Carnosaur Crimes (23 page)

His cell phone rang and he scrabbled for it. “Detective Dorbandt.”

“Reid? This is Pearl Phoenix.”

Though he'd had meals at the ranch a few times that Ansel pressed him into and liked her parents very much, they had never called him directly. “This is a surprise. How are you?”

“Not well, I'm afraid. I'm sorry to call your cell phone, but a nice man named Detective Fiskar at the sheriff's department gave me this number when I told him it was an emergency.”

“What's wrong?”

“Chase is in the hospital. He's had a heart attack. I need to speak with Ansel, Reid. Do you know where she is? I've called her home phone and the cell all night, but she doesn't answer,” she said in a rush of words.

Reid assimilated the bad news and the effect it would have on Ansel in a split second. He was thankful that he would be the one to break the news to her. “It's a long story, but she and I happened to meet here in Billings.

“Billings? Well, can you contact her and tell her to call me?”

“I'll call the hotel where she's staying. Where are you?”

An exhalation of relief echoed through the receiver. “Thank God. I'm at the McCone County Hospital ICU. Tell Ansel to call my cell phone. She knows the number.”

“What's Chase's condition,” Reid said, knowing that ICU was a red flag of danger.

Pearl's voice cracked with emotion as she replied, “Very serious. He's critical.”

Chapter 29

“One has to face fear or forever run from it.”

Crow

“You still mad at me?” Dixie said through her headset microphone.

The FBI Eurocopter banked to the right, rotor blades drumming like thunder while Ansel's fingernails dug into the rough, navy-blue fabric on the armrests and her seat belt clip cinched into her abdomen from the sudden shift in centrifugal force. Parker wasn't wasting any time lifting off and jettisoning his four passengers toward Glasgow with a short side-trip to the McCone hospital heliport beforehand.

“No,” Ansel replied, barely able to respond. Her conversation with Pearl on the hotel phone was all she could think about, and her stepmother's words echoed through her head.

“Chase is in ICU, Ansel. They just brought him up from the emergency room. He's unconscious. They want to stabilize him. Dr. Welman say's it's a myocardial infarction. Please, hurry.”

Fortunately, she'd received Reid's call relaying the horrible news about her father before the ERT had departed for the Billings airport. She'd rushed to Outerbridge's room and asked to be taken to the hospital by air rather than make the long drive with Reid. The agent was very sympathetic and obliging considering their previous confrontation, but she would have begged on bended knees if she had to. This flight would cut her travel time by more than half.

She sat in an aft passenger seat this time, right behind Parker. He couldn't see her, but she didn't care. Dixie occupied the middle seat to her left. Walthers inhabited the far left seat behind Outerbridge who rode shotgun with Parker. The quarters were cramp and claustrophobic, their backs pressed up against a vibrating rear wall next to the tail boom, but Ansel's anxiety had more to do with her internal demons rather than a fear of her surroundings.

She was paralyzed by the black dread that her father would die before she saw him. All she could see in her mind's eye was herself yelling at him about not telling her that Rusty was back. Guilt and sheer mortification gutted her insides at the very thought of it. She'd argued with her father before, but never like that. Never with such a cold hate in her heart and such venom in her voice. Had she upset him so much that she'd caused his heart attack?

Without warning, her internal self-control mechanism misfired, and Ansel began to sob openly, hands over her face, head bent, which wasn't easy with the bulky helmet and headset.

Dixie came to her rescue. The paleontologist handed her a wad of tissues taken from her duffel bag beneath a seat and patted her on the back. “Ansel, don't worry,” she said, her voice tinny through the earphones they wore to communicate above the thumping din. “We'll get you to your daddy.”

Ansel gratefully took the tissues and wiped her puffy eyes and red-splotched face. The interior scene would have been comic under other circumstances. The beefy, self-assured Walthers grimaced nervously as if dealing with a despairing woman was above and beyond the call of duty. Outerbridge feigned total ignorance and stared through the sun-filled windshield where toy-sized ranches and farms filled a tinderbox landscape moving quickly past below.

She could also see every twist and turn of Parker's body as he surreptitiously tried to cast glances toward her over his shoulder. His movements intensified as she cried, and she imagined every twitch had something to do with his frustrated efforts to either see or console her without Outerbridge noticing. Dixie just kept talking.

Ansel ignored all of them, leaned back into her seat, then stared out her window like a zombie. Finally Dixie quit trying to rouse her into good cheer with a few hope and faith one-liners about her father's prospective recovery, and the only sound inside the cabin was generated by the engine, rotors, turbines, and wind.

Her fragmented thoughts drifted briefly toward Reid, whom she hadn't seen before leaving Billings. Nor had she seen the photo reconstruction of the Indian poacher's physical identity, something she'd been longing to discover for over a week. Now it didn't seem important.

Time passed with the slowness of a freeze-frame, slide show. They'd traveled northeast for about an hour before the flat topography began to break apart by the appearance of large dun-colored humps. Ansel's looked at Dixie who was dozing beside her.

“Is that the Badlands?”

Dixie jerked to attention, peered out the same window, and nodded. “Sure is. Should be right near Hell Creek again. Looks clear out here now, but I hear there's an honest-to-God storm front coming in. We might get some rain.”

The unexpected good news nibbled away at the dark abyss filling Ansel's soul. Above the copter, visibility looked unlimited. The sky was azure blue and relatively devoid of clouds. It didn't look as if there would ever be relief for the drought-ridden terrain.

“When's that supposed to happen?”Ansel asked.

Parker's voice shot through the earphones. “About four o'clock. All that dust in Canada helped a weather system develop some convective storms. Sometimes dust serves as a condensation nuclei for water vapors. That's going to make your father happy.”

“Parker, have you noticed any bogies following us?” Outerbridge said suddenly.

“Negative. Saw a light plane behind us about five minutes ago. That was it.”

“Well, there's a black chopper coming up fast from below. It's headed right at us.”

Ansel looked out her window but couldn't see anything.

“I see it,” Walthers said from his left end seat as he peered out Outerbridge's side. “No call letters.”

“I'm going to take a look,” Parker replied. The copter executed a smooth lefthand turn so he could observe the approaching aircraft through the lower front windshield.

Ansel saw it, too. It was slightly larger than the Eurocopter with a similar styled, teardrop-shaped fuselage, glassed-in cockpit, long tail boom, and enclosed tail rotor. The chopper climbed toward them at a forty-five degree angle, it's current trajectory placing them on a collision course.

“It's a Gazelle with outriggers,” Parker said, his voice tense. Abruptly, he banked the chopper back to their previous heading and increased his flight speed with a burst of power.

Outerbridge stared at Parker. “What's an outrigger?”

“The external stores racks on either side of the fuselage behind the cabin. Could be carrying nothing more than smoke markers and flares. Or it might be hauling 36-mm rockets, TOW missiles, machine guns or side-mounted miniguns. I don't like it.”

“Maybe they're military,” Walthers added.

“Uh, uh. They're unmarked. The Gazelle is a reconnaissance and attack helicopter mostly used against armored troops. We're out in the middle of nowhere. They shouldn't be here. I'll try the com and see if they respond.” He began a calm, purposeful inquiry across the radio airwaves, requesting that the unidentified helicopter on an approach below make contact.

Ansel listened to all this with a sinking feeling in her stomach. If Parker was worried, so was she. They were much closer to the Hell Creek bluffs now. That would be a bad place to encounter trouble. She gazed at Dixie. The paleontologist stared back at her, eyes wide and frightened.

“They're still coming,” Walthers volunteered as he watched out his rear window. “I see two people in the cockpit. Can't be more than five-hundred feet away now. Looks like they're moving over to come up alongside.”

Parker abandoned his mike. “They aren't responding, and I don't want them too close.”

Outerbridge nodded. “I agree. Let's get out of here.”

Parker increased the collective, and their flight speed jumped yet again. Ansel watched as the other copter appeared below her window and began to drop back appreciably because of the Eurocopter's acceleration. On the ground, the first of the Badlands' bluffs came into view, and she tensed. “Shouldn't we avoid the rocks and stay over level ground?”

“Not necessarily,” Parker responded. “If things turn sour, we'll need cover.”

She leaned forward. “What do you mean?”

“He means we're a sitting duck out in the open.” Outerbridge had swivelled his head around to stare at her. “Somebody's coming after us, Miss Phoenix.”

“Who?”

“Take your pick. The mafia. Black Market dealers. Local poachers. We've spooked somebody out of the woodwork,” he replied angrily. “Just keep your head down and do whatever we tell you. No arguments.”

The second copter began to catch up. They were being chased, she realized. Nothing made that fact more real than seeing the black helicopter heading straight for her. She also noticed that Parker had started to decrease their altitude. The eroded Badlands were only a mile ahead, and they made a dashing descent toward them. As they got lower, the other copter moved into a position several hundred feet behind their tail.

“I want everybody to stay calm and don't panic,” Parker ordered. “Keep your helmets and restraints on at all times. Make sure lose items are secure. If we have a forced landing, you'll have to assume a crash position. Bend over with your chest on your thighs. Place one arm under your thighs and the other grabbing the seat. Feet braced on the floor and slightly apart. I'll get us down safely no matter what.”

He turned to look at the aft seats. “Everybody got that?”

Ansel couldn't see his eyes behind the sunglasses, but didn't have to. She could feel his energy directed toward her despite his generalized question. She gave him a brief acknowledging smile and a nod before he looked away. In that fleeting moment, she wished she could have touched him and apologized for what she'd said to him, but now was not the time or place.

Behind her, the sudden noise of gunfire exploded. A whizzing strafe of bullets hailed down on them an instant before the copter lurched abruptly sideways and shot for the ground. Nothing hit the fuselage during the short barrage as Parker managed to adroitly avoid the first volley with lightening fast reflexes. Below, the first towering ridges and plateaus scythed by at fifty miles an hour. Above, Ansel could plainly see the chasing copter with two occupants inside. She could also see the outriggers and mounted miniguns.

“Shit,” Dixie exclaimed. “Get us out the hell out of here, Parker.”

“I'm trying.” He'd navigated the copter down to two-hundred feet and was weaving in and out of ravines, passes, and Badlands rock corridors like a combat pilot.

Another volley of bullets pinged past them, and Ansel saw the flashes and smoke fanning out from the gun mounts with crystal clarity. The black copter was slightly above them and shooting at the tail boom. She couldn't believe this was happening. All she wanted was to get to the hospital and see her father. Another strafe came at them. This time, something hit the copter and there was a explosive concussion that sounded like a firecracker going off inside a tin can.

“Set us down,” yelled Outerbridge, “before we fall down.”

Parker frantically struggled with the controls. “Don't have a choice now. We can't go up again. The hydraulics were hit. We're losing pressure and tail rotor elevator controls by the second.”

Outerbridge scowled. “Find a place to land, dammit.”

As they lost altitude and speed very quickly, the stony ground reached up for them. Ansel swallowed back her panic. If the crash didn't kill them, the ten-story high crags would. She forced herself to peer out her window. Clustered bluff tops ringed by tall Ponderosa would be impossible to land on. So would the deep gullies and calcareous bluff bottoms. “There's a box canyon to our right. The middle is flat. Can we reach that?”

Everyone except Parker looked toward her. “Looks about three-hundred acres wide. Should work if I can get us there,” he yelled back. “I haven't got much directional control in forward.”

“Just do it,” Walthers shot back from the back seat.

Parker struggled with the sluggish controls, and the copter slowly turned to the right. Behind them the Gazelle closed in. Miniguns fired. High velocity bullets skimmed past the turning fuselage and struck rock walls, surrounding them with explosive smacks that chipped off stone, felled tree limbs, and raced along the canyon rim in a lethal swath of destruction. In the midst of this, an alarm sounded throughout the cabin, warning of some incipient danger with the copter's functions.

Dixie screamed and covered her ears. Walthers squeezed his eyes closed. Outerbridge clenched his armrests and leaned against the copter's semi-controlled and sharply angled turn. Ansel put her hands over her ears and prayed they survived long enough to attempt a crash landing.

“Crash positions,” Parker yelled.

The right turn never stopped as the copter dropped beneath the northwest rim of the box canyon, barely missing a direct hit against the cliff wall. The nose kept spinning right, however, and the left side of the tail struck rock like a decelerated hammer. Metal dragged across bedrock as a deafening, cacophonous screech.

A thud that felt like God had swatted the copter threw Ansel against the fuselage despite her leg-hugging stance and iron grip on the seat. Screams and hoarse grunts of shock and surprise echoed through the cabin right before the copter nose tilted down, and the craft dropped like a stone.

Then the long, scraping fall to the boulder-strewn, canyon floor began in earnest.