Ballistic

Gentry flew backwards, the pistol left his right hand and he cartwheeled back. He caught a split-second’s glimpse of the federale who had rappelled through the window; the man had landed hard on his back but he recovered quickly, sat back up, and lifted an MP5 towards the man on the floor across the room.

To his left Court heard a second explosion, the TV and the chest of drawers flew across the room and crashed against the wall. Behind the wreckage Court saw men file into the room: two, then four, then six. Federales in masks and goggles with sub guns and body armor. They appeared more ominous through the haze of smoke from the charges that had blown in the door and the obstructions.

There was the crunching of glass as the rappeller scrambled back to his feet.

Laura was screaming.

Court raised his hands and spoke to her. “Don’t move! Do what they say! They’ve got us.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

It was hot on the floorboard in the back of the sedan. Three pairs of black boots on Court’s back, ass, and legs kept him facedown; the electrical tape over his mouth, the cuffs securing his hands behind his back, and the black hood over his head only added to the stifling conditions. A few times the sweat in his eyes burned so badly he cried out, muffled as it was by the tape. Each time he made this noise a boot heel in the back of his head quieted him. He felt the cuts on his chest from the window glass, felt the warm wetness of his blood and perspiration on the rubber floor mats under him. He tried to shift his weight forward to his shoulders to relieve the pain, but this just pressed his face tighter into his hood and made it nearly impossible to breathe.

He felt the tip of the suppressor of an MP5 pressed into the small of his back; it jabbed into his lumbar with every bump in the road.

The car radio played banda music at full volume; if there was conversation between the men above him, he could not hear it over the loud accordions and crashing cymbals.

Court assumed Laura must have been tossed into another vehicle; he’d caught a glimpse through the window of several nondescript four-doors pulling in front of the hotel as he was being cuffed and taped up in the hotel room. He’d also stolen a glance at Eddie’s sister just before the hood was slipped on and the lights were turned off. Laura’s already big eyes were wide with panic; the men had flipped her facedown on the bed and cuffed her there.

She was naked.

Gentry had no idea if these were real cops or, even if they were real cops, if they were good guys or bad. He did not know where they were taking him; even a born-and-bred ciudadano of Mexico City would not have been able to discern their location after dozens of turns while hooded and facedown.

Finally, the car stopped, and he was dragged out by his shoulders; the perspiration all over his body made the men’s gloves slip as they wrestled to take hold. Court was frog-marched forward, and he felt the sunlight leave him and heard the echoes of a large room. He continued on, stepped into what felt and sounded like a freight elevator, and went down what must have been at least three floors.

Once off the elevator, he was pushed forward a few yards and then spun around, his hands were unfastened, and then his body was pressed up against cold metal bars. A fence, perhaps? His arms were simultaneously outstretched and cuffed wide away from his body, two men on each appendage. The insides of his legs were kicked until he spread them, and his ankles were shackled in irons, with his legs spread wide open.

His back and arms and legs and butt pressed up against cold metal.

A pair of long, cold sheers entered his boxer shorts. He tried to recoil from the sharp metal, but he could not get away. His underwear was cut from his body. He was totally naked now, chained spreadeagle against cold metal.

He began to shake in the cold.

Only then was his hood pulled off his head. Steam obstructed his view for a moment as it poured from his hair and beard; thick beads dripped from his eyelashes onto his cheeks and tickled as they trickled down through his facial hair to his chin.

The room was a square, stone basement, twenty by twenty, with a low ceiling and a cement floor. A bare overhead bulb in the center illuminated the middle of the room and the majority of the walls, but left the corners completely black. He smelled the mold in the room, but that was not all.

He also smelled the unmistakable scent of death. This was a kill house, a torture chamber. There was dried blood on the walls, and the cement floor was stained with black rivulets of blood that led towards the drain in the center of the room.

Across from Court was the wooden door of the freight elevator. Next to that was a narrow stairwell with no door.

Four men stood around—two dressed in the uniform of the federal police. They’d removed their masks and goggles and helmets, but their submachine guns hung from their chest rigs.

The other two men wore leather aprons. They were Mexicans; they were not cops; they looked serious and sinister. One of them was short and fat; his head was bald and covered in sweat that shone in the light above him. He was hard at work on some sort of wheeled table not more than six feet ahead and to the left of Gentry. The other was a young man, perhaps twenty, dressed the same as the older.

These would be Gentry’s torturers; he was certain of it.

There were no Black Suits in the room, which Court initially took as a good sign, but he had to search hard for that silver lining. A few feet in front of the iron fence or grate onto which his naked body was now chained, a car battery sat on a dolly, and wires wound their way up to a metal contraption on the rolling table. More coiled wires ran from this machine and ended at large roach clips that were fastened to Gentry’s grate.

Court had been around. He knew an electroconvulsive torture device when he saw one. And right now, he was bare-assed naked and attached to one.

“Welcome to hell,” the fat man said in Spanish. “I will be your tour guide as we visit the horrific, agonizing, and slow end to your life.”

Gentry said nothing.

“They call me el Carnicerito.” The Little Butcher. The short, fat, bald-headed man said this though he was still distracted by his work; he arranged devices on the rolling table while he talked. Saws, hand drills, a stainless steel mallet that gleamed in the light of the bare bulb. Knives, forceps, kerrisons rongeurs, and other surgical tools covered the horizontal surfaces of the table. Without looking up from his equipment, he continued, “I work for Don Daniel. I produce pain, and I extract information from those reluctant to give it. I am extremely good at what I do.”

“Your mother must be proud.” Court affected the macho comment, but he wasn’t feeling it. He pulled and kicked against his restraints, and he could tell that he would not be getting himself off of this contraption.

In short, he was fucking toast.

El Carnicerito just smiled. “This is my protege.” He waved a fat hand towards the young man in the apron. Then he returned to his work at the table. He turned a dial on the machine slightly, and Court felt electricity tingle his spine. The fat man looked at a dial on the face of the black device. Apparently, it was just a test, because he inflicted no pain. He turned the dial back down and looked up at his victim.

“The electricity is just one measure I have at my disposal. Within the next few hours you will endure indescribable suffering.”

El Carnicerito stepped forward, close to Court’s body, and reached up with a rubber glove, began picking glass out of the cuts in the American’s chest inflicted by the federale coming through the window. Court winced with pain but tried to keep his face as impassive as possible; he did not want to encourage this sadist by showing how much it hurt.

The man smiled; Court could plainly see that an idea had entered the butcher’s head. He turned quickly and stepped over to the protege, and he delivered a quiet command. His subordinate nodded and hurriedly left the room via the stairwell.

As he ran up the stairs and the echoes of his footfalls began to die off, new footsteps clicked down from