Torque (31 page)

“Have the dispatcher relay that Harrowport is
to be held on suspicion of kidnapping, unless the officers can find
something more tangible.”

It might not stick but it would buy them some
time.

“And, inform the task force they won’t need
to tuck and roll when they arrive. I’ve arranged for some
blueprints and aerial surveys to be sent out. We’re also hoping for
some real-time intel—we’ve got a resource on the inside.”

At least Lareault hoped they did. There’d
been no contact with the man since the informal raid, this
morning.

== == ==

Fenn left Kim with the hammer and backpack
and scrambled into the gulley where the motorbike lay. He grabbed
the seat and stood it up. The motor had stalled and he would need
it running to get back onto the trail. The handlebars had been
knocked askew but he could deal with that, as long as it ran. The
key was in the ON position so he squeezed the clutch lever and
twisted the gearshift to find Neutral.

“Right,” he muttered. “All I have to do is
put my foot on the kick-start pedal, and …”

On the third kick the motor sputtered to life
and Fenn feathered the throttle to keep it going. After a few
seconds the engine began to run evenly and Fenn aligned the bike
with the route he wanted to climb up to the trail.

Kim was watching from above when she heard,
“Aww, crap!”

“What?”

“The front wheel is bent all to hell. The
bloody thing is useless.” Fenn let the bike fall over and stood
there looking at it.

“Well, I think you should get up here,
anyway,” said Kim. “I see more lights coming down the trail.”

“How’s our friend doing?”

“Hard to see from here, but I think he’s
still lying there.”

“A wounded soldier is a good way to slow down
your enemy. His compatriots are more likely to stop and tend to
him.” Fenn was now beside her.

“Spoken like a true guy.”

“Just saying.”

“Good to know. Now come on. We need to get
farther up the path so they won’t be able to see us.”

It was now dark enough to obscure details at
the side of the trail. Fenn had a hand-crank flashlight in his pack
but preferred to wait until they absolutely needed to use it. He
heard Kim stumble in front of him. That time would be fairly
soon.

CHAPTER
44

With the dome light on and the attaché case
beside him Jenner sat in the back seat of the limo and counted the
bundles of cash. The notes were not all the same denomination but
he knew a fuckload of money when he saw one. Fenn had obviously got
it from Reis—but had he traded the disc for the cash, which didn’t
seem likely, or had he simply stolen the bag? Either way, the
dynamic had definitely changed.

Reis hadn’t made contact since their last
conversation and if she showed up, now, she’d be empty-handed and
of little value to anyone. Jenner put the bundles back in the bag.
If this fortune disappeared then Fenn, as the last known possessor,
would be on the hook for it. Of course, if he caught up with Fenn
and retrieved the disc then he could deal himself into the meeting
that Harrowport had arranged.

Which was the exact point that Reis had got
to, and he understood her frustration over Fenn’s refusal to
cooperate. He hadn’t liked the guy when they worked for the same
company. Fenn was always favoured by that snug babe they had on
reception, and the Lundsens thought the sun shone out his ass. If
he got their golden boy in front of the Remington, the sun really
would shine out Fenn’s ass.

That driving school gig had sucked, anyway.
You weren’t allowed to date the girls and the women never showed
proper appreciation for what he had to offer. Neither had Reis.
Funny how things work out.

Jenner went back to the Challenger and popped
the hood. He unclipped the distributor cap and removed the rotor to
hobble Fenn’s ride. No sense irreversibly damaging something he
intended to claim for his own. He returned to the limo and put the
rotor in the attaché case.

At the house, he keyed in the command to
close the gates and stashed the bag in the cavernous hall closet.
The front door was open and he saw the ATV come out of the woods.
Rowan was driving and Chico was in the back with Tad who seemed to
have suffered an injury. Jenner went onto the granite steps to meet
them.

“What happened?”

Rowan shook his head. “It’s going down the
same as it did this morning. I don’t get it.”

Jenner raised his arms in exasperation.
“There’s nothing to get! They were on foot. You fellas had wheels.
How come you couldn’t bring them in?”

“Well, we had to bring Tad back, didn’t we.
He’s hurt pretty bad. Might need a doctor. Besides, it got dark and
we couldn’t see shit out there.”

Jenner’s instructor days had taught him the
signs of anxiety. Rowan was spooked.

“Take Tad into the living room and we’ll have
a look at him. After that, we’ll have a pow-wow. Try and figure out
why we’re the only ones here.”

Rowan nodded. He entered the foyer like a
weary cowpuncher would a saloon after a three-week cattle drive.
Chico just shook his head and offered his shoulder to Tad. Jenner
scanned the perimeter then followed them in.

== == ==

The Emergency Task Force arrived at the
roadblock in a police-tuned Chevrolet Suburban and a Gurkha
multi-purpose vehicle. The MPV was an armoured truck built on the
chassis of a Ford F550. Normally, an ETF team was ten members
strong but only eight had come on this trip. They retrieved
shotguns, sniper rifles, flash-bangs, and teargas grenades from the
MPV then stood off to the side of it in a loose group.

Twenty-one year old Simon Bailey had been on
the squad for nine months and had been called out on assignment
four times. He had yet to discharge his weapon in a
hot
situation, and that was good for it proved the effectiveness of
their show of force. If intimidation persuaded a perp to surrender
then the ETF had done their job. And there was a lot less
paperwork.

Bailey played hockey on Friday nights with a
bunch of guys he’d known forever. After the game they’d go for
beers and chat up the local ladies. Each week there would be
different girls and the same questions.

Have you ever shot a suspect?

No.

Would you really kill somebody?

Yes.

Each squad member had a speciality: assault,
bomb handling, negotiation, or sniper. Bailey spent several hours a
week at the rifle range with his Remington 700 and could
consistently take out a man’s eye at four hundred metres—providing
the man stood still. If the target insisted on moving around,
Bailey could still make a successful head shot at twice that
distance.

His team leader was discussing the situation
with the detective who appeared to be in charge of the scene. “Say
the word, Inspector, and we’ll have that place lit up like a
stadium.”

“We have to take this one slower than usual,”
the detective replied. “We have a man inside, and under no
circumstances can we allow the hostage to be harmed.”

“No worries, Mate. My team has yet to lose a
hostage. Perfect record.”

The two men were studying an aerial
photograph of the site, on the hood of a car.

“How will you set up?”

“A sniper team will approach through the
woods and take positions that cover the windows and exits. If
necessary, we’ll advance an officer close to the building with
audio and imaging equipment. Once we are ready to assault we’ll
disable the cameras at the front gate and move the rest of the team
quickly down the driveway. Are we able to cut power to the
house?”

“I have a technician standing by. We also
have the phone company isolating the service. You can start your
surveillance when ready.”

“Understood. I’ll mobilize the first team in
five minutes.”

The squad’s focus centered on the team leader
as he returned to the group.

“Bailey and Shryer; you are to be Delta 1 and
2 on this. Find a way to the property through the woods and take up
positions with low exposure. The Inspector doesn’t want the targets
alerted to our presence until we have more intel.” He lowered his
voice. “He’s not completely certain we have the correct
location.”

The squad exchanged glances but said
nothing.

“Right. Delta team do a radio check then on
your way. The rest of you can hang loose. It could be a long
night.”

== == ==

Lareault found Bloomfield chatting with an
officer.

“What have you got, Frank?”

“Harrowport is being held at the Port Severn
OPP station. Also, I just had a call from the chief super, who just
had a call from Jack Klaasen. J. K. is flying into Lake Simcoe
Regional Airport and should be here in an hour or so.”

Lareault nodded. “We know Harrowport and
Klaasen have had previous business dealings. The thing that strikes
me as odd about this whole thing, Frank, is that there hasn’t been
a ransom demand. With Harrowport holding Klaasen’s daughter hostage
it might be interesting to get those two together and see what
shakes out.”

“Reserve me a ringside seat.” Bloomfield
flipped through his notepad. “So what about this third
party—Charleton Fenn? Is he a player? A vigilante?”

“At the moment, he’s just a loose cannon,
and—” Lareault was interrupted by one of the uniforms.

“Sir, we had an unmarked car drive past the
property as you requested. Up the road from the entrance the
officers located a vehicle of the type owned by Mr. Fenn. We ran
the plate and it’s a match.”

“—and now he’s somewhere out there with armed
felons on one side and a team of trained marksmen on the other. Why
do I think this isn’t going to end well, Frank?”

Bloomfield gave an empathetic smile. “I’ve
heard the fishing can be pretty good around here, Evan. And farther
north you can almost live on a policeman’s pension.”

“
Almost
may have to do. Send me a
brochure.”

CHAPTER
45

Fenn wound the crank on the side of the
housing and the flashlight grew brighter. He could wind it slowly
for a continuous beam or quickly to build a charge for a few
minutes of light. Slow or fast, the whine of the little generator
was annoying in the quiet of the woods but it was safer than
stumbling around blindly in the dark.

Kim didn’t seem to mind it. She followed a
few paces behind gorging herself on the large bag of trail mix that
Fenn had picked up in Barrie. The water bottle in her pocket was
almost empty though Fenn wasn’t too concerned. Every few minutes
they crossed some kind of runoff so, even if he had no iodine pills
for purification, at least hydration would not be a problem.

They traveled the same path for about an hour
without hearing any sounds of pursuit. The breeze and the noise of
rushing water below indicated the trail now ran parallel to the rim
of a gorge. It began to descend, via a switchback, taking them west
for a couple of hundred metres until another steeply sloped u-turn
had them going east once more. Each level was more exposed than the
one above, and less ideal as a place to hunker down for the
night.

“Are we there yet?”

Fenn stopped to let Kim catch up. “Here’s the
deal. If the police are not already at The Retreat, I expect they
soon will be. I just want to be far enough away to prevent the bad
guys from finding us, tonight. We’ll head back tomorrow morning
and, hopefully, meet up with a platoon of cops.”

Kim gave a weary sigh. “Okay, but if we’re
not at The Retreat when the cops arrive, won’t they just leave
again?”

“I’m pretty sure they’ll find my car on the
road which ought to tell them we’re in the vicinity. Besides, do
you really think Eileen would let them report back
empty-handed?”

“No. And she’s probably called my dad by now.
He’d cut down this forest to find me.”

“Exactly. Let’s go on just a little farther,
and if we don’t find a sheltered spot in the next five minutes
we’ll head back up to where we can get away from this breeze.”

“Starting to get a little cool up the kilt,
is it?”

“Something like that. My knees mostly.”

Fenn cranked the light vigorously to get the
beam as bright as possible. He shone it to the side searching for a
place to set up a temporary camp. A good start would be a couple of
large rocks at an angle to each other. He could make a sub-floor of
pine boughs to sit or lie on and they could wrap themselves in the
blanket. He also had a large sheet of reflective Mylar for a top
cover to retain their heat.

They were most of the way down the gorge and
the valley had really opened up on their right. Atmospheric light,
probably sky glow from the town of Port Severn, reflected off the
clouds and illumined the river below. More than a stone’s throw
wide its flow was turbulent in spots and of indeterminate depth in
others. Fenn had just thought about replenishing their bottles when
a solid wooden wall blocked his view. Actually, four walls and a
roof.

“What is it?” Kim said.

Fenn shone the light about, looking for an
entrance. “I think it’s a warming hut for snowmobilers and
cross-country skiers. Here’s the door.”

Fenn cranked the light again. The interior
was about three metres square and had built-in benches along two
walls. There were a couple of pegs near the door for hanging coats,
and a few initials carved in the wood. It was the Taj Mahal.

Kim dropped onto one of the benches with an
audible sigh.

“I don’t care if there are spiders, I’m going
to lie down right here.”

Fenn dug into the pack and pulled out a tin.
“I hope there’s something left in this.” He pried off the lid.

“Don’t tell me you brought baked beans.”