The Nightmare Thief (14 page)

D
ane Haugen peered at his screen. A Peterbilt tractor-trailer, loaded with timber, lumbered past the parked Volvo SUV. They were at a truck stop in the Sierra foothills, with the sun hidden behind storm clouds. The coffee shop had wireless, for the benefit of truckers and tourists and hikers looking to get jacked up on java and the news before rock climbing or screwing or driving a semi over the mountains.

Haugen checked his Bermuda account online. He glanced at Sabine. “Flight radar on Reiniger’s plane?”

She swiped her screen. Accessing real-time flight radar data, she spotted the tiny yellow image of the jet carrying Peter Reiniger to New York City.

“It’s over eastern Ohio. On schedule.”

Haugen grunted an acknowledgment. He was also editing his film reel, the teaser material that he would show Reiniger in a few hours. It was the trailer for his new disaster film, so to speak.

Photos, video, sound—the trailer showed him with Autumn and her friends, showed the Edge Adventures game runners in custody, and showed, vividly, the consequences of noncompliance with his demands. Reiniger would see this as the most compelling prospectus of his financial career. He would invest. He would strip himself to the bone and sell his own marrow to grab this opportunity.

The deal was on, even though Reiniger hadn’t heard about it yet. And getting him the new film trailer,
Autumn! Part I!
was the first phase of the plan.

Haugen paused the video to admire an elegant shot: Autumn, smiling, with Von behind her, hooded, gloved, pointing an AK-47 at her back. Exquisite.

His phone rang. He checked the display and answered, “About time.”

Von said, “We got a problem.”

 

 

The air had taken on a low, chilly note. Gabe faced the group.

“We have to protect ourselves,” he said. “This is survival one-oh-one.”

It was, Jo thought, a crash course for newbies who never thought they’d need it.

“We stay together. Nobody—and I mean nobody—go off on your own,” he said.

Dustin said, “Not even to take a piss? We need the buddy system?”

“Yes.”

Dustin didn’t reply. Autumn was hugging herself. Peyton seemed to be gradually sobering up, and it meant that the pain of her broken clavicle was growing more intense. She cradled her right arm against her chest. Her left hand played with a silver charm bracelet compulsively, as if it were a rosary. Bit by bit, it was hitting them:
This is for real.

“We need help. We’re not going to get it here,” Gabe said. “We’re going to have to contact somebody.”

Autumn said, “Our phones aren’t here. They took them back in San Francisco.”

Kyle said, “I got mine. They had no excuse to take it.”

“Great,” Jo said.

“Don’t got a signal, but it’s in my pocket.”

“My phone and Gabe’s might still be in the Hummer.”

Autumn opened her mouth to speak, and Jo put up a calming hand. “It would be a huge help if you’d start looking. Because the first thing Gabe and I need to do is stabilize Noah’s condition.”

Autumn took a breath. “Okay.”

Gabe said, “We need to plan for short-term wilderness survival. Start pulling together a survival kit.”

“Short term?” Autumn said.

Jo said, “We’re talking about overnight. Maybe up to four days. We need to be as prepared as we can.”

Gabe said, “One of you get back in the Hummer and grab this stuff if you can find it. A lighter. The flashlight. All the water bottles you have.”

“What about beer?” Dustin said.

“We’re not going to drink alcohol, but grab all of it. Plus anything we can use as an instant body shelter. A tarp, sleeping bag, tube tent, plastic trash bag. Rope. Then signaling devices. Whistles, signal mirrors, strobe lights—”

“Like that’s going to be in the Hummer?” Dustin said.

Gabe turned on him. “This was supposed to be a game, right? Did you bring stuff to play with?”

Kyle nodded. “I’ll look.”

“I have two knives. See if you can find any others,” Gabe said. “Maps. A compass—did you bring that? And GPS—the Hummer had a self-contained unit on the dashboard. See if by any chance it didn’t get smashed.”

Gradually, the group roused itself.

“First items—shelter and hydration. We need shelter from wind, cold, wet. Any two can kill you. Wish we could start a fire, but that would draw attention from Von and his gang.”

“What about food?” Peyton said.

“Gather it up. I hope we won’t be out here long enough to need to forage,” he said.

“Forage, like for nuts and berries? I’m allergic to
everything.
”

“Noted.” He panned the group. “And post a lookout. Von’s out there. Presume he can show up at any moment, with reinforcements. We’ll rotate. Kyle, will you take the first watch?”

Ritter nodded. “I can do that.”

“Safety is our number one concern,” Gabe said.

Kyle nodded, staring at Gabe with an intensity that almost sizzled.

Gabe paused. “Above all, we stay strong. We stick together. We pay attention, we hang in there. We’re going to get out of here. All of us.” He looked around at them. “Got it?”

Peyton didn’t move. Dustin nodded. Autumn said, “Got it.”

Gabe stepped into the center of the circle and held his hands out.
“Got it?”

Stronger, they said: “Got it.”

Gabe turned to Jo. She said, “Let’s do it.”

They clambered over rocks to the riverbank. Jo shook dust from her clothes and hair, then crouched down and plunged her hands into the water. The cold sent an ache up her arms. She washed up and rinsed the dust and grit off her face. Gabe did too. Then they crawled back inside the Hummer. Jo took off her jacket, turned it inside out, and moved to Noah’s side. He was anxious, his eyes glossy with pain.

“This gonna hurt?” he said.

“Definitely.”

He let out a non-laugh. “I thought you’d at least lie to me.”

“It’ll be painful, but we won’t do anything that causes more damage. And reducing the fracture will be safer for you.” She put a hand on his uninjured shoulder. “It won’t take long. Then we’ll splint the leg. Can you deal with that?”

“Have to.”

“That’s the spirit.”

From the driver’s compartment, Lark called, “I found the first-aid kit.”

She scrambled through to the passenger compartment. Her face was drawn. She brushed dusty black hair back from her eyes and opened a red lunch-box-size kit.

“Band-Aids and gauze pads, iodine, athletic tape. An EpiPen for bee stings. Tylenol.”

Tylenol would do little for Noah, but Jo gave Lark a thumbs-up.

“Gloves?” she said. “Antibiotics?”

Lark squinted at the contents of the first-aid kit, tilting her head, concentrating hard. All at once, Jo wondered how poor Lark’s vision actually was.

There were no antibiotics, but the girl found latex gloves. Jo and Gabe put them on. Jo gave Noah two Tylenol. Then she packed his gunshot wound with gauze and immobilized his shoulder.

Noah’s jeans and gym sock had, thankfully, kept his leg from becoming impregnated with dirt and debris. The wound site was mercifully clean. Still, Jo opened a plastic water bottle.

She leaned over Noah. “Need to irrigate and disinfect the wound. Hold Lark’s hand.”

Noah reached up and grabbed Lark’s hand. Jo positioned herself at his knee and poured the water and then the iodine on his leg. He moaned and squirmed. She held his knee firmly and emptied the bottle.

“Done,” she said. “Now I need to put my jacket underneath your leg to keep the site clean.”

There was a huge risk of infection but this was the best they could do.

Gabe positioned himself at the boy’s feet. “Going to lift your leg so Jo can slide the jacket underneath it.”

When he put his hands underneath Noah’s calf and lifted, the young man writhed. Jo slid the jacket into place.

“Doing good. That was step one,” Gabe said. He took a distal pulse at Noah’s ankle to check for circulation. He nodded—it was good. “Now take a deep breath.”

“She already told me it’s going to hurt,” Noah said.

“Like a son of a bitch, but it’ll be over soon.”

Jo held the proximal end of his tibia—just below the knee. Gabe took hold of Noah’s ankle and foot. The grotesquely broken bones of his leg protruded through the skin.

Firmly, carefully, Gabe pulled on Noah’s lower leg. The young man went rigid. He kicked his uninjured leg, hard. Jo could hear him trying not to scream. Gabe pulled firmly and hesitated, testing, feeling his way. Then he pulled harder, and the exposed bones slid back beneath the torn skin and muscles.

“Almost there.”

Noah panted. He kicked the floor of the Hummer with his good heel. Gabe cautiously kept going until the bones seemed to realign.

“Done,” he said.

Jo looked at Noah. He was as pale as flour, and tears were leaking from his eyes. He was breathing like a fish on a dock.

“Let’s not do that again,” he said.

She touched his arm. “You did great.”

Gabe checked his distal pulse again. They splinted his leg from above the knee to below the ankle with the cardboard packaging from two cases of Heineken and a roll of athletic tape. Then they elevated the limb to reduce swelling.

Gabe said, “You’re doing good, man.”

He and Jo climbed back out the Hummer’s window. The shadows were deeper, and the wind was gusting higher. Gabe wiped his brow with the back of his hand. The back of his T-shirt was stippled with sweat, and blood.

Dustin, Autumn, and Peyton gravitated toward them, but Gabe said, “Just a minute,” and walked to the riverbank, crouched down, and washed his face.

Jo followed. Nonchalantly, she sat on a rock beside him. “That was good work.”

He nodded but didn’t look up. “We have to get these kids out of here. If Noah doesn’t get to a hospital, he’s not going to last. He needs surgery.”

And antibiotics, a blood transfusion, a warm bed, and more
, Jo thought.

“You all right?” she said.

He nodded again. “Think I tore a shoulder muscle. And I sliced up my side.”

“About time you told me.”

“No point in worrying the others.”

You dumbass,
she thought.
You brave, stoic dumbass.

“Sit down, right now, and don’t get up.” She got the first-aid kit and came back. “Shirt. Off.”

With difficulty he pulled it over his head. A piece of metal, or broken glass, had cut a long slice up the back of his ribs. It was ragged, but not deep. Just incredibly painful.

She cleaned it, closed the wound with butterfly bandages, wrapped his ribs with gauze and strapped them with athletic tape, good and tight. Then she handed back his shirt.

“Don’t do any dancing tonight, Sergeant,” she said.

He didn’t laugh.

She gently put a hand against his heart. For a moment, emotion threatened to overwhelm her. Though she tried to stem it, he saw and wrapped his arms around her.

“Thank God you’re okay,” she said.

He held on to her. “We’re going to get out of here.”

She nodded, tightly.
Hold it together.
“Absolutely.” She blinked away tears and swallowed the tremor in her voice. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

He stepped back and she wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. She exhaled. Then, lowering her voice, she said, “This situation is freakish.”

“That doesn’t begin to cover it. Was this an actual kidnapping for ransom?”

“You have to be psychotic or a hard-core felon to risk kidnapping for ransom in America.”

After the Lindbergh kidnapping, the FBI had essentially shut down abductions for financial gain in the U.S.A. The crime was virtually obsolete.

Gabe said, “Still, the simplest explanation is most likely to be the right one.”

“Agreed. I just don’t want to discount the possibility that something less straightforward is going on.” She brushed her hair back from her face. “And I can’t let these kids get on my nerves.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “Stay cool. They’re young and scared. And they’re not aliens. Autumn even looks like Tina.”

Jo glanced at Autumn: the jaunty Marine Corps utility cap, the gold cashmere sweater, the leather boots. Despite the straits they were in, she had an unassailable, alpha-girl air—like she was the Queen of All Prom Queens.

“Autumn is nothing like Tina.”

“But hang on to that idea. It’ll keep you from biting their heads off.”

In the distance, Kyle was watching them. “What’s the plan, Chief?”

Gabe gingerly pulled his shirt back on. “We get out of here. But first, we figure out what’s going on.”

He put an arm around Jo and walked over to the group. “How did you end up here, without even knowing your birthday party had been hijacked?”

Jo had another question.
Why?

R
uby Ratner shuffled into the dim interior of the house, carrying the little dog under her arm. Evan followed.

The television was turned to a talk show. On a TV tray, Mrs. Ratner had a jigsaw puzzle in progress. The carpet smelled like Pepito.

The house was decorated floor to ceiling as if Mrs. Ratner had just stepped off a wagon train. On the mantel a collection of plates from the Franklin Mint memorialized
Gunsmoke
and
Have Gun–Will Travel.
Porcelain dolls were lined up on shelves around the room, like a firing squad: Paladin, Annie Oakley, Doc Holliday, the Earp brothers, the Dalton Gang. Above the mantel hung a paint-by-numbers portrait of Chuck Connors, decked out as the Rifleman. A dinner bell hung in the kitchen. Even her muumuu was gingham.

She sank onto the sofa, the dress softly pillowing, like a jellyfish. “Tell me what the fee is.”