Deadly Journey

by Declan Conner

  No sooner had I devoured the breakfast than the doctor arrived. Hardly an advertisement for his trade, he was sweating profusely, wiping his brow with his handkerchief and gasping from his arduous struggle at dragging his grossly overweight body up the stairway. He finally caught his breath and waddled over to the bed, launching his case onto the mattress as if he had levered a ton of weight from his grasp. Leandra returned and placed the picture frame on the nightstand. The doctor gestured for her to remove the bed sheet, while he opened his case and took out a stethoscope.

  ‘Help him undress,’ he said, looking at Leandra.

  She must have seen the panic in my eyes at having no underwear.

  ‘I think I can manage, thank you.’

  The warmth in my cheeks told me I was blushing. Leandra winked, held up her hands in a form of acceptance and with a wry smile. She took hold of the breakfast cart and pushed it out of the bedroom, snickering as she went.

  She seemed like a good kid. I couldn’t understand why she would want to work for criminals, unless she was related to them. Sitting up was no problem and I removed my pyjama top. The bottoms were more problematic. The doctor didn’t see it that way. He simply whipped them from my legs like a magician removing a tablecloth and leaving the plates and cutlery in place. If it hadn’t been for the journey to arrive at the villa, I would have felt that they were honestly concerned with my welfare.

  The check-up was thorough. First, he checked my breathing using his stethoscope on my chest and back. Then he put a tourniquet around my upper arm and pumped it up to check my pulse and blood pressure, and finally, he shone a beam of light into each eye.

  ‘You’ll live,’ he said. ‘Lie back.’ He was still wheezing.

  He planted the palm of his hand against my chest and pushed. With my head on the pillow, he started to pinch my nose, and then I felt him place hard-cotton buds inside my nostrils. A crack and an intense pain caused me to scream out like a stuck pig.

  ‘That’s better. It should be straight now. Let’s look at those feet.’

  The pain from the cure was worse than the original break. I hardly noticed him remove the bandages from my feet, until he stepped back and winced.

  ‘No more bandages. You need to get air to the wounds. I’ll give you an injection and leave some antiseptic and antibiotics. Keep your feet clean and dry.’

  The thoroughness of the examination started to ring bells as to why they would want to make sure I was in fine health. Following the injection, questions about my medical history, gave the impression I was worth more alive to them than dead.

  ‘To be on the safe side, I think I should draw some blood and run some tests. You’re looking anaemic.’

  I didn’t protest, if I was ailing something, it was better to know. He inserted the needle into my arm and drew a blood sample, popping the vial into his case. He pressed his fingers around the bruising on my ribs.

  ‘Your ribs aren’t broken, just bruised.’ He passed me a tube of cream. ‘Apply that to your lips if the scabs split. You’ve not suffered any lasting damage. It’ll all heal with rest.’

  It wasn’t until he had wobbled out of the room that I realized he had forgotten to leave the antiseptic. The guard waved the barrel of his gun at me and pointed to the exit. I took hold of the boxer shorts and threw my legs over the side of the bed to dress and put on my slippers. Fortunately, he allowed me time to put the photo in the picture frame. A final glance at the photo, and my inner self told them I would be back soon.

  The walk down the stairway and out back to the pool was torturous, made worse by Stony’s impatience as he kept striking me across the shoulder blades with his rifle. Leandra was waiting by the pool with a grin the width of the Rio Grande. She pointed to a bottle of iodine and some cotton buds on a table next to a sun lounger.

  ‘First the pain, then the pleasure. Lie down on the lounger.’

  I thought it best to get it over with and to suffer the treatment. The iodine smarted like hell, leaving a yellowish stain, but the pain soon subsided to a numb feeling.

  ‘You big baby. I’ve never seen a grown man flinch so much.’

  She laughed and I had to laugh along with her.

  ‘What made you take a job here?’ I asked.

  ‘Insurance.’

  ‘Insurance?’

  ‘Yes, but like you, I’m worth more alive than dead, for now. I hope they never have to pay out on the policy.’

  Her riddle gave the impression that she was far more mature than she looked, leaving me intrigued as to what she meant. Before I could ask, Perez joined us at the pool and waved her away, snapping his fingers. He stopped, and with an icy stare, looked me up and down. An agitated expression took shape on his face, as if he was trying to determine what to do with me. He turned and marched briskly over to Leandra, who waited by the door.

  She stood with her head slightly bowed, clasping her hands together and twiddling her thumbs. Perez talked to her with his lips close to her ear, while repeatedly casting sideways glances over my way.

  Four guards stood on the opposite side of the pool. From their stance, it was easy to work out that these were professionals. With their automatic rifles held to their chests and their fingers poised on the trigger guard, they were clearly ready and waiting should I make a move.

  I remembered Leandra’s words, “worth more alive than dead”.

  But it was the ominous “for now” she had uttered that sent my mind into overdrive.

  Chapter 13

  Compromised

  Straining to look behind me at the sound of footsteps, I did a double take as Leandra approached the pool wearing the briefest of bikinis and carrying a tray with two glasses, a jug of fruit juice, and a bottle of sunscreen. Her usual smile was replaced by a distant look in her eyes and her brow furrowed in a scowl. She kept whatever was on her mind to herself as she set the tray on a table at the side of my chaise lounge. Then she took a seat, her lips curved into a forced smile. Something was clearly troubling her. She averted her gaze, picked up a towel and draped it over my feet.

  ‘Don’t want third-degree burns to add to the damage. Lie back and I’ll put some sunscreen on you.’

  The tone of her voice suggested more of an order, unlike her normal effervescent self, and she was avoiding looking directly at me.

  ‘What did Perez want?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’

  “Nothing” meant she wasn’t in the mood to give anything away. With my eyes closed, cold drips of sunscreen on my chest made me flinch. The palms of her hands gently massaged the cream into my skin. The rotations were slow and deliberate. Maybe, I thought for a moment, incarceration wasn’t all that bad. All it would have taken was for her to feed me grapes to make the vision complete. More drips and she caressed the skin around my stomach with her fingertips. I felt a stirring in my boxers… then I heard the sound of clicking and whirring. Jerking upright, I grabbed her wrist and caught sight of one of the guards taking photos. A loud metallic click snapped my eye-line in the direction of a guard who sighted his rifle directly at me. Instinct made me release my grip and I threw Leandra a stare. Her eyes were moist and she was trembling, clearly distraught. Blotches of red appeared on her cheeks.

  Head bowed, and shaking, Leandra grabbed a bath towel from the back of her chair. Covering her body, she stood and ran, her flip-flops slapping the tiles. She was still whimpering as she entered the villa. Two of the guards were laughing and looking at the playback on the camera screen. My emotions were all over the place. Rage subsided into guilt at allowing this situation to come about. I was certainly capable of applying my own sunscreen, but some kind of primeval instinct and misplaced trust had made me act like a jerk. Now they had pictures of me sunning myself, with a nubile, scantily dressed young woman sliding her hand down my boxer shorts. An image flashed through my mind of them showing the pictures to Mary and the kids.

  ‘No… oh. Oh God.’

  The guard with the camera walked away from the poo
l and into the villa. It was uncomfortable just to lie there, so I put on my slippers and hobbled around the pool. The guards watched me, alert and wary. Another week’s rest and I could have grabbed one of them, disarmed him, used his body as a shield, and dropped the others with a spray of gunfire. For now, though, that was just wishful thinking.

  Reaching the outside edge of the pool, I rested my hands on the wooden balustrade. The area at the rear of the villa was set on a cliff top. Looking down it was a sheer drop of around fifty feet to the bottom and an outcrop of boulders. The cliff face was as smooth as a baby’s backside, with no foot or hand holds to enable a descent.

  A prod in the back made me jump. One of the guards waved the barrel of his gun and pointed it in the direction of the chaise lounge. It crossed my mind that he’d thought I would jump. As embarrassed as I felt, I hadn’t quite reached a level of despair where I’d want to end it all. Wafts of breeze hit my face and filtered out the negativity from my deliberations. After a couple of deep breaths, I felt composed enough to limp back to the chaise lounge.

  Why this… why that? Questions reverberated to the point of making me light-headed. The biggest question of all was who had put the original hit out on me, the one responsible for my plight.

  The sound of clip-clopping from behind me caught my attention. Leandra was back in uniform, her hair tied in a bun. She came alongside of me, and inspected her polished shoes, with her hands clasped in front of her as she swayed slightly.

  ‘Would... would you like some juice with ice?’

  There was a quiver in her voice and I hesitated to answer. The trust was gone. This hadn’t been some young woman’s clumsy attempt at an infatuated grope, but a sneaky ploy to compromise me.

  She whispered, ‘Listen, I’m sorry. They made me do it.’

  I wanted to believe her, but I couldn’t bring myself to trust her words. I nodded and she poured out two glasses of juice. She must have seen me hesitating as I put the glass to my lips and then set it back down on the table without taking a sip. For all I knew it could be laced with poison. She picked up her glass and took a long swig.

  ‘What did they threaten you with?’

  ‘They don’t have to threaten, only command. I’ve seen firsthand what happens when you don’t comply.’

  I couldn’t be sure, even with someone so young, that she wasn’t playing me. Remembering what she’d said about them shooting me like a dog if I didn’t do as they said made me wonder if this was all part of the plan for me to cooperate with them.

  ‘So what’s all this about insurance?’

  ‘I’m not here because I want to be. They took me from my parents four years ago as security for their coca leaf supplies from Bolivia. Yes, they’ve given me a private tutor for language and international business studies and I want for nothing, but they have stolen my life. If my father double-crosses them and supplies the Cobra cartel, or any other cartel, they will kill me.’

  The agent in me wanted to know more.

  ‘Which part of Bolivia are you from?’

  Her lips tightened. ‘Do you think I’m stupid?’

  Clearly, I had acted stupid in asking a question that would betray her family. I had underestimated her maturity. ‘Obviously you’re not stupid. Can’t your parents pay a ransom?’

  ‘No, but they will exchange me for my sister when she is sixteen.’

  ‘And how old is she now?’

  ‘Twelve.’

  She was right about them taking her life away. Her eyes moistened. Unless she’d had tutoring in being an actress, her anguish seemed genuine.

  ‘Do they allow you to have contact with your family?’

  ‘They allow me to speak to my mother and sister once every six months on Skype, from an Internet cafe forty kilometres from here, which is something.’

  ‘What about a boyfriend back home?’

  The question must have hit a nerve. She turned her head away slightly. A tear ran down her cheek.

  ‘I’ve never simply just hung out with friends,’ she said. ‘I only ever had one boyfriend, but...’

  She clammed up and wiped her eyes with a tissue from the table. It was obviously hard for her to talk about her past. She was so young, so intelligent, and full of life, my heart went out to her at being denied the normal pleasures of a family life. It was odd she hadn’t mentioned talking to her dad over the Internet.

  ‘Can’t you sneak a phone call from here?’

  Her eyes rolled and she let out a sigh. ‘There are no land lines, and when they tried to build a cell tower, Perez had them blow it up. Anyone except Perez caught with a GPS phone would be shot.’

  ‘Do you know what they have planned for me?’

  A single tear ran from her eye and dribbled onto her cheek. That answered me in more than words.

  ‘All I know is, they’re going to make a film tomorrow of you pleading for the ransom to be paid, then they will ask you some questions.’

  ‘Have you no idea what Perez means when he says he wants questions answered?’

  ‘No, but trust me, whatever information he seeks, give them the answers.’

  Her expression didn’t seem to indicate a ploy, but rather a plea in earnest that made me shudder. The idea that I had maybe twenty-four hours before the film to find out if torture lay ahead for them to get the answers they needed scared the hell out me. What secrets I could possibly have that they would want to know?

  Chapter 14

  The Makeup Lady

  The morning arrived and brought with it little comfort at having survived another day. The headache from hell pounded in my temples. The lights were on in the room and when I sat upright, I was surprised to see no guard. A lack of logic, probably brought on by my exhausted brain, gave a glimmer of hope that I would find the villa deserted. For a brief moment, I was in a good place at the idea I could just walk out of there.

  But I didn’t have to delve deep within myself to realize it was a delusion. I hadn’t needed nightmares to unsettle my sleep. Every waking minute of the night had been shrouded in angst. Visions of Miguel’s severed head and the demise of Leila’s family had tormented me. Those awful flashbacks had been interspersed with wondering how my family was coping and what, if anything, the authorities would be doing in response to my going missing.

  The incident with Leandra had unsettled me. It was hard to work out if they were going to use the photographs as a means of blackmailing me into telling them what they wanted to know, or if they were going to add them to the ransom note.

  I glanced at the photograph of Mary and the kids on the nightstand. The knowledge that Mary was a strong woman, one who tended take problems in her stride, gave me little comfort. She would be kicking butt down at the FBI, demanding answers, rather than sulking in a corner. It was how my kids were managing that I couldn’t figure out.

  Instinct told me to head for the door and I threw the bed covers to one side. Catching sight of the beeping LED on the ankle bracelet stopped me in mid-flight. A glance at the CCTV dome on the ceiling brought on a sigh. Whatever the day threw at me, I decided that I had to make a determined effort to create empathy with all of my captors, in the hope an opportunity would arise for me to escape.

  Intermittent screeching outside the room broke the silence. The noise stopped and the door handle twitched. First one, and then another guard entered. Leandra backed into the room with the breakfast cart, its broken wheel still squealing annoyingly.

  ‘Buenos días, amigos.’

  Neither of the guards responded to my attempt at a greeting. One of the guards opened the window shutters and the other turned off the light.

  ‘Buenos días, Kurt,’ Leandra said and approached the side of the bed. ‘Lights, camera and action for you today. First breakfast, then a nice shower and shave.’

  She pointed to a razor and shaving cream on the bottom tier of the cart. Maybe it was out of her still carrying the embarrassment of yesterday’s escapade at the poolside, I couldn’t be sure, bu
t she avoided looking directly at me. She made her usual twirl and left the bedroom.

  The breakfast smelled good, but a churning stomach had me picking at the scrambled eggs. Somehow a night spent dwelling on the events at Leila’s home and seeing how hens produced eggs took away my appetite. The image of Leila’s daughter’s body twitching in tandem with the chicken at her side just wouldn’t go away. Half a slice of toast and a coffee was as much as I could manage.

  My thoughts turned to apprehension over what they would want me to say on camera and what sort of demeanour I should portray. I’d seen footage of captors from Iran through to Afghanistan; most of them looked as though they were already wearing a death mask. But then, they were only minutes away from losing their lives. That notion froze my mind and sent a shiver running through my body. It made me wonder if I was reading Leandra the wrong way and her avoiding looking at me was because she knew they were going to execute me on camera. The cartel’s members thought little of life and death... except their own. My head ached at the thought. Maybe the ransom note was just a ruse to keep me compliant and to give me false hope.

  ‘Ducha,’ one of the guards said, and he began acting like an ape, scratching at his armpits.

  Assuming he meant for me to take a shower, I threw my legs over the side of the bed, shook my head, and pointed to the tracking bracelet on my ankle.

  ‘Waterproof,’ the guard said. Using the barrel of his rifle, he signalled me to go to the shower room.

  I felt an urge to leap at one of them to disarm him and use his body as a shield to take out the other. Only the determination in their eyes, and their fingers caressing their remote detonators, prevented me from moving on them.

  Rolling over on the bed away from them, I took the razor and shaving cream and headed for the shower.

  There wasn’t time to savour the shower as I took the time to go over what I had gleaned. Both guards had chains around their necks with a key and a remote each for the tracker. There was a window of opportunity to escape, so near I could taste it, but also a fear that any move I made could end my life. I worked out that my priority was to return safely to my wife and kids rather than someone finding me dumped on the roadside. A glance at the window told me it was too small to squeeze through.