Читать книгу Killing Trade - Don Pendleton - Страница 6

Bolan sat at the small table in the corner of the coffeehouse, an insulated cup of overpriced coffee untouched before him. Checking the heavy stainless-steel watch on his wrist, he sat back in the wooden chair. Brognola had managed to straighten things out, more or less, and much more quickly than Bolan would have thought. The local authorities hadn’t detained Bolan long before cutting him loose, though it was clear they were not happy about it.

After conferring with the Farm following the shootout at the library, the big Fed had started pulling strings and pushing buttons, hard. The Farm had identified the person most likely to be of use to Bolan in his search through the city—Detective Len Burnett. Burnett was head of a multijurisdictional drug-trafficking task force operating in the greater New York City area, with the authority and the connections Bolan would need. He was on record concerning investigations into several of the shootings that had flagged the Farm’s interest. He was also a veteran officer with a good record, by all accounts. Brognola had arranged to have Burnett assigned as liaison to Bolan. He knew that wasn’t likely to go over well with Burnett or his bosses, but it couldn’t be helped.

The Executioner couldn’t blame NYPD for resenting his presence. He hadn’t started the war—it was raging long before Bolan had arrived for his most recent tour of the Big Apple—but he’d brought it boiling over onto their front steps within view of countless civilians. Fortunately, despite waging a running firefight in midtown Manhattan, Bolan’s attackers hadn’t killed anyone. The property damage was extensive, but the cost in lives was zero.

So far.

The bad news was that Bolan could see no way this wasn’t simply the opening salvo of a much bloodier battle.

The soldier watched the entrance to the coffeehouse. He did not wait long before a man matching the description he’d been given pushed open the door and let it slam none too gently behind him. The newcomer was male, late thirties to early forties, with an unruly mop of curly, receding brown hair, three days’ worth of beard stubble and a paisley tie at half mast. He was a large man, standing a couple of inches over six feet, with a slight paunch and a lanky, big-boned frame. He wore an off-the-rack suit that actually fit him quite well, the jacket of which didn’t quite conceal the bulge of the gun on his right hip. He quickly surveyed the coffeehouse and zeroed in on Bolan without hesitation. The soldier’s corner was secluded enough, the ambient noise loud enough, that the men could speak in reasonable confidence on what was, Bolan calculated, neutral ground. He did not intend to antagonize Burnett if he could help it, given that he needed the man’s assistance.

“Matt Cooper?”

“That’s me,” Bolan nodded, standing to offer his hand. Burnett took it and returned a firm handshake.

“Burnett,” the man said pleasantly. As he sat, his expression hardened, his smile bearing all the joy of an undertaker. “Would you mind telling me,” he asked with feigned mildness before his voice went completely cold, “just what the fuck you think you’re doing in New York?” He spoke quietly, but the menace in his tone was real enough.

Bolan looked at him blandly. “That’s need to know.”

“Well,” Burnett said, leaning forward, “I damn well need to know.”

The Executioner regarded him for a moment, saying nothing.

Burnett wiped one hand down his face, shaking his head. “Look, Cooper,” he said, using the cover Brognola had supplied and that Bolan’s Justice credentials listed, “I want to believe we’re on the same side. Chief Vaughn told me he’s been getting calls from high-powered types in Washington all morning. That’s the only reason you’re not up on every charge in the book and a few off the books, as far as I’m concerned. You’ve got connections. Okay. I can live with that. But I won’t have you burning down this city around my ears!”

“You’re right,” Bolan said simply.

“What?” Burnett asked.

“We’re on the same side,” Bolan offered. “At least, we ought to be, depending on what your stake in all this is.”

“Drug interdiction’s my stake,” Burnett said. “If your people knew to ask for me, you know what I do. My task force is focused primarily on violent crime related to cocaine trafficking.”

“Crack?” Bolan asked.

“The crack dealers are the small-timers, these days,” Burnett admitted. “It’s the big gangs and the organized-crime families moving hundreds of kilograms of cocaine that concern me.” He turned and stared into space for a moment, looking out the picture window at the busy city street beyond. He sighed. “Cooper, I’ve lived in New York all my life. I’ve watched crime come and go. I’ve seen how bad it can get. As a rookie, I watched the city nearly eat itself alive in the late seventies. Then there was the backlash. Remember those movies, all the vigilante flicks about cleaning up the Big Apple? There was that subway shooter…and that didn’t stem the tide. Things got worse until the last bunch of cronies in city hall decided to clamp down, clean up the joint. We started to turn a corner.”

“It’s never that easy,” Bolan commented.

“No,” Burnett said, turning to face him, “it isn’t and it wasn’t. Now we’re seeing the worst of the violent crime surge again. I’ve got Colombian and Dominican gangs, with a few minor Mexican players for flavor, pushing into Manhattan, of all places. Midtown Manhattan, Cooper! All it takes is one good massacre on Broadway, a hit on the street in front of the United Nations, or, God help us, a frigging war in front the New York Public Library, and we’ll be lucky to see so much as another nickel in tourism. They’ll be rolling up the bloodstained sidewalks by the time we’re done. This city will be the wasteland they were all predicting it would become, back in the bad old days. I want to stop that before it can happen, Cooper.”

“It’s more than drug interdiction and drive-bys,” Bolan told him.

Burnett paused. “That’s right,” he said. “A few months ago, we had an officer shot in the line of duty. Tragic as the death of a good cop is, that wasn’t so surprising. What had us up nights worrying was that the patrolman was shot after taking cover behind the engine block of his Crown Vic.”

“Shot through cover, you mean,” Bolan guessed.

“Exactly,” Burnett nodded. “The rounds—9 mm, forensics tells us—went through the heaviest part of the car like it wasn’t even there. Maybe a .50-caliber rifle could do that. But 9 frigging mm? Show me small-arms ammunition that can do that!”

“That’s why I’m here,” Bolan admitted. “That wasn’t the first such case.”

Burnett’s eyes narrowed. “That’s right,” he said. “There have been almost a dozen shootings, some large-scale, some minor drive-bys. In each one, witness accounts or the evidence and the bodies we found afterward point to something nobody’s ever seen before. The lab couldn’t make much of it, other than to say it was like a miniature depleted uranium round. We sent some samples to the FBI, what we could find, but we haven’t got anything yet.”

“You have,” Bolan told him. “You got me.”

“You’re FBI?” Burnett asked. “I thought you were with the Justice Department.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Bolan told him. “Let’s say for now that the samples you sent raised the right flags in the right departments. Word of what you’re facing made its way to the right people. They’re working on it right now. That’s also why I’m here. That’s what I’m after. Depleted uranium ammo in the hands of violent drug gangs in New York City? That’s volatile business. The fire’s got to be stopped before it spreads.”

“Fine,” Burnett said, growing impatient. “But you weren’t shooting it out with any coke-runners yesterday. My men on the scene tell me they saw paramilitary commandos of some kind.”

“Did your people intercept any of them?” Bolan asked.

“No,” Burnett said, his face reddening. “We pursued several of them but lost them. They shot up a SWAT van, among other things, making their escape.”

“Some of them,” Bolan said, “were using the ammunition we’re looking for. Not all, but at least two.”

“What’s the connection?” Burnett asked. “How did it go down? Why were they shooting at you?”

“We’ll get to that eventually,” Bolan said, putting him off. “Tell me about the gangs you’re working,” Bolan said.

“Why?” Burnett demanded. “How do you fit into this?”

“Trust me,” Bolan told him.

“I guess I don’t have much choice,” Burnett said. He thought about it for a moment and then continued. “We’ve got two gangs at war right now, both of them moving into Manhattan to prove something to the others—and to city hall, if you ask me. One’s the Caqueta Cartel, headed by Luis Caqueta. They’re the Colombians. The other is El Cráneo, the Skull, a Dominican gang fronted by a charming character named Pierre Taveras.”

“How does the trade play out?” Bolan asked.

“Caqueta moves large quantities of cocaine through Atlanta, using a variety of small-time Mexican groups to move the coke from the southwest. The Mexicans completely control the West Coast and the Midwestern markets, but here on the East Coast, El Cráneo and Caqueta are fighting for control. It’s been getting bloodier and bloodier as they try to outdo each other. A lot of the coke originates in Colombia, where your people in Washington have been cutting aid to drug interdiction for years now. The pipeline is getting wider and the distributors on this end are getting more brutal as they fight over rights to distribute their poison in the Northeast.”

“Bloodier and bloodier,” Bolan repeated, “meaning, the street wars are escalating and the hardware is, too.”

“You know it as well as I do,” the cop said.

“Yes, I do,” Bolan confirmed. “Initially, my involvement was supposed to be low profile,” he confided. “Our people—”

“Which people are those?” Burnett interrupted.

“Our people,” Bolan said again, ignoring him, “put me on the trail of one Jonathan West, thirty-four, a technician formerly employed by a company called Norris Labs. Have you heard of it?”

“Norris Labs International.” Burnett nodded. “They do all that contract work in places like Iraq, right?”

“Yes,” Bolan said. “There are only a few corporations larger. NLI has its hands in everything from pharmaceuticals and arms development to contracted military services ranging from catering to armed security. They retain a privately owned firm called Blackjack Group, whose contractors guard convoys and even sign on for field operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and other hot spots.”

“And that’s relevant because…”

“We believe NLI developed the depleted uranium small-arms ammunition,” Bolan stated. “My people are analyzing it, but initial examination of the recovered fragments you originally sent to Washington correlated with some patents and weapons trials linked to NLI. They’ve been working, apparently, to miniaturize the depleted uranium ammunition currently in use in heavy weaponry, while increasing its antipersonnel potential.”

“Where does this West guy fit in?” Burnett asked.

“West tried and failed to broker a deal for a large quantity of DU small-arms ammunition six months ago. His contact, he thought, represented a drug gang based in West Virginia. The gang’s inquiries were part of an FBI sting.

“Domestic chatter had it that the ammunition was available. Several months of Internet chats and e-mails established that this fictitious group was looking for heavy armament, at which point they were contacted by Jonathan West. West quit or was fired from NLI several months prior to that—he says one thing, while they officially say another—which makes him a disgruntled employee with access to either the ammunition or plans for it.”

“If you were trailing him here,” Burnett said, “I gather the sting didn’t go as planned.”

“It fell through,” Bolan admitted. “The FBI and a few associated agencies have been tracking West since, recently placing him here. He was using an Internet service to transfer money electronically from a credit account to what he thought was a safe drop, a post-office box here in the city. Once we knew where to look, we found more Internet traffic pointing to West trying to move the DU cartridges locally.”

“And?”

“We created another fictional group looking for heavy firepower,” Bolan said. “A white supremacist group based here in the greater New York area. A meet was arranged with West to discuss terms and prices. I was here to keep that meeting.”

“Let me guess,” Burnett said. “In Bryant Park.”

“Exactly,” Bolan said. “The rest you know.”

Burnett shook his head again. “I don’t know jack,” he complained. “How does meeting West become a full-blown war?”

“There was no attempt to make contact before I was attacked in force,” Bolan said. “That tells me either West sent them to intercept me and eliminate me—which wouldn’t make much sense, unless he had reason to suspect me—or there’s something much more complicated going on.”

“Meaning what?” Burnett asked.

“Meaning, that I suspect those men were operatives for Blackjack Group—paid mercenaries, judging from their equipment and tactics.”

“Why would NLI and their security firm risk open war in an American city?” Burnett asked.

“Think about it.” Bolan nodded at the street beyond the window, at the people passing by. “You’re a controversial corporation with ties to the military-industrial complex, as they say. Not the best public relations already. Now your experimental and very deadly ammunition is finding its way onto the streets of a city that’s had its nose bloodied one time too many in recent memory. This goes way beyond the usual political posturing, cries for gun control, that kind of thing. If you were NLI’s management, would you want your company linked to endangering the lives of innocent civilians on American streets? If it comes out that NLI is or did produce the munitions used, we’re likely to see congressional action. To some people, that would be worth killing for to avoid.”

“Do you have any proof of this?”

“No,” Bolan said. “That’s what I’m looking to find. West may or may not still be out there. If NLI and Blackjack sent those shooters to silence me, chances are good they’re looking for West, too, if they haven’t gotten to him already. If I run him down, I’ll either get what he knows, or find a link to who took him out. Either way, it gets me closer to the source of the DU.”

“I don’t know exactly what connections you have, Cooper,” Burnett said reluctantly, “but word has come down from the highest authority. I’ve been instructed to offer you every assistance in the pursuit of your objectives. Until you’re through in New York, I’m your shadow.”

“Which means you’ll help me,” Bolan said.

“It means,” Burnett informed him, “that I’ll drive.”