THE THOUSAND DOLLAR HUNT: Colt Ryder is Back in Action! (5 page)

A minute or two later, the zebra stopped moving and the feast began, the dogs working fast to strip the meat from the bone, furred faces and jaws covered in bright red blood.

The girl next to me had put her binoculars down. ‘I think I’m going to throw up,’ she said.

‘That’s nature at its finest, honey,’ her boyfriend said as he continued to watch in amazement.

‘Fuckin’ A!’ the single guy on the other side of me said, obviously enjoying the gory spectacle. ‘That’s what it’s all about! Fuck yeah!’

I was left wondering what to think. A part of me admired the dogs’ tactics, and their tenacity. And like anything else in the world, they had to eat. It was a natural process, and there was nothing wrong with it.

And yet the older guy’s reaction had left a bitter taste in my mouth. Had Ortiz been right? Was the park’s appeal due to this kind of blood sport spectacle?

Truth be told, I couldn’t be sure.

But what I was sure about, was that I’d seen enough.

It was time to get some answers.

Chapter Four

‘No,’ the man said as he handed me back the Polaroid of Benjamin Hooker. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve never seen him before.’

I was sat in a comfortable leather armchair in the plush, modern office of Professor Donald P. Groban, the man Ortiz had identified as the person who had recruited TJ back in Albuquerque.

We’d completed the tour of the park, and as the hours went by, I’d continued to be impressed. I still wasn’t sure about the idea of people getting excited about watching animals kill each other, but I had to admit that the overall impression was of a pretty professional operation which looked just as good as anything running in Africa. As far as I was concerned, General Badrock deserved every success with the place.

When I’d returned to the front gate and the visitor center, I’d found the company offices and asked to speak to Groban. I’d had to wait, but had eventually been granted an audience.

Groban was the park’s director of operations, the recipient of a PhD from Cornell and the previous assistant director of San Diego Zoo and Singapore Zoo. He was obviously an expert in his field, and once again I had to question Ortiz’s assertion that Badrock Park was being mismanaged.

There were some anomalies though.

Such as the other person in the room with us, seated far behind me at the other side of the office.

He’d not been introduced, but I recognized his craggy, weather-beaten features from my online investigation the night before.

His name was Miles Hatfield, and he was head of park security. An ex-Delta Force operative, his pedigree was unquestionable. After retiring, Badrock had set up a security contracting company called the Vanguard Corporation, providing personnel to active trouble spots around the world to support military operations, as well as private security jobs back home. Hatfield – not long out of Delta – had been recruited into Vanguard during its early days, and was one of the organization’s top men. At the park here, security was provided by Badrock’s Vanguard group, under the presumably very effective leadership of Hatfield.

I was all for security of course, but even I felt that Hatfield’s presence here was a bit like overkill. This was a man used to fighting the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Isis, a man who had protected presidents and fought wars, a member of a Tier One special operations unit who was skilled in counter-terrorism, demolitions, sabotage, guerilla warfare and more. His last job before Badrock Park was assisting the Afghan police in Kabul, during which time his unit had faced suicide bombings, IEDs, mortar fire and angry mobs armed with machetes and Kalashnikovs.

So why had he taken this job at Badrock Park? Did he just fancy a paid vacation?

The simple answer was that General Badrock had ordered him to take it; and Badrock never did anything without a reason, which made me wonder if there wasn’t more to this place than met the eye.

After accepting a cup of strong black coffee, I’d opened the conversation with some compliments about the park before hitting Groban with the picture of TJ.

He’d just denied ever seeing the kid, but the twitch at the corner of his eye betrayed him; Groban had seen him alright. I suppose I’d just have to tease it out of him.

‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

He regarded me with a cool stare. ‘Absolutely sure,’ he confirmed.

‘That’s interesting,’ I said. ‘Because Mr. Ortiz from the Rio Grande Zoo was sure that he saw you talking to him, about four weeks ago.’

Groban’s eyes twitched nervously over toward Hatfield, then back to me. ‘Then I am very much afraid that Mr. Ortiz is mistaken.’

‘So you weren’t there four weeks ago?’

‘I didn’t say that,’ Groban said after a pause. ‘I just said that I didn’t see that kid. I was there, yeah, I had a meeting with the director.’ He looked again over toward Hatfield, then back to me. ‘Look, what did you say your name was again? What’s your interest in this?’

‘My name is Tom Hudson,’ I said, ‘and I’m a friend of the family. They’re concerned because nobody’s heard anything from him since your meeting with him.’

‘Mr. Groban has just told you that he didn’t meet with him,’ a deep and gravelly voice came from behind me.
Hatfield
. ‘So I think there’s nothing more for you to learn here. It’s time to leave.’

I turned in my seat, looked at the man directly.

He was big, but not overly so; he wasn’t a gym queen, but a man whose body was a tool to get the job done, entirely functional.

A dangerous man; I could see it in his eyes.

‘Hello, handsome,’ I said, deciding to change my approach. Being nice hadn’t got me anywhere; and the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I wondered momentarily who’d first said that. Benjamin Franklin? Albert Einstein?

Well, whoever it was, they’d been right; and it was time for me to follow their advice.

‘I thought you were just there to look pretty. You know, Groban has the office well done out. Potted plant here, painting on the wall there. Random guy on a chair at the back, makes the place feel complete.’

There was a moment’s pause, as tension seemed to increase in the room almost visibly.

And then Hatfield smiled; but it wasn’t a smile that offered any sort of comfort or warmth.

It was the smile of a predator, absolutely confident of his place at the top of the food chain.

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘You’re even prettier when you smile.’

My own confidence was starting to trouble Hatfield, I could see.

It was a test really, to see what sort of operation they had going on here. Innocent, and they’d just ask me to leave – politely and without any trouble. Anything else, and . . . well, I’d just have to wait and see.

‘I think it’s time for you to leave,’ Hatfield said simply.

‘I still don’t have answers yet,’ I replied, still twisted in my seat so that I could see him.

‘There are no answers,’ he said.

‘Oh?’ I asked with a raised eyebrow. ‘Then what are you doing here, Hatfield?’ I saw the reaction at the mention of his name, despite himself – an involuntary twitch of the eyebrow. ‘What’s Vanguard protecting?’

‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘Who are you really?’

‘I’ve already told you.’

Hatfield shook his head, even as I saw him depress a button on the radio by his side. ‘I’m afraid I don’t believe you,’ he said. ‘But as head of park security, I’m going to have to find out.’

The door to the office opened then, and four security guards entered the room, looking to Hatfield for orders.

‘Please escort “Mr. Hudson” here to our offices for a little interview,’ he told them, and I could see the looks of satisfaction on their faces. If they were Vanguard contractors, ex-military, I knew exactly why; it was the thrill of some action at last, what they were born for, what they craved.

They moved toward me past Hatfield, who was still sitting comfortably in his chair by the door, and I assessed them all quickly.

They all moved in a similar way, well trained and agile; their body types were also similar, hard and athletic and primed for action. They wore the dark uniforms of park security, and I could see that their utility belts held Tasers, pepper spray, extendable batons and – worst of all – Sig Sauer P226 .40 S&W handguns. Again, a bit of overkill for safari park security guards.

I could see that they were confident, though professionally cautious. The first two men approached me, one to each side, while the other two hung back, hands near their gun belts in case something happened.

I knew that if I went with them, the ‘little interview’ would take the form of a severe beating and possibly – like TJ before me – my mysterious disappearance.

So I really only had one option left.

As the first two men got to my chair, I stood and turned hands raised, trying to relax them.

But then, as they reached for me to take hold of an arm each, I burst forward, ignoring them completely; and a second later I had reached the two at the rear, too surprised to have yet reached for a weapon.

But I already had mine out, the baton extending quickly as it swung toward its first target; it reached its full twenty-one inch length just as it connected with the head of the man to my right, the
thwack
of the cold metal audible throughout the entire office.

He dropped instantly to the floor, and the baton was already moving again. I’d followed through with the first strike, and now reversed the swing and came back the opposite way, smashing the second man up underneath the nose, the whiplash cracking his head back and knocking him out immediately as his broken nose geysered blood all over the polished wooden floor.

I’d checked Hatfield out when he’d entered the office, and he didn’t appear to have any weapons on him, which made him – at this stage at least – the least dangerous of the Vanguard men. He was also the furthest away, and to target him would give the other men time to draw their guns and shoot me dead.

And so before the second man’s body had even hit the ground, I’d whipped back toward the two ex-soldiers by the desk, burying my right boot into the gut of the guy to my right. As he bent double, I saw the second man going for his Sig, and I instinctively moved in, my left hand trapping his right on the holster, gripping tight so he couldn’t make the draw. At the same time, my head bucked forward, smashing my heavy brow line into the weaker bones of his face.

I cracked the first man across the neck with the baton in a backhanded slice, dropping him heavily to the ground, then whipped a knee up into the other guy’s balls.

He gasped and sagged, and I span him round and rammed his head down onto the edge of the desk, finishing him off.

The altercation had only lasted a few seconds, and Groban was struggling to deal with the shock, eyes wide in panic.

I knew that Hatfield would be quicker to recover though, and didn’t stop moving; and instead of turning to face him, I threw myself into a roll across the desk top, pulling out my Benchmade knife as I went.

My feet hit the ground on the other side and – dropping the baton – I turned, my arm wrapping itself around Groban’s neck and pulling him from his chair, the knife’s three-inch blade pressed hard to the man’s jugular.

I finally looked across the room and saw that Hatfield was on his feet, the unnerving, icy smile back on his face, a small H&K USP Compact in his hands. The man was good – I’d not spotted the gun on him earlier, which meant he was practiced in concealment. Fast, too.

But now we had ourselves a stalemate.

I was careful to angle Groban’s body in front of me to minimize Hatfield’s options; if he took a shot, there was a good chance that Groban would get it before I did.

Hatfield still didn’t speak, just kept aiming the USP at me as he stared with those icy blue eyes.

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.’