Chapter Three of A Reporters Nightmare

     The man that held Aragon’s notepad cleared his throat. “What’re we gonna do with him?”

     “He might have heard something even though we didn’t say anything; I don’t want anybody runnin’ to the police.”

     Aragon was interested about that; whatever these men were doing they didn’t want the police to know about it.

     The men tied Aragon’s hands behind his back and shoved him in the pickup. He saw one of the men start to push a rag to him. He held his breath as the rag covered his mouth and nose; he figured that they were trying to knock him out with chloroform. Aragon let his eyelids flutter and then he slumped over.

     The men were satisfied and drew the rag back. Smoky grunted. “Search him for his keys.”

     Aragon kept his breathing soft and even as the men checked each of his pockets before finally finding his keys. The engine rumbled to life and the pickup lurched as Smoky put it in gear.

     The men didn’t speak for several minutes before finally Smoky slapped his hand on the wheel. “I did not think this through, now we have a civilian mixed up in this.”

     “We could frame him.” One of the men offered.

     “Maybe, but the boss said that if civilians overheard anything we were to get rid of them in what would look like an accident.”

     “I don’t wanna kill anybody, even if boss says so.” One of the men whined.

     There was silence. “Okay.” Said Smoky. “We’ll keep him for as long as possible but if he causes any trouble we’ll have to kill him.”

     Aragon fought back a flinch as one of the men prodded him. “He don’t seem very strong, in mind or body.”

     “That won’t be a problem.” Smoky said evilly. “Weak or strong, we’ll have him unload all the crates, then we won’t have to do any work.”

     Aragon groaned inwardly, he could hold his own in a fight, but crates filled with diamonds could be heavy and who knew how many there were.

     “The crates will be in tomorrow right?”

     “Around the afternoon,” Smoky said while gunning the engine. Aragon could feel them speeding up. “The truck is going to look like a delivery for chips or something; the driver will get out open the back up and get back in the front.”

     “Sounds easy.” Both of the other men said.

     The pickup began to slow and Aragon heard sirens. “Just what we need.” Smoky ground out. “Get him hidden.”