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.

“I called ahead,” the Able Team commando told him, “so we wouldn’t spook her.”

Blancanales knocked and waited while the tenant of that room surveyed them through the peephole’s fish-eye lens. There came a fumbling at the locks, and then the door swung open to admit them. Only when they were inside, door locked again, did Bolan have a clear view of the woman he had come to meet.

Marta Enriquez was approximately thirty-five years old, a slim Latina with a curvaceous figure. A pinched look almost spoiled the face, framed by a fall of raven hair, but large, dark eyes and high cheekbones redeemed it.

Blancanales made the introductions, using Bolan’s relatively new Matt Cooper pseudonym, and the woman surprised him with the strength of her handshake.

“If we could all sit down,” Blancanales said, “this won’t take long.” He settled on one corner of the queen-size bed, leaving the room’s two chairs for Bolan and their nervous hostess. “Marta, why don’t you tell my friend what brings you here.”

“I want to help O Médico,” she said. “He has done so much for my people in the past three years, I must somehow repay him if I can. The danger that he faces now is too much.”

“What kind of danger?” Bolan asked her.

“From the army and the death squads,” she replied. “I know your press tells you Brazil is free and all are equal there, but things aren’t what they seem. My people—the Tehuelche—have been driven from their homes and deep into the forest, where the hunters seek them still. They are shot on sight. Sometimes a ‘gift’ of food or clothing is delivered, and more of us die.”

“It’s classic,” Blancanales interjected. “Your manifest-destiny types did the same thing right here, with poisoned grain and blankets spiked with smallpox. Talk about weapons of mass destruction.”

“O Médico—Dr. Weiss—has helped us without charge since he arrived. He offers care to anyone in need, and for that crime, the state will kill him, or at least expel him from Brazil.”

“You’ve witnessed these attempts?” Bolan asked.

Enriquez nodded. “Once, when we went to Diamantino for supplies, three men approached us. They insulted me, touched me and Dr. Weiss told them to stop. They turned on him then, but he left all three of them unconscious in the street.

“Later,” she continued, “they sent helicopters to the village of my people, shooting from the sky. O Médico treated the wounded, even while bullets flew around him.”

“I don’t know what you’re asking us to do,” Bolan told her. “If the government wants to get rid of him, they’ll find a way to do the job. We can’t declare war on Brazil.”

“Nathan told me that he had friends of great ability in the United States. He sent me here to ask for help, but I am not a fool. I know he cannot stay and help my people any longer without giving up his life.”

“What, then?”

“You must persuade him to give up, go home, before he’s killed. Take him by force, if necessary. Be his friend and save his life.”

“Just drop into the jungle there and kidnap him.”

“Maybe he’ll listen if you talk to him,” she said. “Remind him that he is American and not Tehuelche.”

“Couldn’t you do that?” Bolan asked.

“To my people, Nathan—Dr. Weiss—is almost like a god. They need him to survive and love him for the help he offers them, but they think first about themselves. Sometimes, it seems as if they think he is immortal and cannot be harmed by common men.”

Bolan had picked up on her use of Weiss’s given name and wondered whether there was something more between them than a simple doctor-patient relationship. Despite the time they’d spent together under fire, some jungle R and R between engagements, Bolan didn’t know the details of his old friend’s private life, his taste in women, anything along those lines. He knew the man’s determination, though, and the soldier didn’t like the odds of him persuading Bones to leave his self-appointed mission.

“You say he’s being hunted just because he helped your people?” Bolan asked.

“It’s one reason,” the woman answered, “but the government has ample cause to hate him. Before us, he was in Rio de Janeiro. There, he had a clinic for street children. Did you know that some policemen, after hours, drive around the streets and shoot the homeless children as if they were rabid dogs?”

“I’ve heard the stories,” Bolan said.

“They’re true, and sometimes worse than what you read in newspapers or magazines. After six months in Rio, the police got an injunction to prevent Nathan from treating children without the consent of their parents. Orphans! You see? When he continued, they put him in jail. Before he was released, they burned his clinic and declared the fire an accident.”

“So he moved on?”

“To spare the children, after a police lieutenant told him every one he treated would be thrown in prison to amuse the perverts. It hurt him, but he left to find new patients.”

“It’s a jump from Rio to the Mato Grosso jungle,” Bolan said.

“He tried some other places first. AIDS patients in São Paulo. Plantation laborers at Uberlândia. Guarani Indians in the Serra Dourada. Each time it was the same. Suspicion, threats against his life and those he tried to help.”

“It’s obvious he isn’t listening,” Bolan replied. “What makes you think that he’ll hear anything I have to say?”

“Because he asked for you, his friends.”

“Unless you’re holding back, he didn’t ask us to come down and snatch him out of there.”

“Perhaps he’ll listen. But if not, when it is done, at least he will be safe.”

“What’s to prevent him turning right around and going back?” Bolan asked. “We can’t lock him up and throw away the key.”

“Perhaps, when he has time to think in peace, he’ll realize that nothing can be gained by what he’s doing in my country.”

“What about your people?” Blancanales inquired.

Stone-faced, she said, “We’re finished, don’t you see? Nathan can’t save us. No one can. He’ll only waste his life, when he could be of such great help to others, somewhere else.”

“Would you be coming with him?” Bolan asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Perhaps, if Nathan wants me.”

“When are you going back?”

“Tomorrow. One way or another, I must give him your decision.”

“I’ll tell him myself.” Turning to Blancanales, he said, “We need a minute to ourselves.”

THE MOTEL BALCONY was adequate, no one in the adjoining rooms to eavesdrop as they leaned against the rail in hazy Southern California sunshine.

“Now I’ve heard her,” Bolan said, “give me your take on this.”

“I think Bones may be losing it. Looking for a cause, some way to make his life count for something. Hell, for all I know it could be your basic midlife crisis.”

“Maybe. But who’s picking up the tab? Free clinics may be free to patients, but they eat up money just the same, and plenty of it.”

“I can answer part of that,” Blancanales said. “I ran a check on Bones through Stony Man. He had some money from his family, back East. Not Rockefeller money, but they did all right. He’s the last of the line, never married, no siblings. Had a good adviser, made some smart investments. Most of it was liquidated when he left the States. Call it a cool half million, give or take.”

“That’s seed money,” Bolan replied. “A big seed, sure, but he’s been working with the lady’s tribe for three years now, no charge, and all the other deals she talked about before he focused in on them. The Rio clinic and what-have-you. Would half a million last that long, paying for medicine, equipment and facilities, travel?”

“I doubt it.”

“So, I’ll ask again. Who’s picking up the tab?”

Blancanales shook his head. “Don’t know.”

“One thing we do know,” Bolan said. “If Bones has his mind set on helping these people, he won’t be talked out of it.”

“No.”

“And I don’t fancy trying to carry him out of Brazil on my back, bound and gagged.”

“Why are you going, then?”

“First thing, to have a look and see what’s really happening.” He nodded toward the door numbered 252. “I think we’ve got a case of hero-worship here, or maybe love. I don’t believe she’s told us everything she knows about what Bones is doing in the big, bad woods.”

“You figure it’s political?”

“She talks about a man who’s looking for a cause. Maybe he wants to be a martyr. I won’t know until I see it for myself.”

“Wish I could back you up,” Blancanales said.

“I’m just observing,” Bolan told him.

“Rii-iight. And I’m the next Olympic figure-skating champion.”

“I’ll need a flight. One way for now,” Bolan said. “Find out where she’s touching down and send me somewhere else. I’ll catch a shuttle to the airstrip nearest Bones. Don’t tell her when I’m flying.”

Blancanales frowned. “You figure she’s a sell-out?”

“Why take chances? If she’s straight, there’s still at least a fifty-fifty chance she’ll be picked up when she gets home. If someone sweats her, I don’t want her spilling my itinerary.”

“Right,” Blancanales said. And then again, “You’re right.”

“I’ll need a contact on the other end for various supplies, including hardware. Play it safe and don’t use anyone connected to the Company or NSA.”

“I know an independent dealer in Belém.”

“That’s fine, if I can get a charter flight from there to Mato Grosso with no questions asked.”

“I’ll check it out today,” the Able Team commando promised. “If it doesn’t work, your best bet for a touchdown where you want to go will be Cuiabá. I’ll find somebody there.”

“Before you cut her loose,” Bolan said, “get the best fix that you can on where Bones has his chop shop. If he’s mobile, try for base coordinates, at least. I’ll GPS it and go solo in the bush.”

“That’s risky, man.”

“Hiring a guide is worse. I won’t know who he’s really working for until it hits the fan.”

“You’re right again. Has anybody ever told you that’s an irritating habit?”

Bolan smiled. “My childhood aspiration was to be a know-it-all.”

“And how’s that working for you?”

“I’m still working on it.”

Blancanales went somber, then. “I’m having second thoughts about this whole damn thing,” he said.

“It’s Bones,” Bolan reminded him.

“I know that, but you’ve got me thinking now. Suppose someone’s already bagged him, squeezed him. Now they’re putting out feelers to see who’ll try a rescue mission. Pick off Santa’s little helpers one by one.”

“It doesn’t have that feel about it,” Bolan said. “Somebody wants to take out Bones for helping Indians, whatever, why would they go fishing in the States?”

“Because they can?”

“It’s thin,” Bolan said, “but I’ll keep an eye peeled, just in case.”

“It may be too late, once you’re down there.”

“Maybe not. Let’s see what happens.”

“The more I think about it,” Blancanales said, “the more I wish I hadn’t called you.”

“Spilled milk, guy. Just make those calls and let me have the word before you head back down to Baja.”

“It’ll be a couple hours, give or take.”

“You’ve got my number.”

“That’s affirmative. Where will you be?”

“Around.”

“Okay. I’ll be in touch.”

Blancanales lingered on the balcony as Bolan went downstairs. No one was lurking near the rented Chevy, no one peering from the nearby rooms. Behind the wheel, the soldier took time to stop and think about the mission he’d accepted and what it would mean to follow through.

A friend in trouble, right.

But he could only help the willing.

And if Nathan Weiss had asked for help, that made him willing, on the surface. But what kind of help was Weiss expecting?

Extrication or combat support?

Bolan had no illusions concerning his ability to make a one-man stand against the whole Brazilian army, even if a friend’s life might be riding on the line. Weiss might be looking for a martyr’s end, but that would never be a part of Bolan’s plan.

Die fighting if he had to, absolutely.

But to throw his life away?

Forget about it.

He would have a look, as promised, and take it from there. The next step would be up to Bones.

And Bolan hoped the bones he left behind him in the jungle wouldn’t be his own.

CHAPTER THREE

Belém, Brazil

The first leg of Bolan’s long journey was a two-hour flight from San Diego to Mexico City, with ninety minutes in the airport terminal, waiting to make his connection. He stayed alert from force of habit, even though no one he could think of had any reason to be hunting him in Mexico.

His enemies in that troubled country were all either dead or in prison, as far as he knew, but it never hurt to be careful. He bought an English-language guidebook for Brazil and started reading it at the departure gate, killing time.

The authors considered Brazil a Latin miracle of sorts, emerging from military rule to reclaim civilian democracy in the mid-1980s, battling back from a decade of economic crises to stand head and shoulders above its neighbors, national triumph symbolized by five straight victories in World Cup soccer finals. There was only passing mention of the country’s long-time military junta and its brutal violence, countered by rebel insurrection in the cities and the hinterlands. No mention at all of homeless children hunted through the streets by death squads or the covert policy of “relocating” native tribes at any cost.

Bolan wasn’t surprised by the guidebook’s omissions. Tourist economies thrived on illusion, whether it was Carnivale in Rio, Atlantic City’s neon boardwalk or the Las Vegas Strip. No advertising agent pointed out his client’s warts or called attention to the smell of rot that wafted from behind most glittering facades.

In Bolan’s personal experience, there was no government on Earth without a dark core of corruption at its heart. No tourist paradise without a nest of vipers in the garden or a school of sharks cruising offshore. No end of problems for a die-hard altruist to tackle in the autumn of his life.

But why in hell had Nathan Weiss chosen Brazil?

He was a doctor, and more specifically, a trauma surgeon. Weiss would find trauma to spare in Brazil, but the same could readily be said for New York City, San Francisco, London or Madrid. Unless Shangri-la had been discovered since the last time Bolan watched CNN, there was no shortage of victims anywhere on Earth.

So, why Brazil?

It wasn’t for the love of jungle climates. Bolan knew that much from time he’d spent with Weiss in another green hell, on the far side of the world. Bones didn’t often complain, but mosquitoes and tropical germs were among his pet peeves in those days.

Why seek them out, then, when he could’ve written his own ticket at any stateside hospital and most of those in Europe?

Pol Blancanales had been clueless on that score, nothing in Weiss’s file from Stony Man to clarify the mystery. Bolan was still puzzling over the problem when they called his flight, and during the four-hour transit to Belém. He skipped the in-flight movie, browsed his guidebook, ate the packaged pseudo-food they set in front of him, but still the question nagged him.

Why Brazil?

Whatever the reason, Bones had gotten in too deep, and now he needed help. He’d reached out for The Politician because Blancanales was traceable. If Weiss thought of Bolan at all, these days, he would presumably accept the media reports describing Bolan’s fiery death in New York City. Surgery had altered Bolan’s face more than once, made him unrecognizable if he had passed Weiss on the street.

And would he recognize the doctor, after all that time? Would he want to see what Bones had become?

And what was that, exactly?

Being hunted by the government proved nothing, either way. One man’s criminal or terrorist was another man’s heroic freedom fighter. Bolan himself had once graced every Top Ten list of fugitives in North America and western Europe, and he’d been guilty as sin in the eyes of the law, convicted by his own admission on multiple counts of murder, arson, kidnapping and sundry other felonies.