by R. G. Ryan
“Okay, but we’d better do it right now because the sound is getting closer all the time,” Eddie said as she helped Cassie off the roadway.
They had to walk about fifty feet before finding anything large enough to offer concealment as the car’s engine grew louder and closer with each step.
“Get down on your belly and keep as low of a profile as possible,” Cassie instructed as she positioned herself behind the largest bush she could find.
The following minutes were eternal in their passage as they waited quietly, listening to the sound of the engine coming closer and closer.
“Eddie, if by some chance that is Paul and he comes looking for us, I want you to promise me that you’ll take off as fast as you can go. Just get away from here. No offense, but I’m the one he wants and I don’t think he’ll hurt me, so don’t worry.”
Eddie had already decided that if discovered she would stay with Cassie rather than running to save herself.
“Sorry, Cass, but I can’t do that. I’m staying with you.”
“Don’t be foolish!” Cassie chided.
“It’s not foolishness—it’s loyalty.”
Cassie found that she could see a little by looking through the branches of the scrub brush. The headlights came into view first, still a ways off—bouncing wildly as the car traveled over the rough terrain. The engine, which was working hard, sounded powerful—more like a truck than a car, which reaffirmed her suspicion that it was, indeed, Paul coming back. Then again, out this far it could be anyone—drug runners, hunters, even off-roaders. She decided that she didn’t want anything to do with them, regardless of who it was.
“Can you see anything?” Eddie whispered loudly, causing Cassie to smile in spite of her fear.
“Why are you whispering? We’re a quarter mile away from that thing and with the noise it’s making, they couldn’t hear us if we were in the back seat.”
The vehicle was now only about two hundred yards from their position and it was still dark enough that unless someone happened to be sweeping a spotlight in their direction, they were safe from discovery. This realization prompted Cassie to chance getting up off her belly and into a kneeling position for a better view. Eddie moved up behind her and did the same.
The vehicle was suddenly passing right in front of where they hid. It was the van, all right, with Paul’s face clearly visible through the windshield in the ambient light from the dashboard.
“It’s him!” Eddie hissed.
“Yeah, no doubt about that.”
The van passed them by without slowing and continued on toward the house.
Eddie said, “With your foot the way it is and the fact that we don’t know which way to run, he probably figured we couldn’t really go anywhere and that we’d just, you know, stay put or something.”
After the vehicle passed, Cassie stood carefully and looked around.
“I think we should follow the road, but keep off to the side as much as possible in case he comes back.”
“As soon as he figures out that we’re gone, he’ll definitely come back.”
Cassie pulled out the SatPhone and studied the keypad, shaking her head in frustration.
She had started to put it away when Eddie suddenly reached out and grabbed her arm stopping her.
“Cassie! When’s your birthday?”
“What?”
“When is your birthday?” Eddie repeated excitedly.
“It’s April 22.”
“You know how Paul is all obsessed with you and everything?” Eddie asked.
Cassie suddenly figured it out.
“My birthday? You think my birthday is the code for the phone?”
“What have we got to lose? Try it.”
Cassie punched in 0422, hit the pound key and watched disappointedly as nothing happened.
“It didn’t work!” She couldn’t hide her dejection.
“Wait, let me see it.”
Eddie took the phone, punched in 042240 and held up the phone for Cassie to see. The face was lit up with the word, “Ready.”
“Eddie!” Cassie shrieked like a schoolgirl and they both jumped up and down, with Cassie totally oblivious to any pain. “How’d you figure that out?”
“I don’t know. It just seemed like something Paul would do, you know, reverse the month at the end. Call him, Cass. Call your uncle.”
“I’ll do it right now. Okay…oh come on! What’s his number?”
In her exhaustion she couldn’t remember.
“You’re kidding, right?” Eddie was looking at her like maybe a joke would follow.
Cassie grabbed her head in-between both hands, closing her eyes in concentration.
“Got it!” she said while quickly dialing Jake’s number.
Eddie impatiently asked, “What’s happening?”
“It’s ringing.”
They waited in agonizing silence.
Suddenly Cassie shouted, “Uncle Jake, is that you? I can’t…I can’t hear! There’s nothing but static. Jake, if you can hear me I’ll call you back. Bye.”
“What? What happened?”
“He must have been in a bad area, I couldn’t even tell if he was hearing me or not,” Cassie said as she collapsed onto the ground crying from pure frustration.
Eddie took the phone from her, examining the faceplate.
“It may not have been just his phone, Cass. Look at the battery indicator.”
She handed the phone back to Cassie who wiped her tears away enough to see that the battery indicator was very low.
“Yeah, but, I don’t think that would explain why I couldn’t connect,” Cassie said as she struggled to stand. “Okay, I’m over that little fit, now we’ve got to get moving, that is if you’re sure you can do this.”
“I’m ready to go when you are.”
“All right. Let’s figure out a plan of action here. We have to stay off the road until we figure out what Morgan’s going to do.” Cassie paused, turning in a complete circle before continuing, “Of course, we don’t really have any way of knowing what he’s going to do…but then, he doesn’t know what we are going to do either. It kind of evens things out.”
“So, what are you saying?”
“I’m thinking…” she stopped and pointed. “I’m thinking that we should go that way.”
“Okay. Any special reason?”
“Uh-huh. It ‘s directly away from the house.”
The faint sound of the van returning startled both of them.
Eddie said, “So what now?”
“We put as much ground between us and that road as we can.”
“But what if we lose track of it and can’t find our way back?”
“Back to what? As long as Morgan is around, that road represents a threat to our safety, so it doesn’t make any sense to do anything other than to get as far away from it as possible. And don’t forget, we’ve got the phone and sooner or later I will contact my uncle and he will come for me.”
Eddie thought about that for a moment before answering, “All right, let’s roll.”
With that they set off in the spectral moonlight into a future that was uncertain at best, and in a direction that could either lead to disaster or salvation.
Chapter Twenty-two
I held the SatPhone in my hand staring at the screen as if willing it to ring again. My initial confusion over the strange number appearing on the screen quickly resolved when I realized that it was most likely Cassie. I had no reason to believe this other than my knowledge of my niece’s grit and resourcefulness. However, when I had answered, all I heard was static.
“Gerry, you copy?”
After a two or three second delay, I heard him say, “Yeah, Jake.”
“My phone just rang. Unknown number, but I think it was Cassie.”
“What?”
“I know it sounds bizarre, but I really think it was her.”
He said, �
��So, what, Morgan had a SatPhone and she somehow got it away from him?”
“Exactly!”
“I mean I know she’s capable, but that would require some doing.” He was silent for a few beats and then continued, “Almost like she had an accomplice, or something.”
“Well, there was another person with Morgan at the time of the abduction—someone Muriel identified as being Edwina Madison, or, ‘Eddie’, as they called her. She was part of Morgan’s sad little stable of women. It could be that she flipped and is now helping Cassie.”
“Okay. Let’s say that this is true. What does it—“
“Hang on, Gerry,” I said cutting him off.
The engine noise was louder than ever before and seemed to be coming from somewhere off to my right.
“The engine noise is back.”
“You got a read on its location?”
I had been squatting down to talk, but I stood and started moving in the general direction of the sound.
“Give me a minute and I’ll see if I can pin it down.”
I started moving quickly across the terrain, my eyes focused on a bouncing light about two hundred yards away that was consistent with a vehicle driving over a rough road.
“About two hundred yards to the southwest of my position, and moving in a northeasterly direction.”
Gerry said, “See if you can get eyes on it and confirm whether it’s Morgan.”
“Roger that.”
I pulled the HK up, engaged the Nightforce scope and started moving more quickly.
I never saw the drop coming.
I was walking and suddenly…the ground wasn’t there.
After the fact, I figured the fall to be in excess of eight feet.
When I hit the bottom, the scope was jammed backwards into my right eye as I pitched head-over-heels landing flat on my back with my left leg bent awkwardly underneath my body.
“Jake!”
Gerry was hollering into the comm.
“Jake! Talk to me. What just happened?”
I rolled painfully over onto my right side and lay still so as to assess the damage.
“Ohhhh man!” I groaned. “I stepped off a ledge.”
I felt wetness dripping from my eyebrow.
“I cut the hell out of my eye and I think my left knee is sprained.”
He said, “Do you need an evac?”
“Give me a second.”
I sat up, pulled the hood over my head, removed the glove from my right hand and tried to explore the damage to my eye. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on one’s point of view, I have had a lot of experience with head and facial lacerations and this one appeared to be superficial.
“I have a laceration over my right eye.”
“How severe?”
“I won’t know for sure until I can see myself in a mirror, but I don’t think it’s serious. What I’m really worried about is my knee. That fall cranked it pretty good.”
I stretched my knee out in an attempt to judge range of motion, then stood slowly and put all of my weight on it, taking a few practice steps.
“Eh, it’s not as bad as I first thought. At least I can walk and if I can walk, I’m good to go.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I am.”
Redfern said, “Can you field dress that cut?”
“The simple answer is, yes. But I’m not going to take the time to do that right now. That van is getting closer by the minute.”
“All right, Jake. I’m not going to second guess you on this. Just be smart, okay?”
“Roger that.”
I pulled the hood back over my head, stretched my neck out and started to pull the scope back up to my eye before deciding that it probably wasn’t a good idea.
I could see the lights bouncing around no more than a hundred feet from where I stood. So I started moving in that direction. After about ten steps I realized that the initial assessment of my knee had been exceptionally optimistic. In short, it hurt like hell. Every step sent a jolt of pain up my thigh and into my lower back, which responded in turn with a river of fire from the sciatic nerve root. It was like the two sources of pain were playing tag.
“Well, shit!” I said loudly out of pure frustration.
“You okay?” Gerry asked instantaneously.
“Fine! I’m fine!” I hollered.
“Okay. Just checking. Geeze!”
“Get used to the cussing, ‘cuz I’m feeling cussy!”
“Roger that.”
I painfully moved to the top of another rise, dropped to the ground and put the Nightforce scope to my eye.
My injured eye.
“Well, that’s not going to work,” I said out loud.
“Are you—“
“Gerry!” I hollered.
“Okay. Okay.”
I was suddenly quite grateful that in my tactical training I had learned—through great trial and frustration—to shoot with either hand.
Sighting through the scope I picked up the profile of the white van that was now no more than fifty feet from my position.
I could see Morgan’s ugly face clearly through the night-vision optics.
“Now I’ve got you, you son of a bitch!”
I stood and started moving down the downslope of the rise only to have my left knee buckle on me.
I went down again. Hard! Think a marionette with its strings being cut.
Yeah. Like that.
I screamed a word at the top of my lungs that bore a startling rhyme pattern to the word, “luck.”
Gerry said, “Uh—“
“Not now, Gerry! Just…you know…give me some space here.”
“You got it.”
There was no way I was going to tell Gerry how bad my knee was. But, it was bad. I felt around the joint. It was squishy. When I tried to stretch my leg out, it would only extend to about eighty percent. Which meant that walking was going to be, at best, a struggle and at the worst an impossibility.
I glanced up in time to see the van make a hard right turn and head directly away from me.
“I have eyes on the van.”
Silence.
“Gerry?”
“Do you want me to reply?”
“Yes!”
“Okay. I wasn’t sure. Yeah, okay…eyes on the van. Can you follow?”
I managed to get my good knee under me and raised up to get a better vantage point.
“He has to be on some sort of road—probably a two-track.”
“But, there’s not supposed to be a road there. We’ve got nothing. US Geological survey…nothing.”
I said, “How about that Google Earth thing that William hates. Anything there?”
“Wait one.”
While he was doing his thing, I brought the scope up again and followed the van’s progress.
“I’m so disoriented right now that I don’t know if that van is coming from or going to the transmission site.”
“Is he still going in a northeasterly direction?”
“Negative. He’s going due south.”
“Then he’s headed for the site. And, according to an enhanced slide from Google Earth, there does appear to be a two-track road out there. Faint, and completely grown over in places, but it’s there.”
“All right. Then that’s where I’m going. I figure all I have to do is parallel that road and I’ll eventually come to wherever it is he’s headed.”
“You sure you’re—“
“Yes! Absolutely sure.”
He chuckled softly.
“I’m out.”
I dug the triage kit out of the tactical bag, located the knee brace and cinched it around my rapidly swelling knee. It wasn’t comfortable, but it’d have to do. I then checked my weapons to make sure the barrels were free from debris and damage. Everything seemed good to go.
Now the hard part—actually walking.
The f
irst few steps were absolute agony, but as my body acclimated to the injury, I found a balance that at least allowed me to keep moving forward…slowly, keeping my eyes on the ground instead of looking through the scope.
I suddenly heard the sound of the engine coming back toward me, which was a problem because I was completely exposed and too hobbled to get out of the way quickly.
Before I could even react the twin beams of the headlights lit me up.
I froze in place, and the van stopped.
Chapter Twenty-three
“Cassie, tell me the truth…how are we going to get out of here in the dark? I mean we have no idea where we are or where we’re going.”
A note of hopelessness had crept into Eddie’s voice as a scene replayed itself in her mind of one other time she had tried to run away from Paul and of the consequences she’d suffered. She stopped walking and hugged herself tightly in a protective reflex as a shudder rolled through her body.
“Look,” Cassie said. “This is our only option, unless you want to just stand here and wait for Paul to come back. The moon is rising so there’s enough light to see where we’re going.”
Eddie didn’t respond at first and then the tears started to fall—no sound, just a torrent of tears accompanied by uncontrollable shivering.
“So, you want to talk about it?” Cassie asked softly.
Eddie looked at her and opened her mouth to speak but no words would come. Her mouth kept opening and closing like a fish out of water choking on the air. Her chest heaved with wave after wave of silent sobs.
Eddie was shaking her head back and forth, saying, “I’m…I’m sorry Cass. You don’t know him like I do. I tried this once before and he almost killed me.”
“Can you tell me about it?” Cassie prodded.
“So, a little while after you left him, Jenny and Clarice split too. I didn’t go because, for one thing, I was too scared and for another…I didn’t have anywhere to go, or anyone to go to. I mean even with all his faults he seemed, at the time, to be a better option than life on the streets, you know? So I stayed and he did his thing with me—just about wore me out!”
She turned slightly and looked at Cassie.