M.I.A. Hunter: Miami War Zone Read Online Free PDF Page A

beyond was a command center. They could see Carol's blonde head bent over the console of a microcomputer, and when they went in they could see other computer terminals, modems, printers, and monitors.
    Hog looked around for a place to toss his gear. "Nice dump. But not much security."
    Carol didn't look up. "You didn't see the guy in the hedge, did you?"
    Hog looked over his shoulder, as if he could see through the closed door. "What guy?"
    "The one you didn't see." Carol looked up and smiled at them. "He's one of ours. There'll be one in that thick hedge around the house at all times. Don't worry. If he hadn't known who you were, you wouldn't be in here now."
    She looked cool and beautiful. Stone went to her and touched her arm. "Have you found out anything?"
    To some it might have seemed less than a greeting, but Carol understood.
    "A little. Those Bragg boys do good work. You wouldn't believe what these babies are tapped into."
    "Tell us."
    Carol waved her arm at all the electronic gadgetry. "Just about everything. I've managed to get into Miami's crime intel sources at almost every level—local, state, even federal.
    "That's the good news."
    Stone frowned. "What's the bad news?"
    "Just about what you'd expect. Florida is Drug Central to the whole country right now. There's so much going on that it's almost impossible to keep up with even a fraction of it. Good lord, did you know that the Coast Guard has only about twenty boats to patrol the entire coastline of the whole Southeast and the Gulf of Mexico? Or that Customs has about eight planes in Florida to keep up with a whole smugglers' air force out there?"
    "I've heard about it. What does that mean to us?"
    "It means that we're looking for a very small needle in a very large haystack."
    Stone thought about the men he had located in Vietnam, a whole country filled with hostile adversaries. "We've done it before."
    Carol looked at him. "Sure you have. But you were looking for men that the enemy was holding with at least some intention to keep them alive. What are you looking for now?"
    Hog joined them. "A guy that's gonna be whacked in about a day if we don't find him, that's what."
    Carol nodded. "If he's not dead already."
    "We'll find him," Stone snapped. "Something's going on, something hot. We wouldn't have been met at the airport otherwise."
    "Airport?" Carol said.
    "Some gentlemen from the D.E.A.," Loughlin said. "They greeted us."
    "You knew they didn't want you here," Carol told Stone.
    "True. But the locals didn't seem too bad. There was one named Bass, who must be the one Kathi talked to earlier. He seemed all right, and so did his men. It was the Washington guy who was so upset."
    Carol raised an eyebrow. "Which means?"
    "Which means that we've stepped into something bigger than we thought. This is more than just a routine M.I.A., or the locals would be in charge."
    "I see." Carol turned to the computers, as if they might speak. "I think I know what the big deal might be."
    She sat at one of the terminals and logged in. Stone watched her fingers as they sped over the keys. Data began to appear on the amber-colored monitor. Carol tapped the monitor with her finger, and Stone looked at a name that had appeared there.
    Enrique Feliz .
    "Cuban," Carol said. "Young, tough, smart. And mean, very mean. He seems to control most of the cocaine traffic in Miami now."
    "What about the Mob?" Stone asked.
    "That's how tough Feliz is. He and his gang managed to get control of the drugs back in the early eighties after a real gang war. There was blood in the gutters, and the fish in Biscayne Bay were eating real well."
    "And the Mafia let it happen?"
    "There wasn't much they could do about it. Feliz had the guns, the men, and the smarts. The Mob guys didn't want to get their entire organization wiped out down here, so they called it off."
    Hog was rubbing his beard. "That sure don't sound like the same old Mob I know."
    "You're right, in a way," Carol told him, looking up