THE THOUSAND DOLLAR HUNT: Colt Ryder is Back in Action!

by J. T. Brannan

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘are you after a job? It’s just that we’re currently full to capacity, unless you’ve got some sort of specialist skills we could use.’

  The look on his face told me that he thought this was unlikely, and I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m not after a job.’

  He looked back over his shoulder at Soren, confused. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said as he turned back to me, ‘I thought you’d said that you were looking for a job?’

  ‘No,’ I replied, ‘I just asked who I needed to speak to about a job. I’m not looking for one, I’m looking for the person who deals with them. And I guess that’s you.’

  Mr. Ortiz began to look nervous as the way the conversation was going – no big surprise, as he’d come to meet me expecting one thing, and was now being thrown a curve ball.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated, ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand. What is it that – ’

  Before he could finish, I pulled TJ’s photograph out of my pocket and held it up in front of him. ‘This young man came here several weeks ago looking for a job. He’s not been seen since.’

  Ortiz looked at the picture, then at me, then the picture, then once again back at me. ‘I think perhaps we should continue this discussion in my office,’ he said finally.

  The office was fairly utilitarian, a nondescript workplace that might have been anywhere. But at least it afforded us some privacy, which suited us both.

  ‘You don’t look like you’re with the police,’ Ortiz said as he sipped from a glass of water, seated across a narrow wooden desk from me.

  ‘Good guess,’ I said. ‘Let’s say I’m an independent investigator.’

  ‘A P.I.?,’ he asked. ‘Do you have some ID?’

  ‘Not a P.I., no,’ I said. ‘More like a friend of the family.’

  ‘So you have no real authority?’ Ortiz asked, his confidence returning.

  I thought about flicking out my metal baton to its full twenty-one inch length and asking him if that was enough authority for him, but thought better of it. Sometimes the softer approach worked best. Not soft, mind you; just softer.

  ‘I don’t want to take up much of your time,’ I said. ‘I think you know the guy in this photo, I think you’ve seen him before, and I think you can help me find him. If you can’t, I’ll just pass my suspicions onto the police, perhaps with a little story for the Albuquerque Journal along the way.’

  I held Ortiz’s gaze until he looked away, shaking his head. ‘I don’t suppose it matters much anyway,’ he said at last, looking back up at me. ‘I do recognize him, yes. He came in looking for a job a few weeks ago, just like you say. Don’t know any more about him than that really, not his name or anything else. I remember he’d been picked up inside the park by security a few times though, sneaking in without paying. Hardly an ideal employee, I’m sure you’ll agree.’

  I shrugged. ‘Maybe your ticket prices are too high,’ I suggested.

  Ortiz smiled politely. ‘The ticket prices are just fine, thank you very much.’

  ‘So you turned him down,’ I said, getting back on track. ‘What else can you tell me?’ He wasn’t advertising it, but I could tell he was holding something back.

  He sighed, toying with his water glass. ‘I guess you could say that the ‘interview’ got somewhat heated. He tried to tell me how much he knew about animals, how passionate he was, and I…’

  ‘Yes?’ I encouraged.

  ‘Well, I guess I got a little bothered by his attitude and called him a deadbeat, you know, words were exchanged.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And there was someone else present during our brief conversation, someone who overheard it.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I’m not sure of his name, I’ll have to check. He wasn’t here to see me, but had a meeting with the zoo director, he was just passing through when he heard us.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He stopped the kid, took him to one side, asked him a few questions. I heard a bit, the kid saying he was from the mission across the way, it kind of confirmed what I’d thought, you know? Surprised the hell out of me when the guy said he might have a job opening for him. Couldn’t believe my ears.’

  ‘A job opening?’ I asked. ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure, but the guy works for Badrock Park.’

  ‘Badrock?’ I asked. ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Badrock’s not a place,’ Ortiz advised me. ‘It’s a man. Roman Badrock, an ex-army general who’s opened up his own game reserve and safari park about an hour away from here, over near Laguna. The guy was here asking the director about sourcing some animals for the park.’

  I shook my head, clearing it. Had I heard him right?

  ‘General Roman Badrock?’ I asked for confirmation. ‘As in, the General Roman Badrock?’

  Ortiz shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know much about the military, but yeah, it’s the General Badrock, the one the media seemed to love a few years back.’

  Sonofabitch – now there was a name I thought I’d never hear again.

  Roman Badrock was one of America’s finest soldiers – I’d even briefly served under his command in Iraq, back when I’d been in the Regimental Recon Detachment of the US Army Rangers and he’d been a Brigadier. I’d never met him – our pay grades were way too far apart – but had heard lots of good things about the man. He’d been in the thick of the action his entire life, from long before the first Gulf War, to Bosnia and Kosovo, then back to the Gulf. If I remembered correctly, he was a fellow Medal of Honor recipient for something he’d done during the invasion of Grenada, way back in the 1980s. Finally made it to Lieutenant General before retiring a few years ago.

  He was a living legend.

  But unlike many of his contemporaries who continued to stay in the public eye after retirement – writing their memoirs, entering politics, giving speeches on the after-dinner circuit, becoming subject experts on the TV news shows – Badrock had disappeared from sight.

  And now I knew why.

  Badrock Park.

  The thought of it intrigued me. ‘What sort of job did the kid get offered?’ I asked.

  ‘Not sure,’ Ortiz replied. ‘The guy just said that he might have some work for him, didn’t say what, just that it would be with the animals. Didn’t seem to bother him that the kid was homeless.’

  Interesting, I thought, filing the information for later.

  ‘How are relations between the BioPark here and Badrock’s operation?’ I asked, picking up on unspoken signals from Ortiz. ‘Any competition?’

  Ortiz scoffed. ‘Hardly,’ he said with a hint of contempt in his voice. ‘We’re completely different. We are a serious research organization with a commercial arm. Badrock Park is commercial all the way. He’s tried to recreate the African savannah right here in New Mexico, complete with wildebeest, zebra, antelope, even rhinos and elephants; not to mention the predators that go with them. The man’s got cheetah, leopard, even prides of lions stalking the grasslands in that oversized ranch of his.’

  ‘Sounds like fun.’

  ‘To you,’ Ortiz said sadly, ‘and to lots of others besides. The place isn’t even advertised, and it’s drawing big crowds anyway, people who’ve always wanted to visit Africa but can’t afford it, here they think they’ve got the next best thing.’

  ‘And don’t they?’ I asked, thinking it sounded rather like a case of sour grapes, Ortiz jealous of Badrock’s success.

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Ortiz replied. ‘An operation on that scale demands expert management, and I’m not entirely convinced that Badrock has the credentials.’

  ‘He’s hired expert help though, surely?’

  ‘You’d think, wouldn’t you? And yet your young friend was offered work, wasn’t he? And no matter his passion for animals, he would hardly qualify as an ‘expert’ at any proper establishment. There are lots of rumors about the general employing many of his workers from across the border too.’

&
nbsp; ‘Illegals?’ I asked, and Ortiz gave another of his casual shrugs.

  ‘It seems that way,’ he said noncommittally, ‘although nothing official ever gets said about it. He has plenty of security there too, employs a lot of ex-military personnel.’

  ‘You think it’s not well managed?’

  ‘Let’s just say that our director turned down the requests of Badrock’s representative the other week – we will never supply animals to that park, at least under its current ownership.’

  ‘Can you give me some more details?’ I asked, my interest aroused.

  ‘Details?’ he said as he toyed with his glass of water. ‘Hell, okay, why not?’ He looked back up at me, his eyes meeting mine. ‘That crazy general has gone and put the predators and prey animals in the same compounds, “let nature take its course”, he says – you know, lions and crocodiles alongside buffalo and gazelle.’

  I shrugged. ‘You don’t approve of that?’

  ‘Nobody approves of it!’ he said in amazement. ‘I’ll tell you what he wants, he wants the park to be part of some sick blood sport, get people to pay to watch the animals kill one another.’

  ‘But isn’t that what happens in nature?’ I asked innocently. ‘What shouldn’t a park, or a nature reserve, replicate that?’

  ‘Let me give you two good reasons,’ Ortiz said immediately, holding up his index finger. ‘One, the animals going there are supposed to be looked after, as part of the park’s commitment to the environment it’s supposed to be protecting these animals. Are you going to donate a zebra to Badrock Park if you know that it might get dragged underwater and ripped to pieces by a Nile crocodile a day later?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’ He held up a second finger. ‘Two, Badrock is making a spectacle of nature, bringing out the worst in people and therefore bringing everything we do, everything we’ve struggled for and campaigned for over the years, into disrepute. It’s like the damned Roman circus up there.’

  ‘But it’s legal?’

  ‘He’s greased the right palms alright,’ Ortiz said dismissively, ‘he’s got all the right licenses, yeah. Amazing what you can do if you have enough money. But we’re appealing to the state government about it, and we’ll go higher if we have to, believe me.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, standing up and bringing our little meeting to a close. ‘You’ve been very helpful. My interest has been well and truly piqued.’

  ‘You’ll keep the police and the press out of this then?’ Ortiz asked as we shook hands.

  ‘I will,’ I assured him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘And I hope you manage to find that young man. If he’s up at Badrock Park, who knows what might have happened to him.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I hope I find him too.’

  Then I turned on my heel and left the office, knowing where I would have to head next.

  Badrock Park.

  Chapter Three

  The lion roared, only feet away from me, and I could count the huge teeth in its wide open mouth as the sound passed right through me, chilling me to the bone.

  It was the closest I’d ever been to such a magnificent animal – according to the tour guide, a fully-grown adult male which weighed in the region of five hundred pounds – and I wasn’t sure that the open-top jeep we were in was the most sensible platform for viewing him. On balance, I’d have preferred something with armored glass.

  There were six of us in the jeep – the driver and guide up front, and myself and three other tourists in the back. I was sandwiched in between a young couple and an older, lone traveler like myself. We’d all paid a little extra for the smaller jeep, to get closer to the action than the larger tour buses allowed.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the tour guide said in a thick South African accent as the driver edged the jeep slowly along, flattening the grasses as we traveled across the vast landscape at somewhere under five miles per hour. ‘Samson here’s pretty lazy, he’s not going to do anything, this is just his way of letting us know he’s there, that’s all.’

  Well, Samson was doing a pretty good job of it, I had to admit.

  And, as the lion padded gently alongside us, his muscles rippling and his mane swinging, I also had to admit that I was rather enjoying myself here at Badrock Park.

  I’d arrived that morning, having hitched a lift along Interstate 40 with a long-distance trucker on his way to LA. I’d got out at Laguna, then waited for the transport which bused people the fifteen miles further north to the safari park itself.

  I’d picked Kane up from Kayden, and he’d come with me as far as the front gate but – like the Rio Grande Zoo – they wouldn’t allow him in the park itself due to ‘animal welfare’. I didn’t know whose welfare we were being concerned about – Kane’s or the park animals’ – but agreed to leave him at the kennels provided. He didn’t seem bothered – he probably welcomed a proper bed after a lifetime of walking and sleeping out under the stars.

  I’d decided to do the tourist bit first, get an idea of the layout of the park, see what I could ascertain about the security here.

  I could see straight away that Ortiz had been right about Badrock hiring ex-military personnel; there were a hell of a lot of former soldiers here, you could tell straight away from the way they held themselves, the way they moved. But perhaps in a place where predators and prey mingled freely – and with fee-paying humans also in the mix – having a good security team was a pretty sensible precaution.

  Ortiz had also been right about the rest of the hired help, at least around the main entrance, animal houses and recreation facilities near the front gate. I didn’t know whether they were illegals or not, but there were plenty of Mexicans here.

  But on the whole – despite Ortiz’s misgivings – the park was impressive and the general seemed to have invested a huge amount of money in the place. It bore out what I’d read in an internet café back in Albuquerque the night before, when I’d done a little research on Badrock and his safari park.

  Badrock had retired five years ago, after thirty-three years of service to his country. Born in 1960, he’d joined as a boy soldier aged seventeen; a move that had surprised both his parents and their wealthy and influential friends. His father was a rich oil baron, and it was assumed that Roman would grow up to take over the family business. Even after he signed up, people thought he would just serve out a short-term contract and then go back to the oilfields.

  But then came active service in the Sinai, El Salvador and Lebanon, until – just before his short-term commission was due to finish – he led a platoon of paratroopers into Grenada as a Captain in the 82nd Airborne Division. And it was there – after extricating three of his wounded soldiers from a gun battle with two bullets in one of his own legs, killing or wounding thirteen enemy combatants as he went – that Roman Badrock’s legend started to be formed, cemented by the awarding of the Medal of Honor at a congressional ceremony a few months later.

  It also gave Badrock a taste for action that he knew would never be satisfied in the civilian world; and so a short-term commission became long term, and the powers-that-be had marked the man out for great things, a fast-track career to high office.

  At some stage during that fast-track, lengthy and impressive career, both of Badrock’s parents died and – with no siblings to split the inheritance with – he became a wealthy man. And over the years, according to the Wall Street Journal piece I’d read online, he’d used that money to become even more wealthy, investing profits from the oil company into a burgeoning property and business portfolio that – back in 1999 – had put his net worth at over four hundred million dollars.

  There was scant information about his family life, but it appeared that he’d been married late, although it hadn’t lasted; his wife had been killed in a car crash while well over the legal limit, a tragic end to their short relationship. Their marriage had left him with a daughter however, so at least some good had come of it.

  Badrock’s retirement – even after thirty-t
hree years – had come as something of a surprise to many, as he’d been on the road to making full General, with a place on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The military was in his blood, a part of him that ran deeper than any other, and in several articles he claimed he had the desire to serve until he was no longer allowed to. But despite searching everything I could, there was no solid information anywhere as to what had eventually changed the man’s mind.

  It was an interesting anomaly and I contacted an old friend of mine in Army records to see if she could provide me with any more detailed ‘insider’ information on the good general. She agreed to try but – given the man’s importance and super-high security clearances – it would take some time to get it to me. With no way of her contacting me direct, I said I’d check in with her in a couple of days to see what she’d managed to find out.

  Whatever the reason though, Roman Badrock had retired and – in between conducting various business deals and arranging high-value security contracts – he had purchased a huge cattle ranch in New Mexico, fifty thousand acres of land that incorporated sandstone bluffs, huge mesas, rock formations, open valleys and huge swathes of expansive grassland.

  It was here – at the re-named ‘Badrock Park’ – that he immediately set about moving the cattle operations to surrounding ranches and converting the seventy square miles of land into a gigantic nature reserve.

  An article in Time gave some indication as to the reasons behind his move –

  ‘I’ve been around, you know? I’ve seen the best the world has to offer, and I’ve seen the worst. But what stood out for me, many times during my career, was the effect we humans were having on the landscape, on the natural world. Have you ever seen what Agent Orange does to a jungle? What artillery and mortar fire does to forest or grassland? Conflict all over the world comes at a cost, and not all of it is human cost; the damage to nature is extraordinary. And whereas we can make those decisions ourselves, wild animals cannot. And that’s why I’m creating Badrock Park, to provide a refuge for some of these animals who are struggling to survive in warzones and conflict areas around the world, give them a safe haven if you will. For it would be a true tragedy if we were to lose some of these species as a result of our own barbarism and bloodlust.’