And then the older guy came back, sending the rats scattering. He hadn’t spoken, just pressed a gun against the base of Zach’s spine, marched him up to the car, then bound his feet together again after stuffing him in the trunk of a beat-up Volvo. Zach blathered away nonstop, asked the guy where he was taking him, why didn’t he set him free, was he just going to leave the lady’s body there? The guy didn’t answer, didn’t say a word, which served to completely freak Zach out, especially when he remembered that the guy said he’d never spoken to the other boys. He avoided eye contact, too, which Zach didn’t think was a good sign. And he was pretty sure that the object poking into his spine right now was a shovel.
The car slowed again, and the movement shifted. Zach strained his ears. The highway sounds had drifted away, and now he heard crickets and the crunch of tires on gravel. That continued for some time, then the gravel disappeared and the car shifted mightily from side to side, lumbering like an ox. Zach struggled helplessly as his body was hurled from one side to the other, issuing little grunts as his shoulder, chin, nose and knees rapped against the hard interior. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, trying to go limp and just roll with the car, the way he did when he was about to eat shit skateboarding. It didn’t seem to make a difference.
At the bottom of one dip, the car suddenly stopped. When the trunk popped open, Zach’s breath caught. Night air rushed in, cooling the beads of sweat rolling down his face. The man was silhouetted against the sky, a black form blotting out the stars. Zach craned his head to see over the lip of the trunk, but it was too dark to make out anything.
“Where are we?” he asked after a minute.
The guy didn’t answer, just cut the tape off his feet and yanked them around so that they draped over the edge of the trunk. He pulled Zach to a sitting position, knocking his head against the hood. Zach winced and felt tears rising again. He squinted to see; it was pitch-black, no hint of a moon, just faint light from stars peeking through tree branches. They were in the woods somewhere. He could smell the pine, recognized the scrape of the guy’s boots against dirt.
The guy reached past him to grab something, pulled it out and leaned it against the side of the car. Zach realized with a sinking heart that he’d been right, it was a folding camp shovel. The man unzipped his backpack, tucked the shovel inside, then slung on the straps. He pressed the gun into Zach’s gut. His voice was low and threatening, different than it had been before, when he muttered, “You scream, you die. Now let’s go.”
The car was pulled off the road at an angle, front tires on the grass, hood lifted, emergency triangle propped in the street behind it. The rear of the car was jacked off the ground, a stray tire iron by its side.
“Blood and hair,” Kelly noted, picking up the iron. “So it looks like Dwight caught another ride.”
“Took them along this time, too,” Jake noted, “which’ll make it a hell of a lot harder to find him.”
They were standing by the side of Route 2, a small road that branched off the main highway near St. Johnsbury in Vermont. Woods encroached from all sides of the two-lane road. A lone streetlamp served as sentry a hundred feet away. “Dwight knew that if he stuck to the highway, state police would grab him, so he decided to switch cars,” Kelly said. “Pulling off here, he had a better chance of someone stopping to help him. Not a lot of traffic, especially at this hour. So probably no witnesses.”
“Poor bastard. That’s why I’m never a Good Samaritan,” Jake said, lowering his voice as Monica trotted up.
She’d been down the way, talking to the state trooper who found the car. She jerked her thumb back toward him and said, “That cop says they’re setting up roadblocks every fifty miles along the 91, and they got one on this road where it intersects the 15.”
Kelly followed her finger, peering into the darkness past the streetlight. A state police car was parked ten feet behind her. Their chopper waited in a nearby field, rotors stilled. “Does he have a map?” she asked.
Five minutes later she was bent over a map of Vermont spread across the hood of the car. Jake held a penlight for her to see. “I’m guessing Dwight would know better than to go back to the highway. He probably cut up here, to the 15, then took the 16 north toward Canada.”
“Yeah, but if he’s that smart, he’ll figure you’ve got border patrol on high alert. So how the hell does he think he’s going to get across?” Jake asked.
Kelly poked the map at the top. “There, by Route 105.”
Jake followed her finger and let out a low whistle. “He’s going to hike in?”
“Both of these guys have lots of backwoods training, it wouldn’t be a tough hike for either of them,” Kelly pointed out.
“You think they’re traveling together?” Jake asked. “Maybe offed Dwight’s mother, then decided to make a run for it?”
“Maybe,” Kelly said. “The woman who was carjacked only saw one man, but that doesn’t mean Morgan might not have been waiting somewhere nearby. Or maybe he’s a hostage, too, and Dwight stowed him somewhere.” Or Morgan’s already dead, she thought, but didn’t say it aloud. Right now she had a lead on one of their killers. It was her responsibility to follow it and to try to prevent Dwight from crossing the border into Canada. If Morgan popped up on their radar, she’d divert some resources. As it was, there was currently a three-state manhunt in progress for both men. Chances were, sooner or later they’d be found.
“But what about Zach?” Monica asked. “Why did they take him?”
Kelly and Jake exchanged a glance. Both of them knew it wasn’t likely the boy was still alive. It didn’t make a lot of sense to bring a hostage on a run for the border, especially when your route required stealth.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Jake said, trying to force assurance into his voice.
“Let’s join Doyle in the chopper,” Kelly said. “We need to cut Dwight off before he gets to the border.”
Dwight wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The radio was blasting to block out the pounding noises coming from the car trunk. He ran his hands along the leather of the steering wheel, pondering the fact that this was probably the nicest car he’d ever driven. Mercedes, and not some stinkin’ C-series, either; the motherfuckin’ S-class. He was surprised that the guy had stopped to help, that flat-tire routine had worked like a charm. Ironic, since a jerk-off in a Mercedes usually wouldn’t give him the time of day.
“Shut up and play with your fuckin’ golf clubs!” he roared after a minute. The pounding paused, then started up again even harder than before. Dwight grumbled to himself. He should’ve just bashed the guy’s skull in when he took the damn car. Pain in the ass; he’d pull over now and do it, but he was so close he didn’t want to risk stopping. Dwight had known as soon as he saw the kid in that bomb shelter that the Captain just couldn’t stop himself from taking another one. Knew, too, that he’d be making a run for the border. And there weren’t too many places you could cross these days that weren’t being watched, not after 9/11. They’d talked about it around the campfire on that SAR training retreat. Nowadays border patrol didn’t have the personnel to watch remote areas; hell, any bastard could wander down the old logging trail through Cold Hollow Mountain with an RPG over his shoulder. Wasn’t an easy hike, but for Al-Qaeda guys who grew up in the mountains of Afghanistan, no pissant Vermont hill was going to stop ’em. Dwight had agreed with the rest that it was a damn shame. Had to carry a gun just to keep your family safe these days, goddamn government took your money and spent it on bridges in Alaska instead of hiring a few more guys to hunt Pakis on the border. He got back from that trip and promptly filled out his application for the border patrol. Still hadn’t heard back from them, he mused. Well, it was too late now; Dwight was gonna be long gone. Maybe the Mounties would appreciate his talents.
An image of his mother, dead and lying in her own shit, swam before his eyes again. He squeezed them shut to force it away. His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel, and he shook it violently, screaming “Fuck!” as tears ran down his face. The car jiggled slightly but didn’t swerve. The pounding stalled again. Dwight ramped up the speakers another notch, gritting his teeth in time to “Dream On.” He’d wait until the Captain was distracted, maybe when he was working on the boy and had his back turned. “I’m gonna get him, Ma, I swear, I’m gonna get him….”
Thirty-Six
Zach tripped and fell again, bruising his knee. Wherever they were it was heavily wooded, and beech trees gleamed white around them. Over the years his mom had taken him camping pretty much everywhere in New England, so initially he’d tried to recognize the park. But the trail markers were faded, and the foliage could’ve been found in a dozen different places. He was pretty sure they were still in Vermont, though.
He tried to pick his way through the tiny beam of light projected by the guy’s flashlight, but he kept swinging it across the ground from side to side, and time and again Zach’s foot connected with a tree root and he went down hard. He was exhausted, too. The constant jolts of adrenaline, combined with the long ride in the trunk inhaling carbon monoxide, had left him headachy and sore.
The guy still hadn’t said a word, just jerked him back to his feet whenever he fell by yanking a rope he’d strung through the handcuffs. He was strong for a guy his size. Zach was probably an inch or two taller than him, but the guy easily got him back on his feet. Each time it felt like his arms were being torn from their sockets. They’d been climbing steadily for a half hour or so, ever since they’d left the car. Zach wondered where the hell the guy was taking him—it didn’t make a lot of sense to go up a mountain. Unless you were going to kill someone and bury them, he thought, his heart sinking.
The trees started thinning off to his right. With the next swing of the flashlight he saw the ground vanish on that side of the trail, trees balanced precariously on the edge, tipping toward the gully below. As the light panned back, he caught a glint of something red up ahead. Lifting his feet high to keep from tripping, Zach focused on that spot, praying the guy would swing the light past it again. He did, and Zach saw that he was right. A small wooden sign hung from a tree trunk up ahead, and the carved copper letters glinted in the flashlight’s beam. An arrow pointed to: Jay’s Peak, 3,861 feet. Zach’s stomach leaped. He knew exactly where they were, he’d been here before with his Boy Scout troop. It was a park that straddled the Canadian border. They’d stayed at a ramshackle trail hut. It had to be around here somewhere. And unless he was mistaken, inside there was an emergency kit with a radio. If the guy got distracted enough, slackened his hold on the rope, he could make a break for it. Hell, at this point anything was worth a try. Zach tripped again and skidded down, heels scrabbling desperately for a purchase as his body slid toward the precipice. He felt the rope around his hands tauten, stopping his fall, and he gritted his teeth, tears of pain and relief rushing to his eyes. The guy was keeping him alive for some reason, maybe so he could hone more of his torture techniques. As Zach stumbled back to his feet, he felt his resolve harden. Before anything like that happened he was going to get away from this asshole, or die trying.
Kelly gritted her teeth as they circled. The helicopter had made a few passes now with no luck. The tree cover below was so thick it was nearly impossible to see anything.
“There!” Jake suddenly exclaimed. She jumped as his voice reverberated in her headset. Kelly shifted in her seat and followed his pointing finger. Half-hidden by the tree line, parked where a logging road dead-ended, she saw the top of a gray sedan.
She turned to the helicopter pilot. He’d been introduced as an old buddy of Doyle’s, and had proved his worth, hardly blinking at the request to take them over the state line and out of his jurisdiction. Kelly hoped that having Monica on board would smooth things over with the Vermont State Police when their actions were reviewed.
“Can you set us down?” she yelled into her microphone.
The pilot shook his head. “Not there. Looks like there’s a spot up ahead, open field about a half mile in. That’s as close as I can get you.”
Kelly nodded her assent and the chopper dove forward.
Dwight squinted through the scope. It had cost him a small fortune to buy one with night vision, but it was turning out to be worth every penny. Military issue, acquired through a guy who hawked the stuff via an innocuous-looking eBay site. The sales slip had listed the rifle as “Hummel figurines” on the sales slip, which Dwight found hilarious. Ma hadn’t even blinked when she saw the box, he thought, a tear trickling down his cheek at the memory.
Dwight’s finger twitched over the trigger, but he forced himself to wait and take a long, deep breath. He knew this park pretty well, had done some drills here on his own, getting in shape for Ranger camp. He’d parked at the gate next to a little-used access road, then humped straight over the hill to the other side. Below him was the trail that led to the border, about a half mile away. On the other side of the narrow trail was a downward slope clustered with trees, ending where the mountain slipped into a chasm. He was perched above a pasture, one of the few spots where the trees grudgingly ceded a few acres to grassland. Dwight could see for a hundred feet in either direction. Fifty feet below him was one of the long straight sections, where the trail wove between the field above and the trees below. Up ahead, the path segued into switchbacks. It was one of the only open spots for a half mile in either direction. Dwight knew that if the Captain was heading for the border, chances were he’d come this way. It was the perfect spot for an ambush.
He’d set up the tripod and hunkered down behind it, sprawled on a blanket. If anyone looked from down below, they would only see him as a rise in the hill. Dwight was gambling on the fact that the Captain would feel safe enough to take the main trail by cover of night. If he opted for one of the smaller paths, there was no way Dwight would ever find them. But, lo and behold, after an hour of waiting, two figures emerged from the tree line. Through his scope their bodies shimmered ghostly green. He’d had to repress a snort. The Captain thought he was so smart, but he turned out to be just as dumb and predictable as everyone else. A small part of Dwight was disappointed, he’d expected more of the man.