The Untamed Hunter

by Lindsay McKenna

  “What have you got?”

  “Good news. Mitchell just interviewed a tourist staying here. She reported seeing a plain white van with tinted windows near the underground garage roughly twenty minutes ago.”

  “Did she see anyone?”

  “Yes,” Preston said triumphantly, “two men and a woman. She described the woman as having red hair.”

  Shep’s heart squeezed. “Was she all right?”

  Preston nodded. “Yes, she said the woman had her hands bound behind her in what looked like handcuffs, but she appeared okay. She said they opened the rear of the van and hurriedly climbed in. The van left—” he looked at his watch “—around 6:45, give or take a few minutes.”

  “Did she see the make of the van?”

  Preston shrugged. “No, she didn’t. You know how women are about that. They never notice the make of a vehicle, just the color.”

  “Damn!”

  “Hold your horses, Hunter, we might have another break.” Preston smiled a little. “Did you know the bridge leaving the island has a camera trained on outgoing traffic? I’m going to contact the highway department and tell them to hold that piece of videotape for us. If there was a white van going across that bridge, then we know for sure they’re on the mainland instead, and we can mount a search.”

  Heartened, Shep said, “Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”

  “You get down to the bridge,” Preston suggested. “There’s a road on the right that leads to a small blue building where a security guard and the camera are located. Call me if you find anything?”

  “In a heartbeat,” Hunter promised, already out the door. As he hurried down the stairs, he barely took note that the thunderstorm was over. It was 7:00 p.m. They had another two hours of daylight, more or less, to try and spot that white van. The air was pungent with the odor of freshly washed pine trees as he loped through the underground garage to the sedan. Sliding in, he focused his mind as he drove out into the slanting, evening sunshine. First he had to contact Perseus. He had to let Morgan know what had happened. Shep’s conscience ate at him as he punched in the Perseus number on his cell phone. What would they think of him botching this top event? Even worse, if Maggie was still alive, what would she think of him? He’d let her down, just as he’d let Sarah down.

  As he sped along the rain-washed black asphalt houses and trees sped by him in a blur. Once out on the main route, Shep stepped on the accelerator. Speed was of the essence now. If that videotape revealed a white van going to the mainland, that was all he needed.

  “Lookie here,” the security guard, Jameson Curtis, said in a soft, Southern drawl. Dressed in dark-blue pants and a short-sleeved, light-blue shirt, he sat in his chair pointing to one of the television monitors as he ran the last hour’s videotape on it. Scratching his balding head, he said, “Here’s your suspect, Mr. Hunter.” He punched the stop button on the VCR. Squinting his gray eyes, Curtis added, “And you can see the license plate on that van plain as day.” He wrote the number down for Shep.

  Nodding his thanks, Shep reached for his cell phone.

  “We’ve hit gold,” he told Preston, giving him the van’s make, model and plate number. He heard Preston repeat the information into another phone plugged into the FBI agency, where the numbers would be run and the owner located.

  “Wait one minute,” Preston said.

  Impatiently, Shep waited, staring at the television screen as he did so. The white van, which looked like an ordinary workmen’s truck, had some scrapes and a dent on the right rear side, he noted. Slightly dusty, slightly used, it would blend into a stream of traffic with no problem.

  “Hunter?”

  “Yeah?”

  “The van is registered to an auto rental place in Savannah—secondhand vehicles mostly. The man who signed the five-day rental is Bruce Tennyson. Does that ring any bells with you?”

  “Hell, yes!” Shep exclaimed softly. His heart beat hard. “Dr. Bruce Tennyson is a British virologist who used to work for the U.K. on top secret projects that involved creating viruses for biological warfare situations. He disappeared, literally, five years ago after coming back from a two-year stint here in the U.S.A.”

  “And he’s in Black Dawn?”

  “The list I’ve got says he is. A Professor Valdemar identified him as one of the key leaders in the movement.”

  “Jackpot,” Preston whispered.

  “Send out a statewide APB on him. In the meantime, I’ll rent a single-engine airplane from the Hilton Head airport and try and locate them from the air. A plane flying a hundred and fifty miles an hour can cover a lot of terrain in a hurry. Do you have any aircraft available?”

  “Negative, we don’t. That’s a good idea. Rent a plane and keep in touch. We still don’t know which way they went once they hit the mainland.”

  “I know. I’ll start a search grid. I’ll let you know more about it when I’m airborne so we can coordinate.”

  “Fine. Preston, out.”

  Flipping the phone case closed, Shep thanked the security guard and hurried to the car. Looking up at the sky, he eyed the thunderheads all around the island. Flying could get dicey in a small, fixed-wing aircraft without state-of-the-art instrumentation. It would certainly be seat-of-the-pants flying. Climbing into his car, Shep sped off toward the airport. On the way, he called Perseus again to keep them updated.

  At the airport, he hurried to a small office that had Cessna printed on the door. Pulling out his wallet, Shep took out his flying license, the first thing they’d demand in renting him a plane. As he entered the small, cramped office, which reeked of cigarette smoke, a gray-headed man with a goatee and glasses looked up. He was tall and spare and dressed in a red T-shirt and jeans.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Yes,” Shep said, laying his license on the counter between them. “I need to rent the fastest plane you’ve got.”

  Chuckling, his eyes crinkling, the man studied the license. “Well, Mr. Hunter, the only planes we have are Cessna 150s. We use ’em to teach folks how to fly.”

  “Are any available?”

  “Just one.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  “How long will you need it?”

  “Twenty-four hours. I intend to do some flying in the local area—maybe as far north as Charleston or down into the Savannah area.”

  The man shrugged and pulled out an order form. “You got a lot of thunderstorms right now, young fella.”

  “I flew jets in the Air Force,” Shep told him. “I think I can handle some thunder bumpers.” He was in a hurry, and the man seemed interminably slow. Shep tried not to convey his sense of urgency. He didn’t want to cause a panic with the locals by alerting them of any danger in the area.

  “Yes, sir, I guess you can.”

  Just then, Shep’s phone rang. He instantly opened it and answered, “Hunter here.”

  “Preston. We got another break. We sent out the APB, and a South Carolina state trooper just reported seeing a white van of that description going north on Interstate 95, heading in the direction of Charleston.”

  Hurriedly, Shep grabbed an air map and spread it out on the counter. Fixing their position, he intently studied I-95 north of Hilton Head. “I see the route.”

  “There’s a lot of hill country covered in pines up that way. And a lot of back roads. Dirt roads.”

  “That’s okay, it gives me a direction.”

  “Listen, I’m coordinating for a helicopter out of Charleston, but the place is socked in with thunderstorms and they’re grounded for now.”

  “That’s okay, I’ll be going up into that area real fast.” Shep glanced over at the old man, who was painstakingly filling out the form.

  “Good. Once you get airborne, stay in touch.”

  “Don’t worry, I will,” Shep promised.

  Seven

  The light, airy movements of the Cessna 150 felt good to Shep. Almost nurturing. He was always at his best when he was in the air. As he guide
d the white aircraft northward after taking off from Hilton Head island, the blazing western sun momentarily blinded him. He pulled aviator glasses from his shirt pocket and put them on. In the copilot’s seat to his right lay his cell phone and an opened map of the area. Shep had been in a hurry to get into the air and had done a cursory walk-around of the airplane before leaping onboard and taxiing straight to the takeoff point.

  Checking the radio, he found to his dismay that it wasn’t working. Cursing softly he glanced over at his cell phone. At least he had that. He wouldn’t be completely out of touch with Preston, who was now coordinating the entire search and capture effort from the Hilton Head police station.

  Though grateful for any backup, Shep planned on being the one to bring these terrorists in. Grimly, he swung the aircraft over the I-95. It was thick with traffic between Hilton Head and Charleston. He took out his binoculars and checked out anything that looked white from his flying altitude of one thousand feet. By federal aviation requirements, no aircraft could fly lower than that unless landing or taking off. Shep had pushed the throttle of the single engine to the redline position. The Cessna 150 wasn’t a race-horse. It puttered along in the turbulent blue sky that was gathering clouds and threatening more thunderstorms. The air was unstable due to the humidity and warmth coming in off the ocean. The Cessna attendant had warned him that another cold front was coming like a freight train from the west, bringing with it a thirty-degree drop in temperature. That was why the sky around him was suddenly alive with angry-looking stormclouds.

  A little Cessna 150 couldn’t take the wrenching updrafts and downdrafts of a thunderstorm, and Shep would be forced to fly around the huge formations or under them. The Cessna couldn’t climb over ten thousand feet, so trying to rise above one of these huge, forty-thousand-foot cumulonimbus clouds was out of the question. No, he’d have to dodge and dart between the mountainous masses instead. That, or fly real low, in which case he’d have rain to contend with, as well as fierce air pockets. If he got too close to the ground and got slammed by one of these big fellows, he’d be history. Downdrafts had knocked airliners out of the sky at Dallas International Airport, and hundreds of people had died. Such a force would take his little aluminum Cessna and bend it like a pretzel in a matter of seconds, smashing him and it like a fly beneath a flyswatter into the muddy earth below.

  Trying to keep the plane stable was nearly impossible, Shep found. Air pockets kept swatting the game little aircraft about, lifting or dropping it a hundred feet at a time, like a roller coaster. Anyone not used to flying would have been thrown long ago, but not Shep. He was used to powering hot chargers like the F-15 Falcon fighter, the premier jet of the Air Force. This constant bouncing around in the evening sky didn’t bother him at all. It did make looking through binoculars tougher, however.

  As he flew northward along I-95, his gut kept nagging at him. What if Tennyson didn’t stay on the interstate? Shep knew he wasn’t a stupid man. Tennyson would realize he would be safer and less likely to be spotted if he took a rural, less-traveled route. Playing his hunch, Shep grabbed at the open map and spread it out across the yoke in front of him. He devoted intense seconds to determining his present position. To his right was the Broad River and Port Royal Sound, a rectangular inlet on the South Carolina coast. North of the river mouth was Parris Island, the Marine Corps boot camp. There was also a marine air station on the island. To Shep’s left was the small town of Switzerland.

  How fast could the van be traveling? Shep tried to project the situation in his head. Speeds were supposed to be no more than sixty-five miles per hour, but just by eyeballing the traffic, he knew most cars were probably averaging around seventy-five. His little Cessna was pushing ninety-five miles an hour, which was close to its top speed. Calculating things in his head, he studied the map again. Tennyson would probably use a side road, if he could. Where was the man going? What was his target objective? Who was he going to meet? And where?

  Blowing a puff of air from between his lips, Hunter devoted half his time to flying the plane and the other to studying the map of the area beneath him. He tried to ignore his anguish and guilt over allowing Maggie to be kidnapped. Was she all right? Was she dead? What would Tennyson do to her? All the ugly thoughts that came up only scored his aching heart more deeply.

  Cursing softly, he shoved his terror for Maggie aside. He had to in order to think clearly. He barely had an hour and a half’s worth of light left. Trying to search for the van at night would be impossible. They would have to rely solely on the highway patrol, which greatly lowered the possibility of finding Maggie at all. Being in the air was a huge advantage, but the willing little Cessna simply didn’t have the technical gear aboard to accomplish night hunts like a military aircraft could.

  Thirty minutes later, Shep diverted to a rural route, Highway 17. It paralleled I-95 going north, but was far less traveled. The sun was dipping closer to the western horizon, the streamers of light now caught by the gathering thunderstorms, which looked like orderly soldiers marching determinedly toward the South Carolina low country. Feeling panicked because he knew he couldn’t dodge the massive storm front, Shep notched up the throttle to a hundred miles an hour. Below him, the traffic on Highway 17 was sparse. His gaze swept the route relentlessly. It was fairly flat country beneath him, but thick with pine trees. He had reached the Ace Basin National Wildlife Refuge, drained by the Combahee River.

  The whole area was a huge marsh, Shep realized. The place must be alive with alligators, not to mention cottonmouth snakes that loved swimming in brackish water among rushes and reeds. The basin was ringed with millions of pine trees. It would be an excellent place to hide or meet someone.

  Banking slightly to the left, Shep tipped the wing enough to see the highway ahead. Wait! His heart slammed against his rib cage. There! A white vehicle! Could it be them? Pulse pounding, adrenaline beginning to pump wildly through him, Shep tightened his hands around the yoke. He wanted to push the aircraft faster. The vehicle was miles ahead on a straight stretch and was heading for the bridge across the Combahee River. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Shep glanced warily at the line of stormclouds, now looming closer. In another fifteen minutes he either had to turn back toward Hilton Head or fly a helluva lot lower than a thousand feet. The massive black-and-gray, churning cumulus were almost upon him. Dark sheets beneath the clouds promised heavy, almost blinding rain. Either way, he could crash if he wasn’t careful.

  The aircraft inched closer and closer to the white vehicle. Taking the binoculars, Shep raised them to his eyes, his heart thudding violently in his chest. It was a white van! It had to be Tennyson! His hunch had been correct!

  A violent updraft struck the Cessna. Shep instantly released the binoculars to take hold of the yoke to steady the plane. The aircraft was lurched to the right like a toy in the sky. The binoculars struck the opened cell phone lying on the copilot’s seat.

  “Damn” Shep snarled as he wrestled with the plane. Once he rode out the air pocket, he released the controls and reached out with his right hand. He shoved the heavy binoculars off the fragile cell phone. Picking it up, he pressed in some numbers. The screen did not light up. He tried it several times.

  “Son of a bitch!” Again and again he tried it. Holding the yoke with one hand and opening the cell phone’s battery case with the other, he checked to see if it was all right. It appeared to be. Once more he tried punching in the numbers to raise Preston. Nothing happened. Anger surged through Shep. The binoculars must have hit the device hard enough to loosen something inside it. Now there was no way to tell the FBI of his discovery.

  Grimly, Shep thought about his options. There weren’t many. He could land and try to find a phone to place the call. But where? Scanning the immediate area, he realized there was no airport available. Nor any suitable fields. He couldn’t land in the marsh and he sure as hell couldn’t land among the pines. Did he dare to stop following the van that he knew had Maggie on board? Tennyso
n could duck off the highway onto a lesser road and Shep could lose them completely. It was going to be dark in another half hour, at the most. What the hell could he do? Helplessly, he wondered how Maggie was doing.

  “Bruce,” Maggie said as sweetly as she knew how, “I have to go to the bathroom. Is there any chance we can stop?” She’d been able to lull Tennyson into thinking she was interested in joining Black Dawn. As a result, he’d ordered Juan to remove the strangling handcuffs. She now sat free and relaxed in the seat. Juan, however, did not trust her, and Maggie felt the soldier’s dark, hooded eyes continuing to burn into her. She smiled as the doctor turned in his seat. It was nearly dusk, and they were surrounded by woods on both sides. It was a good place to try and make an escape. Maggie was scared. She wondered if they could hear her heart pounding raggedly in her breast.

  There had been lightning and thunder around them for the last five minutes. Rain was starting to pound down upon them. It would be good cover if she got away. The thick stands of pines were less than a hundred feet from the highway and would provide enough cover for her if she was fast enough and smart enough. The rain, the whipping wind and the thunder would camouflage the noise of her escape if she made it to the trees. Maggie had no doubt that they’d track her down if possible. Still, they had to meet another contingent of Black Dawn in Charleston, so Tennyson might be torn between finding her and making the scheduled appointment.

  Maggie knew that if she didn’t escape they would take her with them—to Charleston and then overseas, to Albania. That was all she’d been able to get out of him thus far. She also knew that if she refused to join Black Dawn, he’d put a gun to her head and shoot her. It was clear to her now that Tennyson was a fanatic. Anyone who didn’t join him was dead.

  “Look at this!” Alex cried, and promptly slammed on the brakes. The van skidded slightly on the rain-slick asphalt.

  Maggie peered through the windshield, past the beating wiper blades. The rain was so heavy that the blades couldn’t do the job of helping with visibility. And suddenly, as if out of nowhere, dairy cattle were standing in the middle of the two-lane highway! To her left, she saw where a board fence had broken down, allowing a herd of at least forty guernseys to escape. They ambled contentedly about munching roadside grass or chewing their cud.