And then there was Taylor. He closed his eyes, conjuring up her image in his mind. He longed to feel her close to him again. Memories flooded into the darkness—the night they met in Soho, their life in the States, the touring and, of course, the countless nights they spent making love. Now it was all gone, and he would never see her again.
He loved Taylor with all his being, and he could hardly bear the thought of just erasing her from his life. But he saw no way out of his situation if he wanted Shaun, no less himself, to live. He simply had no choice but to bide his time, survive as best he could under these wretched conditions, until Cabrera was ready to pull off the job. Then he would get it done and ultimately gain his brother’s freedom and his own, albeit at the expense of the Fairchilds. Perhaps someday, he would find Taylor again and explain everything to her.
Craig snickered to himself. Explain what, lad? he berated himself. Explain what you’ve gotten yourself into? Explain what you did to her, her family business, and her father, when you’ll be the one to swing the executioner’s ax?
His mind was beginning to make his thoughts sound nonsensical. Cold, hungry, and thinking about the horrors yet to come, he finally fell into an exhausted sleep.
Chapter 15
It seemed as though Craig had just dozed off when the overhead light flashed on and the sound of terse, staccato Spanish from the guards filled the air. Blinking to shield his eyes from the bright light, Craig struggled to his feet, half-awake. Though it was still pitch dark outside, he was hustled out with the other men and loaded onto a large, flatbed type truck for the trip to the work fields. The ride was crowded and bumpy, and he shivered involuntarily from the chilly night air that wafted down his collar. He noticed the time glowing in the darkness on a guard’s watch. It was nearly 5:00 a.m.
The truck crested another rugged slope, and under the light of the stars that blanketed the pre-dawn sky, Craig saw the fields. Acres upon acres of red and white innocent-looking poppies, swaying gently in the breeze as far as he could see. The fields were so erratically placed on the steep, rocky slopes, that in a few places, Craig thought, a farmer could actually fall out of his field. He heard water rolling over the rocks in a nearby stream, a natural irrigation system for the area. It was a peaceful, almost idyllic scene.
Except for the armed guards and assault rifles.
The truck stopped with a lurch in front of a field containing rows of poppies with hard capsules. The men jumped out of the truck and silently trudged toward the open rows in the fields. They seemed to move in slow motion, like lifeless robots, programmed to perform the never-ending task of the harvest.
One of the guards, who toted a heavy, top-scope rifle, pushed Craig along while he guided him up a hill to the middle of an open field. When they were surrounded by a sea of seed capsules, the guard pulled out a crude, homemade knife. He said something gruffly to Craig in Spanish, then began to lance the green pod, obviously demonstrating to Craig the method of harvesting the opium base that the poppies yielded.
The guard swiftly ran the knife along the pod. In the gray light, Craig saw a milky, latex sap ooze from the capsule. The guard left the incision open and pushed Craig to the next capsule, repeating the process. He then handed the knife to Craig and waited. He said something sharp to Craig in Spanish and pointed to the capsule, obviously wanting to see Craig’s attempt at extracting the opium.
Craig held the knife in his hands, but whatever thoughts he had about using it on his captor, he had no time to contemplate, for the guard gave him another push to use the tool on the plant. Craig’s first attempt proved disastrous. He put too much pressure on the knife, letting it slip and cut the capsule right off its stem. The pod hit the ground and rolled down the hill like a stone until it got caught in a set of stalks in another row.
“No!” the guard reprimanded angrily. He raised the walnut stock of the gun and brought it down across Craig’s shoulders.
Craig cried out and fell to his knees, but the guard pulled him back up again. Craig started to swing back at him when he heard a voice among the rows of plants.
“Don’t, Phillips.” Walden’s authoritative voice came from the next row. “Cool it, or they’ll nail your ass to the wall.”
The guard pushed the end of the rifle roughly into Craig’s ribs, moving him to the next pod. This time he seemed to be satisfied with Craig’s performance, for as soon as the gummy sap seeped from the capsule, he said something terse to Craig and walked away.
The morning was agonizing. Every minute someone was standing over him and the others with a rifle or a club, shouting commands and making them lance poppies as quickly as they could. Comandante Suarez kept a close eye on Craig, lobbing verbal insults at him and hitting him with his rifle butt whenever he chose for not working hard enough. As tempted as Craig was to tighten his fingers around his neck, Walden repeatedly warned him visually not to fight back.
The sun rose, painting the mountains a muddy crimson as they worked on. As it became light, Craig was able to steal a brief, clear look at his surroundings. The harsh, brown mountain terrain climbed and dived in an array of random geometric patterns and jagged peaks. Nestled in the dull, rocky landscape were clumps of chino gama grass, prickly-pear cactus, and bright yellow paper flowers. Around him he saw other fields, all bustling with calculated activity of more groups of men working them. He brought his concentration back to the task before him, and soon the heat set in, drenching him with sweat that made a wet sheen on his skin.
Around noon, when the sun was high and beating down on the fields, the guards blew their whistles and the workers stopped what they were doing and trudged toward the trucks. Craig followed, and there he found them lining up for a portion of what the guards were stirring in a large, dirty kettle. One of them silently handed Craig a dirty aluminum plate full of the foul-smelling mixture, consisting of rice and pieces of what looked like boiled beef entrails swimming in a brownish broth. He was repulsed and nearly gagged at the sight of the strips of intestines that floated in the dish.
Walden settled down next to him on the hot ground. “Hurry up and eat the stuff,” he instructed. “We only get about fifteen minutes.”
“I—can’t—” Craig choked, his stomach already beginning to turn from the sight in the dish.
“Eat it,” Walden said firmly. “You get nothing else until later tonight, kid. It’s either this or nothing.”
Craig looked back down into the dirty plate. He was already weak from undergoing the past twenty-four hours without food or water. To his horror and disgust, he began to pick through the tin’s most edible parts.
The rest of the day went as unbearably as the morning. The sun blistered down mercilessly, and Craig felt as if time had never gone so slowly. Throughout the afternoon of their back-breaking work detail, there were guards standing by, rifles in hand, ready to strike or shoot anyone who wasn’t working to their satisfaction. No matter how hard Craig or any of the others worked, the beady eyes of the guards darted over them, finding any excuse to club anyone who struck their fancy.
They finally departed the fields at dusk, in the same battered, ancient-looking truck they had arrived in. The workday was finally done, although Craig guessed it to be well past 7. The trucks transported the men back to the bunker house.
After a dinner of half-cooked beans, rice, stale bread, and watered-down coffee, Craig fell into his bunk. His bedding teemed with bugs, but he didn’t care. His body was drenched in hot, stale sweat, and screamed with pain from the exhausting physical labor he had undergone. And this is only the first day, he thought miserably.
Rodriguez, the prisoner Craig had scuffled with the first night, entered the room later than the others. He pulled a small tinfoil packet of rich, brown heroin and dirty syringe out of his tattered pocket, and about six of the others gathered around him. Together they proceeded to share the needle and hi
t up, one at a time, on the drug. He watched Craig with dark suspicion, but didn’t approach him again.
Walden came out of the dingy bathroom and flopped onto his bunk.
Craig nodded toward Rodriguez. “How did he get that stuff?” he asked Walden, still watching the group as they got stoned.
“Guards,” Walden replied casually. “You get to know the right connections around here after a while to get just about anything you want.”
He entwined his hands comfortably around his neck. “So, kid, how did you like your first day in Hotel Mexico?”
Craig gave him a dark look. “I don’t know how you can joke about all this. I’ll never make it through another day of that torture. It’s absolute slavery.”
Walden hooted. “Welcome to the mountains, boy. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. Your body can withstand a lot more than you think. And if you do as I say and keep your nose clean with the guards, you won’t go through nearly as much hell with them as you did today.”
“Like that bastard Suarez,” Craig grumbled.
“Don’t worry about him,” Walden replied. “You’re just going through a trial period right now, sort of like a fraternity hazing. He’ll let up on you eventually.”
Craig sighed. “There has to be a way out of this place. There just has to be!”
“Not likely,” Walden said. “Those guards watch the area around here like hawks, night and day. Cabrera wouldn’t let his business become vulnerable to any takeovers from other drug rings, so he makes sure the guards are always on their toes.”
Walden shifted his weight to get comfortable and sighed. “Yup, Cabrera is Narcotraficante Número Uno in these parts.”
“I didn’t know he was that powerful,” Craig remarked.
“The man is both powerful and insanely dangerous,” Walden said, glancing over at him. “He’s made it to the top of the hill in this business, and he intends to stay there. He’s got blood up to his elbows of those he’s killed for getting in his way. He came up here once to check things out, and I heard him brag to a guard that he had hundreds of people killed in his career for opposing him. That’s how he establishes control over the city and its authorities—through his contacts with the cartel and through fear. That bastard thrives on corruption by taking advantage of governments that are vulnerable to bribery.”
“You know an awful lot about him.”
Walden shrugged. “I was in the business a long time in the States before I got busted. I knew about him and his influence from the time he was in Europe. In fact, I suspect he was the one to get me busted, just to get me out of his territory. I guess killing me wasn’t good enough for him.”
“I also found out things from the talk around the prison,” Walden continued. “I made a point of getting an overview of the entire picture down here after I went to jail, although I’d say it was a little late, considering my situation. And I had to learn the language first. I didn’t know a word of Spanish before I got arrested. Now I’m bilingual.”
Craig shook his head. “So, short of bombing the entire city, there’s no stopping him.”
“Now you get the picture,” Walden remarked. “It’s just a big game out there that America and every other country are losing. The drugs are always there. I went to Miami once on a run, and this little kid came up to me in front of a 7-Eleven. Must have been 1:00 in the morning. He asks me, ‘You want some crack?’ For a few bucks the kids will act as touts for the dopers. They pay them to act as lookouts, too. They can spot an unmarked police car a mile away.”
Their conversation waned, and Craig’s gaze wandered idly around the room. Suddenly he saw Rodriguez, now completely stoned, jump onto a top bunk with one of his cronies. After some loud talk and obnoxious laughter, they ordered a young Mexican prisoner, whom Craig figured to be barely a teenager, to get up on the bed with them. When the boy refused, frightened out of his wits, a group of others pulled him up onto the bunk and ripped off his clothes.
Nausea ripped through Craig as he suddenly realized their intentions. He started to get up.
Walden grabbed his arm. “Don’t,” he ordered.
“The kid,” Craig said, staring at the top bunk. “Someone has to help him. They’re going to—”
“Don’t get involved, Phillips,” Walden warned. “You’re seeing some of the politics that go on here every night. Soon you will see more of the unwritten laws of a Mexican work farm. I got you out of trouble once. Now do as I say, or you’ll end up worse than him.”
“But what about the lad?” Craig implored.
Walden shrugged. “Scared little punks like him get it all the time.”
Craig stared at him, shocked at his attitude. Then he returned his gaze to the top bunk, where he watched in horror as Rodriquez and his comrades repeatedly raped the young boy. The boy screamed and cried pitifully, to no avail. Later, after the lights went out for the night, Craig heard him being forced to perform oral sex on the stoned junkies.
The perversity of it all sickened him.
Finally, exhaustion overtook him and he passed out, too tired to care anymore about the boy or anything else.
Chapter 16
Taylor stared out the window of her office at the bleak, dismal day. It was almost noon, but the only light in the room came from the brass lamp on her desk. A somber drizzle pattered against the windowpane, clouding the glass and lulling her deeper and deeper into thought.
She was worried about Craig. Something was terribly wrong where he was concerned. She felt it from the very moment he told her of his sudden trip to New York.
It was Tuesday. He was already a day late in returning home, and he never called as promised. Why didn’t he call?
She was also bothered by everyone else’s attitude, or rather lack of it, about Craig’s sudden departure. Her father shrugged off Craig’s trip and evaded any point-blank questions regarding his whereabouts, and while she agreed when he told her not to worry, she felt increasingly uneasy as the hours wore on with no word from him. Steve’s attitude, likewise, disturbed her. She had left numerous messages on his cell phone over the past couple of days, but he apparently was ignoring them. Only Andrew was as bewildered as Taylor over Craig’s and Shaun’s whereabouts, but he could offer no clues or information as to why Craig had not contacted her.
Steve, however, puzzled her most of all. They had always shared a good relationship. He had grown to become one of her closest friends. Yet he was now edgy and quiet, exhibiting a strange moodiness she had never seen before. She had a feeling that he knew something more about Craig’s sudden departure, but instead of sharing that information with her, he avoided her questions or snapped at her to leave him alone.
Now he was avoiding her completely. Why?
Was Craig having an affair?
Craig was never secretive about his comings and goings before, and Steve’s behavior was certainly strained and he would undoubtedly cover for his friend seeing another woman, wouldn’t he?
No, it couldn’t be that, she decided. She and Steve knew each other too well for him to deceive her that way.
Her mind continued probing, ticking off other possibilities. Could it be that this all had something to do with what happened in Bath? Or when Steve showed up at Craig’s flat? Steve’s gambling? She never got a satisfactory answer to any of it at the time, yet why these events would matter now, she didn’t have a clue.
The questions and the conspiracy of silence that suddenly surrounded them both only fueled her uneasiness, as if a tiny voice kept whispering urgently in her mind, warning her about something she couldn’t quite identify.
Taylor sighed and got up from her chair. She had to get all this off her mind or she would simply go crazy dwelling on it. There was only one way to find out where Craig had gone and what his intentions were, she decided.
&
nbsp; She went to the alcove and retrieved her mid-length raincoat and umbrella. She would pay Steve a visit, right now. Perhaps if she arrived unexpectedly, he would be caught off-guard and not be able to conjure up obscure answers to her questions. Maybe he would talk to her, tell what he knew about Craig. Judging by his recent behavior toward her, she was sure he knew something.
Taylor left her office and walked down the thickly carpeted hallway. She returned the casual greetings of her co-workers who walked the halls and stood waiting at the elevators without stopping to chat. She had something far more important to do.
She drove to Steve’s apartment building and pulled into the underground garage. His late-model BMW sat in one of the two spaces provided for his unit, and Taylor pulled up next to it. Well, at least he’s home, she thought.
She stepped into the elevator, and as it sped quickly to the top floors of the building, she began to feel apprehensive. She could easily make things worse between her and Steve by barging in on him unannounced. What if he refused to answer her questions?
The elevator stopped at the eighteenth floor, and she stepped out to a silent hallway. She walked to his door and, taking a deep breath, knocked.
No answer.
She tried again, more firmly this time.
Still nothing.
She was about to give up and leave when she heard the lock turn. The door slowly opened.
Steve looked at her quizzically from the other side of the doorframe.
“Taylor! What’re you doing here, darlin’?” He was polite, as always, but this time his tone was taut, his manner abrupt. He was obviously not happy to see her.
“I came to talk to you,” Taylor calmly replied. Steve didn’t move from the doorway and a chilly, awkward silence lengthened between them. She had never seen him behave this way. Finally, she spoke.
A Perilous Pursuit Page 18
