The Camp (21 page)

At first she just ran, branches slapping her face and bare legs. Her feet seemed to seek out the softer ground of their own volition.
 

Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw a break in the trees and cut in that direction. But she never stopped running. When she stepped onto the hard pack dirt road, she left bloody footprints. But couldn’t stop pumping her arms, lifting her knees. She had to get away.

Chapter Thirty-three

Walter Link stopped and kneeled, panting from the exertion of the hike. He flexed his arm to get rid of the ache. The trail he’d been following was churned up. He stepped into the ferns and moved silently, stopped again when he recognized Billy’s inert form, then scanned the woods and listened. All he could hear was the beating of his own heart.
 

He cursed under his breath. This would change everything.

Link stuck his head in the shelter. It was a mess. He depressed the tiny button on the throat mic he wore and instinctively pressed the index finger of the opposite hand to his ear.

“I’m at the camp site.”
 

His head gave an involuntary jerk when static filled his ear. He could never get used to it.
 

The voice came through, soft and distant, and he had to strain to understand each word.

“We’re right here with you. What have you got?”

“There’s been a struggle. Billy Jackson is dead with a ballpoint pen penetrating the cheek. But that’s not what killed him.”

“Say again about the pen?”

Link rolled his eyes. “Someone shoved an ink pen into Billy’s mouth through his cheek. But it was three slugs that did the trick.” He looked up the trail. “Billy was chasing someone when another someone shot him in the back. Whoever his intended victim was got away.”
 

He stood up and began to calculate trajectory from where the body lay and stepped toward where he thought the shooter must have stood, looking for shoe prints, anything. Then he saw the glint of something coppery and found the casings. Leaning heavily against a tree, he bent down and picked them up.

He pressed the mic. “Judging from the shell casings, I just found the killer’s location and some .45s.” He braced for a static response. “Sheriff uses .45s in his Glock.”

“What else you got?”

Link pocketed the shells and was already moving up the trail. This time the pain was high up in his chest.

“Find Billy’s intended victim,” the voice crackled. “It was probably one of the girls. Then we’ll get some answers.”

He began to jog, following the trail of broken branches and compressed soil, but he didn’t find a shoeprint. Barefoot. How fast could she go? He was about to increase his pace to catch up, but after another shot of pain in his chest, thought better of it.

Within a matter of minutes, he had left the forest behind and was high stepping through the weeds—they made it easy to follow her. But the trail ended when she stepped onto the hard pack dirt road.
 

He was grateful for a chance to stop. Breathless, he bent at the waist, hands on thighs, supporting his weight. He’d have to scan the hard pack to pick up her trail. He dropped to his knees for a closer look. What he thought was water turned out to be drops of blood and he knew he’d located the trail.

Rye crawled up front and kneeled between the passenger and the driver’s seat. “Wasn’t that the sheriff that passed us back there? He didn’t even slow down.”

Claire looked over at Amy who was now sitting up. “Sure was.”
 

“Stop.” Amy began bouncing in her seat and pointing. “Stop, Stop, Stop.”

Claire snapped her head around and hit the brakes so hard that Rye was thrown forward and had to catch himself before he hit the dashboard.

She slammed the bus into neutral, yanked on the hand brake, and jumped out of the cab, Amy on her heels. Both women called to the figure caught in the headlights, but she didn’t stop.

Suddenly, Rye surged past both women, snatched the young girl into his arms, spun around, and ran into the high weeds. “We got company! The sheriff’s coming back.”

He crushed the mystery girl into the ground with his body, hand over her mouth. He could feel her heart pounding and whispered in her ear. “Be still, we’re going to get you out of here.”

He watched the sheriff’s cruiser stop and the officer get out.
 

“Hello?”

When there was no answer, he pulled a light from his utility belt and circled the bus twice, shining it through the windows. He called out a second time and stood still, listening. Curious why would the driver leave their vehicle with the engine running.

Reaching through the open driver’s side window, he switched off the engine and waited for someone to appear.

Slowly, as if he expected somebody to mysteriously jump out of the bus, he walked backward to the cruiser. He had to return to Hiouchi and report to Jane. But he had no intention of telling her that the girl got away. With a final look around, he got in and drove off, not giving the bus another thought.

Claire and Amy were on their feet the minute the sheriff was around the curve of the road and out of sight. Rye rolled off the young girl, who pushed up into a sitting position.

Amy squatted down and looked her in the eyes. “I remember you. You’re Ellen. How did you get away?”

The girl didn‘t answer, didn’t look around.

Claire took her pulse at the carotid artery and looked up at Rye. “Let’s get her back to the bus.”
 

The rumble of an old Volkswagen engine drove Link back into the weeds where he watched a man and a woman put two girls into the aging bus. One had to be Billy’s intended victim.

He pressed his mic. “I just found the victim.”

He was back out in the road watching the bus drive out of sight.

“She alive?”

“Looks like it. She just caught a ride in an old hippie bus. Oregon plate. JUG 043.”

He jogged up the road, moving back into the weeds, up to the old school house where he’d stashed his motorcycle.

The vintage Kawasaki Vulcan barked to life just as his head filled with static and he had to kill the engine to hear.

“What?”

“Your hippie bus is registered to a private investigator. Paul Casey.”

He balanced the helmet on the gas tank. “Not a chance. I know his profile. Guess again and make it quick. Whoever it is, he’s getting away.”

He secured the chinstrap and made the conection from throat mic to helmet. He had to catch up to the bus before it reached Gold Beach.

“Tall male? Female companion, about a foot shorter?”

“Roger that.”

“Rye and Claire Anderson, PI’s friends.”

 
He rolled off the throttle when he caught sight of the bus.
 

Claire saw the motorcycle in the side mirror. “Trade places with me. I think we’ve got company.”

Rye reached over her shoulder and grabbed the steering wheel. She awkwardly kept one foot on the gas pedal until he slid into the driver’s seat and pushed her foot out of the way. Once in the back, she unlatched the side sliding door.

“False alarm, cycle’s passing,” he said, but then he hit the brake. “Scratch that. Guy’s waving me over.”

“Amy, you and Ellen stay put.”

He slid out of the cab at about the same time the rider removed his helmet, but didn’t move forward of the driver’s door.

Unzipping his leather jacket, Link tucked the helmet under his left hand and reached inside with the other. Rye nodded imperceptibly and Claire jumped him from behind before he could remove his hand. She brought him to the ground with a rear naked choke.

Rye came up and pulled the man’s hand away and reached in, expecting to find a gun. “Oh, shit.” Instead, he found a wallet with a badge inside.

Claire stared at the badge then at the man. “When did the FBI wave restrictions on physical fitness?” Then she reached out and took the wallet. “Walter Link. Either a friend of the sheriff…” Rye cut her off and took back the wallet. “Or not. Any way you look at it, we’re in trouble.” He stood and dropped it on Baker’s unconscious form. “At any rate, when he wakes up, he’ll know we broke his cover.”

Claire had been cradling his head and released her grip gently, setting his head and shoulders on the ground when she heard the static. Rolling his head to one side, she spotted the source. It was a receiver in his ear. She pulled it out and listened, at the same time snapping her fingers to get her husband’s attention.

Claire held the little device up to her ear and motioned Rye in close. “The Andersons operate an Ambulance Service. If they get involved, all our surveillance will amount to nothing. Those girls have to be delivered. Stop the Andersons any way you can. Come back.”

Rye looked at her questioningly.

“Looks like we just took out a good guy with instructions to take us out. They said the girls had to be delivered according to plan.” He looked at his wife as he spoke to make sure she heard the same thing.

She just nodded.

He turned and stormed back to the bus shouting over his shoulder. “Anybody with a plan that involves leaving a trail of abused girls is really sick.”

Claire ran to catch up and climbed in the passenger side, immediately realizing that he had found his soapbox.

“If we hadn’t been jolly on the spot…” He didn’t finish his statement, but shot his wife a stern look.

“Hey, I’m with you.”

“Sorry.” He banged a big fist on the steering wheel. “It’s just that this human trafficking stuff is sick and I don’t know who the good guys are. First we figure the sheriff is on the take, and now this guy. And we don’t even know who the hell he’s working for.”

Chapter Thirty-four

Leslie Toms walked into the communications room located in the penthouse of the Portland Regal Hotel where an agent was repeating a message over and over into a desk microphone.

He swiveled around in his chair when she entered. “We lost him twenty minutes ago. Thought I picked up something on the throat mic—random voices, nothing more.”

She cursed under her breath but loud enough for the other agents to hear. “Shit. Without Link we’re blind.”

Agent Larry Mandel joined his supervisor. “Time to turn up the heat on camp Hiouchi?”

She followed him to a desk. “Procedure?”

“We seal off the camp and enter with two school busses to take the kids out. A four-man team will raid the store, roll into the camp, and take Jane Johnson into custody. No doubt she’s the ringleader. Definitely a justification for the raid.”

Toms walked over to the eight-by-four foot dry erase board and thumped on it with an index finger. “What about these two and their friend Paul Casey?”

Link was supposed to take care of them.”

She spun around. “Try him again.”

“Nothing…Wait.”
 

The agent’s shoulders hunched and a hand went up to the headset he wore. He depressed the button at the bottom of the microphone.

“I’m putting you on speaker. Toms is here.”

Link’s voice was raspy. “I just met Rye and Claire, up close and personal.”

Toms bent down to speak into the microphone. “Did Jane move the girls? Did you find out where they were holding them?” Her face tightened as she waited for an answer.

When the sound of a motorcycle being revved came over the speaker she screamed into the mic. “Link you pot-bellied son of a bitch. I need to know if the girls have been moved and what vehicles are being used.”

She whirled around so fast that Mandel took a step back and held up a hand. “There is another way to find out.”

He was relieved to see the tension drain from her face. “I’m all ears, please continue.”

Mandel walked to the dry erase board. “We could detain the Andersons and find out what they know. But that could get messy.”

Toms moved to the board, picked up a pen, and began fiddling with it. “Go on.”

“If they’re playing vigilantes, they’re either following Jane or are waiting for the team to move the girls and are planning to head them off. The other possibility is that they’re part of the ring and are transporting.”

She shook her head and drew big circles on the board. “Either way, we still don’t know where Casey is or his role in all this. And either way, he’s dangerous.”

“No sign of Casey. I’d bet the Anderson’s got rid of him, why else would they be driving his bus and that means they’re transporting.” Mandel watched Toms for a reaction.
 

Toms stepped back to communications. “Any word from Link”

“Nothing, but I occasionally pick up the sound of his motorcycle.”

Mandel moved around to face his boss. “What do you think?”

“Sealing off Hiouchi would involve maximum manpower, net us a lot of troubled kids, and there’s no assurance that Jane’s still there.”

Mandel threw his hands I the air. “Then what? Sit and wait for Link to call in?”

Toms surprised Mandel with a smile. “You’re half right. We’ll wait for Link to call in, and he will. Meanwhile, we close in on the Media Club where we know that Devon Alto is in the process of purchasing twelve girls.”

Chapter Thirty-five

When they neared the interstate, Rye pulled the bus off to the shoulder. Amy came forward. “Ellen is sleeping. Why are we stopping?”

“Got a flashlight?”
 

She moved back into the bus, opened a drawer, and handed a flood light to Claire, who had followed. “We have to find some tracks. Uncle Rye will take the ramp north, and I’ll check the south. I’d like you to stay with Ellen.”

Amy made a weak protest. “But she’s still sleeping.”

“If she wakes up, I don’t want her to be alone.”

Amy didn’t want to be the protesting teen and gave a little nod. “Oh yeah, good point.”

Fifteen minutes into the search, Claire discovered a partial print no more than an inch long and half an inch wide that she swore belonged to the Fiat. Wanting to include Amy, she went back to the bus. But when she peered in, the teen was asleep.

Rye jogged up by her side. “I hope you found something, ‘cause I didn’t.”