THE THOUSAND DOLLAR HUNT: Colt Ryder is Back in Action! (3 page)

Chapter Two

The next day broke bright and sunny, and I found myself part of a small queue waiting to enter the Rio Grande Zoo.

It was right over the road from Tingley Park, and I could see the playground where I’d sat with Kayden the night before. I knew she was counting on me, and the thought was sobering.

I’d gone back to the mission with her after our meeting, where I’d used my charms – and a hundred dollars – to get TJ’s file from the desk clerk.

The information was thin – residents didn’t have to give any details, and any that they did give didn’t necessarily have to be true – but it confirmed what Kayden had told me, at least. The paperwork – filled out in his own hand, which was neat and precise – had the name Benjamin Timothy Hooker across the top, date of birth September fourth 1992, place of birth San Diego. Parents not listed, which wasn’t a surprise. I wondered if he really was from San Diego; maybe he just liked its famous zoo, and put it down for that reason alone? People at missions more often than not didn’t want to be traced, and it would be unusual if TJ had been honest on the form.

The next sheet consisted of the scrawled notes of the mission’s resident medical officer, who examined all new arrivals. Again, it tied in with what Kayden had told me – signs of hard drug use including needle marks, damaged nasal passages, slight glaucoma and seriously depleted bodyweight. But it also said that he had indeed been clean for a while, and also made a point of him being bright, communicative and intelligent – a potential success story.

But as I handed over my cash and strolled through into the Rio Grande Zoo, I realized that I still didn’t know a hell of a lot about the young man I’d pledged to find – one of the reasons that the police weren’t really interested in cases like this.

The only really useful thing was a Polaroid head shot of the man that had been attached to the file. It had cost me another fifty, but it was now securely in my pocket.

My backpack was in storage back at the ATT, only a few blocks northeast from the park, and Kayden was looking after Kane. He would have been happy to wait for me outside but – with no collar or leash – I didn’t want him getting picked up by an overzealous warden and impounded. I kept hold of a Benchmade everyday carry knife and an extendable metal baton though; my empty hand skills were good, but you never knew when you might need an equalizer. I wasn’t expecting trouble at a public zoo, but you know the old saying – it’s better to be safe than sorry. And in my line of work, such controlled paranoia had saved my bacon more than once.

As soon as I was inside, I looked at the map I’d been given with my ticket and made my way to the information center, which happened to be part of the administration block right next door to the entrance.

I wandered into the light and airy room and waited in line behind a young family with twin pushchairs as they asked a twenty-something male something about the restrooms. Minutes later they were gone – apparently satisfied – and I approached the desk with what I hoped was a friendly smile.

‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘I was wondering who I should speak to about a job?’

‘A job here?’ the young man – whose name badge read
Soren
– asked, somewhat redundantly. I resisted the urge to say
no, at the White House
, and merely nodded and smiled once more.

He looked me up and down rather doubtfully, and I knew why; unshaven and with worn utility pants and t-shirt, I hardly looked like an ideal employee. It made me wonder how different TJ would have looked. Given his situation, I guessed he wouldn’t have made any better impression, and it made we think again how unlikely it was that he’d found some sort of work here. But he
was
bright, I supposed, and maybe that still counted for something.

‘That would be Mr. Ortiz,’ Soren said at last. ‘Is he expecting you?’

I shook my head. ‘I’ve not got an appointment, no,’ I said. ‘Might I be able to speak with him? I’ll only be a few minutes.’

Soren continued to look at me for a few moments, before picking up the phone and pressing a single digit, an internal number. A second or two went by, then I heard a muffled voice on the other end of the line.

‘Mr. Ortiz?’ Soren said. ‘Sorry to bother you sir, I’ve got somebody down here asking about a job, could you come over and speak to him?’ A pause, then ‘No.’ Another pause, some muffled talk on the other end of the line, then ‘No sir, I’m sorry, I don’t know that either.’ Soren listened some more, nodded his head as if Mr. Ortiz could see him, said his thank yous and goodbyes and put the phone down, looking back across the desk at me.

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘Mr. Ortiz will be over to see you in just a few minutes.’

I nodded my thanks, and sat down to wait.

With nothing else to go on, Mr. Ortiz was as good a place to start as any.

Less than five minutes later I was shaking the hand of a short, bespectacled man in his fifties, neat grey hair slicked back over a tanned forehead.

‘Mr. Ortiz?’ I asked with another one of my friendly smiles.

‘Yes,’ he said pleasantly, with only a cursory glance at the way I was dressed, ‘and you are?’

‘My name’s Hudson,’ I said, ‘Tom Hudson. Do you deal with employment at the zoo here?’

‘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 soft
er
.

‘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.’