Robert Crais - Taken

The guards were different that morning. They moved faster than usual past my little office-cell, and their voices were strained and clipped. Sometimes they argued. I heard muffled shouting and what might have been women screaming, and an engine revving, but I wasn’t sure about any of it.

Royce and the Praying Mantis opened my door, and Royce told me to get on my feet. Even Royce looked different. Closed off, and grim.

“Get up, asshole. Let’s go.”

I turned sideways to show the cuffs when I stood.

“Cut these things. I have to pee.”

“So piss yourself. C’mon.”

He took my arm and pulled me past the commissary. The hall was crowded with guards and prisoners, who were being moved from one room to the other. Someone shouted in Spanish, and the guards pushed people more roughly than usual, and used their shock prods.

The Mantis pushed me into the room with Krista and Jack, which was now much more crowded.

“What’s going on?”

Royce said, “You’ll find out. Shut up and sit down.”

They turned away, moving to other parts of the room. I saw Krista and Jack in their usual spot, and picked my way to them. Jack was awake and focused, and sitting upright.

I said, “Remember me?”

“Sure. Kinda.”

“You look a lot better.”

Krista leaned close as two guards moved past.

“Kwan and his group got to leave. They’re going home.”

I realized Kwan and the other Korean victims were missing.

“This morning?”

“Yeah, and now they’re putting everyone from the other room into ours.”

I thought about Sang Ki Park’s adamant refusal to pay, and wondered why his people had been released. The guards who were shoving people into our room moved like men who were running out of time, and feeling the pressure. Pike was big on pressure, and might be working with Park. If Pike was close, everything could and would change in a heartbeat.

I edged closer to Krista, checked the area for guards, and turned so my back was to her.

“You have the knife?”

“Yes, like you said.”

“Cut. They’re tough, so cut hard.”

She went to work with the knife. When she slowed, Jack edged closer to help, and a minute later the plastic gave. I kept my hands behind my back, and sat with my back to the wall.

The prisoners from the other room were soon in ours, and Ghazi al-Diri made an appearance. He stepped through the door with several guards, spoke briefly to Medina, and left. Even al-Diri carried a shotgun.

Medina then spoke with the guards, who spread through the crowd near the door, pulling people to their feet and pushing them into the hall. When people farther from the door began getting up, other guards rushed to push them down, but the closer people kept being pushed out.

Krista whispered.

“What are they doing?”

I suspected I knew, and hoped I was wrong. Al-Diri might be moving us to a more secure hiding place, but I flashed on Thomas Locano, telling me about mass graves in Mexico.

I nudged Jack.

“Can you walk?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Krista said, “He can’t walk.”

“I can walk.”

We were watching the people closer to the door drain from the room when Medina, Royce, and the Mantis left the other guards, and came over. Royce had a shotgun slung over his shoulder, and the Mantis and Medina carried shock prods. The pistol was still in the Mantis’s right front pocket.

Medina stopped so he was standing over Krista, and leered at her with the awful smile.

“We all goin’ for a little ride, but you’ll be more comfortable if you ride with me.”

He bent to take her arm, and I saw his shirt was spattered with blood. Streaks and drips of blood marked his shirt with slaughterhouse designs, and more blood speckled his face.

I saw the blood as he pulled Krista to her feet. I saw the blood, and it didn’t matter if Joe was here or help was at hand.

He pulled Krista to her feet, and I stood with her, and in that moment the sharp unmistakable sound of a gunshot echoed from the next building.

The room froze in that instant except for me and Medina. He pushed Krista away, and swung the shock prod down like a club. I stepped outside, rolled his arm between us, and hit him in the mouth with the first two knuckles of my right hand. He staggered back, but I had his arm, so I punched him again as Royce unslung the shotgun. I drove Medina backward into Royce, then stepped into the Mantis, hooked my elbow into his throat, and tore at his pocket for the gun. I was still in his pocket when Royce pushed Medina away, came up with the shotgun, and Krista Morales stabbed him in the shoulder. He squealed and swatted at the knife as if swatting a bee. The pocket tore away, I shot him twice in the chest, then shot the Mantis.

Medina was gone. Many of the guards had run to see what was happening, and now the sound of gunfire popped and pounded through the buildings. Some prisoners ran, others dropped to the floor, and still others curled into balls.

I grabbed Royce’s shotgun, pulled Krista and Jack close, and shouted over the screaming.

“We’ll be trapped if we stay. Can you walk?”

“I’ll run.”

I shot two guards, and we pushed our way into the crowd.

Sang Ki Park

Sang Ki Park felt benevolent toward the defeated foe before him. The man nodded respectfully, and introduced himself.

“My name is Samuel Rojas. We have your people here.”

They were making the exchange at an abandoned quarry a few miles north of the Salton Sea. The man called Rojas gestured to the large truck behind him, from which people were already emerging. The men from the three smaller pickups were helping Park’s people from the truck.

Park would inspect his people once they unloaded, then keep the truck to transport them.

Rojas said, “You have a lady for us?”

Sang Ki Park raised his hand. The woman stepped from the back seat of his BMW, but came no farther. She was not allowed to come farther.

Park appeared patient as the people he brought from Korea gathered in a small group, but he was not. In truth, he was looking for his cousin, and anxious to be done with this. His uncle was now waiting at the motel, and he did not wish his uncle to wait long. His uncle was not a patient man.

It did not take long to unload twenty-three people. Less than two minutes. Certainly no more than three.

Park frowned. Twenty-two people now milled in a group before him, and none were his cousin.

He was about to say something when two men carried a body from the truck, and placed it on the ground a few feet away.

Sang Ki Park stared at the crushed head of his cousin, Kwan Min Park.

He felt very tired, but at the same time filled with a rage so fierce it might drive the heart of a dragon.

Samuel Rojas said, “May we have the lady now?”

Park glanced at Samuel Rojas, then turned and walked to Megan Orlato. When he reached her, he drew a Sig Sauer pistol from beneath his jacket, and shot her in the head.

Fourteen Ssang Yong Pa soldiers then emerged from their hiding spots and opened up with automatic weapons, killing Samuel Rojas and the seven men who had come with him.

When the killing was done, Park had his twenty-two employees put back aboard the truck along with his cousin’s body, and all of them drove away.

Nancie Stendahl

Eighteen hundred feet above the desert, and homing on Jon Stone’s black dot, Nancie Stendahl adjusted the headset.

“Say again.”

Mo said, “Fly heading two-zero-zero.”

The pilot nudged the helicopter a few degrees to the west, bringing them farther out in the desert on a south by southwest course.

Nancie had four people along on the flight: the pilot and Mo with her magic laptop in the front seats; Nancie, JT, and an SRT coordinator named Stan Uhlman. The two SRT teams were staged twenty miles apart and awaiting direction.