Call Sign: Thunder

by Livia Grant

  She pulled the threesome to a halt in the middle of the uneven sidewalk. "You guys go ahead and go back. I'm going to stay downtown longer. I'll take a cab back to the dorm."

  Kathy was shocked. "No way! Weren't you paying attention during orientation? We aren't supposed to walk or even take a taxi alone. Like never. Ever."

  "Yeah, I was there, but I think they're exaggerating." Catching sight of a group of students leaving the nearby cafe, she had an idea. "Look. There's that group of Irish students from our international dorm. I'm sure they won't mind me tagging along with them."

  Ken and Kathy turned enough to eye the direction Allie was pointing, looking unsure. "Have you even met them?"

  Allison stretched the truth. She had said hi to them in the student cafeteria at breakfast a few times. She was sure they'd recognize her. "Sure! We had breakfast the other morning when you two slept in."

  Ken finally let her pull away from him. "I don't like this. I'd still rather you came back with us."

  Allison could see the group of Irish students moving away from them, heading in the direction of the Rio dance club a few blocks away. She needed to leave now if she was going to catch up to them. "Thanks for worrying, Dad." She went to her tippy toes to put a platonic kiss on his cheek before reassuring him. "But I'm sure it will be fine."

  "Do you have cash if you do end up needing to catch a taxi?" Kathy injected.

  "Oh, for crying out loud! You guys are worse than my real dad. I didn't think that was possible. Yes, I have plenty of cash." Watching the look on Kathy's face change, Allie cut her off. "And yes, I'll be sure to watch my purse carefully. No, I won't talk to strangers. Yes, I'll call if I have a problem."

  The Irish contingent of students was moving in the opposite direction. With a final wave, Allison took off in the direction of fun, watching the sidewalk often to avoid tripping on the uneven pavement.

  A few blocks into her walk, Allison was regretting her choice of footwear. If her feet were already hurting while walking to the club, she could only imagine how much they'd hurt after dancing and walking back to campus. The group she was tracking down seemed to be going faster and faster, and after getting stopped by several stoplights, she had begun to breathe heavily.

  It was while she was waiting to cross a busy intersection that her sixth sense picked up the first hint of danger. Several poorly dressed men loitered nearby, smoking foul-smelling cigars and speaking in Spanish faster than her novice language skills could understand. She didn't like the way they were ogling her while nodding in her direction.

  She took off at a brisk pace the second the traffic light changed. Only after crossing the street did she notice that she could no longer see the group of Irish students ahead of her. She fought down the sliver of anxiety that slithered through her like a snake, dousing her anticipation, replacing it with dread.

  Allison was almost running by the time she got to the next cross street, stopping to look left and right, praying to see the group of students. She was still two blocks away from the dance club she was sure they'd been headed towards. They couldn't have gotten there already, she knew that. They must have ducked into one of the small shops along the way.

  Turning to retrace her steps, she recognized two of the men who had been congregating on the corner, now stalking towards her. Her eyes met the taller of the two and his leathery face broke into a near toothless grin. Anxiety turned to fear. They were following her.

  She needed to make it to the dance club. Surely there would be other students there from campus whom she could tag along with. The words from orientation came back to her. 'Safety in numbers. Don't go out alone.'

  Yeah, well you screwed that up, now didn't you, Allison?

  She passed a small corner grocery store and a near-full tobacco store, slowing down to glance inside, hoping to find the students from her dorm and pushing her panic down as shop after shop proved she was on her own. The sound of the men's steps approaching from behind was getting closer.

  As she arrived at the next stoplight, Allison made a snap decision. Parked, waiting for the light to turn green, was an empty taxi. She'd have preferred a woman driver, but since she hadn't seen even one female taxi driver since arriving in town, she knew that was unlikely. She rushed to the back door, flinging it open, and hopped in just as the two men who had been following her got to the vehicle.

  She quickly locked the door while giving the driver directions to her dorm. "Calle veintitrés años, el número de edificio de cinco cuarenta y tres."

  The men outside her window were bold enough to try opening the door she had just locked. Warnings of how taxi drivers would often rob foreign tourists came crashing back. Would the driver unlock the doors for these men? She was relieved when he started the old-fashioned meter on the front dash and moved the car away from the intersection.

  Her sigh of relief was short-lived as the driver prompted her, "Americana?"

  Allison ignored him. She had enough of a bull's-eye on her back. She didn't need to announce she was a single female American out doing exactly the opposite of everything she'd been warned against doing.

  You are such a dummy, Allie. At least you've learned your lesson to be more careful.

  After all, it didn't take a brain surgeon to figure out she wasn't Colombian. Even from a distance, her long, sandy-blonde hair and blue eyes were a calling card of her nationality. Her expensive designer clothes and shoes were like a billboard. And her poor Spanish linguistic skills, paired with an even worse accent, were like a neon sign announcing her as an American.

  She began to relax as the driver took her in the direction of the campus. It dawned on her that she might arrive back at the dorm before Kathy and Ken. Wouldn't they be surprised that she'd beaten them home?

  She opened her small cross-body purse and pulled out her smartphone. Most of the other students had a cheap phone on a local plan. Allie was grateful that her dad had insisted she keep her full package, despite the additional cost for data roaming. She suspected it was so he could track her location, as if he could actually do something to help from thousands of miles away if she ran into problems.

  After checking her email and FB for messages, Allie glanced up, expecting to be nearing the university. Instead, she realized she didn't recognize any landmarks around them. They had turned down a small side street, the buildings encroaching in on the road, putting the narrow sidewalks only inches away from the vehicle. Alarm bells were going off.

  She struggled to find the right words in Spanish to tell him he'd missed the turn off to the school. "Se ha perdido la vuelta al campus. Voy à la Universidad." Her eyes met the driver's in the rearview mirror and it was then that she knew for a fact she was in trouble. She didn't see lust or glee in his weary eyes. She saw anger. Hatred.

  She clutched her phone, glancing down to her lap, thinking quickly about whom she should call. She needed help. It wasn't exactly like she could call 911 as if she were at home, and calling her dad would do nothing to help here and now, and he'd only worry. Hell, maybe he'd even make her come home.

  Her decision made, she found the contact for Kathy and pressed 'send' before looking back up to assess the surroundings. As dangerous as the taxi driver seemed to her, she quickly realized he was the lesser of the evils. The cab sat stationary in the middle of the narrow street while men began to pour out of the buildings surrounding them as if a loudspeaker had alerted them to her presence.

  Allison's pulse was pounding in her ears, making it hard to hear Kathy's voicemail answering at the other end of the phone. The instructions to leave a message coincided with the first man testing the door next to Allison and finding it locked.

  "Kathy, it's Allison. You were right. It was too dangerous. I tried to take a cab back to the dorm, but the driver took me to a dangerous part of town. Call the police. Report that I'm in trouble and need help. It is cab number 6296. It says the driver's name is Alejandro Nunes. There are men trying to get in the back of the cab. Oh God, there a
re more men coming over."

  Allison stopped talking as she watched the cab driver lower his window far enough to accept a big wad of cash wrapped in bands, like they gave out at the bank. She watched him fan out the thick stack of bills and then grin as he looked up to meet her gaze in the rearview mirror. She saw the joy in his eyes as she heard the electric door locks click open.

  "Call my father, Kathy! They are taking me. Oh God!"

  Two men simultaneously grabbed her, one from the left and the other from the right. They ripped her iPhone from her ear, throwing it out of the car to the ground. She could hear what sounded like the crunch of glass as she assumed one of their cohorts crushed her phone against the pavement.

  Allison fought with all her might, biting the forearm of the man who had her torso, and kicking the man on the other side who was trying to subdue her flailing legs. Her efforts were ineffectual.

  Things went from bad to worse once they had her out of the car. A third man pressed her body to the hot pavement with his knee to her chest while the man she'd been kicking succeeded in wrapping dirty nylon rope around her ankles, locking them together.

  Allison opened her mouth to scream and the man at her head took the opportunity to shove a dirty rag into her mouth to muffle her cries. Surely there had to be someone sympathetic nearby who would call for help. Women didn't get kidnapped in full view of a dozen people, did they?

  Within a few long seconds, the men had completely subdued her, tied her, gagged her, and left her to lie on the side of the street as the asshole cab driver took off with a squeal, anxious to put distance between himself and the crime in progress. The men appeared to be in no hurry at all. The tallest of them seemed to be in charge, taking a pocketknife out of a holder on his belt and opening the sharp blade.

  Her life flashed before her eyes as he leaned down, knife in hand. This was it. She would die on a dirty street in Bogotá, Colombia, at the age of twenty-one.

  She should have been relieved when he used the sharp blade to cut the strap of her purse, pulling it away from her body and opening it to rummage through. He pulled her Coach wallet out and opened it. She prayed they would take her cash. Hell, they could have her credit cards too. Just rob her and let her go.

  Time stood still while the hoodlum took his time looking through each nook and cranny of her wallet. It didn't make sense to her, at least not until he knelt next to her to speak softly, as if he were her friend… speaking perfect English.

  "Welcome to Colombia, Miss Benson. My colleagues and I would like to invite you to stay with us for a while."

  Allison shook her head vehemently, struggling against her bonds.

  "Now, now. Is that any way to thank us for our hospitality?" His menacing brown eyes met her own and she saw pure evil. It was the last thing she saw before the drug-covered cloth was pressed over her mouth and nose and the evil faded to black.

  Chapter 2

  This was the part of the mission Zach hated the most. The waiting sucked. It wasn't exactly like he could play a game of Angry Birds on his phone or text his friends at Camp Lejeune back in North Carolina. He needed to watch his six.

  He turned off the engine. He was used to the ringing that hummed through his ears from the helicopter engine. It took several minutes to grow accustomed to the sudden silence of the forest surrounding him. He took his headphones off and flipped the switch on the dash that allowed him to listen in on the comms with his squad, not that they'd be doing much talking for the next thirty minutes. They'd be on radio silence until they arrived at the compound.

  The buzzing sound of insects replaced the buzz in his ears. The late summer heat was oppressive as the sounds of the active forest life infiltrated the cockpit of the small helicopter. He unlatched the triangle of a window next to him, pushing it out the few inches, hoping to catch a breeze.

  A familiar yearning for a cigarette hit him right on schedule. He'd given up the nasty habit over two years before and most of the time he didn't miss lighting up. The only times he truly missed his previous habit was when out drinking with his buddies, and during downtime like this while he waited to pick up the gang after they got to play Superman.

  If they were Superman, what did that make him?

  The snap of a nearby twig grabbed his full attention. The tall trees surrounding the slight clearing he was parked in now obscured what little moonlight they'd had on the flight in. He leaned down to grab his high-powered flashlight, shining it into the surrounding trees, looking for anything that could pose a danger to his location.

  Not for the first time, he was glad he wasn't afraid of the dark. The night was pitch black; the kind of dark that could hide the boogieman. He was about to turn off the light and chalk the sound up to a small animal when his narrow beam of light caught a flash of red moving about ten yards into the dense tree cover.

  "Fuck." He threw the flashlight to the floor, reaching for the ignition button, bringing the engine to life. He had just lifted his baby off the grassy ground when a half dozen men rushed out of the trees, heading for him with their weapons drawn, pointed his way.

  Thunder didn't hesitate, lifting up quickly and pitching to the right as soon as the copter cleared the treetops. The sound of gunfire could be heard a split second before the bullets started ripping through the bottom of the helicopter. The sound of projectiles ricocheting threatened to deafen him in the confined space, and he cursed taking his ear protection off.

  Yeah, well, if you hadn't, you wouldn't have known how close they were.

  He breathed a sigh of relief when he was out of range of the guerrillas he had left behind, but he wasn't foolish enough to think he was out of danger. He grabbed his comms unit and broke radio silence.

  "Watch your six, Superman. Thunder taking fire. Headed to secondary location ahead of schedule. Copy?"

  "Copy that, Thunder. Looks like we might have been expected."

  "Copy that, Superman. On standby."

  Major McIntyre had said the words he'd been thinking. No one should have been in the forest tonight. It was why they'd chosen that location for their drop off. It was mountainous terrain, miles away from the nearest farms or crime compounds. If they had a welcoming committee at their drop off, there was a good chance they might have company at the Blanco Compound or, worse yet, the pick-up rendezvous.

  Zach started running contingency plans through his head and decided to deviate from his planned flight plan. It might be risky, but he needed to get eyes on the compound to see what the squad would be stepping into. He banked hard left, heading south for ten miles before circling around to come at the compound from the opposite direction. This was a risky flight because it would have him flying directly over Carlos Blanco's mountaintop residence, located three miles south of the compound. At this hour, any movement there meant the whole area was awake and waiting for them.

  Thunder flew as low as possible, the running boards of the helicopter skimming the treetops more than once. This—this was what he lived for. His ability to go where most of his peers wouldn't dare was why he was the most requested pilot.

  The drug lord's personal fortress was over the next ridge. Zach would fly west of the tall wall meant to keep out unwanted visitors. Their recon of the residence had shown armed guards would be in strategically placed towers at the corners of the property. He'd need to steer clear of them or he might be taking her back with a few more bullet holes.

  The second he cleared the ridge; he knew he was in trouble. Several high-power spotlights shone into the sky from the four corner towers of the property. The engine of the Huey was one of the quietest in their fleet, but he knew that out in the country it would be more than loud enough to be picked up by the goons on the ground. He banked left, confident he could avoid the searchlight long enough to get out of range of the rifles.

  What he hadn't counted on was the enemy arming the tower guards with the very ground to air missiles they were on a mission to destroy. The bomb tore through the tail of the copter w
ith a thunderous explosion. Zach's training kicked in, allowing him to keep his cool long enough to send his mayday.

  "Mayday, mayday, Superman. Hit by bogie over target's crib. Thunder going down. Need to call for backup bus."

  "Roger that, Thunder. Hoof it to the rendezvous for extraction."

  There was little control left. Zach struggled to navigate to the only small clearing in sight, setting down hard enough to lurch his body forward. Only the heavy seatbelt buckling him in kept him from projecting out through the front windshield.

  The immediate silence of the dead engine was replaced with the crackling of fire. He needed to get out before the whole craft blew up.

  Or before those assholes get here with their guns.

  The copter was pitched forward enough that he had to put his feet up on the dash as he undid his seatbelt to keep from crashing through the glass. His body ached from the jarring landing but he pushed through the pain. He could be a pussy about it later.

  Zach kept his wits about him long enough to reach for his survival pack, tucked away behind his seat. It had been over a year since he'd done a hand-to-hand combat rotation, but he was grateful he never went up without his bulletproof vest, army knife, and loaded M9 Beretta.

  He fought through the growing smoke to reach the sliding door his buddies had exited from less than an hour before. Now it was his turn to jump the several feet to the forest floor. The fire from the back of the craft was working its way forward and would be consuming the bird soon. He gave a final look at his baby before pulling the pack on his back and running to the nearby tree line for cover.

  Zach's family called him a human compass because he had the uncanny ability to sense what direction he was headed, regardless of terrain or even time of day. But knowing what direction he was going in didn't immediately help tonight. He knew he was due south of the planned rendezvous, but his little jaunt had now put him a full seven miles from where he needed to be in less than forty minutes. Even on flat terrain, he'd have trouble making that. On the mountainous tree-covered route he had in front of him, it was impossible.