Three of the iron bars over the window had been cut, either with a welding torch or some sort of acid, and were bent out at a right angle, creating a space just large enough for a body to fit through.
The music stopped two minutes later. The fiesta was abruptly terminated. Armed men milled about, uncertain as to what to do until the cousin who had discovered the window issued instructions and they raced for their vehicles.
Altamar faded in and out of consciousness, unsure what was happening to him. He was bouncing against a hard surface, felt cool air blowing over him and a sense of motion. He struggled to move but his wrists and ankles were bound and he had tape over his mouth. He opened his eyes wider but couldn’t make anything out; something was blocking his vision. His arm hurt in the upper bicep like he’d been shot, and the last thought he had as he faded again was that someone had injected him with something to knock him out.
Eventually, Altamar regained consciousness and this time he could see, albeit without much clarity. He blinked his eyes, trying to clear his head, which was splitting from the blow. He tried to reach up to touch the tender spot and discovered that he could only move his arm a few inches from where it was extended slightly above shoulder level. He tried the other arm, also extended, and met with the same resistance. Now fully alert, his respiration increased and he was flooded with a sense of panic. When he tried to move his legs, he encountered the same problem – he was immobilized, spread-eagled, his arms and legs stretched wide. His nose registered the musty odor of long-abandoned horse stalls, and when his vision returned to near normal, he could see that he was indeed in an old barn, chained to the floor. He continued to struggle for a few minutes until blood began tricking from his wrists where he’d torn most of the skin off from pulling against the chains.
The dim light came from a pair of headlights outside the closed barn door, where slim illumination crept through from around the sides and the base. Altamar screamed, more a hoarse croak than anything, largely due to the effects on his vocal cords of whatever he’d been dosed with. He paused after several seconds and heard a sound from the far end of the space. He was able to move his head and crane his neck and he saw a young man dressed entirely in black turn to face him from the area by the stalls. The young man sauntered over unhurriedly and smiled at Altamar, causing his breath to catch in his throat and his blood to run cold. He knew that look, and knew what it meant. He needed to take the initiative or this could get far worse.
“You fucking cocksucker. I’ll cut your balls off and force you to eat them in front of me. Do you have any idea who I am?” Altamar rasped at him. A good defense was often a strong offense.
The young man smiled again, almost blithely, and without responding, opened the barn door and went out to the truck that was parked outside, returning after a few minutes with a lit lantern. He placed it carefully on a stall ledge so it brightened the area where Altamar was chained and went back to the truck, extinguishing its headlights and shutting off the motor. Altamar heard the man’s footsteps grow louder and then he was blinded by a blue-white flash. His vision gradually returned, and he was blinded by another.
The young man was taking photographs of him.
A spike of fear ran through Altamar. He decided to try a different approach.
“I’m very, very rich. I can get you whatever you want, eh? Anything. How much money do you want? What’s it going to take?” Altamar sensed that threats weren’t going to have any effect, so he’d appeal to greed, which was a constant in all humans. It wasn’t a question of if, it was a matter of how much.
The man just smiled again, shaking his head as if dealing with a child.
“Did you hear me? I can get you anything. Millions of dollars. In cash. What’s your number? What do you want? A million? Two million? Fine. I can get you two million dollars with a phone call.”
The young man considered the idea, and then nodded.
“I think I’d like to be a millionaire. That sounds like it would be fun. So you get me two million dollars, and then once I have the money and I’m safe, I’ll release you. I’ll unlock your chains, and you’ll be free to go. You don’t know me, so I’m not worried about being found by your thugs. How do we do this?” the young man asked.
“Now you’re thinking. In my pocket. I have a phone. Get it for me, and I’ll give you a number to call. Let me talk, and we’ll set up getting you your money.”
“But how? How will I get the money and know I’m safe, and that your men aren’t watching me or following me?” he asked.
“We can do it like I’ve done some of my deals. We pick a remote location you’re familiar with. At a predetermined time, a man will come and put a bag with the money wherever you like, and then leave. You wait as long as you want, and then retrieve the money. It’s a standard drop. We do it all the time,” Altamar explained.
“Ah. Good thinking. I think I can improve on that. I have an idea that will work.”
And then he explained what he wanted.
Altamar’s eyes widened. “Very smart. I’ve never heard of anything like that before. I see what you’re trying to do. It will be impossible to follow you that way. Okay, make the call. We have a deal. You get your money, you unchain me and let me go, right? I’m a man of my word. How will I know you’ll do as you say?”
“I went to a lot of trouble to get you out alive. If I’d wanted to kill you, you’d have been dead an hour ago. I want something else. So make the call, and let’s get this over with,” the young man replied.
“You know what? Fuck you. I think you’re lying, and you’re going to kill me anyway,” Altamar hissed.
“Fair enough. I guess I’ll kill you now. And you’ll never find out if you were wrong.”
The young man shrugged, apparently uninterested in which way the transaction went. From the back of his pants, he pulled a semi-automatic pistol and approached Altamar.
“No. Here’s my proposal. You get the two million, but you hand me over in exchange for the money when you get it.”
The young man smiled again with genuine amusement.
“I must not be very convincing, or you must be very stupid. This isn’t a negotiation. You either give me two million dollars on my terms, and I release you, or you fuck around and I blow your brains out. Or maybe I gut shoot you and watch you lay in your own shit and blood for a few hours while you beg me to end the agony.” He considered that mental image. “You really think I’m going to let your men pick me off with a sniper rifle the second you’re safe? I’m disappointed. I was sure you were smarter than that. Maybe I’ll blow your kneecaps off, and you’ll be walking around on prosthetic limbs for the rest of your miserable life, just so you know I’m serious. Do you need me to do that? Show you I’m serious?”
Altamar hesitated, calculating, and then his shoulders slumped.
“No. I believe you. Fine. We’ll do it your way. Make the call, and let’s get this over with.”
The young man dialed the number Altamar gave him, and then held the phone up to the ear of the cartel boss. When the other end of the line answered, Altamar explained he’d been kidnapped, but that it was okay, and to gather two million in cash and have it ready to go at four a.m. – in two more hours. He then gave the instructions on how it was to be delivered. Altamar had many millions in cash stashed in multiple places in town, so getting two million was the least of his problems.
Altamar listened to the response and then barked angrily into the phone.