Читать книгу State Of War - Don Pendleton - Страница 14

CHAPTER SEVEN

Mercy Hospital, Miami

The doctor was appalled, both by Bolan’s smell and by his condition. She shook her head at the massive, blackening contusions where Bolan’s armor had taken .44 Magnum hits and held. “These are firearm-related blunt trauma contusions, Mr. Cooper?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bolan replied.

“That one’s a knife?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Dr. Gubatan had already known the answers. She sucked in her breath as she looked at his neck, biceps and thigh. “These are human bite wounds?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m required to inform you that I must report this to the police.”

Agent Savacool held up her badge. “It’s already been reported to the FBI.”

Dr. Gubatan sniffed Bolan again. It was pretty clear it was a smell she had encountered before. “This wouldn’t happen to be related to an incident in the West Miami area that is blowing up across all channels?”

“Doctor, I’m afraid I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

There were few things E.R. doctors in Miami hadn’t seen. Dr. Gubatan was even shorter than Savacool but about five times as wide. She scowled at the FBI ID like it was a personal affront, but her features set into a grimace of concern as she prodded Bolan’s blackening biceps. “The bite wounds are already going septic.”

Bolan wasn’t surprised, but he just didn’t have time for hepatitis. Anything even more chilling that a krokodil addict’s bite might be carrying would just have to be dealt with later. “I’ll need a round of full spectrum antibiotics.”

“You’re telling me.” Dr. Gubatan left the room nearly at a sprint while rapidly typing into her tablet. A nurse came in and began cleaning the bites.

“You all right?” Savacool asked.

“I feel like a zombie crawl just stomped a mud hole in me and tried to chew it dry. With a few shootings and stabbings in the mix.”

“No, Cooper. You went down in that rotting crowd, and I was too scared to shoot into it. Are you okay?”

“That was bad,” Bolan admitted.

Savacool was about an inch from collapsing in tears. “I’m still shaking.”

Bolan nodded. “Me, too.”

Savacool laughed, but it was laced with tension. “Not you! You’re stone cold.”

“I shake on the inside. I don’t shake on the outside until the job is done.” Bolan winked. “And I’m someplace safe with someone I like.”

“You know? Speaking as a black female Southern FBI agent—you’re the first man of any color or description who ever made sensitive sound cool.”

“That’s how I roll.”

“So how are you?”

“Hungry. Where’s Kaino?”

“Well, he went all Muhammad Ali on anything that even came close to the porch. You should have seen it.”

“I caught a bit of it. He had my six when it was getting really bad. He was something to see.”

“I relieved him of porch patrol and he went to back your play on the run. I pulled a sweep around the mob and tried to stop the van. Anyway, he busted some knuckles. He’s getting his hands taken care of and Miami-Dade pooh-bahs are debriefing him hard.”

“How about you?”

“I have been sternly informed to report in first thing in the morning.”

Bolan looked at his swollen hands and was reminded of the damage he had wreaked. “How about Cocosino’s army?”

Savacool’s shoulders twitched in revulsion. “They’ve been isolated for obvious reasons, but I visited their ward.”

Bolan nodded. “Bad?”

“Cooper, you don’t want to see these people under bright lights, and I’m not even adding in what you did to them. I still see them when I close my eyes.” Tears spilled down Savacool’s cheeks. “I know why you did it the way you did, and I respect it. I just don’t know if you did them any favors.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Well, I already threw up,” Savacool said.

“Me, too.”

“What I want to do is to go to church. I want to pray for those people, and I shit you not, I wouldn’t mind hearing some words of comfort. But I just don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon.”

“You got a big heart, Cool. But I mean they know about your great-aunt’s place, and that means they know about you. You’re on the list. I wouldn’t go home if I were you, or to any friends or relatives.”

“Well, hell, Cooper. Chances are they know we’re here. I don’t know if any place in Miami is safe, so unless you can requisition a helicopter, get clearance to land on the roof and...” Savacool’s voice trailed off. Her bemused disgust look returned. “You’re smiling.”

Bolan nodded at himself. “Some of this is going to require stitches. Gather up Kaino and meet me on the roof in an hour.”

Overtown, Miami

D ELILAH TEASED THE BULLET out of Cocosino’s back. He never flinched. “You got it out?”

“Yes.”

“Rifle or pistol?”

Delilah held up the conical .22-caliber bullet to the single bulb in the room. “Rifle.”

“The FBI bitch...”

Delilah tossed the bullet to the filthy basement floor and the surgical tweezers after it. “You want me to sew you up?”

“Hit me.”

Delilah took a cooked syringe of krokodil and injected it straight into Cocosino’s bullet wound. He visibly relaxed as the cocktail of codeine and solvents flooded his veins. Delilah looked at the rotting yet still strangely vital man beneath her and saw her future. There had been a time when he was one of the up-and-coming hot things in South Beach. Model, gigolo, getting acting jobs and working the club circuit. Then addiction had taken him down to the lowest, most execrable possible path a junkie could go. She had followed him down that spiral path. Then krokodil had arrived on Miami’s shores and taken him from the gutter to hell itself. He had become Cocosino, had become a killer to ensure an endless series of fixes until he could no longer function. Delilah didn’t want to think about what was happening to her own body, but she couldn’t help smelling it. Cocosino would need a new assistant soon. She pushed the image aside with drug-addled insanity and took a sniff of meth before sewing the bullet wound. “I like this El Hombre.”

“I love him. I love everything about him.” Cocosino lay motionless as the surgical needle moved through noninfected flesh. “I want him.”

“They called.”

“What did they say?”

“El Hombre, Agent Savacool and Kaino left the hospital by helicopter. Their whereabouts are currently unknown.”

“That’s not a problem,” Cocosino said.

“We’re out of a job.”

“Lots of people in Miami-Dade need killing. There are plenty of jobs.” Cocosino turned what was left of his face toward Delilah. “And we’ll see El Hombre again.”

Trump International Beach Resort

“W OW .” A GENT S AVACOOL stared out at the Intracoastal Waterway from the twenty-seventh-story balcony.

Kaino looked almost uncomfortable among such luxury. “Jeez, this hotel room is bigger than my house,” he said.

Bolan pulled his hand out of the ice bucket and flexed his fingers. “I was told 1,174 square feet.”

Kaino’s face went flat.

“It is a double suite,” Bolan admitted, and it was pretty damn swanky. “I’ve operated in Florida before. I know a few people who owe me a few favors.”

Savacool gave Bolan a stare equal to Kaino’s. “Donald Trump owes you favors?”

“No, and keep that in mind when you order from room service.”

Kaino waved his taped-up hands as he picked up a menu. “Don’t worry about that, man. A burger and a beer, and I’ll be—” Kaino sat upright in outrage. “A burger costs what! Madre de dios!” Kaino lost his English in shock and reverted to the Spanish of his youth.

Bolan turned to Jack Grimaldi. “Thanks for coming on short notice, Jack.”

The Stony Man pilot grinned. “When have you ever given me notice, Sarge?”

No one raised an eyebrow at the usage of the word Sarge.

“On average?” Bolan conceded. “Never.”

“And now he finally starts talking sense.”

“I got no notice, either,” Kaino concurred.

“Mine was short,” Savacool agreed.

Bolan sighed. “Any of you want out?”

“Oh, hell no!” Kaino laughed. “I’m seeing this one through.”

“To the end,” Savacool agreed.

Grimaldi gave Bolan a droll look. “I gather I’m here for the duration?”

“I’m thinking at least to Mexico. What have you got for me?”

The pilot put a laptop and several files on the dinner table. Bolan’s team gathered around. Kurtzman’s face appeared in fuzzed-out mode on the screen. “There have been a slew of killings in coastal Tamaulipas that are awfully damn similar to Savacool’s boy Christo Bruno’s. It looks as if there is a real fight shaping up for Tamaulipas. Someone is pushing hard to move the Gulf Coast off the Gulf Coast or force them to play ball. Of course they’re not having it, and the bodies are piling up.”

Bolan nodded. “Do we have anything on Salami?”

“An informant told us he’s holed up in a bungalow on Miami Beach. We have it under surveillance. You’ll also be happy to know that the krokodil supply has been seriously disrupted. Word on the street is you just can’t get it. Junkies are picked up left and right committing burglaries to try to steal prescription meds to cook with. But that was always your plan, to make a mess and see who comes to clean it up.”

“It’s one way to get the ball rolling, and we have Cocosino and foreign mystery assassins.”

Savacool gave Kaino a glance. “You sure the sniper was speaking Russian?”

“Man, I couldn’t swear to it.”

Savacool gave Bolan a searching look. “Krokodil is a Russian drug. It would make more sense.”

“In some ways, but like Kaino and I discussed, it’s an awfully long hop from Moscow to Miami to pedal stuff junkies buy with pocket change, and speaking of Russians, when we found Popov he had already had his ass handed to him.”

“So you don’t think the Russians are involved?”

“I think they’re somehow part of the mix and, more important, I think there are players in this game that have yet to reveal themselves.”

“So how do you want to play it?”

“I think I want to have another conversation with Salami.”

Kaino smiled happily. “Wear a hat!”

“Definitely.”

“Oh.” Grimaldi reached into his gear bag. “Almost forgot. A friend worked this up for you.” He tossed Kaino a Miami Heat cap. It made a strangely meaty thud in the big master sergeant’s palm as he caught it. Kaino massaged the impact material in the brim almost erotically and began adjusting the tab in the back for his head. “Sweet!” Kaino settled his cap on his head with a happy sigh. “So why do you want to talk to Salami? He’s an asshole. You think he lied to us?”

“No, I think he believed everything he told us when he told it, but I think he may have had some very interesting conversations with some very interesting people since you and I had our powwow with him. Plus, I’m thinking if Savacool can get a line on where he’s hiding out, so can the people we’re working against.”

Grimaldi had seen this more times than he had fingers and toes. “You think he’s being watched?”

“I’m counting on it.”

“So we’re going to pile into a car, drive up to Salami’s beach blanket Babylon and see who shoots at us? Again?” Kaino asked.

Bolan shook his head. “Not exactly.”

Savacool leaned her elbows on the table, perched her chin in her hands and gave Bolan the big brown eyes. “Do tell.”

“You and Kaino are going to pile into a car, loaded for bear, and be ready to hit Salami’s place on my signal.”

Savacool regarded Bolan with grave suspicion. “And you?”

Bolan looked at Grimaldo. “Did you bring me a jump rig?”

“Did I bring him a jump rig...” the pilot scoffed.