The door opens again, and they come back in. This time, one’s carrying a tripod. A smartphone is fastened to it, and it’s focused on me on the bed.
The leader stands behind it. His lips are moving, and he’s using a mic. If I’m not mistaken that little box connected to it will change the tone of his voice. He’s staring at me, but obviously not speaking to me. I conclude he’s dictating something for the tape.
While he does so, mindful I’m playing to more than just this audience, I’m wiping my eyes, hard enough to make them water and the skin red, as if I’m the expected weak female crying in pain, fear and confusion. I don’t have to try too hard. My eyes are watering as my wounded hand is smarting.
“Please let me go,” I start to beg. “Please. My hand hurts. Please.” I try to inject a sob, but unpractised, and unable to properly hear the result, am not sure if it worked. But then I conjure up the possibility of never seeing Road again, and the sob becomes real. How and why he’s become important to me, I have no idea. Maybe when I’m out of here, I’ll find it’s just a fantasy brought on by being locked in this world where I can watch but not hear. Maybe the real man will be a disappointment, but heaven help me, I’m going to do what I can to get back to him and find out.
After he’s finished his spiel, he motions one of the other men forward. Before he approaches me, he covers his face with a mask. I flinch back, giving a good imitation that I’m afraid of what he’s about to do. When he draws close enough, he holds up a tablet.
The instructions at the top are clear. Read these words.
They move the smartphone on its tripod a little closer. I start to wring my hands, raising the damaged one, showing the bandage stained by my blood. There’s no reason to protect anyone’s sensibilities. Any information I can get out might help. This message, I’m not injured elsewhere. While to the people in this room, I look scared, the actions of my hands aren’t due to any fear. I’m doing what I can to give some limited signs which will mean something to the people for whom this video’s being made. As for the bandage, that probably needs no explanation. There’s good reason to suspect, the person or persons seeing this footage will also be in receipt of the appendage that used to be affixed to my right hand.
The man in charge frowns and his lips move, followed by a circling gesture of his hand. It’s not in any recognised sign language manual, but it’s clearly a signal for me to hurry up and get this done.
“You are a man of honour,” I read, scanning ahead seeing clues slip into place. “They have taken me your club girl.” I gulp before reading the next words, as any girl would, “Your whore. You have received a package to show they are serious.” It’s hard to inject emotion when you can’t properly hear the tone of your own voice. But I try to sound horrified, stumbling over the next words. “I will be raped… and hurt, then returned to you… piece by piece… if you do not surrender yourself. If you do, I will be released with no further harm.”
Four men. One big. I’ve seen faces. I sign as discreetly as possible, and as well as I can with one hand bandaged.
Not much, but enough to let them know it’s a lie, and I’ll never be let free with breath in my body.
24
Road…
“She’s in pieces.” Rascal’s eyes widen as he watches the screen. “Fuck, I hate seeing her like that.”
“No, she isn’t.” Once again, it’s Stormy who’s come to her defence. “They think she’s a fuckin’ club girl. They have no idea of what they’ve taken into their lair. She’s being as clever as I expected and is doing what she has to–she’s acting a part.”
“And giving us a message. Play it again, Duty,” Pip instructs. “So far we’ve made out what she’s signing. We’ve got four men, one a large fucker, and that she’s seen their faces so they’ve no intention of letting her go. Anyone picked up anything else?”
Dutifully we watch it again. Those who can sign, concentrating on her fingers. Me, who can’t, well, I’m watching her face, trying to read everything written on it, the main message shown in the tightening of her eyes. As expected, she’s in pain. It must hurt like a bitch to lose your finger. They wouldn’t have used anaesthetic.
Last night I hadn’t been able to sleep, tossing and turning, worrying about Swift and what the fuck she was going through. Breakfast had been subdued, none of us wanting to go through the bother of eating, but doing it anyway, just to keep our bodies fuelled. Then it was back to the meeting room to put our heads together again.
A summons for Pip had him leaving. When he’d returned, what he’d brought with him had my breakfast threatening to make a reappearance.
Now it’s been half an hour since Pip received the horrendous package containing what at first we could only suspect to be Swift’s finger, quickly confirmed once we’d viewed the footage that was on the USB stick which arrived with it, and had seen her hand injured and bleeding. Thirty minutes when I’ve had to digest that the woman I want back in one piece is already missing part of her body and is obviously hurt. She looks just how a club girl would, scared. But her eyes, along with pain, show an expression that I’ve seen before—the one she bestows on Stormy. She’s fucking angry.
I’ve witnessed just what she’s capable of, so while we view the footage for the fifth time, I force my eyes away from Swift, and view her surroundings and how she’s secured instead. She appears to have a cuff around her left wrist, and that attaches to a chain which in turn is fastened to a wall. Swift will have tried to escape already, but is clearly biding her time, or has found it impossible.
“So now we know it’s you they want, are we any closer to finding her?” Snatcher asks, directing his question to Pip.
“It’s my past,” Pip confirms, his face darkening. “It has to be. When I was with the agency, I worked on many cases. I was with them twenty years. We put people inside, killed, broke up families. I don’t know where to begin to start identifying anyone who’d want me. There would be too many. But I went by the name of Mr Black in those days—nothing to connect him with me.”
“Unless someone broke into the CIA database,” Duty observes.
“Philip Hound didn’t exist back then,” Pip states, his hand wiping down his face. “My real name is Lawson Kraft. In the CIA, my cover, as I said, was as the anonymous Mr Black. I had sufficient connections, when I… left… my new identity was constructed up carefully. I’m a wanted man.”
“You had plastic surgery as well,” Cowboy reminds everyone, viewing us one by one as he makes his statement.
“You didn’t,” Pip tells the man who brought him to the club. “It’s possible someone located me via you, but I’m inclined to rule it out. Twelve years is a long fucking time to wait for vengeance.”
“So, could it have been something while you’ve been with the Devils? A job you’ve worked on?” I might be able to string a sentence together, but inside I’m seething, wondering what kind of people kidnap, torture and from what Swift signed, would kill the innocent girl that they believe she is, just to get even.
“Unlikely. The MC performs well as a front for our work, but as you’re aware, Road, we get in and out without leaving a calling card, such as we did in Colorado and California. When we get in close and personal, we leave no one alive.”
“What about Mona, and people like her? What about the ones you rescue?” There must be something. My hands clench in frustration.
“We minimise contact.” He’s thoughtful for a moment. “Can’t rule it out, I suppose. Duty—”
“Check into all our cases where we could be identified,” Duty finishes for him. “I’ll focus on the ones where you were in the field.”
“Have we got time?” I slam my hand down on the table. “How long until they take another finger from her?”
“We haven’t time.” Pip turns eyes on me which look so cold I almost shiver. “What I picked up from that video is that they’re cruel fuckers and don’t care how much they hurt her. We risk her losing more fingers, or wh
at next, her whole fuckin’ hand? So, no, you’re right. We’ve got to get into the driver’s seat on this. Only one option, I give myself up.”
“No.” Snatcher’s voice is firm. “Not having you do that Pip, it’s too fuckin’ dangerous. And it won’t help Swift, you’ll only be bringing her death warrant forward. Once they’ve got you, they’ve no use for her.”
“Kill her?” Stormy says. “The first man who tries to touch her will lose his hand and his dick.”
I look his way, and for a second see a hint of sympathy in his eyes, and wonder whether his comment was to help me. Or maybe it’s the truth. But for Swift to observe one of the men was large, it’s something to be concerned about. Someone had had to hold her down to take that digit off. She wouldn’t have sacrificed it voluntarily.
I’m not the only one to believe she’s got limitations. “She couldn’t dodge a bullet, Stormy. She’s not fuckin’ superwoman,” Rascal scoffs.
I sit, feeling blood drain from my face. I think it’s only just catching up with me just how much danger Swift is in.
“She wouldn’t want you to do that anyway, Pip,” Thor puts in. “She’s a fuckin’ soldier.”
“My life’s worth more than hers?” Pip snarls. “Fuck that, Thor. And fuck any of you assholes who think that.”
“You go in,” Preacher says firmly, “they’ll kill both of you. Won’t help her.” Pip narrows his lips, as the sergeant-at-arms continues, “He disguised his voice.” Preacher points to the screen with his finger. “And he stays behind the camera. That suggests you could recognise him, or something about him could ring a bell. If he was short, perhaps, or exceptionally tall.”
Pip rubs his chin, at least Preacher’s got him back to thinking. “If there was anything like that, Swift would have told us. But if you’re right about the voice, that suggests I would know it. Which narrows the field as I normally stay out of sight.”
“Have you, as Swift would say, thrown a spanner into anybody’s works?” Bolt asks.
Pip’s gaze rises. “Do we ever do anything else?”
Bolt shrugs.
Having calmed the rushing of blood through my ears, I try to think objectively. “What would be big to Swift? Why did she comment on it?” I’m thinking of the only description she’s given.
“Large, big, huge,” Pip expands. “Her signs were restricted as she didn’t want to let them know she was communicating. But for her to make that observation, he’s probably a giant of a man, and one who might be able to overpower her.”
“She can take a man twice her size down without breaking a sweat.” My eyebrows draw down. “So this means his size is significant.”
“They were all white,” Cowboy puts in. “Else she’d have mentioned it. One large, one black, that sort of thing.” It’s a good point looking at what she didn’t say.
“Lot of white men around.” Snatcher pointedly looks around the all-white table. “Doesn’t mean fuck.”
“But isn’t it something to think about? Sure, Brute is black, and we all know the history of the club when skin colour was important.” No longer, thank fuck. “We’re clutching at straws here. Somehow these clues must add up.” I find myself tugging at my fingers in the way I’ve so often watched Drummer do. “One, you might be able to recognise a voice, two, there’s a man who’s obviously so strikingly large that Swift commented on it, three, they think she’s a club whore and don’t know she’s a member—”
“And have no suspicions about her background,” Snatcher butts in. “Else they’d have secured her better. They’re not data experts.”
I raise my chin at him. “Which also supports the view that they could be white supremacists. Women are no threat to them.”
“The talk about raping her adds into that,” Stormy says. “That’s the kind of threat they’d make. Their sort tend to control women with sex. I find myself agreeing with Road.” His tone suggests, reluctantly.
Duty starts tapping on his laptop. I notice Pip staring off into space.
“We been up against any white supremacists?” Snatcher asks him, as his own brow creases.
Honor suddenly whistles loudly. “My man at the lab came through with a match on the DNA.”
“Name?”
“Christian McGregor.” Honor looks at the man by his side. “Birthdate, June 10, 1990.”
“Kincaid,” Pip says out of the blue. “But he’s dead.”
Duty’s eyes narrow and he looks at Pip, then back at his laptop.
“Did you pull that name out of the air, or was it triggered by McGregor?” Thor asks, which is what I was wondering as well.
Pip shakes his head as though to clear it. “McGregor rang no bells. But Kincaid fits the profile.”
“Any known connection?”
“I’m searching.” Duty glares at Honor. “Give me a moment.”
“Kincaid,” Snatcher repeats, as though a brainwave has struck. “And the mark wasn’t black, but Hispanic. Ivan Dengra. It was his daughter. We got her back. Well, you did. It was one of those times Thor and I were visiting the mother chapter.”
“Yeah, that’s him. She’d been taken to make a point.”
“She returned home pregnant.”
I take a breath. “She’d been fuckin’ raped.”
“That’s where it gets complicated.” Pip sifts through some of the paperwork in front of him and finds what he’s looking for. “She was groomed by Kincaid. He, as you suggested, all white.” He slides a photo toward me.
“Christ, she’s a kid.”
“Fifteen. She was ‘in love’.” Snatcher uses air quotes. “She thought she was special and running away, they’d completely fooled her. Ivan Dengra was loaded, started with nothing, ended up with a chain of furniture stores. Kincaid didn’t think an immigrant, legal or not, deserved to have made a success of his life, while he had nothing. Or, no jobs that he wanted to work. He set out to destroy him.”
Pip nods. “So he groomed the daughter, turned her against her father, then encouraged her to run away with him. Her head was turned by attracting the attention of someone who was much older.”
“He asked for a ransom?”
Duty’s tapping his chin. “He did.”
Pip again raises and dips his head. “Snatcher, as he said, was away, so I led the team myself. It was me who shot Kincaid, unfortunately in front of the kid. I really thought I was getting somewhere, talking him down. But suddenly he produced a gun and pointed it at her.” He looks up. “Sure, he’d hate my guts. But he’s dead. He was the only person there at the time. He didn’t need anyone else, as the girl trusted him. I think we’re on the wrong track. All we’ve got is a tremulous link with white supremacy. Keep digging into other cases, Duty.”
Bolt purses his lips, clearly remaining on the Kincaid topic. “Dengra’s kid’s reaction wasn’t what we’d expected. Instead of being pleased at being rescued, we’d killed the love of her young life. She went crazy. Hadn’t calmed down by the time we returned her to her father.”
“Do you know what happened?” I prompt. “Did she continue the pregnancy?”
“Baby born six months later.” Duty nods. “I checked up. Would be getting on for a year old now. Oh, fuckin’ shit.”
“What?” Pip sits forward.
“Kid died a few weeks back—cause of death, heart failure. Looks like he was born with problems. Hang on a minute… Fuck, you’re not going to believe this, Prez. Kincaid had a brother who was one of the mourners at the funeral.” A raft of questions are thrown at Duty, but he holds up his hand, then looks up, shaking his head. “Kincaid’s brother was his twin.”
“Shit. The kid died?” Pip takes a moment to let that sink in, then shakes his head. “And his father’s twin brother was at the funeral? How the fuck did Dengra allow him to get close?” he asks, without expecting an answer. “Something’s off about this. It might be a red herring, but it’s worth getting our net out. Keep digging, Duty, concentrate on Kincaid for now. Honor and Stormy, you sif
t through everything else.” Abruptly he stands. “I’ve got a fuckin’ phone call to make.” He leaves without another word.
“I’m going to get some food on.” Cowboy also rises to his feet. “An army marches on its stomach.”
Honor signals at Duty and jerks his head toward Stormy. “Come on, let’s go get our shovels out.”
I wait to see what everyone else is going to be doing, but Snatcher indicates that Piston should start the video rolling again. I hate watching it, but can’t pull my eyes away from the woman on the screen, trying to see any clues that we might have missed.
“What’s that?” Bolt stands. Taking over the control from Piston, he winds it back a few seconds, then starts it playing again and pauses. “Is that a tattoo?”
So many of us crowd toward the screen it takes a moment for each of us to get a good look. When I get there, I’m slapped on my back by Thor. “You were fuckin’ right, Road. That’s part of a swastika on his wrist.” The he, in this instance, is the man holding the tablet that Swift is reading from.
A thought occurs to me. “With all this super-duper technology around, have you ever thought about tracking devices?
“She didn’t have her phone with her.”
“Nah, I mean one implanted.”
Piston barks a laugh. “A GPS tracker? Doesn’t exist yet, Road. When it does, we’ll be the first to know. Make our jobs a fuckin’ lot easier.”
“Yeah, get our clients to chip their kids like they do their dogs.”
I feel a bit stupid. “I thought I heard—”
“Myths, Brother.” Snatcher shakes his head. “It’s all about battery power and how to recharge it.”
“You can have a microchip, but that only stores information.” Thor waits until I confirm I understand with a dip of my chin. “We’d be all over that shit if it existed. And we do have tracking devices, on our bikes, of course, and we can use them set in pins if we think we need to use them, or Swift could have worn one on a necklace. But seriously, I don’t think we thought there was much danger of something like this.”
Road Tripped: Satan's Devils MC Utah #1 Page 24
