The Payback Assignment by Austin S. Camacho Read Free Book Online

how’d you find me?”
                “I’m thorough.”
                When the other two men returned, Paul turned off the emergency button allowing the car to descend.   Then he passed the brooch to one of his partners, a pudgy man in a crumpled plaid suit.   He examined the brooch with a jeweler’s glass, and verified the object’s authenticity with a nod of his head.   The third man, evidently a native, stared at her with undisguised lust.
                Paul maintained the perfect distance from her, out of reach yet in complete control.   Leaving the hotel by a side door, the small group entered a black Cadillac limousine.   Pudgy drove, Paul shared the front seat and Felicity sat in the back with number three.   Paul’s automatic stayed on her the entire time.
                “We have a long drive ahead of us,” Paul said.   “We must meet a large yacht on the East Coast, somewhat south of Mexico.   If you cooperate we shall leave you alive in a, er, rural area somewhere along the way.”
                At the edge of the city, the limousine pulled up behind a large four by four type vehicle.   Paul guided her to the new vehicle with his gun.   Her three captors assumed their prior seating arrangement and they drove away, apparently abandoning the Cadillac.   Before long, they were cruising smoothly down the asphalt road.   The tires whined on the highway but it did not last long.   Soon the asphalt faded to gravel, then into dirt.  
    They continued rolling, on into the night.   In the darkness she knew there was very little chance she could remember the route.   With few useful alternatives available, no information on which to build a plan and apparently no immediate danger, she did the only thing that seemed useful and reasonable.   She closed her eyes, settled her breathing and went to sleep.
                She awoke when the Trooper pulled to a stop.   She knew instinctively that four hours had passed.   Pudgy and the Mexican each took a rest stop behind a tree.   Pudgy returned to the car, but his partner stood beside the vehicle when he returned.
                “Would you like to go into the woods to relieve yourself?”   Paul asked her.
                “I’d go just for a moment of privacy, I would.”
                “Sorry,” Paul said.   “I will have to watch you, of course.”
                “In that case, never mind.”
                Four hours later, soon after daybreak, they stopped again.   The Mexican took down one of the three ten-gallon gasoline cans on the rear of the Trooper and emptied it into the gas tank.   Paul repeated his offer to her and this time, she grudgingly accepted.   She took fifteen long paces away from the narrow lane and found a spot between two healthy trees.   Flashing defiance, she stared into Paul’s eyes while she hiked up her dress, slid off her panties and lowered herself.   It was not the first time Felicity ever squatted in tall grass, but she viewed Paul’s presence as an invasion.   He kept the gun trained on her, but handed her a roll of paper when she was in position.   And when he heard the sound watering the ground he turned his eyes away.   It was a small gesture but somehow it had value to her.  
    When they returned to the vehicle, Pudgy stood at the back opening a cooler on the tailgate.   He distributed breakfast sandwiches and bottles of water.   Back in the SUV, the kidnappers returned to their original seating plan.  
                This routine continued throughout the day and into the next evening with little to occupy Felicity’s mind except to count the minutes and try to guess where they were going.   She slept a lot, but her body would only accept so much of that.   So she sat, twenty-five hours and forty minutes after her abduction by Felicity’s flawless reckoning, trying to catch a