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direction.
Rasche came, but as they left the building, he protested, "You have to be
shitting me-you can't kidnap a police officer from the middle of Police
Plaza!"
"The hell we can't," one of the feds muttered.
"You're not regular feds," Rasche said: "Even those pricks from the FBI
wouldn't pull this. Who the hell are you?"
"You don't need to know," the spokesman told him as he shoved Rasche roughly
into the backseat of an unmarked black sedan.
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A pan of dirty water flung in his face brought Schaefer around; as the cool
wetness shocked him back to consciousness, he heard a voice saying, "Time to
wake up, puppy dog."
Schaefer blinked and looked around.
He was sitting in a low wooden chair, feet on the floor and his knees sticking
up, his wrists tied behind him with something stiff-it felt like coat hanger
wire.
Whatever it was holding his hands, it was strong and tied tight; he couldn't
even come close to snapping it, couldn't slip it off. Eschevera, if that was
who was responsible, wasn't taking any chances.
His arms were bound to the chair's back with plain rope.
The chair stood near the center of a fair-sized, dimly lit room, one with
plank walls and a plank floor; it wasn't anyplace Schaefer recognized.
Daylight was coming in under the eaves; there were no windows or lamps.
He guessed he'd been out for hours, maybe days-long enough for Eschevera's men
to drag him back to whatever they were using for a base, anyway. Whoever had
clouted him had known what he was doing; Schaefer had a headache, but his
thoughts were clear enough, he didn't think there was any concussion.
He wondered where the hell he actually was-and how hard it would be to get
out. If they'd hauled him all the way down the full length of Panama and this
was the Cali camp just across the Colombian border, and if the DEA reports
were right, the place was a goddamn fortress, and his chances of escape were
right up there with the odds of St. Peter giving Hitler the benefit of the
doubt. If this was just some little cabin somewhere along the smuggling
routes, though, he might be okay.
He'd beaten a monster from outer space; he had no interest in dying at the
hands of a bunch of drug-dealing punks who claimed to be members of his own
species.
The man who had splashed him tossed the empty pan at Schaefer's feet with a
clatter; then he checked the wire on Schaefer's wrist, gave it a twist to
tighten it further, and said, "Bueno."
Schaefer felt the metal biting painfully into his flesh, felt blood start to
ooze from beneath. He growled in anger and pain.
"Perhaps the wire is too tight?" the man said in good English. "Not to
worry-we're only just beginning. In a little time you won't even notice so
minor a pain." He turned, leaned out the room's one and only door, and
signaled to someone Schaefer couldn't see.
A moment later a taller man in military fatigues stepped into the room; he
nodded a greeting to the man who had splashed Schaefer.
The first man saluted and left the room; the new arrival crossed slowly to a
spot beside the chair, where he stood and smiled down at Schaefer.
Schaefer knew the face; he'd seen it before, back in the Big Apple. Seen it,
hell, he'd been tempted to punch it in. This was Eschevera.
Schaefer took a certain pleasure in seeing that Eschevera limped as he walked.
"Detective Schaefer," Eschevera said. "I'm hurt you came all this long way to
Central America, you passed so close to my home, and you didn't stop by to pay
your dear old friend a visit?"
Schaefer grunted.
"Perhaps you sought me but were misled?" Eschevera suggested. "You made a
wrong turn somewhere, someone gave you faulty directions? After all, what else
could have brought you to this corner of the world but a desire to renew our
acquaintance?"
"Somehow I managed to avoid that particular desire," Schaefer said.
Eschevera grinned. "The last time we met, I made you a very generous offer.
Perhaps now you're sorry you responded as you did?"
"I'm only sorry we didn't meet on a taller building," Schaefer snarled.
The grin vanished. "That's very funny, Detective Schaefer," Eschevera said.
"You've always had a good sense of humor, haven't you? I regret I won't be
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able to appreciate it for very much longer."
Eschevera turned as the other man reentered; he was holding something in one
hand, something black and bright orange. In his other hand was a coil of black
cable; he was paying it out as he entered.
He held up the black-and-orange object.
"Black and Decker," he said. "Very sharp."
It was a power saw, circular blade, one-half horsepower motor; the safety
shield had been removed.
Schaefer didn't like that; for one thing, it meant this place had electricity,
which meant it was more than just some stopover on the trail.
Eschevera smiled again. "I'll be back in a bit, after Paolo's had a few
minutes with you alone. Perhaps you can entertain him with more of your
amusing stories." He saluted sardonically, then turned and limped out.
The sadist with the power saw grinned. He revved it a few times, just to test,
and light glinted from the spinning blade. "So little time, so much to do," he
said.
He circled around behind Schaefer, put a hand on his head, and pressed,
tipping Schaefer's head down and exposing the back of his neck, like a barber
preparing to trim the hairs there.
Paolo revved the saw again, then clicked the switch into the lock-on position;
the blade and motor settled into a steady hum.
"Yeah, I know the feeling," Schaefer said, and he leaned farther forward,
pulling away from Paolo's hand.
Then he pressed his feet against the floor and stood up, chair and all. One of
the back legs caught Paolo in the kneecap, hard.
"Wha . . . ?" The Colombian torturer staggered back, limping and startled.
Schaefer squatted and then threw himself backward, smashing Paolo against the
wooden wall. He drove his wired fists into Paolo's belly; Paolo made a
strangled noise, barely audible over the power saw's hum, and doubled over.
Schaefer dragged the sharp ends of the wire across Paolo's stomach and felt
blood dripping; then he leaned forward and let Paolo fall.
The saw was still running; Schaefer twisted around and pressed the chair back
against the spinning blade.
The motor howled and sawdust sprayed as the saw cut into the wooden chair, and
in seconds Schaefer was able to break free and stand upright.
Paolo was stirring, struggling to get up; Schaefer kicked him in the gut, and
when he'd curled into a ball, Schaefer kicked him in the head.
Blood sprayed from Paolo's nose across the scattered sawdust.
"Fun's fun, Paolo," Schaefer said, "but I don't have time for this bullshit."
He put his hands on the floor and stepped back through his arms to get his
hands in front of him, then began picking with his teeth at the wire on his
wrists. After a moment he managed to get one end loose; after that it was
easy.
His mouth was bleeding in four separate places where the wire had cut him, and
his wrists were bloody as well, but he didn't worry about any of that.
He moved the saw around, then kicked Paolo a couple of times to make sure he
was out, and to provide sound effects for whoever was guarding the door. There
was no reason to think Paolo and Eschevera had been alone; after all, there
were the four men who had brought him in. They were probably still around, and
there might be others.
Then he took a flying leap, booted foot first, at the closed door, hoping it
wasn't any stronger than it looked.
It wasn't; the latch and upper hinge gave, and he tumbled through to find
himself sprawled on top of a startled guard.
The guard was holding a Kalashnikov. Schaefer punched the guard in the jaw and
tore the gun out of his hands, then looked around.
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