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 time, I’m afraid. Jihadists,” Bolan said, trying to steer the conversation back on topic and away from dangerous shoals.
“Yeah, well, same shit, different angle. I got myself established as a coyote. I got some routes, made friends, that kind of thing.” James leaned against the side of his van, arms crossed. “I met Sweets.”
“Who’s Sweets?” Bolan said, lighting a match. He dropped it and stepped back in a hurry. The tiny flame caught and zipped back along the gasoline trickle.
“Sweets is Django Sweets. Big-time king coyote. Runs people, drugs, guns, car parts, whatever you want, whichever direction you want them going in. Coyotes have sort of an informal union, if you can believe it.”
Bolan could. He’d seen it again and again with various types of criminals. Someone invariably put themselves on top. “Yes,” he said. When he didn’t elaborate, James went on.
“Sweets put himself in the top spot a few months back. He’s in slick with the cartels, and, unfortunately, it looks like he’s got an in with us as well. He’s been running mules—illegal migrants carrying drugs—into Tucson and such, and he’s skated out of at least two sure-thing sting operations.”
“So you are saying you have a leak?” Bolan said. The truck was engulfed in flames, taking the heroin and the bodies of the transporters with it.
“Worse. We think Sweets has got people covering for him. Don’t know who though. We were hoping to scoop them up in the middle of all this.”
“All what?” Bolan said. “All my contact knew was that it was a mess.”
“Sweets was contacted a few weeks ago by a guy named Tuerto,” James said.
Bolan blinked. “One-Eye?” he said, translating.
“Mr. One-Eye, actually, or at least, that’s how Sweets referred to him.” James shook his head. “We had no clue who he was at the time, but then we got a panicky shout-out from Interpol.”
“Terrorist?”
“Worse. He’s a mercenary, and a good one. His sticky fingerprints are all over a number of incidents going from one end of the world to the other.” James shrugged. “At least, that’s what Interpol said. And they should know, because they’ve been tracking him for three years.”
“Your partner,” Bolan said, reading between the lines. James nodded.
“Yeah, she’s some hot shit, according to her bosses. Undercover work, tactical assault, all that jazz.”
“And what do you make of her?” Bolan asked shrewdly. Tanzir sounded competent, if nothing else.
James was silent for a moment. Bolan could practically see the gears turning in his head. When he finally answered, he chose his words with care. “She’s...intense. Tuerto’s...” He trailed off. “Listen, have you ever read any Melville?”
Bolan caught his meaning instantly. “He’s her white whale,” he said.
James shrugged, obviously uncomfortable. “Something close to that.... She’s not obsessed, but she’s real focused.” James made a gesture. “Tunnel vision, you know?”
“I know.” Bolan felt a pang. More than one person had accused him of something similar over the years, and he couldn’t say that they were entirely wrong. A small part of him was looking forward to meeting Ms. Tanzir more and more.
James looked at him. “Yeah, I bet you do,” he said, not unkindly. “I only met her once, really. She wasn’t happy about the situation. Nor was I, for that matter.”
“I bet you weren’t,” Bolan said.
“Neither was her fellow,” James added, chuckling.
“Fellow?” Bolan said, curious despite himself. “As in significant other?”
“Very significant,” James said. “One of the head honchos of the Interpol contingent. Some French guy. Boy-howdy, that guy was not happy about her being there.”
“Worried about her?”
“To be honest, I couldn’t tell...it was either her, or the mission, with even odds as to which. Maybe both, for all I know.” The border patrol agent shook his head. “Guy was all hot and bothered, in a bad way, about her part in things.”
“Speaking of which, if you’re here, where is she? You said something about the back end?” Bolan said, trying to pull them back to the topic at hand.
James grunted. “Interpol has been helping the
