Robert Crais - Taken

“Yes. We have power.”

I’d seen his men working on the commissary power when they’d brought me here.

“Get some towels and ice, and I’ll show you. We also have to get some water in him. You let him dehydrate, he’s gone. He’ll be fine if you make him drink.”

Al-Diri told the gawky guard with the Adam’s apple to get what I asked for, and the guard hurried away.

Something buzzed, and al-Diri pulled a phone from his pocket and moved away. He cupped the phone, and gestured to Royce.

“Find Medina.”

When Royce left, I squatted by Berman and whispered to Krista.

“Don’t react to anything I say. My name is Elvis Cole. I’m working for your mother. I’m going to get you out of here.”

She showed no reaction except to wet her lips. She glanced past me to check the guards before she spoke.

“Now?”

“Soon. Someone on the outside is coming to help, but we’ll go whenever we get a chance.”

I looked at the Asian kid.

“Kwan Min Park. Your grandfather and cousin are helping me.”

A tiny smile cracked his features. Kwan Min Park was being smuggled into the United States because he was wanted for seven murders in South Korea.

“We leave. Soon.”

I glanced back at Krista, then Jack.

“He’s hurt, but he’s coming around. What happened?”

Kwan said, “Teeth.”

He bared his teeth in a horrible grimace.

Krista said, “Medina. The guard with broken teeth. He was hurting me.”

She stopped, and stared at me as if that was all she wanted to say.

“I understand. Are you okay?”

“So far. He keeps looking at me.”

I glanced across the crowded room. Medina wasn’t with us, but the large room was thick with nervous prisoners and roving guards. A group of Koreans huddled in a far corner, but no more than a dozen. I looked at Kwan.

“Where’s the rest of your group?”

“Some here, some other room. Like before.”

Krista said, “There’s another room like this across the hall. They split us, half on this side, half on the other.”

“There must be a hundred people in here. That’s two hundred people.”

“They brought us last night, our group and two others. I overheard this guard, he said one of the groups is from Russia. They have almost thirty Russian people across the hall.”

It was insane. Two hundred people of little or no means who had been kidnapped, imprisoned, and were now being ransomed to their equally poor families and miserly employers for as little as a few hundred dollars each to maybe a few thousand. Locano was right. The Syrian’s ugly business was based on quantity. If he collected one to two thousand each for two hundred pollos, he would see two hundred to four hundred thousand dollars for the people around me. If he stole two hundred people ten times a year, he saw two million to four million dollars.

I wondered why al-Diri brought the three groups to a single location, and why all three at once.

“Did the guard say why they brought you here?”

“Some guards disappeared. They just vanished or something, and now everyone thinks they were arrested. I guess they’re worried their friends will tell the police where we were, so they moved us.”

“A crew of guards? Like the men guarding you?”

“Yeah. Gone.”

Pike. Something or someone was putting pressure on the Syrian, and I knew that someone was Pike.

I checked the Syrian again. He was still on the phone, but now Medina and Royce were with him, and the Syrian looked angry.

Kwan said, “You have gun?”

I tapped my head.

“My mind is my weapon, Jedi.”

Kwan studied me for a moment, then turned away.

Krista leaned close to whisper.

“I have a knife. Jack found it at the other house.”

She reached toward her waist as if to show me, but I stopped her.

“Keep it. If you need it, use it. I’m going to get you out of here.”

“What if your friend can’t find us?”

“He will. There are people who won’t let you down.”

The gawky guard with the Adam’s apple returned with a pot of ice and a threadbare towel. Krista warned me he was coming, and told me he looked like a praying mantis. The name made me smile.

When he gave me the ice, the sharp-cornered outline of a pistol bulged in his right front pocket. This made me smile even more.

I wrapped ice in the towel and wedged it against Berman’s head. The Syrian shouted at someone in the hall. I liked it that he was angry. I thought about Pike again, and knew he was hunting.

Royce and the Praying Mantis came back a few minutes later, cuffed my wrists, and took me back to my room. I bumped Royce several times to check his pockets, and decided he carried no gun. I didn’t mind. The Mantis’s gun was with us, and would be easy to take.

They did not let me leave my room again until my third day at the date farm. I did not see Ghazi al-Diri again until that third day. I did not see Royce and the Praying Mantis again until the third day, which was the day I took the Mantis’s gun and killed them.

Joe Pike was hunting.

I would hunt, too.

Joe Pike

He was parked on the sand a mile north of Coachella, watching distant headlights slide along an invisible freeway across an invisible horizon when Megan Orlato woke. Took a second for her head to clear, then she felt the tape and binds, and stiffened as if she were being electrocuted. She fought and twisted against the binds and tried to scream through the tape. Her eyes were crazy-wide with fear, and should have been. Fear was right and proper. Fear was correct.

Megan Orlato was laid across the back seat. Her wrists, arms, ankles, and knees were secured with plasticuffs. Duct tape sealed her mouth. Pike was behind the wheel, turned to see her, his right arm hooked around the headrest, calm and relaxed. They were alone. Nothing moved except for the distant headlights.

Pike tried to recall how long since he last slept, but couldn’t. Didn’t matter. You sacrificed what needed to be sacrificed.

Pike stared at her until she quieted. He watched her watch him, and listened to her breathe. Her breathing was loud and ragged, but finally slowed.

“Your name is Maysan al-Diri. You are Ghazi al-Diri’s sister. You and Dennis Orlato supply drop houses to your brother.”

He moved for the first time to lift the yellow file box he took from her office.

“The houses where people were tortured and murdered are your listings. Properties for sale or rent, with out-of-state owners.”

He leaned across the seat, and gently peeled off the tape.

She shouted for help, screamed and shrieked, and thrashed again. He simply watched until she was winded. Then she finally spoke.

“I was in the kitchen-”

“Now you’re not.”

She was stirring honey into hot tea. She had not heard him enter. Did not hear him approach. She never knew he compressed her carotid artery, cut off the oxygen to her brain, and put her to sleep. She had not seen him until this moment when she opened her eyes, there in the moonlit desert.

“Dennis is dead. I shot him here.”

Pike touched the center of his right eyebrow.

“Ruiz and Washington are dead. Pinetta and Khalil Haddad are with the police.”

She was breathing hard again.

“Who are you?”

“Where is Ghazi?”

She breathed harder, so Pike touched the files.

“Twenty-two have out-of-state owners, so Ghazi will be at one of them. The time you save me is worth your life.”

She didn’t respond.

“If not, I’ll leave you with Dennis. Ghazi is mine either way.”

“Why do you want my brother?”

“He has my friend.”

“Will you kill him?”