Return of the Assassin (Assassin Series 3) (4 page)

She tried to sit up, but her skull was splitting and protested the effort.

She was on a bed. That much was clear from the soft spring of the mattress beneath her back.

Her mind raced back over her last memories – the club, drinking, walking down the hall to the bathroom…and then, nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was a blank.

Now she was in a strange bed – fully clothed, at least – somewhere hot and humid, the feel of the air completely different than Mexico City’s lean, high-altitude atmosphere. This air was heavy, humid, and smelled of vegetation, of…jungle?

Where was she? What had happened?

She rolled over onto her right side and felt a stab of pain – an ache in her outstretched arm. She opened both eyes and saw the distinctive marks of several needle sticks on the vein. So, she’d been drugged.

A wave of anxiety washed over her. What the hell was going on?

It had to be a kidnapping.

Which was impossible, given her security precautions.

But the reality of her predicament trumped that assurance. She was somewhere unfamiliar, with God knows what injected into her system, and her bodyguard detachment was nowhere to be found. The only explanation that made sense was a kidnapping.

Which meant that right now she needed to focus because the only thing she had as an advantage, if there was any, was that she was awake and her captors didn’t know it.

She forced her muscles into action and slowly, painfully, moved her legs. Her body felt new to her, unfamiliar, as though she was learning the operations of an unfamiliar piece of heavy equipment.

Probably a byproduct of the drugs
.

The heavy door rattled as the deadbolt clattered, and she hurriedly rolled back into her original position, closing her eyes and struggling to control her heart rate and breathing. The door swung open on creaking hinges, and three men entered – two muscular goons and a small older man with a bad comb-over and a meticulously manicured Van Dyke beard. The goons remained at the entrance as the little man approached the bed with a black leather satchel. He set it on the night table next to the bed and pulled up a chair, then opened it and extracted a stethoscope.

The cold of the metal touching her breast jolted Maria, and her eyes involuntarily opened.

“There, there, my dear. Relax. I’m not here to hurt you. My name is Dr. Urabi. I’m just checking to ensure that you’ve suffered no ill effects from your ordeal. How do you feel?” he asked in a soothing, calm voice.

“I…I hurt all over, and I feel like the air is thick, like mud. My muscles feel watery, and my head’s splitting,” she replied honestly.

“Yes, that’s an expected byproduct of the knockout drug. The headache may also be withdrawals.”

“Withdrawals?”

“Yes. Here, let me give you something that will make most of the unpleasant effects disappear. Don’t worry. I’m a physician. I’m trained to give shots,” he said, with a small conspiratorial smile.

“I would rather not have anything else put into me, if that’s okay with you,” she protested feebly.

“I’m afraid that while that’s very noble, it won’t be best for your condition. The unpleasant symptoms will get far worse before they get better – sweats, vomiting, convulsions…no, I think if you knew, you’d be thanking me.”

“Just give her the fucking shot and let’s get this over with,” one of the men at the door growled.

Maria’s eyes swiveled to him in alarm.

“Your objections are noted, but there’s not a lot of choice in the matter, as you can see. Don’t worry, it will only sting for a second and then you’ll feel relief,” Urabi assured her.

He extracted a small syringe from his leather satchel and readied her arm with an alcohol swab; the distinctive smell caused her nostrils to twitch as he wrapped a rubber tube around her bicep. Three veins popped up, and after waiting a few seconds as he chose the one that would be easiest, he pulled the orange plastic cap off the syringe and showed her the needle.

“See? It’s a little tiny thing. Won’t hurt hardly at all and will be over in a second. You have good veins. One of the wonderful things about being young. The body is resilient and functioning at peak,” he chatted.

She closed her eyes and looked away as he slid the needle into her vein and slowly depressed the plunger.

“There. Nothing to it. You should feel better in a few minutes,” he said, pulling the tubing from her arm and replacing it in the bag, along with the syringe.

Relief flooded through her body almost immediately, and the pain receded, replaced by a sense of relaxed euphoria. Her head had stopped throbbing, but she also felt sleepy and dreamlike.

“We’ll let you rest for half an hour, then be back. If you feel nauseated, there’s a bathroom through that door.” Urabi pointed to the only other door in the room. “Try to rest.” He turned to face the two guards. “Leave the air conditioning on. There’s no need to cook her,” he said, then punched the remote that activated the room’s unit. Cool air began blowing from the grids, rendering the space bearable.

His words seemed to swirl around her like clouds, coming from a great distance, distorted. She opened her eyes and regarded him with foggy vision.

“That’s amazing. Like magic. What did you give me?” she murmured.

“It’s an opiate. Very useful in controlling pain, as well as in assuring cooperation. Nothing to worry about…”

“Opiate?” she repeated dreamily.

“Heroin, my dear. Now relax. Everything will be just fine,” Urabi assured her, patting her hand before gathering his things and leaving, tailed by the two thick-set guards. The distinctive sound of the lock being engaged rattled through the room, leaving the muted hum of the air conditioning as Maria’s only accompaniment to the dawning horror of the diminutive doctor’s whispered words.

~

Time drifted languorously, like a gentle breeze playing over the soft ripples of a placid lake. Warm water surrounded her as she floated, disembodied, pulled slowly towards a temple at the far shore, the vaguely Asian lines reassuring for reasons she couldn’t have explained, and yet which were instantly so.

A figure sat at the top of a long procession of symmetrical stairs, swathed in gold robes, radiating peace and tranquility through a cloud of cherry blossoms, which fell in slow motion from the surrounding trees, creating a pink haze of perfumed perfection blown by a light wind that carried with it the plaintive melody of a lute’s lullaby.

This was Godhead, the place from which all sprang, a center of perfection and infinite wisdom where the universe had prepared for her a home of endless acceptance and belonging. She seemed to hover now, her feet skimming the surface of the lake, riding on the backs of two joyous porpoises whose laughter tinkled in her ears like chimes.

The tableau abruptly changed, and the snow-capped peaks above the temple underwent a seismic shift, disgorging chunks of ice and boulders in a relentless avalanche of tumbling debris. The music that had been so appealing turned sour and ugly and dissonant, like the shriek of a tortured animal being dragged to slaughter. Maria watched in silent alarm as the rain of destruction moved in a rush, pulled by gravity towards the peaceful sanctuary at the water’s edge. Black storm clouds swept across the sky, and as she tried to scream a futile warning, lightning flashed and the broiling roar of thunder drowned out her tiny cry.

“Wake up. Come on. Time to hit it.”

Rough hands shook her shoulders.

Her eyelids fluttered open, and she saw the sweaty, meaty neck of one of the goons two feet above her.

This was all a mistake. She closed her eyes, anxious to go back into the world she’d been so thoughtlessly pulled from.

“No. Don’t go back to sleep. It’s time to get up. Move your skinny ass, or I’ll move it for you.”

Maria forced her eyes open again, dilated pupils unfocused, and struggled to make sense of the rainbow of images that cascaded through her visual cortex. This was an impossible intrusion. Why was she being molested like this?

A calloused hand slapped her cheek, bringing her fully into the moment with its explosive crack.

“Ow. What the fu–”

“Such language from a delicate young flower. Very unbecoming. Now, get up, or I’ll drag you by the hair to the door, and you’ll not soon forget that experience. Up. Now.”

As if in a dream, she moved first her head, then her arms, then willed her legs to awareness. Slowly, excruciatingly, she sat up, fumbling for her bearings, a vague memory of her predicament intruding through the narcotic haze.

“All right. I’m up. Can I go to the bathroom, or do you want me to vomit all over you?” Her voice seemed to hang above her, otherworldly, someone else’s, the timbre and words unfamiliar, yet her own.

“You have one minute, and then I come in after you, and no more bullshit. Go do what you have to do. I’ll be waiting right here. Make it snappy,” the man growled.

She swiveled her eyes and saw his partner leering at her from the doorway. No more kindly doctor feelgood to take her away from all the ugliness.

“Fine. Get off me,” she hissed, fully in the moment now.

“Yes, your highness. I’ll remember your insulting tone when I’m making you squeal like a pig.” The man’s allusion was unmistakable, and even through the blur of jumbled sensations she registered menace.

He let go of her and moved back to his partner, and she tried to shake away the cobwebs that made everything surrealistic. She moved her legs, swinging them to the edge of the bed, then stood uneasily. At least she could walk.

Maria made her way to the bathroom and took care of her necessities, noting the puffiness around her eyes and the beginning of discoloration on one cheek – a bruise on the opposite side of her face from the red of the slap. She had no recollection of what had hit her, which was probably just as well. She found a brush in one of the drawers and teased the knots out of her hair.

Pounding on the door disrupted her. “Come on. We don’t have all day.”

“I’ll be out in a second,” she protested before hurriedly using the toilet, registering with dismay that the window in the bathroom was too small to crawl through.

Finished, she exited and approached the two thugs. The one who had manhandled her on the bed grabbed her arm and pushed her roughly out the door and along the wide hallway.

When they reached a large living room, the men steered her to a dining-room table, where an older man with slicked-back silver hair sat sipping coffee. He motioned for her to take a seat across from him and took an appreciative pull on the steaming brew.

“Would you like some coffee? Eggs? You haven’t eaten for a few days,” he offered, eyeing her over the rim of the china cup.

She realized she was famished, but didn’t want to show it. She shook her head.

“No. I’m fine.”

The man ignored her and snapped his fingers. A portly woman trundled from the kitchen at the far end of the room and approached. In clipped Spanish, he ordered scrambled eggs, toast, and potatoes. The woman nodded and repeated the order back before returning to the kitchen.

“You need to eat. Can’t have you wasting away to nothing while my guest,” the man said.

“Guest? Is that what you call this? I’ve been kidnapped, shot up with heroin, your men are threatening me with a beating or worse, and I’m your guest?” she spat.

The man glared at the two muscular sentries, who shrugged innocently, though with looks of alarm clear on their faces.

“I apologize if my men were overly enthusiastic. That won’t happen again. You have nothing to fear from me. As to the heroin, it’s regrettable, but I need a mechanism to keep you out of mischief, like trying to escape, and the drug is remarkable for its blunting of ambitions. I can assure you that it’s temporary, and that once this is all over, you’ll be able to leave it behind. We’re only giving you small doses…”

“Small doses. I see. And who are you? Why have you kidnapped me?”

“My identity is unimportant. Suffice it to say that I’m a kind of God here, and you exist at my pleasure. As to why you are my guest,” he took another sip of coffee, “it’s because of your father. Regrettably, he’s not a man of his word, and an arrangement we had has fallen apart, entirely due to his bad faith. I need leverage to remind him that he needs to be a man of honor and abide by his commitments. You are that leverage.”

“Are you insane? You’re going to have the entire Mexican government tearing the country apart to find me. Do you really believe you can get away with this?” she demanded.

“No, my dear, not insane at all. And I have no doubt you’re correct. I fully expect that Mexico will leave no stone unturned in its hunt for you. Even now, I’m receiving reports of major operations being planned. But let me worry about that. All you need to do is behave, watch television, work on your beauty rest, and pray that your father doesn’t fuck me any more. Because if he does, I’ll need to start sending pieces of you to him, to underscore my seriousness. It would be a shame to have a lovely a girl such as yourself butchered to teach him a lesson, so let’s hope he is sensible. It is now up to God, and your father…”

She listened to his matter-of-fact tone with growing fear. “You’re a monster,” she blurted.

He shook his head and blotted his lips with a cloth napkin. “No, not so. I’m a businessman who trusted your father’s word. It is he who has brought this tragedy upon his house – upon you. I’m merely doing what I must to get his attention and ensure that he is guided back onto the right road. If he’s reasonable, you’ll stay here for a while, have a nice vacation, and go back no worse for wear beyond a small addiction problem your father’s expensive rehab clinics can straighten out. If not, well…I prefer not to dwell on that unpleasant possibility…”

The woman arrived with Maria’s breakfast, placing the elaborately-colored oversize ceramic plate before her, a spoon on the napkin at its side. Maria gagged at the thought of eating after her captor’s revelation.

Sensing her discomfort, he drank the last of his coffee and pushed back from the table, standing and nodding at his men.