The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich

by Lars Emmerich

  And they had Angie. He imagined her chained in some cell somewhere else in the bowels of the dank dungeon in which he now sat, soaked, freezing, and alone.

  But he’d rallied. His moment of weakness had passed, and he was no longer crying like a bitch, or bellowing at his captor, some asshole named Zelaya, like a man possessed.

  He grew up in the rough part of Queens, had taken down bastard companies and governments with his hacking skills, and had survived a few years in the federal pen. He hadn’t done all of that without having a little bit of sand in his shorts. It was time he started acting like he had a pair of balls, he decided.

  But that cold water. It was wearing him out. Fatigue makes cowards of us all, some football coach had said. Sabot believed it. He had to find a way to negotiate that freezing shower out of his life, and soon.

  He heard the familiar sound of footsteps approaching. Female again. The door creaked, and the pretty young woman reappeared in the dim light spilling in from the hallway.

  She looked furtively in both directions down the hallway before closing the door slowly, wincing as the rusty hinges screeched. He heard her yank the chain, and the dim bulb in the center of the room came to life.

  He opened his mouth to greet her, but her finger was already pressed to his lips to silence him. She leaned close, her warm breath on his neck as she whispered in his ear. “They can hear,” she said, her lips brushing his earlobe. In spite of himself and his predicament, he felt a zing of excitement, a rush of attraction. He inhaled, and her scent reached his nostrils, warm, clean, and sweet, with a hint of sultry.

  “Have you taken any food?” she asked.

  He shook his head in reply, started to say that she was the last person he’d seen, and he had no idea how long ago that had been, but her hand pressed to his mouth again. The pressure was firm but feminine, and he felt her curves against his body as she leaned in yet again. “I snuck something for you.” She backed away from his body and presented him with a small, hard dinner roll not unlike the kind he’d become accustomed to in prison.

  Sabot took it with his free hand, whispered his thanks, and bit hungrily into the roll.

  “What’s your name?” he asked quietly between bites.

  “Marisela.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I am assigned here.”

  “By who?” Sabot asked.

  “It’s complicated. There is not much time, and you will have to be ready. Soon they will send a doctor, but you must not take the drugs he gives you. And do not eat anything.”

  Sabot nodded. “What’s going on here?” he asked. “What do they want from me?”

  “They want everything,” she said. “You must be strong.”

  She kissed him on the neck. Her lips were warm and moist, inciting another rush of excitement.

  And then she was gone, padding quietly away down the hallway outside his cell.

  What the hell is going on here? He was getting hot and bothered for some strange girl with a dinner roll while Angie, the best thing that ever happened to him, was chained to the wall somewhere? What kind of a man was he?

  He was disoriented, incredulous, disappointed in himself. Just when his psyche had recovered from the last wave of despair, another dark cloud had settled over his mind.

  But damn, that girl smelled good. And those tits were nice. It was the other voice in his head, the one that came from the reptile brain, concerned chiefly with flexing and fornicating.

  He shook his head. Get a grip, vato. He needed to focus, to come up with a plan, to figure out some way to get himself and the girls out of this mess. It was, after all, undoubtedly his mess, his choice, that had landed them all in the middle of the jungle, chained to the concrete.

  But it was hard to make a play when you didn’t hold any of the cards.

  He could barely see the walls of his cell in the darkness, and he certainly couldn’t see any way to free himself from the shackle that ground the skin on his wrist to a pulp. He was weak, freezing, exhausted, and, dinner roll notwithstanding, starving his ass off.

  He needed to catch a break of some sort. There was some weakness, somewhere, and Sabot resolved to find it. He had spent entire weeks as a hacker scouring servers for vulnerabilities, finally finding the tiniest of holes in his targets’ defenses and turning them into a mile-wide security breach. He would do the same thing in this dungeon. There was always a way into any given computer system, a hacker maxim that had defined entire years of his life, and he knew that there must also be a way out of this predicament. He made up his mind to figure it out.

  Sabot was still using his tongue to clean his teeth of remnants of the roll that Marisela had brought for him when he heard footsteps down the hall. These were heavy footfalls, more than one set, undoubtedly belonging to a pair of men. Or very, very hefty women.

  The footfalls stopped outside his door, and he heard voices conversing in Spanish. He caught only a few words, but it sounded like they were talking about his health.

  A now-familiar screech assaulted his ears as his cell door opened. A fat man in a white lab coat stomped into Sabot’s cell. A guard stood watch at the door. Sabot wasn’t sure, but he thought it was one of the two goons who had paid him a visit earlier.

  “Hello, Domingo,” Lab Coat said, turning on the overhead light. “I am Doctor Morales. I will examine you.”

  A doctor? Just like Marisela had predicted. “With all due respect, Doctor, I think I’d really just rather you unchain me and let me be on my way.”

  “That is obviously not up to me, Domingo.” Cold stethoscope on Sabot’s chest, faraway look as the doctor timed his pulse.

  “Inhale.”

  Sabot complied.

  “Exhale.”

  “What’s going on here, Doc? Why am I here? If they need something from me, all they have to do is ask, you know?”

  “Quiet.”

  “This is bullshit!”

  The doctor put down the stethoscope and looked squarely at Sabot. “Señor Mondragon, it is an enduring reminder of my stalled career that I am forced to make calls to this godforsaken place. I want to leave this hellhole only slightly less urgently than you do. Please shut up and let me finish my examination.” He produced a tongue depressor. “Stick out your tongue.”

  “I won’t take any drugs,” Sabot said.

  The doctor shook his head, traces of annoyance on his face. “In that case, I will not offer you any. Open your mouth.”

  Sabot felt the thin wooden stick flatten his tongue. He felt something else, too. What was that tingling sensation in his mouth?

  “Say ahh.” The doctor’s breath was foul, with traces of stale whiskey and bad teeth. Sabot’s head turned away involuntarily.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “No offense, Doc, but you could knock a buzzard off a shit wagon.”

  “How would that not be offensive?” He put the used tongue depressor in his pocket, wrapped the stethoscope around his neck, and walked out the door. “Good day, Señor Mondragon. You should drink more water. I’ll see you when you get back.”

  “Get back? From where?” But the door had slammed shut, echoes from receding footsteps once again bouncing off of the concrete walls.

  Could this get any stranger? Abducted from inside an airplane, hooded and bound, driven to some hole in the middle of the jungle, chained to a wall, doused with freezing water, visited by a pair of knuckle-dragging guards and a psychopath of an old man, and finally, tended to by a hot Latina and an alcoholic doctor.

  And nobody had asked him a single question the entire time.

  They knew his name — not hard, since they had his wallet — and they had his girl and her mom. If he understood Marisela correctly, they were being held in similar conditions. If they wanted something else, they sure as hell had a funny way of asking for it.

  He suddenly felt lightheaded. Was the fatigue and starvation finally catching up to him? He leaned his head forward in the hard woode
n chair. His gyros tumbled crazily, and he thought he might hurl. His pulse pounded, sweat beaded on his brow despite the cold, wet clothes draped over his body, and he felt a fierce bout of vertigo. His eyes snapped crazily back and forth, like after an amusement park ride. What the hell is going on here?

  And then it passed. He felt fine. Better than fine, as a matter of fact. He felt right. Calm, detached, as if he were the observer perched someplace at the periphery of his own consciousness. His shivering stopped, and he felt a warm tingling sensation in his limbs.

  He smiled, then giggled a little bit, then laughed. How funny is this? Chain me to a wall, bitches. Ha!

  Was that his own voice echoing in his cell? He hadn’t intended to speak out loud. Tough to keep track of everything, though. Seemed to make sense. Vatos can’t always be on top of their shit all the time, yo. Reversion to ghetto usually only happened when he was pissed off, drunk, or both.

  “You crazy vatos, come back here!” He meant to speak this time, but didn’t mean to sound quite so insane. “What have you done to me?”

  He heard whispering just outside his cell, then cackling, then animal screeches and shouts.

  Or was that his own voice making all that noise?

  “Bastards!”

  The voices stopped, then started again, slowly rising from whispered giggles to horrendous screams and wails.

  “Turn it off, goddamn you!” Sabot shouted. At least, that’s what he thought he shouted. But he wasn’t sure.

  The cell door opened. Marisela. Black dress, showing off her curves, hair down around her shoulders, hips swaying as she walked slowly toward him, turning on the light on her way past the pull chain.

  “Damn, girl, you’re fine!” Had he just said that?

  She grabbed his free hand, clamped a shackle on it, and chained it to the wall behind him.

  “I thought you were on my side!” he yelled. He thought he detected a smile. Her face was too close to his, and he couldn’t see her mouth. Then she was kissing him, her tongue wet and searching, her lips soft against his, and what was that pressing against his crotch, her hand? Her pelvis?

  He felt a tug at his fly, heard his zipper unfasten, felt both Marisela’s hands on his bare ass as she shuffled his wet pants and underwear downward, felt the waiting warmth of her mouth.

  This can’t be happening. Angie! What’s going on?

  His eyes closed, and he heard moaning. His own, he realized.

  Was that a camera flash?

  He opened his eyes, saw only Marisela’s dark hair as her head bobbed.

  He came, legs cramping with exertion, eyes clamped shut, mouth open, wrists chafing against the shackles.

  Another bright flash.

  Or had he imagined it?

  Had he imagined everything?

  Marisela came up, kissed him, caressed him with her hand, nibbled his neck.

  And left.

  He was alone again in his cell.

  Did this really happen?

  Moments later, the voices started. Laughing hysterically. She’s going to find out, they said. You dumb sonuvabitch, she’s going to find out!

  Angie.

  Sabot’s heart sank. Tears welled, then flowed, and anguished sobs followed, broken by his own voice. “What have I done?” he wailed, vaguely aware of the pathetic tone and clichéd melodrama bouncing off of the concrete walls.

  He sank back down onto the chair, bare ass against the cold, damp wood, and passed out.

  Horrific dreams haunted his fitful slumber. They had the vivid quality of reality, and Sabot’s body thrashed about in terror.

  He awoke with a crushing headache, wrists shredded by the shackles on both hands, shoulders sore from fighting against the chains mounted to the concrete walls. His pulse pounded in his temples, his mouth was dry and pasty, and his throat was hoarse and sore.

  What happened to me? He felt as if he’d stepped in front of a bus.

  His mind returned to Marisela. Had she been here? Did she really…? He was naked below the waist, and both wrists were shackled to the wall. What have I done? His thoughts turned again to Angie. Had he let someone… pleasure him while she was chained in some cell somewhere? He shook his head with guilt and despair.

  Then he looked up. Someone had placed a table in front of him in his cell. The overhead bulb illuminated the table’s surface, on which were arrayed several photos. Marisela. Him. The back of her head at his waist, his face contorted in ecstasy. Then another, more explicit photo that left no ambiguity.

  Guess it was real.

  A third photo caught his eye, of a familiar figure. Angie. One hand covered her mouth in shock and agony. The other clutched a photo. Tears streaked down her face.

  My god, what have I done?

  Sabot exhaled, dejected, alone, ashamed. Why the hell won’t they just talk to me? There had to be something they wanted, something he could give to them in exchange for ending this nightmare.

  But what home would he return to? He’d spend the rest of his days in hiding, looking over his shoulder, waiting for his “employer” — whose identity Sabot still didn’t know — to find him and go to work on his kneecaps.

  And he would be alone, probably. How could Angie stay after being locked in a cage on account of him, rotting away while he got his rocks off with some nubile young girl? No way would she hang around after this, even if they did manage to survive whatever came next.

  He felt hopeless, utterly deflated. His head hurt, and there still seemed to be a veil between him and his own consciousness, some diaphanous layer obscuring his sense and senses.

  He heard the pipes rumble. He sputtered and cursed as the frigid water assaulted him yet again. He slumped back into the chair, head down, wits still reeling, awaiting the next indignity that was surely on its way.

  10

  “We can’t stay on this plane forever,” Dan observed unnecessarily, waiting for someone at the Homeland Security emergency line to answer his call, peering out the window at Juan Rojas and the two driver/thugs conversing on the airport tarmac below.

  Voicemail. He shook his head and cursed. There were agents in the field all over the world, and Homeland couldn’t find someone to man the emergency line overnight?

  Most DHS employees were probably still at home, he realized, defending their families from packs of roving goons who were looting neighborhoods to find food and other necessities in the wake of the societal meltdown over the past few days. Most of the looters were middle-class suburbanites who had made no disaster preparations, and there were a lot of them to fend off.

  Sam watched Dan disconnect the call. She shook her head in disgust. They were a little bit screwed, stranded on the tarmac at the airport in Costa Rica, trying to avoid whatever fate the DIS and Juan Rojas had in mind for them. With each passing minute, the distance to Domingo Mondragon and his mountain of virtual currency grew ever greater.

  A thought struck. “Can you operate the radios on battery power?” she asked the pilot.

  He looked at her as if she had three eyes. “Of course.”

  “Is there anyone you can talk to on the radio who might know where the Obsidian Air charter flight disembarked earlier tonight?”

  “Maybe,” the pilot said. Sam handed him a slip of paper with the Obsidian flight’s details. He disappeared into the cockpit.

  Sam called Harv Edwards’ cell phone. A mechanical voice informed her that the subscriber had left the service area. Jackass. Evidently, Harv had sat out the cell phone upgrade at Homeland. The old phones only worked in the States.

  “Can you reach Trojan?” Sam asked Dan. Harv Edwards and Trojan were in the back of the sedan that had left the tarmac minutes ago, microseconds before the hair had stood up on the back of Sam’s neck.

  “It goes straight to voicemail,” Dan told her after two attempts. “Which is strange, because I know the power is on. I watched him send a text as we taxied in after landing.”

  “Jammer,” Sam said. Standard issue for any
self-respecting security apparatus, even in the middle of the jungle. It wouldn’t do to have spies and political detainees sending photos of their maltreatment out to the world via cell phone, so the security types invested heavily in signal jammers for cars, safe houses, and interrogation facilities.

  The pilot reemerged from the cockpit. “Neither Clearance Delivery nor Ground Control has ever heard of an Obsidian Air charter flight.”

  “Can you have them search by the aircraft’s serial number?” Sam asked. “Maybe they flew down here using a different identifier.”

  He shook his head. “Tried that. No luck. I also took a peek out the window. They parked us on the charter ramp, and we have a pretty good view of the other jets parked here. I don’t see anything from Obsidian.”

  “Are you sure?” Sam asked.

  The pilot nodded. “Their paint scheme is pretty hard to miss. Glossy black, like a spy plane or something.”

  “Could there be a mistake? There are other airports near San Jose,” Dan said. “Maybe we got the wrong airport.”

  The pilot handed Dan the slip of paper with the Obsidian Air flight information on it. The Obsidian desk clerk’s scrawl was unambiguous: Juan Santamaria International, San Jose, Costa Rica. Sam’s jaw clenched.

  “No worries,” Brock said. “This is an international airport. They’ll have access to all the flight plans filed to and from the region, and they’ll be able to cross reference them by tail number as well.” He was speaking from two decades of experience as a fighter pilot. “We should be able to pull up the Obsidian flight plan without too much hassle.”

  “Unless they falsified the aircraft registration in the flight plan,” the transport pilot said.

  “Worth a try, though,” Sam decided. “Now all we have to do is get them to let us poke around in their system.”

  “I know just the guy to ask,” Dan said, looking out the window at the wiry Costa Rican intelligence officer making his way up the aircraft ladder.