The Alberta Connection

by R. Clint Peters

  John assured Ryce that gut feelings were good or bad, depending on the situation, and he would send Ramona and three of his best shooters to the trailhead.

  When Ryce ended the call, O2 looked at him. “Do you have some information I don’t have?”

  Ryce looked around the camp site. “No, I don’t know anything you don’t know. But something doesn’t seem to fit.

  “The only thing I found out about the cabin on the Internet was that it was listed as a Park Ranger rescue facility. However, when I was in the cabin, I saw no indication that a Park Ranger had ever been there. Nothing in the cabin was marked with anything designating it was the property of Glacier National Park. They normally do not want anything to grow legs. I expected a sticker on the door, or at least on the refrigerator. You remember how they plastered ID tape all over anything belonging to the military.

  “When Dexter told me who he had on the pickup team, he said that two from the Park Ranger rescue team had agreed to participate. They didn’t even ask what the rescue was all about. The hair on the back of my neck is standing straight up.”

  Ryce’s radio crackled. It was the transfer group. They expected to arrive at Ryce’s location in 20 minutes.

  Ryce looked over at O2. “I need to catch up with Adam and Kathy. If Dianne breaks camp, don’t worry about my team. We will play catch-up again.”

  Ryce spun, and began jogging down the trail. He was confident that he would beat the pick-up team to the Chief Mountain trail junction.

  When Ryce arrived at the trail split, he looked around. There were several large boulders about two hundred feet up the side of the mountain west of the stream. It was an excellent position to monitor everything happening within a mile. Ryce handed his Barrett to one of his team, and then pointed to the boulder. The agent handed his M4 to Ryce, turned, and disappeared into the boulders. Three minutes later, he poked his head up from behind the boulder and waved.

  The Mounties and rescue team arrived ten minutes early. When Adam and Kathy were placed on the two extra horses, Ryce removed their shoes. Although he had allowed Adam and Kathy to walk down the trail in their shoes, Ryce was confident they would not travel as swiftly with the shoes tied to their saddle-horns. As soon as they were secured to the saddle horns with zip ties, Ryce called his agent back from the boulder. Ryce watched the Mounties disappear into the trees and then started the team back up the trail.

  One of his team looked at Ryce as they walked up the trail.

  “Have you ever spent time barefoot in a saddle? Adam and Kathy’s feet are going to get torn up by the stirrups.”

  He chuckled and then added, “I couldn’t walk for three days.”

  Ryce just smiled. He was not sure he wanted to know.

  The return to the campsite took less than ten minutes. Ryce checked the radio protocol code names. Ramona was Chuck Wagon 1. Who made up this stuff? Ryce shook his head and keyed his radio.

  “Ramona, this is Ryce. The Mounties are on the way to the trailhead.”

  O2 chuckled. “When we get back to civilization, someone is going to come looking for you about radio protocol.”

  Ryce just grimaced, turned, and walked over to his pack. The time was now close to 1:30 PM. Ryce had missed lunch. He pulled an MRE out of his pack and filled it with water. As he was eating, he heard John on the radio. Dianne and her group had moved, but not far. Ryce called O2 over. Could O2 send two of the team up the trail with high-powered scopes? Ryce wanted a visual on Dianne and her friends.

  O2 picked two of his former SEAL team members, handed one of them a spotter scope, and handed the other a sniper rifle. They turned and jogged up the trail. Dianne was now a little more than three miles away. Ryce estimated the SEALs would be reporting visual contact in less than forty-five minutes.

  O2 sent one of the team up the hillside to a set of boulders four hundred feet up the side of the mountain. This position could see almost a mile and a half up and down the trail. O2 was also beginning to get a little edgy.

  Eighteen minutes after the group departed with Adam and Kathy, several shots echoed off the rocks in the direction they had ridden. Ryce pointed at three of the team, motioned for them to find some high ground on the hillside, and then dived behind a boulder.

  Ryce looked over at O2. “That sounded like a 5.56. Did anyone in that group have a Mini 14?”

  One of the SEALs who was sharing Ryce’s boulder nodded his head “yes.” “The two guys in the park uniforms had Mini 14s. The Mounties were just carrying pistols on those long strings around their necks.”

  Ryce reached for his radio, but before he could press the transmit button, he heard Ramona. “I just heard several shots coming from the trail. They sounded like small rifle caliber, perhaps a 5.56.”

  Ryce pressed transmit. “We heard them, too. If you have anyone other than a Mountie arrive at that trailhead, put them down with prejudice. The two so called park rangers had Mini 14s.”

  Ramona answered that she understood the instructions. Ryce looked over at O2.

  “Let’s divide the group. One team can go check out the shots we just heard; the other team can follow Dianne. You want to flip for it?”

  O2 pulled a coin from his pocket, looked at Ryce and said, “Call it.”

  As soon as Ryce called “heads,” O2 flipped the coin. It was “heads.”

  Ryce pointed at the three men closest to him.

  “Grab a lot of water and a couple MREs. I’ll lug the Barrett. You guys bring as much ammo as you can carry for the M4s. We rock and roll in five minutes.

  Ryce pressed his radio transmit button once again. “Ramona, this is Ryce. We are coming down the trail, so watch who you shoot. I hate filling out casualty reports. Especially mine.”

  Chapter 35

  Ryce led his team down the trail at a fast trot. When they arrived at the trail split, Ryce pointed at one of his team and then at the trail. As the agent trotted down the Chief Mountain trail, Ryce pressed his transmit button.

  “John, this is Ryce. I am sure you heard what happened on the Chief Mountain trail. I have three with me. One is out on point as we speak. I need you to watch the trail we are following.”

  Ryce turned to see his point man start to disappear in the trees. He turned back to his radio and pressed the send button.

  “Dexter, this is Ryce.

  “I don’t know if you heard what we are doing here. O2 will stay on Dianne’s trail. I will let you know when we discover what happened.”

  Dexter asked Ryce to hold for a minute. When Dexter returned to the radio, Ryce could tell he was upset.

  “I have four stationary objects and four moving objects. Let me know what you find as soon as you find it. Dexter out.”

  Ryce grimaced. The residual heat from a dead body would show on the thermal image for at least an hour. Ryce started a fast jog down the trail. Twenty minutes into the chase, the point man raised his right hand with his fist closed. The two men with Ryce stopped. Ryce worked his way up to the trail.

  Ryce could see down the trail to what were obviously bodies. He pulled the scope off the Barrett and counted four men in red tunics. Two were on the trail and two were beside the trail. Ryce waved the rest of the group up to his position and then the four slowly leapfrogged up the trail.

  Ryce checked the first body. Definitely dead. Definitely a Mountie. Ryce checked the Mounties’ holster. Still snapped closed. He had not even gotten the pistol out of the holster. Ryce verified all four had been shot in the back several times. Ryce pressed the send button.

  “Dexter, this is Ryce. No joy with the Mounties. We are following the perps.”

  Ryce listened to dead air for what seemed to be forever but was only a few seconds.

  “I hope you put those bastards on your terminate with prejudice list, Ryce. Two of those Mounties were my friends.”

  Ryce smiled for the first time in thirty minutes. He planned to terminate with prejudice.

  Ryce pressed the transmit button again.
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  “Ramona, this is Ryce. Don’t you just hate these radios? I guess you heard we got no joy with the Mounties. All four are dead. Do not attempt to apprehend the perps coming your way. Take them out.”

  Ryce pulled four walkie-talkies with earplugs from his pack, set them to the same channel and pressed a transmit button on one. The other three radios began buzzing.

  “The perps have the same radios we are using. These walkie-talkies will insure they can’t hear us.”

  He looked at the group on the trail in front of him. “They have a ten mile range on flat ground. We should be able to keep in contact in these canyons. Use the earplug to listen.”

  Ryce sent one of the men out on point again. As soon as the point man was three hundred feet ahead, Ryce and the remaining team members moved up the trail.

  Ryce was on the trail for less than ten minutes when he saw the closed fist on the point man. Ryce worked his way down the trail.

  The point man pointed down the trail and said, “There are two horses on the trail ahead of us. I think they might be tethered. I can’t tell.”

  Ryce waved the rest of the group up to his position. When they arrived, Ryce sent one into the tree line on the right and another into the tree line on the left. He pressed the send button on his radio.

  “John, this is Ryce.

  “Go to four.”

  Ryce had just instructed John to change the channel on his radio. After changing his own channel, Ryce keyed the transmit button.

  “John, this is Ryce again.

  “I need your eyes in the sky. I have one man on either side of the trail. I am part of a two-blob group. What do you see ahead of me?”

  Ryce could hear some comments in the background and then Dexter’s voice.

  “I’ve got this one, John, if you don’t mind. There are two hot objects directly ahead about two hundred meters. There is a third object about twenty-five meters away from the two. Using your Timex reference, the third object is at the fours.”

  Ryce had been forced to use metric measurements in Afghanistan. He did a quick conversion. He did not like metric. Moreover, he was glad that Dexter did not have a digital watch.

  When he was stationed in Afghanistan, Ryce’s company had been involved in a firefight. He sent an observation team to a small bluff that overlooked the battle area. When the team said they saw a large group of insurgents hiding behind a mud hut, Ryce asked for the location. The reply he got was, “the group is over there behind that building.” Ryce explained how to use a wristwatch for relative directions. The twelve on the wristwatch was north, six was south, three was east, and nine was west.

  There was a long silence and then the radio crackled. “I am sorry, Sir, but I have a digital watch.”

  Ryce pressed the transmit button on his walkie-talkie. He told the point man in the right hand tree line where to look for the person waiting in ambush. And he repeated that he had permission to terminate with prejudice. Ryce was carrying the Barrett with a silencer. The rest of the group were carrying M4s with silencers and scopes. The former SEAL would have no difficulty with his newly assigned task.

  Ryce keyed his walkie-talkie and instructed the Ranger working in the trees on his left to keep an eye on the other side of the canyon. Ryce also indicated where the suspect might be hiding.

  Ryce found a location that allowed him to see both of the point men as they worked the tree line. He watched the one on his right work up into the trees and eventually disappear from view.

  After several minutes, the walkie-talkie earplug crackled. “He’s got a park ranger uniform but he is not going to do any more park ranger stuff. He has two horses tethered near the trail for bait.”

  Ryce told the two point men to swing back to the trail and he would meet up with them near the horses. Ryce pulled the earphone for the walkie-talkie out of his ear and replaced it with the radio earphone. He reset his radio to the operational channel.

  “Ramona, you have Kathy, Adam and someone in a park ranger uniform heading your way. The kill instructions are still in effect.”

  As Ryce was starting to move up the trail, he heard the sound of an exceptionally large caliber rifle echoing off the canyon walls. It sounded like the 50 caliber Barrett that Ramona was carrying. It did not, however, sound like a 50 caliber Barrett in a pink gun case. Several more shots were heard a few seconds later. These were a smaller caliber, perhaps either 7.62 or 5.56. Did anyone from John’s team have a Mini 14? Ryce did not remember seeing a Mini 14 among the weapons carried to Great Falls, but the park rangers had Mini 14s. Of course, the echoes in the canyons distorted the sounds.

  Ryce was interrupted by someone’s voice in his earphone. It was Tanya.

  “Ryce, the lady is heading back your way. Ramona thinks we winged her. The other two are definitely expired.”

  For a moment, Ryce felt irritated that John would send Tanya out on a backstop assignment. But, she had passed all of the FBI’s weapons requirements. Why wouldn’t she be included?

  Ryce signaled his group to spread out and then unslung his Barrett. The trail ran straight for three hundred feet but Ryce was not interested in capturing Kathy. When she galloped around the small curve in front of him, he aimed the Barrett and squeezed the trigger.

  Ryce watched as Kathy’s hat flew off. She immediately stopped the horse she was riding and raised her right hand into the air. Ryce could see blood running down her left arm below her elbow. Someone had definitely winged her.

  Ryce chuckled. He had gone for a head shot but the horse had stumbled. Kathy was one lucky lady. Ryce sent two of his men to secure Kathy and attend to her wound and then informed Ramona that Kathy had surrendered.

  They had three horses, five dead men, and one living but extremely shaken woman. Ryce could see a faint streak of red running from a point an inch above her eye to an inch above her ear. When her horse stumbled, it had saved her life.

  Horses do not like to be ridden by dead people. They had to double up on two of the horses but eventually got the dead secured well enough to transport. Kathy was not thrilled with riding double with a dead man. When Ryce informed her that she could walk, she chose to ride.

  The horses had saddlebags with lead ropes. Ryce snapped a lead on the halter of each horse and handed a lead to each of his men. With a Mini 14 in one hand and his Barrett in the other, he started Kathy down the trail.

  The hike to the trail head took less than forty-five minutes. Ryce radioed John and gave him an update. Ryce knew that Dexter was listening to the radio and would know that his friend’s killers had been terminated with prejudice.

  The horses ridden by Adam and the park ranger had been killed in the firefight at the trailhead. They would be left where they had fallen. Ryce smiled. He would like to see the face of someone who found the horses and wondered why elk had horseshoes.

  Ryce remembered a story he had heard when he was young. The father of a friend was a game warden in Washington State. During elk season one year, a roadside checkpoint had been set up near Chelan, WA. Three hunters who were stopped at the checkpoint were extremely proud they had bagged an elk. They were no longer proud when they were told to unload the horse they had killed. Elk do not wear horseshoes.

  The dead Mounties and former park rangers were loaded into one of the trailers. Tanya, Ramona, and their two angler friends agreed to stay at the trailhead until the helicopter with two RCMP drivers arrived. After giving Tanya a long kiss and the Mini 14, Ryce led his group back up the trail.

  O2 and one of his team were just cleaning up a delicious smelling trout dinner when Ryce arrived back at the camp. O2 was getting hourly radio reports from John. Dianne and her friends had moved no more than a mile. A Ranger had been sent to establish visual contact. Ryce was glad that O2 shared assignments between Rangers and SEALs.

  Ryce told his group to dive into some MREs and then they would all move closer to where Dianne was camping. Ryce radioed John to inform him they had safely returned to the group, and the
y were moving up. He also asked John to warn the group when the distance to Dianne was less than a mile.

  As soon as the camp was clean, they all moved out. O2 set a moderate pace, nearly two miles an hour. Ryce checked the time when they were notified that Dianne was a mile ahead of them. They had been on the trail for ninety minutes.

  Ryce noticed that the trail had swung significantly to the northwest. If his calculations were correct, Dianne was less than ten miles from the border. He keyed his transmitter.

  “Can one of you with a thermal image tell me how far Dianne is from the border?”

  “Ryce, this is Dexter. Dianne is about ten miles from the border as the crow flies. But since she can’t fly, she’s about thirteen miles from the border.”

  Dexter was slow to end the transmission. Ryce could hear several people laughing. One voice was heard asking Dexter why he hadn’t given the distance in kilometers. Dexter’s response was because Americans don’t do well with the metric system.

  O2 recalled the point man as soon as Dexter said the group was within a mile of Dianne. He didn’t want to accidently spook the target, although all of the shots heard earlier in the day should have.

  Adam and Kathy did not appear to spend any time with Dianne but Ryce was curious. Adam had a map to the cabin. And the pickup crew was staying in the campground close to the cabin. There were just too many coincidences.

  Ryce looked over at O2. “Don’t we have someone in Idaho monitoring this radio?”

  O2 smiled. “By George, I think you have a good idea. I am sure Vince is monitoring this radio frequency. We can have Vince call Doug in Monroe. Doug can chase down Adam and Kathy and see if they have a connection to Dianne.”

  O2 pressed his transmit button. During the next fifteen minutes, Vince was brought up to speed. He promised to call Doug, whose new mission was to find a connection between Adam, Kathy, and Dianne.

  Ryce had spent most of the day on the trail at a fast trot. He decided he could skip supper and take a nap. He rolled out his sleeping bag and crawled in. He was surprised that the nights were as cool as they were.