Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
Melina rolled over hard against a metal wall.
She blinked and crawled out of a foggy sleep.
Her hands were tied behind her. Her feet were zip-tied together.
Glancing around, she realized she was in the back of a moving vehicle. Something big, like a panel van.
They obviously turned the corner, and she rolled all the way to the other side of the empty van.
She didn’t think the bump to her head had been hard enough to make her feel this terrible. Her mouth was filled with the distinct metallic taste of an anesthetic type of drug.
Her memory came back to her in one huge wave. The van. The two Colombian men. Melina remembered fighting them, but she’d left her gun in her brother’s SUV. She felt the pain in her bicep where she’d been jabbed with a needle. Whatever the hell it was, it was very fast acting. One of the last things she remembered was the name Pablo Valez.
Shit. That slimy little wannabe cartel boss must have followed her from Colombia. But how? Her brain was too foggy to puzzle that out at the moment. More important, she had to figure out how to get away.
The van bumped and rolled slowly before it finally stopped and idled for a few minutes. It creeped forward, stopped, and the engine was turned off. The unmistakable rattle and roll of a large garage-style door closing echoed in what sounded like an empty building, the noise drowning the voices of the men speaking in Spanish. They were probably discussing how they were going to spend the money Valez would be paying them.
At the opening of the side door, Melina quickly decided to pretend she was still unconscious. This was it. They shoved a puke-smelling black bag over her head and tightened it around her neck. She was hoisted over someone’s shoulder and carried for what seemed to be several minutes as she bounced, the large man’s shoulder digging into her stomach. She could feel them going up a long set of rattling metal steps.
So much for my hopes of an ensuite bedroom with room service and daily maids to change the sheets. Would that be too much to ask ?
Suddenly, Melina was flying through the air.
She landed with her bottom on a chair.
“Let me go,” Melina threatened. “You’ll regret even thinking about taking me. I’ll kill you.” She kicked blindly at the men with her joined feet.
“Shut up, you fucking bitch,” one of them yelled at her in a western Colombian dialect.
Fuck. There was no air in the bag that covered Melina’s entire head. Some kind of drawstring secured it around her neck. She sipped air through her nose in an attempt to filter out the stench and listened, trying to identify how close her captors were.
“Sit there and shut up,” one of the men said in decent English.
Footsteps drew closer. “Cooperate and we won’t have to hurt you,” the man ordered.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked with as much bravado as she could muster.
“We tie you to the chair. You be good, no kick, no fight us, and we take bag off.” He went on to explain, “You breathe better while we wait for Pablo Valez.”
Getting rid of the fucking bag, being able to breathe again, she’d do as she was told. She’d also be able to see and plan her escape. These weren’t the brightest crayons in the box. They’d eventually make a mistake, and it would be their last. “Okay.” She gasped for air. “But you promise…” Gasp. “To take this thing off my head?” She silently congratulated herself for selling the idea that she hated the bag on her head.
“You no fight, right?” The words came inches from her cheek. Through the bag she could smell his rank breath, which couldn’t be hidden under his South American cigarettes.
“I’ll… I promise not to resist.” Then she quickly added, “Just get this fucking bag off my head.”
When the two men chuckled, she realized one was on each side of her. She felt her ankle restraints released. That freedom only lasted a millisecond before hands grabbed her calves and pulled them apart. Each was immediately retied to the front legs of the chair. Automatically, she slammed her knees together to feel less vulnerable.
The process was repeated with her hands as her captors wrapped her arms behind the back of the chair and retied them.
She was about to remind them of her hood when she felt a cold blade at her neck.
“You be a good girl and hold still.” He felt even closer than before.
A second later, the bag had been cut from around her neck and was snatched from her head, pulling with it a few strands of hair. Melina immediately darted her eyes in every direction trying to take in as much of her surroundings as possible.
She looked at her captors. She knew that if you got to see their faces, they didn’t intend for you to live. Even so, Melina would manage to escape. She wanted to be able to identify these fuckers. She would kill them.
The shorter of the two, who she pegged at around five feet, ten inches, had a pockmarked face. Poor guy must’ve had terrible acne in high school. She nicknamed him Scarface. She needed to memorize everything she could about her captors. When she got away, she could identify them to hunt them down and kill them.
Focusing now on the second man, she placed him right around six feet tall. He was thin and lanky.
“Maybe Valez let us play before he kills you.” He gave her a wide smile showing two rows of cavity-filled teeth, earning him the nickname TT for terrible teeth. Obviously, there had been no fluoride in the water he drank as a child. Then another thought struck her. He might be a crack cocaine addict. She wondered if Valez knew he was sampling the product. When he was high might be a good time to make her move.
“No! We’re going to turn her over to Valez and get the hell out of here,” Scarface said in Western Colombian-accented Spanish as he strutted over to TT and grabbed him by the collar. “We are both wanted by too many American agencies to stay here any longer. We grab the cash and leave for Mexico tonight. We can easily get transportation home on the next run.”
Footsteps echoed on the stairs. “Valez and his men are circling the block,” a third man announced.
Melina wondered how many more men were guarding this building. To her surprise, both men followed the newcomer down the steps.
She took the opportunity to examine the stark windowless room. She was surrounded by gray metal walls. It looked like an old, prefabricated business office right down to the nineteen- eighties wood paneling. The suspended ceiling tiles, where they were left, were yellowed and crumbling with age. Nearly half were missing, and she could see straight to the trusses holding up the metal roof. Empty metal shelves lined one side and benches filled the other three. Everything looked industrial grade. A warehouse, most likely, and she was in the business office.
Glancing down, she studied what looked to be a sturdy generic office chair, the kind with arms made of metal and plastic. The seat and back padding had cracked and disintegrated decades ago. Damn. Had it been wooden she might have been able to break it and use its legs as a great weapon.
She bounced hard on the floor, testing the strength of the joints until drum-like thuds, accompanied by male voices, came from the doorway. More men were coming up the stairs.
When a young man and two hulks stepped in, they seemed to suck all the air out of the now crowded room. With a short jerk of the young man’s head toward the door, the two heavily armed men stepped outside. Melina let out a deep breath and slowly replaced it, concentrating on breathing because that was the only thing she could control at that moment.
“Pablo.” TT stepped into the room and proudly strode over to stand beside the newcomer.
Melina memorized the almost pretty face of Pablo Valez. She’d never met him but knew him by reputation. He looked like a high school punk. She wondered if he was even old enough to buy a drink in the United States, but one peek into his nearly black eyes, and she knew no bartender would deny him alcohol.
The man’s intense gaze only left Melina’s for a brief glance toward her captors. “Is this her?”
“Yes, Bossman,” Scarface pulled out several pictures of her and held them beside her face. “See. See, perfect match.”
Valez slapped Terrible Teeth on the shoulder. “You served my uncle well, and I’m sure you’ll handle problems in the U.S.A. for me, just like you did for him.” He put his hand on Scarface’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Looking directly into his eyes, he asked, “Right?”
“Carlos Narváez was very generous to us.” Scarface assessed the man head to toe. “We do as you ask in respect for your uncle. We help you get his killers. You have yet to earn our respect.” He shrugged the hand off his shoulder as he stepped away.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Valez fisted his hands at his sides, the muscle in his cheek pulsing as his face reddened. “I have taken over for my uncle. I am avenging his murder, just as the other cartel leaders said I must. You will show me the same respect as you do any other capo.”
TT invaded Valez’s personal space. “The bounty for the woman. To earn respect, you pay.”
Valez hesitated.
Scarface walked over to Melina who had remained quiet, watching the dominance interplay between the three men who would determine her future. He grabbed her face in one hand and forced it toward Valez. “This is the right woman, no? You want her? Then you pay. She all yours.”
Valez snapped his fingers and one of the behemoths at the door stuck his head in. Seconds after a few quiet words were exchanged, the man returned with a duffel and dropped it at TT’s feet.
With a nod, Scarface dropped to his knees. Unzipping the bag revealed neatly wrapped stacks of U.S. currency. Melina wondered how much she was worth to Valez.
Scarface shuffled through the bag then shook his head.
Oh, shit. This could get ugly.
TT lowered his head like a bull ready to charge. “Where’s the rest?” His quiet demand spoke volumes.
Valez grinned at the man who had at least fifteen years on him, and miles of mean. “I’ll pay you twice as much as I owe you if you will hang on to her for another twenty-four hours.” His lips broadened into a full smile. “Then you can have her.”
Scarface and TT exchanged a glance before they nodded their heads in unison and grinned at her.
“She’s my bait for the shark who killed Uncle Carlos.” Valez sneered at Melina. “Her lover will come for his whore, and I will kill him. Then I will return to Colombia and take my uncle’s place at the cartel table.”
“Twice what you owe us,” Scarface reiterated.
“You’ll get everything that’s coming to you.” There was something about the sly glare Valez gave her kidnappers that Melina didn’t trust. She hoped their captors saw it, too.
TT and Scarface exchanged another brief glance.
“We’ll keep her for twenty-four hours and that’s it.” TT crossed his bulky arms over his very broad chest.
“Then, gentlemen, we have a deal.” Valez pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. “Time to make a video.”
A minute later, Valez smiled as he held his phone a few feet from his face. There was nothing comforting in the teeth he bared, only evil and hatred. “You didn’t think you’d get away with it, did you, Segundo? Payback is a bitch, and I have yours.” He touched something on his screen then pointed the camera toward Melina, slowly tilting it up and down. Obviously, he wanted to show her tied to the chair.
Stepping closer, he grabbed her jaw and squeezed. “Take a good look at this beautiful face.”
Valez’s fisted hand was a blur as he backhanded Melina. Her head flew to the side. She tasted blood inside her mouth. Sliding her tongue to the side, she could feel the crack in her lip.
Brave fucker, aren’t you? Hitting me while I’m bound to a chair so I can’t fight back. Furious, Melina glared at Valez.
Valez grabbed Melina’s chin and pointed the camera toward her reddening face. “Ooh. I’m afraid that might bruise,” he said with mocking concern. With an open hand he smacked the other side of her face. Grinning, he taunted, “Now she’ll match.”
As Valez looked at his handiwork, the camera was once again pointed closely at Melina’s swelling face.
With the camera pointed back at him, Valez asked, “Want me to stop, Segundo? There’s a private airstrip about ten miles southwest of Killeen, Texas. Be there by six o’clock Saturday night.”
Segundo? This asshole wants Rafe Silva? He wouldn’t come for me.
Melina didn’t bother to keep the smile off her face. Valez was probably sending the video to his old phone, which was most likely sitting on a CIA analyst’s desk.