by Dusty Miller
Taking a picture of her, gagged, eyes wild with despair, bound hand and foot, laying on the railroad tracks in the harsh glare of overhead yellow sodium lights, plus his camera’s little flash, was a stroke of pure genius. The highly-charged and frankly sexual overtones of the pose would send a strong message to Kimball and others of his kind.
“Il maestro.”
“Thank you, thank you.”
A train was coming and they had better get going.
He zipped the camera into an inner pocket. The pair of them hastened to lift and drag the girl to the rear of the full sized van they were now using. Working as a team, they lifted her in, dropped her with an unceremonious thud, and slammed the door.
With a little luck, they could be back at their cabin shortly before dawn, arriving by foot after a quick drop-off up the road and around the bend. The girl would be looked after by lesser mortals.
No one needs be the wiser. Mister Bernstein had taken quite a number of photos, including one where Lindsey was laying on a log in front of some old abandoned sawmill. That one was pretty dark but it got the point across. There was another one where she was laying on the ground, there was a pale white curb of concrete, and barely visible in the distance, black water going over a low-head dam or weir.
If that didn’t get the point across, you sort of had to wonder what would.
***
They were all sitting around Cabin Seven, the divers warming up with a stiff drink and the others looking pleased.
When the computer went bonk and a red icon flashed on the toolbar, it took a moment to sink in.
Jenkins, clad in a thick fisherman’s knitted jersey, white, royal blue bikini bottoms and black rubber beach slippers, eyed the screen. Seated at the kitchen table, Jenkins lazily reached over and touched the screen, raising glass to lips at the same time.
Jenkins almost choked on it.
“Holy shit.” With everyone busy, engaged in various chores and involved in their own conversations, they barely noticed.
“Hey!”
The room went quiet and Ian came out of Liam’s bedroom, feeling quite warm and toasty after a hot shower and fresh jeans.
“What’s up?”
“Team Three has found another part of EMERALD.”
“Yay…” A brief smattering of applause went through the group, some of whom were not field agents but technical people busily cleaning up their prize at the kitchen sink.
This had turned out to be a bit smaller than expected, but they had the chunk sitting in the left hand side. Junior operatives were hosing it down with the vegetable sprayer and poking around with various soft brushes in an effort to remove mud and get a proper look.
The general consensus was that they could hardly damage the thing any further.
Liam looked up.
“What?” There was this look of pleased disbelief on his face.
Team Three was working the big lake north of Espanola, almost an afterthought. The land up there had been extensively searched and it was thought to be a lighter part of the debris field. Much of the debris up that way had been support systems, parts of the recovery system and the outer protective shell assembly.
As far as they had been able to determine, Team Three had attracted no notice at all from the opposition.
There was other news, as agents and staff people quickly read the report.
“Liam.” Ian’s face was carefully neutral. “Team Three is small. They’re saying they’ve got another piece of the command and control module.”
“Yes?”
“I’m thinking maybe some of us had better get up there.”
Liam bit his lip. The part they had was no great shakes—almost useless, and yet to leave it in the custody of inexperienced people, civilians in so many respects, was asking for trouble. A mental picture of a disappointed Emil Borz was enough to make the point.
“Okay. Take, ah, Bryan and Edward—”
“Sounds good. Do us a favour and call in some police backup as well.” Ian was already reaching for his worn and faded jean jacket.
“Right.” Liam nodded and one of the younger ones went to work on the calls.
Putting the jean jacket on took a few years off of Ian, setting him in an entirely different social class as well.
A young woman wearing a business skirt, white blouse, sensible shoes and a shoulder holster waved Liam over.
She handed him a phone.
“Marinaro.”
Liam nodded.
Taking the phone, he spoke, glancing at his watch as he did so. It was two-thirty-seven a.m.
“Sir. We have some good news.”
There was a knock at the door. With a couple of people, hand on gun-butts, standing on each side of the door, the female Canadian agent stood to one side. She opened it cautiously, although other agents on watch weren’t sounding any alarms…not yet.
It was Dale, their host and the owner of The Pines.
He was looking disturbed about something.
“I—uh. So, is this where the party is?” His attempt at a smile was ghastly, his face pale and washed out in the light from within.
He’d woken up in his chair, still half in the bag and with the beginnings of one of his famous headaches.
The agent was polite, gun hand out of sight behind the door.
“Yes? Can I help you?”
“Has anyone seen Lindsey? The truck’s there—and no one seems to know where she’s gotten off to…”
The lady at the door turned.
“Any of us seen Lindsey tonight? She’s the little blonde girl that runs the store?”
People gave blank looks and shook their heads. The agent pulled back in inside, ready to close the door.
From where Liam was standing, he could see straight out the open door and across the street to the Bernstein’s cabin. Their car sat out front, there were lights on and probably the TV going inside. There was something strange going on with those two—it wasn’t like them not to put in an appearance.
There was this horrible, sick feeling in the guts. He met Ian’s eyes, but they all had their own jobs to do.
Uncle Dale was staring at Liam, as if sensing this was the centre of power in the room. All roads led to Liam Kimball. Liam’s mouth opened, staring at the old man.
Lindsey.
Chapter Twenty-One
The big lake was still. The quarter moon had gone down hours ago. It had taken over an hour to drive there and coordinate with the shore party. Ian and the newcomers had launched in inflatable boats borrowed from a Canadian Forces Reserve unit who were ostensibly in the area conducting night rescue exercises. They had directions to the work scene via GPS. Even so, it took another hour of buzzing down Agnew Lake to find them. More of a reservoir than a lake, it was a lot deeper than the Spanish River. It was just as accessible at multiple points around the periphery. The fact that no notice had been taken of C.S.I.S. operations on the lake sort of implied that it was the big guns—he, and to a greater extent Liam, who were being watched. C.S.I.S. agents were known for keeping a low profile and not engaging in conspicuous displays of personality. Either the opposition hadn’t identified them or they weren’t taking them nearly as seriously as Liam Kimball. Kimball had those indefinable but stellar qualities.
There was some element of showmanship in the man, who seemed, at least most of the time, sublimely unaware of the animal magnetism that he generated.
Team Three had a big bass boat and a lower, fibreglass runabout. Each was about six or seven metres in length. The boats were anchored head-to-head, in about twenty metres of water according to the text briefing Ian had read on the way over.
The divers, four in all, were just bringing it up. According to the photos and videos, it looked good. As muddy as the other piece, they were saying it was definitely part of the computer system, with all of its backups, all of its capacity, and its rather unique software.
***
“So, my pretty. Where’s your dashing
hero now?” Beryl purred, stroking her cheek with something that had a razor’s edge. “Ah, yes. Mister Kimball is such a luscious hunk of man-flesh, isn’t he my little precious?”
“Go to hell!”
The slap came out of nowhere, snapping her head around. This brought more profanity, more tears and more humiliation.
More pain.
More rage.
More frustration.
Lindsey, after a brief scuffle and an unsuccessful escape attempt, was firmly restrained by miles (or kilometres) of tape and rope. She was on a hard wooden chair. She was in an underground room somewhere, probably a basement or cellar. She could tell by the smell of mildew and the absence of background noises.
Blindfolded and completely terrorized, Lindsey was alternately crying and berating her captors.
Remembering what she had seen of the terrible scars on Liam’s back, Lindsey trembled. She tried not to cry. She was twisting her head and listening intently for some clue as to where she was.
The abominable Mister Bernstein—who had shamelessly mashed her breasts and her buttocks as Beryl laughed and laughed, had gone off somewhere. The floor was dirty concrete and he was wearing running shoes.
She was alone with Beryl.
“There’s been a little change of plans, my little one—fishy, fishy, fish.”
The woman was clearly mad.
Lindsey was cold, scared, tired and hungry. She had to pee and she wasn’t going to get any mercy from these horrible people. If only she could get out of this chair.
Beryl was drinking, and while Lindsey was shaking from adrenalin, anger and fear, sooner or later the bitch was going to nod off. Hopefully that would happen before that other little bastard returned.
The ropes around her wrist were already stretching. Lindsey had clenched and tensed up as much as she could when they tied her wrists. They had used an old, tired manila of about a half-inch diameter. The wire, put on top rather than under the rope, was turning out to be a bit of a joke. Not that it wasn’t painful, but there was plenty of blood in the human body.
She wouldn’t need the half of it to take care of this bitch.
***
Liam had a sinking sensation every time Lindsey’s name was mentioned. The fact was that she was young and single. Dale was highly-suspicious. He was confused, distraught and slightly drunk. He’d woken up in his lazy chair, shuffled off to the bathroom, and noted his niece’s bedroom door open although the room was dark.
“The first person I thought of was you, Mister Kimball.”
Liam tried to break it to Dale as gently as he could.
“Look. She’s a grown woman—”
“Yeah? So?” Dale looked the type to quickly become belligerent, his eyes shocked at the number of people in Cabin Seven.
It had the look, not a big drunk-up but some serious professionals…with guns, and all of them either on a computer or on a phone, some of them working both at once. The maximum capacity of any cabin was set at eight, what with the Ministry of Health regulations in force throughout the province. That didn’t rule out a big party once in a while.
This didn’t look much like a party.
“There are other young people in the camp. Maybe she rode in with some of them.”
Dale exploded. Even though it could be true. Lindsey had been a bit down on herself lately, and Dale had a sneaking suspicion that it had a lot to do with this Kimball character.
“And how in the bloody hell is she supposed to get home?”
Liam didn’t have much of an answer for that. He understood the man’s concerns. It wasn’t his niece.
“Well, I don’t know. She’ll probably catch a ride home with whoever—or stay overnight.” Even Liam was having a hard time buying that one.
It wasn’t exactly unheard-of. Young women got boned, (or boinked) to put it crudely, all the time. It was at least a small part of what the young lady had been pretty obviously looking for—
He really couldn’t say that, of course.
Dale loved his niece, and he was probably worried about nothing, his own guilt crushing in on him a little. He was showing some of this inadequacy now.
It was all Liam could do, hating himself as he did, to usher Dale out the door.
“If she needs a ride, Dale, she’d be calling you at your home number. Right?” Even then, the gentleman took some convincing.
Dale had this betrayed look on his face. With one last angry look around, he turned and stomped out.
As soon as the door was closed and Liam was satisfied that Dale was indeed going down the walk, he turned to the room.
“What?” He had plenty of manpower. “I want two or three of you guys to have a look around. Knock on doors and ask if she’s there. Full court press.”
He was impressed how they divided themselves up. The more junior teams members scuttled out the front door.
It didn’t take long to determine that she wasn’t home, and not much longer to determine that the truck she had supposedly borrowed was sitting in front of the store. They checked all outdoor campfires, all parties. They couldn’t be sure she hadn’t taken any of the boats—there still seemed to be three or four boats out on the water.
She wasn’t at any of the other cabins, a polite knock and an inquiry bringing all negative responses.
Someone answered another call, speaking as quietly as they could, hair on their neck prickling at the silence from Liam and the others. The guy’s back was turned to avoid just such distractions. This post would be manned constantly, no matter what happened. There was an emergency message, an icon onscreen that could be sent in a second assuming bad guys kicking in the door…
“Very well. Launch them as soon as possible.” It was a unit of reconnaissance drones, setting up and coming online. “We have more than one situation. Will advise. Please proceed with our initial plan, please.”
The operative hung up the phone and punched up the big screen on the wall. Typing in the reported position, a small blue star appeared. According to their friends, the drones would be launched immediately from a small grass airstrip on Mackinac Island. They would be over Canadian territory, cameras zooming in from miles away, in minutes. They had three aircraft and one in reserve for mechanical emergencies. A second unit would hopefully be on scene within six hours, providing relief for refueling and maintenance.
His feet seemed to be glued to the floor.
Things were getting down to the wire.
Liam was tightening the noose as quickly as he could. The first part of EMERALD was now labeled Object One. That part of the investigation had been handed off. He needed action, but it had to be useful, it had to be correct—
A phone rang.
Marjorie, one of their C.S.I.S. operatives, was waving madly at Liam and pointing at her device. Her face was very pale, her normal look of casual humour gone.
He stared into Marjorie’s eyes and it was like time stood still—a deer in the headlights moment.
“Ah—no.” Marjorie left the computer there on the table but got up out of her seat.
She looked very grim.
What Liam saw when he bent to have a look was enough to make his blood run cold.
All of that other stuff fell apart when he saw the picture of Lindsey, bound, gagged and blindfolded, laying on the railway tracks.
Behind the figure of the girl there was a set of signals. The red lights were flashing. Down low in the frame, the single white flare of a locomotive headlight was visible a half a kilometre away.
“Damn you.”
Somebody was going to pay for this. He read the brief text.
They were demanding a trade—EMERALD (or what they had of it) for the girl.
His mind raced.
EMERALD for the girl. The trouble was that you could hardly trust them—or could you?
It would be a minute yet. He needed to consult with his superiors before calling that number.
His guts ached.
***
His hand shook when he dialed the phone.
“Kimball.”
“Sir.”
“We’ve got the girl. Do you believe me?”
“Yes.” Liam fumed, but kept his tone level.
“She’s still alive.”
“I believe you.”
“You have something we want.”
“Sure we do.” Face hard, Liam Kimball listened carefully, for tone, for background noises, characteristic phrases, or an accent, anything that might help them.
There was nothing. Just a voice, distorted and without obvious clues other than that it was male. It might be an effect of the distortion program. There was an oddly disjointed pacing.
“Listen. We’ll make our arrangements and get back to you within the hour. You will bring EMERALD and we will bring the girl. Agreed?”
There was no point in saying no. They were being given an hour, which was strictly a no-no.
Someone was going to be very sorry indeed.
The phone went dead.
Liam looked at a circle of cold, angry faces.
“Right. I need to know where that call came from. We need to find out how she was taken. My impression is that she can’t be very far away.”
A young fellow named Boyle spoke up.
“Here’s another question—he’s talking about EMERALD. But do they know which piece we have—or do they know we’ve got an even bigger one up north now?”
The man on the phone, a man (maybe) whose voice was unrecognizable but possibly still traceable…Lom or Borz? Or someone else.
Liam nodded. It was all coming in at once now. A few minutes ago it seemed he had too many people. He badly needed more warm bodies, more information, more time.
“Those people across the street. We haven’t seen them in hours. Let’s pay them a little visit.”
Taking out his gun, as a couple of team members got hastily out of their seats, Liam headed for the door and the street.