The Opal (Book 2 of the Matt Turner Series)

by Michael Siemsen

  Soon they could hear talking, and Oliver squatted down and duckwalked forward. Tuni got on all fours and felt the wet moss and duff soak through her pant knees. They stopped again. Oliver pointed, and she craned her neck sideways to see around a tree. Flashlight beams zipped around ahead of them, and she saw and heard two men shaking out a large tarp. Matt and Rheese were sitting with their backs against the buttress roots of an enormous tree.

  Oliver eased down onto his bum in the dirt and crossed his legs, placing his elbows on his knees to aim the rifle. It had a very narrow scope on the top—nothing like what Tuni had seen in the movies. She hoped he knew what he was doing.

  The rifle went off with an ear-shattering roar. Through the ringing in her head, Tuni heard, as if underwater, someone shout “Danny!”

  Oliver pulled back a knob on the rifle and aimed again. The same voice shrieked a howling curse, and gunshots came back at them in quick succession.

  Oliver pushed Tuni’s head down. She could hear more yelling and swearing, but the return fire had stopped. Oliver cracked off another shot, and the forest seemed to go silent.

  Tuni cautiously raised her head, spitting dirt and bits of dead leaf and who knew what else.

  “Did you get them?” she whispered.

  Oliver looked solemnly at her. She stood up and looked at the site. A dropped flashlight lit the base of a tree and some of the ground where Matt and Rheese had sat. They were gone, and all was quiet but the high-pitched ringing in Tuni’s ears.

  “We have to go after them!” she hissed to Oliver. “Does Abel know? Where are the others? Why are we just sitting here?” She squeezed the buttons on her headset. “Abel . . . Abel, Oliver got one of them, but Rheese and the other one ran off with Matthew!” She waited for him to reply. “Abel, are you there? Can you hear me?”

  Oliver looked around helplessly. Tuni grabbed him by the forearm and said, “C’mon!” They ran up to the little campsite, and Tuni saw the dead man’s shoulder holster. After picking up the flashlight, she pushed the body over, trying not to look at the partially destroyed head, and yanked the handgun until it came out.

  “Will this . . . work . . . if I need it to?” she said.

  Oliver took it, checked a few things, then handed it back to her with a nod. She gave Oliver his own pistol back and, with the new one in hand, took off running in the direction she thought they had gone.

  * * *

  “What the f . . . ?” Chuck gasped when a shot rang out behind them.

  The group stopped. They had scrambled down to the base of the hill, crossed a low stream, and were rounding the base of another stump-speckled hill. A quick burst of semi-automatic gunfire followed, then another rifle shot.

  “That’s way past the logging site,” Núñez said.

  “Lying sons of bitches!” Roger roared, and began pounding back up the clear-cut hill.

  Jess looked confused for a second until Paul ran past him, saying, “They either lied or were stupid. Either way, they suck.”

  * * *

  Abel’s headset crackled, and Tuni came on, telling him Oliver had shot one of them. Isaiah heard it, too, and looked at Abel.

  “Abel, are you there? Can you hear me?”

  Abel waved his finger at Isaiah and then pressed it to lips.

  * * *

  “Move, Rheese, God damn it,” Fando growled. “If you can’t double that speed, I’m better off blowing yer bald-ass head off.”

  Rheese was struggling. Matt tried to help by pushing him along, but Rheese kept swatting his hands away, saying, “I’m fine, blast it!”

  “Go right,” Fando ordered. “Hard right. Harder!”

  The course he had taken them, beginning downhill and away from the shooter, had changed several times. Fando was cursing in Spanish and wailing “Danny!” every now and then as they crashed through the woods, tripping over each other, lungs burning, legs cramping. Matt felt himself overheating under the knit cap, turtleneck, and undershirt. He pulled off the hat and stuffed it in his pocket, untucked his undershirt, and held it up to let the cool air in.

  “Faster!” Fando barked. “Hard left!”

  Matt couldn’t keep track, but as far as he could tell, they had gone perhaps a mile east of the site and two miles south, gradually ascending the slope at a diagonal angle. The turns seemed random, yet consistently moving away from the campsite.

  “Stop!” Fando ordered. “Sit down!”

  Matt and Rheese dropped immediately. They had stopped in a small clearing where moonlight shone between two distant treetops. Fando didn’t seem all that tired, as if his heavy breathing was more emotional than physical. He surveyed the area behind them as he reloaded the magazine to his pistol.

  Matt watched, counting the rounds as they went in. He didn’t know why, but he remembered the good guy in cheesy movies telling the bad guy that the bad guy was all out. The villain would laugh knowingly and pull the trigger, then hear the click as the gun dry-fired, whereupon the hero would take him out, one way or another.

  Fando slapped the magazine back in, released the slide, and thrust the gun just under Matt’s jaw. Please don’t touch, Matt prayed. That’s gotta have an imprint.

  “Did you see ’em, you little punk? You see ’em comin’ and not say nothin’?”

  Matt looked him dead in the eyes and shook his head. He swallowed and felt his Adam’s apple graze the gun’s muzzle. A quick dizzy spell came and went—the imprint, letting him know it was in there, waiting for him. Fando pressed his sweaty forehead against Matt’s, and his hot, rancid breath filled Matt’s nostrils.

  “You little bastard, you know you wouldn’t have said shit.”

  He slammed the butt of the gun into Matt’s nose, and something crunched. Blood flowed both ways: down into his throat, and out over his lips and chin.

  “We didn’t see anything, Solorzano,” Rheese said. “Leave him alone! He’s the bloody victim in this, for Christ’s sake. Anyway, who the hell would be up here? And bloody shooting at us?”

  Matt forced an eye open and watched Fando’s head turn. He pushed off Matt, stepped calmly over to Rheese, and smacked him across the side of the head with the gun. It went off, and for an instant all three of them thought Rheese had been shot. Then, after a strange pause, Fando hit Rheese again with the gun, then again, harder, faster, kicking, beating. Rheese curled up into a ball, groaning, as Matt looked on in horror. Unless someone or something intervened, Fando was going to beat him to death, right here and now, simply because he had told Fando to leave Matt alone.

  Matt looked around for a branch or rock big enough to do damage with a single blow, because he might not get the chance for a second. He saw a grapefruit-size rock, half buried in the roots of a big fern.

  Fando was swinging away with the pistol again. Matt heard a rib crack and imagined other things bursting. Rheese wasn’t moaning or pleading anymore. Matt looked back down at the rock and realized that it was now or never. His fingers scrabbled into the soil, curled under the rock, and pried it out, and with Fando’s back to him, he raised it over his head and lunged. As he brought it down, he yelled, “Get off him!” It hit hard, though not on the head, where Matt had hoped, but between the shoulders. Fando cried out as he went sprawling on top of Rheese. Swearing, he got to his feet and turned toward Matt.

  “I honestly didn’t think you had an ounce of fight in you, punk,” he said, wiping Rheese’s blood from his face with his shirtsleeve. Behind him, Rheese coughed and let out a wheezing moan. “Now what? I bet that’s what yer thinkin’. Hadn’t thought past swingin’ the stupid rock.”

  “Yeah, not really,” Matt replied.

  Fando just stood there, eyes locked on Matt. Matt supposed this was better than simply shifting the beating to him, but then, maybe the guy was just thinking of a creative way to kill him.

  “Hey, where’s the jewel?” Fando suddenly asked.

  “I think Rheese still has it.”

  Fando stepped over to Rheese and pried him out
of his fetal pose, then started digging through his pockets. Rheese moaned and coughed blood.

  “Where is it, you old bastard?”

  Rheese coughed and spat. “Sin m-m ba-a-ag . . .”

  “In yer bag?” Fando looked around. “Where the hell’s yer bag?”

  Rheese choked again and made a sound that may have been laughter, though it quickly deteriorated into more groaning.

  “It’s back with Gar—. . .” Matt began. “Back where we were going to, uh . . .”

  Fando’s hands went up to his face, and he pulled at his cheeks as a stifled scream erupted inside his throat.

  “Strip!” Fando shouted.

  “What?”

  “Strip, you little piece of shit! Yer clothes! Off, all of ’em!”

  Matt pulled his turtleneck off, then the white undershirt. He hesitated for a second.

  “Keep going, God damn it!”

  Sitting down on a fallen tree, Matt took off his shoes and stuffed his socks inside before shucking off his jeans. He stood there in his navy boxer briefs with a white waistband.

  “You ain’t done, punk.”

  “Whah yuh gonna d’now? Rape ’im?”

  There stood Rheese, one eye open. Somehow, he had gotten to his feet and shambled over to them.

  Fando cackled, then squatted down in front of Rheese.

  “I can’t wait to kill you, old man. I would do it right fuckin’ now if it wasn’t gonna put yer fat ass outa yer misery. How ‘bout this, though, for a taste o’ what’s to come?” Fando pulled the long knife from his belt and plunged it through Rheese’s calf so that it poked out the other side. As Rheese let out a raspy cry, Fando said to Matt, “Now strip him.”

  “I’ll need my gloves back on.”

  Fando gave him an annoyed wave of consent, then went back to scanning around them nervously. Matt slipped his gloves back on and went to Rheese, who was gasping for air and gawking at his calf with disbelief.

  After another minute Rheese seemed to calm a little. Matt crouched down beside him, and Rheese panted, “Crehfurry, lad.”

  Matt nodded. “Oh, I’ll be careful.”

  He started with Rheese’s plaid button-down, meticulously avoiding touching any of Rheese’s clothes with his bare skin. Then he peeled off the sweat-soaked white undershirt. As Matt moved to the trousers, Rheese forced himself onto his back with a pained grunt. He had only his left eye open, out of Fando’s sight. Matt caught it, and Rheese gave a quick leftward glance before locking eyes with Matt again. Matt looked and spotted it, all but covered in soil and pine needles. The opal.

  “Hurry the fuck up!” Fando shouted. “Yer not tryin’ to seduce the old bastard!”

  Matt moved to Rheese’s feet and pulled the slacks off by the cuffs as Rheese struggled to lift his bum off the ground. Then came the socks. Matt stood back up, silently refusing to remove the remaining white briefs.

  As Rheese curled back up on the ground Fando shrugged and gathered up all the clothes into a big pile. He peered up at Matt, who just stood there watching.

  “Take the gloves off and sit yer ass back down.” He looked at Rheese and said, “Guess we know where all yer hair went. Damn.”

  Matt tossed his gloves onto the pile of clothes and sat back down, wondering what Fando had planned. Would he make them strip just to shoot them? He watched as Fando picked through the clothes and pulled out Rheese’s rank-smelling socks. Their eyes met for a second; then Fando tossed one of the socks at Matt’s face. Matt didn’t duck fast enough, and he slumped back onto the ground and lay there, limp, with the sock across his face.

  * * *

  Fando made a “hmph” sound and seemed to congratulate himself. He looked at Rheese, then stepped over to him and kicked him hard in the back. Rheese hardly responded. Taking the other sock, he tied it around Rheese’s head, effectively gagging him. Then he looked at his watch, grabbed the little pile of clothes, and took off running, back the way they had come.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “We’re bloody lost,” Tuni said. “Abel, can you hear me now? Abel, are you there?”

  Still no answer. They began hiking back, Oliver’s eyes fixed to the ground in search of their previous steps. Up the hill, perhaps a mile away, a gunshot echoed. They looked at each other, turned, and ran straight toward it.

  Tuni’s headset crackled. “Tuni, are you there?” It was Abel. “Are you all right?”

  She slowed to a fast walk and replied with great relief, “Yes, I’m here! Been trying to reach you. Oliver and I got separated from the rest of the group after he shot one of the guards. Rheese and the other one got away with Matthew, and we chased but can’t find them. But we just heard a shot.”

  “Yes, yes. Was it anywhere near you?”

  They stopped walking, “It sounded fairly close. I don’t know, maybe a . . .” She made an inquiring face to Oliver. He whispered, “About a mile south,” and she relayed.

  “Understood,” Abel said. “I’ve pushed my team east, following your initial gunfire, and we have slowly moved toward you in a line. If anyone comes this way, we will capture them. Your men have been waiting at your truck. I’m sending half of them to rendezvous with you, so watch for their flashlights. Do not attempt to rescue Matthew by yourselves, understood? Stay away from that gunfire.”

  “Understood.”

  “That last gunshot made me worry.”

  “Me, too,” she said, but then realized Abel’s concern at the moment was for her, not Matthew. “We’ll wait for the men.”

  She turned toward Oliver, the whites of his eyes and a shine on his forehead reflecting the moonlight. He glanced at his watch. As she stood there in the dark with only the sounds of insects and her heartbeat in her ears, she found her fear for Matthew’s safety spreading to her own vulnerability. The adrenaline of the past hour had shielded her from such realities, but no more. The night appeared darker, the air colder, and she couldn’t be farther from civilization.

  * * *

  “There’s another one,” Roger wheezed, hands on his knees.

  They had just made it back up to the logging site. No sign of Cuban troops anywhere.

  “You want me to keep moving, sir?” Núñez said. Her sweaty brow shone in the moonlight, but she didn’t sound the least bit winded.

  “I can go with her,” Paul added, breathing heavily. “I’ll last.”

  Roger nodded, and the two jogged across the site to where the steep hill resumed southward.

  Jess knelt beside Roger while Chuck drank from his canteen.

  “What do you wanna do, Rog?” Jess asked. “I can’t have you killing your heart out here.”

  “Just need . . . catch my . . . just gimme a . . .”

  “C’mon, bud, hunched over isn’t a good position. Put your arms up, hands behind your head. Feel better?”

  “Feel like I’m being arrested.”

  They could see the dim shapes of Paul and Núñez working their way up the next slope, moving through shadows and behind trees. The gibbous moon behind them improved the visibility, but that meant that their quarry could see equally well.

  “Just one more minute,” Roger said. “Jess, you don’t think that single shot . . . you know, just one shot out of nowhere—”

  “Nah, Rog, I don’t think that. There’s no future thinking that.”

  “Yeah, all right.”

  Jess glanced nervously up at the tree-covered slope.

  “Go catch up with them,” Roger said. “Chuck and I’ll be right behind you guys in a minute.”

  “You sure?” Jess said, though he didn’t want the only son of another friend, Ben Kleindorf, to be out there without him. Sure, Núñez was supremely capable, but Paul was his responsibility.

  Roger smiled and waved him off. “Go on. I’ll say it again: this whole thing goes so far beyond any kind of favor I could ever return.”

  Jess winked as he trotted off. “Brewskis for life, my friend, that’s all I ask.”

  * * *

&nbs
p; Abel was looking at the almost-campsite where Rheese had clearly been. A dead man with part of his head missing lay sprawled on a blood-drenched tarp. A duffel bag contained survival food, digging equipment, and weapons. On the ground lay still-rolled sleeping bags, and a pack clearly owned by Dr. Garrett Rheese. The pack held clothing, a tablet computer, maps, pens, compass—pretty standard stuff—but no opal. He had the men comb through the area for it, but it wasn’t here. They had also searched the silver van parked off the road, but it wasn’t there either, which meant that it had probably gone with the three when they fled.

  “Did you check Mr. Garza?” Abel asked Isaiah. Isaiah nodded.

  He was furious with Oliver for letting Tuni go after them. She was only supposed to observe from afar—see Matthew, see their efforts to rescue him. But now she was in real danger. He wished he had kept her with him, but then, that would have complicated other aspects of the plan. He needed to make some calls, but he had no cellular signal.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Ears ringing, head in agony. Bleeding. Warm where it’s coming out; cold where it’s spread. He’s going to kill me . . . no way to stop this! Oh, God, no, it isn’t right! I don’t bloody deserve this! My side . . . something broke . . . won’t stop . . . This will never stop! Turner could do something, but why should he? Dear God, he’s going to get this next. Ow. Oh, God no! He stopped . . . Why did he stop? Why can’t I hear? Whole body hot. Am I even alive? There is only pain—no smell, no sound, no sight, only pain. This could be it . . . no, it can’t be.

  “Tuhner”

  My own voice . . . No, Rheese’s voice. My clothes are being taken off now. Rheese’s clothes. I’m taking Rheese’s clothes off.

  “Tuhner, can you hear Hurry the fuck up! Just hold seduce the old bastard!“

  Matt felt his pants sliding down, and pain all over his body—Rheese’s body, Rheese’s pants sliding down. Through one eye—Rheese’s eye from the imprint—Matt could see his nearly-naked self, undressing Rheese. I look terrible, he observed. And completely vulnerable. “Hang on, almuss there, lad.” Rheese talking, but not me—Rheese, not the imprint of Rheese. I hear real Rheese, outside the imprint! Can I move my body? Open my eyes?