Everything that the team discovered, except for weapons and ammo, was placed on the dining table. The collected weapons were placed in a locked gun case John had obtained somewhere. No one discovered where John had gotten the gun case.
Ryce looked over the table. It was now stacked with seven composition books, three spiral notebooks, two ledgers, and the three back packs brought from the Suburban. Ryce chuckled as he read one of the ledgers. Haskins was keeping his people on a short leash. When an assignment was completed, only half of the contract was paid. When the next assignment was completed, the holdback from the previous assignment was paid, plus half of the new assignment. Ryce totaled up the holdbacks. Haskins had a slush fund of almost nine million dollars. Ryce wondered aloud if Haskins had a decent interest rate.
Tanya laid out the contents of the backpacks on the kitchen counter. There were no tags on the packs and no identification contained in any of them. Among the three packs, Tanya found only a side arm, two boxes of shells for an AK-47, a pair of gloves, three MREs, and a bag of tortilla strips. O2 suggested it was sinful to have a bag of strips and no salsa. Obviously, the three men had not intended to be on the trail for long.
The agents who had flown with Phil to the trailhead to pick up the bodies reported no identification on the bodies they had picked up. Photos taken of the three had been submitted to both Mark and Doug. Neither had reported any success after four hours. Ryce smiled. Perhaps his expectations were a little too high.
Ryce flipped through the border crossing record book. If the page numbering was correct, there were fifty-three pages in this notebook. Ryce did a quick mental calculation. With twenty entries per page, Haskins could have crossed the border one thousand and sixty times. Was that really possible?
Ryce returned to the first page of the notebook. Haskins’ initial border crossing had occurred in 2002. Ryce did a quick calculation on his smart phone. Perhaps it was not unreasonable for Haskins to cross the border sixty to eighty times a year. Ryce made a mental note to see if he could obtain access to a database of border crossings, if there was one.
As Ryce scanned the first four pages of the crossing book, he noticed that many of the names were duplicates. Ryce pulled a red pen from his pocket, considered the notebook for a moment, and replaced the pen in his pocket.
He looked over at Tanya, who was stretched out near the front passenger seat of the motor home checking under the dash with an LED flashlight. “Do you know where my laptop ended up? I know I brought it with me.”
Tanya laughed. “I thought you had your laptop on one of those wrist chains. I have never seen you without your laptop.”
She stood, and walked out of the motor home. Three minutes later, she returned, carrying two laptop cases.
As she opened her laptop, she smiled. “I have been thinking that there is a camera on my laptop, and maybe some pictures of this stuff would be good. Thank you for the idea.”
Ryce walked over to where she had deposited his laptop and pulled the laptop from the case. As soon as he had the computer running, he frowned.
“I must have been running this thing too long on the battery. I hope this motor home has a generator, or we run an extension cord from John’s party Hummer.”
After an hour of fiddling with the motor home’s generator, it magically started running.
Ryce began to build a master spreadsheet of the names of who crossed the border and how many times they crossed. Within an hour, Ryce had an answer to his question.
Only twenty-eight names were involved in the border crossings. A few of the names had crossed as many as fifty times. Sometimes they went into Canada, sometimes they came out. Ryce chuckled. He now had a new project. He could write a program to track the names, and when they crossed. Ryce chuckled. He had so much free time to fill.
Ryce compared the spreadsheet names with the nine names he had for the killers at the cabin. He scanned the list twice. He was astounded that none of the names of the border crossers corresponded to the names he had compiled for the killers. How could that be?
Tanya noticed that Ryce was sitting at the dining table with his doodle pad. She sat next to him and glanced at the pad. It was empty. She tested his forehead with the back of her hand.
“Doesn’t feel like a fever.”
The remark elicited a small smile from Ryce.
“I checked the border crossing records, but none of the names I had for the cabin killers showed up. And, we don’t have any identification for the three that killed Dianne. Yes, I know that four hours isn’t a fair test of Mark’s search program, but I guess I was hoping I’d get some answers.”
Tanya wrapped her arms around Ryce’s neck. “John has the bar-b-que fired up at the party Hummer. Let’s go grab a steak.”
As Ryce and Tanya exited the motor home, he noticed that several Montana Highway Patrol officers were keeping a close watch on it. Since the motor home was only two campsites from John’s party Hummer, Ryce could see more Montana officers were among those at John’s site.
John had moved several picnic tables to his campsite. The tables were occupied with agents Ryce recognized from the pursuit of Dianne. He and Tanya picked up trays, walked to the serving table, filled their trays, and found two empty seats.
John finished some details at the bar-b-que, walked over to where Ryce was sitting, sat down, and placed a set of keys on the table.
“Those keys fit one of the Hummers from O2’s precinct. Press the alarm fob until you find out which one. Ramona reserved some of the cabins here at the campground for those who are staying to investigate the motor home. The request you submitted to take the motor home to Idaho has been approved. Give me a call when you are done with the motor home. I have a company reserved to haul it back to Idaho.”
John paused to speak with one of the Montana officers and then turned back to Ryce.
“You have done very well. And, I got to play in my party Hummer for almost a week. I am driving back to Pendergast City tomorrow morning in a convoy of three. Phil is flying back in two days, or as soon as he can get the equipment we brought to Montana back into the BBJ. I think Phil is negotiating to keep a second Chinook. I hope it isn’t Puff the Mini-Dragon.”
John smiled at Tanya and then walked back to Marge near the bar-b-que. Ryce looked at Tanya.
“You’ll like the cabins here. I stayed in one for three days when they pulled me out after my first insertion at the cabin.
“That insertion was a nightmare. Matt was given the reins of the Great Falls office about two days before the GPS for the cabin showed up on the cell phone. He did not know anyone in Great Falls, and I had been in Billings only about a week.
“When I flew into Great Falls, Matt didn’t have anyone to pick me up at the airport. I was really glad you showed up at the airport.”
Tanya chuckled. “I was walking down the corridor and he grabbed me. I was glad to get out of the office for an hour. I had just had a big fight with Brian.”
Ryce smiled. “That was the first time we met. But, for less than an hour. And I remember you were really pissed. I was ultimately dropped off in the forest about five miles from the cabin. I wasted two days hiking around to get an idea of where I was. Three weeks later, I was told to terminate the observation.
“The retrieval team picked me up OK, but the van broke down about a quarter mile from here. I stayed in a cabin while Matt decided what assets he had to come get me. He didn’t have any.”
Ryce chuckled.
“The cabin was nice. The two agents that picked me up were not so nice. One quit the JBTF when Matt refused to send something to pick us up the first day. The other agent sliced two of the tires on the van. I was happy to sit around the cabin and think about you.”
Tanya looked closely at Ryce. “I didn’t know you were thinking about me then.”
Ryce pulled her close and kissed her. “I started thinking about you on the ride from the airport. Let’s go check into our cabin.”
Ryce had just gotten out of the shower when John stopped by to drop off a cooler of food left over from the bar-b-que.
“I do not know how long you plan to stay here, although Babb has a decent grocery store. O2 and Ramona are staying to help you investigate the motor home. They have their own transportation and half the food. See you in Idaho. Be safe.”
John turned, walked out to his Hummer, got in, and drove off, followed by four vehicles. Ryce chuckled and turned to Tanya.
“Didn’t he say he was going back in a convoy of three? There are five now.”
When Ryce finished getting dressed, he returned to the motor home and selected one of the payout notebooks. With the nine-name list of the cabin executioners, he began to scan each page. On the last line of page eight, he found one of the names from the cabin. Simon Caldwell had received $100,000.00 in 2003. Ryce’s shout of joy brought Tanya, O2, Ramona, and two Montana officers rushing to the dining area.
Ryce looked up. “Sorry. I just found something I had been looking for.”
The forensic search did not add any documents to the pile on the dining table until the second day. O2 noticed scratches in the vinyl floor near the refrigerator. One of the Montana officers provided tools to disconnect the propane line. When he moved the refrigerator, O2 found a compartment with three spiral notebooks. He also discovered he did not have to move the refrigerator. The notebooks could be accessed from the large compartment in the center of the motor home.
When Ryce picked up one of the new notebooks found under the refrigerator, he let out a soft, “Whoa, Nelly.”
A single name was listed on each page. On most of the pages, more than half of the page was filled with notes scribbled in two different hands. Names, addresses, loved ones, relatives, pet dogs, birthdays, favorite car. It appeared the Haskins had listed everything they knew about the people they had working for them. Tanya immediately dubbed them “The Biography Notebooks.”
The notebooks confirmed that Dianne was married to Grant, and they had three children. She had kept her maiden name. Although Haskins’ handwriting was sometimes hard to read, Ryce discovered Dianne’s birthday, favorite color, and her children’s names.
Ryce was absorbed in the biographies for almost a full day. Frank Redding and George Haskins were second cousins. George had started his criminal career as a car thief, but had branched out into human trafficking, gems, secret documents, and even forgeries.
Kathy Giles was George’s daughter. She had five children. According to a note Haskins had scribbled on her page, she was living in sin with Adam.
Tony Matlock was the brains behind the gang. He and George had met in a holding cell in some backwater jail in New Bloomfield, Missouri. Tony had just killed his wife, and George had stolen an unmarked police cruiser.
Andrew and Gregory Lyste were cousins of Tony Matlock, and big-time smugglers who were moving drugs, money, and humans in and out of Vietnam.
They had started small before the fall of Saigon. A South Vietnamese general wanted to get a junk filled with American money out of Bien Hoa. The convoy was attacked, the Lyste brothers commandeered the junk and sailed it to Cambodia, which was a little friendlier to Americans. They now had several million dollars of untraceable money, and everyone thought they were dead. They contacted Tony, who was stationed in Cambodia. Tony provided new documents at a fair price, and Andrew and Gregory sailed the junk to Hong Kong and sold it.
Haskins treated the nine names used by the executioners at the cabin as individual identities. He apparently was not aware of who he was dealing with. According to Haskins, Farley Westfall was the mastermind behind the identity alterations. Under Farley’s name, Haskins had written “If you need good papers, Farley can do it.”
Ryce was still puzzled as to why the Lyste brothers and Matlock were at the cabin until he looked at a second notebook from the refrigerator. Mable and George had kept a daily diary of everything they had done.
Gregory, Andrew, and Tony were at the cabin to keep an eye on a side smuggling operation they had started. To make things look legal, they had applied for a packer’s permit for the park. Using an assembly area outside the park, they could load up their animals, enter the park, and follow the trail over the border. Unfortunately, the paperwork associated with the application was in a delay pattern. According to the diary, the packing permit was on a ninety-day approval track. If nothing came up to un-track the permit, the three at the cabin had about a week before they could go into full operation.
Ryce searched the diary notebooks for details about the smuggling operation, but found nothing. Did they have merchandise ready to move over the border? Where was the assembly area? Were there numerous pack animals abandoned somewhere in Montana? Ryce doodled a note to check with the park service. Perhaps the trio used a name on the master list to apply for the permit.
Mable Haskins was still squawking that the laptops needed to be brought to her long after she was placed in a Montana Highway Patrol cruiser. Her next destination would be the evaluation ward of the University of Montana Medical Center. She lived out her remaining months in a locked room with padded walls.
George Haskins’ body was transferred to the Chinook helicopter piloted by Phil and flown to a mortuary in Great Falls. An announcement was placed in the local newspaper and three large regional newspapers, but no one ever claimed the body. John had the body shipped to the Ranch, and George Haskins was interred in the Pendergast Ranch Boot Hill. A year later, John did the same for Mable Haskins.
John was later asked why he had gone the extra mile for two people he did not even know.
John thought for several minutes. “My grandfather used to say that everyone deserved a good chunk of land to be buried in.”
During Tanya’s search under the dash of the motor home, she found a small notebook. It contained a list of seventeen overseas bank accounts, the numbers and locations of thirty-five bank boxes in nine states, and a key. The key opened the box that contained the other thirty-four keys.
When Ryce showed O2 the notebook, O2 laughed.
“You won’t get much out of the overseas banks, but you have the keys to the safe-deposit boxes. Take Tanya on a long road trip and collect what is in the boxes.”
On the third day, Ryce collected the notebooks and placed them in a fireproof safe for the flight back to Idaho, where they were given to Mark. It took five days to scan every page of every book and email everything to the Annex. Of the sixty-five adult names listed in the biography notebook, fifty-nine were eventually rounded up or were determined to be dead. The six extra names of the killers at the cabin never showed up in any database and were eventually considered fictitious.
Three weeks after the shootout at the trailhead, Dennis Blaine was picked up as he was attempting to cross at the International Falls, MN, border crossing. He was trying to return to the U.S. When the Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents interviewed him, he said he was coming back for Samuel Karrigan’s funeral. Dennis was a little vague about where Samuel was going to be buried. He was also confused about when Samuel supposedly died. He was placed in protective custody.
Ryce, Tanya, O2, and Ramona confiscated the Suburban and the travel trailer a week after they returned to Great Falls and drove to the cabin. More than half of the structure had burned in the explosion, and the area was strung with yellow caution tape.
Ryce didn’t stop at the cabin. His focus was the lake. When he had led his team past the lake almost a lifetime ago, he had seen several fish jumping. He still had a small block of salt pork, and those fish looked like they were really hungry.
Epilogue
Six months after the gunfight at the Milburn Mine trailhead, a Yellow Cab stopped in front of the main entrance of the FBI office in Grand Forks. Frank Redding was assisted out of the cab, wheeled into the office with a laptop, and asked to speak to Jack Taylor.
Over the next two days, Frank answered questions eight hours a day. What was his relationship to the Haskins? Frank ad
mitted that George Haskins was his second cousin. Why did Dianne steal the laptops from the Pentagon? Dianne was a co-investor in an office complex in Grand Forks. She, along with Frank and Glenn, had lost millions when their investment failed. Dianne was hoping she could make enough money to live well for a few years. What was Glenn’s part in the thefts? Glenn had no knowledge of the theft. Why was he carrying a laptop? Frank replied that it was his personal laptop. He had forgotten it at the Pentagon when he retired three years earlier. He was notified when he received the invitation to the award ceremony that he could retrieve it. He flipped it open, logged in, and showed everyone that it had not been used for three years. It was still running Windows Me.
When asked if he had received any money from the Pentagon laptop thefts, Frank pulled several pages from his laptop case and handed them to Jack.
“These are my tax returns and financial statements for the past ten years. As you can easily see, I am personally about three million dollars in debt. My Army pension does not even pay the interest and penalties on the loans. My house has been repossessed, my car has been repossessed, and even my teeth have been repossessed. I can ride around on the bus when I have enough money for the token. I am now living at the Men’s Benevolent Center.
“Mr. Taylor, I was informed by my doctor yesterday that I have perhaps twelve months to live. I would like to spend those months in a federal prison. You guys serve better food than what I get at the Men’s Center.”
About the Author
R. Clint Peters (Ron) was born in 1948 in a small town in central Washington State. Many people will not recognize him as R. Clint Peters, which is his pen name. Most people will know him as Ron Peters.
The Alberta Connection Page 25
