by CJ Lyons
He decided he hated the jungle. Not just the humidity, also the terrain. Itzel had said there was a path, and indeed, there was a six-to eight-inch strip of bare earth showing through the layers of dead leaves, ferns, palms with wicked sharp spiky fronds, and tangled roots that grabbed at his ankles and tried to twist him up. He had to push through branches that scratched and sliced at his hands, vines—just like in the movies—and pine needles, which was a surprise.
He’d expected the jungle to smell nice, exotic, or at least clean after last night’s downpour. Nope. It stank worse than his old high school gym locker. The only good thing about it was the noise. A constant barrage of birds chirping and screeching, frogs croaking and monkeys calling back and forth. No one would ever hear him coming, not over that din.
Of course, he also wouldn’t be able to hear anyone either.
He broke through to the intersecting trail, the one on the north bank of the river that Itzel said to turn right on and it would lead him to the temple. He still didn’t see how it was possible there was a temple here—all he could see were trees. Every shade of green and gold imaginable. Yes, there was a hill ahead, as if the mountain were shrugging one shoulder. He guessed maybe it had a kind of sharp peak, but nothing that looked man-made.
Then he rounded a bend and almost ran smack into a human head. It was taller than he was, laboriously carved from limestone. Intricate symbols covered its cheeks and foreheads as if it wore tattoos.
His own tattoo itched and he ran his fingers through his hair to rub it. Suddenly the jungle had grown completely quiet. Despite the humidity, a shiver sprinted across his skin.
Feeling as if he was being watched, he stepped off the path, back into the jungle. Crouched down and listened. Hard.
Men. Talking in Spanish. Just ahead. He nodded thanks to the stone head. If Jake hadn’t stopped to look at it, he would have stumbled right into Hector’s men.
He crept through the undergrowth, cursing it even as he was grateful for the concealment it provided. A few yards down the path, he spotted them. Sitting on stone slabs near an opening in the mountain. No, not the mountain, no natural opening would have a triangular-shaped ceiling or such straight sides.
He’d found the temple. If he strained, he could make out faint horizontal lines in the foliage growing around it as well as the occasional glimpse of white stone. The men were relaxed, waiting for something, smoking cigarettes that he could smell even over the stench of the jungle. They carried sidearms and AK-47s, but he saw no signs of any explosives—had they already set them? If so, where?
He was trying to decide on the best move when he felt movement behind him. Someone was coming down the path from the lake and they weren’t being too quiet about it.
Hurrying to retrace his steps, he made it to the curve, out of sight and hopefully hearing of Hector’s men, when he spotted a man in his late teens coming down the trail. He wore a small bag across his chest and staggered like someone in a hurry but who had run out of energy, yet wouldn’t give up. His face was flushed, eyes wide with the look of a wild animal fleeing a forest fire.
What the hell? Now he had to put up with a civilian stumbling into the middle of his action? Nothing to do but grab the kid and see what his story was.
Jake waited until the kid had passed him; then he stood, stepped behind the kid—still clueless and breathing too loud and fast to sense Jake—clamped his arm around him in a choke hold but instead of applying pressure, held the kid’s mouth closed shut.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispered. The kid was too shocked even to struggle. “Do you speak English?”
The kid nodded. His breath came faster, panicked gasps, and Jake worried he was going to faint.
The kid had two hard rectangular slabs inserted into his shirt, beneath his arms, with wires going to the bag around his chest and another thick cord extending from the bag beneath his shirt. The slabs didn’t feel like blocks of explosives, but there was a faint clicking noise and hum coming from the kid’s body.
“Are you carrying a bomb?” Jake asked, pulling at the hem of the kid’s shirt. Now the kid squirmed to fight, hand down to protect his belly.
Jake loosened up on his mouth. “Quietly. What is this?”
“Artificial heart. Pump.” The kid gestured to the bag. “Batteries.” He tapped one of the slabs at his side.
Given the way he was huffing and puffing, Jake believed him. “Let’s move. Don’t say a word.” Jake pulled him back down the path, out of earshot from the men at the temple. “Relax, relax, I just want to talk.”
Jake let the kid go—it was obvious the kid had no training, Jake could silence him fast enough if he had to. But a frightened civilian would calm down faster, be more coherent, if they were free.
The kid spun away, grabbing at his throat, patting at his belly. He raised his shirt, checked the thick tubing, and then relaxed.
“Who are you?” he asked Jake. His voice seemed loud, too loud. Jake raised a finger to his lips and motioned the kid off the trail and still farther away from Hector’s men. “Please, help us. You have to get to the clinic. Before he kills them all.”
*
The sun was up, and Maria was covered in sweat by the time she reached the last screw. Her hands were crisscrossed with small nicks from the chisel, and between the sweat and blood, it was getting harder and harder to hold the tool. Not to mention the way her hands spasmed from the strain. Good practice for digging on an archeological site, she told herself as she gritted her teeth and began to work on the final screw standing between her and escape.
As the night wore on, the other inmates had grown louder and more frenzied. Maria had no idea if this was their usual pattern of behavior, but, as disturbing as the screams and shouts were, she was grateful for the noise that camouflaged her work. It was hard to be quiet when chiseling out rust and pounding at screws to loosen them.
The final screw was more difficult than the others. It was on the bottom corner, and the weight of the panel torqued it so that she had to prop up the panel with one knee while bent over working on the screw with her hands. Within minutes, her back was screaming in pain, but she focused on her task at hand and ignored the pain.
She’d managed to finally get it to turn, although haltingly, when it got stuck. She tried raising and lowering the panel—it was heavy, a solid piece of sheet metal—tried getting under the screw to re-seat the threads, tried pounding it, more for the satisfaction of venting her frustration than any practical reason.
No good. She re-anchored the chisel, repositioned herself to provide the greatest leverage using her entire body weight, and tried one last time.
Crack. The chisel splintered, its edge splitting off and flying against the wall. Left behind was an irregular jagged angle, its point too tiny to be of any good as a screwdriver.
She stared at it, tears flowing without her noticing. Her entire vision filled with the broken tool and the final machine screw. No, no, no, this couldn’t be happening. How much longer did she have before they came for her? She had to escape.
Climbing to her feet, she braced herself on the sink’s edge. A wave of dizziness swept over her, propelled by fear as much as by the sudden rush of blood to her legs. She wanted to scream but for some reason felt safer if she did what came naturally and remained quiet. Hidden even in the midst of the inmates’ cacophony.
She twirled around, hugging herself, the only comfort she had left. Slowly panic eased from her. Beams of sunlight catching dust motes in the empty air surrounding her. The Mayans believed power came from the sun. They often proclaimed their kings as reincarnations of the sun god. If only she could grab hold of one of those sunbeams and fly away.
Stupid waste of time, her father had proclaimed her love of fairy tales and myths. Guess he was right.
She looked down once more at the broken tool in her hand. It might not work as a tool anymore, but the broken edge was sharp. She turned to the door, for the first time realizing the in
mates’ screams had died away. There was silence outside. She ran to the door, couldn’t see anything except the woman across the hall huddling on the floor in the corner of her cell, one hand over her mouth, swallowing her cries.
Then she heard what had alarmed the other women. Footsteps.
They were here. Coming for her. She stepped back from the door and gripped the chisel. No more hiding. If she was going to make it out of here alive, she would have to fight.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“Who the hell are you?” Caitlyn and the handcuffed man said simultaneously. What was even more surprising was their shared tone: whispered frustration combined with the voice of command.
“Caitlyn Tierney, FBI,” she answered first. She glanced back out into the hall. No one had appeared, alerted by the sound. Good. She rummaged through her pockets. Grabbing the small Baggie with her keys sealed inside, she approached the man. “And you are?”
“Dr. Kevin Cho. Don’t suppose you have handcuff keys?”
“Don’t leave home without them.” In fact, she usually carried several keys on her—a prudent precaution after a killer grabbed her last summer. She found the right key and unlocked him.
He stood, holding on to the sink for balance as he shook blood back into his hand. “We need to get out of here. They’ll be back soon.”
“Have you seen this girl?” Caitlyn showed him Maria’s photo, sealed into a plastic bag.
“Yes. That’s Maria. They took her upstairs to the locked wards.” Not waiting for her, he ran to the door, opened it a crack. “Someone’s coming.”
She motioned him back into his corner, where he pretended to still be chained to the sink while she took up position behind the door, weapon at the ready.
The door opened and a man carrying a tray of instruments covered in a sterile drape entered. “Almost time, Doctor. Hope you’re ready.”
“Where’s Maria?” Cho shouted at the man. “What have you done with her?”
Caitlyn took full advantage of the doctor’s well-timed diversion, closing the door behind the man, and settling into a fighting stance, gun aimed. She wished there were more distance between her and her target, but the room was too crowded with surgical equipment.
“Don’t move,” she ordered.
The man stopped, hands still holding the tray. He glanced over his shoulder. His face had a scar down its right side, and his glare approached lethal intensity.
“He’s the one,” Cho said, climbing to his feet. “He took Maria. Where is she?”
Before Caitlyn could warn him to back off until she had their prisoner restrained, Cho stepped forward, closer to the man. The man saw his opening at the same time as Caitlyn, flung the tray of instruments into Cho’s face, then grabbed the doctor, twisting him to use as a shield, his thick arm pressing against Cho’s windpipe, choking the life from him.
“Drop the gun,” he told Caitlyn. “Or he’s dead.” He was taller than Cho and strong enough to leverage the doctor off his feet, ignoring Cho’s attempts to claw his way free.
Caitlyn could have just shot the scar-faced man but the noise would have alerted the entire building and she’d lose any intel he had. Besides, he didn’t know that her Glock wasn’t her only weapon.
She lowered the gun to the floor, sliding it to her side so it was equally out of reach for her and Scarface. “Okay, okay. Now, just let him go.”
“Away from the door.” The man jerked and Cho’s body flailed like a puppet with its strings cut. His face turned an alarming shade of purple.
Caitlyn sidled forward, leaving a clear path to the door. She didn’t think the man intended to escape—given Cho’s restraints, she bet the man was going to get help. Which would ruin everything.
He surprised her. Instead of opening the door, when he came abreast to her, he launched Cho’s body at her, quickly following with his own.
Cho stumbled and fell, knocking Caitlyn off balance. Her impulse to catch Cho gave Scarface time to reach her. He pushed her against the operating table with one hand, raising his other in a fist, ready to punch her.
She didn’t give him the chance. He’d made his own mistake, not restraining her hands. She raised her backup Glock and pressed it against his throat, using it to pivot him until their positions were reversed and he was the one pinned against the bed. “Answer the doctor. Where’s Maria?”
Cho climbed to his feet and grabbed a key ring from the man’s belt. The man glared but said nothing.
“Lie down and relax,” Caitlyn commanded. Soon she and Cho had the man gagged and restrained by wide leather straps on the patient table. She retrieved her Glock and took a revolver and a knife from the man, and they left, closing the door. Caitlyn didn’t like leaving him at their back. “Hang on a second.”
“What? We need to find Maria.” The doctor’s voice was a husky whisper, but all he seemed to care about was Maria. She had to admire him for that.
There was no lock on the door. What had Carver said the other night? She fished the change she’d received at the café yesterday from the pocket of her cargo pants, where it’d traveled with her all the way from Santo Tomás. The coins were thin and small enough to fit between the gap in the door and its frame. Smiling—Carver was going to love this—she pushed her weight against the door to enlarge the gap as wide as possible, then jammed the coins into it.
By the time she’d finished, the door was wedged into place and wasn’t going to move without someone taking the time to dig the coins out. Not easy, since the frame extended far enough to cover them.
“Okay,” she told Cho. “Let’s find Maria and get the hell out of here.”
Cho declined the offer of one of her pistols but did take the knife she’d confiscated from Scarface. “They took her upstairs. To the locked ward. With the inmates.”
There was no one on the stairs, and any noise they made was masked by the inhuman screeches and shouts from the ward above them. Not just shouts, Caitlyn realized—singing. Someone was singing. It was a language Caitlyn had never heard before, not Spanish, at least she didn’t think so, and it was beautiful. Haunting.
They reached the third-floor landing. Cho came to a stop in front of a very thick, very solid metal door blocking their passage onto the ward. She handed him Scarface’s keys and he worked the lock while she stood lookout. The song had gotten louder, sadder, as more women joined in. It echoed through the stairwell like a hypnotic dirge.
“So Carrera really has been running a psych hospital?” She was still trying to figure out Carrera and what he wanted. Usually if she understood what a subject wanted, she could find a way for things to end peacefully, as she had back in Pennsylvania with the little girl holding the gun on her.
“Maybe once upon a time,” Cho said. “But from what I’ve seen, he’s the one driving these women crazy. Stealing their minds as he steals their body parts.”
*
Maria’s grip on the chisel was sweaty. Her legs shook as she stood, poised, knees bent, ready to attack. Could she actually kill someone? Maybe all she’d have to do was maim them, distract them enough so she could run.
No. Then they’d be behind her, able to chase after her. If they had guns, they wouldn’t need to be very close to shoot her. Okay. She’d run out, lock them inside her cell.
And just where and how would she strike this magical, debilitating blow? A sour taste filled her mouth as her stomach bottomed out. Who was she kidding? She had no idea what she was doing. You couldn’t learn how to kill someone or be a hero just by reading a bunch of books.
The footsteps grew closer. She was tempted to run to the door and look outside again. What good would that do? No. She needed to be ready. She might fail. She might die. But it wasn’t about her, not anymore. If she could make it out alive, she could save Kevin, find Michael. They could all escape this nightmare.
All she had to do was be strong. Strong enough to be willing to take a life.
Could she do that?
Her father cou
ld. He’d been in the army before she was born. What would he do?
Aim for where they’re most vulnerable—that’s what he always said when he was talking business. But she always had the feeling it was more than a business philosophy with him. Something about the glint in his eyes when he said it. As if he was searching his past, removed from the here and now.
Sometimes she felt that way when she got lost in a good book. She closed her eyes, squeezed them hard, wishing this were just an exciting story or, better yet, a dream … opened them again. Same metal door scratched and dented and with that haunting bloody handprint on its edge. Same empty cell. Same Maria.
The footsteps were outside the door. She had her back to the wall the door was in—the better to surprise them when they stepped inside—and couldn’t see anyone at the small slit of a window, but she heard a key rattling in the lock. She tried to swallow but couldn’t. Her hand cramped and she quickly transferred the chisel to her other hand, rubbed her sweaty palm dry against her jacket, then clenched the chisel once more.
The lock clicked. She focused on the area a few feet inside the cell. Her strike zone.
The door swung open, hitting the other side of the wall. A draft of fresh air entered the cell. She pushed her back against the wall, hiding the chisel down at her side, out of sight of whoever stepped through the doorway.
“Maria?” a man’s voice called. “It’s okay. It’s me. Kevin.”
Maria froze. No. It was a trick. It had to be. She wanted to answer, but she didn’t dare. Instead she held her position and waited.
A woman stepped into the cell. But she didn’t move straight ahead as Maria had planned. She sidestepped, keeping her back to the wall on the other side of the door, pivoting to scour the room, ending with her gun aimed at Maria.
“Stop it. You’re scaring her.” Kevin rushed into the room and stopped exactly in the space Maria had focused her energies on. She raised her hand for one split second before he spun around to face her. “Maria. It’s okay, everything will be okay.”
