Ryce was awakened by buzzing in his earphone. He checked the time. It was 12:15 AM. He pressed the send button.
“This is Ryce.”
“Ryce, this is Dexter. The two hot spots that temporarily merged with Dianne are moving south once more. According to what we can guesstimate, they are now a quarter of a mile away from her position.”
Ryce thanked him and found O2. “The two hot spots near Dianne are moving south again. We need a point.”
O2 rolled out of his sleeping bag, approached two agents, shook them awake, and pointed up the trail. The moon was almost full. The points would have plenty of light to see where they were going.
Ryce’s earpiece began buzzing once more. It was again, Dexter. The two hot spots were now almost a mile away from Dianne’s position, and moving fast to the south. Dexter estimated Ryce would have them as neighbors in forty-five minutes.
Ryce crawled out of his sleeping bag, circled around to all who were still sleeping and woke them. He wanted as much of the camp as possible relocated across the stream into some boulders. As soon as the camp was moved, Ryce booted his laptop and set up his satellite receiver. He wanted to be able to watch the hot spots himself.
Ryce chuckled. He was a big Bruce Willis fan and had gone to see Tears of the Sun more than once. He thought it had some very creative, albeit unlikely, special effects. The SEAL team Bruce was leading used satellite thermal imaging to track the pursuers of the team. Now Ryce had the exact same technology in his pack.
Chapter 34
The hot spots were hiking the trail using LED flashlights. Ryce saw bobbing lights when they were still more than a half mile up the trail. Ryce’s radio again buzzed in his ear just as the flashlights passed the two agents covering the trail.
“Ryce, this is Dexter. Try to take those two hot spots near your position into custody. If you have night vision, see if they are a male and female. We have been following them for several weeks but we have had nothing to hold them on. We got something now. We found their car near the trailhead with three dead bodies in it.”
Ryce confirmed he had heard what Dexter had said and then reached into his pack, pulled out a night vision scope, and trained it on the hot spots. They were obviously a male and a female. And they were armed.
Ryce motioned to O2. “Dexter asked us to detain those two.”
O2 reached in his pocket, pulled out a small walkie-talkie, and directed the two point men to follow the two hot spots toward the camp. He pointed at three of the team within five feet, and indicated they were to follow him. He worked his way toward the trail, positioning two on one side and himself and one other on the opposite side. The hot spots were not aware they were targets until four men holding M4 automatic rifles stepped out in front of them. When the female made a slight movement toward her sidearm, her companion stopped her.
Ryce could barely hear O2. “Very carefully lower your rifles to the ground and then remove your packs and jump harnesses. There are two SEALs about fifty feet behind you I am confident can not miss if you decide to challenge them.”
The pair carefully lowered their rifles, slowly un-slung their packs, and dropped their jump harnesses to the ground.
“Now, step back five feet and put your hands behind your backs.”
The two men who had been watching point walked up behind the pair and installed zip tie handcuffs. Ryce had wondered how they would keep the two detainees detained.
Ryce’s radio crackled with Dexter’s voice.
“I see you have collected our quarry. If the man has a scar running from his left earlobe to about an inch from his left temple, his name is Adam Highland. If the lady has a tattoo of an eagle on the left side of her neck, she is Kathy Giles.”
Ryce pulled out his flashlight and verified the scar and tattoo. He turned to O2.
“Double up those zip ties. Those are the fugitives Dexter wants. The man is Adam Highland and the lady is Kathy Giles.”
O2 pointed at one of the team, who reached into a back pack and pulled out several additional zip ties. Ryce chuckled.
O2 looked over at Ryce. “I learned the hard way in Afghanistan you never know when you might need a zip tie. I carry a handful. My people are required to do the same.”
Ryce laughed as he keyed his radio.
“Dexter, this is Ryce. We have Adam and Kathy in custody. What would you like done with them?”
When Dexter did not respond immediately, Ryce helped move the team packs back to their original positions. O2 dropped Adam and Kathy’s packs next to Ryce and then moved the pair across the stream into the boulders. Two team members were assigned to carefully inspect the packs taken from Adam and Kathy. O2 found his own backpack, reached into it and pulled out a compact metal detector.
Ryce chuckled. “What airport did you steal that device from?”
O2 smiled. “I think Pendergast Field is missing this one. I also learned in Afghanistan if you don’t have it, FedEx will not deliver it before the firefight ends.”
Ryce relit the fire and placed a coffee pot on the grill rack. According to his watch, it was 3:00 AM. The morning was not cold but a cup of hot cocoa would feel wonderful.
Just as the water was coming to a boil, Ryce’s earphone buzzed. It was Dexter
“Ryce, this is Dexter. Can you hold Adam and Kathy for a day or two? I have some plans I need to finalize. I have the RCMP on one telephone, with the U.S. Border Patrol and the U.S. Marshalls Service on two others. I would like to send a combined U.S.-Canadian group to snatch Adam and Kathy and return them to Canada. Without getting some lawyer involved, if you understand my meaning.”
As soon as Dexter signed out, Ryce discussed the situation with O2. They could leave three of the team with Adam and Kathy to wait for Dexter’s group. Ryce pressed the send button and told Dexter they would be glad to hold the two suspects.
Ryce could hear the metal detector growling as Kathy was being scanned. The officer using the detector, Ryce thought it was Dallas French, waved O2 and Ryce over.
After O2 waved the metal detector around Kathy, he instructed the team to string a parachute cord from two trees. They were to then hang a sleeping bag from the cord, and do a complete strip search of Adam and Kathy.
O2 reached into his pocket and pulled out several pairs of nytril gloves. He looked over at Kathy.
“We are going to do a strip search and if necessary a cavity search.”
When Adam started to protest, O2 turned to him.
“You are a long way from civilization. Several of these men spent a long time in Afghanistan learning how to treat the enemy. As far as they are concerned, you are the enemy.”
O2 turned to Ryce and smiled. “I hope I have enough zip ties.”
O2 pointed at Kathy and told her to get behind the screen and strip.
Kathy did a lot of protesting. O2 allowed her to wear her bra and panties until the metal detector discovered a handcuff key sown into her bra. When the team removed her panties, they found a razor blade taped to her hip. She spent the next hour shivering naked behind the sleeping bag, while her clothing was carefully inspected.
The team also found a wire saw sown into the cuff of her jeans. Kathy was certainly prepared for captivity. Adam was a little less prepared. He had only a small knife taped to his leg.
O2 and Ryce turned their attention to the packs as soon as they had verified Adam and Kathy had nothing hidden on their bodies. Eventually, O2 allowed Kathy to redress in her panties and bra and Adam to again don his undershorts. O2 was not actually going to do a cavity search. He simply assigned two agents to keep an eagle eye on the two. If they escaped, they were, after all, still in their underwear. And, they would not run far down a rocky trail without shoes.
The packs were dumped out on a large tarp for easier examination. Both packs had small homing beacons, but they did not appear to have been activated. Adam’s pack contained $10,000.00 in Canadian money and $5,000.00 in U.S. currency. He also had a Ruger .357 Mag revolver, a
silencer, and two boxes of ammunition. Ryce studied the revolver. The revolver barrel was not threaded. Ryce wondered where Adam was keeping the weapon that had been machined for a silencer. It was obviously not on his person and definitely not in the pile of items on the tarp.
Ryce pulled the silencer for his M4 from his pack and compared the two. When Ryce saw that Adam’s silencer looked like it might fit the M4, Ryce carefully screwed the device onto the barrel. It fit perfectly. Had Adam accidently switched weapons when he and Kathy had met up with Dianne and her group?
As he contemplated the question, Ryce noticed a metal cigar sleeve in Adam’s pack contents, but no cigar lighter or punch. Although Ryce did not smoke, he had served with several Army Rangers who did. The label was one of the most expensive non-Cuban cigars of which Ryce was aware. No self-respecting cigar smoker would be without his cigar tools.
Anticipating a surprise, Ryce slowly and carefully unscrewed the tube cap. There was no cigar inside the tube, but when the tube was inverted, a rolled-up sheet of paper slid out.
When he unrolled the paper, Ryce found a map with the cabin and a campground that looked suspiciously like where John had parked the Party Hummer. On the back of the map were directions to a Quad ATV stashed in the woods behind the cabin. After they retrieved the Quad, Adam and Kathy were instructed to ride to the campground circled on the map. Ryce smiled and wondered if the Quad had disappeared into the ditch left by the explosions.
Included in the instructions were a vehicle make, model, and license plate number. Adam and Kathy could leave the Quad anywhere in the campground. The VIN had been filed off, and the ATV was untraceable. Ryce immediately radioed John with the information.
John was heard chuckling over the radio. “I can see the vehicle from here. It is seven campsites over. I will let the Montana authorities know.”
Dexter radioed the plans for Adam and Kathy during breakfast. Ryce concluded that omelet MREs were actually slightly tasty. Not as good as Tanya’s omelets, but almost edible.
The trail the team was following ran almost directly north from the cabin. They were now located slightly less than two miles from the Chief Mountain Highway. The main trail would soon swing northwest, and the distance between the trail and the highway would increase significantly. The gap would eventually be more than ten miles of impassible mountainous terrain.
There was, however, a trail from the Chief Mountain highway. The trail was slightly more than two miles long and intersected the trail Ryce was following less than a quarter mile away from where his team was located. Ryce remembered seeing the trail marker at the edge of the trail. He smiled. He had conveniently overlooked the marker when they decided to pursue Francine’s killers less than ten days ago. They could have shaved five miles off their hike back to civilization.
Dexter had spoken with a Park Service mountain rescue group, stationed at the Chief Mountain border crossing. He had gotten commitments from two of the group to help bring Adam and Kathy back to Canada. The RCMP was providing four Mounties, eight horses, and vehicles for the pickup. The group would drive to the Chief Mountain Highway trailhead, ride to Ryce’s location, pick-up Adam and Kathy, and then return to the trailhead.
After several minutes of silence, Dexter informed Ryce that the retrieval group would be leaving in ten minutes. It would arrive at Ryce’s location before noon if all went as planned. Dexter wished everyone good luck and added that the horseback crew would notify Ryce when they were leaving the trailhead.
Ryce looked around the area. He would take his team and escort Adam and Kathy to the trail intersection. O2 would follow Dianne when she resumed her hike to the border.
Four of the team were still checking Adam and Kathy’s packs. One had noticed that the stitching on the zipper of one pack did not match the stitching on the rest of the pack. He pointed the stitching out to Ryce. Ryce carefully cut the stitching at the piping and then called O2 over.
“Completely disassemble both packs. I found a nice hand rolled 30-inch piece of spaghetti in Adam’s pack.”
Ryce pointed to what looked like actual spaghetti lying on the ground. O2 whistled. It was C-4. O2 reached into his pack and pulled out a small stack of double-edge razorblades. He removed one and handed it to Ryce. The razorblade was going to provide easier access to every nook and cranny of the packs.
Ryce cut off an inch of the spaghetti and tossed it into the fire. It quickly began to burn but did not explode. Ryce looked over at O2, pointed at the packs, and then pointed across the trail. They were disassembling some very dangerous packs that were far too close to people. Ryce carefully picked up the pack he had been working on. He found a bolder across the trail, walked over and placed the pack on the ground behind it.
The spaghetti was a trick used in Afghanistan. It could be molded around door locks, hinges, trees, and with a simple ignition source, could be extremely dangerous.
C-4 was not easily exploded. As Ryce had just shown, applying a flame did not do the trick. C-4 required a blasting cap. When Ryce tossed the spaghetti into the fire, he was confident it would not blow the campsite into the next county. So, where were the blasting caps?
O2 answered that question when he removed additional piping from Kathy’s pack. Inside the shoulder pads were almost four feet of flash cord. Ryce smiled. A flash cord was an extremely fast burning and very hot fuse. It was used to burn holes in things they didn’t want to blow up. Flash cord did not require a blasting cap. It could be ignited with a match or with a standard fuse that could be ignited with a match.
In the proper configuration, the flash cord could be used to ignite C-4. O2 and Ryce completely disassembled the two packs and found additional strings of flash cord, C-4, and standard flame-triggered primer cord. When laid out end to end, the C-4 measured over thirty feet. That was enough for a good-sized explosion. The flash cord measured almost twenty feet. And, Adam and Kathy had more than ten feet of standard fuse cord.
O2 pulled a baggie from his pack, walked to the stream, and filled the baggie with water. He then walked back to the pile of explosive material and slipped it all into the baggie. O2 looked over at Ryce and smiled. He hoped that the water treatment would temporarily render the explosives safe.
However, he was not planning to carry the baggie with him. Before they left the campsite, the flash cord would be burned. O2 had not yet decided what to do with the C-4.
Ryce and O2 were feeling a little safer as they went looking for how Adam and Kathy were going to use the stuff. The tarp with the pack contents had been carried across the trail. Ryce began separating the objects on the tarp. He noticed five empty cartridges and pointed them out to O2. O2 picked up one and inspected it.
It was a .45 caliber shell casing from a Colt 1911. A hole approximately the size of the flash cord had been drilled through the cartridge primer. O2 held the cartridge up.
“This is how they are igniting the C-4. Wrap the flash cord around the end of the C-4 string, and pack everything tightly into the empty cartridge. Insert the primer cord, tape the open end of the casing with duct tape, and you have a moderately competent explosive device. About half will not explode but the ones that do are going to be lethal. A lot like the explosion at the cabin. Do you see any duct tape?”
Ryce and O2 searched the contents of the packs and finally noticed a roll of tape under a pair of jeans.
O2 smiled. “With enough flash cord, the pressure wave in the cartridge would definitely set off the C-4. And a few wraps of the duct tape would increase the pressure wave considerably. These guys knew what they were doing. And they were smart enough not to walk around with a preconfigured explosive device. That flash cord is sometimes very unstable. A little static electricity from blue jeans would create lot of pieces of Adam or Kathy.”
O2 walked over to Adam and checked him once more with the metal detector. He seemed to be clean. O2 then checked Kathy. Other than the hooks in her bra and the metal strap adjustments, she did not cause the metal detector to gr
owl.
Ryce’s radio announced he had a call. It was one of the group that had been sent to pick up Kathy and Adam. They were leaving the trailhead and had an estimated arrival time of an hour.
Ryce returned Adam and Kathy’s clothing. Under the gaze of four men holding M4s, Adam and Kathy redressed. O2 pulled handcuffs from his pack and secured Adam’s left wrist to Kathy’s right wrist. As he snapped the handcuffs closed, O2 looked at Adam.
“I would have preferred to just slap the butt of an M4 on the side of your heads.”
Ryce called one of his team over and instructed him to take the team, and Adam and Kathy, and start down the trail toward the cabin. About a half mile down the trail, he would find a marker indicating the trail to the Chief Mountain Trailhead. Ryce would catch up in a few minutes.
Ryce watched the team start down the trail. One agent was on one side of Adam and Kathy, with one on the other side and two following them. When the team was approximately two hundred feet away, Ryce motioned for O2 to follow him.
Ryce walked a few feet away from the campsite, checked his transmitter sheet, selected John’s receiver code, and then the earphone out of the speaker box. The radio was on a secure channel that only John could receive, but both Ryce and O2 could hear John’s response.
Ryce keyed his send switch.
“Party Hummer #1, this is Ryce. Come on in, Hummer #1. Hum at me.”
O2 was laughing so hard he almost fell over. The group did have radio protocol codes, but O2 was remarkably positive that Hummer #1 was not John’s code.
“Ryce, this is John. Tanya, Ramona, and Marge were laughing so hard, I had to send them from the tent. What can I do for you?”
Ryce asked if John had anyone he could send to backstop the group picking up Adam and Kathy. Ryce included the mile marker on Chief Mountain Highway and suggested that John send at least one long-range shooter.
When John asked why, Ryce responded with, “I don’t know why. It is just a gut feeling I am having. Maybe the MRE I had for breakfast didn’t go down very well.”
The Alberta Connection Page 21