by J. M. LeDuc
This time it was different. She heard footsteps and voices. Her pulse quickened as the voices neared. She waited until they were so clear that she knew they had to be just on the other side of the door.
Both hands on her semi-automatic, she held it straight out in a classic shooters stance and waited for the door to open.
It didn’t.
Instead, the guards must have reversed their direction and walked the other way because their voices began to get softer again. More importantly, so did the sound of their footsteps.
As soon as the voices were faint enough that all she heard was murmuring, she opened the door, dropped flat on her belly, and plugged both. Their knees buckled and they hit the floor―dead.
Sin checked the rooms, expecting and finding no one, dragged the bodies into the stairwell, and made her way to the fifth floor.
The fifth and sixth were empty.
She knew she would find resistance on the seventh. Veloz’s hideout. Before ascending the stairs to the seventh floor, she removed the clip from her weapon and reloaded. What the hell, she said to herself as she pulled back the slide and chambered a bullet, if this is the last thing I do, I’m going out in a blaze of fucking glory.
Sin crept up the stairs to the top floor, trying not to even breathe if it wasn’t necessary.
Surprisingly, she didn’t hear any sound coming from the hallway.
This did not sit well with her psyche.
There have to be guards on the floor.
Sin looked at her watch―it was almost two a.m. She needed to finish this mission and be out of the building by daylight. She hated the idea, but she had to play a waiting game.
Approximately thirty minutes later, she heard the door to a room close. Listening with her ear to the door, she heard three distinct sets of footsteps. This is more like it, she thought.
The guards seemed to stay near Veloz’s room because their footsteps never got louder and they didn’t speak.
She gave them enough time to see if they were going to walk a sentry or just stay put. They stayed put.
From what Charlie had told her, the building did not have electricity, although Veloz ran a generator in his room. His reconnaissance photos showed a generator on the balcony of his suite.
She knew they were loud when they were running, and she hoped the humming of the generator would cover her suppressed fire.
She eased the door open and peaked down the darkened hall. A dim battery-operated light showed a fuzzy, obscure glow in the hall. Two shadowy figures sat―probably sleeping—in chairs while one stood outside of Veloz’s door smoking.
She took out the one standing first and quickly dismissed the other two before a word or shot could be fired from any of them.
Sin made her way down the hall and stood, back against the wall next to Veloz’s apartment.
She heard nothing but the droning of a television and the humming of the generator.
Sweat poured down her face as her adrenaline reached a new high. She closed her eyes for a moment and thought, It’s now or never, Sin. This is what you came here for. She nodded as if to give herself permission, and tried the doorknob.
Locked.
A thought came to her as she was planning how to get into the room. She checked the guards’ pockets and found a key with a corresponding number to the condo.
She slid it into the keyhole, scrunched up her face, and gritted her teeth, hoping the tumblers would move silently. Her body relaxed as the key turned in an efficient, smooth manner.
Sin opened the door, staying behind the safety of the wall. Peering to the side, she was able to ascertain that the room was in the living area of a two-room suite. From the eerie glow of the television, she saw Veloz’s bodyguard asleep on the couch and a young girl tied up and sleeping on the only chair in the room. Easing herself into the room, she silently made her way toward the guard.
The couch was situated such that his head was closest to her. She reversed her sidearm and held it by the barrel like a hammer. With a powerful blow, she cracked the butt end of the grip against the guard’s temple. She checked his carotid artery for a pulse. He was alive, but he wasn’t going to wake up any time soon.
Sin made her way to the little girl and put her hand over the child’s mouth so she couldn’t scream. The girl woke up in a fright—eyes wide, body trembling. She tried to scream, but Sin covered her mouth with more force.
The girl didn’t appear to be more than twelve or thirteen years old.
Whispering in the child’s ear, Sin told her that she was there to help and that the girl needed to trust her.
The frightened child continued to shake in terror.
Sin brought her pistol in front of the girl’s eyes to let her see the grip and brought her lips to the girl’s ear. “YO soy la Perla Angel. He venido a llevarte a casa, pero tienes que estar muy tranquila para mí. ¿Puedes hacerlo?” I am the Pearl Angel. I have come to take you home, but you need to be very quiet for me. Can you do that?
Tears flowed down the girl’s cheeks as she nodded vigorously.
Sin knelt in front of her and smiled. “I need to keep you tied up for a little while longer in case anyone comes in,” she whispered. “No matter what you hear from the other room, I need you to stay quiet.”
The little girl again nodded.
Sin kissed her gently on her cheek—tasting the salt of her tears—and ran her fingers through her long black hair.
The door between the two rooms was ajar and light was coming from the adjacent bedroom. Sin could hear Veloz having his way with a woman.
Pig, she thought.
Sin took a deep breath and burst into the room, both hands on her weapon. Sin’s eyes darted around the room before locking on to Veloz. “Say one word, asshole,” she said through gritted teeth, “and I’ll blow your nuts off.”
Veloz tried to reach for his gun, but his girth and the weight of the naked woman sitting on top of him slowed his movements. Sin fired one bullet straight through his shoulder.
The woman was so drugged up, she just sat there and continued to try and ride Veloz. With his good hand, he backhanded the woman so hard, she practically took flight. She landed with a hard thud on the cement floor.
Sin reached down with one hand to help the woman up, while keeping her eyes and gun on Veloz.
For her trouble, the woman slapped her hand away and spit at Sin.
“Girlfriend?” Sin asked in Spanish.
Veloz’s eyes were dilated and a cold sweat poured off his corpulent flesh. He looked high as a kite. A laugh void of emotion emitted from his trout-like lips as he lay, naked to the world. His good hand covered his wound and blood oozed between his fingers. “Justo otra puta,” he groaned. Just another whore.
He nodded toward the nightstand and spoke in very heavy accented English. “I seems to be out of hands, you help me out?”
Sin decided to play his game and reached into her own pocket and fished two cigarettes out of a pack. Keeping her eyes on the prize, she lit them both and handed one to Veloz. With a trembling hand and bloody fingers, he put the cigarette to his mouth and inhaled.
“Your English has gotten better since the first time we met,” Sin said.
“It helps in my line of work,” Veloz moaned.
Sin looked at the woman on the ground who was now crawling toward the door. With the sole of her boot, she pushed the woman over and told her to lie still. “Stay on your back and don’t move. That’s one thing you should know how to do.”
Again, Veloz laughed.
The woman—eyes wild and red—spit again in Sin’s direction. Sin pushed her harder, rolling her further away from her and the door. “Bitch,” she said, “God knows what diseases she’s carrying.”
Veloz laughed a phlegm filled laugh. “Diseases? What you care about diseases? You’ll never make it out of here alive.”
Sin grabbed a desk chair and turned it so she was sitting straddling the back. “I might not get out of here alive
, but I sure as hell am not going anywhere alone.”
Veloz exhaled another lungful of smoke and was about to say something when Sin shut him up.
“You and I are going to have a conversation,” she said.
Veloz squinted and glared at Sin. “Fuck you!”
Sin waved her gun in front of Veloz. “Judging from my vantage point, you don’t have what it takes.”
Veloz flicked his cigarette at her and went to yell when she fired a bullet into his other shoulder. Before he could scream, she was off the chair and smothering the fat man with a pillow.
“I would love to suffocate your fat ass, but I have questions that you’re going to answer.” With a final shove, she removed the pillow from his face.
Veloz struggled for a breath like a drowning victim coming up from the deep. When he opened his mouth wide, Sin stuck the barrel of her gun in his mouth.
She thumbed the hammer back and applied slight pressure to the trigger. “Do I have your attention, asshole?”
Veloz nodded as best he could with the barrel buried in his mouth.
“How are you getting the girls to Heap?”
She removed the barrel of the gun, so he could speak.
“What you talking ‘bout?”
Sin lowered the gun and shot out his right knee.
“Fuck!” The word was guttural and weak.
His agony was stifled by the barrel back in his mouth. “I have more bullets than you have joints, is that understood?”
Veloz’s extremities began to quiver as did a slight facial twitch.
“I will ask you again, how do you get the girls to the Keys?”
Veloz’s strength seamed to wan as the twitching and trembling increased. “A fish . . . fishing boat picks them up from pier behind building.”
“See, that wasn’t so hard. Next question, when is the next shipment?”
“Sunrise, a boat will come.”
“Where are the girls now?”
“How fuck I know. I just know they be here at sunrise to meet boat.”
“Then what happens?”
“The merchandise is inspected,” a perverted smirk swept over him, “maybe I keep pick of litter for myself, and money is exchanged for whores.”
Sin backhanded him with the butt of her gun. “They are innocent young children, not whores.”
Veloz sat back up in the bed and steadied himself. “Maybe in your world, but in this one, they are what I want them to be.” He spoke without emotion. It was enough to make Sin’s flesh crawl. “Even their parents don’t want them. Do you think the parents don’t know what is going to happen to their babies? Hell, they dress them up and make them look pretty just so my men will pick them.”
Sin knew this to be true but hearing it still hurt.
“They would rather have the money we give them than their own children. When money is paid, they are merchandise,” he sneered. “If you kill me, what do you think will happen? Do you think this all go away?” he said. “Another one just like me is going to come along and do the same thing.”
Sin ignored his last comment. “Tell me about the girl in the other room.”
“Ahh,” he smiled. “She is special. She is to be a gift to El Presidente.”
Sin shoved her gun forward, pressing the end of the barrel to Veloz’s forehead. “Who the fuck is El Presidente?”
Veloz laughed. “If I told you, I would die a much worse death than you could ever imagine.”
“What is the girl’s name?”
“It will be whatever is chosen for her. For now it is Tia.”
Sin kept a stone-cold demeanor, not letting on the name meant something to her. That was why Alejandra couldn’t find her daughter, she never left Nicaragua.
Sin shook the thoughts from her mind. “I’ll ask you one more time, who is El Presidente?”
Veloz spewed a frothy laugh. “You are very good at your job,” he said, “it’s too bad we couldn’t have worked together.”
Sin held her pistol toward Veloz’s other leg. “I’m pretty sure I won’t miss from here. Care to change your answer?”
Sin could see that Veloz’s color was completely ashen and looked cold and clammy. “I don’t know. All I know is that he is part of your own government and he calls the shots along with Black Widow.”
“Stop with the bullshit and give me names.” She pressed the muzzle of the gun against his forehead.
Veloz gurgled a blood frothed laugh. “Names? You know how game is played. If I knew names, I would be dead a long time ago.”
Sin became flush with anger.
She knew the mole had to be high up in the chain of command, but she didn’t know he was part of the human trafficking ring.
Her expression must have given her away.
“What’s the matter, Angel? They are no different than you or me,” he nodded toward the woman crawling on the carpet, “or the whore over there. We all want something and will do anything to get it.”
His words got Sin’s attention. “Care to explain?” she said.
Veloz, feeling superior for the first time in this exchange, sat a bit straighter. “The whore will do anything for her next high.” Sin followed his eyes. “Look at her, she will crawl naked across the floor just to try to get to the cocaine on the table. Pff,” he mumbled, “for the needle, she will spread her legs or open her mouth for anybody.”
Sin watched the woman as she reached the table and stuck her face in a bowl of coke, snorting with her remaining strength. Lifting her head, she looked like a kid eating a powdered donut.
“Me,” Veloz said totally unfazed, “I do what I do for power.”
“You mean money,” Sin said.
“You insult me, Angel. I have more money than I can ever spend. Power is my―how you say in English―my aphrodisiac. Drugs, girls, guns,” he paused, an evil expression flushed his complexion, “they are all the same to me—merchandise. I go where the power is.”
“That’s why you’re switching to guns?”
“That, and these sick bastards,” he said. “Even I don’t like what they do with the girls.”
His words brought Sin back to the reason she was here. “What are they doing with the girls?” She remembered the studio in the back of the church, the blood found on the stage and prayed her premonition was wrong. “Are they filming the torture of these girls?”
Veloz coughed up and spit blood. “You are even better than I ever imagined. It’s a shame you won’t be alive to stop them.”
Sin leaned forward and stuck the barrel of the revolver in Veloz’s chest.
He struggled to inhale. “These peoples is the worst,” he wheezed, “they love two things.”
Sin put more of her weight on his chest. “What things?”
“Money and torture,” Veloz gurgled.
“You never told me what I want—what makes me tick,” Sin snarled.
“You want what you cannot have―justice.” The word squeaked as it made its way out of his throat.
Sin reached behind her and slid the Balisong from her pocket. With a flick of her wrist, she opened it, all the time watching Veloz’s eyes. She dropped her gun, and held the blade against his neck. “One last time,” she sneered, “who is running this operation?”
Veloz glared at her through blood red eyes. “I don’t know!”
“Then you’re no good to me.” She bent closer and placed her lips close to Veloz’s ear. “I always get what I want,” she whispered. Leaning back, Sin looked in Veloz’s eyes. “This is for Manuel.”
Sin grabbed a pillow and placed it over Veloz’s face. Before he could even react, she slid the Balisong across his throat killing him instantly. The pillow prevented her from getting hit with the arterial spray.
Sin checked on the coke-whore.
Dead of an overdose.
Sin went into the bathroom and scrubbed Veloz’s blood from her hands.
31
Sin checked the time—it was five a.m.
S
he assessed her situation and sent a text to Charlie.
The boat should be here soon, she thought. I need to move fast.
Sin checked on the guard. He still lay unconscious on the couch.
She untied Tia and said, “I need you to be a big girl for me a little while longer, can you do that?”
Tia nodded, squirming as she stood.
“Do you need to go to the bathroom,” Sin asked.
“Si, Angel.”
Sin let her go into the bathroom, made sure the door was shut, and went back and put a bullet in the head of the bodyguard.
Sin led her down the stairs, reversing her steps. All the security had been eliminated, so it was an easy trip. They made their way out the same way Sin came in and hid in a tiki bar down by the pier.
Sin got up the courage to ask her if anyone had hurt her. Tia told her that she had been very scared, but that no one hurt her. She then leaned against Sin and wrapped her frail arms around her.
Relieved, Sin kissed the top of Tia’s hair, closed her eyes, and rested.
Just before sunrise, she heard the faint sound of a boat motor and the sound of a truck approaching.
Sin crouched low and listened. She heard the truck’s engine shut off and two men order the girls out of the back. She could hear whimpering, but no one screamed.
The sound of the boat engine became much louder as it neared. When it sounded like it was idling, Sin figured it must have reached the dock. The sound of footsteps coming from the direction of the dock told her that her feelings were correct.
Sin gestured to Tia to stay put and not to scream.
Tia’s eyes grew wide and she started to tremble.
Sin leaned forward and gave her a slight peck on her cheek. “Everything will be fine, I promise,” she whispered.
With a gentle hand, she pushed Tia beneath the bar where she would be the safest.
Sin could hear the men talking, wondering where Veloz was. She heard multiple pairs of footsteps on the wooden dock and then a different sound when the girls were corralled on the boat. She peered over the bar and saw five men standing in a group, one was on a radio trying to reach Veloz. The others stood around watching.
