Yeager's Law

by Scott Bell

  The floor was sticky and reeked of old beer. Her nose tickled from the dust she was stirring up, and she sneezed once, twice, then a third time. She wiped her nose on the hem of her T-shirt. Ew. Try not to think about it. Stay alive, then you can have a nice bath and some clean clothes.

  She crawled another few inches forward and continued her search pattern. The cooler wasn’t that big so the thing, whatever it was, couldn’t have gone far. The flattened boxes were sort of in the middle in a big pile, as if somebody meant to come back and collect them but never did. So logically, the metal piece would be somewhere in the back third of the cooler.

  It had been quiet out front for some time. Earlier, she thought she heard tires on the gravel in the parking lot, and maybe some radio chatter, but that had probably been wishful thinking. Since then, nothing.

  No sooner had she thought about it than a noise from the store rattled the glass door of the freezer. She went completely still. At first, she thought it was an engine starting up, then her brain clicked in and she recognized the sound. Snoring.

  Whoever was on guard up front was sawing logs as though he wanted to build his own tree house. Maybe that meant they’d gone to sleep and she would be left in peace for the night.

  Don’t count on it, Charlie. Keep looking.

  Austin, Texas

  John Stone lounged on his sofa, shiny pistol in one hand, highball glass full of bourbon, no ice, in the other. The woman, Nita Lutz, huddled on the chair across from him, wrists bound with a plastic tie. She managed to look vulnerable, intimidated, and worried at the same time as she projected animal sexuality. Her balloon tits puffed out between her arms. She looked at him kind of sideways, with a little-girl-lost look that was damn sexy.

  John shifted and tucked Little John into a more comfortable position. “I’ll give you one thing, Nita, my girl, you’re a piece of work. That’s for sure.”

  “How do you mean?” Her voice had dropped down a level, from Southern Fried Chicken to Smoky Chipotle Sauce.

  “You been shaggin’ your boss’s husband all this time, and she doesn’t know a thing about it. Mm-mm-mm. I admire that level of deceit. I truly do.”

  “He said he loved me,” she murmured.

  “Well, I’m sure he did. Say that, I mean. So where is he now, this lover boy of yours?”

  She shrugged, and interesting things happened with her melons. “I couldn’t say. He ran off with the truck, and that’s the last I saw of him.”

  “But you know where he kept his money, the money he stole off all them rich widows and orphans who invested in his biotech scheme.”

  She nodded.

  “And you’re sharing this with me why?”

  “To stay alive, of course.”

  “So your play is, you want to exchange this money for your life?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Uh uh.” Nita shook her head, letting her hair tumble around her face. Damn. The girl was good, no question about it. “No, I want something else.”

  “You do, huh?” Stone drained his glass and set it on the coffee table. “What might that be?”

  A tiny flicker of a smile played around the edges of her lips. Stone had a strong feeling he knew how Adam had felt right before biting into that apple.

  Her pink tongue stroked her lips. “What I want is a full partnership.”

  Unnamed road

  Northern Mexico

  Victor fiddled with the GPS, inputting the coordinates they’d selected. He guided Yeager to a desert trail branching off the dirt road. It was more the memory of a trail than an actual road of any kind. Random stretches of tire marks in the dirt indicated that other people had driven that way in the past, maybe in goat carts.

  Yeager downshifted and concentrated on missing the deepest ruts. He decided it was a good thing the ground was dry. Otherwise, they’d have bogged down to both axles.

  “So this woman, Charlie. What’s she look like?”

  Yeager blurted, “Like a glass of fine wine,” and was surprised at his own poetic language. “Sky-blue eyes and this thick mass of copper hair are the first things you notice. Delicate face. Like fine china, you know? The good stuff that you only use at Christmas. Waist about this big.” He made an “OK” sign with his right hand and glanced at Victor. “But what you figure out later, man, is how double-tough she is. The way she faced down that guy in Arkansas. Then later, when they hit her place in force, there was no crying, no hysterics. I knew she’d have my back, you know?”

  “Damn, dude.” Victor whistled. “She got a sister?”

  “Hah! Step carefully, amigo. Charlie carries a .41 Smith & Wesson.”

  “No kidding?” Victor looked out the window and shook his head. “Dang, man. You don’ want her no more, you call me, right?”

  “You got it, Por Que.” Yeager smiled then frowned. He’d managed to block out thoughts of Charlie, but talking about her made it all rush back to his mind, churning the acid in his stomach.

  The GPS voice spoke. “In point three miles, arrive at your destination.”

  “Almost showtime, buddy,” Yeager said.

  “Let’s rock n’ roll, dude.”

  Hacienda Del Norte

  Northern Mexico

  “Hey, Luis,” Marco Garza said as he stepped back into the control room. “I think your girlfriend is up at the big house, getting fucked by the bosses, you know.”

  “What?” Luis spun away from the monitors and glared at Marco. A bodybuilder type, the shift supervisor wore a burgundy polo shirt stretched over his chest, his biceps stressing the sleeves. Luis ground his teeth. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you simple shit, that Ray up at the big house called me and had me bring three women from the worker’s dorm. Serena didn’t hide fast enough, so I picked her.” Marco shrugged his massive shoulders and settled in his desk chair. He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back. “He told me the head guy from Sinaloa, you know, the one with the gray suit, walks like a robot? Ray said that guy wanted some pussy tonight. Last night, he took one of the girls from the dorm. Fucked her and fucked her up, you know?”

  Luis did know. He’d seen the girl shuffling around earlier, one eye puffy and black. She moved as though she was holding her insides together with her hands.

  “Anyway,” Marco said, “last I saw, Ray was stripping them down for their big night, you know? One of them gets to play with Mr. Big Shot tonight. Lucky girl, yes?”

  “Yeah,” Luis mumbled, eyes on the floor. “Of course.”

  “But don’t worry, dickhead.” Marco opened a drawer on his desk and dug out a hot rod magazine. “Maybe when he’s done, you can have sloppy seconds, yes?”

  Fucker. For the first time, Luis considered ways to frag the puffed-up asshole. Both the one in front of him and the one in the house.

  Charlie had searched from the boxes to the back of the cooler wall, crawling over every square inch, while trying not to think of the things she was dragging her fingers through. She disconnected her mind and focused it on Abel Yeager instead. She loved those sad, brown puppy-dog eyes. All he had to do was look at her, and she could feel herself try to ovulate.

  A snort and snuffle broke the rhythm of the snoring coming from the front of the store. Charlie froze and waited, but the snoring didn’t resume. Instead, she heard several hacking coughs, then whoever it was—and it had to be Skeeter—hacked something up and spat.

  Silence.

  The snap of a lighter was followed by a small glow that lit her small prison for a brief moment. It didn’t last long enough for her to look around and find the metal object she sought. Darkness returned. She couldn’t even see the ember of the cigarette she knew Skeeter was inhaling. But he was awake. And an awake Skeeter was a dangerous Skeeter.

  Charlie resumed her search, thoughts of Yeager banished. Instead, she focused all her concentration on the sweep of her fingers across the floor. Back and forth, back and—

  The middle finger of h
er left hand brushed something that shifted away. She froze, totally still, heart thumping in her ears so loudly nothing else penetrated.

  Charlie walked her fingertips forward, not daring to breathe or move. Much sooner than she expected, given her luck so far, she felt a metal object lying flat against the floor. She closed her hand around it and sat up on her heels, clutching her prize tightly lest it get away.

  She knew immediately what it was. Larger than a stick of gum, but shaped the same, it was a simple box cutter. She pushed on one end, and the razor tip extended from the other. Simple. Utilitarian. Tiny chip in the blade.

  Testing the edge, she cut a small gash in her thumb and winced. But she was light-years better armed that she had been. Hell, Muslim terrorists had taken over passenger airplanes with box cutters.

  Charlie shifted back to her pile of boxes and sat down. She contemplated how to employ her tiny weapon against her kidnappers.

  Scuffing sounds came from the front of the store, and she focused on the glass doors. However you do it, you better be ready. Because here he comes.

  CHAPTER 30

  Hacienda Del Norte

  Northern Mexico

  The whitewashed wooden fence ran the full perimeter around the target ranch. The top rail was about chest high, with three more below it. Yeager examined it under the narrow beam of a penlight but found no obvious trip wires, photoelectric beams, or other alarm-triggering devices.

  “Maybe they don’t have any alarms,” Victor murmured.

  “Wouldn’t that be nice.”

  The load of fuzzy animals shuffled around, bleating and thumping the truck bed with their small hooves. Their racket trampled all other sounds. Yeager couldn’t tell whether anyone had heard their approach or not.

  After a moment of crouching in the dark, he gave up listening and jogged to the pickup to grab a crowbar from behind the seat. As he returned to the fence line, Victor moved off to the right, all but invisible in his black tactical gear.

  Starting at the fence’s top rail, Yeager jammed the crowbar into the joint and pulled, breaking it loose. Working quickly and hurrying carefully, he jimmied the rails from one section of fence, creating a twelve-foot gap. He inspected the joints while removing the crosspieces and confirmed there were no hidden alarm wires. Apparently, the guards relied on defenses closer to the main buildings for intrusion protection.

  “Ready for Operation Sheep Attack?” Yeager asked Victor, who slipped back once the fence was breached.

  “That the best you could do? All day to think of a code name? How about Operation Pull the Wool? Or Shear Terror?” Victor sighed. “Hopeless. Don’ never tell anyone I did this. Ever. Understand?”

  “Time to break out the NVGs.”

  “Roger that.”

  They crossed to the pickup and grabbed their backpacks. Their surplus night vision goggles were old and the battery life was limited. Yeager prayed they’d last the night as he settled the goggles on his face and switched them on.

  Kickoff time.

  Luis didn’t see the pictures on the security office monitors. Instead, images of Serena committing acts of unspeakable depravity with that white-haired, silk-suited bastard danced in his head. Dirty movies featuring the slender girl played on a continuous loop. The more he tried not to think about it, the more he did.

  There is nothing you can do, Luis. You are a peon, a trained monkey, guarding the dope and money of the cartel. He is a rich man. A leader. One of the blessed chiefs of the Sinaloa cartel. And your life is worth less to him than a bag of dog shit. You are nothing but a thug with a gun.

  With a gun…

  Luis switched fantasies. Suddenly, he saw himself taking his AR15, cocking the bolt, and standing up. Marco would look up in surprise and die with a stupid look on his face, one bullet through the muscle magazine.

  Then Luis would go through the rest of the house, systematically eliminating the other guards, like Rambo. Pow! Pow! Pow! He would clear each room, speed-changing mags, rolling across the floor, and firing upside down.

  He would burst into the bedroom of the old bastard right as he was about to stick his aging, wrinkled cock into Serena’s virgin treasure. Luis would laugh at the old man, the troubleshooter, and sneer as the rich man cowered, trying to hide his dick with his hands.

  Luis would show no mercy for this… this cocksucker. He would shoot him dead and use a whole magazine on him. He would then comfort the terrified Serena, who would come into his arms and huddle her naked body against his—

  An alert popped on the screen, breaking his train of thought. It took him a few seconds to react. North Field again.

  “Hey, Marco. I think that deer is back.”

  “Call out the Army,” Marco said blandly without even looking up.

  “Very funny,” Luis muttered. The squiggly shape on the screen finally resolved itself enough for him to identify it. “A sheep? How did a sheep get on the property?”

  Marco yawned. “Tell Antonio I want lamb chops.”

  Luis keyed his radio. “North Guard Post, Central. Copy?”

  A buzz of static came from the radio, then Antonio asked, “What now? Over.”

  “You have a sheep in the North Field. Lock and load. Marco wants lamb chops. Over.”

  “Lamb chops? Tell me he’s not serious. He wants me to go out in the dark and shoot a sheep, yes?”

  Marco looked up from his muscle magazine. “Tell him I will pull his head off at the neck if he fires a shot and bothers the people in the house. Walk up to the sheep and bash its head in.”

  Luis relayed Marco’s instructions.

  Nothing came back for long seconds, then as Luis was about to transmit again, Antonio spat out, “Roger.”

  Antonio appeared at the base of the screen, moving across the field in the general direction of the sheep. This should be damn funny. I’ll have to download a copy for the other guys and let them watch Antonio try to catch a sheep and kill it.

  ALERT. NORTH FIELD 2.

  What the hell?

  Luis’s eyes bugged out. The alert was in the same area… for another woolly sheep. The animal stopped to nibble at whatever kind of plant sheep liked to eat. Luis had been raised in the city; he had no idea what sheep found tasty.

  He opened his mouth to report but was interrupted by more alerts.

  ALERT. NORTH FIELD 2.

  ALERT. NORTH FIELD 1.

  The screen became jumbled with shapes as it tried to track each one.

  “Marco, look at this.”

  “What?”

  “A whole flock of sheep has gotten loose in the north field. I count five… no, six sheep.”

  “Impossible. The software must be glitched up.”

  “Why is it impossible? We have one sheep. Why not a flock?”

  “Idiot. Let me see.”

  ALERT. NORTH FIELD 2.

  ALERT. EAST FIELD 4.

  ALERT. NORTH FIELD 1.

  “Madre de Dios!” Luis swore. “I have contacts all over the field. They’re moving all around, and I can’t see shit.”

  “Call the barracks. Get the reserve out into the field. We will have to drive these sheep back to where they came from and find out how they got in. What a goat fuck this is.”

  Luis couldn’t resist. “You mean a sheep fuck, no?”

  “Shut up, Luis, and come on. You’re in this little roundup too.”

  “Should we call Santos?”

  “Santos is busy fucking your girlfriend. I, for one, do not intend to disturb him to say we’ve been invaded by sheep.”

  Before the cooler door opened, Charlie had hidden the tiny box cutter under the lip of her cardboard mattress and assumed a position of innocent prisoner waiting patiently. She needn’t have bothered posing.

  The lean, hawk-faced Skeeter swaggered in, looking as though he couldn’t care less what she’d been up to. Under-lit by a heavy flashlight, the planes and angles of his face reminded her of a demonic wooden carving. “Well, hello there, pretty lady,�
�� he rasped. “Miss me?”

  The reek of cigarettes and booze followed him in and saturated the air. He set the flashlight by the door, pointed so that it shone directly in her eyes. “Now, missy, just so’s you know, we’re fixin’ to have a little fun.”

  In the reflected backlight, his leer was unmistakable. Her heart, already slamming inside her chest, kicked into a stuttering trip-hammer. Brain fog threatened to claim her, and she fought it back. Fainting would not be a good thing.

  She tried to think of something to say, some words her college-educated mind could produce to outwit this backward hillbilly asshole, but nothing came. Her mouth had gone dry and coppery. Words refused to form.

  “I’ll give you to know,” Skeeter said as he unbuttoned his shirt, “that I didn’t bring no gun in here with me, in case you got any ideas about maybe snaggin’ it and shootin’ your way out. I figger I can handle a skinny thing like you without no pistol, about any day of the week.”

  He shrugged out of his shirt, revealing a wiry but muscular upper body. He had cable-like arms, protruding collar bones, and a small patch of a grayish-white hair on his chest.

  “You… you don’t have to do this.” Her words trickled out, barely audible.

  Skeeter laughed, a crowing sound that kicked off a coughing fit. He hocked and spat in the corner. “Oh, lady. I most surely do. Start shuckin’ your way out of them clothes.”

  Charlie remained glued in place by fear, no more able to move than a statue. Her puny little box cutter with its chipped blade was nothing but a hideous joke. How could she ever have thought she could fight this animal with a tiny bit of razor blade?

  With two strides, he loomed over her. He whipped one hand around and slapped her face. The pain nearly blinded her. He grabbed her T-shirt at the hem and ripped it straight up and off her body in one jerk, wrenching her arms.

  “Now, darlin’.” His face grew even harder, if that was possible. “You get shut of them clothes and right quick. Otherwise…” The lean man pulled a folding knife from his pocket and snapped open the blade. Six inches of polished steel gleamed in the weak light. “Otherwise, I’ll start by cuttin’ a finger off. When I get done with fingers, I’ll start on toes. Then maybe a nose. I don’t need none-a those to do what I want.”