No Return

by Brett Battles

  Lars remembered one time when they had ridden all the way to the Shopping Basket grocery store next to the indoor pool. There they ran into a couple of other kids they knew from junior high. For some reason, Lars had allowed one of the kids to talk him into shoplifting a candy bar. Since it was the first—and last—time he’d ever done anything like that, it was no wonder he was nervous. That was undoubtedly why the store manager stopped him at the door and made him empty his pockets.

  “What’s your name?” the manager had asked. “I’m going to call your parents.”

  Lars was terrified. More of his father than of the store manager.

  “If you won’t tell me, I’ll just have to call the police.”

  Lars tried to speak, but nothing came out.

  “It’s not his fault.” It was Wes. He was standing a few feet away.

  “Oh, really?” The manager held up the candy bar. “So this just jumped into his pocket?”

  “No, sir,” Wes said. “I put it there when he wasn’t looking.”

  The manager stared at Wes.

  “He didn’t know,” Wes went on. “It’s my fault.”

  The manager turned back to Lars. “Is that true?”

  Lars stole a glance at Wes. His friend gave him a tiny nod.

  “Yes,” Lars whispered, hating himself for it.

  Unbelievably, the manager let Lars go, telling him he was banned from the store for a month. Outside, the other boys, having seen what was going down, were long gone. Lars wanted to leave, too, but he waited by the bike rack for almost forty minutes until his friend joined him.

  “Did he call your parents?” Lars asked as they rode away.

  “Nah,” Wes said. “He just took me back in the office and acted like he was going to. Then he told me I could leave.”

  “He ban you, too?”

  “Six months.”

  “Whoa.”

  Wes shrugged. “What do we need to go in there for anyway?”

  They rode between the baseball fields and Murray Junior High, heading home.

  “Thanks,” Lars finally said.

  “Sure,” Wes replied. And with that they settled the matter, in the way only boys of a certain age could do.

  Why had he ever doubted Wes? Not about the pilot, but years ago, when he’d been angry at Wes for leaving town? Angry at him for not showing up to Mandy’s funeral? Lars knew better. He’d just forgotten.

  An SUV slowed, then turned in to the lot. Lars recognized the women inside as Wes’s crewmates from the shoot in Red Rock Canyon.

  Lars raised his hand and waved as they got out. “We met the other day,” he said. “I’m Wes’s friend.”

  “Yeah, we know,” the tall one replied. What had her name been? Adrianne? Alyssa?

  The shorter one—Dione, he recalled—shut her door and moved around the front of the SUV. “You’re the one in the Navy.”

  “Right,” he said. “Lars.”

  “What do you want?” the tall one asked.

  He looked at the women, confused by their tone. “I’m just waiting for Wes.”

  “He’s not here,” Dione said. “Come on, Alison.”

  Lars stepped in front of them. “I see that. Any idea when he might be back?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Did he and Anna go to dinner or something?”

  The women looked at him as if he’d suddenly gone crazy.

  “What did I say?”

  “Are you the backup?” Alison asked. “In case Wes didn’t show up?”

  “Show up for what?”

  “You know what.”

  “No,” Lars said. “I don’t.”

  “You’re working for Commander Forman, aren’t you?”

  Lars tensed. “Forman?”

  “You should leave,” Dione told him.

  “You need to tell me what’s going on,” he said, now all business.

  Without a word, the women started to walk away. Lars immediately took up pursuit. “What did you mean ‘working for Commander Forman’?”

  “Like you don’t know,” Alison said without turning around.

  Lars reached out and grabbed her arm, stopping her. “No, I don’t.”

  “Let go of me!” she yelled, trying to twist free.

  “For God’s sakes, Forman’s had me locked up since last night. You’ve got to tell me what’s going on.”

  Alison stopped struggling. “Locked up?”

  Lars let go of her arm. “Last night, Wes went with me to get some information that would prove he was right about the pilot of the crash last week. I found what I could and gave it to him. Then some of the commander’s men showed up and took me in. I wasn’t released until less than an hour ago.”

  “That information came from you?”

  “He told you about it?”

  The women shared another look.

  “So you’re not working with Commander Forman?” Alison asked.

  “I’m the one who just turned him in. Base security is looking for him right now. Please tell me what’s going on.”

  Again the women glanced at each other. Finally Dione nodded, and Alison told him about Wes’s plan.

  “Once they’d left La Sonora, I called Dione to come pick me up,” she said.

  Dione frowned in annoyance. “I’ve been told they decided it was best I didn’t know. So the first I heard about anything was from Alison just now on the ride back here.”

  “If we told you, you would have tried to stop us.”

  “Yes. I would have.”

  “Then we did the right thing.”

  “Wes thinks Forman has Anna and this Tony guy?” Lars said. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “But the stuff about the crash is true, isn’t it?” Alison said. “That means he must have them.”

  Lars was impressed, but not necessarily surprised, that Wes had been able to put it all together from the scant information he’d given him the night before. But no matter what, this latest bit didn’t fit.

  “Yes, the crash stuff is true, but kidnapping? No way. Huge risk, no reward. I don’t even think it would have crossed the commander’s mind.”

  A motorcycle pulled in to the parking lot. Lars felt relief that his friend was finally here, but when the rider hopped off the bike and removed his helmet, it wasn’t Wes. It was the other guy, Danny.

  “Shouldn’t you be following Wes?” Alison asked.

  Danny quickly glanced around the parking lot. “They didn’t come back here?”

  “No,” Alison said. “Why would they do that?”

  Danny looked puzzled. “I was following them, and I could see Wes in the backseat talking to that commander guy, but then all of a sudden Dori just took off. I got lost a few minutes later, so I thought they might have come back here.”

  “She lost you on purpose?” Dione asked.

  “Of course not,” Danny said. “I think she was trying to be cautious. I just couldn’t keep up.” He glanced down at the bike. “Only the second time I’ve ever driven one of these.”

  “Who’s Dori?” Lars asked.

  “Danny’s girlfriend,” Alison scoffed.

  “I don’t remember meeting her. Is she part of the crew?”

  “She’s a local,” Dione said. “Danny met her at a bar.”

  Something in the back corner of Lars’s mind began poking at him.

  “Dori who?” he asked.

  Danny took a step back. “What business is it of yours?”

  “Tell him, Danny,” Dione ordered.

  “Fine, okay. It’s Dillman. What’s the big deal?”

  Dori Dillman. Lars had heard the last name before, but it had been years ago. And it was a guy, wasn’t it? Mark or Mike or something like that.

  “Do you know her?” Alison asked.

  He started to shake his head, then …

  He thrust his hand out at Danny. “Give me the bike keys.”

  “What?”

  “Give them to me. Now!”

  Danny jump
ed. “Okay, sure.”

  He’d barely got them out of his pocket when Lars grabbed them and jumped on the bike.

  “What are you doing?” Danny asked.

  Lars kicked the bike back to life, then looked at Alison. “Call the police,” he said. “Tell them …” What? “Tell them I know who has your missing friends, and that I’ll call them as soon as I know where they should go. Tell them they need to be ready to move.”

  Without waiting for a response, Lars raced out of the parking lot and into the night.

  AT 7:25 P.M., AS LARS WAS WALKING OUT OF THE building where he’d been held overnight, Lieutenants Jenks and Wasserman were climbing aboard the helicopter they’d commissioned and were strapping themselves in. Up front the pilot and copilot were going through a final check so that they’d be ready to lift off at 7:30 on the dot.

  Wasserman was carrying the GPS tracker, already pre-tuned to the chip the commander was carrying in his shoe. According to the display, the commander had just arrived at the rendezvous point in town.

  Both lieutenants watched the screen as the dot representing Commander Forman began to move at a much slower rate than it had been.

  “He’s on foot,” Wasserman said.

  Jenks checked his watch: 7:29 p.m. He touched a button and spoke to the pilot. “Let’s go.”

  There was a momentary delay, then the engine began to ramp up. Jenks put a hand on the seat, anticipating the rise, but at the moment the engine reached the liftoff pitch, the rotors suddenly began to cycle down.

  Jenks pushed the mic button again, “Why aren’t we in the air?”

  “You’ll have to ask them,” the pilot said, pointing outside. “We were ordered by the control tower to power down.”

  Three men were walking purposefully toward the helicopter.

  “Who the hell are they?” Wasserman asked.

  “I’ll check,” Jenks said.

  He disconnected his restraint, opened the door, and hopped out.

  “I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” Jenks said, “but we have a mission that’s supposed to have us in the air right this very minute.”

  “Are you Wasserman or Jenks?” one of the men said.

  “I’m Lieutenant Jenks. What’s going on?”

  The two other men moved past Jenks to the open door of the helicopter.

  “Sir, you’ll come with me now,” the first man said to Jenks.

  “The hell I will.”

  “Sir, if you’d rather, I could place you under arrest right here.”

  “Arrest? Who do you think you are …?” He was about to address the man by rank, but realized for the first time the man was not wearing a uniform.

  “NCIS, Lieutenant. Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

  A LARGE MAN DRESSED IN BLACK STEPPED OUT of the darkness and into the headlights. He had to be almost six foot five, and a good two hundred and thirty pounds.

  “Who is that?” Wes asked.

  Dori remained silent as the man walked up to the front passenger door, opened it, and climbed in.

  “Evening, gentlemen,” he said.

  “Who the hell are you?” Wes asked. “Dori, what’s going on?”

  Forman didn’t give a damn who the man was. He grabbed the door handle and started to pull. But the door didn’t budge.

  Wes grabbed at the handle next to him, but his door didn’t open, either.

  Dori threw the car into drive, and the Lincoln pulled back onto the road, its speed increasing rapidly, pushing Wes and the commander back in their seats.

  “Sorry about the child locks,” Dori said. “But can’t have you accidentally falling out while we’re moving, can we? That certainly wouldn’t be safe.”

  Wes started to lean forward, but as he did, the new passenger twisted in his seat, then swung his hand up and rested the barrel of a large pistol next to the headrest.

  “Just relax,” Dori said, glancing into the rearview mirror and catching Wes’s eye. “Won’t be long now.”

  “Won’t be long for what?”

  “What are you trying to pull here, Stewart?” Forman said.

  “I’m not trying to pull anything,” Wes said.

  Up front Dori laughed, then said something to the new passenger in a voice too low for Wes to hear. As soon as she finished, the man motioned at Wes and the commander with his gun. “Why don’t you two give it a rest,” he said. “We can talk more when we get there.”

  “Get where?” Wes asked.

  The man simply grinned but said nothing.

  Wes looked out his window. Though a half-moon was beginning to rise in the east, it was still too low to provide much illumination. Still, he was able to make out the bulky shape of B Mountain off to the left, and knew they must be on the highway to Trona, the same highway that ran by the Pinnacles, where the crash had occurred.

  At first he thought that was where Dori was taking them, though he had no idea why. Unless, that was, she’d turned the tables and was actually working for Forman. But the commander seemed just as out of the loop as Wes felt. Then, just before the highway dipped down into a narrow, rocky canyon that would have taken them toward the Pinnacles, Dori turned onto a dirt road leading southeast into the wilderness.

  Wes had been on this road back in high school, but where he’d been heading then and where they were heading now couldn’t be the same, could they? That didn’t make any sense.

  Hell, none of it made sense, he thought.

  Ahead the road forked. The fork to the right was wider and more traveled, leading to God knew where. The one to the left was in far worse shape and led up into some hills in the east. It was the left fork Wes had gone down last time. And, before she even turned the steering wheel, he knew that was the direction she was going to take this time, too.

  The car bounced as it hit a rut, knocking Wes into the commander.

  “Hang on, gentlemen,” the man with the gun said.

  Wes moved back to his side, then tried to anchor himself with one hand on the door and the other against the roof.

  They were going to have to stop soon. The road only went so far. He just hoped when they got to the end there would be other cars, throwing off whatever plan it was Dori and the man with the gun had in mind.

  When they took the final turn, Wes’s hopes rose as he spotted something parked up where the road terminated. Maybe it was going to be all right. There were others.

  But as the distance closed, his rising hope nosedived. The other vehicle wasn’t a car at all. It was a …

  … horse trailer.

  The Lincoln lit it up as they drew near. It had been backed in so that its doors were on the far side, away from them. And though it showed signs of age, it wasn’t falling apart, and therefore couldn’t have been out here for very long.

  As soon as Dori brought the Lincoln to a stop and turned off the engine, a deathly quiet settled over everything.

  Finally she turned so she could look at Wes and Commander Forman. “My friend here is going to get out. He’ll open the door next to you.” She flashed a glance at Wes. “I’ll wait here while you both climb out. And in case you’re thinking of trying something …” She raised her hand in the air. Like her friend, she was also holding a gun, only hers seemed even larger. “Everyone understand?”

  “You need to let me go right now,” Forman said. “I’m an officer in the U.S. Navy, and you do not want the kind of trouble we will bring down on you.”

  “Have you looked outside, Commander?” Dori asked. “We’re at least twenty miles from the closest building. Where do you think you would go?”

  A superior smirk grew on the commander’s lips. “You don’t think I would have met Mr. Stewart without any backup, do you? I have a tracking chip. Within minutes a naval helicopter full of Marines is going to land. And when they do, if I’m not free, you will not survive.”

  “A helicopter full of Marines.” Dori laughed, deep and loud. “You’re a liar, Commander. If that were true, do
n’t you think your rescue team would be hovering above us right now?” She shook her head. “No. You came alone, thinking you could shut Wes up, because guess what? Turns out Wes was right. You make me sick, Commander. You’re just lucky Wes here sickens me more.”

  “What are you talking about?” Wes asked. “I barely even know you.”

  “Where’s the chip?” Dori’s partner asked the commander. When Forman didn’t answer, the man leaned over the seat and slammed the butt of the gun against the commander’s cheek.

  Forman grunted as he fell back against the seat. “In my shoe.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Dori declared.

  “I think we should check, anyway,” her partner said.

  She shrugged. “Why not? All right, Commander, toss ’em both up here.”

  “I will not!”

  Dori aimed the barrel of her gun at his chest. “Fine with me. We’ll just take them off you after you’re dead.”

  The commander did nothing for a moment, then reached down and removed his shoes. “It doesn’t matter. They already know where I am.”

  “Shut it,” Dori’s partner said as he grabbed the shoes.

  He then climbed out of the car and dropped them on the ground. A few seconds later, there were two loud gunshots.

  “What do you know?” The guy held a shoe in the doorway so Dori could see it. “There was something there.”

  Dori smiled at the commander. “They don’t know where you are now.”

  “That’s not how that works,” the commander said. “They already know our position. And destroying the chip is their signal to land.”

  “If you say so,” Dori said, still smiling.

  Forman looked out at the sky, his eyes searching for something that didn’t appear to be there.

  The door beside Wes opened.

  “Now, both of you, out,” Dori said.

  Wes climbed out first. The commander, feet clad only in socks, followed.

  The half-moon dimly illuminated the desert in a gray-blue light.

  “Stay right there,” Dori’s partner said, his gun trained on them.