Killer Summer (Walt Fleming)

by Ridley Pearson

  “They busted up more than that,” Kevin said. “They took most of a wing off that little Cessna down there.”

  Hearing that, John seemed all the more mad.

  “They’re guarding the jet, which is smart,” he said. “But I’ll bet good money that they haven’t thought much about the Cessna’s radios. Mind you, they will before long, but so far they haven’t had the luxury of time, something we owe your girlfriend a debt of gratitude for.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” Kevin blurted it out, his patience running thin. “Do you always have to talk so much?”

  The cowboy surprised him with a grin. “I go long stretches out here all by my lonesome, kid.”

  “How ’bout we do something like find Summer.”

  “You gotta learn to strike a balance between your pecker and your brain, boy. Number one: we don’t know they’ve got the girl. Number two: I know this ranch well. Come daylight, I’m going to find her. At the moment, we got one of ’em tied up and two of ’em on the loose. They took two of the rifles, but they’re not loaded. They heard that shotgun go off, you can count on that. They know their boy up here has got problems. I’ve got a loaded thirty-aught with a night scope and you’ve got a twelve-gauge pump with seven shells holding twelve thirty caliber balls each and another seven in your pockets. That’s enough round ball to stop a bear in its tracks. Those boys are outgunned and on unfamiliar ground, and I imagine the silence is killing them. At some point, they’ve got to come to us, they’ve got to find out what happened. That’s just human curiosity. The best weapon we’ve got right now is patience. We put our curiosity on hold. So do exactly as I say, and it’ll all work out. Start improvising and you put me, the girl, and yourself at risk. Got that?”

  “We can’t just sit here.”

  “Not exactly. But nobody’s ever going to find you up here. You’ve got a rock cliff behind you and a rock chimney in front of you and fourteen shells to stop anyone from trying to pay you a visit.”

  “What do you mean by ‘find me’? You going somewhere?”

  “You catch on real quick.”

  “No way!” Kevin said. “I got you out of there. You need me.”

  “Exactly. In case something goes wrong, you’re my backup. I’m going down to the Cessna and make a call out before they figure out that the radios still work.”

  “And I’m supposed to just sit here?”

  He set the volume control on both radios, slipped Kevin’s radio into the neck of his T-shirt, and explained how to keep from announcing themselves to the others. They’d use two different signals: one to talk, the other to announce that Kevin had spotted either of the men headed for the lodge.

  “There’s no way they’re going to find you up here,” John said. “But if they should, you’re going to have to shoot them, and you’re going to find out that it’s just about impossible to pull that trigger. So what I want you to do is aim low, for their feet. The gun will kick when you shoot, and likely you’ll hit them closer to the knees. But you won’t kill them, you understand me? You will not kill them. Don’t think that way . . . Don’t think at all. Just hold the gun tight to your shoulder, aim at their feet, and squeeze.”

  “I’m a wicked shot,” Kevin boasted. “My uncle, he’s like the best there is, and he taught me.”

  “There’s a big difference between a rifle and a shotgun, son.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  John asked Kevin to repeat the instructions for the radio, which he did flawlessly.

  “I could give you a pep talk,” the cowboy said, “but the fact is, we’re looking up the wrong end of the horse here. As long as we don’t do anything stupid, maybe we’ll get through this. You want to do right by this girl, then do as I’ve told you.”

  “I got it,” Kevin said testily.

  John gave him a look in the dim yellow from the slowly dwindling fire. Kevin nodded. John laid his hand on Kevin’s shoulder, then worked his way down the rocks. A moment later, he disappeared.

  73

  John Cumberland had his pride. Three men had taken over the ranch where he was caretaker, wrecked his Cessna, lied to him, smashed his skull, tied him up, threatened the lives of others. His own life had been defined by a failed war, a failed marriage, a brush with the law, then the successful stewardship of the ranch. Now he had failed in that as well.

  A man’s handshake means more than his signature and his word more than that. John had offered these people a helping hand and look how they had answered.

  He would put an end to it. Had the boy and girl not been in the picture, he would have gone on a shooting spree. Instead, he would approach things in a slightly more civil manner.

  He silently worked his way down the wooded slope, his body pumping with adrenaline, breaking a keen sweat despite the chill in the air. He followed a familiar game trail that switched back repeatedly until reaching the airstrip. He moved slowly and carefully among the trees as he approached two hulking shapes—his Cessna and the Learjet.

  There were lights on inside the Lear, the aft door open. He couldn’t see the other side, but light on the ground suggested that the main door was open as well.

  Drawing closer, John saw two shapes in a window. He wondered if one was the girl. If he could account for her and confirm she was safe, he would be free to deal with the others as he saw fit.

  He considered a surprise attack. He could catch them unawares, wound them, and greatly improve his odds. But if they had the girl, his advantage was compromised. Smarter to make the radio call first to get help on the way. Timing the call was important. Given the narrowness of the valley, the Cessna’s radio would likely reach only planes flying directly overhead. Plus, it was late, approaching eleven P.M. No small aircraft would be flying now. His only chance was a commercial flight, and few flew over at this hour.

  He made his way to the Cessna, keeping his eyes on the Lear.

  Always account for the enemy.

  Reaching the Cessna, he quietly popped open the passenger door and leaned across the pilot’s seat. He activated the battery, set the radio to 121.50, an emergency frequency monitored by all commercial aircraft, and put the headphones to one ear.

  While it was possible that the hijackers were monitoring the jet’s radio, John felt making the call was worth the risk. Nonetheless, he stealthily aimed the barrel of his rifle through the Cessna’s partially open door at the jet.

  He pushed the TALK button.

  “Mayday! Mayday!” he said in a husky whisper. “Aircraft down. Hostage situation. Request immediate law enforcement at Mitchum’s Ranch on the Middle Fork of the Snake River. Repeat: Mayday! Mitchum’s Ranch on the Snake.”

  He released the TALK button and listened.

  If anybody was out there, the response would be immediate. The crackling static in his ear suggested he’d not been heard.

  He repeated the call, listened anxiously for a response. Again, nothing.

  He waited several minutes and tried yet again.

  This time, the headphone popped with a male voice breaking through the static.

  “It’s summertime. I know you can hear me, cowboy. Summer . . . time! No more prank calls. Get off this frequency. NOW!”

  Summer. Time.

  Two silhouettes appeared in the jet’s aft door, one unmistakably female. It appeared the girl had a knife held to her throat.

  John sighted the man’s head through the scope and considered the tight shot. The man changed angle, putting the girl between him and the Cessna. John lowered his rifle and put it on the ground.

  74

  Three to four hours to go,” Brandon said to the other two men, slipping his GPS device back in his pocket. He was riding a chestnut filly with a blond mane, a showcase quarter horse with a gait as smooth as a Cadillac’s. All three riders wore headlamps, a bluish glare illuminating the narrow trail ahead.

  “How long can the horses keep up this pace?” Walt said. He was not a regular in the saddle.

  “Long
er than you can,” Brandon said. “They can trot for hours, they’re fine. But it won’t be too much longer now before we have to walk them, anyway. Terrain’s not getting any better.”

  “We’ll ride them ’til they drop,” Jerry asserted.

  “No, we’ll walk them,” Walt corrected. “And we’ll hike the last half mile without them so they don’t give us away. They’re our way in. They may be Kevin’s only way out.”

  Jerry was turning in his saddle to object but nodded instead. “Yeah, okay.”

  The sudden agreement silenced all three.

  Brandon consulted the GPS.

  “Looks to me like the trail runs out pretty soon,” he said.

  “First light,” Jerry announced.

  They’d agreed that their best odds of reaching Mitchum’s Creek Ranch unseen was to cross the Middle Fork before sunrise, before four A.M. Daylight diminished any element of surprise considerably.

  Walt thought unlikely they’d meet this worthy goal. They had to hobble the horses, inflate the raft, and make the crossing—all very time-consuming.

  “This guy Sumner,” Brandon said, “he made Mastermind, right?”

  “He produces movies,” Walt said.

  Something sparked at the back of his tired brain. A voice was shouting at him. But whose was it?

  “You think if we get his daughter out safe and sound he’ll make it into a movie?”

  “Put a sock in it,” Jerry said.

  Walt tried to focus on the voice in his head. It wasn’t Fiona’s voice, it wasn’t his own. It definitely was a man’s voice . . . Something about movies . . .

  “What about Mastermind?” Walt said, trying to stimulate whatever had prompted the mental itch.

  “It was so-so,” Brandon said. “Fairly predictable.”

  “It was a heist movie,” Walt said.

  Flickers of an earlier conversation . . . The voice belonged to Arthur Remy.

  “Absolutely. Horse racing, hitting up the track on the day of the biggest race of the year. The bad guy stole the movie, the Mastermind guy. He was the best thing about it.”

  “But he had his fifteen minutes. You’re aware of that, right?”

  Walt had it. He reined his horse to an abrupt stop. Brandon reined his horse but Jerry’s kept trotting.

  The satellite phone rang as he was reaching for it. His mind was elsewhere as he answered.

  “Dad!” Walt called out to Jerry, who still rode on.

  “Stay with him!” Walt said to Brandon. “Stop him if you can. We ride together.”

  Brandon passed Walt the lead rope to the pack horse as Walt spoke into the phone. The bluish hue of Brandon’s headlamp disappeared into the curtain of tree trunks.

  “It’s me,” Steven Garman answered back, his voice just audible above the growl of an engine “I’m at nine thousand feet, directly over the river.”

  Walt had heard a small plane not twenty minutes earlier. He’d switched on his phone and had caught a signal briefly. The phone had buzzed repeatedly with incoming messages. The connection was lost before he could check them.

  “I’ve got the repeater on board and up and running,” Garman said. “Damn, if the thing didn’t light up about five minutes ago.”

  “I had reception about twenty minutes ago. Didn’t last long.”

  “I’m talking five minutes ago. I’m well north of you. Didn’t last for me either.”

  “Kevin?”

  “Could be one phone . . . could be ten. I had the hit only a few seconds. I came around and headed upriver, throttling back to limit engine noise. I’m now a mile west of my earlier route. I’d like to get closer and try again.”

  “Only one pass,” Walt said, “as quietly as you can, directly over the ranch. See if the repeater gets a hit. If it lights up, then circle and try to hold the connection. I’m going to start calling Kevin’s cell from the sat phone and hope I get through.”

  “Copy that,” Garman said. “Turning for the ranch now.”

  Walt was about to punch in Kevin’s number when he realized that it would take Garman a few minutes to get in position. That gave Walt time to make another call first.

  He punched in the numbers and hit SND.

  75

  Come down from there, boy,” a man’s deep voice called out.

  Kevin shuddered, cold and scared and unsure what to do. The cowboy had told him to shoot if he were discovered in his rooftop hiding place, and yet by all appearances, the cowboy had led them to him.

  As if reading his thoughts, the cowboy spoke.

  “Forget what I said, son. They’ve got Summer. I surrendered my weapon. We need you to come down.”

  Kevin’s back to the stone chimney, he replayed the message, focusing on weapon and need you. Was there a subtext to the cowboy’s message? Was Kevin supposed to come down shooting? Was he supposed to hide the shotgun for later? He was shaking so badly he couldn’t keep his hands still.

  “We’re not going to hurt you . . . or anyone.” He recognized the voice as the copilot’s. “We’re only interested in the plane.”

  The plane?

  “We know you’ve got a shotgun. I’ve got Summer in front of me. Lower the shotgun down to me, and then we’ll get you off of there.

  “This is no time for heroics, Kevin,” the voice continued. “No one’s getting hurt unless you start something. You hear me?”

  If the copilot had Summer, that left the two others with the cowboy. They likely had his rifle and pistol.

  Can I get a shot off, maybe two? Maybe even drop one of them? With Summer as their only bargaining chip, would they dare hurt her?

  “Do as he says, boy,” said the cowboy with resignation in his voice. “They don’t mean no harm to us.”

  He and Summer had gone through too much to surrender now.

  “Kevin, they mean it,” Summer called out.

  He felt for the extra shotgun shells, slipping one in each sock. Doing it made him feel like this wasn’t surrendering.

  “Okay!” he called back.

  The copilot came around the side of the building, his left arm slung over Summer’s shoulder and tightly across her chest. In his right hand was the cowboy’s handgun.

  “The shotgun first,” he said.

  Kevin wasn’t about to provide them with another weapon. He swung the gun against the chimney like a baseball bat, busting it at the hinge. That left the three men with the over-under shotgun loaded with bird shot, and the cowboy’s rifle and handgun.

  “That was unnecessary,” the copilot hollered, his voice brimming with anger.

  Kevin climbed down. The small guy took Kevin by the arm, roughed him up as he took away the flashlight and knife.

  “Easy,” the copilot chastised.

  “I owe this kid,” Matt said.

  As Kevin was led away along with the others, he glanced surreptitiously up at the chimney. No one had thought to check up there.

  If they had, they would have found his cell phone, tucked onto a high chimney rock, its red NO SIGNAL flashing.

  High above, a shining star flickered, then disappeared in the black velvet backdrop of space. A moving object had blotted it out. Farther along, another star flickered, disappeared, then reappeared.

  Unseen by any human eye, the phone’s LED began blinking green, just as it had done ever so briefly only minutes before.

  76

  The impenetrable coal-black sky bled to the color of a fresh bruise as it surrendered to the first photons from a faraway morning sun. It held a luminescence not unlike the ocean depths where the last vestiges of sunlight mingle and fade. Soon the ashes of the Milky Way would shrink to a mere brushstroke, leaving only named constellations and the planets battling for recognition.

  At four-thirty A.M., Fiona should have been in bed, savoring a final few hours of sleep. Instead, she, along with Teddy Sumner, had hung around the Sheriff’s Office, awaiting word of Walt’s rescue attempt, her stomach in a knot. When asked if she would fill in for the vid
eographer, she agreed solely because of the subject matter: Teddy Sumner. Walt had requested an interview with the man.

  The interview room, directly across from Walt’s office and one of three down a long hallway, had a metal table bolted to the floor and metal chairs. Two fluorescent tubes lit the room too brightly. Fiona and her tripod-mounted camera kept to the far corner, a close-up of Sumner’s tortured face on the screen.

  Deputy Gloria Stratum read from a card, declaring the date, time of day, location, and who was in the room. It was noted that Sumner was submitting to the interview voluntarily.

  Sumner was nodding. Fiona saw an acceptance on his face that she didn’t understand.

  “You understand this interview is at the request of the sheriff,” Stratum began, reasserting what had just been said.

  “Yes. I’m aware that timing is critical. You people have no idea what this is like for me.”

  Fiona watched the close-up of his face as his pain intensified. She braced herself, realizing this was no simple Q&A.

  Stratum shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

  “You understand: I know what’s going on,” Sumner said.

  “The sheriff . . . I realize this is a bit unorthodox . . . but the sheriff asked that I say just one word to you. He wanted me to add that the best chance he has to rescue your daughter requires full disclosure . . .”

  Sumner pursed his lips until bloodless white and nodded solemnly.

  “Mastermind,” Stratum said.

  She then waited for some kind of response.

  “That was it,” she finally said. “The one word he wanted me to say. Mastermind.”

  Sumner was flash-frozen by what he heard. Then his lips twisted and a wave of relief seemed to melt his agonized expression.

  “I . . .” he started, then trailed off. “The point is . . . No one knows what it’s like . . .”

  His eyes flashed at the camera angrily. He was addressing it, not Stratum.

  “Trying to hold this together without her mother, trying to reinvent the wheel and get something going . . . In this economy, no less. Are you kidding me?”