by Trevor Scott
“We go nowhere,” Jake said. “I go back to the gun shop and pick up some more rounds. Some crazy congresswoman shot the crap out of some stumps this morning.”
“I had help. And then what?”
“I need to find someplace safe to stash you.”
“No way. This is my concern. I need to talk with this man. See what he knows.”
Jake protested with both hands. “I am not bringing you to a hostage extraction from a known murderer.”
She stared at him with determination. “I’ll stay in the SUV.”
He was going to regret this. But he also knew if he wanted to get any information from either the kidnapper or the scientist he needed to do this without the local police or wait for the FBI to show up. Jake kept visualizing the images of Ruby Ridge and Waco standoffs.
They hung out at various places around town, getting frequent updates from the local police on how they still had not found the man who had killed one of their own and kidnapped the scientist. The best part, as far as Jake was concerned, was the fact that snow had continued to fall most of the day and now, with darkness coming fast, the white stuff was coming down like goose down at a pillow fight. The snow had grounded flights coming in or out of the Flathead Valley, including those by the FBI coming from Spokane and Billings. He didn’t need a bunch of Feds mucking up the works.
Jake also changed his clothes from Patagonia Spring fishing wear to layered Montana Winter. Well, as much as he could with what he had in his backpack.
Just as the sun, such as it was hiding behind the clouds and heavy snow, sunk behind the mountains to the west, he got a call from his contact with the location of the killer and the scientist.
Now they sat in the Ford Explorer, the heater working to keep the snow from icing up the wipers.
Jake got off the phone with his friends in high places and viewed the GPS link they had sent him.
“Are you ready?” Lori asked him. She had been playing with her own phone for the past half hour, answering e-mails and listening to voice mails.
“Yeah,” Jake said. “We got a location.”
“How does this work? How do you know you can do this alone? What if there’s more than just one guy?”
Good questions all, he thought. But he couldn’t let her know that he had gotten satellite thermal images of the house outside town, indicating one hostile on the first floor and a second person in the basement of the home. He guessed that would be the professor. “You’ll have to trust me,” he said. “Can you put your phone down for a second and take this?” He handed her his phone with the GPS enabled and ready for them to drive.
“No problem.” She looked at him with concern. “I’m sorry. I kind of have a hectic job, with people grabbing at me from all sides.”
Jake put the Ford in gear and pulled out onto the frozen road. “I know. But you need to learn to focus on the task at hand. Your e-mail will still be there in the morning.” He came off far harsher than he’d planned. Maybe his own mind was preoccupied by the events of the past few days and what he had to do now.
It took them just fifteen minutes to find the old farm house a few miles outside of Whitefish. It sat on a small knoll at the end of a quarter-mile long driveway. Darkness was now starting to really shroud the countryside.
Parking out on the road among a patch of pines, Jake shut down the vehicle and looked at Lori. “When I get out, get behind the wheel. If I don’t call you in fifteen minutes, you get the hell out of here and drive back into town to the police station. Understand?”
She nodded her head. “Will you be all right?”
“Yeah, it’s what I do.” Or what he used to do. He pulled out his 9mm Glock and cycled a round into the chamber. With the three magazines he had fifty-one rounds to get the job done. More than enough, he thought.
He got out and she immediately took his warm spot on the leather driver’s seat. “Don’t touch the brakes,” he said. “If you have to warm up, just crank it over and let the heater work.” Then he gently closed the door without much sound and shuffled off through the snow on the country road.
Jake would have a tough time approaching the house without being noticed. Even with the darkness and snow falling, if the man looked out the window down the long drive, he would see Jake coming. The only other way was through a forested area to the north. But with the deep snow that would take too long.
He had to chance a direct approach. The faster the better. He picked up the pace from a long stride to an all-out run. As he got closer to the house, he saw a light on in the front room and a shadow pass by the window. Jake vectored toward the left side of the house alongside the front covered porch and settled up against the weathered white siding to catch his breath. If his intel was right, there was only one bad guy inside, the killer and kidnapper. But he also knew that some time had passed since he had last gotten a thermal reading.
No new vehicle tracks in the driveway. Which didn’t mean a lot in this heavy snowfall. Any tracks would be covered in a few minutes.
Jake slid along the house toward the back. He came to a basement window that was covered by snow. Scooping his hand through the cold white stuff, he couldn’t see any lights on in the basement.
Continuing to the back, he peered around the corner of the house, his gun aimed down against his right leg to keep moisture out of the barrel.
From the back he had to move out into the yard somewhat to try to see into the house as he moved toward the center of the house, the snow back there up to his knees.
Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw a figure move across the light in what looked like the kitchen. The man was there and then not there. Like a ghost.
He took a couple more steps and then tripped over something, landing on his side in the snow. Luckily he had raised his gun up and kept it from getting wet.
Jake reached over to feel what he’d tripped on, and immediately felt a body. He slid his hand down and realized it was frozen solid. A woman. He moved around so the light shone out onto the body and saw that something had eaten the eyes and worked on the belly. Rodents, ravens or jays. Maybe a fox or coyote. Checking his watch, he had to hurry or his ride would be gone soon.
He shifted behind a tree, found his phone, and texted a message to Lori to give him another ten minutes.
Now he needed to hurry and make this happen.
He got upright, assessed the back door, and moved straight at it. Chances are it would be unlocked.
Quietly he turned the knob. It was open, so he slipped inside and stopped. His wet shoes would surely squeak on the linoleum floor. But if he could get to the carpet in the living room he would be all right. He put most of his weight on the outer edge of his boots and with little noise made his way toward the lighted living room.
A rush of noise stopped him in his tracks.
Damn it. The man had heard him.
Jake dove to his left just as the first bullets flew through the air, the loud sound echoing through his ears and the lead striking the windows behind his position, smashing glass out into the darkness.
He held his gun aimed at the door frame, not wanting to kill this guy, but not wanting to get shot either.
“This can end one of two ways,” Jake said. He waited for some response. Nothing.
Knowing he was vulnerable lying on the floor, Jake rolled to his left and up to his knees, the gun still pointed at the doorway.
As the gun rounded the corner, Jake opened fire with three rounds just as the other man’s gun went off striking the floor where he had been. Jake’s bullets crushed into the door frame sending wood flying.
Jake thought for a second and then opened fire on the wall with three more shots. But he guessed the walls in this old house were thick enough to stop his 9mm rounds.
If they kept going like this, they would be at a stand off until one of them ran out of bullets or got in a lucky shot. He had to make something happen.
When the gun showed around the corner this tim
e, Jake shot, the man shot, and instead of pausing Jake ran to the living room, dove through the door firing three more times as low as he could. He hit the ground on his back, his gun aimed at the spot where the man had been.
The man was down on the carpeted floor holding his leg with one hand and reaching for his gun with the other. His glasses sat askew on his face.
Jake rushed over and kicked the gun away from him.
“Where’s the scientist,” Jake yelled, his gun pointed at the man’s head.
“You better kill me,” the man said, his accent much like that of the men who had kidnapped him in Washington. “Or I will kill you.”
Laughing under his breath, Jake said, “I don’t think you’re in a position to do that.” Looking closely at the man’s wound, he could see that the bullet wound to the man’s thigh was serious. Jake had nailed him in the femoral artery. He thought back at how he had held his girlfriend in Austria with a similar wound, and how she had bled out in less than ten minutes. “You’re dying.”
“I’ve been hit worse than this.”
“That’s a femoral shot,” Jake assured him. “You will bleed out in ten minutes.” He checked his watch. “Eight minutes. Where’s the man? Better yet, why did you kidnap the man?”
The man bit down on his lip. “Screw you.”
“Just answer my questions and I’ll put a bullet in your head. Otherwise we sit here and watch you bleed out. Your choice.”
“You are cop,” the man said through grit teeth. “You must call ambulance. It is your duty.”
Jake smiled. “First of all, I’m not a cop. And second, it wouldn’t matter if I did call one. They wouldn’t get here in time. Especially for a cop killer.” He hesitated and let that set in. “Now tell me what I want to know.”
But the man seemed to be fading out. His head started to swirl from side to side as the blood flowed from his body. He would pass out soon from the lack of oxygen to his brain. And then his heart would stop pumping blood. The steady spurt of blood from his leg would then ooze out until he was truly dead.
Damn it. Jake knew there was nothing he could do to change the man’s fate. As the man sunk down onto the carpet farther, the hand that had held his wound let go and the blood flowed quicker into the puddle that had formed.
Jake checked his watch and saw that he needed to get going or his ride would be gone. He checked the man’s pulse. He was dead. Then he patted him down and found two extra magazines inside his pockets, along with a set of keys. But no identification. Not that Jake expected any. This man had been a professional. He picked up the dead man’s Glock 19, also in 9mm, and shoved that and the magazines into his pockets.
Then Jake rushed through the house to find the scientist. He remembered the thermal image had one man in the basement. Finding the stairs, Jake clicked on a light and hurried down there. Chained to a metal post was a scared man huddled into a ball, his eyes piercing into Jake as he tightened his grip across his own chest.
“Professor James Tramil?” Jake asked.
The man simply nodded his head. Then his teeth started to chatter uncontrollably.
Jake found his cell phone and hit the button for Lori’s phone. As her familiar chime went off, he swiveled around toward the staircase with his gun.
Standing there was Congresswoman Lori Freeman, a shocked look on her face. “Don’t shoot me,” she yelled.
“I told you to stay in the vehicle,” Jake said as he moved his finger off the trigger and shoved the gun into the holster on his right hip.
“Well,” she said, making her way down into the basement. “I’m not used to taking orders.” She turned to the man chained to the post. “James Tramil?”
The man finally said, “Yes, that’s me.”
“We’ve been looking for you,” Lori said.
Jake pulled out the keys he’d found on the man upstairs and quickly unlocked the padlock to release the chains holding the man.
Lori circled around Jake and said, “Are you all right?”
“Better than the guy upstairs.”
“I saw that. Did he tell you anything?”
Jake shook his head. “Maybe our friend here has some insight.”
“You guys wouldn’t happen to have something to eat,” Tramil said. He squinted his eyes at Lori and said, “Hey, you’re that hot congresswoman from Montana. I see you all the time on the news. What are you doing here?”
Jake helped the man to his feet. “That will have to wait. We need to get out of here.”
“What about the men who are tracking you?” Lori asked.
But Jake was already ahead of her. He pulled out his second cell phone and removed the battery. He found the tracking device and thought for a moment. Leave it here to be found or play with them a little more. Play with them. They would have to call in the shooting eventually, and he didn’t want the local cops to find the device. Instead, he slipped the tracker into his pocket. He had a better idea.
“Let’s get out of here,” Jake said.
Tramil said, “Any way we could drive through McDonald’s? I could really use a Big Mac about now.”
“We’ll see,” Jake said, like a father does to his son.
13
The three of them made it to the Whitefish train terminal by eight forty-five p.m., the professor in the back seat of the Ford SUV complaining about his hunger. But that would have to wait a few minutes.
Jake parked outside the train station and walked casually toward the terminal. Passengers were sprawled in uncomfortable chairs, their carry-on bags at their side, while others paced across the floor, checking their wrist watches against the large clock on the wall. He knew that the westbound Empire Builder would arrive at 8:56 p.m. and depart for Spokane at 9:16 p.m.
Finding what he needed on the schedule board, Jake’s eyes shifted about the room to find the perfect mark. He smiled slightly when he saw the young man sleeping in his chair with white ear buds dangling down to an MP3 player in his pocket. Jake shuffled over and sat next to the man’s small backpack, which took up a chair of its own. The bag was open about six inches at the top. He glanced about the room looking for cameras. Two were aimed at the ticket counter and another couple pointed toward the terminal door that led to the train platform. He guessed the platform would also have video coverage. It wouldn’t matter if he was on film, though.
He yawned and stretched his arms out to his side, his right hand right above the open backpack, and with the sleight of hand that would make a magician proud, he dropped the small GPS tracker into the young man’s backpack.
Then Jake leaned back in this chair and put his arms over his chest. He sat for a few more minutes until the overhead speaker announced that the train would arrive in five minutes. Checking his watch, Jake rose and wandered around the terminal before finally leaving and returning to the SUV outside.
“Hey, what the hell?” the professor said from the back seat. “I’m starving here.”
Jake sat in the driver’s seat and said to Lori next to him, “Was he like this the whole time I was in there?”
“Afraid so,” she said. “What was that all about?”
“Shifting tactics,” Jake said. “The train that’s pulling in right now is the Empire Builder.”
“That’s the train I took from Oregon,” Tramil said.
“That’s right.” Jake looked at the man in the back seat in the rearview mirror as he pulled out of the terminal parking lot. Then he looked back at Lori for a second and continued, “I’m sending the bad guys after that train, while we go in the opposite direction.”
Tramil said, “That’s brilliant. But I thought you wanted to talk to one of the men? Find out what they know.”
That was exactly what Jake wanted. But he had a feeling he wouldn’t get much from any of them. “The guy I shot in the leg didn’t tell me a thing. I don’t think the others would either. Instead of finding out why they want what you’ve discovered, I’ll need to know the significance of your discovery
.” His eyes shifted again to the professor, who seemed to sink somewhat into the leather seats. Food first, Jake thought.
They drove through McDonalds and got enough food for five people, most of which went into the gut of the professor in the back. While they ate Jake drove south toward Kalispell. The roads were still snow covered, but the tires on the Ford Explorer dug in with the all-wheel-drive.
When they got a couple miles out of town, they came upon a road block. As the cop shone his flashlight inside their vehicle, Jake simply pulled out a leather folder, flipped it open, and the police patrol officer, eyes wide, waved them through.
Congresswoman Lori Freeman gave Jake a strange look and said, “What was that?”
“What?”
“Your ID.”
Jake smiled. “My old Central Intelligence Agency identification. Something I never carried when I was in the Agency, for obvious reasons. If they looked carefully, they’d see I was retired.”
“That’s like a get out of jail free card,” Tramil said, a full mouth of fries in his mouth.
By the time they got to Kalispell the professor was done eating, a big burp from the soda disturbing the silence. Jake had a plan but he was still trying his best to decide on tactics. There were many ways to get information from someone, from outright beating it out of them with torture, which did work sometimes, to simply having a seemingly innocuous conversation, where the subject has no idea that the purpose was extraction of information. That was Jake’s favorite method, and over the years he had become quite good at it. First, he waited until they got out of the city of Kalispell, on the lonely, dark road, US Highway 93, that skirted the western shore of Flathead Lake. Under normal circumstances that drive was beautiful, but in the darkness with snow blowing across the lake, the trip could be quite dangerous. So, to make matters worse, Jake slowly turned up the music, classic heavy metal.
Tapping his hands against the steering wheel, Jake said, “How did that guy treat you, James?”
“Huh?” Tramil said, leaning forward.
Jake repeated himself. It was all part of the game.