The Long Road to Perdition

A Cavazutti Crime Novel #3

by Carlo Cavazutti

Since the seventies, the Mexican and Colombian Cartels controlled the drug trade on both sides of the southern border. That was until Agent Tammy Taylor came on the scene and she didn’t play nice. Assigned to a two man resident office two hundred miles from El Paso she became a rogue not caring what the Special Agent in Charge thought. There was a meth lab on her turf and she would go to any means to find it. With some past associates, a Federal DA and a sultry Cajun computer hacker only known as Silver, Tammy rains down hell on the Cartel, Devils Henchmen and a host of very important people.


Excerpt

Prologue

 

Perdition once was a prosperous, albeit small town, 200 miles south of El Paso. But times changed. With the Depression, Perdition as a town died. People left slowly, the poorest at first when the decline began, and now the crumbling wood piles were all that remained.

An old barn still stood, as did a small gutted home from which noxious fumes emitted. Outside were four-wheel drive trucks, SUVs, and Harley choppers belonging to a host of nefarious characters milling about, all the while looking for a sliver of shade. Life had come back to Perdition but not the kind of life one would want to move back to.

Wiley Henry was not one of those milling about. Not far out of his teens, the young man hung by his wrists several feet off the ground from old-fashioned iron manacles attached to a block and tackle system.

The pulley wheel of the system was bolted to the underside of an 8x8 cross timber of which there were several along the width of the structure. Most likely at some point in time it was used to hoist animal carcasses for butchering or whatever the need may be. The ropes that ran through the pulley were secured to an 8x8 upright placed squarely in the center of one of the cross members. When he moved, everything seemed to groan.

Blood trickled down his arms and the rusty iron restraints began to push and peel the skin off his wrists. Much like a finger being gloved when a ring catches on a door handle.

The blood invited flies to land; they fed and borne the idea in the young man’s head of them laying eggs. As hard as he tried, Wiley couldn’t push the thought from his mind. Maggots were one of his weaknesses, and the more he dwelled on it the more his stomach wanted to revolt.

An odd but funny thought passed through his mind and he couldn’t help but manage a slight laugh. There was no way he could ever be on the show, Naked and Afraid.He loved watching it but had to hide his eyes more than a few times when the contestants ate some gross-looking creature. Odd, he thought, what you think about when you’re on the verge of... never mind, that thought shouldn’t enter my head.

Wiley’s face and ribs were puffed up and bruised. He was barely able to speak or see, and burned-in spots where cigarettes were snuffed out on his torso—all part of a daily interrogation. That’s when the boys partied and used him like a piñata.

He was sure they knew by now he wasn’t a narc but continued to beat him for the fun of it. Sadistic bastards, the whole lot,he bemoaned silently. Wiley was a normal guy caught up in something which was none of his business. And now he was fucked. Just another loose end to them.

He was on the verge of confessing to a lie just to make the pain end. It would mean his life. Either way he knew he wasn’t walking out. Mother of God, Blessed Virgin, just take me,he prayed to himself.

He knew suffocation wasn’t far off. Blood pooled in his swollen legs, unable to pump it to his heart and lungs. They throbbed with each remaining heartbeat.

All he wanted to do that day, which now seemed an eternity away, was hit the wilderness desert riding his ATV, maybe even do a little hunting to fill his near-barren freezer.

Wiley heard the creak and groan of the large doors and it was then he slipped into the depths of despair. He knew what was to follow.

 

"The Long Road to Perdition"

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Genres


Crime Thriller

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