Blood Dues

Don Pendleton

Blood Dues

If you want to serve God, you have to take on His attributes. That includes the heavy responsibility of exercising vengeance.

Some call the Mafia a second government. Right. Well, if that's the case, there's going to be a second Civil War — The Executioner vs the Mob.

Prologue

The warrior was at home in darkness, comfortable in a world of gliding shadows. Motionless, he listened to the night noises all around him, picking out the sounds of insects, night birds, an alligator rumbling for its mate across the marshy hummocks. The soldier melded with the environment of the steaming Everglades, a predator like those around him, seeking prey in the gloom.

But he would not find it there.

The jungle compound was long abandoned. Weeds and clinging vines had overgrown the clapboard barracks structures, creepers tangling in the uprights of the one remaining lookout tower. Barbed-wire fencing, collapsed and rotted through in spots to grant him easy access, had become a rusty trellis for the climbing undergrowth.

The compound was deserted, yes, but it was still alive. The weathered buildings were infested now by furtive, creeping things, and swamp birds roosted in the sole surviving tower. Man had given way to the relentless march of Mother Nature there, but he had also left his brand upon the Everglades.

And there were ghosts.

The warrior felt them as he passed inside the fence, encroaching on their territory. If he closed his eyes, it almost seemed that he might see them, moving in and out around the barracks, standing their eternal watch along the overgrown perimeter.

He heard their voices whispering to him on the night wind, here disguised as rustling leaves, there the gentle creaking of intertwined trunks of swamp trees. They spoke to him in urgent terms; of honor, duty, vengeance, calling him by name.

The warrior answered them, and stilled their soft demanding voices with a promise.

Soon, soldados.

He was home again, among the ghosts, and there were dues to pay.

In blood.

1

The meet was on. John Ha

Waiting for the elevator, Ha

It occurred to Ha

It was like old times — well, almost — fitting all the scrambled pieces into place and making sense of jumbled, fragmentary leads. So different from the routine background checks and tawdry marital investigations that had largely occupied his days since he retired from Homicide.

This time, it seemed to count for something.

He had never met the Cuban, never even heard his voice before the call came in that afternoon, but he had instantly agreed to a meeting. The risk was there, of course — there was enough of the policeman left in Ha

At last the elevator came, and Ha

He had reached the car, his key in the lock, before he felt the enemy behind him. There was something, like the prickling of gooseflesh on his back, that signaled danger close at hand. He suddenly felt cornered in the parking stall. He was half prepared to turn when polished steel was pressed against the back of his skull.

John Ha

"You know the drill," a husky voice informed him.

Ha

So there were two of them.

"He's clean," a second voice a

A strong hand on his shoulder spun him around, then shoved him back against the Buick. There were two of them, like lethal bookends in their carbon-copy suits and modish haircuts. Ha

Joey Something held a Smith and Wesson .357 leveled at his chest. His partner clutched the snubby Colt that he had lifted out of Ha

"We're going for a ride," the older gunman told him. "You're driving."

Ha

"Get behind the wheel and don't try any hero bullshit."

Ha

The older gunman's name was still elusive, but some fragments of his rap sheet had been filtering back. Extortion ... arson... murder.

He was Mafia, a "made guy," right.

It figured.

Joey Something crawled in on the passenger's side, while his companion settled in the back seat, covering Ha

"Where to?"

"I'll let you know," the front-seat gu

Ha

Bearing south, they passed the twenty-story Omni, new Miami's unofficial centerpiece. The shotgun rider guided him beneath the 395 interchange and past the gently rolling greenery of Bicente

A group of ta

The gu

Survival was the first priority, and Ha

If their reaction time was slow enough to let him leave the speeding car alive.

If no one driving home from work plowed him under like a rabbit on the highway.