Code 6 by James Grippando

Author:James Grippando
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 32

They found his whatchamacallit.

Patrick was in the slow, disorienting transition from unconsciousness to the dark reality of life behind a blindfold. He remembered the guard shoving him against the wall, knocking loose the tool he’d found in the trunk of the car. It had slipped down the inside of his pant leg and fallen to the concrete floor with a clang. The guard had started yelling in Spanish, and the last thing Patrick remembered was the crushing blow of the whatchamacallit against the side of his head.

“Damn,” he said, feeling the lump behind his ear. He smelled something strange, and for a moment he thought it was his own blood. But his wound was dry to the touch. He breathed in through his nose, sniffing out the odor. It was rum. Patrick wasn’t much of drinker, having seen what it had done to Mrs. Gamble, but one semester of college was more than enough “education” to make the distinctive smell of a Cuba libre immediately recognizable.

A screech pierced the darkness, the sharp scraping of a chair pulling away from a table on a concrete floor. He heard footsteps, and it finally registered that he was no longer in the janitor’s closet. He had no memory of being moved to another room—or was it an entirely different building? He wondered how long he’d been out cold from the blow to his head.

As the footsteps drew closer, Patrick instinctively raised his hands for protection. Chains rattled. The slack quickly disappeared, and metal handcuffs pinched his wrists. His hands were in front of his body, rather than the more restrictive behind-the-back method. Still, he had little range of motion with such a short chain tethering him to a pipe of some sort that protruded from the wall, perhaps a radiator.

“Buenos días.” The slurred Spanish was like bad Castilian—Buenoth diath—which oddly reminded Patrick of his own mother, who’d learned to speak Spanish while living in Spain. He wondered if he would ever see her again.

Patrick felt a swift kick to the belly, followed by more slurred Spanish, something to the effect that Patrick was a rude Americano who couldn’t even say “good morning.” The voice was definitely the guy who’d brought him to the Hostage Hotel, but the inescapable breath was Bacardí.

“Buenoth diath,” said Patrick, and another swift kick followed for having mocked his captor. It took a minute, but finally Patrick had enough wind to speak.

“Did you move me someplace new?”

“Can’t tell you.”

“How long was I asleep?”

“A while.”

“How long do I have to wear this blindfold?”

“As long as I say.”

As stupid as he was, this guy could handle questions with the skill of a Washington politician. “Just take it off,” said Patrick. “I saw your face in the jungle. It’s not like I forgot what you look like.”

“That’s not good for you.”

“Dang. And I was on such a lucky streak.” He’d said the last sentence in English, and the fact that he didn’t get another kick to the stomach told him that the sarcasm was lost on his captor.

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