CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Laughlin, Nevada
“I’m still trying to figure out how you managed to get there so fast,” Bolan told Bahn.
“I’ll have to take you to my folks’ house sometime,” the woman responded. “They’ve still got all my biking trophies on the mantel over the fireplace.”
Bahn was sitting on the edge of an exam table in an outpatient room at the Laughlin Urgent Care Center. She’d already been looked over and had changed back into her street clothes, which had just been run through the facility’s dryer and were still warm. Bolan had changed, as well, raiding his overnight bag back at the airport across the river in Bullhead City.
“I’m serious,” he told Bahn. “We were going full-throttle before he ducked off into the reeds. There’s no way you could’ve kept up with him.”
“I didn’t have to. The bike path doesn’t follow the river bend. It keeps going straight after the Riverwalk.”
“A shortcut.”
“I think that’s what they call it,” Bahn quipped. “Anyway, I just kept peddling my ass off and wound up on the cliff. A minute sooner and I might’ve been able to help those two geezers he killed. What a bastard!”
“A minute later on my end and I’d be visiting you at the morgue instead of here,” Bolan said. “And it was just a fluke that I happened to be looking toward the cliffs at the same time you did your Evel Knievel routine.”
“Hey, whatever works,” Bahn said. “Bottom line is, we both got through it in one piece and caught ourselves the perp.”
“Now we just need to get him to cough up where they took Li-Roo Kohb.”
“I’m sure they’ll grill him on both sides once he’s out of surgery,” Bahn said.
Cho Il-Tok was down the hall sleeping off the sedatives he’d been given while being treated for rib fractures and a bruised spleen. The doctors were confident he’d be well enough to undergo questioning once he awoke.
The internist who’d examined Bahn returned a few minutes later with the X-rays he’d had taken on Bahn’s skull as well her right knee, which she’d injured during her bike jump but had failed to notice until the aftermath of her face-off with Cho.
“Okay,” the doctor reported, “the good news is there’s no structural damage to the knee. If you stay off it for a few days and do the ice-heat thing along some anti-inflammatory meds, you should be fine.”
“Sure thing, doc,” Bahn said. She shot Bolan a wink and rolled her eyes, then turned back to the internist. “And the bad news?”
“You’ve got a concussion.”
“Only one?” Jayne said. “Hell, I collect those things like stamps.”
The doctor wasn’t amused. “I want to have you transferred to the hospital overnight for observation. Just as a precaution.”
“I’ll pass. We’re not big on caution in my line of work.”
“It’s for your own good.”
“I appreciate the concern, but ix-nay,” Jayne said. “Just be a pal and write up my release so I can get of here, okay?”
The internist turned to Bolan. “Any chance you can talk some sense into her?”
Bolan shook his head. “I’m not even going to try.”
The internist sighed. “All right,” he conceded. “Let me write everything up, then the nurse’ll bring the papers by for you to sign.”
“While we’re waiting, I’ll go check on the others,” Bolan told Bahn. He followed the doctor out of the exam room, walking with him as far as the nurses’ station. There, John Kissinger and FBI Agent Scanlon had taken over a desk as well as one of the facility’s computers. Kissinger was at the keyboard. He’d already set up two secure lines, one allowing Scanlon to access the Bureau, the other linking him with Aaron Kurtzman back at Stony Man Farm. Scanlon stood a few yards away, back turned to Kissinger as he talked into his cell phone.
“So, how’s G.I. Jayne?” Kissinger asked Bolan.
Bolan quickly passed along the bounty hunter’s prognosis as well as that of Cho Il-Tok.
“I’ve already put in dibs for the interrogation,” Kissinger said. Nudging his crutches, he said, “I’ve got a new routine all worked out in case he tries to clam up. It’ll make good cop-bad cop look like kiddie business.”
“I feel sorry for the guy already,” Bolan said. Gesturing at the computer, he lowered his voice and asked, “Have you touched base with the Farm?”
Kissinger nodded. “I’m in the middle of e-mailing back to Bear. They’re all tied up trying to ferret out those missiles Kim Jong-il’s playing hide-and-seek with.”