Deep Recon Read online

"Lee owns forty percent of Hot Keys," Maxwell said. "Jean-Louis was real careful not to let anyone know where he lived. You're gonna tell me it's a coincidence that the night he takes home someone who works for Lee is the exact same night Lee's people find his house?"

  "Put the gun down, Lola," the Executioner said calmly.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Of course it's not a coincidence. But Star here is a victim, not a villain."

  Maxwell was about to object, but then she saw the look of abject fear on the young woman's face. She'd never had a gun pointed at her before, that much was clear. Hell, she looked like she was about to pee in her pants.

  She lowered the Beretta.

  Bolan looked at Star. "Did they force you?"

  Star nodded quickly. "And paid me."

  Maxwell rolled her eyes. "That probably made it easier."

  "He knew my real name!" Star screamed. "He knew my boyfriend, my mother, where I live...."

  "A lot of that going around," Maxwell said.

  Bolan rose to his feet. "Can you take care of the local cops?"

  Maxwell shrugged. "I guess so, why?"

  "Then do that. As far as anyone else is concerned, you came to visit your friend Jean-Louis Faraday, and found him bleeding on the floor, along with three corpses. You don't know what happened. They'll think it's a home invasion gone wrong."

  "They'll think it's Lee is what they'll think," Maxwell said with a snort, "once they ID the bodies."

  "Whatever." Looking around, Bolan found a pad of paper and a pen hanging from a corkboard on the wall next to the bathroom door. The top sheet had a grocery list. Bolan tore off the sheet under it and wrote down an address on Summerland Key and the same disposable cell phone number he'd given to Danny Delgado. "That's the address of a safehouse. As soon as you're done here, meet us there."

  She sighed, holding up her injured arm. "I guess I'll tell them I cut myself shaving. And by the way, how'm I supposed to get there? I assume you're taking Jean-Louis's car?"

  Bolan just looked at her and said, "I'm sure you can charm your way into borrowing a car."

  With that, he led the stripper out of the house.

  Seconds later, Maxwell heard the grinding sound of Faraday's Olds starting up. For her part, Maxwell went out back to retrieve her shell casings. No sense in having shells that would match her weapon floating around.

  She heard the sirens just as she got all of her spent bullets pocketed.

  9

  Erica Mayes had never been so scared in her life.

  Seducing Jean-Louis Faraday had been bad enough. That, at least, she could justify with the fact that she'd be getting ten grand at the end of it and her family would be in danger if she didn't.

  Now, though, everything had gone to hell, and her mother and Xavier were in awful danger.

  Sitting in the passenger seat of the Olds, she stared at the face of the man in the driver's seat, who looked stonily ahead as they drove up the Overseas Highway.

  Erica hadn't really gotten a good look at him in the dim lighting of the club, but at Faraday's house, she'd had a much better view.

  His eyes. They were ice cold.

  As afraid as Erica had been of Delgado, of his bodyguards, of the strange men in the club, of the situation Delgado had put her in, nothing and no one in her life had ever scared her the way the man seated next to her scared her at this moment.

  In a small voice, she asked, "Are you going to kill me?"

  "Why would I do that?"

  The question struck her as ridiculous. "Well, I mean — you killed those other two men."

  "They work for a very bad man, Star. It's my job to bring that man and his organization down. You're an innocent victim in all this. I'm not only not going to kill you, I'm going to ask for your help."

  Erica swallowed bile. "Why — why would you need my help?"

  "Delgado put you up to this, correct? Offered you money, threatened your family, as long as you got Faraday to pick you up and bring you home?"

  Erica nodded quickly.

  "And you were told to stay in the bathroom until it was all over?"

  Another nod.

  "Good. You're going to spend the night at the safehouse, and then tomorrow you're going to go back to work like usual. When Delgado asks, you tell him that you did as you were told, but when the gunfire stopped, you came out and found a bunch of dead bodies on the floor. You didn't see anything, you don't know what happened, and you ran away scared. Tell them you took this car."

  "O-okay. I guess."

  "If you don't do what I'm telling you, Star, Delgado will send someone like these men after you."

  "They were..." Erica's voice caught. She wiped tears from her eyes and started again. "They were going to take me back home."

  "Yeah, well, they're dead — and the house is a crime scene, and will be for a few days at least, so there's not much Lee's people can do that way."

  "Maybe I should just go home?"

  Bolan shook his head. "I can protect you more easily at the safehouse. Tell them that you drove all night."

  "O-okay. I guess." She shivered.

  "What's your name?" Bolan asked as the Olds got on the bridge that would take them from Sugarloaf Key to Cudjoe Key. "Your real name," he added.

  For a brief instant, Erica debated saying it really was Star, and spinning the same story she had given Faraday, but one look at the man's hard face, and remembering what he did to people he didn't like, she rejected that notion as suicidal. "Erica. Erica Mayes."

  "Don't worry, Erica. I'll make sure you stay safe."

  A thought occurred to her. "I need to call my mother and my boyfriend."

  "That's not a good idea, Erica," Bolan said.

  She snapped. "I need to know they're all right!"

  "Fine," the Executioner said with the greatest reluctance. He reached into his shirt pocket and handed her the disposable cell phone he'd picked up. "Use this. They may be tracking your phone."

  As she took it, Erica said, "My phone's back home. I just have the one Delgado gave me."

  "All the more reason not to use it."

  Erica called her mother first.

  "H'lo?" said a sleepy voice.

  "I'm sorry, Mom," Erica said with a wince, "did I wake you?"

  "Yes," she said curtly. "Those of us who don't take off our clothes for a living keep reasonable hours."

  "Sorry, I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

  "I'm not an invalid, Erica Jane, I can take care of myself!" her mother said.

  But for once Erica didn't mind her mom's attitude. If she was being this obnoxious, it meant everything was normal. For the moment, at least, she was safe.

  After ending that call, she called Xavier. As she did so, Bolan pulled the Olds off the Overseas Highway onto West Shore Drive — only then did she realize they'd arrived at Summerland Key.

  Because Erica still lived with her mother, Xavier had his own place on Boca Chica Key, a small studio that barely had room for Xavier's stuff, much less anything of hers, so she only really kept a toothbrush there, as well as half a drawer's worth of clothes. Once she graduated, and got a real job, they'd get their own place together.

  Xavier's cell went straight to voice mail, so he was probably home. She then dialed his landline.

  A sleepy female voice said, "Hello?"

  A pit opened in Erica's stomach. "Who's this?"

  "Ashanti. Who's this?"

  For a moment, Erica was willing to believe she'd misdialed.

  Then she heard Xavier's voice in the background. "Who is it, baby girl?"

  "Some chick," Ashanti said.

  Erica disconnected.

  "Just when I thought this day couldn't get any worse."

  Bolan turned right onto a dirt passageway that went about a quarter mile before it reached a tiny house, only slightly bigger than Faraday's place. There was a white Chevy Cavalier already parked there.

  After they got out of the car, they were greeted by a tall
, lanky, dark-skinned man wearing a blue windbreaker over the usual Keys ensemble of a T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.

  "You must be tonight's guests," the man said, reaching into the windbreaker's pocket and flashing an ID. "I was told someone would be taking the house. I'm Agent Fontaine, DEA."

  "You guys using this place?" Bolan asked, more than a little suspicious, making a note to himself to have the agent's credentials checked.

  Fontaine shook his head. "Nah, I just like comin' here on my days off. I work Miami, and it's just nice to get away from it all. Nobody bothers me here. But I got the call that somebody needed it, so it's back to my crapass apartment in Hialeah."

  Reaching into the other pocket, Fontaine pulled out a set of keys and headed to the Cavalier.

  After the car pulled out, Bolan entered the house, telling Erica to stay outside until he cleared it.

  "But a DEA agent was just in there," she pointed out.

  "So?" With that, Bolan checked the place, his SIG-Sauer in hand.

  To the chilly night air, Erica said, "Thorough son of a bitch, aren't you?"

  * * *

  The next morning, Bolan woke up at dawn, as usual, and did his morning workout. First he did some stretches to limber himself up. Then he ran through some basic martial arts exercises, including some combinations, a few self-defense moves and more stretches.

  To his surprise, there was a weight room in the safehouse, so he performed some reps with both hand weights and the barbell. Running wasn't an option, so he followed that with prearranged karate forms, which were called kata. They helped not only to condition the mind and body, but also to perfect assorted karate techniques. He did a series of advanced forms that all began and ended in a standing meditation pose.

  The first one he did was the oldest known form, Sanchin kata. This sixteen-move form was done entirely in the same three-point stance that Bolan had used when he shot at Ward Dayton in Micky's bar, and with deep breathing on each movement.

  Once he was done with sanchin, he worked his way through the others. Gekisai Dai and Gekisai Sho, which were created to train Japanese soldiers for battle in the days before World War II. The Executioner had always considered it ironic that he used a technique originally developed to train the enemies of America. Tsuki no, a quick and dirty kata consisting almost entirely of punches. Sai ha, which was complex and elegant where tsuki no was simple and brutal. Tensho, similar to sanchin in both stance and heavy use of deep breathing. Seinchin, a twenty-seven-move form that combined brutality with elegance.

  Finally, he did one of his favorites, yansu, the moves of which were very elegant. The kata began fast and furious with an explosion of arm movements, then slowed. In particular was one movement that required a downward block with the palm heel, followed by a very slow bringing up of the arm with a wrist block, then the fingers fanning out into a collarbone strike downward. The wrist block and collarbone strike were both slow and deliberate, a challenge to one's discipline to maintain perfect form. That move was performed four times over the course of the kata's twenty moves.

  When he finished the form, a voice said, "That was very pretty."

  Turning, Bolan saw a bleary-eyed Erica.

  "What was that?" she asked.

  "It's a martial arts form called yansu. That's Japanese for 'stay pure.'"

  "How's that working for you?" she asked with a ragged smile.

  "As well as can be expected," Bolan said with a shrug. His purity had been taken away from him when his family was killed. Pure stopped being an option when he chose to devote his life to the pursuit of justice.

  There was no need to share that with Erica Mayes, however, who had had enough problems these past twenty-four hours.

  Before he could discuss a game plan with her, however, the disposable cell rang. Flipping it open, he said "Yes" in a manner that swallowed the word, so the person on the other end wouldn't be sure of the voice of the person on the other end.

  "Is this Mike Burns?"

  Bolan instantly recognized the voice of Danny Delgado. Affecting the tone he used as the ex-Marine, he asked, "Danny, that you?"

  "Yeah, Mike, it's me. Listen — you doing anything today?"

  "Nothing I can't cancel, why?"

  "I don't know what kind of business you have down here this week, but — Well, I've got a business opportunity that a man of your background might be good for."

  "And what might that be?"

  "I'd rather tell you in person, Mike, if you don't mind."

  "Uh, sure, I guess. Where are you?"

  Danny provided an address on Big Pine Key. "It's a diner that my boss owns. Come around one, I'll buy you lunch, and we'll see about doing business."

  "Ah..." Bolan hesitated. "Can you make it one-thirty? That way I won't have to cancel what I got going right now."

  "That'd be fine, Mike. See you at half past."

  With that, the call ended.

  "You have something going on at one?" Erica asked.

  Before the Executioner could answer, the voice of Lola Maxwell sounded from the front door. "No, he's just pretending to because it makes his cover more convincing. If you're available exactly when the mark wants you, it's suspicious."

  "Exactly." Bolan noted that Maxwell was wearing a loose fitting T-shirt and cargo shorts, along with secure sandals. It was the closest she'd come to practical wear since he'd met her. He also saw that her arm was bandaged less sloppily than she had been able to manage with one hand, which meant someone else had redressed it.

  Bolan asked, "How'd it go?"

  "Jean-Louis is still in a coma, but they got the bullets out and fixed all the damage. If he comes to, he'll be fine, the docs say."

  Maxwell took a deep breath and then went on. "The cops bought the story. They're figuring it was a home invasion. Jean-Louis will play dumb with the cops when he wakes up if he sees them before he sees me. Mind you, the evidence isn't going to match up, but unless they can match the three bullets from your Desert Eagle..."

  "They can't."

  "Then we're fine." She flopped down on the easy chair in the safehouse's small living room.

  "How're you doing?" she asked Erica.

  "Crappy, thanks for asking," Erica said dryly.

  "Here's the plan," Bolan said. "I'm betting that Delgado's offer is going to be hired muscle, since he has some new vacancies in that department." "All in a night's work," Maxwell said with a grin.

  "I might be able to make him a better offer. Mike Burns's business in the Keys can just as easily be trying to buy some guns."

  10

  Kevin Lee was not having a good day.

  First had come the news that the men he sent to take care of McAvoy's girlfriend and her pet thug had all wound up dead. The thug was comatose in a hospital, and the girlfriend was nowhere to be found.

  Now Rico was giving him shit about the deal.

  Drug dealers were the best customers in this game, Lee had learned, because they bought in bulk and had money to burn, since in the drug trade, demand always was ahead of supply. It was pretty much impossible not to make money as a drug dealer.

  So many wanted in on it, of course, that territorial disputes were inevitable. That required firepower.

  The problem was, drug dealers were also fickle and had explosive tempers. It was why they needed the guns in the first place, truth be told, because they preferred to settle their disputes with violence instead of talking it out like civilized people.

  But it also meant they would change their minds about price on a regular basis. Rico was doing that now, right when the deal was about to go down.

  The meeting was taking place in a warehouse on East Rockland Key. It was where Rico kept his stash of heroin. Lee hadn't been thrilled with having the meet there, but Rico had insisted.

  If this hadn't been such a huge deal, with a paycheck in the millions, he probably would've given up and sought out another buyer. But Rico was buying more in one shot than Lee usually sold in six months.
He had to get this deal done, which meant putting up with Rico's eccentricities.

  So he, along with Nieto and Thorne — the only muscle he had left, until Delgado got him some fresh blood — stood in the warehouse, along with Rico and two of his guys, the equal numbers being a condition of the meet.

  Rico was bitching about the rifles.

  "You told me you was gettin' me some .50 cals, yo. Now I be findin' out that they's .416s. Wussup with that?"

  Lee sighed. "The .416 Barretts are better than the .50 calibers."

  "How's that, exactly? Last time I checked, five was bigger than four, you feel me?"

  "Yes," Lee said patiently, "but the .416s shoot flatter and faster — and they hit harder."

  "Seriously?"

  Rico sounded dubious, and Lee really didn't think he would be able to follow a detailed explanation of the ballistics involved.

  "Look," Lee said, "if you really really want .50-caliber rifles, I can do that, but the delivery won't be for a week."

  "A'ight, fine, I'll take the damn .416s, but they better be tight, you feel me?"

  "Feeling" Rico was very low on Lee's list of things to do.

  "One more thing," Lee said. "We couldn't get all two hundred MAC-lOs, but we made up for it with the same number of MAC-11s. No extra charge."

  Lee didn't bother to point out that he got the MAC-10s and MAC-1 Is at the same price. Rico would think he was getting a deal.

  "That's more like what I want to hear, yo. Let's do this."

  Then the door to the warehouse splintered open from the impact of a giant black armored personnel carrier.

  Lee ducked for cover before the sound of the wooden door being destroyed even consciously registered in his mind. Hiding behind a wooden crate that was labeled as having fishing supplies, but which probably had a ton of heroin, Lee saw that the APC was a modified VAB — Vehicule de I'Avant Blindé, which was French for "Armored Vanguard Vehicle." It had probably been bought secondhand from the French. It was painted black, and stenciled with the letters MCSO, meaning it belonged to the Monroe County Sheriffs Office.

  Lee didn't carry weapons — he had people for that. Nieto and Thorne whipped out their handguns. Nieto favored a Para-Ordnance Nite-Tac .45ACP. Thorne also had a .45, but he went with a Kimber Ultra Refined Carry Pistol II.