The Crypt Trilogy Bundle

by Bill Thompson

  She swallowed hard and sighed. “Do I get to see anything too, or do I have to show and tell all by myself?”

  “Of course.” He stood, pulled his T-shirt over his head, stepped out of a pair of old sandals and unzipped his shorts in one quick move. They fell to the floor, revealing his swollen erection. “All yours,” he said with a scornful laugh.

  Just keep your mind on something else and it’ll be done before you know it.

  Hailey slowly pulled off her shirt and he ogled her breasts, their pert nipples involuntarily hard despite her circumstances. She lowered the zipper of her shorts, kicked off her shoes and took a deep breath. Her pants hit the floor. She stepped out of them and stood naked in front of her kidnapper.

  He walked to her and cupped a breast in each of his dirty hands. He began to massage them slowly. She reached down to take him in her hand. The sooner this all happened, the faster she’d be finished with this episode. She stroked him, and then he said the words she’d hoped not to hear.

  “Get on your knees in front of me. You know what to do.”

  Fifteen minutes ago Paul was watching as the guard delivered Hailey to Rolando’s shack. He had no doubt what was about to happen. He regretted that he couldn’t help her, but the fate of the entire group rested in his ability to remain hidden. He had to continue observing the routine of the rebels to see where there were opportunities. His mind raced with ideas for a plan, but it hadn’t come together yet. There were too many guards to deal with at one time. He could extricate a hostage here, a hostage there, but he wasn’t sure what that would accomplish. They’d be missed at the next head count and the others would be punished … or worse. This far from civilization, everyone’s best chance for survival was here in the camp, where the food and shelter were. He needed time for a plan, but time was running out for the captives. If Rolando followed through with his threat, the executions could begin in three days. He had to act quickly.

  Hailey walked out of Rolando’s cabin, buttoning her shirt as she passed everyone without a word. She went to the water bag, grabbed a cup, took a huge drink, rinsed and spit it on the ground. She sat down next to Alison and they embraced. Alison sobbed – so did some of the others. But Hailey didn’t. Paul saw furious determination in her clenched jaw, her angry face. The man may have gotten what he wanted, but this female was someone to reckon with. She had stamina whereas many of the others didn’t. She could be a huge help when the time came for action.

  Paul moved stealthily through the woods along the fringe of the campsite, watching the hostages go into the cave for the night. Mark and Ted went last, making sure everyone was accounted for. They’d done the same thing yesterday, and now Paul waited, hoping something else he’d observed last night would happen again. And it did. Bringing up the rear, the archaeologist walked away from the sentry at the cave entrance. He stopped at the water bag and filled his cup.

  In a split second Paul made his move. He emerged from the jungle right in front of Mark, his finger on his lips. Less than twenty feet away, eight rebels talked and smoked around the dying campfire. A ninth was even closer, talking to the one guarding the cave entrance. Paul handed Mark a piece of paper; then he disappeared back into the forest. Mark stuck it in his pocket and walked nonchalantly back to the cave.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Ten exhausted people lay stunned on their cots, each lost in thought. Most were convinced they were going to die. They all had reached that sobering conclusion independently after hearing what Rolando had planned for those whose ransoms weren’t paid. Several people doubted their families could raise the money in time, if at all. Others could only hope that the money would arrive and Rolando would honor his commitment to release them. That was a long shot few believed would happen. A few others pondered how to escape into a jungle full of equally frightening dangers as what they faced from the rebel leader.

  Mark sat on his cot and read Paul’s note. Then he rested, glancing at his watch every few minutes. In less than an hour the others were in some form of restless slumber. Some were having tortured dreams – they groaned or called out. Others tossed and turned on the crude, uncomfortable cots. At exactly eleven o’clock, Mark put on his shoes and walked quietly to the entrance, careful not to wake the others. From here he could see the guard sitting in his chair, smoking a cigarette. Per Paul’s instructions, he waited just inside the front of the dark cave.

  Paul’s job was to distract the guard. From observation last night he knew the sentry left his post frequently to relieve himself, talk to a perimeter guard or just walk around. After all, no one in the cave was going anywhere, so he didn’t see the need to be particularly diligent about guarding them when they were asleep. Five minutes passed as the guard puffed his smoke then did something he did ten times a night, every time he had a cigarette. He tossed the butt into the bushes a foot from where Paul was standing. That was what Paul had waited for. He pulled out a lighter, bent down and cupped the flame with his hand. He lit the leaves around the cigarette butt. As soon as they caught, he crept silently toward the cave entrance.

  Soon the guard noticed a plume of smoke coming from where he’d tossed the butt. Cursing, he got up, walked to the spot and stamped out the burning leaves. When he did, Mark slipped out of the cave, saw Paul standing nearby, and followed him.

  The men sneaked through the bushes until they reached the trail that led back to Piedras Negras. Giving him a signal for silence, Paul motioned for Mark to follow. They walked for ten minutes then stopped and sat, sufficiently far from the camp to talk in whispers.

  Mark asked, “How did you get away, and how did you find us?”

  “There’s no time to go into it now. I’ve been watching you all day and I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll get you out of here. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

  In a few minutes Paul outlined the plan he’d created during his hours in the jungle today. Mark listened, saying nothing until he was finished. He asked a few questions and nodded. There was really no alternative since Paul was the only one of them who was free.

  Paul said, “I need your help. It’s not a good idea to tell anyone else I’m here – there’s too big a chance someone might be coerced or tortured into telling Rolando about me. Also please don’t let anyone attempt anything crazy in the next three days. Just tell them you’re working on a plan. Very soon Rolando’s going to know I’m here anyway – I just want to lie low for now to get the upper hand. My idea may not work, but give it a chance. Right now it’s all we have. As long as Rolando doesn’t know I exist, I can help. As bad as it is, we can get out of this. There are things in my past that will serve all of us well.”

  “Your past? What exactly…”

  Paul shook his head. “I can’t tell you that – you know the old joke ‘I’d have to kill you’? That’s what I’m talking about.”

  “So you’re CIA or something…”

  “Or something. And I was, but not anymore.” Little white lies were the least of Paul’s concerns right now.

  The last thing they worked out was a way to communicate. Mark was to go to the water bag every evening before bedtime to see if Paul wanted to pass information along.

  Thirty minutes later the guard got up, stretched and strolled around the campsite. Mark sneaked back into the cave and Paul slipped away into the night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The United States Embassy in Mexico City was already on full alert when Rolando’s shortwave radio transmission arrived. Three days earlier the ambassador had briefed his senior staff about the missing Americans. Even the White House was involved in this one, he advised, stressing the urgency and importance of the situation. Five additional FBI agents fluent in Spanish came in yesterday – they and two senior embassy people had immediately been sent to Villahermosa to assist the others in the so far fruitless search. Today they’d all driven to Palenque, following the route of the missing bus.

  Like most outposts in third world countries, this embassy had a
shortwave radio. It was so rarely used that when Rolando began talking that morning, the transmission startled the person in the office where it sat. The radio’s messages were recorded like every other communication coming into the embassy. Within minutes the US Department of State and the FBI knew the missing Americans had been kidnapped and their captor wanted a ransom. Messages from each captive to his or her own family were sent too – from that the FBI knew this was the real thing, not an unconnected con artist trying to make money off a busload of missing persons.

  The search was ramped up and the hostage messages were passed along to their loved ones. The victims’ families were asked to keep the ransom demands confidential for a few days. The FBI wanted to find the hostages quickly and without the high-profile pressure that would come from this news.

  The kidnapper instructed that ransoms be wired to a small bank in Venezuela, a country generally unfriendly to US interests and unwilling to cooperate with criminal investigations. Although US authorities didn’t know it, Rolando had set up two more transfers, in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. That was enough to keep the US government from learning who was getting the money or where it was ultimately headed.

  Now that they knew a crime had been committed, the embassy’s switchboard operators were put on full alert. Any call about the situation was given top priority. Attachés were on duty twenty-four hours a day.

  The day after the kidnapper sent the shortwave transmission, the telephone operator on duty took a call. A man’s voice said, “Transfer me to whoever is handling the missing Americans. Now!”

  She sent the call immediately to a monitored, recorded line. As soon as the attaché answered, an FBI agent at the next desk put on headphones. A computer began a GPS search for the caller’s location.

  The voice said, “Listen closely because I don’t have much time. I’m on your side – I’m going to help rescue the hostages and I need the kidnapper’s instructions about where to send the money.”

  The FBI agent believed the caller was a man speaking Americanized English like TV newscasters – with no hint of a regional accent. This could mean more than one thing. Maybe a person had learned English as a second language, but it could also point to someone born or raised in the Midwestern USA.

  “First let me get your name,” the attaché said calmly, reading the first line of a script in front of him.

  “Did you hear me? There’s very little time. Give me the information.”

  “How do you know that the hostages are being ransomed? That information’s not –”

  The caller interrupted curtly. “If one of these people dies because of your stupidity, then you can live with that the rest of your life. Tell me how to pay the ransom. NOW!”

  The FBI agent nodded his head and the attaché picked up a second sheet. With a lump in his throat, he began to read the instructions. It was a sobering thought to know that the words you were saying might save an American life. Or lose one.

  As soon as Paul had the wire transfer information, he disconnected. People sprang into action, analyzing the call word by word and attempting to learn the phone’s location. They got very little from the analysis and nothing at all from GPS. Paul’s satellite phone was equipped with a feature that bounced his location from place to place across the globe every three seconds. All the FBI got was a frustrating list with dozens of random city names.

  Next Paul sent an email to his bank in Rome. The message contained twenty-two words and a series of numbers. It was short, but hopefully it would work.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Days after it was abandoned, the nearly new tour bus still sat in the woods near Frontera Corozal. By now it was getting grimy and dusty.

  A couple of middle-aged village ladies who sold trinkets to the tourists lived on the outskirts of town. They walked from home to the river and back every day, passing less than twenty feet from the hidden coach each time. On the sixth morning after it had been abandoned, they got started a little later than usual. The sun was already climbing into the sky and they saw a bright reflection in the trees.

  They ran to the tree line to see what it might be. There sat a huge motor coach. One of them screamed with delight, “There’s been a story on TV about a missing bus and a big reward!” Their day selling trinkets now forgotten, they rushed back to their houses and told their teenage sons, who rushed to check it out. They tested the bus door and found it unlocked. That was a pleasant surprise; they had been prepared to break in. The boys rummaged around in the seats, finding sacks, water bottles and even a pair of binoculars. These tourists must have left in a hurry. The boys took everything that was loose, stuffing it into a bag they’d brought. Then one of them noticed something else.

  “Look at this! There’s a note in this seat.”

  Mark Linebarger had scribbled a letter on a piece of paper. It described his group of Americans and explained everything that had happened, beginning with the hijacking by the man called Rolando. He told about the execution of the driver and surmised they were going to go on the river. He had carefully folded the letter; then he wrote large words on the outside in Spanish. “GIVE THIS TO THE POLICE IMMEDIATELY. THERE HAS BEEN A MURDER!”

  The archaeologist had no way to know if Rolando and the other rebels might do a last walk-through before abandoning the bus. If they did, they’d surely find his note and destroy it. If they didn’t, he could only hope someone else might come across it and do as he asked.

  Fortunately it worked. The anxious looters first took their spoils home, and then they headed straight to the house of the one police officer in their town. They banged on the tin door of his house that doubled as the police station. He read the note and ordered the boys to take him to the bus. He did a quick walk-through and then he called the superintendent of Federal Police in Tuxtla Gutierrez, the capital.

  The policeman was instructed to guard the bus until the federales arrived. This morning he sat on the first step of the coach with his gun drawn and a stern look on his face as he brushed inquisitive townspeople away. Everyone had heard that the bus, the subject of a national search, had been found right here in their very town. It was the most exciting day in history.

  “This is a crime scene!” he yelled to anyone who approached. “I will arrest you if you come closer!” He was enjoying his important role.

  No one liked him. He was always full of himself because he got to carry a gun and he had a car furnished by the state of Chiapas. No matter that it was ten years old and belched smoke. You’d have thought he was the mayor of Tuxtla the way he treated other people with disdain.

  Despite his threats, people nosed around the bus, asked him questions, and pushed his buttons, knowing he wasn’t going to shoot anyone or arrest them. Despite that, the cop did a good job keeping the crowds away, which wasn’t hard because there weren’t many people in Frontera Corozal.

  By nightfall the local cop’s role was over and the little river town had almost doubled in population. It was so remote – so far from a major highway – that getting there had been a major task involving hours of driving. There were officials from the American Embassy in Mexico City, federal agents from Tuxtla Gutierrez, and enough police and militia to battle a small army. Most had come by plane to Palenque airport, where some hired floatplanes to bring them on to Frontera Corozal.

  The visitors booked every room at the lodge, many bunking two or three to a room, but there were far more people than accommodations. The locals opened up extra bedrooms in their homes. By midnight all the newcomers had beds and knew the plan for tomorrow.

  People congregated in the dining room the next morning at six. The lodge’s manager called in extra staff to fix breakfast and coffee for the dozens of guests. Around ten a satellite news truck from Aguascalientes TV arrived from Palenque, only a hundred miles away but requiring over nine hours of driving on poorly maintained roads. They’d been driving all night and were thrilled to smell hot coffee and bacon as they piled out of their truck. By noon the n
etwork’s crew was beaming coverage from a field close to the bus that was still being scoured by federales and the FBI.

  The note had said the hostages might be taken away by boat, so the investigation started there. Many of the men who drove the longboats also owned them, although hired drivers operated a few. The officers quickly realized that there was no official list of boats or drivers, no licensing process, and no way to know exactly how many drivers or boats there were. Today there were twelve longboats tied up at the dock. Several other slips were empty; the police were told those boats were already downriver, ferrying early-bird tourists to Yaxchilan. Ten drivers were on the dock; two more hadn’t shown up yet. Those two were Ruben and Pablo Ochoa. The local policeman was dispatched to bring them in for questioning.

  The authorities commandeered two of the lodge’s rooms, where police and Spanish-speaking FBI agents interrogated each boat driver. Meanwhile, floatplanes scoured the river all afternoon, searching for signs of habitation but finding nothing.

  Ruben and Pablo considered themselves fortunate. On the night they’d been hired to go to Piedras Negras, it had been late. All the other drivers were already at home, so no one saw them. The one thing Ruben didn’t know was that Pablo had made the same trip again the very next night, ferrying another American downriver and returning alone before dawn. Pablo kept that trip – and the five hundred dollars Paul had paid for the ride – to himself.

  Days ago when Ruben first saw the newscast, he had gone straight to Pablo’s house. Ruben was upset that they couldn’t claim the ten-thousand-dollar reward. They didn’t know exactly where the bus was, but they had a good idea where the hostages had been taken. They’d even seen the kidnappers. Ruben figured with a little searching they could have found the bus somewhere nearby.

  As enticing as the reward money was, they couldn’t risk it. They couldn’t say anything without implicating themselves. They’d end up in prison as accessories to a crime instead of becoming the wealthiest citizens of Frontera Corozal.