Killer Summer (Walt Fleming)

by Ridley Pearson

  Stratum said nothing.

  “But, here we are, right?” he continued. “I want to help her. If I don’t do something now and it’s later determined that if I had . . . If it gives the sheriff an advantage . . .”

  “It comes down to money, right?” he continued. “Love and money. How fragile it all is, how quickly it all changes. All you ever want to do is protect her, take care of her, keep her out of trouble. Steer her away from the things that are only going to make it harder and push her toward the things that make it easier . . . college, good friends. Build her a solid foundation to stand on. Am I right?”

  He jerked back in his chair so abruptly that he went out of frame of the camera. Fiona widened the shot, noticing in the process that her finger was trembling.

  “Mastermind,” Stratum repeated.

  He looked up at Stratum, up at the camera, and winced.

  “They say I’m a one-hit wonder, did you know that? You know what it’s like to hear that said about yourself ?”

  He closed his eyes slowly, shook his head, opened them, managed another smug grin.

  “To stay in the game . . .” he continued. “There’s a level of play that I don’t expect you to understand, but it’s critical if you’re going to see the A scripts, if you’re going to have a chance at the big projects.” He leaned forward across the table, the camera laboring to keep him in focus. “A bridge loan, that’s all.” He was shouting by now. “ ‘ Nothing to it!’ he said.” Sumner snorted. “Nothing to it . . .”

  He exhaled and looked around the room anxiously. “He’s a clever man, your sheriff.”

  “He’s a keeper,” Stratum said.

  Sumner put his hands behind his head and stretched. His neck made a popping sound. It wasn’t fear in his eyes but anger, a man pitting himself against the world. Fiona cowered into the corner.

  “Okay,” he said. “Pay attention.”

  Again, he was addressing the camera directly.

  Fiona pushed herself farther into the corner, her back flat against the cool wall.

  “I first met Christopher Cantell when we were developing the script for Mastermind. He was brought in as a paid consultant.”

  Fiona threw her head back and it hit the wall with a thud. Sumner’s eyes ticked in her direction but only briefly. He looked back into the calm, unresponsive face of Deputy Gloria Stratum and said, “Ransoming the Lear . . . That was my idea.”

  77

  As the sky passed from faintly maroon to sapphire, the forest interior remained dark as night. Kevin and John were being led down the log steps to the airstrip and river beyond. Kevin had never known such darkness, his heart heavy with regret, his limbs jangled with frustration. He and the cowboy walked along in silence, the rush of the river constant and growing louder like ringing in his ears.

  He assumed the plan was to lock the two of them in the Learjet. He didn’t know what they had in mind for Summer, but just the thought of that made him angry at the cowboy. They should have put up more of a fight than they had.

  They reached the flat, graveled plain of the riverbed. Kevin spotted the pilot on the riverbank with a raft and some gear. As they walked closer, he could see it was an established put-in.

  Upstream and down, towering cliffs formed a gorge through which the river churned, opening only briefly here at the ranch. Kevin saw it for what it was without an explanation from John, whose body language was becoming increasingly agitated.

  “You’d better provision us well,” John said. “The first take-out is four days downriver.”

  “We’re well aware of that,” said the pilot. He was holding John’s handgun.

  “And a snakebite kit and a water filter—”

  “Enough! You’ll have what we give you. Be happy we’re not leaving you tied up here to starve. That option was seriously considered.”

  “Without sunblock and a tarp, what you’re offering will be worse than starving—”

  “I said shut up.”

  The two hijackers exchanged a look that, even in the dark, Kevin understood.

  “They don’t care,” Kevin said. “They just want us out of here. They’d rather the river kill us. That way, maybe it won’t be called murder.”

  “Shut your trap.”

  “Y’all plan to scale the face of ol’ Shady,” the cowboy said. “I saw the climbing gear all laid out.”

  “None of your business,” the copilot said.

  “Taking the girl?” the cowboy said.

  “You’re not getting the point,” the copilot snarled.

  He struck with lightning-quick speed, a single blow with the gun to the back of the cowboy’s head. He was shorter than the cowboy, and the blow connected just above the neck.

  The cowboy lurched forward but remained conscious and retained his balance.

  “What I was trying to tell you,” the cowboy struggled to say, “is that you want to take the north route if you’re going with the girl.” He caught a breath. “There are two routes up that face, and although the south route appears easier from the ground it’s far more difficult at the top. The girl won’t make it unless she’s an experienced climber. In fact, none of you would. And watch out for the hawk nest on the north route. Half the time, those damned birds are in that nest and will come after you like they mean business. The other half of the time, they’re in the air and will attack from behind. This time of day, they’re in the nest. And you ain’t seen nothing angrier than a hawk when its nest is disturbed.”

  The copilot clearly wanted to stop him from speaking but was too taken by what was being said.

  “Okay, then,” the copilot said, “get into the raft.”

  “Our hands? We won’t make it around the first bend with our hands tied. We’ll come up against the Widow Maker, and that’ll be all she wrote.”

  “You’ll have your hands free.”

  The raft was eased out into the current. The copilot motioned the two into it and they waded out and climbed in awkwardly. The pilot waded out with them and untied their hands while the copilot kept the gun on them. Kevin wondered if the copilot had the nerve to shoot them, if he could aim well enough to hit them at fifteen feet. The cowboy was probably thinking the same thing.

  And then, with a push, they were off, into the churning current, into cooler air and a slight breeze not felt on shore.

  They moved downstream quickly, coming up even with the camouflaged jet sitting at the end of the airstrip. The pilot and copilot watched them.

  “Have you ever rafted?” the cowboy asked, climbing past Kevin, immediately all business.

  “Couple of times.”

  “I’ll take the stern and steer. You do as I say the minute I say it. You got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Stay on the right for now. They’ll be two commands: paddle forward, paddle back. I’ll do the rest. There’s a number four ahead. Won’t be so bad this time of year with the low water and all, but it’s no picnic . . . especially in this light.”

  “We can’t leave her,” Kevin said.

  “Well, we have. First real chance at getting out is two days downriver, and that would mean a forty-mile hike. They were smart. We’re stuck on this river for the next couple of days.”

  “There’s got to be a way back to the ranch.”

  Then the cowboy barked some paddling instructions, and Kevin responded. The last glimpse of the jet slipped past, the rock wall rising quickly.

  “I’ll jump,” Kevin said. “I’m not leaving her.”

  “Settle down, kid. This river is nothing to mess with.”

  “What if I climb the wall?”

  As he said this, he saw how quickly and steeply the wall rose.

  “We’re not doing anything with them watching us. Now, paddle forward!”

  “And when they’re not watching . . . ?” he said over his shoulder.

  “There is one possibility. It’s called Mitchum’s Eddy, but we call it the Widow Maker. The river swings left up ahead. M
itchum’s Creek dumps into it there at the Maker. There’s a waterfall made by the spring creek running off the ranch. But the eddy, even in slack water, is nothing to mess with. You get a raft in there and you’ll get thrown into the wall, as it makes that bend, and the raft’ll wrap, be pinned to the wall. And that’s that. We’d have to swim for it or drown.”

  “So, I can swim,” Kevin said.

  “The currents, boy, are wicked. A couple died there about ten years back. It’s nothing to mess with.”

  “But if we made it, if we could do it, we could follow them. Catch them.”

  “They won’t leave any climbing gear behind, count on it.”

  He barked more instructions.

  Kevin saw the bend in the river looming before them, maybe half a mile downstream. White water foamed at the base of the rock wall where the eddy pounded into it.

  “What those fellas apparently don’t know, or didn’t think about, is that there’s a zip line—a chair—that crosses the river about three-quarters of a mile upstream. It’s how we provision the ranch. We keep an ATV hid on the east side to cover the twelve miles to the nearest road. We could cross at the chair, head upriver, and cut back across at a similar line three miles up. We’d be back on their side of the river then. We’d have a shot at them. At the girl.”

  “We’ve got to do it.”

  The sheer rock face at the turn grew closer. Kevin realized there would be little time for more discussion or planning. The river was dictating their moves.

  “We have the one chance,” the cowboy said, “and the currents are mean. Once we’re out of this raft, that’s it. We make the shore or we’re thrown back into the river without the raft.”

  “Then we can’t let it wrap,” Kevin said. “If we miss the shore, we have to have at least a chance of catching back up to the raft.”

  “Dump the cooler,” the cowboy said.

  Kevin did as he was told. The cowboy maneuvered the raft expertly, holding to the center of the river. He simultaneously tied a line to the cooler’s handle and knotted it tightly.

  “The cooler floats,” the cowboy explained. “But it can also fill up with water and act as a kind of anchor, maybe slowing the raft down and giving us a chance to catch it. But I gotta tell you, with no vests, no helmets, this is not to be taken lightly.”

  “We can’t leave her,” Kevin said.

  “There’s a fine line between nobility and insanity, son. Don’t let your balls speak for your brain. This is no video game. If the eddy wins, we lose. And that eddy has won more often than not.”

  “I get it.”

  “Water’s cold enough to steal your breath. You gotta be ready for that. You gotta swim harder than you know how. Got that? The eddy curls counterclockwise toward the rock, then back upstream. You fight it, you lose. The trick is for us to start high, to make it to the far current and let it carry us to the base of the falls. You fight that current, you’ll tire out. You’ve got to work with it, not against it. Understand?”

  He threw the cooler overboard. The raft lurched, and Kevin nearly went over the side.

  “If we’re doing this, it’s now or never,” said the cowboy, pulling off his boots and slipping out of his jacket. “Strip down, boy. You want to be as light as you can get.”

  Kevin pulled off his sweatshirt but left his sneakers on.

  “If you end up in the river,” John said, “you’ll want your feet aiming downstream—”

  “And your hands covering your head,” Kevin completed.

  In the glow coming from the sky, he saw fear in the old guy’s face for the first time.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Kevin added, “I can do this by myself.”

  “I’m in no mood for four days on the river,” John said, working the paddle to steer the raft closer to a current. “Okay . . . You first . . . Go!”

  Kevin hesitated, judging the distance, marking the location of the small waterfall in his mind’s eye.

  “GO!” the cowboy repeated.

  Kevin swung his feet over the side of the raft and slid down the rubbery fabric into the cold river water.

  78

  The water was icy cold. Walt was in up to his knees, wading across a small tributary that fed the Middle Fork, leading his gelding by the reins, the creek bottom too uneven to risk riding across.

  “How far?” he called ahead.

  “The ranch is one-point-two miles due west,” Brandon answered. “It’s closer to three miles, if we turn south and head for the put-in.”

  “Keep it down!” his father called out.

  “Shut up,” Walt called back to him. “We’re working this out.”

  His father had been acting the taciturn, grumpy old man all night, preferring to ride ahead and keep to himself, believing, no doubt, that riding ahead meant he was the leader. He hadn’t been out in the field for nearly twenty years. Walt could understand it if his father were reliving the manhunt for D. B. Cooper, which had both defined him and limited his advancement at the Bureau. He’d gone on to do great things, was considered a leading expert on counterterrorism, but bringing home Cooper and the money would have turned him into a legend. He’d been churning inside over it for thirty years. He’d been taking it out on his family the whole time.

  Garman continued his overflights of the ranch, at an altitude and in a flight pattern that kept him invisible from the ground. But soon the rising sun would catch the plane. There was time for only a few more passes.

  Walt had made several calls to Kevin’s phone, left three messages. Then Garman had flown in a pattern that allowed Kevin’s phone to be logged on to the repeater for a full fifteen minutes. That, in turn, let the GPS track the cell phone. The coordinates placed it at Mitchum’s Ranch.

  Garman was continuing to make calls to Kevin’s phone each time he flew over the ranch. Kevin had not answered any of the calls. And he hadn’t returned any of Walt’s messages.

  The good news was, they had confirmation of the cell phone’s location. The bad news was, that information would be impossible to keep from the FBI. Mitchum’s Ranch would be the target of an aerial-and-ground assault by noon.

  They had as few as three hours and maybe as many as six to locate and rescue Kevin ahead of an FBI Special Forces intervention that Jerry was convinced would result in a body count.

  Brandon had discovered an unnamed dotted line on the map crossing the river near Mitchum’s Creek that intrigued Walt but would require a detour to investigate. Jerry openly objected to any delay. He was currently trailing the pack horse and favored making for the upriver put-in and floating down to Mitchum’s Ranch. Their arguing had continued for the past forty-five minutes, ever since Brandon’s discovery. A call to the office hadn’t helped. No one could find out what the line on the map indicated.

  “There are no power lines in a wilderness area,” Jerry reasoned. “The dotted line could mean anything. A dam? A culvert? Whatever it is, it’s not worth the delay to find out.”

  Now on the far side of the creek, Jerry remounted his horse and, taking the pack horse’s lead rope, headed due west.

  “Dad!” Walt called out after him.

  Jerry spun around in his saddle.

  “There’s no time to play hunches. We know we can float in. We go with the given.”

  “It’s on the map for a reason,” Walt said. “Going onto the river will cost us an extra two hours.”

  “No. The waste of time is heading for a dotted line that doesn’t mean anything, doesn’t get you anywhere. Kevin doesn’t have time for this.”

  His father couldn’t handle the raft alone and all three men knew it.

  “Okay. You and Brandon will get the float gear to the put-in. We have radios. I’ll ride ahead and see what I can see. We’ll stay in touch.”

  “We’re not waiting for you,” Jerry said. He turned and rode off.

  79

  The river had appeared languid, even tranquil, from the raft, like a single sheet of molten gray glass slidi
ng past the dramatic landscape. In the water, it revealed its power and speed. Its cold paralyzing Kevin’s lungs, its unrelenting energy flinging him headlong downstream, the river revealed his attempts at swimming as perilously slight and ineffective. He pulled and kicked against the deceptively strong current while attempting to keep an eye on his destination, some tumbled rocks at the base of a gap in the rock face oiled by a small silver waterfall.

  Kevin swam with all his strength. There was no time to think. He swam for his life.

  Taking a breath midcrawl, Kevin managed to lift his head above the coils of current. The cowboy, who’d let Kevin go first, was caught in the river’s main current heading straight for the Widow Maker.

  Kevin put his head down and took several powerful strokes toward the waterfall. He was in the slack water between the two opposing forces of the counterclockwise current. If he could catch the current ahead of the waterfall, which was where he was headed, and swim strongly enough to punch through it, it might deliver him exactly where he wanted. He’d swum hard and had chosen a good line.

  A flicker of optimism charged him.

  Just another few yards . . . I’ll be home free.

  One last look back convinced him John was in serious trouble. He was heading into the Widow Maker where he’d be slammed up against the rock face and held there by the force of the current.

  Separated by a mere twenty yards and yet with entirely different circumstances, he and John caught sight of each other.

  “Go!” John hollered.

  In that instant, no more than a split second between strokes, Kevin changed direction.

  He pulled himself through slack water at the eye of the eddy, his strokes sure and confident, heading for a point in front of the cowboy. He arrived in a matter of seconds.

  “Fool,” John bubbled.

  The cowboy’s energy was spent. Kevin grabbed him and tried to kick, but John was sodden deadweight. The two of them picked up speed, rushing headlong toward the boiling white water at the base of the cliff. Kevin steered for shore, dragging John behind him, but it was no use. The river owned them.