I had a feeling that he might just shoot, and damn the consequences.
And then the office door opened and I tensed, expecting a horde of Vanguard troops with automatic weapons to burst into the room.
But instead there was only the lone figure of a man, silhouetted in the doorway.
‘Stand down, Miles,’ the man said in a voice that resonated power, and Hatfield reluctantly lowered the gun at his command.
The man came further into the room, and smiled; and unlike Hatfield’s, this one seemed genuine.
‘How about we have a talk?’ General Roman Badrock said to me, as he looked at the carnage around him. ‘I’m always on the lookout for a good man.’
Chapter Five
I sipped at a glass of port as I sat at one end of a long, heavy satinwood dining table, a plate of seared duck breast with all the trimmings in front of me.
All told, it was much better than being shot by a lunatic with a USP.
General Badrock and I were alone in the dining room, a sumptuous wood-paneled affair in the man’s own ranch house, complete with chandeliers, expensive artworks, and luxurious rugs spread across its oak floorboards. Animal heads graced the walls around us too, everything from roe deer to grizzly bear.
‘Your own work?’ I asked, pointing to the mounted heads with my silver fork.
Badrock smiled through a mouth full of duck. ‘Guilty as charged,’ he said when he’d finished. ‘Hunting’s one of the great pleasures of my life. I love the feeling, the cold steel in my hands as I lie in wait, the stillness of the moment, the clarity of the mind.’ He took a sip of port, savoring it. ‘It’s like nothing else.’
‘That’s surprising for a man with your career,’ I said.
Badrock laughed. ‘I’m an old man now, son. You know how long ago I last saw action in the field? It was as a major, back during the first Gulf war, over a quarter of a century ago now.’ He shook his head. ‘You get bumped up to colonel, to general, you know how many firefights you get into?’ Another sip of the port, another shake of the head. ‘None whatsoever.’
‘You missed it then?’ I asked, still not entirely sure why Badrock had brought me here but wanting to build up some sort of rapport with him so that he’d be less likely to call the police or – worse – have Hatfield come back and shoot me.
‘I started hunting when I got to staff rank and it became apparent that I was no longer required in the field,’ he said in answer. ‘Believe it or not, I hadn’t had any interest in it before then. It hadn’t been part of my home life before I signed up, and then as a young officer there was so much going on that it simply never occurred to me to try.’
Badrock looked across to the heads, evidently lost in the past. ‘It was a friend of mine, another colonel working out of the Pentagon, that took me on my first hunting trip, it was up to Alaska.’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘I loved it immediately, that first time got me hooked. You know what happened?’
He didn’t wait for an answer, simply ploughed on with his tale. ‘We’d bagged a couple of moose the first day, huge animals. I loved the peace, the solitude, the feeling of man against beast in the wilderness. Then later that day, sitting around the campfire – and this was my first time out, remember – a giant Kodiak bear burst out of the trees just next to us, knocked my buddy ten feet to the side with one swipe of his massive paws. Then he turned to me,’ he said almost wistfully, ‘and for a moment – just for a moment – I thought I was going to die, and it was a feeling I’d not had in years, one which made me feel truly alive, you know? And then before I knew what was happening, a gun had appeared in my hands and I’d fired off six rounds. It was a .44 Magnum revolver, carried just in case of this sort of thing, and those massive slugs hit the beast right in its center mass, stopped the bastard in its tracks.’
Badrock picked up some more of the duck, placed it in his mouth and chewed on it thoughtfully. ‘My friend had six broken ribs and a punctured lung,’ he said at last, ‘but it was worth it. Introduced me to a whole new world, and I’ve been hooked ever since.’
‘And how does that tie in with the park here?’ I asked innocently. ‘Environmentally aware nature reserve, where does the fix come from now?’
Badrock regarded me coolly across the table. ‘That was impressive, what you did back there in Groban’s office,’ he said at last, ignoring my question. ‘I guess you must be something of a hunter yourself, no? You’re hunting for answers.’
‘Do you have any?’ I asked with a raised eyebrow.
‘Yes,’ Badrock said, holding my gaze. ‘It might not be the answer you want, but it is the truth nevertheless.’ His meal finished, he poured himself some more port and stood, walking over to the massive picture window that overlooked a large swath of his property from the ranch house’s elevated position on a steep bluff.
He looked out of the window at his kingdom for a time, before turning back to me. ‘Benjamin “T.J.” Hooker is dead,’ he said.
I was taken aback by Badrock’s words, his honesty disturbing. What did it mean? Was he telling me this because I was next?
‘Groban met him at the ABQ BioPark, just as Ortiz said, offered him a job. You’ve probably seen for yourself, our staff here is a strange mix. We do employ some experts – and I mean real experts – for the more involved aspects of our work here. But let’s face it, how much am I going to pay people to pick up elephant dung? And so I bring in certain groups of people that don’t mind working for lower wages than the average – you know, men and women from across the border, or else people like Hooker, homeless and grateful for anything they can get.’
He must have seen the look on my face, because he waved a hand dismissively in my direction. ‘Come on man,’ he said, ‘you know that’s how it works. Some of the work here is menial at best, and there just aren’t that many people willing to do it. So I’ve got to look elsewhere, right? And let’s face it, I’m doing them a favor. Who else is employing people like Hooker?’ He shook his head. ‘Nobody,’ he said in answer to his own question. ‘And they get well treated here, we either bus them in for free or else they can stay here in good quality accommodation blocks, they get well fed, and the pay isn’t too bad, considering.’
But I wasn’t interested in Badrock’s employment practices; I only wanted to know one thing.
‘How did he die?’ I asked.
Badrock paused, sighed, looked out of his picture window and drank some more port before turning back to me. ‘He was trampled to death by a rhino,’ he said.
‘He was what?’ I asked, genuinely surprised; it was hardly what I’d been expecting.
‘Trampled to death by a rhinoceros,’ Badrock said in confirmation. ‘Khuthala, one of our white rhinos from South Africa, five thousand pounds of him. Gored the poor boy too, tragically; the body was a real mess when we found it.’
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘Hooker loved his animals,’ Badrock said, ‘he had a real interest in them – it was what Groban had noticed back in Albuquerque, why he’d offered him a job. But it made him reckless too, I’m afraid. The young man went out after the park had closed for the night, to explore for himself. But rhinos are territorial animals, and don’t like surprises, especially at night. Hooker never really had a chance.’ Badrock was looking out of the window again, surveying his estate. ‘We didn’t find the body til morning,’ he continued, ‘and by then it was a real mess, believe me. Thanks Heavens it was found before the park opened though, could you imagine that? If a tourist had found him, we’d have been in the press for all the wrong reasons, believe you me.’
‘Is that why you covered up the death?’ I asked. ‘To avoid the bad publicity?’
‘What was there to cover up?’ the general asked, eyes back on me. ‘By his own account he was homeless and had no family ties, nobody that would miss him, nobody that needed to be informed. He had no identification, and we only had his word for it that Benjamin Hooker was his real name. No social security, no driver�
��s license, no address, no passport or birth certificate. He was a phantom, a ghost. And so we did what we could, had a proper burial for the kid. There’s an old chapel came with the property, he’s buried in the cemetery there.’
I looked down at the ruby red liquid in my cut crystal glass and took some time to process what I had been told.
The first feeling that came to me was one of failure; the boy was dead, and I would never be able to return him to his girlfriend. He’d been killed tragically, in an accident, then buried alone, a non-person with nobody to miss him.
Except that somebody did miss him.
And how did I have any idea whether Badrock was telling me the truth? If I could prove that the young man was dead, had been killed as Badrock said, then at least I would be able to return to Kayden with some solid information, something that would give her closure.
There was one way to find out.
‘I want to see the body.’
Chapter Six
There was a chapel, just like Badrock had said. It was old and broken down, and stood a hundred yards away from a dilapidated single story home that had once been the primary ranch house, many moons ago.
The site was about a mile from Badrock’s new, colossal mansion house on the bluff, hidden down some tracks in a small ravine, sheltered from the winds that would otherwise come in across the plains. In the days before double glazing and insulation, the location made perfect sense.
I’d traveled there in the back of a hundred thousand dollar Range Rover, Badrock in the back with me while Hatfield rode up front with the driver.
I was amazed by the man’s confidence and composure – here he was sitting within arm’s reach of someone who had just demolished four of his men inside of ten seconds, and it was like he didn’t have a care in the world. I could have been there to kill him for all he knew, and yet he had not even allowed Hatfield to search me; I still had the knife that I’d used to threaten Groban, and I could have sliced Badrock’s neck wide open in a heartbeat.
But I got the impression that the general was so good at reading people that he knew absolutely that killing him wasn’t the reason I was there; and I also got the impression that he wanted to win my trust. And what better way than by letting me keep my weapon, while offering himself as a target?
It was working, too – despite myself, I felt that I was being drawn to Badrock like a moth to a flame, impressed by the man’s charisma, his easy confidence, and his sheer force of character.
‘The house hasn’t been used for years,’ Badrock said as we stepped out of the 4x4 and made our way into the grounds of the chapel. ‘The chapel’s seen better days too, I’m afraid.’
‘But I can see it’s getting some more use now,’ I observed, as in among the ancient graves there seemed to be several which were significantly newer. It suddenly became apparent that Benjamin Hooker might not have been the only worker to meet an untimely demise here.
I noticed, too, several open graves just waiting to be filled.
I then wondered – and I was amazed that it had taken me this long to do so – if that was the reason I’d been brought here.
To fill one of these new graves.
I instinctively jerked my head toward Hatfield, ready to move if he was reaching for a weapon.
‘No need to worry, son,’ Badrock said as if he could read my mind. ‘You’re in no danger here. I just want to clear this up, so that we can move on.’
Even as he said this, the driver struck the earth with a spade he’d brought from the car, forcing it into the soil of a new grave with his heel until it went in deep, before pulling it back out and hurling it to one side.
‘Move on to what?’ I asked Badrock as the driver continued to dig.
‘Let’s just wait out on that,’ he replied. ‘Put your mind at rest first.’
I nodded, my eyes roaming the cemetery – for years used to bury the bodies of family members and ranch hands.
‘You’ve had more than one accident, I see,’ I said as the hole the driver was digging got larger and larger. I gestured at the open graves. ‘And maybe expecting more?’
Badrock shrugged. ‘Like any enterprise, we’ve had some unfortunate situations,’ he admitted. ‘Some accidents during construction, others with the animals. We bury the homeless ones here, although on occasion we also bury folk from across the border, if their families can’t afford to do it back home. Sometimes sickness takes them too.’
‘Doesn’t sound like a good safety record,’ I said, but Badrock didn’t reply, merely shrugged as if to say what can you do?
‘I’m done,’ the driver-digger shouted from the open grave, and Badrock and I moved over toward him.
I peered down into the hole, saw the man down there covered in dirt, a coffin next to him in the pit.
‘Open it,’ the general ordered, and the man did as he was told, unclasping the locks and heaving the lid up.
I knelt by the side, saw the body as the waning sunlight hit it.
The boy was in grim repair, decomposition starting to occur despite the airtight coffin; and even from this distance, I could see the damage that had been done to him.
The chest was half caved in, the face ruptured and semi-crushed; but despite the damage, I could still recognize him from the Polaroid.
So it was true – Benjamin Hooker was dead, and the state of the body seemed to corroborate Badrock’s tale of what happened to him.
And yet the crushing damage could have been inflicted post-mortem to cover up the real cause of death. I wasn’t a doctor, and I wouldn’t be carrying out an autopsy though; it was sufficient that the boy was dead.
At the same time, however, I knew that it wasn’t sufficient, that there was more to Badrock’s enterprise here than met the eye.
Why were there so many other bodies here? How had they died, really?
It just didn’t add up, and I knew my work here was far from done.
If I was going to go back to Kayden with answers, it would have to be with all the answers.
And maybe justice too, depending on what I found out.
‘Okay,’ I said to Badrock, ‘I’m satisfied.’
‘Good,’ he said with a smile, nodding at the driver who merely grunted, resealed the coffin and began to fill the grave back in. ‘So now we can move onto business.’
‘What sort of business?’
‘You’re an ex-military man of course,’ Badrock said by way of explanation. ‘Special operations, from your performance back there. Obviously engaged in private work now, hired by someone to find out what happened to old TJ there.’ He gestured to the grave as he spoke. ‘Well, you’ve found out, and now I guess you might be available for another job.’
‘A job here?’
‘Why not?’ Badrock said pleasantly. ‘The conditions are good, we pay well, very well in fact, and I’m now four good men down thanks to you. So you could say you owe me.’
‘They were about to attack me.’
‘Were they? I watched the incident live on CCTV – it’s recorded too, by the way – and all they were doing was walking across the room. You attacked them, drew a weapon too against men who were at the time unarmed.’
‘They had guns,’ I reminded him.
‘In holsters,’ Badrock countered. ‘And at that time, they had no intentions of using them. But I’m not here to argue with you, or threaten you. Like I said back in the office, I’m always on the lookout for a good man. And right now I need you. You do private security work for money already, so why not come work for me instead?’
‘What sort of work are we talking about?’
‘If I tell you and you turn me down,’ Badrock said, ‘you must promise never to reveal what I’ve said to another living soul.’
‘Okay,’ I said uneasily.
‘I mean it,’ Badrock said. ‘Think of this as a military order, top secret stuff from a spec ops mission you can’t speak of to anyone.’
‘Okay,’ I said again.
Badrock looked around the ravine, back out toward the rest of his estate. The air was warm, and the only sound that could be heard was the earth being thrown back on top of the coffin.
‘What is the main difference between a nature reserve and a game reserve?’ he asked me.
It took me only moments to answer, and in that time I began to understand a little of what else might be going on here.
‘Hunting,’ I said. ‘Game reserves allow hunting.’
‘Exactly,’ Badrock said with a wide smile. ‘Exactly. Now, you can go to Africa and get a hunting license and go and bag yourself some big game, right? And here in the United States, you can hunt elk, moose, deer, even mountain lion, yes? And so why not do the same thing here?’
‘You allow people to hunt the animals?’ I asked, although the answer was already obvious.
‘I do, and they pay me big bucks for doing it too. And they can hunt anything they want, if the price is right, from elephant to lion. We even mount the heads and provide secure transportation of the trophies to wherever the client wants.’
My blood had turned cold, my stomach turning with disgust as the reason behind Badrock Park became all too apparent to me.
‘This is the reason you started the park?’ I asked. ‘As a hunting ground?’
‘Yes,’ Badrock said with a proud smile. ‘And why not? I can charge fifty thousand dollars for a hippo, eighty for an elephant, up to a hundred thousand for a lion. But it’s not about the money, I have enough anyway; it’s about the thrill of the chase, the thrill of the hunt. Why shouldn’t we do it? It’s in our blood, in our nature; it would be insane to deny it.’
I wanted to argue with the man, tell him that some of those animals were endangered, what he was doing was sick; I wanted to grab the man by his hair and ram his face down onto my knee, again and again and again.
Instead, I forced myself to smile. ‘Good idea,’ I said through what I hoped weren’t gritted teeth. ‘I can see why you need the security.’
THE THOUSAND DOLLAR HUNT: Colt Ryder is Back in Action! Page 5