A Deadly Distance

by L. T. Ryan

  Reece took over at that point. He wrapped one hand around my elbow, while the other held a gun that was loosely aimed at my stomach. He led me over to where Burnett stood.

  "Jack," Burnett said. "Glad you are here to see this."

  I said nothing.

  Burnett arched an eyebrow and nodded toward Reece. Reece let go of me and started walking toward the roll up door cut into the building. He pulled a set of keys from his pocket. He knelt in front of the door and inserted the key into a padlock. It unlocked with a loud click. He stuffed the lock into his pocket, then lifted the door up and over his head, his arms stretching as high as they could and then pushing one last time to send the door atop the railing.

  Burnett nudged me in the side. "What do you think?"

  I scanned the forty-by-forty space and shrugged at the sight of dozens of boxes.

  "Uncuff him, Reece," Burnett said. "He's going to do all the heavy lifting."

  I turned my head to the left, then the right, trying to figure out where he wanted the stuff moved. The semi had no container, and there was far more here than could fit in the trunks of the vehicles we came in. Unless they were planning multiple trips, that is. I quickly shook that thought from my mind. They weren't going to drive this stuff away. Burnett was a missing man. The last thing he needed was to be found carting around all these boxes, not to mention his son, who was also missing.

  An engine approached from behind. Its deep roar was easily distinguishable as not made by a car.

  "That's my getaway car," Burnett said with a chuckle.

  I waited a beat, then looked over my shoulder and saw the boat pull up and two men jump onto the pavement. They began to moor it to weathered and splintered wooden posts. The water must have been deep at that spot, because the boat was big, at least fifty feet long. It was the perfect getaway car. A half hour or so and you'd be in international waters. Freedom, in more ways than one.

  "Pablo," Burnett said. "Take the woman and put her in the car with the kids. Take them around the other side."

  "What're you doing with them?" I said.

  "Insurance, Jack," Burnett said. "You do what I say and they'll be all right."

  Something about his smile told me he was lying. But I wasn't ready to test him. Not yet.

  The sedan pulled away. I was left standing with Burnett, Reece and the heavy guy.

  "Start moving the boxes, Jack," Burnett said.

  I wondered what the boxes contained. No point in asking Burnett, he'd never tell me. The bad guys only do that in the movies. I jammed my finger into the tape that sealed the flaps of the first box I came to. I wedged my fingers into the tiny slit and pulled back. The tape ripped off and one of the flaps lifted and fell to the side. Inside the box, I saw wads of cash, sealed in plastic wrap.

  "Money?" I said.

  "In that box," he said. He pointed at random and added, "Drugs in some of the others. Gold in a couple. Been amassing this stuff for a while, you see. I knew there might come a time I'd have to bolt. You know if things, uh, caught up to me, so to speak."

  "You sold kids," I said. "Stole them from their parents and shipped them overseas."

  "Not all of them," he said. "Hell, some of them are in better situations than they were in before."

  "That's bullshit and you know it."

  He made no attempt at rebuffing me.

  "How's a man like you get involved in this?" I said.

  "Money. Power."

  "You have those things."

  "They promised me more."

  "Who's they?"

  He laughed. "Agent till the end, eh, Jack?"

  "And according to you, my end is near. Why not tell me who's behind this?"

  "I'm not going to do that, Jack."

  "We're going to get them. Frank will keep working this until the whole thing collapses, bringing you down with it."

  "You're never going to shut this down. It's bigger than you, Frank, or the SIS. Ya'll might make some strides over here with the FBI, and overseas with the CIA, but I can assure you, I've got men in both agencies that will squash it. That's why no one ever got anywhere near close to us until you stuck your damn head in the way."

  "It won't go away, Senator," I said. "Like Pandora's box. Once it's open, there's no going back."

  Burnett got to his feet and walked in a semicircle in front of me. Back and forth, he went for a minute without saying anything. Then he stopped and looked past me, toward the boat or perhaps beyond, to a spot somewhere over the Atlantic.

  "I'm coming back, Jack. Eventually my boy is going to come around and accept me as his father. Once he does, well, then it's a matter of time until he'll say whatever I tell him to say." He smiled and his eyes lit up. "Then it's a matter of getting back into the country. An anonymous tip will do the trick. Someone will send a group of Special Forces to rescue us. By the time they reach us, I'll have vanquished our captors. I come back to the U.S. a hero and adopt the boy I grew close to while held captive. He'll call me dad, and he'll mean it. But no one will know the truth but us. Should be enough to draw the majority vote."

  I shook my head. "You're doing all this for political gain?"

  His smile faded and he narrowed his eyes. His expression became quite serious.

  "I'm doing all this to make my country a better place," he said.

  I stood up and kicked the box to the side, then took two steps forward. We were only a foot or so apart. The smug look on his face faded, and I noticed his arms and shoulders grow tense.

  "If that's what it's coming to, kill me now," I said.

  He laughed, slow at first, then it built up. "Your time is coming, Jack. First you need to load my boat or the woman and the kids die."

  I felt a hand on my back. It slid along my shoulder until it reached my collar, at which point I felt my body pulled backward, away from Burnett.

  There were more boxes than I had anticipated. The room opened up to a second room, which contained roughly half the amount of cargo. For two hours, I made the trip from the warehouse, across the pavement, and onto the boat, where I loaded the cargo below deck. Reece kept a gun on me while I was in the warehouse and on the pavement. The men in the boat kept their guns on me, taking turns going below with me while the other stood at the top of the stairs. The process repeated itself over and over.

  It was only a matter of time. Someone would get tired, look away and make a bad move. I was sure of it.

  CHAPTER 29

  A half dozen boxes remained in the second room. They were bigger than the others, probably six feet long and three feet high and wide. I bent over the first and wrapped my hands around it until the tips of my fingers scraped the concrete floor. I slid them under the box and started to pull. Damn thing had to be a hundred and fifty pounds. It crossed my mind that there might be a human body in the box. Sweat dripped down my face and slid off my nose and chin and jawline, splattering on the box and proceeding to roll down to the floor.

  I heard footsteps from outside the room. Two sets approached at a steady pace. Perhaps time was up.

  "You can stop there, Noble," Burnett said.

  I dropped the box, stood up straight, wiped the sweat from my brow. I tried to dry my hand on my shirt, but it was soaked. The south Florida humidity was a bitch if you didn't have a cold beer on hand.

  "Turn around, Jack," Burnett said.

  I scanned the room, looking for a weapon. I'd have settled for a baton right then. But the room was empty, except for the six boxes. And then I saw something that disturbed me. One of the boxes wasn't taped shut. The ends had been folded over one another to keep it shut. The dimensions matched the others in the room. All of them were large enough to fit me, slightly cramped since I had two inches on their length.

  "C'mon," Burnett said. "Arms out and turn."

  Dying in the back of a warehouse located next to a Miami ghetto held very little appeal to me. But if it was going to happen, I'd prefer to see the bullet coming. Go down with a fight. I lifted my arms out
to the side, stopping halfway. I turned, slowly. I kept my head low, eyes up. I offered up as menacing a look as I could manage under the circumstances.

  Burnett and Reece stood outside the doorway. Burnett aimed a pistol at me. Reece held a rifle at his waist, loosely aimed in my direction. He stepped back and Burnett motioned with his pistol for me to exit the room.

  I stepped through the doorway and caught Burnett's eye on the way through. "What's in those boxes?" I asked, concerned that he intended to use one as my casket.

  Burnett shrugged. "Let's go outside." He looked past me and added, "Reece, I want you to take him down there with the others."

  I figured that the unsecured box wasn't meant for me. At least, not yet. I walked across the empty warehouse. Burnett followed. Reece stayed in front of me, walking backward, keeping a good ten feet between him and me. My foot hit the pavement. He pointed his gun at the Escalade, then back at me.

  "Get in the back," Reece said.

  I reached out and grabbed the door handle. It pushed open before I pulled. One of the men from the boat was inside. He held a pistol in his right hand.

  "Don't try anything," the man said. "I'll shoot if you so much as sneeze."

  I did my best to look unimpressed while I pulled myself up and into the car. I took a seat and waited. A few minutes later Reece opened the driver's door and hopped in behind the wheel. He fired up the V-8 engine and dropped the transmission into drive. We inched around the semi, then slowly drove on the pavement in between a long warehouse and the ocean. He stopped where the building ended.

  "Get out," he said. Then he turned to look at the man sitting next to me. "Take him to the others and walk back."

  "You're not waiting?" the man said.

  "Would I tell you to walk back if I was?"

  The man shook his head and held out his arms. He stared me down for a couple of seconds, and then said, "Let's go, man."

  "This isn't over, Reece," I said.

  He smiled and leaned toward me. "Yes, it is." He started to turn in his seat, then stopped. "Oh yea, Burnett had a message he wanted me to relay to you."

  "What's that?"

  "Time's up."

  I glanced at my watch and saw it was ten till noon.

  I opened the door. The sound of waves lapping against the concrete barrier greeted me. They carried a rhythm all their own. The man's feet hit the ground and his hand hit my back. He pushed me toward the end of the building. When we reached it, he said, "Turn left."

  I did and saw Pablo, the heavy guy and the skinny guy, as well as Sarah. She stood with her back to a car. Her wrists were bound together by rope. The closer I got, the more obvious it became that she'd been crying.

  "Sarah," I said.

  She looked in my direction. At first her face scrunched up, as if she were about to start sobbing. She filled her lungs with salt air and exhaled, seemingly to steady herself.

  I got within six feet of her and Pablo told me to stop. From that distance, I could see inside the car. The two kids sat in the back seat. Neither of them were Christopher. Were their hands bound, too? I couldn't tell.

  "Arms behind your back," Pablo said.

  I didn't move.

  "Don't make this any more difficult than it has to be," he said.

  I still didn't move.

  Pablo did. He punched me in the kidney with his left hand and then reached for my arm. "How's that feel, huh?"

  I said nothing. My body bowed sideways to the right. Pain spread from the point of impact to the middle of my abdomen. He had my left arm pinned behind my back with his plaster cast and managed to get my right halfway around.

  "Someone help," he said.

  The heavy guy jogged forward and planted a knee in my midsection. I was surprised that he managed to get his leg up that high. Surprise gave way to a momentary loss of control, despite preparing myself for the blow by tightening my abdominal muscles.

  He wrapped his meaty hand around the back of my head and pulled me up by my hair. "Enjoy that?"

  Pablo had my wrists together and bound by rope. I struggled and the knot tightened. He grabbed my collar and yanked me back, nearly sending me sprawling to the ground. Somehow, I managed to regain my balance.

  I assumed a fighter's stance, much to the delight of the men.

  Pablo took a few steps back, his smile faded a little with every movement. He came to a stop about six feet away. He lifted his left arm and aimed his gun at my head. Six feet. The perfect distance. A deadly distance. Even if my hands had been untied, he'd still be able to shoot me before I could lay a hand on him.

  "This is gonna be fun," Pablo said, the smile returning to his face. "Hector, go help with the car. Get that bitch in back with the kids."

  I forgot about Pablo for a minute as my attention shifted to Sarah. She stood with her back against the car, shoulders slumped, head down. She looked like a woman defeated. I didn't like it. It wasn't the look of someone who'd been captured. Everything about her at that moment told me she knew she was about to die.

  The heavy guy, Hector, grabbed her by the hair. I guessed that was his thing. With his other hand he pulled the car door open. Immediately the children began screaming, their little voices surfing on top of the salt air and echoing off the high steel and aluminum walls of the warehouses that surrounded us.

  Hector forced Sarah into the car. He hit her twice. She went limp. I felt rage rise inside me like bile, bitter and hot and ready to spew out.

  "Don't move," Pablo said, without looking at me. The guy must have had faith in his reaction time to take his eyes off me like that.

  I didn't move, my feet at least. But my hands went to work dismantling the knot that bound my wrists. Boy scouts these men were not.

  Hector slammed the door shut. The voices of the innocent were muffled, for a moment at least. The skinny guy reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. He inserted one into the driver's door and unlocked it. The keys dangled from the lock, reflecting a small, but bright ray of sunlight. He opened the driver's door and slipped inside, leaving one foot on the pavement. His thin arm reached out and around the door frame and he retrieved the keys. It looked like he inserted the one into the ignition, but the car didn't start. A moment later, the guy stepped out of the car and slammed the door shut.

  He joined Hector at the back of the vehicle and they started pushing. The car began rolling, slowly at first, toward the edge of the pavement. The men pumped their legs. After twenty feet Hector fell to the ground because the car was moving too fast for him to keep up with. He wallowed on his stomach and then propped himself up using his elbows to watch the car as it headed toward the ocean. The skinny guy let go and straightened up. He placed his hands on his hips and arched his back a little.

  The three men watched, stone still, as the car went over the edge of the pavement and into the ocean.

  CHAPTER 30

  The rope that had bound my wrists fell to the ground. None of the men noticed the barely audible sound of it hitting the pavement. Hector and the skinny guy stood on the edge of the road, feet from where Sarah and the kids were encased in a sinking tomb. Tiny hands banged against the rear window, the only sound in an otherwise eerie silence.

  Pablo stayed rooted to his spot, six feet away from me. This time the distance wasn't so deadly, not for me at least, because Pablo had his back to me. Maybe he figured it was safe to do so, since my hands had been tied. It was unfair, almost. I thought about giving him a warning, but dismissed that as quickly as he dismissed Sarah and those children.

  I passed through the space between us in a second. My torso twisted back to the right, then I whipped around with my left shoulder leading, pulling my right arm around with as much torque as I could muster. Pablo's head whipped to his right, perhaps because he'd heard my foot hit the pavement. My fist connected with his temple. Pablo went down hard, his hip hit, and then his head with a thud. It bounced half a foot in the air and then smacked the pavement again.

  I l
ocated Pablo's pistol, then located the men. They turned around as if in a daze. They moved in slow motion at first, then picked up their pace. They had close to a hundred feet to cross. It wouldn't take them long, not even Hector with his heft.

  I dove toward the gun. The pavement scraped my body and ripped my shirt. I didn't care. Wounds could be cleaned up later. I had to reach the gun before they reached me. My hand wrapped around the pistol and I rolled through the dive. The skinny guy stood closest. I aimed at him first. Time slowed. I saw his long hair bounding and tossing across his face with every step he took. His knees pumped high, arms swung forward then back. I squeezed the trigger and hit him in the chest. The impact of the bullet stopped his torso, but his legs carried through. He flew back and his head crashed into the pavement. Hector grunted as he tried to pick up his pace. I was able to take a second longer to aim and waited until he'd almost reached me. Then I squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit Hector in the forehead. His eyes rolled in and up and his body jerked back, stopped and then fell forward. His knees hit the ground, then his thick chest carried the rest of him forward. A crimson sea formed around his head.

  I placed my left hand on the pavement. My right held the gun in front of me, guarding against any sudden movements from the men I'd rendered incapacitated. I had no doubt Hector was dead. His dark, lifeless eyes staring straight ahead told me that. The skinny guy lay on his back. His dull and lifeless eyes fixed on some point beyond the clouds.

  I turned my attention to Pablo, who by this time had managed to get to his knees. He faced away from me. I tucked the gun in my waistband and crossed the distance between us in a second or two. I reached down and placed my hands on either side of his head. With a quick and decisive movement, I snapped his neck like a twig.

  By now almost half a minute had gone by and no one had drove over to see what was going on. I realized at that moment that this was the plan all along. Get rid of Sarah and the kids, and then shoot me. The men had failed to complete the job, and the rest of them would pay. First, I had to save Sarah and two children trapped in the back of the sinking car.