Welcome to a book about the Most Dangerous Man Alive! Welcome to 1990's COLTRAY #2: PAY THE DEVIL!
This book begins with three different quotations, one from the Holy Bible, one from 18th century poet Matthew Prior and one from Guns n'Roses, so you know it means business but you probably already knew it meant business when you saw the name "David Alexander" on the cover because Alexander's name is the Dow Jones Industrial Average of meaning business. Author of the delightfully deranged Phoenix series, Alexander wrote Coltray after his Z-COMM books because he wanted a men's adventure series all to himself where he could put his name on the cover.
But what is a "Coltray"? Stosh Coltray, a very heavy dude, is, as a talk show host introduces him, "a man who some have claimed is a modern-day Robin Hood. Others, though, have called him a dangerous thug...His expertise with firearms has earned him the nickname of ‘the Lethalist.’" Why this series is not called "The Lethalist" is beyond me, but perhaps it's because Stosh Coltray is also a chainsmoker and a Beach Boys fanatic and a nickname like The Lethalist really doesn't encompass all his many dimensions. Talk show host, Tracy Quinn, on the other hand, has one dimension: "spineless cunt." She's an "ardent gun-control supporter" with a “carnivorous smile” who's late to her own taping because she's “probably polishing their favorite vibrator.”
She also springs a trap on Coltray...a media trap! It's "as deadly in its own way as any VC ambush Coltray had been faced with in Nam when he’d made long-range jungle forays with the elite commando troops of MACV/SOG.” So deadly that he heads to the bar next door for a Coors but on the way he encounters the next guests, the leadership of the Priory of Satan, Zirconia and Quentin Lavender, who's descended from the Mayflower pilgrims, had some of his ancestors burned at Salem as witches, and strokes a long-haired cat that he hand-feeds exotic fish.
Coltray doesn't like the looks of these effete scumbags and his suspicions are confirmed when he tails them after the taping and discovers that they're tailing cult de-programmer Dekker. Actually, it's not them doing the tailing, but a "merc tail" and this is a good moment to talk about mercs.
There are all kinds of mercs in this book. The best are "merc terminators" who are as lethal and dangerous as a "merc fire team" or a "merc hitter." I'm not sure where "Monkey mercs" fit into this scheme, but they certainly seem more capable and agile, but perhaps less useful, than "toilet paper mercs" which is what the "merc surveillance team" following Dekker is made up of. To be more specific they're "Dixie Cups", mercs designed to be used once and thrown away. More to the point, their actual names are Peacock and Turd.
Coltray kills Peacock and Dekker skewers Turd on a chunk of steel rebar and then he and Coltray go their separate ways but within weeks Dekker is on his knees, begging Coltray to save him. The Priory of Satan kidnapped his daughter!
COLTRAY #2: PAY THE DEVIL started with a prologue* where we met the Colonel and his "masklike death grin" raiding a Utah bioweapons facility and stealing said bioweapons before escaping with a “Kahhh-BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! Kuh-Kuh-Kuh-THOOOOMMMMMMMMM!” courtesy of a Royal Ordnance 80-mm LAW rocket. Later he'll fight Coltray with a "Click-Whoosh — BLAMMMMMM! Click-Whoosh — BLAMMMMMM! Click-Whoosh — BLAMMMMMM! Click-Whoosh — BLAMMMMMM!”
Somehow, kidnapping Dekker's daughter seems like a good idea to the Priory of Satan because they have to do something with their bioweapon and they're worried Dekker might stop them although he doesn't seem interested in doing much more than debating them on talk shows before they kidnap his offspring. Then again, no one in this book has a simple plan. The first time Coltray needs to rescue Dekker he murders a bunch of flunky mercs in their limo, sets it on fire to distract a backhoe driver, then steals his backhoe, drives it through a warehouse, and chases down Peacock the flunky merc before squashing him under its tires. Later, he'll check a Satanic New Orleans stash house for Dekker's daughter by staging a midnight assault, gunning down the 50 mercs guarding the property, liberating the mind-controlled slave workforce, and using napalm to torch its marijuana fields where they work. Turns out, Dekker’s daughter isn't there.
Dekker also investigates another Priory stronghold in Provincetown, RI where they run a network of "breeders" who provide babies for Satanic human sacrifices across America. In a way, this makes me respect the Priory of Satan who appear to be less interested in the Satanic gold rush but instead see an opportunity to be in the pick and shovel business. Satanic cults come and Satanic cults go, but they'll always need babies to sacrifice, Quentin Lavender and Zirconia probably figured. They operate their baby breeder business out of a house in the dunes outside P-town which turn out to be "as dangerous as it got" because apparently the dunes near this popular vacation destination are so disorienting people get lost and die in them all the time if they don't fall into quicksand or get kidnapped and turned into breeders first. After making fun of women, joggers, gay people, and modern art, Coltray blows up the P-town breeder house.
*NOTE: this book has a prologue, an epilogue, and is divided into three books, each with several chapters apiece. It is also 174 pages short.
Finally, Coltray tracks Quentin Lavender down to Nob Hill in San Francisco, thus proving that Satan limits his activities to where he can get a well-mixed mojito. It turns out that the Priory's plan is to sacrifice 12 babies at the exact same moment in the middle of a mass orgy at the same split second that everyone in the mass orgy mass orgasms simultaneously, cued by Quentin smashing a skull to the floor. See what I meant about no simple plans? After that, almost like an afterthought, they'll use Occulus-guided drones to release the bioweapons.
Coltray uses many, many weapons to murder a whole lot of orgying Satanists, but he's too late to save the 12 babies. On the plus side, he and Dekker finally find Dekker's daughter in the orgy room, covered in baby blood and who knows what else. On the negative side, Dekker's daughter laughs hysterically as her Daddy hugs her and then she stabs him through his Adam's apple and winds up brain dead in a padded cell consigned to spend the rest of her life totally insane from Satanism.
Everyone heads home, stickier but wiser, but it turns out the Colonel, whom Coltray thought he had killed with a passing BART train, actually substituted a homeless person for himself at the last possible second and he sneaks into Coltray's home and proves that while Coltray may be the most dangerous man alive, he's certainly not the most alert, and the book ends with the Colonel shooting him three times in the back of the head.
David Alexander concluded his Coltray series with Coltray #3: Vengeance the following year (1991) and it's either the shortest book ever written ("DRIP...DRIP...DRIP...") or Coltray proves to have outfoxed someone else who thinks they've shot him. In fact, earlier in Coltray #2: Pay the Devil, Layla Bettan, a human trafficker and art gallery owner (who also directs Mexican snuff films), shoots Coltray three times in the stomach but it turns out he's wearing a Kevlar vest. Confronted with the fact that she's been outfoxed, Bettan immediately turns submissive, strips her clothes off and offers her bare bottom to Coltray for a spanking. Then she offers to "suck Master's hardness." "What the Hell?" Coltray figures, and the two proceed to have a lot of sex.
This could make for a very interesting opening chapter of Coltray #3.