Blood & Tacos #1 (10 page)

He knows what proud America stands for, and he'll fight for it.

After reading RAKER by Don Scott, I'm still not exactly sure what that is. Raker works for The Company. But he's strictly freelance, not some government stooge. They call him when no one else can do the job. He's tall. He's white. He's blond. And he is not homosexual. Raker is Hitler's wet dream, and when white cops are being gunned down in the ghettos, he's let off the chain to mete out justice…

Published by Pinnacle, who gave us the immortal Destroyer series, Raker is Remo's very pale and blond shadow. The Destroyer destroys. Raker, well, if ungrateful minorities are the leaves, Raker is the gardening tool the Company uses to tell them to shut them up and be glad they're allowed to be Americans. Whether they're homosexuals, suspected homosexuals, blacks, Chinese, or Jews- I'm sorry, I meant liberal pansy radical lawyers with "large features"- Raker hates them and wishes they would stop their whining and work harder so they could be rich and white someday.

Raker lives in New York and hates everything he sees except the Statue of Liberty. And he doesn't even like her as a work of art, but the idea of her. "Because of the idea of her, he sometimes had to kill people." How can you not love a line like that? If Don Scott had run with that, instead of going off on racial tirades about how the Chinese were a hard-working people until the Reds took over and made them run drugs, this could've been a good fun read. Instead, it's like drinking with your crazy racist uncle, except you can't leave or call him a jackass. You can only throw the book at the wall so many times.

Raker works with a black man named Lawson, who's a "real Oreo, black on the outside, white inside." A Harvard grad who can talk jive, he's Raker's eyes and ears on the streets. In fact, Lawson does all the work, really. Raker just shows up when someone needs killing, or he gets bored and poses as a mugging victim to karate chop some street thugs. He takes a nap while the cops are being killed, his sources are shotgunned in the nutsack for sleeping outside their race, and his Company flunky is murdered for trying to help. Raker shrugs it off. He doesn't even care much that the cops are getting killed, just that some black radical group has the temerity to do it. Raker's kind of an asshole, really.

But he's the perfect protagonist for a story about black radicals, led by a Jewish lawyer, killing white cops to incite a race war. They have to steal a supercomputer to do it, to figure out what cop cars have white cops in them. It's kind of like a James Bond novel written by the Illinois Nazis from The Blues Brothers, and felt about ten years out of date for its 1982 release. By then we had Reagan in office and were scared shit of Arab terrorists, not black radical groups.

Raker only made it to two novels, but I'm almost eager to read the second one,
Tijuana Traffic
, to hear what crazy shit he has to say about Mexicans.

Thomas Pluck writes unflinching fiction with heart. His stories have appeared in
Plots with Guns, Pulp Modern, Crimespree Magazine, Beat to a Pulp: Hardboiled, Shotgun Honey, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Utne Reader
and elsewhere. His work will appear soon in
Hardboiled, Needle: A Magazine of Noir
and
Crimefactory
. He is working on his first novel, and is co-editor of
Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
.

 
By Lance Matrix

(discovered by Matthew C. Funk)

MATTHEW C. FUNK has been a lifelong fan of Lance Matrix's Tiger Team Bravo
stories, one of the great mercenary team series. If they ever decide to revive
it, no one knows the canon like Funk. A quick warning: if you ever get the chance
to see Funk's mint-condition complete TTB paperback collection, don't touch.
That is, if you prefer your ass unkicked. Thanks to Mr. Funk for choosing this
gem from 1976.

The Tiger leapt the ramp, caught air snarling, all four tires smoking, soared
over the jeeps of the Colombians. Met the highway still gunning it. Stacked
shocks ate the impact and the car shot for the big-rig ahead.

Banzai Billy Takamura smoothed a hand over his pomade hair. Relaxed into the waft of Marlboro and fuming rubber. Gave Colonel Professor a nod of his mirror shades.

"Ramp was just where you said it'd be."

Colonel Professor didn't look up, eyes fused to his homemade transponder. "Kill point's in five minutes."

Banzai ground snakeskin boot into the accelerator. Highway vanished. The Cartel big rig loomed—a white chip in the shimmering blank of Texan desert.

Gunfire from the Jeeps behind. 9mm slugs tapping on the 2-inch steel plating Banzai had welded to the Tiger. A sound that echoed the heavy pour of Khe Sanh rain to both men.

Colonel Professor tilted out the window with his MP-40 and let the machinepistol yell at the Colombian gunmen.

Banzai launched on. The Tiger closed to 200 yards on the big rig. Two more Jeeps pulled alongside the truck from the front. Slowed by its flanks to cut off the Tiger.

The Tiger's rear-glass spiderwebbed with dozens of bullet prints. Ricochets kicked the tires. Banzai caught a whiff of sweat through the leather of Professor's bomber jacket.

He stuck the Marlboro in his lips; stuck out the empty hand to Professor. Colonel Professor filled it with the MP-40.

Banzai ripped the wheel left. The Tiger spun. Professor worked the brake.

Banzai stuck the MP-40 out the window.

Tires shrieked over V-12 engine roar. The MP-40 firing was a bright white line of noise. Banzai's aim honed to pure fate behind mirror shades.

Professor cancelled the brake. The Tiger spun on. The two Jeeps spiraled off the road loaded with two dead drivers and two dead gunmen.

Banzai wrenched the wheel in line with the big rig. Gunned the Tiger deep into the red line. Professor watched the dying Jeeps flip behind.

"Couldn't have just shot them aiming with the rear-view, Banzai?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Four minutes until Kill point."

Kill point—the moment when the mission failed. The instant both men had been outrunning since Tiger Team Bravo had been abandoned in the Cambodian jungle to march their way out of a war that had cancelled their existence.

Neither man frowned to think of it. They hadn't frowned since they'd been orphaned to that long march from enemy lines with Captain Teague and their other teammates left for dead behind them.

Outrunning that moment was what they did. It was who Tiger Team Bravo was.

Banzai kept it in the red and Professor kept the blank expression on his slate black face. He'd worn it since he smelled the pre-historic flowers and burning fuel ofVietnama decade ago.

"Three minutes, thirty."

Banzai had his own clock: Seven seconds before the Jeeps alongside the truck trailer would reach its rear.

He punched nitro. The Tiger's roar sliced into a scream. Asphalt disappeared.

Five seconds. 100 yards between the Tiger and the Cartel trailer's rear.

Three seconds. Banzai lifted the MP-40 again. Sneered to ash the Marlboro.

One second. Banzai jerked the wheel right.

The Tiger's front bumper clipped the rear of the Jeep to the right just as it dropped past the trailer. Slammed the smaller vehicle into a skid. The coked-up Jeep driver panicked; the skid became a spin.

Banzai balanced the MP-40 on his arm, sent a cloud of 9mm parabellum into the Jeep on the left. Opened the driver's skull like a can of creamed corn. Sent the gunman sprawling.

The Tiger pulled straight. The two Jeeps joined the others twisted aside the nameless desert highway.

"Three minutes." Professor lifted the M79 grenade launcher from the roof rack. Rolled down inch-thick bulletproof glass with his other hand.

The target held more than 300 kilos of Colombian flake. The Cartel used it as a mobile command for its drug shipments: Always moving, shifting the routes of its drug runners to dodge State cops and Feds.

It had taken Tiger Team Bravo three months for their source, Baretta, an ex-Army Intel joker they knew from MACV-SOG to worm his way into the Cartel enough to cough up one of the big rig's routes.

It would be worth it.

The brain-trust of Cartel trade in the South, the big rig held the records of all Cartel border runs.

As Banzai brought the Tiger to within 50 yards of the 18-wheeler's rear doors, the big rig showed it held some secrets too: The doors blew wide to show a cage of steel plate sprouting a .50 heavy machinegun.

Banzai tore the Tiger to the side as the .50 opened up, noise shaking the windshield. Slugs designed to chew up aircraft metal like rice paper chunked the road.

Professor had no choice—he leaned out the window with the grenade launcher.

The gold-toothed Cartel gunman tracked them with the 600-slugs a minute coming from the red hot barrel of the .50.

Banzai nodded at the road ahead. "Looks like your calculations were a bit off this time, Professor. Tunnel's coming up in two miles."

Professor aimed the grenade launcher. Slugs bigger than his hand sang around, creased his beret with violated air.

"One minute to the tunnel." Banzai said.

Professor replied with the cough of the M79.

The grenade soared over the big rig's profile. It dipped. The shell slammed into the roof.

Smoke billowed rot-yellow from the big rig.

"It's all part of the plan." Professor ducked back into the Tiger. The sound of a descending plane rumbled through the window as he rolled it up.

Banzai glanced up as he braked the Tiger. Jasper was dive-bombing the Cesna out of the invisibility of the high, powder-blue sky toward the yellow smoke trail. Vaquero already clung to the landing gear, tassels snapping from his red-and-white calfskin jacket.

The Cesna's shriek grabbed the highway. The Cartel gunner tilted the .50 up to greet it. Tracers ribboned the air.

Tilting and swinging like a gut-shot crow, the Cesna wove between the blazing slugs. Jasper pressed his arsenal of crooked teeth toward the windshield, put the prop plane into a straight dive.

The Tiger followed to watch. It was Jasper's show now.

The Cartel truck shot into the tunnel. The Cesna shot after it.

Jasper tilted the wing of the plane and coasted into the opposing lane.

The tunnel was dark and tight as a snare around the plane. Nothing new to Jasper. The run through the tunnel would only take him a minute. Buzzing the triple-canopy tree lines ofIndochinahad lasted five years.

"Keep it steady,
hombre
," Vaquero yelled to the massive Cajun pilot.

"Steady as a coon hunter's rifle," Jasper hollered back. Spiced his words with a laugh. Saw the gold-teeth of the drop-jawed Cartel gunner as the plane pulled alongside the trailer and only grinned wider.

Jasper touched the Cesna's wing with a bit more tilt. Vaquero tensed on the landing gear, an arm's length away from the trailer's roof.

A Buick station wagon's headlights stabbed for the Cesna from the oncoming lane.

"Hold onto your linens, Vaquero!" Jasper yanked the stick. The Cesna soared over the Buick. Left wheel caught some camping gear and sent skis skittering on the tunnel floor.

Jasper dipped back.

"Intensity Level Bravo!" Jasper matched smirks with Vaquero.

"All the way!"

Vaquero jumped.

His fingertips met the edge of the trailer roof, clamped instantly, destroyed friction. Landing and hauling himself up was a single motion. Flung his spidery body onto the roof with hands still Mojave dry.

Jasper whirled a wave goodbye that went unseen. Vaquero dashed doubled-over for the trailer's rear. Tunnel ceiling scythed a foot above his head. It did not slow him. Such fear did not exist for this man who had spent half a decade charging Vietcong in lightless passages below the surface of the earth.

He reached the trailer doors as the gunman was pulling them closed. A twist of his body and Vaquero went through the closing gates like a lance. His two snakeskins cracked the gunman's jaw in four places.

The trailer's interior glowed blue phantasmal in fluorescents. Vaquero spared no moment to take in the shock of the four Cartel men and their
jefe
. He dove into them with fingers hooked and lips drawn as a garrote.

One drew his .44 Magnum fast. Vaquero splintered his wrist with a one-hand twist. Flung him into the next fastest. Wet snaps as his human missile landed.

A third cocked the action on an AK-47. Vaquero slid forward, took his legs out with a spin kick. The same kick widened, clutched the falling man's neck perfectly tooled to snap bone, broke him.

The fourth man spun his rifle on Vaquero. An instant of hesitation was all Vaquero needed. A wrist-throw tore the gun from his grip, an arm bar blasted his shoulder from its joint, a palm to the throat slammed it shut to any air.

Now Vaquero looked around. The
jefe
was a man with a trimmed beard and a false beauty mark on one fat cheek. He was diving for cover under a bank of computers.

Vaquero dove on top of him. He snatched the drive of the computer and tucked its suitcase-sized bulk under one arm. A last glance around confirmed there were no other records—only cheap furniture and a fortune in cocaine.

Vaquero spun and ran for the trailer doors.

The
jefe
lifted a Colt .45 in a trembling, four-ringed hand.

Vaquero leapt from the trailer without stopping.

He landed on the hood of the Tiger, dead-center on its tiger paw logo of red-and-black stripes.

The sound of the Cesna dropping a barrel of napalm at the head of the tunnel sent the
jefe
to his knees in the trailer.

The Tiger sped to keep Vaquero balanced. He seized the curve of its hood. He held tight as Banzai slowed to avoid the inferno opening ahead.

The truck could not slow in time. Hydraulic scream muffled by the explosion of napalm. The trailer jack-knifed into the cab.

The cab sheared into the flames that choked the tunnel.