“Shut your mouth, digger,” Tavis says. But then, his face lights up like he just remembered it’s his birthday.
“What have we here?” he says, his wet-eyed smile reminiscent of a bad guy in a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western…The Good, the Bad, and the Totally Fucked. “A lady, all the way out here in the middle of nowhere. And I thought that hanging your pal, Rudy, was going to be for male eyes only.”
I can feel Anjali’s body trembling against me.
“What do you want, Tavis?” I say. “I thought we settled this in town.”
He smiles. “The only thing we settled was the fate of your mate, Rudy, here … and all the rest of you. And you thought I was being reasonable.”
“They’re gonna kill us, Chase,” Tony whispers over his shoulder. “No one will find our bodies out here.”
Tavis starts walking towards me, the black barrel of his revolver staring me down like the Grim Reaper while my .45 sits idle inside my shoulder holster. When he’s within a couple of feet, he reaches out, snatches Anjali by the arm, pulls her away from me. Instinct kicks in, and I reach out for her, but he cold cocks me across the side of my head with his piece. I go down on my side, my head spinning, the pain coming and going with every rapid beat of my pulse. I feel a hand rummaging around inside my jacket and my .45 being snatched out.
“You bastard,” Tony says. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with, poacher boy.”
From the ground, I see Tavis pulling Anjali by her hair. He’s trying to kiss her neck while she pushes him away. The ear to ear smile he wears proves how much he’s enjoying himself.
“Let me show you what you’re dealing with,” he says. Then, shooting his partner a look. “Do it, Brucey.”
Shouldering his rifle, Bruce takes aim at the rickety table, fires.
The stool beneath Rudy disintegrates.
The bartender drops, the noose catching his neck as the rope goes taught. But it hasn’t killed him instantly, and he begins to kick and flail while the noose slowly chokes him to death.
The entire world seems to be spinning out of control, the pain in my head is suddenly accompanied by nausea in my stomach. Anjali is screaming, trying to claw her way out of Tavis’s grip while Rudy is only moments away from asphyxiating to death. It’s then that I hear another kind of choking coming from Tony. Peering at him from where I’m kneeling on the jungle floor, I seem him grasping at his throat, foamy spittle spewing forth from his mouth.
“Snake bite,” he barks, his voice panicked and constricted like no air is passing through his throat into his lungs. “Snake…bite!”
Tavis’s eyes go wide. He releases Anjali.
“Snake?” he says, jumping in place, his eyes peeled to the jungle floor. “What snake? Where?”
“Ha ha ha,” Bruce says, his 30.06 still gripped in both hands. “Tavis don’t like snakes.”
Inhaling deeply, I stare into Tony’s pain-filled face. He issues me the slightest of smiles and a wink of his eye. And then, he lunges for Tavis.
Tony catches the poacher around the ankles, takes him down like a defensive end sacking a quarterback. Tavis falls hard, his revolver dropping out of his hand. He reaches for it, so desperate to regain control of the weapon he is clawing at the ground. Tony is able to reach it first, turning the revolver on its owner. Tavis raises himself up onto his knees, lifts up his hands in surrender, works up a smile.
“Don’t….shoot,” he says with a swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat. Then, smiling. “We can work this out, mate.”
Raising his 30.06, Brucey shoulders the weapon. Tony catches the cowboy-hatted poacher out the corner of his eye, plants a bead, fires. Brucey drops on the spot. Dead. Then, pointing the barrel at the rope from which Rudy dangles, he fires again. The ropes snaps in two and the Brit falls to the jungle floor, his hands wrap around the noose as he manages to pull it loose. It’s a magnificent shot.
Tony turns the gun once more on Tavis.
“Wail you son of a whore,” he says.
“What?” Tavis says, his face ashen, dripping sweat.
“Cry like a gut-shot elephant,” he insists while thumbing back the hammer.
“Why?”
“Because I want you to know how an elephant feels just before you shoot it in the gut before cutting off its tusks and leaving it there to die and rot.”
Tony triggers a round that takes half the poachers left ear clean off in an explosion of flesh and dark blood.
Tavis screams, blood running down the left side of his face and neck.
“Wail!” Tony insists, thumbing back the trigger once more.
The now pale-faced Tavis inhales a deep breath, begins making a sound not like an elephant, but more like a wounded dog. High pitched, desperate, and ugly. Tony shifts the revolver barrel just a couple of inches to the left, fires again, taking most of the poacher’s right ear off.
Tavis screams again, the right side of his face now covered in blood and little bits of jagged, dangling flesh.
“Please….stop!!!”
He’s screaming so loudly it’s a wonder the Thuggees can’t hear it all those miles away. But then, not even noise from the shots we’ve fired can penetrate this thick jungle.
“I’ll gladly stop,” Tony says. “But not until every elephant in this forest gets their money’s worth.”
Lowering the revolver, he takes aim at Tavis’s left leg, fires. The poacher’s knee explodes. He drops onto his side, his wailing now having de-evolved into outright sobbing.
“Please,” the poacher pleads, “for the love of God.”
“This one’s for God,” Tony says. “For the love of his most magnificent of creations…the mighty elephants.”
Tony plants a bead, blows Tavis’s other knee away.
Then, shoving the pistol barrel into his pant waist, “Give me a hand will you, Chase?”
He makes his way over to Tavis, grabs hold of his left forearm. Following Tony’s lead, I grab onto the right forearm and together we begin to drag the poacher back into the thick forest. Then, opening the cylinder on the pistol, Tony makes a check on how many fresh rounds the poacher’s got left.
“Looks like I was counting correctly,” he says as he hands the pistol back to Tavis, who’s lying there on his back, bleeding out, writhing in pain. At the same time, Tony retrieves my .45, hands it back to me.
“You’re just…gonna…leave me…here?” Tavis poses.
“That’s exactly what we’re gonna do, Mate,” Tony says. “Just like you leave them gut-shot elephants to die a slow, agonizing death just so you can make a few bucks on the ivory black market.”
Then, his angry eyes focused on me. “Come on.”
We head back in the direction of the camp.
We don’t cover more than thirty feet of ground before we hear the shot that tells us Tavis, the Poacher, is fast on a one-way trip to hell.
21
“Christ, Tone,” I say, “where’d you learn to shoot like that?”
I also want to ask him how he went from being a simple tough-guy-earth-mover to Dirty Harry in a just half a decade. But one thing at a time.
“You don’t know everything about me, Son,” he says, popping another bit of tobacco in his mouth. “I used to shoot with your dad now and again. I just got better at it while living out here. You know the right people, you can buy a gun on the street here. Don’t need a license.” He spits tobacco juice on the jungle floor, smiles proudly. “And I know the right people.”
When we get to the camp, Rudy is stealing small sips of whiskey while applying an antibiotic ointment to the red and swollen, rope-shaped irritation banded around his neck.
“A mere few hours ago, I was a simple barkeep at an establishment I’d just sold off for pennies in the heart of Kathmandu,” he says, his gruff voice sounding like his tonsils were just removed. “Since then, the bar’s been burned down, I’ve been held at gunpoint for cheating at cards, and I’ve been hanged by the neck. Wha
t’s next, the earth opening beneath my feet to reveal the devil?”
I wonder if Rudy realizes just how accurate his prediction might turn out.
Anjali is seated by the fire. She’s staring into it, her eyes glowing and distant. Not a few feet away from her lies the bled out body of Aussie Bruce.
“Rudy and Tony,” I say, “untie the Sherpas and have them bury the bodies.”
Tony pulls out his knife, cuts the Sherpas loose. Then, having instructed them on what do to about the poachers, they begin hauling Bruce into the same section of forest where his partner breathed his last. Tony and Rudy accompany the paid help, but before disappearing into the dark woods, the former Baker Excavating employee turns to me.
“These Sherpas hate the poachers as much as I do. They’d rather the bodies are left behind for the vultures.”
“Far be it from me to break with the will of the masses,” I say.
The men disappear into the bush with Bruce. Making my way to Anjali, I take a knee beside her.
“You okay?”
She nods as a single tear falls from her eye, runs down her smooth cheek.
“I was convinced I was about to be killed,” she says. Then, wiping the tear from her eye with the back of her hand. “Allow me to correct myself, Chase. I was convinced I was about to be raped, tortured, then killed. In that precise order.” She sniffles, wipes her eyes. “But I’m not crying for me. I’m crying for Rajesh, his screams, the sweet, gentle soul that’s being robbed from his body. I’m also crying for Elizabeth…for what Kashmiri did to her.” She looks up at me. “But yes, I was also afraid for my own life and I’m not certain I deserve to be afraid for me.”
Exhaling. “Fear. Kind of goes with the job.”
She shoots me a look like I’ve just tried to cop an unwelcome feel.
“Goes with the job?” she says. “But you seem to like the job.”
I cock my head over my shoulder. “I’m good at it. That’s why people like your ex, Dr. Singh, hire me.”
She refocuses her gaze into the fire. “I suppose you’re right. Singh wouldn’t trust you with finding Rajesh if he weren’t convinced you were the right man for the job.”
Reaching out my hand, I gently set it on her shoulder.
“And true to my word,” I say, “I’ve found him.”
Her eyes light up. What had been tears of sadness are now replaced with at least a small measure of joy, or relief anyway. Relief that can only come from someone who’s experienced the loss of a loved one, only to find out he or she is alive.
She looks me in the eye.
“You have to believe me, Chase. I only want one thing. And that’s to see my boy returned to me. He doesn’t have long to live. His unusual physical condition assures that. There’s only so much time left for him to love me and me to love him.”
“If Kashmiri has his way, your God Boy will be leading a great army that will be invincible. Listen carefully…”
She places her hand on my arm. “You need to know how sorry I am about the loss of Elizabeth.”
“Thanks. But she wasn’t mine anyway. She made that perfectly clear a long time ago.”
“But the way Singh promised her to you…promised her alive. Your heart must be broken for a second time, regardless of what happened between you and me back at the hotel.”
I try to feel my heart. Sure it’s pumping the blood I need to survive, to live and breathe, but I can’t feel it. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say, I don’t want to feel it. Maybe it’s been broken too many times before, and now it sits there inside my ribcage cobbled back together with scar tissue, bruises, and regrets. My heart aches not only for the woman I’ve loved and lost but also for a daughter who will experience most of her fourth-grade year in New York City without my being around for it.
My heart tells me I should stick around more and be there for her whenever she needs me. But my body needs to get up and go, like a man who just can’t sit still. My ex-wife was convinced my problem was deeply psychological. Pathological even. Maybe she was right. Maybe I have a sickness and don’t even know it. Don’t want to know it.
I stare into Anjali’s dark eyes and I feel for her because she is so worried about her boy. But, then I’m reminded that she and Singh split up over the boy and that somehow Kashmiri abducted him even if she hasn’t yet revealed to me the precise manner in which the abduction came to be. But then, maybe she doesn’t want me to know. Maybe the circumstances of the abduction are something she and Singh would rather forget since it happened on their watch.
Tony and Rudy break through the woods, the Sherpas a few steps behind them. Rudy’s neck still looks sore, but at least it’s not snapped in half. Tony has a look in his eyes I recall all too well from my days as a soldier in Desert Storm. It’s what we old grunts call “the million-mile” stare. I know he’s sensing not only imminent danger but also pure evil to go along with it. The worst is yet to come.
“We should all get some sleep,” I say. “We’ll start out at first light for Kashmiri’s encampment and diamond mine.”
Rudy takes a drink from his bottle, drags the back of his hand across his mouth.
“Do we get to eat anything?” he says. “I’m starving. Hanging by the neck takes a lot out of you.”
Anjali’s eyes go wide. “How the hell can you talk about food at a time like this? Rajesh is being held captive by a devil and we’re just sitting here.”
I turn to her. “We’re going to get him out of there. I promise you that, Anjali.” Then to Tony. “It’s important that everyone tries to eat. Our energy reserves will begin to run low in this jungle heat.”
“You know me, Chase,” he says. “I’m always up for food.” But I know he’s lying.
Approaching the Sherpas, I instruct them to cook up something simple and quick using the freeze-dried food supplies. In the meantime, Tony and I come up with a plan for extracting Rajesh from that diamond mine. It’s the least I can do to divert my thoughts from the now dead Elizabeth. A woman I loved with all my heart, but not for long.
22
The Sherpas cook us a simple lentil curry which we eat with small slabs of naan, their traditional flatbread. Rather, I attempt to eat, but visions of Elizabeth being murdered atop the diamond deposit is too much to take for my heart and stomach. When the plates are cleared, Rudy and Anjali retire to their tents. I need to keep myself busy or I’ll think too much. Remember too much. Which means Tony and I look over a topo map of the jungle and work on our plan for stealing the kid away from Kashmiri.
With the topo map laid out before us, I match up the GPS coordinates retrieved from the drone to the precise area on the map where both the diamond mine and the Thuggee encampment and tunnel are located. Turns out, we’re talking an area the size of several football fields, which is how I describe it to Tony.
“But we need to concentrate only on one place,” he says. “The tunnel.”
“Who knows how long, how wide, how deep that tunnel is. If it were built into the side of a hill or a mountain, we might be able to make reasonable sense of it. But underground like that, who knows. It could zigzag for miles like an ant farm. No telling what kind of surprises wait for us inside, we even manage to get inside. What kind of security?”
“My guess is that it’s several layers deep, with stairs and elevators. A real working mine, which means…” He looks up at me like he’s just experienced his Eureka moment.
“Which means what, Tone?”
“You and I have worked on enough underground tunnel and cave projects through the years to know that every single one of them, no matter how big or how small, no matter how sophisticated or simplistic, have one very important thing in common.”
He slaps his chest as if to give me a clue.
“Air,” I say. “They all need air shafts to pump oxygen in and CO2 out.”
“Canary in a coal mine,” he says. “Since we don’t have shit in the way of weaponry, going Stallone and blasting our way in and out
won’t cut it.”
“We’ll drown them in their own air.”
“Now you’re cooking with Wesson, Baker. And when the time comes for that kid to show his face, we snatch him up and make a run for it.”
“Won’t be that easy. Could be he’ll be attached at the hip to Kashmiri, and if that’s the case, we’ll need aforementioned weapons, be they ever so humble.”
“Well, he’s just a man and those black-robed Thuggee soldiers surrounding him are just flesh and blood no matter how much they try and pull off their Darth Vader thing. They put on their socks just like us in the morning. Trust me, bullets and knives will pierce their skin.” He smiles. “But here’s where we harbor a distinct advantage. We can commandeer Bruce’s scoped 30.06. As the nasties make their exit from the tunnel, we can pick them off one by one. It’ll be fun. Like a video game.”
“Not enough rounds for that.”
“But we give the impression we have enough rounds. You see, we form a semi-circle around their front perimeter, Anjali shooting from one spot, myself from another, and you from another. When the Thuggees run for cover, that’s our signal to move in and make the extraction.”
Standing, sighing.
“That’s the plan,” I say, my tone less than confident.
“Only one we got. And it’s as good as any. Or maybe you as the boss man can do better?”
“Why do I feel like we’ve suddenly been transported back in time and we’re working for my old man on some excavation project in some remote part of the world?”
“Well, you got remote part of the world right anyway.”
“I appreciate the input, Tone, and your plans aren’t all that bad. I’m just not sure how practical they are.”
“What’s that mean, Chase?”
“It means, whenever I’ve had to do an extraction, be it with civilian boots or army issue boots on, it usually went down one way and one way only: I thumbed off the safety on my hand cannon, ran in after my target, pressed a little C-4 against the cell door, set it off, grabbed the extractee by the collar, dragged him back out of the place. We’d already be gone by the time anyone figured out what just happened.”
Chase Baker and the God Boy: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book No. 3) Page 11
