Maelstrom

by Susanna Strom

  I nodded. A year ago, the biggest problem facing me was deciding whether to go to Cabo or Cancun for spring break. Now life or death issues assailed us from every side.

  The headlights of approaching vehicles swept over the ranch house, and gravel crunched beneath their tires. The black pickup parked in front of the house again. Through the tinted windows of the silver pickup, I spied the shadowy outline of a man riding in the front next to the driver. Looks like Dwight and Darryl caught up with whoever was driving the mystery car. Poor sap. I wouldn’t want to find myself at the tender mercies of the Wilcox Brigade. The second pickup pulled into the garage. The garage door rattled down, and the two men disappeared from sight.

  Lights switched on inside the house, and a man shouted so loudly that I jumped. The Wilcox Brigade now had two prisoners. I wouldn’t want to trade places with either of them. Things settled down after a while, and Ripper and I resumed our surveillance of the ranch.

  Just before 2 a.m., the two-way radio crackled.

  “Yeah?” Ripper said in a low voice.

  “Hannah and Kenzie and Sahdev, they’re missing.”

  A block of ice lodged in my chest. “What do you mean they’re missing?” I hissed.

  Ripper raised a hand, silencing me.

  “Around eleven, Hector took off after a rabbit. The three of them piled into the jeep to try to chase him down. I waited till midnight, then I went looking for them. I found the jeep abandoned on the side of the road a few miles from here. No sign of Hannah or Kenzie or Sahdev.”

  “Was that Sahdev in the pickup?” I started to rise to my feet. With a warning frown, Ripper pushed me back down. I grabbed his arm. “I didn’t see Kenzie and Hannah in the back seat. Did you?”

  “What did Kyle say?” Panic sharpened Levi’s voice. “Does the Wilcox Brigade have them? I can load up on weapons and be there in less than an hour.”

  “Shut up, both of you,” Ripper demanded, pulling away from my grip. “We’re not going off half cocked. That’s the surest way to get somebody killed. If they’re even there.”

  I clamped my jaw shut, and Levi fell silent.

  “A couple of hours ago, Dwight and Darryl were smoking on the porch,” Ripper continued, filling Levi in on what we witnessed. “They saw a car’s headlights and took off in two pickups. Sounds like they boxed in the jeep and took Sahdev prisoner. When the trucks returned, one of them had a passenger in the front seat.”

  “What about Hannah and Kenzie?” Levi interrupted.

  “You heard what Kyle said,” Ripper assured him. “We didn’t see anybody in the back seat. Doesn’t necessarily mean they weren’t there, but neither of us saw people sitting behind the driver.”

  “What does that mean?” Levi asked, his voice shrill. “Do you think Dwight and Darryl might have killed them? Kept Sahdev alive because he’s a doctor?”

  “Get real,” Ripper scoffed. “If Dwight and Darryl came across two attractive young women, do you think there’s a chance in hell they would kill them?”

  “No way,” I agreed. “If Dwight and Darryl saw Kenzie and Hannah, they’d think they’d struck pay dirt. They’d bring them back to the ranch.”

  “Think about it. In that scenario, we got two members of the brigade bringing back three prisoners,” Ripper said. “Wouldn’t make sense for one man to keep an eye on three people. They’d split them up. One man would bring Sahdev—they’d probably figure that a man posed the greater threat—and the other would bring Mac and Hannah.”

  Ripper’s words made sense, and hope sprung to life in my chest. “The black pickup parked in front of the house, and nobody was in it but the driver,” I pointed out.

  “That’s right,” Ripper agreed.

  “So odds are Dwight and Darryl never laid eyes on Kenzie and Hannah. That means that most likely they got away without being seen.” Relief flooded through my veins.

  “The jeep was backed up into a grove of trees,” Levi said. “The girls could have climbed out the back and run.”

  “Sounds plausible,” Ripper said. “Did you check the back of the jeep to see if the go bags are missing?”

  Levi groaned. “Shit. It didn’t occur to me. Give me twenty minutes. I’ll find out and get back to you.”

  “While we wait for Levi, I’m gonna go check out the house. Listen for their voices. Just to be sure.” Ripper pointed at me. “You stay put.”

  I crouched down behind a bush and watched Ripper circle around toward the back of the house. He crept across the side yard. Blinds covered all of the windows, but dim light from lanterns glowed through cracks. Ripper paused under three windows, looked toward me and shook his head. He retraced his path back to our hiding place.

  “No sign of any of our people,” he whispered.

  “But Sahdev has to be there, right?”

  “Yeah, most likely.”

  “If Kenzie and Hannah were in the back of the truck, if we somehow missed seeing them, then they’re in that house right now. They’re in the hands of those vicious dimwits right now.” The thought filled me with murderous rage.

  “My gut tells me that Mac and Hannah got away.” Ripper blew out a breath. “The doc is smart. He backed the jeep into the trees for a reason. I bet Mac and Hannah grabbed the go bags and took off into the hills. They got food and water, blankets, knives, flashlights. No question we gotta find them, but they’re in no immediate danger.”

  “But what about Sahdev? Is he in immediate danger? What will those racist assholes do to him?” Sahdev was one of the good guys, always helpful, always thinking of others. Crap.

  “Remember, he’s a doctor, and they got a pregnant woman,” Ripper said. “That should buy him time.”

  “Will they even let Sahdev near Libby? What comes first with these people? Bigotry or the need for a doctor?”

  The walkie-talkie sounded. “The bags are missing from the back of the jeep, and I found the keys jammed between the seat cushions.”

  Kenzie and Hannah got away. Thank God.

  “So what do we do?” I swung my eyes toward Ripper. “Go back and hunt for Kenz and Hannah, or keep watch here?”

  Ripper pondered, brow furrowed, staring at the ground. Finally, he lifted his gaze to meet mine. “We wait here. Mac’s smart. Most likely they’ll hunker down and spend the night in a safe place.”

  “I don’t like it,” I interrupted.

  “Me neither. But I trust that Mac can handle the situation.”

  “All right.” I grudgingly accepted his reasoning.

  “And if things go south for Sahdev—if they frogmarch him outta the house—we need to be here,” Ripper continued. “If they don’t...well...this is a big place. Even if they won’t let Sahdev doctor Libby, they could use him to work the ranch. We need to see what happens in the morning, see if both Bear and Sahdev are brought to the barn to work. If that’s the case, we’ll know that we have a window of opportunity every morning when our people are together, with only two men standing guard.”

  “I guess that makes sense.”

  Ripper shrugged. “You got a better plan, I’m all ears.”

  “No. It’s just hard to sit and twiddle my thumbs when people I care about are in trouble.”

  Ripper clapped a hand on my shoulder. “I know, but if we want our people back unharmed, we gotta do this right.”

  Ripper radioed Levi to fill him in on the plan. He didn’t like it any better than I did. Ripper had to order him not to grab a flashlight and hike out into the boonies looking for his girl. Ripper and I had the night vision goggles. The last thing we needed was for Levi to injure himself or get lost while wandering the countryside in the middle of the night.

  “Barricade the door and get some sleep,” Ripper ordered. “You can’t help Hannah if you’re dead on your feet.”

  “Are you going to take your own advice and try to catch a couple of hours of shut-eye?” I asked after he signed off. “You haven’t had much sleep for the past two days. I’m too buzzed to relax. I’ll t
ake watch.”

  While I stood watch, Ripper settled back in that relaxed, half-dozing state that allowed him to recharge his batteries.

  When the sun came up, we heard people talking inside the house and smelled coffee. Dwight and Darryl led a shackled Bear out the door and toward the barn.

  I kept the binoculars trained on my friend. My stomach clenched. Bear looked bad. Bruises covered the side of his face, and he’d lost weight.

  There was no sign of Sahdev. So much for the plan to strike when our friends were separated from most of the brigade. I guess we should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy. We watched for another half hour, but didn’t catch sight of the doctor.

  We marched back to our bolt-hole and found Levi at the pump refilling the water bottles.

  When he saw us, he turned to face Ripper. He stood erect with his feet apart and his shoulders back, as if bracing for a fight. “There’s no way I’m staying behind when you look for Hannah and Kenzie.” He lifted his chin, daring Ripper to contradict him.

  I had to admire the kid’s balls. Not many people got in Ripper’s face like that.

  “No problem,” Ripper said mildly.

  Wait. What? I swung my gaze toward Ripper. “What do you mean?”

  “Want you to stay at the house, in case Mac and Hannah make it back. And we can’t keep taking off, leaving the weapons untended. Levi and I will track down the women.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, then snapped it shut. I recognized the look on Ripper’s face, his don’t mess with me look. I glanced at Levi, whose jaw was set in a stubborn line. Yeah. I got it. Of course, he’d want to search for his missing girlfriend. It made sense, even though it didn’t sit right with me. I’d grown used to thinking of myself as Ripper’s indispensable right-hand man.

  He wasn’t thinking of replacing me with a teenage boy, was he?

  THIRTY

  Ripper

  Levi climbed on behind me, and we rode the Harley to the spot where Sahdev had been forced to abandon the jeep. I parked the bike out of sight behind some trees. We’d decided to leave the jeep where it was. If we moved it, the brigade might suspect that Sahdev had friends in the area. If they hot-wired the jeep and took it to Valhalla, we’d get it back once we took the ranch.

  Two of the four go bags were still stashed in the back of the jeep. Levi and I added our extra water bottles to the packs and slung them over our shoulders. A couple of broken branches and the fragments of a cobweb revealed the spot where Mac and Hannah had pushed through the trees.

  Once past the trees, I paused to methodically scan the area, searching for any anomalies. My eyes searched for footprints, trampled grass, a strand of hair, anything the women might have dropped in their haste or—worse-case scenario—bloodstains.

  “You said your Grandpa Kurt taught you how to hunt. Did he teach you how to track?”

  “No. Grandpa taught me that if you use the correct caliber rifle and place your shot right, the animal will drop where it stands, and there’s no need to chase it down.” He glanced sideways at me. “And I don’t think it occurred to my grandpa that I’d ever need to track down my missing girlfriend. Who was fleeing from Nazis.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t see this coming, either.” This helpless uncertainty that coiled around my guts must be what Mac felt every time I left her behind when I went on a mission. No denying the world was a dangerous place. If something went wrong—if she ran into trouble that she couldn’t handle—she might disappear, and I’d never know what happened to her.

  Not. Gonna. Happen.

  Levi shielded his eyes and examined our surroundings. Golden hills covered with brittle scrub grass rose and fell as far as the eye could see. Ragged bittersweet bushes dotted the hills, along with the occasional juniper tree. The blistering July sun had baked the soil, leaving it hard packed and resistant to footprints.

  I pointed. “The grass looks trampled over there.”

  We crouched down over the short, dry grass. It was impossible to see individual footprints, but the crushed grass indicated the direction Mac and Hannah had run.

  We followed their trail for about two miles before it veered toward a cluster of juniper trees.

  “Looks like they spent the night here,” I said, pointing to the flattened grass where somebody had spread a blanket. A strand of Mac’s light brown hair was caught in the bark of the closest juniper. She must have been sitting up, standing watch while Hannah slept.

  “They didn’t light a fire,” Levi observed.

  “Probably didn’t want to risk giving away their position, in case the Wilcox Brigade was searching for them.”

  “Smart,” Levi said. He bent over, squinting, then plucked something from the ground. “They found Hector, or he found them. This is his fur, right?”

  I examined the brown strands. “Looks like it. Imagine they petted him and some fur went flying.”

  We ate some peanut butter crackers and drank water before continuing our search.

  We lost track of their footprints on a rocky slope and spent the rest of the day trying in vain to pick up their trail. Rolling hills stretched to the horizon in every direction. No sign of roads or any houses. Easy to get turned around and lost wandering through the middle of nowhere. I’d hoped that Mac and Hannah would hunker down and wait to be found, but apparently they had tried to make their own way out.

  I had a compass. Levi and I could retrace our route back to the jeep.

  About an hour before sunset, I caught movement in the corner of my eye. Next to a bittersweet bush, around fifty feet away, an animal lifted its head. I stopped, stared, then took a step toward the animal.

  “Hector?”

  He barked weakly and struggled to his feet, wobbling on unsteady legs.

  Levi and I sprinted toward my dog, who collapsed back onto the ground. Hector lifted his head when I dropped to my knees beside him, his eyes fevered and pained. Blood soaked his left thigh, and he whimpered when I gently parted his fur to examine the shallow trench carved into his flesh.

  “What the fuck?” I whispered.

  “What happened to him?” Levi asked.

  “Grazed by a bullet.”

  “Somebody was shooting at them?”

  “Yeah,” I said, pulling a bottle of water and a collapsible bowl from my pack. “Let’s give you some water, boy.” While Hector lapped at the water, I fixed my eyes on Levi, whose face registered both shock and fear.

  “What do we do now?”

  “Hector’s wound might be infected. It needs to be cleaned and dressed. We got bandages, antiseptic ointment, and antibiotics at the house. If we hurry, we can carry him back to the road in less than an hour. I want you to take the jeep and drive Hector to the house. You and Kyle can tend his wound.”

  “Okay,” Levi nodded. “I can do that. Then I’ll come back and help you look for Hannah and Kenzie.”

  “No.” I fixed him with an I-mean-business look. “We wouldn’t want to separate in the dark, and there’s no point in both of us traipsing over the countryside all night. You catch up on your sleep, but keep the radio next to you.”

  “No way I’m staying at the house while you hunt for Hannah and Kenzie,” Levi sputtered.

  “We’re burning light,” I said. “Not gonna change my mind, so don’t argue with me.”

  Without waiting for an answer, I hoisted Hector into my arms. He whined and shifted in my grip. “Sorry, boy.” I jogged back toward the jeep, trying my best not to jostle my injured dog. Hector’s eighty pounds slowed me down, but I kept a steady pace until the jeep came into view.

  Soon as Levi took off with Hector, I radioed Kyle to tell him what was up. “You didn’t see any sign of Kenzie or Hannah?” he asked.

  “We found the spot where they slept last night—and where they met up with Hector—but lost their trail later in the day,” I said.

  “Hector was with Kenzie and Hannah when he was shot?”

  “Dunno,” I said. Kyle clearly wanted to talk, but the
need to get back to the hunt rode me hard. “Listen, I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

  With the night vision goggles, I was able to cover ground at a brisk clip, scanning for any sign of Mac and Hannah. Every now and again I paused, ears cocked for the sound of feet scuffing over the grass or voices. Nothing. Hoped like hell the women had tucked themselves into a safe spot for the night, that they’d stay put and let me find them. Frustration ate holes in my customary cool composure.

  Where are you, Mac?

  Close to dawn I retraced my steps back to the bike. Decided not to worry about alerting the Wilcox Brigade. If they approached me, I’d put them down as soon as they stepped out of their vehicles. Instead of heading back toward the house, I rode the opposite direction, my eyes moving back and forth over the countryside.

  Dawn was breaking when something flickered in my peripheral vision. I turned my head. In the distance, two beams of light waved back and forth through the air, sketching figure eights in the brightening sky. I braked and cut the engine, then pushed the Road King behind a tall boulder.

  I ran toward the lights, kicking aside rocks and tumbleweed in my haste.

  “Ripper? Is that you?” Mac called, her voice tentative, uncertain.

  “Yeah, it’s me.” I choked out the words.

  Lit up like beacons in the dawn light, two white-clad figures waved at me. Mac ran downhill and hurled herself into my arms. My throat ached and I swallowed hard, clutching her to my chest. I touched her hair, her cheeks, her shoulders and arms. My fingers ran over her body, like my hands couldn’t trust my eyes and had to independently confirm that she was really here.

  Hannah followed a few paces behind and threw herself against me, wrapping one arm around Mac and one around me in a three-way hug.

  Mac drew back. “We have to get out of here before crazy Mimi finds us.” I looked over Mac’s shoulder. Far away, a pair of headlights glowed in the faint, early morning light.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Kenzie