Caldera

Chapter 8: Shane

Drummond felt the rush of blood up to his head when he came to. Or rather, felt it rush down.

One moment, he'd been perusing the day's financial activity on his mobile device in the back of his limo, then he blacked out. His body spun like a trapped insect in a spider's web. The familiar logo of the US Bank tower caught his view, except it wasn't right-side up. Neither was the sight of bumper-to-bumper traffic on W 5th Street, glowing like evil little rubies. Drummond's world was upside down, his body tethered by a series of wires, to what looked like an abandoned building in the fringes of Downtown.

"Good morning, Sunshine." Shane greeted him as he crouched on the ledge of the roof.

One of the cables exploded. Drummond screamed.

It took some careful planning with Ronnie and her crew, a fake limo service, and about 5 mL of a heavy-duty sedative to put this masterpiece together. An hour heaving Drummond's 200-pound ass up on the roof of the abandoned Security Pacific building. Then another hour to hoist him up to a crane, attached with six industrial-strength cables wrapped around his ankles and back.

He waited until the unconscious man came to. Then he pressed a red button on a remote that detonated one of the attached explosives. Drummond screaming like a little baby made the effort worth it.

Shane waited until he stopped thrashing about, then pulled a lever on a box. The crane moved up until Drummond's face was at the same level as his - but still upside-down.

He regarded his wild-eyed prey with a wolfish smile.

"Wha-what's going on? What am I doing here?"

Shane's grin disappeared. He retracted the lever, which raised the crane higher. He said, "You have a minute to answer all my questions. And for any answer I don't like -"

He pressed another red button. A second cable exploded and snapped.

Drummond screamed again. "Hey! You haven't even started yet!"

"Just testing." Shane flashed a smirk. "Start talking. What the hell is a Los Diablos capo doing here in Miami?"

"I-I don't know," said Drummond. When Shane waved the switch, he relented. "Okay, okay! This wasn't Stevens' first time trying to defect. We'd tried extracting him twice before but had to abort. Our agents got iced because of it. Don Carrillo must've gotten smart and planted a mole. Betancourt is insurance, to make sure Stevens remembers he still belongs to Los Diablos..."

"And how the hell is he still alive?"

"How the fuck should I know?"

Another click. Boom.

"Okay! Jesus Christ!" Drummond yelped. "After Agent J -"

"Tertia." 'Agent J' was Carlie's unimaginative handle during her time with the Company. If anything, she preferred her Hades moniker, even if it brought back bad memories.

"Whoever she is now. Good Lord, I don't know anymore! When she got him back from the Ricardos, the Carrillo faction got spooked and thought Hades would be after them, so they sent a different messenger to mediate..."

"Stevens."

"Yeah."

"Then why try to gun her down?"

"I'm guessing they weren't sure what her motives were. But they still needed Betancourt. So they chased her out when they could, before finding out from Stevens that Hades called for a ceasefire."

"When the Hokkaido mission began," murmured Shane. Lucky bastards. That also explained how Stevens got formally introduced to Hades.

"Huh?"