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Seven |
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Nine
Chris scrabbled around the rocks. Blood was everywhere, and a silence had fallen over the scene that sent shivers up and down his spine. There should have been moans, cries of pain, but there was nothing. Dead men don't feel pain. Chris pushed that thought away and peered up to where Vin dangled unconscious, swaying in the wind. Tanner wasn't dead yet, hopefully. But the only thing keeping him from that was Ezra Standish and his ability to hang on to Tanner with one hand and a tree root with the other. Chris's gut was churning again - Tanner looked like hell.
Buck was beside him in an instant, the hood pushed back from his head and his hair thick with snow. "Holy Hannah!" Vin dangled about six feet above them, his face and clothes splattered with blood. On the ground below him were the mangled remains of Jack Waters.
Suddenly it was all noise. Ezra was shouting, Nathan - peering over the edge - was yelling back, more voices, their owners unseen, were calling back and forth along the cliff edge. A rope snaked out over the ledge, then another, and Nathan, with yet a third rope fashioned into a hasty harness around his body, followed after, lowering himself down until he was face to face with Vin.
Vin didn't realise his eyes were open. One moment he was all numbness and greyness, the next his arms and legs were tingling and his vision was a wash of white. He watched with dull comprehension the hazy figures below him as they swam in and out of sight, saw arms waving wildly and heard deadened voices in the background. Then something flashed through him, a jolt of life, and the noise became screams, hazy vision snapped into sharp clarity and he was falling.
Nathan swore fluently as Vin's body arched and began flailing. He wrapped the rope around the struggling man's chest and slipped the end into a safety knot just as Ezra's grip on Vin's coat finally gave way. With a yell, Ezra threw his free arm up to the tree root and prayed to God it would last a little longer. Vin plummeted down to be stopped with a jerk and a grunt of pain, the rope around his chest firmly anchored to a tree above.
Vin lifted his hands to the rope, his body quivering with shock, as he was lowered down to Chris and Josiah. Nathan, sweat pouring freely down his face, the cold long forgotten, reached out for the second rope and tied it around Ezra, then put an arm around the other man's waist and pulled him in close. Ezra, shaking, let go of the tree root and together the two men climbed down to safety.
Ezra pushed Nathan away when they reached the ground. "Vin," was all he said.
Groggy and still dazed, the team's sharpshooter was half-sitting, half-leaning into Chris's chest. Josiah got up to help Ezra out of his ropes and wave an all clear to the waiting men above. Ezra's arms were aching and stiff from the strain of holding both his own and Vin's weight, his shoulders and back throbbed with pain, but he was all right and soon batted Josiah's hands away. He avoided looking at Jack Waters, but his face paled anyway, and he stumbled toward Nathan, Chris and Vin.
Vin's face was ashen beneath the blood and grime, but he was increasingly alert and already showing signs of annoyance from the attention he was receiving. Ezra dropped to his knees, leaned forward until his tired hands rested on the ground and he was staring directly into Vin's eyes. "Next time you decide to fly, have the decency to grow a set of wings first." All the reply he got in return was the grim trace of a smile as Vin's eyes slipped past Ezra to Jack Waters. Vin's face hardened into an expressionless mask as he committed the atrocity to memory and silently promised a violent payback.
It was mid-afternoon before the team of men moved on. Vin had come through with only a few bruises and minor abrasions caused by flying debris during the explosion - the blood on his coat had not been his. Ezra was bruised and battered as well, and he'd mentally set an appointment with his masseuse, but he too was fit to continue. They all suffered in various degrees from ringing ears. To the man, they'd shrugged the discomfort off and went to work. Buck and JD had found a new path and guided the rest of the team down. Nathan checked them all out while Chris's team investigated the sight of the first blast finding one more bomb - undetonated. They ensured it stayed that way then spent the next few hours burying the dead.
Mid-afternoon. The wind howled up the pass, scooping up drifts of snow and pushing it ahead, covering the newly gouged earth and blanketing the communal grave of Team 5 and Ranger Waters. The pass through the mountains appeared pristine, untouched - a breathless scene in a photograph.
None of the surviving men looked back.+ + + + + + +
Vin Tanner woke from his sleep with a start; his skin hot and damp, lips dry as dust. He was getting ready to sit when he felt Chris's hand on his shoulder. Nathan had whispered in Chris's ear about delayed shock, and the team leader had used the cold weather as an excuse to share blankets as well as tents. The two men lay face to face in the dark. Vin took a shaky breath and let his head fall back into the hood of his coat. "Bad dream," he admitted in a whisper.
"Being blown off a mountain will do that to a person," Chris said. He could feel Vin's warm breath on his cheek.
Vin huffed a small laugh then drew in a trembling breath. "I saw him, y' know. Waters. He was so surprised. Had half a tree stickin' out of his chest and he looked at me, and I could see it in his face."
"See what?" Chris asked when Vin's pause lengthened into a silence needing to be broached.
"Surprise, anger, acceptance." Vin shivered. The bad weather had eased some since they'd left the pass just before nightfall, but it was still well below freezing. "In my dreams though, all I see is blood. His blood, over everything, over me. And him."
"Him?"
Chris felt a shudder go through the other man and tightened his grip on Vin's shoulder.
"Reckon Jack was mighty pissed with that tree." Vin's voice sounded deeper, rough as sleep took over.
"Get some sleep, Vin." Chris put his arm over the other man and pulled him into a brief hug.
It was pitch black in the tent, pitch black everywhere, the moon obscured by the thick clouds overhead. Chris stared into the darkness, listening to the sound of Vin's breathing evening out into sleep and trying to ignore how cold it was even under several layers of clothes, his coat and the blankets. He shivered and rolled over to get some more sleep himself. Plans for the next day flicked through his mind, images of what had already occurred replayed continually until he shifted uncomfortably in the makeshift bed. He rolled onto his back with a soft grunt of frustration.
"I'm going to take that bastard out," Vin's voice whispered. "He isn't finished with the killing, too many loose ends. But he will be. I'm gonna track him down and put a bullet through his brain and then he'll be finished."
Chris felt the controlled anger in Vin's words and turned his head. For a moment he imagined he could see the other man's eyes glinting with determination. His mouth was dry as he realised where they were heading - to hell in a hand basket. Chris cleared his throat to say something, but the platitudes wouldn't come. Vin was right. The killer had to be stopped, and if that meant hunting him down in cold blood, then he'd be right alongside Vin every step of the way.
Vin rolled over. "Get some sleep, Chris."
Ten
The snowplough plunged ahead, cutting a path through the snow and clearing the service track up to the mountain camp. Seated inside the hot and stuffy cabin, Orrin Travis felt like he hadn't slept in days, and he looked it. His face was pale and drawn. His eyes were tired and bloodshot. But still, he fought sleep as he tried to think his way around the escalating situation of the past few days.
Communications had been completely lost during the storm. Travis hadn't heard a word from the two teams since dawn of the day before when Max Karr had acknowledged the weather reports coming in. Karr had advised Travis that Team 7 had rendezvoused with Team 5 at the pass through the mountains and both teams had gone in. After that, there was nothing but static, and then the storm had hit.
Paul Makin had talked to the local Coulee residents and been told that there was no way to reach the Federal agents until after the storm broke, and that could be days away - this baby had barely begun. There was nothing they could do.
The series of explosions had shown up on several satellite tracking systems as burnt umber blips in otherwise greyed out screens. Within minutes of fielding several terse telephone calls, Travis was issuing new orders and making a few calls of his own, barking demands into the telephone receiver and slamming it down into its cradle when he was done.
"I'm sick of sitting on my ass waiting to hear how many men have been killed today!" he yelled to the room at large. He turned to Makin. "We've got more back-up on the way. The roads between here and the airport are being cleared. I want that back-up team at the other end of this goddamn pass and I want my own snowplough, now!"
Agent Bailey had just returned from a break and was getting a rushed report from the agent who had relieved her. She sat down and pulled the communications headset over her ears, flicked a few switches on the console in front of her and typed new commands into the computer keyboard. Her ears strained to hear through the static as she slowly rectified the dials. Readings came up on her monitors, but nothing that could be construed as communication from any of the teams. She glanced up to see AD Travis turn away from Paul Makin and toward her.
"Still no link ups with the teams, Sir," she reported.
"Keep trying, Bailey, and get me the latest official weather report. I'm going up to the base camp."
"That road is impassable, Travis. You can't possibly get to the men." Makin began to interject.
Travis cut him off. "I can and I will. That's what the damn snowplough is for!"
It had only taken one or two more calls interlaced with personal threats, and Makin had a local contractor hired to take Travis up the mountain. Allowing the rest of the current day to make preparations and stock some extra supplies for Max Karr and his men, they would be ready to leave at first light. Staff bustled about - the promise of action after a period of enforced inaction boosted their flagging spirits.
And now here he was fighting sleep after five or so hours in the overheated atmosphere of the snowplough's cabin, following yet another sleepless night spent organising and fine-tuning a retrieval strategy for his men. Choppers and med teams were on full alert, and the back-up team was already on its way to the canyon side of the pass.
An unexpected weather break had enabled scratchy radio communications with Max Karr at the base camp a few hours ago. Karr's men had been up to the pass and reported it completely blocked with snow and ice. There was no getting through from their end.
Travis succumbed to his exhaustion at last, wondering, as the heaviness of sleep crept through his body, who had died and who survived the blast.+ + + + + + +
The team had pushed themselves hard all through the day. Intermittent communication with Paul Makin at Coulee had been restored once they cleared the mountain range, and they'd left Wellman, Morris, Vale and Canley at a designated area to meet the back-up team already on their way in.
"Guide them back to the pass if you can," Chris had told Wellman. "You can all buy us a beer when this is over; don't want to be crowded out in the canyons."
Todd Wellman had argued they should stay together and wait for help.
"That wasn't a request, Wellman. It was an order. Games are over now. We'll stalk this gang all the way to hell if we have to. Any more men in there just means more targets to play with."
Wellman gave up after that, shook hands with the team and strode off, grumbling about bull-headed ATF agents. Larabee's team, all as bull-headed as their leader, picked up their packs and started out. Wellman turned back to watch them go and hoped like hell he would be buying them beers when this was over.
About the same time as Orrin Travis was falling asleep in the snowplough, Team 7 were putting mountain country behind them and making as much ground as they could before the next storm front hit. They ranged wide but stayed in visual and radio contact at all times and kept their eyes alert to any more unpleasant surprises. There were no more traps though and the team made it to the crest without mishap. Ezra had spotted the trucks in the distance, and Chris ordered the men to stand down while he and Vin had a better look.
"JD, got anything else outta that useless prick of hi-tech equipment yet?" Buck asked as he slipped his pack off his shoulders and knelt down on the ground to go through the pockets.
"Nothing since last time you asked, Buck," JD replied, dropping the equipment to the ground beside Wilmington and squatting down on his haunches to start playing with buttons and dials. He aimed a few choice curse words at the silent com-pack and was getting ready to apply more forceful attention to it when Josiah grabbed his arm and held it steady.
"Take a rest while you can, JD," the big man said. "We've still got plenty more miles and plenty more hours to go."
JD sighed with frustration and sat down on the ground with a soft thud, using his pack as a backrest. Buck handed him a piece of chocolate. As the rest of the team made themselves comfortable for the duration of the short break, JD took the chocolate and wished for something hot and in a mug instead.
Larabee and his men had stopped just short of a low crest in what was otherwise fairly level ground. The landscape looked like somebody had run across it with a hot iron, smoothing the mountains out into a wrinkle-free, almost seamless terrain. This area of the Gunnison was flat ground cut through with canyons - cracks and holes in the earth that disappeared beneath the fog of cold air.
Chris and Vin were high enough on the crest to have a clear view of the land before them. The sky above showed tiny patches of blue and the tree line was sparse. Visibility was good for eighty or so feet. At the edge of those eighty feet stood their quarry.
"This is turning into a habit," Chris muttered.
The two trucks were motionless and silent. Vin stared hard through his binoculars searching for some movement, some sign of life. All he could see was the occasional flap of a loose tarp in the wind. He spoke to Chris without diverting his eyes. "How many booms were there in the pass?"
Chris knew where the sharpshooter's words were going. "Five explosions and we disarmed another two."
"Reckon those trucks would even the numbers."
"Reckon you're right," Chris replied.
After the dead had been buried, after final words had been spoken over their collective grave, Josiah had proposed a tentative theory. Their boy's lucky number was seven. So many things could be grouped into numbers of seven that it had to be more than a coincidence. Even the pencils on his desk back at the base camp were grouped so. The number of men in his team was seven. The series of explosions were meant to equal seven.
Nathan had asked about the dead rangers at the camp. Josiah's reply had sent a chill through all of them. He isn't finished yet.
"He was watching," Chris turned to Vin. "The bastard was watching our men die."
Vin broke his fixed gaze through the binoculars to look at Chris. "Yep."
Chris settled back down the slope a few inches, relaxing while he could. "So what's your plan?"
Tanner dropped the binoculars and crouched down beside Larabee. "We're going into the explosives business," he said with a grin and began to outline the start of an idea.
Chris listened, nodding, and when Vin finished speaking, clapped him on the shoulder. "Sounds like a plan to me. Let's do it."
Vin and Chris shuffled back down the slope to rejoin the team and discuss strategy. The men had stopped eating and talking when the two returned wearing identical hard expressions and grim smiles on their faces. Each of the five felt the flutter of recognition and the answering smiles on their own faces as the plan was laid out before them.
Eleven
Ezra and Nathan snuck up as close to the trucks as they could without giving away their position. Keeping a wary distance, they settled in a clear area of ground and took their packs off, placing them in front to use as cover. Ezra checked the sites on both men's rifles while Nathan kept an eye on the trucks through his binoculars. He had a clear view into the cabins of both vehicles. Buck and JD had set up a similar position with a view down the side of one truck. Josiah was on the opposite side, his rifle resting against his pack, his binoculars trained on the undercarriage of the second truck. At the rear of the vehicles, Chris too was using his binoculars to search for signs of more trigger wire. "Call it in, boys. What do we have here?" Chris asked. His voice came in clear on the radio headsets.
"I've got one tail shaft ready to blow," Josiah replied. "And two seriously flat tyres."
"Yeah, we've got a truck masqueradin' as a Christmas tree. Don't think I like his choice of Christmas lights much though," Buck said.
"This end's clear, but the tarp's hooked up. Can't see a damn thing inside; makes a good place for a trap," Chris said. "What've you got, Nate? Ez?"
There was a moment of silence and then Nathan's voice, tired and gravely. "We've got two bodies sittin' pretty behind the wheel and another in the passenger seat of the truck on the left. Look about ready to drive off into the sunset, except for the fact that they're dead."
"He killed his own men?" JD asked, shocked.
"Loyalty wouldn't be a strong point with men like this," Josiah added.
"That's six," Chris said. One more to go. his thoughts turned instantly to Vin, out there alone. Had he already found the killer? The team leader was tempted to break the agreed radio silence to find out. Instead, he set the rest of the plan into motion. "Buck, you ready?"+ + + + + + +
The tree cover was sparse, but there were still enough stands of birch and aspen to provide cover for a lone man who knew how to use stealth in the wilderness. Three quarters of the way up the tallest tree in one particular stand of trees, the lone man was perched, his legs wrapped securely around a branch. He scanned the horizon both with and without his binoculars, looking for something out of place. The fierce winds of the day before had now dropped; the trees and bushes no longer snapped and swayed. All was quiet and still for the first time in days.
Vin Tanner frowned at the slash of steel grey sky highlighting the mountains back to the east. The next storm front was on its way - this windless space of time only a gap between hell and fury. Between Vin and the mountains stood the trucks. Vin used his binoculars to check the position of Team 7. Nathan and JD appeared to be arguing over who should approach the vehicles first. A few feet away, Ezra and Josiah were already walking, guns raised, toward the closest truck. The four men were out in the open and easily visible. Vin turned away and tracked the binoculars along the landscape, looking for movement where all else was still.+ + + + + + +
"How're you going with those wires?" Chris asked, separating a twist of wires with his fingers and poking the head of his wire cutters through the gap.
"It's like this," Buck replied. He lay beneath the truck with the two blown tyres and the rigged tail shaft and was sorting his way through a tangle of wires. Chris's voice was as clear as a bell in his ear. "I'm through the crap and I'm down to two wires, one red and one green."
Chris was in the rear of the other truck, surrounded by crates of ammunition and explosives. "Me too," he replied.
Both men kept their voices low and their breathing shallow. They'd removed their heavy coats to lessen the chance of snagging an unseen trip wire - Buck was using his as protection between his body and the frozen ground he was laying on. Temperatures were again dropping, but neither man felt the new cold.
"So, what do you think? What's your favourite colour?"
"Hell! I haven't got the faintest idea." Chris eased his fingers through the narrow gap to where the red and green wires directly inserted into a brick of C4. No fancy timer or detonation switch, just one pull on the trip wires and the whole lot would go. Basic Booms 101.
"Ezra and Josiah are getting close. I can hear their bullshit. You gotta call it, pard," Buck urged.
Chris inspected the two wires closely. Light was poor in the back of the truck, even with the safety light strapped to his head. What he really needed was another pair of hands. He licked his lips - they were salty from sweat. "Eeny meeny, miney moe... gree... No! It's both of them." Chris got as close to the wires as he could. "Follow the red and green wires back six inches. Mine are wrapped together with black cotton. What've you got?"
"Yep. I got the same deal. Reckon it's both?"
"Yes. Cut both. On my mark... One." Wire cutters were positioned over the red and green wires.
"Two." Buck closed his eyes and prayed.
"Three!"
The wires were cut simultaneously.
+ + + + + + +
Something moved. Vin tilted the binoculars back half a degree. The movement came again. Vin waited. The profile of a man appeared between two trees. "Gotcha," Vin whispered.
The man had his own binoculars fixed on the distant trucks, unconcerned with anything else. Vin examined the small group of trees the man was standing amongst, the half-grown bushes at his feet. The trees were atop a small, rocky knoll. Vin let his binoculars drop and brought his rifle up. He found his target again easily through the long-range scope - just a hand on binoculars visible now - and waited for a better shot.
Right about now. Vin visualised the plan being acted out. Ezra and Josiah should've reached the trucks. A flash of orange hair peeked out from between the tree. The man was swaying; intent on what he knew was about to happen. A little more... Vin clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as the figure disappeared back into the trees. He went back to the plan, Chris and Buck have disconnected the bombs and right about now. twin explosions boomed across the plateau, they've detonated the fuckers about thirty feet out.
The earth rumbled and the trees literally shook. Vin tightened his legs around the branch and braced himself against the trunk without taking his eye off the man with orange hair. The smell of fresh dirt and explosive reached him on the head of a new breeze, and he forced himself to stay focussed. The cloud of stained snow blocked any view of the trucks or the men that had been walking up to them, and Vin watched as his target stepped clear of the trees in his eagerness to see the damage. The sharpshooter's face was rigid with concentration. He pulled the trigger back.+ + + + + + +
"Damn! I don't wanna do that again anytime soon," Buck declared, wiping a layer of grime from his face. The skin around his eyes was white where sunglasses had protected them from flying debris. He slipped the glasses back onto his face and rested back against the rock he'd chosen for cover. Beside him JD and Nathan were peering over the top of the rock, trying to see into the smoke. Buck's headset had slipped from his head in his dive for safety seconds before the explosion. He re-adjusted it and called for a headcount.
Chris heard the men counting down and followed after Ezra and Josiah with his own distant, "One, safe."
The men stayed hidden, all waiting to hear the bark of Vin's rifle. They were rewarded with a muffled crack echoing across the plateau followed by an inhuman roar of fury and pain. Chris waited patiently for Vin to call in, not ready to release the tension of the last few days until he heard from the sharpshooter himself that the killer was down. A second shot was heard and Chris was up and pacing.
A few minutes later, Ezra and Josiah came trotting up from the far side of the trucks. Buck had already joined Chris, Nathan and JD right behind him. They were standing in the open, Chris now talking to Vin via the radio. He did not look happy. Ezra turned to Buck.
"Vin only winged him," Buck told him.
The men waited in silence for Chris to finish talking with Vin.
"Do not approach him without back-up, Tanner. I mean that. We have no idea what he'll do next." Chris paused, listening to Vin's laconic reply. "Keep in touch, Vin. Out."
Larabee turned to the men half-circled around him. "He's on the move and as pissed off as hell. Vin says he punched out a few trees and is headed in the direction of Black Canyon."
"What about the rest of his men?" Nathan asked.
Chris shook his head. "No sign of them. We'll spread out and look for tracks, see if they split up. JD and Ezra, I want you in the back of those trucks checking the inventory. Find out what's missing and what we might be up against."
The two men nodded and returned to the trucks, approaching cautiously, then pulling back the tarps to allow the light in and climbing into the rear.
"Vin's going to track the target," Chris told the rest of the men. "Black Canyon is south-west of here, so me and Buck will start searching for sign in that direction. Josiah and Nathan do an arc around the trucks to be sure there's no more surprises or bodies, then meet up with us. Once we've found the sign, we'll split up. Buck, JD and Nathan will go after the missing three men. Josiah and I will head toward Vin. With any luck, we'll all be heading in the same direction. Go!"+ + + + + + +
As soon as he'd taken the shot, Vin Tanner knew he'd missed. The man had ripped the binoculars from around his neck and thrown himself at the closest tree, unleashing a fury Tanner wouldn't have believed possible in a normal person. The bullet whistled harmlessly by the target's head as he smashed his forehead against the trunk. Vin took aim again, waited a bare second for his nerves to settle back down into calm, and fired. The target moved again, his face now bloodied where his forehead had connected with the tree, and began punching and kicking out at everything around him. Vin wasn't sure if the guy even noticed he'd been shot and checked again to make sure himself. There was a bright red spread of blood in the man's upper arm - the bullet had found its target the second time around, but it did nothing to slow him down. The furious man raged at the trees around him, at the men he hadn't killed, at the trucks that were not the smoking ruins they should have been. The bellow of fury when he realised he'd been tricked was followed by a stream of abuse and language that would have curled Vin's hair if he'd heard it.
Vin swung his rifle around to his back and began to climb down the tree. It was pointless trying to shoot a target that was perpetually moving and unpredictable. He'd have to get closer. Pulling out the binoculars again, he checked on his target. The trees were quiet, the man had left - Vin swept the binoculars around in a short curve away from the trees. A flash of movement and his target, still hitting out at trees and bushes, was on the move again. Vin radioed Chris and gave his report, promised not to get any closer than he had to, then headed off after the killer and Black Canyon.
The slight breeze was still nothing more than that, but the temperature had dropped noticeably and Vin shivered. He'd been to Black Canyon before, but that was in the summer when it was warm and the trail he'd been following was easy to see. The idea of traversing its rim in the cold and snow or attempting any of the hazardous trails down into the canyon when every footfall could be your last didn't sit well. Vin picked up his pace - maybe he could cut the killer off before they got there.
Twelve
It was late afternoon when Orrin Travis arrived at the base camp where Max Karr and the remainder of Team 2 continued to search for any information the gang of killers had left behind. By the clock, there should have been another hour of daylight at least, but the sky had long since lost any trace of blue as the second storm front pushed black clouds across the sky. Travis opened the side door to the vehicle's cabin and climbed down to the ground, trying not to think about the stiffness of his joints and the weariness that had settled over his body. Too old for this, he thought as his foot landed on the ground with a solid thud. He shuddered against the jarring and the chill and turned to Karr, hand outstretched.
"Sir," Max greeted, taking his superior's hand. "Let's get out of this weather."
The two men strode toward one of the tents the ATF team had commandeered for their own use, leaving the driver to unload bags of sand, salt and provisions. Lights were on in several of the shelters, including Raddick's office, but there was no other sign of the agents who had stayed behind with Karr.
"Bring me up to speed, Max," Orrin ordered as they entered the large tent and began removing their outer gear. "Any word yet on the other teams?"
"The back-up team you sent in to meet the men on the other side of the pass rendezvoused with Wellman, Morris, Canley and Vale as planned. My men guided them back to the blast site."
"And?" Travis was impatient to hear the rest of the report.
Karr walked across to a crate currently serving as a table and pulled a dog-eared notebook out from under a map covered in black circles and lines - marks Karr had made as he tracked the progress of ATF Teams 5 and 7and noted the position of the blasts. He passed the notebook across to Travis. It was opened at a page full of tightly written names, titles and service divisions. "We received a radio report from Todd Wellman just after they met with the back-up team."
Travis took the book. There were a lot of names on the page - too many.
"The pass was booby-trapped. Trip wire from one side of the pass to the other and including trails that followed along either side. There was a series of five explosions, Sir, with another two disarmed. These are the men that were killed."
Travis felt the weariness he'd been feeling in the snowplough invade his bones. "One whole ATF team plus FBI and two Rangers?" He read the names again; Josh Little - leader, ATF Team 5; Peter Nolan - ATF; Wayne Carter - FBI Special Agent; Jack Waters - U.S. Forest Service. "Oh, God," Travis mumbled, tearing his eyes from the damning list to find a chair. He suddenly needed to sit down very badly. "No injured? Only dead?" he asked looking up at Max Karr.
"Two with minor injuries, Tanner and Standish, not enough to stop them though. Larabee and his men have gone after the bastard, Sir. Refused to wait for back-up and ordered that no other agents follow them into the area." Max didn't add that Wellman had described Team 7 as resembling a wolf pack on the hunt or a pack of pit bulls with the taste of blood.
~ Take your pick, Max, but things are going to get bloody out at the canyons, and I don't think it'll be ATF blood being spilled this time, ~ Wellman had said.
Max had taken some satisfaction with that; there'd been too many good men killed already.
Travis was muttering to himself about Larabee and his men taking the law into their own hands, but he wasn't surprised and as he read through the names of the dead for the third time, a deadly smile turned up the corners of his mouth. Karr had thought Travis was looking a lot older since the last time he'd seen him - only three days previously. Now, he could see the hard man that Travis had been in his youth, the hard man he still was. Larabee and his men might be hounds on the hunt, but Travis was their handler and Karr could see why; Travis was as deadly as any of his hounds.
"What have you found down here?" Travis asked. He no longer felt quite so worn out.
"Not much. We've found a few papers hidden beneath the floor boards of the main shed." Karr handed a packet of papers across to the Assistant Director. "Identities of nine men, some of the names familiar. I suspect that the leader is none of those men."
"Why's that?" Travis asked.
"This morning, one of my men found a shallow grave. Three bodies, all shot through the head, execution style."
Orrin raised his eyebrows. "You going somewhere with this?"
Karr nodded. Wellman had passed on Josiah Sanchez's theory on lucky numbers and obsessive compulsions. "Apparently, their leader has a thing about the number seven. We've found evidence of it ourselves. He had too many men."
"So he killed three of them?"
Karr nodded. "Leaving six plus himself."
Travis looked disbelieving. Karr had seated himself on an upturned box while he talked. He now stood and reached for his coat. "We've got the bodies of the three rangers he murdered in the next tent, Sir. This guy's certifiable, believe me."
Travis stood to follow his agent out. He'd just buttoned his coat up when another agent came running over from the shed/office where Karr had set up the communications equipment. "Sir, we've got radio contact with Dunne. Team 7 has reached the Black Canyon."
Karr and Travis followed the agent back to the shed, walking in as Dunne's voice crackled over the radio.
"Three dead," Dunne was reporting. "Two more blasts on the plateau..." A burst of static came over the airwaves then Dunne's voice again. ".winged, but not down."
Travis leaned over the radio to speak into the transmitter. "Agent Dunne, this is Orrin Travis. Who is dead, son?"
"Sir, three men from the gang. Killed the same as the rangers back at the camp. We found the two trucks abandoned and rigged to blow. Chris and Buck disarmed the bombs and detonated them away from the vehicles to draw the leader out. Vin winged the guy, but he took off before we could take him down. Vin, Chris and Josiah are tracking him down. Out."
"You've split up?"
"Yes, Sir. The rest of us are trailing the other gang members. They're headed south down Black Canyon. Out."
"To the CIA safe house?"
"We believe so, Sir. Out."
"How are you holding up?"
"It's a walk in the park, Sir," Dunne replied. "A little cold."
"What's the latest from Larabee, JD?" Travis interrupted.
"Nothing, Sir. Haven't heard from them in about three hours." Static was again taking control of the radio reception and JD's voice was drowned out. "Buck and Ezra... out looking... nearly out of daylight... weather's turning again."
JD finally faded out completely, and Travis thumped the table in frustration. He glared at the radioman playing with the dials. "Get me Makin back in Coulee. I want to know what Larabee's men are walking into at that safe house." Turning back to Karr, he said, "From the inventory list of weapons these men had cached, what can be carried by three men in the snow across rough terrain and be used to destroy a house or take out a bunch of dignitaries?"
"Assorted small arms and explosives. Of the larger weapons, maybe one or two of the missiles. There was one Barrett M82 semi-auto. It's a long-range sniper rifle, fixed position. Heavy, but possible if they only take small arms as well."
"Try and re-establish contact with Dunne. Ask him what weapons were taken from the abandoned trucks."
Travis stood up and walked over to the empty chest of drawers, his face growing distant as he thought about Larabee, Tanner and Sanchez and the worsening conditions the team were caught in. Damn this weather! He looked at the chest, its drawers left open, some now missing completely. God, I need a cup of coffee. Travis moved away from the empty drawers. "Have you got any coffee in this fine establishment, Max? It's going to be another long night."
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