Oblivion Pact. Don Pendleton

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ an apologetic smile, stood and walked away without another word.

      Going to a table, Cinco waved down a passing waitress and ordered another scotch and soda. Maria smiled in reply showing dimples, then walked away with a definite swaying of the hips, but slowly, to let him admire the view.

      Six feet tall, and as almost as wide, the hulking Mexican intelligence agent liked to joke that he was built like a bull, and easily twice as smart. But that was just one of his many lies. An expert in cryptography, countersurveillance and high explosives, Willard “The Bull” Cinco was one of the top agents at Centro de Investigatión y Seguridad Nacional de Mexico—CISEN, Mexico’s intelligence agency.

      The television behind the bar was showing a football game, what the crazy Americans called soccer for some unknown reason, and Cinco heard the overly excited announcers talking about how one team’s defense was murdering the opposition, what a slaughter it was going to be this night, somebody wearing guts for garters, and how the blood would flow! Sipping his drink, the CISEN agent didn’t know whether to laugh, or cry.

      Reaching into a pocket, Cinco pulled out a universal remote and shifted to the weather channel. Nobody in the club seemed to notice, or care. He liked the Weather Channel, it was oddly soothing, almost hypnotic.

      Folding a stick of chewing gum into his mouth to help fight off the urge for a cigarette, Cinco chewed in peaceful silence for a while, and wasn’t terribly surprised when Maria delivered his drink accompanied by a free bowl of cheesy crackers, and a slip of paper bearing the name Rosetta and a local phone number. Exercising restraint, Cinco snacked on the first and burned the other in the ashtray, his impatience growing by the minute. His personal network of informants was rarely wrong about such things, but this time Cinco was starting to think that—

      She walked into the nightclub as if she owned the place. Tall, slim and deliciously dark with raven-black hair and a wide generous smile, the woman was dressed in a designer gown that couldn’t have been any more formfitting if it had been sprayed onto her flawless skin. Diamonds sparkled from her fingers, circled both wrists and her neck. Her shoes showed toes, the nails painted the same color as her fingernail polish, and her long hair was swept forward across her face to help hide the jagged rope scar on her neck where she had been hung and hideously tortured by the formerly corrupt spy agency. Helping the federal army to bring it down hard, Lucia Cortez had been generously rewarded by Mexico by not being arrested for stealing millions of dollars from the secret coffers of the agency. Soon, Cortez had a string of restaurants, hotels, gas stations and nightclubs across the nation and happily fed CISEN any juicy gossip her employees heard in passing.

      “Good evening, Bull,” Cortez said, sitting down at his table. Smiling, she placed a cigarette between her lips and waited.

      Removing it, Cinco crushed the tube in one hand and sprinkled the remains into the ashtray.

      Her dark eyes flashed with surprise, then Cortez laughed and relaxed in the cushioned leather chair. “You never change,” she said, reaching out to playfully ruffle his hair. “When the worms come to eat you in the grave, you’ll arrest them for trespassing.”

      “My coffin, my rules.” Cinco smiled, then recoiled as the woman jerked backward in the chair, a small black hole appearing in the middle of her forehead. As blood began to trickle from the bullet wound, Cinco was hit twice in the back with something very hard.

      Flipping over the table, he dove to the floor and came up with his Magnum pistol blasting. Standing near the fire exit was a man holding a silenced rifle, preparing to fire again. But the heavy slugs from the .357 Magnum slammed him against the fire door so hard his head audibly cracked on the metal, and he tumbled to the floor, gushing blood.

      Panic filled the nightclub at the sound of the gunshots, and people started rushing about in a blind panic, screaming and shouting.

      Ignoring the civilians, Cinco knelt by Cortez, and saw that it was too late to do anything. Her face was ashen, the pulse in their throat weak, and her skin already felt cold and lifeless.

      “Lucia,” he whispered putting a lifetime of emotion into the name.

      “Ca-Cancun...” she whispered in reply, the words almost lost in the general commotion of the rioting nightclub. She trembled once, then went still forever.

      Laying her head gently on the floor, Cinco rose to his full height and proceeded directly out the fire exit. He passed by the killer without a second glance. He knew the man, Hector Martin, a contract killer from Quarez, who never asked why, merely who and how much? He had done a lot of work for the Sandanistas back in the bad old days, and Cinco knew that there was nothing new he could learn from the corpse. Martin cost a lot, so that meant whoever had had Cortez killed was very wealthy, and had good intel about the criminal underworld. That wasn’t much to go on, but he had to start somewhere.

      The back alley was hot, humid and dank, ripe with the smell of rotting garbage. Feeling like a machine set on autopilot, Cinco strode through the reeking darkness, his fist clenched around the pistol, his heart pounding as he desperately sought somebody to kill in revenge for the senseless slaughter of his old friend. But the alley was clear, and the parking lot was total chaos, any possible clues destroyed by the mob of frightened civilians running for their lives.

      Standing alone for what seemed a long time, Cinco slowly holstered the weapon, then went to his car and got inside. Opening the glove box, he pawed through the collection of maps until he found one that showed how to get to the Cancun Peninsula.

      International Waters, Gulf of Mexico

      T HE A LLENDALE ROSE and fell on the easy swells of the open water. There were no nets hanging from the tall cranes of the converted fishing boat, and the cold bay had long ago been made into a sort of dormitory with rows of bunk beds.

      Sitting in a canvas chair, a blind man was softly strumming an old guitar, while his family and friends gathered around. Nearby, on several hibachis filled with hot coals, hamburgers and sausages loudly sizzled and gave off the most amazingly delicious mixture of smells.

      “What are you going to play, Grandpa?” a young man asked, twisting off the cap from a frosty bottle of beer.

      “What would you like to hear?” Jefferson LaSalle asked, then paused to tilt his head.

      “Something wrong, sir?” a young woman asked, glancing around at the empty sea and sky.

      Dropping the guitar, Jefferson felt cold adrenaline flood his body as he flashed back decades ago to the hated Vietnam war. Dear God almighty, he knew that noise all too well. It was the very sound that had robbed him of his sight and killed his best two friends at the exact same moment.

      Lunging forward, the old vet grabbed the first child he could reach and strained with all of his might as he flung the little girl over the side of the Allendale and into the ocean.

      “Grandpa!” a woman screamed. “Have you gone mad!”

      But before he could answer something dark streaked past the boat leaving behind a long contrail of smoke.

      “That’s a rocket!” A young boy laughed, starting to applaud.

      Reaching for the noise, Jefferson grabbed the boy and dove sideways over the gunwale holding the child tight to his chest.

      “What in the world is going on here?” a fat man demanded, setting down his beer. “Has the old man gone loony?”

      High overhead, the СКАЧАТЬ