Leave a Trail (Signal Bend #7)(107)

“For you and Len doing hard time.”

“Bart, you f*ck with this and you don’t walk away. We were there. We make the call. And it’s made.”

Bart stared Isaac down in a way Badger had never seen him do before, but then he nodded and took one step back.



oOo



Now they were the ones doing the outnumbering, and the three remaining guards—all three as tall as Show and probably twice as heavy—went down fast and hard. And then they were standing in front of a steel door hidden behind a regular set of double doors. A panic room. Isaac lifted the landline phone from the desk and keyed in a number. A few seconds later, there was a metallic clunk, and Isaac walked to the steel door and swung it open.

Inside was a man Badger assumed must be Julio Santaveria, gagged and tied to a chair. From the fierce expressions of his brothers, there was no doubt. David Vega leaned against the wall near the door, a handgun held loosely at his side.

“I believe you had an appointment with Se?or Santaveria.”

Isaac nodded. “I did.”

Vega stepped out of the panic room and into the office. Len stepped forward, training his AK on Santaveria.

Nodding toward a rolling, wood-grain cabinet, Vega told Isaac, “I think you’ll find a good selection of tools for whatever you have planned next. I can guarantee you six hours without any attention from law enforcement. I need to be able to identify what’s left.”

Isaac nodded, but he didn’t thank the agent.

Vega continued. “Leon Seaver announced his resignation this afternoon. He will be out of office on the first of November. He will not seek another public sector job of any kind. He will not be a problem for you again. I won’t give you details.”

“I don’t want details. Just want him gone.”

“Done, then.”

Isaac nodded. Vega paused, waiting for something more, but Badger knew if he was waiting for gratitude, he wouldn’t get more than he already had. He was breathing. Thanks enough.

He took two steps toward the door and stopped. “Maybe this won’t help, but I’ll tell you anyway. My cover’s blown, and I’m called back to Washington. I leave behind a woman and three children. I’ll never see them again. That’s the price I pay for the things I did for my job.”

All the Horde, and Bart, looked at Vega now, but he returned only Isaac’s gaze. Then Isaac nodded and turned away. And Vega left.

Isaac walked into the panic room and removed Santaveria’s gag. He began to speak at once. “I’m sure we can come to an arrangement, Isaac. My power and resources are vast, and this is only a small—”

Isaac punched him, and his nose crunched and flattened. “Badge, bring me a chair, would ya? My back is f*cked all to shit today.”

Badger brought him a leather-upholstered side chair, and Isaac sat with a groan. “Damn, I’m gettin’ old and broken down.”

Through his shattered face, Santaveria tried again, “Isaac. We are men of—”

Isaac punched him again. “Now that I’m sitting, I can go all night. Shut up, *. You aren’t a man at all. Don’t speak again unless I ask you a f*cking question. I’ve been thinking about how this meet would go. How we should take what you owe. I had some really good ideas.”

He looked around the room. It was whitewashed concrete, with a sofa, a low table in front of it, stores of food and water, and a locked gun cabinet. Isaac looked back at Len. “You see a way we can string him up? Arms out?”

Len examined the room, his gun still trained on Santaveria. He reached out and tested a shelf near him.

“Yeah. If we have chains long enough, I can rig them from there to there.” He pointed from one back corner to the other, where the shelving supports could provide grounding for the chains.

“Show, check that cabinet, see what Vega left us.”

Show did.

“Yeah. Chains. Bungees. Cuffs. Smelling salts. A full kit of knives and another of woodworking gouges.

Bolt cutters. Pliers. Scalpels. Hammer. Hatchet. A blowtorch.” There was a pause. “And a bullwhip.”

Santaveria’s eyes were bugged out behind the blooming, bloody mass of his nose, but he kept his mouth shut.

“Nice.” Isaac practically purred. “Excellent. So, Julio. I was thinking. We Horde, we’re Northmen. We come from Viking stock. You probably knew that. Did you?”

Santaveria nodded.

“Vikings were visceral people. Physical. Quicker to fight than to talk. Rather f*ck than woo. You know?”

Again, Santaveria nodded. Badger thought he seemed very small. Unequal to Isaac in every way.

“The Vikings had a kind of execution ritual. The Blood Eagle. Ever heard of it?”

Santaveria shook his head slowly.

“It’s a thing of beauty, really. The condemned is strung up with his arms out, and his back is opened— one cut, to the bone, up the spine.”

Santaveria began to pant.

Isaac leaned forward. “Then the ribs are hacked away from the spine and pulled out through the back, splaying them wide.”

Santaveria swallowed loudly and made some kind of attempt to calm himself. He failed.

“And then, the lungs are pulled out and laid over the shoulders. The condemned lives through all that and dies when his breath and blood give out.” Isaac spread his long arms wide. “The body looks like a bloody eagle.”