Deadly Intent: An Action Thriller (Adrian Hell Series Book 4) (13 page)

“You get much trouble in these parts?” I ask, gesturing to the men as we pass.

“Not so much nowadays,” he confesses. “But one must keep up appearances all the same. I run a very profitable business here, Adrian. And sometimes people get jealous of what they don’t have, you understand?”

“I do,” I reply, nodding slowly.

We walk into another large living room, which looks as equally opulent as the last one. Four bikini-clad women sit huddled together on a large, brown leather sofa in the middle of the room. There’s a rectangular block of silver foil on the table in front of them, sliced open with a knife—the cocaine spilling out of it. The women are all laughing and look up as we enter.

“Ladies, I want you to meet my guest,” says Vega, walking over to them and gesturing to me. “This is Adrian Hell.”

They all look over at me, smile and wave coyly, and then whisper among themselves, giggling and glancing back at me. I want to say they’re checking me out, but they’re speaking so fast, and so Spanish, I honestly have no clue what they’re saying. I wave reluctantly at them.

“Hi, ladies,” I say.

There are no armed men in this room, but there are three large floor-to-ceiling windows on the far side, offering a great view of the gardens at the back of the house. I’m aware that Vega is saying something to me, but I’ve zoned out—too busy looking out the window and piecing everything together…

The armed guards, the women, the drugs, the remote location and lavish house…

Given what I know of modern-day politics, I can’t see how this is possible, but I’m almost certain Carlos Vega is a cartel drug lord.

I thought all the cartels had shut down, or turned into legitimate businesses, following President Cunningham’s economic revolution… Why on earth would a cartel still be operating in Colombia, like it was the good ol’ days? They can’t possibly be making any money, as the main source of income from any cartel was cocaine, and nowadays you can buy that over the counter from the local Seven-Eleven… But Vega’s clearly doing very well for himself. How’s he making money?

A voice appears, interrupting my thoughts.

“Adrian?”

“Hmmm?” I look up and see Vega staring at me patiently. “Sorry, I was miles away then… that’s a beautiful view.”

He smiles. “I often lose myself staring out across the expanse of my empire,” he says, nodding. “I was just saying, how is business for someone in your line of work nowadays?”

I shrug. “I’m trying to put the killing business behind me, if I’m honest. But even in this day and age, somebody always wants somebody else dead. The work’s there, should I ever want it.”

“Very true, Adrian, very true.
Somebody always wants somebody else dead
… I like that!” He walks across the room, kissing one of the women on the head as he passes by the sofa, heading for a door at the far end. “Come, there is something I want to show you.”

I follow him out of the room, growing more skeptical with each minute that passes. I’ve got a bad feeling about this, but I still can’t put my finger on it.

We enter another, smaller, room with a glass door on the right that leads outside. Vega gestures for me to pass him and step out into the garden area. I feel a light breeze at the door, which is refreshing. The sun is high already, shining bright and hot, and the grounds surrounding this massive house look absolutely—

18.

11:36 COT

Goddammit… I got hit in the head again, didn’t I?

I’ve not got round to opening my eyes yet, but my arms and shoulders are killing me. I’m hanging from something—my arms are above my head, my wrists tied together, and my feet can’t touch the floor.

I slowly open my eyes and blink quickly to remove the fog of unconsciousness from my view.

It’s dark, and there’s a strange smell nearby. It’s familiar, but I can’t place it just now. Chemicals, maybe? I recognize it, but the source of the strong odor eludes me.

It’s cold in here too. I look down and see I’ve been stripped to the waist. There’s no sign of my bag—not that it’ll be much use anyway.

I look up to see what I’m hanging from. There’s an old, tough-looking leather band around my wrists, pulled tight and hooked on the end of a chain, attached to a wooden beam running along the ceiling. I’m guessing I’m in some kind of shed or garage. I grip the chain in my hands and pull against the restraint, trying to heave myself up. My shoulders are screaming, but the beam supports my weight, so that’s good to know at least.

I relax as much as I can, trying to think how I can get out of here. Then I hear a door slide open behind me. There’s laughter and footsteps, and the door is slid shut again. There’s a click, and a bright light bathes the room, forcing me to squint and look away as best I can.

As my eyes are adjusting, I can make out more of the room. It’s definitely a garage. There’s a rusted car on bricks off to my left, and along the three walls I can see, are racks and shelves full of tools. In the right corner, I see a body slumped in a sitting position on the floor, the flesh discolored and in the preliminary stages of decomposition.

That explains the smell…

Three men appear in front of me, standing in a loose arc. They’re staring at me and mumbling to each other in Spanish. I recognize two of them from the airstrip, and later in Vega’s house. The guy in the middle I’ve not seen before. His face is pockmarked and ugly, and his dark eyes are looking at me full of menace.

I suspect the next few minutes are going to suck…

“Hey fellas,” I say. “There appears to be some kind of misunderstanding. How about you let me down and I’ll go and straighten things out with your boss?”

Without a word, or even a reaction, the guy on my right unleashes a big right hand, swung from down by his knees, and connects with the side of my stomach. I grunt and wheeze as the punch knocks the wind out of me, sending me spinning on my restraints like a punch bag.

I feel hands on my back, turning me back around to face the line-up. As I cough and struggle for breath, the guy on my left takes his turn, throwing his own right hand, catching me on the other side of my torso. Again, I wheeze, cough, and splutter as I’m sent spinning around. And again, I’m turned back to face the three amigos.

The man in the middle smiles at me.

“Okay, hold up a minute, Curly,” I say, keen to delay another blow to my gut. “Larry and Moe have had their fun and that’s fine, but before you go following the trend, can you just tell me what the hell’s going on?”

They look at each other in turn, shrugging and laughing, and then the man in the middle looks at me and smiles again, before producing a blade from behind him—which must’ve been tucked in the back of his waistband. It’s a rusty, stained knife, maybe seven inches long. It’s narrow and looks very sharp. He holds it up to me, waving it menacingly at my chest before saying something I don’t understand.

“Oh, come on guys,” I say, still struggling for breath. “Sending non-English speaking people to torture me is just plain unfair!”

He’s still waving the knife at me and talking Spanish, like he’s toying with his food before he eats it. I need to get out of here… I grip the chain again in my hands, tensing my arms and preparing to lift myself. Thankfully, my ankles are still free, so this next part is going to be a lot easier.

The men on either side take a step back, and the guy in the middle changes his grip on the knife in his right hand, holding it upside down and to the side, with the blade facing away from him, ready to slash across me. I watch his body language. I see him shift his weight onto his right side and drop his right shoulder slightly, turning away from me and preparing to strike.

With my upper body stinging from the blows I’ve just taken, I grit my teeth through the pain as I heave myself up on the chain, pulling my body as high as I can in one movement, then lashing both legs out, catching the man with the knife square in the face with both feet.

He stumbles backward, dropping the knife on the floor. The man on the left rushes toward me. I swing both legs up again, grabbing his head in between them and squeezing, crossing my ankle and holding him in place momentarily. I let him struggle for air for a few moments before jerking my hips to the right, breaking his neck in the process. The sound of his vertebrae snapping echoes loudly around the garage.

As his lifeless body drops to the floor, the guy on the right makes a move for the knife. Moving as quickly as I can, I heave myself up and grab the edge of the roof beam, struggling to unhook the leather restraints from the metal chain. Keeping one eye on my attackers, I finally manage it and drop to the floor, landing in a crouch.

I stand as the man on the right approaches me, having given up his pursuit of the knife in favor of attacking me. As he raises his right arm to punch me, I duck under and jab him with both fists in the stomach. I then move behind him and hook the leather restraints joining my wrists together around his throat, pulling him tightly toward me and yanking back as hard as I can. He chokes, spits, and claws at my hands, but it’s the restraints doing all the work, so doing that is futile. It doesn’t take long for him to stop moving, and I discard his body to my right.

The man in the middle is left staring at me, his face showing signs of swelling from the kick, and his confidence shaken, having just seen me kill his two friends. The knife is off to our left, just in front of the old car. He’s got his back to the shelving unit that’s got an array of tools on it—any one of which could be used effectively in a fight…

Thankfully, the guy’s an idiot. He chooses to run at me screaming, his arms raised above him like something out of a bad horror movie. I meet him with a swift, accurate right foot to his stomach, which stops him in his tracks. He doubles over for a moment, then stands and resumes screaming. I step into him, pushing my left foot down and through his right kneecap, breaking his leg. As he crumples to the floor, he rolls on his side, holding the gaping wound caused by the snapped bone protruding through the skin. I look down quickly at his exposed head and neck, and bring my right foot down hard on the side of his throat, crushing his windpipe and killing him instantly.

I crouch down, resting on my haunches and catching my breath. The pain currently pulsing through my torso starts to subside as my heart rate returns to normal. The bitterness in my mouth from the adrenaline makes me cough.

I walk over to the knife, pick it up, and use it to cut through my restraints. With my hands free, I search the garage for anything useful, but other than the blade I’m holding, and the various tools and equipment lying around the place, there’s nothing practical.

I head over to the door, pushing it open just as Carlos Vega is pulling it from the other side. We bang into each other and freeze momentarily in surprise. He wasn’t expecting me to not be swinging from the roof with my guts hanging out, and I honestly wasn’t expecting to see him come and do his own dirty work.

We’re standing inches apart—him in his nice silk shirt and white pants, and me with no top on, covered in dirt and bruises. Acting on instinct, I drop my shoulders and let my neck take the dead weight of my head, whipping it forward and slamming my forehead squarely onto the point of his nose. He grunts as blood explodes across his face, his nose shattered. He stumbles backward and falls over. Straight away, I move toward him, bending down, and grab him by his collar, dragging him to his feet and ushering him inside the garage. I quickly look around to make sure no one’s seen us, and then close the door behind us.

I throw him to the floor, stamping down on the side of his right leg, hard enough to cause him pain and stop him from running away, but not hard enough to break anything.

“Okay, Carlos, me and you are gonna have a little talk.”

Blood runs from his nose to his mouth, and he spits it to the floor. “Fuck you!” he snarls. “You have no idea who you’re fucking with!”

“Yeah, I’ve been hearing that a lot in the last week or so, and it’s starting to piss me off.”

I lean over him and jab him in the face with my left hand, connecting with his busted nose. He lets out a cry of pain and holds his face in his hands.

“Now, you can start by explaining what your problem is with me,” I say to him. “I’ve given you no reason to consider me a threat, so why knock me out and tie me up?”

“I’m not… telling you nothin’!” he yells, struggling to breathe properly.

“Uh-huh… let me see if I can’t persuade you.”

Knowing he can’t exactly go anywhere, I walk over to the right hand wall and have a look through the various tools lying around haphazardly on the side. I rummage through and find a pair of pliers, discolored from, I suspect, years of neglect.

These will do nicely…

I walk back over to Vega, who hasn’t moved anyway. I put my left hand on his forehead, holding his head still and wave the pliers in front of his mouth. His eyes go wide and he clamps his lips together, clearly sensing what’s coming.

“Ah-ah, don’t go getting all shy on me now,” I say, before jabbing him hard in the ribs with the pliers.

He lets out a sharp yell of pain and as he does, I quickly grab one of his front teeth in between the head of the pliers and squeeze them tight. He’s making all sorts of funny noises as he panics, but he can’t do anything.

“Carlos… be quiet and try to retain at least an ounce of dignity,” I say. “Now, are you going to tell me why you tried to torture me, or am I going to have to cause you severe pain?”

His eyes are still wide, and he just manages to shake his head from side to side.

“Fine, have it your way.”

I’m more than adept at the fine art of torturing people for information, but to be honest, I’ve never taken any pleasure in it—bar the odd exception throughout the years. I find it more of a hindrance, if anything. It’s much better if people just tell me things I want to know in the first place. Plus, I’ve been out of the game quite a while, and like these pliers, I’m a little rusty. So I try not to drag it out too much.

I yank my right arm up and over his head, snapping his front tooth and ripping it from his mouth. Blood spurts all down his chin and onto his shirt, and he screams with genuine agony.

I throw the pliers down next to me and rest my right hand firmly on his throat.

“Why torture me?” I ask again.

He struggles to talk, but this time he’s more than happy to reply.

“I wa’ tol’ to,” he says.

It takes me a moment to work out what he said.

“You were told to? By who?”

“P’ease… ’ey’ll ’ill ’e…”

His accent isn’t helping the situation…

“They’ll kill you? Who will?”

He waves his hands at me, silently asking me to give him a minute.

“I’ll ’ell ’oo, jus’ gi’ ’e a ’ec…”

I think that was, ‘I’ll tell you, just give me a sec…’

I stand and gesture to him to talk when he’s ready. He sits up, using his shirttails to wipe the blood from his mouth. Tears are streaming down his face from the pain in his nose and mouth. He spits blood out on the floor next to him, looking up at me with hatred and defeat in his eyes. He composes himself and starts talking.

“I was ’old ’o expec’ you,” he says, speaking a little better now he’s calmed down.

“By who?”

“By my con’ac’ in ’he U.S.”

“Give me specifics, Carlos. Who’s your contact?”

“I don’ know, hones’ly. He uses a codename, and I’ve never me’ him in person.”

“Okay, so what does he do? What do you even have a contact for?”

Vega hesitates. I kick him hard on his leg again.

“Tell me!” I yell at him, losing what little patience I had to begin with.

“Go ’o hell!” he yells back. “Do wha’ you wan’ ’o me, no’hin will change.”

I walk off, massaging my temples and feeling frustrated. I don’t think he’s going to say anything more to me. Why would he have a contact in the States? What does he even do here? There’s no way he’s funding his cartel from drugs, because that’s a legal business nowadays. Even if he’s still farming it, distribution companies in the U.S.’ll essentially pay him a salary. There’s no way he’ll be able to charge the kind of prices he used to, because he’s far from the only game in town…

No, the only way he’s funding this operation is by doing something he shouldn’t. But what? And he said he’d been told to expect me… but who knew I’d be in Colombia?
I
didn’t even know! The only people who did were the special ops unit…