Long Way Home

by Tom Crown

  “What about her?” she asked, looking at Katia, who was wandering around near the car, looking back at the road from where they had just come. Jenny had seen Katia somewhere before and not just at the camping site, but before that as well. She just couldn’t remember where.

  “You think that was the van from the photos?” Ryan asked. “The one that crashed?”

  She sighed and tried not to think about it. Not yet anyway.

  “Do you remember the license plate?” he tried.

  She shook her head. Nothing good would come from remembering. Nothing good at all.

  * * * *

  Katia noticed they were looking at her, but she was used to being looked at. She had seen every type of glance and stare. The way people looked at her had always been important.

  “When did you get so beautiful,” her uncle had asked a long time ago, gazing at her with an expectant expression she hadn’t yet learned to recognize. “My own little Christmas angel.” She hadn’t known about looks then, about eyes, and the tell-tale signs you could recognize with a bit of experience. Instead, she had just gone numb. That never happened anymore. Nothing ever surprised her anymore. Nothing and no one.

  She looked at herself, the fresh bruises down her arm, the small cuts on her legs. She had only bled a little, but still it looked bad. She had already been weary for a long time, and her skin was pale and bruised. She had felt so weak and tired, but now she was wide awake again. And she needed to be.

  She wasn’t sure if she’d seen Jenny before, but Ryan had to be new. There was something also about the way he had looked at her at the camping site, when he first spotted her inside the van. It was a look she’d never seen before, something other than the surprise, pity, or naked hatred she usually received, but she wasn’t sure what it was or meant.

  She looked straight back at them and saw Jenny turn away. The sudden movement seemed to make her sick again, because she leaned down and took a deep breath.

  Katia watched Ryan intently, especially the way he helped Jenny, steadying her, comforting her, focusing on her.

  She made up her mind. This was her best chance. Ryan was still busy with Jenny and probably wouldn’t look up until she felt better again.

  Katia opened the door on the driver’s side, reached inside, and in one swift motion grabbed the keys out of the ignition. She looked up to check again. They still hadn’t noticed her.

  She backed out and moved quietly toward the river. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Ryan now peering in her direction, but he was too far away to do anything. She reached the edge of the water and threw the keys in with all her might.

  “Hey!” Ryan called out.

  She didn’t stop or look back. She just set off to her left and bolted into the forest.

  She kept running, pressing on as hard as she could. A moment later she happened on a definite path and decided to run along it to wherever it went. She glanced over her shoulder but saw no one behind her. She climbed a rise and realized the vegetation had thickened. She peered back again and still didn’t see Ryan or anyone else. She moved ahead again.

  And dropped to the ground.

  Alex and Roman were right in front of her. It didn’t seem possible they could be so close. They were a hundred feet away, close enough to hear her and sense her, if they were paying attention.

  They had pulled the wrecked van along a dirt road into the forest, far enough to be out of sight from the main road, and were now busy unhooking their towline. She looked around but didn’t see Sergei or Dimitri anywhere. Their bodies had probably been buried already, or more likely hidden in the other van.

  She tried to move backward from the top of the rise, but immediately realized she was too deep in vegetation. She hadn’t thought about where to run, except that she had to move away from the river. She’d wanted to get away and have a chance to think and make up her own mind. The forest had seemed vast enough to hide in, and it had felt reasonable to assume that Ryan and Jenny would stay by the river, searching for the keys, too mad at her to go chasing after her through the wilderness to help or protect her, if that’s what they were doing.

  She watched Alex and tried to read his face, as he barked orders to Roman. She wondered what they were thinking. With the pickup truck by itself on the road, not even the local police would believe that was the whole story. They would have to assume a second vehicle had been involved. Alex and Roman could cover their tracks, but it wouldn’t do anything more than buy them a bit of time. Afterward, this would still be a big problem, and Alex would need to take further action, and maybe even relocate, to cut his losses. Most of all he’d need someone to blame.

  Things would get worse than ever.

  She decided to move farther away and stepped backward. A twig snapped. She had felt it against her foot, but too late to stop her movement. She froze, ready to bolt again. Her eyes stared ahead, analyzing the situation.

  Alex had stopped and was now listening intently, a hand raised to silence Roman, who was still moving about. She leaned down and hid, barely breathing. Another moment and they would likely come for her.

  She lifted her head up to take another quick glimpse.

  Alex pulled his gun.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  RYAN DROPPED TO the ground a moment after Katia did, landing hard on a thick root that snaked treacherously under the fallen pine needles scattered everywhere around him. The impact knocked the air out of his lungs, but at least that kept him quiet, and being quiet was certainly the way to go here. Katia was already flat against the ground, staying low like a frightened rabbit, immobile but alert. He knew what that terror felt like, the pounding in your chest, the dryness in your mouth. Being prey.

  Moments before, he’d been circling off to the left in an attempt to cut her off before she got too far away. It had been a gamble, a longer route than the one she was taking, but she’d been faster than he was on the path they’d been running along, so he’d needed to be inventive. He’d decided to climb a low hill, to at least see where she was going, and now he had a good vantage point.

  One of the men that had scared Katia was stalking now with a gun in his hand, circling the van they had towed deep into the forest along an overgrown road that was almost entirely covered by green. The other man was trudging off to the side with a spare gas tank in his hand. He stopped at the wreck and began to pour liquid over the crumpled metal and bloodied upholstery, soaking it well.

  Ryan looked right and saw Katia watching the men intently, still frozen on the ground, but now tightening her hands into fists in the dirt. She was closer to the men than he was and thus at greater risk of being discovered. He wished he could help her retreat further. Looking around once more, he found no way to get to her without giving them both away. He couldn’t even let her know she wasn’t alone.

  He turned toward the men again and saw they had already begun packing up. They were moving quickly, checking the wreck one last time, talking back and forth, returning the spare tank to their van, and after only another few seconds they drove off. It was slow going along the forest road, but it didn’t take long for them to disappear into the overgrown greenery.

  Ryan pushed himself to his feet and began to move. He didn’t expect Katia to continue forward in the same direction anymore, but rather expected her to back down the slope and find temporary shelter nearby. He watched her as he moved and saw her begin to shake and cry.

  He was closing in now, approaching right behind her. For a moment, he debated whether he should be chasing her at all. He had no right to tell her what to do or where to go, but at the same time too many things had happened here already that he couldn’t just ignore. And with the photos he had seen, he had every reason to believe she was in danger, much more so that she probably knew herself, even if she did look terrified enough already.

  He was only a few steps away when she suddenly sprang up, and then it was too late for her to run. The vegetation she had been hiding behind forced her back toward him
, and he grabbed her easily, as she made a desperate move to push past him downhill. His fingers wrapped tightly around her slim wrist.

  “Hey, stop!” he said, but she still tried to twist away. He pulled her to him until he held her in a firm embrace. She kicked at him with her feet and began to cry again, but he only pulled her closer still. He didn’t really know what he was doing, but he did want her to stop running.

  “I’m sorry!” he said. “I’m sorry. But with everything that’s happened, we need to talk. We really need to talk.”

  His words calmed her down a bit. He could feel her head nodding agreement against his chest.

  “I’m all right,” she mumbled through tears. “I’m all right. Let me go.”

  He loosened his grip and felt her immediately try to wriggle away. She managed to take a step back and then slammed her hands against his body, but there was no power behind the punch. He pulled her close again, limiting her reach this time. He was probably committing a crime of some sort, restraining her, but it was also very possible that he was saving her life.

  “Really, we just need to talk,” he said again. “About who those men are. About what they’re doing here. About what you’re afraid they’ll do to you.”

  She nodded again, but he still didn’t let her go.

  “Do you trust me?” he asked.

  “I don’t know you,” she stated matter-of-factly. “And you don’t trust me.”

  “Not when it comes to running. Or handling car keys in a responsible manner. But apart from that—“

  Ryan stopped himself. Suddenly he heard heavy footsteps coming through the forest. He twisted his head left and right to listen, and now Katia didn’t run. The steps were coming fast, branches snapping loudly, and it certainly wasn’t the light steps of Jenny trying to catch up to them. This was a man charging full steam ahead.

  He reached around to grab something, anything, to use as a weapon, but found nothing.

  The runner burst into view.

  Ryan recognized him immediately. From Alaska. From Nevada. That floppy, sand-colored hair, those clear blue eyes, even the light stubble was still the same. The plaid shirt. The khakis. The boots.

  “Steve Manning?” Ryan stood up and let Katia go. “What are you doing here?”

  “Ryan?” Steve stopped a few feet away. He had a confused look on his face. “Ryan West? I remember you.”

  “Sure.”

  “Las Vegas. Yes, of course.” Steve stepped closer, and his face broke into a smile. “You stayed at the Luxor.”

  Ryan nodded agreement.

  “I wanted to take you to the Hoover Dam, but you were too hung over. Couldn’t stand the sunlight.”

  “Yeah,” Ryan said. “I remember.” Although it hadn’t been the sunlight. It had been the memories of sand and heat, and come to think of it, it had even been the company.

  Steve turned his gaze toward Katia.

  “Sorry,” he said. “We haven’t met.” He offered his hand. “I’m Steve.”

  “Katia,” she kept clutching her backpack without taking his hand. Steve politely pulled it back.

  “The Luxor,” Ryan said, just to pull Steve’s attention away from her. “We had a couple of drinks there, and then we went to the MGM—“

  A deafening explosion ripped through the air.

  Ryan felt the air surge around him and saw the dry spruce above him catch fire with a crackling roar. He lunged forward and pulled Katia to the ground, feeling his bruises again as he landed hard. He forced the pain away and looked around for Steve.

  A second explosion followed.

  It had to be the liquid the two men had poured over the wreck. That, and the gas tank, and maybe something more. Ryan hadn’t seen them ignite it, but of course setting it ablaze to destroy potential evidence must have been their intention.

  “Are you all right?” Steve asked, looking back at Ryan through the undergrowth still between them, his voice barely audible above the noise. “Everyone all right?”

  Ryan nodded and looked at Katia beside him, who wasn’t moving a muscle.

  “You?” he asked back, looking above the shrubs surrounding him. Steve’s trousers had slid up his leg when he threw himself to the ground, and Ryan saw an ankle holster and a gun. He felt a chill rush up his spine.

  “I’m parked nearby,” Steve said and produced a set of keys. “Land Rover. Plenty of space. Time to get the hell out of here?”

  Ryan nodded. “I’ll be right back.”

  He got to his feet and rushed off, pushing forward through the forest before anyone could stop him. It was time to get the hell out all right, but first he wanted to understand more about what they were up against. Whatever it was, he was sure they wouldn’t be able to leave it behind in this forest, no matter how fast they ran.

  * * * *

  Alex watched the flames shooting up through the trees and couldn’t help but grin. He needed a moment of relief.

  “What?” Roman asked, chuckling uncertainly in the passenger seat.

  “I didn’t expect it to blow up like that.”

  “But you set fire to it? I only poured the gasoline.”

  “Of course I set fire to it!” He shook his head in frustration. With a local dead they should have done more, but spending more time would have been too risky. The simple plan had been to destroy as much evidence as possible in five minutes flat. Hence the bleach, the gasoline, and the fire. He could still smell the liquids on his hands.

  The flames were already fading behind them, and soon all he could see in the rearview mirror was swirling smoke drifting upwards through the spruce.

  The forest road was ending just ahead. He slowed and looked around for traffic before he turned and took the van out onto the asphalt road again. Glass and oil still littered the road after the crash, and he could see the wreck of the pickup truck tossed halfway into the forest with Mats’s torn body still sitting behind the wheel. The sight reminded him of the two bodies in the back and the full extent of the trouble he now was dealing with.

  “Should we just leave him like that?” Roman asked, glancing over quickly at Mats’s body.

  “No, we shouldn’t.” He pulled up on the side of the road. “We still have some gasoline in the back.”

  He opened his door and got out and looked around for approaching witnesses, but didn’t see any. The crash had happened half an hour ago, and as far as he could tell no one had come upon it yet. This was a small road in the middle of a God-forsaken forest somewhere north of the Arctic Circle, so he didn’t expect anyone to pass here all night. Still he didn’t like taking chances, he didn’t like loose ends, and he wasn’t about to spend any more time here than was absolutely necessary.

  He walked around to the back of the truck and opened the doors. The bodies were lying on the metal floor, their pale battered faces staring up at the ceiling with horrific expressions. Alex forced his eyes away. It didn’t matter how many dead people you saw, it was always something you did best to avoid. Sure, you forgot most of them, but you remembered some too, and the memory of even one could be enough to spoil a good time.

  Roman came around and grimaced when he saw the bodies.

  “Take that one,” Alex said and pointed at another spare gas tank strapped along the wall, one of the many useful items they had packed when they set off from the ranch after Steve Manning’s disturbing phone call.

  Roman climbed in and pulled the tank free. He was trying to be quick, but nevertheless stopped to stare at the bodies.

  “We’ll bury them later,” Alex said. “At the farm. It’s the best we can do.”

  Roman grunted something and jumped down on the asphalt. He trudged off toward the pickup truck with the tank in hand, his anger heavy in every step.

  Alex closed the doors and hurried to the front again. He got back inside behind the wheel and watched as Roman drenched the interior of the pickup truck with gasoline, splashing it on Mats’s body. It dissolved the blood that had already dried, sending it runni
ng toward the ground.

  He understood Roman’s mood very well, and indeed, he didn’t much like the way he was feeling himself. It was bad enough that Sergei and Dimitri had been killed, but the death of Yulia the week before was far worse. Not because she was important, for she wasn’t, but because it had been the first serious attack on Alex’s enterprise since he came to this place. And now there was Sergei and Dimitri. These were the first deaths not explicitly ordered by Alex himself, and he felt he had good reason to be apprehensive now. Killing should never be done without solid preparation, and this violent attack on an open road didn’t have any signature of premeditation that could put his mind at ease. It was far easier to fight a rational adversary than a loose cannon with no obvious objective. Rationality always brought on a certain level of predictability.

  Steve Manning was exactly the kind of problem he didn’t want, a dangerous madman, fully capable of causing this kind of havoc for his own twisted pleasure. He regretted that he hadn’t taken that kind of threat seriously in time. It had seemed like a good plan initially to have access to someone with a fresh face and a clean passport, someone who could go easily where Alex himself couldn’t. It had opened up high-scale business opportunities and a much wider geographical reach, and all had initially looked good, well organized and safe. Yet he had never actually trusted the man, and he hadn’t believed a word he said when he demanded two million dollars. It was exactly the right amount of money to ask for, and Alex could get it if he tried hard enough, but none of this situation seemed really to be about money.

  Why kill Yulia and not make any demands? Why kill Sergei and Dimitri unless your initial demands hadn’t been met? Why kill Mats at all? Maybe he was just collateral damage, but still it didn’t make sense. Unless you simply liked to kill. Then, of course, it did make plenty of sense. And Katia was still missing, a fact that bothered him more than a great deal. She had been in the van and would probably be the next body to turn up somewhere when he least expected it.