Rick Mofina - They Disappeared

“But it’s dangerous.”

“Everything we do is dangerous. We’ve come too far to turn back. Send your team now to meet the courier.” Bulat shot a finger at him. “No mistakes. We must have the device, at any cost.”

After Alhazur’s small team left, Bulat sat before one of the laptops, searched an encrypted file to obtain a telephone number. He then selected one of the prepaid, untraceable cell phones from the two dozen on the table and placed a call to a number with a 646 area code.

The line rang. He turned to look in the direction of the woman and the boy. Yes, they were now Bulat’s assets. They would play a vital role in the operation. He squinted. In the distance he saw some sort of commotion among a few of his men near the hostage area.

Bulat’s concern shifted when the line was answered.

“Hello.”

It was the voice of an older woman Bulat had known from his days of traveling the world, establishing a network of support cells.

“This is the prodigal son,” he said in their mother tongue. “We met when I visited at your home the last time I was in New York.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Are you willing to help us?”

“I am willing to do whatever is needed.”

“Good. I will contact you with further instructions. Goodbye.”

“Wait!”

“Yes?”

“You are a hero to our people.”

Bulat allowed himself the beginnings of a smile. It died when he ended the call and took notice of the commotion by the hostages.

As he strode across the vast factory floor the situation came into focus. Several men were shouting, smacking the young guard’s head, holding up the end of a chain.

Where was the boy? Did he get away?

“Sir!” One of the men stiffened. “This moron fell asleep and let the boy escape.”

Bulat examined the chain while the guard dropped to his knees.

“Commander, the chain was faulty. Forgive me!”

Bulat looked at the woman, took quick inventory of the area as his blood began pulsating.

“How long has he been free?”

“Sometime before the dawn, a few hours?” one of the men said.

Volcanic rage rose in Bulat’s gut. He stepped up to the frightened guard and slapped his face.

“You insult the blood of the revolution!”

“I’m sorry, Commander.”

“You,” Bulat ordered his men, “secure the woman. You three! Take this sorry excuse for a life below to the furnace!”

Bulat’s breathing quickened.

“The rest of you find that fucking boy and bring him to me!”

Bulat’s nostrils flared and his eyes widened with wrath as he squatted down in front of Sarah and softened his voice.

“You’d better pray to your God that your son got away.”

Sarah battled the panic rising around her.

Cole is free.

She said this to herself over and over after Bulat had walked away and his men started scouring every part of the old structure. They overturned steel drums, smashed wooden crates and toppled old equipment. The menace was almost palpable.

Pop!

Sarah convulsed-the air had split with the firecracker bang.

A gunshot. In the lower level.

Cole? No! They didn’t shoot Cole!

Sarah cried out for him.

Then she looked at the two new guards a few feet away, assessing their low-toned mutterings and body language for any hint of what had happened below.

They wouldn’t shoot an innocent boy? They couldn’t shoot an innocent boy? What have I done? Was I wrong to send him off alone? I should’ve kept him with me. Oh, God, please let him be safe.

The shot echoed like an accusation until she could not longer bear it.

“What was that?” Sarah asked.

The guards glared at her, saying nothing, then she realized that the gunfire was for the young, terrified guard they’d led away. He paid for his mistake with his life, like the creep before him, who was going to kill Cole.

Then it hit Sarah, hit her the same way reality hits an ill-fated climber in the instant before the plunge.

I’m going to die.

There was a sense of finality in the air, a sense that their plot may be a massive suicide mission. They’d killed four people so far, surely they’d kill Sarah and Cole.

We’ve seen their faces.

For one terrifying moment she fell into a comalike stupor.

But Cole’s not here. Cole is free.

She had to believe that he got away, that he’d make it back to Jeff and back to Montana and a life without her.

Sarah fought her tears and tried to think clearly through her exhaustion, through her fear, taking comfort in her one hope, her prayer.

Cole’s not here. Cole is free.

She let her anguished mind take her back home, back to where she was standing on a gentle hill that offered her the great sweeping plain and the eternal sky.

God, please let Cole be safe.

Somewhere in New York City

Dawn.

The first light of day made its way into the old factory, spilling down forty feet to the bottom of the pit where Cole Griffin was shivering in stinking water.

He struggled to be brave.

Don’t cry.

Then he heard the swish-splash again. Something else was in the water- something alive. Cole was unsure what it was but images and shapes were slowly emerging in the faint light. Keep away from me!

The pit was as big and round as his friend Tim’s aboveground pool. You could maybe fit a car in there. And the water- I hope it’s water -was deep.

Cole stretched. He couldn’t reach bottom with his feet.

His fingers and arms were sore from holding on to the metal bar so that he could keep his head and shoulders above water. Broken metal filing cabinets and twisted sections of tin ductwork were clustered near him. He was so cold his teeth were knocking together. He had to find a way to get out of here.

Swish-splash.

There it is again.

It came from the opposite side of the pit. Cole searched around for something, anything, to defend himself against the thing, or things.

He found nothing.

The dark circular brick walls rose to the world above. It was impossible to climb out of here. He clawed and pounded at them, banging his handcuffs against them.

It was futile.

Cole was overcome, on the verge of tears, ready to cry out for help, when the increasing light slowly revealed hope in the form of rusted metal rungs embedded into the stone, ascending to the surface.

I’ll climb up. I’ll get out and get help.

But as fast as Cole’s heart soared, it sank again.

His escape ladder was on the other side of the pit, where the thing was. Cole would not only have to swim across the murky water but he would have to confront whatever was splashing in it.

I can’t do this. Not with that thing over there.

At that moment he heard shouting, men arguing far off.

Searching.

Now they know I got away. They’re looking for me.

He stared at the ladder. He had to reach it, had to get out of there but that option vanished when he heard a loud bang, like a gunshot. Then the building reverberated with the nearing clamor of the searchers.

They’re closer now, much closer.

Keeping his grip on the bar, Cole moved and maneuvered to the heaped file cabinets and misshapen ductwork, hiding among them just as spears of light pierced the pit.

They’re right above me looking down with flashlights.

Their voices dropped into the pit along with small stones, nails and bits of debris that cascaded to the water.

Swish-splash.