It was from Pancho.
‘This is just in case you are having any second thoughts.’
He wasn’t sure what that meant. But he scrolled further down the message.
There were three attachments underneath the line of writing that he had just read. Below this, in bold letters, it stated ‘Open, read, and delete immediately.’
He opened the first attachment. It was a simple document, and contained his further instructions. He read the few lines of text, memorised them, and then deleted the attachment.’
The second item he opened was a picture. It was his wife. She looked to be in good health, and was smiling. She had her hair tied back, the way he liked it, and she was wearing her favourite pale blue dress. Seeing the woman he loved briefly lifted his spirits. Reluctantly, he deleted this also.
The last attachment was a video. He frowned, and then clicked on the small triangle which hopefully would make it play. What he saw confused him. It was a picture of his son. But the face was upside down, and bubbles seemed to be coming from his mouth. Even with his features the wrong way up, the Mexican could tell that the boy looked terrified.
The camera panned out, and it slowly revealed the full horror of what he was looking at. The Mexican screamed out loud. His whole body seemed to go into a spasm, and his heart felt like it was about to explode. He wiped his eyes, and moved the phone closer to get a better look.
His son was being held upside down by a pair of thick, strong hands. They were clamped tightly around his feet. The top half of his body, from his head to his waist, was submerged in what looked like a tank of water. The boy was clearly running out of air, as bubbles had stopped coming from his mouth. His whole body was jerking and twisting, trying to lift itself up against the force of gravity. The expression on his face was pure horror, and his arms were thrashing about wildly.
Then, suddenly, everything changed. The boys eyes closed, and his arms fell down, hanging above his head. His mouth was opening and closing, and his throat was convulsing. The Mexican realised that his son had run out of air. He was swallowing water. It was the classic reaction of a drowning person.
The Mexican cried out. ‘No, no, no. Pull him out. Help him someone.’
Then the video stopped playing. It had come to the end.
The Mexican was still screaming, as he tried to replay the video. But it wouldn’t replay. Somehow it had been set up as a onetime play. He dropped the phone, and cradled his head in his hands. His body sank onto the floor.
Then he heard the ping noise again. He grabbed his phone and stared at it. It was another message, again from Pancho. He opened it immediately, wiping the tears from his eyes so that he could read it clearly.
‘Your little boy has been successfully revived, this time. He is safe and well. Next time, he may not be so lucky. Carry out your instructions and no one will be harmed. Do not attempt to call or message me.’
He sank back down on to the floor. A mixture of emotions was swirling around him. There was relief that his son was hopefully safe, but genuine fear for his family. And anger that he had been unfortunate enough to be caught up in this terrible situation.
Tears started running down his face again. He pulled his knees up to his chest, and continued to sit on the floor. He raised his arms to cover his head, like small children might do to comfort themselves. He rocked himself slowly, wishing he could blot everything out.
He felt completely alone and utterly hopeless.
Chapter Twelve
It had been Cole’s idea for the three of them to go on the USA road trip. He had recently been arguing a lot with his wife, and they had agreed to a trial separation. They had been married for over twenty years. For much of that time things had been good, even though he was away from home a lot. She’d been through a particularly bad experience not so long ago, involving her being briefly kidnapped. She was still trying to recover from that horrific experience. Living with a man like Cole wasn’t always easy, as she had told him many times.
Cole was ex-army, and he had spent several years with British Special Forces. He didn’t like full time work. He enjoyed being a free agent. Occasionally, he was asked to do undercover jobs for the various agencies of the government. He was carrying out a job for the British Prime Minister when he had first met his friend Hedge.
That had been a few years ago. Hedge had accidentally been caught up in Cole’s investigation into a group known as the Palindrome Cult. He had several unpleasant experiences as a result of that. Cole chuckled to himself as he remembered the adventure. His friend had done well considering he had been totally out of his depth.
Hedge had initially been reluctant to go on the American road trip. Nasty things tended to happen whenever his path crossed with Cole’s. However, he was sympathetic when his friend told him about his troubled marriage. Also, Hedge’s sister Maddie was excited about the idea. She had been raised in the USA, and so she regarded that as her home country. She had finally managed to persuade her brother to go.
Hedge lived in London, but he had been born in the United States. His family originally came from near Houston, in Texas, so he was officially an American citizen. His father had been in the US Air Force, and the family had moved to England when he was just eight years old. His dad had been deployed to the 48th Fighter Wing, which was permanently based at Lakenheath in Suffolk, a very pleasant part of England.
Tragically, just after Hedge had celebrated his tenth birthday, both his parents had been killed in a car crash near the base. He remembered the day it happened as if it were only yesterday. At the time he had no brothers or sisters, so he had felt quite alone in the world. His uncle Larry had taken charge of the funeral and other formalities, and Hedge had then gone to live with him and his family in London. They had two of their own children, a boy and a girl, and they had all been happy to welcome him into their home. His uncle was employed in a senior position with a large bank, and Hedge had found his work at the bank of great interest.
Despite the trauma of losing his parents at such an early age, Hedge had done reasonably well for himself. His Uncle had paid for him to go to a good English boarding school, and following that he had attended Cambridge University. He wasn’t what might be described as a top student, but he had worked hard, and had done just enough to scrape his place at one of England’s finest places of learning. The main focus of his study had been in the area of Economics, and after three years of hard work he had achieved a BA Honours degree.
After Cambridge, and with a little help from his uncle Larry, he had secured a position in a small investment bank in London. He had lost that job though, after spending a short time in prison. He had been found guilty of ‘insider trading’, although he hadn’t intentionally set out to do anything wrong.
Hedge kept himself in good shape with regular workouts. He was a fraction under six feet tall, with dark hair, and, as he was often told, he had a very pale complexion.
Although everyone called him Hedge, that wasn’t actually his real name. His passport stated him as Tom Millar. The only person who still called him Tom though, was his aunt. To everyone else he was simply known as Hedge. The reason for this was that for as long as anyone could remember, he had been fascinated with money and finance. From an early age, with the help of firstly his father, and then his uncle, he had become a regular investor in the stock market. Indeed his success at picking winning companies had not only enabled him to save quite a bit of money, but it had also been directly responsible for him engaging in his one and only experience of a ‘threesome.’
A girl he had been talking to during a lecture at Cambridge had asked him for some advice. She was looking for a global equity fund that would give her a greater than twenty five per cent annual return. Jokingly, he had said he could advise her something suitable, but would want sex from her as his reward. He was amazed that sentence had even come out of his mouth, as it wasn’t the sort of thing that he would normally say. Quiet and introverted was how most p
eople would have described him back then. He was even more amazed when she agreed to his request.
Six months later, the investment had performed well. This had been due to many factors including Chinese economic growth being upgraded, and the fact that the Indian economy was booming. Arriving back in his student lodging’s after an early evening lecture, he found the young lady lying naked in his bed. To his surprise, lying next to her was another female student, also naked.
‘Hi Hedge. This is my friend Sammy. She also invested in the fund you told me about, so she also feels obliged to deliver the required reward.’
Hedge was taken aback. He quickly downed a can of lager to try and settle his nerves, and had then jumped into bed between the two girls. The experience had been incredible, and both of the girls had been very passionate. So much so that he had managed to ejaculate three times during their two hour long session.
So it had been apparent, even from a very young age that he was financially astute. When he was just seven years old, before the family had moved to England, his father had asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. To everyone’s amazement he had announced that he would like to be a ‘Hedge Fund Manager’. He wasn’t actually sure what one of those was at the time, but he knew it was an important financial job, and anyway, he quite liked the sound of it. So the name had stuck, and from then on everyone had called him Hedge. Most people who knew him now would probably not even be aware of his real name.
Hedge was driving the bright orange V8 Mustang, with his sister sitting next to him in the passenger seat. Cole followed in the dark grey V8 Mustang a short way behind. It was two days since they had left San Diego. The trip they had planned was coast to coast, California to New York. They were allowing twelve days to complete the three thousand mile journey. With the occasional stop, that meant driving for at least two hundred and fifty miles each day.
They had stayed in a roadside motel near Tucson the night before. Now they were heading east on Interstate 10. The next stop they had planned was in El Paso in the state of New Mexico.
For now though they were still in Arizona. They looked out at the harsh scenery. Small mountain ranges could be seen in the far distance. The road was generally straight and flat as it crossed the hot, arid desert. Occasionally though the highway twisted, and would rise and fall between rocky outcrops. Vegetation was limited, but there was the occasional small tree and random dispersed patches of juniper shrub.
Hedge looked across at his sister. She seemed to be enjoying the route today. The vast, open landscape appealed to her sense of freedom. But he could tell she was still worried about the incident she had witnessed back in San Diego.
‘Don’t worry,’ he and Cole had kept telling her. ‘It’s all behind us. That police guy will just assume we have run off, too scared to do anything about what you saw. He’ll have forgotten all about us.’
‘I guess,’ she had replied. Her response hadn’t come across as too convincing.
She sat quietly in the seat beside him, staring out at the passing landscape. The window was open a fraction, and it gently blew her long, blonde hair behind her shoulders.
She turned and smiled at her brother.
He returned the smile. ‘We’re coming up to the New Mexico state border. Not long now until we get to El Paso. We’ll stop there for the night.’
Maddie nodded. She lifted herself up out of the seat and turned to look at the road behind. Cole was about a hundred yards back, but despite the distance, he noticed her looking, and he waved. She raised her arm and waved back at him. For a few seconds more she continued to look behind. Then she turned around and sat back down in her seat again.
She no longer looked as relaxed as she had been a short while ago, Hedge thought.
The road was twisting heavily between a rocky pass. He eased up on the accelerator pedal until the car was through the danger area. There was a slow moving truck just ahead of them, so he increased his speed again and went past the big, lumbering vehicle. Then he pulled back over into the inside lane. He checked his rear view mirror and noticed that Cole had also overtaken the truck.
A few miles down the road Maddie had turned in her seat and was looking back again.
‘Everything okay?’ said Hedge.
‘We’re being followed,’ she replied.
‘Yes, very funny. Shall we try and lose him? Cole may not be too happy though. He thinks we’re his friends.’ Hedge laughed at his own joke.
‘I’m not talking about Cole.’ Maddie sounded serious. ‘There’s a silver car about a half a mile back. It’s been there ever since we left Tucson. That’s no coincidence.’
‘Are you sure?’ There was concern in Hedge’s voice now.
‘I’ve seen it several times now. It’s definitely the same car each time. But it’s not just that. I can sense it also. I can feel its presence. I can feel that we are in danger.’
‘What do you mean danger? What kind of danger?
‘I’m not sure. Something feels wrong though.’
‘What do you think it could be?’ Hedge now had a worried look across his face.
Maddie had gone slightly pale. ‘Is it possible that our cold-blooded killer police officer hasn’t forgotten about us after all?’
Chapter Thirteen
‘So you definitely think someone is coming after us?’
‘No doubt about it. I know what I feel.’
Hedge had learnt from past experience to trust his sister’s intuition. Normally he was sceptical about such things, but Maddie had demonstrated to him several times that she was capable of seeing things that other people weren’t able to.
It was an unusual situation, but Hedge hadn’t known his younger sister for very long. Maddie had been staying with him in London for the last couple of years. She had enjoyed her time there, and had made many friends. She was very likeable, lively and fun. Her good looks and the easy going American accent gave her a constant stream of admirers.
As he drove, Hedge’s mind drifted back to the first time he had met his sister. It had been in a cemetery on a grey day in Houston, a couple of years back now. Hedge had just arrived in Texas, accompanied by Cole. The two of them were attempting to trace the ringleader of the Palindrome Cult. It was believed he was behind a plot to steal money from senior politicians. They had recovered the cash, and Hedge had been taking some time out to look for the place where his parents had been buried.
He found the graves. He also found Maddie, who he never knew even existed until that day. She was visiting the same cemetery, on that same day. But then, she did visit her parents’ graves most days.
A few days later in New York, they had exchanged their life stories over a coffee. It turned out that Hedge’s mother had been pregnant with Maddie at the time of the car crash. His mother had died, but Maddie had been born. She had been adopted by an uncle who lived near Houston, in the United States. Maddie told him about her life in Houston. The family she had grown up with were great, even if they were very private people. She had done well in school, and enjoyed playing sports, but her real passion was horses. She had learned to ride from an early age, and spent most of her free time out with her horse. It was strange, she said, not knowing her mum and dad, and that saddened her.
She was a bit confused initially about finding out that she had a big brother, but had now got used to the idea. She wanted to spend a bit more time with her new brother, so had come over to London to stay with him for a while. That was two years ago.
Hedge thought about when he had first met his new sister. She seemed normal in most aspects, apart from one thing. She tried to explain it to him. His mind drifted back as he recalled what his sister had said to him at the time.
‘I can’t really explain it. I get this voice in my head occasionally, and it speaks to me. Sometimes what it says doesn’t make any sense, but I listen anyway. It happens only now and again, maybe just two or three times a year. It’s a woman’s voice, soft and gentle.’
&nb
sp; She had hesitated a moment before continuing.
‘Don’t you dare laugh, but I think it’s the voice of my mother. She’s been talking to me ever since I was a little girl. She used to tell me that I wasn’t alone. She said this quite often, and I assumed she was telling me that she was still there for me, watching over me. Now I don’t think she was telling me that, I think she was talking about you.’
Maddie had stopped speaking for a while.
‘Much of the stuff the voice tells me is mainly insignificant, but there have been some very notable events also. I recall one particular time. It was near the beginning of summer, about three years ago, and I was walking back from college one afternoon. I was alone, and almost home when she spoke to me.’
‘Don’t let him go.’
‘That’s all she said, nothing more. I had no idea what it meant, so I ignored it. Then the next morning as I was brushing my teeth, the voice repeated the same words.’
‘Don’t let him go.’
‘It made no sense to me, until my uncle told me at breakfast that his brother Jake was going camping in the mountains with some friends the very next weekend. Was it connected to that, I wasn’t sure. So still I ignored the voice. Then on the morning of the planned camping trip, I awoke early, dripping with sweat, like I had some kind of fever. The voice said the same words again.’
‘Don’t let him go.’
‘I quickly got dressed and walked down the road, to where my uncle’s brother lived. He had a large pickup truck parked in his driveway, and he was loading it up for the trip. We chatted for a couple of minutes – I always got on well with Jake, he was very easy going. Then suddenly, I just blurted out that he should cancel his trip. He laughed, and said he couldn’t and that he had been planning it for ages. I tried to convince him but he just told me to go home and annoy someone else. I didn’t have any good reason to convince him not to go, and I certainly couldn’t tell him about the voice. I couldn’t think what to do, and then I saw a hunting knife sticking out of the side pocket of a bag in the back of the pickup. I grabbed it, and before he could stop me, I slashed one of the rear tyres of his vehicle. He was livid, but I just ran off home.’
The Transamerica Cell: A fast paced, gripping, action adventure, conspiracy thriller, with a superb, breath-taking ending (Hedge & Cole Book 3) Page 5