Tempest Road
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Chapter 1
There’s an empty, smelly steel tank and someone’s inside it. He’s hitting the wall with a sledgehammer as hard as he can, desperate to get out. Metal-on-metal. Hurt. Another swing. Metal-on-metal. I want to cry out. Throbbing. The giant overlord has gotten the point. Metal-on-metal. Teeth-cracking pain. Blood slaps my ears. Won’t the man stop?!
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A hand grips my jersey by the front. It’s the sweeper. He won’t let me past.
Quick step with my left, bring my right arm up. He’s jerking my shirt by the collar. My arm bashes into his forearm. Hair bounces. Sweat flies in my periphery. Push off with my right foot—free—cutting inside of him.
My heart’s rattling against my chest wall. I’m a machine, built to do exactly this.
Jackson knows me, my intentions. Twelve yards away, the orange-clad keeper pivots in my direction, silver jai alai baskets for hands. The ball comes to my feet. There’s a yellow-green blur from the left. Tap the ball with my left, launch with my right. Up, forward, over the sliding man.
The hammer strikes metal. Gritty, smelly air pulsates. Ringing. Ahh!
The keeper—all silver-orange and grimacing, crooked jaw—is coming out to end this. Elated faces rise behind him. Horrified faces cringe behind him. Someone else shifts into the goal.
The grab of my cleat nubs in the turf. Righty step-over. Jackson is walled off, no good. The keeper is almost on me, arms and legs wide like an octopus. If I can just tap the ball up over his arms—
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Free! In space. Past the keeper!
“They might have something here. MacLeod’s streaking!”
The ball is mine. All will and control. Made for this. Another jersey-pull, which doesn’t matter. This shot is mine. Done it a thousand times. The ref can’t call it now! The defender has slid over too far, covering right in front of me but not the left side. An arm swings through my view, fingers clawing at air.
The bright lights seem hot. The stands are tilting, listing. Tap with my off foot, my right—
“MacLeod’s loose. Bearing down on the keeper like a jaguar! MacLeod!!!!!”
Hammer head into iron. Sparks and dust. Ahh!
Crescendo of roaring noise. Rapid tsunamis of blood—my blood.
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A hand on my shirt again, jerking me. How can it grab? My shirt is soaked, skin-tight.
What?!
Am I reliving it?
Colors whirl. Take the shot! Don’t worry about spin. Don’t worry about pretty.
The man desperately swings his hammer into the steel wall again. It hurts! His face—he’s been beaten, bloodied.
Wait. Am I the man?
Two billion people on their feet.
The sweeper didn’t jerk me, really. He didn’t have time—
“Wake up!”
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The hand yanks his shirt, fingernails digging in, chest hair pulling away.
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What the—
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The hand grips him again. Side-to-side jerking.
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The hammer head strikes the wall. Ahh! It’s my skull. He’s smashing my brain!
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MacLeod holds his breath, shaking all over. Anything to stop the pain.
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There’s something in his mouth.
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What?!
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He can’t see.
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What’s in his mouth? Why can’t he see? His vision isn’t just dim, it’s blocked.
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No, what is this?!
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Metal-on-metal, banging the wall of my skull.
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He catches his breath, trying not to throw up.
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Stop the banging! Please!
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He exhales steadily—that will make it stop. And again. His lip quivers against resistance.
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Feeling returns to other parts of his body.
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Wait, my hands!
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They can’t move. His hands are stuck, bound.
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His legs, too.
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As the feline goddess of sleep is dismissed, MacLeod is sure the hand that was jerking him almost pulled him over. He can’t steady himself. He’s seated in a chair, and he can’t move.
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Oh my God, where am I?!
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My head—the banging!
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“I can’t believe we got this done, man!” A man’s voice—right in front of him.
MacLeod pushes back against the chair. He can’t go anywhere. The voice is inches from his face, and he can’t do a thing.
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The speaker said this to someone else in the room. He has a distinctly European accent.
What in Hades? Got ‘what’ done? No no no.
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He bites on the thing in his mouth—a gag. It makes his lips hurt, digging into the soft skin.
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The speaker cackles. He leans close to MacLeod, reeking of vodka and grit, grabs him about the head and kisses him on the temple. MacLeod flinches and the strange man hops off, humming.
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What is this? He needs to get away from me.
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Footfalls across a wood floor, echoing.
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Where am I? I have to get out of here!
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MacLeod turns his head this way and that, trying to imagine what his eyes can’t see. A world forms. He’s inside someplace—the outdoors would be louder, feel different.
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“Can you believe he’s here? It’s crazy,” the man continues. It’s a peculiar accent, neither French nor German.
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MacLeod leans forward a little. He can’t hear a response. A car honks in the distance. Is he in a city?
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Why did they blindfold me?
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And he’s fuzzy. He didn’t even have that many drinks. What happened the night before? Was it the night before?
Come on, man. Tell that guy to put down the sledgehammer. Think!
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He suddenly recalls the club, the girl. He’d flown in, like the rest. He was at a nightclub with a third of the U.S. Men’s National Team in Ciudad Panama. Coach Higgs would be peeved if he knew they were going to a club, but they went anyway. It was after the team dinner at the hotel. There was dancing, decent music, a few American songs thrown in. Drinks. Lots of girls. The girl. Chatting and dancing.
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Pretty. Beautiful, even. Green eyes and long red hair. She had a French accent, but he wondered if she was a fellow Scot, anyway. The red hair—another ginger.
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His hand on her hip, drinking, her leaning into him. He needed to blow off a little steam. Did they go somewhere? They must’ve. No, he wouldn’t have been that stupid.
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This is all wrong. It’s not right. There was something else…
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Fuzzy. He tries to shake it off. These guys drugged him. She was working for them—that’s the only thing that computes.
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They were in Panama for World Cup qualifying, opening game. Is he still in Panama now?
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He swallows, fighting back a stinging sensation in his eyes. He tries his hands again. They’re bound pretty tight behind a hard, flat surface—like the back of a folding chair. They’re tough, whatever these guys used. Not handcuffs. Not metal. The material is warm, biting into his skin. He pulls harder, until it hurts. Plenty strong, all that training. No good.
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What did I do?
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MacLeod shakes his head again, trying to clear it. Scents of metal and popcorn in the cool air. Around him, the shuffling of material moves back and forth. When he tries to pry his legs apart, all he gets is creaking from the chair. His pants feel rough and stiff—not the slacks he was wearing.
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A door opens and closes behind him. Footsteps, boots on wood approach.
He startles when fingers play over his hair. Is it a woman? That’s perfume, a familiar scent.
“Hello, gorgeous man,” she says. The way her boots clomp, he believes she has turned toward him.
That voice. The lady from the club?
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The boots clomp away to the left. She’s going to someone.
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“The streets are clear,” she says. “So is the radio.”
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French accent, same as last night. It’s her.
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When she walks into another room, a chill runs over MacLeod. He bites down on the gag.
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I think I’m pretty fucked, here.
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A sinking feeling takes over—the one any man might get when the bridge of reality dissolves and he finds himself dropping into a surreal unknown.
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Banging and shuffling and zipping come from another room. Her boots click-clack around among others’. Packing bags, he surmises. An electronic beep comes from there. The activity pauses, then it starts again. Boots clomp out.
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“Van’s ready,” she says to whoever is at the window.
The boots approach, that flowery perfume. A breeze from her passing cools MacLeod’s forehead. He must be sweating like a dog.
The door closes quietly to his right.
I don’t like the sound of this. Might be a great time to get loose.
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He jerks on the binds for his hands. Nothing at all. Herdoñez has had him doing tons of push-ups, one-ninety on the butterfly.
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Why can’t I break free?!
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Someone comes over. Is it the lunatic who kissed him?
“You trying to leave us?” He slaps MacLeod in the chest. “You can’t quit this party. We’re not even started, yet.”
Look up at him. Face your enemy.
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“Oh, you poor man,” he says. “You can’t even see. Don’t be frightened. We’re not here to hurt you.”
A man by the window laughs. It’s a snigger.
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The weirdo goes off to the left. After a moment, he comes back, carrying things. There’s a shift in the air as he walks right by and out the door.
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Blood slaps in MacLeod’s ears. The gag tastes like a kitchen towel. He can’t bite through it. Things are still swimming. The man in the tank’s reaching for the hammer, to start banging again.
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Why is this happening to me?
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New footfalls announce the man from the window. He stops in front of MacLeod. “Do you understand that we mean business?”
MacLeod looks in his direction and nods.
“That’s good.” He has a soft voice, Latin accent.
Boots. The girl has returned. She comes up to them. She and the new man may be embracing, kissing. Something hard and heavy taps his knee—right about the sweet spot, the lavender-hued ridge left over from surgery. He flinches.
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“It’s time,” she says to this man, the one in charge.
MacLeod would like to kick them. At least it would be a feeble attempt at something. They’d probably laugh. The alarms in his head are ringing too loudly to focus on anything else. The man with the sledgehammer, banging out his message.
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Perfume. She’s leaning close to him.
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“Are you ready, Hero MacLeod?”
Deep, ragged breath. Things shattering, a gunshot to crystal.
Oh no. They mean Mitch.
Continue to Chapter 2
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Enjoy!
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