Chest still heaving like he was about to burst out in tears, Joey B spun the combinations on two heavy-duty padlocks, and reached under the lip of the gunnel back near the transom and flipped a kill switch in the fuel line, meant to discourage theft of the boats since they were left along the shore. The bow scraped against gravel as Jacques helped him shove the aluminum skiff out into the water.
“Um… ma’am.” Joey cleared his throat, holding a piece of black cloth out toward Miyagi as if she might bite him. “You’ll have to wear the bag over your head for this to work. There’s a gap in it so you can see.”
Miyagi grabbed the bag from his hand and tossed it in the boat next to her seat without a word.
Thibodaux peered into the darkness through a set of IR binoculars, watching another skiff come up alongside the prison boat. “Your boss just got there,” he said, his voice buzzing into his hands as they held the binoculars. “He’s getting onboard now.”
“Look,” Joey B said, wobbling on his legs, clutching the side of the boat to keep from keeling over in the mud. “I… I really can’t go out there.”
“You ever seen a man gutted, Cupcake?” Thibodaux asked, moving in close so there would be no misunderstanding.
Benavides gulped loudly enough that Thibodaux was sure they heard it clear out on the boat.
“Well, let me tell you,” the Marine continued. “I have and it ain’t pretty. Depending on how the belly is cut, the guts, they just come poppin’ on out. No way to hold ’em in really… try as you may.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Benavides began to hyperventilate.
“Think about it,” Thibodaux hissed, slinging spit in the other man’s face as he talked. “I come within an inch of shooting you in the eye every time I think about what you were going to do to my wife. There is literally one thing keeping me from opening you up right damn now, and that is you getting us out to that boat. So you want to see your own entrails today?” He paused for effect. “No? Then get your ass in the boat. But I gotta warn you, Ms. Miyagi ain’t as nice as I am.”
Joey climbed into the skiff. “My life is shit,” he sobbed.
“Yes, it is,” Thibodaux said, sloshing in beside the boat and pushing it out into deeper water. “And it ain’t likely to get better if you don’t quit with the boohoos.”
Once Joey was settled in next to the tiller with Miyagi, Thibodaux slipped on a pair of black jet fins to help steer his body as the boat towed him along low in the water and out of sight. The spring-steel heels on the fins fit easily over the rock boots he wore with his dry suit and would be easy to ditch along with the tank and harness once they got to the prison boat.
The water pressure increased against the thin laminated suit as they moved out over his head, pinching him in several unmentionable places. He touched the valve on his chest to jet a layer of air from his tank into the suit, relieving the pressure. It had been so long, he had forgotten that diving could be a cup sport.
“Baka yaro!” Miyagi said in sharp, dismissive Japanese, speaking to Benavides for the first time since they’d linked up in Salisbury: Fool! “You drive this boat slow and steady. If you lose my friend, your intestines will be the least of your worries.”
Thibodaux couldn’t help but shudder — but he was sure happy to have this little woman along. Wrapping a short piece of webbing around his wrist, he looked up at Miyagi.
“Laissez les bon temps roulet!” he said, before slipping the regulator in his mouth and giving her a thumbs-up.
Let the good times roll.
Chapter 42
The heavy steel hatch flew open the moment Ronnie turned the handle, knocking her backwards and sending her sliding across the metal floor on her butt. She tried to bring the Snake Slayer to bear on the dark form of a man, but the hard leads of a cattle prod impacted squarely in the center of her throat. The Snake Slayer skittered across the grating, useless and out of reach. She looked up to see Glen Walter’s smirking face as he loomed over her.
Boots stomped and clanged, sounding hollow in the small metal room. Focused intently on Walter and the blue arcs of electricity coming from the end of the cattle prod, Garcia was vaguely aware of other men climbing through the hatch.
Walter said something in an odd, disembodied voice. It sounded as if he was speaking in slow motion as he pressed the prod to her neck, driving her head backwards so it slammed against the floor. Someone kicked her hard in the ribs, stunning her heart and saving her from the pain of the crackling voltage as darkness closed in around her.
The effect of the heart shot was only momentary and Garcia came to with a gasp in a jerky panic. Another bag had been placed over her head. Cold metal cut into her wrists. The electric winch whined in the corner. The cable clicked and twanged as it drew the restraint bar up toward the ceiling, stretching her arms high over her head until only the balls of her bare feet touched the floor. Another shock came out of nowhere. She writhed sideways, nearly wrenching her shoulders from their sockets.
Screaming inside the hood until she could no longer breathe, she let her head loll forward, panting. The weight of her spent body hung against her wrists.
“Do you ever hunt, Ms. Garcia?” Walter’s syrupy voice buzzed next to her ear through the heavy hood.
“I… wh… I…” she gasped. “What?”
“Do you hunt?” Agent Walter said again.
“Hunt?” she said, trying to catch her breath.
” It doesn’t matter,” Walter said. “But if you had ever field dressed an animal, you would know that the shoulder is a unique joint.”
Blind inside the hood, Garcia recoiled as he ran his fingers along the shoulder of her scrubs.
“A little change in angle,” he continued. “A half an inch more lift — and you’ll never be able to lift your arms again. Do you understand?”
“Understand?” Garcia spat, her voice muffled inside the hood. “I understand that you are beating the shit out of me for no reason.”
“I only point it out about your shoulder,” Agent Walter said, “so you remember not to jerk too much during the procedure—”
“What procedure?” Ronnie could hear her heart in her ears. “What are you talking about?”
“No one told you?” Walter chuckled.
Garcia heard the scrape of boots against the floor and braced herself for another round of shocks from the cattle prod. The next sound nearly caused her to pass out — the slosh of water in a bucket.
Without warning someone grabbed the back of the cloth hood, catching her hair and yanking her head back and downward so she faced the ceiling. Suspended from the metal crossbar by both hands and standing on tiptoe there was nothing she could do to fight it.
She heard Walter say, “Go,” an instant before water began to splash against the cloth stretched over her face. She tried to draw in air, but the large weave of the bag made her get nothing but water. She’d seen this done before. All they needed was a thin stream. A trained professional could make a bucket last far longer than a person’s lungs could hold out. Ronnie coughed and spit and croaked for air, forgetting the pain in her shoulders or even where she was.
And then it was over. The water stopped and the unseen hand released her head, letting her fall forward to gain enough of a gap in the hood so she could suck in great, wheezing gasps. She gagged as much as she breathed, heaving, fighting the urge to vomit inside the bag — but at least she had air.
An instant later the bag was snatched away, causing her to recoil at the sudden brightness. She squinted at Agent Walter, who stood in front of her with a smug grin.