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

glimpse of the world outside the vehicle.   It was deep in the night again, a dense field of stars and a sliver of a moon lighting the sky.   It was the Mexican’s turn to share the back seat with her.   Leering, he reached out to stroke her arm with a sweaty hand.
                “We could have some fun with this one,” he said, grinning through crooked yellow teeth.   His accent was a chilling cartoon caricature.
                “You wouldn’t enjoy it,” she said evenly, continuing to stare straight ahead.   “I’d just lay there still.   Be like having a dead body, it would.   And just before you finished, I’d reach underneath, sink my nails in deep and rip your balls out.”   She smiled pleasantly.
                “Bitch!”   His sweaty palm arced over, slapping hard across her face.   Paul signaled with his gun for the Mexican to back off.   She turned back toward him in slow motion, looking up from beneath a rumpled mass of red hair.   Her emerald eyes glowed out from the shadows.   Her voice was polar ice.
                “What’s your name?”
                “Paco,” the Mexican said, grinning.   Then he saw her frozen smile.
                “Paco,” she cooed, “You’re a dead man.”
                At that point Paul signaled to the pudgy driver.   The four by four vehicle pulled over into the trees.   Vegetation blocked the left side door, next to Paco.   Felicity’s only looked that way because the tropical grass grew so high.
                “I believe this is your stop, Miss O’Brian,” Paul said, pointing for emphasis with his gun.   “Take some advice.   If you’re smart, you’ll accept this loss maturely and move on to other projects.”    
                She stepped out of the vehicle with her head high, her jaw jutting forward.   She slammed the door hard, and the sound echoed through the emptiness.   As the Isuzu pulled away, the night noises closed in on her.   Darkness held no terror for her, and she recognized the sounds of crickets and frogs from her youth.   But without knowing what other wildlife might be around, traveling at night would be stupid.   Knowing only a couple of hours separated her from daylight, she found a thick, squat tree and climbed into its branches.   There she curled up as best she could to wait for dawn.
                “We will meet, mister mystery man,” she muttered to herself, “And you’re going to regret double-crossing this girl.”

-9-
     
                The baked sand of the narrow road burned into the soles of Felicity’s feet.   It was a pain she accepted.   She could not have walked another step in those damned high heels.
                She had shivered through the night but fear had kept her awake.   When dawn finally came she had started walking.   Within an hour she was barefoot.   That was no big deal.   She spent most of her youth that way anyway.   An hour or so later she discarded her hosiery.   Soon after she tore off her gown to just above her knees.   Thai silk gowns, she soon discovered, do not rip easily.   Just getting a hole started cost her another fingernail.   It hurt, but the gown was too restrictive for walking.   She needed the mobility.
                She ached everywhere.   Hunger gnawed at her belly.   Not the first time in her life for that, either.   She was very thirsty too, but she ignored it.   Hatred, gleaming in her eyes, was all that sustained her.
    She had no idea if she was even pushing on in the right direction.   She saw no landmarks, and the scenery was totally monotonous.   She felt as if she was walking on a monstrous treadmill, a lone, lost hamster spinning her wheel, expecting somehow to make progress.   Yet she continued.
                She made it ten twenty-six a.m. when she first heard the new sound.   An engine, she