by Marc Cameron
“Kill it,” Jace said, turning off his own bike. At eighteen, he was the oldest, and the mastermind of the would-be gang. Beef, a big Samoan who was about the same age, provided the smaller Jace with the muscle it took to be the leader. He looked ridiculous on his small dirt bike, but no one said anything about it. Chris was sixteen and already had a full beard. His mom also let him get a tattoo of a dagger on his arm, which Bo thought was pretty cool of her. Austin was a wiry kid with a long history of run-ins with the police. He’d been in and out of McLaughlin Youth Center dozens of times, which only added to his mystique among the gang. Bo was the youngest and the best rider of the group by far. He was maturing early, and looked older than he was. He could probably have given Chris a run for his money on a beard, but Bo’s old man was having none of that.
Pete Quinn often said that if either of his sons didn’t keep a decent haircut he’d take them out in the fishing boat and only he and the boat would be coming back. As big and tough as the elder Quinn was, it was an empty threat. He would, however, cut that shaggy hair himself, and the only thing he knew how to do was shear it down to the scalp. Bo wasn’t about to let that happen. He was only fourteen, but old enough to taste the legal freedom of his new motorcycle license, and had recently discovered how much the girls in eighth grade loved his curly blond locks.
Fortunately for Bo, the Coho salmon fishery would keep his dad down on the Kenai for the next couple of weeks. He didn’t have to worry about his hair or the strict curfew his old man enforced. Anchorage, Pete Quinn said, was a different town after midnight, when the meatheads came out in force. That was colorful as his old man’s language ever got. Meatheads. Oh, he had a temper, and was known to have caved in a skull or two over the years, especially if anyone disrespected his wife or boys, but that temper manifested itself through his fists, not his words.
Bo’s mother taught summer school, so she was always exhausted and gone to bed early. Bo’s older brother wanted to get into the Air Force Academy and took his studies much too seriously. He’d been in his room reviewing his brains out when Bo slipped out the back door and rolled the motorcycle down the street nearly a full block before starting it. Bo had made a clean getaway and was free to stay out all night—which was exactly what he planned to do.
Jace said he knew about a poker game at an apartment near the Lucky Wishbone. Bo was pretty good at poker, winning more than he lost in hunting camp with his brother and old man. There’d be some beer at this game, and probably some weed, but Bo thought he’d stick with the beer. His old man drank a beer now and then, so he couldn’t say much if his son decided to imbibe. Getting high, well, that would be a bridge too far in the mind of Pete Quinn.
“Quinn!” Jace snapped him out of his thoughts. “Pull your head out of your ass. You even hear what I said?”
Bo shook his head, flustered at having let the leader of his gang down. “Sorry. What?”
“I said you go in first,” Jace nodded to the apartments at the end of the alley. “You got a trustworthy face. They’ll open the door for you. Big Ray knows me and Beef, so we can’t come in until the door’s open.”
“What do you mean?” Bo said. “If they won’t even let you in the door how do you expect to get in on the game?”
The others laughed. Jace pulled out a small silver pistol. It looked cheap, but Bo knew guns and this one was plenty real. “You idiot,” he said. “We didn’t come to get in on the game. We came here to rob it.”
Bo gritted his teeth. He didn’t want to look stupid in front of his friends, but he didn’t want to commit a felony either.
“You said Ray knows you,” Bo said. “How do you expect to get away with this if he knows who you are?”
“That’s the beauty of it,” Chris said, backing Jace’s play. “It’s an illegal poker game. APD knows about it, but it floats from place to place so they haven’t been able to bust it. No way Ray’s going to report it.”
“Besides,” Beef said. “We’ll be wearing masks.”
Bo’s mouth fell open at that. “You said I had a trustworthy face. That means Ray will know who I am.”
Austin looked at Bo and gave him a half grin. “Don’t piss yourself, kid. You’re young. You never been in trouble before. Even if you did get popped for this, I doubt you’d do more than a couple hours at McLaughlin.”
Bo set his jaw and shook his head again. He’d thought smoking a little weed was a bridge too far. It was obvious all the other boys but him had been privy to the plan.
“I’m not comfortable with this,” he said.
Jace sneered. “So? None of us gives a shit if you’re comfortable. You’re either with us or you’re against us.”
“I’m not doing it.”
Jace brandished the little pistol. “Oh,” he said. “You’re doin’ it all right.”
A new voice from the shadows behind the group caused them all to look up. Bo recognized it immediately and turned to find his brother sitting astride his Harley Davidson Sportster. He wore a half helmet, jeans, and a leather jacket, zipped up against the chilly Alaska evening.
“What the hell?” Jace said, holding the pistol. Every boy knew that Bo’s seventeen-year-old brother was the Golden Glove boxing champion in Alaska.
“Jericho?” Bo said. “What are you doing here?”
The older Quinn sat quietly, considering each boy through narrow eyes, as if they were pieces of meat. That was the thing about Jericho. He was a good enough big brother, but he could scare the piss out of you with a look. Dark, like their mother, he had the intensity of their dad.
“Come on,” Jericho said at length.
Bo nodded to the Sportster. “How’d you sneak up on us with those hellacious pipes?”
Jericho shrugged. “Guess you’re not the only one who can coast a bike. Now come on.”
“Bo’s with us tonight,” Jace said. He tipped his head back and forth, motioning for the others to spread out. Beef rolled toward Jericho while Austin and Chris duck walked their motorcycles to either side, blocking him between the bikes and the back wall of The Lucky Wishbone.
Jericho ignored them, looking instead at Bo. “I said come on.”
Jace chuckled. “You let your brother tell you what to do?”
Bo’s neck burned. He didn’t want to rob the poker game, but he didn’t jump just because his big brother said to either.
“I’ve got this,” he snapped.
“I can see that,” Jericho said. “Now start your bike and ride out of here with me. Mom’s gonna be worried.”
“You just don’t get it, do you, asshole?” Jace said. He gave an almost imperceptible nod to Beef. “Bo’s made his choice. He’s not going anywhere. His mommy will be fine.”
Jericho took a long breath, staring directly at Jace.
“Let’s go,” he said again.
The Harley roared to life.
Beef rolled forward, further closing the distance. “You should get outta here before I drag you off your bike and shove that helmet up your—
Jericho didn’t go much for threats. He never had. Bo shook his head and watched as his brother popped the clutch, holding the front brake to throw up a cloud of white smoke from the spinning rear tire. The wheel came around fast, slamming into a startled Beef and catching the big Samoan’s leg between the rear sprocket and the engine of his own bike. The snapping bone was audible even over the brap of the Harley.
Both Chris and Austin bailed off their bikes, rushing Jericho from both sides.
“You son of a bitch!” Jace screamed, riding his motorcycle straight at Bo, colliding with the front tire.
Bo scrambled off in time to keep from getting run over. Seething with anger, he peeled off his helmet and swung it like a club, catching Jace in the side of the head and dropping him like a tree.
“That’s for calling my brother an asshole,” he said, spinning to help Jericho.
Chris and Austin were already flat on the pavement, noses smeared across their faces. Beef leaned
against his bike clutching the injured leg.
The big kid spoke through clenched teeth. “You gonna call me an ambulance or something?”
“Nope,” Jericho said. He didn’t explain himself, but it was apparent that he thought the boys should have anticipated that things were bound to get a little bloody.
He swung a leg back over his Harley and looked at Bo. “Are you okay?”
Bo nodded. “I thought we were just going to play some cards,” he said. “I wasn’t gonna rob anybody.”
“I know that,” Jericho said.
Bo strapped his helmet back on.
“Are you gonna tell Mom?”
“Nope,” Jericho said. “Not unless she catches us coming in. I won’t lie for you.”
“I didn’t really need any help,” Bo said after he’d climbed back on his own bike. “I’m a better rider than any of those guys. I could have just run away.”
Jericho shook his head. “Running away from these meatheads is something you should have done a long time ago,” he said, sounding an awful lot like their old man.
Chapter 3
Argentina
Present Day
Bo awoke with something sharp digging into the point of his hip. He couldn’t move his arms, and for a terrifying moment, he thought he might be paralyzed. Scenes from the kidnapping came flooding back into his mind—overturned motorcycles, Steven’s roar as he ran to check on Eva, and then the staggering blow to the back of his helmet. Alma’s shouts of warning echoed in his ears with Matt’s childlike screams.
Searing pain now seeped into his neck. His eyes felt as though they were filled with hot sand. He blinked to clear his vision, finding the toe of a leather hiking boot a few inches from his face. A small man with the build of a jockey, dressed in designer jeans and a blue V-neck sweater spoke to him in hoarse, whispered Spanish—as if he’d been hit in the throat. The man was young, a boy really, and looked like a student from some Ivy League school. Foreign languages were his brother’s thing, but Bo had picked up a lot over the course of this trip. Still in a fog, he had no idea what was being said. The words came again, more pointed this time. Beside Ivy League’s seat, leaning against the wall of the van, was an aluminum baseball bat.
Alma’s trembling voice followed. “He wants you to sit up,” she said.
Bo groaned, drawing his legs around so he could get his knees under him. His hands were cuffed tightly behind him, and he could hardly feel them. They were no help at all. “Kind of stuck here,” he grunted, feeling a wave of nausea wash over him as he spoke. He gagged, nearly passing out again, and then felt rough hands grab him by the armored shoulders of his motorcycle jacket, hauling him upright.
He blinked again, fighting the grinding pain in his neck as he turned to get a better look at his situation. He breathed a sigh of measured relief when he saw everyone in his group was still alive. They were all in the back of what appeared to be a panel van with seats running along both sides. This was the one that had pulled in behind them after they’d left the hotel. Three men sat with them in the back of the van. Alma sat across from Bo, next to Ivy League. Her cuffs wrenched her elbows backward, giving her a defiant pose, though the terrified look on her face said she was anything but. Her left eye was red and swollen. Bo knew her well enough to know she would be the type to have put up a fight. His chest convulsed at the thought of someone harming her and he resolved to find out exactly which one of these guys had done it. Hell, it didn’t matter. They were all complicit in this, and if he had anything to say about it, they would all pay.
I wish you’d get here soon, Jericho, he thought, forcing his fevered brain to do the math about how long it would take to travel from DC to Buenos Aires. He nearly cried when he looked at the faces of the men who’d taken them and realized it was just too far away. Jericho would never be able to get here in time. His head lolled, feeling much too heavy to keep upright on his neck.
A fat man in a tight t-shirt slumped to Alma’s left, gripping his leg with a white-knuckled hand. Like Ivy League, this one was young, and could have easily been in his second year of college or technical school. There was something about them both that was off—if there was anything average about kidnappers, none of these fit the description. Their clothing was on the expensive end of stylish. Cable-like tendons flexed on the side of his neck. A string of invective flew from his mouth with a spray of saliva. He was obviously in pain.
Bo squinted. Nausea still rolled through his gut, but he was beginning to get a handle on it. He didn’t have to speak Spanish to understand that the curses from this one were aimed at him. Bo had broken this one’s leg with his motorcycle during the initial assault, and the injured man now wanted his pound of flesh.
A third kidnapper used a mobile phone to snap photographs of Steven and Matt where they were seated along the van’s windowless wall on either side of Bo. This one was much older than the other two, with a thick silver mustache under a hawkish nose. Bo thought he heard Ivy League call him Bruno. He made a mental note of the name, wondering if his aching brain would be able to hang on to even that tiny fragment of information.
Without windows, it was impossible to pinpoint their location. Bo had been to Buenos Aires before, but didn’t know it well, so it wouldn’t likely have mattered. Wherever they were, the road was far from smooth. Ivy League smiled passively as he watched Alma try to maintain her balance. Bo had seen that look before. This guy was enjoying her predicament, hoping she’d fall. If she didn’t, he’d push her soon enough. His youthful face held a twisted glee when he looked at either of the women, like they were wrapped presents that he could not wait to open. None of the prisoners were human to him—which, Bo knew, made him all the more dangerous.
You could do whatever you wanted to a thing.
Steven and Eva now sat across from each other on either side of the van. Their separation only added to the torture. Eva’s shoulders shuddered in uncontrolled sobs. Steven gazed at nothing, slack-jawed, his eyes unfocused as if he’d been drugged. Dried blood crusted his nostrils. The guy with the silver mustache didn’t seem to care and took all their photos anyway. Matt used a shoulder to wipe a string of drool from the corner of his mouth, as if he wanted to be presentable in his proof-of-life photo. Alma shook her head in shame and disgust.
Matt looked sideways to shoot a daggered glance at Bo as soon as Bruno took the photo.
“You had one job,” he said, his voice tinny, sounding like it might shatter into a thousand pieces at any moment. “You were supposed to keep this from happening.”
Bo could have argued, but he didn’t. This was his fault. His mom always said that no matter how thin you sliced a cheese, there were always two sides. But that wasn’t true. Sometimes there was just cheese on one side . . . and nothing but shit on the other. Matt was right. Bo was the one charged with their safety, and here they were—smack in the most dangerous situation imaginable. He should have taken a less direct route out of town as soon as he’d discovered Matt’s leak to social media.
Everyone else seemed to have sense enough not to engage, but Matt turned his attention to the kidnappers. “Where are you taking us?”
They ignored him, one of them in pain, the other two indifferent faces swaying with the moving van.
The one with the broken leg locked in on Bo, still seething.
“We are guests in your country.” Matt pressed, as if appealing to the better nature of the kidnappers. “You have no right to hold us captive.”
Ivy League lifted the tail of his sweater, revealing the grip of a black Taurus pistol. “This gives me the all the rights I need,” he said in accented English.
Bo tried to catch Matt’s eye, shaking his head to get him to shut up before he got himself—or someone else hurt. Matt would have none of it.
“Which one of you is in charge?”
Ivy League nodded toward the front, on the other side of a metal partition.
“My father has money,” Matt said. Alma threw back her
head, exasperated at the stupidity, but Matt wasn’t finished. “He will make it worth your while to let me go.”
It was not lost on Bo, or, from the look on Alma’s face, on her either, that Matt made no mention of freeing anyone else in the group.
“A lot of money do you think?” Ivy League asked.
Matt gave an emphatic nod. “He’s rich, if you want to know the truth.”
“Oh my talkative friend,” Ivy League said. “But I already know the truth. Do you think we have reason to grab people who have no money?”
Matt slumped in defeat.
“Idiot,” Alma said under her breath, adding a few Spanish curses for good measure.
The kidnappers laughed.
Both Steven and Eva hung their heads.
The one with the broken leg scooted forward, his face just inches from Bo. He ponderous gut caused him to grunt. Beads of sweat covered a wide forehead. Shock and adrenaline soured his breath. He’d decided to speak English now, and did so surprisingly well.
“Some of you are worth money,” he said. “Others are not. I think you are one that is not. These others stink of wealth, but you . . . I think you are only their guide. Guides have no money to speak of, certainly not enough to pay a ransom.”
“You are sorely mistaken,” Alma said. “He’s not our guide, he’s my boyfriend.”
Matt’s head snapped up at that, but he said nothing.
The fat guy turned to sneer at Alma. “Then you are worthless as well.”
Alma shrugged. “We’ll see.”
Ivy League smiled, turning sideways to give Alma a slow once-over. “Oh, my dear,” he said in his otherworldly whisper. “You have worth to me.”
The fat one chuckled despite his broken leg. He directed his glare back at Bo. “They have told us we can have anyone who is not worth the ransom.”
“Some we will kill,” Ivy League said, and then turned to Alma. “Some, we will . . . entertain.”
A small metal plate in the front partition slid open. It was immediately filled with a round face. “Stop scaring the merchandise, La Pulga,” the man said. “We’re not killing anyone.”