by Hilton, Matt
‘We have to think of the boy.’
All three adults knew that, but they shared nods of acknowledgement at Harvey’s wisdom.
Benjamin, wide-eyed with alarm at the sudden screech of brakes and dull collisions, had other ideas. ‘Mommy, I don’t want to go home.’
Kirstie wasn’t sure if the boy meant her home or the one from which he’d recently been snatched.
‘I won’t let anyone hurt you, Benjamin,’ she promised, holding him closer.
Velasquez had turned off the engine. There was no means of forcing a way out of the crush of vehicles. Instead of holding the wheel, he took out his gun.
McTeer reached across, pushing down his friend’s forearm. ‘Keep that outta sight, buddy. They see you lift a gun, they might get itchy fingers.’
‘They won’t shoot,’ Harvey said. ‘They want the boy alive.’
‘They’re not getting him,’ Kirstie said, raising her head to bare her teeth, a lioness protecting its cub.
Fighters were surrounding the car now, waving guns, challenging the occupants, yelling at them to throw out their weapons.
‘There’s not much else we can do,’ Harvey said, his voice ragged with pain. ‘It’s the only way we can save him.’
‘I’m not giving him back,’ Kirstie yelled. Her challenge was as much to her companions as to those outside.
Harvey said, ‘If we refuse, we’ll all die, Kirstie. Then there won’t be another opportunity to get Benjamin back from them.’
‘You’re saying I should hand him over on the off chance we’ll be allowed near him again? They’ll take him away and that’ll be the end of it.’
‘We have more chance alive than dead.’
‘They’ll kill us the second we hand the boy over,’ Velasquez put in. ‘I say we put a gun to his head and use him as a hostage while we walk out of here.’
‘What?’ Kirstie looked ready to rake the eyes from Velasquez’s head.
‘I don’t mean that we’d really threaten him. It’d just be an act,’ Velasquez said. ‘Until we could get out of here.’
‘No! No way. What if they decide to shoot anyway?’
‘They’re gonna shoot sooner or later,’ McTeer said.
‘Kirstie. Please. Trust me, OK?’
Kirstie snatched a look at Harvey’s pleading face, then at each of the other men. They were pale with despair and she understood that was a rare emotion for them.
‘Oh, God . . .’ Kirstie lifted her son so she could meet his gaze. ‘I won’t let anything happen to you, baby.’
Benjamin’s bottom lip trembled, but for the first time he looked trustingly at his mother. Kirstie’s heart swelled with joy, but not for long.
A sharp crack introduced the next warning from outside. One of Molina’s footsoldiers jabbed the muzzle of his gun against the passenger window, close to McTeer’s skull. His words were in Spanish, but he was clearly demanding that they come out of the car. As he did so, the car jamming the doors inched away a few feet, allowing a man and woman to move in, both holding handguns. They pointed them threateningly through the windows at Kirstie and Harvey, then the woman pulled open the door.
In English, the woman said, ‘Get out, and don’t try anything stupid.’
‘Go to hell,’ Kirstie spat.
The woman contorted her face in a snarl that turned her pretty features ugly. With her free hand she reached in and grabbed Kirstie by the hair. She dragged her from the back seat, and Kirstie still was not ready to give up her son. Benjamin screamed as she attempted to push him back inside into Harvey’s arms. However, Harvey was already on his way out, waving his hands, begging for leniency. The woman snatched Benjamin, and Kirstie went for her. The man with the handgun slapped its butt hard against the back of Kirstie’s head and she sank to her knees.
‘Son of a bitch!’ Harvey struck at the man, but he was careful to do so with his open hands, merely pushing the man away. Others of Molina’s gang moved in, noisy and threatening. ‘Take it easy, goddamnit! There’s no need for violence, you’ve got the boy.’
Velasquez had also slipped from behind the steering wheel. He made a show of throwing down his pistol. He was the best placed to communicate with the gang in their own language. No one wanted to hear what he had to say though. Two gunmen grabbed his arms while another kicked him hard between his legs. Velasquez slumped down in the grasp of his captors.
McTeer came out of the car bellowing, his deep voice echoing off the buildings that hemmed them in on two sides. Harvey also was engaged in loud debate, but it was getting them nowhere. Others moved on Harvey and McTeer, frisking them for concealed weapons, some of them rough-handed, slapping and punching them into submission.
Within seconds all four of them were kneeling on the road.
As the crow flew they were less than a mile from the border crossing, but assistance from the authorities was beyond their grasp. Especially when a couple of their captors, including the woman who now held Benjamin, wore official Border Control uniforms. Kirstie tried to get up, arms reaching for her boy. A young man wearing cargo pants and loose shirt kicked her down again. He placed a revolver to her head, screaming words she couldn’t comprehend.
The woman backed away, taunting Kirstie with a slow smile.
Kirstie screamed at her. For a third time she attempted to stand.
Hands clutched her, but this time it was Harvey who held her in place. ‘Kirstie, wait . . .’
Someone else was standing just beyond the ring of gunmen. An older man, suited and booted, different from the others, who were all local toughs or crossing guards on the take. He was silver-haired, trim and healthy-looking, privileged, unused to the scutwork the others knew on a day-to-day basis: a local lieutenant in Molina’s network? The man was talking on a cell phone, relaying news of their capture and the recovery of Benjamin to the main man. He took his instructions with nods of his head, before switching off the cell phone to allow him to lift both hands in the air to attract attention. He didn’t raise his voice; it was apparent that he was calling the shots and all here had been waiting for instructions. Some of those gathered round appeared bloodthirsty, and would have no qualms about slaying them in the street, while others were more wary. Some even wore expressions of regret and pity, but weren’t prepared to act or say anything in their defence, such was their fear of speaking out against the cartels.
Kirstie was in no fit state to listen to the man’s words, but felt some of the tension go out of Harvey, his grip relaxing marginally. He whispered words that didn’t do much to comfort her, or reassure her that they would get Benjamin safely away, but maybe they had just won a momentary reprieve of sorts.
‘They’re not going to kill us,’ he said. ‘Not yet anyway.’
Chapter 39
‘Wakey-wakey, rise and shine, Hunter.’
I woke up in agony.
My skull was throbbing from where the stock of Marshall’s rifle had knocked me unconscious. My muscles ached everywhere, cramps twisting them into knots. Even my insides were shuddering with waves of pain, brought on by the twin tortures of nausea and hunger. My throat was parched beyond belief, and swallowing the sticky blood in my mouth had me gagging and heaving. It didn’t help that I was in a pose designed to promote intense stress on the body. My wrists were bound behind my back, but yanked up in the air by a rope suspended from a metal hook in the ceiling. My naked toes barely touched the floor. My head and neck hung forward, and to look up meant fighting against the opposing forces jabbing through my shoulders, adding to the agony. My clothing had been removed, all but my undershorts, and icy-cold water dripped from my torso. Marshall must have doused me when he’d arrived to rouse me from slumber. If I could have reached with my tongue I’d have licked some of the moisture from my skin, but that would have made me all the more pathetic. My situation was shit, and there was no hope of it getting better soon.
But despite all that I was happy.
Perhaps ‘happy’ was a poor choice of wor
d.
I was relieved.
I was alive.
Never would I have believed I’d escape from the high mountain pass with my head still attached to my neck, but there I was. Maybe I should have been fearful, because the only reason I could imagine for being spared decapitation was so that my captors could torture me before I died. A swift chop of a machete was possibly too good for me in Jorge Molina’s opinion. I envisioned the fates of others that crossed the cartels and expected a far more gruesome end than a clean execution. However, fear wasn’t in my remit. Death was a probability in my line of work, not worth fretting over. Life meant a second chance at my enemies. Life was good, and the pain a blessing – as contradictory as that sounds. Enduring the pain gave me something to rage against and build up my motivation to survive.
‘Where am I?’
‘Hell.’ Marshall chuckled.
From my bent-up position I was staring at his chest. Fighting the agony that flared through my contorted shoulders, I craned up to meet his one good eye.
‘Quit the amateur dramatics, Marshall. Where am I?’
‘You know the rules, Hunter, you don’t tell prisoners intelligence they can use later.’
‘So let me guess. I’m near the border, right? Probably Agua Prieta.’
Marshall grinned, but offered no clarification. He didn’t have to. It made sense that I’d be dragged towards the border, Molina probably hoping that he could perform a double whammy and stop his ex-wife before she was able to flee the country. He wouldn’t have transported me across the border itself: too many questions would be asked. He’d probably figured – or Regis or Marshall had – that we’d planned to meet up with the rest of our party once we’d given those pursuing us the slip. The geography didn’t allow for many options other than that we were heading for Agua Prieta when I was captured.
‘You’re lucky to be alive, Hunter. Maybe that won’t be the case if you keep on asking questions.’
‘I’m an inquisitive kind of guy,’ I said.
‘You’re a fucking idiot. Why don’t you open your ears and listen for a change?’
‘What’re you going to say, Marshall? Probably a few threats, a few jokes at my expense, some taunting, some swearing thrown in for good measure.There’s nothing that I want to hear from you.’
‘You’ve a low opinion of me these days, huh?’
‘Only since you chose to take money from a murderous pig like Jorge Molina.’
‘I don’t work for Molina.’
‘Regis then. You work for him, and he’s kissing Molina’s arse.’
Marshall chose not to answer. The faux humour had gone out of him. ‘Think whatever you want, Hunter. It doesn’t matter. The truth is that you’ve an hour left to live and about fifty-nine minutes of it are going to be painful for you. So listen up. Time’s short.’
‘Did Rink make it?’
‘Your big Japanese pal? Yeah, he made it. But he’s not much good to you stuck way out in the mountains. Forget about him coming to your rescue, he’s too busy running for his life from the team Molina sent after him.’
That was quite an admission, seeing as moments before he’d said that information wasn’t shared with prisoners. Relief trickled through my tortured frame. Rink had escaped certain death, so giving myself up had not been in vain. I didn’t fear that a team of Molina’s gunmen was chasing him; they had no idea who – or what – they were up against.
‘Tell me, Marshall, why are you here when it means that Molina gets less time to torture me? You pulled some kind of favour so you can beat the shit out of me first?’
‘Molina’s otherwise engaged. Oh, that’s right. You don’t know, do you?’
‘Know what?’
‘Your girlfriend,’ Marshall said. ‘Or should I say the former Mrs Molina? She was captured barely a mile from freedom. Bit of a shitter, eh? Bet you’re pissed that you gave yourself up? What was your idea, Hunter? That while Molina was tormenting you it would give Kirstie a clear run for the border?’
‘I didn’t give up,’ I lied. ‘I fully intended taking that machete from Molina and sticking it in his gut. Would’ve killed him if you hadn’t done me a dirty from behind.’
‘I saved your life, you ungrateful piece of shit.’
‘By knocking me out and having me carted here to this . . . what is this place . . . a goddamn meatpacking plant? You didn’t save me, you condemned me to a slow death.’
‘I kept to our deal, Hunter. I told you if you came out unarmed I’d save you from Regis’s bullets. I did that. Maybe you didn’t notice, but when you were gearing up to face Molina, Regis had a bead on you with that cannon. He was about to rip you to shreds; I knocked you down to stop that from happening.’
‘Big of you,’ I said.
‘Maybe more than I could expect from you?’
‘Maybe,’ I concurred. ‘Back in Hermosillo I told you what would happen if you came at me.’
‘Our old mate, McAdam, learned that the hard way.’
The stress on my shoulder blades was terrible but no way was I going to show the weakness. I held the position, craning up to meet Marshall’s gaze. Since the accident where he’d lost an eye his scars had faded. If it weren’t for the glassy stillness of one unwavering pupil it would have been hard to spot the prosthetic. The other eyeball flickered as he studied me.
‘McAdam was never a mate,’ I said. ‘Even after he dragged me off that Belfast street he hated my guts. If it wasn’t for the fact questions would have been asked, he’d have happily left me there to be shot again by the sniper. You, though, Marshall, you were different.’
‘Trying to sweet-talk me now, eh? A minute ago you looked ready to tear my throat out with your teeth.’
‘My opinion hasn’t changed. I’m only surprised that the good man I knew back then turned out to be a piece of crap.’
To my surprise Marshall gave a genuine laugh. ‘Guess I made some poor life choices between then and now.’
‘Were you envious of me?’
‘What’s to be envious of? It’s not me that has ended up on the end of a rope waiting for a psycho-wetback to come and gut him.’
‘Selection,’ I said. ‘When you were turned down by Arrowsake and I got in over you. If it’s any consolation, the deal with Arrowsake wasn’t what any of us imagined. Arrowsake was poisonous, Marshall, and has tainted everything it touched, including every aspect of my life since. Trust me, I’m the envious one.’
‘I don’t give a fuck about Arrowsake turning me down. I gained an employer who pays better and doesn’t try to fuck you over all the time.’
‘You can’t trust Regis,’ I said.
‘I’m not talking about Regis or the CIA.’
‘Fucking Molina? You just said you don’t work for him.’
‘I’m not talking about that psychopath either.’
I waited.
He appeared to be considering what to say next.
In the end I could bear his silence no longer.
‘Come on, stop keeping me in suspense. Or is this just another way of torturing me?’
Marshall moved away. I could only follow his progress by swinging at the end of the rope, dancing around on my toes. It almost dislocated my shoulder joints, but I had to keep him before me, watch his every move. Marshall walked to the far wall and leaned against it. He crossed his arms over his chest. Watched me watching him. The room was large, an echoing space with brushed-steel walls, long steel trestle-type tables along both sides, complete with drainage gutters that fed to grates in the tiled floor. A large stainless-steel sink, over which hung a flexible metal coiled hose, dominated the back wall. The coppery scent of blood was pungent, but the stink could have been coming off me. I’d assumed that it was a workspace in a meatpacking plant, but it could simply have been the back room of a butcher’s shop. Apt, considering what Molina had in mind.
We held the tableau for some seconds. Water dripped from the faucet, adding tempo to the span of time, each dro
p the ominous ticking of a countdown to Armageddon. Marshall was deep in thought, his good eye focused on a space somewhere between us, or on some far-distant place. He exhaled slow and long, then studied me and finally shook his head at the pathetic image I must have made. ‘I can’t help you, Joe. You’re fucked.’
‘So what happens now? You walk away? Turn your back and forget I’m here? Or are you going to stick around and watch me cut to shreds?’
‘Depends, Joe.’
‘On what?’
‘Whether I’m asked to stand and watch or not.’
‘Arsehole.’
‘Life’s shit,’ Marshall sneered, ‘and then you die. In your case much sooner than you probably care for. But then again . . . maybe a quick death would be preferable.’
Marshall moved for the exit door.
‘Hey,’ I called.
He halted but didn’t look back at me.
‘What about when it comes to an innocent woman? You prepared to stand by and watch that happen too?’
He only picked up his stride again and went to the exit. He placed a hand on the latch, but paused there.
‘Why did you come here, Joe?’
I wasn’t sure if it was a question or an expression of regret. Either way it was rhetorical. He opened the door and stepped out, leaving me hanging on the end of the damn rope. As soon as he was gone, I folded at the waist, groaning in pain as the spasming muscles in my lower back competed with those in my neck to torture me most. No sooner had I relaxed than something bumped against the door, and the latch was shoved up. The door swung open again, and I expected to see my old mate return to finish the conversation.
But it wasn’t him.
It was Jorge Molina, and he was carrying a rope, heavily corded hemp as thick as his wrist that dripped moisture on the tile floor. The rope was stained dark. I got a fresh waft of blood and understood how he’d employed the rope. Now it was my turn to be on its receiving end.
I bared my teeth.
‘Bring it on, you murderous bastard,’ I challenged him.