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Answering chatter in Spanish came immediately. Bolan keyed the mike a few more times, as if having trouble with it, and then muttered something about dying. He managed to dredge up the appropriate terminology, again in Spanish, and hissed into the radio as if with his dying breath, urging his brave comrades to activate the mines guarding the southwest machine-gun emplacement.
The camp came alive. Searchlights on the towers buzzed to life and began sweeping the no-man’s-land around the base, while somewhere inside, a hand-cranked siren slowly worked its way to a gravelly, mechanical wail. Bolan could hear the shouts of alarmed soldiers grow in intensity. He pictured them finding the dead soldier behind his sandbags, next to his machine gun. Their fears confirmed, they would reach for the Claymore detonator nearby, if not clutched in the dead man’s hand….
The thumps of the Claymores detonating were followed by screams even more horrifying than those that had stopped coming from the interrogation building in the midst of the camp. They would be from the Honduran soldiers responding to the alert—where Bolan had reversed the Claymore mines he had found, the shaped charges directing their deadly ball-bearing payload inward over the machine-gun emplacements rather than outward from the palisade.
Blind reaction fire erupted from several locations outside the camp and from within the perimeter. The noise was deafening. Several other Honduran soldiers triggered their own Claymores, apparently fearing an unseen enemy was advancing on their positions. Bolan, well clear of the mines from his location beyond the no-man’s-land, was in no danger. This was the moment of frenetic panic he required—and the moment he had engineered.
He methodically loaded and fired the M-203. It was a difficult shot, but his first 40-mm fragmentation grenades struck true, blowing apart the crow’s nest of the watchtower closest to his position. He worked his way out, dropping a grenade into the midst of the camp, then annihilating another of the guard towers.
Bolan fired a grenade into the middle of the no-man’s-land. He was rewarded with the thumps of Claymores again. He sent another 40-mm payload downrange, but there were no more explosions; the Claymores had been fired, and now the way was clear. He moved easily through the darkness, avoiding the wild firing of the machine guns as he slipped through. As he had expected, Third World soldiers who were brave when facing out-gunned opponents were quick to break discipline and give in to fear when faced with a determined aggressor. Gaining and keeping the battlefield momentum, the initiative in an engagement, was Bolan’s stock in trade. He was very good at what he did.
He leveled his rifle and sprayed bursts of 5.56-mm fire into the guards manning the nearest machine gun. They didn’t appear even to notice him, until it was too late. Their attention was focused inward, on the base itself. Bolan loaded his grenade launcher once more and blew a hole in the palisade large enough for him to enter the camp.
The explosion drew fire, but the Executioner ignored it, throwing himself through the splintered gap and rolling with the impact. He came up firing, stitching the confused, surprised shock troopers he encountered. As he ran, he yanked smoke grenades from his harness and threw them. The plumes of dense, green-yellow smoke added to the confusion and helped further cover his movements.
Working his way through the camp, he exhausted his supply of 40-mm grenades, blowing apart as many pieces of equipment and protective structures as he could, while always avoiding the roughly centered prefab hut he had dubbed the holding cell. He finished destroying the watchtowers and punched several holes in the protective palisade. There was nothing to be gained by destroying the wooden walls themselves, but no harm in allowing it to happen, either.
Resistance was ineffectual, as he had expected it to be. Most of the troops from the advance camp had, as was only logical, been assigned to the raiding column massing at the border. This base was, after all, the staging area that permitted the raiders to do what they had come to do. A token force had been left behind to guard it, but it was clear they had expected nothing serious by way of retaliation.
If they had been alerted by their loss of radio contact with the raiding party, nothing about their reaction to Bolan’s assault indicated so. It took him a little while, nonetheless, to work his way through the camp and eliminate any stragglers. He took down several men wearing the blue epaulets of the shock troopers, some of them in the act of fleeing, while others stood their ground in the smoke and flames and tried to take him. It didn’t matter, either way. These men might be the elite of Orieza’s killers and the best the dictator could field, but they weren’t in the same class as the Executioner.
Thinking of radio contact reminded him to check the radio room, which he recognized by the small, portable transmitting array jerry-rigged to the top of a corrugated metal shack in the northwest corner of the palisade’s interior. Inside, Bolan expected to find a man or men desperately screaming for help, but the shack was empty. The radio equipment was undamaged, so the big American emptied the last of his rifle’s ammo into it. He dropped the magazine, slapped home a spare, then picked his way through the wreckage of the base interior once more. As he moved he was mindful of the dangers, for there still could be men hidden between him and the holding cell.
Nevertheless, the man who threw himself from concealment next to a burning military-style jeep almost managed to take Bolan by surprise. He was incredibly fast, with a sinewy build that translated into a painful blow as the tall man drove a bony elbow into Bolan’s chest. The Executioner allowed himself to fall back, absorbing the hit as he let his rifle fall, and moved to draw one of his knives….
The man surprised Bolan by leaping over him and continuing to flee. The Executioner rolled over and regained his footing, snapping up the rifle and trying to line up the shot. He caught a glimpse of the thin, hatchet-faced man as the evidently terrified Honduran soldier bolted through the smoke, running as if the devil himself were close behind. Bolan didn’t bother to try for the shot; the angle was bad, and too much cover stood between him and the rapidly fleeing trooper. Just as he had been unconcerned with a radio distress call, the Executioner wasn’t worried about a soldier or two running for help. By the time Orieza’s forces could muster a relief effort, Bolan would be long gone.
A bit chagrined despite himself, he was even more vigilant as he advanced on the holding cell. A heavy wooden bar set in steel staples secured the door. He lifted the bar and tossed it aside. The door couldn’t be opened from the inside, which meant there would be no guards within—unless their own people had locked them inside with the prisoners.
“Step away from the door!” he ordered in Spanish, careful to stand well aside. He let his rifle fall to the end of its sling, and drew both his Beretta and his portable combat light, holding the machine pistol over his off-hand wrist. There were no answering shots from within, so he chanced it and planted one combat boot against the barrier. The heavy door opened, and Bolan swept the dimly lit interior.
What he saw hardened his expression and brought a righteously furious gleam to his eyes. There were half a dozen men and women, ranging from their late teens to quite old, hanging by their wrists from chains mounted in the ceiling. They had been repeatedly flogged. A leather whip was hanging in the center of the room, from a nail set in a post that helped support the corrugated metal ceiling.
“Señor,” an older man called, his eyes bright. He fired off a sentence in Spanish so rapid that Bolan couldn’t catch it.
Bolan went to him. “Easy,” he said. “I’m going to let you down. It’s over. Ha terminado.”
“You are American?” the man asked in English.
Bolan looked at him, pulling the pin that secured the chains. The old man fell briefly to his knees before Bolan helped him up. “I’m a friend,” he said.
“You are sent from God.” The old man smiled. “And you are an American.”
Bolan didn’t answer that. Instead, he said, “Can you walk?”
“I can walk.” The man nodded. His lightweight clothes were bloody and ragged, stained a uniform dirty brown, and clearly, he had suffered badly at the hands of Orieza’s men. But he stood tall and defiant under Bolan’s gaze. “What is your name?”
“Just call me ‘friend.’”
“I am Jairo,” the old man said. He grinned. “Amigo.”
Bolan gestured to the others, who were watching with an almost eerily uniform silence. “Help me with them,” he said simply.
“Of course,” Jairo said. “Do not worry about them, amigo. They were strong. They will be all right.”
“Does anyone need medical attention?”
“I will make sure they get it,” Jairo said. “Our village is not far.”
“Village? Where?” Bolan asked.
He pointed. “Over the border.”
“You’re from Guatemala?”
“Sí. The soldiers raided our village and took us prisoner two days ago. It has been a very long two days.” Jairo worked his way among the others with Bolan, freeing the captured villagers from their chains. From what Bolan could see, the victims had indeed been cruelly tortured.
“You were fed? Given water?” he asked.
“Sí.” Jairo nodded.
That was interesting. Bolan completed his survey of the villagers. Many had bad wounds on their backs, and a couple, including Jairo, sported cigar and cigarette burns, but the damage was largely superficial. There had been no intent to kill these people.
“Jairo, did your captors say anything? Did they explain why they took you, or what they wanted from you?”
“No,” Jairo replied, shaking his head. “Nothing. Only that we would do well to tell others, if we lived, just what General Orieza will do to us if his men are resisted.”
So that was it, Bolan mused. Orieza and his people were pursuing an explicit strategy. It wasn’t atrocities for the sake of atrocities; Orieza’s shock troopers were softening up the resistance, both within Honduras and across the border, by instilling fear in the populations of both nations. Combined with the military raids, it was a very good strategy, from Orieza’s perspective. It would enable him to continue rolling over the Guatemalans and probably guarantee at least some cooperation, if not simply a lack of interference from the frightened locals.
“Did he say he might release some or all of you?” Bolan asked.
“No,” Jairo shook his head again. “But I think he would have. His heart, it did not seem to be in it. El Alto had a cruel look to him. He was not so soft as to let us live unless he meant to.”
“Who? ‘The Tall One’?”
“Sí,” Jairo said. “It was El Alto who did the whipping, and the talking. Always him. Never the other soldiers. I think he liked it. He looked, in his eyes, as if he enjoyed it.” Jairo shook his head yet again and spit on the ground in disgust. “He left not long before you found us. Had he wished, he could have cut our throats.”
A tall, cruel-looking man. It was very likely that El Alto, this torturer, was the same Honduran soldier Bolan had seen fleeing the camp. He made a mental note of that. If luck and the mercurial gods of combat were with him, he would encounter The Tall One again.
“Come on,” Bolan said to the old man. “Let’s get your people gathered together, treat their wounds and move them out. Can any of you handle a weapon?”
There were a few murmurs of assent. Jairo grinned. “We are not so helpless. We can see ourselves safely home. We will take what we need from the soldiers,” he said. “The ones who are outside.” He nodded to the door. “The ones you killed.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you, too, have a look in your eyes, amigo.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Sí.” Jairo nodded solemnly. “Su mirada es muerte. Your look is one of death.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The blue-tagged shock-troop guards outside General Orieza’s office snapped to attention as Roderigo del Valle stalked down the corridor. Dawn had broken, yellow and inviting, the sun’s rays streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows on either side of the corridor. This had no effect on Del Valle, who carried with him a darkness that no light could penetrate. At least, this was how he preferred to be seen. Better to be feared than loved when one of the two must be lacking, as the old saying went….
He swept past the guards as if he barely saw them, and in truth, he didn’t. It had been a very long, very frustrating night, and he hadn’t yet even begun to catalog the damage dealt to their operation on the Guatemalan border. He snarled in reply as one of the guards greeted him respectfully and managed to get the door open before Del Valle rammed it, for the tall, hatchet-faced man didn’t break his stride as he made his way into the anteroom of General Orieza’s private lair.
Orieza’s secretary glanced up, her face as pretty but as stupid as ever. She pursed her lips and greeted him quietly. Her eyes were full of fear, and that pleased him, for she was only too aware of what he could do to her if he chose. Orieza wouldn’t object, at least not too loudly, if Del Valle decided to use the woman and throw her away. Another just like her, even prettier, would be sitting in her chair come the next dawn.
It wasn’t that Del Valle didn’t have his own needs, where women were concerned. He had them on occasion, and when he did, the union was brief and brutal. He had little use for a woman clinging to his arm and making demands of his time; what man would put up with such impositions, truly? And he had no respect for the empty-headed trollops who invariably did serve his purposes. How any man chose to saddle himself with a woman’s constant whining and complaining, he didn’t know. Orieza himself had been married, not so very long ago, and the woman had grated on Del Valle’s nerves. She was forever bitching to Orieza about whatever whims came to her head, demanding his time and diminishing his focus. It had been a relief when Orieza had finally confided to his chief adviser that the general found his wife somewhat of a nuisance. Del Valle had jumped at the chance to arrange an “accident” for the miserable harpy. And Orieza, while he suspected that Mrs. Orieza’s car didn’t perhaps roll over of its own accord that fateful morning, hadn’t asked many questions. The old man was content to spend his time with the slatterns Del Valle’s lieutenants dug up for him. He tired of them quickly, and more than once Del Valle had made use of these castoffs before leaving their broken bodies on the floor for his men to clean up…. But such were the privileges of power.
He paused to survey himself in the full-length mirror that dominated one wall of the opulently appointed anteroom, while the woman fidgeted nervously. He ignored her. His angular, lined face looked back at him as he tried to smooth the creases in his uniform. He wore the same fatigues as did his shock troops, with no insignia of rank whatever. This was an affectation, but a deliberate one. No strutting peacock to dress himself in worthless ribbons and medals, or gold braids and colorful cloth, Del Valle preferred instead to let what he could do speak for itself. His shock troops were loyal to him, and him first, for he had proved time and again that he would deal violently with any challenge to his authority. When the time came, even General Orieza would learn that the blue epaulets on the shoulders of those armed guards surrounding him bespoke devotion to Roderigo del Valle, and not to their “general,” but by then… Well, by then, it would be too late for poor Ramon.
Del Valle frowned at the widow’s peak of stubble prominent on his forehead; it was time to shave his head once more. This was, however, the least of his concerns. His eyes were bloodshot, his uniform stained and torn. He hadn’t paused to change or truly to right himself after making the trip here, using the SUV he had hidden near the advance camp for just that purpose. There had been no time. By now, Castillo’s spies within the ranks of Orieza’s people—and Del Valle knew the Mexican president had them, for he permitted them to remain—would know that the general’s troops had suffered a serious setback on the Guatemalan border. Orieza would have to speak with Castillo, and that meant El Presidente himself would be phoning. Orieza couldn’t be permitted to take the call alone. He would need Del Valle on hand, lest the simpering old fool lose his nerve and back out of the plan.
Del Valle would give his general the courage he needed in dealing with the Mexican. That would be simple enough. Explaining to the general what had happened in the simplest, most casual terms would require a more delicate balancing act. Orieza had to know; it couldn’t be kept from him, lest the fact of Del Valle’s power behind the old man’s throne become too apparent to those with whom the General dealt regularly. There was no benefit to pulling a puppet’s strings if your audience focused on the puppeteer.
Del Valle knew that others considered him paranoid; he had been told as much, by many fools who this day didn’t draw breath. He dismissed them. To hold power, true power, required that one not be the constant target of assassins. Doing what was necessary carried with it many dangers and made many enemies. His shock troops were now camped about the general’s residence, a standing army devoted simply to keeping the old man safe. Let Orieza be a prisoner in his own home, content to play with his women and believing he was commanding legions. Del Valle would be there to reap the true benefits, forever in control, never far from the shadows.
Roderigo had risen through the ranks of the Honduran military, always unofficial, always an “adviser” or a consultant to men of power. Attaching himself to Orieza’s coattails had been simple enough, becoming known and respected as his adviser easy. The old man was handsome and well liked, a silver fox who, in his younger days, had shown much brilliance and inspired much loyalty. But Orieza was no saint. He knew and valued the services a ruthless agent could provide, and Del Valle shrewdly and masterfully played to the old man’s ego while bolstering his failing courage. Creating the shock troops, training them and assigning them their missions had been Del Valle’s brilliant move, and it had served them both well. Orieza liked believing he was protected by a private army within the Honduran military. The shock troops, meanwhile, were fiercely loyal to the man who had elevated them to elite status, to wealth, to almost unlimited license within the world permitted to them. Special privileges, women, weapons, money…the shock troops knew that they benefited greatly from the arrangement. They also knew that these things were conferred on them not by Orieza, but by Roderigo Del Valle.
After orchestrating Orieza’s coup, his rise to true power in Honduras, and after seeing to it that the old man’s claim to governing was shored up by blood and terror through his shock troops and his command of the Honduran military at large, Del Valle wasn’t satisfied. It was he, therefore, who had seen the potential of the oil pipeline. Nationalizing the country’s remaining private concerns had simply been a matter of course, but knowing what to do with those resources…well, that had been Del Valle’s brilliance at work, as well. It was Roderigo del Valle who had concocted the daring scheme to build the pipeline to Mexico, and it was Roderigo del Valle who recognized that a man like President Castillo would be receptive to the power play that Del Valle offered. Of course, Castillo thought all this was Orieza’s doing, and that was as it should be. If it went wrong, Orieza would take the blame. If somehow Del Valle’s hold on power was broken and the regime crumbled, it would be General Orieza’s back against the wall before a revolutionary firing squad.
When you were the power behind the throne, you could hide behind it, too.
But he was drifting. Back to the problem at hand. Castillo would call, would want assurances that the plan was to continue. Del Valle, through Orieza, would provide those assurances. President Castillo would be easily enough placated; he was many miles away, and understood the military might that General Orieza could yet bring to bear. Castillo also had a weakness that Del Valle was happy to exploit: the new Mexican president was a believer. His faith in this La Raza business, this Chicano nationalism, burned deeply in him. His hatred for the United States and his desire to take what he could from the Yankees north of his border would be the carrot that continued to lead him down Del Valle’s garden path. Only Roderigo del Valle would know that it was he who held the stick….
In offering these assurances to Castillo, of course, it was critical that Del Valle shield his general from the shock of the attacks near the Guatemalan border. Above all, Orieza couldn’t be allowed to know the true extent of the damage done.
Del Valle had seen the man. He had seen the big soldier and known him instantly for what he was, this Caucasian with dark hair. There was no way to be sure, but something about him—the way he moved, the equipment he carried, just something indefinable about his bearing—had made Del Valle place him as a an American. Certainly his willingness to invade, to kill, to cut a bloody swath across a foreign nation’s sovereign borders, was typical of his kind. Del Valle had seen U.S. Special Forces soldiers in action, and this man was very likely one of them.
His head still reeled with the knowledge of what the soldier had done. It was clear that the invader couldn’t be working alone, not given the extent of the carnage. He would likely be a leader, however. He had that look. Even in his brief contact with the big foreigner, Del Valle had felt something like fear tickling his guts. He had brushed against death and escaped, this man whose clothes were stained with blood, who smelled of smoke and of gunfire. This man with the two large knives mounted on his combat harness.
It was only after escaping the ruins of the base camp that Del Valle had learned of the true fury of the invading onslaught. His raiding party, massing on the border for another strike into Guatemalan territory, had been wiped out utterly. No doubt the American soldiers, if that was what they were, had brought a sizable team into the country. They were perhaps Marines, or SEALs…. It didn’t matter. He would have to make inquiries, once he returned to his own offices, in order to perform damage control.
The lesson they hoped to impart was clear enough: leave Guatemala alone. In truth, Del Valle hadn’t credited them with the courage to make a minor show of force, much less this. They were fools if they thought a bloody nose would be enough to dissuade him. He would find their forces, if they hadn’t already fled, and he would make lessons of them. But first there was Orieza….
Del Valle finished his useless attempts to clean himself up and turned to the door. He gestured to the woman, who pressed the buzzer beneath her desk. The door opened automatically, the locks releasing. That door was bulletproof, of course, the walls of Orieza’s office reinforced against explosives. The general himself sat within, looking far older and more tired than his troops would ever be permitted to see him.
“Roderigo,” he said weakly in Spanish, looking up from his ornate chair behind his equally ornate desk. “I am glad you are here.” He looked pale and sallow, his white hair flat against his skull. The elaborately gilded white uniform he wore hung limply on his frame, as if a size too large. He was staring at the phone on his desk, with its faux-antique receiver and engraved casing. It was ringing.
“Is that…?”
“Castillo.” Orieza nodded. “He has been calling all morning. I thought it best you be here before I spoke with him.”
Thank heavens, Del Valle thought, that the old fool can be trusted to follow my instructions at least that far.
“Of course, General,” he said, bowing smartly at the waist. “Forgive me for keeping you waiting. I will be honored to assist you.”
Orieza looked relieved. Del Valle took up a position perched on Orieza’s desk, where he would be able to listen to the call and quietly offer suggestions to the general out of range of the telephone.
After Orieza’s secretary and the operator on the other end traded formalities, the leaden voice of Mexico’s president blared from the device. “General Orieza,” Castillo said. “I have heard disturbing things.”
Del Valle whispered, and Orieza repeated his words verbatim. “I know full well what you have heard,” he said, the steel in his voice an act, but the role one he was quite accustomed to playing. It was as if the simple fact that Del Valle was there to think for him liberated him from whatever had turned him into such a shriveled shell of himself. He was free to be the powerful general, the macho hero of the new Honduran regime, as long as Del Valle did the heavy lifting—in this case, by telling him what to say.
“Then you know that I’ve learned your forces have been dealt a defeat on the Guatemalan border,” Castillo stated smoothly. “I don’t know how bad it is, but it worries me. Tell me, my friend, how bad is it?”
Worse than I will permit your spies to learn, useful idiot, Del Valle thought. Through Orieza, he said, “A small matter only. We believe the Guatemalans have called on their allies for assistance. It may have been the American directly, or some international force, which amounts to roughly the same thing.”
“And?” Castillo demanded.
“And they obviously seek to send us a message,” Del Valle said through the general. “One that, clearly, will have no effect. You know the Americans. They are gutless.”
“This I agree with,” the Mexican said. “But you are guessing. You do not know that it was the United States.”
“No,” Orieza repeated obediently. “But then, I do not know that it wasn’t, and in either case, it does not matter. Only a few men were killed. The operation will not be significantly slowed. The pipeline will be completed on schedule.”
“I have my doubts,” Castillo murmured. “Though, in truth, I owe you a debt of gratitude.”
“In what way?” Orieza asked, sounding genuinely as curious as Del Valle was.
“When you first came to me,” the Mexican president said, “telling me of your…shall we call it newfound wealth, and suggested the pipeline, I thought the plan insane. Waging war through your neighbors and mine in order to bring us the oil directly… Why, yes, the resulting wealth is most welcome, and with wealth comes power. But I got to thinking. You were dreaming big. I should do no less, I thought, and so I started to dream bigger.”
“We discussed this,” Orieza said, his cautious tone mirroring Del Valle’s. “You will use your money, your power, to accomplish your own goals in your upcoming battle with the Americans. We provided you significant material assistance in exchange for your cooperation with this plan, which is very detailed and has a specific schedule.”
“Assistance? You speak, no doubt, of your fine little helicopter. Yes, well,” Castillo said, “do not fear. We shall be putting it and the missiles to good use.”
“The time for your incursions is soon to be reached in that schedule—”
“That’s just it,” Castillo interrupted. “There is no ‘soon to be.’ My operatives are already in position. The first moves are already being made. Soon I shall bring those weaklings north of the border to their very knees, and we, the proud people of Mexico, will take what belongs to us.”
“But this is not what we agreed,” Orieza repeated for Del Valle.
“I do not give a damn for schedules any longer,” Castillo said. “I will take what I wish from the Americans, with or without your oil money. I will gladly take that, of course. Do not count it against me. But you have inspired me, General. I am taking what I want with or without your help. I shall gladly use the toy you have sent us to do it, too.”
“Is that wise?” Orieza asked, and this time he spoke before being prompted. Del Valle let it go, for he was about to ask the very same thing. He whispered, and Orieza repeated his next words: “If you alert the forces of the West too early, they may respond with greater force than they have already done.”
“Ramon, Ramon, Ramon.” Castillo tsked into the phone, setting Del Valle’s nerves on edge. “You refuse to acknowledge with whom you are dealing. These Americans are a fundamentally inferior race. We have discussed this.”
“Please do not ply me with your racial theories,” Orieza said, unbidden, and Del Valle had to admit that he felt much the same. “I am aware of your notions, and we agree that the territory you will seize rightfully belongs to you. But if you move too far too fast, before we have filled our coffers and purchased more weapons and equipment, they will crush you.”
“We have been eating them alive for years now, from within,” Castillo said with a sneer. “But perhaps I misunderstand. I am informed that you have suffered material damages. That someone has interfered with your operation on the border.”
“And I,” Orieza said, his tone mirroring the venom in Del Valle’s, “would very much like to know how you are aware of this.”
“We are all friends,” Castillo said. “Friends talk among themselves.”
“Indeed,” Orieza dutifully repeated. “We will not discuss that for now. As we—” He stopped abruptly as Del Valle shot him a look. “As I said, everything is under control. Pipeline construction continues on schedule. The Guatemalans cannot stop us. They do not have the means, nor the strength of will. Our own people can be counted on to do as we order them. It is a good plan and we shall stick to it.”
