Above Ground (31 page)

“Numbers! What numbers?” a man said, then slapped her across the face.

She blinked her eyes and saw the man holding a cellphone toward her face.

“Your hombre! What numbers?”

Vicki tried to speak, but her throat was swollen and no words came out.

The man cursed in Spanish and was about to slap her again when someone else intervened, grabbing her by the back of her head and shoving her face into the river.

They're going to drown me now ... my poor Katie...
The water suffocated her and she started to choke as her head was brought out, then repeatedly dunked again. Finally she found the words and pleaded, “No, please. Don't kill us! She's just a child. I —”

She was brought back to her kneeling position and the man with the cell demanded, “Your hombre. His phone. Talk to me the numbers!”

Vicki then understood what was being asked and quickly gave Damien's cell number. As the man dialled, the other man spoke in Spanish on another phone.

It was good that Vicki did not understand Spanish as the man verified his instructions from Carlos. He was to slash Katie's throat as Vicki spoke with her husband. Vicki would then receive the same treatment.

Vicki looked at Katie as she knelt beside her. The tape had been torn from her eyes but she was still gagged and bound. Vicki saw the bewildered look in her eyes as she looked around. The look of bewilderment turned to pleading when she looked at her mother. Vicki had thought the two of them had used up their well of tears in the last few days as their brains slowly went numb. She was wrong.

Jack slapped at a mosquito on his face as he and Laura made their way along a narrow path leading through dense bushes and trees that followed parallel to the river and would eventually lead them to the Red Bridge.

“Dusk ... prime time for these little vampires,” whispered Laura, slapping her own neck.

“There it is,” said Jack, pointing to the upper structure of the bridge as they neared.

“Wait here in the bush. The parking lot should be close. I'm going to take a look and see if they've got company.”

Laura waited a moment and then Jack returned.

“Didn't see any other vehicles except theirs,” said Jack.

“Maybe that's why they're waiting,” suggested Laura.

“Using themselves for mosquito bait? Let's sneak
a little closer and see if we can get an eye on what they're up to.”

A minute later, they heard men's voices and crouched behind some scrub brush and peeked out. The bridge had numerous large cylindrical cement pillars in a cluster on each side to support the bridge. The pillars themselves were in the ground on each side of the river. The sandy recourse went out from the pillars and then dropped off sharply in a small bank down to the river. The men were standing in a group close to the river but some of them were blocked from view by the pillars. The bush had been mostly cleared around the base of the bridge and Jack and Laura could not get any closer without being seen.

Damien's hand shook as his fingers stumbled over the button to answer the cellphone.

“So, Damien, my brother is free,” gloated Carlos.

“Let my family go,” said Damien. “Please ... I beg you. Let me speak to them.”

“You telled your man that you were in charge. You are not in charge. I want to hear you say I am boss.”

“Please, your brother is —”

“Now! Then your woman can talk at you!”

“Carlos is in charge!” yelled Damien to his men. “He is the boss!”

Carlos laughed, then said, “
Bueno
! Now I will tell my man to let your woman speak at you on your own phone. Keep this phone close so we can still talk.”

Seconds later, Damien's personal cellphone rang and he raised it to his other ear.

“Damien,” gasped Vicki.

“I'm sorry,” cried Damien. “I'm giving them everything they want. Are you ... is Katie?”

“I've been told to tell you,” said Vicki, “we are tied up. Katie ... me ... we are on our knees.”

Damien heard Carlos shout a command in Spanish, and Vicki's voice became a gurgle.

“Now,” said Carlos, “you will pay for what you have done. Your woman can tell you how you pay!”

Vicki gasped and coughed, then said, “I don't know why he did that. He choked me. I ... Damien! He has a knife! He's cutting Katie's neck...”

Damien listened as Vicki screamed. His other ear picked up the sound of Carlos laughing and cheering.

“Your girl is die, Damien! Now your
puta
! Listen to her...”

Jack heard the sound of a woman's voice and then saw one of the men yank Vicki into view by her hair and drag her to the top of the bank where she kneeled on the ground. At the same time, another man yanked Katie into view and placed her beside her mother.

“It's Vicki and Katie!” whispered Jack. “One guy is holding a cellphone up to Vicki's face. They both look like their hands are tied behind their backs. Ankles bound too.”

“We're too far away to get the drop on them ... there's four of them,” said Laura.

“I'll call for backup,” said Jack. “We can just sit tight until —” Vicki's scream interrupted his thoughts, and he looked up in horror as he saw one of the men yank Katie's head back by her hair. A flash of light reflected off the blade of a knife on Katie's throat. Vicki screamed.

“Police! Drop it!” screamed Jack, leaping to his feet. The men looked up in surprise as Jack sent a bullet zinging above their heads and into the river bank on the opposite side.

Two of the men reacted by pulling out their own pistols as Jack and Laura ran towards them, trying to use some of the bridge pillars as cover. The men fired a volley of bullets that thunked into trees and ricocheted off the cement pillars. The distance was too great for a handgun to be really accurate, but fear instinctively drove the Colombians to fire rapidly.

A couple of the men crouched behind the pillars as Jack and Laura came closer.

“Die, you bastards!” screamed Jack, as he and Laura let loose with their own volley of shots. Shots that quickly improved in accuracy as the gap narrowed.

Jack stumbled over an old firepit, skinning his hand, but then regained his footing and raced ahead to catch up with Laura as she crossed the final few steps of the clearing.

One of the men yelled something at them in Spanish, then turned and pointed his gun at Vicki while looking back at Jack and Laura for a response. His meaning was clear. The response wasn't what he expected. Instead of backing off, Jack stopped, took aim, and fired. The man leapt backwards as the bullet zinged past his ear.

“Vamoose or you will die!” screamed Jack. “Run and we let you go!”

“Locos!” yelled one of the other men to the others.

That's right, I probably am crazy,
thought Jack.

One of the men yelled at a colleague in Spanish. They violently shoved Vicki and Katie, causing them to scream as they tumbled down the bank and into the river where their screams coldly stopped. The four men bolted through the pillars to the far side of the bridge toward a path that would lead them back to their van.

For Jack and Laura, the choice was obvious. If they pursued the men, Vicki and Katie would drown.

Damien heard the scream and then the sound of shots as both phones went dead. “No!” he cried in anguish. “No!” he yelled again, and then he kicked Leitch hard in the ribcage. Leitch choked and gasped in pain.

Lance was quick to shout instructions into his own cellphone. Seconds later, the striker left his taxi and moved into position. Ray was just calling another taxi to take him to the airport as Rellik's crew arrived.

Twenty minutes passed before Ray, blinded, bound, and gagged with duct tape, was dragged back into the car wash. Perhaps knowing what was in store for him, he risked being shot and put up a fight when he was approached. It did little to delay his capture but did result in a blow from a steel pipe that broke his arm.

Ray, again stripped naked, was being tied face-down to the railing when Damien knelt in front of him and ripped the tape off his eyes and mouth.

“You couldn't do it, could you?” said Damien. “Let my wife and my daughter live. You could have just walked away and released them. But no, you had to kill them!”

“It wasn't me,” pleaded Ray. “My brother ... he is sick. I would not have hurt them. Please. You must believe that!”

“And was it your brother who cut off my wife's finger?” yelled Damien.

“His idea. Yes! It was all Carlos!”

“But Carlos wasn't here, was he?” screamed Damien. “It was you who did it!”

“No. It was men who work for Carlos. Not —”

“And who do you work for?” snarled Damien, picking up the roll of duct tape.

Ray's eyes bulged as Damien wrapped the duct tape around his mouth. He then shut his eyes tight as Damien
ground his foot into his broken arm. The resulting scream could be heard through the tape.

Damien looked at Leitch and said, “And who do you suppose gave Carlos that idea?”

Leitch mumbled through his gag and vehemently shook his head from side to side. Two of his ribs were broken and breathing was painful.

Damien's cellphone rang. He paused, then looked at his men. “Carlos ... wanting to gloat. He can fucking wait!” he roared, while walking back and kicking Leitch in the face. Blood splattered from Leitch's broken nose onto Damien's shoe.

“Wrong phone,” said Lance, as the ringing persisted.

“What do you mean?” yelled Damien, while stooping to use Leitch's shirt as a rag to wipe the end of his shoe.

“It's not the phone Carlos sent you. It's your private one!”

Surprise registered on Damien's face and he quickly took the phone from his pocket, then held it in the palm of his hand and stared at it as it continued to ring. For a moment, he was afraid to answer. Afraid of what he would hear ... but he had to know.

It was Vicki. She was hysterical and crying but said that she and Katie were alive. Then she cried, “They were going to kill us! We were saved by —”

The phone went dead and Damien stood in a stunned silence for a moment, then turned to his men and said, “That was Vicki. They're alive!”

“Where are they?” asked Whiskey Jake.

“I don't know. The line went dead,” he said, as the arrival of hope coincided with the return of panic.

“They let them go!” said Lance.

Instantly Ray's eyes portrayed his relief and he mumbled a prayer.

“Maybe,” replied Damien. “She said they were going to be killed, but then weren't. Then the line went dead.”

A moment later, Damien received a text message on his BlackBerry:
They're both okay. We're on our way to VGH. -JT-

Damien looked at his men. He felt his knees tremble and it took him a moment to comprehend.

“Damien?” asked Lance. “What is it? What's going on?”

“They weren't let go,” he said simply. “They were rescued by a cop ... Jack Taggart. They're on their way to the hospital.”

Bile immediately flooded into Ray's mouth. He choked and swallowed rapidly to keep from suffocating.

“Taggart! How the fuck did he get his nose into this?” growled Whiskey Jake.

“Yeah,” quickly added Lance, wondering who was talking with whom. He glanced down at Leitch and Ray and felt a wave of fear.

“Whiskey Jake, you come with me,” ordered Damien. “Rellik, you find out everything these two fuckers know. What they know about each other, Carlos, The Toad ... how many guys are working for them ... everything!”

“Will do, boss.”

“But keep them alive until I come back,” added Damien, before turning to Lance and ordering, “Arrange for a security team to cover off the Vancouver General, then meet me there.”

Jack sat in the Emergency waiting room, off by himself. Laura remained in the car outside in the parking lot. She agreed that the fewer Satans Wrath members who knew what she looked like, the better it would be.

Jack didn't have to wait long before three strikers he recognized from the west-side chapter entered the hospital and quickly scanned the waiting room and the corridors. One of the strikers then went back outside to wait near the entrance. The other two set up a vigil inside.

Several minutes later, Jack saw Whiskey Jake and then Damien enter behind him.

Damien's eyes met his, and he stood as Damien approached. He was conscious of the two strikers moving toward him, but a flick of Damien's hand sent them both away. Damien then said something to Whiskey Jake, who took a seat in the waiting room while Damien spoke with Jack.

“Where are they?” asked Damien. “What happened? How...?”

“They're going to be okay,” said Jack. “They're both being examined right now. Give the doctors a few minutes, then you can see them.”

“You said they're okay?”