Lennox Read online

  “I hadn’t even figured a way to get out of this cage,” Sasha said, slowly climbing to her feet. “So what are you thinking so far?”

  “I can probably pick the lock,” she said, “but what I don’t know is after that.”

  “And how would you pick the lock?” John whispered, his gaze focused on the gate into the cage.

  Helena pulled a bobby pin from her hair and held it up. The two of them frowned at it, looked at the lock, and back at her. She shrugged. “I’ve done it once or twice before, but I won’t know if it’ll work here until I try it. Even so, it won’t do us any good after that.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “If we try and get caught, it’s gonna be worse for us afterward,” she said. “Some of us could even get killed in the attempt.”

  “We have to be strategic,” Carolina said. “We have to wait for an opportunity. Then we can get out of here and get free and clear. Not just free.”

  “What’ll that take?” Sasha asked, crawling closer.

  Helena looked at her. “The arrival of Lennox.”

  Understanding settled on the other two’s faces, and they curled back up in their corner, yet looking a whole lot more relaxed. If nothing else, a rough draft of a plan was in motion. And just having that much gave them a glimmer of hope. Helena wasn’t sure that Lennox was even on the way yet. But she did know that, one way or the other, he’d find Carolina. Come hell or high water, Lennox was coming. It was just a matter of when.

  Lennox shifted position. They’d been waiting for hours. His instincts said that something wasn’t as it seemed. It was too simple; only one man with a rifle didn’t make any sense. The fact that a man with a gun was here at least gave Lennox and Gavin some inclination that maybe they were in the right location, but Lennox couldn’t confirm even that much. Which bothered him.

  He turned to find his partner. Gavin crept along the fence. There was just enough half-light that their body shapes were merging with whatever was around them. It was a perfect time to skulk. But anybody who was expecting their company would know that too.

  Were the prisoners sitting in that one shed? Could they have been locked up in the machine shop? There was a barn too. That was Lennox’s first location to search. And the closest building. People often considered a barn only for animals but would keep people penned in there too. But generally farmers needed more accessible ways to get out of a barn than a single door. That observation alone seemed to rule out that his sister was here in Lennox’s mind.

  Still they had to check out this farm.

  Lennox waited for a moment and then moved silently toward the barn. He crouched low along the creek, where lots of brush could camouflage him a bit longer. Then he had a spot of about twenty feet to cross, without any barrier to hide his presence. And, once across, he leaned up against the barn and listened. But he heard nothing, not a creak of old wood nor of an animal shifting.

  Lennox spotted a large window close by. He slipped to the side of it and slowly peered inside. But it was impossible to see clearly. And it was not meant to open to let the air inside—or even a curious passerby. Nor was it made for gazing but for simply letting sunshine in. Plus it had dirt caked on it from both sides; not to mention bird poop and dead bugs clung to the outside of it. Even in full sunlight, there was no looking inside through this window.

  The door at the end of the barn was half open. Lennox could see that by the way the waning sunlight filtered inside. So he crept softly around the two sides of the barn to get to the other side. Once there, he slid inside, his weapon at the ready, only to find the barn itself was one big empty building. There weren’t even stalls in it. No loft. Just four walls and a lot of empty ground for a floor. He glanced around, realizing there was no place for anybody to hide and slid back out the way he’d come. He tapped his ear comm to let Gavin know that this first place on his list was empty.

  Next was the shed, but that was technically on Gavin’s list of buildings to inspect. And then the large machine shop as well. That was an excellent option in that it was the closest building to the gunman taking his smoke break. But that didn’t mean that the shed wasn’t a diversion.

  Lennox watched Gavin approach the shed, which was big enough for a prison to hold four, and noted a window in the door on the side Lennox could see. Quickly Gavin looked in that window as Lennox watched, and then Gavin switched his position, going to the other side of the shed—and out of Lennox’s sight—maybe to look through a window in another door from that side too? Almost immediately Lennox heard the tap on his comm, confirming the captives weren’t there.

  Damn, that meant the machine shop was their best bet. And was right where that group of four men still loitered inside, plus their smoking gunman right outside hadn’t moved, yet had finished his cigarette.

  Lennox searched the area, trying to mark a pathway to get closer without being seen by the five guys involved in his next target. No point in taking out the gunman if he didn’t have their prisoners. Yet the guy could be one of those happy little target shooters, a jumpy gunman with a quick trigger finger. And, if the smoker engaged with Lennox, somebody would get hurt, and Lennox knew perfectly well it wouldn’t be him. So, therefore, he wanted to confirm that the prisoners were here first before any shots were fired.

  He wasn’t too far from the back end of the machine shop. He waited to listen to the sounds of the world around him. A large truck was going down the road. Using the cover of that noise, Lennox quickly moved from one clump of brush to the other, blending into the background, his shadow merging with the other shadows to keep his presence unknown. He’d been lucky in that he hadn’t flushed out any wildlife hiding under the bushes.

  As he made his way to the side of the machine shop, he stopped, shifted, and listened. He could hear men on the inside of the building but didn’t understand the language. He quickly taped it and ran the clip through a translation app on his cell, inserting an earbud into one ear to get the gist of it. Farming. With his phone on Silent, he pocketed it and shifted around the corner ever-so-slightly so that he could take a look. Two men were at forklifts, already holding large pallets. They were dressed in jeans and simple cotton shirts; one was smoking, which wasn’t the smartest thing on a job like that, but, hey, people did stupid things all the time.

  No sign of prisoners so far but Lennox couldn’t see a whole section of the machine shop on the other side of that forklift yet. Somehow he would have to get past this open double door and the four guys inside and go around to the far side, so he could then take a look at what was on that side of the machine. He waited until the men shuffled their positions; then Lennox made his way across the open door and slid down the far wall on the outside. Just as he thought he had safely made it, he heard his comm tap and afterward came Gavin’s whispered voice.

  “Guard alerted.”

  “Shit,” Lennox whispered under his breath. He couldn’t see the guard from where Lennox was, but he could hear that gunman arriving, speaking English, asking if they saw anything. Voices were raised, and one of the other men called out, “Nothing. Nothing here.”

  The gunman’s footsteps seemed to retrace to where he’d been standing before, beside his truck.

  Lennox moved carefully, crept up to the window, and took a look at the other half of the machine shop. He found glass and ceramic jugs and what looked like some homemade still.

  These guys were probably making moonshine. Without a license in a place like this, they would need somebody on guard. With a rifle.

  Even worse, Lennox found no sign of the prisoners. What a huge waste of time.

  Swearing, he moved back slightly, sending a message to Gavin that this building appeared to be empty. Or at least not housing his sister and her team. As Lennox walked around the back side of the shop, a man came out a side door and shouted at him. He turned and looked at him and said, “Sorry, in the wrong place.”

  The man looked at him in confusion, and Lennox realized he didn’t understand
English. Regardless Lennox’s presence would startle the others. He walked up with a big smile on his face, and, when he got close enough, he struck the man hard in the throat, sufficient to disable him and to drop him to the ground.

  Racing silently through the encroaching darkness, Lennox made his way back into the bush and then headed to the truck.

  There he met Gavin.

  “That was close,” Gavin said. “They were running illegal whiskey, from what I saw.”

  “Agreed,” Lennox said. “Unfortunately I met up with one guy. He wasn’t thrilled, so I put him down.”

  “You killed him?”

  “Hell no. He’s down, but he’ll remember somebody skulking around his place, and the others will be pissed off at the guard.”

  “With good reason,” he said. “If that were one of our guys, you know that we would have fired him for what we were able to do.”

  “True enough,” Lennox said. “Next target?”

  “I’m wondering if that road leading to that farm didn’t carry on farther past to another property up in the hills there.”

  “It’s possible the driveway continues on, but it becomes a dirt road. Up on the hill, I was thinking it headed to pastures.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think we can take that chance. We need to scope it out for ourselves.”

  “Shall we drive closer?”

  “Could save us a few steps,” Gavin added with a shrug.

  Lennox had his phone out, GPS running, while he looked at the area maps. “I think we need to go back along this way. Not exactly as far as that, but we would only have a few hundred yards to cross.”

  That’s what they did. Lennox quickly turned the truck around and headed back, following Gavin’s instructions. At the new location they parked off to the side of a ditch and crossed over a fence to the designated search area, about seventy-five yards away that led to the other driveway. Passing that as quickly as possible, they realized that this driveway continued for probably half a mile.

  They made their way along that road in complete darkness. No vehicles passed by; nothing came by, not even wildlife or a stray dog. When they got to the small rise, they stopped; they found a large settlement below, including a house off to the side of another large machine shed again and what looked like a double-size barn.

  “Everybody has multiple outbuildings,” Gavin noted.

  “Exactly,” Lennox said, “but how do we know this is our place? We keep wasting time ruling each one out.”

  Just then two men came out of the house, both of them strapping rifles over their shoulders.

  “Well, that’s promising,” Lennox said.

  One of them called out to another man, and he stood; his form had blended in entirely to the machine shed. But he also had a weapon over his shoulder and a handgun in his right hand.

  “Well, that looks even more promising,” Lennox said, studying the long machine shed. “That thing’s got to be fifty feet long.”

  “If not more,” Gavin said. “I’d say it’s at least twenty feet wide. It’s that corrugated metal material with likely no windows.”

  “Which means, only one way in, one way out.”

  “But likely a second door is in the back,” Gavin said, “but it won’t be as easy to open or to maneuver through.”

  “So not a bad prison,” Lennox said with a nod. “Far enough away from anyone that, although any gunshots will echo in the hills, nobody will give a shit.”

  “I think everybody’s keeping to themselves out here. They’re probably all running something illegal, in one way or another, which keeps them all away from everybody else’s business.”

  “Right,” Lennox said. “So how many have we got here? Three in the front right now but how many others do you think are in the house?”

  “We can go through the house first.”

  “Or can use a diversion to flush them out of the house,” Lennox suggested.

  Gavin considered that and nodded. “How about a fire?” he said, pointing to a large pile of deadwood. “It’s small enough not to do too much damage, even if it does take off.”

  “And, if it takes off, it’ll come toward the buildings, and that’s what the gunmen will be concerned about.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You got a way to start that?”

  Gavin grinned, his white teeth flashing in the darkness. “Just wait for it,” he said. “You’ll have your diversion in no time.” And he got up and slipped into the darkness, leaving Lennox all alone.

  Chapter 7

  Helena must have dozed off for a few hours because, when she woke, the building was in complete darkness. Wondering what had woken her—outside of her uncomfortable position, the strange circumstances, and the terror that she’d recently gone through—was something she almost laughed at because she had any number of reasons not to sleep deeply and contentedly. But, when exhaustion had claimed her, she had slept. Maybe not well but she’d take any rest that she could get right now.

  Outside she heard footsteps racing and people swearing. She immediately woke Carolina. “Something’s happening,” she said urgently.

  Carolina stared at her, looked around, and then bolted to her feet. “We have to be ready.”

  “Oh, I agree,” Helena said. “Now if only we knew what that would mean.”

  John mumbled from the far side, “What’s the matter?”

  “Hear all the shouting and running outside?” she asked him.

  He stared at her and slowly sat up. “Do you think it’s Lennox?”

  “I have no clue,” she said.

  A man’s voice interrupted their conversation. “I hope it is,” he said, “because then I’ll be ready for him.”

  That was the scarred man talking. The man in charge. He seemed to leave the building. Another guard slunk out of the darkness. A man she hadn’t yet seen before stared at her. “What’s going on out there?” she asked.

  “Looks like a brushfire.”

  “Fire?” she cried out, staring at him in shock. “We have to get out of here!”

  “I don’t give a fuck,” he said and spat out what looked like the butt of a cigarette onto the ground.

  “A fire will raze this place to the ground,” Helena said, waving her arm around at the shed.

  “It’s metal,” he said with a sneer. “It does not burn.”

  “Maybe not,” she said, “but the stuff in it will.”

  “And how does the fire get in?” he asked, studying her as if she were an ignorant schoolgirl.

  “The bales of hay stacked along the back wall would bring it in,” she said.

  He looked startled for a moment as he turned to study the back wall. He walked past her to the far end of the shed.

  Carolina looked at her. “Do you have a plan with that?”

  “Maybe,” she whispered, “but he has to leave first.”

  “Why are they always listening to us?” John asked, crawling over to where they were. “It’s creepy.”

  She stood, peering in the darkness, when the door at the far end of the machine shop opened. And the man they’d been speaking with called out something. She saw flames crackling at that end.

  “Shit,” she said, “that’s too damn close.” She pulled the bobby pin from her hair, stripped off the plastic coating at one end, and walked over to the lock on the gate. Standing casually, she grabbed the lock and tried to pop it free with the help of her bobby pin.

  And, just as she managed it, a voice close to her ear whispered, “Good girl.”

  She froze, but Lennox took over, taking the lock from her hand, opening the cage, and pulling her free. John woke up Sasha, but Lennox already had Carolina up and out. Lennox led them to the corner of the front doorway and said to Helena, “Race up the hill at that angle,” he said, pointing in the right direction. “You’re going for that biggest tree as your landmark. Do not make a sound. Just run.”

  And he got her and Carolina moving as fast as they could. She turned to look
behind her to see John and Sasha following. But she had her orders, and she knew one thing—Lennox expected his orders to be obeyed.

  And there would be no forgiveness from the kidnappers if Helena and her team didn’t get to where they needed to go. She hit the tree and kept on going, not sure where she was supposed to go now. But she saw a vehicle at the far end of a path. She caught sight of an unknown man, and her steps faltered. But he urged her to keep going. She raced up to the truck, eyeing this latest stranger, who whispered, “I’m Gavin. I’m with Lennox. Get in.”

  Helena hopped into the back seat of the double-cab truck and helped John inside beside her, while Gavin helped Carolina climb into the back seat on the other side of Helena.

  As Helena turned to look behind, Lennox picked up Sasha, lagging behind, and carried her as he raced faster and faster. He damn-near tossed Sasha into the back seat of the truck, calling out to Gavin, “Go! Go! Go!”

  Gavin hopped into the front of the truck, and, as Sasha was climbing into the back, smashing onto John, Lennox dove into the front seat. Gavin had the vehicle tearing down the road in no time.

  Helena wasn’t exactly sure where the hell they were going, and she didn’t give a damn. She just smiled up at John, who stared at her in shock.

  She nodded. “Yes, that’s Lennox.”

  He shook his head, leaned forward, and asked Lennox, “How do you get past everybody?”

  Lennox didn’t respond.

  “A diversion,” Helena stated matter-of-factly. “And did you note that not one gunshot went off?” She smiled smugly at John. “That’s not what Lennox does. Unless he’s forced to.”

  “And how did you know?” he blustered, glaring at her, ignoring her barb pointed at him.

  “Diversion?” she said. “It’s simple.”