Chapter 28

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Brandenburg, Nichols, and Larkin listened with rapt interest after Wolf summoned them all to the main room of the sheriff’s headquarters and began relaying the epic story of Mitch, Dolores, and Savannah Russell.

All three men took the news of Savannah’s kidnapping in silence. Nichols sat on the edge of his desk, Brandenburg walked to the coffee machine, and Larkin paced behind his desk. They all wore different masks of fear, the news appearing to affect the sheriff most.

Brandenburg filled a cup of coffee, then set it down. Hands on his hips, he turned and faced them. “We can’t just go barging in there. That’ll end in another shootout. One that’s not going to end well for us.”

“You’re dead sure about this?” Nichols asked.

“Yes,” Wolf said.

He told them about the back way into the compound that Mitch Russell had reported finding the night before, the one Hunt had been using to surveil the place.

“Here?” Larkin said, pointing at his computer screen .

They gathered around his desk, looking at the monitor. Larkin had pulled up a satellite map showing County Road 982 cutting through a swath of forest.

“Their place is right here,” Larkin said, swirling the computer mouse over a section of woods where three buildings squat in the trees. They were square-shaped, equally spaced in a triangle. A dirt road led into the property from the opposite side off a different county road.

“This is where we came in,” Brandenburg said, pointing. “The front entrance comes in from County 17.”

The rear entrance was to the north of the property, but County Road 982 cut in from the south and west, making a long bend toward it before heading north and away.

“He must mean right here,” Larkin said. “This is the closest the road gets. That’s a long way from there to here.”

“How far?”

Larkin shook his head, zooming back out. “I’d say an hour. Maybe less. But you have to go all the way down south, here, to catch the road.”

He pointed, showing the route taken would be down south on the highway, then west on a different road, before hooking up with 982. It was why Wolf had run into Mitch at the gas station south of town.

Nichols sighed heavily. “We can’t go in there, just us.”

“I agree,” Wolf said. “That’s why we’ll call in an FBI response team. They have trained individuals to deal with this kind of situation.”

Brandenburg remained silent, staring at the screen.

“Sir?” Larkin asked, looking up. “What do you think?”

Brandenburg blinked, then shook his head. “We bring in a bunch of Feds or SWAT…it really is going to turn into a ma jor shootout. They’ve got firepower up there. Then we’re really sealing that little girl’s coffin.”

“But we have to do something,” Wolf said.

“Let me think,” Brandenburg said, walking toward his office.

“What’s there to think about?” Wolf asked. “Make the calls.”

Brandenburg turned around. “Let me think!”

Wolf stood staring at him.

Brandenburg scratched his head. “You think they’ll really kill her?”

“You want to wait and find out?” Wolf asked.

“No. Of course not.”

Wolf’s phone chimed in his pocket, and he pulled it out. Somebody with a local area code was calling. He punched the answer button. “Wolf here.”

“They beat him up!” A woman’s hysteric voice crackled in his ear. “They came in and beat him up! He’s hurt!”

Wolf straightened, recognizing the voice. “Dolores?”

“They broke his legs! We need an ambulance!”

“We’ll be right over.”