2020: Emergency Exit (17 page)

Danny waved her apology off. “You don’t need to apologize to us, or to anyone. I’m glad you told us though…this did answer a few questions. But if you’re going to continue on with us, you do have to trust me, trust us, and we have to be able to trust you.” Tara nodded and opened her mouth to speak, but Danny continued before she could. “And you definitely have to tell Emily something now about where her Dad might be, whatever you decide to say. We’ll all help you with it however we can, but we have to move on together with the truth.” He tilted his head to look her in the eyes and restated the last two words. “
The truth
.”

She smiled. “Understood,” she exhaled. “Danny…”

“Ma’am?” he turned back.

“Please don’t ever call me that again, and please don’t tell anyone else about the...” Tara paused.

“He wouldn’t,” Hayley assured her.

“I won’t,” he affirmed.

Hayley hugged Tara again, and as Danny walked out of the room he heard Tara ask Hayley if she’d go with her to talk to Emily now. Danny smiled. That was one less thing on his mind now.

THIRTY: (Eddie) “Cave Men”

While mapping out the area between Keystone and Custer, Captain Eddie found the perfect place to hide for the day. Thirteen miles west of Custer was Jewel Cave National Monument. The legend on his South Dakota map claimed it was the second largest cave system in the world. It was no doubt a sufficient short-term hideout option. Then again, he couldn’t ignore the possibility others might already be there. Americans. Maybe even “his lions.”

It was slightly after 3 p.m. when Eddie, Lazzo, and their fifty-eight men arrived at Jewel Cave. Several burnt vehicles in the parking lot indicated Qi Jia troops or drones had already been here at some point. Eddie’s men found several dozen bodies, but no signs of life above ground. They covered up their trucks and jeeps with tarps and dug out the main cave entrance. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he called into the cold darkness, and laughed. The echo gave him chills.

He was almost disappointed their entrance wasn’t met with a response—gunfire or any form of human resistance. There didn’t seem to be anyone here. It sure would have been an easy place to end their pursuit with a few well-placed explosions.
Oh well.
He stationed several men near the road with radar equipment to monitor activity in both directions. Eddie and the rest of his soldiers spread out on a level plateau below ground and waited out the day.

Sunset was around 6 p.m. If the other companies had stuck to their plan, they’d be in Hot Springs by now, so Eddie figured it would be safe to move his troops to Custer. They had uncovered the trucks, loaded up, and begun their drive in when their radar screen flashed. Eddie halted the company and backed them up a couple hundred yards. Was it possible the other companies were still in Custer?
That didn’t seem likely
. Or could they have left some men behind to guard the town?
That was more likely but still strange
. Custer was a long ways north of Hot Springs to leave men behind. Eddie expected the Americans would likely come this way, as it was the fastest way out of the area, but he couldn’t ignore the one other southern route that would also allow them to pass without going through Hot Springs. He had to make the call. Right now. Every minute he spent strategizing was setting them back.

They had to move closer and find out what was going on in Custer. He sent one jeep forward to scout. They made it to within five miles of Custer with no radar noise appearing in town. Frustrated at what might have caused the earlier flash, Eddie ordered the rest of his troops to move forward. Seconds later he put the pieces together when the scout vehicle called back in noting “four large red dots heading south on 385” towards the other exit out of the Black Hills. That report seemed to confirm Eddie’s hopes and his fears. Four dots could very well be four American vehicles heading away from Custer and Hot Springs. If indeed it was, they were no more than twenty miles ahead. But Eddie would have to lead his men pretty close to the other companies to pursue them.

THIRTY-ONE: (Ryan) “Hot Pursuit”

As darkness approached on the farm Danny gathered everyone together. “Time to go again, guys.” He looked around. “Everyone good?”

By now we figured the large mass of troops we’d followed south had gone through Custer and moved on. We were tempted to stay at the farm another day, but we also knew if we didn’t make it to Colorado, and specifically Estes Park, before snow closed up the mountains, we’d be stuck out in the open. Generally that occurred the last week of October or first week of November—in other words, some time in the next two weeks. This year there wouldn’t be snowplows or road crews to open it back up. We would either make it the first try, or we wouldn’t make it at all.

It was approximately 330 miles to Estes Park from the farm, close as we could tell by the atlas. Normally that would take about five and a half hours. We knew we’d be pushing it to arrive by sunrise, ten or eleven hours from now, given the caution we’d have to take and detours we’d have to make around Cheyenne, Fort Collins and Loveland.

We pulled into Custer and, as expected, the town was empty. The plan was to go further south on 89, instead of taking Highway 16 straight west. We stopped at a gas station west of town to top off the trucks and fill four extra ten-gallon containers with gas. We were leaving the station when the radar flashed at us. Unlike last time though, this time we saw the dots, a bunch of them, straight west of us on Highway 16. Then they disappeared. We had to be right on the edge of their range.

We stopped for a moment to see if they were coming towards us, but a few minutes later they still hadn’t reappeared. We continued on and made it about five more miles before the screen flashed again, but this time there was only one dot. With the dial cranked down a notch, to what we now knew was nine miles, the dot was still on the screen. One more notch and it disappeared. That dot was between eight and nine miles away and moving towards Custer north of us. Making valuable use of middle school geometry, A
²
+ B
²
= C
²
_,
we determined the other vehicle was about fourteen miles away from us by road. We knew we’d seen multiple dots a few minutes ago. We weren’t waiting around to see if they also reappeared.

According to our map, we would soon be coming up on the intersection of 89 and 18, approximately six miles from Hot Springs. If soldiers were still there, we’d be cutting pretty close to them, and with no other viable side roads we’d likely draw their undivided interest.

As we passed into radar range of Hot Springs, we picked up four dots on the screen, scattered around the town. We were within their range and radar visibility for about five miles, and not one of them headed our direction. We quickly moved on south and west into Wyoming, hopeful we were finally alone for a while.

THIRTY-TWO: (Eddie) “Divine Intervention”

But one of the jeeps did notice the Americans passing and radioed it over to the officers of the two companies camped southeast of Hot Springs at the Angostura Reservoir. The officers there told them not to worry about it, that there was other troop movement in the area. The four men in the jeep were okay with letting those four dots go, until they saw another fourteen dots on the radar screen coming down that same road. That was a lot of troop movement, far more than there should be in that direction. They didn’t call it in this time, for fear of being reprimanded, but decided to go check it out on their own. They got to the intersection behind Eddie’s scout jeep and just before the next thirteen vehicles of the caravan.

Eddie had seen the single dot moving their way from town, and he was weighing what story he should give whoever it was coming to meet them. As Eddie’s jeep neared the intersection, he saw a single military jeep pulling up to cut them off. He slowed the caravan down, and four Middle Eastern men hopped out of their jeep and walked up to his.
Here goes
.

“What you is be doing here?” one of the men asked him.

And he thought his English was bad
. “Trying to catch my men. You see them pass?”

The man ignored his question. “Where you all be go to?”

“Where we going?” Eddie asked, and noted a slight nod back. “Montana,” he stated.

“You come to from the Montana?” the man asked.

“We come from Montana?” Eddie asked again.
The guy’s erratic speech was pissing him off
. “Yes.”

“Ah,” the man said, glancing up and down the line. “Okay.”

He turned around to walk away, directing the others to follow him. Eddie rolled his eyes.
So much for plan A
. The soldier was going to call them in and they’d be forced to go with them to talk to the other officers. Not only would that give the Americans an insurmountable lead, but Eddie and his men would potentially be in some pretty hot water. Eddie raised his pistol and shot two of them in the back of the head. Before the other two could get their guns up, his men took them out. He couldn’t leave them there, so he shouted, “Throw them in a truck. Let’s go!”

His men loaded the four bodies in the back of one of the trucks. Another two of his guys hopped in the other jeep. They were no more than ten miles down the road when the radio on the new jeep crackled, and a voice spoke, “Why is your truck not on radar? Where you go?” The two men in the jeep looked at each other but didn’t respond. They had been instructed to disregard all communication. “Hello! I ask. Why is your truck not on the radar?” Again they shared a look but kept going.

On the other end of the radio, back at the reservoir, the officers were gathered around, trying to get a response from the jeep they’d connected with earlier. One of the officers had watched as they’d driven off the radar grid, even after being told to ignore the passing vehicles. He had let it go at the time, curious about what they’d report back.

But now it had been almost half an hour since the jeep had disappeared, and the lack of response was even more troubling. They radioed another jeep in town and asked if they’d seen anything unusual on their radar. One of the men had noticed a jeep leaving town towards a long line of fourteen dots. He communicated he’d seen the one dot stop, and all but one of the other dots do the same. Then after a few minutes all the dots moved on together.

The senior ranking officer there was a major, and he called the nearest base with a drone in Rapid City. He reported his concerns about a potential American caravan passing through towards Wyoming and that he’d lost contact with some of his men who had intercepted it.

The base commander told him the drones were unfortunately down in Denver for the night. However, he did have two Blackhawk helicopters he could send. The major asked him to send two squads of men out in the Blackhawks southwest of Custer towards Cheyenne, Wyoming and told him to be on the lookout for approximately fifteen vehicles traveling in a group. The base commander asked what he should do if they found them, and he was told to stop them. If they fought back, kill them. The major told the base commander he was on his way with another ninety troops, and he would meet the helicopters wherever they found and stopped the caravan. The base commander agreed, and the helicopters were sent out with two pilots and twenty-four soldiers.

When the driver at the tail end of the caravan spotted the low-flying lights closing in on them, he radioed the captain. They had just turned south onto Highway 85, and Eddie could see the lights approaching out his window as well.
Those aren’t drones at night
. As they flew overhead and circled, Eddie recognized them as helicopters, American helicopters even. He watched them set down about a mile ahead of them, and he ordered his men to a full stop.
This wasn’t good
.

The choppers lifted off the ground again and spread out, circling wide around them. Eddie could see a dozen small dots on the radar in front of them approaching their position. As the Blackhawks set down again behind him he watched a dozen more dots spread out from them. Then one helicopter passed overhead again, while the other elevated behind them, and a booming voice ordered him and his men to get out of their vehicles immediately.
Definitely not American.
If they failed to do so, they would be fired upon.

Eddie knew if he surrendered they were all dead. He didn’t see any way he could talk his way out of this one. He had too much explaining to do, and the people he was working for didn’t care enough to listen. The army had no use for deserters or troops with their own agenda, however valid it may be. Add in that he’d killed the four Qi Jia men back by Hot Springs and there was no other way out of this. Too late to turn back now, Eddie knew his next action would change everything for himself and his men. They were about to go from the hunters to the hunted, from the predators to the prey.

He ordered rockets to be fired at the helicopters. The split second the rockets were fired he wanted his troops out of the trucks. The rocket from the back jeep found its target on the helicopter behind them. That chopper countered with two rockets before it disintegrated into flames, one rocket taking out a truck still full of men, the other taking out a jeep of men. The rocket fired at the front chopper missed its mark, and that helicopter fired eight missiles off before another rocket took it down. The helicopter’s projectiles hit their mark, reducing six jeeps and another truck to scrap metal and flames, but taking much less of a toll on the captain’s men. With two trucks and seven jeeps gone, that left Eddie and his remaining thirty-one men with a single truck and five jeeps.

The ensuing ground combat ended in Eddie’s favor, but cost him eleven more men. Before he died, one of the helicopter troopers was kind enough to tell Eddie a hundred troops were on their way from Hot Springs. Eddie thanked him. Then he shot him.