Leah answered, “I swear sir, I won’t make a sound, and I promise I will help you find Ben.”
The big man leaned over her, purposely pressing his arms against her breasts, “You play ball with me, and we’ll get along great, missy.”
She smelled garlic on his breath and heard the evil in his voice. She had completed her first attempt to make him believe that she was going to be subservient to him. Sooner or later she planned to catch him off guard and hurt the bastard.
He left the loft, and Leah lay quietly, trying to figure out her next move. She knew that eventually he would attempt to rape her and maybe even kill her when he thought she was of no further use to him. She didn’t underestimate this wicked man. Her advantages were her intelligence and her keen persuasive powers.
Bo walked down the stairs and turned on the TV. He loved a subservient woman and Leah Hamilton was beginning to turn him on. He would keep it in his pants until he had Ben, and then maybe sample some of that. By any measure, she was a beautiful and sexy bitch and Bo had not had any for two weeks and counting. Watching Cherokee rape the girl left images in his mind that made him horny, but Bo was a professional and he would wait for the appropriate time.
He decided it was time to put some pressure on Ben Harris, wherever he was. He retrieved Leah’s purse from the counter to get her cell phone. He planned to scroll through her last calls to determine what Ben’s cell phone number was, then call to see if the evasive Mr. Harris would answer. If he didn’t answer, he would leave a message to set up a meeting. Leah was his ace in the hole.
He thoroughly searched her purse, but there was no cell phone. He threw the bag to the floor in disgust and bounded up the stairs and confronted her. ”Where’s your damn cell phone?”
Leah was surprised by this sudden flash of anger. She replied calmly, “If it isn’t in my purse, I must have dropped it at Lookout Mountain. I had just tried to call Ben before you stopped me there. What do you want with my cell phone?”
“Shit!” Bo grumbled, “None of your damn business!” He abruptly picked up the tape from the end table, ripped off a piece, put it firmly across her mouth and stormed out of the loft.
It was clear that he had to take another trip to Lookout Mountain to find the friggin cell phone if he had a chance to clean up this mess. This simple hit was turning into a major catastrophe. Bo picked up his keys from the kitchen counter and rushed out the door to the SUV. After putting up with all this shit, when he returned with the cell phone he would have some fun with Leah for his reward.
Chapter 32
The August heat was building up on the mid-afternoon drive from Tomahawk to Lookout Mountain. Officer Tammy Terrell and Assistant Chief Rex Herns rode together in one police vehicle and the two deputies had taken the police van. The air conditioner was cranked up full blast and Herns had the radio tuned to an oldies station. Terrell was driving and actually was enjoying the ‘50’s Jack Scott hit, “My True Love.” Few people remembered Jack Scott, a rock and roller from Canada. Tammy knew all his hits and had collected ‘50’s rock and roll for years.
Tammy glanced over at Assistant Chief Rex Herns. His six-foot-six muscular frame sat rigid in the passenger seat beside her. He was a handsome man with a friendly smile and big blue eyes. His black hair was graying on the sides, even though he was probably in his late forties. The touch of gray made him look distinguished to add to his handsome features. She found herself admiring him and wondering if he would be interested in her if she was single. Tammy was happily married and would never cheat on her husband, but this guy was a dream. She scolded herself for thinking those thoughts and blamed the Jack Scott ballad for the girlish feelings.
He must have felt her eyes on him as he turned and caught her gaping. “Is there a problem, Officer Terrell?” he asked softly.
Tammy tried to prevent the blush that came on her face, but was unsuccessful. “Sorry, Assistant Chief, I thought I saw some movement out of your window as we passed that house,” she lied.
Rex turned off the radio. “Listen, let’s dispense with the formalities, I’m Rex, and you’re Tammy while we work together. Is that okay with you?”
Tammy nodded and concentrated on driving.
Rex continued, “When we arrive, I want to drop you off at the area where Ms. Hamilton’s car was found. You search that area to see if you can find anything out of the ordinary. I want to drive up the mountain and get familiar with the terrain before the helicopter arrives. The two deputies can stop by the convenience store to ask questions about Ms. Hamilton and Mr. Harris to see if anything else has come up since your department questioned them. Can you radio them and instruct them to do that? We can assemble at the site you’re searching in one hour.”
Tammy agreed and relayed the instructions to the deputies on the police radio.
Immediately, to the right of the sign that announced the entry to Lookout Mountain was a convenience store and gas station. As they passed it, Tammy saw the police van in the parking lot. About a mile up the mountain was the small parking area where Ms. Hamilton’s abandoned car had been found. Directly behind the parking lot was a wooded area with nature trails leading up the mountain. Tammy recognized the various species of maple trees that populated the woods. She and her husband had walked these trails often.
Tammy made a right turn into the parking area and exited the police vehicle. She opened the trunk and retrieved her evidence bag. It contained plastic gloves and bags and other items needed to collect and preserve evidence. She also grabbed her police revolver and shoulder holster and put it on.
Rex walked around the vehicle and got into the drivers’ seat. “Good luck. I’ll return in about thirty minutes after I get a feel for the terrain, so we can better direct the search of the helicopter.”
“No problem. I’ll perform a thorough search and see you then.”
Tammy spent about fifteen minutes inspecting the road in front of the parking area and the exact spot where Ms. Hamilton’s car had been parked. She decided to take a look in the wooded area in the immediately vicinity. At this point, she had seen nothing out of the ordinary.
Chapter 33
As the afternoon sun beat down on the asphalt, Bo Lopez was depressed about this unscheduled trip because he was sick of this damn mountain. The faster he could get away from this god-forsaken place, the better. He had to locate Ben Harris and Cherokee and kill them or the cartel would do the dirty act on him. That damn tornado had screwed up his carefully formed plans. He averaged eighty miles an hour as he sped toward the mountain and soon the familiar sign came into view, and he turned right. About a mile up the mountain he spotted the parking area where he had parked Leah’s car after abducting her. He pulled his SUV into the lot and got out. There was a grassy area on the left side of the lot that was burnt brown by the August sun. This was near the place he had heaved Leah into the back of his vehicle. He advanced to the area to search for the phone. After a few moments he noticed a crevice just below the grass line. He went to his knees and dug his fingers into the crevice. They closed around a metal object, and he pulled it out. Shit, was he lucky or what?
He turned to go back to his SUV when a female voice startled him.
“What are you doing here, sir?” Officer Tammy Terrell said in a firm voice, “And what is that you picked up?”
Bo turned and saw an attractive and sensual young woman, who looked amazingly like Jennifer Anniston. She wore a police uniform with a shoulder holster containing a weapon. “I’m just a tourist looking around.”
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to show me what’s in your hand.”
Bo opened his hand, revealing the cell phone. “It’s just my phone,” he said.
Tammy walked to the rear of his SUV and wrote down his license number. “Is this a rental car, sir? Where are you from and where are you staying?”
Bo knew he was in deep shit. When she checked the license number, she could uncover his name. He couldn’t reveal to her where he was s
taying because that would make her even more suspicious. He had no options now.
“I have the car rental contract in the vehicle along with my hotel receipt. Let me get it for you.” He walked to the SUV driver’s side and opened the door. Bo reached inside and took the car rental papers from the glove compartment. He walked to Officer Tyrell and handed them to her. As she reached out to take them, Bo lunged and hit her squarely in the nose. Blood gushed as she fell. Bo placed his foot on her head and pulled the revolver from her holster and threw it aside. He grabbed her arm and pulled it hard while applying as much pressure to her neck as he could. He heard the bones crack in her neck. He dropped her arm and removed his foot.
Officer Tammy Tyrell lay dead, her neck broken in three places.
Bo picked up the police revolver, placed it in his pocket and replaced the car rental papers in the glove compartment. He removed the note pad with the license plate number from Tammy’s dead fingers, got into his vehicle and quickly left the scene.
Chapter 34
I awoke from a stupor, massaged my dirty face, trying to remember where I was and what I was doing. The beard I had grown during this ordeal was getting longer. My body felt like a disaster from dehydration and hunger. My mind was losing its ability to function properly. I looked around at the interior of the cave. Boulders and rocks were scattered on the ground. The slate grey walls gleamed from the sunlight streaming from the hole in the top of the cave. My meticulously protected inventory was directly behind me. The beheaded bloody body of the snake lay at my feet. The wolf was bound about ten feet from the decaying body of Cherokee Alverez. I wouldn’t be able to survive much longer. The only thing that was keeping me alive and semi-sane were the thoughts of Leah and getting back to her.
I heard an almost human moaning coming from the wolf. I glanced over, and he was salivating and looking at me with the saddest eyes I have ever seen. He wasn’t struggling with the ropes, just lying there moaning. I had no water for him, but I cut a generous piece of snake meat, walked to his side and put it alongside his mouth. His teeth clacked as he tried to get to the food. I cut the meat into three small pieces and fed it to him until it was gone. At least he wouldn’t die hungry. There was enough snake to go around. I chuckled at the irony of the situation, and instantly recognized the laugh as that of a deranged man. It scared the hell out of me. I stumbled past Cherokee’s foul-smelling corpse back to my base.
I surveyed the inventory for the makings for a fire. I had the cigarette lighter and a small quantity of alcohol from my first-aid kit. The two paperback novels would make a good starter, but they would burn quickly. My backpack was made of nylon so that wouldn’t burn. The only thing, other than the books I had to burn was my cotton clothing. I looked over at the lifeless body again and reckoned that Cherokee didn’t need his clothes. I walked to his body and gagged as I cut off what remained of his shirt. His denim jeans were tough to cut, but I managed to get most of them. I picked up large rocks and formed a circle for my fire and ripped the pages from the books and piled them in the center. I was glad that Stephen King writes long novels. It provided a lot of paper for the fire. I ripped Cherokee’s shirt and jeans into shreds and pilled them on top of the paper and removed my cotton shirt and placed it on top. I recalled from Navy Seal training that snake bile was drinkable and that Asians made wine from it. I took my empty sardine can and the two empty Vienna sausage cans, made an incision in the stomach area of the snakes’ body and squeezed out the bile. Blood and bile spurted from the snake. There was enough the liquid to fill all three containers. I sucked the remaining bile and blood out of the incision and almost gagged from the rancid taste. I set the three containers aside for later. I meticulously curled the snake’s body on top of my creation and poured the alcohol on top. I grabbed the cigarette lighter and lit the edges of the paper at the bottom of the fire pit. The dry paper ignited immediately and produced a blaze and smoke. When the flame hit the alcohol and the clothing, the density of the flame and smoke increased.
Almost like a smoke signal, the smoke ascended and exited the hole above my head. After a few minutes, I heard the meat sizzling and the scent of the cooking rattlesnake filled the air.
It took the flames about ten minutes to die down but there was still a lot of smoke. The upward draft rapidly took most of it out the hole. I sat patiently and waited for the meat to simmer.
After an additional twenty minutes, I dragged the snake out of the embers to let it cool. I didn’t even feel my fingers scorching from the hot meat. The skin was coal black from the flames and the alcohol. After a few more minutes I couldn’t wait any longer. I gingerly cut a large piece of the meat and pealed off the charred skin. The meat was white and actually looked tender and edible. I took a large bite, chewed and found the meat a little stringy but it tasted a little like a cross between a Cornish hen and shark steak. I gobbled up the first piece and cut another. I skinned it and dived in again as my hunger overwhelmed me. I decided to slow down when I consumed the second piece out of concern of vomiting. The snake meat gave me a new lease on life.
I cut a generous portion of the cooked snake, went over and fed it to the wolf. He no longer growled at me, and I think we were becoming surviving friends. After all, he was the only friend I had in this desolate hole.
My head ached from the gash and my leg was losing feeling in it from the snakebite. My body should be in the healing process, but I didn’t know whether my mind was playing tricks on me. I moved back to my base, laid my head on the backpack and drifted off to sleep with a full stomach for the first time since I had been trapped.
Chapter 35
Rex Herns was a twenty-year veteran of the police department. He worked his way up from street patrol to assistant chief. When the current chief retired, he expected to be named chief of the Chicago police department. His reputation was unblemished and heroic. Rex was married to Layla Steward, a former beauty queen from St. Charles, a community north of Chicago. They had one son, Josh, 18 years old. He came from humble beginnings and worked his way through high school and college, laboring at various construction jobs. He made decent money with the police department but his wife had expensive taste. He did his best to keep her happy.
The Ben Harris case had troubled him because he had come to know and like Ben when Harris was sent to Chicago on special assignment. They worked together in a drug cartel investigation until Ben’s unexpected resignation. Now Ben had disappeared along with his girlfriend on Lookout Mountain during the same time period that a suspected Russian Mafia boss’s daughter had been murdered. Rex knew there had to be a connection. There were no coincidences when the Russian Mafia was involved. He had persuaded the chief to allow him to take a few days to look at the situation, working with the Tomahawk police department.
After dropping off Officer Tyrell, he drove up the only highway on Lookout Mountain, unhurriedly looking at the terrain. The clear blue sky contained scattered white clouds and a pleasant breeze was blowing. Rex was amazed by the beauty of the landscape and the contrast with the devastation in the tornado’s path. Many of the stately maple trees lay in splinters on the side of the road. Like any tornado, everything in its way was obliterated, but things on either side if its path were normal. The course of the tornado was easily discerned as Rex observed the boulders, rocks and branches of trees, which were scattered randomly.
As he scrutinized the horizon, he noticed what appeared to be smoke coming from a location about halfway up the mountain, which had been in the path of the tornado. He thought for an instant that it might be a low hanging cloud, so he stopped his car, got out, and fetched his field glasses for a better look. He focused the binoculars and detected a hole in the side of the mountain. The smoke was coming from the hole. He focused again and his conclusion was absolute. A fire can’t start inside a mountain. It must be man-made.
The pitch of the boulders surrounding the hole was far too sheer for him to climb there to investigate. The helicopter could hover and take a
closer look. He noted the location and got back into his police car to return to the spot where he dropped off Officer Tyrell and instructed the two deputies to meet him. He could direct the helicopter from that location. He turned the car around and went back to the meeting spot.
As he approached the rendezvous location, he saw an object on the pavement in the corner of the parking area. He floor-boarded the gas pedal, and as he came near, he recognized the blue uniform and knew that it was Officer Tyrell lying there. His tires squealed as he swerved into the parking area. He threw open the door and ran to the body. Her head was in an irregular position, almost parallel with her shoulder. His hand went instantly to her neck to feel for a pulse. Nothing. He immediately concluded that her neck had been broken with brutal force. He sprinted back to the police car and dispatched an emergency call for help. “Officer down, Officer down!” he shouted into the microphone. He provided his location and returned to the body. What a waste. “What in the hell happened?” he said aloud.
Within minutes the deputies arrived and raced to his side. He was sitting there holding Officer Terrell’s lifeless head in his arms. Within another five minutes two additional police cars arrived with the rescue squad. Chief Henry brought his forensic team with him. Rex gently laid her head on the ground and got out of the way. “She’s dead,” he murmured, but the paramedics strapped on an oxygen mask and attempted to revive her. After only a few minutes they accepted the inevitable: Officer Tammy Tyrell was dead. They carefully placed her head back on the ground as the forensic experts took over, taking pictures and recording their descriptions of the scene.
Rex moved to his car and sat down. Chief Henry joined him in the vehicle. Rex recounted in detail what had transpired to the Chief. He felt responsible. He shouldn’t have left her alone.
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