by Brian Gore
Lying in the darkness of the tree line, Ben slowly inspected every rock and every tree of the perimeter of the mine area. Satisfied no one was outside the mine compound, he turned his search to the buildings themselves.
He spent many minutes searching every window, every doorway, every dark opening. He lay motionless, looking through his binoculars for a movement, a flash of light, anything out of place, anything that didn't fit.
From this distance; from where he lay to the first building was five hundred yards and a bit. He couldn't see if there were fresh tracks in the dust of the road and there was no obvious movement within the building area.
He had his "eyes on". He couldn't be sure yet, but, near as he could tell, he was the first on site. There was no evidence of a vehicle, and no movement within the building compound. Ben's lips formed into a smile that showed no amusement. They seemed more like the smile of a cougar, looking down from its perch on a deer. His eyes looked more like the glint off the steel of a rifle barrel.
Knowing he'd be there a while he prepared himself for the coming night. Slowly, so slowly you had to look away and look back to see if it moved, he pushed his ruck in front of him to look over, and make its contents accessible with little movement.
His rifle, with short bipod opened up and supporting it was pushed out and stood tight beside it.
A ghillie blanket, that had been rolled up and strapped to the bottom of the pack, that he'd made and used for hunting coyotes, covered him, his ruck and the rifle, all arranged so slowly, it was like watching the hands of a clock move. You can tell from the minute marks they moved, but you can't see the movement.
Just as the sun was setting west of the mountain behind him, Ben lay in his roost, just inside the tree line, chewing on a meal bar. The only visible movement, his jaws; and they chewed so slowly you'd think he'd starve before he swallowed, and even that was under the concealment of the ghillie.
His eyes stared down the mountain, almost unblinking. Every twenty minutes or so, he'd raise the binoculars again, with that painful slowness, and search every window, every nook, every cranny, again. If someone was there, watching, he'd find them, first. He'd wait for their mistake. Their small slip.
He went through the night like that. Always watching, close searches every twenty or thirty minutes. He stared and searched until his eyes ached, and then he searched some more.
It was four thirty in the morning. The faintest fading of the black to grey was showing on the rim of the eastern sky. Ben had closed his eyes for a few moments, to rest them after a period of trying to cut through the darkness with his binoculars. Through the stillness of the night he heard it before he could see anything, a motor, the crunch of tires on gravel in the quiet mountains.
The first visual warning of anyone approaching was the faint flare of headlights on the far slope on the other side of the mine buildings. A few seconds after that first light splashed across the mountain, the headlights broke out from around a bend in the road below the mine, as a pair of vehicles rolled out into the open and stopped a few yards in front of the main structure.
A black SUV and a white Van pulled up in front of the tallest building. It was where the machinery that raised and lowered equipment and miners into the hole was housed.
Three men climbed out of the SUV and two out of the Van. Ben could see, in the slowly fading darkness, the silhouettes of drivers remaining in the SUV and the van.
One of the men who'd climbed out ran up to a large sliding door on the side of the building and pushed it open. Both vehicles immediately pulled inside, and the door was closed. Seconds later, the headlights, showing through the windows and gaps in the disintegrating walls were shut off.
Ben had seen no sign of Karen. If she was in one of the vehicles she would most likely have been concealed in the van, but he'd seen, nothing. He cursed silently as he peered through his binoculars.
This was the part for which he couldn't plan, for which he had to just wait for an opportunity, and hope he could recognize it fast enough to take advantage of it.
It was all quiet down below. As the light slowly brightened he spotted movement in one of the upper windows in the tallest section of the building, and apparently a rifles line of sight being tested through the window.
While he continued to watch, the big door slid back open a couple feet, as two men ran from the building. The first went to another building on the far side of the compound, to the right of the approach road. This man carried a rifle. Seconds after entering the building, Ben spotted movement behind a second floor window that had long since been broken out. The second man, carrying some variety of automatic weapon went in to a single story building on the other side of that same approach road. His position was directly across the way from where the rifleman had gone.
Two gunmen in elevated ambush positions, a third in a low flanking position and four more waiting in the center inside the main building; It didn't strike Ben that Tyrone had any intention of trading anything.
A man entering that compound was driving into a kill zone. Even if he stopped short of the buildings he'd still be a sitting duck, under the sights of two riflemen, at very short range, as well as being within close range of the fella with the automatic; and that didn't take into account whatever firepower the unseen, remaining four, could bring to bear. For all he knew there were even more, unseen in the van. Rolling in there wasn't an enterprise that promised a long and profitable future for a hopeful "trader".
Getting Karen to safety and keeping Amanda and her son safe would not be accomplished by blundering into this trap. But what else could he do? How was he going to out maneuver seven, apparently heavily armed men?
Ben had never been intimidated by numbers. He'd won, against the odds, enough times to know that victory doesn't always go to the greatest force, but more often to the more carefully, and cleverly, applied force. He just had to find the vulnerable spot, to apply the force he controlled, with the greatest efficiency.
As he watched the buildings in the slowly brightening morning, something, a movement, up on the mountain, on the other side of the mine up near the tree line, caught his attention.
His first thought was a deer or an elk. He moved his glasses up and watched. He'd caught the faint movement, up near the fringe of the lens. Now, nothing moved. He kept watching. Odd. If it was a deer, this time of morning, it would be coming into the open to graze, not slipping back into the trees. But there was no deer. What had he seen? Why did it give him that strange "Danger" feeling? He could see nothing.
Ben scanned back down to the mine buildings. The big door still sat slightly ajar. He assumed someone stood there watching. The movement behind the upper windows had stopped, but he knew the riflemen were there. Time slipped by, all sat waiting, and still, no answer, no solution to his dilemma, presented itself.
He moved his binoculars back up to where he'd seen the movement. Carefully, he studied each rock, each stump, and each tree. He tried to penetrate the darkness of the tree line.
His scan had just passed a snag that grew out of a small rock outcrop, when something pulled his view back. Something lying beside the snag, no, sticking out from behind it. Ben squinted through the binoculars trying to perceive what it was he saw.
His binoculars were only seven power. The scope on his rifle was a variable power. Though he shot using only the ten power setting, he could dial it up as high as 20X to study something.
Ben moved slowly, still under his ghillie blanket, to get behind the rifle. As slowly, he moved the stock to swing the scope to the target.
Once he found that snag in the narrow field of view of that high power, what he saw jumped out at him. It was a boot! Moving his vision to the other side of the snag he studied what he saw there, and realized he was targeted on another rifleman! Once he broke through the deception of the camouflage, he could clearly see the rifle barrel and the forward end of the scope.
That rifleman was watching the buildings, just as he was;
and almost as cautious to avoid detection as he was. His outline was lost in that snag and outcrop. At least if you were looking from below. But Ben, was across and a bit above the mystery rifleman.
Something was off here. Something was truly haywire. Was this a Fed? Had Tyrone caught the attention of DEA or some other agency? The ATF? Who the hell was this guy?
What didn't fit in Ben's calculations was that this new and unexpected player was part of Tyrone's crew. It just didn't fit. That he was, wasn't impossible, but it was highly unlikely. That man had some field skills. He didn't fit the profile of the men down below. That uncertainty made him nervous. Unknown wild cards, was not a way to stay healthy. This was turning to shit in a rushin' hurry!
"Jesus!" He thought. "I'm gonna need a dance card to keep this shit straight!"
The only thing he knew, for sure and for certain was that he had no intention of driving, or walking, into the certain death that waited for him in that trap down below. All he could do was watch and wait. Stay alert and ready to take advantage of an opportunity. He believed Tyrone wanted what he wanted badly enough that he'd not destroy the only leverage he had at the moment, and harm Karen. But, it was a risk that haunted him.
While he waited he started repeating his scans of not only the building compound, but also the surrounding mountains. He kept close watch on the unknowing and unknown rifleman on the mountain, and had to admire his control. Though he'd spotted him, only because of a single flick of movement as he was going into his firing position, he was still very good at what he was doing. The small slip, of his boot sticking out of his camouflaged position was all that had given him away... one small slip Ben thought. One small slip, and if he wanted to, he could terminate the man, right now. One small slip he thought, and his enemy below, could do the same for him.
Occasionally, he'd move back to the rifle scope to study something, but he found no more gunmen, with any of his methodical searches.
The time dragged by with agonizing slowness. He knew it was a risk to not show. He looked at the screen of his throw down phone. As he'd expected, tucked into these mountains there was no signal, he couldn't even call the man, call Karen's phone, to improvise some new action.
All he could do was lay there and agonize over all the possible scenarios and possible outcomes.
8 a.m. came and went and they all waited. The men in the buildings, the man on the mountain, waited. No one moved.
8:30, 9, 9:30, finally, the big door that covered the vehicles slid open, and one man walked out, a big man. Ben thought it was more like he stalked out. He stood by a corner of the building for a long while, slowly scanning all around, and then stood just looking down the approach road for as long a time.
Finally, he lowered his head to his chest for a few seconds followed by a sudden, angry, gesture of frustration, both arms swinging up and then pumping down as suddenly, accompanied by a curse that Ben could hear, clear up to where he lay on the mountain.
The big man's head rose and Ben clearly heard him call; "You Bwoys come back down here, now!" Then turning back toward the door he gave a "come here" wave with his hand, and went to pacing back and forth like a caged Tiger, off to the side of the door, as the black SUV and the white Van were backed out of the building.
"Shit!" Ben muttered, almost silently to himself. "I screwed up! They're pulling out! and my fucking wheels are two miles away! What an idiot! Damn it!"
He trained his binoculars on the mystery rifleman on the mountain. From his vantage point he probably couldn't see the action. The body of the building itself would still be between him and the doorway where the cars were backing out.
No matter. The rifleman hadn't moved. Ben had a choice to make. Try to follow Tyrone and his thugs, or follow this mystery rifleman to find out who he was. It was ever more obvious to Ben, he wasn't part of Tyrone's group.
But, Tyrone had Karen, so in the end, there was no choice to wonder about. He had to try to follow Tyrone.
He quickly stuffed the binoculars into this ruck. Dragging the ruck by a strap and his rifle in his other hand, he slowly crawled backwards to a point that put trees and rocks between himself and those below, as well as the rifleman on the opposite slope.
Then, he rose to his feet. quickly rolled and secured the ghillie, shouldered his ruck, and with his rifle at port arms, started running for the car.
As slowly and cautiously as he'd made his approach, he hurried as fast as his not-young-any-more legs would carry him going back. Lucky for him, his life had not been spent in an office, and even though his last couple of years had not been spent in any manner that might have been described as profitable, they weren't especially sedentary either.
Though his pace wouldn't have broken any speed records, driven by what hung in the balance, Ben made the run back to the hidden car in a time many men, much younger than he, wouldn't have matched.
With his heart still pounding and his breath coming in ragged draughts, he threw his gear into the trunk, fired up the Saturn and sped down the two track at a reckless pace, begging God for a break, "just a sliver of a chance to get ahead of this, Please!"
Knowing no other direction to turn, he turned toward Helena and the cafe just a few miles up the road. A shiny black SUV and a white van in convoy, how hard should that be to find in Montana?
He hadn't seen anyone among the men at the mine that struck him as being the man he'd wounded in Ennis. His confidence grew that no one among these men today, knew who they were looking for, or would recognize him or the car. All they had was a name and a phone number. They'd no idea what he looked like. He still had a measure of anonymity and surprise. Now all he needed was some luck.
Right then, the thought of Karen's picture on his caller ID flashed in his mind. Did she have that for him? His picture on her phone? Damn, maybe they did have an idea of what he looked like. Damn. He turned it over in his head as he drove. If she did, he'd be wearing that dirty old grey felt... not the ball cap he had on now. It could still work...
He looked at the sky and shouted in the small car, as he pounded on the wheel; "You hear me? Just one little god damn piece of good fortune! Is that too much to ask for?"
The sound of his voice was still echoing in the confines of the compact as he approached the cafe, with no black SUV or white Van in sight. But, behind the cafe, a plain blue sedan pulled up next to the dumpsters...
A man, clad in camouflage and carrying a scoped rifle slipped out of the trees behind the cafe and trotted up to the passenger side of the car, and jumped in as it started to roll, with no one but Ben rolling by on the highway to witness the scene.
Ben continued on past the cafe. By the time he spotted them, he was already too close. If he'd braked hard enough to swerve into the parking lot, his sudden action would have surely caught their attention. Instead, he coasted past, his eyes riveted to the rear view mirror as the car turned out of the lot and went up the highway in the direction from which he'd just come.
Slowly, casually, with his heart pounding, he made a U turn and headed back west; The car that had captured his attention was probably a quarter of a mile ahead of him now.
"They were watching my bwoys." He thought. "They know where they're at. That's the only way they could have followed." he mumbled to himself. "Whoever they are, they're my link." and with a glance at the sky and a quiet "Thanks Boss", through a sheepish grin, he followed the mysterious pair in the car, as invisibly as he could.
As he drove he pulled the phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen. "Good! Full signal."
With his stomach in his throat and his eyes on the pickup, far ahead, he punched the number for Karen's phone. A man's voice answered with a harsh, snipped, "What?"
"What Asshole?" Ben cursed at the phone, not taking a breath in his tirade. "What kind of game you trying to run on me bwoy? You think I'm just some Montana hick you miserable piece of shit? I didn't survive Somalia, and a half dozen other shitholes being stupid! You got me? I've got your wom
an. I've got your boy, and I've got your god damn gym bag with 750 big ones in it! So, you and those fools you got workin' for you go and try to run an ambush on me? I used to make my living runnin' ambushes, You Gawd Damned Miserable Fuck!"
"Who you think You're playin' with Mahn?" Tyrone shot back "I got your girl too!"
"Jesus Christ you dumb son-of-a-bitch!" Ben exploded. "You want your boy, your woman or your money, you'll do as YOU'RE told, and NOT, try to jack me around any more! You keep that phone handy Bwoy! I'll call YOU tomorrow, sometime, and I'll tell YOU how you can get it all back! and one last thing, Bwoy, Karen better stay in pristine Gawd Damn Condition!" Out of breath from his rage, Ben killed the call.
Up ahead, the car he was tailing continued for another fifteen miles, crossing MacDonald pass before turning south onto a forest road.
He couldn't risk turning down that road, so Ben continued on past to the first wide spot he could find and pulled the car over. Since the road ran alongside the Little Blackfoot River, it was a common thing for fishermen to park alongside the road. He had no expectation that anyone would bother the car. He took off at an easy jog back toward the bridge over the Little Blackfoot where the mystery car had turned south.
As he ran, he looked up at the sky again, and the warm sun of the early fall beating down. "Yeah, uh, Sorry about my tone earlier" he said aloud, "I was, kind of" he hesitated, searching for the right word, "frustrated." He ran on several paces; "Since there's nothing out here but woods, I'm assuming these guys are camped out here. Ya know, if they've chosen a spot, not too far up this road, I'd sure consider that to be a good thing!" He grinned up at the blue sky.
Chapter 30
The camp was less than two miles up the forest road. He found it tucked back in the trees on the far side of a meadow that ran for nearly a quarter mile along the road. Ben spotted two cars parked in front of a couple of tents, through a gap in the trees, just as he reached the northern edge of the meadow. One was the blue car he'd followed from the cafe.