The Bonner Incident: Joshua's War (6 page)

Looking at his watch two and a half hours later, Joshua sighed wondering where to hole up till late afternoon so he could go and retrieve the trap. Thinking about how he was going to get that nut off, Joshua leaned down, looking through the scope down into the draw. Seeing movement, his heart sped up, then he saw a head.

Slowly, the first man walked up the draw using a stick in one hand with his rifle slung over his shoulder. Seeing the man panting, Joshua wondered if any of the ones after him were in shape. Leisurely, the rest of the team came up behind the point man. All of them had their rifles slung, but only a few had suppressors and one had a gun hanging across his chest.

Pushing record on the camera and reaching up, Joshua focused his scope to see it was a belt-fed machine gun across the man’s chest. “Motherfuckers ‘are’ wanting a war,” he mumbled. Zooming his scope out, Joshua moved the crosshairs to the hidden trap then back down the draw to the team, figuring they were a hundred yards away from it.

Like he was playing a college prank, Joshua grinned and focused the scope again as the team stopped, pulling out drinking tubes and a few pulled out cans of soda. He could see their faces clearly as they panted and sucked down fluids.

One that was drinking a can of soda crushed the can, tossed it and unzipped his pants, relieving himself. “Oh, I have to drag a porta potty in, but you can just piss and shit anywhere?” he growled.

A man walked past the point man patting his chest and saying something before moving up the draw. “You need to buy a lottery ticket,” Joshua said with his crosshairs on the old point man. The new point man had his thumb under the sling of the M4 hanging on his shoulder, looking around like he was on a nature walk. The others fell in behind him as the old point man waited till the others had passed and brought up the rear.

Following the new point man with his crosshairs, Joshua wanted to tell him to hurry up. When he was a few steps away from the log, Joshua moved the crosshairs to the trap. Reaching the log, the new point man paused, looking around and then stepped over.

Joshua jumped, slightly moving the crosshairs upon seeing the jaws snap shut and he heard them clang shut three hundred yards away. But it was followed by a bloodcurdling scream so loud, he was sure someone heard it in Boise.

All of a sudden, gunfire roared in the draw as the others pulled off their weapons and just shot. Some shot down the draw, others shot to the side and up the draw and Joshua held the crosshairs on one who was shooting up in the air.

The one with the belt-fed machine gun held down the trigger, sweeping one slope then the other like the hounds of hell were charging down the slopes as the others put new magazines in and continued firing while the new point man continued to scream.

Only when the machine gun ran dry and the others had emptied their third magazine did they stop firing, but point man was still screaming, lying on the log. The closest man moved up, dropping his empty magazine and slamming in a new one. He looked over the log at point man’s bloody leg in the massive jaws and turned, puking on another man who had followed him up.

The others ran up to see what happened and Joshua could tell that more than one felt nauseous, but only one more puked. All at once, the nine men pulled out something to call someone on. Two pulled out radios, three pulled out the brick satellite phones and he chuckled, seeing the others were pulling out regular cellphones. All the while, point man was still screaming.

“You have to call someone to find out what to do,” he mumbled seeing all of them starting to look at each other. One finally stepped over to one of the men with a radio and pointed up the slope, then turned to the others pointing at the point man who was still screaming.

The others, glad someone else was taking charge, moved to do what he’d said. Joshua moved the crosshairs to the man running up the slope and saw what looked like a pole sticking out of the side of his backpack. “You going to raise a flag up there? They could use your pole,” he said and ran his scope up the slope then back down to the man.

Catching glimpses of the man through the trees as he ran up the slope, Joshua moved his crosshairs to the bare ridge then down to running man, and found he wasn’t running anymore up the steep slope. The man was gasping and only moving at a walk, using bushes and trees to pull himself up the slope. When he reached the cleared ridge, the man dropped to his knees gasping and pulling his pack off.

“Joshua says, no,” he mumbled holding the crosshairs on the man’s chest while slowly squeezing the trigger. The rifle bucked and Joshua watched the man fall on his side. He knew even with a suppressor, the ones in the draw might hear three hundred yards away, but he wasn’t worried about them. With all the gunfire he knew their ears were ringing, not to mention the bloodcurdling scream from the point man.

Seeing that the man he’d shot was barely moving, Joshua moved his crosshairs back down to the draw, hearing the scream suddenly stop and saw that the point man had passed out. Looking at the leg, Joshua knew the bear trap probably almost amputated it. Someone had had the frame of mind to use a belt and make a tourniquet as Joshua had dealt with the running man.

He watched as four men argued and three tried to pry the trap apart with their hands. The only thing they accomplished was jerking the point man’s leg waking him up to resume screaming. They next fed belts into the jaws to see if that would give them some leverage, but only made the point man scream louder.

“Guys, unless the springs are pressed, you aren’t moving those jaws,” Joshua mumbled and moved his crosshairs back up to running man to find him laying still. Moving back to the group, he saw they were now trying to use their belts on the springs to compress them.

“Points for being inventive,” Joshua said and realized if they used their belts like a tourniquet it might work, if they could crank them down hard enough. But they were trying to tighten the belts up by hand like they would wear a belt and that was just moving the trap and making the point man scream.

His screams had gotten much weaker and Joshua could barely hear them now as the leader waved everyone away from the trap and looked at it. He pointed at the cable and two men and then he pointed at the others. The two men moved over and went to work with multi-tools, trying to get the bolt out as the others pulled out hatchets and started chopping down small trees.

Watching in fascination, Joshua saw one of the men who was working on the bolt jump up and start screaming at the leader. The leader screamed back, waving at the cable and Joshua realized it was the machine gun man who was screaming at the leader as he lifted up the machine gun, aiming at the cable. The others moved back as he sighted on the cable. “Not a good idea buddy,” Joshua said as thunder erupted in the draw when machine gun shot at the cable.

One of the men off to the side dropped down grabbing his lower leg and the leader started waving his arms to get machine gun to stop. Machine gun only stopped when his machine gun ran out of bullets. The leader ran over and hit him in the back of the head, pointing at the man lying on the ground and holding his leg. “If you would’ve just shot the trap, your ricochets would’ve saved me a lot of trouble,” Joshua grinned as machine gun put another belt in.

The leader pointed at machine gun and up the slope where the running man lay. Machine gun yelled at the leader, but started walking up the slope. Watching machine gun till he was a little way up the slope, the leader pointed at a man who was bringing over a tree he’d chopped down.

The tree chopper moved over to the man lying on the ground holding his leg as the leader looked at the tree the point man had passed out on. Calling over two men with hatchets, the leader pointed at the log and with one on either side, the two went to work chopping the log. “You could just lift the tree up and slide the cable off,” Joshua offered moving his crosshairs up the slope till he found machine gun.

Knowing he was going to come out close to the running man, Joshua kept his crosshairs on him as machine gun walked up the slope. He would’ve taken the shot but with only spaces measured in inches between the trees, Joshua just followed him till he reached the bare ridge.

It took a while, but he didn’t want machine gun to tattletale and run back to the others. Watching how they’d dealt with a wounded man was teaching Joshua a lot. When machine gun reached the top, he bent over with his hands on his knees as Joshua squeezed the trigger.

Machine gun clutched his chest dropping on his butt, then sprawling out. Racking the bolt, Joshua put the crosshairs on machine gun and held them there, still hearing the hatchets chopping away on the log. He could see machine gun’s mouth moving like he was calling out, but he was coughing up frothy blood.

Knowing machine gun didn’t have long, Joshua moved back to the group and found the leader over with the man that machine gun shot in the leg. He soon figured out the chopped down trees were to make a stretcher, but he couldn’t figure out why they hadn’t used the hundreds of small ones already lying down.

An hour after they’d started, the two tree choppers called the leader over and pointed at one of the thin logs Joshua had placed to help form the funnel. Shoving it in the small opening under the log two more came over and continued chopping.

The two on the pry log soon lifted the tree up as others ran over placing rocks under it to hold it up higher as the chopped end fell off. All but shot-in-the-leg moved over and lifted point man off of the log and Joshua saw that he was only moaning now. Setting him on the ground, they lifted the log again and slid the cable down until they finally slid it off.

As the leader went over to shot-in-the-leg, the others finished the stretcher and with two carrying the trap and four carrying point man, placed him on the stretcher. “Point man, I would’ve just pulled out my pistol and shot myself,” Joshua said, seeing shot-in-the-leg stand up with a bandage on his leg and hobble over. 

The leader got on the handheld radio and Joshua was presuming to call machine gun and the running man as the others gathered around the stretcher. Giving a last look up the slope, the leader waved everyone down the draw and then went to help shot-in-the-leg to follow.

Glancing at his watch, Joshua shook his head. It had taken them almost three hours to free point man. Looking up and seeing how slowly they were moving, he didn’t think point man would make it but he didn’t shoot. The ones coming for him couldn’t learn to be scared. If he killed everyone, the other teams wouldn’t find out for a while, but if he sent some back with horror stories, they would learn real fast. These mountains were dangerous to federal agents and those helping them.

Gathering his stuff, he moved up to King and Jack who just looked at him. “Hey, don’t look at me like that. I didn’t know they were going to open up with machine guns from a trap going off.”

Taking the set poles, Joshua dropped them onto the ground and climbed up on King. He guided King down the draw and up the side, turning on the radio. It didn’t take him long to find the running man and Joshua climbed off. Walking over, he saw the ‘pole’ sticking out of the running man’s pack was a big gun barrel. Undoing the pack, he pulled out a large upper receiver and then dug into the pack, pulling out a lower.

“A Barret fifty! What am I, a water buffalo now?!” he cried looking at the massive gun. He mounted the upper on the lower and pushed the locking pins in and picked up the thirty-pound gun. “My God,” he huffed. Chris had one and Joshua had shot it. It was a nice gun but to carry one he thought it was stupid if you were on foot. The gun alone was thirty pounds but with the scope and suppressor Joshua put the weight over forty.

Almost tempted to leave it, Joshua finally mounted it on Jack. “Shut up Jack. You’re not carrying the trap anymore,” he said then went through running man’s pack to find two five round clips and twenty shells. Holding one of the giant shells up, “Each shell weighs a pound and I can hit just as far with my Lapua,” Joshua said.

Leaving the radio, but pulling it out to look like he messed with it, he went to machine gun guy. “A SAW,” Joshua nodded taking the machine gun. He had seen them a few times at gun competitions, but had never shot one. Stripping machine gun guy, he found several more belts and held up what looked like a long grenade.

Not knowing what it was, he laid it to the side and pulled out the man’s ID to see he was FBI on the hostage rescue team. Taking the ammo that he could use, food, batteries and a few other items, along with the machine gun, Joshua left everything else, but did find a bottle of Mountain Dew which he opened.

Putting the stuff on King and Jack, he pulled out a scrench and put it in running man’s hand. Then he took a rein he’d cut off of one of the dead horses and wrapped one end around running man’s wrist. The other end he wrapped around running man’s neck like he was choking himself or leading himself. Climbing on King, Joshua headed back into the trees. “That should screw with their heads,” he grinned.

“Command, this is team twenty. We need immediate evac,” the radio called out thirty minutes later.

“This is command, what’s your location?” After a few seconds, team twenty read out their coordinates. “We have your location and you need to move to road five miles to your southeast.”

“Command, we have two wounded and need evac now by air. One is critical.”

A few seconds went by and a different male voice came on the radio. “Team twenty, this is command, did you find suspect?”