Witch Lights (3 page)

The song ended. He screamed as loud as he could. The smoke thickened. Would he burn up, cooked like a piece of rotisserie meat? After all they'd gone through, to end up charred beyond recognition on a fucking carnival ride?

And then the ride shuddered and jerked. It moved a few inches, then a foot. Everyone else on the ride was screaming now, too, with one woman louder than the rest crying out to God:
Dios mío. Dios, por favor ayúdame!
But the smoke seemed to be clearing. A metal shearing sound drowned out the voices, and then his car lowered another foot. So close now. And still he didn't see Ellen or William anywhere.

A man's hands appeared on the outside, grasping at the metal slats. Then a face. The carny. He was standing on the car below, both of them rocking in tandem. He told Ray to hang on in Spanish and yanked the bolt open. Ray pushed open the cover and the man yelled
No!
but Ray was not going to be stopped. He grabbed the edge of the compartment and jumped out, knocking the carny loose as the cage swung backward.

Ray's legs hit the cage in front of him, which instantly rocked forward, throwing him backward into the air. He landed on his back, and his head thudded into the hard-packed dirt. His vision turned white, and he gasped for breath. The carny lay next to him, cursing and coughing. As his vision returned Ray staggered to his feet, wheezing, and looked around. Cora and Rosa hugged each other, crying. No sign of Ellen and William. Or the soldier. But everyone was staring at him, a sea of wide-eyed faces. The monkey man who had escaped from his cage.

Ray ran up to the two sisters.
“Dónde están William y Ellen?”
He was using their real names but the two understood his meaning. Cora choked out words between sobs.
The soldiers,
she said in Spanish.
The soldiers took them away.
Her older sister averted her eyes. Did she know something? Cora pointed to the center of the carnival, a mass of people now moving toward them to gawk at the smoking, crippled Ferris wheel. A teenage girl in a pink dress with a giant bow on her waist held up her phone. Its camera flashed.

The ride's operator started yelling at Ray, but he wasn't paying any attention. He was scanning the crowd. Nothing. No sign of them. He shoved the carny aside and ran into the sea of people, screaming for Ellen and William, cursing himself as he scrambled past the gaping women, men, and children all staring at the crazy rampaging
gringo
in their midst.
Do not separate yourself from your family unnecessarily. Do not allow yourself to be caught in a situation where you cannot run away if needed. Always look for an escape route.

He screamed until he was hoarse, until he saw a group of camouflage-wearing soldiers moving in from the edge of the crowd. Then he ran, choking and gasping, away from the colored lights and into the dense, dark jungle.

Ray hated nothing worse than the thick, unforgiving woodlands in Central America. It took forever to get to the main road back to town, a long, painful walk without a machete that left him cut and scratched all over. It was so much worse than the woods of Blackwater, which had been bad enough but seemed like a manicured country garden in comparison to this place full of grasping vines, poisonous snakes, and biting insects. He followed the road, staying hidden as far as he dared in the jungle. He stifled a scream and flailed his arms wildly when he walked through an enormous spiderweb that seemed to be made of strands as thick as twine. When he finally got the sticky mess off, and convinced himself a giant spider wasn't crawling along his back and ready to sink its poisonous fangs into the nape of his neck, he closed his eyes and forced his breathing to slow down. A trick Mantu had shown him—four counts as he inhaled, seven counts as he held the air in, and eight beats as he exhaled. Eventually he stopped shaking and moved onward.

He stopped and tried calling Ellen for the hundredth time on his cheap Brotherhood-issued prepaid cellphone. Nothing again, just the generic Spanish voice mail. He knew her phone was probably smashed to bits or in the pocket of whoever had kidnapped them, but he couldn't resist another try. His battery was almost dead, so he'd have no choice soon.

The lights of the gas station
tienda
helped him orient himself, and he plodded on, hands waving wildly, slashing at the vegetation, feet kicking and scrabbling in the brush. Every time he thought he'd found a clearing he'd stumble headfirst into another clump of foliage.

Finally he saw their tiny house. He peered through a break in the brush. Two men stood outside, illuminated by light from the open windows but hidden from the road behind the back wall. They weren't cops or soldiers, but they were carrying the ubiquitous semiautomatic rifles (or maybe they were fully automatic—he hoped he didn't have to find out) with the maxed-out clips. A skinny mutt walked up to one of the men—the dog William had named Paco the Taco—and the man kicked it away, cursing in Spanish. The dog yelped, turned in apparent confusion to look back, then bolted. Both men were hyperalert, smoking cigarettes and scanning the tree line and the road. A huge white pickup sat parked near the front door, its tailgate open. It seemed everyone else living on the dusty, rutted main road was still at the carnival. Or maybe they were hiding from these heavily armed goons like he was.

One of the men took something out of his pocket and Ray ducked just in time. A flashlight beam burned through the leaves above him.

He held his breath.

The light shone directly on him for what seemed an eternity before flicking away.

He exhaled. That was way too close. He lifted his head an inch to peer through the leaves.

Another man walked out the back door. Wearing a cowboy hat. “How long do we have to stay here?” he asked. Ray understood their Spanish clearly.

“Just until we get everything packed up,” said the man with the flashlight.

Cowboy Hat took a deep drag off his cigarette and tossed it in the dirt. “Who is this
gringa
? She's blond,
sí
? Must have a nice ass for her to be worth all this. She have a big, sweet ass? Nice juicy tits?”

The man with the flashlight laughed, but his tone turned icy. “You'll see her when we get back. But you watch your stupid mouth. If he wants her for his girlfriend and you talk like that he'll cut your balls off,
amigo.
He's probably going to fuck her as soon as she gets off the plane. Finish loading everything into the truck before I get this faggot here to fuck you in your ass.”

So Ellen and William were already gone. Who were they talking about—this
him
who might want Ellen as his girlfriend and had taken them both away in an airplane?

The men were removing all of Ray and Ellen's stuff from the house. He'd been careful to hide his facial prostheses and makeup in the false-bottomed bleach bottle, per the Brotherhood protocol. At least he'd done
one
smart thing today before everything else went straight to hell. There was nothing else—at least nothing that he knew of—that would give away his identity. Unless this crew had some way of testing DNA samples, which didn't seem likely.

He waited, hoping to overhear more of their conversation, but two of the men loaded the truck while the man with the flashlight sat on a pile of cinder blocks and chain-smoked. It didn't make any sense to stay here. He wasn't safe anywhere near the town, or on the roads, and the idea of hiding for days in the bug-and snake-infested jungle made him want to give up and die.

When a motorcycle roared by he crouched and then crept deeper into the woods. Every movement of the brush seemed amplified, even amid the earsplitting buzz of the insects. He waited. More vehicles were returning from the carnival, trucks full of loud kids. He moved only when the vehicles passed.

When he was as deep into the tangle of clutching vines and branches as he could endure, he stopped and sat on a log he prayed wasn't swarming with bullet ants. Their stings felt like bullets, Mantu had explained, but those who had actually been shot claimed bullet wounds were not nearly as painful—and the intense stinging pain lasted for a full twenty-four hours. After that Ray had been deathly afraid of anything remotely resembling an ant.

It was just him now, alone with the harsh, deafening racket from all the cursed insects and the moon overhead bright enough to cast a cool blue-white glow on tiny patches of the ground. How quickly everything had gone to hell.

It had come to this point. When all was lost, there was only one of Mantu's drills left.

He took off his watch. The glass was so scratched he could barely read the hands anymore, and the cheap pleather band had started to fray. He stuck his thumbnail into the metal seam on the underside of the watch. It took a few tries but finally it popped. The panel fell into the darkness. He could find it later. Right now he was going to press a button that he'd been instructed to use only in absolute life-or-death circumstances.

When everything else had failed.

He pressed a tiny red button. Counted to three. Pressed it again. Counted to three. Finally, a third time.

The watch beeped three times.

Message sent. GPS coordinates, time of day, a bread crumb trail of where he'd been for the past few days, along with an unequivocal message along the lines of
SOS. Need rescue now.

He sat, listening to the unsettling call-and-response of the jungle insects, wondering how soon Mantu and the extraction specialists would take to arrive.

And wondering where in God's name Ellen and William were being taken.

Steve hadn't expected Lily to be so welcoming. Or so attractive.

“Please. Sit down,” she said.

He sat on a black leather couch. The Crawford Trust occupied the top floor of a McLean, Virginia, office building, and Lily's office was bigger than the entire ground floor of his house in Blackwater. It didn't even look like much of an office to him, more like a fancy art gallery. Steve didn't know anything about art, but this stuff—statues on pedestals, and paintings in broad circles of light on the walls—reeked of big money. One of the statues, a vaguely feline hunk of black stone shaped like a buxom woman, unnerved him, though he didn't understand why.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Lily was dressed in a black skirt and jacket, both exceedingly tight. And her heels—Jesus. How could she even walk in those things?

“Just water, please.”

She smiled. Perfect teeth. “Still or sparkling?”

Steve cleared his throat. “Just regular, thank you.”

She went to grab some glasses. He watched her hips shifting beneath the skirt. He'd been intimidated by the Saudi bigwigs and American brass he'd met during his time in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he felt even stupider around women like her. Women with looks like Lily's held more power than all of the fat cats combined. One smile could bring all of them to their knees.

She returned with his water. He hoped she didn't notice the slight shake of his hand as he took a drink. It had taken months to get a return call, and the next few minutes could either bring him closer to his family or seal them away forever.

“Well, Steve,” she said. She sat in a wide chair opposite him and crossed her legs. The skirt rose almost to the middle of her thigh and he felt his mouth go drier. “I'm so glad you contacted me. May I ask what prompted you to get in touch? The whole Blackwater thing is something I try not to think about anymore.”

He had decided to be as truthful as possible. She'd sent a private car to his hotel, after all, so it was obvious she was interested in what he had to say. “I spoke to someone from Blackwater. He doesn't live there anymore. Used to be the librarian.”

Lily laughed softly. “Oh, yes. Denny Huffington. The librarian turned conspiracy theorist.” She rolled her eyes. “He's a sweet man, but I hope he didn't fill your head with any nonsense about me. He's a little bit unhinged.”

“Not really. But he told me that you knew Ray Simon before he disappeared. Personally. And that you might know something about my ex-wife and my son. Denny believes they might still be alive.”

Lily's eyes dimmed. “You know what the police and the FBI have said.”

“Yes.” And they were smug, condescending shits. They'd talked down to him like he was a dim-witted hick in spite of his glowing service record and all the jihadists he'd gotten to confess during his stints at the black sites in the Mideast and eastern Europe. He fantasized about pounding their arrogant civilian faces beneath his fists. The higher up the chain they went, the deeper their heads were buried in their own asses, and the more willing they were to send men like him to die for no good reason.

“But you don't buy it.” He could tell she didn't, either.

“No. I don't. I think they're still alive. I think maybe he still has them.”

Lily licked her lips. Pulled on a strand of her thick red hair. “Steve, Ray Simon was a very troubled man. A very sick, disturbed man. He murdered a dear friend of mine—a man who meant the world to me. He shot off his best friend's head. And that poor young girl. I don't know if you've seen the pictures—”

“I have.” He had a printed copy in his hotel room, in the bulging manila folder with all the rest of his research. Crystal, her young body disemboweled and mangled beyond recognition.

Lily shook her head. “I know it must be horrible for you. I can't even imagine—” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “And the fact that he
got away with it.
” Her eyes narrowed. “That he's still out there. Somewhere. Doing God knows what to other innocent people.”

Steve's stomach tightened. “They're still alive. Ellen. And William. I'm sure of it. I don't know
how
I'm so sure, but I know it. I feel it—that might sound stupid, but it's my ex-wife and son, and I know they're not dead.”

“I don't think that's stupid at all.”

“And I'm going to find them. I
will
find them. And Denny said you…that you might be able to help me.”

Lily sat back, her head angled as if she were studying him. She reminded him of a cat. “There is nothing in the world that would make me happier than finding that murderous psychopath and bringing him to justice. He took away the most important person in my life. Someone I loved dearly. So though I can't possibly imagine the extent of your loss—your former wife and your only son—it seems we have quite a bit in common. We'd both love to see that piece of shit brought to justice.”

“I want to see him dead.” He stared into her eyes. They were bright green, almost neon. And strangely large, like the cartoon eyes in William's manga comics. “I'm going to find Ellen and William. I know they're alive. That's why they haven't been found—he took them with him, wherever he's hiding. He latched on to them, for whatever sick reason, and he's keeping them for himself. And when I find them, he's going to have to deal with me. And he has no idea what he's in for.”

Lily leaned closer. Her blouse opened, and her perfume wafted across his face. She smelled good, and his hatred began to feel weirdly erotic. She reached out and put her hand on top of his. Cold, smooth flesh. “I like you, Steve.”

Those eyes. Christ. So big. Almost like the eyes of a bug.

“Let me ask you something. Can I trust you? Can I trust you to keep something between us?”

He was getting dizzy. Hot. He hadn't eaten breakfast. Just coffee. Too much coffee, obviously. His nerves were buzzing.

“Look. Look at me, Steve. I need to know you will keep this secret. Look. Look at me. That's right. Open up. Good. Just like that. Open up to me.”

It's, like, 110 degrees, maybe 115, in the fucking shitty concrete cell, reeking of shit and piss and the blood of the guys who had been here before. The shrink is there, a BSCT guy, total psycho prick. But then they were all pretty much psycho pricks. The diaperhead tied to the chair had been through the wringer over the past few days—twenty-four hours of Motörhead blasting while he was locked in a cell with a strobe light in his face, then paraded naked in front of two female soldiers, his dick shriveled so small it was almost invisible. One of the women had wiped a tampon covered in fake blood on his face, but the fucker still wouldn't talk. And then Steve had applied all the pressure points to his muscles and tendons until the bastard had screamed himself hoarse, vomited, and passed out.

He wouldn't confess. He kept insisting he knew nothing, that he was just a cab driver, not a jihadist. That the guns found in his trunk had been put there by someone else. The usual bullshit.

Steve was getting more than a little sick of the lying bastard and his frightened, pleading rabbit eyes. Of his nonstop whimpering beneath duct-taped lips and the yellow snot that leaked from his hooked nose.

The behavioral science consultation team had told Steve what needed to be done. After the injection—probably the hallucinogenic antimalarial that was their current favorite lip loosener—it was all up to him. One last chance. Steve opened the door and another MP led the boy into the room. He was about six or seven. William's age. Eyes wide, streaks all down his dirty face from his tears, lower lip trembling.

The fucker started screaming and writhing around in his restraints when he saw his son. Finally.

Steve led the boy in front of his father. The kid was crying now, the father jerking like the guy before him who'd had the car battery attached to his balls with jumper cables.

The fucked-up shrinks knew what they were doing. He'd talk now.

Steve put on rubber gloves.

And then it was over, and he was looking into Lily's huge eyes, and what the holy hell had just happened?

“Are you okay, Steve?” she asked.

He shook his head. Had he been flashing back? Christ. Not again—not in front of her. Not when so much was at stake.

“Steve?”

It all vanished. Whatever it had been, it was over. “I'm okay. Just a little lightheaded.” He'd switched to a newer antidepressant a week ago. That was probably it. It gave him weird little zings like that.

Lily took her hand from his, and it felt like a connection had broken. The room came back into sharper focus. She was smiling now. “You know, Steve…I think we might have more in common than I suspected.”

Four days later Steve climbed out of Lily's hired car and boarded a private jet to Mexico City.

The damn bugs were everywhere. Ray sat against a tree, sweating, itching, and swatting at himself. Mosquitos were the least of the things biting him. The whole jungle seemed to want to eat him alive. He slapped at his neck and felt an insect's shell crack against his wet palm. He wiped off its sticky innards, cursing. Never again would he set foot off a paved surface.

He'd been alternately sitting and pacing for hours, and the sky was starting to turn a bruised purple. The sun would be coming up soon. He didn't know how long it would take, but if they didn't get to him soon he wasn't sure he could maintain even his last fragile bit of sanity.

And the questions kept tormenting him. Why had they taken Ellen and William and not him? If Lily was behind their abduction it didn't make any sense for her to take them and leave him. And Lily had to be behind it, because who would kidnap Ellen and William—and for what? But what if it wasn't her doing? He'd heard stories of
gringos
getting kidnapped and held for ransom in Guatemala City. Rumors of white women suspected of stealing Guatemalan children being mobbed and beaten. It wasn't like those things never happened.

But whoever it was, it was a
him
who had orchestrated it. And he had enough power and money to employ a team of henchmen and to fly Ellen and William somewhere. To do what, though?

None of it made sense, and it was driving him nuts.

And here he was, alone, bug-bitten, scratched and bleeding in a hundred places, and cut off from the two people he loved the most.

Then he heard it—the
thwock-thwock-t
hwock
of a helicopter in the distance. Finally. It had to be them. He knew the protocol—if you're safe, stay put. The GPS was incredibly accurate, so they'd find him.

If no one else found him first.

“Damn, you look like shit,” Mantu said.

“Nice to see you, too, Mantu,” Ray replied.

Another man had arrived with Mantu—a stocky, squat Hispanic thirty-something in a Marlboro T-shirt. He was holding a machete and wearing a backpack. “This is Ramón.”

The short man eyed Ray somberly. “
Hola,
Ray.”

Ray nodded.

“Where are Ellen and William?” Mantu asked, his eyes darkening. “They didn't set their beacons.”

“Gone,” Ray said. The word nearly caught in his throat. “Someone took them.” He told them what had happened at the carnival and about the men at his house.

Mantu checked his watch. He handed Ray a canteen. “Drink up. We have to get to the van. It's due southeast, next to a cattle farm. It's a little conspicuous so we need to move fast.”

“Let's go,” Ray said. He didn't need any convincing.

Ramón led the way, hacking at stray branches with the machete. Ray followed. Mantu walked behind him, a heavy black pistol in his hand. He spoke softly. “I guess you realize you're coming back with us. To Eleusis.”

Ray didn't say anything. What choice did he have?

“It's all over now. No more of this bullshit. You'll be safe.”

Ray stopped and turned to face Mantu. “Yeah, but we need to find Ellen and William. We're doing that first, right?”

“Of course,” Mantu answered. “When we tell Jeremy they're missing he'll get on it. They'll be on top of it, Ray. Don't you worry. We'll find them. We take care of our people.”

Ray didn't respond. He'd heard something similar before, in Blackwater—that Micah and Mantu were keeping an eye on them. And Ellen and William had wound up locked in a concrete room in Crawford's basement.

The van rattled down a dusty road. Ray sat in the backseat next to Mantu, staring out the tinted windows. Ramón drove. He was blasting what sounded like the same hellish
narcocorridos
from the carnival, only this song was about a kindhearted
jefe
who handed silver coins to the poor children of his village. Mantu banged his satellite phone against his knee. “Piece of shit,” he said. “This Brotherhood-issued technology is driving me nuts.”