“I’m sure it does,” she said. “But what about those guys on the dock? You know that fucker Augusto is a maniac.”
“I can take care of him. But that other guy looks pretty wimpy to me. I’m sure he’ll piss in his pants if you point a gun at him.”
“I hope you’re right, amigo, because I sure as hell am not going to shoot him.”
“Unless he shoots first, right?”
“Let’s not go there, Krish.”
They crept quietly down the muddy trail, Krish leading the way, and then paused, half a dozen yards from Augusto, headed towards the open gate. The bearded boy waited in the boat. Moving incredibly fast, soundlessly Krish went to Augusto and took him down. Lucy quickly ran to the boat, gun in hand, and pointed her flashlight at the beard. “Be cool and there’s no problem,” she said quietly. She looked into a crate. “What did you do, drug them?” she hissed, waving the gun at the bearded boy.
“Wait, don’t shoot,” he said, and then, oddly enough, began to cry. “Please do not kill me. I am sorry. I am—-I did not…Yes, they are drugged a leetle, but it was not my choice. I am…” he sobbed uncontrollably.
“Hey, calm down, kid,” Lucy hissed. “We’re trying to—”
“I am not a part of this. I was—I wanted to leave but I couldn’t—” he moaned. “A few weeks ago, it seems like forever now, they came to me and offered me this job to help a plane land with marijuana. I like to smoke so I thought, why not, make one thousand dollars for holding some lights and unloading the plane, and then—”
“You were working at the turtle research station,” Lucy said as it dawned on her. “You and another kid from—”
“Canada. My friend Francois. Yes, he tried to leave. To get away from here. He took a canoe and then—” he burst into tears. “They tell me he was eaten by crocodiles, to show me what will happen if—but it was not crocodiles, they shot him first, I know—so I can not leave.”
“But what are they doing here?” Krish said. “What is the—”
“To make me come they said it was marijuana they were smuggling but it is not, it is heroin and cocaine both. In quantities coming up from Colombia. And then they—you see the planes land down at their fishing lodge to refuel, and then also they sometimes take from here—there is a—like a shop set up in one of the buildings, and we are—because I speak English and Spanish fluently they have me making documents for these babies—like these three here that you see—that they are stealing and then taking down the river by boat and shipping to Texas with the drug planes, for adoptions in the United States. The documents make it seem that they are Costa Rican orphans, or sometimes Mexican orphans, or even kids that were put up for adoption in Texas. They do all the paperwork here and then take the babies on the planes. It is another way for these people to make money to finance their wars, and their drugs. It is a very bad situation, you see.” He hesitated. “But listen! One of the planes landed earlier, and so they will be expecting another boat to come up with cocaine to trade for more babies, and there are these three babies to be taken away.” Lucy looked in the boat. The babies were silent, asleep, drugged in their crate cribs. “I must get back. And they will wonder where is Augusto.”
“Are there other babies here now?”
“Yes, I think there is one or maybe two, but they don’t seem to be in a hurry about moving them to the US. There’s a girl around 14 years old, Esmeralda is her name, I think she came from Nicaragua. She’s like a slave here. She takes care of the babies and the men use her for sex, and she has to cook and clean. There were two girls a while ago but one disappeared. I don’t know where she’s gone. I have not seen much of them since I have not been here many times, I am like a prisoner down at the fish camp, but there is also a bunch of American kids that they are keeping here for school, they call it, but they just treat them like animals too. They’re in dormitories that used to be cow and horse barns, and now the kids live there. I can not believe the American parents who send their children to this place. It…these men are incredibly cruel.”
“How many men?”
“Always two here, sometimes three or four or five. Tonight there are the two guards coming that help unload the plane, Jaime and Rico—they do the work around the camp and the boats and they will bring the cocaine up the river and take the babies down. They work for the man who does the business with the planes, and who runs the fish camp. He is named Jesus Arguello. Also here are the men who bring the babies. The two here are Augusto and his boss, a United States military man named Griffith, I think. Griffith seems to be the leader of the whole operation. His wife is here too. She talks about Jesus a lot, but I know that this Griffith also uses the American girls for…you know, himself, sometimes.” He sobbed. “Thees place, it is like hell sometimes I think.”
“God damn,” Lucy said.
“Worse than you thought, eh?” said Krish.
“I guess. So what should we do?”
“Get the other babies and the kids, put them all on this boat, and get the fuck out of here,” Krish said. “And I tell you what, Lucy, if I …if you…have to kill somebody to do this, then you’d…”
“I hear you, Krish.” She swallowed down her fear, in deeper than she’d ever been.
“Then listen up. This is serious shit, Luce. Don’t forget Douglas is special forces. The guy’s got some talent for this stuff, and he’s probably got an arsenal around here somewhere. We’re obviously dealing with a gang of completely ruthless motherfuckers.”
“Hey, I saw you take out that creep,” she said, nodding at the unconscious Augusto. “You’ve got some moves yourself.”
“I’m a little out of practice.”
“Me too, but we’ve definitely got the element of surprise, right?” She checked the babies again. Still out cold. “So you lead the way, Clive is it?” She pointed the gun at him, feeling like a bit of a fool with the gun in hand but nonetheless focused, enraged. There was bad shit here and she wanted to take some people down.
They were definitely improvising, but that had always been her style in matters such as this. Life and death. See what happens, run with it. With Clive out front and a gun at his back—Krish holding it now—they walked quietly through the through the gate and down a trail through the jungle. After a moment, they emerged from the trees at the back end of a small fenced pasture with a gate directly in front of them. There was enough light now to make out a small cluster of black and white cows standing quietly inside the corral fence roughly a hundred yards to their left. Beyond the pasture and surrounding fences they could see the dark shapes of the rancho’s various buildings—house to left, then the various barns, and to their far right, the dormitory barn.
“So what’s the deal, Clive?” Lucy said.
“The babies are in the main house, there; the American kids in those dorms over there.”
“So Clive, you going to help us or wait around until these crazy fucks feed you to the gators.”
“I’m with you,” he said. “Follow me.”
“I’ll take that dorm building,” Lucy said. “Why don’t you take Clive and have a look at the house?”
“Check. Listen. Keep quiet as hell. You make any racket you’ll be very sorry, Clive.” He nodded meekly. “Let’s meet back here in fifteen minutes, OK?”
“See you then.” They slipped over the fence, walked silently together across the pasture, then climbed over the gate on the other side and crept off in opposite directions.
Lucy worked her way quietly around one seemingly deserted barn, hurried across open ground, and stopped by the converted barn/dorm. She circled the peak-roofed wooden building. A closer inspection revealed that the three windows along each side wall, and the two in back, instead of glass had bug screens on the inside and heavy duty cyclone fencing on the outside, attached to the barn walls with heavy screws. Accessible only from the outside, the cyclone fencing was meant to keep people in. As were the two padlocks on the building’s large, wood-paneled front door.
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She circled round to the back and risked shining a light into the quiet darkness within. The first thing she spotted was a large cross suspended on the wall above the door at the front end of the building. Beneath it, tacked up on the door, she made out a poster with the words THE RULES written across the top. The rules themselves were too small to read from fifty feet away. Playing the light over the room, she counted eight occupied single metal beds, and six empty ones, with blue and white striped mattresses. The fourteen beds were lined up, barracks-style, down both sides of the room, with small chests between them. She noticed that there were no light fixtures anywhere in the high-ceilinged room. “Who’s that?” someone whispered. Lucy instantly turned off the light. Someone came to the window. “Who’s there?” A girl’s voice, her face dimly visible inside the screen. “Is someone out there?”
“Hi,” Lucy whispered, unwilling to sneak away from that scared, shaky voice. “My name’s Lucy. Don’t worry, I’m just—”
“Can you get me out of here?” the girl said. “Did you come to get us out of here? Please, I—”
“We’re being kept here,” another girl’s voice, and another face. “Our parents don’t know what this place is like, and now we can’t even talk to them. Can you help us?”
Lucy turned on the light, and quickly shone it on their faces. Two American girls, one blonde, the other dark-haired, maybe fourteen or fifteen, scared eyes, beseeching. She turned off the light. “I don’t know. I don’t know how I can—”
She heard a clicking sound, and a soft voice speaking English with a Spanish accent. “You will please turn around now,” said Augusto. Already over that blow to the head, and now speaking English. “And keep your hands in the sky. Put down the light on the ground.” Lucy did as she was told. He held a gun on her with one hand and shined a flashlight on her face with the other, then shook his head. “I remember you. The journalist, yes? And so now you are sneaking around here in the middle of the night! That was you and your Asiatic friend down by the river. I think I will have to—we will have to wake up Mr. Douglas in this case I think.” He shined the light into the window. The girls had disappeared. He went to the window and called in, “I know that was you, Annette, and you, Corinne, and so I am afraid I will have to explain to Mrs. Douglas who was speaking with this person. I am sure she will be very unhappy. I think she will have to use the paddle. And perhaps extra work hours and some stable time, but that is up to Mrs. Douglas. So I hope you sleep very well on that,” he said, then turned and shoved Lucy hard, abruptly, and snarled as she stumbled and nearly fell. “Let’s go, puta bitch. On the double. This way.” He pushed her again, in the direction of the house. She fell face first, catching herself with her hands. She pushed herself up to her knees and back to her feet, thinking it would probably be wiser to keep her mouth shut rather than telling this sadistic prick to take it easy.
She turned towards the house, shaking in her socks. The man was seriously nasty, and he had a gun on her. She was in for it now. She looked around, contemplating a break, but where to, with a gun on her back? Instead, as they walked towards the dark house, she was running different scenarios in her head, calculating what, if any story, Douglas might buy. She’d handed Augusto that empty card from her camera, and now here she was, skulking around his compound. Basically she was fucked and she knew it.
Out of the darkness a flurry and a thwack! Augusto collapsed to the ground, victim of special forces commando Krish and his weapon of choice, a large stick. He urgently whispered, “Lucy are you all right?”
“Holy shit! Krish, that was awesome. Yes, I’m fine.”
“I told you I was out of practice. That first blow should have done him for the night. Clive’s after the babies. He’s a good kid, just got in way over his head here. Besides we gotta trust him because we need his help. We’d better make tracks in case they’re awake.” Krish knelt over the unconscious Augusto, took his gun, and then bound his wrists behind his back. This time he gagged him, tied his feet together, then dragged him over and shoved him under some nearby bushes.
“I don’t think anyone’s awake,” Lucy said. “Look at the house.” It was dark and silent. “I was talking to a couple of the girls through the window, and suddenly there he was, with his gun on me. He must have recovered from that first hit right after we left. Lucky for us he decided not to wake that fucker Griffith until he found me. Jesus, Krish, they’re freaked out in there. They were pleading with me to get them out. It’s like they’re in jail. And they’re just kids.”
“So we’ve got to get them out of here is what you’re saying.”
“You’ve got wire cutters, right? It’s just cyclone fencing on the windows. Let’s cut one open and let them out.”
“OK, but shit! Goddammit Lucy, you know they saw my van the other day. I live in Fortuna, Lucy. And they’ve seen you, and me with you, so what am I going to do?”
“I’ll get you a new car, they’ll never figure out who you are.”
“I wish it was that simple, Lucy.”
She looked at him as they approached the dorm. “But it’s not. I know. And I’m sorry. But I have to do this.”
“So let’s do it. Clive should be out with the other babies in a minute.” They quickly went round to the back of the barn, and Krish started clipping the cyclone fence over one of the windows.
“Who’s that? Is that you, Lucy?” The same girl’s voice.
“Yes, it’s me. And we’re going to get you out of here.” While Krish worked the fence Lucy talked to the kids—eight teenage girls crowded round the window.
“Why haven’t you all just broken out of here?”
“There’s nowhere to go.”
“We tried but they caught us and brought us back.”
“I hate it here but it was worse at home, my Dad was all over me. He used to beat the shit out of me, worse than anything these people do.”
“I hate my parents even more than I hate the Douglases.”
“Come on. I promise you I’ll get you home, or somewhere safe away from here. I can’t believe your moms and dads would want you to live like this.” Several girls shook their heads, you just don’t understand.
Maybe she didn’t. Her own parents had been incompetent at times, but never cruel.
“But where are the boys?”
“They’re in the barn up by the house, so they can keep an eye on them. American boys on one side, orphan boys and little girls on the other, orphan babies in the house. And the older orphan girls in the house, taking care of the babies.”
“The boys’ building was completely dark, with no windows,” Krish said. “Had two big padlocks on the door.”
By the time Krish finished making a hole decisions had been reached: only three chose to run with them, the others too frightened to make a break or thought their parents were worse. It was creepy but Lucy couldn’t help but notice: the three that decided to leave were the prettiest of the lot, Corinne, Annette, and a girl called Nadine. The ones that stayed were the homely ones.
The girls—Corinne, Annette, and Nadine—scrambled out the window, told the others they would tell the world what was going on and then said quick, sad goodbyes. They met Clive by the fence. He had a bundle in one arm and a young girl with him. She carried another bundle. “This is Esmeralda,” he whispered. “She’s coming with us.” Krish led the way, Lucy brought up the rear as they scrambled over the fence, ran across the pasture dodging several agitated cows, then ran down to the riverbank and out onto the dock.
“Where are the keys, Clive?” Krish said.
“I left them in the ignition,” he said. “Holy shit. Listen.” They heard the sound of a boat approaching. “That’s the other speedboat. I know the sound,” Clive said. “What are we going to do?” he whimpered, ready to give up again.
“Listen you traumatized fuck,” Krish hissed. “We’re going to head upriver to the San Juan and down to the coast. I’ve got a cell phone. Lucy says we can call Manny Sky’s hotel d
own there and they’ll hide us out until…Fuck, then what, Luce?”
“They have planes in and out all the time. We can—“
“Let’s go,” Krish said. “We’ll have to play it by ear. They’re getting closer.” They clambered into the boat with the two babies. The three others slept on, drugged little zombies. But all five of them breathed smooth and steady; Lucy made sure of that.
“Whoa fuck,” said Lucy. “Here comes the posse.” They could see flashlights moving fast towards them from the rancho. “We’d better get our asses out of here.” A gunshot, a bullet whistled past. “Damn, they’re shooting at us!”
“Drive, Clive!” Krish shouted, as they back away from the dock, throwing lines frantically. Krish fired a shot towards the lights as Clive steered the boat downstream, in a northerly direction, and floored it. They quickly sped around a bend as they raced away from the dock. A few seconds later, around another bend, they saw the other boat approaching. Krish talked fast. “OK keep a straight tack. If they know it’s not their guys they’ll try to cut us off and I’m going to shoot out their rudder or gas tank or something. If they think it’s their guys they’ll just let us go by.”
Clive headed downstream at full speed. The other boat was coming towards them fast, in a game of water chicken. They raced full speed towards each other, closer and closer. At the last minute Clive swerved right, and as he did so Krish fired off a couple of rounds, as did the guys in the other boat, which spun out of control and rammed into the riverbank and flipped over, crashing into the trees at high speed as Clive straightened out and sped downstream. “I think that oughta stop them for a while,” said Krish. The three American girls, and Esmeralda, and the five babies—three from the earlier delivery, and two from the rancho—huddled on the floor. One of the babies began to cry. Esmeralda rocked him softly and he stopped.
Lucy's Money: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 4) Page 18