Bait the devil, p.15
Bait the Devil, page 15
Once she cut the engine and the blades were winding down, three men wearing what could only be described as formal tactical clothing—if there were such a thing—exited a building off to her left.
“Incoming,” she said to T.J. and unbuckled the seat straps.
The lead man motioned for her to open the cockpit door.
She pushed it out, and he took hold of it.
“You and your partner will exit the helicopter and follow me.” His authoritative tone brokered no rebuttal.
After offloading the headgear and shouldering their day packs, she and T.J. hopped out and followed the trio to another building across the way. Before leaving Las Vegas, they had both armed themselves, concealing weapons in areas on their bodies where they wouldn’t be noticed but easily accessed if needed. God help them if they got patted down and their bags searched.
Once inside the building, Dot raised her aviators to accommodate for the dimness. It was a small office, and it was empty.
“Come with me.” The lead man gestured for the other two to remain at the door.
He led them down a hall to another room, where he opened the door and stepped aside to let them in. A table centered in the room held two silver hard-shell briefcases and a small buffet. Wide, elongated sofas lined two of the unadorned, windowless walls. The place felt like a break room minus the vending machines.
“Mr. Follman asked that we provide you with something to eat,” the man said as he closed the door and circled the table.
Dot was picking up on his accent and trying to place his home of origin. He was definitely from the Middle East.
“All fine and dandy,” T.J. said. “But why’d we need to leave the chopper?”
“Maintenance purposes.” The smile the man gave left Dot feeling like she was facing a timber rattler. “The shipment will be loaded while you take a moment before the return flight. In the meantime, eat and drink. Refresh yourselves. Catch a nap. Do not leave this room.” He tapped on a second door—the only other door in the room—opposite the entry. “Here is the restroom.”
Dot circled the table, eyeing the briefcases. “What are those for?”
“The first half of your payment.” The man returned to the entry door. “The second half will be paid upon your arrival in Las Vegas.” The snake smile once more, minus the flickering tongue. “Mr. Follman has requested this. Please, enjoy. I will return for you when it’s time to leave.” With that, he exited the room.
Dot listened and didn’t hear the click of a lock. They were left with some level of trust. Or was it a trap? Do not heed the warning so that we can kill you. Except who would be left to fly their shipment back to Las Vegas?
T.J. popped open one of the cases. “Fuck,” he said in a hushed voice.
She joined him and stared at the piles of fresh twenties. “I’ve never seen that much money in my life,” she whispered.
He closed the case and moved to the food. “Look.” He held up a beer can. “Our country folk ways are being recognized.”
With a headshake, Dot wandered the room, studying it. No windows to show them where they were on the property. No indication how many rooms this entire building held. And how many people were on the place. She opened the restroom door to find a single toilet and pedestal sink. Utilitarian and clean. Unused.
It was nice and all, yet the vibe was off. Like they had been herded into a single location to corral them. She was trapped. Confined to a box. Dot was by no means claustrophobic, but she needed her wide-open spaces and the ability to see what was coming.
The silver dish covers clanking brought her back to T.J.’s side.
“Sandwiches and finger foods.”
“What do you want to bet they laced it with something?” she said, keeping her voice low in case someone was listening as she eyed a roast beef on a sesame bun.
“And risk us crashing the helo with their precious cargo inside? Doubtful.”
“What about the news we received?”
T.J. grimaced and shook his head. Now was not the time to discuss.
“I don’t like this,” she whispered.
“I don’t either.” He pressed his hand on his hip, close to the appendix holster and his favored sidearm. “Glad they didn’t frisk us.”
There was some measure of security knowing they still had their weapons. On the edge of paranoia, Dot refused to eat or drink any of the buffet. Instead, she refilled her own water bottle from the restroom sink and for fuel, downed a slim package of jerky.
T.J. did the same. “We need to make it look like we did eat something,” he said.
He took the opportunity to dump two cans of beer down the sink and she several bottles of the provided water. Then they crumbled up some of the food and flushed what they could down the toilet. For special effect, Dot scattered a few crumbs here and there.
Though anticipation crawled along her skin and she craved a joint to calm her, she sprawled out on one of the sofas. She hadn’t slept well last night. She was running on pure adrenaline.
Closing her eyes, she listened to T.J. rummage around and mutter to himself. She felt herself drift. She wasn’t sure when he did it, but at some point, her upper body shifted, and she felt him settle on the sofa under her head. T.J. would keep up the image of them being married the best way he knew. Dot appreciated his commitment. No matter what the circumstances, they had each other’s backs. Even when he acted the fool, like now getting them caught up in this deal with Follman.
She was carrying the brunt of the load in this ordeal by keeping him on task and flying. It had been no different during her days flying for the army or the forest service. She’d been a warrant officer as a pilot and on par or above rank with most of the men she shuttled into the mountains of Afghanistan. Same was true for the forest service. Samo Ybarra had raised his granddaughter to lead. And she did so with a command presence that had always put men of all creeds on notice.
But she was still a woman. And she was woman enough to admit that sometimes she needed some assistance with the load.
Past and present, T.J. had always managed to lighten said load. Never once did he pull the whole macho bullshit on her. Overbearing protector, yes, he was a card-carrying member of the club. She could manage that side of him.
As if sensing her mental wrestling match, he settled his arm along her shoulder and the weight of it helped ease her into a light slumber.
All too soon, she was pulled out of her sleep as T.J. shook her. She peeled an eye open to see his bearded face looming over her.
“Our escort is back.”
Dot sat up, swung herself off the sofa and upright, the moves long practiced and second nature. She was in mission mode. All those days bugging out at a moment’s notice were hotwired into her muscles.
The man who’d brought them here watched her with a wary gleam in his eyes. An air of disdain permeated the confines of this temporary, tricked-out holding cell.
He cleared his throat, then grabbed the briefcases off the table. Dot noticed the fresh bruising on his knuckles. T.J. motioned over his own knuckles and Dot nodded.
“We have the shipment loaded and are ready,” their escort said. “Apologies for the delay. There were some technical issues.”
Technical issues? What could they possibly be hauling back to Las Vegas that warranted this kind of classified level speak?
“Those technical issues better not be related to the helicopter,” Dot said.
The escort eyed her, then exited the room.
A stillness settled over Dot. T.J. nudged her and they followed the man.
Carrying the cases himself, he led them back through the building and out to the landing pad. Dot noted right off that the Relentless’s cabin now had its windows covered. She elbowed T.J.
He nodded his understanding.
Reaching the cockpit, the man handed off the cases to a shorter male in grease-stained coveralls, who loaded them in a compartment behind the cabin.
Their escort turned to them and held out a sheet of paper. “Please refuel at these coordinates. With the additional weight, you’ll need it.”
Dot took the sheet. “I need to run through the preflight.”
“No need. The crew has everything in order.”
Dot glared at him. “Did I clear this everything in order?”
The snake grin was back. “As I said, there is no need. The crew has it in hand.” His eyes narrowed. “It’s the kind of service Mr. Follman expects.”
“I don’t give two shits what kind of service Follman expects. I’m the pilot, and I don’t fly until I’ve gone over it myself.” Dot crossed her arms. “On the ground or in the air? Your choice.”
After a bit of a standoff, their escort bent to Dot’s will. During her own check, he made certain he shadowed her every move. He was especially twitchy any time she came close to the cabin doors. Other than the blocked windows and the added weight, things looked the same.
She and T.J. strapped in, and once the blades spun up to full speed, she took the helicopter to the sky.
The moment the horse farm was far out of sight, and she had the copter at altitude and speed, Dot scribbled out a quick note in code in case there were extra eyes in the cockpit.
T.J. read it, crumpled it up, and shoved the wad in a pocket. His curt nod was all she needed.
They weren’t transporting inanimate objects.
Chapter Twenty-One
A sour, musty odor pulled Caleb to consciousness.
Wherever he was, he lay there, eyes still shut, breathing in the noxious fumes until it irritated his lungs into fits of coughing. He rolled over, flopping onto his back, hacking and wheezing. When the fit passed and he was able to breathe, he opened his eyes—at least one of his eyes. The other seemed swollen shut. It was dark, nearly pitch black, and it was raining. A rumble of soft thunder rippled through the air.
Between the throbbing in his head and the foul air, he couldn’t get a grasp on what had happened to him. He lifted his hand, and a tinkling sound stopped him. Unable to see what made the sound, he moved his arm, eliciting more tinkling. He tried to move his arm across his body only to be brought to a stop by the bite of metal on skin. The tinkling turned into a rattle.
Caleb bolted upright and yanked his arm, having it jerked back when it met resistance. He was chained to something. With his free hand, he found the links and followed them. As he moved around, he became aware of a strange sensation from his left leg. He stopped with the chain and patted the place where his prosthetic should have been, but it wasn’t.
What happened to it?
Abandoning the chain and whatever he was anchored to, he began fumbling around, patting what he deciphered to be musty straw reeking of moldy animal waste, trying to locate the titanium rod that served as his leg. He came to the end of his chain and was yanked backward. He lay there and fumed.
Bit by bit, he remembered what brought him to this situation. Following Manbun to the café. Sneaking in the backside of the café. Stumbling upon the backroom and realizing his stupidity, only to be waylaid by a blackout. And then the horrible beating of his head against a brick wall.
He was the epitome of the cocky ass fuckwad who walked right over a landmine and got blown up.
What an awesome undercover operative he made.
Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck!
Calming himself, he tried again to locate his missing half of his leg. And again, came up empty-handed. The rain intensified, and the rolling thunder drew closer and louder. A loud plopping sounded behind him. Giving up on the search for his prosthetic, he changed tactics and felt around to get a sense of his surroundings.
He found the chain and located its base, anchored into a cement wall. The cement wall rose above his head. As he maneuvered about on his ass, he was pelted by a stream of water coming from above. He peered up and spotted a tiny bit of light coming from a hole above him. The hole would brighten as lightning flashed.
Caleb scooted away from the water and continued his study. Each time he moved too far, the chain tugged him into submission. The clattering it made each time grew louder along with his frustrations.
Feeling woozy and sick, his head pounding, unable to tell if he couldn’t see because his eyes had gone dim or if it was just that dark, he let out a hellish howl.
The noise startled another creature. It bleated a panicked cry.
Caleb stilled.
The sound had been human. Female. Young.
“Hello?” he asked softly, gentling his voice.
There was a shuffling, then a whimper.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
A moment of silence passed. It felt like an eternity. His head throbbed, the pain radiating down his neck into his shoulders and chest. The beating against the wall had not done him any favors.
Shit! What if …
“Who … are … you?” The forced words came out lilted and halting, feminine and foreign.
A woman. Possibly a young woman. Fuck, he hoped she wasn’t younger than nineteen. If he had to guess her home of origin by her accent, Arabian Peninsula. If he narrowed down even more, Syrian or Afghani.
Damn it. One of the main reasons Eriksson had gotten him to take this undercover assignment was to get as buddy-buddy as he could with Meyer Follman to have an in on Follman’s drug operation. As Caleb dug deeper into Follman and his network it was becoming about more than just drugs. Caleb had hoped he was wrong but knew it was more than that.
All the data he had written down in those journals. All the shipments he’d observed coming and going from the farm. It was supposed to be Follman and his cronies bringing in undocumented people for labor purposes. Or even more nefarious reasons like infiltrating nuclear facilities or wreaking havoc biologically on the American agricultural system.
He was fucking wrong. Oh, so fucking wrong.
“My name is Cade Porter,” he said. If he dared to use his Jewish given name, he risked losing any trust he could build with her. The false name was safest. “What’s your name?”
She delayed, letting the sound of the storm fill the silence. This conversation kept him lucid and holding off the inevitable blackout. When Caleb was about to press the question again, she spoke.
“Mina.”
“Just Mina?”
“Yes,” she said in Dari.
Fuck! She was Afghani.
“Mina, I’m not here to hurt you.” He switched from English to Dari.
She gasped and the rattle of metal alerted him to her own chains. “How do you know my language?”
“The knowing is not important,” he said. “Do you know how you came to be here?”
She hiccupped. “My father gave me away to be a bride.” Her words were being strangled by her tears. “They killed him. They beat him.”
“Why did they beat him?” He had to keep her talking, more for his sake than hers.
“Because I was too old.”
Double fuck. How old was too old for these men?
“What about the rest of your family?”
“Gone.” Her voice broke on a wail.
The sound of her grief was making the throbbing in his head worse. His stomach clenched in that way that warned of an oncoming bout of vomiting. Talking helped. “Mina, how long have you been here? Where is here?”
“I do not know,” she said after a few seconds.
“Do you know how long I’ve been here?”
“They brought you here when they took my sisters.”
Sisters? How many of those sisters had been here? “Is it just you?”
She let out a few gut-wrenching sobs, then gasped in her breaths. “Yes.”
Why take the other women and leave her behind? Caleb mulled over this, and each path he took brought him to the same conclusion. Mina was being saved for something special. She’d said her father was beaten to death because of her age; she might be for someone who had specific preferences that Mina exhibited.
“Why you?” he asked, wincing as the throbbing transitioned into stabbing and strobing pain.
If she answered, he couldn’t hear her through the drumbeat in his ears. He lay on the musty hay and through the agony was able to piece together the logic of his prison. Considering the number of horse farms Follman had bought up in the last three years, Caleb was certain he was at one of them. Which one remained the million-dollar question.
He’d been chained up in a barn with stalls. Mina’s voice, while clear and close, was still muffled by objects. She sounded close, maybe right across from him. He couldn’t get a sense of how large the building was, but it was cool and clammy, mostly due to the rain.
It seemed to be nighttime. But was it really? He had been knocked unconscious late morning and possibly kept drugged to remain that way until they had him secured. He had no real sense of time. While he was out, they’d chained him up and taken his prosthetic leg. A shackled and crippled man was easier to control. The indignity of it was another blow to his already fucked-up psyche. If he was able to get free, he wouldn’t be able to escape without crawling.
Caleb’s face burned. If they ever returned for him, they would ensure more humiliation.
“Cade.” Mina’s broken voice calling him by his false name jolted him from the rage smoldering in his chest.
Bringing his now-quaking body into a semblance of calm, he licked his dry lips. “Yes, Mina?”
“If you are an honorable man, do the honorable thing.”
The humiliation and fury leached from him at the despair in her voice. He was fearful of what she would say but needed to hear her say it.
“Mina, my honor to my cause is why they have degraded me. Please, don’t make me promise something that goes against my code.”
“I beg you,” she cried.
“Mina.”
“Kill me! Kill me!” Her screams ended in more sobbing.
Caleb sucked in the musty air and listened to the shattered woman’s soul die with each passing second.
