“Then I’ll run and hide. And we will have definite cause to bring in the police! Plus there are two of us. That means we can create diversions if one of us gets into trouble. If we find Jonathan then there are three of us!”
“I don’t know, Jason,” Stan replied. “It sounds like an awful big risk just on the speculation that your friend is actually there.”
“The signal from the device Jason gave him is very strong, so I’m pretty sure that he is there! We are worried that Jonathan is being abused and possibly forced to take drugs against his will! He has been this guy’s prisoner for two days now!” Daniel exclaimed.
“I have a small tracking device,” Jason said. “If you set us down at the edge of that driveway, I think we can sneak in there and check things out. Do you have some sort of net or bucket device we could all get in at once, if we are successful down there?”
“One of our pickup devices will hold the weight of an adult on a gurney, at around 350 pounds total,” Stan replied. “Three teenagers might easily go over that weight! But I’m sure that we can pull up two of you at once!”
“Well that will have to do then,” Jason said with determination in his voice. “We will send up Jonathan and Daniel first, and then I will follow, because I have a backpack with tools in it.”
“Do you have some sort of walkie-talkie that we can contact you with from the ground?” Daniel asked.
“Yes,” Stan replied. “Jack will set you up with one. After we drop you off, I am going to go back up high in the air, out of gunshot range. But first I will fly a route in the opposite direction so that the drug dealer thinks that the helicopter is flying away. When you are ready to be picked up, contact us and we will descend back to the place where you will be dropped off. Hopefully we can pull you back on board before that drug dealer gets there!”
“What if we are unable to get back to the drop off point, or Jonathan is injured?” Daniel asked.
“Be sure to take along some flares.” Stan continued. “Contact me by walkie-talkie, and then light the flare on my signal. That way you won’t give away your position too soon.”
Jack handed Jason a couple of flares, which he placed in his backpack of tools. Stan then circled the helicopter back around toward the drop off point. “Once you are dropped off, you need to quickly hide and assess the situation in case the drug dealer has decided to pursue the sound and is nearby,” Stan advised. “If everything seems quiet for five minutes or so, then you can start to circle in on the dealer’s cabin.”
Jason and Daniel got in the netting of the rescue device, and waited. When they were near the drop off point, a door opened and the netting was gradually was quickly lowered to the ground. “Wow, this is like an amusement park ride!” Jason exclaimed.
“Let’s hope that it is a round trip!” Daniel said with a determined grin.
About five minutes later the two boys were on the ground. Once out of the netting, they quickly hid in some nearby trees. The helicopter flew away, and within two minutes everything was quiet again. Jason and Daniel waited and listened for a few more minutes but with no one in sight, they began walking down the narrow road toward the gate at the entrance to Scott’s cabin. When they arrived at the gate, it was padlocked. At first Jason thought that they should climb over it, but then realizing that they would need to make a quick escape, decided to just cut the lock off with his heavy duty metal snips. The lock was attached with a metal chain, which Jason was able to easily cut through.
After getting through the gate, the boys silently crept up the narrow driveway. After about twenty feet, the cabin suddenly appeared. As they got closer they could see that the cabin had two rooms. The two stopped walking and just observed things for a couple of minutes. They could hear that someone was puttering around in the room toward their right. They could vaguely hear the sound of someone talking and muttering to himself. “Those stupid meddling government agents. Coming up here and spying around…”
“That must be Scott,” Jason whispered to Daniel. “Keep an eye on him! As long as he is busy in there, let him be. I am going to see if Jonathan is in the other room. If I am discovered, create a diversion quick!”
“How can I do that?” Daniel whispered back.
“Here!” Jason handed Daniel a couple of the flares from his backpack. “Use these!” Daniel took them and then positioned himself behind Scott’s truck.
Jason crept up by the front door and listened. The door was not locked so he turned the handle, opened the door slightly, and peered inside. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darker light inside the cabin, they focused on a figure lying on a mattress in the corner of the room. It was Jonathan! Looking closer Jason could see that Jonathan was bound with ropes and gagged with bandanas.
“Jonathan!” Jason hissed in an intense whisper.
Jonathan, who had been dozing off since being tied up on the bed, looked up and realized that Jason was there. Jason held his finger over his lips in a shush signal. Jonathan nodded his head in understanding. Jason then came inside and looked around the room. Scott was still in the other room.
Quickly Jason came over to Jonathan and began cutting through the ropes with the large metal ships he had used to cut the lock off of the front gate. “Jonathan! Are you a sight for sore eyes!” he whispered excitedly. “Daniel and I are going to get you out of here!”
After Jason cut the ropes binding Jonathan’s wrists, Jonathan brought his arms around front to his face and pulled the gag out of his mouth. “There is also a chain you need to cut!” he told Jason urgently. “See, down there!”
Jason quickly cut through several of the links holding the lock that bound the chain to Jonathan’s leg. “Thank you, thank you!” Jonathan said gratefully. “I have been totally miserable up here! But how did you ever find me?”
Jason smiled a big smile. “Because you were wearing my good luck charm!” Jason pointed to the silver cross on the chain around Jonathan’s neck. “That beautiful little cross also contains a tracking device! Now let’s get out of here!”
Jonathan got up out of the bed and began following Jason toward the front door. But their good luck suddenly changed. In his haste to get out of there, Jason didn’t see the remainder of the chain on the floor, and he tripped over it, losing his balance just enough to knock over a small table filled with dirty dishes. The contents of the table came crashing down on the floor.
In the next room, Scott heard the crash. “What the…” he started to say as he grabbed his shotgun and looked through the doorway into the next room. When he saw Jason and Jonathan about to escape from the cabin, he held the shotgun up to his shoulder and yelled out, “Freeze! One more move out of either of you and I will blow you to pieces!”
Jason and Jonathan had no choice but to stop in their tracks.
“Turn around and put your hands up!” Scott ordered. “Now!”
When the boys complied and raised their hands up, Scott demanded of Jason, “Who are you and how did you get here!”
Knowing that he needed to stall for time, Jason replied, “Do you think you can just grab a kid from our local community, kidnap him, tie him up, and take him to your mountain hideaway without consequences? You are the one that should be putting your hands up!”
“Shut up, you little punk!” Scott yelled back in an angry voice. “I’m the one asking the questions here!”
Meanwhile Daniel, upon hearing the crash and ruckus inside the cabin, realized that he had to act fast. He quickly went around to the other room. Luckily there was a window open. He removed the protective cover off of one of the flares Jason had given him. Holding the flare out in front of him, and away from his face, Daniel then removed its top cap, removed the striker cap, and rubbed the igniter and striker together to light it. As soon as the flare ignited, Daniel stuck his arm through the window and tossed it at bottles of liquid chemicals he saw in the room. He then ducked down as fast as he could.
The impact was almost simultaneous, as the flare came in
to contact with the liquid ammonia and other highly flammable chemicals in the room. There was a loud explosion as the chemicals ignited into intense flames, and detritus blew in all directions. The impact of the explosion knocked the shotgun out of Scott’s hands and caused him to fall to the floor.
As soon as that happened, Jason yelled out, “Run as fast as you can. Follow me!” He opened the front door and he and Jonathan ran down the driveway toward the gate. As they were running down the driveway, they met up with Daniel who was doing the same thing.
“You really delivered on that diversion, Daniel!” Jason shouted. “Now let’s get out of here.”
“I’m glad you guys are okay!” Daniel shouted back. “That was quite an explosion! Jonathan! Are you all right?”
“Yes, now that you guys are here! Now what do we do?”
“Just follow us out of here, Jonathan. We have a special ride out of here planned!” When they reached the gate, Jason pushed it open, and then got on his walkie-talkie to Stan. “Come and get us. We are right near where you left us. There has a been a big explosion so we are going to continue down the road until we see you.”
“Roger that, Jason. Did you find Jonathan?”
“Yes, I told him we had a special ride home for him! Bring the limousine around!”
“I see the explosion has caused quite a fire. I don’t want to get the helicopter too close to it. I will pick you up where the road comes to a fork, about another quarter mile down the road. See you there!”
Jason then told Daniel and Jonathan the plan. While he had been talking with Stan, the two of them looked back at the cabin. Flames from the fire were getting larger. They could see Scott running around the outside of the cabin trying to put out the fire with a hose but it wasn’t having much of an impact on the chemicals.
“I don’t think he has much hope of saving that cabin. There were a lot of chemicals in there!” Daniel said.
“I say good riddance after what that bastard did to me!” Jonathan said with grim satisfaction in his voice.
“Come on guys, let’s get out of here now! We still have a ways to go. And Scott may decide to go after us in his truck or chase after us with his shotgun!” Jason exclaimed with some concern in his voice. He and the others started to head down the road.
“I wouldn’t worry about Scott driving after us right away,” Daniel said with a smile on his face. “I think he might need to put some air in his tires!”
“You didn’t!” Jason said laughing.
“I’m afraid Mr. Brewster has had a rather deflating experience this afternoon!” Daniel replied. “After what that low life scum did to Jonathan here, I had to take my anger out on the valve stems of his fancy wheels with my Swiss Army knife.”
“You guys are awesome!” Jonathan said. “I can’t thank you enough for coming to my rescue. That bastard was trying to turn me into a drug addict by forcibly injecting me with liquid meth!”
“You don’t worry about a thing from now on, Jonathan! Your ordeal is over and your life is about to change for the better!” Jason said. “The Whatever Foundation is on your case, and we are going to take care of you and your mom in first class style!”
“Yeah,” Daniel added. “Good reed players are hard to find, and you are one of the best! Your hard times are over, my friend. You just wait and see!”
By this time, the three boys had reached the rendezvous point. About a minute later, they could hear the sound of the helicopter rotors, and within another two minutes, Stan was overhead and dropping down the rescue net. As planned, he first hauled up Daniel and Jonathan, and then he brought up Jason.
“Welcome aboard, Jonathan,” Stan said. “You have some very good friends looking after you! Are you in need of any immediate medical care?”
“I’ve had a couple of very rough days, but other than some rope burns, bruises and cuts, I am okay. However, that bastard injected me with liquid meth in his efforts to turn me into a drug addict under his control. I am still coming down from that!”
“That’s why I have set up 24 hour medical care for you with one of the best doctors in town at his private medical clinic,” Jason responded. “You will be in his care for the immediate future until a number of things can get worked out in your life.” Jason then went on to explain to Jonathan about his mother going into rehabilitation and how they were doing everything they could to keep Jonathan out of the foster care system.
“You actually got my mother to go into drug rehabilitation?” Jonathan said with some disbelief in his voice. “I have been trying to get her to do that for over a year now. How did you do it?”
“A lot of it was because of what happened to you, Jonathan,” Jason said. “She finally realized that things couldn’t go on the way they were any more, and we offered her a spot in one of the finest clinics around. Tim reminded us of how nice she used to be before the drug addiction took over her life. And it seemed the best thing to do at the time. Otherwise, when the authorities found out about your home life, they would have immediately put you into the foster care system.”
“We didn’t want that to happen to you, Jonathan,” Daniel said. “We want you around here, playing in our band, and we want to help you get your family back together.”
Jason then said, “Just before she signed the papers for the rehabilitation clinic, your mother also signed a document giving Tim’s father temporary power of attorney, and temporary custody of you! So for the time being, the band is your family. Everybody is pumped about it, and we are going to rally around you until everything broken in your life gets fixed.”
“You guys are unbelievable!” Jonathan said choking up with emotion. “How did I suddenly get so lucky?”
Daniel went over to Jonathan and put his arm around him. “You’ve been through hell. Now it’s time you get a tour of the good life, the way things should be for a nice guy like you!”
Chapter 28
Report on the Arrest of Scott Brewster
(Breaking News)
The Channel 11 five o’clock news had just begun its daily broadcast when the anchor announced: “We have a late breaking story about a fire on Loma Prieta mountain which reportedly is at the site of an illegal meth lab. Let’s go now to Jaime Orlando in Chopper 11.”
“We are hovering near the scene of a fire and SWAT team operation on Loma Prieta Mountain. Over in the upper right hand of your screen you can see flames still burning from a small cabin in that was apparently a meth lab producing illegal drugs in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Captain Garcia of the Silicon Valley Police is leading a SWAT team in the area to arrest the alleged drug dealer. The suspect has been identified as Scott Brewster whose driver’s license identifies him as a resident of Hollister, but who has apparently been living at the cabin while operating a small lab producing methamphetamines.
“When police and firefighters arrived at the cabin, Brewster had fled the area. His pickup truck was parked in front of the house, but all four tires were flat. It is believed that Brewster is on foot in the local area. The SWAT team has cut off all access to the property from the narrow access road. The SWAT team is currently sweeping the area to locate the suspect and take him into custody. Captain Garcia also told me that the Drug Enforcement Agency has been notified and will be taking over the investigation of the alleged drug lab when Brewster has been captured. Even a relatively small operation, like a single room lab, can produce large quantities of this highly addictive drug also known as speed.
“Even more shocking than the revelation that an illegal drug lab was operating right near the Silicon Valley is the allegation that Brewster had kidnapped a young teenager and was holding him against his will at the cabin. Apparently the boy was taken from his home in the Silicon Valley on Wednesday. It is not clear what the motivation was for the boy’s kidnapping. Right now all I have is the sketchiest of details.
“That is all the information I have at the moment, but clearly there is a lot more to the story. As soon as I have more information,
I will provide you with an update. This is Jaime Orlando reporting from Chopper 11.”
“Jaime, do you know whether the boy has been rescued?” the news anchor asked.
“When the SWAT team arrived at the house there was no one there. Captain Garcia stated that the boy had been rescued by two of his friends, who managed to track him to the meth lab location. Other than that statement, no further information has been released about the alleged kidnapping.”
“You heard it here first on Channel 11 news,” the anchor said, closing the live report. “Stay tuned for the latest information on this breaking story.”
As soon as he completed his report, Jaime took out his cell phone and called Jason Hunter. He had been trying to contact Jason ever since Captain Garcia had mentioned that the kidnapped boy had been rescued by two of his friends. This time his call went through.
“Hello, Jaime,” Jason answered.
“Jason, I have been trying to reach you regarding the meth lab that is burning up in the mountains and the story of a kidnapped young teen rescued by two of his friends. This story sounds like it has your fingerprints all over it! Is that true? What can you tell me?”
“Jaime, this is somewhat of a sensitive situation, especially regarding the boy. I don’t want his name released at this time, due to some critical family issues. I can tell some of the details on the record, but most of this needs to be kept confidential for the moment.
“The boy is fifteen-years-old and is a wonderful musician. Unfortunately he comes from a broken family, and his mother became addicted to drugs. Due to her addiction, she had fallen in with a very bad crowd, drug dealers running meth labs. That’s where Scott Brewster came in.”
“Do you know why Brewster would kidnap the boy? Was it a way to get leverage over the boy’s mother?”
“Not exactly, Jaime. Brewster already had total control over his mother. Part of our rescue effort was to get her away from him and into rehabilitation. She is now at a private clinic going through a complete detoxification process. Brewster kidnapped the boy because he protested what was being done to his mom and as a result his life! Brewster was afraid that he would notify the authorities. Over the past few weeks, Brewster was really mean to the boy, beating him up when he asked Brewster to get out of his mother’s life, and encouraging his mother to pawn his musical instruments and other family items for drug money.”
Eyewitness News Page 20