Monster (2 page)

“Good point, Colonel.” Barrington headed for the public bathroom with Rutledge close behind.

“Go ahead and check out the trail, Colonel,” Reskova answered. “How long will you need?”

“It depends on whether Hughes left a trail for us to follow deliberately as he did with his note. I’ll be quick.”

* * *

Dreyer and Reskova watched McDaniels hurry fluidly toward the woods.

“How do you know McDaniels, Sir?”

“I was in Marine Recon during Gulf War I. Delta helped us out of a couple jams. The Colonel was a Sergeant back then. Our column was moving full bore ahead past the Iraqi lines. McDaniels appeared from nowhere in front of us with his hands up so we wouldn’t shoot him. McDaniels looked like a native, albeit a big one, so our guy with the column who spoke Arabic approached him. McDaniels spoke to our guy in Arabic first and then switched to English when he was sure we were Americans. The Iraqi’s had an ambush set up. Thanks to McDaniels, we zeroed in on the coordinates he gave us and blew the crap out of them while we were still out of range. He is the best tracker on any terrain I have ever known.”

“Why isn’t he still in? What is he, mid-thirties?”

“McDaniels is still in the reserves. He had a little trouble in Iraq. He formed an attachment with one of the Iraqis in Fallujah who relayed info to him. Some of the insurgents calling themselves the Fallujah Brigade captured the guy and cut his head off. Right after, the Marines began finding Iraqi insurgents with their heads cut off in odd places. The formal word on it was the natives were tired of the insurgents and did it themselves.”

“How many?”

“Sixteen before word from some of the Iraqis about a giant snatching guys in the night reached headquarters. The Colonel was on liaison with CIA at the time because of his language skills. The CIA guys put two and two together and sent him home. The killings stopped. The army retired him to the reserves.

“Jesus,” Reskova whispered. “I understand your reluctance to send him out by himself on this.”

Dreyer grinned at her. “I could care less if McDaniels went in and brought out Hughes’ head on a pike. That little girl’s uncle is a US Senator, Frank Hokanson, from the Alameda County area. I don’t want an FBI sticker on whatever he does out there.”

“She may already be dead, Jim.” Reskova echoed Barrington’s comment to her, surprised to hear Dreyer’s cavalier attitude towards executing Hughes.

“I know that! This freak Hughes ain’t even pretending he wants something in exchange for keeping her alive. The son-of-a-bitch is doing this just to screw with us. He believes he’s untouchable. Hokanson wants in on every phase of this. I’ve been ordered to give him hourly updates until it ends.”

“Have we been able to keep this out of the media?”

“On our end, yes. The little girl’s parents and Uncle Frank may decide to out the whole thing though.”

“Hokanson knows we’re here?”

“Unfortunately yes. This parking lot could be a circus in short order - hence the need for McDaniels to take you three in immediately. By the time you’ve located Hughes and McDaniels thinks he’s close I hope to have a plan.”

“This sounds worse by the second, Jim. I’m supposed to baby-sit a military psycho, barter with another psycho for this little girl’s life and trudge around in the middle of nowhere without backup. Any suggestions before we launch into this fiasco?”

“Don’t get the little girl killed.”

“Shit,” Reskova muttered. “I…”

“I’ve found his trail, Ma’am.” McDaniels startled the two FBI Agents to the point Reskova jumped and Dreyer reached for his weapon. Both stared open-mouthed at the tracker.

“Jesus H. Christ Palomino, Colonel!” Dreyer exclaimed angrily. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what, Sir?”

Rutledge and Barrington joined the group hesitantly, seeing the looks Reskova and Dreyer were giving McDaniels.

“You know what, you prick. I’ll tie a bell around your neck the next time you pull that shit.”

“How long were you standing there, Colonel?”

McDaniels grinned. “Somewhere around the military psycho part. We should go, Ma’am. He’s hours ahead of us. The little girl was still alive when they went in.”

“How do you… oh, never mind.” Reskova gestured shakily for Barrington and Rutledge to grab their packs. She reached for hers but instead started jogging towards the bathroom. “I…I’ll be right back.”

Chapter 2

Hunting Monsters

McDaniels grabbed Reskova’s pack. “Hughes went in about fifty yards down from where the bathroom is. We’ll walk by the van and get my pack before we pick up Agent Reskova. Let me check over your equipment and see if you’ve missed anything.”

Barrington and Rutledge handed over their packs. McDaniels rifled through the them with professional care, repacking them for weight and distribution. He returned the packs.

“They’ll do. I put your extra clips in the top flap.” McDaniels led the group back toward the van.

“Remember what we talked about, Colonel,” Dreyer warned when they reached the van.

“I understand the parameters, Sir,” McDaniels confirmed, provoking an uneasy exchange of looks between Barrington and Rutledge.

McDaniels went into the truck and emerged with a second pack. He donned the one he took out of the truck before walking toward the bathroom. With one final glance at Dreyer, Barrington and Rutledge followed at a distance. They saw Reskova emerge from the rustic bathroom facilities. She spotted McDaniels and remained in front of the bathroom as she saw the three were coming towards her.

“Did you see Diane’s face?” Rutledge whispered to Barrington. He was busily trying to adjust the straps on her pack as they walked.

“Yeah… makes you wonder what the hell we missed.”

“Probably better we don’t know.”

“I’m not sure pretending we see no evil will help us out here,” Barrington replied as they reached Reskova.

McDaniels held her pack by the straps. Reskova let him help her into it. She adjusted the straps and cross belt support. She looked up at McDaniels when she was sure she had the pack adjusted properly.

“I guess he didn’t go in at the trailhead, huh?”

“No Ma’am, he went in a little ways down from here.” McDaniels pointed at a dried out tree husk lying in the brush about fifty yards away. “Hughes went in near that downed tree.”

“Why wouldn’t he go in at the trailhead where there are still plenty of recent tracks to help him confuse us,” Barrington asked.

“Two reasons,” McDaniels replied, leading the way toward the fallen tree. “The first is he wanted us to know where he went in. I’m sure he figured the FBI would get someone who could find his trail.”

“And the second?” Reskova asked.

“He’ll be able to play with us in the denser brush.”

“Play with us?” Barrington repeated.

“Razor wire, deadfalls, staked pits. He’ll get creative. Hughes knows who he took and he knows there will not be any air support. He’ll try and have some fun at our expense.”

“Ah, Colonel, are we home yet?” Rutledge asked comically.

“I’ll go first wherever we go, Agent Rutledge.” McDaniels chuckled, taking a liking to the woman who was obviously terrified but continued on in spite of it. “Don’t stray from the path I take and clear. If you need a bathroom break don’t wander away when we stop until I clear the area, okay?”

“Sure,” Barrington agreed right away. He patted Rutledge’s shoulder in commiseration. “What if something happens to you?”

“Go back immediately,” McDaniels replied solemnly. “Under no circumstances should you go on if he gets me. I’ll leave our back trail plainly marked for you.”

“I don’t think we’d be any good with you breaking a few twigs along the underbrush,” Reskova said. “We’d still be lost.”

“You all have GPS units, don’t you?”

“Yes, I set them with the parking lot as base camp. That won’t make much difference if Hughes booby traps the trail,” Reskova reasoned.

“True, but you won’t be lost. I hadn’t planned on using breadcrumbs to mark the trail, Ma’am. I’ll mark it with this.” McDaniels held up a yellow paint stick. He swiped it on a tree they passed, making a bright yellow dash. “It’s fluorescent, so you’ll be able to see it even in the dark.”

“My man!” Barrington said. “At least you ain’t one of those guys who’d screw with us just because you can. Thank you, I…”

“We can’t go back, no matter what,” Reskova interrupted.

“He’ll kill all of you if you don’t, Ma’am.”

“Maybe, but he’ll for sure kill the girl if we give up. As long as he thinks the game is still on he may keep her alive.”

“That’ll be up to you, Agent Reskova. I don’t plan on letting Hughes get any of us but Agent Barring…”

“Tom, Colonel,” Barrington cut in.

“Tom asked me,” McDaniels acknowledged. “I gave you the best advice I could. One other thing: don’t drink from any body of water we pass. I’ll take care of getting our drinking water. Go easy on it. Make sure you give me warning when you’re getting low. If you’re sweating, you’re fine. If you’re not sweating, you need water.”

“He wouldn’t poison all the water as he goes, would he?” Rutledge asked.

“All the water up here can give us a bug, right Colonel?” Barrington asked.

“That’s right, Tom. If you drink the water without purifying it first, you may not die, but you’ll wish you had. You each have two bottles on your belt. They should be fine for the rest of the day if the weather stays cool.”

“I guess you better lead on, Colonel,” Reskova said. “I’m sorry about the remarks you overheard.”

“I’m sorry I startled you. Stay about forty feet back from me. Maintain the spacing at all times. Here, take these.”

McDaniels handed each of them a telescoping walking stick out of his pack. “I brought along extras in case we needed to make a travois out of them. It’s important to watch your footing. Even a slight sprain will slow us to a crawl.”

Each of the FBI agents adjusted their walking stick to a height comfortable for them. McDaniels started out at a brisk pace.

“Colonel,” Barrington called out. “Aren’t you going a little fast? I mean if Hughes is booby trapping his back trail you’d have to have X-ray vision to spot traps at the speed you’re going.”

“I’ve already scouted the trail,” McDaniels replied over his shoulder. “Besides, Hughes won’t want anything to happen to us until we’re well into the woods. I figure we can make about three hours without any worry.”

“You’ve already found something, haven’t you, Colonel?” Reskova asked.

McDaniels turned around suddenly, an amused smile on his face. “Not bad, Agent Reskova. How’d you guess?”

“Hughes would want to do something minor right away…”

“To make sure we wouldn’t follow too quickly,” Rutledge finished Reskova’s statement. “He’d figure we’d be checking every inch of the trail afterward.”

“What was it, Colonel?” Barrington asked.

“Razor wire, ankle high. It would have disabled one of us. The others would have had to carry the injured one back, delaying our start after him.”

“He wanted to take out the tracker,” Reskova stated.

“Yep. That means from here on the trail will be pretty easy to follow. Hughes will be thinking he needs to draw a map for novices to be drawn in.”

“I hate this already.” Rutledge gripped the straps of her pack tightly. “What did you do with the wire?”

“I still have it in my pack. C’mon, let’s move out. Remember your spacing.”

When McDaniels had paced about forty feet in the lead, the others followed. Reskova quietly filled in Barrington and Rutledge about all she had learned from Dreyer, including the reason McDaniels had been retired to the reserves. Barrington laughed. Reskova glanced at him sharply.

“What’s so funny, Tom?”

“I can answer that, Diane.” Rutledge smiled over at her. “If we have to be out here trailing this murdering psycho, we need a guy like the Colonel, not some boy scout.”

“Exactly.” Barrington pointed at McDaniels. “Let’s face it. We ain’t that girl’s best hope. He is. We’re along to hold him back. If that Senator had any brains, he would have found the Colonel and paid him a small fortune to go on in without anyone knowing.”

“Do you feel the same way, Jen?” Reskova asked.

“Pretty much,” Rutledge admitted. “I know we have a job to do; but let’s face it, this ain’t it. How sure are you we’re not being used as scapegoats?”

“Not sure at all. I wanted to hear you two say it. At first, I thought we were up against the wall as far as time. After hearing AD Dreyer, I don’t know what the hell the script is. We can shadow this guy and call in every step of the way but we won’t be any closer to saving the girl than we were in the parking lot.”

“Did we piss somebody off I’m not aware of?” Barrington asked. He stepped up and over a fallen branch, pausing to make sure Rutledge made it over without tripping.

“More likely we just know Hughes the best. The best scapegoats are also the most logical choices.”