“We’re recording, so list all your drug suppliers and network members you pass the drugs on to. Don’t forget to tell us meeting places, drops, and phone numbers. We don’t like small timers in our business.”
“You’ll kill us anyway! Please… we’ll tell you everything. Just let us go.”
Nick picked up a scalpel and sliced a shallow cut down Ray’s body from his neck to his groin. Screams filled the room. Denise begged her husband to tell. Ray listed all their contacts in a shaky, terror filled voice along with all requested information.
“Very nice,” Nick said. He turned to Gus. “Shall we let them go?”
Gus laughed. It was a blood curdling sound with his voice altered. “They will be in our business no matter what they say. Cut them up.”
The screams began again with renewed vigor until Nick ordered silence. “I will put you two under again. If you awaken in your house it would be extremely inadvisable to ever touch or distribute any more drugs.”
Nick gave them each another injection. When they passed out, Nick and Gus removed their masks.
“That was fun,” Nick said.
“That was horrifying, you… oh never mind. I’ll give you this much. If you were in charge of the DEA there would be no drug cartels. What next?”
“I sneak Mom and Pop back into their bed, and make a drop to a guy I know in the real DEA. We’ll keep an eye out for residual fallout in the form of gang-bangers angry with not getting their product. I may have to bring a few of them here for some follow-up questions. Main thing though is to see how reformed the Santiagos are.”
Gus glanced down at the unconscious Santiagos for a moment. “Nick, I doubt their reformation is in question. Their sanity is another thing. You are a very bad man, my friend.”
Nick sighed as he unstrapped the Santiagos. “I get an impossible mission and handle it with my usual expertise. What more can I do to satisfy your sensibilities, Gus?”
“Well, at least these two are still alive.”
“See? Who said I can’t show restraint, right?”
“Yeah, Nick, you’re a real peach.”
*
“All ready to go, Sabrina?” Nick asked.
“I’m Elvira, Mistress of the Dark,” Jean corrected him. “Where the heck do you get Sabrina out of this outfit?”
Jean was dressed all in black, including fingernails, eye shadow, and her Mom’s black wig. “C’mon, we have to pick up Lisa.”
“That was nice of her parents to let Lisa go trick or treating with us.”
“I don’t know how you did it, Nick, but her parents are so different, all in a couple days.”
“Maybe they saw the light.”
Jean giggled. “Not on their own they didn’t.”
Chapter One
Back to Business
Nick’s index finger’s first pad gently pulled the trigger. Days of excruciating setup in the filthy sand nest bore fruit in the form of his target. Mind numbing hours waiting and hiding in sweat drenched misery ended. The silencer absorbed the noise from the M107 Barrett .50 caliber rifle. Nearly eight hundred yards away, his target’s head painted the adobe compound wall behind him with blood, the body dropping limply without direction into a heap of mottle colored robes. Nick then executed each figure emerging from the compound with cold efficiency until they simply stopped coming out. Five more bodies joined the first before it dawned on the remaining inhabitants that going through the doorway meant instant death. Nick then sighted the darkened doorway. The first head to peek outside received a .50 caliber hollow point death. Nick packed quickly, jogging away from his sniper’s nest after nearly three days of torturous preparation.
Gus Nason stared anxiously at the bleak horizon through his night vision oculars, adorned in full body robes while awaiting his deadly partner. He knew one more day in the Port of Shahid Beheshti would draw unwanted attention to this ill-conceived Iranian hit. For the thousandth time, Gus cursed himself for ragging his blood partner Nick McCarty into getting back to work. Iranian waters would be a nightmare once Nick either completed his mission, or failed at it. Their ship had already been searched with detailed care by the port authorities. Only Gus’s generous bribes allowed them any leeway at all. Having been in port nearly a week, even his happy bribe takers were becoming more suspicious by the hour. Gus tensed as a dirty robed figure, carrying a pack approached the pier. Gus took a deep breath, the gait of his old friend unmistakable. The raunchy looking figure halted at the plank for boarding the ship.
“Permission to come aboard, Captain Nason!”
With a gasp, Nason leaped over onto the pier, his tall frame landing adroitly next to the petitioner. “Will you please quit fooling around and get on board? I thought you’d be back two days ago.”