Laura 02 The God Code (11 page)

“Time to get some answers.” Victor picks up the bag that Laura brought and takes some items from it, placing some in his pocket. Looking at Jose, he places a kitchen knife in the back of his pants and wraps a sarong around his right fist, before opening the door. As he enters the room, he motions for one of the guards to follow him inside.

“I want to see this.” Jose gets up as he speaks.

“I do too.” Laura gives one last bite of her sandwich before putting it on the table, following Jose. Neither have any idea of Victor’s interrogation methods. Jose, the guard and Laura take positions against the wall, opposite Paul. Victor slowly walks towards Paul and sits down on the edge of the table near Patrick.

“Who sent you, and why did you attack the airport?”

“Fuck you.” Patrick waits for the punch, having noted the sarong on Victor’s fist to protect his knuckles.

“I think you will rather die before speaking, right?”

Patrick is taken aback by Victor’s comment and Victor not punching him, yet he decides not to reply.

“Well, if you do not care what happens to you, maybe you care what happens to Ana.”

“Ana, you leave her alone!” There is shock on Patrick’s face.

“Jose, can you please bring Ana in?”

Jose turns and walks to the door, opening it slightly and then asks the guard outside to bring Ana in.

“You are bluffing. You will not harm her,” Patrick says hesitantly.

“I am an assassin. I do what is needed to be done to get the job done.” Just then the door opens, and Ana enters. Upon seeing Patrick, she rushes towards him and hugs him, tears running down her cheeks as she takes his face in her hands and kisses him.

“Okay, that is enough.” Victor takes Ana by the left arm and drags her towards the other chair as he speaks.

“You harm her and I will kill you!” Patrick spits the words out.

“I will not harm her if you give me what I want.” Victor slowly ties Ana up in the second chair, her hands behind her back, then her legs to the chair’s legs.

“Okay Patrick, last chance.”

“You are bluffing. You do not have it in you,” Patrick spits out.

“Have it your way, if you do not want to listen, then maybe she will.” Victor takes the knife from behind his back. Slowly he pulls Ana’s long black hair away and taps on her left ear with the tip of the knife blade.

“Fuck you!” Patrick struggles against the security tape as he screams.

“Please do not hurt me, Patrick please tell him what he wants to know, please save me!” Ana is crying freely now.

“You know what? I do not think you deserve to even see your wife dying.” Victor unwraps the sarong from his right fist as he speaks and walks over to Patrick. He then wraps the sarong around Patrick’s head, covering his eyes. Victor on purpose makes only one wrapping around Patrick’s eyes, enabling him to faintly still make out what is happening in the room, but not able to see the exact details.

“You like to take long walks with Ana?” Victor walks over to Ana as he speaks, holding his hand out to Laura who hands him her pistol.

“What are you ta..” Patrick jerks in his chair from the sound of the gunshot. Ana screams in pain and Victor bends down slowly before touching her knee. As he removes his hand from her knee, he inspects the blood on his hand as he comments, “Mmm, I do not think you are going to use that knee again.”

Victor turns and walks towards Patrick, who clenches his jaw from anger as he looks at the blood on Victor’s hand and Ana’s knee. Stopping only a few inches from Patrick, Victor reaches down and cleans his hand on Patrick’s shirt before addressing Patrick.

“Still not feeling like talking?”

“I will kill you, I swear, I will!”

“Okay, have it your way.” Victor walks back to Ana and coming to stand next to her he continues, “If you do not want to talk, then there is no need for Ana to hear you.”

Patrick watches Victor through the sarong as he walks over to Ana. Every muscle in his body tightens as Victor bends down and pulls Ana’s hair away on the left side of her face.

Patrick struggles against the restraints as Victor takes out a knife and slowly brings it to Ana’s ear. Patrick gasps as Victor quickly jerks the knife back, cutting off her ear. Ana’s scream chills Patrick to the bone.

“Okay, okay, I will tell you everything!”

“I do not believe you.”

Patrick holds his breath in disbelief as Victor pulls the hair back on the other side of Ana’s head. Blood runs down Ana’s face on the left side where Victor has cut off her ear. Again Victor places the knife against Ana’s face and quickly pulls back. Ana is half in delirium from the pain, and Laura is sobbing with her hands in front of her mouth, feeling Ana’s pain. Patrick stares at Victor as he slowly approaches him with something in his hands, it is Ana’s ears.

“I have something for you,” Victor comments as he carefully places an ear in each of Patrick’s palms. The ears are wet from blood and Patrick closes his fingers around them, feeling the familiar roundish shape with the thick round rim of the outer edges of the ears.

“Please, please stop!” Patrick sobs. Victor smiles, he has broken Patrick.

“I can put those on ice for you. A good doctor will be able to reattach them for you. Do you want me to do that for you?”

“Yes please.”

“Good, then tell me all you know.”

Patrick slowly looks up from the ears in his hands to Victor.

“I work for Marcos, Hernandez’ son. After you killed Hernandez, his son took over the family business. He is crazy. He brought in an army, every drug dealer and pusher and lowlife scum he could find. All the men he commands all over the world, everyone who worked for his father, and all of their men. He also somehow managed to secure arms.”

“How many men and what is his intention?”

“So far as I know, around 5000 men. He intends to overthrow the government and take over the country. Oh, and he wants you, he wants you badly. He will not rest until he finds and tortures you.”

“Where is their base and when are they planning to attack?”

“Their base is at an old abandoned farm, it used to belong to his father before he became a drug lord.”

“I know where it is.” Jose speaks for the first time.

“When are they planning to attack?” Victor is standing in front of Patrick as he speaks.

Patrick laughs at Victor before speaking. “You are too late. The attack will happen tomorrow morning. I and my men were supposed to take the airport and also capture Jose. Marcos heard that Jose is a friend of yours and wants to interrogate him in order to find out where you are.”

“5000 men, you are joking.” Victor takes the ears out of Patrick’s hands.

“I am telling the truth, now get some ice!”

Patrick’s heart skips a beat as he looks on in horror as Victor takes a bite of one of the ears.

“You want a bite? It’s actually good.” Victor holds out an ear to Patrick.

“You are insane!”

“Then tell me the truth.” Victor takes another bite of the ear.

“It is all I know, it is all true! You are a mad man!”

“Not actually.”

Slowly Victor bends down and starts to remove the sarong around Patrick’s head. To Patrick’s relief, he realizes that he was conned. What he thought were Ana’s ears, are actually pieces of dried apricot with raspberry jam on. Victor slowly walks over to Ana and cuts her loose. As soon as she is free, she jumps up and runs to Patrick. Patrick sighs with relief as he notices the ketchup on Ana’s knee and cheeks.

“I love you Patrick.” Ana hugs Patrick as she speaks, who is speechless, his mouth hanging open.

Finally Patrick speaks. “You are truly talented, but you cannot save this country, or yourself, and even less my daughter.” Patrick looks down as he speaks.

“My baby, what happened to my baby?” Ana stands up, looking pleadingly at Patrick.

“Marcos took her, and many others. That is why many of the men here fight for him.”

“But you said she went to America to find good work, you said she will be safe.”

“Marcos promised us he will give them work and take care of them. However, after the women reached America, Marcos threatened us that if we do not fight for him, he will kill them and us and all our families. If we fight for him, he will take care of the women in America and get them good jobs. However, I found out he lied when I overheard part of a conversation Marcos had with one of the men who went with the women. He phoned to inform Marcos that the women are at the destination. When I asked him about my daughter, he said she is not with the other men’s daughters and has a good job, but if I tell any of the men the truth about their daughters, he will take my daughter as his personal pet and kill me, Ana and the rest of our family, including our dog. Even so, now that I have failed to take the airport, I fear he may indeed kill her. So you see, you winning here today does not save this country, nor its daughters.”

“We can ask other countries to help.” Laura steps forward.

“You do not understand. He aims to kill almost all the people in the main city. That way, none of the farmers will resist him, and all of them will work for him, as he will have the only money in the country. There is no reasoning with him or his men. They are the meanest killers, drug dealers, weapons smugglers and women traffickers in the world. They aim to make Columbia their country.”

“Do you have the cell phone number of any of the men with your daughter in America?”

“No, only Marcos has that.”

“Do you have Marcos’s cell number that the person from America dialed?”

“Yes, but how does that help us?”

Victor steps forward and cuts the tape around Patrick’s head, allowing him to move his head. Carefully he cuts Patrick’s right hand free.

“Are there other locals whose daughters were taken at the main camp?”

“Yes.”

“Do you trust them?”

“If they had a choice, they would fight against Marcos. However, the local army and police have maybe 300 men, and few weapons, there is no way they can win. If we go against Marcos we and all our families will be killed, alongside the police.”

“I am not asking them to fight. I am asking them to stay out of the way. Can you reach them and ask them to secretly get out of the camp and at least three miles away?”

“Marcos will kill our daughters when he finds them missing. Even if you had an army to attack him, he will still have the time to make a call to America and have them killed as revenge. I am also sure he will give up if defeated, because he knows with his money, he will easily get people to get him out of jail. Then he will just get a new army and start again.”

“Trust me, your daughters will be saved. Call the men and get them out of the camp in the next hour, or they are all dead.” Victor turns to Jose after speaking before continuing. “Jose, do you have a cell phone?”

“Yes, here you go.” Victor takes the phone from Jose and places it in Patrick’s right hand.

“Make the call.”

Patrick hesitantly takes the phone from Victor, and then dials a number. As soon as someone answers on the other side Patrick speaks in a hushed tone as if the men around his friend can hear him on the other side.

“Hendrik, this is Patrick. Get the men together secretly and get the hell out of the camp.”

There is a short delay as Patrick listens to the reply, then he answers back. “No, I do not know what’s going to happen, just make sure you get out of the camp and at least three miles away in the next hour, and do it secretly. And Hendrik, our daughters lives depend on no one knowing anything. Marcos has them locked up as sex slaves in America, I am sorry, but they will be rescued, just do as I ask.”

Patrick hangs up the call, and then looks directly at Victor before speaking. “I do not know what you are planning, but I trust you with the life of my daughter and my family. You did not harm me or Ana when you could, I think you will not lie to me. You could also have left the men in the camp, but you did not. I know you do not trust me, but I will help you where I can.”

“The time may come when I may need your help. For now, I have to make some calls.”

Victor takes the cell phone from Patrick, then opens it up and removes the SIM card. After placing the card in his phone and activating it, he dials a number. The call connects, but no one speaks on the other end, waiting to see who dialed.

“Andrea, this is Victor. I need your help.”

“Victor! What the hell are you doing calling me? They are looking for you all over. There is a kill order on you.”

“Who gave the kill order?”

“The Pope himself. You sure made some enemies.”

“Why did he do that?”

“I do not know, Norman is not saying why.”

“I will have to have a word with the Pope then. For now, I need you to hack into Norman’s computer and get the personal numbers of the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the President of the United States.”

“Are you nuts? They are looking for you as well.”

“I take it because of the data I have?”

“You have been declared a threat to the safety and security of America, and have been branded as an international terrorist. I can be jailed for just talking to you.”

“Are you going to help me or not?”

“I….okay, give me 20 minutes. I will text you back.”

“Thanks Andrea.” Victor hangs up the phone and starts to open an application on his phone.

“What are you going to do?” Patrick has a puzzled look on his face as he speaks.

“You will see soon enough. Jose, I need a computer with internet connection please.”

“You can use the one in the office next door you had Ana in.”

“Thank you.”

Chapter 4

The phone rings a third time, yet President Abraham does not answer. He just stares at the yellow light flashing on the phone next to the receiver. There are four lights in total, white, green, yellow and red. Each light corresponds to the urgency of the call. A yellow light means that it is very urgent, but not a crisis. Only the Secretary of Defense or the Vice President can trigger a yellow or red alarm. Slowly he reaches out and picks up the receiver; he is tired, not having had any sleep for 32 hours straight.