57
Back on the lake, Cash had just seen Colcord carried into the cabin, and she redoubled her efforts to get the canoe to shore, paddling hard against the wind. She drove it up onto a sandy beach. Leaping out, she grabbed the bowline and dragged the canoe into a thicket, where it was well hidden. Scurrying through the bushes, staying low, she entered the forest. The storm had intensified and the sky had become dark, furious rain lashing down to the bluster of wind in the treetops—providing her with good cover as she dodged through the trees in the direction of the cabin.
In the storm, with her heart pounding like a sledgehammer, every minute seemed like an eternity. She tried not to think of what might be happening in there, but she knew that time was of the essence.
The outline of the cabin loomed ahead, visible between the tree trunks and sheets of rain, the windows glowing a dull yellow. She paused behind a bush, next to one of Grooms’s junk sculptures, trying to think of a plan. She could see the outline of people moving past the glow in the window of the kitchen, busy with something. Every fiber of her soul was telling her to run in there, guns blazing.Save Colcord, her mind shouted at her. It took a monumental effort to calm herself. She had to be calculated about this. Think through it. Otherwise, they would both be killed.
Without her raincoat, she was drenched and shivering. She squeezed her eyes shut for a brief moment to think.
Lashed by rain, she worked her way toward the cabin. Suddenly, the door opened, and she flattened herself on the ground as a beam of lightilluminated the porch. Her heart felt like it would beat straight out of her chest. Two men came out—it was a priest and a huge monk, dressed in camo over their robes—the priest with a handgun and the monk with the long rifle. Somehow, they didn’t see her. They separated, the monk heading down to the shore, the priest running toward the trail. They were probably looking for her. Fortunately, it hadn’t occurred to them that she would return to the cabin.
The priest disappeared, and she could see the monk now moving along the shore, scanning the lake with his binoculars, sniper rifle slung over his shoulder.Good luck with that.
That left two in the cabin with Colcord. She could hear raised voices, and Colcord’s low one in response, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.
The storm had picked up again, the wind roaring through the canopy, trees swaying and creaking as rain came down in sheets. Staying low, she sprinted to the back of the log cabin. It was too risky to look in the broken window. Instead, she grabbed a loose piece of cement caulk from between two logs, working it back and forth until it pulled free. A sliver of orange light appeared, and she kneeled and looked inside.
The vantage point offered a narrow view of the kitchen, but it was enough to seize her with horror. Colcord was strapped on the kitchen table. At first, he looked dead, his head and face covered with blood. But no—he was conscious. Two people were in the room with him, a woman and a man. Several kerosene lanterns were hung on hooks around the table, casting a bright yellow light. The man was holding a gun to Colcord’s head, pressing it into his ear, while the woman seemed to be asking him questions. She couldn’t hear what they were saying over the sound of the storm. Colcord was responding, shaking his head, and he could see the woman was angry.
Colcord was still alive, thank God. For now.
The man with the gun stepped out of view. He returned a moment later with a box and began taking out various things—tubes and steel needles. Her blood froze when she saw one of them was a metal device—the Spanish boot.
Now with the woman apparently giving orders, the man stripped Colcord of a hiking boot and sock. She watched as he unscrewed andopened up the torture device, exposing a cluster of rusty points. Colcord’s foot was strapped to the table by his ankle, and the man fitted the device over the foot, while Colcord strained and jerked on the straps. He enclosed it around the foot and bolted it shut. The thing had a sort of screw on one end with a geared wheel, like a pinion. Those psychopaths were going to torture Colcord. Cash felt a torrent of cold fury wash over her, remembering what they had done to Reno. She couldn’t allow it to happen to Colcord too.
Cash eased out her Baby Glock, just to feel the reassurance of it in her hand. She still had a full magazine of ten, plus one racked in the chamber. Both the people inside were armed, and they were not amateurs. In a surprise assault through the door, she could probably take down one, but not both, and Colcord would likely be killed.
Better to separate them, take them down one at a time—but how? She could lure one out of the cabin.… Glancing around, she could see no sign of the priest or monk. She hoped their search for her was taking them far and wide.
The storm continued to rage, and suddenly, she had an idea. She scurried down to the lakeshore, to where she’d ditched the raincoat in the reeds, and grabbed it. In the junk sculpture area, she remembered seeing a set of wind chimes. They were all tangled up and silent, but they could easily be set right, and in this wind, they would make a mighty noise.
Carrying the raincoat and moving swiftly, she found the chimes. They were made from rusty old dip cans and big metal washers hung on wires around pieces of steel pipe. Scoping out the lay of the land—the door to the cabin, the open area in front, and the location of the chimes—
she picked out a tree on which to hang the yellow raincoat in such a way that only a bit of it would be visible, peeking from behind the trunk, as if she was hiding there. It was a fairly lame decoy, but in the lashing wind, it would be moving.
Tying it to the tree, she went back to the wind chimes and untangled the metallic mess, hugging them close to keep them from drawing attention prematurely. Then she eased her arm off; the wind instantly set them swinging, while she quickly moved to a spot she had preselected behind a fallen log, which offered an open field of fire taking in the cabin door, the yard, and the forest in the direction of the yellow raincoat.
The dip cans and washers swung madly, clattering into each other and also striking the hanging pipe. The noise was impressive, a loud
jangling punctuated with surprisingly clear high notes—a ruckus that, she hoped, would serve its purpose.
And it did. The door to the cabin flung open, and the bald man came out, gun drawn. He scanned the forest and spotted the sliver of yellow raincoat. He quickly dropped to a crouch and began advancing toward it.
Cash felt a cold, calculated anger take control. Rising up, she braced the muzzle of her Glock against the trunk, carefully took aim, eased out her breath, emptied her mind. With a slow even movement, she squeezed the trigger.
The gun fired with a loud report and the shot struck the man square in the back. He went down like a sack of potatoes.Piece of shit, she thought, feeling not a drop of empathy for him. They had killed Reno. They were torturing Colcord. They would all rot in hell if she had her way.
The gunfire brought the woman to the door. But she became a lot more cautious when she saw the man’s body sprawled on the ground fifty yards from the cabin. She’d heard the shot, of course, but by the way she moved, Cash could see she wasn’t sure which direction it had come from. Crouching low, the woman advanced. Keeping to cover from every possible direction, she crept alongside the cabin, gun in hand, scanning the woods. Cash couldn’t get a clear shot, and she was sure the others had heard the report and were on their way back.
But then the woman apparently glimpsed that bit of fatal yellow peeking from behind the distant tree trunk. She moved like lightning to get in cover from that direction, and with the same caution began working her way around to where she would have a better shot.God bless that raincoat, Cash thought. If the woman continued on, her approach would put her right where Cash wanted her. Cash waited as the woman circled around toward the decoy, closer and closer, disappearing into a thicket of brush. When she emerged on the other side, she would be exposed and offer Cash a perfect shot.
But she didn’t appear. She seemed to be moving slowly through the brush. Too slowly. The priest and the monk were surely coming.
Still Cash waited, both hands on the grips, her sights trained on where she expected the woman to appear.
There was a temporary lull in the wind, and in that lull Cash heard the crack of a twig behind her. She threw herself sideways just as the blast of a gun sounded and a shower of bark blew off the log where she’d just been.
Cash rolled as the second shot came and, lying on her back, squeezed off a round at the woman, now charging her—and missed.
