The Bonner Incident: Joshua's War

by Thomas A. Watson

  Seeing that the man he’d shot was barely moving, Joshua moved his crosshairs back down to the draw, hearing the scream suddenly stop and saw that the point man had passed out. Looking at the leg, Joshua knew the bear trap probably almost amputated it. Someone had had the frame of mind to use a belt and make a tourniquet as Joshua had dealt with the running man.

  He watched as four men argued and three tried to pry the trap apart with their hands. The only thing they accomplished was jerking the point man’s leg waking him up to resume screaming. They next fed belts into the jaws to see if that would give them some leverage, but only made the point man scream louder.

  “Guys, unless the springs are pressed, you aren’t moving those jaws,” Joshua mumbled and moved his crosshairs back up to running man to find him laying still. Moving back to the group, he saw they were now trying to use their belts on the springs to compress them.

  “Points for being inventive,” Joshua said and realized if they used their belts like a tourniquet it might work, if they could crank them down hard enough. But they were trying to tighten the belts up by hand like they would wear a belt and that was just moving the trap and making the point man scream.

  His screams had gotten much weaker and Joshua could barely hear them now as the leader waved everyone away from the trap and looked at it. He pointed at the cable and two men and then he pointed at the others. The two men moved over and went to work with multi-tools, trying to get the bolt out as the others pulled out hatchets and started chopping down small trees.

  Watching in fascination, Joshua saw one of the men who was working on the bolt jump up and start screaming at the leader. The leader screamed back, waving at the cable and Joshua realized it was the machine gun man who was screaming at the leader as he lifted up the machine gun, aiming at the cable. The others moved back as he sighted on the cable. “Not a good idea buddy,” Joshua said as thunder erupted in the draw when machine gun shot at the cable.

  One of the men off to the side dropped down grabbing his lower leg and the leader started waving his arms to get machine gun to stop. Machine gun only stopped when his machine gun ran out of bullets. The leader ran over and hit him in the back of the head, pointing at the man lying on the ground and holding his leg. “If you would’ve just shot the trap, your ricochets would’ve saved me a lot of trouble,” Joshua grinned as machine gun put another belt in.

  The leader pointed at machine gun and up the slope where the running man lay. Machine gun yelled at the leader, but started walking up the slope. Watching machine gun till he was a little way up the slope, the leader pointed at a man who was bringing over a tree he’d chopped down.

  The tree chopper moved over to the man lying on the ground holding his leg as the leader looked at the tree the point man had passed out on. Calling over two men with hatchets, the leader pointed at the log and with one on either side, the two went to work chopping the log. “You could just lift the tree up and slide the cable off,” Joshua offered moving his crosshairs up the slope till he found machine gun.

  Knowing he was going to come out close to the running man, Joshua kept his crosshairs on him as machine gun walked up the slope. He would’ve taken the shot but with only spaces measured in inches between the trees, Joshua just followed him till he reached the bare ridge.

  It took a while, but he didn’t want machine gun to tattletale and run back to the others. Watching how they’d dealt with a wounded man was teaching Joshua a lot. When machine gun reached the top, he bent over with his hands on his knees as Joshua squeezed the trigger.

  Machine gun clutched his chest dropping on his butt, then sprawling out. Racking the bolt, Joshua put the crosshairs on machine gun and held them there, still hearing the hatchets chopping away on the log. He could see machine gun’s mouth moving like he was calling out, but he was coughing up frothy blood.

  Knowing machine gun didn’t have long, Joshua moved back to the group and found the leader over with the man that machine gun shot in the leg. He soon figured out the chopped down trees were to make a stretcher, but he couldn’t figure out why they hadn’t used the hundreds of small ones already lying down.

  An hour after they’d started, the two tree choppers called the leader over and pointed at one of the thin logs Joshua had placed to help form the funnel. Shoving it in the small opening under the log two more came over and continued chopping.

  The two on the pry log soon lifted the tree up as others ran over placing rocks under it to hold it up higher as the chopped end fell off. All but shot-in-the-leg moved over and lifted point man off of the log and Joshua saw that he was only moaning now. Setting him on the ground, they lifted the log again and slid the cable down until they finally slid it off.

  As the leader went over to shot-in-the-leg, the others finished the stretcher and with two carrying the trap and four carrying point man, placed him on the stretcher. “Point man, I would’ve just pulled out my pistol and shot myself,” Joshua said, seeing shot-in-the-leg stand up with a bandage on his leg and hobble over.

  The leader got on the handheld radio and Joshua was presuming to call machine gun and the running man as the others gathered around the stretcher. Giving a last look up the slope, the leader waved everyone down the draw and then went to help shot-in-the-leg to follow.

  Glancing at his watch, Joshua shook his head. It had taken them almost three hours to free point man. Looking up and seeing how slowly they were moving, he didn’t think point man would make it but he didn’t shoot. The ones coming for him couldn’t learn to be scared. If he killed everyone, the other teams wouldn’t find out for a while, but if he sent some back with horror stories, they would learn real fast. These mountains were dangerous to federal agents and those helping them.

  Gathering his stuff, he moved up to King and Jack who just looked at him. “Hey, don’t look at me like that. I didn’t know they were going to open up with machine guns from a trap going off.”

  Taking the set poles, Joshua dropped them onto the ground and climbed up on King. He guided King down the draw and up the side, turning on the radio. It didn’t take him long to find the running man and Joshua climbed off. Walking over, he saw the ‘pole’ sticking out of the running man’s pack was a big gun barrel. Undoing the pack, he pulled out a large upper receiver and then dug into the pack, pulling out a lower.

  “A Barret fifty! What am I, a water buffalo now?!” he cried looking at the massive gun. He mounted the upper on the lower and pushed the locking pins in and picked up the thirty-pound gun. “My God,” he huffed. Chris had one and Joshua had shot it. It was a nice gun but to carry one he thought it was stupid if you were on foot. The gun alone was thirty pounds but with the scope and suppressor Joshua put the weight over forty.

  Almost tempted to leave it, Joshua finally mounted it on Jack. “Shut up Jack. You’re not carrying the trap anymore,” he said then went through running man’s pack to find two five round clips and twenty shells. Holding one of the giant shells up, “Each shell weighs a pound and I can hit just as far with my Lapua,” Joshua said.

  Leaving the radio, but pulling it out to look like he messed with it, he went to machine gun guy. “A SAW,” Joshua nodded taking the machine gun. He had seen them a few times at gun competitions, but had never shot one. Stripping machine gun guy, he found several more belts and held up what looked like a long grenade.

  Not knowing what it was, he laid it to the side and pulled out the man’s ID to see he was FBI on the hostage rescue team. Taking the ammo that he could use, food, batteries and a few other items, along with the machine gun, Joshua left everything else, but did find a bottle of Mountain Dew which he opened.

  Putting the stuff on King and Jack, he pulled out a scrench and put it in running man’s hand. Then he took a rein he’d cut off of one of the dead horses and wrapped one end around running man’s wrist. The other end he wrapped around running man’s neck like he was choking himself or leading himself. Climbing on King, Joshua headed back into the trees. “That shou
ld screw with their heads,” he grinned.

  “Command, this is team twenty. We need immediate evac,” the radio called out thirty minutes later.

  “This is command, what’s your location?” After a few seconds, team twenty read out their coordinates. “We have your location and you need to move to road five miles to your southeast.”

  “Command, we have two wounded and need evac now by air. One is critical.”

  A few seconds went by and a different male voice came on the radio. “Team twenty, this is command, did you find suspect?”

  “Negative, but we need evac.”

  “What’s your situation?”

  “A man stepped in a huge trap and another was shot.”

  “The suspect engaged you?”

  “Negative, gunshot was a ricochet from trying to free the man in the trap,” he paused. “I’ve lost two of my team that I sent to establish radio contact and haven’t been able to contact them.”

  The radio was silent for several minutes. “Team twenty, we’ve got a civilian medevac flight coming. All our choppers are still not on site. ETA twenty minutes.”

  “Command, he won’t make it that long. This trap almost chopped his leg off!”

  “Put a tourniquet on the leg.”

  “We did that GOD DAMN IT and had to chop a log in half just to get the man out of the woods! Now get us the fuck out of here!”

  “You are federal agents and will act like it. Help is coming but as you know, this area is remote. Your second casualty, is he mobile?”

  “Affirmative, but I’m carrying him and the other six have to swap out on the stretcher.”

  “You’re doing a good job, twenty. Now, move toward the road and units will pick you up. The med chopper will only be able to carry wounded.” Several minutes went by and twenty didn’t answer. “Team twenty, did you copy?”

  “Copy, but doing CPR on critical now.”

  Joshua rode along a ridge listening to the conversation and shaking his head. “All that hard work you did and point man dies. Man, that’s got to suck.”

  “Team twenty, the chopper is inbound, keep CPR going.”

  The radio fell silent as Joshua rode on, but came on five minutes later. “Command, doing CPR still but no response, pupils fixed but CPR continues until chopper arrives.”

  “Well, you chopped a log in half with hatchets. It wasn’t a total loss,” Joshua said rounding Upper Priest Lake.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Sitting in the conference room, Griffey stared at the massive grizzly trap on the table. “Sir, may I start until they get here?” Wagner asked sitting beside him.

  Griffey looked up at the clock, seeing it was 1015. “No, Moore will be here soon,” he said looking at the trap. “My God, what kind of person would use this on another man?”

  Ten minutes later, Moore busted into the room with Agent Winters behind him carrying several folders. Both were wearing mudstained boots, jeans, Gore-Tex jackets and were soaked. “It’s really raining now,” Moore said taking off his jacket and hanging it up.

  “This meeting is for senior command members only. Agent Winters will have to leave,” Wagner snapped.

  Moore dropped down in his chair, shaking his head. “She stays and you can leave, if a woman offends you so much,” he said as she sat down next to Moore, spreading out the folders and smiling at Wagner.

  “Wagner, just shut up,” Griffey moaned. “Well Moore, what did you find?”

  “It was a trap so Joshua could watch how we dealt with wounded. The other two team members were shot at the top of the ridge with a high powered rifle, one shot apiece. One of the crime scene guys had to be flown to the hospital because Joshua put a flashbang under one of the bodies,” he said opening a notebook that Winters passed him.

  “Where the hell did he get a flashbang?”

  With a tired face, Moore looked up. “From us. The agent we found it under was on the hostage rescue teams and the spoon clearly said, ‘Property of the FBI’.”

  “Okay, so he,” Griffey waved at the monster trap, “set this contraption up for one of our guys to step in and just watches? Moore, I’m not stupid, the area out there is huge. How could he know where they would walk? That trap is big but come on, you’re kind of pushing this a little,” Griffey said and Wagner snorted.

  “Oh, I looked where it was placed and Joshua placed the trap in a natural funnel. The only way he could’ve known that, would be if he was following them and moved ahead,” Moore said glancing at the trap. “It’s a number sixteen grizzly bear trap.”

  “So, did you find ATV tracks?” Griffey asked.

  Moore scoffed. “We made a State Park Ranger go up there with us, the east side of the lake is all state park. We picked him up but when we dropped him off at the ranger station, he offloaded an ATV from his truck and showed me. Unless Joshua rode through dirt or what the ranger called ‘tread lightly’ which means not making the tires dig into dirt, you won’t find tracks. In the forest, Griffey, there are ferns waist high and the ranger said in a few weeks they will be chest high in places. He pulled out a shovel and dug down in the forest and I shit you not, he dug a foot and a half before hitting dirt. There is so much loam on the floor, you can bounce on it. Now, we didn’t find where Joshua rode in the forest because the Ranger said there an ATV would leave a trail, disturbing ferns. The ranger said even a city slicker would be able to spot it.”

  “But on a ridge to the north just inside the tree line, the ranger spotted what could’ve been ATV tracks, but he said with the rain he couldn’t be sure,” Moore said looking at his notes. “The ranger said it would be the right location you would leave one at, so you wouldn’t leave tracks and still get down into the draw where the trap was set.”

  “And you think he’s right?” Griffey asked.

  “He’s from here, I’m not. That’s what the power of local help can do so, yes,” Moore said. “Joshua took all the ammunition, rifle magazines, night vision devices, one thermal scope, two self-opening tents off the bodies but left-,” he paused looking at his notes. “BATF Agent Conley’s M4 and side arm, but took a Barrett fifty caliber sniper rifle with ammunition. Agent Dotson of the FBI was missing his SAW and all ammunition.”

  Griffey lowered his head to the table. “What the hell was one of them carrying a Barrett for?”

  “Ah, I asked and your orders cleared them for shoot on sight and every team has sniper capabilities,” Moore said, then glanced up at Wagner. “What does this stuff he took tell you, super-secret agent?”

  “Well, um, it suggests he is collecting superior firearms to use against us,” Wagner said lifting his chin.

  “Winters,” Moore said leaning back. “What does this tell us?”

  “He has weapons and ample food supplies, but is limited on what he can carry. We now know he has night fighting capabilities and can take out material targets at extreme range. The self-opening tents are impervious to weather and would make a good stash pile protector. This would allow the suspect to make multiple caches around him, thereby limiting what he has to carry.”

  Blinking rapidly, Wagner shook his head. “I would’ve known that had I actually seen the area.”

  “Then I’ll bring you next time,” Moore said reaching over and taking a small notebook from the pile of stuff around Winters. “Griffey, Joshua pulled the radio out that Conley was carrying and it looks like he tried to get it to work.”

  Griffey almost looked relieved. “Well, unless you know the code, the radio is useless.”

  Moore opened up the notebook and held it out for Griffey. “If Joshua had looked harder, he would’ve found it. Granted, that radio was only programmed with the fifteen frequencies we are using this week, but it would’ve given him great insight. You have to tell the teams that they can’t write the codes down for anything.”

  Winters cleared her throat. “And may I suggest sir, that we make sure someone checks the radios before the teams get to the field. It’s very easy to program the
frequencies into the radio and if one team went out with all of our frequencies and the code for that radio, Mr. Anderson would know every move we make.”

  Picking up a pen, Griffey looked at Wagner. “If I find out that a team goes out with the code written down again, I’m blaming you Wagner, and will report that directly back to Washington, are we clear?” Wagner nodded dumbly. “You will make sure every radio that leaves this command area is only programmed with the codes needed.”

  “I will have it done before the next teams go out tomorrow,” he said with his voice breaking.

  “What else Moore? Surely, you have more bad news,” Griffey said.

  Getting out of his chair, Moore walked over to a huge wall map and picked up a marker. “Like I said, Joshua was watching. He could’ve killed all of them, but wanted to watch how they performed under stress,” Moore said marking the map. “He could’ve set up anywhere along the ridge and observed. Now, we know the rifle he used blew through the ballistic plates of the agents’ vest, front and back, so his rifle is large and powerful. No projectiles were recovered but I had Schmidt with me, and he said his money was on a .338 Lapua by the look of the wounds. His other reasoning was that it offered more bang for the buck when compared to the weight of the rifle and ammunition.”

  Tossing down the marker, Moore walked over to Winters holding out his hand. “Joshua left his calling card as well,” he said as Winters passed him two plastic evidence bags. Moore tossed one in front of Griffey that contained the now familiar scrench. Tossing the other one down, Griffey saw it contained a rolled up leather strap.

  “What’s this?” he asked looking up.

  “A rein from a horse, Joshua is telling us he took out that patrol and we aren’t going to find them easily. That’s why he let us know, and he posed the man Griffey,” Moore said sitting back down. “Joshua wants us to know he’s killing our men when he wants and where he wants. But I hope you realize, he wants the ones searching for him to know. That’s what that little show was for yesterday. All the teams out heard it and most here know about it because some were in the command area listening to the radio, and word spreads fast.”