Robert Crais - Taken

“I don’t know who you are talkin’ about.”

The man’s pistol snapped up so fast Orlato did not have time to react. The gun rocked his head sideways and unhinged his knees, but the man caught him.

“Elvis Cole.”

The blond man shouted from his perch on Haddad, red-faced and furious.

“Where is he? What did you do with him?”

Orlato’s head cleared, but he feigned being hurt worse than he was, staggering and blinking. If he fell into the man, he might be able to draw the blade, or he might grab the gun.

“I did nothing. I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

The pistol snapped again, and the blond man shouted louder.

“Lying fuck! The Escalade was at the house. You bastards know. You work for the Syrian.”

He jerked Haddad’s face from the dirt and pointed at Orlato. Haddad’s eyes bulged like a dog being crushed, and he chattered in Arabic.

The blond man shouted to his friend.

“He knows where they took him! He knows who has him.”

The tall man’s pistol suddenly appeared in front of Orlato’s face, locked dead center between his eyes. The flat copper snouts of its bullets slept in their cylinder crypts.

“Elvis Cole. Where is he?”

The tall man thumbed back the hammer.

“Ten seconds. Where is he?”

The blond man screamed, livid with rage.

“Think we’re bluffing, you will die. What did you do with him?”

Orlato abruptly realized he had only one chance. He had something they wanted, and that gave him power. Power was time, and time was life. He showed both palms, the knife now forgotten.

“Yes! Yes, they have him.”

Haddad barked in Arabic, but Orlato didn’t understand and did not care. The blond man pushed Haddad’s face into the dirt, and barked back. The tall man ignored them.

“Eight seconds.”

“Trade, me for him. The Syrian will trade.”

“I don’t negotiate.”

The blond man shouted.

“Tell us and live!”

“A trade! By morning he will be dead!”

“Five seconds.”

Orlato screamed.

“A phone call. I talk to the Syrian, we will work out a trade, and you will have this man. I swear it. I swear!”

The tall man hesitated, and Orlato felt a whisper of hope. The man they wanted was probably already dead, but if they let him call the Syrian, these men would not survive until morning. Orlato spoke quickly, bartering for his life.

“The Syrian will trade for me. I’m married to his sister. You will get your friend. I promise.”

The tall man glanced at his friend. No other part of him moved. The gun didn’t move. Just the head, turning and locking in place with the precision of a machine.

The blond man lifted Haddad’s head.

“He’s full of shit. This bastard knows.”

The tall man’s head swiveled back to Orlato.

“Three seconds. Where is he?”

Orlato felt a rush of fear, but still didn’t believe they would kill him. They would not risk losing their friend.

“He cannot help. None of them can. I am the only way you can get your friend back.”

The tall man said, “One second.”

Orlato reached for the knife, but by then it was too late.

Dennis Orlato’s last thought before he reached for the knife was one of fearful admiration. He thought:

“This man means it.”

Orlato registered a brilliant, blinding flash, and was dead.

Joe Pike

Pike turned away from the body and walked over to Jon Stone’s prisoner, there in the desert in the fading bronze light. Stone had already strapped the man’s wrists behind his back and his ankles together with plasticuffs. When Pike arrived, Stone lifted the man’s head and peeled back his upper lip.

“Khat runner. Check out these teeth. Fuckers get green teeth from chewing the khat. Ain’t this green rotten?”

“Stop it, Jon.”

Stone laughed, and dropped the man’s head.

Khat was a shrub native to East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, where people chewed the leaves as a stimulant. Poor man’s speed.

Stone’s prisoner was in his early thirties, with ragged black hair and big eyes crazy with fear. The light was fading and the clock was running. Every passing minute would put Cole farther away or closer to death. Time was everything, and speed was life. Pike wanted to press forward, but needed what this man could give him, and that would take time.

Pike pointed his pistol at the body.

“Do you understand what happened?”

The man spit out Arabic so fast, his voice was distorted. Pike had spent freelance time in Lebanon, Saudi, Somalia, the Sudan, and Iraq. He could get by, but wasn’t fluent.

Pike said, “ Qala Inklizi.”

Telling him to say it in English.

Stone cracked the M4 across the man’s ear, shouted in Arabic, and the man settled down. Jon Stone was fluent.

Pike squatted in front of the man, and lifted his head.

“If you resist, I will kill you. If you lie, I will kill you. Do you understand?”

The man uttered a soft yes.

Pike pulled him into a sitting position.

“Name.”

“I am Khalil Haddad, from Yemen. Please do not kill me. I will do anything you ask.”

Stone stepped away and did a quick three-sixty of the horizon.

“We gotta roll, bro. We don’t want to be here if ICE choppers in.”

ICE. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The U.S.-Mexican border from Tijuana to Brownsville was a hot zone of DEA agents after incoming dope, ATF agents after outgoing guns, and ICE agents trying to stop illegal entry. Pike was good with the heat.

“Check the vehicle.”

Stone trotted to the Escalade as Pike tipped his pistol toward the bodies in the cut.

“These people from India?”

“Yes.”

“Who killed them?”

“We did. Me and Orlato and Ruiz. It is what we do when they cannot pay.”

This was an honest answer. Bajadores were bandits who kidnapped people who were trying to enter the country illegally. The kidnappers would then demand ransom payments from their families or employers. This continued until the families could or would no longer pay, then the victims were murdered. Dead victims could not bear witness.

“Elvis Cole. You know who I’m talking about?”

“The man who came for the boy and the girl.”

“A young Latina. Krista Morales. An Anglo boy named Berman.”

“Yes, the boy and the girl.”

“Are they alive?”

“I believe so, yes, but I cannot be sure. My job was with these Indians.”

“Why were they taken?”

“They were with pollos a Tijuana crew brought north. No one knew they were Americans.”

“Korean pollos?”

Haddad looked surprised.

“How do you know these things?”

Pike struck him with his open palm on the forehead before Haddad finished the sentence. This was not a two-way conversation.

“Yes! Koreans. The Sinaloas stole them from the Tijuanas. The Syrian, he stole them from the Sinaloas.”

Pike felt Haddad was telling the truth. Tijuana, Sinaloa, Zeta, La Familia, on and on-if the U.S. side of the border was a hot zone of law enforcement agencies, the Mexican side was a war zone controlled by cartel factions who fought and stole from each other like rabid dogs. Pike was good with war zones, too. He felt at home.

“Is Cole alive?”

“This morning, yes. He was brought to our house for the Syrian.”

“Your house?”

“Where we kept the Indians.”

Pike hammered back the. 357, and held it to Haddad as he had held it to Orlato.

“What happened to him?”

Haddad cringed, but Pike held him close. Haddad did not want to see what Orlato had seen. He did not want to see his death coming.

“Did the Syrian kill him?”