Wild Ways

by Tina Wainscott

  “He’s mine,” Scotch said. “Check with Crimson, he said so. But you can have a piece of him. I respect that.”

  Great. They were doling out who could help kill him.

  “Hey, Crim,” another guy said. “You letting Scotch finish this guy? … But if he killed any King, we should all get to reap vengeance … yeah, okay.” He sounded dejected. Poor guy, wasn’t going to be able to have his piece of Julian. “Crim’s letting these two finish him,” he announced. “Special vengeance.”

  “I guess that’s fair. I heard he tore up your chapters pretty bad.”

  “Two guys down, one shot up bad, and two bikes damaged,” Scotch said from a few inches away from Julian’s head. “And Edge.” His voice stretched thin on the name.

  There was some angry mumbling and head shaking. Julian kicked off one of his shoes. He had a feeling he was going into the water after all.

  “What was that?” one guy asked.

  “Don’t see anything,” another said.

  “Okay, drop him here,” Scotch said.

  Julian fought the body’s natural reaction to tense, the same way he’d done when the van had come to an abrupt stop. Tensed muscles caused more injury. As he dropped, he kicked off his other shoe. At least the ground was softer than asphalt. He hadn’t chewed through the plastic yet, despite the fact that his teeth ached from the effort.

  A steel-toed shoe rammed him in the side, and Julian gasped as pain rocketed through him. He breathed through it, in and out, in and out. He’d survived worse.

  Scotch knelt down, his leering face sinister in the dim light. “You’re going to tell us where your friend is.”

  Uh, no, I’m not. “I haven’t heard from him since you fought him.”

  “Yeah, funny thing about that,” Scotch said in a low voice that held no humor. “I stuck him, threw him in the dumpster, and then you threw Edge on top of him. Of course, I didn’t know it was Edge, since you were wearing his colors.” Scotch punched him in the side of the head. “And because I thought it was you and him in there, I shot into the bin to make sure you both were dead,” he continued. “But when the boys climbed in to get rid of your bodies, we discovered Edge. And the other guy wasn’t there.”

  Thank you, bulletproof vest. Julian’s own vest might help keep him alive, but not if Scotch shot him in the head.

  “I haven’t heard from him.” True.

  “Grab one of his legs, Rancid,” Scotch ordered, reaching for the other. “Let’s give him a dunking and see if he has more to say when his life passes in front of his eyes.”

  Rancid. His body odor made it clear how he’d gotten his nickname. They hauled him to the edge of the seawall, where water slapped against the concrete.

  “Dude must be scared shitless,” one of the guys said with a chuckle. “He’s not even fighting.”

  Julian knew fighting them at this point would be a waste of energy. His whole body ached from the earlier beating, and he sure didn’t need any more injuries. Something that might incapacitate him, for instance.

  “ ’Member that guy we drowned?” Rancid said to someone behind him. “We kept holding him under until he stopped thrashing, then we’d bring him up and let him revive. Did that about, what, twenty times?” He chuckled, sick son of a bitch.

  “Sounds good to me,” Scotch said. “Maybe he’ll be willing to talk after the tenth time.”

  Julian inhaled and slowed his heartbeat. Hands gripped his ankles, then lowered him into the cold, murky water. He let his hands fall over his head so they went in first. The moment they hit, he started working his arms, twisting to put pressure against the nick he’d made in the plastic tie. It would look like your standard struggling. The tie broke, and he bent his body up, latched on to the arms gripping him, and jerked them into the water.

  They splashed, trying to grab him, but he was in his element now. He found the back of Scotch’s head and smashed it into the seawall again and again until he stopped moving. Rancid had swum away. When Julian surfaced, only up to his nose to breathe, he saw the guy reaching up to his comrades.

  “Get me out of here! And shoot that son of a bitch!”

  “We can’t shoot, Rancid. Crimson said no gunshots. There are people living not far away.”

  “I meant with the Taser.”

  “I’ve got a can on my piece,” another guy said.

  Julian submerged again, swimming toward Rancid as he scrambled up the rough wall. The whumps of bullets sounded through the water.

  Julian lunged up and grabbed Rancid by his waist, pulling him down and toppling one of the guys helping him into the water. He screamed like a little girl as he plunged in.

  Julian came up behind Rancid, wrapped his arm around his head, and snapped his neck. The third guy was screaming, “Get me out of here!”

  Julian had to swim like a dolphin, moving his legs as one. It only took one powerful thrust to reach the screamer. Someone was still shooting into the water, but Julian was too close to one of their guys to worry about getting hit. He jerked the guy beneath the water and gave his neck the same kind of twist. Then he bobbed to the surface.

  “I can’t swim,” he called in a choking voice, trying to sound panicked like the guy he’d just killed.

  Two sets of hands latched on to his wrists. The moment they pulled him atop the seawall, he bent his bound legs and kicked the one closest to him into the other one. They both hit the ground, and Julian grabbed the gun that fell from the first guy’s hand as he’d flown backward. He felt along the barrel, ascertaining that this was the one with the suppressor. As the men struggled to their feet, Julian shot one, then the other. They both fell back.

  Even in the dark, Julian could easily extract the tiny knife in his watch. He sliced the cable ties from his ankles, then removed the one that dangled from his wrist. Stripping out of his wet socks, he searched the other guy and found his gun and the Taser, tucking both into his waistband. Damn, no extra cartridges for the Taser, though. Then he pushed them into the water. He could pass for a biker in the dark, but even if he donned one of their vests, he’d never pass in this select crowd in the lighted area. Especially sopping wet.

  He tried to picture what the corridor on the other side of this wall looked like. Where Mollie is. He blinked, forcing himself to focus. Because this guts-falling-out feeling wasn’t going to help him save her.

  The wall seemed to go on forever. There were bushes growing here and there. Enough to maybe give him cover if he came in from the other end. He checked the magazines of the two guns he’d appropriated. One was full, the one with the silencer nearly empty. He transferred the full cartridge to the silenced gun. His shirt clung to him, wet and heavy, and he stripped out of it. He ran, his bare feet hitting the occasional rock or chunk of concrete. No time to find his shoes.

  Crimson was using only the back portion of the corridor for his sick little party. Closer to the street, there were no lights or sounds. Julian looked up at the wall, some twelve feet high. Smooth, not a handhold in sight. Even if he climbed to the top of the wall, he’d be easy to spot.

  His only chance to save Mollie and the other women was to pick off the bikers. A surprise attack, one by one in quick succession. Chase had warned them about using unnecessary force, to protect both him and the agency from any fallout. Which made the Taser a good option. They had all trained on them back at headquarters. The concept of shooting someone without the intent to kill was novel after years at war. Julian remained close to the wall as he neared the end, where a man stood guard.

  “What’s that?” the guy said. “Thought I heard footsteps.”

  Julian slowed his pace and breathing so he could hear better over the breeze. At least two men that way. A click signaled the advent of a flashlight. The beam swept down the length of the wall.

  “Probably the wind,” the other guy said. “Guess they finished off that asshole.”

  The other guy laughed. “Did you hear him screaming like a little girl?”

  Julia
n lay facedown among several short bushes. He didn’t want to chance his eyes catching the reflection of the light. Thank goodness for his dark hair and olive complexion. Some of his comrades in the SEALs had been as white as beacons.

  The light faded, and the two men went back to chatting.

  Julian remembered some of the other side of the wall crumbling away in places. He started heading back, looking for any kind of breach. And he found one. It looked like a bush in the dark, even tapering at the top. It was almost broken through, but not all the way. He pulled at the crumbling concrete and made the opening big enough. Lying on the ground, he pushed slowly through. Yes, darker here. At the far end, he saw the silhouettes of the two guards pacing back and forth. To the left, the lights.

  Suddenly the music got loud, then tapered. A man’s voice announced that they were starting the party.

  Hell.

  Julian shoved himself the rest of the way through, the rough concrete scratching his skin. He did a crouch run to the nearest bush. Dirt stuck to his wet skin, but he didn’t take time to brush it off. He dashed to the next closest bush. Men’s laughter floated over the music, which was now at medium volume. Terrorists were easier to understand. Many were indoctrinated against Americans and others from a young age. They believed in some ideal, as warped as it was. But to hurt women for fun, Julian couldn’t comprehend.

  As he moved from bush to bush, he drew close enough to see two partitioned areas, though they were open at the back. On the right, a woman was cuffed to the wall, in a skimpy costume like the ones the exotic dancers had worn. On the left—Mollie! Cuffed to another woman he thought was her sister.

  His heart shot right up into his throat. Down the center, he saw that there were several “rooms,” reminding him of the emergency section at a hospital. A man walked into the cubicle on the right and drew the curtain closed, but it didn’t conceal him from Julian’s vantage point. The woman started crying as he picked up something from a cart nearby, his low voice menacing. Julian wasn’t close enough to use the Taser, which shot probes about fifteen feet. His finger shook as he fought wrapping it over the gun’s trigger. The man waved the item in front of the crying woman’s face—a surgical blade. He started cutting the woman’s neck, blood dripping down her collarbone. Julian aimed and fired. Blood splattered the curtain, and the man collapsed. The woman screamed, but that wouldn’t attract any attention. They were expecting it.

  Mollie and Di both stared across the way, though they couldn’t see what had happened. Julian edged closer but stopped when another guy sauntered to the end of the hallway. He peered into Mollie’s cubicle.

  “I get two for one, right?” he called to someone out of view.

  “Yep,” a man answered. “Just do the dark redhead first, Crimson said.”

  Son of a bitch. It was all Julian could do to not waste the guy right there before he even stepped into their breathing space. But he had to hold back until the creep was out of view of anyone down the hall. Damn, but he wanted to pick him off right then and there. Because any man who would pay to torture and rape women deserved to die in Julian’s book.

  The man pulled out a twelve-inch knife and murmured something to the women as he pulled the curtain shut. Julian dropped him with his gun. Mollie instantly looked in his direction, and the relief he saw on her face was worth everything he’d just gone through. She nudged Di, nodding toward Julian.

  “That’s the man I was telling you about,” he heard her whisper as he stepped into their cubicle.

  Di looked at him as though he were some angel. “You were right.”

  He didn’t have time to ask what Mollie had said. He went to work cutting the ties around Mollie’s wrists, then he picked Di’s cuffs.

  He couldn’t help pulling Mollie close. “You all right?”

  “I am now.”

  Mollie gripped his arms and gave him a hard, quick kiss. “Thank you for not dying.”

  Not for coming for her; for not dying. It made his heart go blip. “I do my best, ma’am. Stay here,” he said, stepping back. “I’m going to work my way through the cubicles and neutralize any biker I find.” He handed her the other gun. “There isn’t a lot of ammo left in the magazine, but shoot any bastard that comes in wearing a vest. Wait until he gets close, though. There’s a woman across the way.”

  Someone was crying on the other side of the dividing curtain, pleading for her torturer to stop. Julian peeked around the back edge of the curtain, cringing at the sight. One of the girls he’d seen dancing the night before, in the same schoolgirl costume, was bent over a school desk, and the man tore her panties down and was unzipping his jeans.

  “Ever been taken in the ass, little girl?” he was saying, aiming his pencil dick at her.

  Julian pressed the button on the Taser. It fired, and the prongs nailed him. He jerked, his eyes rolling back in their sockets, and he dropped. Julian moved forward and coldcocked him with the gun, knocking him out for longer than the minute and a half the stun would give him. He pulled up the girl’s panties and whispered, “I’m here to help. Stay quiet.”

  He moved to the opening and peered out into the hallway. The music didn’t cover the sounds of the women’s cries coming from the other cubicles. It sickened him, but he had to keep his focus.

  He spotted Damon at the far end, asking two other guys, “Where’s Scotch and the others?”

  Julian aborted his move across the hallway and ducked around the edge of the next curtain. Another disgusting sight, this guy pistol-whipping the woman and calling her filthy names. He was so into his dark fantasy that Julian was able to come within a foot of him and give him a taste of his own fun—name-calling not included. He pressed the Taser itself against the man’s neck, sending him to the floor amid a barrage of crackling.

  Julian put his hand to the woman’s shoulder. “Shh. We’re going to get you out of here.”

  And he moved on. He needed to take out as many of these guys as possible before they realized what was happening. The guy behind curtain number 4 met the nice little Taser, too, but Julian didn’t have time to knock him out. Footsteps pounded on the ground.

  “Pike’s seizing!” a man shouted. “I think he’s having an epileptic fit, man.”

  “So’s Captain,” another man said. “And he’s bleeding.”

  “We’re under attack. Get that son of a bitch.” Damon maybe.

  Advantage over. Julian pulled up the next curtain and nailed the guy with the Taser as he started running out of the cubicle. He heard the whoosh of fabric as curtains started flying open.

  Julian doubled back to Mollie and Di. When he came around the edge of the curtain next to their cubicle, the sight of Damon aiming his gun at them shorted his heartbeat. Julian started to pull the trigger.

  “Drop it or they die right here,” Damon said, automatically aiming the gun at Julian.

  He saw Mollie bring her gun up a second before Damon’s face blew apart. She was thrown back with the recoil. As she took in the blood and gore, she screamed, a shaking hand going to her mouth as Di huddled next to her. Men were coming from the far end now, drawn by gunfire. Julian jerked on the wire to the lantern above, killing the light.

  “Drop to the ground,” he whispered. “Press against the wall and feel your way toward the back end. There’s a gap several yards down. Crawl through to the other side of the wall, hunker down. Jump off the seawall if you have to. It’s dark and you’ll be out of the line of fire.”

  Di was whimpering, and Mollie shushed her.

  He sensed a presence before he saw movement in his peripheral vision. “Drop it or I shoot them,” a man ordered.

  One of the patches had his gun aimed at the women, though Julian was inches from the line of fire. It was a semi-auto, so within seconds he could kill all of them. Julian was fast, but he’d never bring his gun up in time.

  “I got ’em!” the patch shouted, turning his head a fraction of an inch.

  Julian started to bring his gun up, and the g
uy jerked back to firing position. “Uh-uh.” He flexed his finger. “Say goodbye.” Blood splattered the side of his face, and he collapsed. The shot was silenced. Not his gun. Not Mollie’s.

  Julian turned to find three skulking shadows approaching from the empty end of the corridor to the right. He held his gun at a safe angle, ready for the guys that the dead man had alerted to rush in from the left. Risk’s mug emerged from the shadows first, then Sax, and finally Chase. Relief poured through him.

  “Thanks,” Julian whispered.

  Risk nodded his chin toward Chase. “Dude shoots pretty damned good for nonmilitary.”

  Chase had shot the guy?

  Brick brought up the rear, wincing in pain. “Where’s Birdy?” He obviously found her, because his face lit up.

  Two more patches came flying down the hall and met an unhappy surprise. A thundering sound bounced off the walls. Harleys, a bunch of them. “Oh, hell. They’ve got reinforcements,” Julian said.

  “No, we’ve got reinforcements,” Sax said. “The Purgatory Posse.”

  “Big Juan!” Mollie cried, a smile on her face.

  Sirens wailed, moving in fast. Blue and red lights flashed in the distance. “And the police?” Mollie asked.

  Chase gave her a crooked smile. “We deliver it all.”

  Several bikes roared down the corridor. The Grim Reaper on the front of their vests identified them as the Posse. “Who’s Julian?” the guy on the lead bike asked.

  “Me.”

  He hitched his thumb behind him. “My guys have the Kings who were out that way under wraps.”

  “Good job,” Julian said. “Can you stay and watch the ladies at this end?”

  “You bet.” He killed his engine and dismounted.

  Brick rushed over to Di and swept her into his arms. She looked like a rag doll, falling limp in his hold.

  “Let’s clear this place,” Julian said to his team. “Hold all Kings, and verify that it’s not the Posse before shooting. There’s a woman in each of these cubicles, and I want them out of there ASAP.”