“Now then,” the man began anew, “as I was trying to say!”
He paused, as if daring someone to say anything. Classic power move.
Already I could tell I was going to supremely dislike this man.
“You are all now our guests. Do not ask who we are, do not ask where we are. Do not even look us directly in the eye. Do as we instruct and my men will not hurt you.
“Do not, and I cannot guarantee your safety.”
The faces around me continued to register extreme terror. Everybody seemed to edge their way toward the sides, people crowding closer from every direction, recoiling from the intruder.
Which was exactly the wrong thing to do in such a situation.
Not that any of them had a single reason to know that.
“Okay,” the man said. “Right now, you are all going to follow me out of here. You are going to move in a slow and ordered fashion and you are going to listen to everything my men say. Is that understood?”
A couple of heads nodded slightly. Most stood in complete silence, shock apparent.
A quick glance around the place showed that most of the people on board had been like Rembert. They were a little older, with the kind of financial standing to afford such a trip. Many had probably built a life with a nice home and all the furnishings a person could hope for.
This sort of thing didn’t happen to them. This sort of thing was reserved for the evening news. It was the kind of event that they sat and watched on television, shared their sympathies for, and maybe wrote a check to charity to ease their conscious about after the fact.
It was not something they’d ever fathomed facing in their own life.
Given my position, I couldn’t see the man doing the speaking as he stood at the front of the bus. Not until he stepped off could I grab a glimpse of him through the side window.
Shorter than I would have expected, he had thick hair and a matching mustache, both dyed a ridiculous midnight black. His middle was quite prodigious, emphasized by a polo tucked tight into jeans.
No uniform or insignia of any kind on his person, or those of his men.
Meaning he didn’t want to be identified.
Taking a few steps to the side, he stood with his arms folded as his men waited at the ready, weapons held before them.
A couple of feet away, passengers filed off the bus, their gazes averted and their shoulders rolled inward. Standard submissive stances, whether they even realized it.
The same exact one I would soon be taking.
No use in provoking anybody, or even having them look my way, until I’d had time to gather some more information.
Namely, who these men were and what they wanted.
Extending one finger out from my side, I jabbed it into Rembert’s hip. “Leave the bag.”
Flicking his gaze my way, his eyes narrowed slightly. “Hmm?”
“Leave the bag,” I whispered a second time. “No point in giving them a reason to look your way.”
Confusion came first to his brows before spreading over his face. “You sure?”
“Positive,” I said. “But give me the sat phone first.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The trip from Atlanta back to Washington D.C. had taken just over an hour. Most of that Charles Vance and Director Joon spent in conversation, trading first impressions and trying to troubleshoot what they envisioned moving forward.
Upon arriving back at Langley, they both agreed to break for three hours to rest. Given the stretch they were both coming off of, and what the coming day or two promised, they agreed that a bit of sleep would be for the best.
Two hours and forty minutes of that, Vance spent on a twin sized cot deep in the underbelly of the building. Sequestered in a closet-sized room made for that purpose, it was a timeless environment, completely dark and free of noise from the outside.
An instant after laying down, he was unconscious. Not bothering with REM sleep, his body succumbed straight to darkness until the alarm beckoned him a few hours later.
At that point, he rose and shook off as much off the grogginess as possible. The rest he left for twelve minutes under the hottest water he could stand.
Exactly three hours after stepping off the plane, he entered the central conference room on the main floor. Wearing the suit he’d grabbed before heading to Atlanta, his hair was still damp, his eyes clear.
Arriving at the same time and in the same attire, Joon looked to be much the same.
“Director.”
“Vance,” Joon replied, nodding curtly.
Side by side, they stepped into the room, a staff of more than a dozen already assembled and waiting for them. Together, they were clustered around a conference table twice the size of the one Vance and his crew had used two nights prior.
Made of dark wood, it was polished to a shine, the CIA emblem embossed in the center of it. Placed at two different intervals was a tray of coffee and all the necessary extras.
The smell was borderline intoxicating.
Pushing the scent aside for just a moment, Vance instead focused on his team sitting on the far side. Closest to the head of the table was Hannah Rowe, followed in order by Peter Reiff and Dan Andrews.
Each stared at Vance as he approached the table, though nobody said a thing.
Across from them were a trio of individuals Vance had never seen before, each looking to Joon.
Around the outside of the room was another half-dozen extra hands, each young and eager to track down anything that was needed.
All the makings of a war room if there ever was one.
Getting straight to business, the assembled mass had fallen to compiling everything they knew and everything they could possibly speculate on. With a constant eye for the clock, they worked steadily through the afternoon, all waiting for the appointed time.
A time that, as far as Vance could now tell, had come and gone.
Standing off to the side, he had his arms folded over his chest. Time and again he glanced at the red digital clock on the opposite wall, the numbers telling him that the plane should have landed more than twenty minutes earlier.
“Are we absolutely certain that there has been a touch down?” Joon asked. Assuming the same stance as Vance, he paced at the far end of the table.
The question was aimed at nobody in particular, a bevy of people all rushing to provide an answer.
“Yes,” a young woman with dark hair pulled into a bun said. “LATAM Airlines flight 681 is confirmed to have landed at Bolivar International Airport twenty-one minutes ago.”
Again, Vance flicked his gaze to the clock.
Twenty-one minutes was a lifetime. Long enough for an entire cabin to have deplaned. Or have been abducted. Or mass murdered.
Certainly long enough for one of their contacts to have checked in.
“And as yet, we have no word from any of our guys?” Joon asked.
This time, the question was fielded more as rhetorical. Each person on his side of the table averted their gaze, nobody wanting to be the one to state the obvious.
Of course there had been no word. Every last person in the room would know by now if there had been.
“How about our asset in the field?” Joon asked.
This time, it was Rowe’s turn to respond. “Agent Ramirez last made contact three minutes prior. No word from anybody yet.”
Only a few feet separating them, Vance and Joon exchanged a glance. This was one of the many things they had discussed on the way up, an eventuality neither had wanted to acknowledge.
President Underall had not shared with his Venezuelan counterpart what exactly would be taking place, but it was known that something would likely be attempted. That conversation was made under the highest of classifications, a pact that was only as good as the two sides taking part in it.
On their end, neither worried about the president sharing something he shouldn’t have.
As for Salazar and the leaks that could be present in a country
such a Venezuela, neither had wanted to speculate.
Now, it looked like they would have no choice but to do just that.
“No messages in or out,” Joon said, the comment directed at Vance.
“Which could mean that our guys were found and silenced in the air-” Vance began.
“Unlikely,” Joon inserted.
“Or that the airport – or rather, the people on that flight - are now being jammed,” Vance finished.
He didn’t bother expounding further. The director would know exactly what he was referring to.
The best they could hope for was that the passengers were being held somewhere with transmission signals blocked.
A muscle twitched in Joon’s cheek as he stared at Vance. Slowly, his head rocked up and down slightly, no more than a few millimeters in either direction.
Neither man could say much more out loud, but it wasn’t that hard to envision it playing out. Salazar knew something was imminent, especially with Belmonte set to give his final speech in just a few hours.
All he would have had to do was keep an eye on traditional modes of transportation, be prepared to spring if something unusual surfaced.
Something like an aircraft bound from Atlanta to Punta Arenas suddenly needing to make an emergency landing.
At the time, sitting in the president’s office, every person present had been in favor of the idea. It gave them the most plausible mode of entry, especially on such a short timeframe.
Now looking at in retrospect, it was borderline foolish. The sort of thing that would be a glaring aberration to anybody looking for one.
“Who else do we have in the area?” Joon asked.
Vance knew he already had the answer, though he said, “Just Agent Farkus, who is currently getting ready for tonight’s speech.”
The same bitter look returned to Joon’s face as he glanced at the clock on the wall. Pulling Farkus off without compromising him at this point would be nearly impossible.
And it would completely nullify any assistance he might be able to provide with Belmonte later on.
“Christ,” Joon spat. Swiping a hand at the table, he sent a stack of papers flying, sheets spreading in a wide arc across the floor.
After, he stood staring down at them for a moment, saying nothing, before shifting his attention back to the table.
“Keep trying to get our guys on the line. I have to go brief President Underall.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The sat phone went down the front of my pants. Not the back, as that would cause an unnatural bulge that would be noticed, especially given the stance I was taking upon exiting.
Much like many of the people that stepped off the bus at the beginning, I chose to adopt a posture of complete submission. My shoulders were rolled forward. My head was tilted downward, allowing my shaggy hair to hang down over my eyebrows.
Adding a little extra was the fact that I was coming out right beside Rembert, the man’s girth making me look even smaller by comparison.
At a six-foot-four, I was by no means a small man. Living and working in the wilderness meant that my frame still much resembled what it did when I left the DEA years before. Designed more for function than form, overinflated weight room muscles didn’t really do much for me.
All of those things were now playing in my favor. Years of working in the region had shown me two incontrovertible truths about many of the men that lived there.
That they tended to be a bit on the smaller side, and that they were aggressively aware of it.
Given the current situation, they would be looking to flex their dominance over us. They would look with blazing hostility as each person exited, almost daring us to match the glare.
From there, it was anybody’s guess how exactly they would react.
The only certainty would be that it wouldn’t end well for whoever was on the opposite side.
Still much too early in the process to be antagonizing anybody, I chose to appear as meek as possible. Hidden beneath my hair and beard, I cast sideways glances as we passed from the bus into the space.
Not once did I stare at anyone directly, or let my gaze linger longer than necessary.
The place appeared to be an abandoned warehouse of some sort. With a low ceiling and a staircase running up the side wall, it looked to be the loading portion of some sort of shipping facility.
Adding to that impression was a stack of crumbling pallets in the back corner. On the ground were rubber streaks from forklifts used long ago, the lines punctuated by the occasional spot of oil.
In the air, faints traces of fuel and cardboard could be detected.
Despite more than a hundred people having crammed into the bus, over half were already gone by the time we made it off. Of those, a decent percentage was moving in a loose gaggle toward the stairs, men with automatic weapons walking on either side like ranch hands leading cattle to pasture.
Moving along in what could best be called a zombie slog, they reached the foot of the stairs and began to ascend. To their credit, nobody seemed to be putting up any resistance.
Tears streamed down many faces, both men and women.
An understandable reaction, for sure.
“All of you, come together and stand right here,” the man from the front of the bus said. Even shorter up close, he stood with his hands on his hips. His extended chest accentuated the bulk of his midsection.
As did the pair of guards standing with Kalashnikovs beside him.
Obeying his command, the group shuffled toward him. Totaling maybe thirty, my furtive glances confirmed that it was comprised of a two-to-one female-to-male ratio. Of those, no more than a handful appeared to be minors.
Luckily, there were no babies or children too small to run should it come to that.
Once everyone was in position, the man said, “My men will now lead you to your room. Like I warned you before, if you try anything, we will shoot you.
“The other groups did as they were instructed, and they are all now safely upstairs.”
In a slow and measured movement, he swung his gaze across the group. Partially tucked behind Rembert, he seemed to barely notice me, instead lingering on a pair of young college co-eds a few feet over.
Something that helped me in the immediate, but could be a problem for all of us in the long term.
“What is going on right now,” he said, “it does not concern you. If all goes to plan, twelve hours from now you will return to your plane and be on your way.”
The words were meant to be placating, but for me, they only served as an added warning. A harbinger of heightened danger for sure.
Most people would hear what he just said and assume that was a good thing. Any quarrel was not with them. Soon enough, they could be on their way.
Having spent time around men like him, all it told me was the fact that we presented no actual value in the slightest.
Once whatever leverage we could provide was exerted and completed, we would be cast aside without a care.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The structure was two stories in height, but the space was not divided equally between them. While the first floor was fifteen or more feet in height, the ceiling of the second floor looked closer to eight. If I was to reach up, my fingertips would likely be just shy of it, bringing with it the effect that the walls were closing in tight from every direction.
An impression that seemed to heighten the fear of every person present in the room.
Moving in a loose queue, we exited off the staircase into a hallway. Made of bright white walls and matching tile floors, a yellowing effect had set in with age and going unused.
Entering from the side, we were just short of one end, double doors a few feet away.
Spaced evenly along the hall in the opposite direction were a handful of doors, more than half a dozen by my count. Three of them stood closed and barricaded, a pair of armed guards standing outside each one, eyeing us as we passed.
For our part, we were led to the last door down on the left. The lead guard took us as far as the threshold before stepping to the side. Using the tip of his gun as a pointer, he gestured for us to go through.
One at a time, people disappeared within. Those of us at the end did our best to continue giving the impression of movement, lifting our feet and putting them right back down, avoiding eye contact the entire time.
Toward the end of the line, I eventually stepped into the room to find it a barren square no more than thirty feet on either end. The walls and floor matched the same aged appearance as the hallway.
Located in the corner of the structure, the windows were covered with sheets of plywood, shiny screw heads visible every few inches.
Whoever had cobbled this together had certainly put in some prep work ahead of time.
Above, the ceiling was standard office fare, Styrofoam squares laid out in a grid interspersed by tubular lights hidden behind frosted glass.
Otherwise, there was no furniture of any kind. Not even chairs for people to sit on.
And certainly nothing that could be fashioned into a weapon.
Maintaining the same pose I had since exiting the bus, I walked directly to the back corner and pressed my shoulder into it. Using it for support, I slid my body down a few inches, making myself seem even smaller.
There, I waited.
Once the last of the file was inside, the lead guard stepped into the room. He bandied about in excited Spanish for a few moments, waving his hands and jabbing his weapon our direction.
Each time he did, it elicited the reaction he wanted, someone inside giving an obligatory squeal.
Prattling on for several minutes, the guard eventually ran out of steam. Panting slightly, he gave his best angry glare before turning on a heel and exiting the room.
In his wake, the door was slammed closed. A moment later, a series of screws being inserted into the wood could be heard, securing it from the outside.
Working his way toward the back of the room, Rembert managed to nudge aside an older couple. Ignoring their withering glare, he positioned himself so he was facing me, both of us tucked tight into the corner.
Hellfire: A Suspense Thriller (A Hawk Tate Novel Book 4) Page 9
