by T. J. Jones
The idea that she could be involved had flickered through my head briefly. She had done some unexpected things in her seventeen years, but the wild child that I knew was more sweet than saccharin, honest about what she felt, and committed to having a normal life with the people who truly loved her, people like myself and my partner. I had to go with my gut, and I trusted Jasmine. But she had been at the mercy of her captors long enough to have formed a bond of sorts, Stockholm syndrome, when the captive becomes so dependent on their captor that they lose their perspective.
From the first note, it had seemed like the two kidnappers might be at odds about Jasmine. The author of the letter had referred to his partner enjoying her company. That could mean the obvious, and if the writer's intent was to shake us up, he had succeeded; but it could also be taken in the literal sense. Maybe the second kidnapper actually liked Jasmine, or maybe she had wormed her way into his heart as she had mine. And maybe I was grasping at straws, convincing myself that the second kidnapper wouldn't kill Jasmine, even if his partner told him to. I ran my thoughts past Maggie.
"I know Jasmine is brave and all that, but did you get the same impression from that video that I did?"
"Like she was angry and bored, not scared? Yeah, but I didn't want to say anything to Maryanne. Maybe she managed to charm the second kidnapper, hoping for a chance to make a getaway. But the letters sounded serious, they still might kill her."
"I think we have to try to stop the guy that's picking up the money. He could go back and put a bullet in his partner and Jasmine and go on his merry way."
"What if he puts up a fight? You kill him, and we have no clue where Jasmine is. Maybe then the other guy flips out and kills Jasmine?"
"I just want it done with." I admitted.
"Me too, but maybe second guessing these crazy kidnappers isn't a good idea."
"I'm going to run all the possibilities past Maryanne."
"I think she's being overly cautious, but she just got her granddaughter back from the drugs and a crazy biker, she doesn't want to lose her this way."
"Who is Jasmine." Gabriela asked in her fledgling English.
"Someone you are going love." Angela said walking into the room. "Can you translate for me Maggie?"
Gabriela smiled and spoke slowly again. "I know love."
That got to me.
After breakfast I went downtown and picked up the equipment Susan had lined up. The night goggles were top of the line, military issue that would magnify even starlight enough to see what we needed. The cell jammer was bigger than I expected, mostly because of the battery pack.
"We have a more powerful unit, but it has to have one ten power. That baby can shut down a square mile, but it takes an act of congress to use it." A uniformed officer spun the instrument around and gave me a quick lesson. "We don't use this very often either because there are all kinds of privacy issues and FCC regulations."
"Susan Foster must have a lot of pull for you to let me use this."
"Who? Never heard that name before." He gave me an exaggerated wink, had me sign a form, and I was on my way. I resisted the urge to turn the device on when I saw the person in front of me talking on his phone and weaving all over the rode. It would have been fun, but I needed to save the battery.
"Explain to me how all this is going to go." Maryanne Thatcher sat in her plush living room nursing a bottle of water and looking at each of us in turn. "We have a limited number of bodies available but I really don't want to bring anyone else into this. Luis, thank you for agreeing to make the delivery."
"Anything I can do for Jasmine, Senora." He nodded.
"Camille offered to follow them with our car if that becomes necessary."
"That would be too dangerous, Tommy, but thank you. I would like you here with me if that's alright, should any legal questions come up. I can't imagine what those would be since this whole thing is outside the law, but still. Slater, you and Maggie have a plan figured out?"
"Maggie and I will be overhead with the night scope, I'll fly and she'll keep watch. Luis will follow the instructions. He has a shotgun just in case he needs to defend himself. He'll make the drop, then go back to the end of this road, wherever that is. I'm guessing the GPS coordinates they give us must be near a main road, so he can hide his vehicle and wait there. Having him follow the kidnapper would be too risky, he might get seen and they might do something stupid."
"Like kill her." The older woman said grimly.
"Yeah. Maggie and I will try to follow them back to wherever they're keeping her, but if they get into traffic or go into the city, we won't be able to keep track of them. We talked about a tracking device, but there again, we don't want to have them find it and do something crazy."
"So we're back to waiting? Give them the first half, and hope they deliver her the next time?"
"We could try to stop them, or him, because I'm sure one of them will stay back to watch Jasmine, but a shootout is going to be on the news. Then Jasmine's really in danger."
"So, we're stuck? We just do what they say?"
"The police would do this differently Maryanne, but we don't have their resources and the chances are if they were involved, Jasmine might already be dead. We just have to play it by ear and if things change, we have to adapt. Maybe they'll do something we can take advantage of."
"If you have a chance to save my granddaughter Slater, you do what you think is right."
"Kind of what I wanted to hear." I said. "Spur of the moment, we might catch a break."
"Any new information concerning the man we talked about?" I knew she meant Dinar.
"No, nothing from my end. Did you make the calls?"
"Nobody wanted to hear what I had to say. Money and oil, like you said. Making money is usually more important to people than doing the right thing. But my business is going elsewhere, and it's not a small account. I'll keep trying to apply pressure." Tommy looked between us, but held his tongue.
"Nothing to do now but wait for them to put the ad up." Maggie stated.
The ad must have been late, but thanks to the instantaneous delivery of the internet we had our instructions by early afternoon. They didn't offer a lot more information, just an address west of Jacksonville and another admonition to not involve the police. A quick look at a Google map confirmed our guess. The address was a church ten miles north of Interstate 10, just off the main road heading up to the Georgia state line. It was situated on the end of a dirt road that wound its way west, in and out of a state forest and petered out somewhere in the middle. It was as desolate a spot as they were likely to find in north Florida, and one that would provide plenty of cover and places to hide from observation, both from the ground and from the air.
"Maggie and I will go up there in the Piper and look it over while it's still light."
"Would it be possible to trap them somehow?"
"We know there are two of them. The person that is left behind may be expecting a call. We could probably stop the one that picks up the money and jam his phone, but there again, the person who has Jasmine might be waiting to hear and kill her if he doesn't. Common sense should tell them that if they don't have a live hostage, they aren't going to get any money. But if they had any sense, they wouldn't be kidnappers."
"Should I drive out there?" Luis asked.
"They might be watching the road. We'll make one pass, plenty high up so we don't draw attention to ourselves. I just want some idea of what we're getting into. Hard to tell from Google, but that road doesn't look like much."
"Midnight is a long time from now." Maryanne said glumly. "Too soon, but not soon enough."
"Not much of a road." Maggie had the binoculars pointed down into the tall pines of the state forest a mile below us. "Do we dare get closer?"
"There's a possibility that whoever this is would recognize my plane, don't you think?"
"Can't imagine anyone doing such a thing for a few million dollars, or that it's someone we know. I'm starting to thin
k it's someone out to hurt Maryanne. They told her to sell some oil wells and called her a bitch. It could be a competitor."
"We're too close to chase down any more leads, we just have to hope we can follow them back to where they have her."
"I'm with Maryanne, I want it to be over, but I'm scared of what's going to happen. The road looks like more of a trail, and there are a lot of swamps. Not many houses."
"When we get back, we'll have to look up the owner's names, see if any of them rings a bell with Maryanne."
"You're pretty good at this PI thing, Slater."
"Thanks, Partner. We're going to need to be good and lucky to get Jasmine back."
It was worth a try, but none of the few landowners along that road were familiar to any of us.
"How screwed are we if we get caught flying without running lights. I just got my license, and they'll take it away, won't they?" Maggie asked as we lifted off shortly after eleven.
"I'm certified for night flying, but you're right, we'd be screwed. Right now, all I care about is being able to see them, but them not seeing us."
"Kind of creepy, thinking that we can't be seen by other pilots."
"That's your job, to watch for other planes. Most people aren't dumb enough to fly over an area like that at night. If we had to put down, it would be the highway, and that would definitely get us in trouble." We flew west for several minutes, then I reached out and switched the cockpit lights off.
"I haven't been up at night in a single engine very often. Are you okay without any instrument lighting?"
"I can fly this old Piper by the seat of my pants, no problem." I assured her. "I can see the horizon and feel everything else. Plenty of room up here Maggie, safer than being on those roads down there with all those crazy drivers whizzing by."
"I know, I'm just not used to how pitch black it is in here."
"Darker it is in here, the better I can see outside."
"It's fine, I trust you not to kill us both."
"Check out the night goggles. They should be ready to go, just hit the button."
She looked down at the traffic far below us. "Wow, they compensate when you look at something bright. I'm curious just how much I'll be able to see when we get out where it's really dark."
"Won't be long. I'm going to take us in at about four thousand feet, half throttle with the flaps dropped some, slow and quiet. Luis will deliver the money right at midnight, and then we just circle and wait."
At five minutes before midnight Luis called me.
"He just went by the church." I told Maggie after I ended the call. "He said there's a parking area in the back, so he's going to park there and wait after he makes the drop, see if he can maybe get a picture of the car or the plate when they come back out. That looks like him."
Dark as it was, I could still make out the ribbon of lighter colored road against the dark woods surrounding it. Far to the south I could see the lights of the Interstate and a few cars trickling by on the trunk highway, disappearing to the north. I put the Piper in a slow turn and circled as we watched the headlights of Luis's truck make its lonely way the three miles to the drop point. There was no sign of another car, at least not yet.
We hung there in the sky for another ten minutes before anything happened. A hundred yards from where Luis had parked, the lights of a vehicle flashed suddenly, one, two three. Three quick flashes, then darkness.
"Wow, why didn't I see him?" Maggie said, shifting the scope.
"He was parked back in the woods. Hard to believe he could see the road with his lights off."
"It looks pretty bright through these glasses. He's just sitting there, waiting for Luis to leave."
"Any guess about the car?"
"Kind of big, and looks older. A Caddy I think, but I don't recognize it."
Luis must have dropped the duffel bags that held Jasmine's ransom. I could see the headlights moving back, then flash in a quick circle as he turned around and drove back in the direction of the church.
"Pretty cocky thinking we wouldn't have somebody on the end of the rode to follow him." Maggie commented. "I see movement, the road is actually a lot lighter than the trees, he drove right up to the bags so he must be able to see a little bit. I wonder if he suspects we're up here, and that's why he's keeping his lights off. I can't see, but I don't think he even got out of the car. Back to our first theory, maybe it is someone we know."
"Luis is in position, but he's not going to follow him unless he gets a call. He'll have to turn his light on when he hits the main highway and then we can stay on him."
"If he goes to the highway. He's turning around and going the other way, still no lights."
"Dammit." I hit the throttle and turned the Piper sharply west.
"Where's he going? I thought this road ends in the middle of nowhere."
"Good place to disappear. I'm guessing he's ditching his partner and making a run for it. He's pulling a D.B. Cooper."
"D.B. Cooper?"
"Before we were born, but I understand the concept. He plans to just disappear into the woods with all that money. Maybe the road goes all the way through or maybe he's going to ditch the car and walk, but I'm betting his partner isn't in the direction he's going. He's taking the five million and he's going to leave a very unhappy partner behind. Unhappy kidnappers have been known to kill their victims."
"What are we going to do?"
"Plan B, stop him any way we can."
"What are you going to do Slater?"
She already knew, I just confirmed my insanity. "There's a sharp turn a few miles ahead, I'm going to put the Piper down past it and block the road. It's got to be fast and you're going to have to use the scope to look for powerlines because I'm not going to turn on the landing lights."
I still didn't see headlights and I was hoping he wouldn't turn them on. Dark as it was, he wouldn't be going very fast and we could get ahead of him. It would be a dicey landing and we would still have to get him stopped.
"You okay with this Maggie? We have to stop this guy, but if we clip a tree it could be rough."
"I'll watch for overhanging limbs and powerlines, you get us on the ground."
"Soon as we're down, you turn on the cell blocker, then we get out as fast as we can. Call Luis and tell him to head this way, we'll trap this asshole."
I put the Piper in a dive to get as much speed as possible, taking a wild guess at where the sharp corner I remembered was in front of us. We came over the top of the road suddenly, a diagonal gray hashmark cut against the darkness of the Pines trees, and I realized that I had overshot the corner by half a mile. I laid the Piper on its side, dropping into the small opening that a swamp afforded, and came down fast. Beside me, Maggie spit out an expletive and scrambled for the night scope and phone that had escaped her grasp.
I could just make out the trees on either side, vague dark shapes that rushed by us, looming ever closer as we neared the ground. I'm not sure if we touched a limb or if there were telephone poles, but I felt a bump as the right wing caught something and the Piper careened sideways for a second. I corrected, but the left wing-tip dropped and I knew if it caught the ground or a fence post we were done for, so I put us down hard and fast, slamming into the packed clay that sufficed for a road. The gear crumbled and the Piper slammed into the ground and dug a trench with the prop as we did an almost perfect nose stand, then dropped back onto the hard ground.
"Nice." Maggie said dryly, then spun around and fumbled for the two switches needed to activate the cell blocker.
"Out, quick." I yelled, but she was already sliding down the wing. I tumbled to the ground behind her and pulled her to the side when I heard the roar of the approaching car.
He came around the corner fast, despite the fact he still didn't have his headlights on. I'm sure his eyes were accustomed to the darkness and he could see the road, but he didn't see the Piper lodged in his way until it was too late. At the last second he tried to brake, veered sharply and cau
ght the edge of the ditch, then piled into the left wing and fuselage of the Piper. If the landing hadn't totaled my plane, the kidnapper's car did.
Maggie lunged from the other edge of the road before I could stop her. She had her gun out and moved quickly. I tried to get to the car first, fearing that the kidnapper would start shooting, but she jerked the driver's door open before I could reach her. The car was teetering between the road and the swampy ditch, and when the door popped open the man inside tumble out into the barbed wire fence that paralleled the road.
The Piper picked that particular moment to burst into flames. Aviation gas burns quickly, and I was expecting an explosion. The man on the ground was flailing his arms and trying to get to his feet so I grabbed a handful of collar and dragged him away from the growing blaze. Maggie reached into the back seat of the car and grabbed the bags with the ransom money, and we ran and stumbled away from the carnage, back onto the road. The kidnapper got to his hands and knees, then stood slowly and raised his arms cautiously. Maggie already had her gun pointed at his face, a face illuminated by the growing glow of the burning Piper. I had my gun out, standing behind him.
"You!" Maggie shouted over the crackle of the flames that were devouring my airplane. "You son of a bitch!" I stepped over beside her and looked at our captive.
Randy Jenkins, big talking con man, unremittent reprobate, and now a kidnapper.
"Hi guys, let's not do anything stupid here, okay?" He had a small cut on his face, but other than that he was unscathed, and remarkably defiant.