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Devil's Playground [A Mack Bolan: The Executioner Novel] [Secure]
by Don Pendleton
Category: Suspense/Thriller/Suspense/Thriller
Description: Warrior State When Emilio Brujillo, governor of Mexico's Guerro state, finds himself under siege by the Juarez cartel, he turns to the U.S. for help against one of the most brutal narcotraficante organizations. Working undercover to stem the escalating violence, Mack Bolan is surrounded by corrupt military officials, Russian organized crime and a renegade cult that engages in ritual sacrifice. But the deadliest threat that Bolan faces is the seductive governor's wife, who is also the secret leader of a Santeria cult. Anibella Brujillo is leaking information on Bolan's activities to the enemy while playing her husband, her government and its people with skill and cunning. Mack Bolan is willing to swallow the lady's bait, see where it leads...especially if its straight to the darkest hellholes of human depravity.
eBook Publisher: Harlequin/Gold Eagle,
eBookwise Release Date: November 2007
 
5 Reader Ratings:
Available eBook Formats [Secure - What's this?]: OEBFF Format (IMP) [500 KB]
GEOGRAPHIC RESTRICTIONS: Available to customers in: US, NZ, SG, TW, ER, GQ, LS, MG, MW, SD, SN, HM, MN, GD, JM, LT, SI, BY, FO, TR, PS, BM, AS, IO, SB, FK, SR, AF, FJ, CA, ES, PR, PH, BF, EG, KE, NG, RE, BV, TF, GE, KP, MV, PK, TL, BQ, HT, KN, CZ, CH, GI, IS, RS, SJ, BH, MH, NU, BO, AD, AL, AE, GF, MX, FR, IT, BE, CF, DZ, EH, GN, MA, MZ, SO, TD, TG, BT, KG, NP, VN, IM, AW, BB, CW, EE, LU, VA, IQ, QA, KI, PF, TK, AR, PE, AM, NI, KR, VI, UM, KM, MR, NA, NE, TN, TZ, KH, TJ, GG, LC, CY, FI, GR, HR, MD, JO, KW, OM, SY, YE, CC, FM, GT, MY, CD, CG, GA, ZA, ZM, ZW, MM, DM, GP, TT, VG, DK, HU, IE, LV, PT, SE, MC, ME, NO, IL, LB, GL, CK, GU, NR, PG, CL, GY, BL, BZ, DE, CN, BJ, CM, CV, GM, SH, UG, HK, UZ, GS, PN, SX, AT, AX, BG, MT, RO, BA, LI, MK, RU, PM, CX, PW, VU, CO, SV, UY, AU, BR, JP, BI, BW, CI, SL, BD, BN, ID, IN, LA, MO, TH, TM, MS, BS, CU, DO, MQ, TC, VC, PL, SM, UA, SA, TO, WF, HN, PY, NL, DJ, ET, GH, GW, LY, ML, MU, RW, ST, SZ, AZ, KZ, KY, MF, SK, JE, IR, MP, NC, NF, TV, WS, CR, EC, PA, VE, LK, AG, AI What's this?
CHAPTER ONE Jon Dever was tempted to pull a cigarette from the glove compartment of the U.S. Border Patrol Ford Bronco, but he was trying to quit. His partner, Daniel Hogan, saw Dever's gaze fall on the glove compartment door and smirked. "Don't start, Dan," Dever muttered. Hogan's smirk continued to grow. "You should try some nicotine gum, Jon." "I did. Ate a whole pack at once and nearly puked my guts out," Dever grumbled. "Besides, if I light up, they'll smell the smoke a country mile away, even if they can't make it out through the windshield." Hogan nodded sagely. That had been the younger man's intent, to push his older partner into rationalizing against taking another cigarette. Dever was twelve years older than Hogan, who was in his early thirties, and had about seventy pounds on the younger man. Most of it was muscle, but enough was the result of the thickening of age. Hogan put his night-vision glasses to his eyes again. "Got a visual." Dever picked up his glasses and looked. "Three trucks. They look military but—" "Either the Mexican army's making extra cash selling surplus to heroin smugglers, or they went in for steady employment by doing the transportation themselves," Hogan surmised. "Either way, our orders are not to fire on anyone wearing a Mexican uniform." "This is bullshit," Dever said. "My training officer would have had an aneurysm if he'd been told to let those bastards shoot at him without returning fire." "Hey. Washington doesn't have a spine anymore. They'd rather beat their chests in a foreign country, but let the psychos next door do as they please," Hogan snarled. Dever took a long, deep breath, then got out a digital camcorder with a low-light optical filter on the lens. At least they could document any efforts by the neighboring nation's military in breaking international law. Dever's brow furrowed. "What's wrong?" Hogan asked. He eyed the M-4 carbine locked in its clamp against the dashboard. It, and the Heckler & Koch .40-caliber pistol on his hip, would give any opponent a run for his money, if only his trigger finger hadn't been restrained by insipid rules of engagement. The official attitude was to not spark a border war, but apparently the men wearing army uniforms and carrying Mexican-issue rifles were under no such restriction. Several Border Patrol agents had been injured in increasingly tense encounters across the past few years. It was only a matter of time before the bastards had collected the final breath of an American law-enforcement agent. Some had called for the end of the Border Patrol due to its failure to control or act against foreign invaders. Others had wanted the National Guard to step in. Still more took their own weapons and camped out at major thoroughfares for migrating illegal aliens, seeking to take the law into their own hands. The fact that the American Minutemen were looking only to turn back illegal aliens, and not gun down unarmed intruders who were coming merely to seek jobs had kept the situation from surging to a flash-point of violence. It had come close a couple of times. Military forces and federal agents had dealt with a crisis for the then-new Mexican president as powerful smuggling alliances actually engaged in brutal assault on American lawmen. Only the actions of people who existed in whispered rumor had prevented a second Mexican-American war from ripping the continent apart. Hogan sighed. He hoped that the men who didn't exist would make their presence felt again to push back the encroaching and increasingly bold and deadly smugglers. Dever looked at the feed on the screen. "Something is moving out in the desert behind the trucks, but I can't quite make it out. It might be a person. It's about the right mass, but it doesn't…No, it disappeared." Hogan chuckled nervously. "Maybe you saw a Chupacabra." "Not too many goats for a goat-sucker to feed on out there, Dan," Dever returned. "Nothing. I just see bupkis." Hogan nodded. "We'll review the DVR later. Maybe image enhancement will—" "Down!" Dever shouted, and Hogan's head slammed against the driver's window. The windshield cracked violently as something crashed into it. Plings and plunks of rifle fire sounded on the Bronco's metallic skin. Dever had his double-action-only USP .40 out, but instead of rising above the dashboard, he stayed hunched over the younger agent. "Damn bureaucrats are going to murder us," Dever snarled. "They will if we don't shoot back," Hogan said. He felt a knot rising on his battered skull, but he was in no more of a mood to rise and engage the enemy than Dever. M-16s and the Heckler & Koch pistols were hot stuff against poorly trained "coyotes" armed with AK-47s. The human smugglers couldn't hit the broadside of a barn at one hundred yards, while both the Border Patrol's chosen pistol and rifle could score head shots at that same distance. Unfortunately, the enemy gunmen across the border were three hundred yards out. The short-barreled M-4s came up as inferior at that distance when compared to the older but vastly more powerful Heckler & Koch G3 battle rifles. The G3's 7.62 mm NATO bullet could kill at over eight hundred yards. Only the armor plating and the heavy engine of the USBP Ford Bronco had managed to stop the high-powered slugs from drilling into the two agents. The windshield finally gave up the ghost and disintegrated into diamondlike cubes of broken glass that rained down upon the pair. "Damn!" Dever shouted. Suddenly, from across the border, another weapon discharged. It was deep and powerful, thundering across the plains. The Mexican rifles stopped firing. Copyright © 2007 by Worldwide Library.
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