by Matt Rogers
He gave a curt nod to the soldiers and Jake, first in line, was escorted down the plane stairs. A rough hand pressed against his back, guiding him. Felix hadn’t been lying about the humidity. Jake felt his body grow damp with sweat as he was led across the hot ground.
In the distance lay a sprawling complex of pale teal buildings - the airport terminal. It looked like they had been thrown together haphazardly when constructed. That was not where they were headed.
Jake realised he had not been trained for interrogation. If he said the wrong thing, he could be locked up for years. At least he had been taught how to deal with slayers. This left him with a dry mouth. Fear began to creep in.
There were a collection of police vans waiting for them, interspersed across the tarmac. A group of officers intercepted them halfway between the plane and the vans. Even though they barked in Peruvian at the soldiers, Jake got the message. The military had only been there in case of a firefight. Now, the police would handle them.
He was thrust into the back of the first van, into a small metal cabin with a steel bench running along each of the side walls. There was barely enough room to stand A police officer forced Jake down onto one of the benches, hands still locked firmly behind his back. They forced Sam in behind Jake and the door slammed shut.
“What just happened?” Jake said. He was shaking – he couldn’t help it. It was hot and dark and he was scared. He lurched off-balance as the van shot off the mark.
“I have no idea,” Sam said. “I’m – I’m so sorry, man. Dan said it was okay. He said it was okay.”
“So then why are we sitting in the back of a police van?”
Sam shrugged, just as confused as Jake was. “The Peruvian government gave Dan the go ahead. They must have changed their mind.”
“I thought you said this was going to work.”
“I did say that.”
“I don’t want to die in jail, Sam.”
“Neither do I, bro. Neither do I.”
“But we can get out of this, right?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You can fix this, Sam,” Jake said. “You guys have to. I trusted you all with this. This is your plan, your mission. No-one in my old life even knows where I am. I have no idea what’s going on, and I’m scared, and you need to fix this. Please…”
Sam paused. “I’m sorry I let you down, Jake.”
The rest of the journey elapsed in silence. The van bounced and rocked over uneven ground. There was muffled chatter from the driver’s compartment on the other side of the partition.
They must have found the weapons, Jake figured. It wasn’t as if they needed to look very hard. Sam hadn’t been anticipating a raid in the slightest, and as a result the suitcases full of guns had been strewn carelessly across the cabin.
The van came to a halt. The doors flung open, and light flooded in. Jake and Sam were withdrawn at gunpoint. The policemen were taking no chances. Across from them, Jake saw Crank and Felix step out of an identical van, and past them Thorn, Link and Zoe dropped down out of a third. They were separated individually, and two policemen were assigned to each person.
Jake was frogmarched through a courtyard into a rectangular granite building that had no remarkable characteristics about it. They took him through an empty reception area into whitewashed corridors. He was struck by deja vu, plagued by the same feeling as when he had been led through the corridors of the police station back in Melbourne. Now, though, he was in much more trouble. The atmosphere was different too. The precinct back home had been accompanied by an air of cleanliness, of authority. This place was dark and dank and gave off the scent of negligence.
The two officers thrust him into an interrogation room, alone, and the door was locked. There was no sound whatsoever from the other side.
He studied his surroundings. This room was completely different to the interrogation room in Melbourne. It was small, cramped. The flaking concrete walls looked damp. There was a rickety desk in the centre of the room, barely long enough to fit two people. One wall was taken up by a full-length mirror. Jake had seen enough television shows to know that it was most likely one way glass.
He sat at the desk and slumped forward. He had been caught red-handed in a foreign country with a plane full of weapons. There was no good outcome to this situation.
Jake bowed his head low and tried to control his anxiety. He tapped his heel against the floor like the shaking of a machine gun barrel and took deep, controlled breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
Suddenly, he had an idea.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Calm down, Jake. Calm down.
There was a loud click as the door was unlocked from the other side. It swung open and the chief of police – Andreas – stepped into the room.
“Hello,” he said.
Jake placed his head on his forearms and began to sob. Through sniffles, he watched Andreas cocking his head inquisitively.
“What is wrong?” the man asked.
Jake managed to work up a few tears, simply by concentrating hard enough. They trickled down his cheeks, and one fell onto the table’s surface.
“T-those men ... they took me ... wasn’t my idea ... please ... not my fault. Not my fault. Not my fault…”
Jake took a quick glance at Andreas through watery eyes. The man looked genuinely concerned.
“Calm down,” Andreas said. “We do not have the full story from anyone yet. We will start with you.”
He sat down opposite Jake, on the other side of the desk. His coat had shifted and his tie was spilling out onto the surface. Jake watched him raise a single hand. He was staring at the mirror.
“I have started recording this interview,” he said. “Now, what is your name?”
“Kale.”
“Do you have a last name, Kale?”
“Jennings. I’m Kale Jennings.” Jake sniffed. “Please, oh please, this wasn’t my idea.”
“How come you were on that plane, Kale?”
“They … they took me …”
“What do you mean?”
Jake muttered something, then buried his face in his hands.
“What was that?” Andreas said. He leaned forwards.
“I said … I’m sorry for this, Andreas.”
Jake burst up off his chair. He threw his handcuffed arms around the chief of police’s throat and with one hand wrenched his tie around behind his neck. Andreas didn’t even have time to react. The fabric dug into the man’s flesh and cut off his windpipe. Jake tugged Andreas to his feet and spun him around to face the security camera.
“Open the door!” he roared into the camera. “Or I’ll break his neck!”
There was nothing. No response. Silence.
Jake was prepared to wait a minute or two for a response. Andreas was struggling, but the pressure Jake was applying to the man’s throat was not lethal. Simply a threat.
“What the…” The man swore.
“Your friends had better be here soon to save you,” Jake said. “Because I really have to get out of here.”
It took another minute. Jake slacked off his grip a little, enough to keep Andreas alive, but kept applying tight pressure.
All of a sudden, the door swung open. He found himself staring directly down the barrel of a pistol. A policeman was taking up the entire doorway. It was a stalemate. Jake was using Andreas as a human shield, and the policeman was shaking too much to even consider taking a shot.
Jake was the first to move. He ducked low behind Andreas and shoulder-charged into his back. At the same time, he released his grip on his tie. Andreas stumbled forward, completely off balance. He came hurtling so fast that the policeman didn’t have time to move. The two collided and fell into the side of the doorway.
Jake didn’t hesitate. He dived out after the two men. He came down on top of Andreas, grabbed two handfuls of his shirt, spun him around and threw him back into the interrogation room they had come from. Andreas crashed into
the table. Jake lashed out with his right foot at the inside door handle. With a bone-jarring jolt, the handle broke free and clattered to the floor. Jake slammed the door shut, trapping Andreas inside.
The other policeman had taken a hard fall, whiplashing his head back against the concrete. He was scrabbling around on all fours, completely disoriented. Jake reached down and heaved him to his feet by the collar and snatched the pistol the man had dropped up off the ground. He pressed it into the side of the man’s temple. It was clearly loaded, for the man froze and turned white as a ghost. Jake set off with him down the corridor.
“Where are my friends?” he asked as they walked.
The man didn’t speak English; he let out a feeble whimper. Jake felt a stab of guilt, but he ignored it. This man would live, but Wolfe might not. There were greater problems to worry about than hurting a policeman’s feelings.
“Friends,” Jake repeated, gesticulating wildly. “Where?”
The man seemed to realise. He could have just pretended not to understand, Jake thought, yet he must have wanted this whole ordeal over as quickly as possible. Having a gun pressed to his temple was not enjoyable.
Jake was led down to the end of the hallway. A left. Two rights. Down a flight of stairs.
They descended into the depths of the police station and the corridor opened out onto a row of holding cells. The cells held, in order: Zoe, Crank, Thorn, Felix, Sam and Link.
“Kid!” Felix cried out.
There was a single guard keeping watch.
Jake decided to act psychotic. There was nothing worse than a madman with a gun. He screamed incoherencies and tapped the pistol against his hostage’s forehead. The guard, an elderly, dark-skinned man, became intimidated almost straight away. He went wide-eyed, unsure of what to do. With reassuring words from Jake’s hostage, the man lay down on the concrete floor and tossed a ring of keys out in front of him. Jake picked them up without releasing the policeman’s collar. He gestured for the policeman to unlock each cell.
There was a split second in time in which the man refused to move, rooted in place, but it only took one look at the pistol pointed at his face to give in to the demands. Jake quashed a sigh of relief. He had no intention of using the weapon.
The policeman moved past each cell, using a different key each time. The occupants stepped out into the hallway. One by one, each man clapped Jake on the back and muttered words of praise. He shrugged it off.
Zoe leapt from her cell and wrapped him in a tight embrace. He breathed her scent and smiled. Maybe everything was going to work out after all.
“Our guns,” Felix said, taking control of the situation. He mimicked the firing of a machine gun. “Where are our guns? Do you know?”
Silence.
“You help us, we leave you alone and go into the rainforest,” Felix said. “You don’t help us, we stay here and cause all kinds of mess.”
When Felix was making demands, he possessed an aura of persuasiveness that was hard to resist. The policeman nodded with vigour and motioned back up the way they had come. Felix led the way, with Jake at his heels.
“Where is everyone?” Jake asked as they moved through the hallways.
“The station must be short-staffed,” Crank said. “All the cops must be spread out through the city.”
“He says it’s through here,” Felix said. The eight of them bustled through a doorway and into the evidence room.
The room was large, filled with rows upon rows of metal shelves arranged in an organised grid. Jake counted at least twenty sets to the far wall, against which lay a row of trestle tables. Their weapons were piled high on the tabletop. He saw the seven Snowdogs, the collection of suppressed pistols, the grenades, the knives, and finally the six hiking packs full of jungle survival kit. Everything was there.
If their gear had been processed and filed away, it would have taken hours to locate. But it hadn’t been processed yet. Like Crank said, the station was short staffed.
Link let out a long exhale. “It’s our lucky day.”
They were ready in less than two minutes. Jake slung a hiking pack over his shoulder and armed himself. The other men did the same. By the time they were done, everyone except Zoe and the hostage looked like a human weapon, complete with an assortment of killing tools. Zoe had been in possession of a single backpack full of belongings on the plane. It too had been confiscated, but now it was draped over her shoulder.
“Now what?” Jake said. “We can’t get out of here without going through the foyer. They’ll raise the alarm and we’ll have the whole police force on us.”
“We just need to make it to the jungle,” Thorn said. “They’ll never find us in there.”
“Those vans that they brought us here in,” Zoe said. “Can we steal one of those and dump it?”
Everyone turned to look at her. Felix gave a wry smile. “You don’t mess around.”
Link said, “Best idea we’ve got so far.”
“Alright then,” Sam said. “Let’s do this, boys.”
They left the evidence room, locking the cop who had helped them escape within. Felix patted him down before they left to make sure he was unable to raise the alarm. Not that they would need to be stealthy for much longer, anyway. They fled and ran through the maze of corridors. Jake led the pack, attempting to recall the route out as he moved.
The door to one of the offices up ahead opened and two police officers stepped out, each clutching a mug of steaming coffee. They looked up and saw seven people advancing towards them, all but one brandishing an array of weaponry. Jake saw their eyes widen in shock.
He too panicked, but he knew he had to keep his composure. Asserting dominance was key. Right now, they had the element of surprise. He puffed his chest out and strode forwards purposefully, at the same time pointing a finger to the floor.
“Down,” he ordered.
The two men saw all four barrels of his Snowdog aimed their way, and got the message. They flattened themselves against the linoleum floor. Neither of them tried to reach for the handguns at their belts. They were outgunned and outnumbered. The group moved on.
Crank bent down to disarm the two men. Jake ran ahead, down to the end of the corridor, with the other men keeping close behind him in a tight pack. He turned the corner. There was a wooden door blocking their path. Through the adjacent glass, Jake saw it led into the foyer. A policewoman sat motionless at the desk, facing outwards. It was hard to tell from behind, but it almost seemed like she was sleeping. Other than her, the whole place was empty.
“Ready?” he asked.
Zoe was hyperventilating. The tension was too much for her. She sucked in air with an animalistic fervour. Her eyes were wide, flicking across her surroundings.
Jake walked up and pressed a hand to her face. “It’s going to be okay, Zoe. Everything’s going to be fine.”
“Yeah,” she said half-heartedly.
He kissed her. The touch of her lips brought him calm. As they parted, he saw she was a little less distant, a little more aware.
“Alright, lovebirds,” Felix said. “Let’s go. Remember, be loud.”
Jake nodded, threw the door open and stormed out into the foyer. The policewoman barely had time to turn around. He circled around in front of the desk, waving the Snowdog in her face. The rest of the group fanned out behind him.
He pointed a finger at the entrance doors. They led to the courtyard, where the row of police vans still lay idle.
“Key,” he barked, and twisted his hand back and forth in the motion of a key turning in the ignition. “Now!”
The woman understood. She wasn’t about to provoke a group of heavily armed men. She didn’t waste a second holding them up. She scooted her chair back, reached down and opened a drawer. Jake glanced behind him. There was no activity from outside. No-one had raised the alarm.
Almost on cue, a blaring klaxon sounded from above. He jumped back in fright. The siren echoed through the police station, accompanied
by shrieking alarm bells and flashing red lights in the corners of the foyer.
“Did we tie up those cops we passed?” Sam yelled.
“I disarmed them…” Crank said.
Felix swore. “We don’t have much time now.”
Jake recovered from the initial shock and saw the policewoman was holding a bunch of keys in her hand, her palm outstretched toward him. Four sets. One for each of the vans. Jake took them all, and although it was an odd thing to do to a person he was aiming a gun at, nodded in appreciation.
They hustled out through the entrance, just as a policeman ran into the foyer from the doors they had come from. Jake got a brief glimpse of him before bursting out into the early morning air. For a moment, back in the interrogation room, he’d thought he would never see the outside world again. The fresh air provided a momentary rush of ecstasy.
“I’d say we only need two vans,” he said.
Crank nodded. “Any more would attract too much attention.”
“Dude, I think we’ve attracted all the attention we can manage,” Sam said. He nodded to the wailing building behind them.
“I’ll take care of this,” Link said. “Start up the engines.”
As Crank and Felix ran to the vans, Jake watched as Link squeezed the trigger of his Snowdog, aiming at the floor just inside the foyer. Bullets spat out of the four barrels with a familiar whine.
The double doors exploded. Shredded wood fountained into the air as the ground around the entrance was torn to pieces.
The warning shots were successful. Jake saw all of the police officers who had made it into the foyer dive for cover, terrified by the sudden, overwhelming firepower. They wouldn’t be raising their heads anytime soon.
Felix had backed his van out into the street. He pulled up next to the group with a screech of tires.
“In,” he demanded.
Jake ran around the back and vaulted up inside the rear compartment. Less than an hour ago, he had been locked inside the space against his will, with a horrible fear eating away at his insides, and now he was free. Zoe and Sam followed him up into the van and the door slammed shut. Jake was thrown off-balance as Felix tore off the mark.
