Tom Reed Thriller Series

by Rick Mofina

  “This is a security issue.”

  “Is he restrained?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ve taken prisoners before. You have police at the other end?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’re wasting time. You want him to die right here?”

  The security chief thought it over. It was in contravention of policy.

  “I’ll send one officer.”

  Ballard considered it.

  “Just one, unarmed. “Your lightest guy. Make it quick, I’m burning up fuel here.”

  “How long is the flight?”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  McCarry was talking to Ballard on the intercom.

  “Shane, we’re losing him and we’ve got to remove one of his arms to fix an IV.”

  Ballard nodded, informed the supervisor of the urgency of leaving now and freeing one of Hood’s wrists.

  The supervisor summoned a young uniformed officer in his early twenties with a slight build. No more than 150 pounds.

  “Sign here,” the supervisor shouted in the officer’s ear. “You’re the escort. You will not be armed. Just take the radio and the cuff key. County deputies will pick him up at the hospital. We’ll send the van after you.”

  The young officer nodded, watching his chief personally free one of Hood’s wrists, then secure the other to the stretcher. The supervisor double-checked to ensure Hood’s ankles were shackled together, then patted his officer’s shoulder and exited.

  The helicopter ascended over the prison.

  As it banked, Hood’s head turned; his eyes flickered open, glimpsing the prison shrinking below while they soared alongside his beloved mountains.

  Hood rubbed the hardened lump near his navel.

  He would never return.

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  Two lifeless eyes stared from the TV monitor.

  Zander had replayed the video recording of the crevasse probe to the task force members.

  The blurry eyes frozen on the tape locked onto Emily Baker.

  She stared back, motionless, feeling nothing but the awful crushing weight of pain.

  Her heart had been pierced.

  Paige.

  At the bottom of that dark, cold crevasse. Alone. Dead.

  Rachel. Her falling eyes.

  Oh, Paige. Falling. Did she think of me? Did she cry out to me? When was the last time I held her, told her I loved her?

  God, why? Why are you punishing me?

  Zander took a seat across the table from Emily, his blue eyes searching hers for answers.

  “Are you ready to tell us what happened to Paige?”

  How can you ask me that now?

  She looked into his face.

  How can you?

  “Emily, make it easier on yourself. Unburden your conscience. It is clear you and Doug are involved. Maybe things got out of hand. Maybe it was not meant to end this way but it is clear something went wrong.”

  Words would not come to her.

  Her life had ended at the bottom of the crevasse.

  Inspector Walt Sydowski was astounded.

  As much as he struggled with the case, deep in his gut he could not get the pieces to come together. Zander was masterful. It appeared to be over. Sydowski regarded Emily, then the eyes on the screen. He thought about a little girl from San Francisco who had set off only days ago to see the Rocky Mountains with her mom and dad. Going home in a body bag. Sydowski blinked, gazing through the window, through the trees to the peaks.

  Bowman thought of her son, Mark.

  Zander reflected on two little graves in Georgia, knowing he could never make up for the one he lost.

  Pike Thornton shook his head slowly, knowing he was right to trust his gut on Doug Baker’s hand wound. But why, he wondered, hadn’t they found any trace of her little dog, Kobee?

  Emily’s mouth started to move and a mournful sound followed.

  “What’s that Emily?” Zander said.

  “I did not harm my daughter.”

  The temperature of Zander’s gaze dropped. His eyes narrowed.

  “Was it Doug?”

  “No. No, he would never harm her.”

  “He has a temper.”

  “No. He yells because of coaching.”

  “The San Francisco Police were summoned to your house because of his temper.”

  “That was a misunderstanding. We were arguing. People argue.”

  “A student complained of an assault before you came here. Doug was on edge.”

  Emily shook her head, her face contorting with anguish.

  “People witnessed you and Doug in a full-blown argument the day before Paige vanished.”

  “Oh God, please, my baby’s dead! Why are you doing this?”

  “I want you to tell me what happened.”

  “I don’t know, she must have fallen, it’s--its--I”

  “‘She must have fallen?’ Do you know that is the most common thing a parent says in child abuse cases? ‘They must have fallen.’”

  Zander slammed his hands on the table. Emily flinched.

  “What happened!”

  “It’s not what you think, please.”

  “You tell me what to think, Emily. Your sister died here and you were there.”

  “No, please.”

  “The only other person there at the time says you’re responsible.”

  “He’s lying!”

  “He’s going to be executed for something he says he didn’t do!”

  “Please, I did not harm my sister, I was trying to save her. He passed her to me. She was slipping…. He knew what he was doing…. I see her eyes…”

  “You wrote letters admitting your guilt! Your daughter disappears while you and your husband, Doug, the man with the violent temper, are out of sight with her.”

  “Please, no.”

  “He has a wound on his left hand. He’s right-handed. The wound is consistent with someone swinging an object that slipped. We find the bloodied ax; we find your daughter’s blood-stained T-shirt.”

  “God, nooooo,” Emily sobbed.

  “At the crevasse we find traces of her blood and hair.”

  “Stop.”

  “Deep inside we find her sock.”

  “No.”

  “Her backpack!”

  “Pleeasse.”

  “Her corpse.”

  “Paige…I’m sorry…”

  “You saw it with your own eyes, Emily!”

  “No I can’t. Please please--”

  “Now, Emily, you tell me what to think!”

  Emily dropped her head onto her arms and sobbed. Bowman resisted patting her shoulders and looked away. The entire room was silent except for Emily’s weeping. Zander turned to the windows, running a hand over his face, gazing off toward the mountains. He had won. He was indifferent to Emily’s weeping. He had her in a vise. He would keep tightening it, forcing the truth out of her.

  The radio from atop the crevasse came to life, a welcome intrusion.

  “Clovis to Zander, come in. Over--”

  Zander picked up his radio. “Go ahead.”

  “We’re up again. Is your monitor on?”

  “No, we’re reviewing the previous search.”

  “Better turn it on.”

  The camera was now moving, resuming its transmission of more images from the grisly discovery of the eyes. Thornton was the first to utter a sound, half gasping, clicking his tongue.

  The camera probed the eyes, the area near them, sharply bringing the context into focus; something white, her face was way too white, wrong, in fact, furry-looking; the eyes too wide apart, and the teeth too pointed with blackened lips; not human at all, elongated jaw with a…

  “Mountain goat,” the probe’s operator said. “And we’re at the bottom. Absolutely nothing else here. It’s a mystery.”

  Emily lifted her head, dizzy with emotion, struggling to comprehend.

  “It’s not Paige?”

  Zander was stunne
d.

  “No, it’s not.” Sydowski said, feeling as if someone had just collapsed a house of cards.

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  Sergeant Greg Garner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police poured clear, cool water from his canteen into a tin bowl he’d set on the ground for his partner, whose lapping appreciation made him smile.

  “We’re really pushing you today, buddy.” Garner knelt down, kneading the shoulders of Sultan, his purebred German Shepherd.

  “They want to call us in. Want to relieve us. But let’s give it another couple hours. Then we’ll go home, pack up everybody, head off on vacation.”

  Sultan yelped. He was a very affectionate, hardworking two-year-old who lived with the Garner family on their ranch in the foothills west of Red Deer, Alberta. Garner’s wife and their children adored him.

  “Sound good. You miss the kids?”

  Sultan panted.

  “Me too.”

  Garner took in the panoramic view of the Rocky Mountains from just a few hundred yards north of the Canadian border in Waterton Lakes National Park. It met Glacier National Park, forming the International Peace Park system. He was reluctant to leave this case unfinished, but the order had come in from K-Division. Garner and Sultan would be relieved by a fresh K-9 team from Calgary subdivision.

  Waves of sadness rolled over the thirty-five year-old Mountie as he sat on a rock, surveying the glacier-carved valleys, the alpine forests and lakes.

  Garner always got this way whenever he was pulled from a search before it was concluded. He and Sultan had been working this one since they got the call to assist four days ago. They had gridded the entire border area, where Grizzly Tooth Trail wound into Canada, so many times he’d lost count. Goat ledges, cliffs, dense forests, rivers, valleys, off-trail, searching some of the most dangerous, rugged remote terrain on the continent. The fact no one had found anything, not even a sign of her beagle, Kobee, frustrated him.

  Garner felt he had earned the right to at least know what had happened to that little girl, especially now that the story was taking some nasty turns. The FBI suspected the parents; his orders were to keep searching. Now what were they supposed to be searching for? A corpse? Had the massive search for a lost child suddenly become a homicide? Was he standing amid an enormous crime scene? Garner did not want to walk away from this without seeing it through to the end.

  “You awake, Greg?” his radio said to him.

  It was Corporal Denise Mayo of the RCMP. He heard a bark in the background from her Malanois, Prince. A real show-off pup.

  “No, I am dreaming this conversation.”

  “They’re going to chopper us to you now. Stay put. We’re just getting the tank topped off. Shouldn’t be long.”

  Garner wanted to try something before he left. He studied his laminated map and his notes. He was a veteran of some three hundred searches. Canadian high courts had recognized him as an expert witness when he gave testimony in major criminal prosecutions. His record was exemplary.

  But that meant nothing to tourists, he laughed to himself.

  Before he was flown into his search zone, he encountered the RCMP mystique while sitting with Sultan, resting at his feet, at an outdoor café in Waterton. Garner was dressed in jeans, T-shirt, sunglasses, knapsack and sidearm at his side.

  “My, are you a police officer?” asked a woman in her seventies after stepping from a bus with Arizona plates.

  “Yes ma’am. I’m an RCMP officer.”

  “A Mountie?” She smiled. “You’re not dressed like one.”

  Garner chuckled and showed her his badge with the bison head.

  “We don’t wear the red serge and Stetson everywhere.”

  “‘But you always get your man,’ that’s your motto, right?”

  “I’m afraid not, ma’am. Actually, it’s ‘Maintain the Right.’”

  He agreed to let her take his picture, happy to set the record straight, but not telling her that for him pride and tradition meant you never, ever gave up on a case. That was not only his motto, it was an emotion that burned inside, flaring as he studied his map, ready to make his last sweep the best one.

  The Baker family campsite was a few miles south. It was remote but conceivable the girl, if she was mobile, could have traveled into the Canadian side. Expect the unexpected. Everything is a factor: weather, state of mind, potential injury, confrontation with animals.

  Garner reasoned that if she was moving, he would go back to the sector he had not searched for the longest time, in case she had since moved into it. If she were still alive, that is.

  “Let’s go, pal. We’re not pulling out of here yet.”

  Garner and Sultan paralleled Boundary Creek in the shadow of Campbell Mountain. Garner was happy Waterton officials had closed off the sectors he was searching. It was a little lonely but more effective. Since it was bear country, Garner commenced making noise, singing Del Shannon’s “Runaway.” It was a favorite of his growing up as a farm kid near Lethbridge. He tried not to think of the tragic cases he had worked on, not now on the eve of his three-week vacation. He was renting a camper and driving across Canada to Niagara Falls. He was grateful he and his wife had time to take the kids to the Calgary Stampede this year.

  Sultan led him toward a rugged boggy area.

  With the snow moistening the ground, it might yield something. There was shelter under some ledges. Nothing but nothing.

  Sultan froze.

  “What is it?”

  Sultan barked, hackles rising.

  One of the ledges actually hid an opening, the mouth of a cave. Garner sang louder as they inched forward. It was large enough to be a bear den or wolf lair. It stank the way grizzlies stink.

  “Hello in there?”

  No response.

  He unsnapped the strap for his holstered Smith & Wesson. Sultan’s growl echoed into the cave as they neared its opening. Garner scanned their immediate area to ensure an escape route. He gently rolled a grapefruit-sized rock into the hole, hearing it knocking around inside. He rolled in another, while singing. Nothing.

  “You want to check it out, buddy?”

  Sultan panted and barked, dutifully bounding into the darkness, his panting and whimpering echoing. Within seconds he emerged with something in his mouth.

  Garner’s heart raced.

  “What the heck is that?”

  It was a plastic container for bottled water.

  Sultan held it carefully in his jaws by the threaded lip, allowing Garner to take it. The cap was missing.

  Garner moved quickly, putting it in a clear plastic evidence bag, making a quick note of the time and location, putting it in his knapsack, then producing his flashlight, crawling into the cave. His eyes adjusted to the light as his beam swept the cave several times and he called. Other than the horrible smell, nothing there.

  Garner moved from the area to a spot less vulnerable and studied the bottle. The label said it was bottled in Northern California. There was some sort of small merchant’s sticker, kind of damaged. It took Garner a moment to determine he was reading, SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.

  “Geez.” He rushed back to Sultan, whose snout was to the ground. they scoured the softer, muddied sections, until Sultan barked.

  “Bingo!” Garner dropped to his knees at the beautiful sight.

  A sneaker print, fresh. Very fresh.

  “Steady. Good work.”

  He estimated it was a child’s size. He found another footprint, a partial, then another. He checked his location with his compass, his map and landmarks. From the direction the person was traveling into the United States, the border was less than one hundred yards away.

  Garner reached for his radio,

  What concerned him was the condition of the plastic bottle. A jagged gash ran across its middle, as if it had been savagely mauled. Garner knew Sultan did not do that. He’d call in; then they’d try tracking.

  “Go ahead, Greg, what have you got?”

  “Alert e
verybody. She’s been here. Recently.”

  “Give us your location.”

  SIXTY-NINE

  Paige’s hunger was unbearable. Her empty stomach constantly contracted, cramped, ached for food. Waves of dizziness passed over her.

  Can’t go on much longer.

  She had eaten her granola bars long ago.

  How many days has it been?

  Don’t know. Just lie down and die.

  Her throbbing, swollen feet, pillows of pain. Cuts, blisters, scrapes raw and stinging. She longed to bathe. Her filthy hair itching; her skin chafing; her parched throat burning.

  Could she drink her tears?

  She still had her water bottle which had been punctured during her near-death encounter with the bear at the crevasse.

  Oh God.

  Paige quaked at the memory.

  Kobee had saved her. Brave little puppy.

  The bear had swatted her as if she were a stuffed toy, sending her tumbling to the mouth of the crevasse. As she struggled to keep from plunging into the fissure’s narrow black opening, a claw tore into her backpack, entangling the bear long enough for her to slip from the straps while Kobee snapped at the bear.

  It happened so fast.

  The angry monster, snarling and growling at Kobee, contended with the backpack affixed to its paw, allowing Paige time to clamber down a cliff ledge too narrow for the bear to follow, hiding there out of reach, praying Kobee could flee to safety.

  Paige clung to the cold rock in the night until she believed the bear had left the area.

  After more than two hours, she climbed out.

  In the darkness, she found a small rock enclosure and squeezed into it. She tried not to cry out, not scream, not to think of Kobee, but only to stop shivering long enough to sleep on the cold, hard limestone. She concentrated on dreaming of her mother, her father, her warm, soft bed, her San Francisco home, her friends.

  Dawn came with sunshine and Kobee nuzzling next to her.

  “You’re safe! I love you, puppy. My hero,” Paige whispered, pulling his smelly little body tight to hers, luxuriating in its warmth, fighting off thoughts of bananas, oranges, restaurants, a trip to the supermarket.

  She wept with her face pressed into her beagle.