Hearing bushes move ahead, Moore dropped to his belly to see a dog jump across the trail. “Coyote,” Schmidt said behind him. “Good reflexes though.”
“I think I wet my pants,” Moore said getting up slowly and picking up the metal detector. He turned around and saw the entire group was getting off the ground. Fighting not to tremble, Moore turned around and continued on and soon came to the first body. The body was propped up against a small tree with the backpack beside it and all the contents dumped out.
The coyote had been eating away at the exit wound on the abdomen. “Shit,” Moore said studying the body and saw the right hand was propped up with a stick and all but the middle finger tied down. It looked like the dead guy was flipping him the bird.
“He’s posing the bodies more elaborately,” Schmidt said moving up beside him, but looking at the forest around them.
“Yeah, it’s a game to him now. We aren’t even a challenge.”
“Not to be a nag, but can we get this over with?” Schmidt mumbled so the others couldn’t hear.
Stepping over with the metal detector, Moore waved it around the body and it only went off when he got close to the body and backpack. “Two techs, start here and photograph everything before you move the body,” Moore said moving up the trail.
It didn’t take long to reach the others and Moore froze, staring at the scene. “Joshua is sick,” Schmidt said behind him.
One of the Homeland agents was bent over on all fours, stripped naked and the other Homeland agent was naked also behind the first on his knees like they were engaged in a sexual act. Using only nylon string, Joshua had posed them. Turning to the left, Moore saw the other two agents propped up against a tree. Each had playing cards in their hands with the remaining deck between them.
“What does this tell you Moore?” Winters said moving up beside him. “Besides the fact that Joshua’s making fun of us.”
Moore stared at the four, moving his eyes from one to the other for almost ten minutes. “Son of a bitch,” he mumbled. “He’s read books about profilers and knows we don’t like it when the suspect changes. This was done as an afterthought.”
“Huh?” Winters and Schmidt said together.
“Look how they’re arranged,” Moore said pointing. “He went through their gear and then came back to pose them. Yes, he’s mocking us, but he’s telling us he’s unpredictable.”
“He didn’t have to pose two dead men going bareback to tell me that,” Schmidt said.
Moore walked around the bodies waving the metal detector and stopped. “Get Leary up here,” he said looking at the ground.
Not thinking it was a good idea, Winters waved Leary up to the front. When Leary saw the bodies, he started blubbering. “Easy Leary,” Winters said softly.
“Leary, why did Joshua leave this trap?” Moore said pointing at the ground. Hearing the word ‘trap’, Leary jumped a foot in the air, looking around the area in panic. Turning around and seeing the sheer terror on Leary’s face, Moore truly felt sorry for him. “Leary, calm down. Now, can you tell me why Joshua left this trap, so we can get the hell out of here?”
Hearing that, Leary calmed and eased up beside Moore looking where he was pointing and saw a Conibear trap. “One of the springs is busted,” he said, hoping Moore would say they were leaving now.
“The first man stepped in a trap there, right?” Moore said pointing at an area where the ferns had been flattened down and Leary nodded. “And you saw traps everywhere?”
“Yes, I counted over a dozen.”
“You saw them with your own eyes? Not bulges in the undergrowth?”
Leary shook his head, “No, I saw sections of the retaining chain that is connected to the trap, so it can be staked to the ground and the animal can’t drag it off.”
Stepping up, Moore waved the metal detector around the ferns and when it went off, Winters had to grab Leary before he took off running. Bending down, Moore grabbed something and turned around holding up a small one-foot-long section of chain. There was no trap on one end, it was just a section of chain.
“Like this?” Moore asked, holding it higher and Leary nodded his head rapidly, expecting the chain to attack him. Looking over at Schmidt, “I see two more and can see where Joshua removed real traps from. He only left a small section of this chain exposed to be seen. Leary never saw the real traps. Joshua put these out as decoys to make the men stand still so he could shoot them. The real traps were hidden and from the two spots I can see, they were hidden really well.”
As Moore turned, he pointed over by the two holding cards and Schmidt saw a small piece of chain in the undergrowth. “This man is entirely too damn smart,” Schmidt mumbled and heard a commotion in the back of the group.
All except Leary, turned to see Giles strolling toward them in an arrogant strut. “We are here and you have looked. May I go and find this man, so the ones with me can catch him?”
“Knowing what you do, you just want to walk off?” Moore said digging out some plastic gloves.
“You’re in danger, I’m not. I’ve dealt with poacher traps many times and have never been careless enough to trip one,” Giles said lifting his chin.
Wagner walked up behind Giles and froze, gawking at the posed bodies. “My God, the man is an animal!”
“Giles, stay right there until I tell you to move,” Moore growled and turned to Winters. “Get the techs up here to start. I’m going to do a slow walk through, then let dumbass take off.”
“I can see his trail right there!” Giles pointed ahead.
“Yeah, so can I, and that’s what bothers me,” Moore said as Winters left to get the crime scene techs.
“Shut up Giles,” Wagner said in a low voice, still staring at the posed bodies. “I’m going to get my men to spread out and look for anything out of the ordinary.”
“Hold on,” Moore said and walked around the bodies with the metal detector in a circle clearing out to ten yards. “Use this, in case Joshua missed a trap.”
“Missed a trap? Why wouldn’t he just leave them?” Wagner asked taking the metal detector.
Moore looked up with a tired face. “He knows we would be looking for them here, so he collected them to use on someone else.”
Mumbling many curse words under his breath, Wagner walked away as Winters returned. She saw Moore looking under the bodies and then around them. “What are you looking for?”
“Joshua’s calling card, that chainsaw tool or what loggers call the scrench,” Moore said getting on his knees and looking under the kneeling man.
Looking over at the dead card players, “He could’ve run out,” Winters said.
“No, he bought a box of a hundred in November and I asked around, loggers damn near always have one on them,” Moore said getting up and the look on his face was one of deep thought. Suddenly, Moore’s body gave a jerk as he cut his eyes, looking off into the woods.
“Schmidt,” he whispered moving over toward Schmidt. “Get your binoculars and start scanning the forest, Joshua’s not done here.”
“Oh, fuck,” Schmidt mumbled pulling his binoculars out.
“Look on that ridge,” Winters pointed up the valley. “That’s the only place he could shoot us from, unless he is close.”
“He doesn’t repeat,” Moore said in a low voice.
“Well-,” Winters started as an earsplitting scream erupted behind them. They dropped to the ground, aiming rifles as the scream continued.
Rolling on his side, Moore pulled the M4 off his shoulder. “What is it?” he bellowed.
“Myron stepped in a trap!” someone shouted over the scream.
“Nooooo!” Leary shouted jumping up in pure panic and took off running down the trail. In seconds, he was gone and it would be years before his partial skeletal remains would be found by hunters.
“Want me to go after him?” Schmidt asked crawling over.
“No,” Moore said looking around as the screamer stopped to take a breath, then contin
ued. “How did he step in a trap if you have a metal detector?” Moore shouted.
“It’s a hole with sharp sticks!” someone shouted back.
“There’s no fucking way he knew we would bring a metal detector,” Schmidt said as Moore stood up. “Hell, you didn’t even know I’d brought one.”
“Fuck!” Moore shouted then looked down as Schmidt and Winters stood up. “He knew we would be looking for metal traps. He changed his attack.”
Schmidt looked off into the forest, “This man is really chapping my ass.”
Seeing Giles get up off the ground, Moore shook his head as he walked toward the screaming. He almost waded through the ferns but stopped and followed the trail till he found where others had walked off the trail. Reaching the screamer, he saw a man with half his leg in a hole.
Getting closer, he saw foot-long stakes planted in the bottom as another man grabbed the bottom of the stake that was all the way through the screamer’s right foot. After digging out the stake, they pulled the screamer back from the pit as Moore looked around for a scrench. Not seeing one, he got down on his knees and dug another stake out to look at it.
Yanking it out and looking at it, a shiver ran down his spine. The stake was a half inch in diameter ending in a point, but right under the tip was a whittled barb. Making it difficult, and very painful to pull your foot off of the stake.
Rolling the stake in his hand, Moore caught his breath and was very happy he was wearing gloves. Along the spine almost to the tip, a groove had been carved in and it was packed with some nasty-looking paste.
“Don’t pull it out or it will bleed worse,” he heard Giles say behind him.
Spinning around, “Push the stake through, take his boot off and flush it with as much water as you can, then put a dressing on his foot,” Moore said kneeling by the man’s foot. As gently as he could, Moore wiped the paste from the groove. “Now, grab the top and yank it through. If you pull it out the way it went in, that barb will catch.”
He looked in the pit and around the area, but didn’t see a scrench as several men held down the man with a stake through his foot and pulled it out while he screamed. “May I go now?” Giles said walking up with a pale face as the men took off the boot and blood poured out of the wound. “You should’ve left it in because the stake would’ve controlled the bleeding.”
“I know that, dumbass. Unlike you, I have a brain,” Moore said walking past him. “But Joshua put something on those stakes and if it’s what he put on his traps, it’s deadly.”
Giles turned and followed Moore as Moore stopped beside Wagner. “Have some men carry him back to the landing area and get him flown out fast to a hospital,” Moore said in a low voice to Wagner.
“I’ll get four to carry him out,” Wagner said pointing at several men.
“Find some long sticks to poke around on the ground to make sure we don’t do this again,” Moore said.
“Why?” Giles said with a snort. “If you look, you can see the outline of the pits.”
Gritting his teeth, Moore glanced at Giles. “You want to go? Take off,” he growled.
“About time,” Giles huffed. “This shouldn’t take long.”
He turned and motioned for the five Homeland agents that were coming with him to follow. As they filed past Moore and Wagner, Winters came over. “Sir, are you sure about this?” she asked watching the group head up the valley with Giles studying the ground as he moved. “I can see that path, so I think Joshua intended it that way.”
Taking a deep breath to relax, “I know,” Moore said as Giles bent down and grabbed something off the ground. He turned and held up a candy bar wrapper with a grin.
“Like I said, this won’t take long,” Giles called back and then looked at the five agents with him. “Hope you’re ready to make headlines,” he chuckled, stuffing the wrapper in his pocket and looking back down at the ground.
Winters turned to look at Moore and saw remorse on his face. “You’re using them as bait?”
“No, but Joshua is going to do something to them, I have no doubt,” he said turning to Wagner. “I want to process this site and be out of here in two hours.”
From up the valley they heard a ‘twang’ and wood groaning. “Okay-” Wagner stopped as a scream sounded from up the valley and both men looked up to see the five agents running ahead. Wagner took off up the valley as the rest of his men followed.
Stepping to follow, Winters stopped as Moore grabbed her arm. “You will keep your butt right here with me,” he said then turned to Schmidt who was looking around with binoculars.
“No bu-,” Schmidt stopped as full automatic gunfire roared in front of them. They dove for the ground, hearing bullets hitting trees around them. Then the gunfire stopped for a second, then started again.
Peeking up, Moore saw the muzzle flash forty yards ahead with Giles and the five agents in between. The machine gun continued to fire in bursts of a second or two and pause for a second. All at once, the Homeland special response team opened fire with only a few of the agents having suppressors. Gunfire roared across the mountains out of the valley.
“Grenade out!” one of the Homeland agents shouted as new screams sounded out from wounded agents called out for help.
“Grenade! Are you fucking shitting me?!” Moore screamed as the sounds of battle were interrupted by a thunderous boom and the gunfire died down for a second from the agents. But the gun firing at them never paused as bullets kept slamming into trees around them.
Crawling over, Schmidt grabbed Moore and Winters guiding them to a large tree. “Get behind the tree!” he shouted and peeked up to see five agents charging the machine gun. “They have seen too many movies,” he said dropping back down.
“Wait till he reloads or changes barrels!” Schmidt yelled, getting behind the tree with them.
“You know what Joshua is shooting at us?” Winters said, cringing as she heard a few bullets hit the other side of the tree.
“It’s a SAW,” Schmidt said, peeking around the tree and saw only one man still charging the machine gun getting about halfway till he was hit.
“Grenade out!” someone shouted, followed by many more calls of agents throwing grenades.
“No God damn it, your men are too close!” Schmidt screamed seeing several objects sail up out of the ferns toward the machine gun. Rolling behind the tree, Schmidt threw himself over Moore and Winters.
Half a dozen concussive booms shook the ground and they could hear the shrapnel hitting the forest all around them, but still the machine gun fired at them in controlled bursts. “No more grenades assholes! You just killed some of your own men!” Schmidt screamed as he rolled off Moore and Winters, bringing his M4 to his shoulder. Poking his rifle around the tree, Schmidt aimed at the muzzle flash of the machine gun and opened fire.
Taking his backpack off, Moore grabbed his M4. “Something’s wrong, Joshua wouldn’t go out like this!” he shouted over the gunfire and peeked around the other side of the tree. He could hear a lot of cries for help from wounded and saw the machine gun still firing at them, but only a few weapons were shooting at it.
All of a sudden, the machine gun stopped and Schmidt jumped to his feet. “Cease fire!” he bellowed and charged forward. Moore watched Schmidt cover the forty yards in record time, firing at the quiet machine gun as he ran.
Skidding to a halt, Schmidt looked around then turned around. “It was a booby trap! Nobody’s here!”
Winters jumped up, “How in the hell did he get it to shoot and stop and then shoot again? Is he like a watchmaker?”
Grabbing Winters’ arm before she could take off to find out, “Winters, we have to help the wounded and gather the bodies. When we get ready to leave, we’ll go see,” Moore said letting her arm go.
Listening to all the cries for help, she nodded. “I’ll help them, you go look.”
As Winters took off, Moore turned to see the crime scene techs tending to one of theirs that got hit in the arm. Then he saw t
he Homeland agent who stepped on the punji stick lying next to a tree. “You okay?” Moore asked walking over.
Reaching down, Moore shook him and the agent’s head flopped around and Moore didn’t see him breathing. Putting his fingers on the man’s neck, Moore held them there for ten minutes never feeling a pulse. “What the fuck is he using that can kill this fast?” he said getting up.
He turned to see the other crime scene techs working on the two dead card players. He stepped over, seeing them talking quietly. “Find something?”
One looked up at him, “Yes sir, but I don’t know what it means,” he said. “Both men were holding full houses, Aces over eights, which is impossible for one deck. I was about to photograph the deck and count them.”
Closing his eyes with a sigh, “That hand is called ‘a dead man’s hand’ because Bill Hickok was holding it when he was shot in the back,” Moore said and he opened his eyes. “You already get a photo of its location?”
“Yes sir,” the tech said as Moore bent down and picked up the deck and could tell it was more than one deck. Fanning the cards out, he saw another dead man’s hand at the top of the deck. Looking at the cards, he could tell they were placed this way on purpose.
Closing the deck, “Pack them as is and don’t let them separate,” Moore said handing them over. “There is a message in there.”
“Yes sir,” the tech said taking the cards and putting a rubber band around them. “What of those in their hands?”
“Do the same,” Moore said looking at the two dead men. “Take as many photos as you can before we get them ready to leave. We don’t have time to process the scene and we aren’t coming back so Joshua can play more games.”
The tech nodded as Moore walked away feeling a million years old. Heading up the valley, he found Giles upright but bent over at the waist in the middle of the trail. Looking closer, Moore saw his pants were bloody and then noticed a stick four feet up and horizontal with the ground. A shiver ran down his spine, seeing the long stakes tied to the stick.
The Bonner Incident: Joshua's War Page 10
