Deadly Sommer: Nora Sommer Caribbean Suspense - Book One

by Nicholas Harvey

  I kicked as hard as I could and pain shot through my heel and up my leg, but I kept kicking. One clasp began to give way and three kicks later I was holding the metal leg assembly in my hand, separated from the top. The frame was shaped like an ‘H’, attached to the pivot tube on top. The uprights curved, spreading wider at the top tube and where they met the floor. I needed to break the frame apart. Any one piece of the tube would suit my needs.

  Moving across the room, I swung the frame up over my head and brought it crashing down across the back of the chair. A shock wave shuddered through my arms and the frame flew out of my hands, crashing into the wall and landing on the floor.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Skylar screamed.

  “Trying to save your arse,” I barked back as I picked the frame back up.

  “By throwing shit around the room?” she screamed. “You’re supposed to be figuring out the clue!”

  “Fuck the clue, we’ll get to that,” I mumbled as I lifted the frame over my head. “First you have to breathe.”

  I smashed the frame down again, this time making sure I caught the corner of the top tube and the vertical leg right on the top of the chair. The metal snapped and the top tube pulled away from the one leg.

  “Hurry, it’s up to my face!”

  I glanced over and saw the water lapping against Skylar’s chin. Even with her head tilted painfully back, she only had another minute at most. I put the legs to the floor and grabbed the top tube, which stuck up at a weird angle, broken away from one leg and bent at the joint of the other. Putting a foot on the crossbar of the ‘H’, I took the loose end of the top tube and began working it up and down, weakening the second weld. Slowly my wrenches moved the tube farther and farther until it snapped away and I almost fell over.

  I now had a tube. Slightly bent, but it was a tube, and I needed it bent more, without it collapsing. I ran back into the room I’d been held in and grabbed the helmet. Sitting it on the chair, I rested the tube over the top of the helmet and pushed down on either side. The thin-walled steel tube began to bend around the curved top of the helmet. I stopped and offset the tube to one side to bend it farther along its length. If I tried to bend it too much in one place, it was going to crush and split. If it split, Skylar was going to drown.

  Working the metal tube around the curve of the helmet, I had a long tube that turned roughly 90 degrees. Maybe that would be enough. I leaned over the tank and put the tube into the water, guiding one end towards Skylar’s mouth. She looked up at me in confusion.

  “It’s a snorkel so you can breathe,” I pointed out.

  She tried to take it in her mouth, but when she held it in her teeth, the other end dragged below the surface and she spluttered and wriggled around in a panic. I took the tube back out, and she gasped for air. A few more seconds and she would only be able to breathe through her nose. I needed more bend.

  Back at the chair, I laid the metal over the helmet and began urging a degree or two more from each section of the tube. I was terrified it would yield. I could hear spluttering and choking from the tank behind me.

  “Breathe through your nose, not your mouth,” I yelled.

  From the odd snorting sounds that followed, I guessed she was trying her best. I had almost 120 degrees in the bend now and set it over the helmet for a last round of tweaks. Before I could start, Skylar began thrashing inside the tank, and water sloshed all over the place, spilling over the sides. I guessed her nose had been submerged and she’d freaked out. Understandably. I snatched up the helmet and used it as a scoop, slinging water from around her, although I couldn’t get much at a time as her body filled most of the tank.

  With the level temporarily reduced, she was breathing through her mouth and coughed violently from the water she’d swallowed.

  “Okay, let’s try this again,” I said and dunked the tube in the tank so both ends remained out of the water.

  This time she could just hold the tube in her teeth with the other end still above the surface.

  “Perfect. Now gently breathe in long inhales and even longer exhales,” I encouraged. “Be calm. If you don’t breathe out enough, you’ll suck back in the same carbon dioxide.”

  The water was over her mouth once more, but she was breathing through my homemade snorkel. She was still alive. For now.

  35

  Lock Up Your Sailboats

  Fighting through the throngs of media and curious citizens packed behind the barricade at the dock took far longer than Whittaker had hoped. His constables had done their best to keep Batabano Lane clear, but being short handed and overrun by the sheer number of vehicles had left an obstacle course for the detective to manoeuvre. Beth had set her mobile in a holder on the dash so they could all see Massey’s live-stream.

  “A building, in the woods, ten feet from the canal, next to a road, and they paddled there,” Beth said as she watched Nora standing next to the tank, hands on hips, looking at the clues on the wall. “And listen for something.”

  There was no sound, but they’d both seen Nora perform a series of signals before she’d turned a table leg into a life-saving snorkel.

  “Probably metres,” Whittaker corrected. “She’s from Norway. Nora thinks in metric. She has to convert when making radio calls as we work in imperial on the island.”

  Whittaker keyed his digital radio and relayed the information to the tactical units and the helicopter swooping overhead, running a search pattern across the park.

  “That’s one impressive young lady,” Beth said after the detective finished his radio call. “Most people would have panicked and not made it past the first lock. She used every resource in the room, including Skylar. Assessing the situation and switching from solving the puzzle to buying time with the tube took poise under pressure. She’ll get recruitment offers from all kinds of agencies when this is over.”

  Whittaker shook his head, and once again cursed himself for getting the girl into this mess. “First of all, it needs to be over. And without anyone else being hurt. Including Nora,” he replied. “After which, she may be flattered by offers, but my guess is she’ll turn them all down. Although, I admit, Nora is anything but predictable.”

  “Thousands of applicants are turned down every year for those jobs,” Beth added. “They’re sought after, and not easy to get.”

  “Nora doesn’t care about money, or position, or how anything looks to someone else. She’s more likely to disappear and none of us will know where she went,” Whittaker responded, genuinely worried how his protege would react to the attention. “Nora’s good at being invisible when she needs to be.”

  “I hope she doesn’t. For your sake,” Beth said. “You’d lose a great officer.”

  “And probably a sailboat,” Whittaker muttered under his breath.

  “Well, regardless, she did a great job giving us the location, and it proves you were right about that,” Beth said as she watched the helicopter through the windscreen, banking for another pass.

  “We’ll see,” Whittaker replied as he sped through The Shores neighbourhood.

  “She gave you the type of location, not the actual location,” Kowalczyk added from the back of the van through the steel bars and mesh separating them.

  He’d scrambled in through the sliding door as they’d pulled away from the dock and had been useful in calming Donovan Briggs down along the way. Whittaker glanced in the rear-view mirror at the agent in the back. The man’s glass seemed permanently half empty. But he wasn’t wrong. Presumably Nora didn’t know exactly where they were. She only knew the details she’d passed on. The building could be ten metres from any canal in the park. But the detective had chosen his basket, and all eggs were present.

  In a row of empty, cleared house lots ready for future construction, one plot was surrounded by trees and shrubs, screening its interior from view. Whittaker swung the van through a break in the tree line, the tyres slipping on the loose surface. Skidding to a halt, he looked around. The construct
ion storage area was an open space with a small mobile building in one corner and various stacks of timber and other building materials stacked along the edges. Another police van was already there and the officers from Unit Two were searching the fence line adjoining Barkers.

  “Stay with Mr Briggs if you wouldn’t mind, agent,” Whittaker said to Kowalczyk before jumping out of the van, closely followed by Beth on the passenger side.

  “I’m coming along!” Briggs yelled. “It’s my daughter, damn it!”

  Whittaker leaned back into the van. “You’ll remain here Mr Briggs,” he said firmly. “I promise we’re doing all we can to find Skylar.”

  “You’d better find her, damn you,” Briggs seethed. “Maybe I’ll forget about this travesty if you bring my daughter back safe.”

  “And you might consider being more forthcoming with Agent Kowalczyk. He could be your only hope when this is over,” Whittaker added.

  He didn’t wait for either man’s response and closed the van door.

  The thumping of the helicopter’s blades filled the air as it searched from above. Whittaker looked up and wondered why he hadn’t heard from them yet. Surely they would have seen the building by now, they’d made a dozen passes. He ran to the fence line, where the officers were looking for any sign of passage into the woods.

  “The fence is intact, sir, all da way along,” Williams explained. “Don’t see anyway he gone through here.”

  Whittaker nodded and looked around the area. The helicopter was making a turn out of sight to the west, but as low as it was flying, the noise had the men shouting to be heard. He unclipped the digital radio from his belt and shielded the mic as best as he could.

  “Chopper, this is Whittaker. Anything to report?”

  “Negative, sir,” came the short reply.

  Whittaker let out a long groan. Maybe he’d been wrong. He’d focused all their efforts on this area of the park, and Massey could be somewhere else entirely. He’d been sure this had to be an access point, but standing in what appeared to be a dead end was proving him wrong. Too late now, he considered, this was the basket he’d chosen.

  “Okay chopper, I need quiet for a minute,” Whittaker ordered. “Take a sweep out over the ocean, copy?”

  “Roger that, heading to the water. Over.”

  The engine and pounding of air from the blades receded as the helicopter left the area and all became quiet beyond the crackling of the occasional radio call from the other units. The tactical team all had earpieces, so Whittaker turned the volume off on his radio, the only one making noise.

  “Hold up everyone!” he bellowed, and the men stopped their movements. “Listen carefully, tell me if you hear anything unusual.”

  The men looked slightly confused, but most slipped their earpieces out to listen clearly. Birds chirped and insects buzzed. In the distance, cars could be heard on a road, and the sound of the helicopter was steadily fading. A low hum was barely audible. Like a background bass note to the chorus of critters. Whittaker turned to Beth. She was walking away towards the left side of the lot. He walked softly behind her, following.

  Several officers gravitated the same way, but Whittaker held up a hand for them to stop. Their gentle footsteps on the loose gravel and dirt were enough to lose the sound. Beth reached a large stack of plywood sheets wrapped in plastic. The light breeze across the low treetops from the north made the plastic ripple and snap, drowning out the hum they were tracking.

  Beth moved behind the stack, down a four-foot gap between the supplies and the fence defining the side of the storage area. Metal poles driven into the ironshore base supported the chest-high chain link. Whittaker looked at the ground and noted the well-worn path behind the plywood stacks. Beth nodded at the fence, and Whittaker joined her. The rattle of the plastic still overpowered the hum they’d been moving towards. Attached to the chain link wire was a strip of metal which in turn was resting on two hooks screwed into the original metal pole. Beth lifted the strip off the hooks and swung the fence section out of the way, revealing access into the woods.

  Whittaker stood in the newly opened gap and faced a screen of small trees and shrubs, all over head height, running the length of the lot. The makeshift gate in the fence appeared to lead nowhere accessible. He reached out and shook the first branch he grabbed. The whole section before him shook in unison. He delved deeper into the foliage and, with both hands holding branches, he shoved at the brush. A four-foot-wide clump moved away from him as he pushed. He stepped forward and pushed again, shoving the foliage farther into the surrounding woods.

  “Over here,” he called out loudly and heard the shuffle of feet from the lot as the tactical team joined them.

  With one more good shove, the clump of brush moved easily out of the way and revealed a cleared path. Whittaker set the doorway of foliage aside and passed through. Beth paused to examine the cleverly disguised door made of small trees and sections of shrub, wired together. Once into the woods and clear of the plywood stacks, they left the flapping plastic wrap behind, and the hum became louder.

  “Sir,” Williams called out, and Whittaker stopped to look behind.

  “Let me take lead, sir,” the man said and pushed past Beth.

  Whittaker nodded. He was unarmed and unprotected. The officer wore a bulletproof vest and carried an automatic weapon, as well as a sidearm. Williams went ahead, and they pressed on through the woods.

  A trail had been diligently cleared through the thick growth, carefully cut four feet wide and barely six feet high. Whittaker ducked to stay under the overhead cover. Leaving the foliage overhead made a tunnel undetectable from above. No wonder the helicopter hadn’t picked up anything, the detective thought. The hut Massey had constructed was likely covered in the same manner.

  The drone grew much louder and Williams entered a slightly widened section with a wooden crate set into the brush on the left. A generator was encased in the crate with sound deadening foam on the inside. A large exhaust tube, aimed into the woods behind, blew hot air away from the generator, driven by a large cooling fan inside the crate.

  “Want me to shut this down?” the officer asked.

  Whittaker looked at the crate and traced two heavy black electrical cables running from the crate down the trail, which turned hard right ahead of them. The cables would lead them to the hut and the two women, he was sure of it.

  “No, leave it on,” he said. “They’ll be in the dark if we cut the power.”

  Whittaker hadn’t been watching Massey’s feed on his phone since they’d left the van, and could only assume Nora was still working on saving Skylar. Priority one was getting to them. Massey had already fled. Priority two would be finding the kidnapper.

  “Let’s go,” Whittaker urged, and waved two more of the tactical team to the front. “The hostages are ahead.”

  36

  Upside Down

  The sound of the helicopter had been comforting, but when it left, I could think more clearly. I stared at the wall of clues. The answer was the number of days since Massey’s wife died. If we knew the date, I could calculate the days, but Skylar couldn’t remember. Besides, she was currently in no position to talk. The end of my bent tube had slipped under the water a few times and she’d spluttered and panicked, but fortunately regained enough composure to blow the water through the snorkel to breathe again. It seemed to be stable now, so I’d returned to the clues.

  The second picture had me confused. A tree. Family tree? Wood? Forest? I wondered why it showed the roots underground. As soon as I said the word in my head, it fell into place. I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been. The first picture was a square. Square root of 60,516.

  “I’ve got it!” I shouted and gave Skylar the okay sign.

  Her eyes were closed inside the tank, with water now spilling over the sides and washing the wooden floor of the room. No matter, I was making progress. What’s the square root of 60,516? Shit, I had no idea, and it had been years since I’d needed to fig
ure out a square root. In school. Where I did the problem and wondered why they didn’t just teach you to use a calculator. Apparently, this was why.

  I started by breaking it down. 200 x 200 was 40,000, which was too low. 300 x 300 was 90,000. Too high. It was between them, so the first digit had to be 2. The next part was more difficult. I ran into the other room and grabbed the whiteboard and a dry-erase pen. I needed to write stuff down. As I started back, I made the mistake of glancing up at the TV monitor in the wall. There I was on screen. Either Massey had set up some kind of motion detection which switched the cameras, or he was still watching and controlling the feed. Whatever electronics he’d set up in the main room were all gone. Presumably so I couldn’t shut them down or use them as tools. But he must have taken some with him, and stayed within range of whatever wireless network he was using.

  The counter read 5.3 million viewers. That was the population of Norway. The equivalent of a whole country was watching me. 5.3 million people were probably yelling at their TVs, computers and phones, telling me the answer to the simple math problem. That’s because they had calculators. A nervous panic began to rise from deep within me. All those people watching, judging, deciding my worthiness. When did I start caring about what anyone else thinks? I guess every human does on some level.

  “Fy faen,” I shouted out loud. What mattered right now was solving this stupid math problem. And then finding Massey. He wasn’t getting away with this bullshit.

  I brought the board back into the main room and tossed it on the floor, kneeling down next to it. I took the pen and wrote 2.5 x 2.5, then 5 for 2 x 2.5 plus half of 2.5 which is 1.25. The total was 6.25. Shift the decimal point over and 250 x 250 was 62,500. Just over the target number of 60,516. The second digit was 4. The code was 24-something. I looked over at the tank. I could try rolling through each digit for the last number like I did before, but the first lock was easy to reach. Now I’d have to stretch around Skylar to access this lock at the bottom of the tank. I’d be working blind and might even have my head in the water.