by CJ Lyons
She choked and looked away as she rubbed her eyes. Her hands came away wet. “I was gone, meeting a boy. He never came. I heard gunfire and ran back and I saw … I saw…”
She couldn’t finish. Caitlyn took her hand and squeezed it. Itzel had gone deathly cold. “They killed your people?”
Itzel nodded. “It went on for two days. They killed the men quickly, but the women and children—” She inhaled sharply as if it hurt to breathe. “I had nowhere to run, so I hid in the temple. Then I saw the smoke. I came back. They were burning everything. Our crops, our homes, this church. They dragged the bodies onto their trucks and drove away. I waited until I thought it was safe, came out from the jungle to try to search for anyone still alive, and that’s when they found me.”
“They took you prisoner?”
“Yes. To Lake Invierno.” She practically spat the words.
“The hospital.”
“Back then it was—” She closed her eyes for a long moment and without opening them said, “—hell. The worst prison imaginable. Anyone sent there never returned, would disappear forever. I was there for two years when I became pregnant.”
Caitlyn shuddered, imagining the horrors Itzel had suffered during that time. “And you had Maria.”
Itzel opened her eyes again. Seemed calmer, more in control at the mention of Maria’s name. “By the time she and her brother were born, the colonel and his men had already taken all the men and most of the women. We never found out where. They just … disappeared. The pregnant women, they kept us there. Threatened to kill our children if we said anything to anyone from the outside. They turned it into a hospital. Claimed we were all insane. Simply because we dared to live on land that had belonged to our people for centuries. That is what makes you insane in this country.”
“But you escaped?”
She looked at the ground, her palms flat against the stone as if drawing strength from it. “After Maria was delivered, I was bleeding and they couldn’t stop it. I passed out and then woke up in the back of a truck surrounded by other women. All prisoners, too sick to have children or work in the fields or be of any use to the soldiers. I realized they were taking us to execution—we’d disappear just like the men had. I jumped off—we were in the jungle, not far from here. I made it home, hid here until some Lutheran missionaries traveling with the UN inspectors found me. They nursed me to health, took me with them. I lived and studied at their mission in Cobán—that’s how I learned English.”
“Then you came back.”
“I had to see—I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened to the others, to my babies. But no one was left. I was the only one who survived. Who escaped.”
“You said Maria had a brother?”
“Yes. They were twins. His name was Michael.”
“What happened to him?”
“Before they were born, they’d told me I had to chose between my babies and my silence. The Butcher of Invierno, the colonel’s second-in-command, Dr. Otto Mendez Carrera. He took my son. And the colonel took Maria for his own. I never even had the chance to hold them. They were hostages to my silence. I couldn’t follow Maria, but after I escaped, I returned here to care for my people and watch over my son as best I could.”
She shuddered and broke down again, fighting the tears she tried to hold inside. “Now the Butcher has Maria as well.” Her eyes squeezed shut as she crossed herself and her lips moved in prayer. “Please help me. We must save her from that monster.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Romero slowed the Land Rover. The headlights reflected off the gravel surface of the single-lane road. Jake couldn’t see anything else through the darkness except more darkness.
“Why’d you stop?”
“This road—” Romero pointed to the narrow road they were on that curved to the left. “—goes to Lake Invierno and the clinic. Which, if you’re serious about getting to the bottom of Hector’s company and where it gets its tissues from, is where we should be heading.”
Ah. Now he knew why Romero had been so forthcoming about the clinic. Diversionary tactics.
“No. We need to go to Cubiltzul and find Caitlyn.”
“Here’s the problem. That is the road to Cubiltzul.” He pointed to the right. All Jake saw was jungle. There was maybe a car-sized clearing through it, but he couldn’t be certain. Two gleaming white globes glinted in the headlights, then with startling speed they moved into the air, straight up, disappearing from sight. The vertical leap was too high for a jaguar—at least Jake hoped so. Maybe a monkey?
“Then we go right,” Jake told Romero.
“Be serious. That road is barely passable in broad daylight. It’s almost two in the morning—why don’t we head to the clinic, charm our way into the doctor’s good graces for the night, check things out there, and then we can head into the jungle in the morning if Caitlyn hasn’t checked in by then.”
Logical. Reasonable. If you didn’t give a shit about the person left with a sociopathic former leader of a death squad in the middle of the jungle facing God knew what.
“Get out,” Jake ordered. He raised his own weapon to back up his words.
“What, you’re not going to leave me? Here? In the middle of nowhere?” Romero shrugged and raised his hands in surrender with an exaggerated sigh and shake of his head. “You’re making a big mistake, man. You’ll never make it a hundred yards into that jungle without me. And unless you speak Spanish and Achi, you won’t be able to sweet-talk your way out of any shit you get into. I know the land, I know the people, I know the politics. You need me.”
Jake leaned forward just far enough to yank Romero’s 9 mm from his holster. “Get out. Now.”
Romero’s lips twisted into a sneer. He handed Jake the phone and opened the door, climbing down to the ground. Jake didn’t relax his aim. “You’re dead, Carver. One more corpse the jungle’s gonna swallow, and no one will be the wiser.”
Jake slid over to the driver’s seat and followed Romero out of the car. He couldn’t risk leaving Romero behind the wheel of what amounted to a two-ton weapon, but the CIA officer was right: Jake needed him.
“Hands on your head,” Jake ordered. Romero complied, not resisting as Jake searched him. No more weapons. But the sat phone’s antennae was broken off.
“Insurance,” Romero said. “If you can’t call for backup, you have to keep me alive.”
Jake used Romero’s belt to restrain the man’s hands before shoving him back into the Land Rover’s passenger seat. Jake got behind the wheel and took off to the right into the jungle.
He drove over the rough terrain as fast as he could without risking losing an axle, hitting a hidden boulder, or getting stuck in one of the many washed-out ditches filled with mud and water. Probably could have walked it faster, but he liked the relative safety of being inside the vehicle, despite being trapped with a rat like Romero.
The CIA officer remained silent, his expression bordering on bemused, as Jake drove.
Jake hoped Caitlyn was safe inside somewhere. The jungle came alive at night—and not in a good way. Shrieks and howls like someone getting skinned alive echoed from all sides, trees shook and swayed despite there being no wind, and strange glowing eyes caught the headlights’ reflection, appearing and disappearing.
Oh yeah, this Kansas farm boy was definitely staying inside the truck.
Then the rains came. One second the jungle was still, quiet; the next he was caught in a tsunami of rain, lightning, thunder, and wind fierce enough to bend trees. He stopped the Land Rover and sat there as the rain and wind buffeted it, the noise drumming into his head so loud, his teeth ached.
“How long do these storms usually last?” He had to shout to be heard over the thunder. Romero merely shook his head and shrugged. Jake had to resist the urge to pound the smirk off the CIA officer’s face.
Caitlyn didn’t have time for this. As soon as the storm eased to a mere hurricane force—at least that’s how it felt trapped inside the Land R
over—he inched forward again. The road was even more treacherous now. Who was he fooling? It wasn’t a road; it was a freaking river trying to sweep him off the side of the mountain. He hated to admit it, but maybe Romero was right. They should have gone to the clinic. It wasn’t going to do Caitlyn any good if he was stuck out here in the middle of nowhere.
As suddenly as the downpour started, it was gone. Water flooded around the wheels as they skidded and lurched forward through the mud. Twice the Land Rover’s tires lost their grip, spinning out, the vehicle tilting ominously as if it was going to tumble down the mountain, but both times he managed to regain control. Barely.
According to the odometer, he had only about half a mile to go to reach the area where the helo went up in flames—if the map and Romero’s coordinates were at all accurate. He was exhausted, his shoulders tight with tension, hands cramped with fatigue from wrestling the steering wheel.
The Land Rover shuddered around a steeply banked curve. Just as Jake straightened the vehicle, heading up a steep incline, there was a loud crash. The entire vehicle shook. Jake hit the brakes, thinking he hit something hidden by the mud and darkness. Romero rolled under the dash. Another noise came, this time more of a crack.
Jake dived for cover as more shots followed, rocking the Land Rover, shattering the windows. He tried to gauge where they came from as he drew his Glock and kept his body behind as many layers of steel as possible. The bullets kept coming, giving him no chance to get a fix on the shooter’s location or even raise his head high enough to take aim.
He was surrounded. He changed tactics, opting for a strategic escape instead of confrontation. He slid across the seat and opened the door on the side of the vehicle facing downhill. As soon as he pushed the door open, a man leapt forward and yanked him out of the Land Rover, throwing him facedown into the mud.
The man shouted something in Spanish as the barrel of his AK-47 dug into the back of Jake’s neck. Jake kept his hands clear and in sight. The man grabbed Jake’s weapons and phone. Then he finally switched to English.
“Who the hell are you?”
*
Without the match’s light, Maria was totally disoriented. It was hard to breathe with her heart pounding in her throat, blocking any attempt to swallow. Logic told her she must be breathing; all she could hear were her own gasps. Her fingers and toes and nose were tingling. Why was her nose tingling? The stray thought only increased her confusion and panic.
She lurched toward the door. Slipped in something wet on the floor and fell down onto the concrete. Blind, she reached up to steady herself on the gurney, only to plunge her hand onto something that felt like raw meat.
This time she couldn’t stop her scream. It echoed shrill through the room. She propelled herself forward, slammed into the wall, felt a door hinge at her side, and finally got the door open. Escaping into the hall, lit only by the red EXIT sign a few feet away, she collapsed against the wall.
Running footsteps sounded above her. Someone had heard her scream. She pushed off from the wall and ran for the steel door below the EXIT sign. It opened onto a stairwell filled with noise from above: shrieks and screams that came close to inhuman. Mimicking her own terror. Cutting through the noise was a man’s voice, shouting in anger.
Not that way. She took the steps leading down. As she ran, she scoured the walls and ceilings and spaces between the water and steam pipes that shared the stairwell. No place to hide.
Just one small crevice, one overlooked alcove, that’s all she needed. She found nothing except institutional cement walls. At the next floor she pushed through the door. The hallway here had its lights on, that was a relief. Until she glanced down and saw the blood glistening on her hands. Terror shot through her. She clenched her hands, hard enough for her nails to bite into her flesh as she tried to throttle her fear.
The walls were white tile and the scent of disinfectant was stronger. Solid wooden doors lined the hallway and a stainless steel surgical table with instruments on it stood outside one of them. A medical unit? If so, there should be plenty of supply cabinets and cupboards where she could hide.
The first room she came to was an immaculate operating room, ready and waiting for a patient. No place to hide there. She ran to the next room and opened the door.
Another operating room. This one not so immaculate.
Blood covered the corpse on the operating table, the floor, and the man holding a human heart in his hands.
Maria wasn’t sure what kind of noise she made, it was drowned out by the roaring that filled her head. She wanted to run, her lungs already working hard and fast as if she were running, but her feet wouldn’t move.
The man was a few inches taller than she was, a little older, maybe in his thirties, Asian, lean, muscular, with hair that looked scraggly and needed a trim. For some reason, that hair bothered her. She couldn’t pull her gaze from it. The way it almost brushed the collar of his surgical scrub top. The fact that it was loose and not tucked into a scrub cap.
Of course, he wasn’t wearing a mask either. Or a surgical gown. But he did have bright purple surgical gloves on—the color clashed horribly with the brilliant crimson of the blood seeping from the heart.
And the corpse—another nightmare, no legs, this time a woman, belly skinned so the muscles were exposed, chest cavity cut down the middle and held open with a stainless steel ring clamped into place. At least her face was covered with a drape.
Maria took all this in before she realized the man’s mouth was moving.
“Help me,” he kept repeating, his voice breaking as if he were ready to cry. “Please, help me.”
He dropped the heart onto the corpse and lunged forward. She reeled back, slamming into the door behind her, fumbling blindly for the handle.
“No, don’t go. Please, you’ve got to help me,” he begged. He took another step and there was a rattling noise.
That’s when she noticed the chain fastened to his ankle, bolted to a large pipe running up the wall.
He held his hands up as if surrendering. “My name is Cho. Dr. Kevin Cho. I’m a cardio-thoracic fellow at McGill. In Toronto.”
His voice came fast, as if he needed to get the information to her before it was too late and he lost his chance. “I was here volunteering for a medical mission sponsored by Dr. Carrera, but on my way home, he kidnapped me. That was a month ago.”
He gestured to the chain. “I’ve tried everything, even using the rib cutters and a bone saw. Is there anything outside, any tools? If not, could you go get help? Tell someone, anyone I’m here? Please, he’s going to kill me.”
*
Hector still stood immobile, but Caitlyn could tell by his rigid posture that he’d heard Itzel’s story. “Why would the doctor take Maria, Hector? What does he want with her—or from you?”
He spun on his heel as if making a decision. “Coming here was a waste of time. A simple diversionary tactic. He knew if I thought the ransom demand came from her”—he nodded to Itzel—“that I would come here. Probably thought she’d kill me or that we’d kill each other.”
“What is Dr. Carrera trying to divert you from, Hector?” Caitlyn persisted. “Why take Maria?”
He shook his head, his eyes narrowed as if seeing into the distance—or the past. “He’s been irrational, unpredictable these past few months. Since Michael got sick—maybe even before…”
“You’ve stayed in contact with him?”
“He’s my business partner. In BioRegen. I haven’t seen him in two decades, but we talk on the phone. Lately he’s been fixated on the past—our past. Talking about penance and redemption. As if Michael’s illness was his fault and if he redeemed himself, he could save his son.”
“My son,” Itzel said, standing and facing Hector. He ignored her.
“How would he redeem himself for his war crimes?” Caitlyn asked, trying to assess how grave the danger to Maria was. Carrera sounded unstable at best. Maybe even psychotic.
“No one was
ever able to prove any war crimes,” Hector snapped. “She and the others who tried found nothing. We did nothing wrong except to defend our country from the likes of her.”
Itzel didn’t agree. “You murdered an entire village. Don’t you dare call that nothing!”
“No one can prove it.” His voice grew low, deadly.
“If the Butcher has both my children, if he harms either of them, then I will prove it to the world,” Itzel threatened. “I know where the bodies went, Colonel. I know what you and the Butcher did with them.”
Hector raised a hand as if to slap her, but Itzel’s men stepped in, guns raised. Caitlyn rushed to disarm the situation. “Calm down. We all want to get Maria back unharmed.”
To her surprise, Hector merely smiled and turned to face the wall, hands up, elbows wide. At first Caitlyn thought he was surrendering, but then realized he was pressing his hands against his ears.
He wasn’t surrendering—he’d merely been stalling.
“Everyone, down!” she shouted.
Too late. The cavern filled with a flash of bright light and loud bangs that made the ground heave.
Women and children screamed as Hector’s men swarmed inside, tossing a few more flash-bangs at the far reaches of the space, quickly dropping any resistance.
Hector grabbed a gun from one of the stunned guards, used it to head-butt the guard, and then shot the guard’s partner. The man fell against Caitlyn, knocking her to the ground. Red flashes filled her eyes, she couldn’t see, her ears rang with a high-pitched buzz, but Hector wasn’t so affected.
Of course not. Bastard knew it was coming. He hadn’t been standing there listening to Itzel or his conscience, he’d been listening via an earbud to his men prepare their entry.
She pushed the guard’s body away and slowly sat up, her vision returning but balance still off. Hector’s men quickly had the adults, including Itzel, in zip-tie restraints—the ones left alive. Children cried and ran to their parents, but one guard held them at bay, forcing them to back up until they huddled together on the edge of the cistern.
