by Meg Gardiner
The ground was cold and damp. The chill seeped through Jo’s clothes into her already-cold body. She crept next to Gabe. He pulled her against his side and rested his arm across her back. Jo let something unwind inside her, an overloaded spring. Just for a moment, this was enough. Reassurance, sustenance, every right kind of warmth.
The walkie-talkie scratched. Two clicks. Then another.
Gabe swept the mountainside with his gaze. “They’re getting into position.” Nothing moved. Nothing rustled. No piece of metal or glass reflected light.
“They could still be a mile away,” Jo said.
Gabe ducked.
Outside the mine, Ratner appeared, leading the horse.
He had removed its saddle and saddle blanket and was brushing its back and flanks with the flat of his hand gently. He propped the shotgun against the exterior wall of the mine entrance.
His shirt was off. Despite the chill, he was bare chested. His arms were covered with tattoos. Even from this distance, Jo could see their outline. Snakes.
A coiled rope hung from his shoulder. He turned, stroking the horse’s neck, revealing his back. The pockets of his sagging jeans bore a walkie-talkie and a handgun. A tattoo Jo recognized as signature state prison technique, in sickly blue ink, covered his back: an iron cross from which hung a noose.
Gabe held motionless. Jo didn’t want to breathe. They were under the trees, in a shadowed nook, but she didn’t want to betray their presence.
“Gotta do something soon if we’re going to do it,” Gabe whispered. “Once Haugen and his gang get here, it’ll be too late.”
How? Jo thought. Ratner had a semiautomatic pistol, a twelve-gauge shotgun, and apparently the snake-action power of Hangman Christ. She and Gabe had a knife and a sharpened stick.
Then she grasped it. “He’s not going to let Haugen come here. He’s outgunned against Haugen and his gang. And he won’t want them to know where the kids are stashed.”
Below, Ratner stroked the horse’s soft muzzle. From his pocket he took a granola bar. Unwrapping it, he fed it to the horse. He couldn’t have looked more tender and content.
Gabe said, “He has to have the kids immobilized inside the mine. And not just because of injury and fear. He’s too casual. He has them constrained physically.”
They looked at each other. Jo said, “Which means he’ll feel free to leave them here while he goes to meet Haugen.”
“If he meets Haugen. He must want money. But Haugen doesn’t have cash. Nobody’s been up here delivering a ransom.”
“He’ll have to arrange getting paid. Getting cash or getting funds transferred into his account.”
“Cash. If you were Ratner, would you trust Haugen to transfer a bunch of money sight unseen—when you’re up a creek without any way to verify it? Besides, he’s a greenback kind of guy.”
“Haugen will demand a meeting. He won’t take phone calls or even photos as proof that Autumn’s alive. Ratner will take proof of life. But he’ll leave the kids in the mine.”
“If Ratner agrees to a meeting, he’ll have to leave them. Anything else is suicide for him, literally.”
They really couldn’t know. They had to hope.
Ratner hitched up his jeans.
“We won’t know how much time we’ll have before he comes back,” she said. “And we won’t know whether Haugen’s going to play straight, or whether he has somebody lurking out there, trying to track down Ratner’s hiding spot.”
“You can bet he does.” Gabe locked eyes with her again. “Yes or no?”
“Yes. We’ll just have to be quick.”
Heart thudding, she rested her chin on the ground and kept Ratner in view.
Exhaustion swamped Jo like a wave, and drowsiness hummed in her ears. Just for a moment she shut her eyes. Just for a blissful instant.
The walkie-talkie bleated. She raised her head, powerfully and painfully alert.
“Ratner, come in,” Haugen said.
Outside the mine, Ratner pulled the walkie-talkie from his back pocket. Jo and Gabe saw him put the device to his face and heard his singsong voice on the radio.
“Beautiful morning, ain’t it? Shall we dance?”
“We meet. You bring Autumn, we arrange the division of funds.”
“Nuh-uh. We meet, you give me something that secures your promise to pay me, and I’ll bring you . . . a lock of the little princess’s hair.”
Long pause. “At the bottom of the ravine.”
“On my way.”
“I’ll see you there.”
“You’ll see me there, what?” Ratner said.
The pause on Haugen’s end seemed to virtually steam the walkie-talkies. “I’ll see you there, partner.”
Laughing, Ratner clicked off. He pulled on a shirt and picked up the shotgun. He strode into the mine.
Jo and Gabe held their breath. A minute later Ratner came back out, tucking something into his pocket. He grabbed the horse’s reins and a handful of its mane, and swung up onto its back. He turned it and, kicking its sides, headed down the vale of the ravine.
Jo and Gabe waited until he was out of sight. They stood and ran down the hill toward the mine.
53
Gabe paused at the entrance to the mine. His buck knife was in his hand, low, the blade smooth in the rising light. He pressed himself against the rocky face of the hill and peered into the gloom inside.
He put a finger to his lips. Signaled for Jo to guard the entrance.
He ducked inside. Jo’s pulse ticked like a watch about to blow its springs. A cold shaft of air funneled past her, drawn inside. She heard Gabe’s feet scuff on the dirt as he edged back into the darkness. She watched the hills and shadowed depths of the ravine. The morning sky was calm, but even so, the trees wafted back and forth, squirrels jumping, birds taking flight. Her mouth was so dry she couldn’t spit.
Inside, Gabe turned on the flashlight. She heard muffled crying. A girl, shouting from behind a gag.
“Jo, quick,” Gabe said.
She ran inside. Gabe was around the bend, planted in the center of the tunnel, one hand out warning her to stop. His flashlight illuminated the exposed crossbeam in the crumbling ceiling of the tunnel.
Lark was strung up by her hands, swinging from it. Shocked, Jo said, “Oh God.”
Lark’s eyes glittered. She was gagged with a strip of fabric. Her arms stretched overhead. She looked to be in incredible pain. Behind her on the dirt, Noah slumped against the tunnel wall. His hands were bound and tied to his feet. Jo ran toward him.
From behind the gag Lark screamed, shaking her head and kicking frantically.
Gabe grabbed her. “It’s not safe. Look.”
Beneath Lark, a tarp had been laid across a hole in the floor of the mine and covered with a layer of dirt. Gabe pulled it aside. Lark wasn’t hanging two inches off the dirt. She was hanging above a pit.
Jo and Gabe edged forward. He shone the flashlight down.
“That’s what Ratner did with their spears,” he said. “Turned them into punji sticks.”
It was the flood runoff pit. At the bottom, four whittled spears pointed straight up. Anybody who walked up to Lark, intending to cut her down, would have plunged into the pit and been impaled.
Now she understood why Gabe needed her here and not standing guard at the mine entrance. It would take two people to get Lark down and Noah out.
“Hang on, we’re going to cut you down,” he said.
Lark nodded, but it was half relief, half terror. She cried something that, even gagged, was clear. Hurry.
Gabe looked around. “Ratner had to have climbed on something to get the rope knotted up there.”
They found it: an ancient wooden crate. Beneath it was a pickax. Gabe handed Jo his knife. He set the crate next to the wall. Then he jumped across the pit, pulled Lark toward him by her belt, and said, “Cut the rope.”
Jo climbed on the crate. She sliced through the rope. Lark dropped and Gabe yanked her backward t
oward him. They fell in a heap.
He pulled off the gag. She clutched him, crying. “Thank you. Oh God. Help Noah.”
Jo jumped across the pit and sliced the ropes that bound the boy. He was deeply cold. She took his pulse: slow and regular, but far weaker than before. She tapped him hard on the cheek, twice. His eyes opened. He saw her, nodded, and said, “Yeah.”
She turned to Lark. “Where’s Autumn?”
“Deeper in the mine. He dragged her way back in there. This thing branches off in a bunch of directions. I don’t know where she is.”
“Come on, let’s get you two out of here,” Gabe said.
He grabbed Noah in a fireman’s carry, which must have nearly killed both of them. Jo grabbed the pickax. She and Lark ran out first, checked the hillside, and motioned Gabe to come.
He lugged Noah into the daylight. “Lark, can one person reach Autumn by themselves?”
“Should be able to. She’s fine, as far as I know.”
Jo said, “Go. I’ll get her. I’ll hurry.”
Gabe said, “Give Lark the pickax.”
Jo kept the buck knife. Gabe and Lark struggled uphill and disappeared into the trees.
Jo dashed back to the mine. She ducked low and ran down the tunnel. The mine was cold and dank and ghostly.
“Autumn?” she said.
The only reply was darkness.
“Thank you, Sheriff Gilbert.”
Tang slammed down the phone, grabbed Evan’s elbow, and pulled her off the plastic desk chair.
“Come on. I need to get out of here for a minute.”
Evan bumbled to her feet and followed her. “What’s happened?”
Tang pushed the button for the elevator, then, fidgeting, headed for the stairs instead. She had a pack of cigarettes in her hand.
“Jo’s truck is no longer parked at the roadside where the deputy found it,” she said. “It’s gone.”
From Tang’s tightly spun anger, Evan knew this did not mean Jo had driven down the canyon to hole up in some cozy motel overnight.
“It’ll be light soon,” Tang said. “And the weather’s clearing. With luck, they’ll get a helicopter airborne searching for them.”
“With luck?”
“Roads are washed out. Other campers are stranded, and drivers got swept off the roads in the flash flood. It’s a mess. The authorities are swamped.”
They jogged down the stairs and hit the ground floor. Tang kept going, straight through the doors and outside into the clinging, twilight damp. She stopped on the sidewalk, cupped her hand, and lit her smoke.
“The deputy’s still missing too, isn’t he?” Evan said.
“No sign of him or his cruiser.”
She snuffed her lighter, jammed it in her pocket, and squinted as she inhaled.
Not going to be a happy ending. The street was glum and empty. The roadside attractions included bail bondsmen and an auto body shop.
Tang glared at stoplights directing nothing, red and green and lonely, all the way toward the bay. “How do you figure this all fits together?”
“Dane Haugen ambushed Autumn Reiniger’s group on its Edge Adventures weekend.”
“What about the rest?”
“Ruben Kyle Ratner is working for Edge Adventures. And Ratner murdered Phelps Wylie. He carjacked him here in the city, forced him to drive to the Sierras, and then killed him and dumped his body in the mine.”
“And Jo stumbled into it?”
“Yes. And no. Jo was at the wrong place at the wrong time. But it wasn’t random.”
It still didn’t fit. Not completely.
Behind them the door banged open. Ferd ran out, panting. He was wearing a headset, and his eyes were wide.
“I got it. Ragnarok. I found the next iteration in their mythology,” he said.
Tang looked, for a second, like she wanted to punch him. But then again, she looked in the mood to punch a brick wall.
“What, Ferd?” Evan said.
He danced on his toes. “Ragnarok—like I said, in Norse mythology it means the end of the world and ruin of the gods. Literally it translates as ‘destruction of the powers.’ I know you searched U.S. databases for information about it. I did some parallel processing.”
Tang spun her hand. Speed it up.
“I do a lot of online gaming, and—”
“Ferd. Please,” Tang said.
He stopped, abashed, almost dashed. Mr. Peebles glared from the Baby Björn. Ferd rubbed the monkey’s back, a quick, reassuring motion.
Tang shut her eyes. “What?”
“One of my online friends is in Oslo. I contacted him about Norse mythology. I asked him about mythological themes related to Ragnarok. He came up with a few.”
Evan was skeptical. “I found summaries of Norse myth in online encyclopedias. It’s not necessarily helpful.”
“You don’t understand. He knows this stuff inside out. He checked online for companies with related names. Norwegian companies. You said this series of shell companies was international, right? I heard you mention an Interpol flag. Didn’t I?”
Did he have bat ears?
“Yes,” Tang said.
“You’ve been checking American search engines and government databases. My friend checked Norwegian databases for corporations with dot-no Internet addresses. And he speaks Norwegian. He doesn’t have to rely on online translation.”
“And?”
“Asgard.” Ferd squeezed his hands into fists. “Asgard is a kind of Norse god headquarters. And you have to be dead to get in. But it’s also a hollow shell of a company with Norwegian roots, and a dot-no address. I checked its connections with Ragnarok. They’re tenuous, but they’re there.”
“Ferd, I don’t know. It seems awfully convenient that you found this information,” Tang said. The rest was implied: You’re seeing what you want to see.
But Evan felt an electric buzz. “Yeah, but Haugen seems full of hubris. Maybe he’s the type to go for grand gestures, thinking he’s always going to be a step ahead.”
Ferd was nearly bouncing. “You’ve only heard part of it.” He held out his phone. “Asgard-dot-no doesn’t have offices in San Francisco. But they’ve leased a big rig. And they’ve parked it here.”
Tang peered at his phone. A list of companies and contract information for a tractor-trailer depot were displayed on the screen.
“How on earth . . .”
“Don’t ask. Please.” He went as red as the stoplights down the street. “All you need to know is that Google doesn’t own the only heavy-duty search algorithms in the Bay Area.”
And they certainly didn’t use password-cracking software to prioritize search results, Evan bet. Not openly.
“Why would Asgard need to rent a tractor-trailer? Why would they store it near Candlestick Park?” Ferd said.
Evan had her car keys out and was running toward the garage.
The sky was brightening above the bay. The stars had winked out. The dawn was cool and clammy. Ahead of the Mustang, Tang flashed her badge at the gate to the truck depot. The depot foreman, who had been rousted out of bed, unlocked the gate and rolled it open.
Ferd filled the passenger seat of the Mustang. Not physically—emotionally. It was his anxiety that practically turned the air in the car a jangly red. Behind him, perched on the back of the headrest, Mr. Peebles kept watch.
“Think Jo’s in there?” Ferd said.
“We’ll see.”
Tang drove through the gate. Evan goosed the Mustang and rumbled after her.
“You’re really fond of Jo, aren’t you?” Evan said.
“We’re ad-hoc investigative partners.” He crossed his fingers to show her: like that. “We have an intuitive connection. I think it’s because Mr. Peebles loves her so.”
Evan glanced at the monkey. It glanced back. She thought it rolled its eyes.
“He’s really sensitive,” Ferd said. “I can tell he likes you. You’re a pet person.”
“I wouldn’
t have a pet if you paid me in gold bullion. However, I could see Mr. Peebles being my butler. Does he mix cocktails?”
Ahead, Tang and the depot foreman pulled up behind a parked forty-foot trailer. It was painted white without any markings. Tang got out and gestured Evan and Ferd to stay put.
They were out of the Mustang before Tang finished glowering.
Tang shone her flashlight on the trailer. The double doors on the back were locked. She walked up to it.
“Blood,” she said. “Come on, get this open.”
The foreman used a crowbar and bolt cutters. When the lock snapped, he swung the doors open.
Evan ran forward, heedless of contaminating the scene or documenting it for her article. Inside the trailer, squinting under the beam of Tang’s flashlight, were four men in Edge Adventures shirts. They were tied together with their feet shackled to a ring on the floor in the center of the trailer.
Evan boosted Tang up and hauled herself into the trailer after her. They rushed to a man who lay, barely conscious, near the doors. He had graying hair and brown skin. His clothes were dark with dried blood. Tang pulled off the gag and rolled him onto his back.
“Thank God,” he croaked.
“Terry Coates?” Tang said.
“Yeah. Never thought you’d come. God bless the SFPD for ignoring everything I phoned in.”
54
The paramedics prepared to load Terry Coates into the ambulance for transport to San Francisco General Hospital. He was strapped to a stretcher and had an IV line running. A gunshot had shattered his femur. Tang was trying to get as much information from him as she could before the ambulance drove away.
“Does the name Dane Haugen mean anything to you?” she said.
Though he was already lying down, Coates seemed to slump. “The Reiniger Capital weekend.”
“You know him?” Tang said.
“Yeah. He’s infamous.”
Evan inched toward the stretcher. “Why?”
Coates had liquid eyes, brimming with pain. “He freaked out during a scenario. Found a snake in his car and had a panic attack. Afterward, Peter Reiniger fired him.”