Blood Play. Don Pendleton

son was a favor he couldn’t willingly oblige.

      These thoughts were still sifting through Upshaw’s troubled mind when he turned off the main road leading out of Taos and drove through the reservation, his wipers squeaking across the windshield. Two side roads later he turned a final time and slowed to a stop next to the mailbox situated near the wrought-iron gate guarding the long driveway leading uphill to his mountain home. He pushed the remote clipped to his visor, and the gate began to slowly creak open as he rolled down his window and reached out through the rain to get his mail. He was withdrawing a handful of bills and other correspondence when there was a stirring in the tall bushes growing up just behind the mailbox. Upshaw’s eyes widened with disbelief as the man he knew as Pete Trammell emerged through the shrubbery, drenched from the rain.

      “What are you doing here?” Upshaw demanded.

      “Your son’s upset that you didn’t send him a birthday card,” Petenka Tramelik replied. “He wanted me to send you a little message.”

      With that, Tramelik raised his gloved hand and calmly fired a round from his Raven Arms MP-25, the same weapon Vladik Barad had used to kill Alan Orson.

      Upshaw’s head lolled from the impact and the mail fell from his hand. Dead, the tribal leader slipped his foot off the brake and his car slowly eased forward, just missing the still-opening gate. As Tramelik watched on, the sedan continued up the driveway another twenty yards before failing to negotiate the first turn leading into the mountains. Mature cottonwoods grew up along both sides of the road, and the car came to an abrupt stop once it left the driveway and crashed into one of them. The engine died, but Tremalik could still hear its wipers trying to fend off the rain.

      The Russian operative jogged to the car and leaned in through the window. Reaching past Upshaw, he ran his hand beneath the dashboard and removed the dime-size homing bug he and Barad had been using to track Upshaw’s movements, as well as any conversations made in the vehicle. Next, Tramelik carefully frisked his victim until he came across the dead man’s cell phone. Pocketing both items, he strode back through the rain to the shrubs he’d been hiding behind and retrieved a small backpack containing a laptop and several other valuables he’d stolen from Upshaw’s mountain home hours ago, before he and Barad had laid seige to Alan Orson’s estate. He tossed in the cell phone, then trampled over the dead man’s mail and made his way back to the turnoff. Farther up the road, Donny Upshaw’s run-down Buick LeSabre was parked on the shoulder just in front of a hedge that had shielded it from his father’s view. Barad was behind the wheel. Donny was still out cold in the backseat.

      Tramelik got in front and nodded to Barad, who then started the Buick and pulled back onto the road. Tramelik turned in his seat and reached over, nudging Donny with the Raven’s barrel.

      “First Orson and his dog, and now your own father,” Tramelik said disapprovingly. “That’s quite a killing spree, Donny. Something tells me that when you come down off the smack and realize what you’ve done the shame is going to be too much for you.”

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      Albuquerque, New Mexico

      Less than an hour had passed since the Stony Man trio had escaped from the submerged taxi. The three men were back up on the main road, sitting in the rear of a paramedic van that had arrived a few minutes earlier. They’d already had their vitals checked and had changed into dry clothes the EMTs had been instructed to bring along. Miraculously, aside from bruises and a wrenched shoulder suffered by Bolan, the men had been come through their ordeal unscathed. Now, shrouded in thermal blankets, they were waiting for their Justice Department credentials to be verified by the Albuquerque police.

      Bolan had warmed up sufficiently. Shedding his blanket, he told the others, “I’m going to see what the holdup is.”

      “If they’re passing out hot cocoa I’ll have a double,” Grimaldi said, his teeth chattering.

      “Same here,” Kissinger added.

      “I’ll see what I can do,” Bolan said.

      Outside the van, University Drive had been officially closed off and officers had already taped off a crime-scene area nearly half the size of a football field. The officer standing closest to the van quickly blocked Bolan’s way the moment he stepped down onto the tarmac.

      “Sorry, but you need to stay put.”

      “We’ve got a friend missing out there,” Bolan countered. “We’d like to do something about it.”

      “And we’ve got two dead cops along with another body back at the airport,” the officer said. “Cool your heels.”

      Bolan didn’t care for the officer’s attitude but wasn’t about to take issue with it. He remained near the truck, slowly flexing his shoulder. It was stiff and he had a limited range of motion, but he doubted the injury would compromise his ability to resume what he now saw as a bona fide mission. Perhaps the plight of Franklin Colt had little bearing on national security, but given the man’s friendship with a fellow Stony Man warrior, Bolan felt a personal stake in Colt’s fate. And, too, there was the matter of him and his two colleagues barely escaping the grim fate of the two police officers now lying in body bags inside a second paramedic van parked near the squad car that had come under assault while the Executioner was struggling for his life beneath the cold waters of Tijeras Arroyo.

      The rain had let up and, although Bolan could see lightning far to the north, the storm had passed Albuquerque. Any thunder accompanying the flashes was muted by the commotion out on the roadway and up overhead, where a police chopper rumbled its way southward, no doubt in pursuit of Colt’s abductors.

      Twenty yards from Bolan, homicide detective David Lowe stood next to an unmarked Ford Taurus, a cell phone pressed to one ear. As he wrapped up his call, someone inside the vehicle handed the tall, sallow-faced man the three JD badge IDs belonging to Bolan, Kissinger and Grimaldi. Lowe exchanged a few words with the other man, then strode past the bullet-riddled squad car, issuing instructions to the forensics team going over the vehicle. As he approached Bolan, the detective waved aside the cop guarding the van, then handed over the badges.

      “You checked out,” Lowe said. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

      “No offense taken.”

      “What exactly is it that a special agent does?” Lowe asked.

      “That’s classified,” Bolan said.

      Lowe shrugged and let a thin smile play across his equally thin lips. “That’s the party line we got from Washington, too. But we just lost two men on account of whoever it is you’re up against, so I was hoping you could unzip it a little.”

      “If I had some information on who killed your men I’d share it,” Bolan replied. “All we know so far is they grabbed a friend of ours at the airport and made a run for it.”

      “You’ve already told me that,” Lowe said. “Any idea why they grabbed him?”

      Bolan shook his head. “He said there was something going on at the reservation where he works, but at this point there’s no way of knowing if that’s why he was kidnapped.”

      “Which reservation?” Lowe asked. “Rosqui?”

      “I think that’s the one.”

      “There’s definitely a connection, then,” Lowe said. “Why’s that?”

      “One of our units just came across the panel truck you described,” Lowe said. “It was parked just off the road near the interstate. No one in it.”

      “They switched vehicles,” Bolan guessed.

      “Most likely,” Lowe said. “Anyway, the truck was reported stolen earlier tonight from a warehouse three miles from the Roaming Bison Casino. The casino was its last stop, and the driver’s thinking someone must’ve snuck aboard while he was making a delivery.”

      “Safe assumption,” Bolan said.

      “I’ll