by Scott Conrad
Brad hit the ground behind a large fallen tree. The adrenaline rush from the firefight was a familiar sensation, and he was acutely aware of elation rising inside him. They had caught up with the people who were chasing Pete and Charlie! He had total confidence in his team’s ability to handle this ambush, but he was a little puzzled at the size of it. As best he could figure, they were taking fire from perhaps six shooters, and there should be more. They had been following a trail made by a dozen men or more. He stopped thinking about the mystery and returned fire, all the while looking for any sign of Pete and Charlie.
Ving and Jared were firing methodically at muzzle flashes and smoke. Brad glanced back up the trail for Jessica and spotted her as she was peeking over a large boulder and making carefully placed shots.
“Easy on the ammo!” Tom called out just as Jessica’s last shot struck home and a blood curdling yell came from the man she’d hit.
"Nice shot," Tom remarked as he caught sight of a shadowy figure that hadn’t fully considered the difference between cover and concealment. In this case, the difference got him killed.
Jared grunted as his first shot struck home, taking the top of one attacker’s head. The boom of the big Barrett sounded like thunder in the forest, and the sound of the shot overshadowed the “pop, pop, pop” of the M-16s.
The firefight continued, sporadic gunfire breaking out followed by several seconds of silence, over the next ten minutes. Ving low crawled over to Brads log.
"Something’s not right about this," Brad whispered when Ving crawled up beside him.
“What? That we’re winning?” Ving asked with a vicious grin spread over his lips.
"It's too easy. I only count three more enemy weapons firing on us and we’ve been tracking a force of at least a dozen men. I think their leader got smart… this is a delaying force pure and simple. I’ll bet you anything you want to bet that these guys disengage in a minute or two and leave us hiding behind cover. I’ll bet you that son of a bitch is going for reinforcements. He may be hoping these guys take us out, but if not he’ll be ready for us."
The initial adrenaline rush at finally catching up to these men and possibly rescuing their friends was slowly replaced with the bitter realization that this mission just continued to get harder and harder with no end in sight.
They finished off the remaining shooters, Jared taking out the last one with a clean head shot. The shooter’s head popped up to check on them, just like a turkey in a box at a turkey shoot back home. Jared’s aim was slightly off. The massive .50 caliber round missed the bridge of the man’s nose and entered his left eye, leaving a gaping fissure in the back of his skull, though his face seemed unscathed.
One shooter was still alive, squirming on the ground trying to hold his entrails in his hands. A three round burst had caught him in the belly and there was nothing anyone could do for him. Jessica, out of pity, removed an ampule of morphine from the First Aid kit and injected it into the man’s vein. The man was actually still a kid, and when she uncovered her hair and held his hand, the kid confirmed that Pete and Charlie had indeed been captured.
CAUGHT!
Day 3 1100 hours AKDT
Lewis Hostback and his remaining six men surrounded Pete and Charlie as they rushed for one of the Order’s small guard outposts at the bottom of Mount Watana. A surprised Lewis’s rear guard discovered Brad’s team when the forest first thickened south of the frozen creek. When they reached a site suitable for an ambush, Lewis had signaled for the last six men to set it up.
He pushed his men down the mountain as fast as humanly possible. He heard the gun battle start well behind him and he hoped his hasty ambush would either stop or slow down whoever was chasing him long enough for him to get reinforcements. He hadn't expected a search and rescue team to show up so quickly after the storm. He definitely hadn’t expected them to be armed and so well trained. It was clear from the speed and tenacity of his pursuers that they meant business… and Lewis felt the first tendrils of fear clutch at his heart.
The Order had come so far and they were finally beginning to see real profits from their illegal mining enterprise. They were actually within sight of attaining their first goal… amassing enough capital to fund their ultimate mission. In a year, perhaps less, they would have enough to take the Order back to the lower forty-eight, where they could reassert their dominance over the Aryan Brotherhood and begin to take their holy message to the masses.
Lewis believed that if he reached the small guard outpost at the bottom of the mountain he could set up another road block, then leave a couple more of his men with the two guards there to slow down his stalkers long enough for him to reach reinforcements. Based on the controlled, steady fire he heard behind him, it was a good assumption that the men he left behind at the lower guard shack would be a human sacrifice.
That was okay with him, provided he himself survived to continue the Order’s mission. He was completely convinced that without him to lead them, the Order of Phineas would crumble immediately. God himself had anointed Lewis Hostback to lead it. Lewis knew that, because God had told him so.
The gunfire eventually faded as he put more distance between them as fast as he could. Pete and Charlie had been bound and thrown into a small closet inside the guard station when they finally reached the lower guard shack. They could hear Lewis speaking to his men as he briefed them… the guy sounded like some kind of Holy Roller preacher as he spoke to his men, calling down the wrath of God Almighty on Pete, Charlie, and their friends.
***
Pete knew that these skin heads had no plans to let them leave this place alive. The only reason they had been left alive this long was because the lunatic leader either believed they possessed useful information, or wanted to discover if they informed anyone about whatever the hell operation they were running up here. Which was a total joke because neither Pete nor Charlie had a clue? He forced himself to disassociate from the cold and the pain of his bonds and began desperately trying to come up with an escape plan.
Charlie leaned back against the rough wooden planks of the back wall of the shack, listening intently to Lewis’s preaching in the front room. Unlike Pete, Charlie knew precisely who Lewis Hostback was, and he had a good idea what Lewis was doing up here in the Alaskan interior. Though he didn’t know the mechanism that Hostback was employing to achieve his goal of taking the Order of Phineas back to Coeur d'Alene or how they intended to pay for it.
He felt bad about deceiving Jessica, her cousin, and Brad’s team… they were good people, the best. Something had happened between himself and Jessica, something he neither intended nor planned on. Now his own heart hurt because of his deceit. He could only hope he survived this so he could tell her the truth… but first he had a mission. He forced his mind back onto the words Lewis was saying.
***
“I think we should kill them right now Pastor.”
Lewis looked at Simon Killian with veiled contempt. He needed this moron and the thugs he had brought with him from Coeur d'Alene. He used them as his own ‘Gestapo’, an organization he had studied and admired for years. He had very skillfully employed the Gestapo’s tactics over the past two years to preserve the secrets of the Order of Phineas and subtly keep the membership in line.
“We need them Simon,” Lewis said firmly. “I’m virtually certain these men are Feds, and we can’t afford to kill them until we know what they’ve passed on to their ZOG masters. It’s also possible that we might need them as hostages if they’ve alerted anyone to what we’re doing up here. I don’t have to tell you what would happen if the ZOG discovered our mining operation on these ‘public’ lands.”
There was a murmur of agreement among the men Lewis had gathered in the relative warmth of the log hut, and Lewis knew he had won, at least for the moment.
***
Bingo! There’s only one resource up here they could be mining for, and that’s gold. There’ve been rumors up here of a lost mine, a pure vein up here
worth millions. The Department of the Interior has been trying to quash those rumors for years!
Charlie began to work his hands, loosening the bonds the Phineas creeps tied him with. He had employed an old yoga trick to keep them from binding him as tightly as they thought they had. There was no time to spare. He had to get loose and make his way to Fog Lakes.
There was a decommissioned satellite station for the ELF facility on ADAK Island there, and he could use it to contact his superiors. (ELF stands for Extremely Low Frequency radio waves with frequencies from three to thirty Hz and corresponding wavelengths from a hundred thousand down to ten thousand kilometers. ELF transmissions are almost impossible to jam.) The ELF equipment required massive amounts of electricity and there was no longer power to the abandoned facility.
But he had been secretly briefed on the secrets of a simple device called a discharge capacitor… and how the ones at Fog Lakes collected static electricity from the atmosphere. Every couple of years the Navy sent a team of engineers up to release the charge so that the damned thing didn’t self-destruct. They hadn’t been sent this year. The agency had some very long arms.
“Pete!” Charlie hissed.
“Yeah?” Pete answered very quietly. He didn’t fancy being slapped around anymore by Simon and his thugs.
“I’ve just about gotten my hands free, but I don’t think it makes any sense to do it here. I’m pretty sure the leader’s going to take us with him when he leaves those poor suckers here. I think we’ll have a better chance when we’ve got less people watching us.”
“Cool! I’m sure it’s Brad and Ving tracking these bastards down. I swear I recognized the sound of Jared’s Barrett in that firefight.”
That sounded rather farfetched to Charlie, but there was no time to argue, and besides, Pete had a way of knowing certain things that was downright spooky. If it helped him to believe Brad and company was coming to their rescue, Charlie was all for it. As for himself, he was determined to get to Fog Lakes.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CLOSING IN
Day 3 1800 hours AKDT
There was still two hours of daylight left when Jared, still running point, came rushing back to Brad and the others with his hand raised in the sign for a halt. He had been searching nearly a hundred meters in front of the others, and he spotted the smoke coming from the chimney of the log cabin first, then the cabin itself. He had hidden behind a half-submerged boulder and watched the sole sentry, armed with an M-16, for just a few minutes before the cabin door opened and a replacement came out. He could see only one other man through the open door, and the cabin was really just one room with a kind of lean-to shack of rough planks built against the back wall, probably storage for supplies.
Jared knelt close to Brad, who had also taken a knee, and quickly explained what he had found. Brad moved off to one side behind a stand of firs and beckoned to Ving, Tom, and Jessica to join them.
“Ordinarily I’d just bypass these guys, but we have no way of knowing whether they’ve got Pete and Charlie inside or not. What we’re going to do is have Jared create a diversion and try to draw the men in the cabin outside. It isn’t much of a plan, but it’s the best we can do at the moment. Any questions?” There were none, and they spread out and began to move towards the cabin.
***
“Hello the camp!” Jared called out, unconsciously mimicking Shooter’s earlier greeting. He was hobbling pitifully and holding his hand against the front of his parka, inside which he concealed Ving’s M4A1, which he traded his Barrett for because it was much easier to hide. Brad, watching from approximately fifty meters away, was impressed with Jared’s acting ability.
“I’m hurt… please… help me!” Jared allowed his voice to trail off, and the sentry rapidly came to port arms and moved closer. Though he maintained a suspicious distance away.
“What the hell happened to you?” the sentry called out.
“Grizzly,” Jared sobbed. “Big one… killed all of my friends… help me! I think my ribs are crushed…” Jared fell forward into the snow, facing away from the sentry. Brad could clearly see Jared taking the M4A1 out of his open parka and readying it.
“Dillon, Max!” the sentry shouted over his shoulder. “Get Ron and bring the first aid kit, we’ve got a man down out here!” It was a rookie mistake, but anyone might have fallen for it. The sentry rushed towards Jared’s prone figure.
The sentry reached Jared just as the cabin door burst open and three men came running out, weapons at the ready. “No!” one of the screamed at the sentry, raising his rifle and taking aim at Jared.
The massive boom of Jared’s Barrett broke the still, frigid air, and all hell broke loose. The man who had aimed at Jared toppled to the ground, his chest a bloody mess, and the startled sentry tried to bring his M-16 to bear on Jared. But a burst from the M4A1 in Jared’s hands stopped him cold. The other two fell just as swiftly. Brad ran to see if Jared was alright as Tom and Jessica entered the open door of the cabin, guns at the ready. A few seconds later the two of them came slowly back out. Jessica looked extremely disappointed.
Brad, after checking to see that Jared was okay, glanced up at Tom and Jessica. “You two should have secured the outside of the cabin and waited for us,” he said sternly. Jessica gave him a rebellious look, but Tom quickly smoothed things over.
“We might have, but Lara Croft here rushed past me like gangbusters. I think she would have wiped out anything still alive in that cabin!” The others laughed, except for Brad, mostly at Tom’s apt description of Jessica as Lara Croft, but Brad merely smiled. Inside he was having a worrisome thought.
Yeah, including Pete and Charlie. Who are you really pissed at Brad? If you’re thinking it might be your fault she rushed in there like a maniac you’d be right. You’re the leader, you’re the one responsible. Did you go over the plan thoroughly, the way you were trained? Or did you maybe get lazy and just assume she’d know how to search a building properly? What happened isn’t her fault buddy boy, it’s yours and yours alone.
Brad sighed, smiled, and gave Jessica a hug. He looked at Ving, his arm still around his beautiful cousin. “Remind me next time to go over the whole plan, will you?” There was group laughter, and then Brad had them moving again, Jared easily picking up the trail. Now there were clearly five men on skis and two on snowshoes. The odds were evening up.
WOLVES AND GRIZZLIES
Day 3 2200 hours AKDT
They kept moving until a little after full dark, when Brad finally called a halt. They had been on the move since early in the morning and had fought a minor battle. The team was tapped out, though to Brad’s surprise Jessica appeared unfazed by the long hours and strenuous activity. Tom, who pulled the ahkio most of the time, looked fresh as well.
They broke up and began to set up camp, each comfortable with their part in the routine, the whole group working in unison to get set up. When all was in readiness, Brad set a schedule for the watch and sent them all to their sleeping bags. He took the first watch himself.
DAY 4 0300 hours AKDT
Tom, sitting by the fire and staring into the coals, thinking very pleasant thoughts about the night before, heard a noise in the brush thirty yards to his left. Cursing himself for destroying his night vision by staring into the fire, he sensed that someone or something was moving through the brush towards him. The noise continued to get louder and closer. He readied his weapon, looking away from the fire and blinking his eyes rapidly in an effort to recover his night vision. He heard a rustling sound roughly twenty yards to his rear and whirled around, crouching low and pointing his M4A1 towards the noise. His heart was pounding and he was expecting an ambush.
The rustling changed to a sound that curdled Tom’s blood… it became a low, menacing snarl and seconds later Tom was forced to jump back as a large emaciated black wolf leapt out of the brush, baring its teeth and snarling. Simultaneously three gray wolves swarmed out of the brush behind him, slavering and eyeing him as if he was a stea
k dinner. There was no mistaking their intent. From the look of them they had been through a harsh winter, and they had every intention of inviting him to be dinner.
Apparently the smell of the MREs all of them had eaten had drawn the creatures. Someone dropped the ball, and the wrappers and papers from the MREs had not been tossed into the fire, they had been stuffed into a box and sat beside the small blaze. Dominating his fear, he raised his rifle and fired several rounds into the air, causing the hungry wolves to tuck their tails between their legs and scurry away… not that it made him feel any safer. The animals were starving, they would be back.
The rest of the team was jolted awake by the gunfire and they were all scrambling for their weapons and crawling out of the squad tent before Tom could explain what happened. It took several minutes for their relieved laughter to die down.
Brad offered the first sobering thought. “If the guy’s we’re chasing heard those shots they might backtrack and come after us. Tom, stay on your toes… and let the fire burn down to just coals.” He didn't feel much like going back to sleep, so he decided to stay up and keep Tom company. Wakeup was in two more hours, and Brad didn’t want to deprive any of the others of their rest.
A few minutes later they heard the wolves begin to howl nearby and soon the whole team crawled back out of the tent to sit uneasily by the fire. The unmistakable sound of the wolves snarling and fighting filled the predawn blackness.
“What the hell is that all about?” Tom wondered aloud.
“Sounds like they’ve found something to eat and none of them want to share,” Ving said. He hated wolves.
“I hope they found one of those guys who took Pete and Charlie and are ripping them to shreds with their nasty teeth,” Jessica remarked, earning her a surprised stare from everyone else. She was normally the most even-tempered one of the bunch. Jessica saw their stares, but she wasn’t swayed one little bit. “And I hope they crunch his bones too!”