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    The Narc Series Volume One: Narc, Death of a Courier, and The Death List
    The Narc Series Volume One: Narc, Death of a Courier, and The Death List
    The Narc Series Volume One: Narc, Death of a Courier, and The Death List
    Ebook635 pages9 hours

    The Narc Series Volume One: Narc, Death of a Courier, and The Death List

    By Marc Olden

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    About this ebook

    Three hard-boiled mysteries featuring a tough as nails narcotics agent from “a master of intrigue and adventure” (New York Times–bestselling author Clive Cussler).
     
    John Bolt is the best narcotics agent in D-3—the Department of Dangerous Drugs—and with his Colt .45, he’s out to make dangerous criminals pay, dead or alive . . .
     
    Narc: Bolt is out to stop New York City’s toughest drug dealer from scoring one thousand pounds of uncut heroin from Cuba. It will be the biggest shipment in history, and everyone’s dying to get their hands on it . . .
     
    Death of a Courier: Bolt’s ex-partner is now a mafia enforcer. Known as Apache, he’s working his way up the mob ladder by taking down D-3 agents—and he’s about to have a bloody reunion with Bolt . . .
     
    The Death List: John Bolt is after a dying drug kingpin’s little black book. Finding it would be the greatest bust of his career—but it means going up against a fearsome gang of corrupt cops.
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMysteriousPress.com Open Road
    Release dateNov 27, 2018
    ISBN9781504057165
    The Narc Series Volume One: Narc, Death of a Courier, and The Death List
    Author

    Marc Olden

    Marc Olden (1933–2003) was the author of forty mystery and suspense novels. Born in Baltimore, he began writing while working in New York as a Broadway publicist. His first book, Angela Davis (1973), was a nonfiction study of the controversial Black Panther. In 1973 he also published Narc, under the name Robert Hawke, beginning a hard-boiled nine-book series about a federal narcotics agent. A year later, Black Samurai introduced Robert Sand, a martial arts expert who becomes the first non-Japanese student of a samurai master. Based on Olden’s own interest in martial arts, which led him to the advanced ranks of karate and aikido, the novel spawned a successful eight-book series. Olden continued writing for the next three decades, often drawing on his fascination with Japanese culture and history. 

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      Book preview

      The Narc Series Volume One - Marc Olden

      The Narc Series Volume One

      Narc, Death of a Courier, and The Death List

      Marc Olden

      CONTENTS

      NARC

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Chapter Nineteen

      Chapter Twenty

      Chapter Twenty-One

      Chapter Twenty-Two

      DEATH OF A COURIER

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      THE DEATH LIST

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      About the Author

      Narc

      CHAPTER 1

      THE THREE NARCOTICS AGENTS died painfully. Antoine Georges Peray wanted it that way.

      In Miami, an informant betrayed a narc to a mob, who cut off his left foot.

      Then they took him to the Everglades and left him there.

      Smelling the blood, alligators moved in quickly.

      In Tangiers, a narc was lured into a phony buy by Arabs, who cut off his testicles. Placing them in a small box, the Arabs mailed the box to the President of the United States.

      In Marseilles, a narc was captured by Corsicans who gouged out both of his eyes. His tongue was cut off. He lived. For a short while.

      But he went insane. And no one was surprised when he broke a light bulb and repeatedly jabbed himself in the throat with the jagged edge.

      He choked to death on his own blood.

      All three died because Antoine Georges Peray wanted to protect his business. His business was heroin. The White Death.

      For him, the streets of America were literally paved with gold. He sent his heroin there. In return receiving more money than most of the kings of history.

      From the tiny country of La Playa in South America, Peray—the wholesaler—sent out the best heroin, the most heroin. In three years he had sent a lot of it north into American cities.

      $2 billion worth.

      A tidal wave of horror. Killing those who used it. And forcing them to kill others. Heroin. A daily atomic bomb falling on a young nation growing old with fear. A nation of victims covered with white powder.

      Antoine Georges Peray. A small, fifty-seven-year-old, grey-haired French man. Now sitting in the back seat of a small black car.

      Handcuffed to the left wrist of a narc named John Bolt.

      Heading towards the La Playa airport and a plane that would bring him to New York for trial.

      Yesterday, in Washington D.C., Bolt had pounded Craven’s desk and demanded the assignment of bringing back Peray. Craven was the boss, he, ran D-3, The Department of Dangerous Drugs. But he didn’t run Bolt. And he was smart enough not to argue. Bolt was the best. Let him go.

      Manpower was tight. The war against drug dealers had every agent working full time. Craven could spare only six, including Bolt. He was placed in charge.

      The assignment was tough from the beginning. Only a handful of men, no time to do the job right, and a prisoner who was so important that the President of the United States had gotten on the phone, cursing another chief of state.

      That phone call had happened three days ago. Two things had been brought to the President’s attention. One—Antoine Georges Peray was free to do as he pleased in La Playa, paying a lot of money for the privilege, so long as he didn’t push heroin there. He didn’t.

      Two—Foreign aid to La Playa was due to expire in two weeks. El Presidente de La Playa wanted the aid to continue. With a fat increase as well. Recent floods and an earthquake had done much damage.

      And so the phone call. Give us Peray, the American President had said, or American aid stops. And stays stopped as long as I am in office.

      An iron pipe across the knees. Stop American money from going south and La Playa would become a mudhole overnight. The cursing came about when the President got tired of hearing El Presidente brag about Peray’s contributions to local charities.

      No amount of bribes, however, could match the droppings on La Playa from the eagle in the north.

      Peray was arrested. By order of El Presidente, immediately turning a necessity into a virtue. The La Playa press kept quiet. By order of El Presidente.

      Twenty-seven hours without sleep. John Bolt doubted he could have slept anyway, so why bitch about it? Bringing Peray back for trial was his assignment. An assignment he had asked for.

      Bolt had known the three narcs Peray had ordered tortured and killed. Clem had been a French teacher in a Detroit high school. He had seen what dope did to kids. It was no trouble recruiting him for D-3.

      Speaking French had gotten him the Marseilles assignment. It had been his first. And his last.

      Art had been to North Africa on his honeymoon. He had volunteered for the Tangiers assignment.

      What had happened to Frank in Miami had been tough for Bolt to live with. It was Bolt who had suggested him for the assignment. Frank was young, only twenty-four, blond, he looked like a beachboy.

      At the time, it had seemed like a good cover. As it turned out, it wasn’t good enough.

      Clem, Art, Frank. Good agents. Good men. Now just cold meat rotting in the ground. And Peray had dismissed them with death. Casually. As dealers the world over did every day.

      Drug dealers made money because people died. Killing narcs was simply a sound business practice.

      Bolt, with five other narcotics agents, had flown into La Playa yesterday. His plan was to get in one day, get out the next. He had a strong feeling that Peray would not go quietly.

      Bolt’s decisions were quick and direct. Leave for the La Playa airport the very next night. Use the decoy system. Three groups of cars, three cars to a group. Each group to take a different route to the airport.

      Breakdown of each group: four guards in the first car. Two narcs and Peray (or a stand-in) in the second car. Four guards in the third car.

      Everybody to be armed.

      Radio contact between all three groups, checking in every ten minutes. Each narc team to have maps of all three routes.

      Bolt would be in the car with Peray. Of the five D-3 narcs, Bolt picked Ray to ride with him. Ray had asked him to be best man at his wedding, set for next week.

      Bolt liked Ray’s quickness. Put his back against the wall, and Ray wouldn’t whine. He’d start kicking ass. A good man.

      In the hot, moonlit night, the trip to the airport was nothing out of a travel folder. Which of the La Playa cops serving as guards and drivers had been bought off by Peray? Which of them was ready to betray and kill?

      Bolt had stared at their sweating, brown faces, looking for a sign. Anything that would say this guy’s gone over. He saw nothing.

      Time and time again he had been told that he was a hard-ass. There was no other way to be in his line of work and still be alive after six years. His one rule boiled down to one word: suspicion.

      Be suspicious of everybody. Survival depends on suspicion. Trust no one. In the world of narcotics, everybody’s lying. Everybody betrays.

      And if you’re careless, if you’re weak, you end up flat on your back with a mouthful of dirt.

      Would they try to take Peray now, on the road?

      At the airport?

      When?

      Damn. Bolt wanted out of this country. If he could do it without being shot at, whoopee. He didn’t know what El Presidente had done with American aid and Peray’s bribes, but he wasn’t spending any of it on improving the roads. The tiny car was hitting every hole, every bump in La Playa roads that had probably been there since the Spaniards had showed up five hundred years ago to rip off the natives.

      And the local bugs and mosquitos had been sinking their fangs into his face and neck. A blood-sucking welcome wagon.

      In the back seat of the car, Peray sat quietly between Bolt and Ray. The bugs didn’t seem to come near him. Bolt noticed that. Maybe the bugs were scared shitless that Peray would put out a contract on them if they did.

      Ray’s Colt .45 ACP Commander was in his left hand, away from the prisoner. A heavy gun. Made a big hole. All narcs were carrying heavy guns these days. Drug dealers were shooting at them too often.

      Watch the cops, Bolt had told Ray. Keep them in your cross hairs. Suspicion being normal with Bolt, he had insisted on the La Playa cops sitting up front. Right where he could see them.

      Their backs to him was better than his back to them.

      Especially if Peray had been passing around the pesos lately.

      The call-ins came over the small radio. Ray was answering them.

      A special shotgun rested on Bolt’s knee, butt down, barrel straight up. The shotgun was short, a fraction under 27 inches long, single barrel. It fired three shots.

      An ex-Nazi in West Germany had created it especially for Herr Bolt, sweating and smiling in the intense heat of the gun factory. The ex-Nazi enjoyed his work.

      Bolt had done the test firing himself. He had smiled, too. Politics aside, the German knew how to make a gun. This one left a hole big enough for an elephant to walk through sideways.

      As busy as he had been during his twenty-seven hours in La Playa, Bolt had found time to clean and oil that gun. He had also made a run out to the airport and back, setting landmarks in his mind. Just in case the assigned driver decided on a last-minute change of route and neglected to tell anyone.

      I’ll take that, Bolt said to Ray, pointing to the radio. You take him. Uncuffing himself, then Peray, Bolt passed cuffs and key to Ray. Ray clicked them on his own right wrist and Peray’s left wrist. He put the key in his own inside shirt pocket.

      In the heat, Bolt’s shoulder holster was chafing him. Let it, he thought. He wasn’t taking it off until he turned the key on this creep in a New York jail. He wasn’t going to take off the ankle holster he wore, either.

      That tiny Beretta around his ankle had saved his life twice.

      He spoke into the radio. Harry. Harry. Come in. This is Bolt.

      Coming through loud and clear. Up yours, Bolt. Bolt grinned at the radio. Nothing like a friendly voice when a man is far from home.

      If Harry’s vocabulary was limited at the moment, nothing came from the La Playa cops up front or Peray in the back. Bolt didn’t mind. It was less to distract him. His Spanish was fluent. So was his French. It made undercover work in South America and Europe that much safer.

      If you’re going to lie, do it in the language of those you’re talking to at the time.

      He would liked to have heard what the La Playa cops had to say. OK la policia, thought Bolt, nail your lips shut. Just sit up front and sweat and think of all those pesos you’re not going to be getting anymore.

      And then with savage swiftness…

      The attack.

      Flares. Arcing up into the sky, then pop!

      And the road lit up with a green, eerie brightness.

      Then a grenade. Flying out of the darkness at the first car. Hitting the door on the driver’s side, killing him instantly and turning the car over on its side. The burning car now blocked the road.

      From the flame and smoke of that overturned car, two guards crawled out and began running for the side of the road. Bullets stitched crisscrossing red lines across the chest of one, driving him backwards and to the ground.

      The other got a few feet past his companion, when he was hit. Again and again and again, spinning him around in a circle, like a child’s aimless dance. He fell to the earth, both of his hands under his body.

      We’ve been hit! We’ve been hit! Bolt yelled into the radio over the noise of the first car exploding. Get here!

      He saw his driver make a quick motion. The car keys. Right out the window.

      Peray. That bastard, Bolt thought. He’s bought off at least one person in this car. How many more? Two? All three?

      It was a question needing a quick answer.

      CHAPTER 2

      THEY WEREN’T VERY GOOD. But they were still dangerous as hell.

      The cop sitting in front of Bolt had been told to kill him. Being fat and left-handed, however, and too dumb to think for himself, the cop got killed. By the intended victim.

      In the small car, the fat cop was tight against the door on his right, and the cop next to him. Being left-handed meant he had to draw his gun and squirm to his right to get a shot at Bolt.

      The fat cop would have been better off drawing with his left hand, then shooting Bolt. Instead he followed orders, giving the edge to Bolt.

      Bolt took it.

      He saw the cop trying to turn around and he knew why. Lowering the shotgun, Bolt placed it on the fat cop’s cheekbone and pulled the trigger. With the shotgun’s roar, the top of the fat cop’s head flew off and splattered on the windshield. His body leaned against the door, gently forcing it open.

      The fat cop, following the opening door, fell out into the road.

      Ray had been the driver’s target. The driver’s luck, however, was just as bad. He had been told two things: Bolt has to die first. And be careful not to shoot Peray.

      Following instructions made the driver slow. He had given himself away by throwing the keys out the window. When he reached to unbutton his holster, Ray shot him in the temple. The cop’s body stiffened as though he were attempting to sit up straight. Then he collapsed against the seat.

      The third cop panicked, screaming Nada mas! Nada mas! He didn’t want to earn his blood money. He wanted out, nothing more. Sliding quickly to his right, his hands and arms covered with blood from those beside him, the third cop fell to the road on his hands and knees.

      He stood up, tripped, got up again and started running for the trees. The attackers, waited until he was away from the car and opened fire. He was dead before he hit the ground. Tonight, only Peray’s safety counted.

      They’re being careful, said Bolt, as he put a new shell in his shotgun. They don’t want to hit him. Stay loose but stay in the car. One thing—if we can’t hold on to him, he’s not to be rescued. I mean it. I want a bullet in him, if that’s the way it has to be.

      Ray looked at Bolt, saying nothing. Then he nodded. He understood.

      Bolt then looked at Peray and told him, in French, that the narcs would kill him before letting him go free. Peray smiled and in French said to Bolt, Let us see who kills and who dies, pig! Your jail does not interest me. Can death be any worse than that?

      Placing the barrel of the shotgun near Peray’s eye, Bolt said, Are you sure you feel that way?

      Peray drew his head back. His pride as a man, as a ruler, was being challenged by a narc whose yearly salary was less than the street price of a kilo of heroin. This pig now had the power of life and death over him.

      At first Peray didn’t trust himself to speak. He trusted himself to hate. And he knew that he hated Bolt. He drew strength from that hatred. As long as I am alive, he said, you are a dead man. No matter where I am in the world, either free or in jail, you are dead. I will have you killed as painfully as possible.

      Bolt knew Peray meant it. He also knew Peray had admitted more than he was aware of Peray did not want to die. That was one reason for the venomous speech. But not the only reason.

      Men had come for Bolt’s life before.

      But Peray was different. If Bolt lived through tonight, he would have to be more careful than he had ever been in his life.

      Shooting stopped. The third car. Where was the third car? And where the hell were the two other groups? Bolt hoped they had gotten his frantic message.

      Ray. The radio. Get on it and stay on it.

      Done. Picking the radio off the car floor where it had been dropped in a hurry, Ray flicked the switch. Nothing. He flicked it again, And again. Nothing.

      Bolt reached over, ripped it from his hand and began flicking the switch. Again and again. Then, a faint sound of static. Ray grinned and said Yeah…

      Bolt’s heart leaped. More static, but stronger this time.

      And then the third car. Bolt heard it before he saw it in the moonlight. Coming up behind them. Fast. Aiming itself at them. Ready to ram.

      They’re trying to force us out! said Bolt. Give me the key. Stay put. Ray passed the key to Bolt, who put it in his shirt pocket. I’m going out, he said to Ray. If I come back, it’ll be in a hurry, so don’t get trigger happy.

      Ray nodded.

      The third car was closer. Bumpy roads and darkness had made driving hard, but it was clear what was on the driver’s mind.

      A flare went up. Plenty of light now. Just for a few seconds, but enough time for Bolt.

      He turned the handle, then kicked the car door open and quickly scrambled out on the road. No shooting at him yet. He was too near the car, too near Peray.

      Crawling fast, Bolt got around to the back of the car, then rolled underneath it. No time to aim. Pointing the shotgun at the uncoming car, he fired one shot at the front left tire, tearing half of it off.

      The speeding car leaned in the direction of the collapsing tire, then turned in a sharp half-circle. Now the entire left side of the car was facing Bolt. In range of his shotgun.

      He jerked the trigger twice, firing both blasts into the windows. High-pitched screams told him he had hit someone. The broken glass slicing across the inside of the car cut into the four men.

      The shotgun shells did more damage than that. Two cops were killed immediately, a third was blinded by the flying glass, while the fourth had his arm torn off at the shoulder.

      Dazed by the pain, he sat in the driver’s seat muttering Spanish prayers. The cop blinded by the glass was squealing and rubbing the glass further into his eyes with his fist.

      Scrambling from underneath the car, then crouching low, Bolt started back inside the car. Then he saw them, silhouetted against the flames from the first car.

      Three men, two of them with upraised machetes catching the moonlight, running at him out of the darkness. His ears picked up the sound of a chain. At least one of the three was coming in fast, swinging a chain.

      Bolt shouted, Watch it, Ray! I think they’re moving in from both sides!

      Dropping the empty shotgun, Bolt quickly tore his Colt from his shoulder holster. He gripped it in both hands and did what he had done thousands of times on the department’s firing range. Bending his knees slightly, he brought the gun up even with his chest and fired at the man in the rear.

      The bullet caught the man in the stomach and drove him back six feet. If he wasn’t dead, he wasn’t moving around a lot. This was one time when Bolt knew why narcs were now packing heavier calibre guns.

      His next shot caught the second man in the chest, lifting him off his feet and into the air. He went down and stayed there.

      Then it turned bad for Bolt. That chain, that goddamn chain. The man threw it. Whether it was luck or skill, he connected. A good shot. The chain was long enough and heavy enough to make trouble.

      It came in high, hitting Bolt in the face and neck, causing him pain, and worse, making him close his eyes and duck. It was now wrapped around his face, neck and part of his chest. His next shot went high, hitting nothing and nobody. Another hard pull, left then right, and the narc dropped his gun.

      The man was fast. Apparently, he had made himself a reputation as a fighter, just with that chain, his hands, and feet. He was on Bolt, kneeing him hard and pulling on that chain.

      He jerked Bolt left, then right. Then more gunfire. From the back of the car. Ray’s heavy Colt was at work.

      Shouts in Spanish. Were the other attackers shooting at him? Had the second and third groups gotten there? Damn! Right now, Bolt couldn’t take time to check.

      The man with the chain was making Bolt bleed. He pulled the narc right, then left, then forward, never letting the narc get set. Each time he had the chance, the man with the chain would use his feet and his knees. He knew how.

      My luck, thought Bolt. South Americans are supposed to be poor, too poor to be anything but barefoot or in sandals. This guy’s giving me lumps and he’s wearing boots.

      The narc couldn’t take much more of this. The chain was cutting into his face and neck, and those kicks were hurting him.

      Down. Bolt was on the ground. Rolling over on his side, taking the kick in the back rather than in the groin. His hands dug into the earth. Both hands now filled with dirt. He stayed down precious seconds longer, gripping the earth, taking two more agonizing kicks in the back. Now he had two handfuls of dirt.

      With all of his strength, he willed himself to his feet and made it to his knees, facing the chain man. As the chain man brought his leg up to kick Bolt in the face, the narc brought both arms up in front for protection and took the kick on his forearms.

      The pain shot through his arms. Now or never. He tossed the dirt at the chain man’s face. Backing off, the chain man put his left hand to his face, frantically trying to scrape the dirt from his eyes.

      His right hand still held the chain. But he had let it go slack.

      Bolt’s right hand went down to his ankle holster and came up with the Beretta. His left hand quickly gripping his right wrist for support, the narc fired three shots.

      All three hit the chain man, two in the chest and the third through the left eye as he was falling.

      Unwinding the chain from himself, Bolt staggered to his feet.

      The decoy cars had arrived.

      Their headlights allowed Bolt to see the confusion. Newly arrived La Playa cops were chasing off in several directions. Bolt could make out one or two narcs. Even they weren’t sure what was going on or what to do. But everybody was shooting at somebody else.

      Peray!

      Bolt ran to the car. Peray, a small gun in his right hand, his left hand still handcuffed to Ray, was pushing Ray’s body out of the back seat. Another attacker, this one in fatigues, was pulling at Ray’s body, trying to clear the way for Peray to slip out.

      Bolt guessed where Peray had gotten the gun. Ten to one it had been hidden under the seat.

      Leaping into the car, Bolt grabbed the small gun from Peray, placing it against the dealer’s thigh, and pulled the trigger twice.

      Peray screamed in pain. He won’t be running anywhere now, Bolt thought. Dropping the small gun, Bolt shoved Peray hard, out of the back seat and into the man pulling him out of the car. Both Peray and the man hit the ground.

      Bolt was pissed. The other narcs should have reached the car by now. Unless they were being pinned down by gunfire. Which might be the case, Bolt thought, because the firing was still going on.

      Senor Peray? Are you all right? The voice came from behind Bolt, in Spanish and in a hurry. Throwing himself on the floor of the car, Bolt landed on his back, Beretta pointing at the voice.

      Two men, in fatigues. Obviously they had known the plan and were anxious to leave, now that reinforcements had arrived on the other side. And in the semi-darkness they had mistaken Bolt for Peray.

      A break for Bolt. He used it.

      He pulled the trigger on the Beretta three times. The last three shots. One shot went into an attacker’s right shoulder, making him drop his gun.

      The other two shots caught the second man in the head. Bolt scrambled out of the car and leaped on the wounded man. In pain himself, Bolt had no time or energy for subtlety. Seizing a nearby machete, he lifted the huge knife high and with both hands brought the blade down into the man’s neck.

      Footsteps behind him. Hurt and bleeding, Bolt got to his feet, the bloody machete in his hand. No time to look for a gun in the darkness. Gripping the handle hard, he waited.

      Bolt!

      The footsteps stopped. Harry was in the lead. Two more narcs and some La Playa cops.

      Through a haze of pain, Bolt tried to make out Harry’s face. Finally focusing on it, he realized that he himself must look like hell. Harry looked at him and said, Oh man…

      Forget it, said Bolt. Find Peray! He’s around here. He can’t have gone far. Find him!

      The narcs spread out, La Playa cops behind them. Bolt searched for his Colt and found it. Then he began looking in the darkness.

      Over here. One of the other agents was yelling. Over here.

      Bolt ran to the voice. He looked down at the body.

      Ray. Dead. His right arm bleeding where the hand had been chopped off.

      And not too far away, Peray. Abandoned by his would-be rescuer.

      Peray. Bleeding from two shots in his thigh. A heavy load to carry when another man is fleeing for his own life.

      The cuffs were still on Peray. Except that in one half of the handcuffs was Ray’s right hand and part of his forearm. They had been in a hurry, Bolt thought. So they had done this to Ray. Bolt hoped Ray was dead when it happened.

      Peray was pale. He had lost some blood and he wasn’t used to crawling around the jungle at night with a dead man’s hand hanging from his wrist. It had been a lot of exertion for him.

      He was muttering, seemingly to himself. In French.

      I thought he spoke English, said Harry.

      He does, said Bolt. When he wants to.

      What’s he saying? asked Harry.

      Bolt didn’t answer right away. Then he said softly, He’s just made a vow to kill me.

      Bolt looked down at Peray, their eyes meeting. Both stared at each other, as if sealing a pact, a deadly pact understood only by two men who hated each other.

      Bolt then turned his back on Peray and went over to Ray’s body. Bending over, he gently picked up the dead agent’s body and walked towards a car.

      CHAPTER 3

      ONE THOUSAND POUNDS OF heroin. Pure and uncut.

      Street value: $250,000,000.

      It had never been done before. St. James Livingston would do it now. He would bring 1,000 pounds of uncut heroin into the country and grow richer.

      He was already rich. Number one heroin dealer in New York and on the entire east coast. A thirty-five-year-old black who had made good in a changing society, one might say.

      St. James Livingston wore suits made especially for him on London’s Saville Row. His home in a New Jersey suburb cost $300,000, paid for in cash. At those prices, his all-white neighbors accepted him without kicking up a fuss.

      His five cars cost an average of $30,000 each. His women were almost as expensive. Camille, his black wife, loved horses. She owned three, all jumpers. St. James gave her what she wanted. It kept her quiet and occupied.

      His other woman was predictable in her tastes, as predictable as a mercenary woman could be. Lynda Hampton was a white call girl. She had met St. James while on the job. Now she had retired. At the age of 24. At St. James’ request. He gave her $500 a month for the apartment, $300 a month for assorted house expenses and $200 a week spending money.

      Her shopping bills, not to exceed $500 a month, were sent to St. James’ accountant, who kept the books on investments. Real estate, record companies, restaurants, a loan company.

      No books were kept on St. James’ heroin business. He kept those figures in his head. So did the accountant.

      Lynda earned the money St. James spent on her. She was an encyclopedia of sensuality. Tricks? she said to St. James, when he complimented her on her extensive sexual knowledge and willingness. I don’t know any tricks. I’m a technician and if the mood hits me, I become sexually artistic. But tricks? Tricks are for high-school girls with their drawers down in the back seat of a Volkswagen. Doing it there is what I call a trick.

      They were in bed then.

      St. James smiled, pulled her lean body over on top of him and said, Show me something technical.

      She did.

      But it was that 1,000 pounds of heroin that concerned him more than any woman. $250,000,000. He would be more than rich. He would be the biggest dealer since dealing began. He liked that idea.

      That’s why two months ago he had started a famine.

      St. James Livingston, the drug dealer, refused to sell heroin.

      No heroin was to be sold in Harlem, Manhattan, Bedford Stuyvesant, South Jamaica or Newark. A famine. Nobody to get well until St. James said so.

      He had help from the law in making the famine a success. Narcs had made some spectacular busts lately, seizing a lot of heroin. Those anonymous tips had helped them. St. James had furnished the tips.

      And it was an election year. Dealers didn’t want to be busted now. Politicians could ride to glory on a dealer’s behind, especially if that behind was coming up for trial and facing 30 years to life.

      So a few big dealers had listened to St. James and willingly gone along. Those were the ones who lived to learn how St. James had gotten to the top. By climbing higher and higher on a pile of dead bodies.

      Vacant lots and trunks of abandoned cars were soon occupied by dead dealers and pushers who had challenged St. James Livingston. They challenged him once. Never twice.

      He was careful. It had been years since he had done any killing. Like the white mobs before him, St. James had learned. Insulate yourself. Stay far from the crime. Don’t pull the trigger. Pay somebody to do it. Don’t accept the delivery when the heroin crosses the border.

      Let somebody else do that. Pick it up after it’s safely in the country.

      St. James had learned. And it was about to pay off. One thousand pounds of uncut heroin. Coming to him from South America, from The French Man. From Antoine Georges Peray.

      Price: $10,000,000. Half in advance, the rest on delivery. The advance payment had been tough. It had taken everything St. James owned. All of his profits, plus mortgages on some of his properties, all the cash he had in safety deposit boxes, the loot he had in his stash.

      But he had made it. The advance was to be done in ten payments.

      $500,000 each. Nine payments had been made, with one more remaining.

      Peray’s daughter, his most trusted courier, came to New York and personally collected the money.

      Like all drug dealers, Peray trusted nobody. Nobody. Except Line, his pretty twenty-five-year-old daughter. That gal had balls. Cool as a witch’s tit. Picking up the money, taking it to banks or to wherever her father told her. She idolized her father.

      She told that to St. James, who was smart enough not to mix business with pleasure. He didn’t come on with Line. Too much at stake. And besides, she seemed frozen. Her English was good, but she didn’t like long conversations. Just the money. It took her hours to count it, but she counted it each time. St. James watched her. He and four armed guards.

      Line never looked up. When she was through, she said, Thank you, Monsieur, and left for the airport. St. James’ guards saw that she made it without a rip off.

      Yesterday, St. James concluded a deal with the Mafia. He didn’t mind dealing with white mobs. He had done it before. Twice. And it worked out fine each time. Yesterday, through a big loan shark, the mob had agreed to lend him money.

      $5,000,000.

      The final payment to Peray, due on delivery of the 1,000 pounds of heroin. Ten days from now.

      Then the famine would be over. And the profits would be stacked from here to the moon. St. James Livingston would be a wealthy man. And money is power. He had a lot at stake, all riding on the delivery and the famine.

      Junkies were crying. Only one percent heroin in a fix, when you could get it. Tough, thought St. James. Keep hurting. In 10 days, the famine’s over, and everybody gets well. And he would get $250,000,000.

      At the moment, St. James was in a custom-made Rolls Royce. It had cost him $40,000 before he had added the improvements. Now the car was worth $55,000 and there wasn’t another one like it. Pearl-gray with white sidewall tires, television and a bar in the back seat. Stereo, plus tape deck and a miniature Tiffany lamp in the back. That lamp cost $2,000.

      The Rolls headed towards Lynda’s East 50th St. apartment in Manhattan. St. James pushed a button. The glass partition between him and the driver slid silently down. Stop and get me a newspaper, he said to the black chauffeur, Ahmed, also his bodyguard.

      Ahmed lifted his right hand slightly as a signal that he had heard, and continued driving. St. James pressed a button and the glass slid back up between them.

      Spotting a newsstand, Ahmed pulled the car over to the curb, stepped out, got the paper and handed it through the window to St. James.

      Back in the car and heading towards the ex-call girl’s apartment, Ahmed had his eyes on the road. In the back seat of the car, a sudden motion caught his eye. Striking out with his gloved fist, St. James smashed the small Tiffany lamp. His face was twisted and he was shouting.

      Ahmed slowed down, pulled near the curb, double parking, the motor running. The partition slid down. St. James was cursing, screaming, spit flying from his mouth.

      Look! Goddamn it nigger, look!

      Reaching behind him, Ahmed took the newspaper and read the headline. ANTOINE PERAY EXTRADITED. HOSPITALIZED. ARRAIGNMENT SOON.

      An enraged St. James was slamming his fist into the back seat. Shit! he shouted. Shit! It was more than rage.

      For the first time in a long while, St. James Livingston felt fear.

      Steve Sanchez, real name Esteban Nadvidad Sanchez, was the hottest piece of political merchandise in New York. It would take more than that, however, to get him elected Senator.

      He was thirty-eight, handsome and Spanish in a city where the Spanish population grabbed at anything to feel alive and proud. They were grabbing at Steve Sanchez. And he counted on them, and others, to make him the first Spanish-speaking Senator from New York State.

      But he needed money. A lot of it. More than he had ever needed before. Money was power, but it also took money to get power.

      Political campaigns were expensive. Staff workers had to be paid. Television spots, billboards, posters—they cost plenty. And the fat cats, the big money boys, weren’t ready to put money on Sanchez just now.

      Let him win a big one and the backing would be there. He wasn’t a loser. He just hadn’t won big enough yet. Having been on the city council, and currently being a representative in Congress weren’t enough to make him worth a big investment.

      Sanchez told himself he would shove it down their throats one day. Just let him win this election, let him become Senator and watch what happens. The money boys would then kiss his red-beans-and-rice ass.

      Getting nominated hadn’t been hard. He had used the media, making it work for him. Sanchez was an expert at that, growing up in the age of television, of imagery and promotion. True, it was only the Independent Party nomination, but he was in the race. Definitely.

      And Independents had won in the past. Right now he needed money, big money. He was using the press beautifully, staging events, setting up press conferences, arranging news to give himself the image of a hard-hitting, young and glamorous politician of the people.

      An underdog whose time has come. That went over big in this town. He got a lot of space with that line, and he had thought it up himself.

      Two years ago when he had needed money he had gone to St. James Livingston. Who but a nigger would help a spic? Several weeks ago, Sanchez went to him again, in secret and in desperation. They needed each other. Sanchez with his fever for fame and power. St. James with his fever for wealth.

      St. James had paid a lot of money to men whose faces he would never see and who would not want to be seen with him under any circumstances. But because his new association with Sanchez involved much more, the two had met and talked.

      It was agreed that Sanchez was to get $1,000,000. Dummy organizations would be formed to account for part of the money set to come in as campaign contributions. The rest of the money would be donated in the names of respectable people, who owed favors to St. James or to Sanchez.

      In return, Sanchez would help St. James. Again. This time, he would help the dealer bring something into the country. That something was worth $250,000,000. Sanchez had helped St. James before, and for a whole lot less.

      Sanchez was a hero to more than just the Spanish-speaking community of New York. His widely publicized career had made him a national figure in a short period of time. Latins from all over America looked up to him.

      So did Latins out of the country. Sanchez had been in direct contact with the Cuban Government, at that government’s request. There wasn’t much the American Government could do about it. And when Sanchez had told the U.S. State Department that the President of Cuba would like to make a visit to America, the American Government went bug-eyed.

      Good or bad, it was an offer to consider. From the White House came the reply: follow it up.

      The Cubans refused to deal with anyone except Sanchez. He was Spanish, a brother revolutionary fighting the imperialists. And that’s how Steve Sanchez, now reaching for the biggest political prize of his life, got the opportunity to arrange for the first visit to America in many years by a Cuban head of state.

      The publicity, the prestige, the boost to his political ambitions was huge. Sanchez was on the move. Up and upward. Cuban Prime Minister Castillo would be coming to America in ten days.

      As far as the American Government was concerned, it was a ticklish situation. Nothing must go wrong. Security would be incredibly tight and no one must do anything to offend the Cubans.

      Sanchez was counting on that. So was St. James Livingston. And so was Antoine Georges Peray.

      Because somewhere in this very delicate Cuban mission would be 1,000 pounds of uncut heroin. Coming in under diplomatic cover. Right through customs, under the noses of the President of the United States, members of Congress, the State Department and a security guard that was the biggest in the nation’s history.

      One thousand pounds of uncut heroin. $250,000,000.

      Somewhere in tons of baggage that could not possibly be examined for fear of offending a chief of state. If this visit was to do any good, the American Government could not afford to piss the Cubans off with a good toss, a tough customs examination.

      But visiting foreign diplomats never get a good toss. Drug dealers knew that. St. James did and so did Sanchez and Peray.

      What Sanchez did not know was told to him over a morning radio broadcast which said Peray was arrested and now in New York. In a hospital, recovering from two shots in the thigh, waiting to be brought to trial.

      Sanchez stopped eating. He turned the radio up so loud that his wife smiled and said to him, You want your relatives down in the islands to hear about you? Let them buy their own radio.

      Sanchez didn’t laugh. Right now he didn’t feel like laughing about anything.

      That same morning, a slim and beautiful young French girl, dressed in expensive black suede—boots, dress, coat and small hat, walked through the arrival terminal at Kennedy Airport.

      Men looked at her and smiled. She ignored them. She was in New York to pick up $500,000, the final advance payment on a load of heroin being shipped to New York by her father.

      She was Line Peray, twenty-five years old, and the most trusted courier working for her father. The old man was suspicious and vicious, except when it came to Line. She had his trust and whatever love existed in his cold and calculating heart.

      Stopping for a newspaper and cigarettes, Line casually looked at the headline. Her heart sprang into an irregular beat, pounding until she could almost hear it.

      Her mouth went dry. She felt faint. She ran for a taxi, leaving her change. The old woman behind the counter yelled Miss! Miss! Your change. You forgot your change!

      In the back of the taxi, Line Peray wept. No one had ever seen her do that since she was a very little girl. No one except her father.

      CHAPTER 4

      IT’S THE SAME AS going to a shrink, said Bolt.

      What is? she said.

      Screwing.

      They were in her apartment, in her bed, lying naked in each other’s arms.

      Why, oh mighty narc, is screwing like going to a shrink?

      Because, said Bolt, you lie down and you start telling a stranger all about yourself.

      Oh, you, she said and pushed him away from her.

      Her name was Pavanne Deane. She was a New York newspaper reporter, and a good one. She lived in Greenwich Village, a ground floor two-room apartment. At twenty-six, she had won two journalism awards for her investigative reporting.

      She and Bolt had met six months ago, when she was covering a narcotics trial and needed some background information. When she had shown up at D-3’s office, every guy there had stopped to look at the tall girl with tinted glasses, ash-blonde hair and fantastic ass.

      You were the only guy who didn’t drool that day, she had said to Bolt.

      I know, he had replied.

      Why?

      He had looked at her and said, Because that was the only way to get you.

      He had gotten her the next night. And hadn’t seen her or phoned her for three months afterwards. At first she had been hurt. Then she was angry. Slowly she became resigned to his never calling again.

      When he had called, she had cursed him out over the phone. That very night, in bed, he had told her something about himself. Not all, just a little. She understood. Not all, just a little.

      They had seen each other when his work allowed. That wasn’t often. Becoming lovers had been easy. Becoming friends was a lot harder.

      Now he was back. Lying beside her, bruises on his face from something that had happened in South America. And he was quiet. She still knew only a little about him. She knew that he was thirty-one years old, a narcotics agent for six years, 6’1", unmarried, and had scars on his body that didn’t come from acne.

      What’s this one? she had asked one night, running her long, slim fingers over a round scar the size or a quarter on his left side.

      That’s the reason I left the police force. He had then told her about that. The corruption, the cops on the take from narcotics and how he had wanted no part of them. He told her how he had bitched to his superiors about the sticky-fingered cops around him, and how nothing had been done about it.

      The scar had been made by a bullet. A police bullet. On the morning Bolt had been set to testify before a congressional committee on police corruption in New York, he had had two visitors. Soltis and Kallenstein. Two cops on the pad, on the take. Greedy, corrupt and mean.

      They were there to kill him, to make it look as though Bolt had had a falling out with a drug dealer. With nothing to lose, Bolt had gone for his gun. And taken one bullet in his side and one across the forehead.

      In turn he had killed the two cops.

      Lying in the hospital, Bolt had had a visitor. A man named Craven, who wore only black suits and who would be running a great deal of Bolt’s life from now on. Craven ran the Department of Dangerous Drugs (D-3) and he was there to recruit Bolt.

      He told Bolt that the dead cops had friends, none of whom loved Bolt. The wounded man got the picture. And took Craven’s offer. Craven had mentioned one more thing. This shooting had not made the newspapers. The request for silence had come from a top government figure. That’s how much clout Strike Force had and was willing to use.

      Good salary, $25,000 a year to start. Ten weeks training in Washington D.C., assignments all over the world, a minimum of publicity, and working strictly in the narcotics field. Hunting for drugs and drug dealers.

      Bolt had taken the offer, and in six years he had lived a hell of a life. Undercover and intelligence. The United States, Europe, Asia and South America. A chance to travel and to be shot at. A moving target.

      Well, it had beat playing with himself. Besides, Bolt hated pushers. They were greedy and vicious. They existed because other people were bleeding to death. America was turning into hell because pushers wanted money.

      Pushers gave free heroin to ten-year-old girls and turned them into working whores. They gave free heroin to thirteen-year-old boys and turned them into homosexual sex slaves. They made heroin available for junkies of all races’ and ages in American cities, turning entire communities into terrified fortresses.

      Pushers corrupted cops, judges, district attorneys and even federal narcotics agents. Drug dealers had turned America into a shit-hole, pouring the White Death over a country that used to be a damn good place to live.

      It wasn’t such a good place to live anymore. And Bolt was sad about that. Which is why he was a narc, putting his life on the line for a dream that had turned into a

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