Devil's Playground. Don Pendleton

toward the mansion. “You think you can pull the fangs on Anibella Brujillo?”

      Bolan looked over his shoulder, then back to Asado. He fished a business card out of his pocket and flipped it to her. “Contact me if you can. Use the voice-mail line. It’s secure.”

      “You sure about that?” Asado asked.

      “It’s ironclad,” Bolan told her. “Get out of here.”

      Asado let the Uzi drop to the ground between them. “I’m trusting you for now.”

      She took off around the corner, heading for the front gate. Sirens wailed in the distance. Asado was going to have to hoof it to disappear before the law showed up, but with the strides she was taking, she’d have enough time to reach whatever wheels she had stashed away. He’d noticed a vehicle parked not far from the mansion’s entrance, and with her appearance, he realized the occupant of the unknown car. Strewed corpses were testimony to the odds that she’d helped to cut down.

      The Executioner was glad for the assistance, but Asado’s presence was worrying. She was on the run, and she was convinced her sister had been set up. That she was willing to hang back and trust Bolan to keep her in the loop was an advantage he possessed now. He looked back to the mansion and saw Anibella Brujillo, packing an MP-5 from the injured bodyguard. Her eyes locked on him with smoldering suspicion, but Bolan knew how to play it cool and close to the vest.

      The first lady wanted in on his hunt for the people out to kill her, at least on the surface, but she was getting a little too cozy for Bolan’s tastes. Having someone out from under Anibella Brujillo’s thumb would allow him some wiggle room.

      It was going to be tricky, but when he’d been recruited by Brognola for this, he was expecting a maze of deception. For now, he had a string to lead him back out if he wandered in too deeply.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      Thirty-six hours earlier

      “I’m glad you could take this meeting, Striker,” Hal Brognola said as Bolan sat at the end of the polished oak conference table. Monitors displaying satellite-and computer-generated maps flickered, bathing the dimly lit room in a blue glow that conflicted with the low-powered amber bulbs built into the smooth railings around the sides of the conference room, the woodgrain and luster of the rail matching that of the finely made table that Bolan sat at. The two friends were in the operations center beneath Camp David.

      “I had a little downtime after my last mission,” the Executioner replied.

      “You get damned little enough R and R,” Brognola stated.

      Bolan simply shrugged. “I’m no good at relaxing.”

      “That’s because you need more practice,” Brognola grumbled. “Unfortunately, this has the makings of a major crisis, and the Mexican president asked for help from ‘Striker.’”

      Bolan’s brow furrowed at the memories of what had been dubbed by the press as the Border Fire crisis. It had flavored the more recent dissent against the illegal immigration problem that followed. Bolan had worked almost side by side with the Mexican president, fending off several factions attempting to overthrow him and bring Mexico into open conflict with the United States. Only the combined forces of Stony Man Farm had brought the crisis to an end, battling wildly disparate forces.

      The lights built into the oaken rail flared brighter and lines built into the ceiling added to the illumination, dispersing shadow and heralding the approach of the President of the United States and his guest, the Mexican president.

      “Striker,” the Man greeted Bolan. “I believe you know my guest.”

      “Good to see you in good health, sir,” Bolan greeted the Mexican president.

      “I wish that we could have been reunited under more cordial circumstances, my friend,” the Mexican leader replied. “But I am glad to see you are still healthy, as well.”

      “I know you’re not one for small talk, so we’ll get down to the basics, Striker,” the President said. “There’s a cartel war going on in the Acapulco area, Guerrero State.”

      “And it’s struck uncomfortably close to home with your friend, Governor Brujillo?” Bolan asked.

      “You must have your finger on the pulse of my nation,” the Mexican president stated.

      “It helps to know where trouble occurs,” Bolan explained. “I put the Acapulco situation in the forefront of my mind.”

      “Because of the American singer who was murdered?” the Hispanic official asked.

      “Because it appeared that an army unit was involved in trying to murder a government official in a blatant terrorist attack,” Bolan corrected. “First Lady Brujillo is the governor’s face on the war on drugs in the Acapulco area.”

      “With Americans going down there for vacations, it’s one of the hotspots that cartels are competing for control of,” the U.S. President noted. “And unfortunately, there’s nothing constitutional that we can do to limit that sort of demand.”

      “I’m more interested in containing the violence that the cartels inflict upon people,” Bolan stated. “Unfortunately, between street level control of neighborhood dealers to attempted assassinations of government leaders, that kind of violence can smother nations and continents. Believe me, for all the heads I’ve killed, the body still manages to live on and grow a new one.”

      “Sounds like you get discouraged,” the Mexican leader commented.

      “It takes more than me burning a cartel to the ground to end your problems,” Bolan returned, no bitterness in his voice. “Treat the disease and forget about picking at the bandage I applied.”

      The man bristled noticeably, but he held his tongue at reprimanding the Executioner. Bolan had a point about what was really needed. The lone warrior had assailed the leaders of drug cartels for years, doing fantastic amounts of damage, and instead of seizing upon the momentary advantage he supplied, laboriously moving government agencies stumbled, hemmed and hawed, allowing new batches of thugs to swarm in to replace the severed head.

      “Governor Brujillo is a good man, and he is trying to implement more than a slash-and-burn approach to fighting drugs in his state,” the Mexican president replied. “He deserves all the help we can get.”

      “He’ll get it, then,” Bolan replied. He tapped the overstuffed file folder in front of him. “I’ve got all the intel I need, and I have an appointment on the border tonight.”

      “The border?” the Mexican leader asked.

      “I have word of a military unit making a heroin run tonight,” Bolan explained. “They might not have been the ones behind Anibella Brujillo’s assassination attempt, but maybe they’ll give me a link to someone who would know.”

      “You’ll be acting against my country’s military, Striker.”

      “I’ll be acting against traitors. Nowhere in their oath of duty does it say they have to assist in peddling poison to other nations,” Bolan countered. “That doesn’t contribute to protecting Mexico. It only breaks the laws of your nation and mine. And you know firsthand how I deal with those kinds of men. Their sentence has been dictated by their own actions.”

      The Executioner stood, took the file and left the two national leaders behind in the conference room to mull over his words. He had a flight to catch and drug smugglers to kill.

      IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG for the fingerprints of the fallen Russian mafiya assassins to get back to Bolan. The Executioner had conducted an immediate inspection of the corpses, and using a digital camera, blood and a white sheet of paper, he was able to get the prints of a half dozen of the would-be killers before the federales arrived.

      “Four of the six you nailed were former Spetznaz,” Aaron Kurtzman informed Bolan. “The other two were combat swimmers. All of them have