Survival Reflex

Being a fugitive meant different things, in different times and places. Ditto criminal indictment and conviction. On the basis of the sketchy data in hand, Bolan couldn’t tell if Nathan Weiss was being hunted for crimes against humanity or for helping the underdogs survive.

All he had, at the moment, were his memories of Bones and an ingrained sense of duty to a friend who’d never let him down. As to where that led him, and to what result, the next few days would tell the tale.

Bolan had a twelve-hour wait for his charter flight to Cuiabá, in Mato Grosso State, departing at six o’clock the next morning. There’d been no way to speed it up, but Blancanales had supplied him with the name of certain hardware dealers in Belém and the assurance that a private flight within Brazil involved no baggage checks. As soon as he was settled into his hotel, Bolan would take his rented car and embark on brief shopping tour to prepare for his time in the bush.

Still hoping for the best, and bracing for the worst.

BLAINE DOWNEY COULD’VE braced his target at the airport, but he thought it lacked a certain style. There was a piss-off factor, too. If he got in the stranger’s face and spooked him into turning around and leaving Brazil on the next available flight, it would minimize the meddler’s inconvenience. On balance, Downey preferred to let him rent a car, check into his hotel, and then realize it had all been a huge waste of time.

One thing, though. Looking at the man who matched the photo faxed from San Diego, Downey didn’t think he was the kind who frightened easily.

Of course, he could be wrong.

It wouldn’t be the first time, as his supervisor frequently reminded him.

The photos hadn’t told him much. A team in San Diego had observed the woman, snapped as many pictures as they could of anyone she’d spoken to in the city. There’d been waitresses, two cab drivers, a motel maid—and two men who had called upon her in her room. One showed up twice, the second time with company. Nice head shots for the pair of them, and Downey wondered now if someone should’ve used a rifle instead of a Nikon’s zoom lens.

The two-timer had been identified, after some effort, as a private investigator and security specialist named Rosario Blancanales. He was a Special Forces veteran whose service history included black ops in the Badlands. These days, as far as Langley could determine, he was more or less retired, letting his sister run the business he’d built from the ground up after his discharge. The handful of customers identified so far, including Uncle Sam, pronounced themselves entirely satisfied with the performance of Team Able Investigations.

So, the woman wanted help—and who could blame her?

Why she’d look for it in Southern California, and specifically with Blancanales, was a riddle Downey longed to solve, but it eluded him. Right now, he had a problem closer to home.

Number two. The new arrival.

The guy took a good photo, but his mug shot wasn’t stored in any high-tech archive the Agency had thus far been able to tap. The car he’d used in San Diego led them to the rental agency, where Downey’s counterparts had obtained a second-generation photocopy of the guy’s Virginia driver’s license. The license, in turn, gave them Matthew Cooper’s birth date, social security number and last-known address.

Which, in turn, led them nowhere.

The birth date might be accurate, for all Downey knew, but he couldn’t confirm it from any known source. The target’s address was a mail drop in Richmond, and his social security number—while technically active—revealed no activity of any kind since it was generated two years earlier.

Which made him…what? A criminal? A spook?

If he was in the cloak-and-dagger trade, who paid his salary? Not Langley, Downey was assured by his superiors. The Agency had worked against itself from time to time, the old right-versus-left-hand syndrome, but he’d been promised that no such snafu was in progress this day.

And that, unfortunately, didn’t reassure him in the least.

Who stood to profit if his operation in Brazil went belly up? Downey couldn’t have guessed with anything approaching certainty, so he declined to play the game. Sometimes he had to treat the symptoms, put out brush fires as they sprang to life, and let someone else track the roots of the problem.

Downey couldn’t be everywhere at once, and right now his target was standing in line at a car-rental desk on the airport concourse. He might’ve been a businessman whose flight to Belém was pure coincidence, unrelated to his meeting with the woman the previous day.

But Downey didn’t think so.

Not a chance in hell.

That’s why he watched and waited, trailed the guy until he found his car, then swiftly doubled back to meet his driver waiting at the curb, parked at the red curb with a traffic cop fuming and glaring at the diplomatic license plate.

That’s why he trailed the mark to a hotel downtown and went inside to meet the stranger, one-on-one. A little face time, just to break the ice and see what Matt Cooper was made of.

It was easier that way, than bringing in a crew and taking him apart.

UNPACKING WAS a waste of time, so Bolan didn’t bother. He changed shirts, pocketed a knife he carried in his check-through luggage and decided not to bother shaving. Halfway to the door, he heard the unexpected rapping and went on to use the peephole, checking out his uninvited visitor.

The man stood three or four inches below six feet, looking burly or just overweight in his suit. The lens made it difficult to judge, but at least his hands were empty and he was alone.

Bolan opened the door and stood waiting, silent.

“Mr. Cooper?”

Bolan didn’t answer, didn’t step aside. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Downey,” the stranger said, thrusting out a hand, which was ignored. “Blaine Downey, from the U.S. Embassy.”

Bolan knew what that meant. He simply didn’t know, yet, if the man was CIA, NSA or attached to some other intelligence service that made up the Washington-Pentagon alphabet soup.

The bad news was, they had him marked.

But how deep did it go?

“What do you want?” he asked.

“A minute of your time, that’s all. May I come in?”

Bolan considered making him explain his business in the hallway, but security took precedence. His cover might be blown, but that was still a long way from announcing his mission to every guest on the hotel’s fifth floor.

“Five minutes,” Bolan said, “is all I have to spare.”

“Suits me,” Downey said, brushing past him in a beeline for the small room’s single chair. He sat, leaving Bolan to pick a corner of the bed or stand.

He stood.

“My hope, in a nutshell,” said Downey, “is to save you from a world of hurt.”

“How’s that?”

“You’re in Brazil on business that is bound to turn out badly,” Downey said.

“Which is?”

“Marta Enriquez. She’s a subject of some interest to the U.S. government, as well as to authorities here in Brazil. You met her yesterday, in San Diego. Now you’re here. I don’t believe in that kind of coincidence.”

“Nobody asked you,” Bolan said.

“That’s right. Nobody did. Sometimes, unfortunately, there are situations where you have to deal with consequences, even if you’d rather not. Catching my drift?”

“Not even close,” the Executioner replied.

“I’ll spell it out, then. Whatever Marta Enriquez and Mr. Rosario Blancanales may have told you in Dago, whatever they asked you to do, whatever they offered in return—you don’t want to go there.”

Denial seemed pointless. Confession, while possibly good for the soul, was unthinkable.

Time to stall.

“Because…?”

“Because I say so, Mr. Cooper. And because I represent the U.S. government.”

“We’re not in the United States.”

“You weren’t born yesterday,” Downey replied. “In fact, according to your social security records, you’re almost two years old. Happy birthday, Mr. Cooper.”

Bolan had decades of practice at keeping surprise off his face. Instead, he smiled and asked, “You’re IRS?”

“Heaven forbid! I couldn’t care less what you do with your hard-earned money, friend. Declare it, don’t declare it. All the same to me. But if you travel any further down this particular road, you’ll be stepping on some very tender toes.”

“You’ve got sore feet? Try Dr. Scholl’s.”

Downey put on a deprecating smile. “I’m just the messenger. You get one warning, friend.”

“What happens next?”

“I don’t believe you want to know.”

“No hints?”

“Let’s say you won’t enjoy it.”

“I should turn around and go back home, you’re saying.”

“To the Richmond mail drop, or wherever home may be.”

Showing his hand like that, Downey had to think he had it covered. Bolan, on the other hand, wasn’t convinced.

Not yet.

“I’ll think about it.”

Downey rose, rubbing his hands together like a miser in a high school play. “That’s all we ask,” he said, mock-cheerful. “Somber thought about the risks of pissing off your Uncle in D.C. and various locals who may have even shorter fuses.”

“Hey, I thought Brazil was friendly.”

“That depends,” Downey replied, “on you.”

“I get your drift.”

“Smart man. I thought you would.” There was a brief pause on the threshold, Downey turning with another phony smile and parting shot. “Enjoy your flight.”

I must be slipping, Bolan thought. He’d missed the watchers back in San Diego, and again at the airport. It was an inauspicious start, but Bolan didn’t feel like backing down.

Not yet.

He thought of calling Hal Brognola in Washington and then decided not to risk it. If they had his room, they likely had the telephone, as well.

He’d have to fix that, taking one step at a time.

Slight change of plan.

He had a tail to shake before he could begin his shopping spree.

THE TAIL WAS obvious.

Either they wanted it that way or Downey had a bunch of amateurs on staff, and Bolan didn’t think that was the problem.

They were dogging him to send a message and to make sure Bolan—or Matt Cooper—didn’t rendezvous with anyone he may have come to meet. They would observe him every moment he was in Brazil, and thus prevent transaction of whatever covert business he’d agreed to in the States.

But how much did they know?

If they had Marta Enriquez covered, why not wait until Bolan made contact, then drop the net over all of them at once?

Because they don’t know where she was, thought Bolan.

And they wouldn’t get a fix from him.

Not here. Not now.

The black American sedan trailing his rented car was obvious. He drove around downtown Belém for fifteen minutes, circling blocks and twice ignoring stoplights, to make sure the glaring tail was no coincidence. When he was satisfied on that score, Bolan turned his mind to losing them and treating Downey to a message of his own.

Step one was getting out of the hotel. They didn’t try to stop him when he walked out empty-handed, confident that even if he lost them somehow in the city, he would have to come back for his bag.

But they were wrong.

Bolan had packed light for the trip, knowing that most of his civilian trappings would be useless in the bush. Stuffing his pockets with the necessary items—wallet, money, passport, cell phone and GPS unit—he walked out of the place without a backward glance.

The black sedan was waiting for him, and it had been on him ever since.

After the downtown circuit, Bolan reckoned that he wouldn’t shake his watches by racing through alleys or running red lights. He’d satisfied himself that there was only one team watching him, which made it easier.

Not easy in the classic sense, of course, but better than a running battle in the streets.

Especially since he was still unarmed.

He set off in the general direction of the hardware dealer, then sidetracked himself when he was halfway there, seeking a place where he could ditch the watchers and their disappearance wouldn’t be reported for a while.

All cities had bad neighborhoods, omitted from the tourist guidebooks and sightseeing tours, where locals walked in fear and the police patrolled in two- or three-man teams. Bolan found one such neighborhood, parked on its outskirts where his car probably wouldn’t be stripped down for parts within the hour, and made his way from there on foot.

One myth about the world’s great urban slums was that they teemed with cutthroats waiting to snatch any man or woman off the streets in broad daylight. The thugs existed, of course, but they were typically nocturnal predators, and long experience had taught them how to pick and choose their prey.

Some people were natural victims, defeated by life and timid to a fault. They seemed to lurch from one disaster to the next, recognized by bullies on sight. Others were strong and confident, broadcasting an alert that told potential hunters any confrontation might prove hazardous.

Belém’s slum dwellers noticed Bolan as he made his way across their turf, but no one tried to intercept him. Even if he hadn’t been a clear-cut Alpha male, the fact that he was trailing heat had registered before he covered half a block.

Both trackers from the black American sedan came after him on foot. It was their first mistake, and Bolan meant to save them the embarrassment of making any more. He led them three blocks deeper into hostile territory, then picked out an alley that was well-shadowed despite the midday hour. Turning in, he ducked behind the nearest garbage bin and stood back to wait.

The stalkers followed him, then passed him by. One of them started to say something, but his partner shushed him. “Quiet now, and watch your step,” he said.

“Too late,” Bolan advised.

THEY TURNED as one, to find him standing in the middle of the alley, blocking off their access to the street.

“What’s this?” the seeming leader asked him.

“You tell me,” Bolan replied.

“I don’t know you from Adam, pal.”

“Which makes me wonder why you’re tailing me,” Bolan said, standing fast.

The leader’s ruddy cheeks flushed darker still. Apparently his brief didn’t include a face-to-face with Bolan, even though they clearly meant to spook him out of town.

“You must have us mixed up with someone else,” he said.

“Convince me.”

“How would I do that?”

“You could show me some ID,” Bolan suggested. “Maybe tell me why you’ve been tailgating me since I left the hotel.”

The second spook had worked up nerve enough to speak. He said, “Hey, now!” before his partner cut him off.

“You’ve got some nerve,” the leader said. “I’ll give you that.”

“Your boss left that part out when he was briefing you, I guess,” Bolan replied.

“My boss?”

“Downey.”

The two men blinked as one. “I don’t know anybody by that name,” the leader said, too late.

“So, he won’t miss you, then.”

“Miss who?” The second spook had trouble keeping pace.

“We’re going now,” the leader said. “Have a nice day.”

“I don’t think so.”

They telegraphed the rush with sidelong glances, back and forth. Not certain what to do, now that their crude surveillance had backfired, the pair surrendered to machismo. Bolan saw it coming and was ready when it got there.

Number one, the mouthpiece, led his partner by six feet or so, looking to tackle Bolan, taking him down and maybe thumping him for a while before he tired of it and left.

It didn’t quite work out that way.

The Executioner dropped to a fighting crouch at the last second, while his adversary’s thick arms closed on empty air. He fired a rabbit punch into the spook’s short ribs and heard him grunt with pain as he was doubling over. No time to evaluate the damage as he drove a rising knee into the stranger’s nose and flattened it across his florid face.

The leader dropped to hands and knees, while Bolan turned to face his sidekick. Number two was growling as he sprang toward Bolan, one arm cocked to throw a mighty haymaker. If it had landed, Bolan would’ve been in trouble, but he ducked the punch instead, seized the extended arm and used his enemy’s momentum as a weapon, flinging him to earth.

The spook went down, then came up cursing, red-faced, instantly forgetting most of what his martial-arts instructor would’ve taught him during basic training. What he tried and failed to execute was a high kick toward Bolan’s face.

Bad move.

It was a simple thing to block the kick and grab his ankle, twist it sharply, and kick through the knee of his remaining leg where it supported him. This time, when he went down, the spook was squealing in pain.

Bolan turned back to number one and found him struggling to his feet, blood streaming from his broken nose to stain his white dress shirt.

“Bathtid,” he growled. “Ahm gawn kitchur ath.”

Bolan feinted a swing, then caught him with a roundhouse kick behind one ear. The guy went down, poleaxed, and hit the ground this time without a whimper.

Leaving one.

His backup had rolled to the garbage bin, clutching one rusty side as he struggled to drag himself upright. It was painful to watch, and he was wasting precious time.

Bolan chose his spot, the base of the skull, and aimed his elbow shot for maximum effect without the killer follow-through. It dropped his man, inert, and he was pure deadweight as Bolan hoisted him into the bin. Moments later, when the two spooks lay together on a bed of reeking garbage, Bolan dropped the bin’s lid and left them to their troubled dreams.

Sleep tight.

Don’t let the slum rats bite.

No one appeared to notice Bolan as he walked back to his car. He found it at the curb, untouched, and saw the black American sedan parked on the far side of the street. It might still be there when the two spooks woke and crawled out of the garbage bin.

Then again, it might not be.

Too bad.

Still watching out for tails, he joined the flow of traffic and set off to see a man about some combat gear.

THE DEALER’S SHOP was half a mile from where Bolan had left his two incompetent shadows. Out front, bilingual signs offered repair of watches, small appliances and such. Inside, a man of middle age was hunched over a cluttered workbench, peering at the guts of an electric motor through a jeweler’s loupe. He glanced up as a cow bell clanked to signal Bolan’s entry and set down his screwdriver.

“Boa tarde, Senhor.”

“Fala inglês?” Bolan asked, thus exhausting his Portuguese vocabulary.

“English, yes, I speak. How may I help you?” Bolan spoke the phrase Blancanales had provided, watching as the merchant’s face registered first surprise, then caution.

“Ah. You wish to see my special stock?”

“That’s right,” Bolan confirmed.”

“One moment, please.”

The shopkeeper rose from his stool and limped past Bolan to the door, which he locked while reversing a small cardboard sign.

“Is siesta time now,” he explained with a smile. “You will please follow me.”

Bolan trailed him through a curtained doorway to a tiny, cluttered storeroom, where another door opened on steep wooden stairs. The proprietor descended first, taking the stairs without complaint despite his limp. Bolan followed into another storeroom, this one spotless and smelling of gun oil.

Bolan could’ve launched a small war with the dealer’s inventory, but he had no plans to mount a grand offensive. He passed on the heavy machine guns, rocket and grenade launchers, and the Barrett M-82 A-1 Light Fifty sniper rifle. In their place, he chose a Steyr AUG assault rifle, a Beretta 92-F semiauto pistol and a Ka-Bar combat knife. Spare magazines and ammunition, with a side order of frag grenades, completed his heavy-metal shopping list. The rest came down to camouflage fatigues, web gear, an Alice pack and shoulder rig for the Beretta, two canteens and sturdy hiking boots. The purchases filled two stout duffel bags and took a fair bite out of Bolan’s bankroll, but he didn’t quibble over price.

The money, strictly speaking, wasn’t even his.

Before leaving the States, he’d tapped a San Diego crack dealer for sixty thousand dollars and some pocket change. Six different banks had sold him nine grand worth of AmEx traveler’s checks, and thus avoided mandatory red flags to the IRS. The rest had funded Bolan’s flights, the rented car and his unused hotel room where his bag and civvies were waiting to be seized by someone from the Company.

He hoped the clothes turned out to be a lousy fit.

Before packing the gear, he loaded the Beretta and two spare magazines, adjusted the quick-draw harness to fit his torso, and covered the setup with his windbreaker. The waning day outside was cool enough, here on the coast, to prevent him from standing out by the jacket alone. After he cleared Cuiabá, farther in-country, concealment of his weapons would no longer be an issue.

Climbing the stairs behind the shop owner, Bolan slung one bag over his left shoulder and carried its mate in his left hand, leaving the right free for action if need be. He didn’t anticipate trouble this early, but in most cases preparedness was more than half the battle.

Exiting the shop, he paused to scan the street in both directions, but aside from the neighborhood pusher, he saw no one who qualified as suspicious. Bolan walked back to his car and stowed both bags in the trunk, satisfied with the pistol for now. He would bag it, as well, when the time came to fly, but he still had hours to burn in Belém before his crack-of-dawn rendezvous with a charter pilot who asked no impertinent questions where payment in cash was concerned.

Bolan used an hour of that time to scout the airstrip, studying the hangar and its layout on the drive-by. He would return before dawn to check it again, watching closely for any lurkers in the shadows, but he retained an air of cautious optimism.

So far, so good.

And if experience was any guide, his chosen road could only go downhill from here.

Belém isn’t Rio, but Bolan had no problem getting lost in the crowd, alternately driving and walking, never straying far enough from the rental to put his new hardware at risk from light-fingered locals. Staying awake through the night was no challenge. Call it a familiar ritual, divorced in Bolan’s mind from any concept of fatigue.

He could sleep in the air, on the long flight westward to Cuiabá. And after that—who knew?

In the grand scheme of things, feeling weary was the least of a combat soldier’s problems. In the days ahead, Bolan expected to be faced with worse.

All for the sake of friendship.

For the sake of duty.

And to find out what in Hell was going on with Nathan Weiss.

CHAPTER FOUR

The pilot was a twenty-something woman with short red hair and a black patch covering her left eye. The one Bolan could see was emerald-green and flicked suspiciously in the direction of his duffel bags before he loaded them aboard a Piper PA15 Vagabond at least a decade older than its owner.

Whatever she was thinking, cash resolved the lady’s doubts about her passenger, and they were in the air by 6:15 a.m., soaring southwestward over rain forest that could’ve swallowed regiments with ample room to spare.

Where are you, Bones? he thought. What brought you here?

Bolan was glad to get out of Belém and out from under scrutiny, at least for the time being. He had no illusions about pulling off a long-term fade, if agents of the CIA made any serious attempt to locate him. They’d find him in Cuiabá, given time, but Bolan didn’t plan to hang around to see the sights.

If they pursued him on his mission through the jungle, it would be another story. They would be on his turf, then, and nothing in their past experience would’ve prepared them for a contest with the Executioner.