Survival Reflex

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.

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.”