by Mark Donovan
A short time later he stood up from the sofa and walked to his private office, his eyes looking wild, his breathing still ragged. He had much more work to do. Misha, lay sprawled out on the sofa, her clothing stripped from her, and her body bleeding and in agonizing pain, simply stared vacuously at the ceiling clinging to life.
Chapter 10 (April 13, Thursday 6:00am, Alaska)
Exhaust vapor filled the cold early morning air as the small recovery team stood in a tight circle near their idling snow machines. All of the men were wearing white Polartec fleece parkas and overall bibs, their coat hoods pulled tightly over their heads. They were huddled around Chief Davis who was giving final instructions to his team on their mission to the Cessna 206 crash site. Steam rose silently in the still air from the circle of men as they listened intently to the Chief’s last minute directives.
The recovery team consisted of Davis, three Border Patrol Special Ops agents, and Dave and Ron. Dave had convinced Chief Davis that the two of them should participate in the recovery mission since it had been their Hunter-Falcons that had actually located the wreckage. Davis had agreed to his request under the conditions that the two of them would not interfere with the recovery efforts and stay out of the way if they came across the four men observed in the restricted area the day before.
The forty kilometers distance to the crash site was rugged mountainous terrain and heavily forested. Deep snow also still blanketed the ground. In some cases, the snow was several feet thick. Consequently the team made slow but steady progress through the early morning hours. However, as the morning advanced the mountain terrain became steeper and rockier. As a result, the team had to work their way around exposed rock outcroppings that were bare of snow and too bony to drive their snow machines over. It was during their third detour around a massive rock outcropping that they stumbled upon a fresh snow machine trail. Chief Davis who was leading the team raised his hand to signal the rest to stop and shut off their machines. After turning off the engine, Chief Davis stood up on his snow machine. With all of the snow machines and men silent he removed the hood from his fleece parka and listened intently in the cold silent air. There was a complete and muffled silence due to the snow covered ground. Even the trees were silent in the still mid-morning air. After listening for nearly a minute, Chief Davis got off his machine and walked back to the man behind him. The other men dismounted their machines and approached the Chief.
“We appear to have stumbled upon the trail of the men we saw last night,” said Davis quietly to his team. “The trail appears to be going in a direction that is consistent with the location of the downed aircraft.”
“Do you think they know where the aircraft is?” asked one of the agents.
“It would seem that might be a possibility,” responded the Chief, as he looked back at the snow machine trail fading off into the forest.
Dave spoke up. “The man who was transporting the vial may have also been carrying a specialized transmitter beacon. A signal beacon that we may not have been able to detect, but that his friends most probably can.”
“Well if that’s the case,” responded the agent, “then they might have already made it to the crash scene and recovered the evidence.”
“Based on the conditions of their trail I don’t think they are too far ahead of us,” responded Chief Davis. “Their trail hasn’t yet crusted over. The crash site is also only eight kilometers away.”
“And even if they’ve already made it to the crash site, they may not have yet recovered what they’re looking for,” chimed in Ron.
“So how do we proceed?” another agent asked.
Chief Davis thought quietly for a moment before speaking. “We will proceed ahead at full speed on the snow machines. If we do not catch up to them within two kilometers of the crash site, we’ll hump the remaining distance in. Their packed down snow machine trail will enable us to walk fairly easily. Either way we’ll probably meet up with them. They’ll either still be at the crash site when we get there, with the element of surprise on our side, or we’ll hear their snow machines coming as they work their way back down this trail. One way or the other we will most likely have a confrontation.”
Chief Davis looked over at his second in command. “Give each of these two a sidearm for defensive purposes,” ordered Davis as he looked over at Dave and Ron. “Do the two of you know how to handle a weapon?” asked Davis dryly.
“Yes sir, we’re both experienced with long guns and handguns,” replied Dave with a smile and a tip of his head towards Ron. “Mr. Blackwell here became an expert hunter and marksman after moving to McCall, Idaho.”
“Excellent. However, the guns you‘re being provided with are for defending yourself, and not for hunting. Do the two of you clearly understand me?” asked the Chief.
“Yes we do,” responded Ron tersely. “Loud and clear.”
“If we stumble upon these men, the two of you are to sit back and stay out of the way. My men and I will make any offensive moves if necessary.”
The Chief turned and began to walk back to his snow machine, while his second in command handed Dave and Ron each a 9mm Beretta sidearm.
The other agents mounted their snow machines and fired them up. Immediately the agents pressed forward again on the trail, with the Chief in the lead. Dave and Ron quickly stowed their weapons, started up their machines and then gunned them to catch up with the agents.
When they reached the two kilometer distance mark to the crash scene the Chief brought his snow machine to a halt and raised his hand, motioning for everyone to cut their engines. They had yet to stumble upon the intruders. The team dismounted their snow machines and two minutes later they were humping it on foot at a brisk, but silent pace, on the snow packed trail. Dave and Ron brought up the rear of the team, not only by design, but from their own sheer physical struggle to keep pace with the younger and fitter men.
“Damn, these guys are going to kill me,” gasped Ron as he jogged to keep up with Davis and his men. “I haven’t exercised like this since I was playing college ball. How in the Sam hell can that old man be that fit?”
“Did you see the Chief with his coat off?” asked Dave. “He’s built like a battleship, but with the lines and speed of a destroyer. He’s lean and mean and most definitely a type-A personality.”
“Well I hope he doesn’t kill us before we get to the aircraft,” gasped Ron between breaths as he continued to run alongside Dave.
Fifteen minutes later the entire team stood silently in a semicircle around Chief Davis. The Chief was pointing through the trees to a slight clearing on the side of a mountain ridge. Ahead, less than two hundred meters from them, were the four black snow machines they had seen the previous day. And three of the men who were riding them were congregated around the rumpled remains of the aft portion of the downed Cessna 206. One was holding a small hand held piece of equipment and barking orders in a foreign language, while the other two men worked feverishly with small snow shovels removing the snow from around the severely damaged tail section of the aircraft. All of them were covered head to toe in winter clothing so it was impossible to get a read on their physical appearances.
Chief Davis quickly mapped out a plan for the team. One of his men would flank the intruders on the left hand side, and another on the right. “When you are in position you will radio me. At that point I will go out into the clearing and engage the intruders.” Davis pointed to his final team member. “You’ll sit back and cover my rear, and Dave and Ron will not leave your side. Do all of you understand my orders clearly?” asked Davis.
All of the men nodded their heads silently. However, Dave spoke up.
“What about the fourth guy?”
The Chief took a sharp glance in Dave’s direction and responded tersely. “He’s either standing off in the woods keeping an eye out for us, or he’s investigating another piece of the plane wreck beyond our field of view. In either case, we should all be alert for him.”
The two age
nts moved out, one silently moving forward and off to the left and the other to the right. Several minutes went by before the first agent called in over the radio and indicated he was in position with a clear view of the intruders. A minute later the other agent called in with the same message.
“Alright, I’m going to go out and have a chat with these three trespassers,” said Davis to the other men. “Again, sit tight unless I call for assistance.”
Chief Davis walked out from the cover of the woods and into the clearing. As he did he yelled out a rough greeting to the three men standing near the plane wreckage. Instantly, the three men froze for a fraction of a second before regaining their composures.
They have guilty written all over them thought Chief Davis to himself, as he continued to approach the men. The leader of the group who had been barking orders responded back to Davis forcibly in broken English, while the other two slowly placed a hand on their waists as if to grab holstered weapons. For their fortunate sakes they both stopped short of actually drawing any weapons. The two Border Patrol agents that were in the woods flanking Chief Davis each had their rifles trained on the two men, their fingers on their triggers and their safeties off.
“We stumbled upon the wreckage of an airplane,” replied the leader of the group.
As Davis approached he could see that the three men were of Middle Eastern decent and that the leader’s accent was of a Persian dialect, most probably Farsi. The leader had a hard face that looked like it had been weathered in the sun for many years. He also had a thick hypertrophic purple scar running the entire side of his face. Most probably caused from a scimitar knife edge, thought Davis.
“You are in a restricted area,” responded Chief Davis. “You are not supposed to be here.”
“We were simply out snowmobiling over the past couple of days and we stumbled upon this aircraft,” responded the scar faced leader in an acidic tone. “We did not see any signs posted in our travels indicating we couldn’t be here.”
“Well the area has been posted for no trespassing and I’m going to have to escort you and your friends out of this area and back to my base for questioning.”
The agent on Davis’s right sat quietly off to the right in the woods, approximately fifty meters from the clearing. He could clearly see the Chief and the three intruders, as well as hear their conversation. He kept his rifle sighted in on the leader, his finger on the trigger. With the sun behind him he had a clean kill shot if he needed to take it. As he maintained total focus on the scene before him he suddenly saw a shadow slide directly in front of him. He turned his head to see what had caused the sudden shadow. In mid turn, his head was ripped backward by a strong hand that covered his mouth, while the cold silver edge of a knife blade slid across his exposed throat. There was only a brief muffled gurgle from his covered mouth before he sagged over seconds later, blood spurting from his jugular veins. The terrorist slowly lowered the agent’s face down in the snow as his life quickly faded from him. He then began to move silently in the direction of Dave and Ron.
“I don’t think that will be possible,” said the terrorist leader.
“Well unfortunately you don’t have a choice in the matter,” responded Davis in his most commanding voice. “I’m not alone and I have a team of men with their weapons trained on you.”
The leader looked ever so slightly in the direction of his two colleagues who had begun to slowly walk in his direction. As they had been trained, they maintained some level of separation from one other as they moved in the general direction of the leader. Never make a large group target.
“Good, your buddies seem to understand what to do,” commented Davis as he saw the men slowly working their way forward and in the direction of the leader. “I suggest you do the same. And all of you, keep your hands visible for me to see.”
The man approached from the rear position of Dave, Ron and the Border Patrol agent, as he had previously done with the other now deceased agent. Suddenly, Dave sensed something and turned his head slightly. He saw the approaching man out of the corner of his eye. The man was three meters away and drawing a weapon. As he did, Dave yelled to Ron and the other agent to get down and cover. Ron and Dave both ducked instantly behind trees. The agent, however, turned and simultaneously drew his weapon. The terrorist, pumped two quick shots from his pistol into the head of the agent before he even had a chance to aim his weapon at the man.
Hearing the gun shots, one of the two sidekicks standing next to the lead terrorist suddenly drew a Glock-18 sidearm from his waistline, and apparently in fully automatic mode, shot all ten rounds of the magazine in the direction of the Chief in the blink of an eye. If the man had maintained better control of the gun, and if the Chief had not reacted as quickly as he did to drop down behind a small rock outcropping, he would have been instantly shredded.
Before Dave had a chance to react to the grizzly scene of the murdered agent, the assailant was on top of him with a knife in his hand. Dave kicked viciously and used his gloved hands to fend off the terrorist who was slashing at his head and throat with the knife. In shock for a second with what was playing out before his own eye’s Ron hesitated. Then, woken from his trance from the sound of more gunshots emanating from the clearing, he moved into action. Without wavering, he lifted his Beretta M9 up to shoulder level and pointed directly at the back of the terrorist that was savagely swinging a knife at his friend’s face. He fired three successive shots. The terrorist instantly arched backwards, fell over, and dropped the knife. Blood gushed from his chest wounds where the three bullets had exited his body. As Dave stood up, he looked shakenly down at his attacker. Bright red blood foamed from the man’s mouth. Ron approached the terrorist with the Beretta still extended out in front of him, his body hunched, and ready to pump additional rounds into the man if needed. As he neared the man, the terrorist made one final gasp before his body went limp.
Seeing the terrorist expired, Dave and Ron turned their attention in the direction of Chief Davis. Staying low behind a large boulder, Dave and Ron looked out into the clearing. They saw the Chief approaching the three bodies of the terrorists he had been speaking to seconds earlier. The agent who had been stationed on the left flank of the clearing was walking out of the woods, his rifle extended forward in his hands, smoke still exiting the barrel. Dave and Ron stood up from behind the boulder they were hiding behind and made their way out into the clearing.
The agent, with his finger still on his weapon’s trigger, approached the body of the leader. Chief Davis, Dave and Ron tailed just a few meters behind him. The agent looked down at the leader. He was still alive, but barely. Though blood pulsed from his chest and leg wounds, and his life rapidly growing dim, the terrorist looked up at the agent with a gritty smile. In his hand he still held the small object that they had seen earlier. The agent leaned over to remove the object from the man’s hand. As he did, the terrorist leader looked up at him and said, “Bismillah“, in the name of Allah, and opened up his fingers. The agent only had time to say “cover”, before Dave’s world went instantly black.
Chapter 11 (April 13, Thursday 11:00am, Germany)
Dana exited the Berlin, Germany train station and walked the final one hundred meters of her journey to the hotel where the World Health Organization (WHO) Conference on European Health Policy was being held. She was accompanied by a cameraman and soundman from the American Broadcast Corporation’s New York office. The trip from McCall, Idaho had been very long, even though she had taken the corporate jet from McCall to Boston, MA, before hopping a commercial airliner to jump the pond. Again, the weather was cold and rainy in Germany. Just a raw ugly day she thought to herself. She’d rather have the dry cold air and snow of Idaho over this weather any day.
Though exhausted from the long travel, she was still thankful that Jeff Kolosky had given her the feature reporting assignment. Ever since the recent outbreak of Ebola that had spread from Africa to the United States and Europe, more people than ever were intereste
d in knowing what the WHO had to say about international health policy.
The conference had already started the night before with a formal dinner in the banquet center of the hotel. However, the first speaker events were just getting underway this morning. Though she and her team would miss reporting on them today, she planned on listening in on a couple of the lectures in the afternoon for her own personal curiosity. She would check into her hotel room, take a shower, and have a quick bite before working her way down to the main conference center. She was particularly interested in attending a presentation on the WHO’s recommendations for combating the spread of infectious diseases such as Ebola and the bubonic plague. Sam Davis, her cameraman, said he would join her. However, Denzel Cantor said he needed to call his wife and eight year old daughter, and then get some much needed sleep. Dana couldn’t blame him. She was exhausted herself. Also, his daughter had gone on a field trip the previous day and he had not had the chance to ask her about it before he left on the afternoon flight to Europe.
Dana walked into the front lobby and hesitated for a moment to marvel at the grand entrance of the Estrel Hotel. The largest hotel in Berlin, the Estrel was another exquisite example of modern German engineering. She was standing in a large four story high atrium, where gold stars and angel like figurines hung from the ceiling. Centered in the middle of the atrium lobby was a large and colorful ceramic fountain surrounded by trees. Beyond the periphery of the trees and fountain were relaxing sofas and chairs, most of which were occupied with guests. Many of whom she presumed were participating in the WHO conference.
