Breaking Hammer Read online

  kinds of sounds.

  The man was gone. He had left me here, broken, pain searing through every part of me.

  He hadn't raped me, only beaten me and left me here, restrained and bleeding. I assumed the honor of everything else would be left for Aston.

  We traveled together, dressed in shorts and t-shirts, wearing sandals and carrying backpacks, the nine of us - Blaze, Axe, Squid, myself and five of Benicio's men. At a casual glance, we'd look like any other tourists in Bangkok, which is exactly how we were trying to look. Except that anyone who looked closer, who gave us more than a cursory glance, would realize immediately that we were no tourists. Backpackers didn't look like we did. Benicio's men screamed ex-military, their hair closely buzzed, emanating an air of authority. And the four of us, well, we didn't exactly look like hippies either.

  A small, dark colored van waited for us, and I got inside, grateful for the air conditioning in the oppressive heat. I watched as Eddie spoke to the driver outside, his voice low, and I saw the driver nod. Eddie walked around the van, sliding into the seat next to me, responding to my questioning look. "Someone I trust, our contact here," he said. "He's going to take us to get supplies."

  "You trust the supplier," I said.

  He nodded. "Benicio says we're good, then it means we're good."

  I stared out the window as we meandered through the streets, at the tuk-tuk drivers whipping by carrying passengers, and the vendors selling food from carts on the side of the road. We drove down one small road, then another and another, meandering through the crowds of people shopping, the people unaware of who we were or what we were about to do.

  In a back alley, we pulled underneath an overhang, and the driver ushered us out, not speaking. The air smelled of piss and fried food. We walked behind him as he led us up the stairs over one of the shops and texted someone on his phone. The door opened and we were beckoned inside by a fat Thai man.

  "Sawadee," he said, his tone anything but welcoming, and brought us down the hallway to a locked room, one filled with weapons.

  From behind me, Axe spoke. "Jackpot, motherfuckers."

  I was brought back to the room, left unrestrained, and tucked into the bed, where one of the young girls cleaned my wounds.

  "How old are you?" I asked in English.

  She shook her head, and I wondered if she understood me. I searched my brain for the Thai I had learned when I was here, but failed. I had pushed it away in my head so many times the words were just beyond my grasp. I repeated myself again. "How old are you?"

  She shook her head, wiping at my face with a cool cloth. "Sssh," she spoke in English. "You must rest now."

  Her eyes were filled with fear, even as her voice was soothing. I laid my head back on the pillow, let her clean me up. She was brainwashed into compliance, and I knew it was futile to try to get information from her. Aston probably had the room wired anyway.

  I remembered those days, here in this place, as if it was yesterday, not years ago. My skin crawled with the memory of Aston's touch, back then when I was a child, and I forced the memory away. I would stay together, whatever torture followed.

  I would not break. Aston would not break me.

  When she was finished, she poured tea in a cup beside the table. "Drink this," she said. "You must rest now."

  I reached for the warm cup, watching the door shut gently behind her as she exited. Steam rose from the surface of the liquid, sending the smell of jasmine into my nostrils. The scent triggered a visceral reaction, acid in my throat. Memories of being here as a child.

  I looked around the room, wondering where the camera was. Aston wouldn't leave me in here without one. He would want to watch me. I belonged to him now. That was clear. He liked having playthings, and would be interested to see how I reacted to my capture.

  I held the cup up, in a mock "cheers" and turned as I sat on the bed, modeling for the camera, wherever it was. Being a good girl and being obedient, I drank the tea. It was drugged, of that I was certain. But it hurt where the man had hit me, hurt where Aston had hit me, and I just felt like not caring. I didn't want to fight it. I didn't want to fight anything. I was just exhausted. I laid my head back on the pillow and drifted to sleep.

  I didn't know how long after that I woke. Hours? It could have been minutes, or days. My sense of time was already distorted here, a product of jet lag, drugs, and the crash after an adrenaline spike.

  I woke to Aston’s touch.

  "Meia, Meia, Meia," he said. "You look a fright."

  A fright. Like I was wearing a Halloween costume or something, I thought, detached, almost. Like this was all one big joke. Maybe I was starting to lose my mind.

  "Where's Ben?" I asked.

  Aston tsk-tsked me. "You haven't been a good girl, Meia," he said. "No Ben."

  "I'll be a good girl," I said.

  I felt him touch my face, his thumb on my bruised and battered lip, pulling my jaw open. A shock of pain sliced through me. "Yes, you will be," he said. "Because if you're not very, very good, I'll bring Ben in here and let you watch while one of the teachers trains him."

  Coldness descended on my body, like ice water filling my veins. I could be good, I thought. I could do what he wanted, submit my broken and destroyed body to whatever he wanted me to do. But I felt my resolve stiffen, my mental clarity begin to return. I had not forgotten my goal.

  It was him or me. One of us was going to die.

  Manny and Squid walked through the hotel room door. Eddie looked up from the table, where he sat with Axe, looking at the blueprints for the finishing school. "How's it look?" he asked.

  Squid sat down, out of place with Manny in their tourist ensembles, compared to the rest of us, clad in all black. He and Manny had just returned from casing the finishing school for the past couple hours, trying to get a handle on security.

  Blaze and I hung back on the sidelines during this part of things, watched while the others strategized a plan of attack. Axe had experience with this kind of thing, as an ex-Marine scout sniper and reconnaissance platoon member. He understood the planning involved in a raid, and I could tell he thought Benicio's men, all former special forces from a few different countries, were capable.

  Squid was one of the guys from the MC. I didn't know him all that well, but Blaze vouched for him, said he was with one of the Navy's Special Boat Units or some shit. Whatever that meant. I hoped to hell it meant he knew what the fuck he was doing.

  Squid cleared his throat. "The place is surrounded by basic concrete walls, nothing special, eight foot it looks like. Easy to scale, but be advised there is the standard glass painted into the top. You guys going directly over the walls will want reinforced gloves.”

  Benicio's man, Javi, pointed toward the corner of the room, and Squid nodded, then continued. “Only looks like four guards, and they like to take long breaks. They don’t look to be highly motivated or very well trained. Probably paid in peanuts, but it's still a bad idea to take them lightly. The North and Western walls are lined with trees that overhang the walls, easy ways to drop in for those hitting the rear. They also provide good coverage from the adjacent buildings if anyone should happen to snoop. There’s only basic video surveillance- CCTV cameras that are stationary and focused on points of entry into the compound" He leaned over the table, pointing to several places on the blueprints. "Security cameras I could see here, here, here, and here."

  Eddie looked up at Manny. "We need to take those out first."

  "Go in after nightfall, disable the power."

  "They'll have a generator," Squid said. "It's Thailand."

  "Yes," Eddie said. "In the back somewhere. Whoever goes through the back takes it out, one of the first things."

  He paused, and I waited. Then he finally spoke. "Okay, just like we've discussed before. Let's make sure we're straight. Axe, you're going to be the one most exposed. Your position on the roof of the adjacent building will potentially leave you exposed to the windows of the high rise hotel