Escape (Chronicles of Hart) (8 page)

ENTANGLED

Colt had reached the church. Bursting through the front doors with the briefcase lifted in his arms like a talisman warding off the evil glances of Hart. He was met by an empty room. After searching the building, he finally came across one of the guards locked in the tower and tied with the sheet-rope the girl had tried to escape with to her bedposts. As he pulled a portion of cloth from the guard’s mouth, he gagged spewing blood across the room.

“Where is Hart? I found something,” Colt demanded, slapping some sense into the delirious guard as he untied him from his restraints. The Guard struggled against the ropes, avoiding Colts help as though he were fearful of being freed.

“Left to meet them at the other end
,” the lone guard replied through gasping breaths. Blood dribbled from his chin. He looked like he was missing teeth in his bloodied mouth. Colt finished untying him as he collapsed into a heap on the floor. He could see now that blood was also trickling from a wound on the back of his head. He wondered briefly how he had gotten all the way into the tower and tied up. Hart was a very particular man and by the look of the setup he had very little time to get out of here before it became a crime scene.

“Shit
,” Colt muttered under his breath as he stood quickly, covered in the other guard’s blood. He realized he was already implicated in this crime. Stripping down out of the bloodied clothing, he turned to run from the tower. The door swung closed before he could cross the room. Silence from the other side indicated that he had triggered it from this side.
Damn Hart and his traps,
he thought as he fought against the doorknob. He had to get out of the tower before Hart eliminated them. He turned back to the window, setting his shoulders with determination as he unraveled the roped from the dead guard bleeding out on the floor.

***

Hart sat patiently in the back of his car. One of the three guards he had taken with him was behind the wheel in front of him. He drove at a pleasing pace, sending wind whipping in through the open sunroof at a dangerous speed. It made it fantastically difficult to breath into the rush of air and the guard beside him was panicking with the struggle. Hart could tell he would be of no use in their future endeavours. He would be removed from the staff pool shortly. Hart let his mind wander momentarily, imagining the outcome with pleasure. He knew if they wanted to meet the prisoners at the other side they would have to cut a few corners. They sped recklessly through the back country roads and as Hart checked their progress he frowned at the time passing quickly on his diamond encrusted watch.

“Faster,” he demanded shouting over the wind as he reclined back into the plush leather of the back seat. The driver nodded to him in the rear view mirror, pressing his foot down as the car accelerated forward. Hart’s hair whipping into a wild frenzy in the wind as the man beside him struggled even harder to breath. Hart smiled lacing his fingers behind his head he crossed his left foot over his right knee lazily.

“Yes sir,” The driver yelled back over the torrent of wind.

***

Ethan and Grace scratched desperately at the walls in the dark. A light was slowly becoming visible up the stairs, causing Grace to scrape at the wall in a panic. She would claw through the wall if she had to. Ethan pulled at the bricks beside her, fighting hard to resist the urge to punch the wall in frustration. It would surely break his hand if he did. Instead he followed Grace’s lead, feeling the brickwork over in the most obvious spots where a trigger could be concealed; the mortar between the bricks. He searched for gaps and holes, bricks that might give way like the trigger in the cavern that had filled with water. Nothing seemed to pop out to him and Grace was breathing heavily with panic. Her fingers were bleeding from clawing at the wall like an animal trying to escape when her finger stuck in a narrow slit. Feeling around with her other hand she found an identical slit beside it.

Noises on the stairs grew closer. Grace shoved her index finger into the slit. Wiggling the two fingers, she triggered a release by pulling down on two levers within the wall simultaneously. Her hand pulled with the wall as it swung open. Her fingers were stuck in the small openings.

“Yes,” Ethan exhaled as the wall began to move under his hands. He couldn’t see from the angle of the approaching light how Grace had become tangled in the wall. Both of her hands stuck against the moving brick wall and she was tugged forward into the new space.

“Got ya
,” exclaimed a voice behind them as the light came into full view.

Two guards grabbed Ethan and Grace from behind. The one holding Grace fumbled in a bag for a moment, pulling out a handful of zip-ties. Grace was too weak to fight back as they bound her wrists in front of her while she struggled to get her fingers free from the wall. Ethan was quickly held down to have his hands zip-tied together as they dragged him and Grace up against a wall.

***

Walt was relieved, finally they had caught up. Maybe he would live for another day, if Mr. Hart was in a good mood and willing to compromise. Looking at Grace, he felt pity as guilt rose up in his chest. She looked malnourished and wore scraps of filthy clothing that would be considered rags to most. He and Steve had been responsible for upholding that horrible lifestyle for her and they still had no idea why she was being held captive. She sure didn’t
look
dangerous to him. Her frail petit figure shivered in the wet and cold of the tunnel. Her ribcage was visible through a tear in the fabric of her shirt. He looked to Steve with concern,
should we give her a coat?
He wondered. The look on Steve’s face said
no.

“Here,” He offered her the last bottle of water from Steve’s pack. They had reached the other side of the wall safely, watching it click mechanically back into place with a resonating final squish against the thick muck lining the bottom of the doorway. A wave of water splashed against their feet as they stepped out of the large puddle covering most of the floor on this side of the marker.

Grace looked at Walt with disgust. Rundown after all these years imprisoned, her face remained innocent. Walt looked quickly away feeling guilt coursing through his veins again. He sat her down gingerly looking at his hands as he twisted the top of the bottle off, placing it back in her thin hands.

“Drink
,” he suggested in a gentle voice avoiding eye contact with her, he turned to Steve for support. Steve stood across the tunnel with the boy watching him intently as though he expected him to jump up and attack at any second.

Grace slowly took the bottle to her parched lips shaking at the weight of the small bottle in her hands. She had devoured nearly half of it before coming up for air, gasping loudly in the awkwardly silent tunnel where she and Ethan had become prisoners.

“Him.” She pointed to Ethan. Startling Walt as her demand broke the silence. He looked over quickly, noticing her finger pointing across the tunnel to the boy being held up by Steve on the opposite wall. She pushed the bottle in his direction struggling against her bonds.

Walt took the bottle and passed it to the boy quickly. He was careful not to make any contact with the prisoner, fearful for how cunning he had been getting them into the tunnels in the first place. He and Steve made eye contact. Both knew this boy would be dead the minute they left the tunnel. Steve locked his eyes with Walt and slowly shook his head at the waste of water. They would not tell Grace, she would find out soon enough.

Steve settled the boy onto the ground. Standing between him and the exiting hatch overhead he pulled out his radio. He hoped for a signal as he clicked it on. It sent a static ringing through the small space.

“Radio three, over.” He tested, as the radio crackled to life in his hands. It filled the small passage way with the static response that lasted for what seemed like forever in the confines of the underground hole.

After a brief pause of static a response resonated, echoing against the walls with crisp clarity,

“Radio three, this is radio one. Name your position. Over
.” Grace could feel her body grow cold. She could feel her freedom slipping through her bound hands as he pulled the radio back to his mouth to speak

Relieved Steve responded, “Last checkpoint sir, we have the prisoner. Over
.”

The static grew louder as the silence from the other end became unbearable. Walt was beginning to look worried when it finally broke, “Sit tight until we have secured the exit. Over
.”

“Understood, over” Steve responded, clicking the radio back to his belt where it rung quietly masking the silence of the tunnel that confined them.

Walt and Steve both looked to the boy, “Who is at the other end of this tunnel?” Steve demanded. He worried about the other side of the trap door above him. If someone were to open it to check how far the boy and Grace were along, there could be trouble. He looked to Walt trying to convey the thought without tipping the prisoners off. One yell from the boy and he could have backup barging through the small opening to kill them all.

The boy sat still, looking defiantly from Walt to Steve. Quietly smirking, Ethan knew he could make them sweat for a bit. Maybe it was just the distraction he and Grace needed to get out of there alive.

KING

Agent King stood watching a closed trap door, beside him his partner tossed cards at a table lost in a game of solitaire. King had been with the FBI for six years, partners with Chung for five and stuck in the Kentucky office waiting for his break the whole time. His ambitions would one day take him to Washington, the Pentagon or Area Fifty One. But today he stood watching a hole in the floor, waiting for some punk kid to emerge with a girl that was assumed dead.

He had jumped for the case, sensing there was more to it in the way that the boy had described things in such vivid detail. It was obviously something close to him and not just a run of the mill psycho weaving stories for mild amusement. King was still surprised at how many nothing cases were derived that way. Chung however, continued to show him the cold shoulder. He had blown up at King after he had accepted the Evans’ case, but then had grudgingly tagged along to keep King company.  King suspected he was in it for the glory. If the case were to break, it would be their shot at the big times and they both knew it.

The trap door opened into the centre of an old log cabin. It had been lost in the woods for decades as the foliage swallowed it whole in its abandonment. Only foot trails granted access to the rotting cedar monument that was left alone in the wilderness. The forest had grown thick surrounding it, making it visible only from a few feet away. King and Chung had scoured the area for two hours with their team before the cabin had been found. It had taken then another half an hour to find a way in through the grown over trees and brambles. Vines had overtaken most of the outer walls giving the place the impression that it was built into the ground itself. They were definitely off the map and the directions the boy had given them had been accurate to the nines. King was getting more and more excited in anticipation of their case. Once they had secured the two into custody it was smooth sailing onto a promotion for him and Chung.

Chung had set up a small generator with a light across from him. The yellow light spilled over the decomposing room seeping into the worn wood. Sheets of dark fabric had been hung around the small room to absorb the light before it escaped into the vast forest, giving away their location. Outside, the backup team sat waiting in the woods. King didn’t feel bad for them outside alone and bored. Six years ago that had been him just starting out, backing up the higher up officers and hoping one day he would get a chance to be the one on the inside.

Chung whipped the last card at the table in a foul mood, “How much longer is this gonna’ take?” He challenged King with a deserving sneer.

They had been waiting since midday, their boredom growing by the hour.

“I told him twenty four,” King reminded him for the sixth time. He was not well known for his patience. Chung snorted, picking the cards up into a pile he began shuffling them lazily, making a show of his boredom as he tapped his foot impatiently against the floor. His foot tapping left a dent in the soft wood as it crumbled upon impact.

“Another round of war?” he suggested “Best of fifty five?”

King nodded. Walking to the pile of wood they were using as a table, he gave one last look over his shoulder at the trap door before sitting. He took the pile of cards and began shuffling; Chung currently held the lead.

***

Hart’s entourage continued to speed swiftly to the cabin at the end of the tunnel. After only thirty five minutes they had finally come to the edge of the thick woods that concealed the tunnels exit. The car pulled to the side of the road crossing over thick fresh tire tread and then to a stop. Hart exited, walking straight into the woods expecting his men to follow. He was not disappointed as they trailed wordlessly behind him. Awaiting his command they fell into position silently scouting the forest surrounding their leader, watching for threats. Hart smiled at their un-wavering loyalty and how they instinctively kept him safe.