Forgotten Island

by Kristi Belcamino

  Walking past the barrels with plastic lids, which now numbered ten, I felt sick.

  These men were treating people like slabs of meat.

  And what was possibly even worse is that there were another few dozen barrels empty. Waiting.

  I paused.

  Bile filled my throat. What if Sasha was in one of these barrels. I looked around. I would need a tool to pry them open and even then, I would also need gloves and a mask or something to protect me if the liquid splashed out or I inhaled it.

  I tried to remember how many people Darling and Kato had said were missing.

  Not ten.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Human Waste

  I ducked back into the stairway, feeling safe again for the first time in twenty minutes. It was apparent I was the only person using the stairs in this hell hole. Probably why the flickering lights had never been fixed. I hurried up two more flights to get to the next floor. This door was locked. I pushed and pulled and it didn’t budge. The door handle on the next floor turned easily. I cracked the door half an inch, waiting. And then an inch. And then two inches. This floor was lit up. Afraid somebody was inside, I got my gun out and holding it close poked my head around the door. Something smelled bad. Like sweat and human waste.

  The first thing I saw was a large desk in a corner with a computer on it. Squeezing through the small space, I stepped inside, keeping my foot in the door in case I needed to quickly escape. That’s when I saw her.

  Sasha was huddled on a mattress on the floor in the corner, sleeping. A metal cuff around her ankle led to a chain bolted into a wall. A large bandage on that foot was soiled and dirty. A jug of water was nearly empty. A few orange rinds were on a small plate and a giant tub had been used for waste. She moaned and turned. Her eyes were closed. Her long lashes resting on her cheekbones. I was hoping she was asleep and dreaming and not feverish from infection.

  I quickly took in my surroundings. Besides the door to the stairs there was an elevator. Good. I wasn’t sure how well she could walk with her injured foot. The chain to the wall would be a problem. I took out my multi-tool but I didn’t think it would do the trick. I needed something bigger.

  Deciding that it would be better if I woke her after I was ready to free her, I headed toward the desk and searched the drawers. The top drawer had the key to the shackle. I could hardly believe it. Maybe a lifetime of bad luck had turned. As I thought that, the elevator dinged. I didn’t even have time to crouch behind the desk in a lame attempt to hide.

  Instead I stood wide-eyed as Kraig King stepped out of the elevator. He gave me a slow smile that sent a chill down my spine. He wore a white shirt and white jeans and was flanked by two men with shaved heads wearing black. I scowled at them all. Up close, King was eerily tall. His watery eyes blinked as if it were difficult for him to see in the bright lights. That’s when I noticed what had seemed so strange about him at Katrina’s. His eyes were pinkish blue. Without the fedora, I saw his hair was white blond and swept up in an old-fashioned pompadour. He was an albino. That’s why in public he always wore a fedora and dark sunglasses. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was both strikingly handsome and terrifying at the same time.

  King, obviously used to people gawking, ignored my open mouth and pointed up to the ceiling where I saw the red flashing light of a camera. I nodded, conceding my mistake.

  Meanwhile, I tucked the key to the manacle into the back pocket of my jeans at the same time I reached for my gun tucked into my back waistband.

  “Tssskkk tsssk tsssk” King said shaking his head. The two men in black raised assault rifles and pointed them at my face. I came away with my hands empty and palms in the air.

  “Good girl.”

  “I don’t suppose I need to ask what you’re doing here?” he said.

  I wanted to keep their attention off Sasha, who had sat up and was rubbing her eyes. He stared at me so I gave him a full-blown smile.

  “Fuck you.”

  Before I realized it, he’d taken three long strides and slapped my cheek so hard I was sent flying into the desk chair. Stunned.

  His goons yanked my gun out of my waistband and wrapped a rope around my waist so I was bound to the chair. I had flexed my hands when they tied it, hoping to get a little wiggle room so I could start working on the knot. I watched them walk away through my lowered eyelashes. I wanted to see where they were putting my gun.

  “In case you don’t already know who I am, you can call me, ‘Your worst fucking nightmare.’”

  He bared his small teeth as he smiled and my mouth went dry. He was crazy. I knew that on a rational level simply by his politics, but now I knew it on a visceral level that made my skin crawl. The bodyguard with my gun held his assault rifle in one hand and my gun in the other. He was walking back to stand by King when his phone buzzed. He set my gun down on top of a filing cabinet and took out his phone. He glanced at it quickly and then stuck it back into his pocket. Then he put both hands back on his assault rifle and looked my way.

  “My problem at this moment is that you broke into my property,” King said. “You’re a trespasser. As far as I’m concerned I have the legal right to shoot you dead for breaking and entering and drawing a gun on me.”

  “For a guy who is stashing dead bodies, I’d have thought it would be a lot harder to break in here. You might want to bolster your security.” I slipped one finger through the knot and started working it. I feigned nonchalance hoping he wouldn’t notice how furiously I was trying to free myself.

  “Obviously, I didn’t suspect some greasy Italian peasant girl could figure it out. You surprise me.”

  “You have no idea.” I mumbled it, but on the inside I was stunned. Not so much at the ethnic slur, but at the fact that he seemed to know who I was.

  He read my mind. And he knew it. He gave another malevolent smile.

  “Yes. Gia Valentina Santella. I know very well who you are. I also know that you still think your homeless friend was killed by Mafioso. And that you are so wracked with guilt that you visit her grave twice a month. Let me relieve you of that guilt. One of my men killed her.”

  Rage spread throughout my insides making me feel as if I would burst. My blood pounded in my ears. If I weren’t tied to this chair, I would’ve smashed his teeth out with my forehead.

  The final battle’s time and place must remain a deep secret until the last possible moment if one is to be victorious.

  At my name, I saw Sasha’s head jerk upright. She might not have recognized my face, but she knew my name. I saw her back up against the wall.

  The three men saw where I was looking.

  “Sasha, your grandmother’s friend here is going to help you tell us where your laptop is. Because if you don’t, she will die. Since you don’t seem to care about your own death, maybe you care about hers.”

  “She doesn’t care. We barely know each other.”

  The blurry whir of his hand came at the same time the back of his palm struck my mouth. This time I tasted blood and my teeth reverberated from the blow. But I noticed when I lifted my head again that my hands had a bit more mobility. The knot was loosening.

  I met his eyes. They gleamed with excitement. I realized then he got off on violence. And knew I was in big trouble.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Bang

  The elevator dinged and to my relief, King was distracted. He must not have been expecting anyone.

  When the doors slid open I stifled my gasp.

  Mayor Evans. He drew back when he saw me. My cheek throbbed. Blood dripped down my nose onto my lap. My eye was nearly swollen shut. I’m sure it wasn’t pretty. The mayor’s gray hair looked greasy, he had dark circles under his eyes, and his shirt had a stain on it. Things apparently hadn’t been going well for him the past few days, either.

  “Why is she here?”

  “Not your concern,” King waved his hand at me.

  “It is my concern.”

  “Not anymore. You
made it my concern.” King busied himself wiping some of my blood off his knuckles.

  The mayor looked dismayed. I noticed he refused to look over at Sasha.

  “This has got to stop,” the mayor said, wincing.

  “I told you to stay away. Let me handle this. You’ll get what you want.”

  “You need to let her go.” The mayor finally glanced over at Sasha. “I’m getting pressured. The editor at the campus newspaper called me to ask about her. He called me. He knows something.”

  Go Baumann! I didn’t care what anyone said—the press still had power. And these two men knew it. And were afraid. While they were distracted I got another finger in and was now very close to loosening the knot binding my wrists behind my back. The effort was making me strain and make faces so I was relieved at the distraction and that nobody was paying any attention to me.

  “I’ll let her go as soon as she tells me where her laptop is and who else knows about her story.”

  “She didn’t tell anyone,” I said. “Not even her editor. If you’re editor knew, he would have held it over you to get her back. Trust me.” Both men turned to me. I stopped fiddling with the knot so they wouldn’t suspect I was nearly free.

  “That makes it a lot easier,” King nodded at the two men with guns who shifted forward. “You just spent your last poker chip. We have no use for either one of you anymore.”

  The men had raised their guns and I spoke in a rush. I sounded plugged up from my bloody —and possibly—broken nose. “But I found her story. I found her laptop.”

  Sasha shot me a startled glance. I hoped she would go with it.

  King held up a palm and both men lowered their guns.

  “It is a damn good story,” I said. “It pretty much lays out everything you both have done. It contains campaign finance reports and the names of the people in those barrels on the other floor. I emailed it this morning to every media outlet in the Bay Area. Along with a note that I was heading over here to get Sasha.” I glanced at the clock on the wall. “Most of them should be getting into the office right about now and reading their emails.”

  “You’re bluffing.” King’s voice sounded confident, but there was something in his eyes that betrayed him. Maybe he was worried.

  “Am I?” I raised an eyebrow. “As I said, the story lays out in great detail how the mayor is under your control. How your shell companies have profited the mayor’s coffers: his personal finances, along with his campaign finances. In return, the mayor has agreed to be at your beck and call when he is re-elected. To be your puppet, so to speak.

  “Isn’t that right, Sasha?”

  She nodded with wide eyes.

  I paused. King narrowed his eyes at me.

  “But the real meat of her story. The thing that’s going to win her the Pulitzer is that she found out that in your efforts to help the mayor get re-elected, your crew of turdwads decided to clean-up the city. Except your idea of cleaning is a whole hell of a lot different than most of the world. You’re starting with the homeless people of color and probably moving on from there.”

  The mayor was green. “I didn’t know any of this.”

  “Bullshit.” The word was so quiet I almost didn’t hear it. It was the first time Sasha had spoken.

  “At first, I didn’t know. And when I found out I told him to stop. But he won’t.” The mayor glared at King, one of his bushy gray eyebrows lowered. “I never agreed to this …” he sputtered. “To murder.”

  King gave a slight shrug. “We’re just giving you want you wanted. You wanted results. You didn’t dictate how we would go about getting those results.”

  “This is unacceptable. That’s why I came here.” The mayor shot me a glance to see if I was buying it, I bet. “To put a stop to this.”

  Two could play that game.

  “If that’s true, then tell Mr. King to let Sasha and me go.” I was so close to untying the knot. I tried not to look at my gun on top of the filing cabinet. If I broke free and darted for it, I might be able to beat King to it.

  Evans frowned. “I can’t. If what you say is true, and the media has the story, I’m done for. I can’t pretend to go on like normal. They’re on to me.” He wrung his hands. He turned to King. “You need to get me out of here. Out of town. Out of the country. You owe me that at least.”

  King pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes. “I don’t owe you anything. I’ve paid in full.”

  My efforts to wiggle free of the knot hit a snag. Something was still too tight.

  “You have to help me,” the mayor said to King. “I need to leave town immediately. I have all my money tied up in an offshore account. I can access it in a week, but I need to leave town now before they arrest me. I will make it worth your while.” He put his head in his hands. “I wish this would all go away.”

  He turned to me. “It’s your fault. If you hadn’t sent the story to the media, we could let you go. We could go on.” He shot a glance at King.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Do you mean that? That we could walk out of here like nothing? Me and Sasha?”

  Boy, this guy was dumb. He would let us go if we promised to not tell on him? He nodded. Barely.

  “I was bluffing,” I said.

  The mayor shot a glance at me. “What?”

  “You heard me. I made all that up about sending it to the papers and letting people know I was coming over here. I only said it so you’d keep us alive. Now you can let us go. I promise not to say anything. I bet Sasha agrees that it’s worth our lives to keep that story buried forever.”

  She stared at me for a second, but then said, “Yes, of course.”

  King shook his head. “This is absurd. Of course, they are going to say something. How can you be so stupid, Evans?”

  My question exactly.

  The mayor turned to me with a confused look on his face.

  “I was bluffing. Honest,” I said.

  King was moving toward me and I didn’t like the look in his eyes. I had to sound more convincing. “But, it’s not going to be that easy. Sasha is trying to make it as a journalist. You have to promise to feed her scoops every once in a while. To keep her in the loop so she gets the dirt before anyone else. And, you need to stop killing people.”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” The mayor was so eager for an escape plan out of the shit storm he was in, that he would believe anything I said. It was too rich.

  King was at my side then. “Enough of this nonsense. She’s playing you, you ignorant fool. You are possibly the stupidest man I’ve ever met.” He shot a glance at the mayor and then turned back to me, rubbing his finger on my cheek and then grabbing my mouth so hard it hurt.

  With his back to the mayor, he continued to speak to him, but his eyes raked over me. “You have no say in it, anymore. You lost that. You will do as we say.” He punctuated his words by drawing back and slapping me. I glowered and he smiled. “And you will sit back and shut up while we do what we need to do.”

  The blast of the gun, two quick shots, was deafening.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Hot Breath

  My first thought was Sasha, but when King turned, I could see the two gunmen on the floor with bullets in their foreheads. The mayor stood above them, legs spread, arm extended with my gun in his shaking hands. His hair mussed so it stood up on one side.

  “You won’t be telling me what to do anymore,” The mayor said. He pointed the gun at King.

  At the same moment, I finally loosened the ropes enough to wiggle free.

  With King focused on the gun pointing at his forehead, he didn’t notice me. I was up in one fluid motion and charged him. I had my hands up in fists and my leg swung around and up and caught him in the side, in the kidney, right when he turned toward me.

  It didn’t seem to budge him. I spun around as he grabbed for me and his fingers closed around air. Instantly I regretted attacking him. I should have let the mayor keep him at gunpoint. But there was something about the way King
was inching closer to the mayor that pretty much convinced me the mayor’s control of the gun was short-lived.

  I lunged for King again, and tried to flip him over me as I’d practiced a million times with Kato. But this time, I got a punch to the neck that sent me spinning back and re-evaluating my plan. Keeping my hands in front of me and staying on the balls of my feet, I kept my eyes glued on his hands and feet, trying to predict his next move.

  He charged, coming in faster than any man his size should be able to move. I ducked and spun, tucking myself under his arm and using his own force to tug his shoulder down. He stumbled and I dropped limp and out of his grip. Then immediately I stood up straight and yanked his head down. He bent at the waist and I pummeled the back of his neck about four times and then jerked my knee against his face.

  I heard something crack and saw blood drip onto the floor. Without waiting for him to stand up, I darted toward the mayor. On my way, I leaned down and scooped up one of the semi-automatics. When I got to the mayor, who was standing there wide mouthed, I yanked the gun out of his hand.

  He stared at me with relief until I poked the gun into his nose. “Don’t even breathe.” Behind him I saw King creeping closer.

  “Back up, King. I happen to know this Barrett M82 is capable of sending rounds right through the mayor’s fat head and into yours like slicing butter.”

  I drew back slowly.

  “Both of you, over in the corner.” I didn’t take my eyes off them, but in my peripheral vision I searched for a way to keep them secured. There was nothing. The guns were all I had. Just as I thought that, King lunged forward and I shot him in the leg with my handgun. The boom of the gun was deafening in the small space. He crumpled to the ground. “Next one is right between the eyes.” I gestured with the semi-automatic. “With this big boy.”