Chapter Forty-Four
Aiken came out of the tunnel at the bottom of the cliff, pushing the hatch cover up. He was amused at the ingenuity of the construction owner in the design of the cover. The design of rocks glued to the plywood and steel hatch would have fooled anyone walking on the ground.
He saw the river and where the pair had dragged a canoe into the water. He took out his iPhone, googled up GPS and located the nearest landing area on the map. Then, he called Chase and had him arrange for an inflatable boat. There was one in the chopper. He had to wait another hour before the two teams met. One group would go down the river in the inflatable, the other would split up and come up from the store meeting at some point along the way.
Chase and the chopper would fly back to HQ and pick up the FLIR, then check the trading post for vehicles that might be waiting to pick up the fugitives. He met them at the river bank and told them that the FBI was involved, that they had attempted a trap and surveillance at the cemetery. Somehow, the pair had avoided a dozen agents. In fact, Chase reported grimly, nearly every intelligence agency was scrambling for info on the phenomenon. Including the President, the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security. Screaming for it. Any minute, he was afraid that the news media would pick up on Strongbow or that someone would connect Albans with the miracles of the Waste Management truck accident.
Aiken’s only comment was, “shit.” The team of four in his boat contained three of the men that Aiken knew the most and Dr. Cameron. He was working on his laptop with the speed and precision of a first-rate personal assistant; Aiken guessed that he was typing over a hundred words a minute. He seemed to completely ignore that he was floating down a river in the dead of night.
“What are you doing, Dr. Cameron?” Morrell asked. Cameron looked up before he answered.
“Morrell, right? I’m using a profiling program I wrote to see what Lakan will do next.”
“He’s running,” Morrell pointed out. Cameron and Aiken shook their heads.
“If he was running, he would have kept going out west. He didn’t. He came back east. Why? His girlfriend is dead, so something is drawing him this way. I suspect it’s revenge.”
Morrell snickered. “Revenge? A 16-year-old kid with no money, no friends and no resources? What can he do?”
“What can’t he do, Morrell?” Aiken returned. “He’s already proved he can do things no human can do. He’s thumbed his nose in the face of the NSA and FBI. We’ve been tracking him for two years and still haven’t touched him. Now, I suggest you shut your yap, we’re near the trading post and sound carries a long way on the water.”
They were silent as he paddled slowly towards a curve in the river with high banks on both sides. Aiken had the feeling that eyes were on them. He signaled with his hands and the three agents angled their guns upwards, scanning in the moonlight, using their scopes to target anything that might ambush them.
It wasn’t until they passed the curve that he relaxed. A long, low building came into sight - a log cabin set in a pretty spot, especially as the sun was almost rising on the horizon.
As they steered for the dock, a light came on, a motion sensor lamp and illuminated them. Hastily, they concealed their weapons, stepping on the wooden planks. Moving furtively, they approached the cabin with the inside lights flickering. An older man in a windbreaker over worn jeans and long-sleeved insulated t-shirt came to the door.
“We don’t open till sunrise but you’re welcome to come in and wait. My cook’s still asleep if you’re wanting breakfast.”
Aiken’s eyes searched for a canoe, clothes, watermarks on the floor, anything that would indicate that the pair had been inside the store. A faint lingering smell of roasting beef made his stomach growl.
“Coffee sounds good,” he agreed and stepped back inside. The room was huge with four bedrooms off the back and a dining area. Cameron took up his spot at the table nearest the fireplace and plugged in his laptop. The others sat at various tables, covering all four corners of the room. Aiken let his eyes roam the store and the dining area. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary or place, no sign of anyone in the last few hours.
“Name’s Gregson,” he lied smoothly. “We’re with the Sheriff’s Department. Search and Rescue. A pair - an older man with a teenager. He’s been kidnapped and last seen somewhere in this area. Any sign of them coming this way? Might have been in a canoe.”
“No canoe could have made it past Ouellette Rapids, they’re just a mile downriver. Haven’t seen anyone in the last week,” the old man said easily.
He moved behind the kitchen counter and put on a pot of coffee, placing cups, cream and sugar packets between him and the agents. “They make it this far, they ain’t lost. What makes you think they come this way?” he asked.
“You are?” Aiken returned.
“Charlie Kitwillie,” he said and started up the grill. The aroma of maple bacon filled the air and before the clock hit 5:00 a.m., a sleepy-eyed teenager stumbled out of the back bedroom.
“Hey, Dad. We got guests?”
The boy was nearly full grown with ice clear eyes and light brown hair. Handsome and stalwart, not the typical redneck version as seen in the movies. He nonchalantly wrapped an apron around his middle and started cracking eggs on the griddle along with flapjacks and biscuits. To their gaping looks, the boy cooked each and every one of them a breakfast to their personal preference without asking a single question on how or what.
He finished up with two extra plates, one for his father and one for himself. Everyone ate in silence and only when their plates were slick clean did the teenager speak.
“I found a canoe downriver near the old sluice. Washed up in pieces near the trestle bridge. Some damn fool tried to go through the rapids again, I bet. I ‘spect they’ll be pulling some bodies out of the river bottoms,” the boy said. “You folk lookin’ for some’un?”
“Maybe,” Aiken returned.
“Ain’t no mebbe,” he came back. “You lookin’ for something. Ain’t no fishing here and cain’t go deer huntin’ till fall yet y’all are carrying guns. You gov’mint people?”
Aiken sat back and Morrell started humming Dueling Banjos. The boy laughed.
“My name’s Kevin Kitwillie. I’d be glad to take you down to the remains. Of the canoe. We can hike to it.”
“How much?” Aiken asked. The boy’s eyes gleamed with greed.
“Fifty bucks. That’s the going rate for a day’s guide.”
“Deal.” Aiken pulled out a wad and peeled off a fifty, holding it out to the boy but he shook his head and pointed to his father. The bill disappeared into the old man’s pocket.
“Won’t your cook be missed?”
“Naw. Ain’t nobody comin’ down the river until late afternoon,” the boy said. He looked out the large windows that fronted the cabin. “Best take some rain gear if you got any. If not, Dad can sell you some. Gonna rain like a cow pissin’ on a flat rock.” He ambled back into his bedroom and they heard the sounds of him dressing.
By 8, all of them had washed up, used the facilities and changed into fresh dry socks. They met the boy on the front porch and he walked them down the trail through the dirt parking lot to the portage path where all of them stared at a Class V rapids; 45 seconds of utter hell. If one of them fell off the trail into the roiling rock-filled basin, he would be dead before he emerged into calm waters.
Kevin trotted across the narrow trail with the arrogance of the young and familiar. Once on the other side, he settled down to a brisk five-minute mile that the others had to hump to keep up. Aiken scanned the ground constantly and saw no trace of any footprints or drag marks.
He fell back towards Cameron. “Doc, this doesn’t feel right. Where does this come out?”
“Small town on the border called Oak Hollow. It’s not far from the Interstate, a four-way that goes out west.”
“You said he’s not headed west.”
“Our guide is being very helpful. Especially to government men. These people hate the government,” Cameron acknowledged. “You think the pair have been here and these people are covering for them?”
“One way to find out. We go on until we find the canoe. If there is one. If it’s there, we know they came that far down the river,” Aiken nodded. “Or at least as far as the store. I have a sneaking suspicion that they backtracked.”
He stopped and gestured Morrell and Jacobs over. Rivers stayed behind the doctor. They formed a huddle and Aiken told Jacobs and Rivers to follow the boy, while he, Morrell and Cameron would return to the store, question the father and try to spot any sign that the pair had gone east.
Kevin called to them and his face looked worried when the three turned around. “Hey!” he called. “Where are you going?”
Rivers and Jacobs pulled out their Glocks and told the boy to keep going. Kevin swallowed and nodded. “Where are they going?”
Rivers grinned and it was not a friendly one. “Back to your daddy to see if he’s lying.”
The boy stared and then, took off down the trail at a dead run leaving the pair dumbfounded and flat-footed. By the time they had started after him, the teenager was out of range and out of sight. Both men kept on the trail until it emptied onto a dirt road that followed the second branch of a slough. On one side was a railroad with a trestle bridge and stuck in the pylons of its supports was the battered remains of a camouflaged aluminum canoe. Painted on its side was the legend, Cherokee Rose, Cherokee Construction and a Tennessee ID number.
They dragged it up onto the grass and examined the inside. Three huge holes had ripped through the bottom, the seats were broken in two and both oarlocks were bent beyond repair. The holes were clearly made from something hitting the bottom in, not someone bashing the bottom out.
“Well, he wasn’t lying about this,” Rivers agreed. He looked up as he heard the sound of a car approaching. Both of them were caught unprepared when the four-door sedan stopped, the doors flew open and men in suits and FBI windbreakers jumped out.
“Well, well, well,” the SAIC drawled. Rivers knew him, his name was Alex Mulder. “If it isn’t agent Rivers and Jacobs. What are you spooks doing out here in Deliverance country?”
“Looking for a teenage boy, same as you.”
“Where’s Aiken and Chase? We know he’s here, too,” SAIC Mulder asked.
“Why don’t you Fibbies go back and play in your pond?” Rivers laughed. “You don’t know the first thing about intelligence operations.”
“Enough to know you’re looking in the wrong place,” Mulder snapped. “He’s not here anymore.”
“Yeah? Where is he?” Rivers retorted and shut his mouth as his radio buzzed. Answering it, he listened as Aiken reported that he had found evidence where a party of three had slid down into a ravine and exited on the ridge above the river. The trio turned and before the FBI agents could blink, the NSA men held them at gunpoint.
“Keys,” Rivers demanded. “Or I blow your heads off right here.”
Mulder didn’t argue but tossed the keys. All four FBI agents backed up and let the trio get in the car. Rivers was last, not once taking his eyes or Glock off the Federal agents.
“We’ll leave the car at the fishing lodge. Have a nice walk. Oh, if you see a kid named Kevin, don’t let him take you for a walk in the woods.” Cameron drove off with Rivers remaining half out of the window until the car was out of pistol range.
One of the Fibbies asked, “Would he have shot us?”
Mulder swallowed past the dry lump. “In a heartbeat and our bodies would have wound up as cat food in a can.” They watched the receding taillights fade out of sight and only then, started walking.