M.I.A. Hunter: Miami War Zone Read online

  Stone turned into the doorway, leading his men inside. The three suits followed.

  As the door swung shut behind them, Hog stepped to the side, bent down, and pulled up the leg of his jeans. His right hand slipped into his boot top and came out with a piece of clear plastic about a foot long.

  Moving with amazing speed for a man his size, he slid behind the last of the three dark-suited men to enter the room, grasping him around the neck and cutting off most of his air supply.

  As the man began to gag, his friends whirled around, but their hands left their jackets empty when they saw the sharp point pressing into the softness beneath his chin.

  "I'd like to know what the hell is happening here," Hog snarled.

  "Where did you get that thing?" Stone asked, genuinely curious.

  Hog looked over the man's shoulder. The man was kicking weakly. "Plastic knife," Hog said. "C.I.A. uses 'em all the time to beat airport metal detectors. Sharper than metal. Trouble is, if you slip one of 'em in somebody, it usually breaks off in there. Too brittle to use but once."

  "'Trust me,'" Loughlin quoted.

  "I should have known." Hog smiled.

  Stone didn't. "Let him go."

  "Let him go? Just like that?"

  "Just like that. I think I know who these men are."

  Hog didn't let go at once. "Who?"

  Stone looked at the other two men, who were staring at Hog and at the plastic knife with horrified fascination. "D.E.A.," Stone said.

  "Shit." Hog released the man he was holding, pushing him roughly away and sheathing the knife in his boot so rapidly that it was hard to follow the motions.

  The man stood rubbing his throat and gasping for breath. Stone looked at him idly. "You really should identify yourselves."

  One of the men stepped forward. "You're right." He was short, about five-six or five-seven, with thinning brown hair. "I'm Mike Bass, D.E.A."

  He produced his ID. "This is Gil Benton." He indicated the man by his side, taller, huskier, wearing glasses. He had thick gray hair.

  Benton said nothing, showed no ID.

  "The other guy, the one over there gagging, is Ferguson."

  Ferguson was almost as tall as Hog, but quite slender, almost ascetic looking, with thin white hair. He didn't say anything either, but he had a good reason. He rubbed his windpipe and tried to breathe normally.

  Bass turned back to Stone. "I want you to know that this wasn't my idea."

  "So why are we here?"

  A door opened in the opposite wall. "Here's the man who can tell you," Bass said. "Mark Stone, Carl Williams."

  The guy who stepped through the door was average looking. Even his suit looked average, less expensive than the ones the others wore. He was of medium height, his eyes a bland brown, his hair cut short and parted on the left like the hair of millions of other men. He looked to Stone like a man who had gotten to where he was by playing the rules, never stepping out of bounds, never riling the higher-ups. Stone wasn't good at those things, himself.

  Williams didn't offer to shake hands. "I know all about you, Stone," he began. "And what I know, I don't like. I don't want you coming here and cowboying around, screwing up my operation, maybe losing me a good man."

  "Mr. Williams is from Washington," Bass said, as if that explained everything. Maybe it did.

  "I'm down here because one of my men is lost," Williams said. "I'm here to see that he gets out of whatever trouble he's in. That's a job for the agency, not some hotshot freelancer that thinks just because he has a hot rep for covert operations he can push in illegally wherever he damn well pleases. This isn't Vietnam."

  "I just have one question for you," Stone snapped.

  "What?" Williams was startled. He wasn't accustomed to being spoken to like a subordinate.

  "Who told you I was coming here? And the flight?"

  "That's none of your concern," Williams sputtered, his face turning red with anger.

  "Kathi Wofford," Benton said suddenly. "We've been meeting every flight from your area of the country."

  Williams wheeled on him. "You're under orders, man! You're guilty of disobeying—"

  "No one said it was a secret," Benton snapped.

  "All right," Williams said. "The woman told us she had called you. She said we weren't doing a thing and that she had gotten someone who would. She said . . ."

  But Stone wasn't listening. He was on his way right out of the room, with Hog and Loughlin close behind.

  "Where are you going?" Williams snarled.

  Stone didn't even turn back. "Sightseeing."

  Hog looked over his shoulder. "It's a free country, ain't it?"

  They were out and into the terminal, the door swinging behind them. They could still hear Williams yelling as they walked away.

  "Fuck 'em," Hog said. "And the BMWs they rode in on."

  They took the rental, an inconspicuous white Toyota, and drove into Miami, into the quiet residential neighborhood where Carol Jenner was already waiting for them.

  Thanks to Stone's connections at Fort Bragg, he had been able to get Carol on a military flight earlier, while he, Hog, and Loughlin stayed behind to get things in order and to make certain preparations.

  If all had gone according to plan, Carol would be established in a safe house and provided with equipment that would be quite a help to them in the job ahead.

  Hog was creasing a city map, running his finger along a street line. "Oughta be just to the right. I sure as to God hope so." He didn't like being cramped into the seat of the small Japanese car and was ready to get out and get into action.

  Stone turned the car into a side street lined with palms and green grass. According to the address he'd been given, they were in the right spot. Hog was a good navigator.

  He pulled the Toyota to a stop in front of a white stucco house with a red tile roof, not much different from the other houses that lined both sides of the street. There were a few cars parked along the curb, and a kid was chasing a ball with a dog in a yard a few houses down.

  "We should be quite domestic here," Loughlin observed.

  Hog laughed. "Fat chance. Not this boy."

  Stone knew that Hog was right. They had too much to do. There was little chance that they would be able to enjoy the quiet that the house seemed to offer.

  They got out their gear and went inside. It was cool and dark and anything but domestic.

  The foyer was just a foyer, but the living room beyond was a command center. They could see Carol's blonde head bent over the console of a microcomputer, and when they went in they could see other computer terminals, modems, printers, and monitors.

  Hog looked around for a place to toss his gear. "Nice dump. But not much security."

  Carol didn't look up. "You didn't see the guy in the hedge, did you?"

  Hog looked over his shoulder, as if he could see through the closed door. "What guy?"

  "The one you didn't see." Carol looked up and smiled at them. "He's one of ours. There'll be one in that thick hedge around the house at all times. Don't worry. If he hadn't known who you were, you wouldn't be in here now."

  She looked cool and beautiful. Stone went to her and touched her arm. "Have you found out anything?"

  To some it might have seemed less than a greeting, but Carol understood.

  "A little. Those Bragg boys do good work. You wouldn't believe what these babies are tapped into."

  "Tell us."

  Carol waved her arm at all the electronic gadgetry. "Just about everything. I've managed to get into Miami's crime intel sources at almost every level—local, state, even federal.

  "That's the good news."

  Stone frowned. "What's the bad news?"

  "Just about what you'd expect. Florida is Drug Central to the whole country right now. There's so much going on that it's almost impossible to keep up with even a fraction of it. Good lord, did you know that the Coast Guard has only about twenty boats to patrol the entire coastline of the whole Southea
st and the Gulf of Mexico? Or that Customs has about eight planes in Florida to keep up with a whole smugglers' air force out there?"

  "I've heard about it. What does that mean to us?"

  "It means that we're looking for a very small needle in a very large haystack."

  Stone thought about the men he had located in Vietnam, a whole country filled with hostile adversaries. "We've done it before."

  Carol looked at him. "Sure you have. But you were looking for men that the enemy was holding with at least some intention to keep them alive. What are you looking for now?"

  Hog joined them. "A guy that's gonna be whacked in about a day if we don't find him, that's what."

  Carol nodded. "If he's not dead already."

  "We'll find him," Stone snapped. "Something's going on, something hot. We wouldn't have been met at the airport otherwise."

  "Airport?" Carol said.

  "Some gentlemen from the D.E.A.," Loughlin said. "They greeted us."

  "You knew they didn't want you here," Carol told Stone.

  "True. But the locals didn't seem too bad. There was one named Bass, who must be the one Kathi talked to earlier. He seemed all right, and so did his men. It was the Washington guy who was so upset."

  Carol raised an eyebrow. "Which means?"

  "Which means that we've stepped into something bigger than we thought. This is more than just a routine M.I.A., or the locals would be in charge."

  "I see." Carol turned to the computers, as if they might speak. "I think I know what the big deal might be."

  She sat at one of the terminals and logged in. Stone watched her fingers as they sped over the keys. Data began to appear on the amber-colored monitor. Carol tapped the monitor with her finger, and Stone looked at a name that had appeared there.

  Enrique Feliz.

  "Cuban," Carol said. "Young, tough, smart. And mean, very mean. He seems to control most of the cocaine traffic in Miami now."

  "What about the Mob?" Stone asked.

  "That's how tough Feliz is. He and his gang managed to get control of the drugs back in the early eighties after a real gang war. There was blood in the gutters, and the fish in Biscayne Bay were eating real well."

  "And the Mafia let it happen?"

  "There wasn't much they could do about it. Feliz had the guns, the men, and the smarts. The Mob guys didn't want to get their entire organization wiped out down here, so they called it off."

  Hog was rubbing his beard. "That sure don't sound like the same old Mob I know."

  "You're right, in a way," Carol told him, looking up from the screen. "They just went into a holding pattern, waiting for the right time to strike back and regain control of a dirty business that they thought they had the rights to."

  "Besides," Loughlin drawled, "the Mafia has any number of other quite profitable enterprises to keep the troops occupied. Gambling, prostitution, even legal businesses."

  "Right again," Carol said. "But lately, the Cubans have been making so much money that some of the Mob guys, particularly some of the younger ones, have been getting jealous."

  She tapped the screen once more, her nail striking another name.

  Charles Lucci.

  "They call him Crazy Charlie," she said. "With good reason. I understand that he keeps alligators for pets and feeds them animals he buys from the pound."

  No one said anything.

  "Anyone who gets out of line is likely to take a visit to Crazy Charlie and not come back. The rumor is that Charlie doesn't have to visit the pound very often."

  "A real sweet guy," Loughlin breathed.

  "Right. He's the son of old Don Vito Lucci." Carol's nail tapped the screen again. "Old, maybe even beginning to slip into senility, but still in charge of the family here. Mainly thanks to Crazy Charlie. As long as he's around, no one's going to cross the old man."

  "How about the old man and the drug picture?" Stone cut in.

  "He doesn't care much. He's got his fortune made a hundred times. But Charlie is itchy. He wants in, and he also wants to show the Cubans who the real bosses are."

  "Sounds explosive, all right," Stone admitted. "No wonder the D.E.A. isn't happy with our being here. This thing could blow up any minute."

  "I got a question," Hog said, glaring at the monitor screen as if the answer might miraculously appear there. "How come the drug trade got so profitable all of a sudden?"

  "The Cubans have worked some kind of deal with the Colombians," Carol said. "The Colombians are bringing in thousands of kilos of raw coca paste and converting it to cocaine at a secret site somewhere in the Everglades."

  "Paste?"

  "Much easier to transport than the leaves of the coca plant," Carol said. "You dissolve the plants in kerosene. What's left is the paste. It comes into the country in planes, ships, fishing boats, suitcases, you name it. In the lab, it's cooked, strained, treated with hydrochloric acid and acetone. After that, it's whitened, dried, and sold."

  "Now I have a question," Stone said. "Where does Jack Wofford fit into this picture?"

  Carol gave him a steady look. "I don't know," she said. "But I'd be surprised if he's still alive."

  Chapter Four

  Wofford felt nothing but pain. Flies buzzed around his face, lice crawled in his hair, mosquitoes feasted on his chest and arms.

  He didn't notice.

  They had beaten him with clubs that day, and then made him watch while they disemboweled a man named Creel, a man who, like Wofford, had dared to strike back at his captors.

  Creel had been tied to the bars of his cage in the form of a rough "X" and made to watch while the Cong sharpened their knives. As the first man had sunk his blade into Creel's abdomen, Creel had spit in his face. The man ripped sharply upward and Creel's bowels fell out steaming, but the spit had done its job. The VC had killed him much more quickly than they had intended.

  The major had come to Wofford after it was over. Wofford had never learned his name. "So how do you like your friend now, Yankee piece of shit?" the major inquired, slashing Wofford across the face with a leather strap. "Will you try to escape with him again? I think not!"

  They left Creel tied to the outside of the cage, his stomach carved open, his entrails stinking, and threw Wofford inside.

  "You and your friend try to escape together. Now you can live together," the major said.

  "Fuck you," Wofford snarled. It came out more like "Ffuuuhh uhhhh" because his jaw was broken and his lips smashed. He knew he would try to escape again.

  Soon.

  As soon as he could walk.

  He had told them nothing, he would never tell them anything, and they could continue to torture him and beat him.

  Unless . . .

  Wofford jerked awake.

  He was no longer in the jungle, could no longer feel the pain.

  At least, not as much pain. He hurt in a few places, but his body was not one gigantic ache as it had been in the dream.

  There were no flies, no lice, no stench of shit and vomit.

  He was in a dark, cool room, lying on a bed.

  He tried to move his arms. They were immobile, tied to the bedposts. So were his legs. He was spread-eagled, just like Creel had been in the dream.

  Wofford could see a rectangle of faint light. A window?

  There was furniture in the room, and he could make out the dark outlines. The events of the previous night began to clarify in his mind.

  Then he heard voices, from somewhere outside the room.

  He strained to make out the words.

  ". . . Don Vito's idea."

  "Yeah, but Charlie don't like it."

  ". . . Charlie . . ."

  The voices began to fade.

  "Charlie."

  Charley.

  The VC.

  The Cong.

  The major's face appeared above Jack, his mouth twisted in a cruel smile. "Ah, you are awake, Yankee turd. Then you are able to enjoy this."

  The leather slashed across Jack's already
swollen and bleeding mouth. A boot crashed into his side. . . .

  "No sign of Wofford?" Stone said. "Then why all the big buildup on the Cubans and the Mafia?"

  "That's the hot news," Carol said. "That's what the D.E.A. is afraid will blow sky-high if anything stirs the pot down here. They're trying to get a handle on it, but they have nothing so far, nothing more than I've told you."

  "And how does it tie in to Jack?"

  "It doesn't, as far as I can tell. All I can find out is that he must have been working on some routine job, something small. He was a buyer, not an undercover investigator on the scale that this mess calls for."

  There was a note of uncertainty in her voice. Stone seized on it. "But?"

  "You can always read me." Carol grinned. "Yes, there is a 'but.'"

  "A connection?"

  "It's tenuous. I don't know if it's solid enough to put any faith in. But it's all I can come up with."

  "A kick in the butt is better than no kicks at all," Hog said. "At least that's what we used to say in East Texas. So what's the connection?"

  Carol hit some more buttons and the print on the screen scrolled up. More names appeared.

  "These two men are just middle-level street dealers," Carol explained. "Tomás Castillo and José Rodriguez. Lately they seem to have more money than you'd think they should have brought in from dope. And there was a report just this morning that they were swaggering around last night, bragging about how they were really in solid with Don Lucci."

  "Street-level guys with big bucks, throwing around the name of the don," Stone gritted. "And that's the connection?"

  "That's it." Carol ran a hand through her blonde hair. "I told you it was tenuous. But think about it. What kind of people would Jack Wofford be dealing with?"

  "About the level of Castillo and Rodriguez," Stone admitted.

  "Right. And suppose, just suppose, these two were setting him up. Suppose that the don was financing them. That would explain the money they've been showing."

  "And if they had done the dirty deed," Loughlin put in, "that would explain why they thought they were in so solid with the big man himself."

  "It makes sense if you look at it that way," Stone admitted grudgingly, "but you could explain the same events in ten other ways."