The Rented Mule (42 page)

Cooper knew Mark was close and readied himself. Other than the snake he killed earlier, he’d never aimed his pistol at anything alive. Now he was mentally prepared to place several rounds into the center of Mark’s chest, but hearing him say that he could see was confusing.
How can he see? He’s gotta be at the traps. How can he see? He doesn’t have a flashlight turned on.

Mark quietly laid down his revolver on the cave floor and then reached to touch Cooper’s handprint. The trap tripped with a bone-cracking WHACK! Four fingers of Mark’s right hand were crushed, nearly severing them. He wailed in agony, falling behind a giant rock.

Cooper immediately clicked on his flashlight in a desperate search for his target. He saw Mark’s legs quickly receding behind a rock. Mark was screaming in pain. Cooper moved swiftly to take a shot.

Mark saw the beam of light and panicked. He reached for but couldn’t grab his pistol because his right hand hung limply in the trap. He then struggled to pry open the trap and screamed, “I’m gonna kill you, you son of a bitch!”

Cooper rushed around searching for a place where he could take a shot, but none offered him the proper vantage. Either the rocks were too large to climb or he couldn’t see Mark. Frustrated and worried about exposing himself, he retreated into the labyrinth of the cave to regroup. While Cooper stumbled and climbed, he wondered how Mark could see in the dark, but he couldn’t tell it was an animal trap.
Night vision! No, night vision wouldn’t work down here—zero light to amplify. What the hell’s goin’ on?
Cooper struggled to understand.

Shaking from fear and uncertainty, he forced himself to concentrate on his next move.

In the distance, Grayson could be heard faintly sobbing.

T
he Coosa County Volunteer Fire Department was the first to respond to the emergency call, immediately springing into action. Several pickup trucks with small dash-mounted red lights roared into the yard of the old mansion. Within seconds, the volunteers were dressed in their yellow and gray firefighting protective gear. Ignoring explicit instructions to wait for law enforcement, they ran to Brooke and Kelly and started asking questions.

Minutes later, the first deputy sheriff arrived and took charge. Shortly after that, the county sheriff arrived, quickly surveyed the situation, and carefully noted the condition of the two apparent victims. Kelly, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, was obviously in needed of immediate medical care. He explained that an ambulance was en route. Brooke was hysterical, and her initial attempts at explanation to the sheriff were incoherent. After a few tense moments, the sheriff was able to understand that her son and Cooper were trapped with her insane, drug-addicted ex-husband in a tunnel in the
basement. She quickly showed them the cellar and the former opening to the tunnel.

Both the sheriff and deputy were speechless. After a long moment, the sheriff asked, “This the same guy that’s all over the news? Cooper Dixon?”

“Yes, and he didn’t do anything wrong. Mark Wright did it all. Cooper went in there to save my son! He’s only eight years old. You’ve got to do something!” she pleaded.

“I got a shovel in my truck,” a volunteer fireman offered.

“Get it,” the sheriff ordered, without taking his eyes off the collapsed tunnel. A bit overwhelmed, he slowly turned to Brooke, searching for something he could do to take control of the situation.

He slowly said, “Ma’am, we’ll get ’em out. It would be best if you go outside and wait on the ambulance. Your arm needs medical attention.”

“I’m okay. Please, he’s just a little boy,” she said, running her shaking hands through her hair. “I have no idea if they’re still alive!”

“Ma’am, I promise we’ll dig to China if we have to. Now, please, let us get to work.”

The sheriff turned to his deputy and said, “Get on the radio and see if you can find somebody who’s got those devices that can listen underground—like they use in mine accidents. Somebody around Birmingham has gotta have one since they got coal mines up there.”

“Yes, sir!”

“And,” the sheriff looked around, “find somebody that knows about caves and get ’em here quick.”

“Spelunkers.”

“Right. I want the best one here A-SAP,” the sheriff ordered calmly. “One more thing. Send somebody to get
Jubal. He was born and raised in this old house, he may know something that could help us.”

“Jubal Daniels? I don’t think he can talk.”

“Get him anyway, and have Montgomery PD pick up Don Daniels and get him here as fast as they can. He owns the place.”

The deputy said, “Ten-four, Sheriff,” as he hurried up the steep stairs.

The sheriff turned back to the fresh dirt, picked up a handful, and then let it sift through his hands. He sighed deeply, “Buried alive. Lord, please bless their souls.”

C
ooper was frustrated that he could not get a good angle on Mark to take a killing shot. Each time Cooper clicked on his light, Mark retreated farther behind the rock formation. Climbing high on a ledge, Cooper pushed his back against a wall where he didn’t think he could be seen. He prayed that the police and search-and-rescue crews were working.

After several painful minutes of struggling with the trap, Mark finally pried it open. As blood rushed to the tips of his mangled fingers, a new wave of pain washed over him. He collapsed to the ground, writhing and swearing at Cooper, and then everything went black. When he regained consciousness, he thrashed about in a panic, knocking off his goggles. A long moment later, everything started coming back to him. He found and replaced the goggles and then looked down at his mangled fingers. The sight infuriated him.

Not knowing where Cooper was, Mark yelled loudly, “Dixon, you… and your entire family are dead, but not
before I have several days of fun down here with your hot wife and that sweet young girl of yours. Just wanted you to know.”

Mark struggled to his feet and then glanced down the cave, expecting to see Cooper’s white form.

“Marco!” Mark said through gritted teeth as he pulled out his crack pipe. “It’s no use. I’m gonna find you. You might as well play along.”

Mark fell against a dirt wall and then clumsily tried to take a hit of his drugs with one hand.

Cooper laid flat on the rock and then peered over the edge, hoping to see something. Mark’s voice was bouncing around, so he couldn’t tell if he had moved.

“That big explosion was the tunnel being destroyed. Amazing what a few sticks of dynamite can do. We’re all trapped. There’s no way out. Marco!”

Cooper swallowed hard. Mark just confirmed his greatest fear. Just a week ago his biggest concern was cash flow analysis for a new computer system at the agency, now he was fighting for his life and preparing to kill Mark Wright, if the police didn’t arrive soon.

Mark’s voice was coming from Cooper’s left, deep toward the main cavern. But Cooper thought he heard something to his right, so he momentarily clicked on his flashlight. At the far reaches of the beam, he thought he saw movement—a ghostly image of a person in a long coat.
Shit! What the hell’s that!?

“You don’t have a chance, Cooper. I see where you’ve been. I own the darkness. Marco!”

Cooper could tell that Mark was now moving in the opposite direction, so he jumped down to check his traps. When he slowly approached the narrow passage, he momentarily flashed his light to make certain he didn’t step on one.
He saw that one trap was missing, and one was still set. He slowly released it and then put it into his pack. With another quick flash, he noted a blood trail leading away and then Mark’s pistol. By feel, Cooper quickly opened the cylinder and touched the round ends of six cartridges, confirming it was fully loaded. The gun seemed old in Cooper’s brief glance and by the way it operated, which instantly gave him an idea. He quietly closed the cylinder and then pushed the barrel deep into the soft, damp limestone wall, thoroughly packing the barrel with dense damp dirt. Cooper used his shirt to clean off the outside of the gun. He shielded the flashlight while he quickly replaced it in exactly the same place he found it. He then picked up his gear and by feeling the wall as he inched along, moved in the opposite direction from where he believed Mark had gone.

W
hen the Montgomery police caravan arrived at the old house, there were dozens of emergency vehicles, lights ablaze, lining the paved roads leading to the drive and surrounding the house and barn. No one appeared to notice the drizzling rain. The media circus was close and trying unsuccessfully to get closer.

After brief introductions and thorough updates, it was obvious that the county sheriff had the situation under control, as much as that was possible given the circumstances. Deputies on cell phones were searching for caving expertise from North Alabama professionals. Several men were digging out the collapsed tunnel. The police commander, fully understanding and appreciating the sheriff’s jurisdiction, graciously and generously offered support of the Montgomery PD’s assets.

As soon as Detective Obermeyer turned onto the gravel road leading to the old mansion, Millie Brown became agitated. She said that she was terrified of the old house. All of her life she had heard that the place was evil. She was visibly
shaken when she learned that Cooper was trapped inside. She explained that her great-great-grandfather had been a slave on this plantation and that it once sprawled for several thousand acres. Her relative had been tasked to accompany the youngest son of the landowner during the Civil War. Totally devoted, he stayed at his side while the young man’s unit marched and fought all over the South. When the landowner’s son sustained a serious injury in battle, her family patriarch carried the wounded young man all the way home, across two states. The young man’s father was so appreciative and grateful that he freed Millie’s ancestor and deeded to him a substantial piece of property, which she now owned. One of the plantation owner’s descendants had been trying for years to buy the land from Millie and from her father before she inherited the property.

Obermeyer got out of his car to walk around the old house, inside and out. He was absorbing but unable to make sense of all that he now knew, what he saw and sensed. This was it. This was where Kelly had been held. Two of the last three stops he had made tonight were pivotal in crimes yet to be fully understood.

Millie, seeing Kelly sitting in the ambulance, stepped to the door to comfort her. When Kelly saw her, she burst into tears. Kelly had refused to leave the site without Cooper. The paramedics were about to forcibly take her to the hospital when they realized that the ambulance had a flat tire, so they called for a backup. And since Kelly’s vital signs stabilized when they administered IV fluids, they relaxed a bit.

Brooke was scared and ran from the ambulance to the house, demanding updates on the progress of the excavation. She prayed that Grayson could survive without any physical or emotional scars. She was consumed with remorse every time she looked at Kelly.

Obermeyer was in sensory overload. He absentmindedly tossed an empty Pepto-Bismol bottle onto the front seat of his car as he observed two county deputies attempting to talk to a gaunt old man who was wearing an outdated trench coat and a wide-brimmed felt hat. After an animated exchange, the annoyed deputies threw up their hands in frustration while the old man slowly wandered off into the dark woods, with an overweight black Labrador retriever trailing him. The dog looked vaguely familiar to Obermeyer. Out of habit, he muttered, “Stand by.”

Brooke had given Cooper’s BlackBerry to Obermeyer when he first arrived. He placed it in a jacket pocket and promptly forgot about it until he reached for his to make a note about Brooke’s story and how it and she were connected to Mark Wright. He withdrew Cooper’s BlackBerry and clicked the icon to open e-mails and text messages.

The EMTs put Brooke’s right arm in a sling and sedated her. She was resting in their van. Since neither of their patients was in critical condition, they decided that they would wait for the arrival of additional ambulances. Unless it was absolutely necessary, the EMTs did not want to leave the scene with no source of emergency medical care.

Members of both law enforcement and fire and rescue were alternating between the arduous digging of the collapsed tunnel and carrying the dirt out of the cellar. Once a bucket brigade was established to remove the dirt, they started to make appreciable headway in their rescue efforts. The physical space constraints of the cellar, however, were now the principal limiting factor in how quickly they could either rescue Grayson, Cooper, and Mark or remove their bodies.

An excited deputy reported that underground listening devices were en route and that Don Daniels had been located and would be on-site in a little over an hour.

A
s Cooper slipped deeper into the cavern, he decided that he needed to taunt Mark into aggressively hunting him. He assumed that Mark was injured badly due to the blood trail, but that because he was so high on drugs, it wouldn’t slow him down too much. Cooper found an ambush site.

“Hey, Marco? Didja find my trap?” Cooper yelled, mimicking Mark’s bravado. “Didja like it?”

“I’m gonna kill you!” Mark roared.

“You gotta find me first. Oh yeah, Polo!”

Mark chuckled at Cooper’s boldness and complete lack of understanding or appreciation of who was in control. He calmly cut off the bottom of his shirt and tied it around his mutilated hand. Then he started using his goggles to search down the cave wall for Cooper’s white form and down on the ground for another metal trap. Mark moved silently, relying on his now ragged memory and his thermal goggles to guide him. Cooper was about to be dead, and therefore, was the least of his worries.

Cooper yelled, “I think the score’s me two and you zip. You know, I just may make some boots outta that pet snake of yours that I just killed.”

Mark’s pace quickened with murderous anticipation. After thirty yards he spied a small white spot on the cave floor. He approached cautiously and recognized the outline of his pistol. He smiled. The knowledge that the gun still retained heat from his hand was encouraging. He now knew that he could trust his goggles to locate Cooper’s trail. Picking up the pistol with his left hand, he silently aimed it, thumb-cocked the hammer, and then slowly released it to get a sense for how he could handle it. Although he was using his weak hand, the gun felt good, bolstering his confidence as he continued his hunt.