Mission: Apocalypse. Don Pendleton

raised a bemused eyebrow. “Angel wings?”

      “I didn’t write it, man! Anyway. Najelli? She’s my friend. She’s playing it to give me courage.”

      Bolan hoped it was working. Dominico had been twitchy since Busto had slammed the lid shut. It wasn’t locked. Bolan was holding it shut with a piece of twine, but on every continent on Earth with a drug trade, being put in the trunk of a car was a death sentence, and this mission was starting to turn into a suicide run. “How you holding up?”

      “I’m okay.” Dominico was silent for a moment. “Can I ask you a question?”

      “Sure.”

      “Who are you? I mean…you’re not a cop.”

      “No,” Bolan agreed.

      “You’re not a soldier.”

      “I was,” Bolan admitted.

      “But not anymore.”

      “No.”

      Dominico spent long moments digesting this. “So…what the fuck, man?”

      Bolan gave him the short and sanitized version. “I was in a war. That was bad enough, but when I came back I found that some bad people had gotten into my world. They got close to me and mine. They got too close, they did damage and it got ugly.”

      “So, what did you do?”

      “I killed them, Memo. I killed them all.”

      “Jesus…So you’re the Terminator?”

      Bolan chose his words carefully. “You remember those campesinos dying of radiation poisoning in Mexico City?”

      “I’m having nightmares about it.”

      “I’m here to stop it if I can. If you’re not down with that, then knock on the trunk and Najelli can let you out. As far as I’m concerned you’ve done your bit, and we’re square.”

      “No way, man. I’m down, and I’m not going to let Najelli down. I have your back. I’ve been trying to get my head right. I’ve been trying to reject violence. But some shit, like nuclear radiation shit, has to be resisted.”

      “Righteous enough.” Bolan nodded. “But do me one favor.”

      “What’s that, amigo?”

      “That thing at the back of your Uzi?”

      “What thing at the back of my Uzi?”

      “The folding stock.”

      “What about it?”

      “Deploy it.”

      “Man?” Dominico made a dismissive noise. “I never use that thing.”

      Bolan sighed. “That’s what I figured.”

      Busto knocked three times on the roof. It was the signal that they were arriving. Bolan aimed his Beretta at the trunk lid as he felt the ancient car slow. The safety on Dominico’s Uzi clicked off in the darkness and the weapon clicked again as he slapped the folding stock into place. Dominico radiated renewed tension in the trunk’s pitch-black confines. “Shit,” he said. “Here we go.”

      Bolan spoke quietly. “Memo.”

      “Yeah?”

      “Relax, shut up and don’t shoot unless I do.”

      Dominico absorbed the sage advice. “Right.”

      The Mercury came to a halt and Bolan heard muffled talk as Busto spoke to the gate guard. She was expected and the car moved ahead once more within seconds. The Mercury turned left, then right and came to a stop again. Bolan’s mental map from the satellite photos told him they had parked by the northern side of the house. He heard two sets of shoes crunch up in the gravel. Busto got out, the door slammed shut and he heard her follow the two men back the way they had come.

      Bolan spent long moments listening.

      “Hey, man,” Dominico said. “We—”

      “Quiet.” Bolan let up a few ounces of slack of the twine around his little finger. The trunk lid cracked open an inch and light flooded into the trunk. Bolan waited and the light suddenly disappeared. The floodlights were slaved to a motion sensor. Bolan figured it was three minutes since the car had parked and Busto had walked away. Inch by inch Bolan let the trunk lid up. “Stay low by the side of the car. I think we’re inside the motion sensor’s guard. We hug wall and move to the back. Got it?”

      “Got it.”

      Bolan paid out twine until the trunk was open. The floodlights still stayed off. “Follow me.”

      The soldier unfolded out of the trunk and crouched by the side of the car. He drew his Desert Eagle to fill both hands with steel. Dominico followed him but the lights stayed off, no alarms sounded and no attack dogs came slavering out of the dark. Bolan took the lead as they moved toward the river. Amilcar had a nice spot. Culiacán was a city of three rivers. The Humaya and the Tamazula met in the city to form the Culiacán River that flowed all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Amilcar had a little pier with a pontoon boat for parties, a couple of river boats clearly dedicated to fishing and a sleek cigarette boat Bolan suspected was for high-speed exits to the sea.

      Bolan didn’t see any guards on duty. It was late, it was a school night and Amilcar was gearing up for a private night of romance and revenge. It looked like they might have caught a break. The backyard was a wide expanse of lawn with the obligatory fountain, gazebo and arena-sized barbecue pit.

      Bolan glanced up as light spilled out across the balcony of the master bedroom. Dominico frowned upward. “Varjo works fast.”

      “So should we.” Amilcar’s vast living room overlooked the backyard and the river, and the lights were still on. Bolan peered in and counted four men. They all wore white tracksuits and were failing to conceal the fact they were carrying pistols beneath their clothes. They were all drinking beer and watching a soccer game on a plasma-screen TV the size of a drive-in. Bolan nodded at Dominico. They walked past the glass door and none of the four men looked up. Bolan and his partner moved back into the shadows. Amilcar’s house was newly built, and rather than gutters he had installed some very chic, Japanese-style iron rain chains. The Executioner holstered his pistols and clambered hand over hand to the roof. Dominico took the chain with the facility of a spider. Bolan walked across the roof tiles one slow, carefully placed step at a time and then lowered himself to the master balcony. His comrade alit beside him a moment later, and they crouched behind a pair of potted palm trees. In the master suite Busto lay back on the king-size bed while Amilcar pulled off her cowboy boots. The drug enforcer paused as he felt the steel she was concealing in her right boot. He drew the little blue steel Smith & Wesson and tossed it onto a love seat in the corner. “You don’t need that anymore, baby.” Amilcar raised his arms and flexed his biceps. “El Martillo protects you now.”

      Busto let out a credible giggle and sat up. “Baby, I’m going to—”

      Amilcar’s hand cracked across her face like a gunshot and slapped her back down to the bed. “You’re going to do what I tell you, bitch.” He yanked her back up by the hair. “You tell me to fuck off? Humiliate me in front of my friends and go off to Mexico City like you’re hot shit and then come back here dragging someone else’s kid? And now that I’m the man in Culiacán, you come begging for me to take care of you, your old whore of a mother and your snot-nosed kid? Oh, I’m going to take care of you, baby. I’m going to take care of you in ways your boyfriend Davilo was afraid to try.”

      Busto hissed in rage and threw a very credible straight right hand at Amilcar’s face, but Amilcar had been a professional boxer and he swatted it aside easily. His hand whipped across her face twice more, forehand and back. Only his fistful of hair kept her from collapsing. The Hammer had heavy hands.

      His smile was ugly as he dropped her back to the bed. “Go ahead, baby. You were the