by James Hilton
“I’m looking for a girl that went missing down here a week or so ago. Her name is Celine Chavez. She would have been travelling with three other kids. Two more women and a young man. All from the States.”
Danny held up the picture of Celine.
“Never seen her before,” said Benito with a voice devoid of emotion.
“Take a closer look!”
Benito stared at Danny for long seconds, his gaze alternating between the Scotsman’s weathered face and the Ruger that was now pointed at his chest. “They didn’t come in here.”
“Okay, so they didn’t come in here. Did any of you see them at all? Any of you?”
Benito ran his hand across the side of his face. The men behind him all remained silent. “We have nothing to do with the kids going missing.”
Danny gave the smallest of nods. “I believe you, but I also believe that a bunch of rough arses like you must know what’s going on in your own backyard.”
Benito fidgeted in his seat. He again ran his hand across his face. “We hear the stories like everyone else. Nothing to do with us, though.”
“Who takes them?” asked Danny.
The shrug given by Benito sent sparks of anger through the Scotsman.
“You shrug again and I’ll shoot one of those idiots behind you in the kneecap!” Danny aimed the Ruger at Robert’s leg. “Who takes the people that disappear?”
Benito closed his eyes for long seconds. A loud rumbling outside interrupted his answer. A large motorcycle was approaching.
“You expecting anyone else?” asked Danny.
“Guys come and go. I don’t keep a leash on all of them.” Benito began another shrug but stopped himself.
“Keep sitting as you are with your hands on the tables.” Danny’s tone held no room for negotiation.
The engine idled for a moment then fell silent. Seconds later, a loud cracking sound followed. Danny smiled briefly. He knew what had occurred.
Clay entered the bar with an unconscious body tucked under his left arm. A large purple bruise had already begun to swell on the left side of the man’s face. “Ding dong, Avon calling.”
Danny smiled as Benito looked up at the new arrival, his mouth agape. “Chollo…”
Chollo’s unconscious body was dumped without ceremony onto the floor next to Danny’s seat.
“Gatecrasher,” said Clay. The big Texan dropped to one knee and scooped up the two pistols. “Finders keepers.”
Danny tapped the butt of the Ruger twice against the tabletop. “Now, you were about to tell me what happens to the kids.”
Benito made fists then visibly relaxed as he began to talk again. “It doesn’t happen very often. The ones who disappear are usually in ones or twos. It’s rare that a group of four goes missing.”
“So, who takes them and where do they go?”
“I only know what I’ve heard. Not saying it’s the truth,” said Benito.
“Just tell me what you know.”
“There’s a place south of here, deep in the jungle, some kind of compound. I’ve heard that it is these men that take the kids.”
“Compound? Like a military base?” asked Danny.
“No, not military and not cartel.”
“If you say ‘el Diablo’, I’ll kick your arse.”
Benito smiled bitterly. “No, not el Diablo. Some kind of cult. I’ve heard that they take the kids and convert them into believers.”
Danny exchanged a brief look with Clay. “Believers in what?”
Despite the earlier warning, Benito gave another impassioned shrug. “I dunno, man, cult shit.”
Danny gritted his teeth. “Do you know where this compound is?”
“No. Again, only stories.”
“And what do the stories say?”
“That about fifty miles from here is a camp, the compound. The kids go into this compound and are never seen again. There is a small town nearby called Chios. Men from the compound sometimes show up in the town. Bad men. Gringos.”
“Chios?” Danny pulled his cell phone from his pocket and loaded the map app. “Show me where.”
“I don’t think Chios is on any map. It’s more of a… shanty town. It hasn’t been there for very long, maybe only ten years or so.”
“So how will I find it?” asked Danny.
“There is a Mayan site a few miles away. It has half a mile of white road. An ancient Mayan road has been found there with its surface still intact. I think it is around there somewhere. The town takes its name from the site.”
“So, it’s not Chacchoben?”
“No. Chacchoben is only a few miles that way.” Benito hooked a thumb over his shoulder.
“I was told that Celine and her friends may have been heading to the Chacchoben ruins. Could they have been taken from there?”
“Sí. There are a lot of quiet roads down here. Lots of opportunities to make someone disappear.”
“How about I make you disappear?” asked Clay.
Benito flinched as the menace in Clay’s voice carried across the bar.
“Show me on my phone where you think Chios might be,” said Danny.
The rest of the bar remained still, the men unmoving as Benito nervously scrolled his way through the map. Finally, he looked up at Danny, pointing to the screen. “Around there somewhere, I think.”
Danny tapped the screen and a small flag marked the indicated point. He regarded Benito with intensity. “Do you have anything else to tell me? Anything else that may be useful?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Okay, then.” Danny lifted the Ruger level with Benito’s forehead. “I’ll be taking this.”
Benito dipped his chin once but said nothing.
“Let’s keep this little afternoon chit-chat between us. If I hear otherwise, I’ll come back and put holes in all your precious parts. Understand?”
“Sí, I understand.”
Danny clicked the hammer of the Ruger back to its resting position. “It would be in your best interests to sit quiet and not move for at least five minutes after we’ve gone.”
19
Celine sat on the edge of the bed she had been told was hers. The other women in the room were stirring. How many hours had passed since the big guy with the hair had roughed her up? She wasn’t sure.
On the adjacent bed, Gillian Cole opened her eyes.
Celine scooted over to the side of her friend’s bed. “Gillian. Thank God you’re awake.”
Gillian blinked rapidly and began rubbing her face with both hands. She lurched drunkenly upright, then immediately flopped back onto the bed. “Uh, I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Here, sit up,” said Celine as she supported her friend’s shoulders. “Take deep breaths if you can.”
Gillian coughed and retched several times but brought up little more than a thin stream of saliva. “Can I have some water?”
“There isn’t any in here.”
Gillian looked at her friend then looked around the room, her eyes still glassy and unfocused. “Where the hell are we?”
A fearful tremor ran through Celine. Her voice was little more than a whisper. “I think we’ve been abducted. Kidnapped.”
“What?” A brief unbelieving smile crossed Gillian’s face, but quickly abated. “What in hell? Who the hell has kidnapped us?”
“I don’t know who they are. I’ve only seen one man, a big white-haired freak, he nearly choked me to death when I tried to get out of the door.”
“Are Marco and Laura here as well?”
Celine shook her head as tears began again to run down her face. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen them. I’ve only been awake a little while… I don’t know how long. My head is all mixed up. Everything is a blur. I think they must have drugged us. I don’t even know how long we’ve been here.”
Gillian pointed to the other two women who had begun to stir. “Who are they?”
Feeling helpless, Celine could do little more than shrug apo
logetically. “I don’t know, but I think they’re in the same crappy boat as we are.”
“They drugged us,” said Gillian, as her friend’s words finally registered with her. “How did we end up here? What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I’ve been trying to figure that out myself. My memories are jumbled. I remember being at the hotel and I remember the four of us setting off for the pyramids in the rental, but after that it’s all mixed up. Just odd flashes really.”
“Yeah. Marco wanted to see some ruins that hadn’t been properly explored…” Gillian’s brow furrowed.
Celine nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. Marco. Marco and…?”
“Laura!”
“Marco and Laura. Gillian and Celine. Just the four of us. Right?”
“Yeah, just the four of us. Do you remember getting to the ruins? I think I remember looking down into a giant sinkhole,” said Gillian.
“A cenote.” Celine nodded again as her friend’s words caused her own memories to surface slowly like bubbles in warm tar. “That’s right. We stopped near the ruins, couldn’t get any further with the car.”
“We met someone on the path?” Gillian looked for confirmation.
“Yes.” Both young women stared at each other as they tried to recall more details. Celine looked at the two other women on the adjacent beds, but they failed to spark any fresh recollections.
Gillian clenched her hands into fists. “It was a couple. Remember? The guy was tall and skinny, looked kind of goofy. His girlfriend was a lot shorter than him.”
“She had her hair in cornrows. Coloured beads in the ends,” added Celine. “A white girl with cornrows, I remember that now. We talked to them for quite a while. It was the guy who told us about the cenote.”
“Yeah and we all drank water from the cenote. The goofy guy went down and filled his canteen, remember. He told us it was the purest water on earth.”
“The canteen!” exclaimed Celine as logic filled another small part of the puzzle.
“Oh crap, the canteen must have been spiked,” said Gillian. She cupped her face in her hands. “Did he even get the water from the pool?”
“I can’t remember. I think we were too busy talking to Little Miss Cornrows. How could we be so stupid?”
“What the hell do they want with us?”
“They’ll probably try to ransom us back to our parents.”
“Kidnapped. Holy shit.”
“I don’t know how long we were out of it. Could have been hours,” said Celine. “I read about date rape drugs a few months back. The bastards probably doped us with Rohypnol or GHB… I can’t remember how long the drugs last. Shit, I suppose it depends on how much you were given.”
Gillian clasped both of Celine’s hands and pulled her close. A deep sob escaped her chest as she hugged her tight.
“I know, I’m scared too,” said Celine.
“It’s not just that.”
“What then?” asked Celine.
“I think we’ve been here longer than a few hours.”
“What do you mean?”
Gillian pointed to her legs. “I shaved my legs on the morning we set off for the ruins. Now look at them. That’s about a week’s growth.”
Celine recoiled as if she’d been slapped. “A week? No way! We would be sick as dogs without any food or water.”
“Well, I feel like death warmed up and you look like crap as well,” said Gillian. “I could have eaten and not remember.”
“I know, but a week?”
“Hey, maybe you’re right. I’m so mixed up. My head feels like I’m deep underwater. Even when you’re talking to me your voice sounds funny, kind of echoey, like you’re talking down a tube or something. My eyes hurt too.”
“That’s the drugs; they must still be in our systems, messing us up.” Celine held up her hand and touched her thumb to each of her fingers in turn. “I feel kinda numb. Same in my feet. Like pins and needles.”
“I feel like I’ve just come off a rollercoaster. My stomach is doing loop-the-loops. My head’s not much better.”
“Yeah,” agreed Celine. “I felt like that when I first woke up. Thankfully it passes.”
On the bed opposite Celine’s, the girl with the mocha skin rolled onto her side. Her eyes opened but remained unfocused. Both women, Gillian clinging to Celine for support, moved to the side of the black woman’s bed.
Celine squatted down, moving close enough to whisper in the stranger’s ear. “Hey, do you know where we are?”
She opened her mouth but voiced no answer.
“Hey,” Celine shook her by the shoulders, gently at first, then more vigorously. “Hey! Wake up. What’s your name? Do you know where we are? Hey! Hey!”
The young woman pushed feebly against Celine’s chest. Twisting to one side, she flopped back down onto the bed. Her eyes closed.
“Let her be,” said Gillian.
“I want answers,” said Celine, her face flushing red.
“I do too, but she’s still out of it. We’ll try again later.” Gillian moved to the window and pressed her palms against the metal frame, inspecting the criss-cross wire. “Shit.”
“I tried to open the door as well but some scary freak with white hair stopped me… hurt me. Did I tell you that already?” said Celine.
“I think so.” Gillian stepped towards the door. “I’m going to try anyway.”
Celine held up a hand in warning. “Wait.”
“We have to get out of here; find Marco and Laura.”
The short walk between the window and the door was interrupted as the fourth woman began to twitch and buck erratically on her bed. Within seconds, her arms and legs began to thrash back and forth in short and violent jerks.
Taken aback, Gillian stepped back in surprise. “What’s wrong with her?”
Celine stared at the convulsing woman in horror. She’d seen people having fits on television but never in real life. “I don’t know. Epilepsy?”
She was deathly pale. Thick foamy vomit filled her open mouth and ran down the sides of her face. The veins on the side of her throat bulged.
“Turn her on her side!” yelled Celine as she moved forward to help.
The woman coughed once, one final hollow whoop. Her eyes were instantly devoid of life.
“My God! She’s dead.”
“She was sound asleep ten seconds ago, and now she’s dead. Jesus Christ, what’s happening here?” Celine’s voice was strained with renewed fear.
“We’ve got to get the hell out of here!”
“We need to be careful!” Celine pointed to the small inverted dome on the ceiling. “I think they’re watching us.”
Gillian extended her middle finger to the camera in defiance. “We’ve got to try. Come on.”
Both women jumped in surprise as the door was flung open. The man with the white hair stared at them with undisguised pleasure. “It’s time.”
20
“Mexico sucks!” declared Clay.
“No, trying to find an unnamed set of ruins that isn’t on the map sucks.”
“Yeah, well, for now all of Mexico sucks.”
“At least we’re one step closer to finding Celine and the others, and now we’ve got some basic kit,” said Danny as he examined the procured weapons. The two matt-black pistols were identical: Glock 17s. Older models, but in good condition, and loaded with full magazines. Seventeen rounds in each.
Clay hunched over the steering wheel. “We don’t even know if they work properly. Only one clip each, so we can hardly go plinking tin cans now, can we.”
“Pull over.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, ya big ape,” said Danny.
Before the Jeep had fully stopped moving, Danny sprang from the vehicle. With a Glock in each hand he sighted upon the trunk of a tree some twenty feet away. The pistol in his left hand fired. A triangular sliver of tree bark spun into the air. The pistol in his right hand spat a single bullet. Another chunk of b
ark sprang from the tree an inch from the first.
“There, they both work.” Danny climbed back into the vehicle. He gave Clay a double thumbs-up to add to his irritation. “You want me to test the Ruger as well? We’re in the middle of nowhere with no one to hear it.”
“Not much can go wrong with a revolver. I’ll save those six shots for someone who deserves them.”
“We just have to find the bastards first.”
“Sooner the better. I just hope she’s okay. I have to get her home safe.”
“I know, big bro. We will. If I was lost, I couldn’t hope for anyone better to come looking for me than you. Sebastian and Salma know that, too.”
“Oh man, you didn’t see their faces. The look in their eyes was horrible. I’ve never seen anyone look as bad. You know how happy-go-lucky they both are, Salma was like The-friggin’-Exorcist, she was so upset. And Seb just looked so… ashamed.”
Danny nodded. “At least he didn’t come charging down here, and then not be able to bring Celine home once he’d found her. He did right waiting for you.”
“I’m not sure they were waiting for me. I just happened to turn up at the right time. I think they were just going around in circles trying to get information from the authorities down here.”
“Hey, take this next turn on the right. I think this may be the road we need. This should take us towards Chios.”
“You call that a road?” asked Clay. The gap in the trees was barely wide enough to steer the Jeep into. Leafy branches scraped along the roof and sides of the vehicle as they entered the dark green portal. The light dimmed almost immediately as the jungle threatened to envelop them.
Clay braked and pointed at the road ahead. “It just keeps getting better and better.”
A fallen tree spanned the width of the narrow road.
“I’ll go check it out.” Clay reached for the Ruger. “You watch my back just in case this is a trap.”
Danny nodded and picked one of the Glocks from the side of his seat. It was an old highwayman ruse that had been around since the days of the horse and carriage. The bandits would block the road and when the occupants of the vehicle began to move the obstruction, they would find themselves staring down the business end of a musket.
