M.I.A. Hunter: Miami War Zone

  M.I.A. HUNTER: MIAMI WAR ZONE

  Stephen Mertz with Bill Crider

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  © 2012 / Stephen Mertz

  Copy-edited by: David Dodd

  Cover Design By: David Dodd

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  OTHER CROSSROAD PRESS PRODUCTS BY STEPHEN MERTZ

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  M.I.A. Hunter: Invasion U.S.S.R.

  M.I.A. Hunter: Crossfire Kill

  M.I.A. Hunter: Desert Death Raid

  M.I.A. Hunter: L.A. Gang War

  M.I.A. Hunter: Back to 'Nam

  M.I.A. Hunter: Heavy Fire

  M.I.A. Hunter: China Strike

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  "Go with us as we seek to defend the defenseless and to free the enslaved."

  —from the "Special Forces Prayer"

  Chapter One

  Something was wrong.

  Jack Wofford didn't know how he knew, but he did. It was as if he had developed an extra sense over the years, one that warned him of danger or impending disaster. The extra sense was working overtime tonight.

  He felt it as a tingle at the base of his neck that stirred the short hairs growing on his nape. He felt it in the drops of sweat that crawled through his hair and along his scalp, drops that were not caused by the heavy humidity that made the night air thick and wet around him. He felt it in the hollow pit of his stomach.

  No one looking at him would have noticed a thing out of the ordinary, however, because Wofford was trained in many things, both by practice and experience. One of those things was the concealment of his emotions. He could have been standing on a hill of ants or having a bamboo splinter rammed up underneath the nail of his ring finger and his face would have betrayed nothing.

  Such an ability was an essential part of Wofford's job, and he knew it was one of the reasons he had been chosen by the D.E.A. for this particular mission. He had worked hard for his reputation, and he knew he deserved it.

  He was one of the best drug buyers in the business.

  He had been at it for more than twelve years now, ever since his brother, Gary, had died of a self-induced overdose.

  Gary. For him, Vietnam had never ended, and his return to the States had been a hellish experience that he never quite comprehended. He had lost something in the green jungles, something that he had never regained. For a while he must have thought that drugs would help him find it, but they only made things worse, destroying his health and what was left of his mind until the day when a lethal speedball took him away from things forever.

  Jack had found his body in the squalid room where he had gone to live and to die. At that moment, Jack made a vow to do what he could, to have some part, no matter how small, in ridding the world of drugs. His wife, Kathi, had understood and agreed with him. Whatever it took, she would back him up.

  He had lived on the streets for nearly a year, hardly ever going home. He made small buys, then a few larger ones, using his own money and money that Kathi earned teaching second grade. He hoped that her school board never learned about what he was doing.

  In establishing himself as a street character, he learned a number of things: who was hot and who wasn't; how to avoid the cops; how to avoid being ripped off by the con artists who wanted to sell you talcum powder laced with Drano, hoping you'd be dead before you found out what had happened; how to live in cheap rooms on cheaper food.

  And he had developed that extra sense. It had saved him more than once during that year.

  After he had gathered as much information as he could, he went to the D.E.A. with what he had. They weren't quite sure what to make of him, and it took them five days to decide whether or not to act on the information he provided.

  When they did, they were more than pleased. The information was solid, and in fact, much of it was even better than Jack knew. Some of the smaller pushers squealed like pigs being eaten by the Big Bad Wolf, leading to bigger and better arrests. Major busts went down. The D.E.A. looked good, and Jack was offered a job.

  He took it, knowing what it meant as far as his life with Kathi went. He would see her, but not often. Only when he was between jobs, and then not for very long. It also meant that his life expectancy was not of such a nature as to make an actuary leap for joy. He would be dealing with people who killed as casually as people in the straight world stepped on roaches, people to whom human life meant exactly nothing.

  One of the first things he asked about at his interview with the D.E.A. was life insurance.

  The interviewing agent looked at him. "You're kidding, right?"

  Jack smiled. "Nope. I've got a wife, and I don't plan to leave her depending on teaching second grade for a living."

  "It's not something we like to talk about," the agent said. He was a tall, heavyset man, with coarse graying hair cut into an unfashionable flattop.

  "I don't blame you," Jack told him. "But it's something I've got to know. I took the first year's risk on my own, for my brother. But if I'm going to make a career of it, I've got to know that Kathi will be all right in case anything happens to me."

  The agent ran a hand over his flattop. "All right," he said. "You deserve to know. It's a dangerous job. I wouldn't kid you about that. But the government will take care of your widow, if anything should happen. Not that it will. But if it does, you don't have to worry about money. Uncle Sam takes care of his own."

  "That's good to know," Jack said, and then, like everyone else, he had promptly convinced himself that Kathi would never have to worry about collecting the money if he died because dying was something that happened to other people.

  Over the years he had been in some tight spots. Once, in Houston, he had almost been thrown into the Ship Channel with his ankles wired together. In Atlantic City, he had been beaten and left for dead in a garbage Dumpster. And in New Orleans, he had received a knife cut that began at his navel and went up through his right pectoral.

  Every time, he had survived, one way or another, usually because his extra sense had warned him just in time, had given him just enough of an edge to save himself. It had never failed him.

  Now he was in Miami, a city where he had worked several times before, and the extra sense was telling him that something was wrong.

  He hadn't wanted to work Miami again, especially since he had been there only a few months previously, but the higher-ups had insisted. It was a really important job, they told him, and he was the man to do it.

  "I was just there in January," he said.

  "Five months," the agent in charge said. His name was Williams, and he was a by-the-book man. Wofford would have bet that Williams could
tell him the day and the hour that he had left the Miami city limits.

  "These people have long memories," Wofford said. "I don't like to work in the same city again so soon, especially a place where I've worked so much before."

  "Three times," Williams said. "In 1978, 1983—"

  "I know the dates," Jack said. "That's not the point. People down there know me. Too many people."

  "Look," Williams said, "I know it's a risk, but this has been discussed at the highest levels. We think it's worth it. This one really matters."

  "They all matter," Jack said, thinking that Williams hadn't been in the field in so long that he wouldn't know a risk if it bit him in the ass.

  "Right," Williams said. "They all matter. But this one is special. If we pull this one off, we cut off the coke supply to half the dealers on the East Coast. I mean, this one goes right up to Mr. Big."

  Jack hadn't realized that Williams thought in clichés, but he wasn't too surprised. A lot of people in the business did, talking all the time about such ridiculous things as "street value," and "Mr. Big," and "Colombian connections."

  "I thought I got Mr. Big for you five months ago."

  "This guy is even bigger," Williams grunted.

  And that's the way it went, Jack thought. There was always a new boy in town, a new guy who had bigger and better supplies, who could get it faster, sell it cheaper, and get you higher than the one before. Jack was beginning to think his job was like emptying the garbage. Every week, there was a new load to be hauled out.

  In the end, though, he went, just as he always did. There was always the chance, no matter how slim, that this time really would be the big one, the one that shut down the supply, the one that took most of the rats off the street, the one that really mattered.

  There was also the chance that he was never going to find out. His extra sense was tingling like never before. He was sure that he had been in Miami once too often, but he wasn't going to let the two men he was with know that.

  They were just street guys, not the kind that Jack would normally have given a second thought. Tomás Castillo—tall, athletically built, with curly black hair and a bright smile—was on Jack's right. On his left was José Rodriguez, shorter than Castillo, and stockier, going a bit too fat, with a stomach that hung over the belt of his jeans.

  They had nothing to do with the buy. They were simply Jack's escorts, walking him to the location where the buy was to take place, a location of which Jack had not been informed in advance.

  There was nothing unusual in that. Just another precaution that dealers were known to take. If you knew in advance where you were to make a buy, you might arrive there with a small army and try to get for free the junk that you were supposed to pay a hundred thousand for.

  Or you might make a call to the D.E.A.

  Either way, it paid to keep the spot a secret until the last minute, sending a couple of low-level punks to escort the buyer to the scene.

  Jack had met Castillo and Rodriguez at a bar on Calle Ocho, and they had taken him to an old Ford LTD, painted gray and covered with rust spots, like a thousand other cars in Miami. Then they had driven him to the warehouse district where they were walking now.

  They had left the car ten minutes before, and they had walked about a mile, wandering through darker and darker streets, until they stood before a metal warehouse with peeling silver paint. Jack could make out the words "RAT FINX" painted on the walls in red paint from a spray can, and there was a spray-painted picture of a rat that looked like Mickey Mouse might look if he'd lived the last ten years as a wino.

  "This is the place," Rodriguez said. "The stuff's inside."

  Wofford didn't believe him. He had fifty thousand dollars in the battered leather briefcase he was carrying, all of it in carefully doctored bills that would allow the money to be traced, but he was sure that there was no one inside to give the money to. This was just to be a low-level buy, another step in the information-gathering mission that Wofford was on.

  "Let's go," Castillo said, giving Wofford a nudge in the back.

  There was nothing to do but go along.

  They walked to the side of the building, to a door not too far from the painted rat's back leg. The door was unlocked, and Castillo shoved it open. It squeaked on its hinges as it swung inward.

  "You first," Castillo said to Wofford.

  Wofford didn't want to enter the dark building, but he knew that he had no choice. If he backed off now, all his work would be down the tubes. He was getting too close for that to happen.

  He stepped through the door.

  Rodriguez and Castillo were right at his back. He could hear them breathing, could almost feel their hot breath on his neck.

  "Keep movin'," Rodriguez said.

  Wofford walked straight forward, trying to see in the deep gloom.

  A light snapped on, a weak bulb hanging from a twisted wire. It was jiggling slightly, and it threw dancing shadows around the empty interior of the warehouse.

  Two men that Wofford didn't recognize were standing under the light. They weren't carrying satchels of dope.

  Instead, they were both holding short-barreled revolvers, which they were pointing at Jack.

  "Just be a nice boy," one of them said, "and nothing bad will happen to you."

  For a moment, Wofford didn't know for sure whether the deal had merely gone sour—been hijacked—or if it was something else.

  Then he felt the gun barrel that Castillo shoved in his back. "Stand still."

  Wofford did just the opposite, swinging the briefcase backward as hard as he could and managing to catch Rodriguez in the balls. Rodriguez screamed and fell to the floor, clutching at himself.

  At almost the same instant, Wofford stamped down on Castillo's right instep with the heel of his shoe, hoping that Castillo would be in too much pain to pull the trigger of his pistol.

  When Castillo sucked in his breath and bent almost double, Wofford threw the briefcase toward the two men who were facing him, whirling it through the air high and hard.

  As soon as the briefcase left his hand, he was bending to the right, scooping up the revolver that Rodriguez had dropped. Rodriguez made a halfhearted move to stop him, but didn't have the strength yet to make a successful move.

  Wofford heard the briefcase hit the floor and then the almost simultaneous firing of two pistol shots. He rose and fired back, once, without hitting anyone. Then he was heading for the door.

  He was out the door and into the night, feet pounding behind him. He heard a curse as two men hit the doorway at the same time, and he turned and fired.

  There was a yell, and he knew that he had hit one of them. He ran again, down the middle of the street. He figured that there was at least one of them behind him, maybe two if Castillo had recovered. Rodriguez would be out of it for a few minutes yet, and the one he'd shot would be out for good.

  There was a shot behind him, and the bullet hit the street, whining off to the side and splattering into a brick wall.

  Wofford ducked into an alley. He was going to try to make it to a more populated area. He might have a chance if he could.

  Halfway down the alley he turned, knelt, and braced his gun hand. As soon as the first figure turned into the alley, Wofford fired twice.

  Two misses. It wasn't easy to shoot straight after you'd been running down a street. Your heart was pumping too fast, and the blood rushed in your ears.

  Wofford got up and ran again, kicking through loose paper and strands of black metal banding that had been used on packages of some kind. One of the bands tangled around his legs and he pitched forward.

  The fall was a hard one. His knees felt as if they had been hit by a Louisville Slugger, and the skin was peeled off the heels of his hands. He had dropped the pistol.

  There was no time to look for it. He struggled to his feet, fighting off the banding, and stumbled forward.

  He emerged into the next street. There was no one in sight in the feeble light from a di
stant streetlamp. The only thing he could see was the rusting hulk of an old Chevrolet that had been left there as not even worth the trip to the junkyard. He headed for the car.

  Just as he got there, two bullets slammed into the sheet metal, sounding as if someone had punched iron rods into it.

  Wofford glanced back over his shoulder. The two men were gaining on him. The fall had slowed him badly, and he could almost feel his knees swelling. He looked around for a weapon, for a place to run, but there was nothing and nowhere.

  Well, there was one thing. He broke the radio antenna off the car and shambled on.

  The others didn't need to shoot now. They were gaining on him too fast, and they knew he was hurt. He was going to have to face them. He held the antenna down by his leg, not wanting them to see he had it, and limped along as fast as he could.

  They caught up with him in less than a block.

  "Hold it right there, motherfucker," Castillo said, "or I'll shoot both your goddamn legs off." It wasn't easy for Castillo to speak. He was panting and trying to get his breath.

  Wofford stopped. He knew that he wouldn't be able to run much longer, not the way his knees were screaming in pain. He turned slowly to face the two men. Castillo was still gasping, but the other man looked to be in better shape. His hair was mussed, but he had his breathing under better control. He was the one Wofford would have to deal with first.

  "Easy now," the man said. "Does he still have the gun?"

  "How the fuck would I know?" Castillo said. "I'll cover him. You check him out."

  The man moved forward.

  Wofford tried to look whipped.

  When the man had moved close enough, Wofford lashed out with the antenna, snapping it up from beside his leg with as much speed as he could muster, going for the man's eyes.

  He connected, and the blunted tip of the antenna turned the man's left eyeball into jelly. The man screamed like a wounded panther, dropping his pistol and falling to his knees, his hands pressed to his face.