One of the soldiers yanked on Michael’s arm, getting his attention and dragging him roughly to the storage shed.
Stepping inside first, the soldier pulled a thin string attached to a bare light bulb hanging from a rafter, and harsh yellow light bathed the inside of the shed. Wooden barrels were stacked in one corner. Against the other wall was a dilapidated gas generator that looked as if it hadn’t worked for a decade. The floor was of packed earth, but there was a dirty straw mattress near the back of the shed. The soldiers carrying George dropped him on it without exercising any amount of care.
In heavily accented English, one soldier said, “Sleep now. No trouble.”
Turning off the light, the Cruzado exited the building. Michael heard the snap of a padlock and the soldier ordering a man to stay posted out front.
There was one small dirt-stained window beside the door, but it was large enough to let in some light from the moon, and Michael’s eyes soon became accustomed to the night.
With his hands still bound behind his back, he moved over to check on his friend again. He got down on his knees and leaned in for a closer look. George was still unconscious, but his breathing was evening out.
Michael spoke in low tones, “It’ll be all right George. We’ll get through this.”
He looked around the shed again, his mind racing. First things first, Michael wasn’t going to be able to do much with his hands tied together.
Awkwardly struggling to his feet, he approached the generator and turned his back to it. Reaching out with his fingers, he felt a sharp length of broken metal jutting out just far enough that he might be able to cut the rope at his wrists. He worked the rope over the edge repeatedly.
Soon enough, the rope fell free from him, and Michael brought his hands out front to examine them in the dim moonlight for damage. Several tiny cuts marred his skin and a few trickles of blood ran down his arm, but he was otherwise unscathed.
He set to work untying George’s bonds and trying to arrange the man into a more comfortable position until he regained consciousness. That accomplished, Michael sat on the foot of the mattress and leaned back against the wall.
With the shed locked and guarded, and Michael unarmed, there wasn’t much else he could do. They had been sending updates to John Markham every morning. When they failed to check in tomorrow, Michael hoped that John would send out an alert to the authorities and contact Calbert at Quantum Resources. However, even if they were made aware that Michael and George were missing, they would have no idea where the two were.
Michael had no idea what had become of their equipment. George’s video mask had a GPS tracker in it. If the Cruzados had taken it with them, then all Michael had to do was turn the camera back on and wait for someone back home to notice. If the machine were destroyed, then Michael would have to find some other way to let their location—wherever that was—be known.
In the back of the van, Michael had been disoriented and distracted. He’d had no bearings. Had they gone north, west, east, south? And for how long? Hours for certain. But that could mean they were anywhere, even in one of Honduras’s bordering countries, like El Salvador or Guatemala.
Michael sat up for another hour, worrying over their situation and speculating on what would happen the next day. After a time, exhaustion crept in and sleep took him.
∞
It was one of the most uncomfortable nights Michael had ever spent, and he woke with a sharp pain in his neck from sleeping upright against the wall.
George was already awake, and sitting on the edge of the mattress, elbows propped on his knees, one hand gingerly touching the swelling bump on his head.
“You look like I feel,” he said to Michael in a grave voice.
“Thanks.” Michael tried to work the kink out of his neck. “How’s the head?”
“Feels like a watermelon in a microwave. But no permanent damage, I think.”
“That’s good.”
With exaggerated care, George pushed himself to his feet and tested his balance. He looked around the shed and then stepped closer to the small window. “Where are we?”
“Not sure of the exact location, but it’s obviously some kind of base camp for the Cruzados.”
George glanced sharply at Michael. “Our equipment? The camera?”
“I’m not sure. They may have destroyed it.”
“We can only hope!”
Michael stood up. “What?”
With a knowing smile, George winked. “I installed a backup circuit running off a lithium battery. It was in constant contact with one of the geo satellites we were using. If the link is severed, it trips an immediate alert back home. The GPS uplink would give them our last coordinates. At least that would give them a starting point from which to track us.”
“What if they didn’t destroy the camera?” Michael asked.
Shrugging, George said, “Well, the longer it takes Calbert to notice we’re missing, the harder it will be for him to find us.”
“That’s what I thought,” Michael said, pressing his lips together in a grimace.
They both turned when the heard the clanking of metal. Someone unlocked the shed’s padlock, and the door swung open. Two Cruzados with rifles at the ready stood just outside, looking in. One of them glanced down, saw their hands unbound, and narrowed his eyes. He made a gesture with his weapon and said, “Siga con nosotros.”
With one soldier in front, and one behind, the two prisoners were led up the packed road to the main house.
∞
Inside, they were greeted at the door by a dark haired, middle-aged man with a thin black moustache which drooped around the corners of his smiling mouth.
“Please come in,” he said with a sweeping gesture of his hand. “My name is Oscar Ruiz, and this is my plantation. I apologize for the unpleasantness of your quarters last night, but we were unprepared for your arrival. We have had many guests of late, and we are not always able to accommodate everyone.”
Michael blinked, unsure how to respond. He shared a look with George.
A burly man with a thick moustache appeared from another room. He was dressed in a dark grey shirt and denim overalls. At the end of a leather strap slung over his shoulder was a submachine gun. It rested between the back of his arm and his side.
Noticing the new arrival, Oscar nodded in his direction while keeping his eyes on Michael and George. “This is Humberto, who is part of my new protective detachment, and is assigned to household security. If you will follow him upstairs, he will show you where you can clean up. Breakfast will be served shortly. I cannot wait for you to try our own home-grown coffee—it’s world famous, you know.”
Oscar gave them a quick nod, took one step back and spun on his heel. As he disappeared into the same room Humberto had come out of, he called out some instructions in Spanish to the house staff.
In a thick accent, Humberto said, “Upstairs.” When Michael didn’t move right away, the soldier put his hand on the back of his arm and pushed him gently but firmly toward the staircase. “Now.”
George needed no prompting, and led the way to the second floor. Humberto followed them up, and called out directions which brought them to a sparse bedroom furnished with a single mattress flat on the floor, a wooden chair in one corner, and a ratty looking sofa.
There was a four-pane window looking out over the plantation, and a quick glance showed dozens of campesinos tending the rows of plants. Thick iron bars covered the window, providing no means of escape. Not that it was an option at this point. Even if Michael and George were able to get away from their captors, they were both unequipped to survive in the open on their own for any length of time; at least for however long it would take them to make their way to a populated area where they could call someone for help.
Humberto took a few steps to the wall opposite the sofa and pushed back a slatted door.
“Wash here,” he instructed them.
Without another word, he left the bedroom, closin
g the door behind him and locking it.
Michael looked at George. “What the hell is going on? Are we prisoners or guests?”
“Yes,” was George’s answer. He smiled. “If I were to make a guess, I would say Mr. Ruiz is a supporter of the Cruzados movement, but he might not be a willing supporter. I wouldn’t count on him knowing much more than whatever rhetoric they feed him.”
“How’s that?”
“Look at it from his perspective,” George said. “He’s a wealthy landowner with a profitable business, at least by local standards. Central America has been rife with civil war of some sort for centuries, and someone who wants to maintain their status needs to work within that reality. I’d say he’s just hedging his bets. Obviously the Cruzados are a larger organization than we suspected. If they manage to attain their objectives, then he’ll be remembered for his contribution. If their revolution gets put down, he can always point to his ‘guests’ to prove how hospitable he was; he could maybe even go so far as to claim the Cruzados forced his cooperation.”
George was the first to enter the water closet and he grunted in disapproval. “Well, at least it’s indoor plumbing,” he said when he turned on the tap and watched rusty water pour into the cracked porcelain sink. He did his best to wash the sweat and dirt from his face and neck while Michael sat on the chair and waited his turn.
“So how do we play this?” Michael asked.
George stepped out of the washing room, dabbing at his face with a towel. “We don’t have a lot of options. We don’t know where we are; the authorities don’t know where we are and we don’t have any means of contacting them. They’re not going to kill us, and I don’t think they’ll hold us for ransom—at the most we’ll be used as hostages. In the meantime, we should act as guests, ingratiate ourselves with Oscar, and pump him for as much information as we can get. Even if he’s not directly involved in the Cruzados’ politics, I’m sure he knows more than we’ve been able to guess so far. Your turn.”
Michael barely had enough time to wash up before there was a knock on the door for them to head back downstairs.
∞
Michael smelled the fresh-brewed coffee well before Humberto led them into a large dining area. The table in the center of the room was filled with breads, fruits, sausages and fried potatoes. Eyeing the breakfast hungrily, Michael almost didn’t notice there were two people sitting at the table.
As Michael and George entered the room, Oscar stood up and motioned to two empty chairs. “Please, sit. Join us. I implore you to tell me what you think of my coffee; the beans were freshly roasted and ground only a few minutes ago.”
But Michael didn’t reply. Both he and George stopped short when the second man turned and directed his toothy smile at them.
In Spanish, Yaxche said, “George. Hello. Where is your funny hat?”
21
Lucis Observatory :
Venus Orbit :
Justine was the first to regain consciousness, and a knife of panic sliced through her awareness when she couldn’t hear or sense anyone else in her vicinity. She began to hyperventilate.
Without her PERSuit harness or optilink, she had no idea where she was or who was with her, if anyone. The after-effects of the sleep agent made her feel like her head was filled with cotton, and there was a persistent ringing in her ears.
She thrust her hands out to try to grasp something—anything—familiar and orient herself. Her fingers brushed against fabric, and then with both hands she tentatively felt along its length. It was the sleeve of someone’s jacket. Only one person in their group wore a suit.
Gently shaking his arm, she whispered, “Clive? Are you all right?”
A moan escaped his lips as he came to. “Oh, my head,” he growled. “Did a planet land on me or something? How are you?”
“I’m all right.” Now that she wasn’t alone in the darkness. “Can you see?” Justine asked. “Where are we?” Absently, she scratched at the inside of her elbow.
She heard him groan as he sat up. “We’re in a large room of some sort,” he told her. “Maybe a conference room or a lab. All the furniture has been removed. There’s one door; it’s barred, but it has a small window. There’s light coming in from it.”
Clive made some rustling sounds as he struggled to his feet. “The others are here, too, but they’re still unconscious.”
Justine experienced a moment of unreasoning panic when Clive stepped away from her, and her fingers reached out for him of their own accord. If Clive was aware of her momentary desperation, he did not acknowledge it. She took a deep breath to center herself. She was stronger than this; succumbing to her fears wouldn’t help the situation.
Justine heard Clive rouse Lieutenant Jeffries, and after a moment, the squad leader groaned and coughed as he awoke.
“That was one hell of a Mickey Finn,” he said, his voice rough as sandpaper. A moment later, he asked, “You two all right?”
“Aside from the mother of all hangovers, yeah,” Justine said. “Do either of you have any idea where we are?”
“Obviously we didn’t crash into the Sun,” the lieutenant said, his voice sardonic. “Though it feels like it. My skin is on fire.” A moment later he said, “It looks as if they’ve taken all of our weapons and equipment. They even took my boots and belt.”
Before they had been rendered unconscious, when they were in the hold of the liner, the soldiers had their ion rifles and supplies. Of course, they were completely ineffectual, but it had provided Justine with a psychological cushion. Now, it sunk home that they were completely at the mercy of their captors.
Justine heard the lieutenant go from man to man and shake them awake. Most of them woke in a symphony of moans and complaints, and Corporal Marks made a remark that he felt a tingling sensation in his legs, as if they were still asleep. When one soldier woke, Justine heard him roll over and vomit.
“Do you see anything out there?” Lieutenant Jeffries asked, his question directed to Corporal Marks, who answered from a distance away.
“An empty hall. I see a few other doors. We’re in some kind of lab complex, I would say. None of the other windows are lit.”
“Any markings?” the lieutenant asked.
“Just room numbers. Wait—” There was a moment of silence, and then Corporal Marks said, “Huh.”
“What?” Justine asked.
“I know where we are,” he said, his voice rising in surprise.
“Well?” she prompted.
Clearing his throat, Marks said, “At the end of the hall is a little trolley. There’s a symbol etched into the front of it. A circle with a small cross hanging from the bottom.”
Lieutenant Jeffries asked, “The symbol for a female?”
“No,” said Corporal Marks. “Venus.”
“Venus?” the lieutenant asked. “I thought Venus was a ball of hot acid.”
The answer popped into Justine’s head. “Lucis Observatory.”
“Right,” said Clive, back beside her. “In Venus’s shadow. It’s the perfect hiding place. The orbital has been abandoned for years, but the computer still collects data and transmits it home on a regular basis. As long as the computers keep spitting out periodic data to Earth, no one would ever suspect anyone was here.”
Using a wall to stabilize herself, Justine stood up. “We’re missing something.”
“What?” Clive asked.
“Right before we were knocked out, the liner slowed.”
Corporal Marks said, “Docking here?”
“No, I think we were docking with another ship, and we were transferred over.”
Clive took a step closer to her. “What makes you say that?”
Justine reached out and took his hand, and lifted it up. “Two reasons. First, the liner wouldn’t have had enough fuel to make the trip here.” She pushed up his sleeve and ran her fingers along the skin at his elbow. There was a tiny bump there. She pressed it.
“Hey, that hurts,” he said.
Clive whistled. “Induced coma? How long were we out?”
Corporal Marks spoke up. “Rough calculation, based on how far the liner had traveled, and the remaining distance to Venus, I would say at least two or three days in transit. There’s no way to know how long we’ve been here, but judging by the scab on my arm, we’ve been off the IV for the better part of a day.”
Justine nodded, not knowing if anyone saw the movement, and said, “So if you add those two facts together, that would mean they want to keep us alive, but they want to keep our—and their—existence a secret.”
She had continued to keep her grip on Clive’s arm, but now she squeezed it hard. “I don’t think we’re being kept here as hostages.”
Lieutenant Jeffries asked, “Then what do they need us for?”
His question was interrupted when the soldier who had vomited earlier cried out, “What the hell?”
“What is it, Private Jackson?” asked the lieutenant.
“Sir, my apologies, sir. I couldn’t help it. I—I voided myself. But, sir, it hurts.”
Justine heard some of the others hurry over to investigate, and she let Clive lead her towards the group.
Clive said, “Oh my.”
“What?” asked Justine.
“That’s not shite,” Clive said.
Corporal Marks’ voice was tight. “It’s blood.”
And that’s when the pieces of the puzzle fell into place for Justine.
22
Ruiz Plantation :
Honduras :
Central American Conglomeration :
It took Michael a moment to regain his thoughts. The last person he had expected to be there was Yaxche. The old man looked healthy and hale.
Music of the Spheres (The Interstellar Age Book 2) Page 13