Chapter Forty-Four
Forty-Four
A half hour after Zack put in the coordinates for the ski resort, he was on the mountain, just minutes from the entrance.
He’d spoken to the team at Ghost Town twice in that time, and during their last conversation, ten minutes earlier, they told him they had looped Angela Lacy and Jim Pace at CIA into this because they had access to methods that Ghost Town did not.
The Signal line rang again. It was Court; he told Zack he would be flying into Boulder Municipal Airport. It was closer to where Andie was last seen, and there would be a vehicle waiting for him so he could meet with Zack wherever he was.
Zack instructed Court to make sure the vehicle was four-wheel drive—the roads were shit and getting worse—but he did not tell his friend that Lancer had demanded Court’s neck in exchange for his daughter.
The conversation was brief; Zack was busy fighting the elements and concentrating on the road, and after Court hung up, the former Navy SEAL began winding his way up the mountain.
Just minutes later the Signal app chirped again; Zack answered it with the press of a button on his steering wheel.
“Yeah.”
Hanley said, “Night Train, you’ve got everybody on conference here. Lacy, Gumdrop, Teddy, and myself. We’ve got intel for you.”
“Give it to me.”
Jill said, “The two dead men at the MRI center have been identified. Brothers, Lee and Todd Voorhies, out of Ogden, Utah. They are…were…members of a small white nationalist group. We ran car info on them; Todd owned a blue Jeep Wagoneer.
“From cameras around Boulder I accessed, I see a blue Jeep Wagoneer parked across the street from Cara’s Bakehouse and in the lot of the MRI center at the same time you were at both places.
“I then have several images of what appears to be the same vehicle entering Eldora Mountain Resort. I see one person in the vehicle.
“But there is also an image from when it’s leaving the ski slopes, and I see two figures. One in the front seat, one in the back. Both are large, presumably male, but with the snow and shadowing, I can’t tell more than that.”
Zack said, “That’s probably going to be Lancer and an accomplice. A full-sized man in the backseat sounds like somebody controlling someone down on the floorboard.”
Teddy spoke up now. “That’s what I’m thinking.
But it’s not just the two dudes. One of the images Gumdrop got shows the Wagoneer parked next to a black Ford Bronco.
Can’t see inside either vehicle, but a man from Ogden named Carl Maybus owns the same make, model, and color vehicle.
He’s a known associate of Todd Voorhies, and a member of the same nationalist organization. ”
Zack said, “Okay, that’s three enemy, minimum, in addition to the two DRTs at the clinic.”
Gumdrop spoke up now. “What’s DRT?”
“Dead right there,” Hanley answered. “Don’t worry about it,” he immediately said. “Night Train, there’s more.”
Hightower said, “I only need to know where they went after they snatched her.”
Angela Lacy spoke up now. “I tracked the cell phone of Andrea Delaney, and it is still showing at the resort. We’ve got to assume they tossed it when they took her.”
Zack said, “Yeah, that’s a dead end.”
Lacy continued, “And I tracked credit cards of the brothers and Carl Maybus, didn’t get anything in the area, but then I ran a very wide net.
Had a team here at Langley check the credit card usage of every name in the group, and then every known associate of Maybus, Lancer, and the Voorhies brothers.
Some one hundred thirty individuals in all.
Finally, a woman named April Winter came up.
She’s not in the nationalist movement currently, but her cousin is Ronald Winter, and he is in the group.
He did two years in the pen in Idaho for armed robbery.
Anyway, April’s credit card was used about two hours ago to rent a vacation cabin online that’s ten miles northeast of Eldora Mountain Resort.
” Lacy added, “She lives in Utah. Who rents a vacation home the same day they’re going to use it? ”
Zack almost shouted into the phone. “That’s it! Get me the address!”
Hanley said, “I don’t want to give you the address till Six gets there. You can’t hit that place alone.”
“I won’t. I’m only armed with a pistol, and I’ve got a fresh knife wound to my already shot-up leg.”
Teddy said, “Wait. You got stabbed? At the clinic?”
“Not a big deal. I can do what I need to do, but I won’t be taking on four or more guys by myself. I’m not a fucking idiot. Give me the address.”
Hanley relented. “Okay, Gumdrop will give it to you, but answer this. Did Lancer say why they were going to call you back in a few hours? If they’re trying to swap you for the girl, why didn’t they want to meet up right then?”
Zack shut his eyes a moment. Held in a sigh.
He said, “They probably want time to fortify their location. They wouldn’t have known about Andie till I went to the bakery this morning, and they probably thought they’d kill me without having to use her.
They figure I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve, so they’re going to get that cabin ready for me. ”
Hanley said, “You are not making a trade with them, are we clear? There’s no way they’re just going to set her free after killing you; don’t let your judgment be clouded by—”
Zack yelled into the phone now. “My judgment is fine! I’m going to the area, I’ll stay out of sight, and I’ll get a plan together for when Six arrives.”
“Okay,” Hanley said finally, and Lacy passed on the address.
—
Thirty-five minutes later, Zack’s F-150 was virtually the only vehicle rolling along a snow-swept two-lane mountain road.
It was two thirty in the afternoon now, three hours into the five-hour countdown, and he slowed a little, because instead of focusing on the road, he had turned his attention towards a winding, narrow, snow-covered drive on the left that disappeared up a steep slope into thick pines.
This was the address Angela Lacy had provided, and as he passed, Zack saw multiple fresh sets of tire tracks going up the drive.
He continued on the two-lane paved road for a couple of minutes, passing several other driveways, all, he assumed, leading to individual secluded cabins up on the same hillside.
Finally, he slowed and pulled into a turnoff a couple of miles past where he suspected Lancer was keeping Andie, deciding that he would go back the other way and make one more pass by the target before stopping at a gas station three miles to the east.
But just moments after turning back in the other direction, he saw a vehicle approaching, its lights on in the already fading afternoon light. As he neared, he realized it was a white pickup, and quickly he noticed it had an orange stripe on the side and a light rack on the roof.
He passed the truck seconds later and saw an emblem on the side and the word “Fire,” also in orange.
The vehicle rolled by at speed, but he got a quick glimpse of the driver, and he also noticed that the vehicle’s emergency lights were not flashing.
Zack slowed, his heart pounding even more than it had been, and then he turned around in the road and began following the emergency vehicle, because somehow he had a feeling that he knew what was going on.
Soon the emergency vehicle pulled off the road onto a drive and parked, flipped on its hazard lights, and a man got out.
Zack pulled straight in behind it and climbed out in time to see the driver as he stood outside his vehicle.
He wore a heavy black coat, black pants, and black work boots, and he held his mobile phone as he moved up the driveway, looking at the device as he hiked up into the trees.
The man hadn’t noticed Zack yet, and for a brief second, Zack thought about backing out and driving off, but he forced himself to stay. He was certain he was looking at Pete Delaney, Andie’s dad, and he knew he needed to talk to him to see why he was here.
His voice cracked a little bit when he called out, just as the man in the firefighter’s uniform and the heavy coat leaned forward and picked up something out of the snow.
“Sir?”
Delaney spun to him. Zack had seen pictures of the deputy chief of Boulder Fire and Rescue online, but he never expected to be standing face-to-face with him.
The man seemed agitated. He looked down at something in his hand, then back up at the man standing there. “Help you?”
Zack didn’t know where to start. Telling the truth seemed like a terrible idea right now, but he didn’t have any brilliant ruse in mind.
He held his hands out in a nonthreatening manner. He was about to speak, but then the man’s eyes widened suddenly.
“Shit! You okay, fella?”
Zack tracked the man’s eyes, looked down, and saw the blood on his left leg. It had made its way through the bandages, through his jeans, and it covered them from the knee down.
“It’s…it’s okay. It’s nothing.”
Pete walked over to him, momentarily sidetracked from his primary mission by the injured man in front of him.
“You’re bleeding pretty good, there. What’d you do?”
Zack saw what was in the man’s hand now. It was an Apple AirTag, and suddenly it all made perfect sense.
The men were just feet apart. Pete noticed Zack looking at the AirTag, and his helpful demeanor seemed to change, as if he sensed danger somehow.
He said, “You live here?”
Zack shook his head.
“What…do you want?”
“It’s about Andie. Did she have that AirTag on her?”
The man looked down at it, then back up at the bearded man in front of him. Suddenly he pulled a radio off his belt.
Zack said, “Wait! Listen. You don’t want to call anybody till I talk to you.” He paused, “It’s for her own good.”
“What the fuck did you do to her?”
“Nothing. Swear to God. I’m here to help. But somebody has her, and you and me are going to have to work together to get her back.”
“Fuck that.” Delaney brought the radio to his mouth.