♦
I’m not out long. The pain in my shoulders wakes me as I feel myself being hoisted. I blink back tears, not from fear but pain, and see Mejia standing in the cell doorway.
My shoulders wrench again, and I look up to see my wrists tied and the rope looped over a hook in the ceiling that I’d noticed when first thrown in here. I had considered the hook a potential weapon, but it was too high for me to reach.
The gang member who hit me pulls once more, so I almost have to go on my tiptoes, and then knots the rope securely. Sweat breaks out on my forehead, and I know I’m in deep shit.
I’ve been in bad situations before, more times than I care to remember. I’ve got scars and had therapy for some of those times, but I’ve always persevered.
Something about this, though, seems to have a ring of finality to it. I know I’m not in danger of dying anytime soon, but I feel in my gut that I’m not walking out of here alive.
The man steps back, and Mejia moves in closer to me. “Tell me… what exactly were you after?”
That tells me he may know I was in his office and rooting around for something, but he doesn’t know what. I hold my tongue and pray it’s not cut out at some point.
“Who are you working for?” he asks, not seeming to mind I didn’t answer the first question.
I remain steadfastly silent.
This seems to please him, and his mouth curves into an evil smile. “Don’t want to talk, huh? Good. My men are bored.”
A tremor of fear races up my spine, and because I’m all kinds of fucked up, it also heightens my adrenaline. This is one of those times I feel more alive than ever.
“Prepare her,” Mejia barks in Spanish as he turns away from me, and the man he called Espada removes the knife from his hip.
Don’t show fear. Don’t show fear. Don’t show fear.
Stepping before me, he holds up the knife. The blade is at least nine inches long and would gut me from sternum to pubic bone without much effort. Rather than plunge it into my body though, he grabs hold of the waistband of my leggings I’d been wearing while cleaning the house earlier and uses the knife to cut them off my body. It takes no more than four slices at various points, and my pants are gone. I’m left with only a T-shirt and panties on.
It’s clear he doesn’t plan to kill me, but something that’s probably worse than death.
But the man doesn’t touch me further, instead turning on his heel and walking out of the cell.
Once again, Mejia stands before me, his face inches from mine. “I want you to have some alone time to think about what’s going to happen to you. I could have you tortured for hours, but I don’t want to drag this out. You’ve got an hour to decide how you want the rest of your life to go. I’ll be back with several men, and they’ll each take a nice turn with you, and then I think you’ll be in a talking mood. And when they take you, there are no rules. They can do whatever they want, as long as you have a heartbeat when they’re done. If you’re smart, however, you’ll have the information I want, and you’ll give it up freely. You do that, and I promise you a quick death… a bullet to the brain. You have my word.”
I want to spit in his face, but I’m sure he’ll react with violence, and I need to keep my wits about me. So I maintain my silence, refusing to say one single thing to him.
We engage in a staring contest for a bit, and when he’s satisfied I understand the terms and am intent on taking my hour to think things through, he smiles.
He’s confident he’ll have the information he needs in an hour’s time.
I’m confident I won’t give it up, even if he sets the entire local Vecindario 18 on me. As a woman, rape is always a concern if I were to get captured, and it’s something I’m prepared to endure. I have no other choice.
The only thing I can do at this point is hope that the CIA is sending a team for me. I missed my ex-fil more than five hours ago by my estimation. A local team should be well on their way.
They’re probably nearby, plotting the best way in without getting me killed at the same time.
Yes, I’m sure the cavalry is right around the corner, and I have nothing to worry about.
Unless I’ve been disavowed, and that’s always a possibility. If that’s the case, I’m up shit creek without a paddle.
CHAPTER 3
Ladd
Ultimately, the CIA came through with everything I requested to go into San Salvador to rescue Greer. They gave me a legit cover as a foreign investor from Canada as well as use of a private charter jet that’s really owned by the US government and kept at Camp Peary with a host of other aircraft. I also have a cache of weapons, including firearms and explosives. They were even able to accommodate my request for C-4 and a drone, although they wouldn’t let me travel with the explosive. I’ll have to pick that up from an agent stationed undercover in the city.
Lastly, I was given a satchel of money to use for bribes and information, which shows me just how much they want whatever intel Greer collected.
I’m also well stocked with Jameson support, which includes a laptop that Bebe and Dozer loaded with the best decryption software available as well as programs they created themselves that can hack any Wi-Fi network in the world. They will be my eyes and ears from afar.
The four-hour plane trip from Pittsburgh to San Salvador was spent planning. Kynan, Dozer, Bebe, and Jackson roundtabled with me via satellite link. We went over all the information the CIA provided, which was guaranteed not to be everything that was pertinent. This I know from my own days working for the Company.
We learned from Greer’s regular intel reports she’d been sending that Mejia works mainly from his home where he lives with a wife and five children, as well as a small troop of paramilitary soldiers. While he has deep ties with Vecindario 18, they do not come near his home.
He also has a warehouse about thirty miles outside of San Salvador guarded by the same type of soldiers but also by gang members. Oddly, though, not as many protect the warehouse as his home, telling me that his own life, as well as those of his family, are more important to him. It also may be that he doesn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to steal from him. Regardless, the warehouse is less fortified than his house. We figure if Greer is being kept, it’s in one of these two places, but there is a chance it could be somewhere else entirely.
To know for sure, my first order of business is to use some of the bribery money to meet with a Vecindario 18 informant and hope to God he’s on the inside enough to know where Greer is being held.
The informant’s name is Frankie Orellana, a first-generation Salvadorian who had emigrated to the United States and found himself in Los Angeles. Hard on his luck, he was recruited into the 18th Street gang there and spent a handful of years committing crimes—mostly drug related—for the betterment of his gang. He also was married and had a young son when he was arrested for an offense that would send him away for a long time.
Instead, he was deported back to El Salvador, forced to leave his American wife and American-born son behind. He was a prime recruit for the US government, offered the chance to be reunited with his family if he worked as an informant. Frankie agreed and insinuated himself into one of the larger gangs under Vecindario 18, where he’s been for the last four years.