Never Forgotten

by Jennifer Chase

  Silence greeted him.

  Chad glanced down and noticed that the floor looked clean; it was as if someone had meticulously swept it, and he thought he could smell a hint of industrial floor polish. Odd, he considered as he continued to move forward, deeper into the building.

  The corridor led into another part of the structure through a doublewide doorway, which once housed a holding area for inventory merchandise as well the main hub for shipping and receiving.

  His eyes adjusted to the darkened rooms.

  Several plain brown boxes sat in the far corner.

  The two heavy doors slammed shut with such an incredible force that made Chad jump, goose bumps instantly raised on the back of his neck and down his arms. He quickly moved toward the closed doors, but there weren’t any doorknobs or handles to open them.

  “Okay, you can come out now.” He didn’t care that his voice sounded nervous.

  “Mr. Bradford” A calm man’s voice with disturbing clarity filled the room.

  Chad spun around, but there wasn’t anyone in the room with him. The voice seemed to materialize from nowhere, and yet everywhere.

  “Mr. Bradford, do you know why you’re here?”

  “What is this? Who are you?” He kept turning slowly expecting to see someone enter, but no one did.

  “It’s your sentencing.”

  “What? I don’t understand…”

  “You have sinned and now you must pay the price.” The voice changed to a higher pitch.

  “You’re out of your mind! Open the doors now!” He remembered that the gun was in his hand. Jabbing it out in front of him, he moved it in jerky motions from corner to corner.

  “That isn’t going to save you.” The eerie voice narrated like a parent reprimanding a naughty child.

  “Is this some kind of sick joke?” Chad moved around the room, even though there wasn’t anywhere to go.

  “It’s no joke.”

  The monotone inflection of the voice wormed inside Chad’s head, and deep within his core. He knew it was human, but he pictured a futuristic robot presiding over him.

  “I said open the doors now!” The lawyer demanded.

  “Do you know how ridiculous you look? You’re weak and pathetic. You had much more confidence spewing lies in the courtroom.”

  Chad felt his heart pounding faster as he gasped for air. It was years since his panic attacks had surfaced, due to work related stress, but now in the darkened room that familiar dread of anxiety crept back into his body.

  “C’mon Mr. Bradford, you know exactly why you’re here.”

  Chad waved the gun to each dark corner and squeezed off two shots, bullets zinged around the room. He realized that there were small speakers in each corner where the phantom voice emitted. He aimed the gun and fired several more shots at those general areas, but the blasts only managed to hurt his eardrums.

  Chad dropped his empty gun on the floor. “What do you want from me? You want me to apologize for my job? Is that it?”

  “Your greed spreads more filth. You covet, commit adultery, and most of all… you knowingly defend rapists and murderers.”

  “Oh, so I’m guilty. Guess you just skipped over something called the Constitution, due process, and innocent until proven guilty.”

  “You have free will and you’ve chosen your sins… so now you’ve sealed your fate.”

  “Who are you?!”

  No response.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you!” Chad kicked his gun and the weapon slid across the floor to a couple of stacked boxes. “Coward!” He managed to say. “Show yourself!”

  In desperation, Chad tried to find a way out of the room. He ran his fingers over the doors and down the walls. There weren’t any gaps, cracks, or hardware that would allow him to pry it open to escape.

  Chad caught the distinct odor of smoke and spun around to face the boxes. The cubed cartons began to burn. A small flame ignited from each of them and cast a macabre light around the room. He could see wires and small plastic boxes, along with what he counted to be six small speakers.

  “Let me out of here!” Chad beat his fists on the doors, but it barely made an audible sound. The doors were steel reinforced and heavily insulated.

  Within minutes, smoke filled the room, and floated effortlessly in ghostlike apparitions.

  Chad coughed and gagged.

  He dropped to the floor and slowly crawled to one corner. He tried to breathe in a normal manner, but gasped for air in between violent fits of coughing.

  After three minutes, he faded into unconsciousness and slumped against the double doors. He never heard or felt the explosion that obliterated the one room in the old hardware store.

  The carefully orchestrated burn completed its job.

  The intensity of the blaze ripped apart Chad Bradford’s bones, and it included a quick decapitation, which left few charred human remains.

  The fire had burned down to a smoldering, smoky remnant before the fire department arrived on the scene.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Saturday 2300 Hours

  The black SUV sped down the dirt road in the middle of the night, bouncing left and right from each uneven dip in the broken pavement. The gravel and dirt battered the undercarriage with a high-pitched sputtering noise. Dust encrusted the windshield distorting the view ahead, but the neglected street conditions didn’t slow the urgency of what was at stake.

  Emily Stone rode shotgun, solemn, spine straight, with an unwearied attention. She stared straight ahead at the rushing road, but her mind remained only on the two nine-year-old twin sisters abducted from a neighborhood playground only three days earlier.

  Anxiety rolled through her mind, but she didn’t externally show it, not even to her partner. Her biggest fear was arriving at the rural compound too late. It was something that she would not allow herself to contemplate in her covert pursuits – ever.

  She worked tirelessly to piece together the clues from the playground, family members, and the surrounding camera technology, which eventually prompted her in the right direction. The rest was pure intuition and dogged experience.

  “How many more miles?” Emily asked, tapping her fingertips nervously on the armrest.

  “Rolling up to sixteen-five.” Rick stated as he turned his head to look at his impatient partner.

  Emily double-checked her cell phone again on the directions – it was approximately nineteen miles to the location. She knew that the rural site wasn’t marked on the digital map and that they were relying solely on technology updates, and some much welcomed luck to find the exact location.

  “Maybe we should have alerted authorities?” She said.

  “Em, your instincts are always right on. The police would have stormed the location in military formation and both of those girls would be dead before they even got out of their cars. The best plan of attack is to find and rescue the girls, and once they’re safe, then call in the local cops.” He looked at her. “It’s been our protocol and it’s worked well.”

  She looked at Rick’s profile and admired his tough exterior and dark good looks, but she knew that he felt scared too. He gripped the steering wheel with purpose, biceps strained, and his jaw remained set in stone. He was her rock in these types of searches. His eyes kept a serious watch on the road as they took an unsuspected tight right turn.

  The SUV skidded precariously. She felt it would tip to one side, but the rear of the vehicle swung back and forth in the loose gravel, and then found its proper groove on the road once again.

  Seconds counted.

  “Mile eighteen-four.” Rick announced.

  “Look for some kind of back road or path.” Emily instructed.

  She turned her attention out the passenger window to the overgrown trees and giant bushes for some type of road they could access unseen. They hadn’t passed any homes or barns for more than fifteen minutes. They were completely alone, in a rural territory of central California, and only had one chance at a surpris
e attack.

  “There!” He said.

  Emily looked to the left past Rick’s view and saw a narrow roadway with a single, rusted chain across it. If you blinked, it would have been easily missed in the darkness.

  Rick cranked the steering wheel to a hard left, guiding them into the driveway, and abruptly stopped.

  “Got it.” Her hand grasped the door handle and she gave a quick tug.

  Emily jumped out of the car. She hit the ground running and easily unhooked the chain and pulled it out of the way, as Rick maneuvered their vehicle through. She attached the barrier once again before jumping back into the car.

  The cut-through appeared to be a county access for water and drainage, but it hadn’t been used in quite some time. It was overgrown and the SUV barely eased through the pathway, as branches scraped down both sides of the vehicle.

  Rick extinguished the headlights and inched to a snail’s pace.

  Emily’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness as the roadway narrowed to a dead stop. They couldn’t pass the thick obstacles to continue any farther. Safely tucked away, the SUV left no visible view, both from the road and from the air.

  Rick killed the engine and unhooked his seatbelt. “This is it, we go the rest of the way on foot.”

  Emily had already squeezed her small frame out of the passenger door, pushing branches away from her face and body. She moved to the rear of the vehicle. Opening the hatch, it revealed carefully organized boxes in color-coordinated sections. Dark green were guns and ammo, black were all types of knives and cutting tools, dark blue were extra batteries, walkie-talkie headsets, an endless supply of heavy-duty zip ties, and all types of flashlights.

  “Ready?” Rick asked softly as he double-checked his weapons.

  “Wouldn’t be here if I weren’t.” Emily secured a Glock 19 in her hip holster and rolled up the right leg of her jeans where another small holster waited for a smaller caliber pistol.

  For the first time since they had left their home that evening, Rick smiled. His handsome face lit up, which accented his dark eyes. “Maybe we should’ve asked Jordan to come along?”

  Emily playfully rolled her eyes and said, “He’d be pissing and moaning about the scratchy bushes and biting bugs.” She laughed as she inserted a loaded Beretta into her ankle holster. “Jordan is a brilliant profiler, but he’s a pain in the ass in the field.”

  Rick quietly continued to ready himself for the challenging hike ahead.

  Emily didn’t mind the idle chitchat because she knew that any one of these covert missions could be their last, whether it was a dangerous rescue, stakeout, or a crime scene investigation.

  Light banter between the couple helped to relax the situation. Death was just seconds away and precise focus was the key to any successful rescue mission. She quickly put any fatal thoughts out of her mind and continued to arm herself.

  From experience, Emily now made sure she had at least one hunting knife at her disposal. It was easier to handle and conceal than a firearm. She slipped the seven-inch blade into a sheath on the outside of her right thigh against her dark jeans.

  Rick handed her a small hearing device that fit snugly into her ear and hooked the receiver just inside the neck of her long sleeved t-shirt. Emily secured the communication device. She stopped and stared at him for a moment. She never knew exactly what to say before they ventured into the unknown.

  Emily shut the SUV’s hatch.

  Rick checked his portable GPS. “Let’s go. It’s about three-quarters of a mile.”

  The couple proceeded northwest from their vehicle into the dense brush, Rick taking up the lead. They moved steadily, but slowly, in order not to make any unnecessary sounds or alert the kidnappers that they approached. They kept their flashlights low and just out in front.

  The countryside was uncomfortably quiet. Not a single noise from any night dwelling critters filled the night, and not even the wind rustled through loose leaves and branches.

  The air was cool and unusually dry, but Emily felt a trickling perspiration on her scalp that meandered down the center of her back. She anticipated several scenarios in her mind as she crept ahead, but knew if they kept their wits and stuck to the solid plan that everything would work out.

  It seemed that they trudged through the thickets for an hour making considerable progress, but Emily glanced at her watch and only twelve minutes had passed.

  Faint voices cut through the quiet night.

  Emily and Rick stopped and listened, barely breathing.

  For a moment, it seemed that the human sounds came from all around them. The rural landscape played unexpected tricks on the ears as the sound bounced along the ridges.

  Inching forward in a crouch posture, the couple moved slightly to the left and up an incline to try to gain a vantage of the property. Through the overgrown bushes and approximately two hundred yards away, two men stood smoking cigarettes, engaging in a casual conversation.

  Emily wriggled her body lying on her stomach as close as she dared in order to watch the men. She spied through a pair of mini infrared binoculars and immediately saw the handguns tucked into their waistbands.

  One man, unshaven and his body adorned anti-sematic tattoos, lit up another cigarette and took a long puff. His expression hardened by years of criminal activity, and he had the definite imprint of prison experience upon his face. The other, shorter man appeared to be ex-military with tightly cropped hair, tidy clothes, and a posture that lent itself to years of obeying orders.

  Behind the so-called guards were three manufactured homes trucked along the property, two of which were small and seemed to be a place that housed supplies, and one main house or headquarters. The larger house remained dark, while a dim light illuminated in one of the smaller buildings.

  A radio played somewhere inside the compound. Two radio voices chattered and the sound was eerie as it echoed around the landscape like a strange dream.

  “We’re in the right place.” Emily whispered and handed the binoculars to Rick. She continued in a quiet tone, “I get the feeling that there’s one more.” After pausing a moment, she continued. “Maybe the boss is offsite somewhere else?”

  He nodded and continued to study the land and overall layout.

  There was only one way in and out by a single dirt road. A partial barbwire enclosure in between farm-like fencing was the only barrier around the property. It was still quite a hike back to the safety of the car, and it worried Emily.

  “No sign of the girls – at least from here.” Rick whispered, clearly frustrated. “One truck, two guys.”

  “Wait until they split up?” Emily suggested.

  He nodded.

  “I think we can enter the camp from that farthest corner.” Emily pointed in the general direction. “Let’s move.”

  Rick pushed his body up slightly and away from their initial view of the property. He followed Emily through some tough, winding vegetation until they reached the camouflaged location for entry. They kept their flashlights off, which made it more difficult to push through the brush. As luck would be on their side, the rotten wooden fence had an opening just big enough for a single, averaged-sized person to climb through.

  The sound of a gunshot broke the dead silence.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Saturday 2345 Hours

  Bile flooded his mouth. He choked back the repulsive liquid, clenching his jaw as the fluid scorched all the way down his esophagus. His stomach churned and felt like a hollow, burning cavern preparing to erupt. There was nothing to worry about; he had killed countless times before, more than three hundred, and mostly repulsive victims of their own circumstances.

  By society’s standards, he was a clear-cut psychopath. It was easy to fulfill the psychological label, deprived of any remorse or sincerity, and exhibiting antisocial behavior from the most criminal standpoint – at least that was what so-called civilized people believed.

  Still, his long career of killing had now turned his heightened e
xcitement and adrenaline into a mild stomach discomfort of irritable bowel syndrome. Nothing slowed down his work or ambition, and he managed to keep his concentration no matter what occurred.

  He knew more about the human behavior and what made people tick than most highly trained psychologists with their PhDs, just by studying the subjects carefully, looking for their weaknesses, strengths, and fears. Emotions and feelings revealed insight from people’s common expressions. It was all in how they carried themselves and how they interacted with others. The subtle moves were not perceptible by most, but to a trained killer, it was painfully obvious. The human condition was not that difficult to figure out. You just had to know where to look.

  Intensified perception was key.

  He watched and waited.

  The subject’s fate was in his hands now, along with the help of a high-powered rifle and lightening accurate scope. He liked to be up close and personal with his kills. Nevertheless, tonight for some reason, Mr. Bishop wanted it to be different.

  The cool, damp night chilled him. His right hand stiffened, which caused him to straighten and curl his fingers in a slow, painful manner. That familiar clicking noise in the joints only proved to annoy him even more. The increasing chill of the night air wreaked havoc on the muscles and tendons in his hands, arms, and hips.

  He watched through the eyepiece as the short man moved from his kitchen to the living room dressed in a sloppy, stained t-shirt with some 1980s band logo, and baggy sweat pants. His slovenly appearance reflected the same feeling he had for his young victims when he repeatedly violated them.

  The portly man absently wiped his hands on the front of his shirt as he reached for more food from a bright yellow mixing bowl. Like a well-rehearsed machine, he shoved his hand into the container and filled his mouth, crumbs falling down the front of his already soiled shirt. He continued this procedure nonstop.

  It did not matter that the target was the brother of a well-known senator. All jobs were the same – take out the target.