Daddy.
Daddy.
Any other word and he might have made a run for it with Lonetree. Might have tried to fight it out. But not that word. That he couldn’t take.
“I’m here, honey. Daddy’s here,” he shouted.
The scream stopped in an unnatural break, as if the cave floor had opened and swallowed her whole. The echoes reverberated for a few seconds more but they too died down. The silence in the cave, broken only by the hum of the powerful lights, was almost as unnerving as the screams.
“Jesus, look at Jim and Scott,” Janney said from behind the lights. “Look what they did to them. I think they’re dead.”
There was a disapproving grunt from further to the right, closer to where Sarah’s scream had come from. Janney must have understood the message because he shut up. Jack could almost feel Lonetree’s eyes boring through him at they tried to pick out targets in the shadows. “Janney,” Jack called out, “you know I wouldn’t come down here without calling the police. The real police, I mean.” Even Jack didn’t think his shaking voice sounded believable. “Let Sarah go. She’s only a baby, for God’s sake.”
“Tell Lonetree to get out here where I can see him,” Janney yelled back.
Lonetree answered. “Fuck you. Come and get me.”
“Jack, you better talk to him. If you need some encouragement, I can arrange it.”
Janney didn’t have to spell it out. Jack knew they would torture Sarah until he did whatever they told him. Once that started Jack knew that he would shoot Lonetree himself if it would make them stop hurting her. What did it matter, anyway? His last glance at his wristwatch showed they had less than twenty five minutes before the explosives detonated. There was no chance of escape. No way Lonetree could manage to fight the three men hiding in the shadows and still get out alive.
Sarah wailed in pain from a spot beyond the lights, just to his right. Her cry ramped up to a higher pitch as though someone were squeezing the sound from her. Jack’s stomach tightened. He knew they wouldn’t kill her. Not yet, anyway. But he couldn’t stand to hear her in pain.
“Lonetree. Give yourself up. They’re hurting her.” He wanted to scream, The cave is going to blow up soon, so give yourself up. Don’t make my baby suffer more than she has to! But even as he thought it, he realized that Lonetree didn’t need to give up. No more than he needed to fight. He could run. Crawl away in the dark and escape through the tunnel they first came through. Moving fast, he could make it back to the surface just in time to be safely out of the way when the cave system started to collapse. Chances were, Lonetree had shouted at Janney to make them think he was staying and then turned and sprinted through the maze of cages on his way to the exit.
Sarah screamed again, her voice cracking from the intensity.
“Stop it. Leave the little girl alone.”
Jack spun to his left to track the source of the voice. Lonetree walked out from a dark shadow only fifteen feet from where Jack stood. It seemed impossible that the big man had been able move undetected from the spot where they had been pinned down but there he was, walking with his hands extended over his head. His eyes moved over to Jack as if to say, Are you happy now? and then returned to the shadows where his enemies remained hidden, watching their adversary enter the light.
“Turn around,” Janney called out. “Raise your shirt. Any weapons you have, I want on the ground right now.”
Lonetree did as he was instructed. His face cast like a death mask, his eyes never leaving the spot where Sarah’s screams had now been replaced with soft whimpering. Jack wanted to tell the man he appreciated the sacrifice he had just made. He wondered though if Lonetree really had given himself up for Sarah, or if it was that he wanted to look into the eyes of the devil he had hunted for so long. The Boss was on the other side of the halogen lights. Maybe he had decided it was worth his life to stand face-to-face the man who had killed his brother and father.
“Cover me, Huckley,” Janney said before sliding out from behind the rocks beyond the lamps. He walked carefully toward Lonetree, his gun trained on the big man’s chest. The sheriff’s face puckered from the stress of the moment, as if he were walking up on a sedated animal, not quite sure if the drugs had taken all the fight out of him yet. Jack, too, wondered if Lonetree was playing with them. He felt detached from the situation, just a spectator hoping something big was about to happen.
Janney patted Lonetree down, always watching his face for a sign he was about to attack. Finding nothing he called out over his shoulder, “He’s clean.”
Huckley appeared first, looking like an animal that had maimed a bird and was now eager to have some fun with it. He clapped his hands together as if the sheer enjoyment of having Lonetree unarmed in front of him was too much to contain. But Lonetree didn’t look at him. His eyes were focused beyond the lights, waiting for the Boss to appear.
Sarah came running out from the shadows first. She screamed and sprinted to Jack with her arms out wide. Jack hadn’t expected to see her free. He staggered a few steps toward her and sank to his knees to scoop her up in a bear hug. She jumped into his arms. He held her tight as her body heaved from crying. Jack rubbed her back and lied to his little girl over and over. “Everything’s going to be all right. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”
“Hello, Jack. I can’t say I expected to see you here.”
Jack looked up, not ready to believe the voice he heard until his eyes confirmed the sight for him. Next to a stone pillar, his grey hair neatly combed back, stood Dr. Mansfield.
“You?” Lonetree said, giving a voice to what Jack was thinking. “You’re the Boss?”
“That’s right.” Dr. Mansfield walked toward them, smiling at Sarah hugging her father.
“I don’t get it,” Jack said. “It’s not possible.”
Dr. Mansfield smiled. “You’d be surprised what’s possible when it comes right down to it.” He turned to Lonetree. “So now you know. This was what your brother died trying to find out. Even at the end, I don’t think he ever guessed. Both you of you might have come closer if you ever stopped to understand what I am trying to accomplish here. Your brother never appreciated what this was all about.”
“Killing little kids? No, he knew exactly what you fuckers are all about,” Lonetree said.
Dr. Mansfield shrugged. “Drug abusers, runaways, teenage prostitutes. These are society’s throwaways. No one wants them. No one misses them when they disappear. I gave them something they would never had whoring and drugging their way across the country. I gave their lives meaning. I gave their lives a purpose.”
“You took their lives. For this…this thing locked in that stone cage.”
“This all is for mankind’s progress. Years from now these children will be heralded for their role and honored for their sacrifice. They were part of a process that will change the world.”
Jack squeezed Sarah tighter against him. “Why Sarah? Why are you doing this to her?”
Dr. Mansfield walked nearer, careful to keep his distance from Lonetree even though Huckley still had a gun aimed at his chest. “We have made so much progress, but there is a lot we don’t understand about the Source. We have reason to believe this little girl, with her special abilities, can open a new world to us. To all of us.”
“Don’t talk about her like she’s some kind of lab animal,” Jack said, desperately trying to think of how to keep Dr. Mansfield talking. If his little girl had to die in this cave, he wanted to be able to hold her in his arms up until the last second. He willed Lonetree’s explosives to go off sooner and end their nightmare.