Chapter 24

 

About two hours into walking down the dirt road, I started to regret my decision to leave the bed and breakfast. I had air conditioning, food, water, and a bed there. I had everything I needed and could have lived comfortably there for months. But instead, I was walking down a dirt road in the ninety-degree heat, waiting for someone to pick me up and help me get to Chicago.

My mouth was dry from the hot summer day, and as much as I tried to ration my water, my thirst kept getting the best of me. I continued to sip on the gallon of water I had brought with me and hoped I would run into a grocery store or gas station at some point so I could fill it up again.

Admittedly, I had no experience in packing for long hikes and probably should have prepared a little better before I had taken off down the deserted road that I was on.

When Marcus and his team left the bed and breakfast over a week before, they had said they would be back in a day or two. It was clear that something had gone wrong with their plan, and I needed to figure out what it was. Marcus and I had grown very close, and I knew he wouldn’t purposely leave me at the bed and breakfast without any word of how he was doing.

A few cars had come past me, but they were all going in the wrong direction. I needed to go south and make my way into Chicago. But at ten in the morning, there were not many people on the old dirt road, and the ones who were out were heading to their fields to work.

The farmland around me was beautiful. It was filled with corn and soybeans and ripe for the farmers to start harvesting. It was a picturesque scene that I enjoyed immensely as I continued to walk at a slow, but steady pace.

I couldn’t remember the drive into the bed and breakfast, but I knew there had to be a major road somewhere down this dirt road. I just didn’t know how far or how long I would have to walk before I found a ride.

My willpower to go find Marcus started to fade fast as the hot summer sun got stronger throughout the day. I had only brought a gallon of water with me and tried to ration it as best as I could. I thought for sure I would have run into someone to take me into town by then.

I couldn’t take the heat anymore and found a spot under a tree just a few yards from the road. Sweat poured from my body, and my T-shirt was drenched. I clearly had not brought enough water on this walk.

It felt nice to relax and cool down, though. The summer breeze made the shade the perfect place to hang out. I seriously contemplated just taking a nap and then heading back to the bed and breakfast but decided against that plan.

Instead, I sat and sipped on my water and ate one of the apples I had brought along. I felt my heart pounding and realized I probably should have spent some time working out before I decided to set off on a ten-plus mile walk. I really was more out of shape than I had realized.

As I sat there, I watched an old green minivan go north; it looked surprisingly familiar, but I couldn’t place where I had seen it before. Often I felt like I had seen a person or a thing before but just couldn’t remember when or where I had seen them, so it wasn’t unusual that I thought I had seen it somewhere before.

After about twenty minutes, I was ready to finish my hike toward the interstate and hopefully find a ride into Chicago before it got too late. I didn’t know where I would sleep or what I was planning to do if I never found a ride into town. I just had to keep a positive outlook that sooner or later I would find a ride.

My feet throbbed in pain as I stood up and started my slow walk south. Surely there had to be someone going south on this old dirt road at some point during the day. I know I had seen a few cars go by while sitting on the front porch of the bed and breakfast, but I couldn’t remember what time of day I had seen those cars.

I used one of my spare shirts to cover my head and try to keep some of the sun off of me as it beat down hard on my skin. One of the things I had forgotten to gather before I left the bed and breakfast was sunscreen. I knew for sure I would regret that the next day. My skin already felt burned and stung when the sun shone down on it.

I heard the vehicle coming before I saw it, the green minivan that had passed shortly before was heading south now. The woman and man in the van stopped beside me, most likely out of concern since the old road I was on seemed to go for miles and miles. They probably had not seen many people actually walking down the road before. Most people were probably smart enough not to venture out in the hot sun of the afternoon if they did need to walk down that dirt road.

“Do you need a lift?” the woman said as she leaned out the passenger window.

“Yes, thank you!”

The excitement in my response was a bit more than I would have liked. I couldn’t control myself, though; I was genuinely excited to have a ride. Any ride to any distance was a big deal at this point.

“Where are you heading?” the man asked.

The woman hopped out of the van and opened the side door. I stepped in and sat down, put my things onto the ground, and then buckled my seatbelt. The air conditioning in the van felt heavenly, and it made it very hard to even think straight.

My body was hot, probably too hot, and I felt a huge sense of relief when the cool air rushed over my body.

“Ideally, I’m going to Chicago, but I’ll go as far as you can take me,” I said.

I wasn’t about to turn down a ride at all. If they could only take me to the next town, that would have to do for the night. I could try and call Willow and Marv from there, or maybe get access to my bank account so I could get some money for the rest of the trip.

“We are actually heading south of Chicago, we can drop you off. Where at within Chicago?”

I didn’t have an exact location and really didn’t know at all where I needed to be.

“Around Navy Pier would be great,” I said as I tried to sound convincing.

Really, I had no clue where to start looking for Marcus and Zed and the team. I didn’t even know which agency he worked for. The first place that had come into my mind was the rides that I remembered going to at Navy Pier when I was younger. I hoped that I would be able to get where I needed to go from there.

“Alright, sit back and relax, we will get you there,” the woman said.

She looked back and smiled at me, and I instantly felt at ease.

It was weird to be in a van with people that I didn’t know. I had never hitchhiked before and thought that I would never have done such a thing. But I felt surprisingly comfortable with the pair. They had a baby car seat in the back, and the woman was reading a book in the front seat. I couldn’t see what the title was, but it looked like a romance novel.

The man, who was in his mid-thirties, drove and flipped through the radio stations until he found something that he liked. He didn’t seem to care that I was in the van with them, and I had to wonder if the pair had ever picked up a hitchhiker before.

My favorite thing about the ride was that they didn’t bombard me with questions. I was exhausted and didn’t have the energy to explain every detail about why I needed to go to Chicago. I probably wouldn’t have explained it to them even if I did have a ton of energy.

It surprised me that I had fallen asleep in the van with the two strangers. It certainly wasn’t something I had planned. The hot summer heat and the relief of being in air conditioning had been too much for me. But when we went over a bridge on our way into downtown Chicago, I was jolted awake.

As I sat up and looked around, I couldn’t figure out exactly where we were at. I didn’t know Chicago very well, though, so it wasn’t unusual that I had no idea where we were. I just sat back and looked around as we continued through the city streets.

“Do either of you have any water?” I said as the dehydration from my day in the sun seemed to set in.

My level of dehydration had probably contributed to the long nap that I had taken on our drive into town also. The woman handed me a bottle of water, and I guzzled it down as quickly as possible.

Hopefully, after the pair dropped me off, I could call someone and at least get a hotel booked for the night. I certainly didn’t want to find myself sleeping in a homeless shelter or something like that.

I continued to look around and take in all the buildings, but I still couldn’t figure out where we were. It seemed like we were heading more into the shipping district as I saw large docks and container ships all along the side of the road as we continued to drive.

My heart started to beat faster as we turned into the shipping area, and I grew more concerned that something was going on. We weren’t anywhere close to Navy Pier, and I was pretty sure there was no reason to be turning into an old shipping yard at that hour of the night.

“Where are we?” I asked.

Neither the man driving nor the woman responded to me. Something was definitely going on. They ignored me and drove into the shipping yard. I looked around to see if I would be able to make a run for it. Maybe if he slowed down to make a turn, I could jump out and start running.

Then I looked at the door handle for the sliding back door; it was gone. The whole door handle had been removed. I couldn’t believe I had not noticed that before!

I looked at the door handle and then at the driver. By that point, he was watching me very closely through the rearview mirror. He knew I had figured out that something was going on. He motioned to the woman sitting next to him, and she started to rifle through her bag of things.

“There is nothing to worry about. Someone just needs to speak to you,” the man said as he looked at me in the mirror.

I looked at him and then at the female in the passenger seat. They both looked so normal!

Then it dawned on me, perhaps Marcus had sent these two to come get me. They must have gone to the bed and breakfast and then left when they found that no one was there. I tried to run that idea through my head and see if it fit the possibilities of the situation.

I wanted that to be the truth. I genuinely wanted them to be with Marcus’s team. Something deep down inside told me that they were not, though. There was just something about the way the driver looked at me; I could tell that he did not intend to be helpful to me at all.

We pulled into a back alley between two large warehouses. I felt my body start to shake from the adrenaline that rushed through me. I tried to calm myself and took a few deep breaths, as I let the air out and looked around and took note of my surroundings.

The vehicle was all the way at the end of a long parking area that was between the two buildings. I would have to run down that long area before I would be out of view, and it was likely that the driver or his passenger had a gun. I didn’t want to get killed, so I waited. I needed just the right opportunity to make my move.

Then suddenly and without any warning, the driver reached back and poked me with a needle in the thigh.

“Ouch,” I screamed.

I looked down at the needle and then at the driver. My first thought was that it was some sort of drug like heroin or something. My knowledge of needles and the drugs that could be administered was very small.

My body almost instantly felt like I was drunk. My vision got blurry, and I felt my face become flush. I reached toward the needle and pulled it out of my leg. A tiny dot of crimson red blood pooled on the spot that held the needle.

The power in my hands quickly dissipated, and I couldn’t hold the needle. It fell to the ground, and I heard the metal of the needle make a light thud as it hit the carpet of the van. Everything seemed to move in slow motion.

My vision got more and more difficult, and everything went blurry around me, so much so that I couldn’t even make out the face of the driver. I had to close my eyes. I hated the feeling of being nauseous.

My eyes closed, and I was overwhelmed with a desire to lay my head down on the bench seat next to me. I couldn’t hold my body in the upright position for another second. I needed to sleep, if only just for a moment.

As I lay there, my eyes were closed, and I couldn’t move any part of my body. To the driver and the woman, I clearly looked like I had fallen totally asleep. Although I hadn’t fully become unconscious yet, I could still hear them talking.

“Do you think she will flush out the mole?” the woman said.

“Yeah, whoever he is won’t let her be punished. He’ll expose himself, and then Rudy will kill him with a bullet to the brain.”

I remember thinking that Marcus was in danger, and I had to warn him; that was the last thing I recall.

I felt the rope around my wrists and ankles before I could even open my eyes. The tight compression of the string held my limbs up against the cold metal of the chair I was in. My head slumped down, and as I started to wake up, I slowly pulled my head up. My eyes were filled with a blurry mess when I tried to look out and see what was in front of me.

The voices of men surrounded me as they talked to each other and ignored me. I’m not sure any of them were fully aware that I had started to wake up yet. As my own cognition started to align with my body as it woke up, I was able to remind myself to move slowly. Perhaps if I moved slowly, then no one would notice I was awake, and I could observe them better.

There were three men close to me, they all had thick beards and held what I thought were guns. My vision was still pretty blurry, so I couldn’t fully tell. Two of the men had their back to me and faced the third man, who looked like he was in charge.

I overheard them say something about catching the mole among the other men. That made me hold my breath as I remembered the two who had brought me there and what they said just before the drugs had taken effect. I had to figure out a way to warn Marcus; this was a trap, and they were going to kill him for sure.

My eyes started to clear, and I opened them slightly to try and get a better look at the three men who held me captive.

They were all three very large men, well over 200 pounds, but physically very fit. I could tell the one who was in charge almost immediately because the other two looked at him after everything they said. The man in charge must have been Rudy, the person who was going to kill Marcus and me when he found out who Marcus was.

I tried to reposition my head slowly so I could get a look at the other two men, but their backs were still to me so I couldn’t see them. They both had dark hair and held onto their large guns like they were very comfortable using them.

“Go get everyone; I want to see their reactions,” Rudy said to his two sidekicks.

The two men left the room, and I was alone with Rudy.

He noticed I was awake and came over to me. My heart pounded as he walked closer. The gun he had slung across his body was my sole fixation, and I couldn’t even look him in the eyes because of this.

“Young lady, would you like some water?”

“No.”

“You will feel better. It will help flush the drugs from your system. Drink this,” he said, and he held a bottle of water up to my lips.

I drank it; I certainly wasn’t in a position to refuse something he asked me to do. Plus, I was dying of thirst, and the water did taste perfect as it went down. I had only initially refused out of principle, but I was thirsty, so very thirsty.

He was a tall man who certainly asserted a sense of power. The way he carried himself, was with confidence and power. I could see why people looked up to him. In a different world, he would have made a great leader of some big corporation, but instead, he led criminals.

“Thank you,” I said as he pulled the bottle away from my lips.

It was at this point I finally made eye contact with him. I’m not sure what I had expected, perhaps an ugly snarly face with death in his eyes, or something equally as scary. Instead, he looked like a regular guy.

My eyes looked over his face and took in the Italian features and tan skin. He was actually a very handsome man. His beard was well trimmed, and he wore a white button up short sleeve shirt. The material was lightweight and extremely soft when it had brushed up against my hand.

“I’m sorry I had to bring you here sweet thing. But one of my men is lying to me, and I have no choice but to flush him out and kill him. Unless perhaps … you would like to help me by pointing him out?”

I looked up at the man with wide eyes as I tried to contemplate the situation. How much did he know? What should I tell him? What should I lie about? The thoughts all rushed through my head at the same time. I had no idea what I should say or do.

“I’m just a girl from Missouri,” I said as tears filled my eyes.

He seemed amused at my fear. It was the first moment I truly felt like he would kill me without even a second thought. There was a disconnect in his eyes, and he looked overjoyed that he had caused me such a high level of fear.

Just then, a large group of people made their way up some stairs at the other end of the large warehouse building. There had to have been at least one hundred people. Most of them were men, but I did see a few women in the bunch.

I searched through the group to see if I could find Marcus. As they walked closer and closer, my eyes darted frantically among the crowd to find him. I didn’t know what I could do to warn him, but I probably wouldn’t have to. The second he saw me sitting in that chair, he would know exactly what was going on.

“Hello everyone and thank you for coming to the show,” Rudy said with his arms in the air like a circus show entertainer.

I looked at the faces of all the people, and I couldn’t find Marcus anywhere. All of the men had beards and looked like they hadn’t had a chance to shower in days. It was impossible to pick Marcus out from the crowd when everyone looked alike.

“It has come to my attention that one of my dear friends in this room actually works for the government,” Rudy continued. “As you can imagine, I’m not happy about that.”

The crowd of people started to look at one another and talk under their breaths. I noticed a man on the corner that looked familiar, but I didn’t instantly know who he was. My mind was still extremely foggy from the drugs, and my eyes were not quite focused.

Zed!

My heart sank, and my eyes fixated on him as I realized the man on the corner of the crowd was Zed. My eyes looked at him, and I saw him shake his head slightly in a NO motion. He looked different with a disheveled beard like Marcus had, and I wanted to yell out to him but knew I shouldn’t do it.

I looked away.

Surely if Rudy had seen me look at Zed the way I did, he would have known for sure that Zed was the mole. I continued to look through the crowd of people and try and find Marcus; if Zed was there, then Marcus surely had to be nearby.

My eyes continued through the crowd, and I saw another man that I recognized, but it wasn’t Marcus. This man had been at the bed and breakfast the first day I arrived. He disappeared after that, but he certainly knew both Zed and Marcus. I remembered him sitting in the living room when I kissed Marcus after first arriving at the bed and breakfast.

I looked away from him also.

I continued to search the crowd. How many men were part of Rudy’s empire and actually worked for the government? Rudy certainly didn’t know he had so many moles, and I couldn’t be the person to break their cover.

Rudy’s two main guys walked behind the crowd of people and pushed them forward as Rudy stood right in front of me. I could only see the people on the side of the crowd, but I had already identified two of them as being part of Marcus’s team. I continued to search the crowd for Marcus.

I couldn’t find him. I desperately needed to see Marcus and feel that everything would be alright. I knew if I could just find him, I would be safe. Marcus would make sure I got out of this situation alright. He would kill this Rudy guy and rescue me; I was sure of it. Now I just had to find Marcus.

“You see this beautiful young woman … she doesn’t want to die a painful death. Do you sweetheart?”

Rudy stepped to the side and looked at me. I felt the hot stare of his gaze on my body. He stepped back toward me and placed his hand on my shoulder as he looked at the crowd of people who looked on. He squeezed my shoulder firmly, and I felt compelled to answer his question with my head.

I shook my head and looked up at the man.

“This sweet thing knows which one of you is the mole. You corrupted this sweet girl and brought her into this dirty world. Now her sweet little blond hair is going to be covered in your blood.”

Rudy looked at the crowd and walked toward them. He moved one by one through the group and looked into each of their eyes. Some of the men looked back at Rudy and some of them quickly looked toward the ground. It was clear that all of them feared him, though.

“If you confess, I will not kill the girl. But if I have to torture her to get you to confess, she will wish for death.”

My hands started to shake, and more tears fell down my face. It took everything I had not to look at Zed or the other man I knew. I didn’t even want to search the crowd for Marcus anymore out of fear that I would make eye contact with him, and Rudy would know who he was.

“So I will give you until the morning to come to me and confess. If you have not, I will start instilling horrible pain on this sweet girl right in front of you all until the mole confesses.”

My thoughts raced as I imagined all the horrible things he had planned to hurt me in order to get the mole to confess. The problem was, Marcus wasn’t even in the room. Had I been brought to this warehouse to get one of the other two men to confess? I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I did know that I needed rescuing right at that moment.

I felt a small sense of relief when he gave the time frame of the next morning. Surely, Marcus and his guys would be able to rescue me by that time. I didn’t know to what extent they had trained for situations like that, but surely they would be skilled to get me out. I felt a sense of confidence that they would get me out of the situation.

My eyes scanned the crowd and locked on to Zed. He looked at me with such compassion as I cried; it was hard for me to look away. Zed was a sweet man, a kind soul, and I knew in my heart that he wasn’t going to let something bad happen to me.

“Kyle, you seem to have quite the eye for the girl,” Rudy said as he walked over to Zed.

“No sir,” Zed said.

Kyle must have been the name Zed used while he was undercover. I made sure not to look at either of them as they had the conversation. Instead, I looked at the ground and hoped that Rudy wasn’t about to kill Zed.

“Skinner, untie the girl and bring her here,” Rudy said to one of his two main guys who had moved behind me now.

The Skinner guy got on his knees, untied the ropes around my ankles, and then stood up and untied the ones on my wrists. Then he looked at me.

My heart fluttered, and I tried not to react.

It was the first time I had been able to clearly see either of Rudy’s two main guys. It was Marcus!

He only looked for a second and then roughly grabbed me and brought me over to Rudy. As rough as he had grabbed me, I thought for a second I had been mistaken that it was Marcus. I had just been drugged; perhaps I hadn’t seen him right? Maybe it was just a guy that looked a lot like Marcus, I thought.

“Don’t look at me and don’t respond,” Marcus whispered in my ear as we walked over toward Rudy and Zed.

Yep, it was Marcus for sure. I could tell by his voice. I felt better knowing he was there but still scared to death that I was in the situation. At any moment, Rudy could turn his gun on me, and it all could be over with.

“Young lady, do you know this man?” Rudy asked me.

I looked at Rudy and shook my head no. I tried not to look at Zed and instead looked toward the ground as the situation unfolded.

“Kyle seems to like you at the very least. Perhaps I should let him have his way with you right here. To prove that he’s not the mole.”

I tried not to respond, but my eyes darted at Zed, and something in the way I looked at him must have given Rudy some concern.

“On your knees!” Rudy screamed as he put a handgun to Zed’s head.

Zed instantly went to his knees. He responded like any of the other employees of Rudy would have done, by doing exactly as he was told. I looked up at Marcus, in the hopes that he would do something to stop the situation. But he didn’t even look at me; instead, he intently watched the situation between Rudy and Zed.

“Do you know this girl?” Rudy asked Zed.

“No sir, but she is fine as hell. That’s why I looked at her like that. I’m sorry sir. I’d love to take her right here and prove that I don’t know her.”

Rudy looked at me. He took some extra time to look up and down my body. Our eyes made contact with each other, and then his gaze moved down to my breasts.

“Mmmm, baby girl is fine,” Rudy said as his hands glided over my breasts. “Stand up then,” he yelled at Zed.

Zed stood up and didn’t look at me. Only straight at Rudy, who had now moved down the line to some other guy in the group.

“You want to fuck her?” Rudy said to the next guy.

“Not my type. I like girls with some ass,” the guy joked.

All the people laughed awkwardly. It was the best they could do with such a dangerous man. None of them were free to say much, and Rudy continued to move down the line of people and see if he could notice a reaction that would warn him that someone was the mole.

What Rudy didn’t know was that he had at least three moles within his group. I didn’t know everyone that Marcus worked with, and it was highly possible there were even more men who had infiltrated this group.

I thought back to what Marcus had said about his work and how long he had been on this case. He certainly must have been working with Rudy for many years for Rudy to trust him as one of his right-hand guys. I was a little in awe of how dedicated to his work that Marcus was.

When I first met him as my shirtless neighbor, I felt like he was probably a meathead. My instinct was that he was one of those police officers who spent all their time working out and picking up women but not very much of their time taking their work seriously. I certainly had been wrong about Marcus.