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An Excerpt From: IN THE TEETH OF THE WIND
 CHARLOTTE BOYETT-COMPO, 1999.
All Rights Reserved, New Concepts Publishing
The thirty-seven year old officer had been with the Florida Drug Enforcement Agency only two years when his life was drastically altered one cold, rainy November night. The last thing he remembered before his ordeal began was hearing someone call his name while he was getting into his car outside the apartment complex in which he lived. He stopped, car keys in his hand, as footsteps came toward him out of the drizzling night.
"Hey, pig!"
He turned and an ultra white light was thrust into his face, blinding him. He threw up an arm to ward off the painful brightness.
Someone grabbed him from behind, another from in front. A sharp, stinging pain jabbed into the flesh of his upper right arm, causing him to yelp in surprise. His world began to slow almost immediately.
He was vaguely aware of hands holding him, dragging him; the sound of a van's door sliding back on its runners; other hands taking him, pulling him inside. The drug washed over him with such debilitating force all he could do was blink up at the men whose faces were hidden behind black ski masks.
"Gonna take you on a nice, long ride, pal." The voice was chilling, deadly, full of threat, and he wondered who had ordered his death. The face of Kiki Camareno, a friend and fellow DEA agent, now dead and gone, slithered across his foggy mind.
They cuffed his arms behind him, tied his ankles together. One man leaned over him and taped his eyes and mouth shut. An overpowering smell of duct tape drifted under his nostrils.
They took him to a hot and musty place filled with a cloying stench. When the tape was ripped from his eyes, they watered profusely. The air reeked of fertilizer and burned his nose.
Four of them dragged him across a dirt floor, his legs useless against the numbness invading his system. Hard hands gripped firmly around his upper arms, supported him painfully as he hung helplessly between two of his captors. One man gripped his chin in a cruel pinch and his head tilted upward so that he stared wide-eyed at the masked face pressing in close to his own. "You wanna have a good time, pig?" the man asked, his accent unmistakably Colombian.
"He's going to whether he wants it or not!" another man chortled.
The agent struggled-uselessly and ineffectually-before they pushed him down on his back and dragged his arms up over his head. They snapped another cuff into place around his free wrist, then he heard the rattle of metal against metal, the clink of the cuff locking as his wrist was secured to the top of the cot. His left wrist was jerked upward and chained to the cot as well.
"We got us a good one this time," one of the men laughed.
The DEA agent cringed as the Colombian moved over him, putting out a hand to touch him.
"Nice," the Colombian whispered, running his palm over the thick muscle of the agent's thigh. He slid his hand between the agent's legs, to the inside of a tense thigh, probing for just the right place. "Very nice."
The agent thought he knew what was coming.
Thought he knew what they were going to do to him before they killed him.
As his torture began, he believed he wouldn't live through the night. He began to pray in earnest: "Hail Mary, full of Grace…"
He wondered if Kiki had done the same thing.
Long into the next few days, the young agent lay where they'd chained him, wishing they'd go ahead and kill him and get it over with. He wished they'd put a gun to his head and pull the trigger; or put a blade to his exposed throat and slice away his torment. He hadn't really expected to live through the ordeal. He hadn't really wanted to. But he had. And would later wish with all his heart that he had not.
Chapter 1
Loud, tooth-jarring music bombarded Conor Nolan and Joe Cortesio as they pushed through the double oaken doors into the interior of the dimly lit and crowded roadhouse. The cacophony of whining guitars, piercing trill of a keyboard and heavy thump of drums was deafening. The feedback from the band's four huge speakers crashed through the overheated room like the blast off from a lunar shuttle.
Overhead a dense blue haze of cigarette smoke hung suspended from the exposed beams of metal roof supports; the overpowering smell of spent tobacco attached itself immediately to the men's clothing. Accompanying the stench was the odor of sweat-slick bodies and the sickly-sweet smell of marijuana. The combination awakened a nest of butterflies in Conor Nolan's stomach.
Clustered around the dance floor at the north end of the cavernous room, four to six vinyl-covered swivel chairs were pulled up to each of the twenty-odd, cluttered, sticky, chrome and laminate tables. Nolan noted that every seat was full, some with more than one occupant.
The two men headed for the East end of the room where there was a shadowed semi-circular nook with ten booths set on a raised platform. Each booth was separated from its neighbor by a five feet high fieldstone partition. Flickering light from electric torches looked like burning rushes.
Harried bartenders worked at feverish speed to fill drink orders. A dozen waitresses, dressed in short black mini-skirts, circulated among the tables and booths.
At the long bar, crowded two people deep, a twenty something blonde woman observed the dancers out on the floor. Watching intently, she swiveled from side to side on the barstool, sipping occasionally from a tall frosted glass, ignoring the come-ons that now and again obstructed her view. A faint smile stretched her full lips as her bored green gaze fell on Nolan's tall frame and held.
"Are they up there?" Joe Cortesio shouted over the din. He blinked against the intrusion of heavy smoke.
"I can't see a gods-be-damned thing!" Conor Nolan answered. The flash of a strobe, emanating from the hard rock band light show, underscored his night blindness. The jerky movements and blue-white appearance of the people in the room made his stomach roil.
Cortesio stumbled as a drunk swerved off course and collided with him. He ignored the slurred apology and shoved the offender away, grimacing with distaste at the stench of vomit, which assailed his nostrils. Then instinctively, he reached behind him, felt for the bulge of his wallet in the pocket of his jeans and was satisfied it hadn't been lifted in the encounter.
Nolan tapped Cortesio on the shoulder and pointed. Squinting, Cortesio nodded.
Carefully threading their way through the room, jostled and blocked with every step-disengaging playful arms thrown around them by strange women-the two men finally made it to the platform of booths.
"Where the hell you guys been?" Neville 'Trip' Triplett snapped as Cortesio slipped into the booth at one end and Nolan the other.
Nolan glanced at his friend, taking in the thinning dark hair and quipped, "What's with you? Turning forty still got you bummed?"
Trip shifted his six foot two inch frame in the seat and unconsciously drew a hand across his spreading middle. He fastened Nolan with a dark gray stare but let the good-natured jib drop. "We were beginning to think you guys weren't coming," Trip grumbled, forcing his gaze from Conor's grinning face.
"Hell, Triplett," Cortesio retorted, "we weren't even breathing hard."
Nolan leaned over to kiss the only woman in the booth. "How's it going, pretty lady?"
Rhianna Marek was, indeed, a pretty lady. With her soft, dewy brown eyes and long, straight sable hair, she could pass for a teenager, and had when the New Gregory police force needed an insider at the local high school. Her soft Georgia accent further belied her age; she would be thirty-two on the next Summer Solstice.
"You're late," Rhianna complained, dark eyes suddenly glowing. She returned his quick kiss and laid her hand on his thigh as he put his arm around her and drew her close.
"Traffic was a bitch," Nolan quipped. He glanced up at the skimpily clad waitress who placed two new napkins on the table. "How you doing tonight, Myra?"
"Okay. What'll it be, Irish?" the waitress asked Nolan.
"The usual," Nolan ordered. He checked the glasses of the others who'd been there awhile. None were empty.
"Gin and tonic," Cortesio called as the waitress glanced at him. "What's cooking, Myra?"
"Same old, same old," she shrugged. "How's it hanging?"
"Eight inches and growing!" The Italian chuckled and waited for the collective groans of his friends to subside before reaching down to rub his crotch. "Make that nine."
"Pervert," Trip pronounced and Dave Donne, the man sitting between Trip and Cortesio, opened his mouth, stuck his finger in and pretended to gag.
"How do you put up with him?" Rhianna asked Conor, shaking her head at Cortesio's antics. "He's as randy as a teenager." She exchanged a taut smile with Trip. He knew how worried she was by some of the outrageous things Joey had been doing of late. Her main concern was Joey's wife finding out about his indiscretions and putting an end to their fifteen-year marriage.
Nolan grinned. "I just never bend over when he's close around."
"When are you and me gonna get married, Myra?" Donne asked, reaching over to stroke the waitress' arm.
"Why buy the beef when I already get the bull for free?" she snapped. At his hoot of laughter, she picked up her tray, letting her hand brush Nolan's, but when he pretended not to notice, she left with a sigh.
"She keeps trying to get your attention, Irish," Trip laughed. "The least you can do is pat her on the ass."
"Not if he wants to keep his hand," Rhianna replied. She didn't like the waitress and knew Conor had slept with her more than once. Hell, she thought, as she took a long pull on her drink, probably every man within a hundred mile radius had humped the sleazy bitch.
Nolan bent toward Rhianna and nuzzled her neck, nipping lightly with his teeth. "Only ass I wanna pat is yours," he whispered.
"Knock it off," Rhianna said, digging her elbow into his ribs. When he moved away from her, grinning wickedly, she stuck her tongue out at him.
Myra squeezed her way through the barrier of customers lined up at the bar. She put her tray on the counter and leaned toward the bartender, shouting to be heard over the raucous music. She gave him her order, straightened up, and glanced down the length of the bar, waving at a few steady customers. Her attention encountered the blonde sitting a few stools away. Myra smiled nervously and was about to turn around when the blonde crooked a finger toward her. Myra's smile twitched as she moved toward the woman. "Yes, Ma'am?"
"Who is he?" the blonde asked. "The one in the black denim jacket."
The waitress' forehead puckered for a moment, then smoothed. She risked a glance toward the Irishman. "Nolan," she answered. "Conor Nolan. His friends call him Irish. He's a cop."
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