by Rick Mofina
“It’s them.” Kayle’s face creased behind his viewfinder. “Hood has the girl!”
“Oh my God!” Wilson squinted, her hand shielding her eyes. “Can’t we get to them?”
Tory Sky was adjusting her video camera lens. “We’re too far away.”
The group was a thousand yards off, with a lethal four-hundred-foot gorge between them. Sim grabbed her radio.
Helicopters were approaching.
Through his small binoculars, Tom Reed could distinguish a large figure in blue and a smaller figure. They were near the lip of the gorge. The group’s perspective only permitted them to see the upper segment, the edge.
Kayle’s camera began clicking.
“Christ, Hood’s throwing something over the cliff!” Kayle clicked. “Those choppers better hurry, man!”
Rawley Nash’s Huey was first to the cliff area.
Emily Baker was striving to see what was happening through the binoculars vibrating against her skull.
“Doug! It’s Paige!” Emily pulled the eyepieces tight to see. “It’s Hood! He’s throwing--God, Doug, he’s--he’s--nooo!”
Doug?
Instantly, Nash knew. His passengers were the parents! “Hey, what is--”
Doug Baker saw the horrible scene unfolding. Hood in his blue jumpsuit struggling with his daughter. He shouted at Rawley.
“Put us down now!”
Nash was descending from some two hundred feet when the FBI radioed, ordering him to evacuate immediately so agents could commence a rescue.
“Damn! I can’t! I’ve been ordered out!” Rawley started pulling up.
Emily began screaming at the sight below. Hood was dragging Paige to the cliff edge.
“He’s going to kill her!”
“For the love of God, put us down!” Doug thundered.
Emily was screaming. Doug was yelling. The FBI was demanding Nash to clear so agents could land. It was surreal. Nash hovered. Emily screamed, banging, kicking at the chopper’s interior.
“Paige! No. God! Drop us! Drop us! Drop us! He’s going to kill our daughter!”
Nash witnessed the horror below. Suddenly, he dropped the Huey. The FBI raged over the radio. Hood was struggling with Paige. Airwaves were pulsating. The Huey descending some thirty yards from the cliffside to the small flattop. Emily leaped from her seat before it hit the ground, numb with shock, forcing her legs to pump as Doug rushed behind her.
Emily felt everything was in slow motion, like a horrible dream.
Nash’s Huey ascended, clearing for the FBI. The rotors blew Hood’s cap and glasses over the edge.
Paige’s face was blistered and scraped. Her eyes found her mother. Horrified. Hands reaching to her in vain. Rachel’s eyes. Her hand slipping. Hood locked his powerful arms around Paige’s waist. Turned, dropped.
“No!”
Doug was shouting.
Hood with Paige. Vanishing. Over the edge.
No. Please.
The National Guard helicopters arrived, the first taking a point just over the gorge some sixty yards out. An FBI sniper worked quickly to sight Hood through his scope.
“Not yet,” his commander said. “He’s all over her.”
The second helicopter took a one o’clock point one hundred yards above Hood; another sniper was prepared to lock him in his crosshairs.
The aircraft were keeping enough distance so the drafts from the rotors would not create a risk. “Stand by,” the FBI commander said.
***
Eyeballing Hood from one hundred feet up. Calm. Cool. His jaw muscles pulsating. Zander forced himself to let his training kick in.
“Down. Down. Down,” he urged the pilot.
Bowman was stunned by the scene below.
Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.
The Bell swooped, landing behind the Huey. Bowman and Zander exploded from their helicopter behind Doug and Emily.
It was as if Emily were underwater. Coming to the cliff, she saw Hood’s head. He had jumped to a large lower ledge.
Her eyes filled with terror. She froze at the nightmare before her.
Oh God. No.
Hood stood at the lip of the gorge. Arms extended, big hands locked on Paige’s wrists, swinging her like a pendulum out beyond the edge, over nothing but four hundred feet of dizzying dead drop.
“Oh, please! Oh, please!” Paige pleaded. Sobbing, toes kicking, reaching for the rock in a vain attempt to save herself. Looking down at the abyss at death, sobbing gasping. Her arms aching.
‘Mommeeeee!’
The helicopters were deafening.
Hood moved with animal speed, lowering Paige down the side of the rock face, barely allowing her to catch her toes solidly on a two-inch rock ledge. Only her fingers were visible now, clinging precariously above her on the cliff. Slipping. Slipping. Clinging for her life. Gasping. Pleading. Hood lowered himself beneath Paige to a second lower ledge, looking up in time to see Emily dropping to her stomach, reaching for Paige.
“Mommy, please!”
“I’ve got you, baby!”
Emily seized her daughter’s wrists, began sliding backward, pulling her up while suddenly feeling the horrible weight.
Hood is gripping Paige’s ankles!
“Mommeee!”
Paige’s eyes pleading. Rachel’s eyes. Save me. Help me.
Emily shouting: “Isaiah, let her go! You can’t have her! Let her go!”
Two rock chips flew from the rock wall near Hood’s head.
His eyes burned into Emily’s.
“I just wanted one friend in my life!” he shouted.
Emily pulled. Paige screamed as Hood stepped from the ledge, his full weight locked on her ankles, nearly pulling her and Emily down as Doug caught her.
“God,” Doug grunted. “Hang on.”
Paige shrieked, feeling her body stretching. Three rock chips flew near Hood. The snipers were inches from his back.
Zander and Bowman arrived, flinging themselves down. Bowman reaching for Paige’s upper right arm; Zander worked his fingers toward his pistol. Paige was screaming, nearly fainting from the excruciating agony. Emily shouted above the choppers, “Isaiah, if you let her go, I’ll be your friend forever! Let her go, please!”
He smiled his brown-tooth smile.
“It was just a game, Natalie Ross. Just a game.”
Hood surrendered, releasing his hold on Paige. His arms shot out, his eyes met Emily’s.
Face lifting to heaven, smiling, falling; sweet air rushing, embracing him. No more hooks, no more prison, no more pain--only blue sky, mountain peaks, sunlight, serenity, peace. Free in his home, forever with a friend.
***
Paige sobbed hysterically.
Pulled to safety.
Emily hugged her.
“It’s over. It’s over.” She wept.
Doug crushed them both in his arms.
Zander peered over the edge at Hood’s body smashed against the rocks below. Bowman tried catching her breath on the flattop near the Bakers.
No one spoke. Nothing but the helicopters as Emily soothed Paige, sobbing.
Then Bowman heard it. A faint cry. “What was that?”
A yelp.
Zander investigated. A dozen yards away, he located Kobee.
“Hey there!”
Secured by his harness, the terrified beagle was dangling from his leash that had looped on a jagged ledge when Hood tossed him over the cliff.
Zander stepped down and retrieved the dog, reuniting him with Paige.
“Kobee!”
The Bakers were frozen in their embrace, staring at Zander and Bowman.
Helicopters thundered.
Radios crackled.
The Bakers smiled at Zander, warming his weary heart.
It was over.
EPILOGUE
After Paige Baker downed a pizza and large root beer she slept.
Doctors at Montana General Mercy in Missoula told reporters she had suffered exposure, dehydratio
n, sun burn, some shoulder separation, strain of tendons, ligaments and post-traumatic stress from her ordeal.
“She is in remarkable shape considering her exposure to such extremes for five days and nights. Her dog was a factor. His warmth helped her endure the cold. His presence was a psychological boost; another being to care for and keep her company,” Dr. Oliver Veras, Mercy’s chief of staff told the press in a news conference that was broadcast live across the nation.
“When can America see her, Doctor?” one network TV reporter asked.
“That’s up to her family. But when she wakes tomorrow, we expect she’ll be in good condition.”
***
That evening Tom Reed, Molly Wilson and Levi Kayle filed their pictures and account of the Baker story. The San Francisco Star moved quickly to lock up worldwide syndication rights, and the story-picture package was purchased by newspapers from Columbus to Cairo, from Buffalo to Bucharest. It ignited speculation about a Pulitzer.
“Violet’s ecstatic,” Wilson said passing her cell phone to Reed after they filed. “Cripes, Reed. Send you to fish for a story, you bring back Moby Dick. Good stuff.”
Later that night, Reed called Ann in Chicago.
“Didn’t forget about the wedding, dear. I’ll be on a plane tomorrow night after the news conference.”
Paige slept for twenty hours. Kobee was allowed in her hospital bed and never left her side.
For this moment in history, Paige Baker was the most famous ten-year-old girl on earth. Her story was known around the world.
Montana Highway Patrol Officers guarded her hospital room, which filled with balloons, teddy bears, flowers, toys, and cards from well-wishers.
The flow would not stop.
It spilled across the hall to the room where Doug and Emily Baker slept.
At one point in the night, Emily awoke and went to Paige’s door. Two FBI agents posted there allowed her a glimpse of her daughter sleeping soundly with her arm around Kobee.
Emily strolled down the tranquil hall, finding Bowman in the lounge, awake in a chair. She sat beside her.
Neither woman spoke for the longest time. Then Bowman took Emily’s hand and their eyes met in the night.
“Emily I--”
“We both know what is like to lose someone, Tracy.”
Bowman nodded. “Uhm. You know, Frank and I must talk to her first. It’s not officially closed yet.”
Emily nodded. “Yes,” she whispered, with a half-smile, before returning to bed.
Tracy stared into the night, remembering Carl, then thinking of Mark.
The doctors summoned the FBI when Paige awoke. Zander and Bowman entered her room. Her bed was blanketed with stuffed toys. She was drinking orange juice, an IV connected to her arm. Hair in a ponytail, face dotted with some scrapes but radiating with the bright aura of a happy little girl. The agents introduced themselves and chatted for several minutes with Paige, joking about all the presents she received.
Eventually, Bowman asked, “So what happened?”
Paige knitted her brow. “What do you mean?”
“Tell us how you got separated from your mom and dad,” Zander said.
“Kobee chased a chipmunk. I went to find him and got us lost.”
“That it?” Zander smiled. “Was your dad mad or anything?”
Paige chewed her straw, nodding. “Cut his hand chopping wood.”
“Then what happened?”
“I went to find my mom and got lost. It was Kobee’s fault.”
“The man who found you,” Bowman asked, “other than at the cliff, did he harm you in any way?”
Paige shook her head. “He killed a bear that was trying to get me. He saved me.”
Bowman and Zander exchanged glances.
“Can I see my mom and dad now?”
Zander patted Paige’s shoulder. “Absolutely.”
In the hall, Zander informed the doctor they were done. Bowman’s cell phone began to ring. Zander walked to the empty lounge at the end of the hall, searching for something in the Rockies that crowned the horizon.
“You made all the right calls, Frank.” Walt Sydowski had followed him.
“Ah, well, I’m not so sure about that.”
“Look what you were confronted with, the time frame, the circumstances, the politics. You’re a helluva cop. I’d be honored to work with you again.”
Zander looked down and accepted Sydowski’s hand. They shook.
“Heading back to San Francisco?”
“Got a flight tonight.” Sydowski smiled. “There’s a date I got to keep and some money I have to win back in a card game from a wily old fox who claims to be my father. How about you? Any plans after this?”
“Maybe take some time off to think things over.”
“Listen to me. We never know how a case will twist. Believe me, I know. I also know you are a good investigator, Frank.”
Sydowski gripped Zander’s shoulder, then left him alone with the mountains.
Zander sat staring at the sky for some time when he heard someone say his name. It was Emily Baker, standing in the doorway of the lounge. Doug was next to her. Zander stood, searching his heart for the right words. Emily spoke first.
“We understand.”
“It was very complicated,” Zander began.
“Frank,” Doug said. “I know it looked very bad because it was very bad. For everybody. Inspector Sydowski told us everything, including the Georgia case.”
Emily had tears in her eyes. Her face was a portrait of kindness. She embraced Zander. “In your way, you were fighting for Paige too.”
“Yes, I was,” Zander whispered. “I’m happy for you.”
“Paige turns eleven in two months. We would like it if you and Tracy would consider coming to her birthday party.”
Zander blinked. “You bet.”
Emily told him that before returning to California, they were going to go to Buckhorn Creek. “Going to put things to rest,” she said.
Zander nodded. “Sounds like the right thing to do.”
Doctor Veras entered, pushing Paige in a wheelchair. Kobee was in her lap. “I think they’re ready downstairs,” Veras said.
Emily dabbed her eyes. Smiling, they left for Paige’s press conference.
Zander decided to watch it alone on the TV in the lounge.
The hospital had turned its cafeteria into a press room. Nearly three hundred newspeople had crammed into it for an event broadcast live on virtually every channel in the United States.
It began with Emily and Doug Baker thanking the rangers of Glacier National Park, the search and rescue people, everyone involved.
“In particular,” Emily Baker said, “we want to thank agents Frank Zander and Tracy Bowman of the FBI, who performed a difficult duty with the utmost respect, courtesy and professionalism under the most challenging circumstances.”
Exhausted and watching alone, Zander put his hand over his eyes.
Where do they find the grace?
Reporters began asking Paige to recount her ordeal.
In Helena, Montana’s governor and his staff watched with relief.
The injured prison guard and crew of the Mercy Force helicopter watched from their rooms in Kalispell.
David Cohen watched from his lonely Deer Lodge motel room, where he would wait until a local funeral director provided him with Hood’s ashes. Cohen would return to Glacier National Park, and disperse them there. Maybe he would take Maleena Crow up on her offer of lunch in Kalispell. Cohen planned a long, soul-searching drive across the western United States back to Chicago. It would give him time to decide what to say in his letters to the Baker family, the governor, Lane Porter, and to his firm. He wanted a year’s sabbatical.
The news conference was ending when Bowman entered the lounge.
“There you are, Frank!” Her smile lit up the room. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”
“We?”
“That’s right. Got someone here I
’d like you to meet.”
A boy, about the same age as Paige Baker, entered.
“This is my son, Mark. My friend drove him over this morning. Missed his mom. Marshal, say hello to Frank Zander.” She looked straight into Zander’s eyes. “One of the best there is.”
“Hello, sir.” Mark extended his hand.
Young eyes met his.
“Well, hello yourself, Mark.”
“Watcha doin’ here all glumlike, Frank? Mark and I are going downtown later. We know a place that makes the best cheeseburgers east of the Rockies. We’re going to celebrate. Join us.”
“What are you celebrating?”
“A happy ending and the fact my Los Angeles job came through.”
“We’re moving to California,” Mark said.
“Sunshine, surf and movie stars.”
“Will you come with us?” Mark said.
“Sure,” Zander said. “Guess I could use a burger.”
Later, as they ate, Zander felt unbelievably comfortable with Tracy and Mark. It was as if he had found something he had lost long ago. Something that he needed. Over apple pie and ice cream he told her he had an offer from the SAC in L.A. to join the Division.
“Do you think it would be a good thing if I accepted, Tracy?”
She licked her ice cream spoon and considered his eyes.
“I think that would be a very good thing, Frank.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Experts familiar with the realities in this story may debate areas where I have taken liberty. But for those who enjoyed the journey through regions of precedent and plausibility, I direct credit and my special thanks to: Fred Vanhorn, Assistant Chief Ranger, Glacier National Park; Ronald Nolan, Supervisory Special Agent, and Ms. Maureen Schutz, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, DC; Tom Laceky, the Associated Press, Helena, Montana; Staff Sergeant Daniel Rahn, Crime Scene Bloodstain Pattern Analyst; and Sergeant Warren Ganes, Police Dog Service Section, Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
I also extend gratitude to John Rosenberg, Samantha Banton, Susan Bowness, Lynn Reid, Wendy Dudley, Mildred Marmur, Ann LaFarge, Jeff Aghassi, Mary Jane Maffini and Linda Wiken at Prime Crime, and members of “The Club.” I am deeply grateful to the many friends, more than is possible for me to list here, who provided their support.
I am especially indebted to booksellers everywhere who have so graciously enlightened me while introducing my work to readers.