by Jay Giles
I hid in the shadows, my gaze darting back and forth between the two boats, now close enough that I could see men with machine guns held pointed up in the air standing on the boat’s sterns. My hands tightened on my gun as both boats swerved toward us in preparation for boarding.
Chapter 17
Su stealthily reappeared behind me. “When I tell you, go to the rail.” She nodded to starboard. “Empty your gun and come back here before they start shooting at you.”
I nodded.
“Aim for bodies,” she instructed. “Won’t do us any good if all you do is shoot up their boat.”
I swallowed. Mouth bone dry. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m taking the port side.”
We waited for what seemed like an eternity before she gave me a little push and said, “Go.”
At the rail, I held the gun with both hands the way you see them do it on TV, aimed, pulled the trigger, and, whoa, recoil kicked my hands up to twelve o’clock. Lowering the gun, I stiffened my arms, aimed, squeezed the trigger. This time the gun stayed down, but since I’d closed my eyes, I had no idea where that shot went. I aimed, squeezed, kept my eyes open, and saw one of the men jump. I might—might—have hit him. I tried again, heard a Click. Empty.
As machine-guns pointed toward me, I dove for the deck, putting my arms over my head as bullets tore into the aft deck ceiling and sent wood chips raining down on me.
Su joined me on the deck, a grin on her face.
“Why are you smiling?” I shouted over the noise of the guns.
“I got him—the Jamaican,” she shouted back. “I hit everybody in that boat. How about you?”
“I got one in the shoulder, I think.”
The gunfire died down and the whine of their boat engines picked-up. I raised my head and, to my astonishment and relief, saw they were pulling away. “Why are they leaving?”
“To get to a hospital,” she said confidently. “A bullet from a machine gun does a lot of damage.”
She was right. They were hell bent to get wherever they were going. From the bridge, I watched their blips zip off the radar screen. Fireworks seemingly over, Nestor suggested we reduce speed. Ollie obliged and the Venetian waltzed sedately into Salvador harbor.
I expected him to take us right up to the dock, but Ollie dropped anchor in the outer harbor and had us gather on the aft deck.
“Normally, I would have called ahead and gotten docking directions from the Harbor Master, but since I couldn’t do that, I’m going to pay him a visit, see where he wants us to park.” His gaze traveled to me. “I’m hoping he’ll know someone who can fix our telco, and I’ll ask if he has a number for your Embassy. I shouldn’t be too long.”
He nimbly descended a rope latter to the skiff, carefully balanced his considerable bulk on the bench seat, and cast off the towline. He gave the rope pull on the outboard a tug. It coughed blue smoke twice before settling into a steady, if puny, putt putt putt.
I watched the skiff’s progress for a few seconds to be sure it didn’t sink under his weight, before turning my attention back to the entrance of the harbor. We might have won a skirmish with the drug dealers, but they’d be back.
The Venetian seemed to be a curiosity to other boaters, but no one paid us undo attention or ventured too close. Ollie returned, a little over an hour later, with a passenger he introduced as Senor Juan, here to look at our telco. Juan was a short, dark man wearing Bermuda shorts, a white tee shirt, and a gray man’s snap-brim felt hat. In his left hand he carried a yellow toolbox so heavy it appeared to have stretched his left arm several inches longer than his right.
“I was able to get this, too,” Ollie said and handed me a printed flyer with a list of countries, embassy addresses, and phone numbers. The U.S. number had been circled in blue pen.
I followed Ollie and Senor Juan to the bridge, retrieved the now charged cell and took it to my cabin to make my call in privacy. To the embassy’s credit, the lady who answered the phone, Kate Remminger, listened to my tale of woe, asked the right questions, determined the seriousness of the situation, and transferred me to the man who dealt with messy matters, Sam Oakley.
Sam, however, must have been out dealing with one of those messes, because I got voicemail. After his deep baritone told me to leave him a message, I complied.
Topside, I found Nestor had raised the anchor and we were approaching the dock. Senor Juan emerged from the bridge, having done triage on our telco. We nodded and smiled at each other numerous times. Once a gangplank had been put in place, he left.
Su was right behind him. “Grocery shopping,” she told me. I dug out my wallet, took out most of what remained of my cash.
She put the money in her shoulder bag. “Back quick as I can,” she said over her shoulder as she went down the gangplank to the dock.
From behind me, Nestor snorted, “That’s the last we’ll see of her.”
I turned to face him. “What do you mean?”
“Why would she come back? There’s a dead body with a knife in the neck that has her fingerprints all over it. If she leaves now, she doesn’t get questioned about what happened, much less incarcerated.” The corners of his mouth tugged up in a grin. “And she just hit you up for get away money.”
“You’re wrong,” I told him, but just to be sure, I went to the galley and checked the rectangular box that housed her knives. Chefs were zealous about their knives. If she’d put hers in that shoulder bag, then yeah, she was gone.
I found the knife case on the kitchen counter and flipped the lid open.
With the exception of the one in Do-rag’s neck, they were all there.
As I walked back to the aft deck, the cell started playing Snoop Dogg. ....every night her body gets jacked. That gangsta, gang-gangsta. That gangsta, gang-gangsta. That gangsta love. Yeah, she... I quickly flipped it open to stop the music and held it to my ear.
“Mr. Taggert, Sam Oakley from the U.S. Embassy.” His voice was every bit as deep in person as it was on his machine. “Kate’s given me the particulars of your situation, but I’d like to hear it from you.”
I told him the whole sordid mess. I didn’t sugarcoat anything.
“You were right to call the Embassy,” he said gravely. “Here’s what I want you do. Stay put. Don’t go anywhere until I have a chance to find out who these people are and can send someone to take charge of the body. Once I get that ironed out, I’ll call you back.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Just hang out and I’ll get back to you. “I appreciate your help, Mr. Oak—”
“Please, everybody calls me Sam.”
“Thanks, Sam. How long do you think that’ll be?”
“Till what’ll be?” He’d already crossed me off his list. Call made. On to the next lost soul.
“Till you call me back. My fear is these guys are going to come back.”
“I understand, Mr. Taggert. You need help, now,” he said meaningfully. “I’ll move this along as quickly as I can. With a dead body, though, I have to work through channels and that takes a bit.”
“What’s ‘a bit’? Give me a timeframe, here. I feel like I’m sitting on dynamite, waiting for it to explode.”
“How about if I update you tomorrow morning? I should know a lot more by then.”
I didn’t like it, but reluctantly agreed to his plan of action. In hindsight, it didn’t make any difference. Ten minutes later on the aft deck, all hell broke loose.
Chapter 18
The dogs came prancing out the fantail door. Tongues hanging. Eyes bright and shiny. Ollie and Nestor followed. Nestor’s mouth was bleeding. Ollie’s was looking down at the ground. Men-in-black prodded them forward with gun muzzles.
My hands were pulled roughly behind my back and cinched with wire.
“—Gangsta, gang-gangsta. That gangsta, gang-gangsta—“
The cell was yanked from the pocket of my cargo pocket shorts. It landed with a soft plop in the water. Seemed to be the fate
of my phones on this trip.
The dog guarding me joined his friends as hands shoved me toward Nestor and Ollie. At gunpoint, the three of us were walked down the gangplank.
There were locals on the wharf ahead of us. I tried desperately to make eye contact. A fisherman, two rods in one hand, tackle box in the other, turned away. A man wearing a white apron and smoking a cigarette as he stood in the doorway of a storefront ground out his cigarette and went back inside. Three women walking in a group, giggling and talking amongst themselves, hurried to get away from us.
We were toxic. No one wanted any part of this.
Our destination was an unmarked black Toyota Tundra pick-up. The rear gate was down, and they loaded us in the bed on our stomachs like bales of hay. The dogs jumped in. I felt them walking over my legs and back before they found spots and settled down. Two guards climbed in and closed the gate. They stood with their backs against the cab. Guns pointed down. Boots inches from our heads. Someone had stepped in dog poop.
The pick-up started and pulled away from the curb. My cheek and stomach started bouncing on the metal bed. Every turn, every bump in the road had us flopping around like fish. I had no illusions about where this ride would end. They’d drive us outside of town, put bullets in our heads, and dump us in a ditch by the side of the road. I was glad Su had left before they’d arrived. I wouldn’t have wanted to see her raped and tortured. I blocked those images from my mind and thought about the part of this kidnapping that nagged at me.
These guys had to have been called-in by Red Stripe after we shot up his boats. My problem was the two groups didn’t go together. Red Stripe, Do-rag, Wild Eyes, and their crew were rowdy, undisciplined thugs. This group that had taken us captive was a disciplined strike team. They’d boarded our boat, taken us captive, and spirited us away in less than five minutes. No theatrics. No gunplay. This wasn’t a pick-up game. These were pros. I couldn’t picture them being at the beck and call of a bunch of rag-tag druggies.
The more I tried to make it make sense, the more it didn’t. I would have worried about it more, but I was wasting my last minutes on this earth. I moved on to happier memories. Throwing the football in the back yard with my dad. Mom happy, hugging me at my law school graduation. She’d held on to be there. Two days later, lung cancer took her. My first win in court for a Slovakian couple with three toddlers who’d been billed $5,421—the number still sharp in my mind—by a disreputable plumber for two hours work removing a plastic bath toy accidentally flushed down the toilet. I remembered how good I felt helping them, how much satisfaction my practice of family and immigration law had given me, how much I missed it.
I guess that’s what you think about before you die. Regrets. I shouldn’t have been so accommodating to Tiffany when she said she wanted a divorce. I should have stayed doing what I loved, not chased money doing bank work. There had to have been other ways to cover dad’s expenses. Had to be. I just hadn’t worked hard enough to keep Tiffany or find another way to help dad.
Despair set in as I thought about what would happen to him. With me gone, there was on one else to look after him. He’d end up in a corner of some state-run institutional facility where no one knew or cared what a good man Bill Taggert had been.
The truck slowed to a stop.
Chapter 19
They pulled us out by our feet. When they stood me up, I was relieved to find we weren’t on some deserted road in the middle of a forest. The pick-up was parked nose-in in front of a collection of scruffy one-story concrete block buildings. The one that caught my eye first was painted hot pink. It had two four-pane windows and an open door. Above the door was a wooden sign that read Lavaderia Automatica. From the doorway, I could hear the whir and swoosh of washers and dryers.
To the right of the Laundromat was an un-painted block building with a weathered wooden bench in front. The front door was covered in metal and featured a small barred window with the word Policia above it. Vertical metal bars and a thick layer of grime protected the building’s two windows.
The building on the other side of the Police station was adorned with a faded painting of men and women dancing. The door and windows were open. In one window, a yellow neon sign advertising Corona blinked on and off.
Relief washed over me. I doubted they were taking us for a drink or to have our now filthy clothes cleaned. One of the men-in-black slammed the palm of his hand three times on the Policia’s metal door. It opened with a groan of rusty hinges. A jab in the kidney by something hard told me to get moving. We were herded into a low, dimly lit room that smelled of pine air freshener. Ahead of us a low wooden railing separated the office and waiting area. On the office side were three ancient metal desks, a grouping of mismatched government-green file cabinets, and a shiny new gun safe. Two policemen stood watching us warily. One had gray hair plastered to his scalp and a weathered face. He wore a uniform shirt and jeans. The other was a grinning kid with a buzz cut. He had no uniform but wore his badge pinned to a dark blue work shirt. The kid never stopped grinning as he held open the railing gate.
“I’m an American citizen,” I told the gray haired cop. “These men have brought us here illegally, I need to talk to Sam Oakley at the American Embassy. Immediately.”
Neither policeman acted like he understood English.
“Tell them in Portuguese,” I told Nestor.
He rattled something off. The grinning kid started laughing. Gray hair turned his back on us and reached for a ring of keys from a hook on the wall. He unlocked the door in the back wall. A poke in the kidneys told me: move. I stayed put. “I’m an American citizen,” I protested more loudly, “I demand to talk to my Embassy.” A jab hard enough to make me go “oomph” was my reply. Rough hands forced me through the doorway and into the back room—the cell area.
Four feet from the doorway, floor-to-ceiling bars ran the width of the space and combined with the three cinder block walls to form a 15-foot by 15-foot holding cell. Three small barred windows provided ventilation. Despite the windows, the smell took your breath away. A yeasty mix of shit, piss, body odor, and vomit. Ground zero looked to be an overused, never cleaned metal toilet bottom in the far right corner of the holding cell.
The cell’s current occupants—all five of them—were staring at me as if I had use me and abuse me tattooed on my forehead.
The gray haired jailer used his keys to unlock the cell door.
I resisted being shoved in.
There was no jab in the side, this time. I heard a click and felt a gun muzzle pressed to the back of my head.
Two steps in. The side of my head exploded.
Chapter 20
I woke tasting dirt. At least I hoped it was dirt. I was lying on the floor with Ollie and Nestor guarding me from our cellmates.
My welcome to our new abode had been a blow to the head by the fist of a giant who wanted my watch and running shoes. The pain was overwhelming. Each throb threatened to send me back to unconsciousness. I took shallow breaths and tried to gather myself.
Glad as I was to be alive, I didn’t understand why we were here. The men who had abducted us obviously knew our jailers. How all this went together I had no idea. My head hurt way too much to attempt puzzling it out.
After a while, I knew I had to brave sitting-up. My hip was already sore from lying on the rough concrete floor. I shifted positions slowly, even the smallest of movements sent grenades exploding inside my skull. Finally, leaning against the wall, I surveyed the battlefield.
We were on the stinky toilet side. The middle of the cell was no-man’s land. The five locals had taken positions against the far wall. I saw my watch on the big guy’s wrist, almost smiled at seeing his feet stuffed into my several-sizes-too-small-for-him Nikes. I hoped he got blisters.
Next to him stood a bare-chested ropy-looking guy with tattoos faded to blobs of blue. His pants were so low you could see the top half of his boxers. He had a sneer on his unshaven face and a look in his eye that said he’d be
my next tormentor.
Of the other three, one was curled up asleep, the side of his face resting in a pile of vomit. The other two were squatting down, their heads together, talking in whispers. They could have been plotting about beating me to a pulp and taking the rest of my clothes, but I preferred to think they were getting their stories straight so they didn’t get grief when they went home to their wives.
My gaze returned to the ropy guy with the tattoos. He saw me looking at him, grinned and headed toward me, his hands balled into fists.
Head throbbing, heart racing, knees wobbly, I reluctantly got to my feet. I was in no condition to fight; my bell had already been rung. That’s why he was coming at me now.
Ollie and Nestor, realizing what was about to happen, started to get up to protect me.
He pointed at me, a grin of triumph on his face, and strode over to toilet for a piss. Head back, he barked out a laugh at how he’d frightened the gringo.
The episode left me on edge. Even though time passed and he kept to himself on the other side of the room, I was sure he’d come after me again.
What I wasn’t expecting was a coordinated attack.
When the sun went down and the cell darkened, they made their move. The big guy went after Ollie and Nestor, pummeling them with his ham-hock fists. That left me one-on-one with ropy guy.
He shouted things I didn’t understand, his mouth a snarl of hatred, his eyes filled with mayhem.
My dad always told me, Don’t start a fight. But if you’re in one, know that person is out to hurt you and you may have to hurt him to stop it. Good advice I’d never put to the test, until now.
Ropy and I circled each other. He was looking for an opportunity. I was waiting for his move. It came in a frenzy of rapid blows. A right missed. A left caught my right eye. I stepped away from a right. Took a left to the side of the neck.