Oliver was both frightened and curious. He waited for Hunter to stand; then, he stood up. Hunter gestured to him to lead the way. The hall was dark; he should have noticed earlier. Of course, Hunter had doused the lights. They rounded the corner to the sewing room, and Hunter turned on the lights. What he saw was a scene from a bad horror movie.
Natalie was standing tip-toe on the top platform of their tall step ladder which Hunter must have brought up from the garage. A noose of heavy rope was tied at the side of her neck with a well constructed judicial hangman’s knot. The rope was attached to a heavy screw-ring that had been screwed into a joist in the ceiling twelve feet above the landing. Natalie’s eyes and mouth were taped shut, and her wrists were taped behind her. Her ankles were taped together, and a 25 pound exercise weight was taped to each ankle. Natalie was alert, terrified, and frozen in place, knowing that if she wearied or became faint, or lost focus, she would fall off the ladder and would be dead. She was stark naked and had humiliated herself by her bowels and bladder having released involuntarily in her terror.
Without saying a word, Sheep Dog pushed the distraught husband towards the bathroom. Theresitting in the sinkwas a large role of duct tape.
“Strip,” Sheep Dog commanded.
“Hunter, don’t do this. We can talk. We can talk this out.”
Sheep Dog swiped the heavy steel of his .45 across Oliver’s mouth breaking off two gleaming white front incisors and opening a visible cut on his upper lip.
“Shut up.”
Oliver rushed out of his clothing. Maybe if he cooperated, Hunter would make his death quick and would have enough mercy left to spare Natalie. He determined not to lose hope.
Naked and completely at Hunter Caulfield’s mercy, the man whom he knew considered him his friend; and he had nonetheless betrayed, looked at him with a malevolence he had not seen in any man since he had watched Jean-Luc DuParrier begin a torture session in Dà Nang those eons ago. He capitulated and gave himself over to death.
Sheep Dog taped Oliver’s wrists and ankles and put him in a hog-tie position. He put tape over his mouth, then he lifted Oliver up and dumped him painfully into the tub. He twisted Oliver’s head so that he could see what Sheep Dog wanted to show him. He opened a large envelope and extracted an 8 X 10 glossy of Heather Prentiss seated on a folding chair that could have come from any public building in the world. She was naked and holding the front page of the New York Times in her two hands, dated two days previously. Her lips were sealed shut as were her eyes. Her ankles were bound with plasticuff strips. She could well have had the word “TERROR” imprinted on her forehead.
Oliver was afraid that he would faint. He groaned through his gag. Hunter let him gaze at the terrifying picture for a few moments before he spoke.
“I trust you are impressed—old friend—the one man in the world that I trusted with my life. You will not find her in a million years; so, it is futile to look. I have left an envelope with instructions in the top left drawer of your dresser. Once you get out of these restraints, take a look at it; and, if you want to see Heather alive sometime in the future, follow those instructions to the letter. You can communicate with me by placing an encrypted message—the same one as you and I have been using—on your computer in The Company folder. I will get it. I have my ways. In fact, once you comply exactly, I won’t have to get a message; it will be in all the papers.”
Sheep Dog left Oliver writhing in the tub and walked back into the hall to the ladder where the exhausted and moaning Natalie was fighting to stave off ‘Charley-horses’ in her calves. She was nearing the end of her strength. He climbed up the ladder along side her taking care not to touch her bare skin. He cut the rope just above the knot, and caught her over his shoulder as her legs gave way. He backed down the ladder carrying her fireman style and laid her on the bed in the master bedroom. He covered her nakedness with a blanket before leaving.
He said, “Make Oliver do what he’s told, or I will be back. I have a skill set that you can’t even imagine. I can get to you.”
She was crying.
He dialed the number in Russia on Oliver’s desk land line.
When it was picked up, Sheep Dog said only, “Yuri, proceed.”
He went back to the ladder and gave it a brutal kick which sent it flying over the banister and onto the floor below with a frightful crashing noise. He could hear Oliver’s muffled screams even with the tape covering his mouth. He slipped out the way he had come in.
Quesnel, Two Days Later
When the Bell Longranger put down behind the large barn, Heather was so exhausted that she no longer cared what happened to her. If they were going to rape her, so be it. She was a virgin, and at least she would know what it was like before she died. If they kept her as a slave or something, she would adapt. She demanded of herself to be strong.
Xe and Tran each took an arm and helped Heather out of the back seat of the helicopter. She was wobbly and uncertain at first, but had her sea legs back by the time they entered the house. She did not know where she was, not even the country. She had been kidnapped by two Orientals and was now in the center of a vast unpopulated forest. Her best guess was that they were in Siberia.
Candy Okobuk put her arms around the traumatized young woman and held her quietly for a few moments.
“I’m sorry. You’re safe, dear. You will understand better in time, but just know that you are safe here. No harm will come to you, and one day you will go home.”
Heather’s voice quavered, “Will they rape me, torture me?”
“No, no, no, my dear girl. No one will molest you in any way. These young men will protect you with their lives. You are safe.”
“What about that terrorist, Hunter Caulfield. He’s awful. Is he going to kill me, or is it just to get ransom money?”
“In due time, in due time. Try to come to peace with it. I absolutely guarantee that you will be able to roam free here, to help if you want; but no one will force you in anything. Hunter Caulfield is nothing like what he is portrayed to be. In time you will come to know that. The man has been terribly wronged, and I’m afraid that much of that evil comes from your father.”
“So, he’ll get revenge by torturing me?”
She could not get that pervasive idea out of her mind.
“No, I repeat, no. My father will not let anything bad happen to you. You haven’t seen him yet. When you do, you will know that you are safe. No one can go up against him. No one ever tries. Hunter Caulfield may seem scary, but my dad is the very definition of it if you are on his wrong side.”
Tran took a digital photograph of Heather holding the New York Times newspaper edition he and Xe had bought on the way out of the U.S. He regretted having to make the girl take off her clothes; but Hunter had insisted, absolutely insisted. It was over in about a minute, and he quickly covered her up and no one ever did anything like that again.
It took three months for Heather to be convinced—three months of free roaming, long conversations with the large extended set of family and friends, and the mothering kindness of Candy. Initially Heather was dismayed about being jerked away from her life at Yale with all of its urbanity, vibrancy, and quirkiness. By three months, however, she rather enjoyed the tranquility of the pastoral life afforded her on the ranch. In all of that time, she did not even attempt to walk to the edge of the property, even though no one made a move to prevent her. She was certain that it would be futile for her to go out into the vastness that lay around her, and she was entirely correct. In the life on the ranch, she was safe.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Two Days After the Encounter at the Prentiss House
Oliver had worked feverishly to get himself free after Hunter had left. He was afraid of what he was going to see once he got loose, and almost as afraid that his maid, Cassandra, would be the first on the scene; and the story would be front page on the Washington Post. He developed the distinct feeling that Hunter had put the restraints on just loose enou
gh that he would be able to work his way free in a few hours. It took six hours and twenty-three minutes to be exact.
He tore into the hallway and turned on all of the lights. The ladder was lying in a twisted heap on the floor of the story below. Natalie was not there. He panicked and ran down the stairs two at a time. There was no sign of Natalie—no blood, no hair, no clothes, no nothing. He was agonized that she had been killed and taken away to be buried in the woods or incinerated or thrown into the Potomac. He was exhausted, and it was almost impossible to think. He stank to high heaven from the stress-sweat he had worked up during the night, and his clothes were ruined. He was parched. He slowly climbed back up the stairs to his bed room to think, to shower, and to put on something clean.
There, he experienced a profound kaleidoscopic mix of emotions as he found his wife lying inert on the bed under a blanket. She was alive, filthy, terrified, traumatized, beautiful, and ecstatically happy to see her husband again, to have her bindings removed, and to get circulation moving again. She was confused at what had happened and why. She was deeply anxious about what they should do and what was going to happen. All she believed in, hoped for, and understood had been shattered. Oliver felt much the same way.
Much as it pained him to do so, he knew he had to tell her the truth about Heather and about Hunter’s threats. He was going to have to confess that he was most unsure about what to do next.
Natalie showered and dressed, then she and Cassandra scrubbed the mess she had made in the hallway. She and Oliver had a light breakfast; and then, Oliver had gotten his courage up enough to broach the subject of Heather’s kidnapping.
“Nat, I know you think you’ve been through the worst, and you’ve heard the worst; but there’s something else you have to know.”
“What? What more could there possibly be?”
He produced the photo of Heather holding the New York Times and showed it to her. She vomited before he could give even a word of explanation. He carried her to the bathroom where she emptied her stomach. She slid away from the toilet bowel and lay supine on the floor sweaty and ashen.
As gently as he could he told her everything that he knew from the previous night, leaving out any reference to Hunter as Sheep Dog or his complicity in the Sheep Dog’s actions, or the demands Hunter had written out and included in the envelope with the photograph. She could not force herself up from the bathroom quite yet, but she was now calm.
“What do we do?”
“I have basically two options, Nat. I can cooperate with law enforcement and set them on his trail from here, or I can hope that our old friendship will prevent him from harming Heather. He didn’t kill us, and he wants something specific from us. I’d guess that he wants me to make the manhunt go away, but he has to know that I am powerless to do that. I’m inclined to take the wait-and-see option. What do you think?”
She had not put in a second of vacillation.
She said emphatically, “We wait. If they catch up with him, he’ll have her killed. That is one thing I am sure of. Then, we will never know what happened to her.”
Oliver stewed and vacillated for two days before making a decision about what he should do. He based his decision on his gut feeling that—in the end—Hunter Caulfield would wreak revenge. He had to take the chance that the man could be caught and persuaded to reveal where Heather was being kept. He factored in the potential that Heather might become collateral damage. It was terrible to think about; but even her death could not compare to what would happen to Natalie and him, including the destruction that would result from his exposure in this whole messy business. He knew just the man for it. He made a call to The Farm.
“Salinger here.”
“Ed, you recognize my voice?”
“Yeah. What’s up?”
“Is this a secure line?”
“As secure as our government can make it.”
“I have a job for you, an off-the-books sort of job.”
“I hate conversations that start with that kind of caveat.”
“You won’t like this one, but it has to be done. I’ll get right to the point. I need you to bring in Hunter Caulfield. I’m sure you have figured out that he is your very own John Smith and is the Sheep Dog. He trusts you, and he’ll walk into a trap you set. I don’t want to harm him, but I need for you to get some information vital to national security from him. Do what you have to do, but don’t kill him. Call me when you have him in a secure situation. I’ll give you further instructions then.”
Edgar Liam Salinger had worked for the CIA since he was eighteen years old. He had been a full-fledged officer for forty-five years, and in all of that time it had never occurred to him to refuse a mission or to subvert one. Now, it occurred to him to retire—now, today. His sober and obedient side told him that The Company could never just let him go. He knew things that could bring down governments. Moreover, his compassionate side told him that Hunter Caulfield was a dead duck if he could not get to him before the cops did. He would be turned over to the CIA, which had the original jurisdiction; and he would disappear.
Ed remembered having been the instrument of disappearance of more than one traitor to the CIA. Ed did not want another one on his conscience. Ed Salinger did not have much of a conscience, he admitted to himself. His parents had been Unitarians, a sect which Ed called a cushion for back-sliding Christians to land on. He intended personally only to enter a church twice in his life—once when he was born; and he had already done that; and once when he died; and both times he would have to be carried in. He had done things people should not do, even pro patria. He had obeyed orders that should not be given. He could not talk about almost anything that he had experienced in his adult life. But, he felt somewhere back in his insular mind that what was about to happen involving Hunter Caulfield was a mortal sin.
“All right,” he said, “I still have the codes. I’ll send a message and see what comes of it.”
Oliver called in sick for the two days immediately after the midnight encounter with Hunter. He opened his computer for the first time since the episode. What he saw was a very queer thing. Instead of his program opening to the agency counterterrorism page when he entered his password, a glossy color photograph of a beautiful, gleaming white Great Pyrenees Sheep Dog filled the desktop of his computer screen. It was not possible that anyone could have hacked into one of the most secure computer sites in the world. He had personally been responsible for having the electronic security updated. He had worked with…what was that company?…the Starbright Corporation, the best in the world, to install anti-hacking software.
He felt sick. He had made a colossal blunder, and when The Company tracked the transactions they would very quickly learn that the CEO of Starbright at the time had been none other than his current nemesis, Hunter Caulfield. The presence of the photo on his computer was another kiss of death from his former friend, and Oliver’s resolve hardened. He was going to bring Hunter Caulfield down, no matter what the cost.
Every office and officer who had received the original 08, January Department of Justice message with the CIA BOLO attached also received the peculiar bit of hacking and every one of them had no explanation. When the DOJ got around to asking questions about what the sheep dog photo could mean, Oliver lied.
Sheep Dog stole a car in Arlington and drove to Fredericksburg, Virginia. At the PostNet office, he picked up the box he had shipped containing his three untraceable guns, closed his account, and drove to New York in a second stolen car. He parked in an open lot outside the city operated by a community volunteer group and called for a taxi into the city. He was disguised as a postman by the time he checked for messages on a computer in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, the main New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street. He was not surprised to find an encrypted message; neither was he surprised to find out that it came from Ed Salinger. It was simple and to the point, requesting a meeting of Ed and Sheep Dog alone.
Sheep Dog’s danger ant
ennae were in full operation. He trusted no one at this point; and since there is no such thing as a coincidence, the message coming this close to his late night tête-à-tête could only be construed that Oliver had gotten Ed to send it. That fact could mean either of two things: it was a trap, or it was the first step in Oliver’s compliance with Sheep Dog’s demands. He replied with a time and place of his choosing—in fact, of his choosing several days previously.
Several bulletin board notices and posters advertised a Red Cross blood donation drive being held in the library that morning. Sheep Dog filled out a form with a pack of lies and submitted to a cursory physical examination. He donated a pint of his blood. He carefully watched as the venipuncturist set aside the plastic bag of his blood among nearly a dozen other blood bags on the table between the recliner where Hunter was sitting, and the next recliner with the next donor.
“Take all the time you need, sir. Thanks for your help. Drink some OJ, and be careful when you stand up.”
The venipuncturist set to work on the next donor and turned all of his attention to her. Sheep Dog got up slowly and found that he felt fine. What he did next was a curious thing. He took one step to the side and picked up his blood bag, tucked it under the flap of his postman jacket and walked away.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Interagency Fugitive Operations Office, Brooklyn Court Street Federal Building.
Frank Jefferys and Linc Goodworth came in late from a day filled with two take-downs in the Bronx. There were two fewer drug vendors on the streets and two more back in custody. It felt good; getting mopes out of circulation was good. It was Miller-time and time to go home. The two marshals groaned as they watched the first of three faxes come off the printer.
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