by J. M. Parker
“We will see what you know.”
“Please,” said Bannon, spit and blood dribbling across his chin as the big man drove a fist into his side. Bannon felt his ribs crack beneath the blow, his half-healed wounds splitting open and spewing blood out onto his skin. The man punched again, knocking the air from Bannon, the cuffs digging into his wrists as his body doubled over. A hand gripped his hair and dragged his head upwards. “The drugs,” said the Thai.
“I don’t know.”
The man spat onto his face and Bannon felt the saliva stick to his cheek. A fist smashed into his side, left side this time, ribs cracking again, blood rushing up into his throat. Bannon gagged, spraying blood across his front. “Please,” he said, watching as the anvil-like hand drew methodically back.
“I’ll ask again,” said the Thai.
“I don’t fucking know.”
“Liar,” said the Thai, reaching for a piece of rope with ugly knots tied in it. He wrapped it once around his hand, drawing it out in one smooth motion, the rope going taught behind him before he lashed it across Bannon’s chest. Bannon cried out in pain as a long cut split his skin and blood ran in a waterfall across his stomach. “Tell me,” said the man, raising the belt again, Bannon’s skin tearing away in an ugly flap as the man cracked the whip across his legs. Bannon screamed, pain racing through his body. A fist smashed into his gut and he tasted blood immediately. The chair tipped sideways and his head slapped the floor. Boots thumped at his body, his bones cracking beneath the blows. He felt piss run down his leg, the warm fluid pooling in the lacerations as laughter sounded out above him.
“Bangkok,” said Bannon.
“Where?”
Bannon paused.
“Where?” said the Thai, bringing the rope cracking down onto his arms.
“They’re on the way. I swear…I swear they’re on the way.”
A hand dragged him along the floor, pressing his face into the piss. “Then tell me where I can find them.”
Bannon choked again as urine broached his lips. He screamed the names of every place he’d ever been.
“You don’t know shit,” said the Thai, stamping on Bannon’s head.
“No,” said Bannon, his vision fading and the pain numbing slightly, “I don’t know…”
“They try to fuck us,” said the Thai, turning to face the other men. “Let them see what happens.” he called something out in Thai and Bannon heard footsteps hurry away. His vision darkened again before someone rolled him onto his back. “No,” said a voice, distant sounding. “You pay for them. You feel all of it.”
A piece of colored foil passed across Bannon’s fading vision. Hands forced his mouth open and he felt a soft, square tablet press against his tongue. He squirmed on the floor as someone smothered his nose and clamped his mouth shut. He swallowed, the tablet slipping uncomfortably down his throat before something pricked into his chest and his eyes snapped open. He saw the little wrapper discarded on floor, beside it he saw a syringe, the needle snapped away. He heard the sound of steel on steel as sparks landed and hopped on the ground. A heel pressed against his balls and a searing pain shot up into his stomach. Feet moved back in his direction, the blade of a saw swinging into view. “Please,” he said, watching as the room seemed to pulse before his eyes. He saw blood burst in a sudden fount from a gash on his leg, and he wrestled against the men as they pulled his fingers tight and lowered the saw to them. “Oh God, please,” said Bannon, struggling to find his breath as the saw bit into his bone. He felt the blade pass back through the wound and he screamed, waiting for it to bite again, when the door exploded from its hinges.
Bannon craned his head upward, watching as the men turned for the door, hands reaching for their sidearms as smoke billowed out into the room. He saw muzzles flashing in the fog as the intruders opened fire. Bannon writhed on the floor, trying to back away, blood still pouring from his wounds. The big man fell dead beside him, a huge chunk of his head blown away. “Shit,” he said, the room still pulsing, the man’s brains swelling and shrinking in his shattered skull.
“Clear,” said a voice and Bannon watched as camouflaged figures sprinted over to him.
“Are you okay?” said one.
Bannon tried to speak, mouthing a few inaudible sounds. He felt a blanket pass across his naked body, tears streaming down his cheeks as he looked at the soldiers and suddenly began to cry.
*
Bannon stared at the ceiling of the ambulance, watching as the face of the Frenchman loomed out of the metal. He felt the straps dig into his body as he tried to drag himself from the gurney, the drugs still coursing through his veins.
“What’s the matter with him?”
“He’s on something.”
“Can’t you sedate him?”
“Not here.”
Bannon shook as the enormous face of the Frenchman lowered toward him, the metal lips curling back to reveal two steel rows of teeth.
“Try to relax,” said a voice.
Someone pressed a mask down onto his face and Bannon breathed. The oxygen calmed him slightly and the Frenchman’s face sank back into the metal.
“He gonna be alright?”
Bannon twisted to see the source of the voice. A soldier stood beside him. He still wore his camouflage jacket and Bannon watched as the different colors moved across its surface. He took another breath of the oxygen and looked around the vehicle. A pair of medics pressed bandages onto the lacerations on his legs, the gauze reddening as blood continued to seep from his wounds. Tubes poked from his body, running up to various sacks of fluids, the liquid slapping against the sides of their bags as the ambulance skidded to a stop. The medics lurched forward and Bannon saw a little pendant slip out of a uniform. A woman’s face was carved into its surface and he thought suddenly of Alina. He stared at it, sucking more air through the mask as he tried to speak. The back doors of the ambulance swung open and the medics stepped away. “No,” said Bannon, the word muffled by the mask as he reached a hand toward the pendant. He felt another burst of the drugs and the pendant seemed to spread across the medic’s chest, the mask slipping as he twisted again. “It’s a sign,” he said. “It’s a sign. Can’t anybody see? It’s a sign.”
An attendant dragged the medic from sight and Bannon cried out, “Let me go. Can’t anybody see it’s a fucking sign?” Again he wrestled against the straps, the leather biting into his skin as the rest of the medics carried him out of the ambulance. They raced through the hospital, Bannon yelling as they went. “Bring her back to me,” he said, Alina’s face stretching out across the wall before the figure of the Frenchman appeared again, consuming the room in one enormous shadow. “Alina,” said Bannon, tears welling in his eyes. “Alina, Alina, Alina.”
*
Bannon looked around the white walls of the room and wondered where he was. He saw a nurse look nervously at him. She forced a smile in his direction and hurried from the room. Bannon leaned back into his mattress, listening to the sound of the monitors beeping. A small plastic cylinder was fixed to the railing of the bed. He picked it up, pressing the little red button on top. He felt a shot of warm fluid run into his arm, a pleasant warmth passing through his body as his limbs started to numb. He let out a long sigh, drifting back to sleep, when the door to the room swung open. Bannon looked that way, a little surprise prickling through the drugs as he spotted the familiar faces of Spectre and Hawkes. The two men marched across the room, both of them sporting similar black suits, and Bannon wondered if he was dying.
“Bannon,” said Spectre. “Can you hear us?”
Bannon tried to answer, his words slurring as the pain meds took a stronger hold.
“Shit.” said Hawkes. “He’s already fucking gone.”
*
A half day later and Bannon woke for a second time, his wounds stinging. He reached instinctively for the button and found nothing there. He tried to sit up, slowly managing to drag himself into seated position. Across the room Spectre and
Hawkes sat beside a pot of coffee. “What are you doing here?” said Bannon, genuinely surprised this time.
“Bannon.” said Hawkes, reaching into his jacket and removing a small notepad. “We need to ask you a few questions.”
“What’s going on?” said Bannon, looking back into the room and starting to remember what had happened. “Alina,” he said, pain shooting through him as he tried to stand. “The painkiller, I need the painkiller.”
“In a minute. The questions first.”
“No time,” said Bannon. “There’s a girl, you’ve got to help me find the girl. Give me the pain meds, I need them to move.”
“The girl’s fine. We need you to relax.”
“Wait,” said Bannon, his strength giving out as he sunk back into the mattress. “What do you mean, fine? Where is she? You’ve seen her?”
“Bannon, we need you to relax.”
“No. Take me to the girl. I want to know she’s fine.”
“We can’t,” said Hawkes. “She’s gone.”
Bannon heard a monitor beep loudly as he tried to move again. “Gone. What do you mean gone?”
“Damn it,” said Spectre, stepping over to the monitor. “He’s freaking out.”
The door slammed open and a doctor came running across the room. A pair of nurses turned Bannon back onto the bed and he watched as the doctor pressed a needle into his arm. “The girl,” he said, his voice weakening as another shot of medication ran into his body. “Help me find the girl.”
*
Bannon woke, not high but not in pain either. The button was still gone but a new tube ran from the bag of meds into his arm. He heard movement across the room and he watched as Hawkes walked toward him. “Third time’s the charm,” said Hawkes.
Bannon grimaced as he listened to the accent of the man. He remembered lying in the pound, the familiar American accents sounding out around him. “You’ve seen me like this before,” said Bannon.
“What?”
“Chang Mai, you helped patch me up.”
Hawkes looked back at his partner. Spectre nodded. “Yes,” said Hawkes. “Along with a few others.”
“Who are you?”
“DEA.”
Bannon tried to rise, his body quivering as he pushed himself off the mattress. “What where you doing there? What are you doing here?”
“In time,” said Hawkes.
Bannon felt the wounds in his back stretch as he leaned closer to the man. “Please,” he said. “You have to help me find Alina.”
“You need to forget about, Alina. She’s gone.”
“Gone, what do you mean gone?”
Hawkes paused, looking back at Spectre again. “I can’t say.”
The tubes tugged at Bannon’s body as he grabbed at Hawkes. “Tell me where she’s fucking gone to.”
Hawkes stepped back, starting to speak, when Spectre rose and crossed the room. “She’s been compromised,” he said. “Pulled.”
“Compromised?”
“She was one of us.”
“Sir,” said Hawkes.
“There’s no time,” said Spectre, stopping beside the bed. “The man you knew as Saint Jean is a cousin of Hugo Martins.”
“Who?”
“A head of the French mob and a major target of the people at Interpol.”
“What’s that got to do with you?”
“We were working in tandem with a French operation, trying to catch Saint Jean with enough product to put him away for a serious stretch. Interpol wanted enough pressure to turn him against Martins, to get him to spill. They suspect he has enough information to put away half the syndicates in France.”
“And Alina?” said Bannon, already dreading the answer.
“The Frenchman was the mark, Alina the agent in the field.”
Bannon slumped back into bed, his wounds stinging as they hit the mattress. “And I was the sucker to get you close.”
“We believed you would lead us to him. That we could catch him in possession of the drugs.”
Bannon looked at his chest, scars poked through the neck of gown. “Guess it didn’t play out like you thought?”
“No,” said Spectre. “And now we need your help. Saint Jean has disappeared and we are hoping you might have information we can use.”
Bannon felt his throat lump as he thought about Alina. He felt his temper build as he remembered all the things he’d told her. “Everything she said. It was all a goddamn lie.”
“We really need your help.”
Bannon turned away. “Go fuck yourself. I don’t want a damn thing to do with any of you.”
Spectre started to speak again when Hawkes slammed a hand into the rails of the bed. “Goddammit, man. He set you up.”
“You all set me up.”
“Not like him,” said Hawkes. “There were never any drugs for you to run. It was all a wild goose chase. For us. For all those fuckers who cut you up. He leaked the information, told them there was a big run coming through, and when those guys dropped on you, he probably slipped across the border somewhere else. From the minute he saw you this prick set you up to die.”
Bannon hung his head as everything started to come together. The jeeps filled with the blocks of drugs, the packages of sawdust in the camper. He took a long, deep breath before he looked sadly at the men. “What’s in it for me?”
“Clean slate,” said Spectre. “All charges and warrants dropped. All you have to do is tell us everything you know about the Frenchman.”
“What if it’s of no use?”
“Let us worry about that.”
“Guess I’ll need it in writing?”
Spectre nodded. “Agent Hawkes will have everything faxed through within the hour.”
Hawkes hurried from the room and Spectre sank into a bedside chair. “No more games,” said Spectre. “You have my word, just tell us what you know.”
Bannon sighed, a faint nausea coming on as the pain meds started to fade. “Alright,” he said, “You get that notepad ready.”
*
Spectre clicked his pen shut and passed the notes over to his partner. “Have a look at them. See if there is anything worth following up.”
Bannon watched as Spectre ran a hand across his temple. “Not much use, huh?”
“There might be something.”
“Guess he had the whole thing figured out.”
“He was a pretty slick customer.”
“And the girl?”
“Her too,” said Spectre, rising from his chair and starting for the door.
Bannon leaned back into his mattress and he felt his sutures start to itch. “Can you send back that button for the meds?”
“Yes,” said Spectre. “Anything else I can get you?”
Bannon ran a hand over the stitches in his leg. “Of all people, why’d he choose me? He could have picked anyone to run those drugs across the border.”
“It’s war out there,” said Spectre, leaning against the door and pressing a hand back to his temple. “The pressure is turning up, from us, the government. All the cartels, they’re all feeling it, all trying to compensate for their losses. Ripping off the competition is just one way to do that. Over the last year we have seen Saint Jean take a much more active role in the smuggling, unsure of who he can and can’t trust. You said he crashed his plane the night before he met you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I imagine he was carrying something on that flight. Whatever it was, money or product, it would likely have cost him a considerable amount. I suspect he needed to guarantee his next run was successful. Needed to make sure he had a distraction, something that would take the heat away from him.”
“Still doesn’t answer my question. Why me?”
“Who else could he use? A foreigner, even one as influential as Saint Jean, setting up another member of the organization would be very poorly received. He needed someone with no ties to the cartel, he needed…”
“A goddamn fool.”
/> “He needed someone desperate. I think he set up your first encounter with the police, made sure they held you in custody, ensured you didn’t have a choice.”
Bannon shook his head. “You must think I’m a real asshole. A Grade A dumbass.”
Spectre didn’t answer and Bannon glanced at the scars creeping from his gown. “You think I deserved this?”
“If there’s anyone we can call to come help you, get you feeling a little more normal, I’d be happy to do it. There’s support groups, therapy too. You’ve been through an awful lot, it might be wise to try and find something. We could find people to help with that.”
“I think I’ve got all the help I need. I’ll get by on my own.”
Spectre let out a long sigh before he looked back at Bannon. “I am sorry how it turned out.”
“That’s what he said.”
The door closed shut and Bannon sat in the quiet of the room. He looked at the monitor, his reflection showing on its polished surface. His face was almost unrecognizable. Big welts covered his eyes and cuts dotted his cheeks. An ugly scar ran from the corner of his mouth and passed across his jaw. He saw his pulse quicken on the screen before he smashed his fist against the monitor. “God fucking dammit,” he said, tugging at the tubes beside him and sending their metal stands clattering to the ground. Bodily fluids and drugs oozed across the floor as Bannon reached for the bedpan, hurling it at the door and putting a long crack in its surface. He felt the bed buckle beneath him as he drove an elbow into it. He rolled onto his side, pushing hard at the monitor and sending it crashing to the floor in a hissing fit of sparks. The door to the room flew open again and nurses rushed toward him, the first one slipping in the slick puddles of fluids as the others tried to restrain him.
*
He spent three weeks in the hospital, heavily sedated. On the last day Hawkes showed up again, standing beside the doctor as he reviewed Bannon’s prescription. “Hydrocodone. For pain,” said the doctor, pointing to the top line.
“Hope they’re strong.”
The doctor proceeded without acknowledging the remark. He pointed to another section of text. “Stop infection and stop swelling”.
