Salvador Strike
“Do any of you homeboys have any idea where this guy came from? Who he’s working for?” Guerra asked more calmly.
“My informant says he might be working with the federales,” Maragos replied. “He might also be a local on loan from the Virgins.”
Guerra smiled at their own internal reference to the gang task force of the state, a unit that had been the bane of the Hillbangers’ existence since its formation. After the death of the traitor in 2001 and subsequent imprisonment of the leader who ordered her execution, Guerra had taken over as shot-caller for the Hillbangers. He ordered them to lie low and let enough time pass so that the task force became convinced it had made a difference. In the meantime, the MS-13 had opened up a brand-new operation—alien smuggling from regions all over Central America. This endeavor had become quite lucrative while they moved drug running and robbery to the status of “last resort,” a sort of subset of secondary operations due to the increased risk since the Virgins started cracking down on them.
“I don’t think so,” Guerra finally said. “That limp dick, Smalley, doesn’t have the guts to come face-to-face with us. He has to be from the Feds.”
“This chingada is dangerous, jefe,” said Jocoté Barillas, another lieutenant. “He uses bombs and machine guns.”
Guerra stood, walked to Barillas and gently patted the side of his face with a sardonic chuckle. He then looked at each of them as he said, “So do we. I want you to find this man, you got me? You find him and you bury him. Otherwise, you’ll have to contend with Le Gango Jefe, sí?”
Yes, they understood the threat all too well. Every shot-caller was the leader of his particular unit and any territory they covered. But they in turn answered to the Leader of the Gang—in this case, the nameless entity who controlled every last bit of action from his headquarters in El Salvador. A multijurisdictional force of law agents had attempted many times to bring down Le Gango Jefe, and each time they had failed. Nobody in MS-13, anywhere in the world, operated without this man’s approval. Mara Salvatrucha Trece’s ultimate goal was to be the largest and most powerful gang in the world. That took more than just whipping up a bunch of vatos to do business and pledge their loyalty. It took organization and planning, and that’s what Le Gango Jefe brought to the table.
As a shot-caller, every one of Guerra’s lieutenants knew he had a direct access to the top man. They also knew it wouldn’t bode well for any of them if Guerra had to make a phone call to this man and tell him they had failed in their mission to bring down the federale who had killed ten of their homeboys. Ultimately, Guerra was trying to help them by making it clear that it would look much better for them all if they handled this problem internally with local resources before it got out of control.
“I don’t care what you have to do, homeboys, I want you to bring him down. And do it now.”
“Okay, Mario, we’ll find him,” Maragos promised.
“Then why are you still here?” he said, clapping his hands and then jerking both thumbs toward the door. “Come on, essás. Vámonos!”
Each acknowledged him with the standard gang sign that spelled out MS-13 and then hit the door in a hurry. He watched them go out and then went to the fridge and pulled a fresh beer from the stash there. He took a long pull from the forty-ounce bottle and then looked out his tenement window onto the dusky cityscape. Somewhere out there, he knew, the enemy was searching for him. He’d narrowly escaped confinement for life in prison, and while such things were a part of the risk he took, the idea of spending his youth behind concrete walls and steel bars didn’t hold much appeal.
He needed to keep a cool head and plan his next move. They needed to find this cop or special agent and do him right. He’d spilled the blood of ten homeboys, soldiers operating under Guerra’s orders, and with that single action this pinche had signed his own death warrant. Maragos was good, one of the best, really. He would find the man and do what needed to be done. And then Guerra could bring his son and wife out here where they would be safe. He would be able to protect them here then.
And then he could begin to put his plan in motion. A plan to rule all of the East Coast—a plan to rule a society.
AFTER BOLAN LEFT police headquarters, he drove straight to the MS-13 key operations area Smalley had pointed out to him and booked a room in a run-down motel just two miles south of Dulles Toll Road. The elderly toothless Hispanic woman behind the grimy counter in the motel office had been quite pleased to take Bolan’s nice, crisp hundred-dollar bill for his two-night stay—especially when he advised her to keep the change.
Once the Executioner had settled in, he attached an anti-listening device to the phone and then dialed a long number from memory. There were three beeps, a signal the connection had been rerouted and secured from any type of bugging or other electronic surveillance technologies, and then Aaron Kurtzman’s voice came over the line.
“How’s it going?” Kurtzman said.
“I started with a real bang,” Bolan quipped.
“Well, your man Jack’s been here for a couple of hours now, chomping at the bit. You want to talk to him?”
“Sure.”
“What’s shaking, Sarge?” Jack Grimaldi’s voice greeted him. Grimaldi was Stony Man’s ace pilot and a Bolan ally.
“Hey, Jack,” Bolan replied. “Thanks for being on standby. I know you just got back from a mission.”
“Hey! You know I’m always ready to fly a mission for you, Sarge. You keep things interesting.”
“Don’t I. Hal gave you the rundown of the mission parameters?”
“He did,” Grimaldi said. “I imagined you had your hands full right at the moment, so I figured to get a couple hours’ sleep before heading to Dulles. I’ll be ready by the time you want to leave for Los Angeles.”
“You read my mind, ace. I’ll call when I’m on my way there.”
“Understood. Okay, Hal and Barb are waiting in the ops center for you, so I’ll transfer you now.”
The men said their goodbyes, and then Brognola’s voice came on a moment later. “What happened to that dull roar?”
Bolan couldn’t see Brognola’s expression, but the kidding tone caused him to receive the statement as nothing more than a good-natured jibe. “I only blew up one car.”
Brognola laughed. “That is pretty mild in comparison to most of your fireworks displays.”
“Agreed. I’m sorry to report Mario Guerra wasn’t among them, but then I wouldn’t expect a weasel like that to get his own hands dirty.”
“We heard about your run-in with Smalley,” Price said. “You need us to run some interference?”
“No, we’re good. Smalley’s actually not difficult to handle once you get to talking with the guy. Basically he wants the same thing we do.”
“Peace in the valley?”
“Right.”
“What about the increased gang activity of late?” Brognola asked. “Did he have any explanations?”
“It looks like a matter of sheer numbers. This Northern Virginia Gang Task Force has lost much of the funding they had early on, which tells me once the crackdown started MS-13 chilled out until some of the heat was off. He also said they’ve had a big influx of illegal immigrants into the area lately.”
“What’s lately?” Price inquired.
“Last couple of years or so,” Bolan replied. “My guess is that MS-13 has something to do with that, as well.”
“You think it’s a diversionary tactic?” Brognola asked.
“Possibly, Hal, although I wouldn’t put it past them to use it as a way of subsidizing their more illicit activities. There’s been more focus on illegal immigration down on the border than in any other part of the country. If they flood the market with the poor and hungry masses, they can effectively choke the resources of the system. Before the government knows it, it’s got an epidemic on its hands with insufficient resources to combat such a disaster.”
“And under the scramble and panic, MS-13 can get busy once again with little interference,” Brognola concluded. “And the increased criminal activity would be blamed on the immigration problem.”
“Exactly.”
“It’s ingenious,” Price stated.
“Which tells me Marciano’s theory about someone calling the shots in El Salvador has merit. In fact, I’d be interested to know how many of the immigrants that have been detained by INS or incarcerated for criminal activity are from that region.”
“We can get Aaron and Barb on that pronto,” Brognola said.
“We’ll get started on it right away,” Price said. “Take care of yourself, Striker.”
“Wilco,” Bolan replied and then continued, “Hal, you might want to pull some strings and see what you can do about getting additional protection assigned to Marciano’s kids. If MS-13 tried to hit them once, they’ll try again and I don’t think Smalley has the manpower or resources to do an effective job of security with all the other things weighing him down right now.”
“I’ll make it happen,” Brognola assured him. “What else do you need?”
“That’s it for now. There’s no rush on the intelligence data regarding the immigration problem here. I’ve picked up some good leads from Smalley about Guerra’s area of operation here, and now I’m going to blitz them and see what I can churn up. Smalley’s agreed to run interference for me in the meantime, take some of the smaller piles off the streets so I can follow the trail of leftovers back to Guerra.”
“Fair enough,” Brognola replied. “We’ll get things happening at this end, and I’ll inform the Man you’re on the path to taking care of business.”
“Roger. Out here.”
Bolan disconnected the call and then set about the task of checking his equipment. Smalley had released the weapons and ordnance back to him without a fight, since his warrant only blanketed him for a search and a number of interagency memorandums of understanding precluded him from seizing anything he found.
Bolan stripped out of his dress clothes into a different kind of suit, one he knew to be most appropriate for the activities he planned over the next twenty-four hours. The skintight blacksuit and combat boots transformed the Executioner into an imposing figure. A military web belt encircled his waist, held in place by a pair of load-bearing suspenders. Various implements of war dangled from the harness, including the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle in a hip holster, a garrote, Ka-Bar fighting knife and several M-67 fragmentation grenades. The Beretta 93-R nestled in a shoulder rig, and ammo pouches along the belt with magazines of 9 mm ammo completed the ensemble.
Bolan packed the rest of his belongings into the waterproof equipment bag, which he stowed in the trunk of the Mustang. He climbed behind the wheel—a tight squeeze given all the gear he wore—and then headed for a tavern that the intelligence computers of the NVGTF had advised had a back room where MS-13 conducted illegal gambling operations and sold narcotics.
The Executioner was headed into the den of troublemakers, and he planned to collect a debt.
In full.
4
Bolan seemed like a ghostly specter as he passed through the doorway of the tavern and walked calmly across the grimy floor headed directly for a back door marked Fire Exit ONLY!
Most of the patrons were seated at the door with their backs to him and so, under the din of happy hour, didn’t even notice the wraithlike form that moved past them with instruments of war dangling from every part of its imposing form. The bartender noticed, however, and reached beneath the bar to sound an alarm with one hand while using the other to scoop up a shotgun. Bolan saw the move in his peripheral vision.
In fact, he’d half expected it.
The Executioner whirled to face the threat as he reached for the Desert Eagle at his hip. He leveled the pistol at the bartender’s chest just as the guy brought his shotgun to bear. Bolan waited until he saw the bartender quickly jack the wooden pump on the gun, heard the clack as the motion fed a 12-gauge shell into the breech, before he steadied the muzzle on his target and squeezed the trigger. The slug left the pistol at a muzzle velocity of over 1,300 feet per second. The round punched through the bartender’s sternum, cracked the breast-bone, tore out his lower airway and blew out a part of his spine. The impact sent him crashing into the neat row of bottles behind him as he triggered a harmless round into the ceiling.
Pandemonium erupted inside the bar, with half the patrons dropping to the floor and the other half drawing knives or guns and searching for cover. Bolan didn’t wait to become a target for an overanxious shooter, instead putting his foot to the alleged fire exit door, a scenario he knew to be unlikely, since there was no safety bar or alarm visible. His intuition paid off as the door gave way to his imposing frame.
While the reaction of the gangbanger security force proved admirable, it wasn’t a match for the Executioner—he had surprise on his side.
Bolan took the closest target, a hood in a gray sweatshirt toting a machine pistol, and blew his skull apart with a double tap at the same moment he reached for a grenade on his LBE harness. Bolan found cover behind a large support pole as two other MS-13 soldiers opened on his position with Ingram MAC-10s. Their possession of such arcane weaponry surprised him but he filed it away for later consideration and primed his grenade. He let the spoon fly and counted three seconds of cook-off time before breaking cover and lobbing the bomb in the direction of the enemy gunners. The grenade exploded in midair, giving neither youth time to find cover. The shock wave from the high explosive charge separated an arm and head from one of the gangbangers while the other suffered a mouthful of fractured teeth and third degree burns across most of his upper body.
Bolan swept the muzzle of the Desert Eagle the breadth of the room and tracked on a fourth man who had escaped the full effect of the grenade. The gangbanger looked to be vying for a better position where he could flank Bolan but the room was sealed up tight as a drum, and he had nowhere to go. The crowd that had been inside gambling now rushed past Bolan and headed for the exit door. The Executioner ignored them, focused on neutralizing the threat at hand. The MS-13 gunner leveled his machine pistol at Bolan, but the soldier took him with a single round to the shoulder before the man got a shot off. The impact ripped a large hole through the meaty portion and knocked the weapon loose from the man’s grip.
Bolan swept the room once more with the smoking pistol but no further threats greeted him. He crossed the room where tables were overturned. Chips, cash, liquor and smoldering cigarettes had been strewed across the floor. Bolan vaulted the one table an MS-13 gangster had overturned and aimed the pistol point-blank at the surviving gunner’s forehead. He looked more like a kid than a grown man, with his acne-covered face and full head of slicked back hair, but Bolan marked him in his early twenties; yeah, definitely old enough to know better. He rolled on the floor, one hand covering his wounded shoulder, the blood oozing through his fingers and soaking his shirt sleeve as it left smudges on the floor around him.
“I have two questions for you,” Bolan said. “Answer them both truthfully and you live. Understand?”
The kid merely nodded.
“Question one. You work for Mario Guerra?”
“Sí… yes.”
“Good. Second question, did he order the hit on Gary Marciano?”
This time the kid said nothing. Bolan knew about the rules in the gang, that the penalty for informing on the gang with the cops was death. Frankly, Bolan didn’t see much difference from this kid’s point of view. If he ratted them out, they would surely hunt him down and kill him, and if he didn’t speak he was taking the chance Bolan would put a bullet through his head. While he might believe the latter or not, he could be certain that his homeys would kill him if he betrayed the code of silence.
“Check that,” Bolan said. “That’s not a fair question, so let’s try a different one. Suppose I wanted to buy some drugs. Where would I look?”
“Y-you don’t want to buy drugs.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Bolan replied. “But let’s just pretend that I do for a moment. Let’s say that I’m not asking you to give up anything you wouldn’t give up to some pimp or prostitute or coked up vagrant on the street. Right? Telling me where I can get some drugs isn’t giving anything up. You’d tell one of them, so you can tell me.”
“My homeboys will kill me if I say anything to you, man.”
Bolan put the hot muzzle of the gun against the kid’s cheek and kicked the kid’s hand away and stepped on his shoulder. “Let’s try it again. Where?”
The young man produced a blood-curdling scream and Bolan eased off the pressure. “Okay…okay!” the kid said between labored breaths. “Place is called Tres Hermanos, down on the strip east of here, borders Reston. It’s there…it’s there where you can buy. Now please, please stop!”
Bolan nodded and took his foot off the kid’s shoulder. He then reached to a medical pouch on his harness, withdrew a compress with bandage from it, tore open the thick paper wrapping with his teeth and quickly dressed the youth’s wound. He then stripped the kid of belt and shoes, checked him for any hidden weapons and then cleared out of there. Back in the main bar area, all the patrons had vacated the place and Bolan could hear sirens in the distance. He checked his watch, deciding not to hit the club right away. He wanted to give the cops a little time to catch up. For now, he would get a quick bite and then go visit this Tres Hermanos, see what kind of flies he could attract to the web.
The war had begun and time—for Mario Guerra—was running out.
BOLAN JUST FINISHED the last bite of his meal when the cellular phone on the seat next to him rang.
The Executioner wiped his fingers on a napkin before growling a short greeting into the receiver.
“Cooper, it’s Smalley,” the chief replied.
“Yeah.”
“I thought we had a deal, pal.”
“And what was that?”
“I thought you weren’t going to start shooting up my town.”
“I never said that,” Bolan replied. “And besides, it was only one rat hole I shot up in your town. I’m sure nobody will miss the business. You found my little greeting card?”
“The wounded banger?”
“That’s the one.”
“I did,” Smalley said. He let out a sigh and added, “But he lawyered up as soon as we read him his rights, so I don’t think he’s going to be talking to us any time soon.”
“I didn’t have any trouble getting the information I wanted from him.”
“Yeah, we heard all about that. First from the punk, then his attorney, and probably from the ACLU and a half-dozen other agencies in time for the early-morning edition of the Washington Post.”
“I needed to confirm a couple tidbits of intelligence and he was happy to cooperate,” Bolan said. “Now if you’re done, I have some new information. That Hillbanger admitted he was operating under orders from Mario Guerra. He also gave up the main location of this drug operation they’ve been running. And I ran your immigration problem by my own people. We think we’ve got a logical argument that the increased illegal immigrants are actually a pipeline opened by some heavy hitters overseeing MS-13 operations all through this country. I believe they’ve been using the pipeline to divert your attention away from their other activities.”
“In other words, you think they’ve been just waiting us out,” Smalley concluded.
“You nailed it.”
“Damn! I can’t believe we would have fallen for something like that!”
“Don’t beat up on yourself too much, Smalley,” Bolan replied easily. “There wasn’t any way you could’ve known, and even if you did, there was even less you could do about it. That whole thing falls into INS’s lap, and whoever’s overseeing MS-13 operations at the national level knows how bureaucratically mired that agency is.”
“So you really think there’s an overboss in this,” Smalley said matter-of-factly. “Like some kind of godfather of the Mara Salvatrucha?”
“I don’t know for sure yet, but I have some evidence from an operation Marciano was running under the table that strongly suggests it.”
“So now what?”
“Now,” Bolan said, his eyes returning to the restaurant’s entrance, “I follow up this lead the Hillbanger gave me on the drug operation. I’m betting it will take me directly to where Mario Guerra’s holed up.”
“Well, I’ve started deploying every available man to sweep the neighborhoods and get as many Hillbangers off the streets as possible.”
“Did you get anything from the first prisoner I took from the hit at the park this afternoon?”
“He’s still in recovery from the surgery. That shot did some major damage to his leg. In fact, doctors say he might lose it altogether. Apparently there was a lot of nerve damage and it was difficult to repair.”
“Wish I could feel bad, but I don’t,” Bolan replied.
“I’m sure,” Smalley said. “We’re not shedding any tears, either. We’ve had him up on charges a number of times, but he always managed to beat the rap. Guess he’s not bulletproof, though.”
“They usually aren’t.”
“All right, Cooper, I got to go. But just keep in mind that my men are out there trying to help you, so try not to accidentally shoot one of them.”
“Like I said, I’m very cautious. Just keep them away from Tres Hermanos for the next hour.”
Bolan killed the call and returned his full attention to the scene before him. While talking to Smalley, he’d watched a number of vehicles park in the lot and produce occupants who didn’t appear to be anything more than legitimate patrons. The Executioner knew looks could be deceiving, and he’d begun to wonder if the MS-13 gangster had sent him on a wild-goose chase, yet something in his gut told him to wait it out. If the restaurant did serve as a front to their drug sales operations, it wasn’t like they would go about advertising the fact to the casual observer.
As if on cue, Bolan observed a late model BMW pull to the curb in front of the entrance and drop off two men seated in the back. Both of them were dressed in nice clothes and wore lots of jewelry—the dark sunglasses seemed particularly strange for the time of evening. The BMW’s driver then pulled away and turned into the lot to wait while the pair of tough-looking customers made their way inside.
Bingo.
The Executioner left the Mustang he’d parked across the street and approached the BMW waiting in its blind spot. When he’d gone half the distance, he saw a spark and flicker through the back window. A moment later, the driver stuck his hand out the side and Bolan could just make out the pinpoint glow of a cigarette cherry. The soldier continued toward the BMW until he was within a few feet and drew the Beretta from shoulder leather. He reached out and grabbed the driver’s wrist while simultaneously sliding his gun hand under the man’s triceps and pulling backward, using the arm as a lever for which he could quite effectively control the driver.
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