Hannah instinctively shrunk back from his hostile tone.
"You," Ben pointed at Sunshine. “Knock it off. You," he pointed at Hannah. "Explain, please." He tried to soften his tone when talking to her, but it did little to calm her nerves.
Hannah didn’t relax but did as he told her. “Alejandro is one crazy paranoidbastard. He sets up fake shipmentsto lure his enemies with an empty crate while the real shipment slips out." No onelooked convinced by her theory. "Check the box if you don't believeme." She turned to Ben. "Please Ben, have the doctorsdo the x-ray on the women."
Ben looked at his teammates. They were skeptical. Who wouldn’t be? Bendidn’t knowAlejandro like she did. He didn’t know about all the sick, twisted, fucked up things he did to women. Women weren’t people to him. They were property to use as he liked. She had been behind enemy lines so to speak. She could give Ben information that he could only dream of. More than he probably got off the computer. She wouldn’t tell him that yet. She needed him to get somewhere safe. Somewhere Alejandro couldn’t find her. Ben nodded at Sunshine to confirm her story.
Sunshine quietly got up and left, Hannah watching Ben the whole time. It hurt that Ben hadn’t taken her at her word, but she understood why. He had a mission to do and people to protect. He couldn’t take people at their word, even people he knew. Or used to know she should say. “Whether you believe me, or not will you have the women checked over?”
“What are they supposed to be looking for?” Ben sounded like he wanted to believe her but was having a hard time. He had always needed to see things to believe them. Trust was a rare for him. She had never been a liar growing up. She avoided things she didn’t want to do, but she had never lied. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. If she thought, he had a hard time believing her about the container he was going to have more trouble with the little bomb she was about to drop.
“You remember I said the box wasn’t the shipment?” She asked.
Since she just told them a few seconds ago, it was a moot point to answer, but he nodded anyway.
“The women are the shipment.” Just as Hannah told them Sunshine walked back in with Cricket, Hound, Tiny and Hawk.
“The container was empty. Just like Hannah said it would be,” Sunshine confirmed.
Ben nodded and turned back to Hannah. “So, he was selling women last night instead of drugs and weapons.” Ben was angry they had all been duped. The mission had been to save the women, but he had hoped to find the weapons too. Maybe there would be something on the flash drive.
“You don’t understand.” Hannah placed her hand over his. He was mesmerized by the smalldaintiness of them. They were pale and black under her nails but somehow still feminine. “The women are the shipment. They are carrying the drugs.”
“Doctors would have found it on their person already,” Sunshine argued.
“It’s notontheir person.” Hannah looked at Sunshine in the eye before taking a deep breath. “It’s in them.”
Chapter Four
Ben couldn’t have been more stunned if she had pulled a weapon on him and threatened him. “What do you mean inside them?”
“He's hidden drugs in five of the women. He was going to send them out through different airports to different locations last night. The others without the drugs were being sold via boats.”
“We can just look to see if the women have a recent mark on their skin,” Doc suggested.
“That would take too long. He always hides it in muscle since the airport machines have a harder time picking them up that way. He makes a small incision in the skin and places the drugs in a plastic bag and puts it in them and then sews them back up. It won’t look like a typical scar. More like a burn.” Her stomach knotted just remembering to hear the screams and the scent of burning flesh. It would haunt her for the rest of her life.
“How big would the incision be?” Doc asked anxiously.
“It depends on the woman’s size and the drug needed. For smaller shipments, it’s only about two inches long and can be in several parts of her body. For larger ones, he cuts open her stomach. But the bags hold anything from cocaine to pills. They are for more of his smaller deals. For his bigger clients, the shipments go out via boat through his secret passage. I don’t know where they go from there. But there’s one more thing you need to know.” She rushed out feeling breathless.
Everyone sat a little closer to her.Tension and suspense high in the air.
“The drugs have a tracker with them. The sooner you get the drugs out of the women and disable the tracker the safer we'll all be.”
Everyone sat in stunned silence. “That's why you told me the women weren't safe,"Bensaid. "I thought it was because you didn't feel safe yet.”
“I don't know how long it will take him to assemble a team. No one has ever stolen from Alejandro before. At least not as long as I’ve been there.” The thought of being caught by the monster again made her shiver in fear. She would rather die than go back to him.
“How do you know so much about him?” Sunshine asked her.
“I've been a prisoner of his for a few weeks. At least I think I have. I've seen girls come and go. I've seen the marks on them, and I've heard the guards talk. They don’t think women are very bright nor understand Spanish.”
“Let's let the doctors know what's going on and get the women prepped. I'll alert MP's, military police, and get our bird ready. The sooner we can get off this base the better. I still have the flash drive, so we should be able to uncover something.”
Hannah stood up looking uncertain. Her eyes, darting around.“Thank you, Ben, for saving me and for believing me.”
“That's sounding an awful lot like a goodbye, Goldilocks." He almost sounded hurt.
