Jigsaw (Black Raven Book 2) (41 page)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The Chihuahuan Desert

Wednesday, February 9

Zeus became aware of men talking. Pushing aside the need for sleep, his breath caught.
Ana?
He was able to breathe. Yes—he remembered seeing Agent Leon drive away. And he was now listening to—whom? How many? Trying hard to focus through the drug-induced haze, he forced himself to listen to the voices. Five males. Maybe six. One of them was unmistakably DIC. The men were within a couple of yards of him.

Using senses other than sight, which would clue his captors to the fact that he was conscious, he tried to get a feel for his environment. The air smelled musty and earthy. He was flat on his back, his bodyweight crushing his arms as he lay on a floor. Arms? Numb. Hands? Numb. Still cuffed at the wrists, behind his back. Legs?
Fuck!
Numb. Either he was paralyzed or his ankles and knees were bound together and tied to something so he couldn’t move them. Head? A dull ache, with major brain fog.

He drew a deep, quiet breath, as clear thoughts gave way to nothingness. A few minutes later he awoke again with a start.

Ana?

Yes!
Hope.

Encouraged again by his last memory of Agent Leon driving away with Ana, he clung to the hope that they’d gotten safely away. He’d happily spend the rest of his days reliving the nightmare that his daughter had been captured—as long as it ended him with him knowing that she was safe.

Dear God, let her be okay.

Voices. When last awake, he’d been listening to voices. He opened his eyes, barely making a slit in his lids. Wherever they were, there weren’t many lights. Gray ceiling—maybe earthen—appeared high overhead. A bit of feeling returned to his fingers. He dug them into soft, sandy dirt.

A cave. Maybe a tunnel.

How long had he been out of it?

Absolutely no fucking clue.

“Get this done.” DIC’s flat, all-American accent and clipped tone was unmistakable. From the direction of his voice, the man stood six feet away and south of where Zeus lay on the dirt floor.

If I survive this, you sadistic son of a bitch, I'll kill your ass. Slowly and with extreme prejudice.

Big fucking
if
there
.
He was bound like a Thanksgiving turkey, extremely groggy from whatever the hell they’d injected him with, and surrounded by at least six men. He could hear their feet moving nearby.

Beneath his body he flexed his fingers, trying to bring them back to life. Hurt like hell. Keeping his movements subtle, Zeus worked his fingers. At the first opportunity, he’d be ready for them physically. His fuzzy brain state, however, was more of an issue. Would the fog dissipate? Or was this it
?
Didn’t seem to be clearing. His thought process was vague, his body annoyingly lax.

A foot nudged his side. A voice, sounding like it came from directly over him, said, “He isn’t awake.”

“Doesn’t matter,” DIC answered. “It’s almost time to transport Barrows and I damn well want to be done with this asshole before we start that task. Hernandez is the smaller job. Delivering Barrows will make us the real money.”

At least they had their priorities in the correct order.
Feelings were starting to come back to his hands in a painful rush of pins and needles. Too bad his body still felt weighted and unresponsive, and his brain was still fucking mush.

A cell phone rang.

“Yeah?” DIC paused. “Wait. Repeat that.”

Another long pause.

“Are you fucking kidding me? Barrows is gone? Gone where? How?”

A pause in DIC’s conversation was punctuated by heavy footfalls and harsh breathing.

“Julio—get to the fucking point, you moron!”

Relief seeped through his veins, warming him, as Zeus savored the sound of DIC’s apoplectic rage.

“Goddamn it! The man didn’t disappear in a puff of smoke. I swear to Jesus-fucking-H. Christ, if you had a brain in that fat head of yours you’d be dangerous. You were charged with guarding him. A simple task. Simple
.
Barrows didn’t just fucking walk
out. Someone helped him and Pablo, Richie, Steve and whoever-the-fuck else you just said are also missing–
aren’t fucking missing
!”

A pause.

The disappearance of Barrows—aka Agent Cox—was beautiful news. Meant Cox had either escaped on his own or been extracted. And extraction
meant that Ana was with Theresa, because the Black Raven priority order for the operation meant they weren’t rescuing Cox until Ana was secure.

“I don’t know where they fucking are. They’re probably dead, numbnuts. Why you only had four men guarding a man who is worth twenty million dollars to us is against my fucking orders and beyond my comprehension. Get out and fucking-well find Barrows! At least we have the advantage. These people don’t know this area like we do.”

Surprise, asshole. By now, we know this area—wherever the fuck we are—better than you can even dream. Start counting your breaths, motherfucker, because they’re numbered.

Moderate relief from the brain fog, but no return of muscle control.
Fuck.
Zeus kept trying to work his fingers.

“And let me get one thing through to you. Stop thinking of this in terms of dollars, because it now means way, way more. Like your fucking life. Understand?” The thud of DIC’s heavy footfalls indicated he was pacing. “We’re making a shitload out of delivering Barrows. But you fucked up, and I promise you will not live to see sunrise if you don’t find him.”

A hard object pinged off Zeus’s cheekbone. It thudded to the ground next to him. The good news: he’d felt the phone bounce off him. Feeling was returning to his body with a vengeance. The better news: his brain was starting to fire on all synapses.

Ready, Zeus opened his eyes.

DIC walked over to him, black ski mask still firmly in place. Evidently DIC hadn’t unleashed enough frustration on his phone as he’d thrown it, because he stepped closer and kicked a pointy metal-tipped boot into Zeus’s side. When he bent to pick up his phone, his sky-blue eyes met Zeus’s gaze.

“Well what do you know? Jesus has risen,” DIC said, kicking Zeus again, harder.

“Hell,” Zeus laughed. “You really are a dickhead. It was a hell of a lot of work to get Barrows to you,” he added, chuckling between words. “And you fucking lost him? What kind of chicken-shit operation are you running? Sounds like you should start praying to the real Jesus, instead of mocking him.”

Ana—Safe.

Leon and Cox—Safe.

Nothing else matters, at least not as much as this mission is concerned.

It was a damn good thing he had that rosy viewpoint, because with his hands cuffed behind his back, and his legs immobilized, he couldn’t do a goddamn thing to help himself.

DIC stared down at him, not rising to the mocking bait that Zeus had thrown to him. “Strap him down, roll the cameras, and cut off his fucking head. Then let’s get the fuck out of here. If they found Barrows, they’ll find this shithole too. We’ll leave a warning present. Jesus’s headless body, with no hope of a resurrection.”

Bright light flooded the room. Or cave. Or tunnel. Whatever the fuck the dirt room was—he couldn’t tell. On the wall near his right, crude red letters on a white banner declared,
We are Maximov.

Squinting in the glare of the headlights, Zeus turned to DIC. “We know Maximov is dead.” By now, he was betting that Gabe was well into Praptan and had confirmed what Stollen had told Sam. “So who the hell has you pretending to fight on behalf of Maximov?”

DIC merely glared at him.

A flag was pinned under the banner, with the initials KKK, swastikas, a lone star, and barbwire. The flag itself was crimson red, while the logo was black. Ragno had mentioned this combination of symbols the other night—
the logo of the TRCR.

Intel from Blaze had been spot on.

Cameras were pointed at the banner and flag. In between the cameras and the flag, there was a low, dark wooden table, outfitted with leather straps that looked thick enough to immobilize an angry bull. The table surface was dark, but lighter marks indicated where a blade had slashed into the wood.

Fuck.

One man, wearing head to toe black, his face covered in a black ski mask, unsheathed a machete. About twenty-seven inches of shiny metal glinted in the bright lights from the cameras.

High carbon steel—Zeus presumed. Lightweight and efficient—he prayed.

Hope that fucking thing is as sharp as it looks.

One man untied his legs. He and three others, one at each elbow, and one at each thigh, lifted Zeus off the ground. He was still too weak from the drugs they’d given him to effectively fight them, but he had feeling now, and plenty of it. He drew his knees up to his chest and tried to turn sideways in an effort to resist them. He only managed to head-butt one of them with the side of his head and piss all of them off.

Ineffective.

They held him so that the cameras got a good view of his face, then threw him, face down, onto the table. Before he could move, they yanked his legs down so that he was kneeling on one side of it. A leather strap crossed over his lower back and his cuffed wrists, digging into exposed skin as they buckled it close. Another was tightened over his shoulders. The final leather swatch was slapped over his head and pulled tight, giving him a view only of the tabletop. He could turn his head slightly, but there wasn’t much of a point to that.

I’d prefer a bullet in the head, but they sure as hell aren’t taking last requests. What the fuck is taking so long?

Zeus shut his eyes, drew a deep breath, conjured an image of his daughter’s beautiful smile, and waited. His mind flashed to Sam, of the last time he’d touched his lips to hers. He grit his teeth together, braced himself for the first hacking slice into his neck, and drew another deep, ragged breath.

Come on! Fucking get this over with.

The earth rumbled. The ground at his knees started vibrating. Sounds of engines grew louder and louder, reverberating off the walls of the cave. Gunfire exploded—the fast
pop, pop, pop
of AKs in full auto mode. Turning his head slightly, as much as the head strap would allow, he watched the machete fall to the table, the blade coming within an inch of his nose before it fell flat. Men yelled, and the sounds of engines intermittently drowned out their yells.

Someone loosened the straps that had pinned his legs down, then undid the other restraints. The second he was free, he jumped into a wobbly stand, turned, preparing to throw himself into a head butt if the guy wore a black ski mask.

If the guy was a Black Raven agent, he was getting a fucking promotion.

The man was neither. He had long blonde hair, blue eyes, and a tattoo of fire climbing up his neck and arms. He wore a snug white T-shirt and a white leather vest with a black peace sign, the emblem of the Protectors of Peace.

Blaze.

Not a Black Raven agent, but definitely no need for a head butt, because Zeus guessed that Blaze’s intel was the reason his head was still firmly on his neck. The mouth of the cave was twenty yards away. The cave was smoky, the air acrid with the scent of gunpowder. The bulk of the action was now outside and far into the interior of the cave, where Zeus guessed DIC and the others had run in an effort to save their asses. Two men were down at his feet. Dark red blood was pooling underneath them.

If they weren’t dead yet, they would be soon, because there would be no help coming.

“Damn glad to see you,” Zeus said as Blaze unlocked the handcuffs. Another round of gunfire rattled and an answering round exploded. Men yelled, and the earth vibrated with the revving of high-powered engines. “You do know we need to take as many of these people alive as we can?”

“Understood,” Blaze nodded. “Interrogation first. After, though…”

“Different story,” Zeus shook out his arms, then extended a hand to Blaze, glad he had enough strength to stand on his own and his hand wasn’t shaking. “We gave you our word. Whether we go through regular channels, or not. The TRCR now officially consists only of the walking dead.”

The desert sand will run red with TRCR blood.

A man riding an all-terrain motorcycle, his face covered in a bandanna and his body covered with sand, skidded to a halt at Zeus’s side. He lifted his goggles and removed his bandanna. Zeus recognized Agent Brad Miles, lead agent from the El Paso airport contingency. “Sir, happy to see you.”

“Ana?”

“Fine. With her mother.”

“Leon and Cox?”

“Both fine.”

Miles handed Zeus a Black Raven comm system. Zeus slipped the mic in his ear, fastened the watch on his wrist, and said, “Sebastian? Ragno?”

“Damn glad to hear your voice,” Sebastian came through loud, clear, and relieved. “How the hell are you?”

“Whatever drug they gave me is finally wearing off. I’m happy to report my head is still firmly attached.”

“Jesus, Zeus. If you ever put us through a night like this again…” Ragno sniffed. “Awww. Dammit. Now I’m crying. And I never cry.”