Blood Play

The wounds had been severe enough to place Colt on extended medical leave, and though Kissinger had initially made a point to keep tabs on the other man’s recuperation, as time passed and Kissinger’s shift into covert operations demanded more secrecy, their contact had become sporadic and, as often happened with even the best of friends, eventually the men had drifted apart. More than a dozen years had slipped away before Kissinger sought to reestablish contact. With help from Stony Man’s cybercrew he’d been able to track Colt down to the Rosqui reservation north of Santa Fe, where he worked graveyard shift as a security officer for Roaming Bison Casino, one of several tribal-owned resorts located just off the major interstates running through New Mexico.

After a two-hour long-distance phone conversation, Colt had suggested a face-to-face reunion. Kissinger had been all for it and volunteered to fly out to Albuquerque, where he figured he could squeeze in some business for the Farm by attending the city’s annual New Military Technologies Expo. Kissinger had mentioned that his present government work was classified, but Colt had assumed it had something to do with Cowboy’s fascination with firearms and weapons systems. He’d suggested that Kissinger meet his poker buddy Alan Orson, who was driving in from Taos to run an NMT booth featuring several of his latest inventions. Kissinger was already familiar with some of Orson’s patents and looked forward to seeing what else the inventor had up his sleeve. Should Orson have something worth adding to the Farm’s arsenal, Kissinger knew SOG had the funding—and clout—to get first crack at putting any invention to use. For the moment, however, those considerations would have to wait on Orson’s arrival from Taos.

As they waited for Colt to pick them up, Grimaldi asked Bolan, “So, what’s up with Seattle?”

“Canada beat us to the punch,” Bolan explained. “I didn’t get the details, but apparently CSIS staged a couple preemptive raids across the border. They turned up grenade launchers and plastic explosives in a shipment of machinery parts earmarked for some retrofitting business in Takoma.” CSIS was the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

“‘Retrofitting’ my ass,” Kissinger said.

Bolan and Grimaldi had their backs to the airport traffic lanes but Cowboy was facing the other way and, glancing over their shoulders, he could see Colt cross the street to the outdoor parking area. When they’d spoken on the phone, Franklin had boasted about the restoration work he’d done on a vintage 1969 Chevy Nova, and Kissinger could see the muscle car out in the parking lot, its yellow, laquered coat almost gleaming in the rain.

“Sounds like they shut down the suppliers,” Grimaldi told Bolan, “but what about the guys that stuff was being sent to?”

“That’s still on Able’s plate,” Bolan said. “They were already working the Takoma angle and figure they can follow through on their own.”

“If that’s the case, it sounds like we’ve got ourselves a minivacation,” Grimaldi said. “Sweet. Maybe we can get in that card game Colt was talking about.”

“Hang on, guys,” Kissinger murmured, eyes on the parking lot. “Something’s not right.”

Across the roadway, Colt had made his way past a handful of parked cars and was circling around his Nova when he was intercepted by two men bounding out of an unmarked black panel truck parked next to him. Kissinger’s first thought had been that one of the men was probably Alan Orson, but as he watched on, a sudden scuffle broke out between Colt and the others. Bolan and Grimaldi tracked Kissinger’s gaze to the altercation, just in time to see Colt being overpowered and dragged into the panel truck. Even as the other two assailants were clambering aboard, the truck was already backing out of its parking space.

Bolan and Kissinger were on the move. They sprinted into the pickup lane, their eyes on the truck as they signaled for oncoming traffic to stop. A cabbie was slow to respond and had to veer at the last second to avoid running the men down. Slamming on his brakes, the driver fishtailed to a stop, splashing water up past the curb and nearly drenching Grimaldi.

Bolan yanked a 9 mm Beretta 3-R from the shoulder holster concealed beneath his jacket. Kissinger already had his pistol out and both men braced themselves in the middle of the thoroughfare, drawing bead on the panel truck as it crossed the parking lot. There were too many innocent bystanders in the way, however, forcing the men to hold their fire. As traffic backed up in front of them, a number of motorists began pounding their horns. Bolan ignored the bleating as well as the cursing of the cab driver. He shouted to Grimaldi, “Get us some wheels!”

“On it!”

As Bolan and Kissinger broke their firing positions and crossed the roadway, Grimaldi slammed his fist on the taxi’s hood before its driver could pull away. The cabbie turned and glared when the Stony Man pilot tugged open the front passenger door.

“I need to borrow this,” Grimaldi said.

“Like hell,” the cabbie snapped.

Grimaldi produced his M1911 pistol and aimed it at the driver.

“I don’t have time to argue,” he said. “Get out! Now!”

The cabbie’s anger quickly morphed into fear. He put the taxi in Park and bailed out into the rain. Grimaldi tossed in his overnight bag, along with the totes Bolan and Kissinger had left on the curb. He was circling around to the driver’s side when a security officer raced out of the baggage terminal, his gun drawn. It wasn’t the cop who’d picked them up on the runway, and he had obviously quickly jumped to the wrong conclusion.

“Hold it right there!” he shouted at Grimaldi.

“Federal agent!” Grimaldi shouted back, taking the risk of reaching into his shirt pocket for the certified Justice Department badge he and his fellow commandos routinely carried while on assignment. SOG Director Hal Brognola was officially entrenched with Justice, ensuring that even though the badges were issued under aliases they would hold up under scrutiny. Given the circumstances, however, Grimaldi wasn’t about to wait around for clearance. He pointed at the racing panel truck and bellowed, “We’ve got a hostage situation!”

The officer paused, which was all the time Grimaldi needed to scramble behind the wheel and slam the taxi into gear. Raising a rainwater fantail, the pilot veered into traffic, nearly sideswiping a slow-moving Honda as he crossed lanes and plowed his way through a gap between two of several sand-filled steel drums separating northbound traffic from vehicles heading south, away from the airport. A shuttle bus in the oncoming lane swerved to one side to avoid colliding head-on with Grimaldi as he wrestled the taxi’s steering wheel, foot still on the gas, bounding over the far curb before completing a U-turn and aligning himself with southbound traffic. Up ahead, Bolan and Kissinger had reached the sidewalk and were firing at the panel truck, which had just smashed through a swing arm at the pay station and burst out of the parking lot. The truck clipped a passing Cadillac and forced the luxury car off the road into a curbside planter. Bolan and Kissinger aimed low for the truck’s tires but the getaway vehicle veered wildly on the rain-slicked asphalt and proved an elusive target.

Grimaldi sped forward, then pulled to a stop alongside his colleagues. Bolan and Kissinger piled in, slamming fresh cartridges into their weapons.

“Stay on ’em!” Kissinger shouted.

“I aim to,” Grimaldi replied. “Fasten your seat belts, boys and girls!”

The Stony Man pilot floored the accelerator. The taxi’s wheels spun in place a moment, then gained traction and hauled the vehicle forward, past the disabled Cadillac.

The chase was on.

BY THE TIME THE panel truck had left the parking lot, Franklin Colt’s abductors had already stripped him of his cell phone and hog-tied him by the wrists and ankles with duct tape. There were no seats in the rear of the truck, and Colt lay pinned against the cold metal floor, his captors kneeling on either side of him. They’d pulled a stocking cap down over his head, as well, and there was little he could see through the tight-woven fabric. He assumed the men were hoping to conceal their identities, but during the brief skirmish in the parking lot he’d gotten a good look at them. He didn’t know them by name, but he recognized them from the casino. They were regulars who spent most of their time at the roulette and blackjack tables. Franklin suspected they were more than mere players, however, given their burly physiques and the frequency with which they would wander off to the main bar to meet with one of the pit bosses whenever they went on break. Judging from their accents, he figured the thugs, like most of the casino’s executive personnel, were either from Eastern Europe or Russia. He had a good idea, as well, as to why they’d taken him hostage.

“Who are those other men?” one of the captors bellowed at him over the drone of the truck’s engine.

“Friends,” Colt muttered, wincing as he spoke. He’d been struck in the face several times and his jaw was throbbing. He could taste blood in his mouth and traced the source to a split on his lower lip.

“Friends with guns!” the captor shouted. “Who are they working for?”

“I don’t know!”

Colt groaned as his interrogator kneed him sharply in the ribs.

“What did you tell them?”

“What would I tell them?” Colt countered, feigning ignorance. “What’s this all about anyway? What do you want with me?”

“You know!” his captor shouted. “Don’t pretend you don’t!”

“I’m just a res Indian who minds his own business,” Colt protested.

“We know better! If you know what’s good for you you’ll start—”

The interrogation was cut short when one of the truck’s tinted rear windows imploded, shattered by a 9 mm slug that lodged itself in the headrest of the front passenger seat. The driver responded by jerking the steering wheel, throwing Colt’s abductors off balance. One of them caromed off the side of the truck while Colt’s inquisitor fell sprawling alongside him.

“We can worry about him later!” the other man shouted. “We need to take care of these people, whoever they are! They’re after us in a goddamn taxi!”

The inside of the truck suddenly reverberated with the deafening reports of an assault rifle. Colt assumed that Kissinger and his friends were the ones being fired at. His concern for their safety was mixed with no small measure of admiration at how quickly they’d responded to his abduction.

Cowboy hasn’t lost his chops, Franklin thought to himself.

The second thug let loose with another autoburst, then cursed.

“Where’s our backup?” he roared.

WHEN COLT HAD BEEN taken captive, his abductors had made a point to take his car keys and kick them just beneath the Nova’s chassis near the left front wheel. Moments after the panel truck had pulled out and sped toward the pay station, SVR operative Viktor Cherkow had abandoned his surveillance post outside the baggage claim area across the street and jogged past stalled traffic to the parking lot. When he reached the Chevy he stopped and crouched in the rain, pretending to tie his shoes. Once the panel truck had crashed through the barrier and sped into the street, Cherkow grabbed the stray keys and let himself into Colt’s Nova. The plan had been for him to go through the vehicle for evidence Colt might have brought along with him, but when he saw Bolan and Kissinger fire at the panel truck and then take up chase in a passing taxi, the Russian decided the search would have to wait.

The moment he keyed the ignition and heard the Nova’s rebuilt V-8 rumble to life, Cherkow smiled to himself. He wasn’t sure how much horsepower Colt had harnessed under the hood, but he suspected it was a lot more than whatever would be powering the taxi.

“I’ll catch up soon enough,” he vowed as he revved the engine and shifted into Reverse.

In his haste, Cherkow squealed out of his parking space just as a Mercedes GLK was pulling forward from the space directly behind him. Cherkow cursed as he rammed the SUV, crumpling its front end. The Nova hadn’t been retrofitted with air bags, and the impact threw Cherkow against the hard plastic of the steering wheel. Dazed, the Russian groped at his bruised ribs. Behind him, the other driver rocketed from his vehicle and stormed forward, kicking the Nova.

“Look where you’re going!” he roared. “I just bought this car!”