Her Adoring SEAL (Midnight Delta Book 3) (18 page)

“Melvin, I don’t have time for your shit.” 

He must have read the strain in her voice and demeanor because he sat up straight.

“Lydia, what’s wrong?”

“Beth.  Berto Guzman kidnapped Beth an hour ago.  I need to know how he plans to get her out of the area.”

“Got it.”  The screen went blank.

“What the fuck!”  Jack pounced forward.  He reached for the mouse Lydia had been using, but Clint stopped him. 

“Back off, Preston.” 

“No.  I’m part of this, and I will not be told to back off.”

“He’s right, Clint.”  Lydia looked at him.  “Just don’t touch my mouse, okay?” She grinned at him weakly.  “Look Melvin logged off because he’s going to work his contacts.  He’ll be calling back as soon as he finds something.  He’s odd as hell, but he’s a great hacker.”

“Lydia, do we really have time to deal with freaks and oddballs?  We need the A-Team,” Jack said seriously.

“You’re reading this wrong.  He’s not a freak,” Lydia started.

“He’s a freak,” Clint inserted.  “But his information is gold.”  Jack switched his attention to Clint. 

“Fine.  Let me know when you get something.”  He turned to see Mason and Aiden at the dining room table, Mason motioned him over.

“What have you got?”

“Drake talked to a clerk at the gas station near the freeway entrance.  The two vans took the south entrance to the freeway.  We’ve notified the border.”

“Let’s go.” 

****

I
t stank. 

Oh God, she couldn’t see.  Her eyes were wide open, but she couldn’t see.

“Help!” her voice echoed.  She was lying on something hard.  She couldn’t see.  “Hello!  Is anyone here?” she yelled louder than before.  She tried to sit up, but her hands slipped.  She was lying in about a half inch of warm water.  It felt oily.  She tried to push off the floor again, but her hands slipped out from under her, and she landed hard against her shoulder.

Beth grunted in pain.  She couldn’t see anything.  She wished her sense of smell had gone away along with her sight.  It smelled of oil, piss, and shit.  She prayed her hands were only in oily water, but by the smell she wasn’t so sure.  Finally she was able to get onto her hands and knees.

“Hello?”  Again, just the eerie echo.  She didn’t think she was blind, probably in someplace where it was completely dark.
Think Beth!

It all came flooding back. She’d been driving with Lydia.  They’d almost crashed into a van.  Lou and Mike!  Her hand slipped in the slime as she remembered the shots.  She trembled.  Please let Lydia have gotten away safely. 

She wanted to scream. To cry.  To beg someone for help.  She bit her lip to stop herself from crying out Jack’s name.  It was so stupid.  She whispered it.  Whispered it again.  Finally she calmed down and she could think. 

She stayed still.  She could feel and hear a slight rumbling.  Underneath her, the floor was moving.  She was in some kind of moving vehicle.  Despite the dampness of her clothes, she wasn’t cold.  It was hot, which added to the smelly misery. 

Suddenly the floor under her lurched, and once again Beth slipped, this time her cheek hit the floor and fiery pain exploded.  Another memory formed.  She had been hit in the face by a man.

Now she could see bright shards of colorful lights, but they weren’t real, just bursts exploding through her pain filled brain.  She worked hard to get back up on her hands and knees, and this time she started to crawl.  She had to find something to lean against.  There had to be a wall somewhere.  Beth moved slowly, the last thing she wanted to do was bang her head against the side of whatever she was in.

She tried to block out the smells, but also to listen.  She thought she heard whining.  What was that?  It sounded like something she should recognize.  Her shoulder ran into something hard.  She reached out with her hand and found steel with rivets. 

A shipping container?  Was she in one of the cargo containers they shipped the girls in? 
Keep it together.
  She reached up and felt under her blouse, there it was the necklace—the one Grace had given her. She took a breath, through her mouth, and whispered Jack’s name again.  Okay, she was doing better.

She needed to sit up and rest, and then she could start planning.  She maneuvered herself against the wall, and finally had enough courage to sniff her hand.  Thank God, only oil.  If this was a shipping container, then there was probably some kind of bucket to use as a toilet and that’s the reason for the stench.  Why was she in here by herself? 

Were they sending her overseas?  That didn’t make any sense.  They would be getting her to Berto somehow.  The container lurched again, and her cheek hurt even though it didn’t bang against anything.  She felt around her body, and finally felt the back of her collar was dry, so she wiped her hands off, and then she started to probe her face.  Her right side was definitely swollen.  A lot.  Even her eye was swollen, but she could open it.  She finally saw light coming through tiny pinholes high above.  Probably ten feet from the floor of the crate.

Then Beth recognized the whine, it was the sounds she’d heard on the freeway of a truck braking and shifting gears.  She was on a truck.  What happened to the van?  How long was she unconscious?  She rested her head against the side of the container, and it jerked slamming her head against the side.  Oh no, not again, she thought as she drifted into unconsciousness.

****

T
he vans had been found in Temecula five hours ago.  It was obvious Beth was being transported over the border.  It had taken every ounce of patience Jack had not to drive to Tijuana, but he knew it wouldn’t accomplish a damn thing.  He needed intel.  Clint and Lydia were the best he’d ever seen working their contacts.  Mason had everyone lined up to go at a moment’s notice.

The Melvin character just pinged, and said he’d be Skyping in five minutes.  They stood around the desk full of computer monitors.  Lydia’s phone rang, she looked down and sucked in a loud breath.

“Fuck, it’s Rylie.”

“Put it on speaker,” Darius demanded.

“Rylie, can you do a three-way Skype with Melvin?” Lydia asked.

“Yep.”  The line went dead.

Jack was getting sick of the way these people just hung up.  The monitors lit up.  Dough-boy and a pretty young blonde filled the screens.

“What have you got?” Jack demanded.

“Who’s the Viking?” Melvin asked.

“He belongs to Beth.  Shut up and answer his question,” Lydia snapped.

Rylie and Melvin started talking at the same time, but Jack could understand them.  Rylie was explaining Berto was in Veracruz, and there was a big problem with the operation.  He was literally slicing and dicing employees to get them back in line.  Melvin was saying he had found a small trucking operation leading out of the US of specialty types of product being sold to the Middle East.  He suspected Beth had been transported on a truck.

“Where are you getting your information?” Jack demanded.

“I found a site on the dark web.  It’s a little like finding a Russian bride, only it allows you to buy a woman.”

Jack looked at the man on the screen and saw he was serious. 

“How do you know the women are coming from the US?”

“I did a cross-reference to the missing person’s sites here in the US, and found correlations.  The only thing I don’t know is if this is Berto’s operation.”

“Shit.”

“I
do
know my information relates to Berto,” Rylie spoke up. The woman who looked like she should be a sophomore in college. 

“Don’t tell me you found more of those fucking videos, Rylie,” Darius said.

“Fine, I won’t.”

“Why does the bastard keep posting them?”

“That’s his way of keeping his men in line, and it’s pretty Goddamn effective.  He beheaded this last guy after cutting out his tongue for snitching to the authorities.  Once again the butcher was tatted up with Veracruz gang tattoos.”

“But you said Berto was in Veracruz, what makes you think that?”

“You could actually hear him in the background.”

“How do you know it was him, Rylie?” Darius asked in an ominous tone of voice.

The woman looked uncomfortable. 

“Rylie, answer the fucking question!” 

“I met him once!  Okay?”  Jack looked at her, trying to wrap his head around how this girl could have met a notorious slave trader.

“Explain yourself fast, Rylie,” Darius said in a low tone.  “How in the fuck do you know Berto Guzman?”

“It was when I was acting as Sylvia.  I was working a con on his father to get money for one of the charities.  I was in Laredo—it wasn’t in Mexico.  I didn’t expect either of them to actually show up.  I was working on their banker at a charity benefit.”

“Jesus.”

“It’s okay.  I got out of there quicker ‘n snot.”

Lydia told Jack earlier Rylie sometimes took on the persona of Sylvia Hessman when she went out in person. 

“Okay, so we know Berto is in Veracruz,” Jack said.

“Rylie, we are
so
going to talk about your habits,” Darius said.

“Shut up, Darius,” Jack damn near yelled at the other man.  “She got us valuable information.  Beth is probably going to end up in Veracruz.”

“Or Berto could come out to the West Coast and meet up with her here,” Lydia said.

“Not likely,” Rylie disagreed.  “This is a big problem he has in his Veracruz operation, and he’s needed there.  He’s going to have your sister delivered there.”

“I’m not so sure.  Melvin, what do you think?” Lydia asked the other person on the video screen.

“I think there is a whole set up here on the West Coast for US girls.  It looks like he ships them from here to overseas.  Why transport her overland to the East coast of Mexico, when he can just hop a flight to Tijuana?”

“We’re splitting up,” Jack decided.  “Aiden and I are going to Veracruz.  We’re going to meet up with some of his family from the Yucatan. They can help us search Veracruz and find the gangs and Berto.  He’s going to want Beth on his turf.”

“Jack, are you sure?  You could be wrong,” Mason said.

“I’m not wrong.” Jack felt it down to his bones.

“Fine, we’ll work the Pacific coast,” Lydia said.

“I can get you on flights in two hours,” Mason said. 

Jack turned to Aiden.  “You good with this?”

“I’ve got you covered, Jack.”

He wished he could breathe easier, knowing he was getting support from every angle.  But the knot in his gut got bigger with every minute Beth was out of his sight.  What was she going through?  What was happening to her at that very second?

––––––––

S
he’d woken up hours ago?  Minutes ago?  She just didn’t know.  At least she was used to the smell now, and it wasn’t making her gag—much.  To try to minimize the pain in her head she’d bent her knees, and rested her good cheek against her folded arms. 

She gave a slight wiggle, she had to pee, but she’d be damned if she’d check out whatever smelly bucket there was looming about in the darkness.  The truck hit another bump in the road, and Beth gritted her teeth.  One more of those, and she might end up having an accident.  As the truck finally slowed, she sighed in relief, but then she got scared.  Really scared.  What was going to happen?

Wait a damn minute
.  She was not going to be led like a lamb to slaughter.  For almost a year she regretted taking off her clothes at the shack in the jungle.  This time she was going to go down fighting, no matter the consequences.  The truck came to a stop.  She pushed herself up and leaned against the wall, waiting to hear which way the container would open.

It was to her right.  She heard something clank, and stumbled towards the sound.  The door opened and she squinted.  Thank God it was night, so she wasn’t blinded by the sun.  She jumped down and fell flat, but she got maybe three feet when somebody grabbed her around the waist, and held her up high.  They squeezed her so tight her ribs hurt.

Beth screamed for help, the pain made the sounds shrill.

“Scream louder bitch, I love that sound, makes me hard.”  The scary phrase made her scream louder, and the man squeezed her even tighter.

“Stop it!  This one’s special to the boss.”

Her elbow hit gravel as she was dropped to the ground.

“She stinks anyway.”  She looked up and saw two figures silhouetted against the moonlight.  They looked huge. 

“We’re supposed to make sure she gets to the boss in good shape, so back the fuck off.”

Good shape?  That sounded promising.

“I need a bathroom.”

“You need a bath.”

“Fine, let me have a bath.”

“Does this look like a hotel?”  The man waved his hand.  Beth looked around and saw train tracks and shipping containers.  Then she saw something that looked like an oasis in a desert.  It was a blue port-a-potty. 

“Please, can I use the bathroom?”

“You mean the honey pot?” The man who had thrown her on the grown asked.

“Yes.” 

“What will you do for me?”

“Shut up, Bruce.  Yeah, go on over there.  We’ll be watching you.  Don’t try anything stupid.”

Beth ran to the blue structure.  She was desperate for relief.  It stank too, but she was past caring.  When she was done, she peeked outside and both men were looking her way.  She went back to them.  She’d try to escape when she had better odds.

“Now stay here,” one of them said, pointing beside them.  “We have more product coming, and then you’re going to take a little trip.”

Beth eyed the containers on the train, and realized what was coming next.  What she couldn’t figure out was why they were waiting here.  Shouldn’t they be near the coast? 

The wind started to blow and her damp clothes clung to her skin. Beth started to shiver.

“Give her your coat,” the man in charge said.

“What?”

“I said give her your coat, Bruce.”

“No.”

“Bruce, give her your fucking coat.  We can’t afford for her to catch a fucking cold.”

“I’m not giving her my coat.”  He buttoned it up and then patted his chest.