by L. J. Martin
It's said becoming a Marine sniper requires an awareness of the environment, total concentration, great woodsmanship, and a total disdain for the target. And I've watched Pax in action, and he's all of that and so much more.
He's also a computer guru, and has turned his Marine disability checks into an Internet Service Provider company with offices in Vegas and a half dozen other western cities. He's able to keep me under the radar, moving my money around through a dozen countries, adjusting my identity when necessary, and even obliterating records when propitious. He's a handy guy to have on your side, not to speak of the fact he's a hell of a good friend and we'd both get between a charging rhino and the other guy.
And his brother, Thornton, is a bail bondsman in L.A., and that's come in handy more than once, including the badge I carry as a bail enforcement officer.
I catch up on a little more reading and finish my third cup of coffee before Hunter wanders out of his cabin, stretching, hacking and coughing, then lighting up a smoke. I have a small folding chair and am enjoying the color up the canyon to the east, and to be truthful wish he'd slept longer.
"You wanna go get some chow?" he asks.
"I had a shot of lousy oatmeal, but yeah, I could use some real food. I want to be back before eight and I want you back up the road overlooking the camp. You take the spotting scope and write down everything that happens. Got it?"
"Don't sound too tough to me," he says, and coughs again, then asks, "So, what are you gonna do?"
"I'm gonna climb on my bike and stake out at the end of the road and follow anyone who wanders out. Eventually my girl might do so and if so I can have a chat with her."
"So I just flop down and watch—"
"And record everything that happens in that camp. We're going to start trying to identify all of them. If it's a girl, the tall blond we met for instance, then write down what building she came out of and where she went and what she did. If she, or he, is a roly-poly critter in shorts and spike hair, write that down…got it?"
"I can handle it."
"Good. Where are we going to eat?"
"We can go back to the Sunshine Station, the other way to Drummond where they's a couple of joints, or to Hall where they's a place…if it's open. It kinda comes and goes."
"Which is closest?"
"Hall, I'd guess."
"Then let's haul, if you'll pardon the pun."
"What's a pun?"
"Let's go eat. I'm riding my Harley. I'll follow you."
He shrugs, and heads for his jeep.
I'm not the most patient guy in the world, and it's time I make something happen. If she doesn't come out, I'm going in.
14
During breakfast I learn some things about my new employee. Hunter's real first name is Harley, as was his father, whom he hates as he abandoned the family when Hunter was a toddler. Thus the name change, of his own volition. Hunter not only works as a sawyer, but is a trapper in the winter, so he has some real backwoods skills. He was raised on the highline, the part of northern Montana up against the Canadian border, in a town that holds the national record for the greatest change in temperature in a single day. Cutbank, Montana went from eighty degrees to twenty below in one twenty-four hour period, a one hundred degree drop. It pays to keep a coat in your truck in Montana…even in July.
Hunter worked as a cowboy, a logger, a trucker, and was a soldier serving in a construction unit for one tour of duty, all stateside. He still sends money to his mama in Cutbank, every month, as she's an asthmatic and can't work.
I'm gaining a new respect for the ol' boy.
We return to our assignments for the day, Hunter up on the forest service road overlooking the ARA compound, me sitting on my Harley Iron backed into the trees a hundred yards north from the mouth of the access road to the camp. I'm there before eight, and spend some time on my email on my iPhone, reviewing what turns out to be junk mail…until I glance up to see a four door Jeep Rubicon, steel gray and tricked out with powerful lights mounted on the top, a winch that looks big enough to lift the unit up a tree, and a breather so it can run in deep water. It's a real man's rig, but it turns my way and as it passes I see it's loaded with ladies. Two girls in the front, two in the back. I let it get a half-mile down the road, then fire up and follow.
I figure they're on the way to the market in Drummond, but instead they take Highway 90 west toward Missoula. A ladies day on the town?
It's about fifty miles from Drummond to Missoula, if that's where they're heading, so I settle in for a nice long ride then close the distance between us as we near town. As I suspected, they turn off on the third ramp, Orange Street, and are held up by traffic. Luckily, there's a big rig between us, and I stay difficult to spot. The Jeep is pretty distinctive so I can hold back, staying over a block behind. As I might suspect from a group of women, they head straight for the mall. I'm only a hundred yards from them when they park near Dillard's, one of the Mall's anchor stores, and unload.
I've passed through Missoula only once before. It's a picturesque university town of some fifty thousand on the very north end of the Bitterroot Valley, one of Montana's fastest growing areas. Sandwiched between the Sapphire Mountains to the east and the magnificent Bitterroot-Selway Mountains to the west, it's a forty-five mile long valley of cattle ranches and yuppie gentleman farmer ten-acre parcels, spotted with a few small towns. The Bitterroot River winds down the valley, flowing south to north, between groves of willows and cottonwood, peppered with the occasional copse of Ponderosa, fir, and lodgepole pine. The crest of the Bitterroots is the dividing line between Montana and Idaho's panhandle.
The blond I met in Phillipsburg—Inga—is driving. Next to her in the front is Maggie McFadden, stringy gray hair, tats and all. Out of the back unlimbers a tall rather attractive redhead with short cropped hair and a rather dumpy dirty blond who, I have high hopes, is my target, Jane Jasper Remington. J. J.'s hair is pulled back, not like the pictures I have, so I'll need to get closer to confirm her identity. A one and a half inch butterfly tat on the back of her neck will be absolute confirmation. They head straight for the glass doors leading into the big department store, and I follow at a discreet distance. All but McFadden are dressed in sports clothes, clean and sharp. The blond, Inga, even wears low heels. Maggie's in jeans and a stretched out tee shirt, wearing unattractive Birkenstocks that have seen better days.
I let them get in the place before I lock my helmet to the bike with a bike cable, then make a pass by the Jeep and stick a tracking device under the steel back bumper. As I wander toward the entrance I text Pax with the vehicle's license number and description and the I.D. number of the tracking device. Two ARA vehicles will now go nowhere that we don't know about.
Following them at a distance, which is hard to do in a department store, I get the impression that Maggie is more the chaperone, maybe even guard, than a participant in the girl's day out. She stays alert, eyes cutting this way and that, and never once fingers a blouse, or purse, or piece of costume jewelry. I do get a glance, over a rack of Calvin Klein rags, of a butterfly tat on the back on the dirty blond,s neck. Maybe it's a good thing she's wearing her hair up.
I watch for an opportunity to have a word with J. J., but the girls stay close together. Finally, with only a couple of small shopping bags between them, they wander out into the mall and make their way in and out of several shoe and dress shops. I'm able to take a seat in a rest area in the center of the mall and track them visually as they duck in and out of stores. I do this for almost three hours, while I consume two cups of coffee, visit the head once, and catch up on my texts and email. Women can shop. They finally enter a Red Robin where I presume they are having lunch. I take a table across the room, and I avoid Inga's green eyed glance, then her stare. I think I'm made, but it should make no difference.
They order about the same time I do, then Inga, again giving me the eye, rises as if she might be heading over to say howdy. An instance after she stands, I jump up and
head for the john, and out of the side of my vision see her hesitate, then return to her seat.
She says something to Maggie, who stares after me, but sort of shrugs and doesn't get up to follow.
As luck sometimes smiles on me, as I'm leaving the men's room, J. J. Remington is heading for the ladies and I run into her, out of sight of the table full of her compatriots.
"J. J." I say, and she stops and gives me a curious look.
"Do I know you?" she asks, a little bit of a coy smile like she might like to know me.
"I'm a family friend," I reply, and her smile fades.
"A family friend of my father's. Forget it." And she tries to brush past me.
As gently as I can without being too insistent, I stop her with a hand on her upper arm. "Yes, I'm a friend of your father's…a paid consultant, actually. Are you aware that Rostov has been banking money you've given ARA into his personal account in the Bahamas?"
Her face goes blank, and she hesitates a moment. "How would you know that, even if it's true?"
"My people are very industrious."
"Well, it doesn't matter. If Arne did it, it's fine and for the cause."
"His cause," I say.
"Leave me alone," she says, and jerks away, and I let her go. It would be less than wise to drag a young woman out of a public place. I turn to head back to my table and find myself face to face with Maggie McFadden.
"Who the fuck are you?" she snaps.
"Don't you remember, Miss Maggie, we met at the Sunshine Station."
"Fuck yes, I remember, but that's not the question, asshole. Who are you, and what do you want?"
"I want to eat my lunch." I give her my most winning smile. I guess it's not winning enough.
"We'll eat your fucking lunch…and you, you don't stay the fuck away from us."
"Oh, who's us?"
"ARA."
"What the fuck is an ARA?" I reply in my most innocent tone but deciding to get into the flow of her vernacular.
"Just stay away from me and my girls. We see you again, you might just get fucked up."
I shrug, and laugh a little as I offer, "I've been fucked up most my life, sunshine, and to be truthful, getting fucked up, down, or around by you just isn't on my agenda," and brush past her and head back to my table. I guess that leaves her a little speechless as no expletives follow me.
She waits until J. J. exits the ladies room then escorts her back to their table. I can tell by the expressions and body language that Maggie is grilling J. J. as they walk, and if I read it right, J. J. is not giving her any info. It seems she might not want ARA to know that her father is on the hunt for her. I get only one quick glance from J. J. before she reaches her table, and give her a wink, which I don't know if she sees. But she sure as hell doesn't wink back. Her brow is furrowed.
As I'm made, I decide to leave before they do and gobble my burger and fries down and head out. Since I'm halfway there, I decide to take a ride up the Bitterroot Valley to Hamilton and check out the Rocky Mountain Lab. If it's a place of interest to ARA, it's a place of interest to me.
Besides, who wouldn't want to know where some of the world's most deadly critters live? Critters that can wipe out the entire population of this planet, should they be loosed upon it.
15
Highway 93 bisects the long Bitterroot Valley, as does the Bitterroot River. It's a great ride on my Iron, passing through or by Lolo, Florence, Stevensville, Victor and Corvallis before crossing the river just before Highway 93 becomes the city street North 1st, which becomes South 1st when it crosses Main Street.
I hang a right onto Main, which is just a little over three blocks of businesses, see a café on the south side and flip a U turn and back my Harley into the angled parking. I've passed a couple of likely looking saloons on the way in, and may sneak back there after I get the coffee drinkers take on things. Unfortunately, the Signal Grill doesn't have a counter, only tables, and there's only one other customer—a fugitive from Duck Dynasty—in the middle of the day. He's having what looks like berry pie and coffee, with only a few crumbs hung up in his gray beard, so I take a table next to him and strike up a conversation.
"The pie worth a try? Is that blackberry?"
"It's huckleberry, and if you ain't tried it you ain't lived."
I laugh and look over my shoulder to see a waitress with askew black hair, Coke bottle bottom glasses, supp-hose, practical black crepe soled shoes, and a smile that seems a sincere welcome.
She rates a smile. "I'll have that pie, and a couple of dips of ice cream."
"You want it heated?" she asks.
"You decide."
"Heated," the old boy says.
"Thanks. You farm around here?" The overalls and the well-worn gloves stuffed into his back pocket have probably already answered the question.
"Yep, a little alfalfa and raise some black angus."
"Cattle price good?"
"Never good enough. We get a buck a pound and feed prices take it back. You not from around here?"
"No, sir, thinking about looking for work. I hear there's a big lab around here that might be hiring."
He gives a "humph," and eyes me up and down. "You don't look like no lab rat."
"I figure they might need some maintenance types or janitorial…or hell, I've done security work. What I hear about what they grow, they probably have lots of security?"
"Yep, lots. I wouldn't work there for all the tea in China."
I laugh. "That's lots of tea."
The waitress arrives in time to add "Won't do you no good if you're dead."
As she places the pie and ice cream in front of me, I ask, "So, they have lots of accidents?"
The old man answers, "I been here seventy years and they was here when I was growin' up, and as far as I know, they never had no accidents. How-some-ever, when they do it'll probably be a doosey."
He's right about the pie, so I ask for a cup of coffee and she hurries away. I turn back to the old man. "So, you wouldn't work there?"
"Damn place sounds like a jet plane going over half the time. Neighbors have been complaining about the sound since they blew seventy million of the taxpayer's money on a new building…even built a moat around the place."
My mouth is full of pie and ice cream, so it's a moment before I can ask, "A moat? They afraid of the locals storming the ramparts?"
"Nope, they say ticks can't swim."
"Ticks?"
"Yea, among the many other things…ebola, spotted fever, flu…they study that Lyme disease, and use lots of ticks."
"I worked for a vet for a couple of years and handled lots of small animals. They use critters?"
"Yep, rats, rabbits, ferrets and monkeys. Ever time I see a rabbit I jump five feet…but they claim nothing ever got away."
"Well, you've convinced me, I'm not looking for work there."
"Smart young fella. You ever buck hay?"
"Yes, sir, all I want to buck."
He looks a little disappointed and goes back to his pie. I finish mine before him, check the ticket the girl's left on the table, leave her a two-buck tip, and head out. Before I fire up the bike, I check Safari on my iPhone and get a location of the lab. To my surprise, it's short of the river to the west and right up against a residential area on the southwast corner of town.
One would think a place like that would be in the middle of lonely…like maybe the Sahara Desert.
The complex of buildings, probably fifty or sixty acres of fenced structures, looks to be over a hundred thousand square feet under roof, none over two stories. It's well fenced, and a guard house protects the entrance, flanked by in-and-out lanes. As I pass, innocently enough except for looking a little like a Hell's Angel, I note the guard keeps his eyes on me. Three sides of the complex are bordered by residences, and the fourth side backs up to the cottonwood covered riparian area of the river, which appears to have changed its course several times over the years.
You can't completely circle
the place, so I retrace my path, and again note that the uniformed guard observes me closely. I wave, but unlike most Montana residents, he doesn't wave back. His gaze, under a black bill cap, is penetrating. I think these guards are serious, and thank God for it.
I've seen enough for the time being, and not liking to retrace my steps, decide to take the Skalkaho highway back to Phillipsburg. I know it's dirt most of the way as I've quizzed Hunter about alternate areas away from Maxville where I'm camped, and away from the ARA compound as I may want to leave in a hurry some time in the future.
Only in Montana, or maybe in my home state of Wyoming, would a dirt road be called a highway. And few other places would have such a beautiful highway to travel. The Skalkaho takes off from Highway 93 just south of Hamilton, heading east into the Sapphire Mountains and then between them and the Pintler Range. It's only about 45 miles back in lieu of the hundred I came, but it's dirt most of the way, and closed in the winter.
I'm immediately happy I took the wild way home, spotting a bald eagle, several ospreys, and a cow elk and her calf as well as several mule deer and a few whitetail along the creek. The mountains to the south, the Pintlers, climb to ten thousand feet and are still snow covered on the peaks, with some long creek bottom valleys lined with willows leading up into them. I stop and watch a Shira moose, only fifty yards off the road, a young bull with about a two-foot horn spread. He's grazing the bottom of a beaver pond. He gives me a long look like he's considering breeding my Harley, but then goes back to grazing, water and moss dripping from his mouth.
By the time I reach Highway One, after taking a turn and following the East Fork of Rock Creek, I'm only a mile or so from Sunshine Station…and it's cocktail time. I call Hunter, who picks up on the first ring.
"I'm headed for the Sunshine Station," I inform him. "You still on the job?"
"Yep, and I've about run out of ink. This is a busy place. Two other carloads of hippies have arrived. Nine more bark chewers are on the scene."