The Letter Keeper

by Charles Martin

  This made sense. If I was transporting women I’d kidnapped and I didn’t want to raise suspicion, I wouldn’t load them into something that looked like I was driving them across the border to dump them in Mexico. The tour bus was bronze with black trim. Shiny silver wheels. Immaculate.

  Smart. Very smart.

  I knew Summer would try to communicate. I just didn’t know how. She couldn’t know I was this close, but she had to hope I was, so I had a feeling she’d be looking over her shoulder.

  I also had to assume the driver knew what I looked like. He’d be crazy not to. So I couldn’t just start walking around showing my face. Especially with Gunner in tow. That meant I had to wait. I thought about casually walking by and snapping a picture of the VIN on the windshield. Bones could search databanks to determine if it was linked to a satellite, which would allow us to punch a few keys and unlock it remotely. But while it was no doubt linked to some satellite, the lock on the door indicated it had been manually locked by the driver. Obviously a safety precaution installed for this very purpose—to keep people in who would otherwise want out.

  I parked, and the signal on my phone showed Summer’s phone was ninety-seven feet in front of me. The bus’s windows were mirrored, and while I couldn’t see in, my thermal imager could detect body heat, which would tell me if anyone was in the bus.

  One person materialized on the image in the back of the bus. A smaller frame. Horizontal. Head propped up. Feet crossed. She wasn’t moving, which meant she was either asleep or had been prevented from moving. Chances were good this was Ellie, but in reality it could be anybody and I needed to remind my mind of this. Then, just as I was looking away, I saw two feet move from behind the steering wheel. Given that the bus was parked, I’d simply not thought to look there. But there he was. Staring right at me. Or I thought he was. The binoculars showed him asleep, which eliminated a casual walk-by. Too much risk of being spotted. His being left in the bus meant the other two were inside the truck stop.

  I studied the diner through binoculars and found several groups sitting at tables, but Summer, Angel, and Casey were nowhere to be found. In the event I did spot one of them, I needed some way to get their attention without their captors knowing. And I had to do it in a way that only made sense to them.

  I couldn’t sit still any longer. I had to make an attempt. I also knew I couldn’t walk in there looking like me. The temperature outside hovered close to twenty. Well below freezing. Which meant heavy coats and head coverings would be normal. I put on a beanie and my sunglasses, wrapped a scarf around my neck, and shrugged into a puffy down jacket. Glancing in the mirror, I doubted anyone could make me out. Including Summer.

  I walked across the parking lot and into a side door. Making myself look busy at the antifreeze section, I studied my surroundings. Still no sign of them. I reminded myself, given that the girls had more than one captor, they probably would have split up when they walked in. Acting like they’d never met. So even if I spotted the girls walking with someone I didn’t know, that did not mean there wasn’t someone of whom I was unaware standing overwatch. Probably behind me.

  Other than the bathroom and the diner, what could be taking so long? Then the sign for the showers caught my eye. Obviously I couldn’t go waltzing into the showers. Not only would that get me arrested but it would alert the bad guys to my presence, and I couldn’t risk that with one of the girls lying in the back of the bus.

  After a minute, I noticed a man standing at the drink machines taking a little too long to make up his mind for a soda. But from where he stood, he could watch everyone coming from or going into the female showers. He was fit, adequately muscled but not a gorilla, and dressed nicely. Not a gangster. He did not have the look of a man transporting women. They seldom do. But he fit the mold. As did the bulge in his jacket when he leaned over.

  If he was that focused on the showers, that could mean they were all crowded in there and guarded by the third person. Obviously, a woman. Probably the one I’d heard on the phone. I listened for voices I recognized but heard none. Just outside the showers stood a group sink. A designated place for men and women to wash their hands outside the bathroom. I moved down the aisle of motor oil and windshield wiper fluid in an effort to conceal myself from the man at the soda machine but make me visible to whomever would exit the showers. If they looked my way. Which was a big if.

  Thirty seconds later, Angel walked out of the shower. Wet hair. Correction. Wet, bleached hair. She did not look happy. She was also wearing new clothes that didn’t look like she had picked them out. Casey followed wearing a hat I did not recognize, and her hair, too, had been bleached. Casey walked to the shelves, waiting on someone still in the shower. A display of screwdrivers hung behind her. She reached behind her with her left hand, plucked one of the screwdrivers, and quickly slid it up her sleeve. Finally, Summer walked out. The left side of her face was swollen, her lip was busted, and one eye was turning black. She was limping and her hair, too, was bleached. Unlike Angel and Casey, Summer didn’t look afraid. She was angry. Summer was followed by a tall, Amazon-like woman who herded the girls with head motions. When Summer stopped at the sink to wash her hands, the Amazon motioned her silently toward the bus.

  Summer took her time, slowly washing her hands, and I saw my window. Summer was standing with her back to me, but I could see her face in the mirror. I needed to get her attention without getting everyone else’s. Tricky.

  I busied myself with cans of carburetor cleaner, making an attempt to read labels through reading glasses I’d stolen off the display next to me. When I clanked two cans together, the man at the soda machine immediately looked at me. So did the woman. Angel, Casey, and Summer did not.

  Maybe that was too obvious.

  Risking bringing too much attention to myself, I moved on to a display of more than a hundred coffee mugs printed with some of the most common first names. I began fumbling with the mugs. Doing so brought a glance from Casey, but she immediately looked the other way. Summer stood lathering while the Amazon woman grew irritated. Summer said something about the hair chemicals burning her hands, which must have meant they’d made her do the bleaching. The Amazon woman laughed and then walked a few feet away to the soda machine. They knew none of the girls would make a scene as long as the driver in the bus held Ellie.

  I cradled a couple of the mugs in my arms, which made noise but not too much. Drawn by the sound, Summer looked right at me in the mirror. Not recognizing me, she looked away. I risked one final clang, drawing the attention of both the man and the woman, but they were off to one side and my scarf concealed my face.

  But not from Summer.

  This time she looked and her eyes grew wide and she began blinking furiously. Just then the Amazon woman returned and stood guard over her, unintentionally blocking Summer’s view of me. Summer said, “I’m coming,” dried her hands, and began walking out. As she passed by the tall woman, she said over her shoulder, but loud enough for me to hear, “You wouldn’t know a ballet if it shot you in the face.” The woman laughed but didn’t know what had just transpired. That a message had been sent. They were heavily armed.

  The five of them walked across the parking lot and stood outside the bus until the driver unlocked and opened the door. As they did, Summer took one glance around and paused slightly at the Suburban. Then she climbed aboard.

  As Casey was boarding the bus, soda man stopped her, reached inside her left sleeve, removed the screwdriver, and tossed it on the ground. Then he motioned for her to get on the bus. She spit in his face and stepped up.

  I could storm the bus right now and attempt to shoot the three captors before they shot me, but chances were good they’d shoot one of the girls before the smoke cleared. I couldn’t risk that. I had to be patient. Which meant following the bus.

  I also had to assume Summer would tell the other girls about me when she had a chance. It might not be immediately, but soon they’d know and all be on the lookout for me. Whic
h was good.

  Chapter 36

  I called Bones, filled him in, and gave him the license tag of the bus, and he began tracking it via satellite. Visually. This meant if Summer’s cell phone failed or lost coverage or the battery died, we had a backup. I followed two miles back. Never in a direct line of sight. But also never outside of two minutes.

  I asked Bones if he could determine whether the bus had internal cameras. Often they did. It allowed the driver to know what was going on. If the bus had been used for trafficking in the past, then chances were good it had a lot of cameras.

  Evidently, it had been used a lot.

  Bones hacked in and had a direct feed within minutes. Soda man reclined on a bunk behind the driver. Watching TV. He was armed but not overly concerned. He looked like he could handle pretty much anything anyone threw at him—and had. Amazon woman sat in the back of the bus with Ellie, who was cuffed and chained to a steel eyelet secured to the wall. She wasn’t going anywhere without the keys to those locks.

  For the next two hundred miles, Casey, Summer, and Angel lay next to one another in the middle bedroom. Which would have given Summer ample time to tell them about me. With his camera connection, Bones could also hear what was being said. Which wasn’t much. Neither between the captors nor between the girls. An hour after leaving, Summer walked out of the bedroom to the rear of the bus. Amazon woman stood and met her at the door, intent on not letting her see Ellie. Unlike Summer, Ellie’s face was riddled with fear.

  Summer appealed, saying, “There’s no reason why I can’t sit with her.” Summer raised her hands. “What am I going to do?”

  Amazon woman shook her head, but Summer didn’t back down. She stood toe to toe. Neither said anything. Finally, soda man said, “Let her.”

  Amazon woman returned to her post, allowing Summer to climb up next to Ellie and wrap an arm around her. When she did, Ellie buried her face in Summer’s chest. Amazon woman told her to shut up, but Summer just rocked her, telling her, “Shhh. It’s all right.”

  We drove through Crow reservation lands, around Bozeman, and into the Flathead National Forest. Late in the afternoon, the driver switched off with soda man, which meant they didn’t stop all day. I stopped twice for gas, never letting my tank get lower than half full in the event I needed it, followed by long stretches at a hundred miles an hour trying to catch up. Bones kept me apprised of my progress. By midnight we’d circled our way to the sparsely populated hills southwest of Fort Smith and the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area. Through the windshield, my headlights shone on a prairie landscape that looked like something out of Dances with Wolves.

  At 1:00 a.m. the bus exited the two-lane state highway and began winding several miles up a narrow road that eventually topped out on a grassy plateau and traveled the river for several miles before finally arriving at a narrow drive three quarters of a mile long that descended slightly toward the river. The road changed from asphalt to gravel at a large metal gate, which, when signaled by the driver, swung open electronically, granting access to the half-mile drive that terminated in a log cabin backing up to the canyon and the Bighorn River below. Satellite showed no other dwellings within a mile in every direction, which meant the only real access, other than helicopter or parachute, occurred via this driveway. You’d have to be part mountain goat to come up the back side. The Bighorn Canyon is Montana’s version of the Grand Canyon. Not nearly as expansive but every bit as steep and treacherous. It was no-man’s-land. The definitive badlands. Especially in winter.

  The bus parked in front of the cabin, but only the larger driver exited, walking into a smaller cabin located south of the larger one. Inside the bus, thermal imaging showed the girls asleep, or pretending to look like it. Ellie tossed and turned the most, but a larger figure, probably Summer, never left her side, wrapping around her like a cocoon.

  I parked the Suburban two miles out atop the plateau behind a cluster of short, stubby trees and huge granite boulders probably left by the last Ice Age. Then Gunner and I began trekking through the snow en route to the cabin. The wind up here was constant and biting, which meant the ground was frozen and snow hadn’t accumulated save in drifts farther behind us. Loaded heavily, I moved slowly carrying my AR, my crossbow, and my Sig. If it was cold, I didn’t feel it.

  The plateau gave way to a slight descent and then fell off more to a smaller shelf upon which the house sat. A half mile from the house I began looking for sensors. Anything that would alert those in the cabin that somebody was approaching. At four hundred yards, I spotted my first camera through the thermal imager. The heat signature suggested it was active and connected by an electronic or Bluetooth daisy chain of other cameras strung out through the distance behind it, creating an unbroken perimeter. Smart.

  The camera was pointed away from me, which probably meant another camera was currently aimed at my back. I turned slowly and quickly found the heat signature just ten feet away. Motion detectors would do them little good up here as mule deer, elk, bear, wolf, and the occasional moose would constantly set them off, so live-feed cameras were essential. Which meant someone had to monitor them visually to determine the difference between man and beast. But Bones had said none of the cabin or bus lights were on, and according to the thermal imagery of the satellite, the body of the driver in the smaller cabin was horizontal and unmoving.

  Which meant no one was watching me.

  Yet.

  I moved quickly but knew I had to make it appear as if nature had disabled it and not man. I lifted a downed tree about the diameter of my thigh and leaned it against the camera, turning the lens down toward my feet but not killing it. Now whoever looked at the feed from that camera on a display monitor would be looking at the ground and a fallen limb, giving me plenty of room to navigate undetected between cameras.

  When the cabin came into view, it did so against a midnight backdrop. While the front and sides were snow-covered, the canyon dropped off behind it on three sides. The house sat on an island of sorts jutting into the river, and the only vehicle access occurred over a spit of canyon that served as a road. From the air it looked like an island green on a golf course. Whoever had chosen this place knew what he was doing. This was no retreat. It was a compound. I knew cameras had to be monitoring the bridge, but the topography gave me no choice. Expert rock climbers would have a difficult time scaling up here in daylight, much less dark. Gunner and I climbed to the road and began walking across the bridge, convincing me that if I was in that bus, I’d be monitoring one camera. This one.

  We crossed the bridge, but thermal imaging told both me and Bones that nobody was moving. Gunner and I circled the cabin and approached from the rear, allowing the cabin to block our view both of and from the bus. With the canyon falling off only a few feet behind us, we stopped a hundred yards from the house, allowing the multiple cameras pointed in our direction to see us. The cabin was probably seven or eight thousand square feet and three stories. From my vantage point, I could see two cameras covering our approach. I couldn’t reach them, so I wouldn’t be able to dismantle them, meaning I’d have to move quickly and hope no one was monitoring the feed.

  It’s one thing to get into a house populated with bad people. It’s another to get out. So, planning my retreat, I stashed the crossbow in a spot I could find later. With two hours to daylight, Gunner and I crept across the backyard to the back door because I doubted a security system was installed there, and even if one was installed, I doubted it was active. Houses like this were protected when people were in them. Not when they weren’t.

  Checking the knob proved me right. Unlocked and no alarm set.

  The house was sparsely decorated with little furniture. No wall decorations and nothing of a personal nature. It was more hotel than home. The refrigerator was cold but empty save some ketchup that expired six months ago. And while the heat had been turned on, it had been set at fifty, suggesting no one had been here in a while.

  Daylight would offer my best chance
at making an offensive play for the girls, which brought my attention to the sleeping driver in the smaller cabin some seventy yards away. I needed to lessen the odds in their favor. I spoke into the mic on my comms set. “Bones?”

  “Check.”

  “Is the driver in the cabin still horizontal?”

  Bones paused. “Yes, but tossing and turning.”

  “Which means he’s partly awake.”

  We crept out of the house and through the gnarled trees to the smaller cabin. The driver had not bothered with the curtains, which allowed me to see him on his bed. Still dressed and facing me. He hadn’t even bothered with his shoes, and by the sound of things, he was snoring slightly. But he was also moving. Which didn’t comfort me since I was hoping for the element of surprise.

  I turned the knob and pushed the door slightly, revealing the fact the hinge had never been oiled. If I pushed any farther, I’d wake not only the driver but everyone in the cabin. I stopped and whispered something that sounded like “George” but mumbled it enough so as to make it unintelligible. Especially to someone who was half asleep. When he didn’t move, I pushed the door again and whispered, “Hank,” just loud enough to be heard behind the squeak. The man raised his head, listened, then set his head back down. He was working on falling back asleep when I did it a third time. At that, he rose to his feet, rubbed his eyes, and was about to step into the cold night air.

  Movies make a big deal of hitting someone in the face, as if that guarantees a knockout. Truth is, hitting someone in the face is stupid. None of us are Mike Tyson, and hands break easier than facial bones, which is why a brachial stun or reverse choke works pretty well on most everyone. Especially the unsuspecting.

  I stunned the driver with a fast and violent blow to the side of the neck and then wrapped him in what looked like a headlock but was actually a well-placed choke. Kneeling behind him, I squeezed my forearm and bicep against both of his carotid arteries and then pushed his head forward into the V of my elbow with my other hand. Seven seconds later, the big man went to sleep. I dragged him into his bed, bound his hands and feet, gagged him, and covered him with sheets and blankets. Then I pulled the curtain, allowing just enough room for someone to see him “sleeping.” I also removed his phone, used his thumb to open it, and then reset the passcode to one of my choosing.