Relentless (Elisabeth Reinhardt Book 1) (29 page)

“Alright, Father, you better keep us out of trouble or heads will roll,” Jake cackled as he pulled the top of the seat down over his head. He was wired now, hyped up. Slim and Custer had managed to pull the stuffing and springs out of the seats so that just
the outer shell was left. Jake wedged the gun out through a small opening in the seat fabric and pointed his gun at the priest’s head. “One false move and your head will be the first to roll,” he cackled again as the motor turned over the van pulled out of the garage.

“I’ll do my best, Jake,” the priest responded still playing for time, “but I have to go slowly. I don’t want to attract attention and some of these roads are old and bumpy. This is an old van, you know, we don’t want to get a flat tire or anything, right?” The priest didn’t think that Jake would shoot him, no matter what he threatened. They needed a driver and a hostage not another dead body.

“Okay,” Jake said grudgingly, “just hurry and remember I have a gun.”

“I remember. I’ll do my best. Now you boys just be patient and let me get you out of town, Okay?” the priest suggested
in his fatherly tone.

The priest turned right onto the main road driving slowly away from town, turning on side streets and back roads in hopes of avoiding police roadblocks. The old van bumped along over snow and ruts in the road. The priest headed for as many bumps as he could so he could justify driving slowly and keep their attention focused.  He planned to take as long as humanly possible, sometimes driving in circles and doubling back on his route.
They were virtually blind back there so it was unlikely they would know what he was doing.
If Jake shoots me today,
Father Wallington thought,
so be it. My conscience is clear and if it is G-d’s plan for me to die today then I’m at peace. I just want to give my plan time to work
, he thought grimly as he headed for another rut. 

“I thought he was really upset, didn’t you?” Gladys asked her friend.

“Oh my, yes,” said Lois, taking off her heavy jacket, “I think the missing wine really bothered him.”

“Well, my goodness, that wine costs lots of money, and it was all gone.”

“I’ll bet he thinks that the kids drank it, that teen group. You know how kids can be.”

“He didn’t say that though
and he looked real upset.” Gladys mused.

“Well, something was odd,” Lois said, “because he hugged
us goodbye and he never does that.”

“
I know,” Gladys agreed, “that was a bit odd. Perhaps all that mess and the missing wine made him emotional. You know even priests can get emotional.”

“
No, it was something else; it was like he wanted to tell me something. He made a little motion with his face.”

She frowned as she recalled his expression, “You know like a ‘this is important,’ look.” She imitated the look she had seen on Father Wallington’s face. Gladys looked over as she drove and watched her friend’s expression.

“It’s something like, ‘this is important, just between me and you.”

“Yes, like pay attention or something.”

“Like a secret.” A secret? They looked at each other. Was the priest making a pass at Lois? No! Of course not, that was ridiculous, her being as old as she was and him being a priest and all. That’s not right. No, it was something else.

“You know,” Gladys said, “I remember making those kind
s of faces when I was in school and I used to pass notes to my friend and didn’t want the teacher to see.” They stared at each other. There was almost a ‘click’ between them.  “He was trying to tell me something! He wanted us to know something. Did he pass us A NOTE!? Was that what the hug was about?” Lois turned and dragged her heavy overcoat over the backseat and began to search the pockets. In seconds she found a crumpled note in the priest’s slanted writing. “Call 911. Tell them everything. HURRY!” the note said.

“Oh, my,” Lois said, “there must have been someone else there in the church. That’s why he wanted us to leave real quick
. He didn’t want us to get hurt. He was protecting us. That’s why he made that face and gave us that note. We have to help him.”

“Someone else was there in that church,” Gladys echoed.

“Maybe a robber.”

“Oh my,” they breathed, and speed forward looking for a policeman. Approaching a police roadblock, the women drove the old station wagon forward in a state of agitation. Honking and waving their arms out the windows, they both talked at once. Their priest was in trouble. He’d given them this note and someone messed up the kitchen and drank all the sacramental wine. Yes, it was the church called Our Lady of the Angels.  They were on the flower committee and had been there arranging fresh flowers. They weren’t sure what to do, but the priest wanted them to get the police and look he gave them this note. “Get Chester down here,” an officer said, pressing ‘talk’ on his radio. “We’ve got something here Chief, it’s important...”

Chester Rugger and Lou Fairmont arrived and hustled the two women off to the mobile command station where they heard their story in greater detail. The women drove away from the church about 15 minutes ago. They had gone by the Post Office to mail a package for Gladys’s sister and then they realized he’d given them this note. Lou and Chester wanted to know exactly what they found in the kitchen, how many plates and glasses, how many empty bottles of wine. They read the note, asked the women if they could borrow the key to the church and then provided police escorts to their homes. At the same time, officers checked with Motor Vehicles Department, put out a BOLO on all vehicles owned by the church and dispatched SWAT teams to Our Lady of the Angels. Ricky and Lucy were also dispatched. Upon arrival, the team discovered the van was missing, but did a thorough search of the church from top to bottom. Once inside the church, the dogs tore up the stairs to the third floor where police found evidence that several men had recently been there. Cups and food wrappers were scattered about, furniture askew. The dogs alerted them to the stairs leading to the bell tower and roof.

“They were watching us the whole time,
your dogs were right,” the Kentucky leader said. Ricky’s handler was irritated, “I told you Ricky was never wrong,” he said bitterly. “We’d have those bastards in custody by now if we’d listened to him.”

“
Our damn luck they were holed up at a church. If it had been anywhere else, we would have breached the door and gotten in,” the team leader said.

“See if the dogs can pick up their scent anywhere, I don’t think we are far behind them
.” They let the dogs take the lead and within minutes both dogs picked up the scent and were running in tandem through back roads and narrow paths across fields with police cars trailing them. There was an odd circling pattern they didn’t understand. It was as if the driver was deliberately driving in circles.

Twenty minutes later, the tracking team spotted the back of
the old green Chevy van. They radioed in for instructions. “Follow at a discrete distance, but do not lose sight of the van,” Chester ordered. The police collected the dogs and slowed their pace while the Chief developed a tactical plan. They were only able to get a visual on the driver, but assumed that the killers were hiding somewhere out of sight. The van was about 100 feet ahead of them when they saw the priest raise his left hand near his ear and hold up 3 fingers. “He’s signaling to us, Chief,” the Kentucky squad leader informed Chester as he lowered his window and signaled the priest that he’d gotten the message. “Three fingers! The killers are in the van.”

“Don’t shoot, and don’t lose them, Kentucky, we’re working on a roadblock at the next big intersection. Keep sending us your coordinates.”

They were bumping along the rutted road when Slim peeped out the window looking at snow covered corn stalks. “This is stupid, Jake,” he said, “We’re in a fucking corn field. How’s that going to get us out of here?” Jake popped his head out and peered around. Poking the back of the driver’s seat with his gun he rasped, “Father, what you up to?”

“Just following your instructions, Jake,” the man replied, “trying to get you out of town.” 

“Well, get out of this damn corn field and onto a road,” Jake ordered. Then he pulled himself out a bit further and looked around. He saw two cars further back on the road. It was hard to tell, but they looked suspicious, like black SUV’s.

“Looks like the cops. You call the cops, Pops?” he demanded alarmed.

“No, of course not” the priest answered, “You have my cell phone, Jake.”

“That’s the cops, I can smell them.”

“What are we gonna do Jake?” Custer whined.

“Shut up and let me think,” Jake yelled. The road curved sharply to the right leaving the van temporarily out of sight. “Turn down this road
,” Jake indicated a small dairy farm along the road, cows huddled near the barn. “Go around the back of that barn over there and slow down till they pass, then swing around and go backtrack.”

“We can’t stop here, the cops will shoot the hell out of us,” Custer yelled from the back.

“Shut up, you idiot, I have plan,” Jake screamed. The priest pulled around the back of the barn out of sight of the police cars, slowed the van to a rolling stop. As they heard the SUV’s drive by, they made a wide U turn then sped up and got back on the dirt road again. “Speed up, Pops,” Jake instructed, “and this time keep going straight.”

“They spotted us,” the
team leader said catching sight of the van’s tail lights as it pulled behind a barn. It was too dangerous to pull in after them. “Better to let them think they fooled us. There are only two ways to go on this road. They’ll either follow us or head back where they came from.” They quickly checked with Chester, “Divide up,” he said, “Keep the dog team near the barn in case they decide to camp out and use that family as hostages. You keep going and we’ll bring another team in to block the end of that lane.”

Team
leader spoke into his mike, “Dog team, take the dairy farm and we’ll continue on and set up with the roadblock.” The second car, containing two officers and two German Shepherds, broke out of formation doubled back toward the farm, pulled off the road and picked up his binoculars. The lead car continued on straight ahead. “Roadblock about 4 miles ahead at the next intersection,” Chester said, “We’ve got another one set up at the other end of the road. We’ve got them in our cross-hairs; they just don’t know it, yet.”

Jake poked his head out again. Seeing no cars, he hooted with success, “They fell for it! Dumb cops!”

“Come out of this U-turn and head back down that road, Padre,” Jake ordered, “We’re gonna get out of dodge!”

“Jake,” the priest said appealing to him, “You promised that if I cooperated, no one would get shot. Why don’t I just keep going and try to get onto a highway? There’s a main road just a few miles ahead.”

“Well, that’s where they’ll be waiting for us, Paaddrreee,” Slim drawled sarcastically. “They’ll have this road blocked off at both ends,” Slim said to Jake. Now he was in his element. Evading the cops, that was a ‘turn on’.

“We’ve got to find another way out of here,” he said, eying the snow covered fields around him he added, “I’ve got an idea.”

Pointing a gun at his head, he ordered the priest to turn into the next driveway. A large sign said
‘Chip’s Farm Supplies.’
In front of it was a smaller sign that said
‘
John Deere and AGCO Tractors for Sale, new and used.’
 
They pulled around back to the loading dock. The building was long and low with a peaked roof and a double wide garage door. Custer and Slim rushed into the building, which was nearly empty except for two employees who they captured and confined to a broom closet. Jake dragged the priest into the building and shoved him into the closet with the other two. “Thanks for all your help, old man,” he said to the priest and patted him affectionately on the cheek. “Padre, you were a gift from G-d!”

Jake turned to Slim and asked, “You got it?”

“Yep,” Slim nodded holding up a set of keys. The three of them ran over to a large green tractor equipped with a snow plow and back hoe. Within minutes, the tractor was bumping its way across a snow-covered corn field. From a distance the dog team saw the tractor and called in the report.

“Track and follow, do not try to apprehend,” was the order. They sped to
ward Chip’s Farm Supplies, cleared the premises, released the hostages and started after the tractor. It was tough going for the SUV, but they were able to keep the tractor in sight. After about 10 minutes, the tractor stopped. A shootout was inevitable. The killers took up positions behind the tractor. They shot out the police vehicle’s windows and tires, forcing the officers to get out and take cover.  Calling for backup, Ricky’s handler went down with a bullet in his neck. Seeing his handler down, Ricky was unstoppable racing toward the tractor running low to the ground, he moved like the wind. He knew who had shot his partner and he was would take him down.  He zeroed in on Jake, leapt upward and grabbed him by the throat. Jake screamed, blood squirted and both fell backwards hitting the ground hard. The dog was ferocious grinding his teeth into the killer’s throat. He never saw the bullet coming.

“
Two down, one human, one canine. We need back-up,” Lucy’s handler screamed into the phone, “I repeat, two down, two down.” Lucy strained at her leash, leaping and snarling, itching to avenge her brother. Sirens split the air alarming the peaceful farming community. Ambulances raced toward the scene. The wounded were rushed to the nearest hospital and the nearest vet, but it was unlikely either would survive. All available personnel converged on the scene, hostages were questioned, the scene was searched but the killers had vanished.