by K. J. Dahlen
When she opened it, Bull was there waiting for her. He helped her back to the table a few feet away from the bed, she’d been in the night before.
When she was sitting there, he opened a bottle of water and handed it to her.
Then the other men gathered around the table. The one they all called Judge took the seat across from her. He stared at her for a moment then pushed some papers in her direction.
Charlie looked down at them and flushed when she saw they were the papers she’d written out the night before. She raised her eyes to him but didn’t say anything. Instead, she waited for him to ask what he wanted to know.
“Is all of that true?” he finally asked.
Charlie nodded slightly.
Mustang handed him a photograph. Judge pushed it toward her. “Is this the man you call Conrad Bane?”
Charlie stared at the phot for a moment. It was of an older man standing on the beach in nothing more than a swimsuit. In one hand, he held a cigar while in the other hand he held a drink of some kind. His body was trim and well defined. He was a tall man with dark hair unmarked by grey. His eyes were narrowed but you could still tell they were dark in color. His left wrist was facing the camera and you could see some sort of birthmark there.
The photo also showed a tattoo on his chest and when Charlie noticed it, she pushed herself away from the table. Tears rolled down her face and she stared in horror at the photo. Her fear of the man caused her to shake uncontrollably but she didn’t make any sound at all.
Bull jumped to his feet and tried to embrace her but she struggled in his arms.
“Shhh…” he whispered in her ear. “No one is going to hurt you. No one here will hurt you.” He assured her as his arms tightened around her.
It took several minutes for Charlie to settle down. When she was calm again, Bull led her back to the table and helped her sit down. Then he looked at the photo and asked, “What is it about this photo that scares you? You’ve seen the man before. It’s Conrad Bane.”
Charlie stared at the photo in question and slowly raised her eyes to his. Grabbing her throat, she tried to speak but the pain in her throat wouldn’t let the words through. She closed her eyes and tried again but again, no words came out of her mouth.
Finally, Mustang pushed a notebook at her.
Grabbing the pen, she began to write, “The tattoo on his chest. I’ve seen it before.”
Bull read the words and glanced at his friends. Then he looked at her. “Where and when?”
Charlie shook her head. Tears rolled down her face. “I don’t know. I’ve seen this man before that’s true but when I saw him, he always had his shirt on. This is the only time I’ve seen him without a shirt. I don’t know why but the sight of it makes my heart ache.” She wrote shakily. “It was just a flash of fear but it hurt so bad, it took my breath away.”
“You said in your letter you got a bad vibe from the man,” Judge reminded her. “Could that be why?”
Charlie shook her head. “No this is something different. It’s like I’ve seen the tattoo before and it’s from a nightmare from my past. I don’t know where I saw it but I know I’ve seen it before.”
Judge stared at her for a moment then ran his fingers through his hair. He glanced quickly at Bull then turned his eyes toward Charlie. “And you can’t remember where you saw it before?”
Charlie shook her head. Turning her eyes back to the photo, she studied the tattoo again. Racking her brain, she tried but the memory wouldn’t come to her conscious mind. Finally, she shook her head. Turning to Bull, she planted her face in his chest and wept again.
Bull wrapped his arms around her shoulders and held her shaking body to him. “I think that’s enough for now Judge.”
“I know but we’re running out of time.” Judge snarled. “Bane won’t wait for her memory to come back. You’re down twenty four of your seventy two hours before he burns the town down.”
“I know but yelling at her isn’t going to bring her memory back any sooner.” Bull growled.
“You could always fight for the man for the remainder of your contract,” Hawk said as he crossed his arms across his chest.
Charlie pushed herself away from Bull chest and shook her head. Grabbing the pen she wrote, “You can’t go to him. When he doesn’t want you to fight for him anymore, he won’t let you walk away, he’ll kill you instead.”
Bull read her words and frowned. “How do you know that?”
“I just remembered something. I overheard him on the phone one day. He was outside and I was watching him. He was pacing and I was hiding in a tree near his office. He came outside to smoke a cigar and came to stand under my hiding spot. He never knew I was there. Whoever he was talking to knew your name. Bane said he couldn’t let you near him in case you recognized him or his tie to his brother. Bane told him he would take care of you for whoever the caller was.”
“I wonder if the man on the other end of the call was Ritcher?” Hawk suggested.
“It could have been.” Bull nodded. “If I’d seen them together, I would have said something.”
“And exposed Ritcher to public questions about his association with Bane,” Judge surmised. “That was something Ritcher couldn’t let happen.”
Bull tightened his lips. “Ritcher let Smokey die to hide a connection he didn’t want known? That lousy fucker.”
“Do you think he knew Bane would kill him?” Charlie wrote in the notebook.
Bull’s lips tightened. “Yeah honey, he knew. Ritcher knows exactly what kind of man Bane is. Bane has to protect his sources and Ritcher is one of his sources. That’s how Bane works. He pays for secrecy and the men he pays protect his secrets.”
“Not to mention the men Bane pays to protect him aren’t exactly upstanding citizens.” Wild Child sneered.
“Let’s check and see what Bane needs Ritcher in his pocket for,” Judge finally said. “There has to be something Ritcher is providing for him.”
Mustang nodded and left to table to begin his search of Ritcher’s political career.
“How about we get you something to eat?” Bull suggested. “Are you hungry?”
Charlie nodded. “Coffee?” she wrote in the notebook.
Bull chuckled. “Yeah, we got coffee.”
“Shower?”
Bull nodded. “Yeah we got that too.”
An hour later, Charlie was clean and fed. Hawk rewrapped her throat to keep the cut clean but told her it was closing nicely. She had to lay down again afterward as she had used up all her energy washing the blood out of her hair.
She was so tired but she couldn’t turn off her brain. The men around her were trying to build a case against Conrad Bane and she felt like she should be helping them but the fear inside her was growing and she didn’t know how to stop it.
Struggling with herself trying to sleep, she finally gave up and stumbled back over to the table a few feet away. With shaking hands, she reached for the photo of Conrad Bane she’d seen earlier. Growing fear almost paralyzed her but she knew she had to help them figure out what was going on.
Staring at the tattoo on the man’s chest, she wracked her brain to find the memory she needed to tell her where she’d seen it before. Groaning in frustration, she let the photo fall back to the table.
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Bull whispered in her ear and his arms wrapped around her shoulders. He sat down beside her.
“But what if I can’t remember in time?” her words came out as barely a whisper but Bull heard them.
He shrugged. “What if you don’t? Is remembering really so important?”
“I don’t know?” she whispered. “It might be.”
“What are you trying to remember?” he asked softly.
Charlie’s face crumbled. “I don’t know but whatever it is it scares me.” Her throat hurt as she tried to speak.
Bull held her tighter. “Hush, nothing is going to hurt you here. Not as long as any one of us is still standing. We won’
t let it. Don’t try to talk so much yet, I don’t think your throat can take it.”
Charlie grabbed the pen and began to write. “When I first laid eyes on the man in the photo my heart almost burst. That was three years ago and that feeling has never gone away. I was shaking so much I couldn’t move. Something about him sparked a memory I didn’t know I had. But I couldn’t quite remember what that memory was. Just like today when I saw his picture, I knew him but I can’t remember where I know him from. It’s like nothing more than a flash, gone before it was there fully.”
She showed him the writing and waited while he read it. Then she began to write again. “It’s like the memory is closed in a fog that won’t clear. The fear is there and it’s very strong but what I’m afraid of I don’t know.”
“Don’t push the memories,” Bull told her. “Stress never allows memories to come. You have to relax and just let your mind clear. The memories will comes if you don’t push it. The fog you feel is your mind protecting itself against whatever trauma you’re feeling when you see him.”
Charlie leaned into his shoulder and let her body relax. Closing her eyes, she allowed his body to take her weight. Slowly, sleep began to claim her.
* * * *
Bull carried her to bed. Laying her down, he covered her with a blanket and stepped away from her.
Bull went over to where Judge and the others were standing.
“Is she alright?” Hawk finally asked.
Bull’s mouth tightened and he shook his head. “She’s trying too hard to remember where she’s seen Bane’s tattoo before. It’s scaring the hell out of her.”
“What did you tell her?” Judge wanted to know.
“I told her to relax and let the memories come back on their own.”
“Hey guys,” Mustang called out softly. “I might have found something.”
“What?” Judge wanted to know.
“Amir Hussain has been coming to this country for many years.”
“How many years?” Hawk asked.
“Well over twenty,” Mustang informed them. “On a hunch, I ran his passport. It goes back over a very long time then about seven years ago, Hussain completely stops coming here but another man starts. The other man’s name is Conrad Bane.”
“So he’s been here all along?” Judge commented.
“Yup, seems so.” Mustang looked up at his boss. “This pipeline has been well established for a while now it seems.”
Judge nodded. “We knew that already from the intel reports we had over in the sandbox. We just didn’t know who was behind it.” Judge thought for a moment then asked, “Is there any way you can trace it back and find out who set the route up?”
Mustang shrugged. “I can try.”
“Do it,” Judge ordered. “Check out the older members of the Malik family. Uncles and cousins.” Glancing over at his men, he shrugged. “You never know, this could be a family affair no one thought to look at before.” Looking over at the wall of information they found already Judge asked, “What did we find out on the Benali cartel?”
Tank reached out and grabbed a bundle of pages off the wall. Handing them to Judge, he noted, “Now the Benali family has held a piece of the drug trade for a very long time. They’ve been running drugs into this country for the last twenty five years. At least that’s how long the law has been trying to bust them anyway. When they first started quite a few of their runners ended up in our jails, in the past ten years or so, not so many.”
“Someone has been protecting them,” Judge stated flatly.
“Yup,” Tank agreed.
“How long have they been using the river to bring that shit in?” Bull asked.
Tank shrugged. “No one knows for sure.” He motioned at Charlie. “If what she says is right, over three years at least.”
“Could be closer to ten,” Wild Child spoke.
“Could be,” Judge acknowledged.
“If what Charlie has told us is true the FBI and ATF are already trying to link the River Ratz and the cartel and at least one of their agents paid the full measure of getting caught.”
“Likely more than one,” Tank reminded everyone. “She said the last one came looking for other agents that have disappeared.”
“I wonder if she knows where the bodies are buried?” Hawk wondered out loud. “Maybe that’s what the beating was for.”
Judge turned and watched Charlie carefully. If she knew where the bodies were buried, the River Ratz would definitely want her gone. Glancing over at Bull, he asked, “You said earlier you thought the Ratz were searching for someone or something? Could they be looking for her?”
“I thought so at the time and nothing has changed my mind about that,” Bull agreed. “I told you that before.”
“Yes you did,” Judge admitted. Then he snapped his fingers. “Do you think Bane gave you three days so the Ratz could continue searching the town for her? Could he be giving them time to find and eliminate her from the equation?”
“Damn, you might be right.” Bull shook his head. “But how did he know?”
“Think about it,” Tank suggested. “They saw you at the gym they blew it to hell a few hours later. If they followed whoever brought her here from Texarkana they would have seen his vehicle somewhere nearby.”
Bull thought for a moment. “I did see a vehicle leaving the parking lot as I came out of the gym. That was just moments before I noticed the Ratz car driving really slow down the street going in the opposite direction.”
“Damn, they’re looking for both of you.” Judge growled. “If they think she told you anything, they’ll take both of you out. She was right, Bane will kill you as soon as you turn yourself over to him.”
Chapter Seven
“We need some eyes out there,” Bull stated as he rubbed the back of his neck in worry. “We need to know what’s happening.”
“How do you think we can watch over a whole town?” Tank asked. “Even one as small as this one.”
Bull was agitated and began to pace. “I don’t know. There has to be a way to find out what’s going on out there. I can’t just sit here and wonder what Bane or the Ratz are doing to bring down this town. The people who live here don’t deserve to be left to their mercy.”
“That’s true enough,” Judge agreed. “Because neither Bane nor the Ratz have any mercy to give them.”
“We could try and patch in the traffic system,” Tank suggested. “If they even have one.”
“Well check it out.” Judge motioned at the laptops. “That or ATM’s with cameras.”
Mustang, Wild Child and Tank all began typing commands into their laptops. For a long time, no one spoke as the three men worked.
Bull walked over to the windows and looked outside.
A short time later, Mustang called out, “I got in.”
“Into what?’ Judge asked.
“The city cameras. Traffic lights, bank surveillance and security cameras downtown.”
“I got into private security cameras all over town,” Tank told them.
“I got the police cameras,” Wild Child called out.
“Ok, now all we have to do is find the bastards.” Judge growled.
“Yeah, it would help if we knew what we were looking for,” Mustang suggested. “We don’t know their faces.”
“But she does.” Hawk pointed out.
Bull turned and watched them stare over Charlie. Knowing he couldn’t stop them, he went over to her bed and shook her shoulder gently. When her eyes flew open he calmed her, “Shhh, it’s all right. We need your help.”
Charlie searched his eyes for a moment then gazed over at the others. Looking back to Bull, she gave him an inquisitive look.
“We need to know what’s going on out in the town,” Bull explained. “But we have no idea what the Ratz look like. Do you think you could point them out to us, so we can track them on the city cameras?”
Charlie closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, Bull could s
ee the fear she was trying to hide. She slowly nodded her head and sat up swinging her legs over the side of the bed.
Bull stepped back and held out his hand to help her to her feet. Charlie took it and allowed him to pull her up to her feet. They both walked over to the others.
“We need you to watch the monitors and point out if you see any of the Ratz,” Judge told her. “We can follow their progress through the town and see where they are searching for you and Bull.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know where Bane’s office is do you?” Mustang asked.
Charlie took a deep breath and began searching for the answered they needed. When one of the cameras scanned the outside of Conrad’s office building, she pointed it out. “Bane,” she whispered.
The front of the building was stone and looked to be an office type building but as Mustang scanned the front, they saw it was a historical landmark of some kind. He zoomed in and they read the sign out in the front of the building. It was at one time a library of some kind.
Mustang turned to stare at her. “That’s his office? Are you sure?”
Charlie nodded. Grasping the bandage on her throat she told them, “It isn’t a library anymore. It’s the city headquarters. The mayor and city hall is there as well as the police station and jail.”
Mustang shook his head. “Wow, not used to small town living I guess.”
Then an image caught her eye. It was a vehicle she knew. She pointed it out to the men. “That’s Paolo.”
Another vehicle caught on a different camera was next. “That’s Jose’s car.”
Bull searched the image. “That’s the same car I saw when I left the gym. It had four men in it at the time.”
Searching the cameras, she pointed out four more vehicles as belonging to the gang members. The men followed the vehicles as they spread out into a grid and searched the streets for any sign of Charlie or Bull.
A few hours later, Hawk noticed Conrad Bane leaving his office building. He wasn’t alone. A few minutes after Bane walked out, Seth Ritcher walked out as well. Bane had turned left when he left the front doors. Ritcher turned right and hurried down the street. He got into a dark sedan and the car rushed away from its parking spot.