by Clay Martin
Next, Mike went to visit a friend in an industrial area in Sanford. One of North Carolina’s best-kept secrets, the manufacturing base kept the town alive. From chicken processing to brick yards, warehouses as far as the eye could see. Mr. Joshua owed Mike some deep favors, so burying a pallet of hardware at the back of his distribution center no questions asked was a cinch. If someone did come looking, they had 40,000 square feet to comb to find it. From a large PVC tube, Mike retrieved what he needed. It took most of two hours to scrub the Cosmoline off and return it to proper working order.
Shopping was next on the list. Ten spare fuel cans ensure he wouldn’t have to refill much, and wouldn’t look that out of place where he was headed. A handheld GPS, purchased in cash, from a Cabela’s, not one of the local tactical shops. In the off chance it was found, better to have a huge serial number list to sort through. This stop also afforded him the chance to pick up camouflaged clothing. He wanted to look like a hunter if he was spotted, not a soldier, which made most of his personal kit a no go. He opted for A-Tacs pattern, a nice blend of concealment and fitting a role. He bought out multiple Walmarts of Mountain House freeze dried meals, along with a new Jetboil stove.
Heading Northwest out of state, he stopped at the Low Moor sight in range in Covington, Virginia. He had resources back home, but didn’t want to risk anyone he knew sighting in the rifle. The Low Moor was a free range, provided by the Forest Service, and thankfully mostly empty as he arrived. His weapon was a little large for deer, and the report could garner unwanted attention. All shooters love the big bores. Happy with his preps, he continued to the North.
In Thief River Falls, Minnesota, Mike stopped to top off all of his fuel. Ten miles outside of town, he stopped for one last arrangement. His SAKO TRG M10 was originally designed as a switch barrel model, capable of changing calibers by the user. Considering its overall length, this was also very helpful in concealment. Pulling the barrel loose, he fit the pieces in the hollowed out rear seat. A special compartment he had built himself using expanding foam and a razor knife fit it snugly. It wouldn’t stand up to a full search, but it would pass cursory inspection. He had originally thought of using the top of the gas tank, but the concern of breaking a crucial piece on the long road ahead forced him to reconsider. His SIG P320 Compact he kept in an appendix carry rig. After his last road trip, he wasn’t straying far from a gun anymore, regardless of the situation. From Minnesota he crossed a logging road into Canada, the world’s largest unprotected border. Post 9/11 it had become a little bit harder to do, but far from impossible. Most of the checkpoints were on major highways. There was just too much empty space to bother securing all of it. There were so many crossing points in North Dakota and Montana, he wondered why they bothered at all. Just like door locks, mostly keeping honest people honest. Driving through Canada with his cargo was risky, but not terribly so. US plates were as common there as Canuck ones at home, no one was likely to suspect anything. Maybe a bit less so in the winter, but still plausible. The advantage was immense. The roads of the United States had become a veritable hornets nest of cameras and electronic tracking. You were still likely to slip through the cracks, but it was too easy to get unlucky. Canada was further behind, and also didn’t share things like that with US law enforcement routinely. Maybe in a nationwide manhunt, but he didn’t plan on letting things go that far.
A nervous drive across Canada took him to Medicine Hat on the first leg, and down toward a place called Creston the second. He had a moment of white-knuckle poker with a Mountie at Fort MacLeod, the officer manning a checkpoint to ensure he had chains. It took Mike a few minutes to realize the Canadians are just too friendly, he wasn’t being grilled for answers. In the weeks leading up to this, he had rehearsed a cover story to the smallest detail, just in case. Cover for action is a way of life. A confession of an unmanly fear of flying combined with a too good to be true oil patch job in Alaska did the trick. The admission of a phobia was designed to mask any nervousness he displayed, and the story to cover his cargo. He even had a card from the foreman in Prudho Bay, name taken from LinkedIn, and printed at a Raleigh Office Max. Details matter. The Mountie wished him the best without asking to see his passport.
From the Canada side, using the standalone GPS unit, Mike reentered the US into Idaho, moving in from the North. Just two miles away from his destination, he pulled off the highway. From Google Maps, he had selected a narrow ravine, unlikely to be used by hunters considering it proximity to the road. Not caring one bit for the paint job, he shoved the Bronco deep into a grove of pine saplings. The green sprouts popped back up in his wake, bending like grass. A camouflage net completed the illusion, and would cover him from the air if needed. Packing a ruck with his needed equipment, Mike prepared for three hard days. From a scrap of paper in the glove box, stowed in the middle of the owner’s manual, he plugged in the coordinates to his first target.
Tim was first, he was less likely to be missed. Mike found his trailer by the glowing porch light within a few hours. Keeping the front door in sight, he located a vantage point far enough away to avoid detection. Tim lived at the end of a dirt road, nearest neighbor a good half mile away. Perfect for what was in store. Pleased with his vantage point, Mike moved East away from it, following his feet downhill. Not long after, he found a thick nest of elderberry bushes with a downed Douglas fir. Caching his pack and heavier gear, beside the trunk, he removed his food stores. Those he hung in a bag from a tree fifty yards away. It wouldn’t do to have a bear ransack his stash at a time like this.
This set Mike with three locations. An observation point, a place for eating, and a harbor site. They were segregated to keep animal traffic to a minimum. Any food consumed was going to leave crumbs, even if too small for a human eye to notice. But mice, wolves, and birds wouldn’t miss the smell. Best to keep time spent there to the least possible. The harbor site was for sleeping, and only for sleeping. Under normal conditions he would never use one for more than twenty-four hours, but he reasoned he stood a better chance of being seen looking for a different one in these conditions. Besides, running recon on two targets by yourself is not exactly by the book. To help him in that regard, he had packed two high end trail camera’s. Carefully reading the owner’s manual to ensure he had any flashes disabled, Mike had preset the programs at home. He had also looked for them with the naked eye and NVGs, to make sure they didn’t emit a visible light at any point. The NVGs picked up the infrared lighting they used for night shots, but that was hardly a threat. Down to just his jacket, pistol, and a full topped off water bottle, Mike moved back to his observation point. Watching Tim’s house, he saw the television go off around 2 a.m., and the remaining light shortly after. Thirty minutes later, he crept down to emplace the camera. Adding natural vegetation with a small bungie cord, he set it to cover Tim’s front door.
The Sheriff was a more difficult target. Two miles from Tim, he lived in a suburb, homes set right next to one another. This was going to require most of the actual eyeball work. A short ridge overlooked the area, three streets between wilderness and front door. This had the effect of making the distance seem longer than it was, as well as making him near impossible to detect. The second trail camera went in on his own position. He wanted to know if it was frequented by any locals.
For the next three days, Mike spent most of his time observing Bob, taking breaks to check up on the electronic leash on Tim, and keep the batteries fresh in the camera. He took his sleep breaks when both were always out of the house, noon to seven. Three days wasn’t the best pattern of life indicator, but most humans are creatures of habit. Given his operational constraints, he was willing to gamble it. The pictures from Tim’s and the long hours at Bob’s gave Mike a window to complete both tasks in one night. Time to finish this.
Tim seemed to be low on visitors, no one else besides the mailman ever came near his house. He would leave for work around two in the afternoon and returned right after m
idnight. Mike waited until darkness fell, and moved to the rear of the trailer. A design that seems to never go out of style, single wide trailer houses are predictable. Front door on the right side, back door on the left side. Donning disposable gloves, Mike stopped at the back door. He listened for a while, making sure he hadn’t missed anyone inside. A dog would have also been bound to smell him and raise a racket, forcing him to make a plan B. Satisfied, Mike used his pick gun to defeat the doors deadbolt. Trailers don’t have the best of hardware; entry took him seconds. And considering the age and use of the doorknob, there was no way anyone would notice turning tool marks. Careful not to disturb anything, Mike checked the premises for stragglers anyway. It wouldn’t be a fun surprise to have Granny come out of the back room with a shotgun while he was saying hello to Tim.
The house was a disaster, beer cans and titty mags all over the living room floor. Mike was glad he didn’t have to sit in the lazy boy. On the end table next to it was a .44 magnum. Over the oven he found a hi point pistol, and a sawed-off shotgun in the bathroom. Timmy, it seemed, was still scared. Well, he should be. Mike stood watch at the front of the trailer, waiting on Tim’s return. Through a gap in the living room curtains, he could observe the driveway. If Tim was alone, game on. If he had miraculously found company, it was an easy slip out the backdoor before they got to the front. Not trusting a stun gun, Mike held a blackjack in his right hand. Sometimes, the old ways are the best. Just after midnight, headlights lit up the interior. A Honda Civic parked, and Tim exited alone, still uncertain on his fake leg. Serious downgrade from an F350 Mike thought, medical bills must’ve been pricey. He took some satisfaction in even that small victory. An audible thump echoed every time Tim’s prosthetic landed. Mike used the noise to get to the backside of the door. Tim paused at the top of the steps, keys in his left hand, .38-snub nose in his right.
Just like in the pictures the game camera had snapped, Tim pushed the door open and looked left, then right before he came in, covering the room with a wide sweep of the revolver. But like most people, he didn’t look far enough to the edge of the wall. Lesson one of CQB training, look deep before you commit. A man with a day of urban combat experience would have hugged one side of the door, flat to the aluminum siding, and then the other before making entry. Like the TSA in airports, Tim was mostly making himself feel better with a half assed solution. Satisfied, he stepped inside and reached for the light switch. As he did, Mike rained a crashing blow of the black jack onto his gun hand, forcing him to drop it. Radial nerve strikes work in theory, but crushing blunt force trauma to the thumb works in practice. Before he had time to process the damage, a follow up to the side of his head put him under. When Tim came to, he was zip tied to his recliner.
Mike needed him to know. Tim deserved it, after all the pain he had caused in the world. So he turned on a lamp, waited on Tim to wake up, and waited again for the recognition. “Time to pay for your sins,” Mike said, before he plunged a knife into his chest, opening him up like a Christmas turkey. He pulled his still beating heart from his chest, and held it up to his eyes before he expired. Tim dead, Mike set about carving the lat long of the old camp into his chest with an Xacto-blade. So much for subtlety. That would be pretty hard for whoever found him to ignore.
Under cover of night, he moved next to Sheriff Bob’s house. His observation point was 700 meters away, excellent line of sight, and covered egress routes. SAKO reassembled, he settled in to wait for the morning light. Mike didn’t want tracking him to be easy. Seven hundred meters is a lot of ground to cover looking for sign, or trying to get a dog on a trail. Right at 7:30, Bob walked out of his house, coffee cup in hand. The ever-faithful Sheriff, off to another day of protecting the townsfolk. Even after all this time, the hypocrisy of it made Mike nauseous. His range finder and ballistic computer had worked out his elevation hold with the first ray of dawn. Left to right wind, five mph, Mike made corrections in his head. Not that five mph was going to mean much to a 300 Norma Mag at this range. He corrected two tenths of a mil left as Bob presented a side quarter shot as he unlocked his car door. The rifle bucked, and Bob folded like he was hit by the fist of an angry God. His hip bone was shards, caught longways across its axis. The odds of him surviving that were near zero, but Mike didn’t come all this way to half ass it. The man needed to know he was dying, hence the hip shot. Mike hoped he had the presence of mind to know who did it. He decided to give him two minutes, to be sure. Bob clawed his service weapon free, propping himself up on one elbow. Tough old bastard, Mike thought. At least we have one fighter to the end. So he gave him another one in the chest to be sure. Gunfire wasn’t uncommon in the woods around here, but two shots supersonic through a neighborhood was still hard to miss. As a neighbor ran to the Sheriff’s side, Mike picked up his equipment. Warm brass in his pocket, he took off through the woods like all the forces of hell pursued him. Two hours, he figured, to get the word out and the road blocks up.
An hour and a half put him into Montana, eating up road into the Kootenai National Forest. Moving into the back country as far as a Bronco could go, he did the last thing a manhunt would ever assume in the winter. Having packed accordingly, he went to ground for two solid weeks. Camping out gave him lots of time to consider “what ifs”, but it was ultimately the safest bet. Even if it came to helicopters and high-level assets, ten square meters in a sea of wilderness is damn hard to spot. His Bronco stayed cold and under branch cover, making it virtually invisible to thermal imaging or aeriel spotting.
More than enough time spent for any pursuit to die out, Mike followed the same trail home. Even if someone did check cameras for his plates, Minnesota was a long way off to start. One local Sheriff wasn’t worth the effort of checking every CCTV tape in the nation, and two weeks after the fact was a long time to stay the course. A President or Supreme Court Justice maybe, but not some two-bit local.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Mike came back to the conversation as Agent Moore was wrapping up the Sheriff’s part.
“Bullet did so much damage, it looked like a car crash happened inside his chest. We initially thought 338 Lapua, but the forensics specified it as a 300 Norma Magnum. Pretty rare round, and that pointed us to military snipers. NC plate, Bragg and Lejuene both in the state, still a pretty big pool. We ran that list through the DMV for Black Ford Bronco’s, which returned a list of four. Two out of the country at the time, one a 19 year old from the 82nd Airborne that was on staff duty, and you.”
Mike still knew he had nothing to worry about. It hurt his poor boy heart, but the SAKO took a swim. An amphibious background gave him knowledge of the ocean, and he knew enough to go the eight miles out to get over the continental shelf in North Carolina. A long trip in a borrowed zodiac, but necessary. The ocean was deep out there, well past what a scuba diver could do, and besides the Atlantic here was dark. Those tools would be dust before the technology existed to find them. It had cost him all his reloading dies and brass too, but never too safe. The Dan Wesson 10mm had been melted to slag with a torch the year before. There were four bodies on that gun, not a souvenir worth hiding.
“So now I find you, and you seem to own, recently acquired, the two most inconspicuous vehicles on the road. Where exactly is your Bronco at Mr. Bryant?”
Good luck with that one too. It paid to have the kind of friends that didn’t ask questions. The Bronco had been drained of fluids on his return, and was currently buried in a pond over in Chatham County. Private property, it had been in a buddy’s family for 100 years. Grain of sand on a beach, figuratively speaking.
A junior agent called Moore out of the room, and from the look on his face it wasn’t good news. Nothing incriminating could be in Mike’s current possessions, because nothing from the op existed anymore. All told it had cost him about $25,000 to do, but that beat prison any day.
Moore was less than enthusiastic, his face said he knew he was beat. “It seems you own six rifles and ten handgun
s, not a one of them in 300 Norma or 10mm. How very convenient.”
Mike looked at him deadpan. Cards were on the table. “So, are we done here?”
Moore was exasperated, but completely out of options. “You’re a real asshole Mr. Bryant. I know you were in the area last year, a department 100 miles south ran your tags. We log that you know, out of state and all. But we both know that isn’t enough. Not for an indictment. And we aren’t stupid. As we started finding bodies, it was obvious the local boys planned on adding you to the tally. But a year later, and the goddamn Sheriff? That is some cold work. Premeditated as the day is long. This isn’t the Wild West, we don’t do frontier justice. No matter how dark things get. You can still clear your conscience. Cleanse your soul. We could probably get that charge down to third degree. With your history of service, we could call that crime of passion. Just tell me why you went back, why you didn’t call it in as soon as you could.”
Mike looked at the Agent like he had just escaped the asylum. Was he out of his fucking mind? Mike knew he was on a slippery slope. The best thing to do right now was walk out the door. They had all but admitted they didn’t have enough to charge him. But he couldn’t resist an object lesson. After all the blood and pain he had shouldered for this nation, he was owed somebody listening. For once. Maybe he could actually get through to this simple mother fucker.
“You by chance search the Sheriff’s property?”
Moore made a face like Mike had just pulled a quarter from behind his ear. After a moments pause, he answered. “Matter of fact I did. On a hunch, I took the cadaver dog over. We had to bring one in for the mess up on the mountain.”
