Don Pendleton - Survival Reflex

“He’s moving?”

Marta Enriquez shrugged. “We won’t know that until we reach the meeting place.”

“I’ve done some tracking of my own, from time to time,” Bolan informed her.

“Were you hunting men?”

“Yeah, I was.”

She frowned at that. Sometimes the newbies asked what it was like, killing and almost being killed, but Enriquez had to have seen that for herself. Instead she simply asked, “Why are you here, really?”

“Bones is—or was—a friend of mine. If he’s in trouble now, I’d like to help him.”

“With no politics involved?” she asked.

“The man I knew wasn’t concerned with politics. He was a healer.”

“Tell me why you call him ‘Bones.’”

Bolan explained, briefly. When he was done, she asked, “And you would help him, even if he now heals those who might be enemies of the United States?”

“If he needs help—wants help—I’ll do my best. I didn’t come to join a cause or fight against one. If there’s fighting to be done, though, you’ll be in the way.”

“In any case,” she said, “it makes no difference. I have supplies for Dr. Weiss. If I don’t go with you, then I must go alone into the forest.”

Bolan saw that argument was futile in the face of such determination. He had no doubt that Marta would proceed without him, and it was entirely possible that she’d withhold Weiss’s location if Bolan refused to cooperate.

At last, resigned, he said, “All right. We need an early start tomorrow.”

“Is dawn early enough?” she asked him, smiling.

“Just about.”

“I’ll let you sleep, then.” At the door of Bolan’s hotel room, she paused and turned. “What if they follow us, your people?”

It was Bolan’s turn to shrug. He didn’t think he’d seen the last of Downey’s people yet. “I shook them once,” he said. “I can do it again.”

But shaking might not do it in the jungle. He might have to bury them, if they were bent on doing some irrevocable harm to Nathan Weiss or to himself. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d clashed with Company spooks, where lives were at stake.

“I hope you can do it,” she answered. “They may be here already.” And having said that, she slipped out of the room.

Alone, Bolan got busy with his fear. He would be wearing street clothes when they left the following day, in Enriquez’s car, but he wanted his canteens full and his weapons ready to go. He’d change clothes when they reached their jumping-off point, where they’d have to ditch their wheels and take to water, then proceed on foot. There were no roads where they were going, yet.

What was waiting for them at the end of the trail?

A friend, perhaps—or maybe not.

Time changed minds, hearts, people. Bolan didn’t think that Nathan Weiss had been transformed into a villain or mad scientist since they’d last seen each other, but it was entirely possible that Bones had found himself a cause to follow. And it might be one that ran against the grain with Bolan, one way or another.

Insurrection, revolution—the American tropics bred them like fever. Most countries south of the Rio Grande had battled their way through long series of rebellions, civil wars and military juntas over the past two centuries, and some were still embroiled in that struggle. Brazil had seemingly beaten the trend.

Bolan would see what waited for him when he reached trail’s end, and not before. Meanwhile, he needed sleep, in case he couldn’t find it in Green Hell.

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