by Rick Mofina
“Shane! Take us down!”
Ballard’s eyes widened; the chopper shifted.
“Jesus, hang on!” he began descending. Nothing but mountains beneath them. He heard the thud of Hood swinging a small fire extinguisher against the side of the young guard’s head, sending him to the back, unconscious.
Wordell screamed.
“Shane, get us down, get us down!”
Hood shoved McCarry violently to the back, forcing her to fall over equipment. Hood’s hand ripped open every strap and unshackled the cuffs from his ankles. He came at Wordell.
“Please, no! Oh, Please!”
Ballard anticipated his move and banked the helicopter. Hood lost his footing, smashing his head against the steel frame. His hands shot up to steady himself, reaching for the rapid-open latch of the rear clamshell doors.
“Jesus, no!” Wordell screamed. “Shane!”
Sweat was burning into Ballard’s eyes, blurring his vision. He kept rocking the Mercy Force chopper to keep Hood off balance. It was futile. Hood locked onto to Wordell’s throat with his large hand and dragged her to the rear, gurgling, choking, swatting in vain at his arms.
Hood snapped one of the cuffs on her wrist then locked its mate into a steel ceiling loop. With relative ease, he then lifted the young guard, stretching his wrist, opening Wordell’s free cuff, slamming it through the steel loop, slamming it tight around the guard’s wrist.
Ballard, rocking the helicopter, was losing. Hood was too fast and too strong, lifting McCarry’s right ankle, snapping a shackle around it, then locking its mate to the same loop holding Wordell and the guard. Then he was in the cockpit with a pair of medical scissors pressed into Ballard’s throat.
“I am going to die!” Hood shouted. “I’ll take you with me if you don’t do as I say. Understand?”
Ballard nodded. “Did you kill my friends?”
“I will. Depends on you, asshole!”
The young pilot struggled to keep calm, leveling the aircraft as a show of good faith.
“What do you want?”
“Fly directly to the girl.”
“Why?”
Hood pushed the scissors a quarter inch into Ballard’s neck, puncturing his skin and surface veins, blood began cascading.
“Tell me what you’re going to do, or I go back there and fetch you an eyeball. Asshole.”
“OK, but I have to radio ahead.”
Hood immediately moved for Wordell, triggering her screaming.
“Shane! Oh God, Shane.”
Eyes ablaze with rage that had twenty-two years to fester locked onto her pierced ears and the small golden loops. He yanked on one, stretching the lobe. Wordell screamed. He let go, leaving the ear intact.
“OK!” Ballard shouted. “Don’t hurt them. We’re on our way!”
Ballard checked his position and banked, making a dead reckoning for the U.S.-Canadian border. Why not go there with this monster? It had to be crawling with FBI, park rangers and locals.
Hood was rifling through the chopper, filling a bag with supplies, happy to find a small backpack and extra flight suit. Hood changed out of his orange Montana State Prison overalls into the suit. He would need boots. He eyed the guard’s feet. Looked too small. He liked Ballard’s. They looked to be about the same size.
“Hey!” Ballard shouted at Hood. “I am being called. Put on the radio headset and listen!”
“Missoula Tower to Mercy Force. Mercy Force, come in. You are way off course.”
“Well, Mr. Isaiah Hood, what do I tell them? Do I tell them Mr. Hood that you’re hijacking us to Glacier?”
Realizing Ballard had just transmitted that exact message, Hood reached over and ripped Ballard’s helmet and radio set from his head, tossing it to the back as Mercy Force screamed at top speed over Glacier National Park, roaring over Lake McDonald, coming up on Flattop, making straight for Grizzly Tooth and the Boundary Creek area. Pilots of aircraft involved in search operations were dumbstruck, scrambling to avert Mercy Force, figuring the air ambulance was on a top-priority medi-vac mission. It was a clear, fast trip to the upper reaches of the park. Looking down at the rolling forests, the valleys, glaciers, Hood could feel his life returning and the helicopter descending.
“Take me down away from anybody,” Hood ordered.
Ballard found a flat, grassy slope, offering a clearing within its lodgepole pine, and began his landing approach. Concentrating on putting down, he had about two seconds to wonder why Hood was tossing his little pack out the window. Less than fifteen feet from earth, Hood seized the controls.
“Hey, Christ” was all Ballard managed as Hood forced the chopper to crash down hard on its side, its rotors whipping wildly, clipping tree tops, slicing earth, sparking against rock patches. The aircraft bucked like an angry mechanical animal amid the crash and squeal of metal, the screams, the pungent odor of hydraulic fluid and fuel as everyone was slammed and smashed.
Ballard and McCarry were unconscious. Wordell’s moan would turn into screams when the small fire ignited. Hood had a gash in his leg but was determined to escape, working at removing Ballard’s boots and socks. He searched his pockets for anything useful and was pleased to find a Swiss Army knife.
He took the young guard’s high-band radio. He would try to monitor emergency frequencies. He emerged from the wreckage, found his pack, then disappeared into the mountains. He was home.
SEVENTY-ONE
“Going to pour on the magic now.” That’s what Frank Zander’s old man used to say to him.
On rainy summer nights, when Zander was just a little boy growing up in Shaker Heights, his old man would play the shell game with him. He’d place a pea under one of three walnut shells on the kitchen table.
“Keep your eye on the one with the pea, Frankie.”
Sliding the shells in meshing circles, stopping to quickly reveal the pea, then resume. “Are you watching, Frankie? Where’s the pea?”
Even at a tender age, Zander was acutely perceptive. He never missed finding the pea, until one night his dad had a cool glint in his eye.
“Going to pour on the magic now, Frankie.”
After his tabletop juggle of the shells, his father lifted Zander’s choice, then began laughing. No pea. Nothing. Zander was stunned. That was the shell. It had to be. He lifted the others. Nothing. He lifted his original to find the pea wedged inside. His old man, a Cleveland robbery detective, beamed.
“You’re a natural investigator, Frankie.” His dad winked and tussled his hair, then finished his Old Milwaukee. “You never know the truth until you hold the facts in your hand. Never forget that, son.”
Zander clung to his old man’s advice now as the task force began debating its next move.
Tracy Bowman had taken Emily Baker outside the command center for air while Zander and the others analyzed the circumstances.
“I think we have to really consider that the Bakers have told us the truth, Frank,” Walt Sydowski flipped through his file.
“And what is that?”
“That she ran off.”
“What if they took her out there to perish?”
“That’s a theory. Where’s the hard evidence?”
“The region is littered with it. Blood, articles from her. And the whole business with Emily’s sister and Isaiah Hood. Come on, Walt. It is too early to cave on anything. Until we know the truth about Paige Baker’s disappearance, her parents are suspects.”
“I just don’t know Frank,” Sydowski twisted a rubber band. “It just doesn’t fit for me. I can’t put my finger on it. It’s just my read on the parents. I think they were a family in crisis hit with horrible misfortune.”
“How did her pack and sock get down a crevasse?”
“She could have been taken by an animal.” Pike Thornton had seen it before. “The goat carcass is a strong indicator, plus the fact that whole region is bear country.”
“What about the ax, her T-shirt, Doug Baker’s wound?”
&
nbsp; “Frank,” Sydowski said, twisted his pen cap, “it could have happened just like they said.”
Zander flipped through his clipboard with updates from the park’s SAR people, the county attorney’s old report on Emily’s letters, Isaiah Hood’s claim of innocence, the complaints with SFPD concerning Doug Baker’s temper, the New York cop’s account of an outburst the day before Paige vanished.
“There are too many red flags.” Zander shook his head, remembering how the deranged young mother in Georgia fooled detectives, including him. He recalled the face of the little boy he talked with, played with, while on the case. Killed by his mother on their watch because everyone let their guard down. Oh yeah, that psycho had poured on the magic. Zander made a vow that he would never be fooled again.
“You never know the truth until you hold the facts in your hand.”
Zander ran his hands over his face. “We’ll go back to Doug Baker for an explanation of Paige’s sock and backpack in the crevasse.”
Someone rapped on the door. An FBI agent stuck his head in.
“Inspector Sydowski? An urgent call for you from San Francisco. It’s Inspector Turgeon. Can I put it through here?”
Emily Baker and Tracy Bowman walked in the shade of lodgepole pines behind the cabin dorms for the park’s trail and fire crews. Half a dozen FBI agents formed a security circle around them, watching from a distance.
Emily reached under her sunglasses, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. “You know, I used to put her hair in pigtails when she was just learning to walk.”
Bowman nodded.
“She was so adorable, the way they bounced when she toddled all over the place. I must’ve shot a thousand pictures. The way her eyes just radiated joy and then that camera in the crevasse and those dead eyes--oh God.”
“Emily, it was not her.”
“Why did he do that to me? Did he know?”
Careful, Agent Bowman, she cautioned herself.
“We’re just trying to understand what happened.”
“Uh, do you think there is any chance, um--” Emily stopped, removed her glasses. “Tracy, tell me what your heart feels as a mother. Please tell me if you think there is any hope Paige is still alive out there.”
Bowman met her eyes. “I would never give up hope. No mother could until--” Bowman looked up as a blue and white helicopter pounded overhead.
“Until what, Tracy?”
“Until you knew the truth. The absolute truth.”
Emily was motionless with her thoughts.
“I want to talk to Doug,” she said. “Will you help me?”
Nora Lam of the U.S. Justice Department entered the task force room without knocking, her face taut.
“Not now, Ms. Lam, please!” Zander said. Sydowski was on the phone.
“Maleena Crow wants Doug Baker released. You can’t hold him much longer.”
“Not now!”
“And Washington called demanding an update.”
Washington. Zander felt his stomach lurch, thinking of his soon-to-be-ex, and the egocentric, bureaucratic dunghill….
“Damn it! We’re in the middle of something.”
“The Hood case is critically linked--”
“Hood’s case was investigated twenty-two years ago!”
Sydowski placed his hand over his ear, struggling to hear Inspector Turgeon, who was on a cell phone driving on a San Francisco freeway.
“What do you have, Linda?”
“The complaint against Doug Baker by Cammi Walton is bogus.”
“You have that confirmed?”
“The kid admitted to making it up after we pressed her. I’ll be faxing my report to Golden Gate and they’ll forward it to your team there. You’re getting it hot off the press.”
“What happened?”
“I talked to the history teacher whose classroom is across the hallway from Baker’s. He said teachers, especially male, have a policy to never, ever be alone with a student, especially female teens in a classroom.”
“Good policy.”
“Well, the history teacher and two students all gave me statements that they witnessed Baker talking to Ms. Walton at the doorway of his class during the time she claimed he flipped out. It never happened.”
“All right.”
“There’s more. We ran Ms. Walton’s name through Juvenile and it turns out she had a shoplifting beef a week or so before her alleged incident with Baker. The store manager was late reporting it.”
“Why?”
“Cammi tried to keep it quiet, and almost succeeded, by threatening to say a manager ‘made advances toward her’ and she would be believed because her mother is a police commissioner. The store staff backed off but filed the report later. We just got it.”
“The little--”
“We took this to Cammi, who fessed up and gave us a statement.”
“Did you take it to Mother Walton?”
“Yes. I feel for the lady. She’s a class act.”
“What about the domestic call to the Baker house?”
“I talked to the responding officers and reviewed the call.”
“Right.”
“Talked to the neighbor who called in the complaint. Pushed him hard. He couldn’t swear about a bat or any real threats. The best we get, it was just a little shouting. That part is on your plate.”
“Thanks, Linda.” Sydowski turned to inform Zander.
Lloyd Turner had just entered the room with Park Superintendent Elsie Temple, clutching a sheet of notepaper.
“This is less than two minutes old from our communications center,” Temple began. “The Royal Canadian Mounted Police report finding a footprint, very fresh, fitting the shoes worn by Paige Baker, and a plastic bottled-water container purchased at San Francisco International Airport. It’s a significant indication that she’s alive in the northern reach of the park.”
Temple immediately ordered all search operations concentrated in the border area.
“The Mounties indicate she was moving back into Montana.”
SEVENTY-TWO
Tory Sky, the sunset blond photographer from Santa Monica with the Malibu tan, was bewitching Levi Kayle, news shooter from the San Francisco Star.
“Well, I simply tired of celeb-stalking in L.A., so I freelance news images. I sell everywhere through my service on the Internet. I’m here for a German magazine.” Brushing her hair from sunglasses, she touched her ear, pressing her earphone tighter.
“Something’s up!”
Tory’s new ultra compact $3,000 digital radio scanner enabled her to listen in on some of the emergency frequencies used by some of the agencies searching for Paige Baker. Kayle’s unit was not as good. Tory’s green eyes were intense as she listened to the urgent transmissions to the rangers on the RCMP’s discovery. She grabbed her cell phone.
“They may have found her!”
Tory’s thumb expertly pushed her cell’s speed-dial button.
“At the northern edge. I might be able to get you in. Come on,” she said into her phone. “Be there, be there.”
Kayle was intrigued. With the exception of ranger-controlled chopper flights for pool shots of the search, the press was barred from any part of the search region. It was virtually inaccessible. Tory had her connection.
“Rawley? Tory. Yes, I heard it. Can you?--You can!--How many? West Glacier ASAP? Five spots, right. Five hundred. On our way. Do not dare leave without us! Yes, I will be there.”
“What’s up?”
“Get your friends, Kayle we’re airborne. Dieter! Where is that guy?”
The search for Paige Baker had swollen into a major air operation largely dependent upon helicopters. In all more than a dozen federal, state, national guard, and private contractors were involved in searching, moving people and equipment, or ferrying supplies. One of the contractors was Rawley Nash, a burned-out 1970s relic who listened to Creedence Clearwater Revival through his supercharged eight-track tape system. Nash had it amplified so
he could hear his speakers inside his bird, the Widowmaker. Nash was an out-of-state mercenary, a gypsy cab with rotors who flew by his own rules, operating a big old reconditioned Huey.
He had just been assigned to deliver a K-9 team from Idaho to join the refocused search near Boundary Creek at Grizzly’s northern edge. The rendezvous was at West Glacier, where he had met Tory Sky earlier. They worked out a standing deal. If the critical moment came, Nash would duck the rules and fly her in to get her pictures for $1,000--with the understanding that depending on the heat he drew, it may be a one-way trip. The bonus was that if Tory could find at least three other press types to pay five hundred each for their ride, hers was free. “Could she dig it?”
At least that was the version Kayle was explaining to Molly Wilson and Tom Reed. Kayle was at the wheel of his rented Sunbird, racing behind Tory Sky’s Taurus. She was ahead of them with Dieter, the quiet man from Hamburg, stringing out of L.A. for Der Speigel, the big German magazine.
“We have to go,” Kayle said to Reed. “Nothing is going to happen at the command center. It’s a press internment camp.”
“Kayle, what if we get dropped and don’t get out? How are you going to get us back? Have you looked at the map--we’ll be as good as in Canada.”
“We’ll just talk this guy into picking us up. We’ve got our sat phone and computers. We can file from there. Just chill, Reed.”
“Didn’t Tory say her pilot was flying in a K-9 guy?” Wilson said.
“That’s right,” Kayle said. “We’ll follow the tracker. Chances are he’ll lead us to the kid, or at least the action in there. Besides, he’ll have a radio to call for our ride.” Reed, everyone is likely attempting to get in now. If she’s alive we have to get the picture and story!”
Reed calculated the time. The Star’s desk in San Francisco had not yet decided if he or Wilson was covering Hood’s execution tonight. Either way, they would want Kayle there for whatever art they could grab.
“We have to get to Deer Lodge tonight for Hood,” Reed said.
“We’ll have time,” Kayle said.
Reed remembered being dispatched to Montana with Kayle for the Unabomber arrest and how Kayle loved pushing things to deadline. Like most news people, he thrived under pressure.