by R. T. Wolfe
He accelerated as much as the pitiful bike could stand with the two of them in tow. "I believe we've lost him, Andy. It was a valiant effort, and you were able to punch someone. So, it wasn't a complete loss. There." Duncan spotted the red duct tape through the traffic. "I see him. Three blocks ahead in the right lane."
"Ha. I knew it." There was no gunning any gas pedal, but they continued their path. Andy swerved between a few cars, earning volumes of Spanish protests through open car windows.
"Stay back," Andy said to himself. "Don't draw attention."
He followed the Durango for miles. He didn't stop for anyone or anywhere. Traffic thinned, and they wound around on increasingly disheveled and thinning roads. They reached the base of one of the mountains. Regardless of the mountain on their right, the absence of the tall city buildings allowed the wind to pick up and whip dust in small circles around them.
Andy turned off the single headlight. Above them, single-room homes with rusted metal roofs butted against each other. Looking up, Duncan noted the top of the mountain was barren. This was a slum hill. Duncan had heard of these. Peruvians who came in from the bush looking for work. The steep mountainside served as a back for the homes. It provided a wall and safety. And was extremely dangerous. There was no water and no stability in the case of a mudslide or fallen rocks and dirt.
"Stay farther back," Duncan said as he spotted a dense cluster of lights beyond the mountainside. It was in the middle of an open plain beyond the mountain in the distance. The line of packed dusty dirt showing a road was barely visible, but the Durango drove along it.
The backdrop of light showed a passenger in the blue car. "He must have picked up a passenger when we weren't looking."
"A customer, you think?" Andy asked.
"I don't know."
The terrain lacked bushes or trees for any kind of cover. The towering hills behind the cluster of lights were much too far away and much too big to use as shelter from view. "Pull behind the boulder."
"What boulder?"
"The one at two o'clock."
Andy rotated his head slightly to his right. "Ah. That's a ways away. Hold on."
They rode without use of the headlight. Andy had to slow to a snail's pace to keep from crashing as they hit each rock and dip in the hard earth. Duncan kept his attention to the cluster of lights.
It was like a miniature town. A few dozen vehicles were parked randomly. From this distance, it seemed some were rusted out and possibly hadn't moved for years. The polished paint from others shone in the scattering of overhead lights. A large warehouse-like structure stood to the left of a handful of smaller sheds.
Andy had slowed the moped down enough that the dust did not scatter as they rode toward the boulder. Duncan took mental note of each rock, vehicle and structure, painting a map in his head. A scattering of men walked from the warehouse to the cars and sheds. He didn't spot any children, but the area screamed danger.
As they reached their pathetic shelter, he took note of the entire three-hundred-sixty degrees around him. He didn't spot any lookouts or traffic approaching from the highway. What he did spot was a small green, metal structure. It was about four foot in height, rusted and with a myriad of wires tangled into it.
As they approached the boulder, Andy slowed the bike to a crawl. "Did you see that?" he asked.
"I did." Duncan slid off the back before Andy came to a complete stop. "I can't see where the wires lead."
"Only one way to find out," his brother said. He propped the bike against the rock and duck-walked toward the metal structure.
"Damn him," Duncan said. Andy had gotten far too brazen as of late. He squatted through the wind as it stirred around him. Duncan motioned toward him, pointing to the bike, waving back to the rock, but Andy didn't even turn to notice. As he reached the structure, Duncan could barely recognize the outline of his body in the swirling dust.
Now that Andy stood next to it, Duncan noted it was more like five foot tall. Through the blowing dust, he could barely see as Andy lifted wires. There seemed to be a bundle of them that led toward the miniature town and a group that led in the opposite direction.
Leaning his back against the boulder, he checked the time on his watch, then reached in his pocket and retrieved the Peruvian cell phone to see if Nickie had returned his message sent through social networking. What could she possibly be doing that would cause her not to touch base with him all this time? Closing his eyes, he attempted to keep his imagination at bay.
He sensed a presence a fraction of a second before the blow hit the side of his head. His eyes opened to the butt of a rifle. The pain was moot. His vision and his mind raced into much more pertinent details. His brother. His wife. He saw the men just before everything went black. There were two of them, and they were dressed in black pants and mock turtlenecks.
Chapter 9
It was time. It killed Nickie to sit back. Trusting others wasn't her specialty, but it wasn't her time yet. She watched as a single agent from team two rushed in low toward the guard. The agent must have trusted her description because, without looking, he reached around the door opening and grabbed the guard who leaned against the doorjamb with one ankle crossed over the other. The rifle in his arms shot out in front of him, but it was too late. The rest of Vehicle Two charged on the balls of their feet. She and Eddy joined them.
The agent thrust the guard from the doorway and around to the back of the structure as wails of both screams and laughter carried on inside. With several H&K MP5s pointed at the man, he raised his arms high as the cigarette dropped from his lips. Eddy lifted the M14 that hung around the man's neck, released the magazine and tossed it toward the woods.
The black clothing. The mock turtleneck. Smells that blew from the open doorway. Sex. Body odor. Alcohol. Drugs.
An agent grasped one of the guard's lifted wrists and wrenched it behind his back, then repeated with the other. Couldn't they hear the sounds? How could they function with the sounds? The screams. The laughter. It pounded in Nickie's mind, her memory, her ears. She clasped her eyes shut and shook her head in attempts to clear her thoughts, her focus.
The sound of a zip tie made her open her eyes. Eddy stood next to her with an arm dug under her pit. She watched as the agent secured the guard's wrists, then looked down at Eddy's hand. He was holding her up. When had her legs given out again? Several sets of soft-moving feet rushed into the building.
They were going in without her. No! Grinding her teeth together, she shoved Eddy's arm from her and took off into the structure.
Inside was an equally wide hallway that traveled the entire distance through the building and out the south side. A smaller hallway split perpendicularly through the center. She estimated close to a dozen agents entering from the opening at the south.
Two groups of special agents gathered and squatted, one to the north of the perpendicular hallway and one to the south.
She stood and held up a bent elbow and closed fist. The signal to halt. Pressing her back to the wall, she inched closer to the cross hall. Cries echoed throughout the area. A staggering john seemed oblivious to the cries or the cluster of men and women in Kevlar.
Making eye contact with the agent leading the group on the other side, she pointed to her chest and toward the west. Then, she pointed to him and the east. He nodded.
"Back to back," Eddy whispered to in her ear. She nodded. They couldn't rely on feds to have their backs.
Feedback announced the presence of the bullhorn. "This is the FBI. We have you completely surrounded." Organized chaos ensued even before the brief warning was done. Eddy pressed into Nickie, and they turned to the hallway as the announcement finished. "Come out with your hands up."
The command was answered with gunfire. Like a crab with four legs, she and Eddy made their way down the west wall as they shot at anything that wasn't a fed or a kid. Agents grabbed Fu Haizi and dragged them out the north entrance to join their friend there.
It wasn't th
at Nickie didn't care about the guards. They could be considered key. She needed them alive to interrogate and find out how to take down Fu Haizi as a whole.
But her mind and her memories did not allow room for that now. Now was about the girls.
A john came running from the first doorway. He was partially dressed, skinny and pale. The man was tangled in both the shower curtain that had covered the opening to the room and the pants that gathered around his ankles. As he freed himself from the curtain, he exposed his gray hair, gold chains and a tat of a butterfly on his hairy pectoral. A special agent snatched him up and dragged him down the hall.
The girl inside sat on the bed in her underwear. Short, black curls rocked back and forth. She was too drugged to notice the war that went on around her.
"I've got her," Eddy said and ripped the shower curtain from the doorway. He threw it around her exposed body and lifted her beneath her knees and shoulders.
Sirens sounded in the distance. Hurst had gotten her message after all. A short wave of relief was replaced at the sight in the next doorway.
Agents gathered johns and guards as Nickie burst around the shower curtain. This girl had blonde hair. She estimated her to be about thirteen. The girl held up her fists as tears ran down her cheeks like a running faucet.
Nickie holstered her gun. "You're free, honey. I'm going to take care of you." Holding up her hands, Nickie felt a tear of her own fall down her cheek as she inched toward the child on the balls of her feet.
Strands of straight, blonde hair fell over the child's shoulders before she fell forward completely. Nickie ran and caught her before she hit the ground. Tucking an arm around her shoulder, Nickie stuck out her hip and used it to carry the collapsed girl's weight and hefted her toward the door.
"We're here." Nickie smiled and crooned. In the midst of gunfire and shouts, peace ran in waves through her body. "Everything's going to be okay."
Eddy stood outside the door. Screams of girls, howls of johns and gunfire continued. Yet, Eddy stood with the girl wrapped in a shower curtain still in his arms. Nickie peered around the opening of the crude doorway. Special agents led girls from rooms toward the south hallway.
Instinct made Nickie's right foot step back into the room. The focus of her sight zeroed in on the hands of the girl in front. Handcuffs. They circled her wrists. Her arms wrapped tighter around the blonde child as her eyes bulged and darted her gaze to the next and the next. Shiny silver wrapped around each.
Panic. Air ceased to enter her lungs. She froze and checked east, west. In front of her and behind.
She tossed the girl toward Eddy, only remotely noticing the way he stumbled as he attempted to juggle both of the girls. "What the hell are you doing?" Nickie screamed and, in the midst of deflating gunfire, bolted toward the line of special agents. "Take those cuffs off. That's a direct order." Three steps from the first in line, she jumped and took air. Her fingers were spread. She was going to dig her thumbs into his eye sockets. Take his head off. Snap his traitorous neck.
But she was clotheslined from the side.
Flat on her back, she saw stars but thrust to her feet anyway. "You son of a bitch, I'll kill you." Ready position, she ducked beneath the arm that came from her left, then propelled her weight with a direct elbow blow to the agent's ribs. She rounded on the next man in Kevlar with a hook that sent every bit of her strength square to the side of his head.
She could hear the sound of Eddy's grunts and the fighting muffled under the cries that came from terrified and confused children, but she didn't dare take her focus from the group that closed in on her.
"Easy now, Detective," she heard someone say as if she was a rabid animal, but it was muffled behind the blood that pumped through her head.
Roundhouse boot to the face of one, back handed punch to another. Blood spurted from noses and dripped from ears. Skin peeled from her knuckles as she aimed for areas without protection. Jaws and noses, necks and arms.
Reaching the agent in front, she curled her fist and landed a solid punch to the center of his nose. Nickie bent and caught the girl he'd taken as she threw her boot out and dug her heel into the diaphragm of the one that closed in on her.
"These are children," she screamed like a crazed woman to the agents who stood behind, each with their handcuffed teenager. "Get those handcuffs off them before I have each of you suspended indefinitely."
Three of them closed in on her at once. She clung to the girl like a child with her blanket. "Don't you touch her," she screamed until her throat was raw.
One of them kept his distance and held his arms out. "Detective, it's okay. This is pro-to-col," she said like Nickie was hard of hearing. "The girls will be safe and warm in a certified juvenile detention facility. This is protocol. See? Safe."
Nickie's arms were wrenched, one to the left and one to the right, as heavy weight thrust her back to the concrete floor. Her wrists were pulled far from her sides and her face pressed into the cold floor. She opened her eyes, looking for the girl.
That was when she spotted it. The paddy wagon. Red lights circled the top of it. The children were being herded into a paddy wagon like cattle. Like criminals.
From around the front of the vehicle came polished black boots. Special Agent Hurst. Between the fingers that held her face to the ground, she searched his face but found nothing.
"Hurst," she begged. The backs of her eyes burned with betrayal. "Please."
"Bring her to the north side," he said. "And bring my car around."
She thrashed her shoulders and hips as four of them lifted her. The children were led to the van. "You liar!" she screamed. "Traitor! Bastard!" Skillfully, they secured her arms and legs so all she could move was her gaze. She spotted Eddy in a similar hold as he was dragged out the same side of the building as the children.
Her toes scraped the floor as they hauled her outside. As they tightened a zip tie around her wrists, she spit on the closest agent. "Zip ties for me? Did you use all of the cuffs on the victims? On the children?"
They shoved her head into the back of a vehicle, then the rest of her. She kicked the window as they shut it behind her. As the door closed so did the will of her arms and legs. Of her heart. Her lungs beat in and out, but the rest of her drooped forward. Her head, her shoulders.
It seemed like hours, maybe days, but was likely minutes before the front passenger door opened. Hurst slid into the seat, then rotated to face her. Her chin remained against her neck, but she followed his movements with her eyes.
He, too, sat with shoulders forward and head down. He wiped something from his eyes before he finally had the guts to look at her. It was an expression she didn't understand. On his face was a mixture of shock and helplessness. She watched as the whites in his eyes turned to a bright pink and water spilled over his cheek. "Nick," he croaked, "I don't... I can't... It was protocol."
Her breathing slowed, but the disgust that filled her soul seethed and percolated. Something she couldn't identify was in his hands. She stared at it through the steel mesh that separated the front and backseats. Something black. It was cloth with sparkles and a long string.
He opened his grasp and showed her. It was a small black purse with fake rhinestones lining the open zipper. Inside, she spotted it.
"Nick." His voice cracked. "Condoms and Pokémon cards. The child was carrying condoms and Pokémon cards."
Chapter 10
Duncan woke to blinding rays of sunshine that beat down on the other side of his closed eyelids. Everything hurt; everything except his arms. They were numb. He blinked, then squinted in the blinding light. It shone through an opening that seemed to have been a garage door at one time. Blinking from one side to the other, he realized he was not alone. And he was hanging.
A man sat on an overturned five-gallon bucket surfing through his smartphone. Duncan feigned sleep and closed his eyes again to assess his situation. Although his mouth cracked with thirst, his shoulders were the most concerning. They ached with
pain and may both have been dislocated. He couldn't feel the rest of his arms or his hands and only knew they were still attached to his body because they were what kept him from falling to the dirt floor.
The throbbing from his shoulders was little compared to the pounding of the side of his head. Turning away from the light, he opened his eyes and scrunched his face. Dried blood from the side of his head cracked and pulled his hair.
He tilted his head upward. It took several seconds before his dizzying focus cleared enough to see his wrists. They were secured with zip ties and hung by rope from a low-hanging wooden ceiling joist. A barn swallow shrieked and narrowly missed his head before landing in its nest along the joist.
The balls of his feet barely reached the concrete floor, keeping a small portion of his body weight from pulling at his wrists and shoulders.
The man glanced up from his phone and spotted Duncan awake. He blinked a long blink. Pressing the side of his cell, he stuffed it in his pants' pocket and stood. He was long and lanky with skin the color of caramel. Sweaty brown hair stuck to the man's forehead. A small, decrepit wooden table stood next to him. A handful of bloody blades, knives, a mallet, a handful of zip ties, a machete, and Duncan's cell phone lay in a line on the splintered and dirty wooden top.
Without so much as another glance toward Duncan, he walked out through the large garage door opening. Duncan heard a conversation spoken in Spanish. It might as well have been the barn swallows talking, because Duncan made out only a single word from the entire conversation. Gringo.
He didn't know what time it was and hoped he hadn't remained unconscious more than overnight. He may have been dehydrated, but he decided not enough for more than a night of captivity.
His brother. Andy. Oh no. His mind cleared and everything came rushing back. With the way his head was wedged between his arms, he could hardly turn to look around the room. Had they captured Andy? Where was he?