by Ethan Cross
Her chest had drawn his focus not merely because he was a boy in the presence of a naked woman, but also because he would have to reach over her to unclasp one of the restraints.
Seeming to read his thoughts, she said, “It’s okay, kid. Just get me out of here.”
“Who are you? Why are they doing this to you?”
As he spoke, he undid the last of her restraints. She didn’t answer him. Instead, she dropped her trembling legs to the floor and staggered toward the nearly decapitated man. Giving no thought to the blood, she laid her head on his chest and wept.
He heard her mumbling a name under her breath, but he couldn’t quite catch what it was. He repeated his previous questions, and this time she responded, “None of that matters now, kid. We tried to steal from Tommy Jewels, down at one of the casinos in Atlantic City. The less you know, the better. How do I get outta here?”
He said, “How the hell should I know?”
“You had to get in here somehow.”
He shook his head. “You don’t want to go that way. But if you go out the door and take a right, I thought I heard the sounds of engines coming from that way. Maybe it’s a garage or something?”
She stumbled through the steel door and over to the guard. She felt inside his jacket until her hand came out with a long black pistol with a sound suppressor threaded onto the end of the barrel. Marcus recognized it as the kind of gun that James Bond villains used when they wanted to kill someone and not have anyone hear.
She didn’t bother to cover her naked body. She said, “Who are you, kid?”
“I’m just a guest here at the party. But my dad’s a cop. He can help you.”
“Nobody can help me. All I can do is run. Your dad is probably on Tommy Jewels’s payroll. And even if he’s not, his boss probably is. That’s the way this world works, kid. You fight the system, you end up dead. And Tommy Jewels runs the system, or at least his boss does.”
She glanced down the hall, checking both ways for more guards, and then she continued, “Here’s what we’re going to do, kiddo. You’re going back to your party, and you’re going to forget that you ever saw me.”
“No, you need help. I can’t just—”
She grabbed his head and twisted his neck toward the hellish room that held the bloodied body of her companion. She said, “I talked him into this. His blood is on my hands. And I’ll be damned if I have your blood on my hands to. I’m the adult, and I have a gun now. Just go back to the party and keep your mouth shut. That’s the best way you can help me.”
Marcus said, “But what about the guard? I knocked him out. I think he’s going to remember me when he wakes up.”
Without the slightest hesitation, she raised the gun and squeezed the trigger. There was a small flash and a thump and a ping, and then blood splattered out from the man’s head onto the concrete floor of the corridor.
She said, “Problem solved.” Then she rolled the guard over, removed his jacket, and slipped it over her bare shoulders. He was a big man, and she was a small woman, and so the jacket functioned more like a dress. She ejected the magazine from the gun and checked the number of rounds. She did it in the same way his dad had showed him. Slamming it back in hard, she said, “I’m not a damsel in distress, and no offense, but you aren’t a knight in shining armor. Now get your ass back to that party and keep your mouth shut.”
“But I could at least call my dad. I could—”
“You listen good, kid. The only way that we survive is that you don’t tell a soul that you ever saw me.”
56
Ackerman leaped toward the stubby marmoset man, not worrying about breaking the rules to disarm the man with the shotgun. Besides, he had always found that it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
Instead of wrenching the weapon from Willoughby’s grasp, he grabbed both ends of the shotgun and placed his entire weight into pulling it to down to the floor. To his great satisfaction, the knife remained affixed in both the gun and Willoughby’s hand.
Face to face, his prey totally at his mercy, Ackerman whispered, “I will accept nothing less than total surrender. You live and the pain stops if you give me that. But nothing short of it. That means that if I let you up and even think that you are holding anything back, I will feel that you have violated the terms of your capitulation.”
He slid the gun across the concrete floor, pulling the blade slowly through the soft tissues of Willoughby’s hand. The stubby man yelped and said, “Please.”
“Total surrender. Everything you know, I want to know.”
“Okay. Okay. Total surrender.”
Ackerman smiled. “You know, if we were in ancient Sumeria—”
Emily said, “That’s enough, professor. Let him up.”
He sighed as he ripped the knife out of Willoughby’s flesh and punched him in the chest in one arcing motion. Willoughby landed on his rear and scuttled back a few steps like a crab. Ackerman held up the bloody knife and said, “Total surrender. Sealed in blood and vowed under threat of death. I consider that to be a warrior’s oath. Or a knight’s code if that analogy better suits you. In either case, I would feel honor bound—if you were to break such a vow—to cut off your hands and feet, cauterize the wounds, and then have some fun with you. Do you like milk and honey?”
“Whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you.”
He narrowed his eyes. “First off, I’m going to write down a message for you to deliver. I want to stress to the letter’s recipient the kind of people with whom he’s dealing. I want you to stress that to him upon delivery.”
“A message for who?”
“For your associate, Mr. King.”
“I don’t have access to him. No one does. He has his top people who deal with him, and then you meet with them.”
“Then deliver the message to his intermediary.”
“That would be Oban.”
“Tell us about him,” Emily said.
Willoughby swallowed hard, clutching his bleeding hand and mewling like a wounded animal. “Can I tend to my hand?”
“After we’re done,” Ackerman said. “Now answer her question. Total surrender.”
“I only know what I’ve heard about his past, but he’s Egyptian. Word is that he started out as a boss in Cairo before being recruited by Mr. King to be his right hand.”
Ackerman licked the blood from one side of the blade. He did it slowly, allowing the point to rest on his tongue and penetrate his flesh. “Anything else we should know about him?”
“One strange thing. A mutual business partner told me that the name Oban means ‘King’ in Egyptian.”
“Are you suggesting that Oban could actually be Mr. King?”
“That’s what my friend thought. But I’ve spoken with King on the phone, and the voice on the other end wasn’t Oban.”
“Why would a little pauper like you receive an audience with the king?”
“He makes a phone call to every person who starts working for him at a certain level. He pretty much just stressed how seriously he takes revenge.”
“I want to know every word.”
Willoughby stammered around the subject a bit but finally said something that caught Ackerman’s interest: “I don’t remember exactly, but there was this big story that involved Attila the Hun or someone like that.”
Ackerman searched his own memory banks. He had read much about all the great conquerors and killers throughout history. His memory couldn’t compare with his brother’s, but he still prided himself on his ability to recall details.
But he couldn’t conjure from memory a story about Attila the Hun that focused heavily on revenge.
But Genghis Khan … He was famous for holding a grudge.
Ackerman said, “Could it have been Genghis Khan that he told you about?”
“Could be. I really can’t remember for sure.”
“The Mongol emperor, Genghis Khan, once sent a trade caravan through the Khwarezmid empire that never
returned. The traders were killed when their caravan was seized by the governor of one of the cities. To exact revenge, Genghis Khan invaded the empire with two hundred thousand men and killed the governor by pouring molten silver in his eyes and mouth. He even went so far as to divert a river through the Khwarezmid emperor’s birthplace, completely erasing it from the map. He redefined the idea of getting on someone’s bad side. Could one of those instances be the story he told you?”
Willoughby raised his hands. “Total surrender, but I can’t remember.”
Ackerman said, “Very well then. Next question. Why haven’t you talked to Tyson about you being his biological father?”
“Frank!” Emily snapped.
He growled deep in his throat. “Fine. Since we can’t discuss the Tyson situation, I want to know everything you know about Mr. King’s organization. But hypothetically, about the whole Tyson deal, you should definitely tell him the truth. Honesty is always the best policy.”
57
Willoughby lived up to his end of the bargain. Total surrender. Ackerman listened as Willoughby gave a full account of King’s operations, which ranged from running guns from Mexico up to California’s inner cities to human trafficking of Eastern European and Asian women by way of the Canadian border. And these were merely the activities of which Willoughby, a lowly corporal in King’s empire, was aware. All of it being accomplished through intermediaries while the King remained in his castle.
Ackerman was impressed. The alleged agoraphobe had built quite the criminal empire. He mused that in another life, he could have easily built his own kingdom through similar tactics.
Willoughby droned on about the way King had banded several scattered groups together, typically brokering the deals between the different criminal outfits. The tactics seemed familiar to Ackerman, but he couldn’t yet ascertain the historical template that King had used to construct his business model.
Emily asked, “So where do you fit in, Mr. Willoughby?”
Their informant had shied away from that information previously and seemed physically affected by the mere question. Ackerman said, “You had mentioned previously that you wouldn’t associate your criminal and legitimate enterprises. So, no guns. Must revolve around human trafficking, correct? Remember, total surrender.”
Willoughby licked his lips and said, “Sometimes, but it could be anyone that King needs disposed of. He brings me people that he wants erased.”
Ackerman cocked an eyebrow. “Do tell. You incinerate them somehow, don’t you?”
Willoughby curled up his front lip. “I have a license to use exotic weapons on the range. So I have a flame thrower. Then I built a hidden pit out on the back of the property. The bottom is filled with my own patented formula for dissolving bone and charred flesh. Atop the solution is a steel cage. We drop people in, burn them down to nothing, and sweep what’s left into the Sludge.”
“Fascinating. I would love to—”
A familiar sound echoed through Willoughby’s store and stopped Ackerman mid-sentence. It was the reverberation of metal rolling over a hard surface. He knew the sound of a grenade or gas canister well. But which was it?
He searched the floor, homing in on the sound, and found a gas canister coming to rest only a few feet away. But then he heard several other canisters joining the first and beginning their rotation.
With a roll of his eyes, he said, “Well, excrement.”
Then he took a deep breath and scanned the room for the person or persons who had thrown the tactical devices. Part of him hoped it was Tyson—Willoughby’s illegitimate son and apprentice—then they could have some in-depth family therapy.
He spotted a massive man standing among the rows of army surplus gear. The attacker wore a hooded sweatshirt and a gas mask. Knowing his only chance at preventing their capture at this point would be to disable their uninvited guest and retrieve his mask, Ackerman rushed forward and engaged the interloper.
He came in hard and wild with a series of jackhammer blows. But the newcomer in the gas mask deflected each blow with an expert’s hand. Ackerman switched tactics to Muay Thai and then Indonesian Sulat, but he failed to connect with a single direct blow.
He came in for another attempt, his lungs screaming for air. His third blow of the series had just missed when his opponent engaged in his first offensive maneuver. One that was perfectly planned and timed.
The man in the mask ducked under the blow and lunged forward with a punch aimed at the space just below his ribs. The blow was executed with a perfect upward motion, as if his opponent was attempting to push his stomach up into his chest. But Ackerman instantly saw his mistake and recognized the brilliance of the assault—a blow designed specifically to knock the wind out of him.
He took four steps backward and rode the wave of pain. But, in the end, he had to breathe or pass out. As he finally dropped to the floor, Ackerman wasn’t sure if it was the hypoxia or the gas from the canisters that would ultimately lead to his unconsciousness, but he was fairly certain where he would wake up. Which was fine by him. Ackerman had wanted to get a good look at Mr. King’s private crematorium anyway.
58
Ackerman awoke in a pit of corroded and charred metal. The only light came from the few over-achieving rays that had snuck in around the hinges and edges of the metal trapdoor which formed the ceiling of the dungeon. The grated metal floor smelled oddly of wintergreen, the aroma of who knew how many people’s erased remains simmering in a chemical soup below.
Emily Morgan slumbered beside him on the steel cage. She looked so peaceful when she slept. He had always thought so. Her red-tinted hair swept over her pale Asian cheekbones, which were speckled with freckles that were only visible when her face was ruddy.
He reached out, brushed the hair away from her face, and then flicked her ear with enough force to make an audible thwap. She instantly came awake and said, “Ouch, damnit, Jim!”
Ackerman felt a stab of some unidentified emotion at the mention of her dead husband’s name—one of his many victims during the dark years.
Emily’s eyes slowly revealed recognition of their current predicament. She looked up at him with a frown and asked, “Did we survive?”
“Nope. Welcome to hell.”
“Then I know we survived. Hell is one thing I don’t fear because I know I’m not bound for that place.”
“Not sure I can say the same. But I still don’t fear it.”
Pushing herself up into a sitting position, she said, “I would suggest that escaping from this pit would be your area of expertise.”
“I woke up ten seconds before you did, but give me a minute. Maybe two. You can’t rush brilliance.”
He stood and felt his way around the walls, examined the hinges to the trapdoor over their heads—which he could barely touch on tiptoe—and then he turned his attention to the floor. It was a solid cage, except for a small trapdoor secured by a small but formidable lock, which required a key. Finding no weaknesses exploitable using their current resources, he turned his attention to the sludge beneath the metal floor. He wasn’t sure what he hoped to see, but within thirty seconds, he found what he had been hoping for.
With a smile, he said, “Actually, my dear, our escape is going to depend solely upon you. My arms are too thick to reach through the grate, down into the sludge, and grab that piece of metal, but your slender appendages will slip right through.”
“What piece of metal?” She moved closer, and he pointed down through the cage floor. She said, “What is that?”
“My guess is that it’s a metal support rod, which had been implanted into the leg or hip of one of Mr. Willoughby’s victims. How often do you think they’re alive when he burns them? Considering that I find pleasure in pain, perhaps I would be best served by a fiery demise.”
“Nobody is meeting their demise tonight. Fiery or otherwise. What do we do with the rod if I’m able to reach it?”
“You’ll have to get on my shoulders and pry out one
set of hinges. They’re only held in with four screws.”
“That could take forever.”
“I estimate we have less than five minutes.”
59
Maggie was growing increasingly worried about Marcus. She had rarely seen him so … deflated. It was as though a fire in him had gone out. He sat across from her on the FBI jet headed to San Francisco, and he had actually fallen asleep. She had rarely seen him sleep, let alone pass out anywhere but in a controlled environment. He simply wasn’t the kind of guy who dozed off, and the ease with which he had done so scared Maggie. She had seen Marcus push forward with bullets still embedded in his flesh, broken bones, and everything in between. But to deal with this wound, he had passed out like a machine shutting down for repairs.
Maggie couldn’t allow herself to sleep, but not because she wasn’t exhausted. She had work to do. After Ackerman had informed her of the hole in the Taker investigation, she had pulled the files and reviewed them again for herself, still unable to trust Ackerman at his word. But he was right. And she had overlooked it for years.
She needed to track down every one of her childhood neighbors and, eventually, her father. Unfortunately, she couldn’t involve Stan, and so she would have to do the leg work herself.
With that in mind, Maggie pulled out her laptop, connected to the jet’s Wi-Fi, and set out to find someone who may have caught a glimpse of the Taker on the day he stole her brother.
60
The metal ceiling flew open and blinding artificial light filled the pit. The time in near darkness was enough to make Ackerman’s vision go white. He closed his eyes against the sudden illumination and tried not to move. He had advised Emily to do the same.
