Killers

by Olivia Gaines

  That shit was about to come to a rapid and unsatisfying end. First thing was first, and he had work to do. However, at the end of the night, the results were always the same: one ignorant ass son of a bitch was going to make him put his knife to their throat. Killing wasn’t his thing, but like all things in his world, he’d been taught the skill should he ever have to use it.

  He had the feeling, before the night was over, he was going to need every skill Eduardo Delgado had ever taught his son.

  SAN DIEGO

  As the head of the Cartel, Yuńior knew his father as the Fer De Lance, a venomous snake native to their country and single-handedly responsible for more human deaths than any other reptile. However, as the Bocaracá, a smaller viper, brightly colored, hunted at night and stuck to the trees; Yuńior knew his strengths.

  It was time to make his move.

  The darkened hold of the ship only lacked light because no one bothered to search for a means of illumination. The hour had passed and Yuńior found a dark corner to turn on his phone. Within moments of powering up, a message flashed through.

  Five hours. Help will arrive in five hours. Phone off. Back on in four and a half.

  He didn’t think they had that much time before the ship set sail. There had to be a way to delay the departure. Ideas bounced around in his head as he watched a very fair and blond Melissa move about the cargo hold. First thing was first.

  “Melissa,” he whispered, waving her over. Yuńior removed his gray jacket, telling her to put it on. Next he added the skull cap to the blond hair. He felt the walls of the ships innards, collecting dirt onto his hands and whatever else he could find, wiping it across her face.

  “Yuck, don’t put that on my face. It’s going to give me blemishes,” she said, swatting at his hands.

  “There is no room for your vanity,” Yuńior said, grabbing her by the arm and smearing the dirt over the pale skin. “You need to blend in.”

  Saying the words gave him an idea. He used his phone for light, shining it around the walls until he found a junction box. Opening the connector, he located the cut wires, quickly twisting them back together until the dark hold became illuminated. Voices rang out and hands shielded eyes, as Yuńior held his finger up to his lips asking for quiet.

  The faces of small children stared up at him. There were toddlers, teens, and everything in between. A few huddled together in fear, while others had given up hope, after witnessing the brutality of their captors, which showed in their eyes. This was no way for a child to live. In fear. Terrified from overheard stories of what would happen to them next.

  A loud sound made them all gasp. Yuńior held his finger to his lips as the door slid open to reveal a man with a wispy mustache and dark eyes that searched the hold, stopping on a small girl no more than eight years old. He moved forward to grab the girl, a look of lust in his eyes, but he stopped at the feel of cold metal against his neck.

  “Hey! What is this?” the man asked. “Who turned on these lights?”

  “Jeffe sent me in here to keep watch on the product,” Yuńior said, pressing the blade closer to the man’s carotid. “He doesn’t want the merchandise to arrive damaged.”

  “No one will miss her,” the man said, licking his lips.

  “I will miss her in my counts,” Yuńior said. “If I’m one short, then I will face his ire. But if you touch her, I’ll tell all the men on the ship, and there are a lot of them, that you are a baby raper.”

  “Oh, wait, it’s not like that,” the man protested, stepping back. “I was going to have her clean the bathrooms, make the beds, you know, help out around the ship.”

  “Liar,” Yuńior said, nicking the man’s skin with his blade. “Think of the number of men on the ship...how many is it...”

  “Forty-five, including the captain,” the man confessed swallowing hard. “The chef, he said he needed some help, too. I thought she could wash the fruit and meats. He is preparing meals now for when the men return. They will be hungry and eat anything. Chef could use some extra hands.”

  “Mentirosa,” Yuńior said in a thick Central American accent, nicking the man’s skin again. “Get out and send more water down to the hold. It stinks in here.”

  He pushed the man out of the door, leaving it slightly ajar. Yuńior had inherited his father’s head for numbers and did a quick count of the bodies in the hold. The tally came to 150. There were 45 men on the ship, more than likely heavily armed. Lucky for him the door wasn’t locked anymore since the idiot man believed Yuńior to be an employee as well. Two ideas came to mind as he sent Saxton a final message before turning off the phone.

  Forty-five men on ship.

  Will take a personal count to verify.

  Send a portable pot of Ms. Patsy’s chili.

  He turned off the phone, his attention now on the unwilling passengers. The door was open and he and Melissa could slip out, or at least he could, but when he left the ship, he planned to take them all with him.

  “Eschuche,” he said aloud. “Hermanos y hermanas, pair up por favor. If you’re alone with no family, come to this side. Family members to that side. I want to keep you together.”

  “Are you going to hurt us?” A small voice asked from the back of the group.

  “No, I’m going to help you, but you must follow my instructions, do as I say, and stay quiet until help arrives,” Yuńior said.

  “Will you leave us?” Another child asked.

  Yuńior paused as he looked at the cracked door. He needed to slip out and get an actual head count, but he didn’t want to leave the hold out of fear another man would try what the other had. In a few hours, death would begin to take control of his bloodstream as the venom from the blade entered into the man’s system.

  The children moved about finding a partner or making a new friend as they huddled up in small groups.

  “We are in this together,” Yuńior said, looking over at Melissa, who had the appearance of a chimney sweep from a movie Ryanne had shown them on family movie night; a dumb movie full of odd music about a man with a fiddle who lived on a roof or so he thought. “Smaller children who are alone, Melissa, bring them to your side and offer comfort.”

  “Ed, what are you doing?” she asked.

  “Melissa, can you, for one second, just do as I fucking tell you and stop questioning me?” Yuńior said, going to the door. He slipped through the opening to do a reconnaissance of the bottom level to get a better idea of the odds they were up against. A clear path out would also be nice to know, especially once help arrived.

  When it arrived, he would be ready for whatever came, one way or another.

  Chapter Five – Blind Luck

  1:30 AM, AUGUST 8, 2019

  The Nissan Cube handled smoothly as Mr. Yield located a parking spot just south of the main pier. A hasty departure left little time to book a rental car, leaving the task to his wife Millicent. Mr. Yield requested a non-descript vehicle with a bit of pick up, and that is what she chose. The saving grace was that it was a technologically advanced vehicle which synced with his iPhone and came with Apple Music. The drawback started with it being an orange box with a funky glass back window which would serve as the perfect frame to put a bullet in his head. His wife would no longer be allowed to pick the rentals.

  He hoped it didn’t come to such drastic measures, at least he didn’t plan for the day to end that way. His job was to find the target, secure the kid, and get him to Blakemore. That’s all he had to do.

  The hour had passed, and it was time for the young man to turn his phone back on per Saxton’s instructions, enabling Mr. Yield to track his location. Many ships rested in the harbor, and the sound of waves slapping against the sides of metal freighters took him back to his youth and fishing trips with his father, a pastor who served his country as the Chaplain for a Marine Amphibian Unit, which kept him on the water for the earlier parts of his marriage, a small fact that his mother often brought up. Reverend Johnson also had a love for boats, frigates
, and anything with a motor large enough to carry a man to sea. The Reverend went on summer fishing trips on chartered boats accompanied by his son where the good Reverend shared his knowledge, filling Mr. Yield’s head with random facts about maritime matters, which until this point had never been of use.

  “Thanks, Pops,” he said as he walked on the wharf, sizing up boats large enough to carry 150-200 bodies in the cargo-hold with sufficient venting for the passengers to breathe, which ruled out a great number of carriers at the furthest end of the pier.

  Sidling through the shadows, he moved down the line of mid-sized boats, stopping often to check the signal. The red light blinking in intermittent blips indicated was he was heading in the right direction, but not close enough for the red dot to stay constant. Mr. Yield moved down the line with ease, pausing to listen to the sounds of night on the wharf. The lack of human voices made the skin on his arms goose-pimple, and he stopped, straining his ears in the darkness and waiting for the sound of a voice. He heard a low whimper.

  Easing his way through the shadows, the sound of groaning man grew louder, followed by a woman’s sob. Mr. Yield pressed his back against the wall, easing sideways to not frighten the two people and not get himself shot. The moaning grew louder. Mr. Yield crept forward, his eyes scanning the night, looking, searching.

  “Oh shit,” he said, nearly running into the man and woman. “My bad. Sorry.”

  He stepped away, his hand to his nose trying to ward off the stench of the smelly customer being serviced. He wiped at his eyes to dismiss the horrible image of the woman in tattered hose on her knees. The man’s pants were around his waist, the smell nauseating Mr. Yield as the woman slurped at what he knew could have easily been the stinkiest set of balls known to man.

  “Hell, I should give her a 20 to just go home and clean out her mouth,” he mumbled, “but it would be just my blind luck to pull out a bill and get robbed.”

  He shrugged it off before following the signal again. The red dot became steady as he came upon a mid-sized ship. Looking up, Mr. Yield expected to see armed guards walking the deck. There were none. The gangplank was down, which in his assessment was an open invitation. He didn’t see a need to ask permission to come aboard, so he leisurely strolled up the gangway, his black clothes blending in with the night.

  “Cargo hold,” Mr. Yield said when his feet hit the deck. A loud voice came over an intercom, startling him.

  “Batten the hatches. We sail with the tide,” the Captain called. “Extra hands, secure the cargo in the hold.”

  Mr. Yield turned to find a man with a large weapon standing in front of him, a snarl covering his filthy face and light from a small window illuminating yellowish teeth that brought with them a wave of breath that indicated gum disease. Yield’s hands were empty, minus his phone.

  “Hey, I keep getting turned around,” Mr. Yield said. “This is a good size boat.”

  “Where you supposed to be?” the man with the gun asked.

  “Cap’n asked me to do a final count of the cargo and secure the doors before we set sail,” Mr. Yield said with ease. “I went to hit the head and come up for fresh air and got turned around.”

  Yield was unsure if the man was buying it or not, but the scar on his face gave the technician a menacing look. The gun wielding man pointed at the stairwell. A large sign read Cargo.

  “Thanks, man,” Mr. Yield said. “I need this job as fast as my kid is growing. I’m hoping that when we hit port, and I get paid, you know, a trip to Disney sounds real nice.”

  “Took my kid once,” the man said, walking along with Mr. Yield, “and the little fucker hated it. Wasted so much money. If your kid ain’t into that Disney shit, save your money, bro.”

  “That’s good advice,” Mr. Yield replied, looking down at his watch. “I’d better get moving.”

  He took the steps, going down into the belly of the ship, his normal nerves of steel rattled a bit while he looked for rapid exits to get out. One way in, one way out—two if a body bag could be included as a transportation means for finding a speedy way to exit the ship. Taking his phone from his pocket, he saw that the red dot was no longer sporadic, but steady and up ahead. The darkened passageways, lit by yellow lights barely casting enough hue to see the floor, slowed his steps. The red dot wasn’t moving. Mr. Yield assumed his target would be behind a wall or a door just around the bend.

  The uneasiness came back. His mind raced, wondering where the crew was and knowing for a boat of this size there should be more workers on this ship. Where had become a secondary point of concern while he lightened his steps to an almost tiptoe. The red dot hadn’t moved. Mr. Yield inhaled deeply, trying to slow his heart rate before rounding the corner and bumping into someone solid.

  “Oh shit, excuse me,” Mr. Yield said, looking at the young man he’d collided with, then smiled.

  “No worries,” the young man said in a thick Central American accent. “Where ya heading?”

  Mr. Yield had to look at the young man twice before realizing that his blind luck had paid off again. “I came to rescue you,” Mr. Yield said. “Blakemore sent me, but you don’t look like you need to be saved.”

  “Not me,” Yuńior said, arching his eyebrows at the efficiency of the man who’d shown up and walked right into him as if they were about watch the local bullfight. “Vamos, I show you.”

  He followed Yuńior down the long stretch, coming to a door that was closed. The light was still on inside as small faces looked up at the sound of the door sliding open. The smell slapped Mr. Yield in the face, and he tried not to hold his hand up to his face. A few children held bottles of water. Others held pieces of fruit, eating greedily.

  “This is why I called for help,” he said. “Me, I can leave easily. Them, not so much. We must place our heads together and create a course of action. We need a plan.”

  “No, I was contracted to find you and return you to Blakemore. None of this is in my contract,” Mr. Yield said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “These children followed their parents, relatives, and anyone else for miles, hoping for a better life, Señor,” Yuńior said standing toe to toe with him. “Imagine your faith in this dream of golden streets, dinner tables full of food, and beds to sleep in, only to end up here, waiting to be sold to perverts, sycophants, and collectors of innocence. They didn’t ask for this, so we must help, lest our sleep will never be filled with peace.”

  Yuńior’s eyes searched the room, looking for Melissa. His eyes rested in the corner on the smaller children, but there was no Melissa. He swore under his breath before asking in Spanish where she’d gone.

  “Manuel took her,” a young girl said. “He come to take Lupita. The lady- su amiga. She tried to stop him, but he hit her. The golden hair, Manuel liked. Then took her with him.”

  “Manuel?” Yuńior asked.

  An older girl, about 13, stepped forward. An ugly bruise rested on the side of her face, and there were dark circles hung under her eyes, but Mr. Yield spotted the same thing as Yuńior Delgado. Crimson stains ran down the seat and legs of the white pants she wore. The soft light from Mr. Yield’s flashlight added illumination to the situation. The girl’s eyes were dead.

  The pain she experienced may not have been anything new on her journey to a new life. The lack of expression on her face indicated that more than her innocence had been taken by the men of the ship. Yuńior thought of his little sisters. Anger surged through him but this was not a time to be emotional.

  “Did Manuel do that to you?” Yuńior asked.

  “Si, Señor,” the girl said. “I am Lupita, He and his two friends. In the room down the hall is where they took me. Where they take the older girls to hurt us. It is where they may have taken her, too.”

  “Stay here. We will return,” Yuńior said, cursing a blue streak in Spanish. He tapped Yield on the shoulder as he headed out the door down the hall. To Mr. Yield he commanded, “Close the door and secure the hatch.”

  “Hey, wai
t a damned minute. I don’t work for you,” Yield said, wondering what the hell the kid—no, Yuńior wasn’t a kid. He was a man who was going to step into a warm pile of shit neither of them would be able to get off their shoes.

  “As of this moment, you do,” Yuńior said, taking a brief pause to catch his own breath. “Right now, you’re all I have. Stop talking and let’s move.”

  A bloodcurdling scream crawled down the hallway, sounding like nails on dry chalkboard to Yuńior’s ears. His brain commanded his legs to run, listening to the sounds, waiting to hear it again. “Please Baby, scream one more time so I know where you are”, he said under his breath.

  Melissa must have heard his whispered plea, and she screamed again, allowing her Ed assistance in pinpointing her location. The noise emanated from a small door to a private cabin. He opened the door and stepped inside to two surprised faces.

  Melissa’s mouth was now silenced by a strip of gray duct tape as one man struggled to get her pants down and another ripped at her blouse.

  “Manuel,” Yuńior called out, making the big guy struggling with Melissa pants turn around. He never saw the Ninja star coming at his throat. The cry in his gullet silenced in mid yell while two more stars flew across the room, taking down the accomplices.

  Struggling on the bed, Melissa, with her arms bound to the head of the frame, cried tears of elation at seeing him. Yuńior wasn’t elated, but more pissed than he could mouth. Her breasts were exposed, the fear making her want to talk, the tape preventing her from saying anything stupid, but Yuńior knew his luck at staying anonymous and striking in the dark was running out.

  Stepping over Manuel and the pool of blood growing around his carcass, he cut the tape from around her wrists, freeing her arms. Melissa reached for the tape covering her lips, but he stopped her hands.

  She grabbed for the tape again.