into the trees. Crouching down, he saw matted-down grass and brush. The trees along the path showed broken branches and scraped bark. The area had been trampled through and recently.
“In here,” Mac said, following the trampled path into the woods, Lich was right behind, with the sheriff and his men trailing with shovels. “We’re looking for a white PVC pipe,” Mac yelled back. “At most, it’ll be sticking up three or four inches out of the ground.”
Mac moved another fifty feet ahead and stopped, wiping the perspiration from his brow. He could feel his hair soaking with sweat and his shirt clinging to his body. There were fresh tracks in the ground straight ahead of him; another set branched to the right off of a larger tree. Lich tracked to the right, while Mac moved straight ahead, deeper into the woods. The mosquitoes hovered in vicious swarms. Within fifteen feet of the split they walked into a clearing, maybe twenty by twenty feet. A thick layer of loose branches and leaves covered the forest floor. Mac panned right to left with his flashlight, and the light bounced off of something unnaturally white beneath a camouflaging layer of twigs and branches.
“There! There it is!” Mac yelled, running and then sliding down to his knees, ripping the debris away from the open pipe.
“CARRIE! CARRIE! CARRIE FLANAGAN! SHANNON HISLE! WE’RE HERE! WE’RE HERE!” Mac yelled down the pipe. He waved frantically to the deputies. “Get
those shovels over here! We’ve found them! We found them! He bent down again, mouth to the pipe, shouting, “CARRIE! SHANNON! WE’RE HERE! WE’RE HERE!”
Carrie held Shannon in her arms. Shannon’s breathing had become more labored, and she was showing no signs of consciousness for the last few minutes. It was just after six now. Carrie didn’t think she had any tears left, but she started to cry one more time.
Sobbing, she almost didn’t hear it. Then she thought her mind was playing tricks on her. It was there and then it was gone. But then it was there again, muffled, coming from the air pipe, but it was unmistakable. “Carrie! Shannon! Hang on!”
She scrambled over to the vent and yelled as loud as she could. “HELP! HELP! WE’RE DOWN HERE, WE’RE DOWN HERE! HELP US! HELP US!”
“I think I heard something,” Mac said, holding up his hand. Everyone froze. He heard the voice, faint beneath the earth. “I hear them! They’re down there! They’re down there! DIG!”
The deputies dug haphazardly, throwing dirt everywhere. “How far down are they?” the sheriff asked.
“Four feet, maybe five.” Mac replied. “In a large wood box, two feet high, four feet wide, six feet long, running to the left of the pipe.”
Four deputies were working furiously in the loose soil. Mac stood up and Lich gave him a big hug, lifting him off the ground. “You son of a bitch. You unbelievable son of bitch.”
Mac paused to re-gather his wits. “Sheriff, we’re going to need air ambulance out here. Shannon Hisle is a type 1 diabetic. She’s been without insulin for at least two days, probably more. She’s going to be in rough shape. Get an ER doc on that chopper, and I want you to call North Memorial, not Regions in St. Paul.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a long story, but someone is working this from the inside. So if we fly into St. Paul, that could end up bad for the chief and Hisle. You need to do this quietly, Sheriff — keep it off the airwaves.”
“I understand,” the sheriff replied, reaching for a cell phone instead of a radio.
“One other thing,” Mac said. “In the center console of my Explorer is a black bag. It has a syringe and insulin in it, bring that back.”
The sheriff nodded and jogged as quickly as he could out of the woods, Lich in tow.
“Dick, call Riles,” Mac yelled after them.
“Where are these guys going?” Heather Foxx’s cameraman said as they followed the pickup truck over the Wabasha Bridge and the Mississippi River below.
“I think toward the Taste of Minnesota — Harriet Island. The chief and Hisle must be on that bus,” Foxx answered. “This could be really good. Shoot some footage.”
“What’s up with the ransom?’ Mac asked Lich as he hung up his cell phone.
“The chief and Hisle are on a bus heading to the Taste of Minnesota. Riles thinks they’re going to try to run the chief and Hisle through the crowd and either do a drop of the money or try to lose the chief and Lyman.”
“Are they tracking them?”
“Only with an eyeball,” Lich replied. “They hooked up body mics and tracking in the bags, but now both are compromised.”
“How?” Mac asked, and Lich explained.
“We have the girls. Let’s just move in.” Mac griped. “We’ll get Brown and the Muellers later.”
“That’s what I said,” Dick answered. “But Riley wants that fucking mole, and he figures the best way to get him is to catch Brown and the Muellers at the Taste of Minnesota. Burton doesn’t know about the girls, but he senses the danger to the chief and Lyman as well. He’s locking Harriet Island down. He’s got two choppers overhead. He’s flooding the area with agents and cops, the whole nine yards.”
Thump.
Mac turned his head.
The deputy pushed the shovel down again.
Thump. Thump.
It was the unmistakable sound of a shovel hitting wood.
“Clear the top! Find the sides! Find the sides!” Mac yelled frantically. A deputy quickly found one side and Mac jumped down into the pit, kneeled down and noted the screws, one every six inches along the side. He climbed back out and looked to another deputy standing to the side. He climbed back out and looked to another deputy standing to the side. “The top is screwed into this thing. We’re going to need crowbars, tire irons, anything to help pry the top off. Go!”
The deputy ran out while another retuned with an update. “North Memorial’s chopper is in route, ER doc on board. ETA is less than fifteen minutes.”
The deputies worked frantically to dig out the sides of the box enough so they could have leverage to pry up the top of the box. It took a couple of minutes of digging and clearing. The deputy returned with four crowbars and two tire irons.
Mac and Lich jumped down into the pit to the right side of the box. The remaining deputies surrounded the box. Everyone jammed the crowbars and tire irons in, prying in between the top and side pieces, pushing down with all their strength to pry the top off. At first the screws wouldn’t give, but under continuous pressure, the screws started to come loose, groaning loudly, and the top came off with an ear-shattering pop and was pushed to the left.
Everyone froze.
Carrie Flanagan laid on the right and Shannon Hisle the left. Flanagan looked up and shaded her eyes with her left hand. Her hair was matted, and there were dirty tear streaks down her cheeks. Hisle was curled up in a fetal position, unmoving.
Mac jumped into the box, between the girls, and helped Carrie up. Two of the sheriff’s deputies lifted her out. Mac knelt down to Shannon, checking her pulse and listening to her chest. She was breathing. Her breathing was rapid, and Mac noted her breath smelled almost fruity.
“Carrie, how long has she been like this?”
“I don’t kn… kn… know for sure,” Carrie chattered. “She’s been fading in and out for the last couple of hours.”
“What’s her status?” the sheriff asked.
“She’s unconscious. Her pulse is rapid and so is her breathing,” Mac replied as he lifted Shannon and handed her up out of the box. He climbed out and took her limp body from the deputies, carrying her as the group made its way out of the woods. Once clear of the trees Mac gently laid Hisle down next to the trucks, lightly slapping her face.
