The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich

by Lars Emmerich

  Fredericks was still talking. “And we could always plow into a tree trunk. That’d be fun, don’t you think? Maybe have some injuries to deal with while we’re waiting for those assholes to nab us again?”

  Sabot grunted again.

  “And we could always—“

  “Okay!” Sabot yelled, suddenly fed up. “For fuck’s sake, shut up!”

  Fredericks bristled. “You wanna walk? Little ingrate beaner. We’ll see how far you get…”

  Sabot tuned the fat man out. He had bigger things to worry about. Like Angie and Connie, tied up somewhere, under duress, maybe forced to do unspeakable things, all on account of Sabot’s decision to skim a little slice of the Bitcoin action.

  He frowned, trying for the thousandth time to work out a way to find Angie and Connie. He had no clue where to begin.

  And his head hurt, something awful. It felt like a hangover, but he had no recollection of drinking alcohol since the charter flight.

  Jesus, how long ago was that? It felt like an epoch ago when he, Angie, Connie, and fat Fredericks had boarded the airplane in Canada. He had no real idea of how long ago that had been, but it had certainly been a world away from where he now found himself.

  A warm orange glow peeked through occasional bald spots in the dense canopy. Sunrise provided a welcome distraction, moving Sabot’s consciousness ever so slightly away from his private misery. With the sun’s orange glow came possibility, maybe even hope.

  But with the sun also came rising temperature, which added vigor to Fredericks’ already eye-watering stench. Sabot tried to further loosen his grip on his fat compatriot’s torso, but the rough jungle trail required frequent and stomach-turning embraces to keep him from toppling ass over teakettle off the back of the dirt bike.

  The rough trail mercifully gave way to a two-rut jeep trail, which itself eventually ended at a T intersection with a perpendicular-running dirt road. A sign made it clear that, should one be interested in reaching a place called Tegucigalpa, left was the way to go. Was that a town in Costa Rica? Sabot had no idea. And he still really had no idea where he was, due in no small part to the mindscrew Zelaya had laid on him over the past few days. Or months. He wondered yet again how long it had been since he and the girls had made their hasty exit from Seattle.

  Fredericks followed the sign, turning left onto the dirt road. Sabot was tempted to question the decision, but restrained himself. Fredericks had only recently shut up, and Sabot had no desire to provide an excuse for more asinine blather shouted over the ragged sound of the motorcycle’s overworked engine.

  Plus, upon reflection, it probably made sense. It wasn’t as if they had their choice between booming urban centers. The sign pointing toward Tegucigalpa was the only harbinger of civilization they’d yet encountered, and it made sense that if Zelaya and the other bastards had indeed attempted to sell Angie and Connie into the oldest profession, a city was the most likely place to find them.

  A stabbing, clawing pain suddenly assaulted his innards. It was as if he’d swallowed something jagged, which was now working its way through his system.

  Come to think of it, he had swallowed something jagged, something his body wasn’t designed to process. Perhaps the heart-shaped USB drive he’d hurriedly slammed down his throat during his abduction at the airport was about to reenter his life in a meaningful way. Giving ass-birth to that damn thing promised to be an eye-watering experience. He sincerely hoped the digestion process had left unmolested the ones and zeroes living in the USB drive’s innards. They now represented one of the most sizable fortunes on the planet.

  The dirt road wasn’t smooth by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a damn sight less atrocious than the jungle trail, and Sabot was able to hazard some separation between himself and his disgusting traveling companion. It reduced his misery a fraction.

  Soon, dirt gave way to pavement, and jungle sounds slowly gave way to traffic noises. They stopped for gas at a dilapidated filling station on the edge of a town called El Chimbo. The cheap. Hell of a name for a town, Sabot thought.

  He surveyed the ramshackle village as Fredericks went in to pay. Everything was dilapidated, falling apart, every block looking like a redneck’s backyard. Hell of a town. He decided the name fit perfectly.

  Fredericks returned, a brown bag in his hand and a jaunty bounce to his step. “Got us some libations to celebrate our escape.”

  “Because my head’s not screwed up enough already,” Sabot said, unsmiling.

  Fredericks snorted. “Suit yourself, esé.”

  Something struck Sabot as odd. “Where’d you get the money to pay for the gas?”

  “Stole it from Zelaya,” Fredericks said.

  Sabot frowned. He remembered Fredericks searching Zelaya’s comatose form, but he didn’t recall seeing the fat man take any cash.

  And Sabot himself had searched Zelaya, moments after he’d fired several tranquilizer darts into the small, slight man’s chest. Could he have missed the cash? More to the point, could he have missed finding the cash himself, and failed to notice Fredericks finding money on Zelaya? Those seemed like unlikely odds. His hackles rose, and he eyeballed Fredericks askance. Was there something going on here that he’d missed?

  It was entirely possible. He wasn’t exactly at the sharpest he’d ever been in his life. He had a golf ball-sized knot at the base of his skull, a throbbing headache, and a seriously shaky sense of reality. Upon reflection, quite a few things could have escaped his notice.

  Still, the cash thing was strange.

  And it was also strange that Fredericks had found the opening in the back of the janitor’s closet leading to the earthen tunnel, and it was extremely weird that the fat man had discovered the smaller ventilation shaft, if that’s what it was, that led them to the underground garage.

  Fredericks was certainly more than he first appeared. But Sabot wasn’t sure what that knowledge might imply.

  “You coming?” Fredericks’ voice interrupted Sabot’s rumination.

  Sabot shook his head as if to clear the cobwebs. Fredericks started the motorcycle, and Sabot reluctantly climbed back on. “Where to?” he asked.

  “Someplace with Wi-Fi,” Fredericks said, gunning the engine and heading into town.

  “Wi-Fi? What are you talking about?” Sabot asked over the motorcycle engine noise, incredulous. “We’ve got to find Angie and Connie. God knows what’s happened to them. We don’t have any time to waste.”

  Fredericks shook his head. “What makes you think you have the slightest idea how to find those two women?” he asked.

  “I don’t have any idea,” Sabot said, his voice raised over the sound of the motorcycle. “But I know it doesn’t involve Wi-Fi.”

  Fredericks laughed. “You’re a smart beaner,” he yelled over his shoulder. “You’re right. Wi-Fi isn’t going to find them.”

  “Then what the hell are we going to do with Wi-Fi?”

  “Not we, vato,” Fredericks said. “You.”

  “Bullshit!” Sabot protested. “I’m going to find those girls!”

  “We’ve already established that you don’t have the first clue how to do that. But I do.”

  “Then I’m going with you,” Sabot declared.

  Fredericks shook his head again. “No, little buddy, you’re not going with me.”

  “You’re going to find them? By yourself?”

  Fredericks nodded. He braked and leaned right, turning into a dirt parking lot. Casa Mejia, a sign declared, its bright, hopeful lettering long faded into tired resignation.

  “No way, man,” Sabot said. “I’m not waiting in this dump while you blunder around looking for Angie and Connie.”

  Fredericks turned off the engine and dropped the kickstand. “Get off,” he said.

  Sabot didn’t move. “Look, man, I really just need to find Angie and her mom before anything really messed up happens.”

  Fredericks swung his corpulent leg, shoving Sabot’s slight frame off the back of
the motorcycle. Sabot stumbled sideways for several steps before regaining his balance, cursing as he did so.

  When he’d recovered, he saw Fredericks walking toward the motel’s dilapidated office. “Fredericks!” Sabot yelled. He ran, grabbed the fat man’s arm, and turned Fredericks around. “I have got to find those girls, dammit!”

  “Lower your voice,” Fredericks said, resuming his march to the office. “And relax. You do computers. This is what I do.”

  “You said you were in private security,” Sabot said.

  “That’s mostly true.”

  “Mostly?”

  Fredericks turned abruptly. “Yes, you little sonuvabitch, mostly. But I do other things too. Useful things. Like finding people who need to be found, for instance. And I sometimes find people who don’t even want to be found.” He turned again toward the office.

  “What are you going to do when you find them?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On what I think is best.” Fredericks pushed Sabot to a stop with a meaty palm in the smaller man’s chest. “Wait here and watch the bike.”

  Sabot’s protest went unheard as Fredericks disappeared into the motel office. The big man reemerged moments later with two keys in his hands. “This way,” he said, pointing toward the end of the building furthest from the road.

  Fredericks unlocked and searched the first room while Sabot waited outside. It was empty, and Fredericks searched the second room with the same result. “Now the hard part,” he told Sabot, dangling a room key in front of his face. “You wait.”

  “And do what?” Sabot protested.

  “I don’t know. Maybe jerk off to lingerie ads. Whatever. But keep your skinny brown ass inside that room, don’t make any noise, and don’t open the door for anyone in the world but me. Got it?”

  “Fuck you, Fredericks. I’m not sitting on my ass all day and—”

  Fredericks cut him off with a wave of a hand. “You’re right. You’re not going to be sitting around all day. You’re going to be very busy when I get back.”

  A quizzical look crossed Sabot’s face.

  “Quid pro quo, little man,” Fredericks said. “I’m going to find those two women for you. But I’m going to need something from you in return. Now get inside that room.”

  There was a sudden hardness to Fredericks’ face, a bare-knuckled competency mixed with a healthy dash of meanness, and the change in Fredericks’ mien caught Sabot off guard. It was the second time that Fredericks had morphed right in front of his eyes.

  Sabot shut up and did as he was told.

  Two hours later, Sabot sat restless and awash in the stench of mildew and stale cigarettes, the gloom of his dirty room in the Casa Mejia motel in greater downtown El Chimbo doing little to calm his angst or lift his depression. The carpet was nothing short of vile, and the curtains looked like they had seen better decades.

  But there was a hot shower, of which Sabot had availed himself. It felt good to be clean, to wash away the residual stench of Fredericks’ sweaty disgustingness that lingered from their lengthy motorcycle ride out of the jungle.

  And there was Wi-Fi, which was evidently important to Fredericks for an as yet unannounced reason.

  He glanced at the hotel’s guest folder. The tattered cover bore coffee and food stains. Bienvenue á Casa Mejia, it said. El Chimbo, Honduras.

  Honduras.

  Which was a different place entirely than Costa Rica, important because Sabot had chartered a flight from Canada to Costa Rica, and definitely not from Canada to Honduras.

  Honduras.

  Fredericks had shared that flight. Did Fredericks think they were in Costa Rica? Or did he know they were in Honduras?

  A chill came over him. Zelaya, that sadistic little bastard who’d wreaked so much havoc on Sabot’s mind and body since he’d awakened in that dungeon in the jungle, had mentioned something about Honduras. He also vaguely recalled Zelaya saying something about crimes against the Honduran government that Sabot had supposedly committed.

  Sabot felt panic rising, the feeling that he really had no idea what was real and what was a figment of his imagination. Or maybe he felt panic because there was the possibility that it was all real. His betrayal with that beautiful guard, Marisela, and Angie’s heartbroken reaction when she learned of it… the woman in the bed with him in that fake hotel room, the one who’d had all of Angie’s clothes, and who he’d briefly slipped inside, but who definitely wasn’t Angie… Had all of that really happened? Was it as real as the fact that he was in Honduras, and not Costa Rica?

  My mind is messed up in a big way, he thought to himself. He needed some air, and to hell with Fredericks’ admonishment to remain hidden inside the room. He arose and walked to the door, his legs feeling distant and shaky.

  He put his hand on the lock and twisted, but a thought stopped him from opening the door. What if Zelaya was telling the truth? What if Sabot was guilty of some crime? What if the Honduran government was interested in prosecuting him?

  He sat back down, heart suddenly pounding, his breath shallow and unsteady. Get it together, esé. He had to get this situation figured out, pronto. How would he possibly get Angie and Connie home if he was a wanted man himself? Assuming he could find them in the first place, and then rescue them from whatever fate they were currently suffering.

  What fate were they suffering? He began imagining atrocities, indignities, violations, Angie and Connie in horrific situations, at the mercy of truly evil men, and the thoughts filled him with overwhelming worry. Rage and guilt also swirled, and his eyes teared up with un-channeled, unproductive emotion. Fredericks was right about one thing: waiting was awful.

  Sabot turned on the television. It was tuned to a local news station. Sunday, it said.

  When had they left Seattle? Was it Thursday? Friday? Just a few days ago? How could that be possible? It seemed a lifetime away. So much had happened — the endless hours chained to a wall, the days — was it days? — spent in a fake hotel room, all of the interrogations with Zelaya, the doctor’s visit, Marisela, the unlikely escape from the prison in the jungle. Could that have all taken place in just a few days?

  Or had he been imprisoned for a week? Two? It seemed far more likely than just a couple of days. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember the date when he, Angie, and Connie had packed up their car and left Connie’s place in the Seattle suburbs. Regardless of what the calendar said, it was ages ago.

  His own mind felt alien to him, like a foreign entity that he needed to understand, but couldn’t figure out. He didn’t trust his recent memories. But he desperately needed them, because he desperately needed to understand his situation.

  Someone pounded on the door to his motel room.

  Adrenaline surged. Sabot crept to the peephole.

  It was Fredericks. Sabot opened the door.

  “You look like shit,” Fredericks announced without preamble, plastic bags in his hand. “Eat something,” he said, handing one of the bags to Sabot. “Sorry, but this is what passes for a burrito in this shithole,” Fredericks said.

  Sabot examined the food wrapper. Baleadas, it said. Inside, he found a flour tortilla with an insufficient supply of refried beans, a hard white cheese of some sort, and scrambled egg. He devoured it hungrily.

  In spite of himself, he was glad for Fredericks’ company, distasteful as it was. Sabot knew that he was starting to go a little bat-shit crazy, sitting in that room by himself.

  “Ready to earn your keep?” Fredericks asked when Sabot had finished his food.

  The question was evidently rhetorical, as Fredericks produced a laptop computer from another plastic bag and handed it to Sabot. The laptop was a bit beat up, but looked to be in decent working condition. “Where’d you get this?” Sabot asked.

  “Don’t worry about it. I get things,” Fredericks said, shoving a piece of paper in Sabot’s direction.

  “What’s this?”

  “Your homework,” Frederi
cks said, rising.

  Sabot opened the folded paper. On it were written four lengthy strings of letters and numbers, with colons interspersed. Sabot recognized the strings as IP addresses. They were the virtual addresses of four computerized devices of some sort. “What do you want me to do with these?”

  “Do what comes natural.” Fredericks opened the door and walked out.

  “Wait!” Sabot shouted, before Fredericks could shut the door. “What about the girls?” Sabot asked.

  Fredericks turned, fished around in his pocket, and produced a photo.

  Sabot leapt to his feet and charged at Fredericks, ripping the photo from his hand. His eyes filled with tears as he studied its details.

  Angie was dressed in a negligee. Her eyes were glassy, vacant. She reclined provocatively on a red velvet couch. Drug paraphernalia littered the glass table in front of the couch. Drunk, leering men flanked her on both sides. One of them had his hand on Angie’s thigh. Up high, on the inside of her thigh.

  Sabot’s body shook. Tears streaked his cheeks, his jaw clenched until it hurt, and rage threatened to erupt. Then he felt Fredericks’ thick hand squeeze his shoulder, hard, and he looked up to find Fredericks looking intently at him. “You need to trust me,” Fredericks said, swiping Sabot’s room key from atop the desk where it sat and shoving it into his pocket. “I promise you. I will take care of this. Now get to work.”

  And then Sabot was alone inside the disgusting hotel room, opening the laptop with shaking fingers, finding the Wi-Fi network, opening a search window, doing what came naturally.

  8

  “You have a cousin in Baltimore?” Brock asked Sam.

  “Is that so strange?”

  “It’s forty minutes from our house. Why didn’t you ever introduce us?”

  “Because she’s hot and promiscuous and has no respect,” Sam said, “and I didn’t want to worry about her throwing the kitty at you.”