Taken Read Online Free PDF

for ransom as they crossed the border into the U.S. Each had been shot in the back of the head when their families stopped paying ransom. The three bodies were now wrapped in plastic, and smelled of sour gas. Orlato pulled them from beneath the carpet remnants that covered them, and let the bodies drop. Ruiz and Haddad each dragged a body to a jagged cut in the wash behind the ruins, and Orlato dragged the last. Counting these three, they had deposited eleven bodies here during the past nine days. Their work here west of the Salton Sea was done.
    As Orlato dragged the last body, Ruiz pointed down into the cut.
    “Look at this shit. What you want to do?”
    An animal had gotten down among the bodies and torn open the plastic. A man’s hand now reached through the split.
    Orlato said, “Get the chlorine.”
    “Shit, we put a hundred pounds of chlorine in there already, and it didn’t help. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
    Powdered chlorine as fine and white as confectioners’ sugar was supposed to keep the coyotes away. Everyone knew the bodies would be found, but the longer it took the better. Their operation was strictly short term. They set up fast, moved often, and kept moving until they had milked or killed the last of the
pollos
.
    But coyotes would spread the bones, and if a dog brought a human bone home, the police and federal authorities would swarm over the desert.
    Orlato glared at Ruiz.
    “Get the chlorine, you lazy fuck. Maybe you didn’t put enough last time.”
    When Ruiz skulked away for the chlorine, Orlato scanned the horizon for approaching vehicles. He was searching the sky for helicopters when Haddad unzipped his pants.
    “What’re you doing?”
    “Taking a piss.”
    “Don’t piss on them bodies. The police could get your DNA.”
    “What do they have now, a piss detector?”
    Haddad unleashed a rope that hit the plastic as loudly as tearing cloth. Orlato wanted to shove the slack-jaw bastard into the cut with the piss-soaked bodies, but instead turned to see if Ruiz was coming. As he turned, something hit him between the eyes, and three more strikes rained after the first so quickly he threw up his arms to cover his face even as his legs were swept from beneath him. He slammed onto his back, and his solar plexus exploded as he was struck again, then struck on his left temple, snapping his head to the side.
    Shock and awe. A sudden, violent attack of such furious intensity Orlato had not seen the man or men who attacked him, or even understood what was happening. Orlato’s head buzzed as if swarming with wasps, and his ears screamed with a high-pitched hum. Now, drifting in a sleep-world, he felt hands on his body. Someone groped his legs, waist, and groin; rolled him over, then rolled him again. Orlato’s head cleared, but he offered no resistance.
    A low male voice.
    “Look at me.”
    Orlato opened his eyes, and saw a tall, muscular Anglo, dark from the sun, wearing a sleeveless gray sweatshirt and jeans. He had short hair, dark glasses, and blurry tattoos on the outer rounds of his shoulders. Orlato squinted to clear his vision. Scarlet arrows. A black revolver floated at the man’s side.
    Orlato showed open palms.
    “
Policia?
”
    A man spoke behind him.
    “You’re gonna wish we were
policia
.”
    Orlato saw that a man with spiky blond hair had Haddad pinned to the ground. The blond man held an American M4 battle rifle. He tipped the rifle toward the bodies.
    “You kill these people?”
    Orlato had personally murdered four of the eleven, Ruiz two, and Haddad the rest, but now Orlato shook his head.
    “We only bring the bodies. We don’t kill no one.”
    The blond man showed teeth like a shark, then lifted Haddad’s bloody head by his hair, and said something in Arabic. This surprised Orlato, who had met few people who spoke it besides Arabs. In that moment, Orlato knew these two men were not the police. He assumed they were
bajadores
—predators who preyed on other