BLACK COBRA (Aaron Quinn thriller series, No. 2) (11 page)

Brandy knew she had him. She reached in and pulled his T-shirt off over his head and shoved him back onto his pillow.

 She unbuttoned his jeans and as Aaron started to close his eyes, something outside caught his attention and his heart leaped. He sat up and checked the window. They were clear of the locks!

“Get dressed,” he said, sitting up. “We’re through the first locks. We’re on Lake Gatun.”

Brandy sat up with her hands covering her breasts. “What? Already? But we were just getting started.”

“There’s no time,” Aaron said. He crawled off the bed and buttoned his pants and pulled on his shirt.

“Please don’t do this,” Brandy said innocently. “I can be quick.”

“I’m really sorry, Brandy,” Aaron said. “But Jason will be looking for you.” He handed Brandy her sandals.

Dazed and embarrassed, Brandy dressed and then checked herself in the mirror. She had never been snubbed by a man before, and she didn’t like the way it felt. Not one bit. Was she losing her sexuality? Did she cross some kind of line at twenty-seven? Had Aaron really
wanted
her? Or did she just imagine it all?

She made a few quick adjustments to her makeup, then gave herself a kiss in the mirror and told herself,
I’m smart enough to know when I’ve been insulted
...
but I’m sexy enough not to care!

As she stepped out of Aaron’s cabin, she gave him a look that said,
You missed your chance, Mister
.
You were about to go where most men only dream of going!

Chapter 30

Aaron watched Brandy leave, his crotch aching from the thought of what they had almost done.
I guess that mystery’s going to remain a mystery
, he thought sadly. Exhausted, yet still buzzing from the cocaine, he threw back a couple of shots of Jack Daniels and lay down on his bed, and it wasn’t long before he fell asleep again.

---

“Wake up you useless sod!” a man’s voice boomed.

Aaron started and opened his eyes, frightened and confused.
Where the hell am I?
he thought, glancing around in wide-eyed panic. In the dim light he could make out what looked like the corroded bars of a cell door in a
medieval dungeon
.

The man hammered hard on the bars with what sounded like a wooden club, shattering Aaron’s eardrums. “You walk at noon!” the man bellowed with the power of five men combined. Then, without another word, the man’s heavy footsteps receded into the distance.

Perspiration stood in hot beads upon Aaron’s forehead as ice water surged through his veins. He looked down at himself and found that he was dressed in some sort of tattered robe, woven from a coarse serge. His feet were bare and crusted with filth.

The smell of human waste hung heavily in the air, and he could see that he was indeed in some sort of dungeon. The walls were of heavy, stacked stone, glistening with moisture, and polished from centuries of human agony. Bolted to one of them was the bunk on which he sat, a wrought-iron platform supported by two heavy chains. A woven-straw mat served as his only bedding.

Above the bunk a small window was cut high into the wall. Aaron quickly determined that even if he could reach it, which he could not, it would be too narrow for him to pass through.

A thin shaft of sunlight angled down across the dank space, illuminating a small patch on the floor, revealing a swarm of roaches feeding on a scrap of something disgusting.

Aaron stood up from his bunk, but the pavers underfoot were treacherous with slime, and in the gloom he tripped on the torn hem of his robe and fell hard to the stone floor.

From his prone position, he noticed something startling: although his chest and hands were in contact with the stone, his chin and face appeared to be suspended in cold, thin air. He reached out in front of him and shuddered at finding nothing but empty space. His nostrils drew in the damp, disgusting smell of mold and decaying flesh, nearly gagging him. He spat into the darkness, waiting several seconds before hearing the faint sound of spittle hitting water. A cold thrill of terror arced up his spine. Through a stroke of pure dumb luck, he had escaped the horror of falling headlong into some sort of deep well, or pit. His malevolent captors had thoughtfully provided him more than just a bellowing thug with a club with which to facilitate his untimely doom, and he considered himself exceedingly fortunate to have avoided what he hoped was the more terrifying of the two options.

He edged back from the well, finding it difficult to maintain enough grip with his hands to regain his feet. He groped backward and grasped the chain suspending the low bunk from the wall, managing to pull himself up.

He lay back down on the mat and shut his eyes tightly, hoping to shut out the ghastly nightmare.
This can’t be happening,
he cried to himself.
This can’t possibly be happening!

But every time he dared open his eyes, he was greeted by the same forbidding surroundings.

---

After tossing blindly on the iron bunk for what felt like hours, Aaron heard the dismal echo of heavy footsteps in the corridor.

He froze, tucking his legs up under his arms, straining to see through the bars into the corridor beyond.

KaClank!

The turnkey had unlocked the heavy lock on the cell door. He swung the iron gate wide and stepped into the narrow shaft of light. A giant of a man, the jailer stood seven feet at the shoulders, with the girth of an ox. He wore a leather vest with no shirt, revealing a massive chest soaked with sweat and crisscrossed with jagged scars. In lieu of pants he wore a rough leather kilt, held in place by a wide belt from which hung a long, straight sword and a coiled, leather whip. Legs like pier pilings ended in huge troll feet wrapped in leather.

“The sun is high,” he boomed. “Come with me.” He stepped into the hall and waited.

Aaron hesitated, frightfully perplexed. None of this made any sense, but strain as he may, he couldn’t wake himself. Knowing of no other option but to go with the man, he stood up from the bunk, pulled up the hem of his robe, and shuffled cautiously past the pit toward the door.

---

Aaron followed the towering goon down a dark, narrow, stone corridor, hewn from and polished to the same smooth finish as the stone in his cell. Wrought-iron torches mounted at intervals along the way providing what little light there was.

They passed other cells, and once again the sour stench of decay filled Aaron’s nostrils. Most of the cells appeared to be empty, but the ones that were occupied held sights that would chill a coroner’s blood — sights that Aaron would be long to forget.

In one cell Aaron saw a nude woman with long, red hair, lying on her back strapped to an evil looking instrument of torture. As he passed, she turned her head and stared at him through blood-red eyes. Then she hissed at him, causing the hair on his neck to stand. He couldn’t help but imagine what the machine was designed to do to her, but he quickly pushed the horrid image out of his mind.

In another cell Aaron saw a man sitting on the stone floor dressed in rags. He held a large knife in one hand, and it looked like he was attempting to chew his own arm off — and it appeared that he was succeeding. He looked up, and Aaron saw that his face was tattooed with a flower, but where his eyes should have been, there were only dark holes through which Aaron could see the very depths of hell.

After that Aaron kept his eyes to himself.

---

When at last they reached the end of the corridor, they climbed to the top of a long flight of steps. The turnkey shoved hard against a heavy door and the stairway flooded with sunlight. Aaron shaded his eyes from the painful glare, unable to see what awaited him outside.

---

They stepped through the door into a large courtyard of packed earth strewn with straw. The hot sun hung directly overhead.

Aaron saw a shiny new tungsten silver Aston Martin DBS parked near a stable with horses, but it meant nothing to him.

A crowd had gathered, dressed like they were attending a Renaissance festival: the men in tunics, with leather belts and feathered hats; the ladies in flowing dresses, with flowers in their hair and their bosoms mostly exposed. But it wasn’t long before Aaron saw what the crowd had come to see — and it wasn’t a festival.

 Toward the back of the courtyard stood a large, wooden scaffold, erected from sturdy timbers with wooden stairs leading up one side. Standing on top of the raised platform, overlooking the crowd, was a large man wearing a black hood that covered his face.

“Keep moving,” the jailer said gruffly, giving Aaron a hefty shove toward the scaffold.

Surely that man’s not waiting for me,
Aaron thought, looking around.

The crowd had grown quite large, and as he and his jailer worked their way through, Aaron was spat upon, poked with sticks, and pelted with rotten fruit. At times he thought he might faint, but the harrowing thought of being underfoot in this mob motivated him to keep moving.

When at last they reached the scaffold, the turnkey let go of Aaron’s arm, indicating the stairs with a wave of his hand.

Aaron’s robes were drenched with sweat and covered with muck. He looked around in disbelief.
What am I doing here?
he asked himself for the hundredth time.
Why can’t I make any sense of this? Who am I, really?

He placed his foot on the first step, and then took another step, and another, and at last he reached top of the platform.

---

The man in the hood directed him to kneel in front of a large block of wood with a basket sitting next to it — both were soaked with fresh blood.

The man selected a large, double-bladed axe from a rack full of such weapons. Its razor edges glinted in the sun. Aaron noticed that there was no blood on the blade. Clearly the man took pride in his work.

The axeman had Aaron rest his forehead on the block — it felt warm and sticky against his skin. He could not believe that after all he’d been through he was about to die at the hands of a medieval executioner.

“Do you have any last words?” the axeman said, his tone jaded, not at all sympathetic.

The crowd stared at Aaron expectantly, some of them no doubt pondering what
they
would say in answer to that most provocative of questions.

“No,” Aaron replied. “I have nothing to say.”

A round of enthusiastic booing could be heard from the crowd. Aaron knew he had disappointed them. But he really
didn’t
have anything to say. What
could
he say? He had no idea why he was being executed, and he could think of nothing to give penance for.

The axeman stepped over next to the block and adjusted the position of Aaron’s head so that he faced slightly to one side. To his dismay, Aaron could now see the people who had arrived early and secured the front row. Some of them had brought their children, the youngest of whom wouldn’t look squarely at him; but some of the older ones were obviously getting a kick out of Aaron’s dire predicament, and they had no problem making eye contact as they jeered at him with rotting teeth.

 At least the guy could have given me a hood
, Aaron thought bitterly.

He wanted to turn away, but he remained still, lest he not give the axeman a clean shot at his neck.

The crowd cheered wildly, feathered hats flying through the air.

Why are they in such a frenzy?
Aaron thought.
What are they hoping to gain from this experience? What do they expect their kids to gain from it? Where is their compassion? Their humanity?

The axeman rested his hand briefly on Aaron’s shoulder, as if to say ‘It’s time.’ Then a hush came over the crowd as he raised his shiny axe high overhead.

Then
WHACK!

---

Aaron didn’t feel a thing — his executioner was obviously an expert.

He had read somewhere that human heads lived for a few seconds after being severed, and now, flipping face first into the woven basket, and he knew that they did.

He felt strangely safe and secure in his basket.
At least I don’t have to look at them
, he thought.
I’ll just wait here till Death takes me away forever.

But then, to his infinite horror, the executioner leaned down and grabbed him by the hair and lifted him out of the basket, holding him aloft, to the morbid delight of the hysterical mob. They screamed and danced in perverse ecstasy. Several women swooned and fell, only to be trampled underfoot as the crowd surged forward in a communal frenzy that had reached a fever pitch.

Aaron tried to scream, but of course he had no lungs with which to do so. He could only close his eyes and pray for a swift, sweet death.

But sadly, Death wouldn’t come.

---

SMACK!

Aaron jerked awake and sat up holding his cheek, and for a second he was disoriented. But then he saw Brandy Fine standing in front of him and he knew he was back on the
Cayman Jewel
.

“
What did you do that for?
” he said, wishing she had brought him out of his wild dream with a bit more finesse. But then it dawned on him why she might be angry with him.

“Oh — shut up,” Brandy said, disgusted. “You were flying all over the bed acting like a fucking lunatic. ‘They all stare!’ you said. ‘Make them stop!’ you said. What was I supposed to do? Bring you warm milk and a cookie? You’re a grown man, Aaron. If you can’t take a fucking nap after getting high without freaking out, then
forget
the damn naps. Otherwise, we’re dropping you off at the next fucking nursery school!”

She walked out.

Dazed, Aaron rubbed his cheek and flopped back down on his bed, grateful to be rid of that insane dream but unable to remember a word Brandy had just said.

Chapter 31

Due to a log jam at the locks on the Pacific side, the canal crossing ended up taking two days.

Jason’s canal agent said goodbye in Panama City, and at last the
Cayman Jewel
sailed out into the Pacific Ocean.