Chapter Fifteen
Dirk sat next to Meg on the brown vinyl sofa in the living room of Luke's rustic one-bedroom cabin. Perched on twenty rural acres on the side of a mountain, looking down on the tiny town of Gold Bar, the place was a fortress, with perimeter alarms, security cameras, and chain-link fencing.
There wasn't much inside: a galley kitchen with an old, freestanding white stove, a propane fridge, and a counter with a sink. There was a bedroom and a tiny bathroom. A living room with a cast-iron stove that was the only heat in the house. A windmill and a propane generator provided electricity, which ran the lights and the well pump.
When Luke was in Seattle, he usually stayed in his Bellevue apartment, but when he wanted a little peace, he could get way off the grid.
Or bring a suspect in for questioning with no worries about being disturbed.
“Be a good time for you to take a walk,” Dirk said to Meg. “This shouldn't take long.”
She didn't argue. “All right.” She wanted her little boy safely returned. As the door opened, a gust of cold wind blew loose strands of bright hair against her cheeks. Meg flicked a glance at Santini that held very little sympathy and made her way out the door.
They pressed Santini for answers. In less than ten minutes, he broke. He was sitting on the floor, hands bound behind him, his back against the wall. The instant Luke pulled out his eight-inch KA-BAR knife and started wiping down the gruesome, serrated blade, Santini started whining.
“I told you I don't know anything.”
Dirk scoffed. “So you said about a hundred times. I guess we'll see. Drop your pants.”
“What?”
“You heard me. We're gonna make sure you don't spawn any more lying little Santinis.”
Santini started shaking.
Luke tested the sharpness of the blade with the end of his finger, drawing a thin line, just enough for blood to well on the tip. “I hear it doesn't hurt all that much. Not if the knife is sharp, and I guarantee this one is.”
Dirk walked closer to where Santini huddled against the wall. “Just a quick little slice and it's over.”
Luke held up the blade, a demonic expression of anticipation on his face. Dirk was beginning to wonder how much of it was faked. “Your pants,” Luke said. “Or we take them down for you.”
A sob broke from Santini's throat. “All right, all rightâI'll tell you! Just stay away from me with that god-awful knife!”
“Start talking,” Dirk said.
“There was a man. He . . . he came to see Pamela.”
“What's his name?”
“I don't know his name.” Santini's black eyes darted toward Luke. “You have to believe meâI don't know his name!”
“Go on,” Dirk urged.
“The . . . the man said if Pam would help him kidnap the little boy she took care of, she would get a share of the ransom money. Her share was a lotâhalf a million dollars. He promised they wouldn't hurt the boy. The man said they'd let the boy go as soon as they got the money. She'd have enough to start a new life somewhere else.”
Dirk grunted. “A new life with you, right?”
“Pamela loves me. She wants us to get married.”
“Somehow you don't look like the marrying kind,” Luke said.
“But it helps if the lady has half a mil in cash in her purse,” Dirk added.
Before Santini could reply, the front door swung open, letting in a fresh gust of wind. Apparently Meg had been standing out on the porch, listening to the conversation.
She stormed toward Santini like a whirlwind, leaned down, and got right in his face. “Where is my son? Where have they taken my boy?”
When Vinnie hesitated, Luke held up the knife, turned it so the wicked blade glinted in the light.
Santini swallowed. “There's . . . a little lake on a piece of private land. There's a small house there with a dock on the water. That's where they've got the boy.”
“How many men?” Dirk asked.
“I don't know. Pam never said exactly. I know there was more than just the one Pam talked to.”
“So two at least and also Pam.”
“That's right.”
“How do you know about this place?”
“Pam called me from the safe house where they first took the boy. She was getting scared of the men. She heard them mention something they called their âbug-out spot.' She wanted me to know where it was in case she didn't show up at the place we were supposed to meet after she got her money.”
“What's the location?” Dirk asked.
“Pam said it was down Highway 203 south of Duvall. It's at the end of a dirt road beside an old house on Big Rock Road.”
The knife made an ominous sound as Luke slid it into the scabbard strapped to his thigh. “We need the address,” he said.
“Will you let me go if I tell you?”
Dirk forced himself not to reach for Santini's throat. “We'll let you go as soon as we get the boy out safely.” They'd let him go all right. Straight into police custody.
Santini made a sound of resignation and spit out the property address.
“Duvall isn't that far away,” Luke said. “Maybe twenty-five miles from here. Big Rock Road isn't much farther.”
Dirk felt a rush of adrenaline. “We're on a roll. Let's hope it continues.” He looked up to see Meg walking toward him, hands planted on her hips, drawing his attention to her perfect curves and reminding him of the amazing sex they'd had the night before. He shook his head. He had a little boy to rescue. Now wasn't the time for a walk down forbidden-memory lane.
Meg went into a stare down. “Don't even think of telling me I can't go with you. I've been in this from the start. I'm going to finish it.”
Dirk knew better than to look at Luke, couldn't tamp down a thread of hope that his friend would help him convince her. One glance and he knew he was screwed.
Luke shrugged. “It's her kid” was all he said.
There was no point in arguing when he couldn't possibly win, and he didn't have time to try. “Fine, you can come, butâ”
“But I'd better do what you tell me,” Meg finished.
Dirk's lips twitched. Damn, she was amazing. “That's right, you'd better.”
Luke left them for a moment, disappeared into the bedroom, then strode back out and handed Meg a .38 revolver. “If things go sideways, you can use this for protection. Keep it with you in the car.”
“She doesn't know how to shoot a frigging gun,” Dirk said.
“She can aim and pull the trigger, can't she?”
“Yes, she can,” Meg said. Reaching out, she carefully took the holstered weapon from Luke's hand.
“Fuck,” Dirk grumbled. While Luke began to check his gear, Dirk unloaded the revolver and showed Meg the basics of how to use it.
“It's like Luke said. You just point it and pull the trigger. It's easier if you cock it first.” Walking around behind her, trying to ignore the sweet ass nestled against his groin, he showed her how to pull back the hammer, how to aim, then firmly squeeze the trigger. “Just remember to keep your eyes open when you fire.”
She held up the revolver, pointed it toward the window, cocked it, and squeezed, a loud click on the empty chamber.
“The trick is to hit your target. If you do, he's in trouble.” He reloaded the five bullets he'd taken out, then returned the gun to Meg. “Just make sure you don't shoot one of us.”
Meg didn't see the humor; she just nodded.
They left Santini tied up and secured to an iron bar, not surprisingly mounted on a wall in Luke's living room, and returned to the Bronco. In minutes they were outside the chain-link fence, weaving their way down the mountain toward the house on the lake off Big Rock Road.
* * *
The half-hour ride to the lake gave Dirk time to go over the plan. He and Luke had both done extractions in the army. They knew how to get it done, how to get in and out, fast and clean. This was different, though.
This was Meg's son, the most important person in her life. Add to that, Charlie was only a baby. He couldn't help them in any way. Dirk could only pray the little boy was alive and unharmed.
As usual, Luke drove faster than he should have, slowing only when he was forced to, and not all that much, until they were south of Duvall and rolling along Big Rock Road.
The vacant, falling-down, single-story blue-gray residence had the address in rusted metal numbers on the badly listing mailbox out front. Next to the dilapidated wooden structure, a muddy, rutted road disappeared into the woods at the back of the property.
Luke turned down the dirt lane but didn't go far, just rounded a slight bend in the road and pulled the Bronco into a copse of trees where it couldn't easily be seen.
Dirk turned and spoke to Meg over the back of the seat. “We need to recon the area,” he explained as Luke turned off the engine and climbed out of the SUV. “You've got a gun. If you have to, don't be afraid to use it.”
Meg touched the holstered .38 lying on the seat beside her. “I won't need it. You'll be back soon with Charlie.”
Wishing he could make her that promise, he reached over and gently cupped her cheek. Then he turned, cracked open his door, and stepped out of the vehicle.
They headed up the muddy road, he and Luke both wearing tactical vests, flash grenades attached, armed with a pair of semiautos, extra clips, and ankle guns. Strapped to his leg, Luke carried his favorite knife, and there was more weaponry in the box in the cargo area of the Bronco.
As they walked up the lane, both of them shoved in their earbuds, gave a quick test, and found them working. Dirk thought of Meg but didn't look back as they rounded a corner and the Bronco disappeared from view.
A quarter mile in, they split up and slipped into the leafy foliage lining both sides of the road. Another quarter mile and Dirk spotted the dark, glassy surface of a small lake surrounded by heavy foliage. Maybe a half mile long, he figured, probably great fishing, secluded, except for what appeared to be a small home at the opposite end.
Up ahead, a run-down wood-frame house with a screened-in front porch sat at the edge of the water, not far from a wooden dock that protruded into the lake. A couple of aluminum fishing boats bobbed alongside the dock. A pair of fishing poles stuck into the air from the boat on the right.
A familiar voice spoke softly through his earbud. “I'm on your left,” Luke said.
Dirk turned and spotted him in the foliage twenty yards away. “I'll take the far side,” Dirk said as he pulled his weapon, which left Luke the near.
“Copy that.” Luke moved silently toward the house, both of them on the lookout for a guard who might be posted somewhere in the area.
Walking silently, gun in hand, taking one measured step after another, Dirk eased toward the open space behind the house, dropped down behind a heavy thicket of evergreen shrubs in the shadow of a low-branched pine to survey the area.
Though the dirt road continued around the lake, a pair of vehicles sat beneath the naked branches of a sycamore tree at the back of the house.
According to Santini, the Chevy he had been driving belonged to Pamela. Dirk made his way toward an older white Buick and rested a hand on the hood. The engine was cold. The Buick had been parked for a while. The hood of the Ford pickup next to it was also cold.
“Two vehicles,” Dirk said into the mic attached to his earbud. “They've been there a while.”
“We need to get a look inside, see if the boy's really here.”
“I see a partly open window in what looks like the living room,” Dirk said.
“Roger. I'll check this side.”
Moving quietly, Dirk eased closer. One of the sash windows was shoved up a couple of inches to let in fresh air and the curtain was cracked just enough that he might be able to see inside. He moved in, flattened himself against the wall next to the window.
“I'm goin' crazy with all this waitin',” a man's voice said. Through the parting in the curtains, Dirk could see a short, stocky guy with a ring of sandy hair around his balding head. “The old man's bound to have the money by now. Why can't we just make the goddamn call?”
“We aren't calling because it isn't time, you moron. We have a plane to catchâunless you want to hitchhike out of the state. And it won't be ready till the designated time.”
The second man was tall, skeleton thin, with a wide nose that looked like it had been broken, and very curly brown hair. “Just take it easy, okay? The deadline's only a few hours away.” The two of them perfectly fit Rose's description of the phony PG&E men.
“I guess you're right,” the stout moron grumbled. “In the meantime, why don't we take care of the girl and the kid?”
The tall, skinny manâhad to be the one Rose had heard called Cliffâblew out a breath. “Sometimes, Mickey, you're just flat stupid. The boss says they won't give us the money without proof of life. That means we have to keep the kid alive till we pick up the dough.”
Dirk felt the words like a kick in the stomach. The kidnappers never planned to give Charlie back to Meg. Too many things could give them away. DNA on the little boy's clothes, fingerprints on his body; there were a million ways to catch criminals these days.
“We'll get rid of them when the time comes,” Cliff said. “The lake is deep enough no one will ever find the bodies.”
Dirk clenched his teeth so hard pain shot into his head. Thank God Meg had called him. He scanned the room but saw no sign of the little boy or Pam. Dropping lower, he eased back toward the rear of the house, found Luke there, waiting behind the row of shrubs.