Kill Shot. Don Pendleton

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СКАЧАТЬ the money to try him for the other murders. Can you imagine a time when such logical thought ruled the day?”

      Bolan thought it was a rhetorical question and remained silent.

      “You know that you poking around here digging up bodies might bring back some bad memories for the old-timers who were alive back when Geins was doing much the same thing,” Grimaldi said.

      “I’m not any happier about having to dig up a local war hero than the folks around here will be, but we don’t have a choice. And we don’t have much time.”

      The sun had yet to rise over the eastern horizon when Jack Grimaldi brought the Cirrus Vision SF50 jet in for a landing at the Plainfield International Airport, an extremely pretentious name for a facility that consisted of two dirt runways and a steel shed. It wasn’t a fit place to land a jet, even a small jet like the SF50, but a seasoned pilot like Grimaldi had no problems. He brought the little hot-rod jet in as easily as most pilots would bring in a small two-seat Cessna.

      Brognola had arranged for a federal agent to meet Bolan at the airport. It wasn’t hard for either party to find the other. The Cirrus wasn’t only the first jet of the day to land in the airport, but it was also the only jet to ever land there. And if the vehicle driven by the federal officer—a gunmetal gray Crown Victoria sedan—wasn’t a dead giveaway, his conservative dark suit was. Besides, he was the only person waiting at the airport. The agent, a somber Nordic-looking fellow named Tracy Anderson, said, “It’ll be another hour or so before we finish exhuming the body. Want to stop for breakfast?”

      Bolan accepted the agent’s offer.

      “It looks like we’ve got a few options,” Anderson said as they cruised the town’s main drag, along which stood several diners and cafés. “Any of them look promising?”

      “Pick that one,” Bolan said, pointing to the diner that had the most big pickup trucks parked out front. A lot of pickups usually meant that the place had the best food, but it also meant that it was a spot where the locals congregated, and Bolan hoped to use this opportunity to learn a bit more about Mr. Haynes.

      Rather than taking a booth, Bolan, Grimaldi and the agent sat down at the counter, where the soldier could have better opportunities to interact with the locals. Sure enough the local sitting next to Bolan struck up a conversation before the waitress had even poured them a cup of coffee. “Mighty nice weather we’re having for this time of year,” the man said. The weather was always a safe ice breaker and a favorite topic of conversation in northern states.

      “It’s close to perfect,” Bolan replied. “Summer’s come early this year.”

      “It’s global warming,” the man said.

      “Yep,” Bolan replied.

      “My name’s Myron,” the man said, extending his weathered hand. “Myron Haynes.”

      “Matt,” the soldier replied, using his undercover name, “Matt Cooper.”

      “You in the military?” Haynes asked.

      “Was,” Bolan replied. “Now I’m doing some contract work for the Department of Justice.”

      “What are you guys doing about those shootings that have been going on the past couple of days?”

      “Everything we can,” Bolan replied.

      “Well,” Haynes said, “we ain’t had none around here. What are you investigating in these parts?”

      “I hate to ask you this,” Bolan said, “but are you related to Theodore Haynes?”

      The man got quiet. Then he said, “Everyone around here is pretty much related to everyone else. Our family trees are more like family wreaths. Teddy was my cousin’s boy. Damned shame what happened to him.”

      “Yeah,” Bolan said, “it sure was.”

      “Not that we didn’t expect the boy to come to a bad end. He was in trouble from the time he was ten years old. Earlier than that, even. He stole his parents’ car when he was twelve. When he went in the army, we thought that might turn him around. And it seemed to. He’d done good in there, made sergeant, but when he come out, he was worse than ever. He got into the drugs real bad. I think that’s what made him go and kill himself.”

      “What kind of drugs?” Bolan asked.

      “Oh, I don’t know. Drugs is drugs, I suppose. I imagine he was doing meth—everyone around here was doing meth, it seems like. And I know he had a problem with prescription pain pills ever since he got out of the VA hospital. He got caught robbing the drugstore in town once, but they let him go because he was a war hero. If they’d locked him up then, he might be alive today.” The man paused for a response, and Bolan gave a slight nod of his head, which passed for conversation in rural areas, and the man continued, “Then again, maybe he’d be just as dead in prison. He was messed up with those damned Slaves.”

      “Slaves?” Bolan asked.

      “Satan’s Slaves,” Haynes replied. The Satan’s Slaves were a mid-sized motorcycle club, located primarily in the upper Midwest, and they currently controlled Minneapolis. The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul had been the territory of the Hellions, one of the biggest outlaw motorcycle clubs in the world, but the Hellions had imploded following a series of arrests that had decimated the club. Since nature abhored a vacuum, the Slaves had filled that vacuum and now controlled the area, at least temporarily, until the Hellions could regroup and regain control. The Slaves had a reputation for over-the-top violence, as if they were trying to overcompensate for being a second-tier club by living out an extreme example of the motorcycle gang stereotype. They were also much more political than most motorcycle clubs; they harbored extremist political views and were associated with a number of white supremacist organizations.

      “Those guys are bad news,” Bolan said. If given the choice, the soldier would have taken the Hellions over the Slaves any day. He had run up against members of the Hellions before, and they were definitely no angels, but the Hellions were a motorcycle club in which some of the members happened to be criminals, whereas the Slaves were an outright criminal organization. Maybe even more than criminal—the Slaves were known to be active in a number of hardcore white supremacist organizations, and Bolan had heard rumors that the club had been involved in terrorist activities against minority groups. The Hellions weren’t exactly civil rights activists themselves, but in general they tolerated their neighbors. They tended to police their territory, especially in the neighborhoods around their clubhouses, which tended to be located in the seediest parts of the cities in which the Hellions operated, but they were equal opportunity haters. If someone caused trouble on Hellion turf, that person usually ended up enduring a beating whether he was black, white or any other hue found in the natural world.

      “You’re telling me,” Haynes said. “You know what I think? I don’t think Teddy killed himself.”

      “Oh?” Bolan said. Haynes definitely had the soldier’s interest by this point.

      “Hell, no,” Haynes said. “I saw him the night he died. We had a few beers down at the tavern. He was in a good mood. Then some of those damned Slaves rode up and he left with them. Next thing you know, they found him in his trailer house with his head blown off. He was holding his own shotgun and it sure as hell looked like he’d shot himself, but that could have been anyone in Teddy’s bed without his head.”

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