Prey - Debt Collector 6 (A Jack Winchester Thriller)

by Jon Mills

  Just as he got his hand on the weapon, out the corner of his eye he saw Miguel slam the magazine Carlos had unloaded back into the Glock. Jack’s eyes flared realizing even as he tried to bring the gun around that he was going to get shot.

  A round erupted and he saw Miguel stagger back. Another round, then another and he collapsed. Coming into view out of the shadows came Isabel. He’d never been so relieved to see her. She cast her eyes down at him, before moving forward towards Carlos.

  “FBI. Get on the floor now.”

  He slumped down to his knees, gripping his bloodied ear.

  Isabel turned to him. “For god’s sake, Winchester, you don’t make my job easy.”

  He smirked. Jack rose to his feet while Isabel placed a knee on Carlos’ back and handcuffed him.

  “Where are the boys?” Jack demanded to know.

  Carlos spat in his face. Jack pummeled his abdomen several times.

  “Jack,” Isabel said while shaking her head. “We’ll take him in. He’ll talk.”

  “Fuck you, bitch,” Carlos muttered.

  “You think so?” Jack asked dragging Carlos over to Miguel’s body and forcing his face down against the bloody holes. “Start talking or you are going to join him.”

  “I don’t give a fuck.”

  “Wrong answer.”

  Jack pulled him up and dragged him over to a hot metal pipe. He grabbed the back of his head and jammed it hard against the steaming hot metal. The sight and smell of skin burning and sizzling paled compared to his scream.

  “Jack! That’s enough!”

  She rushed in to pull him away.

  “Now again, where are they?”

  His groans slowly merged with a chuckle that turned into laughter. Jack went to repeat what he had done before but Isabel grabbed a hold of him. “Enough! This is not the way.”

  “And what is, Isabel? Taking him in, giving him a cup of coffee, cigarettes, a lawyer? Letting him spend time in a cell with three square meals a day?” He paused. “You know as well as I do that they will drag this out through the court system, for what? Twenty years inside? Ten with good behavior?” He looked back at Carlos with disdain. “I should kill you right now.”

  “Go on.” He continued taunting Jack.

  “I’m telling you, Jack. This will not solve anything.”

  Jack was barely listening to her. “Where are they?”

  “Somewhere you will never find them. By the time you do, they will have starved to death.”

  Rage welled up inside of him. Isabel placed her hand on Jack’s shoulder.

  “Get out of here, Isabel,” he said.

  “Jack.”

  “Get out,” he yelled again with such fury she stepped back.

  He knew she was torn because somewhere inside her head she was weighing her actions against what she had been taught to do, even though she knew he was right. If a guy like this found pleasure in hurting young kids and never showed mercy, how likely would he be to tell the FBI where the kids were? There was only one thing these kind of men understood.

  “Jack, I’m calling this in. We’ll tear this place apart. We’ll find them but killing him is too easy. He deserves to rot in a jail.”

  Jack pulled Carlos past her. “You do what you have to do, I’m going to do what I do.”

  He dragged him down the corridor until he reached an office and shoved him inside. Carlos landed hard on the floor. Jack scanned the office full of papers and computers. It was a shit hole. In a pen holder on one of the tables was a letter opener. He pulled out the knife-like object and went over to Carlos who was still on the ground muttering how they would never find the kids and how he enjoyed hearing their screams.

  Jack kneeled down beside him, grabbed his throat and brought the metal tip of the letter opener to his eye.

  “You like hearing screams, do you?” He breathed in deeply. “So do I!”

  With that said, Jack jammed the tip into the soft part of his eye and pried the left eyeball from his skull. Carlos screamed uncontrollably.

  “Now you’re going to tell me where they are, you sick fuck, or I will take you apart piece by fucking piece, and when you are screaming for me to put you out of your misery, I’m going to leave you to bleed to death.”

  Isabel came rushing into the room with her piece drawn. “Put it down, Jack.” Jack was still gripping Carlos’ neck. His left eye hung loosely by a sinewy strand of bloody flesh. He had the tip of the envelope opener now against the second eye.

  “Don’t make me shoot.”

  Jack ignored her. “Where are the boys?”

  Between his cries and attempts to catch his breath he muttered something. Jack got close.

  “What’s that?”

  “Fuck you!” he stammered.

  Jack reared back. “No. Fuck. You!”

  Jack was about to jab it in his other eye when the gun went off. The eruption startled him so much he stopped. She had fired a round into the air.

  “The next one goes in you,” Isabel said. “I swear.”

  Jack slowly backed away still holding the bloodstained envelope opener. Isabel moved in and hauled Carlos up quickly. As she led him out of the room, Jack stared down at his hands, which were covered in blood. His one hand trembled. Memories of his father, and stepmother came rushing in. The beatings he received as a youngster flooded his mind. The day Eddie Carmine found him on the steps of his home battered and cut up. The fear of never knowing what would happen next was a constant in his life.

  It wasn’t Carlos’ face he saw before him but those who had beaten him as a child.

  He dropped the envelope opener and sat looking at the pool of blood on the dirty tiled floor.

  Chapter 23

  When Isabel returned to the room, she looked down at Jack on the floor. He glanced up at her and for a few minutes they didn’t say anything to each other.

  “You should get going. This place will be crawling with police and FBI soon.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Outside, locked down.” She glanced at the paperwork on the table and noticed blood all over it as if Winchester had rifled through it.

  “He’s not going anywhere.”

  “And the kids?”

  “Like I said, we’ll tear this place apart. You’ve done enough. Time to leave this with us now.”

  Jack hauled himself up. As he went to leave he turned back. “Isabel.” She had started looking through some of the papers on the table.

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  He didn’t need to explain himself; she knew what he was referring to. There was no mention of whether they would see each other again. She didn’t presume to think that cooperation on the case was anything more than what it was. He disappeared out the door and she went back to searching rooms. Sirens could be heard in the distance. The chance of getting a confession out of the Mexican was slim but contrary to what Jack thought, she had seen many a hard-nosed criminal confess when offered a plea bargain. Her only hope was they could find the boys before then.

  Twenty minutes later the place was a hive of activity. Medics took away Carlos and police officers searched the entire property using canines. It took them close to two hours before the boys were discovered hidden away behind a false wall inside a room that had been designed to keep them from being discovered. Neither Billy nor Danny was found among the survivors. Those they brought out were wrapped in grey blankets, given food and checked over by medics before Isabel had a chance to speak with them.

  They were sitting in the back of an ambulance waiting to be taken to the nearest hospital when Isabel asked for a moment with them. She stepped up into the ambulance.

  “Hi boys.”

  They didn’t say anything.

  She held up photos of Billy and Danny, and a young kid by the name of Neville said he had seen both of them.

  “They were taken away.”

  “Where?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
>
  She nodded and reassured them that they were safe now. And yet the look in their eyes told her that they didn’t believe it. The truth was, they were physically alive but that didn’t mean they weren’t emotionally dead. Their world had changed and no matter what therapy they received, they would never be the same. It would take them years of treatment and even then the chances of them living a normal life would be slim.

  “Isabel.”

  She turned to see Cooper jogging across the asphalt looking wide-eyed at the sheer number of police on the scene. She expected he would have questions. Thorpe would for sure and she hadn’t thought that far ahead. Right now she was still trying to wrap her head around the magnitude of what had been uncovered. The media was already on site, even though they were being kept behind police tape. Over the coming days this would be plastered across websites, TV news and newspapers. Discussions would roam around the how’s and why’s. People would try to grapple with how such horrors could occur right under their noses.

  As she walked away from the paramedics with Cooper, she gave one final glance back at the boys. The look of loss in their faces reminded her of Jack. Damage from losing those around you, she was familiar with, but being sexually abused and beaten, that was something she knew nothing about. How did it change a person? What could it drive a man to do?

  “This is one fucked-up situation, Baker. How did you know?”

  “Call it a hunch.”

  “A hunch? Bullshit. Who tipped you off?”

  “A friend.”

  He met her gaze with a look of skepticism.

  “Who?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  He chuckled. “You know Thorpe is going to want a report on his desk in a couple of days. You might want to come up with a better answer.”

  The coming days would provide more answers, unearth more questions and no doubt shock those who believed their small towns were safe places to raise children. The fact was most of what was uncovered by police on a day-to-day basis never hit the papers. If communities really knew what went into incident reports they would flip.

  Chapter 24

  Later that afternoon, William Banks was finalizing his trip to California to attend the Bohemian Grove when he received the news. The word came by way of Chief Weldon. He sat in his bedroom taking it in but not really listening. The takedown of Carlos and the operation in Winnemucca was like being sucker punched in the side of the face. It knocked the wind right out of him. After hanging up, he sat on the edge of his bed looking out across acres of property. A warm summer breeze blew in causing the white drapes to lift ever so slightly. He knew it was only a matter of time before the FBI discovered his connection to Carlos. As much as he had tried to avoid giving out his whereabouts, at times it was unavoidable. The nature of their business required daily conversation and a clear understanding of where they were to go if the wrecker’s yard came under the watchful eye of the feds. In all the years he had worked with Carlos they had dodged numerous bullets but now it was clear that there was no escape unless he fled the country.

  Others had done it. They had left the States and disappeared into some obscure small town in Mexico. He had more than enough to live comfortably and though it wasn’t ideal he could no doubt pay off local officials to turn a blind eye.

  He glanced out again and shook his head.

  But this was home. He didn’t want to run and yet if he didn’t act fast he would be staring down a lengthy prison sentence and there was no way he could survive that. He got up and went over to the wall and pressed the button on the intercom.

  “Garth.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Dispose of them, then get the car ready. We’ll leave in thirty minutes.”

  Garth had already been prepped on what to do if and when the situation arose. He went over to his closet and retrieved a large leather suitcase and began filling it haphazardly. He figured he had maybe a maximum of twelve hours before they figured out the connection and sent in a team to raid his property.

  He went back and forth filling it with just the essentials. That’s all he needed for now, the rest he could replace. He moved over to a large painting on the wall and removed it. Behind was a hidden wall safe. He punched in his code and unlocked it. Inside were bundles of hundred dollar bills, as well as precious stones. He began loading them into his case. There was a quarter of a million dollars. Once he was done he zipped it up and sat it down beside the bed.

  William then went into the bathroom and closed the door to take a shower. Steam quickly filled up the bathroom and fogged the mirror. He felt anxiety creeping up over him as he thought of how many years he was going to have to remain outside the country. Even with all the precautions he had taken, he kind of figured this day would come.

  Five minutes later he came out of the bathroom into his bedroom with just a white towel wrapped around his waist. He passed by his bed as he entered the closet to decide on what shirt to wear. With a blue shirt pulled from a hanger he glanced back into the bedroom. The suitcase was gone. A confused expression masked his face. He was certain he had placed it there at the foot of the bed.

  His eyes flitted around the room and quickly a sense of fear came over him.

  “Garth!”

  There was no answer. He moved back into the walk-in closet and put his hand under a pile of clothes expecting to find his Glock. He gripped it tightly and pulled it out. He then crept out into his bedroom, crossed the room and eased the door to the hallway open. Seeing that there was no one there he pressed the intercom.

  “Garth.”

  Again there was no reply. Garth always replied. They had the communication system hooked up to a Bluetooth that he wore twenty-four seven.

  “Garth’s a little busy right now,” said a voice from behind him. In the darkest corner of his bedroom, shrouded by the shadow of curtains, was a lone figure sitting in a chair. William immediately spun around with the gun pointing at him.

  “Who are you?”

  Beside him on the table was a gun laid flat. The figure leaned forward and the light from the balcony caught his face. It was slightly bruised and he was sporting a cut lip. William didn’t wait for an answer, he squeezed the trigger, and it clicked.

  The figure opened his hand in front of him and let bullets drop to the ground. He then grasped his gun and rose to his feet.

  William backed up with his hands out in front of him. “What do you want? I can give you money. I have more than enough.”

  “I saw that.”

  The man reached down, still keeping his gun on him, and pulled out the suitcase.

  “Please. Whatever you want you can have, just don’t kill me.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Who?”

  The man motioned with the gun in his direction.

  “Don’t be coy with me.”

  William stared back at him. “I don’t know what you’re on about.”

  The gun went off. William screamed and reached down for his foot, which now had a bloody hole through it. He winced and groaned in agonizing pain.

  The man tossed a cellphone near his feet. The screen was lit and a text message was on display. He’d sent it a few days earlier to Carlos with his address of where to bring the other kids before they left for California. Fourteen years of dodging bullets had finally caught up with him, and the only one he had to blame was himself.

  “Let’s try this again. Where are the boys?”

  “I’ll take you to them,” he muttered through tears.

  “Come on then. Let’s go,” he said gesturing to the door.

  The man didn’t say anything, he just kept pushing him forward. The pain in his foot was excruciating. Blood trailed behind him. When they reached the bottom of the stairwell he led him down to the basement that doubled as a large wine cellar. He flipped a switch and twelve small yellow lights lit up. The ceiling in the room was curved and all the walls and floors were stone. Huge oak cask barrels were lined up along the w
alls on either side. Each one was large enough to hold up to ten thousand liters. They came in all sizes. To ensure that no one knew where the room was he ordered the largest and made sure they all appeared the same. And they did, except one was different. He took him to the last barrel at the end of the room. Though it contained wine, it also doubled as a door. William hobbled to the far wall, his hands covered with blood. Every now and then he would touch a pillar and leave behind a bloodied print. There, he pressed on one of the stones and it flipped open. He tapped in a code and the barrel began to move outwards to reveal a large steel door. The man watched intently, showing no expression.

  He moved close to the door, and on the wall William tapped in 6647389, hit enter and the seal on the door gave way. As soon as it was open, the man instructed him to enter.

  Fourteen hours had passed since the incident at the wrecker’s yard. Isabel was elbow deep in paperwork when Cooper came rushing into the room at the Nevada FBI field office. He looked windswept and red-faced. He leaned against her table and took a second to catch his breath before he blurted it out.

  “They’ve found them alive.”

  “What?”

  “Billy Carson, Danny and three others.”

  Isabel shifted back her seat. “Where?”