King's Ransom

by E H Jennings

  “The mutual benefit,” Carson pressed. “What is it?”

  Lazarus took a drink. “Like you said, McManus and Bradford are dead men. They cannot be allowed to live. But Mark Prosser is different.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because he’s useful.” He formed a steeple with his hands. “Don’t you see?”

  “I can’t say I do,” said Bosworth.

  “With McManus and Bradford gone, Prosser will be alone and desperate. He’ll be a man with a very dirty secret—a secret the world’s most famous reporter knows about. And once we make Prosser aware of that fact, we’ll own him.”

  “Which means what exactly?”

  Lazarus smiled. “It means we own the next President of the United States.”

  The weight of that statement, of the premeditation such an eventuality must have required, settled heavily over the table. Everyone felt played; but everyone was also a little amazed. They couldn’t decide whether to hate Zeke Lazarus for his merciless brilliance or applaud him. The right answer was probably both.

  But there was one thing. One thing that felt off.

  “Who is we?” Carson asked.

  A strange expression came over Zeke. The cobalt eyes seemed to twinkle, as if about to hand out the final gift on Christmas morning.

  They were all startled when Carson’s cell phone broke the silence.

  “Lucian?” he asked. “Is everything ok?”

  “Monticello,” the old man rasped. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  “Monticello?”

  “Wendell’s awake. And it turns out we were wrong about the scabs on his arm. It didn’t say CPS; it said GPS. He had an episode this afternoon, woke up screaming and nearly tore the skin off his left arm. The doctors thought he had a seizure. But when I realized what he’d done, I knew better.”

  “Did he mention Monticello to you?”

  “He did a lot more than that. He pushed a bunch of buttons on his cell phone and somehow brought up a map. I’m looking at it right now. There are two blinking dots—both in eastern Kentucky. One looks to be over Belcher, in the vicinity of Wendell’s farm. The other one is farther south.”

  Carson’s eyes widened and he looked at Lazarus.

  Lucian was getting ready to ask about Colton when Carson hung up, grabbed Connor’s pistol, and pointed it at Lazarus. “How’d you know?”

  Zeke shrugged. “I didn’t.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I had assumptions, but I didn’t know with certainty.”

  After a few deep breaths, Carson lowered the pistol. It didn’t matter that Lazarus had known more than he divulged. What mattered was that Carson now knew where Colton, Amy, and the girls were being held.

  Blackstone.

  Wendell had carved the letters in his arm to remind himself that Drago’s men had stolen one of his planes. Wendell was distrusting of everything and everyone—so every valuable item he owned, including his two Cessna Skyhawk airplanes, had GPS trackers.

  One plane was still parked in the metal building behind Wendell’s cabin in Belcher. The other one, the one Crna Kuga had used to abduct Amy and the girls, was in Monticello.

  “How did you know?” Carson asked again.

  “I didn’t,” said Zeke. “But two things aroused my suspicions. One, McManus loves poetry.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He loves the symmetry of it. Blackstone was where this nightmare began, so for him, it was the only suitable place for the story to end.”

  Carson rested his head in his hands. “Do I even want to know the other reason?”

  Lazarus shrugged. “If you’re hunting the devil, there’s only one reasonable place to look…”

  Carson and Connor said it in unison: “Hell.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  Monticello, Kentucky

  Colton’s cell was quiet. There was the faint dripping of moisture, the slight echo of movement in the passages somewhere far above, but the cell itself was dormant. Colton lay face down on the rock floor, barely breathing.

  The beatings had started in earnest the day before and gotten progressively worse. They came for him every few hours. He was drug down the hallway into a separate chamber, where his hands and feet were manacled and his clothes removed. Naked and chained, they struck him with fists and whips and what felt like wooden clubs. Both collarbones were broken, as were several ribs and more than a few bones in his face. He spent large chunks of the day unconscious.

  His mind had been dulled by the abuse, but the intermittent moments of lucidity were enough to determine it wasn’t the man that brought him food. Food Man looked and sounded familiar; his attackers were foreign.

  He hadn’t seen Food Man in days. Colton assumed he was probably dead.

  The most recent beating had been the worst. One of the clubs struck Colton in the left temple, leaving his skull fractured and his brain concussed. He had done his best to stay awake upon returning to his cell, but couldn’t. He had fallen asleep and awoken in a pool of vomit.

  He made no attempt to move. He laid still, eyes closed, felt the cold rock press against his skin, tried to ignore the acidic stench of the vomit. His body trembled when he heard the footsteps.

  The door opened, the men drug him to his feet, and away they went. Two swift jabs to the ribs kept Colton moving. No one spoke, but every few steps earned another jab. Tears rolled down his face, burning as they entered wounds on his cheeks.

  But none of it compared to what he saw when they reached the chamber.

  Affixed to the manacles were Amy, Audrey, and Alyssa. They appeared dead.

  Colton screamed.

  Meanwhile, high above, a helicopter landed atop Blackstone.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  2 hours remaining

  Clarence Dawes spooned gravy onto a biscuit and drank from a bottle of Dean’s strawberry milk.

  He was old and fat, but relatively healthy. His dietary philosophy was simple and had always worked for him. Eat whatever tastes good.

  Dawes had worked at Wayne County Airport for nearly forty years, ever since the place opened in 1975. Even by small-town Kentucky standards, the airport was tiny. It averaged about twenty flights a day, mostly general aviation, small-engine types. There were approximately 8,200 flight operations on the books from the previous year, and over 8,000 of those were either single passenger planes or helicopters.

  But of course it depended on which books you were looking at.

  The official record showed that Wayne County Airport was exactly what it seemed—an insignificant blip on an insignificant map. Nothing more than a checkpoint for rural doctors and lawyers that liked to play pilot on the weekends.

  The official record showed exactly what Clarence Dawes told it to. He was in charge of all daily operations at the airport, and there was a very good reason why he had been around for so long.

  Dawes was a country bumpkin that rolled with some of the most powerful people in the world. He lived in a doublewide, drove a Ford Taurus, and considered Applebee’s fancy, but he was on a first name basis with each of the last three CIA Directors.

  He was also close friends with Zeke Lazarus. So when the radar picked up the Gulfstream moving in from the east, Dawes flipped the main breaker, turning off every radar and surveillance instrument in the entire facility, then went back to his biscuit.

  • • •

  The old mining shaft was wide and flat and the rock ceilings were tall, somewhere between fifteen and twenty feet. McManus, Ancic, and Bradford were standing in an open area that had once served as the common barracks for Mirage Project trainees.

  The voluminous space was well lit, both by the artificial lighting wired to a series of generators, and by the moonlight which shone in through an opening in the west wall.

  Commonly known as The Ledge, the western wall of the barracks was a popular spot, one of very few pleasant memories MP operatives had from their time at Blackstone. The opening was only a few fee
t wide, but there was a broad slab of rock beyond the opening that offered a magnificent view of the fields below.

  During free time, operatives would dangle their feet off the ledge, look up at the stars, and breathe in the fresh country air. It was a fleeting reprieve from the horrors that awaited them inside the mountain.

  “It’s about time,” said McManus, as a group of men filed into the room.

  Emil Zlotkov nodded at his boss’s boss. “I apologize. We were, uh, indisposed.”

  Zlotkov and Pak both had blood spatter on their hands. Today’s beatings had been especially severe. The third man had no blood on him, but he was carrying a fully automatic rifle. He didn’t speak or look at the others.

  “Are they alive?” asked McManus.

  Pak grinned. “Mostly.”

  Ancic stepped forward and struck Pak in the face. The man’s nose shattered and blood poured onto his clothes. “He asked you a fucking question,” said Ancic, before punching Pak again, this time in the side of the head, knocking him out cold.

  McManus looked at Zlotkov. “Are they alive?”

  The former Bulgarian special operator looked shaken, but eventually nodded. “Yes, sir. They’re alive.”

  McManus then looked at the third man, who hadn’t so much as flinched during the assault. “Is everything ready?”

  The man was staring at Ancic. “Yes.”

  “What the hell you looking at, boy?” Ancic spat.

  The man didn’t blink.

  “Enough dick-measuring,” said McManus. “Go get them.”

  “Yeah,” Ancic repeated. “Be a good little bitch and retrieve.”

  The man gripped his rifle a little tighter, thought seriously about slamming it against Ancic’s skull. But thought better of it.

  Instead, Food Man did as he was told.

  • • •

  Stonehill brought the plane down smoothly onto the four-thousand-foot runway and taxied toward the airport. When they came to a stop, he let the stairs down and everyone deplaned.

  There was a white Tahoe parked on the tarmac and Clarence Dawes climbed out. He and Zeke shook hands.

  “Caught a glimpse of a ‘copter on the radar ‘bout an hour ago,” said Dawes. “Headed up Spann Hill way.” His eyes narrowed. “Never called to check in. Little strange, you ask me.”

  “A little strange, indeed,” said Zeke. “Any other aircraft come through here in the last twenty-four hours?”

  “Had a little Cessna pass through yesterday afternoon. Dentist from Somerset, one of the reg’lars. Nice fella.”

  Zeke just stared at him.

  “Nothing else recent. But—”

  “But what?”

  “Had ‘nother incident a few days back. Skyhawk skirted by to the east, never touched base.”

  “Spann Hill?”

  Dawes nodded and handed Zeke the keys to the Tahoe. “Roland staying with me, I ‘ssume?”

  “Bosworth too, if you don’t mind.”

  “There a cigar in it for me?” Dawes asked, smiling at Stonehill.

  Roland chuckled and adjusted his glasses. “Always, old friend. Always.”

  Zeke and Dawes shook hands again. “I really appreciate this, Clarence. You have no idea how much.”

  “Oh, I b’lieve I do. Everything you asked for’s in a lockbox in the trunk.”

  Zeke nodded and everyone but Stonehill and Bosworth climbed in the Tahoe.

  “Oh, and Zeke?”

  Zeke had just opened his door. “Yeah?”

  Dawes grinned, showing yellow teeth. “It’s damn good to see ya.”

  “You too, Clarence.”

  • • •

  Colton didn’t register the footsteps until they were right beside his head. He attempted to open his eyes, but couldn’t; they were swollen shut.

  Even though he couldn’t see, he knew Food Man was back. The other two would have already started hitting him. He desperately wanted to speak, to plead for help, but all that came out was a gurgling sound, the movement of bloody spittle.

  “Get up, Colton,” said Food Man.

  The voice was familiar, like an echo from a dream, but Colton’s mind simply couldn’t make the connection. Where the answer should have been was a blind spot, a dead space. Colton’s memory had been beaten out of him with clubs.

  “Get up, Colton,” the man repeated.

  Colton tried to roll his body into a position that would allow him to push himself to his feet. But he couldn’t. For a few moments, he legitimately thought he was paralyzed.

  Then Food Man pressed the barrel of his rifle into Colton’s chest. “Get up, or those little girls will die.”

  The realization that Amy and the girls might actually still be alive was enough to get him off the floor.

  But what really kept him moving was the hope of keeping them that way.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  The first coal mine on Spann Hill was known as the Sloan Mine. It predated the Civil War and was predominately manned by slaves.

  Through the years, Sloan Mine became somewhat of a historical artifact to those living on the hill; talk of Sloan and of the early days of timber and oil ran rampant amongst the old timers, filling front porch conversations and tall-tales alike.

  To the particularly curious mind, detailed information about the Sloan Mine could be found in the Wayne County Museum, as well as in the writings of the late Grace Dawes, a second cousin to Clarence, who wrote for the Spann News for more than fifty years.

  But even Grace hadn’t heard of the Crawford Underground.

  The trick was that the Crawford Underground wasn’t a mine at all. It was an elaborate series of naturally occurring caves burrowed deep into the side of Spann Hill. There was no coal or oil in the Crawford Underground—but there was liquid gold.

  In 1914, two enterprising teenagers, Hugh and Russell Crawford, stumbled upon the caves while playing in the area around Rolly Creek. After exploring them thoroughly, they saw an opportunity and ran with it. For the next twenty-one years, the Crawford brothers kept the caves an absolute secret. Even as their moonshine poured beyond the borders of Wayne County and eventually into surrounding states, the Crawford Brothers kept the location of their still-site from everyone, even their own family.

  By 1922, two years after the start of Prohibition, Hugh and Russell were worth nearly $500,000, a staggering figure that quite literally made Capone jealous. But they kept expanding, kept exploring the deepest depths of the caves, finding new seams and building new stills deep inside the mountain. After their final still was built in 1928, the Crawford Underground was the size of five football fields, all of it completely invisible.

  Unlike the major bootlegging celebrities—Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, and the like—the Crawford brothers outlasted Prohibition. They were both multi-millionaires by the time they shut down operations in 1935.

  They were never caught.

  At least it didn’t seem like it.

  Following the death of their parents in a house fire in 1942, Hugh and Russell left Spann Hill. Russell bought a sprawling farm in Colorado and Hugh moved to the Bahamas, where he used his wealth to invest in real estate. Several years passed with complete normalcy. Russell married and had two sons while Hugh built a hotel and restaurant empire in the Caribbean.

  On the night the Axis powers surrendered and WWII was officially over, May 8th, 1945, Hugh held a party at one of his bars in Lucaya. At the end of the evening, sufficiently drunk, Hugh walked out to his car, one of the last ones left in the lot, and was ambushed by two men. Both wore dark suits and bowling hats.

  Four thousand miles away, something similar happened just outside Denver.

  Hugh, Russell, and the remainder of their family, including Russell’s wife and children, were all murdered.

  The men responsible were acting on orders from then-Lieutenant James Day, Office of Strategic Services. The OSS became the CIA two years later.

  In truth, Hugh and Russell weren’t as sma
rt as they thought they were. The Crawford Underground was exposed as early as 1921, less than a year into Prohibition. But the OSS held the FBI at bay.

  Reconnaissance of the Crawford Underground facility revealed enormous potential as a covert training site, so the OSS began secretly buying up small plots of land surrounding the caves. They even paid people to build homes and live on the properties, so as to further disguise their involvement from the locals.

  To the other residents of Spann Hill, like Grace Dawes, it looked like their little community was growing. The new residents, all OSS plants, were welcomed with open arms by the kind-hearted country people; they were invited to church and given jobs in the local community. The ruse was well designed and it grew quickly.

  Interestingly, nothing became of the Crawford Underground for over thirty years. It sat completely untouched until 1979, when Colonel James Day met Warren McManus, and The Mirage Project was born.

  • • •

  Lazarus pulled the Tahoe onto the shoulder.

  “What are you doing?” Carson asked.

  “This is where we get out.”

  Carson opened his door and looked around. Unless he had completely lost it, they were still miles from Blackstone. They hadn’t even started up the hill yet.

  He shook his head. “This isn’t it.”

  Zeke ignored him. He opened the back hatch and pulled out the lock box, started distributing weapons. They still had their HKs from the Q24 mission, but most of the pistols had been lost and a lot of their gear was damaged. Zeke handed out all new vests, NVGs, and several new bone mics.

  “Just trust us,” said Olivia, the first words she’d spoken since Syria. Sayid had given her something for the pain and she had slept most of the flight.

  Carson and Connor were the last to suit up, then they all took off at a jog.

  “A helicopter landed at Blackstone less than an hour ago,” said Zeke. “That means McManus and Ancic are here. Which means—”

  “We might be too late,” said Connor.