Runaway

by Anne Laughlin

  “Today, we’ll use the varied terrain on our land to practice ambush techniques, escape and evasion, firing and reloading under high stress conditions, hand signals, use of spotting scopes, and radio communications. We will end the day with a hostage silhouette shoot off. Those of you with your own weapons, prepare to present them for inspection. Those using our weapons, report to Corporal Gast.”

  The lines broke formation and Maddy and Kristi moved to a van where a young man was handing out Romanian SKS rifles and checking them off on a clipboard. The gun felt as heavy and awkward to Maddy as it had the day before, but she moved to a table and disassembled it with ease. Kristi was still putting things back together as Maddy loaded her clip of blanks and moved away to give others more room to work. She looked out on the large open field around her and saw squads forming up with their sergeants. Tommy wasn’t in their squad today, but she could see him nearby, standing miserably with his SKS cradled in his arms like a baby. He seemed more out of place than Maddy, and Maddy still felt like she’d been dropped into an alien world.

  She’d seen no sign of David that morning when they got up and headed out of the house. Ed and Warren drove them in their truck, with Tommy, Kristi, and Maddy in the back, wrapped in blankets again. Maybe David was sleeping in, finally relaxed after the servicing by Tommy. Maddy found the dynamics around her impossible to fathom. It made her look to Kristi as a beacon of straightforwardness. Kristi’s simplicity was her strength, as far as Maddy was concerned.

  With the squad formed up, Sergeant Cooper took over as their leader and ran them through a one-hour course in moving as a group in silence, using hand signals only. Before she knew it, Maddy became absorbed in the game of it, finally learning and effectively using the signals as well as accurately reading those given by others. Cooper put her in charge of a patrol through the woods running a circle around the training grounds, spreading her team out and sending members forward this way and that. At one point, as she turned to her rear to signal those behind her, she saw Kristi with a big grin on her face, flipping her the finger. Maddy laughed and covered her mouth. She felt she might be having more fun than she ever remembered having.

  Kristi and Maddy sat with other squad members at lunch, everyone breaking open MREs and complaining about them.

  “If an army runs on its food,” Kristi said, “we’re in deep trouble.”

  Maddy ate and chatted and bitched and complained, and she noticed that she was saying just about the same thing as everyone else in the group. This was virtually a first, for in any group she found herself in at home she always felt she was on an entirely different frequency.

  “I wonder where Tommy is,” Maddy asked Kristi. They were leaning against a tree, separated now from the others.

  “I have no idea. But Ed and Warren are over there,” she said, pointing to a group huddling together about fifty yards away.

  Maddy watched the group—Ed, Warren, Sergeant Drecker, and a man she hadn’t seen before.

  “Who’s that guy with them?” Maddy asked.

  “I think the dude’s name is Jacovich. He’s an officer or something. He comes to David’s house sometimes.”

  Maddy saw David strolling up to the group, wearing the same crappy clothes he’d worn when he picked her up in Chicago. He shook hands with the officer and the group fell back into deep conversation.

  “I wonder if Jacovich is going with us to Idaho?”

  Kristi peered over at them and shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think he’s like the top dog around here. He wouldn’t leave being a commander to go to Idaho.”

  “Why not? We’re going to Idaho. Maybe he wants to be in on that life too. David did say that some guys from this regiment, or whatever it is, are going out there with us.”

  Kristi shrugged. “You’re asking the wrong person, Maddy. I’m a grunt, remember? But I do know that when he’s come in on some of our meetings he’s said things like, ‘When you’re out there,’ so I don’t think he’s going.”

  Sergeant Cooper yelled for them, and Maddy’s squad formed up to head back in the woods and learn how to use their scopes and radios. As they trotted by David’s group she saw that their heads were still together and the conversation was heated. She couldn’t imagine what they were talking about, but was surprised to find she wasn’t much interested. Scopes and radios were a lot more interesting.

  *

  Jan pulled onto another of the county roads that had linked her from one camp to the next. The roads were pocked and gutted, ailing from the harsh Michigan winters and the empty county treasuries. Small towns interrupted her drive, often appearing suddenly after a long stretch of thick woods. They were tiny villages, usually with a bar and a convenience store and some auto repair shops. The bigger towns were distinguished by the presence of a Walmart, the Mecca that drew people in like a medieval market day.

  Her next destination was a camp that seemed to hold the most frequent and extensive training weekends of any that Maddy visited on her Web searches. None of the websites sent up red flags as being more radical than the other in its politics. But this one, the Fifth Regiment, Michigan Militia, seemed the most organized, developed, and, by dint of size alone, influential. There were jam-packed training sessions almost every weekend, and many had waiting lists for entry. The regimental commander was listed as Major William Jacovich, USMC, Retired, so their leadership was trained military.

  She’d phoned Peet twice to report on her progress and let her know when she’d be arriving at the third camp, where they were to meet up. All she’d gotten back were text messages from Peet saying “okay,” which was unusually terse for Peet.

  Jan was nearing the Ohio border when she finally reached the camp. Wooden signs nailed to trees guided her from the narrow county road onto a rutted dirt one. It was barely wide enough for her Jeep, and with thick woods on either side, there would be no way to move aside for an oncoming car. It was a bright afternoon, but the path to the camp felt dark and gloomy, shaded by the canopy of towering oaks and broad evergreens. More hand painted wooden signs led her through, announcing the distance left to the camp as if urging her to not lose heart and throw her car in reverse. A large pond appeared on her left and the road curved around it, finally bringing her into a parking lot. It looked like she’d pulled into an RV camp. Spread out beyond the parking lot full of pickup trucks were a dozen or so campers, each pulled into its own little camp site. By the pond was an area with picnic tables and rusty old grills. A wobbly looking dock stretched out onto the pond.

  She got out of her car and stretched, reaching down to touch her toes and rolling back up until her eyes peered straight forward, toward the RVs. Just as she focused, a woman emerged from between two of the campers and Jan nearly lost her breath. It was Catherine. She blinked and looked again, and she was still there, as if she’d dropped from the skies. As Jan stood paralyzed, Catherine continued to move forward from the campers, turning her head in Jan’s direction and breaking into a smile. She waved and started to jog toward her.

  It took about ten seconds for Catherine to reach Jan, plenty of time for a complete roller coaster ride inside Jan’s brain. Elation—Catherine had come all this way to see her. Terror—something had happened to Peet. Lust—Catherine’s breasts were bouncing as she ran. Anger—how could Peet let Catherine blindside her like this? Desire—Catherine looked like no other woman she’d ever known. Relief—Catherine was here, and everything would be okay. Fear—Catherine lied and she was going to break her heart.

  Jan was standing completely still when Catherine reached her.

  “Hello,” Catherine said cheerfully. “Fancy meeting you here and all that.”

  She reached for Jan’s hand, and Jan shoved her hands in her pockets.

  “What the hell is going on?” Jan said. Her heart was crashing against her chest.

  Catherine was dressed in jeans and a black sweater with a gray silk scarf around her neck, and exquisite, dangling silver earrings. She looked lik
e the last person in the world you would see in this scruffy RV park. She was gorgeous, but out of place, both in the park and in Jan’s life.

  “First things first, Jan. Please don’t be angry with Peet. I told her I was coming here in her place, ordered her to cooperate with me really. She’s very worried that you’ll be angry with her.”

  “She should be.”

  Catherine stood in front of Jan, looking up at her. Jan leaned against the Jeep and crossed her arms.

  “I took advantage of my position, obviously, to come here in her place. It’s not Peet’s fault. But that’s not what I want to talk to you about,” Catherine said.

  “I’m not here to talk about anything. I’m here to try to find Maddy Harrington.”

  “Yes, of course. So am I. We can sort this all out later. It’s just that I was a bit terrified that you were upset with me for some reason. You didn’t return my calls.”

  Jan didn’t respond.

  “I called and called, and the more time that went by that you didn’t return my calls, the more I thought I’d imagined the whole thing between us,” Catherine said. “It drove me crazy.”

  “So you ordered my partner to stand down and drove up here to confront me in the middle of an investigation?” Jan said. “That’s unbelievable.” She pushed herself past Catherine and started walking through the parking lot.

  “I’m here now. And we have work to do. You can tell me how mad you are at me when we have dinner later.”

  Jan kept walking.

  “I can help, you know. I am an experienced agent, after all. Perhaps you didn’t know that.”

  Jan was about to say that she knew all about Catherine’s field agent days, but she only knew that from looking her up on the Internet. She wasn’t quite prepared to reveal all that she’d found. She kept walking through the parking lot and out onto the RV campground. She saw a trailhead sign posted nearby: Fifth Regiment Training. As she headed toward it with Catherine in tow, she saw a uniformed man approach the trail opening from the woods, with a clipboard in hand. He stopped short when he saw them.

  “May I help you?” He was a tall and rangy man with a prominent forehead and a cleft in his chin so deep you could drop a quarter into it. Jan thought he seemed a little nervous, and his hand was hovering over the radio he wore on his belt, as if he were about to draw on her if she said the wrong thing.

  “We’re looking to talk with someone from your outfit about this girl,” Jan said, handing over the photo of Maddy. The man took the photo and gazed at it. He wore corporal stripes on his shirt with the name “Watson” sewn to the pocket. He handed back the photo.

  “What about her?” he said.

  “Sounds like you may know her,” Catherine said.

  “No, I don’t know her,” Watson said. “Why are you asking me about her is what I want to know.”

  “We have reason to believe she’s up here taking part in your training camp. We need to talk to her,” Jan said. “Why don’t we just head back there and take a look?”

  Watson looked alarmed. “No, that’s not going to happen. The major would never allow it.”

  Catherine and Jan looked at each other. Jan took the photo the corporal was trying to return to her, as if holding it any longer was going to get him in trouble.

  “Maybe I’m not understanding something,” Jan said. “You’ve got a bunch of folks back there who have paid money to run around in the woods with you guys for the weekend and you won’t let me back there to find one of them because…why? Is there something going on there you don’t want people to see?”

  “If you would stay right here, ladies.”

  Watson stepped away a few yards and turned his back before speaking into his radio. He returned to them with more confidence.

  “Someone will be here shortly to answer your questions.”

  “Thank you, Corporal,” Catherine said. “You’ve been most helpful.”

  Watson took up a post a few yards down the trail as it started to narrow into the woods. Jan considered barging by him and running toward the training camp, but knew he was just the first in a line of defense. She could feel this camp’s difference from the other two she’d visited. There was an air of caution and paranoia, which meant answers wouldn’t come easily from any member of the Fifth. It also meant they’d climbed right into the top spot of likely places Maddy would be found.

  “Do you think our girl is here?” Catherine whispered to her. “It seems a bloody odd spot for a young girl to run away to.”

  Jan paused. She didn’t know if she wanted to start talking about the case with Catherine. She was mad at her. But she was also thrilled. No one had ever done anything like this for her.

  “I’m going to hold my thoughts until we talk to whoever they’re sending out here. I’m not convinced that so-called corporal hasn’t seen Maddy before, though.”

  They stood awkwardly for another ten minutes before a burly man in a sergeant’s uniform came running up from the trail. His face was red and his forehead wrinkled in a frown as he spotted Jan and Catherine. He wore a sidearm on his belt and had an assault rifle slung across his shoulder. He didn’t look like he was playing soldiers. He was a soldier.

  “You ladies have a problem here?” he asked. There would be no preliminaries with this fellow.

  Jan looked at his shirt tag. “Sergeant Drecker? My name is Jan Roberts. I’m investigating the disappearance of someone and we have reason to believe she may be training with you this weekend. We’d like to take a look to see if she’s here.”

  Jan handed the photo over and watched carefully as he peered at it. Drecker was still breathing heavily from his run, but there was no change in his stony face as he handed it back to Jan.

  “I have no idea why you’re looking here, lady, but I’ve never seen that girl.”

  “That girl is a minor, Sergeant. She has parents who are worried sick about her. You can understand that we would feel more comfortable having a look ourselves.”

  Drecker made quite a show of hocking up some spit and sending it flying to the right of where Jan stood. Catherine had an amused look on her face.

  “Not going to happen. This is private property, and unless you have some kind of warrant, I’m not letting you back there. You’re going to have to take my word that your girl isn’t here.”

  “Is it a warrant you want?” asked Jan. “I think I can arrange for that, but of course it will mean that I’m accompanied by the local sheriff. That might be interesting for you. I mean, I’m just looking for a girl. But law enforcement? They might be interested in all kinds of things you guys have back there.”

  Drecker stepped in closer and leaned toward Jan. “Believe me, lady. We are not worried about what the local sheriff might find. If you can get the judge to get you a warrant on a Sunday, by all means come on back and I’ll give you the tour. Until then, I’ll ask you to leave our property.”

  The corporal was standing right behind Drecker, ready to act if necessary. Jan sighed and slipped one of her cards into Drecker’s shirt pocket. “I can see you’re going to force us to do this the hard way. We’ll be back.” Jan and Catherine turned to leave.

  Drecker turned back toward the trail, breaking into a double-time trot. The corporal took up a post at the trailhead.

  Catherine followed Jan to her Jeep.

  “I don’t know what sort of reactions you got at the other camps you visited,” Catherine said, “but it feels to me like they know who she is.”

  “Yep.” Jan unlocked her car and started to climb in.

  “Wait! What are you doing?”

  “I’m getting in my car. Get in if you want.”

  Catherine settled herself in the passenger seat and looked around the inside of the car. It was spotless.

  “Pretty spic-and-span for an investigator’s car,” she said.

  Jan didn’t reply. She picked up her phone and hit the speed dial for Peet. The call went to voice mail. “Peet, it’s me. I’m sitting up here in
Michigan with Catherine in my car. Interested to hear from you how the fuck that happened. Call me.”

  “I thought I just explained to you how this happened,” Catherine said.

  “Excuse me if I don’t take your word for much right now.”

  Catherine looked dismayed. “I know we need to talk. I’m not sure what happened, but between the time I last saw you in the conference room, which was so lovely, and now, something has become very tangled. But we need to decide what to do here about Maddy. What do you think?”

  Jan’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, as if she were maneuvering a Grand Prix course instead of standing still in a parking lot. She took a deep breath.

  “Do you feel like a walk in the woods?” she asked.

  Catherine smiled. “That would be brilliant. Let’s go find our girl.”

  Chapter Seven

  David joined Maddy and Kristi’s squad for the afternoon session on hand-to-hand combat. They were covered with mud after a half hour of practicing break and rolls, their cammies still wet from a disaster in the wetlands ambush session earlier in the day. Maddy lay on the ground and thought if she had to stand up one more time, she’d find a way to take a rifle butt to Sergeant Cooper’s head.

  David lay sprawled next to Maddy, a smile on his face as he looked over at her. “Isn’t this great?”

  “I’d rather be coding,” she said.

  “Come on, Maddy. You can’t live your whole life in your head. This is good for you. We’re going to be a cohesive unit out in Idaho.”

  She looked at him and shook her head. “If you say so. It seems to me we’d be better off learning how to chop wood and plant seeds than learning about choke holds and pressure points. But call me crazy.”