your ass if they get away!” Horst Krieger snapped at Juan Pacheco.
“Sí, señor.”
“But not too close!”
“Okay.”
It didn’t matter if his orders were confusing. Krieger thought the driver understood their need to keep the target vehicle in sight, without alarming their intended victims and precipitating a high-speed chase through the heart of Bogotá that would attract police.
Another backward glance showed Krieger that his backup car, with Arne Rauschman navigating, had followed them down the off-ramp from Avenida El Dorado. Krieger was surprised to see a third car exiting, as well—or fourth, if he counted his target—but he dismissed the fact as mere coincidence.
Some eight million people lived in Bogotá. Many more commuted to jobs in the city from outlying towns, and Krieger supposed that thousands arrived at the airport each day, for business or pleasure. It was no surprise, no cause for concern, that four cars should exit the city’s main highway at any given point.
“Where are they going?” Krieger asked, and instantly regretted it.
“I couldn’t say, señor,” Pacheco answered.
Was the bastard smirking at him? Krieger felt a sudden urge to smash his driver’s face, but knew such self-indulgence would derail his mission.
He drew the Walther pistol from its holster, holding it loosely in his right hand, stroking the smooth polished slide with his left. A simple action, but he felt some of the pent-up tension draining from him, as if it was transferred to the weapon in his hand.
The better to unleash hell on his enemies, when it was time.
Krieger had not bothered to memorize the streets of Bogotá, but he knew his way around the city. He could name the twenty “localities” of the great city’s Capital District and find them on a map, if need be. He knew all the major landmarks, plus the home addresses of those who mattered in his world. As for the rest, Krieger could read a map or tell his driver where to take him.
But uncertainty displeased him, and whatever happened to displease Horst Krieger also made him angry.
He was angry now.
He couldn’t tell if those he followed knew that he was trailing them, or if the exit off of Calle 26 had been their destination in the first place. And, in either case, he didn’t know where they were going at the moment, whether to a private residence, a restaurant or other public place, perhaps some rendezvous with other enemies, of whom Krieger was unaware.
The latter prospect worried Krieger most. He was prepared to stop and kill his targets anywhere that proved convenient, both in terms of an efficient execution and a clean escape. However, if he led his team into a trap, the eight of them might be outnumbered and outgunned.
Another backward glance showed Rauschman in the second car, holding position a half block behind the Volkswagen. Another car trailed Rauschman’s, hanging back a block or so, but Krieger couldn’t say with any certainty that it was the same car he’d seen departing Avenida El Dorado.
Ahead, his quarry made a left turn, drove two blocks, then turned off to his right. Krieger’s Volkswagen followed, leading the Mercedes-Benz. Unless the bastard at the wheel was drunk or stupid, he had to know by now that he was being followed.
Still, there came no burst of speed, no sudden zigzag steering into alleys or running against the traffic on one-way streets. If the target did know he was marked, he appeared not to care.
“I think he goes to Puenta Aranda, señor,” Pacheco said.
“You think?”
“We’re almost there.”
And Krieger realized that he was right. Ahead, he recognized the fringe of Bogotá’s industrial corridor, where factories produced much of the city’s—and the nation’s—textiles, chemicals, metal products and processed foods.
It was not a residential district, though Krieger supposed people lived there, as everywhere else in the city. There would be squatters, street people and beggars, the scum of the earth. Conversely, Krieger knew that some of the factories operated around the clock, which meant potential witnesses to anything that happened there, regardless of the time.
Too bad it wasn’t Christmas or Easter, the two days each year when the church-enslaved peasants were granted relief. On either of those “holy” days, Krieger could have killed a hundred men in plain sight, with no one the wiser until they returned the next morning.
This night, he would have to take care.
“Move in closer,” he ordered. “They must know we’re here, anyway.”
Palming the two-way radio, he told Rauschman, “Be ready when I move. I’ll choose the spot, then box them in.”
“Yes, sir,” came the laconic answer.
“There!” he told Pacheco, pointing. “Can you overtake them and—”
Without the slightest warning, Krieger’s prey suddenly bolted, tires squealing into a reckless left-hand turn, and sped into the darkened gap between two factories.
“Goddamn it! After them!”
BOLAN WAS BRACED and ready when he saw the opening he wanted, aimed an index finger to the left, and told Guzman, “In there! Hit it!”
Guzman was good behind the wheel. Not NASCAR-good, perhaps, but so far he had followed orders like a pro and handled his machine with total competency. Even on the unexpected left-hand turn, he kept all four tires on the road and lost only a little rubber to acceleration, in the stretch.
Great factories loomed over them on either side, their smoke stacks belching toxic filth into the sky. Bolan had no idea what kind of products either plant produced. It had no relevance to his survival in the next few minutes, so he put it out of mind.
“We’re looking for a place to stand and fight,” he told Guzman. “Some cover and some combat stretch.”
“What is this stretch?”
“I mean some room to move. So we’re not pinned, boxed in.”
“Of course.”
Bolan had leafed through Guzman’s dossier, the one provided by the DEA, but it had said nothing about his fighting ability. He carried guns, but so did many other people who had no idea what it was like to kill a man or even draw a piece in self-defense. He might freeze up, or waste all of his ammunition in the first few seconds, without hitting anyone.
Bolan would have to wait and see.
“There is a slaughterhouse ahead,” Guzman informed him. “On the railroad line. Beside it is a tannery. I think they may be what you’re looking for, señor.”
“Let’s take a look,” Bolan replied. “And call me Matt, since we’re about to get bloody together.”
“Bloody?” Guzman asked.
“Figure
