The Hero (22 page)

“Devon!” Mac barked. “You should stay here! Where are you going?”

She glared at him. “I’m going to get her.”

“Devon! Don’t!”

But she was out the door and in the truck so fast no one could have possibly stopped her. She drove immediately across the beach, parked and ran up the stairs, through the bar and into the kitchen. There were people on the deck and inside, but she took no notice of them.

“Rawley! Jacob found out where I live and he took Mercy! About a half hour ago. Mrs. Bledsoe was watching her. I have to go get her. I have to have... Rawley, I need a wire cutter to cut through the fence. And I need... Do you have a weapon? Any kind of weapon?”

He grabbed her by the upper arms and gave her a little shake. “Shh! Do you think he took her back there?”

“He hated to leave. I never saw him leave the compound alone. Where else would he take her?”

“I’ll go get her,” Rawley said. “Can you tell me where to go once I get into the camp?”

She nodded and said, “I’ll go with you. We’ll go together. I’ll show you.”

“No, you shouldn’t go, you should—”

“She’s mine! She’s my little girl! I’m going to get her and I don’t care if he makes me stay, I won’t leave her there with him! I’m going!”

“And I’m going,” a voice said from behind her. She whirled to see Spencer standing there. “We’ll go together. I’ll go with Rawley to the inside. We’ll get her.”

“You ever done this before?” Rawley asked him.

“Done this?” Spencer asked stupidly.

“Snuck into a village or a prisoner camp to get someone out?”

Spencer was clearly stuck for an answer. With something that sounded almost like a laugh, he asked, “Have
you?
”

“Unfortunately. Been a while, thank Jesus. Get Cooper. Right now.”

Spencer blinked a couple of times, then did as he was told. When Cooper followed Spencer into the kitchen he was muttering, “What the hell...?”

“I need to get in your closet,” Rawley said. “I need a black or dark green jacket or dark-colored sweatshirt with sleeves. Camouflage would be good, but you probably don’t have that. Devon needs something real dark from Sarah’s closet—just a jacket’ll do it. She’ll be okay in those tennis shoes—she’s not walking far. We’ll be going through the woods and can’t be seen.”

“What the hell?” Cooper said again.

“Mercy’s father came for her. He took her back to that commune and we’re going to go get her,” Rawley said. “He’s likely dangerous.”

“The police were called,” Devon said. “I told Mac I was going to go get her. Jacob has some men who work for him and they have rifles. They always said it was for hunting and to keep us safe, but I always wondered about the protection part.”

“We’ll have to look out for them, too,” Rawley said. “Coop, I gotta have a little help here. There’s no time to waste. Best chance is gettin’ right on him, surprise him.”

“Hell,” Cooper said. “I’ll be right back.” He took the stairs two at a time, rummaged around in his closet, in his trunk, under his bed. He was back in the kitchen with his arms full of clothes plus one very large handgun. He threw the clothes and gun on the counter and pulled one dark brown hoodie over his head.

“Wait a minute,” Spencer said. “You have to stay here for Austin.”

“Sarah will take care of Austin and I have to go to make sure you don’t get shot.”

“What’s this old guy gonna do to get her back?” Spencer wanted to know.

“This old guy served three tours in Vietnam as a Green Beret and stands a better chance of pulling this off than you or I,” Cooper said.

Rawley was pulling on a navy blue shirt, buttoning it up to his neck and around his wrists. “I’d have a better chance if you two dipshits would stay right here. If four are going, we’re going to have problems....”

“I’m going,” Devon said. “I can tell you every detail of the buildings inside the fence.”

“I’m going,” Spencer said, picking up a pair of boots and a jacket.

“I’m going,” Cooper said.

Rawley sighed and shook his head. “We’ll have to take your extended cab,” he said to Cooper. He headed for the door. He looked back over his shoulder. “We on coffee break here?” And then he was out the door, leaving them to follow.

Devon followed first, still pulling on a jacket she’d pulled out of the pile. She found Rawley digging around in the tool storage bin in the bed of his old truck. He removed a rifle and a very large, very intimidating knife in a leather holster of some kind. She didn’t gasp but she did say, “If I had known you had these things, I would’ve been afraid to stay with you.”

“Always locked up tight, chickadee. Wouldn’t leave nothing like this around a child. You sit in back with me—tell me the lay of the land while Cooper drives.”

“All right.” She touched his arm. “Rawley, I’ll get her back, won’t I?”

“You think I’d do this for the fun of it? You wanna help? Do what I say to do and don’t argue. What I sure the hell don’t need right now is the Keystone Kops following me around the jungle.”

“Rawley, it’s a forest.”

“It is what it is. Cooper!” he shouted.

The man came scrambling out of the bar, Spencer behind him carrying a jacket and pair of Cooper’s boots. Once Cooper was behind the wheel Rawley said, “Get us over to Highway 5 and head south. Be quiet and listen to Devon—she’s the only intel we got.”

* * *

Spencer sat in the front beside Cooper and listened to Rawley question Devon; he listened to Devon answer. She had told him a great deal about her experience in this commune, but he’d never really created a visual before now. He never really put himself in her position until tonight.

“What are the buildings in the front, by the gate?” Rawley asked.

“A long driveway, a long yard, a very big house, kind of an old country farmhouse, almost like an inn—two stories with a wraparound porch. A barn and south of the barn, a chicken coop. Between the barn and house, a large dirt patch, a place we played, a place the men parked those big SUVs. Behind the barn is a corral. Pastures and our produce gardens back up to the river.”

“Fence around all that land?”

“No, just around the compound—they let the stock out of the compound and there is just normal pasture fencing. They don’t worry about the cows or horses getting away. There aren’t that many animals. It’s the people who are fenced in who are at risk.”

“How far to the river from the gate?”

“At least a half mile. Almost a mile. There’s a bridge—the men would drive their SUVs across the bridge because over there was Jacob’s house, right between two big barns. They’re not barns—that’s where Jacob was growing marijuana.”

“Is there any other road inside except for that front road?”

“I don’t think so, but I don’t know. We never went over there. Jacob would take women to his house one at a time. I think there are only four women left there—Lorna, Laine, Pilly and Charlotte. And four children. When I got there four years ago or so, there were eighteen women and six men and a bunch of kids. In the past couple of years, people started leaving and Jacob started getting strange. Angry and paranoid and weird. I think he knew law enforcement suspected him of stuff.”

“How did you get out?”

“There was a hole in the fence behind the chicken coop and Laine told me to carry Mercy and to run down the road—there was a truck waiting to give me a ride over the mountain. She arranged everything at a Farmers’ Market.”

“Why didn’t people just walk away at that market?” Rawley asked. “That market’s a busy place.”

“Because, Rawley—the kids were home, inside the fence.”

“Where do the men keep the guns?”

“With them, I think. There’s a bunkhouse back by the marijuana barns. There were never guns in our house.”

Spencer listened as she described the property, a beautiful big farm on a lovely river in a valley where food and shelter and friendship was plentiful... And where they were surreptitiously guarded by men with guns, men who were there to serve the master, the man who took them one at a time to his house for sex and liked to say they were all one big happy family.

“I think we were part of Jacob’s fantasy or delusion,” she told Rawley. “He wanted to be the grand pooh-bah, the big daddy, the king of his little kingdom, served by women, loved by his many children. He hardly ever left the farm. The men came and went pretty freely, but Jacob only left occasionally. He liked his animals, his gardens, his family. He liked to walk across the bridge to the house, sit at the head of the table with one of the children on his knee, ask us about our day, then lecture a little or talk about himself or maybe rant against the government. He wrote volumes on his beliefs, his philosophies and believed his writings would one day be legendary. There were times it seemed so lovely. Then there were times it seemed so sick and demented. One thing—once you were there, there was no leaving. And they didn’t let people inside. He used the excuse that we were a private religious order. But there wasn’t much religion going on there. Reese, the oldest of us, called it a tribe. A militant tribe.”

Rawley asked the same questions over and over again. Devon answered, and her answers were consistent. Spencer memorized her answers, as he assumed Cooper was doing.

Spencer was beginning to understand what she had been through in a way he hadn’t before, even though she’d told him about her experience. This was completely different and for the first time he was impacted by how trapped she must have felt and how much courage it must have taken for her to flee. And, to his shame, he realized how much trust she must have churned up to be able to trust someone like him.

Had he really done what he’d done? Chased her, seduced her and then rejected her because of sudden terror that he’d somehow be hurt again? He felt the fool and he wanted to stop everything right now so he could explain, beg her to understand and forgive him, to tell her he was really not that kind of wimp. If they got Mercy and got through this, he would never let her down again.

Ahead were the flashing lights of a patrol car.

“Do not turn around,” Rawley said sharply. “Pull up to the copper. Ask him why the road is closed. Tell him you’re just taking a shortcut to Canyonville where your folks have a farm. Let the copper turn you around. You turn yourself around they’ll be after you that fast.”

And Cooper did just that, pulled right up to the officer and put down his window. “What’s happening? Accident?”

“Where you headed, sir?”

“My folks have a spread near Canyonville. I been taking this shortcut for years. Can I get through?”

“Road’s closed, I’m afraid.” He peered into the car. “I better have a look at your driver’s license and registration.”

“You bet,” Cooper said, fishing for those things in the glove box and his back pocket.

The patrolman shone a flashlight on those items while he asked, “What takes you to your folks just now?”

“Hunting, what else? We get there tonight, start up first light.”

He looked into the backseat. “You hunt, little lady?”

Devon laughed. “Please. I cook!”

“I like that,” he said. Another patrol car pulled up behind them. “Get outta here,” he said. “Road’s closed.”

Then Cooper took his turn and headed back in the opposite direction.

“Now what?” Devon asked.

“Now we go upstream and head down the river. I hope you swim.”

“Like a beaver,” she said. “If they find out what we’re doing, will we be in trouble?” she asked Rawley.

He laughed. “Trouble? I reckon we’ll prolly go straight to jail.”

Eighteen

L
aine spent a couple of days at Jacob’s house, in and out of her bonds. Jacob gave her water and he brought her back a small plate of food from the house now and then. It was hard to stay in character as a meek and submissive female while he kept her tied, and when he did talk to her he ranted angrily about how he
knew
she had betrayed him, had betrayed them all.

Of course he didn’t know the truth. She hadn’t confessed to a thing.

Laine slept upright in the straight-back kitchen chair, testing her binding, trying to scoot to the counter to see if she could reach into a kitchen drawer to get something that would cut her ropes. When he came home from the big house after dinner to find she had moved, he gave her a black eye and split lip and then lectured her for an hour on his plan for his Fellowship and the conspirators who would strip them of their bounty, leave them homeless and poor. Everyone who wasn’t with them was against them.

And then he came back after what she presumed was his dinner at the house, except he had Mercy with him. She gasped when she saw him and said, “Is Devon back?”

“I’m finished with Devon, but this is my daughter and she stays with me. If I untie you and take you to the house with the other women, will you stay? Or will you just run?”

Her mind raced. What had he done with Devon? Had he hurt her, perhaps killed her to kidnap this child? Because, as she knew, her former friend Devon would not have given up Mercy, not at the point of a knife. “Why would I run?” she asked him. “You’ll just catch me and bring me back. I’ll take Mercy to the house, see she’s fed and put to bed and I’ll—”

He laughed at her. He grinned and said, “I wouldn’t put that kind of pressure on you.” He untied her and said, “Come with us, Sister Laine. We’ll take you to the house—you can help the women with the children. I’ll keep Mercy with me.”

“I’ll take care of her, Jacob. I’m sure you have too much to do to take care of her. She needs to be with the children.”

“I guess you really do think I’m an idiot. Stand up.”

She stood from the chair and turned to face him.

“Mercy, I want you to sit at the table here until I get back. Don’t move, don’t leave the table for any reason or I will be very angry with you. Do you understand?” The child looked up at him fearfully and nodded. Laine noted that the children were not ordinarily afraid of Jacob, but perhaps whatever act he had committed to gain the custody of this child had filled her with fear. And then he said to Laine, “Let’s go.”

He held the door for her and she preceded him out of the house, walking toward the bridge. She was almost there when he said, “Sister Laine, you really don’t have anything I want anymore. Why don’t you just leave now?”

She slowly turned toward him. “How am I to leave? The gate is locked.”

He gave her a patient smile. “Then I suppose you should find a way. You’ve found other ways. Maybe you left a hole in the fence somewhere. If you can get out, you can run down the road—the police have blocked the road. You can just run to them—they’ll take you in.”

“Jacob, why don’t you just ask them what they want? It can’t be anything so terrible. You always took good care of your family, you always—”

“They’ll take all of this if I let them in,” he said, gesturing around. “And I won’t leave a single thing for them to take! And when they take me down, they’ll be forced to show the world my work. Good work. Thousands of pages of brilliant work inspired by my beliefs.”

And suddenly she feared the worst. If he didn’t escape, he would be on a suicide mission. She had known for months it was possible he was a thundering lunatic and might do something desperate, but she wasn’t sure what...or how. “Jacob, where are the men?” she asked suspiciously.

“Yes, where are the men? Well,” he said, turning his head right and left as if looking for them. “Where are they?” he asked facetiously. “Not with me. And if they’re not with me, then they’re against me.” And with that he left her there and went back toward his house.

So this would be it, she thought. It was going down. She ran for the house and burst into the kitchen where Charlotte and Pilly were cooking. Liam was in his high chair and four-year-old Abe was sitting at the long table. The room looked strangely forlorn, one small boy sitting at a table that could comfortably seat twenty to twenty-four. Jacob’s dynasty; Jacob’s legacy, down to two women, two small children and one undercover FBI agent. She was panting. Charlotte and Pilly looked at her in shock. It could have been their surprise at seeing her or maybe surprise at the condition of her face. “Jacob kidnapped Mercy. I don’t know what he might’ve done to Devon. He’s keeping Mercy at his house. He’s talking crazy. He says the police have blocked the road and he’s not giving up his home, this home. He’s talking about his legacy if they take him down. You have to get the kids out of here.”

Charlotte put a hand over her mouth but Pilly looked enraged. “I won’t leave Jacob,” she said. “He needs me!”

“Needs you?” Laine said. “Did he even tell you he had Mercy? Do you even know what he’s planning? Pilly, I’m afraid for you and Liam!”

“I’ll leave if he tells me to go,” she said indignantly. “But he won’t!” And leaving the pan she was stirring on the fire, she stormed out of the kitchen through the back door, headed for Jacob’s house across the river.

Laine looked at Charlotte. “Take the children, Charlotte. I’ll show you the way out—follow the road to the police. Jacob said they’re blocking the road.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to try to get Mercy out of his house. I don’t know how, but I’m going to try. If Pilly won’t take Liam, if she risks her life and her son’s to stand by Jacob in his craziest hour, we have to get the kids out of here.” She pulled Liam out of his high chair. “Charlotte, if you don’t do this, bad things are going to happen. Now come with me. Come!”

Laine didn’t have wire cutters or tools or weapons, but even though she felt dangerously alone in here, she did have partners. She would walk along the fence with Charlotte from the front of the fence line to the river, kicking and shaking the fence as she went, and she would undoubtedly find a break in the fence for an emergency getaway.

“How do you know this?” Charlotte asked her.

And Laine gave the standard response. “Because I was going to go, but Jacob held me captive in his house and I couldn’t leave!”

They left the house from the front door so neither Jacob nor Pilly would see them if they were coming. They were just beginning their trek along the fence, partially concealed by the trees and bushes, when there was a smell. A pungent and thick smell. Laine knew what it was. “Holy mother of God,” she said, holding Liam against her and running along the fence. “Hurry! He’s burning everything down!”

They were almost to the river before Laine found a break in the fence. She held it open for Charlotte and handed Liam to her. “Go through the woods and pasture to the road. He’s burning the warehouses and he’ll probably burn everything and if you’re here, you’re in terrible danger. Take the baby, hang on to Abe. Just go!”

“What will you do? Will you be safe?”

“I’m going to try to get Mercy. Don’t worry about me right now, just go quickly. And when you get to the police, tell them who’s left here!”

“Jacob will send the men after us!”

“Charlotte,” she said gravely. “The men are gone.”

* * *

Rawley told Cooper where to park in a small stand of trees near the river. He lit out at a pretty fast clip along the riverbank. He had his knife strapped to his waist and anchored to his thigh and he carried a rifle.

“Rawley, how far?” Devon asked.

“I’m not sure, chickadee. Just stay on my tail and don’t slip. If I have to fish you out, it costs time.”

“The odometer said it was six miles,” she pointed out.

“By road. The river is a straight shot.” Then he stopped, listened, sniffed the air. Everyone came to a standstill behind him—first Devon, then Spencer, then Cooper.

“What is it?” Devon asked.

“Might be burning green cannabis,” he said. Then he put his head down and said, “Step it up. This just keeps getting worse.” And he began to jog along the riverbank.

* * *

Laine could see that a fire had been started inside one of the warehouses; smoke was pouring out through cracks in the roof and doors. Any minute the thing would combust and the outer shell would go up in flames. The whole forest could be at risk, but certainly Jacob’s house, the bunkhouse and the other warehouse.

Laine ran past the burning warehouse to the bunkhouse and tried the door, only to find it locked. She assumed weapons must be stored inside, but she couldn’t get in. She reared back and gave the door a furious kick, but it didn’t budge. There was only an old blue pickup near the bunkhouse and now she could see one lone black SUV parked behind Jacob’s house. The rear hatch was open and it looked as if Jacob might be loading up his belongings.

And between them, an ax sitting beside a stack of firewood.

She picked up the ax and ran toward the house. She softly opened the front door to the house and heard voices within, slightly muffled but she thought she could make out at least some of the words—“No, take that box while I fill this suitcase.”

“What about that?”

“I’ll take care of that. Hurry—there won’t be much time now.”

“Where will we go?”

“Doesn’t matter, just that we leave before they get here.”

It was Pilly and Jacob, with no sound from Mercy. Ax in hand, she followed the sounds and peeked into a room to find the two of them in the back of the house, a room she’d never seen before. It appeared to be Jacob’s office. She dared to peek in the door and what she saw was surreal—Jacob and Pilly were loading boxes full of stacks of papers—it looked suspiciously like manuscripts. His brilliant opus; his manifesto. And from an open safe he was stacking what had to be tens of thousands of dollars in bills into suitcases.

But of course. If he’d been selling his “medicinal herbs” he was operating a completely cash business. He wouldn’t have had the luxury of making deposits into a bank—his illegal operation would be exposed. Law enforcement always followed the money in search for clues and suspects.

She crept through the house, beginning with the kitchen where she had last seen Mercy sitting at the table, but she wasn’t there. She looked in the living room, in the bedroom, searched in vain for a cellar door, but the child was not there. Laine felt a rising panic. She had some theories about Jacob but in reality she wasn’t sure how sick or crazy he was. Would he keep Mercy as some kind of hostage? Would he just kill her out of spite? And what of Pilly? Was she that bonded with Jacob that she’d leave her baby behind in a compound in flames just to be with him?

When all else had failed, she went to the doorway of the office where the frantic packing up was happening and stood there, ax hefted in two hands.

“Where is she?” Laine asked in her most threatening voice.

Pilly gasped, but Jacob turned toward her with a controlled expression on his face. He was composed. And then it happened so quickly, Laine never saw it coming. He picked up a gun from the top of his desk, a handgun that looked like a Smith & Wesson .40 caliber, turned it on her and fired. He hit her in the upper right chest with a force so powerful it blew her out of the doorway and knocked the ax out of her grip. Laine whirled around and backed up against the hallway wall, leaving a large smear of blood on the wall.

Willing herself not to fall, Laine hurried down the hall toward escape, leaving a trail of blood behind her.

“Jacob, go get her!” Pilly yelled.

“She’s too late,” he said. “She can’t get out. She’ll just die out there. Get this in the suitcase. Hurry. We have only minutes.”

She’s too late,
Laine thought. And she ran from the house, around to the back where the SUV sat with its tailgate open. It was her intention to disable it—maybe she’d pull out a bunch of wires and close it down. She pulled open the driver’s door to pop the hood and glancing into the backseat, there was Mercy, lying there on the seat, sleeping.

Laine had but one usable arm. She opened the rear door and pulled Mercy toward her with one hand, terrified that the worst might’ve befallen the little girl. “Come on, sunshine, come on,” she cooed, jostling the little girl. And thank God, Mercy opened her eyes and sat up. “Come, angel, we have to hurry. Come with me now.” Laine’s shoulder was injured and bleeding profusely; she held that arm tight against her body and with the other, she scooped Mercy out of the SUV and lowered her to her feet. “You have to help me, angel. You have to run with me.”

“Mama?” she asked, her voice laced with tears.

“I’m taking you to her right now. Come with me.”

Jacob might not bother too much with Laine, feeling he’d done enough damage to slow her down, but he was going to be enraged when he saw that Mercy was gone. Knowing this, Laine pulled Mercy by the hand in the opposite direction from whence she came, around the front of the house and toward the bridge, but after she crossed it, she huddled in the darkness beneath it at the river’s edge. The rushing water would muffle any sounds they made should Mercy start to cry.