The Good Soldier (40 page)

The men in the car laughed. Inside joke, I figured.

Pablo looked away and fired up the engine. Put the SUV in reverse and pulled out of the parking lot. Every time he looked into the rear view mirror, his eyes shifted between my eyes and the road behind me. I grinned, a little. He narrowed his eyes, a lot.

Sarah nudged me with her knee. I turned my head and saw pleading in her eyes.
Do something
, she mouthed. She might as well have said it, as I was sure when I looked, the guys in the middle row did so as well.

"Any chance we can stop at a diner for something to eat?" I said.

"Shut up, Noble," the man in the suit said.

"How about a drive-thru then?"

"How about you shut up before I have one of them feed the girl a lead lunch?"

I turned to Sarah, shrugged, and mouthed the word
sorry
. She rolled her eyes, shook her head. I reached out and grabbed her hand.

"None of that, man," the guy sitting in front of her said.

She tried to pull away. I wouldn't let go.

The guy in front of her lifted his arm and aimed the gun at her forehead, leaving about four inches between barrel and flesh. It'd be impossible to miss at that distance.

"Let go," he said.

"Do it," I said. "Go ahead. You're going to do it later, anyway. Get it over with now."

I saw the light glint off the barrel of the gun a half second before the man in front of me slammed it into my forehead. My head snapped back like it was attached to a swivel on my neck. It rebounded forward violently. Warm blood flooded over my brow, into and around my eye, and down my cheek. It dripped onto my shirt and pants.

"Jack!" Sarah said.

I held my left arm out, across her chest like we had hit the brakes and were skidding and I wanted to prevent her from flying through the window.

"It's OK," I said. "Only a cut."

It wasn't OK. The head wound I suffered the week before made any blow to the head that much more severe. I knew that. She knew that. But I couldn't let these men know that.

One of them threw me a towel. I figured it was dirty, but couldn't tell. One eye was flooded with blood, the other with salty tears. It was like I was underwater and nothing looked clear. Sarah grabbed the towel from my hand and wrapped it around my head, cinching it tight so it slowed down the flow of the blood through the wound.

"Gonna shut up now, Jack?" the man in the suit said.

I said nothing. Stared straight ahead and settled in for the ride. I tried to pay attention to the streets we followed, but everything passed in a blur. Had my brain begun to swell? Or was it the effects of sleep deprivation? How long had it been since I had more than a few hours of sleep? Two days or three? I couldn't remember. Wasn't sure what day it was anymore.

The localized ache at the site of the wound expanded, at first across my forehead. Then it wrapped around both sides, and then toward the middle. My brain hurt and felt like it had split into two. I saw stars in front of me, literally. I never believed anyone when they said that, but at that moment, I knew it to be true. The stars faded away into pinpricks of light punched into fabric.

Sarah whispered my name, perhaps sensing or more likely realizing that something was wrong.

I responded in kind, I think. I felt the hum of her name in my throat but couldn't tell if my lips parted.

"Jack!" Sarah's voice was loud, but muffled, like we were under water. The pleasant tone of her voice replaced by a thundering clap containing four letters,
J-A-C-K
.

"What the hell is going on back there?" A man's voice. The man in the suit, I assumed, only because there was no accent. It sounded garbled, not like it was underwater, but speaking through a mouthful of water.

The sensation of fire spread through my head, while ice filled my veins and froze my body in place. I tried moving my arms and couldn't. Tried to kick with my legs, but they remained rooted to the floor.

Delicate hands grabbed my arms. Sarah, I figured, although I couldn't see to verify it was her touch. I felt the weight of her body over mine.

"We need…" Her voice faded into the depths. "…hospital…" Gone again.

Then the sensation in my hands and feet and legs and arms disappeared. A black curtain hung before my eyes. The pain in my head retreated. I thought that perhaps I'd died.

I hadn't died. It didn't take me long to come to this conclusion, although I did determine it while still passed out. Wherever I was at that moment, the place stood empty. Silent. When my time came, there'd be the souls of all those who'd perished at my hand. They'd be standing around waiting for me in an effort to be the one to capture my soul. Of all things in life, I was sure of that.

Slowly, the sensation returned to my hands, feet, legs, and arms. The pain started in the center of my brain and expanded outward, swelling and encompassing my head, and then retreating toward the spot of the gash on my forehead. The black curtain covering my eyes lifted. I stared ahead, unfocused, through a watery veil.

A thunderclap exploded to my left. "Jack!"

I blinked hard and looked to the right, out the window. The Escalade had stopped and high hedges, dark green through the tinted window, blocked any further view.

"Jack," Sarah said. "Can you hear me?"

I shifted my eyes to the left and turned my head until I saw her, then said, "Yeah."

She wrapped her arms around my neck. I felt her cheek against mine, her breath, hot and rapid, floating across my lips. I looked straight ahead and saw all four men staring at me, their brows furrowed, expressions of horror and confusion on their faces.

"What?" I said.

"Pull through, Pablo," the man in the suit said, turning in his seat to face forward once again. He took a final look at me and shook his head.

"You sure you're OK?" Sarah said.

"Yeah, I think," I said. "What the hell happened?"

She touched my forehead with a gentle hand, wiping blood from my brow. "You started convulsing, shaking. I thought you'd had an aneurysm and were dying on me."

I forced a smile. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Good. Don't."

I strained to look past Pablo and the man in the suit. A black iron gate with twists and curls at the top and the bottom opened up and we pulled through. The artificial light faded and it was hard to make out the landscape beyond the edges of the driveway. I glanced down at my watch. Seven p.m. I looked back up. The house stood off in the distance another hundred yards or so. Pools of light adorned the facade, cast from garden lights spaced precisely across the front of the house. The calming pinkish orange hue of the stucco instilled a sense of relaxation in me. I knew it wouldn't last long, though. This was the last stop before whatever was to come next. And I was certain that the next stop wouldn't be any more pleasant than the seizure I'd experienced.

Pablo pulled up to the three-car garage and idled while a wide white garage door lifted open. Then he pulled the vehicle in and stopped. He stepped out. The man in the blue suit remained and turned to face us. Pulled out his sidearm and aimed it in my direction. The men in the middle seats got out on their sides of the car, respectively, then Sarah, and finally me and the man in the suit at the same time.

Pablo led the way into the house. We walked through a mudroom connected to the laundry room, then down a short hall, maybe ten feet long. It deposited us into the kitchen.

A man stood in front of an open refrigerator. He had on khaki cargo shorts and a blue t-shirt. He looked over his shoulder, revealing half his face. He recognized me instantly, as I did him. Senator Vernon Burnett.

"Hello, Jack," he said. "And this lovely lady is…?"

"Sarah," she said.

Burnett crossed the floor and stopped six feet away. "I might bring you with me, young lady." He smiled at her. His eyes traveled to me. The smile broadened. "Not you, though, Jack. I'm about through with you."

"Then get it over with," I said. "Shoot me now."

Burnett's smile faded a little. The corners of his mouth withdrew, but he kept his lips parted. His eyes narrowed, nostrils flared. Something about it got to him, so I figured best thing to do was keep at it.

"You don't have the guts," I said. "Do you?"

He chuckled and looked me up and down. "I don't have to, Jack. Any of these guys'll do it." He tossed a hand up with his thumb extended and pointed behind himself. "Especially Pablo. Man, was he pissed when he got down here."

"You got him out," I said, referring to Pablo while keeping my stare fixed on Burnett. No one had wanted to question him, I realized. It had been someone who worked for someone who worked for Burnett. They fed us that line and we bought it hook, line and sinker. The thought crossed my mind that maybe someone else high up in the government worked with Burnett on this.

He nodded. "When you've got the power and connections I've got, it's easy to make things like that happen."

"Who're the other guys?" I said.

Burnett took a deep breath and eyed me for a few seconds, then said, "They work for me. That's all you need to know."

"What about him?" I gestured with my head toward the man in the blue suit. "He doesn't seem like the others."

"You gotta have someone to watch the hens," Burnett said. "Reece is his name. He's a," he paused a beat and squished his lips to the side, like he was biting the inside of his cheek. "He's in some kind of law enforcement. We'll leave it at that."

"Corrupt," I said, looking Reece in the eye.

He smiled back at me. "The things we'll do for money, eh?"

"Yeah," I said, focusing on Burnett. "Why the kids, Senator? For the money?"

He took a deep breath, held it a moment, then exhaled loud enough for the sound to echo in the hallway behind me. "Frankly, Jack, that's none of your concern."

"Sick bastard," I said.

He cocked back and swung at me. I could have ducked or moved to the side and avoided it. Could have stepped inside and wrapped my arm around his, snapping the bones in his forearm or dislocating his shoulder or elbow. But I didn't. I let his fist connect with my jaw. The impact stung and sent me reeling back into the wall. I slid to the floor. He stood over me, eyes wild and dancing with adrenaline. Any trace of fear the man had of me disappeared at that moment. And that's exactly what I wanted to happen.

Two men from the SUV picked me up and dragged me through the house. We stopped in the middle of a hall. They pushed me up against a wall. One of them kicked my legs out to the side and pinned me there, my arm held high behind my back and his knee in my lower back. I watched the other pull out a key ring with at least two dozen copper keys. He shuffled through them and then inserted one into the door handle. It unlocked with a click. He wrapped his meaty hand around the knob and pushed the door open.

"Your new room," the man behind me said, only an inch or two away from my ear. His breath was hot against the side of my head and smelled like rancid fish.

"Alright, but don't get any ideas," I said. "I'm not in the mood for a threesome."

He grabbed me by my hair, pulled my head back and then slammed it forward. The impact left a dent in the drywall and hurt like hell. He'd managed to plant the majority of the impact on the same spot where he pistol-whipped me earlier in the car. I slid down the wall on the left side of my face, using my shoulder to keep me from crashing.

Two sets of hands picked me up. They pushed and pulled me, then tossed me into the room. They didn't close the door, though. The thin guy stood inside the room. The heavier guy stood behind him.

"He down?" Burnett said from the hall.

"He's ready for you," the skinny guy said as he stepped into the room with the heavier man a step behind.

Burnett followed them in and walked right up to me. "Easy or hard?"

I managed to get to my knees. Leaned my head back and looked him in the eye. Said, "Screw you."

Burnett shrugged and made an
I-don't-give-a-shit
face. Then he kicked me in the stomach with his right foot.

I bent forward, but refused to allow myself to collapse.

"Easy or hard?" he said again.

I couldn't speak, so I made a weak attempt to spit at him. Saliva dove from my mouth, landing somewhere between us. A few drops of spittle landed on his shoes. Most of it hung from my lip in strands and fell from my chin and onto my chest.

"Don't be stupid, Jack." Burnett stepped back a few feet and took his eyes off me, which was the only thing that made me feel like they were through beating me up. "Pick him up and tie him to the bed."

The men wrapped their hands around my arms, dragged me across the floor to the bed. I ignored them and watched Burnett leave the room. He looked over his shoulder and made eye contact with me from the doorway. He shook his head, then disappeared down the hall.

The men tossed me onto the bed and right away, I felt heavy straps wrapped around my wrists. They cinched them tight, then did the same thing to my ankles. Finally, they drew a thick leather belt across my midsection and pulled it tight enough to draw me down into the bed. They cut the lights and left the room, leaving me to wonder what the hell was happening to Sarah at that moment.

My head and stomach ached from the beating I'd taken. I tried to pass out, but couldn't.

A streetlamp cast long fingers of light into the room. They stretched across my chest and legs, across the bed, and climbed up the walls. I counted the seconds to keep track of time. Got bored after thirty minutes and closed my eyes. Somehow, I managed to fall asleep.

I didn't wake until I felt a hand on my face, his hand. Burnett smiled when I opened my eyes.

"Hello, Jackie," he said.

I didn't greet him back.

"Twelve hours," he said.

That answered the question of how long I'd been asleep. It was midnight and I'd been strapped to the bed for over four hours.

"You excited?"

I tried to shrug, couldn't.

"Where's Sarah?" I said.

He smiled then licked his lips. "She's fine. Cooperative, that one." He paused a beat and arched his eyebrows. "If you know what I mean."