don’t know, maybe you’re right. But I swear to you, Nesto, there was just something different about this guy. Don’t ask me to explain it. I can’t. I just know—” she stopped and chewed her lip a moment “—I just know he’s not like most other men.”
Lareza expressed surprise. “Get serious! You’re starting to sound like you’ve fallen head-over-heels for this Cooper.”
That caused her to laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous. I just have this sense about him. It’s only a feeling, but I get the notion he’s really a good man.”
“Well, good man or not, he just blew peace between the gangs wide-open, and that only stands to make more trouble.” Lareza wagged his finger at her almost as if reminding her of another time, a time back during the gang riots following the announcement that vindicated several police officers charged with nearly beating to death a black man.
Amherst waved away the notion. “This situation is entirely different, and you know it. There will never be peace between these gangs. Especially if drugs continue to flood the market at the current rate.”
“Seems to me this is about way more than drugs,” Lareza said, sitting back and folding his arms in resolve.
Amherst cocked her head. “What do you mean?”
“You just said it yourself,” Lareza said. “Let’s suppose this Cooper’s a real federal cop, or even some kind of special troubleshooter.”
The concept intrigued Amherst. “You mean, special ops.”
“Right. It’s no secret every federal agency in this country was required to lend resources when the administration formed Homeland Security. They all work together now. Task forces and suchlike are very common.”
“I might agree there was something to what you were saying. But then that leaves me with one question where Cooper’s concerned. How come he came alone?”
“You don’t know for a fact he’s operating alone,” Lareza replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “Maybe that’s what he wanted you to think.”
Amherst certainly couldn’t deny the possibility, so she chose to keep any further thoughts about Cooper to herself and turned the conversation to other things. They made small talk for a while, bantered a few war stories and discussed the latest gossip within the department.
The digital clock read 1:42 a.m. by the time Amherst climbed behind the wheel and started for home. The quiet caused her mind to wander some, and her head ached with the echoes of nearly two hours of continuous loud music and having to shout now and again to be heard.
As she continued toward home her thoughts turned toward Cooper. Why couldn’t she get the guy out of her head? For the first time in a while she found herself unsure of what to do next. She supposed she could issue a BOLO, but if he found out she had people looking for him he might get spooked. Then again he didn’t really have any reason to run anywhere if he was legit.
The sudden squawks of activity over a dash-mounted scanner demanded her attention. She listened carefully for what lay behind the general tones of panic underlying the radio traffic. Something major had just gone down over on Lincoln Boulevard, a few blocks from Fox Hills Mall in Culver City.
Amherst knew immediately what it meant. Whoever had taken the heat to Pratt had just unleashed some more on the smaller Hispanic gangs neighboring Ladera Heights—gangs that had close ties to the fabled La Eme.
Amherst turned her SUV around and headed straight for Lincoln Boulevard.
4
Mack Bolan had never intended to bring war to the gangs of Los Angeles.
Kurtzman’s intelligence had pointed to gang activities in Culver City, and after Bolan’s investigation of Antoine Pratt didn’t reveal much, the Executioner opted to look elsewhere for his answers. The enemies Bolan now faced were clearly members of the Thirteenth Street Gang, an up-and-coming group with purported ties to the famous La Eme. An acronym for La Muerta, La Eme had grown into the largest Hispanic prison gang in the country with outside connections to Hispanic gangs in major cities like Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago.
It stood to reason only a major gang could coordinate such mass shipments of opium into the country, but so far Bolan’s intelligence hadn’t pointed to any specific gang. The slaughter of those on the yacht coupled with the reluctant attitude of leaders high in the ranks of local government, told Bolan the shippers were getting major cooperation. Most of the gangs in L.A. depended on violence and intimidation, and of late Americans had not taken lightly to the general attitude that law-abiding citizens were just a pushover. It hadn’t worked for terrorists and it wouldn’t work for gangs.
The battle had been joined just minutes after Bolan left the tavern hangout of Javier Nuñez, the number-one guy inside the Thirteenth Street Gang who used the local watering hole as a base of operations. Bolan had solicited no more cooperation from Nuñez than he had from Pratt, and in this case the gang leader had the extra muscle to back his claims on most of the Culver City territory. Not that it mattered. Bolan didn’t recognize Nuñez’s reign over Culver City any more than he recognized Pratt’s over Ladera Heights. Los Angeles belonged to its law-abiding citizens, and if Bolan had to take a brief timeout from his mission to teach that lesson to Nuñez, then that was just the hand he’d been dealt and he’d play it any way he could.
At the moment, however, the numbers were running off in his head. He’d been in town for six hours now, and come no closer to discovering the source of the drugs flooding the market. All he’d encountered so far were thugs bent on murder and destruction. But his trip hadn’t been entirely for naught. He’d come to an assured conclusion the L.A. gangs were not behind the drug shipments.
Nuñez’s crew had followed Bolan out of their home neighborhood, and then a chase ensued down Lincoln Boulevard before eventually terminating in the parking lot of a major mall. Bolan had learned a few things in his years of soldiering experience. One of those lessons involved securing a strategic holding position when preparing to launch an assault against an enemy of superior numbers.
Tonight had proved no exception.
From the limited cover of his vehicle, the Executioner swung the FN FNC into target acquisition on one of his gangland targets and squeezed the trigger. The weapon chattered as a flurry of 5.56 mm NATO rounds zipped through the young banger’s chest and ripped exit holes in his back. The youth left his feet and his body slammed into the Lincoln “ghetto-cruiser” behind him. This impact broke the side mirror of the black, flashy Lincoln, and he left a gory streak on the window.
Bolan turned to his next target, a hood with a teardrop tattoo and twin pistols clutched in his fists. The warrior grimaced a moment as the kid didn’t look more than sixteen or seventeen. It was hardly Bolan’s preference to shoot teenagers and misguided youths, but he also knew the gang member knew right from wrong and had chosen a path. And whether the Executioner liked it or not, the gleaming. 45-caliber semiautomatics clutched in his fist were real, and Bolan had to assume they were loaded with real bullets. Bolan triggered a second short burst from the FNC. The rounds cut a deep swathe in the gangbanger’s gut and dropped him to the pavement.
Another gangland cruiser pulled up and Bolan decided to go EVA. He’d parked his car in a strategic position in the dark, deserted parking lot of the mall, which would give him the angling room he needed to deal with this new threat. The thudding in his ears of exertion drowned out the sounds of his boots slapping
