The Army Comes Calling by Darrell Maloney

Author:Darrell Maloney [Maloney, Darrell]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw
Published: 2014-09-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

Frank’s plan for the second sweep worked pretty much flawlessly. So much so that toward the end of the operation, Marty remarked, “this is like taking candy from a baby.”

They shouldn’t have been surprised, however. By now the evil men who had taken over Eden were addicted to a wide variety of things, from forced sex to alcohol to all manner of drugs. Such men will go to great lengths to feed their habits.

And they’re known to be quite careless when pursuing their needs.

The only serious glitch to the operation came close to the end, when a man named Castillo boarded the back of Marty’s trailer in search of something specific.

“I’m looking for valium,” he told Marty. “It’s getting damn hard to find, and if you have some I’ve got gold coins to trade. If you can get it on a regular basis we’ll do some good business together.”

“Well, then, my friend. Let’s see what we can find. I have a pallet at the front of the trailer that we took off a CVS Pharmacy truck. I think I saw a box that said it contained a thousand tablets of valium. Let’s go see if I was right.”

Castillo’s eyes widened. A thousand tablets would feed his habit for months. He followed Marty down the narrow aisle between the pallets.

Castillo didn’t notice Mark come up behind him in the confined passageway. It was simply too narrow to turn and look behind him.

Mark whacked Castillo on the back of the head, just as he’d done to fourteen other men he’d recognized from Marty’s collection of photos.

Only this time, he hit Castillo a little too hard.

Or maybe Castillo was just a bleeder by nature.

In any event, Mark’s blow opened up a nasty gash in the back of Castillo’s head and he started bleeding profusely.

Still out cold, Castillo offered no resistance as the men bound and gagged him and tied his hands to the rail on the inside of the trailer.

“Head wounds always bleed a lot,” Frank observed. “There are a lot of blood vessels above the neckline. Why don’t you go to the house he came out of and see if you can get a couple of towels or something we can use for bandages?”

Bryan trotted off to the house and came back five minutes later.

“I did you one better,” Bryan said. “Instead of towels I found a nurse that’ll patch the guy right up.”

Bryan was followed by a petite woman of perhaps thirty, who had the worn look of someone who’d been abused for a very long time. Not a hint of a smile crossed her lips. Or any other emotion, for that matter.

“You said Castillo was hurt, and is unconscious?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Where is he?”

“Just follow the path between the cargo to the front of the trailer.”

The woman did as instructed.

The men knew all the prisoners were securely bound, and several were still unconscious.

And they had no reason to expect trouble.

So they could be forgiven in waiting a full twenty seconds before following the tiny nurse through the narrow passage to where Castillo lay.

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