Agent Out of Time

I nodded, "Chantry has always prided himself on sending his people out with the best of everything."

We made our selections, as well as the other things we would need, and then we headed for the crates. There were two of them; each of us would occupy one of them.

Bile rose up in me as I stared at the crate. My Deshavi had been stuffed into one of these and shipped halfway around the world. Chantry's hand squeezed my shoulder and I pulled my thoughts away from their grim focus. He was holding something in his hand. It was a detonator. I looked up my gaze questioning.

"The crates are seamed with a very powerful explosive. There's enough to provide quite the diversion if needed." He said, by way of explanation.

I took the tiny detonator, "Thank you Chantry for everything!"

We shook hands.

"I'll be monitoring the situation, as best as I can, from the sky. I see a lot of praying in my immediate future too." Chantry said.

"We can certainly use it!" I said, before stooping down and crawling into the cramped confines of the crate. The side of the crate was nailed shut.

The closeness of the interior of the crate was a hard thing to except for one who loved and needed the great wide open spaces of the mountains and valleys between them, but there wasn't anything I wouldn't do to rescue my granddaughter.

Oh God the pain! I hadn't bothered to keep track of time, fearing that if I looked at my watch it would only make this torture drag out longer. I needed to stretch my legs out so badly! I groaned hating to have to admit it, but I was getting old. I might not be able to move when they opened up this crate. That wouldn't be good!

The crate abruptly jostled and then it did it again. The plane was coming in for a landing. The landing was rough and I gave the pilot no praise, as a flight specialist. The crates were painfully unloaded from the plane and thumped down hard onto the tarmac. And then nothing.

Absolutely nothing for hours!

It had been warm in the crate on the way over the pacific, but now it was decidedly hot. Then in the distance I heard it, the rotor beats of a chopper. Voices sounded from outside, as the chopper sounds got louder and louder, until it had to be directly overhead.

This was an exclusive club we were joining. It had cost Chantry fifty thousand dollars per crate, which hadn't included shipping. That was a lot of money to pay to have someone tortured to death. The rumor in the underworld was that no one had ever been freed from the place we were destined for and on average inmates, despite their health going in, lasted no more than six months, with most lasting only about two months to a couple of weeks. Suddenly the crates shot up into the air and grimly I acknowledged to myself that they had taken the bait and that I now had another several hour wait ahead of me. At least it wasn't hot now.