Blood Play (Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan)

by Pendleton, Don

  Kurtzman turned to Tokaido. “What do you think?”

  “I think we’re damn close,” the young hacker conceded. “Now we just need to get a time of death for Donny’s old man so we can try to figure out where that fits in with all this. And I don’t know if it’s just because I love an underdog, but I’m still thinking there’s gotta be a way to see this in terms of Donny being framed.”

  “I’m with you on that,” Wethers said, “mostly because of what happened in Albuquerque. There has to be some kind of connection that would account for someone wanting to make him the fall guy.”

  “I’ve got a two-way comp-link with Taos,” Kurtzman said, turning back to his keyboard. “Let me see if they’ve come up with anything else we can work with.”

  “You might want to have them check to see if Orson’s speed chopper’s still accounted for,” Tokaido said. “I remember reading that it’s stored at the airport there.”

  “Will do.”

  Kurtzman had just begun typing his query when Barbara Price strode into the room, wrapping up a long-distance cell call to Jack Grimaldi.

  “I already checked with the hotel and they have a heliport on the roof,” she was telling the Stony Man pilot. “Cowboy will be waiting for you. Let me know as soon as you find out anything. Either way.”

  As Price clicked off, she saw the three men watching her intently. Despite the intensity of the brainstorming session they’d just put themselves through, from the look on the mission controller’s face they knew their possible breakthrough on the Taos case had just lost its urgency.

  “We have a situation at the reservation,” she said matter-of-factly. “It involves Striker.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Antwerp, Belgium

  “It’s your mess.” Evgenii Danilov stared out the window of his high-rise office suite overlooking the sluggish churning of the River Scheldt as he spoke to Frederik Mikhaylov. “Don’t make me have to clean it up for you.”

  Danilov tapped his cell phone and ended the transcontinental call without giving Mikhaylov a chance to respond. The buoyant optimism he’d felt a few short hours ago had long faded, replaced by a sense of foreboding. This had been the second time he’d spoken to Mikhaylov since preparing for what he’d thought would be a good night’s sleep. The call had only underscored what he’d concluded after the first one: the situation in New Mexico, after so many months of running with a steady precision, was in danger of spiraling out of control. Something had to be done. He’d already made a call of his own to that effect.

  Outside it was bitterly cold and had begun to snow again, the kind of snowfall where the flakes were so large and weightless it almost seemed as if they were floating upward. One of the larger flakes landed against the window and the elderly Russian watched as it slowly lost its shape and dissolved into a tearlike droplet that trailed down the tinted glass and was quickly absorbed by a growing puddle on the windowsill.

  That’s all it takes, Danilov mused darkly. One wrong move and you’re nothing.

  Slipping his phone into the pocket of his tailored coat, the silver-haired CEO of Global Holdings Corporation strode past his antique mahogany desk to a matching wet bar and poured a healthy portion of Hennessy Ellipse cognac into a crystal snifter. At five thousand dollars a bottle, the cognac was meant to be slowly savored and Danilov usually observed the proper ritual of letting it warm in the glass to release its aroma, but after speaking to Mikhaylov he was in no mood for ceremony. He swirled the amber liquid briefly and indulged in a perfunctory sniff, then layered his palate and let the liqueur linger there as he walked back to his desk. The cognac’s warm glow radiated through him, and he was grateful for the way it seemed to blunt the rage that had been building up inside him. He needed to calm himself in preparation for the unpleasant task that lay before him. He was about to, as some of his unsavory American business associates sometimes put it, “eat crow.”

  Danilov spent the next few minutes affixing his signature to a handful of documents his secretary had delivered to him earlier. Those few scrawls would put into motion over four and a half billion dollars’ worth of business transactions, most of them hostile takeovers of EU corporations whose weakened underbellies had been exposed during the recent global downturn. In most respects, those dealings far dwarfed GHC’s financial stake in the Roaming Bison Casino and the other, more covert, enterprise taking place at the reservation’s nuclear waste facility. But the latter situation, with its combination of intrigue and mayhem, bore a far greater sense of immediacy and crowded Danilov’s thoughts, so much so that he was startled when his intercom bleated and his secretary informed him that Alek Repin had arrived.

  “Send him in,” Danilov said.

  Moments later, a stodgy middle-aged man wearing a rumpled, ill-fitting suit hobbled into the room, using a cane to favor the prosthetic right leg that had replaced the one claimed by a land mine during his military service twenty years ago in the mountains of Afghanistan. Alek Repin was still in many ways haunted by the stigma of the failed Russian occupation, and though he’d managed to exonerate himself of any responsibility for that debacle, he went through life guarded against the possibility of having to repeat the dishonorable means by which he’d done so. As deputy director of Vympel, the Special Operations Branch of SVR’s Directorate S, Repin was notorious for choosing his battles based on the greatest likelihood of success, and his track record in terms of his dealings on behalf of Global Holdings was thus far impeccable. The incidents of the previous night in New Mexico were no exception; they, after all, had been carried out by Mikhaylov, whom Danilov had chosen as his point man over Repin’s objections. As such, there was the faintest trace of mirth in the man’s eyes as he eased himself into the tooled leather chair facing Danilov’s desk. The look wasn’t lost on Danilov.

  “You’ve heard about what’s happened in the States, I take it,” he said.

  Repin shrugged. “When you said it was urgent that I see you, I took an educated guess and made a few inquiries.”

  Danilov saw no sense in putting off his concession.

  “You were right about Mikhaylov,” he said. “I overestimated him.”

  Repin fumbled through his coat pocket and took out a gold-plated cigarette case. He popped it open and held it out to Danilov, who he knew despised smoking with a passion. Danilov shook his head and restrained his contempt as he calmly searched his desk for something to serve as an ashtray. He settled on an onyx paperweight carved in the shape of a turtle. He turned it over, exposing the hollowed underside, and handed it to Repin. Repin nodded his appreciation and took his time lighting one of the hand-rolled cigarettes. He was clearly enjoying the moment every bit as much as Danilov would normally have enjoyed his cognac. It was only after he’d fouled the office with his first exhalation of smoke that he responded to Danilov’s initial mea culpa.

  “As they say,” he intoned, “there are two different meanings to the word ‘butcher.’”

  “He may need to be replaced,” Danilov said. “Is Vishnevsky available?”

  Repin looked puzzled. He frowned as he tapped ash into the turtle’s belly, then leaned back slightly in the chair and blew a smoke ring, watching it drift up toward the unmoving propellors of the ceiling fan directly above him.

  “Ah, you mean Dmitri Vishnevsky,” he said, as if it were some long-forgotten name. “My first choice for that particular job.”

  “I know you assigned him to Mikhaylov’s former position in Bolivia,” Danilov said coldly. “But I suspect he’s as impatient to move up as this blundering moron I chose instead.”

  Repin couldn’t help but smile at hearing Mikhaylov so soundly denigrated, especially when it was Danilov making the denunciation. Still, he was in no rush to accommodate the other man.

  “What about Diaz?” he suggested.

  “Diaz is strictly a tech person,” Danilov said. “Besides, he’s not one of us.”

  “But I thought there were already plans to fly him into the Sta
tes.”

  “That’s still the plan,” Danilov said, “but he’s only coming to look over the inventions and do the job Orson wouldn’t.”

  “Help with uranium processing.”

  “Exactly. Technical matters only. We need Vishnevsky to help bring the situation there under control.”

  “Help?” Repin seemed incredulous. “Work alongside Mikhaylov? With their history?”

  “He’d take over operations in Taos to begin with,” Danilov said. “That’s far enough away from Santa Fe that he wouldn’t have to be in the same room with Mikhaylov. If he keeps us from being linked to what happened last night and can get us access to the uranium mines, he’ll take over the whole operation.”

  “Oh, so this would be an audition, as it were,” Repin said. “You’re not just offering him the job up front?”

  “If he’s gotten more of a backbone, as you claim, Taos should be no problem for him,” Danilov challenged.

  “Dmitri’s always had a backbone,” Repin countered. “He just has a tendency to be more discreet than Mikhaylov. He’s more of a surgeon than a butcher, if you will.”

  “Sometimes you need to be both.”

  Repin smiled. “Funny you should mention that,” he said. “Do you remember how Mikhaylov earned his job as a pit boss back in Moscow?”

  “He killed the head of an outfit Dolgoprudnenskaya was having problems with.”

  Repin nodded. “What if I told you Vishnevsky is about to do the same thing in Bolivia, only on a much larger scale?”

  He wants me to eat still more crow, Danilov thought to himself as he listened to Repin describe the specifics of Vishnevsky’s assignment on behalf of the Andean Splendor. Despite himself, he was impressed by the magnitude of the undertaking.

  “If he succeeds,” Danilov conceded afterward, “I’d say it proves you’ve been right about him all along. Still, given the situation, at this point I can only offer him Taos.”

  “A minor hurdle,” Repin said.

  “Well, then?” the financier replied. “Is he available or not?”

  “I guess that would depend,” Repin countered.

  “You want to know what’s in it for you.”

  Repin shrugged again and held his hands out expansively. “We live in a selfish world, Evgenii.”

  “What’s your price?” Danilov asked, fighting his impatience.

  Repin looked down at his rumpled suit and flicked off some ash that had fallen on it. “I’m a simple man,” he replied. “I have all I need.”

  “You just said this is a selfish world,” Danilov said, “so let’s dispense with the humility. And I’m in no mood for haggling. What’s your price?”

  Repin took another puff, then stubbed out his cigarette and turned his attention to his cane, an oaken staff knobbed with the ivory likeness of a perched eagle.

  “Thanks to the Butcher,” he said, “in New Mexico you have not just one can of worms to deal with, but three. Taos, the reservation and that little incident at the airport in Albuquerque. It’s not the sort of goulash I care to stick my fork in, if you catch my meaning.”

  Danilov was expecting reticence from Repin. He knew there was no sense in holding back his trump card. He pushed back from his desk and silently returned to the wet bar. Moments later, he handed Repin a snifter of the cognac. He’d splashed more of it into his own glass. This time he was prepared to give the liquid a chance to warm.

  “There is talk that Grigoriev is stepping down next year,” Danilov said offhandedly on the way back to his chair. As he sat down he eyed Repin directly. “Like Mikhaylov, he will need to be replaced, too.”

  Stanislov Grigoriev was the SVR director, Repin’s immediate superior as well as the only obstacle standing in the way of the one-legged man’s ultimate ambition as a member of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service.

  Repin tried to remain blank-faced, but a flickering spark of desire in his eyes gave him away.

  Danilov knew they had a deal.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Rosqui Pueblo, New Mexico

  The sun had yet to rise but in the predawn light police Captain Tina Brown stood solemnly before a makeshift podium erected in the middle of the service road fifty yards from the gateway leading to Franklin Colt’s property. The road was closed and the gateway was cordoned off to allow a forensics team to collect blood samples and other evidence from the driveway area. Past the gate, out on the rolling hills that blocked the media’s view of Colt’s house, several other similar teams were at work at the locations where known victims of the previous night’s skirmish had fallen, some slain by gunfire, others trampled by bison. Three paramedic vans were parked along the lengthy stretch, their crews awaiting confirmation that it was all right to start retrieving bodies. Elsewhere on the grounds a handful of volunteers from the reservation were engaged in the tedious chore of herding the few remaining stray bison across the property toward the break in the fence they’d knocked down during their wild stampede. Overhead, taking it all in, was a handful of news choppers, their collective drone echoing across the hills.

  Brown was a slight woman, slim and barely regulation height, but she carried her fifty-six years with an air of self-assuredness and resolve that had served her well during her rise through the ranks of the Rosqui Tribal Police Force. She stared out at the assembled reporters and news cameras with a measured calm, her craggy face a dispassionate mask that belied the alertness in her obsidian eyes. Several reporters were already hounding her with questions that she had no intention of addressing at the moment. She would handle this press conference on her terms and her terms alone. She stalled a few minutes longer, letting the media stew in its collective juices while she busied herself conferring with fellow officers who were helping her to coordinate what was shaping up to be the largest-scale criminal investigation on the reservation since the Shiraldi Management scandal a few years prior.

  It was only after the sun had crested the lofty peak of Mt. McCray that Brown launched into her remarks, taking private satisfaction in the way she’d orchestrated matters so that her back would be turned to the sun, leaving the media to contend with its blinding rays.

  Brown introduced herself then stated, “As I’m sure you’ve already gathered, insofar as last night’s incident occurred on tribal land, the investigation has fallen under my jurisdiction as head of the police force here. An investigatory agent from the Bureau of Indian Affairs will be here shortly, and his input will be both welcome and appreciated.”

  “What about the off-reservation law enforcement?” one reporter asked. “Our understanding is this incident is likely tied in with Colt’s abduction at Albuquerque International last night. It seems like that would make this the business of the—”

  “Excuse me,” Brown interrupted, “but I have to ask you all to kindly refrain from questions until I’ve finished my statement.”

  The reporter fell silent but look unappeased.

  “I will tell you, however,” Brown conceded, “that of course all other relevant agencies will be apprised of our findings once we have a clearer idea of what exactly happened here.

  “At this point I can tell you this much—at approximately three forty-five Central Time this morning there was an altercation on the property of tribal member Franklin Colt involving four of our officers, four other residents of the reservation and at least five individuals whose identities have yet to be determined. At some point during the exchange of gunfire, a large portion of our bison colony was apparently startled enough to breach a fence separating their grazing land from Colt’s property and stampede the site. To the best of our estimation, the altercation ended shortly afterward.

  “I must regretfully inform you that all four of our officers involved in the incident were killed, three as a result of gunshot wounds and another as a result of being caught in the path of the stampede. One of the perpetrators was similarly killed by the bison while the others are apparent gunshot victims. We have no information at this point
regarding the other members of the reservation.”

  “Can we have some names?” one reporter called out.

  “What about Colt’s wife and son?” another interjected, cupping one hand over his brow to deflect the morning sun.

  Brown glared at the questioners. “I made my opening remarks in plain English in hopes they would be understood without the need for a translator,” she said. “If you’ll allow me to finish without any further interruptions, most likely the majority of your questions will be answered.”

  There was a subdued murmuring among some members of the media. As Brown waited for it to subside, Daniel Walsh, a younger member of the force, made his way around the media ensemble driving a Yamaha Rhino ATV similar to the ones still parked behind Colt’s gristmill. As he neared Brown, Walsh nodded and held up a manila envelope for the police chief to see. Brown nodded back and gestured for the officer to park next to one of the RTPF’s unmarked sedans, where a middle-aged Native American in a plain brown suit stood solemnly watching the proceedings.

  Brown turned back to the media and was about to resume her remarks when she caught herself, noticing, for the first time, a woman with dark hair standing at the rear of the throng, dressed in a long teal jacket and a matching rain hat. The hat’s wide brim partially obscured her features, but Brown got enough of a look at her to sense she’d seen the woman before. It quickly came to her. The woman had been detained at the reservation a few days earlier after taking photos near the nuclear waste plant, which was off-limits to visitors. She’d claimed to have gotten lost while hiking on authorized trails on the other side of the mountains surrounding the facility. Similar incidents happened every few months and the woman, like the other trespassers, had been released with a warning after the photos had been deleted from her digital camera. It was only later that Brown had learned that prior to her hike the same woman had been in the casino asking a few bartenders about Christopher Shiraldi, claiming she was an old friend passing through town.