by Gavin Reese
As the Corolla’s digital clock updated to 2:32 am, Duke steered the stolen sedan into another of the freeway’s gentle, sweeping turns. Unexpectedly, its headlights swept back-to-front across the reflective, passenger-side decal of a Montana Highway Patrol cruiser parked in the center median only a dozen feet from the left northbound shoulder. The black, fully-marked Dodge Charger was parked perpendicular to the interstate and faced the northbound lanes. Duke realized he could not avoid driving toward the cop car, and would imminently pass within only a few yards of the trooper seated therein. As he completed the freeway’s gentle right turn and approached the cruiser, his sympathetic nervous system response increased when a bright wall of white light suddenly emanated from the Charger, casting a dozen yards of near-daylight across both northbound lanes. The intimidating light immediately threatened Duke’s anonymity and safety as he realized the cop would easily see inside the stolen Corolla as he drove past. Having regarded the cover of darkness as a safety blanket to help him evade detection and capture, Duke feared imminent apprehension as the cop’s actions instantly peeled away that security.
Feeling adrenaline again course through his veins, Duke unintentionally locked his face, hands, and arms, and looked straight forward as the Corolla propelled him into, and through, the cruiser’s blinding beams.
Ninety-One
Northbound Interstate-15. South of Dillon, Montana.
Montana Highway Patrol Trooper William J. Raheps had positioned his Dodge Charger and all its forward-facing white light to illuminate passing northbound vehicles. Hoping to identify drug traffickers and impaired drivers, he recognized indications of abnormal, nervous behavior in the driver of a white, Utah-plated sedan as it passed through the artificial near-daylight before him. That’s suspicious. After turning off the Charger’s overhead take-down lights and high beams, he dropped the transmission into Drive and slowly merged into the otherwise-abandoned northbound lanes. Once on solid pavement, Raheps quickly accelerated and caught up to the white Toyota Corolla less than a minute after it had driven past him. While keeping an intermittent eye on the driver’s ability to maintain his speed and lane of travel, he typed the Utah plate information into his mobile data terminal to check it against the National Crime Information Center database.
The return took nearly thirty seconds to reach him, which he’d expected given the data reception on that stretch of highway, and Trooper Raheps’ senses immediately heightened as he read a ‘stolen vehicle’ notice now displayed on his monitor.
Raheps grabbed the radio mic in his right hand and keyed up as he had thousands of times before. “Missoula, 11-oh-2.”
“Go ahead, 11-oh-2.”
“I’m getting a stolen car hit from the Utah plate I just ran. I’m behind the car now, white Toyota Corolla, white male driver. We’re northbound on 15, about 40 miles south of Dillon. Break.” He paused to allow the dispatcher to type the information he’d provided, and to momentarily clear the radio in the event another trooper had emergency traffic. “11-oh-2 back, can you confirm the hit, looks like it’s outta La Verkin, Utah, reported about eight hours ago. I’m gonna wait ‘til he passes the rest stop at mile post 34 to try and stop him if you get the confirmation back by then.” Raheps hoped to prevent the Corolla’s driver from using other motorists who might be at the rest area as hostages, or to simply create a horrible backdrop if he had to shoot the man. Normal police protocol would have dictated he wait to initiate the traffic stop until at least one other unit had arrived to help; cops were so sparse around Beaverhead County at that time of morning, however, that Raheps decided the greater risk existed in closely following the driver for the next thirty minutes until they reached the Dillon town limits.
“Missoula, 11-31, I’m southbound from Butte, Code 3, until 11-oh-2 calls Code 4.”
“Copy, 11-31, Code 3 from Butte.”
That’s not gonna be much help, Raheps thought, he’s half-an-hour away, even at breakneck speeds.
Ninety-Two
Northbound Interstate-15. South of Dillon, Montana.
Once the ominously black cop car merged onto the interstate and closely followed him, Duke knew he had limited opportunity for success. Deciding how to best prevent his capture, he held no illusion that the stolen Corolla could outrun the cop tailing him. Duke unbuckled his seatbelt, removed the snub-nosed, .44-Magnum revolver from its concealed holster on his right hip, and secured the handgun under his left thigh. Examining the road ahead, he considered turning into the approaching rest area, which could have allowed him to kill the cop and hide the cruiser from obvious sight, but soon dismissed that idea. He wanted the dead cop and shot-up cruiser to be found quickly. The killing would suck all the nearby cops to the scene before they pushed back out to identify and pursue the unknown killer.
No, he determined, this had to happen on the blacktop. Passing the abandoned rest area, Duke found no benefit in delaying this any longer than necessary and searched the road ahead for an appropriate ambush point.
Ninety-Three
Northbound Interstate-15. South of Dillon, Montana.
“11-oh-2, Missoula.”
Having followed the white Corolla for only five minutes, Raheps picked the radio mic back up and pressed the “talk” button to respond to his dispatcher. “11-oh-2, go ahead, Missoula.”
“11-oh-2, we just got your hit confirmation from La Verkin P-D. That Corolla is stolen and the owner’s willing to press charges.”
“Copy, Missoula. We’re just a bit north of the rest area at 34 now. Do you have an E-T-A for any other units in the area?”
“11-oh-2, Beaverhead S-O has two deputies headed your way, as well as a Dillon P-D unit. One deputy and the Dillon unit are coming from town, the second deputy is coming from south of Dell.”
Raheps calculated the estimated time for the other officers’ arrivals, and didn’t like the result. “Copy, Missoula, sounds like the southbound units are a ways out. I’ll try to wait about five minutes to give the northbound S-O unit from Dell time to get close before I initiate the stop.” Hell, he thought, I’ll be lucky to get five more minutes outta this, I’m sure he’s already expecting me to stop him.
Ninety-Four
Northbound Interstate-15. South of Dillon, Montana.
As his stolen Toyota approached the summit of a long hill, Duke felt both a sense of relief and an immediate increase in activation of his sympathetic nervous system. Having spent the previous seven minutes in the unwanted company of a tailgating trooper from the Montana Highway Patrol, Duke saw a yellow-and-black road sign that announced a sweeping right turn ahead, which completed the ambush point he had been looking for. Duke anxiously looked up at the rearview mirror, and saw the trooper had given him a little more breathing room and now followed at a distance of about ten car lengths. Perfect, he thought, that’ll give Trooper Taillight plenty of time to react, but not so much time to allow him to either completely stop or easily drive past me. Now, just gotta make sure we’re gonna get to dance alone…
At the hill’s apex, the highway leveled out and allowed Duke a commanding view of several miles around him, which revealed an absence of headlights other than those from the trooper’s menacing Charger. Just before the road descended and swept right, Duke realized this was exactly the environment he needed to best ensure his immediate success and further prolong his freedom. After touching the revolver’s handle to ensure it remained in place beneath his left thigh, Duke took a deep, resolute breath.
“For the New American Republic! White Power!” Duke proclaimed to the sedan’s interior with his left hand clutching the steering wheel and his right balled into a fist in front of his chest. Seeing the trooper had maintained a relatively long following distance from the summit, he crushed the Toyota’s brake pedal as hard as he could. The small sedan’s nose fell toward the asphalt, its trunk rose so high Duke could no longer see the Charger, and he momentarily struggled to keep the car in the desired, far-right side of the ri
ght lane, all while the Corolla’s slowing tires simultaneously skip-screeched along the asphalt as its ABS system worked to quickly slow the sedan without sliding. Making little effort to avoid a collision, Duke turned the slowing Toyota farther right, but remained on the roadway and in the path of the oncoming Charger.
As the stolen Toyota nearly reached a full stop, Duke threw the driver’s door open; its handle almost immediately leapt from his left hand as the vehicle’s remaining momentum forcefully propelled the door forward. Duke rose and stepped from the sedan as soon as it stopped, but failed to place the transmission in park. He turned left to face the Charger, stood fully upright, and raised his right hand to point the large-caliber revolver at the rapidly slowing squad car; adrenaline had so substantially narrowed Duke’s field of view that he felt as though he stared at the Charger through an empty toilet paper tube.
As he squeezed the revolver’s long, heavy trigger, Duke thought it strange that he didn’t hear the same tire squealing from the Charger as he had while stopping the Toyota.
pop
Immediately after he got the first shot off, Duke realized the exploding .44-Magnum cartridge sounded like a toy gun. His perception of time had slowed to the point that Duke saw the first bullet strike the pavement in front of the Charger, but low and left. Audio exclusion and time slows, he thought, it’s like I’ve never been in battle before. Duke tried to breathe, to reduce his heart rate to regain his peripheral vision, but the stress of the approaching Charger wouldn’t allow him to focus on such things.
While releasing the trigger to reset it for a second shot, Duke tried to slow his movement and improve his aim. Upon leveling the revolver, he heard the overwhelming roar of the oncoming sedan’s engine being commanded forward at full throttle, just as all its strobing emergency lights and siren came to life. Startled, both at the unexpected noise and the disorienting lights, Duke’s field of vision narrowed even further and he realized he could no longer see the Charger. Only an empty highway bathed in flashing red-and-blue light remained where the trooper had been only a moment before.
Ninety-Five
Northbound Interstate-15. South of Dillon, Montana.
Although he initially tried to stop short of the Corolla’s driver, the first booming gunshot changed both Trooper Raheps’ mind and his tactics. He flipped the control switch on the emergency light console box to Position Three, which activated the Charger’s high-decibel siren and every flashing light it possessed, and roughly stomped the accelerator to the floor. Raheps quickly swerved the Charger slightly left and then immediately back right, which moved the sedan’s path only a few feet west of where his adversary had last seen it. As an Army combat veteran and twenty-five-year Trooper, he instinctively wanted to manipulate the shooter’s fight-or-flight biochemistry, and knew he could more easily defeat him by doing so. As his Charger accelerated toward the shooter, whom he saw had now become separated from the rolling, stolen Toyota by about fifteen feet, Raheps tucked himself in behind his A-pillar and braced for impact.
Raheps saw the terror and confusion on the shooter’s face, just before another muzzle flash and booming report announced a second, inbound round. Almost immediately after that image burned into Raheps’ memory, the Charger’s front bumper tore through and past both the shooter’s legs; the man’s head and chest almost instantly struck the passenger-side windshield, which shattered and spider-webbed the entire glass pane and cast the shooter up and over the sedan.
The awful, and simultaneously ecstatic, sight and sound of his Charger colliding with its soft, water-filled target exactly coincided with multiple airbag deployments. Slightly stunned by the unexpected assault, Raheps again mashed his brakes and veered hard left to avoid the abandoned, slow-moving Corolla as it gained speed and veered off the highway’s right shoulder. He stopped the cruiser and positioned it to provide him cover from further gunfire, and exited the sedan to challenge and engage the gunman. Drawing his service weapon from its leather holster on his right hip, Raheps first tried to orient himself to his threats and potential cover. He held his Sig Sauer pistol in a low-ready position while he stepped back, and laterally, away from the open driver’s door and looked south until he saw the bleeding suspect atop the asphalt roadway. Raheps moved the pistol to a high-ready position with its front sight just below his target. After watching for only a few seconds, he saw the mangled suspect was motionless, and may no longer be his most immediate threat.
Switching his attention to the Corolla, which had continued rolling downhill along the right shoulder, Trooper Raheps focused on the bouncing car’s interior, and saw no one make any effort to get up and take control of the vehicle. Probably empty, but we won’t know for sure until we clear it. He looked back to the shooter, returned his pistol’s front sight to cover the man, and yelled commands.
“STATE TROOPER! STAY ON THE GROUND! GET AWAY FROM THAT GUN! GET AWAY FROM THAT GUN!” Raheps stopped yelling to evaluate the suspect’s response, but the only movement was a growing blood pool beneath his head and chest. Although allowing himself to start calming down, he kept watch on both what he believed had probably become a corpse and the now-stalled Corolla. Even in the sporadic and strobing light from the rear bank of his Charger’s emergency lights, Raheps could see the man’s body appeared broken and beyond salvage. “Soul permanently separated from flesh,” he said aloud, almost whispering at first, until righteous anger took over, “and for what, a stolen fuckin’ car?” His voice raised and his front sight hovered just below the body. “Forces me to trade his life for mine, for a fuckin’ stolen car?!”
“11-oh-2.” The dispatcher’s transmission reminded Raheps that he hadn’t said anything on the radio since the deadly confrontation began. He took a deep breath and lowered his anger.
“11-oh-2, Missoula, shots fired.” Raheps kept his voice even and tried to convey calm, despite the diverse range of emotions and biochemicals flooding his body. “Suspect is down. Repeat, shots fired, suspect is down.”
“11-oh-2, copy, shots fired and suspect down. Confirm Code 4, please.” Raheps recognized distress in his dispatcher’s voice, and appreciated someone he had never met sounded like she hung from her radio by a thread while awaiting his response.
“11-oh-2, I am Code 4, Tango 68-94,” he replied and provided his internal employee number to authenticate his welfare, “I haven’t cleared the car yet, but the one known suspect is, uh, immobile.”
“Copy, 11-oh-2, are you standing by for other units?”
“Yes, ma’am. We’ll have to get traffic blocked and diverted. Go ahead and wake up the Lieutenant and Captain. They’re gonna wanna come out for this one.”
“11-oh-2, David-47.” Raheps recognized Deputy Wilford Nichols, and could have predicted the complete calm he now heard in the man’s voice. Having worked with Nichols as a trooper for a number of years before the Dillon native had gone over to the Beaverhead County Sheriff’s Office, he truly regarded the deputy as a respected brother.
“Go ahead, 47,” he said, grateful that Nichols was responding.
“11-oh-2, I’m just coming up south of the rest area at 34, where’s the scene?”
Raheps tried to remember the last mile marker he saw; failing that effort, he gave his best time estimate. “I’m about five, maybe seven minutes north of 34. Not sure on the exact mile post, sir.”
“Copy. See you in three. Three-seven-seventy-seven.”
“Roger that, David-47. Three-seven-seventy-seven.” Although certain his friend's reference to the Vigilantes would eventually make the news, Raheps smirked and just didn’t care. If it’s good enough to go on the patch and on the car, he thought, it’s good enough to go on the radio. Especially for this asshole. If Montanans didn’t understand runnin’ a fucker over for shooting at you, no one would.
“11-oh-2, Missoula.” Raheps again heard stress in the dispatcher’s voice.
“Go ahead, Missoula.”
“11-oh-2, priority Code 9.�
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“Go ahead, Missoula, I’m clear for Code 9.” What the hell, he thought, I already know the car’s stolen, what could the Confidential Message code be for?
“Per La Verkin P-D and Salt Lake F-B-I office, the car may contain explosives. They’re advising you to immediately back out and stop traffic at least a half-mile in both directions.”
Ninety-Six
Closed northbound lanes of Interstate-15. South of Dillon, Montana.
After the ominous Code 9 transmission, Trooper Raheps had ensured the unidentified suspect could no longer threaten anyone. He left the immediate scene to divert southbound traffic while Deputy Nichols had stopped short of the scene and diverted northbound traffic back south. Additional Montana Highway Patrol troopers, Beaverhead County Sheriff’s Office deputies, and Dillon PD officers soon arrived on scene and relieved Raheps of any further duties.
Without an official assignment, Raheps sat in Deputy Nichols’ front passenger seat, played word puzzles on his personal phone, and watched the escalating response at the crime scene. Nichols sat in the driver seat, kept Raheps company, and tried his best not to discuss the shooting.
The two men watched bomb technicians arrive on scene from Lewis & Clark County Sheriff’s Office, based more than 130 miles away in Helena, Montana, only a few minutes behind the on-call MHP Captain, who had responded from his home in Butte, a mere 68 miles north. That’s the speed difference between deputies and administrators, Raheps thought.
