URGENT Justice

by John Etzil

  I heard their footsteps fade away as they made their way across the concrete floor in their boots. A few seconds later, I heard a distant conversation between what sounded like four men. They were too far away for me to hear what was being said, but I could tell that their tones were dead serious.

  “Psst, Jack, you awake?” Frances bumped my left side with a bony shoulder. I was glad she was okay. There was no telling what these guys had done to her after I’d been knocked out.

  “Yeah, you okay?”

  “Fine. I have something for you, between my legs.”

  “Jeez, Frances, not now. In case you don’t realize it, we’re in big trouble.” I was flabbergasted. Had she lost her marbles? Joking around in a situation like this…

  “Not that, you ninny. There was a throwing knife in Debbie’s care package. It’s strapped to my right leg. I hope you’re flexible.”

  “My hands are tied behind my back. I can’t reach it.”

  “Come on, Jack, haven’t you ever gone down on a lady before?”

  Oh God…

  “Hurry, my legs are spread as wide as they go. I can’t hold this man-spreading yoga pose forever. Now hike up my dress and grab that knife with your teeth before my hips lock up. I’d hate to have those dickheads come back to the car and see me like this.”

  I said a quick prayer, leaned to my left, and slipped out of the shoulder harness portion of the seat belt. I lowered my face and stopped.

  I flashed back to the motel room invasion and her drawers lying on the bathroom floor. She was commando.

  Oh Jesus, please help me. I’m not even religious, but you know how it is when a fellow finds himself in a tight bind. Dear Lord, just help me get through this and I promise…

  I leaned over until I felt the soft, jiggly flesh of her ninetyish-year-old thigh through the burlap.

  Ugh.

  The burlap was rough, and when I slid my face towards her stomach, it grabbed her dress fabric and hiked it up. But no knife.

  “Where is it?”

  “Up higher.”

  “How much higher?”

  “All the way. The knife’s holster was big, so I had to slide it all the way up my thigh. Otherwise it would fall down when I walked.”

  I felt nauseous.

  “And be gentle. If you scratch me with that burlap bag, Max and Gus are gonna be awfully mad at you.”

  I thought about how airtight the burlap bag on my head was, and how that should keep me safe from unpleasant odors, but I wasn’t chancing it. I took a deep breath through my mouth, held it, and dove in.

  21

  Man Up and Muff-Dive

  My burlap-covered lips traced all the way up her inner thigh, and I hit the jackpot. Paradise. Not the kind of paradise that Meatloaf sang about in his epic classic—the kind that feels like hardened steel between the cloth-covered lips of a person who’s shed all bullshit illusions of being on a recon-only mission. Now we were in my world.

  Her thigh holster held the knife with a velcro strap, pointy side down. I had to go in deep to grab the handle. All-in deep. Where thigh met abdomen. Those Texas Hold’em players had no idea what “all in” really meant.

  “Better hurry up, Jack,” Frances whispered.

  “Why? You hear them coming back to the car?” I asked, remembering Debbie’s comment about how good Frances’s hearing was.

  “No. It’s Max and Gus’s snack that they made for me last night. Broccoli and beans. Much as I love them, I shouldn’t have eaten them a day before a road trip. Not sure how long I can hold it in.”

  In a near panic, I forced her fleshy lower abdomen in with my forehead so hard that she blurted out a curse, along with a long stream of gas that would have made an elephant blush, but I was in the zone and ignored it.

  I grabbed the handle of the knife with my teeth and tore it free from the holster with a violent yank that made her jump and groan between gritted teeth.

  “Jesus, Jack, I’m no fan of that F&M, you know.”

  I came up with the knife and started breathing again. I slid back under my shoulder harness, leaned forward a little and turned my head hard to the left a few times to warm up my neck and practice my oral knife-tossing technique.

  This was it. Our best, and maybe only, chance to get out of this mess alive. Never mind getting back by Tuesday. If I didn’t nail this knife toss, I might never get back to Eminence. I had to swing my head hard left and throw the knife behind my back. From there I could grab it with my hands and cut through the duct tape. If I threw the knife too hard, or released it too soon, it would sail off somewhere. Probably stick in Frances, with my luck. If I flung it too soft, it would hit my left shoulder and fall God knows where. With the bag over my head, I’d never find it, and our best chance of escape would vanish quicker than an investment in Lehman Brothers.

  “Well? You got it?” Frances whispered.

  “Shhhh.”

  I slowed my breathing and cleared my mind. I was about to make the most important toss of my life when I picked up the sound of boots echoing on concrete. They were getting louder by the second. Our murderous kidnappers were approaching the car.

  Here goes nothing…

  22

  And It’s…

  A strike! I nailed it. The greatest high-pressure throw since Dwight Gooden struck out Sammy Sosa on a 3–2 pitch with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth in a one-run game seven to decide the National League Championship.

  The knife cleared my shoulder, slid down the seatback, and fell right into my open hands.

  And the car doors opened.

  I held my breath, dove headfirst into Frances’s crotch, bit down on her dress and inadvertently grabbed a mouthful of skin. She yelped, and I was sure there was going to be a nasty bruise by tomorrow. In one smooth motion, I pulled her dress back down to her knees, released it, exhaled, and sagged my head in front of my body to appear unconscious, just as I felt the car dip with the weight of our captors.

  “Jeez, it stinks in here,” Flat Ass said. “Smells like shit. Think one of ’em’s dead? Shit themselves? I bet it’s the old hag. Let’s get moving before she stiffens up.”

  I felt something smack my head. “Looks like Sleeping Beauty is still out cold. Or he’s the dead one,” Flat Ass said.

  “My guess is that the old lady tired him out.” Fat Face said. He laughed so hard I thought that he would hyperventilate and pass out.

  “Oh crap, you’re disgusting. She’s, like, a hundred years old. You really think he was doing her?”

  Fat Face didn’t answer right away, pausing to catch his breath before spewing out this pearl of fake news: “Heck yeah. After all, he came out of the bathroom naked.”

  Wrong! I had a towel on, you moron!

  More laughter.

  “Guess it’s just as well that we put him out of his misery. How could he live with himself?”

  Very funny. What a couple of asshats…

  Another door opened, and I heard a seat belt unclick. What the—?

  A voice I didn’t recognize said, “Slide over, lady.” Fiftyish, male, smoker. I felt Frances body up to me and the car sink. A lot.

  Shit. Now I had a third person to deal with.

  I maneuvered the throwing knife in slow motion, careful not to draw any attention to myself if someone happened to be looking at me. I positioned the blade between my wrists and against the duct tape. I took baby steps in the tape slicing, not wanting to be noticed or to cut myself. Some throwing knives aren’t very sharp except for the pointy end, but this one had a razor’s edge to it. I said a silent prayer of thanks to my honey Debbie for having the foresight to give it to Frances.

  I heard the garage door roll open and the engine kicked over. Before long, we were motoring on the gravel road, and with each dip or pothole, I made a tiny slicing motion through the duct tape. In just a few short minutes I’d freed my hands, but I didn’t dare move them from behind my back.

  I had three men to take out now, all whil
e blinded by the burlap sack over my head. I had to do this. It would be my best chance to get us out alive. Maybe our only chance.

  But when? That was the tricky part. If I acted too early, the driver could lose control and we might crash. If I waited until the vehicle stopped, one of them might be able to escape my onslaught. That would be worse. It was imperative that I attack while each of the three still had their seat belts on, even if I was a little early, to lessen their ability to maneuver away from my blind stabs.

  After the timing of my attack, my biggest concern was maintaining a solid grip on the knife. Throwing knives are fine instruments, true works of art, but they’re meant to be thrown and not held. And they surely weren’t designed for a repetitive stabbing motion. As a serious weight lifter, I had a lot going for me in the way of grip strength, but I’d never attempted this before, so I wasn’t sure what was required to hold on to the thin handle.

  I fumbled around with the knife in my left hand until I felt like I had the most secure grip. I had my thumb over the back of the knife handle, so I wasn’t worried about losing my grip while stabbing. I was worried about when I pulled the knife out. My blind thrusts might lodge the knife in a rib and make me lose a split second of valuable time yanking it free. In our situation, a microsecond was the difference between life and death.

  I thought about it logically, and after weighing the pros and cons of a few different scenarios, I came up with my plan of attack. If executed correctly, it would minimize the chances of the knife getting lodged in a rib, or another bony part of the human body. Now I was just waiting for the perfect time.

  I practiced mindfulness and forced the nervous banter of the two front seaters from my thoughts. I could tell that they were anxious, and I didn’t blame them. Killing in cold blood isn’t for the faint of heart. I’d done it many times, but the world was always a much better place when I laid my head down to sleep that night. The type of killing that these guys had done, and thought that they would continue doing, was the worst kind. For their own selfish reasons.

  But it didn’t matter now. I was going to kill all three of them and end their reign of terror. I smiled under the hood. Soon, they would be put out of their misery.

  I felt the SUV decelerate and maneuver onto a rough gravel road. This would all be over in a few short minutes…

  23

  Three Simple Steps

  The instant that the car came to a stop, I removed my left hand from behind my back and hammer-fisted the blade around Frances and into the fat neck of Fiftyish Male Smoker. I was relieved that he was of normal height. Otherwise, I feared a face or rib cage strike, both of which could prove troublesome. But the four-inch blade sank all the way in, fist-deep, and the gurgling that followed verified a direct voice box hit.

  #MusicToMyEars.

  It was perfect. Except that I elbowed Frances in the nose. I was sure I’d broken it based on the loud crack I heard, and her ensuing scream of agony.

  No time to worry about that. At least she and Max would have something in common. I withdrew the voice box blade, reached forward with my right hand and hooked it over Flat Ass’s right shoulder, pinning him back against his seat. Before he had a chance to react I jammed the knife into his left side, just below the floating rib, and to cause more damage, I pushed the blade across his abdomen while extracting it, slicing a good chunk of his stomach wide open.

  I rotated my hand, stuck the blood-slippery blade low into Fat Face’s right side, and sliced it to and fro as well. He shivered, the intensity of his screams matching Flat Ass’s, and went limp.

  Mission accomplished!

  I gagged on the smell. At least one of the dead bodies had crapped himself. He produced so much evacuation that the stench, even through my burlap, was asphyxiating. My bet was on the fat guy sitting next to Frances.

  My door opened, and I was yanked out by my arm. What the—?

  One leg was kicked out from under me, and I was judo-thrown to the ground. I landed hard on my back, my head bouncing off the dirt.

  I lost the blood-slippery blade when I hit, and a heavy boot was placed on my chest, pinning me to the ground.

  “Holy shit, will you look at this stinkin’ mess!” said a frustrated male voice that I’d never heard before. “Goddamnit! Hand me your nightstick. I’ll teach this bastard a lesson.”

  Everything went black. Again.

  24

  Railroad Ride

  “I don’t believe this shit. Three guys against one, and they can’t even get the job done. Let’s get those bodies out of the car and put them in the cart. We’ll throw those two in as well.”

  There was some grunting and cursing, and two sets of hands picked up what they thought was my unconscious body and dumped me, rather hard, I might add, onto one of the other bodies.

  My head was on fire, and it took all my willpower not to yell in pain, but I kept my jaw clenched tight, thankful that the burlap sack hid my grimacing.

  What the burlap didn’t hide was the smell of death. Earlier I had been concerned that the tightly woven material might asphyxiate Frances and me. Now I almost wished that it had. The smell was so putrid that I felt sick and had to breathe through my mouth. My new worry was that I’d vomit my guts up inside the bag and drown myself. But on the bright side, at least I had been tossed on top of the shit-stained bodies instead of underneath them.

  We started rolling, and as soon as I heard the ratchety racket of the old-style railroad, I knew that we were heading down into a mine. I was sure that it would be an abandoned coal mine, a place that our bodies would never be found. This would be it for us if I didn’t think of something fast. I thought of my honey, Debbie, and how sad she’d be if I never returned, then shook away the negative thinking.

  Focus.

  I am returning.

  We ground to a stop, and four hands grabbed me by the wrists and ankles. I was tossed overboard, my jaw clenched tight, waiting for contact with the ground. I knew that a mine floor would be rock-hard, a lot harder than the bodies that I had been tossed onto, but I wasn’t prepared for the level of pain I felt when I landed. I let out a loud groan, and the two men giggled like school kids at my hurt.

  I heard Frances hit the ground with an “Oooff,” followed by some colorful dickhead comments. At least I knew she was still alive. And close to me.

  The two men finished emptying the cart, with no groans from the three dead men, and I heard them walk away, bickering. It sounded like they were arguing over what to do with the bodies. Evidently, we’d reached the end of the rail line, and the body disposal area was another couple of hundred yards deeper into one of the unrailed tunnels of the mine. Not only did they have to drag us there, but they had to bury all five of us under a shit ton of coal to keep the smell of our rotting bodies from seeping out of the mine.

  In slow motion, so that I wouldn’t draw any attention to myself, I reached out for Frances. I found her calf and snuck my hand up her dress. All the way. All in, again. With my other hand, I found the end of duct tape that held the burlap bag on my head and I started to peel it off.

  When I’d muff-dived on Frances earlier in the car to retrieve the throwing knife, I’d felt a hard metal object on her other leg brush against my forehead. I hadn’t realized it at the time, probably because I’d been hyperfocused on getting the knife, but it must have registered in my subconscious, because out of the blue it just popped into my head.

  I found it and pulled it free with a yank at the same time I got the burlap bag removed from my head.

  The mine was dark, and the two men were a good twenty feet from us, but one of them noticed the burlap bag come flying off my head. He gawked and went for his gun. I raised the Derringer and fired a single shot into his gut. I blasted the second round into the other guy’s face.

  They both just stood there, frozen, looking at each other with a horrified look on their faces, before the face-shot fellow pitched forward and hit the ground with a solid thud, his forehead bouncing o
ff the hard mine floor three times before coming to a rest.

  The gut-shot guy grabbed at his midsection, a grimace on his face as he gasped for air.

  But why hadn’t he fallen?

  It finally registered in my beat-up brain that the gut-shot guy was in a Pennsylvania State Trooper’s uniform. Which meant that he had a bulletproof vest on.

  Crap…

  25

  Time to Go!

  A little .22-caliber bullet wouldn’t even pierce the first layer of the state trooper’s Kevlar, but a well-placed—or lucky—solar plexus shot would temporarily knock the wind out of him. That’s what mine had done. He struggled to unholster his pistol and raised it in my direction, but by the time he could muster the wherewithal to aim and pull the trigger, I’d jumped out of the way. He was still hurting, and too lethargic to follow my movement. I ran to his side and grabbed the hand with the pistol, stuck it in his throat, and blasted off a round, blowing the back of his head off. Even in the near darkness, I could see brain and skull matter flying through the air.

  The loud noise from firing the 9mm in such a small enclosed area was deafening, adding to my throbbing headache. After the initial concussion from the blast wore off, I noticed that the ground was trembling.

  Did the blast from the gunshot cause a cave-in?

  I grabbed Frances by the elbow. “Time to go,” I shouted in her ear to make sure that she heard me.

  “I’m old, not deaf,” she scoffed at me. “Why do people feel that they have to yell at us all the time?”

  “I wanted to make sure that you could hear me. After the loud gunshot and all.”

  “My hearing’s fine, now untie me.”