“Oh, you have the information I want,” she said grimly. “And you’ll give it to me. The only question you have to consider is how much pain I shell out before you talk.”
He smirked, but Tracie’s voice had gone icy and hard, and she thought she saw a flicker of fear pass through his eyes.
Not that it mattered.
“Who is the Omega 7 member you dispatched to murder Allan Nesbitt and blow up NCC’s leadership in the Washington Arms Hotel? And more importantly, where do I find her?”
Gonzalez ignored the question. He ignored Tracie. He sat on the bed and stared at the wall, gazing serenely over her shoulder. He looked like an addict who had just gotten his fix.
She cleared her throat. “Last chance. Where do I find the young woman who killed Allan Nesbitt and blew up the leadership of NCC?”
Gonzalez continued to ignore her. Instead, he pursed his lips and spit on his own bedroom floor.
“Don’t try to say you weren’t warned,” Tracie said. She crossed the room to the chair into which Gonzalez had taped his girlfriend. She reached down without hesitation and snapped the little finger on the young woman’s left hand.
She screamed shrilly, a short gasp more of surprise than of pain, and then she sucked in a breath and shrieked again as the pain kicked in, this time the sound long and loud, and Tracie waited for her to take another breath before speaking.
“Remember anything yet?” she asked coldly.
Shock filled Gonzalez’s eyes. He had expected Tracie to attack him, not his girlfriend, and he reacted instinctively. He began moving off his bed to come after her.
She raised her weapon and pointed it at him. “That’s far enough.”
He hesitated and then stopped, one foot on the floor and one still on the bed.
“Get back up there.” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the young woman sitting next to her, whose screams had become shriller and more intense.
“Now,” she said when the Omega 7 leader had reluctantly complied. “Tell me what I want to know.”
He looked as though he was about to answer, but then he clamped his mouth closed, glaring at Tracie with cold, dead eyes but saying nothing.
She shrugged and reached back down toward the girlfriend’s left hand. The young woman’s little finger was bent grotesquely to the side, as if pointing at Tracie in painful accusation. She felt a moment of guilt and shame. The girlfriend was obviously nothing more than a plaything for Gonzalez, and the thought of injuring her further made her feel sick.
But she had chosen her path and would follow it to the end.
She would get the information she needed.
One way or the other.
She reached for the woman’s ring finger.
32
“Wait!” Elena Maldonado screamed as loudly and with more conviction than she had ever offered regarding anything in her life. The pain in her ruined pinky finger was immense; it throbbed and burned as if the attacker in their bedroom had set it on fire, and it was swelling and turning purple before her eyes.
And now the crazy bitch was about to break another finger.
And Juan-Bear was doing nothing to stop her. Her lover, so much bigger than the tiny woman who had broken into his home while they slept, simply sat on the bed and watched with dead shark eyes as the intruder prepared to disfigure Elena finger by finger.
And even through the pain in her finger, even through the fear and the panic and the confusion, even through all of that, Elena knew he would do nothing to stop the lunatic with the gun.
She knew he wouldn’t stop the bitch because she knew who had done the things the bitch was talking about. Maria Carranco was the one who had committed those horrible acts up in Washington DC, and even though she had killed all those people without Juan-Bear’s permission—without even his knowledge until afterward—he would never turn Maria over to this obsessed bitch.
Because that was how much he loved Maria Carranco. He loved Maria like a father, had raised her from a baby and watched over her after her real father died storming Cuba in the long-ago days following Castro’s revolution. Maria Carranco, almost exactly the same age as Elena, was Juan-Bear’s weakness.
It wasn’t that Juan-Bear didn’t care that Elena’s bones were about to be broken one by one in front of his eyes. Elena knew that Juan-Bear cared for her; she knew he cared deeply.
But he cared for Maria more. He cared for Maria in a different way. She was the one person he would never betray. Maria, who had gone behind his back and caused all this trouble.
Elena wasn’t one to pay much attention to Omega 7 business—her roots were in Cuba, too, but she had been born in the United States and loved it here and could not imagine ever living on the tiny island south of Florida—but she had not been able to ignore Juan-Bear’s enraged soliloquy two nights ago, when he came home ranting and raving about what Maria had done and how it could jeopardize everything he had spent more than two decades working to achieve.
And yet, even after all of that, Elena knew her Juan-Bear would never open his mouth, no matter how badly the crazy bitch injured her.
Or even if the crazy bitch killed her.
Juan-Bear simply would not talk.
So she would talk instead.
She screamed “Wait!” through the tears and the pain, and just like that everything stopped. The crazy bitch’s hand hung suspended over hers, and Maria looked at Juan-Bear and he was staring at her with eyes opened wider than she had ever seen and a face beginning to flush red with anger, and she didn’t care.
She didn’t care, because he wasn’t the one being maimed while completely helpless and innocent. If Juan-Bear wouldn’t save her, she would save herself.
By opening her mouth and telling the crazy bitch what she wanted to know, Elena realized she would be forever ending her relationship with Juan Gonzalez. He would no longer be her cuddly Juan-Bear, but rather he would be an enemy who would more than likely seek vengeance against her in ways that would make The Crazy Bitch seem like a Girl Scout.
But that was a worry for another time.
Right now she had to make the pain stop.
She had to.
“Maria Carranco,” she gasped.
From across the room, Juan-Bear shouted “NO!” and leapt forward off the bed, swinging his right hand in a roundhouse punch aimed directly at the crazy bitch’s face. He moved more quickly than Elena had even seen anyone move, his big body coiling and striking like a rattlesnake.
But as fast as Juan-Bear was, the crazy bitch was faster, turning and ducking under the punch as if the whole thing had been choreographed for a Hollywood movie. Juan-Bear’s punch whistled harmlessly over the crazy bitch’s head and then he was ripe for the taking, off-balance and defenseless, and the crazy bitch swung her gun hand, a quick, compact strike with the butt of her gun that connected solidly with Juan-Bear’s temple, and Juan-Bear dropped face-first to the floor without a sound.
The crazy bitch was on him immediately, her moves smooth and effortless and breathtaking. She started to hit him again and thought better of it, instead restraining herself and checking the unconscious man’s pulse.
It all happened so fast, Elena hadn’t even had a chance to scream, and now she sucked in a breath to do so and the crazy bitch seemed to realize what was coming and she lifted her gun and pointed it straight into Elena’s eyes and said, “Don’t do it.”
Her voice was quiet and cold and impatient, and Elena didn’t know whether the crazy bitch would really shoot her in the face but she did know she wasn’t anxious to find out. She clamped her mouth closed and shook her head in a silent entreaty to the crazy bitch to let her live, and after a moment when the gun hadn’t fired she realized she was holding her breath.
She forced herself to breathe and relaxed just a little when the crazy bitch turned her attention back to Juan-Bear. The attacker reached for the duct tape and wound it around Juan-Bear’s wrists, which she had pulled behind his back. Then she taped
his ankles together, and then she taped them to one leg of Elena’s chair.
She did all of this in a matter of seconds. By the time she had finished, Juan-Bear was beginning to moan and twitch, blood leaking heavily from the side of his head where the crazy bitch had struck him with her gun.
“He’ll be fine,” she said as if reading Elena’s thoughts. “He’s going to have one hell of a headache, but he’ll be okay.”
Things had gone from bad to worse. About the only thing Elena could imagine being more dangerous than an angry Juan-Bear was an injured and angry Juan-Bear, but she had set her course of action and must now follow it through to the end.
So she continued speaking, surprising herself by the relative calm in her voice. “The name of the woman you are looking for is Maria Carranco. She is a member of Omega 7. Her actions were unsanctioned by Juan’s organization”—she almost called him ‘Juan-Bear’ but stopped herself—“but she is the one who killed those people.”
Elena looked down at Juan-Bear to discover him staring at her unblinkingly. He had apparently regained consciousness while she was speaking, and his eyes were filled with a smoldering rage she had never before seen. It was terrifying.
The woman with the gun saw it, too, but appeared utterly unfazed. “Where do I find this Maria Carranco?” she said softly.
“He needs help,” she said, ignoring the question and nodding in the direction of Juan-Bear. She was afraid to meet his steady, angry gaze. Up until a few horrible minutes ago the man had been her lover. He was now undoubtedly a dangerous enemy, but she still did not want to see him bleed to death.
“The best way to get Señor Gonzalez the medical attention he needs—in fact, the only way to get him the medical attention he needs—is to cooperate fully now that you’ve started talking. Once I have what I came for, I promise I will allow him medical attention.”
“Do not do me any favors,” Juan-Bear said darkly.
“Shut up,” the crazy bitch snapped, and then returned her attention to Elena. “This is the last time I’m going to ask,” she said. “Tell me where to find Maria Carranco or the next move I make will be to break another finger.”
As if to punctuate her point she reached down and grabbed Elena’s wrist, steadying her hand, which had begun shaking uncontrollably from pain and fear. The woman reached for Elena’s ring finger and her hand brushed against the broken pinkie and Elena screamed. It was as if a hammer had smashed down on the digit, the pain like fire blasting out of the knuckle.
“Okay, okay, I’ll tell you!” she gasped, sobbing and breathless. “Just stop, please stop hurting me.”
“I don’t want to hurt you any more than I have to,” the crazy bitch said. “But I am not leaving here until I get Maria Carranco’s location. So if you want the pain to stop, tell me her address where I can find her, now.”
“She does not have an address.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” the crazy bitch began extending her hand again, reaching for Elena’s finger.
“You can find her in the Everglades!” Elena shouted.
33
Tracie froze, her hand hanging inches above the mangled wreck of the girlfriend’s left pinkie finger. She wasn’t sure what she had expected the young woman to say, but that certainly wasn’t it.
The silence in the room was deafening, and from the floor at her feet she heard Gonzalez blow out an angry breath. He’s pissed. She’s telling the truth.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“You said you want to know where to find Maria. She is in the Everglades.”
“She lives in the Everglades?”
“No, you do not understand. She lives here, in this house, with Juan-Bear…with Juan.”
Gonzalez became more and more hostile as his girlfriend talked, attempting to interrupt and intimidate her. After the second interruption, Tracie turned and raised her gun.
“Let me make something clear to you,” she hissed. “I don’t care whether you live or die. You and Omega 7 have been responsible for the deaths of dozens of Americans with your pipe bomb attacks. Castro supporters or not, they were Americans. So don’t kid yourself into believing I won’t just shoot you where you lie, right here and now. One more interruption, just one, and you will never leave this bedroom alive. Do we have an understanding, Señor Gonzalez?”
He looked down, angry but silent. The blood continued to flow from his head.
Tracie forced his hand. “Answer me!” she barked.
“I understand.” He spit the words out like razorblades.
“Good. Don’t forget it, because you won’t get another warning.”
Tracie turned back toward the girlfriend. “Don’t play games with me,” she said ominously. “Either she lives here or she lives in the Everglades. Which is it?”
“That is what I am trying to tell you. She lives here. But there is a hideaway in the Everglades that she uses to…think.”
“You mean to get away and plan her attacks.”
The girlfriend took a deep, shuddering breath. “Yes,” she admitted. “When Juan learned of what Maria had done in Washington, how reckless she had been in potentially exposing Omega 7 to federal authorities, he became very angry with her. Juan is a good man, but sometimes he has…difficulties…controlling his temper.”
“So do I,” Tracie said. “Get on with it.”
“Well, when Maria saw how angry Juan was, she decided it would be a good idea to get away for a few days, you know, to let him cool down. She knew he would, he always does where she is concerned. But sometimes it takes a little while. So she packed some things and she left.”
“For the Everglades.”
“That’s right.”
“She has a getaway on national park land? How is that possible?”
“The Everglades are massive and mostly barren. Millions of acres, many hundreds of thousands of which have never been explored, even to this day. It is easy for people who wish to disappear to do so in the Everglades, provided they are not afraid of insects, snakes, bugs or alligators.”
Tracie shook her head in confusion. “I thought the Everglades were all underwater. How can anyone live there, even temporarily?”
“Much of the millions of acres making up the Everglades is water, but there is dry land as well. More or less. Most of that land is tropical jungle, inaccessible to all but the most determined explorers.”
Tracie pictured a young, beautiful woman camping out among panthers and crocodiles and billions of mosquitoes and shook her head. “It seems unlikely to me.”
The girlfriend shrugged. “You said you wanted to know where to find her. That is where.”
Tracie was tempted to disregard her words as the statement of a person desperate to get rid of an intruder and doing so by sending that intruder off on a wild goose chase. If Gonzalez had said it, she probably would have done exactly that.
But this woman was not Omega 7 material. She was no hardened terrorist, committed to murder and mayhem and the overthrow of the Cuban government. She was just a frightened and injured young woman, probably younger than Tracie, and Tracie doubted the girlfriend, panicked and in pain, could have come up with such an unlikely story on the spur of the moment even if she had wanted to.
And Gonzalez’s angry reaction to her words solidified Tracie’s confidence that the woman was telling the truth.
Tracie glanced at Gonzalez. He was shaking his head and bleeding onto the carpet and muttering angrily to himself.
She crouched down until her face was level with the girlfriend’s. Looked into her eyes and spoke softly. “Understand that if you’re lying to me, I’m going to come back for you. And when I do, a broken finger will be the least of your problems.”
The young woman stared back, wide-eyed and white-faced.
Tracie said, “Tell me you understand what will happen if you’re lying to me.”
She licked her lips and sobbed once and said, “I understand, but I am not lying to you. I swear
it.”
“Then tell me how to find Maria Carranco in the millions of acres of Everglades National Park.”
“I don’t have to tell you. I can give you a map.”
Tracie felt her pulse begin to race. “Where is it?”
“It is in the second drawer of Juan-Bear’s desk in his office downstairs.”
“That is enough!” Gonzalez shouted suddenly in a volcanic eruption of fury.
Tracie turned and fired, and a 9mm slug whizzed past the Omega 7 leader’s ear and embedded itself into the floor.
The concussive blast assaulted her ears and they began to ring as the girlfriend screamed next to her.
The gunshot had succeeded in refocusing Gonzalez, though. He froze and clapped his mouth shut, looking as though he would like nothing better than to strangle his girlfriend with his bare hands. Based on what Tracie had seen of the man, she believed there was every possibility that was exactly what he was thinking.
She turned back to the girlfriend. “Stop screaming or the next bullet goes right between his eyes.”
Tears were rolling down the young woman’s cheeks but she did as she was told. “Now,” Tracie said. “Does Juan-Bear lock his desk?”
She sniffled and sobbed and said, “No, there is no reason to. Or, at least, until tonight there was no reason to, not with armed security patrolling the property.”
Tracie asked a few more questions but quickly realized the girlfriend was in no position to give any more specifics about Maria Carranco or Omega 7 because she was not involved in their operation.
Hopefully, everything the girlfriend said about Carranco and the map was true. Tracie would be staking everything on her conviction that the terrified young woman was telling the truth.
She rose and turned to Gonzalez. Surprisingly, he had not attempted to interfere after Tracie’s warning. She hadn’t really expected her threats to have much effect against a terrorist like Juan Gonzalez. It was one thing to intimidate a frightened, injured young woman, but quite another to do the same to one of the leaders of Omega 7.
But apparently, Gonzalez had accepted the fact that he was in no position to convince his girlfriend not to talk. Instead, he lay quietly. He stared at her unblinkingly, rage radiating off him in waves. Tracie felt she could almost reach out and touch the man’s anger.
Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set Page 67