Blind Rage

by Michael W. Sherer

  “Like it?” Tess said.

  “Yeah. What is it?”

  “Family vacation home. We’re all—we were—all avid snowboarders. Mom and Dad built this place because it’s about halfway between Stevens Pass and Mission Ridge ski areas, and a really pretty spot in both winter and summer.”

  She opened the center console and fished around with her hand, finally coming up with a key ring holding several keys.

  “Come on,” she said. “I’ll show you around.”

  “Can we eat first?” I said. “I’m starved, too.”

  “Sure. Bring the food along. We’ll eat, then take the tour.”

  She gave me the keys, told me which one unlocked the front door, and warned me that I’d have to disarm an alarm system inside. We got in without setting off any sirens. Tess reached out and found my arm, and we guided each other to the kitchen. I put the bag of groceries on the counter, fished out cartons of milk and juice, and put them in the nearly empty refrigerator with only a few lonely jars of condiments to keep them company. I put the sandwiches on the counter in front of two stools and left the rest of the supplies in the bag.

  The windows darkened rapidly. A clock on the stove said we’d been on the road a little more than four hours, and the sun had already dipped below the mountains. I turned on some overhead lights and joined Tess at the counter. She’d already started in on her sandwich, chewing hungrily, but she had a thoughtful look on her face. She put her sandwich down.

  “They came after me at school,” she said. “They won’t stop, will they?”

  “No. Not as long as you have something they want.”

  She gave a small nod of confirmation and went back to her sandwich. When she finished, she patted the counter until her fingers found a paper towel I’d put there. She wiped her mouth.

  “Are you ready for the tour?” she said.

  “Sure.” I stood and put her hand on my arm.

  Behind the kitchen Tess showed me a laundry room and a small mudroom with a door to the garage. A staircase between the foyer and the kitchen led up to a bridge that overlooked both the foyer and great room and linked two bedrooms. She brought me back downstairs to the kitchen again. The kitchen opened up to a dining room, which in turn opened up on the left to a two-story great room with a vaulted ceiling. A wall of glass looked out toward the mountains, the twin-peaked crag now just a dark silhouette against a dusky smudge in the sky where the sun had dropped out of sight. Glass French doors opened to a patio outside, its far edge hidden in darkness. A large fieldstone fireplace dominated one wall. Behind that lay a master bedroom suite, and coming around in full circle led to a study next to the foyer. All of it was done in natural woods and stone, giving the large house a rustic, homey feel.

  I noticed the quiet as we walked around the dark house, the lack of mechanical sounds, and a chill in the air suggested the furnace was either off or set at a very low temperature. A thin layer of dust covered the floors and furniture. I’d turned lights on and off again in each room as we toured, so the only illumination now came from the kitchen. Its reflection off the wood floor in the short hall and the stone tile in the foyer revealed our footprints.

  “When’s the last time you were here?” I said.

  “More than a year ago. Winter break, I think. No one’s been here since the accident.”

  “It just sits here?”

  “Alice has someone check on it once a week. People come in to clean every few months.”

  “Travis doesn’t mind? I mean, paying for heat and electricity when no one uses it?”

  “Well, it’s not like we can’t afford it. He’s never even been here. Probably hasn’t figured out what to do with it now that my parents are gone.”

  “Maybe he’s never gotten up the courage to ask you what you want to do with it.”

  She looked surprised at the suggestion.

  “They’ll figure it out eventually, you know,” I said. “When we don’t come back they’ll think about where you’d go. They’ll find us if we stay here.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  A dim, bluish glow emanating from the study drew me through the doorway. It seemed odd when everything else in the house was turned off. The dim light revealed a comfortable room with bookcase on one wall, a sitting area for reading, and a desk topped with a computer monitor and lamp. The glow came from a digital photo frame sitting on a shelf. I moved closer and watched as one picture dissolved and another took its place. A little girl in a yellow swimsuit hugged an inflated life ring next to the turquoise water of a swimming pool. The shot faded, replaced by a slightly older version of the same girl bundled up in winter clothes against a sea of white snow, face half hidden by goggles and a helmet.

  “Is this you?” I said.

  “Is what me?”

  “Sorry. These pictures. There’s a photo frame here with a slide show. Mostly photos of what looks like you. You know, cute little girl? Yellow swimsuit with a sunfish on the front?”

  “Hey, give me a break. You were little once, too.”

  “Just teasing.”

  But through the doorway, in the glow of the photo frame, I could see that Tess looked like she’d seen a ghost. Her hand went to her mouth and she gnawed a knuckle.

  “Oh, my god,” she whispered. “It’s me, my life history. Of course.”

  She reached out, her hands finding the doorframe, and felt her way into the room and along one wall toward the desk.

  “Oliver—the memory card in the frame,” she said as she touched the desk chair and sat down. “Bring it over here and help me boot up the computer.”

  My train of thought finally caught up with hers.

  Dig deep inside yourself . . .

  I turned on the desk lamp and the computer, then examined the photo frame and pulled out the memory card. Kneeling next to Tess, I inserted the card into a port on the computer. The monitor brightened almost immediately with a new window asking if we wanted to open the photos on the card. I leaned over Tess and navigated to the site Mark had steered us to for decoding software, downloaded it, and ran the program to look for an embedded file on the memory card.

  “Find anything?” Tess asked.

  “Give it a minute. I just started running the program.” I paused to watch the screen. “Wait, here it is. Another file like the last ones.”

  Tess chewed a fingernail and quickly put her hand in her lap.

  “Are we doing the right thing?” she said.

  I hesitated. Part of me wanted the nightmare to end, but I couldn’t say if the person on the other end of Tess’s e-mail correspondence was good or evil.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s your decision, Tess. All I can say is this person pretending to be your father isn’t the one who’s killing people. We’ve come this far . . . ”

  She thought about that. “Do it.”

  I signed into her new e-mail account. She had one e-mail waiting. All it contained was a link. Just like the other times, when I clicked on it, a prompt asked what file I wanted to upload. I selected the new file we’d created from the embedded code and hit “Send.”

  CHAPTER 46

  The miles zipped by, nervous energy building inside Travis with each one, the feeling familiar and gratifying after a long year out of the field. He wasn’t cut out to be an office drone, even though many aspects of running a company as large and strategic as the one James had built appealed to him. After all the months of physical inactivity, Travis was itching for a mission. This had all the earmarks of a potentially dangerous one, and the tightening in his chest and gut actually had a calming effect—it focused his mind on the tasks at hand.

  He twisted in his seat. “Red, pull up everything you can on Leavenworth. I want maps, topographical info, satellite photos, whatever you can find so we know what the terrain looks like. Send whatever you find to Marcus in the other vehicle.”

  Travis briefly scanned the dark countryside out the window as he thought through their approach
. He’d been stymied for nearly half an hour when the GPS signal from the BMW showed it leaving the interstate and backtracking up into the mountains. But he’d eventually realized where Tess was headed. Now that they were close, he wanted them all to be as prepared as possible for whatever lay in store.

  He pulled out his cell phone and called Alice back at home.

  “They’re going to the Leavenworth house,” he told her when she picked up. “Can she get in?”

  “Of course. Sally kept keys in her car, and Tess knows the alarm code.”

  “I need the floor plans of the house. I’ve never been there. We’re going in blind.”

  “I’ll see if James kept a digital copy on his office computer. You expect trouble, I take it.”

  Travis heard concern in her voice. He knew she cared as much about Tess as he did.

  “I’m not sure what to expect, but I want to be prepared. If they tried to take her from school, I’d say odds are pretty good they’ve got a lock on her location, just like we do. I could kick myself for not making sure the BMW was checked for bugs when it came back from the garage.”

  “It was my responsibility,” Alice said. “I know the people who own the shop, and they’re above reproach. But anyone could have broken in and put a homing device on the car. I should have anticipated it.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You have enough on your plate trying to run the place, especially with a security team in the guesthouse. Gotta run. Send the plans asap.”

  “Will do.”

  “Oh, and Alice? Be careful. You and Yoshi keep your eyes open. They may try an end run while we’re occupied out here and break in to search for what they’re after.”

  Travis ended the call and dialed Derek’s cell next.

  Derek answered on the first ring. “Where are you?”

  “Other side of the mountains. Look I need you to keep close tabs on Tess’s e-mail and—”

  “They’re online now,” Derek said. “I was just about to call you. Wait. Yup, there it goes! They just uploaded a file. I’m gonna try to catch it before this guy pulls the site down. Gotta go.”

  The line went dead, but Travis was already disconnecting and reaching for his satellite phone.

  General Turnbull answered on the third ring. “Yes?”

  “It appears things are coming to a head, sir. I may need some help running interference with local law enforcement.”

  “Where?”

  “I’d rather not say. I just need to know if I can count on your support.”

  The general was silent for so long Travis wondered if the call had been disconnected.

  “I warned you that once you left the army you were on your own,” he said finally.

  Not for the first time in the past few days, Travis wondered whose side Jack was on. It wasn’t the answer that he wanted to hear, but Travis wasn’t fazed. For most of his several tours in Afghanistan he’d operated independently, knowing that he’d be disavowed if he were caught. This was different. Now he was on US soil. But the people he was up against weren’t playing by the rules, so he was damned if he’d let himself be bound by the law. Not when it came to something like this. Not when it came to Tess’s life.

  “I understand, sir. We’ll do our best to stay under the radar, but just so you know, things could get ugly.”

  “Duly noted.” Jack paused, and when he spoke again, his tone softened. “I can’t assert jurisdiction if the locals get involved, Travis. You know that. But if they’re not in the picture and you need help with cleanup, I can send in a team like last time. In fact, I’d prefer it. I want to know who these bastards are.”

  “We’re in silent mode. It might work.”

  “Good luck, son.”

  Travis disconnected and thumbed the throat mic on his tactical communications unit. Leaning forward, he glanced in the side mirror at the headlights following them.

  “Marcus!” he barked. “You there?”

  “Roger. Just got the maps Red sent.”

  “Good. Get ready. We’re less then fifteen minutes out, and we’re going in hot! Everybody hear that?” Travis looked around at the dimly lit faces in his vehicle. “I repeat. We’re going in hot. Check your weapons and munitions, and be prepared for anything.”

  CHAPTER 47

  I wasn’t sure what I expected to happen after we’d uploaded the fourth and last piece of the program that someone had so desperately sought they’d enlisted the help of a blind girl and her somewhat clueless new employee. But I didn’t expect nothing. No fanfare, no confetti, no congratulatory slap on the back—no nothing.

  The disappointment, the letdown was just settling in when something did happen. The computer shut down and the lamp went out, throwing the room into pitch darkness. Momentarily confused, I stood and went to the doorway. The entire house was dark.

  “Power’s out,” I said softly.

  As I peered into the great room, my eyes adjusted to the darkness. Somewhere out beyond the glass, a faint green glow caught my attention. As I focused on it, I saw a flash of red, too, a ruby thread that sliced through the air as it moved toward me.

  “They found us!” I shouted.

  I ducked back into the study just as glass shattered in the great room, accompanied by the same muffled chatter of weapons fire I’d heard when Helen had been killed. Instinctively, I reached out in the darkness, my fingers finding fabric. I grabbed it and pulled Tess to the floor. The sudden silence was louder than the gunshots. Tess hadn’t made a sound, and sudden fear gripped me with the thought that she might have been hit.

  “Are you okay?” I whispered.

  “Fine,” she murmured.

  I let out the breath I’d been holding and tried to slow my racing heart.

  “I can’t see a thing,” I said. “I don’t know how I’m going to get you out of here.”

  Tess scrabbled up onto all fours. “Can you see the door?”

  A glittering red thread shot through the blackness, outlining the opening’s black rectangle.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Point me there.”

  I turned her in the right direction.

  “Follow me,” she said. “I can get us out.”

  “We haven’t got much time,” I hissed. “By now they know we’re unarmed. They’ll storm the house any minute.”

  Without answering, she crawled through the doorway and turned right, making her way across the cold, hard stone floor of the foyer.

  “Stay down,” she breathed over her shoulder. “You coming?”

  “Right behind you,” I muttered.

  I saw more flashes of red, and across the great room a green glow seemed to grow brighter as it bobbed up and down. Tess reached the other side of the entryway. I nearly bumped into her as she stopped and reached out with one hand to feel the wall. There was barely enough light to see the outline of a door. Tess’s fingers found the edge and traced it up until they found a handle. She pulled herself up, opened it, and slipped inside.

  “Come on!” she hissed.

  I scrambled over to the black opening in the dark wall and dove through. Soft fabric hit me in the face, and I bumped into another wall. The door clicked closed behind me. When I tried to stand I kept bumping into Tess or walls and realized that we’d ended up in a coat closet under the stairs. Now the darkness was so complete that I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.

  “We’re in a freaking closet!” I grumbled. “You don’t think they’ll find us here?”

  “Shut up!” she whispered.

  Her back was turned to me, and I heard her hands brushing the walls, searching for something. Seconds later came the simultaneous sounds of shattering glass from the great room and a resounding crash close by as the front door was smashed in. I heard men shouting and boots stomping the hard floors as they spread out to search the house. Suddenly, Tess was gone.

  Her whispered voice came from a few feet away. “Oliver, come on!”

  I pushed past some coats and put my han
ds out to feel for Tess. In the pitch-black confines, my hands discovered that a wall had suddenly become an opening. The sounds of shouting and running feet still reverberated through the house around us. Tess reached out and felt me, grabbed my arm, and pulled.

  “Watch your step,” she said softly. “There are stairs here going down.”

  My groping hand found a banister, and I quickly stepped through and down a step. Tess stopped me with a touch, and I heard the click of the door panel moving back in place behind me. Tess took my hand, and we hurried down the stairs.

  CHAPTER 48

  The SUV’s tires chattered over the ruts in the dirt road, trees close in on either side rushed past at breakneck speed. Fred was pushing the vehicle to its limits. When vehicles parked on the grassy shoulder loomed suddenly in the headlights around the next corner, Travis instinctively braced one hand against the door pillar as Fred stood on the brakes. The SUV slewed and fishtailed in the dirt and loose gravel. At the last second, Fred gave the four-wheel drive a shot of acceleration and wrestled the SUV around what had been impending disaster. He quickly brought the SUV to a halt. Fortunately, Kenny had seen Fred’s brake lights, giving him more time to slow, and he pulled up right behind.

  Fred craned his neck and peered at the vehicles parked half on the shoulder. “Fishermen?”

  “This time of night?” Travis said. “Someone got here first. The kids are in trouble.”

  “Then let’s go.” Fred gave the accelerator some gas.

  “Wait, wait!” Barney said, halfway out the back door.

  Fred stomped on the brake, jerking the vehicle to a stop. Travis turned and watched Barney slither over to the closest empty vehicle. He crouched next to the front tire. A figure jumped out of the SUV behind them and ran to the vehicle parked in the rear. Now illuminated by the headlights, Travis saw that Luis had joined Barney at work on the parked SUVs.

  In the backseat, behind Travis, Red peered at a map on the laptop screen. “There’s a turnout around the next bend,” he said quietly. “We can pull the vehicles into the trees under cover.”