The Alberta Connection (16 page)

As Ryce listened to O2, he carefully opened
his pack, pulled out a scope, positioned it on his M4, and pressed
the transmit key on the walkie-talkie.

“O2, do you have a solution on either of the
men?”

“Not where I am located. And the two men are
moving toward the stream with a civilian. You might have a
solution.”

Ryce scoped the area once more, pointed at
Michael, and then pointed up the trail. They began to leapfrog up
the trail, using every available bush or tree for cover. When Ryce
had a clear view of the campsite, he found a tree to hide behind,
and keyed his walkie-talkie.

“I can see one of the men and hear a crying
baby. The man I see has a rag on his right arm. He might be one of
the men who shot up Francine.”

Ryce did not get an immediate reply. After a
minute, an extremely angry O2 was heard on the walkie-talkie.

“The second man just pulled a young lady into
one of the tents. I heard some struggling, and then perhaps the
sound of something hard hitting something soft. We need to go
in.”

Ryce pulled a silencer out of his pack, and
screwed it onto his M4. Ryce was not worried about making a lot of
noise. The silencer added eight inches to the M4, and gave him
better control when he took the shot.

Ryce pressed the transmit key on his
radio.

“I agree completely. I don’t have a shot on
the man holding the baby, but maybe we can see what is going on in
the tent.”

Ryce pointed at Michael, at the campground,
and then handed him the spotting scope. “O2, what color is the tent
the girl was dragged in to?”

Ryce checked the area with the scope on his
M4.

“This is O2. It is the red and grey one on
the north end of the clearing, away from the other tents. The door
is on your side.”

When Ryce pointed at the tent, Michael swung
the scope up to his eye, frowned, and then looked at Ryce.

“She’s missing her shirt and bra, and he
looks like he is taking off the rest of her clothing. It doesn’t
look like she is moving.”

Ryce keyed his walkie-talkie. “O2, can you
and Nick work your way in my direction? There are too many
civilians in the crossfire if we shoot from where we are. At least
find a spot where you can get a clear shot at the guy with the
baby. I have a solution for the guy in the tent. When you are in
position, give me a click.”

Ryce scoped the area and then looked over at
Michael. “If the guy in the tent doesn’t change his position before
O2 gets his solution, I am going to take him out.”

Ryce scanned the area once more and then
said, “Damn, he’s stripped the girl in the tent down to
nothing.”

He keyed the walkie-talkie. “O2, we are on
the edge of some really bad things here. If that SOB pulls down his
pants, I am pulling his plug even if you aren’t ready.”

Michael poked Ryce. “The guy with the baby
just gave it to someone, and is walking toward the red tent.”

Ryce squinted through the scope and then
pressed the transmit key. “OK, Michael will count to three and then
we take them down.”

When he heard “Three” on the walkie-talkie,
Ryce caressed the trigger of his M4. A large explosion echoed
through the canyon. Ryce chuckled. O2 did not have time to screw
his silencer on his M4, but he did not need extra accuracy. O2 was
less than one hundred feet from the man with the rag. Ryce quickly
scoped the area and saw the man in the tent was partially lying on
the girl. Neither occupant of the tent was moving.

Ryce picked up his walkie-talkie. “Nick, take
a first aid kit to the red tent and see what you can do about the
girl. While you are there, pull the guy off her. O2, can you check
the man with the rag on his arm?”

Michael and Ryce picked up their packs and
weapons and started toward the campsite. When Ryce arrived, O2 was
untying campers and answering questions. He looked up at Ryce.

“Good shooting. You got the guy in the tent
at the base of the skull. His brains are all over the tent.”

One of the women started toward the red tent,
but O2 stopped her.

“Let my medic check things out before you go
over there.”

The woman stopped and slowly returned to O2.
“That’s my daughter, Sonya, he dragged into that tent. I hope you
killed him. He raped her last night, too.”

Over the next thirty minutes, Ryce and O2
listened to the horrors that had descended upon the campground.
Four families had hiked in for a week of camping and fishing the
stream and a nearby lake.

At dusk the previous evening, two men had
arrived at the campground. They began terrorizing the campers. Two
of the husbands had attempted to overpower one of the men, but were
shot. The families were forced to drag the bodies to the lake and
dump them into the water. At midnight, the two men had invaded one
of the tents and had taken the sixteen-year-old girl from it. The
mother heard screaming for several minutes and then just soft
moaning.

Nick walked up and motioned to Ryce.

“She’s got three or four big gashes in her
head, what looks like a knife wound in her shoulder, and has lost a
lot of blood. Her breathing is really shallow. I don’t think she is
going to make it unless she gets treatment in the next couple
hours.”

Ryce looked around and then walked back to
the group huddled near O2.

“Is there anywhere close that we can bring in
a helicopter?”

One of the boys in the group pointed toward a
gap in the mountains. “There’s a pretty good sized beach at the
lake. The lake got dammed up by a rockslide. The dam is pretty
wide, and it’s flat, too.”

Ryce turned to the mother. “Your daughter is
in really bad shape. I don’t know if there is anything we can do,
but you can go be with her.”

As he watched the woman rush to the red tent,
Ryce pulled his combat radio out of his pack. “Dexter, this is
Ryce. Does that Mountie you got working with you know about a lake
that is about halfway from where we rescued Brenda to the border?
And does he think a Chinook trauma helo can land there? We have a
pistol whipped casualty here, and my medic has run out of
options.”

Ryce looked around the clearing. O2 and
Michael were dragging the bodies of the two men they had just
killed away from the tents. Ryce pulled his cell phone out of his
pack and followed O2 and Michael. Pictures of the two dead men
would be beneficial. Perhaps he could even take some photos of the
fingers of the dead men.

Nick again walked over to Ryce, stopped,
turned, and quietly said, “Tell whoever is coming in that she needs
plasma. But, if they can’t get here for a couple hours, she won’t
need anything.”

Ryce’s radio began to crackle. “Captain
Dalton, this is Mitch again. We dropped Brenda off at the trauma
center in Browning, and have not left the area yet. We are not that
far away from you. Throw out a homing beacon. We still have a full
trauma crew onboard. And if we have to do the sky hook again, the
other docs don’t mind sliding down trees. Except for me. I hate
heights. Mitch out.”

Ryce heard Dexter’s voice. “The Mountie says
the lake will take a Chinook if the driver is really good. Come in
low over the dam from the lake. It will cut down on the swirling
winds the Chinook will kick up. Dexter out.”

Ryce pressed his transmit button. “OK, we are
transporting the victim to the lake. We’ll set up a locator beacon
when we get there. Ryce out.”

Ryce turned, pointed at Nick and Michael, and
then at the tent. “Did anyone pack a cot in with them we can use as
a stretcher?”

One of the campers ran to a tent, and
appeared a few seconds later with a camp cot. O2 grabbed the cot,
and ran to the red tent. Within minutes, Nick and O2 were carrying
the cot toward the lake.

Ryce looked around at the campers. “Please
stay here. The helo that is coming in is really big. I would hate
for one of you to get hurt.”

He turned and followed O2.

The Chinook touched down forty-two minutes
after Ryce had radioed his call for help. Within ten minutes, Sonya
had tubes emerging from both arms, was on oxygen, and had the
undivided attention of two trauma surgeons. When the helicopter
lifted off, Ryce saw Sonya’s mother wave. Sonya’s mother and
six-month old brother had been added to the Chinook’s passenger
list. Mitch gave Ryce a thumbs up.

When Ryce returned to the campsite, the
remaining campers surrounded him. The first question one of the
boys asked was if he could take a good look at the gun Ryce used to
kill the bad guy that had hurt his sister.

Ryce carefully unloaded the M4, passed it to
Michael, and said, “He will show you everything you want to
know.”

Ryce motioned for O2 to follow him. When they
were far enough away from the campers to not be overheard, Ryce
stopped.

“We have four dead people and a really
traumatized group of campers. I will get on the radio and see if
Dexter can send a retrieval crew in to snag the campers and the
dead bodies. Personally, I would just pour gasoline on the red tent
and burn it.”

Chapter 22

After a
twenty-minute conversation with Dexter, Ryce assembled the campers
and his team near the campfire.

“Who has been doing the cooking around here?
What are we eating for supper?”

One of the boys laughed. “We have been eating
MREs. It is a four-mile hike to the trailhead. We never bring real
bacon on these campouts. And you’d better like fish.”

Ryce laughed. “OK, MREs it is. As soon as we
finish supper, I would like to clean up the mess the bad guys made,
so we can get ready to leave in the morning. I have some people
coming in early with horses to take all of us out of here.”

A woman that Ryce guessed was in her late
thirties walked up, and asked, “What are we going to do about Randy
and Henry? Those bastards made us drag them to the lake after they
killed them.”

Ryce wanted to say something, but “I’m sorry
for your loss” just didn’t seem the right thing to say.

“We will check tonight and again tomorrow
before we leave to see if they have popped up to the surface. The
men bringing in the horses are bringing two extra pack
animals.”

Although it was not likely needed, Ryce set a
night watch for the campground. He could sense the campers felt
reassured. At 6:00 AM, the radio crackled. It was Dexter, who
announced the retrieval crew was unloading the horses at the
trailhead and would arrive at the campground in less than three
hours.

After everyone was awakened, Ryce and O2
hiked to the lake. Randy and Henry had both surfaced during the
night. Ryce was amazed when O2 pulled two body bags out of his
pack.

“I carry a couple body bags with me in the
event I need to bring a friend back.”

When the pickup team arrived at 9:00 AM, Ryce
and O2 led two wranglers and two horses to the lake. As they loaded
the body bags onto the horses, one of the wranglers looked at O2
for several moments.

“I know it’s been a long time, but I don’t
know anyone else who brings body bags to a bar-b-que. How are you,
O2?”

Ryce started laughing so hard he almost
dropped his end of the body bag they were loading. When he could
finally speak, he looked over at O2.

“OK, so where do you know O2 from?”

The wrangler laughed. “Not me. My little
brother. I have heard stories about Commander Pendergast that I
would not have believed if I had not seen the pictures. My name is
Dewayne Phelps. You served with my little brother Nicky.”

O2 started laughing so hard he actually
dropped his end of the second body bag.

“Then you will have a lot to catch up on
during the ride out of here. He’s down at the campground, helping
to pack up the tents.”

The caravan arrived at the trailhead a little
after noon, and was met by several RCMP cruisers, two ambulances, a
coroner’s van, and Dexter with two Suburbans. All of the campers
were checked out, statements were taken, and then they were
released.

O2, Ryce, Michael, and Nick loaded their
equipment into one Suburban and then climbed into the second.

Dexter chuckled when all four were buckled
in. “To save a bunch of paperwork, we will do a hand-off at the
Chief Mountain border crossing. I will stop on my side of the
border; you will get out of this vehicle and walk to the other
vehicle. Your equipment is being placed in tagged containers. You
will wheel those tagged containers across the border to the U.S.
side, where you will cut the tags. You will remove your equipment
and return the containers to the Canadian side of the fence.”

Dexter laughed. “Or you can just grab you
stuff and hike back from here.”

A Chinook helicopter with Army National Guard
markings was idling on the U.S. side of the fence at the Chief
Mountain crossing. Dexter stopped the vehicle two feet from the
fence, got out, shook everyone’s hands, and thanked Ryce and O2.
The second Suburban parked next to Dexter’s vehicle and two
medium-sized containers were unloaded. Ryce noticed they were on
wheels. After they thanked Dexter, Ryce and O2 walked to their
containers and started pushing them toward the fence.

Traffic was halted as the containers were
pushed to the U.S. side of the border and halted again when they
were pushed back to Canada. Ryce, O2, Michael, and Nick buckled in,
and the Chinook lifted off.

As the helicopter gained height, Ryce
wondered who had arranged for the Chinook. O2 poked him and
indicated he was to put on the intercom headset. When Ryce had the
earpieces in place, he pressed the transmit button.

“This is Ryce.”

Ryce heard chuckling and then recognized
Phil’s voice on the headset.

“I have the G650 waiting for us in Great
Falls. We should be back home in about six hours.

“Congratulations on getting Brenda rescued.
You have been on the nightly news of all the networks. The dead guy
at the cabin was retrieved by a team of Park Rangers riding in from
the Chief Mountain trailhead. John says your map skills need some
help. Take a nap if you can in this egg beater.”