Encountering Evil: Dark Horse Guardians Book Two (15 page)

He greeted her in the driveway with Einstein panting heavily. "We just got back from our run. I see there's a lot of activity going on at Eric's place – the landscaping, I mean." Lara got out of the car and kissed him. "Yes, I'm taking great care to make sure the project will be elaborate and expensive!" Ben questioned her about Grant Hawkins again. "Do you know anything about this guy?" Lara said innocently, "No, just what I've read about him on his website and what Eliot told me - why?" Ben gave her a serious glance then looked away. "I ran a background on him and some things came up." Lara's curiosity was piqued. "
What
came up?" Ben continued, "He was married for several years but his wife passed away two years ago. His wife had money and left him a small fortune when she died. He started the landscaping business when he married her; she bankrolled him. Before he met his wife he mowed lawns for someone else, worked as a roofing installer and did a stint in prison, then a drug rehab facility." Lara pursed her lips as Ben encapsulated Grant Hawkins into a couple of sentences. "Oh Ben, he’s a former drug addict? He's been the perfect gentleman with me. Now I will be nervous around him. I’m glad you told me this." Ben was somber. "Just be careful, Lara. I don't want you with him alone. Make sure there are people around and keep your Glock on you."

She was now concentrating on getting ready for dinner at the Seafood Palace, although the lingering thought of Grant Hawkins as a drug addict cycled through her mind in an obsessive-compulsive way. After a quick shower she was dressed in soft linen pants and a matching tank top with a seashell pendant. Lara observed Ben without his noticing. She loved watching him get dressed to go out. He was low maintenance yet so handsome. Out of the corner of her eye she watched him pull on a worn pair of freshly pressed chinos and a faded denim shirt that matched the blue of his eyes. She caught a glimpse of the rare Irish coin pendant against his chest and for a split-second recalled the delight on his face the exact moment she put the gift in his lap. She applied lipstick but watched Ben as he ran his hands through his dark hair and then brushed his teeth. "Ready?" he looked at her and smiled with dimples. Behind her Lara could see his reflection as she sat at her vanity. He bent down and kissed her neck. She felt his powerful arms as they lightly encircled her body and she inhaled the mixture of sandalwood that was Ben. "Let's go!" She giggled escaping from his arms before things got too heated. They put on their helmets and goggles and enjoyed the motorcycle ride to the Seafood Palace. Lara slipped her hand beneath Ben's leather jacket and touched the pendant on his muscled chest. She caught his reflection in the rearview mirror and
noticed he was smiling.

~ Ben ~

Ben loved the Seafood Palace because it was the place that he officially had his first date with Lara. He remembered the first motorcycle ride and the interrogation by her good friend, Don Henderson, and smiled to himself. More than anything, he loved the way Lara touched the pendant on his chest tonight as she embraced him on the motorcycle. Her caress sent an undercurrent of electricity through his body.

Once they met Monique inside, they got a table for four. About thirty minutes of casual conversation ensued, but Bettencourt didn't show up. Ben excused himself to make a phone call. It wasn't like Bettencourt to be late for
anything
. The phone rang and went directly to voicemail. That wasn't like him either. He
always
answered his phone even if he was driving or taking a shower. Ben went back inside and asked the two women to go ahead and order dinner. He was going to take a ride to see what was going on with Bettencourt. There was a slight chance the police department called him in to work a shift. But he knew his friend would have called if that was the case. Ben did not like the feeling he was getting in his gut.

He raced to the police station to make sure Bettencourt wasn't on duty. He had to drive by the station on the way to Bettencourt's apartment anyhow. The dispatcher at the front desk said Bettencourt was off tonight. With a heightened sense of urgency, Ben now raced to his friend's apartment. When he approached he immediately knew violence had occurred, and at first glance, he had just missed the action by a matter of minutes. The blood on the door casing and walls of the hallway, which he hoped was not Bettencourt's, wasn't even dry yet. He quietly called the police station for back-up and removed his shoes before entering Bettencourt's apartment. He had his weapon at the ready and moved with stealth toward the battered apartment door. It had been violently breached. Ben noticed the door was blown off the hinges. Not good. The person or group that did this knew how to blast a door off its hinges. His mind was wild with possibilities: professional killers or military guys. There was blood everywhere, on the floors and on the walls
. When he saw a big handprint in blood on the door frame, Ben's heart sank. It appeared that Bettencourt had put up a good fight but someone had him.

Within minutes two officers arrived and went over the scene with Ben. "Bettencourt was taken out of here violently, there's no doubt.
But who the hell would do this?
" Ben was furious. An adjacent apartment door cracked open and a small gray-haired elderly woman peeked into the hallway. Her raspy voice called out to them, "Hey…there were men here and they wore black clothing and their faces were wrapped with black scarves. They had guns and I heard Randall Bettencourt fighting with them. They beat him badly. I don't know if he's alive."

Immediately, the officers and Ben coaxed the woman into the hallway. "Were there gunshots?" Ben asked nervously. The elderly woman answered quickly, "One gunshot…it was deafening, like a shotgun blast. That's all the gunfire I heard…but there was a lot of punching and kicking going on. I didn't dare to come into the hallway when it happened, but I saw them leave
.  My window faces the alley." Ben rushed to see if there were any security cameras and found one in the hallway. He instructed the police to get the footage from the camera as soon as possible. "Who did Bettencourt arrest in the last few weeks?" Ben asked. Then with a sense of urgency said, “We’ve got to go to the station and run through his arrest records.” Ben followed the officers back to the station as more blue suits arrived to comb through the crime scene. The name of Ali Farouz was in Bettencourt's police file; but he never arrested the man. However, he had obtained a warrant to search his home; and, more importantly had obtained a court order of protection for his daughter, Nadia. Ben's pulse raced.

~ Bettencourt ~

His nose was broken, that much he knew. And, he couldn't see out of one eye. Randall Bettencourt had taken the beating of his life and was still alive, although he felt like he was going to die. He pretended he was unconscious because of the voices in the room. He was desperately trying to figure out how many men there were and
had only a vague memory of how violently they attacked him. He knew they wanted Nadia, but that’s all he could remember before blacking out.

Bettencourt lay motionless on the floor, taking long shallow breaths to feign unconsciousness. They were speaking Pashto, the language of the Taliban, and they obviously thought he didn't know what they were saying
-- but he did. He spoke and understood the language fluently. These guys wanted Nadia. Her father sent them with orders to beat him until he handed her over. He would die before he'd do that. As he lay in a bloody mess blindfolded with his hands and feet bound, he used his SEAL training to formulate a plan and quick.

He somehow had to contact Ben, but how? Bettencourt didn't even know where he was right now except it felt like a warehouse. He heard the echoes when the men talked and sensed the hard surfaces of his surroundings. He was lying on a cement floor that smelled of motor oil. Sounds bounced off what he figured were corrugated metal walls. He heard a garage door open and close. A cell phone rang. The man was talking in Pasto saying he did not have Nadia yet, but he would soon get her. The voice on the other end sounded angry and said, "Kill him if he doesn't give her to you!" Bettencourt could smell gasoline and garbage. Footsteps approached and he did not dare to move making his breath as shallow as possible. Suddenly, he was kicked in the head by a boot and the man called him an infidel and a pig. A gob of spit landed on his face. But Bettencourt did not respond to the kick or the disgusting act, as difficult as it was. He remained as lifeless as a rag doll. He knew eventually one of them would check his wounds to see if he was unconscious.

As he predicted, one of the men gingerly removed the blindfold and examined his face. Through swollen closed eyelids he sensed fluorescent lighting. The man lifted Bettencourt's eyelid with one finger. "He's still alive…his pupil dilated." he reported to the group. There were five of them. "Where's Nadia?" the man loudly yelled into Bettencourt's swollen face. Bettencourt did not respond, hoping they'd leave him alone for a while. "He's out." One of the other men said. "We need to eat. We'll take a break and come back in a little while. Then we can
really
work him over. We can water board this son-of-a-bitch." Bettencourt heard the garage door open and a vehicle drove out of the building.

There were now only two men in the room. He listened as one man spoke to the other in Pasto dialect saying he had to take a piss. The man’s footsteps receded as he made his way to the bathroom. Now there was only
one
man and Bettencourt sensed this was his only moment of opportunity. Lying on the concrete he moved and groaned loudly. The man approached him. Just as he bent down, within a split second Bettencourt used all of his bodyweight and sat up, smashing his forehead into the man's skull with great force knocking him over. Hobbled, Bettencourt hurled his body to his knees and jumped to a standing position as adrenaline coursed through him. Battle-mode took over. He jumped with both feet on the man's head rendering him unconscious. Then he furiously searched the room to find something to cut the plastic ties that were binding him. He was in a commercial garage and found a tool drawer. Hobbling to the drawer he reached a snipping tool and broke free. Now he searched for weapons. There were tools, lots of them.

Bettencourt flattened himself against the wall as he heard the other man returning from the bathroom. With all his strength, he cracked the man's skull with an oversized wrench. The man fell to the cement floor unconscious and bleeding profusely. The other man that he kicked in the head was now regaining consciousness and Bettencourt took the heavy wrench to him, beating him until he stopped moving. He grabbed the man's cell phone and called Ben.

~ Ben ~

While at the police station Ben noticed his cell phone vibrating; it was an unfamiliar number but he answered it. When he heard Bettencourt's voice he was relieved to know he was still alive. "The GPS on this phone puts me at a garage on the West end of Commercial Street. I'm outside of the garage now, Ben. There are five guys and I beat two of them bloody unconscious, but the other three are returning any moment. They came for Nadia, that's Ali Farouz's daughter. I wouldn't tell them where she was. They beat me pretty bad." Ben took the coordinates and told Bettencourt to lay low. "Jesus, Bett, hide. I'm coming, and there will be a shitload of police coming, too. Lay low, Bett. Don't let them find you. You don't have a gun. You're hurt. There are three of them and one of you." Ben was already at the police station and several officers heeded his call for back-up. Following Ben, the officers sped to the location Bettencourt gave him.

As Ben arrived he ducked out of sight in a growth of weeds and brush. Three men dressed in black entered the warehouse carrying what looked like food. Ben waited and hoped that Bettencourt had found a good hiding spot. Fingering his weapon he drew it up, then inhaled and exhaled to steady himself as the adrenaline coursed through him. The voice in his head said,
control your heart rate
. A rustling sound came from his right side and he turned with lightning speed training his weapon directly on the figure -- then quickly disengaged. Bettencourt was lying in the tall weeds not twenty feet away with blood covering his face. He had fallen there and was trying to communicate with Ben.

Ben had advised the police to arrive
without
sirens and lights but with weapons drawn. He advised, "These guys are armed. They kidnapped and tried to kill Officer Bettencourt." The police department was akin to the brotherhood of SEALs. When Ben told them their fellow officer was down and he had been kidnapped and beaten, it was game on. An incredible force of men dressed in blue and some in plain clothes arrived and surrounded the warehouse in silence within minutes. No lights, no sirens, in fact the doors on the police cruisers were not even closed. The engines were killed and the officers moved without words. The three terrorists fired their weapons at the officers first and in a hail of bullets, the kidnappers were instantly killed.

As he listened to the gun battle play out, Ben's focus was on Bettencourt. He tried to assess the damage and held the big former SEAL in his arms, "Hang in there, Bett. It's gonna be all right." A paramedic arrived to slide the big man into the ambulance and Ben followed them to the hospital. In the emergency room it was discovered that Bettencourt had a broken rib, a
concussion, a broken nose and lots of internal bleeding. The bastards had kicked him so much he was urinating blood. The emergency room doc said they needed to keep him for observation for at least a few days, maybe longer. Ben phoned Lara and told her
why
Bettencourt did not show up at the restaurant. She immediately started crying.  With a shaky voice she said she and Monique would be at the hospital as soon as possible.