Brute Force (25 page)

G
arcia’s head felt like it was filled with burning coals. Every joint in her body was stretched, ready to snap. She was certain something in her wrist had already broken. Walter grabbed the back of her hair, yanking her head to keep her from head-butting him again. His arm pressed against her shoulder, driving downward and putting unbearable pressure on it.

“Virginia Ross,” he whispered into her ear, his face close enough she could smell the onions from his dinner. “Point me to her.”

The pain in her shoulder was so great Garcia could barely comprehend the question. Any words she could have mustered were covered in panting sobs.

Walter eased up a hair, bringing a measure of relief.

“You know,” he said, “I took it easy on her because of her office. You don’t have that luxury.” He reached into his pocket with his free hand and drew out a small insulin syringe. “So I guess we find ourselves at a crossroads. Will you be the traitor who gives up her fellow conspirators and spends the rest of her days in prison, or will the authorities find the shell of your once beautiful body, scarred and abused by the men who supplied you with drugs?”

“You sadistic bastard!” Ronnie spat. She screamed when Walter bore down again with his arm, grinding her teeth until she thought they might shatter.

He thumbed the flesh of her neck with the hand that held the syringe. “Have you ever heard of Krokodil?”

Ronnie felt her knees give out at the word. Named for the scaly skin of its users, Krokodil was nasty stuff. It had been developed as a cheap heroin substitute in Russia, where codeine was available over the counter. It might contain hydrochloric acid, red phosphorous, lighter fluid, and even gasoline. As addictive as meth, depending on the batch, it had a tendency to eat away flesh at the injection site, exposing bone.

Walter laughed in her ear. “You’ll still be sexy for a day or two,” he said. “Long enough for my purposes. But I have quite a supply of this stuff. It won’t be long before I’m tired of you. You’ll be so nasty by then even Joey B won’t want you—and that’s saying something.”

Ronnie rolled her eyes sideways to stare at the needle. Palmer and the others would already be moving, but she knew too much that could hurt them. She had to do something to make Walter angry enough to kill her before she talked.

 

C
ounting Joey Benavides, there were nine bodies on the boat by the time Thibodaux and Miyagi made it to the hatch outside where Ronnie was being held. But for the guard on the top deck, Miyagi had taken care of all of them with her sword. Thibodaux, a man who had taken many lives himself since joining the Marine Corps was still amazed by the deadly, machinelike grace this woman displayed in battle.

They’d seen Garcia on the monitor and knew she was alone behind the hatch with Agent Walter. The image was fuzzy and they couldn’t be sure what he had in his hand, but it looked like a knife. Whatever he held, Walter was still oblivious to the fact that he had no more friends on his boat.

Miyagi shoved open the hatch, allowing Thibodaux in first with his weapon since silence was no longer an issue. Walter stood with his back to the hatch. Garcia was directly behind him, arms above her head, attached to a four-foot metal bar. There was too big a chance that the 10mm bullets would rip through Walter’s body and hit her for Thibodaux to shoot. Stepping forward enough to let Miyagi in behind him, he dropped to one knee and raised the muzzle of the H&K upward, releasing a burst of a half-dozen rounds at the pulley that held the handcuff bar suspended.

 

 

Ronnie rolled her eyes upward at the creak of the opening hatch, vaguely wondering which of the guards had come to watch the show. Through the mental haze of her torture, she saw a familiar eye patch—but out of context, she couldn’t place it. When Emiko Miyagi flowed in next like the unstoppable force that she was, Ronnie felt her heart begin to race. Adrenaline flooded her limbs. Reanimated, her head snapped up and she spat a mixture of blood and bile into Agent Walter’s eyes. She didn’t care if he hit her again, as long as his attention was toward her and not the hatch.

She could see Thibodaux over Walter’s shoulder and watched him take a knee as he aimed the H&K. Gunfire rattled the room. Brass clattered against the metal deck. The cable above her head gave a loud twang as it parted under the barrage of lead.

Ronnie collapsed on top of Walter as he fell backwards, bashing him in the face again and again with the bar. The first blow separated his nose at the bridge, peeling it downward so hung more off than on. Subsequent blows broke several teeth. Screaming in a voice an octave higher than before, he tried to throw her off, but Miyagi pinned him to the deck with an extremely painful but non-life-threatening sword through his shoulder above the collarbone. Jacques stood on the opposite hand while he bent to release Ronnie from the cuffs.

Ronnie screamed through the pain in her shoulders as she snatched up the fallen syringe and held it above Walter’s eye. Her hand shook. Her chest heaved. Every fiber of her body wanted to kill him and be done with it.

“Tell us what you know about Drake and McKeon,” she said, a line of spittle dangling from her lips as she looked down at this man who’d been about to rape and murder her. Fury alone helped her keep a grip on the syringe.

Walter shook his head. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

“Who’s running them?” She pressed the tip of the needle against his eyelid with a trembling hand, bringing a flood of tears. “What’s their endgame?”

“McKeon hates the President,” Walter all but shrieked. He panted, regaining a measure of his composure. “They’re not working on anything together. I can swear to that.”

Thibodaux stomped on the man’s wrist. “
Cochons!
” he spat. “Quit tellin’ us what they ain’t doing.”

“Okay, Okay . . .” Walter nodded quickly, catching his breath. “I know McKeon and his wife are running the show.”

“You mean the Japanese girl?” Miyagi ground her blade back and forth in the wound to get his attention.

Walter clenched his eyes at the new wave of pain. “The scary tatted one?” He shook her head. “No. You’d think he was with her as much as she’s with him, but he and his wife . . . they have some seriously long talks.”

“And you know this how?” Thibodaux asked, raising the brow on his good eye.

“He thinks his burner phone is secret.” Walter took a deep breath. “Knowing things, keeping tabs . . . it’s what I do. Life insurance. You know?”

“So what’s their plan?” Ronnie said. She was fading fast and was afraid she might pass out at any moment.

“I’m not up on the phone all the time,” he said, blowing blood-bubbles out the wound in the bridge of his nose. “I just listen in . . . now and again. He talks to someone in Pakistan, I can tell you that much.”

“You’re going to have to tell us a lot more than that,” Ronnie said.

“I will,” Walter said. “I swear it. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

“Oh,” Ronnie said, injecting the contents of the syringe into the man’s neck. “I know you will.”

She fell into Thibodaux’s arms while Miyagi rolled the drug-addled Walter onto his belly and handcuffed him behind his back.

Ronnie felt her eyes sag. “Senator Gorski,” she said, looking up at Jacques and forcing herself to stay focused. “Did you find her?”

Thibodaux nodded. “Monitors up top show several prisoners in cells on the lower deck. I’m pretty sure one of them is her.” He looked hard at Ronnie. “What’s that stuff you just gave him?”

“Krokodil,” she said, regretting the hasty action. “I know I shouldn’t have taken the risk.”

“Hell, one dose won’t kill him.” Thibodaux helped her to her feet, nodding to the dead
GQ
in the corner. “That your doing?”

Garcia tried to stand, nearly passing out from the searing pain in her shoulders. The episode with
GQ
seemed ages ago. Out of habit, ingrained from months of training, she took a deep breath and stooped to find the Snake Slayer where it lay just inside the hatch.

“Looks to me like you went easy on Walter,” Thibodaux said. He put a big hand on her shoulder. “You good to go, kiddo?”

Garcia flipped up the derringer’s twin barrels, checking to see that it was still loaded with one shell before aiming it at Walter’s belly for a moment of fantasy. “I’m walking off the boat with this piece of shit in chains.” She prodded Walter with her bare foot to make sure he saw her with the pistol. “I am outstanding.”

 

T
he Feng brothers stood with Jiàn Z
u under the eave of a small wooden shelter at the edge of the floating docks, waiting. Torn boat advertisements and commercial fishing notices were tacked to the plywood walls. Something that was not quite rain but a little more than mist drifted by on gray curtains under the feeble light. The smells of engine oil and low tide hung in cool air of the parking lot. The damp, combined with the darkness and an unknown future, sent a chill through Yaqub’s spine that shook his entire body. He could make out the dark shapes of a dozen boats floating on an even blacker ocean fifty meters down a grated incline in the small harbor.

“Where is he?” Ehmet said, looking toward the water. He’d pulled the collar of a wool sweater up around his neck against the cool air.

Jiàn Z
u nodded down the ramp. “There,” he said.

A stocky man with long blond hair that stuck out like sheaves of wheat straw from a wool watch cap sauntered toward them. The coal of a stubby cigar illuminated a wide face and thick orange beard. High rubber boots squeaked and chattered on the metal grating. A pistol hung on a loose belt from baggy pants, as if he’d strapped it on as an afterthought.

The newcomer eyed the three men through the blossom of cigar smoke that surrounded his face, mixing with the mist. “I’m Gruber,” he grunted, clenching the cigar in teeth that were as yellow as his hair. “I understand you need a ride under the radar.”

“We do,” Jiàn Z
u said, extending his hand. “Half the money is in your account. I’ll release the other half before we leave your vessel.”

“Wait,” Ehmet Feng said. “You do not know this man?”

Gruber raised a bushy eyebrow.

Jiàn Z
u sighed. “Movement like this requires that we adapt.” He nodded to the skipper. “My friend vouches for him.”

“You are not even Chinese,” Ehmet said.

“I’m a businessman,” Gruber said. “And I got no love lost for the States. My great grandfather was moving cargo between Canada and the US over a century ago. If you wanna sneak a puny load of BC bud past the authorities, I’m not your guy. Something bigger . . . important enough to pay for . . . well, that’s a different kettle of fish altogether. My family knows the location of inlets, caves, and hidey-holes that Canadian and US Customs have never even heard of—and that stuff don’t come cheap.” He puffed the cigar to life, then spoke without taking it out of his mouth. “But if you got other transportation, I got plenty to do. . . .”

Jiàn Z
u cleared his throat. “No,” he said. “We do need your services, and are more than happy to pay for them.”

“That’s nice.” Gruber smiled. “I got three girlfriends scattered up and down the coast and they all seem to like the most expensive shit.” He nodded down the ramp. “I’m ready when you are.”

Ehmet raised his hand. “And how do you get past the authorities? I have studied the maps and charts. Even with your caves and secret routes, we must still eventually come into areas where US Customs boats do routine and random patrol.”

“Studied the charts, have you?” Gruber gave Jiàn Z
u a knowing smile.

“I have,” Ehmet said, glaring.

“I hate it when customers study the charts. . . .” Gruber muttered before leaning back his head to blow a plume of smoke into the air. “You are right though,” he said. “There’s a hell of a lot of water out there, but the feds are getting smarter. Sometimes I swear it’s like their patrol boats are running a blockade between the San Juan Islands and Anacortes. Some nights, the odds of getting through are less than fifty-fifty. They’re all looking to stop the next vessel full of weed coming across the border or hoping to save the lives of a bunch of poor illegals crammed into a shipping container like cordwood. Every one of them is on the hunt for that big arrest that will make their career.”

Yaqub’s mouth hung open. He took a half step closer to his brother. “If the authorities are so numerous, then what do you plan to do?”

Gruber winked. The coal of his cigar brought an otherworldly glow to his face.

“Simple,” he said. “We give them exactly what they want.”