“If there were prints, the rain got to them,” Zimmer said. “There are a few snapped branches where he was probably lying in wait, but it’s nothing to go on.”
Lyons was on his way to take a closer look when his cell phone bleated. He excused himself and moved away from Zimmer to take the call.
It was Aaron Kurtzman, calling from the Farm.
By the time Lyons had received the latest update and hung up, Eric Gibson had pulled into the driveway, having doubled back before making it to the main road.
“Just got a call from the station,” he reported as he got out of his squad car. “I figured you’d want to hear about it.”
“Vishnevsky?” Lyons said, slipping his phone back in his pocket.
“Who?” Gibson said.
“A Russian agent,” Lyons said. “He’s supposedly on a plane headed here from Santa Fe.”
“When it rains, it pours,” Gibson said. “That’s the first I’ve heard about that. I got called about something else.”
“What’d you find out?” Zimmer asked.
“We got hold of Walt’s cell phone. At least one of them.”
“In Donny’s Buick?” Lyons said.
Gibson shook his head. “Forensics found it going through Walt’s car. Thing is, all of the calls are to the same number.”
“Colt,” Lyons guessed.
Gibson nodded. “All within the last three weeks.”
“Any text messages?” Lyons asked. “Photo files?”
“No,” Gibson said. “But there’s one more thing, and it supports your theory a whole lot more than it does ours.”
“Well?”
“It’s Donny’s autopsy,” Gibson said. “The M.E. doing it says he found a fresh scalp wound that likely wasn’t the cause of death.”
“I’m not sure what that means,” Zimmer interjected. “He struck his head on something?”
“More like the other way around,” Gibson reported. “Apparently there are some faint stitch marks along the abrasion. The M.E.’s guessing somebody got to him with a sap.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico
John Kissinger knew something was up the moment he left the Rosqui Sushine Suites Hotel and saw Michael Fisk standing alone in the parking lot of the urgent-care facility across the highway. Rather than wait for an explanation, he put through a call to Stony Man Farm while taking the pedestrian overpass spanning the six-lane thoroughfare. He was amazed to find out just how much had transpired, not only in Santa Fe but also up in Taos, while he was checking Rafe and Leonard into the hotel.
Once he caught up with the BIA agent, Kissinger explained that he’d already received the lowdown on his cohorts’ aerial pursuit of Viktor Cherkow.
“Sorry to hold you up,” he said afterward, “but I had to do some arm-twisting with the check-in clerk and then I got waylaid by a call from a P.I. tied into what’s going on at the reservation.”
“Seems like everybody and their uncle’s thrown themselves into the mix over there,” Fisk replied.
“Actually, she was involved before the rest of us.”
Kissinger quickly related how Leslie Helms was drawn into the investigation by way of Alan Orson and then described how the woman was followed into Santa Fe after leaving Captain Brown’s press conference.
“Not too bright of her showing her face there after they’d already caught her snooping around,” Fisk said.
“I don’t think it’s a mistake she’ll make again,” Kissinger said. “At any rate, after she shook the guy tailing her she tried to turn the tables and get behind him but there was too much traffic.”
“Probably just as well for her,” Fisk said.
“I don’t want to keep you any longer,” Kissinger stated. “She’s on her way by to pick me up, then we’ll try to join in looking for that Silverado.”
“Any chance she drives a white Lexus?” Fisk said, glancing over Kissinger’s shoulder.
The Stony Man armorer turned and saw Helms pull into the medical facility in the car she’d rented in place of her Jetta. He shook hands with Fisk, then jogged over to the Lexus.
“Ready for a little more adventure?” he asked her as he got in.
“Always,” Helms said, “but if it’s all right with you, I want to change the itinerary just a little.”
“I don’t know about that,” Kissinger said. “Tracking down Cherkow is top priority.”
“I think I can trump that,” Helms said. “I just got off the phone with Christopher Shiraldi. He’s ready to talk about how GHC convinced him to walk away from his countersuit over being canned from the casino. I want to get to him before he changes his mind.”
Kissinger weighed the news and reached for his cell phone.
“You’re right,” he said. “Let me tell my crew we’re taking a detour. How far away is Shiraldi?”
“He’s at a place called Cochiti Lake,” Helms said. “It’s south about an hour from here….”
Cochiti Lake, New Mexico
“I’M SORRY, BUT IT’S A private matter,” Christopher Shiraldi said, speaking on the phone to the last of five customers whose afternoon appointments he’d just canceled. “I’ll give you a call about rescheduling if you’re still interested.”
The former Roaming Bison executive was inside his Coachmen Mirada motor home. He’d already paid his staff for the day and given them each an extra fifty dollars to blow at Casino Hollywood, the nearest gambling mecca located some ten miles away on the other side of the main highway. Outside the motor home, he’d posted a handmade sign over his AGA sandwich board reading No Balloon Tours Today—Family Emergency. One of the balloons was still inflated and ready to take off, however, having been prepped shortly before an unexpected visitor had arrived and convinced Shiraldi to close for the day.
As he set down the phone, Shiraldi’s hand was trembling.
“That’s everyone?” Russell Combs asked.
The undercover tribal officer was standing alongside Shiraldi, the lethal snout of his .357 SIG P-266 pressed against the other man’s ribs. It hadn’t been long after Leslie Helms had given him the slip that Combs had recalled how the woman had been asking bartenders back at the casino about Shiraldi. He’d been keeping periodic tabs on the man ever since the lawsuits over GHC’s takeover, so it’d been easy enough for him to track Shiraldi to Cochiti Lake and use him to lure Helms back into his sights. He was looking forward to having the last laugh on the private investigator.
“Yes,” Shiraldi replied hoarsely. “At least everyone with reservations. We occasionally get walk-ins.”
“Hopefully they’ll read the closed signs and move on,” Combs said.
“What are you going to do with us when she gets here?” Shiraldi asked.
“It’ll be all fun and games, I promise,” Combs replied. “But while we’re waiting, how about if we sit down and have a little chat about that gag clause you agreed to when you were paid off to drop your lawsuit.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Algodones, New Mexico
Enterprising town locals had high aspirations when they’d renamed a section of El Camino Real linking Algodones with Bernalillo the Pan-American Central Highway. The short four-mile, two-lane stretch paralleling Interstate 25 ran through largely barren land once touted as a potential boomtown due to its proximity to Santa Ana Pueblo’s casino and several upscale golf courses. The boom never materialized, however, dooming the lone commercial venture that sprung up along the roadway to a quick and certain demise. For the past dozen years, the Happy Trails Motel and its adjacent eighteen-hole miniature golf course had been left to the elements as well as an endless parade of transients, vandals and graffiti scrawlers who, like vampires, tended to come out only at night.
And then there were times, like this day, when financial transactions made at the site far surpassed the wildest dreams of its former owners. It was here, more often than anywhere else in the state, that Viktor Cherkow usually made his hi
gh-volume drug buys from Colombian dealers that, ironically, trafficked most of their wares along various points of the original Pan-American Highway in Central and South America.
Cherkow had gotten onto the interstate a few minutes before the SFPD dragnet had been set up at the highway’s entrance ramps, and the twenty-mile drive had gone by without incident. Less than five minutes after taking the Algodones exit, Cherkow turned into the cracked asphalt driveway leading to the motel. Hedeon Barad rode beside him in the front seat of Alan Orson’s stolen Silverado, still holding the well-worn attaché case filled with unmarked currency skimmed from the Roaming Bison Casino’s counting rooms. Barad had already raided the valise for his CZ 75 SP-01 Phantom pistol, and Cherkow had strapped on his shoulder holster for easy access to his gun, an MP-446 Viking.
“There’s Jaime’s pimp mobile,” Cherkow said, spotting his Colombian contact’s tricked-up, cherry-red 2009 Mustang parked behind the abandoned hotel’s registration office.
“You’d think he’d get something more discreet for when he’s doing business,” Barad said.
Cherkow laughed. “That’s what I told him last time. Know what he said? ‘This is discreet. You should see the car I show off in.’”
“Must be nice to be rich.”
“I hear you, my friend. One of these days we’ll have to cut loose from Mikhaylov and go into business for ourselves, eh?” Cherkow pulled to a stop and killed the engine. “I don’t know about you, but I get tired of doing all the dirty work while he gets all the glory.”
“Let’s get this dirty work done, then.”
Barad opened his door and was stepping out when he suddenly retreated back inside the cab and thumbed the Phantom’s safety.
“What’s wrong?” Cherkow asked.
“Next door. Behind the concession stand,” Barad murmured.
Cherkow glanced to his right and stared past the deteriorating assortment of obstacles adorning the weed-choked miniature golf course next door. The abandoned refreshment stand was a little more than sixty yards away. Parked behind it, but not enough that Cherkow couldn’t see its front end, was what looked to be a late-model sedan. Even as the Russian’s radar was going up, he was alerted by a growing drone overhead. Peering up through the sunroof, he sighted a clearly marked Albuquerque Police Department JetRanger drifting lazily into view.
“Son of a bitch!” Cherkow roared, keying the ignition. “It’s a setup!”
Cherkow was shifting into Reverse when the rabid brrraaatttt of a Chilean-made FAMAE SAF submachine gun sounded from the long-shattered front window of the hotel registration office. The noise was almost simultaneously joined by the shattering of the Silverado’s windshield under the force of incoming 9 mm Parabellum rounds.
INSIDE THE REGISTRATION OFFICE, Rosqui Tribal Police Officer Argenis Gordon stared past the barrel of his submachine gun, looking for signs of life inside the Silverado. The bodies of Colombian drug dealer Jaime Elmira and his two bodyguards lay on the floor nearby, next to a blue canvas duffel bag containing the heroin they’d planned to sell to Viktor Cherkow. Elmira and the others had been shot multiple times with handguns identical to those carried by Cherkow and Hedeon Barad. Once he was certain the Russians had been killed, Gordon planned to swap their guns with the murder weapons and arrange all five bodies to make it look as if the men had killed each other in a brief shootout the local police would be likely to write off as a botched drug deal.
“Did you get ’em?” asked Gordon’s partner, fellow RTPF Officer Paul Boggs. Boggs was behind the registration counter, armed with another SAF appropriated from the slain Colombians. Like Gordon, he wore cotton lab gloves to keep his fingerprints off the weapon. Also like Gordon, he was out of uniform, wearing jeans and a flak jacket over his drab flannel shirt.
“I think so,” Gordon replied. “The guy riding shotgun is definitely out, but I can’t see the driver.”
“He’s probably slumped over,” Boggs replied, “but stay put and I’ll circle around on them from back.”
“Do it!”
CHERKOW WAS COVERED with blood but most of it was Barad’s. His bandaged face had been nicked by flying glass and a fresh slug buried in his left shoulder burned every bit as much as the one he’d taken in the hip a few hours before, but he was anything but dead. Enraged, he leaned over his slain partner and threw open Barad’s door, then stuffed the dead man’s Phantom into his holster for backup and crawled out. He dropped to the ground and left the door open, leaning close to the vehicle. One of the aspens drooped low over the Chevy, blocking his view of the chopper. He hoped those in the bird would have the same trouble spotting him. He wanted payback with those who’d fired at him, and he got his chance a few seconds later when Boggs bolted into view from behind the registration office. The officer was trying to reach a carport on the other side of the driveway but made it only halfway across before Cherkow brought him down with his Viking. The Russian stared at his victim, startled to see that the man was not Colombian but rather Native American.
“A tribal cop?” the Russian muttered. The idea that Captain Brown was possibly behind the ambush infuriated him still further. Cherkow took out his fury on Boggs, pumped another two rounds into the downed officer to make sure he was dead.
The Russian’s volley was quickly answered by Boggs’s partner and Cherkow was forced to duck low when a fresh torrent of 9 mm rounds raked the Silverado’s front end. Cherkow wasn’t sure how many gunmen he was up against in addition to those in the helicopter, which was shifting position overhead, most likely so its occupants could get him back in their sights. He had to make some kind of move. Cherkow looked around and decided his best course was through the aspens to his right. He gathered his strength, then broke clear of the truck, ignoring his wound and the pain in his hip as he dashed from tree to tree to an overgrown beltway of unmowed grass that separated the motel grounds from the miniature golf course. He hurdled a collapsed wood rail fence that bordered the course and by the time his enemies were onto him, Cherkow had reached the thirteenth hole, which featured a windmill and a high-arched footbridge. Rainwater had collected in a small, narrow channel beneath the bridge, and Cherkow splashed his way through it until he reached cover. A few shots thumped into the nearby windmill and another glanced off the bridge railing, but for the moment Cherkow was safely out of range.
“TRY TO HOLD IT STEADY!” Bolan called out as Jack Grimaldi guided the JetRanger wide of the aspens for a clearer view of the motel driveway as well as the registration office. The Executioner was armed with one of the M-4 A-1s that had been transferred earlier from the Skycrane. Detective Lowe had the other carbine and was using it to keep Cherkow pinned beneath the minicourse footbridge.
“How’s this?” Grimaldi replied, hovering the chopper in place.
“Good enough.”
Bolan squinted through the rifle’s scope and focused on the front window of the motel registration office. When Argenis Gordon came into view, the Executioner fired a stream of 5.56 mm rounds. Vibration within the JetRanger thwarted his aim, but he managed to ravage the window frame and drive Gordon back before the rogue cop could line up a shot. “Any luck?”
“I don’t think so,” Bolan confessed. “I’ll try the launcher.”
The M-4 was equipped with a submounted M-203 grenade launcher. Bolan switched his grip to the carbine’s forward trigger, then took aim once again, this time through the launcher’s leaf sight. He figured he’d have a better chance at a kill shot firing through the window, but he and the others had already discussed trying to take their quarry alive in hopes of getting some answers. He wasn’t sure how the shooter in the building fit into the puzzle, but on the chance he’d be worth talking to, Bolan drew bead on the office’s low-angled wood shingle roof. The carbine bucked sharply into his shoulder as the M-203’s 40 mm grenade whooshed from the barrel. Seconds later, the decrepit roof partially disintegrated, raining debris down into the office area.
“That should give him something to
think about,” Lowe said, surveying the damage as he reloaded his own carbine.
Bolan waited a moment. When there was no sign of activity within the building, he told Grimaldi, “Swing over to the golf park and set me down, then come back and double-check on things.”
“Gotcha,” Grimaldi said.
CHERKOW GRIMACED AS HE pressed his fingers against his shoulder wound, trying to ease the flow of blood. The bullet hadn’t hit an artery but he was still concerned about bleeding out to the point where he’d lose consciousness. He knew he couldn’t stay put beneath the bridge. Somehow he had to escape. The Silverado had taken too many hits to be of any use, which left Jaime’s Mustang and the sedan behind the concession stand as possible getaway vehicles. It seemed more likely that he’d find keys in the Ford’s ignition, so he braced himself for a run back to the motel. He was about to bolt from cover when the JetRanger’s shadow drifted across the bridge and an M-4 chipped away at the bridge. Bits of shrapnel pelted Cherkow’s legs and waist.
“Bastards!” the Russian seethed. His frustration increased when he saw the chopper drop into the clearing between the aspens and the golf park, blocking his way back to the motel. Worse yet, when the JetRanger’s passenger door opened, Cherkow found himself staring at the same dark-haired, blue-eyed warrior he’d failed to kill three times already.
When Bolan the man leaped from the chopper and landed in the knee-high grass just outside the minicourse, Cherkow snapped. He switched the Viking to his left hand and drew Hedeon Barad’s 9 mm Phantom with his right, then lurched to his feet and staggered into the open, firing both weapons. Bolan had already dropped from view below the grass line, allowing the fallen fence to intercept any rounds headed his way. Several of Cherkow’s slugs, however, pounded the side of the chopper and one pierced the back window, boring its way into Lowe’s side. In response, Grimaldi brought the chopper up and pulled away.
Blood Play (Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan) Page 21
