Valley of Death

by Gloria Skurzynski

  “They’ve been hit by gunfire!” Hank yelled. “The chopper’s damaged!”

  Like an injured bird, the helicopter dove and swooped as the pilot struggled to control it. Panic clawed at Jack’s chest. If the chopper went down and exploded in the desert, Ashley could be hit!

  In so many movies he’d seen, whenever a plane crashed, the fuel burst into a huge orange ball of fire. Anyone near that fireball would be killed. How close was Ashley to the damaged helicopter? he wondered. Right beneath it? If it crashed, if his sister died in the flames, the whole Landon family would be destroyed.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Half a dozen people were shouting all at once, “The crew wasn’t hit, but the helicopter’s disabled. Its oil line was severed. It can’t fly.”

  Jack tried to run toward his parents, but the sergeant intercepted him, saying, “Things are getting tense here—you and that girl need to stay back out of the way.”

  “What’s happening to the chopper?” voices were shouting. But no one seemed to know.

  Jack pleaded, “My sister…. Can’t I go with my mom and dad?”

  “Don’t worry about them, kid, just do what I tell you,” the sergeant demanded.

  “But what about the helicopter?”

  Just then a radio crackled, “The chopper has landed safely. No casualties.”

  Relief flooded Jack so strongly that he hardly noticed the sergeant instructing, “One of the rangers drove your Land Cruiser down here—it’s parked near that fallen-down building over there. You two kids get inside the vehicle and stay there, hear?”

  “Come on, Jack,” Leesa said, taking Jack’s hand.

  The Cruiser stood so high off the ground that Leesa had to give a little hop to crawl into the backseat. That was good—the elevation gave them a better view of all the activity. Another helicopter had just taken off to pick up the stranded crew.

  “The binoculars!” Jack said. “My parents left them in here. We can watch what’s happening outside.” He handed Leesa a pair and raised the other pair to his eyes.

  It was impossible to see Ashley and her captors—they were a mile away on the desert sands, behind small hills, which was why helicopters were needed for surveillance. But Jack could follow the deployment of the SWAT teams being transported by truck. Sun reflected from the glass windows of the trucks, which had wide tires that could cross desert terrain without sinking in sand. At that distance, a shimmery desert mirage made it looks as though the trucks were riding on water rather than sand.

  “Roll down the windows so we can hear, too,” Leesa told him.

  “I can’t. They’re electric windows. The motor has to be running before they’ll work, and I don’t know where the keys are. But I can open the tailgate.” After he did, sound penetrated the Cruiser—people shouting, radios crackling, a fixed-wing Park Service Cessna flying low, right above them.

  Uneasy, Jack and Leesa settled into the backseat. Jack supposed he ought to say something, but since nothing about this situation seemed real—it was more like a nightmare—no suitable words came into his head. All he could think about was Ashley, alone in the desert, captured by terrorists.

  As if reading his mind, Leesa said, “Tell me about Ashley.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Oh, just—who she is. I don’t know her very well, and now I’ve gotten her into terrible danger….”

  Jack answered, “Well, she’s 11. She’s in sixth grade. She has a lot of girlfriends, and….” What else could he say? “They’re starting to get silly about boys and clothes and stuff.”

  Softly, Leesa said, “It must be nice, having so many friends. I was never allowed to have any unless their parents were part of The Unit.” She lowered her head, twisting a damp tissue in her lap. “I went along with that until I met Aaron. At first I wouldn’t even talk to him, because—well, because of what The Unit teaches us about Jewish people.”

  Jack was tempted to ask just what The Unit taught about Jewish people, but too much was happening outside. Through the powerful binoculars, he could see the crew from the damaged helicopter climbing into the rescue helicopter. Farther ahead, SWAT team members in desert camouflage moved forward, crouching down behind shields. Jack was so intent on watching them that he missed part of what Leesa was saying next; he didn’t connect again until he heard, “Since I knew my dad would be away that night, I sneaked Aaron into my room.”

  “What?” Jack turned to stare at her.

  “He wanted to find out how many cells The Unit has—you know, different branches—and where they are. I got the floppy disk with all the information, and I gave it to Aaron so he could copy it. He’d brought his laptop computer.”

  “What happened?” Jack could imagine Leesa’s father breaking in and discovering the two of them together. Maybe that was why he’d beat up Aaron.

  “Nothing happened. Aaron copied the disk and showed me the list of all the cells. That’s how I knew there was one around here. They have a secret stockade at a place called Darwin Falls, right on the park boundary.”

  “Darwin Falls!” Jack exclaimed. “My mother said they found dead bighorn sheep near there. Why didn’t you tell that to Hank when he was questioning us about The Unit?”

  “I don’t know. Do you think I should have?”

  The Death Valley map lay crumpled in the tailgate; Jack reached over the seat to grab it. The place-names on the map were in such small type that it took him a long time to locate Darwin Falls. Then he said, “Look, Leesa. Here’s Darwin Falls. It’s not too far from Skidoo.” His memory flashed back to the motorcycle rider who had stopped behind them on the road to Skidoo. What if he was one of them? What if he’d been spying on the Landons at Furnace Creek and had followed them? And when he saw them pull in at Skidoo, he notified the cell at Darwin Falls, and the men from there came and kidnapped Ashley…. Or maybe Jack was fantasizing the whole scene, playing it out in his head like a movie. “We at least ought to mention that to someone,” he muttered to Leesa.

  Staring through the window, she said, “I…I keep wondering if The Unit somehow found out that I let Aaron copy the disk. Maybe that’s why they want me back. To punish me for betraying them.”

  “Punish you!” Jack exclaimed in alarm. “What would they do to you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Just then the front door of the Cruiser opened and the sergeant got inside. “This operation is getting too big,” he said. “We’re moving the command post to the airport right behind Furnace Creek.”

  Jack had been so involved in his conversation with Leesa that he hadn’t noticed how many cars and trucks had driven up the dirt road and parked. The vehicles were marked with a lot of different logos: Inyo County Sheriff; California Highway Patrol; Nye County Nevada Highway Patrol; Bureau of Land Management; and of course National Park Service.

  “Where are my parents?” Jack asked. “I need to tell them something.”

  “They’ll be driving down with Hank to the airport. Your mom asked me to take you two kids to a restaurant, and they’ll meet you there.”

  “Did any messages come over my two-way radio?” Jack asked. “Did Ashley—?”

  “Nothing. The kidnappers haven’t spoken a word. What they’ve done is to dig a bunker out there in the sand, a hole deep enough for the two men and your sister to crouch down in.” The sergeant started the engine. “Next they stacked up rocks in front of it for a barricade, but they won’t need a barricade because we’re not planning to shoot at them. Not as long as they’ve got your sister.”

  Poor Ashley, she must be terrified. And hot and thirsty—were they giving her any water? If the kidnappers didn’t have much water, maybe they wouldn’t give her any at all.

  Jack began to study the map again. A narrow dirt road led from Darwin Falls to Route 190, the highway that went past Stovepipe Wells. What if other members of The Unit drove along that highway, then cut across the sand to the bunker where the kidnappers were holding Ashley? They could
whisk her away and get back to their trucks before the law-enforcement people knew what was happening. Tracing his finger along the map, Jack could see how that would be possible. So maybe it wasn’t that much of a fantasy.

  “OK, kids, this is where you get out,” the sergeant said, pulling to a stop in front of a restaurant called Wrangler Steakhouse. “Go in there and order whatever you want, your dad said, and charge it to the room. I’m taking this Cruiser to the command post at the airport hangar so your parents can drive it back here to meet you.”

  “How far is the airport from here?” Jack asked him.

  “Oh heck, you could walk it easy from the visitor center. Look, I’m giving you this handheld radio; it’s already turned on. You know how to operate one of these things, don’t you?”

  “Sure. I have one of my own,” Jack answered.

  “Good. If you have any questions or any problems, talk into it—we’ll hear you. Anyone tries to talk to you, anything that doesn’t look right, just yell into the radio. Now go on inside, the two of you, and get yourselves something to eat. Your folks will be here as soon as they can. Your mom said you haven’t had anything since breakfast, and it’s way past five.”

  The sergeant had already jumped out of the front seat and was holding open the back door for them. The next thing Jack knew, he and Leesa were standing in front of the Wrangler Steakhouse. “Well, let’s go in,” he said.

  The inside was noisy with the clatter of dishes and silverware, with the din of chatting diners, and over it all, a loud sound track of country-western music. Leesa looked apprehensively at the crowd of people waiting to be seated. Jack felt a little unsure of himself, too. He’d never before gone into a restaurant alone, escorting a girl.

  “Party of two?” the hostess asked him. “It’ll be about a 20 minute wait.”

  Stammering a little, Jack said, “That’s OK. Nonsmoking, please. And could you take our names, and then we can go outside and come back here in 20 minutes? Would that be all right?”

  “Sure,” the hostess answered, picking up a clipboard.

  After Jack spelled “Landon” for her, he turned to Leesa and said, “Come on.”

  “Where?”

  “To check something.” Jack wanted to find out exactly where the airport was located in relation to Furnace Creek Ranch, but when they walked around to the back of the restaurant, all they could see were the stables and housing for the ranch employees. “I know how we can figure out where it is,” Jack said. “We’ll just watch for helicopters coming and going.”

  The sky had turned crimson in the most spectacular sunset Jack had ever seen, but this wasn’t the time to admire it. With his hand shielding his eyes, he looked overhead for aircraft, but only one flew past—far to the east and very high in the sky, a passenger jet headed for Las Vegas.

  “I need to radio my parents,” he told Leesa. “I want to tell them about Darwin Falls.”

  Since the radio was already turned on, Jack could hear commands crackling back and forth. Someone was saying, “It’ll be dark soon. Do all the ground forces have night goggles?”

  “Affirmative,” another voice answered.

  Jack was trying to figure out which button to press to send a message when Leesa mentioned, “Maybe we should go to back to the restaurant. I don’t have a watch, but it feels like it’s been about 20 minutes.”

  “You’re probably right,” Jack agreed. “Are you hungry? My stomach tells me I’m starved, but then I start thinking about Ashley, and I feel ashamed of being hungry.”

  The hostess seated them in a booth and handed them menus. Both Jack and Leesa studied the menus for a long time, checking out each item. A boy who didn’t look too much older than Jack came to fill the water glasses, and then a woman stood beside their table, saying, “Hi, my name is Sharon, and I’ll be your server tonight. Have you decided yet?”

  Leesa’s eyes slid from the menu to the woman as if she weren’t sure what it was she was supposed to decide. Maybe she didn’t eat in restaurants very often. Jack said, “I’ll go first. I’ll have the steak medium rare, french fries, and root beer.”

  “I’ll have the same thing he’s having,” Leesa said.

  “Soup or salad to go with that?” the server asked. Jack shook his head, no. Imitating him, Leesa shook her head, too.

  Then they were alone, staring at each other across the table. Neither of them knew how to start a conversation in this very weird situation where they found themselves. Then, tentatively, Leesa began, “Before, when I asked you about Ashley, you didn’t tell me much. There must be more. What’s she like?”

  Jack searched his mind, wondering what more he could say about Ashley—he’d never before tried to describe her to anyone. Images of his sister came into his mind: Ashley when she was five years old, wanting to tag along with Jack whenever he was playing with his own friends. Back then he’d thought of her as his pesty little sister. Many times he’d hidden from her, or sent her off to bring something from his room just to get rid of her, and when she came back, he’d be gone.

  Ashley at eight, wobbling on her first pair of in-line skates, falling down but getting right back up, even though her shins were bleeding, wearing that stubborn look on her face that showed she was determined to master those skates. And she did.

  Ashley the actress, learning fables and legends by heart, and then performing them for her family around a campfire, under skies where the Milky Way looked like a thick, dazzling carpet spread out above their heads. She could name all the constellations.

  “Sometimes,” Jack said slowly, “when Ashley doesn’t know I’m watching, I’ll see her take out one of her old Barbie dolls and just sit there holding it. It’s like she wants to play with it, but she thinks she’s too old now for Barbie dolls. She probably figures I’d make fun of her. So then she looks kind of sad, and after a while, she puts it away.”

  If they could only get Ashley back, Jack promised himself, he would save up all his allowance and buy her a dozen Barbie dolls! And he’d never tease her again for the rest of their lives. He bit his lip, feeling so awful inside that Leesa must have seen it in his face. On the sound track, a man was singing a mournful ballad about someone named Lucille, who’d picked the wrong time to leave him, with four hungry children and the crops in the field. “Those country-western songs always sound so sad,” he murmured, making a lame excuse for his own gloom.

  Leesa said, “Country-western was the only kind of music I ever listened to—before Aaron.”

  “Before Aaron?”

  “Uh-huh.” She seemed to fold into her memories, telling him, “Aaron has this CD player. He used to bring it to school, and when we started being friends, he’d play it for me—all this cool music I’d never heard before. My dad says rock music or reggae or salsa or hip-hop is all nonwhite music that comes out of a multicultural sewer. But when Aaron played it for me, I liked it. Not all of it, but a lot of it.”

  “Me, too,” Jack told her.

  “Then Aaron started teaching me other music, like songs by George Gershwin or Leonard Bernstein that I’d never been allowed to hear because they were written by Jews. And classical music by Stravinsky and Prokofiev and Shostakovich that my dad banned because he said those men were dirty communists.”

  Jack didn’t know who some of those composers were, but he nodded as if he did.

  “Aaron even taught me to dance. I didn’t know how, because the kids in The Unit aren’t allowed to go to school dances. Sometimes The Unit puts on dances for us, but all they play are country-western songs, because that’s supposed to be the only uncorrupted white American music.”

  “Country-western isn’t my favorite, but it’s OK,” Jack said. “There’s a lot of it on the radio in Jackson Hole.” That reminded him of the two-way radio the sergeant had given him, which was beside him on the seat. He hadn’t been paying attention to anything that might have come over it because the restaurant was so noisy it was hard to hear. Picking up the handset, he turned the
volume knob, but just then their steaks came.

  Until he started eating, Jack hadn’t realized how famished he was. Leesa just pushed her food around on her plate, spearing a few bites of steak with her fork, dipping a few fries in ketchup. She eyed Jack’s empty plate and asked, “Would you like to finish mine? I’m not hungry.”

  “No thanks,” Jack answered. He wouldn’t have minded finishing Leesa’s steak, but he figured it would be impolite.

  When the server came to ask whether they wanted dessert, both of them said no, and Jack picked up the check. At the cash register, he said, “Uh, I was told to charge these two meals to my room.”

  This was a different hostess than the one who’d seated them. “Just sign your name and room number here at the bottom,” she told him. When he did (after writing TIP $5 and hoping that was enough), she examined his signature and said, “You’re Jack Landon? There was a phone call for you more than half an hour ago. I announced it over the intercom, but no one came.”

  “That must have been when we were outside,” Leesa declared, looking at Jack.

  “Was there any message?” Jack asked.

  “Yes. From a Steven Landon—your father, I guess. He said he and your mother had been detained and you and Leesa are supposed to go straight to your rooms and lock the doors and wait there.”

  It upset Jack that he’d missed the chance to talk to his father, to find out what was going on, and to tell him about Darwin Falls. “Come on, Leesa,” he said, and pushed ahead of her through the door.

  Out here where it was quieter, he could contact his parents on the two-way radio the sergeant had given him. He studied it again, trying to figure out where the talk button was—the handset looked quite different from his own. It had a longer antenna, arrows pointing up and down like the volume on a remote control, and four buttons on the front marked P0, P1, P2, and P3.

  “Jack, watch out!” Leesa yelled. She grabbed his arm and yanked him backward so hard that the radio flew out of his hand, right in front of the two-horse team pulling a buckboard wagon with a driver and three passengers.