by Cindy Gerard
There was no way she was going to do that. Rafe would blow up again, and neither one of them needed the drama. She had enough to deal with.
“I’m out of time on the phone card,” she lied. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Stephanie,” he snarled on a warning note.
“Do you need me to repeat my bank account number and the routing information?” she cut in.
“No, I’ve got it. But—”
“I’ve got to go,” she repeated.
He surrendered with a frustrated breath. “Keep me posted, do you hear me?”
“I will. And Rafe, thanks.”
She hung up, then stared at the receiver.
“We must hurry,” Suah said quietly.
She turned around and searched the boy’s face. A tsunami of indecision swamped her. This was it? This was the best thing she had going for her and for Joe?
How did she know she could trust him? No matter how hard she’d tried, she hadn’t been able to get him to open up about his involvement with Joe. He’d told her only that he owed Joe and was obligated to repay his debt. She was pinning Joe’s life on the shoulders of a wild, homeless boy who openly regarded her with disdain.
In the end, she had no choice. While she’d been able to get hold of Rhonda, who was now working on finding out how to get in touch with Dalmage, there was no guarantee that Stephanie could find him in time to convince him to intervene on Joe’s behalf.
Maneuvering through the maze of international politics was like walking blindfolded through a minefield. Dalmage was bound to have reservations. And even if he did agree to help, by the time he got on board, it might be too late to save Joe.
She couldn’t afford to hesitate any longer. She followed Suah as he ducked into an alley. They had a date with a local gang leader who just happened to dabble in illegal arms sales as a sideline.
Oh, God.
The bastards were getting better with the nunchakus. Either that, or he was wearing down. Every muscle screamed with pain. Every rib throbbed in agony when he drew a deep breath.
Biting back a groan, he carefully curled a little tighter into himself as he lay on his side in a corner of his cell. He didn’t know if he should be thankful that they were done with him for today, or pissed that they’d saved enough of him for a repeat session tomorrow.
He tried to burrow into that place in his mind where now didn’t exist, where both his body and his psyche were pain free. But the rattle of the key in the lock jarred him back to the filth and the stench and the reality that he was a dead man, time and date yet to be determined by these assholes.
“Get up.”
A bucket of warm water slapped him hard in the face. He covered his head with his hands, gagging on the foul, brackish water and the taste of his blood from the split lip they’d given him.
“Get up.” A booted foot kicked him hard in the ribs and searing pain shot through him like lightning.
“Fuckers,” he gasped, struggling for breath.
Clutching his battered ribs, he pushed himself to his knees, then grabbed blindly at a bar. He managed to get a grip and, gritting out the pain, pulled until he was standing. Not straight, but at least standing.
“Hands behind your back.”
He knew the consequences of stalling and did as he was told as fast as his aching body would let him. Not fast enough, apparently, because the jailor shoved him into the cell wall, then jerked both arms behind his back and slapped on metal handcuffs.
“Outside.”
“Two dates in one day?” He shuffled painfully out of the cell. “I’m going to start to think you guys . . . are getting sweet on me.”
He got another shove for his disrespect and crashed against the wall. He shook off the head-ringing blow and saw the large, utilitarian clock above the door in the outer hallway. His vision was fuzzy, but even a blind man could see those numbers: 11:07. Still morning.
Jesus. What now? It had been less than two hours since they’d finished with him. The bastards were bloodthirsty today.
And yesterday seemed like a lifetime away. Yesterday, when Stephanie had come to see him.
He still couldn’t wrap his head around that. Sometimes he thought he’d imagined it. But then, with a clarity that sucked the breath from his lungs, he’d see her face—the pain, the fear, the hopeless determination. And he’d panic all over again when he thought about the danger she’d put herself in.
No, it had not been his imagination. Stephanie had been very, very real. She’d smelled like sunshine and fresh air and everything good that was missing from the cesspool that had become his world.
He trudged along the hallway. He’d wanted . . . hell. Didn’t matter what he’d wanted. He’d had to get her out of there because goddamnit, he could not let her get sucked into this quagmire with him. So he’d made damn sure that she was good and gone.
But Christ, oh, Christ, he hadn’t wanted her to leave him. He’d wanted to fall into her arms. Wanted to lose himself in her clean, pure softness, like a sleeping child lost in dreams of white clouds and a sweet breast and fields of dancing flowers.
Yeah, he was that fucking weak.
The guard shoved him from behind when he didn’t walk fast enough to suit him. He’d rather die than to take one more beating.
And how pathetic was that? Mean Joe Green, worn down after a lousy thirty-one days in Hotel Hell. That ugly truth was as crippling as the thought of the beating he was about to take.
So, that’s it? That’s all you got, Green?
He had to dig deeper. Could not let these twisted fucks get the best of him with their nunchakus and their promises.
“Confess to killing the priest and the beatings will stop.”
Yeah. That was not going to happen.
He stumbled again and almost went down as the guard prodded him through the hallway. He knew the way to the interrogation room by heart; when the hallway T-boned, he turned right.
The guard grabbed his arm and shoved him down the opposite hall, which could only be bad news. He’d known they weren’t going to be content with merely beating him much longer. Not when there were so many other fun options. Water. Electricity. Pliers. Acid.
His gut clenched in anticipation of what they had lined up for him next.
Then a door opened to blinding light, blasting heat, and a smell so foreign that it took him a moment to realize it was fresh air. He breathed deep, ignoring the pain from his battered ribs, and soaked up the first direct sunlight he’d felt on his face since they’d arrested him.
“Inside.” A rifle barrel poked him in the spine, and nudged him toward the yawning black hole in the back of a transport truck.
7
Joe shuffled stiffly toward the rear of the truck, squinting into the dark opening. Iron hoops in five-foot-high arcs had been welded to the framework of the truck box. A heavy canvas tarp stretched over the hoops, Conestoga wagon style.
Finally, he could make out the stooped figures of several men sitting opposite each other inside. Other prisoners, none he’d ever seen before. They were all in as bad or worse shape than he was. All were handcuffed and chained.
He tripped up the cinder blocks they’d used to build temporary steps and ducked inside. The guard jumped in behind him and unlocked his cuffs while another kept the business end of an AK-47 locked on his chest.
“Hands in front,” the guard ordered, then snapped the cuffs on him again before reaching up and snagging a heavy chain suspended from one of the hoops. After threading the chain through the link between the handcuffs, the guard padlocked it in place and drew Joe’s hands above his head.
He felt like a piece of meat suspended from a hook, with only enough give in the chain to let him sit down on the bench along the wall.
He assessed his surroundings and his escape options. The truck was a small transport vehicle, possibly military, not much bigger than a pickup. The bench he was sitting on was a slab of thick, rough wood. And then there were the chains. It
all led him to conclude that he wasn’t going anywhere but for a ride.
He stared at the faces of the five other men chained up with him. None of them white. All in bad shape. All resigned to whatever the guards had planned for them.
“Where are they taking us?”
Silence.
“Does anyone know where they’re taking us?” he asked again.
“Pademba,” a man across from him finally said in a voice void of emotion.
Despite the oppressive heat, a chill washed through his body. So this was it. Joe had heard of the Pademba Road facility. The maximum security prison was set smack in the middle of the city. Prisoners were sent there to die. He remembered reading about an American citizen who died there several years ago, after being leveled with fabricated conspiracy charges. Joe remembered because after the man’s death, he was exonerated.
Justice—when there was any—was slow in Sierra Leone.
And human life was highly disposable.
The guard lifted the tailgate, secured it, and slapped his hand on the back of the truck, signaling the driver to pull out. The gears grinded, the engine groaned, and they rolled forward.
The ride across town was rough and hot as the truck jostled along the dusty, pocked pavement. The tailgate didn’t meet the canvas roof, leaving a u-shaped gap three feet high and three feet wide. Joe stared out of the opening at the run-down buildings scrolling by like news footage from a documentary on poverty and urban decay.
Then he attempted to mentally prepare himself for the inevitable end that would come with phase two of his captivity. But all he could think about was Stephanie.
How he’d let her down.
How horrified she’d looked when he’d sent her away.
How he wished he had lived a life that she would have been safe being a part of.
They hit a deep rut that knocked him out of his thoughts and briefly sent him airborne. He hadn’t recovered his balance when the truck made a hard, left turn. Planting his feet to keep from sliding off the bench, he used the chains binding him to the hoops for leverage, but damn near slid off anyway as they skidded to a grinding stop.
Swearing at the pain, he gripped the chain to keep the cuffs from cutting deeper into his wrists, then glanced past his raised arms to look out the back again as the truck went into reverse and started jockeying around, changing direction.
A multi-vehicle pileup of broken-down cars, trucks, and vans created a logjam in the middle of the intersection. And the street they’d just veered off was blocked. In the middle of the day, in light traffic.
Which made no sense. Something was wrong with this picture.
The situational awareness he’d honed to a sharp edge during years of combat and covert operations hummed to life. The most opportune time to stage an escape attempt was during transport.
A fleeting hope shot him full of adrenaline. This was exactly the kind of escape attempt the BOIs would launch.
But the guys were half a world away. And he was still on his own.
Gaze sharp, he glanced at the faces of the other men, wondering which of them might have a friend on the outside determined to set him free. They all looked as surprised as he felt.
When the truck started rolling forward again and nothing else happened, he knew that wishful thinking was as close as he was going to come to making a break.
The adrenaline rush dropped like a stone, and his abused body gave in to exhaustion. He let his head hang between his upraised arms and closed his eyes, resigned to his fate. And his failure.
He’d botched things up at every turn. He’d managed to get a priest killed and put Stephanie at risk, which was the one thing he’d been determined to avoid.
God, he still couldn’t believe she’d come here. He was still half out of his mind with guilt and worry that she would try to get to him again.
At least there was good news in the transport. She’d have to find him first, and he had a real strong feeling that no one back at the city jail was going to offer any information about his relocation anytime soon.
The truck skidded to an abrupt stop again. This time Joe landed on his knees on the floor, the chains jerking his arms painfully above his head.
He scrambled to get himself upright, catching a glimpse of the street as he did. A huge pile of tires had been set on fire in the center of the intersection. Black smoke boiled up out of the flames, scorching the air, obstructing the view.
Tick, tick, tick. His mind whirled with possible explanations. One blocked intersection might be a coincidence. Two? No way in hell. Something was definitely going down.
His pulse revved up again in anticipation. Someone out there wanted someone in this truck out of the mix. And he was hanging here like a rack of beef, and couldn’t do a damn thing to capitalize on the situation.
For the second time, the truck maneuvered away from an intersection, then started forward again with a jerky takeoff before Joe managed to get back on the bench. He fell back again, cursing along with the other prisoners, who were caroming around like tetherballs at the end of a short rope.
The truck’s gears ground and complained as the driver shifted and picked up speed. Joe estimated they were doing around thirty or thirty-five miles per hour, too damn fast for inner-city driving, when the driver stood on the brakes again.
The truck fishtailed, heaved to the left, and then everything went to hell.
Out of control, the vehicle tipped further and further to the side as the driver attempted to stop the inevitable.
But inertia had taken over. The truck toppled onto its side, then skidded for several yards as steel scraped against pavement. The prisoners erupted in curses and pained cries as they swung and bounced around, victims of gravity and velocity.
Joe felt a glancing blow to his back—someone’s foot—but somehow managed not to dislocate his shoulders as he muscled himself to his knees. He leaned into the pull of the chain as the truck finally jerked to a stop, the men quit yelling, and the engine heaved its last breath.
Then the first shot was fired.
Oh, shit.
The chuck chuck chuck of automatic rifles clattered into the sounds of the ticking engine, creaking chassis, and men’s shouts. Bullets pinged off the upended truck’s belly, ricocheted off the streets, and danced through the canvas that had been ripped halfway off the iron hoops.
The thought had barely crossed Joe’s mind that he’d survived the crash but was going to buy the farm from an AK-47 round when the shooting stopped as abruptly as it started.
The smell of hot tires, motor oil, and gunpowder clogged his lungs as, very gingerly, he peered through the ragged canvas. A dozen masked gunmen descended on the downed vehicle, rifles shouldered, beads drawn on the driver and the two guards riding shotgun.
The three lawmen held their hands in the air and were quickly cuffed and chained to the truck’s front fender.
As quick as monkeys, six of the gunmen converged on the truck, made fast work of the chains with bolt cutters, and set the prisoners free. Men scattered in every direction. Joe got slammed against the wheel well in the process, saw stars, and swallowed back churning nausea.
He had to . . . had to get out of here. Couldn’t hang around to express his gratitude.
Head spinning, he pushed to his feet. A wave of vertigo washed over him and he fell flat on his face, tasted dirt and blood, and knew he’d split his lip open again. With his last reserve of strength he pushed to all fours, fighting the pain screaming through his body and the sucking weakness of his muscles. He actually made it to his feet, started off at an off-balance, hobbling run, only to be grabbed from behind and shoved through the side door of a beat-up panel van.
Before he could peel his face off the ratty carpet, the van shot down the street like the hounds of hell were after it.
Fuck. This could not be happening. He could not survive that prison and the crash and the storm of fire-power just to end up a captive again.
He battled to
stay conscious. Struggled to sit up . . . and slammed into another wall of dizziness that had him crashing back down.
“Be still.”
The voice that delivered those two words stopped him cold.
Stephanie.
Stephanie paced the small room on the second floor of the safe house Suah had arranged for them. Rain beat down in torrents, and the energy of the downpour made her restless and edgy. She made herself let the doctor do his thing, even though she had a hundred questions. Joe looked bad. Really bad. The doctor looked young. Really young. And really inexperienced. She felt helpless as he examined Joe, wondering if he knew what he was doing.
Suah sat in one of two wooden chairs in the corner of the little room, the butt of an AK-47 balanced on his thigh, trying to look impassive. She could tell that he was concerned, too, even though he had assured her that the young Dr. Bala Sankoh was a miracle worker, and that he could be trusted to keep their existence and their location secret.
It had been two hours since they had staged the escape and Joe still hadn’t regained consciousness. When he moaned and shuffled his legs restlessly on the single mattress that lay on the floor, she couldn’t keep her silence any longer.
“Why hasn’t he come to yet?” she asked urgently. “Does he have a concussion? Is he in pain?”
Dr. Sankoh, a slight young black man with an easy, comforting manner, smiled up at her, revealing a wide gap between his immaculate white teeth. “There is no apparent concussion, miss. I do not believe he has any head injuries severe enough to cause one. Head injuries bleed a lot, so they look much worse than they generally are. And he sleeps because I have given him sedation and because his body needs an opportunity to recover. I will give you instructions for dosages over the next few days. As for pain, at least two of his ribs are either cracked or badly bruised. So I am certain, yes, that they are causing him pain. The sedation will help with that also.”
“He’s so thin,” she said, more to herself than to the doctor.
“Malnourished, no doubt. That will be easily remedied. Dehydration is his major issue now. Again, the IV fluids will turn that around quickly. I’m also administering antibiotics to deal with any infections he may have contracted while imprisoned. I’ll leave additional instructions for you.