Bishop's War (Bishop Series Book 1) (18 page)

“Self-educated. I have always known that someday I would die for our cause. And as you said, with so many hunting me, that time is now. As a soldier of God I used my life to learn about the world and our enemies so my death will have the maximum impact.”

Atal again picked up the photograph, carefully studying it this time.

“What’s her name?”

“Maria Williams.”

“My uniform’s in the car. I’m going to change and I have to move fast. If the cousin dies before I get there they may all leave quickly, and the hospital is our only real shot at this.”

“Hurry, Atal, hurry. Bring her to me.”

“I will, Amir. On my life, I swear I will,” he said over his shoulder as he ran to the garage.

Chapter 25

Vows of Loyalty, Vows of Vengeance

Beth Israel Hospital

The doctors and
nurses desperately worked on Chris in front of his loved ones and the nation’s Commander in Chief. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room when they bowed their heads in defeat.

After regaining his composure the president stood over Chris and said a silent prayer. He gave his heartfelt condolences to the family and was walking down the hospital corridor with his Secret Service detail when a nurse came around the corner. The security team kept the nurse against the wall, but the president waved them off.

“Thank you for your service. Health care reform is a top priority for me and you nurses are this nation’s unsung heroes,” he said extending his hand.

“Thank you, Mr. President. This is a very special moment for me. I never imagined my work would lead to shaking hands with you, sir.”

The president continued on, heading towards the stairs to walk up the two flights to his helicopter on the roof. The nurse looked after him.

“A very special moment for both of us. You’re lucky your name’s not on my list. Otherwise you would be dead right now, Mr. President,” whispered Omar thoughtfully.

Further down the long hallway an NYPD Lieutenant passed through security after being carefully inspected by the Secret Service.

“Are you part of the detail assigned to protect Bishop and his family?”

“Yes Mr. President, Bishop and his family are my only mission now,” said Adam Harbey, secretly known as Atal Wazir.

“Keep them safe,” the president said as they shook hands.

“Yes sir.”

Harbey passed the nurse who was carefully inspecting a patient’s chart before he stopped to observe the crowd outside of Chris’ room.

Omar moved silently, pausing a few feet behind the police officer that had just been greeted by the Commander in Chief. They both watched the large group of mourners. People were slowly coming out of the private room wiping their eyes and holding onto each other for support.

Lieutenant Harbey stiffened slightly when he saw Maria. She was huddled with several other women entwined in a big group hug. Despite the puffy eyes, the runny nose, and the grief etched on her face, he was instantly struck by her beauty. While pretty in the picture that Amir had given him and that was now tucked in his jacket pocket, Maria was truly breathtaking in person.

As Harbey was admiring his target from a distance several hard men with dead eyes and set jaws stepped into the hall. They were all a breed apart. Even without the Special Forces uniforms that they wore, Omar instantly recognized them as fellow man hunters and killers.

Back inside the room the Valdez men stood silently in a semi-circle around Chris’ bed. Macho Valdez was the first to speak.

“Goodbye, my son.”

“We‘ll find them all Macho—every one of them,” Gonzalo said.

“He was my life, hermano. Vengeance is all I have now.”

“And you shall have it.”

Already honored to be in the room during this very private moment Bunny walked around the bed and got down on one knee in front of Gonzalo and Macho.

“Don Valdez, I pledge my allegiance to your family. I’ll do it on my own if you won’t have me, but I’m going after the same people you are, either way.”

“Young man, as you can see, everyone outside of our inner circle was asked to leave. You were not. We are a very private family that is closed to outsiders. If we didn’t see you as one of us you wouldn’t be here now.” Gonzalo placed his hands on Bunny’s shoulders. “Valentino Brown, we thank you for what you did for Chris, and accept your pledge of loyalty and vow of vengeance. Welcome to La Familia Valdez.”

“Thank you Don Valdez. It is an honor,” Bunny said as he rose up from the floor and stood towering over Gonzalo.

“Antonio, I need to talk to those men,” John said.

“Benji is very skilled at extracting information.”

“I know he is. He just may not know all the right questions to ask and I speak their native language. Believe me, you want me in the room.”

“You’re right. My men will take you there.”

“I’ll be going with him,” Bunny said.

“Me too,” said Felix.

“Good. Make sure they are not followed by law enforcement. The rest of us will meet with the consultants to see what they have learned,” Gonzalo said.

John pulled down the sheet that was covering Chris’ face. He leaned in, speaking softly so that no one else could hear his final promise to his dead cousin. He hugged him, then kissed him on the cheek. Each man stoically took his turn, whispering into Chris’ ear a very private and solemn oath before kissing him goodbye. Everyone except for Macho headed towards the door. He sat on the bed, running his fingers through his son’s hair, speaking quietly to him in Spanish.

The mission today was purely reconnaissance. Omar’s breathing remained calm and steady when Sergeant Bishop walked slowly out of the room and joined the group. It was not time to act, but Omar had just identified many of the faces from Bishop’s inner circle and saw the target in person.

Bunny was behind John and looked up just as the nurse disappeared out of sight. Sensing something, he hurried past the several police officers standing guard. He had an uneasy feeling as he stared down the long empty hallway.

John walked over to Maria and pulled her close, breathing in her scent with his face pressed into her hair.

“I have to go. I may be gone for a few days,” he said.

“I know,” she said. Reaching up, she held his face in her hands. “You do what you have to do, baby. Kill them all, but you bring your ass back to me. You hear me? I can’t lose you now.”

“I’ll see you when it’s over. Don’t go home, stay with your mom and dad.”

“I love you, baby.”

“I love you too, Maria.”

He kissed her and walked over to Bunny, Felix and Antonio who were waiting patiently for him. He didn’t look back as they headed out to meet the enemy.

Before Gonzalo and his brothers left to meet with the Pro KEDDS team, a group of Chris’ friends approached them. “There’s an army behind us that’s ready to put in work. How can we help you Don Valdez?”

Fiero looked to Gonzalo, who nodded his approval.

“They travel in taxi’s posing as drivers,” Fiero said.

Silently swearing their allegiance, the young men nodded and bowed their heads as the Valdez brothers walked away.

Almost an hour later, when people began to drift out, a lone police officer came over to the women who were still talking together.

“Miss Williams?”

“Yes,” Maria said to the Lieutenant.

“I work with Captain Ryan,” he said handing his card to her and another to Grassiella.

“The Captain said he’d help us, but you missed John.”

“I have something for him.”

“Is it important?”

“Yes, very. But Captain Ryan said I was to hand deliver it only to you or Sergeant Bishop. No one else.”

“Okay, give it to me.”

“It’s very sensitive material. I can’t be seen passing it to you. Will you follow me downstairs to my car?”

“Yes, yes of course,” Maria said, then told her mother that she would be back shortly.

“Thank you for helping us,” she said. They exited the hospital, walking right past the tight ring of Valdez security.

“I know you’re good people that just got caught up in an ugly situation. And I’m very sorry for your loss. I’m parked right around the corner.”

He held the passenger door open for her and she got in. Walking around to the driver’s side he sat down and carefully closed the door. He exhaled deeply and turned to look at her.

“What is it?” she asked, suddenly uneasy.

“I’m very sorry, Maria.”

“Sorry? Sorry for what?”

“For this,” he said as he shot her in the side with the stun gun. The electric jolt slammed her into the back of the seat before she slumped forward from the waist like a rag doll. Unconscious, her body continued to shake and twitch as Atal looked down at her.

“I’m sorry for us both. Now we’re both fucked, pretty lady. But, I swore an oath to Aziz Khan many years ago, and I swore another one to Amir Khan just this morning,” he said as he drove off.

Pedroza’s Funeral Home
Lower East Side, Manhattan

Benji “Medicina” Medina was always deliberate and methodical in his interrogations. His technique was unconventional, but extremely effective. To start with, he didn’t ask any questions. He simply removed things. He began with clothes so his subjects were completely naked. Next, he removed freedom, shackling them spread eagled to a cold steel mesh table that he designed himself. It allowed the table top to rotate, facing either the floor or the ceiling. Then, he took away the ability to speak by strapping a rubber ball tightly into the mouth. He then began removing things that his subjects never believed they would part with. He took the tips of their toes. Using razor sharp custom made shears, he slowly and methodically snipped off digits, going back and forth from one foot to the other.

He developed his process through trial and error. Years ago he had started with the fingers, but when one of his subjects managed to temporarily escape on foot he switched to taking the toes first. There was no running after that. The taking of the toes served a dual purpose. One, it emphatically stated to his subjects that all hope was lost. Two, it exposed the nerves that he would explore once the interrogation actually began.

Benji studied anatomy to learn the human pain points and had then tested the validity of what he’d read on the men he questioned. Once the toes were gone he would remove the ball from their mouths and let them speak. It was always the same. They began with lies. “I’m innocent.” “It wasn’t me.” “This is all a mistake.” Then the partial confessions. “I had no choice.” “They made me do it.” Next came the bribes that reached truly absurd numbers. “You can have anything you want. Five million, ten, twenty. A hundred million!” Then the begging and pleading. They begged him to stop. They begged God for mercy. Finally they just begged for death. Throughout the process he would remain silent, waiting for the truth to be revealed. It always was. No one could withstand the pain.

He used pain to strip everything away. He attacked each raw and open nerve with a mini blow torch. He took his subjects to places that they dared not dream existed. To levels of suffering and depths of horror beyond imagination. He touched them everywhere with the white hot tongue of flame. He merely started with toes and fingers, then moved on to the knees, the elbows, the teeth. Even the scrotum, the anus, and the eyes were slowly licked and probed by the torch’s searing heat.

He didn’t like this part of his job, but he was bound by his word. He had sworn an oath of allegiance to the Valdez family many years ago. Gonzalo had even tested his vow of loyalty by ordering Benji to question his own brother-in-law and lifelong friend. His friend had betrayed the family after being arrested by a dedicated narcotics detective. Benji himself had delivered the box of chocolates to the cop’s house that contained his best friend’s chopped off hands in the bottom. Hands that he had personally removed. He didn’t like doing it, but he had to find out everything his former friend had said to the police.

Extracting information from the enemy was critical to the Valdez family’s security and its very survival. Once assigned this important task, Benji took the job seriously. He made sure that he found out everything. Everything.

When Christmas, Boogie, Minty, and Danny brought the two terrorists downstairs to the embalming room of Pedroza’s Funeral Home he examined each one carefully. One had a severely broken elbow and was whimpering in pain. The other had a knot on his temple from where Boogie hit him, but was otherwise unhurt. He was clearly the stronger of the two and stared back defiantly. Benji chose him to be the first one to share what he knew.

“I will tell you nothing. Nothing! Infidel swine!”

With a sad smile on face, Benji merely nodded in response.

Even with the ball deep in the subject’s mouth they could still hear the distorted screams. Benji hummed a ballad of his fellow Panamanian, Ruben Blades, to tune them out as he continued snipping off toes. Even for seasoned soldiers like Christmas and his crew it was hard to watch. Boogie had seen this technique used once before, but along with the others in the room he flinched as one small appendage after another hit the floor. When there were none left Benji loosened the head strap and removed the ball.

“What do you want to know?!!!” screamed the naked, toeless, and once defiant terrorist.

“Whatever you want to tell me. All truths will be revealed,” Benji said as he lit the blow torch. He narrowed the flame, turning it from a cool light blue to clear white hot.

“What are you going to do?” the terrorist asked. His whole body was shaking uncontrollably from the shock of the amputations and the terrifying realization that the worst was yet to come.

“I’m going to listen to you my friend. I am only here to listen,” he said while zipping up the hazmat suit and lowering the dark goggles over his eyes. His head tilted slightly to one side, Benji looked like some form of curious insect when he slowly leaned forward with the torch and began the interrogation.

Danny held his ears to muffle the awful screams that filled the sound proofed room.

“Take away the stink from the burning hair, it really does smell like chicken,” Boogie said.

“Thanks asshole. That’s one thing I’ll never eat again,” said Minty.

Upon leaving the hospital, John, Felix, and Bunny were driven through a series of evasive maneuvers and eventually dropped off three blocks from the funeral home. They were then taken underground through dozens of connecting buildings before they entered a secret door in the basement of Pedroza’s.

“What the fuck?!” said Felix when they walked into Benji’s torture dungeon and saw what was happening.

“Why are you here?” Benji asked, lifting up his goggles.

“To make sure we get all the answers,” John said.

“He will tell us everything he knows. Everything.”

“Yeah, well, you do what you think you gotta do. I’ll have a talk with the other one.”