by Rob Ashman
‘Tall, broad, wore a hunting jacket. Dark hair.’
‘Who the hell is he?’
Moran jammed on the brakes and leapt into the road leaving the door open. Harper followed. She stood in an empty parking space.
‘It was here. The Transit was parked here.’
Harper walked around the white line perimeter of the space.
‘Look,’ he said, kneeling down and touching the floor with his finger. ‘Lucas was hurt.’
He pointed his index finger at Moran. The tip was red with blood.
Moran got back in the car.
‘We need to get to my place. I got a video player.’
43
Moran drove like a woman possessed, cutting up other motorists and running red lights. They burst through the front door. Harper shoved the cassette into the video recorder and switched on the TV.
After much cursing and fiddling with the remotes the black and white image of the Jackpot parking lot came on the screen. Moran snatched the remote from his grasp and handed him a pen and paper.
‘There,’ she said. ‘That’s the Transit parking up at nine thirty.’ The white van pulled into a vacant slot with its back to the camera.
Mechanic got out and slid the side door open. She disappeared for a second then re-emerged with a black bag over one shoulder. She closed the door, made her way across the lot to the back of the motel, and walked out of shot. Moran hit pause.
‘I know, I’m getting it,’ Harper said scribbling down the licence plate.
‘Look at this.’ Moran pointed at the screen. Emblazoned across the back window was a sticker. ‘What does it say?’
Harper moved closer to the picture. ‘There are blue letters on a red background but I can’t make it out, it’s too blurred.’
Moran jumped up and rummaged amongst a pile of old newspapers.
‘I’ve seen that somewhere before.’ She rifled through the pages and held one up. ‘It’s from a car rental company.’ There in the classified ads section was a quarter page advert for Drive-Right Car Rentals. The ad had the same blue letters on a red background.
‘It must be them. It’s the same style and colour scheme.’
Moran tapped play and the tape ran forward.
Nothing happened for the next nine minutes. Then Mechanic staggered back into shot and the lights on the van blinked as the doors unlocked. She had her arm around Lucas’s waist while his arm was draped across her shoulder. A man was standing on the other side of Lucas doing the same thing. Lucas dragged his feet, unable to support his weight. His head lolled forward.
Mechanic left Lucas and opened up the side door. The man edged Lucas along the van. Lucas struggled and could be seen kicking his legs and flailing his arms around. The man hit him on the side of his face and he flopped inside. Mechanic jumped into the van and hauled Lucas inside. The man opened the driver’s door, and then turned to check the sliding door was secure. Moran hit the pause button.
The man’s face was partially obscured by the peak of the baseball cap.
‘That’s Jameson,’ said Harper.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yep, I’m sure.’
Moran pressed play and the Transit eased out of the lot and disappeared from view.
They were both sitting on the floor, stunned.
‘Jameson didn’t arrive in the van with Mechanic,’ Harper said. ‘He must have already been in place when she parked up.’
‘When you had your rehearsal last week, did you do it properly? Did you do exactly what we did today?’
‘Yes, while you were being given the run around by Mills we stuck to the plan: Lucas in his lookout position and me on the roof.’
‘They were there. Either Jameson, or Mechanic, or both of them were there. They watched you work through the plan. They knew Lucas was isolated. Mechanic turns up at the right place at the right time, Lucas sends the signal telling us it’s game on. And we’re holding our position on the roof, while they lifted Lucas.’
‘Shit. That bastard Jameson set us up from the beginning.’
Moran picked up the Drive-Right ad and stood up.
‘Let’s go talk to these people.’
Drive-Right was located in an out-of-town mall surrounded by outlet stores selling branded goods at knockdown prices. It was on the end of a row of shops and had a parking lot behind, full of cars ready to rent. Lucas and Moran went inside.
A man in his early sixties sat behind the counter surrounded by pamphlets. He was sorting them into piles and placing them into zip-lock bags. He wore a company bomber jacket and a baseball cap with the logo splashed across the front. He looked up when they entered.
‘Can I help you?’
Moran took the lead.
‘We are looking for a couple who rented a white Transit van from you. We need to get hold of them.’
‘Okay, do you have a name?’
‘No, but we have the vehicle’s licence plate. I wondered if you could help us.’
‘Why do you want to get hold of them?’
Moran flashed a look at Harper that said ‘I should have thought this through better’.
‘They hit our car and drove away,’ she replied all in a rush.
‘That’s not good. I’m sorry about that.’
‘I have the licence plate number here.’ Moran dug out the piece of paper from her pocket and gave it to the man. He consulted a thick file of rental agreements.
‘No, it wasn’t one of ours.’
‘It had your company logo on the back.’
‘You must have been mistaken, lady. It’s not one of our vehicles.’ The tone of his voice hardened.
‘No, this was the licence plate number and it had your logo on the back.’
‘I can only say again, it’s not our vehicle.’
‘It is. Can you look it up again?’
‘No. I’ve done it once, and now if you don’t mind I’m busy.’
The man turned and attended to his pamphlet packing.
Harper had heard enough.
He turned to the door and closed it, pulling down the blind. He unwrapped a fifty-dollar bill from the roll in his pocket and pulled his gun from the back of his belt. The guy looked up.
‘Hey! Now what are you doing?’
Harper put both his hands on the counter. Under one was the money and under the other was his gun.
‘When you read the licence plate number it registered in your face. You need to practice in front of a mirror more if you’re gonna lie. We are not interested in making an insurance claim if that’s what you’re worried about, but we are interested in the people who rented that Transit. My colleague has already asked nicely. Now I’m asking.’
The man didn’t know what to look at. His head flicked around as if he had a nervous tick –from Harper to the gun, from Moran to the gun, from the money to the gun.
‘I don’t want no trouble,’ he said, raising his hands in surrender.
‘Which one is it gonna be?’ Harper pushed the hand with the money under it towards him first, followed by the gun.
The man was paralysed. His eyes flitted between the two.
‘Which one?’ said Harper.
The man nervously fingered the note, tugged it from under Harper’s hand and stuffed it in his pocket. He returned to the register and unclipped a rental agreement from the file. He held it out, the end of the paper was shaking as Harper took it.
‘Thank you. Now talk me through what happened. Who came to collect the van?’
‘It was a man and a woman.’
‘And what were they like?’
‘He was dark, about six foot, she had short hair. They looked like outdoor types, you know, dressed in camouflage gear. I don’t remember much.’
‘How did they pay?’
‘Cash. They paid for three weeks’ rental. Asked if they could have a refund if they brought it back early.’
Moran leaned forward. ‘Did they say where they were going?’
&nb
sp; ‘Yes, they said something about renting a cabin up in Mount Charleston.’
‘Did they say where?’
‘No. I asked if they were going hunting.’
‘What did they say?’
The man thought for a moment.
‘They said, kind of.’
Mechanic veered off the road onto a dirt track. The wheels rattled in the ruts while the Transit bounced around. The sun disappeared behind the treeline as they drove deeper into the pine forest.
Half a mile further on she swept right and brought the vehicle to a stop. Jameson jumped out and yanked opened the back doors. Mechanic slid from her seat to join him. He reached inside and dragged something heavy and black towards him. It was a body bag.
Mechanic dived into the back and came out with an aluminium frame and some poles. She set about assembling them on the ground. In three minutes she had constructed a low gurney on big rubber wheels. Mechanic stood one side of the body bag and Jameson on the other.
‘Two, three.’ They lifted it from the van onto the gurney. Mechanic tugged at a telescopic arm that was bolted to the front and slid a four-foot metal tube through the end making a T-shape. Jameson grabbed one end and Mechanic grabbed the other. They pulled the gurney into the woods.
44
Harper ran his eyes over the rental paperwork.
‘The name says Henderson. They must have had a fake driver’s licence. And look at the date.’ He passed it to Moran.
‘Shit, they rented it a week ago.’
‘Yes, while we were running around looking for her in San Diego she was here all the time.’
‘Doing what?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘It’s good you intervened,’ Moran said.
‘He wasn’t getting the message.’
‘Maybe the old ways are sometimes the best.’
‘He could see himself being hit with an insurance claim. He was stalling, and I speeded things up, that’s all.’
‘No, I mean it was good you intervened because I was about to break his fucking arm.’
Harper flashed her a look.
‘How do we find out where Mechanic’s taken him?’
‘I got an idea,’ she replied.
Moran jumped out of the car and ran back to the rental place. The guy behind the counter tried to duck out of sight when she burst in. Two minutes later Moran was back.
‘Okay, there are a couple of camping stores a few miles away. The man said we should be able to find the names of companies who rent out lodges from there. He was much more cooperative.’
Harper looked at his watch, it was 11.30am. Lucas had been gone almost two hours.
They drove east to the intersection with Charleston Boulevard. A few miles further on was a parade of shops set back from the road. Located in the middle was Camping and Climbing World.
‘No guns this time,’ Moran said as they walked across the parking lot to the store. The large plate-glass doors hissed open as they approached. It was huge, with what looked like a tented city in the centre surrounded by mountains of equipment. There was every conceivable piece of equipment from sleeping bags to stoves, to fold-up tables and chairs. Around the walls hung the climbing gear.
Moran stopped one of the sales assistants, a woman dressed to survive a week in the forest.
‘Excuse me, I wonder if you would be able to help us? We have a couple of friends who have rented a lodge somewhere on Mount Charleston. Unfortunately, they have had a bereavement in the family and we are desperately trying to get hold of them.’
‘Sorry to hear that,’ said the woman.
‘The problem is we have no idea where they are and have no contact details. Do you have a list of companies who rent out lodges? We could contact them to find out where they are.’
‘We don’t keep a list, but I’m sure we could help. Follow me.’
The woman clomped across the store in her hiking boots and disappeared into a back room. After a few minutes she emerged with a stack of magazines.
‘This is the best I can do. These are camping journals which advertise sites and lodges on Mount Charleston, it’s a good place to start.’ She handed them over.
‘Thank you so much. We are really stuck, do you think we could use your phone? We will pay for any calls we make.’
‘Oh, well …’
‘Please, it is an emergency,’ Moran said.
‘Sure, you can use our admin office.’ The woman showed them into a small room crammed full of ledgers and invoices. There was a phone in the corner and one chair.
‘Thank you,’ Moran said. The woman left them to it.
‘Nice work,’ said Harper.
They flicked through the magazines. The pages at the back contained the advertisements, and they started to compile a list.
Moran made the first call. She used the same cover story.
‘Hello, I’m trying to trace some friends who may have rented a lodge from you on Mount Charleston. They’ve had a sudden death in the family and we’re trying to trace them. Their name is Henderson.’
A rustling of paper later and the woman on the other end said, ‘No, I’m sorry we don’t have anyone by that name on our books.’
She rang a second company, with the same result.
Harper glanced at his watch. Lucas had been gone three hours.
‘Maybe they booked the lodge under a different name. That is, if they booked a damn lodge at all,’ he said.
‘Maybe, but it’s all we have to go on at the moment. What’s the next one?’
Moran dialled another number and went through the same routine.
Harper was striking ads through with a pen. Some companies only did camping holidays, while others offered outdoor experiences and group activities.
He stopped.
The pen hovered above one of the ads. He dropped his chin onto his chest and let out a long sigh. Moran was in full flow describing how they had to contact their friends urgently. He leaned over, took the receiver from her hand and disconnected the call.
‘What did you do that for?’
He handed her a magazine with the pages folded over.
‘It will be this one,’ he said pointing to the ad.
She furrowed her brow and looked at Harper.
‘Mechanic wants us to find her. This is all part of the game.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I’ve been so busy rushing around I couldn’t see what was right in front of us.’
‘What?’
‘Let’s back up a little. Mechanic could have easily killed Lucas. But she didn’t, instead she chose to take him while we were on the roof. She then proceeds to make a series of rooky mistakes. She parks her vehicle in full view of the surveillance camera with the name of the rental company all over the back of the van. She tells the rental guy where she intends to go and leaves the paperwork for us to find with the name Henderson on it.’
‘Shit. Why would she do that?’
‘Not sure. But Mechanic is the best at what she does, she would never be that careless. If she wanted to take Lucas and disappear into thin air, she would have. If she wanted us dead, we would be. She loves nothing better than to play games. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. Tracking her was way too easy. She’s already given us the name of the damn company where she rented the lodge.’
Moran looked at the ad.
The first line read, Henderson Camping Lodge and RV Rentals.
‘Henderson,’ Moran said.
‘Mechanic wants us to find her.’
‘No, she wants you to find her. She doesn’t know I exist.’
Moran picked up the phone and dialled.
45
Moran and Harper were flying along US 95towards Mount Charleston, thirty-five miles northwest of Vegas. They hung a left on to Kyle Canyon Road looking for the highest elevation in Clark County at almost twelve thousand feet. In the distance they could see the snow-capped summit of their destination.
The mountain loomed large as they sped past the intersection with the 158. Two miles further on they turned left to Cathedral Rock. Mount Charleston and the surrounding area had one hundred and sixty campsites and about the same number of vacation lodges. Thanks to her conversation with the man at Henderson Camping Lodge and RV Rentals, they had narrowed the search down to one, and Moran was looking for a dirt track off to the right.
The man had told her that Mr and Mrs Henderson had rented a log cabin for two weeks and were in their second week. He remembered the booking because Mrs Henderson was insistent that the place had to be in a remote location.
‘They wanted to get as far away from civilisation as possible,’ he recalled them saying more than once. He was surprised when they went ahead with the booking, even after he had explained that the place had no electricity.
Moran found the turning, heaved the car away from the main road and drove onto the gravel track. Within two hundred yards they were engulfed in a forest of white birch, ponderosa pine and juniper. It was a sharp incline and the wheels bounced and spun in the ruts as she nursed the vehicle across the rugged terrain. The man had said the log cabin was located at the base of a cliff half a mile off the main drag.
Moran pulled onto the grass verge and rolled the car under the cover of the trees. She came to a stop behind a clump of bushes and killed the engine. They got out and retrieved their kit from the back. The air was crisp and, apart from the birds and the treetops swaying in the breeze, it was silent. Harper checked his gun and pushed it into his belt. Moran locked the car and placed the key on top of the wheel on the driver’s side. She drew her weapon from her bag.
‘We go the rest of the way on foot,’ she said.
Harper nodded.
They kept off the dirt track and moved under the cover of the treeline. The woodland floor was a combination of grass and shale with patches of soft soil. The place smelled pine fresh. They edged their way forward. About four hundred yards ahead they could see a clearing carved out of the woods and the outline of a building. Harper held his fist in the air and they both stopped. He took out his field gasses.
Through the lens he could see a log cabin with a tall pitched roof and four large windows running down one side. The roof was stained green and the walls had the classic corrugated look of cut logs. Wisps of white smoke drifted from a chimney. They crept along for another hundred yards, stopped, and made out a front porch running around the whole width of the property with an extended decking area over to the right. The Transit was parked up at the side. Wicker chairs were ideally placed to take in the spectacular view of the valley with a cold beer.