Whitewater (Rachel Hatch Book 6)

by L T Ryan

Hatch heard the men below making their way to the second-floor landing. It wouldn't be long before they'd be checking the roof, door locked or not.

  "I don't know anything about tactics, so please forgive my question. But if we run hard, as you're telling us to do, won't that alert those men on the floor below to our whereabouts?"

  "Yes. But in a matter of minutes, maybe seconds, that's not going to matter anymore, because those Devil Dogs will be breaching that access door either way.

  “The way I see it, we either make a run for it and take our chances on the unknown that comes from that. Or we stand here and wait for them to come. And I already know the probable outcome that would result from that." Hatch spared them the obvious.

  "And once Miguel starts running, I want you right on his heels." Hatch directed her attention to the frightened teen who in turn nodded.

  A bang of metal on metal sounded from the door below. The breach had begun. And, like a sprinter at the sound of a starter pistol's pop, Hatch watched as the newspaper man ran the length of the tin roof. He hit the edge and did exactly as Hatch instructed him to do.

  Hatch looked on in awe as Miguel Ayala, the Peacock Man of Nogales, pushed hard while flapping his arms wildly, and flew.

  His flight path was not perfect though, and upon hitting the roof on the other side, Ayala also managed to snag himself on the clothesline stretched end to end. The line slingshotted Ayala back in the direction he had just come. It looked as though somebody had hit stop and rewind. It would've been almost comical had he not been heading directly into the path of Angela who was rapidly approaching on a collision course.

  Ayala caught himself by grabbing the pole of the clothesline, immediately halting him and avoiding the impending impact with the teen.

  Angela had not stepped with as much force. Either she was too weak from her ordeal or too tired. The why of which didn't matter. What did was the lack of kinetic energy created had not been enough to boost the girl's light frame enough for the distance. Angela was on a racetrack to the ground after missing the second roof by a foot.

  Ayala sprinted forward toward the falling teen with no regard for himself. His arms stretched out like a wide receiver going for a game-winning touchdown pass. The clothesline that had tossed him around was now in shambles strewn about the roof. Ayala's foot tangled in the line just as he caught Angela by the waist. The rubber-coated wire of the clothesline acted as a safety harness and stopped Ayala from going over the side. The girl now clutched his neck and held on for dear life.

  With great effort, Ayala pulled Angela onto the rooftop. Hatch looked on and was sure Ayala would later tell his beautiful wife Rosa about how the extra vitamins in his Propel Vitamin Water was what gave him the needed strength to pull off such an amazing feat.

  Hatch held her run until Angela dangled from the side. Precious seconds were lost in the process. With the girl safely cleared from the laundry-strewn landing pad, Hatch took her first step when the door beside her burst wide.

  The Glock was still ratcheted against the small of her back. In preparation for the jump, Hatch needed her hands free for the landing. Left hand, moving on instinct, swept to her back. She felt the familiar cold of its steel in her hand as three men fanned out in front of her with guns drawn and aimed.

  The fourth man exited after the others and was holding a cloth to his face. The blood covered rag pressed against a gash on the top of his head, presumably from whatever the Medicine Woman struck him with. The blood ran down his forehead. The river of red was slowed by the cloth, but a narrow stream trickled its way down and connected with a nasty scar running diagonally across his face.

  Hatch was caught in mid-draw. These men were not the amateur enforcers Munoz brought with him. These three men were skilled operators.

  When facing death, embrace it with open arms. For it is a friend who's been with you since the beginning and now you finally get to greet each other face to face. Do it with honor. Do it with a smile on your face. Her father's words sang to Hatch as she approached her end as her father had taught her to do long before he hoped she'd ever need to use it. Hatch wasn't sure of her thoughts on what happened when she crossed over to the other side. But she did believe without question that when she did, she would see her sister and father again. She thought of them both now. And the image of them in her mind helped honor her father's command.

  Hatch looked past the gunman, locking eyes with the scarred man who stood behind them, and smiled.

  Hatch refused to close her eyes. A decision she'd long ago made. Hatch wanted to face her killer as the reaper's scythe swept the life from her body. She felt it only fair to embrace the way she used death's gift to fill the cages of hell.

  The smile hadn't ended with the consequence she'd expected. The firing squad held their position. And Devil Dogs’ scarred master gave no command to do otherwise. The only change was in the man's face. Cruel intentions lay behind the eyes as he returned her smile with one of his own.

  "I am Juan Carlos Moreno. I serve at the right hand of my employer, Hector Fuentes, and he has requested the company of your presence."

  Hatch weighed her life in Shakespeare's simple yet eloquently put soliloquy on death, "To be or not be." The answer to which was a simple one.

  Being interrogated by the world's most dangerous cartel leader was still a hell of a lot better than being dead.

  Hatch released the Glock. The rough texture of the weapon's grip left its imprint on the palm of her left hand that was now raised in line with her right as she surrendered to her enemy. This would be the first time Hatch had been taken hostage. But the bank robbery in San Antonio was very different from the circumstances facing her now.

  "On your knees."

  No opportunity for heroics, Hatch complied.

  "Turn around and put your hands on your head."

  Hatch looked in the direction of the rooftop Ayala and Rothman had escaped to. She was scanning the debris field of laundry fluttering in the warm breeze whispering of the approaching heat of day and was relieved the two were nowhere to be seen.

  An unnecessary pistol whip was delivered to the side of her head by one of the men who wielded the cold hard steel like a blackjack. Hatch's vision blurred and she fell forward onto the tin roof.

  And just before she disappeared into the dark, the light of the moon danced across the top of a yellow Nissan, as it slipped away undetected.

  Thirty-Three

  The stagnant water a foot below Hatch's head captured the image of her blood-soaked face. The butt stroke to the side of her skull had bled steadily, as evidenced by the amount that was dried and caked across her face. It had clotted while she was unconscious.

  In the few minutes since her vision had cleared, she'd taken the time to assess her circumstances. She was suspended over a round metal kiddie pool, the kind Hatch had seen in the black and white westerns her dad watched when she was young. A belt connected the top of the chair to a bolted hook on the wall behind her, keeping the chair and Hatch, who was strapped to it, held firmly at a forty-five-degree angle to the water below.

  The tight restraints bit into her flesh at her wrists and ankles, the worst of which had cut open her right wrist, adding what would surely be new scars over the old one. The ripples made by her steadily dripping blood carried away the grotesque image of Hatch's face.

  Warm wet blood slickened her wrist where it escaped from her body, lubricating the cord just enough that Hatch felt it budge. Her hand was now an inch freer than it had been a minute ago.

  There was no clock on the wall, or at least none she could see when craning her neck. Hatch knew a countdown had begun. To whose end was still up for debate. Under the current set of circumstances, Hatch did not feel the odds were in her favor. But Hatch had surprised herself in the past, so didn't count herself out of the game, just maybe down a few points. With Ayala making touchdown receptions, maybe Hatch would get her turn in the endzone. And if she did, she hoped she or one of her teammates would
send the big yellow goal crashing down on top of Hector Fuentes’ skull.

  Beside the metal pool lay car batteries and the black and red leads coming out of them were dangling loosely near, but not clipped to, the pool. The dim light of the room taunted Hatch and warned her of terrible things to come.

  She continued to work at the restraint on her right wrist before she heard the door behind her open and close.

  A metal chair dragged across the concrete floor and came to a stop just in eyeshot of Hatch's peripheral vision. Moreno’s scarred face was now tinging an orange hue. Hatch thought of the oversized walrus championing the cartel's juice company. In her mind, the orange sunglasses-wearing tusked creature became synonymous with the beast of a troll described in Ayala's fable.

  "Miss Nighthawk, you have been quite troublesome for my employer. And as angry as he is with you for what you've done to his nightclub and how much you have taken from him, he would like your audience for a brief moment of your time. Before the last sands of your hourglass add to your life's pile, Mr. Fuentes would like to ensure when I arrange your disappearance, that nobody else comes looking afterwards to finish the trouble you started. It ends, here, today, with you. My employer believes, all truth lies just beneath the surface of a person's eyes. And before I dispatch you, he wants to look you in the eye himself."

  Hatch thought of the people she would leave behind and those who would undoubtedly hunt for her until they found word it was no longer necessary, just as she had done with Angela Rothman. She thought of Savage, and how she wished the smell of his licorice overpowered the funk of the room she was in now.

  She gave the man nothing in return. She would not entertain the whimsy of a murderous cartel thug, nor the wishes of his master. Hatch would face her end the way she had faced everything in her life up to this point, head tall and eyes front. She would give this man, and any to follow, no satisfaction to the contrary.

  "You don't feel like talking. I understand. I think you will find you and I are a lot alike. I can smell the military training coming off your sweat. Did a little digging. Nothing came up under a Daphne Nighthawk. I think I can safely assume that's not your real name. But not to worry, I have other ways of digging. They're just a bit more painful." Moreno winked. "I'm very thorough. When we're done here today, there won't be a piece your life that I haven't peeled back and exposed."

  The thought churned in her stomach, souring the bountiful meal she received at Josefina's hand. She thought of her family, of her mom, of Daphne, of Jake, and the last face to cross her mind’s periphery was that of Dalton Savage. In running from Hawk's Landing, Hatch had effectively traded one threat for another. Was there ever a time when they'd be safe?

  "Mr. Fuentes is in the other room finishing up his breakfast. It may not look like it by this room, but it is one of his favorite restaurants when he ventures out to be among his people." Moreno's reverence for Hector Fuentes went beyond the norm, speaking of him as God or a holy man, whose power and influence extended into the very soul of the cartel leader's top enforcer and personal bodyguard.

  The door opened again.

  Hatch shifted her gaze to the man in the thousand-dollar suit who dabbed a silk napkin against the corner of his lips before repocketing it. He walked with an air of confidence that identified him to Hatch before he offered his name.

  "I am Hector Fuentes, head of the Fuentes cartel. I have forgone my second cup of coffee to come sit here in your presence. This may mean nothing to you. But my routine is everything to me. And I love my second cup of coffee. You must imagine how important this conversation is for me to miss its flavor in exchange for the foul stink of your blood. The answers you give matter, so do not be hasty and ensure you choose them with the care and consideration of somebody who understands that they might end up being your last. By the looks of that arm of yours, I think this is something you understand. Am I correct to assume this?"

  He looked down at the pool of water accepting another droplet of Hatch's blood and Fuentes smiled. "And the answers you give do not determine whether you live or die. That ball was in motion the minute you crossed my path in Arizona. The way you answer my questions and the information you provide determine how you die. And trust me, when I say this, Miss Nighthawk, or whatever your name may be, death is an ugly thing and can be experienced in many ugly ways. Ways which I'm sure, even with your experience, would shock you to your soul. Let's hope we do not need to explore these options in search of the truth. Yes?"

  Hatch spit the blood that had pooled in the lower portion of her lip into the water below, scattering her bound image in the ripples that followed. "Better men have tried."

  "We'll see about that, but one thing's for certain. As foolhardy as it is, I respect your will to fight. I think Juan Carlos will put that statement to the test. You should pray it's not your last."

  Thirty-Four

  The interrogation lasted less than thirty minutes. They had moved Hatch to a chair and bound her arms. Hatch now had a large fire poker sticking out of her left hand. The thick fire poker's light black coating was now stained in the red and brown of new blood over old. The fire poker entered through the web of flesh connecting her hand's index finger and thumb and the pointed end broke through to Hatch's palm and rested, painfully so, against the handrail of the chair.

  Juan Carlos Moreno, the man who introduced himself as Hector Fuentes' personal bodyguard and head of security, worked the long metal fire poker like the joystick to an old Atari. Every time he asked a question, he would shift the fat fire poker in a different direction, twisting her flesh and trying to pry tendons away from her joints.

  This was a different technique than she'd experienced before, but these were different men. One thing was a constant in all the survival training Hatch had endured: disconnecting the mind from the experience was the best weapon in defending against it. Truly taking on a transcendental state allowed the mind to drift to a safe place where pain didn't exist. This was a hard thing to do for most people. Hatch did it now with a large fire poker buried in her hand.

  She was somewhere else now. Not in whatever room this was, wherever it was. Hatch felt the cool breeze spread across her face, replacing the sensation of the dried blood. The fire poker holding her left hand in torment was now replaced by that of Savage's strong grip. Hatch stood at the ridgeline behind her childhood home of Hawk's Landing, set against the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. That same hill where her father had challenged her to face her fear of heights. The same hill where she opened her heart to Dalton Savage. It was a good memory. It was a good place to be. Hatch bathed herself in the perfectness of the moment.

  Juan Carlos manipulated the painful joystick one more time, Hatch felt it, winced at its sting, but managed to stay beside Savage just a few moments longer as the sunset danced colors of purple and red across her mind's eye, replacing the bruises she'd endured. And this time, her recall had no rattlesnake to interrupt their kiss.

  Her lips were pressed against Savage’s. She could still taste the licorice on them when she opened her eyes and looked down at the water below. Blood stung her eyes, further blurring her vision. The water held her reflection for the brief pause between red droplets. In its momentary stillness, Hatch saw herself. And for a moment, she was that twelve-year-old-girl again. It held for the briefest of moments before the next drop shattered it, further muddying the stagnant water with her blood.

  Juan Carlos released the fire poker and sat back in the chair he had first taken up when he arrived. He looked at his employer. "She's not going to break. I've never seen it. A strong woman."

  "Your mother was a strong woman." Hector Fuentes was talking to someone else in the room. She blinked to clear her vision. During the torture, and her altered mental state, somebody must've entered. The man standing next to Hector Fuentes was a younger, leaner, version of the drug kingpin. "Wouldn't you agree, my son?"

  His son, who looked more like a boy, nodded. Hector Fuentes now spoke to his son and not
to Hatch, as if she was not in the room, suspended in a chair, moments from her own death.

  Hector put a hand on his son's shoulder. "Men of power wield their power firsthand. Strength comes in those moments when the unthinkable must be done. I know death does not sit well with you, my son. It never has. But if you are ever to hold your place at the head of this family, you must make death your ally. You will need to use it your advantage. And with that, today you will prove your worth in that regard. And in that demonstration of strength and will, you will show me you're worthy to be my heir."

  He pulled out a long machete with a twelve-inch blade and black handle. Hector shoved the handle into his son's right hand, firmly, and then squeezed the shoulder he held, and pulled his son tight. Then he looked over at Hatch. "This woman here has stolen from us. And you know how I feel about thieves within my organization. Not only has she taken from our family, she has burned down one of our nightclubs. Even now we're looking for the girl that she freed.

  “This cannot go unpunished. Rafael, I give you my blade, just as my father gave it to me. I offer it to you with the same message he had before commanding me to use it.

  “Our blood is our oath. May we spill our enemies’ first. Use this blade to take this enemy before you. Look into her eyes. See into her soul. In there you will see the answer. And when you do, use this blade to bring honor to the Fuentes name, and take your rightful place beside me."

  Hector Fuentes stepped back. Juan Carlos Moreno connected the battery to both ends of the metal pool. The rusted clip clacked loudly and sent a spark through the air. Then Juan Carlos moved back a few feet, standing beside his boss.

  Rafael Fuentes stood to the right of Hatch. He gripped the machete with two hands, both of which were trembling. He raised the machete high in the air like a lumberjack ready to swing an ax.

  Hatch furiously worked at the bindings of her right wrist. Millimeter by millimeter she worked to release her right hand and had gotten it to her first knuckle when the machete began to fall. Hatch refused to close her eyes.