Ryce held his group close to where Tanya and Ramona were setting up the Suburban and camping trailer. When he saw that Tanya and Ramona were stringing their fishing poles, he activated his combat radio.
“Remember, you can’t catch more than seven.”
Tanya carefully looked around. She could not see him, but she had felt he had been looking at her since she had parked the Suburban. He laughed and then told his team to wrap up the camo netting.
Ryce stopped his team below the ridge, away from the cabin, and spread the team along a line parallel to the ridge. He sent two of the team with their camo netting down the ridge in the direction of Tanya and Ramona. They were instructed to get close enough to see the campsite, but stay out of site. Ryce was planning to go over the ridge alone.
He repeated what had happened to Randy and concluded with, “And it will immensely piss me off if I have to write a casualty report.”
Ryce left his pack with his team, taking only his camo netting, spotting scope, radio, and a sidearm. If he needed anything more powerful, his team was less than one hundred meters away and within shouting distance.
As soon as he was established, Ryce connected with O2, who reported that he was on a small bluff east of the lake. He had a clear view of the trail immediately to his right and could see the outline of the cabin to his left.
Ryce scoped the cabin. The Dodge pick-up truck that he had seen parked in front of the cabin was now positioned in front of the woodshed. Ryce continued to scan the area, but he did not see the Silverado. Ryce cranked the magnification on the scope up to its highest, and performed a grid search of the cabin and woodshed.
The damages that Ryce had witnessed at the woodshed had been cleaned up. Had the occupants of the cabin replaced the explosives? And if they did, what ignition source did they install?
When he scoped the front of the cabin, Ryce saw that almost all of the bullet holes in the wall had been patched. The cracked window in the door had been repaired with duct tape. The brick chimney on the side of the cabin closest to the woodshed was no longer pockmarked with bullet holes. Someone had even waved a paint brush at the wall of the cabin. Ryce chuckled. The occupants had done a lot of work to cover up the firefight.
Ryce flipped the switch from spotting scope to thermal imaging and re-scoped the area. He saw no thermal hot spots anywhere, but he did not expect anything at this time of the day. The ambient temperatures at noon would blend the cool into the warm. Ryce would have to wait for sundown. He would then be able to see lights in the cabin, or maybe a thermal ghost on the wall or the window.
Ryce worked his way back to his team, paired them up, and then had his partner call the coin flip to see which pair had the first watch. One of each pair would watch the cabin. The other would watch the side of the hill where Tanya and Ramona were camping.
Ryce’s partner correctly called the coin flip and chose to sleep first. Ryce’s final instruction to the pair who had the first hour was to awaken him if they saw anything larger than a squirrel.
Ryce plugged the earpiece of his radio into his ear and slid into his sleeping bag. The temperature was not low enough to need the bag, but it was forest camo, and Ryce wanted to remain unseen.
Ryce was awakened by an unusual noise in his ear. He realized it was his radio, and pressed the transmit button.
“This is Ryce.”
The voice that came back to him was Ramona’s.
“A black Silverado just drove by us heading in the direction of the cabin. We saw a man and a woman in the front seat of the Silverado, but the side windows were tinted really dark. The woman waved at us. Someone is coming back to the cabin.”
Ryce pressed the send button once again. “Ryce out.”
After several seconds, Ryce heard O2. “I heard Ramona’s transmission.”
Ryce looked at his team and then keyed his radio to inform everyone he was moving back to the observation post.
Ryce had left the scope on the tripod. He leaned into the scope just as the Silverado pulled up to the front door of the cabin. One man exited thru the driver’s door while another exited through the driver’s side rear door.
Ryce recognized Dianne from security pictures as she stepped out of the Silverado through the passenger side front door. The three walked to the front door of the cabin, the driver unlocked the door, and they walked into the cabin.
Ryce quickly scanned the area. Were two men missing?
He keyed his radio. “I seem to be missing two people. Keep an eye open.”
Ryce got an almost immediate double click in response from at least one radio. He heard two additional pairs of clicks soon after the first. He smiled. Ramona, O2, and John were active stations. They had someone monitoring the radio at all times and were expected to respond. As a support station, Phil would only answer if he was directly addressed or if he needed something.
The group was now informed that their focus would need to be everywhere. They could no longer be looking directly in front of them, and ignore beside or behind them.
Ryce scanned the cabin once more and then worked his way back up and over the ridge.
Ryce was not worried about someone from the cabin coming up the cabin side of the hill. He had installed a security device on a tree directly below his observation post. The device pointed down the hill and covered almost 180 degrees below the tree. When triggered, it could wake up the dead. Ryce told his team not to get near the cabin side of the tree.
Ryce asked if everyone had night vision glasses. The person on watch was expected to keep a very close eye on the general direction of Ramona and Tanya.
Most importantly, they were to keep their packs and weapons within a few inches of where they were sleeping. Ryce did not want to repeat the incident in the Philippines. He had sent a four-man team to skirt a suspected seven-hut hamlet. When Ryce led the main force of Rangers toward the hamlet, they had come under heavy fire. Five minutes into the firefight, the flanking team reported they were out of ammunition. They had left their packs at the assembly area. Ryce clouded up and rained all over everyone. The new company rule was if you ain’t carrying a hundred pounds, you are carrying light.
Ryce look carefully at each man on the team. “The last time I was here, I saw four people executed by three men in that cabin. I don’t know if they can climb out of a paper bag, but they blew up two people and shot the other two. And as you know, I get pissed when I have to fill out casualty reports.”
When the almost silent laughter dwindled to silence, Ryce continued, “Go and set up your sleeping arrangements. Then come back here for some cold, icky food. We cannot start a fire, so we have some tasteless, odorless stuff, straight out of hell. I did not even get us any MREs. Our dinner is C-Rats from the Great Falls Army National Guard. I have a razor knife for anyone who would like to cut their wrists.”
Chapter 32
The team had almost four hours to wait until it would be dark. Ryce set up a schedule for each member to operate the spotter scope for an hour. He was hoping that they could verify the location of the two missing occupants of the cabin. The remaining three occupants seemed to be doing normal cabin activities. One brought in an armload of wood, and another carried two buckets of water back from the stream.
Smoke was exiting the chimney a few minutes after 4:00 PM, during Ryce’s turn on the scope. Some nice odors were drifting up the hill at 5:00 PM when the team was eating its second odorless, tasteless, and cold field meal. Ryce checked the date code on his C-Rations. They were made in 1962. Not a good year for C-Rats. He chuckled as he contemplated the horrible death that his C-Rats packer had hopefully suffered.
Where were the two missing men? Were they already on the trail to the border? Were they hiding somewhere, waiting for their friends to leave the cabin? Ryce would be following the occupants of the cabin when they headed north, but he wanted everyone in front of him. As always, the group in pursuit was normally at a distinct disadvantage. Doug was having a thermal satellite
repositioned, but had not yet notified Ryce that the bird was in place.
On his first trip to the border, Ryce had taken many pictures of the trail and surrounding terrain. There were hundreds of places that could be used to observe the back trail and set up an ambush. And the same places could be used to remain unseen until the pursuit team passed.
The mountains to the west blocked the sunset, but a half-twilight remained for more than two hours. Ryce fiddled with the viewfinder on the scope and eventually widened it. He could now see one hundred feet on either side of the cabin and more than one hundred in front of it.
A figure appeared on the porch, followed by a second figure. Ryce saw a flash and then the glow of a cigarette. Someone was having an evening smoke. A third figure walked through the open door and approached the first two, followed by a forth and fifth figure. Ryce smiled. He again had the entire group in one location. With a good sniper rifle, he thought he could put all five down. An automatic would be a slam-dunk. A bolt-action would be considerably more difficult.
Ryce reached for his microphone and pressed the transmit key.
“We have a full roster of bad people at the cabin.”
As he waited for the teams to reply, Ryce attached the camera to the scope and set it to take one frame every two minutes. He hoped he had an SD card of sufficient capacity to store all of the pictures. He was confident the camera battery pack would handle a night operation. He had modified a fire alarm panel battery to attach to the camera. It was bulky, but had lasted for more than forty-eight hours the last time he tested it.
After closely checking the camera twice more, Ryce crawled back over the ridge. With everyone at the cabin accounted for, he was more comfortable with a single person on watch. He smiled at his team.
“I’ll take the first watch and awaken someone to relieve me. We’ll do two hours so your naps won’t be too disrupted. Get some sleep. Tomorrow will likely not be a walk in the park.”
Ryce pulled on his night vision goggles and began scanning where he thought Tanya might be camping. He knew he could not see her through the trees, but he hoped he might catch a hot spot from a campfire.
Ryce crawled back over the ridge long before the sun highlighted the western mountains. The vehicles at the cabin were in the same places they had been when Ryce crawled into his sleeping bag. As he was deciding which of four flavors of C-Rats would best destroy his digestive system, Ryce flipped the camera display open. He started scanning the pictures taken after 4:00 AM.
Ryce immediately went into an alert mode when he checked the pictures at 4:57 AM. The camera had snapped a picture of someone on the cabin porch. Since the scope could not distinguish male or female in thermal imaging mode, Ryce had no idea if it was Dianne or one of the men.
The next thermal image was of someone crossing the stream. Ryce checked the time on his cell phone. The image was four minutes behind actual time. Ryce flipped the scope to normal imaging, and panned the road. He had sufficient light to see a figure with an obvious weapon on his shoulder walking toward the lake.
As he reached for his radio, he heard O2’s voice.
“Boss man, I have someone heading in my direction from the cabin. He is carrying a Barrett M82 with a silencer. Someone is after a very large squirrel. Will keep you advised.”
Ryce chuckled. The Rangers used the term “squirrel hunting” to indicate an assigned target. Did O2 get the term from Ramona? And how is “boss man” going to go over on the radio network? But, it was good to work with people who knew what they were doing.
Ryce could barely see the man through the scope as he approached one of the port-a-potties, opened the door and stepped in. He heard O2 chuckle.
“This is just not right. Who walks two miles to use a port-a-potty when there are hundreds of trees within twenty feet of the cabin?”
After a few minutes, the door to the porta-potty opened, and the man stepped out, still carrying his Barrett. He was also carrying a trash bag that was tied with parachute cord. O2 watched the man untie the cord and carefully lay three laptops on the ground in front of him.
O2 keyed his transmitter. “The walker is at the port-a-potties and just came out with a trash bag with three laptops in it.”
Ryce glanced through his scope and then keyed his radio.
“Did you say three laptops? The Pentagon is missing four laptops.”
Ryce heard O2’s voice over the radio. “I see only three laptops on the ground in front of the bad guy.”
Ryce checked a few more thermal images on his camera, but unless a laptop was on fire, he did not expect he would see anything. Why were there only three laptops? He smiled. Did it really matter? One laptop or four laptops, Ryce still needed to discover who was receiving the stolen property.
Ryce keyed his radio. “What’s your distance from the target?”
O2 chuckled over the radio. “He’s less than five hundred yards away. He’s too close. I’ll miss.”
A voice Ryce recognized as Ramona’s chuckled on the radio. “Just be sure to police your brass.”
Ryce grinned. He had heard the story of the third time Ramona and O2 had gone head-to-head in qualifying. Even the smallest detail was taken into account, including picking up spent cartridges after the firing exercise. O2 had overlooked one shell casing when he cleaned up. The deduction moved him from first to third. He finished .06 points behind Ramona.
The walker returned to the cabin with the garbage bag. Ryce watched more smoke exit the chimney. Odors were soon drifting up the hillside. He decided that he would allow his team to eat MREs for breakfast. The occupants of the cabin would never smell his fake scrambled eggs with chemically produced bacon. They had real scrambled eggs with bacon that came from real pigs.
The front door of the cabin opened at 9:00 AM. Ryce watched the group as they carried four packs from the cabin and loaded them into the Silverado. From the size of the packs, Ryce could see they were not expecting to be on the trail long. Ryce reported to O2 that the target was moving. The vehicle drove across the stream and turned toward the lake.
Within five minutes, O2 reported that the truck had arrived at the lake. The occupants had disembarked and were now pulling on their packs. How did Ryce want to handle the pursuit?
Ryce thought for a moment. “Give them about thirty minutes and then follow them. I am taking my team down to the cabin to see what I can find. I think we should be able to catch up with you before it gets dark again.”
O2 did a double click on his transmitter, indicating that he had gotten the message.
As Ryce cleaned up the observation post, he heard Tanya’s voice on the radio.
“You watch yourself when you go check out the cabin. If you blow yourself up, I will kick your ass, if I can find a big enough piece to kick.”
Ryce chuckled. “I plan to, for several reasons. You and Ramona clean up your camp at noon, go back to the campground, and help John monitor the thermal satellite. It will be nice to have someone watching my back.
“Radio protocol says I should not tell you that I love you, Tanya, but I do. Ryce out.”
Ryce heard some giggling in his earphone and then Ramona’s voice.
“O2, you bring Ryce back in one piece. Tanya is a good friend.”
After packing up all the camo nets and re-stuffing the packs, Ryce’s team was ready to invade the cabin. He led the group down the backside of the hill and then turned toward the junction of the stream and dirt road. He estimated the hike to the cabin would take an hour from his present location. And maybe he could see Tanya as they hiked past her camp.
When Ryce was halfway to the cabin, O2 announced he was leaving his observation point. He would have boots on the trail at the lake in five minutes. He also mentioned he did not think the laptop group had done a lot of hiking.
The stream was as cold as it had been when he was last in the area. When they arrived at the cabin, Ryce handed each member of his team a walkie-talkie. Only Ryce, O2, John, and Ramona had c
ombat radios.
Ryce directed Jimmy to circle the cabin at the end near the woodshed, paying attention to not touch the woodshed. Barry was sent in a sweep around the other end of the cabin. The two were to meet near the back door, and check for any possible explosive devices. Both of the men had been in Afghanistan and had some experience with people setting bombs to kill them.
While Barry and Jimmy circled the cabin, Ryce closely inspected the front door. The window glass had been repaired with duct tape placed on the outside of the window. He carefully placed his pack on the ground and pulled out a three-inch mirror on an extendable rod.
Using only the slightest tugs, he removed all of the duct tape from the window. More than half of the glass was missing, and there was no window curtain. Ryce pulled an LED flash light from his pack. He inspected everything he could see inside the doorway. Positioning his mirror on a stick, he checked the inside jambs of the door. After a few minutes, he replaced the flashlight and mirror in his pack.
He looked over at the three remaining team members. “Well, here goes nothing.”
The door opened inward. He reached out, turned the doorknob and cracked the door. He did not want to break any contacts that might be triggers. He backed away from the door and stepped off the porch. As soon as he was a few yards away from the door, Ryce keyed his walkie-talkie.
“Jimmy, I have my door unlocked. In three minutes, I will hit it with a large chunk of wood.”
He pointed at Ted, at the woodshed, and held up two fingers.
Ryce’s walkie-talkie buzzed and he heard Jimmy’s voice. “We have a quarter inch gap, and we are ready.”
Ryce had found through experience that most trigger points have a gap of about ¼ inch. Things will definitely go boom if the object is moved any more. Ted returned with two small logs. Ryce hefted one of the logs, decided it might be the correct weight, and heaved it at the door. The log hit the door near the handle and opened it about half way. Ryce and Ted waited for a few moments in the event a timer was being used. They heard the back door crash open. Ryce had opened his door a little early. Ryce keyed his walkie-talkie and instructed Jimmy and Brian to stay off the porch. Ryce and the rest of the team would come to the back of the cabin, and all six would enter through the rear door.
The Alberta Connection Page 19