The Beasts of Juarez, R.B. Schow [books to read for self improvement .txt] 📗

“We’re going too fast,” Sydney said from behind, her voice filled with terror.

Atlas was standing on the brakes at that point and preparing to get blasted in the face with an airbag.

The second the nose of the plane started to taco the car’s windshield, they came to a dead stop, the plane now pushing against them. Atlas shoved the transmission in reverse and floored it, pulling the car away from the jet just enough to keep them from all getting blasted with airbags and then squashed by the jet.

When the jet came to a full stop, Atlas and Kiera jumped out of the Benz with guns drawn. The jet’s stairs lowered and some guy popped out with an automatic weapon and opened fire on them. Kiera put a bullet into the side of his forehead. His head snapped sideways and then his knees gave out and he fell slightly forward, his body skidding down the staircase and landing face-first on the dirt runway.

The Audi roared up to a stop beside them, Yergha and Esty rolling out with guns at the ready, Cira following right behind them with her XD9.

“Did you get the last guy coming in?” Leopold asked.

“Esty shot him,” Cira said.

Atlas and Kiera boarded the jet and to their relief, they saw a man and a woman of Eastern Indian descent holding the familiar-looking girls. Atlas lifted his gun and said, “Girls, come to me.”

The girls looked scared but they complied.

“Zoey and Maisie?” he asked. Both girls nodded, holding each other. “Come with me, I have a surprise for you.”

The two girls willingly went with him. When he took them down the stairs, it was in time to see Sydney getting out of the Mercedes-Benz. She saw them and ran to them. The group piled together in a needful hug, the three of them devolving into a joyful, teary-eyed reunion.

Atlas went back on the plane where he saw Kiera’s eyes. There was more hatred than he had ever seen in her eyes before. Her face, however, was completely passive. How she seemed to feel so much while showing so little emotion let him know she not only had feelings but she had restraint as well.

“Get off the plane now,” Atlas said to the couple.

The heavyset man dressed in a traditional dhoti kurta stood and offered his hand to his wife, a rotund woman dressed in a colorful Indian saree. Together they exited the plane, walked down the staircase, and looked at the armed group awaiting them.

Atlas would not have expected an Indian couple to be buying white children, but there were so many other things that didn’t make sense in the world these days that he didn’t bother questioning this one.

Leopold got in the couple’s faces and started screaming bloody murder, but just as he was hitting his stride, Esty walked up to the Indian man and slashed open his throat. Leopold backed up to avoid a spurting arterial geyser.

The Indian woman’s hand flew to her mouth as she watched the animated red waterfall spilling out of her husband’s gashed-open throat. Esty flipped the blade around and drove it straight into the woman’s neck. Now it was everyone else’s chance to gasp. Changing position with her feet and body, Esty turned the blade sideways then forced it out of her throat, destroying everything in the process. The woman collapsed into the dirt and bled out quickly.

“The time for talking is over, Leopold,” Estella looked at him and said.

Atlas gave a little laugh, then got on the plane, went to the pilot—who had seen all of this—and ripped his identification badge off of his uniform. Reading the man’s name, Atlas said, “If you’re ever in this country again, I’ll find your family and I’ll slaughter all of them before your eyes. And then I’ll gut you like a pig.”

The pilot nodded his understanding, his face ashen.

“The second I move that Mercedes out of the way if you don’t work to get airborne as quickly and efficiently as possible, you’re going to see the ugliest side of ugly, and then you’re going to see me pulling out your insides. Am I clear?”

He nodded again.

“Good.”

Atlas got out of the Learjet, the staircase lifted, and when he moved the Benz off the runway, the private jet started its engines and prepared to take off.

Chapter Forty-One

GUARD, U.S. EMBASSY, PRAGUE

Two days later… The man wearing double COVID masks, big sunglasses, and a Fedora hat pulled up next to the newly reopened US Embassy in Prague and parked the car. He got out of the Audi A3 hatchback, went around the back, then opened the hatchback, and tossed three large plastic bags out into the street. He then got back in his car, buckled up, and drove off.

The Embassy guard alerted his supervisor of the highly suspicious activity.

“Go check it out and keep me in the loop,” the man said as he ate a hot bowl of beef and barley soup.

The guard walked out to the heavy-looking garbage bags, then stopped as a car swerved to avoid hitting them. When the road was clear, he proceeded forward. He lightly toed the nearest bag quickly realizing that whatever was in there was dense.

He withdrew his knife and cut the plastic bag open near one of the more prominent bulges. Half an arm fell out immediately, the skin pale white and bruised.

He turned, swallowed a bit of bile that had gushed up his throat, then turned back and cut the bag open a little more. The smell of raw carnage startled him, but he was a guard, not some rookie with a weak stomach. When he saw a delicate foot connected to an ankle bone he knew what this was. The foot had been cut off,