Escape (Chronicles of Hart) (14 page)

An elderly man stood from his seat beside the diner’s door. Unabashed by the commotion, he walked to the payphone to place a call.

***

Hart had tied up all the loose ends at the church and cabin personally, taking the time to relish in his own handy work after so many years of relying on henchmen. When the link between the church and the cabin was found, the two fires would probably be blamed on hooligan teenagers like they always were. If the city ever found out that half the fires were started by him, they might start respecting their youth a bit more. He couldn’t have that though: they made for easy scapegoats with their teen angst and utter defiance of authority. Soon the fire department would be very busy and the crowd of teenagers that had already been drawn to the church would be a nice list of suspects. Many of them had previously been reported for breaking and entering at Harts other warehouse locations, they all had records.

Now on route to his newest location, Hart wanted to ensure the preparations were complete before Grace arrived. Hart had a history of purchasing in bulk. He would wait for a recession to hit and then buy up several warehouses and abandoned buildings at one time, claiming to be restoring them. Every few years when he was done with a particular location (and hadn’t had to burn it to the ground) he would call in a restoration team and bribe them into fixing it up cheap enough for him to resell and make a profit. This newest property had been built specifically for Grace. She was going to be moved here in three weeks. After this recent series of events her move was being bumped up. Adding a video surveillance team at an alternate location was sure to alleviate some of the strain on his staff. He had initiated the changes earlier in the day before his initial trip to the church. He expected the team to be in full reno mode and to have the equipment up and running before Grace arrived. By the looks of the loose wires dangling all around him, he could tell they were appreciative of the extra few hours they were gaining from Grace’s deliberate spunk. His daughter was a born fighter; previous escape attempts had led him to draft his newest facility to accommodate people like her. The team of men around him were spinning in a chaotic tizzy. After noticing that Hart was in their midst’s,
they had put down their coffees and started working with two hands with a gusto that was normally reserved for someone fighting for their life. And in this case, they were. Hart smiled at his worker ants, taking a seat at the open control panel.

The new building had been purchased at the same time as the church twelve years ago. It had been reserved for Grace specifically, as her next home. Already fully staffed, it was a perfect fail-safe if his daughter had chosen to “act out” again. And after too many years at the Church, Hart had started to get some flack from the town’s mayor, waiting for the restoration of the historical church. With an additional staff of video monitors and the seclusion of the forest, the hunting cabin should have been the first choice when Grace was moved into the church ten years ago. Hart however found something poetic in locking his only daughter away in a tower, like a sad little princess that would never be saved. He had been very wrong about the prospect of a knight in shining armour running aimlessly to her rescue.

Hart reached into his chest pocked as his phone buzzed, “Yes?” he answered dryly, and “I’ll take care of it,” He sneered at his phone, frowning with a scowl that could curdle milk. Men scattered out of his way as he rose from his seat with force, snapping off an arm in the process. He stormed back out into the parking lot. Getting back into his car, he turned the ignition and revved the engine, squealing back out onto the road. He would be back after he finished up some business. Hopefully this would be the last time he had to handle this mess on his own, or he was going to have to get his hands really dirty, and then re-hire. The thought made him smile.

LOST

Platt and Peters were discouraged to find that the men had expected to find an unconscious chloroformed Grace to be in the backseat of their filthy car. Lazy on their part, the car was empty, save the wrappers and coffee stains. They seemed more terrified of their boss finding out than the FBI interrogation that was about to take place. They looked suspiciously at one another as they were taken away to the back of one of the black vans sitting in the diners’ lot, now buzzing with action. They looked like they were trying to corroborate their story before being questioned and had no idea what they were suppose to say. Hart had hired a bunch of idiots. And now Grace could be anywhere. Platt and Peters stood at the hood of the suspects car and watched them clamouring into the back of the van before the doors were closed in on them.

The caravan of SWAT cars had entered the pond in the parking lot, taking over the puddle filled paradise like a trailer park of vans. Men stood outside their cars mingling and waiting for orders Ethan imagined them in plaid with beers in their hands, it completed the trailer park look. Platt and Peters stepped back to allow a second team of men in to retrieve Chung. They clamoured into the small space, checking his vitals and ensuring that he hadn’t sustained a neck or head injury before leaving him on Ethan’s lap to go and get more supplies to move him. King stood by, watching them closely trying to pass off his interest in their dialog as merely a business exchange. The look on his face displayed a great concern for their reaction to Chung’s condition.

Stuck with another dead end, Platt was back on the phone with tech looking for a lead as to where Grace had gone. Dusk was falling and the autumn air grew cold as the storm washed over slowing to a light patter. Ethan stared out the window, watching the light raindrops sending rings across the pond like puddle outside of his door. His legs had gone numb from the weight of Chung. He waited restlessly for the men to come back and transfer him to their medical van. From their light conversations earlier, he thought Chung must be doing alright, might even end up being okay. He rested his head on the window staring out quietly. Ethan hoped that wherever Grace was, she was dry and warm.

***

Grace shivered as she continued through the woods. The trees were starting to thin out and she was hopeful civilization was getting closer. She stooped down by a small stream to take a drink of the murky water and stayed down for a couple of minutes to catch her breath. Her clothes stuck to her back and legs, chafing from all the movement. She assumed it had been long enough that the men would have found her missing. Also that she had enough of a head start to give her the advantage. She stared into the trees looking back at the way she had come. By now Ethan and King would know she had been taken. She wished she still had Chung’s phone.

And then she remembered that Chung was lying at the side of the road in the pouring rain. Guilt crept up into her, flushing her cheeks as her eyes filled with tears:
I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.
She thought, wishing Chung could know how bad she felt that he had been thrown from the vehicle. He had been so nice to accompany her when the others were asked not to.  Thinking back on it now, she could see how the whole situation was a setup. Why else wouldn’t they let Ethan or Agent King stay with her? She frowned, watching the water trickle through the stream at her feet. Dipping her sore toes in to wash away some of the mud and caked on blood, she looked over her feet for splinters or broken bits of glass. She was sure that they were paining for a reason. They were covered in tiny nicks from the tunnels, the forest and the whole ordeal. She would have been better off with a pair of shoes, but they weren’t considered a necessity in the tower so she hadn’t had any in ten years. She pulled a strip of fabric off of her tattered shirt under the thick coat. Ripping it into two; she wrapped the pieces around her feet and up her ankles to secure them. She was hopeful that they would protect her feet from some of the more painful forest elements. She zipped Chung’s coat up tight; it hung loosely on her petite frame.

She hoped they would look to the road first for her trying to hitch- hike or call for help. They wouldn’t expect her to run barefoot into the woods in the middle of a heavy rainstorm. This was likely the last place they would look for her. She felt a little bit safer now. She just hoped that King and Ethan weren’t looking too hard for her, they would never find her either. She would have to find them after she found help.

It was quickly growing dark. Grace looked to her surroundings before it was too dim to see. She knew that even if she knew how, a fire would catch too much attention and it was far too damp out to find anything that would catch. So she settled for gathering piles of leaves to insulate her against the cool air. She would rest for a couple of hours and then continue through the forest when the moon was high. She tucked her knees up and into Chung’s large coat for warmth. The damp fabric was cool, but held nicely against the chill breeze that whipped through the trees above. Grace watched for the stars with heavy eyes, too wired to fall straight to sleep.

***

Peters was agitated, no one inside the diner had seen anything happen in the parking lot. Even two truckers who had been outside most of the afternoon smoking hadn’t seen anyone except the two men exiting the car while they stood under a stoop sheltered from the storm. Either the two suspects were lying and had passed her off to someone before coming to the diner, or she had disappeared into thin air. The surveillance footage of them pushing Chung out of the car had shown the man shoving a pile of blankets down in the backseat. Peters was sure that was Grace.  He already had some men searching the road between Chung's drop and the diner looking for signs of an exchange, nothing had turned up yet. And it was unlikely they would find anything after the torrential downpour of the afternoon had wiped away almost all tracks in the area. They wouldn’t even be able to use dogs to track her. Her scent was long gone. Wherever she was, she was off the radar for now and hopefully off of Harts radar too.

A medical van had pulled up parallel with them to take Chung. They were checking his vitals in the back of the car again before moving him. Ethan was gripping onto the back of the seat, as his legs screamed in agony.  King could tell it wasn’t good from the way they were checking and rechecking his vitals as they moved him onto the short stretcher pulled up to the open back door. They were taking him head first to get him into a neck brace and with the shiny blanket still tucked up over him he looked more like a robot than the partner King had been working alongside for the last six years. King looked on, discouraged. They rolled away the stretcher and gently moved him over. With a sharp nod to King they closed the doors to their black van and drove away to take him in to the local hospital. King’s eyes followed them out of the parking lot and onto the highway distractedly.

This rescue mission had gone from a crazy story they had joked about at the water cooler, into a very serious heist, attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of the largest criminal ring the district had ever had. Men like Hart took kidnapping very seriously, even if it was in an attempt to save his daughter from his own cruel hands. Platt and Peters were deep in discussion, having just been pulled into this case earlier today. They had a file open on the hood between them and were trying to take what King had told them earlier and piece together the severity of the situation. A whole team had been taken out before they had been called in. So they had doubled their numbers and had two new reserve teams on standby nearby just in case. Mr. Hart was a notorious force, known among the men as an instigator of many of the regions criminal statistics. He had always managed to slide under the radar and they couldn’t help but take extra precautions going up against him in the pursuit of his own daughter. Judging by Chung’s sustained injuries, they couldn’t be too cautious.

***

Hart pulled to the side of the road. Reaching back for a duffle bag tucked in the back of the car he quietly stepped out into the brisk autumn air, now sticky with the damp of the passing storm. He walked around his car and into the trees beside the highway, toting the awkward duffle bag over his shoulder. He looked like a ruffled professor in his filth ridden suit, carrying a bag of books or papers to his students. Only the scowl that covered his otherwise lovely face gave him away as the evil thug he was. He trudged through the wet foliage, frowning as his suit became more dirty than it already was from all the other cover ups he had embarked on because of Grace’s escape. He was known for his pressed suits of prestigious quality, it had been far too long since he had ruined a thousand dollar suit on a trek through the wet forest foliage. It felt refreshing and at the same time it made him furious. He would burn this suit when he was done; it was full of evidence for sure and at the same time it was such a waste of a good suit. He paced twenty feet further and abruptly stopped under a tree dripping from the rain. Dropping the duffle to the ground he knelt and unzipped the largest pouch. The ground beneath his knee sunk in to the mud giving him ample support from this position and keeping him steady. He grinned,
maybe the storm wasn’t a waste after all
he thought smugly.

Inside the duffle bag an array of pieces sat piled, wrapped in thin cloth to protect them from rubbing against one another. Hart slowly and patiently assembled the pieces. Taking careful care to unwrap each piece like a present while keeping the cloths placed delicately to the side, laid out flat. The mummified pile of pieces slowly took the form of a military grade grenade launcher. Looking over his completed work, Hart took extra care to secure each piece checking them twice over for imperfections before he attached the scope. He ensured his target was within range before loading the weapon. He took a moment to sit still in the trees watching through the scope at the scene before him. He had his timing just right when he pulled the trigger.

As the explosion blew hot air back into his emotionless face, Hart disassembled the hot weapon. Burning his suit and hands, he placed the steaming components back into the duffle taking the time to wrap each steaming piece in the heat resistant fabric only slightly blown by the breeze. With a sharp zip of the bag, he slung it over his shoulder and turned his back to the heat of the explosion. He walked to his car, tossing the duffle back into the rear seats as he sped off down the highway back to the newest safe house to wait for Grace, or at least her body.

***

Ethan was pacing, trying to regain feeling in his legs. They screamed in agony, protesting his quick movements after being still for so long under agent Chung’s weight. He fought through the pins and needles as he thought about the events that had taken place.
This has gone terribly wrong,
he thought. He tried desperately to pinpoint where. He should have asked King to send one of his own men over that wall, not tried to be the hero. Things surely would have turned out differently had he not been longing for his romantic reunion with Grace. Hoping she would dash into his arms in slow motion, hair blowing in a gentle breeze. He shook the thought out of his head. How could he really have hoped for that? He was glad he hadn’t found her tied to a post like she had found him. That would have broken his heart even more.

She hadn’t even seemed to care that he was there. She was so determined to get out. He couldn’t really blame her, in stories it always seemed like the princess was saved right away. No one talked about their time captive. Real people had instincts, fight or flight reflexes. She was probably caught up in the escape even now...he hoped she was safe. Grace had always been an independent person, never relying on anyone else. How could she when her father had spent most of her childhood leaving her for weeks at a time with his business partners’ families and nannies. She had good instincts and after this many years captive, she had likely honed her loner gene to perfection. Wherever she was Ethan knew she wouldn’t ask for help. She would fight as hard as she could to do this on her own and then try to save everyone else. That could be a problem. He could picture her now, marching into a police station, covered in blood and muck, demanding to speak to the chief of police like they were old acquaintances .It almost made him chuckle. He gasped instead, running out of breath from all the pacing. His legs were on fire.

He stopped pacing to sit on the back bumper of Peters’ car. Looking away from the diner into the small patch of dirty woods he thought of Grace as he remembered her. As kids they had played all kinds of games, her favourite had been saving the damsel in distress. Grace had always played the hero and Ethan the princess. They would sneak into the woods behind her father’s mansion and hide out for hours. Sometimes they would pretend they lived there and make furniture out of tree branches and leaves. Standing, he stretched out his tired legs and walked to the edge of the woods, caught in his memories. He stared into the brush re-imagining himself a childhood where Grace hadn’t gone away.

“Hey kid,” called King, “Ethan!”

Ethan turned from the trees to look back “Yah?”

“You find something over there?” King joked as he jogged over to Ethan.

Ethan looked down in confusion. Nestled in a discarded car tire, lay a plain clean cloth. It had been sheltered from the afternoon storm. Ethan picked it up, it smelled like chloroform. He looked back up to King, horror crossing his face as they both turned towards the forest in shock.