RATTLEMAN: Praise for 18 Seconds 'Excellent! Stephen King

by George D. Shuman

  Kirsten Berkley came up behind and put a hand on his shoulder.

  “You all right?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “What were they doing here anyhow?”

  Marty looked up at the mountain. “They found cocaine under the porch that came from that downed plane. Agent’s car was found in Quills Landing. That’s all they know.”

  She nudged him and nodded toward the door. Two men in jump suits were carrying a body bag out onto the porch.

  “The FBI sent me away. They took over forensics.” She tried to sound jaunty.

  “I heard,” he said.

  “I stayed on to volunteer for the search.” She looked up at the steamy mountain. “If these assholes ever get out of their loafers. Heard the dogs are on the way.”

  Marty had heard the same. Air Traffic had grounded all flights until the front moved through. “Look, Kirs, excuse me,” he said, “but I need to talk to someone. I’ll catch you later, okay?” And he walked away.

  “Later,” she called out, probably thinking he was taking it hard about Douglas.

  Marty walked down the muddy lane, a steady stream of cops and agents coming at him from the opposite direction. At the end of the Sulfur Creek, both sides of Mountain Road were crammed with cars and SUVs. Exhausts plumed into the heavy air, wipers beating and defrosters fighting the condensation from a dozen fogged windshields. Medical vehicles sat ready with silent strobes turning. Prominent among them all was the FBI’s white mobile command bus with the many satellite dishes and antenna on the roof.

  Some believed the fugitive man was hunkered down near the Ledder farm, hiding in a root cellar or in a cave under the rocks. Some thought he took asylum with neighbors or might have broken into someone’s trailer or cabin and barricaded himself in with his hostage.

  State troopers paired with army reserve officers, patrolling the roads in Humvees, searching every standing building, every chicken coop and outhouse between the Cemetery and Kettle Hollow. Checkpoints were set up on the bypass ramps out of Quills Landing and truck drivers were required to open unsealed cargos. Patrol cars cruised acres of truck stops and the back alleys off the riverfront in the older part of Quills Landing.

  Marty had sent Sam Watson and two officers to check on houses and farms around Kettle Hollow. The FBI had two crime scenes to cover and now the town of Marion was filling up with reporters. Sam had told him they were buying up motel rooms as far away as Durbin and Mathias.

  Johnny Lazarus was just coming down the steps of the command bus and approached him on the side of the road. “The dogs are in a cargo plane. They’ll be here within the hour. Give me a minute while I talk to Agent Fielding.” He excused himself and started jogging toward an approaching car.

  A woman on the steps of the command bus yelled out that there would be a briefing in ten minutes. Lines of uniformed officers had begun moving the cameras and newspaper reporters away. You couldn’t help but feel the overall sense of confusion.

  It still wasn’t clear exactly how Douglas and Judy had found out about the cocaine and ended up at the cabin. But that didn’t matter right now. They had a cop killer to catch and a federal agent was his hostage. And the FBI spokesperson wasn’t even attempting to deceive the harrying press. There was little doubt there was a connection between the cabin and the crime scene on Cemetery Hill. Little doubt they were looking for the Mountain State Butcher.

  The good news, if there could be any, was that his hostage would slow him down. If they deployed the dogs before dusk, they might make up for lost time. Fast dogs and fresh men would have an advantage over the shooter and a wounded agent.

  The FBI’s strategy was to narrow the search. If they could anticipate the fugitive’s direction they could drop tactical teams in front and all around them. Snipers with night optics would be invisible in the dark. They could take him down with a single shot and he would never know what happened.

  Marty wandered through the cars along Mountain Road. Someone had pitched an open-sided tent where coffee was being served and plastic rain ponchos were liberally distributed.

  All three rings and the big tent, he thought. The circus really had come to town.

  “Know who’s in charge?”

  A man approached him from the direction of a white Lincoln Navigator. He was tall and distinguished looking with white hair and full trimmed mustache, fifty-something, Marty thought, but fit and walking with a younger man’s swagger. He wore expensive field pants and a pair of riding boots that would have cost a week’s pay.

  “Phillips,” the man said, approaching him and reaching to offer his hand. “Lance Phillips. I own the Rainfield Kennels in Shady Spring.”

  “Sheriff Wayne.” Marty took his hand.

  “Saw you talking to someone from the bus and thought you could help.”

  Marty nodded.

  “I know that everyone is quite busy, but I just can’t seem to get the time of day.”

  Marty looked at him. “What do you need, Mr. Phillips?”

  “You know anything about dogs, son?”

  “No, Sir,” he said.

  “Well I’ve been around them all my life,” Phillips said. “Rainfield certifies more dogs than any other kennel this side of the Mississippi. I can tell you where a dog was born if they give me enough bark.”

  Marty smiled politely.

  “You know the difference between a tracker and a sniffer, Sheriff?”

  Marty shook his head again, wanting anything but small talk.

  “Trackers scent on ground molecules. They follow the dead tissue cells people leave behind. If you give them a whiff of a child blanket, a good dog can pull a kid out of Times Square. Sniffers on the other hand scent on air molecules. Those are your bomb dogs. They can smell narcotics, cadavers, accelerants – even cancer.”

  Marty nodded with restraint.

  “Man-hunters do both. Lose a ground trail, they can find it in the air. Follow it until they’re back on the ground again. A man runs from prison and a dog follows his ground scent to a river. Dog tracks the air molecules a mile upstream until the man steps on land again and the dog goes back to work on the ground. Best of both worlds.”

  “The Mount Olive dogs do both?” Marty asked, now curious.

  “Yep.”

  “Sounds like good news.”

  Phillips pointed at the mountain.

  “The thing is, Sheriff, when a man escapes from prison, he’s covering territory he’s never stepped on before. Every scent he leaves behind can only lead in one direction.”

  Marty looked at the man, growing more interested.

  “Human cells and molecules linger around for hours, sometimes weeks and months, depending upon conditions.”

  “You’re saying the dogs can’t differentiate between old scents and new,” Marty said.

  “You’re quick.” Phillips smiled. “And I heard this man that you’re all looking for is native to the mountain. If he’s been up there for any length of time there are going to be older trails too.”

  “And the dogs can get derailed, you’re saying.”

  “It’s easy enough to do in weather like this. Nothing stays the same up there, all of those molecules swirling around in the wind and rain.”

  Marty raised a finger, wanting to be sure he understood. “So the dogs could lose the fresh scent, pick up an old and follow it someplace he went last week?”

  Phillips nodded. “Happens all the time. We walk paths in a training field over a period of several days. Then we try to get the dogs to follow the last one made. It takes a hell of a dog to do it. Takes a champion to do it every time.”

  “How do you come to be here, Mr. Phillips?”

  “I got a call from the Governor’s Office asking about my dogs. Happens my wife Jill took the kennel down to Arkansas to compete in the nationals and I had to tell him no.”

  He pointed at the Navigator. “One of my pups got left behind, little Bluetick that had bronchitis. She’s had the last of her s
hots this morning and looks healthy and ready to run. Thought maybe we could help, but now no one seems interested.”

  Marty looked at the command bus.

  “You think your dog belongs up there on the mountain, Mr. Phillips?”

  Phillips smiled. “I raised her daddy, Sheriff Wayne. That dog could all but read a map.”

  “Can you wait right here?” Marty asked, looking through the crowd for Lazarus.

  “It would help if I could get a personal item that belonged to either the shooter or the hostage.”

  Marty raised his radio. “331 to 332, you there, Sam?”

  “332, over.”

  “Send someone down to the Cherokee Inn. I want used clothing from Agent Wells’ room. Tell them to bag it wearing gloves.”

  Phillips nodded his approval.

  A crowd began to organize around Agent Fielding. “There’s a couple of things he can do up there,” Fielding said in a loud voice. “All of them dependent upon the agent’s condition. The crowd closed in around him. “As long as Agent Wells is alive he can’t scale rocks or swim rivers. It should also narrow down his options about the terrain he chooses to tackle.”

  An agent with an umbrella started passing out maps with concentric rings drawn around a radius of fifteen miles. “We have checkpoints set up on every approach but if he stays off the roads, and we expect him to, we’ll have to follow him across the mountains. The fugitive is a white male, thirty-three years of age with shoulder length dark hair and beard. He has a heavy gauge rifle and at least one handgun, the agent’s service weapon, a 10MM Glock. Most importantly he was born here.” Fielding pointed toward the mountain. “He knows exactly where he is. Does everybody here have one of the maps?”

  There was a rustle of papers under umbrellas.

  “The shaded sectors are considered the most improbable routes of escape. The western side of the mountain is a sheer rock face and inaccessible on foot, and Silver River runs through the gorge along the north, neither a place for a man with a wounded hostage. To the south there is bog and below it a boulder field that effectively blocks descent to a gap between two ridges. Here, to the east are the foothills that lead to Canaan and the Appalachian Trail. That’s the most likely direction he will take. And as you can see it’s a great deal of territory. There will be two teams of tracking dogs leaving the cabin where Chief Douglas was killed. They will be designated Mount Olive A and B. Now rain doesn’t destroy the fugitive’s scent, only disperses it, so these dogs should be able to stay with him in any weather. With luck we’ll pick up their trail before dark and be able to drop our tactical response units on the mountain.”

  “What if we pin him down and he threatens to kill the hostage? Any plans to negotiate?” a young man asked.

  Fielding shook his head. “We don’t know what triggers him, but at least two of his victims died within hours of meeting him. We know that two others were kept alive and force-marched through the woods. We don’t know how long they lived, hours or days, but I can tell you this. Agent Wells doesn’t want to spend a minute of uninterrupted time with this man. We don’t want to give him a moment to think about her and so we’ll push him hard and keep up the pressure. Our objective is to make noise up there because we want him to know we’re coming. The weather’s turning better and there will soon be surveillance in the air. Two C-130s with thermal imaging and heat seeking cameras will be arriving within the hour.”

  Fielding pointed at the summit. “He’s one man. He’s tired and wet and burdened with a hostage. We are rested, we are many and we have technology on our side. Once the dogs get a fix on him we can begin to control the ground around him. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how we are going to bring our agent back.”

  Marty saw Major Lazarus at the edge of the crowd and made his way toward him.

  “Johnny!” he called, motioning with his hand. “I have someone I want you to meet.” He led the major away by the arm and they approached the dog tracking expert.

  “Major Lazarus, I want you to meet Mr. Phillips,” he said. “Mr. Phillips, this is Major Lazarus.”

  The men shook hands.

  “Mr. Phillips wants to tell you why the Governor likes his dogs. The FBI’s been too busy to talk to him,” Marty said, “but I knew you would help him to get introduced and to get a radio. My sergeant will be bringing up some of Agent Wells’ clothing from her motel room for scent. Right now I’m going to see my Uncle Toby.” And with that Marty turned and walked toward his Jeep.

  The dog handlers from Mount Olive prison wore military camos and carried Bushmaster rifles. Their gnashing German Shepherds looked as if they would like to snack on the little pale Bluetick from Rainfield.

  They were divided into two teams and as Fielding had pointed out, had team leaders designated Mount Olive A or Mount Olive B. Lance Phillips would lead his young Bluetick on his own, everyone using the same radio frequency.

  For the first time since the abduction, they were heading into the trees. Ten hours and twenty minutes behind their fugitive.

  It was 4:10 PM.

  Toby stared at Marty over his kitchen table. The wrinkles in the old Indian’s craggy face never moved. Finally he got up and walked to the back of the house. When he returned he was carrying a heavy clothes iron with a cord and he set it on the table, flat side facing him.

  He reached around the side of the iron and touched the outer rim about three quarters of the way to the top. “The bog begins here and there are many acres of standing water. Below the bog there is a boulder field and below the boulders there is the canyon called Singing Rocks. The boulders will be difficult to negotiate and will slow him down, that is true. But if he knows his way through he could cross the canyon before morning.”

  Marty sat back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling, thinking about his conversation with Lance Phillips. Thinking that the day had turned surreal.

  “Why there?”

  Toby tapped the bottom side of the iron. “The canyon is the gateway to the Monongahela National Forest and a million acres of trees.” He laid his hand flat on the table next to the iron and made a circle. “You will not find him if he reaches the Monongahela Forest.”

  “Then the prison dogs will track him there and drop SWAT teams in the canyon.”

  “And you win, either way, so what’s the point of not going? What I’m telling you is that he’s capable of losing the dogs. If he loses the dogs, or they take off in the wrong direction, the search teams and helicopters will follow. The winds on the Iron are constantly changing, Marty. You have already heard there can be dozens of false leads. If they divert manpower from the canyon there is a chance he could escape.”

  Marty looked at the iron. “Toby, I can’t be wrong about this.”

  “What are you saying, Marty? Of course you can be wrong.” Toby put a wrinkled hand on his and patted it reassuringly. “But he will cross the canyon at Singing Rocks by morning. Wait for him there.”

  Marty pushed the chair back, walked to the door and put his hand on the knob.

  “Why are you so sure?” he asked.

  “Because it is what I would do,” the old Indian said.

  Chapter 29

  Iron Mountain, West Virginia

  The Mount Olive dogs followed Rolfe and Judy’s unique scents almost directly toward the summit.

  Lance Phillips waited with his little Bluetick until the bag of Judy’s used clothing arrived.

  The Bluetick sniffed at the clothes and after a few minutes followed the others into the mountain.

  As he packed, Marty listened to their progress on the radio.

  In the higher elevations the winds would constantly change; there was less foliage to trap the molecules and the dogs began to circle. By dark the dogs and their handlers had slowed to a crawl.

  Fielding had been right about one thing on the mountain. Time was the enemy. Judy didn’t want to spend any alone time with this man. If the dogs lost the scent, Judy’s chances grew ever slimmer.

&nb
sp; Marty put a backpack together and pulled a rifle from a cabinet. The television was on in his living room and the media had converged on the foothills surrounding Marion. They showed aerial pictures of the cemetery and cabin, photos of Jessie Spangler and Annie Myer. Crime cable programs interviewed lawmen, psychiatrists, physicians and former hostages. It would be aired on every television screen in every home and every office. People would be standing transfixed in every airport and shopping mall and every waiting room across America. The world was hooked on the agent’s plight.

  The fugitive was described to be a native of West Virginia. Police had not yet divulged what led the dead Police Chief and agent to the cabin. There were no known photos of the man, but someone had produced a sketch drawn from descriptions offered by a local preacher. The press used Judy Wells’ agency file photo, which came on screen every few minutes.

  The radio chatter slowed to a trickle. The dog teams had unexpectedly split in two, one heading north toward the face of the summit, one heading east toward the Canaan Valley. It was already happening, Marty thought. They were already dividing.

  He put the rifle and a backpack in the Jeep and started driving for Elkins airport.

  A man’s voice on the radio began yelling excitedly. “B Team – the dogs are going hot west of Route 250! We’ve got someone on the run.”

  “Copy that, B Team,” the command center acknowledged. “We’ll have a tactical team in front of you in minutes.”

  Marty saw the two Black Hawks rising tail-first above the trees, turned his Jeep into the gates of the commercial airpark adjacent to Elkins Terminal and parked next to an open hangar door. A small red Bell helicopter sat on the tarmac. A sign over the hangar door read CENWEST MINERAL COMPANY. Marty shouldered his gear as a man emerged from the hangar.

  “Hey, Marty. You all ready?”

  “Ready, JJ,” he said.

  Marty pushed his gear behind the passenger seat and strapped himself in. The pilot got behind the stick and pulled a headset over his ears. He made a circle with his finger and the blades began to rotate. They lifted off the ground and banked south and away from the direction of Iron Mountain.