Cargo: an edge of your seat thriller Page 4

  Peterson reached feebly for the phone, feet away from his grasp. He was ready to tell them that they won. He would do it. That and anything else. Just stop this torture.

  But before his fingers could bring the phone to him, he heard the voice again, ominously saying, “Once more…with feeling!”

  Peterson’s eyes widened in horror as the current filled his body again. He convulsed wildly on his back in more pain than he had ever felt in his life. Is this what they were doing to Susan? Oh, God, no! Even if Anthony deserved this torture, surely sweet Susan did not.

  It felt like an eternity before the power shut off and the lights rose back to normal.

  He went limp, at last, his tortured muscles relaxed and his pain wracked face went expressionless. The agonizing torture had ended for the moment and all was quiet.

  He couldn’t move for several minutes. He wondered if he might actually be dead, but his brain hadn’t yet got the message that his body was shutting down for the season.

  His mind wandered crazily back through his life’s history. He remembered a fishing trip with his family when his son, Evan, had been just a boy. He recalled Evan catching a catfish and watching it flop around on the metal floor of the small boat they rode in. Of course, Peterson knew, that was exactly how he must have looked minutes before. Just like the fish, he had been flopping around and convulsing in death. He remembered Evan asking his father if the fish was dead, and Anthony had chuckled, “Oh, he’s dead all right, son. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

  Was that it? Was Peterson dead, but simply failed to realize it yet?

  That must be the case. He wondered, idly and morosely, which ring of hell he would be visiting first. Next, he wondered if Evan would even care.

  At last he gasped and breathed and moved. Very slowly he was able to will his body to move into a seated position, then to stand on shaking legs. It took all his strength. But he wasn’t dead after all. Not yet.

  His legs were shaky, and his knees knocked. He saw blood droplets falling to the floor and making their dime-sized marks on the bottom of his forty-foot coffin. As they flowed together, he thought of the blood-stained streets again.

  Could that morose story be true? Is all that how La Aldea had gone?

  All he wanted was to lie down and rest. There was not a part of him that was not hurting. He even felt pain in his hair, as if that were possible. He wanted to lose consciousness and try to forget that this was his life, if only for a moment.

  But he was still Anthony Peterson, goddammit, and he was not done yet. If he was standing, he was living. If he was living, he was fighting.

  He may be covered in his own blood from the waist up and his own shit and piss from the waist down, but they hadn’t beaten him yet. Not yet. He was still standing, and he was going to win.

  He nodded into the nothingness of his chamber and staggered over to the wall, laying an outstretched hand on it to lean over.

  Suddenly, a final jolt of electricity hit his hand. He jumped and cried out in pain. It was like the worst static electricity shock he had ever felt. He jerked the hand away and stared at it in disbelief.

  Then, that same sickening, cruel laughter echoed again around the container. It sounded like the villain in some B-movie horror thriller cackling and echoing through a haunted house.

  If only that were the case. This was real.

  He looked around and then down at the phone.

  The kidnapper had not hung up. He had been waiting there the entire time until Peterson showed signs of life. Only then did he laugh at him.

  “Well, chicken. Sounds like you’re not quite fried yet.”

  “Asshole,” Peterson whispered through his teeth, pulling back his lips again in anger.

  The kidnapper hung up in mid-laugh, leaving Peterson leaning against the wall, staring down at the phone with hatred.

  “Sadistic asshole!” he shouted through his clenched teeth.

  He leaned his head on the wall, staring at the floor, and allowed himself a short cry.

  Slowly, he composed himself and looked back down at the phone. He hated that fucking vile device. But it was his lifeline. Or so he hoped.

  He staggered back to it and slowly, carefully, sat down next to it. He looked at it before he touched it and finally picked it up and dialed.

  “Tom?” he sighed and shook his head in defeat.

  “Anthony, what happened? I lost you there.”

  “We’re going to need to clear out that rainy day fund.”

  Tom paused for a moment, then asked, “Okay, which one?”

  “All of them, man. I need you to arrange for someone to liquidate the safety deposit box and I need the funds from all the rainy day funds.”

  “Anthony, again, are you sure about this?”

  Anthony shook and sighed, nodding. “I’m sure, Tom. In case you didn’t notice, it is fucking pouring right now!”

  5

  The Difference is Why: 3:03 AM

  Anthony Peterson was nowhere near his beloved wife.

  But someone else was.

  Calderon had spent much of his life following the wrong men and, being that Calderon had few scruples, following the wrong men proved never to be much of a problem. That was as long as the checks cleared.

  And Calderon always made damn sure his checks cleared.

  Money made the world go round, right? So, what the hell else was there?

  Calderon kept to the shadows just outside of the single building on the property.

  He lit a cigarette and stayed close to the trunk of the tree he was under.

  He had earned this break. He had been listening too long.

  The boss…well, this current boss of this one particular job, that is, wanted as little satellite or aircraft visibility of their operations as possible. Even the truck Calderon himself had driven in that morning had to be driven in on a specific schedule. If their intel was right, there was no photography, satellite or otherwise, at that time. If they had done their job correctly up until then, even if they were being photographed, no one would likely be scrutinizing the images.

  This place was about as off-the-grid as one could get. It was a hole in the map, if anything. No one knew it was there.

  It was Calderon’s kind of place. And, again, the job paid well, so what else was there?

  He chuckled quietly and puffed again, then surveyed the horizon.

  Nothing.

  He calmly moved his rifle to hang on his other shoulder and leaned against the tree to relax.

  What else was there?

  He sighed, forgetting the laugh for the moment and spat his cigarette onto the ground, where he crushed it with his big tan boot.

  Well, there was that kick he felt as he brought the box in. That kick from inside the box.

  Calderon was not the kind of man who asked questions. The money was good, so he didn’t ask. After all, what else was there?

  But that kick he had felt as he brought the box in. That made him think. He didn’t like it.

  He knew abstractly what was going on. This particular job was all about payback. Guy trapped in a metal cargo container. He was going to be tortured and blackmailed and killed. Well, maybe killed. Calderon didn’t know. And why should he care? Money made the world go round, right?

  What else was there?

  Some other hired team had taken care of that part. Wired it up for electricity. Lighting. Oxygen. Other surprises.

  Calderon didn’t even know where the goddam container even was. Somewhere out there. Hell, maybe under his very feet. He didn’t know. He didn’t care. It wasn’t his business to know or care.

  Some other team had picked up the rich asshole the boss of this job was torturing. Maybe the same team who had placed the container wherever it was and rigged it up for electroshock therapy.

  Calderon chuckled at that thought.

  Calderon’s job had been threefold. He and another hired gun were to pick up the wife and bring her right there.

&nb
sp; No problem. Easy job. If only they hadn’t had him bring her in a wooden box. Too much like a coffin.

  But that was the goddam job, so he did it. It paid just right and what else was there?

  There was the kick he heard. That stuck with him, strangely.

  The second half of the job was to guard the place and pick off anyone who tried to get in if necessary. But, hell, who would find this place? It wouldn’t be necessary.

  Calderon was bored and when he was bored his mind started to fuck him over, doubting everything about himself.

  Thinking about…why.

  The third part of the job was maybe the most important. Part of what made Calderon sought after was more than his combat and intelligence capabilities. He was also a skilled communications operative and this particular boss (Calderon didn’t know the man’s name and never asked) wanted a list of phone numbers monitored and recorded.

  Calderon had the equipment, and he brought it with him in a nice, shiny silver case. The system even managed to do a light digitized voice disguise to help keep things secretive. It was easy training the others to use it in shifts. His only rule was that they didn’t spill any fucking coffee on the damned thing.

  He reached for another cigarette, then thought of the feel of that woman kicking from inside the box. Suddenly, the cigarette didn’t appeal to him. Somehow, he was sure it would taste terrible.

  What was it that bothered him so goddamn badly?

  Calderon wasn’t the kind of man who had much of a heart, nor was he terribly sentimental or sympathetic.

  Had he gotten soft in his advanced years? He had been everything from a hitman to a soldier of fortune to a trader of secrets for the past twenty-five years.

  Calderon was only forty-seven, but he felt so much older sometimes.

  Was having seen so much over the years finally wearing on him? Was Calderon that kind of a pussy? He wondered.

  Maybe he just wanted to fuck the bitch. He didn’t know.

  He shook his head.

  No, no. Something else. He knew what it was too. He just didn’t want to admit it.

  But that one thing…that one little…strange thing…that had been wearing on him for months before this job. Wearing on him and telling him he needed to quit all this. Retire to some island full of naked women and eat and drink until he got fat. Fat and happy and laughing. Not ever thinking about his history. Not ever again. And he wouldn’t even swat a mosquito or gut a fish. Just leave the blood to someone else and retire.

  He had the money. That was all that mattered. What else was there?

  He walked back inside, keeping close under the shade so he wouldn’t be seen in the unlikely event that anyone happened to be looking. He entered the code and entered the compound.

  “All quiet on the western front,” he joked to another of their small team, a young female mercenary named Keeler.

  He needed to get it all out of his mind. The kick and the memories it stirred up.

  It was time to forget everything and just watch some television. Try not to think about what happened months ago and why he was questioning the very living he had made for himself.

  Monitor the calls when they came, watch some TV in between.

  This was not the job on which to use cell phones. GPS signatures blew apart jobs like this. Even though he was bored at the moment and would love to turn on his phone and watch some old movie, it was not to be. So, he headed for the television, wanting to take his mind off of his doubts.

  Morality had no place in the dark underbelly of society where Calderon made his living. You took the right jobs, you asked the questions you had to ask to do those jobs and you didn’t ask a damn thing further than that. If your heart is going to give you pangs, you’re in the wrong business, aren’t you?

  But he did have a question that, at least for the past few months, had given him pangs.

  And that question was ‘why?’

  He realized since that one day that still made him so sick, that ‘why?’ was a vital question that made all the difference. The difference…was why.

  He didn’t give a shit about Anthony Peterson. He sure as shit didn’t sympathize with men like him. Hell, as bad a man as Calderon surely was, he wasn’t nearly as bad as Anthony Peterson was. He knew that.

  But this wife? That trophy wife? Did she deserve this?

  He heard her screaming and crying into the phone before someone taped her lips shut again. And he had just laughed. But when things got quiet again, he started to ask why.

  Sure, this was part of the plan. This was part of the torture of Anthony Peterson, but…why? Why this?

  And that made a difference, suddenly, in his life. A year ago, it wouldn’t have, but as of a few months back…

  He shuddered as he walked down the dark hallways.

  You can kill a guy because you’ve been paid to. That’s a living. You don’t ask questions. Maybe he’s being killed because he owes somebody money. Maybe he’s being killed because he fucked the wrong man’s wife. Maybe he was just as bad as Calderon or even Peterson. Or maybe he was being killed for the wrong reasons. The wrong guy at the wrong time?

  The difference is why.

  So why was Mrs. Peterson involved in this? Was she as bad as her husband? Had she partaken in the same nefarious deeds Peterson had? Was she some evil bitch who deserved all she got? Or was she an innocent bystander in all of this?

  A year ago, Calderon wouldn’t have cared. Today, no matter how much he fucking fought it…Calderon cared.

  Or, at least, Calderon questioned.

  Why? Why not one of Peterson’s kids or that partner he used to have or some close co-worker?

  If it was just to torture Peterson, that didn’t feel right.

  He silently cursed himself for giving a shit or even coming close to giving a shit.

  Calderon stopped at the windowed door that led to the neatly organized storage room. He looked in on the bound and gagged wife and smiled at her, coldly, trying to show (if only himself) that he was still the badass motherfucker she should be terrified of.

  But why?

  He shook his head and walked on to the next room where the little TV was. It had rabbit ears and foil on the ends of each antenna. They could only get one station on that little TV, but he accepted it and used the noise of some old game show rerun to clear his brain.

  He chuckled at the station’s ID. K-OME. Had he gotten into a different line of work, he might find himself there, making sick jokes in their advertisements. “Only one station in the area can make you…K-OME!”

  Calderon chuckled.

  Then, he fought to put it out of his head.

  You don’t ask why. Not in this business. Not ever.

  And he almost convinced himself to stop thinking about it.

  6

  The Burning Man: 3:35 AM

  Anthony Peterson sat against the wall and stared forward. His knees were bent before his chest. He limply held the cell phone in one hand, draped across his knee. The other hand was laid limply on the floor next to him.

  He had chosen a certain nondescript point on the wall in front of him and stared, unfocused, at it for far too long.

  This was dejection. Nothing else for him to do. Trapped. Controlled. Owned. Indeed, he was even bored.

  This was not the kind of situation one expected to be bored in. Life or death, danger, torture. It was not boring.

  But this was. He had done all he could, and thus, he waited.

  And waited.

  And…

  He began to idly bang the back of his head against the wall. Calmly at first, lightly. Even casually. His eye remained fixed on the spot on the wall before him, and he found himself interested in the unique feeling of his eyeballs rolling in their sockets while he moved his head and kept them staring at a particular spot.

  Bang…bang…bang.

  That was how bored he was. He found the sensation of feeling his own eyeballs to be fascinating.

  Bang…bang�
�bang.

  Anthony, old boy, I do believe you’re cracking up! he thought to himself and continued the banging.

  Bang…bang…bang.

  But he had done everything else, hadn’t he?

  Bang…bang…bang.

  He had had an affair with an actress once before Susan. She may not have been a big Hollywood starlet, but a recognizable enough face from TV, movies, commercials. He had once told her how fascinating he thought her job must be. She had told him it was actually mostly waiting around. Setting up the camera, hanging around craft services two hours after your call, waiting for the previous shot to be done so you could deliver your three scripted words, and then wait around again.

  Bang…bang…bang….

  So, I guess…this is the big film, he thought and almost smiled. He didn’t smile, though. Smiling might have messed up his rhythm.

  Bang…bang…bang…

  The place smelled bad. Like one of those canals in…

  No, no, no, not that.

  The smell was a nauseating combination of sweat, feces, urine, and that old, decaying metal smell that never seemed to be missing from crates like this. It wasn’t rust. It was…something else. As if the metal itself had died and was rotting. Sending out its carrion fumes to its captive. From one corpse to another.

  After his last call to Tom, while he was still reeling from being fried, he had undressed and used his underwear and undershirt to clean himself as best he could (the bastards hadn’t even left him a bottle of water as his parched mouth could attest) and had tossed the soiled underclothes in the corner.

  Bang…bang…bang…

  It was humiliating.

  Bang…bang…bang…

  Then, he got dressed again. Even pulled his tie up to the top button. The Power Look. All he needed now were a pair of Ray Bans.

  They were stealing his money, they had taken his wife, they had robbed him of his freedom, but whether they knew it or not, he still had his dignity.