The Long Ride

I come to between a couple of the wrestler's buddies. The guy that Lou tossed in the desert lands a blow to his mid-section.

"Check around his neck. He had them in a pouch around his neck." Justin picks at his teeth with an ivory toothpick that he pulled from an ornate holder in his pocket.

The wrestler puts a hold on Lou and one of the other guys yanks open his shirt, buttons flying, and reveals the small leather pouch.
Justin steps up and yanks it from his neck and smiles, "What is yours is mine again, my friend."

He opens the pouch and then his smile goes flat. He pours out the contents into his hands. It is just a pile of black pea sized pebbles.
I am just as surprised as the hostage.
"Where are the stones?"
Lou coughs and spits a little blood. He looks at Justin with enough hatred to cause an involuntary bowel movement... but Justin doesn't flinch. He nods at the wrestler who lines up Lou for another flurry of blows.

"WAIT... " I interject, not wanting to see Lou have anything else ruptured.
Justin looks at me.

"He hasn't had that pouch off his neck except when you took it from him. Those diamonds were in there the whole time. When he took it off you in the desert he didn't even look inside, just put it back around his neck and that was that."
Lou nods, trying to get his wind back.

"That is bullshit, my friend, total bullshit." The hostage tries to say it with conviction, but there is and unaswered question in there somewhere.
He stops and there is an awkward silence. Even his men start to get a little jittery.
"I took the stones from you at the beach and then hitched a ride with the marina guy's wife."
He says to himself, now turned toward the mirror but avoids looking at his reflection.
"I did fall asleep for a few moments on that trip, but she wouldn't have done anything... she didn't stop the car, she had to drive."

He pounds his fists on the porcelin, "The men in that border town... they must have slipped me something." He spins quickly and looks at his men who jump at the movement.
"Put them in the car."

The hostage disappears and his cronies yank us out of the men's room and start to take us away toward the side valet exit.

Lou protests..."Hey, I paid big money to watch that show and I have a piece of ass in there that any of you guys would die for."
They yank Lou out of the door that leads out toward the valet parking. I am shoved through the door as well.

A silver stretch Lincoln screeches to a halt and in front of us and we are shown the floor. I have a foot planted on my neck so I make no attempt to resist. They zip tie our wrists in front of us, that and a foot on the neck and the occasional touch of cold steel to let us know that any quick moves would be our last.

We make a quick dash from the valet area and then come to a screeching hault as Justin climbs in from a side entrance to the casino.
"North on the main highway for a good twenty miles." He says into the phone set that connects the back of the limo to the driver. He looks down at us in the dark.
"Are you two going to be good?"
Lou and I both nod. We are allowed to sit up on the seats. The windows are heavily tinted. They could blow our heads off and the flash wouldn't even be seen in the next lane.

"Where are we going?" I ask the group, looking at each of them and then settling on Justin.
"You two have given me enough grief."
"We have? Is that what you call rescuing you off of that doomed ship? Grief?" Lou hisses.
"And taking you in, feeding you, giving you a ride up the Sea of Cortez?" I add.

Justin acknowledges none of these statements. He takes his phone out of his pocket and makes a quick call.
"Make it two... somewhere out of the way." He repositions in the seat, "We should be there in thirty or forty minutes. What road is it? I'll let him know." He cancels the call and then picks up the hand set and informs the driver.

"What?" He turns and looks out the small window at the traffic behind us. "There are hundreds of cars following us... it's called traffic." He hangs up and then reaches into the bar and grabs a tumbler and the Scotch.

"You know you two have caused me a lot of pain with my employers. I have heard from our sources that you actually went diving on the boat of Arturo Montoya. You know much more than you have let on, my friends. Through those same sources I have also been made aware of your relationship with Abigail. We were to do business with those stones. When she found out I didn't have them, she was going to use me for trade or kill me. I am wishing now that she would have done the latter.
"Us too." Lou tells him.
Justin nods at the closest henchman and he backhands Lou to shut him up, drawing a very unfriendly expression.
"My employers want those stones back... but since I most likely lost them I can't very well tell them that. What I can tell them is that you two had them and fenced them off somewhere while in Central America. You would have had enough time for that." He nods at the thought of it. "Yes, and then we tracked you down and the cash you had traded for was taken from you while you were in a drunken stupor." Another nod as he threads the fabric of his tale.

"That's your story?" It doesn't sound all that airtight to me unless he works for Larry, Curly, or Moe.
"They are going to want to see some heads roll... so they might as well be yours."

We ride in silence after that little statement. After all we have been through in the last several weeks, I guess I expect Lou to be working on some plan to get us out of here. After a while he speaks.

"I should have killed you the first time that thought crossed my mind."

Justin smiles weakly, "Come now, Lou... I really don't think that you would have gotten all that far." He leans forward, "I have training in three different Martial Arts... black belts. I would have mopped the floor with you."

Lou grunts, "Thats all you're good for, Nancy... mopping floors."
Another nod, another backhand.
"I'm gonna kill you right after I kill Nancy." Lou spits blood onto the plush carpeting of the limo.

We ride for what seems like an hour. I am looking at all of these guys. They are all strapped, but hell... they could be carrying butter knives when we are shackled like this. I am hoping that Lou makes good on his promise without dying in the process. That would give us more of a fighting chance. If it means we are going down, then I am all for going down fighting.

The road gets bumpy... then washboard. After about five minutes of this thrashing we turn off and stop behind the back of another car. We are forced out of the limo at gunpoint, two of his goons for each of us, then the wrestler at Justin's side as we are escorted out in front of the headlights of the other car.

There are two holes, long enough to hold a body if the legs are folded underneath... but they don't seem deep enough. Two of his men are sweating through cheap suits, leaning on shovels.

"You fools... can't you do anything right?" Justin jumps down into one of the holes and he isn't even up to his knees.
"Waist deep. Those were my orders. Waist deep so the animals won't dig them up."
One of the men says something in French.
"No, you don't see any animals right now, you idiot, but there are plenty of creatures out here in the desert that would dig up a shallow grave."
He orders his bodyguard to grab the implements from his men. The wrestler begins to hand the shovels to the both of us, but Justin stops him.

"No funny business."
We each get a shovel.

"I am not digging my own fucking grave." I let my shovel drop. Lou throws his out of the hole at one of the men.
He jabs the wrestler in the ribs with his elbow and the big man draws his weapon and takes the safety off.
"I can make your last moments painless, or excrutiating." Justin motions to the shovel by his man's feet and it is kicked back into Lou's hole.

We are handed the shovels and start to dig. I can't believe that we are digging our own graves here... not the follow-up I had hoped for to the day we had yesterday. Lou and I are facing each other and I am just waiting for a signal. I am not against decapitating one of these bastards with this shovel just out of spite.
Lou leans in, "Can you take a bullet and make it to the car?"

I look at him and throw a load of desert over my back, getting it on the shoes of one of the goons. He steps back and I give Lou another look. He saw it.

We act like we don't know what is happening, but with each shovel full we move them back inch by inch, positioning them. I turn in my hole and dig out in the other direction, moving Justin and his wrestler back a few inches. It isn't much of a plan, but I have seen Lou work wonders with no plan at all. For whatever reason I don't feel like this is the end. Whatever move he makes... when he makes it, I will have his back.

Five minutes later we have moved them back a foot or two, but it doesn't matter. The plan has changed with the car that is approaching, slowly and with lights off. If they are sneaking up like this they can't be with Justin and his crew, and that makes them on our side.
I am the first to notice their approach and start talking... loudly, to Lou and then to Justin to draw his attention away. I don't want them to hear the hush of tires on sand, or the sound of the engine as it idles up. Lou looks at me like I am crazy, trying to figure out angle. He follows my eyes for a second and from our holes, which are getting deeper with every shovel full. When we bend down to grab a shovel load we can see the shadowed outline of the car as it comes... under the headlight beams that shine over the area where we are digging.

"That's enough."
I stop and look up at Justin, who has the wrestler grab the shovels from our hands.
One of the men says something in French and Justin laughs.

"He says the deeper you dig the more we have to shovel back in the hole. He also says we should kill one of you and then have the other of you bury him so we don't have to do it."

"Don't worry, we'll take care of it." The voice comes from behind them. It has a familiar timber, someone we know.

Gunfire errupts, first from the French. Pistol fire, wildly spraying into the blackness beyond the glare of the headlights. The shots are aimed beyond the limo by three or four of them. They stop and for a moment there is complete silence. Justin has moved behind his bodyguard, like a child hiding behind his mother's leg.

From the side, outside of the beams from the headlights, shotgun fire explodes from several positions, cutting down the four men that had guarded us. Instinctively we drop down below ground level, only the tops of our heads are out of the holes to witness the rescue.
Two of the men blown apart by the shotgun blasts return fire until they pass out and continue to die. Another round of buckshot and they don't have to work at it.

"WHO ARE YOU?"
Justin screams into the blackness beyond the headlights just as his wrestler drops his pistol and grabs at the knife in his larynx. Another flies from beyond their field of vision and catches him higher in the neck, severing his caroted artery. He drops to his knees, a gurgling marking the effort of his last words.

Now it is only Justin... his men spread out around him, their bodies gutted by buckshot.

"You guys okay?" The voice toys with us... on the tip of tongue of recognition.
Lou looks at me, confused for a moment and then a light comes on for him. I don't get the chance to follow suit.

"I'll be damned. How in the fuck did you find us out here?"

His body blocks the light from one side of the limo as he passes in front of the car, limping as he approaches. I am still trying to pick out the voice.

Justin tries to shield the light so he can see who it is. When he finally does, he drops to his knees and begins to plead for his life.

"Hey boys, I bet you never thought you'ld see me again." Antonelli smiles widely, glad to see we were okay. From all around us his men stepped into the light, six of them, all in black and armed for war. They do not speak, but use a crued sign language between them. I know who they are... La Segunda Vida, just like Jack and his boys back at Tapia's ranch.

"We followed this prick into the desert as soon as we got the tip." Chris steps up to Justin and kicks him across the face with his good leg with enough force for a fifty yard field goal. A few teeth come out in the spray of blood.
"You don't show up in a town like Vegas and not get noticed by my people you little prick."

Chris bends down and grabs a handful of silk shirt and yanks the hostage to his feet. He has to hold him up for a moment, but he steadies himself.

"I... I thought they fed you to the sharks." Justin feels in his mouth for the damage. "You son of bitch, that was a thousand dollars worth of bridge-work you knocked... "

Chris whacks him across the face before he can finish.
"I'll do the talking, shitbag."

He motions to one of his men... a finger to his throat and then to his wrist. The soldier moves to the downed bodyguard and plants a foot on his forhead, yanking both knives from his neck. He wipes them on the man's clothing and then comes over and cuts our bonds.

Lou rubs his wrists while he walks over to Justin who is quaking in his Italian leather shoes. "How about letting me and this pup fight it out, Chris."

"What?"
"I just want the chance to school Nancy here on how to show a little respect." Lou rolls the sleeves up on his shirt. "Let's make it interesting, eh? If he beats my ass he goes free?" Lou looks to Chris, whose expression narrows.

I think we all know that Justin isn't going to go free, not if he had anything to do with Bear's death and Chris' foot being removed by a tiger shark. But Antonelli nods his approval. He signs something to one of his men and a set of car keys is tossed his way. Chris holds them up and gives them a little shake.
"Here is your getaway car." He tosses them to Justin who just stands there looking first at Chris, then to Lou.

"Are you serious?"

"You better start fighting before I change my mind."

Justin thrusts the keys in his pocket, then kicks off his shoes and begins to circle Lou as he finishes rolling up his other sleeve.

"This isn't a high school dance, mother... "

Justin removes the words from his lips with a roundhouse kick that I would assume Lou sees coming. He tries to move so the blow will glance off, but the thrust of it still whips his head around. Lou's eyes go wide for a moment, then narrow with that rabid grizzly look.

"That's the only one you get, Nancy."

Justin goes on the attack again with a flurry of kicks and punches that pass through the air in front of Lou as he backs up. When the flurry stops, Lou finds his spot and with one quick thrust he hits him in the throat. Justin's hands go up to the point of impact and Lou hits him twice in the solar plexus. The hostage drops down to his knees.

"STOP." Chris intervines, "I didn't track this prick down to have you take him out... although it is fun to watch." He motions to his boys. Two grab the wheezing hostage, another walks back out of the blaze of headlights to retrieve something from their vehicle.

Justin, with much effort, manages to regain his breathing. The blow to his throat keeps any words from forming on his lips, but he squeeks out a sound when he sees the man returning from the car.

In the man's hands is a long handled axe, the kind you would use to split oak rounds. Chris holds out a hand and the axe is planted firmly within it. Justin tries to plead, but the words are trapped within his swollen voice box.

"It was this little prick that had tortured my father when they took KOZANOSTRA. He strapped him into that chair and fried his ass." Chris grabs the hostage's jaw in his massive hand, "You should feel lucky that we couldn't find a metal chair to tie your ass in." He motions to the man that handed him the axe and he produces a butane torch. "But, you know... we don't need the chair to burn the hide off you."

What comes next is not for the faint of heart. It is hard to reason with the torture of this guy when you thought this whole time that he was a victim at first, then just a player in some bigger game. Just shooting him would have been enough for me. But not for Chris. With the revelation that he was actually the one that tortured his father, and then had ordered Chris' torture as well before escaping back to Abigail's ship.

Chris' men have drugs in a syringe at the ready to keep him from passing out. They don't bother removing his trousers, but just burn through them with the first pass of the torch. The blue tipped flame starts to char his flesh, then actually cooks his ass. They inject him when his eyes roll back and he jolts into spasms as the layer of hide and fat is burned away. Chris stops them and then let's him see the axe once more before swinging it in a long arc over his head and landing it mid-way up Justin's shin. Any whispered screams he managed to push through his damaged windpipe stop and his face is twisted in agony after the axe is withdrawn. Antonelli picks up the severed limb and then motions to his boys. They toss Justin into one of the holes we dug and then Chris shows him his leg before tossing it on top of him. Within five minutes the hole is filled with Justin still drawing breath. The whole incident lasts fifteen minutes.

Even Lou seems a little repulsed at the hostage's demise. I think he had to dole out punishement in his day that might rival this viciousness, but that was a different time under different circumstances. Somewhere inside him he knows that Nancy had it coming and that Chris was the only one to deliver death to his doorstep in such a manner. Karma is real thing.

Chris turns off his evil streak like you might turn a light switch off when you leave a room. It is hard to believe this is the same guy we saw at the Dominican Brother's compound.

"I am so glad to see you guys." He puts an arm around both of us and walks us back to his car. A few of his boys load into the other two vehicles to clear them out of the desert. We ride with Chris in the back of jet black Cadillac stretch. He opens the small refrigerator and retrieves a familiar sight.

"Muerte Verde?"

We start making our way back to civilization. This whole kidnapping and torture session took the better part of two hours, and another back to the clubs. Lou is put out that he missed the show, but is reassured by Chris that his stripper and tickets to any show he will want to see will be there when he gets back.

As the skull is passed, the story unwinds... as much as is known, in regard to the dead hostage and the diamonds. It turns out that Bear had paid for the diamonds with an extremely large sum of money that belonged to the heads of several "family" men. The stones were to be transported out of the country and then their value deposited in an in Switzerland to keep it from the feds. Justin's people provided the stones, and took the money.

"But the stones they showed my father weren't the ones that he ended up with. They switched them some how and gave my father fakes. We went back to Montoya's boat but that little prick Justin was already gone. Montoya didn't have them... looked everywhere. So we killed the fucker and sank his boat. Then Justin joined up with some woman that had her own private army. He was going to use my father's money to help her take over the coca trade after they wiped out the Dominican Brothers."

I take a shot off the skull, "What did Montoya/Menton have to do with this?"

"He was the one that brought that little fucker down to meet my father in that little seaplane. He had something to do with it."
"Oh yes he did," Lou takes a double shot, "he had those stones stashed in a satellite phone that Bear gave us with the airplane."

"No shit... you found them?" Chris' eyes get brighter.
"And that little shit lost them after he took them from Lou."
Lou smiles widely, "Well, not quite."