Breathe

by Mike Brogan

  A white Chevy van.

  License ending in – 6 8 9!

  American Transit on the side.

  NASCAR sticker on the rear bumper.

  Donovan touched the van’s hood. Warm. Driven in the last thirty minutes or so. The driver was in the cabin.

  Jacob looked ready to bolt into the cabin any second.

  Donovan heard something. A soft hiss . . . a strange crackling sound.

  He looked in the window and saw orange-red reflections flickering in the darkness. Gray smoke seeped out under the front door.The cabin was on fire!

  Jacob saw the flames and his eyes went wild. He raced toward the cabin door.

  Donovan raced after him.

  Suddenly, giant red flames blew out the windows and engulfed the entire cabin. Fire curled up around the eaves and roof.

  But Jacob continued running toward the cabin. Donovan tried to stop him. If Nell was in there, both of them would be burned alive. Donovan grabbed his arm.

  “Stop!”

  “Nell’s in there!”

  Then it hit – Donovan and Jacob felt themselves flying backward in the burning air and fiery chunks of debris - as the cabin exploded.

  THIRTY FIVE

  Donovan spit dirt. Clumps of dirt. He lay face down on the ground, ears ringing, mind spinning, but arms and legs moving. Fifteen feet away, Jacob stumbled trying to stand up.

  But they were alive. The wall of thick oak trees absorbed most of the explosive blast from the cabin.

  Donovan spit more dirt and grass from his mouth and noticed his arm was bleeding, sliced by flying debris. His eyebrows felt hot. He touched them and realized they were burnt off.

  Jacob looked shaken, but okay, except for a cut on his cheek. They stood up, shook off debris, and stared at what was left of the cabin – piles of smoldering rubble. The explosion had snuffed out most of the fire, leaving black smoke curling up from the cherry-red embers.

  No one inside could have survived the blast.

  Panicked, Jacob limped into the ruins and started searching for his wife. Donovan followed him. Lindee sprinted up the hill and joined them.

  Step by step, they combed through the still smoking, charred rubble, kicking burnt logs aside, stumbling over chunks of blackened walls, terrified to look beneath large slabs of debris.

  Where was Nell? Where was the van driver?

  Donovan stepped over a smoldering log. A kitchen table had melted into a fat gray lump. The stench of burnt plastic stung his nostrils.

  He looked for some hint that Nell had been here, some hint of a laboratory, but saw neither. Nor did he see any hint of how her abductors would attack. The explosion had undoubtedly destroyed all evidence of it.

  On the other hand, no sign of a laboratory suggested they’d driven Nell to a lab. Maybe she was there now.

  They heard something. Turning, they watched a blackened hand flop out from beneath a fallen roof beam.

  They walked over and stared at the hand, afraid to lift the beam and see who lay beneath. Donovan leaned down and saw it was a man’s hand. The man’s thick blackened fingers were stuck to the charred pages of an Arab magazine. Donovan and Jacob kicked the red-hot roof beam aside and saw that the man’s face was badly burned and his left ear was missing.

  “That’s the man who grabbed Nell in Manhattan,” Lindee said, pointing to his missing ear.

  Nearby, Donovan saw a chunk of collapsed roof propped up by something big. Human-body big. He, Jacob and Lindee stepped slowly toward it, again fearing the worst. Jacob stared at the burnt slab. Lindee closed her eyes.

  Donovan reached down, lifted the chunk of roof to the side and saw a long sofa cushion beneath. Lindee leaned against Jacob in relief.

  They searched for several more minutes, but found no clue Nell had been in the cabin.

  “No hint of a laboratory . . .” Jacob said.

  “Probably drove her to it,” Donovan said.

  Jacob nodded, looking a bit more hopeful.

  Donovan saw something shiny. He hurried over, kicked some debris aside and picked up a silver buckle attached to a burnt leather strap.

  “That’s Nell’s purse strap . . .” Lindee whispered. “And look – there’s her purse.” She picked it up and shook off the ashes.

  Outside, two police sirens wound down.

  Donovan saw Drew Manning jump out with his rescue team in blue FBI windbreakers. Behind them was a dark blue CSI van, two New York State police vehicles, and the sheriff’s car.

  Manning ran inside. “We heard the explosion. Everyone okay?”

  “Everyone but him.” Donovan pointed at the body. Donovan said. “Let’s leave this cabin to your techs.” He handed Nell’s burnt purse to Manning who turned it over to an FBI tech team member.

  Donovan, Jacob, and the others stared out at the surrounding forest. Thunder rumbled overhead and a light mist started falling.

  Jacob turned and stared back at the thick stacks of cabin rubble. “She’s beneath all this . . .” His eyes welled up.

  “No. We would have found her by now,” Donovan said, hoping he was right.

  Donovan turned to Agent Manning. “Drew, have the choppers searching around this cabin area found anything?”

  “No. The choppers were just grounded.” He pointed at the fast-moving coal-black clouds. “Strong wind and storms coming.”

  THIRTY SIX

  Nell ran for her life.

  For real!

  She’d been running through the forest for nearly twenty minutes – chased by the two men who entered the cabin seconds after she finally unlocked the back door and raced into the woods.

  The men obviously found Aarif’s body, discovered her gone, saw her footprints outside, and ran after her.

  And were still running after her, easily tracking her footprints in the damp soil.

  Thunder rumbled as she ran around boulders and trees. Her flat shoes kept slipping in the slick grass and soil. She needed her Nikes. The men were maybe sixty seconds behind her.

  But gaining.

  Her heart pounded, but she couldn’t seem to pull away from them, or get enough air into her lungs. And she was tiring. A tree branch ripped her lower lip and she tasted blood in her mouth.

  Then - a muffled thwack!

  A silenced gun!

  Tree bark nicked her neck.

  She sprinted harder.

  Ahead, she saw a large outcrop of boulders that might shield her from gunfire for a few seconds. She ran around the boulders and saw another problem - the path ahead was long and straight - a one hundred yard shooting range. She had to get off the path fast.

  She yanked out a crumpled tissue, ran up and dropped it on the path to make them maybe think she’d continued on it. Then she sprinted to the left, jumped behind dense holly bushes and waited, burying her breathing into her shoulder.

  Seconds later, she watched the men run around the boulders, point to her tissue, mumble something, and continue running down the path.

  She waited until they were out of sight, took a deep breath, then took off running another direction. But after a minute or so, she realized her path was twisting her back toward their path. Would she run into them? Should she turn back now?

  Fifty yards later, some luck.

  A semi-paved road.

  She ran along the road’s shoulder, hoping for a car.

  No cars showed up.

  But the two men did - one hundred fifty yards behind her. She started to duck back into the forest as one man fired his gun, kicking up dirt just feet from her.

  She sprinted back across the road and disappeared into the thick forest, running downhill.

  The men raced after her.

  Lightning streaked across the sky. Light rain fell. The forest terrain sloped down and she gained speed. But so did the men, closing on her from the left.

  She ran around some trees and froze at the edge of an eight-footdeep drop-off. She looked down at large, jagged chunks of rain-slick slate, glistening black,
looking sharp as razor blades.

  She had no choice.

  She jumped, landed on her feet, fell forward, bruised her left palm on the slate, sprang up, and ran on.

  As she skirted another wall of boulders, she saw a sprawling blue lake at the bottom of the hill. The men shouted to each other, maybe planning to encircle her. She ran toward the lake looking for boaters, campers, fishermen.

  She saw no people. Only one boat. Docked a half mile away on the opposite shore.

  She looked behind her, couldn’t see the two men, but heard them gaining! Seconds from shooting at her again.

  It was only a matter of time before their bullets hit her - unless she did something totally unexpected.

  But what? Nothing came to mind.

  Then, glimpsing the lake, she had an idea. If it worked she might have a chance, if it didn’t . . . game over.

  She took a large stone and threw it down toward the lake. It missed. She grabbed a heavier rock and threw harder. It clacked off a stone and bounced into the water, making a loud splash.

  One man shouted, suggesting he’d heard the splash. Both men ran down toward the water.

  Now the hard part. She took a deep breath, turned around and started running back up the steep hill she’d just run down. Within seconds, she huffed like a marathoner. Her lungs burned, her legs turned to cement. But she refused to stop.

  Two minutes later, she slowed to a jog, sucking in air. She heard the men far below her now, searching for her alongside the lake – going away from her. They’d taken the bait. But for how long? She continued jogging back up the steep muddy hill. Her shoes kept slipping and dropping her to her knees.

  Moments later, she emerged onto the same road she’d crossed earlier.

  Still no cars. She slow-jogged away, regaining her breath.

  The men sounded like they were still down near the lake.

  Soon, they’d realize she’d set them up with the lake splash. They’d head back up the hill and emerge onto the road. She had to find a place to hide first – because the rain made her footprints as trackable as Day-Glo.

  Then she heard something.

  She turned and saw a miracle!

  An older Ford Taurus drove toward her. A silver-haired couple in front.

  She stood in the middle of the road and waved her arms.

  The Taurus stopped. She ran back to the passenger window.

  The elderly woman stared with shock at her drenched, muddy clothes and bloody face. “My goodness, dear! What happened?”

  “- two men are chasing me.”

  The frightened woman looked around. “Oh, good Lord! Hurry dear, get in!”

  She jumped in the back seat and the car raced off. She looked back and didn’t see the men.

  “Thank you,” Nell gasped.

  “You’re welcome, dear!” said the woman. “Where are the men?”

  “Down near the water. Do you have a cell phone I could use? It’s very important.”

  “Oh . . . gosh, we only have our house phone.”

  “Can you get me to a phone or the police fast. It’s extremely important.”

  The silver haired driver with bushy black eyebrows turned and smiled at her. “I’m afraid we can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “We promised Hasham we’d bring you back.”

  THIRTY SEVEN

  “Let’s check out back,” Donovan said, as he, Manning, Jacob, and Lindee trudged through charred, smoking rubble to the area behind the cabin.

  The explosion had flipped the white van on its side and left the undercarriage and tires burning. Fearing a gas tank explosion, Donovan backed everyone away from the van and signaled the sheriff and his deputies. The deputies hurried over and extinguished the undercarriage fire in seconds.

  Donovan searched for some hint that Nell had escaped the cabin, but saw none. He did see several man-sized shoeprints in the moist soil.

  “What shoes was Nell wearing?” he asked.

  “Black flats, slight heel,” Lindee said.

  “Size?”

  “Nine.”

  “Here’s something!” Lindee pointed.

  They hurried over to her.

  She picked up a necklace with a silver heart shaped charm.

  “That’s Nell’s!” Jacob said, opening it.

  Donovan saw a tiny picture of Nell, Jacob and Mia inside. Tears welled up in Jacob’s eyes. Donovan could only imagine the pain the man felt.

  “Look - her shoeprints!” Lindee shouted, pointing to a woman’s shoe prints.

  “They head into the forest,” Jacob said.

  “So do these!” Donovan said, pointing at two sets of large male prints. “And the space between these prints says the men were running . . . probably chasing her!”

  Manning turned to his FBI team, “Dragnet the forest surrounding this cabin.”

  “We’ll help,” the sheriff said, nodding to his deputies.

  Jacob stared at the men’s footprints. “The two men will catch her.”

  “Not if she had a good lead,” Donovan said. But then he noticed Nell’s prints and the men’s seemed equally fresh, suggesting they were made about the same time, suggesting Nell might not have a good lead, suggesting the men might have caught her.

  Lighting exploded, bleaching the black sky white, and he realized that rain might wipe out any hope of tracking her footprints.

  “Agent Manning!” an FBI agent shouted from the cabin. “Over here!”

  Donovan feared the worst.

  Jacob leading, everyone hurried over to the agent near a huge pile of cabin rubble.

  Donovan was relieved to see no body. But was shocked to see a twelve-by-twelve foot section of floor that had somehow sunk below ground. He heard a motor running.

  “What the hell’s this?” Donovan asked.

  “An industrial-size elevator platform for lowering heavy equipment below ground,” Manning said. “Special Agent O’Keefe hotwired its touch pad somehow and got the elevator working. He’s down there.”

  Moments later, Agent Jim O’Keefe’s bushy red hair dusted with ashes, arose slowly from the elevator shaft like a ghost ascending from Dante’s Inferno.

  “What’s down there, Jim?” Manning asked.

  “Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory. In damned good shape despite the explosion.”

  “Bodies?”

  “No . . .”

  “What’s the lab make?”

  “The equipment suggests chemical and biological agents.”

  “Dogs too?” Manning asked as they all heard barking.

  “Yeah. Noah’s Ark’s down there too,” O’Keefe said. “Dogs, cats, monkeys. Get the humane society down here fast.”

  “Before that,” Manning said, “get our FBI Techs down there to see what the hell the lab was making.”

  “And test the animals,” Donovan said. “Find out what he’s been testing on them.”

  THIRTY EIGHT

  EAST BALTIMORE

  Sexy Lexy slithered down her dance pole like a python.

  What a BOD! Mason Schlumpf thought, sipping his dirty martini. Marvelous curves!

  This was Lexy’s first week in Baltimore’s “classy” new topless club - StarBUTTS.

  Lexy smiled at him and he smiled back. Then she laughed her cute little girl laugh. Schlumpf’s wife, Inez, hadn’t laughed since President Ford fell down the airplane steps. Inez was like Antarctica – ice at the bottom . . . Lexy’s bottom was hot as a Corvette tailpipe.

  StarBUTTS had only the best-looking girls, except for Meatflap, a three hundred pounder who snapped her pole last week, unleashing a splinter that lodged in the bartender’s ass.

  Schlumpf met Lexy a year ago after the Army dismissed him from Aberdeen Proving Ground. They claimed he’d stolen sensitive computer equipment, but never proved it. Nor could they unless they visited North Korea.

  Then, a few weeks after his dismissal, he met the guy sitting across the table from him now. John Baker, whose real name he later
learned was Wassif Shadid.

  Shadid had asked him for some basic information about the military’s work at Aberdeen and Fort Detrick. Simple stuff. Basic product information, like which biological and chemical agents were worked on. Background info, much already online.

  And the information not online, Schlumpf could provide for a fee. He’d worked at both Fort Detrick and Aberdeen for twenty-seven years.

  Shadid also wanted to know the names of certain lab scientists so “our company can possibly offer one a prestigious directorship in our renowned medical-pharmaceutical division in Dundee, Scotland.”

  Wassif Shadid then asked him, “So what is your fee for this information?”

  “You’re asking for very valuable information,” Schlumpf had said, knowing Shadid couldn’t obtain much of the data anywhere else. So he said . . . “Five hundred thousand dollars. Half up front. Half after I give you the names of scientists.”

  Shadid didn’t blink. “Deal.”

  Music to a jobless man’s ears.

  So a week later, Shadid gave him $250,000, and Schlumpf handed Shadid important product information. A few weeks later, Schlumpf gave him the names of five scientists and a description of what each worked on. And tonight Shadid would hand him the final $250,000. The money had made Schlumpf’s life much more pleasurable, like Sexy Lexy.

  Shadid wore Ray-Ban sunglasses in the dark club and despite the air conditioning, he sweated like a steam pipe.

  “Mr. Schlumpf, why must we meet in this cesspool?”

  Schlumpf knew Shadid detested meeting in the strip club almost as much as Schlumpf enjoyed making the sanctimonious Muslim bastard reeking with lemony cologne, meet here.

  “Because, Shadid, it’s safe here. My former colleagues and your associates would never find us in a seedy place like this.”

  But also, Schlumpf thought, because it’s fun to see you squirm as you try not to look at the naked girls.

  “These harlots will burn in hell!”

  “If Allah wishes,” Schlumpf said.

  Shadid bolted upright in his chair. “You blaspheme! You must never mention His name here!”

  “Whoops! My bad, Shadid.”

  Shadid attacked his Diet Coke. Schlumpf sipped his martini.