Chapter Eleven
THE EVIDENCE
Colyer stopped at the impound yard first before continuing to Whitefish Point. It was an open, rural field on some property owned by an ex-sheriff. Imagine that, he smirked to himself. A bunch of terrorists here in the land of mutually back-scratching good old boys. The retired sheriff raised an eyebrow that the FBI would take an interest in an abandoned boat at Whitefish Point. But he didn’t say anything, careful not even to hint that he meant to pick up this cherry piece of nautical equipment for pennies on the dollar at the next auction. He already had some very nice possessions that he’d confiscated from alleged criminals.
Colyer went over the impounded Zodiac meticulously, although his hopes weren’t high of finding any meaningful forensic evidence. Deputies hadn’t given it the consideration that might be accorded to a potentially valuable piece of evidence, because that’s not what they thought it could be. It had simply been lashed onto an open snowmobile trailer with polyethylene rope and driven at high speeds for seventy miles without even a tarpaulin to cover it.
The ex-sheriff was more interested in his breakfast than in whatever this tight-lipped FBI agent was up to—besides, hadn’t local forensics boys already gone over the boat? He bid Colyer farewell, and went back into his house, wiping his hands on his shirt front. The mosquitoes were tolerable here in the farmland surrounding Sault Sainte Marie, kept poisoned to manageable levels by agricultural pesticides, but the ex-sheriff claimed that they were eating him alive. It was an irony that most people who lived in—and boasted about—the natural wonders of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula always viewed them through a glass barrier.
Like an actor playing detective in an old Sherlock Holmes movie, Colyer inspected the Zodiac’s steering and drive mechanisms under an old-fashioned magnifying glass. There were what appeared to be olive-drab polyester or acrylic fibers caught in pinch points at the shifting and steering mechanisms. Probably from gloves. Knit gloves, not the usual latex or nitrile gloves that criminals used to conceal their fingerprints, but the knit-liner gloves used to keep someone’s hands warm. Someone who was driving, probably while the craft was at sea. Someone who had cold hands during what was the warmest part of the year around here. Probably a man, and a fit one, judging by the distance the heavy boat had been carried off the beach, but not a local who was accustomed to cold weather.
Using tweezers, Colyer pulled the fibers free and placed them into a Ziploc bag. He couldn’t see the old sheriff, but the FBI man could feel his stare from inside the house. He imagined that the retired lawman was in there mumbling derogatory remarks about the stupidity of federal agents, Washington DC, and outsiders in general. Most people who chose to live in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula were less than amicable toward what they considered to be Big Brother. The contradiction of their more-or-less Orwellian paranoia was that small communities often created the very environment they were trying to escape.
Colyer didn’t have a lot of faith that the fibers he’d so painstakingly collected were going to be traceable to anything more than a pair of cheap gloves that could be purchased at any military surplus store. Still, he meticulously inspected every inch of the Zodiac and its motor. There was nothing else to be found. Whoever these guys were, they weren’t a bunch of kids out for a joyride, that much was certain. There was an aura of seriousness about this whole thing, from the apparently new, professional-quality watercraft to the supercharged motor that drove it. He just knew that there was something he was missing here. But what could it be?
Chapter Twelve
CONSCIENCE
Aziz was right. Rod’s conscience had forced him to return to where the terrorists had appropriated his camp. From behind a juniper bush fifty yards away, he’d watched in horror as the lean, olive-skinned man who seemed to be in charge of the group had almost casually sliced Sue Morgan’s ear from her head. The woman’s screams had pierced his brain with a sensation that was much like physical pain to him. He cringed and his body writhed of its own accord as his eyes witnessed the torture from his hiding place, but he made no move to reveal his presence.
Rod had known more than his share of physical pain and mental anguish in his own life, and he never allowed himself to forget that it was probably just dumb luck that he hadn’t killed someone in his youth. A brief stint as a drug dealer in his early twenties, before he’d gone to prison, had showed him what some people were willing to do to others for nothing more than a few dollars. He knew how it felt to snap another man’s wrist bones under force, and to shatter a femur with a length of water pipe brought down hard. It was a repulsive memory. He shuddered every time he remembered that era of his youth. No amount of money could be worth the inhumane acts he had committed and seen perpetrated over a few grams of cocaine. No forgiveness existed for the agonizing guilt that weighed down his heart every second of every day. So much misery and brutality over a few lousy dollars.
Perhaps just as bad were remembrances of the animals he’d killed. On a sunny knoll in back of his house were interred nearly a dozen dogs he’d euthanized over the years. Living so far from a veterinarian, he’d done the job himself most times, and his mind recoiled at the recollection of every canine friend against whose head he’d put a gun muzzle and then pulled the trigger. Even deer and other game he’d killed for food had taken a little chink from his soul. Maybe he was getting old and soft, but he’d come to realize that with every life he took, he also took part of his own life.
Seeing Sue Morgan mutilated with a knife before his eyes, and having deduced that she was most likely being tortured simply to lure him into surrendering himself to these maniacs, was almost unendurable. The part of his psyche that had driven him to instruct others in the art of staying alive under adverse conditions made her suffering a nightmare for him.
But that same mindset forced him to come to grips with the knowledge that if he revealed himself to these men, his own life would be forfeit. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to never again see the person he loved more than any other human being. Dying was a frightening prospect for him. He supposed it was frightening for most people. The real proximity of death right now made his belly queasy and caused his right eyebrow to twitch.
But Shawn Hennesy and Bill Morgan had already died under his charge. Sue Morgan was still in his charge, so to speak. If he left her with these killers while he went to get help—and probably got charged with the murders of the other two men for his trouble—they’d surely dispatch her before rescuers could arrive. It didn’t take much brainpower to determine that these men had little regard for life.
Rod still felt a little nauseous. He knew he had to do something, but his choices were limited. He was no hero—heroism was the antithesis of survival. He felt like crying as he hid like a coward behind his bush. He was torn between a conscience that dictated action and a desire for self-preservation.
Richarde made the decision for him. Reaching with his left hand to undo the button-fly of his cargo pants, the Canadian stepped away from the others to relieve his bladder. Rod watched in horror as Richarde walked directly toward where he hid behind the juniper bush. As the man approached, as if following some sort of beacon, Rod’s hand unconsciously went to the hilt of his Power Eagle survival machete.
As if by itself, the twelve-inch blade slid slowly from its sheath, sounding as loud as a manhole cover dragging across concrete to Rod’s heightened sense of hearing. His eyes widened in fear as Richarde stepped around the evergreen, hand already reaching into his open fly. Their eyes met, and for a brief moment Richarde froze. Then his opposite hand fell to the 9-millimeter Beretta pistol tucked into his waistband. Richarde drew the pistol, but he twisted its butt outward as he pulled, and the front sight snagged against the fabric of his pants before he yanked it free.
Too late. Rod’s Power Eagle flashed upward in a wide arc, and the high carbon steel blade rang as it sank deep into the Canadian’s neck, severing his spine, and nearly removing his head from his sho
ulders. Richarde died instantly. His knees buckled as he fell forward, and for a few seconds bright red arterial blood pulsed from the gaping wound. His head twisted and turned away from his body as it struck the earth with an audible thump. His right foot twitched back and forth spasmodically as his body lay still.
Rod stared in deep shock at what he’d done. He’d killed someone. His mind recoiled from the realization, but the corpse before him was undeniably real. Glazed with death, the eyes stared into the underbrush from a head that was ninety-degrees to its body, attached only by a bloody strip of flesh. Blood still flowed from the severed carotid artery, but became weaker with each failing heartbeat.
Aziz and Grigovich saw it all, saw Rod rise swiftly above the juniper bush and all but separate Richarde’s head from his shoulders. McBraden was staring at Sue Morgan, sobbing softly as she knelt before him, still bleeding freely from the wound where her ear had been. All three of them saw Rod turn to look at them with a half-crazed look on his face, and all of them misread his expression as that of a heroic madman.
Aziz was fastest. His Ruger revolver leveled on Rod’s torso. The front sight blade settled into the rear sight notch over his sternum. Aziz squeezed the trigger. His aim was good, but the double-action trigger pull was gritty; it caused the barrel to shift slightly right when the hammer rotated back to its firing position. He missed, but the bullet passed close enough for Rod to hear the whipcrack of its passing.
The shot broke Rod from his reverie. Aziz squeezed off another round almost in unison with Grigovich. But Rod was already in motion, and out of sight within three bounds. Aziz pursued. Behind him he could hear the pounding footfalls of Grigovich. It was no use. By the time they reached Richarde’s body, his killer was long gone into the thick bush.
“Fuck!” Aziz said, picking up Richarde’s Beretta and shoving it under his belt. He stamped his foot and shouted again, louder this time, “Fuck.”
McBraden at least had enough sense to stay behind with the whimpering woman without being told to. He had a curious look on his face when Aziz and Grigovich returned.
“Richarde’s dead,” Aziz said simply.
Except for a slight widening of his eyes, McBraden’s expression didn’t change. Grigovich checked the position of his pistol’s safety and said nothing.
“McBraden, you’re supposed to know this area. Tell me what you think about this guy.”
McBraden looked at him with a blank expression. He thought fast; Aziz expected something analytical from him.
“I can’t be sure, but I think he’s an ex-con my dad used to talk about. He said he was a survival expert who was probably a potential domestic terrorist of some sort. My dad didn’t like him very much.”
Aziz just looked at him. Small-town police officers were the same self-important, pompous assholes whether they were in Afghanistan or here. If this guy was who McBraden said he was, his criminal history was probably one reason why he wouldn’t go to the authorities. Outlaws, even retired ones, were always reluctant to go to the law for any reason.
“Regardless, we still have a mission, and we have a time frame.”
He walked over to stand in front of Sue Morgan. She was sobbing quietly now, her gaze toward the ground. Blood was still dripping slowly from her chin. She looked up at Aziz. He put his revolver’s muzzle to her forehead and pulled the trigger. Her head rocked back with the report, and her hair blew outward, as pink brain matter erupted from the back of her skull. She fell backward and lay still on the ground.
Aziz tucked his revolver back into his waistband as if he’d just done nothing more than dispatch a rodent.
“Okay,” he said through lips that were thin with tension, “Peter, you take Paul’s load of plastique. Nothing has changed.”
Aziz extracted a folded paper map from a ziploc bag in the cargo pocket of his trousers. “Timmons, lead us to the most direct route to highway M-28.” He looked at Grigovich, “Timmons had one of his old football comrades drop a car for us on an abandoned logging road there, near the junction of M-123.”
McBraden nodded. He hadn’t known why he was doing it when he called one of his closest friends from high school two months ago and asked him to buy and license a used car for him. That friend was to store the vehicle at his home, and then drop it off at a predetermined location within the state forest. After Aziz had thoroughly checked out the man McBraden chose, the friend was shipped a package containing cash and a small satchel from Canada. The man who bought the car just thought he was doing a favor for an old football buddy, and making a few bucks for it. But the satchel he was instructed to leave in the locked car contained a GPS tracking device, among other things. That way, even if McBraden was dead, Aziz could locate the vehicle.
The idea that he might be dead by now himself had never occurred to McBraden. It occurred to him now as he looked at the map, marked with red grease pencil. He knew the area and its topography. It was almost all Lake Superior State Forest between here and M-28, about twenty-six miles. They had to stick close to the highway because it was bordered by impenetrable swamp along both sides for much of that distance. The route crossed a half dozen two-track dirt roads, but the chance of seeing more than a handful of passing vehicles between here and there was highly improbable.
McBraden nodded. “If we push it, we can do that distance by tomorrow morning.”
“What about the bodies?” Grigovich asked, jerking a thumb toward Sue Morgan’s corpse.
“Drag them and their gear into the bushes,” Aziz replied. “Then cover them all with leaves and branches. We don’t have time to conceal them better.”
Aziz knew they were going to need to stop and sleep—he’d allotted four hours—but he wanted them to be far from here when they stopped to rest. He scraped sand over the burnt-down campfire with the side of his boot while Grigovich dragged the corpses into the brush. Then he kicked dirt over the bloodstains and pink brain fragments to make them less noticeable. Good enough.
Aziz looked at the two remaining members of his team. His allies in Al Qaeda had agreed to train the infidels for him because the Aziz clan was too wealthy to deny, but the organization had never backed his multi-religious team, or even his plan. They’d certainly take credit if the operation was successful, but Al Qaeda wasn’t willing to bet on his dark horse before the race was run.
Chapter Thirteen
THE TRACKER’S WIFE
Colyer arrived at Whitefish Point in the early afternoon. From his unmarked Dodge Charger, he made a call from his cell phone to Rodney Elliot. People he’d asked regarded Elliot as the most capable tracker in this area. Colyer considered himself to be fairly adept when it came to gathering forensic evidence, but he prided himself on never letting his ego get in the way of doing the job that taxpayers trusted him to get done. A full day had passed since deputies had collected the Zodiac, and who knew for sure how long it had remained hidden in the brush before it’d been noticed? He wanted a skilled tracker to accompany him to the area, even though it was fairly certain that any sign left by the boat’s occupants had been obliterated when the craft was dragged away by the Sheriff Department’s off-road vehicles.
Colyer had done a quick background check of Elliot on the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database. CODIS revealed that the man was an ex-con with such a background that it was surprising he had survived his childhood at all. To Colyer, he looked more a victim than a villain, but a follow-up call to local cops had painted the ex-con as a first cousin to Satan himself. Colyer figured that the truth lay somewhere in between. It usually did.
Ex-con or not, Elliot was generally judged by friends and enemies alike to be one of the most adept trackers in the country. When Colyer called, it was Eliot’s wife Shannon who answered.
“Hello,” she said, a bit out of breath from running to catch the landline before the answering machine took it.
“Mrs. Elliot, this is Special Agent Tom Colyer of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Sault Sainte Marie.”
“Yes?” Shannon said.
“Mrs. Elliot, there’s no problem at all, but I was wondering if I might speak with Rodney.”
“Rod’s not here. He’s teaching a survival class. He won’t be back till next week.”
“I’m looking for a tracker to take a look at a scene for me, and tell me what he thinks. Can you recommend anyone else?”
“No, I can’t.” She sounded genuinely disappointed. “If you just want a tracker, Rod says I’m one of his best students.”
Colyer grinned, glad that she couldn’t see his surprised expression. “Would you consent to accompany me, Mrs. Elliot?”
When Colyer pulled into the driveway, he was surprised by the neatness of the small house and yard. These were people who took pride in the appearance of their home, something not typical of criminals. He was startled when a pretty, middle-aged blond opened the passenger door and plopped into the seat next to him. She’d seemed to just appear from nowhere. She was wearing faded denim bib overalls and a light blue T-shirt. On her feet were a well-worn pair of Vasque hiking boots.
“Hi,” she said, extending her right hand to shake his. “I’m Shannon.” Her grip was strong without trying. This is a woman who does a lot of hard physical labor, Colyer thought.
The drive to Whitefish Point was animated. Shannon pointed out every landmark along the way, and she seemed to have at least one tidbit of information to offer about all of them. She was a lot smarter and more articulate than the FBI agent had expected. He reminded himself to not underestimate this woman.
The Mackinac Incident Page 7