by Scott Blade
Cameron said, “I’ve never done this before, so lean forward and try not to move.”
That was when Cameron noticed for the first time that Lane was smiling. He seemed to enjoy seeing his old teammate in agonizing pain.
Cameron didn’t know much about sewing, but he got the gist of it. He didn’t concern himself with trying to make a straight line. Under the circumstances, he thought that faster was probably better. He grabbed Cord’s shoulder tight with his hand, applying a tremendous amount of pressure to it to keep Cord from squirming around too much. Luckily, the needle was already threaded with string. That saved a lot of time because Cameron was not good at things as tedious as putting the tiny end of a string into the barely-larger hole at the end of a needle.
He had to make more than a few stitches into Cord’s wound to pull it shut. The entire process took five minutes during which Cord struggled not to scream.
By the end of it, Lane’s smile had grown even wider.
Chapter 37
CAMERON FINISHED SEWING UP CORD’S wound and then wrapped a dressing tightly around his shoulder so that the bleeding at the entrance wound would clot. Then he wrapped the rest of the dressing snugly around Cord’s chest, under his arms, and around his back to pull his ribs together. He wasn’t medically trained and had no idea if it would work, but his idea was to use the dressing as a splint. He thought it might keep his ribs from moving around too much.
Cameron sat down and leaned against the wall with his hands cuffed behind him and around the exposed wood framing. Cord lay on his back, his arms extended above his head and cuffed around a different stud. The nameless guy had been left to watch over them. Alone. That was fine by Cameron. He had been hoping for that. Even though he and Cord were both restrained, it gave him better odds.
The guy was busy on the computer. He watched Raggie half the time and amused himself on the computer the other half. He started laughing out loud. Looked to Cameron like he was watching YouTube videos. Cameron had heard of that site and how people went there to watch pets doing funny things or kids trying stupid and life-threatening stunts.
Cameron whispered to Cord, “How’re you feeling?”
“Not my best day.”
Cameron nodded.
Cord said, “They killed Lucas.”
Cameron said, “I know. And they almost killed you. Be grateful they didn’t.”
“We served in Africa and Iraq—twice. I’ve known him for twenty years. I think his dad fought in Korea. He was a real soldier.”
Cameron said, “I know. I came from a family of soldiers. I could tell he was a good guy. He really cared about Raggie.”
“Is she alive?”
“Over there. On the laptop. You can see her. Looks like a live feed. She’s being held somewhere else.”
“Does she look okay? I mean, is she healthy?”
“She looks scared. I can’t see her very well. We’re too far away, and they’ve got her in the dark.”
“So how can you see her?”
“Night vision cameras. She probably doesn’t even know they’re watching her.”
Cord said, “She knows. She’s a smart one. The only reason they even got to her was Graine. That bastard! I’m going to put a bullet in him!”
Cameron said, “Relax. First things first. We gotta get out of here.”
“How the hell are we going to do that?”
Cameron shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Chapter 38
RAGGIE DIDN’T LIKE ANY OF THE MEN she’d seen so far. But then again, they were her abductors, so there was no reason to like any of them anyway. But she particularly didn’t like the one who had been sent to watch her now. Not one bit.
He had wandering eyes. He’d looked at her twice now. He walked in past the barking dogs and opened her door and turned on the light. He said he just wanted to check on her, but she knew he wanted to let her know he was there and that they were alone.
The first time she’d seen him was when they were filming that stupid video that she didn’t want to be a part of. And the second time had been an hour ago when he’d showed up to replace their leader—the quiet one.
This guy was called Valentine. She’d heard his name. She’d tried to remember all of their names so she could tell her dad later. She knew he would rescue her. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that the Secret Service wouldn’t let her die, but then again, Graine had been one of her dad’s friends. He wasn’t Secret Service, but he’d been a cop and was once with her dad when he was in the Army. She’d known him ever since she was a little girl. But she didn’t know him as well as she knew Lucas.
Lucas had been like a second father to her. Sometimes he felt more like her real father than the one that she had because he was always around whenever he wasn’t working. He came to all of her birthdays and every major event in her life. She remembered one year he’d taken her to Australia to watch a huge surfing competition on Bells Beach. It was one of the most favorite weeks she’d had in her whole life.
Lucas would find her—that she knew for sure.
But she didn’t want to wait. One thing her dad had taught her was never leave your life in the hands of others. Always try to take steps to ensure your own safety. Pack your own parachute and that sort of thing.
What if Lucas wasn’t coming? What if no one was coming?
She had to take matters into her own hands, but then she thought about how she only had one hand. She smiled a bit for the first time since she’d been taken.
Raggie had decided to escape or die in the process. It was better to die trying than to die the way they wanted her to. But how the hell was she supposed to get out?
She’d been sure that they had been watching her with a camera that could see in the dark. What the hell was that called? The neighbor kid back in South Africa would know. He was always playing video games. Dark vision? Whatever. She needed to get their attention. She was frustrated because so many things had to fall into place in order for her to escape. She needed one of them to get close to her. Then she needed that person to remove her handcuffs. But how was she going to do that? She had no idea yet.
After that, she needed to use her one hand to grab a weapon. Her first choice would’ve been a Glock. That was a gun her dad had taught her to use—she was comfortable with it because it was lightweight and easy to fire. She wasn’t big on guns, but he had insisted on her being competent with them. In particular, he wanted her to know how to handle one safely.
In this case, though, the weapon she had chosen was one she’d found lying around. She knew she was in a veterinary clinic—the barking dogs and the giant farmer’s sink made that pretty obvious. Even though it was dark, she had found the sink’s pipes using touch and sounds. She had slipped off her shoe and felt around with her toes. While doing that, she’d discovered a big bottle like a gallon jug. It was mostly empty. She could hear the liquid in it swish around every time she tapped it with her foot.
Since she figured her captors were watching her, she decided to kick at the pipes while pulling the bottle back to her. That way, they wouldn’t know wat she was really doing. She managed to move the liquid bottle over to her, and she studied it. Without lifting it in her feet and possibly giving away her potential plans to her captors, the closest she could get it to her face was to rest the bottle next to her right hip. By twisting her back and peering over, she could look at the label.
After being locked up in the dark for hours, her eyes had adjusted somewhat to the lack of light. She couldn’t see too far away, but she could see quite well up close. The label was bright white, which was a good thing, but the small print was impossible to see. She could, however, clearly see the large letters indicating what was in the bottle. It wasn’t what she had been hoping for—but much better. She thought a veterinary clinic was probably required to lock up all hazardous materials and narcotics. But the chemicals that people tended to leave out were cleaning products.
Raggie had hoped that th
e chemical inside of the jug was bleach. But it wasn’t bleach—it was ammonia. That was the word she could see clearly on the bottle.
Ammonia caused severe chemical burns. Raggie had seen on YouTube some of the effects of ammonia when it made contact with skin. There were stories all over the Internet of people who’d had ammonia thrown in their faces. As she recalled, most of these stories were gruesome. She remembered one where a guy in Iran had thrown it in a woman’s face and then raped her. Later, the guy was caught. Iran had a crazy law that whenever someone committed a vile crime against someone else, the victim had the right to call for an equal punishment against the aggressor. The woman had lost her eye because of the chemical, so she had called for the prisoner’s eye to be taken out and for him to be raped by other inmates on a regular basis. The judge in the case agreed to the severe punishment, and to this day, the rapist was still getting his.
Raggie remembered this story. How could she forget? She wasn’t a savage. She was a good person. But in this instance, it was kill or be killed. She didn’t care if one of her captors lost his eyes. All she needed was for one of them to come close to her. So far, she hadn’t heard a peep from anyone in almost twenty-four hours. But Valentine seemed to be her best chance.
VALENTINE WATCHED FROM THE NEXT ROOM. He smiled. Raggie was just the right age.
He was still drinking. He’d stolen one of those small liquor bottles from a motel in Memphis three days ago. His vice hadn’t always been such a problem, but he’d been running out of luck. He’d pissed off a lot of his employers due to his excessive drinking.
He was working for a mobster in Memphis. Some rich moron who liked to hire ex-military for different things he considered to be special assignments. Most of it was spying on his competitors or protecting him during meetings with other mob families from Atlanta. It was boring, low-level stuff even though he liked to think it was important. He liked to think it was like the jobs he’d had had in his heyday. But the truth was that nothing he had done in Tennessee or anywhere else in the US compared to the dangerous operations he’d performed ten years ago in Iraq or Afghanistan.
But even in the small time jobs, Valentine was messing up. His drinking had gotten worse. And that’s why when a job came along that got him out of Memphis, his employer had given him rave recommendations. Of course, he was taking a risk doing this because the kind of guys who were looking for a couple of extra men for an operation on American soil weren’t the kind of guys you lied to. Not that Valentine’s old employer was keen to this. He probably had no idea exactly who he was lying to. He had no idea how insignificant he was compared to some of the hardened warlords Valentine had met in the past.
Besides, Valentine wasn’t planning on messing up the mission.
At that very moment, he wasn’t that drunk—not like he’d been before. But the girl was looking pretty good on camera. They were going to kill her anyway. What difference did it make if he had a little fun with her? As long as he didn’t leave any visible marks, they would never even know.
She wouldn’t be a problem. She was restrained, and she only had one hand. But he figured he’d have to remove the handcuffs because he liked it when a girl used her hand.
He wasn’t worried. She was a hundred pounds soaking wet. No way was she going to overpower him. Besides, she’d been locked up for twenty-four hours. She looked like she hadn’t slept, and her kicking and screaming had slowed down a lot. The last time he’d gotten a glimpse of her was the day before, and she’d had much more energy then. She wasn’t going to be a problem.
But just in case, he decided it would be best to make it quick—in and out. No trouble. And he’d have to leave his gun behind. He’d be preoccupied and probably have his pants off for a good ten minutes. Couldn’t take the chance of her getting his gun.
He took the last swig from the little Jack Daniels bottle and stood up from the desk with the monitors that provided a constant stream of video. He looked away at the door that led into the next room. The dogs had quieted down. They were all taking their afternoon naps, he guessed. Opening the door would wake them up, and they’d start barking again, but that was a small price to pay for a good time.
He withdrew his Beretta M9 from the holster. It was the gun Grant had given him. They’d all received one. He had one full clip with no backups. They hadn’t planned on using weapons. Not really. The gun was more of a cautionary measure. The mission was a difficult one. Its goal was to get some guy—someone Valentine didn’t know and didn’t care about—to assassinate his friend and boss, the United States president, on national TV.
Their role was manipulation. Apparently, this Lane guy had succeeded in a practice op just like this one in Africa. Valentine was impressed by these guys so far. They’d pulled off the African thing. He’d seen it on the news. But this wasn’t Africa. This was the USA.
He had his doubts about the whole scheme. Valentine wasn’t a fool. He knew that out of all the guys they had, he’d been the weakest link. But hey, his job was babysitting. That didn’t require a lot of sobriety. Suddenly, he found himself questioning the act he was about to partake in. Then he pushed his doubts aside, just shrugged them away like a piece of lint on your shoulder.
You only live once, he told himself.
He ejected the clip from the Beretta and put it into his pocket. He left the gun on the desk next to the keyboard.
It was impossible to shoot a man with his own weapon when you had no bullets. So in case the girl managed to get free and get his gun—both impossible—then at least she’d be screwed when she tried to shoot him.
THE DOOR OPENED, and a pool of light flowed into the dark room.
Raggie saw for the first time the details of the space in which she was being held captive. It was a small room, much smaller than she’d thought. She’d imagined it was this huge space with a table for examining dogs, a scale, some empty cages of different sizes, and the farmer’s sink for bathing the animals. But the room wasn’t like that at all. It was more like a big closet. It reminded her of one of those decompression chambers she’d seen in documentaries about space shuttles. The astronauts left the shuttle and went out into space, and then they returned with their spacesuits on. Next, they’d enter one room and let it seal, and then they’d go back into the shuttle and remove their breathing gear.
On one wall were the chemicals and drugs used for the animals. They were locked up in a large cage with wheels on the bottom. The next wall had equipment and machines she had never seen before. There was even a large tank of some sort. And then there was a large, empty counter for examining animals or administering narcotics or performing surgery.
In the corner, above the counter, was a camera that was pointed down directly at her.
She had the bottle of ammonia tucked behind her. She’d managed to slip the top off with her toes. It had taken her forty-five minutes. She’d pulled her knees up to her chin and made it look like she had run out of energy. Then she’d swiveled in such a way so that the jug was hidden from where she thought the camera was. She rotated her toes back and forth like a wrench. The top had slowly come loose, and then finally it was off.
She was ready for the guy. She just needed him to unlock her handcuffs.
But then the guy did something she hadn’t anticipated, and her plan was severely compromised. He flipped on the light in her room, and she was consumed with blindness.
She felt a terror consume her like that day she had been pulled under the surface of the Indian Ocean by a Ragged Tooth Shark.
Valentine said, “Be a good girl, and this’ll all be over quick.”
Chapter 39
CAMERON AND CORD WERE TRYING TO FIGURE OUT how they were going to get free and escape without getting shot in the process. The answer to the question presented itself like the luckiest thing that could’ve ever happened to them. The only thing that would’ve been better was if the guy tasked with watching over them while Lane and Grant were gone suddenly had a severe heart attack
right in front of them and dropped the keys to their handcuffs at Cameron’s feet.
That wasn’t what happened. What happened instead was that the guy suddenly sat upright in his chair and stared at the monitors like he was watching a football game and his team was about to lose, but they caught an interception in the last seconds of the game. The player ran full steam toward the end zone, but he was tackled at the last second. So there was no cheering from the guy. He screamed at the monitor, a loud sound that Cameron guessed was negative.
The guy stood, knocking the chair over. He started to repeat, “No! No! No!”
He sifted through his pockets, frantically searching for something. Cameron assumed he was looking for his cell phone. The guy searched each of his pockets a second and third time. No phone.
Whatever the guy had seen on the screen had freaked him out so badly that he started pacing the room. And then he did the most bizarre thing—he asked Cameron for help.
He said, “Have you seen my phone?”
Cameron stayed quiet.
The guy said, “Look! If you know where it is, you’d better tell me! Your little girlfriend’s life might depend on it!”
Cameron craned his head and looked over at the monitor to see what had the guy so frantic.
Cameron saw that Raggie wasn’t alone. Her eyes were tightly shut because someone had flipped on the light. The night vision was now impaired, and the screen had gone from a grainy green color to a bright white color, but Cameron could still see Raggie.
A man stood over her. It looked like that guy Valentine. He stood over Raggie in a way that made his intentions obvious.
Cameron quickly closed his eyes and retraced the guy’s steps over the last fifty-five minutes they’d been alone. Within three seconds, he knew where the phone was.
The guy had stepped outside the house twice and smelled like smoke, so Cameron assumed he’d left to smoke a cigarette. It didn’t make sense for him to leave the unfinished house, but the guy had. The only other place he had gone was to the bathroom.
