Blood Play

Upshaw had given lip service to those pleas, telling Colt he’d consider the advice, but deep in his heart he doubted that he would ever bring himself to take such a step. The way he saw it, nothing he said to his son would bring his wife back from the grave, and Donny’s responsibility for the woman’s death wasn’t something he felt he could sweep under the rug as if it were some small transgression. Colt could name just about any other terms he might want in terms of compensation for divulging what he’d found out about skeletons in GHC’s closet, but for Upshaw, embracing Donny as a prodigal son was a favor he couldn’t willingly oblige.

These thoughts were still sifting through Upshaw’s troubled mind when he turned off the main road leading out of Taos and drove through the reservation, his wipers squeaking across the windshield. Two side roads later he turned a final time and slowed to a stop next to the mailbox situated near the wrought-iron gate guarding the long driveway leading uphill to his mountain home. He pushed the remote clipped to his visor, and the gate began to slowly creak open as he rolled down his window and reached out through the rain to get his mail. He was withdrawing a handful of bills and other correspondence when there was a stirring in the tall bushes growing up just behind the mailbox. Upshaw’s eyes widened with disbelief as the man he knew as Pete Trammell emerged through the shrubbery, drenched from the rain.

“What are you doing here?” Upshaw demanded.

“Your son’s upset that you didn’t send him a birthday card,” Petenka Tramelik replied. “He wanted me to send you a little message.”

With that, Tramelik raised his gloved hand and calmly fired a round from his Raven Arms MP-25, the same weapon Vladik Barad had used to kill Alan Orson.

Upshaw’s head lolled from the impact and the mail fell from his hand. Dead, the tribal leader slipped his foot off the brake and his car slowly eased forward, just missing the still-opening gate. As Tramelik watched on, the sedan continued up the driveway another twenty yards before failing to negotiate the first turn leading into the mountains. Mature cottonwoods grew up along both sides of the road, and the car came to an abrupt stop once it left the driveway and crashed into one of them. The engine died, but Tremalik could still hear its wipers trying to fend off the rain.

The Russian operative jogged to the car and leaned in through the window. Reaching past Upshaw, he ran his hand beneath the dashboard and removed the dime-size homing bug he and Barad had been using to track Upshaw’s movements, as well as any conversations made in the vehicle. Next, Tramelik carefully frisked his victim until he came across the dead man’s cell phone. Pocketing both items, he strode back through the rain to the shrubs he’d been hiding behind and retrieved a small backpack containing a laptop and several other valuables he’d stolen from Upshaw’s mountain home hours ago, before he and Barad had laid seige to Alan Orson’s estate. He tossed in the cell phone, then trampled over the dead man’s mail and made his way back to the turnoff. Farther up the road, Donny Upshaw’s run-down Buick LeSabre was parked on the shoulder just in front of a hedge that had shielded it from his father’s view. Barad was behind the wheel. Donny was still out cold in the backseat.

Tramelik got in front and nodded to Barad, who then started the Buick and pulled back onto the road. Tramelik turned in his seat and reached over, nudging Donny with the Raven’s barrel.

“First Orson and his dog, and now your own father,” Tramelik said disapprovingly. “That’s quite a killing spree, Donny. Something tells me that when you come down off the smack and realize what you’ve done the shame is going to be too much for you.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Less than an hour had passed since the Stony Man trio had escaped from the submerged taxi. The three men were back up on the main road, sitting in the rear of a paramedic van that had arrived a few minutes earlier. They’d already had their vitals checked and had changed into dry clothes the EMTs had been instructed to bring along. Miraculously, aside from bruises and a wrenched shoulder suffered by Bolan, the men had been come through their ordeal unscathed. Now, shrouded in thermal blankets, they were waiting for their Justice Department credentials to be verified by the Albuquerque police.

Bolan had warmed up sufficiently. Shedding his blanket, he told the others, “I’m going to see what the holdup is.”

“If they’re passing out hot cocoa I’ll have a double,” Grimaldi said, his teeth chattering.

“Same here,” Kissinger added.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Bolan said.

Outside the van, University Drive had been officially closed off and officers had already taped off a crime-scene area nearly half the size of a football field. The officer standing closest to the van quickly blocked Bolan’s way the moment he stepped down onto the tarmac.

“Sorry, but you need to stay put.”

“We’ve got a friend missing out there,” Bolan countered. “We’d like to do something about it.”

“And we’ve got two dead cops along with another body back at the airport,” the officer said. “Cool your heels.”

Bolan didn’t care for the officer’s attitude but wasn’t about to take issue with it. He remained near the truck, slowly flexing his shoulder. It was stiff and he had a limited range of motion, but he doubted the injury would compromise his ability to resume what he now saw as a bona fide mission. Perhaps the plight of Franklin Colt had little bearing on national security, but given the man’s friendship with a fellow Stony Man warrior, Bolan felt a personal stake in Colt’s fate. And, too, there was the matter of him and his two colleagues barely escaping the grim fate of the two police officers now lying in body bags inside a second paramedic van parked near the squad car that had come under assault while the Executioner was struggling for his life beneath the cold waters of Tijeras Arroyo.

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.

CHAPTER EIGHT

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.

“Orson still hasn’t checked in,” Bolan told them.

Grimaldi grabbed the remote and switched off the television. “Not a good sign,” he said.

“No, it isn’t.” Bolan joined the men and handed out toiletry kits he’d bought at the lobby gift shop to replace those lost to the roaring floodwaters of Tijeras Arroyo. He then gave Grimaldi and Kissinger each a bare-bones replacement cell phone.

“Mine shorted out under water,” he told them. “I figure yours did, too.”

“Thanks,” Kissinger said. “I was going to try mine again once the SIM card dried, but that usually doesn’t work.”

“Any other news?” Grimaldi asked.

“Lowe put out an APB for Orson’s car and has the Taos police on their way to check out his place.”

“There’s still a chance he was just waylaid and’ll show up here,” Kissinger offered.

“True,” Bolan said, “but given what’s happened, we have to consider that he’s somehow tied into all of this.”

“As a target of one of the perps?” Grimaldi wondered.

“I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough,” Bolan said. “There’s something else. While they were searching the panel truck, they came across a map of the reservation. Colt’s place out in the mountains was marked off.”

“Their next stop?”

“Could be,” Bolan said, “but I think it was more a backup plan in case they didn’t get him at the airport.”

“If they’re looking for something and Colt didn’t have it on him,” Kissinger suggested, “they still might show up there.”

“If that’s the case, I want to be there.”

“Good idea,” Kissinger said. “Colt’s got a wife and kid.”

Bolan nodded. “Lowe’s already called and told her to be on the lookout. She has some neighbors coming by until I get there. I want to see if she can shed any light on things, then I want to get her to a safe house. Lowe’s off tracking down the families of the cops that were killed, but he’s arranged for the tribal police to chip in.”

“The reservation’s probably out of his jurisdiction anyway, right?” Grimaldi said. “They usually have some kind of sovereignty thing going on.”

“That, too,” Bolan said.

“Well, we’re cleaned up and ready to roll,” Kissinger offered. “I don’t know Colt’s wife, but I’d like to come along.”

“We’ve got a lot going on,” Bolan countered. “It might be better if we split up for now.”

“What did you have in mind?” Kissinger asked.

“Once I change, one of Lowe’s men will take me to the reservation,” Bolan said. “I think somebody should stay here on the chance Orson shows up.”

“Got it,” Kissinger said.

“Good.” Bolan turned to Grimaldi. “Lowe’s also got a crew on the way to the arroyo to fish out the taxi. We’re already cleared to get our things back, no questions asked, but it’d be best if you could be there to keep an eye on things.”

“Will do,” Grimaldi said. “We can probably salvage the guns and ammo but the notebook’s not going to be of much use.”

“We can worry about that later.”

“About Franklin’s wife,” Kissinger interjected. “How much detail did Lowe go into when he talked to her? Does she know the kind of people we’re dealing with?” Bolan nodded.

“What happened at the airport had already been on the news before Lowe called,” he said. “Some of these neighbors coming over are war vets. They’ll be armed, but I’ll still be glad when I get there.”

“Let’s just hope you get there in time,” Kissinger responded.

Bolan nodded gravely. “Don’t think that hasn’t crossed my mind.”

Glorieta, New Mexico

WHEN HE CAME TO, Franklin Colt found himself bound to a straight-backed wooden chair set in the middle of a small, cold room bare of any other furnishings other than a dim lightbulb shining in a wall sconce near the only doorway. The stocking cap had been removed from his head and through the gaps in the shuttered windows he could see it was still dark outside, but he had no idea how long he’d been out. His skull throbbed where he’d been struck, and he could feel that both his wrists and ankles had been chafed by the duct tape. He was now bound by thick lengths of rope tethering him to the chair. He could also feel a dull pain in his right biceps and figured this captors had to have injected him with something to keep him unconscious. One of the men was in the room with him, a pistol tucked into the waistband of his trousers. When he spoke, Colt recognized the voice of the man who’d knocked him out back in the car.

“It’s about time,” Viktor Cherkow complained when he noticed that Colt had come to. “That tranq dose wasn’t all that strong.”

The cut on Colt’s lip had scabbed over but all it took was a faint grimace to reopen the wound and give him a fresh taste of his own blood. He spit it out and demanded, “Where am I?”

Cherkow laughed. “Do you really think I’m about to tell you?”

“Where am I?” Colt repeated.

“What are you, a parrot?” Cherkow squawked derisively and flapped his arms as if they were wings. “Bwawk, bwak! Polly want a cracker?”

Colt fell silent. When he took a deep breath, he felt suddenly nauseous, overcome by a cloying, musklike smell that permeated the stark room. It was a vaguely familiar odor, and Colt soon placed it as the scent of javelinas, boarlike creatures that roamed the outer edges of the pueblo as well as other parts of the state. It wasn’t much of a clue as to his whereabouts, but moments later Colt heard the mournful howl of a train engine as well as the rhythmic clatter of steel wheels rolling across a stretch of rail tracks. The sound was close, less than a mile away. Colt knew there was a train line that paralleled most of the eastern leg of Interstate 25 between Santa Fe and Blanchard. It seemed likely, then, that he was being held somewhere along that fifty-mile route. He had doubts that he would be able to put the information to use, but the knowledge gave him some small sense of empowerment.

Steam rose from a cup of coffee Cherkow held in one hand as he paced the room. As with the others, Colt recognized the Russian from the casino. He was tall and lean, wearing denim jeans and a matching lined jacket. His complexion was pasty, and his jaw was outlined with a thin, well-groomed beard the same dark shade of brown as his close-cropped hair. An equally thin red scar trailed down his right cheek. Colt had seen his share of knife fights over the years and suspected the Russian’s scar had come from a similar skirmish.

Outside, the sound of the train faded, only to be replaced by the persistent drone of an approaching helicopter. Cherkow went to the window and glanced out a moment through the shutters, then turned and ambled back toward Colt.

“We both know you’re going to talk eventually,” he told his prisoner. “Why not save us all a lot of trouble and do it now?”

“I already told your friends,” Colt responded. “I live on the reservation and work at the casino. I just do my job and don’t ask questions, so I don’t know what it is that—”

Cherkow cut Colt off, dashing the scalding contents of his cup into the bound man’s face. Colt let out a cry as the coffee burned his skin and stung his eyes. The Russian wasn’t finished. He took a quick step forward and raised his right leg, planting his foot against Colt’s chest. With all his might, he thrust the leg outward. Colt’s feet swung up into the air as the chair tipped and fell backward, taking him with it. His head struck the hardwood floor and he saw once more a cluster of fast-moving stars, but this time he remained conscious. The pain inside his skull magnified, however, brimming his eyes with involuntary tears. The floorboards beneath him shuddered faintly as the helicopter set down, seemingly less than a few dozen yards away. A few seconds later, the copter’s rotors fell silent and the floor went still.

Looming over Colt, Cherkow withdrew the Viking pistol from his waistband. He leaned over and pressed the gun’s cold barrel against Colt’s forehead.

“Here’s something for you to think about,” Cherkow said coldly. “We know where you live. We know your wife is at home with that new baby of yours. If you won’t talk, maybe she will.”

Colt froze in terror, his worst fear realized.

“Leave my family out of this!” he said. Staring past the barrel into Cherkow’s cold gray eyes, Colt could see that he was appealing to the conscience of someone who had none.

“That’s up to you, now, isn’t it?” Cherkow said. “Which kind of hero do you want to be? The kind who thinks there’s something noble about keeping silent or the kind that puts his family first?”

Colt was coming to grips with Cherkow’s ultimatum when the door swung inward and another of his captors entered. The other man shouted angrily at Cherkow, again in a language with which Colt was unfamilar. Cherkow shouted back but pulled the gun from Colt’s head and stood upright, facing off with the other man. They continued to argue briefly, but Colt had no way of knowing what they were talking about. Several times, however, he heard a word that was all too familiar. A name.

Orson.

Colt’s heart sank anew as he realized something far more ominous than heavy rain or slow traffic may have prevented his friend from showing up at the airport. Had these men killed Orson the same way they’d killed Kissinger and the others? Or had the inventor been taken hostage, as well? If so, why? What could possibly be Orson’s connection to what he suspected was going on at the reservation? It made no sense.

Once the Russians had finished arguing, Cherkow turned to Colt.

“As long as you’re laying down, you might as well get some sleep. We have a little surprise in store for you when you wake up.”

Cherkow followed the other man out of the room. They left the door ajar, allowing Colt his first glimpse of what looked to be an adjacent living room. All he could see was a table, two chairs and a sun-faded, overstuffed sofa. Several cardboard boxes rested on the latter’s cushions. Standing beside the sofa was a short, thin man dressed in black. He had long red hair and a matching goatee. Colt had never seen him before.