"But boss, this drug is usually swallowed. Shouldn’t we just take the tape off her mouth and force her to swallow it?"
His question was met with a hard slap to the face.
"I don’t want her to swallow it. I want her injected with it," Castillo said through clenched teeth.
Forcing her to swallow the pill seemed excessively civilized for someone like Madison West. He wanted her to suffer, not just from the effects of the drugs, but also from the indignity of having it injected.
"When they find her, I want them to see the bruises on her face and the needle marks on her arms. I want them to think that she's just another piece of shit junkie who overdosed. I do believe that in a matter of hours Miss West, you'll be dead." He stood up and looked down upon her slumped over body.
He was about to order Manny to inject her with the 'molly' when the chime from his cell interrupted.
He turned towards the wall and read the text message.
'Time's up.
There's a flight leaving for Bolivia in two hours and you need to be on it.
This is not a request.
If you leave now, you'll have plenty of time to make your flight.'
It was time. The ball was rolling. Castillo spun around and smiled gleefully as he looked at the torpid body of Madison West.
"It looks like our time together has come to an abrupt end mi hermosa. I was hoping to watch you take your last breath. Hell," he laughed. "I was even thinking about filming it. Yes, people pay to watch death. But not like in the movies, mi hermosa. I'm talking about real life, in real time. You'd be surprised at how many people get off on it. And whatever gets people excited, or stimulated, means that it will become in high demand and if it's in high demand, then there is money to be made, lots of money.
But, even though I have someplace to be, I want you to know that I'm not leaving you here to die all by your lonesome." He bent down, titled her head back against the hard, metal nozzle of the bathtub and stroked her hair.
"I'm leaving, but before I go, I am going to make sure that my men take good care of you."
Madison stared, unflinching at the bits of ceramic tile that had fallen off the wall.
"You're at a loss for words," he said, in a mocking tone.
"There was so much that I wanted to do to you, mi hermosa, but like I said, our time together is over. I'm off to start a new life and yours is about to end." He leaned in closer and rested his forehead against her cheek.
"I am so very glad that I had the opportunity to meet you Miss West. I owe so much to you and I am so very glad that I've gotten to repay you for what you did to me. I also want you to know that it gives me great pleasure to see that the purity and goodness that you thought was running through your veins, has now been replaced with humiliation, and a poisonous filth that you will never be able to be rid of."
With each sentence, Madison's breathing grew more and more shallow.
Castillo straightened up and smoothed out his suit.
"I will leave you to my men now, Miss West. Maybe in your next life, if you have one that is, you will think twice before sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong. Because I'm sure, you've learned by now that doing that can and will get you killed."
For a brief moment, Madison had a vision. As she lay there, unable to defend herself, she thought briefly of the child she would never have. Of the possible future with Cole that was now but a dream, a fantasy swirling around in her drug-induced head.
The vision lasted only seconds and was replaced with the blur of Castillo walking out of the room.
Manny didn't question it when Castillo told him to hand over the keys to the SUV.
He only did as he was told and continued preparing the syringe.
"There's someplace that I have to be," Castillo said and gathered up his things.
"You better pay me or else." Jay stood up; beads of sweat pouring down his face.
Castillo stopped and turned, his face completely impassive.
"Or else what?"
Jay stood frozen, numb. "I just mean that… a deal's a deal. And we had a deal, and now I want what's coming to me," he stammered.
"Is that right?" Castillo pulled out a knife and ran the sharp blade against his thumbnail.
"Okay then. I guess you're right. You should get what's coming to you and here it is," he said as he plunged the knife deep into Jay's abdomen.
Jay was stunned at first, then his body stiffened. He looked at Castillo with blank eyes, and then toppled and fell back onto the bed.
Castillo grabbed a corner of the bedspread and wiped the blood from his knife. Manny, Carlos, and Reggie stood around the bed, watching Jay die and trying hard to ignore the gurgling sounds that were escaping his mouth.
No one said a word because no one wanted to join Jay.
"Take care of this will ya? But remember putas, Miss West takes priority over that piece of shit," he said jerking his head towards Jay.
Castillo gathered up his things and walked out of the room.
Carlos scurried after him in a huff. "I thought you needed protection boss?"
Castillo unlocked the SUV and threw his bag into the back seat.
"Of course my friend, but I'm coming back. I've got to take care of something first." He responded dryly.
Castillo placed his hands firmly on Carlos's shoulders. "Don't worry mi amigo. I need you to stay here and help clean up the mess in there. I won't be gone long, so be ready to go by the time I get back okay?" He spoke to Carlos as if he were a child.
Eager to please his boss, Carlos said, "trust me boss. By the time we're finished, no one will even know that we were here. It'll look like another drug deal gone bad."
"Good, that's what I like to hear. Adios." Castillo waved his hand out the window and made haste towards the airport.
Manny came outside and lit a cigarette. "You know he's not coming back, right?" He exhaled roughly and looked at Carlos.
"But he said…" Carlos's voice trailed off as he came to realization that he'd just been lied to.
Both Manny and Reggie shook their heads.
"Todo músculos y el cerebro no."
"All brawn and no brains." They snickered before going back into the room.
****
Cole no longer cared that the director had fired him, nor did he care that the agents wouldn’t be of any help. All he cared about was getting Madison back, alive.
They were gathered at William Tanner's place and Deputies Faith, and Spear had volunteered to help the men. Together, the four of them would wait for back up.
They were located in the basement of Tanner's home and as he opened up the large vault that held even more weapons, he told them that, "real help is coming." He stood back and let Cole chose a weapon.
He wished he could go home and get his street sweeper, but there was no time for that. He settled for a G29 10 mm with a standard 10 round magazine and a Remington tactical shotgun with express tactical pistol grip and a single bead sight optimized for rapid target achievement and precise shot placement.
"Excellent choice, Tanner said.
Cole nodded his head and began loading the weapons.
When Tanner told him where Castillo was holding Madison, Cole thought about dealing with the situation immediately, then quickly dismissed the idea.
He wouldn’t be able to take on Castillo and his men single handedly although his mind told him otherwise. Deputy Faith assured him that waiting was the right thing to do.
Now, the waiting was tearing him apart. In a moment of solitude, his thoughts were on Madison and what she was going through. His gut told him that she was still alive, but if he didn’t get to her soon, she wouldn’t be and that was something that he was not prepared to deal with.
Faith found his friend outside, with his hands in his pockets. He was pacing back and forth like a caged animal just waiting to be released.
"I can't lose her again," he said.
Faith took Cole's arm in a fi
rm grip. "And you won't. Help's here. Let's go get her."
****
There was a nervous feeling that skittered down Manny's spine. Castillo wasn’t coming back, at least he didn’t think he was. However, just to be sure, he thought it wise to take care of Madison and Jay. He wanted things to look good just in case Castillo did return. He told Reggie and Carlos to wipe the room down from top to bottom.
"I don’t want our fingerprints on anything," he told the men.
"Are you going to do it?" Reggie questioned Manny.
"Do what?"
"Her." Reggie pointed towards the bathroom. "She's still alive you know."
Manny put his head down and shrugged his shoulders.
"We could wipe our prints, leave her alive, and get the hell out of here. No one will know what happened," Reggie said.
"He's right. The boss ain't coming back, you said so yourself." Carlos reminded him.
Manny peeked into the bathroom and then looked over at the bed.
"I don’t care about him," he said pointing to Jay. But what about her? What if she wakes up and remembers everything that happened? She'll finger us for sure and then we'll be on the run just like Castillo. Only we won't have his money, or his connections. We'd be fucked. And I ain't going back to prison man, no way in hell I'm going back in."
Reggie quit was he was doing and turned to look at the two men.
"Whether she remembers or not, it doesn't make a difference now, she's already seen us. Look, I say we take the fuck off and get as far away from here as possible. Worse comes to worse, we lay low for a while. Between the three of us, I'm sure we know plenty of people who'll be willing to hide us.
Besides, the more time we spend here, the worse things are going to get. Now Castillo left us here to fend for ourselves. I say, why give that puta the satisfaction of doing his dirty work. There's nothing in it for us, Castillo covered his own ass, now it's time for us to do the same."
Manny muttered something in Spanish, then took out the syringe filled with 'molly' and threw it on the floor. He then stepped on it, crushing it into tiny pieces. "You're right. Let's finish up and get the hell out of here.
Someone make sure and grab Jay's key, his car is our only means of transportation now."
****
Four ex- agents, Tanner included were with Cole, Deputy Faith and Deputy Spear. They were armed and sat in parked cars in an abandoned lot adjacent to the Valley House Motel.
Deputy Faith, who sat in the passenger side of the car, could almost feel the adrenaline coursing through Cole's veins. He understood that the waiting was the hardest on him. Not only because Cole was a man of action, but he was also a man in love. And at the moment, the latter seemed deadlier. Faith knew that none of the men would come out alive.
"I'll kill whoever I have to, including that little drug dealing punk, Jay," Cole mumbled and checked his weapon.
Their presence was completely unknown to the targets and no hints of it were permitted to surface.
Each man held their positions and before long, Cole and the others, saw that their targets were on the move.
"Holy Shit," Tanner said as he watched three men, two short, and one tall, exit the last room on the first floor.
"Let's do this," Cole said. Within seconds, all of the men were out of the car, guns drawn and moving stealthily towards the targets.
With Cole in the lead, the others followed suit and when the three men saw the stampede of agents and marshals charging after them, they took off running.
Carlos followed Reggie and they ran in the direction of the woods, while Cole and Faith quickly subdued Manny.
"GIVE ME A FUCKING REASON!" Cole yelled, the muzzle of the shotgun jammed into the back of Manny's head.
"You go," Faith said. "I got this."
Cole was already on his feet, heading into the motel room.
Gun at the ready, he pushed open the door, and stood back a second before shouting out for Madison. Jay was dead on the bed, the blood pooled around him. Cole did not bother checking him for a pulse, he knew that Jay was dead. Alive or dead, at the moment, it was of no concern to Cole. All that mattered was finding Madison.
He lowered his weapon, quickly checked under the beds, and then made a beeline for the bathroom.
Seeing Madison's battered face brought him to his knees and stunned him into momentary paralysis. He spoke into a mic attached to his ear and summoned for an ambulance.
His hands were shaking as he pressed his fingers against her neck. He breathed a heavy sigh of relief when he felt a low, but steady pulse. He kissed her softly on her forehead as he peeled the duct tape away from her mouth. When she didn’t flinch, he grew nervous.
"I'm here baby, and I'm going to get you out of here," he whispered to her. He was gentle when he placed her head back against the tub.
After several kicks to the piping, water burst out and he was able to slide the chain from around the piping.
He couldn’t wait for an ambulance, he lifted her up into his arms and took off running towards the car.
"Oh thank God. How is she?" Faith asked when he saw Madison.
"Where the hell are you going? Ambulance is on the way!" He shouted after his friend.
"Not going to wait. It's faster if I bring her myself!" Cole shouted back as he ran.
"We'll meet you there," Faith said and tightened the cuffs around Manny's hands.
Tanner, Spear, and the other agents spotted Carlos and Reggie. Even though they had sprinted into the woods, years of smoking, drinking and doing other things had gotten the better of them. Reggie was the first to take cover behind a tree to catch his breath, and Carlos, not knowing what to do, stayed near Reggie.
Reggie and Carlos contemplated a minute before coming out from behind the trees with their hands up. Neither one wanted to continue running, especially in the woods of West Virginia. Plus, they had no weapons, their only choice was to surrender without a fight.
"Good job men. Three suspects taken down and not one shot was fired," Tanner congratulated his men.
"Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take Deputies Faith and Spear with me to the hospital."
Chapter Twenty Eight
Cole was pulling up to the emergency room doors when he heard Madison mumble his name. She was coming to and the sound was music to his ears.
"Just hold on baby," he said and pulled her closer. "Now let's get you inside."
Madison was quiet as they put her on a gurney, then she reached out and squeezed his hand.
Everything around her was still fuzzy, but she remembered Jessica and the man holding a gun to her.
"Is Jessica all right?"
"Yes," Cole replied.
Then she said to the nurse, "This is Cole Harding, my hero." Her voice was dreamlike and she was on the verge of losing consciousness again.
"And your hero isn’t going anywhere," he said to her as they wheeled her away.
****
Word spread fast around the small town of Summerbridge. Jay was dead and a woman had been taken to the hospital. Everyone had heard about it and everyone was talking about it, and that included Deputy Director Kirsch. He was sure that Castillo would have taken care of Madison before he left for the airport, but he was surprised to find out that Madison was still alive. It was after all, the reason he'd let Castillo follow her to Summerbridge. Offering up the whereabouts of Hernandez and West had been the specific terms of the deal they'd worked out with Castillo. Kirsch remembered asking him if that was all that he wanted. Castillo told him that it was. "All I want is my freedom and the chance to take care of the two people who'd helped put me away."
Kirsch was overjoyed. Hernandez wasn’t exactly a saint and Madison West… well… when you look at the bigger picture, Kirsch reassured himself. Madison West was collateral damage.
He must have run out of time, Kirsch thought to himself and that presented a problem, a big one.
Madison West was still alive and could identify Casti
llo, a man who was supposed to be locked away in prison. Leaving a loose end like this would not be good for his career. Not to mention the fact that there was a federal prosecutor who had his eye on a political future. There was too much at stake and he and his office had gambled it all for the sake of catching Guzman.
They'd made the deal with Castillo years prior and even let him plan, or at least think that he planned his own escape. They were willing to do anything for him in exchange for information that would take down the Guzman cartel. After all, this would be the biggest take down since the 90's when the Medellin cartel was dismantled.
As far as Castillo knew, the plans had gone unchanged; he was on a plane to Bolivia to meet with Guzman himself. But before that, he was to meet with agents from the DEA and FBI. They were to outfit him with a small wire. The wire was to be attached to his scalp and covered up by his own hair.
It was cutting edge technology, designed by one of the nation's top engineers, the director told him. And it would be completely undetectable.
Castillo had promised to get them everything they needed to take Guzman down.
For several years now, Guzman had been dominating more and more of the drug and sex trafficking trade. He copied the techniques of terrorist groups by separating his workers into cells, and each cell knew very little about the other employees.
He also managed to hire very illustrious lawyers to study the moves of the DEA, FBI and the U.S. prosecutors.
Witness Protection: Hide and Seek Page 19
