Don Pendleton - Blood Play

The rain had let up and, although Bolan could see lightning far to the north, the storm had passed Albuquerque. Any thunder accompanying the flashes was muted by the commotion out on the roadway and up overhead, where a police chopper rumbled its way southward, no doubt in pursuit of Colt’s abductors.

Twenty yards from Bolan, homicide detective David Lowe stood next to an unmarked Ford Taurus, a cell phone pressed to one ear. As he wrapped up his call, someone inside the vehicle handed the tall, sallow-faced man the three JD badge IDs belonging to Bolan, Kissinger and Grimaldi. Lowe exchanged a few words with the other man, then strode past the bullet-riddled squad car, issuing instructions to the forensics team going over the vehicle. As he approached Bolan, the detective waved aside the cop guarding the van, then handed over the badges.

“You checked out,” Lowe said. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“No offense taken.”

“What exactly is it that a special agent does?” Lowe asked.

“That’s classified,” Bolan said.

Lowe shrugged and let a thin smile play across his equally thin lips. “That’s the party line we got from Washington, too. But we just lost two men on account of whoever it is you’re up against, so I was hoping you could unzip it a little.”

“If I had some information on who killed your men I’d share it,” Bolan replied. “All we know so far is they grabbed a friend of ours at the airport and made a run for it.”

“You’ve already told me that,” Lowe said. “Any idea why they grabbed him?”

Bolan shook his head. “He said there was something going on at the reservation where he works, but at this point there’s no way of knowing if that’s why he was kidnapped.”

“Which reservation?” Lowe asked. “Rosqui?”

“I think that’s the one.”

“There’s definitely a connection, then,” Lowe said. “Why’s that?”

“One of our units just came across the panel truck you described,” Lowe said. “It was parked just off the road near the interstate. No one in it.”

“They switched vehicles,” Bolan guessed.

“Most likely,” Lowe said. “Anyway, the truck was reported stolen earlier tonight from a warehouse three miles from the Roaming Bison Casino. The casino was its last stop, and the driver’s thinking someone must’ve snuck aboard while he was making a delivery.”

“Safe assumption,” Bolan said.

“I’ll make another assumption.” Lowe fixed Bolan with a straightforward gaze. “Since you guys have a finger in the pie, you’ll likely have the option of pulling rank and outflanking us on the investigation front.”

“If the situation dictates.”

“Well, here’s my situation.” Lowe gestured at the second paramedic van. “I knew the men gunned down here tonight. I knew their families, too, and I’ll likely be the one passing along word to the next of kin. Now, if something turns up here that you feel you need to keep off our radar, suit yourself, but anything that involves bringing in the perps that pulled the trigger on those men, I’d like that to be another matter. I want in on that.”

“Understood,” Bolan said, “and if it can be arranged, I’ll see to it.”

“Is that a promise?”

Bolan extended a hand to Lowe. “You have my word.”

Lowe shook Bolan’s hand and told him, “I guess that’ll have to do.”

Glorieta, New Mexico

FRANKLIN COLT SAT IN stony silence as he was driven through the night in what he presumed to be the backseat of some kind of sedan. His kidnappers had transferred him into the vehicle shortly after the exchange of gunfire near Tijeras Arroyo. His sense of time was uncertain, but he felt as if they’d been on the road for at least an hour, and judging from their speed he knew most of that time had been spent on one of the interstates. Even with the stocking cap pulled over his eyes he’d been able to detect city lights for the first twenty minutes, after which the ambient light outside the car had decreased, leading him to believe they were heading north on 1-25 along the largely undeveloped corridor between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. A few minutes earlier he’d sensed the car following a bend in the highway. If his assumption was right, it most likely meant they’d veered away from the capital and were now skirting the southern fringe of Santa Fe National Forest.

As he struggled to remain attuned to his surroundings, Colt found himself distracted by feelings of grief and dread. For most of the ride his captors had been speaking to one another in a foreign tongue, but immediately after the shoot-out they’d made a point to make sure he understood that the men he’d met at the airport had been slain while attempting to come to his rescue. There seemed little reason to doubt their word, and Colt was filled with remorse at the thought that he was responsible for their deaths. What a cruel twist of fate it was to have reestablished contact with John Kissinger only to have their reunion result in his friend’s slaying. Colt hoped for a chance to extract revenge, but given his dire circumstances he knew there was a greater likelihood that he would be the next to die. It seemed equally probable that his death wouldn’t come swiftly. Given the way he’d been questioned moments after his abduction, he knew that his captors had somehow learned that he was looking into illegal activity taking place on the reservation. There would likely be further interrogation once they reached their destination and Colt suspected that torture would likely be involved. If it came to that, he could only hope for a chance to force a struggle that would lead to him being killed outright. More importantly, he hoped that after silencing him his abductors would let the matter go. The last thing Colt wanted was for these savages to turn their sights on his family.

Colt was still mulling over his dilemma when the car turned off the highway onto the first of what turned out to be a series of side roads. For several miles the ride was smooth, but after a series of sharp turns, the car slowed to a crawl and Colt could hear the crunch of gravel under the tires as they made their way along a winding stretch of unpaved roadway. Several times the driver cursed as the car bounded roughly across deep chuckholes concealed by the recent rain. At one point the sedan veered sharply to one side and Colt was thrown against the man sitting beside him in the backseat. The man let out a pained cry and brusquely shoved Colt away, then jabbed him in the side with what felt like the butt of a pistol.

“Watch it!” Viktor Cherkow snarled, speaking in English for the first time in nearly an hour. “I’ve got cracked ribs thanks to that steering wheel of yours!”

During the verbal exchanges between his captors, Colt had gotten the sense that Cherkow was the most short-tempered of the group, and he saw in the Russian’s outburst a chance to bring things to a head before they even reached their destination.

“It’s that idiot driving who knocked me into you!” Colt retorted, leaning back across the seat and elbowing Cherkow in the ribs. “If you want to blame somebody, blame him!”

The Russian howled in agony. Colt was hoping the man would shoot him, but instead Cherkow made do with the butt of his Viking pistol, slamming it against the side of his prisoner’s head, just above the ear. It wasn’t the fatal blow Colt was hoping for. It did, however, flood his field of vision with a bright, sudden flash of light that, just as quickly, gave way to the black void of unconsciousness.

Mack Bolan stepped off the elevator on the fifth floor of Albuquerque’s El Dorado Hotel and made his way down the hall to room 547. He opened the door with his keycard and entered the two-bedroom suite that had been booked for him and his Stony Man colleagues under their Justice Department aliases. Kissinger and Grimaldi had already checked in and were seated at a table in the dining alcove, half watching cable news on a television set wedged inside a light pine entertainment unit that also included a stereo system and mini-refrigerator stocked with overpriced provisions. The two men had already gone through several packets of mixed nuts and crackers and were now snacking on packaged cookies.