Gone at Zero Hundred 00:00 (22 page)

“Let’s hope all the bad guys
decide to make an appearance, and they can round them all up at the same time.
Turn on your mic, and let’s do a quick check. I need to make sure I can hear
you if we get separated.”

I tapped a microphone that was
attached to the inside material of the halter, next to a nail file secured to a
metallic clamp. “Checking, 1, 2, 3… Cody Beck is a…”

He tapped the tiny earpiece in
his ear. “…Gorgeous specimen…?”

I shook my head. For as long as
I’ve known Cody, which was since elementary school, he has always been sure of
himself.

He said, “Can you hear me,
okay?”

“Unfortunately, loud and
clear...”

He smiled. “Then, let’s rock and
roll.”

We stepped through the door and
into the ballroom, where the party was in full swing. The first thing we
noticed was; we were underdressed. The guests in attendance took the whole
Mardi Gras thing way too seriously. There were jokers, jesters, phantoms and
vampires. Some were dressed in funny costumes. Others chose serious - like
Mother Theresa and the Pope. A group of girls were dressed as belly dancers.
Turquoise, maroon and gold lights flickered in a magnificent light show.

A DJ stood on a platform in the
center of the room, surrounded by mixers, amps and speakers as he played a list
of tunes to keep the crowd on their feet. Ghosts flew around the room, high
above the partiers. Actually, they were people dressed as ghosts, with their
hands on the button of a remote to the contraption on their backs, which were
probably portable jet-packs.

I noticed some late arrivals
signing a guest book, so I walked over and glanced at the list; then attempted
to return to Cody’s side. Before I made it back, a guy dressed as a knight in
shining armor, approached me.

“I thought I knew everyone
invited to this shin dig,” he said, and he tried to corner me, “but, I haven’t
met you. Would you care to dance?”

Before I could respond, Cody
whisked me away. “She’s with me,” he said, and he ushered me out onto the dance
floor.

“Smooth,” I said.

He shrugged, trying to make
light of it. “I just don’t want you to get side-tracked,” he said, and he
smiled.

I got the impression he was
jealous, but brushed it aside. Why would he be interested in me? “Some of the
players are here, but not all,” I told him, as we moved to the tunes.

“Maybe they’re members and they
don’t have to sign the guest book,” Cody responded.

“Maybe we should separate and
try to mingle, and try to ask around in a discreet way. There are a lot of
people here, and a lot of ground to cover.” We couldn’t find the exact floor
plan for The Humidor, but the one we found was enough for us to get an idea of
the layout.

“I’d prefer to finish the dance,
but we did come here for a reason, so…” We left the dance floor, but he looked
a little disappointed.

“Don’t forget,” I said. “Be
discreet.”

“I am the king of evasiveness,”
Cody said. As we started to separate, he grabbed my forearm. “Syd, stay safe…”

IT DIDN’T take long before Cody was
surrounded by the group of belly dancers, and starting to look like he was
beginning to enjoy himself. I should have known - once a flirt, always a flirt.
I also caught him using his cell phone, and filming a few scenes. I shook my
head as I moved through the crowd. I observed the costumes and mannerisms of
guests, looking for familiar gestures to help identify the players that I
already knew. A thought occurred to me. If the victims were chained somewhere,
wouldn’t they lock them up somewhere out of the public eye, maybe the lower
deck?

I made my way into the bar area
where a large group was gathered. Drinks and appetizers were being served by
wait staff dressed as vampires. I wandered around the room, surveying the
costumes in the dimly, lit atmosphere and that’s where I saw the devil,
himself.

He wore black pants and a
long-sleeved, collared shirt from Armani, with a red vest and a long, red silk
cape. His face was painted black, and he wore a pair of red horns. What struck
me the most was; the eyes that studied the room were glowing bright red, and
the black of his pupils were dilated. He gave me the creeps.

The devil leaned over, and
whispered into the ear of a voodoo man, who was without a doubt, Diego.
Underneath Diego’s black trench coat, he had on a pair of black pants and a
shirt with a skeleton design that was fitted to his body like spandex. White
face-paint covered his face, making his dark eyes look like shiny, glass
marbles. His lips were blood red and the black velvet mask matched his hair.

A moment later, the devil and
the voodoo man followed a dark-haired devil temptress through the crowd, and
toward an exit. I didn’t get a chance to see the face of the temptress before
they disappeared behind the door. But, I was pretty sure I knew who she was.
The door they walked through led to the lower deck.

I wanted to follow them. Maybe
they would lead me to the victims, but Diego’s bodyguards remained in the bar
so they could watch the door. They were dressed as gangsters - not very
imaginative. They were busy piling their plates with food. How was I going to
get past the two knuckleheads?

I ventured back to where Cody
was mingling. Maybe he could come up with some big idea.

Great, he was locked in a
conversation with some girl who was dressed like Madonna. More like she was
fawning all over him. It looked like she was passing him her phone number on a
little white notepad.

“Hey, Romeo,” I whispered into
the mic. “We’re supposed to be working here!”

Cody swiveled around and saw me
staring at him. He gave me a wicked grin. “Why Syd, do I detect a note of
jealousy in your voice?”

“Not on your life,” I responded
back to him in a defensive manner. Wasn’t Madonna old enough to be his mother?
I thought to myself.

Cody laughed.

Madonna’s head bounced back and
forth, looking for the person who was interrupting her fun.

“Besides, you forget, I know
you. You’ll bring on the charm to get her to warm up to you, and then you’ll
drop her like a hot potato, wounding her poor little heart, that is if she has
one…”

Madonna couldn’t hear me, but
she got an attitude anyway. She put her hand on her hip, and glared at Cody.

“Then some poor sap will have to
come in and mend her hurt feelings,” I went onto say “and she winds up just
another trophy, along with so many others, on the desk of Cody Beck.”

Cody chuckled. “Sure sounds like
jealousy to me, Syd.”

Madonna frowned. She snatched
the note with the digits out of his hand and stomped away, annoyed that she
wasn’t the center of his universe. She found another target a few feet away,
and within a minute, she was passing out her digits, once again.

Cody shrugged. He couldn’t care
less. “Looks like Madonna had to call it a night. I’m all yours.”

“Then, let’s get to work. I need
one of your creative diversions in the bar area. I want to go down to the lower
deck and look around.”

“You shouldn’t go alone,” he
responded.

“I’m just going to look around,”
I said. “Diego’s two goons are in my way, just keep them occupied. They’re
dressed as gangsters, not hard to miss.”

“Sounds right up my alley,” he
said. “Count me in.” He ran his hands through his hair; then sauntered past the
roving eyes of several young women. At the entrance to the bar, he looked
around until he spotted the goons. He analyzed them and sized up their
intellect; then marched over to them wearing a huge smile on his face.

“Holy cow … you two dudes are
those actors from that popular Irish mob series, aren’t ya. What was the name
of it…?”

The two goons paused from
eating, and focused their attention on Cody. Both of them had puzzled looks on
their faces.

“…
Brotherhood
. No, wait a
minute. That wasn’t it. That was a mischaracterization of the Bulger Brothers.
It was
The Black Donnelly’s
. Yeah, that was it. You’re them, aren’t ya?”

I took that opportunity to slip
behind them, and open the door. I could still hear Cody yankin’ their chains
when I slipped on the other side.

“Man, let me shake your hands.”
He approached both of them and pumped their hands before they knew what was
going on. “
Brotherhood
will def go down as one of Showtime’s all time
greats even if they didn’t get a big following. And
Boondock Saints
, you
can never beat that flick. The
Black Donnelly’s
, that show got
railroaded. So what’re you working on now? Another series, movie, what…”

The goons exchanged glances. “Do
we look Irish to you?” One of them asked, speaking with a thick Hispanic
accent.

“Whoa, with that dialect, you’re
definitely not Irish. Then maybe I saw you on a series of the
Soprano’s
?
You can never beat a good mob series. Best stuff on TV in my book.”

“Hey, idiot, we’re not actors,”
the other goon said.

Cody shrugged. “Get out. Ah,
well, sorry man. Honest mistake. You get actors here in Sutter Beach all the
time. You louts all look alike, anyway.” He walked off in the other direction.
He whispered into the mic. “You can thank me, later. While you’re wandering the
corridor, I’ll be asking around.” He raised the cell phone, and hit record.

STANDING IN the lower corridor,
I paused and listened to gage where the voices of Diego, the Devil and the
dark-haired temptress, were coming from. It was relatively quiet, except for
the hum of the engine and the muffled voices that I discovered were coming from
a private stateroom. I tip-toed over, and put my ear up to listen. There were
five different voices. They were discussing plans for their new resort in
Mexico, but I could only hear intermittent sentences.

I had to find the victims before
it was too late.

I walked further down the
corridor. It seemed to go on forever, but it occurred to me, this had to be
where they were hiding them. The corridor was cold, dark and uninviting. They
wouldn’t expect party-goers to venture down that way. The engine room took up
most of the space, but there were two other doors.

“Cody,” I whispered into the
mic. I spoke as softly as I could so nobody would hear me; then gave him a
minute to respond. When he didn’t, I debated what to do. I didn’t want to take
the chance of yelling louder into the mic. I couldn’t take the chance. Should I
retreat and go get him? Could we get past the goons, again, if I did? In an
instant, I made a decision. I had to check. I needed to find them, and I wasn’t
going to let Diego and his goons keep me from doing it.

Crazy, I know.

I approached the first private
door I came to, turned the knob, and opened the door. No dice. It looked like
the private quarters for an employee of the ship, maybe the engineer. I started
to close the door, when I noticed a board covered with maps and drawings. I
walked toward it. One of the drawings was a blueprint and layout of a resort
being built with a hotel, bar and casino. Puerta Del Diablo was the name at the
top of the page. It had to be where they planned on taking them, but where in
Mexico? I backed out of the room and closed the door; then headed toward the
last door. No dice there either. It was a storage closet.

Where were they?

I looked up and down the
corridor. The only other door I could see was the entrance to the engine room.
I walked over to the door, and opened it. They wouldn’t be crazy enough to keep
them in there, would they? It was a humongous monstrosity of steel, pipes and
instruments. The electrical generators and distillers for drinking water were
also in the room. I walked through the labyrinth of service equipment. I was
afraid I was just wasting precious time. There wasn’t anybody there, or so I
thought.

I followed a set of greasy
stairs that led to a space near the stern, and that’s where I found them - the
victims from the photographs, only there were several others, as well. I froze.
Horrified by what I saw. They were sitting on cold steel with their heads lying
against the walls, either sleeping, or drugged. Their hands and feet were tied
with ropes, and duct tape was used to cover their mouths to keep them quiet.

My hands were shaking. My heart
was pounding. I was immediately filled with rage. My mom was right. There were
some evil people in the world. How could anyone do something like this?

Tears were streaming down my
face. While I stood there, trying to get over the shock of seeing them, one of
the girls opened her eyes. When she saw me, she started to tremble. She thought
I was one of the bad guys.

“Oh no,” I said. “It’s okay. I’m
not going to hurt you. I’m here to help you.” The girl looked my age. She
looked weak and thin, but appeared to be in reasonably good health. She was
innocent looking, which was probably why she was taken.

“I’m going to pull off the
tape,” I said, as I motioned toward her mouth. “Is that okay?”

She slowly nodded her head.

As gently as I could, I pulled
the duct tape off, but I knew it had to hurt when she squealed.

I whispered, “What’s your name?”

When she spoke, her voice was so
soft I had to bend over to hear. “A - Amber.”

“Are you physically hurt?”

She shook her head no. Thank
God.

“What about the others. There
had to be about twenty-five victims, young men and women, some teenagers.

“They were given a sleeping
pill. I spit mine out.”

She was smart. “Where are you
from?”

“Sweetwater, Tennessee.”

I hated to put her through this,
but I wanted to know how they ended up here. “Who brought you here, Amber?”