“She’s in a small wooden box, Tucker,” Isaiah said sadly. “I’m sorry. It’s cramped. She’s sitting with her knees drawn up, and she can feel all four sides. The top. It’s old plywood. The layers are old and cracked, coming apart. It’s damp and it smells bad, like animals were caged in it. She’s... she’s praying.”
Melissa, scared and praying for her life? Nothing could’ve hurt Tucker worse. There he was, stuck in his own box with a guy who might be safer in another cell if this nightmare couldn’t be resolved soon. That in itself was an arrogant expectation. It took months for the diplomatic wheels of a prisoner release to turn, if the Vietnamese government even entertained the idea. This was a hopeless situation. He might never see Melissa again, and the thought of her praying for her life gutted him. Damn Stewart. What’s taking you so long?
“I can teach you some relaxation techniques—”
Tucker stuck one palm in Isaiah’s face to stop that nonsense. Relaxation was the last thing he needed. He snapped his fingers. “You’re going to make a phone call. On your feet. Now. Call the guard. Tell them you’re allowed a phone call, the same as me.”
“You really think this will work?” Isaiah asked, already on his feet and at the bars. “What do you want me to say? Oh. You want me to call Director Strong now?”
“No, Sally, I want you to call the First Lady. Yes, Strong. Why’d you even ask? Read my mind, and just do it.”
Isaiah let out a deep sigh. “It doesn’t always work that way, and you need to stop with the name-calling, Tucker. Show some respect. I’m not some dumb kid on his first Boy Scout sleepover. I’m here to help, but you’ve got to let me.”
Oh, boohoo. Tucker sucked in a breath, fighting for an ounce of restraint. Isaiah was right. He needed to cool his jets, idle down the throttle, and take his lead foot off the pedal. None of this was Isaiah’s fault. He deserved professional respect. “Agreed. Now call the guard.”
Chapter Five
They’d nailed the box closed like she was some kind of an animal.
Melissa sat trembling in the cramped, sweltering darkness, straining to hear what was happening outside of her confinement. She tugged the bag off her head, thankful her hands hadn’t been cuffed behind her back. Several harsh male voices vied to be heard over the din of what sounded like a crowd of people. Children and women, dogs too. She wasn’t in the city though. These sounds were different, and she smelled campfire smoke. Other things too. Sweat, blood, and a latrine. Maybe something dead. Or someone...
The only vehicle noises came from heavy equipment, maybe the trucks from the warehouse. She couldn’t help but feel bad for all the refugees at the clinic. All those supplies wasted. Dr. Hanks would be so disappointed. He needed what was in those trucks more than these rebels.
She stilled and listened intently, an animal in a cage for the moment, but not helpless. Not if she kept her wits. The cuffs at her wrists were tight, but with a little wiggling around and a few contortions, she’d taken stock of her flimsy jail.
It was nothing more than a plywood box with plenty of room between the nail in one side and the door her captors had made her crawl through. She’d expected much worse at their hands when the one guy shoved her to her knees. Maybe he hadn’t meant for her to fall, but she did. The smelly bag they’d put over her head the last miles had made it impossible to see, much less catch her balance.
They could’ve kicked her while she was down, but they hadn’t. If anything, they’d seemed glad to be done with her once they’d locked her up.
Four quarter-sized holes in the roof of her wooden prison revealed leafy jungle overhead, but that was most of Vietnam—jungle and trees. No surprise there. She took a deep breath. She’d prayed when she’d first been forced into the box, but the time for prayers and tears had passed. She wanted out.
“Xin chao,” she called out, hoping that was correct for hello. How dangerous could one unarmed woman be? Then, in case there were any English-speaking people in the crowd, she called, “Excuse me, is anyone out there?”
Okay. Foolish question. She got that, but it was the only thing she could think of to get attention. She’d always relied on Christian kindness and common courtesy to get her through life and the troubles it had brought her way. It worked before; it would work now.
“Hey, pretty lady.” It was him, that young man from the bus again. She couldn’t see him, but he’d used the same words. “You hungry or something? Maybe thirsty?” He tapped the top of the box with something hard.
“I’d very much appreciate standing up straight,” she replied evenly, her dignity intact despite her circumstances. “I’m not a dog you can keep locked up. It’s hot in here.”
He chuckled. “You not afraid I hurt you? You promise you not run away?”
Melissa honestly didn’t know the answer to that. He had hurt her during the abduction. Her knees and elbows were skinned from rolling on the asphalt, and he had slapped her and knocked her down. She wouldn’t give him the benefit of cowering like some frightened female, though. Not anymore. If he meant to kill her, he might as well get it done because she would run for freedom at the first opportunity. That was what Tucker would do.
“I won’t run if you’re reasonable and treat me right,” she compromised. “Do you promise not to hit me again? That was uncalled for. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
He wrenched one of the plywood sides, the nails screeching as he twisted it backward and off. Tall and thin to the point of gaunt, his straight black hair hung over his eyes in bangs. Wispy black whiskers trailed along his jaw, but his teeth were amazingly straight and white, not what she’d expected in a drug runner, or whatever he was. He wasn’t a boy, now that she had a better look at him, maybe younger than twenty. “You come out now, pretty lady. Be smart. Do not run away and do not make Simon angry. He may let you live.”
“Simon?” she asked as she climbed to her feet, the cuffs making it more difficult than it needed to be. “Who’s Simon?”
The young man reached one hand for her cuffs and pulled her into him. Her heart kicked up at the implied threat. He stood a good foot over her, but instead of roughness, he pulled a key from the pocket of his ragged trousers and gently set her free. Stuffing the cuffs in his back pocket, he met her gaze. “Simon is our leader. He teach us plenty good way to live.”
She extended a hand in friendship, determined to strike a truce. “My name is Melissa. What’s your name?”
He slanted her a suspicious, sideways glance, but allowed a quick handshake. “Tristan.”
That was unexpected. “Tristan? But that’s not a Vietnamese name.”
“My grandmother marry American GI. My mother likes American ways. You like her.”
Melissa offered up a sigh of relief at the progress she’d made. After her initial harsh meeting with this young man, his brand of civility calmed her nerves. Maybe this was nothing but a bad misunderstanding she could clear up with a few words with that Simon fellow. “I’d like to meet your boss, if you don’t mind.”
“Melissa?” Tristan asked as if trying the taste of her name on his tongue. He rubbed one hand over his chin, still looking at her through his bangs. “I think Simon might be ready to meet you, too. Come now. I take you to him.”
At last. Progress. Melissa stepped to Tristan’s side, prepared to give Simon a piece of her mind, but the sight of her surroundings took her breath away. This was no camp. It was a village.
Wooden huts with thatched roofs blended into the jungle at her left, a haphazard parking lot of trucks, the three big rigs, and numerous other vehicles at her right. The group of men in the center of the parking lot stopped arguing to look at her. Some Vietnamese. Some Caucasian. Some darker skinned. Most wore camouflaged pants and shirts, albeit dirty and irregular. Boonie hats and ball caps. Dark glasses. Rugged boots.
One guy stepped away from the group and walked toward her. “Ma’am,” he said crisply, his hand extended. “My guys didn’t rough you up too bad, did they? They can ge
t a little overzealous.”
Sandy haired and clean-shaven, he cut an impressive but stern profile. Tall and broad-shouldered, deeply tanned, his chin shadowed with days’ old scruff, he was military in his posture and his language, a definite authority figure. A rifle slung over his shoulder pointed down, but he also packed a long knife in a leather sheath on his hip alongside a holstered pistol. Worry lines etched the corners of his eyes, and the same hard emotion bracketed his mouth.
She returned a solid grip to let him know she meant business, somewhat surprised at finding an American soldier amongst a band of drug runners. “A little overzealous? Is that what they told you? They killed men back at that warehouse. Is that what you call roughed up?”
He nodded one curt nod toward the huts. “I’m Simon Siegel, and frankly, I don’t care what they did. Tristan will show you to your bed. He’ll see to your needs while you’re here.”
“While I’m here? You make this sound like a vacation.” She stuck her chin at him, her body thrumming with adrenaline. “This is an abduction, clear and simple. I’m not staying. Take me back to the city.”
His expression hardened. “You’ll stay until we move out or get run off.”
“I will not. I’m an American citizen, and I—”
“Will you climb off your bullshit soapbox and shut it?” He ran a palm over the back of his sweaty neck in aggravation. “I’m an American citizen, too. So what? Nobody cares out here. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in Vietnam, not Hollywood.”
She tried another tactic. “You do know that you just stole two months’ of supplies from a charitable organization, Doctors for Charity, don’t you? You’ll kill more people if you don’t return those supplies.”
“Yes, ma’am, I do know that,” he said tiredly. “I guess I figured we needed it more since we’ve got nothing, and your fancy clinic’s got doctors and staff and the ability to get more supplies. Never mind, Tristan. I’ll handle the tour. Scrounge up some food for our guest, kid. Go tell your mother I need her with the guys. They head out in twenty.”
Tristan nodded once and obeyed without a word.
“I’m not your guest,” Melissa corrected. “I’m your prisoner.”
“Whatever.” Simon slapped at the cloud of gnats hovering around his face. “You’re here.”
“Is Tristan your son?” she asked, running her sweaty palms down her slacks—not like that did any good. The humidity index had to be close to one hundred percent in the shade, and her anxiety level was easily twice that.
“I wish he was, but no. His father died before he was born. All he’s got left are his mother and two brothers.” Simon nodded toward the huts. “Come this way. I’ll show you what I need.”
That didn’t sound good. “What you need?” she repeated, barely able to keep up with his long strides as he made his way toward the rear of his shantytown. “What about my needs, like a cab back to the city, or my purse, or a bus to the clinic? Is there some place around here where I might freshen up and tend to my scraped knees? What about that?”
She caught up to him, her fingers clenched into fists and her head on straight, fully intending to tell him off until a little tyke ran up to her, giggling and hiding behind her leg while another gave chase in a game of tag. A young woman stepped shyly to her side and lifted the littlest guy into her arms, scolding in her soft language as she hurried away. He waved back over her shoulder, his eyes bright and sparking with mischief.
“It’s okay,” Melissa tried to explain to the woman. “He wasn’t hurting me. I’m fine. Really.”
The woman ducked her head and disappeared around the back of one of the huts.
“You’ve got kids here?” Melissa sniped, a titch of tartness to her question. “Kids and drugs don’t mix. They shouldn’t be exposed to...” She couldn’t find the words to describe Simon’s lack of humanity and ended with an indignant, “... all of this.”
“You’re right. They don’t.” He cupped her elbow and steered her around some bushes, between two huts and into the center of the village. “But this is where they’ll stay until it’s safe for them to go home.”
Her hackles lifted. She jerked her arm away from his grasp and into her side. This arrogant man had his nerve. She didn’t want to go anywhere with a guy who’d sent boys to commit murder while he let children play in his despicable drug camp. She didn’t want a thing to do with him until...
Oh, my God. Melissa froze in her tracks, the breath knocked out of her at the sight. This was no village. This was a massive hospital zone, the ground littered with makeshift beds, families crammed side by side with women and children squatted alongside their husbands and sons, their fathers and brothers. A definite odor of decay and sickness filled her nose. Tiny little kids scrambled between the cots and beds.
She waved a mist of flies away, needing to understand what she was looking at. “Who are these people?” she asked.
Simon lifted his shirt collar to cover his mouth. “They’re Cambodian soldiers and the families of soldiers in the now defunct prime minister’s army. If they go back, the rebels will execute them. If they’re found here, same deal, only it’ll be the Vietnamese Army running the firing squad. Vietnam can’t and won’t give them safe passage. They won’t risk their tentative truce with the new Cambodian leader if this military coup holds.”
“They should go to the clinic. They can get help there.”
“No, ma’am, they can’t. They’re afraid that rebel spies will be at the clinic. They’ll get caught and sent back to their country.”
“You’re helping the Cambodian army?”
“No, ma’am. I’m helping men, women, and children who don’t have any options left.”
“But they can’t stay here. Look at them. They’re sick. You have to get them decent help.”
He pursed his lips and blew out a small breath. “That I do.”
The mother and the little boy who had played tag squatted alongside a small girl and an older man, his left leg bandaged and bloody.
“Oh, my,” Melissa breathed. Her heart hurt for all these people. She scanned the men and boys on the ground, some on mats, some on rags. Many of their wounds had to be from gunshots. Some looked utterly hopeless. All needed doctoring and a cleaner place to rest and heal.
“What’s in the huts?” she asked, her inner Florence Nightingale rising to take charge of the desperate, quiet chaos. Needing to reach out and help. This was why she’d come to Vietnam—to serve in some small measure. She’d learned long ago that she couldn’t solve the world’s problems, but that even one person could still make a difference.
“More of the same,” Simon murmured, rocking on his heels. “I was hoping we’d find mosquito repellant and insecticide in these supply trucks to keep the bugs down. Maybe clean bedding. Netting. Bandages. A living, breathing doctor would’ve been nice, but I don’t suppose they come in a box.”
Melissa glanced over her shoulder at the box she’d been forced into upon her arrival. “Like I did?”
Simon’s moss green eyes slanted over her. “I won’t apologize for helping these people, so you need to back off the piss-and-moan routine, ma’am. You’re here, and you’re a helluva lot healthier than they are. Deal with it.”
She turned the tables on him. If she had to deal with it, he’d have to deal with her. “Do you think you could get some lumber and building supplies without murdering anyone?” she asked haughtily.
He lifted a brow, his lip pinched in disgust. “Why? Do you want me to build you a hotel room so you won’t have to look at these people and the squalor while you’re here? That’s not going to happen.”
“No, I need a clinic,” she declared evenly, her mind made up and her head lifted high. This was why she’d been created—to help people. “These families need help, and as long as I’m here, they’ll get it. Can you do it or not?”
Simon wiped the sweat off his brow and shook it off his hand to the ground, a glimmer of light in his eye. “How big do
you want it?”
Chapter Six
It was going on midnight. The guards hadn’t let Isaiah make his call yet. Every guard they’d asked had just sneered in that superior way of guys who knew they had the upper hand.
“You’re not going to like this,” Isaiah muttered, lifting off the bench as two armed guards approached.
“Why not?” Tucker rolled his bare feet to the floor. He’d been sitting cross-legged on the bench, his sandals kicked off, and dozing because there wasn’t much else to do. Despite Isaiah’s warning, these two guards actually looked hopeful. Maybe Stewart had more clout than Tucker thought he had. Maybe they were on their way out of jail.
“You,” the one guard pointed at Isaiah. “Come. Now.” The second guard snapped his rifle on Tucker while the first unlocked the cell and urged Isaiah out. He slammed the door, locking Tucker behind bars again. “What’s going on? Where are you taking him?”
“They’re releasing me,” Isaiah managed to say before he was jabbed in the back with a baton and yelled at. He lifted his hands in submission.
“Silence!” the first guard ordered. “You go. He stay. No talk.”
Didn’t that beat all? Tucker caught the perplexed message in Isaiah’s raised brows as he was hustled out of the jail and disappeared behind the doors. He didn’t know what was going on, either, but the second the door closed, Tucker got a covert earful from Isaiah. “Keep your head down, Tucker. That asshole with the nightstick is still here. His boss is going home soon.”
Tucker grabbed onto the bars, daring that guard to try anything with his little billy club. Several prisoners bellowed back, but that only raised Tucker’s ire all the more.
Letting go of the bars, he paced a tight, worthless round, but gave it up after a couple dozen got him nowhere. He hit the floor again, pumping out a hundred push-ups and growing madder by the second. His angst had no end to it. He needed out of this cell, but no. Isaiah had been set free to go off on his own to do what—think? Bullshit!
King of Hearts (Deuces Wild Book 1) Page 6