“Morning,” the man said calmly. “I figured it was time to come say howdy. Name’s Rafe.”
The man flipped the Browning in his hand, then held it by the barrel and extended it to Bolan.
“I let it dry by the fire but no guarantee it’s working.”
“Thanks,” Bolan managed to whisper.
“No problem,” Rafe said. “We got plenty of our own. Here, let me help you up.”
Bolan took the other man’s hand and grimaced as he cast off his improvised blanket and slowly stood. He was wobbly on his feet and still shivering, so Rafe took him by the arm and guided him over to a nearby cable spool and helped him sit down.
“Go ahead and rest up a second while I get our breakfast.”
Bolan watched on as the transient crouched before the slain bison and used the bowie knife to begin carving away at the beast’s right hip.
“Good call helping send this poor guy to his Maker,” Rafe called back to Bolan. “We usually offer up some kind of prayer to make things right. You?”
Bolan shook his head. “I just didn’t want to see it suffer.”
“Close enough.” When Rafe finished his carving he was holding a slice of bloodied red meat the size of a catcher’s mitt.
“Sirloin,” he told Bolan. “Doesn’t get much better than that.”
“Whereabouts am I?” Bolan asked.
“About dead center on the reservation, I’d say,” Rafe told him. “This here’s Healer’s Ravine, though I guess you’d say these days most folks call it the town dump. You up to walking? Got a campfire going just a ways over.”
Bolan drew in a deep breath and struggled back to his feet. He could tell that he’d reinjured his shoulder and his thigh was bruised from where he’d been struck by the bison near the gristmill but other than that and a mild fever he felt thankfully intact.
“When’d you show up here?” Rafe asked as they threaded their way through the debris. Bolan limped slightly, favoring the bruised hip.
“A few hours ago probably,” he guessed.
“Sorry we didn’t hear you or we would’ve come got you out of the cold,” Rafe said. “We got a decent place up there in the caves.”
Bolan glanced where Rafe was pointing and saw a series of small openings in the side of the ravine, each one reachable by a well-camouflaged rope ladder.
“You keep saying ‘we,’” said Bolan.
“Yeah, that would be me, Leonard and Astro,” Rafe said. “The Three Rosquiteers. They’re right over here.”
Up ahead Bolan saw smoke rising up from behind a haphazard row of tall bushes. Rafe led him around the plants to a small clearing where two other men, both considerably younger but similarly dressed, sat on a log near a fire pit, warming their hands over the flames. Rafe introduced them. Astro was the youngest of the three. Bolan assumed he’d gotten his nickname from the Jetsons cartoon dog tattooed on his right biceps.
“You ask him who he is?” Astro asked Rafe.
“Not yet,” Rafe confessed. “I figure he’ll get around to telling us.”
“Nicolas Hayes,” Bolan said, using his Justice Department alias.
There was an old crate across from where the other two men were sitting. When Rafe gestured at it and nodded, the Executioner sat down, welcoming the warmth put off by the fire.
“He’s honest, I’ll give him that,” Leonard said, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out Bolan’s Justice Department ID and held it out to him along with his cell phone. “We took it along with your gun. For safekeeping, y’know?”
As Bolan flipped open the cell phone, Astro told him, “Don’t bother. Sucker’s deader than a doornail.”
Sure enough, the cell phone’s miniscreen refused to light up. Bolan stuffed the ID into his still-drenched shirt pocket. Remembering his exchange with Kissinger the previous night, he pried open the cell phone to get at its battery and SIM card. Even if he could get the phone working after they dried out, he knew there still was a chance he’d be beyond range of a signal.
“You look a little flushed for a white man,” Rafe told him. “I’m guessing you got a fever to go with whatever gave you that limp,” Rafe told him. “Lucky for you Leonard here’s something of a herbalist.”
Leonard nodded. “Back in the day this used to be where the medicine men planted their herbs.”
“Healer’s Ravine,” Bolan murmured.
“Yeah, that’s what it’s named for,” Leonard said. “You gotta sift around the trash, but a lot of it’s still growing. I’ll fix you up with some cayenne and willow bark. It’ll clear your head right up. Throw in some arnica anywhere you’ve got some kinda bruise or inflammation and you’ll be a new man.”
“A change of clothes wouldn’t hurt, either,” Astro suggested. “You’re about my size. I can loan you something if you don’t mind a little BO.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Bolan said.
“No problem,” Astro said. “We go by the Golden Rule here. ‘Do unto others unlike what the government do unto you.’”
“Speaking of the government,” Leonard said, “what brings a federal agent to the res?”
“Official business,” Bolan said. “I was caught up in a shoot-out and wound up in the river.”
“Shootout with who?”
“I can’t go into that,” Bolan told the men. Much as he was grateful for their having befriended him, he had a mission to get back to. He glanced out at the sheer walls of the ravine, then asked, “What’s the best way out of here?”
“What’s your hurry?” Rafe said. He’d already skewered the bison meat with two thin metal skewers. There were makeshift brackets on either side of the fire and when Rafe set the skewers on them, the meat rested six inches above the flames and quickly began to sizzle. “We’ll get you in some dry clothes and conduct a little herbal therapy, then you can have some breakfast and rest up a little. After that maybe we can talk a little bit about the going rate when it comes to rewarding Good Samaritans.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Santa Cruz, Bolivia
The day after Frederik Mikhaylov had throttled Dmitri Vishnevsky with his bare hands in the employee lounge of Moscow’s Regal Splendor, the then-scrawny card counter had begun to work out with a personal trainer at the casino’s health facility. In the three years since that humiliation, Vishnevsky had added almost forty pounds to his six-foot frame, nearly all of it toned muscle. A regimen of steroids and human growth hormones had supplemented the workouts, pocking the intellectual’s face with acne and diminishing what had already been a thin crop of hair atop his boxlike head, but for Dmitri this had been an acceptable price to pay. When he’d moved to Bolivia to replace Mikhaylov at the Andean Splendor, Vishnevsky had tracked down the nearest boxing gymnasium and placed himself under the tutelage of a former South American heavyweight champion whose most-oft used words of encouragement when the two men sparred together in the ring were, “Pretend I’m the Butcher.”
Vishnevsky had just finished going three rounds with the former champion and was making the three-block walk to work. His stride was boastful and he hummed to himself as he made his way down Avenue Independencia, navigating past slower-moving pedestrians as well as a phalanx of sidewalk vendors hawking everything from fresh produce to sweatshop garments and bootleg DVDs. The Russian had a welt on his cheekbone where he’d been met with a fierce jab, but he was oblivious to the lingering pain, so exultant was he over the way he’d stood up to the blow and countered with a right cross that, for the first time in four months of grueling face-offs, had sent his mentor reeling to the canvas. It was an omen, Vishnevsky figured, a sign that all would go well on this, the day he would prove that he had what it took to take the next step up the ladder in the casino’s hierarchy.
THERE WAS AN AIR of festivity throughout Santa Cruz. In addition to a fleet of small trucks blasting celebratory music through rooftop speakers from one side of town to the other, thousands upon thousands of brightly colored helium balloons had been released
at regular intervals into the hazy morning air, bound for the heavens where several small, vintage biplanes maneuvered in intricate patterns, releasing puffs of smoke to spell out the reason for the widespread fanfare.
“Grand Opening Today!” one of the planes wrote across the sky.
Another declared: “Loose Slots! Win! Win! Win!”
The new gaming hall, located adjacent from the main tourist center two miles from El Trompillo Airport, was about to open its doors as Santa Cruz’s second-largest gambling enterprise, surpassed only by the Andean Splendor, which loomed three blocks away as the tallest structure in the entire downtown area. Traffic was being diverted for a block-long stretch along the street that dead-ended at the casino’s main entrance, where a growing throng of expectant gamblers, rich and poor alike, crowded either side of the roped-off entrance to the casino, waiting for the doors to open so they could claim one of countless prizes being offered for the first few thousand patrons.
Inside the roped-off area, a seven-piece band was wrapping up a half-hour set with “Treasure for All,” a song commissioned specifically for the opening by the casino’s owner, flamboyant industrialist Alfredo Cavour. The crowd embraced the upbeat, feel-happy tune and, as much as possible considering the extent to which they were packed close together, they danced in place and sang along to the rousing chorus.
HALFWAY DOWN THE BLOCK, Andres Favre observed the celebration from the opened fourth-story window of his rented room at the Hotel Aymara. Favre had registered under a false name and tipped heavily to secure his room, which not only afforded the best view of the casino’s entrance but also had ready access to the exterior fire escape by which he planned to make his escape once he’d completed his assignment. That moment was nearly at hand, and Favre was a picture of dispassionate calm as he raised his assembled Parker-Hale M-82 sniper rifle and peered through its Unertl 10-power scope.
As the band finished its set in front of the casino, a handful of employees hastily removed the webbed netting over two decorated canvas bins situated on either side of a speaker’s stand. Another two hundred helium balloons rose from the bins, tethered by twelve-foot lengths of heavy string so that they formed a bobbing, multicolored canopy over the podium. Seconds later, a raucous cheer rose from the crowd as one of the main doors opened and out stepped Cavour, resplendent in a sharkskin suit studded with diamonds only slightly smaller than the ones mounted on the rings he wore on all of his fingers. Hair gelled back and his beaming face tanned several shades darker than his normal olive complexion, the sixty-four-year-old Santa Cruz native looked more like a cross between a Hollywood mogul and a Vegas entertainer than a financier. He waved and blew kisses to the crowd as he strode to the podium, soaking in the adulation.
“Treasure for all!” he shouted into the microphone, gesturing for the crowd to repeat the phrase. They responded in unison, their combined voices so loud that no one heard the shot that streaked through their midst and burrowed into Cavour’s heart.
THE SNIPER’S TWENTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD nephew, Julio Favre, witnessed Cavour’s assassination from behind the wheel of one of the casino’s advertising trucks parked at the intersection just beyond where the street leading to the Inca Treasure had been cordoned off. He’d carjacked the vehicle hours before and its original driver lay dead in the enclosed rear bed, surrounded by more than eleven hundred pounds of high explosives rigged to a detonator Julio held clenched between his right palm and the steering wheel.
The moment Cavour slumped behind the podium, Julio started up the truck. As soon as security officers manning the sawhorse barricades abandoned their posts and raced toward the erupting bedlam outside the casino, Julio shifted into gear and bore down on the accelerator. The truck quickly gained speed as it pulled away from the curb and crossed the intersection, smashing through the sawhorses. Julio’s heart raced both with terror and exhilaration as he put the pedal to the floor, his eyes fixed on the podium and the main doors directly behind it. In a matter of seconds he knew his life would be over, but he comforted himself with his uncle’s assurances that his name would live on for years to come whenever fellow members of the National Liberation Army recalled the greatest martyrs to their cause.
One of the security officers stopped in his tracks when he heard the truck roaring down the boulevard toward the casino. By the time he drew his gun and turned to face Julio, the truck had already caught up with him. Struck head-on, the officer bounded into the air as if he were weightless and fell clear of the truck, which continued to zero in on its target.
“Viva la revolución!” Julio Favre screamed at the top of his lungs, tears streaming down his cheeks as he prepared to press the detonator. “Viva la revolución!”
DMITRI VISHNEVSKY HAD reached the Andean Splendor and taken a private elevator up to his penthouse suite on the seventeenth floor. Standing out on a balcony that overlooked the city, he held his cell phone in one hand as he watched the rival casino’s opening ceremony on a small portable television. When he saw Alfredo Cavour go down, the acne-faced Russian smiled with satisfaction and turned from the television to his view of the Inca Treasure. Raising the cell phone, he focused on the faux Incan ruins that adorned the other casino’s six-story rooftop. The phone was equipped with a built-in video camera, and as Vishnevsky filmed away, a loud explosion suddenly reverberated through the city, sending out shock waves that faintly trembled the concrete beneath his feet. A black cloud of smoke rose up from the rival casino and within seconds the gambling hall and its attached hotel facilities began to collapse, bringing down the rooftop ruins. Vishnevsky suspected the devastation wouldn’t be as complete as the controlled implosions that flattened obsolete casinos in Las Vegas, but he was certain that it would be some time before the Treasure would reopen, if ever.
As the smoke thickened and the din of the explosion was replaced by howling sirens, Vishnevsky left the balcony and entered the living room of his penthouse suite. He quickly saved the video file and then used the cell phone’s miniaturized keyboard to log online and e-mail the film clip into cyberspace. Once he’d completed the task, the Russian sauntered into the kitchen and looked through the refrigerator for a snack, settling on a cup of flavored yogurt. He scooped it into a bowl and was adding granola when his cell phone bleated.
It was SVR Deputy Director Alek Repin.
“I just saw your movie,” Repin said. “It looks like you pulled it off, Dmitri.”
“A piece of cake,” Vishnevsky said nonchalantly as he stirred the granola into the yogurt. “Within the hour ELN will put out an announcement taking responsibility for the bombing. I, of course, will offer my condolences to the Cavour family and condemn the terrorists.”
“And offer a reward.”
“Yes, that will be part of my statement,” Vishnevsky replied. “I was thinking it might go over even better if I double the amount we discussed.”
“Not a problem,” Repin replied. “Offer whatever you wish. No one is going to collect it.”
“My feeling exactly.”
“You’ve done well, Dmitri,” Repin told his longtime associate, “but I think it would be best if you leave the country for a while. Just to be safe.”
Vishnevsky’s pallid face took on a sudden tint as he blushed with anger. “What are you talking about?” he demanded. “Our agreement was that once this was done I would be promoted here.”
“I realize that,” said Repin, “but something has come up.”
“You can’t retract that offer!” Vishnevsky snapped. “We had an understanding! I had your promise!”
“Relax, Dmitri.” Repin chuckled. “You’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion entirely. You’re still being promoted. It’s just that another job has opened up that I thought might interest you more.”
“Unless it’s the one in the States I was passed over for, I’m not interested,” Vishnevsky said. “That’s final!”
Repin’s chuckle broadened into full-out laughter.
“Dmitri, my friend,”
he finally managed to say, “you need to follow the advice of the late Mr. Cavour and believe in good fortune.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Driving south on Interstate 25 toward the state capital, Leslie Helms was still thinking about the press conference back at the reservation, particularly the way Captain Brown had brought things to such an abrupt end and announced that all media vehicles would be searched on their way off the property. Something seemed off. To Helms, the searches had seemed pointless, as most of the press corps, like her, had parked in plain sight along the shoulder of the service road leading to Franklin Colt’s property. Brown herself had had a clear view down the road while she was making her remarks. If someone had tried to break into one of the vehicles, she likely would have seen it. Yes, there was a chance the captain had ordered the searches out of spite, but Helms doubted the other woman could have been so petty. There had to be another reason. Maybe, she thought, it had had something to do with the officer who’d pulled up in the ATV during the middle of the briefing.
Once she reached the outskirts of Santa Fe, the private investigator veered onto Veteran’s Memorial Highway, the relief route circumventing the city. Off in the distance she saw a hot air balloon floating lazily above the foothills. She knew it wasn’t one of Christopher Shiraldi’s, but the sight of it was enough to derail her obsession over the press conference. She wondered how long it would be before Shiraldi broke down and called her back. If she could get his cooperation and come up with something worth feeding the Justice Department agent she’d met back in Albuquerque, it’d be the best break she’d had all year.
Blood Play (Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan) Page 14