Brute Force

Chapter 40

Ronnie felt like she’d been in the cage for days. Fear, pain, the glaring white light, and the constant thrum of the boat’s auxiliary engine kept her from getting anything but fragments of nightmare-filled sleep. She busied her mind working through every method of escape she could think of. “Look broken but stay strong,” became her mantra — to make her captors think they had beaten her.

“You can do this, chica,” she sniffed, dragging herself out of the pity party she’d been having and working to channel a healthy dose of inner fury. She lay on her back, studying a tubular steel bar that was suspended from a pulley on the ceiling. Handcuffs were affixed to either end of the bar with strong U bolts. She followed a heavy cable from the center of the bar, over the pulley, then back down to an electric winch on the far bulkhead. A dozen different scenarios and possible uses for the awful thing ran through her mind, but she shoved them away, trying to focus on the immediate situation.

She’d been over every inch of her cage, noting the wire ties and brackets that held the six panels together. When she was a little girl, her father had a small hunting dog he kept in a kennel much like the one where Ronnie found herself now. The dog hated the kennel and eventually, when left to its own devices for long enough, figured out the weak spots in the chain link and gnawed and pulled and tugged until it escaped.

The cameras located at each corner of the room made it difficult to work overtly on any portion of the cage, but Ronnie found that by rocking back and forth and periodically twisting her hair like she’d lost her mind, she could cover her movements and work one of the metal wire door ties back and forth without any of her guards rushing in to check on her escape attempt. She imagined them slouching in front of a bunch of fuzzy monitors while they whiled away the hours surfing porn. The fact that they were working for the IDTF identified them as less than the cream of the crop from any of their respective heritage agencies.

The squeak of the metal hatch sent Ronnie cringing to the back corner of her cage, as far away from the door as she could get. The redheaded GQ and the older one, whom she’d learned was named Gant, stooped to come in and swung the hatch shut behind them. Each carried the cattle prod they used to “soften her up” prior to letting her out to go to the bathroom — which was nothing but a filthy five-gallon bucket next to the V formed by the bow of the boat.

Both men attacked their duties with gusto, laughing and cursing as they applied the metal probes through the wire mesh of her cage. Once she’d writhed and screamed for what seemed like hours, beaten down to their satisfaction, Gant unlocked one side of the gate and dropped in a set of handcuffs.

“Mr. Walter is on his way,” GQ said, giving Ronnie a crackling jolt to the rump as she hustled by on her way to the bucket. “These little shock sticks will be a pleasant memory compared to the shit he does.”

The men leered and giggled like idiots while Ronnie did her business in the bucket. She walked back with her head higher when she was finished, holding the cuffs up for one of them to remove.

“Nope,” Gant said. “Not until you’re back inside.”

Ronnie groaned but complied, bending to climb back in the cage and bracing herself for the swift kick that Gant always gave her. For some reason, he seemed to have it in for her worse than GQ. The younger agent held the cattle prod under his arm and squatted to take off her handcuffs as she held her wrists out through the half open door. Ronnie gave him a sidelong glare and silently whispered, “Watermelon,” once she caught his eye.

It meant nothing. Ronnie’s father had taught her to mouth “watermelon” over and over when she didn’t know the words to a song. Several boys in college had thought she was flirting with them. There was something, they said, about the way her tongue flicked across her teeth when she said it. It worked on GQ as well, because he did a double take and looked like he was having a hard time swallowing when he locked the cage. She guessed he would come back as soon as he got rid of Gant.

Twisting her hair with one hand as soon as the hatch squeaked shut, she used it to form a curtain to block her work on the metal hinge tie from the view of the cameras. She bent it back and forth until her fingers bled.

Thankfully, it took nearly two hours for GQ to return, and by that time, Ronnie had worked the metal enough that she felt sure it would snap if given the right amount of pressure.

He wasted no time, getting straight to the point. “What was it you said to me before?”

“I have to go to the bathroom again,” Ronnie said, tongue to her top teeth as if she was saying “watermelon” again.

“Nice try.” He sneered. “You had your chance. If you need to go, do it in there.”

Ronnie bowed her head, avoiding eye contact for fear her true emotions would bubble over and she’d scare him off. She’d purposely ripped the top of her scrubs a good foot down the center during her last bout against the cattle prods and she breathed deeply for effect. The sight of her heaving chest should cloud the kid’s mind. “Mr. Walter isn’t going to want me all filthy,” she said. “Come on. Please?”

“You know this is going to cost you?” GQ fished in his pocket for the key.

“Maybe you should go get that other guy,” she said, retreating a little from his hungry gaze.

“We’ll be fine,” he said, his voice thick and gravelly. “Just you and me.”

“What about the cameras?”

“Forget the cameras,” he said. “I’m the one watching them. There’s nobody there to bug us. Now put these on.” Like he’d done each time before, GQ unlocked one side of the door and opened it just wide enough to drop in the handcuffs.

Garcia planted both feet against the other end of the door and kicked as hard as she could the moment the cuffs hit her hands. It took her two tries but the entire door fell away, slamming into GQ’s legs at mid-shin. She scrambled out of the cage, using the handcuffs like a pair of brass knuckles and swinging with deadly accuracy at the kid’s jawbone. Stunned, he pedaled backwards, blinking in dismay. Ronnie followed up with a low tackle, driving him backwards and taking him to the floor. His head slammed against a vent pipe with a satisfying thud, but he was still moving and far from finished.

A cold rush of adrenaline — and the sure knowledge that she was fighting for her life — kept Garcia moving with a burst of renewed energy. But adrenaline could only do so much, and she realized as soon as GQ began to fight back that she had very little in the way of reserves. She had to finish this quickly.

Falling face-first into GQ’s chest, Ronnie made a grab for the Scorn tucked into his belt. Her hand brushed the grip as he bucked his hips, rolling her onto her back and reversing their positions before she even knew what was happening. Her hands were trapped between them, low but unable to get to the Scorn and too far from his face to claw his eyes out. She tried to post a foot and throw him, tried to use the momentum of his movements against him, taking advantage of the power in her legs, but nothing worked.

“Just relax, babe,” he said, chest pressed to hers, panting in her ear. She could smell the cheese crackers on his breath. “It might even be fun if you’d quit jumping around.”

Garcia turned her head so she didn’t have to look at him. She’s been too slow to keep him from getting his hooks in — latching his feet around her lower legs and allowing him to rest the weight of his entire body low on her belly while still keeping his hands free. He planted a palm on the metal floor, slamming his right fist into her jaw. A shower of sparks exploded inside her head, but to her surprise she didn’t pass out. GQ was mean, but he wasn’t particularly good at hitting.

Momentarily rejuvenated by the realization that she was still alive, Ronnie put all her energy into bucking her hips, throwing GQ just high enough so she could work her hand down to his crotch. Miyagi called it “squeezing the kiwis.” Ronnie decided it would be more productive to twist and pull. GQ’s eyes flew wide. A curdled growl spilled from his lips as he hit her again, pressing down to stop the squeezing.

“You fight like a girl,” he groaned, laughing through a twisted grimace as the pain of her attack began to ebb. “Girls always go for the nuts…”

Garcia smiled. She’d given his kiwis a good enough squeeze he hadn’t felt it when her other hand moved to the Snake Slayer. She’d already pulled it from his waistband and cocked it before GQ realized she wasn’t still trying to tear off his balls.

“I guess you’re right,” she whispered as she pulled the trigger, sending four rounds of .36 caliber buckshot ripping through his belly, destroying his diaphragm and turning his right lung into Swiss cheese. “I do fight like a girl.”

She’d shoved the little derringer directly into GQ’s flesh under the point of his breastbone when she pulled the trigger. His organs absorbed the lion’s share of the report, expanding gas and burning gunpowder doing nearly as much damage as the buckshot.

GQ gurgled, pushing himself away as if Garcia was on fire, backpedaling to get distance from whatever had bitten him. His mouth hung open and he looked down at the blossom of blood forming on his shirt. Ronnie pressed her advantage as he gathered himself up to scream for help, driving him backwards with a hard smack to the temple with the heavy barrel of the Snake Slayer. She could have shot him again, but wanted to save the second round for whoever was on the other side of the door.

Fearful he had the cattle prod or some other weapon in a back pocket, Ronnie slapped away his pitiful attempts to fend her off. She fell against him and grabbed the Scorn with her left hand. The hawklike blade cleared the Kydex sheath with a welcome snick. In the same fluid movement, she drew the knife across the inside of GQ’s thighs, slashing viciously with all the speed and violence she could muster. Clothing, flesh, and arteries zipped and tore before the razor-sharp blade. With both femoral arteries cut and half a lung gone, GQ struggled for only a moment in a rapidly growing pool of his own blood before blinking his vaporous eyes for the last time.

Ronnie rolled gasping onto her side, Scorn in one hand, Snake Slayer in the other, blinking up at the bright light above her. Even the suspended metal bar was not quite as terrifying now that she was free of her cage.

Taking a brief moment to catch her breath, she moved to the hatch, bouncing up and down on her feet to regain movement and circulation after the endless hours of confinement. She had no idea what or who was on the other side, or if they’d heard the gunshot or GQ’s dying cries. What she did know was that she was going to get off this boat, even if she only had a little hawkbill blade and single shot in her pistol.