Blood Rites

by Don Pendleton

  Swapping his pistol for the L85A1 rifle, Bolan clung to shadows as he worked his way around the sizable backyard. Someone had planted half a dozen trees in there, and they’d been growing long enough to reach a decent size, providing cover in the night as well as shade by day. With any luck, they’d get him almost to the back porch, unobserved.

  Inside the house, lights burned in half a dozen rooms, at least. He saw a shadow pass one window. With the blinds pulled down, there was no way to tell if whomever he’d seen was armed. If he expected the worst, as usual, he would have the best chance of surviving what came next.

  Closer, he noted that the windows with their blinds up were protected by thick screens inside the house. He’d seen that kind of thing before, with people who were fearful of grenades and IEDs lobbed from outside. It told him someone had put thought into protecting Quarrie’s hideaway, but he still wondered why they hadn’t stationed any men in the backyard.

  As if in answer to his thought, the back door opened, spilling light on the porch, as a young man emerged. He wore the Rasta hat and baggy shirt that Bolan knew were de rigueur for posse soldiers, and he had some version of an AK-47 slung across his body on a shoulder strap. He seemed to have no sense of danger lurking in the nearby shadows, barely looked around the yard at all before he turned to shut the door behind him.

  Bolan rushed the porch, Glock drawn and ready, squeezing off a single silent round that knocked the sentry’s knitted beanie out of shape and turned his legs to rubber. Bolan caught him as he fell, one handed, covering the open doorway with his pistol as he eased the dead man down onto the porch. He waited for someone to call out, ask what the noise was, but it passed unnoticed.

  Switching guns again, he stepped around the corpse and went inside.

  * * *

  BUSTER BAILEY HATED being left behind, even though he’d been left in charge. The boss had run away, his second in command was dead, so what did that make Bailey, after all? Was he a trusted officer, or just a decoy for the white man who’d been ripping the posse a new one all night long?

  “Just my fortune,” Bailey muttered to himself. Bad luck and nothing more. He’d been the highest-ranking soldier left when Quarrie finished picking out his bodyguards, and that was how it happened. There’d been no great thought invested into choosing someone suitable.

  Just someone Quarrie thought he could afford to lose.

  Bailey kept moving through the house, from room to room. All the outer walls were reinforced with sandbags to the level of the lowest windows, and mattresses were fastened higher up with wire and nails. Some heavy slugs would penetrate regardless, but at least the padding on the inside of the walls would slow them down. Screens on the windows would block tear gas canisters or anything attackers threw by hand, except homemade incendiaries, and each window had at least one fire extinguisher standing nearby.

  Beyond that, if the enemy brought RPGs or flamethrowers, maybe a tank, then it was over. But you’d go down fighting, bet your life on that, and take some of the bastards with you.

  “I don’t plan to die tonight,” he told himself, half whispering, as he went to check the kitchen, make sure nobody was in there stuffing his face when he should be on watch. No one was there, and Bailey suddenly felt hungry, standing in the room alone, with the refrigerator and the cupboards full of food.

  He thought about corned beef and butter beans, knew he could empty out a couple cans and put their contents in the microwave. Could almost taste it now.

  If someone else came in, he’d tell them to shove off and—

  When the first shots came, they made him flinch. Bailey spun toward the sound, lifting his AK-101, leaving its stock folded against the left side of the rifle’s receiver. He didn’t shout to find out what was happening, preferred surprise if there were enemies inside the house, and not just some idiot who was careless with his weapon.

  When he reached the kitchen door, Bailey leaned out to look both ways, saw no one in the corridor, and stepped clear of the entryway. The shots, he thought, had come from somewhere to the right of where he stood, and shouting from the same direction tended to confirm it. Swallowing an urge to run out through the back door and escape, he moved off toward the angry voices.

  “Who’s that shootin’?” someone called out.

  “I don’t know,” someone else replied. “Some crazy brother.”

  “Where’d it come from?”

  “Somewhere in the back.”

  “Maybe the playroom.”

  Bailey could have shouted at them to be quiet, but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself just yet. Someone might react instinctively and cut him down before they realized who’d spoken, giving orders in the midst of chaos.

  “Goddamn idiots!” he snarled, slowing his pace as he drew closer to the playroom—not a child’s place, but a recreation area with arcade games, a sixty-five-inch flat-screen television, and a DVD collection running heavily toward porn.

  A few more yards and he was almost there, when an explosion rocked the house and loosed a rain of plaster on his head.

  * * *

  BOLAN HADN’T PLANNED to use a frag grenade so soon, but it was unavoidable. He’d only been inside the house for thirty seconds, give or take, just time to get a feel for how the place was fortified, when he’d met a Rasta soldier in a spacious room resembling a video arcade. No one was on the games when he walked in, but one of Quarrie’s men was setting up a movie in a DVD player, smoking a joint to prove he could multitask. The guy saw Bolan when he straightened up and lost the doobie when his mouth dropped open.

  His next move was reaching for a pistol underneath his T-shirt, but he never grasped the weapon. Bolan let his L85A1 speak for him, putting one 5.56 mm NATO round through the gunman’s forehead and slamming him backward into a humongous flat-screen TV. It toppled with him, crashing to the floor as people started shouting back and forth from other rooms.

  So much for stealth.

  He’d known there would be fighting, but he’d also hoped he might get close to Quarrie first—or see him, at the very least—before it hit the fan. Now Bolan didn’t even know if his intended prey was in the house.

  A bad start, and the worst was yet to come.

  He turned to leave the game room, just as two more Rasta shooters reached the doorway, stopping short and hoisting weapons toward the enemy in their midst. Bolan shot one of them, a clean hit to the upper chest, before his partner ducked back out of sight and started calling for assistance, no doubt covering the exit. In another moment, he heard reinforcements moving up to join the fight, all shouting at each other, some of them cocking weapons.

  That was when he reached for the grenade, released its pin and pitched the green egg through the open doorway, ducking behind a sofa sectional before it blew. There were no mattresses or sandbags stacked against the room’s dividing walls to stop shrapnel from slicing through, no soundproofing to muffle anguished cries of pain.

  He went among them then, before the dust and smoke cleared, found two of four soldiers still moving, and gave each a round through the head as he passed. Deeper into the fortified house, beyond his line of sight, men were shouting and feet were scrambling, Quarrie’s soldiers responding to the sounds of battle. Bolan sleeved plaster dust from his forehead and moved on to meet them.

  He could end it here, if luck was with him—or if it deserted him. Whichever outcome lay in store, he was prepared.

  A pistol shot rang out ahead of Bolan, bullet whining past his head to strike a nearby wall. He ducked as other weapons joined the chorus, shooters firing blindly through the haze of dust and smoke that filled the hallway, hoping for a lucky hit. Rather than risk a stray shot drilling him, Bolan dropped prone and started crawling forward, powered by his knees and elbows, moving steadily in the direction of his enemies.

  * * *

  BUSTER BAILEY HUDDLED with a small clutch of his soldiers, roughly one-third of the men Quarrie had left to guard his house in Tivoli, and hissed at the
m, “Do you see him? Where is he?”

  “I can’t see anything,” one of them whispered back. “Maybe we got him.”

  “I’ll believe that when I see him dead,” Bailey replied. “Somebody needs to go find out.”

  “Who’s going then?” asked another man.

  “You and you,” Bailey replied, nudging the last man who’d spoken and the fellow next to him.

  “Why should I go?” the second man demanded.

  “’Cause I said so,” Bailey snapped at him, bringing his AK-101’s muzzle to bear on the uneasy soldier. “You want to argue with me?”

  Both men glared at Bailey for a moment, then one shook his head. The other muttered, “No,” and started creeping forward on all fours, along the hallway where their enemy had last revealed himself. The rounds they’d fired in his direction had released more dust from the walls and ceiling, likely without doing any good, and Bailey meant to put it right.

  But he was not about to take the lead. No way.

  Bailey hadn’t fired a shot yet, so his rifle’s magazine was brimming full with thirty 5.56 mm rounds. He craved an opportunity to fire them all at once, riddling his enemy from head to toe, reducing him to raw hamburger where he stood, but so far there’d been no opening.

  How many Rastas had the prowler killed? It was impossible to say without a final head count, and the present circumstances rendered that impossible. If they could stop him quick enough, then sweep the place before the beasts of Babylon arrived, he would be able to tell Quarrie what had happened. Give him some good news.

  But otherwise…

  Being arrested in a house with corpses, automatic weapons and other assorted evidence of criminal activity could finish him. The Viper Posse might have friends in government, even at court, but “aggravated” murder was a capital crime in Jamaica. Recovery of drugs and weapons from the house meant long terms of imprisonment, even if Bailey’s lawyer managed to convince a jury that he’d injured no one personally. Getting out was still his best bet, but too many men had seen him at the forefront of the fight. If he ran now, and word got back to Quarrie, he could wind up on a makeshift altar with his heart cut out and a papaloi sipping his blood.

  He’d nearly lost sight of his point men now, nearing a corner of the hallway, hesitating there. “Go on!” he urged them, without knowing whether they could hear him. While gunfire had ceased within the house, for now, his ears still rang from the explosion moments earlier.

  His men had reached the corner now, and were conferring there before they made their next move. Bailey saw one rise up to a crouch, duck-walking toward the turn, wobbling as he tried to keep a firm grip on his automatic rifle. Finally, he lurched up and stagger-charged around the corner, shouting, “Fire for you!” and squeezing off a long, wild burst.

  Bailey didn’t hear the responding shot that dropped his man and sent the other scuttling backward, seeking cover. “Get back there and catch up!” he ordered, shouting it. His soldier hesitated, weighing options for a second, then turned back and started crawling toward the body of his fallen friend.

  * * *

  SOMEONE HAD TAKEN CHARGE, was giving orders now, and Bolan had to figure at least some of the posse soldiers would obey them. He’d left a trail of dead behind him, but he still had no idea how many enemies remained in fighting shape, or where he would find Quarrie in the urban bunker.

  If he was there at all.

  The only way to find out now was to defeat the force that still opposed him, try to capture one of them alive and capable of speaking, squeeze him for a simple answer to a simple question, maybe two or three, before police arrived.

  So, do it!

  Bolan palmed another frag grenade and primed it, clutched it in his left hand as he surged around the corner, bullpup rifle firm and steady in his right. He caught one of the shooters who’d been creeping up on him, his comrades farther down the hallway urging him along. Bolan triggered a 3-round burst that took most of the creeping gunman’s head off, then released his L109A1 high-explosive egg, making an overhanded pitch downrange.

  And hit the floor again, before it blew.

  The wham of the explosion stung his ears, no way around that, but he rode it out and waited for the screams to follow. Moved in when they started, finding one man nearly dead and three more down with shrapnel wounds of varying severity. One had his hands clamped over ringing ears, but should have paid attention to the bright blood pumping out of his femoral artery.

  Bolan had no way to determine which of them had been in charge before the blast. He grabbed one, gave his neck a painful twist and asked, “Where’s Quarrie?”

  “He’s gone, white man,” came the answer.

  “Gone where?”

  “To visit yo mama.”

  Bolan’s rifle butt cracked against the man’s skull. He grabbed another moaning Rasta and repeated his inquiry. “Where did Quarrie go?”

  The wounded soldier saw death in his eyes and answered, “He’s got a special place, outside of Portmore.”

  “Where by Portmore?”

  “West of there, and south of Morris Meadows.”

  “Give me an address!”

  “Don’t know it. Only know the way to drive there.”

  “Never mind,” Bolan replied, and let him slump back to the floor. He heard a siren in the distance, and imagined that the gunfire might have drawn a crowd outside, which might prove hostile to a pale-faced stranger fleeing Quarrie’s home. His time was running out.

  No one tried to impede him as he cleared the killing ground, out through the back door and across the yard, the gate still standing open for him. Two uneasy-looking neighbors stood in the alley, but the sight of Bolan’s weapons easily dissuaded them from whatever action they might have considered. He was at the Camry’s wheel and out of there before the first cruiser came screeching to a halt on Bustamante Highway.

  And his Quarrie had eluded him once more.

  The wounded posse gunman hadn’t seemed like he was lying, but there were no guarantees. He’d have to check it out, and if he didn’t find his man, come back to Kingston for another try.

  Fortunes of war, and Bolan wasn’t giving up.

  * * *

  Slipe Road, Kingston

  SERGEANT CLANCY RECKFORD was en route to Tivoli Gardens when a radio call diverted him northward, to Oxford Road and the Ministry of National Security. Undersecretary Perry Campbell required his presence without delay, although the JCF dispatcher couldn’t tell him what the reason was.

  Another interruption. More bad news.

  Cursing, Reckford did as he was told, traveling the mile or so to his unwelcome destination while his mind raced, trying to decipher why he’d been summoned. Had someone observed him with the white man and reported it? If so, who could it be? And how on earth could the report have reached a bureaucrat as highly placed as Campbell in the half hour since he’d left the diner with his breakfast barely touched?

  The summons was unprecedented. Campbell would normally speak to the JCF’s commissioner, his deputy, or one of the force’s senior superintendents. In special cases—if a wealthy tourist had been murdered, or an act of terrorism was committed—Campbell might hear details from the lead detectives, for the benefit of his superiors. He had no personal investigative function, was a paper-pusher and a politician, not a law-enforcement officer.

  So, why?

  Reckford tuned his dashboard radio to Irie FM, hoping some reggae would relax him, but it had the opposite effect, making him think about the Viper Posse and the white man who was hell-bent on destroying them. A part of Reckford wished him luck; another part regretted not arresting him while they were face-to-face—assuming he could have managed it.

  Reckford left his car in the ministry’s parking lot, went inside and rode the elevator up to Campbell’s office. There was no receptionist at that hour, but he found the waiting room unlocked and entered, calling Campbell’s name. Another moment passed before the man himself emerged and curtly ordered
Reckford, “Follow me.”

  The undersecretary’s private office was luxurious enough, but not as posh as Reckford had imagined. He sat facing Campbell, with a good-size maple desk between them, Campbell peering at him as if Reckford were a member of some species he couldn’t quite recognize.

  “You know why I called you here?” he asked, at last.

  “No, sir.”

  “No? I should have thought it would be obvious.”

  “I was dispatched here, sir. That’s all I know.”

  “You are the lead investigator in the recent spate of murders, here in Kingston.”

  Was he? Cautious, Reckford answered, “Under supervision of my captain and lieutenant, sir.”

  “And are they satisfied with your performance?”

  “I’ve heard nothing to the contrary.” He dropped the sir this time.

  “Indeed? Have you made any progress?”

  “I am pursuing leads as usual, and—”

  “Did you say ‘as usual’?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “With two outstanding citizens already dead?”

  “To whom are you referring, sir?”

  “Henry Boothe and Aaron Moncrief,” Campbell answered. “Who else would I mean?”

  “I have no way of knowing, sir. You realize they were agents of the Viper Posse?”

  “That is hearsay, very likely slanderous! You will take special care to keep all such opinions to yourself. If I should see them in the press, or hear them on the television—”

  “They will not have come from me, sir.”

  “Are you normally this insubordinate?”

  “Sir?”

  “When I give an order, I expect it to be followed!”

  “I’ve received no orders from your office, sir.”

  “Oh, no? Then take this as my order. You shall instantly desist from all harassment of the city’s leading businessmen. Is that clear, Sergeant?”