Department of Student Loans, Kidnap & Ransom, Page 4

  Chapter Three

  Alison looked over with mild disgust at Mick, who was now working on his second sweet potato, mango and bacon burrito.

  “Mick, will you be having a third one?”

  “Maybe. Do they have create-your-own burrito stands where we’re going?”

  “Nope.”

  “That’s unfortunate. I guess I’ll eventually accept my fate.”

  “So you are somewhat more enthusiastic about this now?”

  “Yeah, I think I’m coming down with Stockholm Syndrome,” said Mick. “Or maybe it’s Helsinki Syndrome, you never know.”

  “Cute.”

  Mick’s reference to Helsinki Syndrome was a joking death threat, not to be confused with Stockholm Syndrome, where hostages bond with their captors. Helsinki Syndrome was coined long after its Swedish counterpart, but also for a bank robbery. However, in the Finnish version the bank employees and customers feigned Stockholm Syndrome with the Estonian and Russian bank robbers who held them hostage, and then, when their captors dropped their guard, beat them to death with pieces of abstract corporate artwork that were placed in the bank lobby to create an air of cosmopolitan sophistication – a poor choice for impressing Finland’s bank customers, but a great choice for makeshift weaponry.

  Liz walked up to the table and sat down. Looking at Mick with much more than a mild degree of disgust, she inquired “How many is that now?”

  “Three.”

  Liz looked over at Alison who shook her head in the negative.

  “OK, good for you Mick. Ally, I released the car back to the rental place. I’ll find us a gypsy cab to get us to the airport. Give me about five minutes or so…”

  As Liz walked off, Mick put down his burrito and stated the obvious.

  “You know, Ally, if I can call you Ally, you’re going to have to let me know where we’ll be going at the airport. That’s unless, of course, you’ve arranged for one of those rendition jets that don’t have a check-in desk, gate number or employees announcing the destination. So why don’t you just tell me one hour earlier?”

  “You can call me Alison.”

  Alison, or Ally as she was known to her friends, tapped out a word on her phone and turned it to Mick, revealing the destination: Indonesia. Mick didn’t have an opinion one way or another. And he figured that Ally clearly had a reason for the country that she selected.

  He looked up and said “OK, let’s go to Indonesia.”

  “Mick, you think that maybe I wrote out the name of the country on my phone instead of saying it out loud for a reason?”

  “Yeah, well maybe the walls have ears. But maybe they would know that I would never be that stupid, and that I said the wrong country name out loud to mislead them?”

  Ally didn’t respond. She thought quietly about how difficult Mick would continue to be. If he could take a severe beating and then come back just as annoying and cocky a few hours later, then there probably wasn’t much else that could be done aside from tying him up and taping his mouth shut before transporting him, an option that Ally thought would be a great choice if she actually had the resources to do so. Ally’s thoughts moved to more pressing issues, and she began to think through the logistics for Indonesia over and over again.

  The logic behind the choice of Indonesia was that The Executioner would very likely consider that location to be a fertile hunting ground. From what Blue Team knew about him, which was actually very little, Indonesia was where he based himself when he was not elsewhere in Asia grabbing a runner. So he would have the advantage in that he knew the country well, but that was the point: Blue Team would dangle easy bait in a country where The Executioner was comfortable operating. If they made it too hard, then their target may give up.

  The various scenarios played out in Ally’s head as she walked down the street. Mick, not helping any, was now eating a bag of fried jalapeno pork rinds and drinking a large bottle of extra sugar-added rice horchata while making up a completely false history for the neighborhood they were walking through. Ally did her best to tune out Mick as he pointed at an apartment block that was clearly no more than twenty years old and proceeded to describe it as “one of the less popular but more diseased brothels during the 1970s.”

  Neither Ally nor the chattering Mick took much notice of the three local men walking up behind them, nor did they take note of the windowless panel van parked farther down the street. It was impossible to treat every single person on the street as a potential threat. These men, however, were definitely a threat.

  Both Ally and Mick were hit at the same time. Two of the men reached out and pressed their fake phones into Ally and Mick’s necks and unleashed 50,000 volts in one short burst. Neither Ally nor Mick had been electrocuted before, but they reacted like everyone else who had. They collapsed in pain on the sidewalk, unable to move.

  Electrocutions were the domain of the state in every country, and all forms of compact electrocution devices were illegal and classified as ‘self-offense weapons.’ But in those countries where the laws were applied unevenly, both police and criminals had easy access to them. The subtleties of electricity-based weapons and their regulation in different jurisdictions were, however, not on Mick and Ally’s mind at that exact moment. They both thought the same thing as their brains rushed through a hundred scattered thoughts: ‘I am going to die.’

  The van began to move up the street as the men assessed the situation. After some murmured Spanish slang that Mick had problems understanding, one of the men spoke clearly and gave a command, “Shoot the girl and leave her. Take the guy only!”

  Not expecting to have had to use his gun, the would-be executioner reached into the side of his jacket, fumbling for his gun. The delay cost him everything. He didn’t see Liz sprinting across the street behind him.

  As Liz ran by the unfortunate man she fired one shot into the side of his head and immediately swung her weapon forward and put two shots in the back of the second man. The third man put his hands in front of his face and froze just long enough for Liz to easily fire two 9mm rounds into his chest. His hands dropped. Liz raised the barrel a little and shot him in the face. Liz then casually walked over to the man with two bullet wounds in his back and fired one last shot into his head.

  Mick was already on his feet as the effect of the voltage had quickly faded. He looked around for a direction to run, having no idea what way to head. Ally was slower to gain her footing and clumsily stood up. She looked over at Liz who was scanning the area as quickly as she could. It wasn’t fast enough.

  The unmistakable hammering sound of a Kalashnikov rang out and Liz stumbled back a few steps before falling on her side. The 7.62×39mm rounds had gone right through her chest and stomach. Another round had pierced her upper arm, but she still tried to clutch at her gun. The man who had been sitting in the van fired another burst at Liz, hitting her in the chest.

  Ally, now on her knees, looked over at Liz. Ally started to crawl towards Liz, who was gasping for breath with eyes wide open. Liz seemed like she was trying to say something. But she couldn’t get the words out. She had a look on her face not of panic, but of fear. Ally was the one panicking. Not breaking eye contact with Liz, she started to cry out “No, no, no!” repeatedly.

  Mick grabbed Ally, who was slowly lapsing into shock. Pulling her behind a car he shouted “She’s gone. We have to go. Now!”

  Mick looked down the street and saw the gunman running towards his van. He looked around and didn’t see anyone else, except for a few people who had now decided that the break in gunfire was a good time to run away. The feeling of fear, panic and paranoia was overwhelming. Mick had only one instinct left: flee.