Hours later, Jed looked out his window when the plane banked to the left and started to descend. Sure enough, there was the company’s testing lodge and the lake below. Shortly after James Romson, Jed’s father, started Romson Industries, he recognized the need for a remote location with severe weather conditions to test cold weather gear and equipment. This lodge, an old lumber camp, fit the bill perfectly. Romson Industries owned over one hundred thousand acres in the most remote area of the continental United States, with less than one person per hundred square miles. Jed knew his chances of walking out to safety were nil, especially since he had to babysit a tenderfoot girl.
Pete turned his head and reached behind the seat with a set of headphones and shoved them at Jed. Jed struggled to put them on with his left hand and managed to do so on the third try. He pulled the microphone down in front of his lips.
“Can you hear me, Jed?”
“I hear you.”
“Look, I’m really sorry I had to do this to you. I’m in a tight spot, and I don’t have many options. Listen carefully to what I have to say, and you will be okay.”
“I’m listening,” Jed said, but the sarcasm was lost on Pete.
“Here’s the deal. I stocked the lodge for the company’s plant managers’ fishing trip. You will have plenty of food, and it is not all that cold, except at night. Plenty of firewood is cut and ready. I hadn’t planned on you being with a girl, but that can’t be helped. I can’t really take her back now, can I?” He chuckled, then continued. “I think she will actually make it easier for me to get your dad to come up with the money. In fact, I might just up the price.
“I wanted to leave you where I knew you would be safe. The last thing I want is for you to be hurt. I‘ll be down in the Cayman Islands about this time tomorrow evening, and I’ll message him from there and give him the idea you are down there with me. Besides, without the plane, he won’t be coming up here to look now, will he? I disabled the shortwave radio, so you won’t be able to call anyone. As soon as your dad wires the money to me in the Caymans, I’ll tell him where to find you. I promise I will.”
“You’ll never get away with this, you know.”
Pete laughed mockingly and said, “I’m smarter than that. I have it all planned out. The money will go to a numbered account in the Caymans. The Cayman banks make the Swiss bankers look talkative. But I have it set for an automatic transfer to the Bahamas, and they don’t have an extradition treaty with the US. I won’t ever come back to the States, but I know a guy who can alter the registration on this plane, and I can make a very good living in the Islands. I’ll do okay. By the way, don’t bother trying to switch to transmit rather than intercom. I turned off the radio, so you won’t be able to reach anyone.” Pete laughed again and in falsetto mocked, “Please fasten your seatbelts and return your seats to the upright and locked position. Thank you for flying Romson Air.”
Jed felt the plane flare, and the floats splashed in the lake and bounced before splashing once again as Pete chopped the throttle and turned the plane toward the dock. Elizabeth raised her head finally and looked fearfully out the window to see the lodge just beyond the dock. Pete carefully eased the plane alongside the dock, quickly jumped from the plane, and secured it in place.
Pete opened the passenger door and then handed Elizabeth the handcuff key. He pulled his pistol from his pocket and told her to unlock her handcuff. It had been an uncomfortable trip sitting hunched over as they were. Pete forced Jed to unload the luggage and then handcuffed his hands behind him. “You know where the rifles are in the lodge, and I’m not about to let you try to stop me.” Pete looked down at the dock and shuffled his feet before continuing. “I told you I don’t want you hurt, and that is the truth. Your family has always been good to me, and I feel terrible about what I’m doing. But it is my life if I don’t. I ask you to understand.”
He turned to Elizabeth. “Missy, you walk off of the dock and sit down. I’ll leave this key inside your purse here on the dock. After I take off, you may come back down here, get the key, and release Jed. I’m sorry you got involved in this, but I had no choice. It’s just your bad luck, I guess. You will be okay. Your parents will know where you two are just as soon as Jed’s dad wires the money to me. I told Jed about the supplies in the cabin, so you won’t go hungry or be cold. Goodbye.”
Pete waited for Elizabeth to walk the length of the dock and sit before he quickly loosed the moorings on the plane, jumped in, started the engine, and slowly eased out onto the lake. He gave them a wave as he left, but neither Jed nor Elizabeth responded from where they were seated at the end of the dock.