LITMIR.BIZ

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two men took turns kissing Gustolallo in greeting. The giant held out his hand to Bolan. The soldier’s hand disappeared in the tall man’s grip but it was warm and friendly. His voice was a Spanish baritone. “Sergeant Ernesto Ordones, but you may call me Ordones.”

      “Cooper.” Bolan said. The younger man in turn gave Bolan the bone crusher, and the two of them pumped vise grips for a moment. The giant sighed. “May I introduce Officer Ruzzo Roldan.”

      Roldan released Bolan’s hand but continued to glare at him. His accent was thick enough to cut with a knife. “I heard of you.”

      Bolan shrugged. “What did you hear?”

      “Word on the street is you busted up a bar. Word is you busted up Bebito Jesus and called out Yotuel d’Nico. Word is you shot up a bunch of d’Nico’s men in La Perla. Word is Inspector Constante is getting grilled at headquarters right now because of your Yanqui cowboy bullshit.” Roldan shook his head as he took in Nacho. “Word on the street is you’re holding the Lion’s little brother. Word is everyone knows this address, and the word is the Lion is pissed. Word is you’re in a lot of trouble.”

      Bolan turned to Ordones. “Word is you got a BAR.”

      The tall man’s skull nearly hit the ceiling as he threw back his head and laughed and tapped his bundle “Sí, amigo. I just happen to have one.”

      Roldan wasn’t amused. “So what’s your plan? Sit here in this shithole and wait for d’Nico to hit this place with an army?”

      Bolan nodded. “That’s about it.”

      Ordones turned to Gustolallo. “You know? I like this gringo.”

      Gustolallo’s smile was predatory. “Me, too.”

      Roldan’s anger cooled to something cold and unpleasant. “I’ll tell you something that maybe you won’t think is so funny.”

      “What’s that?” Bolan asked.

      “Word is moving through the department. Los Macheteros say anyone who helps the gringo, and I’m pretty sure that means you, is a traitor.”

      Nacho roared drunkenly. “That’s right! Fucking traitors! Dead fucking traitors!”

      Roldan ignored the outburst. “A traitor to Puerto Rico and a traitor to all Boricuas, and I’ll tell you something for nothing, Cooper, a lot of the cops are taking that real seriously. You’re an outsider. The inspector has already been dragged in and lost friends over this. No one wants you here.”

      “The inspector is fully on board, and he was laughing when I left him,” Bolan countered. “And you came to LaPerla, off duty.” He nodded at the rifle case. “And you brought your gun.”

      “I came to support the inspector. I was a gangbanger back in the day, but I was no La Neta puto.” He shot a scathing look at Nacho and the punk flinched. The officer pounded his chest twice with his fist in the sign of solidarity. “I was Latin Kings and headed straight to jail or the grave. Inspector Constante got me out of that shit. Got me to finish high school. He risked his reputation to sponsor me when I applied to join the force. I came to support him.” Roldan thrust out his jaw. “Not your pretty pink Yanqui ass.”

      “Did the inspector tell you to do what I tell you until he gets back from headquarters?” Bolan inquired.

      The pained look that crossed Roldan’s face was confirmation.

      “Roldan, I’m here to wipe out La Neta, Los Macheteros and anybody else who wants to decide the fate of Puerto Rico with a gun rather than a vote. You in or out?”

      “I’m—” Roldan spent several moments controlling his temper “—in.”

      “If you boys are done, we got stuff to do,” Gustolallo stated.

      Just then Bolan took out his phone as it vibrated in his pocket. Kurtzman’s text message scrolled across the screen.

      striker, you have company

      The phone’s screen took up just about all of its length. Bolan’s thumb moved across the touch screen, and a real-time satellite image of his house and the surrounding neighborhood appeared. Half a dozen vehicles denoted by red outlines were surrounding the building. Armed men were deploying out of them. The image wasn’t perfect but he saw nothing bigger than automatic weapons. “We have company. Platoon strength. Coming in on all sides.”

      Roldan pulled an M-16 from his rifle bag and Ordones unwrapped his BAR and deployed the bipod. Bolan pulled a tab off the left wrist of his jacket to expose a Velcro panel. He slapped his phone onto it and took up his Thompson.

      A voice out on the street called out in Spanish. “Give us Nacho!”

      “He isn’t worth it!” Bolan called back. “I promise you!”

      Nacho looked like he was about to say something, but Gustolallo pantomimed ramming the steel strut of her folding-stock shotgun into his elbow and he thought better of it.

      “And the Yanqui!” the voice shouted. More followed but the Puerto Rican slang was too fast and too furious for Bolan to get more than the gist of it, but that was enough. They wanted Nacho and they wanted him now. Everyone else in the house was a traitor to Puerto Rico. Unless they stood down, both they and their families would die. The voice switched to English. “Hey, Yanqui! Go home! You can live! Don’t make me come in there!”

      Ordones laid the BAR across the table and aimed it at the front door. Bolan cupped his hands and called out, “Door’s open!”

      Dozens of automatic weapons opened up out on the street. Plaster fell from the ceiling, and the ancient brick walls chipped and cracked beneath the barrage of lead. Bolan noted that the weapons sounded as though they were 9 mms, and they all had the same firing signature. He pushed Nacho to the floor and then glanced at the screen of his phone. “Ordones! I got about six men behind a car directly across the street from the front door!”

      Ordones nodded and the thudding of the big .30-caliber machine gun eclipsed the sound of the submachine guns out on the street. The 30-06 rifle bullets sailed through the front door, the car across the street and the men taking cover behind it. Bolan saw four men fall on his screen and two more run headlong for the beach.

      Kurtzman text messaged him.

      heat signatures behind you

      Bolan looked at his wrist and saw the bright flickering on the infrared filter. Five men were running crouched alongside a car, making their approach down the alley behind the house. Each man held something that was burning—Molotov cocktails. Four more gunners trotted behind, blasting away with weapons as they came. “Ordones! I got a vehicle coming directly behind us! Roldan! Gustolallo! Watch the front!”

      Ordones turned and rammed the muzzle of his BAR through the kitchen window glass and started firing. Bolan kicked open the kitchen door and brought his Thompson to his shoulder. Bullets hailed against the back of the house, but the soldier kept his sights on the firebombers. A bullet slammed into Bolan’s side but his soft body armor held. His return burst took off the top of the gunman’s head. Rum bottles filled with gasoline and detergent sailed through the air.

      Bolan raised his sights and began touching off bursts from the Thompson and broke apart bottles in the air like a skeet shooter busting clays. Sheets of fire fell across the alley and across the hood of the Cadillac as it rolled on. Bolan took out three of the four projectiles, and his weapon clacked open on empty as the fourth sailed on in a near-perfect football spiral.

      Ordones snarled and yanked himself aside as the flaming bomb flew through the kitchen window a foot from his head. Nacho screamed as the Molotov cocktail sailed across the room and broke apart at his feet. Bolan slammed a fresh magazine into his weapon and kept firing. “Gustolallo!”

      Gustolallo yanked up the ratty kitchen rug and jumped on top of Nacho. She swore a blue streak as Nacho howled and flailed while she tried to smother the fire. The BAR continued, tearing through the Cadillac as if it didn’t exist,

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