The River Murders

by James Patterson

  Then he told me a little about what I might find in the hills. And it didn’t sound inviting.

  CHAPTER 32

  WHEN I ENTERED the cabin, shoving Couch Potato Man in front of me, the other guy who had shown up with the woman said, “You better not have said anything, Becker.”

  Couch Potato Man just shrugged, still shivering.

  Natty and I spent a few minutes securing the men into chairs. The duct tape came in handy, and I couldn’t resist using a small square on each man’s mouth. They looked like cartoon characters with so much tape and the cords holding them in place. The man who’d come in with the woman was silently furious. I knew he was a guy to watch out for. Hopefully this would go the way I planned. Otherwise he would be an issue later. Men like that never forget and never forgive. Not only had I screwed up his little operation, I had embarrassed him in front of his comrades. He watched me and calculated what he could do to me later.

  The woman was unconscious on the couch, and there was no way she was faking it, so we left the shack and hustled up the trail that Couch Potato Man had told me about.

  The walk gave me a few minutes to think. Couch Potato Man had said to follow the trail, but he wasn’t clear about exactly what we’d find. That was never a good plan to follow in a situation like this, but I had no choice. I hated the idea of losing Bailey Mae more than anything.

  After almost four hundred yards and a steeper than expected incline, I started to understand more of what Couch Potato Man was talking about. I almost ran right past it, hidden in the side of the hill. Instead, I skidded to a stop on the icy path and stared as Natty moved in beside me.

  He mumbled, “What the …?”

  “Exactly,” was all I could say as I stood mesmerized.

  An entrance to a subterranean complex sat before us. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I stepped forward and touched the black steel frame around the matching door. It was built solidly into the side of the hill. A bunker, just like Couch Potato Man had told me about. Freezing temperatures are helpful like that.

  I paused, considering what could lie beyond the door. More important, I wondered who could be waiting beyond the door. That was a question I should have asked the freezing Couch Potato Man, but I was learning as I went. I had to admit my mistakes.

  The door was ajar just a crack. This was where the armed couple had come from. I shoved it open and stood back with the gun in my hand. There was a strong odor of unwashed flesh coming from the dimly lit corridor carved directly from the rock.

  Natty said, “I guess he was telling the truth.” He reached up and ran his finger across the rough walls.

  The corridor was more of a tunnel with a ceiling that hung just above my head, giving me a jolt of claustrophobia. Sounds carried in a place like this, but that was a two-way street. I didn’t want to alert anyone who might be down here, so I signaled Natty to keep quiet.

  A low yellow light came from the end of the corridor. I took each step like I was walking on rice paper. I was nervous, but knew the answers I needed were somewhere ahead of me.

  I marveled at the construction and realized it was extraordinarily well built. What the hell was a bunker doing here? How did they build it without the town talking about it? Unless it was already here and someone just spruced it up. Maybe it had something to do with the resort or even a bomb shelter from the fifties.

  As soon as we stepped inside, I could feel nominal heat. Low-level lighting cast shadows on the walls. I found myself swallowing hard. As I moved forward, Natty was right behind me. He didn’t care if he showed his fear. I could see a small room up ahead with a cot and some stacked supplies.

  My heart pounded in my chest.

  As we approached the room, Natty bumped an electrical box built into the wall of the bunker. That’s when we heard a man’s voice. He was somewhere lost in the shadows of the supply room. In the stillness his words startled me like an air horn. He said, “What was Becker worried about? Nothing, as usual?”

  Then I saw him. Sitting on a stool, writing in a ledger. A man in his mid-forties, as bald as the old Mr. Clean from the commercials. He was built like him, too.

  Natty and I just stared at him until he looked up. I started to bring my gun up as the man burst off the stool and barreled into us, knocking us onto the ground. Poor Natty acted as a cushion and was trapped beneath the man and me.

  The man punched me in the side of the head. I returned an elbow, but at this close range, it had little effect. Natty yelped beneath us.

  This was going to be a real fight.

  CHAPTER 33

  THE BALD MAN was incredibly strong and moved like a cat. He had shoved two full-grown armed men off their feet without using a weapon. The impact and punch had knocked me senseless for a moment, and I’d lost track of my gun, which was somewhere on the hard, roughly finished rock floor.

  I had a grip on both of the man’s wrists and was trying to slide off Natty so he could breathe and maybe help me in the fight. As we struggled, the powerful man jerked his right hand free, and I felt him reach toward his leg. I figured he had a gun secured somewhere on his ankle. I had already felt the bite of his combat boot as it ripped down my shin.

  I tried to stop him from reaching for what I thought was a gun. Then I learned I was wrong. It was worse.

  He had a knife—and not a commemorative folding one like mine. This was a full-length, straight-edged combat knife like one a Marine would carry. He got it free of its scabbard and brought it up with his right hand to drive it into my throat.

  I blocked the blade and parried it to the side. I could feel the steel edge as it grazed my ear and made a click against the hard floor.

  The man twisted on top of me, bringing the knife back up. A knife is a weapon of terror and it was working. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I had almost nothing left.

  Then he slid up higher to get his weight into his next thrust. That’s when instinct kicked in. My left hand was trapped between us. I shoved it lower, then squeezed. Squeezed with all the power in my hand around his testicles. His face registered surprise, then pain. He rolled to get away, but I held on. Then it was Natty’s turn to surprise me.

  As soon as we were off him and lying on the hard rock floor, Natty swung his pistol and struck the man square in the face with the butt of the gun. The blow was phenomenal and shattered the man’s nose. The fight went out of him at once, and he dropped the knife.

  I had to lie on my back and stare at the low ceiling while taking in a few breaths. Between the closed-in space and the knife, I was a little freaked-out. I sat up and scanned the room to make sure he was the only sentinel. I also noticed that there was almost no noise. Our struggle had brought a stillness to the bunker.

  The man was laid out, with a broken nose and split upper lip, but he was breathing.

  Natty whispered, “What do we do with him?”

  “For now we leave him right here. We’ve gotta search this place for Bailey Mae.”

  CHAPTER 34

  WE LEFT THE man right where he was on the floor of the small supply room and kept moving carefully through the dark hallway, which felt like it was closing in around us and suffocating me.

  Across from the supply room there was a long panel of heavy metal grating. It took a moment to realize why the grating enclosed the separate rooms: they were cells, each about the size of a large walk-in closet. The tight pattern of the metal obscured our view, but I could make out the outline of a person in each damp cell.

  What the hell?

  One cell was open and empty. Inside was a table with straps on it and a water hose connected to a faucet. The sight made my skin crawl and sent a wave of panic through me. Bailey Mae shouldn’t be anywhere near a place like this. Whatever this place was.

  The people inside the cells started to move forward when they realized Natty and I weren’t their regular jailers. They rattled the doors, and a few said, “Please, out” or “Open.”

  I had a bad feeling about the whole
situation and realized we’d stumbled onto something way out of our experience. It was like we had stepped into hell. We were underground and these people were clearly being tormented. Natty was so close he bumped against me with every step. Even though it was cold, I was sweating, and the sweat stung my eyes and blurred my vision. The odor of human waste hit me. I ran my fingers over the ceiling to make sure it wasn’t getting lower or narrowing as we walked.

  I called out Bailey Mae’s name several times but got no response.

  As we moved, I inspected the doors to the cells and saw that they didn’t need a key. Instead, at the top and the bottom of each door there was a latch that could only be opened from the outside.

  As I started to open the first door, Natty tried to stop me and said, “We don’t know why they’re locked up. They could be dangerous.”

  “More dangerous than the asshole that just tried to stab me? Don’t be an idiot, Natty. Help me.”

  “But what if they’re criminals?”

  “Who locks up criminals in a cave? This isn’t Pakistan. It’s upstate New York, for God’s sake.”

  The latches took some effort, but we managed to muscle the doors open. None of the captives jumped up to get out of the cells immediately. They just stared at us like they didn’t understand what we were doing.

  As we worked our way down the hall, I kept asking, “Is there a young girl here?” I noticed all of the prisoners were men and seemed to have trouble with English.

  There were no clear answers, and we continued to move forward as we picked up our pace. I screamed, “Bailey Mae!” and looked into each cell.

  My hope was fading. What nightmare had we wandered into?

  CHAPTER 35

  AT ABOUT THE sixth cell, a man in his mid-fifties stepped into the hallway. He was short and frail with streaks of gray in his unwashed hair.

  The man said in accented English, “My name is Hassan. I believe the girl is down there.” He pointed toward the end of the corridor.

  I broke into a run and came to the last cell. It was darker this far down the hall, and when I looked in the cell no one was inside. My heart sank. Then I caught just a hint of movement in the shadows and heard a tiny voice.

  “Mitchum? Is that you?”

  I stared into the dark cell.

  Bailey Mae sat up and a beam of weak light caught her brown hair.

  Frantically, I pulled the top latch down, then jerked hard on the lower one and felt the door give. As soon as I had the cell open, Bailey Mae rose from a metal cot and fell into my arms as I stepped inside. I couldn’t stop the sob of relief that came out.

  She was weak, but alive.

  Natty finished releasing everyone from the cells. There were about fifteen, all men. I noticed they were all dark-skinned and probably Middle Eastern. They all turned and started to gather in the supply room. As I hustled down there with Bailey Mae still in my arms, I realized they were surrounding the bald man Natty had hit in the face. The man was conscious now and in a low crouch.

  It was clear as they crowded around the hunched jailer that these men were not happy with how they’d been treated. One of them picked up the combat knife that was on the ground nearby.

  Although I didn’t give a shit about this guy, something inside me made me speak up. “Hold on. We need to let the authorities deal with this jerk-off.”

  The man who had told me where Bailey Mae was, Hassan, turned and said, “There is nothing they could do to this man that would give us vengeance.”

  “Just the same, we’re gonna lock him in one of the cells until we figure out what’s going on.” I handed Bailey Mae to Natty so I could face the crowd. I hadn’t bothered to find my gun, and although I was the biggest guy there, I realized the numbers were not in my favor.

  I said, “He’ll be secure in a cell until the police can come.”

  A man in his forties with a scar on his left cheek and a beard that meandered down his neck stepped forward and spoke with a heavy accent. “I deal with him.” His smile gave away his intentions.

  “No, I said we’ll let the authorities deal with him.”

  But that did not sit well with the crowd.

  CHAPTER 36

  ONCE WE SECURED the bald man in a cell, I faced the former captives. Natty leaned in and said, “We gotta get out of here.”

  Bailey Mae said, “As long as we take everyone with us.”

  Natty looked surprised and said, “We can’t be responsible for all of these men.”

  Even in her weakened state, Bailey Mae was resolute. “They’re my friends. Hassan helped me and kept talking to me. I’m not leaving without them.”

  Not only did I not want to argue, but she made sense. If something went wrong and the people in the cabin took control again, these poor men wouldn’t have a chance. My only concern was the weather and their weakened condition. I considered the hike back and decided the downward slope to the cabin would help them.

  Bailey Mae just gave me a look and I knew that, no matter what, we were bringing these men with us.

  I said in a loud voice, “All right, everyone. We have to hike down the hill and it’s cold outside. Find whatever you can to wrap yourself up in. Does anyone feel like they can’t make it?” I scanned the little crowd and realized there was no way anyone would speak up. They would make it down the hill if their legs were broken.

  Natty and I carried Bailey Mae from the bunker and headed back to the cabin, leading the slow-moving group of former captives. I wanted to make the trip as quickly as possible because the men weren’t dressed for the weather, but not so fast that they couldn’t keep up.

  Bailey Mae felt like a feather in my arms but somehow found the strength to hold me around the neck as if she were a rodeo rider. When we reached the cabin, I could tell by Bailey Mae’s reaction she knew all three of the people we had tied up. Depending on what she told me, there was a chance I was going to kill one or more of them.

  The men crowded into the living room and most of them immediately sat down, exhausted from the hike down from the bunker. They clearly recognized all three of our captives.

  Bailey Mae sat next to me at the kitchen counter as I fumbled with my phone to call 911. I told the operator we needed police and fire rescue and that we had multiple injuries. I figured that would get them moving fast. Explaining our exact location was a little more difficult. She wasn’t sure who I was, but after I told them to check with Timmy Jones, the dispatcher didn’t ask any more questions. I wasn’t about to try to explain who my fifteen new friends were. I still didn’t know.

  It was clear both of the thugs we’d secured in the chairs had struggled and failed to get out of the binds that held them. All I could do was look at them and say, “Nice try, assholes.” I had a million questions, but I didn’t think these guys were ready to talk, short of me dragging them outside again.

  I stepped over to the couch and checked the woman, who was now conscious and staring in disbelief at the men who had been her captives. It looked like she would live, and that was good enough for me.

  I took a man’s heavy coat from a hanger near the door and slipped it around Bailey Mae. As I leaned in, I said, “Don’t worry, kid. Help is on the way.”

  Natty and I dragged the two chairs with the men tied to them all the way into the kitchen, away from the freed men. I ripped the tape off their mouths, but neither spoke immediately. The man in charge just shook his head and mumbled, “I won’t forget you, Mitchum.”

  “Wish I could forget you and this whole nightmare.”

  “But you won’t be able to. No matter what happens. No matter how this all plays out, I’ll still be thinking of how you screwed things up and what I’ll do to you the first chance I get.”

  “What, exactly, did I screw up?”

  “A chance to make a difference. A chance to really protect the country. Instead, we’re no better off than we were before September 11.”

  “You really believe that, don’t you?”

  “Som
eone has to.”

  “How does torturing a few scared men protect anything?”

  “You don’t get it, do you, Mitchum? It’s all connected. The Middle East, Europe, the US; every action has a consequence. From supporting Hamas to supplying electrical parts that could be used to bring down a jet. It’s all connected and you’re gonna have to live with the guilt when shit happens because of what you did here.”

  I was tired of this guy. “How does kidnapping a little girl protect anything?”

  “I didn’t say we were perfect. Accidents happen, people make mistakes. One day I hope you’re collateral damage to an accident.”

  I just stared at him as I fantasized about shooting this creep in the head, but I wasn’t like him. Thank God I wasn’t like him and I had to know there was a difference between us. I gave him a smirk, then turned my back on him. I hoped for good.

  When I stepped out of the kitchen, Bailey Mae reached out to take my hand.

  She pulled me closer and whispered in my ear, “I knew you’d find me.”

  That one sentence, those few words, made all this worthwhile. But I was still confused, and confusion doesn’t sit well with a guy like me. I like to see a problem and tackle it. Head-on. This was a puzzle, and I didn’t see a clear answer. I straightened up. The freed men were all looking at me to see what my next move would be.

  I looked over at Couch Potato Man, who had remained unusually quiet. I said, “You guys feel tough locking up a little girl?”

  He didn’t say a word.

  Bailey Mae tugged on my arm and waited for me to lean down so her mouth was close to my ear. She said, “I saw it, Mitchum.”

  “Saw what?”

  She nodded at Couch Potato Man. “I was delivering my coffee cakes to the Wilkses and I saw that man shoot them. They worked with these people. Mr. Wilks found this place for them. I heard them argue about money, and Mr. Wilks said he’d tell the media about it. That’s when that guy shot them. Bang, bang, without any hesitation. I was so scared I couldn’t move. He turned around with the pistol in his hand, and the only thing I did was put down my coffee cakes and freeze.”