River of No Return : A Jake Trent Novel (9781451698053) (9 page)

Not that this effort was always reflected in their gratuities—
another reason steelhead guides called trout guides lucky. Often, the hard work resulted in nothing but a short tug, the pull of something that could have been a steelhead. No fish for a picture. No bragging rights. The clients, spoiled by trout-a-plenty, would decide the guide was to blame and leave him a measly forty bucks.

This day looked to be promising; fish numbers in the Salmon River were prime, and the snow-spewing clouds might very well have the steelhead in an aggressive mood.

“Why don't you get in?” Jake said. “We'll have plenty of time today to get wet and cold.”

J.P. shrugged and got in the passenger seat. He cranked the defroster and held his hands near the windshield to thaw them.

“You have gloves?” Jake asked.

“Nah. You?”

“In my pack.” Jake motioned to the backseat.

“I'll be all right.”

“You'll get frostbite. We'll grab you some at a convenience store.”

J.P. shrugged again.

“It's going to be tough going out there. We're going to find Esma, but our first priority needs to be ourselves. We can't help her if we're injured or dead.”

“Affix your own oxygen mask first, before helping others around you?”

“Exactly.”

Jake contorted around in the driver's seat to get the map and Schue's email from the back. When he twisted, J.P. noticed the gun.

“Jake?” He pointed at the weapon. “You think it's that bad?” J.P. looked afraid.

Jake covered the Mariner with his shirt again. “Just being cautious.”

Jake unfolded the topo map and set it across his lap. He rested the email attachments depicting the signal area against the steering wheel so he could reference both. He took a short moment in silence to think.

“There's a bridge here, at the campsite.” Jake traced a route from the grocery store into the center of Salmon, and then south along the river, to Forest Road 21. “We'll cross the river there, then head up into this network of logging roads. I don't know how passable they will be with this weather. When we can't go any farther, we'll get out and start our search.”

“Weather really fucked us, huh?”

Jake looked out the window, contemplating the question.

“No. It will be a little uncomfortable, but easy to see tracks. And if there's a cabin up there, it will be burning a fire. They'll give away their position. Let's get moving.”

17

TRAM VILLAGE, CHINA. OCTOBER 21.

8 P.M. BEIJING TIME.

It was now evening, and Terrell was still pounding on the door.

“Please, honey! Stop!” Charlotte's loud command startled the chief. He stopped pounding, but the metallic echo of his frantic attempts rang through the basement kitchen, a cruel reply.

“Nobody's coming,” she said.

The chief went back to his wife and sat on the floor.

“I'm sure there's some misunderstanding.”

“I'm not an idiot,” Charlotte said bluntly. “Doesn't take a police chief to figure out that something's going on here.”

“You were the one who wanted to come to China.” Terrell immediately regretted the comment. “Look, honey, I don't know what's happening, but plenty of people know we're here. They can't do anything to us. It would bring too much trouble—the whole wrath of the United States government.”

Charlotte gave him an unimpressed look. “I need water.”

“Me too.” Terrell stood up and rubbed his wife's shoulders. She started to cry.

“Shhh.”

“I just can't take another minute of it in here.”

“No, someone's coming.”

The heavy steel door swung open. Charlotte instinctively backed into the corner of the room. The chief moved to shield his wife from whatever was coming. The same two outsized men from the morning entered first. Behind them strode a shorter sixtysomething man wearing an elegant three-piece suit. The giants parted, yielding him the stage.

“You're making a big mistake!” Terrell growled, looking Xiao straight in the eyes.

“Take a seat.” Xiao spoke in confident English, but with a choppy cadence. The giants stepped away and each grabbed a chair, setting it next to the table. One approached Terrell and Charlotte, intending to guide them to their seats. The chief waved them off and walked toward the seats with his wife.

“Start talking.” Terrell tried playing bad cop.

Xiao smirked. “May I get you anything? Tea?”

“Water. We need water. Please.”

Dammit, Charlotte.
Terrell glared at his wife.
Don't show weakness.

“Of course, Mrs. Terrell.” Xiao gestured and the men walked out.

He didn't speak until the men returned with the water. Charlotte downed the first glass quickly, and one of the giants poured her another. The chief took only a single long sip and then settled his eyes upon Xiao.

“Start talking,” he repeated.

“In due time, Mr. Terrell. You haven't had anything to eat today. How rude of me. Invite you to breakfast and then starve you.” Xiao looked entertained, not apologetic.

“We're fine. Why are we here?” Terrell stood up, causing the giants to close in a few steps.

Xiao said something to the men that Terrell couldn't understand. They took a step back. Then he turned again to the chief. “These men are animals.” He laughed. “They don't understand Western hospitality. Take your seat, please.” Terrell did as he said. “If you're not hungry . . .”

“Talk,” Terrell demanded again.

“Okay. We can talk.” Xiao paused for a moment, as if he didn't know where to start. “You know why you are here?”

“Publicity, mayor says. Though I can't imagine news of a kidnapping would bring in visitors.”

“You are a smart man.” Xiao laughed again. “But you have not been kidnapped. We are just . . . negotiating.”

Before the giants could react, Terrell took hold of the lapels on Xiao's suit. “You son of a bitch!”

The bodyguards closed in, but their boss again uttered something that made them desist.

“This is good,” Xiao said. “You are frightened. It will motivate you.”

“I am
not
frightened. My wife . . .”

“Your wife? Do you think her coming was a . . .” He struggled for the word. “Coincidence?”

Terrell didn't follow.

“I know you better than you think, Roger. I knew you wouldn't cooperate if I didn't raise the stakes.” Xiao motioned to Charlotte, who winced. The giants chuckled.

“The fuck do you want?”

“Some language!
Very
frightened, I see.”

Terrell remained in Xiao's face.

“You do not have sense for the dramatic, do you, Mr. Terrell?” Xiao paused again. “Fine, we can get to it, if you insist.”

Terrell finally backed off and went to his wife. “It's going to be okay, honey.”

Xiao took off his shiny blue pinstriped jacket. Underneath was a tailored white shirt, suspenders, a vest, and a stylish turquoise-and-apple-red patterned tie.

“Where to start?” He paced back and forth. “Ah. The beginning is as good a place as any, I believe.”

Xiao took a moment to prepare his soliloquy.

“You see, Mr. Terrell, I am very fortunate man. Have always been. My father was a vice-premier on the Guowuyuan—the state council. A very important man indeed. My mother was an engineering professor at Peking University—one of the first females to achieve renown in her field. My childhood was a dream—travel to foreign countries, exotic pets . . .”

“Good for you. I grew up on a tract of dirt and cow shit. I don't see how any of this matters to us,” Terrell interrupted.

“Bear with me.” Xiao's tone shifted, his face became grave. The levity with which he had treated their initial interaction was gone.

“At Peking, when I was young man, I met Mei Li. She was the most beautiful and graceful person I ever met. She still is.” His dark eyes turned cloudy. “I wooed her as best I could. Fine dinners, beautiful flowers, clothes from New York, Milan, Paris.”

He halted again, the memory obviously haunting him. He cleared his throat and started anew.

“None of it worked. She shunned me. She acted as though she was embarrassed by me. I was the laughingstock at university. I
wasn't dissuaded by her scorn. Instead, I was enthralled. I knew she would be my wife; I just had to figure out how to court her.

“I enrolled in Tang poetry class, because I knew she had done it too. As the end of the school year approached, I recited for her a famous poem. It translates as ‘Alone in Her Beauty':

Who is lovelier than she?

Yet she lives alone in an empty valley.

“I won't bore you with the rest, but after this recital, Mei Li soon became mine. We wed a year later to the day.”

Terrell was thinking. This type of story was just what he needed. Exactly what any criminal negotiator would like to hear. It was an in. Xiao's weakness.

“Go on,” Terrell urged. Xiao seemed pleased at his interest.

“She was . . . she
is
the love of my life. In the fall of 1981, we had our first and only child, Meirong. By that time, I had created my technology empire in China. We raised Meirong in the opulence of my heritage and the wisdom of Mei Li's. Meirong was an angel—smart, beautiful, and kind. You would say
special
.

“By sixteen, Meirong was ready for university. I wanted to send her to the States, where she could benefit from the best education. Mei Li disagreed. Thought it would be safer in China. She had fallen into a slump, become wrapped up in politics. Something inside her started to change after Tiananmen Square in '89.

“Her life became secretive. Because of her family's affiliation with Chairman Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, many speculated that she was part of an effort to revive the Gang of Four. She told me nothing.”

“Gang of Four?” the chief asked.

“Communist hard-liners, according to Westerners.”

Terrell only nodded, trying to guess where this drama would climax. He figured the story didn't end with Xiao feeling the love between China and the United States.

Xiao continued. “In 1999, while having coffee alone in our home, my wife was shot once through the temple. She died instantly. The investigation led nowhere. The only information we had was path of the bullet—from a neighbor's roof through our kitchen window and into my wife's brain. To this day, her death is mystery.”

Charlotte wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered.

“I'm sorry,” Terrell said. Seeing his own wife in danger now, he meant it. “So you are exacting your revenge on the US? Why?”

Xiao wiped a tear from his cheek and then laughed. “I am too old to be interested in revenge. And I have no reason to believe your country is responsible. My wife was troubled. Smart, but indignant. She may have made any number of enemies inside or outside China.”

“Then what?”

“Ah.” Xiao helped himself to a glass of water. “Then, we come to Meirong.”

“Your daughter. She is in the States. Bullet told us. In Jackson, maybe.” Terrell was trying to disarm Xiao with his knowledge of the situation.

“Yes.”

“How do you know where she is?” Charlotte piped up. Terrell shot her another look.

“I have no doubt where she is.” He spoke forcefully. “She loves your valley. There, she is free from the crowded streets of Beijing and the shadow of her mother.”

“So you built Tram Village as a temple to her?”

“Temples are built on faith. I am much more pragmatic. Tram Village is a bait.”

“You want to draw her back here with an amusement park?”

Xiao didn't seem insulted by Terrell's slight. “No. I aim to
take
her back, and
keep
her with my amusement park.”

Xiao's intentions became clear to Terrell.

“In a few minutes, my men will bring you a telephone. You will inform your people of your situation. Do not attempt to give them our location. May I remind you that your wife's safety hangs in the balance. Do not let her meet the same fate as my wife.”

One of the giants opened the door for Xiao, who stopped in the doorway and peered back. “When I see my daughter face-to-face, you will be free to go.”

The heavy door slammed shut.

18

SALMON, IDAHO. OCTOBER 21.

6:30 A.M. MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME.

“Right here.” Jake handed J.P. a pair of thick fingerless wool fishing gloves. Luckily, they'd found an open convenience store that carried basic supplies.

J.P. frowned.

“Here's your other option.” Jake held up bright-yellow cleaning gloves made of latex.

“I'll take 'em both.”

Jake paid for the gloves.

They left J.P.'s pickup in the parking lot and moved his gear into Jake's SUV. As they pulled away from the store, J.P. pulled on the latex gloves and then put the wool ones over them.

“Good look for you.”

“Poor man's GORE-TEX.”

As they crossed the river, Jake looked down at the swirling,
leaden flow. This time he felt no relief. It moved along doggedly, stubborn like a mule. Nothing in this place gave away its secrets without a fight. Finding Esma was going to be like pursuing steelhead: frustrating and exhausting.

But harder. Finding a needle in a haystack? More like finding an honest man in Washington. At 4.3 million acres, the Salmon-Challis National Forest was one of the most massive pieces of wilderness south of Alaska.

After the bridge, Jake drove up the hill through Salmon's main residential area, turned left, and headed south, veering from the course of the river. The road was up and down as they left the flood plain and started their climb to the hamlet closest to the last known transmission from Esma's phone. Nothing but a few old buildings marked their arrival. Despite the infinitesimal size of the roadside quasi suburb, it was their best bet. They were ten miles outside the town.

They approached the first of the buildings, a concrete-block service station. An old Conoco sign hung crookedly from its moorings. Around its pedestal, a mound of snow enveloped a pad of thick grass. Jake pulled the SUV alongside the pumps. They had been raided for valuable parts. The office next door, connected to an old Craftsman bungalow home, was abandoned. There were no vehicles in working condition anywhere in sight.

“Great,” J.P. said.

“I'm going to take a look around. Wait here.”

For the first time in nearly a decade, Jake put a full clip in the Mariner with the distinct knowledge he might hurl one of its charges at something other than a target.

He left the attached flashlight turned off and returned the weapon to its holster. The light around the old house was still dim,
but improving. As Jake walked, he looked for tracks. Nothing but filled-in rabbit tracks and frozen mule-deer droppings.

No interior lights shone in the complex—the station or the house. Jake removed his glove and held his bare hand against a window. No heat. No sign of anyone.

He rounded the back corner. Behind it, a sprawling pine forest remained stubbornly dark, still unlit by the early signs of sunrise. The back door was silently swinging in the wind. Jake kept moving, approaching the far corner of the structure.

A barely audible shuffle. A movement of feet. Jake pressed his back against the house and opened his coat to access the Mariner. He took two deep breaths. It was important to stay calm. Make quick but intelligent decisions. Pay attention. If he rounded that corner without a plan he would fall into adrenaline's trap—shoot first and ask questions later.

One more deep breath. The footfalls were getting closer, only five or ten feet from making the corner. Jake quickly pulled the Mariner, checked that the safety was off, and peeled off the wall, ready for whatever was coming. Few people knew that it was often easier to surprise foes by allowing them to come to you. That way you remained totally silent—no footsteps, no heavy breathing.

Jake took on a wide stance to ensure accuracy against the gun's recoil and waited.

In the dim light, the first thing Jake registered was a large, dark, and distinctly human shape. Next was the shout.

“Jesus Christ!”

The shape tried to turn around too fast, slipped, and fell into the snow.

“Put that thing away!” J.P. shouted again. This time from on his behind.

“I said to wait in the car!” Jake tucked the Mariner away and helped his friend up.

“I'm not just gonna sit around while you play cops and robbers! I can help.”

“I didn't say you couldn't.
What
is going on with you?”

J.P lit a cigarette while still trying to catch his breath. “I'm just worried, man. Stressed. And do you think it makes me feel like a man to be Superman's sidekick?”

“It's not like that.” Jake helped J.P. brush the snow off himself. “I couldn't do this alone, okay? Let's just communicate better.”

J.P. looked down at the ground. “Deal. Sorry.”

“All right, let's keep moving. This place is a bust.”

“The bar?”

“Yeah. Let's check it out.”

The Silver Doctor, a quarter-mile farther south, was in even worse shape than the gas station. Together, Jake and J.P. systematically checked the premises. No heat, no lights, and no signs in the newly fallen snow.

Before they left the parking lot, they rifled through their bags, checking items off out loud, so that nothing would be forgotten.

“You're expecting to spend the night, huh?” J.P. seemed discouraged by this.

“I'm expecting the unexpected.”

The duo got back in the vehicle and cranked the heat. By now, a few other folks were up and about. Cars and pickup trucks passed by occasionally, their passengers undoubtedly wondering what two men with Wyoming plates were doing at the dilapidated tavern.

The abandoned buildings shed no light on Esma's whereabouts. The next most likely source of the signal was the hunting cabins in the hills. Jake pointed the truck past the Silver Doctor, continuing
south. An intersecting road turned from asphalt to dirt just within their view. The snowfall had lessened in the valley, but a thick veil of white suggested that wasn't so at higher elevations.

“That's our logging-road network there. Access to the cabins. If anyone asks, we're hunters scouting around.”

J.P. nodded.

The dirt road was passable for just over five miles from the tiny town. At that point, a mountain stream stopped their progress.

“This is it.” Jake pulled the vehicle over.

“We can get through that, man.”

“No. Not worth it. We can't search for Esma if we're down here trying to unstick the truck.”

Jake put the SUV in park and headed to the tailgate. J.P. shrugged and pulled on his two pairs of new gloves, then joined Jake around back. Both men hoisted their heavy packs onto their shoulders.

“What's our plan of attack?”

“This two-track forks in two miles. Right goes to the base of Mount Baldy and left to Mount Phelan. I say we go right first—it's the longer ascent—while we have fresh legs.”

J.P. nodded and began hopping his way across the creek, being careful to step only on dry rocks. Jake wore heavy-duty backcountry boots, completely waterproof, and he plodded through a shallow gravel bar.

As they rose in elevation, the forest was composed mainly of pure, dense stands of grand firs with low branches, which limited visibility. Jake climbed the occasional rocky outcropping to try to gain perspective on their progress. Even from the perches, they saw nothing but forest.

The only tracks visible in the snow belonged to rodents, elk, and mule deer. Jake stopped every minute or so to brush away the
few inches of fluff and check the ground beneath him for footprints in the frozen dirt below.

Bingo.
He spotted a new kind of print. Well-defined horse tracks in the hardened muck and boot prints alongside. Their definition meant that they hadn't been through a freeze-thaw cycle. At most, they were a week old—when the last cold front came and went.

“Definitely hunters back here.” Jake was crouched over a set of tracks. J.P. turned back to look over his friend's shoulder.

“Whaddya see?”

“Just horses and a footprint here and there. Doesn't mean much.” Jake stood and started walking again.

“What sort of stuff should I be looking for?” J.P. hustled to catch up.

“Anything out of the ordinary. A small footprint maybe, piece of clothing, anything like that. If we come across fresh tracks, we'll follow them to their end. I say we head toward the hunting camps atop Mount Baldy. Anything sticks out on the way, we'll check it out.”

The clouds eventually parted as the sun came up. The modest warmth was a welcome relief. Still, Mount Baldy wouldn't concede without a fight. As Jake and J.P. approached the last section of the ascent, the slope steepened. The trail that hunters used to access the cabins was littered with downed trees, made slick by the newly fallen snow. They pressed on.

* * *

Despite the fire, Esma was freezing. And because of it, she was having some difficulty breathing. Around midnight, the men lit a few pieces of damp tinder and one long four-by-eight on the dirt floor. The smoke from the wet, moldy wood had no way to escape,
and they had left her chained fifteen feet away, where the heat from the damp pyre was negligible. She prayed for a painless death from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Was she shivering from the cold or the memory of what the men had done to her the night before? Her body ached, her spirit broken. She fought back at first, but it only made things more miserable for her. The shackles had scraped against her wrists and ankles as the men got angrier.

She'd passed out from pain and fear after about an hour. When she awoke, her body was bruised and beaten. Her clothes were in tatters.

A creak. The sound of the crude wooden door opening. She lay still on her side, the same pose the men had left her in hours ago.

Tinny looked down when he entered. He didn't dare say a word. Despite his passive demeanor, he had been aggressive when he raped her. There was strength in those slim, fibrous muscles.

Now, he played at being gentle. He bent down in front of her and took something out of his pocket. A tube. Tinny pulled Esma's shirt aside and dabbed Neosporin on a tiny wound below her left clavicle. A scratch, likely. A mark of blood not much bigger than a pinhead.

* * *

“Up here, I think.” J.P. had taken the lead, cigarette hanging from his lips. Jake had to admit that his friend possessed more endurance than predicted, given his generally bad physical condition.

“One to the right and the other to the left?” It was 11 a.m., and they were near the top. At almost nine thousand feet, the snow was deep—seven inches or more.

“Yeah.” The trail split. According to the satellite images Jake
had printed, one route led to a camp on the northeast shoulder of Mount Baldy, just below a sheer cliff, and the other led to a cabin atop Baldy's western ridge.

“Take the right first.” The cabin below the cliff was more difficult to access. Jake wanted to get the more rigorous route over with as early as possible.

He saw the occasional rifle shell and more elk tracks: desperate animals fleeing the snow cover to find food. Jake checked the rounds. All were popular hunting cartridges, nothing overtly suspect about them.

J.P. sped up as the cabin came into view. They had traveled just over a mile from the split. The sun was shining brightly and the snow had become wet. It soaked J.P. up to the knees. The birds were out, chirping and exploring a world that had changed from fall to winter and back again overnight.

Jake whistled, and J.P. stopped. Jake waved him over.

He whispered, “Let's do a walk around the tree line first. Scope things out. Keep yourself hidden.”

J.P. pointed one way, counterclockwise around the structure, then pointed for Jake to go clockwise. Jake nodded.

After J.P. started on his way, Jake pulled the Mariner and made sure there was a round in the chamber. Then he clicked the safety back on, hoping it would stay that way.

The log cabin was constructed of native Douglas fir. It was a traditional one-and-a-half story retreat with its loft bedroom visible through large casement windows on either side's gable. Its footprint was no more than 20x30. Woodstove, judging by the narrow chimney. No indoor plumbing—there was an outhouse near the perimeter of the neglected yard, Jake assumed. A summer cottage.

Still, he took his time looking. There was a possibility they
had been detected and whoever was in the cabin was waiting in ambush. It was unlikely, but he'd been trained to assume the worst.

Halfway through his walk, when J.P. was directly across the large yard and obscured by the cabin, Jake heard a whooping noise.
He scanned the cabin and listened more carefully. Nobody was in sight. Jake bolted for the front of the building, worried about his friend. As he got closer, J.P. started yelling. “Got something! Hurry, man!”

J.P. was fixated on something far away. “C'mon! Get over here! Thought you were in shape!”

Jake struggled to catch his breath after sprinting across the uneven, brushy flat at elevation. “Guess not. What do you see?”

J.P. pointed across a hollow. Jake followed his gesture up to the top of Mount Phelan. There, on a promontory overlooking the river, tiny puffs of smoke popped through the thick grand firs, rising skyward.

“You think it's . . . ?”

Jake deflected. “Only one way to find out.”