The Alberta Connection (29 page)

O2 pulled a baggie from his pack, walked to
the stream, and filled the baggie with water. He then walked back
to the pile of explosive material and slipped it all into the
baggie. O2 looked over at Ryce and smiled. He hoped that the water
treatment would temporarily render the explosives safe.

However, he was not planning to carry the
baggie with him. Before they left the campsite, the flash cord
would be burned. O2 had not yet decided what to do with the
C-4.

Ryce and O2 were feeling a little safer as
they went looking for how Adam and Kathy were going to use the
stuff. The tarp with the pack contents had been carried across the
trail. Ryce began separating the objects on the tarp. He noticed
five empty cartridges and pointed them out to O2. O2 picked up one
and inspected it.

It was a .45 caliber shell casing from a Colt
1911. A hole approximately the size of the flash cord had been
drilled through the cartridge primer. O2 held the cartridge up.

“This is how they are igniting the C-4. Wrap
the flash cord around the end of the C-4 string, and pack
everything tightly into the empty cartridge. Insert the primer
cord, tape the open end of the casing with duct tape, and you have
a moderately competent explosive device. About half will not
explode but the ones that do are going to be lethal. A lot like the
explosion at the cabin. Do you see any duct tape?”

Ryce and O2 searched the contents of the
packs and finally noticed a roll of tape under a pair of jeans.

O2 smiled. “With enough flash cord, the
pressure wave in the cartridge would definitely set off the C-4.
And a few wraps of the duct tape would increase the pressure wave
considerably. These guys knew what they were doing. And they were
smart enough not to walk around with a preconfigured explosive
device. That flash cord is sometimes very unstable. A little static
electricity from blue jeans would create lot of pieces of Adam or
Kathy.”

O2 walked over to Adam and checked him once
more with the metal detector. He seemed to be clean. O2 then
checked Kathy. Other than the hooks in her bra and the metal strap
adjustments, she did not cause the metal detector to growl.

Ryce’s radio announced he had a call. It was
one of the group that had been sent to pick up Kathy and Adam. They
were leaving the trailhead and had an estimated arrival time of an
hour.

Ryce returned Adam and Kathy’s clothing.
Under the gaze of four men holding M4s, Adam and Kathy redressed.
O2 pulled handcuffs from his pack and secured Adam’s left wrist to
Kathy’s right wrist. As he snapped the handcuffs closed, O2 looked
at Adam.

“I would have preferred to just slap the butt
of an M4 on the side of your heads.”

Ryce called one of his team over and
instructed him to take the team, and Adam and Kathy, and start down
the trail toward the cabin. About a half mile down the trail, he
would find a marker indicating the trail to the Chief Mountain
Trailhead. Ryce would catch up in a few minutes.

Ryce watched the team start down the trail.
One agent was on one side of Adam and Kathy, with one on the other
side and two following them. When the team was approximately two
hundred feet away, Ryce motioned for O2 to follow him.

Ryce walked a few feet away from the
campsite, checked his transmitter sheet, selected John’s receiver
code, and then the earphone out of the speaker box. The radio was
on a secure channel that only John could receive, but both Ryce and
O2 could hear John’s response.

Ryce keyed his send switch.

“Party Hummer #1, this is Ryce. Come on in,
Hummer #1. Hum at me.”

O2 was laughing so hard he almost fell over.
The group did have radio protocol codes, but O2 was remarkably
positive that Hummer #1 was not John’s code.

“Ryce, this is John. Tanya, Ramona, and Marge
were laughing so hard, I had to send them from the tent. What can I
do for you?”

Ryce asked if John had anyone he could send
to backstop the group picking up Adam and Kathy. Ryce included the
mile marker on Chief Mountain Highway and suggested that John send
at least one long-range shooter.

When John asked why, Ryce responded with, “I
don’t know why. It is just a gut feeling I am having. Maybe the MRE
I had for breakfast didn’t go down very well.”

John assured Ryce that gut feelings were good
or bad, depending on the situation, and he would send Ramona and
three of his best shooters to the trailhead.

When Ryce ended the call, O2 looked at him.
“Do you have some information I don’t have?”

Ryce looked around the camp site. “No, I
don’t know anything you don’t know. But something doesn’t seem to
fit.

“The only thing I found out about the cabin
on the Internet was that it was listed as a Park Ranger rescue
facility. However, when I was in the cabin, I saw no indication
that a Park Ranger had ever been there. Nothing in the cabin was
marked with anything designating it was the property of Glacier
National Park. They normally do not want anything to grow legs. I
expected a sticker on the door, or at least on the refrigerator.
You remember how they plastered ID tape all over anything belonging
to the military.

“When Dexter told me who he had on the pickup
team, he said that two from the Park Ranger rescue team had agreed
to participate. They didn’t even ask what the rescue was all about.
The hair on the back of my neck is standing straight up.”

Ryce’s radio crackled. It was the transfer
group. They expected to arrive at Ryce’s location in 20
minutes.

Ryce looked over at O2. “I need to catch up
with Adam and Kathy. If Dianne breaks camp, don’t worry about my
team. We will play catch-up again.”

Ryce spun, and began jogging down the trail.
He was confident that he would beat the pick-up team to the Chief
Mountain trail junction.

When Ryce arrived at the trail split, he
looked around. There were several large boulders about two hundred
feet up the side of the mountain west of the stream. It was an
excellent position to monitor everything happening within a mile.
Ryce handed his Barrett to one of his team, and then pointed to the
boulder. The agent handed his M4 to Ryce, turned, and disappeared
into the boulders. Three minutes later, he poked his head up from
behind the boulder and waved.

The Mounties and rescue team arrived ten
minutes early. When Adam and Kathy were placed on the two extra
horses, Ryce removed their shoes. Although he had allowed Adam and
Kathy to walk down the trail in their shoes, Ryce was confident
they would not travel as swiftly with the shoes tied to their
saddle-horns. As soon as they were secured to the saddle horns with
zip ties, Ryce called his agent back from the boulder. Ryce watched
the Mounties disappear into the trees and then started the team
back up the trail.

One of his team looked at Ryce as they walked
up the trail.

“Have you ever spent time barefoot in a
saddle? Adam and Kathy’s feet are going to get torn up by the
stirrups.”

He chuckled and then added, “I couldn’t walk
for three days.”

Ryce just smiled. He was not sure he wanted
to know.

The return to the campsite took less than ten
minutes. Ryce checked the radio protocol code names. Ramona was
Chuck Wagon 1. Who made up this stuff? Ryce shook his head and
keyed his radio.

“Ramona, this is Ryce. The Mounties are on
the way to the trailhead.”

O2 chuckled. “When we get back to
civilization, someone is going to come looking for you about radio
protocol.”

Ryce just grimaced, turned, and walked over
to his pack. The time was now close to 1:30 PM. Ryce had missed
lunch. He pulled an MRE out of his pack and filled it with water.
As he was eating, he heard John on the radio. Dianne and her group
had moved, but not far. Ryce called O2 over. Could O2 send two of
the team up the trail with high-powered scopes? Ryce wanted a
visual on Dianne and her friends.

O2 picked two of his former SEAL team
members, handed one of them a spotter scope, and handed the other a
sniper rifle. They turned and jogged up the trail. Dianne was now a
little more than three miles away. Ryce estimated the SEALs would
be reporting visual contact in less than forty-five minutes.

O2 sent one of the team up the hillside to a
set of boulders four hundred feet up the side of the mountain. This
position could see almost a mile and a half up and down the trail.
O2 was also beginning to get a little edgy.

Eighteen minutes after the group departed
with Adam and Kathy, several shots echoed off the rocks in the
direction they had ridden. Ryce pointed at three of the team,
motioned for them to find some high ground on the hillside, and
then dived behind a boulder.

Ryce looked over at O2. “That sounded like a
5.56. Did anyone in that group have a Mini 14?”

One of the SEALs who was sharing Ryce’s
boulder nodded his head “yes.” “The two guys in the park uniforms
had Mini 14s. The Mounties were just carrying pistols on those long
strings around their necks.”

Ryce reached for his radio, but before he
could press the transmit button, he heard Ramona. “I just heard
several shots coming from the trail. They sounded like small rifle
caliber, perhaps a 5.56.”

Ryce pressed transmit. “We heard them, too.
If you have anyone other than a Mountie arrive at that trailhead,
put them down with prejudice. The two so called park rangers had
Mini 14s.”

Ramona answered that she understood the
instructions. Ryce looked over at O2.

“Let’s divide the group. One team can go
check out the shots we just heard; the other team can follow
Dianne. You want to flip for it?”

O2 pulled a coin from his pocket, looked at
Ryce and said, “Call it.”

As soon as Ryce called “heads,” O2 flipped
the coin. It was “heads.”

Ryce pointed at the three men closest to
him.

“Grab a lot of water and a couple MREs. I’ll
lug the Barrett. You guys bring as much ammo as you can carry for
the M4s. We rock and roll in five minutes.

Ryce pressed his radio transmit button once
again. “Ramona, this is Ryce. We are coming down the trail, so
watch who you shoot. I hate filling out casualty reports.
Especially mine.”

Chapter 35

Ryce led his team
down the trail at a fast trot. When they arrived at the trail
split, Ryce pointed at one of his team and then at the trail. As
the agent trotted down the Chief Mountain trail, Ryce pressed his
transmit button.

“John, this is Ryce. I am sure you heard what
happened on the Chief Mountain trail. I have three with me. One is
out on point as we speak. I need you to watch the trail we are
following.”

Ryce turned to see his point man start to
disappear in the trees. He turned back to his radio and pressed the
send button.

“Dexter, this is Ryce.

“I don’t know if you heard what we are doing
here. O2 will stay on Dianne’s trail. I will let you know when we
discover what happened.”

Dexter asked Ryce to hold for a minute. When
Dexter returned to the radio, Ryce could tell he was upset.

“I have four stationary objects and four
moving objects. Let me know what you find as soon as you find it.
Dexter out.”

Ryce grimaced. The residual heat from a dead
body would show on the thermal image for at least an hour. Ryce
started a fast jog down the trail. Twenty minutes into the chase,
the point man raised his right hand with his fist closed. The two
men with Ryce stopped. Ryce worked his way up to the trail.

Ryce could see down the trail to what were
obviously bodies. He pulled the scope off the Barrett and counted
four men in red tunics. Two were on the trail and two were beside
the trail. Ryce waved the rest of the group up to his position and
then the four slowly leapfrogged up the trail.

Ryce checked the first body. Definitely dead.
Definitely a Mountie. Ryce checked the Mounties’ holster. Still
snapped closed. He had not even gotten the pistol out of the
holster. Ryce verified all four had been shot in the back several
times. Ryce pressed the send button.

“Dexter, this is Ryce. No joy with the
Mounties. We are following the perps.”

Ryce listened to dead air for what seemed to
be forever but was only a few seconds.

“I hope you put those bastards on your
terminate with prejudice list, Ryce. Two of those Mounties were my
friends.”

Ryce smiled for the first time in thirty
minutes. He planned to terminate with prejudice.

Ryce pressed the transmit button again.

“Ramona, this is Ryce. Don’t you just hate
these radios? I guess you heard we got no joy with the Mounties.
All four are dead. Do not attempt to apprehend the perps coming
your way. Take them out.”

Ryce pulled four walkie-talkies with earplugs
from his pack, set them to the same channel and pressed a transmit
button on one. The other three radios began buzzing.

“The perps have the same radios we are using.
These walkie-talkies will insure they can’t hear us.”

He looked at the group on the trail in front
of him. “They have a ten mile range on flat ground. We should be
able to keep in contact in these canyons. Use the earplug to
listen.”

Ryce sent one of the men out on point again.
As soon as the point man was three hundred feet ahead, Ryce and the
remaining team members moved up the trail.

Ryce was on the trail for less than ten
minutes when he saw the closed fist on the point man. Ryce worked
his way down the trail.

The point man pointed down the trail and
said, “There are two horses on the trail ahead of us. I think they
might be tethered. I can’t tell.”

Ryce waved the rest of the group up to his
position. When they arrived, Ryce sent one into the tree line on
the right and another into the tree line on the left. He pressed
the send button on his radio.