by J. L. Drake
“What’s going on?” Roger asked, stepping inside the building as Lloyd made his announcement.
Lloyd spun around and repeated that the authorities were tracing Butch’s phone.
Roger frowned. “But we turned our phones off…”
“Apparently, jackass, here,” Lloyd said, “turned his back on and left it on.”
Jennings stepped out of the tent and was followed closely by Sonya, who paused for a second before coming out into the open.
“How long has it been on?” Jennings asked. “Do you think we have time to finish this harvest,” he motioned back to the tent, “before we go?”
Lloyd shrugged. “I have no idea. I don’t really want to risk it though.” His eyes found Sonya’s and he could see the fear in their green depths—she wanted to get out of there as badly as he did.
“I think we should try to finish…” Jennings said, and turned back toward the tent. “Come on, Sonya.”
She didn’t move, just looked at Lloyd.
“Sonya!” Jennings yelled, pausing to look back at her when she didn’t follow. “Help me finish this!”
She tore her eyes away from Lloyd’s and shook her head at the old man.
“No,” she said.
“No?” he asked, shocked at her response. “What do you mean no?”
“I said no because I’m leaving,” she said, taking a couple of steps toward Lloyd. “I don’t want to risk getting caught. We’ve harvested most of the children’s organs, so I think we should take them, get our money, and be glad we got that.”
“We already started on this one,” Jennings snapped. “Are we supposed to let him go to waste?”
Sonya shrugged. “It’s better than going to prison.”
“I’m not staying either,” Roger said, stepping up beside Lloyd. “You can do whatever you want, but I’m not going to be here when the authorities arrive.”
Lloyd looked at Roger and smiled.
“Let’s get the stuff loaded then,” he said.
“No!” Jennings yelled, balling his hands into fists at his sides. “If you don’t stay, you don’t get anything. I’m not letting you take the organs until we get this young man done!”
Sonya sighed deeply and walked over to Jennings; she gently placed one hand on his shoulder and looked up at him.
“You don’t have a choice,” she said, swiftly slicing across his throat with the blade of the scalpel she’d picked up off the tray in the surgical tent before coming out. Blood sprayed out of the wound and she swiftly stepped aside to avoid being drenched. The plan had originally been to kill him right after they’d finished harvesting the last of the Housen family and cash in on his organs too, but the new threat to their safety didn’t allow for his harvest.
Jennings grabbed his throat with both hands and fell to the floor, bleeding out quickly.
“Fuck!” Butch exclaimed, taking a couple steps forward, coming to a sudden stop a few feet from Jennings, and dragging his hands through his hair.
“What, upset about your payday?” Lloyd asked.
Roger sidestepped around to the other side of Butch when he spun to face Lloyd.
“I’m going to kill you, you little weasel,” Butch snarled, stomping toward him.
Before he reached Lloyd, Roger tapped Butch on the shoulder; the man glanced behind him for a second.
Roger grinned broadly and slammed his fist into Butch’s face.
Butch staggered and fell to his knees.
Roger grabbed the back of Butch’s head and slammed his right knee into the man’s face, knocking him out. He dropped Butch to the floor.
“Nice,” Lloyd said to Roger as he pulled out a knife and thrust it down into Butch’s torso, twice. He wanted to shoot the bastard, but he was scared the shots would attract attention. “Let’s get the stuff loaded and get out of here.”
“Are you taking the van or your car?” Sonya called out as she headed for the door.
“Both!” Lloyd hollered. “We’ll load up the van, so you need to back it over to the door—hurry.”
He and Roger closed and lifted the cooler—one of them at each end.
“This is all we’re taking,” Lloyd said, allowing his eyes to scan the area to make sure they weren’t forgetting anything of significant value. The skin and some of the other parts were on one of the surgical tables, but he didn’t want to take the time to bag and pack them in the cooler.
“Fine by me,” Roger said, picking up on Lloyd’s anxious attitude. “Let’s just get out of here.”
Just as they reached the door Sonya brought the van to a halt in front of it, throwing a light spray of what little gravel there was left on the lot; the men flinched slightly as the stones struck their exposed skin. She jumped out and ran to the back of the van and threw the doors open.
“Should I wipe down the moving truck really quick?” she asked breathlessly.
Roger shook his head. “I did that right after we unloaded the family. It should be good.”
She nodded.
Lloyd couldn’t help but smile at her actions. He loved that she knew what to do without being told—she was a professional.
“I’m going to take my car and dump and burn it,” she said while they were loading the cooler. “Lloyd, call me when you’re done unloading the cargo and I’ll let you know where you can pick me up.” Without waiting for either of the men to reply, she dashed over to her car, climbed in, started it, and drove off.
“Follow me,” Lloyd said to Roger as they shut the doors on the back of the van. He ran over to his car, climbed in, and started it in mere seconds.
Roger rushed around, climbed into the van, and started the engine. As soon as Lloyd pulled out, he followed him down the long drive and out of the parking lot.
***
Croce guided the car along the eroding drive to the building they’d been directed to—she wasn’t surprised to find vehicles parked in the parking lot. The fact that someone was there was a positive for them.
“Someone’s here,” Croce said, pointing to two trucks parked close to the building—a pickup truck and a moving truck.
David nodded. “Park behind them so they can’t leave before Jones and Limmon get here with backup.”
Croce brought the car to a halt behind where he’d indicated.
“What’s the plan?” she asked, unbuckling her seatbelt.
“Go in guns blazing and kill anyone who gives us any trouble,” he said, glancing at Croce. “Any objections? We have to be ready for anything. We don’t know what these people are capable of.”
She nodded, drew her side arm, and prepared to exit the car on his signal.
David nodded, and they jumped out and advanced toward the building cautiously.
***
Butch awoke with a low, deep moan; he tried to sit up and fell back to the floor as his head spun and pain shot from his chest out to his limbs. He lay with his eyes closed and tried to even out his breathing. In the distance he heard a car pull into the parking lot and stop. Nearby he heard something or someone moving around; this worried him more than the car. He didn’t know if Lloyd, Roger, or Sonya were still in the area and he didn’t want to be caught unaware again.
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to move. He rolled onto his stomach and dragged himself toward the door of the small office they’d used as a holding room, pausing briefly to grab the scalpel Sonya had dropped.
Chapter 50
Jan heard a door open and shut, and then she heard labored breathing close-by. She didn’t know where she was or who it might be—the last thing she remembered was Sonya telling her that her children were going to die. That memory stirred a fire in her soul and she used that burning drive to rouse herself even though she was still extremely foggy from the drug that had been injected into her system.
She grunted and tried to push herself up into a sitting position, only to fall flat on her face again—hard. Blood gushed from her nose as the bone and cartilage was crushed agai
nst the hard cement floor. She whimpered pathetically and floundered to move to a position where she could at least breathe.
“Quiet, bitch,” a male voice snarled from a couple feet away.
She couldn’t place the voice and knew it wasn’t someone she’d ever met before. Raw fear quickly extinguished the burning determination she’d felt moments before. She was sure he was one of the people who’d kidnapped herself, her children, and probably her brother.
***
Butch tried to think, but his head was throbbing, his chest ached, he was bleeding, and his brain wouldn’t cooperate. He’d fled to the holding room hoping for a respite so he could get a handle on the situation. The woman inside had been moving around when he’d come in and even the slight noises she made would draw the attention of whoever had arrived. His first urge had been to kill the bitch and be done with her, but through the haze of pain he knew that would be a bad idea. He would need a hostage if the people outside were the authorities Lloyd had been ranting about, and the still unconscious pre-teen girl would be harder to manipulate than her conscious mother.
His one sharp command had quieted the woman and that gave him hope that she would be easily controlled.
He sat on the floor, completely still, and let his head fall back against the closed door. His breath came in labored gasps and he closed his eyes, again trying to get control over himself.
He jumped when a loud bang sounded on the other side of the door and he heard voices—a man and a woman talking in short, direct statements.
“Damn,” he breathed almost silently, opening his eyes.
He wasn’t ready for what he knew was coming, but he didn’t have a choice. He had to act and he had to do it as swiftly as possible.
***
“Clear!” Croce exclaimed as she moved through the large, bloody main room of the building; when she’d checked inside the tent made up of plastic sheeting hung from the ceiling, she’d had to block out the sights she’d seen to keep from crying out in horror.
“Let’s check the other rooms,” David said, having cleared the other half of the main area, not finding anyone alive. “I’ve found one body—it looks like it might be the doctor.” He nodded to an old man dressed in surgical attire lying on the floor.
“From the blood I saw in there,” Croce said, nodding toward the plastic sheeting, “he’s not the only dead one.”
David didn’t say anything. He knew they were too late and that the Housen family was probably all dead. Clenching his jaw, he pushed the thoughts of his failure to protect them aside and focused on the task at hand—clearing the building and collecting evidence that would lead him to the people who’d done the killing.
Together, with their guns held out in front of them at the ready, they moved toward the handful of doors that lined the one wall of the building. Across from them was a wall of windows that opened to the parking lot. Beyond the bank of windows they saw another car, one almost hidden behind the building on the opposite side, and that led them to believe there could possibly be another person somewhere in the area. The building itself was small and compact, leaving few hiding places.
The first three rooms were clear—there was nothing in them other than decaying, broken office furniture. That left three more rooms. They’d just started to advance on the next to last one when a muffled thud came from inside the last room. As they closed in on the door, they saw blood droplets on the floor and smears on the doorknob.
McCoy and Croce’s eyes met and they nodded in sync before moving toward the room the noise had come from. With another nod, David stepped forward, turned the blood-slicked knob, and flung the door open.
Croce advanced into the room, sweeping her gun from side to side. She spotted a man crouched in the corner with a nearly unconscious woman blocking most of him from view. She trained her gun on him.
“Let her go,” she said sternly.
In less than a second David was beside her, training his gun on the man as well.
The room was completely silent for a moment before the semi-conscious woman cried out in pain—that’s when they noticed the man was armed with a surgical scalpel, which he’d cut the woman’s ear with to cause her to make the noise.
“If you know what’s good for you, you won’t do that again,” David snapped, training his gun right between the crouching man’s eyes. “Let her go and we’ll talk.”
The hiding man laughed.
“Oh, we’ll be talking all right,” he said, and paused to cough. “We’ll be talking about a lot of things.”
“Let the woman go,” Croce insisted again, hoping the man would do it. She wanted to shoot the man with all of her being—she hated men like him: men who would hurt innocents to get what they wanted.
The man shook his head and sliced the woman he was holding again, causing her to scream loudly as her ear was severed from her body and dark blood ran freely down the side of her face and neck. The pain caused her to become more aware of reality and she started to panic and try to get away.
“Quiet, bitch! Stay still,” the man commanded, shaking the woman violently and pressing the sharp, small blade to her throat. He smirked at the agents in front of him. “First we negotiate. If you give me what I want, I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
***
David almost pulled the trigger on his gun when the bastard sliced the woman’s ear off—he recognized her as the Housen widow, even with blood all over her face.
“Why should I negotiate with you?” he asked the man, forcing himself to loosen the death grip he had on his firearm. “After what you just did to her,” he nodded toward Mrs. Housen, “why should we hesitate to take a shot and end your pathetic life?”
The man in the corner crouched further down, trying to hide more of himself from view so he would be an even smaller target.
“I know who you’re looking for…” the man said, almost sounding smug. “If you kill me you’ll never find them. They’ll change their names and disappear, and you’ll be fucked. If you talk to me and make me a deal, I can help you find them.”
David glanced sideways at Croce and noticed her knuckles were white from gripping her gun so tightly. Her eyes were trained on the man and her entire being was poured into the focus of her aim. He knew that if she decided to fire, she’d end the man’s life.
“Let the woman go and we’ll talk,” David said, focusing on the man and woman in the corner again.
“How do I know you won’t just shoot me?” the man asked.
“Like you said, I’ll need you to lead me to the others,” David said reluctantly. “Let the woman go and we’ll set you up with a deal. You don’t have to talk about anything until we set up what you want, but you have to let the woman go.”
A few tense moments passed in silence.
“If you wait until backup gets here,” David warned, “I can’t guarantee you’ll get a deal. You’ll have to leave here in my custody if you’re even to have a chance at what you want.”
He knew that some of it was a bluff because he was in charge regardless of who cuffed the bastard, but the woman was losing a lot of blood and he didn’t want her to die while they haggled over terms.
“Fine,” the man finally sighed, shoving the woman away from him. She fell forward with a grunt and quickly climbed to her hands and knees and crawled to a young girl they hadn’t seen behind a shelf close to Croce.
David was shocked at the man’s size and his injuries as he sat in the corner, struggling for breath with his hands raised—he was baffled at how such a large man could have hidden behind the small woman he’d been using as a shield.
“Drop your weapon,” Croce snapped.
The man’s eyes darted to her and he smiled coldly as he opened his hand to release the scalpel.
“Put your hands behind your head,” she snapped again.
The man winked at her before he slowly did as he was told.
“I’ll cuff him,” David said, uncomfortable with how t
he man had reacted to Croce—something about it rubbed him the wrong way and he didn’t want Croce getting anywhere near the man before he was restrained. “Once I have him restrained, you help them.” He motioned to Mrs. Housen and the girl as he put away his gun and pulled out a pair of shiny, steel handcuffs.
He stepped up and cuffed the man to a metal radiator he was sitting beside and began reading him his rights. David heard sirens in the distance, growing closer by the second. He hoped there would be at least one ambulance among the vehicles heading their way.
Croce nodded to David from across the room where she knelt beside the injured woman and her daughter to let him know they were going to be okay.
Help was on the way, and with the assistance of the man now in custody, David felt he might still have the tools he needed to bring the organ harvesters to justice even though he hadn’t been able to save all the members of the Housen family.
Chapter 51
Lloyd and Roger made it to the arranged meeting place with no issues. Lloyd’s contact was waiting and the exchange went swiftly and smoothly; in less than ten minutes the parts had been taken and the money had been received.
“I guess this is goodbye,” Roger said quietly as they stood beside the van, watching the other vehicle drive away.
Lloyd sighed. “Yup, I guess it is. Did you get the money I wired to your account?”
Roger nodded.
“Here’s the rest,” Lloyd said, bending over slightly to lift one of the four cases of money sitting at their feet.
Roger took it and sighed. “I can’t believe it’s all over. I thought for sure we’d get caught.”
Lloyd frowned. “It’s not over yet. Get as far away from here as you can, as fast as you can. Change your appearance if you can too—I already have appointments for me and Sonya to have plastic surgery. When everything is done, we’ll no longer be recognizable as ourselves.”