Page 73 of The Big Fix

My teeth ground together to keep me from screaming, and I could hear my blood beating furiously in my ears as sweat dripped off me.

“Again,” Suwan ordered, the sneer on his face making my skin crawl.

Another brick. The sound as the clay blocks scraped against each other was a sound I knew I’d remember for the rest of my life.

Immediately, the pain nearly blinded me. I could feel the tendons starting to stretch and closed my eyes and took a deep breath, forcing myself to ignore the pain that screamed through my legs, made more painful by my bruised ribs and the welts on my back and sides that the ropes scraped as I squirmed against my restraints.

“Another,” Suwan commanded.

It was agony, easily the most pain I’d ever been in, and the animal scream that tore out of me was expected. I almost blacked out.

“One more brick and your legs will break, Colonel,” Suwan declared, his tone placating. “Beg me for death and I will give it to you.”

He wouldn’t. Suwan was not the kind of man to show mercy, and he certainly didn’t have any for me. “Fuck…you…” I managed to choke out.

“Colonel, I should warn you that—”

The door flew open, and my old buddy Fang came in, looking, I was pleased to note, slightly distressed. His taped-up nose was also nice to see. I myself was on the edge of consciousness, but I could make out what I thought was the sound of rain.

That didn’t make any sense. How could I hear rain inside a bunker with no windows?

Fang was talking to Suwan in a stream of sound, and around the stops and starts, after moments, I recognized it for what it was—the dull rattle of gunfire.

Finally.

Even immobilized in the chair, I was relieved. “Sounds like you’ve got company.”

“No matter,” Suwan snarled. “It arrives too late to save you, Colonel.”

And he looked pretty confident until there was more gunfire. Louder. Closer.

Suwan’s fortress was under heavy attack.

Fang bolted from the room, and I scoffed despite being in pain, because it looked like Suwan’s badass enforcer beat it out of there at the first sign of trouble.

“Loyalty is a rare commodity,” I said as all the other men turned and ran, leaving Suwan and me alone in the room. “Don’t you think?”

“You will die here, Colonel.” He pulled a Smith & Wesson Model 29 from his shoulder holster and leveled it at me.

“Are you kidding?” I was actually disappointed in him. “You have the Dirty Harry gun? The .44 Magnum? Seriously?”

He cocked the gun, and I turned my head at the same moment there was a shattering explosion. Suwan was thrown across the room as part of the wall came away from a direct artillery hit. Wherever I was in the compound was definitely not underground.

I worked my jaw, my brain battered, my hearing muffled. The whole place filled with smoke and dust as plaster, debris, and bricks crashed down. The RPG round Dante brought had definitely come in handy.

As the dust settled, I could see out into the hall. There were bodies there, and all of them appeared dead, but, I reasoned, it might take a moment for everyone to get back up. There was a lot of blood, though, so maybe not. Part of the roof had come down. Suwan was lying on his back, groaning under the weight of a heavy beam that pinned him. Where the chair I was strapped to was, on the opposite wall, had turned out to be the safest part of the room, since it was still standing.

Eyes blinking through the dust and debris and smoke still clogging the air, I saw a figure coming toward me. I tensed at the prospect of renewed or finally fatal violence at Fang’s hands while unable to defend myself. Had the enforcer arrived to check on Suwan and then finish the job his boss started?

“Ohmygod, ohmygod,” Jing gasped, emerging from the cloud, and I’d never been happier to see her. She was followed by Dante, who was making my earlier thoughts about who was dead or not moot as he put a bullet in everyone he passed. He never liked people getting back up.

“You have to find Owen.” The tears were coming fast now. God knew what they did to him the moment they heard the explosion.

“Garland secured him first. I knew that would be what you’d want,” Jing informed me. “He’s with him now, along with Isaak, so you know he’s safe.”

He was safe. Owen was safe. Even if I had a heart attack and died right now, it would be all right because Owen was good. I started shaking, the relief overwhelming.

“Now can I get a hello?” she said cheerfully, trying for nonchalance but not able to pull it off. Concern and worry filled her eyes.