Valley of Death (8 page)

D
riving as though he thought he could actually outrace a helicopter, Jesse roared down Route 190 in the dark while Jack and Leesa clung to the handholds above the doors.

All the while the chopper's bright searchlight beamed down on them, and the amplified voice kept telling them to stop immediately and give themselves up.

One thing was good—the light illuminated not only the Jeep, but the fringe of desert alongside the highway. Jack kept searching for trucks, for vehicles, for any sign that the Darwin Falls members of The Unit might have driven off road as a starting point for their ambush attempt. He was sitting directly behind Jesse, with his face pressed against the glass, because if the bad guys really were out there, they'd be on the left side of the road.

They'd gone no more than six miles when Jack yelled, “Wait, I see tire tracks!”

“So what?” Jesse shot back.

“They're fresh tracks. The wind hasn't blown them away. They might be from the guys we're looking for. Turn around, Jesse, and follow those tracks.”

Jesse must have watched too many car chases in the movies, because he slammed the brakes so hard the Jeep spun out in a circle, throwing Jack and Leesa around like punching bags. Then Jesse jammed the gearshift forward and headed right into the desert. “Jack, take this camera pack,” he ordered. “I have to pay attention to my driving, so I want you to get out the big video camera with the holding strap on top—see it? It's the best one for shooting in dim light.”

Trying to keep his balance as the fast-moving vehicle bounced around, Jack reached over the seat to bring the heavy camera bag into the back. He had no trouble finding the video camera—it was the professional kind that had a great big lens and sat on a cameraman's shoulder. “Put it up here beside me,” Jesse instructed, “so it's all ready to go when I need it.”

Just as Jack dropped the video camera onto the front seat, they hit a bump in the sand that knocked him backward. Unconcerned, Jesse asked him, “Do you know how to work a camera?”

“Not a video camera, but I'm pretty good with prints or slides.”

“Cool. Find yourself a camera in that bag. Each one is already loaded with film.”

“You mean you want me to shoot pictures?”

“Sure. You'll be my backup photographer. I take video, you take stills.”

Under safer circumstances, it would have been like getting turned loose in a candy store. Jack saw five cameras in the bag—he didn't know which one to pick, because they were all expensive cameras with the kind of fancy lenses even his father couldn't afford. He chose a Nikon with an 80–200mm zoom lens, but he had to hold onto it tightly because the wild ride kept getting bumpier, and he didn't want the Nikon to fly up against the ceiling of the Jeep and get smashed. He'd already ruined one piece of equipment that day, and that was enough.

“Hold on!” Jesse yelled, revving the engine as he tried to get traction on the desert floor. The Jeep sped up a little hillock of sand and then—they were airborne! They must have flown 12 feet before they hit the desert again with a bone-jarring bounce. Jesse gunned it, but the Jeep had had enough. Its tires dug into the sand and spun. The harder Jesse depressed the accelerator, the faster the tires spun, and the deeper they sank into the sand. That was it—they weren't going any farther.

“OK, everybody out!” Jesse ordered. “Jack, start shooting at anything that moves.”

Since the helicopters qualified as moving items, Jack took pictures of them, but not when they were directly overhead because the downwash from the rotor blades practically blew him away. He covered the lens with his hand to protect it from all the blowing sand.

When the helicopter moved farther away and Jack was no longer caught in the downwash, he swivelled around to peer through his zoom lens at the desert sands. His spirits soared, because ahead on the sand sat three pickup trucks and two off-road vehicles, all parked randomly with their doors open, as though the occupants had jumped out of them fast. He'd been right! Someone—probably members of The Unit from Darwin Falls—had driven out into the desert, trying to connect with the kidnappers! About 200 yards straight ahead of him, through the zoom lens, he saw several moving shadows, but they were hard to interpret because the choppers' searchlights had not yet illuminated that part of the desert.

Amid the confusion of blowing sand, the noise from the helicopters, and the excitement of spotting the bad guys, Jack almost missed hearing Leesa. She was holding out her hand to him, shouting to be heard. “Good-bye, Jack. Thanks for everything. Tell your parents I'm doing this for them.”

“Wait! What makes you think those guys are going to give up Ashley? Maybe they'll just keep both of you.”

In the illumination from the Jeep's headlights, Leesa shrugged as she answered, “It's a chance I have to take. For Ashley.” Then she turned away from him and began walking, a lone figure crossing the desert at night, heading into danger. He dropped the camera from his eyes to watch her. Leesa's long black braid swayed against Jack's red sweatshirt. From above, the helicopter's searchlight beamed down on her as if she were an actress on a stage, a tragic actress going forth to a destiny that no one could predict. He remembered her fear that The Unit might want to punish her, and a lump rose into his throat. Why hadn't he tried harder to stop her?

“Get pictures of her, Jack, get pictures,” Jesse kept calling to him. With the video camera on his shoulder, Jesse was following Leesa's progress, then zooming in on the Darwin Falls cell members in the distance, then back to Leesa, and all the time he kept moving forward toward the action. Clicking his own shutter—but without much enthusiasm—Jack followed Jesse.

“Over there, Jack, over there!” Since his right hand operated the video camera, Jesse pointed with his left. Maybe the helicopter pilots had finally clued in on what Jesse was pointing to in the darkness, because suddenly one of the choppers dipped toward them and then veered away and up. Its searchlight picked out the militia members, eight of them, who were running bent almost double, holding automatic weapons in their hands.

Sweeping his own zoom lens in an arc, Jack thought he might be seeing something else farther away. Was it—yes. Maybe. The SWAT team! Uniformed men were crawling forward, coming closer to—to what? The barricade where Ashley was being held? Jack could barely make it out through the telephoto lens. “Don't miss any of this, Jack,” Jesse kept yelling.

Forget it! Jack didn't care how many pictures he took with Jesse's Nikon. Jack's sister was out there, held prisoner by desperate men. “Here, take your camera,” he told Jesse, thrusting the Nikon at him. “I'm going after Ashley.”

He took off running as fast as he could, which wasn't very fast because of the sand. It was that same slow-motion nightmare all over again where he kept hoping he'd wake up and all the Landons would be safe at home at Jackson Hole. But this wasn't a nightmare, he was wide awake and terrified for his sister.

He didn't get very far before a man appeared like a ghost out of the shadows and caught hold of him. The man was dressed in a uniform of desert camouflage, but that didn't mean anything, because the bad guys as well as the good guys could show up wearing the same kind of uniform. His heart pounding in his ears, Jack cried, “Let me go! What do you want?”

“I'm SWAT team. Who the devil are you?”

“I'm Jack Landon,” Jack yelled. “Ashley's my sister. I need to find her.”

The man barked, “You're staying right where you are. What do you think you're doing out here anyway? This is a secure area. No civilians allowed.” His grip on Jack's shoulders was so tight that Jack couldn't move forward at all, not even an inch. But he could see, because both helicopters were now beaming light on the action.

Everything seemed to be happening at once. The Darwin Falls men, all eight of them, moved closer to the barricaded dugout while the SWAT team stayed flat on the ground, less than 50 feet away. Under the blinding illumination of the searchlights, the whole thing looked like a scene from Hades. Figures dashed back and forth from shadow to light, light to shadow, with yells and shrieks punctuating the night. Jack strained to see the barricaded bunker, now in light, now in darkness. Where was Ashley?

“Throw down your weapons and surrender peacefully!” blared from one of the choppers. It sounded like the voice of God. “Throw down your weapons. You are surrounded.” From the east crept another surge of SWAT team members. More from the north! If Jack and Jesse had kept going, they'd have bungled right into the teams of rescuers. “Drop your weapons! Drop your weapons!” the chopper's amplifier kept blasting. It was answered with a burst of gunfire as one of the militants raised his weapon and shot toward the helicopter. He must have missed, because the chopper pulled up a little higher and kept right on flying.

Suddenly the desert bloomed with flares. At that moment the eight men from Darwin Falls must have realized they were sitting ducks, that they were surrounded by troopers, police officers, sheriff's deputies, and SWAT team members, all holding rifles pointed toward them. “We give up, we give up!” they cried, their voices carrying clearly across the sands. Throwing down their assault weapons, they raised their hands in surrender.

Jack waited, his breath catching in his throat, as he stared intently toward the barricade where the actual kidnappers were hiding. After what seemed like an eternity, the two kidnappers climbed up out of their hole in the ground. They were waving white handkerchiefs over their heads.

But where was Ashley?

The SWAT team members began to move closer to the barricade the kidnappers had built, their rifles ready. Then, without warning, not more than 50 feet ahead of Jack, one of the kidnappers thrust his hand down as though reaching for a sidearm. “Duck!” cried the man who was holding Jack. He threw Jack onto the ground, out of the range of fire, but not before Jack had seen two other SWAT team members pull Leesa down, too. Spitting sand out of his mouth, he jerked up his head. The kidnapper had frozen in mid-reach; he held his right hand immobilized, away from his holster, while he stared down at his chest.

Three red dots glowed on the front of the man's zippered jacket. Jack knew what that meant: He'd seen it at Yellowstone. The kidnapper knew what it meant, too. The three red dots were laser points, beamed from the sights of three separate rifles. If the man had pulled his handgun from its holster, even before he could have fired it, he would have been hit simultaneously by three bullets fired from three separate SWAT team rifles, each bullet hitting exactly where the red laser had pinpointed his jacket. Shaking, the man raised both hands into the air and yelled, “Don't shoot!”

“Please,” Jack begged the man who was holding him, “let me go so I can find my sister.”

“Take it easy,” the man answered. “Our guys are working on it. This entire mission has been to get your sister back. We've caught all the men who were on their way to help the kidnappers escape, and it looks like both kidnappers have surrendered. Unless they're entirely stupid, they're not going to fight us when we move in to cuff them.” He released Jack saying, “You don't have to lie flat anymore, but don't stand up. Just stay sitting.”

By then, bright lights were sweeping all across the desert as though it were halftime at the Super Bowl. Some of the SWAT team members led the eight militia men away, jerking them forward by their elbows because their hands had been secured behind their backs. Others were patting down the two kidnappers, searching for weapons. Still others had jumped into the dugout behind the rock barricade. And then….

Jack let out a hoarse cry. There was Ashley, being lifted by the rangers. From that far away he couldn't get a really good look at her, but she seemed limp, as though she couldn't manage to stand up on her own. At the same time a helicopter was setting down very close to them. The men carrying Ashley ran toward the chopper, ducking low beneath the whirling rotor blades. When they handed Ashley inside, other waiting arms reached out to receive her.

The SWAT team member who'd been holding Jack spoke into his radio, “I've got the girl's brother here, too. Do you want me to bring him over so he can fly back with her?”

The answer cracked back into the handset.
“Sure. Bring him.”

“What about Leesa?” Jack asked anxiously. “Do they have room for Leesa, too?”

When the man relayed the question, the answer came back affirmative. He called over to the two SWAT team members who were holding Leesa, and within seconds she and Jack were hustled across the sand toward the waiting helicopter.

“And Jesse,” Jack wanted to know. “What's going to happen to Jesse?”

“You mean the guy who drove you out here?” When Jack nodded, the man said, “I think he's gonna be in a world of hurt.”

T
wo o'clock in the morning, and all of them were still awake. They hovered around the bed where Ashley lay staring up at them, her eyes large, shadowed, and frightened—but no more frightened than Olivia's. Olivia held one of Ashley's hands, and Steven held the other, while Jack and Leesa stood at the foot of the bed.

“My throat hurts, Mom,” Ashley said. “I was so thirsty.”

“You're safe now, sweetie, and you can have all the water you want,” Steven told her. “Or do you want juice? They have orange drink in the soda machine at the end of the hall—”

“No, don't leave, Daddy,” Ashley begged him, looking fearful again.

“I'll get it,” Jack offered, and Leesa said, “I'll go with you,” but Ashley stopped them with, “I don't want any of you to go away from me right now. For such a long time I thought maybe I'd never see you again, so now that we're all together, I want you to stay here with me. Please?”

Steven knelt beside the bed and gently stroked a tangle of her curls. “You've been through a terrible ordeal, Ashley. But you're safe now. We're here.”

Ashley closed her eyes, but didn't quit talking. “The one man kept staring at me and staring at me, and he wouldn't stop, and I got so scared. Then he said he had a daughter just my age, and he was feeling bad about everything they were putting me through. But when I asked him for water, he said there wasn't enough, and he had to save it for himself and the other man. He wouldn't give me any.”

“Did either of them try to hurt you?” Steven asked, his grip tightening on Ashley's hand.

“No. When they found out they had the wrong girl, they were mad at first, but not at me. They kept yelling at each other about how stupid the other one was. And that's what really worried me because they had so many guns—the guns were standing up against the sides of the dugout where we were hiding, and some were lying on the ground. I wasn't afraid they were going to shoot me, but I thought they might try to shoot each other, and I'd be in the way.”

Olivia sat on the bed and put her arms around Ashley. “It's all over now. No more guns.”

They decided that Jack and Steven would share one room while Leesa would stay with Ashley and Olivia. “Can I sleep in your bed with you?” Ashley asked her mother, sounding so pathetic that any of them would have agreed to anything she asked for.

“Of course,” Olivia answered. “Now, if Jack and your dad will leave us and go to their own room, we three ladies can get ourselves tucked in for the night.”

“Please keep the door open—the one between the two rooms,” Ashley begged. “If I can hear Daddy snoring, then I'll know he's right there.”

“Who, me?” Smiling for the first time in 15 hours, Steven protested, “I don't snore. I bet you'll hear Jack snoring, not me. He snores up a storm.”

“I do not snore,” Jack said, glad they were making a joke, no matter how feeble it sounded. Ever since Ashley's rescue, their emotions had been running so deep, so painful, that even that silly bit of banter brought relief, especially when he saw a tiny smile curl the corners of Ashley's lips.

“I'm supposed to meet with the park people tomorrow to talk about the bighorn sheep,” Olivia said gently. “Would you like me to cancel, Ashley? Because if you'd like me to, I will.”

Ashley shook her head no. “Every time I close my eyes I see those bad people and their guns. I need to think about other things. Can I go with you? That will help me think about sheep instead of kidnappers.”

“Of course you can come. We'll all stick together from now on.”

Sheep. Darwin Falls. Jack remembered that there was some kind of connection, but he was too tired to call it to mind. It would probably come back to him in the morning.

 

The next thing Jack became aware of was a pounding on the door of the room. “Huh? What time is it?” he asked, groggy, and then remembered that he was wearing his wristwatch. “It's nine in the morning. Are you awake, Dad?”

“I am now. Who the heck is banging on the door like that?” Steven hurried out of bed, pulled on his jeans, and opened the door to the hall.

Jesse stood there, leaning against the door frame, grinning. “Rise and shine,” he greeted them. In one hand he held two capped, insulated mugs inscribed “Death Valley National Park” and decorated with Indian symbols. In the other hand he balanced a cardboard tray holding three Styrofoam cups. “Hot coffee for the grownups, orange juice for the kids,” he announced, breezing past Steven. “At your service.”

Jack let his eyes roam over Jesse from his curly black hair to his Kenneth Cole loafers. He was dressed in tan cargo pants with a brown leather jacket and a pale green crew shirt that accentuated his dark good looks. Everything about him seemed expensive—and careless, as though none of it mattered to him. Clean-shaven, bright-eyed, energetic, he might have just come from a spa rather than a harrowing nighttime raid in the desert. Jack and Steven, on the other hand, looked as though they'd been dragged across the sand by coyotes.

“I just came to say good-bye,” Jesse told them, gingerly setting the orange juice onto the dresser. “I have a two o'clock class, and before that, I want to drop off my videotape at the national network news office.” He patted the pocket of his jacket, where he was carrying the tape. “Thanks to Jack and Leesa, I've got a winner here. It'll be on the six o'clock news for sure. National news! I thought you might want to watch.”

“I'm not interested in your kind of journalism. You led these kids into danger for the sake of a story,” Steven said, cold anger in his voice.

Jesse waved his hands in the air. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! I plead not guilty to that charge, Mr. Landon. Look, man, you can ask Jack. If I hadn't given Leesa a ride, she was ready to hitch, and that would have been a whole lot more dangerous. You never know who might have picked her up in the dark.”

Pulling a T-shirt over his chest as if it were armor, Steven answered, “That's no excuse—I know why you did what you did. You had a thousand other options, and you chose to film the story for your own gain. You showed an appalling lack of judgment that put my son and Leesa and Ashley into danger. I think you'd better go.” Steven planted his feet into the carpet like tree roots, his arms crossed so tightly that his biceps bulged beneath the sleeves of his T-shirt. He kept his eyes on Jesse, like a cat tracking a mouse.

“Well, I'm sorry you feel that way, Mr. Landon,” Jesse said finally. “I know I might have gone a little over the line—“

“A
little?”

“But I didn't make Leesa do anything. It was her choice. She wanted to!”

“What Leesa did or did not want to do is irrelevant. She is a child. You are an adult, or at least claim to be. You should have stopped her.”

For a moment Jack stood there, his face closed off as his mind went reeling. The accusation against Jesse—those words of condemnation belonged to
him,
Jack Landon. Only Jack had been aware of Leesa's plan right from the beginning. Only he had agreed to the bargain being struck—Leesa for Ashley. Had he been wrong? It had all worked out, with everyone safe, and yet…the words his father hurled at Jesse were true for Jack as well. It could have worked out a thousand different ways, many of them perilous. He'd been lucky.

“Dad,” Jack said softly, “It's not Jesse. The whole thing was my fault.”

“What?”

Jack squared his shoulders.
“I'm
the one who knew about Leesa's plan.
I'm
the one who didn't stop her. I didn't know what to do—I just wanted Ashley back.”

“It's OK, Jack.” Leesa had come to the still-open door connecting the two rooms. She stood there half hidden, looking tousled in a long sleep shirt. Her hair stuck out in wisps, full of static. Olivia hovered just behind Leesa.

“It was my decision, Mr. Landon,” Leesa stated. “Don't blame either one of these guys. For the first time since I can remember,
I
made a decision about what I thought was right. And I'm not sorry.”

Steven didn't seem to know what to say. Olivia looked just as puzzled, probably because they'd never before heard Leesa stand up and state her own convictions. The anger that had set Steven's face into a hard mask seemed to soften as he nodded at Leesa. As the tension lessened, Jack felt himself let out the breath he'd been holding.

“How'd you get out of jail?” Leesa suddenly asked Jesse.

Jesse's cocky grin returned as he answered, “No jail time so far. They're still trying to figure out what laws I might have broken—the only ones they're sure of are that I was speeding out there on Route 190 and that I drove a vehicle off the paved road, which is a big no-no. As for being there in the first place—I had permission, remember? The ranger allowed me to go through the checkpoint. Anyway, my dad has a whole slew of his lawyers already working on this—”

He left it dangling. As Jesse stood there, looking happy with himself, Jack was glad nothing bad was going to happen to him. Jesse might be a wild card, but Jack liked him and would never forget their adventure together. Jesse was probably going to make a great television correspondent, barreling his way into wherever the action was, tramping down all the barriers, doing anything necessary to get his story. Maybe all first-class newsmen were like that.

Jesse continued, “The thing is, Leesa, because of your attempt to give yourself up, the SWAT team captured eight conspirators from Darwin Falls. They didn't even know those Unit guys were out there until we drove into the desert after them.”

“Is that true?” Steven demanded.

Jesse shrugged. “It's what the police told me. If we hadn't got there when we did, those eight guys might have reached the kidnappers, and who knows what would have happened then? It could have turned into a real bad shootout—with Ashley caught in the middle.”

Leesa walked over and gave Jesse a little hug.

“Hey, what's that for?” he asked. When Leesa didn't answer, Jesse looked down at her, his lips turned up in a warm, crooked smile. “Hey, Leesa,” he said, “about five years from now, if you break up with Aaron, give me a jingle. You won't have any trouble finding me—I ought to be famous by then.”

“I believe that,” she answered. “Thanks. For everything.” Jack didn't know whether she was thanking Jesse for the ride into the desert, for the invitation to look him up in five years, or for the orange juice. Or all of the above. Jack crowded beside her to shake Jesse's hand. Jesse was a way cool guy.

“See you, people,” Jesse said, backing into the hall. “Gotta get this tape to the network news, plus, like I said, I have a two o'clock class.” With that, he was gone, and it seemed to Jack as if the energy level of the room had dropped considerably.

“Well,” Steven said, looking at Olivia.

“Well,” Olivia echoed. “What a way to start the morning.” Before they could even close the door, a motel employee approached them waving a white envelope.
“Es la señora—
is Olivia Landon?” the woman asked in a strong Spanish accent.

“That's me,” Olivia said, taking the envelope from the woman and saying,
“Gracias, señora.”
After she opened the envelope and scanned the contents, she announced, “It's from Hank Kodele. He'd like me to come to his office whenever we can. So—let's get dressed.”

“You want all of us to go?” Steven asked.

“I don't know if I ever want to leave the kids again,” Olivia answered. “Maybe sometime I will, but for now, humor me.” Turning to the girls, she said, “I get the shower first.”

“Leave the door open,” Ashley said sharply. “At least a little bit, Mom. And maybe sing like you do sometimes. I need to be sure you're there.”

Where did Ashley think Olivia could go? There wasn't even a window in the bathroom. It seemed that Ashley had been so traumatized by her ordeal that she had to make sure each of her loved ones was near her—to see them or touch them or just hear them.

“I'll sing your favorite song from when you were little,” Olivia told her gently. “‘Let the Sunshine In.' Do you remember?”

Jack remembered. His mother had sung that to him, too.