Last Call - A Thriller (Jacqueline Jack Daniels Mysteries Book 10)

by J. A. Konrath

  “Who is this? Chandler or Fleming?”

  “Again with the codenames?”

  “Who?”

  “It’s Chandler.”

  “Remember when your sister was being held at that black site?”

  A short pause, and then, “Yes.”

  “How did you do it?” I asked, my hand starting to shake. “How could you function knowing what they were doing to her? How did you compartmentalize your feelings?”

  “I didn’t,” Chandler said. “But I’d had enough training that I could fake it.”

  I thought about Phin, swallowing the sob that was creeping up. “I can do that.”

  “We’ll call you when your flight arrives. “

  She hung up.

  Tequila was doing push-ups. Again. He halted long enough to raise an eyebrow at me.

  “Looks like your plan is a go,” I said. “Can I ask a question?”

  “You want to ask how I compartmentalize my feelings,” Tequila said.

  “And you’re going to tell me you don’t have to, because you don’t have feelings.”

  “No.” Tequila hopped to his feet, then set his bulk in the seat next to mine. “Emotions are like injuries. You can learn to separate them from yourself. Sort of like they’re a mosquito, buzzing around, that you can ignore.”

  “How can you ignore part of yourself?”

  “Give me your hand.”

  I did. Tequila’s hands were as hard and stiff as two by fours.

  “Tell me when this hurts,” he said, gripping my index and middle finger and crushing them together.

  My first reaction was to yelp and try to pull away. But my digits might as well have been trapped in a vice.

  “You feel the pain.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s just pain. It’s not killing you. You’re not being injured. You’re not in danger. It’s a sensation that we’ve learned to associate with negative emotions. But it’s like walking into a room with a bad odor. After a few minutes, you get used to it and can’t smell it anymore. That’s why garbage men aren’t constantly throwing up.”

  “This still hurts.” I was beginning to sweat. It felt like my knuckles were ready to pop.

  “Of course it does. I’m squeezing your nerve endings.”

  “So how am I not supposed to think about it?”

  “That doesn’t work. The trick isn’t to ignore it. The trick is to put it in a place where you can still cope and it doesn’t hinder you. This is a physical sensation. It’s automatic, and you can’t block it. But the emotional response to it is learned behavior.”

  “So I have to pretend it isn’t happening?”

  “You’re not listening,” Tequila said, increasing the pressure. “Have you ever put off some chore? Like you have to do the dishes? You can’t completely ignore them, because you know they have to get done and they’re in the back of your mind. But you can prioritize other things before you get to the dishes. Reading a book. Going for a run. Getting some work done. The dishes still need attention, but you’re doing other things. What do you have to do right now?”

  “I have to rescue my husband.”

  Tequila moved closer. “And what things do you have to do before that?”

  “Catch this flight. Meet my people. Take inventory. Plan the raid.”

  “Can you picture the flight?”

  I could. “Crowded. Cramped. Long. Boring.”

  “Can you picture your people?”

  “Me, you, Val, Chandler, Fleming, Harry.” I rolled my eyes. “Herb Bacondict.”

  “Do you still feel the pain in your fingers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does it still hurt?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you can still think and focus on other things,” Tequila said. “And you can also compartmentalize pain.”

  “I don’t feel like I’m compartmentalizing anything.”

  Tequila looked down. I followed his gaze and saw he had his hand on my waist, his fingers pinching an inch of my leftover pregnancy flab.

  When I saw it, the pain came with it.

  “I’ve been pinching you the whole time,” Tequila said. “The only thing that gives the pain power over you is when you focus on it. It’s your choice whether to submit to the pain, or put it off like chores or a buzzing insect. The pain won’t go away. But your reaction to it can change. You just need practice.”

  Tequila let go of me, then dropped and began doing more push-ups. I lifted up my shirt, saw the bruise already starting to form on my side.

  I’d just learned something important. But I didn’t know if I could learn to do the same thing with emotional pain.

  Only one way to find out.

  I pinched the same spot Tequila did, until tears almost came. Then I thought about my husband, having to fight in an arena, being beaten, all alone with no hope.

  I started to cry.

  So I pinched harder, and did it again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And by the time our flight finally arrived, I had no idea where the two and a half hours had gone.

  DONALDSON

  Having his car get stolen by a child was bad enough. But the little bastard had also done a real number on Donaldson’s head and knee. One, or both, may have been fractured.

  He limped up the street until his leg wouldn’t work anymore, and then passed out on the curb.

  When he awoke, someone had stolen his last forty-six cents.

  And his dentures.

  His car was gone, all of his medication was gone, all of his Gansitos were gone, the clothesline was gone…

  Not that he’d be able to drag someone to death without a vehicle. Manually pulling someone behind on a rope would be more like walking a dog on a leash. He doubted that would get Lucy’s attention.

  Fingers still glued to his face, Donaldson managed to get up onto his feet, with no idea what he was supposed to do next.

  He was in pain, and sick. Besides the whole eye incident, which happily he couldn’t entirely remember, he was also withdrawing from all the pills he’d been popping like candy. Cold turkey was a nasty bitch, and the shiver-shake-vomit boogie his body danced to was even more unbearable in the hundred degree heat.

  Donaldson managed to find a public bathroom, drank from the sink, threw up, and drank again. Then he considered his options.

  He was in too bad a shape to go on even the lamest of crime sprees. But he needed food. So he dug a greasy piece of cardboard and a few cigarette butts out of the garbage, and asked passersby how to spell help in Spanish.

  “How do I write help?”

  “Help, please?”

  “Can you tell me how to write help here?”

  “Will one of you assholes spell help for me?”

  “Feo!” a woman said as she hurried past.

  Donaldson wrote FEO on his cardboard using the ash from the butts. Then he found a sliver of shade next to a fountain and sat there, begging for change, as people strolled by, pointing and making faces.

  After six hours he was dehydrated, sunburned, feeling even sicker, and had made twenty-three pesos. About a buck and a quarter US.

  Maybe enough for something to eat.

  Maybe. Donaldson wouldn’t be able to find out. Because as he was standing up, some kid ran past and stole his cup.

  PHIN

  When consciousness returned, Phin found he was on a cot, his hands cuffed over his head and threaded through a heavy, iron U-bolt attached to the wall.

  He had no idea where he was or how he got there. Phin gave his head a quick shake, trying to clear mental cobwebs, force alertness. Then he looked around.

  This wasn’t his underground cage. Instead of bars, the walls were adobe brick, with a small, square window. And while the room was about the size of a prison cell, it had more of an old house feel to it. Or a mission. Phin heard Mexico was littered with abandoned missions and churches.

  Had he somehow been rescued?

&
nbsp; Memories came back in fits and starts.

  Shooting Kiler in the arena.

  Being beaten by the guards.

  Lucy.

  Phin recalled some situation with Lucy. She was asking questions. Hurting him. But he couldn’t remember what had happened, and wondered if it had just been a fever dream.

  That reminded Phin of the infection in his chest. He looked down, saw his bloody #17 shirt had been replaced by a clear, plastic bandage.

  No, not a bandage. Tape. Packing tape.

  While the wound didn’t ache like it had previously, Phin felt an unpleasant tickling sensation.

  Squinting, Phin noticing something else odd about his makeshift dressing.

  It was moving.

  The tape seemed to undulate, as if something underneath was wiggling.

  Panic stitched through him, and Phin stretched, trying to detach the tape from his sweaty skin. A corner lifted up, and something small and pink squeezed out and slid down his ribs.

  As Phin stared, the pink thing began to squirm, and he realized what it was.

  His chest wound was infested with maggots.

  JACK

  Thirty seconds after we landed, I got a text that read HOTEL LUCERNA.

  Mexico was hot. Like sticking-your-head-in-an-oven hot. While we waited for a taxi, Tequila did push-ups, and I poked at the bruise on my side, wondering if I was learning a life lesson or indulging in some self-destructive masochism. Perhaps both.

  When the cab spit us out at the Hotel, another text flashed on my screen. POOL.

  Chandler and Fleming were at a patio table, under a large sun umbrella. Though identical, they didn’t look very much alike at first glance. Chandler’s hair was now black, cut in a pixie. She wore a black bikini under a black mesh cover up, and her body was tanned and trim. Fleming’s hair was long, red, and in a ponytail, she had on a floppy hat to protect her pale skin, and her high-tech wheelchair was familiar to me. The last time I’d seen it was in the Northwoods of Wisconsin.

  Tequila went up to Fleming, scooped her up out of the chair, and they kissed, hard.

  “Nice to see you again, too,” Fleming said, blushing.

  “I’d like to take you to your room.”

  “You always did get right to the point.” Fleming glanced our way. “You guys be okay without me for half an hour?”

  “An hour,” Tequila said, his eyes not leaving her.

  “An hour.” Fleming ran her fingers across his biceps. “Maybe ninety minutes.”

  “What about Bradley?” Chandler asked.

  Tequila raised an eyebrow. “Bradley?”

  “Guy I’m living with,” Fleming said. “My boyfriend.”

  Tequila shrugged. “He can join us.”

  “He’s not here. But we have an understanding.” She turned to glare at her sister. “Like you and Heath do.”

  Something passed between them, a thinly veiled look, and then Fleming said, “Good to see you, Jack.”

  I nodded as Tequila carried her off, then sat in a padded chair across from Chandler, who had a computer tablet in front of her.

  “That’s new,” I said, eyeing Fleming’s empty, electronic chair.

  “A gift from McGlade.”

  Made sense. Harry must have appropriated it.

  Chandler punched in a passcode too quickly for me to see, and an aerial view of the desert came up on her screen.

  “Your husband is being kept at an old mission, seven hundred kilometers south of here in the Vizcaíno desert.”

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “Their satellite camouflage is good. They even have the carport and landing strip disguised.”

  “How did you find it?”

  “We picked up one of Cardova’s men. He gave us the general vicinity. Then Fleming tagged land and air traffic, zeroed in, and thermal imaging gave us the layout. We’ve counted forty armed men—”

  “Forty?”

  “Those are just Cardova’s. A lot of the visitors who bet on the matches are also armed, or travel with bodyguards. Plus there are servants. We haven’t been able to pinpoint the number of prisoners, but from the IR activity we’ve logged, there are at least thirty, with new blood coming in once a week. I’ve been studying the layout, trying to devise a plan to get in and out. Checkpoint is too heavily guarded, and there are regular patrols on the east, and west. But the path from the north is open. Here’s why.”

  Chandler zoomed in, to what looked like a hole in the ground.

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  “That’s a pockmark made by a landmine. A VS-50 or a PMN. We figure this whole area, from here to here, is mined.”

  I frowned. This was way beyond my realm of experience. I was a retired homicide cop, not James Bond or Rambo.

  “Do you know where they’re keeping Phin?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have a plan?”

  “No. We don’t have enough manpower, or any air support. Infiltration is risky. Extraction is riskier, especially if your husband’s mobility is compromised.”

  “Can we sneak in somehow? Wear disguises?”

  “Good call. We’ll dress up as tree surgeons, and smuggle Phin out in a fake cactus.”

  “Seriously?”

  “No. Don’t be stupid.”

  I rubbed my eyes. I was tired, and scared, and worried, and not in the mood for Chandler’s glib badass act. But I couldn’t do this without her, so I shut the hell up.

  “Jack, I don’t think you actually understand what this entails. I can do my best to minimize our risk, but it’s going to be impossible to get in and out cleanly. People are going to die.”

  “Could we grab Cardova? Force him to let Phin go?”

  “Cardova has better security than the President.”

  My shoulders slumped. “So it’s hopeless.”

  “I have an associate named Heath. He’s meeting us later. He’ll have some equipment that might be useful. But the chances of us pulling this off aren’t good.”

  I searched her face, trying to find any sort of compassion. “What if he was your husband, Chandler?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Yes.”

  She leaned back in her chair. “I don’t think anyone I married would want me risking my life to save him. And I would feel the same way. If I knew he was in a hellhole like this, no possibility of escape… I’d send in drones to bomb it into oblivion.”

  “You’d kill him?”

  “I’d end his misery, and stop it from happening to anyone else. You don’t send in the living to recover the dead. And any poor bastard trapped here,” she tapped the screen, “is as good as dead.”

  PHIN

  I brought some fresh maggots,” Lucy said, holding up a jar and giving it a little shake.

  Phin didn’t say anything, but he watched her intently as she peeled off his chest tape. Lucy sniffed.

  “Much better,” she said. “K—Luther—he taught me this trick. They eat all the dead tissue, and clean out the wound so it can heal. K discovered it accidentally. He was seeing how long he could keep this guy alive, and flies laid eggs in his wounds, and—ta-da!—the guy lived longer. Doctors actually do this, too. It’s called debriding.”

  Lucy dumped more maggots on, then replaced the makeshift bandage.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  Phin didn’t answer. It didn’t hurt, but it was disconcerting, and itchy.

  “Not in a talking mood. Mr. Hanover? I can make you talk, you know. But if we’re going to be working together, I’d prefer the lines of communication to not be forced. You told me you wanted to protect your family. Tell me about them.”

  He didn’t respond. Lucy rolled her eye. “You don’t have to tell me their names, dummy. But tell me what you’re willing to do for them. You said you’d die to protect them. If you want me to trust you, you need to convince me.”

  Phin considered it. Then he said, “I have a son. He’s almost three.”

  “An
d your wife?”

  “She’s a writer. True crime. She’s doing a book about Luther, and she was getting too close to him. He sent her a warning.”

  “What kind of warning?”

  Phin recalled a chapter from one of Katie’s books. “He mailed her something.”

  “What?”

  “Somebody’s skin. Packed with dry ice.”

  “Oooh, creepy. And when was this?” Lucy seemed particularly interested, and Phin knew why. She’d been Luther’s companion for the last few years, and would have noticed if he’d mailed anything.

  “It was a long time ago,” Phin said.

  “Good answer. So why did you wait so long to come after K?”

  “I couldn’t find him. He disappeared for a while.”

  “Another good answer. See how well this communication is working, Mr. Hanover? You’ve almost convinced me that you’re telling the truth, and if I give you the chance you’ll kill Luther Kite. That’s what you want to do. Right?”

  Phin nodded.

  “Good. You told me your wife is a writer. So what’s her name?”

  Phin didn’t answer.

  “You worried I’m going to hurt her or your son? I don’t care about them, or you. But I love to read, and I want to confirm that you’re telling me the truth.”

  This was tricky. If he mentioned Katie, then Lucy could ask Luther about her, and deny Phin’s story.

  “I don’t want him to know,” Phin said.

  “I’ll be cautious.”

  When Phin didn’t respond, Lucy said, “Or… we could go back to the playroom, I could make you tell me. Trust me, this way is easier.”

  Phin had backed himself into a corner. He didn’t see how he had any choice.

  “Glente,” he said. “Her name is Katie Glente.”

  KATIE

  She removed her ear buds, and took her passport out as they got ready to cross the border at Calexico. Herb Bacondict snuffled her face, and she gave the pig a pat on his hairy head.

  “Herb, do you have your Breeding Swine Health Certificate?” McGlade called back from the driver’s seat.

  “Do you expect him to answer?” Katie asked.