Blood Rites Read online

  Whoever it was, they’d soon find a world of difference between pushing Quarrie’s men around in Florida and trying it in Kingston. This was his town.

  “I don’t want no one sleepin’ on the job,” Quarrie told his second in command. “Somebody drops the ball, he answers to me personally.”

  “The brothers know that.”

  “You make sure they know it. That’s your job.”

  “When have I ever failed you?” Trevor asked.

  “First time for anything,” Quarrie replied. “And the first time is the last.”

  * * *

  Norman Manley International Airport, Palisadoes, Jamaica

  BOLAN’S AIR JAMAICA FLIGHT landed a few ticks shy of noon. The next half hour was consumed by taxiing, parking the 737 jetliner and getting all its passengers prepared to exit from the plane in single file. Outside, the day’s heat and humidity settled on Bolan like a thick, wet blanket.

  He passed through customs without incident, his “Matthew Cooper” passport raising no suspicion from the bored agent who asked his business in Jamaica, took “tourism” as a satisfactory response, and stamped a page at random. Visas weren’t required for American visitors unless they planned to hang around the island longer than six months. That made it easy, since his mission—if it went as planned—would be measured in hours or, at most, days.

  He’d booked a ride from a car rental inside the airport terminal, and found the young, attractive agent helpful to a fault. She photocopied Matthew Cooper’s United States driver’s license, swiped his credit card and recommended full insurance coverage, which Bolan accepted. When that was done, she handed him the keys to a Toyota Camry, a wide-body four-door sedan with sufficient trunk space for a body or two. The car was silver, pretty much the same as gray, and wouldn’t stand out in a crowd—at least, until its 3.5-liter V6 engine kicked in.

  Bolan left the airport and drove into Kingston proper, a city that was seething with crime. Travel advisories from the US State Department spelled it out in no uncertain terms: random gunfire in the streets, drug trafficking, armed robberies of tourists, sexual assaults by staffers at the city’s vacation resorts.

  But today, Jamaica and its bad boys were about to get a rude surprise.

  Their nemesis was coming.

  * * *

  Embassy of the United States, Kingston

  DALE HOLBROOK WAS a go-to guy. A fixer, problem solver, pick your label. When he’d done his bit in the Marine Corps, he’d been a scrounger for his company, producing treasured items on demand. These past five years, he’d been a wunderkind of sorts for the Central Intelligence Agency.

  And now, Langley had dumped a steaming load of bullshit on his plate.

  The call had come in shortly after 6:00 a.m. on the scrambled line, the second deputy director of the National Clandestine Service, Regional and Transnational Issues Division. The guy’s name was Stark, and it fit like a lead-weighted glove.

  “We’ve got a problem,” Stark had told him. Meaning Holbrook had a problem, since shit always ran downhill. “Jamaicans.”

  “What about them?” he’d inquired.

  “They’re getting killed in Miami, and we think the trouble’s headed your way.”

  Holbrook had to scowl at that, the sour taste already in his mouth. He didn’t need to hear the rest of it, but Stark went on anyway.

  It was, of course, the Viper Posse. Outwardly, the syndicate was nothing but a bunch of lowlife narco traffickers and thrill-killers. Given a choice, Holbrook would not have dealt with them at any price, but when you were a go-to guy for Langley, choice evaporated.

  The bottom line in Kingston: criminal posses were inextricably linked to both the People’s National Party and its primary rival, Jamaica Labour Party. The gangs smuggled drugs and weapons, two commodities that brought them into contact with a murky world of terrorists, conspirators and dirty politicians.

  So many secrets, waiting to be coaxed or purchased from the posses, in exchange for turning blind eyes toward their dirty deals Stateside. It was a classic bargain for the Agency, which had been cuddling up to criminals since its creation, in the Cold War era. The cartels were a gold mine, both of covert information and clandestine cash that bankrolled operations off the books, unsupervised by Washington.

  So, sure, the vital link must be maintained. And anyone who tried to sever it must be identified, then crushed like an insect. Holbrook had done similar errands before, most recently in Afghanistan, and he knew the drill by heart.

  One catch: Stark didn’t have a clue who they were dealing with this time.

  “So, what am I supposed to do with that?” he’d asked his boss.

  “Whatever’s necessary,” Stark had answered. “Get it done. That’s all.”

  “No matter what?”

  “You really need to ask?”

  Not really, no. It was a rhetorical question, and wasted on the second deputy director of the NCS-RTID. As usual, results were all that mattered.

  First step: contact the Viper Posse’s leader, cautiously, and learn about the mess in Florida. Offer the Agency’s assistance—strictly unofficially, of course—in making sure the problem didn’t spread to Kingston next. If Quarrie wouldn’t play, Holbrook had other contacts in the capital, including several highly placed officers of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, working both Narcotics and on the Organized Crime and Anti-Corruption Task Force. They’d help him if they could…at a price.

  Way of the world.

  Holbrook was blessed—or cursed—with an eidetic memory. He never wrote down any information that could turn around and bite him later, whether it be names, addresses, phone numbers, or details of some criminal conspiracy in which he was involved. It was a matter of survival, and he lost no sleep over the things he’d done or ordered to be done.

  As far as Holbrook was concerned, the CIA was a sanctioned criminal conspiracy, unleashed to roam the world and violate the laws of other nations. Since the shock of 9/11, it also enjoyed a virtual carte blanche on the home front.

  And why not?

  What really mattered, after all, besides the USA, its wants and needs? The world at large was just a pasture where fat American livestock grazed at will, reaping the best of everything.

  Ready for the challenge he’d been given, Holbrook pressed the scrambler button on his private line and started making calls.

  * * *

  Greenwich Town, Kingston, Jamaica

  THE DEALER RAN a pawn shop on 4th Street, two blocks north of Marcus Garvey Drive. Bolan had acquired the man’s name and address via Stony Man. He hadn’t called ahead, in case the pawnbroker—one Simon Reid, proprietor of Kingston Loans—decided it would profit him to rat a stranger out to the police. Once Bolan had acquired the gear he needed, paying with untraceable cash, Reid could file reports with whomever he liked.

  At his own risk, of course.

  The shop was small, squeezed in between a beauty parlor and a storefront law office. No other customers were around when Bolan parked his Camry on the street out front, locked it and went inside. Reid was a slender sixty-something man with salt-and-pepper hair, mirrored by a goatee that could have used a trim. His smile flashed gold; his handshake was a modest squeeze, quickly withdrawn.

  Bolan explained his business, spoke a name Stony Man had given him to prove his bona fides, watching as the golden smile dimmed slightly. Dealing with a stranger in the arms trade was a risky proposition for both sides, and Reid was understandably cautious. Still, greed won out when Bolan mentioned figures, and he locked the shop’s front door, turning its OPEN sign around to indicate the place was CLOSED.

  The basement arsenal was roughly half the size of Kingston Loans’s upstairs. The space was air-conditioned and climate controlled, fighting the endless tropical war against rust and corrosion. The weapons racked along three walls looked new, well tended, worth their weight in gold to anyone in a hurry, dodging the Jamaican Firearms Act and its registration fee.

  Reid gu
ided “Matthew Cooper” on a tour of his inventory: assault rifles, submachine guns, shotguns, pistols and various specialty items, quoting prices as they went. Bolan’s first choice was an L85A1 assault rifle, a dependable bullpup design chambered in 5.56 mm NATO. The British rifle came with a SUSAT 4x telescopic sight—short for Sight Unit Small Arms Trilux—that included tritium-powered illumination for shooting in the gray hours of dawn and dusk.

  Next up, he chose a Glock 18 pistol, the selective-fire version of Glock’s original sidearm chambered in 9 mm Parabellum, capable of firing semi- or full-auto at the flip of a switch. Reid stocked Glock magazines holding seventeen and thirty-three rounds, prompting Bolan to pick up a dozen of each.

  For long-distance work, just in case, he went British again, selecting an AS50 sniper/anti-materiel rifle from Accuracy International. Chambered for .50-caliber Browning Machine Gun rounds, in skilled hands it could fire off five in less than two seconds, killing out to eighteen hundred meters with dependable consistency.

  Bolan completed his shopping with military webbing, a fast-draw shoulder rig for the Glock 18, spare magazines and ammo all around, and a dozen British L109A1 HE fragmentation grenades filled with RDX, featuring a fuse delay of three to four seconds. On a whim, he added a Chaos trench knife from Cold Steel, featuring a 7.5-inch double-edged carbon steel blade and an aluminum grip with D-ring knuckle-dusters, and a stud on the pommel for shattering skulls. He donned the shoulder holster, packed the rest into duffel bags and paid his bill with cash donated by Channer’s posse in Miami, leaving Simon Reid with smiles, handshakes and the implicit knowledge that betrayal rated death.

  Back on the street at last, the hunt began.

  * * *

  Tivoli Gardens, Kingston

  JEROME QUARRIE WAS SEEKING aid and comfort from the Other Side. His first resort in any crisis was personal strength and firepower, but as a child of the islands he also liked to hedge his bets. Obeah had been useful in the past, and might be again, now that he faced an unknown enemy.

  Quarrie stopped short of publicly declaring belief in supernatural realms. He prided himself on being a modern Jamaican, on working the system—but there were systems and systems in twenty-first-century Kingston. He’d seen firsthand the power and influence Obeah held over some of his superstitious countrymen, and he’d taken full advantage of it in the past, to cow opponents, witnesses and people who possessed something he desired.

  Besides, what could it hurt—except, of course, the object of his latest sacrifice.

  The ritual den stood on Rum Stores Road, near Kingston’s waterfront. Quarrie arrived in his Lincoln MKS limousine, with only his driver and one guard. Neither entered the den with their boss, since the rite he planned to perform was for his eyes only. Inside, two distinctly different men had prepared the scene.

  The first, well-known to Quarrie, was Usain Dalhouse, an Obeah priest, or papaloi. He might have been fifty years old or one hundred; Quarrie found it pointless to guess. The priest had weathered skin, and he was clean-shaven from scalp to waist. Dalhouse had removed his shirt, as usual, to show a chest adorned with swirling red and green tattoos. His pants were blue jeans cut off at the knees, faded from countless washings that hadn’t eradicated all of their peculiar, rust-colored stains, and he stood barefoot on the concrete floor.

  Quarrie had never seen the other man before. He was a cipher, name unknown and of no interest. Much younger than the papaloi, perhaps in his early twenties, he lay nude on a gurney that stood with its wheels locked, becoming a makeshift altar. Padded straps restrained the young man’s arms and legs, but he wasn’t tugging against them. Dark eyes, fully open, stared with rapt attention at the ceiling and fluorescent fixtures overhead.

  Sedated on the last day of his life.

  As usual, the papaloi had already prepared the sacrifice, painting arcane symbols in white on the man’s dark chest and abdomen, across his forehead and around his eyes. A small stainless-steel table on casters stood beside the gurney, draped with a towel. Atop the towel lay a single object: an athame, or ritual dagger, silver handle and guard fashioned to resemble writhing serpents, its curved fifteen-inch blade inscribed with symbols of occult significance. From prior experience, Quarrie knew that its cutting edge was razor sharp.

  “Prepare yourself,” the ageless papaloi commanded.

  Obeying silently, Quarrie removed his jacket, tie and shirt, then finally his shoes, trousers and stockings. The breeze from a swamp cooler briefly chilled him. Standing next to naked in designer underwear, he approached the altar.

  Rituals had to be performed before he did his part. A prayer for strength and the destruction of his enemies took roughly fifteen minutes, Quarrie standing with his head bowed, eyes closed, echoing the papaloi’s words as the old man circled around him, blowing smoke from a cigar and spitting rum over the supine sacrifice. When he was done, the papaloi stood back and said, “Proceed.”

  Quarrie picked up the athame. The trick, he knew, was getting to the heart and clutching it before it stopped beating. If he could manage that—or, better yet, hold it aloft with blood still pumping from its severed arteries—his entreaties stood a better chance of being granted.

  Was it all a foolish waste of time?

  Lifting the heavy dagger, Quarrie realized he didn’t care.

  8

  Trench Town, Kingston, Jamaica

  Bolan rolled past a chipped and faded sign that read “Welcome to Trench Town the Home of Reggae Music,” and passed into another world. He’d already grown accustomed to the signs of poverty in Kingston, but the neighborhood surrounding him as dusk crept over the capital city was nothing short of bizarre.

  Everywhere he looked, through windows streaked with drizzling rain, he faced colorful murals depicting Haile Selassie or reggae musician Bob Marley. Sometimes the two were side by side, with Marley toking on a ganja blunt. Some murals added Marley’s son Ziggy, beaming smiles that might be taken as a welcome or a challenge. Interspersed with the dramatic art were countless run-down shops—some at the point of collapse—people ambling past food stalls, rusty cars, graffiti with the usual obscure messages: “Exodus,” “Rise!” and “Telaviv Dread.”

  The Executioner was en route to Arnett Gardens, a Trench Town housing project known to locals as “The Jungle.” Within the sprawling complex was a Viper Posse nest whose members peddled drugs, extorted money from the project’s tenants and surrounding shops, enforced their own rough “justice” on the streets, and generally made life miserable in the neighborhood.

  Bolan knew where to find them.

  Getting in and out would be the trick.

  First thing, he didn’t try to hide his rental car. Bolan parked at the curb and waited for the teenagers to come, drawn like iron filings to a magnet. When he had a dozen standing by, he stepped out of the car and asked, “How much for you to watch my ride?”

  Their spokesman smiled and asked, “How much you carrying?”

  Bolan produced a roll of currency and fanned it out, left-handed, showing it around to startled eyes. “Is this enough?”

  “Do you have more?” another of them asked.

  “I do,” Bolan replied, lifting the L85A1 into view with his right hand. “We good?”

  “Your car’ll be here when you get back,” their leader said.

  “In one piece,” Bolan said, not asking them.

  “Sure, man. No worries.”

  Bolan handed the leader his roll, some of Winston Channer’s money, and left them to share it out. As he approached The Jungle, he removed a ski mask from another pocket, tugging it over his head. Not worried much about a witness coming forward to describe him to police, he chose to work the psywar angle where he could.

  Inside, the place was filthy, reeking, tagged with graffiti on every available wall. He chose a flight of stairs and climbed it to the second floor, surprising tenants who were lounging in the corridor. They scattered, ducking into nearby apartments, some edging around him and fleeing when Bolan
passed.

  As he approached the posse’s lair, a lookout saw him coming, shouted through the open door, and reached for something under his baggy T-shirt, depicting a lion with dreadlocks. Bolan didn’t give him time to draw whatever weapon he was after, triggering a 3-round burst that drilled the silk-screened lion through its forehead, opening the lookout’s chest and blowing him away.

  It hit the fan then, posse soldiers spilling from the flat like hornets from a ruptured hive, all armed and shouting curses, threats, whatever, as they opened fire. Bolan dropped underneath their first rounds, going prone, and raked the milling skirmish line with 5.56 mm manglers, shredding flesh and fabric, spraying blood in abstract patterns on the dingy walls, brass tinkling on the concrete floor.

  A moment later, everything was still, except for babies wailing somewhere in the distance, sad cries muffled by The Jungle’s walls. He rose and moved among the leaking dead, peered into their apartment, checking for survivors, finding none.

  Reloading as he left the flat, Bolan retraced his path out of The Jungle. People watched him pass from doorways, here and there, then hastily withdrew like turtles ducking back into their shells. Outside, full dark was settling over Arnett Gardens as he walked back to his car.

  Still there, in good shape, with its guardians on duty. Watching Bolan with a kind of awe as he stripped off his ski mask, tucked it out of sight and tossed another bankroll to their leader.

  “Job well-done,” he said.

  The kid smiled back at Bolan, gave a little bow and said, “Come back anytime!”

  * * *

  Downtown Kingston

  THE RESTAURANT STOOD on Hanover Street, two blocks south of East Queen. Dale Holbrook was early, seated alone in a booth with his back to the wall, waiting for Quarrie to make his grand entrance. The Viper Posse’s boss loved drama as much as he loved easy cash. Maybe more.

  Holbrook had ordered coffee on arrival, sipped it slowly, savoring the Jamaican Blue Mountain flavor that sold Stateside for forty-odd dollars a pound. Unlike some other people he could name, the caffeine made him mellow, put his mind and nerves at ease.