God knows what the hell Ramirez’s men are doing with this guy, but it doesn’t look like the grey-haired man is a willing participant. “Let me down. The police are going—”
Looks like the police aren’t going to do anything. Ramirez’s flunky, the one who was holding the old man in the headlock, apparently grows tired of trying to choke him out and instead raises the butt of his gun, bringing it crashing down on the top of the guy’s head. I take a picture just before the gun magazine makes contact. The old man falls limp in the arms of Ramirez’s thugs, and they drag him into the building, up the stairs and across the huge porch way. From inside the building a light is turned on somewhere, sending a warm pool of yellow light spilling out into the inky blackness. I should leave. This situation could blow up very quickly. I could find myself in some serious shit. I don’t move, though.
There’s something so familiar about the old man. I’ve seen him before, I swear I have. Ramirez’s men drag him backwards up the porch steps and I see his face once more, this time in profile. A memory itches at the back of my mind, teasing me, almost rising to the forefront of my recollection before scattering and vanishing into smoke.
“?Apagar la luz!” an angry voice commands. “What the fuck are you doing out there?” Ramirez himself appears in the doorway, expression twisted with fury. He slams his hand against the light switch on the wall and all is blackness again. I can still hear the man fighting as he’s half dragged, half carried inside the building, and I can still hear Ramirez’s men swearing as they try to subdue him. The sounds are cut off with the loud slamming of the heavy front door.
My ears buzz as silence falls over the field. A dull thudding noise comes from the house, just once, and then there’s nothing.
Who the fuck was that? I can’t think of a single reason why Ramirez would kidnap an old man and bring him way out here, but then again who knows what’s going on in the crazy fucker’s mind. The old guy could be a part of his operation somehow. He could have fucked up and done something bad enough to warrant a visit from the Los Oscuros cartel head himself. Seems unlikely—Hector would surely just send someone else to deal with such trivial things?—but it’s possible. Anything is possible when you’re dealing with a megalomaniac like Ramirez.
Rebel’s going to want to know about this immediately. I pack up the camera and the rifle, and I hunch down low, skirting the perimeter of the field as I head in the direction of my motorcycle. It takes five long minutes to negotiate the terrain back toward the road. The narrow dirt track bends back on itself about a hundred meters from the farm house, the remaining mile long stretch of unpaved driveway obscured from view by a tall bank of trees. I hop out from the undergrowth and jog quickly along the track, still keeping low, my mind racing. If Jamie thinks this guy is somehow an innocent party, he won’t rest until he’s made sure the guy is safe. If he even suspects for a second that the man being forcefully taken inside the farmhouse was an official like his uncle Ryan was, he’ll tear the place apart brick by brick looking for him. He still feels responsible for his uncle’s death. The past six months have done nothing to ease the burden of his guilt; it still troubles him every time someone mentions the name Hector Ramirez. Or Raphael Dela Vega for that matter, though Raphael won’t be causing us problems anymore. Not unless he digs himself up from the shallow grave he earned himself and starts telling tales, which is highly unlikely.
My bike is only a few hundred meters up ahead. In the distance, across the sweeping, open swathes of land that stretch between here and Freemantle, tiny lights flicker like lightning bugs, orange and white. I nearly jump out of my skin when a pair of lights much brighter and much closer suddenly flare up in the dark, directly in front of me.
“Fuck!” I duck down, swearing again under my breath, taking cover in the head high brush and bushes next to the road. My heart is hammering, racing away at an unstoppable pace. What the fuck? Another car? The headlights in the road were close—too close not to have noticed me headed toward them. The metallic clunking of a car door opening and then quickly closing reaches me where I’m hunkered down in the ditch beside the road. Footsteps on the dirt. The sound of a lighter being struck.