BOOKER Box Set #2 (A Private Investigator Thriller Series of Crime and Suspense): Volumes 4-6

by John W. Mefford

  “Just remember, there are two forks. Go left at first one, then right. Wait…hold on.” Touching his fingertips to each temple, he appeared to be meditating. “It’s the opposite. First fork, go right. Second fork, go left.”

  “Right, then left. Got it,” I said, pulling a shoulder holster out of my backpack and snapping it into place.

  “Yeah…uh, that’s right, I mean correct.”

  Manuel gave me a bro hug and wished me luck.

  “I don’t know much about your mission, but I’ve heard stories about who is on the other side of that mountain. Are you scared for your life?”

  “Thanks for asking. I’ll be fine. It’s dark outside. No one will know I’m there. Just doing a little observing, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, right,” he said, turning the ignition of his Mini Cooper. He slipped the tin can into drive, curled around to face east, and puttered along at about ten miles per hour.

  He waved out of his window. “Later, my man.”

  Checking my phone, I still had a single bar. I fired off a text to Britney—something I never imagined would happen just a day earlier—asking for her and Juan to pay for Manuel’s repairs to his Mini Cooper. They could afford it.

  I hoisted my backpack onto my shoulders and continued the journey on foot. A half mile later, I hit the big hill Manuel had told me about, a good forty-five degree incline that had a hairpin turn at the top. It didn’t slow my pace. Swinging my arms with my knees bent slightly, I made good time. But I was sweating like a barbequed pig, which smeared the dark makeup I’d applied to my face in the early part of my trip. My nearly black face matched my gear—black long-sleeved T-shirt, black hiking pants, black boots. The outdoor store we visited had run out of camouflage, but going all black was the smarter choice with the night operation. The outfit essentially served as a personal sauna, steam practically rising out of the neckline. Given what I’d heard about Dominican spiders and other oversized bugs, sweating off five pounds was an easy sacrifice. Plus, I knew I’d likely have to spend time up in tree or crawling along the ground. Anything to get eyes on who held Esteban.

  At the top of the hill, I climbed over a throng of fallen trees, the incline not as severe. I pulled out my bottled water and took a quick swig. I’d need to conserve the water, ensure I had enough to last all night, if necessary.

  I reached the first fork in the road. “Right first,” I said out loud. The road instantly turned into a bumpy walking path. I also had to weave through a myriad of tall trees and brush, slowing my progress. The stars and moon cast shadows all around me, playing tricks on my eyes at least a couple of times. Once I became more accustomed to the surroundings, I relaxed a bit, allowing my mind to veer just slightly off its single-minded focus of finding evidence that Esteban was alive.

  Without direct knowledge of the kidnapping, Alejandro’s contact said the target plus the timing of the abduction had the characteristics of a Dominican drug cartel that had grown exponentially in the last couple of years, run by a guy named Miguel Amador. The contact didn’t know much about him or his operation, other than he was ruthless and treated everyone who wasn’t part of his operation the same—killing wasn’t just a necessary evil to maintain a smooth operation, it was the cost of doing business.

  The contact had provided pretty good details in describing the whereabouts of the Amador crew’s home base. The cartel worked in the mountains, but our contact was almost positive certain government officials were aware of that location—and were bribed into protecting Amador. At least that was his running theory.

  Coated with a double layer of sweaty clay, my body was still strong and chugging on eight cylinders. My regular workout routine at home had done me well, even at the ripe old age of thirty-two.

  The topography changed dramatically over a hundred-yard section. Hiking at a forty-five-degree angle up the steep hill, I took the rough path around clusters of boulders and patches of dense trees packed in so tight they concealed almost every bit of light from the starry sky.

  I came upon a group of trees that together formed the shape of an S. Pausing a moment, I took a quick drink of water, then pulled out my phone, opened the map application, and found my GPS location. It appeared I was close to the camp’s location, maybe thirty minutes away by foot. Hard to know exactly, especially without knowing the terrain. With that knowledge, I pocketed the phone, my senses amped up to a heightened level of awareness.

  Something moved off to my right. I hunkered down, setting a hand on a boulder in front of me as I flipped my backpack off my shoulders. Squinting, my eyes begged for a flicker of light to catch a glimpse of who or what was at the top end of the S. I unzipped my pack as quietly as possible, pulling out my 9 mm Luger, a Kel-Tech P-11 I’d picked up at the secondhand outdoors store. I was all but certain I was holding a stolen gun, but earlier I had few choices if I wanted to wrap up the sale without drawing attention to the fact I was a foreign visitor.

  With a barrel length of three inches and a weight just under a pound, the Luger didn’t pack the punch of my regular sidearm, a Sig Sauer P226 X-5. It would have to do.

  Both hands wrapped the polymer grip, my fists resting on top of the smooth boulder. Perspiration cascaded off my face. I took in even breaths, attempting to curb the rush of adrenaline zipping through my core. I didn’t want to use the gun, knowing the sound alone could elicit a response that would rival a kicked fire ant mound, flooding the forest with hidden enemies.

  But I also realized I could be surrounded at this very moment. My thumping pulse reverberated in my ear, and that was all I could detect for seconds, maybe a minute.

  I felt pressure against my thigh. Catching my breath in my throat, I realized the pressure wasn’t just in one spot. It moved, pulsating around my leg, then pushing up against and around my other leg.

  It was a fucking snake. I hate snakes. Ever since my third-grade class visited the Dallas Zoo and a boa constrictor was placed on my shoulders, I wanted no part of a snake unless it was behind glass or on a pair of boots. The red-shaded, scaly skin crawled on my bare arms, and I could still remember cringing, my face a contorted prune. But that was nothing compared to what the creature did a few seconds later. The snake, called Barney, inched up my shoulder and I turned my head, my eyes drawn to the teardrop burgundy color under its piercing eyes. Suddenly, its jaw opened and a skinny tongue slithered out, sliding into my ear. I almost peed myself.

  Now wasn’t much different—though my hydration was low, so at least I kept my drawers dry. And I had a feeling that this snake, living in the wild, wasn’t accustomed to interacting with people. My eyes glanced up, searching for movement through the thicket of trees and cloak of darkness. More pressure hugging my thighs, and I could sense this snake was stout. I couldn’t help but look down. I could barely make out the shape, but I had no idea on the length. Too many stones and crevices around me, and not enough light.

  Swallowing back a dry patch, sweat rolled off me like a waterfall. I’m sure it was peppering the snake. My instinct wanted me to jump to the side, or fling it away from me, and pound the crap out of it with the butt of my gun, or better yet, plant a bullet in its body. I tried like hell not to tense up. Five seconds later, my left thigh was free, and a few seconds after that, I felt a final surge pressure against my other thigh, and then it was gone.

  I emptied my lungs, my shoulders dropping a tad. I rubbed my wrist across my brow, easing the flow of sweat burning my eyes, which still only saw outlines of objects anything farther than ten feet or so.

  Just then I heard a sound, in the general area of the earlier movement. Someone taking steps. Short, choppy steps through brush, leaves. Was it two people? I glanced left, then right, then over my shoulder to ensure I wasn’t being ambushed at this exact moment, as my heart clocked faster and faster.

  The steps moved closer. I steadied my gun on the boulder, my eyes peering straight ahead. I didn’t want to shoot blindly into darkness. Muscles were tight up my forearms, into my should
ers, no matter how I breathed. I knew my shot could be off, and that only added to my tension, but it also made me bear down, focus. I could feel the sides of my temple thumping, more sweat flooding off my face, my shirt soaked.

  The steps picked up—a galloping set of clops. It was a four-legged creature, substantial weight by the thud against the ground. It was charging me.

  At ten feet, it came into sight, and I could hear the panting grunts—a wild boar making a beeline right for me.

  I had just a couple of seconds. With one hand on the gun, my other scooted across the landscape and found a rock the size of a softball. I hurled a fastball, releasing a guttural growl at the same time.

  Bullseye. The boar winced and whined at the same time. I think the rock connected to his face. He veered left. I grabbed another rock and fired it. This one thumped off his side. The disgusting beast cut even harder left, opposite of my position, and ran off into the dense woods.

  Pivoting on my knee, I propped my back against the boulder, my chest surging from heavy breaths. The Dominican wild and I had not exactly bonded.

  Muttering a slur of expletives to myself, I pushed up to my feet, took another swig of water, then slipped my backpack over my shoulder and forged ahead.

  I plodded another hundred yards before I found a small cone of light breaking through the umbrella of trees. I felt slightly less confined, but unless I could don a red cape and soar through the opening, it only served as a reminder of the time of day. A quick thought of my buddy, Justin, swept through my mind. He always gave me shit about one of my high school football victories eliciting a newspaper headline the next day that referenced me as Superman. It didn’t mean much to me. I had a pretty good sense of my athletic ability, and Superman I was not. Not even close. But that’s what friends are for, I’d learned. To give you shit about your most embarrassing moments. I’d returned the favor ten-fold to Justin.

  Up ahead, I could see more spears of light penetrating the canopy, which gave me hope that I’d be able to detect what, or who, was around me. I’d been in more than a few scrapes, some that almost took my life. But I’d never felt such a sense of isolation. If I couldn’t protect myself and stay out of harm’s way, my life would end in the middle of nowhere. End of story. On top of that, a fourteen-year-old boy would likely be shot to death, his body serving as a gruesome piece of propaganda by the Amador Cartel to warn off any potential threats.

  With the terrain not as hilly, I picked up my speed and covered a lot of ground over the next ten minutes, my eyes still scanning the area for all breathing creatures, with two or four legs. To elude detection, I avoided the spears of light. They were that dangerous to my short- and long-term health.

  At the apex of the mountain, I paused for a moment near a small cave opening. Attempting to look down the mountain, all I found were trees and more trees. Who knew how many wild boars were traipsing around the wilderness looking for an easy kill like me? I crammed that memory, and my all-too-intimate experience with the slithering snake, into a lock box that had no key.

  A quick check of my phone showed I should practically be sitting on top of the cartel’s camp. Questioning everything and everyone now, I tried to imagine the ex-con, Alejandro, setting me up. Or maybe his so-called inside contact had given him bad information, if for no other reason than he enjoyed the notion of me slogging across a mountain all night while the Dominican wild devoured me. Scanning the area right around me, I was reminded how far away from society I was. No human could survive out here long, not without a well-established supply chain that brought in all the necessities to live—or operate an illegal drug-smuggling operation.

  Just as I slipped the pack over my shoulders, I heard a quick pop echo in the distance, as if it was the fourth of July back in the states and someone had inadvertently released a single firecracker.

  But it wasn’t the fourth of July, and it sure as hell wasn’t Texas or any other state represented by a star on the US flag.

  That was the sound of a gun. It could just be a regular everyday hunter. Or it could be a member of the cartel killing something that had blood running through its veins, for reasons I’d yet to learn. But that was at least part of my mission—figure out who was involved, how many were between me and a kid I hoped was still alive.

  Crouching to a more athletic position, I plodded along at a slower pace, my eyes attempting to pierce the cloaked darkness. I flanked about thirty degrees right from where I thought I’d heard the gunshot, knowing all too well my calculated guess could land me right in the crossfire of some nefarious act.

  What little light that existed at the top the mountain had now been swallowed by the trees. The landscape was challenging, the thicket even tougher to navigate. I couldn’t move quickly even if I wanted to. Branches and vines zigzagged across my path. I felt restricted, as if I was stuck in a cornfield labyrinth with a ceiling about seven feet off the ground.

  Lifting my knees as high as three feet to get past swatting limbs, rotted trees, and rocks larger than the Mini, I got the sense I was funneling into the web of a Godzilla-sized tarantula.

  “Holy Mother of Jesus!” I said involuntarily. For some reason I’d incited a phrase I’d heard my mom use a thousand times. Leaves and coarse branches found their ways into my mouth and both ears. I ducked my head to avoid a vine, and a prickly branch dug a hole in my skin just to the left of my nose. I almost lost an eye on that one. Swiping away a slow ooze of blood, I climbed over another dead tree, taking an extra hop to right my balance.

  I froze. Something taut and thin pressed against both my legs. My gut told me it wasn’t a stubborn vine tangled amongst the swarm of branches. I swallowed, eliciting a crack in my eardrum, then I slowly reached down and touched a single finger to the object—it was a thin piece of string. I encircled the string between my finger and thumb, then brought down my other hand and did the same. I extended my arms outward and the string went beyond my reach.

  What the hell was this, some type of tripwire?

  Keeping my weight even, not adding or removing pressure off the string, I pondered my options. Secluded from anyone who could help, I realized I had only two ways to go with this. Lunge forward and try to dodge whatever might come flying at me, or leap back and hope like hell I could avoid the weapon. What if this triggered some type of trap door, almost like an underground lion cage…or maybe a wild boar cage?

  Was I overthinking this? Maybe someone had left the twine as nothing more than a joke?

  I wasn’t laughing.

  A few seconds later, I essentially flipped a mental coin: fall backward while covering my face and head with my arms.

  With my knees bent at a forty-five-degree angle, my leg muscles had begun to feel the effects. I could last another thirty minutes, but by then they’d be shaking like the tail of a rattlesnake. Flexing my toes inside my boots, I prepped my body to drop and thrust back with every fiber of strength I could muster. I coiled my hands into fists, my arms bent at my waist.

  I blew out a slow, even breath, raised my arms slightly, then…

  Before I knew what was happening, a rag was stuffed into my face, covering my nose and mouth. A sweet, pungent odor flooded my senses. I knew exactly what it was: chloroform. Even with the surprise attack, I fought back the urge to inhale, but I could already feel the effects. My legs began to give out, my shoulders slumped. Suddenly, a beast of a man grabbed me from behind at just about the time I felt a sharp prick at my left kidney.

  I could hear boots shuffling in the brush just behind me, but the man didn’t say a word. I couldn’t fight back. The pressure of the rag against my face wasn’t of this world. Struggling to stay conscious, I tried to yell out, to say anything. Nothing came out, and I knew it didn’t matter anyway.

  The tarantula had lured me into its web, and there would be no escape.

  My body almost totally limp, a haze engulfed my brain, quickly stealing my vision. The sound of rustling boots faded into oblivion.

  I followed
seconds later.

  8

  Another sweet smell woke me from a slumbering sleep. I quickly sensed that I was horizontal, as blood filled my brain.

  That was a good sign.

  Peeling open my heavy eyes, I realized I was lying on some type of table or cot. I felt fabric with my fingers, a cold, metal bar against my face. It was a cot.

  I blinked a couple of times, as motes of light flickered around me. Were they real or the aftereffects of whatever drug was injected into my system?

  I attempted to swallow but couldn’t complete the task. I had sandpaper mouth and didn’t feel like forcing a mouthful of broken glass down my throat—or so it felt.

  Out of nowhere, I felt an insatiable urge to scratch my lower back. That’s where I felt the prick. It must have been a shot of something debilitating…on top of the chloroform rag stuffed down my throat.

  The itch from hell wasn’t going away. I moved…wait. I couldn’t shift my arms. Lowering my head, I blinked twice and yanked my arms. They were locked in place by a pair of metal cuffs.

  Fuck!

  I popped the cork on my adrenaline and without thinking shook my arms violently, metal clanging off more metal. I might as well have been trying to slice through thick vines and branches with a butter knife. It was a waste of time and energy.

  My head grew woozy, and my stomach wasn’t far behind. Attempting to shift off my right side onto my back, I could only get so far. The restraints kept me from moving more than a foot.

  A wave of organic clarity washed across my mind. One more squeeze of the eyelids, and I finally took in my surroundings.

  A wall to my left, made of rusted metal. The room was rectangular, a concrete floor with something sticking out a few feet away. I couldn’t get a read on what it was. A counter in the far corner. I couldn’t detect the surface, but I did see curtains hanging underneath, some type of purple floral pattern.