Tom Reed Thriller Series

by Rick Mofina

  “Sounds like a helicopter is on its way,” he said. “There’s a place it can land just over the ridge. A flat patch near a ledge.”

  She nodded. She just wanted to see her parents, to go home to San Francisco, to her room, her bed. Never be scared again.

  Paige looked at him.

  “Everyone’s been looking for you,” he said.

  She sniffed, pulling Kobee to her. She was so sorry she had run off. Sorry that her parents argued. She could not stop trembling.

  “You are safe now,” he said. “Nothing will harm you now.”

  “How--” her voice was weak. “How did you know where to find me?”

  The sunglasses stared at her.

  “I just knew, Paige. I just knew.”

  Like I know this part of the world, its secrets and promises.

  “Ready to go wait for the helicopter? Think you can make it a little farther?”

  She nodded. It was a short, easy walk to the small, flat table that reached to a cliffside. Hood heard the helicopters first. Far off, approaching fast.

  If I time it just right, they will all learn what I am capable of.

  “Can you hear that?” he said.

  Paige heard nothing.

  “Helicopters. They’re coming. They’ll be here soon.”

  They stood there waiting.

  Butterflies darted by, stirring his memories. He walked to the cliff’s edge. Standing there, gazing down the rock face to the bottom, some four hundred feet below, he turned at the cliff and extended his arms.

  “This is where I live.”

  Paige was exhausted. Puzzled. Not certain she understood him.

  “But I have no friends,” he said. “Will you be my friend?”

  Paige blinked. Thinking. Trying to comprehend, she nodded slowly.

  “Come closer. I’d like to show you something.”

  She heard the helicopters. Kobee barked.

  “I like it over here. The cliffs make me a little nervous.”

  Kobee continued barking a warning.

  “Please,” Hood raised his voice. “You’ll never guess what I’m going to do.”

  “Look, the helicopters are getting closer!” Paige began waving. “Over here! Over here! Over here!”

  “Please, Paige, you said you were my friend. Come over here.”

  She saw no harm. He had saved her. Cautiously, she neared him.

  “Want to play a game?”

  She stretched to gaze down, shaking her head.

  “Let’s play a game.”

  A game? Paige tried to understand. This is weird.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Just a quick game?”

  She was backing away, shaking her head.

  “You are just like your goddamn mother.” Hood shouted. Smiling, he revealed his jagged brown teeth. “Guess what I’m going to do.”

  Hood snatched Kobee, who yelped as he tossed him from the cliff.

  Paige screamed.

  Hood came for her.

  EIGHTY-TWO

  The two FBI agents crouching under the whirling blades of the helicopter looked familiar to Bowman.

  Glimpsing them trotting to the old Huey distracted her as she waded into the press camp to retrieve David Cohen.

  Curiosity kept her shooting glances in their direction.

  Something is up.

  Bowman caught a partial view of Cohen’s head through a wall of TV cameras. And kept looking at the agents.

  Their body composition. Posture. It was gnawing at her.

  Cohen was giving impromptu interviews when Bowman got to him.

  “Please come now, Mr. Cohen. We need you at the command center.”

  Seeing the Justice Department seal on Bowman’s shirt, Cohen agreed.

  “If it’s about Isaiah’s alleged escape, I am as dumbstruck as anyone. I--”

  Bowman was not listening. Working their way to the command center, it dawned on her watching the old Huey lift off.

  Doug and Emily Baker. Wearing FBI caps. Dark glasses.

  Gripped with concern, Bowman was hurrying now.

  What is going on? It doesn’t look right. The chopper climbed. Bowman eyeing it while rushing into the Ops room. She sought out Frank Zander, leaving Cohen in the middle of the activity, perplexed.

  Zander was studying a report near one of the rangers. “Frank, what’s going on with the Bakers?”

  “What do you mean? They’re over there.” He nodded to a corner with a large TV. “They’re waiting to be taken back--”

  “Superintendent Temple!” A ranger shouted. “Urgent call for you from Communications!”

  Zander stepped closer to Bowman.

  “Say that again, Tracy?”

  “I saw them seconds ago, getting on a helicopter.”

  “What?” Zander walked to the TV where the Bakers had been. “Tracy, were they escorted?”

  “Attention, everyone!” Temple shouted. “The RCMP have a visual on the girl. She’s alive!”

  Cheers and high fives rippled through the operations room.

  Bowman and Zander heard the report, accepting back slaps while grappling with the new Baker situation.

  “No, Frank, they were wearing FBI caps and sunglasses. Boarding an old Huey. One of the charter contractors, I think.”

  “The ancient Huey is Rawley Nash.” A SAR pilot overheard them while jotting down the coordinates of the hot Mountie sighting. “He’s a character.”

  “What do you mean?” Zander said.

  “A rebel. Likes to bend the rules.”

  Zander’s mind rocketed through a million scenarios. “Are you good to go now?” he said to the pilot.

  “Sure, I got the fastest bird out there, but I’ve been told to wait for an assignment--”

  “This is your assignment,” Zander said. “You take us to where this Nash guy is taking the Bakers.” Zander took the pilot’s upper arm. “Now. No discussion. FBI emergency. Come on, Tracy!”

  Within minutes, the command center was shrinking beneath them as the new Bell thundered over the lake, then past Howe Ridge, then Heavens Peak.

  Zander brushed the handle of his holstered gun, battling the fear eating at him as forests blurred below.

  Let me be wrong. Let me be wrong.

  Their pilot had reached Nash by radio, confirming the Huey was a few miles ahead. They were gaining on it, bound for the same coordinates. At Zander’s insistence, Nash was not questioned on his passengers.

  The Bell’s radio crackled again. The pilot adjusted it for Zander.

  “It’s for you.”

  “Turner to Agent Zander, come in?”

  “Zander here.”

  “We just learned of our subjects’ unauthorized departure.”

  Zander looked at the mountains, leaving the air dead, forcing Turner to continue.

  “No one could have foreseen these events, Frank.”

  That’s what they said about the Georgia file.

  “Frank?”

  “Have you got the right people moving on this, Lloyd?”

  “Two sniper teams coming behind you in National Guard rescue aircraft.”

  Zander and Bowman’s Bell roared alongside Flattop Mountain. “Well, sir,” Zander said, using the senior agent’s words, “let’s see what transpires. Over.”

  Let me be wrong.

  How did the Bakers know where to go and when? How? And Isaiah Hood’s escape. At this moment? As if calculated? Why did Emily Baker return to Montana? To the same spot where her sister died? Why?

  It was horribly tragic. Or horribly obvious.

  Right under their noses.

  Let me be wrong.

  The chopper banked hard. Gravity pulled on Zander’s stomach.

  Let me be wrong about the Bakers.

  Zander was unsure if he could handle cases like this anymore.

  When this one was over, he was unsure where to go with his life.

  He looked at Bowman, suddenly glad she was here.

>   He needed her here.

  EIGHTY-THREE

  Hilda Sim carefully rolled the gnarled focus wheel of her binoculars.

  Levi Kayle gently turned the focus of the telephoto lens on his digital Nikon camera.

  Sim’s radio received nonstop alerts to the sector, confirming Isaiah Hood as the fugitive convict who escaped the crash.

  “It’s them.” Kayle’s face creased behind his viewfinder. “Hood has the girl!”

  “Oh my God!” Wilson squinted, her hand shielding her eyes. “Can’t we get to them?”

  Tory Sky was adjusting her video camera lens. “We’re too far away.”

  The group was a thousand yards off, with a lethal four-hundred-foot gorge between them. Sim grabbed her radio.

  Helicopters were approaching.

  Through his small binoculars, Tom Reed could distinguish a large figure in blue and a smaller figure. They were near the lip of the gorge. The group’s perspective only permitted them to see the upper segment, the edge.

  Kayle’s camera began clicking.

  “Christ, Hood’s throwing something over the cliff!” Kayle clicked. “Those choppers better hurry, man!”

  Rawley Nash’s Huey was first to the cliff area.

  Emily Baker was striving to see what was happening through the binoculars vibrating against her skull.

  “Doug! It’s Paige!” Emily pulled the eyepieces tight to see. “It’s Hood! He’s throwing--God, Doug, he’s--he’s--nooo!”

  Doug?

  Instantly, Nash knew. His passengers were the parents! “Hey, what is--”

  Doug Baker saw the horrible scene unfolding. Hood in his blue jumpsuit struggling with his daughter. He shouted at Rawley.

  “Put us down now!”

  Nash was descending from some two hundred feet when the FBI radioed, ordering him to evacuate immediately so agents could commence a rescue.

  “Damn! I can’t! I’ve been ordered out!” Rawley started pulling up.

  Emily began screaming at the sight below. Hood was dragging Paige to the cliff edge.

  “He’s going to kill her!”

  “For the love of God, put us down!” Doug thundered.

  Emily was screaming. Doug was yelling. The FBI was demanding Nash to clear so agents could land. It was surreal. Nash hovered. Emily screamed, banging, kicking at the chopper’s interior.

  “Paige! No. God! Drop us! Drop us! Drop us! He’s going to kill our daughter!”

  Nash witnessed the horror below. Suddenly, he dropped the Huey. The FBI raged over the radio. Hood was struggling with Paige. Airwaves were pulsating. The Huey descending some thirty yards from the cliffside to the small flattop. Emily leaped from her seat before it hit the ground, numb with shock, forcing her legs to pump as Doug rushed behind her.

  Emily felt everything was in slow motion, like a horrible dream.

  Nash’s Huey ascended, clearing for the FBI. The rotors blew Hood’s cap and glasses over the edge.

  Paige’s face was blistered and scraped. Her eyes found her mother. Horrified. Hands reaching to her in vain. Rachel’s eyes. Her hand slipping. Hood locked his powerful arms around Paige’s waist. Turned, dropped.

  “No!”

  Doug was shouting.

  Hood with Paige. Vanishing. Over the edge.

  No. Please.

  The National Guard helicopters arrived, the first taking a point just over the gorge some sixty yards out. An FBI sniper worked quickly to sight Hood through his scope.

  “Not yet,” his commander said. “He’s all over her.”

  The second helicopter took a one o’clock point one hundred yards above Hood; another sniper was prepared to lock him in his crosshairs.

  The aircraft were keeping enough distance so the drafts from the rotors would not create a risk. “Stand by,” the FBI commander said.

  Eyeballing Hood from one hundred feet up. Calm. Cool. His jaw muscles pulsating. Zander forced himself to let his training kick in.

  “Down. Down. Down,” he urged the pilot.

  Bowman was stunned by the scene below.

  Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.

  The Bell swooped, landing behind the Huey. Bowman and Zander exploded from their helicopter behind Doug and Emily.

  It was as if Emily were underwater. Coming to the cliff, she saw Hood’s head. He had jumped to a large lower ledge.

  Her eyes filled with terror. She froze at the nightmare before her.

  Oh God. No.

  Hood stood at the lip of the gorge. Arms extended, big hands locked on Paige’s wrists, swinging her like a pendulum out beyond the edge, over nothing but four hundred feet of dizzying dead drop.

  “Oh, please! Oh, please!” Paige pleaded. Sobbing, toes kicking, reaching for the rock in a vain attempt to save herself. Looking down at the abyss at death, sobbing gasping. Her arms aching.

  ‘Mommeeeee!’

  The helicopters were deafening.

  Hood moved with animal speed, lowering Paige down the side of the rock face, barely allowing her to catch her toes solidly on a two-inch rock ledge. Only her fingers were visible now, clinging precariously above her on the cliff. Slipping. Slipping. Clinging for her life. Gasping. Pleading. Hood lowered himself beneath Paige to a second lower ledge, looking up in time to see Emily dropping to her stomach, reaching for Paige.

  “Mommy, please!”

  “I’ve got you, baby!”

  Emily seized her daughter’s wrists, began sliding backward, pulling her up while suddenly feeling the horrible weight.

  Hood is gripping Paige’s ankles!

  “Mommeee!”

  Paige’s eyes pleading. Rachel’s eyes. Save me. Help me.

  Emily shouting: “Isaiah, let her go! You can’t have her! Let her go!”

  Two rock chips flew from the rock wall near Hood’s head.

  His eyes burned into Emily’s.

  “I just wanted one friend in my life!” he shouted.

  Emily pulled. Paige screamed as Hood stepped from the ledge, his full weight locked on her ankles, nearly pulling her and Emily down as Doug caught her.

  “God,” Doug grunted. “Hang on.”

  Paige shrieked, feeling her body stretching. Three rock chips flew near Hood. The snipers were inches from his back.

  Zander and Bowman arrived, flinging themselves down. Bowman reaching for Paige’s upper right arm; Zander worked his fingers toward his pistol. Paige was screaming, nearly fainting from the excruciating agony. Emily shouted above the choppers, “Isaiah, if you let her go, I’ll be your friend forever! Let her go, please!”

  He smiled his brown-tooth smile.

  “It was just a game, Natalie Ross. Just a game.”

  Hood surrendered, releasing his hold on Paige. His arms shot out, his eyes met Emily’s.

  Face lifting to heaven, smiling, falling; sweet air rushing, embracing him. No more hooks, no more prison, no more pain--only blue sky, mountain peaks, sunlight, serenity, peace. Free in his home, forever with a friend.

  Paige sobbed hysterically.

  Pulled to safety.

  Emily hugged her.

  “It’s over. It’s over.” She wept.

  Doug crushed them both in his arms.

  Zander peered over the edge at Hood’s body smashed against the rocks below. Bowman tried catching her breath on the flattop near the Bakers.

  No one spoke. Nothing but the helicopters as Emily soothed Paige, sobbing.

  Then Bowman heard it. A faint cry. “What was that?”

  A yelp.

  Zander investigated. A dozen yards away, he located Kobee.

  “Hey there!”

  Secured by his harness, the terrified beagle was dangling from his leash that had looped on a jagged ledge when Hood tossed him over the cliff.

  Zander stepped down and retrieved the dog, reuniting him with Paige.

  “Kobee!”

  The Bakers were frozen in their embrace, staring at Zander and Bowman.

  Helicopters thundered.

 
Radios crackled.

  The Bakers smiled at Zander, warming his weary heart.

  It was over.

  EPILOGUE

  After Paige Baker downed a pizza and large root beer she slept.

  Doctors at Montana General Mercy in Missoula told reporters she had suffered exposure, dehydration, sun burn, some shoulder separation, strain of tendons, ligaments and post-traumatic stress from her ordeal.

  “She is in remarkable shape considering her exposure to such extremes for five days and nights. Her dog was a factor. His warmth helped her endure the cold. His presence was a psychological boost; another being to care for and keep her company,” Dr. Oliver Veras, Mercy’s chief of staff told the press in a news conference that was broadcast live across the nation.

  “When can America see her, Doctor?” one network TV reporter asked.

  “That’s up to her family. But when she wakes tomorrow, we expect she’ll be in good condition.”

  That evening Tom Reed, Molly Wilson and Levi Kayle filed their pictures and account of the Baker story. The San Francisco Star moved quickly to lock up worldwide syndication rights, and the story-picture package was purchased by newspapers from Columbus to Cairo, from Buffalo to Bucharest. It ignited speculation about a Pulitzer.

  “Violet’s ecstatic,” Wilson said passing her cell phone to Reed after they filed. “Cripes, Reed. Send you to fish for a story, you bring back Moby Dick. Good stuff.”

  Later that night, Reed called Ann in Chicago.

  “Didn’t forget about the wedding, dear. I’ll be on a plane tomorrow night after the news conference.”

  Paige slept for twenty hours. Kobee was allowed in her hospital bed and never left her side.

  For this moment in history, Paige Baker was the most famous ten-year-old girl on earth. Her story was known around the world.

  Montana Highway Patrol Officers guarded her hospital room, which filled with balloons, teddy bears, flowers, toys, and cards from well-wishers.

  The flow would not stop.

  It spilled across the hall to the room where Doug and Emily Baker slept.

  At one point in the night, Emily awoke and went to Paige’s door. Two FBI agents posted there allowed her a glimpse of her daughter sleeping soundly with her arm around Kobee.

  Emily strolled down the tranquil hall, finding Bowman in the lounge, awake in a chair. She sat beside her.