There was something—not right—about this man being anywhere on the FBI’s most wanted list, much less in the top ten. Spec Ops guys were a different breed of American. She would know, since she’d also served her country in ways most people could never understand.
Infiltrating Domingo Zapata’s perverse world of child slavery and all it entailed, had been a damned tough physical war for Persia, as well as an excruciating, daily mental struggle. Yet every second, and with every breath of her time there, she had fought valiantly to keep not only her sanity and perspective, but her soul.
Persia swallowed hard, remembering the smell of those blood-stained concrete walls. The memory of the despair etched within those walls was still so sharp and bitter, she could taste it. But all those poor, helpless women and children…
Domingo Zapata hadn’t tortured anyone during the months she’d worked for him. But he had terrorized them. Living under the gruesome death threats he promised was enough to drive anyone insane.
Yet she’d had the balls to face that horrible monster, and she’d done it alone. Without any backup. How? She’d arrived at his bunkers dressed in rags, begged a handout, and acted as if she had no idea who he was. Then she’d convinced him that she was just as sick and perverse as he was. How? By killing a lamb, then licking its blood off her fingertips, painting her face and dancing, laughing like a maniac. To this day, she didn’t eat anything mutton-related. Never mind that the lamb she’d killed was destined for stew after she’d killed it. Lambs cried for their mamas when they were hurt, did you know that? And their mamas bleated for them once those babies were dead. They mourned for days and sometimes they died because they just stopped living. Because of her! She had that baby’s blood on her hands! The whole damnable mess still turned her stomach.
Automatically, Persia clapped her palms over her ears, denying yet again, the quivering fear in that tiny animal’s bleating cry for help. Wishing she could go back in time and tell her FBI handler, ‘No,’ that she didn’t want to work for the CIA. Not in South America. Never in Brazil. Never, ever with a psychopath like Zapata!
Despite her night terrors now, she had brought him down. The bastard was dead. With her own eyes, she’d watched Julio Juarez put two hot rounds straight into Zapata’s brain. She’d seen the blood splatter, and she’d rejoiced in every single drop of it. Because Persia had also watched while Agent Juarez’s wife had played games with Domingo when Julio’d thought she’d been kidnapped. Persia knew for a fact that Bianca Juarez had willfully, and with malice, deserted her husband and her only child—Julio’s one-year-old boy, a toddler, for fuck sakes!
It took a few moments of mindfulness and steady, slow breathing to banish the ugly memory again. Yet reliving those awful months made Persia realize that Hotrod, err, Lieutenant Walker Judge, a decorated USN SEAL, must’ve done things just as difficult, maybe even harder. Yet not once had she gotten an unsettling vibe or an ugly feeling from Hotrod, err, Judge. Damn it. He was Walker Judge. Walker, Walker, Walker!
If anything, he’d impressed the hell out of her that one night. He’d been sweet and gentle and… okay, he’d also been too tired to perform, which might explain why he’d left before dawn. Maybe he hadn’t been able to face her? No. Uh uh. Not Walker. Tough, confident guys like him weren’t afraid to face their mistakes. And they didn’t usually have performance issues—not unless they’d just swum a hundred freakin’ miles to get back to the land they—he—loved.
Yes. Loved. Guys like Judge didn’t kiss just any stretch of sand. And they didn’t leave the kind of impression behind that he had left with her.
Lieutenant Judge sure cut a handsome profile in those crisply pressed dress whites in this official photo. Persia had always been a sucker for a man in uniform, but knowing what lay beneath this particular uniform, and knowing this guy… Ahh. Persia wanted to eat him up all over again. For breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a tasty, lip-smacking midnight snack.
On his left chest, above the placard of six rows of campaign and various USN ribbons, rested the proud, gold Trident that declared the Navy SEAL’s creed: ‘In times of war or uncertainty there is a special breed of warrior ready to answer our nation’s call. A common man with an uncommon desire to succeed.’
Only this common man had made the tenderest, sweetest love to her—before he’d walked away. How many weeks ago had that been? She couldn’t think. Only wanted to sit here and breathe the essence of this damned troublemaker back into her life. If that were even possible. If only she could go back in time and—
“What’s up? Is it dinnertime yet? You okay?”
“No! I mean, yes! I mean, no, it’s not dinner yet, and of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be okay?” Wow, how insincere was that? Persia slammed the folder shut, rattled at what Izza might’ve seen. That she might’ve been watching the whole time.
“Oh, okay. No worries,” Izza mumbled sleepily. “I’ve already read that jerk’s file, so you don’t have to if you don’t want to. He’s a Class A ass, and according to Alex, ICC’s got him cuffed and shackled. If he tries anything, we’ll just taser his ass and take him down like the dog he is. Right?”
“Umm, yeah. Sure.” Take him down. All the ways Persia had taken Hotrod down, in her bed and in her shower, stormed her poor flustered heart. It fluttered like a giant butterfly with B-52 wings stuck in her chest. Who would’ve ever guessed Hotrod was Walker Judge?!
“Go back to sleep,” Persia urged her friend as calmly as she could. “S-s-sorry I disturbed you.”
“You didn’t. Just had a funny feeling. You ever get one of those?”
Persia nodded, but Izza’s eyes were already closed, so she lied and said, “No. Never.”
And then she cracked that file and began reading every single page again. Persia didn’t just have a funny feeling. She had a full-blown premonition. Walker Judge would yet prove his innocence. And by hell, she’d help him do it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Morning came too early when a guy had to pee, but couldn’t. Walker stood over the hard-water-stained steel toilet bowl, poised for action, but getting nowhere fast. Massaging his aching lower back while cuffed had proven miserably impossible. Didn’t help that his cuffs were in front of him with a chain running to his shackles, or that the current guard on duty watched every move he made.
But it’d sure be nice if someone turned the thermostat down. Better yet, off. It was early summer, for hell’s sake, and Walker was sweating like a pig in this cramped, airless cell. But there was no relief. Not from the oppressive heat, nor from his kidneys.
When it became obvious he’d had a total failure to launch, Walker closed up the Velcro fly on his ridiculous clown suit, and did a quick two-step shuffle back to the board in the wall called his bed. The shackles on his ankles seemed heavier this morning, and he was frustrated with the unnecessary restraints while he was behind bars. Everything was too damned much.
Still dizzy, he leaned his aching head onto the flat pillow on his bed. It was strange how simple things like pillowcases mattered to a guy with no future. But the lack of a case on this sweat-stained pillow brought back the sweet memory of better times. Of being with Persia Coltrane in her bed. Of her hair spread out like an ebony fan on her pure, white, Pottery Barn pillows.
He could still smell the luscious fragrance of her sun-warmed skin. The flowery scent of her silky hair. The barest hint of whiskey on her breath. Interesting. Whiskey instead of wine. He would’ve pegged her a Napa Valley girl. Not a Valley Girl, but one who was a helluva lot smarter. Which Persia was. One who enjoyed the finer things.
Walker lifted his cuffed hands together, slid his wrists one over the other, then dropped both over his eyes to dim the light. There was no privacy in this closet of a cell, no way to turn the light bar overhead off or down. He’d become an insect, caged and spotlighted for dissection. But at least the chain between shackles and cuffs allowed this much relief.
He hadn’t felt this bad since he’d been
a kid at home with the flu. Kenny’d been sick the same week. They’d missed five full days of school, but had both felt too bad to celebrate their good fortune.
Kenny. Damn. Thinking about his kid brother was not what Walker needed right now. Besides, he wasn’t sick with any flu bug. This holding cell was small and there wasn’t enough ventilation down here in the basement. That was all. Guess the ICC didn’t believe in A/C. Or prisoners’ rights.
Disgusted with the shitter his life had devolved into, Walker rubbed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. Man, he was tired of running, just as fed up with fighting the whole damned world. Hans said he’d come back this morning, that he’d bring all those incriminating files and photos that showed Walker bombing a wedding in Jordan. But what did that matter? If Goff was the bastard who’d altered Walker’s OMPF, his Official Military Personnel File, he was powerful enough to rig another jury and alter the ICC’s evidence, too.
Everything seemed hopeless. Hopeless and too damned hot!
“Hey! You! Jerk-off!” the latest moron on duty bellowed, while he battered that expensive weapon on the metal bars like it was a baseball bat. “Is time to wake up, lucky American pig. You got company.”
Walker rolled to his feet. Might as well rise and shine. A man who couldn’t pee sure as hell couldn’t sleep, not with this raucous idiot standing guard. “I’m up,” he replied to get the guy to cease the racket.
“Stand back!” the guard ordered, as he unsnapped a ring of shiny silver keys from his belt. He managed to unlock the cell with one hand, while pointing his rifle at Walker with the other. Which was a stupid move since Walker was still sitting on his bunk. “I will take you to another room, but you must not try anything. I know how to kill.”
Well, so the hell do I. Was that supposed to be a threat? Walker could barely climb back to his feet and walk in these shackles, much less try anything that would get him out of this detention unit. His head and lower back hurt too damned much.
Man, he hoped it was Brimley in that other room. No one else knew he was here. But now that Walker had time to think, how’d Brimley know he’d been shipped off to the Netherlands or that he’d been detained by the ICC? Even if he’d somehow found all that out, how’d he get to The Hague from the Azores? Was he secretly a rich millionaire with a fast jet at his beck and call?
Nah. No guy who lived in a cheap, rundown basement apartment, was a secret anything. Brimley’s being here didn’t make sense, but it’d sure be good to see the old fart again. Walker wanted to know what happened to Rover. He hoped Brimley had gotten to his doggo in time after they’d both gone overboard. They had a bond, those two. It’d kill Walker if Brimley lost his best friend because of him.
“Halt!” the idiot with the rifle bellowed the second Walker made it into the hall.
Man, these people liked concrete. Nothing but cold, gray walls and floors stretched all the way down the hall. And yet Walker was burning up. For the first time, he worried his problem might not be the lack of proper ventilation. Might actually be the flu. Damned disconcerting.
While his guard fumbled to snap that silly key ring back onto his belt—Shit, it’s not rocket science!—Walker focused on staying upright. But gray on gray on gray didn’t have a soothing effect on his gut. Despite the weighted shackles at his ankles, his head seemed heavier, yet lighter at the same time. Try making sense out of that. He couldn’t. When the world tilted sideways, he slapped both palms to the wall beside his door to steady himself. It was that or fall down.
“Stop!” the guard bellowed as the business end of his rifle snapped to the center of Walker’s back, pressing hard between his shoulder blades. “I will kill you if you make another move!”
There was no way Walker would ever admit to this idiot that he might be sick. Comprehending that might take more brain cells than the guy had. So he sucked it up, nodded his compliance, and replied in a clear, subservient voice, “Sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.”
Bullies loved to be obeyed and made to feel important. Which was why the ‘sir.’ It worked like a charm.
Appeased, the big, tough guy with the only weapon in the hallway gave Walker his chin. “Turn around. We will go see your visitor now, but just one move…”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Walker stopped listening. At the moment, he needed all the strength he had just to about-face and walk a straight line. Seemed like he and his handler walked for miles, but it was only down the hall and around the corner. By the time he stood at yet another closed door that had to be unlocked by the man with ten thumbs, Walker’d had it. He swallowed hard, which was difficult to do with a dry throat. But he did resist the urge to grab the wall again.
Finally! The freakin’ door opened to reveal an average interrogation room.
Metal table bolted to the concrete floor. Drain beneath the table. Rings in the concrete to lock shackles in place. More rings on the table for handcuffs. Two-way mirrors, one to the left of where Walker was obviously supposed to sit, since that was where the only metal chair in the room had been bolted to the floor. The other straight across from that same uncomfortable looking chair. Closed-circuit-TV cameras blinked from all four corners of the ceiling. Bright florescent light tubes glared down at him.
With all this concrete, you’d think this basement room would’ve been cold. But Walker felt as if he were walking into a square, gray sauna.
“No!” his personal moron bellowed the second Walker cleared the doorway.
What now? All he wanted to do was sit in that damned chair before he fell down.
“We wait out here. You will stand until I allow you to sit.”
Walker closed his eyes at the idiocy of yet another stupid command, even as he stepped back beside the guard. What did it matter if he sat in the chair or fell on the floor?
“Stay standing,” the guard threatened, “or I will exact swift discipline you will never forget.”
Which meant he’d use that bully club dangling off his belt alongside his key ring—if he could get it unclipped fast enough—on a prisoner he assumed wouldn’t fight back. Walker almost wished he’d try it, see how that went. Sick or not, he’d feed that club to this over-confident asshat in a heartbeat. Maybe two, given his current shaky condition.
“Yes, sir,” Walker replied, breathing shallowly through his mouth now. SEALs didn’t give in, or give up. He’d survived Hell Week. This was nothing. It was simply a matter of who would outlast the other. A step-by-step endurance test. Just. Keep. Going…
An hour later, which was probably really just five minutes, the steady drumbeat of soles on concrete headed his way. Thank God. Stiffening to attention, he prepared to look whoever this visitor was in the eye. It’d sure be good if it were Brimley. Then Walker could find out how Rover was.
Damn. It was Hans Koning rounding the corner. Business suit. White dress shirt. Black tie that matched his black shoes. The second he came into view, his head canted nearly to his shoulder. His entire forehead furrowed. “Why are you standing out here? Go inside. Now. Sit. Please sit,” he said, gesturing to the empty room. Then to the guard, he spoke a few tense, very short sentences in Dutch.
The guard grumbled back in the same language, but snorted at Walker to go in.
Not willing to admit weakness or defeat, Walker marched into the blistering hot room with his back straight and sank onto the designated metal chair. It should’ve been cold to the touch, but like everything else in this miserable dungeon, it was sticky and too warm. He put both hands on his knees to still his trembling.
Hans disappeared, while the guard dropped one knee to the floor at Walker’s feet. “You think you are going home, but you are not,” he growled as he removed the cuffs, then the shackles, with all the gentleness of Attila the Hun. “Not while I work here, buddy. Not today.”
Buddy? “Do I know you?” Walker had to ask as the man scraped the shackles sharply across his ankle, as if to make a point. “Have I offended you somehow?” Because
I’d sure like to. You’re as big an ass as my CO was.
“All you American Navy SEALs offend me,” he hissed. “You think you are so much smarter than the rest of us.”
Ah, so that’s what this was about. A WWE wrestler wannabe challenging the reigning champion. Walker had no response for that. He’d let Karma take care of this guy.
Very shortly, Hans returned, pushing a comfortable leather chair on wheels through the doorway. “Sit. Here, please,” he told Walker as he rolled the chair far from the interrogation table. “Please. I am sorry you had to wait so long for me. My supervisor detained me. Your guest will be here soon.”
He shot a few more terse words at the guard, who had no problem tossing them right back. After a quick exchange, Attila bristled. Hans’ entire demeanor darkened, but whatever he’d said seemed to end the power struggle. Like a petulant child, Attila stomped around the corner and out of sight.
Walker had yet to move. He was weak, but he was damned if he’d admit it.
“You are not well, sir,” Hans said quietly, his head tipping toward the chair. “Please take a seat.”
“I’m fine. Who’s my guest? Wouldn’t be an old guy with a dog, would it?”
“Hey there, LT Judge,” a woman called out behind him. “Happy to see me?”
Walker looked over his shoulder. Suddenly he couldn’t catch a breath. Felt like he’d been sucker-punched. Or shot point-blank. The walls spun. Stumbling forward, he sank into the chair Hans had offered before he fell on his face.
The person now entering the interrogation room with her sexy hips swaying and her luscious lips smiling was none other than—
Oh, sh-sh-sh-sh-shit!
The anticipation of finally seeing Brimley and Rover faded into outright terror. This was his guest? The woman who hated him? The goddess he’d dishonored by walking out on? Could this nightmare get any worse?!
“Per…Per… Persia?” he croaked, sure he was delirious and seeing things. Wishing he were seeing things. This couldn’t be happening!
Walker (In the Company of Snipers Book 21) Page 19
