Torque

by Glenn Muller

  “That can wait. I need all information on the kidnapping as soon as possible. Then, we’ve got to get the Emergency Task Force up to Muskoka. Have you ever been in a helicopter, Frank?”

  CHAPTER 41

  With its wide profile tires and heavy-duty shocks the Challenger swept around curves as if it were on rails. Fenn powered up the hills and got that pit of the stomach drop on the way down as he crossed lines to straighten bends and relied on reflexes to avoid potholes. The trees were a blur of red, yellow and orange yet his speed left no margin for admiring the view.

  He dropped into second gear and turned right onto Little Chute Road. There were property numbers on posts at the end of unpaved lanes. The last two had gone down from 24 to 20. As the next one appeared he downshifted to first and rolled slowly by. A few paces in from the road the access was barred by two wrought iron gates. Each had a circle with the number 16 in the center like a cattle brand, and each had a security camera perched on the hinge post; one facing the road, the other facing along the drive into the property.

  Fenn continued past. He went about a kilometre and found a lay-by to park in. There was a fair bit of exposed rock where the road had been blasted through a small glacial deposit. The grey primer on the Challenger’s body panels would help the car blend in with the surroundings. Not exactly camouflage, but not immediately noticeable to a passing glance.

  He opened the trunk. Along with the attaché case were his backpack, a tightly rolled fleece blanket, and Kim’s boots. The blanket fit into a net pocket on the side of the pack. The boots he laced together and hung from a snap clip on the back. He pulled a compass from a compartment, took a quick bearing, then put it in the breast pocket of his denim jacket.

  He’d made good time. Even though the sky was overcast there was perhaps an hour of daylight left. He shouldered the pack and entered the woods. The underbrush was thick but this was his kind of environment and within minutes he felt a resurgence of energy. Twenty metres in and he could no longer see the road. A quarter kilometre in and he came across a deer trail.

  C’est tres bon.

  == == ==

  Jenner had tied Kim’s wrists to the metal arms of the office chair by wrapping the phone wire over the cuffs of her raincoat. A rush job, tight enough to restrain, but with the sleeves of her sweater cushioning the cord she was able to swivel her arms if not actually slip free. She was in darkness just long enough for her tear tracks to dry when the door re-opened and the light was flicked on.

  Kim kept her head down, immobile, just another object to be ignored. Listening, she counted the footsteps. Two. Three. Four. They stopped and then continued past her. Not too close. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. To the back corner of the garage.

  She risked a peek and saw an Asian man in janitorial garb reach behind the furnace and pull, or turn, something. He knelt down and slid open a flap then poked the tip of a barbeque lighter inside. Some muttering, another pull or turn behind the furnace then he retried the lighter. A couple more seconds on all fours then, with a nod, he closed the flap and stood up.

  Kim resumed her fake sleep.

  “Chico!” called a voice from outside. “Did you get that furnace lit?”

  “Not yet.”

  Yes, you did, thought Kim. Why the lie?

  From the furnace the footsteps went to the other back corner of the garage, down the far side, and then past the three double doors along the front. They exited and Kim heard the door shut, but the light was left on. She began to test her bonds.

  The wire at her ankles had enough slack to allow her soles off the cold chrome of the caster supports. Her wrists were tethered more securely. When she jerked against the wire the arm of the chair rattled. She tried that again. The rattle was a loose screw. She began to work on that arm in earnest, jerking her fist from side to side, gradually getting the armrest loose from the tubular support. It was hard work for incremental gains and she stopped for a break. Her timing was perfect. The door reopened and this time the footsteps came directly toward her.

  Resting to regain her energy Kim had her head back so there was no faking sleep. It was the Asian again. He came around to stand in front of her, a green bottle of mineral water in his hand. He removed the cap.

  “Thirsty, Miss?” He tilted the bottle toward her mouth. She looked him steadily in the eyes but kept her parched lips together.

  “S’okay. Water. Drink.”

  She opened her mouth and he tipped the bottle to her lips. The water was cool, and so good. She took several swallows then stopped to catch her breath. She could feel the fluid running down inside, restoring her.

  “More?”

  She nodded and had just about drained the bottle when a different voice said, “I was wondering where you’d got to.”

  Chico moved away. Certain that it was she who’d been addressed, Kim twisted round to see the newcomer. In the doorway was the sentry from the funeral home. The guy Fenn had clobbered with the fire extinguisher.

  “So glad to see you again, Sunshine,” he said, almost beaming at her.

  “How’s the head, Dickweed?” Her voice was hoarse in spite of the water. The sentry’s grin faded, but before he could decide on either a verbal or physical response Chico ushered him outside. “I need your help.”

  Alone again, Kim wrestled with the loose chair arm. The screw hung tantalizingly from the tube yet wouldn’t drop. Out of frustration, Kim launched herself up from the chair and managed to bang the rear casters on the floor. The screw fell and the arm pivoted under her elbow. Thank God! She glanced down at her chest. Her little gold cross on a chain had popped out of her sweater. It was a good sign.

  == == ==

  The deer trail was a narrow path of lightly compressed foliage that wound through the undergrowth. Animals always follow the lane of least resistance and after only ten minutes of picking his way through the rocks and trees Fenn found himself on a well-worn man-made thoroughfare. He took a few steps then stopped and looked back. It was almost impossible to discern the point at which he’d left the deer trail and stepped onto this new thruway. No matter. Getting to The Retreat was his main concern. He’d deal with how to get out when the time came.

  He took another reading from the compass. He was now heading south but just ahead, where a tree had been marked with blue paint, the trail turned west. That was the general direction he wanted to go, an assumption confirmed by the raucous buzz of a chainsaw echoing through the woods.

  The trees here were mostly evergreens though enough deciduous varieties existed to leave a thin carpet of leaves on the ground. The trail undulated naturally with the land yet there was a distinct downgrade in the direction Fenn traveled. The chainsaw’s whine had been replaced by the slow-paced thump of a person splitting logs with an axe. There were no other sounds save for the faint tick of leaves landing near him as they dropped from above like discarded show tickets.

  The trail curved sharply, almost making a U-turn to the east. At the apex it was joined by another path that continued west. This path was a more recent addition to the network. Covered with a layer of wood chips it was wide enough to allow snowmobiles to pass each other and Fenn had no doubt as to where it led. He took a mental inventory of what was in his backpack. Apart from a Swiss Army knife and Kim’s boots he could think of nothing he needed to carry from here. He dropped the pack from his shoulders and stashed it behind a tree where the trails met.

  Fenn peered upward through the limbs and tried to judge how long until nightfall. The cloud cover had broken up a bit and what he could see of the sun was quickly sinking to the horizon. He picked up the pace and stayed alert for oncomers, though he didn’t expect to meet any. If Jenner’s bunch had a reason to be up here it wouldn’t be to frolic in the woods. The light was brighter ahead suggesting an open area. Fenn stayed close to one side of the path and continued on. Soon he could discern the outline of a building and he crept up to the base of a tree; one of two large maples that flanked the entrance/exit of the tra
il.

  He was on the outer edge of a fair sized clearing that had been graded and graveled and surrounded by granite blocks. The Retreat represented several thousand square feet of custom design with the grounds landscaped in a minimalist style with shrubs and grasses in beds of potato stone. There were three vehicles parked out front. The white van and limousine that he’d last seen leaving Harrowport & Dynes, and a grey Chevrolet sedan that might also have been at the funeral home.

  He couldn’t see any people but a sudden waft of cigarette smoke made him hug the tree a little closer. He peeked carefully around, looking for movement. And found it. The limo had been parked to face up the driveway. Behind the wheel, with the windows down, was Jenner. The passenger door was on Fenn’s side, fifteen metres away. He sat back against the tree to consider the options.

  He could take Jenner by surprise but it would be hard to assault the guy while he sat in the car. There’d be a struggle, more goons would come, and that would be that. Besides, he didn’t need Jenner in order to find Kim. He was certain she was in the building, somewhere, so dealing with Jenner would be more hindrance than help.

  He could offer to trade himself and the disc as a condition of Kim’s release. After all, the disc with the formula was the reason why Kim had been kidnapped. And if Jenner wasn’t interested in the disc, then there was always the money. The main flaw of that idea, however, was that he couldn’t pull it off by himself. He needed a partner to receive Kim and get her off the property if Jenner agreed to the swap.

  Another option was to simply maintain surveillance and wait for the police. And while he waited Kim would still be a captive and still at risk. If Jenner discovered that Reis had been arrested he might decide that Kim was expendable. Disposing of a body in this rugged backcountry would be such a simple matter there’d be little to dissuade Jenner that killing Kim was a bad idea. Even if the cops showed up, before that happened, she would certainly become a hostage and Fenn had seen enough news broadcasts to know that ‘hostage’ is often used in the same sentence with ‘collateral damage’.

  There had to be another way. He hadn’t come this far to sit on his hands. Fenn thought back to the previous rescue and wondered if a similar ruse would work again. He had matches in his pack. He could distract the kidnappers with a real fire in the garage while he searched the house.

  Or, he could get up and chase after the woman that had just run past him and into the woods.

  CHAPTER 42

  Kim figured that Jenner must have liked the view when he knelt to tie her ankles because that last knot was a bugger. Her other foot was free so she rode the chair on its casters to the workbench and grabbed the same snips that he’d used to cut the wire.

  Free of her bonds she pushed the chair away. Did it ever feel good to stand and stretch. It would also feel good to relieve herself—she felt about ready to burst. There was a drain in the middle of the floor but she didn’t trust her aim to keep her socks dry. Beneath the workbench was a plastic five-gallon pail. She took it to the far corner of the garage where the boat would shield her from anyone who might come in. If they were going to find her now, they weren’t going to find her pissing in a bucket.

  She finished, pulled up her knickers, and adjusted the kilt around her waist. There was about a half litre of fluid in the pail and it was quite dark. She didn’t think it was blood dark since all her injuries seemed to be external. Chico had provided her only drink of the day so the discolouration was likely from dehydration. She considered leaving the pail on the chair as a parting gesture, then had a better idea and emptied the contents into the gas tank of the ATV.

  “No charge for the top-up, Gentlemen.”

  She returned the bucket to the workbench and grabbed a hammer from a hook on the wall. A sudden whump made her spin around. No one there. Another whump. She exhaled. Someone was chopping wood behind the garage. She’d heard the chainsaw, earlier. As long as her captors were occupied with getting ready for their meeting she might have a chance to slip away. Kim went to the door and turned off the light. She stood quietly with her hand on the knob. Whump. The woodchopper was still behind the garage. There was no conversation or sound of activity out front.

  She eased the door open a finger’s width, enough to see two cars and a van. It would be a simple matter to jump in one and drive away but the odds of someone having left a key in the ignition weren’t high enough to justify the time it would take her to check them all. Especially since the woods across the way offered plenty of concealment. Around the outside edge of the parking area great blocks of granite had been placed to form a low wall. A gap had been left as an opening where two large trees made a natural entrance to an obvious trail.

  Five seconds. All she would need was five seconds to open the door and sprint across to those trees. Five seconds for Jenner, Tad, the sentry guy, Chico, and whoever else, to be somewhere else. Not looking through a window, not taking a walk, not coming to the garage to feel her up.

  When did the five seconds start? At the moment there was no one in sight, and each second she waited was a second wasted. Kim opened the door and began to run.

  One thousand.

  Two thousand.

  Three …

  “Hey!”

  Damn.

  She glanced back. It was Chico coming around the garage with an armload of kindling. He dropped it and started after her. She was to the trees, wood chips underfoot. Her socks began to shred but she had to keep going.

  “Kim!”

  That wasn’t Chico. There was a guy behind the tree. She put her head down and pumped harder.

  == == ==

  Fenn recovered from his surprise and stepped out from the tree just as the Asian got there. He swung out his right arm with force and caught the man across the neck. Rugby players call it a clothesline tackle. Rugby players also have thick necks and take it as part of the game. The Asian had no such training. His feet went forward and up, his head went backward and down, and he landed flat on his back gasping for air.

  A car door slammed. Jenner was beside the limo looking over its roof. Fenn took off after Kim. She had just disappeared around the bend and would soon be at the junction.

  He yelled after her.

  “Kim! Go to the left.” He managed to get her in sight again but she was well ahead.

  “Left. Go left!”

  Kim, who either couldn’t hear him or was panicked, took the trail to the right. Knowing Jenner could also hear him he yelled, “That’s it. Go left.” Jenner was a big guy but he was no athlete and hadn’t yet reached the first bend.

  Fenn slowed up at the junction and retrieved his pack. Still no sign of Jenner. Kim was also out of sight again though she, too, would have to slow down soon. He cinched up the pack and set off at a jog. Within minutes Kim came into view, walking quickly with a hammer in her hand. She looked over her shoulder and started running again.

  “Kim. Stop for a minute. It’s Chas.”

  Clearly winded, she slowed from a run to a walk.

  “Get away from me.”

  “I’ve brought you some boots.”

  She stopped and turned to face him with one hand across her gut as she sucked in air.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Why? I’ve come to rescue you.”

  She didn’t seem to comprehend at first then began to retrace her steps. She didn’t look happy.

  “Rescue me? You must be kidding. Every time you get near me I end up in worse trouble than I was to start with. Being around you has got me shot, firebombed, kidnapped—twice, stuffed in a trunk, and almost raped.” The hand not holding the hammer went to the bruise on her forehead. “What else? Oh yeah, I got put in a car that exploded before it rolled over and nearly killed me.”

  She stopped within striking distance but her head and shoulders slumped as if the outburst had drained the last of her reserves. She turned her back to him and began to sob.

  “Tony went through the window. I think he’s dead.”
>
  Fenn put his hands on her shoulders.

  “He’s not dead. He’s in the hospital.”

  Kim sniffed and shook him off. “No thanks to you.”

  Fenn offered her a napkin from his pocket. She took it and blew her nose, then said, “Give me my boots.”

  “I brought you some wool socks, too,” Fenn said, fishing them out of his pack. Kim sat on a tree stump and pulled them over the socks she was wearing.

  “I don’t suppose you brought me any pants. I’m not exactly dressed for this eco-tour.”

  Fenn checked her out. She had a raincoat, thin yet long. Her cashmere sweater would be warm even if it got wet. So would her wool kilt, though it left her legs bare and in her worn-out state hypothermia could be a problem if they had to spend the night outdoors.

  Fenn dropped his pack and began to unbuckle his belt. “Switch.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s switch. That kilt thing’s adjustable, isn’t it?”

  She saw him unzip his fly then loosen his boots.

  “You’re going to give me your pants?”

  “Yes. You need the heat. I often climb in shorts this time of year so I’m used to this weather. Besides, the tartan will help me get in touch with my Irish heritage.”

  He had a point. She was starting to feel the dampness in the settling dusk.

  “This was expensive. You look after it.” She unfastened the kilt and handed it to him. “Now hurry up and get those jeans off. It’s freezing out here.”

  They were lacing their boots when they heard a motocross bike ripping through the woods.

  “What are the chances that’s a friendly stranger?” said Fenn.

  “Pretty slim. There was a motorbike in the garage where they kept me.”

  Now that Fenn wanted it to be dark, dusk was lingering just a little too long. He dug to the bottom of his pack and pulled out a length of nylon rope.