by Jay Klages
Shivers coursed through his body as he emerged from the water and scrambled up the muddy, root-covered bank. A few more yards and he was enveloped again by the tall evergreen trees. After a few minutes’ rest, he moved in a general eastward direction toward his next objective, the southeast corner of Kidders Butte. Without a compass, and still in darkness, he tried to stay moving in a gradual uphill direction. He had it in his mind to run, but his fatigued legs only allowed a walk.
It felt like about another hour had passed before the ground rose sharply. Now he turned a slight right to follow the base of the butte around to its south side, where its face wasn’t so steep and two crude trails would run to the top. If the map he’d studied during training was correct, that is.
Moving was now more tedious due to the caution he was taking. He was afraid of accidentally losing the butte, so he came back to it at intervals, forcing him to do a blend of walking and climbing. He wanted to put some more distance between himself and the AgriteX private land boundary and didn’t want to stray back north by accident in the darkness.
Once he reached the top of the butte, he’d move down the ridge to its north end to find the cache the FBI had left him. But he would need some light to find the cache there.
Shit, it’s too dark right now.
He slowed to a stop and sat down at the base of a tree. Conserving energy until the start of daylight would be the smartest thing to do. Morning twilight couldn’t be too far off.
I’ll just take a quick nap.
In under a minute, his mind entered a state of light sleep.
He wasn’t sure if it was five minutes or two hours later, but he awoke as if someone had shaken him. When he listened around him, he thought he heard movement nearby, so he stood up in place to make sure it wasn’t delirium playing tricks on him. No, he definitely heard more than one person talking. Three or four words were exchanged between normal speaking voices several times, but he couldn’t tell what was said.
He unbuttoned his cargo pocket and pulled out the Glock. He squatted at the tree’s base, circled it, and probed around with his free hand until he found a fist-size rock poking out of the dirt. After wedging it out, he switched the Glock to his left hand and palmed the rock in his right. His nerves ratcheted up in readiness when he realized the sound of the movement had ceased. He was at a mental impasse. Maybe he’d wait five minutes and throw the rock as far as he could as a distraction for whoever was out there, then move out. Standing up against the tree, he calmed his breathing and kept still.
“No te muevas,” a male voice said from right behind him, just as he felt the barrel of a rifle press into the center his back. He felt an electric jolt of surprise and froze in place.
“Suelte la arma,” the man said. Kade knew arma was Spanish for a gun. His Glock was at shoulder level in his left hand. He pulled his finger outside the trigger guard and did a combination of dropping and flicking the gun away from himself. He heard it hit soft earth.
“Manos arriba,” the man said. Kade recognized manos as “hands” and so he figured he should raise his hands nice and slow. When his hands reached a level above his head, he felt the pressure of the rifle barrel on his back ease for a split second. And when he felt that tiny release, he did a quick pivot on his right hip and swung his right fist clockwise and downward like a hammer as hard as he could.
The rock in his palm connected with something hard and he let out a gasp as the tip of his middle finger got caught under the rock when it contacted. He also heard a cry of pain from the man who stood behind him. The momentum of the swing brought Kade around, facing backward as he swiveled on the ball of his foot. He pushed off that foot and dove with his arms outstretched, clasping the man in a sloppy bear hug as they fell down together in a heap.
He heard the rattle of a rifle as they hit the ground and felt the weapon lying sideways between him and the man underneath. A punch slammed into the left side of his face, but it didn’t have much strength behind it. He realized he still had the rock in his hand and brought it down into the face area of the unseen man, but it hit against something hard. Again he swung and there was the sound of something metallic and plastic upon contact.
Night-vision goggles.
Kade absorbed another punch between his cheek and nose while he aimed toward the side of the man’s head. The rock again connected and he pressed his left forearm into the man’s neck while he continued hitting him. When the man stopped struggling, he let the rock fall out of his hand.
“Carlos!” a man shouted from what Kade thought was twenty or thirty yards away.
Kade slid his hands around the rifle stock and the barrel hand guard and pushed off the man below him to a standing position.
“Carlos!”
When Kade heard the voice, he turned and faced it. But he wouldn’t be able to operate this rifle in the dark and there was no time to search for the Glock. He picked an angle to his front-right and dashed through the forest.
Automatic gunfire opened up—there were muzzle flashes to his left and behind. Now he just ran as fast as he could without slamming into trees. The smallest bit of morning light or moonlight now provided some contrast in the darkness.
He ran for what felt like fifteen minutes toward the emerging light, slowing or stopping only to climb hills or ease down ravines. He weaved sideways down one steep hill and saw a break in the forest in front of him. There was a field filled with stumps and forest debris, a clear-cut area of about ten acres. He slalomed through it and at its far end there was a dirt road with thick forest resuming on the opposite side. He stopped for a few minutes to catch his breath.
He decided to leave Kidders Butte behind, run down the road, and cover more distance versus reentering the forest. Running with an AK-47 in the middle of the road would attract attention if he were spotted, but he’d be able to hear and see approaching vehicles well enough to get off the road and out of sight.
He took a deep breath and started off at a jog again. Except for a mix of chirping birds in the forest and his coarse breathing, the morning was quiet. The sun peeked out a few times and let him know he was making his way toward the east despite the many bends in the road. If he continued east, he’d hit Route 57 sooner or later, and that was his ticket to safety. He’d have to try to hitch a ride.
After moving for about ten minutes, he heard the noise of heavy machinery in the distance. He slowed to a walk and stepped up the banked roadside into the tree line. His heart continued pounding longer than it should have and now a headache felt like it pressed in from every direction. He needed some water very soon. Food wasn’t a bad idea either. When he neared the edge of a massive clearing, he stopped and rested again while standing behind a tree.
An additional dirt road split off from the one he’d been running on and snaked into the clearing in front of him. This had to be a forest logging operation. A number of yellow heavy machinery vehicles sat in the clearing—a backhoe, an excavator, and a large tracked vehicle with some sort of long hydraulic-powered arm.
Two semitrailers were lined up about seventy yards away. One had logs stacked high in its trailer’s U-shaped holders. The other was in the process of being loaded. He could see three men with fluorescent-orange hard hats in the distance. Two were talking to each other and the other was walking away, moving out of sight.
Kade looked at the one fully loaded truck and then got an unexpected burst of energy.
There’s another way to hitch a ride.
He leaned the AK-47 up behind the tree and sprinted back toward the road he was on before, past the road split for the work site and into the forest on the opposite side. From this direction, he got within thirty yards of the logging trucks while still in the tree line. The front truck was idling, but there was no one in the cab. No one was in the cab of the rear truck either.
He dashed in a crouch to the lead truck and jumped up on the rearmost double wheel, putting his hands on the nearest metal U-bracket and stepping up, using the space
between the stacks of logs as footholds. Keeping his body profile as flat as possible, he pulled himself over the top, but barely, as his smashed finger screamed and reminded him of its sorry state. Once he slid over to the middle of the load, he stretched out flat on his stomach and lay still. The idling of the engine was loud but relaxing. His exhaustion was catching up with him and he had to fight to keep his eyes open.
Ten minutes later, he heard the door of the cab open and close. The truck shifted in gear and jerked forward at a crawl until it moved out on the main road. He took a gigantic breath.
Let’s hope this thing is going in the right direction.
CHAPTER 49
Saturday, June 29
5:07 a.m. (PDT)
Kidders Butte, Oregon
Messia had been awake and waiting for a status report from his recon team since hearing the sound of gunfire. He sat in front of his camouflage dome tent chewing on a chocolate protein bar and sipping a bottle of water.
Behind his tent, shadowed in the evergreens, stood two guards from his security detail. The other ten guards were fanned out across Kidders Butte. All were dressed in digital-patterned camouflage fatigues and carried AK-47 rifles. Messia had stockpiled the equipment easiest to obtain through cartel channels.
Sandoval approached the tent looking frustrated. He sat down next to Messia and slung his rifle over his shoulder. The two guards moved closer and kept their eyes on Sandoval.
“¿Qué pasó?” Messia asked.
“Ramirez is dead,” Sandoval said. “Killed by someone from AgriteX named Anthony Hill.” Sandoval handed Messia a wallet and a pistol, and Messia flipped through the wallet’s contents, pausing to look at Hill’s Oregon driver’s license.
“We already buried Ramirez,” Sandoval said to fill the silence.
Messia examined the pistol, a Glock. He pulled out the clip and slammed it back in.
“So there was an AgriteX soldier over a mile outside their company’s property,” he said. “He kills one of ours and he’s still out there wandering around. What am I to think about that?”
Sandoval knew to keep his mouth shut. Messia stood up and stared down into the valley.
Owens is trying to pick off my men. He may know we’re coming, but he doesn’t know when.
We need to get that seed now.
“We’re going to attack tonight,” Messia said. He turned to look at Sandoval. “And we’re going to relocate our team northeast of here to Hill 2230. So get ready to move everything out.”
“Okay,” Sandoval said.
An hour passed as Team Echo gathered their gear and left the area. At the north end of the butte, Agent Jenkins sat huddled in the middle of a thick coyote bush, hidden from view. He clutched his Glock in one hand and turned on his phone with the other, putting it in silent mode.
When the armed group of men had moved into the area so fast, he’d shut it off in a panic. He was receiving a faint coverage signal, so he thumbed a message to Morris rather than going to the cache to use the satellite phone.
Jenkins: Urgent situation
Morris: U ok?
Jenkins: Y right now
Morris: U got flash?
Jenkins: No flash…but armed soldiers were here…think they r gone
Morris: Where r u?
Jenkins: Hidden near cache in bush
Morris: What kind of soldiers?
Jenkins: They spoke Spanish
Jenkins: Camo uniforms
Morris: How far r u from cache and what direction?
Jenkins: Abt 30 yds SE
Morris: Hold on . . . must discuss
Ten minutes passed.
Morris: Do u have water?
Jenkins: Y
Morris: Stay put and out of sight…we’ll come get you out…might take a few hours…stay safe…keep updates coming every 15 min
Jenkins: Ok…also think I saw a mortar tube
Morris: R u sure?
Jenkins: Think so…aiming sticks too
Morris: Ok…thx…stay safe
CHAPTER 50
Saturday, June 29
6:13 a.m. (PDT)
Highway 30, Clatsop County, Oregon
The logging truck descended the steep hill of the two-lane highway, slowing to about thirty miles per hour. Kade ached from head to toe, but riding on pavement was a gift after being bounced around on the rutted dirt roads. If his body had an energy reserve, it was now filled with the exhilaration of escaping and inserting plenty of distance between him and the Chapter.
To his right, there was a rocky mountain face several hundred feet high. To the left, he could see a fog-filled valley spanned by a long bridge with a city on the other side. The truck had to be crossing the Willamette or Columbia Rivers.
The older-looking bridge was a great latticework of steel trusses and rivets. As the truck crossed to the other side, he saw an overhead sign marked “SR433/432,” which meant nothing to him except the route sign contained the profile of George Washington’s head, like that on a quarter. They must have just crossed the Columbia River, moving north, and were now in Washington State.
When the truck stopped at the first intersection, he looked over the edge to see if he could jump off. It was over a ten-foot drop and the asphalt looked cracked and uneven. Not a good time to break an ankle. The light turned green before he could think about it more. The truck exhaled a breath of exhaust, accelerated, and turned right, veering into a parallel road that entered an industrial zone.
A complex of warehouse buildings formed a grid in the site. The truck passed gigantic stacks of both uncut logs and bundled lumber. He could see more stacks lying next to the river docks ready for cargo transport. The truck slowed and pulled into a well-lit central offloading area. There was a fair amount of activity—the sound of saw mills and heavy machinery moving between buildings. It had to be a twenty-four-hour operation, he thought.
The truck came to a halt. He spider-crawled left to the edge of the load and peeked over the side.
Oh God.
A heavy piece of machinery painted in bright yellow had advanced within feet of the truck. It looked like the offspring of a bulldozer mated with a giant forklift. The gigantic pincer-like jaws, including a massive overhead locking fork, were sliding forward to grab the entire load of logs at once.
He scrambled back to the other side of the load and let his body roll over the last log, both hands gripping its surface. He grit his teeth and struggled to hold on while leaving his smashed finger free. The load shifted as the machine closed its fork around the huge bundle, and right at that moment, he pushed off the log under his feet and released his hands from the top.
He grunted as he hit the blacktop hard and tumbled backward. Rolling up to his feet, he spotted the nearest woodpile and sprinted toward it for cover while orienting to the lights of the bridge he came from. He picked a point north, away from the river, and took off running again.
Someone shouted, but he couldn’t tell if it was directed at him amidst the noise in the complex. He stayed close to the large piles of lumber, zigzagging between them, past large warehouses to the edge of the industrial area. There was a street leading up to a large fueling station island, and he could see trucks parked there. After a few minutes, he slowed to a walk as he got closer and stopped just short of the parking lot. It looked like a full-service truck stop.
He removed both his outer crinkly shirt and T-shirt, and sat down in the breeze catching his breath for a few minutes while picking some of the wood splinters out of his hands. He looked at his swollen and cut finger. He had an assortment of other cuts, bruises, and scrapes on his body, and a couple of the cuts would need a stitch or two. He thought he’d check to see if the wallet he’d taken from Sentry Hill had any money in it and felt a wave of guilt again after thinking about Hill’s face. When he reached into his pocket, he found it had somehow fallen out. He had no money, only the gold badge of Heather Drakos.
That’s just great.
When he stopped s
weating, he got up, put the T-shirt back on, and walked across the parking lot, tossing the blood-speckled AgriteX shirt in the trash with Drakos’s badge. He pushed open the door to the L-shaped building and paused by the cashier. The wing of the building to his left was set up as a convenience store and the other wing as a twenty-four-hour diner–style restaurant, with the cashier area at the juncture of the two wings. He looked at the stack of newspapers next to the cashier’s desk. The Daily News—Longview, Washington.
He hesitated for a second, then strode into the restaurant area, down the aisle between the line of window booths and the stools of the front counter. There were four patrons at the counter and five of the ten window booths were occupied. The smell of cooked breakfast was overpowering and reminded him how hungry he was.
When he found the bathroom at the very back, he cupped his hands under the faucet and took the longest drink he could remember. Then he washed his hands and face in the sink with the pink liquid soap and let the cold water run on his hurt finger for a bit. He felt weak with hunger and knew he needed to get back into contact with the FBI.
What now? Hitch a ride? Try and call the TOC?
No, I need to call Janeen first.
He walked back out into the restaurant section and looked into the booths as he walked. One empty booth hadn’t been cleared, and he scooped up a half-eaten sausage patty and two pieces of untouched toast with jelly packets from the plate and dropped them in his left cargo pocket. He thought the waitress behind the counter saw him, but he avoided eye contact and just kept walking until he was inside the convenience area.
At the refrigerated display cases, there were a few people selecting drinks. A thirtyish man with thinning black hair stood at the edge of the case playing with his phone.