31. Hailey
Hailey
I guess you never really know a person until you see how they react in an emergency.
Some people freeze, unable to do anything.
Some people scream and shout, futilely venting their anger and frustration at the world.
Some take to alcohol, hoping to numb the pain through intoxication.
Some people even ignore it—pretending the problem doesn't exist, or at least, hoping against hope that it will go away again of its own accord.
That's not how life works, though. I, of all people, can tell them that.
These guys though—Dean, Reed, and Lennon—they do none of those things. Instead, they swing into action with an military precision that is awe inspiring to observe.
"Put the phone on speaker." Dean's voice is clipped, commanding. Lennon obeys.
"Marsha, it's Dean here. Can you hear me?"
"Oh, Mr. Carter, sir. I'm so sorry." Loud sobbing from the other end, where Marsha is no doubt in a bad state.
"Look, forget that. Whatever's happened has happened, and anyway it ain't your fault.
If it's anyone's fault it's ours for leaving her with you.
But forget about that, it's not important.
What's important is getting her back, and we need your help.
I know it's difficult, but do you think you can pull yourself together Marsha, and answer some questions? It's real important!"
"Y-yes... I think so." Marsha gasps, her sobs still audible between words. We can all hear the tension in her voice.
"Good girl, Marsha." Dean again, strong, calm, reassuring. "Now, as briefly as you can… tell us what happened."
"Well, we were just fixing hot cocoa to drink with our cookies and talking about her pre-school, and then we heard a noise outside, and Grace said she'd go look to see what it was.
Before I could stop her she was out the door…
oh, I'm so sorry!" She's about to break down again, but Lennon intervenes.
"Marsha. It's Lennon again. You're doing fine. Tell us what happened next?"
"What? Oh… er… well she vanished out the door and I… I… oh!"
"Go on, Marsha. Just tell us what happened. We need to know the truth. No one's blaming you."
"Yes, yes I know. Well, I assumed she'd come straight back in, so I carried on making the cocoa, and then I realized about three or four minutes had gone by, and she hadn't returned.
And… and I went outside, and I called her name, and there was no reply.
So… so I… oh God… so I ran into the yard and started shouting out Grace!
, Grace!, but she never came. Then I went back inside and searched around to see if she was hiding inside or something.
Playing a game. But she wasn't. That's when I called you. "
"So, this literally just happened, right now, a few minutes ago?"
"Y-yes.. five or ten minutes ago."
"Alright, alright." This from Dean again. "You did well. Stay there. No one's blaming you, but we might think of more questions to ask you, okay?"
"Okay, Mr. Carter."
"One more thing—did you hear anything… for example a vehicle of any kind?
"No, Mr. Carter, I didn't hear a thing. Not a thing."
"Okay fine. We're coming back now. Stay there, and don't worry, we'll soon find her, it'll all be fine."
Lennon hangs up the line, his face set in a grim frown that suggests to me that if he catches up with the person who's taken his daughter, they'd better be a very fast runner.
"Right. Back to the ranch," Dean barks out.
"Lennon, you're our best tracker. You're in charge of looking for evidence of what happened and where they've taken her.
Reed, get the emergency kit out and start preparing it.
Hailey, I need you to come with us and look after Marsha.
She's obviously a mess, and she needs the kind of gentle touch I don't have time for right now. Will you do that for me?"
I nod. "Of course. Anything."
"Good." He nods back. "Okay, let's go!"
The three men stream out of my kitchen and head towards their home.
Not a full out sprint, but not a jog either.
A pace that's somewhere in between, that will get them there as quickly as possible, but without rendering them useless when they arrive.
At the fence, they don't bother with the niceties of using the stile and simply leap the fence, following one after the other up towards their yard.
I grab a hoodie and my head torch, because although it's warm right now, with the sun still bright in the sky, I reckon it might be well past dark before I get home.
I unlock the cabinet that contains my Savage Arms Lady Hunter rifle, together with its .
243 ammunition. I reach in, pick it up, cradle it in my arm.
I cycle the bolt, hearing the reassuring clunk-click of the action.
She's all ready to go. Should I take it?
I hesitate, unsure. I bought it to scare off bears—could I really aim it at a man?
In the end I decide it'll only slow me down.
But I pick up the bear spray canister. That'll have to do.
I rapidly thrust the bear spray, hoodie, and headtorch into my rucksack along with my cell phone, sling it onto my shoulders, head to the door.
Then, at the last moment I have another thought, and I turn back.
If they've taken Grace, and she's only in her PJs, she's going to be cold.
I grab my sleeping bag—it's one of those camping ones that packs right down into its own little bag, but when you get into it at night and you draw up the zip so there's only your nose poking out, you're as warm as toast. You can't move an inch inside it of course, but that doesn't matter, because you're meant to be sleeping anyway, and the important thing is that you're sure as Hell warm enough.
Perfect! I shove that in my rucksack too, along with everything else.
I close the front door behind me and follow as fast as I can.
Over at the boys' place, I find Lennon in the yard, sniffing around, hunting for tire tracks and other signs of a struggle.
It's still early evening and at this time of the year there's a good couple of hours of sunlight still to come, so at least he has full illumination to work under.
Over to the right in one of the outbuildings I see a light on and the sounds of rummaging—presumably that's Reed going through their 'emergency kit'.
I head inside and follow the sound of voices to the kitchen.
Marsha is there—a sweet girl from the local town, no more than nineteen years old, lending a hand for the summer to gain farm experience—and she's finally stopped crying, though she looks a mess.
Dean is standing over her, asking her questions, though not unkindly.
They both turn to look at me as I come in.
"All okay?" he asks.
"Sure. Any news?"
"Yeah. Lennon found a note pinned to the windshield of our jeep by the wiper blade." He points to a grubby piece of paper on the kitchen table, containing a short, type-written note. I pick it up and unfold it.
If you want to see your little girl again do as you're told.
Sign the document the Sheriff left with you and then leave it together with this note under a stone at the turning to your property tomorrow morning by sunrise.
Do what we say and everything will be alright. We will release the girl unharmed.
Don't involve the police, don't come looking for us yourselves.
We're watching you. Put a foot wrong and you'll never see her alive again.
My face turns ashen. So, they really have kidnapped her—poor Grace! What must she be going through? I hope she's not too scared.
I glance at Dean's grim face, and suddenly I realize how much of a change has come over him.
Gone is the local farmer, worrying about crop rotation and struggling with his account book.
In his place I see an elite soldier—a trained killer, and a man who will stop at nothing to fulfil his mission objectives.
I cannot help but give a shudder. Sinclair has no idea who he is up against. I doubt anyone around here understands these three men and who they are.
Well, something tells me they are about to find out.
Just then, Reed comes in, half carrying, half dragging a heavy, black canvas bag.
He is wearing the same look on his face that I had seen with Dean.
His stride is purposeful. He's no longer the relaxed joker, the casual ladies' man.
All that has gone. He's back to what he used to be.
A trained killer. A professional soldier.
Various lethal-looking gun nozzles and other pieces of equipment are poking out of the carryall.
With some little effort he manages to heave it onto the table, whilst I walk over to Marsha and put my arms around her to comfort her.
"It's all there," Reed tells Dean. "Rifles. Sidearms. Spare mags. flashbangs, smoke grenades, flares, night vision goggles. Everything's tested. Everything's ready."
I gulp. Bloody Hell—are they starting a war?
"Okay, good work. Go check on Lennon, see how he's doing and report back."
"I'm on it." Without a backward look, Reed strides back out of the kitchen, heading for the yard.
Finally, Dean turns to me. "Thanks for coming, Hailey, it's good you're here because we could use your help."
"Of course. Anything I can do, just name it."
"Well first off, I want you to take Marsha home.
She's in shock, she needs to be with her family, and in any case we can't afford to be worrying about her because…
well, we have other things to worry about.
It's what—an hour and ten minutes into Cedar Falls from here, so if you leave now, you'll be back well before ten.
We'll still be here. We're going to wait for darkness before we do anything, so you won't have missed nothing.
But I do want you to come back, if you will, because, well… this mission's got two goals."
"Two goals?"
"Yeah. Of course, the first and most important one is to get Grace back unharmed. That goes without saying." I nod to show my understanding and agreement.
"So, what's the other goal?"
He smiles, but it's not a pleasant smile. "Our other objective is to find out for sure who's behind all this, and why. I mean, we think we know, but he may or may not be there himself, and we need to know for sure, so we know what to do about it."
"What to do about it?"
"Yeah." That smile again. "What to do about it… afterwards ."
It's ten at night, and the sun set about an hour back. There's still plenty of light left in the sky though.
The four of us sit around the boy's kitchen table. They seem mighty relaxed, considering what's coming.
"Okay," says Dean. "Let's run through it one final time." The other two nod. I sit in the corner in silence, trying not to be a nuisance.
"Lennon—you looked around the yard but found no vehicle tracks, right?"
"You got it."
"But you did find some broken branches by the fence, and a small piece of pink material trapped on the barbed wire that looks like it matches the pajamas she was wearing, is that right?"
"It's hers alright." Lennon's face is a mask. Heavens know what waits for any guy he finds hiding his daughter tonight. I hate to even think what might happen.
"So we're all in agreement that instead of taking her away in a vehicle, they carried her off into the forest, yes?"
Nods all around.
"Good," Dean continues. "So then, Lennon, you picked up a recent track that you're pretty sure is them, and it's heading northwest, up the mountain. How sure are you that it's them?"
"Can't be 100%, because… well, you never know, right, but I'd put it at least at 95—higher even."
"Why so sure?"
"Two men—maybe even three—and a child? And they're untrained. Not a clue how to cover their own tracks. That or they didn't even try."
"Yeah, okay, point taken. So, we know which way they were headed, and there's no roads that direction, so we think they're still holding her up there, and the only real place up there to hold anyone hostage for a night or two would be the old Steadfast silver mine building.
An abandoned property that provides a roof and shelter, but not much else.
We in agreement that's where we think they've gone?
" He points a strong, stubby finger at the map that lies open on the kitchen table in front of him.
"Yep."
"Sure thing."
"Alright, good. So, let's say there's three of them—or four even 'cos perhaps there was one there waiting for 'em. Well, that's fine. There's three of us, and we're… how can I put it…"
"Their worst fucking nightmare come true?" Reed suggests, a sinister smile on his face.
"Yes, something like that, Reed. Something like that."
Dean points at the map again.
"Okay, so they'll have a look out. Probably one man, perhaps two, whilst the other one or two men sleep. We'll wait until two in the morning, just when they're at their sleepiest. When they've decided nothing's going to happen tonight. They're all relaxed. Comfortable. Then we hit them."
The other two nod.
"Good. So they'll be expecting that if we come at all we'll be coming up the mountain, same way they came, yes?"
"Sure."
"Of course."
"Well, we won't be. We'll circle round, nice and quiet, give them a wide berth so's they don't know we're there.
Then we'll come down the mountain from the opposite direction, and with gravity and height on our side.
We'll hit them hard and hit them fast. Knock out the guard or guards first, then get to Grace as quickly as we can.
"Hailey, this is where you come in."
I nod. "Okay, Dean. What do you want me to do?"
"You'll come with us part of the way, but you'll wait below the mine on the track they made when they came up, whilst we circle around.
You'll be far enough away to be out of sight in the dark, but you'll be near enough to hear things when it all kicks off.
Stay low until you're sure it's one of us coming.
We'll be carrying Grace. Your job is to take Grace and look after her, whilst the three of us are up the silver mine… er… "
"Securing the perimeter?" Suggests Reed, still smiling his sinister smile, he's sharpening an ugly looking sheath knife.
"Right. Securing the perimeter. Then when the... er... perimeter is good and secured, we'll all join you, and we'll head back here together. Got all that?"
"Yeah, I think so. I hide where you tell me to, below the mine until I see one of you coming down from the mine carrying Grace and then I reveal myself.
That man leaves Grace with me and goes back up to help you finish your job—whatever that might be, and frankly I don't want to know—and then you all come down to meet me and we head back to base.
"Perfect. All we gotta do now is wait for darkness…"