Chapter 14

"Highly placed sources within the law enforcement community, speaking on condition of anonymity, tell World Information News Network that the suspected murderer, rapist, and kidnapper--a man who also evaded capture in March of last year has apparently managed to duplicate that feat this summer.

"The Department of Justice announced just yesterday that the ex-Army NCO had been found in a secluded valley deep in a wilderness area of the southern Colorado mountains. The official statement indicated a team of Federal officers under the supervision of U.S. Marshal David Owens had trapped Underwood in a cave. It was thought to be only a matter of time before the wanted man would be forced to surrender.

"Now it seems that Underwood may have shot his way through encircling Federal officers and is once again on the loose in the mountains. Individuals familiar with the incident say Underwood fired on the officers with a high caliber rifle two nights ago, forcing the federal agents to take cover.

"Also destroyed were a number of power generators that were lighting up the cave where the escapee had taken shelter. Speaking on condition of anonymity, our sources say officials only this morning determined Underwood was not still in the cave and now theorize he got away in the few minutes after the shooting and before additional lighting could be set up.

World Information News Network
"Early Evening News Hour"
June 16

Two days of struggling progress brought the fugitive in the late afternoon to the banks of a swift flowing creek. The stream ran in a torrent down a heavily wooded slope that intersected with a neighboring mountain in a steeply sided, v-shaped valley. Over the shoulder of the ridge that rose precipitously on his right was a pass to the east. Once through, he could turn due north and start putting a lot of miles between himself and the group of law enforcement officers.

The forest here, mostly older stands of tall pines and spreading fir trees, provided abundant cover for the fugitive who was determined to never let himself be caught in an open space again. The many small, shallow streams supplied water for him and gave him places to wade up or downstream to further conceal his trail.

On the bad side, old forests have thick brush built up over many years of growth and it was hard to push his way through at times. This wilderness was a maze of tree trunks, some of them blowdowns and others the decaying wrecks of the aged trees lying about as obstacles

Wearily, his injured side protesting too much to ignore any longer, Miles knelt in the shallows to take a long drink and refill his canteen. He moved back into the brush when he finished, away from the water and well hidden. He let himself stay only a few minutes before resuming the march to the east, struggling up the ridgeline.

Hardly more than an hour later, he stopped inside a screen of trees and brush a yard or so short of a long, comparatively narrow clearing in the forest. Swaying drunkenly, his muscles trembling with weariness, he reluctantly came to the decision a long rest was necessary before he could go on. He slid the M-4 off his shoulder and propped it against a tall pine. Dropping the rucksack beside a thick log, he slumped to the ground and leaned back to rest. His breath was quick and shallow.

He hurt. He could only dimly recall a bright, sparkling time when there hadn't been pain to fill his universe. It clouded his mind now, making it hard stay alert. It was tough to keep himself oriented ... twice he'd found himself walking in a big circle through the woods, losing time and invaluable distance from his pursuers. He stifled a groan, hazily remembering he couldn't afford to make a noise that might reveal his presence to someone who might be nearby. He rested, waiting for the hurting to ease enough for him to move on.

United States Marshal David Owens had a monumental headache. Thirty-six hours and more after Underwood shot out three generators supplying light to the force besieging the fugitive in his cave, the old door to the stone building had opened in the freshening breeze, slammed against the inside wall and wedged itself open.

From the line of sight he had from beside the river, he couldn't see much inside the structure up there, but Owens knew the fugitive was no longer trapped in the cavern above the river. He went through the motions of confirming the escape, but his mind was already trying to deal with what came next.

He organized a mixed assault force of a dozen ATF agents, Deputy U.S. Marshals, and FBI agents armed with Heckler and Koch submachine guns. Most of them had served on SWAT teams at one time or another. Supported by sharpshooters on this side of the river, he had the team cross the stream well to the south and work their way north along the cliff.

When they were ready, Owens watched as they ran up the rocky incline and took cover just below the lip of the cavern. Their chests heaving in the thin air, they stayed where they were for a long while. After catching their breath, two of them leaped over the crest and raced toward the stone structure. They slammed their backs against the wall, pointing their weapons at the one window they could see.

Owens sauntered from the protection of the barricades he'd had constructed to watch the action. He snorted at suggestions he should protect himself, already knowing what others were just beginning to suspect.

A couple of concussion grenades were tossed inside and a tightly packed line of closely packed officers made a screaming, running entry ... and it was all over. The detonations of the grenades, their noise muffled to those across the river by the thickness of the rock walls, still held enough power to jar the door loose from whatever had jammed it open and it began to swing shut.

In a dimness compounded by smoke, tear gas, and the dust aroused by the flash-bang grenades, a dark shape seemed to slip from beside the wall and lunge into the interior of the room. Only one deputy saw the movement.

He turned swiftly and shot into the indistinct form, killing the ragged garment very convincingly but sending a dozen 9mm rounds ricocheting around the confines of the stone building in the process. Three FBI agents ... the only three in the impromptu SWAT team ... were wounded, one of them critically.

They'd all been evacuated out of the valley by chopper and were probably arriving at a hospital in Colorado Springs right about now. Marshal Owens envied them. They were safely away and out of this sorry mess.

He wasn't though. For his sins, whatever they had been, he would have to stay and deal with the fallout. Knowing how things would proceed inside the Washington D.C. Beltway, he fully expected to have to explain to someone, if only the various news services, how it was that only FBI agents had been wounded.

He ordered everyone out of the stone building and had the door closed against the elements. Someone in Washington might want to have a forensics team go over the one-room structure as part of an investigation of the shooting and the scene had to be preserved.

Besides, no one had reported killing a snake over there and that meant the one he'd seen was still around somewhere. He didn't want anyone bit by the thing. He restricted his people to this side of the river, not that many were inclined to wade across the icy stream.

Sighing, he took the satellite phone from a helpful aide and punched in the number for the Deputy Attorney General. He started pacing while he waited for the connection to be completed. This was shaping up to be another long day in a seemingly never-ending string of long days.

Kehoe dug in his heels, leaning back against the slope as he made his way, quartering down across the ridge toward the sounds of a river. Gravity was pulling him down faster than he wanted to go; his stride was more a series of jogging leaps than a controlled walk. The landings jolted his entire body and added to the ache he already making burning knots of his knees.

He'd found no sign of the firing that had interrupted his sleep the night before last. He'd been reduced to moving slowly west, zigzagging across the landscape in an effort to locate the origin of the shooting. A small cascade of loose pine needles and seed cones preceded him down the hill and he was forced to increase his pace still more. The grade eased near the stream and his half-run eased to a walk.

He made a half turn to the right and worked his way out of the dense growth of trees into an open area--probably an old burn off--that seemed to lead down to the stream. He let the sling to his AR-15 rifle slip off his shoulder. The weapon was the civilian version of the Army's M-16, a comfortable old friend to the retired officer. His right hand found the pistol grip and his left slid into position on the barrel's hand guard, the movement fluid and natural from years of experience with the weapon.

Holding the rifle at a forty-five degree angle across his chest, he looked briefly up the slope to his left. Seeing nothing of any interest up that way, his head swiveled around to check his right front. He froze, his attention attracted by movement.

Kehoe saw a man bending over in the brush, his movements slow and labored. The ex-Special Forces officer tucked the rifle stock between his side and elbow. He turned to face the threat as he brought the muzzle down and on target.

His eyes on the rucksack he was about to pick up, Miles heard a tiny noise from across the way and he aborted the attempt to reach the pack. Moving only his head, he looked up to find a tall figure across the long, narrow clearing holding a rifle on him. Miles straightened slowly, his hands empty. He didn't need to glance at the M-4A1 carbine he'd propped against the tree trunk. Only a step from the tree, he might as well have been a football field's length away.

The amygdalae are fingernail-sized, almond shaped structures in the brain that respond to perceived danger to the individual. Their function is primitive, part of the "fight or flight" reflex. The two small bits of grey matter have neural connections to most areas of the brain so they can quickly interpret threats detected by the senses and then formulate a response designed to ensure survival.

Miles didn't know of the tiny organs' existence, but he felt his body respond when his kicked in to do their best to keep him alive. Adrenalin and other hormones were dumped into his blood stream by the amygdala and for the first time in two days there was no pain from the wound in his left side or the bad bruise high on his back.

His eyesight sharpened, his ears caught the smallest of sounds, and when his hand came to rest on his pistol belt, it seemed he could feel every minuscule grain in the leather. His heart quickened ... the blood sang in his ears as he watched the armed stranger across the way. His right hand slipped imperceptibly across his belly until the tips of his fingers were only a couple of inches from the butt of his revolver.

"Move away from the rifle," instructed the stranger. He pointed the gun's muzzle slightly to his right and then quickly back to indicate the direction Underwood should move. Miles sidestepped slowly left, out of the entangling brush and a little downhill. He used the body movement to disguise his fingers inching closer to his pistol. He looked at the rifleman for a space without speaking.

The bail agent recognized the fugitive from photographs he'd studied in newspaper and magazine articles about the man. None of them showed the whole picture though. They showed his physical appearance adequately but they didn't come close to capturing the impact the man had in person.

In person, Kehoe found Underwood to be a little more than average in height and heavy shoulders and chest. The man balanced himself easily, his right knee flexed slightly against the uphill slope and his left leg straightened. A rag, stained a dark red, above his left hip told the ex-special forces officer that Underwood had been involved in the shooting the other night. It gave Underwood a certain desperate, malevolent appearance.

He saw Underwood's pistol holstered on the left side of his belly. It was there, conveniently positioned for a cross-body draw but it didn't really register. Kehoe ignored it. He held a powerful rifle on the man, the safety off and ready to be fired. He'd spent twenty-seven years in the Army, much of it in the field and the rifle was as much a part of him as his close-cropped hair. Pistols were a last ditch weapon, hardly worth considering in combat and he was twenty-five yards away; pistols were rarely used over nine yards. Underwood might as well have been unarmed so far as Kehoe was concerned ... but he wasn't. As he considered this, Kehoe realized it might be the answer to a problem he'd been trying to get his mind around.

He'd been wondering the past twenty-four hours what he would do when he found Underwood. This terrain was rough ... worse than rough. Some of it was completely impassible. Much of his time had been spent struggling up one side of many a ridge and down the other.

With the terrain cut by both broad and narrow ravines made by spring runoffs ... with thick brush and mazes of fallen trees in the forests alternating with barren slopes ... progress across the mountains was slow and difficult even with both hands free. A prisoner with his hands bound was going to make hiking back through it that much slower.

Now, looking at the man, he saw that there would always be a chance Underwood could turn on him. A slip or a stumble would be all that was needed. Kehoe suddenly doubted his ability to get Underwood back to a jail cell in Texas ... but maybe he didn't have to. He looked around, his eyes moving in small arcs, as he watched and listened for other men. He looked at Underwood for a long minute. He licked his lips.

There was a thing ... an aura about a man meeting another man in a desperate fight and triumphing. If Underwood should fall now, Kehoe would have bested him and Kehoe would be seen in a far different light from just another bail bondsman.

Though obviously badly hurt and worn down by travel, the fugitive began to change in the bounty hunter's eyes. In a moment, Underwood wasn't a wounded man needing help. Instead, the escaped prisoner was just a dark silhouette, a target standing on the other side of the clearing. Underwood's facial features dissolved into blankness; his tired, red-rimmed eyes disappeared as Kehoe began to concentrate on the middle of the other man's mass.

"You almost got away again, didn't you?" Kehoe challenged Miles, his voice rough and belligerent in the grip of unaccustomed dark emotions. "But they got lead into you this time, huh?"

Kehoe looked behind Underwood, looking again for a search party that might not be that far away. His glance came back to Underwood and abruptly he made up his mind. Miles saw decision spread over the man's face and noted the effect on the other's stance.

"We're all by ourselves out here, Underwood," observed Kehoe softly. He hesitated, licking suddenly dry lips as he searched for the words. "Ya know, we all gotta do what we gotta do, you know?" he said. There was a faint tinge of plaintiveness in his voice. "This is just between you and me."

"Of course," Miles replied, speaking for the first time. Stepping quickly to his left, he palmed the heavy pistol on his belt and fired as it came level. His reactions had always been fast and his hand was close to the pistol.

The move caught Kehoe by surprise. He'd expected Underwood to protest ... to beg for his life.

When the wounded man began to speak, Kehoe hesitated, waiting to hear what he would say. It was time lost that could never be retrieved.

Kehoe's finger had been alongside the receiver for safety. It was something taught to all infantrymen. He could no more have walked the wilderness with his finger on the trigger than he could have flown over that same forest.

It took a small, nearly immeasurable amount of time for him to slip his finger into the trigger guard and begin to pull the trigger. From start to finish, once he realized Underwood was pulling a gun on him, it took a tiny increment of time to fire but the minuscule delays still cost him badly. Even so, he got off the first round, but he had to sacrifice accuracy to do it.

Seeing Underwood's hand rising fast, Kehoe hurried and jerked the trigger to fire a round in the direction of the fugitive. It kicked dirt to the fugitive's right and whipped off into the distance. The retired Army officer felt a blow on his lower right ribcage--then a searing pain there--but it didn't stop him from shooting again. He pulled the trigger on the semi-automatic rifle three times, his finger moving as quickly as it could.

Miles continued to step sideways, his motion slightly downhill because of the slope. He saw the stranger's movements were hampered by the big backpack he wore--the butt of the rifle was pushed against it, making it just that much more difficult for the man to correct his aim to the right. A flicker of angry frustration, accompanied by a rising desperation, crossed the other man's face.

Miles heard more bullets rocketing past to his right as he dodged left, the thwack of the nearly supersonic slugs whined away behind him. His arm continued to rise, the elbow bent only slightly now as he thumbed back the hammer and squeezed the trigger again.

A second round smashed into Kehoe's body, jolting him badly. This one hit him in the center of his chest and he sensed something terrible was happening. A sudden desperation quickened his motion. He twisted his body around to bring the muzzle of the AR-15 into better alignment and shot once more. He pulled the trigger again and then twice more as fast as he could, trying to suppress the escaped fugitive's fire.

Miles slipped in last year's pine needles. Without warning, his left leg slid out to his side and abruptly, he was falling. He ignored the fall except to thrust out his left hand to catch himself, trying to get off another round while he still could. With his right arm fully extended now, his finger caressed the trigger, squeezing gently until the hammer slipped off the sear and sent the firing pin forward to strike the base of the cartridge in the cylinder.

Even as the loud crack of the pistol sounded in his ears, Miles felt something slam into the side of his head. He sagged, a puppet with its strings cut. His left arm collapsed and his chest hit the ground, jarring the wound in his side.

Miles tried to catch his breath while he searched for an enemy hidden suddenly in a foggy red haze. He fought a weakness that spread throughout his body. He tried to bring the pistol back up to a shooting position but he knew he was moving too slowly.

He found the other man on his knees, the muzzle of the rifle digging into the soil and out of line with Miles' body. The rifle fell from the stranger's hands, the stock scattering old pine needles and making an audible thump as it hit the ground.

Abandoning his effort to keep his pistol lined up on target, Miles dropped the fist holding the weapon to the ground and watched as the other man tore at his shirt, ripping the buttons off to find out how badly he was hurt.

His chin tucked hard against his chest so he could see, Kehoe stared at the two small holes in the center of his chest. Bright crimson began to flow from both but the welling of blood was brief. The last two rounds had smashed into the center of his chest and it took only a few beats for his heart to destroy itself. Kehoe looked up to stare at Miles as the fugitive struggled to get to his feet.

"No," Kehoe protested, his voice husky and strained. "This isn't..."

His strength left him and he fell forward. He looked wonderingly at a stray pinecone a few inches in front of his eyes. The cone slipped down a dark tunnel until was impossibly far away. He was cold and couldn't feel his fingers any more. There was only darkness.

Miles saw the man's eyes lose their focus and become fixed. The man's hoarse breathing stopped and air left the lungs in a lengthy hiss. The sharp odor of excrement and urine filled the air as the stranger's sphincter muscle and bladder gave way. The left arm jerked and both legs trembled as nerve endings fired, the neurons trying to send messages to a brain that could no longer receive them.

Concentrating on each movement, Miles got his knees under him but could rise no further. Life saving adrenalin was leaching quickly out of his system. It had no effect now. He hurt in many places but the pain was most severe on the upper right side of his head. He looked at the body a few yards away. Except for brown hair stirred by the breeze, the strange man did not move.

"Who the hell are you?" he whispered to the corpse. "And why'd you come after me?" The sun was hot on the back of his neck. It felt good. The loss of blood had made him sensitive to the chill lately and he appreciated the warmth.

"If you're going to kill a man," he said irritably, mumbling to the body over against the trees, "don't be talking so much. Just do it." Come to think of it, there were a number of things he wanted to get off his chest and he'd do that very thing ... just as soon as he caught his breath.

His head hurt badly, the pain a pulsing, bloated monster that threatened to consume him. He stopped, confused. What had been a clearing lit by a brilliant afternoon sun was a ghostly meadow illuminated by a moon shining through the treetops. It was cold.

He was stretched out, belly down on the bare ground without his parka. The vision through his right eye was fuzzy, badly blurred. That bothered him more than the pain. He struggled to sit up.

It took a while. Finally managing to get to his feet, Miles stumbled drunkenly toward the man who'd done his best to kill him. He stooped carefully. He wanted to look at the man's face and pulled at an arm to turn him face up, but the cold night air had accelerated the body's advancement into rigor. The corpse was rigid, its arms and legs frozen into the indignity of sudden and violent death.

In his weakness, Miles couldn't move the body at all. Miles didn't have a clear view of the stranger's features but, from what he could see, he didn't think he had ever met the guy. Too dizzy to stand any longer, Miles dropped heavily to the ground beside the body.

Detached, he strained to recall the stranger as he'd seen him across the small clearing in the forest. There'd been no badge on his chest, the man had never said he was any kind of policeman, and there hadn't been anything on his jacket to indicate he was a member of any of the law enforcement agencies. There was nothing to explain why the man had made the decision to kill Miles.

Monumentally weary, Miles struggled to his feet and tried to figure out where his rucksack was. He'd been ... over there somewhere. His memory was an insubstantial thing, flickering on and off without warning. After a few minutes frustrating search, he found the backpack a few yards downhill and across the clearing. With his right eye closed--he could see nothing but indistinct shapes through it anyway--he staggered to the tree against which his rifle was propped. Clutching at the trunk, he lowered himself carefully to the ground.