The Payback Assignment (7 page)

They continued rolling, on into the night.
 
In the darkness she knew there was very little chance she could remember the route.
 
With few useful alternatives available, no information on which to build a plan and apparently no immediate danger, she did the only thing that seemed useful and reasonable.
 
She closed her eyes, settled her breathing and went to sleep.

           
She awoke when the Trooper pulled to a stop.
 
She knew instinctively that four hours had passed.
 
Pudgy and the Mexican each took a rest stop behind a tree.
 
Pudgy returned to the car, but his partner stood beside the vehicle when he returned.

           
“Would you like to go into the woods to relieve yourself?”
 
Paul asked her.

           
“I’d go just for a moment of privacy, I would.”

           
“Sorry,” Paul said.
 
“I will have to watch you, of course.”

           
“In that case, never mind.”

           
Four hours later, soon after daybreak, they stopped again.
 
The Mexican took down one of the three ten-gallon gasoline cans on the rear of the Trooper and emptied it into the gas tank.
 
Paul repeated his offer to her and this time, she grudgingly accepted.
 
She took fifteen long paces away from the narrow lane and found a spot between two healthy trees.
 
Flashing defiance, she stared into Paul’s eyes while she hiked up her dress, slid off her panties and lowered herself.
 
It was not the first time Felicity ever squatted in tall grass, but she viewed Paul’s presence as an invasion.
 
He kept the gun trained on her, but handed her a roll of paper when she was in position.
 
And when he heard the sound watering the ground he turned his eyes away.
 
It was a small gesture but somehow it had value to her.
 

When they returned to the vehicle, Pudgy stood at the back opening a cooler on the tailgate.
 
He distributed breakfast sandwiches and bottles of water.
 
Back in the SUV, the kidnappers returned to their original seating plan.
 

           
This routine continued throughout the day and into the next evening with little to occupy Felicity’s mind except to count the minutes and try to guess where they were going.
 
She slept a lot, but her body would only accept so much of that.
 
So she sat, twenty-five hours and forty minutes after her abduction by Felicity’s flawless reckoning, trying to catch a glimpse of the world outside the vehicle.
 
It was deep in the night again, a dense field of stars and a sliver of a moon lighting the sky.
 
It was the Mexican’s turn to share the back seat with her.
 
Leering, he reached out to stroke her arm with a sweaty hand.

           
“We could have some fun with this one,” he said, grinning through crooked yellow teeth.
 
His accent was a chilling cartoon caricature.

           
“You wouldn’t enjoy it,” she said evenly, continuing to stare straight ahead.
 
“I’d just lay there still.
 
Be like having a dead body, it would.
 
And just before you finished, I’d reach underneath, sink my nails in deep and rip your balls out.”
 
She smiled pleasantly.

           
“Bitch!”
 
His sweaty palm arced over, slapping hard across her face.
 
Paul signaled with his gun for the Mexican to back off.
 
She turned back toward him in slow motion, looking up from beneath a rumpled mass of red hair.
 
Her emerald eyes glowed out from the shadows.
 
Her voice was polar ice.

           
“What’s your name?”

           
“Paco,” the Mexican said, grinning.
 
Then he saw her frozen smile.

           
“Paco,” she cooed, “You’re a dead man.”

           
At that point Paul signaled to the pudgy driver.
 
The four by four vehicle pulled over into the trees.
 
Vegetation blocked the left side door, next to Paco.
 
Felicity’s only looked that way because the tropical grass grew so high.

           
“I believe this is your stop, Miss O’Brian,” Paul said, pointing for emphasis with his gun.
 
“Take some advice.
 
If you’re smart, you’ll accept this loss maturely and move on to other projects.”
   

           
She stepped out of the vehicle with her head high, her jaw jutting forward.
 
She slammed the door hard, and the sound echoed through the emptiness.
 
As the Isuzu pulled away, the night noises closed in on her.
 
Darkness held no terror for her, and she recognized the sounds of crickets and frogs from her youth.
 
But without knowing what other wildlife might be around, traveling at night would be stupid.
 
Knowing only a couple of hours separated her from daylight, she found a thick, squat tree and climbed into its branches.
 
There she curled up as best she could to wait for dawn.

           
“We will meet, mister mystery man,” she muttered to herself, “And you’re going to regret double-crossing this girl.”

-9-

           
The baked sand of the narrow road burned into the soles of Felicity’s feet.
 
It was a pain she accepted.
 
She could not have walked another step in those damned high heels.

           
She had shivered through the night but fear had kept her awake.
 
When dawn finally came she had started walking.
 
Within an hour she was barefoot.
 
That was no big deal.
 
She spent most of her youth that way anyway.
 
An hour or so later she discarded her hosiery.
 
Soon after she tore off her gown to just above her knees.
 
Thai silk gowns, she soon discovered, do not rip easily.
 
Just getting a hole started cost her another fingernail.
 
It hurt, but the gown was too restrictive for walking.
 
She needed the mobility.

           
She ached everywhere.
 
Hunger gnawed at her belly.
 
Not the first time in her life for that, either.
 
She was very thirsty too, but she ignored it.
 
Hatred, gleaming in her eyes, was all that sustained her.

She had no idea if she was even pushing on in the right direction.
 
She saw no landmarks, and the scenery was totally monotonous.
 
She felt as if she was walking on a monstrous treadmill, a lone, lost hamster spinning her wheel, expecting somehow to make progress.
 
Yet she continued.

           
She made it ten twenty-six a.m. when she first heard the new sound.
 
An engine, she thought, and it seemed to be getting louder.
 
A vehicle, heading her way!
 
For a brief moment, she reflexively tried to straighten her dress and touch up her hair, before realizing what a hopeless effort that would be.
 
Her chance for rescue would most likely turn out to be a simple local farm boy approaching in an old pickup truck.
 
He would probably beat her, rape her, and dump her in the next jungle.

           
Then again, maybe that was not the worst possibility.
 
As the vehicle approached she identified it as an aging, green army jeep.
 
A big black man in camouflage fatigues was driving.
 
He stared stonily ahead, keeping the vehicle centered on the bumpy road.
 

           
At the last possible instant, she nimbly leaped to the side.
 
The silent driver locked up the brakes.
 
The jeep ground to a halt directly in front of the girl.
 
The driver’s head never turned.

           
“Get in,” he growled in a hoarse voice.
 
It took Felicity only a second to weigh her options and decide that any company was better than being alone in the jungle.
 
With a shrug she put one hand on the dashboard and the other on the back of the seat to lift herself up.
 
But with one foot in the jeep, she froze.
 
Her eyes were riveted on the small submachine gun lying on the passenger seat.
 
That sight prompted her to look up and reevaluate the driver.
 
He carried the foul stench of river water and was covered with a talc-like layer of road dust.
 

           
“Well, you’re no prize either,” the driver snapped, seeming to read her mind.
 
“Come on!
 
It’s either me or the coral snakes and rattlers.”

           
Her eyes bulged.
 
Snakes?
 
She had not thought about snakes.
 
Gingerly she picked up the gun, which turned out to be heavier than she expected it to be.
 
She placed it on the jeep’s back seat with both hands, then climbed into the passenger seat.
 
Her behind had barely touched the seat when the driver slammed the gas pedal to the floor.
 
The jeep bolted forward like a spurred stallion, slamming Felicity back into the hard seat.

           
Before she could speak, he tossed a question into the silence.

           
“Name?”

           
“Felicity,” she responded, starting to blush a bit.
 
“Felicity O’Brian.
 
Listen, glory, I wanted to thank you, and I didn’t even think to ask your name.”

           
“Morgan Stark,” he said, smiling slightly.
 
“And you certainly can thank me.
 
I drove a few miles out of my way to pick you up.”

           
Felicity wasn’t sure how that could be, but she decided to let his remark lie.
 
The silence lasted for a good two minutes.
 
Finally she had to ask.
 

           
“Okay.
 
I give up.
 
How could you know I was out there?”
 
She found herself smiling broadly when he finally turned to look at her.

           
“I don’t know, lady.
 
Really.
 
I just felt this pull, you know?
 
Somebody over this way, in trouble.
 
Alone.
 
Maybe lost.
 
But not scared.”

           
“I see.”
 
She was about to elaborate when a sharp curve almost threw her out of the jeep.
 
“Are you in a particular hurry, Mister Stark?”

           
“Well, actually, there is a small chance that most of the local army is on my trail.
 
I think I lost them, but I don’t like to push my luck.”

           
“The army?”
 
She was grinning uncontrollably now.
 
“I seem to have hooked up with quite a character.
 
Just exactly what did you do?”
           
“Well, let’s just say I got caught on the wrong side of a little local political conflict.”

           
“Oh.”
 
Felicity’s mind was alight with a dozen romantic notions concerning “mercs.”
 
Was he a hardened killer?
 
A professional soldier?
 
A bored adventurer?
 
Perhaps all of these.
 
In any case, she was instantly fascinated.