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“And where do you think you’re goin’?”
* * *
FOUR MEN HAD MANAGED to escape the third car, all moving well enough despite the shot Bolan had fired to stop their progress. He didn’t know if that meant he’d missed the driver, or if they’d begun with five men in the vehicle, but Bolan had no time to work out the specifics.
All four had to die.
They hadn’t seen him yet, but they were moving in, holding a kind of skirmish line formation as they scuttled through the shadows, dodging lighted areas as best they could. It didn’t help much, since he had them spotted from the start, but stopping them required a measure of finesse, to keep the fight from tipping into chaos.
Bolan took the point man first, a clean shot through the chest that sat him down and left him slumped there, his shoulder supported by a hedge he’d probably hoped would cover his advance.
The other three had seen their comrade drop, and while they couldn’t tell precisely where the killing shot had come from, they immediately laid down fire to sweep the nearby shadows. Bolan was beyond their killing radius, so far, and seized the opportunity to drop a second gunman, double-tapping him from thirty yards to plant him facedown on the unforgiving pavement.
The remaining two were close to losing it. He saw it in their jerky movements. He heard it in the curses they were flinging at an unseen enemy and their random fire into the night. He stitched them with a short burst, half his Steyr’s magazine exhausted now, and watched them fall together in a snarl of flaccid arms and legs.
That left the girl and who else, still alive on Bolan’s killing field?
He went to find her, didn’t have that far to look before he saw the posse gunman looming over her and grinning like he’d just unwrapped the greatest Christmas present ever.
The range—some forty yards—was nothing for his rifle or its telescopic sight. Backlit by floodlights from the parking lot, the posse thug was perfectly positioned for a clean shot through the head, chest, any part of him that Bolan chose. Playing it safe, he aimed for center mass and stroked the Steyr’s trigger once, sending a 5.56 mm mangler downrange and closing the gap in less time than a heartbeat required.
The Rasta shooter toppled over backward, slowly, like a falling tree, and hit the pavement with a solid sound, skull thumping asphalt. Bolan scanned the killing ground for any further opposition, then moved to help the woman stand, gripping her arm.
“If this is where you want to stay,” he said, “it’s fine with me.”
She seemed to think about it for a second, then shook her head. “No.”
“Okay, then. We should get a move on.”
He released her and walked back to the Mercury, the woman following a step or two behind. Still considering if she should bolt? He gave her all the room she needed, but she climbed into the shotgun seat beside him as he slid behind the steering wheel.
Bolan twisted the ignition key, gunning the Marauder’s engine. “Guess I should introduce myself,” he said. “Matt Cooper.”
“I’m Garcelle. But you know that, of course.”
“Do I?”
She blinked at that. “My father sent you…did he not?”
“Afraid I’ve never met the man,” Bolan replied.
“I do not understand.”
“I found you by coincidence,” he said. “A lucky break.”
“Unbelievable,” she said. “I thought… So, you’re a policeman?”
“Strike two.”
“But, then…?”
Leaving the parking lot and rolling west, he said, “Start with your name.”
“Garcelle. Garcelle Brouard.”
And suddenly, it all made sense. “Which means your father would be—”
“Jean Brouard.”
Top Haitian gangster in South Florida, perhaps in the United States. And yeah, it all made perfect sense now.
Bolan had come looking for a war, and he’d dropped into the middle of it, picking up a prize that might prove useful—or turn out to be a deadly albatross around his neck.
3 (#ulink_3833c01c-3454-577b-9012-e21a533f077e)
Richmond Heights, Kendall, Florida
The doctor wasn’t licensed in America, although he’d had a thriving practice in Jamaica. He’d been arrested for trafficking in Class A drugs, served three years and was stripped of his professional credentials…before he was forgotten by the state. No one in Kingston missed him when he’d slipped away to Florida—at the suggestion of the Viper Posse—to help in situations such as this one.
“You will live,” he told his patient. “I have stopped the bleeding and repaired the tissue damage. I am pleased to say the bullet missed your humerus and caused no damage to the shoulder socket.”
Winston Channer, groggy from the pain and drugs he’d been given, answered, “Damn! It hurts like hell!”
“That’s to be expected. These bullets tumble inside tissue, as you may know, and—”
“Stop the double-talk! What about my arm?”
The doctor frowned. “If you’re careful with it, if you rest and follow my directions, you will probably regain full use of your arm.”
“Probably? What do you mean, probably?”
“As I was trying to explain—”
“You damned quack! I’m going!”
He rose, fighting the sudden dizziness. Two of his soldiers came forward to support him as he rolled off the table and found his unsteady footing. Behind Channer, the doctor seemed about to panic. “You must rest!” he warned. “Your blood loss—”
“You’ll lose blood, if you don’t shut your mouth!”
The doctor backed away, nodding in resignation.
“Gimme a phone!” he ordered no one in particular. Both of his men extended cell phones, and he took one, opened it, began to dial.
“Who ya callin, Boss?” one dared to ask.
“Gordon. We shoulda heard from him by now.”
The call went straight to voice mail, ramping Channer’s fury up another notch. “Damn! Where is he?”
“He hasn’t called, Boss,” one of Channer’s soldiers said.
“I know that! I woulda talked to him if he’d called.”
He was about to close the phone and hand it back when it surprised him with a chirping tone. Channer almost dropped it, let another ring pass while considering if he should give the cell back to its owner, then decided he would answer it himself.
“What?”
On the other end, a voice he recognized asked, “Germaine? Where’s the boss?”
“You’re talkin’ to him. Did you find ’em?”
Hesitation on the line, before the caller answered, “They’re dead, Boss.”
“What? Who’s dead?”
“Those boys, all of them.”
“What?” Channer repeated, feeling foolish. “That can’t be right.”
“It’s true. I seen ’em myself, and Babylon’s all over there.”
“Damn it! Did they kill the white man?”
“Didn’t see him, Boss.”
“What about the woman?”
“She’s not here.”
Snarling an incoherent curse, Channer switched off the cell and tossed it from him. Someone caught it, tucked it in a pocket and was wise enough to ask no questions.
“All our brothers are dead,” he told them. His wounded arm throbbed—the local anesthetic wearing off—which only worsened Channer’s mood. “How could one man do all that?”
When no one answered, Channer decided on his own. “He couldn’t do it! It’s impossible.”
“He must’ve had help,” one of his soldiers offered.
“This shit isn’t finished,” Channer said. “I’m gonna find this bastard and he’s gonna say who sent him.”
“And the woman?” asked his other bodyguard.
“She’s run home to her papa,” Channer replied. “Where else?”
“Good thinkin’, Boss.”
“I’m gonna hear this white man screaming out his lungs. He’ll beg to die before I’m done.”
One of the soldiers cleared his throat and asked, “You gonna tell the Don, Boss?”
Damn! Channer had almost let that aspect of the problem slip his fevered mind. His master would be waiting for a call in Kingston, and he couldn’t stall much longer.
“Of course,” he replied. “I’ll call him soon as I find the scrambler phone.”
“I’ve got it,” said the soldier to his left, reaching inside his jacket.
Channer could have slapped him, but he took the phone instead and switched on its scrambler, waiting for the green light to stop flashing and burn steadily. When it was ready, he speed-dialed the only number in its memory.
Nearly six hundred miles away, a grim voice answered on the second ring. “What’s happening?”
“I’m sorry, Boss,” he said. “I’ve got bad news.”
* * *
Briar Bay Park, Kendall, Florida
BOLAN HAD PARKED his Mercury and sat there in the dark with Garcelle Brouard. She had declined medical treatment and agreed to speak with him before he dropped her off, her final destination still unspecified.
“So, Channer picked you up to strike a blow against your father,” Bolan said.
Garcelle nodded. “I’m not sure if he expected to collect a ransom or dispose of me. Either way, he misjudged my father.”
“Your father wouldn’t miss you? Wouldn’t pay to get you back?”
“I cannot say how he might feel if I was dead,” Garcelle replied. “I like to think he’d mourn, of course, but that may be wishful thinking. As for paying ransom? Never. It would set a precedent that he could not abide.”
Clearly, she was an educated woman, not the standard mobster’s daughter raised on perks and privilege.
He changed tacks. “Are you sure about the hospital?”
“I’m fine,” she said, raising a hand to lightly touch her swollen lower lip. “You came—how do they say it—in the nick of time?”
“That’s how they say it. Were they grilling you about your father’s business?”
“Trying to, but there was nothing I could tell them. From the time I was born, I’ve been excluded from that side of Papa’s life. It was important to him, I believe, to have a semblance of a normal family. As if that’s even possible.”
He heard a note of bitterness in Garcelle’s voice and followed up on it. “I guess it isn’t easy on your mother, either.”
“I suppose it wasn’t, but she died when I was four years old. Was murdered, I should say. A business rival of my father’s set a bomb, and… It was difficult for me to understand, at first. I missed her, as you may imagine. Papa never remarried, although whether out of loyalty to Mama’s memory or to avoid another incident, I couldn’t say. There were tutors, and a governess.”
“We’ve all lost people,” Bolan said, remembering his parents and his younger sister, lives cut short by the Mafia intrigue that launched his never ending war.
“That’s true, of course. The past five years, I’ve been away at school in Paris. Papa thought I would be safe there.” With the bare trace of a wicked smile, she added, “If he only knew.”
“And now, you’re back.”
“Six weeks ago. It took that long for Channer’s men to find me, I suppose.”
“Where will you go now?” Bolan asked.
