Chapter 18

Deirdre called just as I awakened. She was needy, worried, and lonely. We talked but I avoided giving any information even though I was using the special phone handed over by MI6. There was too much risk involved. The amount of money at stake for the Kidde Porn Sex traffickers was immense. They would do anything to take us out, so I kept it generic and up-beat. Deirdre was going to have to tough it out until I got home.

If I ever did...

Jack called and said they had unpacked the information gleaned during the interrogation and were about to capture another thug. He promised to be in contact with me in time for me to help ‘debrief’ him when the time came. His news brightened an otherwise brutally boring day, which I spent reviewing the take from the first trafficker.

Jack finally contacted me. He had a helicopter heading in to bring me to them and it would be arriving within a few minutes. I was ready and waiting. The chopper was stationary for less than thirty seconds. The pilot was in such a hurry that before I was in and buckled down, we were off.

Jack had coached me well in other lives. All the way to our destination I kept my mouth shut and eyes open. My companions on the trip looked like they were in no mood for conversation, and their reticence suited me just fine. I did think it was odd that a chopper passed us heading in toward the house as we climbed out and turned away.

Our pilot flew along, hugging the tree line for a very long while. We never did climb beyond a few hundred feet, and often were lower than that. My first twinge that something was wrong came when the co-pilot took a cell phone call and spoke rapid fire Spanish. When pilot and man sitting beside me then spoke to each other in Spanish, and I knew I’d been kidnapped.

Their plan might have worked except for the fact that I understood a little Spanish and heard the co-pilot tell the pilot that they would toss me out of the plane when they climbed above the reservoir coming up. Once I knew their intentions, it became very easy for me to decide to shoot first and let Jack’s guys ask questions later.

No matter what they had in mind, I knew I had to save myself to save Evie. Without acting like I was on to them, I crossed my arms in front of my chest which brought my left hand close to my pistol and waited for any movement that meant they were prepared to take me out. As I waited for the inevitable, it occurred to me that they might be headed to the same place they were holding Evie, after they got rid of me, so the pilot would know where they were keeping her. The other three were going to get very dead, and then I would convince the pilot that the only way to avoid joining them as cadavers was to take me back home and deal with Jack once we arrived.

The co-pilot appeared to be the one in charge, so I decided to kill him first. He was big, strong looking, but his size and strength were canceled out by the tight quarters and his muscle bound shape. When he suddenly barked an order in guttural Spanish, both men in back reached for their guns, and I shot their leader. His brains splattered the pilot and momentarily paralyzed the two thugs in back with me.

As quickly as I neutralized the front seats, I turned the gun right and left, killing the other two. That left me with the pilot who seemed frozen with his hands on the controls. The sensation of a red hot gun barrel against his temple might have encouraged him to be good. I could smell his burned hair from where my gun barrel burned against his neck at the hair line. It was easy to see that he understood how close he was to dying.

Once I had his undivided attention, I ordered him to take me back home. He tried to pretend he didn’t understand, but I clipped him once, very hard, on the top of his shoulder with the pistol and he immediately remembered he understood English and absolutely couldn’t wait to comply. “If you so much as try to touch the push-to-talk button, I will spray your brains all over this nice, shiny cockpit,” I said, softly, causing him to try and assure me that he would be good.

Once he was properly convinced to behave, I grabbed the gun from under his jacket, and took two away from his dead co-pilot. The two in back wouldn’t be using their guns ever again, but I wanted to make sure the pilot couldn’t reach any weapon so I took theirs anyway.

The flight home was otherwise unremarkable, except for when the helicopter carrying Jack’s guys met us and escorted us home, where the pilot and three dead bodies were taken away. Three were scheduled for a quiet burial and the live one would be wishing he was dead before long.

Jack spoke to Roy and arranged for the pilot to have a very uncomfortable evening, until he gave up the hiding place where his cohorts were holding Evie. He fought like a tiger, and when he caved in and told us everything he knew about his bosses and their plans, I wished he hadn’t.

“They kill the girl when they grab her. She hit Juan Jose and he shoot her in the head. They kidnap another girl and make believe she is your friend, so when you come you make good target to get dead just like her...” He talked a long time before Jack told his guys to put a round in his head and end the interrogation the old fashioned way ... permanently.

“Hang on for just a few minutes,” I said, quietly.

The pilot was sweating and bloody. His hands were gruesome looking because the ends of all ten fingers were clipped off with pinking shears, and then eventually burned beyond identification to keep him talking. There were whip marks all over his torso, and one nipple was missing.