THE THOUSAND DOLLAR HUNT: Colt Ryder is Back in Action! Read Online Free PDF Page A

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