by Nick Thacker
She feared The Hawk, but she wouldn’t fear Morrison. This man was a rat, a scourge, the kind of bottom-feeder every organization had in spades. The Hawk probably knew it, too, but he would allow Morrison his little games as long as the man delivered results.
“I said, hello, little lady,” Morrison said again.
She squinted in the dark, trying to glare at him. “What do you want?”
A chuckle.
“Oh, I think you know exactly what I want.”
Julie felt another hand on her thigh. He squeezed, tightly. It hurt.
“Stop and I won’t kill you,” she said. Her voice didn’t crack, and she was proud for that. No telling when I’ll lose it, she thought.
Another laugh, louder this time. “Kill me? You? Right now?”
“No,” she said. “Not now. Maybe not even here. But I will kill you, unless you let go of my leg.”
There was a pause, as if the man was considering her bargain. Then her mouth was free, the cold air flowing onto her face and chilling the area where the man’s sweaty hand had just been.
Then the hand went to her other leg.
“You mean, let go of these legs?”
She thrust sideways with her torso, trying to dislodge the man and throw his hands off of her, but it only served to send a sharp pain through her left side. She yelped in pain, then screamed.
“You think anyone’s going to hear you?” Morrison snapped. “Actually, they’ll hear you. Every one of them. They’re right out there.”
If he was pointing, Julie couldn’t see it.
“But they won’t come in. We were ordered not to. But my boss — The Hawk, I think you’ve met — and I have a bit of a special arrangement.”
“Touch me and die, asshole,” she whispered, through gritted teeth. “I’m warning you. I will rip your head from your body.”
His hands slid up, slowly. “I’m going to take my time with you, little lady. We got off to a bad start, right down the street at that hotel. You remember that? Just you and me, in the closet. Hard to forget, I’d bet.”
Julie turned her head sideways, a slight gasp escaping her lips. Stop, she willed herself. Don’t give him the satisfaction.
“You know I don’t like that he made us tie you up so well. I like it when you’re able to move around a bit, make it interesting. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Julie felt a tear fall from her right eye and land on her shoulder. No more. You’re done. Her silent words were strong, but they did no good.
“I think I’ll fix that,” he said. In the darkness, one of the man’s hands moved from her leg.
She heard the sound of a small knife unfolding and popping into place. A slight amount of pressure on her left wrist.
“I think maybe just a few of these bindings can go away, don’t you think? Give you a little wiggle room.”
The pressure increased, more and more, and Julie waited anxiously for the binding to snap. The zip ties were the thick, industrial kind, but even they would give way to the knife eventually. She was considering the plan he’d given her — wait until he had ‘freed’ her a bit, then complain that it wasn’t enough. She would sit dead-still, unmoving.
If he wanted her to squirm, she would wait until he had taken more of the zip ties off.
Finally, with a snap, the zip tie on her left wrist popped off and fell to the hardwood floor. There was still a tie near her elbow, and the two on her other arm.
“There we go,” Morrison said. “How’s that? Maybe the other side, too? Free those pretty little hands?”
She waited, hoping he would follow through.
He came to her right arm, one of his hands still pressed tight against the top of her thigh. The pressure on her wrist started, and the invisible knife began its work. A few seconds ticked by — Morrison was obviously drawing it out as long as possible, savoring the moment.
She heard a clicking sound and waited for the pressure on her right wrist to be released, but it never was.
Instead, the entire hall was suddenly bathed in a brilliant white. The lights on the gym’s ceiling had been turned on, and Julie was now blinking to keep the flash of white out of her eyes. It took a moment for them to adjust, but when they did Julie finally saw her attacker.
Morrison was shirtless, wearing long black cargo pants, and the same black boots she’d seen on him earlier.
He seemed dazed as well, staring over her head toward the doorway.
“B — boss,” he said. “I’m sorry. I was just having a word with our little lady, here.”
Footsteps on the wood.
A man’s hand landed on her shoulder, and she jumped.
“Looks like one of your ties fell off, Ms. Richardson. Morrison, would you mind?”
Morrison reached out and Julie saw that he held another zip tie. He placed it around her freed wrist, once again binding it to the chair. When he’d finished, he stood up, looking over Julie’s shoulder at his boss.
“Morrison, out.”
Morrison nodded, then briskly walked away.
The Hawk never stepped in front of Julie. He simply waited there until Morrison was out of the room, then turned on a heel and followed his subordinate out.
Just before he left the room, however, he flicked off the lights once more, returning Julie to her pitch-black hell.
Chapter FIFTY-SIX
THE FLIGHT TO BROWNING, MONTANA, was uneventful. They landed late, the sun already starting to set over the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains. Ben felt the presence of the men who’d gone before them as he looked out over the desolate plains. This area of the country had never been developed further than a few outpost-style cities and towns. Specifically, the area they’d landed in, including the city, was the location of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, and Derrick had to pull a few strings to get clearance for their plane to land on reservation property, under the auspices of a ‘research trip.’
Ben had thought about Julie the entire flight, and the dread and fear he felt for her only added to the anxiety that came with flying. He hated planes — the feeling of not being in control — and Julie was the only person he’d ever met who had been able to quell those fears slightly. She would hold his hand, even as he crushed it between a white-knuckled grip, as they took off and landed.
And she hadn’t been there to help him this time. He felt shame for feeling as though he needed her, knowing that she was likely feeling far worse than he. A simple fear of flying was nothing compared to what she was going through, but it had done nothing to calm his nerves.
They drove away from the mountains, Joshua at the wheel of the rented SUV that Mr. E had ordered and had sent to the small municipal airport to coincide with their arrival. Ben sat in the back, his legs cramped against the seat in front of him, but as it was far better than traveling via plane, he didn’t complain. It was a thirty minute drive to the site of the northernmost camp of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Camp Disappointment.
Roger Derrick sat in the front passenger seat, and Reggie sat next to Ben behind Joshua. Ben had eaten a snack from a vending machine in the airport, but their flight, being a last-minute exchange their benefactor had set up, hadn’t been ready for food service. He hoped they’d find something upon landing, but knowing a bit about the backcountry of Montana from his time as a park ranger at Yellowstone, he knew they were hours away from a cheeseburger.
He did his best to quell his hunger, but about fifteen minutes into their drive his stomach squirmed loudly.
“Hungry, big guy?” Reggie asked.
“Always.”
“We’re stopping over in a little town that’s supposed to be right on the trail, right Joshua?”
Joshua nodded from the driver’s seat, but Derrick answered. “Yeah, dang tank wasn’t even full when we got it. I thought that was a rule? Anyway, yeah, we’re stopping pretty soon in a town that’s hardly on the map, but it’s right next to Camp Disappointment. About 200 people, and not so much as a visitor’s center for the
trail.”
“That’s what we’re looking for,” Reggie said. “Any place with a visitor’s center is going to be picked clean of treasures. Something like this — remote, out in the middle of nowhere — that’s where we’ll find this thing.”
“I really just want to find a McDonald’s,” Ben said, shifting in the seat.
“Hey buddy,” Reggie said, “you’re in a car with three expert survivalists. All of us have been trained to live off the land. We can pull over any time and I’ll show you which bugs and plants to eat.”
Ben glared at him. “I’ll wait for the McDonald’s, but thanks.”
The town they were headed for appeared in Ben’s view a few minutes later, and he immediately knew Derrick was right. The town was hardly worthy of the title, as the only buildings in sight were a gas station that, from here, seemed to be completely devoid of human life and a tiny shack that had the word bar painted across the top of it, and it looked even more desolate than the station.
Regardless, Joshua pulled into the gas station and stopped to check his phone’s GPS.
“I hope this really is the place,” Reggie said. “If not, we’re halfway to nowhere and the fastest way back isn’t fast at all.”
“Daris’ group will be looking for the treasure as well,” Derrick said. “But you’re right. If it’s not here, they’ll get ahead of us.”
And if they get it, Ben thought, Julie dies.
He shook the thought out of his mind and tried to focus again on the hunger. At least the hunger was mostly controllable.
“I’m going to fill up, but if you guys want to figure out where Lewis’ camp actually was, we can try to save time.”
“You really think it’s here?” Reggie asked. “I know Camp Disappointment was the northernmost point on their trail, but why would Lewis hide something there? From what I read, the camp today is nothing more than a fenced-in historic marker, with campgrounds around it.”
“Which should make it even easier to find something,” Derrick said, “since it’s not remarkable in any other way.”
“Besides,” Joshua said, leaning into the car’s open window, “the first clue just tells us that it’s on the Marias River. 23 something. Camp Disappointment is on one of the tributaries of the river, but it’s likely that Lewis was there when he wrote that first entry.”
“So we find the camp, look for some sort of ‘23,’ or walk 23 miles in some direction… or 23 paces? Which direction? 23 degrees? Seriously, if that’s the only clue we’ve got, we’re hosed.”
“Could be much simpler than that,” Ben said. Joshua had finished filling the tank and he re-entered the SUV and turned the key.
Reggie stared at him, and Derrick swiveled around in his seat to see him.
“I mean, Lewis was a smart guy and all, but he never comes across as an intellectual, you know? Not a simpleton, but certainly no puzzle-making genius.”
“So?”
“So, I wonder if the answer is really just as simple as it seems. We thought ‘Mar 23’ is a date, and it’s not. Or, at least the ‘Mar’ part’s not. But maybe the ‘23’ is still a date.”
“A date… for what?”
“A date for when they arrived at camp, or when Lewis hid the treasure. Derrick, your grandmother said they were at Camp Disappointment from the 20th to the 26th of July, 1806, right?”
Derrick nodded. “Yeah, something like that. Which would put them right where we need them on the 23rd of July.”
“Exactly,” Ben said as Joshua began driving away from the tiny gas station. “So far it all makes sense. But that’s just one clue, and there’s no telling if it’s right or not. Derrick, you got that journal handy? Maybe we can start on the next one or two?”
“Starting to feel like a treasure hunter, Ben?” Joshua asked.
“No. I’m hungry. And when I’m hungry, it helps to take my mind off the hunger by doing something else.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Well, stay hungry. There’s a lot to do.”
Chapter FIFTY-SEVEN
THE AREA OF THE COUNTRY Reggie was now standing in was sacred, in a way. It had been occupied for hundreds — possibly thousands — of years, by Native Americans. Meriwether Lewis had stood on this spot, looking at the vast expanse of the Rocky Mountains to the left and right, as far as the eye could see.
What was he thinking? Reggie wondered. What was he concerned about?
Camp Disappointment, the northernmost tip of the entire expedition, had been named out of frustration. The Missouri River watershed did not, in fact, extend north to the 50th Parallel, meaning the land Jefferson had purchased was not vastly larger than they’d hoped. Before turning back south to meet up once again with Clark and the rest of the men, Lewis’ small outfit camped here, ‘disappointed.’
Or was he? Was there something else to be disappointed about? Or was there nothing at all to be disappointed about, and Lewis was just being coy?
Reggie had a background in history, even having taught as a part-time professor in Brazil for some time. He loved the story of how the world’s people interacted, and why. The lessons hidden within it all. He hadn’t spent any time studying the Lewis and Clark expedition, but he was in full-fledged historian mode now. He wanted to learn it all, to discover their secrets and reasons for doing what they did so many years ago.
But there was a more pressing matter, and he knew that, too. He sighed. Julie was gone, taken from their group by the man he had known long ago, the man his subordinates had called The Hawk. Vicente Garza, a large and imposing figure in the security community, and previously a sergeant in the United States Army. Reggie had known him then, when he himself was working up the ranks as an Army sniper. He’d served at a training camp with him, and had almost been swayed by Garza’s promise of freedom — and great pay — when he’d left the military to start his company.
Garza hadn’t been a bad man, before. Reggie had even admired the man’s leadership. His charisma was unparalleled, and many of Reggie’s own teammates had talked of leaving to work with Garza.
Then the man disappeared. Simply fell off the map, and those same teammates couldn’t figure out what had happened to the man who’d promised them a steady, well-paying job doing what they had been trained for, outside of the military.
Reggie hadn’t worried about it — people did strange things. Reggie himself had even ‘gone off the deep end’ once, moving his life and his young wife to Brazil to start a business teaching survival to corporate executives who wanted ‘an experience.’ He had owned a shooting range, a fallout shelter he’d designed served as their home, and he’d lived there — mostly happily — for years.
And then he'd met Juliette Richardson and Harvey Bennett. He’d crashed into their lives — literally — after they’d been attacked by a mercenary group not unlike the one that had attacked them in Philadelphia.
A group led by none other than Joshua Jefferson. The man had been misled, duped and lied to, and he'd risen to power in the organization his father and brother had been a part of. Joshua’s team had been pointed toward Julie and Ben and let loose, and they would have been completely wiped out had it not been for Reggie’s stepping in.
When Joshua had defected to the ‘good side,’ as Reggie liked to say, they had all become friends, eventually creating the Civilian Special Operations team they were now a part of. Joshua got along with everyone well, and he was a solid leader for their merry band of good guys.
Reggie wondered now if Vicente Garza might have a similar story waiting to be written. He wanted to kill the man for what he’d done to Julie, what he’d done to Ben. But there was a part of him — albeit a small part of him — that wanted to see if The Hawk was really as bad as his men made him seem.
People did crazy things for money, and Reggie himself had done things he still regretted in the promise of a good paycheck. So he wondered if there was hope for the man? If they caught him, questioned him, allowed him to explain — could his actions be redeemed?
Reggie looked at the other members of his group: Roger Derrick, the FBI agent-turned-treasure hunter who wanted nothing more than to take down Daris Johansson and prevent something he believed in, called ‘The Shift.’
Joshua Jefferson, the new friend and ally who’d helped him out of more than a few scrapes.
And finally Harvey Bennett himself, the unassuming park ranger whose resiliency and stubbornness had done the group more favors than any amount of trained guns could.
These men were his team right now, for better or worse. They were it. Good or bad, The Hawk was currently the enemy, the same way Joshua had been their enemy in the Amazon Rainforest. Reggie was a man of his word, and right now his word to Ben was that he would do whatever it took to get Julie back.
And that meant figuring out this mystery.
“Let’s see that journal,” Ben said.
Reggie turned, snapping out of his meditation. He would have plenty of time after this was all over to explore and study the history he loved so much.
Derrick walked over, holding the journal open in front of Ben. Apparently he wasn’t quite ready to simply pass the priceless artifact into someone else’s hands.
Derrick and Ben looked at the page he’d opened it to, the page with their first ‘clue.’ Frowning, neither man spoke.
“Anything else there?” Reggie asked.
“Not since the last time we looked,” Ben said. “I just thought I’d be inspired to —”
Reggie waited.
Ben tilted his head sideways.
“What? Find something?”
“I — I think…”
Ben grabbed the journal out of Derrick’s hand, who looked at him with an expression halfway between shocked and irate. He stepped closer to Ben, reached out to grab the journal, but Ben swatted his hand away.
“Hang on, I think there’s…”
Ben tilted the journal sideways, so the long edge of the page they had been staring at was now parallel to the ground. Ben held the page, letting the journal fall open, its two covers now hanging down below the single page.