by Brian Gore
He quickly ducked off the road and circled around behind the camp, keeping a good long distance out, until he judged he was straight out from the back of the camp and then once again, very slowly, made his approach. There appeared to be no outlying guards, but it was no time to get careless.
The last couple of hundred yards were made in a military low crawl, very slow, very tedious. Knowing the field craft and skill of the rifleman he'd seen on the mountain, Ben took his task very seriously. It was well on toward evening by the time he'd low crawled up and into a patch of brush that grew up to a corner of the camp, between it and a small creek.
He'd had to low crawl through the small creek to access the position, and now lay in the cool comfort of wet clothes in the warm late afternoon, well concealed in the brush, only a couple of feet from the backs of the tents.
Inside, a couple of men were talking. Cupping his hands over his ears, Ben could just make out most of the conversation.
"I don't know. No telling, But they were waiting for someone. It looked to me like they were planning an ambush. Two men high on the flanks, one low. Four more in the center. They'd left two back at the house with that girl they grabbed. One of the ones that came from Chicago, and that ninth one that joined 'em here. Whoever they were waiting on never showed. They waited for nearly two hours before they pulled out. You find out about the girl? Why this scum kidnapped some girl in Montana?"
"Not yet" another voice replied. "You did good Mirza. Juka and Milan are watching now. I sent them over when you called in that they were moving this morning. You and Jadranko will go back and relieve them in a couple of hours. Zlatco and I will take over just after sunrise. Finish eating and take a nap. We'll just watch these dogs, until our opportunity arises. We will get our vengeance. Ten fold."
"Ok, Raif" the first voice replied. "Wake me up when it's time to go."
Ben backed slowly out of his hide, and retreated across the creek... he was working his way back into the trees on the far side, when, without a warning, the scent of smoke from the campfire in front of the tents, as he crawled through the brush, flipped a switch in his mind. His head filled with memories of explosions, screams. His eyes filled with visions of exploding shells, the stench of the smoke and carnage burned his nostrils, the sounds of rifle fire, fear and rage rang in his ears. His heart pounded in his chest... "god, no... no..."
He lay there, just into the brush on the far side of the creek, sweating, his fingers digging into the soft ground, his eyes clamped shut, with a grimace on his face as the spasm racked his brain.
"No... not now, not here, please, no..." he whispered through gritted teeth. "Please."
With painful, deliberate effort he fought the demons that tortured him and raged through his soul. He fought to push the past, back into the past. The past where it would not stay. He reached for the only thing he could think of to replace them, to force them out of his mind. To allow them no room to maneuver and assault him. The faces of a scared girl, and her little boy. The faces that, like it or not, were depending on him now.
Ben lay, for many minutes, forehead pressed into the pine needles of the forest floor, below the sheltering brush. In time, as always before, the sounds faded. The scents that seemed so real dispersed, his vision cleared and the pounding in his chest, and the writhing in his belly eased. His body felt limp. But, he had miles to go. He had no choice. He had to move.
Inch by inch, he crawled back, deeper into the trees and away from the camp. Inch by inch the demons retreated before him, once again.
They retreated for now, but he knew, as always... the bastards would return. They'd never leave him alone. They'd come back. They'd always be there, out in the wire. Hiding in the trees. Waiting for him to drop his guard. Waiting for an unprotected moment to come howling back.
He'd almost forgotten them in the past week. So much had happened. It had been the longest time, in a long time, without a visit. Taking a rest, laying on his chest in the forest, with his forehead laying against the cool ground, he knew he had to go on, but, he knew, they'd be back.
That thought exhausted him. The thought that hope eluded him. But he had no choice. That girl, that boy... for whatever reason, their only hope had become him. Jesus! One screwed up, worn out, drunken old cowboy was their only hope.
The grimace on his face softened with a melancholy smile, and he thought; "I wonder? Do they realize just what kind of a jackpot they stepped into the day they met me?"
Once he'd gotten far enough back into the trees on the far side to be shrouded from view, he rose to his feet. He stood quiet in the trees, just looking back at the camp for a few minutes. Slowly, his eyes shifted in the direction he must go. Ben drew a deep, cleansing breath and slowly let it out, his chin sinking to his chest. With another melancholy smile, and a faint shake of his head, he set off, at almost a jog, for the little red car.
Someone, this Mirza guy he'd spotted on the mountain and his partner, would be leaving in a couple hours to relieve others now maintaining an observation post, he'd heard. "Less than a couple hours now" He thought. Precious time had been wasted with his, difficulty.
Well, whatever time they left, he'd be ready to follow them. He'd be ready, and they would take him to Karen.
Ben decided he wasn't quite as young as he used to be. The efforts of the day, and the last week were taking their toll. He was tired! Covering the two miles back to the car took him the better part of a half hour. If they were going to be leaving two hours from when he'd listened to the conversation, he supposed that was down to maybe an hour now.
He got back to the car and got his binoculars out of his ruck to watch. From where he'd parked he couldn't see the forest road where it met the pavement. But he could see a good section of the dirt road, where it swung around a bend back to the east, just before it approached the intersection. Even after dark it would be enough to alert him that they were moving. Now, all he had to do was sit and wait.
As he waited he thought about the men he was now waiting on. Who were they? They sure seemed possessed of a military discipline, though the equipment and vehicles he'd seen didn't suggest Federal or local law enforcement.
In their voices he'd also heard an accent. Eastern European... Romanian? Yugoslavian? They didn't sound Russian. He wasn't sure. He only knew they'd not been born on this side of the ocean.
And, vengeance? Ben wondered what that was about? What had happened that they sought retribution? Was this some sort of gang war? A fight for turf? Something else he'd not thought of? Was there an opportunity for him here?
They knew of him, only in the respect that they knew Tyrone and his mutts had been waiting to ambush, someone. These guys he was tailing now didn't know who or why. Not yet. The advantage was still his. How could he capitalize on it?
All those thoughts were tumbling through his exhausted mind as the sun was slowly sinking toward the horizon. His questions repeated over and over, though he had few answers. About all he knew at this point, from what he'd managed to hear was that there were at least six of these guys, and from the way they talked and acted, apparently ex military of some sort. But, most interesting to him was the fact that they wanted vengeance. There had to be something useful in that for him and Amanda.
It was the dusk, only a few minutes before sunset, when the headlights he expected came out of the trees and into that open section of road he was observing. He raised his binos, and as expected, he could just make out the blue car in the failing light. It was rolling north, headed for the pavement. The light was too poor to see into the car, but he was sure if he could, he'd see two men. Good!
He waited until it turned out of sight and then fired up the Saturn and scattered gravel pulling off the shoulder and accelerating toward the intersection of the highway and the forest road.
The blue car was just pulling up to the pavement as he passed. Ben kept his fingers crossed that his gamble would pay off, and it did. As he watched in his rear view mirror, the car turned in
his direction. He slowed his pace, just slightly, running a few miles below the speed limit.
The blue car with his mystery rifleman soon caught up and passed him. He let it get a few hundred yards ahead and then accelerated just enough to keep pace, but staying back far enough to not draw attention.
They rolled east, past the road to the mine, past the cafe where he'd spotted them first, and continued on toward Helena.
The tough part was coming. He had to follow them, without losing sight, yet not catching the attention of men who he expected to be paying attention to details. If they spotted a car following them, turn for turn, he'd be made. Once again, he was going to need a measure of good fortune.
That thought didn't give him any comfort. Good luck was not the sort he was very well acquainted with. When it came to Ben Jensen, the past week not withstanding, the balance of the past few years was mostly a version of; "If I had no bad luck, I'd have no luck at all".
For a little while he thought they were going to go straight into Helena. But, just as they reached the outskirts of town, shortly after dark the car he pursued made a turn to the north. Ben was able to shroud himself in the increased traffic as they neared the city and made the turn, through the light, just three cars back from his targets.
He let the distance widen back out as they drove north.
A few miles up the road, after passing through an area of small acreages, where the road seemed to turn back toward the city, the Chevy pulled off the road into a small grove of trees that sheltered what appeared to be some sort of dirt 'pullout'. It didn't look to be an official 'Rest Area' but obviously got frequent use. Probably some sort of a lover's lane Ben thought.
It lay on the edge of an area of open grassland, just before what looked like another area of homes on acreages.
As he moved past the grove himself, he watched the car pull up and stop beside another, similar, lighter colored car, and turn off the lights.
He looked all around the area as he rolled a short ways up the highway. Another area of small acreages. Higher middle class sort of homes he thought. There were two across the road west of the parking area. Those places sat on what looked to be thirty acres each with a third mini ranch, just to the NE. To the south the land had been just open grass for a couple of miles.
One of those three places had to be the location these men were watching. The place he'd find Karen. All he could guess was that Tyrone needed to avoid the problems with holding a kidnapped woman in a motel or hotel, and had quickly found an empty house he could pay a cash rent for. Considering the number of empty or abandoned houses around these days, that shouldn't have been much of a problem. Just wave a wad of money at folks now a days, and problem solved. No questions asked.
But he still had a problem. The ground was too open. He had nowhere to hide his own car, and he damn sure couldn't pull in where they'd parked in the trees. Or drive right up to the house!
He ran up another mile, to where the road had run out of sight and made a quick U turn, to slowly drive back toward the houses and that car. He peered through the moonlit darkness and Luck! As he came back up on the first house, the one to the NE of the parking area, he first caught site of a white van. As the angle changed he could see two black SUVs beside it, on the side of the house away from his mysterious observers; the one from the mine, and what looked to be the rig he'd shot the glass out of in Ennis.
The house sat a few hundred feet off the road. It was difficult to see much detail, beyond the general vehicle descriptions, even with the moonlight. But considering the circumstances, the likelihood that he'd follow these men to a house where he'd find this combination of vehicles, that weren't the ones he was looking for, seemed pretty remote.
Ben found what he needed, another mile back south of where the observers sat in their blue Chevy. A narrow dirt track ran out into the grass. Ben turned in there, cursing that he couldn't shut off the lights in this modern damn car, and drove a half mile out to where the track dipped into a low spot. He killed the engine and shut off the lights. He knew their concentration would be on the house to their front. Not, a road, a mile behind them. He still wasn't too comfortable driving out across that open ground with his lights on.
As he stood up out of his seat he pulled the trunk release, and then stepped to the rear of the car. From his gear bag he pulled a holstered Colt 1911 and an issue K-bar. With both laced onto his belt, he turned and climbed up out of the coulee. Up on top, Ben could just make out the silhouette of the trees around that pullout in the distance to the north. To avoid observation, he swung to the east, to make a wide loop and come up back around to the house from the north. Coming in that way, the house would block any view of him from those watchers to the south.
It took him some time, and was well past eleven when he was finally approaching the northern perimeter fence of the property. He held up there, and using his binoculars searched the few buildings for several minutes, in vain, for any sign of an outside guard.
Ben was just starting to crouch down to crawl under the bottom rail of the split rail fence, when a flare of light caught his eye in the doorway of a small barn that sat to the east side of the house. He sat back on his heels and again raised the glasses to his eyes.
There had been a guard! That was close... a few more seconds and he'd have moved out of the camouflage of that rail fence, and into the open of the paddock beyond. Now, fortunate enough to have a guard fool enough to reveal himself, by smoking on duty, he could see the tiny speck of the orange tip of his cigarette, every time the fool drew on his cancer stick.
Ben sat back on the ground and just watched. He'd no idea of how long the guard had been in his position, or when he was likely to be relieved. If he just crawled down there and put him on the ground, his relief could come at any moment and all advantage would be lost. Better to wait. Take more time... See what developed.
Knowing he was outnumbered by at least eight or nine to one, discretion seemed to be his best course of action now.
... and then the phone in his pocket vibrated!
Turning away, so his body would shroud the light of his phone, from the view of the guard at the barn a few hundred feet away, he took it out and looked at the screen. Damn! Amanda was calling him. Well he sure as hell couldn't talk to her now.
With clumsy thumbs he punched a quick message into the phone; "Wait. Can't talk now. Wait!" and hit the send button. Damn... "good thing I remembered to turn off the volume on the damn thing. Would have been a lot of fun for it to start ringing now!" he thought.
A minute later, the damn phone buzzed again in his pocket. "Damn it!" Ben turned once again to shroud the phone and looked. It was a return text from Amanda; "Call me. I'm SO Scared. Please!"
Something in the tone of her message got to him, made him nervous. Sitting there, looking through the fence rails knowing Karen was just over there. Just a few hundred feet, with 9 dirtbags 'tween him and her, and not knowing what was happening inside, compounded the tension in his head. The pressure was intolerable.
He looked back across the ground behind him. It fell away, slightly, from the fence line. It was one reason, along with his careful and slow approach, that the guard in the barn hadn't spotted him.
To go back now, to leave without Karen, tore at his soul. But, he couldn't continue forward not knowing if something else had happened that might have changed the game. Before he could take any other action, he had to find that out. What had Amanda more scared?
Slowly, looking back at the dark house in regret, he crawled through the grass the way he'd come.
He moved several hundred yards to the north, to a place the land dipped into a dry drainage coming down from some low foothills to the west. He stopped there and punched the speed dial to Amanda. She picked up on the first ring.
"Ben!"
"What's going on Amanda. What's so urgent?" Ben failed to conceal the frustration in his voice.
"Don't be angry with me!" She exclaimed; "I haven't had a
sound or a message since you left, and now your face is all over the news!"
"What? What are you talking about?"
"The News Ben! The state police have posted your picture as "a person of interest" they want to talk to. It's about the shooting in Ennis. God Ben! They're looking for you!" Amanda's voice was near to hysteria.
"Calm down girl. I told you they would be. It's not unexpected. Listen. I bet they've been to the ranch, and found nothing. They've probably tried to call my phone, likely even already got the phone records trying to find me that way... and again nothing. Relax Amanda, I'll take care of it." Ben tried to make his voice sound calmer than he was.
Though he'd known and expected the police to come snooping around, he also knew he'd left nothing for them to trace. If he did his job well enough, he never would. The risk was great though. With them now officially looking for him he'd have to pull off this next bit, virtually under their noses.
The sound of Amanda's voice broke into the internal monologue rattling in his head; "Ben? Ben! Are you there?"
"Yes, I am, Amanda, calm down. Relax. Nothing has gone wrong. Nothing has turned against us. With a little bit of luck, this will all be over, tomorrow, or the next day. You have to calm down. You got this far. You can go the rest. OK?"
"I don't know Ben! I'm shaking! I'm so scared, every time I hear a noise. A pine cone falls on the roof and I nearly jump out of my skin! Are you coming home soon?"
"Coming Home?" The sound of those words startled him; Left him silent for a minute.
"Ben, damn it! Answer me will you?" she pleaded.
"Sorry... I ... uh... I don't know Amanda... you just threw me off balance with that "Coming Home" bit" Ben laughed rather sardonically.
"Oh, sorry, you know what I meant. When Ben? When are you coming?"
"I can't really say Amanda, it's really up in the air. I... can't say what's happening. Best for now, if you don't know that. Just... it's close. One way or the other, the next 48 hours and this is all over. You have to trust me. I have to go Amanda. Don't call me unless Timmy's on fire ok? It's... uh ... dicey here... I'll call you as soon as I can, OK"
