Cold Fear (41 page)

SEVENTY-EIGHT

The debate
at the crash site between
photographer Levi Kayle and Hilda Sim from Idaho SAR ended when Rawley Nash
took charge.

“No one is going anywhere right now. Not until we make
sure these injured people are safely on their way to hospital.”

“I agree,” Tom Reed said, along with Molly Wilson and
Sim, who were comforting the victims.

Nash said two choppers would be arriving shortly to
transport patients to the command center, where ground ambulances would take
them to Kalispell. “I need your guys to help us load. After that, form a posse,
do your thing.”

The first helicopter, dispatched from the command post,
approached.

“If anyone asks, you press people were already here when
Sim and I spotted the wreck, got it?” Nash said.

He directed the aircraft to a makeshift landing zone,
then supervised the quick loading of the pilot and the small guard, who looked
to be in the worst shape. Both were now conscious and moaning.

The second helicopter took Nurse McCarry. No one asked
questions. Attention was focused on airlifting the victims. Nash was last to
depart. He had Wordell. Lifting off, he flashed a thumb’s up to the others,
seeing Lux enthusiastically tugging Sim north into the forest, commencing
pursuit.

Glancing over his shoulder at Wordell laid out across
his rear seats, he noticed her diamond engagement ring.

Don’t worry, baby. Nash will get you to the church on
time.

He could not shake off the images of the scene.

Handcuffs and shackles.

He had pushed them to the back of his mind but they
leaped forward as he tried to comprehend what the Mercy Force crew had endured.
Who was the con? What happened in the air?
Christ, it looked bad.

Nash had ditched a number of times. Struck by lightning
flying traffic reports over Atlanta. Not fun. In New York, some fuselage gave
way flying a TV news crew over Manhattan. Nearly died from fear at the controls
when he veered into the World Trade Center, averting disaster at the last
second. Those two were dicey. Nash gazed down at the mountains.
But
handcuffs and shackles
. He could not imagine what kind of hell the Mercy
Force people survived. Who was their passenger?

On the subject of passengers, Nash considered the quick
two grand he just made. He apologized for his actions, but he had bills to pay.
Should he call that San Francisco TV guy at the park’s press camp, offering him
a deal on a ride in for the return trip? Depended on his next assignment.

Putting down at the command center, everything went like
clockwork. Enough paramedics were standing by to transport the victims.

Nash’s instructions were radioed to his call numbers.

“Kill your rotor. Stay in your chair and on the air.
Next assignment’s coming up. Stand by. An FBI call. Four bodies to the command
post.”

“Roger. Standing by.”

Sitting back in his seat to catch his breath, Nash
removed one ear cup from his radio headset and began fiddling with his
emergency radio for any updates. Mostly marshaling from the ranger’s command
post. Next channel. Paramedic hospital talk--vital signs and stuff. Next
channel. Weather conditions. Next Channel. Static. Next. Wait! Nash snapped
back to the weak static. It was breaking up badly.

“…Ser--
hiss
--Garner
hiss pop pop
--CMP--have
pop pop
in
pop
sight--
hiss hiss
visual--see--girl--
pop
alive
pop
--kilometer from me
pop pop hiss hiss
--coordinates--
pop--hiss
she is walking--dog--”

“What was that?”

Nash sat upright. Adjusted his headset.

“What was that?” Fiddling with the radio. Was he the
only one who heard that? “Come back! Come back!” He slammed his radio. “Please,
baby.”

SEVENTY-NINE

Doug Baker
watched the command
center fill with rangers, FBI agents, Montana officials and SAR people.

“We are going to get out of here,” he whispered to
Emily.

Eyes vacant, she nodded.

Some of the agencies were changing shifts, reassigning
bodies, redirecting resources.

“Listen up, people.” An unseen voice was issuing
instructions. “Search and rescue efforts are to be concentrated in the
following sectors….”

The teams who headed the camera probe of the crevasse
had returned. Exhausted, they headed for the table with food and coffee.
Removing their caps and utility belts, they listened to updates.

“…because of the danger, each team will have one armed
park law enforcement officer, or FBI agent, or patrol officer, or sheriff’s
deputy. The region is high elevation, one the most remote and treacherous--”

Doug squeezed Emily’s hand. They seemed to have been
forgotten.

“Ground teams have already been dispatched or directed
from the command post and are in the region. We are moving fast….”

Doug overheard FBI officials demanding two helicopters
be readied for sniper teams. Another conversation spilled over, something about
investigating the crash site and U.S. Marshals, then someone moving dog teams.

Doug’s thoughts raced
. Now
. It was their only
chance.
Now.

“Emily,” he whispered. “Come with me.”

The Bakers shouldered their way through the forest of
bodies, brushing against them toward the food table near the door; no one in
the cramped room paid attention to them. Doug listened to every snippet of
conversation.

A deep, tired voice: “I’m going to sleep for a spell in
my truck.”

Inching closer to the food table.

“Do you believe they flew Hood to the hospital on
execution day?”

The heap of caps, sunglasses, utility belts
.

“…a Mountie spotted her footprint….”

“I gotta take a leak….”

“Listen up, the following are to stand by, Hinkle, Prue,
Framington, Barrow…”

Most backs were turned from the food table to the
speaker issuing instructions. Doug casually picked up two caps and two belts,
reached down for two small packs under it, smoothly pulling Emily toward the
exit door. They quickly slipped on sunglasses and adjusted the caps, which read
FBI.

Nodding to the officers milling outside, carrying the
packs and radio belts, they walked toward the landing zone where one helicopter
was lifting off. Another was approaching, and two were idle.

“Just keep walking, Emily. Don’t look back.”

Doug sized the two parked helicopters. A Bell
and an old Huey. The Huey pilot was alone in the cockpit, listening to his
radio. Ready. He noticed Doug, who pointed a finger in the air, swiveling it as
a signal to go up now, as he and Emily approached.

The pilot nodded. Relief washed over Doug, hearing the
ignition start and blades commencing rotation.

“I’m supposed to take four. Where are the other two?”
Rawley Nash shouted.

“Change of plan because of the circumstances.” Buckling
up in the seat beside Nash, Doug expertly slipped on the headset, adjusted his
mouthpiece. “We’ve got to move now.”

“Roger that,” Nash said. “All right back there?”

“All set.” Emily knew her way inside a chopper. She was
buckled and connected. Her eyes drawn to the bloodstained seats. “You’ve got
blood all over back here,” she shouted.

The rotors gathering momentum. Nash activated the
intercom. “Transported one of the nurses from the Mercy Force crash. Didn’t
have time to clean up. Sorry.”

“You were at the site?” Doug said. “How bad was it?”

“Everyone will make it, but it was chilling inside. You
probably heard that the con had cuffed them before he escaped. Hey, I just
heard on the radio it was the death row guy? That true?”

Doug swallowed, nodding behind his dark glasses and cap.

“Christ,” said Nash, radioing his call letters,
hesitating. “You’ve got the coordinates? It was all broken up on my radio.”

“Which coordinates?” Doug said.

“Where the Mountie sighted the girl?”

“You mean the footprint?”

“I mean the girl.
The
lost Baker girl. Just a few minutes ago, it came across all broken up. The
Mountie spotted her alive. That’s where we’re headed, right?”

Doug and Emily were speechless.

“Right.” Doug thought quickly. “You are supposed to take
us to the general area. We’ll get the coordinates on the way.”

“OK. If you say so. I think it’s near the crash site.
Where Hood is running around. I know they got people after him.” Nash called in
his flight path and increased the throttle. “Here we go.”

The Huey rattled; the ground began dropping beneath
them.

Emily’s knuckles whitened as she clasped her hands
tightly, tears rushing down her cheeks from under her dark glasses.

Mommy and Daddy are coming, sweetheart.

Doug reached back, his hand finding Emily’s, squeezing
it as they gained speed.

Strange, Nash thought. Never saw FBI agents holding
hands on duty.

“Hey, you guys like CCR?”

EIGHTY

It was her.

Paige Baker. Yes. And her dog. A beagle. A glimpse
through his binoculars. One, maybe two kilometers off before they vanished into
a thick spruce forest. He had to locate her again.

RCMP Sergeant Greg Garner continued radioing reports but
knew his signal was weak from the valley. No response. If there was, he did not
receive it.

“Let’s go, pal.”

Garner and Sultan were now about half a mile south of
the Montana-Alberta border. He put an eighteen-foot-long line on the German
shepherd, which had locked onto the girl’s scent. Garner knew it was a good,
strong track. Sultan was panting, excited, pulling hard, moving so fast he had
to slow it down after slipping in a few places.

“Hold on there, big guy. I’m no good to you with a
twisted ankle.”

Garner’s exhaustion melted. Having spotted the Baker
girl energized him.

Against all odds, she was alive. He saw her.

If he could just get to her, or get a chopper to her.

So close but so far.

Good. They were climbing now. Good.

It was clear to Garner the girl went this way, but
ascending the rocky slope made things difficult. At the top of the next
significant rise, he would stop to use his powerful field scope. The radio
should transmit better, too. They attacked the climb, practically clawing up at
double time.

“Oh boy.” Garner huffed at the top several minutes
later, perching himself near a rock upon which he could steady his telescope.
He drank some water to help his breathing normalize so he could look calmly
through the eyepiece.

Sultan yelped impatiently.

“I know. Me too.

A moment passed. Garner squinted through his scope,
sweeping the slopes across the vast alpine valley to the area where he expected
the girl to be.

Sultan sat, ears pricked, panting.

“Relax, relax. We’ll find her,” Garner sounded like a
surgeon probing slowly, confidently. A minute passed. Nothing but forest, rock,
forest, rock. A deer. Forest, rock, forest, rock--what, a flash of color!

“Hold it!”

Blue? Large. A man?

“What the--”

A blue jumpsuit. A man. Cap. Sunglasses. Looked like a
SAR guy. A ranger maybe. Then a small dog, the beagle.
Come on. There!
She was with him, walking slowly. It was her! Walking. Alive.
Thank God
.
But who was that with her? No chopper nearby. Nothing. SAR ground people must
have her.
We’re done then
. Relieved.

“Looks like she’s safe, buddy.”

But wait. Better confirm.
They should get a chopper out here. Actually, he’d like to hear the status.
Garner pulled out his map, detailing his coordinates, then reached for his
radio.

“Garner to base.”

“That’s better Greg,” his radio said. “Must be on high
ground now because you are loud and clear. What do you have for us?”

“I’m going to tell you exactly where Paige Baker is.”