A Pair of Second Chances (Ben Jensen Series Book 1) (28 page)

"Jesus" Ben exclaimed. I've got your woman and your boy. How the hell you think boy? Quit playing stupid and tell me how you plan to make the trade" Ben asked.

As he said the words he looked at the wide and terrified eyes of Amanda, who could only hear half the call. Realizing what she must be thinking, he looked at her and simply shook his head back and forth, and mouthed the word; "No." as he held up his hand asking her to wait.

Tyrone choked down his anger at the insulting tone, still confused by this man's seeming lack of fear, and simply issued his commands. "Outside of Helena to the west, ten miles on Hwy 12 is a small cafe on the north side. A mile west of there is a dirt road that leads back in to some buildings at an abandoned mine site. If you want your daughter, you have what's mine there at 8, tomorrow morning. You come alone, with only what's mine, and all of what is mine. You got it Mahn?"

"Yeah, I got it. and Tyrone? You be careful. If a hair on her head is scratched, you get nothing! You got that, Bwoy? Nothing!" Ben spit out in rage.

Choking on his rage, Tyrone only replied; "Be there Mahn!" and ended the call.

Ben stood staring at the phone. So enraged, and so scared all at the same time, he almost forgot to breathe. Slowly his eyes rose from the phone to Amanda.

"You're going to... you're going to, give us to him?" she choked on the words, her eyes wide and scared.

Ben looked at her, silently for a long time. "You haven't known me long enough to know better Amanda. You're not to blame for thinking, or asking such a thing. So I'll say this to you one more time. But, it's the last time. You are not going back to him. Not you, not Timmy there... Not, Ever!" He spoke the words in a hard, quiet monotone that echoed in the room as if he was shouting.

"That son of a bitch has upped the ante and somehow brought my daughter into this. I was heading for Chicago, but he's saved me that trouble and come here. I sure couldn't tell him no deal. He's got my daughter. I'll play along until he makes a mistake. When he does, I'll hang him with it."

"I'll have to take a rain check on that walk. I've got work to do, and not much time to get it done."

"What's happening Ben? What's going on?" Amanda cried out in a panic.

"Your Tyrone has kidnapped Karen, my daughter. He's holding her to trade in exchange for, as he calls it, "what's his". He's gonna get what's his, but that's not quite what he's thinkin' it is. There seems to be a big misconception about what he has coming to him."

Ben looked at the phone in his hand, thinking. "They're gonna tie me to the bastard with this thing." He turned it back on, retrieved Karen's number and recorded that on the throw down he'd bought on the way back from Columbus. Then he pulled the battery out of his registered phone and tossed it and it's battery on the counter. "Leave that out. Damn thing is the only connection. That call was on Karen's phone. They still can't tie me to him. Now they'll get no more chances." he told Amanda.

"They?" Amanda asked.

"Yeah, the law" Ben replied.

"I'm going to leave now. I've got a lot to do. You stay here. You stay quiet and keep your phone handy. If it goes wrong I'll call you and warn you to bug out... and Amanda, if you have to run, don't ever run in a straight line. Twist and turn. Keep 'em guessing."

Ben wrapped the girl up in a hug while Timmy not knowing what was happening, but knowing it wasn't good, wrapped his little arms as far around their legs as he could.

Ben squatted down and took the boy by his shoulders; "Listen Tim. We've got some trouble I got to go take care of. Your Momma needs all the help you can give her, so you be as good as you can be, and do as she asks 'till I get back, Ok?"

He could hear the panic rising in her voice. Ben dropped his bag on the floor and grabbed her shoulders in both hands; "Stop!" he commanded.

"Listen! Tougher than him have tried to take me down. I've been outnumbered far worse to boot, so lighten up!" He laughed, but there was no humor in the sound.

"Seriously Amanda. I'm coming back. It looks black I know. But, like the man said in a movie one time, 'I have a very specific skill set'. I haven't used it in a while, but it's still there. Tyrone ain't got a clue what's about to land on him! I'm coming back. It's gonna be messy. It's gonna get ugly. You're gonna be scared. None of this is gonna be easy and no way around it that I can see. But I'm coming back; and when I do, you and that boy will be free. I promise. Wait here."

Ben walked over to the truck, opened the door and shoved the back of the seat forward. From the floor of the cab, behind the seat he retrieved a black, nylon, rifle case and an OD 'three day' patrol ruck, from their place behind the seat. He carried them to the Saturn, and dropped them into the trunk of the car, before turning back to Amanda and Timmy now standing on the porch.

"What was that?" Amanda asked?

"Just tools of the trade." Ben replied glancing back at the little red car.

He kissed her good bye, rubbed his hand over Timmy's head, and then picked up his gear bag and with a final shrug of his shoulders, ran for the car. When he'd tossed his gear bag into the back seat he climbed in, and with one hand sticking out the window, fishtailed the car down the driveway with his foot on the floor.

Amanda, with both hands held to her face, could only watch him go, in silence. Timmy, with the hollow look of fear in his eyes stood gripping her leg tightly. The boy didn't know what was going on. He only knew it was bad. He knew it scared his momma, and that scared him. Amanda watched the man go. The first decent man in her life, knowing that even though he'd promised, he wouldn't be coming back.

Chapter
29

The car raced south, pushing the limit. Ben kept off the Interstate, keeping to the secondary on Hwy 200 through Lincoln, to approach Helena from the west. He found the cafe easily and the road to the abandoned buildings.

Running up that road even a little ways, which from the topo map he had seemed to be the only access to the old mine site, was just too great a risk. If they had a spotter, which if they were competent at all was likely, the game would be over before it even started. Only one of that crew had ever put eyes on him, or that red car. He knew he'd put a bullet in, or through that fool. Though he didn't think that wound would have healed enough yet to allow him to be back in the field, it wouldn't pay to take any chances. Surprise was the only thing he had working on his side. Ben figured he'd better protect that surprise at damn near, any cost.

The problem was, he had to get eyes on the place; and, he had only a small window of time to get himself in place, so he looked farther west. Only a couple miles further west, Ben found another, narrower, disused, apparently abandoned track.

He turned in there and ran the car up it for only a few hundred yards before backing it in behind the concealment of a thick growth of willows along a creek.

The old cowboy pulled his ruck out of the trunk, and from it pulled a pair of lightweight, dark, high top, trail shoes. Leaning against the tail of the car he pulled off his boots, tossed them into the trunk and replaced them on his feet with the light weight hikers.

With his footgear changed he drug the scoped AR-10 rifle out of its case. It was a lot heavier rifle than most used for hunting coyotes. But, he'd had little interest in saving pelts. His only concern had been protecting his calves. At that, his AR-10 proved highly capable, at hundreds of yards... and old habits were hard to forget.

From pockets on the cover he extracted a 20 rd magazine and slammed it into the magazine well of the rifle, before dropping two more loaded magazines into a back pocket on his ruck.

Then, shouldering the pack, he set off up the track at a fast pace.

The map he had, actually showed a small patch of private ground, with the markings that denoted buildings. Ben was betting that was the mine area. When he judged he was about even with that site, he left the track he was on and cut off straight east, cross country, toward the mine. If he was right, and the point he was aiming for was the spot Tyrone had commanded he appear at, it was something a touch over two miles away.

Early on he'd had no fear of being observed. He was also betting that these townie thugs weren't too awful good in the woods. They might be hell on wheels down in amongst the bricks and pavement, but not up here. Not out under the wide sky. They'd drive to the site, and drive away from it. He entertained little fear that they would exhibit any great amount of field craft.

That said, it wouldn't pay him to behave with that idea in mind. To be careless would be to invite catastrophe. Though you couldn't judge by the last couple of years, in situations such as this, he wasn't known for carelessness. The consequence being, Ben slipped through those woods as a deer hunter. As a ghost. As an Army Scout.

Anyone watching from a far hillside would have seen a wisp, a sliver, a hint that someone had passed, at most. He'd move a few steps and study the ground ahead with binoculars. He studied the slopes above and occasionally, behind.

Then he'd move a few, careful, studied steps from one patch of cover to the next, only to repeat his search with his binoculars.

It took until late afternoon for his careful approach to bring him to a point that he believed put him within a few hundred yards of the mine area, and above it on a mountain slope to the west. Ben sat in a narrow ravine, just around a dogleg from where he thought he should be able to put eyes on the target.

This close he slowed even more. The area he was moving through was thick timber interspersed with open meadows. Either fire or logging or both had cleared out large sections which ended sharply in black timber.

He climbed up out of the ravine, a natural and expected line of approach, and moved into and through the timber along the face of the mountain. When he could see the light of another of the open areas ahead, he bellied down and low crawled to a spot just inside the sheltering tree line.

The open ground in front of him ran, as expected, down the mountainside, all the way to the area surrounding the mine buildings.

Lying in the darkness of the tree line, Ben slowly inspected every rock and every tree of the perimeter of the mine area. Satisfied no one was outside the mine compound, he turned his search to the buildings themselves.

He spent many minutes searching every window, every doorway, every dark opening. He lay motionless, looking through his binoculars for a movement, a flash of light, anything out of place, anything that didn't fit.

From this distance; from where he lay to the first building was five hundred yards and a bit. He couldn't see if there were fresh tracks in the dust of the road and there was no obvious movement within the building area.

He had his "eyes on". He couldn't be sure yet, but, near as he could tell, he was the first on site. There was no evidence of a vehicle, and no movement within the building compound. Ben's lips formed into a smile that showed no amusement. They seemed more like the smile of a cougar, looking down from its perch on a deer. His eyes looked more like the glint off the steel of a rifle barrel.

Knowing he'd be there a while he prepared himself for the coming night. Slowly, so slowly you had to look away and look back to see if it moved, he pushed his ruck in front of him to look over, and make its contents accessible with little movement.

His rifle, with short bipod opened up and supporting it was pushed out and stood tight beside it.

A ghillie blanket, that had been rolled up and strapped to the bottom of the pack, that he'd made and used for hunting coyotes, covered him, his ruck and the rifle, all arranged so slowly, it was like watching the hands of a clock move. You can tell from the minute marks they moved, but you can't see the movement.

Just as the sun was setting west of the mountain behind him, Ben lay in his roost, just inside the tree line, chewing on a meal bar. The only visible movement, his jaws; and they chewed so slowly you'd think he'd starve before he swallowed, and even that was under the concealment of the ghillie.

His eyes stared down the mountain, almost unblinking. Every twenty minutes or so, he'd raise the binoculars again, with that painful slowness, and search every window, every nook, every cranny, again. If someone was there, watching, he'd find them, first. He'd wait for their mistake. Their small slip.

He went through the night like that. Always watching, close searches every twenty or thirty minutes. He stared and searched until his eyes ached, and then he searched some more.

It was four thirty in the morning. The faintest fading of the black to grey was showing on the rim of the eastern sky. Ben had closed his eyes for a few moments, to rest them after a period of trying to cut through the darkness with his binoculars. Through the stillness of the night he heard it before he could see anything, a motor, the crunch of tires on gravel in the quiet mountains.

The first visual warning of anyone approaching was the faint flare of headlights on the far slope on the other side of the mine buildings. A few seconds after that first light splashed across the mountain, the headlights broke out from around a bend in the road below the mine, as a pair of vehicles rolled out into the open and stopped a few yards in front of the main structure.