Snowflake’s Revenge, A Jake Stone Thriller (Book Four)
By T.L. Peters
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 T.L. Peters
License Notes
This e book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
To read more about the author and his other books, go to http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/tlpeters.
“In this fourth volume of The Jake Stone Thrillers, Jake turns introspective, Snowflake gets mad, and when one of their old rivals unexpectedly shows up, all hell breaks loose. I loved this book, especially because Snowflake finally shows us her softer side. Don’t worry though. Her hard side is still well in evidenced and in your face. The ending of the story suggests that another installment is on the way. I hope so. Four books, about 700 pages and nearly 200,000 words later, I’m still hankering for more.” Theodora K.
“There’s no question that Peters is a master wordsmith.” Gerry B’s Book Reviews
Chapter 1
A pleasant little trip turns nasty.
Jake Stone climbed into the small white minibus parked in Plaza Sucre in Copacabana, Bolivia and paid the driver 20 bolivianos, or about three U.S. dollars, for the scenic three and a half hour ride back to the capital city of La Paz. He and Snowflake had traveled to the tiny Bolivian beach town on the banks of Lake Titicaca, the highest commercially navigable lake in the world at an elevation of over 12,000 feet above sea level, for a week long vacation.
Snowflake, however, had returned a day early to La Paz, where she and Jake now lived, to take care of some housekeeping chores. They had moved to this more mountainous and arid region from the lowland city of Santa Cruz, where Snowflake's aggressive interactions with some of the local drug lords had caused an uncomfortable stir. Their long time servant, John Burns, and Jake's former secretary and, under Snowflake's close tutelage, the current Bolivian intergender wrestling champ, Nancy Jakes, were getting married, and there was much for Snowflake to do in planning the event.
Jake though had wanted to stay an extra day in Copacabana to once again climb the 600 foot mountain, known to the locals as Cerro Calvario, which looked out on the town and the lake. Jake loved the spectacular view from Calvario's summit, especially of the calm crystal blue waters that seemed to merge seamlessly with the deep blue horizon beyond. He hoped that one day his life with the sometimes tumultuous Snowflake would be just as calm, but he wasn't counting on it any time soon.
The steep climb up the mountain was fine exercise too, especially in the crisp, oxygen-starved air. Jake needed to keep himself in outstanding shape for his frequent wrestling matches with Snowflake, which to his dismay she still mostly won.
While Jake loved the natural scenery, Snowflake preferred the far more human spectacle of a grand wedding. She adored the ceremony so much that Jake feared that after John and Nancy were formally hitched, Snowflake would turn her matrimonial attention to Jake. Jake, of course, still loved Snowflake, but there was a certain permanence embodied in a legal ceremony that he found unsettling. After all, Jake still wasn't sure that he could thoroughly trust her.
How could he ever fully trust a woman who had with such cold-blooded zeal dispatched her own mother and sister, even if they were a pair of devious crooks and murderers themselves? But what he could do to prevent an official wedding between him and his Amazonian friend, Jake had no idea. What Snowflake wanted, she generally got.
There were just two other passengers in the van. One was a dark haired man of Spanish descent attired in a brilliantly white cotton shirt and khaki pants. The other was a chunky young Aymara man, the Aymara being one of the two major indigenous peoples still living in that ancient land. He had a broad face and deep black pools for eyes, and he was dressed in a colorful sweater made of local llama hair. Jake, however, paid them little attention. He had other things on his mind.
It had been over three years since he and Snowflake had fled to Bolivia to escape embezzlement and other charges stemming from their unlawful appropriation of the Bradshaw business empire. Since then they had not been molested or bothered even once, either by pesky U.S. law enforcement authorities, or by any of the vicious female thugs whom they had so often fought and defeated back in the States.
As usual, Snowflake had been right. When the shepherd is struck down, the sheep scatter. With the violent deaths of Snowflake's mother, Arianna, and her sister, Sandy, it seemed that their respective armies of women bodybuilders and assassins who had managed to survive the many brawls and battles with Jake and Snowflake had gone on to pursue other ventures. And on the legal front, Jake was of the opinion that so long as diplomatic relations between Bolivia and the United States remained cool and even hostile, the threat of extradition back to the States seemed remote at best.
The bottom line to all of this was that as long as they remained in Bolivia, Jake and Snowflake felt reasonably safe. And because they had managed to transfer a decent slice of their investments into Bolivian banks and out of the reach of U.S. authorities, they had plenty of money to pay off local Bolivian officials and still live quite comfortably. Bribes were a cost of doing business in Bolivia, just as they were in the United States, except in Bolivia there was little public outrage at the practice. That was fine with Jake and Snowflake. With their long record of crimes and misdemeanors, they needed all the official protection they could buy.
At the moment things were going so well that life seemed almost boring for the formerly flamboyant couple. That all changed, for Jake at least, right after the driver of the van entered the city of El Alto, a great sprawling urban hub that sits on the dry and dusty Andean plane directly above La Paz. The driver abruptly turned off the main road and onto a muddy dirt track. A car in front stopped, and five men armed with automatic rifles raced out and surrounded the van.
The driver of the van immediately climbed out and began talking pleasantly to one of the gunmen. The two passengers quickly turned on the startled young lawyer. The Aymaran fellow pinned Jake's arms behind his back, while the other one tried to cover Jake's face with a handkerchief dripping with a dense and sweet smelling liquid that Jake immediately suspected was chloroform.
Jake, who had maintained a vigorous martial arts regimen under Snowflake's watchful eye, managed to squirm out of the Aymara's grip and then bend the chunky fellow's thumb back far enough that Jake could hear the bone snap. As the Aymara was writhing in pain, Jake head butted the other assailant, who was still trying to press the chloroform drenched cloth against Jake's nose. The head butt was perfectly timed and executed, and the man instantly fell unconscious to the floor of the van.
Woozy from the effects of the chloroform, Jake struggled out the passenger door only to be conked on the side of the head by the smooth butt of a rifle. The last image that flickered through Jake's mind before he blacked out was Snowflake's blond hair and green eyes shimmering under the clear tropical skies. Jake couldn't tell if she was physically present, or whether he was just imagining that she had somehow miraculously appeared to rescue him once again. Jake even fondly muttered her name as he slumped onto the wet ground.
Chapter 2
Just prior to passing out Jake actually had seen a blond haired, green eyed woman standing over him. The problem for him was that the woman wasn't his friend, Snowflake. She was rather a girl in her late twenties who went by the name of Buttercup. And if Jake had enjoyed just a moment longer to study her, he would have seen that the physical disparity between this woman and his beloved Snowflake was remarkable.
While Snowflake was tall and muscular and athletic, Buttercup could reasonably be called a genuine monster of a woman. She stood six foot six inches tall in her bare feet, and she had arms like tree trunks. Her neck in its breadth and stubbiness resembled that of a middle linebacker, and each of her legs were as thick as Jake's waist. Her wrists were nearly as big around as Jake's biceps, and her forearms were wider and harder than the meatiest barrel of any Major League slugger's favorite baseball bat, and nearly as hard .
Her feet, which were generally bare since she felt that shoes were for weaklings, were laced with sinewy muscle and bulging veins, and her calves were as tough and firm and round as tires. Her upper back was one slab upon another of thick unyielding muscle, and her waist was so ripped that a silver dollar would have easily disappeared within the folds of her constantly pulsating muscles.
Her only physical weakness was that she was near sighted and had to wear contacts. She had considered Lasik surgery to fix the problem, but she was afraid of going blind in the process. Buttercup neither liked nor trusted doctors. Buttercup did not like or trust anybody, except her boss, whom she immediately called on her cell phone as soon as Jake had passed out.
"Take her to the dungeon," the husky voice on the other end intoned fiercely.
"Do you want me to kill him there?" Buttercup snarled, her green eyes picking up a burst of sunshine and momentarily reflecting it back onto the clear blue sky.
"Not yet," came the brawny reply. "We may still need him."
"What about the rest of our plan?" Buttercup asked, her voice getting even thicker and meaner the longer she talked.
"Carry it out as we discussed," the other voice bellowed.
"Should we call tSnowflake and ask for a ransom, just to flush her out, I mean?"
"Don't call anybody," the voice answered. "Let Snowflake come to us."
"It may take her a while to figure it all out," Buttercup replied, her disappointment showing by the maze of steroid induced wrinkles fanning out over her forehead and along the corners of her mouth. "I've heard that she's not the smartest woman in the world."
The other voice laughed wickedly.
"She's smart enough. It'll be fun to watch her spin her wheels for a while. If I know her, which I think I do, she'll keep on killing and killing until she finds her poor dear sweet Jake Stone."
"Why don't we just kill her now when her guard is down?" Buttercup asked grimly.
"Snowflake's guard is never down. Now do as I say."
Buttercup grudgingly closed her phone and then ordered the gunmen to load Jake's body into the trunk of their car, a black 2011 BMW sedan. As they were gathering around Jake's limp body preparing to grab his arms and legs, the Aymaran man with the now shattered thumb crawled squealing out of the van while holding his injured hand up into the air. Buttercup walked slowly over to him and asked if he was all right. He nodded weakly.
"Well, you won't be all right anymore," she snapped.
She immediately reached down with one arm, clutched the man's narrow throat with her meaty fingers and lifted him high into the air. Just then the other man, the one who had tried to knock Jake out with the chloroform, stumbled past. He must have breathed in a little too much of the drug himself and could barely stay on his feet. Buttercup chose to steady him too, grabbing him around the throat with her other hand and likewise lifting him high into the air.
For a few minutes the feet of both men flailed helplessly about a yard off the ground, as the oxygen gradually eked out of their lungs. Suddenly their legs and feet went limp, and their bodies jerked and twitched oddly for a few moments before slumping into a motionless slouch. But just to make sure they were dead, Buttercup cracked their necks one right after the other with a quick jerk of her powerful forefingers and thumbs. She then tossed the bodies into a large oily puddle and watched with cool amusement as the grimy water seeped into the Aymara's sweater and the other man's white shirt, and then mixed grimly with the blood streaming out of the sides of their distorted mouths.
By then the other men had dumped Jake's body into the trunk of the BMW and closed the lid and were standing around awaiting further orders. These thugs did not seem surprised that Buttercup had just murdered their two colleagues. Their faces were bland and cold, although their eyes remained sharp and nervous.
Buttercup strode up to the nearest man and grabbed the firearm out of his slightly trembling fingers. She then used it to calmly gun down two of the five remaining thugs. The other three she killed with her bare hands, because she thought she needed the practice. One she disposed of with a single kick to his temple, another with a karate chop to the back of his neck, and the third with a palm thrust to his nose which instantly caved his face in.
This murderous onslaught lasted only about a minute, and Buttercup moved through it all with such nimbleness and skill that not a drop of blood from her victims ended up soiling her bright white bikini top or her spotless black cut off shorts. She then casually climbed behind the wheel of the BMW, gunned the engine and drove quickly away. Dirt and gravel from the screeching back tires splattered over some of the bodies and momentarily chased away the flies and mosquitos that were gathering to gorge themselves on the blood.
Chapter 3
Snowflake paced about in the spacious third floor bed room of her hacienda in the southern part of the city of La Paz. Technically she held the property in joint name with Jake, but as with everything else of any importance in her life she considered the place to be exclusively hers.
Jake had no objection. After all that he had been through with the ferocious Amazon in the past few years, he was no longer concerned with the details of their living arrangement. She could handle all that. Jake just wanted to stay alive. What pleased him the most about their current digs was that the altitude was lower there than in the center city, and as a result it was much easier for him to get in a good workout.
Snowflake, however, didn't mind the higher altitudes. In fact, she relished the stress that the thin air exerted on her powerful physique, and the challenge it presented for her to perform at peak levels. But at thirteen thousand feet above sea level, which was the general elevation in the city's bustling downtown, Jake struggled to make it through some of her more robust kick boxing classes. He performed much better at the mere six thousand feet of elevation where they currently resided.
Jake's stamina was improving though, and in a year or so Snowflake was hoping that he could measure up reasonably well against most of the women she had once trained so energetically at the gym back in Pittsburgh. Then Jake would have earned her confidence and respect as a true fighter. This was important to Snowflake, since she held a dim view of weaklings, especially weak men.
Snowflake knew that eventually she would need Jake to be at his very best. She was getting bored with what she considered to be a quiet life. She wanted some action, but she no longer trusted any of her former female associates. They had all let her down in one way or another. Only Jake, in the end and after many false starts, had remained true to her.
Although she and Jake lived comfortably enough, Snowflake was increasingly disenchanted with their lifestyle in other ways too. She had lately gotten the itch to jet around the world again, perhaps to build a few great buildings, maybe start some mammoth new business project. To do this in style Snowflake knew that she would need a more robust source of funding than the monies they had managed to embezzle out of the States. The Bradshaw estate, which she had once hoped would be hers, was now wending its way ponderously through the courts. Jake believed that with the absence of any discernible heirs, most of the old man's property would eventually go to the state.
It was a shame to have let all that wealth slip through her lovely fingers, but Snowflake was as determined and resourceful as ever. The Bolivian drug trade, newly revitalized in recent years by a shift in power to a more sympathetic local government, intrigued her.
She had met many of the cartel leaders at various parties, and also during more than one bar room brawl that she had happened to stumble into, and she was not impressed. They were small men both in stature and outlook. In her view, they were sitting ducks for a stronger and more ruthless organization. Snowflake could easily envision such an organization with her at the top, of course, and Jake as her main advisor and second in command.
With his legal skills and impressive analytical abilities, Jake was born for such an important but subservient role. Snowflake believed that he would serve her gladly in whatever capacity she chose for him, and together they would climb and scrape their way back to the top. Eventually she hoped that they might be able to amass enough money and pay enough bribes to be able to shed their international fugitive status. That would make it easier for them to expand their operations into the United States and around the world. There was such huge amounts of money to be made as the developing economies in the world rapidly came on line, and such power to be acquired. Snowflake could barely contain herself at the prospect.
She was eagerly awaiting Jake's return from Copacabana so she could discuss it all with him. And, of course, there was the little matter of Nancy's wedding. Snowflake had that affair mostly arranged too. Nancy and her fiancé, John Burns, would wed in the main cathedral of La Paz, and all the great and powerful of Bolivia would be invited.
After the wedding and a brief honeymoon Snowflake, together with Jake and the newlyweds, could then get down to the serious business of devising a plan to take over the world, or at least a decent slice of it. Nancy, a formerly frail girl whom Snowflake had developed into a tigress of sorts in the intergender wrestling ring, would be third in command, while Nancy's new husband, John, a burly and imposing fellow in his own right, would take over the fourth spot.
Snowflake would then need to recruit tough fighters, both men but mostly women, to fill out her organization on an as-needed basis. Not only were women, when properly trained, just as strong and lethal as any man, they enjoyed the priceless advantage of surprise.
This time though, Snowflake vowed to keep close tabs on everyone who worked for her. She would not be deceived again, as she had been so many times by her back stabbing mother and sister. The price for disloyalty would be a quick death.
Snowflake, however, unlike many of her past rivals, including her mother and sister, did not fancy herself as a sadist. She took no pleasure in the distress of another human being and repeatedly promised herself that she would not torture her enemies prior to killing them. Death would be sufficient for her.
All Snowflake really sought were the basics of life, namely, her own fabulous enrichment and success. If she could achieve these simple objectives without hurting anyone, she was fine with that.
But Snowflake also knew that the acquisition of wealth by illegal means, her preferred method, was generally a zero sum game. If she won, somebody else was bound to lose, and usually the loser was none too happy about the outcome. There was thus the occasional need for lethal violence, which Snowflake was ready to dispense on a whim or at a moment's notice, even to those she loved, even to Jake if need be.
Snowflake dearly hoped, however, that Jake would remain loyal to her. Although he had betrayed her at various sensitive points in the early days of their relationship, she had let him live because she found upon reflection that his actions were quite sensible and understandable under the circumstances. Moreover, she loved him, which she soon found put an entirely different complexion on many matters from the more straightforward black-and-white approach she was used to.
But now that they had come to know each other so much better and in such exquisitely intimate terms, betrayal, even if rationally conceived and carried out with no trace of ill will or rancor against her, was no longer an option. Jake would need to toe the line if he wanted to stay in her good graces, which in addition would serve as an essential precondition to his own survival.
As Snowflake was musing about Jake and smiling softly to herself, which she almost always did anymore while she was thinking about him, she glided by their glistening new Mahagony dining room table. Jake had bought it for her just weeks earlier as one of the many presents he had bestowed upon her for her thirtieth birthday. As she stroked her fingertips lightly over the hard cool surface, she picked up her smart phone and called him again. Why wasn't he answering? Perhaps the battery on his phone was dead.
Jake was so scatterbrained sometimes. But in spite of all his faults, she still loved him. She smiled again as she recalled how clumsy he was in his first kick boxing class. She remembered how he had fallen on his rear end any number of times, always tripping over his own feet as he tried to execute a leaping roundhouse kick or some simple leg sweep. But he was only a man, and thus his awkwardness could be excused.
He was such a funny and strange man though. Even though hardly handsome by traditional standards, he had a cute and charming way about him. And no matter how tough she was on him, Jake always came back for more. Snowflake had enjoyed plenty of suitors over the years, but Jake was the last man standing. That quality alone seemed worth her undying affection, even if she eventually had to kill him for one reason or another. But even then, she would always love him dearly and cherish his memory.
Snowflake glanced at her cell phone again with some irritation. It was six fifteen in the evening. Jake should have been home hours ago. But perhaps the road to La Paz was blocked. The farmers were always blockading the roads as a ploy to wrest more subsidies and goodies from the government.
But if that were the case, why hadn't he gotten in touch with her? He could have borrowed someone else's phone if his had gone dead. Even in a country as poor as Bolivia, cell phones were easy to find. Where could he be?
"Nancy," she called suddenly in a forceful voice.
"Yes," said the squat woman with a firm backside from a tiny office in back.
"Tell John to gas up the jeep," Snowflake continued. "We're taking a little drive."
Nancy immediately hurried out the door of her office pounding her tight hard little fists together as though she were preparing for a fight. Snowflake noticed lately that Nancy always seemed to be steeling herself for some violent physical confrontation. It was so wonderful watching Nancy blossom into her own.
After congratulating herself again on how well the formerly smarmy young secretary had turned out, Snowflake once more turned her thoughts to Jake. If only her dear clumsy lovable Jake would listen more closely to her instructions, how wonderful Snowflake's life would be then.
Snowflake again smiled sweetly at the thought of her beloved Jake. What a klutz he was, even now after all her painstaking training and careful attention to every aspect of his physical development. But oh, how she loved him. It would sadden her no end if she ever had to kill him. But then again, business was business, and nobody lived forever, not that she knew of anyway.
Snowflake put on her most intimidating pair of wraparound silver sunglasses, and then donned her favorite straw hat to protect her light skin from the brutal tropical sun. After unsuccessfully trying once again to reach Jake on her phone, she put on a tan windbreaker to shield her bare shoulders from the constant cold breezes rolling down the nearby Andes mountains. She then strode confidently outside to the circular brick driveway where Nancy and John were waiting for her beside their battered and rather dusty green jeep.
"Do we need guns?" John asked, nervously rubbing the scar along his chin.
Snowflake thought for a moment.
"I think we do. Let's load up, especially the automatic weapons. Bring a few knives along too."
"What kind of trouble are you expecting?" Nancy asked, her dusty blue eyes giving off an occasional and lonely sparkle.
"I don't know," Snowflake said. "I just have a bad feeling about this."
"Why a bad feeling?" Nancy asked, pounding her fists together again. "I'm itching for a real fight. I'm tired of wrestling all those old fight guys in some stale gym. I want a real battle for a change."
"From that perspective then, I don't have a bad feeling about it," Snowflake said, grinning as she plopped down in the raised back seat. "Let's move before it gets dark."
John, who was well accustomed by then to his fiancée's feistiness, climbed behind the wheel without comment, and the three took off down the dirt road. Nancy sat quietly beside her brawny man, while in back Snowflake gazed up thoughtfully at the darkening blue sky. None of them noticed the dust billowing up behind them in great and fitful clouds as the jeep sped toward the vast arid plane separating them from Copacabana.
Chapter 4
Jake awoke to find his wrists and ankles chained to a damp concrete wall behind him. The iron shackles on his wrists were attached to the wall about four feet off the cold concrete floor, so that he was forced to stand. There was a damp musty smell inside the dank ten by twelve foot cube, and Jake noticed a narrow set of worn concrete steps leading to some undetermined area upstairs.
The room had no furniture of any kind. The only physical objects he observed, besides the dull unpainted concrete and the rusty metal chains binding him, were a small drain in the middle of the floor surrounded by thin traces of grime and moist dirt, and a naked light bulb hanging from a tiny plastic fixture embedded directly above him in the concrete ceiling with no cord attached. The light fell onto him harshly and made him want to shade his eyes, although the rest of the room seemed dark and grim.
His shoes, socks and shirt had been removed, but for some reason his captors had let him keep his pants. He saw no bruises, cuts or other marks on his chest and arms, although he was suffering from an horrific headache that made him wince whenever he turned his head. The flesh along his wrists and ankles had begun to chafe from the constant rubbing against the hard jagged metal of his chains.
His throat was scratchy and sore and his lips were parched and chapped, and every few seconds he unconsciously rubbed his tongue over his lips to provide them with some small amount of moisture. As he began to blink his eyes in the vain hope of relieving the constant ache in his head, he noticed large amoeba like patches of dried blood stains on his shirt sleeves. He then recalled with some dismay the sharp blow he had recently suffered to his head. He had been kidnapped, he quickly concluded, but by whom and why?
At least he was still alive, Jake thought. That was something to be grateful for.
He heard a thud from somewhere above him, as though a heavy door were being forced open, and then he noticed flashing rectangles of light descending the concrete stairs. The light suddenly vanished as he saw a pair of bare feet and a massive set of calves land onto one of the middle steps.
Jake observed that the person's toenails were painted purple, and the calves were so smooth and cleanly shaven that the pale skin glistened in the meager light. He then saw a hulking set of thighs outfitted with a pair of cut off jeans with ragged edges along the bottom. Next came a ripped set of abdominal muscles followed by breasts that seemed to pour like cement out of the skimpy gray halter top.
Jake continued to look with astonishment at the sheer size and power of this creature. The woman's massive upper chest was nonetheless hard and wiry, and her neck thick and grizzled, and her shoulders broad and angular. She was bigger and taller and more muscular than any woman he had ever seen, or any man for that matter. Jake couldn't help thinking that Snowflake would have looked like a mere waif beside her, or perhaps a wispy blade of grass standing next to an oak tree.
The woman's face was jagged and square and rutted throughout with thick deep grooves. Jake would have judged it to be a man's face, but his experience hanging around gyms told him that the woman was a heavy steroids users. Her blond hair was long, but Jake noticed that it was thinner than he might have expected from such a formidable Amazon. It was stringy too, probably from the steroids Jake thought.
Her green eyes were bright and wide and reminded him strangely of Snowflake's eyes. The sudden recollection of Snowflake brought a weary ache to Jake's heart, and he began to wonder if his beloved friend was now on her way to rescue him one more time. But then the still unresolved questions assaulted his rather groggy brain. Who was this monster of a woman now standing before him pounding her huge right fist into her hard open left palm, and what did she want with him?
Her stone faced silence suggested that she was unwilling to volunteer the information. What other option did Jake have, he mused, but to ask her these questions directly and hope that she might at least give him a halfway honest response?
"Who are you?" he muttered.
"My name is Buttercup," she said, her voice husky and deep.
Great, Jake thought, another one of these crazy muscle women. Her voice reminded him of someone, but he couldn't quite come up with a name yet.
"What do you want?"
"I want you," she chuckled. "And guess what, I've got you."
"That's what you think," Jake snorted.
The woman again pounded her fist into her palm. The ensuing crack from the powerful collision sent tremors up Jake's spine. He could just imagine what her massive fist and iron-like knuckles could do to his face.
"What are you going to do, little man, overpower me?" she asked sarcastically.
For now, Jake chose to ignore the question.
"Who do you work for?" he snarled.
"What makes you think that I work for anyone?"
Jake glanced at her massive thighs jiggling and squirming as she shifted her great weight from one foot to the other. For a moment he wondered how long he could survive if he ever found himself trapped between them.
"You look like the muscle of the operation, not the brains," Jake said in as forceful and confident a voice as he could muster.
Jake hoped that his provocative statement might stir her to be more forthcoming. If she'd wanted to kill him, Jake figured, he would have been dead already.
Her eyes remained fixed on him, steely and sharp.
"As far as you're concerned," she croaked, grinning, "I'm the master and you're the slave."
Great, Jake thought, a sadist. But there had to be some business angle to all of this, he mused. It couldn't be just some random attack by a sick and perverted individual, or at least so he hoped. Then Jake remembered the two thugs in the van and the five gunmen who had surrounded him.
"Where are all your friends," Jake asked casually.
"What makes you think I have any friends?" the woman replied cooly.
"You're not very cooperative."
"Why should I be?" she barked.
"I agree that you have me at a clear disadvantage. So what are you worried about?"
"I'm not worried about anything," she growled. "If it were up to me, you'd already be chopped into little pieces."
"So you do work for someone," Jake exclaimed, his eyes sparkling for a moment. "Who is he, or should I say, who is she?"
The woman scowled and turned her head away for a moment. Jake noticed the gold studs glinting from her ears.
"Quit giving me trouble, little man, or you'll get more than you bargained for."
Now that he knew that this Buttercup woman was no free lancer, Jake saw little downside risk to continuing his probe for additional information. For the time being anyway, his life was in someone else's hands, but not hers.
"Do you work for one of the drug cartels?" he asked.
"Those losers," she sniffed. "You've got to be kidding."
"Who then?"
"Why so curious? If I were you, I'd be more concerned with staying alive."
"You don't have the guts to kill me," Jake blurted out. "You're not woman enough."
Finally he struck a nerve. Jake watched her massive chest heave in and out and her green eyes flash angrily. She quickly raised her arms about waist high and began rolling her fingers toward her body as though she somehow expected him to break free of his chains and come at her.
"Do you want a piece of me?" she shouted.
"I've taken down tougher women than you," Jake growled as fiercely as he could. "Of course, I can't put up much of a fight chained up like this. Or maybe that's the way you want it. Big talk, but when it comes to a real fight, you back down."
The woman gulped and winced.
"Just shut up," she yelled.
"Why should I?"
"Because I told you to."
"You don't give me orders."
"I said, shut up."
"What are you afraid of, some guy half your size beating you up? What kind of woman are you anyway?"
"I'm more woman than you've ever known."
"Prove it."
Buttercup took a quick step toward him, but then she seemed to catch herself. She smiled slyly.
"Just because you can handle Snowflake doesn't mean you can handle me."
"How do you know about Snowflake?" he asked.
"Everybody knows Snowflake."
Now we're getting somewhere, Jake thought. This Buttercup woman knew who Snowflake was. What else did she know?
"Snowflake could kick your fat butt with one hand tied behind her back."
"Right," the woman jeered. "That skinny little thing couldn't last two minutes with me."
Jake saw no reason why he shouldn't continue to egg her on. Maybe, if she got angry enough, she would make a mistake.
"I've seen Snowflake in action many times. She'd make mince meat in seconds out of some backwoods muscle bound thug like you."
The woman's green eyes flared angrily again.
"I'm not only big, but I'm quick too. Don't be fooled by my strength and size. Men are always fooled by my strength and muscle. It's my quickness that nobody can match."
"Quickness," Jake snorted. "Snowflake could run circles around you."
"I would squash her like a bug," the woman grunted, hammering her hands together.
"Prove it," Jake snapped.
"How?"
"If you can take me, you can take her."
The heavy pallor gradually lifted from the woman's face and was quickly replaced by a skeptical grin.
"A little punk like you could never take down the great Snowflake."
"I take her down all the time," Jake replied testily.
"That's a lie. Snowflake is a great fighter, not as great as I am, but still great."
"How do you know so much about Snowflake?" Jake asked.
The woman winced again.
"Quit asking so many questions."
"Have you ever met her?"
The woman shook her head.
"I can introduce you," Jake continued. "She's looking for some strong women like you to help her out."
Buttercup turned her head away for a moment.
"I already have a boss."
"Who's your boss?" Jake shot back.
"I can't say."
"Why not?"
"I just can't."
The woman whirled around and headed for the steps.
"You can't just leave me down here," Jake cried after her.
"Why not?" she asked, spinning toward him again.
"How am I supposed to go to the bathroom?"
"Do you have to go now?"
Jake nodded.
"Then go in your pants," she snarled.
"You're just scared," Jake snapped.
"Scared of what?"
"Scared of me," Jake said, raising his chin triumphantly. "You're scared that I'm going to beat the snot out of you. That's why you won't let me go."
She stuck out her chest at him. What a moron, Jake thought. Maybe if he could get her into a fight, he could outsmart her.
"I'm afraid of no one, man or woman."
"Prove it," Jake replied sharply.
Buttercup turned to go up the stairs, but then she hesitated.
"Can you really defeat Snowflake in a fair fight?" she asked softly.
"I do it all the time," Jake lied.
The woman walked over slowly and then yanked a key from her pants pocket. Quickly she unlocked the shackles binding his ankles and then tore off the chains from his wrists, before stepping back a few feet and motioning with her hands for him to approach her. Jake rubbed the soreness out of his wrists as he looked around at the bare concrete walls.
"This is kind of a small room to fight in," he said. "Can't we go someplace where we've got more space?"
"It doesn't matter where we fight," she said. "You won't last long anyway."
"I don't like fighting in here," Jake said, running his fingers over the cold concrete behind him. "It's too easy to bump your head. One bad fall, and I'd be out cold. That's no real test of fighting skills. We need a bigger room with pads and mats, so that we can really go at it."
"Wimp," she sneered.
"I just want to have a good fight."
Her chest rose up haughtily.
"Okay," she said. "Up the stairs. You go first."
Jake felt like a midget as he walked past her heaving bulk. But he knew that if he wanted to get out of that awful place, he would need to make his move quickly. Yet what awaited him at the top of the stairs? It might be a room full of heavily armed thugs.
Jake decided to bide his time. Maybe she was just some muscle head with a glass jaw. Perhaps, once he had a clearer sense of his surroundings, he could take her out fast and then make his escape before anyone else noticed.
Jake walked slowly up the steps, feeling his strength gradually return to his arms and legs. His headache was gone now, and his concentration was sharp and focused.
He pushed open the heavy oak door at the top of the stairs and peered into a vast gym filled with weight machines and barbells and bordered by a spacious wood paneled aerobics room off to the side. He felt the big woman behind him now, her heavy breath crashing into the back of his neck.
"Over there," she said, pointing to the aerobics room. "We can fight in there."
Jake again looked around the gym. No one else was there. It was just him and this beast of a woman. He noticed a door on the far side and a window beside it. Through the window he could see businessmen in suits staring into their cell phones. Across the street he recognized a clothing store where Snowflake liked to shop.
Jake knew where he was now. He was in the center of La Paz, right downtown in the middle of the main business district. Suddenly he felt the oppressive oxygen starved air and the heavy strain on his body from being nearly 14,000 feet above sea level. But that was no great obstacle for him now. If he could just get out the door, he would be home free.
There was a police station around the corner run by an agreeable fellow to whom he and Snowflake had paid many bribes over the years to keep their current whereabouts a secret from Interpol and other snoopy international agencies. He could go there and contact Snowflake. Snowflake would come and get him right away, and then he would be safe. With Snowflake at his side, Jake always felt safe, or at least as safe as he could under the circumstances.
The only thing standing in his way was this massive hulk of a woman. But was she really as tough as she looked? Jake decided to find out.
He whirled around and landed what he thought was a crushing blow to her mid section. But the woman didn't even flinch. He hit her again with his other fist. Again, she stood quietly grinning at him. He then landed a right cross against her jaw, and then a left, and then another right. The woman's head didn't even jerk backwards, not even by an inch. The only sign that she had even noticed his onslaught was the wry grin again creeping over her lips.
"Is that all you've got?" she asked calmly.
Jake stepped back and launched a side kick to her head, a frontal kick to her stomach, and then two quick snapping kicks to her kneecap. Again, she stood motionless before him, grinning. Angry now, Jake charged her, but as soon as his shoulders rammed into her chest he bounced right off her and landed on his rear end. It was as if he had tried to tackle a tree.
He rubbed his sore shoulder and then, more determined than ever to defeat her, he quickly jumped to his feet. He began to circle her, trying to remember the various debilitating pressure points on the human body that Snowflake had shown him. He recalled an especially tender spot along the neck and rushed to squeeze it between his fingers, but she slapped his hand away with a brush of her long powerful arm.
He charged her again, but this time she grabbed his shoulders and flipped him over her hips. He landed with a hard thud on one of the exercise mats strewn haphazardly over the floor and immediately began to see tiny stars flashing before his eyes. He again heard her voice, confident and strong.
"Had enough?"
"I'm just warming up," Jake said, staggering to his feet.
He adopted a classic boxing stance and began to hit her with everything he had, crosses, jabs, uppercuts, slaps, karate chops, palm thrusts, side kicks, back kicks, round house kicks. But they all just bounced off her. It was as if he wasn't even there. She hadn't even bothered to raise her arms to defend herself. It was as though he were trying to knock down a brick wall.
Finally, she grew tired of his puny efforts and picked him up by the neck and held him high in the air.
"And you claimed you could defeat Snowflake," she jeered.
"She could still whip your fat ass," Jake snarled back.
The last thing Jake remembered was sailing halfway across the room and landing on a set of dumbbells. When he woke up, he was again chained to the concrete wall in the basement, his head hurting worse than ever. Buttercup was standing in front of him smiling. She had a whip in one hand and a club in the other. Jake moaned and then wearily shook his head and closed his eyes.
Great, he thought, just great.
Chapter 5
Snowflake and her two helpers, Nancy and John, retraced their earlier route from La Paz to Copacabana, stopping at every village along the way and showing Jake's picture to everyone they ran into. But nobody recognized him. Nobody had any idea what might have happened to him either.
The concierge at the hotel along the shore in Copacabana where Jake and Snowflake had stayed remembered him checking out. Jake seemed happy and care free, he said. There was no sign of any trouble. The concierge also didn't recall any unusual incident involving Jake. Jake was just a guest, like many of their guests. He had a good time, and then he left.
Snowflake then checked at the local police station. There was no police report filed concerning Jake Stone or anyone matching his description. Snowflake next checked with all the bus lines, but most of their passengers paid cash for their tickets. None of the companies had any record of a North American Caucasian male by the name of Jake Stone.
Snowflake then decided that they should take one of the minibuses back to La Paz. Maybe they would stumble onto some clue as to what had happened to him. The minibuses were cheaper than the regular sized buses, and Jake tended to be a skinflint in such matters. The only person Jake ever spent any money on was Snowflake.
The mere thought of Jake's generosity toward her, which so cut against his basic miserly character, nearly brought a tear to Snowflake's eye. She didn't cry though. Snowflake seldom cried, and never in front of other people, and most especially not in front of her employees. John and Nancy were loyal and talented servants, but that was all they were. They had no right to peer into her soul. Nobody did, not even Jake, at least not yet.
The bus ride was uneventful. Snowflake had hoped that some gang of thugs would try to stop the van and rob them. Then she would have something to go on. After she and her two servants had disarmed and beaten the attackers, she could ask them some questions. Someone among them was sure to have heard about Jake and what had happened to him. And if they didn't tell her, she'd torture them. And if they still didn't talk, she'd kill them, brutally, making sure that their remaining colleagues witnessed every excruciating moment of it. Snowflake was no sadist, but she didn't shy away from the most spectacular acts of violence when they suited her purposes.
But unfortunately there was no attempted car jacking or robbery or mugging or murder or mayhem of any kind attempted on them, not even in the sprawling impoverished slums of El Alto. Everything was quiet and peaceful, disturbingly so. It was as if the thugs who had waylaid Jake knew that Snowflake would be coming for them and had made sure to stay well clear of her.
Cowards, Snowflake thought with disgust. No one could take her dear Jake away from her and get away with it. No one who dared to attack him would be allowed to live. That much was certain.
But could she intervene in time to save him? She had nothing to go on. She even questioned the cops in La Paz whom she and Jake had bought off. Still not a single clue as to his whereabouts emerged. It was as if Jake had disappeared from the face of the earth. But that wasn't possible, unless they had killed him and buried him deep under the dusty plains surrounding La Paz.
Snowflake knew that death came easily in the Altiplano of Bolivia. And death would likewise surely come to those who were responsible for Jake's disappearance.
Snowflake and her two companions had just returned to their home. Snowflake was sitting at the dining room table musing as to her next step. Nancy was sitting quietly beside her. John had excused himself to tend to the family garden in back. John especially loved watching the tomato plants grow. But this season they had mostly gone to stem. There were very few blossoms, and the blossoms that did appear only produced to misshapen green bulbs that quickly rotted on the vine.
It was a bad omen, John thought as he gently lifted a drooping plant that had slipped off the stake. John had gone to the garden because he knew the terrible expression on Snowflake's face and wanted no part of her. He left that to Nancy. His fiancée was braver than he was. Nancy could beat him up too. But that was only because Snowflake had taught her how to fight dirty. Women always fought dirty, he thought. It wasn't fair, but John had learned to live with it.
John didn't believe that Nancy would ever really hurt him, but his boss, Snowflake, was a different matter. Snowflake would hurt anybody. Of that he was sure. John had never seen such a ferocious woman. He pitied the poor slobs who had messed with her friend, Jake, and hoped that he wouldn't be around to see the slaughter. John had a weak stomach about such things. He preferred the quiet life. His other boss, Jake, did too. But Snowflake could never relax, not for long anyway.