Aztec Gold

THIRTEEN

Caitlyn’s heart stopped when Dingo reappeared in the doorway, a cattle prod in one hand and a machete in the other. Coker’s first reaction was one of outrage, playing a dangerous angle.

“Boss ain’t gonna like this, Ding. Nobody said anything about this kind of torture.”

“Boss say get answers.” Dingo brandished the machete. “This work before. Will work again. Now leave, unless you want to join her in the chair.”

Coker hung his head, gradually moving aside. “Wait until I talk to Solomon. You piss him off, not you nor any of your gang buddies are going to be safe. Don’t forget, you’re only working for this guy, not goddamn family.”

“You talk.” Dingo jerked his head toward the door. “Out there. Me and this woman gotta talk ‘bout knives and guns. Mmm.”

Caitlyn stared, transfixed, by the blade. Its edges looked dull, almost a burnished orange. It was only when the blade came closer that she understood why.

Blood. Congealed, dried blood clung to the edges. She jumped when Dingo juiced the cattle prod.

“You speak for me, woman? Let me hear you speak. Be free, say your words. Nothing else in life is free, eh?”

Caitlyn struggled against her bonds. The chair was shaky, but the ropes were tight. In this moment, at this point in her life, raw emotion and a passion to survive could have thrust her into any action. A person never knows how they will react to a severe or desperate incident until they’re faced with it, with life or death, unexpected pleasure or terrible pain. All bets are then off.

“I want to be saved,” she said. “We all want to be saved in some way. Even you, Dingo. You mind me calling you that? What’s your real name?”

“You want saving? Ah, but only one thing saves. You know what that is, woman?”

Caitlyn shook her head, trying desperately to hold the man’s eyes.

“An altar,” he said seriously, then burst out laughing. “Altar full of gold. And diamonds. A pit of money. All the rest,” he shrugged, “is our living hell.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

Dingo brought the cattle prod around until its fizzling prongs were an inch from her nose. “You gonna save us? You figure I ain’t heard all that before? I heard it from the mouths of cops. Childcarers. Even priests. Most truth I ever got from a priest was the one told me the best use he ever got outta the Bible was that he used it to bash a mugger’s head in. That’s real. That’s our world, woman. We were born with one foot in Hell.”

Calmly, he laid the machete on the floor and lit a cigarette. “How ‘bout we get to the point. Boss wants answers. Let’s start with the map.”

Caitlyn felt a sudden rush of annoyance, unprecedented. “I don’t have any answers! I joined the fucking group just yesterday!”

Their inability to believe her, their unending distrust, irritated the hell out of her. This guy was never going to believe her no matter what she said. But deep, deep inside her memory lay a fact that might give them pause. Her eyes had slipped innocently over Crouch’s work yesterday as he sweated over the map and its translation. She had noticed a destination and sentence that stuck with her.

First treasure of Tenochtitlan is in Utah!

First treasure? What the hell did that mean?

If she told them… she would be betraying the team and her new boss. Truth was, they would hurt her anyway. Still, she fought a testing inner battle to keep her silence.

That was when the prod touched her left knee. White hot pain stabbed hard through every nerve and she threw her head back for real this time, unable to stop the scream.

“No! I’m just an analyst and a techie. You can’t—”

The agony came again, the prongs fizzling briefly against her right knee this time. “I can,” Dingo muttered. “You’re in my world now, woman. There ain’t no heroes coming for you.”

Caitlyn gasped in agony. “You might… be surprised.”

“Not in ten years. Life just wears you out around here. Jades you. By the age of ten—” Dingo spread his arms. “World weary. Seen everything.”

“Believe me, you’ve seen nothing like what my friends will do to you when they get here.”

Dingo laughed. “Friends? What friends? Nobody follow us here. Nobody know we here. Cops won’t help. That kinda hope gonna get you nothin’ but dead.”

Caitlyn tried again to connect with Dingo through eye contact. “My friends are coming right now. I’d recommend you treat me well.”

If there was one thing a hardened criminal worried about it was any kind of threat to his business. Dingo was no exception. The first thing he did was to stare at Caitlyn as if gauging her sincerity; the second was to dig a cellphone out and press speed dial.

“Marco? What you got out there? Anything around the shop?”

Dingo listened carefully. Caitlyn watched him without expression, shocked by her own coolness under pressure. Hard to believe that she was a wreck inside. Maybe it was the training kicking in or the faith she put in Alicia and Crouch. Maybe it was denial. The reasons didn’t really matter. Dingo listened for a while, waving the cellphone about beside his left ear.

“Don’t worry,” he said to Caitlyn. “Marco find them if they around.”

Caitlyn flinched when Dingo suddenly hung up. “All right.” He tucked the phone out of sight and came forward. “This time I ain’t fuckin’ around, lady. I don’t care if you tell me or not but I’m gonna have me some fun.”

He thrust the prod forward into her stomach. Caitlyn screamed as fifty thousand volts entered her body from the point of impact. She struggled against her bonds, the ropes abrading flesh. Caitlyn felt her muscles stretched in a rictus of agony, taut until Dingo pulled the prongs away.

“So what you got for me, bitch? You wan’ some more, ‘cause y’know I’m happy to serve it up.”

Caitlyn shuddered. Before she had a chance to catch a breath Dingo was pressing the prod forward again, this time into her ribs. Again she screamed, convulsed against her bonds. Spittle flew from between her lips.

“Fuck you!” she yelled, amazed by her own defiance. “Fuck you and the whore that shat you out!”

Dingo looked a little startled, but then a crafty leer crept across his features. “So.” He smiled. “You trained? The choir girl was all an act. Good!”

Again he zapped her. Again Caitlyn juddered and jerked against the ropes, wishing it were indeed all an act. Her wrists bled, her ankles were bruised. The chair trembled with every movement. An involuntary twitch began in her left cheek and wouldn’t let up.

Dingo slowly brought the prod up until it sparked before her eyes. “Think you’ve felt the worse? Nothing near. How ‘bout the face? Ears? Eyes? Or maybe I’ll just jam this baby into your mouth.” The sneer told her he would be good to his word.

“The treasure.” She panted. “I know. I know where it is.”

Dingo leaned toward her, the sparking prongs between his eyes and her own. “I thought so. Tell me. I’ll go easy on you.”

Caitlyn forced out a tear. “It’s… ” The rest was lost in a murmur.

Dingo tilted his body another few degrees. The instant he was at full stretch Caitlyn jerked forward, headbutting the cattle prod and forcing it against Dingo’s own forehead. The pain was immense, making her see blackness and stars but the shocked squeal that came from Dingo’s mouth almost made it worthwhile.

Almost.

Dingo was suddenly enraged. “Bitch! Fuck, fuckin’ bitch! I’ll kill you. C’mere!”

He grabbed her left hand, leaned on it, and brought the cattle prod around until it was level with her right eye. Without a word he pushed it forward. Caitlyn struggled hard. Using the leeway she had created in her bonds, she threw her head from side to side. Dingo grabbed her throat, trying to keep her still.

“Goddamn it!”

Caitlyn spat at him, then started to rock the chair from side to side. The moment Dingo attempted to arrest the pitching by perching on the arm, the entire flimsy seat collapsed. Both Caitlyn and Dingo crumpled to the floor amidst a pile of shattered timber.

Dingo was beside himself, scrambling around in the pieces, swearing uncontrollably. Caitlyn rolled to the side of the room, still attached to the arms of the chair but at least able to hold the broken wedges up before her face.

“Stop fighting, dammit!” Dingo muttered. “I’ve seen meeker pit fighters and cops sat in that chair.”

Caitlyn prepared herself for his next attack. He was concentrating on the prod but she knew exactly where the machete was, over the other side of the room where it had been discarded. If she could —

Dingo’s cell chimed. The sudden interruption almost sent him over the edge. Veins stood out in his forehead, a tapestry of unhinged madness that might have made a great abstract painting. With hands curled into fists he sought to calm himself down. Caitlyn took the brief respite to regain her balance.

“What?” Dingo’s anger was becoming infectious.

Caitlyn tried to listen but could hear only one side of the conversation.

“Now? I thought you said—”

A quick rush of hope swept through her. Could it be? But she quelled it; her situation was dire beyond belief. Even if someone had come to save her could they find her in time?

Dingo spat onto the floor. “Deal with them! Give me time to finish this bitch off!”

Alicia kept her head down as Crouch drove their car through the locked warehouse door. The outside was a gaudy canvas of altered signage, one new name painted atop the other, and constructed of solid blocks. But the entry doors were wooden, held together by a thick iron strap, and crumpled at the first impact. The doors crashed onto the front of the car, then slid away. The car itself slewed to the left, turning almost a full circle before coming to a complete stop.

Alicia cracked one door open and Russo did the same to the other side. With no immediate retaliation forthcoming they piled out and headed for the nearest cover — several chopped apart cars were scattered around the inside, some stacked on top of each other. Tall, brightly colored toolboxes with dozens of open drawers stood around the place like sleeping robots. A dilapidated table and dozens of plastic chairs sat in one corner, the remains of food and soda cans left around the dirty surface and the floor. An open pit lay in the center of the warehouse, a car lift at the far end.

Alicia took it all in without stopping to look. The banda were well equipped, their chop shop business was no doubt lucrative. The current crop of cars weren’t exactly high-end, but they were no rust-buckets either — an old Lotus Eclat, several Volkswagens and aging Mercedes, other marques that she didn’t recognize but looked middle of the range. Harder to pick out, at the rear of the space were the back ends and front ends of cars, side panels and stacks of wheels. At full muster, Alicia dreaded to think how many men the banda employed here.

Presumably, all on call right now.

She pressed on quickly into the warehouse, flanked on the far side by Russo and Healey, followed by Crouch and Lex. She ducked behind a deep blue Volkswagen as men began to flood the place from the far end. Don’t give them a target until you’re ready. She slipped around the edge of the Volkswagen, keeping to the shadows cast at the side of the warehouse, gaining even more precious ground.

One man saw her. He was dead before uttering a word, but the gunshot sent the chop shop into chaos. The Mexicans opened fire indiscriminately and without clear targets, spraying out of fear and ignorance. Alicia hopped up onto the next car, using the broken window frame to gain the roof, and fired down at them. The line of Mexicans suddenly parted as men darted for cover. Alicia picked them off where she could, leaping down before anyone could draw a bead on her.

Men screamed and ran straight for her, brandishing knives and axes. She lowered her machine gun. Crouch and Lex knelt to her either side. This sure as hell wasn’t going to be pretty.

Caitlyn swung as Dingo approached her. The wooden planks attached to her arms caught his shinbone, making him hop.

“Oh man,” he breathed. “This is gonna be so much fun.”

Caitlyn’s brow dripped sweat. Her fear made her hunch up into a ball as Dingo jabbed the prod forward. Luckily the prongs slipped past her left ear and struck the wall. Caitlyn immediately scolded herself. Sitting there and turning into a terrified ball of sweat wasn’t going to keep her alive. When Dingo poked again she swatted the prod aside with her arms, protected by the timber. Dingo surprised her by kicking her hard in the thigh. When she cried out he thrust the prod toward her again, catching her in the sternum.

Caitlyn cried out. She kicked frantically at his legs again and again, her movements powered by strength born of terror, anger and pure old-fashioned stubbornness. Dingo skipped away. Caitlyn knew the game was almost up.

Last chance. No more options.

With a heave that took most of her strength she used the side wall to lever herself upright and then launched herself straight at Dingo, in mid-flight, striking his upper body with her own and taking him to the ground. The two of them crashed together, the cattle prod skidding away.

Caitlyn bore down hard.

Dingo grabbed her throat. “Bad mistake.”

Alicia took out the first few men, quickly aware even in the midst of battle that there were no offices within the confines of the warehouse. Caitlyn wasn’t in here. That meant they needed a hostage. The banda were a fearsome opposition, screaming and shouting as they poured forward, weapons brandished above their heads in the way of warrior tribesmen. The bullets tore them to pieces, but that recourse soon proved tricky when armed opponents began to find superior firing positions.

Alicia moved constantly, slipping between cars and toolboxes. After sheltering behind one six-foot-high, bright-red unit for a minute she began rolling it toward her enemy, still hiding behind it. To both sides she thrust out her gun and fired alternate shots. Before she reached the far end she dived behind an old Mercedes S-Class, letting the roller box continue. By the time it crashed into the far wall it was riddled with holes and so were the men shooting at it, their focus destroyed. Alicia managed to disarm one of the Mexicans and take a good grip of his shoulders whilst aiming her gun at his midriff.

“Talk,” she said amidst the sound of shouting and gunfire. “Where’s the girl?”

“No speak! No speak!”

Alicia fired a bullet into his stomach. “Then you’re no good to me.”

She tripped another who poked his head around the side of the car, eyes opened wide when he saw the fate of his friend, groaning and slowly dying. Alicia quickly put him in the same position.

“The girl?”

“I… I… ”

“Be careful what you say, asshole.”

“Out back. Through the stacks. There is an office.”

Alicia spoke through the team’s Bluetooth connection. “I have a location. Back me up now!”

Caitlyn would not die today.

A sudden eruption of gunfire stunned the air as Alicia ducked out of hiding and ran full tilt toward a rear exit. At first the Mexicans concentrated their fire on her; bullets fizzed and ripped up the concrete and metal hulks all around her; her sprint was a dash through a barrage of death. She ran hard, not stopping nor even flinching when a hard tug signified hot lead piercing her jacket and again when a searing flash scorched her upper thigh.

Caitlyn will not die today.

Then her colleagues drew the bulk of their enemy’s attention, shooting volley after volley. Mexicans flew backward amidst sprays of blood and cracked bone, decimated flesh. But this was not a weak band of mercenaries, this was a Mexican gang, born and raised in fire with expectations to die young. Instead of retreating and regrouping they forged forward. Russo and Healey were forced down. Crouch barely kept his head. Only Lex showed a certain foolhardy mettle, copying Alicia’s example and standing strong through the fusillade.

Alicia rolled near the end. Bullets struck all around her. A broken shell, an old giant, rocked and shuddered and fell apart in front of her. She picked her way through, feet barely touching the floor. Something smashed into her back, sending her into a second roll and when she came up she found the back entrance right before her.

She slipped outside. A graveyard scene met her eyes. Piles of chopped cars, each stacked atop the other; five rows of rusted wrecks, ruined carcasses.

Alicia sprinted down the first row. A man stepped out in front of her, machete swinging at her head. Alicia ducked and slammed into his chest, sending him cartwheeling back into one of the piles, gratified when the entire mass started to topple slowly onto him. Another man charged her, head down. She stopped for a second, caught his neck and twisted him right off his feet, the spinning body broken and lifeless before it hit the ground.

The office lay ahead, built against the rear of the property. Alicia aimed for the door. She didn’t slow down.

Caitlyn looked up as the door smashed inward. Dingo’s hands were still around her throat, making the whole scene swim before her eyes but the crazy beautiful figure of Alicia Myles was unmistakable. She was Kristen Bell and the Terminator all rolled into one but twice as deadly. Blood soaked her jacket, tears in her jeans indicated knife wounds or even grazes from bullets. Dingo’s instant reaction was to let go of Caitlyn and defend himself.

Alicia’s voice crept through Caitlyn’s haze. “Don’t bother, asshole. You were dead the moment you touched her.”

Dingo flew at her. Alicia stepped clear of his range, then came back in, somehow aiming an elbow to the back of his neck even as she tripped him. Dingo flew headlong, but managed to catch himself, no slouch from his years on the streets. He came in again, this time with more care, fists positioned like a boxer. Alicia backed toward Caitlyn.

“You ready for some fun?”

Caitlyn shook her head, not in rejection but in amazement. How could she stay calm at a time like this? She watched the woman’s body, the way she held herself and adjusted to Dingo’s every move. She sensed the power that flowed through every poised sinew, the pure skill that permeated her every thought.

God, I so wanna be as good as her.

Determination and pride spurred her on. With a last glance her way, Alicia met Dingo’s attack head on, easily matching him blow for blow. Not only that, Alicia caused damage even when defending herself. Dingo’s face grew bloody, his arms heavy. Caitlyn saw the fight go out of him as Alicia broke his nose and left arm in a single maneuver.

“He’s all yours.” Alicia flung the weakened man so that he fell at Caitlyn’s knees. Even then he struggled, hate in his face, bringing an arm around.

Caitlyn thrust the cattle prod into his face.

The fizzling sound of flesh filled the room. Caitlyn pressed on, holding the prongs in place until the man passed out and then began to gingerly press her own throat.

“A few bruises.” Alicia peered closely. “Nothing worse than you’d get from a heavy night out with the boys. You’ll be fine.”

“Thanks.” Caitlyn’s voice sounded deep and husky due to the damage.

“Oh, and perfect that tone and they’ll be eating outta your hand at least, if not your—”

“Thank you!” Caitlyn enthused, almost ready to grab the Englishwoman and start hugging her. “You saved me.”

“We don’t hug in the military,” Alicia said a little gruffly. “Maybe a pat on the back. A smack on the ass if you’re really lucky. You coming?”

Caitlyn rose; battered, bruised and shocked but feeling better than ever. Was this how it felt to have a real family?

She’d almost forgotten.