Cargo: an edge of your seat thriller

by J. C. Maçek III

  “What is it, Merc, what do you got?”

  “Yeah, I think that’s it. That would do nicely,” Merc said almost admiringly. “I think we may have found your boys. They’re holed up in a compound, mountainside, just like we suspected. Aw, geez, the place is a veritable fortress. Off the beaten path, easily defensible. These guys know what they’re doing. They’re going to be organized and well-armed.”

  Peterson closed his eyes tightly and asked the question he almost dreaded the answer to. “Well? What do you think?”

  “Well…” Merc was brave but cautious. “I can have a team assembled in no time, but I’m not going to lie to you, these guys are not going to be easy. Our biggest advantage is that they’re not going to know we’re coming, but…this is no easy job. They look a hell of a lot like…”

  “Like what?”

  “Like us, Anthony. From what I can tell, they look like professional mercenaries, so it’s going to be a pretty even match. I’m going to have to bring out the big guns, literally, and more men than usual, but that costs money. What do you want me to do?”

  Peterson was dead serious as he said, “Payback!”

  30

  Exodus: 7:44 PM

  Anthony Peterson was not far away, actually, for a few seconds, as Calderon drove by, although there was no way either man could have known that.

  Calderon drove on, still feeling good about himself in his stolen olive-drab Toyota pickup.

  There was no need to keep his cell phone off anymore, so he had activated it soon after he left the compound.

  He checked his account and confirmed that he had been paid. He now had his nest egg complete. He was going to retire, just like he said he would.

  What else mattered?

  For the first time in forever and especially in the last several months, he felt positive. It had been a day of revelations for Calderon. It was as if everything had finally fallen into place for him, just like he had told Keeler. As his crazy mind had obsessed over Susan, Anthony, Justin, the boss, and the bizarre adventure that unfolded before his ears he started to realize the differences that he was looking for.

  He started to see why.

  He knew there was no way to bring Justin back. He was as dead as the men Calderon had killed over the years. And Calderon had killed a lot of men over the years. Men. Women. Even children, maybe. At the very least, Calderon was a maker of widows and orphans. And worst of all, Calderon had failed his nephew, and he was going to have to live with that for the rest of his life.

  Maybe Keeler had been right in her own psychotic way.

  If it didn’t matter who died, maybe it didn’t matter who survived.

  The difference wasn’t why. There was no difference. So, Calderon now had a new mission. He wanted to live the life Justin might have lived, had his uncle not failed him.

  He wiped away a single tear, then coughed it away. Calderon still wasn’t going to cry, goddamn it.

  He thought about his epiphany as he drove the stolen truck and laughed. There was a big difference, actually. People who chose to kill were monsters, no matter the reason for that choice. Calderon was not a hero. He was as bad as Peterson or the boss or Keeler.

  In Keeler’s sociopathic eyes, he saw the big difference and the answer was so simple. There was no why. Because dead was dead.

  Thus, he had to choose a different path and no longer be like them.

  “I am become retirement,” he laughed aloud.

  His cell phone buzzed, and he received a message from a very familiar contact. The man known as Merc.

  He was looking for… well, look at that. He was looking for the compound Calderon had just left. He laughed as he read the message.

  Oh, the boss and his friends were celebrating now, but that was not going to last long.

  Calderon knew Merc, and thus, he knew those assholes were never going to know what hit them.

  He thought of warning them as a part of the new leaf he had turned over.

  Then, he thought the words just as he said them out loud. “Nah, fuck them!”

  He laughed aloud. Baby steps. He’d be a better man tomorrow and even better the next day.

  Right now, he was busy. He had to drop a special package off on the way out of town, and then, he was hitting the open road to make his new life.

  And as he saw the signs indicating he was nearing Bel Air, he finally felt free.

  31

  The Raid: 9:00 PM

  Anthony Peterson continued to pace, breaking only to glance at the battery life on his sole lifeline. Merc had just called him back with the team assembled as they traveled up a remote mountain road in a caravan of utility vehicles.

  “We’ve got twenty-four men in eight vehicles,” Merc shouted over the engine noise. “Nobody else is on the road, so we shouldn’t have any unwelcome reporting.”

  “Twenty-four? Is that enough?”

  “We did South America with twelve.”

  Those words made Peterson wince, but in reaction, he steeled himself again and grimaced. Ready to pull the strings. Ready to do to them what they did to him.

  There was radio chatter Peterson could hear over the fray. The sound of professional killers preparing to do what they did best.

  Merc repeated what he heard. “Snipers in place, ready to take out the guards. Multiple tangos. Shit, there’s gonna be a lot of ’em. Before I let you go, it’s your call. Maim or kill?”

  Peterson responded coldly “Kill. Kill ’em all! Go for the headshots!”

  “Kill order given,” Merc repeated to the group.

  “And Merc?”

  “Yeah?”

  “No survivors,” Peterson ordered through snarling lips.

  “You got it,” Merc promised. “I’ll report back soon.”

  “No!” Peterson barked. “Don’t you hang up on me! They killed my wife. This is my kill. I want to hear every word. Every single scream! I want to hear them beg!”

  Merc laughed. “Cold-blooded. You got it.”

  “Promise me you’ve got a Bluetooth,” Peterson said humorlessly, thinking of Tom and his repeated fiascos.

  “On it right now,” Merc said as the engines roared. “Hang on, we’re about to crash the front gate.”

  Peterson heard a loud crash. That was no chain link fence. That was a wrought-iron gate, if it was anything. And immediately he had to pull the phone back because the firefight had begun.

  A loud, old-style air-raid alarm blasted through the phone. Bullet fire sounded like applause as the screams came. Bombs exploded. Men screamed. Boots stomped. People died.

  Peterson paced his coffin almost to the beat of the blasts, like a caged lion, listening intently with a fierce look on his face.

  Merc called out as if hiding behind a barrier. “Pinned down! We’re pinned down.”

  A response on the radio indicated Merc’s team was facing the same.

  “Anthony, there is way fucking more than we anticipated. How in the name of fuck did you piss anyone off that badly?” Merc paused to fire off a few rounds, then said, “Never mind, Anthony. Don’t answer that. Stupid question.” Then, back into the radio, he shouted, “Stone, use the minigun! Use the minigun! Mow ‘em down!”

  The high-powered wail of the M134 filled Peterson’s cell, and he smiled as he heard the screams. They were being shot to ribbons. He loved it. They deserved what they got.

  He heard the radio buzz as one of the commandoes reported that the main door had been breached.

  “Storm the main compound! Repeat, storm the main compound!” Merc yelled, and Peterson heard him rushing forward, firing a few times, before a new door was kicked in. “Freeze!” he commanded someone.

  Weapons hit the floor, pleas for mercy could be heard over the shouts and the ringing in Peterson’s ears.

  “Anthony, we’ve got enemy combatants throwing down their weapons and surrendering.”

  Peterson’s eyes went wide as he thought of Susan, his perfect bride, dead because of these bastar
ds.

  “Waste ‘em! Make ‘em bleed!” he shouted psychotically, then added “Make it hurt!”

  Guns fired and bodies were riddled with bullets. The sounds of the men’s screams indicated these were far from clean kills. Merc was going from the extremities in, grinding them to hamburger.

  “Reinforcements coming from upstairs,” Merc warned his men.

  Peterson continued to command “Kill ‘em! Kill ‘em all!” whether Merc could hear him or not.

  The battle continued loudly. Explosions, gunfire, screams, hand-to-hand combat. Peterson even recognized the sounds of some knifings. The only problem was that he couldn’t tell which side was taking the most losses.

  That was until Merc screamed amid a barrage of bullets.

  “Commander down! Commander down!” the radio blared, and the machine guns intensified their assault.

  Another voice shouted, “We need a medic. Bottom of stairwell. Stat!”

  “Merc? Merc!” Peterson shouted, hopped up on adrenaline and begging for this not to be true. Not yet, at least. Merc had a job to finish.

  It seemed like an eternity for Peterson, caught in this dark box with only the loud sounds of fighting as his window to the outside world. He waited and listened and tried in vain to make sense of what he heard.

  Finally, he could make out coughing and gasping amid the bullets and explosions.

  “I took three in the chest, but I’m okay,” Merc hissed as he got up. “I’m gonna have some broken ribs, but thank God for Kevlar.”

  Peterson heard some of the other commandos cheer as Merc took the lead again.

  “You gonna make it?” Peterson asked, concerned.

  “They all hit the vest,” Merc said, still straining. “I’ve got an extra reason for payback now.” Then, loudly, he shouted, “Take the top floor. Block all exits. I’m going up!”

  Peterson yelled over the ruckus, “Merc! That ringleader. I want that fucker alive!”

  “Roger that!”

  The shooting was occasional now. A pop here. A rat-ta-tat there. Another radio voice buzzed in. “This is a long hallway, Commander.”

  “Yeah, I’m here, I see it. Double doors at the end.”

  “Armored from the looks of them,” the radio voice confirmed.

  “Clear the rooms along the way,” Merc commanded.

  One by one, the doors were kicked in with reports back of “Latrine,” and “Storage. Messy, but empty,” and “TV and couch. Nobody there.”

  Merc responded, “Copy. That leaves only the armored doors at the end. Hollister! Get up here with that grenade launcher. We got a safe to crack!”

  Peterson heard footfalls and another man ran to Merc saying, “Ready!”

  “Nuke that mother!” Merc commanded.

  Presently Hollister, Peterson guessed, shouted, “Fire in the hole!”

  He heard the door blow inward and bend at the assault of the grenade launcher.

  “Get that door to the side,” Merc commanded. “And nobody dies beyond that door without my say so.”

  “Yes sir!” a number of voices said at once.

  Merc pushed past the men, on his toes and ready for anything. Things settled, and Merc was heard throwing debris around looking for things.

  Then, he stopped. “Oh…oh Jesus,” Merc gasped in a shocked, disgusted voice.

  Peterson didn’t ask what it was. He knew from the tone.

  Merc got himself together. “We…we found your wife,” Merc said sullenly, “Jesus. They cut her open. Chainsaw by the look of it. Anthony, I am so, so sorry.”

  Peterson drooped again. Some part of him, some small, irrational part, held out hope that she was still alive. He should have learned not to hope by now.

  He fell back against the wall and started to slide down.

  But then, he heard another rain of gunfire, blasting through his phone’s earpiece. “No!” he cried.

  “Return fire! Return fire!” Merc ordered. “Pin ‘em down. Give ‘em hell, but leave ‘em alive!”

  “Where’s Keeler?” someone shouted under the fray. “Tell Keeler we need her here!”

  Slowly, Anthony placed the voice. It was the kidnapper with all distortions removed. He didn’t sound so tough now.

  “Do you copy? We need…take these guys down,” the weakened voice shouted into what Peterson assumed was another radio, but there was no response.

  After a time, the firing died down, and Peterson heard more weapons hit the floor. It was surrender time for his erstwhile captors.

  “Don’t move. Don’t any of you motherfuckers move. We’ve got you dead to rights. Everybody on your knees.” There was moaning and a collection of sighs of defeat as Peterson heard them all comply.

  “Let me just take a wild-fuck guess…” Merc said tauntingly. Peterson could hear him walking back and forth, presumably in front of a kneeling audience. Merc’s big boots scraped on the floor and made loud steps. After a seeming eternity Merc stopped and seemed to point. As he finished his sentence “…you’re the boss here.”

  “Please…please I can make you a deal!” that exhausted voice responded.

  The voice was clear now, no longer distorted and no longer confident. But Peterson knew that was him. Peterson laughed at how beaten the once commanding kidnapper sounded now.

  “Sounds like a yes. Gentlemen? Waste the rest.”

  Peterson heard a cacophony of booms followed by sickly splats and the unmistakable wet thumps of bodies hitting the floor.

  “Anthony, I think we’ve found your host for the evening.” He paused, and then said “Oh. Look at that. His eyes just got all wide when I said the name…Anthony. You really didn’t expect this shit, did you?”

  The kidnapper spoke louder, and Peterson recognized his voice. “Please, no. I can make it worth your while.”

  “Worth my while?” Merc said, sarcastically, “Oh, do tell.”

  “Double. I’ll double your money. Whatever it is he’s paying you. No, no! Triple!”

  “What do you say, Anthony? He’s trying to bribe me here.”

  The former kidnapper spoke louder to make sure he could be heard by Merc’s Bluetooth. “Mr. Peterson. Please. I’ll give you your money back. I can give you more. I can give you anything!”

  Peterson smiled coldly, loving this. He had him right where he wanted him. His only regret was that he was not right there in person to watch him squirm. He now had him begging, just as Peterson had previously been begging for Susan’s life. He planned to offer an equal measure of mercy.

  “Merc,” he said with a tone of command in his voice.

  “Yes, sir,” Merc responded, still sounding sarcastic.

  “You and the boys soften him up…just a little bit!” Peterson said, almost casually. “Make him hurt. Make him bleed!”

  “With pleasure, sir.”

  Peterson listened to the severe beating that was being administered and licked his lips, thinking of all the pain and torture he had gone through that day and relishing the fear his captor was surely feeling now. The fear and the pain.

  “Merc!”

  “Yes, sir?” Merc was laying it on thick by calling him ‘sir.’ It was a psychological ploy, and he knew it. He was showing the kidnapper how low he had sunk. The man torturing him now was taking orders from the man he had so recently tortured.

  “Put me on speaker phone so he and I can hear each other.”

  Two beeps, then, “Done.”

  “Hey there,” Peterson laughed in mock friendliness.

  No response.

  “Not quite the way you thought your day would end, is it?” Peterson’s damaged mouth was a mile wide now.

  “He’s shaking his head no, Anthony.”

  “Good. Say, Merc? Has anybody broken his jaw yet?”

  “Hmmm…looks like a no. You want me to?”

  “No, no, no,” Peterson laughed. “How about one of you take out ten of his teeth for me.”

  “Happy to do it,” Merc laughed, then selected a can
didate. “Skinner, dentistry at will!”

  “No! No! Please!”

  “Wait, Merc!” Peterson said, sounding merciful.

  “Yeah?”

  “Look around for a filthy pair of pliers. The kind you can actually smell. Don’t do it with anything of quality.”

  Merc laughed and said “You got it, Anthony. Skinner? Store room!”

  Anthony heard the commando named Skinner march away as his former malefactor continued his begging.

  “Please, Peterson, you don’t have to do this. I’m not the– I can tell you…I can tell you who is behind this, who put me up to it! I can help you get–”

  Peterson cut off the weak pleas with laughter as he heard Skinner’s boots return and Merc mutter, “That’ll do it.”

  Peterson spoke very clearly into the phone. “Listen very closely, son,” Peterson said, then cleared his throat. “I…don’t…care.” Then, more loudly, he commanded, “Doctor Skinner? Oral surgery time!”

  The next several minutes were filled with crunches and screams, not to mention laughter from Merc’s commandoes. The sounds were familiar to Peterson. They were, to his mind, the most horrible sounds he had ever heard, save his own Susan’s cries for help. But he enjoyed hearing them again, considering the person it was happening to. It took longer than he realized it might. But he didn’t mind the wait. It wasn’t him being mutilated on the floor this time.

  “How’s he looking now, Merc?”

  Merc laughed. “A lot like raw sausage, actually.”

  “How’s he sound?”

  Peterson heard Merc hold the phone close to the man’s face, and all he could hear was the sickly gurgling of a man who had been beaten within somewhere around a millimeter of his life.

  Peterson just laughed and laughed.

  He thought about the kidnapper’s last pathetic offer, about the real ringleader as it were and he chuckled to himself.

  Had this happened twelve hours ago, he would have asked Merc to find out who the man was. Go through everything and figure out his name and what the connection was.