Don Pendleton - Survival Reflex

Jacket unbuttoned for swift access to his pistol, Bolan stood and waited with his hand almost inside the jacket, feeling like a caricature of Napoleon. The elevator settled and its door hissed open to reveal an empty corridor.

A small sign on the facing wall directed Bolan to his right. He moved along the hall with long strides, radiating confidence and capability. He had no audience, but they were qualities the tall man couldn’t hide. He might not stand out in a crowd on any given street corner, but when push came to shove he was the leader of the pack.

Make that lone wolf, most of the time.

But not today.

His destination was a door like every other on the floor, with a bronze plate that gave a number and the lawyer’s name. The knob turned in his hand and Bolan stepped into a small but suitably luxurious reception room.

Four empty chairs faced an unattended desk. No sign of a receptionist or anybody else.

He didn’t need to check his watch. A stylish wall clock told him he was right on time.

Bolan was running down a short list of his options when a door behind the vacant desk swung open to reveal a smiling face.

“I’m glad you found the place okay,” Rosario “The Politician” Blancanales said.

BLANCANALES HAD EARNED the “Politician” nickname in another life, a tribute to his skill at soothing fear and agitation among Asian villagers whose lives and homes were threatened daily by the ever-shifting tides of war. He had been part of Bolan’s Special Forces A-team, one of several thrown together in the hellfire moment who had forged lifelong alliances.

One of the few who somehow managed to survive.

“I guess the staff is out to lunch,” Bolan remarked as they shook hands.

“We have an hour to ourselves. Friend of a friend, you know?”

He didn’t bother running down the details of a family in peril, spared against all odds, with gratitude that reached beyond the limits of a long lunch on a busy afternoon. Pol knew that Bolan didn’t need the details, didn’t really care how they had come to find themselves alone in an attorney’s office on the seventh floor of a building he’d never visited before this day and wouldn’t see again.

“He sweeps the place, I guess?” Bolan asked, thinking of security.

“I swept it, coming in. It’s clean.”

“Okay.”

“You want to talk out here or use the inner sanctum?”

“This is fine.”

Bolan took one of the four matching chairs. Blancanales noticed that he didn’t touch the arm rests with his hands. It was a small precaution, probably unnecessary since his law-enforcement files across the country had been closed and marked “Deceased,” but playing safe was second nature to the Executioner.

“I’m glad you had some time,” Blancanales said, easing into it.

“No sweat,” Bolan replied. “What’s going on?”

“I caught a squeal the other day, through Toni.”

Toni Blancanales was the Politician’s sister. She was also CEO of Team Able Investigations, a private security firm Rosario Blancanales had launched years ago with another war buddy, electronics wizard Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz, to make ends meet in peacetime. Now that Pol and Gadgets operated more or less full-time for Hal Brognola and Stony Man Farm—the same covert nerve center that fielded Bolan for various do-or-die assignments—Toni ran the show and rarely needed her big brother’s help.

“Why that route?” Bolan inquired.

“Long distance. A long time out of touch.”

“A mutual acquaintance?” Bolan asked him, frowning.

“You remember Bones.”

Blancanales didn’t phrase it as a question. There was nothing wrong with Bolan’s memory, and he saw instant recognition in the warrior’s eyes.

The nickname came from “sawbones,” as in “doctor”—or from Star Trek, same damned thing. In their Special Forces days together there’d been many medics, too many M.A.S.H. units, but only one Bones.

“Nate Weiss,” Bolan said.

Blancanales nodded. Make it Captain Nathan Weiss, M.D. A wizard with a scalpel, long on empathy for patients, short on tolerance when military red tape hampered his attempts to care for sick and wounded soldiers. Thinking back, Blancanales could remember Weiss cutting and stitching under fire, while Bolan’s team faced down the enemy, one of their own guys on the table leaking life.

The frown was still on Bolan’s face. “I haven’t thought about him in…”

“About a hundred years?”

“Seems like it. How’d he track you down?”

“It wasn’t him, exactly.”

“Oh?”

“An intermediary. Bones gave her my last name and remembered that I came from San Diego. No real hope of getting through, I guess, but Toni’s in the book. She caught a break.”

“And ‘she’ is…?”

“Marta Enriquez. She knew some jungle stories that could only come from Bones. It feels legit.”

“So what’s the squeal?”

“Long story short, the way she laid it down, he’s in Brazil, running some kind of floating hospital for anyone who needs him in the bush. Somewhere along the way, he started stepping on official toes.”

“How’s that?”

It was Blancanales’s turn to frown. “She claimed it has to do with Indians. The Amazon is one huge place, as you well know. We hear a lot about the forest being cut and burned for shopping malls, whatever, but the fact is, they’ve got tribes down there no white man’s ever seen. Some others sit on land the government and certain multinationals are anxious to ‘improve’ and put a few more millions in their pockets. When the honchos in Brasilia want a stubborn tribe to move, it can get Wild West messy. I’ve seen some of that, up close and personal.”

“But you have doubts about her story,” Bolan interjected, going to the heart of it.

“Let’s say I have some reservations, pun intended.”

“Why?”

“You know the history. They’ve had civilian government for only twenty years or so. Before that, it was hard-core juntas all the way. Some wouldn’t mind a switch back to the bad old days. You’ve got guerrillas in the backcountry, fighting for one thing or another, and banditos everywhere you turn. I wasn’t kidding when I mentioned the Wild West. Jivaro headhunters, covert Indian wars—Bones could be into damn near anything.”

“And someone’s hunting him?” Another cut, right to the heart.

“Sounds like it, yeah.”

“Whatever it is, he can’t turn to the law.”

“The way it was explained to me,” Blancanales said, “that’s not an option.”

“So, either the government is hunting him or it doesn’t mind someone else doing the dirty work.”

“I’d say that sums it up.”

“It’s not like Bones to ask for help.”

“Unless he really needs it, no.”

“I’m guessing, since you called, that Able Team can’t take it on,” Bolan said.

Blancanales shook his head. “Not soon enough. I’m stealing time as it is from a job in Baja.”

“Have you talked to Hal?”

“He isn’t thrilled about it, but he says it’s up to us. Resources as available, but no hands-on collaboration till we’ve got a clear fix on the problem.”

Bolan’s smile took Blancanales by surprise. “‘We’ meaning me,” he said.

“If you decide to do it, right.”

“And is the woman still around? This Marta?”

“Waiting for a verdict as we speak.”

“Not here?”

“Nearby. The way it seems to me, she’s used to hiding out.”

“When can we talk?”

Blancanales felt himself start to relax inside. “How do you feel about right now?” he asked.

THEY TRAVELED separately, Bolan trailing his old friend to form a little two-car caravan that traveled half a dozen blocks on Harbor Drive, then swung inland. Blancanales led him to the spacious parking lot of a motel located near the U.S. naval station, then drove around the back with Bolan following, and parked close to the open stairs. The Executioner said nothing as he trailed his friend upstairs and left along a balcony to Room 252.