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Kaino shook his head and racked his bolt on a fresh drum. “Cover me.”
“Go.”
Kaino burst through the kitchen door and out into the street. His shotgun roared as he put blasts of buckshot through the facing windows. Bolan followed, scanning with his optic. He caught no movement on the roof or in any of the windows. Lights suddenly blazed on the side driveway, and a van barreled onto the street. Kaino put three rounds into the grille but round-lead buck wasn’t stopping the oncoming vehicle.
“Kaino!” Bolan shouted.
The cop’s shotgun racked open on empty. The van plowed straight for Kaino. The master sergeant dropped his shotgun on its sling and slapped leather for his six-guns. The twin, four-inch Smiths rolled in his hands in rapid double-action fire. Glass geysered from the windshield as round after round of .357 Magnum hollowpoints punched through. Bolan had no kill shot with Kaino standing in the headlights. He flicked his weapon to full-auto and put a burst into the rear driver’s-side tire. The tire exploded and the van fishtailed wildly past Kaino and stopped hard against a telephone pole.
“You all right?” Bolan called.
Kaino’s hands shook slightly as he fished a pair of speedloaders out of his pockets. “Reloading!”
“Covering!” Bolan scanned the street as Kaino approached the van. He peered in the driver’s window and went around to the passenger’s side. He opened the door and a body slid out. “Clear!”
Bolan kept his eyes peeled as he trotted over. Kaino had laid down some serious carnage. The driver looked as only a human could who had taken several .357 rounds to the face. Only his seat belt kept the dead assassin upright. There was no one else inside the vehicle. In the back of the van were a pair of chairs and surveillance equipment. Bolan walked around the steaming grille and joined Kaino, who stood over the expired sniper. A great deal of the assassin’s blood was coagulating all over an FN P90 personal defensive weapon. The sixteen-inch long civilian barrel, the sound suppressor mounted on the muzzle and the electro-optical sight gave the personal defensive weapon a distinctly offensive weapon aura.
“Did he say anything?”
“Yeah, he mumbled some kind of Euro-trash nonsense, but then he had the bad taste to go all ambient temperature on me.” Kaino shook his head disgustedly as the bloody froth bubbles from his victim’s chest wounds and mouth slowly subsided. “You want to try CPR? You go right ahead.”
“What kind of Euro-trash babble?”
“I don’t know!” Nearly being van-rammed seemed to have rattled the master sergeant. “I can tell you it sure as hell wasn’t Spanish!”
“Did it sound Russian?”
“Well, what does Russian sound like?”
Bolan slowly enunciated a choice phrase he had learned in Moscow that would have raised Kaino’s eyebrow. “Did it sound anything like that?”
“No, and don’t think I don’t know you said something totally suck-ass, either!”
“Italian? French?” Bolan tried. “Scandinavian?”
“Oh, and like I know how to pick those out of a dying hit man Euro-trash crowd!” Kaino frowned mightily. “And I know you can, but I’m just Miami-Dade master sergeant who works for a living. I’m not an international man of mystery.”
“You notice anything interesting, Kaino?”
“Yeah, these guys aren’t local.” Kaino spit off to one side. “They aren’t even Latino. They’re pros, and I’m definitely thinking we got made coming out of Papi’s Tea Room.”
CHAPTER FIVE
FBI Miami Office
Kaino took in the gleaming, efficient and tasteful Federal Bureau of Investigation surroundings. “Swanky.”
“Heads up,” Bolan advised. The FBI special agent striding down the hallway toward them wore a very purposeful expression her face. It was a pleasing face to look upon. She was African American, but her face bespoke far more of Africa than America and her skin was very dark. She managed to be petite and leggy at the same time, and the cut of her relaxed hair and her navy pantsuit and the true gray of her blouse and shoes showed her off to maximum effect.
“Nice,” Kaino opined.
Bolan agreed wholeheartedly. He put on his most amiable game face and held out his hand. “Special Agent.”
Despite the special agent’s diminutive stature, she had a grip like a clam. “Sophina Savacool.”
“Cooper,” Bolan said. “And this is—”
Special Agent Savacool had a smile that could light up an FBI foyer and did. Though at the moment it was tinged with a little bit of bemusement. “Oh, I assure you, Mr. Cooper, Master Sergeant Gadiel Kaino’s reputation precedes him.”
Kaino’s massive mitt engulfed the special agent’s. “My pleasure, Agent Savacool. In all my years in law enforcement this is my first visit to the FBI Miami office. Thank you for seeing us.”
Agent Savacool’s bemusement turned up a charming notch. “Oh, I was the one told to see you, but then again, when legends of Miami law enforcement, and—” Savacool ran her eye up and down Bolan “—a mystery man go on a midnight rampage in the city streets, it’s funny how I end up being the one sent to the meet and greet. At least the call said it was you. Is there a reason I shouldn’t run you both in by the way?”
Bolan put on his most winning smile. “I mean absolutely no disrespect, Special Agent, but running me in would be...how can I put it? Problematic for you. And Kaino’s with me.”
“Oh, I got the memo.” Savacool’s bemused smile turned into a genuine smirk. “And I have never seen a government memo shorter, more distinct, much less more anomalous.”
“Savacool?” Kaino frowned. “Is that like Mandinka or something?”
“German Dutch,” the agent replied.
Kaino scowled. “What’s a soul sister like you doing with a name like that?”
Savacool frowned at Kaino and jerked her head at Bolan. “What’s a pulsating piece of Puerto Rican pulchritude like you doing working for the man?”
“Well...because...” Kaino grinned. “He’s the man!”
Savacool stared up at Bolan and her eyes went predatory as she did some math. “Well, bless my soul! El Hombre, in the flesh, and in my foyer. You know, there is a fascinating file I read about a guy with that handle. Seems he’s torn up the streets of our southern neighbor and ripped the cartels a new rectum on more than one occasion.”
Bolan had dealt with more federal agents than he’d had hot dinners. Far too many when they were exposed to him went straight into bureaucratic bluster mode. Bolan gave Savacool full marks. She was absolutely charming while she was trying to figure him out, and was waiting to have all the facts before she ripped his throat out. “Special Agent Savacool, I—”
“Call me Sophie—my friends do.” The special agent handed Bolan her business card.
Bolan grinned. “Sophie? I had to pull a lot of strings to make sure that FBI forensics got the bodies from the shootout last night, and Master Sergeant Kaino lost some genuine cred with his own people for going along with it.”
Savacool nodded without an ounce of commitment. “I feel you.”
“I know the circumstances are highly unusual, but I need a complete rundown on the suspects.”
“They’re like you, mysterious. But follow me.”
Savacool led them down a series of hallways. Kaino whispered low at Bolan’s side. “What’s pulchritude?”
“It means the she thinks you’re a fine figure of man, Kaino.”
Kaino puffed up with pride. “I am that.”
FBI personnel congregating in the hallways regarded Bolan and Kaino with grave suspicion and barely constrained disapproval. A few shot Savacool sympathetic looks. Word had spread. The woman led Bolan and Kaino into an empty conference room. The soldier and the cop took seats at a long table while Savacool cued up the flat screen on the wall and a laptop. “These are your playmates.” Autopsy photos of ten men in various states of ventilation appeared on the screen. “Your assailants’ fingerprints appear in none of our available databases. All of them were armed with sound-suppressed FN P90 Personal Defensive weapons. One of the weapons had been modified for sharpshooting. Their clothing, NVG and body armor were off the rack and second- or thirdhand. We’re working on it, but the equipment has a very sophisticated level of sterility. I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”
Savacool gave Bolan and Kaino a look. “I don’t suppose either of you have anything that might shed a light on things?”
“Kaino got a few words out of the sharpshooter just before he expired. He thought he said something in a European language. We’ve ruled out Spanish, and he didn’t think it was Russian, which leads me to exclude any of the Slavic language groups.”
Kaino nodded. “Yeah, what Cooper said.”
“That is of interest. We’re checking dental records, but none of them match anything in our databases, either. However the driver of the van was a light-skinned black, and he had two fillings, both resin composites.”
Kaino gave Bolan a searching look.
“A lot of the European countries have banned silver amalgam fillings,” Bolan explained. “The United States and Russia haven’t. Silver amalgam is one of the cheapest routes to go with dental fillings, and soldiers don’t usually spend a lot of money on cosmetic surgery or trying to go green. It goes a long way toward your Euro-trash merc theory, which by the way I agree with.”
Kaino just stared. “Man, who the hell are you?”
Savacool pointed her finger at Kaino. “I’m glad you asked that question first.”
“Oh, it isn’t the first time I’ve asked, and I don’t think it’s going to be the last.”
Bolan stayed on subject. “I gather we have nothing on the van?”
“Reported stolen two days ago, and the surveillance gear and electronics inside had the model numbers and identifiers scrubbed. The mounting screws and the holes for the equipment are shiny-new. I suspect this entire operation against you was mounted within the last forty-eight hours and was pro all the way. And now that we have established that you’re El Hombre—” Savacool rolled her eyes “—it starts to make one hell of whole lot more sense.”
“Can you give me anything?”
“Well, you two seem to have a habit of shooting people in the face, but we ran your sharpshooter through the facial recognition software and looked for a match in the database. Interpol gave us this image—it’s a 75 percent likelihood of a match.”
A grainy security camera picture dated over a year ago showed a blurred image of what might have been the sharpshooter. He was snarling and had to have whipped his head. Bolan stared long and hard at the crystal-clear picture of the weapon in his hand and spitting brass in what looked to be a very posh living room. “SIG SG 551 short assault rifle. Swiss.”
Savacool glanced at her file on the desk. “Wow...you are good.”
“It’s an awfully swanky piece,” Bolan admitted. “Where was the picture taken?”
“In Mexico, during the assassination of Christo Bruno.”
Bolan searched his mental files. “He was Gulf Coast, wasn’t he?”
“Bruno was actually the head of the Gulf Coast’s armed, or La Resistencia wing. The attack on his hacienda in Matamoros last year was positively surgical. He had a heavy security presence on the premises and they along with Bruno and every other person present, including women and children and the hired help were gunned down. The forensic evidence the federales shared with us imply that the attackers took no losses. In fact the Mexican State police in Tamaulipas did a lot of angry muttering about suspecting it was Navy SEALs or Delta Force.”
Kaino leaned back in his chair. “If Bruno had his place wired, how come only one pic?”
Bolan eyed the shooter up on the screen. “The attackers knew where the security cameras were. The shooter must have been forced past that camera during the firefight, or he hadn’t knocked it out yet.” Bolan turned to Savacool. “I gather the house was stripped of security?”
“All the security systems were destroyed. Bruno reached his safe room, but they breached it with explosives and gutted its security suite. We have this pic because Bruno’s security system had a wireless backup and transmitted to an outside data storage facility.”
“There was nothing from any of the other cameras?”
“Oh, there was plenty. Pictures of the grounds and perimeter. All show everything right as rain until they suddenly start going dead. The outside cameras were taken out with precision rifle fire.”
“The attackers didn’t leave anything behind at all?” Kaino asked.
“The only things they left behind were bullets and bodies. They even took the time to clean up their spent brass.”
“I’m going to need everything you have on this Bruno character and what he was up to for the year before his killing.”
Savacool held out a blue flash drive with the FBI logo on it. “I figured you might say that. It also has contact information for Mexican officials pertinent to the investigation. The drive also contains everything Forensics has so far on your boys down in the morgue.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that.”
“So what are you going to do now, Mr. Cooper?”
“Oh, I don’t know, just be myself.”
Kaino snorted in amusement.
Savacool was not amused. “You know you can’t just run around pulling a Terminator in the streets of Miami.”
Bolan shrugged. “I needed a few ass-kickings to start busting things open.”
“You do realize, Mr. Cooper, that the FBI doesn’t usually think in terms of ass-kickings to bust things open?”
“Yeah, but admit it, you wish they did.”
“Mr. Cooper, from what I’ve read, I will freely admit that it would be more fun than a barrel of monkeys to roll with you, throwing local, state and federal law out the window and laying down the hurt on the bad guys.” She shot Kaino a look. “And apparently armed with a ‘get out of jail free’ card issued from God on High to boot. But you have to understand, you—”
Bolan made his decision. “You want to?”
Savacool’s face went uncharacteristically blank. “Do I want to what?”
“Would you like to roll with me, Special Agent Savacool?”
“You have got to be kidding.”
“I can arrange it—” Bolan snapped his fingers “—like that.”
“I’m on an open-ended, paid, consulting leave of absence,” Kaino confirmed. “It’s been pretty educational.”
Savacool just stared.
“Sophie,” Bolan asked, “do you speak Spanish?”
“Spanish, French, Russian and I’m currently taking courses in Arabic at the Miami University Middletown campus.”
“Oh, she’s good.” Kaino nodded happily. “Dude, we totally want her on the team. Sophie, you want to join the home team?”
“The winning team?” Bolan added.
“I...” Savacool was literally at a loss for words. “I’d have to take that up with my superiors.”
Bolan took out a blank business card and wrote two phone numbers on it. “You can direct any questions you may have to the top number.”
