“They probably gave you a lot more than one would inject for a sex high.”
“That figures. I didn’t really feel like I was having the time of my life.”
I felt her smile against my shoulder. I squeezed her. “Did they hurt you?”
“Not that I can tell. I don’t know how long we’ve been out. But they brought me out of it with smelling salts. They wanted me fully awake when they set you on me. God, Mac, it was awful. I couldn’t do anything and you were gone. Then I saw you come back, just a bit, and that’s when I talked to you until finally you got control back.”
“Do you know where we are?”
“No. I’ve just been clearheaded for about an hour. It’s night, I do know that much. My watch says it’s just a bit after ten.”
There were no windows in the small room. It was nearly square, not more than twelve by twelve. There was just the one single bed, an ancient rag rug beside it, and a toilet and sink in the far corner.
“It was about eight at night when they threw the ice acid into the cottage,” I said.
“So how much time has passed? Hours? A day? I don’t know, Mac. But I’ll tell you one thing. Right now if I had my gun, I swear I’d blow off the head of the first man who came through the door. I just can’t believe what they did. And they laughed about it.”
“How many?”
“There were three men, then the man I think was their leader came in and made them leave.” She paused a moment, then added, “They were all speaking Spanish. I doubt we’re still in Oregon.”
“Mexico, maybe,” I said.
“Could be,” she agreed. “Or Colombia. Remember the DEA agent who was tortured and murdered in Mexico some years ago? And nothing at all happened?”
I held her away from me. “Listen up, Laura. Don’t think like that. It does no good. You haven’t seen Sherlock or Savich?”
She shook her head. “When I woke up, I was alone. When they brought me here to this room, it was empty. I don’t know where they were keeping you, but two of the men half-dragged you in here. It was like you were in a stupor. They tossed you on that bed and injected you. Five minutes later they put you on me. They’re animals.”
“I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t gotten control? The way I felt, I would have kept at it until I was dead or the drug finally wore off. Maybe that’s what they wanted to see. I wonder if they were laying bets.”
She pulled back. “But you stopped yourself, Mac.”
I kissed her mouth. I smoothed back her hair, lightly ran my thumb over her eyebrows. “I finally realized it was you. I love you, Laura. I couldn’t have hurt you.”
“Well then, let’s take care of this mess and then get married. Can we do that, Mac?”
I couldn’t believe it had taken me until I was twenty-nine years old to find this woman. I kissed the tip of her nose. “In exactly that order.”
I looked over to the small rings screwed into the wooden floor. Had they done this before? Brought in some women and taken turns, enjoying the hell out of it? The drug was something. I was still hard.
I looked at Laura again. Her hair was curtaining her face, hanging long and loose, real shiny. I couldn’t believe it. “They combed your hair?”
“Yes,” she said, not looking at me. “More than that even. They bathed me, washed my hair, and sprayed some perfume on me. They let two women do this while they watched. Neither of the women spoke any English. Then they brought me to this room. I got the feeling that they’ve done this before with other women.”
I pulled her close again, and this time I really smelled the musk on her. I felt a wave of lust. It wasn’t overpowering, but I didn’t want to test myself. “I’m thirsty,” I said. Just having a bit of distance between us made it easier. I walked to the sink. It was as ancient as the rug by the bed, cracked and rusted. But the water was cool enough and clear. I washed my face. Laura’s scent was gone. The heavy feeling in my brain was easing. I could think more than one thought at a time now, glean more than one impression. But my only thought was that I wanted to kill them. I couldn’t seem to get beyond that and I knew I had to. We had to get out of here.
Laura stood up. “Did you walk away because the drug hit you again?”
“Yeah, but it’s better now. Don’t worry about me.” Then I shook my head and said, “No, forget that. If I start looking at you funny, or talking funny, anything that isn’t right, you get away from me, fast. If you can’t, knock me silly. Protect yourself. All right?”
She studied my face for a long time, then nodded. When she walked toward me, I took an outside route back to the bed. I said while she was cupping water in her hands, “We’ve got to figure out how to get out of this bloody room.”
We both looked at the one door, no windows.
“Do you think they’ll feed us?” I was starving, my stomach nearly beyond the growling stage, but that wasn’t the point. “If they bring us food, we’ll have a chance to get out of here.”
They fed us, not ten minutes later. The door simply unlocked, very quickly, and a young boy carrying two big plates in his skinny arms walked in. Behind him stood another man holding an AK-47 at the ready. He didn’t come into the room, just stood there in the doorway, aiming his weapon at my belly, watchful and ready.
I don’t even think I heard them close and lock the door. My eyes were on the food. There were stacks of soft tortillas and beans, strips of beef, and thick pepper-and-onion-filled potatoes. I was so hungry it tasted as good as anything I’d ever eaten.
They left a large pitcher of cold water. We drank the whole thing since the peppers were hotter than pitch. There wasn’t a bit of food left. Laura looked down at the empty plates and said, “I hope we don’t get sick from stuffing ourselves.”
“Not a pretty thought,” I said, remembering the Montezuma’s revenge that had me dehydrated and ten pounds lighter a couple of years before when I’d been fishing off Cozumel. “One guy with an AK-47. I think we should move over by the door so that if he comes alone again, we’ll have a chance at the guy with the gun.”
Laura nodded. “There’s only this one skinny pillow and the blanket. I’ll mold them under the sheet. Maybe for an instant they’ll think we’re on the bed, asleep.”
We did that and stood back to look at our handiwork. “Not very good,” I said, “but hopefully it’ll work. Which side of the door would you like?”
I ended up on the side of the lock, Laura behind the door. She’d taken off the heavy porcelain toilet lid and held it against her chest.
“They must know that we won’t be sitting here idle,” she said. “They’ll expect us to try something. It’s even possible that they’re watching us even now.”
I’d thought the same thing. I got up and went over that small room, inch by inch. I didn’t see anything that remotely resembled a camera lens or a peephole. I sat back down. “I sure to God hope that Sherlock and Savich are all right.”
“Maybe Sherlock’s sitting by the door as we speak, a toilet lid hugged to her chest.”
We waited. For a very long time. We slept. We awoke early the next morning. My watch read about 6:30 A.M.
We took turns using the toilet and washing up. At exactly seven o’clock, we heard them coming.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A key turned in the lock. The door slowly opened. But no one said a word, no one moved in. A canister of gas rolled through the doorway. I jumped to my feet, grabbed the thing up, and threw it in the toilet. I flushed it. Smoke gushed out of the bowl. I slammed down the toilet seat. Thankfully it contained most of the smoke. I’d inhaled only a bit. I didn’t feel a thing.
I heard a man laugh. I turned to look at the two men who stood watching me from the doorway.
“¡Así se hace!” one of them said. He had a deep bass voice. He was a short, wiry, dark man, dressed in army fatigues, like his partner. He said in strongly accented English this time, “Sí, that was well done. We knew you would be waiting for us. And now yo
u have finished. Move.” He waved the AK-47 toward me. “The woman is still sleeping? You wore her out, eh?”
I took a step, watching the men. The man with the bass voice raised his weapon, but he didn’t say anything more because Laura rose up, whipped around the side of the door, and smashed him in the face with the porcelain toilet lid.
The other man leaped through the doorway, his eyes on Laura, his AK-47 up, ready to fire.
I yelled and ran straight at him. He whipped the gun around, only to moan and fall hard to the floor when Laura hit him hard on his temple with the porcelain toilet lid.
The first man tried to struggle up. Laura calmly leaned over and smashed him hard again with the toilet lid. Then she kicked both of them hard in the ribs.
“Close the door quick,” I said. I grabbed the larger man under his arms and began dragging him inside the room. Laura grabbed the other guy.
I picked up one of the AK-47s and looked out the door. There was a long narrow corridor on either side of the room. No one else was in sight.
“We need their clothes,” I said.
Five minutes later, we were buttoning our camouflage pants and lacing up our combat boots. Laura had ripped the sleeves off my white shirt to stuff in the toes of her boots. She stamped her feet a couple of times and smiled at me. “Good fit now. I’m glad one of the men was bigger. The fatigues nearly fit you.”
It took us longer to tie up the men. Laura stripped them both to their skin and tied one of each of their legs to the rings in the floor where she’d been shackled. She rose and dusted her hands and looked at me.
“Okay, let’s get out of here. Savich and Sherlock have got to be somewhere close by.”
We locked the door and turned to the left, for no other reason than I am left-handed and that was the way I’d turned first. We each had a full magazine in the AK-47s and another magazine from each man’s belt.
I was armed and dangerous, feeling more pissed than prudent. Laura had tucked her hair up beneath the army camouflage cap. From a distance of ten feet, I guess she could pass for a man for at least a few seconds.
“The stupid goons,” she whispered, “dressed up like army militia.”
“Don’t complain. It might help us if we get out of here.” My boots were hurting my feet already. I was going to get blisters.
We heard booted feet tramping toward us. There was a door on our right, the third one along this side of the corridor. I opened it as quietly as I could and we slipped inside. We listened. Then we heard a noise, just the clearing of a throat.
Both of us whipped around to see an old man sitting at a small table in the corner, tucked away in shadows, just beneath a narrow, high window, eating a bowl of soup. He was bald and his face was scored with lines, the color of brown leather. He had a long dirty-gray beard. He was wearing an old dark brown wool robe, a rope tied around his waist.
He was staring at us, a tortilla halfway to his mouth. I whispered in Spanish for him not to move, “Quédate, Father. Don’t even twitch your beard.”
I looked up at Laura. She was standing pressed to the door, still listening, her fingers pressed against her lips for quiet. The boots marched by. No one stopped. The priest didn’t move.
“Who are you?” he asked me in Spanish in a deep and ancient voice.
“We’re American federal agents. They drugged us and brought us here as prisoners. They’re going to kill us if they get ahold of us again. We’re trying to get away. Are you a prisoner too, Father?”
He shook his head. “No, I come to the compound once a week to minister to all the people. When I arrive, one of the women gives me breakfast.” His words rolled into one another, nearly slurring. It was hard for me to understand him. But I understood enough.
“What day is it?”
He had to repeat it twice before I understood. Thursday. We’d lost a day.
“Where are we, Father?”
He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “You’re just outside of Dos Brazos.”
More boots were marching this way. They were slowing. We were trapped. The one narrow window wouldn’t let a skinny kid through it. The old man looked at us, then said slowly, “There’s no more time. Both of you, get under the bed, quickly. I will deal with the men.”
If he betrayed us, we had less of a chance pinned under the narrow sagging bed in the far corner. We had no choice. Laura and I scooted under it. At least the stringy blanket fell over the bed nearly to the floor. We fit, barely. I was nearly lying on the AK-47, Laura pressed against my back, her weapon pressed against my spine.
The door opened, no knock. I saw at least three pairs of boots. I heard a man with a shrill voice say in Spanish, “Father, have you been here long?”
“Sí. I am still eating my breakfast.”
“You haven’t heard anything, no people, no running?”
“Just you, señor, and your men. ¿Qué haces? What is the matter? Is there a fire?”
“Oh no, nothing like that. Some people—a man and a woman—we were holding them for the policía. They’ve gotten away. Don’t worry, Father. We’ll find them.”
The priest didn’t say anything. Was he giving them a sign? No. The men turned and marched back out the door. Then, suddenly, one of them said, “Father Orlando, the woman Hestia told me that her son is in great pain. She wants you to see him now. Can you come? My men will escort you to keep you safe from the foreign man and woman.”
“I will come,” said the priest. He was wearing old Birkenstock sandals, no socks. His feet were as worn and scarred as a tree trunk.
The door finally closed. We slowly moved out from under the bed.
“That was close,” Laura said, wiping herself down. I stared toward the small table. There were three soft tortillas just lying there. I was still hungry. I grabbed them up, rolled them, gave Laura a big bite, and stuffed the rest in my mouth.
“I’m starting to feel human again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
We were in some sort of old wooden barracks that turned and twisted about like a rabbit warren. The first two rooms we looked into were empty, but in the third one there was a man sleeping in a lower bunk, his back to us. He didn’t stir. We quietly closed the door and kept looking. Savich and Sherlock had to be in one of these rooms.
We eased out into the corridor again. We came to a corner, and I motioned Laura to stay back while I went down on my haunches and took a quick look. I nearly lost my tortillas I was so startled. Not fifteen feet from me were at least ten men of all ages, dressed in fatigues and combat boots, all at stiff attention, their weapons held against their shoulders, their backs to me. They were silent, not a single twitch. I couldn’t even hear them breathe.
An older man, in his early fifties, stood in front of them. He wore civilian clothes, a white linen shirt open at the neck, tan slacks, and Italian loafers. He was perfectly bald. It looked like he shaved his head for effect. He was a large man, nearly as tall as me, and solid with muscle. He was carrying a white lab coat over his arm. He was speaking quickly in Spanish. I understood most of it. I slowly eased back as he said, “. . . we must find the man and the woman. They are dangerous American agents here to destroy us. If you see them, you must not kill them. That is forbidden.”
I whispered to Laura, “A dozen soldiers ahead. The man who called the others off us, was he really big, muscular, and bald?”
“No, it was another man.”
“This one seems to be the boss. He’s giving them orders about us. He doesn’t want us killed. I suppose that’s good news. Oh yeah, he’s a sharp dresser.”
“Let’s get out of here.” We came quickly to the other end of the long corridor, to a big double door. I tried the shiny brass doorknob.
It turned easily and silently. I went in low and swung around, fanning the room with my weapon. It was a very fancy office at first sight, with lots of gold-trimmed antique furnishings and several incredible Persian carpets. It wasn’t much of an office. There wasn’t a te
lephone or a fax or a computer, nothing to use to get help.
We eased inside and closed the door. I turned the lock. “El jefe’s office,” I said. “The boss of this place. Probably it’s the bald guy out there with the soldiers. I wonder who the hell he is. Damn, I don’t even see a phone. They must communicate by radio.”
Laura was already behind the huge Louis XIV desk, going through the papers. Behind her was a large glass window looking out over a small walled-in, English-type garden filled with tropical flowers and plants. “Damn, it’s all in Spanish and I can’t read it,” she said. “Quick, come here, Mac.”
Someone tried to turn the handle on the door.
I heard shouts. More pounding. A gun butt smashed against one of the doors, then another. The expensive wood splintered.
No time. I prayed and grabbed Laura’s left hand. We took a running start, crossed our arms in front of our faces, and crashed through the huge glass window behind the Louis XIV desk.
We thankfully landed on grass, rolled, and came up instantly into a run. We were in a private flower garden, perfectly manicured and maintained, and I, who loved flowers, didn’t give a shit.
Ain’t nothing easy, I thought, as I smashed the butt of my weapon against a small gate in the far corner of the garden. The aging wood splintered and fell outward. We were out of the compound, only to stop cold. There was absolutely nothing in front of us except jungle and a three- or four-foot-wide moat of sorts, probably to keep the jungle from encroaching into the compound every few days. It was filled with brackish water that looked like it could kill anything that even got close to it.
I took her hand again, and we jumped the moat. We heard shouting behind us. Guns were fired over our heads. Good, they hadn’t forgotten el jefe had told them to keep us alive.
We ran into a dense green wall of vegetation that blocked out the sun within a couple of minutes. It was going to be a race, us against a dozen men native to this place.
I’d never been in a jungle before. The floor wasn’t a thicket of plants and trees and bushes as I’d expected. We didn’t need a machete like the movies I’d seen had portrayed. It was nearly bare, only a single layer of leaves covering the ground. But even that single layer was rotten. Everything around us was alive and green or rotting.