“Jimmy-Jorge James actually,” the man croaked. “Who the hell are you?”
“Interesting name,” Bolan said, ignoring the question.
“Blame my parents,” Jimmy-Jorge James said. “So, you kill Ernesto?”
“Yes.”
“Crap. I’m going to reach into my pants, get something you probably need to see.” James waited for Bolan’s nod, then reached into his trousers and pulled out a bill folder. He tossed it to Bolan. Bolan flipped it open and quirked an eyebrow in surprise.
“You’re border patrol?”
“That’s what it says on the badge, hombre.” James rubbed the back of his neck. “And you, my friend, just potentially blew two very important federal operations! Now, who the hell are you?”
“I’ll ask the questions. What were you doing here?” Bolan said.
“I was running a sting operation on poor old Ernesto there. Got a problem with that?” James said belligerently. He made to get up, but Bolan motioned for him to stay down.
“Not yet,” he said pleasantly. “Not until I know you are who you say you are. And that you were doing what you claim you were doing.”
“Yes, because I’m the untrustworthy one here,” James said harshly, indicating the bodies all around.
“A little paranoia is good for the soul,” Bolan said calmly. He eyed the badge, looking for telltale signs that it was a fake. Finding nothing to indicate that it was anything other than what it seemed, he let the UMP fall to dangle from his shoulder and reached up to detach the satellite phone from his harness. It would be a simple enough matter to have someone check out the badge number and the identification.
James, however, didn’t seem inclined to wait. As Bolan dialed, the younger man suddenly rolled toward his pistol with the speed of a rattlesnake on the strike. As Bolan cursed and brought his weapon up one-handed, James scooped up the pistol and twisted around, sighting down the barrel.
Bolan ducked to the side even as Jorge fired. Behind him, someone screamed. Bolan spun, and his UMP hummed as he let off a burst into Ernesto’s already sagging body. James’s bullet had torn a neat, round hole in the smuggler’s cranium, sending him into the darkness just ahead of Bolan’s own burst. Lowering his smoking weapon, Bolan turned back to James, who smiled at him weakly.
“Sorry. Instinct, man,” James said, letting his pistol spin around his trigger finger until the butt was facing Bolan. “You can have it back now.”
“Keep it,” Bolan said simply.
Chapter 2
“He’s legit,” Hal Brognola said, his voice echoing oddly through the receiver of the satellite phone. “He’s been with the United States Border Patrol for ten years, straight out of college. He’s a good one, Striker.”
“He mentioned Interpol,” Bolan said.
“Seconded, recently,” the big Fed said. “He and his partner.”
“Partner?” Bolan looked at James, where he squatted beside Ernesto’s body, going through the man’s pockets. “He didn’t mention a partner.”
“Why would he? He doesn’t know if you’re legit, either, Striker,” Brognola said, sounding amused. Bolan grunted. There was truth in that.
“I guess I don’t have one of those faces, huh?”
“Not even close.” Brognola cleared his throat. “From what I can tell, you just dropped into the middle of something that’s been in play for a while, barring recent changes.”
“I’m not going to like this, am I?” Bolan said.
“No, not really. It’s a mess, and only going to get messier. Interpol’s involved, Border Patrol wants the coyotes shut down and all the other federal agencies are screaming about being kept out of the loop. No one really knows what’s going on out there.”
“Including us,” Bolan said.
“How is that new?” Brognola said.
“It’s not,” Bolan said. “Well, whatever the game is, I’m dealing myself in.”
“Why did I have a feeling you’d say that?” Brognola sighed. “Look, I’ll try to find out what’s going on, on my end. Keep me posted on yours. Oh, and, Striker? Let’s keep the property damage to a minimum until we know whose field we’re playing in, okay?”
“Sure thing,” Bolan said and turned off the phone. He clipped it back on his rig and started toward James. “You didn’t tell me you had a partner,” he said. The border patrol agent stood, clapping dirt off his pants.
“Figured if you were really who you said you were, you’d find out, Cooper.” He rubbed his cheek. Bolan had given James the name of his Justice Department cover identity, Agent Matt Cooper, reasoning that it was the quickest way to get the man to trust him. So far, it seemed to have worked.
“Well, I have. Who is he?”
“He’s a ‘she,’ actually. Her name’s Amira Tanzir, with Interpol. She’s working things from the back end.” James watched curiously as Bolan knelt and grabbed Ernesto’s legs. “What are you doing?”
“I’m moving the bodies onto the truck. Jihadists,” Bolan said, dragging the body up into the truck. Clapping his hands together, he hopped down and made for another one.
“Maybe—that’s the rumor at any rate,” James said, rubbing his throat. “Hell, I don’t know, I just go where they tell me, Cooper.”
“But that’s the rumor.”
“Yeah,” he said. Bolan looked at him as he got another body onto the truck. According to Brognola, Jimmy-Jorge James was a veteran of countless border skirmishes with smugglers of all types of cargo—including humans. He’d made his bones taking down snakehead rings in California before gravitating east to the Mexican front, and the troubles there.
Presently he was acting as a dogsbody for Interpol. Bolan could tell that it grated on the man, and the Executioner allowed himself a quick smile. He knew that feeling well. You grew used to working alone, to following your own initiative. It made it hard to follow orders, when it became time to do so again. That was one of the reasons for his current arrangement with the Stony Man organization. That, and the fact that Bolan felt that he was simply more effective on his own. He moved the last body onto the tailgate of the truck and shut it, flipping the body onto the others.
“How long have you been under?” Bolan said, rounding the truck and sinking to his haunches. He unsheathed his KA-BAR and punctured the gas tank with one swift, economical strike. Rising to his feet, he looked at James.
“Only a few months,” the young agent said. “We got word that some of the cartels were using coyotes to get pigment—”
“Pigment?” Bolan said, stepping away from the thin trail of gasoline carving a swath through the dirt of the street. “Step back.”
“Black tar heroin,” James said, backing up toward his van. “Are you sure about this?”
“You’d rather I leave it here?”
“I’d rather you let me call my bosses and let them come confiscate it. Have you ever heard of chain of evidence?”
“No guarantees they’d get to it before someone else did. I’d hate to have gone through all this trouble just to see this crap wind up right where it was going anyway,” Bolan said, pulling a box of matches out of one of the pockets on his combat rig.
“Yeah, about that,” James said. “What the hell was this about? You guys could have let us know you were planning an operation on our patch.”
“No