Poison Justice Read online

  On the surface, the overseas operation back then had merit, he thought, a noble banner to fight the evils of the world he had raised himself. But he discovered his own terrible weaknesses along the way: drugs, white slavery, a thriving sex industry. Then there was murder for hire, bribery, corruption. Thailand was teeming with every conceivable vice. Eventually he had gone under-cover, working loosely in tandem with men from other American intelligence agencies, his first encounter with the duplicitous ways of spookdom. The pit, he recalled, grimacing at the memory, had opened the night he murdered that prostitute, no more than a teenager, strangled with his bare hands when she wouldn’t do what…

  Enter the spooks with open arms and reassuring words, working their sorcery, brandishing his crime caught on film. Not to worry about the Bangkok police, his sins would never see the light, the spooks said. They had big plans for his future.

  Talk about a pact with Satan.

  Rollins heard himself make a choking noise.

  “Hey, get your head back in the game.”

  Rollins jerked as the cold robot voice barked in his ear.

  “That’s what this is to you, isn’t it? A game?” Rollins asked.

  “Where the stakes could be the future of the human race, my friend. You need to start thinking about more than your own little world. Hear me good. You are a critical component in this, but you are a bit player, you are expendable. Your family has abandoned you, but it’s funny how that worked out. Seeing as you abandoned them to chase your career. We are your only family left, probably always were.”

  “You rotten bastard.”

  “Remember that. Try and stick it to us, it would be better and quicker for you if you held a cobra in your hand. And remember—we’ll be watching and listening. Carry on.”

  The ghost was gone.

  Rollins felt the room spin, fighting down the sickness in his belly. He wanted to weep, run, hide.

  But he knew he was stuck, locked in. And the prospect of life in prison or a sudden bloody demise at the hands of killers who could strike him down anywhere, anytime…

  Rollins reached up and opened the cabinet, deciding he needed that drink, after all.

  NO SOONER HAD HE TOLD Barbara Price about his failure to track down Brognola, than she hit him with the news. Though they lived in a world where violent death at the hands of the enemy could strike any time, Bolan felt as if he’d been run over by a train.

  He’d pulled the Crown Victoria off the dirty track, concealing the commandeered vehicle behind thickets. Marelli was in the shotgun seat, the hit man staring through the jagged hole in the windshield, lost in what appeared to be gloomy thought, the picture-perfect wretch. To keep the professional killer’s ears from burning and to avoid being sighted by their trackers in the Bell JetRanger, Bolan had settled between two dense rows of brush. Using the late Peary’s cell phone, a series of cutout numbers were punched in until he was back channeled to Price’s phone in her office at the Farm. He now split hard vigilance between the hit man and the surrounding woods, one hand grasping the M-16.

  The Executioner listened with an angry and worried heart as the Farm’s mission controller filled him in.

  “He’s in surgery, as we speak. I’m getting secondhand information from one of Hal’s assistants. He’s telling me it’s bad, Mack. The left lung was punctured by one bullet, he took two other rounds through the ribs, but apparently they missed vital organs. My contact doesn’t know much more at the moment, but from what he can gather, assuming massive blood loss to name just one problem, factor in his age, built-up stress from what we both know is a job that would take its toll on a man half his years…you’ve got the picture.”

  “It’s fifty-fifty.”

  “I’m afraid, if that. I wish to God I could be there with him.”

  “I understand, and so would he.”

  “Meaning we’d be useless, sitting around in the waiting room while his would-be assassin is in the wind.”

  “That, and he would want us to carry on with the mission.”

  There was a heavy pause, and Bolan sensed the lady was grappling with the enormity of the moment, as, he knew, was the rest of the team at Stony Man. “How did you find out?” he asked.

  “The local morning news. It’s on every station. Two men gunned down, one dead, one believed to work for the Justice Department. Assailant or assailants fled, no motive and so forth. Plus I knew about his meeting. We both assumed from our earlier conversation they were two shadow operatives from pick-your-intelligence-agency.”

  “I’m familiar with the type. You said two men gunned down.”

  “Unidentified victim. Looks like Hal dropped one of the shooters.”

  “And any investigation to identify or track down the missing shooter or shooters will go nowhere.”

  “I get the feeling you may know something about Hal’s attackers on your end.”

  Bolan fell silent for several moments, scanning the woods. With sunup, shafts of light were knifing through the forest canopy to clear away the deeper shadows. Bolan kept one ear tuned to the singing of birds, knowing any human encroachment would send them into a frenzy of squawking and flapping wings. He could feel time running out, his combat senses perking up, warning him nameless enemies were in the vicinity.

  “I have a hunch who’s behind the hit on Hal, but I’m going to need you to go a few extra miles on this one, Barb. We’re in this alone from here on.” Quickly Bolan brought her up to speed, told her what he needed and suggested a plan of attack on her end.

  She fell silent when he was finished, the soldier thinking she was pondering the solutions too long. Bolan asked, “Well?”

  “Consider it done, but there’s something else you need to know. Mack,” she said, pausing again. Bolan listened to the mission controller draw a breath. “It’s become a federal investigation, what with Hal getting gunned down. Both the FBI and Justice agents were on the scene before I spoke with my contact at the department. I was told they found your Justice Department ID at the crime scene.”

  CABRIANO FIGURED it was all of a two-hour drive from the city into the Catskills where they were heading. To him the land was just a bunch of trees, hills and peaks, figure a few lakes somewhere in the wilderness. He’d never been here, nowhere close, hardly interested in hiking, snowmobiling, camping, the sort of leisure, he thought, best left to folks whose worlds didn’t reach any further than job and home.

  The peasants.

  He was in the back seat, nose full and head swimming with whatever the sweet cologne Hildago was doused in. The cartel’s boy in New York was looking pretty smug, laying out dribs and drabs of the plan. Which was little more than full-scale slaughter of whoever got in their way, followed by, he had to admit, a pretty imaginative workout on Marelli until he turned over the disk. Full of assurances, too, how he was nothing but concerned that his problem—now their problem—was resolved. That, and their futures were shored up with their new mutual friends from the Middle East.

  Cabriano kept glancing at his diamond-studded Rolex watch. Frankie had the lead vehicle, Cabriano’s ride three down in the rolling Towncar convoy, with the lone beige Cadillac the odd wheels out. He was about to call The Tube, who knew the way from a prior payoff to their Justice guy—and why the hell was Peary not answering his calls?—when his cell phone trilled.

  “Yeah?”

  “Whatever it is you and your Colombian friends are planning, I suggest you abort, turn around and go back to the city.”

  “Who is this?” Cabriano snarled, fighting to keep the anxious edge out of his voice as he glanced at the dark look hardening Hildago’s expression.

  “A very interested third party.”

  Cabriano saw the big dark bastard boil up in his mind, all fire and thunder, like some avenging angel of death. But, steeling his composure, he knew the voice didn’t belong to the nameless one-man wrecking crew who caused him so much grief, cost him a small fortune in money, not to mention lopping off his standing c
rew by about one-third.

  “Whoever you are, I’m in no mood—”

  “Stick your mood.”

  “Listen to me, you cock—”

  “Look out your starboard window, three o’clock.”

  “Who is it?” Cabriano heard Hildago demand to know.

  Waving off the Colombian, Cabriano was turning his head when the voice said, “Starboard would be to your right.”

  Cabriano scowling, searched for a reply that would save immediate face, but words eluded him.

  Then he spotted the sleek chopper. It was sailing, low over hills swaddled in dense forest, holding a steady speed, four hundred yards or so out.

  “Okay, so I see you, so…” Cabriano felt his blood boil. He was lord and master of an empire worth billions. Everywhere he went they bowed and scraped in his presence. Movie stars and sports heroes likewise couldn’t kiss his ass enough. He could have anyone short of the President of the United States whacked, and the past twelve hours he’d been forced to swallow more turds, more shame, more disgrace…

  Through the roar in his ears he made out the voice saying he could blow their little caravan off the road anytime he wanted, not enough pieces left to scrape into a dime bag. Didn’t want to do that, left an or else hanging. Cabriano felt Hildago’s nerves cracking. The guy was all over the seat, in his face. He threw a scowl at the Colombian and listened as he was told their special shipment was right then on the way to Colombia. They were expected in Colombia, no more than twenty-four hours from that moment. Woe be unto them should they not be there, and with the balance of the money for the special merchandise. The Marelli problem was in the process of being handled, but if he chose to proceed the price on several fronts would be taken to a new level that would leave him wishing prison was all he was facing.

  Silence.

  Cabriano ignored Hildago bleating in his ear, watched as the chopper veered off, fading into distant blue sky before it angled north, gathered speed, then punched through a layer of clouds.

  “Answer me! Who was that?”

  Cabriano looked at Hildago and told him, “Our spook friends have a message for us.”

  “ONE OF TWO THINGS is going to happen here, Marelli. Number one—you are going to take me to the disk. Do that, and as much as I’d just as soon shoot you and dump you by the road, I will see to it personally that you get your sweetheart deal. New program, new location, new agents picked and cleared by me.”

  They were heading what Marelli guessed was south, back to the city, the sun having almost cleared forested hills to the east. Nothing much by way of traffic, other than an SUV or recreation vehicle passing in the other lane every few minutes or so. But he kept thinking—fearing—any second a battalion of angry or dirty cops would come swarming over them. A mile or so down the road, wind blowing through the gaping hole in the windshield, and flying glass slivers were no longer a threat. The big man didn’t volunteer any information about how the hole got punched, and Marelli had weighty concerns other than the wind in his face. There was a jagged crack, angling up the windshield like a bolt of lightning, but it didn’t obscure the man’s vision.

  Marelli stared at the stranger. Gut and experience told him the man had traveled some dark roads in his day. Marelli knew a killer when he saw one—it was in the eye, the voice, the way a guy carried himself. Like he’d walked through fire before, no big deal, bring it on, seen worse. Whoever he was, really worked for—Fed, spook, one of those black ops of the military—there was something genuine about the man he couldn’t quite put a finger on. An honesty perhaps, something inside the heart he believed in, would go the distance to defend. What the hell was this? he wondered. Was he finding himself trusting, liking the man?

  Marelli punched in the dashboard lighter. “You’re tellin’ me those weren’t your boys who ate up their own back there, wanted to string me up by my nuts.”

  “That’s what I’m telling you.”

  Marelli bobbed his head. The cuffs were tight, but his hands weren’t bound hard enough to cut off blood and swell them to purple balloons. Even if he thought he could wriggle free, he knew the man was, indeed, either his salvation or doom.

  “Clock’s running, Marelli.”

  The mobster lit his smoke, eased back in the seat. “Guess I don’t have to ask what number two thing is if I don’t cooperate.”

  “You’re a smart guy.”

  Marelli grunted. “Yeah. For someone with a fourth-grade education. Okay.” He nodded, blew smoke and said, “It’s in Miami. My girl’s sittin’ on it. Now, I need this new program of yours in writing.”

  “You can carve my word in stone.”

  For some reason, Marelli believed that. He smoked, thinking some angry change had taken hold of the man after his phone call back in the woods. Whatever it was—bad news most likely—he sensed the killer inside the guy more ready and determined than ever to take this ride to the end.

  Marelli looked at the man. “Mind if I turn on the radio?”

  “Go crazy, but not too loud.”

  Marelli turned on the radio, began twisting the dial, knowing there was a soft rock or country station somewhere in these hills. “Mind if I ask where we’re goin’, what’s the plan?”

  “You’re going home.”

  “Miami?”

  “There first. And the plan’s to keep both of us breathing.”

  The man suddenly snapped off the radio, and Marelli was startled by the sudden silence. Then he saw the fleet rolling around the bend in the road. Marelli glanced back and forth from the big guy to the black-tinted windows on the Towncars and Cadillac, the man not showing the first sign of nerves. As the last car blew by, Marelli said, “You know who that is?”

  “I know exactly who it is,” the man said.

  Marelli rolled down the window, cleared the smoke. He looked over his shoulder and saw a string of brake lights.

  7

  Simple but grim either way, Bolan knew the options were flight or fight. Both had merit, and risks that could slam the brakes on the whole campaign any stretch of the road. Given the stakes—a purported superradioactive toxin used for rocket fuel, meant to propel astronauts into deep space at light speed on alleged nuclear propulsion, and now for sale to fanatics in search of the leviathan of all dirty bombs—and circumstances—his own head on a platter for impalement at the hands of the good guys—the latter outweighed the former. But there were other considerations—such as noncombatants and good cops who didn’t know any better—that made running more practical for reaching the next goal. And getting his hands on Marelli’s disk, not to mention keeping both of them alive, was the only priority at that moment of the new day.

  They still had a way to go—ninety minutes or so, depending on traffic—before making the Big Apple’s outer limits, and some road warrior-style rampage on a well-traveled highway, sure to maim or kill innocent motorists, was last on the soldier’s list for a call to arms. Pull into a campground, diner, gas station, thinking the vicious jackals might rein in lethal intent on account of witnesses? No, Bolan didn’t find that wise either, not if he factored in desperate men of violence who would go to any extreme to save their world. Collateral damage to them was just the peripheral cost of keeping the empire flourishing. Keep going, then, turn the Crown Vic into a NASCAR torpedo to the end of the coming finish line? Hope the gods of war would carry him on the wings of divine guidance until he barreled across the tarmac, aimed like a bullet for the hangar at Newark International? There again, a rocket ride all the way to the city limits carried yet more dim prospects of a clean finish, since the last sight he wanted looming on his tail was strobing lights.

  Trouble, real or phantom, was plaguing Bolan’s thoughts, the more he pondered the dilemma. Flight or fight, damned if he didn’t.

  He was no stranger to New York and New Jersey, and if he chose to keep the breakneck pace, the soldier knew the quickest route to Newark International. But there was no telling—despite Barbara Price stepping in with capable
hands and clout that reached the White House—what would be on tap when he attempted to board the Gulfstream, Miami bound, with the songbird of the ages, and who was on the gallows for at least three, maybe four tribes of hostiles to hang. One seemingly insurmountable Mount Everest hurdle at present was that he could be certain the conspiracy inside the Justice Department wound its tentacles up the hierarchy, or no way could Peary have pulled off quadruple murder and skip off after Marelli with no worries about a full-scale investigation.

  As far as the tightening noose around his own neck went, Price was already thrusting an iron in that particular fire. Trouble was, a dark cloud of suspicion he may have gunned down Hal Brognola was hung on his head. Which meant dragnets, roadblocks, APBs, BOLOs, good cops walking blindly into the whole sordid murk where the big sharks passed off the chum—SAC Matt Cooper—in hunt of the main course.

  Bolan gathered speed, pedal to the metal, shooting them down open highway with the speedometer’s needle holding at 90 mph. In the corner of his eye, the soldier spotted Marelli giving his neck muscles a workout, the soldier feeling the hit man’s nerves cracking as he twisted on the seat. Another hard look into the sideglass, and Bolan saw the four-Towncar-lone-Cadillac convoy swing around, tires blowing out smoky vapor in the distance as tread clawed asphalt. There was a mile gap from their pursuers, but the wheelman of the point Towncar didn’t much care about the speed limit.

  Then fate stepped in and made the decision for Bolan.

  How he’d missed the state trooper, where he’d even barreled onto the highway from was a moot point. Marelli was muttering a curse, wanting to know the plan, and Bolan eased off the gas. Careening around a bend, fighting to keep from flying off the road for a long drop into a deep ravine, the warrior spotted yet two more sleek New York troopers shooting cruisers down in the southern distance. There, both cruisers rolled on but were slowing, lights flashing, as they next went into a long dramatic slide. That maneuver alone raised the red flag in Bolan’s head that the word on Cooper was out. The two-cruiser barricade could be navigated, around or through, but Bolan knew the running stopped there.