Laura 01 The Jaguar Prophecy (20 page)

The door of the truck opens and a block of a man steps out. Victor judges the man to be over six feet and around 220 pounds of solid muscle. He has almost no neck, just shoulders with a bald head on top of them.

“Ok, open the door and ask the man to help you with the girl, then get out.” Victor pokes Harry in the side with his pistol as he speaks. Harry opens his door and greets the man.

“Hi Pete, got a nice one here, come and help me get her out, had to sedate her, she is a wild one.” Harry is playing his part, eager to get Victor away, even if it means setting up Pete, who will in any case kill this guy when he gets to the house. Warning the rest of the team about Victor coming will be worth some money. Harry slides out of the plane and turns around, facing the plane. Pete is only ten feet away. Harry looks up, directly into a gun barrel that returns his gaze.

Victor fires twice and then jumps out of the plane, pushing Harry out of his way.

“On the ground now, hands on your head, or you join your friend,” he yells. Pete freezes, surprised at what has just happened, then slowly he goes down on his knees, glaring at Victor.

“You must think I’m so stupid to leave her alone with you,” Victor comments to Harry, who is already dead. Laura climbs out of the plane, bringing Victor’s backpack and their suitcase with her.

“Laura, please go check in the truck to see if you can find anything to tie him up with, go wide around him ok?”

“Ok.” Laura goes to the truck, and after searching both the front and back of the truck she returns, having found some rope.

“Thank you. Ok Pete, lie down, hands behind your back.” Slowly Pete goes down, fuming at Victor, who comes closer to him, stopping five feet away.

“Laura, go behind Pete and tie up his legs.”

Victor does not take his eyes off Pete, still aiming the gun at Pete’s glaring face.

Laura slowly goes to Pete’s legs and starts to tie them together with the rope. Pete looks back over his shoulder at Laura.

“You move, and I put a bullet in each of your shoulders.” When Pete gives Victor a confused look regarding shooting him in the shoulders Victor adds, “I need you to be able to talk, not lift heavy stuff.” Pete thinks of jumping up and rushing this man, but the way he killed Harry tells Pete this is not a man who will hesitate to kill him, nor miss.

When Laura finishes tying his legs as best she can, Victor tells the man to put his right arm in front of his body, keeping his left arm on his back. Then he has Laura tie Pete’s left arm and legs together.

After Laura does as Victor asks, Victor has Pete bring his right arm back, and asks Laura to tie Pete’s right arm to his left and his feet. Pete knows now that this man is an expert, and wonders what he wants and why he is here.

“What do you want from me, money? Drugs? I can give you plenty of both.” Pete is not afraid of Victor. He just wants to know his enemy, so that he can plan to overcome him.

“Turn around, lie on your back,” Victor orders and Pete obeys.

“Laura, can you please switch the truck’s lights off and open the tailgate?” Laura does as Victor asks. Victor then tells Pete to pull his legs in and get up. Pete struggles a bit, not being able to use his hands, but eventually manages. Victor does not give him an inch of opportunity.

“Hop over to the back of the truck and lay down over the tailgate with your feet on the ground.” Victor is methodical, checking Pete’s every move. With a struggle, Pete hops to the end of the truck and puts his upper body onto the tailgate. Victor then picks up his legs and pushes him totally onto the back of the truck.

“Laura, you’ll have to drive, open the back sliding window and I’ll get the directions from Pete.” Laura immediately gets into the truck while Victor jumps into the back with Pete.

“Roll over and push yourself up against the cab until you can sit comfortably.” Victor’s voice is cold and hard. As soon as Pete pushed himself up against the cab into a seated position, Victor shoots him through the right foot. Pete screams and curses Victor.

“Stop your complaining, it is less than you deserve. Now tell me where the hidden exit point is off the airport to avoid customs before I hurt you.” Pete thinks Victor must be mad - hurt him? He has already shot him in the foot!

“Over there,” Pete points with his head towards the back of the hangar as he speaks.

“No lights Laura, get us out of here. Ok Pete, give Laura directions to the house where the girls are, and no tricks, Harry told me how far the house is from the airport,” Victor says, lying.

Pete can see the killer in Victor’s eyes rising up. He has never been afraid of any man before, but this man is not normal.

Pete gives the directions to Laura as they drive, planning his escape along the way, he just needs Victor to make one slip. Maybe the others will get him. That’s it; he will lie about how many people there are in the house. Little does he know Victor’s interrogation tactics.

“There, second house on the left,” Pete says after half an hour of driving.

“Stop here Laura, lights off,” Victor says with a polite tone, and then turns his gaze to Pete.

“How many, where, and what guns do they have?” Victor’s voice is cold again.

“Two, upstairs with the girls, only pistols, they are expecting me, you can walk right in, the door key is on the truck keys.”

Victor had found a rag in the back while they drove and now stuffs it into Pete’s mouth. Good, he fell for it, sucker. Victor shoots him in the left knee. Pete squirms in pain, his scream muffled by the rag. When he eventually stops screaming Victor removes the rag and says, “How many, where, and what guns?” Sweat is pouring down Pete’s face.

“Four, four, three downstairs and one upstairs, all 9mm pistols and 9mm Uzi’s, shit it hurts, fuc..” Victor stuffs the rag back in his mouth.

“Password?” he asks before removing the rag.

“None, no password,” Pete spits out, breathing heavily from the pain. Victor replaces the rag and shoots Pete in the right knee.

“Password?” he asks again. Pete starts crying from the pain. Victor can hear a faint “ok ok” coming from Pete. As soon as Victor removes the rag Pete cries out “Winter night, winter night, that’s the password.”

Victor replaces the rag and aims the gun at Pete’s crotch.

“Password?”

Pete cries even harder, his body jerking from sobbing. Victor removes the rag again.

“It’s winter night, I swear, please I am telling the truth,” he cries, tears running freely down his cheeks.

“It’s ok, I believe you,” Victor says as he replaces the rag, then shoots Pete twice in the groin. Pete squirms from the pain, his screams muffled to a low moan by the rag.

“That’s for the girls, for the pain you caused them.”

Victor waits a few seconds then shoots Pete in the head, blood and brains splatter over the back window. The body goes still and slides slowly to a lying position on the truck bed. Looking up, Victor sees Laura staring at him in amazement.

Finally she speaks. “How can you be so opposite, so cold and heartless a killer at times, yet so loving, gentle and soft?”

“It is not about whom you kill, but who you allow to live. I kill when allowing that person to live will cause more harm to the world than killing the person. In his case, it was either him or more girls being kidnapped when he heals, or possibly seeking revenge and coming after us. Stay here.” Victor jumps off the back of the truck as he speaks.

He takes the four spare magazines out of the backpack and reloads the pistol. The house is a large two-story house, with no fence or garden, just an open dirt patch to the front door.

Obviously they care not for beauty, nor do they expect someone would be so stupid to come right to their front door, else they would have put up walls.

The door is a solid pine door, with no window, but does have a peep hole in. Victor keeps low as he nears the door until he reaches the front wall of the house. Slowly he stands up against the side of the wall, directly under the outside light. He quickly removes his shirt and then uses it to unscrew the light from the fitting, causing the doorstep to be in darkness. After placing the bulb on the ground, he quickly replaces his shirt, and then knocks on the door.

“Who is it?” Comes a voice after a few seconds.

“It’s me, Pete, help me, Harry shot me, the bastard double crossed us,” Victor says in a hoarse voice, trying to imitate Pete.

“Password Pete,” comes the reply, a little anxiety in the voice.

“Winter night, fuck, open the door I need a doctor,” Victor says while taking a step back.

He hears locks open while a voice comes from inside, “Hold on Pete, we’ll take care of you.” As soon as the door opens a foot and Victor can see there are no chains still attached that can keep the door from opening, he kicks the door as hard as he can. The edge of the door catches the man opening it in the face, stunning him, while the force of the impact knocks him to the ground hard. Before he is even down, Victor is in the room, killer instinct alive. Two people are sitting at a coffee table to the left playing cards, their guns lying on the table.

The first one dies before he can touch his gun, and the second the moment his hand grips the pistol. Victor immediately puts two bullets in the man who opened the door, and then quickly runs towards the stairs, stopping next to them when he sees a small door under the stairs normally used as a broom closet. He quickly gets inside, just in time as a man with his pistol drawn comes running down the stairs.

“What the fuck is g..” The man drops dead from a bullet to the head before he can finish his words.

Slowly and methodically Victor makes his way upstairs, finding five rooms there, each housing around 10 to 15 girls, all naked. They are huddling in the corners crying as he kicks the doors in. Victor ignores them, going from one room to the next until he has cleared the top floor, then he slowly goes downstairs and clears the house, including the back and front yard, before returning to the dead men. There is no one else.

Victor knows it is a small victory, there must be a leader, but at least these girls will be fine. The girls start to make their way downstairs, crying, afraid. They look at the dead men on the floor, some kick them from anger. Then they thank Victor, planting kisses on him just as Laura walks in the door. Laura just stands there, seeing four dead men on the floor and Victor surrounded by over 50 girls, all naked and wanting to kiss him. Victor makes his way to the front door, then turns as he reaches Laura and addresses the girls. “Wait an hour for us to leave, then call the police. Give them a false description of us.” They thank Victor as he walks to the truck, Laura following behind.

Victor pulls Pete’s body from the truck, then gets in the driver’s seat and opens the passenger door for Laura from the inside. As she climbs into the truck she comments, “A lot of beautiful naked women in there, all wanting your body.”

“They don’t have your eyes,” Victor says as he starts the truck and pulls away. Laura gives him a kiss on the cheek and puts her head on his shoulder before asking, “Where to now?”

“There’s a small airport near Ipailes on the Colombia and Guatemala border, we can get a private plane there and fly to Peru. It’ll be far enough away from this and a small enough airport that no one will be looking for us there.” Victor hopes he can get an airplane there as he speaks, else they will need to cross the border on foot.

“How long will it take to get there?”

“The normal route is by I-25, around 14 hours at the speed limit, but we will take RT45 and then I-45, taking around 16 hours normally, a bit longer route but off the main roads, total distance just under 500 miles. We can easily half the time if I run the truck flat out all the way, allowing us to reach the airport by around 9am tomorrow morning.”

“How do you know all this?” Laura smiles as Victor holds up his cell phone. The map application shows their route and estimated arrival time.

“Will you please check in the side pocket of my bag, there’s a car charger for the phone?” Laura opens the pocket and retrieves the charger for Victor, who plugs it into the truck’s electrical outlet and then into the phone.

“Try to get some rest, you’re going to need it.”

Laura nods and then climbs over to the back seat and makes herself comfortable while Victor opens the truck up and lets her run at 110 miles per hour.

Three hours later Laura sleepily awakes. The truck is parked at a small gas station with a convenience store. There is no one around. Victor must have filled the truck up with gas and gone inside the shop to get food.

Suddenly a new Jeep Wrangler painted yellow with four men in comes to a stop next to the truck with tires screeching. The men stare into the cab and holler when they see Laura. Each guy has a drink in his hand and it is obvious that they are drunk. The canvas canopy is removed, and the two men in the back stand up in their seats, yelling for Laura to get into the jeep, while the driver revs the engine. When Laura does not respond, one guy jumps from the back and tries to open the back door to Laura’s truck; it is locked.

“Show us some titties!” he yells while pressing his face against the back window. Laura shows him her middle finger. The guy then gets back into the jeep and standing on the back pulls his pants down. He then hollers loudly as he urinates against the back window closest to Laura. His friends cheer him on and he grabs a wheel spanner from the boot of the jeep, jumping off and mockingly making as if he is going to smash the back window of the truck.

Laura backs away from the window. The man still has his pants down, and as soon as he sees Laura backing away from the window he pulls the wheel spanner far back to swing it with all his might.

Suddenly someone kicks him in the back of the legs, causing him to drop to the ground on his knees. Before anyone can react, his head is slammed into the truck’s rear rim, knocking the guy unconscious.

“Gringo, fucking gringo!” the second guy at the back yells when he sees Victor slam his friend’s head into the truck with his left hand, while holding two cups of coffee in a paper tray in his right hand.