by C. L. Wells
When they entered the house. Nick greeted Mia, who was busy packing the ten million dollars into an oversized cooler. with Marcus’ help. Nick skipped the awkward introductions and instead offered everyone some lunch. Mia had ordered some gourmet sandwiches, which were already laid out on the dining room table.
J.T. noticed that both Nick and Mia checked their phones frequently. He assumed they were checking to see if the kidnapper had provided any additional instructions. Once the money was packed, the cooler full of cash was rolled in to a closet until it was needed.
After lunch, Nick showed J.T., Laura, and James to the downstairs guest bedrooms where they would be spending the night, and then everyone migrated up to the library. Drinks were served to everyone as they prepared to pass the anxious hours until the kidnapper sent further instructions.
“Nick,” J.T. said, “I’d like to see Sasha’s room, if that’s o.k.”
Nick looked up, as if he was caught off-guard by the request. He turned to look at Mia in order to ascertain what she felt about it.
“I’ll take you up,” Mia said in response.
J.T. walked slowly into the room, taking his time, looking around at everything and soaking it all in. There were traces left of the girl Sasha had been when she’d first moved in to the room. A plastic pony, some softball trophies, a few books that an eight-year-old girl might read intermixed with more recent teenage selections. He walked over to the desk that now held a laptop. He looked down at pictures of Sasha and her friends from school. There were freshly opened presents piled high in one corner of the room, remnants of the birthday party the day before she’d been kidnapped. He picked up a picture of Sasha from the table. He held it in both hands as he sat down on the bed and began to cry.
Mia was watching the whole scene from the doorway. When J.T. started to cry, she turned to walk away, intending to give him some privacy.
“No, wait,” J.T. said as Mia turned to go. “I’d like you to stay. I want to know more about her…about Sasha.”
Mia turned back around, taking a look around the room herself as if to conjure up in her mind memories from the day before, when Sasha had been in the room.
“Sasha is a very strong person. A free spirit. She loves to ride horses and take risks. She reminds me of you, in many ways.”
J.T. looked up at Mia. “I wish you would have told me about her sooner,” he said.
“We did what we thought was best,” Mia replied.
“I guess my sins are catching up to me,” J.T. continued. “All those years when I took from others things that were important to them. Now the most important person in the world to me has been temporarily taken away from me before I even got a chance to meet her, and I’ll do anything to get her back.”
Mia crossed the room and put a hand on J.T.’s shoulder. She looked him straight in the eyes with that determined, steely look that only Mia could deliver as she said, “We will get her back.”
The remainder of the evening was uneventful as everyone stayed in the house in case the kidnapper contacted them. No one was very hungry after the late lunch they had consumed, so they ate a light dinner consisting of soup and crackers. After they had finished eating, Nick turned on the sports channel as he, Mia, and J.T. reclined in the game room. He and Mia continued to check their phones alternately every few minutes. Finally, Mia went to walk on the treadmill to burn off the nervous energy that was building up as they waited for the next communication, leaving J.T. and Nick to pretend to watch sports.
James and Laura wandered up to the library where James retrieved a copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and picked up reading where he had left off a few days before. Laura retrieved her Kindle from her backpack and pulled up a new book she had just downloaded about stained glass. They curled up next to each other on the couch in the library as they read, just like they liked to do back home.
By 10 p.m., everyone was ready for bed. Nick promised he would wake J.T. as soon as further instructions were delivered, and everyone went off to their rooms for the night. J.T. lay awake for about an hour, thinking of the amazing fact that he had a daughter who was eighteen who he had never met. He prayed to God that she would be returned unharmed tomorrow before he finally drifted off to a fitful sleep.
Chapter Forty-Three
J.T., Nick, and Mia were all dressed for the day and assembled in the kitchen by 5:00 a.m. Both Nick and Mia’s phones lay on the kitchen table. Marcus hung back in the corner, trying not to intrude. Nick made a pot of coffee for everyone while they waited anxiously for the message they were all expecting. James and Laura wandered groggily into the kitchen at 5:30 a.m., still in their p.j.s. Laura began nursing a cup of coffee like it was a spiritual experience. It was like a séance as they all took up places around the kitchen table and stared at the phones, willing the phones to communicate with them. No one was willing to speak out loud and break the silence.
At 5:50 a.m., James whispered into Laura’s ear, “I’m going to go get dressed; things are probably going to hit the fan in a few minutes when the kidnappers call, and we should be ready to go.” With that, he headed back downstairs as quietly as possible. Laura took the remainder of her coffee and chugged it, then made her exit as well.
A few minutes later, both phones buzzed almost simultaneously, indicating a message had been delivered. Nick and Mia both grabbed their respective phones and opened the text message that had just been delivered. J.T. quickly came around behind Nick as they all read the message simultaneously in silence.
Toakama, WV. 12 pm noon EST. Bring the cash in the cooler with wheels with the lid duct taped shut. Only j.t. crosses the bridge into town alone with the cash. He will walk down the main street to the end. Further instructions will be given to him then. Give him one of these phones. No tricks or else.
The message was followed by another picture of Sasha, with a copy of a Roanoke, West Virginia newspaper from the day before featured prominently so that the date could be seen.
“Mia, find the nearest airport to Toakama and get the plane ready,” Nick said urgently.
“I’m on it,” Mia replied. She went over to the kitchen computer desk and sat down to search for the airport.
Nick speed-dialed Victor.
“Victor, the exchange is at 12 p.m. noon, Eastern Standard Time, in Toakama, West Virginia. We’ll be flying in to the nearest airport at…” He looked over at Mia.
“Roanoke, West Virginia,” Mia said.
“Roanoke, West Virginia. I’ll call you once we are in the air to coordinate where to meet. I’ll get us three SUVs to use. I’m forwarding you the message we received from the kidnapper right now. Don’t be late, Victor, I’m counting on you.”
Nick hit the disconnect icon on his phone.
“Meet at the car out front in five minutes,” Nick said as he rose quickly from the table and left the room.
J.T. went down the stairs to the recreation room and repeated Nick’s announcement to James and Laura in a loud voice, “Meet at the car out front in five minutes.”
The trip to the airport seemed to take an eternity. Once they arrived, they quickly boarded the plane. Soon after, they were up in the air on their way to Roanoke, West Virginia.
Silas had reviewed the message carefully before hitting the send key. He waited to make certain the message was delivered before he shut the phone off and removed the battery. Cell coverage had come a long way since the early days. Still, he’d had to climb to the roof of one of the abandoned buildings to get even one bar in order to send the message.
He went back down to the RV and began to cut Sasha loose so that she could go to the bathroom and eat some breakfast. The swelling from where he had hit her on her face had mostly gone down. There was a bump on her lip and the cut had scabbed over during the night. Her eye had a bruise under it, too.
Silas stepped back from the chair and stood with his back to the door, facing Sasha, and cutting off any hope of escape.
“Now, go to the bathr
oom and then sit down over there for some breakfast,” he said.
Sasha dutifully complied, not seeing any opening to try for another escape. When she came out of the bathroom, Silas motioned to the seat at the table farthest away from the door, where a bottle of water and a breakfast bar were placed on the table top. Sasha sat down and began eating.
“You know, you don’t have that much longer to be here. Your dad will be bringing the money at noon, and you’ll be going home. So don’t try anything else, o.k.?”
Sasha continued to eat without saying anything. When she was done, Silas stood, blocking the door again, and motioned with his head to the captain’s chair. Sasha went over and sat down for their now practiced routine as Silas secured her to the chair with yet more duct tape. Once that was done, he exited the RV to complete the preparations for the arrival of J.T. and the money.
Victor was waiting at the airport when Nick and company de-planed. Once they had rented the SUVs and exited the airport grounds, Victor told them to pull over next to a mini-van taxi that was waiting on the side of the road. The five other men from his team exited the taxi and loaded several large black duffel bags into the back of the SUVs. Victor got in the vehicle with Nick, Mia, and J.T.
The caravan took off, following a route that Nick had already laid out to their destination. He had printed off a map on the printer while they were flying, just in case the GPS on the SUV malfunctioned for some reason. He was leaving nothing to chance.
Victor turned to J.T. and held out a small black box with some wires extending out of it.
“This is a two-way radio transmitter. I’m going to put it on you so we can communicate while you make the drop. This piece goes in your ear so we can talk to you, and this piece will be positioned near your collar so that we can pick up anything you say.”
“O.k.,” J.T. replied as he watched Victor hold up the various parts of the device.
“Now take off your shirt so I can tape everything in place.”
J.T. removed his shirt and Victor began securing the various wires and the box with a special type of tape. He placed the earbud in J.T.’s ear and worked the wire into place so that it was less visible. After he was done, he flipped a switch on the black box, and then he put on his headset and told J.T. to say something.
“Check, check,” J.T. said into the microphone.
“That’s good,” Victor said. “I’m going to tap on this microphone; tell me if you hear it in your earpiece.”
Victor tapped on the microphone and J.T. heard the soft tap-tap sound in his earpiece.
“I hear it,” he replied.
“O.k., when you walk down the street into town, speak out anything that might seem out of the ordinary, anything that seems out of place. We may not be able to get eyes on you, depending on where we are positioned. If things go bad and you need us to come in after you, just let us know over the mic,” Victor concluded.
It was one hundred and thirty miles from Roanoke to Toakama. The winding mountain roads slowed down their average speed to around forty-five miles an hour. It was almost twelve when they approached the bridge that crossed in to Toakama. Victor instructed Nick to pull off the road right before the bridge. He had studied the aerial photographs available on the internet and seen that, after crossing the bridge, the road took a sharp turn left. They would then be inside the town limits.
“We go on foot from here,” Victor said. “Be quiet when we get out of the car, we don’t want them to think we came in with this many people. Let’s hope they don’t have eyes on us already.”
Once they exited the vehicles, Victor turned to his team and gave them hand signals indicating they should switch on their two-way radios and stay silent. The men quietly complied. Two men opened up the duffle bags and began handing out the weapons they had brought along, including two sniper rifles. They all put on camouflage hats and face paint. The team assembled next to Victor near the lead SUV at 11:57 a.m. Two of the commandos unloaded the cooler with the ten million dollars and put it beside J.T.
Victor handed Nick, Mia, James, and Laura two-way radios so that they could all communicate. He told them to leave the radios on so that they could hear if he needed them to bring the SUVs up to their position quickly. Nick walked over and handed J.T. his phone.
“Take this. The kidnapper said you should have it for the drop. Be careful out there, J.T.; Sasha is counting on you.”
J.T. nodded his head, then picked up the handle and began pulling the two-wheeled cooler behind him as he approached the bridge. Three commandos followed on one side of the road, three on the other. Nick, Mia, Laura, and James all stayed behind in the SUVs so they could quickly drive into town should they be needed.
The bridge was barely a hundred feet long. The frame was made of steel, with wooden cross-planks that served as the road surface. The steel was rusted with patches of the original red paint still visible here and there. The wood looked sturdy enough in most places, but J.T. noticed several spots where it had begun to rot. The cool mountain air and the sound of the stream running under the bridge provided a peaceful setting, but J.T. was sweating nervously as he stepped off of the bridge and began walking slowly around the corner.
Victor and his men had quietly slipped off of the road and into the woods as J.T. rounded the corner and the first buildings came in to view. The sign on the side of the road read, Welcome to Toakama, population 312.
“Just keep walking down the center of the road slowly. We’ll keep eyes on you from here,” J.T. heard Victor say through the earpiece in his ear.
J.T.’s heart was beating faster as he continued walking down the road into Toakama, and he wondered what was going to happen next.
Chapter Forty-Four
Silas saw J.T. Thornbacker through his binoculars as he rounded the corner from the bridge to Toakama at 12:03 p.m. He appeared to be alone and pulling the cooler filled with cash, but Silas knew better than to think that Nick didn’t have some hired guns nearby. Fortunately for Silas, he was prepared for such an eventuality.
It took J.T. the better part of five minutes to walk the entire length of the street and arrive at the cul-de-sac at the end. When he arrived there, he saw a chair with a note taped to it and a cable with a hook on the end which led off to the right-hand side, through an alleyway and behind a building. The note read: Hook the cable to the handle of the cooler, then back away from the chair ten paces and wait for further instructions.
J.T. read the note out loud for the benefit of the listeners on the other end of the two-way radio, and then he took the rope and tied it to the cooler as indicated, backing off ten paces as instructed when he was done. Once he began backing away from the cooler, he heard a distant whining sound and the cable grew taught as the cooler began moving along the ground and down the alleyway, out of sight from where J.T. was now standing. About a minute later, the whining stopped.
Silas un-hooked the cooler from the winch and cut the tape so that he could open the lid. He smiled as he saw bundles of one hundred dollar bills. He took one out and examined it more closely to make certain that it was a genuine one hundred dollar bill. He was no treasury agent, but he had gotten pretty good as a cop in telling the genuine article from a counterfeit. Satisfied it was the real thing, he re-taped the cooler top closed and pushed it up into the back of the Jeep via the ply-wood ramp he had constructed, securing it with several elastic tie-downs for safety. He glanced down the alleyway to ensure that no one was there before he got into the Jeep and started the engine. He reached over to where Sasha was seated in the passenger’s seat and cut loose the duct-tape from her feet. Then he cut her hands loose from the tape that held them to a bar that ran along the side of the doorframe of the jeep.
“Get out and go down the alleyway; your father is waiting for you,” Silas ordered.
Sasha got out of the car and began running down the alleyway, tearing the tape away from her mouth as she ran, and yelling, “I’m here! I’m down here!”
Sila
s gunned the engine of the Jeep and headed up the old mining road, out of town and in the opposite direction from where Sasha was running.
When J.T. heard Sasha calling out, he ran towards the alleyway and towards Sasha. He immediately recognized her from the pictures he had seen. “Sasha!” he cried as he reached her and hugged her in his arms. She had recognized him from the pictures Nick had shown her and didn’t resist as J.T. embraced her.
“She’s safe!” he said into the two-way radio microphone.
As soon as he had uttered the words, he heard Victor respond. “Bring the SUVs up now!” Nick hit the accelerator on the lead SUV and the wheels spun wildly as the vehicle sped forward, closely followed by James and Laura in the other two SUVs. They rounded the corner into town to see Victor and the rest of the commandos quickly working their way along opposite sides of the street, clearing each alleyway and moving towards Sasha and J.T. Nick roared past the commandos and came to a quick stop, pulling up alongside Sasha. Mia and Nick jumped out of the vehicle and embraced Sasha.
Victor ran over to where they were standing. “Are you o.k.?” he said to Sasha.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she responded.
“I heard a vehicle drive off; which way did it go?” Victor asked.
Sasha turned and pointed down the alleyway. “Down there is an old road leading up into the mountains.”
“How many people were there in all?” Victor continued.
“It was just one man,” she responded.
Victor turned and pointed to two of his men, “You two stay here with them. The rest of you come with me.”