Page 63 of His Virgin Vessel

Chapter Twenty-Four

Asa

They always said that what got to you in prison was the boredom and monotony. I thought that was partly right. What really got to me was that the boredom and monotony gave me time to think. It was impossible for me not to worry about what was going on outside. About what was going on with my case, with Rassi, with Joseph and War Cry, and, of course, with Corinne. I tried my best to find out, but I was still kept in the dark. Agents Quint and Hamlin were still trying to break me, and isolation was a good technique. By giving me no information, they allowed my imagination to run riot. I could see the smoking ruins of Fiona's bar in my mind's eye, the corpses of my War Cry comrades, and some of the images that my subconscious summoned up of Corinne had me shaking in a cold sweat when I awoke from the nightmare. Your brain could sometimes be your own worst enemy.

As the days passed, any optimism I might have been able to cling to had slowly dissipated. I was going to jail for a long time and would never see Corinne again. Making my mind up to that should have helped. By banishing hope, I should have been able to settle into grim, but resolved acceptance. But banishing hope is a hard thing to do, and the bad dreams continued to come.

It was from the midst of one such dream that I found myself shaken awake one night. I tried to leap up - years of instinct telling me that I was under attack - but strong hands held me, silenced me, and dragged me to my feet, out of my cell. What the hell was happening?

My first thought was, of course, that Rassi had found a way to get to me, and I was about to be taken outside and shot. But something about that didn't add up. For starters, Rassi's boys would surely have just put a bullet in my head as I slept. Why go to all this trouble? It was not impossible that Rassi would want to see me first, to gloat, nor was it impossible that I had information he wanted and that there might be a deal to be struck. But then there were the men who kidnapped me. If you spent any amount of time around the criminal element, you got a sense of them, and I would have bet all the money I had that these guys were not mobsters. There was a silent efficiency to them. They seemed to communicate fluently, yet wordlessly. They moved like jungle cats through the corridors of the station. As we reached the outside door, a bag was placed over my head, and, shortly after, I was dumped into a vehicle of some sort. We drove for, I guess, the next hour or so, in total silence. Of course, I had questions, but it wasn't like I was going to get answers, so I decided to prove that I could play the dumb act as well as my captors.

What the hell was going on?

The vehicle stopped. We got out. After a few minutes of walking, I was forced down into a chair and the bag was pulled from my head.

I had resolved in the darkness and silence to be unsurprised by whatever the outcome was. No matter what happened, I would play it cool. But I suspect I blew that, as the first faces I saw were those of Brian Dugas and Porter Crucero.

"Hi, Asa," said Porter.

"Good trip?" Brian inquired.

"Bumpy."

"Water?"

"Please." I drank gratefully. "Would you mind telling me what the hell is going on?"

"War Cry busted you out of jail."

I shook my head. "No way was that War Cry."

Porter shrugged. "Well, sure, you know that. But tomorrow it's going to look pretty much like War Cry did it."

I frowned. There was obviously something going on here that I did not fully –grasp. In fact, I did not grasp it at all. "I'm going to need a little more than that."

"Rassi has Corinne," Dugas said, hard and simple.

Only then did I notice the ugly wound on his forehead, still healing. I suspected the man was barely holding himself together.

"What do you need me to do?" I asked.

"When a sheriff's daughter gets kidnapped," Dugas continued, "Even assholes like Quint and Hamlin have to pay attention. They gave us permission to put this into operation, on the understanding that you'll be back in their custody at the end of it."

I nodded. That didn't matter remotely.

"We've made it look as if War Cry sprung you," Dugas explained. "Now that Rassi thinks you're back on the scene, he's going to be trying to get a message to you, to use Corinne to put the screws on you. You're going to tell him you want a meeting."

I nodded again.

Dugas eyed me steadily. "You understand there's a chance that he may just put a bullet in your head and have done with it?"

"Yeah," I said.

"For what it's worth," Dugas continued, "I don't think that's Rassi's style. He's a man who does the absolute least necessary. He's going to want you and War Cry out of the way, without going to war over it. If he kills you, then he knows War Cry will retaliate against him. My guess is he'll want to do a deal."

"War Cry leaves town, and he lets Corinne go."

"Exactly."

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