Dying Art Read online

  “Where’s the laptop?” he asked.

  Diaz’s gaze went to Martinez, who made a reassuring gesture.

  “It’s in that bag.” She pointed to a multicolored, hand-woven purse that was stuffed with items.

  “Grab it and go out the back,” Bolan said, taking out his Beretta. He whistled, and Grimaldi reached into his pocket, took out the car keys and tossed them to Martinez.

  “I cannot leave you,” Martinez said.

  “Jésus,” Bolan said, “you have no gun. Plus, we’ve got Consuelo to think about. Take her and go through the ruins. Circle back to the car and then take off. We’ll slow down these guys for you.”

  Clearly torn, Martinez compressed his lips, then agreed.

  He and Diaz crept toward the rear of the house. He opened the door a crack and peered out.

  A spray of bullets stitched a row of holes across the top. Martinez slammed it shut.

  “Too late. We’re surrounded.” He pushed the woman to her knees and crouched beside her, using his body as a shield.

  Bolan ran to the rear, making sure his 93-R was set on single-shot mode. He took a quick look at the window and saw two enemy gunners who looked like typical cartel thugs. Two, plus the eight that Jack had seen meant at least ten. And they had significant firepower. Automatic weapons.

  Windows shattered as rounds began smashing through them and through the thin wood of the doors. Both Bolan and Grimaldi instinctively crouched. The Stony Man pilot fired two rounds through the shattered window. A gunner appeared on the other side of the rear window.

  Bolan brought up his Beretta, fired and dropped the man. The cartel gangster’s body curled forward, breaking out the rest of the glass from the window frame.

  One down and nine to go, Bolan thought. At least nine.

  More rounds pierced the wooden doors. Grimaldi fired again.

  “Got one,” he said.

  Two down.

  But they were all still boxed in a kill zone and Bolan knew he had to even the odds somehow. He pushed over a sofa and directed Martinez to place Diaz behind it.

  The Executioner went back to the door and caught a flash of movement through one of the gaping holes. Pulling it open with his left hand, Bolan delivered two more shots from the Beretta. A figure clad in black collapsed inward; he grabbed the man and pulled him through the door. After firing one more round into the man’s temple, he grabbed the assailant’s MP-5 and tossed it to Martinez.

  “Thank you, my friend.” Martinez checked the corpse for additional magazines, and finding none, shuffled to the doorway.

  “I think Carmen has been killed,” a voice yelled from outside.

  Bolan glanced at the dead man on the floor. So this was Carmen. At least the deaths of the Customs and Border Protection agents and the marines had been partially avenged.

  Grimaldi fired three more times and checked his weapon. The slide wasn’t locked back, so both he and Bolan knew he wasn’t yet out of ammunition, but they were, as his partner had previously pointed out, definitely in the low ammo alert phase.

  Bolan paused next to Grimaldi and said, “I’ll hold them off. Move into the ruins.”

  Grimaldi nodded as did Martinez, who knew what they had in mind. He grabbed Diaz’s wrist with his left hand and held the MP-5 in his right. “Let’s go!”

  As they fled out the back, Bolan fired once through the shattered window. He darted to the rear door and saw Grimaldi, Martinez and Diaz running toward a low stone wall. The fragmented remnants of some white pillars lay beyond it, and in the distance, the superstructure of a Mayan pyramid.

  Two men with weapons leading the way came into view on Bolan’s left. One yelled and pointed to the three running figures. As the pointer leveled his weapon, the Executioner fired two rounds into his chest, then rotated slightly and shot the second man. Not knowing where their compatriots were, Bolan resisted the temptation to try to retrieve one of the fallen machine guns. Instead, he turned and sprinted toward the wall, hearing a jumble of shouts behind him.

  Grimaldi, Martinez and Diaz had cleared the obstacle with no problem, and the Executioner went over it with a controlled leap. Rounds pinged off the stones next to him, and he rolled and came up with his weapon ready. Five assailants were running toward him, and Bolan aimed and shot the closest one in the chest. He jerked but his momentum carried him forward. Two of the men, the Anglos Grimaldi had mentioned, immediately flattened out, their guns outstretched.

  One of them, a red-haired man, sent a spray of rounds zinging off the rocks close to Bolan’s head.

  That guy obviously has some field experience, Bolan thought, dropping out of sight behind the wall.

  Knowing the natural tendency for a shooter to scan to the right, he rolled a few times to the shooter’s left, then popped up again. The two Anglos were still in prone positions, but the other two thugs were merely crouching.

  Bolan picked off one of the crouching men. The two prone enemy returned fire, and he ducked behind the wall. A crevice between the stones allowed him a sliver of a view. One of the prone Anglos, the one with red hair, tapped his head in a “cover me” gesture and his partner began to fire. The redhead got to his feet and jogged to a pile of stones about twenty feet away that afforded him cover, then aimed his MP-5 in Bolan’s direction.

  The Executioner kept low and faded back into the vertical stacks of massive stones. He scanned the low wall, but saw no one trying to go over it. That probably meant they’d separated and were coming in at opposite angles. Those two guys had some military training, all right. And probably combat experience, judging from their disciplined actions under fire.

  Knowing his ammo was low, he dropped the magazine and reloaded. No sign of Grimaldi and the others. He could only hope they were completing their circle back to the car.

  He saw a flicker of movement off to his left.

  Instead of firing, he flattened against the heavy stone blocks and waited. Twenty yards to his right the fragmented white pillars flanked the remains of an ancient stone wall that had once been part of a building.

  Cover and concealment, if he could get there.

  A sign was posted in front of the section of ruins that translated to Temple of the Scorpions.

  Bolan did another quick survey, and, seeing no movement, made a dash toward the pillars, zigzagging as he ran.

  Bullets tore into the ground near his feet, but he kept going. Stopping was death. He threw himself onto the hard stone floor between the pillars and leveled his Beretta toward the expanse from which he’d come.

  Nothing moved.

  Bolan crawled behind a fallen stone lintel. He took a quick look in both directions and saw one of the Mexicans advancing from the left. The Executioner reached around the edge of the lintel and fired, striking the man in the chest. The gunner grunted and dropped to his knees, then brought up his MP-5, sending a deadly spray back toward his adversary. Ducking back, Bolan shifted his position to the other side and acquired his target again. The man had staggered to his feet, fumbling with his weapon, which had evidently run out of ammunition. His head reared up just in time to catch a round in the forehead. Grimaldi stood about twenty feet away, holding his SIG Sauer.

  He said something that Bolan could barely make out.

  The two Anglos popped up suddenly and began spraying the area with bullets. Bolan saw Grimaldi drop down behind a few overturned stones. The two Anglos began advancing, one loading a fresh magazine while the other continued with suppressing fire. Bolan was about to return fire when he caught a glimpse of Grimaldi making a “stay down” gesture.

  The sound of automatic gunfire increased exponentially as Martinez stood up behind the two assailants and sprayed them with his machine gun. The two men twisted and fell.

  After Martinez had approached both hardmen, kicked their weapons away and verified that they were dead, he winked at
Bolan.

  “They should have been watching their flank,” he said.

  “Where’s Consuelo?” Bolan asked.

  Martinez pointed to a nearby grotto. “There. She fell and hurt her ankle. Slowed us down a bit.”

  “And then you guys caught up to us,” Grimaldi said, walking over. “We weren’t about to let you have all the fun.”

  Bolan nodded and told Martinez to get the woman.

  Grimaldi used his foot to flip the head of the dead gringo with red hair.

  “These two sure don’t look Mexican.”

  Martinez trotted up, carrying Diaz in his arms. The MP-5 dangled from its strap around his left arm. The woman had her head buried in his shoulder, clearly upset. Martinez handed the cloth bag to Grimaldi, who pulled the laptop out.

  “Looks like this baby’s seen better days,” he said.

  It bore three holes where 9 mm rounds had gone right through it.

  “We’d better get out of here,” Bolan said. “They may have reinforcements on the way.”

  Martinez frowned. “How did these bastards know we were here?”

  “Obviously, they must have got a tip,” Grimaldi said.

  “Romero,” Martinez said. He spat. “Hijo de puta. As I told you, corruption is everywhere. It had to be him. But how can I prove it?”

  “All the more reason for us to get Consuelo to a safe place,” Bolan said.

  “Go to your consular agency,” Martinez said. “We can trust no one here.”

  * * *

  Special Agent Webber’s face reddened as he looked from Consuelo Diaz to the damaged laptop on the table in the conference room inside the consular agency building. Special Agent Louis stood beside him.

  “So you’re sticking to your story,” Webber said. “You three took off, leaving Martinez to deal with all those assailants... All ten of them.”

  “What can we say?” Grimaldi shrugged. “The man’s a marine. He insisted.”

  Webber turned to Bolan. “Do you have anything to add to this fairy tale?”

  “Listen, we’re splitting hairs here. Let’s just concentrate on what we have. Can you find out anything on the men who attacked us? At least two of them appeared to be foreign mercenaries.”

  “How do you know that?” Webber asked.

  “It was in the way they moved,” Bolan said. “They had some military training.”

  “The way they moved?” Webber said, his face showing confusion.

  “In other words, this wasn’t their first rodeo,” Grimaldi said. “Plus, one of them had red hair.”

  “Right. I think we need to turn all this—” he tapped the laptop and pointed to Diaz “—and her, over to the proper authorities.”

  “What?” Grimaldi said. “That’s like giving the fox the keys to the hen house.”

  “Are you disparaging the reputation of the Mexican National Police?”

  “Are you defending them?” Grimaldi shot back. “That guy Romero’s as crooked as they come.”

  “I won’t stand for that kind of talk,” Webber said. “May I remind you that he’s in charge of this investigation down here?”

  Grimaldi faked a look of astonishment. “But I thought you said it was a Bureau case?”

  The FBI man’s face grew redder.

  “Agent Webber,” Bolan said, “the reason we brought Ms. Diaz here rather than wait for you at the scene is that it was obvious we were compromised.”

  Webber glared at him. “Meaning what?”

  “We were set up for the attack by someone on the inside.”

  “And you’re alleging that it was Lieutenant Romero?”

  “Who else could it have been?” Grimaldi asked. “Tell me, did your buddy make any calls while you guys were all piling into that car?”

  “Well...of course.” Webber shook his head. “He wanted to have some police cars dispatched to that address.”

  “Isn’t it funny how they arrived way after the fact, but that group of killers turned up instead?” Grimaldi asked.

  “There are other explanations for that.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  Webber turned back to Bolan. “Are you accusing a respected member of the National Police of being involved in this?”

  “It looks that way,” Bolan said.

  “And you have evidence of that, no doubt?” Webber’s voice had a condescending lilt to it. “Other than suspicion and innuendo?”

  “Subpoena his cell phone records, why don’t you?” Grimaldi said. “Oh, wait, you guys don’t have any police powers down here, do you? Good luck with that, then.”

  Webber was about to respond when Bolan interceded. “We need to get Ms. Diaz someplace safe. I’ve already asked the consular agency personnel to push through an emergency visa for the US. We’ll need to examine that laptop, too, to see if we can salvage anything from the hard drive.”

  Webber contemplated all this, then turned back to them.

  “You’re right. Due to the exigent circumstances, I think it’s appropriate that we escort Ms. Diaz and the laptop back to Washington for further investigation.” Webber canted his head. “And since this is a Bureau case, as your friend likes to keep pointing out, we’ll take it from here.”

  “But we got a plane on standby at the airport,” Grimaldi said.

  “Then you’d better take advantage of it,” Webber replied, the smile still gracing his lips. “I imagine Lieutenant Romero probably has a contingent of National Police standing by at that location waiting to talk to you about that shootout.”

  Bolan and Grimaldi exchanged glances, and the Stony Man pilot shrugged.

  “Won’t be the first time we had to take the back door out,” he said.

  Bolan reached for a pen and pad of paper on a small stand next to the door. He wrote his cell phone number on it and handed it to Consuelo Diaz. The call would be routed through cutouts to the Farm, then on to his cell.

  “Take this,” he said. “In case I can ever do anything for you.”

  She looked up at him tentatively, then accepted the paper.

  Bolan and Grimaldi turned and left the room.

  Chapter Five

  Harbor de San Martin

  Off the coast of Quintana Roo, Mexico

  Don Fernando studied the intricately carved jade chess piece, a bishop, as he listened to Tragg’s latest report. The don cared little for the game of chess anymore, but it had once been his passion in his youth. Long ago, real-life moves had supplanted the insignificant pieces on the board. Still, he found that maintaining his concentration and strategy was inherently similar. And the stakes were so much higher.

  “So you viewed the device in person?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Tragg said.

  The man was polite, respectful. A byproduct of his military background, no doubt. Don Fernando had found a lot that he liked about Tragg, but he still was not naive enough to trust him completely. He knew the man’s primary motivation was money. But then again, wasn’t that true for everyone?

  “So tell me, is it as impressive as it is supposed to be?”

  “Let’s just say,” Tragg said, “that it’ll fit into our plan perfectly.”

  Don Fernando set the bishop down and picked up a more appropriate piece: a knight.

  “And you have not yet approached this man, Bruns, about the artifact?”

  “Not yet, sir. But I’m sure he’ll play ball.”

  “Play ball... Such an American expression.” He studied the minute detail the artisan had achieved around the horse’s eyes. Extraordinary. “Let’s let him dangle awhile longer. Report back to him that you still have not found the new owner.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Don Fernando rotated the chess piece in his fingers again, studying the symmetry of the design. “So what have you found ou
t about the woman?”

  “As you know, Romero located her for us,” Tragg said. “We almost had her, but she was rescued by those two Americans.”

  Don Fernando felt a sudden surge of red-hot anger, but he gave no outward indication.

  “Tell me again why you conjectured that these Americans were the same ones who may have abducted Sergio.”

  “Just a hunch,” Tragg said. “But judging from what Romero said and looking at the moves they made, it seems logical. Now, keep in mind, I didn’t actually tangle with them either time, but they were with that big marine, Martinez. We know the marines were assisting on that mission where they took Sergio.”

  “Bastards,” Don Fernando grated, the bile rushing up into his throat. “When this is completed, when Sergio is free, I want them all tracked down and killed, starting with Martinez.”

  Tragg was silent for several seconds, then said, “Yes, sir.”

  Don Fernando took in another deep breath. Time had its own dictates, he thought. Getting angry was both foolish and counterproductive.

  Even more foolish was displaying his emotions in front of the hired help. It could be construed as a sign of weakness.

  He exhaled slowly, regaining his composure.

  “What else do you have?”

  “Romero said they seemed to know each other,” Tragg said. “Martinez and the two new Anglos. Plus, their IDs said DOJ, but Romero told me that the way they acted, he thought they were probably DEA or maybe even CIA.”

  Don Fernando frowned. “So many American abbreviations... What is DOJ?”

  “Department of Justice.”

  “I thought it was the FBI that was handling the case of the dead Americans?”

  “They are,” Tragg said. “Which makes these new guys appearing on the scene even more suspect.”

  “Where is the woman now?”

  “The FBI took her to the US on an emergency visa. We think she’s somewhere in Washington.”

  “And we still do not know how much she knows of her father’s work?”

  Tragg shook his head. “It couldn’t be that much, though. He kept her far away from the actual meeting.”