LITMIR.BIZ

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army to bring it down hard, Lucia Cortez had been generously rewarded by Mexico by not being arrested for stealing millions of dollars from the secret coffers of the agency. Soon, Cortez had a string of restaurants, hotels, gas stations and nightclubs across the nation and happily fed CISEN any juicy gossip her employees heard in passing.

      “Good evening, Bull,” Cortez said, sitting down at his table. Smiling, she placed a cigarette between her lips and waited.

      Removing it, Cinco crushed the tube in one hand and sprinkled the remains into the ashtray.

      Her dark eyes flashed with surprise, then Cortez laughed and relaxed in the cushioned leather chair. “You never change,” she said, reaching out to playfully ruffle his hair. “When the worms come to eat you in the grave, you’ll arrest them for trespassing.”

      “My coffin, my rules.” Cinco smiled, then recoiled as the woman jerked backward in the chair, a small black hole appearing in the middle of her forehead. As blood began to trickle from the bullet wound, Cinco was hit twice in the back with something very hard.

      Flipping over the table, he dove to the floor and came up with his Magnum pistol blasting. Standing near the fire exit was a man holding a silenced rifle, preparing to fire again. But the heavy slugs from the .357 Magnum slammed him against the fire door so hard his head audibly cracked on the metal, and he tumbled to the floor, gushing blood.

      Panic filled the nightclub at the sound of the gunshots, and people started rushing about in a blind panic, screaming and shouting.

      Ignoring the civilians, Cinco knelt by Cortez, and saw that it was too late to do anything. Her face was ashen, the pulse in their throat weak, and her skin already felt cold and lifeless.

      “Lucia,” he whispered putting a lifetime of emotion into the name.

      “Ca-Cancun...” she whispered in reply, the words almost lost in the general commotion of the rioting nightclub. She trembled once, then went still forever.

      Laying her head gently on the floor, Cinco rose to his full height and proceeded directly out the fire exit. He passed by the killer without a second glance. He knew the man, Hector Martin, a contract killer from Quarez, who never asked why, merely who and how much? He had done a lot of work for the Sandanistas back in the bad old days, and Cinco knew that there was nothing new he could learn from the corpse. Martin cost a lot, so that meant whoever had had Cortez killed was very wealthy, and had good intel about the criminal underworld. That wasn’t much to go on, but he had to start somewhere.

      The back alley was hot, humid and dank, ripe with the smell of rotting garbage. Feeling like a machine set on autopilot, Cinco strode through the reeking darkness, his fist clenched around the pistol, his heart pounding as he desperately sought somebody to kill in revenge for the senseless slaughter of his old friend. But the alley was clear, and the parking lot was total chaos, any possible clues destroyed by the mob of frightened civilians running for their lives.

      Standing alone for what seemed a long time, Cinco slowly holstered the weapon, then went to his car and got inside. Opening the glove box, he pawed through the collection of maps until he found one that showed how to get to the Cancun Peninsula.

      International Waters, Gulf of Mexico

      T HE A LLENDALE ROSE and fell on the easy swells of the open water. There were no nets hanging from the tall cranes of the converted fishing boat, and the cold bay had long ago been made into a sort of dormitory with rows of bunk beds.

      Sitting in a canvas chair, a blind man was softly strumming an old guitar, while his family and friends gathered around. Nearby, on several hibachis filled with hot coals, hamburgers and sausages loudly sizzled and gave off the most amazingly delicious mixture of smells.

      “What are you going to play, Grandpa?” a young man asked, twisting off the cap from a frosty bottle of beer.

      “What would you like to hear?” Jefferson LaSalle asked, then paused to tilt his head.

      “Something wrong, sir?” a young woman asked, glancing around at the empty sea and sky.

      Dropping the guitar, Jefferson felt cold adrenaline flood his body as he flashed back decades ago to the hated Vietnam war. Dear God almighty, he knew that noise all too well. It was the very sound that had robbed him of his sight and killed his best two friends at the exact same moment.

      Lunging forward, the old vet grabbed the first child he could reach and strained with all of his might as he flung the little girl over the side of the Allendale and into the ocean.

      “Grandpa!” a woman screamed. “Have you gone mad!”

      But before he could answer something dark streaked past the boat leaving behind a long contrail of smoke.

      “That’s a rocket!” A young boy laughed, starting to applaud.

      Reaching for the noise, Jefferson grabbed the boy and dove sideways over the gunwale holding the child tight to his chest.

      “What in the world is going on here?” a fat man demanded, setting down his beer. “Has the old man gone loony?”

      High overhead, the dark shape was spiraling about in the growing twilight, swinging this way, and that, to finally start directly for the fishing boat.

      With a growing feeling of dread, a woman grabbed her two children and dove over the side of the vessel. Dropping a book, a thin man began throwing small children overboard as fast as he could, then everybody scrambled to get off the deck, fueled more by family loyalty than fear.

      The last man clumsily dove over the stern to belly flop loudly in the salty water a split second before the stealth missile slammed into the boat. The wooden hull shattered into pieces as it came out the other side, and then exploded, the ancient wood just barely offering enough resistance to trigger the warhead.

      The chemical hellstorm filled the area, illuminated the ocean for miles, the blast smashing the Allendale into kindling and slamming the assorted swimmers deep underwater. But only a few moments later they bobbed to the surface again, coughing and spitting, treading water furiously.

      “Grandpa, how...how did you know?” a man asked, his hair plastered flat onto his head.

      But the old man merely shook his head in reply, already starting the arduous journey back to shore. There were no sharks, or barracudas in the area, so with some luck his family would reach the shore alive. However, he couldn’t say the same thing for whomever that swarm of military gunships was after. God help them all, he thought, the poor bastards.

      Cape Canaveral, Florida

      W HENEVER NASA HAD A ROCKET on the launch pad, they guarded it with a staggering display of physical defenses. A dozen Navy warships encircled the launch facility, and the sky overhead was full of Air Force jetfighters, chasing away the curious and ready to strike with lethal force any more determined advance. Navy submarines patrolled the deep waters, radar filled the sky, sonar probed the sea, and NORAD satellites watched everything from high in orbit. The cost of this military “ring of steel” was staggering, but deemed well worth it.

      At any other time of the year, NASA and the sprawling launch facility used only standard security protocols established for any government facility in an effort to save the taxpayers some money. That was deemed prudent and cost-effective by the politicians, scientists and anybody who wasn’t trained in military tactics or security.

      Following a modified version of the old Japanese plan of attack on Pearl Harbor, the forces of Daylight swept in from the west, maintaining tight formation, flying below the radar, and destroying any vessel they encountered in the open water. A dozen assorted boats were sunk with long-range heatseekers to remove any chance of advance warning to NASA. The Apaches were the fastest craft, so they hung back in the rear, and let the slower Cobras take the lead, with the armed Black Hawks maintaining a cluster formation in the middle, especially the one medical Black Hawk. That was assigned as their command ship, and contained Dalton Greene.

      Bent over a table covered with maps and satellite photographs, the Australian billionaire was directing

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