Chapter 16

"We begin this evening with a request from the U.S. Forestry Service and the Colorado State Police. They are asking for your help in locating retired Army Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel Harry Kehoe. Kehoe told relatives he was going hunting in the Rocky Mountains west of Salida, Colorado on or about 15 June and he hasn't been seen since.

"A black SUV belonging to Mr. Kehoe was found three days ago parked at the end of an access road leading into the San Juan National Forest but there was no sign of Kehoe. If you have seen Harry Kehoe or know where he is, please call the Colorado State Police hotline at the number shown at the bottom of the screen." The anchorman paused to collect himself and swiveled his body minutely to face the camera directly.

"World Information News Network, our parent company, is reporting the Justice Department has spent more than one-hundred and forty-three million dollars in an attempt to apprehend fugitive Miles Underwood but they are no closer to that goal tonight than they were when they started.

"Information obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests shows the administration has already poured vast amounts of taxpayer money into the effort to capture Underwood and it appears likely the cost is likely to mushroom in the near future with the addition of dozens of additional law enforcement officers to the two hundred already hunting for Underwood."

KSPG Channel Four
"Late News Wrap Up"
Jul 23

The encampment settled back into a familiar routine. For a few days after Miles' declaration of war, it had buzzed busily but the high level of activity wasn't sustainable. With many officers becoming exhausted, there had been almost no patrolling today. Only one helicopter swung in lazy figure eights over the forest.

The clanging sound of an iron triangle being struck energetically announced the noon hour. The food was prepared and served by civilian contractors and the chief cook liked to pretend he was on a ranch bringing in the 'hands' for their meals. Because he was a damn good cook, the camp commander and everyone else put up with the jarring racket three times a day. Miles idly watched the sudden activity across the parade ground in the encampment below.

Miles set out his own lunch on top of the camouflaged rucksack, and settled back against a stump to enjoy the meal. Below, some of the personnel straggled over to the food tent. When they finished, they dispersed throughout the compound, apparently for mid-day siestas. One group huddled near the food tent and then broke out into a football formation.

Miles watched through his field glasses as a tall officer made a professional quality pass to a companion speeding across the parade ground. The ball was intercepted and returned by a skinny young man who skipped around in a victory dance before spiking the ball at the quarterback's feet.

Sighing, Miles put the binoculars down to retrieve the chunk of meat he'd been chewing on before he was distracted. He couldn't find it at first. It had fallen from the pack onto the patch of delicately flowered chickweed growing in the shade. He dusted it off and bit off another section, chewing steadily as he reviewed his options for causing mayhem and misery to the football players and the other officers below.

For his next step, he needed something he was pretty sure was still in the stone house--something that hadn't been mentioned on the news broadcasts Linda had relayed to him and Cal. He just wasn't sure the time was right to retrieve it.

Two days later, Miles decided to take advantage of the decreased surveillance and slipped north, deep into the valley he'd called home for more than a year. Finding a hiding place on Needle Mountain well before dawn, he watched the old stone house across the valley from the lower slopes of the eastern mountain ridge for most of the day.

There was no foot traffic and no helicopters disturbed the quiet. At sundown, he scrambled down to the valley floor and made his way to a point near the river ford he'd used so many times.

Afraid to cross the open space between the trees and the river directly across the ford from the cavern, he delayed until full dark. He moved cautiously. If he was discovered working his way back up the rocky slope, he would be truly trapped. What had worked the first time to escape could not possibly work again. This time he would be starved into surrender. But he needed something from the cave. It might still be there and if it was ... well, it was worth the gamble.

His jaw clinched tight, he moved downstream to a place where the trees came nearly to the river's edge and slipped in with only the smallest of splashes to mark his progress. Walking and crawling along the bottom of the stream, swimming where the current had cut deeper trenches, he moved at a diagonal upstream. Lifting his nose clear of the water only to breathe, he slowly made his way across.

He pulled himself up the other bank into the darkness offered by the heavy brush and trees. He lay flat, trying to control his breathing while he listened for unnatural sound ... but there was nothing he couldn't attribute to nocturnal creatures scurrying about on their nightly business. Though his heart continued to pound with the tension, he gradually calmed himself.

Rising to a crouch, he worked his way close to the cliff wall and followed it around the point until he was below and just north of the cavern. He sank to one knee and listened again. This was not a good place. Had he been fully of the People, he would have marked it taboo. The last time he'd been here, he'd been bleeding badly and already weakened by shock and loss of blood.

When a cloud obscured the moon, he shook off the bad memories. Taking a deep breath, he got to his feet and ran up across the slope toward the south corner of the cavern. Once there, he scrambled up onto the ledge and he ran back to his right, racing for the cover of the stone building.

He vaulted the wall around the tiny courtyard and threw himself to the ground. Switching ends convulsively, he peeked over the wall while he willed a pounding heart to slow. He tried to look in all directions all at the same time, certain there was a pursuer out there somewhere. If only he could see better...

As the cloud passed, the moonlit river and expanse of ground on the other side of the water were exposed in stark shades of gray and black. There was no movement save the steady flow of the stream--no sound but the gurgle of rolling water. Without rising to reveal himself to an unseen watcher, he crawled through the open door of the house and sat with his back against the front wall. He rested.

When his eyes adjusted to the deeper darkness of the cabin, he felt his way to the northeast corner, ducking as he passed the open space where one of the windows had been. He found Zeb's old bearskin coat and was bundling it up to take with him when his fingers found a number of holes in the old garment. Annoyed, he tossed it aside, wondering what had happened to it.

The fur blanket he'd made from the grizzly he'd killed last summer was under the heavy table. The table was itself thrown halfway across the room for some reason. The robe seemed to be whole. Folding the voluminous mass of fur as best he could, he dropped it beside the doorway.

The opening he'd hacked in the north wall was barely visible in the gloom. Walking toward it, he stumbled over one of the used tear gas canisters thrown inside by the assault team a few weeks earlier. Sent flying, it smacked into the far wall with a horrendous metallic crash that seemed loud enough to wake the sick officers miles to the south. He stopped dead, torn between rushing back out of the cavern and an equally urgent need to retrieve what he'd come for.

Zeb came inside from his listening post at the far end of the cavern wondering what the tinkling sound had been. Disbelieving at first, Miles decided the noise couldn't have been heard far beyond the walls of the building. He hoped.

Reorienting himself, he crawled through the opening in the wall and into the small space between the adobe wall and the living rock of the cavern. Here, there was not even a single ray of moonlight to reflect from the clouds or river below and penetrate the inky darkness. Deciding to take the risk, Miles pulled out a small plastic cigarette lighter--this one was a transparent blue--and flicked down on the ignition tab.

The rasping sound of the rotor raking against the flint was loud in the confined space and when the flame was lit, it was intolerably bright. He cupped his left hand around the flickering light, shielding it as much as possible from the front of the cave. He worked quickly to shorten his exposure to outside observation.

Crawling beside the building wall toward the front, he found the heavy Barrett sniper rifle lying where he'd tossed it weeks earlier and a hurried examination showed no apparent damage. The partially full ammunition magazine was still inserted in the receiver and he held the lighter close to make sure the weapon was on safe.

He had to search for the spare magazines. Two he found quickly against the building wall but the other had fallen into a crack in the cavern's rock floor and was nearly invisible. He spent a long three or four minutes and any number of mumbled curses freeing it. The lighter had grown increasingly hotter ... it was too hot now and he let his cramped thumb slip off the tab. The darkness was all that much deeper when the flame was extinguished.

Working by touch, he examined the rifle again but could find no nicks in the barrel or stock of the Barrett rifle. The magazine seemed to have survived as well. Designed for use by soldiers in the field, the equipment was tough--built for abuse.

He could see a glow at the front of the wall as reflected moonlight came through the break he'd made in Stone House's wall. The light galvanized him into action. Putting the ammo clips in a pocket, he dragged the weapon by its sling into the house. With the moon shining brightly through the open door, it seemed much brighter inside little stone structure this time.

U.S. Marshal Owens stabbed the off button and held it down to turn off the battery power to the satellite phone. The man on the other end had already broken the connection after delivering a cold, harsh order to have a helicopter at Pueblo tomorrow morning. Owens wasn't sure which was worse--the formally worded order or the shrilly screamed imprecations that had preceded it.

He looked around, making aborted motions to gather his belongings together before giving in to the need for rest. He'd have to do the gathering early in the morning though, because there would be just this one additional night in the tent.

It was the only private sleeping place in the entire camp and Deputy Attorney General Carl Brady would sleep here tomorrow night.

A weapon left unused is valueless, and Miles hadn't taken the risk of returning to the confined space of the valley for nothing. It remained only to determine the best use for the massive sniper rifle. He explained to Zeb that he was going to announce his return to the conflict with a big bang. The old mountain man, unimpressed with Miles' wit, allowed as how talk sure was cheap these days. He'd wait and see.

Careful reconnaissance showed the compound had been reinforced with more officers. Additional tents had been erected anywhere there was space, marring the tidiness of the initial setup. It seemed there were more packed into each sleeping tent also. At a guess, he was facing twice as many men and women as he had at first and they were patrolling aggressively over an even greater territory than before.

There were still many ways he could attack the camp though, and he wasn't going to wait very long before he made use of one. This was war.

"We're right here," said the tall U.S. Marshal. He pointed to a small black square on the National Geodetic Survey map. "While we stay here, we prevent Underwood from getting back to what we think he considers his home in the valley north of our position.

"That's the only explanation we can come up with to explain why he's making no attempt to leave this part of the mountains. With us here, we also block access to the mountain passes to the east. That leaves Underwood limited to this region and the San dryer Juan Mountains to the south." His hand swept across a region of wilderness that seemed small on the map but actually encompassed several thousand square miles, most of it designated as wilderness.

"Every morning, we put groups of officers on all established trails in the region. They set up checkpoints and actively walk the primary trails looking for tracks and anything else we can find that might lead us to the fugitive. These are where today's primary checkpoints are." As he spoke, he extended the tip of a collapsible pointer to indicate a half-dozen red ticks on the map and then waved it over the entire region to show his listeners there were many more sites left unmarked.

"And still you haven't found a trace of the man?" The voice was skeptical, vaguely derisive. Deputy Attorney General of the United States Carl Brady was one of the most senior officials in the government and he didn't hesitate to interrupt the marshal whenever he felt the urge. There were none here who could chastise him.

"Well, sir," returned Owens. "A team of over two hundred and fifty federal officers couldn't find Eric Rudolph back in the mid-nineties either. You'll recall he was the guy who blew up those abortion clinics and set off the bomb at the Olympic park in Atlanta back then. When he escaped into the Smokey Mountains, for all practical purposes, he disappeared. And the terrain out here is one hell of a lot worse than back there."

Owens was having difficulty hanging on to the ragged edges of his temper and it showed. The shouting match he and Brady had engaged in an hour ago was too recent and his nerves too raw to take very much more abuse. That his thirty-four year career was down the tubes was certain but he'd done nothing to justify the scorn and ridicule Brady had thrown at him.

"Rudolph would still be free as a bird if he hadn't come down into a little town in North Carolina and got caught by some rookie cop," he continued. The effort to control his voice was reflected in his flushed features.

"Underwood isn't about to get caught that way. You remember we thought at one time he had a relationship with a woman with a trucking business way north of here. But the best we can tell now, he's perfectly happy staying up here in the high mountains and it doesn't appear he's going to leave any time soon." He modified his tone a touch and waved an arm at the mountain vista visible through the open doorway of the headquarters tent.

"Sir, you can see for yourself what it's like out here. The forests are dense, even the grass grows shoulder high in some places, you need a bull dozer to get through some of the brush and a lot of the terrain is more vertical than it is level.

"Where there aren't mountains, there are hills and valleys, with canyons, gullies, and ravines everywhere in between. Some of them are dry as a bone at the bottom and some aren't. A lot of them are so filled with bushes and young trees you don't know they're there until you fall into them. There are frost heaves just made to stumble over and depressions to fall in you can't see for the ground cover.

"You can't take ten steps out here without having to climb over a fallen tree, detour around a thicket of heavy brush or make your way across some kind of gap or a creek. If you go above the timberline, you've got bare stretches of naked stone that are slippery as hell in the wet and rocks the size of small marbles all the way up to apartment building sized boulders falling down the slopes. Every time a bit of dust or a rockslide comes down, we have to go make sure it was natural and not Underwood.

"Between rocks and rivers ... fallen tree trunks and ... and those talus slopes, we've had four men break their ankles ... nine more have broken legs, ribs or worse and nobody's keeping track of lesser sprains, cuts, scrapes, and bruises."

Owens shook his head. It sounded much worse laid out for detailed examination. He was depressing himself. He blinked and shook himself to focus his attention back on the update he was giving the high-ranking official--his boss. He turned to face the man directly.

"Sir, the way it is ... Underwood could be behind a fold--no, that's not right--he could be behind any or maybe I should say every fold ... in the landscape or just on the other side of some bushes and he'd be so nearly invisible as makes no difference.

"Even the open meadows out here have deep grasses along with little rises and hollows in the ground where a man can conceal himself. We learned all these lessons hunting Rudolph years ago and we're learning them again trying to find Underwood."

He fell silent, still looking at the mountains framed by the tent poles. Implacable and unmoving, the immense slopes rising to the jagged peaks were strangely comforting. The rocky ridges had been there before there was a written history and would be there just as they were now until the sun quit shining.

"Yes ... well, no one's saying your people haven't been doing everything they can," Brady remarked. His voice was flat with no hint of approval. In truth, and very reluctantly, he had been impressed by the energy of the officers from the various federal, state, and local agencies.

But the decision had already been made in Washington to supersede the marshal in command. It wouldn't do to show the marshal any support, but it was equally impossible to bring the man to task as he would have liked to do. That would alienate the professional law enforcement officers gathered together to find the fugitive and Brady was far too smart a political creature to do that.

Then too, the gigantic mountains had strongly affected Brady as he flew in on the helicopter ride to get here. Once on the ground, he'd been awed even more by the massiveness of the mountains on every side. They were enough to humble the strongest man.

He was used to seeing buildings, streets and cars, and crowds of people. Nothing here was familiar. This was all strange and, if he'd let it, it would be humbling. He cleared his throat, bringing himself back to the problem at hand. He searched for something to say that would demonstrate his leadership.

"But, marshal," he said, speaking slowly. It was important to not embarrass himself in the company of all these people so much more experienced in the wilderness. "Isn't this bastard doing something very like what Rudolph did? I mean ... you said earlier he was getting into the supplies you've had flown out here, right?" Brady saw he had Owens's attention and knew he was on the right track. He continued more firmly. "Can't we trap him when he comes in the next time?"

"Well ... yes, sir, we can certainly try to," replied Owens. "In fact, we've had a team of officers on guard around the supply tents every night since we found out he was stealing from us." Mildly surprised Brady had identified a very real opportunity, Owens went on more carefully than before.

"The problem, sir, is that we don't know if Underwood will try it again ... and if he does ... when he'll do it. If he's smart, he won't come anywhere close to those tents again." The marshal frowned in sudden contemplation. "And everything we've got on this guy says he's damn smart ... except for one thing. He's not running any more. He's sticking around, trying to fight us. Told some of my officers he wasn't running from something he didn't do and warned us off."

Owens stopped speaking to look speculatively at Brady for a moment. Brady held a high position in the administration but the little man was clearly uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. Brady shook his head irritably, refusing to meet Owens' eyes.

"That's not our concern, Marshal," he retorted. "What we have to do is get this bastard ... and soon," he added. "I don't want to be screwing around out here any longer than I absolutely have to." He slapped the camp table and the terrain map almost slid off. A man cleared his throat in the back of the tent and took a step forward to make sure the two leaders noticed him.

"Yes?" Brady had noted the stocky man in forest BDUs when he'd come in but hadn't paid any more attention to him.

"Sir, I'm Lieutenant Ford, Colorado Army National Guard. Governor Parsons sent us up here to help out wherever we could. I've got part of a platoon with me ... twenty-odd soldiers, sir." He was silent for a moment as everyone attending the briefing absorbed the information. His eyes met those of Marshal Owens but the federal law enforcement officer didn't speak.

"Our battalion got back from Afghanistan six months ago, sir," remarked the lieutenant. "We saw some action up by the border with Pakistan, trying to keep infiltrators from getting in from the mountains there ... well, we got pretty good setting up ambushes." There was silence in the tent for a long moment. More than one of the police officers tensed, thinking the young Army lieutenant was about to criticize their handling of the daily patrols and checkpoints.

"What'd you have in mind," asked Owens mildly. He motioned the lieutenant closer. Brady's eyes narrowed but he said nothing. For the moment, he let Owens take the lead.

"Well, sir," Ford replied. "I thought that me and my boys might set up a trap for this guy ... somewhere around the supply tents. We don't know when he'll try to get more food but it's been, what ... four or five days since he took the last stuff?" Owens nodded.

"Seems to me he'll be needing more right about now," continued the Army officer, getting comfortable with his subject. "We can set up outside the perimeter of the camp ... back behind the tents ... and we'll be able to take him pretty easily, I think."

The young officer sounded confident. He certainly looked the part, Owens thought. The very picture of a professional soldier ... but then, so was Underwood. Owens cleared his throat and looked away from the lieutenant.

"That sounds like a plan to me," exclaimed the Deputy Attorney General. "You set that up, okay? Work with Marshal Owens..." His voice trailed off, his interest turning to his empty stomach. It had been a long time since lunch and he really wanted this meeting to be over with as soon as possible. He turned to Owens.

"Okay, Marshal?" he asked. Owens nodded without speaking. His jaws had snapped shut when Brady interrupted and they were clamped too tightly now to talk.

He'd been about to point out indifferently trained Taliban irregulars were a far cry from the trained infantryman and woodsman they were chasing, but it was a moot point now. The decision had been made. He turned and walked away before he said something he'd regret.

That started a general exodus from the tent, most of them moving with Brady toward the food tent. They had no desire to be seen associating with Marshal Owens. His star was declining quickly.

Hauling the big Barrett sniper rifle through the woods, valleys, and hills from his campsite below the southwestern corner of the mesa took most of the afternoon. He'd had to avoid a fair number of searchers briskly marching up and down most of the trails.

They were a lot more active today, for some reason, but they were still too loud. Their radios blared, equipment rattled, and voices echoed through the forest. They weren't that difficult to avoid, but it made for slow and careful movement. The patrols stayed with their normal pattern though. When the day progressed into the late afternoon, all the patrols turned around and headed back to camp.

Just before dusk, Miles found a hiding place near the encampment on the western face of a low hill where a windstorm had flattened four or five acres of mixed pines and aspens. The trees had been blown about randomly, branches and tree trunks intertwining in complex patterns. The tangled mass was hard to get through and impossible to do so quietly. No one could come up on him unexpectedly.

Deep inside a hollow made when the roots of a huge tree had been ripped out of the ground, and huddled under underneath several interlaced layers of tree branches, Miles cleaned the rifle as best he could while he waited for the night.

He had determined he was only going to use the ammunition in three of the clips--twenty-six rounds in all. It would leave him one full magazine of ten rounds consisting of mixed armor piercing and incendiary cartridges.

After nightfall, he made his way out of the massive blowdown and carried the heavy weapon to a rise south and a tad east of the camp. The distinguishing characteristic of the low hill was a group of tall cottonwoods with thick trunks and plenty of branches.

Miles selected a tree with limbs arranged closely enough to make it an easy climb. He didn't like climbing trees and seldom did--he wasn't very good at it either. Any climb he made of his own free will needed to be easy ... and this one was.

Pressing close to the three-foot trunk to merge his silhouette with the tree, he rested and enjoyed the night sky for another hour while he waited for the moon to rise. There was no sign of anyone moving around outside the camp though there was a slightly increased noise level to the north that indicated something might be happening up there. The sounds died slowly but he noted the direction, marking it as one in which he wasn't going to go tonight.

He rested the barrel of the powerful rifle on a sturdy branch and wrapped a length of climbing rope around the trunk and his waist. Cal had brought the line with him and passed it on to Miles as a replacement for the one Miles had lost.

Miles' was probably still in a crack in the rocks, somewhere east of the valley of the People where Miles had put it after having been shot by the strange gunman. Practically speaking, he mused, it might as well have been on the far side of the moon. There wasn't the slightest chance of finding it.

Shaking himself to bring himself back to the task at hand, Miles eased his body around the tree trunk until he found a good view of the tents in the encampment to the north. He checked ... there were enough gaps between the smaller branches and leaves through which he could fire.

He loosened the rope securing himself to the tree a little. He'd been too enthusiastic about tying himself to the trunk and it was uncomfortable now. From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of something moving off to his left and he froze. Moving slowly, he swiveled his head around until he could make out the object plainly. He relaxed. It was a small group of people moving from the helicopter hardstand down a path and bound for the main camp.

There was a light still burning beside the last chopper to land. He looked through the twelve-power riflescope to see two men horsing a nozzle into the aircraft's refueling valve. The refueling hose was deployed from a central distribution point fed, in turn, by a six-inch pipe from the small "farm" of rubberized fuel bladders further uphill. Four floodlights set on poles about fifteen feet tall lit the pumping station. They weren't especially strong lights, Miles noted idly.

Abruptly, he began to rethink his plan for tonight. Untying himself, he climbed three branches higher to get a better view. He settled himself again, wrapping the rope loosely around himself and the tree trunk once more and tied it off with a slipknot. He peered around the trunk and nodded in satisfaction. From here he had an even better view of the camp. Setting his feet carefully on a limb he found by touch rather than sight, he moved around the circumference of the tree to find he had an acceptable line of sight all the way up the hill to the fuel bladders.

He judged the camp to be a little under six hundred yards off and the supply of aviation fuel seven hundred and fifty, give or take. Crabbing his way behind the bulk of the tree trunk where he couldn't be seen, he held the rifle where the moonlight would shine on it and dialed in a little more elevation and a bit more windage on the sights. The .50 caliber rounds were too heavy for the light breeze to deflect very much, but he had the time to spend on niceties. It was attention to details that made for good marksmanship.

Finished, he placed his feet and stretched his upper body forward along a length of a tree limb running out from the trunk vaguely toward the main camp. He studied the target carefully through the scope while he thought.

His initial plan had been only to destroy the water supply for the camp. However, with the fuel storage dump so clearly vulnerable, there was much more he could accomplish tonight with only a little added effort. If he found he had time to fire at the fuel dump, he would. It was settled.

He could see the water tank on its trailer bed clearly in the lights around the central area of the encampment. He settled himself into a comfortable firing position, tucking the butt of the long weapon into his shoulder and fitting his cheek to the stock. He aimed at the tank and did a series of dry fires, squeezing the trigger until the firing pin snapped uselessly in the chamber. He relaxed, wedged the rifle into a fork between two branches, and leaned back against the ropes for a short rest.