by Todd Borg
“Basically, you get up on a mountain or a dropoff where there’s a steady wind coming up from below. Landforms push wind up. The rising air lifts us off the ground. There’s different techniques depending on wind direction and speed. But the basic thing is to let the wind fill your glider. It’s the wind that makes it hold its shape. Think of a paraglider as a wing made of cloth tubes. The wind blows into those tubes. When the tubes are filled, air pressure makes the glider rise up above your head. You take a few running steps downhill or off a cliff, and then you step off into the air.”
“Next question,” I said. “Didn’t you say that you’re an instructor, and you use a tandem glider to carry a passenger?”
“Why didn’t I think of that?! You could come with me! I’ve used a tandem to give lessons many times.” Vince stared with wide eyes, not seeing me or Brie but an image in his head.
“Are tandems dark-colored enough to be invisible at night?”
Vince nodded. “Lots of gliders are bright. But the tandem that I use belongs to a buddy in Carson City. He lets me rent it on a per-day basis. It’s a deep purple. On a night with no moon, and if there aren’t many lights shining up at the sky, it would be invisible. But those conditions would also mean I’d risk killing both of us. Can we find a way to spy on this place from the next ridge over or something? So we can see if there’s any lights on at night?”
“Sure. We could hike up at night. But if we wanted to not waste time and go up tonight, then we won’t know about lights at night.”
Vince paused. “There’s a lot of problems with this idea.”
“Like what?”
“When you do a wilderness trip, you do exhaustive planning.We’re talking about paragliding into a place with armed men, but we have no time to prepare. If we go tonight, how would we do it? What is our plan? What happens if we go in and before we even land, they start firing machine guns at us? And if I am able to land between the trees, how do we get your friend inside the fence? What is the best way to get into the house and find my boy? There’s a thousand questions. I think it would be better to sneak up through the woods.”
“All good points. But we have to make a compromise. Coming by land, we’ll set off alarms. And if they were to anticipate someone approaching, it would be by land. But coming from the sky would mean we’d have surprise and silence on our side. Exhaustive planning is great. But no mission, regardless of how thorough the preparation, goes off without some glitches. Usually, there are many glitches. So we need to balance our desire for preparation with the current risk to your son. The longer we wait to go in, the longer he’s at risk.”
Vince looked horrified. “Are you suggesting they might think there isn’t enough reason to keep holding him? Even if we don’t challenge them, they could still kill him?”
“Don’t focus on that. But these guys are probably unpredictable.” I was thinking of the way the man spun his knife to impress a kid. It was a clear demonstration that the man was a mental infant. “We need to prepare for all the possibilities that are obvious. But our preparations could never be exhaustive. And tackling these guys sooner is better, I think.”
Vince swallowed. “I understand. They might have already killed him.”
I saw Brie flinch as he said it.
“As far as keeping a hold on me, all they need is for me to believe he’s still alive. That isn’t the same as him actually being alive, right?”
“True. But try not to despair. He’s likely to still be alive for the simple reason that he is probably still resisting their attempts to make him give up the password. I heard him talk to them. One man cut his hand and Jon helped bandage it. Just by his words, I could tell that he’s smart enough to know how to play dumb. Even if he knows the password, I think he’ll act as if he is still trying to figure it out. Also, keeping Jon alive gives the kidnappers options. He’s like a chess piece to them. They can use him for strategic advantage in many ways. But most of those ways evaporate if he isn’t alive.”
Vince nodded.
“What are the other problems you’re thinking about?” I asked.
“We have no time to practice. From what you said, it doesn’t sound like you’ve ever even seen a paraglider up close. How will you prepare? Leaping a tandem rig off a mountain at night is going to be hard. Doing it with someone who’s never flown is asking for trouble.”
“I’m competent. You’ll only need to give me a thorough explanation of the process, and I’ll be fine.” It was a presumptuous statement regarding how I would perform, but accurate regarding how I approach such tasks. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it, regardless of whether my stomach is doing somersaults of fear.”
“Okay, but we haven’t gotten an okay from your friend.”
“Diamond,” I said.
“Right.” When will you call him?”
“If you’re okay with this, I’ll call him now.”
Vince seemed to study my face. He looked at Brie.
She nodded.
“Okay,” Vince said. “I’m ready to go.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I nodded, pulled out my phone, and called Diamond.
He answered on the second ring.
“Are you on duty?”
“Sí. Morning shift. Off at two p.m.”
“I’m hoping you can help me with a problem,” I said. “Can you talk now?”
“As long as the man on the highway in front of me keeps it below fifty.”
I looked at Vince as I spoke to Diamond. “I think I told you in general terms about a man with a serious problem. You figured out that it must involve a kidnapping,” I said.
“I remember,” Diamond said.
“The man’s name is Vince Cooper. He’s with me now. I’m going to put the phone on speaker, because he’s why I’m calling and he should hear what we say. Vince’s girlfriend Brie is also here.”
“Okay,” Diamond said.
I pressed the speaker button and set the phone on Vince’s kitchen table.
“Hi, Diamond. This is Vince.”
“Hola, Vince and Brie,” Diamond said.
I said, “Vince is a paragliding instructor and a wilderness guide. His son’s name is Jon. And you know about Yardley LaMotte?”
“Yardley LaMotte is the Tahoe Robotics guy who went missing,” Diamond said.
“Right. Yesterday, I found out that Yardley LaMotte owns a property in Tahoe that no one seems to know about, a property that was built by Isaiah Hellman, the guy who built the Hellman Mansion. Spot and I hiked up to this little-known property late yesterday and saw Vince’s son Jon being held captive there by three men. I believe they are the same men who had Vince take them up Job’s Sister. Despite Vince doing as they demanded, they haven’t released Jon. My thought is that the kidnappers stole software from Yardley, but they can’t get past the software security. I’m guessing that they learned that Yardley taught a computer class at Jon’s school. Yardley had told people he met a very bright student there. Yardley’s work colleague said that Yardley liked to dangle valuable information in front of the kids to see if any of them would ever catch on. And Vince’s kid did. It’s possible that the kidnappers haven’t let Jon go because they think he can tell them the password to that software.”
“And you want my help in what way?” Diamond asked.
“I’d like you to help Vince and me plan an assault on the house where they’re holding the boy prisoner. It could get us all killed, including the kidnapped boy. But we might also save the boy and apprehend the kidnappers. I told Vince that experts all agree that kidnappings are best resolved in the traditional way, calling the sheriff and letting them and the FBI orchestrate the troops. But the kidnappers told both Vince and me that if he tells the police, they will kill his boy. He believes them. I believe it’s possible, too. Maybe even likely. These guys seem like soldier wannabes who are missing common sense or judgement. At the least, a SWAT assault would place the boy at greater risk in the near term.”
/> “These are the Brödraskapet gangbangers you talked about?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Crazies who play with their knives.”
“What could we do that would be a better solution than a SWAT team?” Diamond asked.
“We’d be fewer men and thus quieter. We’d be less easy to detect by either electronic or human monitoring. We’d have Spot, whose value is usually significant even if not obvious from the start. If we can get to the kid, Vince would be able to calm and reassure his son and help him get out of the house. Whereas a SWAT team entering a house at night is likely to terrify the boy.”
“How do you envision us going in?” Diamond asked.
“The place is surrounded by a fence topped with barbed wire and at least one alarm system. I’m thinking that you and Spot would hike up the road. Then you’d wait in the forest while Vince and I drop over the fence and into the yard by paraglider.”
There was silence on the phone.
Eventually Diamond spoke. “Do you know how to fly a paraglider?”
“No. Vince is an instructor. He takes people up on a tandem glider. I would ride with him. The beauty of a paraglider is that it’s silent. The soldiers at the house have multiple weapons and are prepared in case of an assault. But they’d never expect it to drop out of the sky. And even if the thought occurred to them, they’d assume any air attack would come by helicopter and be preceded by lots of noise.”
More silence.
Diamond said, “Vince, does this crazy idea seem reasonable to you?”
“Yeah,” Vince said. “I’ve taken a lot of beginners up on their first ride. It’s really just a matter of sitting in the seat and doing what I say and staying calm.”
“You think you can do this, Owen?”
“The life of a child is at stake.”
“What is it that you’d expect me to do after you drop in on this house?” Diamond said.
“First, Vince will let Spot and you in the gate, which may be as easy as finding and pushing a button or as difficult as unbolting and disconnecting the motorized arm that pulls the gate open. Or maybe he simply helps you and Spot climb over.”
“And then…” Diamond said.
“And then we three and Spot figure out a way to enter the house and free the boy.”
“You have a plan for that?”
“Not yet. I’ve got a few ideas that I haven’t thought through. This place is called Stone Lodge. From what I read about it, this place has a secret entrance under one of the windows. It can be opened without a key. The men may not know about it, in which case it might not be barricaded. But whether we can sneak in or have to break a window, we could go in with bear spray canisters and use those to subdue the men.”
“Pepper spray,” Diamond said. “Poor man’s mace.”
“Yeah. Maybe you have better ideas.”
“Maybe not,” Diamond said. “There’s a guy in Gardnerville who owes me a favor. He’s in the business of buying surplus stuff cheap and reselling it. I caught him selling something he shouldn’t have. In return for his testimony in a big case, we didn’t fuss about his contraband and merely confiscated it. It included a stack of bear spray canisters. I’ll see if I can pick up three of them after my shift.”
“Great.”
Diamond asked, “When would we do this mission?”
“We’d go in tonight.”
“Will there be a moon?”
“There’s a first quarter moon at sunset. But we’d wait until after the moon has set. That would be about three a.m. The darkness will give us cover.”
There was more silence on the line.
“You think our objective is too ambitious?” I said.
“I don’t know,” Diamond said. “You’re competent in most ways.”
Brie and Vince both frowned.
“In what ways aren’t I competent?” I asked.
“That time you cooked enchiladas at my house, your ratio of cheese to chicken was off a little bit. And one time when you poured me a beer, the head built up and foamed down the outside of the glass. I got it on my hand and I had to wipe it off on my jeans.”
“The world is overrun with seriously flawed individuals,” I said.
Now Vince and Brie looked confused.
I spoke to the side. “He’s making a joke.”
They didn’t look reassured.
“If the house doesn’t have lights on, we’d be in complete darkness,” Diamond said.
“And even if there’s an outdoor light,” I said, “that would still probably be the best time to go in because the men would be at their groggiest.”
There was silence on the phone.
“You’re thinking about riding a parachute into a fenced mountain compound protected by armed men, and doing it in complete darkness,” Diamond said, “And you’ve never flown a parachute before.”
“A paraglider. It’s very different than a parachute.”
“But still made of flimsy cloth and held in place with strings, right? Able to collapse and allow people to fall to their deaths.”
“Maybe we survive and save the boy. You could be part of this noble rescue.”
“Entreaties to my soft emotional interior don’t usually work,” Diamond said. “Where is this house?”
“On a high, isolated ridgetop west of Tahoe City.” As I said it, I saw Vince get more attentive. It was the first he’d heard about the location where his kid was held captive.
“Placer County,” Diamond said, establishing jurisdiction. “Are you going to tell Sergeant Santiago your plans?”
My turn to pause. “I would love to but I just discovered the boy’s location, and there isn’t time. We have to, you know, rush in. You know how it is, making an emergency no-knock entry to save a life, no time to get a warrant or find the help of sheriff’s officers.”
Diamond said, “And you happened to bump into me in the process, and I joined the mission, and then you bumped into Vince Cooper, and he happened to have a tandem parachute. So he flew with you to the house, and there never was even five minutes to call the cops.”
“Right. But it’s a paraglider. Parachutes can’t fly. They can only drop. Glide a little bit forward as they do so, maybe. But still, they just drop.”
“So how do paragliders fly, and how do you get them into the air?”
“Vince, you want to explain that?” I said.
“Yeah. Basically, you go up on a mountain where there’s a breeze blowing upslope. You jog down into the breeze, and the paraglider takes off. It slowly glides down into the air. If the air mass is rising fast enough, you rise with it, like a soaring eagle, riding the updraft high up into the sky.”
“Got it,” Diamond said.
“It’s pretty simple,” I said.
“I’m so reassured,” Diamond said. “Where and when do we meet?”
“You said you’re off at two. Vince has to drive down to Carson City to borrow the glider. How ’bout we all meet to discuss strategy at my office at three?”
“I’ll get my cape and see you then,” Diamond said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I drove to the South Shore to stop at my office and check messages. I saw Diamond’s candy-apple-green Karmann Ghia outside the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office in Stateline. I pulled in to see if he was in or out on patrol. I found him standing outside the entrance, holding a map, and talking to a deputy. As usual, his dress browns were pressed to perfection, shoes polished to a high sheen. He looked up at me.
“Hey, sergeant. I saw the Green Flame. Thought I’d say hi.” Diamond would know otherwise, but it made things seem benign in front of his deputy.
“Hi,” he said. He turned away from me, said a few more words to the deputy, then pointed to the map.
The deputy nodded, took the map, and folded it up as he walked away.
Diamond walked over to me. “We’re meeting later. What’s up now?”
“I was thinking about the Brödraskapet gang, and I wondered if there�
�s anything else you’ve thought of that I should be prepared for.”
“Good to be worried,” he said as he walked past the Green Flame. He pinched the sharp crease on one of his uniform pant legs, hitched it up, and sat at an angle on a section of split rail fence that defined the edge of the parking lot.
He said, “After we talked about the Brödraskapet, I looked up some Swedish stuff. Learned about the Svenska language, too. Good to know next time I’m in Stockholm.”
“You’ve been to Stockholm?”
“Never. But Stockholm looks pretty. Kind of place where I could meet a woman named Inge on the shores of Lake Mälaren. Change my life.”
“Inge?” I said.
“Name comes from Ingun, a Goth goddess.”
“Which doesn’t tell me how tough these Brödraskapet dudes are. These guys who have Vince’s kid are scary. Hard bodies. Tough attitude. Like UFC fighters. But is it mostly show? Or do we really need to fear them?”
“Well, I don’t know much,” Diamond said. “Swedes have always shown great determination. You’ve probably heard of how the Goths sacked Rome.”
“Probably,” I said.
“Most historians trace the Goths back to what is now Sweden. Their culture goes back a thousand years before Christ. Then, around the first century AD, the Goths decided to reach out. So they sailed across the Baltic Sea to what is now Poland and from there spread across Europe. A bunch of them became Vikings, went on raids all over the Baltic and North Atlantic, stole women, and took them back home. There were more Swedish Vikings than Norwegian. Lots of different Goth groups emerged. And physically, they have always been an imposing people. Big and tall and pale. Like you, but more muscles for paddling their long boats. There were Goth invasions all throughout Europe. Tough, muscular farmers and boatsmen and warriors.”
“Isn’t it a reach to assume they were tough and muscular?” I asked.
Diamond shook his head. “Around the time the Goths took Rome in four hundred AD, there was a Greek historian named Eunapius who described the Goths as too big and too heavy but pinched in at the waists like wasps. Sounded like he was describing superheroes.”