“Whoa,” T.J. said.
The bank had become a cliff, the river fifty feet or more below, heaving through a ravine of rock and stone, twisting and crashing against the sides of the canyon, rebounding and careening downhill through the gorge until both seemed to come to an abrupt end, as if vanishing in midair.
“Waterfall,” Jake said. White foam and spray shot out over the precipice and tumbled out of site. Dead end. He searched but saw no way across the ravine and knew that to go around meant hiking miles across the side of the mountain, time they did not have to waste. Disheartened, he did his best to hide it. He wiped the sweat from his brow and turned from the ledge, trying to sound positive. “At least we know we can’t get down this way.”
“What do we do?” T.J. asked.
“We go back down, find a way around it.”
“We can’t get around that!”
“Then neither can anyone following us; they have to go around, too.”
“What about following the river? How will we know we’re going the right way?”
“I don’t know,” Jake said, trying not to sound like he, too, was losing hope. “I don’t know. We’ll keep listening for it. Come on, go back down.” He took a step when T.J. grabbed his coveralls. “Jake.”
“We got to keep moving, T.J.”
“Look. Look!”
T.J. was pointing. Far below them, in the valley, something appeared from around a large boulder, the head and shoulders of a man, then the rest of his body. A second man followed, both ascending a steep incline, the path hugging the side of a cliff. Bent over, the two men appeared to have their hands behind their backs. Hikers, Jake thought, but also maybe guards. He crouched to his belly but T.J. remained standing and started yelling and waving his arms.
“Hey. Hey!”
Jake pulled him down. “Be quiet. It could be guards.”
“No,” he said. “It’s them. It’s them.”
“Who?”
“It’s our dads.”
Jake’s initial thought was that T.J. had lost it. Then he slid forward and looked again to the two men ascending the slope. A third man appeared behind them, the three marching to the summit of the barren dome of rock.
Jake wondered if the fatigue and hunger were playing tricks with his mind, but if they were, T.J. was having the same hallucination. It
was
them, Jake was also certain of it.
“Dad!” T.J. screamed, getting to his knees and waving his arms. “Dad!”
Jake again pulled him down. “He can’t hear you,” Jake said. “The waterfall is too loud. Besides, whose the third guy?”
The distance was too far for him to clearly make out facial features, and he was uncertain he would know the man even if he could. But something seemed odd.
“What’s he doing?” T.J. asked. “Why are they standing like that?”
Their fathers stood as if at attention, their backs to the cliff, hands clasped behind them, facing the man. Jake squinted, inching closer to the edge, and realized why they had been bent over, why their hands remained behind them. “Their hands are tied,” he said. And that realization brought another even more horrifying one—why they stood at the edge. “Oh shit!”
“What?” T.J. asked. “What!”
Jake got quickly to his feet and frantically considered his surroundings, seeing nothing he might use.
“Jake, what’s wrong?”
Panicked, Jake picked up a piece of shale, throwing it as far and hard as he could, nearly losing his balance. The stone plummeted harmlessly into the gorge.
“What is it?” T.J. asked again, on his feet and now panicked.
“He’s going to kill them,” Jake said. “He’s going to shoot them.”
“What? No. No.” T.J. waved his arms furiously, shouting. “Dad!—DAD! What do we do, Jake? What do we do?”
Jake didn’t know. The man stepped forward, arm outstretched, gun in hand. “Oh God.” His legs collapsed. He fell to his knees. T.J. dropped beside him, sobbing. “Dad. No. Dad.”
For a brief moment nothing happened. Time froze. Then David and Tom Molia turned and faced the edge and the man took another step forward, arm outstretched.
“No. NO!”
The barrel emitted a tiny spark. David’s legs folded and he dropped to his knees, teetered, and tumbled over the edge.
The man took a single step to his right, redirected his aim, and fired the second shot into the back of Tom Molia’s head.
TWENTY-FOUR
E
LDORADO
F
OREST
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IERRA
N
EVADA
M
OUNTAINS
T
hey moved quickly down the mountain, Barnes following Greg and Dean. They took a detour to a clearing with a view of the valley, the Mokelumne River having over centuries carved a path through the wilderness.
“Give me the binoculars.” Barnes sighted along the ridge, focusing. It was a way off, but he knew the mountains well. He found the canyon and followed it until he saw the drop-off. Though he could not see the falls from their particular angle he could see the spray of white water. From there he focused on the ledge before the falls, where he knew Wade intended to take Sloane and Molia. Within minutes the two men came into view, climbing the trail, Wade behind them. “You see them?” Greg asked.
“Yeah I got ’em.”
Sloane and Molia stood at the edge. For a moment nothing appeared to be happening. Then Wade raised his arm and advanced a step closer.
“What the hell is he doing?” Barnes said aloud. Then he realized exactly what Wade was doing, brandishing the weapon. “God damn him. He’s taunting them.”
“Wade’s a sick bastard,” Greg said, “I’ve always thought it.”
Just as Barnes’s anger had nearly peaked, Sloane and Molia turned their backs and faced the ridge. Still, Wade did not immediately shoot. “God damn him,” Barnes said. The muzzle of the handgun flared a small white flash. Sloane dropped, listed, and his body tumbled over the side. Seconds later, Molia met the same fate.
Barnes started to lower the binoculars then caught sight of something else, on another ridge, perhaps upstream. The red stuck out amid the forest’s natural colors. “Give me the handheld.” Greg handed him one of the radios and Barnes depressed the call button. “Leonard, you there? Over.”
Leonard answered, his voice indistinct amid the static. “I’m here. Over.”
“I got a bead on your two runaways,” Barnes said, “stand by.”
Greg had taken out the topographical map, running his finger along the different quadrants. “Got it,” Greg said.
Barnes provided Leonard the coordinates, having to repeat them twice.
“We’re not far,” Leonard said.
“Get it done,” Barnes said. “And make sure that sociopath Atkins keeps that temper of his in check.”
Barnes handed the binoculars and walkie-talkie back to Greg. The sky continued to rapidly change, billowing thunderheads gathering, growing dark and menacing.
“I don’t like the looks of this,” Barnes said. “Let’s get the hell off this mountain.”
Atop the boulder, still on their knees, Jake and T.J. remained utterly paralyzed. The echo of their cries had long since dissipated, but Jake felt no desire to move. T.J. too remained slumped, head bowed. A raindrop hit Jake in the neck. He looked up. The sky had turned an ominous black. Raindrops ticked on the rock all about them. It brought another recollection, of another sky. He and David had taken out the boat on the Puget Sound to fish for salmon and had been so engrossed in the sport and conversation they had not noticed that the sky had turned dark and foreboding. As the storm hit they tried to outrace it back to shore but the waters soon turned violent, and the wind blew fiercely, tossing the boat like a cork in the ocean. Sloane had difficulty steering, the propeller coming out of the water with each big wave. And just when it seemed it couldn’t get worse, it did. A wave struck just as Jake stood to help and tossed
him from the boat and into the frigid water. Even in a life jacket the waves engulfed him as he watched the boat get smaller and smaller, disappearing in the valleys between the crests. He thought there was no way David could save him, and yet somehow David had managed to get the boat turned around, throw him the ski rope, and pull Jake back into the boat. Then he’d somehow managed to get them back to shore. Neither seemed possible, but David had done it.
Later that night they sat by the fire with his mom and talked about what had happened. Sloane told Jake he too had been afraid—not for his own death, but for Jake’s.
“But you didn’t die,” Sloane said. “Because we didn’t lose our heads. It would have been easy to panic in that situation, but we didn’t. There’s nothing stronger than the will to survive, Jake, except the will to save your child. I want you to know that I will never give up, no matter what. So you can’t either, not ever. You never give up. You understand? No matter how bad things ever get, you never give up. You fight until your very last breath.”
Jake got to his feet and pulled on T.J.’s coveralls. “Get up.”
T.J. looked up at him, face smeared with dirt from tears and rain.
“We need to go, T.J. Now. Get up.”
“Where?” he asked, voice a whisper. “Where are we going to go? Who are we going to call now?”
“We’ll call my dad.”
T.J. raised his head and his voice. “Your dad’s dead. So is mine.”
“My other dad. Frank. I have two. I have one left.”
“I don’t.”
“No, but you have a mother.” He knelt. “We can’t give up. Our dads wouldn’t want us to. We have to get home. You need to get home, for your mom. Come on, there’s nothing we can do. Get up!” He reached down and grabbed T.J. by the collar, helping him to his feet.
T.J. could not keep the tears from streaming down his face, and Jake knew they were as much tears of despair as they were grief, because Jake had cried those same tears for months after his mother died. T.J. did not believe they were going to be okay. Jake didn’t
know one way or the other but he had learned that crying didn’t bring his mother back and it wouldn’t bring back David or Tom Molia. The rain would come and it would go. The sun would rise and set. The world would go on, and so would Atkins. The guard was still out there, still coming for them. And he wasn’t going to give up until he found them and killed them or handed them over to Big Baby. Jake didn’t know which one it would be, but he knew one thing for certain. He’d do as David had taught him, as he had promised. He’d fight for both him and T.J. He’d fight until his final breath.
Because now there was no one left to save him. So he’d either kill Big Baby, or he’d die trying.
TWENTY-FIVE
E
LDORADO
N
ATIONAL
F
OREST
T
EN
M
INUTES
E
ARLIER
W
ade advanced. “You’re wrong,” he said. “About everything.”
Then he winked.
For a moment Sloane thought Wade was trying to clear the water from his eyes, but then Wade said, “They’re watching.” He waved the handgun, as if giving Sloane and Molia nonverbal directions. “I need you to turn around. I’m going to fire by your left ear. It will be loud as hell. When you hear it, you’ll flinch. Don’t fight it. Just drop to your knees and roll forward over the edge. The footpath continues about nine feet below. Don’t go over the footpath or you really will be bear food. I’ve hidden a backpack in the rocks. In it you’ll find a knife to cut the ties, supplies, and a weapon. They’re out looking for your sons. When they find them, they’ll take them back to Fresh Start. There’s a topographical map inside the backpack. Can you read it?”
Neither Sloane nor Molia responded.
“Stay with me gentlemen! I don’t have a lot of time here to explain. Can you read it?”
“I can read it,” Molia said.
“Good. I’ve marked the spot where the bus picks up the kids. It’s where they parked the SUV. Get there before they do.”
“Who are you?” Sloane asked.
Wade brandished the gun again. He grimaced and spoke through clenched teeth. “Details later. I’ve been undercover three years. We
have a task force in place to take down Victor Dillon, but we hadn’t planned to move for another two months, after the harvest. You’ve forced our hand a bit.” He stepped back and raised the gun. “Okay, Mr. Sloane, you’re first. Make it look good. Drop to your knees, fall to your side, and roll.”
“You were the guardian angel; you pulled me from the car.”
Wade nodded. “I tried to get the detective here to pull over to talk, but he launched a milkshake grenade at me instead. Sorry it’s come this far. Okay, we can’t delay this much longer. Turn.”
Sloane looked to Molia. He wasn’t sure what to believe. Molia’s shrug said what Sloane was thinking.
What choice do we have?
Sloane turned, closed his eyes, and prayed.
The gun exploded, a deafening blast. Sloane flinched, fell and rolled to his side and over the ledge. With his hands zip-tied behind him he couldn’t protect his face and as he rolled the weight of his body crashed down on his casted wrist. The pain nearly made him cry out, but he clenched his teeth and swallowed the agony. He hit what he assumed to be the footpath, jamming his shoulder. His momentum carried him one more roll, and he came to a stop on his stomach, one leg dangling over the edge, the disturbed rock and dirt continuing to cascade down on top of him. He lay motionless, grimacing in pain, ears ringing. He heard the second shot but, though tempted, he did not open his eyes or otherwise move. More rock and dirt cascaded down the hill. Tom Molia landed with an audible grunt.
Sloane lay perfectly still, resisting the urge to speak. Minutes passed. When he could not wait any longer, Sloane opened his eyes and lifted his head. “Hey,” he said.
Molia too lifted his head. Sloane looked to his right, over the edge, a thirty-foot fall above jagged rocks and boulders. He pulled back his leg and scooted against the hillside. His wrist felt like it was on fire, the pain shooting through him.
Molia got to his knees and pushed to his feet. His lips moved, but Sloane could not hear him over the ringing in his ears and the rush of the waterfall. The detective stepped closer.
“You all right,” he yelled.