Chapter 12

Ashley turned to her second in command.

“You ready for this?”

“Ready and raring to go,” Travis replied.

“Okay, let’s do it, but guess what?”

Travis looked at her with raised eyebrows when she explained.

“Remember when we play our good cop-bad cop game you always complain that being the bad cop all the time is so traumatizing it’s giving you a complex? Well, I’m itching to be the bad cop today so now you’ve got your chance. You can be the good cop but make it real good. I’ll put the fear of god into Adam and you will become his protector and more. You will be his savior and confessor, his only friend. Take advantage of it by milking him dry for information on Eli. Remember, if he falters and you need some help, I’ll be on hand to make him scared enough to wish he was dead. Just follow my lead, okay?”

“Hey, but I don’t wanta be the good guy. Not this time, not with that scum bag,” Travis protested as they marched down the hallway towards door number one.

“Too bad,” Ashley laughed.

She nodded at her second in command who backed up and put his shoulder to the door like a winning football tackler. As soon as it crashed opened with a bang Ashley led the way. With her automatic rifle locked and loaded, her eyes swept around the room. At first glance she detected nothing. She could feel the disappointment welling up in her. Damn and she had been so sure Adam Bondar was hiding in the room. But just as she was beginning to think it was vacant, she spotted movement. Two distinct lumps could be seen wrapped in blankets on top of a bed. Ashley heard the faint sounds of weeping and saw the heads of two teenage girls peeking out from underneath the covers. With a finger to her lips as a signal for them to be quiet, she nodded to the two guys who had crept into the room behind her. Travis would make his appearance later, when he was more urgently needed.

With Ashley guarding them with her rifle, the two men silently moved in to scoop the blankets and girls off the bed in one motion and then ease back out of the room. Now that the girls were safe, Ashley felt free to concentrate on her main target. She was sure somebody was hiding under the bed. She could detect faint movement and soft sounds coming from underneath it. She held the rife tight against her midsection and sprayed the wall above the bed with automatic fire. It sounded loud and convincingly deadly in the confines of the room but it was high on the wall, near the ceiling. It wasn’t meant to kill anybody, just to scare the shit out of whoever was under the bed. And it had its desired effects. Even before her automatic burst was finished there were screams and cries and the sound of somebody scurrying on hands and knees away from the bed.

“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, I’m unarmed,” a half-naked older man with a huge gut, pleaded. He stood on the other side of the bed quaking in fear, with only a pair of underwear on. Ashley held her rifle steady as she studied him. It was Adam Bondar alright. Everything from the mostly bald head, except for a few grey strands around his ears, to the white, scraggly goatee and the fat, rolly-polly stomach fit the picture Max had sent her to a T.

“Get over here you son of a bitch, NOW,” Ashley screamed out. “And keep those hands high up in the air so I can see them.”

As Ashley watched the terrified man stumble his way around the bed, she had a hard time keeping a smile off her face. That wouldn’t do. It would ruin everything because as the bad cop she had to always look fierce and angry but the sight of yellow stains dripping down the front of the man’s underwear meant half her job was done.