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  Deadly Journey

  by

  Declan Conner

  Scorpion eBooks

  Thrillers with a Sting in the tail

  Copyright

  Deadly Journey

  Copyright © 2014 Declan Conner

  This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places, and incidents, either, are products of the author’s imagination, or they are used fictitiously. Any reference to actual locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, to include, but not exclusive to audio or visual recordings of any description without permission from the copyright owner.

  UK English - First Edition.

  For information on subsidiary rights, email in the first instance.

  [email protected]

  Introduction

  —

  A Gangland Hit

  A DEA Agent Kidnapped

  A Deadly Game of Life or Death

  —

  Someone wants Rawlings dead. A cartel needs him alive – until they've got what they want. Rawlings? He just wants to live.

  D.E.A. Agent Kurt Rawlings has never lost a moment's sleep over the criminals he has sent to prison, even those who daily face the threat of death at the hands of others inside the wire. Now he knows how they feel, because he is facing it himself.

  Assailants who held a contract on his life took Rawlings from the streets of El Paso. When a Mexican cartel bought out the contract, he was transferred across the border. It soon became apparent this was not a simple kidnap and ransom.

  Rawlings is running out of time if he is to have any hope of returning to his family alive. And it will be no easy task. Whoever wants him dead has a long reach, and Rawlings' incarceration isn't going to stop them.

  His enemies are on a killing spree – and he's the next in line.

  Chapter 1

  Expect the Unexpected

  Without warning, late on a Friday evening, it happened.

  It was a simple business transaction for them, I guess, but for me…? Funny how your body and mind shut down when you’re faced with real danger. Sure, you can train for situations and anticipate the odds, but when that wire trips you up in real life, everything can go straight to hell in a laundry basket.

  I was staking out a crack house in El Paso, crouching behind low bushes. It wasn’t easy for a man of my size, at six foot one with a two-hundred-pound frame, to hide in silence. At least not with me having a bad case of the fidgets thanks to a day shift running seamlessly into an evening shift. It didn’t help that I stunk to high heaven and needed to scratch an itch in my day’s growth of chin stubble.

  Maybe I should’ve accepted the regular hours that came with that promotion the department had offered me. I could’ve been at home with my family instead of freezing my butt off behind a row of Chinese Juniper.

  What I should have done was heed the advice of our instructor at the DEA Training Academy.

  ‘Agent Rawlings, can you repeat what I just said?’

  Maybe he thought I wasn’t paying attention.

  ‘Expect the unexpected, sir.’

  But my mind was wandering as I studied the target house from my vantage point behind the shrubs. The single-storey home was a blot on a once-proud neighbourhood. The yard was overgrown, strewn with kitchen appliances and an upturned sofa. Boards hung from the façade. The only new paintwork was graffiti from a spray can.

  I thought about the neighbours; those who’d hung onto their property were now prisoners, caught in a downward spiral of housing prices. Their American dream had been shattered. I was thankful my dreams were still intact.

  Activity drew my attention back to the task: a bed sheet used as a curtain moved aside at the window and light flooded the porch. A silver-gray Ford with four occupants cruised along the road. The vehicle slowed outside the house and then accelerated before I had a chance to note the license-plate number. Its brake lights glowed and it turned onto a cul-de-sac. I heard a car door slam and a figure with a male gait appeared around the corner. He wore a sweatshirt with the hood pulled low to mask his features.

  Cursing about the license number, my attention darted from the figure to the bed sheet still twitching at the window and then back. The hope was that these people were the second tier in the food chain, arriving with fresh drugs. With clammy hands I grasped my camera, set up on a tripod. The closer the figure got to the house, the faster my heart beat. I concentrated on watching the guy with the hood, but my mind drifted. My partner was late returning and I was starving. I’d sent him for coffee and a Monterey Melt from Whataburger over on Eastside.

  I heard footsteps behind me. Thinking it was my partner, Rob, creeping back into position, I half turned my head. Too late. An arm gripped my throat. My heart flipped. Spasms ran through my body as if someone had tried to jump-start me with car-battery cables. Something solid dug into my spine, and at the same time a voice growled, ‘Move and you’re dead, motherfucker.’ Self-preservation and the laws of chance involved in beating a bullet made fighting back a no-go.

  That split-second of indecision had cost me dearly.

  It wasn’t for lack of training that I felt helpless. Hell, coloured belts all the way to black hung in my closet. But a flood of adrenaline had turned me into a two-ton jelly statue, then an ice sculpture. So much for the fight-or-flight syndrome. I wasn’t able to do anything of my own volition. If ever I needed my partner with me, it was now.

  It’s weird how your mind can ignore what’s happening, as if there’s a disconnect from reality. That’s not to say I wasn’t looking to escape. Through a haze of fear, I was definitely aware of what was happening.

  The hooded guy appeared. He prodded the barrel of his revolver in my direction, Gangsta style.

  ‘Kneel,’ he said.

  The punk danced from foot-to-foot, agitated. I braced for a muzzle flash. A hand pressed down on my shoulder from behind. I knelt. He forced my arms behind my back and applied cuffs to my wrists. Focus turned to my family as one of the punks relieved me of my gun and cell phone. All I could think of was the last time I had told my wife and children that I loved them. Then I noted the hooded punk’s appearance. He wore Nike Zoom sneakers. He was white. Young; he was maybe in his early twenties. A jumble of concerns circled. Will Mary be able to pay the mortgage loan? sprang to mind. Then the “if onlys” surfaced. A sense of outrage at my own stupidity followed, tempered by the certainty that that kid’s trigger finger could have beaten some textbook self-defence move.

  The guy behind me slipped a cloth bag over my head and pulled a drawstring tight around my throat. My shoe slipped off my foot as they pulled me to my feet. With their arms locked through mine, they dragged and bundled me into what must have been the trunk of a car. It felt as though someone pressed the barrel of a gun to my forehead.

  ‘We’ve disabled the trunk release. Try kicking your way out and we’ll shoot you through the back seat,’ one of them growled.

  The trunk closed with a clunk. I heard footsteps. Car doors slammed. The vehicle set off with a lurch. Working out the direction we were headed was futile. It didn’t help my concentration that the bag over my head was impregnated with the stench of cannabis, so I concentrated on breathing through my mouth. Although, which was the more repugnant, the smell, or the taste – it’s hard to recall, but it was a close call.

  A solution for the mortgage payments came in the flip of an eyelid. My onl
y hope was that these were professionals and not some crackheads doing a favour for a fix. If they were seasoned hit men, they’d probably already have a grave dug somewhere in the desert. Without a body, Mary could drag things out for years. The agency would still have to pay her my salary. That thought stopped giving me comfort when it drifted to a judge pronouncing me dead.

  Dead…

  If they wanted to kill me, a bullet to the back of the head would have done it back at the stakeout. Maybe I had something they wanted; either that, or they were going to ransom me, which was a faint hope at best. It was at that point I realized we hadn’t made a turn for some time and we were probably on a highway. They couldn’t have been speeding, because the car swayed each time a big vehicle passed.

  Doing nothing wasn’t an option. With my arms pinned behind my back and a bag over my head, my only hope was that a cop would pull them over for some traffic violation.

  I guess thinking about it, you could say that it was a mixture of the notion about the traffic cops and one of those “Eureka” moments of inspiration that handed me a plan. There was the faint-red glimmer of one of the taillights shimmering through the cloth... I mean, there it was... the answer, right there in front of my nose. All I needed was to contort my body, grab the wires, and pull the connection. The idea was easier drum rolled than accomplished in the confines of a trunk. The endless contortions failed miserably when my calf muscle cramped.

  Over the rumble of tyres on asphalt, I heard a clicking. The orange blinker light flashed through the weft of the burlap bag. It told me that the car was heading left. Where, was beyond a guess. I had half a hope they were headed for Austin, which would buy me more time to think of a way out.

  It was difficult to work out how long we had been driving. Maybe an hour. All I knew was it was sufficient for me to have run through my entire life many times over in my mind. Regrets! Yeah, there were quite a few. But the good times outnumbered them. My daughter Claire wobbling off down the road on her bicycle for the first time. The beam of delight on Craig’s face when we hauled in his first fish. Above all, the iridescent smile radiating from Mary’s very essence when she turned to me at the altar. I slipped the ring on her finger, knowing I had made the right decision. The preacher had asked me, ‘Do you, Kurt Rawlings...’ ‘I do’ had never sounded so sweet and it brought tears to my already moist eyes.

  The image of Mary faded as the car turned and the vehicle’s suspension rumbled. Vibrations turned to rocking and bumping as if we were off-road. Desert track sprung to mind, which raised a thought that my initial notion was correct and these were professionals.

  When I tried to turn, the cramps returned, so I remained in position. All I could think of was to rub my head against the wheel-well, in the hope some of my hair would drop out of the sack and leave DNA evidence. The vehicle stopped with a lurch. My heartbeat went off the scale, like a drum beating out a warning. The toes of my left foot pried off my remaining shoe to relieve a cramp.

  The trunk popped. Grasping hands hauled me out and dumped me on the ground.

  ‘Get up,’ someone called out in a strong Texas accent.

  It was an idiotic request. The entire right side of my body was stiff. Landing awkwardly had given me dead-leg. I wish I could have complied, because, just as I imagined the pain couldn’t get any worse, my ribs exploded with a crunch, as something I assumed was a boot dug into my body.

  ‘Careful with the merchandise, or we won’t get paid,’ someone said.

  His words made me forget the pain and I wanted to sing out ‘Hallelujah!’ If I was worth a paycheque, they were hardly likely to blow out my brains. Once more, they dragged me to my feet and my body hurtled in one direction while facing in the other. My back slammed against an obstacle. Fingers felt what I imagined was aluminium. A creak of door hinges and heightened senses gave me a feeling the door opened outward. They hustled me up two metallic-sounding steps. The floor creaked underfoot. I bounced off objects, giving me the impression it was a narrow corridor. Someone forced my head down and my backside hit a cushion. Above the stench of body odour mixed with the smell of cannabis there was a faint aroma of coffee. It had to be a trailer, or an RV.

  One of them said, ‘Pass his things here, but take out the ammunition clip and hide his gun in that old tin chocolate box under the sink.’

  The electronic tones of a cell phone indicated a call. I wasn’t proficient in Spanish, but good enough to hear a greeting followed by something that didn’t make sense when translated. Something about posting a letter and I assumed a coded message saying they had me for collection. Then, he finished the call with something I understood. The final words I translated were ambiguous enough to send my mind into a spin.

  ‘You sure that’s what you want us to do with him?’

  Chapter 2

  The Long Walk

  My assailants didn’t waste any time dragging me outside after the call terminated. Thoughts of another trunk ride scared the hell out of me. After walking for five minutes, with the rough terrain tearing my socks and feet to shreds, the belief that they were escorting me to my grave hit me. Fear of what might lie ahead gave way to the idea that I would happily pay for another ride in the trunk. Somehow, I didn’t think I was going to be that lucky. Not with these punks.

  There was something about the fear of death which made me hope I’d covered all the bases, so as not to end up in hell. It was no wonder, then, that I attempted to recite the Valley of Death psalm in my mind, as the thugs were hardly likely to grant one last wish. I’m sure it would have given me some comfort if only I could’ve made it past the first line, but the words eluded me. The walk from the trailer on the rough terrain seemed to go on forever, made more ominous by the fact that no one spoke. All I could hear was the sound of their footwear crunching stones underfoot and a faint, metallic-squeaking noise. I’d remained silent long enough.

  ‘Just what the hell do you want from me? Why am I here?’

  ‘Shut the fuck up, you’ll find out soon enough,’ he replied, in unison with what could have been a rifle butt stabbing me in the small of my back.

  A strong breeze whipped up and pressed the sackcloth over my head to the contours of my face as we trudged along. The sound of intermittent squealing cut through the night air and grew louder with every step. It was as if a metal shaft was turning and a bearing needed oiling. Drawing closer to the sound, it became unbearable, until we stood below the source of the high-pitched whine and whooshing blades. I imagined we were under a wind turbine.

  My nose twitched at the detection of petroleum-gas fumes seeping through the sack. A vision of them dousing me and setting me alight to incinerate my corpse drained the energy from my legs and I stumbled.

  ‘This is as far as we go.’

  We stopped. My heart stuttered mid-beat, tightness pulling at my chest. Short-sharp breaths made me dizzy. I took a deep inhale and slowly exhaled, returning some composure. Then I heard what sounded like a metal sheet sliding and screeching on the ground. This had to be my fate. I wasn’t about to beg for mercy. Experience at the hands of trainee thugs as a child at school had taught me it would only make matters worse and prolong the torture. All I could hope was they wouldn’t ask me to kneel so I knew it was coming. Clasping my sweaty fingers behind my back, I braced, bowed my head, and squeezed my eyes closed. Is this it?

  Hands passed something around me, which tightened around my waist. Grasping a cord as it brushed my hand, I determined that it was a rope. To think the cruel bastards were going to lower me into my grave and bury me alive petrified me. Quaking, I kept my stance rigid, just in case they decided to give me a whack with a baseball bat as a going-away present. Feet clunked on metal in front of me, loud at first and then diminished.

  ‘Pass him down,’ the voice echoed.

  A prod in the back told me to move forward. My feet shuffled, waiting for the drop, when a tug of the rope digging at my gut brought me to a halt. A voice called out an order.

 
‘Turn around.’ It was the voice of the guy who’d gripped me around my neck at the stakeout.

  There was no point in arguing. He hitched the rope higher up my torso, grasped me in a bear hug, and lifted my feet off the ground. The guy must have had the stature of a gorilla. But then remembering the size of his biceps and the strength of the hold around my neck, I already had him down as a three-hundred pounder and fond of working out. At his mercy, I slipped through his grip until the rope took my weight. Breathing was difficult as the rope tightened further under my arms and crushed my chest. A hand grabbed an ankle and guided my toes onto a step. He pulled each foot off the rung, one-step at a time. Slowly, I descended the ladder until my feet touched the ground. I counted twenty steps.

  Unless they had a bulldozer, there was no way this was my resting place. It would have taken forever to fill the hole we had just descended. Recalling their coded-cell-phone call, maybe, I thought and prayed, this could be where they were going to hide me before announcing my kidnapping, rather than putting a bullet in my skull.

  Partly out of nerves and in part because of itching, I twirled the wristwatch on my shackled wrist. The pin in the strap must have popped out and I felt it slide away. The division had presented the watch to me after a massive drug bust that earned them extra funding. Ironically, losing the watch felt as though my past life had just slipped away and my time in this life had run its course.

  The sound of the metal sheet dragging above gave me the impression that they were covering the hole. A click, and there was a flood of light. Whoever was still with me pushed me in the small of my back, until my shins hit an object. He started to bind my legs. Instinct told me to kick out before he tied the knot, but in my predicament, I would have probably been kicking empty air. I heard what sounded like a young voice.

  ‘Kneel down.’

  ‘Look, whatever you want, I’ll pay,’ I said.