CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Meat locked me in one of the basement cages. Me, cans of tomato sauce, tins of olive oil, and a rat shared the space until sun brightened the narrow window above my head. I heard the sound of the Huey, a Vietnam-era warhorse as old as Smith’s socks, and I stood on a crate of canned beans so I could see outside. The Huey set down on the helicopter pad behind the hotel and the team moved out to meet it.

They checked packs, radio batteries, rifles, and other gear before climbing on board. I tried to holler, but they couldn’t hear me over the whap of the rotors. I didn’t know if Phil had warned the men or not, or whether he and Coop had even escaped. All I could do was watch and hope that they knew about the danger and were ready. Iceman, Hog, Hamster, Dutch, and Thumper stepped into the helicopter door, one by one, and with a change in pitch, the Huey lifted slowly off the pad, turned, and flew off toward the east on a hot burst of aerodynamic voodoo.

Meat came down the stairs, followed by Kelly and another man, a Latino who made Meat look like an undernourished kid in a magazine ad.

Kelly looked at me through the cage wire, working his jaw. His forehead sported a bandage, which made me feel better. As if reading my mind, he said, “I don’t like you, Harper.”

“I can live with that, sir.”

He smiled. “But not for long.”

“What are you going to do with me?”

Kelly paced back and forth in front of my cage. “That is what we’ve been discussing, Harper. I want to give you to Meat. The boy needs a pet.”

Meat lifted his lip and snarled at me through the wire.

“But the Colonel has other plans. You see, he promised to bring a piano player to a party.”

“I play piano,” I said, “or perhaps you didn’t know.”

Meat slammed the cage wire and said, “Shut up.”

“That’ll do, Meat.” Kelly stopped and stared at me for a long time. “You’ve proven to be remarkably resilient, even ingenious, which makes me worry about letting you live any longer than it would take to frog-march you into the bush. But, for the time being, the Colonel is in command and he wants to show off his performing monkey. So I’m sending you to the party, along with Ricardo.”

The big Latino smiled, revealing a set of gold teeth.

“He has orders to kill you, slowly if he can, quickly if he must, if you even look like you’re about to escape.”

“That hardly inspires a great performance, sir.”

“It would be wise to play your best, Harper. Ricardo can be an awfully harsh critic.”

Meat leaned in close. I could smell the onions on his breath and a splash of cologne. “And when you get home, monkey nuts, then you and I get to play some games I learned.”

“He needs practice, don’t you, Meat?”

“Yeah.” Meat smiled. “The last piano player died way too quick.”