Wind River Undercover

by Lindsay McKenna

  The truck suddenly lurched to a stop.

  Breathing rapidly, Gabe put down the window on his side. He wanted to hear what happened as the vehicle came past them or if it suddenly braked and turned around after spotting them.

  Jesus, protect us, protect us. Don’t let us be seen . . . he prayed.

  “Everyone down. Here they come!” he yelled, ducking down.

  Elisha hit the floorboards, his tall, lean body bent into a pretzel shape of sorts, his hands over his head.

  Anna lay down on the seat, continuing to speak, giving life-and-death info on what could happen to them. She didn’t have time to pray.

  It had happened so fast!

  Gabe heard a truck screaming by, water thrown up in huge veils.

  “They didn’t see us!” Anna cried, peeking out the rear window. “They’re still heading out toward the parking lot area!”

  Elisha sat up, twisting around, his eyes huge with relief.

  “Hang on!” Gabe shouted. “Now, we gotta get out of this ditch!” Could they do it? Would they get stuck and become a target of opportunity?

  Anna grabbed the door handle and held on. The seat belt bit deeply into her body as Gabe gunned the truck. It roared and raced down the center of the ditch, and then Gabe expertly turned the wheel just enough to climb up that weedy, slippery ditch wall.

  The truck growled. It lurched upward. The water in the ditch was minimal. She heard mud slamming into the bottom of the truck as the tires spun and screamed. The pickup clawed and roared its way out of the ditch.

  They were out! They were free!

  Gabe switched on the headlights, the beams shooting outward, revealing the gleaming asphalt highway ahead of them. He stomped on the accelerator.

  Anna gave a little cry of relief and told the dispatcher what had just happened. Looking at her watch, she saw they were five miles from Highway 89. From there, it was a straight shot north, sixty miles, to reach Wind River.

  “Oh!” Elisha croaked, his voice tearful. “You did it! You did it! We’re home free! Drive fast, Gabe! Real fast! Once Kaen reaches the parking lot and finds your truck gone, he’s gonna put it together. He’ll come racing down this highway at a hundred miles an hour, trying to find you two.”

  “Does he know my truck color?” Gabe demanded.

  “Oh, yeah,” Elisha said, wiping tears of relief out of his eyes. “He misses nothing.”

  “Well,” Gabe growled, “he just missed us in the ditch, didn’t he? So much for his stunning ability.”

  Anna signed off. She leaned forward. Gabe was a damned good driver. She saw the speed was seventy miles an hour. On a wet surface like this? That was dangerous and the truck could hydroplane, but they had no choice.

  “Kaen will drive like the devil’s on his tail,” Elisha warned, looking back, his voice heavy with terror.

  “He’s gotta find us first,” Gabe countered grimly, gritting his teeth.

  They raced by their ranch and the Elson homestead. Ace would be much safer in the barn, than in this truck. In a matter of minutes, they were at the stop sign. Gabe slowed down, but he didn’t stop. Highway 89 rarely had night traffic on it. Tourists drove during the day and stayed in nice hotels at night. They weren’t out on a night like this. He doubted they’d meet anyone on this road for those fifty miles. The valley shut down at sunset.

  Anna signed off. She pulled herself forward, leaning between the seats and leaving the radio beside her on in case there was a call back from the dispatcher. Raising her voice over the racket of the rain hitting the truck and the sound of water beneath the tires, she said, “Sarah is alerting DEA, ATF, plus the FBI. They all have to come out of Salt Lake City.”

  “That’s hours away,” Gabe gritted out, fighting the wheel and the rain-slick road.

  “I know. Sarah is calling in the SWAT team from the Teton County Sheriff ’s Department north of us. There’s thunderstorms all over the area and it’s going to be like this most of the night, she said. They can’t use their helicopter because the weather has too many dangerous conditions.”

  “SWAT will come in their van?” Gabe demanded.

  “Yes. All twelve of them will. The Teton Department is emptying out all their deputies on duty and they’re calling in others to replace them. Sarah is doing the same thing in our county. Between them, they have eighteen deputies and they’ll all be armed for combat.”

  “How soon?” Gabe demanded, his heart beating hard in his chest.

  “Sarah is leaving with her five cruisers in”—she looked at her watch—“ten minutes.”

  “We’ve got a long way to go before they reach us,” Gabe said in warning. So much could happen in that space of time.

  “Best that can be done,” Anna said apologetically.

  “What about Jose and his men at Harley?” Gabe asked.

  “Sarah is sending the SWAT team to apprehend them.”

  “That’s a good plan, but that bastard will fight back tooth, hammer, and tong.”

  She grimaced. “That’s what I told Sarah over the radio.”

  “Sarah has AR-15s, right?”

  “Yes. But no armor-piercing rounds.”

  “Well,” Elisha broke in, panicked, “Jose and his men sure do!”

  “I’ll call Sarah right now and let them know. They only have Level 2 Kevlar vests.”

  “Hell, they need Level 4 with those thick ceramic plates to stop a round like that!” Gabe said. “SWAT will get cut to pieces as it is!”

  “All I can do is call the dispatcher to warn them about the situation. Hold on,” she said, picking up the radio.

  “Jose won’t go down without a fight,” Elisha warned them. “He’s a cold-blooded killer . . .”

  “I know the type,” she said, returning her attention to the radio. In moments, the info was sent. Anna turned off the radio, her heart aching. Oh, Dios, Jesus, and Lady Guadalupe, protect everyone, everyone! How soon would Kaen realize that Elisha had gone with them? How soon? This was FUBAR. A hot mess. She loved Gabe! Would they get out of this alive? The only one who was safe was Ace, in the barn. And she knew Maud would come and get him tomorrow morning. Anna didn’t know how this was going to end. Now, her heart was beginning to pound because she had absolutely no control over their outcome.

  She noticed a second thunderstorm coming their way, west of them. They were going to hit it, too. Damn! Gabe would have to slow down. She kept turning, looking for headlights behind them. So far, nothing.

  “Is it like Kaen to go look for you if you were missing?” Anna asked Elisha.

  He turned. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t. He’s heartless, Anna. He doesn’t feel anything anymore. He’s got orders from Jose to find and kill you two. If I don’t show up? He may think I’m dead somewhere on that hill and take off without me.”

  “Might he yell for you once they get there?” Anna asked urgently.

  “Probably . . . maybe . . . I dunno. I’m sorry, I don’t know . . . I wish I did.”

  Gabe shouted, “Headlights behind us!”

  Anna instantly turned around and looked. She saw the headlights at least two miles away on the long stretch of highway.

  Elisha made a strangled sound, watching through the rear window of the truck. “It’s gotta be Kaen,” he choked. “No one is out driving in this stuff.”

  “Roger that,” Anna said. She picked up the radio, giving the dispatcher the new information.

  “ARs become dangerous at five hundred yards,” Gabe warned them. That was fifteen hundred feet and one of those bullets could hit them. “That’s roughly three-tenths of a mile.”

  “And that’s when they can start putting armor-piercing rounds into our truck,” Anna told Elisha.

  “What kind of firepower do you have?” Elisha demanded, his voice strained.

  “Two Glocks,” Anna told him. “We lose accuracy at seventy-five feet. It’s like bringing a water pistol to a military combat fight. A Glock will never outshoot an AR-15.”

  E
lisha made an incoherent sound, his eyes growing huge with terror.

  “All we have is our speed and a damned good bit of luck,” Gabe growled. He pointed to the thunderstorm off to the left of them, still over the Wilson range of mountains. “The water is diminishing on the highway now. If we can outrun this storm, we’ll have dry pavement and that means I can push this truck to its limit.”

  Ifs, so many ifs. Anna nodded, watching the headlights behind them. “That has to be Kaen.”

  “Is he gaining?” Elisha squeaked.

  “I don’t think so. The water on the highway is worse in his area.”

  “What kind of truck is he driving, Elisha?” Gabe asked, pressing down on the accelerator.

  “It’s a 2004 super cab Nissan Frontier.”

  “And this is a Dodge Ram three-quarter ton, a 2017,” Gabe said. “I’m just wondering about speed. Anna? Can you see if your iPhone can connect with the cell tower? I don’t know how close we are to it yet. If you can? Find out top speed on a Nissan truck versus our truck.”

  “On it,” she muttered, pulling out her cell phone. Please let us be within the cell tower reach. She pressed the phone on. Waiting was excruciating.

  “We’ve got connection!” she crowed, excitement in her voice.

  “Good!” Gabe muttered.

  She quickly went and typed in the question. A lot of information popped up. “They’re not giving miles per hour, just engine torque,” she muttered.

  “You have a 2004 pickup truck versus a three-year-old Dodge Ram,” Gabe said. “There’s no question torque is on the Ram’s side of this argument. We can probably outrun them, but not by much. We just need to keep that distance far enough so that their AR-15s aren’t accurate.”

  “Roger that,” Anna muttered.

  “Kaen musta hit that parking lot, figured it out, and turned around. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have gotten near us so fast,” Elisha squeaked.

  “And he has to be driving like the devil,” Anna muttered.

  “There’s other criteria,” Gabe said. “How much gas does Kaen have in that pickup? Do you know, Elisha?”

  Shaking his head, he said, “No . . . I don’t. Kaen always drove. He never trusted me to drive.”

  “We’ve got a full tank and that will get us to Wind River, no problem.”

  “All I want to do is meet Sarah on the highway between here and there,” Anna said.

  “Stay in touch with her?” Gabe asked.

  “I’m going to try calling her in her cruiser. I know her cell number.”

  “Call her,” Gabe rasped.

  “Roger that,” she promised.

  “Elisha? You keep watch on if Kaen looks like he’s gaining on us,” Gabe said. “I’m hitting top speed in this Ram. The highway is almost dry.”

  Anna glanced out the window toward the Wilson range on her left. “We need to beat that storm coming at us, Gabe.”

  “Yeah,” he muttered, shaking his head, “I know.” Because he couldn’t go over a hundred miles an hour on the wet road. That would be deadly for all of them. But would Kaen do it? Gabe thought he would.

  Elisha turned, watching out the back window. “It doesn’t look like he’s gained.”

  “Good. Let’s hope that 2004 Nissan is low on fuel, too,” Gabe said. He heard Anna speaking directly with Sarah, but couldn’t make out the conversation. Relief flooded him momentarily. Just having phone and radio contact was going to help. But it wasn’t going to stop Kaen from trying to outrace them. He heard Anna give a yip. Forcing himself to keep his eyes on the road ahead, praying that no deer would cross in front of them, he wondered what that yip meant. Was it bad news? So far, they had nothing but bad luck except for dodging Kaen on that back road.

  “Hey,” Anna gasped, leaning between them after she got off the phone, “there were some Army Black Hawk DAP helicopters that landed at the Jackson Hole Airport last night. They were on a combat flight mission. Sarah called the FBI before she left to find out if any military planes or helos were in the area.” Her voice grew excited. “There’s four Black Hawks spooling up right now. DAPs can fly in ANY weather, and they’re going to take off in the next five minutes. Sarah has asked two of them to escort the SWAT team to Harley where Jose and his men are holed up in that motel. The other two are coming our way. They already know the situation because the dispatcher has patched in the commander of the group with them. There are two of them coming down toward us and they’re going to try to intercept Kaen and his men before they reach us. They have our GPS position.”

  “If the vehicle is Kaen’s,” Gabe warned. “It could be another innocent civilian. They need to confirm it before they do anything. I don’t want any collateral damage.”

  “I know. I told them that. They won’t do anything until the identification is solid. They don’t want civilians killed in this fracas, either.”

  “What’s a DAP, Gabe?” Elisha asked.

  “It’s a Black Hawk helo version MH-60L. DAP stands for Direct Action Penetrator. In other words, it’s a combat helicopter armed to the teeth with guns, the Hellfire missile, and rockets. It’s combat ready in every possible way.”

  “They’re gonna fly with storms all around us?” Elisha demanded, disbelief in his voice.

  “DAPs fly in damned near anything,” Gabe told him. “Right now, we’re between storms. That means these helos, which are fast and lethal, can probably reach us before that storm on our left hits this immediate area.”

  “What will they do?” Elisha asked.

  “If they are able to ID that it’s Kaen and those soldiers?” Anna said. “Sarah gave the commander orders to try to take them all alive.”

  “I know the plate number on the truck,” Elisha said, and he gave it to Anna, who then reported it in to the DAP commander.

  “Once they confirm that license plate on Kaen’s truck, that will ensure no casualties by mistake,” Gabe said, giving him a tight grin. He’d seen DAPs at work and their lethality.

  “I’m now linked up with the flight commander, Captain Dunaway,” Anna told them. “Anything I say to dispatch will automatically be fed to the Army DAPs as well as to Sheriff Sarah Carter in her cruiser, as well as to the SWAT commander.”

  “It’s important we’re all on the same page,” Gabe agreed.

  “Hold on . . .” Anna said, and sat back, her phone to her ear, listening hard.

  Gabe held his breath. This was good news! DAPs were bristling with armament of every type. They even carried the lethal Hellfire missile! He wasn’t sure what these birds were carrying, but at a minimum, he knew they’d have .50 caliber machine guns and that would be enough right there to blow Kaen and his men away in that truck in short, efficient order. Elisha had no military background, so he was perplexed by what a DAP could do. Gabe didn’t want him worrying about Kaen’s life. If Kaen were smart and if it was him following them? The moment those two Black Hawks appeared out of the night and made themselves known to him, he’d stop his truck, get out, and hold up his hands and surrender.

  Would he?

  Gabe wasn’t sure.

  “Do the headlights look closer?” he prodded Elisha.

  “Yes, it looks like they’re gaining on us.”

  “Because the pavement is drier where they are now,” Gabe said, his hands tightening on the wheel, his focus only on the road in front of them.

  “Oh . . . well, yes, that’d make sense,” Elisha said. “They do look closer, Gabe.”

  He heard the terror leaking into Elisha’s voice. “How much closer?”

  “Well . . . uh . . . I can’t estimate . . .”

  Anna turned. She gasped. “Oh hell, Gabe! He’s a MILE away from us!”

  Elisha sucked in an inarticulate gasp.

  “One mile?” Gabe gritted out, disbelief in his tone.

  “Yeah. I’m used to estimating because I’m a sniper. You can count on my accuracy. We have a mile sitting between us.”

  “How the hell can that little Nissan go that fast?”
he muttered.

  Anna sat up on her knees, facing the rear window. “Damned if I know, but he’s coming at us like the hounds of hell!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Anna didn’t want to die. The specter hung over her as they raced at over a hundred miles an hour in a truck roaring down Highway 89. She saw the terror in Elisha’s shadowy face as he was riveted to the rear window, watching those headlights inching closer and closer to them. How must he be feeling knowing it was probably his brother behind them and Kaen was intent on murdering not only them, but Elisha himself?

  She had had so many moments like this, when time seemed to be suspended as she hid in the trees of the jungle to avoid the drug runners hunting for her. Watching them pass beneath her, barely breathing, Anna would remain still and unmoving. And the sense of delicious relief once they’d passed her hiding place, moving on, disappearing into the green of the moist, humid Guatemalan jungle, would nearly overwhelm her. Life was so precious.

  It was a moment like this when she didn’t know whether she was going to live or die. Her gaze moved to Gabe. The pressure on him. The responsibility for all their lives in his hands in this haunting moment. His focus was solely on his driving and what the headlights shattering the darkness of the highway ahead of them would reveal. At this time, Anna knew all nocturnal animals were active, eating, foraging, and hunting. If only they would not stray onto this highway, a deadly barrier to them as they raced down the asphalt road. It would mean instant death for all of them if they hit a deer or elk.

  Life was such a fragile thing. And right now, she didn’t know from one second to another if they would be destroyed in such an accident. No one could penetrate the blackness outside of the vehicle.

  Anna tried to set aside her love for Gabe. Would it ever see fruition? Or end up shattered somewhere up ahead on this highway? Life was so cruel and unforgiving. Her father had been taken out of her life like someone blowing out a candle’s flame. No warning. No . . . nothing.

  And it could happen again . . .

  Just then, her radio came alive. Instantly, she answered the call.

  “Gabe,” she called after she signed off, “the DAPs are going to be here in five minutes!” She swallowed convulsively, her voice hoarse. “Five minutes . . .” A lifetime . . .