Harvey Bennett Mysteries: Books 4-6

by Nick Thacker

  “How’d you find this place?” Reggie asked, genuinely intrigued. “You don’t strike me as the, uh, intelligent type.”

  Johnny didn’t answer. The remainder of the walk was silent, save for the pilot’s voice cutting through the dusk air, calling in to his bird their discovery. He explained they were all good, and that they'd be hiking back within the hour.

  The pilot sounded authoritative to Reggie, and if he had to guess, he suspected the pilot was one of The Hawk’s actual team members, while the rest of these men, including the self-declared leader who’d already entered the cave with Kalib, were recruits.

  The same thing I thought I wanted to be, once, Reggie thought. He shook his head, shuddering. He’d dodged a bullet then, and he was more glad that he’d ‘washed out’ of The Hawk’s killing squad now than he’d ever been.

  Reggie’s phone rang. Crap. The mercenaries hadn’t removed either of their phones, and now they were loudly reminded of that fact.

  “Answer it,” the pilot said. “Put it on speaker. Tell them nothing about where we are. Got it?”

  Reggie nodded. “And if I don’t follow your orders?”

  The pilot turned his handgun down toward the ground — toward Derrick’s feet — and fired.

  The shot was loud, louder even than Reggie would have expected, and he heard the shot echo around the round bowl of the canyon.

  “There’s no one out here to hear you die,” the pilot said.

  It was true, Reggie knew. This was the no-man’s land, the border between Glacier National Park to the west and Indian Reservation. He wasn’t sure where exactly they were standing, and they may have been on either side of that line. Either way, unless there was an overzealous park ranger or a lost Blackfeet Indian somewhere nearby, they were as remote as any place Reggie had ever been.

  The phone rang again, a fifth time. He pulled it out of his pocket, popped his ears, and answered.

  “Hey Ben,” he said.

  Chapter SIXTY-SIX

  “WE FIGURED IT OUT, REGGIE,” Ben said from the car he and Joshua were in. Joshua was once again driving, and even though Ben preferred to do the driving most of the time when he was with Julie, he was happy for the reprieve.

  He’d planned on sleeping a bit, catching up on news from Mr. E if there was any, and getting his thoughts in order for their plan when they would eventually land in Philadelphia.

  “— what out?” Reggie’s voice crackled through the speaker of the phone. Joshua wasn’t sure if he and Ben would have cellular service in the rural backcountry of Montana, and he figured there was no way Reggie and Derrick would have any up in the mountains. The goal was to talk fast, to get as much information to Reggie as possible, knowing that the cellular signal would be horrible.

  “The clue, Reggie. We figured out the clue.”

  Reggie said something unintelligible.

  “It’s a cave, just like we thought. Probably not very big, though. No searches pull anything up, but we think we found a cross-reference.”

  Again, something unintelligible.

  “Okay, so get this,” Ben said. “Mr. E pulled up a database and found a contact at this Blackfeet Indian Reservation, who agreed to do a phone consult. He wasn’t too happy to hear that Mr. E already had a team on the ground, but… whatever.

  “Anyway, he just called and told us that the Blackfeet have been in this area for centuries, and there are three distinct tribes living here together, just like the Cottonwoods. The first clue was a reference to the second, I think.”

  Joshua glanced at Ben and raised his eyebrows. Right, Ben thought, running out of time. He knew the phone’s connection on either end could be precariously close to cutting out.

  “Sorry. So there’s a word that Lewis used in one of his journals — one of the known journals. It’s a Blackfeet word, but it was obviously spelled wrong and no one really knew what it was referring to. But when Mr. E asked the guy about the ‘Cave of Shadows,’ he said he didn’t know. But he did know this word that Lewis had written. It means ‘Shadow’ in his native tongue.

  “Apparently the Blackfeet Indians weren’t completely hostile to Lewis, like history suggests. One of them may have escorted Lewis to the cave. It’s in a valley, and they call the valley ‘Bowl of Shadows.’”

  Ben waited, both wanting to make sure Reggie was still on the other end of the line and wanting to back in the importance of his discovery just a bit. When Mr. E had called them to recap his conversation, he’d assured Ben and Joshua that his contact at the reservation had no idea what they were looking for, and no idea that there was another, more dangerous, team out there looking as well.

  They had no interest in upsetting a reservation, a long history of Americans living peacefully in Montana, as it would be a political and media nightmare, even if they did find something in those hills.

  Ben was appreciative of this, as was Joshua. The fewer interested parties, the better.

  The phone crackled.

  “Hello?” Ben asked. “Reggie, can you hear —”

  “— her. Find Julie, Ben. Get —”

  The signal was lost. The phone died in Ben’s hand.

  Joshua looked over at Ben. “Think he got the message?”

  “No idea. But that was a weird thing to say, right? I already know what we’re supposed to do, why remind us again?”

  Joshua shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe they’re stuck somewhere, don’t expect to get out. Or…”

  He looked over at Ben.

  “You think they ran into Ravenshadow?”

  Chapter SIXTY-SEVEN

  THE CAVE WAS COOL, AND just like the man had said, it opened up into a surprisingly large cavern once they were inside. Reggie blinked a few times until his eyes adjusted.

  Kalib and his leader were there, waiting for them. They each wore a headlamp, and Kalib had either never been taught the etiquette of not shining a light directly into someone’s eyes or he assumed he didn’t care.

  “You wanna drop the light, pal?” Reggie asked.

  Kalib glared at him. Or he didn’t — Reggie couldn’t see his face. The light, however, stayed in his eyes.

  “You’re the great Gareth Red,” the leader said. “My name is Phillip Mance. Welcome to Ravenshadow.”

  “I’m not in your shitty club, asshat,” Reggie said. “And neither is my friend, here.”

  “Right. Don’t worry — I hear you couldn’t make it in the first time you tried, so we’re not recruiting you once again. But you are guests of ours for the time being, so we should get to know each other.”

  “I’m an open book.”

  “Thanks, but I’m really interested in that last clue. ‘Within the silver lies the gold?’ You know anything about that?”

  “I know it’s a crappy clue,” Reggie said. “I thought treasure hunting was going to be a bit more fun.”

  “So did I,” Mance said. “But here we are. What about your FBI pal? Roger Derrick, correct?”

  Derrick nodded. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Is it though? The Hawk tells me you’ve been spying on Ms. Johansson for some time. Says you’re obsessed with this treasure, even more than she is.”

  “Well I’m not the one lying on national television and manipulating the media to get my message out there, am I?”

  Mance smiled, as if holding back laughter. Reggie felt a bit more relaxed when he saw this. Apparently they’re not as blindly loyal to their benefactor as they are to their boss.

  “She’s a nutcase, I’ll give you that,” Mance said. “But we still have a job to do. She says there’s something here. Something we need, and it’s our job to find it.”

  “Well let’s look around. I’m sure Meriwether Lewis wouldn’t be terribly creative about his final hiding spot.”

  “We already have looked around,” Kalib said. Again with the headlamp.

  “Christ, you lug. Get that out of my eyes.”

  Kalib swung the headlamp down and Reggie felt a brief sense
of victory.

  “It’s not here. There’s nothing here. It’s just a cave that goes that way —” he pointed behind Kalib “— for about thirty feet. Smashes down to a crawl space toward the end, then nothing. Just stops.”

  “Any offshoots?” the pilot, still holding his gun against Reggie’s back, asked.

  Mance shook his head. “Nope, nothing. It’s just a crooked tube. Completely empty.”

  Reggie looked around, now that his eyes — once again — had adjusted. Mance seemed to be telling the truth. There was nothing in sight but curved rock, not even any interesting formations on the floor or ceiling of the cavern. It would make a good shelter for someone traveling over the mountains, but besides that there was nothing remarkable about it.

  “Well, you can’t go back empty handed,” Reggie said. “What’s the plan? You think The Hawk’s going to just let you into Ravenshadow without Daris’ treasure?”

  “No,” the pilot said. “But we have you. That’ll be enough of a prize.”

  “Will it, though?”

  Mance seemed perturbed at this suggestion, frustrated. Reggie was right. They were useless to The Hawk if they didn’t deliver, and grabbing a couple rogue treasure hunters wasn’t going to do him any good.

  Kalib’s light bounced around on his head as he did a quick turn, looking around the cavern. Reggie followed the bright beam, watching where it landed on the walls and floor of the cavern. He had to admit, the place did seem completely devoid of anything. Including treasure. He tracked Kalib’s light in a full circle, watching it come back to its previous location, pointing straight —

  He stopped. Turned his head slightly.

  Then he brought his eyes up to Mance. Had the man seen Reggie? He couldn’t be sure.

  “Doesn’t look like you’ve got any other choice, then,” Reggie said. He turned around to face the pilot and his gun. “Should we all take a little fly? Head back to Philly?”

  “Wait,” Mance said. Reggie closed his eyes. “You know something. What did you just see?”

  He shook his head. “What the hell are talking —” the butt of Kalib’s rifle slammed into Reggie’s stomach. He fell to the floor, gasping in pain. Kalib had hardly moved, using only the strength in his arms and hands to jam the gun toward Reggie. If he’d been more wound up, or had decided to really get his back into it, Reggie might now have a serious problem.

  I was right not to want to fight this brute, he thought.

  He heaved for a moment, then caught his balance. He stood up, marching up to the taller man. “Do that again, and you’re going to find yourself —”

  “Enough,” Mance said. “Kalib, step back. Let the man talk.”

  Reggie nodded at Mance.

  “Time to start talking, or it’s time for us to start shooting. Don’t forget your place here, Red. We don’t need any prisoners, and we certainly don’t need two.”

  “Right,” Reggie said. “Okay, yeah, it’s nothing. I just saw something over here.” He pointed to his left, next to Kalib’s right arm. “On the wall. Frankenstein, you mind?”

  Kalib held the light directly in Reggie’s eyes for a second, then swung it to his right, pointing it at the wall. The cavern’s wall lit up in white light, and Reggie saw it again.

  “Looks like a tiny vein of silver,” Reggie said. “That’s all.”

  Mance walked over to it. “Yeah, I think it is. ‘Within the silver lies the gold.’ Evans, bring me that —”

  Evans was already in motion, and he now wielded a giant sledgehammer. Reggie had to duck to dodge the swinging hammer as Evans brought it down onto the wall of the cavern.

  Crack! The hammer broke a large chunk of rock off the wall.

  “Stop!” Reggie yelled. “What the hell do you think you’re going?”

  Evans raised the hammer again.

  “Seriously,” Derrick said. “You think it’s in the wall?”

  “That’s the clue, isn’t it?” Mance asked. “That’s what it says.”

  “Really?” the pilot asked. “‘The treasure is in the wall?’ I don’t remember reading that.”

  Reggie looked at the pilot. At least we’ve got one guy on our side. Sort of.

  The pilot continued. “How would Lewis get it there? Inside the wall of the cave? Stick it in a hole in the wall and then plaster it up with more rock?”

  Mance stared at the pilot for a long moment, and Kalib and the others looked around at each other.

  Are these idiots really that thick? Or do they not believe him?

  Reggie waited, trying to see the recognition dawning in their eyes. Lewis alone, or even with the help of the other three men he was traveling with, would not have been able to put anything behind a solid wall of rock.

  “Yeah,” Mance said. “You’re right.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Reggie said.

  Kalib moved toward Reggie again, raising the butt of his rifle, but Mance stepped in. “No,” he said. “We might need him. The Hawk wanted us to bring them back, remember?”

  Kalib snorted, the giant of a man obviously disgusted. Reggie listened to Mance’s words, trying to figure out why they’d struck him as odd.

  Then it hit him.

  He thought about the helicopter. The bird was rated for no more than 8-9 people, depending on gear, and The Hawk’s team alone was seven men.

  Seven men… plus our four.

  Reggie, Derrick, Ben, and Joshua.

  That’s too many.

  Reggie’s eyes widened a bit as he stared up at Kalib, noticing the man’s own eyes growing dark as they slid shut.

  In all Reggie’s years of training, nothing but experience had taught him his most-prized skill: the ability to anticipate, with near dead-accuracy, what another man was about to do.

  Kalib’s rifle began moving, toward the man’s other hand. He changed his grip on it, so that instead of the club it had been before, it was now, once again, the type of weapon it had been designed to be.

  He’s going to shoot Derrick, Reggie realized.

  There wasn’t enough room in the chopper for the men, whatever treasure they might find or a small sample of it, and the four-man team they were sent out to intercept.

  Two of them would have to be killed.

  Reggie wasn’t sure why, but Mance had told Kalib that The Hawk wanted him. Vicente Garza needed him alive.

  “Yeah, boss,” Kalib said. “But we don’t need him.”

  The rifle swung around in a quick arc and came to rest pointed directly at Derrick. He pulled the trigger.

  Chapter SIXTY-EIGHT

  REGGIE WAS ALREADY IN MOTION, and he reached the huge man just before the explosion. He threw himself directly into his chest, aiming ‘for the numbers’ just like his high-school football coach had taught him. His forehead struck at the same moment he heard the gunshot.

  It was absolutely deafening, and Reggie suddenly realized that an assault rifle firing in a closed, reverberating space such as this might actually make him deaf, but it was a fleeting thought. He was still moving forward, Kalib’s thick body coming with him. He didn’t know if the tackle would be enough to have redirected the gunshot, but he didn’t care.

  He’d take this man down and then figure out what to do next.

  The mistake he’d made was that he hadn’t been fully aware of his surroundings.

  The man behind him, Evans, had casually walked over to Reggie and stuck the end of his rifle into his back. Reggie felt the cold, hard steel barrel and immediately put his hands up.

  Kalib shifted, pushing Reggie off him like he was nothing more than an annoying puppy, and stood up. He yanked Reggie’s outstretched arm and pulled him to his feet, and Reggie turned around to see what had transpired during his fight with the bear.

  All five of the soldiers had their weapons drawn, three of them on Reggie and two of them on Derrick.

  Derrick, too, had his hands up.

  Reggie looked at the FBI agent and shrugged. “Sorry, man. Did my best.”
r />   “It was enough to not get me shot,” he said.

  “There’s still time for that,” Mance said. “But not here. We’ve got plenty of space in the bird for both of you, considering your friends are probably already heading back to Philadelphia right now.”

  Reggie and Derrick exchanged glances.

  “Yeah, The Hawk told us all about it,” Mance said. “Said you four would probably split up, but if not, get rid of the baggage.” He looked at Derrick. “This guy and your leader, the Jefferson guy.”

  Joshua and Derrick, Reggie thought. Those are the two ‘loose ends,’ according to Garza.

  “But he’s been working on some interesting tech back in Philly,” Mance continued. “I’d bet he could use a few more subjects to test on.”

  “There’s nothing here, Mance,” the pilot said. “We’re wasting time. Let’s get back.”

  Mance nodded. “Yeah, sounds good. Get these guys back to the chopper. Bird’s up in ten.”

  The pilot rolled his eyes, obviously annoyed with the less-experienced leader’s gross misinterpretation at how quickly they’d be able to get back down to the valley and how fast the pilot would be able to spin up the chopper.

  Reggie looked once more at the thin, silvery vein that ran along the length of the tiny cavern. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew there was more to the story than what the mercenaries believed.

  Not now, he reminded himself. We have information we can use, if need be. Not the right time to waste that.

  Derrick was watching Reggie’s face, and Reggie nodded to him. The men understood each other, and Reggie was glad Derrick felt the same way. They needed to get back to Philadelphia and try to reach Ben and Joshua before they found Julie.

  They were walking into a trap.

  Chapter SIXTY-NINE

  “WE’RE HERE,” BEN SAID INTO the cellphone. “You got any leads?”

  Mr. E’s voice spoke back through the connection. “Maybe. There are a lot of buildings large enough to be considered a ‘gymnasium,’ but without more time to do a cross-referenced between with existing buildings and known addresses, it is going to be questionable whether these four are worth investigating at all.”