Blood Rites

by Don Pendleton

  But who was hunting him, and why?

  The holdup at Jamaica Flame was part of it, no doubt. The hostess had described a white assailant and handed over his supposed business card. He was a chimera, slipping in and out of focus, baffling Quarrie with his expertise and seeming lack of motive.

  This was war, but what had brought it on?

  He would have liked to put the blame on Winston Channer, dead and gone now, but that didn’t solve his problem. Only when he met his adversary face-to-face, and heard his screams for mercy, would he understand the plague that threatened him.

  And then?

  He would eradicate the men behind the soldier, make them rue the day they ever thought to challenge Quarrie on his own turf.

  “We’re here, Boss,” his driver said as the caravan rolled to a halt. His guards bailed out, made no attempt to hide their weapons as they formed a corridor of flesh and steel between the curb and Quarrie’s sanctuary.

  Raising one hand to the amulet, he whispered, “Fire for you!” and rushed into the house.

  * * *

  Windward Road, Kingston

  BOLAN DROVE BY QUARRIE’S place, having a look, but couldn’t see beyond the walls surrounding it. He’d phoned ahead to have a chat with Quarrie, rattle him a little, but the landline rang and rang with no pickup. He could let it go for now, or stop and find out whether Quarrie was at home.

  Why not?

  One block past the house, he turned south onto Sea Breeze Avenue and found a place to park the Camry, cutting through the backyard of a house sporting a for-sale sign out front, dark windows watching as he passed. After jumping the chain-link fence in back, he was standing on the grass border of a waterway that ran from Kingston Harbor toward downtown. He followed it until it slipped under a bridge at Windward Road, then he turned east toward his target.

  Bolan scouted Quarrie’s privacy wall on foot, found no barbed wire or other obstacles on top of it, and nothing that resembled cameras or motion sensors. Chancing it, he scrambled to the top and froze there, checking out the property inside, trying a dog whistle he carried with him. When the ultrasonic note brought no response, he used a pencil flashlight on the ground below, observed no traps and dropped down to earth.

  The house hulked up in front of him, no lights burning inside that he could see. Bolan started on a circuit of the silent building, Glock in hand, he had completed half the trip before he reached the back porch and a yellow bug light suddenly went on. He crouched in shadow, waiting motionless until the back door opened and two Rasta types stepped out, both wearing automatic weapons shoulder-slung.

  Rolling the dice, he dropped the last one through the door, a silent head shot, leaping forward even as the dead man fell, clubbing his comrade to the ground. Bolan disarmed him, kneeling on his neck, the still-warm silencer pressed tight against his cheek.

  “How many more of you inside?” Bolan demanded.

  “Nobody.”

  “Where’s Quarrie?”

  “Gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  “I don’t know nothin’!”

  Bolan ground the silencer into his ear. “Once more.”

  “I’m not a rat!”

  “You want to live, the question’s simple.”

  “Hell with you, you—”

  Bolan shifted, shot him through the fleshy part of his thigh, and listened to the squeal that should have brought help coming from the house.

  None came.

  “Once more,” he said.

  “Okay! Don’t shoot no more!”

  Again Bolan asked, “Where’s Quarrie?”

  “Gone to his place, out in Tivoli.”

  “Tivoli Gardens?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What’s the address?”

  “I don’t know that. Can find it, but I couldn’t say the number.”

  “Street name?”

  A painful, frantic head-shake. “No! I ain’t lyin!”

  “Okay,” Bolan replied, and rose.

  The dread was fast, even with a bullet in his upper thigh, whipping around, drawing a knife from somewhere, lunging. Bolan shot him through the forehead, left him there, and jogged back toward the wall.

  If Quarrie was beyond his reach for now, he’d try the Viper Posse’s number two.

  * * *

  Greenwich Town, Kingston

  KINGSTON LOANS WAS Clancy Reckford’s second stop. He’d tried another dealer first, got nowhere even when he turned the heat up, and had three more on his list before he called it quits. It was too early to dismiss his idea as a waste of time just yet.

  The place was open late, no real surprise, since people often had a sudden need for money in the middle of the night. There was drinking to do, drugs to score, sex to be bargained for. Some of the pawn shop’s customers were honest men and women, short of cash, who came to trade their rings, bracelets and such for currency. Others were thieves, unloading stolen merchandise.

  And some came seeking guns.

  Reckford entered the shop and saw that Simon Reid himself was at the register. They didn’t know each other, but the pawnbroker had been arrested once—receiving stolen property, the case later dismissed—and he’d changed little since his mug shot had been taken, seven years before. He also had sharp eyes, knowing a copper when he saw one, even when the officer was out of uniform.

  “Detective! Welcome to my humble place of business.”

  “Sergeant,” Reckford said.

  “Congratulations. Have you come to purchase something? An engagement ring, perhaps, or—”

  Reckford dropped the sandwich bag in front of Reid. The .50-caliber cartridge inside it made a loud clack on the glass display case filled with rings and watches. Reid peered at it, shook his head and said, “No, sir. I don’t have anything like that.”

  “It’s one of four I’ve found today,” Reckford remarked, as if Reid hadn’t spoken. “Two killed a couple of the city’s most important businessmen, the sort with well-placed friends. The others made a bloody mess at Tinson Pen. You may have seen it on the television?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Strange and terrible. A private plane destroyed, with three men dead inside it. They’re unidentified so far, but we believe they were Colombians. Employees of a major drug cartel.”

  “And what has that to do with me?”

  “The businessmen, you understand, are deemed important. They have partners, friends in government, who have demanded that we leave no stone unturned to find the killer. As for the Colombians, they won’t consult us, but they have their own ways of investigating and resolving things.”

  Reid’s eyes were shifting nervously. “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “Consider it a warning.”

  “Warning?”

  He took a chance. “Once they get hold of you, you’ll be beyond our help.”

  “And why would anybody come for me?”

  “Because you have a certain reputation, Simon. Rumor has it that you deal in guns. A little sideline, just to make ends meet in these hard times.”

  “I mighta done, sometime.”

  “And recently?”

  “I’m not a wanted man. Got no charges against me.”

  “Yet. But if I call in for a warrant to go through this place, I’m betting we’ll find stolen merchandise. And guns.”

  “You gonna lock me up?”

  “That all depends on what you tell me next.”

  “All right. I sold something like this, a while ago.”

  “How long?”

  “Was yesterday.”

  “Who bought this?”

  “I didn’t ask his name. Paid cash, you know?”

  “Then describe him.”

  “White. Taller than you. Sounded American, not British.”

  “And you’d know him if you met again?”

  “Why would I see him again?”

  “If he came back here for more…supplies.”

  He nodded. “I gue
ss so.”

  Reckford handed Reid a business card. “If he returns, call me at once. You understand?”

  “Yeah, sure. What about the other thing?”

  “I’ll think about it,” Reckford told him. “If you let me down, all this can go away. You, too.”

  “I hear you.”

  Leaving the pawn shop with his best lead yet, although a slim one, Reckford thought he had a chance to break the case. And if he failed?

  Then, he supposed, the Viper Posse should prepare for all-out war.

  * * *

  Norman Gardens, Kingston

  TREVOR SEAGA HAD not been invited to join Jerome Quarrie’s retreat. It irked him, but he understood in principle. A symbol of authority must remain visible to keep the troops in line, and even more so, to prevent the posse’s countless enemies from thinking they had an opening to strike against their betters. As the outfit’s second in command, he was the natural choice to remain, conveying orders from the posse’s absent leader.

  It might even work to his advantage.

  Quarrie’s disappearing act at such a time, when everything he owned was under fire, made him look weak. Seaga had the power to refute or to encourage that impression, to strengthen Quarrie’s image or to undermine it. At the moment, he was thinking of himself and wondering—not for the first time—whether he might be the better man to lead an empire, after all.

  But first, he had to salvage what was left.

  There had already been a phone call from Colombia, not threatening per se, but asking in a grim, no-nonsense way when final compensation for the latest shipment would be made. Seaga knew the rules and had not argued. He promised that the cash would be forthcoming, and reminded his suppliers of exactly how the shipment had been lost.

  Not that they gave a damn.

  That was one problem. The more pressing one, of course, was tracking down the man or men responsible for all the posse’s troubles of the past few days. The white man or men, which made it even worse. It was an insult to the Viper Posse, and to Rastafarians worldwide.

  It was intolerable, and it had to be stopped.

  Seaga had a few ideas on how to do that. Police were already examining records of recent arrivals at Jamaica’s three international airports, and officers on the posse’s payroll would report any promising hits. Meanwhile—

  Seaga heard his doorbell chime and stiffened in his swivel chair, stretching a hand out toward the drawer that held a .45-caliber MAC-10 machine pistol. His hand was resting on the weapon when his doorman knocked and stepped into the office, wide mouth drooping in a frown.

  “Babylon is here,” he said.

  “How many? Do they have a warrant?”

  “No, Boss. Just one guy.”

  Trevor relaxed and closed the drawer. “So show him in,” he replied.

  * * *

  THERE WAS AN ELEMENT of danger, Reckford realized, in visiting Seaga at his home on Harbour Road. Particularly when he’d brought no backup, and had told no one at headquarters where he was going. At the time, it had seemed logical. He wasn’t planning to provoke a confrontation, and had no idea who he could trust among his supervisors. Any one of them might tip Seaga off that he was coming, and the trip would be a waste of time.

  Now he was in and following a tall, slope-shouldered posse member, obviously armed, along a corridor where others glared and blew smoke at him as he passed. Before he reached his destination at the far end of the hallway, Reckford had acquired a pleasant buzz.

  Seaga’s office was spacious, with broad windows facing a garden and the thickly wooded mountains rising east of Kingston. Seated at a desk, the windows at his back, Seaga made no move to rise as Reckford entered and the soldier shut the door behind him.

  “What brings you here?” he asked.

  “I’m Sergeant Reckford, JCF.” He was reaching for his credentials as he spoke.

  “I don’t need to see that. You already showed it to my man.”

  “May I sit down?”

  Seaga frowned and nodded toward a pair of chairs facing his desk. Reckford chose one of them and sat. “I’m looking for your boss,” he said.

  “My boss? Who’s that?”

  Reckford allowed himself a smile. “Jerome Quarrie, unless something’s become of him that I don’t know about.”

  “He’s fine, last I heard.”

  “But not available to speak with the police?”

  Seaga shrugged and spread his hands. “What can I tell you? He don’t check with me before he goes on holiday.”

  “A holiday, with all that’s going on? How stupid do you think I am?”

  “Don’t know. Just met you.” He was grinning.

  Reckford had to smile at that. “This killing must be bad for business,” he said. “And that plane from Colombia was quite a loss.”

  “To somebody else,” Seaga said. “Not my plane.”

  “I suspect the owners will be after payback, one way or another.”

  “Maybe so. Nothing to me.”

  “Not even if they thought you were responsible?”

  Seaga frowned. “Why would they think that?”

  “Who knows? Some kind of power play against your boss, let’s say. He might not like that, either.”

  “He knows better.”

  “But if that was the official theory, if someone from Narcotics mentioned it in passing, say, to Quarrie or to Interpol, who knows where it might go from there?”

  “What do you want?” Seaga demanded.

  “I told you. A word with your boss. Failing that, cooperation to resolve the problem Kingston, and your posse, is facing.”

  “Not my problem. Word on the street says you should be out lookin’ for a white man.”

  “And you wouldn’t know who that might be? Who sent him?”

  “You want me guessing now?”

  “I’m open to whatever information or suspicion you might have,” Reckford replied.

  Seaga chewed on that a moment—literally, gnawing on his lower lip—and then leaned forward, elbows on his desktop, lowering his voice. “So, if I told you—”

  When his head exploded, it was a complete, stunning surprise. Reckford was conscious of a clink, glass breaking, then Seaga’s skull erupted like a melon with a cherry bomb inside it, spraying blood across the desk and into Reckford’s face.

  * * *

  IT WAS A RELATIVELY easy shot: two hundred yards, flat roof beneath him, AS50 steady on its bipod, no crosswise wind requiring any compensation. He’d arrived on Harbour Road, staked out his stand, and quickly found Trevor Seaga’s office with its windows facing eastward and the Viper Posse’s number two relaxing at his desk, back to the fate awaiting him.

  Maybe “relaxing” wasn’t right. Seaga would have plenty on his mind, enough to give a normal person ulcers, though a psychopath was sometimes better under stress. No human feeling to distract him from the task at hand, unless fear had begun to put down roots.

  Fear, or a mobster’s normal greed.

  Reaching Seaga for a chat had been impractical. Bolan was opting for a simple rub-out, one more blow to stagger Quarrie, but he hesitated, finger on the AS50’s trigger, when a visitor arrived. The new guy looked like a cop, a first impression reinforced when he reached for a wallet or a badge case, right hand slipping underneath his blazer till Seaga waved him off. He sat, then, and the two of them began to talk.

  Bolan wished he could have bugged the room. He wished he was a lip-reader, which would’ve let him pick up half the conversation going on down there.

  Wishes and horses, Bolan thought, and held his fire, watching the officer spar with Seaga, neither of them giving any ground as far as he could see. But then, Seaga had leaned forward on his elbows, ducked his head like someone who was about to whisper something confidential to his uninvited guest.

  And Bolan couldn’t have that. If Seaga was about to give up his boss, sell him to the law, it could put Quarrie out of reach. From there, the case would drag through court for years,
with ample opportunities for Quarrie to escape from custody, retaliate against his traitorous lieutenant, and perhaps touch off another bloody war in Kingston.

  No.

  He took a deep breath, released half of it and held the rest. His index finger squeezed the AS50’s trigger, rode the recoil, eye frozen on the reticle of its scope. Downrange, a half-inch hole appeared in the glass of Seaga’s mirror, a micro-second before the posse leader’s head exploded, dreadlocks flailing like the tentacles of some demented squid in its death throes. He dropped facedown onto the desktop, while his visitor recoiled, painted in blood.

  Bolan broke down the rifle, bagged it and was in his Camry on the street below before he heard a siren wailing, drawing closer. Others followed, and he watched from a safe distance while the officers went through the motions, tussling with Seaga’s bodyguards at first, then cuffing them in order to conduct their crime-scene search.

  And he was watching as the first cop on the scene departed, leaving higher-ranking members of the JCF in charge. The plainclothes cop drove off alone.

  With Bolan on his tail.

  11

  Windward Road, Kingston

  At first, Bolan thought the cop was heading back to headquarters on Lower Elletson Road, but instead, he pulled in to the parking lot of an all-night diner near Bellevue Hospital. Bolan let him clear the lot and take a seat inside, a window booth, sitting alone, then waited in the Camry, watching to find out if anybody else was coming. It gave him time to wonder what the officer’s story was, while weighing the pros and cons of a meeting.

  The upside: if it went well, he could get the information he needed to find Quarrie, and might gain an ally in the bargain. Bolan didn’t plan on wooing any honest lawmen over to the vigilante side, but if a contact bought him time, a little combat stretch, it couldn’t hurt.

  The downside: if the cop was straight, he might be too straight to allow for any compromise. Confronted with the man who’d been spilling Viper Posse blood all over Kingston, he might feel obliged to end it, drawing down on Bolan, either killing him or hauling him away to jail. In either case, Bolan could only use nonlethal means to get away. Killing a cop was out of bounds, no matter what else he’d done.

  The other downside: if the cop was dirty, on the Viper Posse’s payroll, he still might attempt a move on Bolan, either for his gangland paymasters or on his own account, to solve the rash of crimes and make himself look good. Again, the same restriction applied, since Bolan drew no line between good cops and bad, in terms of using deadly force.