“Fingers locked behind your heads or we shoot you in the head.”
The cabin door swung open. A medium built man with thinning black hair and a mustache walked through the doorway with fingers locked behind his head as ordered. The man behind him was much larger with a full beard. His fingers weren’t locked. As they cleared the doorway, the second man pushed the first man aside, bringing a mini-Uzi to bear.
“Kill, Tonto!”
Tonto leaped before the man could get the Uzi down from his back, jaws locking on his neck, fangs ripping his throat out, blood spurting in a cascade of red rain. Tonto’s momentum jarred the dying man to his back where the dog ripped until certain of his kill. John had thrown Carone to his face, holding him there on the deck until Tonto completed his mission.
Nick kept an eye from a crouch on the other man, huddled into a fetal position, gripping his legs with small yips of pain and pleas for a doctor. Nick waited until Tonto moved off his kill, returning to his master’s side with dripping jaws. He then went inside the cabin, securing it first with care, after which Nick killed the wounded man with another syringe from his pack. Nick tore the bedding from one of the beds and rolled both dead men into the bedding. After soaking towels in cold water, Nick threw one to Clint for Tonto and then swabbed the deck, leaving the towels to absorb the blood.
“Thanks,” Clint said as he wiped Tonto’s face. “It wasn’t necessary though. I would have had Tonto wipe his face on Cheese as always.”
“Thanks from me then.” John dragged Carone to his feet. “Was that your dumb idea, Fernando?”
Carone remained silent.
“How’s my toy, Cheese,” Lynn asked.
“Very quiet, but I’m sure he’s waiting for the proper motivation to be your good little helper,” John replied to much amusement. “Come aboard, Crue.”
“On my way. Sylvio has my mobile kit ready to go on one of the lounges amidships, so take Fernando to his interrogation site. Dr. Deville is on her way.”
Carone’s eyes scanned the smiling murderous faces around him. “Who…who is this Dr. Deville person? You cannot torture me. It is against International Rights Laws!”
“Oh… so only you Cartel lunatics and murderous Islamic horde frog hopping from one nation to another, can torture, huh?” John smashed Carone across the face with a bitch slap from hell. “Welcome to the new neighborhood, Fernando. I’m going to warm you for this meeting with the foremost torturer in the world today. She’ll be angry, but in your case, I don’t care. She will make you feel pain you thought impossible – pain so great you’ll crack the teeth out of your head. You’ll be able to make her pause by telling us every fact about how to get your untold fortune to put into our accounts, and every single detail about your terrorist connections. Then I’m going to ask Dr. Deville to take you to the undiscovered country of pain until you die!”
Nick smiled, watching the transformation flowing over Carone’s features. Staring into the darkness of unendurable pain etched in John Harding’s grim features, Carone broke. Having measured the hatred Harding compartmentalized for these Islamic enablers and their murderous horde, the chances of any plea for mercy would fall on deaf ears.
“Wait! I will give you everything! Take…take these numbers and account descriptions!” Carone began reciting his bank account numbers, passwords, and locations. Lucas grabbed John’s arm, whispering in his ear.
Harding nodded at Lucas’s input. “Slow down. We’ll check. God help you if your info proves false. I will keep you alive as chum for the fish, feeding you to them one bite every few minutes for three full days until there’s nothing left of you but your beating heart and open eyeballs.”
Fernando repeated everything, although Nick was sure Jafar had begun investigating the financial leads from Carone the moment he overheard them on the network from the beginning of their open network access. By the time Lynn arrived in person for her Dr. Deville foot inspection, Carone had spelled out every aspect of their operation and his financial transactions. Only when he began repeating himself, and reached the end of his helpfulness concerning terrorist connections, did John give him a pop in the forehead.
Fernando shut up immediately. “How was that, Denny?”
“Achmed and I are working it, DL,” Denny replied. “I will have confirmation within the hour. Relax if you can. We’re here on the Valkyrie, including Laredo and the Stealth. He says he can launch again in minutes if you decide to put the ship down.”
“We’ve adopted the Tempest,” John said. “Call me the moment you get everything in order. I don’t like this guy. If anything doesn’t pan out I’m going to ask Dr. Deville to strip Fernando’s sanity from him.”