by James, Ranay
“Well, looks as if an invitation has been issued,” Chase commented. “Let’s hurry, before he figures out his mistake.”
Robert reached over grabbing Chase’s arm before he could get the door fully open. “No, we wait for reinforcements,” Robert shook his head. It was a very difficult decision, but one he knew was correct.
Chase raised one eyebrow only imagining what Robert must be feeling. However, he saw the logic in keeping a cool head. Rushing forward might be suicide for them and certain death for the hostages. This was now Robert’s detail, and they would proceed together as a team including the local law enforcement officers Maxi insisted come along. They were there not only as back up, but also to keep Robert on this side of the law.
Moments later a dark blue van pulled to a stop just ahead of them. They watched as two men piled silently out of the back after the rear doors opened. Each man dressed in SWAT gear made their number eight counting the driver and passenger.
Robert commanded his best recon team who were silently standing by awaiting orders, “Darkman, you and Sundown go do what you do best, but make it snappy. We are losing time here. Report back at regular five minute intervals.”
“Yes, Sir.”
They turned and hurried into the darkness of the shadows.
The waiting was killing him. It had just been a short period of time and not that long ago he had seen the men disappear into the evening shadows. Yet, it felt like an eternity.
“Sundown, do you copy?” Chase spoke softly waiting for the radio to crackle to life.
“Copy. There are three vehicles, Sir. The truck we were following, a white BMW, and a black late model Thunderbird. I see no exterior guards or dogs.”
Darkman came on the line concurring with his teammate. “Copy that. I have seen nothing either in the way of potential exterior resistance.”
“Copy,” Chase acknowledged.
This was going to be a very small party, Robert thought. However, he was not about to become overconfident.
“Sundown, can you get close enough to see if we can determine exactly which building they may be in?” Robert asked, surveying the remaining building and knowing which one he would choose if he were going to hold hostages.
“On it.”
He heard the radio go silent.
With the high-powered listening devices they should be able to safely and quickly determine the approximate location of the driver of the truck. He was curious to know who else was behind those rusty corrugated metal walls. The infrared detectors aided them in seeing through walls, but only to a point.
Sheriff Maxwell had told him Lawrence Rosario’s cell mate at Ft. Leavenworth was Santiago Booth. All the random pieces had fallen into place once he had that piece of information. It explained a lot.
He would bet his entire stock portfolio Tony was behind this. Tony was the grandson of the Golden Circle’s longtime housekeeper, Rosa. Being Rosa’s grandson, he would have known about the legend. He also had gambling debts having been banned from any Las Vegas casino for counting cards. Perhaps he had hopes of uncovering the gold in an effort to get his sorry hide out of some kind of trouble. He surely fit the bill, Robert thought. Certain that Tony was involved, killing Kyle had to be an accident. In spite of his encouraging Kyle to steer clear of the man, Tony and Kyle had been friends all their lives. Robert was not sure if it made him feel better or not. Perhaps Tony would spare Kate for sentimental reasons. However, if he got even the slightest whiff Tony had harmed one hair on Kate’s head, he would personally kill him. If Kyle’s death had not been purposeful, then perhaps Kate had a chance as long as the driver of the truck did not get his hands on her again.
Robert saw Lawrence Rosario’s rap sheet. He went by Razor, and the nickname was not a derivative of his last name as one might think. He had a sick fetish, possessing a sadistic streak where women were concerned. He served time for assault among other charges. However, because of a technicality they had not been able to bring him to trial for a string of murders that he actually confessed to committing. He had not been Mirandized before he confessed. That being the case, the judge tossed out the confession. Unfortunately, the district attorney had nothing else to pin the murders to him, so as a result he walked away scot-free. The details were gory to say the least. Each time he used a straight razor on his victims, slowly cutting them into small pieces while they were still alive. Death would come slowly and very painfully, the victim usually dying of massive infection and blood loss.
Perhaps Tony would buffer her from such a monster. However, he had to be realistic. Even if Tony would not allow Razor to kill her, it did not necessarily mean he would not rape or torture her.
Tony had served time for crimes just as violent. The man had serious issues, and he had no doubts it may have been Razor who beat Kyle, but Tony was the brains driving it forward.
If either one laid a single finger on her, he would tear him limb from limb. He pushed aside the urge to hit something out of pure frustration and deep-seated fear for Kate’s safety.
“Sir, I hear shouting. It’s a woman, Sir.”
The whisper over the radio brought him back to the present.
“What’s she saying? Can you make it out?”
“Yeah, something about ‘not today, ass hole’.”
Robert smiled. That had to be Kate. “Can you determine what building?” He let the switch of the radio go.
“Roger, Sir. I’ve narrowed it to the building at your one o’clock. I’m almost there.”
“Okay boys, it’s time.” Chase gave the word to the remaining two standing by. The four of them would proceed. He just prayed they would be in time. Kate had now been missing ten hours.
Chapter 56
Kate moved slowly, otherwise the world went into a tailspin. Her head pounded behind her ear where she had taken the blow that knocked her off the ATV. Gingerly touching the spot, she could feel it freshly stitched. She did not remember seeing a doctor. Frankly, she did not remember anything after she hopped on the ATV to go back to Robert’s house.
She remembered thinking she would pack her things and leave. The next thing she remembered was waking up inside this dark room.
It was night. She knew that much from looking at the small hole in the metal roof, for the stars were twinkling brightly. However, she could not tell how long she had been unconscious or how long she had been here. She suspected not more than a few hours, but now she needed to relieve herself. Feeling her way around the room, she found the door and tried the lock, yet it held fast. She was not getting out easily and began with her boot to bang on the only opening she found.
“Hey!” she shouted waiting for an answer.
“Hey!” she shouted again. “Let me out of here! Anybody? Hey, I need to go to the bathroom!” she said pounding on the corroded paint of the thick, sliding door watching pieces of the paint fall like snow at her feet illuminated by the small light filtering in under the door.
“Use zee corner. Zat ezz what I do,” the disembodied voice with a heavy French accent answered softly.
She was not alone. She gasped as the lighter burst into flame illuminating the darkened room.
“Who’s there?” Katherine scrambled backwards until she hit the compartment door with her back.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I was zee one to stitch you up. Lawrence has a tendency to become over zealous. If you gave him a tranquilizer gun, he would use it twice when once would do zee trick,” he sighed.
“Who the hell are you?” she asked desperately trying to get her fear under control.
Fear was her enemy.
A cool head was her friend. Fear would consume her. A cool head would set her free and she was getting out of here.
“I am zee doctor.”
He spoke with such a thick accent that she had difficulty understanding him and the room's echo only made it more challenging.
This gaunt, little man was totally creeping her out. And it was creeping her out even mor
e knowing she had been unconscious when he had stitched her up. What else had he done to her? At lightning speed she took inventory of her person and clothing. All were in order just as she had seen them last right down to her shirt being tucked down into the waistband of her panties. He had not molested her. That was a relief leaving her to focus on other more pressing matters.
“Too bad you aren’t Houdini. Where are we, anyway? Do you know?” she asked already exploring for any sign of weakness in her cell.
“I believe zee old fertilizer plant. It is no use, mademoiselle,” he said as he watched her methodically make her way around the room again. “I have already looked for a way out. And as you have pointed out, I am not Houdini.”
“How long have you been in here?” she asked shaking a panel she found with several nails missing.
“How long has Kyle been dead?” he asked in return.
“Forty-one days.” She stopped and looked at her cellmate.
“Zhen zhere you have it, Cherie’, forty-one days,” he said eloquently.
“No offense, but I guess that explains the smell.” She went back to her explorations. Then she stopped. “How do you know about Kyle? I’ve never laid eyes on you before.”
“I am truly sorry for his death, Katherine. I had no idea he was taking a cold remedy. It was an accident.”
“What do you mean, it was an accident? That was no accident! And you would know it was no accident if you had seen his body. Someone beat the crap out of him and left him to die, and if I ever get the chance I’ll tie them down in the middle of a fire ant bed, cover them with honey, and leave them for dead just like they left my brother,” she ranted in grief on the edge of despair.
“Oui, he was beaten, but zat did not kill him.”
Katherine was stunned at his confession. He shared with her that it was the combination of Kyle’s cold remedy and the drug he had injected into him to extract the truth about the treasure that had been Kyle’s ultimate demise.
“I beg your forgiveness, and I have lain on my own bed of ants for some time now.”
She was face to face with one of the men responsible for killing Kyle, and all she could do was stare. This eighty-year-old man was responsible for a life cut short.
She stood towering over him as he sat unmoving on the concrete floor.
Her voice was just above a whisper.
“You want me to absolve you of any responsibility in the act of killing my brother? You want me to forgive you Kyle’s death so you can feel better? Is that it?” Katherine asked unbelieving.
“Yes, I am an old man.”
“No, you are not an old man. You are a monster and an instrument of death. You figure you can throw a few stitches into me, and then I’m supposed to be so grateful that I will release you of the burden of killing an innocent man?”
Her voice carried high into the rafters scattering the birds roosting there. “Forget it! It will be a very cold day in hell before I’ll just let you off the hook.”
“I beg you. I would go back and undo if I could.”
“But you cannot. According to you, Doctor Death, you’re an old man, so you should find some consolation in the fact you should not have long to live with the guilt that I shall willingly let you take to your grave. You can answer to your maker for it. I’ll deal with my own maker if it comes down to it.”
“It was not intentional, Katherine. It happens sometimes. As a doctor there are times when miscalculations are made.”
“It does not matter what your intentions were or were not. You were the one to inject him by your own admission. You were the one to leave him to die.”
“You would not believe me if I said I had no choice. So, now you have your chance to exact your revenge. I will not stop you,” he said softly, hanging his head.
Robert’s words flooded her brain. Could she really step across that line in an act of revenge?
“And make you a martyr? No way. I will never forgive you. However, I do not wish you ill by my hand. I will not become the same monster you are, Doctor Death. And even though I hate you and loathe what you stand for, I hope you never have to suffer the loss of someone you love all in the name of greed.”
“At least you are honest,” the voice spoke from the darkness again. He was saving his lighter. “But your sentiment comes just a bit too late. I have lived far too long to have been spared.”
She heard him sigh heavily in the darkness. It was the sort of sigh coming deep from within a heavy heart and tired soul. She wondered at eighty-years-old how heavy her heart would be. Would she rejoice in her life or feel regrets? She thought of Robert.
“I have not always been as you see me now, not as Doctor Death.”
Katherine waited through the pregnant pause. Instinctively, she held her breath knowing he was not finished.
His voice was almost singsong as he began his journey back through time.
“She was zee most beautiful thing I had ever seen with jet black hair, full and long, and eyes so blue a man could get lost forever in zem. Zhose eyes were full of hope for zee future. She was sixteen. I was seventeen. It was May 18, 1940, and I recall it was a beautiful day without a cloud in the sky.” He paused remembering better days.
“We had just gotten married and coming out of zee little whitewashed church zat was zee place of salvation of our small community. We both grew up together, sweethearts from the age of five in a small rural hamlet on zee outskirts of Paris about forty miles to zee east.”
Somehow she sensed what was coming. Her history was not lost to her, and Gay Pari in 1940 was not where young lovers wanted to find themselves.
“How was I to know zee German’s had come? Zee shelling began so suddenly. One moment zee birds sang and the next chaos. To zhis day I do not remember doing it, but somehow in zee pandemonium I dragged her into zee cemetery beside zee holy church. It was sacred ground where generations of families had laid zheir loved ones. My grandfather and his father before him rested zhere. Foolishly, I thought we would be safe behind zee walls of zat hallowed place. I guess one grabs what hope one can.”
Strange somehow, she thought. She could relate to that statement.
“I remember shaking in fear. I was so scared, not for myself, but for what zee soldiers would do to my lovely bride should zey capture us.”
“What did you do then?” Kate was caught up in the story.
“We hid behind zee rock wall in some bushes until zee shelling stopped and darkness fell.”
“And your wife?”
Kate felt she must already know deep down that this story did not have a happy-ever-after ending.
“She was hit in zee very first volley.”
He did not know it at the time, and it was not until her dress was soaked with the red of her blood that he knew he was losing her. He was the son of a wine maker, not a doctor, and he knew nothing of what to do to stem the blood to save her life. She died a virgin bride.
"I was helpless. I could do nothing for her. I watched her die in my arms and saw zee life go out of those beautiful eyes.”
She had heard stories of individuals losing loved ones during the war, and the senseless loss of life still made her angry. Expanding borders and the ideology of a lunatic all came at the expense of the common man. The blood of the innocent enriched the soil of many a battleground. It always had and always would. It was the nature of that beast. Man was just destined to self- destruct, she supposed.
“Is that why you became a doctor?” she heard herself ask.
“Yes. I buried zee love of my life and joined zee Allied forces zee very next morning. Zhere was nothing for me to go home to at zat point, and I wanted zee sacrifice of her life to be worth something.”
“I’m sorry for your loss. But you are still a hypocrite and a killer.” Kate was not about to let him off the hook even if he was becoming just a little more human in her eyes.
“I could not save her, so I vowed to spend zee remainder of my life saving others. I took zee H
ippocratic oath and have lived by zat vow for sixty years. I am sorry about Kyle, Katherine. He did not deserve to die. It was an unfortunate consequence of Tony’s greed, not mine. Unfortunately, as you pointed out, I was the devil’s instrument.”
“What’s your reward? What’s in it for you?” she asked trying again to look for a way out.
“I foolishly agreed to help in return for a debt to be erased.”
“So you bartered a deal to save your sorry hide. You make me sick!”
Katherine wanted to hold onto her anger. She felt herself feeling compassion for the very man responsible for her brother’s death. He lived and breathed even as Kyle died. She felt pity for him, and she understood his feelings of sorrow at a life wasted, for Kyle's life was taken too soon. Yet, she would not give in to sympathy or release her anger. That anger would propel her forward, and consume her, and would leave no room for fear in her heart and mind. Anger would be her instrument, her weapon to wield and to control.
He sat there for a moment. She could feel him there in the darkness as a strange stillness hung about the room.
“I remarried after the war. My cousin, Mert, died in '42, so I married his widow and helped raise his family. I had one son of my own with Ghislaine. She and I were content together forty-six years before she died of cancer several years ago. So, I went to live with my grandson in Atlantic City. To my great fear and disappointment, he has a gambling problem zat is out of control.”
Ahhh, she thought, seeing where this was heading.
“Zee debt is his, Katherine, not mine. I thought I could pay his debt and zen get him some help. I did zis thing for him.”
So, he did the wrong thing for the right reasons. It still did not make it right or bring Kyle back.
Again, she would not let her anger go. Two wrongs were still wrong no matter if done from the heart.
“How much did they pay you? I’d like to know what you feel Kyle’s life was actually worth.”
“My portion of zee treasure will be considered payment in full for my grandson’s folly. However, Tony was most displeased with me, and I will probably get nothing for my efforts.”