The Apparatus (Jason Trapp Book 5)

by Jack Slater

  He brought the truck skidding to a halt, killed the engine, and opened the driver’s door in about half a second flat, sending his boots starting onto the dusty concrete and absorbing the impact with his knees.

  Bad idea.

  The force ricocheted up Trapp’s spine and caused his exhausted neck muscles to scream out in agony. His hand jumped involuntarily to meet it, and a grimace formed on his face, which took him a little while to force away.

  “What’s going on?” Ramirez asked, dropping his pistol to his side as he recognized Trapp’s face. He was flanked on either side by two more of Hector’s men, and the captain himself emerged from the farmhouse shortly after – clothed, but still barefoot.

  Trapp jerked his thumb at the truck and opened the rear door. “This guy a friend of yours? Because he just tried to kill me.”

  Ramirez took a step forward, but Hector pushed him aside before he got a chance to peer into the vehicle.

  The second he got a good look, he slammed his palm against the roof of the truck. “Son of a bitch. What happened?”

  “He jumped me at a traffic light. Was in the back seat the whole time, I think,” Trapp admitted with considerable embarrassment. “I don’t know how I didn’t realize.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “Just barely.” Trapp shrugged, wincing at the pain this elicited. “Least he was when I tied him up. Sorry about the Jeep.”

  “Ramirez will get over it. Won’t you, Lieutenant?”

  Without waiting for a response, Hector started barking orders for his men to get the prisoner inside. A pair of them darted back toward the barn, passing Ikeda on the way. Her hair was dark and wet from the shower, and it had left patches on the shoulder of her T-shirt. Unlike Hector, she was at least wearing shoes, though they remained unlaced.

  “Jason…” she said, concern etched onto her face as she got close enough to see the welts on his neck. She reached up to examine it. “What the heck happened?”

  Trapp shrugged her ministrations aside, mainly because now even the feel of her breath against his damaged skin was beginning to sting. “Just a scuffle, that’s all.”

  “Hell of a scuffle…” Ikeda replied, a bite in her voice, which soon softened. “I can’t let you go anywhere on your own, can I?”

  He grinned and felt the adrenaline rushing through his system finally beginning to subside. His attacker was most assuredly unconscious, and Trapp had taken the time to restrain him properly, but even so, the man was a hell of a fighter, and the whole drive back he’d wondered whether it would be enough. The battle had been a close thing. He’d won, but he wasn’t sure he’d have lasted a second round.

  The two Marines returned from the barn carrying a large, wide plank of wood, which they promptly – and not entirely carefully – loaded the man onto. Ramirez supervised the procedure, intervening only to ensure they kept his neck straight.

  Trapp took a step forward and stood by Hector’s side as they watched the would-be assassin’s unconscious body stretchered out of the back of the truck and into the house. “So what’s his deal? You look like you know him.”

  Hector nodded. “Not well. But I’ve seen him before. Just once.”

  “He got a name?”

  “Come on. Let’s get inside,” Hector said. “I will explain.”

  The Mexican Marine officer stopped to issue a string of commands to his men, who quickly filed off in different directions, returning with various pieces of equipment and an array of weapons. Trapp quickly understood that they were forming a perimeter – or at least, reinforcing the one that already existed.

  They went inside. The makeshift stretcher was laid out on the dining table, and two of Hector’s men were in the process of sliding it out from underneath him as another bound his ankles and wrists to the table legs, leaving him splayed out on top of it.

  Now María was issuing her own orders. She looked pale and somewhat shellshocked but had as firm a level of control over Hector’s men as her husband did.

  “Agua,” she snapped, pointing at the stove and snapping her fingers as she crouched down and retrieved a bundle of rags from a wooden drawer. “Make sure it’s hot!”

  Another Marine exited one of the bedrooms with a large olive green duffel bag, from which he pulled out a medical pack emblazoned with a red and white cross. He put it down on the dining table.

  “Sit!”

  Trapp’s neck snapped to the side – which he swiftly regretted – as he searched for the source of the command. It was Ikeda, and she was pointing at a wooden chair beside the table.

  “Huh?”

  “You heard me,” she said, opening the first-aid kit and pulling out a variety of sachets, bandages, and Lord knows what else.

  “I’m fine,” he grunted, waving away the offer.

  “You’ve got enough scars on your body, Jason,” she snapped. “So sit your ass down and let me make sure you don’t get another.”

  He knew better than to argue. And besides, the last thing he needed was to pick up some sub-tropical skin-eating disease down here. It was bad enough that he had nearly died tonight. There was no point tempting fate and ending up with necrotizing fasciitis.

  “Okay.”

  Trapp sat back heavily. Beneath him, the chair’s feet squeaked as it scraped backward across the flagstone floor. Ikeda tore open a sachet containing a disinfectant wipe. He reached for it, but she batted his attempt aside.

  “Hey!”

  “You won’t do it properly, and you know you won’t.”

  That was true, of course, but Trapp mildly resented actually being told as much. But he kept his mouth shut and gritted his teeth as she cleaned the deep, raw ligature marks on the side of his neck. She bent down, frowning, and trapped the tip of her tongue between her teeth as she concentrated, causing him to smile.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked, concerned.

  “What do you think?”

  “Silly question.” Ikeda stretched out her hand and pointed at another sachet. “Give me that.”

  Trapp did as he was told and watched the other medical procedure being carried out to take his mind off the stinging on his neck. Hector’s wife María was cleaning the prisoner’s head wound. He raised his voice. “Is his skull fractured?”

  Hector, who until now had been conversing with his wife in calm, quiet Spanish, shook his head. His expression was grim. “No, not as far as we can tell. The cut goes all the way to the bone, though.”

  María, in many ways aping Ikeda’s mannerisms, pointed at a small flashlight on the table, which he handed to her. She stood and leaned over the man’s prone, unresponsive form. Trapp noted that Hector was watching his prisoner carefully and didn’t doubt that he would leap into action the second he saw something amiss.

  Though Trapp suspected that would not be necessary. This guy wouldn’t be waking up for a while.

  “If he ever does…”

  “Did you say something?” Ikeda asked, patting his neck dry. She took a step back to observe her work. “You want me to put a bandage on it?”

  He shook his head. “Better let it breathe.”

  “Your funeral.” She shrugged, reaching into the first-aid kit and pulling out a tube which she examined before handing to him. “Make sure you put this on a couple times a day. Stop it getting infected.”

  Trapp shot her a mock salute, then turned his attention back to María, who was peeling the unconscious man’s eyelids back and manipulating the flashlight in a cross pattern – side to side, then up and down as she observed any response. She did the same with the next eye, then murmured something to her husband.

  “His pupils are very dilated,” he reported. “Unconscious, for sure.”

  “Good,” Trapp grunted malevolently. “So – you plan on telling me who he is? You said you’d seen him before.”

  The Mexican stepped toward Trapp so he didn’t have to raise his voice to reply, though he always kept a wary eye on what was happening on the table beside him. “O
nce, I said. At the prison, just a few days ago.”

  “But you know who he is?”

  Hector nodded slowly. “I think so. César Torres. At least, that’s the name we have on file. It might be right. Probably not.”

  “So who is he?”

  “A hitman,” Hector said, his face scrunching up with disdain. “A cleaner. A psychopath.”

  “I think you’re supposed to call them sociopaths these days,” Trapp added mildly. “What’s so bad about this one?”

  “Call him a serial killer, then. He’s a freelancer, mostly. Works for whoever pays him best. Until recently, he was thought to be dead.”

  “Until the prison?”

  “Yes. Or if not dead, then at least retired. Intelligence isn’t my department, you understand, but I keep on top of the most wanted list, and I read my briefings. He used to be right at the very top, but he hasn’t been seen in a couple of years. Until last week.”

  “And today.”

  “Yes,” Hector winced. “Tell me, Jason – what happened?”

  “I told you everything I know. He’s good, that’s for sure. I had no idea he was there until a second before he jumped me. Made sure we were far enough away from the farm that no one would know what had happened. Looped a rope over my neck. I got lucky, that’s all.”

  “You think he wanted to kill you?”

  “He gave it a good shot,” Trapp remarked dryly before his face settled into a frown. “But I guess I don’t know that for sure. Maybe he was trying to knock me out. It would explain why he didn’t just shoot me.”

  María stood and said in English, “That’s all I can do. Should we get him a doctor?”

  Hector shook his head firmly. “We cannot. If he dies, then so be it. He played a dangerous game and lost. We can’t risk bringing anyone else into this.”

  Trapp noticed that she didn’t look particularly concerned by this decision. He had to admire her bravery. There weren’t many people who could accept such a dramatic shift in their life with such equanimity, but she was one of them.

  “Then we should let him rest. He is deep sleeping. I don’t know if he wakes.”

  “Unconscious,” Hector said.

  “Yes.”

  “Should we move him to a bed?” Ikeda asked, cocking her head and examining the body.

  “Better not to move him, I think,” María said, and no one contested her decision. Trapp had no particular desire to cause him any more pain than he was presently in, but the possibility of him spending the rest of the night on the hard wooden bed didn’t bother him overly.

  “You’ll need two men on him at all times,” Trapp said, standing and rolling his neck. It stung, but maybe a little less than it had before. He shot a look of thanks to Ikeda, which she accepted with a well-deserved rolling of eyes. “He’s very good.”

  “Of course,” Hector replied, looking somewhat offended that it even needed to be said.

  “I can take one of the first shifts,” Trapp said.

  “No, my men have it covered.”

  “I won’t be able to sleep for a few hours anyway,” Trapp said. “I know myself. I’m too amped from the fight.”

  “Okay,” Hector sighed. “As you wish. There are too few of us here tonight as it is. I will leave one of my men with you and replace you in about four hours.”

  “No need,” Ikeda interjected. “I’ll stay up with him.”

  Hector inclined his head. “Indeed.”

  The first outbreak of moaning from the prisoner came about two hours later. Trapp, who had allowed himself to fall into a somewhat meditative state, became instantly alert. He didn’t move but focused his attention on the dining table to which César Torres was strapped.

  Beside him, Ikeda did the same.

  César mumbled something in Spanish, though the words were far from intelligible.

  “You think we should wake someone up?” Ikeda mouthed into his ear, keeping her voice intentionally low. “In case he says something useful?”

  Trapp considered the question and immediately agreed. She indicated that she would find someone, and rose silently to her feet, disappearing into the murky gloom of the mostly unlit farmhouse. Only a few candles provided illumination – all of the electric lamps were off.

  He grabbed one of the candles and walked quietly over to the table, the flickering flame casting shadows that danced atop the flagstones and whitewashed walls. He stood silently a few feet from César, listening as the man said nothing in particular. It wasn’t entirely clear that the sounds he was making were words, even this close.

  He set the candle down on the table, ensuring that it was far away from the ropes that bound the prisoner’s limbs. Even in the warm glow of the candlelight, the pallid color of César’s face was evident. Hundreds of tiny droplets of sweat had bubbled on his skin, and Trapp started to wonder whether they should have found him a doctor after all. He looked like he might die at any moment.

  There was a bowl of water not far from César’s head and a wet rag beside it. Trapp reached for it and soaked it before lifting it over the man’s lips and dribbling a little in. The cool liquid seemed to startle him at first before his mouth and tongue started searching greedily for the cool flow.

  “Drink up,” Trapp murmured softly. “It’ll help.”

  Perhaps he ought not to have spoken in such a sympathetic fashion. After all, the man below him had only a few hours ago attempted to either murder or seriously harm him, and he suspected that in either case the former would have happened after the latter. Still, there was something about seeing a predator such as César reduced to such a parlous state of feebleness that struck him to the core.

  It could happen to you.

  César’s eyes jerked open, startling Trapp, who flinched backward, clenching his palm around the cloth as he did so. A little too much water dribbled into the Mexican hitman’s mouth, and he choked.

  Trapp grimaced, dropped the cloth, and reached for the back of his head, gently angling it upward so that the water would flow down his throat rather than into his windpipe. He didn’t mind if the guy died after all this. But drowning was a hell of a way to go.

  “What do you want?” César said, his eyes still rotating wildly in their sockets. He seemed unable to focus on anything in particular.

  Trapp said nothing, at least not immediately. He didn’t know how to respond. Then he frowned. César had spoken English. Not Spanish. Was there anything strange about that?

  “I found León,” César said, mumbling, his head now lolling from side to side. “With an American. What do you want me to do with him?”

  He doesn’t know where he is, was Trapp’s immediate thought. The realization opened up a world of possibilities, though the likelihood of any of them coming off seemed faint.

  “What do you suggest?” Trapp said softly.

  “This was never going to work,” César said scornfully, his eyelids now closing. “Americans, you think you know everything. Everything!”

  Americans? What the hell is he talking about?

  On the other side of the farmhouse, Ikeda emerged from one of the hallways, Hector in close pursuit. Trapp glanced up, holding a finger to his lips, his eyes flashing urgently in warning.

  “Grover, you idiot,” César crowed, his voice growing fainter and fainter with every word as he dropped back into unconsciousness. “All you have done is construct your own coffin.”

  Trapp warned the others to remain silent as he leaned over César’s once again motionless frame, checking whether he was truly unconscious once more. Satisfied, he beckoned for them to approach.

  “Either of you heard that name before?”

  Hector shook his head, nonplussed.

  “Me neither,” Ikeda agreed. “I’ll fire it over to Nick. Maybe he can work something up by the time our friend wakes up from his little nap…”

  38

  “This was planned, Jason,” Pope started as soon the secure video line blinked into life. “At least, that’
s our working assumption.”

  “Good morning to you too,” Trapp said, lifting a steaming cup of coffee to his mouth and taking a large gulp, regardless of the fact that the previous two had scalded the back of his throat. “Why don’t you start from the beginning? What was planned – and who did the planning?”

  “Hold on,” Pope said, leaning toward the camera and fiddling with his laptop so that the video feed shook uncontrollably. Trapp glanced at Ikeda and Burke, who for all the supposed seriousness of the moment were restraining their shared desire to smile.

  Pope cursed and beckoned Kelly over. The younger, savvier agent instantly achieved what he wanted: sharing his laptop screen. On the Mexican end, an image appeared on-screen. It was of a young man in dress greens with lieutenants’ bars on his shoulders. He was in his early twenties, but already his hairline was halfway up his skull.

  “This,” Pope said, looking slightly flustered as he hove back into view, “is Warren Grover. Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army. Retired. He mustered out back in 2006. Medical discharge. Bad back.”

  “Okay…” Trapp murmured. He drank the rest of his cup. “And why am I looking at him?”

  “We put a face to a name with Conway’s handler,” Pope said, tapping the computer a couple of times and pulling two new photographs onto the screen: the now-familiar surveillance shot from a few days before, and a similar U.S. Army file photograph, again of a young officer.

  “This is Ethan Fitz. Also U.S. Army, Captain, retired. A few years younger than Grover, but he was also discharged in 2006. In October, just like Grover. The day after, in fact.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “When we learned Fitz’s name, we pulled his army files from the National Personnel Records Center down in Missouri. His and everyone he so much as sneezed on. Grover’s file didn’t jump out. His jacket is squeaky clean, just like our boy Ethan here. Looking at what their superiors wrote, they are just about model soldiers. But when you flagged up the name Grover, the connection was easy to make.”

  “What connection?” Trapp asked, naturally enough.