Payne threw his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “That sounds pretty good to me. But one question still remains: What’s on the itinerary for tonight?”
Ariane frowned. “Nothing but sleep. As I mentioned, I’ve got a slight headache, and I think it has to do with a lack of rest. If it’s okay with you, I just want to go home and snooze.”
“Sure, that’s fine.” In truth, he was disappointed, but he didn’t want to make her feel guilty. “I guess I’ll just go home and do some paperwork. You know me. My job always comes first.”
CHAPTER 5
Friday, July 2nd
Plantation Isle, Louisiana
(42 miles southeast of New Orleans)
THE
cross was ten feet high, six feet wide, and built with a sole purpose in mind. The carpenter had used the right kind of wood, soaked it in the ideal fuel, and planted it into the ground at the appropriate angle. The Plantation had one shot to do this right, and they wanted it to go smoothly. It would set the perfect tone for their new guests.
“Torch it,” Octavian Holmes snarled through the constraints of his black hood. The wooden beams were set aflame, and before long fiery sparks shot high into the predawn sky, illuminating the row of cabins that encircled the grass field.
Ironically, the image brought a smile to Holmes’s shrouded face. As a child, he had witnessed a similar scene, a cross being burned in his family’s front yard, and it had evoked a far different reaction. It had terrified him. The bright glow of the smoldering wood. The sharp stench of smoke. The dancing specters in white hoods and sheets. The racial taunts, the threats of violence, the fear in his father’s eyes. All of it had left an indelible mark on his young psyche, a scar that had remained for years. Now things were different. He was no longer a scared boy, cowering with his family, seeking strength and protection. Now the roles were reversed. He built the cross. He lit the flame. And he controlled the guest list.
Finally, a chance to exorcise some of his personal demons.
Over the roar of the blaze, he continued his commands. “Bring the prisoners into formation!”
A small battalion of men, dressed in long black cloaks and armed with semiautomatic handguns, burst into the cramped huts and dragged the blindfolded captives toward the light of the flames. One by one, the confused prisoners were placed into a prearranged pattern—three lines of six people—and ordered to stand at attention while facing the cross. When the leader of the guards was finally happy with the setup, he let his superior know. “We’re ready, sir.”
“Good,” Holmes replied as he settled into his black saddle. “Drop your hoods!”
In unison, the entire team of guards covered their faces with the thick black hoods that hung loosely from the back of their cloaks. When they were done, they looked like Klans men in black robes. Their eyes were all that remained uncovered, and they burned like glowing embers in the Louisiana night.
“It’s time to show them our power!”
With sharp blades in hand, the guards charged toward the prisoners and swiftly cut small holes in the white cotton bags that had been draped over the heads of the captives.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Holmes barked as he trotted his stallion to the front of his guests. “Welcome to the Plantation.”
He paused dramatically for several seconds before continuing his monologue. “I’m sure each of you would like to see your new surroundings, but there is something blocking your sight. It is called duct tape, and it will be quite painful when you pull it off. . . . Don’t worry. Your eyebrows will eventually grow back.” Holmes laughed quietly. “I realize that your hands are currently bound, but I’m quite confident you’ll be able to remove the tape without our assistance.”
Slowly and painfully, the prisoners removed the adhesive strips from their faces, tearing flesh and hair as they did. Then, once their eyes had adjusted to the light from the intense fire, they glanced from side to side, trying to observe as much as they could. The sudden realization that each person was a part of a large group gave some captives comfort and others anxiety.
“Impressive!” Holmes shouted in mock admiration. “I’m quite pleased with the guts of this group. Normally my prisoners are weeping and praying to me for mercy, but not you guys. No, you are too strong for that.” He clapped sarcastically, slamming the palms of his black leather gloves together. “Now that you’ve dazzled me with your inner strength, it’s time for me to show you how weak you really are. While you are guests on my plantation, there are strict rules that you must follow. Failure to follow any of them will result in severe and immediate punishment. Do I make myself clear?”
The prisoners remained quiet, too scared to speak.
“My God! I must be going deaf! Why? Because I didn’t hear a goddamned word from any of you.” He rode his horse between the lines of prisoners. “Let’s try this again, but this time I want you to scream,
Yes, Master Holmes!
” He glared at the captives. “Are you ready? Failure to follow my rules will result in severe and immediate punishment. Do I make myself clear?”
Fewer than half of them answered. An act of disobedience that pissed off Holmes.
“Yesterday you had the right to do what you wanted, say what you wanted, think what you wanted. But all of that is gone now. Your freedom has faded into the air, like smoke from this burning cross.” The prisoners glanced at the clouds of ash that slowly rose into the darkness. “You are no longer members of a free society. You are now possessions. You got that? And as my possessions, you are now governed by the rules that I’m about to share with you. Failure to comply with
anything
will result in swift and decisive action on my part. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Master Holmes,” mumbled most of the crowd.
Holmes shook his head in disgust, disappointed that he would have to damage some of his property so early in the proceedings. “Bring out the block,” he ordered.
Two guards ran to the side of the field and lifted a four-foot wooden cube onto a small cart. Then, as the prisoners stared in confusion, the guards dragged the large chunk of wood to the front of the crowd.
“Thank you,” Holmes said as he climbed off his horse. “Before you hustle off, I’d like you to do me a favor.”
“Yes, sir!” the guards said in unison.
“Do you see the tall man at the end of the front row?” Holmes pointed at Paul Metz, a father of two from Missouri. “Please bring him to me.”
“Me?” Paul shrieked as he was pulled from the line and dragged to the front of the group. His family, who’d been standing next to him, trembled with fear. “What did I do?”
“So you
can
talk! See, I wasn’t sure if you had the ability to speak until now. Why? Because a moment ago I asked the group to answer a question, and no sound came from your lips.”
“I answered, I swear.”
Holmes slammed his gloved hand onto the wooden block, and the sound echoed above the roar of the fire. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“No,” Paul sobbed. “But I swear, I answered you. I yelled my response.”
“Oh, you yelled your response, did you? I was staring right at you, focusing solely on you, and I saw nothing! No sound, no head movement, not a goddamned thing!”
“I screamed, I swear.”
Holmes shrugged his shoulders at the claim. He had no desire to argue with a prisoner. It would set a very bad precedent. “Put your hands on the block,” he said calmly.
“What?”
Holmes responded to the question by slapping Paul in the face. “Don’t make me tell you again. Put your hands on the fucking block.”
He closed his eyes and eased his bound hands onto the wood. He quivered as he did.
“Now, choose a finger.”
Paul opened his eyes and stared into the hooded face of his captor. “Please, not that,” he begged softly.
In a second flash of rage, Holmes threw a savage punch into Metz’s stomach, knocking the breath from him. On impact, Paul collapsed to the ground in front of the wooden block.
“Choose a finger or lose them all.”
From his knees, Paul reluctantly placed his hands on the chopping board, then extended the pinkie of his left hand. As he wiggled it, announcing his choice, he sobbed at the impending horror. “This one, Master Holmes.”
Holmes smiled under his hood, enjoying his moment of omnipotence. This was the type of respect he would demand from all of his prisoners. And if they failed to comply, he would make sure that they had a very unpleasant stay.
“Now,” he shouted at the transfixed crowd, “I would like you to observe the following.” With the viselike grip of his left hand, he grabbed Paul’s wrist and pinned it painfully to the wood. “This man chose to ignore a direct order from me, and because of that, he will be severely punished.”
With his right hand, Holmes grabbed his stiletto, then paused to enjoy the surreal nature of the moment. In the presence of the dancing flames, the length of the five-inch steel shaft gleamed like Excalibur in the regal hands of King Arthur. The crowd gaped in awe at the spectacle they were witnessing. Wailing from his knees, Paul waited for his punishment to be executed.
“Let this be a lesson to you all!”
With a quick downward stroke, Holmes rammed the razor-sharp blade into Paul’s knuckle, just below his fingernail, immediately severing the tip. A flood of crimson gushed from it, glistening in the firelight. Paul screamed in agony while trying to pull his damaged hand off the block, but Holmes was too strong for him. After lifting the knife again, he plunged the blade into Paul’s finger a second time, severing it just below the middle knuckle.
“Stop!” Alicia Metz shrieked above her husband’s wails.
A guard instantly silenced her with a ferocious backhand.
“Not yet!” Holmes answered. He pulled the embedded blade from the block again, and this time buried it into the edge of Paul’s palm, dislodging the last section of his little finger with a sickening pop.
“Why?” she sobbed as she slumped to the ground. “Why are you doing this? What have we done to deserve this?”
Holmes glanced at the three chunks of finger that sat on the chopping block in front of him and smiled, admiring his handiwork. “I’m sick of her babbling. Gag her.”
Two guards grabbed the fallen woman and wrapped her mouth in duct tape.
“Anything else, sir!”
“Yes,” Holmes sneered. “Get this man some gauze. It seems he’s had an accident.”
CHAPTER 6
The Kotto family estate
Lagos, Nigeria
(Near the Gulf of Guinea coast)
HANNIBAL
Kotto stared into his bathroom mirror and frowned at the flecks of gray that had recently emerged. Although he was fifty-one years old, he didn’t look it. In fact, people always assumed that he was ten years younger than he actually was.
After opening his plush purple curtains, Kotto gazed across the man-made moat that encircled his majestic grounds and observed a team of workers as they pulled weeds from his impeccably maintained gardens. All of them were new employees, and he wanted to make sure that they were following his orders. Unfortunately, before he had an opportunity to evaluate their performance, his phone rang. “Damn,” he muttered. “There’s always something.”
Kotto reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out his cellular phone. “Kotto here.”
“Hannibal, my dear friend, how are things in Nigeria?”
For the first time that day, Kotto smiled. It had been a while since he’d spoken with his business partner, Edwin Drake, and that was unusual. They normally spoke a few times a week. “Things are fine. How about South Africa? Is Johannesburg still in one piece?”
“Yes, and I still own most of it.” Drake, an Englishman who made the majority of his money in African diamond mines, laughed. “However, with the civil unrest in this bloody city, my holdings are not as impressive as they used to be.”
“That is a shame, but a common drawback to life in Africa. Governments come, and governments go. The only thing that’s constant is conflict.”
“A more accurate statement has never been spoken.”
Kotto smiled. “Tell me, Edwin, where have you been hiding? I thought maybe you were getting cold feet about our recent operation.”
“Not at all. I couldn’t be happier with our partnership. The truth is I had some last-minute family business to attend to in London, and I honestly didn’t want to call you from there. I never trust those bloody hotels. You can never tell who’s listening.”
After a few minutes of small talk, Kotto steered the conversation to business. “I was wondering what you thought of the last shipment of snow you received. Was it to your liking?”
“
Snow
? Is that what we’re calling it now? I like the sound of that.”
“I’m glad. I felt we needed a code name for the merchandise, and I hate the term they use in South America.”
“You’re right.
Snow
is so much simpler to say than
cargo blanco
.”
“Exactly. And since both of us speak English, I figured an English word was appropriate.”
“Why not something Nigerian? Couldn’t you come up with something colorful from your native tongue?”
Kotto laughed loudly. He always got a kick out of the white man’s unfamiliarity with Africa. “Edwin, I
did
come up with a word from my native tongue. English is the official language of Nigeria.”
“Really? I didn’t know that. I’m sorry if I offended you.”