The Fault With The Spy

by Linda Mackay

  “You ass! I drug everyone out here to look for you, and what do you do but wander off. We should have stayed home. You don’t care about anyone but yourself, and now you’ve dragged all of us into some stupid game to solve a crime we shouldn’t even be a party too. Maybe we should tie you up so you can’t get any of us killed.”

  “I’d say that sums up nicely how we all feel. From now on Joe, you are not to leave without permission. Consider yourself a friendly prisoner,” Mac said.

  Behind me, everyone was staring at Dad. I didn’t feel sorry for him. “I’m sorry, this is my fault. If all of you want to cut bait and head home I’ll ride with you. Dad’s on his own.”

  No one said a word.

  We’d been walking the horses over the deadfall for an hour when the trail appeared in front of us. No one was talking. That’s nothing short of a miracle. Frank was in the lead and I had no idea if he was going to ride down-trail home, or take a shot at seeing what was going on, if anything, at the point.

  We mounted up and rode about a half mile south when Frank turned right onto a game trail. We weren’t going home. I was a tiny bit disappointed. Going home would be so much easier. And safer. I was perfectly happy being a lowly geek. I didn’t read spy novels, and had no interest in being a spy. When I left the ranch a week ago, I left a cabin full of damaged items. I didn’t take the time to inspect any structural damage to my cabin or the main house. The earth shook and I ran. My excuse was, I ran to find Dad, but now I was second-guessing myself. He had a history of being out alone with no problems. Had I run from the horror of the quake and what it would take to clean it up?

  Holy gazelle! My mom ran. My dad runs. I run. Besides the need to conjugate my verbs, I needed to accept I too was a runner. When the going gets tough the Clarks run. Why face reality when you can disappear to foreign locations in your mind or the backcountry of Wyoming?

  By wanting to head home, I was running again. If I run home, I was going to be running in circles. Enough with the running! “Oh!” The wind was knocked out of me. I’d let my mind wander to far from the trail and a branch hanging across the trail swatted me in the gut as Arikira walked past it.

  “You okay, Grace?”

  “Never better.” Just once I’d like it to be someone other than Special Forces watching me screw up.

  Frank held his hand up to halt the group. He turned off-trail onto a freshly trampled new trail. It looked like in the past it had been a lightly used game trail, but someone had recently cut back branches to make it easily accessible. The trail showed signs of a lot of recent human use. Even the recent rains hadn’t washed away the deeper boot prints cut by people using the muddy trail.

  I didn’t know whether to be excited at the prospect we were on the right trail, or scared shitless because we were on the right trail. I settled for being scared, but not enough to poop my pants.

  Frank tapped his rifle with his hand, and gave the cutting motion to remain quiet. I watched everyone ahead of me. Mac released the safeties on his pistols. Amanda checked her breast pockets for rocks and hooked her slingshot in her belt. Todd was searching his saddle pack and pulled out a handful of bullets. Even Dad, whose preferred weapon of choice was bear spray, checked his gun was ready.

  I repositioned my bow for easier access on my back and flipped the leather top off the arrow pouch on my saddle pack. All this posturing made a good show if anyone was watching, but I suspected if the need arose to defend ourselves most of us would fall off our horses and hide in the bushes.

  I’d put the odds on bet at 70-30 that Todd stunned himself. And I was thinking the best we could hope for was Amanda’s screaming like a banshee would break the eardrums of the bad guys. I was considering how much whiskey I could drink and still aim my bow with any accuracy when we broke out of the thick forest into a small clearing near the edge of Lake Yellowstone.

  Tucked in just at tree line were three flat spots where tents had obviously spent a great deal of time. There was no sign of horses, motorcycles or four-wheelers being in the area. Whoever was here came and went on foot. Mac called us over to a tree where three holes were visible in a tripod formation. “Satellite receiver is my guess.”

  The area was off limits to campers and whoever was here kept a cold camp, no fires. “They had to be miserable,” I said.

  Todd kicked the dirt around. “If Joe is right and they were here for two or three weeks, I bet they were one step from killing each other out of boredom or being eaten by mosquitos.”

  Frank dismounted Junior and looked at the ground. “I think they had a small generator.”

  “Well, that’s a game changer,” Mac said.

  “Wouldn’t someone hear it and report it?” Amanda asked.

  “Until July 14 there is no off-trail travel since this is a bear management area,” Todd said.

  Dad shook his head. “The first backcountry campsite is two miles from here. If they only ran the generator in the middle of the night, I think they could get away with it.”

  “That means this has gone from a miserable experience to Glamping,” Todd said.

  “Why didn’t someone in a canoe see them?” I asked looking out at the lake.

  “Smoke and mirrors,” Mac said. “The small clearing is still forested and it’s sheltered by another row of trees before you actually get to the beach. The military has plenty of camouflage gear to hide in plain sight. Also if you notice, they picked a spot where the beach isn’t inviting if a canoeist did need to stop for a bathroom break. Still, I suspect they may have had a couple close calls and that is where the ‘smoke’ comes in. Maybe, they had a bear call they could use to scare anyone away who thought about stopping close by.”

  “This is insane!” Todd said.

  “Look for clues to who was here. From first glance I’m guessing we won’t even find a piece of toilet paper.” Mac started walking toward the shore. “Don’t kick the dirt around, Todd! It may be our only clue.”

  After ten minutes I looked up to see Dad leaning against a tree. “Problem?”

  “I staked my reputation on finding this place and there’s nothing.”

  “You proved whoever was here was a professional. This was well planned, with every detail covered. There was never going to be an easy trail to follow.”

  “She’s right Joe.” Mac walked up to us. “Coming here proved this wasn’t a Lee Harvey Oswald type job or like the Hinkley attempt on Reagan. This is a highly coordinated plan. There is information here. It’s clear they did what I call a Clean prior to leaving. However, they missed one thing and I think the reason they weren’t able to do it is the explosion was so massive, when it set off the earthquake they spooked and ran.”

  Dad gave Mac a you-are-crazy look. “What one thing?”

  “They didn’t sweep the ground.”

  “You sweep the ground?” I asked.

  “Absolutely. It’s a type of rake that would’ve filled in the satellite radar tripod holes, made the tent spots look less distinctive and gotten rid of the boot tracks that are still visible.”

  “There’s no sign of explosion debris here, so why freak and bug out?” Dad asked.

  “Their ride,” Mac said. “Even with radio silence, there would be codes they could send and receive. I’m guessing they received an abort code from the pick up ride. These dudes were not planning on hiking all the way to the nearest airport. Look around; I believe their camp was mostly disbanded that morning. Which means someone carried out most of the gear the night before or early that morning. The ones left would be able to travel light and fast once the bomb detonated.”

  “If they were leaving the area in a helicopter, my guess would be that helicopter was called to the Jackson area to respond to the earthquake emergency,” I said.

  Todd held his hand over his mouth like he was talking into a radio. “Sorry dudes we can’t help because we have to pick up some assassins and get out of the area.”

  Mac pulled out his phone, turned it on, and took photo
s of the area. “When we get home, the first order of business for me is to talk to whoever is in charge of the emergency pilots and find out what choppers were in the area and who was flying each one.”

  “Sounds to me like you’re back in business,” I said.

  “Not exactly. I’ll turn over the information to a buddy and let her do the work.”

  “Your former partner was a hot lady spy? That‘s so awesome.” Todd swiveled his hips.

  “I didn’t have a partner in my line of work. And that is a disgusting and politically unacceptable question.”

  “Oh please. This isn’t a gay pride rally. So, pony up, is she hot?”

  Mac ran his fingers through his hair. “She’s almost as hot as Helen Mirren.”

  “Oh my god! I’ve got to meet her.”

  “That could be arranged.”

  “Just don’t tell me I have to go to D.C. I can’t stand that place.”

  “She’s originally from Montana and was the one who persuaded me to move to Wyoming. I’m pretty sure I can get her to come visit if you’re doing the cooking.”

  “I’m in!”

  Todd loved older attractive women. It wasn’t a mother complex. His upbringing was like a dramatic Beaver Cleaver family. He grew up around the circus in Florida. His mom was the bookkeeper for a small circus, and she was also a stilt walker and unicycle rider in the circus. His father was a television meteorologist who could walk a tightrope. He didn’t travel with the circus because of his job, but when the circus was close to home he would join in the tightrope act. Occasionally he could be seen delivering his weather report from a tightrope. The family did everything together, including his sister who at 25, with the circus no longer in business, had joined her father’s station as a weekend meteorologist. The entire family is not only insanely intelligent but also tight-knit and loyal to each other.

  “Everyone use your phones to photograph the area. We’ll compare all the photos when we get back to the ranch,” Mac said. “Joe, grab binoculars, Jorie find something to make notes on, we’re going to the beach.”

  Great! Give me the hard job. It’s not like we pack notecards and a pen to write grandma a letter. “Dad, do you have some paper?”

  “There would be some in my spiral notebook that I use for jotting my calculations, however when the explosion went off I must have packed up so fast I left it at my camp since I can’t find it in my gear. But I have a pencil.”

  All I could think of to write on was the back of our waterproof map. At least it was the kind that didn’t have any printing on the back, however a pencil was not going to show up well on that, and probably would rub off what we wrote before we got home.

  “I have colored pens,” Amanda said.

  “Did you bring coloring books too?” Todd asked.

  “Screw off toad.”

  Amanda ruffled around in her pack. “I use them for color-coding when we do fieldwork and I leave them in the side pocket of my pack. Ah, here they are.”

  I took the pens from Amanda and walked to the beach where Dad and Mac were already glassing the area. “This is crazy!”

  “That’s an understatement,” Dad said.

  I turned on my phone and took numerous pictures before turning it off to save battery. I thought we’d had the best view possible yesterday when we could see landmarks that identified the area to anyone who knew it well. However, from here I doubted the most seasoned park rangers could identify Mary Bay. The destruction unleashed by using the thermal vents to escalate the power of the explosion was beyond any math formula I could imagine. What had gone wrong in their calculations?

  “I’m not trying to put a positive spin on this, but since it did happen, it proves what I’ve been saying for decades. Volcanoes or associated activities like massive hydrothermal eruptions do cause earthquakes.”

  I looked at Dad who was grinning and dancing in circles. “Jorie, it looks like The Clarks will be collaborating on an academic paper.”

  “I’m sure we can add lots of controversy to it, just to piss off all the top brass.”

  Dad put his arm around me. “If we can find Marty and get him to tell us what he knows…”

  “That won’t be happening.” We all froze.

  Chapter 19

  Located them at the main camp.” Marty said into his radio while pointing a big ass gun at us. “Sit down and keep quiet. Joe, put these cuffs on the other two. And I suggest, Mr. Fed-man, you don’t try anything as I have no problem shooting Jorie.”

  What the hell! Why me? This jackass threatened to shoot me. Fuck that! While Dad was cuffing Mac I charged like a bull at a matador and rammed my head into Marty’s gonads. He hit the dirt and curled up in the fetal position. I kept kicking him in the ass. “You worthless prick.”

  “That’s enough!” The voice yelled. Then the person attached to the cranky voice dumped me on my ass. I looked up to see a sasquatch. And I don’t mean the short squatch from my dream. This one was at least seven feet tall and had enough hair to make toupees for all the Professor X’s at Comicon. Why was I constantly thinking about bald guys? I mean, seriously, my fantasy men usually were nondescript except for their six hands, each holding a different type of coffee made especially for me. I looked again at the voice. Okay, it was a tall dude with a bushy beard.

  He quickly put cuffs on Dad, then grabbed my arm, pulled me next to him and shoved the barrel of his gun against my temple. “My colleague may be dumb enough to let you disarm him, but don’t make the same mistake with me.” He said it like he hated Marty more than he did me. I looked at Mac. His face was unreadable; remind me not to play poker with him.

  “Get up!” The squatch yelled at Marty. “Who would like to tell me where the rest of your party is?”

  I was glad the squatch couldn’t see my eyes, as unlike Mac’s, mine would give away what appeared to me to be a ridiculous question. The squatch had to have walked right by them.

  Mac squared his body to the squatch. “Take the gun away from her head and I’ll enlighten you.”

  “I think I’ll kill her, that will enlighten you.”

  Now they’re playing chicken with my life. What the hell?

  “That would be a serious misjudgment on your part.” Mac’s eyes closed into thin lines. “I don’t mind telling you where they are, since they’ve already ridden ahead of us. However, if you shoot they’ll hear and return and blow your fucking head off. So, lower the gun.”

  Squatch lowered the gun, and was pointing it at Mac. I’ll be damned. But still…worst game of chicken ever.

  “That’s better. We separated to check out different spots and planned to meet up later. The others are moving south to the next point on the lake. They should be nearing…”

  While Mac was talking, Dad rolled his eyes to his right. He did it again. I leaned as far to the right as I could with the squatch holding my arm. The sound of the gunshot deafened what little hearing I had in my left ear. The squatch released me and I fell to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut. As I hit the ground I saw Todd run toward Marty who was rubbing his head where I was pretty sure Amanda hit him with a rock from her slingshot.

  “Take that you bastard.” Todd fired the stun gun.

  I looked to my left and saw what little remained of the squatch’s head. I bent over and tossed my cookies. Frank came up along side me holding his rifle. “You okay?”

  “No. But I’ll survive.”

  Frank turned toward Marty who was drooling on the ground. “Todd find the cuff keys in his pockets, unlock them, then lock that shithole up.”

  “Here it is.” Todd held up the cuff key and promptly stunned Marty again. “The first one was for Jorie. That’s for Joe and you got another one coming mother…”

  “Todd! Just uncuff them,” Frank said.

  Todd uncuffed Mac first who was shaking his head in unbelief at Frank. “That was some shot.”

  “You said blow his fucking head off,” Frank said. “And I’m not fond of
anyone pointing a gun at my friend’s head.”

  Amanda helped me up and handed me a water bottle. “You shoulda seen my shot. It was flawless aim. Marty hit the dirt before that dude did.”

  “Could someone cover his head, or lack of one, please,” I said.

  Frank ripped the jacket off the squatch and threw it over his semi-headless body. “Wish my other favorite rifle hadn’t been damaged in the quake, it wouldn’t have made such a mess.”

  “We’re not talking about spilling a drink!” What was wrong with these people?

  Mac wrapped me in his arms and pulled me against his chest. “Everyone has their own way of reacting to extreme crisis. Also, everyone but you knew those three were hiding in the bushes. We weren’t going to let anything happen to you.”

  “Yeah, but we preferred Frank shoot him without your head and his gun being in the way,” Todd said.

  “I’d have done it if I had too. And his hand wouldn’t have so much as twitched on the trigger,” Frank said.

  “Well, I’m so glad you were all willing to take that chance with my life.”

  Mac squeezed my head tight and pinched my arm. “Ungrateful?”

  “Sorry. It’s a new experience having a squatch hold a gun to my head.”

  “A squatch?” Mac released me.

  “When I first saw the dude he looked like a sasquatch. Not like the short squatch brushing her teeth that I saw in my dream the morning of the quake, but a big ass Bigfoot.”

  “What? Why?” Mac said.

  “He was huge and had a big bushy beard.”

  “No he didn’t,” Mac laughed.

  “Yes he did. I stood right next to him.”

  Todd was laughing too. “Jorie, the dude didn’t have a beard and he’s about my height.”

  “That’s not possible.” I certainly wasn’t going to be able to prove he had a beard, but I could prove he was taller than Todd’s five-eleven. “Look at the guy, he’s at least… oh shit.”

  The squatch wasn’t a squatch at all. Todd was right he probably didn’t reach six feet.