Massive Attack (A Guy Niava Thriller Book 1) by Dana Arama (e reader for manga .txt) 📗

was driven to the pickup truck. No one had noticed, because it was taken away at the same time the rest of the goods were dismantled. Slowly and naturally, in the same manner, the truck made its way to another hideout apartment in the Washington area, one I hoped the authorities wouldn’t find.

I awoke with exceptional hunger and wondered if anyone had fed the kid the previous day. I thought not. We were all strung out from the drugs and had completely ignored him. I walked out of my room and found him in the corner of the room, bent over, sleepy and wet. He had pissed himself. I wondered if he was scared or he’d just had to pee and there was no-one to take him. Either way it was a situation that had to be taken care of.

I woke Aldo up and pointed at the kid. “Talk to one of the girls and get them to clean him up… and the floor as well. I want to interrogate him without having to suffer his stench.”

He only answered, “Yes boss,” and jumped up as if he hadn’t been partying a few hours before.

“And bring food. I’m hungry!”

“I’ll send Alex. What do you feel like? I think the Greek restaurant on the corner is still open.”

“Yes. Bring a lot of meat. And bring some for the boy as well. We have to feed him. We’re not animals.” Something from the Albania Besa code had taken hold of me. I suddenly felt responsible for him, which was the least desirable outcome in a situation such as this.

Our noise woke up the kid, and he started shaking in the corner. Aldo went over to Marina and ordered her to clean up the kid without taking off the handcuffs.

“Help me pick him up?” she asked Aldo, and he went over to the boy, put his arm out and lifted him from the cold floor. I heard the kid weakly object and I ignored him, just as I ignored all the others around me. There was a Sudoku puzzle, partly solved, open on the table. I took it and was concentrating on it. I had time to kill before the food came and until the kid was cleaned up.

Marina softly assured the kid that she wouldn’t hurt him. I knew that if he behaved himself, he might even get a bonus from her. He had earned himself a shower from the beautiful Marina, and she might do him a favor along the way. The kid would most probably burst in her hand as soon as she touched him.

Twenty minutes later Alex arrived, drenched from the rain outside. He was preceded by an aroma of barbequed meat. He held two paper bags, which contained enough food to feed half a battalion of very hungry soldiers. Alex had been with me since England and knew my hunger proceeding a serious trip. Without saying a word, he removed the contents from the bags and spread them on the low table. Aldo and Alex sat silently opposite me on the couch and began to eat.

The kid and Marina came out of the adjacent room. “He’s clean,” she said in her heavy Russian accent.

“Good, take off his handcuffs,” I said, knowing that Aldo would be the one to get up.

The boy rubbed his wrists and looked hungrily at the heavy-laden table. I signaled him with my head to sit in the available armchair and so he did.

“Eat,” I ordered him, and, without objecting, he reached a hesitant hand towards a wooden skewer. There was tasty food and there was manna. For this kid, such was the food. Warm, delicious and surprising, and arriving as if from heaven, a bit before his interrogation started.

***

At the end of the meal, I ordered one of the girls to clean the table and then two others came out of their rooms to take everything away and clean up. That was also a sign for Aldo and Alex and in a few minutes, they were ready with the cooking equipment to prepare the drugs, needles, a variety of colorful pills and lines of white powder, which they cut up finely with a credit card. At the end of the process, Alex took out his wallet and chose a new hundred dollar note.

The boy couldn’t take his eyes off it. “Do you know why they use a new rolled up Franklin?” I asked. It was amusing to see him swing between being intrigued and disgusted.

“No. Why?”

“Because it is such a large note and not many people get to touch it. Least likely junkies from the street.”

I let the kid into the secret of things. “That is the kind of thing one always needs to know.”

“Why?”

“Because you never know when you are going to need that kind of information, when you become addicted… Remember poor, beautiful Ashley?” I asked the kid and I put my arm on his shoulder. Without waiting for an answer, I continued, “A girl with a wasted future. Do you want to know why?” Once again, I didn’t wait for a response, and carried on, “Because of all the stuff here.” I pointed to the table, with its remaining few white lines waiting to be sniffed. Aldo and Alex had already sniffed two and what was left was for me and the boy.

“Was she a junkie?” he asked in surprise and by the look on his face, I realized that the idea was horrific to him.

“A whore and a junkie. Wasted future.”

“But she wasn’t into computers,” Aldo smiled. I wondered when his two front teeth had fallen out, but I wasn’t going to get into that now. He looked frightening.

“Aldo is right,” I nodded my head, “She was just a junkie hooker who never dealt with computers and still her future was wasted. But you, who have already been offered a scholarship and amazing future pay checks… for you to fall into this shit… what a pity, isn’t it?”

“I am against drugs.