LITMIR.BIZ

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DC, damn it, but he knew she’d be waiting up and worrying until he had her on the line, telling her everything was fine and coming off as planned.

      The conference, on balance, hadn’t been as bad as he’d expected, but his time was better spent on other things. He’d be relieved to land in Washington again on Saturday, and his report to the US Attorney General could wait a day or two.

      It wasn’t like the meetings would have any real-world impact, after all—not on his job, at least. He would have skipped the whole thing but his orders from the new guy running Justice had been unequivocal: show up and make us proud.

      When the last USAG had bailed under fire, his new, improved replacement fell into the job without adequate briefings on all aspects of his post. When the big man returned to Washington, he would correct that oversight.

      The icemaker and vending machines were right where the floorplan in his room had promised they would be, tucked into a niche at the corridor’s west end. He filled the plastic bucket first then picked a can of soda minus the caffeine and dropped the can into the ice. Because the niche obscured his vision, he was turning with his hands full when he spotted the two burly strangers in cheap suits blocking his path.

      Unfriendly faces set off mental alarms, but the big man still forced a smile and said, “Excuse me, eh?”

      They both rushed him at once, the bruiser on his left cursing as ice and a cold can of soda hit him in the face.

      The big man fought in silence, wishing he’d brought his sidearm currently locked inside his room’s small safe. He got some licks in, but he didn’t see the needle coming until it was in his neck.

      The bright world did a rapid fade to black.

      Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

      When he came around, the big man found that he was seated in a straight-backed wooden chair, no cushion on its seat. His neck hurt from the hypodermic needle and his brain was fuzzy, but he reckoned that would pass. A burlap sack over his head smelled like potatoes and prevented him from seeing anything, but from the lighting and the sound of voices, he could tell he was in a room somewhere.

      His shoulders ached because his arms were pinned behind him, zip-tied based on the chafing on his wrists. His ankles were likewise secured to the chair’s front legs. Aside from shifting slightly on the chair, or maybe tipping it over, he couldn’t move.

      Three men were talking not too far away. They spoke Spanish, but that was fine. The big man knew enough of the language to get by.

      “It went all right?” one man asked.

      “Yes. We’re all here, eh?” another answered.

      “He fought a little,” a third stated, “but nothing to it.”

      “Good. Let’s get a look at him,” the first one ordered.

      One of them removed the burlap hood, revealing a cheap room with shabby furniture and three men ranged before him. Two of them had jumped him back at his hotel. The third guy, clearly, was in charge.

      “Shit!” the leader blurted. “Who in the hell is this?”

      “The guy you sent us for?” The way Number Two said it, sounding shaky now, told the bound man the boss had been expecting someone else.

      “Idiots! When I ask you who this is, I want a name, understand?”

      The one to the leader’s left began to say, “Captain, we—”

      Captain X lashed out and hit him with a stunning backhand. “Now you want to use my rank and name?”

      “Sorry, sir.”

      “I’ve never seen this gringo in my life,” the leader snapped at them. “Did you at least look in his wallet?”

      The bound man could feel it in his left hip pocket, pressed into his butt cheek.

      “Cap—I mean, sir,” the man to the leader’s right chimed in, “he matches the description you gave us.”

      “Description? You didn’t even check to see he was the right one?”

      “Once he started fighting—”

      “Shut up! If we get through this, you’ll be lucky if I let you cover traffic in Chiapas!”

      Traffic? Playing deaf, the bound man realized two things. First, these were cops of some kind who had snatched him. Second, he was almost certainly in Mexico.

      He flexed his wrists, confirming what he’d feared. His watch was gone, either torn off during the fight or stolen while he was unconscious. With no clock, he couldn’t tell how long he’d been knocked out or how far his abductors could’ve traveled in the meantime.

      And if they’d been dumb enough to snatch him by mistake...

      One of the flunkies moved around behind the bound man’s chair and found his wallet, handing it off to their boss. The guy in charge opened it, stared at the bound man’s ID, furious color rising in his face.

      “‘Justice Department, Washington, DC,’” he read aloud. “Can either of you two idiots think back and remember who I sent you for?”

      “The name?” one of the stooges asked, proving his low IQ.

      “The name, the agency he worked for? Anything?” the leader raged.

      “It was the DEA, sir,” said Number Three.

      “Correct! It was the DEA. And now you bring me what? Some pencil-pusher out of the Attorney General’s office!”

      “But—”

      “But nothing, idiot! I ought to kill both of you where you stand.”

      They edged away from him, the slightly braver of the two nearly whispering, “What should we do, sir?”

      “You mean before the FBI and every other department of the US government starts looking for him?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “There’s only one thing left we can do, thanks to your incompetence.”

      “We’ll do it, absolutely. Anything.” The barely smarter of the two was almost whining.

      “You two will do nothing. I must call El Psicópata.”

      The Psychopath.

      Without a doubt, their bound captive knew that wasn’t good.

       Chapter One

      El Paso International Airport

      Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, stood a few yards off from Runway 12, watching as the Learjet 40 approached from the east. The aircraft descended to a textbook-perfect landing, its pilot throttling back on the twin Honeywell engines. It taxied toward him, gradually slowing to a halt. The engines switched off before its exit door opened behind the cockpit, on the port side, and a built-in set of steps unfolded to the tarmac.

      Barbara Price came out to meet him. Wearing a tailored pantsuit and “sensible” shoes, she barely showed the stress of flying 1,900 miles—nearly the Learjet’s top range—from Stony Man Farm in Virginia to “The City with a Legend,” as El Paso called itself.

      Bolan and Price were more than friends and colleagues, but they kept the greeting to a handshake. He followed her back to the plane, mounting the steps behind her to its cabin.

      “You made good time,” he said as they sat facing each other with a folding table in between.

      “No time to waste,” she said, not asking how he’d beat her there when he was coming from Los Angeles. He’d covered less than half the distance she had, and Price would know that automatically.

      “So how bad is it?” Bolan asked.

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