Devil's Mark. Don Pendleton

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      Smiley looked around without moving her head. “Pretty swank digs for Tijuana. Your controller did good.”

      Bolan smiled. Kurtzman would be amused at being referred to as Bolan’s “controller,” but Smiley was right. He had chosen wisely. Hospital Angeles had been built by the Medical Tourism Corporation specifically to cater to patients visiting from the United States and Canada. It was pretty much medical colonialism, but Bolan wasn’t complaining and he doubted LeCaesar would, either. It was a thoroughly modern facility, and the best treatment anyone who had been in a gunfight in Tijuana was likely to get.

      “Where are the rest of my boys?” Smiley asked.

      Bolan had made some calls. “They’re at the morgue along with what’s left of Cuah and the dead perps. Your men are being prepped for transport to the States. Cuah and company are staying here.”

      “What about you?”

      Bolan shrugged. “What about me?”

      “Well, Cuah’s dead. What’s the status of your liaison-observer apparatus now?”

      “Status is I’m going to stick around for a while. Hope you don’t mind.”

      Smiley was visibly relieved. “I was kind of hoping you’d say that. You know, if you hadn’t been there Mole and I wouldn’t have made it out alive.”

      “Yeah,” Bolan agreed.

      “Humble, too.”

      He shrugged.

      The woman looked at Bolan sincerely through her bruises. “Thanks.”

      “No problem.”

      The intern dabbed away the remaining blood with a wipe and stepped back to admire his handiwork. “There.”

      “What’s the prognosis?” Bolan asked.

      “Twelve stitches.” He gave Agent Smiley a sympathetic look. “There will be a scar.”

      “Scars are sexy.” Bree regarded Bolan dryly. “Or so I’m told.”

      “Dr. Reyes suspects there may be concussion. It might be best if we kept you for observation until morning and scheduled you for an MRI. Do you—”

      “Screw that.”

      “Mmm.” The intern looked back and forth between Smiley and Bolan. “Somehow I suspected you would say that. Very well, I recommend you see your personal physician when you get back to the United States as soon as you can. If you experience nausea or dizziness before you return to the United States, come back here immediately.”

      “Right, thanks.”

      The intern took his clipboard, made some notes and left.

      “Right.” Smiley stood up, made an unhappy noise and sat back down again. “Jesus…”

      “Take it slow.”

      “Shit.”

      “Listen, just—”

      “No.” Smiley looked past Bolan and rolled her eyes as if she couldn’t catch a break. “We got trouble.”

      “What kind of trouble?”

      “Inspector Federal Israel Raymondo Villaluz.”

      “Is here.” Bolan gathered.

      “Yup.”

      “Is he a problem?”

      “Well, he did sign over Cuah Nigris to me and Mole. Quite reluctantly, I might add.”

      “And we lost Cuah.” Bolan sighed. “Has he spotted you?”

      “Not yet.”

      Bolan ushered Smiley to the opposite row of beds and pulled the privacy curtain. He peered out the crack between the sheets of fabric. Inspector Villaluz was as tall as Bolan but lankier. He wore gray slacks and a gray suit coat. His dress shirt was starched blinding white and cinched at the throat with a turquoise and silver bola rather than a tie. He carried his Resistol straw cowboy hat in his hand. Pancho Villa himself would have admired the man’s mustache. The five-fingered comb-over crawling across his balding was comical. Bolan made him pushing fifty and definitely old school federale. “Give me the low-down on Villaluz, quick.”

      “He’s about as good as Tijuana federales get. I’m not saying he’s clean. Word is he hasn’t paid for a beer or a meal in Tijuana in twenty years, but word is also he isn’t in anyone’s pocket. He’s a ‘peace and quiet or I crack heads’ kind of cop. That’s his problem. He hasn’t kissed his superiors’ asses, and he hasn’t bent over for the cartels. He’ll never rise higher than inspector.”

      Bolan watched Villaluz squint around the observation-recovery ward. He was obviously looking for them. There was no tough-guy swagger or bluster about him. He smiled and spoke to a nurse who was clueless as to where Bolan and Smiley had gone. Bolan made Villaluz for a man who was polite until it was time to not be polite, and then relaxed and enjoyed the violence. “You got anything else?”

      “He’s also a gunfighter. Real Dirty Harry type. They call him in when things get rough.”

      “Oh, yeah?”

      Smiley spread her hands. “His nickname on the street is Dos Armas.”

      Bolan smiled. “Two Guns?”

      “Yup.”

      “I think I’d like him.”

      “Yeah, well, he isn’t going to like you. After losing three of the Barbacoa Four in custody? The federales put Villaluz and the team he got to pick himself in charge of babysitting Cuah.”

      The shit storm was definitely on the horizon. “And then his superiors forced him to hand Cuah over to us.”

      “You got it. Still want to meet him?” Smiley asked.

      “Definitely.”

      “You know I knew you were going to say that.”

      Bolan shrugged. He pulled back the privacy curtain and made a show of solicitously examining Agent Smiley’s wound. Within seconds heavy cowboy boots drummed the linoleum toward them and stopped. The soldier turned. Anger passed across Villaluz’s face, but he was looking at Smiley’s wound. Bolan noted that the Mexican agent didn’t like seeing women hurt. Up close he noted the broken nose and scar tissue around the eyebrows that bespoke a former boxer. Villaluz spoke the easy, smoothly accented English of a man who had worked the U.S.-Mexican border all his life.

      “Agent Smiley, allow me to express condolences on behalf of myself and the Agencia Federal de Investigación for the loss of your men.”

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