Mistaken Trust (The Jewels Trust Series) (54 page)

The old wooden door creaked as it slowly swung open, revealing a room void of life. There was a pool of blood on the bed; blood that wasn’t there when Marshall left.

The nightstand cabinet looked like it had survived the wrath of a burglar gone mad. An AR-15, the one he supposedly left with Jewels, was propped against the foot of the bed. Something had gone terribly wrong.

Marshall, grim-faced, tipped his head to the men, a silent gesture that told the team to clear the room.

With MP-5s in the tactical ready position and staggered shoulder to shoulder in a basic echelon formation, the five men systematically vanished into the tiny cabin. Moments later: “Clear,” Bradshaw hollered out to Marshall.

“Hmm.” Marshall’s brows knitted as he shook his head and scratched the back of his neck, contemplating the situation. Suddenly his eyes widened. The secret room! He motioned for the team to exit the cabin and gather around him.

“What’s up?” one of the men asked.

“There’s a secret room in the cabin,” Marshall quietly replied, folding his arms over his chest. “There’s a possibility Hines has taken the hostage and retreated into that room.”

The men stood in a half circle around Marshall as he explained what he knew of the cabin’s secret room, noting he had never seen inside. Had no idea about its size. Whether or not it went underground. If it had a hidden escape exit. Or if it was stocked with weapons.

The team discussed how they would proceed then reentered the cabin. Moments later the door to the secret room was open.

The team’s flashlights illuminated the pantry-sized room. They checked the walls, ceiling and floor for additional hidden doors.

“Nothing here,” one of the men yelled to Marshall.

“Never should have left Jewels with that monster,” he muttered to himself, regretfully shaking his head. Marshall blew it, that was painfully obvious to everyone.

Scowling, “When you fuck up, you fuck up big time don’t you?” Dyson whispered to Marshall. Glaring, “So help me, God, Watters, if I find out you classified Julia as
acceptable collateral damage
for this op’s end result, you will be
my
acceptable collateral damage,” Dyson quietly warned, stabbing a stiff finger in Marshall’s chest.

Ignoring Dyson’s threat, “They must have escaped on foot. Quick, scan the mountainside,” Marshall instructed the rest of the team.

Bradshaw jogged back to the Suburban, grabbed night vision goggles, surveyed the mountain.

“Nothing, Boss.”

“Get the chopper up here,” Marshall ordered, staring blankly into the darkness, his hands planted on his hips. FLIR would find her.

The MTAF helicopter was equipped with Honeywell’s latest forward-looking infrared receiver system. FLIR was used in both day and night for navigation, reconnaissance, and search and rescue. Tonight it would perform the latter.

A few minutes later, “Sir, no-go on the chopper.

Turbulence rating is severe.”

“Shit! Spread out, we’ll comb this mountainside on foot. Be sure to use radios,” Marshall said. Trotting to the Chevy for access to equipment, he rigged himself with a remote headset. Communication with the team was paramount. Snatching a pair of night vision goggles, he strapped them to his head like a helmet.

Marshall stood at the side of the truck, slowly scanning the woods, quietly pleading for Jewels’ help. “Come on, Jewels, I’m right here. I’ll come get you. I just need to know which way to go. Gimme a sign, Baby. Gimme a sign,” he whispered to himself.

A momentary twinkle of something shiny reflecting a small spray of light in the distance caught his eye. Nothing in nature would shimmer like that. “Julia! Julia Andrasy,” he hollered, charging in the direction of where he saw the sparkle. He knew NVGs distorted distance, sometimes causing things to look closer than they really were. They also had a limiting view of one-hundred to four-hundred feet maximum, depending on ambient light. Jewels—or at least the shiny thing—was within the limited range of the night vision.

Like a pack of hunting hounds, the team followed.

“Spread out,” Marshall said over the radio headset as he continued running in the direction he saw the sparkle and calling her name. “Julia! Julia Andrasy!”

Though she had no idea of exactly how much time had passed, Jewels figured by now Marshall had returned to the vacated cabin and assumed Hines absconded with her into the woods on foot. Kicking bare feet at the limbs concealing her, she attempted to make herself more visible in hopes of speeding up the rescue effort she assumed Marshall had surely mounted. Besides, the vigorous movement helped generate much needed body warmth. Despite the gag stifling her breathing, causing her to gasp for air, and progress slow, she
was
making progress. She had cleared several of the large branches from around her feet, creating a hole wide enough to uncover her legs half way up her shins.

Abruptly she ceased kicking. Held her breath. Listened. Was the wind playing tricks on her or did someone just call her name? Other than shivering from the cold, she lie motionlessly, straining to hear something more than wind stirring through the trees. That’s when she heard it: “Julia. Julia Andrasy.”

Perking up, “I’m here! Right here,” she yelled in desperation, but the necktie was bound so brutally tight around her mouth, it suppressed the majority of volume she could muster. If she was to be rescued, had to respond. Had to be heard. Otherwise, the search might be moved to a different location. Farther away from her.

Had to get the gag off. But how? The idea to use the branches surrounding her face to peel the gag from around her mouth popped into her head. Nudging her face against the prickly branch, she hoped a rough edge would catch itself between her cheek and the tie like a finger and hold steady so she could jerk her head enough to cause the tie to slide off her mouth and down to her chin. After a few tries, incredibly, it worked! The tie caught on the branch, enabling her to violently shake her head enough to jerk the tie off her mouth, one layer at time.

“Help! I’m here! I’m over here,” Jewels shrieked, the ear-piercing sound of her own voice raining tears down her face like a cloud burst.

“Julia? Julia Andrasy,” someone in the distance called from a distance.

“Yes! Yes! Please help me!”

“We’re coming, Julia. Keep talking so we can follow your voice.”

Stretching her neck toward the sound of the voices and straining to see through the heap of branches covering her, she saw the twinkling and bobbing of flashlights. This nightmare was about to end. Soon she’d be home. Home!

“I can’t move. I’m lying on the ground, handcuffed to a tree, and covered with branches.”

“Hang on. We’re coming, Julia. We’ll get you out.”

A broad smile of hope and relief germinated on Jewels’ otherwise haggard face. She yelled back: “Thank you. Thank you so much. Please hur—”

A bloody hand plowed through the branches, sealing her mouth.

“Julia! Julia, talk to me.” Marshall called frantically in reaction to the sound of her voice being suppressed mid
sentence.

Silence.

“Julia, say something so I know you’re all right.”

Still no response.

Marshall pushed the mic of the headset to his mouth. “Shit! Double-time it guys. Hines must have slipped past us,” he relayed to the team, rapidly scanning the forest floor for any sign he was on the right track to Jewels.

A thick puddle of liquid in the path caught his eye. Halting, he bent over, dabbed it with the tip of his finger as if testing for wet paint. The substance was sticky, slightly warm, and bright red. Blood. Fresh. Raising his eyes toward the heavens, “Please, God, don’t let this be Julia’s,” Marshall mumbled.

Wiping the blood from his fingertips onto his pants, he invested a moment to gather his composure, banishing the hint of tears ready to overrun his eyes. If Jewels was dead, he would never forgive himself ... surely not that his one-time mentor, Howard Dyson, would ever let him.

Clearing his throat, he pressed the mic again. “This is Watters. I’ve got fresh blood.” Taking off on a moderate jog deeper into the woods, he headed in the direction he last saw the glimmer, which happened to be the same direction the blood trailed.

“Julia? Julia, talk to me! Julia, say something so we know you’re all right!” the masculine voice in the distance yelled.

Screaming,
help
over and over in response to the man’s call, Hines’ thick hand firmly pasted over her mouth thwarted her efforts. Apparently the bear, too, had failed to neutralize this guy.

“Unfaithful cunt. You bitches are all the same,” Hines growled, flashing resentful eyes at her as he wiggled around the entanglement of prickly branches to better position himself next to her.

Though twisting her body and thrashing her legs, she could not liberate her mouth of his bloody grip. What a spectacle. There Jewels was, lying on the ground, under a pine tree with a web of branches engulfing her, wearing nothing but an FBI windbreaker over white lace panties and a matching strapless bra. Her hands were cuffed above her head around the sap-oozing trunk of a pine. Metal leg irons bound her ankles. And rogue FBI Agent Theodore Hines dressed in a tarnished white long-sleeved dress shirt and suit pants, knelt at her side, his bloody hand locking her mouth silent.

“Time to die, Sweet Cheeks,” he growled, removing his hand from her mouth to reposition it around her neck.

Jewels gasped air.

With both hands clamped around her neck, he proceeded to squeeze.

“No,” Jewels squeaked, kicking her chained feet, yanking her hands against the cold hard steel of the handcuffs and wiggling her body in a desperate attempt to break the death grip around her throat.

Hines responded by engaging the full weight of his body to push harder, squeeze tighter.

Feeling the life literally being forced out of her, “Dear God, please help me,” she sputtered, gasping to breathe.

“Die, Bitch! Die,” Hines snarled, violently beating the back of Jewels’ head against the pine needle floor.

Her muscles went limp. Eyes fluttered shut. Consciousness began to retire.

Seemingly out of nowhere, an ominous roar filled the air.Immediately Hines loosened the grip on Jewels’ neck and froze kneeling at her side.

Forcing her eyes open, she looked up. Clearly, the brown bear had approached in stealth mode. The huge beast was reared up on its hindquarters, towering over them, voicing deep-throated pulsating sounds. Hines’ face was horror stricken.

With one powerful swipe of his broad paw against Hines’ shoulder, the mammoth creature plucked his body off Jewels, throwing him to the ground where he landed on his side.

On all fours, the bear rushed him.

Screaming in terror, Hines wildly punched and kicked as he was ferociously mauled.

Witnessing the attack, Jewels, too, was screaming at the top of her lungs in terror.

But Hines’ defensive blows were mere annoyances, like pesky gnats, to the attacking wild animal. After biting Hines about the body numerous times, the ginormous beast opened his great jaws over Hines’ head and reared up on his hind legs, lifting Hines’ body completely off the ground.

Unable to stomach the anticipated gore, Jewels pinched her eyes shut. Though she could block out witnessing the morbid scene visually, there was nothing she could do to prevent her ears from absorbing every gruesome, audible detail. Hines’ shrill scream was something no actor could ever duplicate. Jewels was paralyzed, speechless.

CRUNCH!

Instantly, the shrill screaming stopped as the grizzly’s powerful jaws chomped down on Hines’ head, biting as if the human skull were nothing more than a giant apple. If it was not for the pile of branches Hines had earlier stacked around Jewels to bury her, his headless body would have landed directly on top of her.

Despite all the horrible situations Jewels had experienced over the past few days, she had not known primal fear until now and dared not open her eyes.

Standing on its hind legs, the grizzly bellowed a roar of triumph, a reminder to all forest creatures, and humans alike, he was the new supreme king of the High Uintas.

The titanic creature dropped down on all fours, burrowed his nose under the lifeless mass and through the heap of branches to once again sniff Jewels’ femininity.He licked the inside of her thigh. Its tongue was grainy like cornmeal, breath hot like a blow dryer. Abruptly the bear jerked its head from between Jewels’ legs and snorted, bolting up the mountainside.

“Julia! Julia!” a distant male voice frantically called.

Scared mindless, she kept her eyes crimped shut as her body continued to quake under the jumble of pine boughs and the weight of Hines’ lifeless mass.

• • •

MOMENTS EARLIER. The shrill, unnerving sound of a human screaming from excruciating pain pierced the natural serenity of the forest, causing Marshall to stop dead in his tracks. A shiver rocketed up his spine. It was a terrible sound, like nothing he’d ever heard before, not even in war. The blood curdling sound of a human screaming in terror was followed by the thundering bellow of a bear’s roar.

“Julia! Julia,” he howled, charging in the direction of the terrible scream. As he ran, he moved the MP-5 into a position where he could fire immediately, on the run, if necessary.