business.
Here in New Orleans, LAGO had established a major presence in areas both overt and covert. Raoul Garros, the real power in LAGO's New Orleans branch, was Paz's man.
Paz was a past master at feathering his own nest. He'd carried out the establishment of the safe house strictly by himself, going outside channels to avoid leaving any frail, paper or other. The official spy organization being run out of the consulate had a number of safe houses in the city at its disposal. That was no good to Paz. He needed his own private safe house (or bolt-hole), known only to him.
He had several million dollars salted away in various offshore banking concerns.
He'd set up a dummy corporation, using it to buy the site of the abandoned Jiffy Pump gas station. His ownership and identity were hidden behind an intricate assemblage of false-front companies and cutouts.
He hired a construction firm from neighboring Mobile, Alabama, to refurbish it to his liking. They'd installed the security hardware, the keypad-activated electronic locks, the reinforced doors, roll-down bay doors, metal mesh grilles protecting the windows.
Paz's shell company had the electric power switched on, paying the monthly bills.
He'd also fitted the site with some extras.
He swilled another long pull of rum, crossed to the left wall of the office, the one adjacent to the garage. Bottle in one hand and machine pistol in the other, he crossed to the left wall of the office, where a door stood, and opened it. No tricky mechanism involved here; he turned the knob and the door opened. The smell of oil and stale grease hung heavy in the air.
He switched on the overhead fluorescent lights. The garage was rigged like the office, windows blacked out to prevent the escape of a single beam of light. A precaution that mattered little during the day but would be important after dark.
The bay nearest the office featured a late-model Explorer SUV. 'The SUV of Death,' as he liked to call it. It was parked facing the closed bay door. Its plates were legal, as was its registration.
Standing in a rear corner of the garage was an old air compressor, a bulky and ancient hulk of disused machinery set in a housing whose base was bolted to the floor. Paz went to one knee beside it, turning two of the heads of the bolts. The bolts turned easily, unlocking a concealed mechanism.
He gripped the edges of the housing, putting his shoulder to it. The base with its flaring metal flanges was mounted on a hidden axle, pivoting easily enough under his efforts. He pushed it to one side, out of the way, revealing an oblong space cut into the floor. It contained several suitcases. Paz hauled them out and opened them up.
They contained weapons: a Kalashnikov assault rifle complete with grenade launcher, a half-dozen grenades, an Uzi-style machine gun, a number of big-bore handguns (revolvers and semi-automatics), plus plenty of boxes of ammunition and spare clips for each.
Paz selected a pair of 9mm pistols, Berettas, loading each with full magazines. He stuck the pistols in his waistband at his hips, Wild West style. He stuffed some more magazines into the side pockets of his tattered sports coat.
Now that he had some more firepower to fall back on, he felt physically relieved, able to cope. It was like a shot of dope.
Other pressing needs demanded his immediate attention. The stolen car, for one. He couldn't leave it out in the open, for fear that a cruising police helicopter might spot it.
He unlocked and opened the front door of the empty garage bay and raised it, the segmented sliding door rising and refracting along the curved tracks overhead. Light filled the cavelike garage space; heat poured out of it.
Paz stepped through the open bay door and went around to the back of the building. He started up the tan coupe, circling around to the front, and backing the machine into the bay.
He stood in the open bay doorway, scanning the scene. Vehicles continued to roll past in both directions, none showing any sign of interest or even notice of the activity at the station. He pulled down the sliding door, closed and locked it. So much for the stolen car, putting it out of sight.
He turned his attention to the assault rifle, quickly assembling and loading it. His touch was sure, betraying no slightest trace of hesitation of clumsiness. Guns, he knew. They'd been an integral part of his life since early boyhood days.
Addressing an invisible foe, he said, 'You want a fight, you can have one!'
Martello Paz first saw the light of day in a Caracas slum, one of ten children by as many different fathers. An unattractive youth, lumpish-featured and thick-bodied, he early on demonstrated a penchant for lawlessness and a flair for violence. Law-abiding citizens, such few as there were in his crime-ridden barrio, marked him out as 'a bad one.'
He possessed the virtues of strength, cunning, and endurance. He was a fierce brawler and street fighter, traits that served him well in the street gangs which he'd joined as soon as he was able.
At thirteen he was as self-possessed and independent as a grown man — a hard, dour one. He smoked, drank, took drugs, and had sex with women and girls whenever he could get it. Two kills were already under his belt: a fifteen-year-old bully he'd stabbed to death; and an adult, a middle-aged shopkeeper who'd threatened to inform on Paz for stealing and had had his brains bashed out by a lead pipe wielded by the youngster.
At this point, he experienced a life-changing event.
The street gang he ran with was so full of itself that it valued hell-raising more than moneymaking, a sure sign of madness. They were rabid, and there's only one thing to be done with rabid dogs, and that's to put them down.
Sheer chance saved Martello from the kill-off. The night it came, by sheer chance he'd gotten drunk by himself and passed out in a clearing on a hillside.
He was awakened from a sodden stupor by the sound of shots and screams. The clamor came from the village below. Gunfire popped and rattled, punctuated by the explosive boom of shotguns.
Smoke clouds rose, underlit by red firelight. The blaze was coming from an old shack that the gang used as a clubhouse. Inside, the one-story structure was a mass of flames. The light spilling from it revealed several dark forms — bodies, dead bodies — sprawled on the ground in front of the structure.
A couple of jeeps were parked along one end of the plaza, headlights on, illuminating the town's central square. Figures were chasing down other figures and shooting them dead. The shooters were strangers; the ones they were shooting down were Martello's fellow gang members. The strangers were grown men, wielding handguns and shotguns.
A death squad.
The victims were teen gang members. Most of the killing had been done by the time Martello awoke. The square was littered with bodies. A heap of corpses lay at the foot of an adobe wall that had served as the backdrop for a firing squad. The executioners manhandled the ever-mounting pile of bodies, delivering the coup de grace of a bullet in the brain to the wounded.
Hot night. Hot work! When the job was done, one of the shooters, a leader from the way the others deferred to him, took off his cap and used a bandana to mop the sweat from his face. His visage was revealed in the firelight, a face Martello would never forget. The killers climbed into their jeeps and drove away.
At dawn, the villagers emerged from their huts to examine the carnage. In the main, they were able to control their grief. One or two heartrending cries sounded from mothers and sisters when they recognized their own flesh and blood among the bodies, but such unseemly displays were quickly shushed and silenced by their stoical menfolk.
Martello Paz took advantage of the opportunity to sneak into one or two houses, stealing food and water and anything else of value he could find. He sneaked back into the hills, deeming it best to maintain a low profile for the moment.
Later that day, the police arrived to deal with the mess. The 'investigation' was a desultory effort at best, police and villagers being equally unenthusiastic about solving the slaughter.
Martello Paz watched the cleanup effort from a hiding place in the brush bordering the outskirts of the town square. He particularly took note of the police official heading the operation.
It was the man who'd been leading the executioners the night before, whose face Martello had seen in the
