by L. J. Martin
But how many? And I was hoping I’d catch them asleep. The weather gods were with us, but the sleep gods seem to be working against us.
16
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
I don’t plan to stay in this hole—did I mention I’m a little claustrophobic?—for any longer than I absolutely have to, so there’s no waiting for the TV watchers to nod off. As I don’t know where the women might be, I don’t want lead flying around the room—Sammy might be a little upset if I brought Margo back full of holes. I palm the mace can and flip the little protective cover off. Then I whisper into the radio. “I’m going balls out.”
“10-4,” comes back.
I free one of the flash grenades from my web belt, give the door a shove, but only four inches, and it squeaks like a ruptured duck, pull the pin and count three as I hear a voice, “What the hell?” and roll the grenade into the room. I turn away and cover my ears and feel the shock of the explosion as I fill my right hand with the Glock and ready the mace in my left. I try and shove the door open enough to pass through, but it sticks and I have to put my back to the wall and kick the hell out of it, and only then charge through.
Two guys had been playing cards, drinking cans of beer, and watching the tube. Both are stumbling around, one on his knees, and filling their hands with semi-autos from their belts.
I charge ten feet into the room and go to work with the mace—luckily they’re still stunned from the grenade—hitting the standing guy, who’s about Skip’s size, full in the face and he roars and covers his eyes with both hands, one still holding his semi-auto pistol. He’s gasping like a guppy in stagnant water.
The other guy is on his knees, taking deep racking breaths like an asthmatic and shaking his head back and forth trying to focus his vision and stop the reverberation of his eardrums. The flash grenade has done its work. I gas him full in the face, step up and swing a boot into the side of his head and the pistol flies across the room, skittering on the concrete floor. He goes down to his side, crying like a scalded cat and rubbing at his eyes.
The first guy can’t see or breathe, but he’s panning the semi-auto around the room like he might have a target. I use my own Glock as a club and bring the butt of the grip down on his wrist. His pistol goes to the floor and I kick it away to join the other one.
It’s time to make this end so I holster my Glock, palm my sap, and crack him on the side of the head. He’s an animal, and only goes to his knees, so I crack him even harder and this time he hits the floor like a sack of rocks, unmoving.
They’re both out cold, but I want a little insurance so I do their wrists behind their backs with the cable ties and drag one close enough to the other that I can cable tie them together. They’re still gasping and coughing, and tears pour from their eyes.
Only then do I survey the room. It’s lit only by a desk lamp on a card table, now covered with loose playing cards, and the TV that’s showing a rerun of some old movie.
There are two cyclone fence cages against the back wall—they remind me of prefab dog kennels. In one Margo Castiano is sitting on her butt on the cold concrete, trying to rub the flash out of her eyes. The other one is standing with door open, and vacant.
Where the hell is Tammy Houston?
I hustle to Margo’s door, also cyclone fence, and find it locked and chained but this time it’s a simple Master lock. I could probably pic it about as quickly, but instead hustle back to the culvert access and radio up to Skip to throw down the bolt cutters.
And get no answer.
So I call out just in case the radio has failed. “Skip! Where the hell are you?”
Nothing.
Where the fuck is Skip?
So I hustle back and pick the lock. I help Margo to her feet then notice a half-empty quart bottle of hooch on the floor next to where she was sitting.
“Margo, we’ve got to go,” I say.
“Go where?” she stammers, and I realize she’s hoot owl drunk.
“Out of here. You like that cage?”
She giggles. Jesus, I’m dealing with a drunken woman, my partner is missing, and I’ve got a twenty-foot ladder to climb. Fuck.
“Margo. These guys were going to cut you into kabobs and send you back to your old man in little packages…after they feed your boobs to the pigs. I’d suggest you sober up so we can get the hell out of here.”
“Les’ go. I remember you. You wouldn’t take a Jacuzzi with me.”
“Move it.” I shove her to the culvert door and inside. She has on flip-flops, which are not exactly ladder-climbing gear. “Kick off the go-aheads and start climbing.”
“I can’t climb that fuckin’ ladder,” she stammers.
“Well, I can, and I’m leaving your drunken ass here if you don’t get with it. You wanna go back to your Jacuzzi, right?”
“Okay, okay…here I go.”
If you’ve never tried to climb a ladder in a narrow space with your shoulder in an older lady’s crotch, while she’s missing every other rung and falling back on you, you just haven’t lived. It takes us a full ten minutes, and I have no idea what I’m going to find at the top…but we get there and she flops on her butt on the cold concrete floor of the pump house, and giggles. I am busy panning my Glock wondering where the hell my partner is, and finding no one.
I go to the doorway and study the dark landscape outside. It’s still raining, but not a deluge as before. Nothing. Skip has disappeared.
I drag Margo through the dark, working our way through the apples, ducking and dodging while she bitches and moans. My first business is to save the woman, so I haul ass out of there. As we hit the highway, I aim the van toward Paso and my first call is to Sammy.
“I got your lady.”
“Thank God. She okay?”
“She’s been nursing her woes with a bottle, but she seems fine. Come get her.”
“We’ll pick her up…where? The Paso airport?”
“I’ve got to go back to the winery. I’m missing a buddy and haven’t found Tammy. I’m not taking Margo to the airport as they may look for us there. There’s a Hampton Inn in town. I’ll call you with a room number when I check her in.”
“I don’t want you to leave her.”
“I got no choice, Sammy. I got other business. My buddy may be in bad trouble.”
“She’d better be there.”
“Just get your ass up here and get her.”
I ring off and immediately call Pax, who I awaken.
“Where do I bail you out this time?” he answers without bothering with hello. He’s obviously not so sleepy he can’t read caller ID.
“Skip is missing. Get your ass over here. I’ve only got one flash left, so stock up but make it quick. This may be balls out so bring what you think we need.” I don’t want to go into detail over a cell phone, and don’t have to as Pax will come ready for a small war.
“I’ll charter and call you when I touch down.”
I get Margo checked in using one of my phony driver’s licenses, then call Sammy with the room number.
If these Albanian a-holes have hurt my buddy Skip, I plan to bring their whole world down on them.
17
I think it’s time to make a move on the main house, as it’s the obvious place for him to be if they got the drop on him…but I remember barking dogs when I formerly got close. And dogs are difficult to deal with. I like dogs, and hate the thought of putting a couple down that are only doing their jobs. I’m sure that’s where they’ll have Tammy stowed as well, as they’ve lost one woman and don’t want to lose another without getting paid what’s owed.
Going straight to an all-night minimarket, I hope I find the solution to the mutts.
I buy two bottles of hydrogen peroxide, a half-dozen meat burritos, and some sandwich bags. I fill the bags about a third with peroxide and tie them tight, making a small balloon of liquid peroxide, then carefully place one in the center of each burrito. Now if I can get close enough to the h
ounds without being eaten, maybe I can coax them into partaking of a little doctored Mexican chow. Upchucking dogs are usually interested in little else while they’re emptying their stomachs, then shortly the other end, on the lawn.
Torn between going straight to the Castiano main house or waiting for Skip, I decide to actually use my head and get some backup before I storm the castle ramparts. It’s a long two and a half hour wait until I get a call on the cell, and the phone spits out Ring of Fire and I know it’s Pax.
“Ten minutes out,” he says.
“Good. Lax security at the Paso airport so I’ll be on the tarmac at Central Coastal, the FBO. We gotta get there before light if there’s any way. So haul ass into the van.”
“10-4,” he replies.
And he does, but he has to make two trips from plane to van as he’s got three four foot long duffle bags as freight, and they’re all three full. He brought enough stuff to storm nearby Fort Hunter Liggett Army Base.
We roar off to the winery.
“So, what’s in your bags of tricks?”
“Hell, a little bit of everything. An RPG being the biggest. Two M4’s with four clips each—.223’s with Picatinny rail systems, Grip Pod vertical forward grip, both with M68 CCO sights. I also brought the .308 with night vision. Two battle-rattle belts. Kevlar vests. Grenades…shock and fragmentation. Combat shotgun, M15g with grenade launcher. Standard stuff.”
“You da man,” I say and we’re silent as we roar east on Highway 46, and as Pax studies the layout of the house on the plans Sammy has provided.
He finally looks up, “Any idea at all where they might have Skip?”
“If they have him, and haven’t planted him out in the orchard somewhere. And I still don’t have the lady.”
“They’ve got a wine cellar as big as a three-car garage. That would be my guess if you want to keep someone out of sight of the help, and I’ll bet they have lots of help.”
I glance at my watch. It’s five AM and the sun is beginning to lighten the eastern sky in front of us.
We gotta move.
I’ve decided it’s best to split up. Me on the Harley, Pax with the van.
I sling an M4 over my shoulder, strap on my vest and battle-rattle, load my sack of burritos into a saddle bag, and when we get to the west edge of the winery take a two track until I think we’re about even with the main house. We both have radios with ear buds. Giving Pax instructions about how to get around to the back, and down the lane closer to the house, I fire up the Harley and take a ride into the vineyards—not on a road but between the rows of vines.
I get close then idle to within a hundred yards of the house and park the Harley Iron as deep under the vineyard wires and vines as I can get it. I’m walking into a sky beginning to show a line of orange at the horizon. We don’t have much time if darkness is to be our friend.
The dogs begin to bark before I get fifty yards from the yard. As best I can tell, the front of the house is behind a six or seven-foot plastered wall, probably concrete block. The back, however, is a cyclone wire fence mostly covered with wisteria. When I’m only six feet from the fence, two very large, obviously angry, Dobermans are bouncing off the fence trying to get to my throat. I plop down, cross-legged, and work to look harmless and content as Buddha and commune with the doggie gods, waiting until they begin to tire of barking and are reduced to growling.
Only then do I move forward and drop a burrito over the fence.
At first they ignore it, having returned to a vicious cacophony of barks, which they keep up for at least five minutes. Again, they’re reduced to growling, until one of them sniffs the burrito, then in two bites, it’s gone. This time when I approach the fence, it’s only growling, and I drop two more. Dobe One eats his second and Dobe Two his first. Again I approach and the growls are barely discernable. The final three burritos barely bounce on the turf before they’re in doggie darkness, and barely out of sight before Dobe One begins to stagger a little, then retch, then projectile vomit.
I activate the radio and give Pax a heads up. “Dogs handled. You in place?”
“10-4.”
Dobe Two almost immediately follows suit with the upchucking, and as I vault the fence, neither dog pays me any mind. Both are busily emptying their stomachs and I know they will be for some time. Hydrogen peroxide and doggie stomachs don’t mix. They’ll be no worse for the wear, but it’ll be tomorrow or next week before they think of Mexican food again.
I have to skirt a large swimming pool to reach the house, but then I’m deep in some shrubbery, my eyes trying to make sense of the interior of the house in the darkness. Obviously there are no motion detectors scanning the lawn or the dogs would set them off.
The Albanians are not early risers.
I’m looking into a rec room and know from the plans that it has two sliding doors out onto the pool patio, and also has a bathroom with shower and a pass through door to the outside. I’d already decided that the bathroom is my portal to the inside. I’m sure the sliders are alarmed, but the bathroom door may not be as it’s got both a deadbolt and a lock on the knob.
Pax has had plenty of time to get set up on the corner of the property—the house, pool and guest house are inside a two-acre fenced area—and it’s the high side, almost ten feet above the opposite corner offering him the best field of fire. He has both an M4 and the .308 with both night vision scope and open sights when the scope’s removed from the rails.
It only takes me five minutes to pick both locks, but it’s Murphy’s law, and all hell breaks loose when I open the door. I have the presence of mind to lock them behind me even with the blaring of sirens and bells in my ears. If they’ve killed Skip and Tammy, even they are awakened by the alarms. I sprint across the rec room to where there’s a sixteen foot wet bar with eight or ten stools, and duck behind it.
It’s only thirty seconds before I hear two guys running down a hallway, shouting at each other. One enters the rec room and heads straight for the bathroom. The alarm system obviously identifies the area of intrusion.
I can see between the crack of a small swinging door that opens into the wet bar and watch the guy as the room light comes on and he moves into the bath, a semi-auto in hand.
In seconds he yells back. “No one here. No break-in. Doors are locked. Must have been that fucking cat again.”
“Check outside,” one voice says, and I hear a sliding door roll open.
I can’t help but smile. You gotta love cats that set off house alarms.
Then another voice comes from the hall. “What’s going on?”
I take the opportunity to whisper into the radio, “Company coming.”
And get a whispered, “10-4.”
“It’s okay, Mr. Gashi. Go on back to bed. We got this.”
“Bullshit. What’s up?”
“It’s just that damned cat again. If your old lady—“
“Watch your mouth, Fitor.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did Rostov get here yet? I want this big blonde asshole out of here. Anybody find his car yet?”
“No sir.”
“And no sign of the Castiano woman?”
“No, sir. We figure Sammy and his boys got her and are long gone.”
“And the big guy?”
“Hired help. He keeps saying he’s just a burglar and was by himself, but that’s bullshit as common thieves don’t wear no five grand night vision. I figure they don’t give a shit about him. Sammy got his old lady back. We’ll head back down and twist blonde boy’s tail some more when we make sure things are good here.”
Gashi growls, “Yeah, Sammy’s happy…until we waste them all.”
“You ready for us to go to work on the singer bitch? She’s scared shitless watching us work the big blonde guy over. We should get the plane over here and haul her to Nashville if that’s where she’s got dough.”
“I’ll think about that. I’m gonna call her manager first. I’d way rather have my dough than croak
her ass. And hauling her around the country is dangerous.”
“Okay.”
“But first,” the guy called Gashi says, “I’m gonna get me a couple more hours of zees.”
“Yes, sir. We’re on this. Bosco is checking the grounds, just to make sure.”
I’m beginning the cramp up, kneeling behind the bar for fifteen minutes, watching the only guy left in the room as he walks to a far wall, picks up a tuner and clicks on CNN to take in the early morning news. He’s got dirty blonde hair, and if his dark eyebrows are an indication, it’s dyed. He either had a hell of a case of smallpox as a kid, or his acne ran amuck as his face is the surface of the moon.
Finally he walks to the still-open sliding door and yells out. “Bosco, what the hell are you doing?”
And he gets no answer. I imagine Bosco made the mistake of strolling past a bush where Pax was laying low, and now Bosco is laying even lower.
He yells again. The guy Gashi referred to as Fitor has holstered his weapon, so I don’t worry about confronting him, so long as he doesn’t yell out. He’s a little under six feet, but V-shaped and was either born with the body of a running back or spent a lot of time pushing weights.
He moves back to the pool table and flops his butt on the edge, eyeing the TV, but obviously uncomfortable that his buddy Rostov has not returned. As he’s facing away from me, watching the open sliding glass door, I rise and open the little bar-height door. It squeaks and he turns, and his mouth drops open as I have the M4 and it’s red laser dot centered on his chest.
“You make a sound and I’ll stitch your ass from your dick to your ugly snout,” I say, and he’s still wide-mouthed. He shuts it and nods. “Lay face down on the pool table, arms extended as far as you can reach.”
He does and I lay the muzzle of the M4 against the back of his dirty blonde head and frisk him with one hand, removing the semi-auto at his side. It’s a Sig-Sauer 9mm with a 13 round mag. Nice piece to add to my collection.
I glance up as someone fills the doorway of the slider, then relax as I see it’s Pax.