A voice appears, interrupting my thoughts.
“Adrian?”
“Hmmm?” I look up and see Vega staring at me patiently. “Sorry, I was miles away then… that’s a beautiful view.”
He smiles. “I often lose myself staring out across the expanse of my empire,” he says, nodding. “I was just saying, how is business for someone in your line of work nowadays?”
I shrug. “I’m trying to put the killing business behind me, if I’m honest. But even in this day and age, somebody always wants somebody else dead. The work’s there, should I ever want it.”
“Very true, Adrian, very true. Somebody always wants somebody else dead… I like that!” He walks across the room, kissing one of the women on the head as he passes by the sofa, heading for a door at the far end. “Come, there is something I want to show you.”
I follow him out of the room, growing more skeptical with each minute that passes. I’ve got a bad feeling about this, but I still can’t put my finger on it.
We enter another, smaller, room with a glass door on the right that leads outside. Vega gestures for me to pass him and step out into the garden area. I feel a light breeze at the door, which is refreshing. The sun is high already, shining bright and hot, and the grounds surrounding this massive house look absolutely—
18
Goddammit… I got hit in the head again, didn’t I?
I’ve not got round to opening my eyes yet, but my arms and shoulders are killing me. I’m hanging from something — my arms are above my head, my wrists tied together, and my feet can’t touch the floor.
I slowly open my eyes and blink quickly to remove the fog of unconsciousness from my view.
It’s dark, and there’s a strange smell nearby. It’s familiar, but I can’t place it just now. Chemicals, maybe? I recognize it, but the source of the strong odor eludes me.
It’s cold in here too. I look down and see I’ve been stripped to the waist. There’s no sign of my bag — not that it’ll be much use anyway.
I look up to see what I’m hanging from. There’s an old, tough-looking leather band around my wrists, pulled tight and hooked on the end of a chain, attached to a wooden beam running along the ceiling. I’m guessing I’m in some kind of shed or garage. I grip the chain in my hands and pull against the restraint, trying to heave myself up. My shoulders are screaming, but the beam supports my weight, so that’s good to know at least.
I relax as much as I can, trying to think how I can get out of here. Then I hear a door slide open behind me. There’s laughter and footsteps, and the door is slid shut again. There’s a click, and a bright light bathes the room, forcing me to squint and look away as best I can.
As my eyes are adjusting, I can make out more of the room. It’s definitely a garage. There’s a rusted car on bricks off to my left, and along the three walls I can see, are racks and shelves full of tools. In the right corner, I see a body slumped in a sitting position on the floor, the flesh discolored and in the preliminary stages of decomposition.
That explains the smell…
Three men appear in front of me, standing in a loose arc. They’re staring at me and mumbling to each other in Spanish. I recognize two of them from the airstrip, and later in Vega’s house. The guy in the middle I’ve not seen before. His face is pockmarked and ugly, and his dark eyes are looking at me full of menace.
I suspect the next few minutes are going to suck…
“Hey fellas,” I say. “There appears to be some kind of misunderstanding. How about you let me down and I’ll go and straighten things out with your boss?”
Without a word, or even a reaction, the guy on my right unleashes a big right hand, swung from down by his knees, and connects with the side of my stomach. I grunt and wheeze as the punch knocks the wind out of me, sending me spinning on my restraints like a punch bag.
I feel hands on my back, turning me back around to face the line-up. As I cough and struggle for breath, the guy on my left takes his turn, throwing his own right hand, catching me on the other side of my torso. Again, I wheeze, cough, and splutter as I’m sent spinning around. And again, I’m turned back to face the three amigos.
The man in the middle smiles at me.
“Okay, hold up a minute, Curly,” I say, keen to delay another blow to my gut. “Larry and Moe have had their fun and that’s fine, but before you go following the trend, can you just tell me what the hell’s going on?”
They look at each other in turn, shrugging and laughing, and then the man in the middle looks at me and smiles again, before producing a blade from behind him — which must’ve been tucked in the back of his waistband. It’s a rusty, stained knife, maybe seven inches long. It’s narrow and looks very sharp. He holds it up to me, waving it menacingly at my chest before saying something I don’t understand.
“Oh, come on guys,” I say, still struggling for breath. “Sending non-English speaking people to torture me is just plain unfair!”
He’s still waving the knife at me and talking Spanish, like he’s toying with his food before he eats it. I need to get out of here… I grip the chain again in my hands, tensing my arms and preparing to lift myself. Thankfully, my ankles are still free, so this next part is going to be a lot easier.
The men on either side take a step back, and the guy in the middle changes his grip on the knife in his right hand, holding it upside down and to the side, with the blade facing away from him, ready to slash across me. I watch his body language. I see him shift his weight onto his right side and drop his right shoulder slightly, turning away from me and preparing to strike.
With my upper body stinging from the blows I’ve just taken, I grit my teeth through the pain as I heave myself up on the chain, pulling my body as high as I can in one movement, then lashing both legs out, catching the man with the knife square in the face with both feet.
He stumbles backward, dropping the knife on the floor. The man on the left rushes toward me. I swing both legs up again, grabbing his head in between them and squeezing, crossing my ankle and holding him in place momentarily. I let him struggle for air for a few moments before jerking my hips to the right, breaking his neck in the process. The sound of his vertebrae snapping echoes loudly around the garage.
As his lifeless body drops to the floor, the guy on the right makes a move for the knife. Moving as quickly as I can, I heave myself up and grab the edge of the roof beam, struggling to unhook the leather restraints from the metal chain. Keeping one eye on my attackers, I finally manage it and drop to the floor, landing in a crouch.
I stand as the man on the right approaches me, having given up his pursuit of the knife in favor of attacking me. As he raises his right arm to punch me, I duck under and jab him with both fists in the stomach. I then move behind him and hook the leather restraints joining my wrists together around his throat, pulling him tightly toward me and yanking back as hard as I can. He chokes, spits, and claws at my hands, but it’s the restraints doing all the work, so doing that is futile. It doesn’t take long for him to stop moving, and I discard his body to my right.
The man in the middle is left staring at me, his face showing signs of swelling from the kick, and his confidence shaken, having just seen me kill his two friends. The knife is off to our left, just in front of the old car. He’s got his back to the shelving unit that’s got an array of tools on it — any one of which could be used effectively in a fight…