by Scott Blade
“This is your woman?”
He jerked her by the tuft of her hair, pulling her close to him. She let out a whimper. His lips moved inches from her ear.
I stayed quiet. Looked at the guy on the left-hand side, then the guy on the right-hand side, and then back to Tega.
Oskar Tega wasn’t anything special. He was older than I had pictured. Maybe early 50s. His hair was black and gray and slicked back. Stubble had besieged his face. Earlier I had thought that he wore black, but I was wrong. He was dressed in a dark green slicker. It looked black in the dark.
He had no muscle definition. No tone. He had no visible body fat either. He was a thin guy. So were his friends.
I stared at Sheldon. I never lowered the CZ 52, even though I was pretty sure that it was useless.
She said, “I’m sorry. They were going to kill me.”
Tega nodded and then he whipped her around and pointed the Five-seven at her head.
“Toss the gun, Mr. Reacher. Or I kill her.”
Sheldon stared at me with tears in her eyes. She begged, “Please. They’ll kill me.”
I thought about Salbutamol again. I thought about asthma and I thought about Faye Matlind and her dead husband. And then I thought about Sheldon’s body. Immaculate.
I pictured her jogging around the lake in my mind. Kept my eyes open. Gun trained on Tega. With a body like that she must’ve run and exercised six, maybe seven days a week.
Asthma. Salbutamol. Faye Matlind.
Then in a sudden and quick movement, I pointed the gun straight at Sheldon, center mass and said, “Not if I kill her first.”
And then I squeezed the trigger.
Sheldon’s face turned white, but she hadn’t closed her eyes. She hadn’t flinched.
The gun hammer fell back and the empty air was filled with a snapping metallic sound like a mousetrap. It echoed into the trees and was lost in the distant sound of the roaring fire from across the lake.
Nothing else happened. No gunshot. No bullet. Nothing.
The gun hadn’t fired. So I tossed it to the ground and dropped the Maglite. I didn’t raise my hands like a prisoner usually does. Instead I lowered them to my sides. Let them relax.
“You removed the firing pin.”
I shook my head and looked at the CZ 52 as it sank down in the grass and mud.
I looked back up and said, “I knew that gun was a piece of shit. One thing about the CZ 52 is the easily removable firing pin.
“No way does a woman like you live here in this town, own a Remington shotgun, and not know anything about guns. You set me up. Probably led the sheriff here.
“But the truth is that you probably could’ve just left the firing pin in that stupid gun. You could’ve left it alone. That shitty relic probably would’ve blown up in my hand.”
Sheldon’s eyes turned cold and Tega released her from his grip. She stepped forward.
She asked, “How did you know?”
I stared at her emotionless and said, “You met a man abroad? A benefactor?”
Then I turned to Tega and said, “Tega, I wondered when you’d show your face. I thought for sure it would’ve been after we made it to the Medical Center.”
Tega asked, “Where?”
“The Eckhart Medical Center.”
He nodded, pointed the Five-seven at my chest.
I said, “Sheldon works for you. She always has. That’s how you got so many girls. She’s the one who looked after them. They’d need a medical doctor to keep them healthy. To keep them sedated. To keep them calm. To keep them prime for your customers.
“And she probably was the one going around and abducting them. I mean who’s more trustworthy than a doctor? And a woman doctor? No one would suspect her.”
Sheldon said, “How did you know? When?”
I said, “The day I met you. In retrospect. But I was slow. Too slow. I liked you. I ignored my suspicions.
“You ran around the lake like an Olympic runner. Really immaculate shape. Great body. You could earn your Fitness Pro Card.
“You could compete nationally.
“But it was the Salbutamol that gave you away. I saw you buying it.”
Tega cocked his head and looked at me with questions in his eyes.
He tried to say the word, but couldn’t.
Sheldon said, “Salbutamol. It’s a medication for severe asthma.”
I asked, “Who would you be buying that for? Yourself? You don’t have asthma. No one with serious asthma would be able to have a body like yours. No way!
“You fed me that bullshit that you were buying it for the clinic, but you only had one box. No, that was for someone in particular, a patient, but not one from this town. No, if it were a regular patient, then you would have bought a lot more. Might as well stock up on it instead of having to return to the store constantly and buy new boxes.
“And you had all kinds of female products stacked up in your clinic. I saw them. Boxes and boxes. Enough for an all-girl community.
“Who’s that all for? The women here? No offense, but I’ve been around this town and it is a boring place. No one here is having that much sex.
“You didn’t need it for anyone who lives here. You needed it for Tega’s girls. That’s who.
“You need Salbutamol to treat Faye Matlind. She is real. I saw her medications in Chris Matlind’s motel room. She’s asthmatic.
“You had to take care of her. You were in charge of taking care of all of them. Tega can’t use his stock if it’s dead or pregnant. Can he?
“Plus, why does the Eckhart Medical Center need that barbed wire fence? Not because of animals. That place was surrounded like a prison because it is a prison.”
Tega interrupted. He said, “So you figured it out. You know why I’m here?”
I said, “You’re here to pick up your human stock. You aren’t into drugs. That’s all smoke to keep the cops guessing. You deal in sex slaves.
“You’re scum. The lowest of the low. I’ll admit that at first I thought that the rednecks were keeping the girls, but you’d never trust a bunch of rednecks. They aren’t the best at keeping secrets.
“One of them gets caught, they’d roll on you first chance they’d get. No way would you use them. But you did buy drugs from them. They cooked your meth.
“Which Sheldon used to keep the girls tweaking.
“I’m guessing that they’re already loaded on your seaplane. And they are tweaked out of their minds. Probably have no idea what day it is. Let alone where they are or what’s happening to them.
“You used her to take care of the girls for you. You trusted her. And who can you trust more than a doctor?”
Silence fell across us. No one spoke for a long moment and then Tega said, “Good for you. You got it. For a boy, you are quite smart.”
Sheldon looked away for a moment and then she returned her stare to me. It was cold, uncaring.
Tega moved his finger into the Five-seven’s trigger housing.
I said, “Before you kill me, tell me, how did you recruit her? Was it money?”
Sheldon said, “How do you think a small-town girl gets through medical school? In this backwoods state? He paid for my school. He paid for the Medical Center.
“I belong to him.”
I nodded and said, “He paid for your schooling and in return you had to host his criminal enterprise here in a small town.”
She nodded. It was as simple as that and I didn’t condone it, not by a long shot, but I understood it. I had grown up in Mississippi. Parts of it were still bordering on the third world. I understood wanting to escape, but not like this. Then I said, “All of those lives. Matlind, Grady, and none of those women will ever make it out alive. You know that. I hope that it was worth it.”
Tega said, “Sheldon was my first girl.”
He reached out his right hand, lowered the Five-seven with his left, and caressed her face. There was some obvious sentimentality there.
I nodded a
gain. I got it. She was his first girl.
They had met when she went out of the country. Became lovers. She probably had dreams of being by his side in Mexico. Living out their days on a Mexican beach.
She’d work some kind of local clinic and he’d run his operations from Mexico. They would travel together under the guise of her Medical Center’s name, doing medical charity work. But the reality was far darker than she had predicted. And now she was just as guilty as he was.
Tega said, “I’m afraid it is time for us to go. But I’m so impressed with you I will give you the gift of a painless death—a quick bullet to the head.”
Tega raised his Five-seven again, pointed at my head, and prepared to fire.
Chapter 48
The thing about last requests was that they were almost always a means of stalling. But 99 times out of 100, they were frivolous. The same end always came. The man headed for death always got to the same place.
I was about to die. I had fallen for this woman’s tricks and gotten myself into an ambush.
What the hell?
I asked, “Last request?”
“What?”
“Don’t I get a last request?”
Tega thought for a long moment. Then he lowered his Five-seven.
“Make it quick.”
I stepped closer to Sheldon.
Tega quickly raised the Five-seven back up and followed me with it. The two guys on his sides followed suit, but I moved slowly so that they’d know that I wasn’t planning an attack. And I wasn’t. Not yet.
I said, “Give me some of your goods one last time.”
“What?” she asked.
“Come on. I’m about to die. Let me touch you one last time. Let me kiss you again. Like last night. You loved it. I know you did.”
I looked at Tega and said, “The sounds that she made. You should’ve heard her.”
Anger came across Tega’s face. It was slight. Before he had been a man of statue-like composure. Always in control. But this anger came from deep within. It came from a place of extreme mistrust.
In men like him, no matter how composed he was, that primal instinct to protect what belonged to him ran deep. And Sheldon belonged to Tega. He knew it and she knew it.
Tega asked, “You slept with him?”
Sheldon said, “No!”
I said, “She wanted to. We didn’t have time.”
Tega stared at me and said, “What are you trying to do?”
He wasn’t a stupid man.
Sheldon said, “I kissed him, but it was for you. For us. I played a part. Baby, I’d never betray you.”
She looked at him and put her hands on his face.
She said, “Kill him and let’s go.”
Tega looked at her, taking his eyes off me for a second, but I couldn’t do anything. His guys had me in their sights.
The drizzle stopped and the air dampened to a sticky dew. No more rain.
Tega wanted to do more than shoot me. I saw it in his eyes. He wanted to make me suffer. Then he looked over my shoulder. He stared at the barn and smiled.
He said, “You just lost the pleasure of a painless death. Get in the barn.”
I turned. Tega and his men followed me back to the barn.
We walked through the gloom to the barn doors. They were still open.
Grady and the other dead bodies hung by their necks. They swayed and moved slowly out of unison like a room full of eerie marionettes.
Tega stepped into the barn past me. His men looked straight at me, never losing their concentration.
One of them stepped up close to me and motioned for me to follow Tega deeper into the barn. We walked to the middle, near the hanging corpses.
Whatever he had planned for me, they’d seen it before. They knew this routine.
I hoped that it wasn’t to hang me like the rest of them.
Tega searched the barn. He looked at all of the walls and then he said, “This is the only way in and out. The door has a steel padlock on the outside. Do you know why?”
I shook my head.
He said, “To keep people out. Do you know what else a lock like that is good for?”
I shook my head again.
He said, “Keeping people in.”
Then he said, “The rednecks cooked meth in here. Do you know what happens a lot with meth?”
He didn’t wait for me to respond.
He said, “It explodes. It’s flammable. Yet, the padlock outside is not. The logic of these rednecks leaves me. But that is how it is.”
I stayed quiet.
Then he asked, “This word flammable; you know this word?
I stayed quiet.
“I love this word. Americans make so many things that are flammable. Like products used to cook meth. As you figured out, I do not sell or make drugs. I am not in the drug business. I am in the sex business.”
He nodded to Sheldon.
He said, “I would not be sure which of these chemicals is flammable if it were not for the label.”
He walked over to a row of plastic barrels. He looked at the labels.
He smiled.
He kicked hard at one barrel. It fell over. The lid came off and the liquid contents spilled out across the ground.
Tega moved on to the next barrel and kicked it over and then the next and the next.
The air filled with a rancid smell of chemicals mixing.
I had a suspicion of what they were. One was probably ethanol.
He said, “Do you know what I am going to do to you?”
I said, “No clue.”
He said, “You are lucky. Really. If I had more time, I’d stay and do a slow job on you. But I don’t have that kind of time.
“I am going to lock you in here and let you burn alive.”
Tega stepped out of the barn. He lowered his gun. Then he looked at his men and said, “Hazlo.”
Everyone stepped out of the barn, except for me.
Tega said, “Goodbye, Mr. Reacher.”
I waited in the barn while Tega’s men locked the padlock. Two minutes later, the barn was a roaring inferno of exploding meth chemicals and wood.
Chapter 49
Tega had spilled dangerous, flammable chemicals all over the floor of the barn. He and his guys and Sheldon backed out and watched as the chemicals ran.
Tega smiled at me as his guys closed the doors. I heard the rustling of a chain and then the padlock clicked.
A few minutes later, the walls on the north and south sides started smoking.
Flames ate through the wood like a brushfire. It wouldn’t be long before the flames connected with the meth chemicals and I’d be burned alive.
I heard more noises outside, voices, but I couldn’t tell what they were saying.
I looked around the room. I checked the corners and the tables and I checked for weapons on the corpses. Nothing.
I found keys in Grady’s pocket. If I got out I could take his Tahoe.
The flames started to spark onto the floor. The blaze began to eat up the walls. Wood splintered and the fire scratched at the outer walls like a pride of lions trying to get in. I had to get out.
I kept my head calm. I focused on where I stood. There was no reason in trying to understand how I let Sheldon get the best of me.
There’d be plenty of time for second guessing later, once I escaped.
I looked around the barn some more. Still nothing. I looked up at the roof. There was a closed hatch on the upper south side, but it might as well not have been there. It was 20 feet above me, well out of reach. Then I faced away from the corpses. I looked in the direction that they had looked before they died. I studied their points of view. That was when I noticed a difference for each of them.
The sheriff and the deputies looked toward the doors. Their heads hung facing the direction of the doors as if Tega’s men were the last things they saw before they died. But the rednecks looked in a different direction. They stared off to the left-hand side an
d downward. Their bodies swayed in a twisted kind of synchronization.
They virtually stared at the same spot, a huge wooden table.
I rushed over to it. I had hoped that I would find something that was common among rednecks. And I did.
I tossed the table over on its side and jerked up a rug underneath it. I found a loose wooden plank. I pulled it up and saw my salvation.
On the floor was a thick concrete cover that acted like a trapdoor. A short, partially fragmented rope reached out from the top. It was a handle for the door.
I grabbed the cord and pulled. The concrete was heavy, but I managed. The door came up and scraped along the edges of the trapdoor opening.
I peered in and found a small bunker with a crawlspace. The far wall was too dark to tell how far back it went. But I could trace the walls by sight.
It was dark and damp, which was good. The damper the better. I might be safe in there.
I hopped in and pulled the cord behind me and the concrete block slid back into place.
I listened as the fire tore and ripped through the walls of the barn. It hadn’t taken long for the flames to reach the batch of spilled chemicals.
I pulled down on the cord with all of my strength and weight. I wanted to keep the concrete cover closed tight.
I heard an explosion. Heat and smoke sprayed through the tiny cracks around the concrete. I hung by the cord a couple of inches off the floor.
My knees were tucked under my body.
The fire had stayed out of the bunker, but the heat grew. It was like being in an oven set to low—hot, but not enough to cook me. Not yet.
I hoped that the explosion would take most of the flames outward, which it did. I’d wait a few minutes and then surface. Tega would be gone by then. But just then the cord snapped under my weight and I fell a few inches. Not a big deal. I rolled and got up on my knees. My head nearly bumped on the ceiling.
Dust from the concrete ceiling sprayed down into the chamber as a second explosion blasted from above.
It sounded louder than before. I hoped that was the last of it.
A tiny row of lights along the bottom back wall flickered to life. Maybe they were automatic. Maybe the tremor from the blast had shaken them on.
