Deep Recon

In the small waiting area near the two small baggage claim stations Bolan spotted a large man with a round, bald head, huge arms that ended in wide shoulders, a barrel chest, squat legs, and no discernible neck, who seemed to have spotted him, also. Despite the man’s size, Bolan couldn’t detect an ounce of fat on him—easily done, as he was wearing a skintight muscle shirt and shorts. The Executioner noticed that the large man walked with a slightly odd gait and his right arm stuck out a bit farther from his side than his left. He was a man who was used to walking with a shoulder holster, and who didn’t have it on because airport security would’ve been all over him.

Bolan readied himself as the man walked toward him. If this guy was one of Lee’s men, it didn’t bode well for this assignment. An op that began with a firefight five minutes after Bolan landed meant big trouble. Also, any leak had to have been tugboat-size if the Executioner’s own involvement was known by his target only a couple hours after he got the mission.

The man walked up to Bolan and said, “Are you Mr. Cooper? I’m Mr. Faraday. I’m here to take you to Lola.”

“Any particular reason why I should believe you?” Bolan asked.

Faraday was now standing close to Bolan. He was half a head shorter than the Executioner, but twice as wide. Still, Bolan had taken down bigger opponents unarmed, and he had his SIG-Sauer handy if he needed it. For that matter, he had two solid gun cases, one in either hand, both of which would make excellent blunt instruments should the need arise.

Then Faraday whispered the word “Galleria.”

From his airplane reading, Bolan knew that was the BATF code word for McAvoy’s op. In and of itself, it didn’t prove as much as Faraday probably thought it did. If there was a leak, then McAvoy’s code word might well have been common knowledge in Lee’s organization.

Plus, Faraday’s name appeared nowhere in that same airplane reading, which had included a full dossier on Lola Maxwell.

Still and all, Bolan was willing to go along with Faraday for the time being, if for no other reason than to gather information.

He followed Faraday out to the sun-drenched parking lot, where he led them to a 1965 Mustang convertible.

Bolan’s hopes for this mission continued to plummet. A cherry-red Mustang was hardly the most inconspicuous vehicle to be using for an undercover op. And if it was part of Maxwell’s cover, should she really have sent it out to pick him up?

Faraday squeezed his massive frame into the Mustang, which also went some way toward explaining the choice of car: Faraday’s bulk would not have fit comfortably in a more modern sedan. Of course, sedans were hardly the only option, and the prevalence of SUVs made that a far more inconspicuous mode of transport.

Bolan slid quietly into the passenger seat after placing his duffel and gun cases in the backseat. As Faraday drove out onto a road that ran alongside the Gulf of Mexico, Bolan saw that this was hardly the only vintage car around. That mitigated the problem, but hardly solved it.

Gazing past Faraday’s head, Bolan looked out and saw the bright blue sky, broken by the occasional white cloud, the sun’s brightness doubled by reflecting off the blue-with-whitecaps water of the Gulf. The water was also filled with boats of all kinds, ranging from small yachts to sailboats to motorboats very similar to the one he was using for fishing in Michigan earlier this day. Other, smaller boats were used to drag parasailers through the sky.

The road came to an L intersection, and the Mustang continued on it, turning right. Faraday navigated through several other streets, which contained various houses colored in pastels. A large number were new construction, due to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, though Bolan noted that they were still in the same style as the ones that were constructed in the nineteenth century when Key West was a major port of call and the wrecking industry was at its peak.

The Mustang pulled into the driveway of a bungalow on Whitehead Street. It was white with blue trim.

Before going inside, Bolan removed his Desert Eagle from its case, assembling it in just a few moments.

“You ain’t gonna need that,” Faraday said.

The Executioner said nothing, but continued to put his weapon together. He saw no reason to take Faraday at his word.

When the Desert Eagle was placed snugly in his waistband, reducing the SIG-Sauer in his shoulder holster to the status of backup weapon, Bolan said, “Let’s go.”

Inside the bungalow was sparsely furnished and lit by garish tropical daylight. Under the right circumstances, such bland décor and intense natural light could be used to disorient, but this was southern Florida, where bright sun was the order of the day.

Inside was a tall woman in her early- to mid-thirties with red shoulder-length hair and stunning emerald-green eyes. She wore a tube top that barely contained a sizable chest, flip-flops, and toenail polish that were all the same red as the Mustang. Her denim cutoffs had a belt holster that contained a Beretta U22 NEOS 22LR pistol.

“Lola Maxwell, I presume?” Bolan asked.

“That would be me. My contacts said you were the best. I’ve never known them to be wrong.

“We’re trying to bring down a gunrunner here, Mr. Cooper, one who killed a BATF deep-cover agent.”

“Yes, I know. I read the file. What I don’t know is what you and your thug over here have to do with any of this.”

Faraday tensed at the “thug” reference, but calmed at a look from Maxwell.

“Jean-Louis is my associate. He used to be an enforcer for a drug crew out of Key Largo, until I put him away. He’s been working for me since he did his time.”

“And you?”

“Since I left the CIA—”

Bolan almost smiled. “Since the CIA kicked you out on your ass, you mean. Don’t screw around with me, Ms. Maxwell. I take on jobs that need to be done, and I can’t do it with incompetents working alongside me.”

“I’m not incompetent!” Maxwell said. “My leaving the CIA was political. I’m sure you know all about that.”

“Yes, which is why I avoid politics.”

“In any case, BATF hired me to provide support for Johnny—for Agent McAvoy on his undercover job.”

Jerking a thumb toward Faraday, Bolan asked, “And he fits in where?”

“He helps me out,” Maxwell said evasively, staring at the floor. “Look, it’s easier to do this kind of thing if you have some kind of local talent. Jean-Louis and I know a lot of the players, plus we have deniability with BATF. Anyone digs, they’ll find an ex-con and an ex-spook. My current work is completely off the grid—kinda like yours, I presume.” She added that with an ironic smile. “And we’re wasting time. I think I know who might’ve fingered Johnny.”

Bolan folded his arms over his chest. He didn’t like this. “How long were the two of you sleeping together?”

Maxwell blinked. “What are you talking about?” Her attempt at ignorance was pathetic.

Moving toward the door, the Executioner said, “We’re done.”

“What?”

“You slept with your partner. You’re working with an ex-con. And I get the feeling you’re more interested in vengeance for your lover’s murder than in justice against a gunrunner. I appreciate the lift from the airport, but I’ll take it from here by myself. Like I said before, I don’t work with incompetents.”

Bolan put his hand on the front doorknob when Maxwell said, “Wait!”

Turning, Bolan asked, “For what? You’re not going to convince me that this op is anything but botched from the start. You’re too close emotionally, and that clouds judgment—people end up dead. I don’t want one of those people to be me, so we’re done.”

“But I told you, I know who fingered Johnny.”

That got Bolan’s hand off the doorknob—temporarily. “Why didn’t you tell the BATF agents at the scene this?”

“Because I wasn’t thinking straight at the scene. I’ve had a day to think about it, and I know who it has to be—Kenny V. The V is short for Valentino, his last name, but a lot of the boys call him Hot Lips.”

“A good kisser?” Bolan asked.

“No,” Maxwell said. “No, they call him that ’cause his lips are always flapping, and the boys all think that his mouth’ll catch fire, they flap so fast.”

“If he’s that good a talker, how is he still alive?”

“He doesn’t just talk well, he hears everything and knows everybody. He always makes deals that are good for both parties, and he never squeals.”

“Time to break that streak, then,” Bolan said, confident in his ability to extract information. “Where is he?”

“A bar on Sugarloaf Key called Micky’s. He practically lives at the corner table between the jukebox and the pool table. We can be there in twenty minutes.”

“No, I can be there in twenty minutes. I work better alone.”

“Dammit, Cooper, you don’t know the players, and you don’t know the territory.” She chuckled. “And look at you. You stand out like a sore thumb.”

“Maybe. But I can’t do my job and babysit you two. So stay here.” Looking at Faraday, he said, “Car keys.”

Faraday looked confused.

Glowering at Maxwell, Bolan said, “You want my help, we do things my way, and that means I go alone with no chance of you two following. I either take your car, or I slash the tires and go rent one of my own. Pick one.”

Maxwell bit her lower lip, then nodded toward Faraday, who handed over the Mustang’s keys.

“Smart choice.” Bolan departed the bungalow.

The Mustang’s engine turned over as soon as Bolan applied the key. The old car hummed like the well-oiled machine it was, and the Executioner was silently impressed with at least one aspect of Maxwell’s character: she kept this four-decade-old car in pristine shape.

Once he’d put some distance between himself and Maxwell’s bungalow, he took out his sat phone, which was also equipped with a GPS and a secure Internet connection. The latter enabled him to quickly obtain the precise address of Micky’s on Sugarloaf Key, and the former provided directions.

Sure enough, it took almost exactly twenty minutes to get there. Bolan found a parking lot belonging to a bowling alley a block away from Micky’s, and he parked the rather distinctive Mustang there.

The Executioner played a serious game, one with his life on the line constantly, and he would only trust someone he could count on to back him up. Every indication showed that Maxwell and her “associate” didn’t qualify.

He pulled his jacket around him closer as he walked toward Micky’s. The sun was setting and the temperature was plummeting. The wind that came in off the Atlantic was bitter and cut through Bolan.

Micky’s was a large shack that probably had been used for storage once upon a time. From a distance it looked fairly rickety, and Bolan wondered how it survived hurricane season. But as he got closer, he saw evidence of steel reinforcement. A battered sign gave the name of the place, and what few windows there were were frosted over.

This area of Florida specialized in open-air eateries and drinkeries, and for a place to be this enclosed bespoke a certain illegality.

As if to reinforce that, Bolan walked through the thick metal door to find his nostrils assaulted with cigarette smoke. There were few interior public spaces left that allowed smoking, and while Bolan wasn’t completely up on the Florida State code, he was fairly certain that bars in this state qualified. Places like this, though, bars that catered to the scum of humanity, tended to be smoke-filled throwbacks to a bygone era, a testament to how little the criminal element had changed.

The bar floor was nowhere near large enough to cover the full space of the building. In and of itself that didn’t say much: the Florida Keys weren’t structurally sound enough geologically to support much by way of basements, so the bar’s storage facilities were probably aboveground. Still, Bolan was sure there was more than liquor stored in the area he couldn’t see.

Bolan strode in like he owned the place, heading straight for a wooden stool at the bar. With a single glance he took in the interior: a bar along the left wall, a bartender standing behind it drawing the tap for a customer who sat at the far end, and a floor with a lot of wooden tables. While most of those tables had one or two men sitting at it—there wasn’t a single woman in the place—the one between the jukebox and the pool table was empty.

So much for “practically living there.” Bolan was running out of patience with Lola Maxwell already, and the op was less than twenty-four hours old.

He ordered the lightest beer they had. The bartender glared at him, and Bolan glared right back.

“You a cop?” the bartender asked.

Assuming a cover identity without a moment’s hesitation, Bolan spoke in a New York accent. “Jesus H., is that a stupid question, or what? You really think I’m gonna just say, ‘Yeah, I’m a cop’? I swear to Christ, the sun must bake your brains down here.”

“When’d you come down from the Big Apple?” the bartender then asked with a smile.

Florida was filled with transplanted New Yorkers, so the accent wouldn’t be hard for a bartender to place, but Bolan’s cover required him to play dumb. “What makes you think I’m from New York? And we don’t call it ‘the Big Apple,’ either, asshole.”

“Look, maybe you’ll want to try one of the places out on Route 1.”

“Yeah? Kenny V hang out there, too?”

The bartender frowned. “You’re here to see Hot Lips?”

“Christ, you don’t really call him that, do ya?”

At that, the bartender smiled. “I’ll get your drink.”

As the bartender pulled the tap for the light beer, the door opened to the sound of someone talking a mile a minute.

“So I says to the bitch, I says, ‘Hey look, bitch, if you don’t wanna be doin’ the deed, then you shouldn’t’a been all cozyin’ up to me like you was.’ And she was sayin’, ‘I thought we was just dancin’,’ and I told her, ‘Yo, bitch, when you dance with your cootchie all up against my leg, my guess is that you wanna be doin’ more than dancin’, you feel me?’”

That had to be Kenny Valentino. He had a shaved head, a chin beard and a gold tooth on the left side of his mouth. He seemed to be talking to himself, but as he entered Micky’s, Bolan could see the wireless phone device in his left ear.

“I’m at the joint now, I gotta bounce. Hey, tell Delgado that Lee owes me, a’ight? Good. Peace.”

He tapped the side of his wireless device, then signaled the bartender. “Yo, Marty! Draw me a beer!”

Marty, the bartender, nodded as he brought Bolan his beer. “That,” Marty said to Bolan, “is the guy you’re looking for.”

“No kidding,” Bolan said sardonically. “Kinda worked that out on my own, know what I’m sayin’?” He also was starting to understand where the Hot Lips nickname came from, if he was blithely mentioning Lee’s name over an unsecured mobile phone line.

Kenny said hello to pretty much everyone in the bar, and engaged them in quick conversations. Though “conversations” may have been the wrong word, since none of the people other than Kenny actually said anything.

There were only two people Kenny didn’t acknowledge. One was Bolan. The other was the man at the far end of the bar whom Marty had been serving when Bolan came in.

Bolan paid close attention to all the exchanges, especially the one between Kenny and a short, overweight Latino gentleman with pockmarked skin. After Kenny acknowledged him, the Latino looked right at the man at the end of the bar.

That man then got up and went over to Kenny.

The world seemed to move in slow motion for just a second. Bolan immediately noticed the bulge of a handgun. As the man reached under his windbreaker, Bolan leaped up from his own stool and ran toward the man, reaching for his Desert Eagle.

Even as Bolan moved, the man pulled out a Smith & Wesson .38-caliber handgun.

“What the f—” were Kenny’s last words, as the man squeezed the trigger four times, putting each shot in Kenny Valentino’s chest. The first bullet ripped into his chest, instantly pulverizing his heart. The subsequent three shots, which shredded his lungs, ribs and esophagus, were unnecessary, as the .38-caliber round tore the aorta to pieces, beyond the ability of even the finest hospital to repair.

A cacophony of voices exploded in the bar.

“Shit!”

“He killed Valentino!”

“Shoot the bastard!”

“I never liked the little asshole.”

Pointing his Desert Eagle at the man’s head, Bolan said, “Drop it now.”

The man dived under the pool table. Bolan fired two rounds at the table, the .357 rounds blowing massive holes and sending splintered wood and pulverized felt everywhere.

As Bolan ran toward the pool table, the man popped up, now holding a second S&W .38 and firing both as he ran toward the door.

The Executioner was forced to dive for cover as bullets whizzed over his head.

The other men in the bar—including the pockmarked Latino who had signaled the assassin—had mostly moved toward the exits. Apparently, no one thought highly enough of Kenny Valentino to avenge his death.

Except for the Executioner. Valentino had survived all this time by being useful to the right people. Now, just when Bolan was about to talk to him about his role in informing on a federal agent, a professional showed up to put four bullets into him.

On the one hand, it meant that Bolan was on the right track. On the other, it meant that he couldn’t question the man.

The shots stopped, and Bolan clambered to his feet, running to the front door.

Valentino’s assassin was getting into a white Chevrolet Aveo, which made it much like every other car in south Florida.

Bolan risked throwing a shot, which would require him to steady his stance. Being light on your feet was not a blessing when you fired a .357 Magnum. He felt the tremendous recoil from the Desert Eagle vibrate through his entire body as the bullet sliced through the air, but he held his ground, his feet planted firmly in what martial artists called a three-point stance: one foot slightly in front of the other, toes inverted toward each other, knees bent, center of gravity dropped. It was one of the most stable stances possible, and people who mastered it couldn’t be easily knocked down. Bolan had long ago achieved such mastery.

The round pulverized the back window of the Aveo, which shattered in an ear-splitting explosion of glass. The Executioner also saw shreds of leather and padding, indicating that the round had gone through one of the seats as well.

Bolan had obviously missed the assassin, as he then started the car and drove off. Even a glancing shot from a .357 round would leave someone unable to operate a motor vehicle.

As he ran as fast as he could down the street to where he’d parked Maxwell’s Mustang, Bolan took some solace in the fact that he’d blown out the rear window of the Aveo, which would make it easier to pick up on the road.

Keeping his eye on the vehicle for as long as he could, Bolan saw it turn left at the end of the road, which meant the assassin was heading for the Overseas Highway—U.S. Route 1, the only road that traversed all the Keys. That was a mixed blessing. It meant that the assassin hadn’t stashed a boat here on Sugarloaf Key, which meant Bolan could keep tailing him. But it also meant that the Executioner had to catch up to him before he reached Route 1, otherwise he wouldn’t know whether he went south toward Key West or north toward mainland Florida.

As he approached the Mustang, Bolan leaped into the driver’s seat, grateful that he’d left the top down. Sliding the key into the ignition, the Executioner knew he was about to find out how well Maxwell maintained her vintage vehicle.

Apparently, she did so very well. The ’65 Mustang accelerated smoothly and quickly, and Bolan soon found himself behind a white Chevrolet Aveo with no back window that was turning left onto Crane Boulevard toward Route 1.

The Aveo was a solid, reliable car, often used by rental car companies, but never by car enthusiasts who preferred speed over function. So all things being equal, Bolan would have no trouble keeping up with the assassin with Maxwell’s Mustang.

But all things were somewhat unequal, as there were other cars on the road, and for all that it had the designation of “boulevard,” Crane was just a two-lane road.

Heedless of driving regulations, and common sense, the assassin weaved his Aveo in and out of his side and the oncoming-traffic side, almost getting clipped by vehicles any number of times.

When they reached Route 1, the Aveo swerved more than turned left through a red light. Bolan did likewise. The Executioner had been hoping that the Aveo would have gone right, and south toward Key West. There was a U.S. Navy station on Boca Chica Key, and the Executioner knew that facility well. He also could possibly have called upon some backup from the sailors on the ground there.

But instead, the assassin went north.

The Overseas Highway was also two lanes, which meant that traffic moved only as fast as the slowest person on the road. Paying no heed to other cars, the Aveo zipped in and out of lanes, clipping some vehicles. Bolan wasn’t sure if he did so to increase his speed, or in the hopes that one of the cars he hit would interfere with Bolan’s own ability to keep up, but if it was the latter, it didn’t work. The Mustang turned on the proverbial dime, and Bolan was easily able to avoid the other cars on the road.

They continued over Summerland Key and into Big Pine Key, his quarry continuing to treat the Overseas Highway as his own personal slalom course.

When they reached the Seven Mile Bridge, a stretch that traversed the Gulf of Mexico over the eponymous distance between Little Duck Key and Key Vaca, the traffic lessened—only the Mustang and the Aveo were on this stretch. Bolan wasn’t sure how long this would last, but he would take advantage of the lack of innocent bystanders and the distraction they posed.

About a mile onto the bridge, the assassin stuck an arm out the driver’s window and pointed the muzzle of his S&W in Bolan’s direction and squeezed off three shots.

None of them connected, as the assassin swerved and rubbed up against the concrete railing that kept drivers from going over the edge into the Gulf of Mexico. Sparks flew as the passenger side ground against the guardrail. The assassin righted the car soon enough, but the slowdown from the friction and the swerving allowed the Executioner to close the distance between them.

He didn’t rear-end the Aveo—that was a zero-sum strategy. With two cars of roughly equal size, the rear-ender always got it worse than the rear-endee. In this case, the impact would severely damage the Mustang’s grille and have almost no effect on the Aveo’s bumper.

Instead, Bolan took advantage of the presently nonexistent traffic to get into the northbound lane and pull up alongside the Aveo.

The assassin tried to fire his .38 again. But before he could get a shot off, Bolan swerved right, counting on the more solidly built 1965 car to be able to withstand the impact better than the much lighter and flimsier modern vehicle.

Again the Aveo ground against the concrete railing. Bolan saw the other man struggle to keep the steering wheel under control—and fail miserably. The Aveo was being crushed between the irresistible force of the barricade and the solidly built Mustang.

Headlights then shone in Bolan’s face as a truck came into view going southbound on Route 1. The Mustang was still halfway into the southbound lane, and the only way to avoid a collision was to stop smashing the Aveo against the guardrail.

Swerving left long enough to disentangle the two vehicles from each other—which happened with another screech of metal against plastic—Bolan then put his right foot on the brake, causing the Mustang to decelerate sharply.

The Aveo continued to scrape against the guardrail for several seconds before the assassin also swerved left.