The Camp (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-two

They were all rehashing the phone call, playing it over and over again, when the amplified ring of a phone split the air.

“Wow, the new intercom system really works.” Rye said, as he made his way to the dispatch room.
 

“Rogue Rescue and Ambulance Service, Rye speaking.”

Claire walked around and stood in front of him with raised eyebrows and a questioning look.

He held up one finger. He seemed to be listing to a long story.

“Yes. Ten minutes.”

By the time he hung up, Paul and Amy were also standing at the entrance to the converted walk-in closet.
 

Rye sensed their presence and turned around. “Sorry.” He walked as he spoke, and they stepped out of his way. “Two boys have fallen into the cement reservoir up on Terrace. Let’s regroup. We’ll call you when we’re clear.”

Claire had run ahead and thrown the climbing gear and diving equipment into the back of the ambulance and climbed behind the wheel. Rye unplugged and slid open the door. Paul and Amy came out the front of the house. Amy ran to the barn. “Get going—I’ll catch the door.” Rye gave her a wave and a smile.

Claire went lights and sirens when they passed the coffee kiosk and were headed into town, knowing that the lanes would merge into one.
 
“Up Granite past the county lot, up Ashland Loop Road?”

Rye was looking at a map. “Don’t think so, it turns to gravel and narrows. Could be a problem. Go Gresham to Morton and we’ll cut up to Terrace from there. It’s all paved residential. The Terrace Street Reservoir holds 2.4 million gallons of chlorinated drinking water.”

She looked over at Rye and they spoke as one. “Contamination.”

He began frantically flipping through a small book. “I’ll get Water on the line for protocol.” It rang six times before transferring him to an emergency number that didn’t answer. “Shit, nobody’s home.”

Claire guided the three-ton ambulance down an incline with a sharp curve and pulled to a stop next to a cyclone fence. The ambulance headlights illuminated a short set of steps and a man with a flashlight standing next to a fence. “I guess they’ll have to drain the pond,” she said. “You took the call, you take the man. I’ll get the bolt cutters.”

They jumped from the cab at the same time. Rye going directly to the man on the steps. “Sir? Did you call about two boys falling in?”

“Yes, yes over there.” He shined his flashlight on one of the hatches. “I seen them go over the fence, seen them clear. By the time I put my shoes on and got a light, well, I was in time to see what looked like one fall and the other jump.”

Claire arrived at the base of the steps with bolt cutters, a floodlight, and headlamp.

“Sir, my partner needs to get through the gate.” The man shined his light in Claire’s eyes. “A woman?”

“Yes, sir.” He gently guided the Good Samaritan down to the street by the elbow. “How long would say the boys have been down there?”

“When I seen the one jump, I ran in the house and made the call, say five minutes to locate your number. Then you show up in ten…”

Rye was already running to the back of the ambulance for the drysuit and the rope.

As he jogged up the steps, he heard the neighbor coming up behind him, yelling. “Fifteen minutes, they been in the water fifteen minutes.” Rye stopped at the top, one foot through the gate. “Sir, I’ll need you to stay right here and make sure no one else comes up.” Then he turned and ran up beside Claire.
 

She handed him the floodlight. “Take a look.”

He moved the light back and forth. “I’ don’t see anything, but I hear water.”

“Exactly. I think they’re filling it.”

He handed her the drysuit.

“Thanks.” She stripped to her underwear, stepped in legs first, then arms, and Rye zipped her up.

“I’ll set up a block and tackle but the cable won’t reach this far, so no floodlights. I’m afraid you’ve got all the light you’re going to have.”

She stepped into the harness and fastened it at the waist. “Any idea about the temp down there?”

He ran the rope through a steel loop on the bumper and set up the block and tackle that would allow him to pull up his wife and one boy at a time. When he came up behind her, she was scanning the bottom and calling out. He checked his watch. “They’ve been down there around half an hour.”

She looked over her shoulder at him. “How cold did you say?”

“This time of year? 45 to 50 degrees. You’ll be dealing with hypothermia.”

He wrapped the rope around his waist and around his forearm, leaving her about five feet. She walked to the edge. Then he counted off, “Three, two, one,” and she was gone.

When he felt her stop swinging he walked to the edge, unwrapped the rope and began to feed.
 

He was a little unnerved that after twenty-five feet of rope had played out, she was still dropping. If the reservoir was dry, there was no chance that either boy survived the fall.

Then the rope went slack.
 

He let out another ten feet then secured it, fell to his belly, and crawled to the opening.

All he could see was a pinpoint of light moving around in circles.

Down in the reservoir, Claire spun around, creating the effect of a lighthouse, holding the floodlight at water level and calling out. But the sound of water drowned out the sound of her voice. She began to search out the source of the pounding water with her light, following the contours of the wall. That’s when she heard it, a mewing, the kind of sound an animal might make if it were trapped. She began to yell, but the sound wasn’t responding to her voice, but to the light.

She shortened the span from left to right. Finally, when the light and the sound collided, she could make out the source of the water.

Protruding from the cement was a twenty-four inch pipe. Hanging from the pipe was a body.
 

In the short time she’d been in the water it had gone up from her waist to her stomach. Attaching the floodlight onto her belt clip, she followed the beam of her headlamp.

As soon as Claire saw the body, she charged with all her strength, thinking that she was clear of the main flow of water. But she was knocked off her feet by the force of the water coming out of the pipe. It was shooting out ten feet at high velocity. Half-swimming half walking she moved out of the stream until she could stand in the water. It was now above her stomach.

Eyes as wide as saucers, the body was being supported on the back of a boy squatting just below him. When she approached, the roar of the water was so intense that she was forced to put her lips to the boy’s ear to be heard.

“What happened to your friend?”

She pointed to her own ear and the boy stretched his neck to get his mouth close enough to be heard. Even without them touching, she could feel how cold he was.

“We were going to drop orange dye into the water, but David lost his balance and fell in. When I called out to him, he didn’t answer. So I jumped in and found him floating face down.”

It wasn’t unusual for an accident victim to ramble on about the particulars leading up to the event. She would generally cut victims off as soon as she had the information she needed. But this was different. The young man had risked his own life for his friend.

“What’s your name?”
 

The young man cupped his hands around his mouth. She couldn’t hear his words, so she read his lips and nodded.

“Tom, help me unhook him from the pipe. I have a rope and harness that will take him out of here.”

She pulled her lips from his ear and pointed at the opening.

Without a word, the young man pulled out a pocketknife and Claire instantly got the idea.
 

Splashing in the now chest-deep water, she worked her way under the unconscious form so she was supporting the boy like his friend had, with her back. When she felt the weight increase, she slid to one side, putting an arm over her shoulder. With Tom on the other side, they sloshed back to the rope.

“Hold him upright. I’m going to hook the harness.” She held up the double loops that would go around the boy’s legs in case Tom hadn’t heard.
 

When he stepped behind his friend and lifted him up by his armpits, Claire did a shallow surface dive and by the light of her headlamp, attached the harness. She surfaced gasping and floundering. The water was just below her chin. Struggling to stay on her feet, she freed up the floodlight, shining it on the ceiling until she found the opening and Rye’s face, then tugged on the rope.

She kept the light on the unconscious boy who slowly began to spin as he ascended to the ceiling. She watched with relief as he was pulled through the opening. Moments later, the rope dropped back down.

With her help, Tom was able to step into the harness and again she kept the light on him all the way to the opening. Now, she was fanning her hands and flutter kicking to stay on the surface.

She saw Rye drop the harness but couldn’t find it at first and had to swim in increasingly larger and larger circles to locate the rope. Near exhaustion, she stepped through the loops and drew the top belt around her waist. She didn’t bother latching the floodlight, just let it hang from the lanyard, and tugged on the rope until she felt Rye take up the slack. With his assistance, she crawled onto the cement top.
 

He grabbed a wool blanket from a stack and she wrapped it around her shoulders and tried to stop shivering.

When she looked over the boy was breathing as Rye and Tom helped him into the ambulance. Pushing to her feet, she followed.

Chapter Twenty-three

Claire rode in the back, bundled up with the two boys. It seemed amazing that neither was suffering from hypothermia. After dropping them off at Ashland Community Hospital where their parents met them, she came around and climbed in the cab, still wrapped in the wool blanket. “Home, James.”

She started a hot bath while Rye took care of the ambulance and started in on the report.

He walked a pad and pencil into the kitchen and sat at the table, making note of the time of the call and key events that would trigger his memory tomorrow when he planned on finishing it. Satisfied, he slid the pad to the middle of the table and got up to get a glass of milk from the fridge, then stopped. Reaching out, he slid a magnet to one side, removed the note, and headed towards the bathroom and Claire.

He barged in without knocking and Claire slid modestly under the suds until only her head was above water.

“Hey, can’t a girl get a little privacy?”

He walked over, lowered the toilet seat, and sat. “Paul and Amy have gone to Agness.”

She rose up to a sitting position and Rye couldn’t help but stare. “At this hour?”

He looked back at the note. “Says he wants to try and locate the barn under cover of darkness.” Then he looked back up.

She reached forward and pulled the plug and turned on the shower.

“I have an idea. Why don’t you stop starring and go throw some things in the Fiat?” He was at the door when she called after him. “You might also call and see if we can snag a room at the lodge.”

The Volkswagen Bus rumbled down Interstate-5 at 60 miles an hour.

Amy sat, knees drawn up, hands stuffed into her jacket pockets.

“Daddy, are you okay?”

He looked over at his daughter and gave her a tight smile. “I never should have brought you along.”

“It’s okay. I looked up human trafficking on the computer. I read how girls are kidnapped and forced into prostitution.”

She knew that her father probably thought she was to young to talk to about prostitution. That maybe if he knew she’d looked it up on the Internet—he’d change his mind.

“Prostitution is only the half of it.” He glanced at his daughter and wondered at the conversation they were about to have. “Girls not much older than you, and some as young as twelve, are made to have sex. They’re sold, sometimes several times. Men—business men—will pay to have a young girl perform...” He choked off details that weren’t necessary for her to know.

Amy sat listening to her father but in her own world. The girls she hung around with mostly didn’t talk about sex. Only how cute a certain boy was. But some did. She’d heard talk about how they’d give oral sex, but how that wasn’t really sex, so they were still virgins.
 

“I know all about sex, daddy.”

Suddenly, he slammed a fist on the steering wheel. “No!” he shouted. Then catching himself, he lowered his voice and calmed his tone. “No, you don’t. There are deviant sex acts that you won’t find on the Internet and if you asked a teacher, you’d be expelled.

“These girls that are kidnapped and trafficked, are forced into doing all sorts of sexual acts. And if they resist, or are for some reason found undesirable, they’re killed—or worse.”

Amy tried to imagine deviant sex. She replayed all the details she’d heard about oral sex and boys masturbating on their girlfriends. But she couldn’t believe that these things were wrong. Didn’t they keep her friends from getting pregnant? What did he say? ‘Killed—or worse.’

“How would they kill the girls?”

Paul looked over at his daughter, dumbfounded. He thought she’d be put off or embarrassed by this kind of talk. He nodded to himself—she was older than her years.

“You sure you want to hear about this?”

When she didn’t answer, he looked over at her. She smiled and shrugged.

“Would they kill them with drugs?”

“You mean a drug overdose? Yes. Many of the girls are runaways and when they’re found dead of an overdose, no one is surprised. Remember what Ed said about how the girls are given date rape pills so they will become compliant? Well, that’s just a step away from an overdose.”

“I know where one of those girls ended up. And it was just like you said.”

“What? How?”

Amy stretched her legs because they were stiff, but yawned because she was nervous.
 

“Ron and I were walking to the Little Country Store and passed an old log cabin. I wanted to look inside and ran through the weeds get to one of the windows. Yeah, well, Ron got all mad and chased after me. He said that a girl’s body had been found inside, said she died of an overdose and that the sheriff told everyone to stay away because it was still a crime scene.”