Guardian Knight

by Aarti V Raman

  Thankfully, they’d left her canvas sneakers to wear when they’d taken her just-broken running shoes.

  She paced the room, banged on the wooden door that refused to budge and tried to haul the table near the window so that she could climb out. Or shout for help. Nothing worked. The table was grouted to the stone floor. Where she would have to sleep if she ever slept at all.

  She wished she knew where Brand was. Just knew that he was alright.

  She muttered, “This is pointless.” And went back to banging on the door.

  Shouting in Spanish. In broken Portuguese. In English.

  “Where is Brandon Rice? What have you done to him? What do you want? Let him go. He has nothing to do with this. Let him go, damn you all.”

  Her hands were raw from banging on the hard surface, and she didn’t know how much time passed finally. She slid down against the table, and curled up. Her chin dropped to her knees.

  They couldn’t have killed him.

  Why hadn’t they killed her?

  What were they waiting for?

  ~~~~

  A few nerve-wracking minutes later, there was a polite knock on her door.

  It galvanized her into action. She picked up the oil-lamp, uncaring that some of her skin got burnt too, and held it in front of her like a shield. A sword. The bullet would get her, she had no doubt about it, but by God, she would do some damage before they got her.

  For Brand.

  For whatever they’d done to Brand.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, as she gripped it afresh and waited for her death to come in.

  The leader, the dangerous rebel who’d stormed The Sea Princess, came in.

  She raised the lamp high up, the light doused now, and ran towards him. He blocked her with one knock to her injured cheek. It throbbed like a broken tooth while she went down clumsily. The lamp shattered around her, and she clutched her cheek with shaking fingers.

  She wouldn’t cry, she promised herself. Whatever these animals did to her, she wouldn’t give them her tears.

  “Miss Naik, your courage is foolish and ill-timed. And certainly going to get you killed.” He locked the door, after another two men with AK47s came in and stood behind him.

  Akira looked at him in utter contempt, her cheek split apart and she felt a trickle of blood where the skin had finally broken.

  “Where is Brandon Rice?” she snarled, struggling to stand up.

  The leader inclined his head and the man on his left came to her side and hauled her upright.

  She despised herself for clinging to the man for a single second when the world swam before her eyes.

  Akira shook him off, stepped back to the table, and leaned against it. Proud and defiant, and aware that one word from the man in front of her would have her body riddled with bullets. It didn’t matter.

  It couldn’t matter.

  “Courage and pride. A dangerous, alluring combination.” The leader spoke, walking towards her with slow, measured treads.

  She shrank back against the table. Her hair was all over the place.

  He now touched it. Innocently. Holding a lock against his hand. It gleamed a dull auburn in the pale moonlight, and highlighted the smoothness of her shoulders. The thrust of her breasts, and the fact that she was almost naked underneath the clothes she’d been given to wear.

  “Where I come from, hair like this would guarantee your death within minutes as a witch,” he murmured, almost to himself.

  “What have you done to Brandon Rice? Is he alive? Or have you killed him?” she asked him quietly.

  Afraid of the blankness she saw in this man’s black eyes. He wasn’t very tall, maybe five-ten. But the way he carried himself, the way he looked at her, she felt in the presence of a dangerous cobra who would strike her without warning. This man would kill. And he enjoyed it.

  “Brandon Rice should not be your concern, Miss Naik.” He released her hair and moved back a pace.

  She could breathe again. “Then what should be?”

  “Your own life,” he answered calmly. “Or death.”

  “I thought bargains went out with last season’s bags.”

  His lips curved, but his eyes remained blank. He reminded her so much of Brand. That impassive countenance, that tremendous physical control. Except when Brand looked at her, when she pushed at him, he felt. He didn’t want to, but he felt.

  And he’d never harm an innocent woman the way this barbaric monster had.

  “We can trade barbs the whole night, Miss Naik, but precious time is wasting. So why don’t I get to the point?”

  “By all means.” She nodded, while she curled her fingers into fists.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “You brought me here, you tell me.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Akira. I’ll snap your neck if you play word games with me again. Now answer the question. What are you doing back in San Magellan?” he said softly.

  “I am here for a series of interviews with the Cabinet Ministers,” she answered dully. “And with your new Premier Tony Romero. I have the appropriate clearances from both embassies, and everything is upfront. You can call my boss.... His mobile number is --”

  “I know what his contact details are.” He interrupted. “But you still haven’t answered my question.”

  “I did.” She stared at him defiantly. “I did. And it’s not word play. It’s true. I interviewed all these men. You can find my tapes and material in my laptop. If it’s still intact.” She was understandably bitter.

  “I’m afraid the Excelsiora has suffered a little… accident… and almost all of the original structure has suffered extensive damage,” he said, with something like regret.

  She looked at him with sinking horror. “My God. You people are crazy, aren’t you? And you’re fanatics. You don’t care who gets hurt.”

  His eyes, those green pits, hardened into stone, and his lips thinned. “Then we understand each other perfectly. Now, tell me one last time, what, exactly, were you doing in Geraldo De La Hoya’s office after hours, without his permission and especially when he is out of the country?” He circled her wrist with biting fingers.

  “I’d forgotten a file in his office, when I’d gone there to confirm my appointment with him, I left it there. You can ask Robert Alvez, the guard who let me in.” She repeated the same story she’d given the Guards at the Hall.

  It all seemed like a lifetime ago. An adventure in a faraway time. But this was real. Terrifyingly real.

  “You entered the foyer of the Special Entrance at nine in the morning today. And exited at nine-fifteen. I know for a fact you didn’t go anywhere near De La Hoya’s office in the last two days. What the hell were you doing in there?”

  “Nothing.”

  He slapped Akira this time. Hard. Across the other cheek. Her neck snapped back, but she glared at him.

  “What have you done with Brand?” she asked again through the pain. The awful, screaming pain. Her hands knuckled on the table.

  “I’ll give you an hour to come up with answers, Miss Naik. Then I’ll come in. And I won't be nice. I swear by all that is Holy, I will make you talk. You were hit on The Sea Princess, and you escaped death in Paris. But this time you won't. I won’t let you die easily, either, but you’ll wish to.”

  He ran one finger down her cheek, the marred cheek, and then nodded to the men. They parted ways for him to go out. One of them followed him out.

  The other one stayed in with her.

  Akira looked out the moon and wished that she could believe that her number wasn’t up this time.

  If only. If only she knew Brand was okay. Then she’d believe. She’d not let these men, these bastards win.

  Thirty-One

  Brand figured that he could take out the leader the minute he came out for a face-to-face. He knew that the leader wouldn’t be able to resist it. He’d come. If for nothing but payback.

  The moon shone bright and high as the hours slipped by, while he
worked on his grave.

  Three men surrounded him, covered him with Schmeissers. He’d been beaten, punched and kicked before he’d stopped struggling. And now he just dug.

  It was, he figured, stalling time.

  The shovel stuck again in the sticky mud, and he used his foot to lever it out. The men laughed. Said something in too low a murmur for him to understand. He strained his ears but couldn’t catch anything, except a single word.

  Muerta.

  Death.

  For years, he’d stalked death. He’d gone knowingly into situations that were so hairy that experienced veterans peed in their pants before putting one foot forward.

  He’d walked into sniper’s nests, driven a tank once into a waiting guerrilla unit in Afghanistan, had defused bombs and landmines in deserts and mountains. He’d rescued hostages from narco-terrorists with nothing but the shirt on his back, a Kevlar strapped on and his knife.

  He’d tumbled down militia governments with stealth and cunning and planning.

  And through it all, he’d wanted to pay for his brother’s death. He’d wanted to believe that he could die too. That just putting a bullet in his mouth would not be what it took. He was too strong, too alive to ever sink to that.

  But if he’d died in the line of duty, if he’d died stepping on a landmine or been shot down by a child terrorist in Chad, or drug-runners in Colombia that was acceptable.

  But he hadn’t.

  Other men. Better men, nobler men had died, but he’d survived. Taken his share of bullets and wounds and scars, but he’d lived to tell the tale.

  As he glanced at the huge white structure he could see behind one of the men, about three hundred yards on back, he told himself this time too, he would. He would live to tell the tale.

  Because he’d promised her.

  Blood dripped from a head wound and onto his right eye, but he wiped it off and continued digging. Stick the shovel in, haul earth out. Over and over again.

  The men hadn’t spoken a word to him, nor had he expected them to. He was silent too.

  He was used to waiting. He used this time, this stalling time, to think it all through. The various details of the conspiracy Akira had stumbled onto.

  Geraldo De La Hoya was involved in the lumber company that had chanced upon an oil-strike in this country. Whether this was before or after the suspicions became fact was irrelevant right now.

  Another company Mantisse Corp., due to NERVU’s intervention, was party to grand larceny and high treason if the details of the land deal were revealed.

  Which begged his next question.

  Who did the land belong to?

  The people, the simple farmers who grew their potatoes and their squash there? Or the government? Or was it privately owned? Was Geraldo a sole operator, or were there others, like Kevin Moya who was involved in the conspiracy?

  Who held the strings?

  Because someone did. What was the motive? Was it the oil?

  There were no answers to these questions, but others cropped up soon enough.

  The man who’d taken them was leader of the other militia group that opposed Sebastian’s supposed move to join the UN. So what was his motive? Was it retribution for what had been done to the displaced people? Or was it greed?

  And lastly, and this question would not be quelled no matter how much he tried to work it out logically: what the hell were they doing to Akira right now?

  Was she alive? Of course, she was. For him to talk, she would have to be. But was she safe? Unharmed?

  He couldn’t be sure.

  He hated what he’d done. And he cursed Sebastian Delgado soundly for doing this to him.

  “Basta.” Enough. One of the gunmen told him roughly and pulled him out now, by his arms.

  They kicked him to his knees when he struggled to stand up, and he went down silently when he saw the leader was striding towards him with one armed guard. He’d come from inside the white structure.

  The next move was about to be made.

  ~~~~~

  “Brandon Rice,” the leader drawled coming to a stop in front of him.

  Brand looked at him with one rapidly swollen eye, and nodded. “Let the woman go. You have me here. Let her go.”

  He laughed. It crawled up Brand’s spine and stiffened it.

  “She is entertaining, Miss Naik. But I’m afraid I can't accede to your request.” He spoke pleasantly, even as he nodded to the men again.

  They immediately bound Brand’s wrists behind his back tight enough for the rope to bite into his skin.

  “I don’t need incentive. I’ll tell you everything you want to know. Just release Miss Naik,” Brand said impassively, certain that his wish wouldn’t be granted.

  One of the men behind him, shoved at him and he fell face down with no balance. He came back up with a spring that surprised everyone but the leader.

  He alone knew of Brand’s combat training. And his endurance for pain. He’d studied this man for two months now. Learned everything he could about him.

  And still, in the end, it was a woman who brought about the famed Brandon Rice’s downfall.

  It was a damn shame actually.

  “While I do believe you, Rice, I am still not going to let Akira Naik go.” He watched Brand struggle to stay upright, with the muzzle of a Schmeisser pressed right on the nape of his neck.

  “You’re not planning on killing her.” It was a statement.

  And it made Brand more afraid than if the man had planned to kill her. It would have been kinder.

  “She’s very high-spirited. I look forward to breaking that spirit. She has one hour. I thought it would take you more time to dig your graves.” The leader shrugged as if the matter was of no consequence to him.

  And for once, for the first time in his life, Brandon saw red. His vision hazed, until all he wanted was to go after this man and hurt him for thinking he could put his hands on a woman like Akira. On Akira.

  He rose up with a lightening movement and charged with his head before the others could blink. He caught the leader in the middle of his stomach. The man went down, and Brand kneed him in the groin, before he felt the blows on his back.

  He was dragged back ten feet and thrown into the grave.

  “She has one hour,” the leader repeated, wiping his hands with a white handkerchief and spat at Brand.

  He said something then. A low, angry murmur.

  But Brand understood the language. It stunned him. It appalled him, but he understood the language. He understood why this man’s accent wasn’t guttural. Why he looked a little different with his olive skin and burning green eyes.

  And now he was truly afraid for Akira.

  So he said the only thing that came to mind. “If you want her to talk, then you have to let me see her.”

  The leader who’d been walking away from him with his one guard, turned to look at Brand. Consideringly.

  Thirty-Two

  Akira sat on the dirty floor, back against the legs of the table, and the man who guarded her had taken to eyeing her speculatively. Running his lecherous eyes over her shape and form, the thrust of her boobs against the thin tank top. The fullness of her lips enhanced by all the blows she’d received.

  She looked and felt hideous. She wondered if this man would want to hurt her more because of it.

  Suddenly, there was a knock on the door and the man jumped a little nervously. The door opened behind him and he stood to one side, when the leader walked in.

  Three men followed him this time and, in between them, walked Brand.

  Akira gasped soundlessly while she stood up and stared at him.

  His face was a mass of bruises, his left eye was swollen shut, and there was a steady stream of blood down his right temple. His shirt was ripped open and his pants were torn. He looked bruised and beaten.

  He looked alive.

  Akira looked down at the floor, to stem the flood of emotion rising within her.

  “He wanted to t
alk some sense into you, Miss Naik,” the leader told her courteously, coming forward.

  She shrank against the table, seeing past him to Brand who was still held by three men holding big, machine guns.

  He shouldn’t be able to stand, she thought wildly. They’d beaten him to within an inch of his life and he shouldn’t be able to stand.