To The Lions - 02

by Chuck Driskell

  Following a half-minute of kicking, Gage, his body burning from the exertion, ceased his action. The rapist’s breathing was ragged, his face bloody and unrecognizable. Gage staggered to the back wall, hearing only Cesar’s muffled sobs.

  It suddenly occurred to Gage that he hadn’t been attacked, and all had gone quiet. Despite the two men who’d clogged the doorway earlier, Gage should have been torn apart by now.

  When he turned, Gage saw a León blocking the doorway, the rest of the men standing behind him. The León was about Gage’s size, bald, with a thick golden ring between his two nostrils, like that of a bull.

  It was the notorious prisoner El Toro.

  In his right hand was a curved linoleum knife, glinting from the solitary light of the cell.

  Despite the presence of El Toro and his menacing blade, Gage welcomed the brief respite, sucking in air as he surveyed the cell. The masturbator was still on the floor, huddled in the corner of the cell and whimpering, both of his hands cradling the smashed treasures at his midsection. Below Gage, the man whose face he’d pulverized was now laboring to breathe, the maw on his face making wet, sucking sounds like a person sucking the remains of a soda through a straw.

  And next to Gage, managing to cover himself with his wool blanket, was Cesar, curled in a small ball on his bunk.

  Gage watched as the man with the nose ring and linoleum knife spoke quick Catalan to the mob, using the word “extraccio” several times. The mob listened intently and, when he finished speaking, they sullenly evaporated.

  El Toro then put on a little show with his hooked knife, moving it back and forth between both hands, twirling it, eyeing Gage the entire time. When he stopped, he aimed the blade at Gage. “You, meu amic, are to be commended for your balls of brass.”

  Gage, still catching his breath, didn’t respond.

  “I’ve instructed my men to cease the extraction of Cesar.” El Toro lifted the knife, pointing it at Gage. “You paid that price for him, which is honorable. But, gabacho, you’ve paid his price with your own life.”

  Before Gage formulated a response, boots thundered up the stairwell. El Toro, his actions casual, concealed the knife in his uniform, stepping aside and lowering his head but continuing to view Gage from the corner of his eye.

  Arriving from three directions, Berga guards in full riot gear converged on the cell. Upon surveying the bloody scene, the center guard rushed in and struck Gage, who made no effort to stop it, on the top of his head.

  Gage fell. His last sensation was that of his legs failing him, as the guard and the bars and the lights rushed upward.

  Blackness.

  * * *

  When Gage awoke, he felt the rough cut of the heavy-duty zip ties that hogtied his hands and arms, each movement sawing into his flesh. The ripping pain of his back wounds was outweighed by the pressure on his shoulder joints, making both feel as if they might dislocate at any moment.

  Enraging Gage, he heard the casual banter between the guards lugging him around the terrace, carrying him like a fattened pig to a routine slaughter. Though his vision was blurry, he oriented himself, realizing he was still on the top terrace. They were nearing the stairwell all the way across from Cesar’s cell, with the open air of the main bay between the stairs and the cell. One of the guards, his voice gravelly, halted the procession.

  “Muéstrale,” he rasped. Gage was able to make out some of the man’s Catalan, something about a good place to view it from.

  Gage was lifted so that his chest rested on the rail below the chain link fence. His eyes were still blurry from being struck in the head—he blinked, clearing his vision enough to see two men standing across the void in Cesar’s cell.

  It was the gang leader, El Toro, and he was holding Cesar up. Cesar was still nude and his arms were behind him, as if he were handcuffed. Gage realized the entire bay, for the first time ever during the daytime, was completely silent. El Toro, murmuring something in Cesar’s ear, led him outside the cell, showcasing him in the middle of the terrace.

  A cheer went up, hushed immediately when El Toro lifted the blade above his head. Then…

  The overhead lights glinted off the curved blade of the linoleum knife as it plunged downward.

  “No!” Gage shouted, lurching and tugging, trying futilely to free himself from his bonds.

  El Toro struck Cesar under his ear, ripping the knife across his upper neck, ear to ear, going back and forth several times, the scraping and cutting and gurgling audible across the expanse. He lowered Cesar’s limp body to his knees, holding the dead man up under one armpit.

  The main bay was a cacophony of frenzied cheers and catcalls.

  In a move that surpassed the sickest of fertile imaginations, El Toro reached into Cesar’s ghastly incision, rooting with his hand for a moment. Then, lifting Cesar and using some sort of fashioned hook, he propped Cesar’s body outside of his cell, hanging him there as if he were standing. Taking a wet towel from inside the cell, El Toro diligently cleaned the blood from the face and neck area until his ghastly masterpiece was visible for the screaming masses of Berga Prison.

  El Toro had pulled Cesar’s tongue out through the neck wound. Gravity pulled the complex muscle downward, giving it the unsettling appearance of a necktie.

  El Toro stood next to Cesar, admiring his work with a sickening grin on his face. After a moment, he moved to the fence and raised his arms in victory.

  The main bay exploded in noise.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Gage estimated that he’d been on the concrete floor for about a day. There wasn’t one bit of light seeping through the doorway, which was probably sealed by gaskets on the outside of the heavy metal door. Using his hands, he’d done a methodical probe of every square inch of the square room, finding only a fist sized air vent and a small drain in the center of the floor.

  They didn’t even provide him with a bucket.

  As time had worn on, Gage’s head hurt to the point of making him lie down and close his eyes. While he wouldn’t describe the state he’d experienced “sleep,” whatever it was, and for whatever period of time, had helped alleviate some of the pain, most of which came from the top of his head where the baton had struck. After awakening and sitting up, Gage flexed his right hand, feeling the pain and swelling, idly wondering if he’d cracked a bone on some León’s face.

  Around the time his internal clock passed twenty-four hours, the door opened, spilling painfully bright light into the cell. When Gage’s eyes had somewhat adjusted, a man in cheap slacks and shirtsleeves politely motioned him out. Gage had never seen the man before, noting his holster and Sig pistol. The man waved his hand in front of his face, muttering something in Spanish about Gage’s smell before he cuffed Gage and led him through a series of hallways until they reached a private bathroom.

  The man rapped on the steel door and said, “You’ve got twenty minutes. Use the toilet, shave, shower, and comb your hair. All the toiletries you need are in there, and I will inventory them afterward. You’ll be on camera so don’t be cute.”

  “Why am I getting a private shower?”

  The man eyeballed Gage’s build and pulled several pieces of fresh prison clothing from a rack on the far side of the hall. He opened a box and removed a new pair of thong sandals, still held together by a plastic band, speaking as he worked. “You’re going in to see Capitana de la Mancha.” He clucked his tongue. “She’s a fanatic for cleanliness, so I suggest you scrub yourself very well.” The man pressed a button on his watch, motioning to the door.

  “Twenty minutes. Enjoy it.”

  * * *

  As if he were a vice president in a Fortune 500 company, awaiting a meeting with the chief executive, Gage was allowed to wait in a pleasant sitting room as Capitana de la Mancha’s assistant pecked away at her Lenovo computer. The only two things marking the waiting area as a prison setting were the thick safety glass protecting the assistant, and the armed guard who sat next to her. This was the eighth
unique guard Gage had seen thus far. The burly guard sported an M1911 pistol, probably in .45 caliber—not in his holster, but in his hand. There were gun ports in the glass, presumably there in case Gage became enraged and started tearing the Spanish version of People magazine apart.

  Ignoring the reading material, Gage leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes as he ordered his thoughts. Cesar’s ghastly ritual killing had unnerved Gage badly. But with Cesar and, presumably, Ernesto Navarro dead, it was time to pull the curtain down on his entire incarceration. Gage had seen wanton corruption before. It was obvious that Los Leones were running the guards here and, although it sickened his righteous side somewhat, Gage planned to leave and never look back. Oh, sure, he’d probably talk to some people once he got stateside. One of Colonel Hunter’s best connections was a friend to both U.S. senators from North Carolina. Perhaps they’d put a little well-timed pressure on the Spanish government.

  Regardless, Gage’s top priority was exiting Berga. Afterward, he would collect Justina and they would depart Spain as fast as could be arranged.

  What a stupid decision this entire stunt was, Gage thought, admonishing himself. Old Navarro knew what he was doing, Gage, when he tempted you with that pile of money. But you should have known better.

  There was a beep from behind the glass.

  “Señor Harris,” the assistant said, beaming as she touched her phone earpiece.

  Gage stood.

  “La Capitana will see you now.”

  The guard didn’t move, just flicked the Colt to Gage’s right. When Gage moved to the door, it buzzed and he opened it.

  The smell was the first sensation to affect his senses. Perfume: citrusy and pungent. The second was the visual treatment the captain’s office had received. While the last room he’d sat in had pleasant mauve paint, padded chairs, a fake plant, and magazines, this office would certainly seem out of place in any prison. With a burnished wood floor, oriental rugs, bookshelves loaded with leather-bound books and several original oil paintings, the inviting room would be more suitable as a chancellor’s office at a fine university.

  “Just so you know,” Capitana de la Mancha said in her nearly unaccented English, her voice surprising him since he couldn’t see her, “you’re only the third prisoner ever to enter these walls since I took over. You should feel honored.”

  Gage stood there, unmoving, just inside the door he’d entered through. He heard a tinkling of glass and a spurt of running water, then the footsteps he recalled from his first moments in Berga. De la Mancha burst in from his left, wearing the lab coat, crossing the office to take up a seat behind the massive mahogany desk. Recalling his woodworking apprentice work during his recovery after Crete, Gage appraised the fluting and columning of the desk’s finish, and the gorgeous wood itself—he pronounced the desk as hand-carved and probably worth an average year’s salary in Spain.

  “I didn’t build this office,” she said, reading his eyes. “It was done by my predecessor, a man with a huge ego who was owed a number of favors.” She surveyed the room. “I guess this was one of the favors.”

  Gage stood motionless.

  “Hmmm,” de la Mancha mused, her plucked brows tilting as she settled herself into the low-back leather chair, “I’d heard you were a bit taciturn. Please, do sit.”

  He obeyed, moving forward and sitting in the lone chair set about six feet in front of her desk. He allowed his eyes to wander the walls and ceiling behind her.

  “You’re no doubt looking for cameras. There are none. No one watches me.”

  “Good for you.”

  She reached into her coat, lifting a compact revolver by the trigger guard. “See this?”

  Gage narrowed his eyes at the pistol, marking it as a Smith & Wesson 340 series—a concealed-carry pistol. “That’s a decent Smith,” he said, “but not what I would recommend for you to carry in a prison loaded with animals.”

  “What’s your suggestion?”

  “Have a look at the Springfield 1911 compact. It’s larger but packs a wallop.”

  She moved the pistol to her left hand and scribbled a note on a yellow pad, stabbing the paper afterward. “Thank you,” she said, moving the pistol back to her right hand.

  Gage committed her actions to memory, finding her loose and too relaxed if what she said about cameras was true. Good.

  De la Mancha settled back into her chair. “It’s my contention that, in the event you lose your mind and lurch at me, I can shoot you before you reach me.” She drummed her left fingers on the left arm of the chair. “So, you’ll excuse me if I go ahead and hold the pistol on you, Gage Hartline.”

  There was no point in appearing surprised at the mention of his name. He shifted in his seat, nodding. “I’m happy you know my real identity, capitana, because that saves me a long explanation. Unfortunately, with the murder that occurred yesterday…well, I think it was yesterday but I’ve been locked in a blackened tomb for some length of time…regardless, my reason for being here in Berga is no longer practical. You see—”

  She stopped him by raising her left hand.

  “Mister Hartline, you were hired by career mobster Ernesto Navarro to protect his sniveling son from the Spanish criminal syndicate known as Los Leones.” She cocked her head. “That’s the truth.”

  Gage inclined his head. “Capitana, despite who, or who wasn’t, involved, my official mission here is under the oversight of the Catalonian, and Spanish, governments and, as I said, is no longer practical. Therefore, it’s pointless for me to stay here.”

  De la Mancha smiled indulgently at him as he spoke, like an acting coach listening to her freshman pupil delivering stilted, yet slightly improved, lines. When Gage finished, she said, “Ernesto Navarro paid off Acusador Cortez Redon to insert you into Berga as an undercover agent.” She began explaining about Redon and Navarro, all while holding the Smith casually aimed at his chest. Her final words clapped like thunder:

  “You have been thoroughly deceived, Mister Hartline, by the state attorney Navarro thought was his confidant. Redon was taking Navarro’s money while also working with Los Leones. They cooked up this entire deception so Los Leones could find Navarro, and kill him. In the process, you were sold out.”

  As she spoke, Gage fought to keep his vision steady. A whirling occurred in his mind, the type that was once a precursor to his old post-traumatic-stress migraines, the debilitating cripplers that once haunted his every day. And, although he would certainly approach this situation with reason in the hope that this little lady would lower her guard, the sixth sense deep in Gage’s organism, the one that had warned him about potential trouble on the isle of Crete, the one that sent him hurtling on a cosmic collision with Nicky Arnaud, and the one that had kept him alive over a dangerous twenty-three year career, told Gage that he’d been bent over and screwed, for lack of a better comparison.

  “If that’s true,” he rasped, “why wouldn’t Acusador Redon just tell Los Leones when and where he would be having a meeting with Navarro? Why use such an elaborate setup, instead?”

  “You already know the answer, Hartline. Navarro was unconscionably vigilant. My source tells me he never announced where the meetings were, and would send for any and all visitors with his own security people.”

  Gage pondered what she said—it made sense—but the onset of stress was preventing him from thinking clearly.

  Slow down, Gage. The game just changed. Slow down and think.

  He turned his thoughts to Capitana de la Mancha. Given her tone and body language, this woman, this warden, wasn’t about to let him escape from here. He had a distinct feeling that this prison, her fiefdom, had lined her pockets with Europe’s dirtiest money, creating a cinder-block killing machine for Spain’s burgeoning gang, a place where many walked in and no one walked out.

  Had he been blessed with the luxuries of ample time and freedom, Gage would have loved to do a forensic accounting of de la Mancha’s finances—not to mention the banking reco
rds of her gangster guards. He shifted slightly in his seat.

  “One question, capitana, comes to my mind. Don’t you fear for your life when working with Los Leones? If you’re complicit with them, and being paid as I suspect, why don’t they ask you to allow their prisoners to escape or put ridiculous demands on you?”

  “There have never been any escapes from Berga, nor will there be.”

  “And what of the ridiculous demands?”

  “Since you jumped ahead with your assumptions, I will, too. As you know, Navarro and his son are no longer threats to Los Leones. I don’t like killing, Mister Hartline, I’m not that cold.” She paused, resetting her expression. “But these people, all of them, the Navarros included, are savages. They’ll kill one another whether I’m here or not. And trying to stop them is, as you Americans so eloquently say, like shoveling shit against the tide. It’s useless.”

  Gritting his teeth, Gage said, “So you figure, screw it, I may as well get rich off their blood.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  “It’s either cooperate or die,” she said with indignation.

  Though her statement didn’t exactly make sense to Gage, he moved on, asking, “And what about me, capitana?”

  “Yes, well, your deal is a bit more tricky, Mister Hartline. And you destroying that León’s face yesterday didn’t help things, either. You nearly killed another one on the stairs.” Clucked her tongue. “You’re quite violent.”

  “I don’t cotton to gang rape, capitana, though you obviously have no problem with it.”

  “I had no idea that was happening. When I learned of it, I ordered it stopped but you had already halted it.”

  “I was too late. Then the guards you sent to stop the rape allowed Cesar to be killed.”

  “I won’t argue that.”