Annihilate Him (Volume 2)

by Christina Ross

  “Then one of your men needs to hurry up and get it. Because I’m giving you nothing without it. I can promise you that.”

  Reluctantly, the man turned to the same man who had patted Alex down, and told him to get twelve rounds of the drug. I saw this as a positive sign, especially when the young man ran away from us down the beach past our ruined plane, and cut out of sight as he sliced into the jungle.

  When he was gone, Alex turned around, took me by the hand, and led me just far enough away so no one could hear us when we spoke.

  I was shaking as we walked toward the ocean. My heart was beating so hard after their exchange, I felt faint at what might happen to Alex without me there to protect him. Or Tank. Especially Tank. My husband was about to go into this alone, and the thought of it terrified me. I couldn’t imagine my life without him, and here he was, willing to put his life on the line for all of us.

  “I’m scared,” I said when we were far enough away from them.

  “Don’t be. They want the money. I have a feeling they need it. They’ve already caved to one demand—the drugs. That says it all to me.”

  “But what if they don’t make that call? Or if for some reason, you have trouble coming through with the money? They’ll kill you.”

  “They won’t do it there. They’ll give the money time to show up in their account. If it fails to go through the first time, they’ll have me try again. They’re not going to be so quick to just walk away from that kind of cash. Don’t worry.”

  “Don’t worry? Are you serious? You’re my life. I don’t want you to do this.”

  “We’ve been here for nearly two weeks, Jennifer, and no one has found us yet. It’s time to take a risk. Don’t think that I’m taking any of this lightly. But I do know this—it’s time to at least take a chance on something that actually might get us out of here, as opposed to doing nothing at all.”

  “How are you planning on handling this?”

  “I’ll call Ann. She’ll know it’s me the moment she hears my voice. She has the authority to transfer whatever funds I need transferred, so she’ll take care of the rest. The entire process should take no longer than fifteen minutes. But I won’t do any of it if they don’t alert the authorities of our location first.”

  “And what if they don’t?”

  “Then they won’t get a dime from me.”

  “If you fight them, they might kill you for that.”

  “We’re going to an island large enough to have a bank. If they try anything there, I’ll call them out in front of everyone—and don’t think that they don’t already know that. Or expect it. With any luck, we can save Cutter. With some more luck, we might be out of here by tonight.”

  “All of this could go wrong in ways that none of us see coming. Have you even considered the thought that they might kidnap you and hold you for ransom for more money?”

  That caused him to pause.

  “It’s a possibility,” I said. “Why don’t you insist on taking one of us with you? Tank will go with you. I know that he will.”

  “You need Tank here in case the others on this island try something when I’m away.”

  “What are one gun and one knife going to do for us against all of them? We’re screwed either way.” And at that, I reached out and held him. And kissed him. “I’m trying to be strong, but I’m frightened. If anything happens to you, I won’t be able to bear life without you. You have to make this work, Alex. You need to come back to me. And to our child, should we be fortunate enough to still have a child. And to our future together. This can’t be it for us. It can’t!”

  I was so emotional, he held me more tightly than he ever had. He kissed me hard on the mouth, and when he did, his beard prickled against my skin. I sank into his embrace as if this was it for us. This could be the last time that I had my husband’s arms around me, and the very idea of it wrecked me to the point that I was nearly inconsolable. For whatever reason, I started to cry, and that cry turned into a heaving release of all of the fear and anger that was inside of me.

  “Stop,” he said.

  “How can I stop? Look at what I’m facing. Look at what I might lose.”

  “You need to trust in me. When have I ever let you down?”

  I wiped the tears from my eyes, took a breath, and then just looked at him. “When we first met, there was that time on the dance floor, when we were on our first pseudo ‘date.’ You remember that night? You went berserk on me.”

  He smiled at that, and his smile was so warm, it was enough to bring me back into the moment. “That’s because I was crazy about you, and I didn’t know how to process it. You surprised me. You continue to surprise me. And you will go on surprising me.”

  I did my best to pull myself together, but I couldn’t. I just held him again, not wanting to let go because, in my heart, I was afraid that this might be it for us. Who were these men? What might they do to him? For several moments, we just stood there together, holding each other and absorbing each other’s energy as if this could be our last moment together—our most important moment together. Neither of us knew what was ahead of us, but I did know this—I had serious doubts about this group’s intentions when it came to my husband.

  “Listen to me,” I said when we parted. “If there are banks on that island, then there must be a drug store. I need you to do something for me. For us.”

  He furrowed his brow at me. “What?” he said.

  “I need you to buy me two pregnancy tests.”

  “Jennifer—”

  “I need to know,” I said. “I need to be able to either accept the loss and grieve it, or swell with relief that somehow, the baby survived the crash, and we’re still pregnant. I can’t wait until we get home. Not knowing is eating me alive inside. I’m sure it’s doing the same thing to you. I’m trying my best not to let the depth of it show, but I can’t hold up that facade much longer. I need to know. You need to know. Right now, we have an opportunity to know. A test will answer those questions.”

  “Presuming I can even find a test on that island, how accurate will it be? Was it made in the States? Was it made in some third-world country? How much weight are we to put on such a test?”

  “Those tests have been around for years. It isn’t rocket science. They all use the same methods to predict whether or not you’re pregnant. Whatever you find will be accurate. So please? Do this for me? I need an answer. I need to know so both of us can move on—however this works out.”

  “I’ll find you one.”

  “Two. You’ll find me two. We need to make sure.”

  “All right,” he said gently. “I don’t know what’s on that island, but I’ll try to find you two.”

  “I love you so much. It’s killing me that they’re taking you from me.”

  “And here’s how much I love you,” he said. “I’m going to win this game. They’ll make that call. They’ll get their money. And then we’re getting off this island.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  WHEN WE RETURNED TO the group, fifteen minutes had passed, and it took the young man who went for the drugs another ten minutes to return with them. When he did, he gave them to the elder man, who counted the syringes before coming forward and handing them to Alex, who then gave them to Tank.

  “You got your drugs,” the man said. “Now, give us our money.”

  “I have a question,” I said.

  “What question?”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “I’ve already told you. It takes three hours to get to the island. I imagine we’ll be there for about an hour. Then, it’s another three hours to return. You’ll have your man back well before the sun sets. Don’t worry about it.”

  “That’s the thing—I am worried about it.”

  “We all are,” Blackwell said.

  “If the money comes through, none of you will have to worry about us ever again.” He looked at Alex. “We need to leave.”

  “Give me another kiss,” I s
aid to Alex before he left.

  He did. And when he did, it was the most heartfelt, passionate, and loving kiss he’d ever given me. It was a kiss for me to remember. It was something he was leaving with me in case he didn’t return, which made me want to cry again.

  “Please be safe,” I said. “Remember that I love you. And also what I told you.”

  The old man turned on me. “What did you tell him?” he asked.

  I shot him a look. “I told him to buy me two pregnancy tests. So be prepared to go to a pharmacy and get those for me. I want my husband back, and I want those pregnancy tests to see if I am still pregnant. That might seem inconsequential to you, but knowing whether our child is still alive means everything to my husband and me. Certainly, you can understand that. If you can’t—”

  And then I stopped.

  Faint in the distance came the unmistakable sounds of the airplane again, accompanied by the chopping of a helicopter. It was enough to make all of us lift our heads to the sky.

  “Well, listen to that,” the man said. “The search for the great Alexander Wenn continues. To you, that probably sounds like hope. To me, it just sounds like more despair is coming your way. And do you want to know why? Because all around us are dozens of unpopulated islands. Did you know that? Didn’t think so. Which ones will they fly over today? Where will they choose to search? Here? They haven’t done so yet, so don’t get your hopes up. Your only hope is me making that call. In the meantime, all of you will be watched more closely than ever.”

  “What does that mean?” Tank said.

  “Why don’t you have a look around and see exactly what it means?”

  We all turned around, and saw that there were dozens of other men, all carrying guns, emerging from the jungle when the man spoke. For all we knew, there could be others lying in wait.

  We were at the mercy of the merciless.

  And at that moment, it was set in concrete that there was no getting off this island if Alex couldn’t get in touch with Ann—or with somebody else at Wenn—to complete the transfer of that money.

  “We’ll expect you back in seven hours,” I said.

  “We need to get to the boat, lady. And when we return, we’ll need to walk back here. Give us nine hours. You’ll get your man back.” He winked at me, a gesture that was somehow threatening. “I promise.”

  And with that, the man came forward, and took Alex by the arm. Then, the five of them started to walk away from us while Blackwell and Lisa came to my side and put their arms around me and the men standing at the jungle’s edge moved closer to us.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “THEY’RE GOING TO MURDER him,” a woman’s voice said once Alex and the others had disappeared from sight. “They’ve tricked him. They’ve tricked you. And Alex is going to die for it.”

  As rattled as I was to hear those words, I recognized the voice even before the woman stepped out of the jungle and presented herself to us, and the men around her lowered their guns.

  It was the woman from the pineapple grove—it had to be. She was tall and slim and somewhere in her late-fifties. Her hair was gray and cut short, and she was wearing a white tank top and faded jeans. The first thing that struck me when I saw her was that her left eye had recently been blackened and there was a fair amount of swelling and bruising around the right side of her mouth. It looked to me as if someone had punched her several times in the face.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked her. “What do you mean they’ve tricked us?”

  She cocked her head at me. “What about that don’t you understand? They’re going to kill your husband.”

  “But why?” I said to her in fear. “We made a deal with you people. Alex is going to give you that money. We promised you that. We meant that. We plan to come through with that.”

  “I have no doubt that your husband will. But they’re still going to kill him. Once the money is transferred and they get back on the boat, they plan to cut his throat and toss his body into the ocean. And then they’re going to come back here and kill the rest of you. Why? Because they don’t want you here. Planes are nearby—you can hear them now. This morning, it was decided that the last thing we need is a search team coming here, which might threaten our chances of remaining on this island. We’re here illegally. The fear is this—what will become of us if we’re found out? As much as possible, the men who took your husband want to snuff out any chance of that happening.”

  “But they’re going to make that phone call,” I said. “Alex won’t release the money if they don’t make the call.”

  “There’s not going to be a phone call,” the woman said. “That was a lie. In about an hour, while they’re on the boat at sea, Alex will be told the truth. There will be no phone call. Instead, he’ll be given a choice. Go to the island, wire the money, and then give up his life in exchange for humane deaths for the rest of you. You know, such as a quick shot to the forehead. Or, if he refuses, he’ll be given a summary of exactly what will be done to you after his death—torture for all, rape for the women, starvation, dehydration, and finally a death so brutal and drawn out, it will stun him when he hears it. On one level, what happens next for you is up to Alex. And from what I gather, he’ll give himself up in an effort to save all of you from the worst. At least, that’s what they’re betting on. And I have to say that I think that they’re right. Not that it matters. Either way, they’re going to kill him. And then they’re going to kill you.”

  “Why are you telling us this?” Tank asked.

  The woman stepped farther out of the jungle and walked toward him. “Because most of us don’t agree with it,” she said. “The men who were here earlier? The eldest is my husband. The other three men are my sons. Do you see the bruising on my face? Of course you do. My husband did this to me when he learned of the conversation I had with Jennifer and Alex outside the pineapple grove, which apparently I shouldn’t have had, at least according to his fists. I was hunting boar. I was with my eldest son, who remains fiercely loyal to his father, even after he did this to me. It was my son who told him about our conversation. I was beaten because I chose not to tell him. The man I married thirty-three years ago is gone. He’s a different person now. He’s irrational. Deluded. Abusive—and not only toward me. For decades, he was fine. A good man. But over the past few years, he has developed something of a God complex. Or close to that. What matters is that many of us have lost faith in him as our leader, including me. I want to get the hell away from him. I want to leave him here. I want to go back to the States and start a new life on my own.” She motioned around her. “And so do these people. And dozens of others. Those of us who see my husband for what he’s become—a sonofabith and a tyrant—want off this island.”

  “What about those who remain loyal to him?” Tank asked.

  “They’re in the minority. As far as we’re concerned, they can stay behind and rot in hell with him here.”

  “Is this the first time he has beaten you?” Tank asked.

  She laughed at that.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “So am I.”

  “You came here for a reason. Obviously, you tricked your husband, and came here with a plan. What do you have in mind?”

  “I want to act now to save Alex’s life and put my husband and my sons in jail before it’s too late.”

  “You want your sons in jail?”

  “They don’t love me—instead, they worship him. They’ve condoned every one of his strikes against me. They’ve defended them. They think nothing of me. And because of all of it, I no longer consider them my sons—the betrayal is too great. And not just against me. Every person with me right now has been negatively affected by my husband and my sons. They’ve endured lashings. Quarantines. Anything to remind them who is in charge.”

  She looked at me. “When I saw you in the grove, I had no choice but to speak to you the way I did because my son needed to hear me take a hard line with you. Otherwise, I knew that he�
��d tell my husband that I hadn’t. And I knew what the repercussions of that would be. My mistake was not telling my husband myself that I’d come upon you. But that doesn’t matter now—my face will heal, just as it has before. But I do know this—I can’t live this way anymore. And neither can the men here with me now, nor their families. We want out.”

  “And how do you propose to do that?”

  “There’s another boat,” she said.

  Tank’s eyes flashed with surprise at the mention of that. “You have another boat here? I saw only one.”

  “The other boat is on the other side of our compound. It has its own dock. You were so consumed by the antenna, you obviously missed it.”

  “And you want us to use it. Why? What’s your plan? I suppose you want something from us. What is it?”

  “Our freedom, which you can provide for us with a mere phone call. Is that asking too much?”

  “It isn’t.”

  “I want you to take the boat with two of our men, who will be armed. I need you to move now and get to that island before it’s too late. There, you’ll need to find the boat they took with them, which won’t be easy because there are two ports and one marina on that island, none of which is small. But if you do find the boat in time, one of my men will claim it with the spare set of keys we have for it. He’ll bring it back to us—thus leaving my husband and my sons stranded on the island, and unable to kill Alex.”

  “How do we know that they won’t kill him? They might kill him out of spite.”

  “Not on that island, they won’t.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because the island is too populated. Beyond that, it’s daylight. The moment you make land, you must find a phone and alert the authorities of the situation, as well as the bank’s location. Then, you must go in search of their boat to shut them down so they can’t leave the island with Alex. There’s still time to make all of that happen, but time is running out. It won’t be long before they board that boat. You need to get on the other one—fast—so you can get there not long after they arrive.”