Crisis Nation. Don Pendleton

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      “I’m your humble servant in all things,” Bolan said.

      Constante spit the stub of his cigarette out the window and punched the cigarette lighter on the console. “I suspect the opposite it true.” He took the car back toward the capital police building and pulled into the underground parking lot. Men in uniform and plain clothes nodded at Constante as they went through a series of basement catacombs and finally came to a room with a counter guarded by thick bulletproof glass. The man behind the glass looked like an accountant except that the forearms revealed by his rolled-up sleeves were built like bowling pins and his fingernails were blackened by accumulated gun grease that would take industrial solvents to clean away.

      “Mono!” The inspector grinned at the armorer. “I need guns!”

      Mono turned a measuring eye on Bolan and then sighed in amusement at Constante. “Flaco Ordones was here. He already checked out the BAR. He said it was on your authorization.” Flaco was Spanish slang for skinny. BAR was the U.S. military acronym for Browning Automatic Rifle. It seemed the inspector was serious about getting bigger guns.

      Mono shook his head. “You know, Inspector, strictly speaking, only the SWAT team can check out weapons without clearance from above.”

      The inspector lit another cigarette and one for Mono as well. He sighed and blew smoke into the ceiling light. “You know something, Cooper? There was a time when a Puerto Rican cop could get anything he needed just by asking. Of course, there was always very little to be had…but you could get it.”

      Bolan nodded sympathetically. Inspector Constante was an old-school Puerto Rican cop. He came from a lineage that kicked doors, cracked heads and squeezed suspects. As Puerto Rico modernized, his day was swiftly coming to a close.

      Constante warmed to his subject. “Now it is all forms, subcommittees, review boards, and, Heavenly Father help us, after-action reports.” He turned on the armorer. “Are you going to make me fill out forms in triplicate, Mono? Do I need to form a subcommittee to recommend my course of action?”

      Mono regarded Constante drily. “Might I inquire as to what your course of action may be?”

      “Oh, is that all?” Constante nodded toward Bolan. “Me and the gringo are going to clean up Puerto Rico. He already started with the Taino bar. Apparently he used Bebito as a mop.”

      Mono blinked at Bolan several times. “You will need guns.” The armorer turned back to his racks and workbenches and came back with a pair of ancient and cracked leather violin cases. Inspector Constante opened one of the cases and stared lovingly at the contents. “You know, my friend, Puerto Rico has always been the United States’ poor little cousin. I, myself, as a young man, was in the Puerto Rican National Guard. We did not receive M-16 rifles and M-60 machine guns. We received WWII Garand rifles, Browning Automatic Rifles, military surplus. I was Military Police, and my unit received Thompson submachine guns.”

      Constante racked the action. The wooden stock was dinged and stained and much of the weapon’s gunmetal blue finish was missing, but the action racked as slick as oil on glass and bespoke Mono’s faithful maintenance. Constante ran a fond hand over the ancient weapon. “You know it?”

      Bolan had found a Tommy gun in his hand a surprising number of times. “I’m familiar with it.”

      “I believe you are.” He nodded at the other case and Bolan examined the weapon. “How many spare magazines would you like?”

      Bolan loaded the weapon, racked it and flicked on the safety. “How about eighteen?”

      “In the army we were generally issued nine.”

      “How many street soldiers can d’Nico call on?” Bolan countered.

      “Hundreds. Do you intend to take on all of La Neta by yourself?”

      “No, just select elements of it, and with your help,” Bolan said.

      Constante turned to the armorer. “Mono, thirty-six magazines, if you don’t mind, and enough ammunition to load all of them, as well as some spare boxes.”

      Mono raised his eyebrows slightly at the request and retreated back into his catacombs. Constante put his weapon back in its case. “Where are you staying?”

      “I’m renting a house in La Perla.”

      The inspector made a face. La Perla was one of the worst slums in San Juan and ruthlessly ruled by gang culture. “You taunt the Lion, then you climb into his jaws.”

      “Well, you know how they say you should keep your enemies close.”

      “They do not say you should move in next to them,” Constante scowled.

      “I don’t think I’ll be staying long.”

      Mono brought them their ammo and they walked out without filling any forms. As they walked back to the parking garage, Constante began speaking quietly. “You know? It is hard to be a policeman in Puerto Rico.”

      Bolan nodded. It was a little known fact that perhaps other than Mexico City or Moscow there was no more dangerous place to be a police officer.

      Most Americans had no idea of how bad it was. If Americans thought of their commonwealth neighbor in the Caribbean, they thought of blue water, golden sand and partying. It was a common vacation destination for East Coasters and an alternative honeymoon spot.

      For the people who lived there violence was endemic. Since the rise of the cocaine trade in the 1980s the island had become a major transshipment point for Colombian cocaine and increasingly a heroin funnel. The Puerto Rican gang and crime cultures had risen with them. People on the island made roughly a third of the average income of the poorest mainland states, and it was reflected in their police force. They were ill-equipped and understaffed, and corruption in the force was as endemic as the violence in the streets.

      “You intend to go against the crime gangs and the revolutionaries?” the inspector asked.

      “I do.”

      “I am ashamed to admit it, but there are those within the force who support what is happening, not out of patriotic sentiment, but because they know if we become an independent nation the potential for profit in bribery will skyrocket. The drug dealers and the gangs know this as well and are already lining pockets,” the inspector said.

      Bolan suspected nothing less.

      “You will need a force of cops who cannot be corrupted or bought. Those who will not be afraid to bend rules, if not break them outright,” Constante concluded.

      “It’d be helpful,” Bolan said.

      Constante gestured at his car and the woman leaning against it. “Then behold your second recruit.”

      The woman turned. She was short, redheaded, darkly tanned with broad shoulders and an eye-popping bust line that was barely restrained by a blue T-shirt. A corset-thin waist cut what would have been a blocky figure into an hourglass.

      “May I present Detective Guistina Gustolallo. She works Vice.”

      Bolan could have guessed that. He also noted the Mossberg 12-gauge semi-automatic shotgun crooked in one elbow like she СКАЧАТЬ