Blood Rites

by Don Pendleton

  “No, sir. Did you have specific businessmen in mind?”

  “I think you know exactly who I mean.” He was afraid to say it openly.

  “And if they are potential victims, possibly with knowledge of the people who may wish to harm them, am I barred from speaking to them?”

  “You will leave interrogation of your betters to the ministry.”

  “With all respect, sir, that makes my position rather difficult.”

  “I’ll solve that problem for you. As of now, you are suspended for two weeks—with pay, unless you wish to argue further?”

  “No, sir. Thank you, sir. If that is all…?”

  “It is. Dismissed.”

  Reckford felt dizzy as he left the office, walked back to the elevator, headed down and out into the night. He still had no idea exactly what had happened, much less why. Someone was pulling strings to stifle the investigation, or to lead it down a certain avenue, and part of Reckford’s mind thought he was well rid of the thankless task.

  Another part, however, told him he couldn’t let it go.

  13

  Saint Catherine Parish, Jamaica

  From the Port Kingston Causeway, Quarrie’s caravan rolled north, following Dyke Road until the lead car reached Passage Fort Drive and turned inland. At Municipal Boulevard, the small procession crossed onto Grange Lane. Halfway to Morris Meadows they turned south once again, onto a nameless access road. Another twenty minutes, give or take, and they’d reached their destination.

  Quarrie’s driver called ahead, alerting the defenders on the property. Surprising them would be a bad idea, considering the state of high alert they’d maintained since trouble started back in Kingston. A shootout with his own men was the last thing Quarrie needed at the moment.

  Guards at the entrance to the property saluted Quarrie as he passed, all armed with automatic weapons openly displayed.

  On arrival at the farmhouse, Quarrie was relieved to stretch his legs. The man in charge of his retreat, Asafa Tulloch, greeted Quarrie with a double handshake, saying, “Glad you made it, Boss.”

  “Is he here?” Quarrie inquired.

  “Ready and waiting for you.”

  Quarrie turned away from Tulloch, left him standing with the bodyguards from Kingston, and proceeded toward a bungalow that stood apart from other buildings in the compound, with fifty yards of empty ground on every side. Arriving at the door, he opened it without a warning knock and stepped inside.

  Usain Dalhouse, the papaloi, rose from a metal folding chair as Quarrie entered, face deadpan. The white shirt he wore over a pair of khaki trousers was pristine, so far. His tools were laid out on a card table behind him, placed so that the sacrificial lamb could see them.

  Quarrie didn’t ask where Dalhouse had obtained the child, or how. It was irrelevant. After their sacrifice in Kingston had failed to conjure the desired result, Dalhouse had said a stronger message to the gods might be required. Blood of the young and innocent was far more potent than an adult’s. Their unmitigated suffering demanded full attention on the Other Side.

  Quarrie had no idea what he was paying for the child—a little girl—nor did he care. Results were all that mattered. He’d informed Dalhouse in no uncertain terms that failure, this time, meant he would be next under the knife. Yet here he was, no sign of trepidation on his face or in his manner.

  Quarrie dispensed with greetings. Asked his servant, “Do we do it all the same?”

  “The more time you can spare, the better,” Dalhouse answered.

  Quarrie moved to stand over the child, bound to a table like the ones so often seen in cafeterias. She’d been crying and started up again as she stared into his eyes.

  “No drugs this time?”

  “She must feel all of it,” Dalhouse replied.

  Quarrie stood waiting for the idea to repulse him, but it didn’t happen. He had come prepared for this, and now found he was looking forward to it.

  If the gods would not assist him after this, to hell with them.

  “All right,” he said. “Where do I start?”

  * * *

  Portmore, Jamaica

  BOLAN WAS PASSING one of the island’s Seventh-Day Adventist Churches when he tried Clancy Reckford’s cell number. The phone rang twice, was starting on its third time, when the sergeant answered.

  “What?”

  “How was the ackee?” Bolan asked.

  “You killed my appetite.”

  “Sorry to hear it,” Bolan said. “How’s your investigation going?”

  “It goes on without me,” Reckford answered. “I’ve been suspended.”

  Frowning, Bolan asked him, “Why?”

  “There was no explanation, only orders.”

  “Well,” Bolan said thoughtfully, “maybe you’re best left out of it, at that.”

  “Left out of what?”

  “The finish. Quarrie’s gone to ground outside of Portmore, on some kind of ranch or farm.”

  “I know the place.”

  He took a chance. “I’m nearly there, and I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t tip off your people that I’m coming.”

  There was bitterness in Reckford’s tone as he replied, “I have no people any longer.”

  “Hey, suspended’s not the same as fired.”

  “It means I’m superfluous. They don’t need me. Now, I wonder whether I need them.”

  Bolan wasn’t a counselor. He didn’t normally do pep talks and wasn’t inclined to give one now. Reckford could deal with his own problems, didn’t need a total stranger butting in. “Good thing you’re out of it. Take care,” he said, and cut the link.

  If Reckford didn’t contact the constables in Portmore, they’d have to get their first news of the rain from any neighbors Quarrie had. The satellite view showed a broad expanse of wooded land, trees covering the northern and the western flanks of Quarrie’s spread. Its entrance, on the east side, faced a narrow access road. Southward lay open fields, which might be under cultivation with some crop he couldn’t recognize from space.

  He’d catch the access road from Portmore, passing by the city’s police station, noted on his cyber-map as a hundred-man facility. The longer he could leave those coppers out of any action, the better he would like it, and the greater Bolan’s chances of escape, when he was done.

  If he was still alive.

  Defeatism was alien to Bolan’s nature. He examined problems as they came, prepared himself to deal with them as fully as he could, then did his best. So far, his best had been enough.

  Tonight? He’d have to wait and see.

  * * *

  Saint Catherine Parish

  DALE HOLBROOK HAD driven from Kingston with his Glock 22 on the passenger’s seat, ready for a quick grab if he ran into trouble. He’d have to tuck the piece away, though, so it didn’t rattle Quarrie’s bodyguards.

  Conceal it, right. But he’d be damned if anyone was taking it away from him.

  He counted this night wasted, and he’d have trouble trying to explain it if anyone at the embassy pressed him. They’d been cool so far, pretending not to know his true function, but the ambassador herself might have some questions for him if she learned that he’d stayed out all night, doing God knows what. Holbrook’s link to the Viper Posse was strictly need-to-know, and in Langley’s view, nobody needed to know besides a few guys at headquarters.

  And the director, of course. He knew and didn’t know, the way he liked to keep it with their down-and-dirty games. A little dose of plausible deniability.

  So Holbrook would be short on sleep, holding a gangster’s hand all night, trying to reassure him that he’d still be safe tomorrow. He’d tell Quarrie they were getting somewhere with the search for his mysterious opponents, when the opposite was true. Holbrook still didn’t have a clue whom they were looking for.

  No problem. Lying was his stock in trade, a staple of the Company. Holbrook had lied to everybody he could think of since he took this job, from family and confidential in
formants, on up the chain of command to his bosses. Real life, he’d found, was a lot like that Don Henley song “Dirty Laundry.” Most people really didn’t want to know what was going on behind the scenes, much less how far it had gone.

  The access road was narrow, flanked by trees and shadows on both sides. He passed one dark house before his GPS told him he was close to Quarrie’s gate. Slowing almost to a stop, he took the Glock, slipped it underneath his belt in back and made sure it was secure before proceeding.

  There were gunmen on the gate, no big surprise. They flagged him down, got close and peered inside the car with flashlights, made him pop the trunk to make sure he didn’t have a bomb or tiny ninjas tucked away back there. One of them walkie-talkied to the farmhouse, getting clearance for him to proceed. They both looked vaguely disappointed when they didn’t have to shoot him.

  Animals.

  Dealing with scumbags was a fact of Holbrook’s life, and while he’d gotten used to it, that didn’t translate into liking it. Given his druthers, he’d have mowed them down en masse—or, at the very least, imprisoned them and thrown away the keys—but this was real life, not some rosy fantasy.

  He drove up to the house, remembering his way from last time. More riflemen were waiting for him there, one of them showing Holbrook where to park his car. They didn’t try to frisk him when he stepped out, which was something, but they clearly weren’t inclined to let him stroll around the compound, either.

  “Boss is comin’ in a minute,” one informed him. “We wait here.”

  Holbrook nodded, saw no need to comment on the order. While he waited, leaning back against the fender of his ride, he took stock of the place. It was an armed camp, not at all the laid-back getaway he remembered from his last visit. It didn’t take a general to know that Quarrie was at war, preparing for what might be his last stand.

  The “minute” had run into five and counting when he saw Quarrie emerging from a bungalow, some fifty yards due west of where the guards were keeping Holbrook. Shirtless, the posse boss approached. Strange white marks were visible across his chest and abdomen, some kind of body paint. And if that wasn’t weird enough, his face and upper chest were also smeared with blood.

  “Ah good, you’re here,” Quarrie said, all the greeting he could muster. “We have lots to talk about.”

  Holbrook was prepared to shake his hand, but Quarrie held back, raising both of his, all dripping red. “I need to shower first. Come on with me and have a drink.”

  Resigned to ask nothing about the blood, Holbrook fell into step beside his host, moving through semidarkness toward the house.

  * * *

  BOLAN KILLED THE CAMRY’S headlights as he turned onto a smaller unpaved road and made his way west, overshadowed by tall trees on either side. He trusted the odometer to tell him when he’d driven far enough, then started looking for a place to hide the car.

  Not easy, in the present circumstances, but he found another access lane, this one running north-south, and swung into it, killing the Toyota’s engine. There’d been no sign of human activity since he’d cleared Portmore’s suburbs, and Bolan thought the odds of someone passing by and discovering his ride were close to astronomical. Quarrie might have patrols out, working his perimeter, but Bolan was outside what anyone would think of as a normal range.

  He changed clothes standing by the car, in the warm, humid night. His skintight blacksuit clung like thermal underwear, but without stifling him. Over the outfit went his shoulder rig and web gear, weapons and spare magazines, the Chaos trench knife in its sheath at Bolan’s waist. He took both rifles with him, just in case, but thought the AS50 likely wouldn’t do him much good.

  The half-mile hike to Quarrie’s spread would take some time and care. He’d be approaching from the northeast, coming through the trees and taking full advantage of them. Moving quietly through any forest was a challenge, all the more so when your enemies were on alert to any false step, any sound they hadn’t heard a thousand times before.

  One of his specialties.

  * * *

  Rollington Town, Jamaica

  “SUSPENDED, AM I?” Clancy Reckford muttered as he packed his gear. “To hell with that! To hell with you!”

  Nobody was there to hear him. Perry Campbell was far away in his posh condominium, likely dozing through the night’s last hours while Reckford hastily prepared for war. He’d switched his Browning pistol to a shoulder holster that he rarely wore, twin pouches underneath his right arm holding two spare magazines. Four more lay inside an old gym bag, ready for transfer to his pockets when he got to Quarrie’s country place. His little secret—not so little, maybe not so secret—was an MP5A3 machine pistol and six 30-round magazines. Both weapons fired the same 9 mm Parabellum ammunition, and he’d placed two spare boxes of cartridges into the gym bag, as well.

  Not that he believed there’d be time to reload, once the killing began.

  He placed his submachine gun in the gym bag with the extra ammunition, zipped it up and slung the strap over his shoulder. It was heavy with the weight of a decision made that could not be reversed. Whatever happened in the next few hours, prior to dawn, it meant a drastic change in life as Reckford knew it.

  Probably the end of his career. Perhaps the end of life itself.

  And would that be so bad? He was unmarried, with no prospects for a wife and family. He’d soured on his job, watching the officers around him and the higher-ups who ruled them breaking all the laws they’d sworn to uphold and defend. Reckford himself was not an angel, but he’d never taken bribes to look the other way. Had never sold his soul.

  Clearly, he was the odd man out, incapable of changing the others. If he died tonight they wouldn’t miss him. But if he survived…then, what?

  Retaliation from the Viper Posse? From the Ministry of National Security? He’d made an enemy of Perry Campbell as it was, and what he planned to do might well land him in prison, if he lived to face the charges.

  Downstairs, Reckford climbed into the vehicle he’d borrowed from headquarters without sanction, one of thirty-nine Mitsubishi L200 4X4 pickups purchased by the JCF last autumn. This one was unmarked but had a siren, flashing lights behind its grille and on the rear windowsill, together with a shotgun mounted in a dashboard rack immediately to his left.

  Reckford gunned the engine and squealed away from the curb, heading toward Portmore. He had the two-way radio turned on, listened for any calls that might pertain to him as he ate up the miles, leaving the city lights behind.

  * * *

  Saint Catherine Parish

  BOLAN MET THE FIRST sentry a hundred yards out from Quarrie’s compound. The man was on patrol, or was supposed to be, but he’d stopped to rest, slouching against a tree and smoking something that didn’t smell like tobacco. The soldier was already tired of his part in the game, and that laziness was about to cost him his life.

  Bolan unsheathed the Chaos trench knife, creeping up behind his man, using the night for cover until he had closed to striking range. A quick punch then, slamming the knife’s notched knuckle guard into the Rasta’s face, crushing the bone around one eye. He started dropping, sliding down the tree, and met the black blade as it rose, 7.5 inches of double-edged steel piercing under his chin and up through the soft palate to silence all thought. A warm rush of blood over Bolan’s right hand, and the job was finished.

  He eased the body down, wiped his knife and hand on the lookout’s loose shirt, then unloaded the man’s Kalashnikov, tossing its magazine into the night. A frisk for the pistol, repeating the procedure, and he left the corpse unarmed, in case somebody came along and tried to use the weapons to his disadvantage later.

  Moving closer to his target, Bolan started watching out for booby traps, as well as sentries. Grenades with trip wires, possibly, or something more primitive: pitfalls or deadfalls, snares or crude javelins launched by the spring of bent saplings. Bolan had seen and survived it all in his time, but it never paid to be careless.

&nbs
p; Overconfidence kills.

  At sixty yards he saw the first lights from the compound, through the trees. Instead of hurrying, he slowed his pace, knowing the risks increased as he drew closer to the kill zone. He could hear a good-size generator running, powering the lights and various appliances. An air conditioner kicked in, cooling the house.

  He thought about communications, figured they’d have cells and sat-phones, maybe two-way radios as well, but none of it would help them now. It didn’t matter if the Rastas called for reinforcements once the action started. By the time fresh faces could arrive from Portmore, much less Kingston, they would be too late. The battle would be over, one way or another.

  Edging closer to the lights, he hunkered down beneath a tree. He scanned the house and outbuildings, the open space between them, marking sentries on patrol and other men who drifted here and there at random—to a bunkhouse, off to the latrine, or toward a lighted building that he thought must be a mess hall, from the odors it produced. The night was winding down, but some of them were still on duty, others just too wired to sleep.

  How many?

  Bolan couldn’t tell but guessed there must be more inside the house, and in the bunkhouse, sleeping. All of them would scramble when the shooting started, focused on the goal of killing him.

  But they’d have to spot him first.

  14

  Asafa Tulloch stepped out of the farmhouse kitchen into shadows. Lights hadn’t been placed throughout the compound, since his boss feared drawing unwanted attention, particularly from the air. The buildings were illuminated, and a light pole stood on its own near the barn. Beyond those pools of luminescence, you could walk for thirty yards or more in almost total darkness.

  Ample room to sneak a spliff, to keep him mellow.

  First, though, Tulloch had a job to do, checking the sentries, making sure they weren’t too mellow. Most of those he’d picked were walking beats around the site’s perimeter, but there were two on duty at the entrance to the farmhouse, two more cleaning up after the boss’s sacrifice.