Devil's Playground. Don Pendleton

BRUJILLO WATCHED the big American step into the shower and pull the curtain. She had a slender fiber-optic camera mounted just above the nozzle, enabling her to watch her quarry at all times. Some people felt that the shower was a secure location, with running water and loud echoes and the security of the shower curtain, but Anibella had made certain that she had technological means around those. She had microphones installed with digital filters that ignored white sound while picking up vibrations in the normal conversational range of the human voice.

      Her husband knew that she had put in some extra work to enhance security at the mansion. What he was ignorant of, however, was the tap that she had placed, so she could put anyone in the mansion under her magnifying glass without them being the wiser.

      The American’s body was lean, but rippling with curves of muscle. He had very little body fat, and his limbs moved with grace and agility as he washed off the stink of cordite and perspiration from the earlier battle. The Santa Muerte high priestess watched with rapt attention as Bolan turned and twisted, cleaning himself thoroughly, then stood, head hung, letting hot water splash onto his back to massage tired muscles.

      Even when he was naked, Anibella couldn’t tell the man’s age. The tightness of his long, straight limbs showed the body of an almost fanatical athlete. The last thing she’d seen that resembled the man was carved from marble and meant to represent Ares or Herakles. Had the warrior on her screen been born two millennia sooner, he’d have been worshiped as a god-king. It was no wonder that Agent Matt Cooper had been considered a one-man solution to rampant organized crime and terrorism by the Mexican president.

      Unfortunately, for the first lady, the tall, powerful warrior in the shower had made no phone calls that she could listen in on, accessed no computer data that her cameras in other rooms could glean off the laptop monitor.

      “Ah, Martha,” Anibella whispered. “He is a wily creature. He is aware that he is being watched. His senses are as sharp as his skill in battle.”

      “Did you say something, darling?” Emilio Brujillo’s voice called from his office in the next room.

      “I am just saying my prayers,” she told her husband. “Giving thanks for Agent Cooper’s protection this morning.”

      The governor stood in the door. Though his lined face showed weariness, he still was straight and tall, not leaning. His deeply lined smile shone with the light of a man of twenty. “And I give thanks for you, my dear. If you had not requested that I send for him, we surely would have been lost.”

      Anibella closed her laptop and walked over to her husband, embracing him, feeling the hidden strength in his frame. Strong arms wrapped around her and he kissed her passionately. For a moment, the first lady imagined the Greek god who had finished bathing on her screen, but the passion of the governor swept over her, and she remembered why she had married this man as he picked her up like a doll, carrying her to their bed.

      As passionate a crusader for honest government, Emilio Brujillo was just as passionate a lover. Anibella pushed aside her thoughts of plotting, succumbing to a wave of sexual bliss.

      THE EXECUTIONER WAS CERTAIN he was being watched by pinhole cameras, and didn’t bother scanning the room for bugs. It was a matter of course that guest rooms in the homes of heads of state were under all forms of high-tech surveillance. However, since the only secrets Bolan would reveal were the contours of his naked body, he didn’t pay mind to the omnipresent feeling of being watched. A quick, hot shower scoured him clean of the stickiness of exertion and the stench of gunpowder. He appraised himself in the mirror, looking for bruises or signs of lacerations that would need covering to prevent infection. As he made a visual check, he also stretched and tested his muscles and joints, looking to see if he’d overstressed anything, the effects of minor tendon or muscle tears hidden by the effects of adrenaline and seratonin in his bloodstream.

      Satisfied that he was healthy and hearty, he slipped into a pair of cargo shorts and greeted the servant who had just knocked at the door. A cart was wheeled in. Bolan was impressed by the savory repast arranged on the plate, heaping side servings of delicious-smelling refried beans and spicy rice accompanying them. The burritos were thick and bulging, in soft wraps. They were delicious and filling to the point where he was nearly groggy. He washed them and the side dishes down with two soft drinks, drunk straight from chilled glass bottles. He saved the horchata for after his nap.

      Bolan looked around the room, then crawled onto the bed. Silk sheets enveloped his freshly scrubbed flesh, and the ceiling fan pushed down a cool breeze over the soldier’s bare skin. Though he tried not to concern himself with the hidden cameras and microphones, he couldn’t help but know where they were situated, if only from his familiarity with covert surveillance. There were eyes and ears in likely places, his sharp combat senses picking them out with little difficulty. The Executioner pushed his Desert Eagle under an extra pillow, not far from his fingertips. Nestling atop the sheets, his cheek resting against a decadently soft and comfortable pillow with a satin case, he was fast asleep within a few moments, taking a quick combat nap.

      A RUSTLE OUTSIDE THE DOOR snapped Bolan awake what felt like mere moments later. The noise tripped his mental alarms and he was fully seated, the cocked and locked .44 Magnum pistol aimed at the door.

      From the deepening blue of the sky out his window, it was close to sunset, and the rap of delicate knuckles on the door preceded the voice of Anibella Brujillo. “Are you awake, Agent Cooper?”

      “Come in,” Bolan said. He set the mighty Israeli pistol back under the pillow.

      Anibella opened the door. Gone was the linen white blouse and black, short skirt she’d worn before. She wore no rings or earrings, and her black hair was pulled back into a bun. She wore a long-sleeved, navy-blue shirt, fitted to match her contours. Her long, lean legs were tucked into black jeans, which were just loose enough not to constrict her movements. High-top black gym shoes clad her feet, comfortable and sensible in opposition to the pumps she’d worn earlier. She was also wearing a belt with a flap holster and spare magazine pouches on the opposite hip.

      “You said you would make your move at sundown,” Anibella told him.

      “You look like you’re dressed to kill,” Bolan replied. He turned and dropped his cargo shorts, pulling on his form-fitting blacksuit. He didn’t doubt that Anibella was appraising his body as he wrapped it in the high-tech battle uniform he’d made his second skin. A pair of blue jeans went on over the bottoms of the blacksuit and he pulled on combat boots over socked feet. “I know you feel like you deserve a shot at these—”

      “I’m just going to be your driver, Agent Cooper,” Anibella cut him off, her voice hard, all wisps of seduction drained. “I know the places you wish to go.”

      “They also want you dead,” Bolan replied. He strapped quick-draw leather around his waist, and retrieved the Desert Eagle for it. The Beretta 93-R and its harness slid around his broad shoulders. A black, untucked linen shirt concealed the warrior’s battle gear, and he rolled the long sleeves of his blacksuit up to the elbow where they would disappear under their linen covering. Heavier ordnance was in his war bag, which he hefted.

      “I’m not stupid enough to stand and fight,” Anibella said. “Not alone. If they come after me, I’ll take off. I’ve got a backup rendezvous in case we end up separated.”

      Bolan regarded the woman in front of him. In the hours that he had slept, a change had washed over her. Instead of seeming as if she were trying to crawl under his blacksuit, she was all business now. “What kind of wheels do you have?”

      “A 1992 Toyota 4WD,” the first lady replied. “It looks rusty, but we have a few armor plates under the hull to take care of the important components and cargo. V-8 engine, run-flat tires and a full communications suite.”

      “You usually have a stealth vehicle assigned to you in your job?” Bolan asked.

      “It was something I’d bought from the DEA when they were cleaning house a few years back,” Anibella explained. “I told you, I’m the one in charge of my husband’s efforts to clean these jackals