by Alex Grecian
“Hang on, baby,” she whispered. “I’m coming.”
“I’m circling around,” Iversen said.
The plane dipped and banked in a long curve over the denuded trees, and Skottie lost sight of the truck. Minutes later they were lined up again with US-183 and cruised back over the length of highway.
“It’s gone,” Skottie said. “Where’s the truck?”
“Perhaps it sped up,” Travis said.
They waited for the white roof to come back into view, but there was nothing below them except the long straight stretch of empty pavement.
“He saw us,” Skottie said. “The driver saw us or he heard us up here and he got spooked.”
“Damn,” Iversen said. “Hang on.”
Skottie’s stomach lurched as Dr. Iversen pushed his Cessna into a dive and angled westward. Scattered trees multiplied and clustered until they were above a wooded area that hadn’t yet shed its colorful leaves. It felt like they were skimming the tops of the uppermost branches, and Skottie unconsciously pulled her feet up off the floor of the little plane. Tributary roads split off from the highway and disappeared under the leafy canopy. Mile after mile disappeared behind them, but there was no sign of the truck. Iversen shifted direction again, taking the plane back to the highway and crossing over it. Ten minutes later, Skottie exclaimed and pointed down at a splinter of darkness, a two-lane gravel path built for farm machinery. The truck was speeding along, a blur of white that wove in and out of the cover of the trees.
“That’s got to be it,” Skottie said.
“It is too big for that road,” Travis said.
Iversen picked up the radio and held it close to his lips. “DDC FBO … DDC FBO … N 123 LH, you copy me? N 123 LH, calling Dodge City with a priority request. Over.” He looked at Skottie and said, “It’s worth a shot. They’re officially closed, but they may have someone up—”
There was a squawk of static over the speaker and a woman’s voice. “N 123 LH, this is DDC. State your request. Over.”
“This is N 123 LH. Does the Highway Patrol have a plane in the air right now? Over.”
“Negative, N 123 LH. Over.”
Iversen looked at Skottie. He raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “Well, this is gonna sound a little bit crazy, DDC. I’m just south of Coldwater, about sixty miles south of you. Gonna try landing in a field here. Over.”
“N 123 LH, are you experiencing difficulties? Over.”
“You might say that. What’s your name, DDC?”
“Samantha.”
“Samantha, this is Lyle Iversen. I have a situation here and I need the local authorities to ping my GPS and respond ASAP. We might need some ambulances.”
“Did you say ambulances? Like, more than one?”
“As many as they’ve got, Samantha.”
“Will do. Please stay on the line. And good luck.”
Dr. Iversen put the handset in its cradle and nodded at Skottie. “We’re gonna have a lot of company in a few minutes. Hope we’re right about this.”
He brought the plane down low, almost scraping the treetops.
“Tell me you can actually land this here,” Skottie said.
“Landed worse places than this. Most of the landing strips around here are just grass. Not a problem, long as they keep it mowed short enough.”
Ahead the gravel road widened into four lanes to provide a turnaround, and Iversen aimed for that. He coasted over the top of the truck and put the Cessna down with a jolt that made Skottie feel like her head had popped off. They taxied forward, the air brakes squealing and gravel flying, and stopped six feet short of a strand of sickly looking elms.
Skottie jumped out, leaving Iversen to communicate the successful landing to Samantha in the tower. Her ankle twisted when she hit the gravel, but she barely noticed. She pulled out her Glock and angled sideways toward the ditch at the side of the road nearest her. Travis was just behind her and he ran the other way, covering the opposite side of the narrow throughway.
A minute later, the truck barreled out at them from the dark tunnel of trees. The Cessna completely blocked the way forward, and through the windshield Skottie could see the driver shouting at himself in the cab while he turned the wheel. His neck was as wide as Skottie’s torso, and he had a long white beard. The set of his shoulders made it clear he was stomping as hard as he could on the brake. The truck came to a screeching halt beside her and Skottie leapt up, favoring her injured ankle, and grabbed the door handle on the passenger side. The driver leaned across, but was too late to lock the door. Behind him, Travis swung open the door on his side and pointed his Eclipse at the driver. The man sat back in his seat and put his hands in the air.
2
The driver didn’t resist. He followed Travis’s prompting and stepped down from the truck’s high cab. Travis handcuffed him and forced him against the side of the truck. Skottie checked under his seat and found a sawed-off shotgun. She took the keys from the truck’s ignition and went around, careful of her twisted ankle, and threw the heavy latch.
When she opened the doors, a Hispanic woman launched herself at Skottie, screaming and clawing. Skottie stepped sideways and caught the woman under her armpits, got her hands behind the woman’s head, and immobilized her until she stopped struggling.
“Do you speak English?”
“Little,” the woman said.
“I’m police,” Skottie said. “You’re okay. I’m here to help you.”
“Policía?”
“Not to arrest you. Help. Help you.” She tried to remember her high school Spanish. “Ayud? I mean, yudar, ayudar.”
The woman nodded and Skottie let her go, hobbled backward. The woman turned around and regarded her apprehensively. Skottie ignored her and pulled herself up onto the rear bumper. She peered into the dark trailer, unable to see beyond the first few feet, but she could hear movement back in the dark.
She turned back to the Hispanic woman. “Ask them if there’s a little girl named Maddy in there. Hurry!”
She didn’t wait, but pulled out her phone and used the light on it to lead her in. Young women moved past her toward the exit, shrinking away from her as she went farther in. She could hear the first woman asking about Maddy. Small girls lay against the hard slats at the sides of the trailer, and she checked them to make sure they were breathing, to make sure they weren’t her daughter. She kept going. All the way in, lying with his head propped up against the wall behind the truck’s cab, Skottie found Brandon. His eyes were swollen nearly shut, but there was a glint of light when the phone’s lamp hit them and he murmured something in a damaged voice. Skottie squatted next to him. Even at his worst Brandon had been strong and vital; to see him broken caused a swell of grief and pity in her.
“Brandon? Where’s Maddy?”
“Not here,” he said.
Skottie’s legs failed her and she fell backward. Brandon reached out to her, tried to raise himself up with his other hand and gasped in pain. His head banged against the wall of the truck and he closed his eyes.
“They separated us,” he said. “Give me a second and I’ll—”
“No,” Skottie said. “You can barely even move.”
He shook his head and gasped again. “You have to find her, Skottie.” He felt for her hand and squeezed it once, hard, then his hand fell limp at his side.
“Of course I will.”
She picked herself up and left him there, stumbled back out, following the women and little girls in their exodus from the truck. Travis was there passing out blankets and towels from the plane. Dr. Iversen had his black bag open on the bumper of the truck and was shining a penlight into a girl’s eyes. He reached into his pocket and produced a lollipop, which he handed to the girl. She gave him a tentative smile in return.
“She’s not here, Travis.”
“The church?”
Skottie nodded. She felt dizzy and nauseated with worry, but she tried to force her thoughts back along practical lines. Panic
and fear would do nothing to help Maddy.
“My husband, Brandon, is in there,” she said. “He’s injured. He’s all the way at the back.”
Dr. Iversen picked up his bag.
“Well, let’s get some more light in there so I can see what needs doing,” he said.
3
A dark blue 4x4 pickup with lights flashing came down the narrow road and pulled in behind the trailer truck. A Comanche County deputy stepped out, a rangy man with a Sam Elliott mustache, and gave the Cessna a skeptical look before approaching Skottie. He introduced himself as Tucker, and they exchanged greetings and credentials. A minute later, three Highway Patrol cruisers came zooming in.
The truck had been carrying fifteen women and children, as well as Brandon. They were frightened and dehydrated, but they were all relatively healthy. The troopers passed out bottles of water, and Travis finished giving Emmaline’s blankets away.
Brandon had a concussion. There was a head wound that started bleeding again when Dr. Iversen cleaned away the clotting, and the doctor put twelve stitches in Brandon’s scalp.
“He should be all right,” Iversen said. “But concussions are tricky. He needs to get to a hospital as soon as possible.”
Deputy Tucker walked Brandon carefully back to his truck and waited while Brandon threw up in the dead leaves by the side of the road, then bundled him into the passenger seat and took off for the nearest emergency room, his array coruscating and his siren screaming.
The Highway Patrol had many questions for them, but Skottie was too impatient to answer them. The truck full of women and girls had not made it over the state line into Oklahoma, so the FBI wouldn’t necessarily become involved. But either the Highway Patrol or the Comanche sheriff’s office would call in the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. Meanwhile, whoever was buying girls from the church would soon be looking for their latest shipment. They would begin making inquiries of their friends in Paradise Flats long before the KBI could get rolling. And evidence would begin to disappear. If Maddy was still alive, Purity First might dispose of her as soon as they discovered their truck hadn’t arrived at its destination.
So Travis dealt with the troopers as quickly as he could. He said they knew very little, only that the truck had come from the Purity First Church in Burden County. The sheriff there had called for help, and Skottie had recruited Dr. Iversen and Travis to assist. There would be many more questions later, but Skottie had a badge and the officers on the scene had their hands full.
Skottie sat in the back seat of the Cessna this time. Travis took the copilot’s seat, and Dr. Iversen got the plane in the air.
“How long will it take us to get back?”
“Be a lot faster now,” Dr. Iversen said. “I know where I’m going.”
4
The mist was rolling away and the horizon was multicolored under the far eastern edge of an ugly cloud bank. Travis’s rented Jeep was still where he had left it, on the street outside number 437, the house where Purity First was storing Rachel Bloom’s furniture. Skottie dropped him off and then drove her Explorer around the block to the alley behind the church. Sheriff Goodman was around the corner in the other direction, waiting in his cruiser, and Deputy Griffith was armed with the Winchester and a scope, perched on a cell tower behind the long unbroken stretch of fence. Between Skottie and Goodman, they had scrounged four radios so they could keep in touch.
Much of their plan hinged on the lucky fact that Goodman had never returned his keys to the church. He would use his key to the main gate to sneak in and search the outbuildings while Travis let himself into 437 again and accessed the compound through the back door of the house. At the same time, Skottie would go through the alley and over the fence. She and Travis would approach the church building from different angles, and Quincy would cover them all with the rifle from the cell tower. He was ready to move in with his cruiser and get the others out of there as soon as they found Maddy and Ransom.
None of them was optimistic, but there wasn’t time to come up with anything better and they had no idea who else they could trust.
With Bear at his heels, Travis bounded up the porch steps and used his bump key once again on the front lock. They entered the house, and Travis closed the door behind them. He moved quickly through to the kitchen, set his radio down on the counter, and took a look out the small window above the sink. Rose-hued sodium lights illuminated the entire compound, and there were already people out and about, moving in focused patterns, some of them carrying boxes back and forth between the church building and the sheds, others performing calisthenics on the basketball court, all of them wearing identical brown shirts. There were perhaps twenty of them, their pink skin scrubbed clean, their fair hair neatly parted, their bellies full of pancakes and orange juice.
He heard a click at the front door and felt a momentary gust of cold wind. He reached for his Eclipse, but Bear was already in motion. A few seconds later he heard a clatter and excited shouting from the living room.
“Doc! It’s me, dammit!”
Sheriff Goodman had been chased halfway up the stairs to the second floor and Bear had him cornered. Goodman was holding a pair of bolt cutters, old and solid, its handles wrapped in friction tape, and he looked like he wanted to take a swing. Travis put his gun away and called the dog off. Bear backed off just far enough to let Goodman slide along the wall past him, then followed the sheriff down into the dark room.
“I don’t think he likes me much,” Goodman said.
“What makes you say that?” Travis said.
“He still wants to bite me,” Goodman said.
“If he wanted to bite you, he would have done so.”
Travis reached down and carefully ruffled Bear’s mane, got a sloppy lick in return. Emmaline had bathed Bear and stitched up the wound across his shoulder, and a few hours of sleep seemed to have done the big dog a world of good.
“They changed the locks,” Goodman said. “My key doesn’t work anymore.”
“Of course.” Travis shook his head. “It was too much to hope for.”
Goodman followed Travis to the kitchen window and squinted out at the activity in the yard. “Looks like they’re gearing up for something,” he said. He took a pouch from his jacket pocket and stuffed a wad of tobacco in his mouth. “If you could’ve got that driver to tell us where he was going, we’d have a better idea how much time we got.”
“We did not have the luxury of time,” Travis said.
“I could’ve made him talk pretty quick, if I was there,” Goodman said. “Guy was stealing little girls.”
Travis changed the subject. “Some of this activity may be for my benefit. They are expecting me later today. I surprised Heinrich with my visit to the church yesterday, but your brother invited me to return for the holiday meal.” He glanced out the window at the activity in the yard. “No doubt they are setting a place at the table for me now.”
“But why so early?”
“I think maybe this is their regular routine. Their brand of paranoia requires constant preparation.” Travis glanced at his watch. “A little after seven o’clock now.”
Goodman nodded and went to the back door. “Sun’ll be up soon. Better get moving.”
“Skottie will be anxious,” Travis said.
He picked up his radio and called her.
5
“About time,” she said. “I’m going in now.”
Skottie took her thumb off the button and clipped the radio onto her belt next to her handcuffs, LED flashlight, and Taser. She shut off the Explorer and got out, checked her Glock and holstered it. She had considered wearing her uniform, thinking she might need the extra edge it would give her, the deference to authority it engendered, but had decided against it at the last minute. Instead she had on a comfortable old pair of jeans and a sweatshirt that fit over the top of her Kevlar vest. Her hair was fastened back under an old Cubs cap.
The fence was unbroken, but detoured down one side of the alley
and back up the other, then continued along the rest of the block and around the corner. The alley was just wide enough for a garbage truck to back into, with thin grass strips running down both sides of a concrete driveway. At the other end was a gate built from the same tall cedar planks as the rest of the fence. The church had apparently recognized that the alley was a vulnerable spot and had accessorized with a few yards of barbed wire.
Skottie reached into the car and grabbed the blanket that covered the back seat. She shook out Bear’s heavy black fur and rolled the blanket up, carried it into the alley. On the off chance someone had been careless the last time the trash was taken out, Skottie tried the gate’s handle. It was secure. She went back and rolled one of the sturdy plastic garbage bins to the gate. She tipped it over on its side, then went back and got another bin. She used them as steps, folded the blanket in half and threw it over the wire, grabbed the top of the gate, and pulled herself up far enough to see into the compound.
There were more people moving about the grounds than she would have liked, but all the activity was concentrated away from the gate. She strained and pulled herself up a little farther and looked at the concrete below her. There was nothing there to cushion her landing, but there was nothing in her way, either.
She jumped down and paced along the alley to the street, breathing carefully and swinging her arms, aware that Maddy was depending on her, then she ran at the bins, took two steps up, grabbed the blanket-covered barbed wire, and vaulted over the gate.
She hit the ground hard on her good ankle and rolled, aiming for the shadows at the base of the church building. She stopped under a hedge and listened for alarms, then stretched out and raised herself to a crouching position. The ankle she had twisted jumping off the plane was still sore, and she had scraped some of the skin off the palm of her left hand, but she was otherwise unscathed.
