Cogar's Despair (Cogar Adventure Series) Page 9

  Jessica, I discovered, bit her fingernails as though she was shelling sunflower seeds. You know you've encountered a stunning woman when she can chew her fingers with the tenacity of a squirrel gnawing a walnut and still take a man's breath away.

  "What's a bush pig?" I asked, trying to bring a little levity to the situation.

  "A wild boar," she said without looking at me.

  "What about in the context of name calling?"

  "Then it means an ugly woman from the countryside."

  "Interesting word choice. I bet you save that one for when you're really pissed off."

  "I'm mostly mad at myself. You know?" she said, glancing at me. Her eyes were red and tear-filled. "Everyone, even those two ockers I'd never met before yesterday, knows Harold better than I do. If anyone could have picked up on what he was doing, it should have been me."

  "You can't really blame yourself for that. I've known the guy for years and never had a clue."

  "But you don't spend every waking hour following him around, either. He's my responsibility, and I've done a horrible job keeping him in check."

  "No one person can keep Harry out of trouble. You can feel bad about it if you want, but I don't think anyone who knows him would feel anything but admiration for how you've kept him in one piece," I said, blowing on the car window and drawing stick figures in the haze with my finger.

  We spent the rest of the car ride to the Pudong waterfront in near-silence—only the sound of tires on pavement, cracking knuckles, and the clicking of teeth on fingernails filled the cab. As we pulled past the darkened warehouse's chain-link gate, Jessica touched my leg softly—making me jump.

  "Grant, I know you may take this as a blow to your masculinity, but you're a journalist, not a soldier. If we run into trouble, you let me lead, okay?"

  A sudden feeling, instinctive and primeval, made me want to protest. I fancied myself boldly standing before the enemy with this gorgeous, vulnerable woman clinging to my muscular chest.

  But Jessica was far from vulnerable, my chest far from muscular, and, like surgery or filing taxes, some things are better left to the professionals.

  Besides, when I had time to think about a situation like this one, knowing beforehand the danger and weighing the likelihood of success, I often found myself unable to react as I normally would—as if over-thinking the ordeal shut down my basic instinct for survival.

  This had happened to me before, on one of my first assignments as an embedded journalist with the First Armored Division during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Before I left the States, the Herald's owner had assured me that journalists were customarily kept at a safe distance from danger, and that I had nothing to worry about. That was another reason I appreciated working with Kailas—he would have had the stones to tell me that it was a war zone—by definition a place where people make a habit of killing one another—and I may as well have been carrying a giant red bull’s-eye around my neck instead of a press pass.

  Within my first day of mingling with the troops, I somehow managed to attract the attention of the company's commanding officer—a captain who insisted I ride with him into the front lines in his armored personnel carrier. Knowing that the other reporters on site would give their firstborn child for such an opportunity, I reluctantly agreed.

  For the better part of 48 hours preceding the initial invasion, I had nothing to do but sit on the hull of an M-1 Abrams tank, adjusting the Velcro straps on my blue ballistic vest—the word Press emblazoned across its front—and reflect on the likelihood of catching an Iraqi bullet.

  When the attack commenced, the deafening blasts from Iraqi mortars and the chatter of small arms fire being exchanged reduced my normally inquisitive, fearless nature to pulling my knees up to my chest and clamping my hands firmly over both ears. It took me some time to overcome the self-doubt brought on by that episode, but I still vehemently believe it happened because I had too much time to think about things beforehand.

  Clearing my throat, I nodded and said, "Lead on, pretty lady."

  Crouching, I followed close behind Jessica as we slipped toward the side of the warehouse. At the building's entrance, a pair of Shar Pei fighting dogs wandered restlessly back and forth, to the limits of their tie-out chains and back. Behind them, sitting on a rusted engine block and smoking a cigarette, was the first of three guards. The other two men leaned casually against a sliding door large enough to let an 18-wheeler through. They kicked at the dirt and shifted their rifles from one arm to the other.

  "I don't think we're getting in that way," I whispered, tugging on the back of Jessica's shirt like a needy child. She batted my hand away without moving her eyes from the guards' position.

  Moving quickly from a pile of cinder blocks to an old freezer, I motioned for her to stop. Out of the corner of my eye, I had caught a glimpse of a shadow moving across our path.

  "What?"

  "I thought I saw something."

  Breathing as quietly as I could through my nose, I was suddenly met with a scent more appalling than any I had encountered in my adult life—a muddled concoction of rotted meat, mold, and bile.

  "What the hell is that smell?"

  Looking at me bewilderedly, Jessica suddenly crinkled her nose and pulled her collar up to cover it.

  "Oh, God."

  "Hand me your flashlight."

  She hesitated, knowing even the slightest diffused light could give away our position, before placing it deliberately against my palm—like a nurse passing a scalpel. Angling the light into a crevice in the freezer where rust had eaten away the steel, I recoiled in horror, skittering back on my palms and heels. The blue-white beam had illuminated the decayed remains of a human hand.

  "Who does that? Who uses a fucking dead body like a goddamn lawn ornament?" I whispered angrily, staring at the appliance.

  "We need to keep moving," Jessica responded coolly. Though her voice was soothing, I was badly shaken. My heart beat against my sternum violently, and I felt as though I could vomit every last one of my organs and be happier for it. I had seen dead bodies before: soldiers blown apart by land mines and IEDs, a young man sliced to pieces by a Sudanese warlord's machete, I had even been in attendance when a campaigning state senator was assassinated at a rally. Yet somehow the sight of this forgotten creature decomposing inside a kitchen appliance, murdered and thrown away as though a piece of trash, struck me with a peculiar ferocity. They would never see a proper burial, their absence never acknowledged.

  And that smell wasn't helping matters.

  I mustered the little courage I had left by thinking of what these kinds of men would do to Harold if we didn't continue on.

  He could fit inside a refrigerator or oven.

  We had taken only a step before the same movement I had detected before stopped us in our tracks. Jessica raised her handgun, flashlight poking forward from her grip like a syringe between her middle and ring finger. Before us, propped on its haunches and munching on a discarded apple core, sat a raccoon dog—a furry, foxlike critter. It eyed us curiously, flopped forward onto its front paws and zipped through a hole in the base of the mesh fence.

  Relieved, I whispered, "I told you I saw something."

  A growl and bark followed the creature's escape as one of the guard dogs shoved forward, its chain snapping taught against the building.

  "Quick, they're coming," Jessica said, grabbing me and pulling me down behind the freezer. It was the last place I wanted to hide.

  The guard on the engine block stood slowly, flicking the glowing tip of his smoke into the bushes. Following the direction of the dog's focus, he set out walking directly toward us.

  "Shit. That's not good."

  If we were discovered, or if the guard managed to get a single shot off before we managed to bring him down, Harold would be killed, if he wasn't dead already. Additionally, we had no idea how many armed men were in that warehouse. We could end up facing a small army.

  The guard got closer.

 
; I could now hear the careful crunch of each footstep and the hushed scrape of the tall weeds, poking through the crumbling asphalt, against the man's pant leg. My muscles tensed and my breath grew shallow as I prepared to wrestle the gun from him.

  Then he stopped.

  Only the freezer stood between us and the gunman. He stood motionless, only a few feet away. Silent. As if he could sense that we were here.

  A sound, like a trickling garden hose, made me breathe a careful sigh of relief. After urinating on the freezer and re-zipping his fly, the guard turned and shuffled back to his seat.

  "We'd better move now, before someone else decides they can't hold it."

  Running around to an unguarded side of the warehouse, Jessica motioned for me to wait.

  "I'm going to go around to the back and see if there's a way in," she said, pointing at a small window near the building's foundation. "You work on getting that window open for now, watch my back, and if someone's coming, let me know."

  As she turned around, I grabbed the back of her shirt again.

  "Jessica?"

  She turned back around and smiled, cradling the back of my head in her hand as she placed her forehead against mine. It wasn't so much a romantic gesture as that of a football lineman clunking helmets with a teammate.

  "You'll be fine."

  "I know that," I said defensively. "I was going to kiss you and reassure you that you'll be fine."

  "You thought now would be a good time for that?"

  "The kiss or the reassurance?"

  She smirked and grabbed me around the neck—kissing me hard. In spite of our surroundings, I could think of nothing other than the sweet taste of her lips and the floral scent of her hair.

  "Enough pashing on, then. Don't make me rescue you again," she said, smiling. Pushing against my chest, she turned and jogged around the corner. At that moment, I felt as though I could lift the building from its foundation and spin it on the tip of my index finger like a basketball. Instead, I stood unthinkingly, eyes glazed, licking my lips. It wasn't until I recalled Harold, likely being prepped for disposal by the drug lord's butcher, that I snapped back to my normal self.

  Setting to work on the window, I briefly debated smashing the glass and sliding through.

  The sound would surely have announced my arrival, though, and with the window's frame already rotted to a chalky consistency, I decided to pull a shard of loose concrete from the wall and pry away the frame near the lock. Torn between pulling as hard as was necessary to open the window and being silent about it, I slipped a hand under the window's edge and tugged. The crack of the yielding frame was thunderous, I thought. I had to remind myself that such noises always seem loudest when you're trying not to be heard.

  Peering inside, my eyes slowly adjusting to the black, a body began to take shape. Anchored to the wall by a logging chain fastened to handcuffs, Harold sat, head against his chest, hair cast chaotically over his face, shivering uncontrollably. I was sweating—the night air was jungle-like in its humidity.

  As I dropped to the basement floor, my friend looked up and shouted, "Cogar! Oh man, I'm glad to see you. These guys—I don't know who they are, but they..."

  "Shut up, Harry." I worked to unbind the chain from his cuffs. "I know all about the drugs, about the diplomatic pouches. Everything."

  "Everything?"

  "Yeah. Everything."

  His body shook as though in the grip of a seizure.

  "Why are you shivering? It's a hundred degrees in here."

  "I guess you don't know everything about me, brother. I'm drying out—my last fix was yesterday on the boat."

  Things were beginning to fall into place. Harold must have taken up distributing to pay for his own habit.

  "I'm sorry, Grant."

  "Don't apologize to me, apologize to…"

  The room's rickety wooden door swung open and one of the guards, stuffing a cigarette into his mouth, his SKS rifle hanging from the crook of his arm, looked up—his eyes widening with surprise. Grabbing a piece of broken concrete from the floor, I threw it at him and rushed headlong into his chest. Although the stone flew wide, my shoulder hit him squarely in the middle—the crown of my head smashing into his nose as we collided. Pushing myself from the floor, I discovered we weren't alone.

  "Mr. Chamberlain, what did I tell you about bringing guests?"

  A sharp pain split across my temple as the butt of a rifle smashed against it. Blinking away the darkness crowding the edge of my vision, I found myself surrounded by a group of men, most wearing sweat-stained tee shirts and jeans. But one, a head taller than the rest and wearing a very tidy black suit, stuck out. He spoke without looking at me, his voice instantly identifying him as the leader who had met Harold at the temple.

  "Since I don't know your name, I'll have refer to you only as Mr. Chamberlain's guest. Guest, why would you think to come to a place like this and risk your life for a piece of trash like Mr. Chamberlain?"

  Clearly, we were fucked.

  Our only hope now was Jessica, and without knowing that I had been captured, and with what appeared to be dozens of armed men scattered throughout the warehouse, it was unlikely she would be able to do much more than get captured, too. I shuddered to think of what they would do to her if she were.

  "Bring him to my office," he pointed at me. "But this one…give him a reminder of why he's here. Keep him alive and intact, but the rest is up to your discretion, Mongkut."

  Hands grabbed my wrists and dragged me out of the room as the lead henchman—short, round, and unkempt—began wrapping his knuckles with leather straps. My friend's sallow face took on deep lines of panic at the prospect of another merciless beating.

  18

  You Can Call Me Chang

  Thrown into a swivel chair in a room with curtained windows, I watched the man in the suit pace before me. The dirty carpeting, littered with cigarette burns, suppressed the padding of his leather loafers as he walked a circle around his desk, looking at me occasionally as though contemplating how best to deal with this unforeseen hiccup in his plans. In his left hand, he thumbed a silver crucifix.

  "What's your name?" he asked quietly.

  "Sergeant Grant Cogar, United States Marine Corps, 86-594-278."

  The suit smiled and tapped his pointer finger against his chin.

  "Mr. Cogar, the Marine Corps uses social security numbers now, not identification numbers. Besides, Marine identification numbers were six digits long, not eight."

  I shrugged, clearly bested.

  "Worth a try."

  "If you're done with the make-believe, I'd appreciate knowing who I'm dealing with. And be honest," he said, withdrawing a .38 revolver from his desk drawer and laying it on its side, supported by the crook of his arm.

  I stayed quiet.

  "All right, if we must play this game…I would hazard a guess that you're a journalist. An American, from the Midwest, if I placed your accent correctly."

  My mouth opened slightly in surprise.

  "Few are so quick to think of a lie as a reporter, Mr. Cogar. And like so many journalists, you assume that if you lie convincingly enough, your small-brained countrymen won't grasp such minor details as the count on your imaginary military identification number."

  "You speak English fluently for a Chinese drug smuggler," I countered. "And that cross in your hand is a bit out of place here. I don't remember there being any crucifixes in the Taoist or Buddhist faiths."

  He unconsciously shifted his hand and the emblem behind his back.

  I continued, "I'd bet you were raised in the U.S. And only someone with a military background would know that bit about the identification numbers. Judging by your demeanor and the fact that you're, well, here, I'm guessing your father served, not you. Knocked up a call girl from the orient and ended up with you, did he?"

  "Don't pretend you know anything about me, Mr. Cogar," he snarled, clenching his jaw angrily. Then, as if suddenly realizing his outrage had only confir
med my assertion, he regained his composure, smiled, and said, "Despite your overstated attempts to offend, you are correct about my time in the United States: I studied at Princeton."

  "Didn't know they offered a degree in kidnapping and extortion."

  "Clever. I'm sure you hold a degree of some kind, too, Mr. Cogar. I also take it the money we didn't find on your person is a reflection of your struggle in a time when playing by the rules isn't rewarded." The suit sat back in his chair and slipped his feet atop his desk. "I've found that the sale of certain…commodities…is a more worthwhile use of my time. And really, if you wanted to explore the ethics behind my chosen vocation, I'd argue that those who buy from me would only get it from some other place if I were pursuing more honest work," he said, making quotation marks with his fingers. "I'm merely providing those who seek me out with the escape they seek. It's not as though I'm advertising my product to children."

  "It amazes me to what lengths a psychopath will go to justify their actions to themselves, Mister—now wait a minute," I said, leaning back in my seat expectantly. "I've told you my name, but you're holding out. That's not very nice."

  I didn't really care what his name was. It wasn't as if I could tell anyone, anyway. But if I could impress upon him that I was speaking from a position of power, interested in learning about him because I anticipated rescue or had planned to be captured all along, perhaps he'd keep Harold and me alive until he was certain we weren't a threat, or at the very least, more valuable alive than dead. And more simply, every moment I could keep my captor engaged in pointless banter was one I didn't have to spend tied up in the basement.

  "Let's just say for now that my name is Chang. Does that sound Asiatic enough for you to believe?" he said.

  "What, are you worried that I'm going to tell my cellmate your real name?"

  He only smiled.

  "Fine, I'll tell you. But first, I'd like to show you something, Mr. Cogar."

  Reaching into his desk, he withdrew a plastic cable tie and tossed it into my lap. Fingering the plastic cord, I said, "That's, well that's very special. I'll tell you what: You let me go and I can get you thousands more just like this one. Just imagine how impressive your collection of zip ties could be."