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??s been stolen. If someone overrode that system or piggybacked on it, they can pull the power to the engine and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“I think you’re right,” said Reggie as she looked out the window at the two trucks pulling up to their vehicle, one in front and one behind.
Six men climbed out with SIGs, Glocks, and MP5s pointed at them.
Twenty minutes later they were standing naked in a circle inside a small concrete-block building. They had been searched first by hand and then via a scanner, and then hosed down with a jet stream of water. After that the men repeatedly dragged hard metal combs through their hair and across their arms and legs, leaving long red marks on their limbs. They had also cut off Dominic’s cast and thrown it away. They’d given him a sling in replacement.
After they dried off they were given clean clothes to wear consisting of bright yellow jumpsuits, underwear, and sneakers with white socks.
“What the hell was that all about?” fumed Whit as he pulled on his shoes. “They almost drowned us.”
Reggie was dressing behind a door propped open for privacy, though everyone had already seen the others naked.
Shaw buttoned up his jumpsuit; it was several inches too short for him in the arms and legs. The sneakers were tight on his long feet. “Surveillance devices. These days they have trackers built into fake hair follicles, fake skin patches. They scanned and searched us for the obvious and did the hose-comb treatment for the sophisticated stuff.”
Whit smelled his skin. “There was something else mixed in that water. Probably causes cancer,” he said irritably.
“You should hope to live that long,” replied Shaw.
Reggie joined them after zipping up her jumpsuit. “Well, I can see you’re still Mr. Optimistic.”
“I’m just being realistic.”
“Why do you think the yellow jumpsuits?” asked Dominic.
“If I had to guess,” said Shaw, “the harder it will be to lose us.”
“Lose us?” exclaimed Whit. “How the hell could they possibly lose us?”
“I guess that depends on us, doesn’t it?” said Reggie.
CHAPTER
92
MORE HOURS passed, and then with hands cuffed, feet shackled, mouths taped, and hoods over their heads they were stuffed in an SUV with blacked-out windows and driven for a long time. Shaw had been counting off the seconds in his head. And while they were not on major highways, at least that he could tell, their speed had been pretty consistent and at least sixty miles an hour from the sound of the engine and the whine of the wind outside the truck.
When the vehicle finally pulled to a stop he had a rough gauge. Nine hours. In which direction he wasn’t certain, though he didn’t think it likely it had been back west toward Montreal or south to the United States. Security between the U.S. and Canada wasn’t that tight, but four hooded and trussed-up figures in an SUV would have raised at least modest curiosity along the way. If not, there was no hope ever of border security.
That left the direction they’d gone in as north or east. Nine hours due east in Canada at sixty miles an hour would also have taken them through Maine in the United States, in order to reach New Brunswick or farther along to Nova Scotia. And when the Yukon had cut off, the largest city they had been near was Quebec. From there to Halifax in Nova Scotia was far longer than the approximate distance they’d driven. For those reasons Shaw concluded they’d been heading more north than east, skirting the border with America but not crossing it. They had been allowed one bathroom break along the side of the road, and then they were off again.
Later, the vehicle’s doors opened and they were forced to lie facedown partially on top of each other in the back cargo area. For one terrible moment Shaw thought this was it. Execution time. From the quick breathing of his companions, he deduced they were thinking the same thing.
Instead, a heavy tarp was thrown over them and a voice said, “Not a sound or your friend is dead.”
Truck doors closed and the vehicle drove on. Then it stopped. Doors popped open again. There was talk. The doors closed again and the vehicle pulled forward haltingly, and then stopped. Whatever they were on now, it was not solid ground, Shaw could tell. The truck was moving though the engine was off. Only it was moving slightly up and down and side to side. Or at least whatever it was on was doing that.
A few minutes passed and Shaw heard more noises, including the clanging of a bell and feet moving fast. There was a lurch and the sensation of something sliding away, like a train leaving a station platform. The first real jolt he felt answered the question.
We’re on a boat. Probably a car ferry.
The water was rough, the ride uncomfortable, particularly lying facedown while wedged in the back of a truck. Shaw could hear Reggie moaning next to him and he thought she might become sick again, as she had on the ferry crossing from Amsterdam. And then it was over. They drove for more hours and then the truck stopped again. They were pulled from the back and made to march, still hooded and shackled, in single file. They were maneuvered roughly into seats in a confined space. Shaw actually hit his head on the top of whatever they were inside. When the engine engaged, the sound of the prop wash started, and the stomach lurch occurred when the vertical lift happened, he knew they were on a chopper.
Shaw continued to count the seconds even as he tried to calibrate their speed. When they began their descent at least eighteen thousand seconds, or five hours, had elapsed. If they’d been traveling in excess of two hundred knots north or east they would have covered over a thousand kilometers. That put New Brunswick or even Nova Scotia in play, though much farther than a thousand kilometers east and they would’ve been in the Atlantic. But Shaw didn’t think they had traveled directly east, because of the ferry.
While in the truck coming from Montreal and then Quebec they had been on the southern tip of the strip of water that cut through that part of Canada and that employed ferry service to cross it. He knew that because he had been on one of those ferries. No one would bother to take a boat north only to chopper back across that slice of water to head south or east. If New Brunswick or Nova Scotia was the destination, they would’ve gotten on the chopper on the southern side and not used the ferry at all. One would use the ferry if one were going due north, toward Hudson Bay or even the Arctic Circle, or to the east to Newfoundland and Labrador.
When the chopper set down and they climbed out, Shaw knew they were not in the Arctic Circle; they hadn’t flown long enough or stopped for refueling. He didn’t know what sort of chopper they were on but figured for most models five hours of flight with that many people on board bumped right up against the limits of the fuel load. And it was too warm. If he had to guess, they were more east than north. When the chopper engine quieted down and he heard the ocean slamming against the shore he concluded they were on the coast of either Newfoundland or Labrador, which still covered a lot of territory. And how knowing all this helped their current situation he didn’t quite have a handle on yet.
