The man stared at her another moment and then turned his attention to Dino. Ann-Elise watched with a mixed sense of shock and terror as the man reached down to grab something and came up with a large, plastic bucket. He suddenly heaved the bucket in Dino’s direction and doused him with water. Probably cold water.
The bastard!
Dino came suddenly awake and choked back what sounded like a scream. The man stood there a moment, arms folded, and Ann-Elise thought she heard him make a noise. Something that sounded like a laugh. Then the man reached forward suddenly, untied Dino and hauled him out of the chair. Dino staggered and stumbled around like a drunk, and Ann-Elise realized he’d probably put up more of a fight than she had, so they had to beat him up to stop him. Her poor, poor Dino. He had taken punishment intended for her just because he tried to protect her.
The man finally clamped a hand on Dino’s shoulder and steered him out of Ann-Elise’s sight. She began to make protests, screaming against the gag and warning the man with a flurry of threats and curses not to hurt her boyfriend, but she couldn’t see if it had any effect. Not that she thought it would…. She began to cry, trying to refrain because that made it more difficult to breathe. Her cries became sobs as she heard an incessant thumping noise—a sound that could only have been Dino taking another beating.
Why were they hurting him? What had he done to them?
Her mind screamed at them to stop but she knew she could do nothing about it.
And then for a long time the sounds stopped and she heard no more noise, nothing. Then the sound of voices, angry voices arguing or something.
Yes, it was definitely Spanish.
Then she heard a door open and the man came back into view, walking backward and dragging something, but Ann-Elise couldn’t tell what. Although she knew it was probably Dino, she didn’t want to think about it. Maybe not. Maybe it was just some equipment, a bag or box or something. Whatever it was, the man wasn’t too gentle about dumping the load onto the floor next to her. The man didn’t give her a glance as he stomped out and slammed the door behind him, causing Ann-Elise to jump.
And she began to cry again, moaning Dino’s name past the gag, the sound of her cries muffled in her own ears.
1
Mack Bolan lowered the binoculars and frowned. Too quiet.
He sat in his vehicle parked a half block from the residence where he believed members of the Sinaloa drug cartel were holding a teenage girl and her boyfriend. The sun beat through the windshield, threatening to roast him out. All windows were down and the sunroof open to facilitate air movement, but there didn’t seem to be much of it today in southwest Phoenix. So Bolan sat practically motionless and ignored the heavy sweat that soaked his face, neck and areas where his clothing fit snugly.
The warrior looked a bit out of place.
Although he’d dressed like a native in khaki-style shorts and a loose-fitting polo, it still looked idiotic for him to be sitting in his car in the midmorning heat. Fortunately, activity in the neighborhood had seemed minimal, most everyone already having gone to work or run the day’s errands. Bolan had been sitting there since about 0730 hours and it was nearing eleven.
There hadn’t been so much as a stirring around or in the target house. The shades were pulled and only a dusty, early-model SUV sat in the drive. Bolan scanned the place one more time through the binoculars, then studied the black-and-white print made from a yearbook photo of the missing girl, and a similar one taken around the same time of her boyfriend.
The Executioner’s intelligence had been sketchy, but he knew the information provided by Stony Man would be much more solid than anything the Phoenix police could give him. Trouble had come to the Sun City and it seemed nobody could do anything about it. Half the country believed the press when they touted the war between the Sinaloa and Gulf drug cartels out of Mexico as the primary reason for the rise in kidnappings. The other half chalked it up to nothing more than media hype. The naysayers were convinced the kidnappings were mostly related to the higher likelihood ransoms would be paid due to the fact Arizona had long attracted the rich and elite.
Bolan thought both sides of the issue had merit. But with the numbers at an all-time high, the Executioner realized the time had come to put an end to it. And while he couldn’t completely eliminate it, the problem was large enough that it could branch out. The best way to stop it was here and now—terminate the enemy’s plan of action before it reached that point.
And Bolan planned to start with two innocent teenagers.
Bolan put the photos away, secured the binoculars and then checked the action on his .44 Magnum Desert Eagle. The pistol had served him well on many past missions, and recently he’d upgraded to the newer Mark XIX model with a brushed chrome finish. The Beretta 93-R that he normally wore in shoulder leather rode in a hip holster concealed by the loose-fit polo. His best offense would be surprise, in this instance, since the place wasn’t likely to be heavily fortified or guarded. Additionally, the Sinaloa cartel had probably been using it as a stash house for a while, which means any of its occupants would be relaxed and not too alert. That made it a perfect target for someone with the Executioner’s special talents.
Bolan laid the Desert Eagle on the passenger seat, started the rental car and coasted down the street until he came within a few yards. He then swung the nose into the driveway at an angle as he picked up speed and drove across the pavement onto the lawn of half-dead grass. When he got within a few feet of the front door he gave the horn a blast before snatching up the pistol and going EVA.
Less than a minute elapsed before the door opened and a stocky, bare-chested Mexican with a shaved head and tattoos covering half his body emerged from the house. He looked angry as he gave the sedan a once-over, but then his eyes tracked to the right. But he was too late and Bolan was on him before the hood could react in time to bring up the pistol he’d been holding behind his baggy jeans. Bolan caught him with a kick that broke several ribs and drove the cartel gangster into the unyielding metal of the foreign-make rental. As the guy’s body bounced off of it, Bolan followed with a backhand that drove the butt of his pistol into a point behind his opponent’s ear. The guy dropped to the pavement like a stone.
Bolan pushed through the front door in time to see another hood emerge from a hallway off the main living area. The man raised a pistol, holding it gangster style with the ejector port pointed up. Bolan snap-aimed the Desert Eagle and squeezed the trigger twice. Happenstance favored Bolan because that first round struck the gunman’s hand that held the pistol and sent it flying. The second round landed dead-center in the chest, fracturing the breastbone before coring through tissue to the spine and driving the hood into the wall behind him. He collapsed on the carpet in a heap.
Another gunner jumped into view, framed by an entryway into the kitchen, a shotgun in his hand. Bolan dove in time to avoid the first blast of buckshot that winged over his body and blew a massive hole in the drywall. The warrior rolled and that saved him from a second blast into the carpet that sent dust, dirt and chunks of crushed carpet fibers in every direction. Bolan followed through the roll and into a firing posture on one knee. He acquired his target in milliseconds and triggered a round before the man could get off a third shot. The 280-gram slug busted through the hood’s left side, perforating his heart as it traveled upward at an angle and exited out his right armpit. The impact spun the enemy and he slammed against the wall. The shotgun clattered to the linoleum followed by the corpse a heartbeat later.
Bolan swept the muzzle of the Desert Eagle across his immediate field of fire, eyes and ears attuned to any further threats. Eventually, he relaxed and got to his feet, although he didn’t let down his guard. He held the .44 Magnum at a ready state while he scoured the rest of the house. Eventually, he found a door concealing a stairwell that emerged onto a semifinished basement.
The sight of a breathing, conscious girl tied to an old table sent a ripple of satisfaction through Bolan’s tired body, but he also noticed the lump of bruised, beaten flesh on the ground. He rushed to the boy’s motionless form and checked the pulse at the neck. Nothing. Bolan