First to Kill

  “Yes sir, it was. Special Agent Grangeland probably needs a pit stop. We all do. Harvey and I also need to change into our MARPATs. Can we trouble you for some chow and coffee?”

  “It’s no trouble.”

  Mansfield told Reid to round up some sandwiches and coffee from the dining facility on the double. Reid jogged back to the sedan and sped away.

  “Should be about ten minutes.”

  “That’s fine, General, thank you.”

  As they walked back over to Nathan’s helicopter, he was acutely aware of the passage of time. Although he didn’t think Leonard could get up here in less than twenty-two hours, he wasn’t 100 percent sure. A sense of urgency seized him. Did they really have time for this? If Ernie had lied about Leonard’s departure time from California, it could cost them their lives. Although the satellite images were devoid of human activity, it didn’t mean Leonard wasn’t already there, cash in hand, planting Semtex charges and trip wires. How long would he wait? A few hours? Longer? Or would he wait at all? The Canadian border would be whispering his name.

  A gray aviation fuel truck pulled up to Nathan’s helicopter and the driver climbed out and attached the ground wire to a skid. Nathan made sure Jet-A was being fed to his machine.

  Mansfield nodded over his shoulder. “There’s a latrine and locker room in the hangar.”

  Harv and Nathan helped Grangeland extract Ernie out of the Bell and followed Mansfield to the hangar. General Mansfield carried Nathan’s duffel.

  Mansfield’s medic arrived at the same time Reid returned with lunch. She sat Nathan on the lunch table where he received eighteen stitches in his arm. Nathan refused a local anesthetic, claiming he didn’t want any part of his body numb. Occasionally wincing, he endured the tightly spaced stitches while eating a turkey sandwich. The medic wrapped his lower calf wound as well. Thankfully, she didn’t comment on the crisscrossing network of scars on Nathan’s torso, even after doing a fairly shocked double take. When he noticed Grangeland staring, he feigned innocence and asked, “What?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  After he and Harv changed into their MARPATs, General Mansfield took them out to Nathan’s chopper and asked, “Are you sure you don’t want any backup out there?”

  “Positive, General,” Nathan said. “We prefer to work alone.”

  “Monitor the frequency we gave you. We’ll keep you apprised of any activity at the coordinates. And I’ll keep a squad standing by just in case you give us a nine-one-one call.”

  * * *

  Ten miles southeast of Dupuyer, Nathan dropped the helicopter down to one hundred feet. “Watch for power lines,” Nathan told Harv. “Did you find an LZ on the photos?”

  “I think so, we’ll have to check it out. It’s about a mile-and-a-half northwest from ground zero. It’s an island of trees in our canyon and kinda horseshoe-shaped. It screens the chopper from three directions.”

  “I’m dropping down to fifty feet. Keep your eyes peeled.” Nathan lowered the nose. Ten seconds later they were skimming the grassy landscape at nearly 140 miles an hour. The ground rush was intoxicating. As dangerous as it was, Nathan loved flying low and fast.

  Harv worked the NavCom screen. “Adjust heading to three-four-five.”

  “Three-four-five,” Nathan echoed.

  “Guys?” Grangeland asked.

  Harv pivoted toward the rear seats. “You okay back there?”

  “I hate to be the weak link, but do we have to fly this low? I don’t feel so good.”

  “Sorry, but yeah, we do,” Harvey said. “Look straight ahead, don’t look out your window, okay?”

  She grunted an acknowledgement.

  A small herd of elk dashed underneath them. The animals tried to stay in a group, but several peeled off in different directions.

  “Keep an eye out for birds, Harv. Striking an eagle at this speed will definitely ruin our day.” Nathan’s brow furrowed in concentration. “Do you see any transmission or antenna towers?”

  “Negative. We’re good to go.”

  “Let’s call Malmstrom and ask for an update.”

  General Mansfield himself answered the radio and reported all was quiet except for the thermal image of their exhaust. He informed them in ten minutes, they’d experience a thirty-minute blackout as the current surveillance satellite dropped below the horizon.

  Harv had the 500-meter-per-inch photo in his lap. “I seriously doubt Leonard’s arrived yet. To get here before us, he’d have to drive eighty miles an hour the entire way, straight through. There’s no way he could do it and he certainly wouldn’t risk getting pulled over.”

  “Agreed,” Nathan said, though he shared Harv’s apprehension. “If what Ernie said is true, then we’re beating him here by at least one hour, possibly as many as three.”

  “What’s your gut on what Ernie told us?” Harv asked.

  “Obviously we can’t know for sure, but I don’t think he was lying about the second set of coordinates.”

  “We assume nothing,” Harv said.

  “Right.”

  “Think Leonard will have an RF detector?”

  “Hard to say, but I doubt it. If he does, he’ll pick up our handhelds for sure, but unless it’s a contemporary device, he won’t have signal strength or direction, he’ll just know there’s radio chatter in the area. There’s not much we can do about it unless you want to skip the radios. Since our handhelds can’t interface with the helicopter’s NavCom, I’m thinking we keep Grangeland and Ernie at the chopper. We’ll need her to relay anything Mansfield sees from the surveillance birds. I’d say using the radios outweighs being blind out here. Lesser of two evils.”

  “Booby traps?” asked Harv.

  “I’ve thought about that too. I think it’s unlikely they’d have any kind of long-term trip wires or pressure-triggered devices because of all the wildlife in the area. They wouldn’t want a random accident to call attention to their cache. They might have something at the actual location of the buried money, though. If he does, it’ll be a bomb-disposal job. Can your people handle it, Grangeland?” Nathan already knew the answer, he just wanted to distract her from her airsickness.

  No answer.

  “Grangeland?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” she said tightly.

  “You okay back there?”

  “I’m feeling really woozy.”

  “There’re barf bags in the seat pockets. Harv, how far to Dutch Creek Road?”

  “Maybe four thousand yards.” He looked down at the satellite image. “Adjust heading to three-four-zero. That should take us pretty close to the LZ.”

  Nathan pushed the cyclic slightly to the left and watched the LCD screen’s digital compass rotate. “Copy.… Three-four-zero.” He snuck a look out the port window. The snowcapped peaks of the Flathead Range were a damned beautiful sight. Where the mountains meet the prairies, he thought. Buffalo and Blackfeet Indian territory.

  “Should we risk a visual pass down the canyon to the money drop and back?” Harv asked.

  “It won’t help us that much. For the kind of detail we’d need, we’d have to move slightly faster than a hover. Let’s set her down right away.”

  “You’ll have my undying gratitude,” Grangeland said.

  “Reduce speed to sixty knots,” Harv said.

  “Sixty knots.” Nathan lowered the collective, pressed the right anti-torque pedal, and pulled back on the cyclic control. Maintaining its altitude, the helicopter flared and rapidly bled off air speed.

  “Oh shit,” Grangeland moaned.

  “Hang in there,” Harvey encouraged her.

  “I’m gonna be sick.”

  “We’re ninety seconds from being on the ground.”

  She didn’t make it.

  Nathan heard violent retching sounds as Grangeland leaned forward and vomited into a barf bag. The distinctive odor filled the cabin.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Nathan told her. “Happens to all of us. Keep track of your weap
on, Ernie might try something.” She didn’t respond. “Harv, what’s happening?”

  Harv whipped around.

  “She’s okay,” Harv said. “Crossing Dutch Creek Road. Slow to thirty knots.”

  A dirt track passed beneath them, no more than twenty feet below their skids. Sixty seconds later, the landscape suddenly dropped off as they cleared the canyon’s southern ridgeline.

  “Set her down inside that copse of trees at two o’clock,” Harv said.

  “Power lines?” Nathan asked.

  Harv scanned the area. “Clear.”

  Twenty seconds later, leaves cartwheeled away from the LZ as Nathan set the chopper down. “Shutting down,” he said. “Any bullet holes in us yet?”

  Harv grinned. “The afternoon’s still young.”

  * * *

  Grangeland heartily agreed with being delegated to guard duty. The nausea left her weak and in no condition for physical exertion. With Harvey covering, she handcuffed Ernie to the skid support just below the rear door and sat down in the sand facing him. The cord was stretched tight, but her headset was still plugged into the ceiling consule.

  Dressed exactly as they were at Freedom’s Echo in their ghillie suits, they parted company with Grangeland and headed east along the northern edge of the canyon’s streambed. Nathan estimated the canyon’s width at three hundred yards, tighter in places, wider in others. Because the north wall of the canyon caught more sunlight, the underbrush was thicker with more trees present. In the middle of the canyon, a small stream flowed toward the east. The canyon’s seventy-foot limestone walls were steep in places and shallow in others, where smaller streams fed the main creek. In hundreds of places, striated layers of rock were exposed in a series of ten- and twenty-foot ledges like giant steps. Dark recesses in the rock formations created ideal shooting positions for a potential sniper.

  They moved quickly along the tree-lined bank of the sandy wash, stopping every three minutes or so to scan the area in front and behind them with their field glasses.

  “Ground zero is on the south side of the wash about thirty feet above the bank,” Harv said. “In the oblique shot, it looked like a giant stack of flat boulders.”

  “How far?”

  “Another thousand yards or so. We should be able to see it once we clear the next bend in the wash. I don’t like being down low like this with the sun in our faces.”

  “That’s affirmative, neither would Leonard. But don’t worry, if he’s already here, he can only nail one of us at a time. Your odds are fifty-fifty.”

  “The hell they are,” Harv said. “He’ll shoot the man carrying the rifle first.”

  “Maybe you should carry it.”

  “Nice try.”

  Nathan toggled his transmit button on the radio. “Grangeland, radio check.”

  “Copy,” came her response. “I gagged Ernie just in case he has the notion to sound off. He’s livened up a bit. Mad as a hornet.”

  “Good thinking. Five-minute check-ins from now on. We left the helicopter’s master switch on. In the event Malmstrom calls, you’ll hear it through your headset. If you need to contact Malmstrom for any reason, all you have to do is pull the red trigger on the cyclic, the control stick. Copy that?”

  “Copy,” she said. “Good hunting.”

  “Despite her gritty personality,” Harv said, “I kinda like her.”

  “Me too. She’s a trooper. Okay, we’re going stealth from here on. Ten-meter separation, I’ll take the lead. You’ve got my six. How long before our next surveillance bird’s overhead?”

  Harv looked at his soap-smeared watch. “Twelve minutes.”

  Chapter 26

  With her nausea gone and equilibrium back, Special Agent Grangeland felt a lot better. She surveyed her surroundings. Light-to-moderate tree cover surrounded the helicopter to the north, east, and west. From the south rim of the canyon, the helicopter was in plain sight. From the other directions, it wasn’t totally screened, but unless someone was purposely looking for a parked helicopter in the middle of nowhere nestled within a canyon surrounded by trees, they’d never spot it from those directions. She supposed Leonard could be looking for just such a situation. She’d overheard Nathan and Harvey talking. This spot was nearly a mile-and-a-half from the money stash. Would Leonard Bridgestone reconnoiter out to this range? Would he start at such an extreme distance and spiral in, checking the perimeter? No doubt, he’d be exhausted from a twenty-two-hour drive and need to get some sleep, unless he was wired on drugs.

  Shit. Too many questions without answers. She felt vulnerable in her current position, exposed from the south. She had a patchy view through the trees and overhanging branches. Given all the variables, she felt the north side of the helicopter was the best place to wait. Or was it? Maybe she should be inside the trees, under deeper shadow, but then she remembered her headset. The uncoiled cord wouldn’t reach more than five feet from the helicopter. She wasn’t going anywhere. If Leonard Bridgestone spotted her, there was little she could do about it. Besides, the Air Force was watching the place. If anyone approached, they’d be giving her a heads-up.

  Except during the satellite blackout.

  She looked at her watch, cursing herself for not knowing the blackout period. Was the blackout just starting? Or ending? What were the odds of Leonard arriving during the blackout period? To distract herself, she tried to calculate them. Thirty minutes of three hours is the same as one-in-six odds. Would she bet her life on one-in-six odds? Hell no. She fought an overwhelming urge to look behind her. Relax, she told herself, you’re just being paranoid. Besides, she had a vest under the Windbreaker. She’d be fine.

  Two seconds later, an invisible brick smashed her torso at the same instant the air cracked.

  She struggled with the truth.

  Before blacking out, the last thing she saw was Ernie lean under the helicopter and smile behind his gag.

  * * *

  The high-power rifle report ripped down the canyon, echoing off thousands of exposed limestone ledges. Nathan and Harvey hit the deck simultaneously.

  From the prone position, Nathan whipped around. “Harv!”

  “I’m okay. You?”

  “Okay.” Nathan pressed the transmit button. “Grangeland, you copy?”

  No response.

  “Grangeland, do you copy?”

  Nothing.

  “Harv, form up. I think Grangeland’s down.”

  Harv ran in a crouch over to Nathan’s position and settled in.

  “That was rifle, not a handgun.”

  “Agreed,” Harv said.

  “I’m going back. Stay here and keep your head down.”

  “She’s dead, Nate.”

  “I’m going back. Radio silence from now on. We have to assume Grangeland’s radio’s compromised.” Nathan knew changing frequencies was useless: The devices had scanners and would automatically switch to any active channel.

  “We should go together.”

  “Harv, the endgame is at that rock formation down the canyon. It all comes together there. Ernie will tell Leonard there’s only two of us out here. They’ll try to take us down and recover the money. Leonard knows if he doesn’t get his money now, he never will. He won’t leave without it.”

  “Shit,” Harv said.

  “I’ll stay on the north side of the canyon and try to flush them down the south side. I doubt Leonard has a ghillie suit, but he’ll be in a woodland combat uniform. Ernie will be easier to see in his civilian clothes. Stay concealed and wait for me.”

  “Nathan—”

  “No matter what happens, I won’t leave the north side of the canyon. If you get seen or pinned down, give me three quick shots with the Sig and stay put. I’ll come get you.”

  “Nathan.” Harv shook his head. “Man, we’re brothers. Closer. I just want you to know… Aw, shit.…”

  Nathan grasped both of Harv’s shoulders. “Keep your head in the game. We’re going to win.” Nathan opened and closed the b
olt of his rifle in two crisp movements, chambering a round. “They don’t stand a chance.”

  * * *

  He forced his mind away from Grangeland and concentrated on stealth. Moving from tree to tree, bush to bush, and boulder to boulder, Nathan worked his way back upstream to the west, always staying in deep shadow. In one sandy streambed feeding the main creek, he had to drop to his belly and crawl across the open ground. He hated being exposed, even though his ghillie suit made him all but invisible. The thirty-foot-wide area of sand offered only thinly scattered buck brush for cover. From the opposite side, he’d have a three-hundred-yard visual look at helicopter through its eastern tree cover. If Grangeland was down, it was good bet Ernie would be long gone. It was also a good bet Ernie would tell Leonard everything he’d seen about his captors. Leonard would now know what kind of weapons they carried, what they were wearing, and the direction they went. He hoped the bastards wouldn’t take time to destroy his helicopter. It was more likely Leonard would make a mad dash, free his brother, and get back into cover as soon as possible.

  Once out of the sandy wash, Nathan crawled the last few yards through thick underbrush and oak fallout, being careful not to bump any bushes or dead branches. He also kept an eye out for ants. Crawling through a fire-ant nest was never a good idea. He felt stinging and dampness on his right arm. The stitches had torn and he was bleeding again.

  Ignoring the renewed pain in his arm, he cleared his thoughts and put himself into Leonard’s head. I’ll take the high ground on the opposite side of the canyon with the sun to my back. The enemy knows I’m here, he heard my shot. McBride will double back to check on the woman and Ernie. When he approaches the helicopter, I’ll nail him from a bench rested position on the southern rim of the canyon.

  Wrong, Leonard. Sorry to disappoint you.

  Secured in deep shadow, Nathan slowly brought his rifle up, shouldered the weapon, and flipped the front and rear lens caps up. Three hundred yards distant, Grangeland was down. Her back was to him. He steadied his rifle and tried to determine if she was breathing. He couldn’t tell. She looked like a lifeless heap. Wait… Movement. A slight motion of her left arm. Her hand lifted above the sand for a moment before falling. Nathan kept watching until he saw her move again.