6

A race against time.

Tennyson knew that I’d opened their Pandora box and I was sure they didn’t want to risk me telling the press about its horrid contents. How fast could the dungeon masters at Fancy Rooms shut down their operation and move the victims? OR were these Fancy Rooms scattered all over, one in each basement, perhaps?

I just hoped and prayed — yes, I said ‘prayed’, believe it or not — that Nice had sent me the right address, and that Joel and the crew would get there in time.

I had to assume I was being watched, but I couldn’t just drop off the radar. I still had to live, drive, eat, go to the bathroom … I wasn’t trained in all this investigation and counter-surveillance stuff. How was I going to pull it off? I looked at my watch. Six in the morning. I hadn’t really thought about where to go, although I’d told the Uber guy that I’d hand over some cash if he ignored my destination and just kept driving until I figured it out myself.

Which I soon did because, complicated though this case may have been, hey, I’d been involved in bluffs and crosses and double-crosses before.

“Hey, could you take me to the airport?”

The driver laughed. “Gonna get away for a while? Just like that?”

“Yeah, just like that.”

He dropped me off at the Humphrey terminal, and I headed for car rentals. I didn’t want to take the Lincoln. I didn’t even want to take my phone. I wanted to get out of town, head to the cabin where I had a head-start and could see them coming, if they were coming for me. Maybe they were just trying to scare me. Maybe, to Tennyson and Marquette, it looked like I’m the crazy one, a paranoid wreck.

No, that was wishful thinking. This had to be a real threat. I’d seen it with my own eyes, hadn’t I?

I had to follow this to the end.

As I left the airport grounds with the rental, I pulled over on the shoulder of the highway, peeled the back of the phone off, found the sim card, and threw it out the window onto the pavement. Should be smashed to bits soon. A little while later, I threw the phone out, too. For the first time since my life went into a tailspin — what, a year ago? — I was truly alone.

Cut to Joel and his boys on the road.

What should have been a two-hour drive from the Cities turned into an hour and twenty-two minutes. Joel, Dogged, and Soulfather had taken out the backbench to prepare for the ‘hostages’, as they slipped easily back into their war lingo. They had dreamed about it. They had yearned for it. And here they were actually doing it. Hallelujah.

Special ops. Camo paint smeared on their faces, H&K MP5s cocked, loaded, except for Joel’s, who preferred his modified Bushmaster ACR, beaten to hell and back but still in one piece. They didn’t have a lot of time for recon, just a few drives around the block, some binocular time from several points. The venue was on the edge of a residential neighborhood, so no businesses open nearby. The closest was a used car joint, closed for the night, whose lot was dominated by three RVs priced to move!!!

They were mighty surprised to discover that the address was for a long-abandoned Lutheran church, the glass on the sign out front busted, the letters moved around to spell “Satan Loves You 666” and “Butt Shit”. Surprised that no one had come to take that down. Surprised to see any church left to rot with all the End Days fervor whipped up by the elections, both local and national.

Not surprised to see a white Ford van in the parking lot, parked with its rear close to the side stairs leading to the basement. What else would they use but the go-to van for anonymous dirty dealings? No one gave a white Ford van a second thought, unless you had had your share of dirty dealings, of course.

How did Nice know? How did she find the address so quickly?

She knew what to look for. An abandoned Lutheran church in Superior, Wisconsin shouldn’t need an active cable internet line, paid for by a proxy for Daniel Raske.

Joel pointed ahead through the windshield of the SUV. “That, my brothers, has all the signs of a trap.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure does.”

“Jesus.”

“But …” Soulfather’s comment hung in the air for a moment. He shook his head. “Maybe they’re too dumb to set a trap. I mean, this is a small-time porn site, not a drug cartel.”

“All it takes is one gun.”

Soulfather shook his head. “I’m not feeling it. I don’t think we’re going to have a problem.”

Joel wished he could agree, but he had goosebumps. His teeth chattered. He flexed his fingers. But there was only so much stalling …

“Ready?”

Out of the vehicle. Fast and low across the street to the side of the church, checking the van for a driver, or someone in the back.

And yeah, there was someone in the back. On a stretch. In a body bag. Shit.

Joel sneaked into the back of the van, while Soulfather and Dogged stood watch. But whoever had been assigned to guard the body had decided to wait it out right inside the door to the basement, watching out the window. When he saw Joel hop in and hover over the body bag, he opened the door and raced up the steps.

“Hey!”

Dogged wrapped his hand around the guard’s mouth from behind then laid into him with a stun gun. Hopefully enough juice to keep him disoriented for a while. Dogged eased the man to the ground face-first, taped his mouth and bound his wrists and ankles with plastic cuffs.

One down.

The guard was in his twenties, not carrying any weapons. He hadn’t even worn a thick enough jacket for the night air. Maybe Soulfather was right. Just some misfits following orders, not a well-oiled fighting machine.

Joel reached for the bag’s zipper, tried to one hand it. It got hung up, threatened to rip the plastic. He set his gun down, got a better hold on the bag, zipped it down, spread it.

He’d seen that face before. Even though it was now drawn, his mouth frozen wide and in terror, caked around the edges with insect legs and goo, a nasty smell blooming from it, he still recognized Phil Konzbruck.

He shuddered. Fell back.

Of all the things he had expected to see tonight … fuck.

But why? Joel unzipped more.

“Come on, man.” Soulfather, rifle up, pointed at the basement door. “Come on!”

“Just a sec.”

No obvious signs of death. No gunshots. No trace of strangulation. Drugs? Suffocation? Joel felt around. The smell was getting to him. Right on the edge of what he could take.

He pulled out Konsbruck’s arm. His wrist and forearm, gashed as if by a jagged piece of glass or metal. It had been cleaned up, but there was no denying this was a fatal wound.

Joel looked at his back-up. “I think he killed himself.”

Nothing the others could say.

Joel hopped off the back of the van, knelt beside the guard lying on his stomach. Groggy but aware. Joel ripped the tape from his mouth.

“What happened?”

“Don’t kill me. I didn’t know. I didn’t know until … I didn’t know.”

“Just tell me.”

“They said he did it with the table leg. Took the rubber tip off and did it.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“I swear, I didn’t know!”

“You know who else is down there? How many of you?”

He shook his head. “Four? Five? It’s like, I don’t know what’s going on in all the rooms.”

“Guns?”

“I don’t know!” Sobbing. “Please. Please.”

“What about Dylan? Is he down there?”

More crying, getting louder. “I swear I don’t know. I don’t know names. It’s just a job! Nobody’s ever died before, I swear!”

Joel slapped the tape back over the guard’s mouth. Nodded to his soldiers. “Let’s go in.”

Claustrophobia and darkness.

With only the guide lights on their rifles — the night vision goggles Dogged had brought along didn’t work for shit — they found that what may once have been a mostly open floorplan basement with yellow-and-white patterned linoleum floor had now been sectioned off with flimsy dividers. Bare drywall, bare plywood, whatever was handy, from the looks of it. Sounds seeped out — moaning, flesh slapping, whimpering coming from all over. Wires taped to the floor, a lot of them. More taped to the top of the makeshift walls, running along one long corridor, with ‘rooms’ marked off by either cheap doors or curtains. Another path led to another corridor, running parallel, so Joel and Soulfather took one, Dogged the other.

A few stealthy peeks between curtains: sex, sex, sex. BDSM performed on webcam with the flicker of laptop screens adding some dystopian ambiance. Joel assumed that the rooms with doors were reserved for the dangerous stuff. The kidnapped victims. The dark web red rooms. That’s where they would need peace and quiet, not for the victims, but to concentrate on their unspeakable abuse.

His phone buzzed. Dogged reporting from the other corridor. THINK I GOT HIM.

Retreat and rendezvous. No one the wiser so far. Sex blinders on. The willing participants had probably been promised a secure location. Of course they wouldn’t expect men with guns raiding the place while they fisted and fucked and rimmed and whipped and pegged.

If only they’d known.

Halfway down the second corridor, one of those doors stood ajar, some light spilling out. Low murmurs. Joel and Dogged took the front, inching towards it. Three distinct voices now. Soulfather covered the rear.

The two soldiers rounded the door, inside fast and quiet, covered everyone and scared them into silence. Three men — one older and bald, wearing a white lab coat over a wrinkled flannel, cargo shorts, and flip-flops. The other two wore ball caps, jeans, and boots. One was holding onto a mop in a bucket. The floor was covered in blood.

Dogged and Joel forced them to their knees, hands behind their heads, right in the middle of the blood. Soulfather stepped inside and closed the door.

Joel’s turn: “Who’s in charge?”

“Me … me … um, it’s me.” The man in the lab coat. Bald yet young-looking. Muscled. Toned. But around his eyes, the wrinkles said he was already in his forties. “I can explain.”

“Fuck explaining. Where’s Dylan?”

“Jesus.”

Louder. “Where’s Dylan?”

“Listen, if you could just—”

Louder still. “Where’s Dylan?”

The bald man winced, lurched forward, and stumbled into the blood. Joel was on him fast, pinning him in the puddle as he fought to get out. “Where the fuck is Dylan?”

“Shit, he’s at the end of the hall!” The one who’d been mopping. “Last door on the right. Padlocked.”

Dogged pointed the gun in the guy’s face. “You’ve got the key?”

Shook his head. “No, no, just the caretaker.” Nodded at Mister Labcoat. “And him.”

Joel flipped his man over. “Where? Which pocket?”

The man went for one of the baggy pockets on his shorts, but Joel cracked the stock of his rifle across his hand.

Mister Labcoat screamed. Man, did he scream, Joel was still stunned by the guttural squeal when he told me about it later. Much later.

But what made it so haunting wasn’t the noise itself as much as the fact that nobody came calling. They were all used to such screams in that place. Don’t ask, don’t tell. The man in the lab coat pulled his hand back up to his chest and clutched it like a precious thing, the pain making him nauseated.

Joel shoved his hand into the same pocket. Just a keyring and a lighter, that was all. No hidden gun or knife. Just an innocuous looking keyring and a cheap plastic lighter.

Could’ve burned me.

Instead he jumped up and headed for the door. “Watch them.”

Recon of the corridor, swept back and forth. Clear.

Walked down to the last door on the right. Had to put his gun down again. Worked the padlock. Slippery keys, slippery gloves. Shit. Shit!

Took three keys.

Yanked the lock down, released, then he tossed that fucker down the corridor, double handed his gun, and busted into the room.

He barely recognized the face looking back at him. Slackjawed, almost like Konzbruck’s, his body slumped on a chair as though he was moments from sliding down from it. Naked save for the sparkly underwear. The rest of him oiled-up. Glitter stuck everywhere across his legs, arms, chest, and face. There was a sleeping bag balled up in the corner, and a chain on a D-ring connected to a padlocked dog collar around his neck, the chain just long enough to let him move freely about the room to sleep, cry, or commit suicide. But here he was, somehow still clinging on to life. A pool of piss underneath.

The laptop in the corner was flashing an old-school text screensaver, the 3D letters spelling “Fancy Rooms” and bouncing around the screen. Joel wondered if the camera was up and running, someone sick enough to watch a victim even on his downtime.

A surge of anger. Joel stepped over and stomped the laptop flat. Hammered it with the butt of his gun until it was in pieces.

Fuck those pervs.

Another look at Dylan.

His face bruised, lips cracked and raw. Breath was shallow. But his eyes were open just enough, and he knew who he was looking at. He even tried to smile.

Down the corridor again, Dylan propped up by Joel and Soulfather. Dogged had gotten the keys to the van from one of the ball cap boys inside. They’d left all three of those amateurs in plastic cuffs, belly down in the blood.

Couples stopped moaning and grunting, started peeking out from behind curtains, or from barely-open doors, some even in leather masks. As soon as they saw the guns, they ducked back, at least until Joel’s team had moved past.

Up the steps and outside.

Three more vans. Five more men. And this time, they had guns and started firing as soon as the soldiers made it to the top.

Dogged took a round. Got knocked down, but he shouted, “I’m good! I’m good!”

Joel and Soulfather dropped Dylan rougher than they would’ve liked and took as much cover in their concrete foxhole as they could. Then they returned fire.

Picked off two just like that. Fuck. Joel hadn’t wanted to kill anyone tonight. It was a complication. If they’d done this clean, who was going to complain? Raske? About his illegal fuck factory? What was he going to do about it?

But the man had bigger balls than Joel had imagined. A trap, a fucking trap. They’d fallen right into it.

Now there were faces at the windows of the basement door. Wide-eyed amateur porn actors with no idea why there was a firefight raging outside.

Three guys hiding behind vans, spraying AR-15 bullets all over the place. Jesus.

Joel winced as a few shots impacted close by, but still no kill shots.

There would be sirens soon. There would be witnesses. There would be jail. Didn’t matter who Joel worked for. Didn’t matter who he was saving. There was no getting free of this. He was either going to die or get caught.

Unless …

He turned to Dogged. “Where?”

“All over.”

“C’mon.”

“I can do this.” He reached up for Joel’s hand, and Joel helped him into a crouch, handed him his dropped rifle. “Point em out.”

“I’ve got to get this guy out of here. I can’t get caught.”

Dogged knew exactly what Joel meant. God only knew what this would mean for him — injured in combat at a Lutheran church turned porn pop-up in Superior, Wisconsin. Wrong place, wrong time. But he knew that Joel needed to get Dylan out of there fast, and he didn’t know anything more than that. He was on a ‘need to know’ basis, and that might just save his ass when the interrogators got to him.

Soulfather picked off another one — cringing as he did it — and they were down to two gunmen when Joel heaved up Dylan, slung him over his shoulder, and made a run for the Tahoe. His guys sent a hail of shots towards the other vans, pinning the last two in place.

But Joel could see from here he was fucked. The Tahoe, all the tires blown, windows shot out. Smoke poured from the hood. Useless.

Improv. Closest vehicle. The van with Konzbruck in the back.

Joel ran around to the back just as Dogged and Soulfather had to stop and reload. The other gunmen started in. Joel dodged a couple that sliced right through the open back door of the van as he tossed Dylan in on top of Konzbruck’s body. Slammed the door. Turned to yell for the key, but Dogged was already tossing it over.

Joel hoped to hell those two would make it out alive. He didn’t want to leave them, but the mission was the mission.

Up into the pilot’s chair, cranked up, and he got out of there as more bullets punctured the side. Joel ducked, head down, shoulders slumped. Didn’t take a breath until he was already a mile away.

Here’s what you’re wondering: why not let the cops handle it? Why not get Dylan into some safe hands?

I’d told Joel to bring Dylan to me.

So, blame me. After my prior run-ins with the police, I’d wanted to make sure Dylan was safe, sound, and talking to me before we turned any of this over to the police. I’d wanted to control the situation that had landed me square in the palm of a vengeful Senator, who’d let me spin my own web before dangling me from it over the pits of Hell.

Or worse, public humiliation.

So, what happened next was my fault. I accept that. I’m not proud of that. It still haunts me to this day.

I fucked up bad.

If I’d known then what I know now, I would’ve told Joel to abort, then caught the first plane to Norway. I’ve always wanted to visit Norway.

But I didn’t and because of that, the next few days were a lot rougher and a lot darker and a lot colder than winter in Scandinavia.