Madison wanted to kick herself: she had not been thinking straight. The most important factor had to be the proximity of the place where they held Cameron to a landing field: Cameron was a dangerous hostage to move and lethal if unfettered. They had to keep traveling time to a minimum, and even then getting him from point A to B was going to be a complex operation.
She looked out the window: a bright sky, and somewhere not too far away men were preparing to fly a human being toward an ugly death.
The patrol car traveled fast, and so did Madison behind it. Lights and shadows flickered on her windshield as she drove in and out of the canopy of trees.
Her cell vibrated on the passenger seat: it was Quinn’s number. She watched the small screen light up and, after a beat, fade back to black. She couldn’t talk to him, not really. There were no words she could offer him to describe what she must do.
The deputies’ car pulled into a clearing with three cabins lined up and no other cars parked out front.
“There’s another set of three cabins farther on,” Andrews said.
Madison and the deputies approached the first: a wooden porch jutted out, and it backed straight onto the woods. Her instincts said it was empty. The door was locked, and there were no lights from the side windows. They moved on to check the second cabin.
Just then, in the shadow of the firs, the front door of the third cabin seemed to move.
“Wait,” Madison said, and she pointed.
There it was again—a quiver. All three took out their weapons. No sound came from the cabin, only a rustle from the treetops and their footsteps on the dirt.
There were fresh tire marks by the third cabin.
Madison took her place on one side and Andrews on the other. The door was ajar, and it moved in the breeze as if the house was breathing. Madison leaned the tip of her Glock against it and pushed gently. She didn’t know whether she was prepared for what she would find.
Someone caught his breath behind her: the room had been almost destroyed—chairs upturned, supplies spilled everywhere, a table pushed over against a wall. Someone had fought a battle on every inch of that floor. On their immediate left another door was open, leading into a basement, and her eye caught the brand-new bolt on it. Madison took the first step down and saw the body; her heart lurched, and she ran down the stairs.
A tall, heavily muscled man in his late thirties with a gaping wound in his neck and slashes to his chest lay on a stretcher. He was covered in blood, and he was not Peter Conway—she was sure of it. Madison checked his pulse, and the man groaned.
“Do you have first-aid supplies in your car?” she said without turning around. Behind her someone hurried up the steps.
The man’s hands were trying to stem the flow of blood from his neck wound. Madison knelt by his side, and his eyes fluttered open.
“Where are they? Have they gone to meet the plane?”
The eyes shone unfocused.
“Where are they?”
Andrews’s partner came back with bandages and got busy around the wound. Madison stood up: signs of the struggle were all over the basement, too, and plastic cuffs lay in pieces on the ground. Cameron had been cuffed yet had managed to get away. His victim—as far as Madison could see—was not armed, but it probably had not started that way. Cameron had attacked him and freed himself, at least for a while. However, the way the upstairs looked and the absence of Conway’s body did not bode well. The man on the ground could barely breathe; he wasn’t going to tell them anything about anything.
“I’m going to the field. Is it straight on from here?” she asked.
“I’m coming with you,” Andrews replied, but she was already halfway up the stairs.
Madison had reached her car when Andrews caught up. “Ma’am, what’s really going on here?”
She turned to him. “The hostage is about to be sold to men who will torture him and keep him alive just so they can inflict further excruciating pain and suffering. Right now, this minute— that’s all I have.”
Andrews backed away one step. “Okay.”
Madison climbed into the pickup. “Straight on from here?”
“Yes.”
The pickup screeched its way out of the clearing and back into the road. In her rearview mirror Madison saw Andrews’s patrol car speeding after her and the man talking quickly on the radio.
If there were decisions to be made, then she should make them now, because later—should there be a later—in the midst of things she would only have time to react, not to think and certainly not to feel the ragged pain in her chest. Anything that might slow down her reaction time had to be put aside, because one thing she knew for sure was that they were going to be outnumbered and outgunned.