David Dun - At The Edge

As Nate took up the slack, the fish once again swam for the far side of the creek, bending the slight rod in a half circle and eliciting another cry from Nate. Then the eighteen-inch-long silver-sided monster exploded from the water, shook its head, and dropped the fly as easily as a child spits out a pea.

"Oh man!" Nate shouted, his face lit with excitement. When Nathan's enthusiasm had about peaked for one day, they packed up their stuff and due to the ease of descending made much better time. They wound down the trail in the quiet forest, hearing only an occasional scampering, the blowing of a startled deer, and the mad whir of a blue grouse.

"I'm going to the outhouse," Nate said.

The park service maintained a pit toilet at the other end of the lot. She nodded as Nate trotted off, then turned to load her stuff into her Cherokee. She pulled an apple from her pack and leaned on the tailgate, watching a red-tailed hawk. A nondescript blue van pulled into the lot and parked one space over. Nate was taking a while. Walking to the driver's-side door, she opened it and reached down to pick up her tennis shoes, thinking she would remove her boots.

The sliding sound of a van door made her realize with a start that someone had been taking their time in getting out of the van. She was unlacing her boots when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Then suddenly she was assaulted by searing pain in her eyes and nostrils. Her lungs felt as though they were being filled with a thousand angry hornets. As she felt her knees buckle, strong arms grabbed her. Burning mush filled her chest; terror gripped her mind. Something horribly confining, even suffocating, was over her face, and she was suddenly, vaguely aware that she was lying down.

"Where's the kid?" she heard.

"Forget him. Let's get the hell out of here."

Soon she calmed enough to realize that the cloth bag over her head was tied at her throat, that her hands and feet were tightly trussed, and that she was on the floor of a large moving vehicle. Then she thought of Nate, the engaging smile under his cowlick.

At least he had been spared.

Dan paced his office. He had raged at the sheriff, urging him to use the information they did have to the maximum. Then, calming himself, he sat and called Amiel Fischer.

"Hi, this is Dan Young."

"Dan, how are you?"

"Maria has been kidnapped."

Amiel Fischer took the news as calmly as Dan could imagine any father doing. He asked for all the details and listened without commenting while Dan told him what he knew.

"She took Nate fishing in the National Forest just outside Palmer. When they got back to the parking lot, Nate went to the toilet. Bless him, he hid but saw the whole thing and got the license number of the van that was used to take her. They had stolen plates, of course. He said two skinny men dressed in black sprayed her in the face. Nate was very fast, and found somebody five minutes later with a cell phone. They had to drive ten minutes to get a signal, but then the plates and a description of the vehicle went straight to the Highway Patrol. A patrolman recalled a blue van going away from the coast in the area where Maria was abducted. About ten minutes had gone by before he did a U-turn and tried to find them. That gives us a general region, if it's the same van. The officer never noted the plates."

"Her mother and I will be right up there," Amiel said. "We'll take the company plane."

"You should know that Maria tried to fight. She tore a red bandanna off one of her assailants. It fell on the ground, and Nate had the presence of mind to pick it up and take it with him. The lab is analyzing it right now."

In the minutes that followed that most difficult of phone calls, Dan made himself the center of a whirlwind of urgent activity. Within minutes of telling Patty McCafferty, the Wildflower Coalition machine went into motion to send an army of enviros into the woods.

Next he called Jeb Otran.

"Maria Fischer's been kidnapped. My little boy saw it."

"He what?"

"Long story. She offered to baby-sit and took him trout fishing. I had to meet with clients and my housekeeper was gone."

"What can I do?"

"Helicopter. We know the area. She was taken in a blue van. Your pilot needs to call the sheriff's office."

"You got it. But I'm sure it'll be an hour before it gets to Palmer."

"Tell them to call me the minute they have an ETA for Palmer. I want to ride with them and look for the van."

"I'll tell 'em."

"How about a bunch of foresters and some pickups?"

"Sure."

"I'm grateful. I know she isn't one of your favorite people."

"Come on. I'll do anything I can to help." Jeb disconnected.

A recent photo of Maria was distributed to all those who volunteered. An APB was put out on the van Nate had seen in the forest-service parking lot.

Sitting down, he took out a yellow pad and wrote down everything he knew. Amada owned the compound in the Highlands Forest. Amada was run by a Japanese man named Kenji Yamada. People locally knew very little about him. The mill manager was known to everyone but didn't call the shots except about the operation of the sawmill and the flakeboard plant. No one knew the scientific type that had held Dan and Maria at the compound. Evidently he went straight in and out to San Francisco for his social life. Not hard for someone with a corporate helicopter.

This secret Amada operation was distilling wood to make gasoline and methanol. They had a pool of something bad, they had a body in the cave, and they were desperate. Someone had snatched Maria; someone was a violent monkey-wrencher; someone had kidnapped and murdered Kim Lee; finally someone had stolen the money. In some bizarre way, most of this had to be related.

Dan called in Gail, his new secretary, a longtimer at the firm.

"I'm so sorry," Gail said. "Everybody knows you're fond of her."

"Thanks, I appreciate it. This is sheer desperation, but could you call every garage in town and ask them if they've done any work recently on a late-model blue van, California license number 312 EWH?"

Gail took the license number and left.

"Sheriff's office is on the line."

Dan picked up.

"We're scouring the countryside for the van but haven't found anything. We know the plates came from a junked-out Dodge in Los Angeles and the serial numbers on the body would indicate that it was sold at auction in L.A. We're trying to find out who bought it."

"We're calling local garages on the off chance they worked on it after the stolen plates were put on it."

"That's thinking. Tell us if you turn anything up. Keep a list of who you call."

"Will do."

Gail rang him on the intercom line. ''Bingo. Second place. The guy said yes, then got flustered and hung up. Said somebody called Morgan had the work done. Apparently, they installed an electric motor to raise and lower the back window. Put tinted-glass windows in all the way around the van."

"That's the van," Dan said. "Where's the place?"

"Sak's garage at the corner of Fifth and D."

"I know it. Old masonry building. Looks defunct."

Dan called the sheriff with what they had.

"We'll send an officer," the sheriff said. "We know these people. Edwin Gilbert owns it. He's always in the gray zone. We think among other things he's a fence and he supplies a lot of pot growers with their equipment. Funny they made this dumb a mistake, telling you on the phone."

''Maybe they didn't. Somebody called Little Gilbert did.''

"That's Big Gilbert's brother. He's not real swift."

"How about you let me talk to Little Gilbert first and then send an officer."

There was a pause. "What are you going to do?"

"Give him a ration. A story, see what I can find out."