Christmas Kidnapping

by Cindi Myers

  “We need to find out for certain how many people we’re up against,” he said.

  Her gaze darted back to the cabin. Her focus now was on her son. “How do we do that?”

  He needed a way to draw them out without endangering Ian or Andrea. The scent of wood smoke tickled his nose, giving him an idea. “If we set one of the empty cabins on fire, that will draw them out,” he said. “While they’re distracted, we’ll run in and grab Ian.”

  She frowned. “How are we going to set anything on fire when it’s snowing?”

  “We need an accelerant. Gasoline or kerosene or something like that.”

  “Where are we going to get that?”

  “There might be some up by the office. It looks like it used to be a store. We’ll need matches or a lighter, too.”

  “Why can’t we just go in, grab Ian and get out of here? We both have guns, and if we’re fast, we’ll be gone before whoever is in there guarding him can call for help.”

  “We still have to make it back to my truck without them catching us,” he said. “We can’t exactly move quickly in this rough country, in the snow, carrying a child. They might cut us off or corner us.”

  “What if they do that now, before we can get to Ian?”

  “If we can’t find what we need to start a fire, then we may very well have to grab him and make a run for it. But let’s try it my way first.”

  She sighed. “All right.”

  “You stay here,” he said. “I’ll check the office. If I find what I need, I’ll start the fire. As soon as Ian’s guard leaves, you go in and get Ian. But be ready to shoot if you run into a second guard.”

  “What do I do if I see someone heading your way?” she asked.

  If this were an FBI operation, they would have radio communication, but Andrea hadn’t even had time to replace the cell phone Anderson had stolen. “Stay out of sight,” he said. “Look after yourself and Ian. I’ll watch out for myself.”

  He retraced his route behind the row of cabins. The snow was falling harder now, a white curtain over the landscape. The compound remained empty and silent save for the soft crunch of their footsteps. He would be able to hear a car approaching in the storm, if reinforcements showed up in anticipation of Jack and Andrea’s scheduled arrival with the ransom money.

  Like the other buildings in the camp, the office was a simple rectangular board-and-batten structure with a small front porch, a metal roof and boarded-up windows. But this building was twice as large as the others and boasted a back entrance in addition to the front door. Jack hoped this back door led to a storeroom where he could find the materials he needed for starting a fire.

  The steps leading to the back door had long since rotted away, but someone had positioned a plastic milk crate on the ground below the threshold, which enabled Jack to reach the doorknob. The door was locked, but the mechanism was cheap and flimsy. He took out his pocketknife and had the lock open in less than a minute.

  As soon as the door was open, Jack slipped inside and closed it again. The interior of the building was black and smelled of mouse and mold. He waited, his back to the door, and allowed his eyes to adjust to the dimness. After a few minutes he could make out the bulky shapes of stacked boxes and old furniture. A second, closed door must lead into the main part of the building. He pressed his ear to it and listened. Nothing.

  Confident that he was alone, Jack risked switching on the flashlight on his phone. He played the beam across the piled junk in the storeroom: a sagging upholstered armchair, a leaning stack of yellowing newspapers, a table with a broken leg, some old flowerpots, a case of bottled water and another of chicken noodle soup, several unlabeled cardboard boxes, and a shelving unit filled with canned goods—some of them so old the labels were barely legible.

  No gas cans. No cans of kerosene. Treading carefully, Jack moved over to the canned-goods shelf. He scanned the items there—mostly beans and canned peaches or tomatoes. But on the bottom shelf he found a gallon container of cooking oil. If he let the oil soak into the dry wood of one of the cabins, he might be able to get a good blaze going in spite of the damp.

  He picked up the oil and flinched when a mouse raced out from behind it. Heart pounding, he searched the shelves for matches or a lighter. Behind a box of assorted fishing flies he found a butane lighter, the long-handled kind used to light campfires or candles. Perfect.

  He pocketed the lighter, switched off the flashlight and stowed the phone, then picked up the cooking oil. He stopped beside the pile of newspapers and stuffed a few under his jacket to use as kindling. Andrea was probably wondering what had happened to him. He hoped she was staying put and not attempting anything rash. She struck him as a controlled, reasonable woman, but a mother whose child was in danger had plenty of reasons to set aside caution.

  Outside once more, the cold wind hit him with a force that made him grit his teeth and hunch against the onslaught. His leg throbbed from the dampness and his recent exertions. A hot blaze was going to feel good, though he wouldn’t have time to enjoy it.

  He stopped at the corner of the office and thus the most distant point from the building where Ian was being held. Or at least, they had assumed the thumping noise came from Ian. Assumptions were dangerous in his business, but what other “kid” would Anderson and his men be keeping prisoner out here?

  What about the boy or teenager or whoever he was they had alluded to earlier? The two men they overheard said he had escaped, but where had he gone? And why hadn’t the FBI heard anything about this?

  He dropped the container of cooking oil at the back corner of the building and wadded the papers against the foundation, sheltering them from the snowfall as best he could with his body. When he was satisfied with the arrangement, he uncapped the bottle of oil and splashed it onto the side of the building. The siding, even damp from the storm, sucked up the oil, which smelled rancid, as if it had sat in that storeroom for many years. Careful not to get any oil on himself, Jack emptied the bottle, tossed it aside, then pulled out the lighter.

  “Don’t make another move, Agent Prescott, or I’ll blow a hole through your guts.”

  Chapter Five

  Andrea’s stomach churned with nerves as she waited for something to happen. Would Jack really be able to set a fire in all this snow? Would he even find anything to start a blaze with? And if he did, would she be able to get inside the cabin and rescue Ian before someone spotted her?

  She drew the gun from the back of her jeans and eased off the safety. Then she pressed her ear to the plywood covering the window and listened. Someone was moving around in there—someone a lot bigger than Ian, from the sound of it. What had they done to her poor baby? Was he tied up? Gagged?

  She took a deep breath. No time to panic here. She could be furious about all this later. Right now she had to be calm. Cold as ice. She was a woman on a mission to save her son and she couldn’t afford to think about anything else.

  What was taking Jack so long? She had expected flames by now. Shouting. Slamming doors. People running to put out the fire. At the very least, she expected Jack to come back and tell her they were going to have to go to plan B, whatever that was.

  Still holding the gun with both hands, stiff-armed and pointed at the ground the way she’d seen on TV, she crept to the other end of the building. She had to move out a few steps in order to see the first cabin in line. Something shifted in the curtain of snow. Then Jack stepped out of the shadows beside the building.

  And another man, dressed in the kind of camouflage coveralls hunters sometimes wore, a stocking cap pulled low over his forehead, stepped out behind Jack. Andrea gasped and started toward them, then thought better of it. The last thing she wanted was for Jack’s captor to spot her. She shrank back against the building. Think! she ordered her brain, which had frozen in fear, like a streamed movie stuck buffering. />
  There was still someone moving around in the cabin with Ian. So the man with Jack was probably one of the two men they had overheard earlier—or maybe he was a fourth man. There might be any number of people hidden in the other cabins or in the woods nearby. Her stomach churned at the idea and she forced it from her mind. Right now she needed to get closer to Jack and his captor and try to figure things out. At least that way she could find out where they were taking Jack.

  Keeping close to the cabins and moving as quickly and quietly as possible, she crept toward the office building. She stopped at the corner of the last cabin before the office and her stomach plummeted as Jack’s captor prodded him up onto the office’s front porch and in through the door. Raised voices sounded from the office—at least two men in addition to Jack, who, as far as she could determine, wasn’t talking.

  Two men in the office, plus one person in the cabin with Ian—three people besides her and Jack in the camp. Were there more in the other cabins? They hadn’t bothered to show themselves. Maybe while the two in the office were dealing with Jack, she should bust into the end cabin, shoot the guy with Ian and rescue her son.

  And leave Jack to die? Nausea rose in her throat at the thought. She flipped the safety back on the gun, stuffed it in the waistband of her jeans and pushed a wet lock of hair out of her eyes. At least all this cold was shocking her out of the stupor she’d slipped into the moment she had discovered her son was missing. Why hadn’t she called the police or let Jack call his colleagues with the Bureau?

  That was easy enough to answer—she hadn’t wanted to do anything to jeopardize Ian’s safety. The kidnappers had counted on that. It was the same psychology that made people fall for scammers who posed as stranded grandchildren who needed money to get out of jail. The grandparents who fell prey to such traps were so worried about the safety of their loved ones that they didn’t think logically. She would have judged herself too savvy and educated to fall for such a ruse, but at least when it came to children, apparently, emotion trumped common sense every time.

  Though there were no windows on this side of the office building, she still worried someone might spot her, so she moved along the side of the cabin to the back. She stopped and studied the structure again. It was built like all the others, except that this one was larger and also included a back door. How could she help Jack? Alone, she wasn’t sure she had the nerve to burst in there, waving the pistol around as if she knew what she was doing. That would probably distract his captors for a few seconds—until they shot her or overpowered her.

  Her gaze shifted to the back door. Maybe she could creep in that way and get the jump on them. There weren’t any steps leading up to the door, but someone—Jack?—had positioned a milk crate underneath it. She frowned at the other items near the crate—an overturned plastic jug and what looked like a bunch of paper.

  She glanced toward the front of the building—no movement. Then she raced toward the back door. The empty gallon jug lay on its side in the mud, a camping lighter beside it. The label on the jug read Cooking Oil. The paper—yellowing newsprint—was crumpled around the corner of the cabin. The outer layer of paper was soaked, but when she pulled this away, she found a drier layer. Maybe dry enough to light.

  Muffled voices rumbled from the office at the front of the building, but she couldn’t make out any words. If she set the fire as Jack had planned, she could force Jack’s captors out of there. But would Jack be in even more danger, trapped in flames?

  It would take a while for the building to burn down, so she didn’t think Jack was in much danger. And getting his captors away from him and occupied with putting out the blaze would give them all more time to escape. “Here goes nothing,” she muttered, and flicked the lighter. The paper flared instantly, and seconds later, flames licked at the old wood of the cabin. Andrea retreated to the edge of the woods and waited.

  * * *

  ANDERSON SHOVED THE rifle barrel into the small of Jack’s back and Jack took another step forward into the front room of the office. He studied the man who lounged on a faded green sofa, keeping his expression impassive. This man was older than Anderson, maybe midfifties, with a hawk nose and deeply recessed eyes. Nothing about him was familiar. He wasn’t in the database Jack had combed through last night and he wasn’t on the hours of surveillance videos from terrorist targets the team had reviewed.

  “We were beginning to think you had stood us up, Agent Prescott,” the man said, his voice gravelly and low—the other man Jack and Andrea had overheard earlier. “Of course, I expected you to do something underhanded, which is why my friend here was watching for you.”

  Jack remained silent, giving nothing away.

  “Did you bring the money we asked for?” the man asked.

  “Does your boss know you only asked for ten thousand?” Jack asked. “That seems pretty small-time for a guy like him. That kind of money won’t pay his expenses for a day.”

  The man’s eyes shifted, uncertain. “I’m the only boss around here,” he said, though to Jack’s ears the words carried more bluster than conviction.

  “So Braeswood and Roland don’t have anything to do with this,” Jack said. “You just happened to know my name and what I do and who I’m connected to. And you came up with the idea to kidnap that little boy to get to me all by yourself.”

  “Are you saying you don’t think I’m smart enough to come up with an idea like that?” He stood.

  “If you were smarter, you wouldn’t be stuck out here in the middle of nowhere, babysitting a kid,” Jack said. “Braeswood would have given you something more important to do.”

  A vein pulsed at the corner of Gravel Voice’s right eye. “This isn’t about the kid,” he said. “It’s about you and the rest of the jackbooted thugs who pass yourselves off as law enforcement in this country.”

  “Jackbooted thugs. I haven’t heard that one in a while. Classic conspiracy-theorist rhetoric. Did they teach you that in the indoctrination camps?” If he made the man mad enough, would he blurt out something Jack could use later to tie him to Braeswood’s group? Gravel Voice hadn’t denied the connection, a sign that Jack’s assumption of a connection was on the money.

  Anderson, who had remained still and silent all this time, suddenly spoke. “Do you smell something funny?”

  Gravel Voice glared at him. “What do you mean?” He sniffed. “All I smell is wood smoke.”

  The tang of wood smoke hung in the air, stronger than it had been earlier, Jack thought.

  “Didn’t you tell Leo to put out that fire?” Gravel Voice asked.

  “He put it out. I watched him do it,” Anderson said.

  “He must have lit it again,” Gravel Voice said. “I smell smoke.”

  Anderson made a face. “He was whining about being cold. He don’t like being stuck down there with the kid.”

  “It’s not like he’s got the tough job, guarding a toddler. He’s just a whiner. Go tell him to put the fire out. Somebody is going to smell it and come nosing around.”

  Anderson glanced at Jack. “What about him?”

  Gravel Voice pulled out a pistol—a long-barreled .44. The kind of gun that would blow a hole the size of a dinner plate in Jack at this close range. “He’ll be fine here with me.”

  “Okay.” Anderson slouched out the door, leaving Jack and his boss alone.

  “Where’s the woman?” Gravel Voice asked. Then, as if there might be more than one woman involved, he clarified, “The boy’s mom.”

  “I came alone,” Jack said.

  “Liar.” The gunshot echoed off the walls, leaving Jack’s ears ringing. The bullet bit into the doorframe behind Jack’s head. “Where is she?” Gravel Voice shouted.

  “I don’t know,” Jack said. True enough. He hoped Andrea had stayed behind the last cabin, but he had no way of knowing.

  Th
e front door burst open, hitting against the wall. “Fire!” Anderson yelled.

  The smell of smoke was much stronger now. “What the—?” Gravel Voice leaped to his feet.

  “This building is on fire!” Anderson shouted. “You need to get out now, Jerry.” Not waiting for an answer, he ran outside again.

  Gravel Voice looked toward the door, then at Jack. “I don’t have time to waste with you,” he said, and raised the pistol.

  The gunshot exploded through the room. Gravel Voice staggered forward, a stunned expression on his face, then sank to his knees, blood staining the front of his shirt, his own weapon unfired. Jack lunged and twisted the gun from his hand, then looked past him as Andrea stepped through the door from the storeroom, the Beretta in her hand.

  “Let’s go,” Jack said. Still holding the .44, he grabbed her free hand and pulled her toward the back door.

  “Is he dead?” she asked, looking over her shoulder toward the man’s slumped figure.

  “I don’t know.” Probably. He doubted anyone could survive a direct hit like that.

  “He was going to kill you,” she said,

  “Yes. You saved my life.” He pulled her along after him. They could talk through her guilt or confusion or whatever she was feeling later. Right now they had to take advantage of the opportunity they had. “Come on,” he said. “We have to hurry.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked as they ran out the front door, across the porch and around the side of the building, which was completely engulfed in flames now. In spite of the damp, the old, dry wood had caught quickly.

  Jack put up a hand to shield his face from the intense heat and guided her around the back of the row of cabins. “We’re going to get Ian!” he shouted over the crackle of the flames.

  As they raced past the opening between the first and second cabins, he caught a glimpse of the commotion in the front of the buildings. Anderson raced past, shouting, but not at Jack and Andrea. Right now all his attention was on the burning building, but before too long, someone would remember the outsiders and come looking for them. They had to act quickly.