At The Edge

27

"You like your face, bitch?" Corey whispered. "I've got a razor here that will do some funky things to it."

Maria tensed behind her blindfold but said nothing.

Corey took out her stiletto and popped the blade. Teasing the blade down Maria's cheek, barely touching it, she chuckled quietly. "What have you got to say?"

"Your video won't look like much if I have a Halloween face," Maria said in a strong voice.

Corey exploded with a backhanded slap, snapping Maria's head back and raising an ugly welt on her cheek.

Then, calm again, as though the outburst had been merely an affectation, Corey grabbed the heavy hood and put it over Maria's head.

"You're right. We gotta do it slow, and we can't make a mess. We'll just take some of that spray you liked so well earlier and drip it on the mask. Right over your nose and mouth. No permanent damage except mental. It'll feel like you drowned about once every sixty seconds. Only you never die. You just want to. Here goes the first drop."

The noxious fumes exploded in the tiny room, causing Corey to step back.

Maria began gagging.

Corey grabbed the hood off. She put her lips an inch from Maria's ear. "This ain't a war. They don't give medals for refusing to talk. All we want is a little information about cooperation between you and the mouthpiece. And McCafferty and her buddies in industry."

Corey waited, pacing back and forth while Maria continued choking. Finally Maria spoke. "Nothing happens until you loosen the pressure on the handcuffs. They're cutting off my circulation."

Corey thought for a moment. Given enough time, she was certain she could get Maria talking without loosening the handcuffs-but she had no time. Speeding the dialogue and making the woman look better on videotape was all important. And any chance of escape was nil-the door to the makeshift room was locked, her feet were tied, her waist was taped to the chair, and Jack was standing guard just outside. And if that wasn't enough, the German was watching in the next room.

She loosened the cuffs slightly.

Dropping the foot prop on the recliner chair, Hans sat bolt upright. He didn't like what he was seeing through the two-way mirror. He wasn't sure that Corey was experienced enough to be loosening those cuffs. Then again he sensed she was hurrying and that was good.

Hans went to the door and spoke softly. "Goddamn it, Jack, if you want two eyes tomorrow morning, you make sure that if Maria Fischer comes through that door she's a dead Maria Fischer." Then he carefully locked the door. Initially he had felt good about the setup. That was until he found out they didn't kill the kid. If that kid saw something, anything, there could be trouble and soon. He liked Corey's style, but he needed results.

Corey needed a little coaching.

Dan drove to the airport to meet Otran's helicopter and the two officers assigned to it. Like most things involving aviation, it was a little slower than anticipated. As he was turning into the road for the airport, his cell phone rang. It was Gail.

"The title guys and foresters found no property in the name of Jack Morgan. They have six people calling every outlying post office, as well as all the major branches. They say if someone by that name gets mail in this county, they'll figure it out."

The news hit Dan hard. If Morgan was a renter or squatter, it could take days to find him.

"I'm sorry," Gail said.

Dan got a call-waiting beep.

"This is Dan Young."

"This is Murray, the title man. The Geary Creek Post Office holds mail for a Jack Morgan and family. They're a bit reclusive-actually, the whole bunch up there is a bit that way."

"I know the general area. People grow pot up there," Dan said.

"You said it, I didn't. Anyway, the house is only four miles up Geary Creek Road from the post office. You turn right a quarter mile past the sign that says 'Geary Creek Dump.' The road to the dump is on the left, and the road to Morgan's is on the right. The gravel road to Morgan's is a half mile long. There are two other houses on it, and you bear right consistently to get to Morgan's. The Morgans have a two-story yellow house with a big red barn out back. There's some pasture off to the north. I swore to the postal guy that we wouldn't ever divulge how we got the info."

"Great work. Conference me into the sheriff."

Corey turned when she heard Jack's voice.

"Boss wants to see you."

Corey nodded, frustrated at the setup. She was never going to get near the German, who stayed behind the two-way mirror. He was in complete control and she knew it. That had to change.

"He wants you out here now," Jack repeated.

Corey nodded and went back to Maria, still speaking in a perfectly controlled whisper. "The blindfold stays on. You touch it and the negotiations are over. Watch her," she told Jack.

On her exit from the interrogation room, Corey was confronted by the German. For some reason the Spaniard had stepped out of the barn.

"We do not have time for any more preliminaries. Cut her face now. Get her talking."

"What about the video? I thought we agreed we were making a video to show the grassroots people."

"Just find out what she knows, and make it fast. We need to close this place down. You should have killed the boy."

It was about what Corey had expected. Typical German efficiency. Make sure all the witnesses are dead, including Corey.

Corey fingered her stiletto, trying to make the move look natural, staying calm. She still didn't see the Spaniard. The German's eyes were nervous.

"How will we prove it to the grass-"

With incredible speed the German grabbed her knife and put her in a stranglehold. In the instant she felt the stranglehold on her throat, her years of training took over. Rather than grabbing the strangling hand, she kicked straight for his kneecap. But she was being lifted, and the balance required for a well-executed kick was gone. Although the boot struck its target, it did not have the force necessary to maim.

The German raised her still higher in the air, moving her toward the wall. It took her two seconds longer than normal to kick again, this time the groin. For a split second his grip on her knife hand weakened. It was enough. She had practiced the move so often she could execute it with her dying breath-which right now was still seconds away. She lacked full power in the upward stroke, but the blade nevertheless split the man's forearm like an overripe tomato.

The German bellowed, and Corey slipped from his fingers, hitting the ground and raising her knife. But she was unprepared for the pistol that came up in his left hand, now aimed straight at her chest.

"Drop the knife, Corey."

For the first time since her father died, Corey Schneider had allowed herself to get into a situation where a man's treachery might defeat her. She dropped the knife.

The moment she let it go, the German spoke to Jack without turning to him. He seemed not to notice his own wounded arm, which he tended by transferring the gun to his right and using his left hand to clamp a handkerchief over the gaping laceration. "I want this woman hanging from the rafter. Tie a noose and put it on her."

When he turned to look at Jack, his jaw dropped. Jack trained a double-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun on the German's center mass, ten feet separating the scattergun's barrel from his heart.

"I'm getting out of here. We were just going to video the mouthpiece, that was it," Jack said. "Drop the gun or I blow you in two."

The German's eyes met Jack's. His pistol-a fine German Heckler amp; Koch, Corey now noted with satisfaction-was pointed at the floor, his other hand still clamped on the wound.

"I swear to God I'll kill you," Jack said, now shaking so bad Corey wasn't positive he could hit the German square.

"You shoot me and I shoot Corey," the German countered.

"I don't give a shit what you do. I'll blow you to kingdom come."

Finally the German let the pistol slip and clatter to the floor. Corey stepped to Jack.

"Let me have it, Jack. As soon as we take care of the Spaniard, you can get out of here." Jack nodded dumbly and let Corey take the shotgun. Backing up, Corey reached into a feed room and pulled out a six-foot pole with a fine wire loop on the end. Recognition flickered in the German's eyes.

"You know what this is, don't you, Kraut?"

Corey fit the piano-wire loop over Groiter's head as she stood behind him with the shotgun. Running up the hollowed-out center of the heavy dowel, the wire could be pulled tight with a handle from Corey's end. It could cut through the arteries in seconds. With a little less pressure, slow strangulation was possible. Yanking off his hood, she paused for a second at the sight of his freckled face-somehow older than she had imagined-then pulled the wire tight enough to turn him blue while Jack taped his hands. All the time she watched for the Spaniard.

"Hold this," she whispered to Jack, giving him the end of the wire loop. "If he does anything, you choke him to death. Understand?"

"He's choking to death now," Jack whispered.

"No, he's not. He just looks it."

Outside, Corey saw a light on in the house. So the Spaniard was in there. Quickly she made her way to the back door and noticed it was ajar. From inside she heard moans and a woman crying. Looking a little farther, she saw the Spaniard hunched over the kitchen table on top of a young woman. He held a knife to her throat. So intent was he on raping the girl that Corey was beside him before he noticed.

As soon as her captor left the room, Maria went to work on the handcuffs. As a child, she had learned to slide out of play cuffs by stretching her thumb and using her double-jointed socket. Like Houdini, she needed only the slightest loosening. When she folded her thumb into the palm of her hand and pulled, pain from the chafing skin made her grunt. She tried to force her hand through, not caring about the ripping skin.

From outside, there were sounds of a struggle and threats. They were fighting each other. Hope invigorated her.

Slick with blood, her right hand popped free of the cuff, then her left. She ripped off the blindfold and began working on the tape at her waist, using her fingernails to pull up an edge. Free of the tape, she grabbed the plastic tie-wraps at her feet, ignoring the free-flowing blood from her hands that dripped onto the carpet. As she worked, it became apparent she was in a windowless room with a large mirror on one wall. She pulled frantically on the plastic tie-wraps that held her ankles together and fastened them to the chair. Finally she was able to stretch the plastic until she got enough slack to twist it. On the floor she found a screwdriver and moved the chair enough to grab it, then used it to further twist the plastic. She broke the plastic tie-wrap on her right leg. The left went faster.

When she moved to the door, she could only make out hazy figures across the barn. The chemical would not leave her eyes no matter how many tears she shed. She forced herself to wait, watching as best she could, knowing that they would probably see her the minute she went out the door. Through the blur it looked like a man had something pointed at the back of another man's head, probably a gun. Then someone else came with a gun pointed at a second man. A woman's voice. She sounded in a rage and she was tying up one of the others. In minutes he started yelling in a foreign language. Then the yelling turned to incredible, agonized screams. If ever they would be distracted, it was now.

Crouched down, she ran out the door and down the wall of the barn. At any moment, she expected to be discovered by the lunatics behind her. And then she saw it. A broken board in the side of the barn next to several bales of hay. Approaching it, she discovered a hole that looked like it might be big enough to crawl through. She lowered her head and scrunched her shoulders, barely squeezing into the opening. God, it hurt, first pinching her shoulders, then her hips. At last, she popped free. Ahead, she saw the forest.

Freedom.

She began to run, the eerie screams driving her first up a small path, and then off the trail, through a patch of ferns, trying to put as much distance between herself and the barn as possible.

When Corey was through with the Spaniard, he was moaning in shock. The girl, a young woman really, was still crying, and Jack looked haggard. The German showed no emotion.

"She's your daughter?" she asked Jack.

Jack only nodded.

"I thought you said they all went to Mexico."

"I lied. She wouldn't go. I wanted to protect her. Now this."

"What's your name?" she asked the girl, gently touching her head.

"Janet."

"I did you a good turn. Can you do me one?"

"As long as I don't have to kill anybody," she said, staring at Corey's bloody arms.

"You don't. I still need my videotape."

"That's all you're going to do?" Jack asked.

"Absolutely. We better check the bitch."

Corey was shocked when she opened the interrogation-room door and found the empty chair.

She walked back across the barn to Jack and Janet. ''Jack, did you let her go?''

"Not me."

The German had to take some satisfaction in this turn of events, but he did not smile.

Corey tried to think. They were surrounded by forest. She couldn't be far. But now they couldn't stay here.

''Jack, you and Janet deposit the German in my basement. I've got handcuffs, a place to cuff him. Take him while I chase down the bitch." Then she proceeded to explain in detail what she wanted and how to get into the basement room.

"Why don't you just shoot me now?" the German asked as Corey pushed his head down to stuff him in the back of the van.

"You won't be that lucky."

Before he could say more, she sprayed him full in the face with pepper spray. He lay on his side, emitting muffled groans. She slid his hood over his face, then reached in his pocket, found a wallet and a card.

"What a dumb shit, a wallet with ID. I'll be damned. I thought you looked familiar. You're Hans Groiter, the security guy for the Amada corporation. Shit. Unbelievable.

"Tie his feet tight, Jack, and don't forget to stack some straw bales in front of the cabinet that leads to the room. It's in the cellar, right where I told you. Don't ever take the wire off his neck. Control him with it. And you know whose side you're on?"

"I'm a dead man if we don't deal with this dude," Jack replied.

"I'm real happy you figured that out."

"I want him dead, but I don't want to do it."

"That's my job. And remember those videotapes of your farm and family."

Jack nodded.

"Now let's you and me go back in the barn and make sure all the physical evidence here will incriminate him. This card will come in handy."

A minute later, Corey walked out of the barn, the Colt AR-15 strapped across her back. After popping the Spaniard in the head with the German's fancy Heckler amp; Koch, she left the bloody hulk sitting in the corner and began her search for Maria Fischer's trail.

It took Corey only minutes to find the hole in the barn and the small trail leading away from it. Reaching the fern patch, she saw the disturbed foliage and began following what she hoped was Fischer's escape route. Halfway through the ferns, she heard the helicopter. In minutes the area would be crawling with police. The adrenaline surged through her body and she let herself become the hunter-every scent, every folded leaf, every impression in the ground, held a meaning.

She had to silence Maria Fischer.

Listening to the tap and hum of the big twin turbine-jet helicopter, Dan watched the mountains roll underneath. Sitting next to him was a young officer they called Shane. Curly blond hair framed intense blue eyes that seemed to take in everything. The guy was slender but strong and fit. When they couldn't get Kier Wintripp, a Tilok Indian from the next county who was evidently on his honeymoon in Hawaii, they got Shane.

Next to Shane sat Sergeant Frank Spinoza, a dark-haired man with a reputation for grim determination that often irritated the sheriff but usually resulted in a conviction. Squad cars were to arrive in thirty minutes, but Shane and Frank were authorized to go in if it looked manageable. The highway-patrol copter would go in first. Dan was to remain in Otran's chopper with the pilot until the all clear was given and under no circumstances was the aircraft to enter a live fire zone. The rules were irritating but unavoidable.

Upon arriving, they circled with the highway-patrol chopper. No vehicles were visible at the farm. Staying back about 300 yards, they watched the California Highway Patrol (CHP) copter land.

"We're down and taking no fire," the CHP radioed.

Frank nodded at Otran's pilot.

"We're coming in," the pilot said.

In seconds they were on the ground.

"House or barn first?" Shane asked Frank.

"Let's knock at the house first."

Dan watched them head out, impatient to look around but constrained by his promise to stay. On the front porch they drew their revolvers while the CHP headed toward the back door. No one came to the door. Dan watched them try to open it. Locked. In a couple of minutes the CHP opened the front door. Obviously, they had walked in the back.

"No one home, but two cars in the carport," Frank said over the police radio as they exited the house.

"Ground to Helo," Shane said.

"Helo here," the pilot said.

"Any signs of life?"

"Not yet."

"Stick around. We're going in the barn."

After what seemed like minutes, the radio crackled.

"Come on in," Shane said.

Dan jumped from the copter, his heart in his throat. At the door he slowed.

"Careful," Frank said. "There's no Maria Fischer so far, but it's a murder scene. Don't touch anything. Don't step in anything. You shouldn't even be in here." Frank walked ahead, nodding at the body in the corner.

Dan involuntarily began to retch.

"Somebody castrated him."

"They did more man that. Cut off everything down there. Not to mention his eyes."

"Anyone home?" Frank shouted again. He received no reply.

"Look at that," Frank whispered, nodding at the hangman's noose and the two concrete blocks, bathed in bright light.

''Somebody built themselves a special little room," Shane said, entering what looked like a giant plywood box. It was crude on the outside, but Dan marveled at the finish work within-Sheetrock, carpet, the large two-way mirror. And a single chair. Cuffs on the ground. Blood. A lingering odor-pepper spray.

"They had her in here, I'll bet," Shane said.

Dan went back out and to the other side of the mirror.

The camcorder, mounted and ready to record, sat beside the huge recliner. A single bottle of German beer sat by the chair with no more than two or three swigs gone.

"We'll print it all," said Frank.

Shane nodded, analyzing the scene.

"Maybe they were interrupted," Dan said.

''Why would anybody want to go to this much trouble to interrogate Maria Fischer?" Frank asked.

"I would guess because somebody wanted to know what she knew about a lot of things."

"Like what?"

"Turning trees into gasoline, toxic ponds, stuff like that. And maybe somebody wanted to know if Patty McCafferty was selling favors to the timber industry."

"Can they really turn trees into oil?"

"Price is the issue. It can be done, though. In twenty years it'll be commonplace."

"How do you know about all this?"

"Seems Ms. Fischer and I are a nosy pair." Dan looked at the empty interrogation chair, the bloody cuffs. He bit his lip and offered a wordless prayer that she had escaped.

There must be something, some kind of clue, he thought, walking out of the room and along the perimeter of the barn. Minutes later Dan came to the broken board. He studied the hole. Then he noticed a handprint just outside, in the mud, and seconds later he made out the plaid fibers of a Pendleton shirt on the board's rough edge. Maria liked those shirts. A big fan of wool. She had even bought him one.

"Frank, Shane, come here," Dan called. "She went through here."

Two minutes later, Dan was back in the helicopter, flying under the high overcast, studying the terrain. Frank Spinoza had joined him, the pilot, and the sheriff's deputy while Shane followed the trail on the ground.

Situated on a bench near a ridge top, the house was surrounded by thick, mixed conifer forests, with the exception of two small emerald-green meadow areas nearby. At low altitude the forest looked like a textured, rolling mosaic of pointy dark greens-the conifers-and bubblelike, lighter greens-the hardwoods-with occasional flecks of gray and earth-tone reds in areas of thinner growth, where tree trunks were visible. The trail leading from the barn was exceedingly hard to make out, but it was apparent to Dan that if Maria had stayed on the flat bench paralleling the ridge top, she would have remained in the thick forest.

About a mile and a quarter from the house, the bench narrowed and met the headwaters of the Marmon River. Dan willed his eyesight to improve, desperate to see Maria safe, but the forest floor was for the most part obscured from the air; they could fly over a small army and not know it. Occasionally, though, he did catch a glimpse of Shane, moving quickly, jumping over logs, and zigzagging through the trees along the bench like a determined tailback hurtling toward the goal line.

Frank pointed. "More than likely, if she stayed on the bench, she hit that creek and went down it. It's human nature to run downhill when you're in trouble-and water always leads to civilization. Let's concentrate there."