Chapter 5
FIVE
“Come on, Poncho, I know you can,” Ryan coaxed in a singsong voice, nudging his “horse” in the ribs to keep him going.
He’d told the others to carry on to the ATV pickup place without him, since it was clear he’d added an extra hour to the trip.
Poncho’s ears pricked up and he walked faster, his hooves tramping over the grass at an endearingly fast pace, considering his short little legs.
Little guy had heart, Ryan would give him that.
When they crested the next hill, the hunting cabin came into view at last. “Yes,” Ryan groaned, looking forward to stretching his legs and drinking a well-deserved cold beer before starting the next leg of the trip.
Poncho seemed to know the end was near too, because his head came up and he hit an all-time speed record for the trip, his little legs scrambling to eat up the distance to the cabin.
The others were waiting outside with the ATVs when Ryan got there and dismounted.
The wrangler from the stable was there to take Poncho, brush him down, and let him eat for a few minutes before loading him into the trailer for the drive back to the resort.
Ryan patted Poncho’s sweaty neck, feeling surprisingly fond of him after their mountain excursion. Hard to believe he’d carried him all the way up here. “You take care, little fella.”
“Hey, you made good time,” the wrangler said to Ryan with a grin as he took Poncho’s bridle.
“He hit a new gear once he saw the cabin.” He turned to his buddies, who were all grinning at him. “Somebody get me a damn beer.”
“I got you, bro.” Jackson tossed him a cold can from the cooler.
“I’d say you’ve earned that,” Cam said with a grin.
“Damn straight.” He’d be bowlegged for a week after that endurance ride. Ryan sighed and nursed the cold brew while the others strapped their gear to the backs of the ATVs. “Please tell me I get a regular-sized ride this time.”
Wade chuckled and bungee-tied their two-man tent to the back of his vehicle.
“Yeah, you’re good.” He straightened, glancing at the sky.
“Sun’s already starting to sink over the mountains.
We need to get moving.” He looked at Ryan.
“We’re on federal land from here on out.
I checked prior to setting up this little trip. You good to go?”
“Yep.” He drained the beer, stowed the can, and climbed onto his ATV. The moment he started the engine, he grinned. “Oh, hell yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about.” He revved it and cut a sidelong glance at Jackson. “Hey, Thatcher. Wanna race now?”
“You know I do.”
Grinning, Ryan took off toward the mountains. For the next three hours they took turns trying to outmaneuver one another, being guys, and trying to see who could spray the most mud on the others every time they hit a puddle. After back-to-back deployments, he needed this downtime with his buddies.
By the time Wade took the lead and stopped to check his compass, it was nearly sunset. “Here’s good,” he announced, swinging one leg over the center of the ATV to dismount. “We’ll set up camp somewhere around here.”
Together they hunted out a good location.
Ryan had to keep reminding himself he was back home, rather than in the mountains of Afghanistan.
The climate might be different here, but it was still eerily similar to the Hindu Kush in some ways, and his combat instincts wouldn’t shut off.
To his body, he was still back overseas, and every tree and rock could hide either an IED or an enemy fighter.
When he stepped around a large boulder and into a small clearing surrounded by forest, he noticed something familiar glinting on the ground in the dying rays of sunlight. As he got closer, he confirmed that they were spent casings.
Nudging the ground with the toe of his boot, he uncovered more. Someone had made more than a half-assed effort to hide them, but there were a shit ton of them out here.
He glanced up at the surrounding trees and realized with a start that a large stand of pines in the distance was riddled with bullet holes. So much so that in places the dying sunlight streamed through them.
Upon closer inspection, the entire area seemed to be littered with brass casings. “Hey, guys, come check this out.”
Wade, Cam, and Jackson appeared out of the trees behind him a minute later. “What’s up?” Cam asked.
“Whole area’s covered with 7.62s,” he said, holding up a casing. “And then there’s that.” He pointed to the shot-up trees. A few smaller ones were even cut in two.
Turning in a half-circle to take it all in, Jackson let out a low whistle. “Somebody’s been trigger happy recently.”
Wade had been moving away to the southeast. “Campfire here,” he called out from behind a stand of trees blocking him from view. “They covered it but it looks recent. Maybe used in the last couple days.”
“One over here too,” Cam said from Ryan’s right. He used his boot to dig away some of the dirt. “Pretty big. Around eight feet across.”
Ryan continued walking west, scanning the ground. He paused to drag a fallen branch aside and uncovered another fire pit. “Another one here.” Lots more cartridges littered the ground as he dug the surface layer of dirt away. He turned and looked back at Wade. “How well do you know this area?”
Wade lifted a shoulder as he scanned their surroundings. “Not that well.”
“Is this a common campsite, or is there something else going on here? Because that’s a shitload of ammo to waste shooting at trees.” Last thing they needed was to set up camp and bed down with drunk, trigger-happy yahoos around.
Wade nodded, a frown pulling at his eyebrows. “No shit.”
Ryan reviewed the possibilities. People could be stupid. So it could be just a bunch of idiots who had come all the way out here to shoot the hell out of some random trees for no apparent reason.
Or it also could mean something more sinister.
This area was a long way away from anything, so remote it was accessible only by foot, horse—or mutant donkey—or ATV.
Not even a good dirt bike could handle this kind of rugged terrain.
Whoever had been out here before them, it must have taken a hell of a lot of effort for that many people to come here with that amount of firepower.
If someone wanted to hide paramilitary or even terrorist training or other activity, this was a good place to do it. The prickling at his nape reinforced the suspicion.
“Something sure as hell doesn’t feel right.” He examined the ground, bending to point at the dirt. “I count at least five different sets of prints in this area here.” He drew a circle with his arm, indicating an area of about ten yards across.
“More over here,” Cam said to their left.
A slight unease in Ryan’s gut warned him that this so-called “remote” area might not be so secluded after all. Someone might be watching them right now.
“Let’s split up and check it out,” he said, untying his rifle from the back of his ATV. The four of them sectioned off the hillside and spread out to search it, weapons at the ready in case anyone was still lingering around.
Half an hour later they met up again. Ryan shook his head. “Found more prints and more casings.” Not nearly as many as in this area though. “Tracks led to a trail about half a klick that way.” He pointed due west.
“Same,” Jackson said, and the others confirmed the same as well.
The sun was already setting and they hadn’t yet unloaded anything. They needed to make a decision. “You wanna stay here, or keep moving?” Ryan asked Wade. It was his party. His call.
Wade glanced around the clearing. It was the only place in the near vicinity free of rocks and giant tree roots. “I think we’re good. Whoever was out here is long gone and we can report what we found once we get back to the resort.”
“Okay,” Ryan agreed, sweeping his gaze over the surrounding trees. His gut said they were alone, and the telltale prickle at the back of his neck was pretty much gone.
“All right, let’s set up camp,” Wade said, then grinned. “Time to kick back and enjoy my last few hours of bachelorhood in style.”
Eric stared at the monitor in front of him, seething with anger as he tried to make out who exactly was trespassing at the training site—the ultra-remote one that was supposed to be a secret, one that no one else should have ever found.
His sensors had alerted him the moment the strangers had stepped onto his land only minutes before.
Lyle stood next to him, leaning over the desk to take a better look. “Four of ’em.”
“Yeah.” The angle of the camera mounted in the tallest pine tree was too high to give him a good look at their faces, but Eric could see enough, and what he saw wasn’t good.
They were all big men. They all carried rifles. And as they fanned out in a search pattern, they moved with a familiar, military precision that triggered his inner radar. “I want to know who they are and what they’re doing out here.”
“Yes, sir.” Lyle got out his radio to call one of their members, but Eric stopped him with a raised hand, gaze glued to the screen.
“Let’s watch them for a while longer.”
The four men gathered together again to talk for a minute, then began unloading gear from the backs of their ATVs. Two of them put up tents in the clearing while another uncovered one of the fire pits made by Eric’s troops. The fourth appeared to be preparing food for cooking.
Eric clenched his jaw. “You were supposed to sanitize the area.”
Lyle shifted his stance and cleared his throat.
“Things ran later than planned. We didn’t have enough time to do more than cover up what we hadn’t already gathered.
The sun was coming up and I made the call to abandon the area.
I was planning to take a crew back tonight and finish cleaning everything up. ”
He aimed a lethal glare at the man. “Too late. You’ve already risked our exposure.”
Lyle’s face turned red but he didn’t argue. “I’ll fix it. They don’t look worried, and none of them have pulled out a sat phone or anything. Maybe we’re still okay.”
“They saw the casings, and the trees.”
Lyle stared straight ahead at the monitor rather than meet his gaze. “I’ll fix it.”
Damn right you will.
A few minutes later a fire was going inside the circle of stones one of the men had cleared out. All four of them brought out folding chairs and gathered around the campfire, drinking beer as they cooked what looked like steaks over a portable grill.
“They sure don’t look like Feds,” Lyle said.
“They don’t look like ordinary civilians, either.” The image on screen suggested the men were nothing more than a group of hunters setting up camp for the night, with no clue of his presence.
But Eric hadn’t survived this long by being na?ve. For all he knew, they were undercover agents from some government agency, looking for evidence that would lead them to him. He’d been on the Feds’ radar ever since rumors of his activity had first begun to circulate a few years ago.
Hypocritical assholes. They should have protected him, stood up for him when he’d needed them. Instead they’d turned on him and made him an enemy of the very institution that had locked him up for doing what he still believed was the right thing.
They’d never find his hiding spot, even if they put all the clues together and figured out that his militia had trained in the clearing last night.
He’d been here for years without detection and wasn’t about to give himself away now.
All this time he’d been right under the locals’ noses, and no one even realized it.
He straightened and folded his arms across his chest. “We need to take defensive measures.”
Many people would brand him a traitor, or even a domestic terrorist. He didn’t give a shit what others thought.
He was a patriot. He loved his country more than anything, had sworn an oath to defend its constitution and fought and bled to protect it.
Only to discover that the system was corrupt, and the government he’d been so proud to serve had abandoned him.
Turned its back on him in his most dire hour of need to avoid an uncomfortable political situation with the Afghan government.
Fuck. Them.
Soon enough, they’d pay. His followers would carry out attacks he’d planned on government installations all across Montana.
Only a few small attacks at first. Subtle, with a pointed message.
Using explosives and impersonal weapons that could be planted and detonated later, on his command.
Nothing too big or ambitious to start, nothing that would tip his hand and risk his future operations.
Once his scattered network here and in other states joined forces, however. ..
From the proverbial ashes he intended to create, a new era would begin. The true leaders would rise and wipe away the old regime, restoring this great country to the glory his forefathers had intended.
Until that day came, he had to be very, very careful.
He stared at the flickering campfire on screen, his mind whirring. “Send out our two best scouts and tell them to follow these guys. I want to know everything we can find on them. Hopefully they’ll leave the area once the sun comes up, but I’m not taking chances.”
“You got it. What if they don’t leave?”
“Then we do what we have to in order to protect the cause.” Eric watched the four men eating their dinner, certain they had military training. Killing four people was a huge risk, but it might come to that. If so, he had to make them disappear.
For now, he’d wait and see what happened. If they didn’t leave the area come sunup, he would have to do some hunting of his own tomorrow.