Capture (Butch Karp Thrillers) Read Online Free PDF Page A

sinking its long yellow incisors into his cheek, ripping off a piece of flesh.
    The man woke at the sharp pain, and feeling the weight of the nearly two-pound rodent clinging to his chest, he screamed and shook his head violently. He tried to reach for his attacker but his hands were manacled and chained above his head. All he could do was screech and twist violently.
    Surprised by the reaction, the rat jumped back and prepared to flee. However, it quickly realized that it was in no danger from the man. It hissed and was preparing to leap at him again when it wasblinded by a sudden bright light. Confused, the rat froze in place and never saw the stick that broke its neck and crushed its skull.
    “Oooh, lookie here, Jeremy, a fat Gotham City rabbit for the pot tonight,” a short, dark shadow standing behind the flashlight beam chortled, holding the dead animal up by its tail in the light for his companion to see.
    “Right on, Paulito. Nothin’ like a bit of fresh meat,” his tall, skinny companion agreed, turning his own flashlight onto his friend, a dwarf with a bulbous nose and thick, stumpy arms and legs.
    “I ’spose that’s what our dinner was thinking when he jumped on our friend Amir, here,” the dwarf said, laughing.
    The two men turned their flashlights onto the prisoner, noting the small trickle of blood running down his cheek. The man turned his head from the painful stab of the lights and flinched as the dwarf moved toward him. But the little man brought a large set of keys from a pants pocket and used one to open the lock that bound the chains.
    “Come on, asshole, Father David wants to talk,” the dwarf growled, grabbing the man by his elbow.
    Amir al-Sistani groaned as he was helped to his feet. He then stood docilely as the two men fastened a rope around his neck and, giving it a light tug, led him into the darkness.
     
    After his capture in an underground tunnel as he left the New York Stock Exchange building, believing that his plot to destroy the American economy was well under way, al-Sistani thought of little other than how to escape these wretches and their insane leader, David Grale. He dreamed of making his way back to the world of sunlight. Back to where he was known to his devoted followers as “the Sheik,” and had hundreds of millions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts to buy every luxury, even as he plotted a radical Islamic takeover of the world with himself as the leader, the caliph.
    On the fourth day of his captivity, he’d even managed to break free from his guards, Jeremy and Paulito, as they were escorting him to Grale for another interrogation. He’d fled blindly down atunnel in the pitch black with no idea if he was running toward sunlight or deeper into the bowels of the city above.
    Stopping at one point to catch his breath, he heard his captors laughing back in the direction he’d come from and calling for him to return. “Better come back before the others find you…or then you’ll be sorry.”
    However, he’d splashed on for a few more feet through foul-smelling water, recoiling as his hand reached for a wall to steady himself and came away dripping with slime. Forcing himself to move forward, he finally had to stop at what appeared to be an intersection of two tunnels. He was trying to decide which way to go when he heard strange voices screeching and gibbering from the tunnel on the left; they sounded some distance away, but close enough to send shivers down his spine. Realizing then the futility of his efforts, and frightened of these “others,” he stopped and waited for Jeremy and Paulito to catch him and bring him back to Grale.
    “Well, I hope you have that out of your system,” Grale had said with a chuckle, glancing at his grinning followers. “It can be quite dangerous to wander alone in my kingdom. You might lose your way and starve to death in some dark pit—or perhaps meet one of the former ‘pet’ alligators you may have heard have made their