IN A MATTER of seconds, I’m at the building, and Scotty is standing outside, his flashlight illuminating a white plastic trash bag outside of a locked wooden door, painted green. Oak trees are nearby and overhead, and there’s a dirt path leading back to where we were. Unlike the other buildings we’ve been searching, this one is worn, with a sagging roof. It’s one story and there are small windows set up near the roofline.
I turn, and Connie Westbrook has managed to keep up with me.
I flash my light over at the building. “What’s in here?”
“Nothing,” she says.
Scotty says, “Over here, boss.”
I check the torn top of the white trash bag. Inside are crumpled fast-food bags, McDonald’s and Burger King, and I nudge the top, where there’s a couple of crumpled white gauze bandages, stained brown with old blood. There’s also bits of string—used sutures?—and cotton swabs.
Back to Connie I say, “Care to change your mind?”
She folds her arms, says not a word. Pamela and Tanya appear, breathing hard, running from wherever they’ve been. Scotty doesn’t say anything, just illuminates the open plastic bag with the used bandages.
Pamela turns and says, “Who’s this?”
“The farm’s owner.”
Pamela’s on her, both strong hands on her robe, and she yells, “Is she in there? Is she in there, you old bat?”
Tanya pulls her off and the woman nearly falls, but she’s still there, not backing away, eyes filled with hate, staring at us. Scotty says, “I might be hearing things, boss, but I thought I heard a voice from inside.”
I step up to Mrs. Westbrook. “The key. Get the key to that door right now.”
She says, “Go to hell,” in a grandmotherly tone of voice, if one’s grandmother had once been a prison matron.
I turn. “Scotty. Get that door open. I don’t care what you do…get the damn thing open. And where the hell is Brian Zahn?”
Tanya says, “No idea.”
“Hold on, boss,” Scotty says, and he races to a near barn, smaller than the one I was exploring, and comes back in under a minute. There’s the sound of honking horns out by the parking area, with a few whoop-whoops of sirens, and the hum of power generators—I wish I had one right now, turning this predawn slice of Virginia farmland into noon—but there’s no time, and Scotty is back, carrying a sledgehammer at port arms, as if it were a Colt M4.
He goes right up to the door with no hesitation, and with one hard blow, the solid doorknob flies off. Scotty drops the sledgehammer, takes out his service weapon—as do the rest of us—and with pistols and flashlights in hand, we move forward.
Scotty elbows the door open, yells, “Freeze! Secret Service!”
And I’m right behind him, and the first thing I see is the anguished and scared face of a woman.