Silenced Girls

by Roger Stelljes

  As the train progressed south into Manhattan, Braddock worked his way forward and was able to identify that the man was Abidi.

  Unfortunately, Abidi also spotted Braddock.

  Abidi jumped off the train at Times Square at the last second as the doors were closing. Braddock didn’t beat the doors but still managed to get off the train by kicking out a window and jumping out as the train was beginning to pull away. Abidi was climbing the steps up to the street. Braddock gave chase.

  The terrorist peered back and saw Braddock coming up behind. Abidi sprinted up the last steps to the street level and into Times Square. It was five o’clock on a business day and the square was full of people at the height of the rush hour.

  As he reached the street level, Braddock saw Abidi pulling back his long trench coat and that the terrorist had an assault rifle, and as was found out later, two pipe bombs, several grenades and two other handguns. Braddock ran into the middle of Broadway to get away from the crowded sidewalks, yelling for people to get down while drawing Abidi’s attention.

  The terrorist pivoted to Braddock and fired. Braddock, without Kevlar, stood his ground and returned fire high. He managed to kill Abidi, hitting him in the head, thwarting the deaths of possibly hundreds. But he was hit three times himself in the process, twice in the right chest and his right thigh.

  Tori sat back after reading the story, silently admonishing herself for not knowing any of this.

  All of that was once again ruminating in Tori’s mind as she changed into her running gear and then filled her water bottle. She wanted to get in a good long run to get herself going, clear her head and think about how she was going to apologize and get herself back in Braddock’s good graces.

  Tori exited the front of the hotel and was immediately enveloped in thick and humid air. People often thought of Minnesota as some sort of frozen northern tundra and in January and February, it was. But the summers were warm, frequently hot and full of humidity, even up in lakes country. Today was going to be a classic Minnesota steamer: hazy, moist, thick air and a blazing sun.

  She took a few minutes to fully stretch out her legs before taking a drink from her water bottle which she then re-tucked into the back sling of her waist pack, secured her Oakley shades tightly, slipped in her earbuds and selected one of her music mixes, then started her run over to the path that ran along the east side of the H-4. It took her a quarter mile before the sweat started seeping out of her pores and she realized a headband would have been in order.

  He preyed on the predictability of human nature.

  Tori left in the same direction as she had the week before. She was taking the running path up the east side of the H-4.

  It took him less than ten minutes to drive north, park and pick his way through the woods to his nest. Cloaked under a dense canopy of pine and spruce trees, he raised the binoculars to his eyes. Seven minutes later Tori came into view, jogging around a gentle bend in the path southeast of his position. She was perhaps three-quarters of a mile away.

  He was perched up high on the hill, crouched down just inside the tree line, peering down to the path running along the far side of the highway. Dressed fully in camouflage, he invisibly mixed in with the dense coverage of mature thick buckthorn fronting the woods and the low-hanging droopy branches.

  With one last look through the binoculars, he could clearly make out that it was her coming along in her tight black and pink Lululemon running attire, maintaining a brisk steady pace. He put the binoculars down and raised his rifle up. Through the scope he tracked her, turning his body gently left along with her, allowing her to come into a more comfortable range, keeping her steady in the crosshairs.

  She glanced to her Fitbit, nearly three miles into her run, her whole body fully engulfed in a heavy sweat. The air was like a humidity blanket wrapping around her body and it wasn’t even seven a.m. yet.

  Needing to hydrate, she reached with her left hand for her water bottle. She took three more strides before stopping. She took out her earbuds for a moment, holding them in her right hand while popping open the bottle’s nipple with her left hand. She raised the bottle to her mouth and squeezed.

  The bottle exploded, splashing her face with water.

  “Ow! What the hell?”

  Her left hand seared in pain and oozed blood.

  She tossed the water bottle and bolted to her right as another shot rang out, whistling by her head to her left.

  Tori desperately searched for cover as she ran through the uneven ground of the high grass but straight ahead there was a wide, steep treeless rise. She’d be a sitting duck if she tried to climb it.

  Another shot rang out and zoomed by on the left again.

  Tori veered hard right, spotting a grove of smaller trees. She sprinted over the undulating ground, pumping her arms and legs, diving into the grouping of trees as another shot rang out, passing right over her, spraying bark from a birch tree that hit the left side of her face. She rolled headfirst into the trees, awkwardly somersaulting over and landing with her back against a small tree with a thinnish trunk.

  Another shot pelted the tree’s trunk.

  Frantically she searched around for denser cover. She scrambled on all fours behind the base of a thicker tree ten feet deeper into the grove as another shot sailed by, hitting the trunk of a tree to her left. Behind the thicker tree she pulled her arms and legs in, making herself as small as possible, her back tight to the base of the tree. Two more shots rang out, both hitting the front of her tree at her head height, the bark and pulp of the tree showering down.

  Panting heavily, shaking, she held position. She unzipped the phone compartment in her waist pack, pulled out her phone and dialed 911.

  “I can’t have you burning out on me,” Cal had ordered. “Eat a healthy meal and go to bed.”

  Braddock allowed himself an extra half-hour of sleep until six-thirty before he slowly rolled his long body out of bed, heeding Cal’s demand that he get a long night’s rest.

  He felt better. And he needed the energy, because he knew he’d be dealing with Tori again. That absolutely required that he be refreshed and patient. She wasn’t going to just go away and, being honest with himself, he didn’t want her to. Agitator that she could be, the reality was he needed her. Although, he thought devilishly, for payback he was going to make her grovel a little before he let her back in.

  He made his way down to the basement and pulled on swim trunks, grabbed a pair of swim goggles, his bright yellow rubber swim cap and made his way down to the dock. A sultry yet calm morning, there was barely a ripple in the dark blue water. He made his customary long flat dive off his dock and began his swim, the lake water refreshing. With long, smooth freestyle strokes he glided through the calm water thirty feet out from all the cabin docks jutting from the shoreline. As was his custom, he swam as far as his in-law’s house.

  At Roger and Mary’s house he climbed up the dock later and ran up to the house to quickly check on it. All seemed secure. Back along the dock he briefly inspected the covers for the pontoon and the wave runner, both tightly cinched.

  Already he could feel the humidity enveloping him as he stood for a moment on the end of the dock. The lake would be busy later today he thought as he dove back into the water and made his way back north. Swimming freestyle, he made his long languid strokes. Sensing he was approaching home he quickly glanced up for his dock, a hundred yards away and saw Steak running full speed down the hill from his house.

  That can’t be good, he thought as he hastened his pace.

  “Holy cow, thank God you’re alright!” Steak exclaimed with relief as Braddock stepped up the ladder and onto the dock.

  “What the hell is going on?” Braddock asked as he reached for his towel and then his phone. One look at the screen and he realized he’d missed a mass of texts and calls.

  “Someone just took a bunch of shots at Tori,” Steak answered.

  “Shots? Gunshots?” Will asked, his mouth agape.


  “Yeah.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Yeah. Someone tried to sniper her while she was jogging along the running path on H-4 a couple of miles north of town. She managed to get away, but just barely, man. Grazing wound to her left hand, a couple of scratches on the face,” Steak reported and then asked, “What are you two onto?”

  Braddock snorted, “Hell if I know, buddy. I feel like all we’ve done is spin our wheels on the ice and argue with each other.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Maybe not is right. We need to get into town,” Braddock stated as they both made their way up the small hill to the cabin. “I have to dry off and get into clothes.”

  “Do you want to ride with me?”

  “Nah,” Braddock answered. “I’ll need the Tahoe at some point,” he said as he ran upstairs, took a one-minute rinsing shower, eschewed a shave, rapidly dressed and hustled back down to the kitchen to find Steak starting coffee.

  “We need to get going!” Braddock exclaimed.

  “We can wait for coffee,” Steak answered calmly. “She’s alive and okay. Tori’s fine. I bolted out here because you weren’t responding to my calls and texts. I hoped you were taking that swim and something else bad hadn’t happened. The coffee will be ready here in a minute. You might want to remote start the truck though, it’s parked right in the sun. It’s hotter than blazes out there. Get your air conditioner cooling that bad boy down.”

  “Good idea,” Braddock answered and hit lock and the remote start button. “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t start,” he replied as he opened the back door and stepped out onto the stoop and hit lock and then remote start again.

  BOOM!

  Braddock was blown back through the door and crashed with his back into the angled corner of the kitchen island while glass from the blown-out windows rained down on him and Steak. Braddock rolled onto his left side and looked out the back door to the towering ball of flames engulfing his Tahoe.

  “What the fuck, Will!” Steak yelled, rolling back up onto his knees. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Braddock replied as he pushed himself up and stumbled forward out the door while shielding his face from the inferno of the fireball in the driveway.

  “We need to get those hoses!” he shouted to Steak as he jumped off the stoop and grabbed the hose gathered up in the landscape rocks next to the back of the house. He quickly twisted on a spray nozzle and turned on the spigot. The Tahoe was toast, but he needed to keep the fire contained to it and away from the house and garage.

  “I called 911,” Steak bellowed before disappearing around to the front of the house. Seconds later, he was hauling up a second garden hose from the front of the house. Braddock’s neighbor was doing the same, rushing over with his own garden hose. The neighbor and Steak watered down the grass and trees while Braddock applied water to the area between the front of the Tahoe and the house and detached garage. Fifteen minutes later, the SUV still ablaze, a Manchester Fire Department pumper truck pulled up and familiar local faces were disembarking from the big rig and hooking up a firehose.

  “Will, we got this,” a volunteer fireman named Jersey yelled.

  The two detectives and neighbor stepped back inside the house to assess the interior damage. The back windows of the house were blown out, glass everywhere. Braddock ran upstairs and found the windows for his office, bathroom and bedroom were out as well. “Cripes, what a mess.”

  He descended the steps back down to the kitchen where he found Steak out on the stoop, watching Jersey and another man douse the fire with a powerful stream of water. A larger group of neighbors had gathered as well, including one that Braddock sought out, Sam Edwards, a home builder. “Sam, can you help me out here?”

  “You bet, Will,” Edwards replied and got on the phone. “I’ll get a couple of my guys out here. We’ll get you patched up.”

  “Thanks, Sam,” Braddock replied, shaking Edwards’ hand. He walked back over to Steak, shaking his head. “Buddy, what the hell was that?”

  “I don’t know, but you need to get the bomb squad out here. That wasn’t some short in the transmission wires or something. That explosion was intentional, boss. Someone tried to barbeque you.” Then he looked to Braddock. “Seriously, what is it you and Tori found?”

  “Honest to God, Steak, only more missing women but no clue who’s responsible,” Braddock replied and then grabbed Steak by the shoulder. “By the way, buddy, damn good thing you told me to start the car from the house.”

  “Fuuuuck,” Steak blurted in reply, his tanned face suddenly going pale, remembering the suggestion. “Holy mackerel, that’s right. Oh man.”

  Two hours later, early morning was turning to late morning and with the fire long extinguished, a forensic team from the BCA crime lab out of Bemidji arrived along with the bomb squad, closely followed by Cal and Tori. Her left hand was freshly bandaged, and she had a butterfly wound closure on her upper left cheek.

  “I’m really glad to see you’re okay,” Braddock greeted quietly.

  “Ditto,” Tori replied, taking a long glance at the Tahoe.

  It didn’t take long for a bomb squad officer to figure out what caused the explosion. After the tech took photos, with gloved hands the bomb squad officer pulled a small object from underneath the frame of the truck, just under the driver’s seat. He slipped it into a plastic bag and then walked over.

  “Detective Braddock, it’s a good thing you started the Tahoe from your house,” he said as he held up the bag.

  “What’s that?”

  “Looks to be a mercury switch.”

  “A mercury switch?” Braddock asked, taking hold of the bag. “And how does it work?”

  “There was likely a glass tube that was part of this that had mercury in it,” the officer explained. “Any small movement, such as starting of the vehicle, that vibration would trigger the mercury in the glass tube to move which would close the circuit. That triggers the explosion.”

  “I see,” Braddock replied, twisting the bag in his hand, inspecting the contents.

  “The device was placed on the bottom of the chassis, right under the driver’s seat. Whoever placed that there was expecting you to be in the driver’s seat starting the truck and not using your remote starter. Which, if I might ask, why did you use the remote starter?”

  “Steak suggested it, thank God. It’s hot and the Tahoe was parked in the sun. The truck would have been boiling hot and I wanted it cooled down when I came out to leave.”

  “Is there any way to trace these pieces?” Lund queried.

  The officer grimaced. “We’ll work with the crime scene folks and see what we can do, but one, these pieces are really charred so getting anything off them forensically will be really difficult and two, the reality is you can make one of these switches in your garage at home. It’s not rocket science.”

  “But it does require mercury, liquid mercury, right?” Tori asked.

  “Yes, yes, it does,” the bomb squad officer affirmed.

  She looked to Braddock, Cal and Steak. “Where around here can you get mercury?”

  “My guess is you could order it on Amazon,” Braddock answered, to which the officer and Lund nodded.

  “There is the explosives plant,” Steak suggested with a shoulder shrug. “I bet they have mercury out there.”

  “Someone takes a shot at me and then they try to blow you up. Someone doesn’t like what we’re doing,” Tori stated, clearly determined to keep going.

  “All I know is we better find out who that is before both of us end up dead,” Braddock answered darkly, now visibly angry. He looked to Tori. “We’ve seen what happened here. Let’s go evaluate what happened with you.”

  Tori, Braddock, Steak, and Lund drove back to the site of the shooting along the H-4. Eggleston was on scene. The crime lab was getting a workout this morning, with two techs working the area. Tori showed Braddock where she was when the first shot came. The exploded
water bottle was lying in the ankle-high grass to the right of the path, marked with a yellow numbered marker. Fifty yards to the east two investigators were now examining a tree, taking photos and measurements and it looked as if a bullet was embedded in it. One tech was holding up a thin red stick, assessing the trajectory of the bullet embedded five feet high in the tree base. The trajectory looked to be from a higher angle.

  “You’ll probably find three or four embedded in trees,” Tori remarked to the tech.

  Braddock turned and looked to the bluff towering high on the west side of the highway. “Have you found the sniper’s nest yet?”

  “No,” an investigator answered, “that is next.”

  “We’ll get that started,” Braddock ordered. He along with Tori, Steak, Eggleston and Lund all pulled on rubber gloves before they worked their way up the steep hill, fifty to sixty feet high to the edge of the tree-line that was a mix of spruce, pines, elms and white birches. Based on where Tori said she was when the water bottle exploded and where the second shot embedded in the tree, they spread out about the length of a football field.

  Steak found the spot five minutes later. “Over here!”

  “What do you have?” Tori asked, reaching him first.

  “Shell casings.”

  “He didn’t clean up the brass?”

  “I guess he panicked and ran,” Steak answered, looking over his shoulder, back deeper into the woods. “But he sat here and waited for you,” he replied, turning back to her and then pointing to the right another three feet. “See that?” He pointed to two cigarette butts.

  Braddock arrived, immediately saw the casings and butts and ordered everyone to keep back while Eggs called across to the techs on the other side of the road. Braddock, Tori and Lund moved twenty feet farther south along the tree-line. “So, tell me again what happened,” he asked Tori.

  “I was taking my run along the path over there. It’s hot, obviously, so I slowed, reached around for my water bottle, stopped. As I was starting to take a drink the water bottle exploded.” She held up her left hand. “My hand was burning. It was dripping in blood.”