by Steve Richer
“How do you like my plan, Mr. Bricks? Twice the suffering for you is like paying interest for your crime 20 years ago.”
“Do it to me, Vazquez. You made your point, now just kill me.”
“No, you can’t get off that easy.”
A man squirted gas over some straw, not exactly easy to do since it was raining, and Rogan hoped this would make the fire impossible to ignite again. Still, the guys didn’t seem to worry about that and crammed the kindling inside the aircraft.
“You’re going to hell for this, you motherfucker.”
“Good, we’ll keep each other company then. Besides, I’m known here as El Desierto Diablo, the Desert Devil. Seems fitting.”
He laughed and came closer still, his mouth an inch from Rogan’s ear.
“Did you know that people write songs about me? People don’t pray to Jesus or the Virgin Mary when they want something, they pray to me. I’m practically a saint! So if you need a miracle, you’re screwed.”
He burst into laughter and Castro joined in.
Shiloh knew that the way the guards were gripping her biceps was painful but she barely felt it. She was walking forward on instincts, trying not to trip in the uneven field.
Mostly, she stared at the last wisps of smoke billowing from the plane. She knew what had happened, they had made her watch from behind the trees. She would be haunted by the woman’s screams until the moment she died.
And that was only minutes away.
One of them had said that the woman they had set on fire had been a prostitute in town. They’d chosen her because she looked like Shiloh. The point was to deceive Rogan, to make him agonize.
Just thinking about what he was going through, the overwhelming sadness he had to endure, it was worse than anything. She had faced death before, had been confronted with terrible odds, but this time there was nothing she could do. This was it, she was about to be killed.
She had been reminded of this moment ever since she had joined MI6. It was something she had been taught to expect. The intelligence business was ruthless and you could be killed at any time. But as much as you expected it you couldn’t ever be prepared for it.
And the way they wanted to murder her was downright barbarian.
“I have money, you know,” she lied in Spanish. “Help me get out of here and it’s yours, millions.”
Her two escorts laughed.
She squirmed, trying to escape their grasp but they had a very simple solution to keep her in place: they accelerated. So she either had to stop struggling and follow, or she would trip which would make escaping even more difficult.
Quintana was waiting for them by the plane, supervising the whole scene.
“Welcome, miss. No last meal, no last words, you just need to get in the plane.”
Next to the wreck and slowing down at last, she decided to try something. She flexed her knees to give herself a boost and at the same time she twisted.
It worked!
One of the guards let go of her and the other’s grip was fading. She would head-butt him and then she had to run.
Alas, Quintana saw the whole thing coming from a mile away. Without missing a beat, he punched Shiloh in the stomach.
“Ugh!”
And then he punched her in the face while she was doubled over, out of breath. It cut her lip and blood ran down her mouth.
“You can’t escape your destiny.”
The blows had sapped her strength and made her woozy. The next thing she knew she was being pushed headfirst into the aircraft. The fire was out but it remained scorching inside, like a furnace.
Her hands were behind her back and panic started to set in. She gazed around, desperately to find something that could save her.
And then she found it.
In the earlier inferno, the gauges had been broken and there were pieces of glass on the ground. She locked eyes with a nice big shard and as they stuffed her in the plane she was able to close her fingers around it.
“No, please don’t do this,” she pleaded, exaggerating her fear and alarm.
She kicked her feet to keep the guards away. It didn’t exactly work but she never thought it would.
She only needed extra time to cut through her bonds.
Chapter 61
Rogan was transforming into a different man.
His sorrow was giving way to rage. Never had he stood on the sidelines watching the world go by. That wasn’t a way to live; it was merely a way to survive. It wasn’t him.
He couldn’t look at the plane anymore so he crouched again, pensive. Lost. He didn’t want his last memory of Shiloh to be her burning alive. He felt guilty enough as it was.
No, he would give it everything he had. He was willing to die fighting. They were about to kill him anyway after they were done with Shiloh so he might as well make an effort to resist. If he could just hit one of them before getting shot he would consider it a victory.
The more he thought about this, the more strength he felt his body gather. His pain was a thing of the past. Mind over matter, he told himself. It was adrenaline coursing through his veins.
There was no backing down. Never again.
The one thing he had going for him was that the two guards next to him weren’t holding him because they were convinced he was too weak from the earlier torture and the current grief. So it was time to strike.
Mustering all his energies, he spun to the right and swept the legs of one of the guards. With the rain, the ground was slippery and he crashed down immediately, hitting his head heavily on the bricks.
“Ah!”
Before the others could react, Rogan pushed himself to his feet. Doing so, he made sure to ram into the second guard, punching him in the abdomen and grabbing his body at the same time.
With staggering effort, he carried him to the balustrade just a few inches away and hurled him over. The man screamed all the way down to the ground, 30 feet below.
Rogan then turned around. The only thing he saw was Vazquez and his expression of utter shock.
Shiloh was holding her breath, it made her feel stronger. She kicked her legs at the two guards who were continuing to push her into the plane, hoping to strap her into the seat upside down for the main event.
“No, you wankers…”
She gritted her teeth and made the glass shard move up and down between her wrists. The sharp edge was digging into her fingers, cutting her skin deeply, and the pain was intolerable.
But she had to keep going.
The guards didn’t find this amusing anymore as they realized she wasn’t going quietly. They hammered at her with their fists but they were themselves on all fours and it wasn’t easy to do.
This was the only leverage Shiloh had and so she continued her two-pronged plan. Her legs scissored, twisting and turning as she attempted to make the guards retreat, kicking them in the face and never keeping still.
“Pinche puta!”
Yes, Shiloh thought. She was not only getting to them but her wrists started to loosen. She was almost there.
As she punted the one on the right directly on the nose, the other was able to maneuver forward. He punched her in the gut hard.
“Ow…”
This made her rotate her body, anything to protect herself, and in the process the ties finally came loose.
Her hands were free!
She swung them forward and delivered a blow to the guard who had just punched her. There wasn’t much clearance but she managed to sit up.
“Come here,” she goaded.
She grabbed him by his shirt, jerking him closer. Before he knew what was going on, she wrapped her forearms against his neck and wrung it up at an angle. There was a distinctive snap and the guy fell limply into her arms.
He was dead.
The second guard was wide-eyed, evidently unable to believe what this frail woman – their prisoner – had just done.
“Qué chingados!”
He charged ahead and she roll
ed the corpse off her. The second man tripped over him and it was the opportunity she was looking for.
She was still holding the glass shard from earlier – it was practically embedded in her skin by now, blood running down her forearms. It was perfect.
She swung her right hand frontward and her makeshift weapon slashed his throat.
His eyes bulged out as a geyser of blood erupted, spraying Shiloh everywhere. He gurgled and fell, lifeless.
She didn’t care at all about the blood and the pain. She was free and now all she had to do was get out of the aircraft.
She could feel victory. Almost.
She wasn’t out of the woods just yet. She still had to come out of the wreckage and then she’d have to run across an open field. She had no doubt that people would shoot at her. But she had a chance, that was all she asked for.
She crawled past the two dead henchmen. She could smell the fresh air, the cool rain. Mostly she could smell the stark difference from the remaining smoke and gasoline. Her lungs were opening up.
She pushed herself over the corpses and finally her head was outside. She inhaled deeply. And then she hated herself for miscalculating.
Ten feet ahead was Quintana. He had his shiny pistol aimed straight at her head.
“You’re good,” he said. “You’re good but you’re not getting out alive.”
With his free hand he produced a fresh road flare. He put the end in his mouth and yanked off the cap which he then spat out. He rubbed the tip briskly against the side of his gun, lighting the flare instantly.
Shiloh was frozen in place. All he had to do was toss it her way and she would go up in flames, her jumpsuit having soaked up a lot of the gas during the fight.
There was no time to waste. Rogan leaped on Vazquez. There was so much power in his movement that they both fell to the ground.
“Chupa me pito!”
Rogan figured the man was swearing at him and that was a good sign. It meant he was scared.
He punched him in his expansive belly before getting on top of him. He wanted the drug lord to suffer for what he’d made him endure but he also wanted to get the whole thing over with.
Rogan wrapped his fingers around his throat and squeezed. There was terror in Vazquez’s eyes, recognition that he wouldn’t win after all.
“Let him go.”
It was Castro. In the commotion he’d forgotten about him.
“I said, let him go, Rogan.”
A second later, he felt the hard muzzle of a revolver pressing against the back of his head. Castro pulled back the hammer.
So close, Rogan thought. He’d come so close to freedom, to revenge. Now it was the end.
Chapter 62
Shiloh became nauseated from the look on Quintana’s face. He was smug, relishing what he was about to do. He was clearly looking forward to setting her on fire, watching her burn alive.
He was holding the flare at arm’s length, the red smoke and sparks reflecting against his wet skin, making him look especially evil. He was Satan incarnate, had to be. She caught herself wondering why she should have expected anything less.
He wasn’t even aiming the gun at her anymore. The flare was all he needed to keep her at bay. One flick of the wrist and she would go up in flames.
And here she was, her torso out of the aircraft, her legs back in it. She was in the awkward sprinter’s position on the start line. Her muscles ached from being angled this way.
“What are you bloody waiting for? You’re taking everything in so you can wank to this later?”
“Maybe I am. It was my idea, you know. Mr. Vazquez likes the carnival downstairs but I like this. I like fire.”
“Then get it over with already.”
“You’re in a hurry to die?” he asked, taking pleasure in her being stuck there at his mercy.
“Anything that will make me stop looking at your sorry face, Quintana.”
His eyes hardened. She was getting to him and he was about to do it. Good, she thought. The anticipation was worse than anything these bastards would ever do to her. She had been locked in a cell for days so she knew it was coming. It was only a matter of time.
And the time was now.
“Do it!” she screamed over the rain which was picking up.
He took a breath and cocked his arm, ready to throw the torch at her.
That’s when there was a gunshot in the distance.
Shiloh forgot about her impending fate. It could only mean one thing: they had just executed Rogan. At least they wouldn’t be apart for too long. She believed in an afterlife and she believed they would be reunited in a peaceful world. It was only a matter of seconds now.
But then there were more gunshots. It was the staccato of automatic weapons. It wasn’t an execution, it couldn’t be.
It was a firefight! Rogan was putting up a fight!
Rogan still had the weapon to his head and the gunshot he heard seemed distant. It wasn’t aimed at him.
What’s more, Vazquez who was still underneath him was just as stunned by the gunfire. There was one shot and then there was more. They were submachine guns, quite a few of them.
Could it be Shiloh? Had she found a way to escape?
Out of the blue, the muzzle left the back of Rogan’s head. Because he was distracted, Vazquez pushed back on him.
Rogan tumbled backwards, falling to the ground. Splayed there, rain falling on his face, in his eyes, he wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing.
Castro pointed his revolver at the guard Rogan had knocked out and shot him in the chest as he was coming to. Then another man emerged from the house and Castro quickly swiveled his way, putting two bullets in his head.
“Cabron!”
Rogan turned to the voice. Vazquez was sitting up and at the same time he produced a gold-plated Browning pistol. It was coming up toward Rogan.
His rage coming back, the FBI agent leaped forward. He pinned Vazquez’s wrist to the ground and with his free hand he squeezed his trachea. He didn’t know who was doing the shooting or why Castro had shot some of his colleagues but there was something much more important now.
It was time to finish what he had begun before.
It was time to kill Vazquez once and for all.
Quintana was thinking the same thing. One gunshot would’ve been expected but not more. So what was going on? At the second volley, he instinctively turned his head toward the raised terrace behind him.
The thing about being trained as an intelligence officer, gaining military skills, was that it emphasized improvisation. It ingrained in you the notion that you have to always take advantage of every possible opportunity.
That’s what Shiloh did.
The moment Quintana spun his head, she sprang into action. It was the last card she had to play. She still had the glass shard in her hand and she threw it with all her might at the man’s face.
“Argh!” he yelped, more in surprise the actual pain.
The sharp edge nicked his cheek and not especially deeply. But it was enough for Shiloh to make a move.
She scampered out of the aircraft and ran toward Quintana. Still rattled by what was going on, he squeezed the trigger, making wet dirt explode around her feet. And still she kept going.
Muscle memory was a hell of a thing. She didn’t have to think, she didn’t have to analyze the situation. She just let her body react on its own.
Right before he raised his gun at her, she swept it aside. It went off again, firing at nothing.
Quintana brought the other hand forward, hoping to get the flare close enough so that Shiloh would be set on fire.
But she had anticipated this. She grabbed his wrists and made her fingers dig into the ulnar artery which brought blood to the forearm. He howled in pain and dropped the flare in the grass where it continued to sparkle.
“Bitch!”
The gun came swinging back and at the last second Shiloh pushed it down. Instead of fighting it – which he would expect – she w
ent with it, pushing it along the arc it was already on. Then she applied pressure.
Simultaneously, the Mexican thug was pulling the trigger. Only he hadn’t expected the gun to be in the position it was in now. So when the shot went off, the weapon was aimed at his foot.
The bullet went through his boot and blood burst out like a cantaloupe hitting the pavement.
“Aaaahh!”
Without losing the momentum, Shiloh gathered all her strength and pushed on his torso. He mechanically stepped back and soon he was tumbling against the aircraft, losing grip of the gun in the process.
She watched him fall into the cockpit. The justice was poetic. She went back to the flare and gave it a kick. It bounced on the grass until it reached the gas-soaked Cessna.
It instantaneously caught on fire and so did Quintana. He shrieked in pain. The more he thrashed and the more intense the fire became.
It only took a few seconds for him to stop moving. He was dead.
Two dark Black Hawk helicopters swooped in from the sky, coming around the mansion. Both had their side doors open and they were shooting down.
From the corner of his eye, Rogan saw more guards fall dead from this gunfire. What was going on?
One chopper went to land in the field while another remained stationary, hovering 100 yards off, providing air cover for whatever the hell this was. Men in military-style uniforms poured out of the helicopter which landed out in the grass.
It was a full out assault on the compound.
“Rogan, please let him go.”
He looked up. It was Castro. Even weirder, he was no longer pointing his weapon at him.
“He has to die.”
“You are right. But I cannot let you kill him.”
Castro bent down and pried the gold-plated pistol away from Vazquez.
A second later, a bony man joined them on the terrace. He was dressed in tan cargo pants, an Army green T-shirt, and he had a gun holstered around his waist. In spite of the aviator sunglasses, Rogan could tell who it was.
CIA officer Cooley.
“Let him go, Bricks. It’s really over now.”
What the hell was going on?
