35. Angel
Chapter thirty-five
Angel
The sound of multiple detonations at the entrance echoes through the tunnels once we’re out of communication range. “Take cover!” I shout as I crouch and cover my head.
Brad screams like a girl as Owen shoves him to the ground and covers his body as debris and dust fill the tunnel.
Once the rumble of tumbling rocks stops and the dirt settles, we dust ourselves off and resume movement.
“We’re trapped!” Brad says in a panic.
“Calm down,” Owen chides. “We’re not trapped. We just have a long walk ahead of us.”
I remove the flashlight from my pocket and shine it in Brad’s face. “We’ll use your water that you have stored, grab supplies, and then find Genevieve.”
Brad shakes out his hair, sending little pebbles flying in all directions. “Who is Genevieve?”
Owen removes Brad’s restraints and helps him to his feet. “A girl who was taken yesterday morning. We believe she’s hidden somewhere in these tunnels. You’re going to lead us to her. If you run, you’re not going to get far with the amount of firepower we have.”
As we walk a bit further, we come to the area where Brad had been hiding out for the past 10 to 12 hours. I shine the light across the area, stoop down, and inspect the ground. There are two sets of boot prints and drag marks in the dirt, as well as an old set of tracks for mining carts.
I shine my light toward Brad’s feet. “Let me see the bottom of your shoe.”
He does as I ask, and I match it to one set of prints and then follow the other.
About 50 feet further, I point to the ground.
“Brad hasn’t gone any further than this area.
His prints stop here. However, the other set goes deeper, and these drag marks aren’t uniform.
See how they move inward and outward a few inches? ”
Scott comes over to where I’m squatting and takes a closer look. “Heel marks over uneven terrain. Follow the heel marks, and we’ll find Genevieve. Hopefully, we’ll find Eva too.”
I shake my head. “Based on these marks, it will only be one or the other.”
“I didn’t take anyone. I swear!” Brad exclaims. “I’m being set up!”
The team already suspected as much, but we had to be certain. For all we knew, Brad and Bennett were partners, but I get a gut feeling that wasn’t the case.
Jeremy says, “And the person doing it did an excellent job. There’s enough evidence to pin this on you, and at least 18 other abductions.”
“What? Why would someone do that?”
“Because Logan Bloom blames you for his sister’s death,” Jaxon replies.
There’s disbelief in Brad’s tone of voice.
“Logan died shortly after his sister by driving off a cliff. He even sent me a letter before he did it, blaming me for being a despicable fiancé by not protecting his sister. In the letter was a list of the national parks she wanted to visit and the order in which she was going to visit them. There’s no way he was the one who set me up. ”
He removes a folded and nearly disintegrated piece of paper from his back pocket, opening it up to show us the barely legible writing.
“I’ve kept this with me because it’s a reminder of my failure.
Logan wanted me to feel guilty, and it worked.
Every time I wanted to move on with my life, I’d get these emails from the National Park Service for the exact location that was on the list with discounted rates for the off-season.
Then posts or ads on social media would pop up. ”
“And that didn’t seem suspicious to you?” Jack asks. “Logan Bloom faked his death and had the resources to do it because he works for the CIA. He now goes by the name Bennett Gray, and he’s been setting you up from the beginning.”
Brad contemplates the new information as I lead the way, following the trail that’s been left for us. I stop when I notice the other set of prints shift from a direct path to a cluster. “He rested here.”
Another 100 yards in at a split in the tunnel system, I find another cluster. “He also rested here.”
Owen shines his light around the area where two tunnels branch off. “Bennett was injured in the explosion in Colorado. Makes sense that carrying or dragging a 100-pound girl would take its toll.”
I agree, but there are still questions burning in the back of my mind. “How was Bennett here at the same time he was in the hospital? Then there’s the rental outside with Colorado plates that corroborate his story of driving here. Both of those give him an alibi for Genevieve’s kidnapping.”
Brad holds up his hands in surrender. “I swear it wasn’t me!”
Owen snorts. “Man, we already know that. Let us work through the problem without you constantly proclaiming your innocence.”
“He has a team just like us,” Faith says. “Someone could have driven the rental back while he flew into Medford, Eugene, or any number of other small airports. I bet if the FBI gets a warrant for the GPS information of the vehicle, it will show that Bennett was nowhere near Stillwaters Campground.”
“And the number to the hospital is easily spoofed,” Owen says. “I could do it in my sleep.”
“Great,” Brad mumbles. “Even if you catch him, I’m still going to be blamed.”
I feel a pang of sympathy for the guy who was just so in love with a woman that he couldn’t let her go.
It was a love that was used against him for a vendetta he doesn’t deserve.
“The public will want answers, and if we don’t get a confession, then you might very well end up being the scapegoat.
We’ll do everything we can to protect you, Brad, but that means we can’t let you go until this is all over. ”
Owen slaps Brad’s back as he takes the lead, continuing to follow the set of footprints and drag marks down the tunnel.
“The good news is that Bennett’s not going to get away with it. We let him believe that we trusted him, and we came in here knowing this was a trap.”
Scott walks a few paces behind them, showing Brad a tracking device he had in his pocket. “I gave my wife a similar GPS tracker to put on Bennett’s vehicle, and we each have one in the event we found his ATV. If Daisy did her job, then she planted one and we’ll know where he went.”
It’s at that moment Brad realizes that we’re a member short. “Where is Daisy?”
Owen looks at me, and there’s a shared grief between us when I say, “She’s in the hands of the enemy.”
When we devised our plan to trap Bennett into a false sense of security so he believed he had the upper hand, we knew that a sacrifice had to be made to save Genevieve.
Daisy was that sacrifice. Even now, I’m still unsure if that’s what Uri meant in his warning, or if the true sacrifice is yet to come.
But I’m trusting in the Lord to protect the woman I love.
It was tough for Owen to allow his sister to do it, but like the rest of us, he knew it was the only way.
As we come upon the cavern, I stop and hold up my hand in a fist in a signal to stop when I hear something off in the distance. Everyone, including Brad, remains silent as we listen intently.
Muffled shouts and yells echo off the walls. “Mmmmm!”
At the call for help, I take off running. “We’re coming!”
I’m the first to reach the small cavern where I find Genevieve squirming on the ground, her hair matted, and streaks down her cheeks where tears had run freely.
With no food or water for almost a full day, she doesn’t have enough moisture left in her body to cry anymore.
More importantly, Uri is sitting right next to her, whispering in her ear.
“My job is done here,” he says to me, and me alone. “Now it’s your turn to take over.”
Keeping my voice low and eyes on Genevieve, I ask him, “And Daisy?”
Uri touches my shoulder, and peace flows through me, even before he says, “She’s in good hands and everything is going accordingly.” Then he chuckles. “The Father hasn’t stopped your plan, so He must agree with it. That’s very rare.”
As he walks down the tunnel and disappears from sight, he laughs. “Very rare indeed!”
I shake my head and focus on the situation at hand. When I approach, Genevieve wriggles further away. I put my hands up to show her that I’m no threat, then tell my sister that she’s needed. I watch as Faith approaches the scared girl with caution.
“We’re not going to hurt you. Daisy sent us,” Faith says gently. Then she fingers the edge of the duct tape and amends her statement. “Okay, I lied. Removing the tape is going to hurt, but only for a few seconds.”
Genevieve nods and braces for the sting, eyes shut tight and body rigid as my sister rips the tape off. The scream that follows is almost deafening.
I hand Faith one of the canteens that Brad had brought with him. “She needs this.”
Faith takes it, sets it down while she cuts away the bindings around Genevieve’s wrists and ankles, helping her to sit up.
Before taking a sip of the water she desperately needs, Genevieve asks, “Is Daisy okay? Is she alive?”
I squat down next to the girl and look her in the eye so she knows I’m not lying. “As far as we know, she’s still alive.”
Genevieve doesn’t miss the worry in my eyes or my voice. With a dry mouth and parched throat, she croaks out, “But you don’t know for how long.”
She doesn’t pose it like a question, which is good because I’m unable to form a reply. I just let my chin touch my chest, which is enough of an answer.
Owen squats down next to me and tells her, “We need to get you out of here. The sooner we do that, the greater our odds become that we can rescue my sister.”
Roger and Vinny meet us at the southern entrance to the mines with an FBI medical team on standby to attend to Genevieve and check her over for any injuries.
Roger says to me, “Your brothers have followed the tracker to Klamath Regional Airport located about two hours from here. Tail number of the aircraft is November-seven-four-two-Oscar-India, registered to Dominion Atrix Group. They took off 15 minutes ago with a flight plan to LaGuardia Airport in New York.”