Caitlyn struggled against her bonds. The chair was shaky, but the ropes were tight. In this moment, at this point in her life, raw emotion and a passion to survive could have thrust her into any action. A person never knows how they will react to a severe or desperate incident until they’re faced with it, with life or death, unexpected pleasure or terrible pain. All bets are then off.
“I want to be saved,” she said. “We all want to be saved in some way. Even you, Dingo. You mind me calling you that? What’s your real name?”
“You want saving? Ah, but only one thing saves. You know what that is, woman?”
Caitlyn shook her head, trying desperately to hold the man’s eyes.
“An altar,” he said seriously, then burst out laughing. “Altar full of gold. And diamonds. A pit of money. All the rest,” he shrugged, “is our living hell.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
Dingo brought the cattle prod around until its fizzling prongs were an inch from her nose. “You gonna save us? You figure I ain’t heard all that before? I heard it from the mouths of cops. Childcarers. Even priests. Most truth I ever got from a priest was the one told me the best use he ever got outta the Bible was that he used it to bash a mugger’s head in. That’s real. That’s our world, woman. We were born with one foot in Hell.”
Calmly, he laid the machete on the floor and lit a cigarette. “How ‘bout we get to the point. Boss wants answers. Let’s start with the map.”
Caitlyn felt a sudden rush of annoyance, unprecedented. “I don’t have any answers! I joined the fucking group just yesterday!”
Their inability to believe her, their unending distrust, irritated the hell out of her. This guy was never going to believe her no matter what she said. But deep, deep inside her memory lay a fact that might give them pause. Her eyes had slipped innocently over Crouch’s work yesterday as he sweated over the map and its translation. She had noticed a destination and sentence that stuck with her.
First treasure of Tenochtitlan is in Utah!
First treasure? What the hell did that mean?
If she told them… she would be betraying the team and her new boss. Truth was, they would hurt her anyway. Still, she fought a testing inner battle to keep her silence.
That was when the prod touched her left knee. White hot pain stabbed hard through every nerve and she threw her head back for real this time, unable to stop the scream.
“No! I’m just an analyst and a techie. You can’t—”
The agony came again, the prongs fizzling briefly against her right knee this time. “I can,” Dingo muttered. “You’re in my world now, woman. There ain’t no heroes coming for you.”
Caitlyn gasped in agony. “You might… be surprised.”
“Not in ten years. Life just wears you out around here. Jades you. By the age of ten—” Dingo spread his arms. “World weary. Seen everything.”
“Believe me, you’ve seen nothing like what my friends will do to you when they get here.”
Dingo laughed. “Friends? What friends? Nobody follow us here. Nobody know we here. Cops won’t help. That kinda hope gonna get you nothin’ but dead.”
Caitlyn tried again to connect with Dingo through eye contact. “My friends are coming right now. I’d recommend you treat me well.”
If there was one thing a hardened criminal worried about it was any kind of threat to his business. Dingo was no exception. The first thing he did was to stare at Caitlyn as if gauging her sincerity; the second was to dig a cellphone out and press speed dial.
“Marco? What you got out there? Anything around the shop?”
Dingo listened carefully. Caitlyn watched him without expression, shocked by her own coolness under pressure. Hard to believe that she was a wreck inside. Maybe it was the training kicking in or the faith she put in Alicia and Crouch. Maybe it was denial. The reasons didn’t really matter. Dingo listened for a while, waving the cellphone about beside his left ear.
“Don’t worry,” he said to Caitlyn. “Marco find them if they around.”
Caitlyn flinched when Dingo suddenly hung up. “All right.” He tucked the phone out of sight and came forward. “This time I ain’t fuckin’ around, lady. I don’t care if you tell me or not but I’m gonna have me some fun.”
He thrust the prod forward into her stomach. Caitlyn screamed as fifty thousand volts entered her body from the point of impact. She struggled against her bonds, the ropes abrading flesh. Caitlyn felt her muscles stretched in a rictus of agony, taut until Dingo pulled the prongs away.
“So what you got for me, bitch? You wan’ some more, ‘cause y’know I’m happy to serve it up.”
Caitlyn shuddered. Before she had a chance to catch a breath Dingo was pressing the prod forward again, this time into her ribs. Again she screamed, convulsed against her bonds. Spittle flew from between her lips.
“Fuck you!” she yelled, amazed by her own defiance. “Fuck you and the whore that shat you out!”
Dingo looked a little startled, but then a crafty leer crept across his features. “So.” He smiled. “You trained? The choir girl was all an act. Good!”
Again he zapped her. Again Caitlyn juddered and jerked against the ropes, wishing it were indeed all an act. Her wrists bled, her ankles were bruised. The chair trembled with every movement. An involuntary twitch began in her left cheek and wouldn’t let up.
Dingo slowly brought the prod up until it sparked before her eyes. “Think you’ve felt the worse? Nothing near. How ‘bout the face? Ears? Eyes? Or maybe I’ll just jam this baby into your mouth.” The sneer told her he would be good to his word.
“The treasure.” She panted. “I know. I know where it is.”
Dingo leaned toward her, the sparking prongs between his eyes and her own. “I thought so. Tell me. I’ll go easy on you.”
Caitlyn forced out a tear. “It’s… ” The rest was lost in a murmur.
Dingo tilted his body another few degrees. The instant he was at full stretch Caitlyn jerked forward, headbutting the cattle prod and forcing it against Dingo’s own forehead. The pain was immense, making her see blackness and stars but the shocked squeal that came from Dingo’s mouth almost made it worthwhile.
Almost.
Dingo was suddenly enraged. “Bitch! Fuck, fuckin’ bitch! I’ll kill you. C’mere!”
He grabbed her left hand, leaned on it, and brought the cattle prod around until it was level with her right eye. Without a word he pushed it forward. Caitlyn struggled hard. Using the leeway she had created in her bonds, she threw her head from side to side. Dingo grabbed her throat, trying to keep her still.
“Goddamn it!”
Caitlyn spat at him, then started to rock the chair from side to side. The moment Dingo attempted to arrest the pitching by perching on the arm, the entire flimsy seat collapsed. Both Caitlyn and Dingo crumpled to the floor amidst a pile of shattered timber.
Dingo was beside himself, scrambling around in the pieces, swearing uncontrollably. Caitlyn rolled to the side of the room, still attached to the arms of the chair but at least able to hold the broken wedges up before her face.
“Stop fighting, dammit!” Dingo muttered. “I’ve seen meeker pit fighters and cops sat in that chair.”
Caitlyn prepared herself for his next attack. He was concentrating on the prod but she knew exactly where the machete was, over the other side of the room where it had been discarded. If she could —
Dingo’s cell chimed. The sudden interruption almost sent him over the edge. Veins stood out in his forehead, a tapestry of unhinged madness that might have made a great abstract painting. With hands curled into fists he sought to calm himself down. Caitlyn took the brief respite to regain her balance.
“What?” Dingo’s anger was becoming infectious.