Ahead of her, headlights arced through the dark. She stood in front of the Taurus, waving her arms to attract attention and claim help from the approaching driver. She positioned herself directly in front of the truck’s high beam, wanting him to see the short skirt and halo of dark hair. The bright lights washed out her skin color.
She watched the oncoming lights rock and bounce over the road. She heard the whine of the turbodiesel engine and a clash of impatient gears as the vehicle screeched to a halt. Gravel showering up from the tires, it stopped a car length away from her, with its engine rumbling.
Ledger shaded her eyes and shifted away from the blazing beams towards the driver’s side with a quick glance at the license plate to confirm that the stopped vehicle was indeed Woodle’s F-150 pick up. She knocked on the glass and the window rolled down. Deep shadows covered his features, but she saw enough to be certain the face looking back at her was not the same as posted on Woodle’s driver’s license. She was betting he was Mexican for sure.
What took her by surprise was that he was not alone. There was no interior light in the cab but she could see the shadow of a passenger. Another male with a bulk resembling the driver’s.
That left her with a dilemma.
Was Woodle the driver or the passenger?
“Thank you, thank you for stopping.” She made her voice breathy and agitated. She had intended to add a hint of Mexican accent, but since he could be the genuine article she doubted she would be able to fool him. So she stuck to her own voice.
“Where are you heading?”
“I was coming back from the national park.”
“You’re heading towards it not away from it.”
“I know. The engine started making these terrible clunking sounds and I was afraid I wouldn’t make it back to town, so I turned around. I thought I could make it to one of the houses on this road to ask for help. But my car just died.”
“You run out of gas?”
“No. Something’s wrong with the engine. It stopped suddenly. Just ground to a halt. Can you have a look?”
“I’m not a mechanic. Can’t you call someone to help you?” She saw the subtle movement of his head as his eyes flicked up and down, did another once over to linger on her crotch and her breasts. “I can give you a lift as far as Kendrew’s if that helps.”
“I’m new in town. I don’t know anyone. I can’t leave my car stuck in the middle of the road. I can’t afford a new one and I don’t have insurance. If someone speeds down the road and hits it, I’ll never be able to replace it. I need to get the car moving again.” She pouted her full lips and managed a coquettish glance under her lashes. “I need a man to look at it.” She hoped she wasn’t being too obviously coy in appealing to his ego.
His head turned from her and looked out the windshield. The Taurus was slewed across the road sufficiently to block the F-150’s passage unless he drove off the shoulder. He was weighing up the odds. He turned and spoke to the passenger. Seconds later, the passenger door opened and a man stepped out.
He approached the Taurus and Ledger moved with him. She guessed he was in his early forties. Short, cropped hair framed a heavy-set face and a bull-like neck sloping into thick shoulders and a barrel-chest. A plain polo shirt covered a body of hard, slabby fat masquerading as muscle. Strong, wiry black hair covered his forearms.
“Have a look under the hood,” she said, pulling her phone out of her bra.
She used the flashlight function to shine light on the engine, encouraging him to move closer.
“Do you know much about engines?” As a distraction she tilted forward, displaying plenty of cleavage. As he leaned closer, she maneuvered the phone to snap an image of his face.
“What are you doing?” He batted her arm away.
“Just trying to shine a light for you.” One photo down, one to go. “My name’s Lacey by the way.” She hoped for reciprocal information.
He grunted. “Try starting the engine.”
“Are you a mechanic?”
“No, but you wanted a man to look this over.”
“Maybe the other guy should listen as well. Two heads are better than one.”
The guy smirked. “He’s not going to get out of the car for a woman. Now, start the engine. Let’s see what’s wrong.”
She moved around to the driver’s side and twisted the keys in the ignition. The starter motor failed to crank. At the same time she let her right hand drop down between the seats to check the Sig Sauer still resided in its hidden position. Her fingers curled around the grip, but she didn’t remove it. It was her insurance policy.
She got back out of the car and held out her hands. “Maybe your friend could help push my car to the shoulder? So it’s out of the way.” She needed a chance to get that second photo.
He turned and she heard his footsteps crunch back to the pick up. Her thumbs danced over her phone, sending the photo to CC.
Two men in Woodle’s pick up. #1 one down. Stand by for #2.
There was a short conversation at the window, then the driver climbed out. He was medium-height, dressed in dark clothes. Black chinos that ended at his ankles exposing bare skin. Loafers. Black T-shirt. He skirted the headlights.
Damn! She really needed that second shot. She kept herself in the shadows beside the Taurus and positioned her phone. As soon as the second man stepped through the headlights she snapped and instantly sent the image through to CC. There was no time for a second message.
The man in black struck like a cobra. He was much faster than she expected. His hand whipped out and wrestled the phone from her grip. He flipped it behind him towards the man in the polo shirt. His fingers continued biting into the muscled flesh of her upper arm.
Ledger protested. An innocent woman robbed. “Hey! That’s personal property! And let go of my arm, you’re hurting me!”
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t like my photo taken. My friend will erase it and then you can have it back.”
Right now both men thought she was a bimbo probably working at one of the local oyster processing farms. A search of her phone would disprove that theory in a hurry.
She left his hand clamped around her right arm, and chopped upwards with the hard side of her left palm. He was standing close enough she easily clipped the tender flesh under his nose, forcing his head back. The shock made him release her. She slammed the heel of her right palm into his solar plexus and he buckled forward.
A bullet cleared her left ear. She was being fired on by the man with the hairy forearms! She yanked open the passenger door of the Taurus to act as a shield as she dived head first for the opening to grab her own gun. Bullets pinged against the metal.
A hand clawed at her ankle, clamped down and wrenched hard. She thumped to the ground. As she fell someone dropped on top of her, straddling her body, and pinning her thighs. It was as though a concrete wall had collapsed on top of her. Her face was pressed into the grit and gravel of the shoulder. It filled her mouth so she could barely breathe.
Straining, she craned her neck to flick a backwards look at the man in black. His nose was bleeding. He didn’t bother to wipe at it. With his mouth wide open he dragged in uneven breaths that sucked the trailing blood between his lips. It was only a nosebleed. She hadn’t broken his septum and now she regretted it.
He moved his bulk to grab her by one foot and haul her away from the car along the road. She used her other foot to kick at his hand, in short vicious jabs, twisting around onto her back.
He released her and stepped back. “Dispara a la perra!” he panted, the blood on his lips bubbling with each word.
Ledger knew he wasn’t talking to her. She could see past his shoulder to the gunman. She knew enough Spanish to determine he was ordering the other man to shoot her.
Hairy arms held the gun with one hand, his straight arm unwavering. She could see his finger on the trigger. He didn’t fire. Instead he began speaking rapidly to his partner. He handed her phone to the man in black. Agai
n, she didn’t need to understand Spanish to know he had discovered she was an ICE agent. Her cover was blown.
As the man in black took a step back to examine her phone, Ledger somersaulted forward to clear the distance between herself and the shooter. His gun fired, but the bullet zipped past her to where she had been a second before, scattering the gravel.
She struck the gunman’s wrist with her foot. She wished she was wearing heavy boots instead of the flimsy tennis shoes. Still there was enough force to fling his hand up. For a millisecond the gun dangled. Then, with an expert twist, he released it from his deadened fingers, dropping the weapon to slot into his left hand and she was staring down his barrel. He took a step backwards.
“Stop right there or Pedro’s next shot will go through your head, bitch. Hands up and back away from the car!” the man in black barked.
Ledger paused, quickly judging the distance between her and both men. The man called Pedro had lightning reactions and he stood just out of her reach. The odds were in his favor, not hers at that moment. She would do better biding her time for a better opportunity.
She rose to her feet, lifted her hands in the air and shuffled to the side. Pedro’s gun tracked her movements. The dark man moved to her car and it took him only a few minutes of searching to locate her gun and ID.
“ICE Officer Scout Ledger,” he read aloud, and gave her a nasty smile. The blood had dried on his face, in a trail from his nose to his mouth. It gave him a vampiric look. “I could shoot you right now,”—he aimed her own Sig Sauer at her— “but I think you might be more useful to me alive. Now move! I want you in the back of the truck.”
“If I don’t report in I’ll be missed,” she said.
“That’s what I’m counting on,” he said. “Get moving.”
When she hesitated he shot twice more. The bullets were aimed at her feet, forcing her backwards towards the crew cab pick up. Her clip held ten shots. He had plenty of ammo left to kill her. She calculated her odds of escaping. Fleeing into the bushes lining the road would be reckless. If they missed shooting her they could chase her down in the F-150. The pickup rode high on twenty-inch tires and it would chew over the heavy growth and spit her out from under its heavy wheel base.
Pedro yanked the back door open for her and the Sig Sauer barked twice more, scattering gravel over her shoes. Pedro stood just beyond arm’s reach, keeping out of her way as she moved towards the truck. She grabbed hold of the Jesus strap to haul herself up when Pedro struck. She realized his intention too late. Before she could dodge, she caught a swift blow from his gun to her temple. The fight drained out of her. As she crumpled, Pedro heaved her up and tossed her into the back of the cab.
10
Ledger came to on a flat-topped table. Looking up she could see a roof slanting down from a row of broken skylights. A black sky filled with stars met her gaze. Adjusting to the moon-soaked interior, her eyes ran down wooden walls, over basins and hoses for rinsing mud from oysters, a long trough and rotted conveyor belts that were missing mechanisms. Stacked against the walls were columns of spinners holding cords, used to replace the lines feeding into the ocean to anchor the bags that the oysters were grown in and collected from. Some covered with dusty tarps.
It took her another minute to recognize the wooden structure was the old oyster processing plant that Dallenbach said had stood on the Kendrew’s property for a hundred years. The one that no longer operated, simply served as a storage facility.
She recalled viewing it from the foreshore while talking with Dallenbach. The building stood at the southern most tip of Kendrew’s land, closer to the beach than the newer structure which had been erected at the northern end. She remembered that both buildings were serviced by the single lane road, but the turn off to the older building came before the right hand turn to the new facilities with its parking lot.
But that placed her at the exact opposite end of Oyster Bay to CC and Wyche, who would be waiting at Northern Shore Oyster Cannery hoping to catch whichever workers Woodle was recruiting.
She shivered. There was no refrigeration used in the building, but the broken glass allowed the cold evening air to swirl inside. She was glad of it because it helped clear her head of a lingering dizziness. Mentally, she probed her body, glad to realize her vision was clear and she didn’t feel nauseous which lessened the likelihood she was concussed.
She had been left on some sort of metal processing table in the middle of the room. It was cold against her bare legs and her back and stung against her scratches and scrapes. The surface was rough and rusted, not smooth as it would have been when new. Her shoulders were kinked because her arms were bound behind her. Her head throbbed when she twisted her neck to look down her body at her ankles wrapped tightly with duct tape. She took a deep breath to stabilize her racing heart.
She tried to figure out how long she had been unconscious. It would have taken between ten and fifteen minutes to bind her hands and feet and drive directly from the gravel road, along Pacific Way until it became Maritime Parade. Five minutes to carry her inside. Sunset had happened around 8:45 p.m. That meant it was no earlier than 9:05 p.m. Judging by her lack of concussion she thought the time frame was about right and that she had only been unconscious for around thirty to forty minutes at the most.
The squeak of an opening and closing door snapped her attention back to the present. She heard the click and scrape of soles over concrete as the men approached. There was a flare of brightness from a large flashlight, bouncing and bobbing as it was carried. And then they were within her vision. The flashlight jerked up. Its beam played up and down her body, came to rest on her face. She squinted against the blinding light. Then someone set the flashlight on the ground so that it lit up the area from a narrow base, widening into a broad arc.
The two who had picked her up had been joined by a third—a younger, skinnier, hairier, yet superficially similar, version of Pedro. Perhaps his younger brother. If they had backtracked to the Sanderson place to pick up the third member the longer time estimate was probably more accurate. She revised the clock in her head to 9:20 p.m.
Pedro and his brother hung back and let the man in black step forward.
“We never did officially introduce ourselves,” Ledger said. “You’ve seen my ID so you know who I am. Are you going to tell me who you really are, or shall I just call you Woodle?”
“Phht! That name. I do not want to hear it. I am Rico de Santa Cruz.”
He puffed out his chest and stated his name like a war cry. And it was. Now that he had named himself, now that she had seen his face clearly, he had no intention of letting her live. The fact that he hadn’t killed her yet meant he wanted something from her first. Could she turn that to her advantage?
“ICE knows all about you, Rico.”
“I don’t think you know too much about me or you would have been better prepared tonight. But Homeland Security’s poking around in my business is disrupting my empire.”
“Empire?” She injected a note of mockery into her voice. “It’s a bit rich calling this two-bit operation of you and your back up singers an empire.”
His nostrils flared. She could see the blood had been cleaned from his face, but she hoped his nose still hurt like hell. Pedro and his brother both went for their weapons. Their leader held up an irritable hand to ward them away.
“Your officers know nothing about me!”
“So why don’t you enlighten me?”
He gave a ragged smile, revealing sharp, pointed incisors. “You think you can mess with me? Get me to spill my guts and tell you my secrets?”
Ledger cultivated a bored look. “Just what I thought. Your secrets couldn’t impress the shit out of a toilet bowl.”
Rico’s face purpled. She had hit him where it hurt. His ego.
Behind his back, Pedro and his brother smirked.
“You know nothing! I run the whole north eastern seaboard for the Santa Cruz family!” Rico snarled. “Me! I’m the one in co
ntrol of the offshore boats! I’m the one who came up with the idea to disguise them as oyster trawlers. I’m in charge of the distribution for this entire area. This is my empire!” His face loomed large above her as he shouted his claims. Spittle flecked his lips. His anger-darkened features settled into a scowl. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice the way my people are disappearing from the town? Your phone messages make for interesting reading. Now I know for sure who’s to blame.”
It was obvious he was referring to the illegal immigrants Bogel’s team had targeted over the past few months. The big question was how many were involved in Rico’s “empire”? His revelations also confirmed the reason behind his late-night trips to the oyster farms. It wasn’t to meet with his dealers, it was to unload continuing shipments of drugs. She figured Dallenbach was right with his suspicions. Woodle AKA Rico was the kingpin in Oyster Bay.
Rico rocked back on his heels. One hand wiped moisture from his mouth. She watched his struggle to restrain himself. His eyes slitted and his mouth thinned as control returned.
“Your little stunt this evening gives me the opening I need to put a stop to Homeland Security interference. Who is this CC you sent my photo to? Where is he waiting to ambush us? You will tell me everything, because this time I’m going to disappear your agents.”
Running his mouth off with more threats was going to have the opposite effect. Rico was smart enough to know that and stopped talking. Ledger also kept silent. Any response would just be bravado on her part. She thought about telling him to go to hell, but he wasn’t worth the breath. Her silence irked him more than an angry response.
His lips twitched and contorted. He didn’t want to be the one breaking the silence first, but he couldn’t help himself.
One Way Out: Scout Ledger Thriller Page 9