The Buried (13 page)

After a few seconds, she looked at the car and asked, “Hey, do you know what’s going on?”

Evans acted like he didn’t hear her so she tapped on the glass.

“What’s with all the police?”

Reluctantly he glanced in her direction. “Sorry, don’t know.”

“Was there a fire or something?”

He looked at her again, clearly annoyed. “I
don’t
know.”

She saw him reach for the ignition button. She’d been hoping to get him to open his window but you couldn’t have everything.

Keeping the gun tight to her chest, she slipped it out of its slot and pulled the trigger, her aim instinctive and dead on. Because the window was made of laminated safety glass, it crunched instead of shattered as the bullet pierced it. A quick look around revealed that no one seemed to have noticed.

Instead of slumping onto the passenger side as she would have liked, Evans had been wearing his seat belt and remained mostly sitting up with his head lolled onto his shoulder.

Moving quickly, she put her gun away and folded the fractured glass inside the car. She then removed the shoulder strap holding Evans in place and shoved him below dash level.

Upon returning to her bike, she pulled out her phone and called The Wolf. As usual, she was greeted with a single beep.

“Bianca checking in,” she said. “One down. Daniel Evans.”

She stuffed the phone in her pocket and climbed on the bike. As she was pulling the helmet over her head, a car drove past and turned down the same street Evans was parked on. Though the glimpse she got of the driver had been brief, she’d seen enough to know it was Kimball Norris, another one of the hunters whose photos she’d received.

She took the helmet back off.

CHAPTER
16

I-90, WASHINGTON

T
HE FOREST-COVERED
mountains finally gave way to wide swaths of grassy, rolling land. Soon homes began appearing, scattered here and there, signaling the approaching town of Ellensburg.

“We need to fill up,” Nate said.

Quinn glanced back at Danielle. “Find someplace to pull over for a minute first.”

Once they were stopped, Quinn hopped out and opened the back passenger door. Danielle was lying on the seat, with seat belts strapped over her.

“I know this isn’t going to help you trust us,” he said, “but if I were you, I’d be doing whatever I could to draw attention and get some help.” He could see in her eyes she’d been thinking exactly that. “We can’t have that. I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

He leaned over the seat and, from one of the duffels in the back, pulled out two unused rags and the leftover plastic sheeting.

Holding one of the rags, he said, “I’ll take this off right after we fill up.”

He moved it toward her mouth.

“No, no, no,” she protested, pulling her head back. “I won’t say a word. I promise.”

“I’d say the same thing if I were you, and I’d be lying.”

“I won’t! I swear!”

“I’m sorry.”

She gritted her teeth, but he was able to pry her jaw apart enough to get the rag in. He then wrapped the second rag over the first and around the back of her head, where he tied it. “I promise as soon as we’re on the road again, it comes off.”

The look she gave him said she couldn’t care less about his promises.

The last thing he did was drape the plastic over her in a way she couldn’t easily shake off. Feeling slimy for what he’d done but knowing he had no choice, he climbed back into his seat. “Let’s go.”

They stopped at the first gas station they saw. While Nate filled the tank, Quinn went inside and purchased some drinks, pre-made sandwiches, and an assortment of snacks.

As soon as they pulled away from the pumps, Danielle began grunting. Quinn reached back and lifted the plastic enough to see her. She said something through her gag that he interpreted to mean, “Get this off!”

“As soon as we get on the freeway.”

He dropped the plastic back down and glanced out the rear window.

A dot hung in the distance sky, moving at a fast pace paralleling the interstate. Not a bird. An aircraft, the first he’d seen since not long after leaving Seattle that wasn’t flying at forty thousand feet. It was no more than fifteen hundred feet up.

Not a plane. A helicopter.

The California Highway Patrol had a whole fleet of aircraft to spy on highway traffic. Perhaps the state of Washington did, too. But in California, Quinn seldom saw CHP helicopters this far from a big city. Could be private, some ranch owner heading home, or maybe a corporate aircraft traveling to a factory.

Whatever the case, it made him uneasy.

“Stay with the traffic flow,” Quinn told Nate as they pulled onto the freeway. “No sudden movements.”

Nate flashed him a concerned sideways glance. “What is it?”

“Helicopter. May be nothing, but…”

Nate nodded as he merged the Jeep onto the interstate.

In the back, Danielle yelled in protest.

“Slight change of plans,” Quinn said in her direction. “As soon as I can get to you, I will.”

She continued to scream so he lifted the plastic again. “I’ll move this off of you if you’ll be quiet.”

The shouting stopped. He folded the plastic away from her head, tucked it behind her shoulder, and turned back around.

“I don’t see it,” Nate said, his eyes flicking between the road and the mirrors.

Quinn looked at the mirror outside his window, and then moved down until the helicopter came into view. Its silhouette was clearly visible now, leaving no doubt as to the type of aircraft. It was a big one, the kind that could hold a dozen or more passengers.

“It’s still there,” he said.

He checked the map. A couple miles past Ellensburg, I-90 intersected with I-82. The latter headed south to Yakima and eventually into eastern Oregon. If they stayed on I-90 past the junction, there would be only a few alternate routes they could take in an emergency—all county roads of unknown quality. I-82 offered more options and went through the larger towns of Yakima, Richland, and Kennewick.

The decision was an easy one.

Quinn checked the mirror again.

“Crap,” he muttered.

The helicopter was large behind them and would reach the junction of the two interstates before they did. From there, its occupants could monitor both the cars staying on 90 and those making the transition to the 82. The perfect observation spot.

As long as the aircraft kept going east, Quinn could relax, but if it stopped at the junction, he’d have to assume it had been sent after them.

He could hear the
whoop-whoop-whoop
of the helicopter’s propellers as it flew overhead.

“What do you want me to do?” Nate asked, his voice mission calm.

A road sign was coming up.

Exit 109

Canyon Road

Ellensburg

1 Mile

Quinn consulted the map again. Maybe not the perfect observation spot after all. “Take that exit,” he said. “Then go south.”

He leaned forward and looked up through the windshield as the helicopter roared into view. Black with no identifying marks—neither local law enforcement nor civilian. It was the kind ops teams used.

He watched as it raced toward the junction, willing it to continue on, but right on cue, it slowed and dropped to the ground, out of sight.

Trouble for sure.

The off-ramp at Canyon Road was a wide, one-eighty turn, pointing them back in the direction they had come from before they could turn onto the new route. At the stop sign, Quinn noticed another silhouette flying toward them from the west.

“You seeing what I’m seeing?” Nate asked, his gaze also fixed on the new aircraft.

“Keep moving.”

As Nate turned south, Quinn tracked the new helicopter. It was traveling faster than the other one had been and appeared to be smaller.

If they were working together, that would complicate matters. Two aircraft could follow both highways.

“So where am I going?” Nate asked.

“This bypasses the junction and still gets us to the 82.”

“And then?” Nate asked.

“It’s too early for ‘and then.’”

__________

S
TEVENS HAD HIS
pilot set down on a grassy field north of the interstate, fifty yards west of where it met up with I-82. On the flight out, he had arranged for the Washington State Patrol to be notified of a military emergency preparedness exercise that would be taking place in the area. That should keep official attention at arm’s length, and provide an easy answer for any curious civilians who called 911.

Stevens’s men set up the camera equipment right outside the helicopter. He would have preferred a rig with multi-spectrum capabilities so they could view both visual and thermal images of the cars going by, but they had to use what gear they could get on short notice and were stuck with just the visual spectrum.

It would have been nice, too, if the area had some bushes and trees to shield them from the road, but no such luck. Again, you play the hand you were dealt. By the time their targets realized they were passing through a trap, it would be too late from them anyway.

“We’re up,” Manny Garcia announced. He was in the control seat behind the equipment. Taped to the sides of the monitor were photos of the three suspects.

“Find them,” Stevens ordered.

__________

O
RBITS HAD FINALLY
caught a glimpse of the Californians’ aircraft ten minutes earlier, and had Sutter slow enough to not overtake them. He had watched through the pilot’s high-powered binoculars as the other helicopter descended to the ground, near where the interstates met.

Had they spotted the vehicle the woman was in? If so, they were one up on him. He still didn’t know what kind of car Quinn and his friends were using. Donnie was searching traffic camera footage in hopes of picking them out, but so far had not found anything.

“We’ll fly by their position in about a minute,” the pilot informed Orbits. “I’m guessing you don’t want to do that.”

“You’re right. I don’t.” Orbits looked to the north. “Can you take us over the town, then circle around so that we’re directly behind them?” He may not have wanted to fly past them but he did want to know what they were doing.

“No problem.”

“Bring us to about a quarter mile away and hold there.”

“Roger.”

The helicopter banked hard to the left and buzzed over the town. When they reached the desired location, Sutter put them into a hover a thousand feet up.

Orbits focused the binoculars on the others. They had set up some equipment, and though he couldn’t see the gear well enough to know what it was, it had to be something that scanned the passing vehicles. So
they
didn’t know what kind of car Quinn was in, either.

Good news, but not great.

If the cleaner and his friends drove past the Californians’ observation point, then it was game over. Which meant Orbits had to write off anything east of that point on the 90 or south on the 82, leaving him only the last few miles prior to the junction the targets were probably traveling down right now.

He looked at the map to confirm he was right. He wasn’t.

For the last hundred miles or so, most of the roads leading off the I-90 were local streets going no more than a dozen miles before ending. But while the junction with I-82 provided the first real opportunity to change directions, the junction itself wasn’t the only way to get to the new interstate. A few miles west of where the Californians had landed was a couple of cut-off roads that could get someone from the I-90 to the I-82 without the interchange. So the I-82 wasn’t a write-off after all.

Whether Quinn and his friends would go that way or not was still an open question, but it was Orbits’s only option.

“This way,” he said, tracing the route he wanted Sutter to fly.

The pilot looked hesitant. “We’re going to have to turn back pretty soon or we won’t have enough fuel to get home.”

Orbits reached into his bag and pulled out his wad of petty cash. After removing ten one-hundred-dollar bills, he held them toward the pilot. “For you, on top of the agreed upon fees, if we keep going and you find somewhere on our way to fuel up.”

The pilot didn’t even hesitate to take the bills and slip them into his pocket. “I’m sure I can make that happen.”

CHAPTER
17

LOCATION UNKNOWN

T
HE PLAYROOM WAS
part of a private, unregistered club with a very discreet membership. Whips and racks and ropes were all in their places awaiting the next party. For the moment, though, the club was closed, the entire building bought out by The Wolf for entertaining her special guest.

She had Helen Cho tied to a suspended X, arms and legs stretched in different directions. She was still using electricity—small zaps never in the same place twice—to break her prisoner.

A knock on the door.

“
Oui
?” she called out.

Braun stuck his head in. “I have the hunter on the line.”

The Wolf patted Helen on the thigh. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”

As soon as she entered the hallway, Braun handed her a phone.

“Hello, Bianca,” The Wolf said.

“My apologies, Madame Deschamps, for not answering when you called. I was…occupied.”

“Understandable. And?”

“Three players out of the game now.”

“Already? I’m impressed.”

Bianca gave her a quick report.

“Where are you now?” The Wolf asked.

“I’m heading east, tracking two other hunters. I believe they may be following the target.”

“Even better news. Well, I don’t want to slow you down. Keep me posted.”

“Of course.”

Perhaps The Wolf wasn’t going to need Helen after all. Still, no reason to stop the interrogation until she knew for sure.