“Easy my ass, Cole in the corner. This is fuckin’ bullshit. I wanna kill somebody. You see what’s back there, you’re gonna wanna kill this prick, too.”
Haddad blurted out the words, speaking the way you speak when you fear for your life.
“He was there in the corner, by the lamp. I swear to you this is true. I saw him when Ruiz and I carried out the bodies. His hands were behind his back, like mine. Orlato was telling Washington and Pinetta to keep him here for the Syrian.”
Pike holstered his pistol and went to the corner. Even this close to the lamp, the light was meager. He studied Haddad, then considered Jon Stone. Stone looked like a blond shark adrift in the shadows.
Stone said, “We’re wasting time, bro. He wasn’t here. And if he was, they killed him and dumped the body.”
Pike said nothing. He took a knee, putting himself at Cole’s level with his back to the wall to see the room as Cole had seen it. He looked at the lamp, and that’s where he found the cricket.
“Elvis.”
Pike tossed it to Stone, who snatched it out of the air, and frowned.
“Jiminy effin’ Cricket?”
Stone tossed it back.
“The girl’s mother gave it to him.”
Haddad said, “I do not lie to you. I see him where you are. They wait for the Syrian.”
“Was he hurt?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was the Syrian going to hurt him?”
“I don’t know.”
Stone’s voice came low from the shadows.
“See the back, man. Go see what they were doing back there.”
They marched Haddad to the bedroom side of the house, Jon Stone leading the way.
The eleven Indians had been housed in the two smaller bedrooms, five in one, six in the other. Both rooms smelled of urine, human waste, and body odor. The walls along the floors held dark stains as if bare bodies had sweat into the paint, and rusty stains streaked one of the walls. Remnants of clothing and sandals were scattered on the floor, but nothing of Cole’s.
Stone waited in the door while Pike checked, then stepped back to let him pass.
“The killing floor.”
The bathroom joining the two rooms was where they died. An extension cord with one end cut to expose the wires was coiled on the floor. Pliers, butane lighters, kitchen matches, and a blood-smeared ball-peen hammer were on the lavatory counter. The tools of torture. Bloody towels and a blood-specked pillow were on the floor.
Stone’s voice was quiet.
“We’ve seen places like this, bro. Somalia. Rwanda. That shithole in Honduras.”
This was where the hostages were tortured to make them scream for their families, where Orlato and Haddad and Ruiz demanded money to make the screaming stop. When their families no longer answered the calls, or wired the money, one by one, they would be brought into the bathroom and killed. Then, one by one, they would be wrapped in the heavy plastic, loaded into a vehicle in the garage, and driven into the desert to be dumped into the cut.
Pike studied these things, then stepped past Stone and Haddad, and went to the master bedroom. He stopped inside the door. Stone pushed Haddad in behind him, and Haddad immediately spoke.
“They have not gone.”
Stone said, “Who?”
“The men who guarded your friend. Washington and Pinetta. Orlato and Ruiz and I, we slept in the living room. Washington and Pinetta, they slept in here.”
Two futons were on the floor against opposite walls. A blue nylon duffel sat on the nearest, and a black gym bag sat on the other. A clock radio flashed the time.
“You see? Their clothes? Their razors? These are their things. They will come back.”
The corner of Joe Pike’s mouth twitched. Elvis Cole had been here, but now wasn’t, which meant he had been taken to some other place. Dead or alive, someone had taken him, and that someone knew where he was. Maybe the two men who would return for their clothes.
Pike glanced at Stone.
“We’re closer.”
Stone made the shark grin at Haddad, and pulled him out into the hall.
“You get to live five minutes longer.”
Pike held the cricket tight, then put it away as they set up for what was to come.
Jack and Krista: taken
6
That night crackled with chaos and noise: revving truck engines, spinning tires, flashes of gunfire, and blue-white lights sweeping the brush. The man with night goggles hit Jack across the back, driving him into Krista. Jack tried to shield her from the blows, and shoved at the man with the rifle.
“We’re Americans. We’re not-”
The man hit him harder.
“We were just fucking around. We don’t-”
The man hit him so hard a tingling flash blew up his back to the top of his head, and Jack staggered to his knees.
Krista whispered frantically as she helped him to his feet.
“Stop it. They’ll kill you.”
“They think we’re with these people.”
“They’re bajadores. They’ll kill us.”
“What?”
“Stop fighting-”
Men with baseball bats and shock prods swarmed like furious wasps, herding the growing crowd back to the box truck. Jack fell into step behind Krista, shuffling along with the crowd. Most of the people around them were Asian, though a few were Latin and Middle Eastern. Krista spoke Spanish to a frightened woman beside them as Jack caught a glimpse of men in the brush lifting a body. Then Krista leaned into him, whispering-
“This lady is from Guatemala. Most of these people are from Korea. She says we’re being kidnapped.”
“That’s crazy. This is America.”
“A man named Sanchez brought them across, but the bajadores just killed him. Give me your wallet.”
“Why do-?”
“Shh.”
She traded more Spanish with the woman before turning back.
“We have to get rid of it-anything with your name. Please, baby, trust me. Don’t draw their attention.”
Jack slipped her the wallet, but did not see what she did with it.
They were herded toward the box truck as if the guards were under a clock. When the bunching crowd slowed, the guards beat them harder, and cried out when they were shocked. The people around Jack pleaded in languages he did not understand, their faces lost and afraid even in the dim starlight.
As they got closer to the truck, and the crowd pressed tighter, Jack wanted to run. He wanted to push through all these crying people, and run hard out into the desert, just get gone and dodge and dart from bush to cactus, and run all the way back to Los Angeles. His heart pounded, and he felt sick, like he might throw up. He felt more scared than he had ever been, even when his parents died.
Instead, Jack slipped his arms around Krista, and whispered into her hair.
“They’ll find my car out here. That’s how they’ll find us. They’ll see my car.”
The waiting cargo hold was a black cavern guarded by men with guns. The gunmen searched each person before pushing them aboard. Hands moved over Krista in ways that made Jack feel ashamed, then the same hands moved over his pockets and under his jacket. They took his cell phone and keys, then pushed him up into the truck. Hands reached from within to help, then Jack was in, too.
“Jack!”
“I’m here. Where are you?”
They were forced deeper into the cavern as more people boarded until the container was crowded with sweating bodies. Then the big sliding door rattled down to chop off the last faint shreds of light. The darkness was a deep, pure black, and the close air rich with the bad smells of body odor and urine. Jack saw nothing, not even a shape or line or shadow. He heard a lock being snapped into place, and whispered.
“They locked us in.”
Krista pressed herself closer, invisible in the blackness. Outside, the cab doors slammed shut, and the engine rumbled. The big truck lurched, and moved.
Jack didn’t know what to do. All around them, people wept, and others spoke in voices too low to hear. A woman on the other side of the truck wailed, then Jack decided he wasn’t sure if it was a woman or not. The body odor smells were so strong, Jack tried not to breathe. He held Krista tight, and spoke into her hair.