Red Noon

by Capri Montgomery

  He never seemed to get tired. It was like his arm was made of steel that wouldn’t tire from repeated use. She didn’t know how long he beat her before he stopped and walked back to the front of her.

  “I hope you’ll still be pretty enough for boss man to finish breaking you. I didn’t mess up your face too much.” He sauntered closer and dug his fingers in her hair, yanking her head back from its hung position so that she was forced to look at him and smell his rotten breath as he hovered lower for face to face battery of her olfactory system.

  “But when he’s done with you,” he blew his breath into her face and she cringed, trying to turn away from the skunk and rotten apples like smell but he held on tighter to her hair and made her keep her face tilted toward his. “When he’s done with you I’ll break all your pretty little bones one by one.” He stepped back and began to beat the belt across her stomach and chest. She twisted and tried to escape repeatedly but her pursuit of freedom went nowhere. She was forced to stand there, bound and un-gagged for his pleasure to beat into screams of terror and pain.

  When he finally tired he stepped away, backed up and told her he was going to go have breakfast now, but he would be back later. He made that promise as if she wanted him to come back. In silence her eyes closed in defeat. This was his heaven. This was her hell.

  Chapter Three

  Lt. Takahiro Nakamura stood in back of his team watching with his Captain as the Pinal County Sheriff gave them an update on the situation. The atmosphere in the room made him feel like he was gearing up for a war. Judging from that video it felt like he was. The heavy guy didn’t seem all that coordinated but the skinny guy did. It was like he had some type of training. Or maybe he just knew what he was doing because he had done it before. Takahiro shook his head mentally thinking of the poor woman somewhere here in Arizona, but nobody knew where.

  Thanks to the older neighbor the police had gotten a head start on the forty-eight hour missing rule. But had the twenty-two year old blond living next door decided to give the cops the USB with the footage from his security cameras before they came knocking on his door they could have gotten things out sooner. That snot nosed kid had heard the police sirens, seen the flashing lights, and simply gone to check his camera footage. Instead of offering a look to the investigating officers he preferred putting it up for sale to a near tabloid news station that broke it first. That was the only way they knew about the footage because the cops hadn’t gotten around to checking to see if any of the homes had cameras in action yet. They were too busy trying to gather evidence.

  “This video has gone global. There isn’t a station out there not covering this, and it’s online so it has coverage. In a way that’s a good thing, and in a way that’s a bad thing.” Sheriff Kroger said.

  Takahiro understood the bad part because if these guys were watching television then they knew that the state exits were now blocked with access only being granted after a check. Hell this thing had gotten attention faster than anything and Takahiro knew why. It was election year and the Mayor, the Governor and everybody else with pull was fighting for attention and votes. None of them, he and his team, doubted that had things not escalated as fast as they did with the media attention and the worldwide view of it that this wouldn’t be an all state quest.

  The FBI got called in quick, and that alone was unusual because most people liked keeping them out. They weren’t on point, but they were doing the background check and trying to clean up the camera footage to see what they could get while a far too annoying profiler tried to profile the attack.

  This was a Black-Indian woman and it’s not like anybody was gung-ho about calling out the brigade for “black” women. Takahiro didn’t need a crystal ball to know this response was all political, but he would admit he was glad it was. His team was front in center for their area and all S.W.A.T. personnel across the state had been alerted to the possibility that they may be needed. They were focusing on the Valley and the eastern portion of the state, but they weren’t going to drop the ball—not when people were watching from America to London, to Spain, to Turkey and beyond.

  “We are treating this like a search and rescue, but we all know the more hours that tick by, the less likely her chances of being alive.”

  “Understatement much,” Takahiro mumbled.

  “I know,” Javier Santiago mumbled back. The Latin short guy was one of their best to get in through a ceiling entry because of his size, but he was one heck of a shooter too. Dark hair, dark eyes and darkened coconut skin made him great at hiding in plain sight even without gear. Add the black cloak of uniform to it and he was an in, take the shot, get the hostage out kind of guy when they needed it.

  Takahiro had the eyes, sharp shooting was his specialty, but so was leading his men into the thick of the moment and getting the hostage out when ceiling entry to take the kill wasn’t even an option. He was one of their best in many ways, but on this he would take lead. His Captain had already told him if the devil came to his town he would want him to send that devil back to hell. This was not their standard mission. This was a rescue the hostage at whatever the cost, even if that meant not worrying about apprehending the criminal. It was the first time in the history of Takahiro’s eleven and a half years on the team that he had heard those words spoken unveiled. He had been a cop since his twentieth birthday with which his skill led to a promotion to detective by twenty-three but he only lasted there six months because he wanted SWAT so he fought for the recommendation, got it and went in for the training, certifications and everything else needed to be a member of the team. By twenty-four he was the newbie with the unit and rapidly progressing faster than anybody before him. In all his years there he had heard a great many commands; he knew the masked words of save yourself and forget worrying about not taking the kill shot, but those words were always masked in a way that told him if the chips fell wrong his commanding officer would sell his soul to the Devil and think nothing of it. But this, direct orders, were hard to hide in the paperwork.

  “This is a picture of what she looks like.” The eight by ten size natural landscape portrait came up. God she was a beauty, he thought as he looked at the gray eyes, the beautiful brown skin and the perfectly styled hair. She was a classy dresser too. The pictures they had been handed had her looking like a better version of classic old Hollywood, and from what he heard from Sergeant Aura Blake from Scottsdale, the woman was class personified. It wasn’t just the clothes in her closet or the pictures on her wall, but the men who came running from her office the moment they saw the footage had shed light on the woman that shocked them all—or so she had said.

  She couldn’t figure out why anybody would do that to her, but they had all been on the force and in the world long enough to know that evil didn’t need an excuse to be evil.

  “It’s nearing ten o’clock, men. The media is swarming. Every political higher up is ready to split their head wanting to make sure this comes out clean with a happy ending that won’t taint the city of Scottsdale or the state of Arizona. Let’s make sure we’re ready if we’re…”

  “Sorry, Sir.” Julia Limpkins rushed into the room. “Deputies Fuller and Farmington went out on a call of a bloody shirt wrapped in a rug with bloodspots on it. The rug was out for the trash, but you know trash hunters and all. Well the guy who picked it up just got it home, unrolled it and found it. The rug was picked up on Cheyenne Road. He gave them the address. They need to know what you want them to do.”

  They were about to be on and he knew it. The rug could have just been placed on somebody’s lawn but even if it was the guys who took her had to either still be in the county somewhere or had just been passing through. But who would just go driving around a neighborhood, drop a rug with blood soaked clothing on the lawn and take off? Nobody with a brain would do that because they would know the homeowner wouldn’t miss a rug big enough to hide a body in on their lawn. And if it were an empty house people would notice trash where nobody lived.

&
nbsp; “Are they sure of the shirt?”

  “Farmington says it looks like the one in the camera footage, but you know, it wasn’t the best footage. Either way, it would be odd, don’t you think, to have something like that show up on the lawn right now.”

  “Odd indeed,” he said. “Suit up men. We have open permission from those in power to kick in whatever door we have too. This is not a quiet entry. Have your team ready Captain Scott Baker, because they’re taking down the door without any warning.”

  “We’re on,” he told the men he would be leading. “Our only concern is bringing the hostage in alive.”

  They all nodded, alerting him to their understanding. This, this was something they were all used to doing but Takahiro felt his blood pumping just a little faster than usual. This was different, this was life or death for that woman just like all the rest but God knows he felt a certain kind of way about what was ahead of them. He had seen the footage. He had seen her fight hard. And he had seen how ruthless those men had been. He knew they wouldn’t leave her alive. Right now, he wasn’t sure she still was, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t go in ready to take the shots needed with the hope that she still was.

  “Ouch!” Sheila yelled as the brute struck the belt across her back harder from an angle that made it feel like he was trying to chop her in half. He had been hitting her so long this time she literally, mentally, begged for death. She couldn’t take any more of this torture. She had already wet her pants, not because she was scared—though she was that—but because she hadn’t gone since a couple hours before she walked out of her house and she had managed to have a full glass of water before that.

  This man hadn’t given her water or food. He had eaten breakfast, forgotten, yet again, to brush his teeth before breathing his rancid breath in her face. He was getting off on this. No, he didn’t want her sexually but he was getting off on it. She could see the erection in his jeans every time he came around to start attacking her from the front with that belt.

  He hit her again, and again. She felt her knees buckling, causing her arms to pull downward and make the wiry rope slice into her even more. She tried to stay on her feet. She was losing this battle. She was losing and she couldn’t survive this.

  “Stop! Please stop!” It was the first time she had begged for him to stop the torture. She had refrained through hours of torture because she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, but she couldn’t stop the words from pouring out of her mouth just as she couldn’t stop the tears.

  He laughed, hit her once more and then came to stand in front of her. “Boss man will still find your face pretty at least. Bet he’ll get off even more at that sexy red fire all over your body. Maybe he’ll give you just the same. So long as I get to kill ya’ when he’s done.”

  He obviously wanted to see her face because he slashed her stomach and breast bone with the belt a couple times before he walked closer, slipped his fingers into her hair and yanked her head back again.

  “Oh yeah, I like the fear in your eyes.”

  His breath made the bile rise up in her stomach and she couldn’t stop it. The moment he let go of her hair her head was already flying forward and the inner habitants of her empty stomach came flying out. She didn’t know she could throw up something she hadn’t eaten. She thought maybe it was blood. Maybe she was going to die now. But she hadn’t died. The only thing she had done was managed to anger him more when her vomit hit him in the face.

  He swiped his arm over his face, looked at the sleeve of his shirt and flew into a rage. He hit her so hard with the back of his hand that it split her lip again, but down the center this time. Then he walked behind her and started beating her like some uncontrolled animal and all she could do was scream and beg for God to take her—take her to be with her parents or just take her out of this hell because she couldn’t survive this.

  “Stupid! Stupid!” He yelled as he hit her harder than before she thought he was cutting into her back. She thought her skin was raw, broken, maybe even beaten away.

  She couldn’t say how long that lasted because every second felt like an hour, every hour like a lifetime. But he stopped, tossed the belt on the floor, promised her he would be back and stomped up the stairs yet again.

  She cried hard. She cried in desperation, in fear, in pain. But more than that, she cried alone. There would be nobody to save her because nobody knew where she was.

  “God will never give you more than what you can bear,” her mother, a highly Christian woman, had always told her. Well her mother was wrong. God had given her more than what she could bear. She couldn’t bear this and God had left her here to bear it alone. Why wouldn’t he just take her? Why wouldn’t he end it for her, end her pain, her suffering, her life? She couldn’t bear this. She couldn’t bear it.

  Takahiro and his men were suited up strong guard with their fire retardant balaclava to shield their identities, solid black military armor system for ground troops helmet made for tactical police applications, their ballistic SWAT labeled vests with the rigid plate inserts. When he told the men to suit up he wasn’t speaking lightly. It was like going into a blind war not knowing exactly how many weapons these guys had. He knew for sure one had a Sig Sauer P220 Combat Pistol, but he thought he caught a glimpse of another gun, maybe a Glock, in the waistband of his pants as he bent over to scoop her up and toss her into the big guy’s arms. They were going in heavily armed and blind which could be good or bad, but in this case he trusted his team to act with clarity and precision and not some knee jerk reaction. They were all extensively trained and only one of them qualified as new to the team and she had been there for a solid year now so he trusted them. He trusted they could go in hot and bring the hostage out alive—if she were still alive that is.

  He watched as Sky Riverton and Grant Solaria put their weight into the Battering Ram and took out the door. Entry was swift enough to get four of his team members clearing one side of the one story house while he and the others hit the kitchen fast enough to see the big beast reaching for something like he was going to attack and then run. Of course with their orders he didn’t even have to tell his guys to take a shot because they all opened fire. Bloody hell as Ethan Cohen would always say. They were in a war. Oh well. One down and one left to go, but his priority was the hostage.

  “Clear!” He heard Jag yell from the other side of the house. That was good to know since newbie Jacinta Gibbs was with the other men. She wasn’t so new that she didn’t know what she was doing but he still preferred not to have her on his heals just yet. It was good to know no gunfire was needed on the other side.

  With the other side clear and their one man down the basement was the last hit. He signaled to his men as he twisted the knob, opened the door and took the stairs. There really wasn’t a need in being quiet because if the other guy was down there he would have heard the first door going in, or even the bullets that killed his partner in crime, but he followed procedure to ensure the safety of his team and the hostage.

  The lights were still on which made assessing the smaller room easier. Steal, concrete, and outer wall installation to muffle the sound greeted his eyes and the woman in question, the one they were all looking for was chained and bloody.

  “Damn,” he growled as he eased toward her. Her head came up and he could see the fear in her eyes turn to recognition, and then to relief. Tears flooded out of those pearls of gray as he got closer to her. He checked out the rope and noticed the blood from her wrists. “Steal wire,” he said to Satoshi before he pulled a knife out of his utility belt and cut the bindings. She nearly dropped to her knees without the bindings holding her up. He swiftly anchored his weapon on safety and lifted her into his arms. Her face nestled into his neck. Her worn body curled into his chest. This had been hell and he could tell it from the bruises on her body and face to the look of desperation and defeat in her eyes. The belt on the floor made him angrier than he was before. If the bastard were still alive he would go up and empty his
gun in the brute himself.

  “We can’t take her out there yet,” Javier stopped his path. “Somebody tipped off the media and there is already a van with live feed, not to mention a younger crowd with their cell phones ready to get coverage. Let me get a blanket from the on standby EMT’s and drape it over her before you go out.”

  Takahiro nodded and listened as Javier put the call out over the radio. He waited as a deputy walked in the blanket.

  “Oh hell,” the young man said. The anger in those onyx eyes told Takahiro he, too, was just as broken over the sight of her as his men were. Out of all the rescues they had done this one seemed to hurt the most. It wasn’t that they hadn’t seen seriously mucked up situations before, but this…she looked so innocent, so small, so in need of help and so badly damaged that they all hurt for her.

  “Did you at least get them?” The black as night deputy asked.

  “Just one. The other one isn’t here,” Takahiro told him.

  “I would kill the bastard myself for this,” the deputy snarled. “The media is building like they were waiting just down the street. Sadly, they probably were. I think somebody got a tip off from a scanner and maybe one of the neighbors.”

  “Human shield,” Takahiro said to his men because they all knew what it meant. They would flank him and block out some of the view. Being a solid five ten himself meant he was tall enough for the media to get a view, but the fact that a few of the men were six footers and just under, a couple just over and the rest smaller than him or just at his height meant they could pack it up a little and block out the view.

  “Human shield?”

  “They’re going to flank me so I can get her out with some dignity.”

  “We got ya’,” he said. “Officers,” he said into his communication device. “Block the view please?”