Chapter 4
Richmond, VA

Sully laid down her pen, squeezed her tired eyes closed, and took a deep breath. “Ahh…” she sighed, leaning back in her chair as she did. She blinked several times to clear her vision and stared down at the spreadsheet on her desk. She had been going over the budget numbers for proposed projects for the last … how long had she been at it? She looked at her watch and exclaimed, “Three hours!” She needed a break and, with a glance toward the corner of her office, knew the remedy she required.

Ten minutes later, she had changed into a nylon warm-up suit and was programming an easy workout into the new stair-climber machine she had delivered to her office—she purchased three others for the employee fitness center on the second floor. As she stood on the treadles, her finger poised over the ‘Enter’ button, she quickly ran her other hand across her abdomen, feeling for the telltale pain that would be her barometer for the workout. After palpating the usually sensitive area, and receiving nothing more than a slight twinge, she nodded to herself that she should be all right to begin the thirty-minute session and pressed the button. As the machine started, moving her into the warm-up phase, Sully lifted the lightweight headphones from the console and placed them on her head. Then, she pressed the play button on her Walkman and adjusted the volume on the Black Crowes CD she liked to workout to.

A third of the way through her program, she was letting the raspy-voice of Chris Robinson educate her about a Remedy while she thought about the two secrets in her life and what the hell she was going to do about them. Being a scientist at heart, she always considered the empirical evidence, the signs or consequences that are observable by the senses. But, in this instance, especially with regards to Mack, the evidence wasn’t tangible. She was dealing with her heart, and what it told her was that she was in love with the man, and that was evidence enough for her. Besides, empirically speaking, Mack was the aces. He was everything she wanted in a friend, partner, and lover. He was kind, considerate, and caring when it came to her. Despite his recent spate of drinking, which she forgave, and his neglect of his workouts, which she attributed to stress, she knew that Mack was a good man and the right one for her. She suspected that he had suspicions about her health. In her heart, she wished that he had asked her if there was a problem, it would have made it easier to talk to him about it, as she wanted to do. But, he hadn’t brought it up and she respected him for that, too. He was giving her the time and space to make her own mind up when she would tell him. Yeah, she thought she would keep him.

“…resa.”

As for the other one, well, that was another matter altogether. Everything in her screamed ‘run away fast,’ and she would; of that, she was certain. She just needed to set everything right before she cut the strings.

“Excuse me, Theresa?”

There was no reason to be hasty. Besides, she might need something from …

“Sully,” a voice called loudly from across the room.

“Shit!” Sully exclaimed and pulled the headphones off before turning to face the source of the interruption.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Megan Winningham, the Chief Financial Officer of CET Corporation said as she stood in the doorway, her arms filled with files and long, folded sheets of printer paper. “You shouldn’t listen to your music that loud; you’ll be deaf in twenty years. My older brother is only fifty, but he has to wear a hearing aid already. He attributes it to too many rock concerts.”

“No,” Sully said with a shrug, “just deep in thought and didn’t hear you come in.” She pressed the stop button. She held on to the handrails as the machine slowed to a stop. Then, she reached for her towel and dabbed at her face. “I’ve been going over the numbers all morning and needed a break. Give me a minute to change and I’ll be ready.” She stepped off the machine and strode toward the washroom. “Help yourself if you want anything to drink. I’ll just be a moment.”

Megan carried her load paperwork to Sully’s desk and laid it down. She waited for her boss before sitting.

“The numbers look good, from my first read,” Sully called out. “Don’t you agree?”

“They’re all right,” the CFO conceded. “The budgets are achievable, but we need to watch costs, especially at INERTECH. They spend more per mission than any other division’s operating teams, but I know you are fond of Mister Turner’s group. Now if you ask me, I would focus more on …”

The CFO droned on about where the company could shift focus, move resources, and trim budgets while Sully cleaned up and changed back into her work clothes. Sully knew that the ops division of INERTECH was working in the red lately, but the other divisions more than made up for the Team’s shortfalls. Hell, their overhead was sky-high, what with the plane, travel expenses and all. Sully did not care that the Teams did not make money all the time. What they did was too important.

Earth Resources, Inc. and the reclamation arm of the company, Phoenix, made the lion’s share of CET’s revenue, so she did not concern herself with the fact that on occasion INERTECH came up a little short. Ops were a fickle thing and could not be budgeted the same way. It was hard to tell when a disaster might occur. They might respond to ten a year, or just one, a fact that Mack brought up during the budget meetings. He routinely admonished Megan for placing revenue goals on the ops division. “They’re not realistic,” he would argue.

As she refreshed her make-up in the mirror, her green eyes sparkled and her mouth curved up in a smile as she thought of Mack. She knew how passionate he was about the Teams. His passion was one of the many things she admired about her man.

“My man,” she said to the reflection in the mirror. She straightened, smoothed her blouse and winked at the Sully in the mirror. “Am I your woman, Mack Turner?” She heard truth in the response her mind gave. I might be right now, but I won’t be for long if I don’t tell you my secrets.

“What’s that?” Megan called from the office.

Pulled from her reverie, Sully turned and walked out of the washroom for the meeting with her CFO.

* * * *
Manaus, Brazil

E.J. lay on a dirty canvas cot in a small room, weakly lighted by one naked bulb on the ceiling. The small incandescent light strained to overpower the darkness that pervaded the room, but was failing. The inky black surrounding E.J.’s cot seemed to absorb the dim light, further diminishing his view. He knew the room was small, but he could barely see beyond his bed through the encroaching dark, which—he noted with amazement—changed as he looked and now appeared as a gray mist that stopped at the foot of his cot.

Then, he saw her. She approached out of the darkness, moving into the half-light through the veil of mist. He could barely make out her shape as she approached, but he knew automatically that it was Nikki. She glided toward him as he lay on his bed, walking in that graceful way he appreciated. With his head propped up on the bed, he was able to view her approach much easier. She was dressed in khaki slacks and a tee shirt. As she drew nearer, he heard her call to him in a soft, sultry voice.

“Help me?” she asked demurely. Then she climbed onto the bed, and straddled E.J. She looked into his eyes and indicated that he should help lift her shirt. He was happy to oblige.

E.J. allowed his hands to pull her shirttail out of the waistband of her khakis, and then slowly slid it up her torso, his hands pressing lightly against her body as he moved them up. When he met resistance, he pulled her shirt out slightly to clear the swell of her breasts, allowing each firm mound to break free of its fabric bond. He paused a moment, smiled at the view, and then continued to lift the shirt as she spoke to him.

“Help me,” she said softly, but with more emphasis. Her hands raised over her head to assist him.

“Yes, help her,” a strangely familiar feminine voice encouraged.

As E.J. tried to remove her shirt, it became caught around her head. Try as he might, he could not get it free. As he wrestled with the stubborn shirt, the material of it seemed to change, becoming rougher, darker, and stained. At the same time, it appeared to be binding itself around Nikki’s eyes. Her hands had been free, but now they appeared to be bound together above her head, being pulled up by some invisible force.

Nikki’s voice changed. Now it was pleading, almost crying for him to finish.

“Help me!” she cried.

“You must help her,” a second disembodied voice added. This one was male and familiar as well.

“I’m trying, dammit,” E.J. said in response. He continued to struggle with her bindings, but they resisted all his efforts.

He looked up at her and recoiled from the sight. Nikki was there, still straddled across his lap, her smooth, flat belly and firm, round breasts illuminated in the light. However, as he looked, the light, that had been a dim white, changed to a deep, blood red that pulsed with each beat of his heart. Nikki writhed in pain with each pulse.

“Help me!” she screamed. Now, she arched her back in agony, her mouth open in a rictus of pain. E.J. tore at her blindfold, but could not remove it. He reached for the invisible bonds that held her hands, but could not break them. In desperation, he clasped his hands around her back and tried to pull her to him. The effort caused her to scream in pain, so he stopped and pulled his hands back. When he looked at them, he noticed they were covered with blood and bits of flesh. Then suddenly, her body was viciously wrenched up off him. Nikki was lifted up by the bindings that tied her hands, until she hung suspended from some unseen attaching point. The pulsing red light punctuated her screams of agony. He tried to help her, but she remained out of his reach, slowly turning in the red strobe light.

“My God, please help her!” the familiar voices, now desperate, implored him.

He closed his eyes and screamed in anger and frustration. When he opened them, she was gone and the voices were silent.

E.J. jerked awake, sat up in his hospital bed and blinked, the stabbing pain in his side momentarily stealing his breath. His eyes squinted against the bright white light that saturated the hospital room where he lay. He looked around frantically, trying to get his bearings. Where was Nikki? Then, the realization hit him: it was a dream. He grasped for the talisman he wore around his neck, but it was gone. In a panic, he searched for his necklace and found it and his hunting knife in the drawer of the nightstand beside his bed. He quickly put the necklace on, closed his eyes and focused on the vision. Now that he was awake, and could control his emotions better, he was able to comprehend what his vision wanted him to see. Nikki, Shaura, and Pete were alive but in danger. Nikki was also in pain.

E.J. had seen enough. He knew what the vision meant, and he had to find his friends and free them as soon as possible. Swinging his legs off the bed, he sat there while he steadied his breathing. An I.V. line was taped to his left wrist. Looking up at the bag of I.V. solution, E.J. saw that it was lactated ringers, a type of intravenous fluid often used in trauma situations that mimics the chemistry of human blood. They were not pushing any meds in him, so he pulled the catheter out of his wrist and pressed the wound while he considered his next actions. He needed his clothes. He located them on the chair next to the bed where someone had folded them neatly.

The big man slid off the bed onto cold tile, tried to stand and fell to the floor when the pain in his side flared red-hot. He landed on his hands and knees, and rested a moment until the pain subsided. Then, he slowly got up and examined himself more closely.

His abdomen was bound with wide gauze bandages with extra padding over the bullet wound on his left side. He noticed a small red stain beginning to show through the padding; he had pulled something loose when he fell. E.J. pressed his right hand to the bandage, and felt around to his back with his left. A similar padded bandage was there as well. So, he thought, the bullet went through. That’s good. He should have a doctor look at it again, but that would have to wait. He had to get to his teammates. E.J. looked at the clock on the wall. Ten thirty, I’ve been here less than two hours.

A search of the supply cabinet against the far wall yielded extra bandages and padded dressings for E.J. to use later. He placed these in a small trash bag, and began to dress. As he was struggling to tie his boots, the door opened and a nurse walked in.

“Señor, what are you doing?” she asked, and hurried over to E.J. in an attempt to stop him. “No, Señor, please,” she pleaded, “you must not leave. You must rest.”

E.J. looked hard at the young woman. “I must go and find my friends. Thank you for taking care of me, but I must leave.”

“You must get back into bed, Señor,” the nurse placed her hand on E.J.’s right arm.

He looked at her hand, and then directly in her eyes. The look in his eyes was enough to tell her she was making a mistake. She removed her hand, “As you wish,” she said. With that, she turned and left the room.

E.J. knew she would be back, but this time she would have either a doctor in tow, or a couple of tough orderlies. He did not want to fight, but he was leaving. He decided that it was better if he was gone before she returned.

He finished tying his boots and then slowly stood up, wincing slightly at the stab of pain in his side. Then he retrieved his knife and the rest of his belongings, and left the room. He needed two things before he started his search. The first was to see how Brian was doing; he remembered that the kid had been shot, too. E.J. could not leave without seeing the kid. Then, he needed information, and for that, he had to find the authorities. He was vaguely aware that his teammates were forced to board a boat of some kind. He did not know which direction that boat had gone, but it had a two-hour head start. He made some quick mental calculations; if he left soon, he could intercept them before they got too far. He just needed to know which way they went.

When he reached the emergency room entrance, he saw Gerhard and Fausto talking with three official-looking men. One of them was a doctor, E.J. surmised, since the man was wearing a lab coat. Of the remaining two, one was clearly a military man. The other, E.J. estimated, was probably a local politician. As he approached, Fausto noticed him and hailed the big American.

“Señor, what are you doing out of bed?”

“Everyone seems to be asking me that,” E.J. replied, “I’m fine. I need to find my teammates.”

“But, Señor,” Fausto began.

E.J. held up his hand to stop the man. “Look, I appreciate that you are all concerned for my wellbeing, but my priority is my team. If you are really concerned, then help me find them.”

It was clear that the American would not be swayed from his task; therefore, Fausto nodded and introduced E.J. to the three other men.

“Señor Lonetree, allow me to introduce Doctor Raúl Garcia, representing the hospital; Capitán Ernesto Gallardo, of the Amazonas militia; and, Señor Odilon Rivera, the mayor of Manaus.”

“Gentlemen,” E.J. offered, and shook hands with each.

Fausto continued. “We were just talking about the terrible incident that happened tonight. We have information as to who might be involved, and where they are going.”

At this, E.J. demanded, “Tell me what you know.”

Doctor Garcia stepped up and answered. “Do you recall the wounded peasant that you helped rescue?”

“Yes,” E.J. did recall the wounded peasant man in the boat.

“Well, it seems that he is very upset at the man who shot him, and is telling us everything he knows.”

“Go on,” E.J. pressed.

“We know that the man in charge is Carlos de la Rocha Ortega, a very powerful man in the Colombian drug cartel. His nickname is La Serpiente, the snake. Also, we learned that he was here to recover the drums of chemicals that you were trying to neutralize, and to return them to his brother, Esteban.”

“What do they call this, ‘Esteban’?” E.J. asked with obvious sarcasm.

“They call him La Araña, the spider,” the mayor stated flatly. “He is more dangerous than his brother. He is the leader of the Los Venenosos drug cartel.”

“Where can I find Carlos?” E.J. asked. “And why did he take my people?”

“Carlos is on his way up the Rio Negro to Novo Airão, to offload his cargo onto a plane that will then fly to his brother’s compound in Mitu, Colombia. As for why he has your friends, that is anyone’s guess. I imagine that they are expendable hostages. As long as he believes they are valuable, they are safe,” Capitán Gallardo said.

“Is anyone going after them?” E.J. asked him. The military man just looked down at the highly polished toes of his own boots.

“No, Señor,” Fausto answered for the embarrassed official. “He is too powerful, even here in Brazil.”

“That’s bullshit!” E.J. cursed. “I’ll go, then. How far is this Novo Airão?”

“But, Señor,” the doctor began.

“How fucking far?” E.J. moved a menacing step closer.

“Seventy kilometers, or so,” the mayor said nervously.

“Okay, look, all I need is for my boat to be fueled, some extra fuel for the return trip and a gun. That’s all. I can do the rest myself. Can you help me, or not?”

Fausto looked to the others, who nodded. “Sí, Señor, we can help you with what you ask.”

“Great,” E.J. said. “I need to see my wounded teammate first, to make sure he is all right. After that, I want to get underway as soon as possible. When can my boat be ready?”

“While you visit with your friend, we will see to your boat,” Fausto said.

“If you will follow me, I will show you to your friend’s room,” the doctor said as he took E.J. by the arm. “There is not much you can do for him right now. He is out of surgery, but still in intensive care. He will be there at least until tomorrow, depending on whether his condition improves.”

“What do you mean, whether he improves?” E.J. asked.

“Señor, your friend was seriously injured. He survived surgery, which is a good sign, and now he needs to heal. Whether he improves depends on his mental state. If he wants to live, he probably will.”

Together, they headed back into the maze of corridors that wound through the hospital wards toward the Intensive Care Unit. As they passed the room in which E.J. had been recovering, his stern-looking nurse stepped into the hallway and stared at her truant charge, a look of indignation etched on her face. E.J. just smiled at her and continued walking.

Shortly, E.J. and the doctor entered a small ward where patients occupied every available bed. The occupants’ vital signs were displayed on digital monitors by each bedside. The doctor led E.J. down the double row of beds to the last one on the right. E.J. could tell it was Brian, and stepped up to see him.

Brian was asleep, or unconscious, E.J. was not sure. The monitor seemed to be displaying normal statistics, and he seemed to be breathing peacefully. E.J. leaned close and whispered to his young teammate.

“Take care, Brian, I’m going to get the ones responsible for this, and bring back our friends. I promise. Your job is to get better.” He squeezed Brian’s hand gently and then left the room. It was time.