Vaz

by Laurence Dahners

  “As soon as I get you loose.”

  “No! Now! Before he Tasers you and no one can get away!”

  Lisanne hesitated momentarily, then plunged out the back door and across the yard. Vas rolled his eyes to watch her go, thinking he should have specified which door since he knew there was another man out back.

  Dante struggled mightily with the man he’d tackled. He hadn’t hit him with the bat for fear of killing him. He had felt like he’d be better off wrestling him, wrestling was something Dante understood. But the guy was big and hard to control. Dante realized that the man would have no compunction about hurting Dante if he got free. Dante’s arms were tiring. Dante slipped his arms under the man’s armpits and up onto the back of his head for a full Nelson hold. “Hold still or I’ll break your neck!” he grunted into the man’s ear.

  The man flattened himself to the floor. This had the effect of requiring Dante to force the man’s head through the floor to be able to stress his neck. He reached back, grabbed Dante’s wrists and started pulling on them to get them out from behind his neck. The guy was powerful and Dante’s fingers began to slip apart.

  At a sudden thump, the man let go of Dante’s wrists, shrieking.

  Dante unlocked his hands from the man’s neck and sat up to see Vaz, wrists still taped, kneeling a little unsteadily beside him, holding one of the bats in his bound hands. The man’s elbow was smashed and bloody where Vaz had hit it with the bat. Vaz said, “Get a knife and cut this tape.”

  Dante jumped up and ran across the kitchen. Returning with a paring knife, he cut his father’s wrists loose. “Where’s Mom?” Dante asked, glancing around for her.

  “She’s trying to get far enough from their jammer signal to call the police. Tape these two guys’ wrists behind their backs, then tape their wrists to their ankles.”

  The back door slammed open and a man stepped inside. He had one arm around Lisanne’s neck and the other holding a Taser to her head. “Don’t move, unless you want to find out just how bad a Taser shot to the head‘ll scramble her brains.”

  Dante slowly raised his hands. After a moment Vaz did the same. Vaz raised his eyebrows at Lisanne, wondering if she’d reached 911.

  Lisanne’s shoulders sagged and she shook her head minutely.

  The guy looked at them and said, “Jimmy, tape that bastard’s wrists together.”

  “Jimmy” rolled over with a moan and said, “The ‘bastard’ broke my elbow Chuck. I can’t do shit.”

  They all glanced at the guy Vaz had punched when the bottle exploded. He breathed and twitched but his lights were obviously still out. The guy who’d come in the door with Lisanne said, “Shit! What happened to the other four guys that were in here?”

  Jimmy groaned, “They went down to the basement, and never came back.”

  “Chuck” cursed fervently, “What did you do to them?” He demanded, staring at Vaz and forcing the Taser’s barrel into Lisanne’s head. She winced and her eyes fearfully rolled toward it.

  “Tied them up.” Vaz said. “Call down there and ask them. They’re fine.”

  Chuck bellowed, “Ramos? You OK?”

  “Hell no! The son ‘va bitch tied us up and broke my damn fingers! Get down here and cut us loose!”

  Chuck darted his eyes around looking a little frustrated, “Jimmy, you’re gonna have to get your ass up, broken arm or no, and go cut me loose some help!”

  Jimmy raised his head and looked around a moment, then said, “Shit!” and struggled to his feet. He carefully used his right hand to put his left hand in his pants pocket. With this functioning as an improvised sling, he headed across the room and down the stairs, cursing in pain the entire time.

  Vaz tried to sidle closer to Chuck, hoping he’d let his guard down a moment but Chuck pulled Lisanne away and barked at Vaz to stay where he was.

  A couple of minutes passed then the first of the four men from downstairs came up and taped Vaz’s wrists together. The others quickly followed up the stairs and taped Dante and Lisanne’s wrists too. They removed the Gettnors’ AIs, turned them off and put the AIs in a metal box. Ramos came up, staring sullen daggers at Vaz and then talked to Jimmy and Chuck in whispers for a few moments. He flipped a switch on the box evidently killing the jammer because he then spoke to his AI. A moment later he said, “Bossman?”

  They couldn’t hear what “Bossman” said, but a moment later Ramos said, “No, we ain’t got no Goddamned plans! Bossman, the son ‘va bitch nearly took down the whole team!”

  After another pause he said, “I don’t know how he did it. He gassed the damn stairwell and knocked four of us out. He broke my fingers!” Ramos said this as if it was the most heinous crime imaginable. “Then he punched Arno’s lights out and broke Jimmy’s elbow. If Chuck hadn’t caught the wife tryin’ to escape and brought her back as a hostage the police would be here and we’d be toast!”

  Another pause to listen, then “The daughter’s not here and I don’t think we should hang around much longer waitin’ for her. The neighbors are probably starting to wonder what’s going on.”

  Ramos listened a moment longer then turned to the other men. “Stivitz, go get the van. Pull it into the garage as soon as someone moves their car. Mike, throw some water on Arno, see if you can get him up. Chuck, drag the wife out to the garage and make her authorize starting their car and having it back out of the way. When the van pulls into the garage put her in it and cable tie her to a seat.” He glared at Vaz, “Jason, cable tie this bastard’s elbows back behind his back. He’s too tricky.”

  Jason pulled out a bundle of cable ties and put one around each of Vaz’s elbows, then connected them with cable tie loops passing behind his back. Combined with the tape holding his wrists bound in front, his arms were fairly well immobilized. Jason did the same to Dante.

  Mike roused “Arno” and guided him as he staggered out to the garage. They heard the garage door rumble open and a minute or two later rumble shut. Stivitz came in through the door to the garage and took Dante out. Ramos waved a Taser at Vaz and said, “Let’s go.” He indicated the direction of the garage with a jerk of his head.

  They’d just started to move when Vaz heard the front door open. At first his heart leapt with hope, could it be the Police? Then with horror he heard Tiona call out. “Hey, the window by the front door is broken.” She came down the little hall from the entry, looking back over her shoulder at the broken window. When she turned her eyes widened as she saw the large, strange men with the latex masks and her father with his wrists bound, “What…?”

  Vaz said, “Run,” at the same time that Ramos spat, “Don’t move.”

  Ramos turned to Jason, “Grab her.” He jerked his head in Tiona’s direction.

  Wide eyed Tiona started to back away, then turned to run.

  Ramos shot her with the Taser. As she fell twitching to the floor he muttered, “Bitch, I told you not to move!”

  Vaz lifted a foot and stamped it into the side of Ramos’ knee. The knee gave way with a sickening “cratch” sound.

  Ramos screeched as he fell to the floor, grabbing for his knee with his hand. He bumped his dislocated fingers on it and shouted, “Goddammit! You son of a bitch! You’re gonna regret that.” He turned the Taser on Vaz and fired again.

  The lightweight dart struck Vaz’s sweatshirt where it hung loosely away from his abdomen. Vaz stepped forward and kicked Ramos in the face.

  The Taser skittered away across the floor, passing near Jason who picked it up and turned it back on Vaz. Eyeing the unconscious Ramos, who had blood pouring out of his nose, he wondered how Gettnor had stood up to the Taser. Then he saw the dart hanging free on his sweatshirt. He shot Vaz in the chest and watched him drop quivering. He pulled out some more cable ties and used them to bind Vaz’s ankles. Then he stepped over to bind Tiona’s ankles and wrists.

  Eyes wide behind his mask, Stillman Davis stood to watch the men making their way into Jerrod’s safehouse practically dragging the Gettnor family
. The shambling Arno, still looking confused and unsteady was followed by Jimmy, carrying his broken arm and steadily cursing Gettnor. Chuck came in with Gettnor’s wife and daughter, “Are we puttin’ ‘em in the basement?”

  Jerrod nodded.

  Davis turned to him, “The basement?”

  Jerrod shrugged, “Doesn’t have a window. Door’s the only exit. We put in a reinforced door, pinless hinges and a security bar. Closest thing we’ve got to a cell.”

  Stivitz came in with Gettnor’s son and followed them to the basement. Jason and Mike came in with Gettnor himself, arms bound front and back and shuffling with his ankles linked only about twelve inches apart. Gettnor stopped and looked right at Stillman. His eyes narrowed and he hissed, “Davis,” with a sound of loathing. Jason shoved him and he shuffled off to the basement. Getting down the stairs with his ankles bound barely the height of a stair apart took a while.

  Davis turned to Jerrod and whispered, “How’d he know it was me?” He tried to calm himself, but his heart was in his throat after hearing what Gettnor had done to the men.

  Jerrod snickered, “Not likin’ rough business as much as you thought Stilly? Ain’t you ‘Mr. Tough Guy’ like you thought?”

  Davis took a Rolaids.

  A couple minutes later Stivitz came back out of the hallway and said, “What are we going to do with Ramos and Jimmy?”

  Jerrod frowned, “For Ramos’ broken fingers you mean?”

  “Shit no! Gettnor busted up his knee and kicked in his face. He looks pretty bad. Breathin’ funny.”

  Jerrod cursed, “How the Hell did that happen? I thought you had him tied up?”

  “We did! Then Ramos Tasered Gettnor’s daughter. When that happened, Gettnor kicked Ramos in the side of the knee. It was sick man! Ramos knee went ‘cratch’ and buckled sideways. Then Ramos tried to Taser Gettnor and Gettnor kicked him in the face. Ramos face is all messed up man! And he’s out like a light.” Stivitz face flashed with ugly rage, “Boss, when you’ve got what you need out of him, you got to let us have at him with a baseball bat.”

  Jerrod got up and they went out to the garage to look at Ramos. His face was indeed a pulpy swollen mass with blood dribbling out of his nose onto the flooring of the van. Several loose looking teeth were visible through a large split in his upper lip. His knee lay at a strange angle. Jerrod dispiritedly said, “Shit!” Ramos had been one of his more sensible men. After a beat he sighed, “Take him to the hospital… Jimmy too.”

  “How ‘bout Arno?”

  “We’ll see if he gets better.”

  “What if he has a concussion?”

  “Probably does. People been getting over concussions on their own for thousands of years now. We’ll take him to the Doc in the morning if he ain’t better.”

  Stivitz shrugged, “OK,” he picked up a metal case, “Here’s their AIs.”

  Jerrod said, “Give ‘em to Davis here.” He turned to Davis, “Time to earn your keep Stilly. See if you can find those plans you were so sure you could get out of Gettnor’s AI.”

  Davis said, “We could just make Gettnor download them for us.”

  Jerrod grinned, “Why don’t you just go in there and do that then?”

  Internally Davis flinched at the thought of personally confronting Gettnor. The look he’d had in his eyes when he’d come in had been frightening. He said, “Let me see what I can do.”

  Shoved into the basement, Vaz stared at the heavy door that had been closed up the stairs above him. He glanced around in wonder. The stairwell shared a sheetrock wall with the hall next to it! He looked around the partly finished room they’d been locked into with more and more disbelief. He couldn’t see a video camera—of course that didn’t mean one wasn’t present, they could be pretty small—but thought one must be present. Their captors didn’t seem very sharp to him but he couldn’t believe that they could be so dimwitted as to lock them in what appeared to be an ordinary basement as if it were a prison cell. A basement full of… things. The furnace/AC unit sat out in the middle of the basement with ducts radiating from the top of it to vents in the floors above. A washer and dryer stood over against one wall with an ironing board and to his astonishment, an iron! Big cabinets were over against the other wall.

  Lisanne sobbed. Tiona, wide eyed, darted glances around. Vaz thought Dante looked angry, but as usual he was having trouble judging just what everyone was feeling. For a moment he considered his own feelings and found excitement bubbling through him like it did before a fight. He had been somewhat dismayed to realize just how much he’d enjoyed hurting the men back at his house. A frisson shot through him at the prospect of hurting more of them, especially Davis. He wondered, am I some kind of psycho?

  Internally, he shrugged. Right now he’d just as well turn his inner demon loose if it might protect his family. Vaz shuffled over near Lisanne and whispered to the kids, “Hey! Let’s talk.”

  Lisanne gasped, “What do they want?”

  “The fusion device.”

  “My God! I heard them say that.” Lisanne gasped, “Just tell them it doesn’t work.”

  Vaz tilted his head curiously, “But it does.”

  “Oh Vaz!” Lisanne said disgustedly. “Even if you really think it works, tell them it doesn’t.”

  He frowned, “But they’d find out eventually… Then they’d be back.”

  Lisanne moaned despairingly at the realization that her husband’s delusion was about to destroy her family.

  Vaz thought the kids looked distressed. He looked around at his family and continued to whisper, “Look, it was stupid of them to lock us in this basement. There are a lot of weapons in here, the iron for one.”

  Lisanne and Dante looked confused but Tiona’s eyebrows rose and she darted glances around the room.

  Vaz said, “Before we do anything, we need to figure out where their video cameras are. We don’t want them watching us.”

  Everyone’s eyes turned to look around the room, Dante said, “I think there’s one in the wall there,” he jerked his head at a spot near the far corner.

  Vaz grunted. There was a small hole high in the wall. “If that’s it, it’ll be hard to cover.”

  Despite the cable ties on her ankles Tiona shuffled across the room saying, “It’s a camera all right, but I’ve got that,” she pulled a piece of gum out of her mouth and stuck it over the hole. Looking around she said, “There’s another over your heads,” and shuffled back, pulling out the rest of her gum.

  They all surveyed the rest of the room without seeing another lens.

  Vaz turned to Lisanne, thinking that if she had something to do it might calm her. “Can you untape my wrists?” As she, through blurry eyes, began picking at the end of the duct tape to start unwinding it, he wondered at the lack of thought the men upstairs had given this. He found it hard to believe that they were relying on duct taped wrists when they had put all of their prisoners in one room. Could they be used to dealing with only one captive at a time? Or never have held people against their wills before? Even if I were alone, I’d be able to chew through the duct tape on my wrists.

  Tiona began working on Dante’s tape.

  When Vaz’s wrists came free, he said, “Save the tape, we might be able to use it for something ourselves.” He put his arms back and Lisanne managed to slide the cable ties down from his elbows and off his hands to free his arms. He then freed Lisanne’s wrists from her duct tape. He surveyed their group. Tiona still had cable ties on her wrists and ankles and Vaz had them on his ankles but Dante and Lisanne were completely free.

  Vaz got up, “Plug in the iron and set it on high. Let’s check those cabinets and drawers. Maybe there’s something we can use to cut these cable ties. If not, maybe the iron will melt them.”

  Tiona said, “Look for dangerous chemicals we can use too.” She got up and shuffled along behind Dante, peering in as he opened things.

  Lisanne got down a box of Tide and took it over to the bottom of the stairwell. She fill
ed a measuring cup with detergent. Trying to sound brave she said, “I can throw this stuff in their eyes if they come down here.”

  Tiona said, “Holy crap! There are gallons of ammonia and bleach in here!”

  Vaz frowned, turning to look into the big cabinet they had opened. There were boxes of trash bags and gallon bottles of many kinds of cleaners. “This probably isn’t the first time they’ve done some dirty work. I’ll bet they keep this stuff to clean up crime scenes.”

  In a panicked voice Lisanne asked, “Are they’re planning to kill us?”

  Vaz shrugged, not recognizing just how stressed Lisanne felt. “They probably don’t want to leave witnesses behind.”

  Lisanne sobbed.

  Vaz looked at her with a puzzled expression, “We’re not dead yet.”

  Lisanne wiped her eyes on the back of her wrist but then stifled her sobs and glared up the stairs.

  Tiona said, “We should be able to use the bleach and ammonia somehow!”

  Vaz looked at her curiously, “Are you thinking we could throw bleach on them when they come down for us?”

  Wide eyed she said, “No. But, if you mix bleach and ammonia you make chlorine gas. Well chlorine and something else noxious, I don’t remember exactly what. But if we could make the gas and send it up there… we could make them miserable.”

  Dante said, “How would we get gas out there? Making gas seems like it would be worse for us than for them.”

  Vaz’s eyes narrowed, “No, wait, good idea.” He looked around the room. “Dante, pull the washing machine out from the wall and take a water hose off the back.” Vaz shuffled over to the big air return duct that went down to enter the bottom of the furnace/AC unit. It seemed pretty solid, but there was a grate on the side of the big duct that led up to the ones that spread across the ceiling to the rooms above. It was probably intended to heat the basement though it was shuttered at present. He tugged and the grate came out leaving a hole in the duct down into the furnace. “Are there any clothes or things anywhere that we can stuff this hole with?”