of stealth killing they would have to make.

  Before they set off for their target, there was one last thing: the truck. It had been wired with a GPU explosive carried especially so that once the mission was under way it would detonate, providing a distraction and also eradicating as much as possible any DNA or fingerprint evidence that even the most assiduous care could not prevent.

  Chavez’s estate was walled in, with broken glass along the top of the walls and closed-circuit TV cameras located in the shrubbery and trees. There were also obvious CCTV cameras set on poles, but Suarez had revealed that these were dummies, designed to deter or mislead any potential intruders. Motion detectors were
also set within the grounds, the regular guard having had their location drummed into them after too many accidentally triggered panics. Thus, their routes were rigidly defined and easy to intercept. Night-vision and infra-red monocular headsets made the location of their devices easy to spot and avoid.

  Scaling the walls, despite their primitive but effective defense, was a simple task, the only difficulty for Bolan and Symes being to drag the broken-down sniper rifle after them. It slowed them, and by their synchronized watches they could see that they were falling behind. It was imperative they be in place by the time the initial strike was made. Although they all carried small short-wave transmitters tuned beyond the bands known to be in use, they were to be used only as a last resort.

  All three teams made their way through the undergrowth, picking their way around the detectors and heading for a point where two of the teams knew they would encounter Chavez’s security patrols. When the sentries hit the right point in their circuit, the Marines would be ready for them. Taking them out at these points would enable Bolan and Symes time to set up the Dragunov and sight it for the point where Chavez would make his exit.

  Starrit and Tymon took out their men with ease. The guards were complacent, talking as they made a desultory patrol. It was easy for Tymon to drop down beside the lead man, one arm snaking around his neck and putting him into a lock while the other punched the Tanto blade home with one sharp and decisive motion. The guard at the rear, stunned, had no time to react as Starrit stepped out of cover behind him, his hand covering the guard’s gaping mouth while his blade found the man’s kidney and ripped upward.

  Around the other side of the compound, Deacon Bell and Dean Sebastian, the other two Marines, carried out a similar action on their patrol. From there, the four men spread out to cover the estate as widely as possible. As that happened, Bolan and Symes finished assembling the Dragunov and the soldier moved out toward the house.

  The five men would have to get into position within three minutes. Bolan moved through the foliage of the estate until he could clearly see the sprawling villa, the garage area for the drug baron’s car collection and the helipad with a UH1-D Huey in place.

  Symes would be concentrating his sights on the latter area. The job of Bolan and the other Marines was to keep as many bodies away from Chavez as possible, then lay down cover for escape.

  The numbers counted down to zero. Inside the house there was an increase of activity, and Bolan could visualize that Suarez had raised the alarm, unable to deny the lack of guards, no matter what his fear told him to do.

  Self-preservation was a wonderful instinct. Suarez acted predictably because of it, and so did the drug baron. As the level of noise and subsequent alarm within the house rose, the first of the baron’s men emerged, to stand guard between the villa and the chopper. The pilot started to fire up the engine. The noise would provide excellent cover, making it hard for those near the helipad to locate with any accuracy the fire that would soon be raining down on them.

  Bolan raised the assault rifle and joined the first volley of fire that was designed to pin the baron’s men to the villa. Blindly, some of them began to return fire, but were spraying in all directions.

  There were concealed lights within the grounds of the compound. It would have proved impossible to take them all out in the time they had. However, as they fired up, it also proved impossible for them to be of help to the baron’s men. As light flooded the grounds of the compound, smoke grenades were thrown from each side of the foliage, laying down a blanket that made it hard for the gunmen to see, while their sporadic appearance through the mists was reminiscent for the Marines of shooting fish in a barrel.

  In the growing chaos, three of the guards formed a phalanx around Chavez as they tried to hustle him toward the chopper. They were tight to him, but this was no obstacle for Symes, who—while chaos raged around and in front of him—took aim carefully and punched out a shot that took off the top of the drug baron’s head. A neatly drawn entry hole and an exit that took most of his skull and scattered it behind him accounted for the criminal and political career of Hector Chavez. Three more tightly clustered shots, in quick succession, took out the three men around him. Then, calmly, Symes began to dissemble the rifle, waiting for Bolan to come back to him and ignoring the combat ahead.

  Some of the guards, having returned to the villa and grabbed gas masks, were now cutting through the smoke and fanning out toward the grounds. They outnumbered the Marines by three to one, but had one major disadvantage: they were in plain sight as they moved out. Despite the lights, the Marines had used their knowledge of the light placements to conceal themselves. The very thing designed to highlight an enemy was now the downfall of the home forces. Switching to the subguns, wide arcs of fire either cut down or disabled the opposing forces as the Marines began their retreat. Concussion grenades saw the remaining security force decimated.

  Bolan rejoined Symes, and they dragged the Dragunov back over the wall. They were joined by the other four Marines, returning the ordnance to the truck, which still had five minutes on its timer before it blew up. Everything had gone right about this mission, and as the six men split up to avoid being spotted easily, later to link up at the embassy before being flown home under diplomatic cover, Bolan could only reflect that it was rare that a mission went this well.

  It was only after debriefing the next morning, as the Marines prepared to return to some much needed and deserved furlough in the U.S., that Bolan was drawn aside by an aide to the ambassador.

  “Mr. Cooper,” the aide said, using the Executioner’s cover name, “there’s a call waiting for you.”

  Bolan nodded and followed the man. He was expecting Hal Brognola to call for a progress report, as the big Fed was ever impatient. The soldier took the phone and greeted Brognola. The tone of his friend’s voice as he answered was not, however, the congratulation on a job well done he had expected. Instead, Brognola was to the point.

  “Striker, when you get back, Jack will be waiting to bring you straight to D.C. I need your help. There’s a situation—”

  “Hal, I need to do some work on a few things before—”

  “Striker, we’ve got Russians and Chechens going up against each other with some American nationals getting caught in the middle. I really need your help on this one before things get ugly and our people are killed.”

  “Okay, you’ve got my attention.”

  Chapter Seven

  Orlov got the Americans to clean up the mess in the suite themselves. After all, it was their fault that one of them had been killed. If only they had been more forthcoming. It was a pity that the nature of the American was such that he or she felt the need to indulge in subterfuge. If they had any brains in their heads, they would have realized that his troops arriving in Argun-Martan at this time, and his questioning of them, were not without significance; nor, indeed, prior knowledge of what they had sought and found.

  They would learn. He was no engineer or chemist, and so he needed the expertise they could bring to understand the full import of their findings. This, and more importantly perhaps, the advantage to which he could turn these findings. They would have plenty of time to think about this while they were billeted in the run-down 1950s Soviet-built theater that had at one time run social realist films and uplifting dramas about tractor production, but had latterly shown any cheap Hong Kong or American action flick that had some explosions and bare breasts and could bring in a few coins.

  It appealed to Orlov’s sense of twisted humor, and his equally twisted sense of drama, to put them in the theater. It had a resonance for himself and Adamenko that ran on a personal level, such was his bond with the giant who had suffered in his childhood. Moreover, it would have a greater resonance and significance for the people of the town, for the people of Chechnya and for the people of Russia should their president attempt to flex his muscles and
move on the town. Again, this was of great appeal to the rebel leader’s sense of the dramatic: to recreate history would stir up many emotions in the people he sought to rally.

  Did it do that at great risk to himself? Perhaps. There was always a chance that the Russians would feel the red mist descend and come charging in to reclaim what they saw as their territory. If they were that blind, then it would be likely that it would be goodbye Chechen National Socialists. But Orlov was a gambling man, and if there was one thing he would have bet his life on, it was the greed of the average Russian.

  Orlov had baited and tempted the Russian leader with the wording of his statement. He knew that the man would be in little doubt about that. He would lure the Russian Bear into the open, and it would be roaring. It would not rest until the upstart Chechens were smashed. It would want the world to know that.

  And then he would dangle the findings of the survey party in front of the eyes of the Bear.

  And he would see what they would say then.

  And, perhaps, what the American government would say.

  Orlov relaxed back into his bath. To the Americans, the luxury suite of the hotel may have been anything but. Orlov and his men had been living rough in the Caucasus while they had been preparing for this move. A bath of any kind was luxury, let alone the best that Argun-Martan had to offer. And after this, the soft bed and the softer mayor’s wife. Orlov knew the story of how the mayor had won her, and felt it fitting that he should lose her the same way. She was a pragmatist; so was the mayor. He had shrugged and allowed her to go. That way, he was still alive.