by Dave Balcom
In the dark, I heard the leader, “Yup, there it is. I figured these two weren’t alone. We’ll know right away if that boat is radar equipped. If not, he’ll chase right past us, and we can slip away.”
“And if it is radar equipped?” The taller man asked.
“Then we’ll ask him for help with our power loss.”
“Looks like we’ll need some help,” the taller man hissed as Liske slowed the Orca and turned toward them.
The leader stuffed his pistol into the back of his pants and went topside.
I could see the glow from the flashlight he used to hail the Orca. When it closed on us, he shouted, “We lost all electric, good thing you showed up!”
I knew Liske would be on his guard, and I hoped he had notified the Coast Guard before coming after us.
As Liske closed with the vessel and asked if they’d like a tow back to Queen Charlotte, the leader wondered if Liske might have a spare fifteen-amp fuse aboard the Orca, “That would solve this whole problem.”
Liske pulled alongside the boat, and as he flipped bumpers to protect both hulls from each other, I heard the leader drop down into the Orca’s cockpit. He must have pointed the heavy handgun in Liske’s face, “On the deck or die where you stand.”
There was a moment of silence, and I could hear Stan say, “Okay, okay, don’t get excited.”
Then the handgun roared.
At the sound of the shot, I lunged up, trying to break the chair I was lashed to, but the sailor on guard simply put a hand out and pushed me back down. “Stay put or you’ll be joinin’ that other guy.”
Seth was pale with fear, but said nothing.
After a few minutes, the leader came down and roughly pulled the wallet out of Seth’s pocket and then mine before returning topside.
I listened to the talk upstairs, but couldn’t make out many words. I heard the leader on his phone, but again, there wasn’t much I could make out of the conversation.
Alone in the salon, I whispered to Seth, “We need to keep cool, son. Concentrate on controlling your breathing and think about your heart rate. We will get a moment, just one, where we can act, and we have to recognize it and be prepared. You understand?”
The boat’s engine started and the boat was moving away to the east, and then a loud crack, a sound I hadn’t heard in more than forty years, reverberated through the night, followed by an immediate yellow flash.
Seth jumped, “What was that?”
“Hand grenade,” I said in a matter-of-fact tone that belied my anger and my dread. “The Orca and my friend are both gone.”
17
The boat made steady progress first to the east, then to the north and then I felt it turning west. Neither Seth nor I had anything to say, and the crew of this boat didn’t seem to be much for small talk. There was only the hum of the engine, the slap of the sea on the bow and my thoughts to keep my mind occupied.
I couldn’t see my wristwatch, but I guessed they’d been underway for some two hours since the Orca had gone up in flames when I sensed the boat slowing, and finally it stopped, and I heard an anchor chain rattle.
The big boat swung lazily on its anchor, and then I heard the sound of a small engine, and I recognized it as the sound of a tender boat.
The door opened, and two new men, both rough looking, with shaggy hair, beards and bad odor, came in and wrestled Seth out of his chair, re-tied his hands behind him, and walked him up the ladder to the deck without so much as a word.
I felt the boat rock and knew they’d lowered Seth into the tender boat.
The leader came down the ladder and went into the galley only to return a few minutes later with two cups of coffee. He sat down in front of me, just out of reach, and laid his pistol on the arm of his chair. He freed my left hand, and placed a cup within reach. Then he sat down and tasted his coffee with a sigh.
“Mr. Stanton, you intrigue me.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, you turn out to be worth more to me alive for the moment than dead.”
“Really?”
“Yes. It seems that I have someone willing to buy your freedom so they can have the pleasure of killing you in their own way and time. Imagine how an old fuck like you could piss someone off as bad as that.” There was real wonder in his voice.
“Where are the Whitmans?”
“Ashore. I believe their son, Junior, will pay the ransom today, and they’ll be freed while we motor away into the night. Their position will be reported as soon as we hit the beach.”
“So, you’re just garden variety kidnappers?”
He bristled a bit. “Hardly. We’re a variety of kidnappers the world has never seen before. Five of us are going to split twenty-five million U.S. dollars, and walk away never to violate as much as a speed limit again for as long as we live.”
“Even with their parents safe and sound, you think Junior and his siblings are going to let you rest?”
“If they truly love their parents more than money, which we believe they do, they will move heaven and earth to prevent any agency from pursuing us.”
“And, why?”
He shook his head. “You think we plucked Mr. and Mrs. Whitman out of the air? We know everything there is to know about them. And we’ve promised Mr. Whitman that should his family raise a hue and cry for our capture, we’ll kill Mrs. Whitman in a very slow and public way.
“Thanks to you and the young sailor you’ve sacrificed for our cause, I’m pretty sure the Whitmans will take our warning very seriously. In fact, I believe you’ll be able to hear Mrs. Whitman’s screams from here when my boys start skinning Sergeant Richmond right before her eyes.
“Yes, I’m pretty sure there’ll be no small amount of reluctance as to pursuit on Mr. Whitman’s part after we’re gone.”
“And, as for me? Am I going with you?”
“Of course. We haven’t worked out the finest details yet, but we expect to deliver you safe and sound into the hands of the buyer within a day of our departure.”
It was just turning gray with dawn when I was awakened. The gunman was smiling ear to ear. “The transfer is complete. Our money is now being electronically buried around the globe. It’ll end up in a series of small numbered accounts in places that take financial privacy very seriously.
“It’s time to travel. You’ll need the head and some coffee. I will be with you while you take care of yourself, then we’ll all be aboard and leaving. But right now our boys are taking care of business on shore.”
He was right, even from the head with the door closed, I could hear Mary Lou Whitman’s screams.
As far as I could tell, Seth Richmond never made a sound.
18
I was sipping coffee in the cockpit, appreciating fresh air, as the boat cleared the tiny remote anchorage on the Pacific side of the Masset Inlet on Graham Island. I could see they’d charted a course south on the Pacific side of Graham Island.
I had been allowed topside while the crew attended to some maintenance below. My right hand was still lashed to a chair.
I realized the coffee had been drugged just seconds after I took my last swallow. I felt myself nodding off, but I could do nothing about it.
I wasn’t able to watch as the Archipelago of the North slid by on the horizon. I wasn’t aware when we cleared Port St. James, the southernmost island in the archipelago, and turned due east, heading for the maze of fjords and islands that make up this part of the world.
I had been just coming to when one of the crew slapped my cheek and shook my shoulder.
“What’s next?” I asked the leader as he untied my hands.
“Lunch, and then sight seeing. About dusk we’re going to have a visitor up ahead, and we’ll be parting company.”
“I don’t suppose you’re going to let me in on the secret.”
“Nope, condition of sale is that you don’t get to know the buyer until she shows herself.”
I kept quiet, not wanting to call attention to his slip, but I
started wondering what woman I had pissed off enough to pay ransom so she could kill me.
“How much are you getting for me?”
“A cool million. This buyer’s got it, and isn’t afraid to spend it.”
I had no idea of where we were or where I was going. I just knew I had to stay ready. I could figure that I wouldn’t get more than one chance at turning this situation around, and I wanted to be sure I recognized it.
I also knew that something I’d been missing forty years ago when I abandoned my life as a covert warrior was in full supply at this point in time. I recognized the feeling that had been building inside me since the sound of Stan Liske’s execution was still growing. It had grown colder with the screams of intimidation that had marked the sacrifice of a young and dedicated serviceman. And now it fueled the kind of cold wrath that had not been a part of my arsenal back in the day.
But I had it now. I sat in silence, watching the majestic shoreline of the Pacific Northwest glide by, and I knew I wasn’t going to waste any opportunity that came along to let that new cold anger loose in lethal fashion.
19
As the sun was setting, the float plane circled once over our position, then banked and dropped into the inlet. It taxied to the shore just a few yards from where we were moored.
The leader had suggested another cup of coffee and some cookies. I figured one or both were drugged, so I said no thanks to the coffee and accepted the cookies. I had not taken a bite, and as the plane’s engines feathered to a stop, I let my arm move just enough to knock them over the side. I then let my chin drop onto my chest.
“He didn’t eat much, but he must have had a little left in his system,” the leader said to the sailor who was untying my hand.
I let myself be limp, and forced the two henchmen to struggle with my loose frame as they attempted to walk me down two steps they’d fashioned off the stern diving platform to the tender that was lashed there.
“Is he okay?” I heard a voice call from the shore.
“Just real manageable,” the leader responded. “He’ll be fine when he wakes up.”
“Good, just bundle him into the back of the plane, and I’ll be outta here.”
The two sailors dropped me painfully into the bottom of the tender, and climbed in behind me.
The motor started immediately, and they ran the tender to the float plane. I kept my eyes closed and my breathing steady; focusing on my center, biding my time.
The two men roughly grabbed me by my clothes and hoisted me into the plane where the pilot grabbed the collar of my jacket and dragged me into the cargo area behind the two seats. I let my head bump without a murmur despite the sharp pain.
“That’ll do it,” the pilot said. “I’ll have him safe ashore in a few hours. You sure he’ll come to all right?”
“Lindsay said he would, didn’t he?”
“I heard him, I’m just not ready to bring damaged goods, you know?”
The other man grunted, and then was gone from the cockpit. The pilot pushed his seat back into position, closed the door, and started the engine. I felt the plane rock a bit from the wake of the tender returning to the cruiser, and then I felt the plane turning away from the shore.
“Here we go, partner,” he said to no one.
I wondered what the procedure for getting me off the plane would entail. How many helpers would be waiting for this cargo? Would we be in the wild or in Vancouver or Seattle?
All the unknowns whirled around in my head as I waited in darkness, pondering the imponderable to the throbbing drone of the engines. I mentally shrugged. “Whatever, I’ll deal with it. I have surprise on my side.”
My mental clock had us at about two hours when I felt the change in engine pitch, and the dip of the left wing indicating we were approaching our destination. There had been no radio talk, so I was pretty sure we weren’t landing at a controlled facility. I had tried to estimate how long we had climbed after take off, thinking that if we were landing back in the states, our flight would have to be low enough to avoid radar detection.
Now, as the plane banked again and continued dropping, I realized we hadn’t been very far off the surface. The pilot flared the plane just a bit, cut the power and we slid onto the water with barely a hiss.
The pilot taxied the plane for just a few seconds, and I heard the floats grate on the beach as he shut off the engines. The silence was broken only by the ticking sound of the engines and the far off sound of water lapping at the shore.
“Inland lake?” I wondered.
The pilot turned on the cabin lights, opened the door and swung his legs out of the cockpit. Crouched on the edge of the cabin, he pushed the left seat forward and reached in to grab me by the belt in preparation for dragging me out of the plane.
“Is he okay?” I heard a voice from behind the pilot.
“Yes, but sleeping like a baby. Lindsay drugged him before I got there.”
“Perfect,” the voice responded. “Get him started out of there, and I’ll give you a hand.”
“Roger, that.”
The pilot’s grip was firm, and as he jerked on my belt to start me out of the cabin, I kept my focus on being as limp as an unconscious body could be. “God, he’s a big guy,” the pilot grunted.
“Man up,” the other voice said.
The pilot chuckled, and crawled over me, forcing my head up so he could get his feet behind me and his hands under my armpits. Squatting there like that, he made a very easy target, but I kept my focus on being unconscious. I had no idea what awaited me on the beach.
With a loud grunt, the pilot lifted my head and shoulders off the floor of the plane just as two more hands grabbed my ankles and pulled from below.
“I shoulda brought more guys,” the outside voice complained. “This is quite a task for the two of us.”
“Man up,” the pilot replied. “Ready? Heave!”
Their combined effort moved me so that my butt was at the door to the plane. I felt the man on the ground lose his grip, step back and then splash up to grab my ankles again. Just as he reached for my left ankle, I coiled my right leg like a praying mantis, and then I lashed out where I was sure his face would be. I felt a surge of pure joy as my heel connected with his forehead.
At the same time, I opened my eyes, looking right at the pilot’s solar plexus. As my left foot crushed the outside helper’s face, I reached up and found the pilot’s collar with both of my hands, and jerked him forward.
From his crouched position, and with the power of my yank on his collar, he sprawled at my waist, both knees straddling my waist. I kipped as best I could and shoved his butt with both of my hands. He somersaulted out of the doorway into the dark.. I heard him collide with something and then the splash as he entered the water.
I scrambled to get myself out of the plane. I dropped unceremoniously into knee deep water, and I felt the helper’s body bump against my leg. I saw the pilot scrambling to get out of the water. He appeared to be disoriented and in pain; he wasn’t making much headway. I grabbed the helper and dragged him ashore, and then rushed over to the pilot just as he fell to his hands and knees at the waterline.
I grabbed him and was ready to punch him when he pleaded with me, “Mister, don’t hurt me any more. Please.”
I pushed him up on the sand, searched him and came up with no weapon, just a wallet.
I went back to the helper, checked him out and retrieved a Browning automatic and a spare clip. I pulled him all the way out of the water, and felt for a pulse. There was none.
I took his wallet and a set of car keys, and then walked back to the plane. I looked at the instrument panel for several seconds, trying to remember the layout of Randall’s plane. Finally, I started flicking toggle switches, and found the landing lights on the third try.
In the glare of the landing lights, I went to the pilot and helped him up. “What’s your name?”
“Ryder. Steve Ryder.”
“Where are we?”
> “Northern Washington; just north of Bellingham.”
“What time is it?”
“Just after midnight.”
I took a few minutes to look at his wallet. I found his Washington driver’s license, and it said he lived at 109 Sunnyside Court, Bellingham, Washington.
I also found his FAA pilot’s license. “Northern Flights Charters?” I asked.
“That’s my company.”
“Who chartered my flight?”
“Don’t know. That guy over there was supposed to meet me and pay me.”
“I didn’t find any money on him, just a weapon and wallet.”
“It’s probably in his vehicle.”
“Is there a flashlight in your plane?”
“It’s in a pocket in the door.”
I went to the plane, got the flashlight, and started back toward Ryder. He was trying to get up. I stopped, walked back to the plane and pulled the key out of the ignition.
“Come on, let’s find that vehicle.”
“It’ll be up in the parking lot. I’ve been here many times.”
“You bring a lot of drugged people here?”
“No, I come here clamming. Lots of people do. We’re in a state park.”
We found the vehicle, a late model Suburban, by clicking on the remote access fob. The vehicle’s lights flashed.
“You up to driving?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Too bad,” I said as I looked in the back of the SUV. I didn’t find anything there, so I stripped his belt off his trousers and tied his hands behind him. “You can navigate from back here. I need to find a police station in hurry. If I don’t, I’m probably going to put a bullet in your brain to be sure you don’t get heroic ideas.”
“The Washington State Police station is about twenty miles from here. I’m not feeling like a hero. I think you broke something in my back when I hit the door on my way out of the plane.”
“I was trying. You slide in here and I’ll close the door. If I see you making any kind of move to escape or come after me, I’ll stop the car and kill you. Understand?”
