Firestorm

"Do you think he'll take the bait?" April asked.

"It sure would make our job a lot easier. Otherwise we spend another night here waiting until he leaves tomorrow so we can search the cabin."

Ten minutes later the GPA tracker app gave off a beep. "Crawford's vehicle is moving again." They both watched as the red dot moved out onto the County road and then headed west on the State Highway.

"Let's get into position. If he's headed to Seattle, we'll have two days to search his place." They headed to the SUV.

At the junction they kept an eye on the dot. Fifteen miles west up the State route, the vehicle turned into a marked Forest Service road and headed north. Karin pulled out the Okanagan National Forest map and found the road. There were five trailheads off that road. The red dot showed as vehicle moved west toward the third lot.

"What do you want to do?" April asked.

"I'm going up there. You search his place while I see if I can catch him before he destroys any evidence."

April didn't like it, this was exactly why Hank sent her out west, to stop Karin from taking too many chances. "Why don't we both go up there?"

"Because this could be our best chance to get in that cabin."

April shook her head. "Then let me follow him and you search the cabin."

"It was my kids he threatened."

April knew it was no use arguing with Karin. She hopped out and started up road as Karin shouted, "good luck" and drove toward the State route.

*****

April jogged down the gravel road leading to the cabin's drive. It was a full half mile and she was winded when she stopped to check again for game cams or booby traps. She didn't find anything until she studied the wooden steps up to the porch. The eight screws that held the second and third steps in place had more sheen than the screws on the first step. April looked under the steps and found the small IED underneath. Too small to kill someone but enough to blow a foot off. Crawford was no fool, April could tell the detonator switch was set so it would require at least a hundred pounds before it engaged. The odds of anything but a large mammal, like an adult human, setting it off was remote. April looked under the stairs and deck again, didn't find another booby trap and stepped past the two trapped steps onto the porch.

April spent a full three minutes examining the door. She decided not to take a chance. She kicked the door open and twisted to her right immediately, if the door was a trigger to any explosive, the thick log walls would most likely protect her. Nothing happened. April entered the cabin.

Chapter Thirteen

While April was entering the cabin, Karin was still driving like a bat out of hell down the State Highway toward the Forest Service road. The red dot on the GPS signal suddenly stopped, most likely at the trailhead. Just in case, Karin placed a pin at this location, the app would keep the coordinates in its memory. By now Karin was out of cell tower range, so she turned on the satellite in the SUV and Bluetoothed the phone to the car.

For ten minutes the red dot hadn't moved, then it did; Crawford's truck was now returning to the Forest Service road.

Karin pulled into the Forest Service road and was surprised at the poor condition of the road. Her SUV had AWD, but it wasn't an offroad vehicle. Not wanting to get stuck out here, she slowed down to 10 MPH. It wouldn't matter anyway, this road was the only way out of the National Forest and Crawford would have to come her way to exit.

Karin watched the red dot head her way. She stopped to check her sidearm. Dropping the magazine, clearing the weapon, dry firing to relieve the firing pin, checking the magazine to make certain it was fully loaded, and smacking the magazine's spine to prevent jams. Karin took two deep breaths before seating the magazine back into the weapon and sliding a round into the chamber.

Checking her watch, she was pleased her heart rate was seventy-five beats per minute. She closed her eyes for thirty seconds and checked again. "Good." It was now below seventy. Karin continued driving up the road, looking for a good spot where her vehicle could block Crawford's truck from getting past her. She found a decent spot and estimated Crawford was ten or so miles away and still coming toward her.

Then the red dot turned east. "What the hell is he up to?" Karin cursed silently while checking the Forest Service map again. This had to be the road going toward a remote trailhead at least fifteen miles northeast into the steep canyon near Baldy Peak. Karin sent a text to April, letting her know what direction she was heading and moved the gearshift into Drive, slowly proceeding toward the second trailhead road.

*****

April felt her cell phone vibrate and checked the new message from Karin. On the one hand she was pissed that Karin was driving deeper into the woods in pursuit of Crawford. Was Crawford aware he was being followed and leading her into a trap? On the other hand, April was pleased she'd have at least another two or three hours to search this cabin. It took her thirty minutes to make certain the two-room cabin was clear of any additional booby traps or surveillance. After that, she meticulously searched the main room for any hidden compartments and so far hadn't found a thing. It would take her another hour before she could get started on the second room. Both rooms were bare bones by normal standards, but April knew a man with Crawford's reputation with no convictions meant he was very careful.

*****

Crawford was exhausted, not so much from the physical exertion as the anxiety. After searching the Harris kid's jeep and the surrounding area for the flashlight without luck, he backtracked to the Forest Service road toward the trailhead where he dumped the kid's body, swearing the entire forty minutes it took him to drive from one remote trailhead to the other. He parked the truck, took the Colt.45 out of the console, grabbed the backpack and the seventy-five-foot length of rope before jogging the quarter mile down the trail. He was jogging because it was getting dark. He knew exactly where on the trail he needed to look because of the mark he left on the uphill cliff face, but he'd need some light to find the mark.

He found the mark and immediately located the Maglite just off the trail where he had thrown Harris off the cliff. It was sitting there two feet from the edge. Another two feet and he would have had to repel forty or so feet to check the bottom of the gully, then climb the rope back up. Crawford wiped flashlight clean of his prints then threw it over the cliff. No sense getting caught with the damn thing. No longer in a hurry to beat sundown, Crawford walked back to his truck. His duffle bag was in the truck, he would head straight to Seattle.

*****

April's first pass through both rooms of the cabin didn't produce anything of value. She returned to the bedroom and sat down on the bed, looking around the room. The bedroom contained a queen-sized bed on a plain metal frame, a six drawer double dresser, and a hanging rack of clothes because there wasn't a closet. April had already turned the mattress upside-down to check for hidden pockets and had pulled all the drawers out of the dresser to look for hidden compartments. There were two hanging cheap metal framed posters on the wall, both better suited hanging on a frat-boy's college dorm wall since they were photos of semi-nude silicone-enhanced Barbie dolls. Whether Crawford hung these up or they were leftovers from the days when the cabin was used by hunters, April didn't know and didn't want to guess. The only other piece of furniture was an old wash basin on a pedestal. A search of this came up empty.

All four walls were logs with no deviations. The floor was fir and the ceiling was pine. April pointed her LED flashlight across both the floor and ceiling, sweeping slowly in a grid. She grabbed the broom in the other room and spent twenty minutes crisscrossing the eight by ten room, tapping with the broom handle, listening for any hollow sound.

April's eyes swept the bedroom one last time. She was ready to begin her second search of the main room when she focused on the metal clothes rack. She already searched the dozen hanging coats, pants and shirts, but now thought of something else -- the frame. April tossed the clothes on top of the bed and began dismantling the rack. Each metal frame piece was hollow. As she dismantled each piece, she looked through its center. The first two pieces were empty. The third had a rolled up Moleskin notebook and the fourth two leather pouches.

Chapter Fourteen

Alexander Crawford could hardly believe his eyes, he blinked twice just to make certain he wasn't imagining this. There in the middle of the road was a white SUV blocking his path out of here. And standing beside the SUV was a middle-aged suburban soccer mom, except this soccer mom was holding a semi-auto in her hand. Crawford stopped his truck twenty yards short of the SUV and thought for a second. There wasn't room to get around the SUV, the road was less than two car-widths wide with a cliff on the uphill side and a steep drop-off on the downhill side. The SUV was too big for his truck to push it out of the way.

"Damn!" All the reasons for choosing this mountain as a great spot for dumping bodies made it a trap for his truck.

The woman's voice brought him back to the present. "Get out of the truck with your hands in the air where I can see them. If you have any weapons, toss them out the window before getting out of the truck. Now!"

The old broad did speak with some authority. Maybe she was a cop in a former lifetime. Crawford considered a couple courses of action. He could drop down on the seat and try for the passenger door, the door would offer him some protection if she fired. He could get out of the driver's side and use some feint before drawing his gun. He had no doubt of his ability to win in any fair gunfight, but she had her weapon ready to fire and that decreased his odds considerably.

Then there was the one course of action that appealed to Crawford above all others. The same way he took care of that bitch MP at Fort Wainwright when he was stationed up in Alaska.

*****

Twelve years ago, it was his good luck and the MP's bad luck that Corporal Haines was patrolling alone that night, alone because it was 4:00 AM on Christmas Eve and no one expected trouble. Alex had broken into the Officers' Club and loaded thirty cases of premium labelled booze into his truck.

As he pulled out from around the back of the club, he almost slammed into the MP's jeep as it cruised down the street. Both vehicles stopped, their bumpers within a foot of each other. Corporal Haines didn't have a chance to call it in and before Crawford got his truck in reverse, she was out of the jeep, her hand on her service weapon, yelling for Crawford to stop. Crawford put the truck in 'Park' and waited.

"Step out of the vehicle, sir!" Haines demanded. She still had her right hand on the Baretta's grip, still in the holster because at this point the situation was merely suspicious.

Crawford stepped out and walked toward the MP, his hands by his side.

When Haines saw the size of the man walking toward her, she pulled the Baretta out of the holster and pointed it at Crawford.

"Stay right there and put your hands on top of your head!" said Haines, then started to walk backwards toward the jeep so she could call dispatch.

Instead of obeying Haines' command, Crawford kept his hands where the MP could see them and walked toward her.

"I'm unarmed."

"Stop right there." Haines kept the gun pointed at Crawford but it was starting to shake a bit.

"Don't shoot, I'm unarmed." Crawford was three feet from Haines, moved his right hand to distract Haines and reached forward with his left to seize the Baretta out of the MP's hands. He put the gun in his coat pocket, looking down on the woman. He stood almost nine inches above her and outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds.

He loved the look of fear in the woman's eyes as his right hand clamped down on the MP's small throat and his left hand pulled the zipper down her insulated parka before fondling her breasts over the blouse. Crawford kept his hand tight on the throat. "You like that, dyke? You like the feel of a real man on these tits? How about this?" He left her breasts to grab her crotch.

Corporal Janet Haines was frozen in fear. Her only thought was of her three children. Her husband, a pipefitter who worked on the Alaska Pipeline, and the children were spending Christmas Eve with her husband's parents because she had to work. What kind of Christmas would they have if they woke up on Christmas morning to learn their mother was dead -- murdered? Every Christmas for the rest of their lives would be tainted by the ghost of this morning's event.

Crawford kept the pressure on the frozen woman's throat, just enough to cause her to feel dizzy but not enough for her to lose consciousness. "I could crush your throat without any effort," he increased the pressure slightly for emphasis, "or not" as he backed off on the pressure.

The feeling of power over this woman, especially given she was an MP, was almost sexual. There was no time to do the things Alex wanted to do to her, all the physical pleasure he could derive from this body, he'd be happy for now with the almost spiritual pleasure of watching her eyes as tears rolled down her cheeks. Her heart rate pushing in the triple digits as his fingers felt blood passing through the artery in her neck.

Crawford reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the MP's Baretta, cocked the hammer and stuck the muzzle in Haines' mouth. The pungent odor made him smile as Haines' bladder released.

"You're never going to tell anyone about our little run in. If you do, two things will happen. One, everyone will know how I took your gun away and made you my bitch, how you froze in fear. Number two, I'll find you and kill you, then I'll kill anyone you ever loved. Do we understand one another?"

Haines nodded yes. Crawford removed the muzzle from her mouth. "Say it out loud."

"Yes" was all she could get out.

"Say, 'yes sir' louder."

"Yes, sir."

Crawford released her throat and Haines fell to her knees. Crawford emptied the Barretta, tossing the magazine in a snowbank across the street and clearing the chamber. He jumped in the jeep and backed it out of his way so the truck could get past. Haines was still on the ground, shivering and weeping. He grabbed the collar of her parka and dragged her out of the way, got in his truck and drove to the warehouse in town where the owner of four local bars waited with the three thousand dollars for the thirty cases.

Crawford counted the money -- he trusted no one -- and pulled one bottle of top shelf bourbon out of one case. "A Christmas present to myself." Crawford waved the bottle to the two men standing there and drove home. The bottle was empty before New Year's.

No one ever came for Alex Crawford and he wasn't surprised to hear that Corporal Janet Haines left Fort Wainwright and the Army before January 31st.

*****

Twelve-plus years after that night at Fort Wainwright, Crawford looked at the woman standing in front of his truck and made his decision, he would play this just as he had then. At the same time, Karin was rethinking her positioning. She could stand behind the passenger's door and use it as a shield if Crawford decided to start shooting, but that would put her in a poor position if he tried to exit out of his passenger side of his truck and ran for the woods for cover. She never envied those State Troopers or County Sheriffs, out alone stopping vehicles on semi-deserted roads. As a city cop, she almost always had a backup nearby.

Karin decided to stay in front of her vehicle and be ready, it gave her the best field of vision and flexibility to react if Crawford made a run for the woods.

"Crawford -- I said throw your weapons out of the window and come out with your hands in the air where I can see them. Anything else gets me shooting!"

Karin watched the onyx-handled.45 fall to the ground followed by a KA-Bar knife. Crawford stared at her through the windshield and showed her both hands. He reached down with one hand and opened the door using the outside handle, then raised that hand back up as the door swung open. Karin kept her focus on Crawford, waiting for the slightest move meant to distract her. It surprised Karin when it didn't come. Instead, Crawford moved slowly out of the truck, keeping his hands up.

"I'm not armed." He closed the truck's door with his hip. "I'm surrendering and I'm unarmed." He took three steps toward Karin. His face was neutral without a trace of malice.

"Stay where you are. Do not approach me. Get down on your knees, NOW!" Karin yelled.

"Don't shoot, I'm unarmed." Crawford said it again as he took two more steps and was about to sprint the last eight feet and grab her gun when he heard the explosion. His legs instantly buckled below him.

"You shot me! You shot an unarmed man!" He couldn't understand it. Who the hell was this bitch? He looked up and saw that she still had the damn gun pointed at him. Worse of all, there was no look of panic or angst on her face.

"To paraphrase Clint Eastwood in 'Unforgiven', 'If you are going to threaten my children, you should have armed yourself'."

Alex looked down and moved his hands from his waist. "I'm bleeding and you're telling me movie lines?"

Karin looked down on the guy and kept the gun pointed at his chest. "All I want to know is this -- where is Ted Harris' body?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. Call an ambulance to get me out of here."

Karin was shaking her head. "Not going to happen until you tell me where Ted is."

"I don't know. Perrison must have dumped the kid somewhere."

"Bullshit, Perrison doesn't get dirty. Everyone knows that's why he has you around -- to do his dirty work. Tell me where the body is, then tell me what Perrison told you to do, and then I'll call for help on my satellite phone. I've got all day -- you don't."

Crawford caved. "About a quarter mile up the trail, he fell over the cliff. He tried to take off on me but tripped in the dark. Probably broke his neck or something. It was an accident; we were only trying to scare the kid."

"So, Perrison set it all up?"

"Yeah, the kid found Perrison's papers in his den and needed the kid to shut up about it. Like I said, the kid wasn't supposed to die, just scared."

"What about the PCT hiker, the Gomez girl, where is she?"

Crawford couldn't believe this, how much did this witch know, and how does she know it?

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Karin shook her head again. "Once more -- I have all day and you have maybe an hour. Don't be stupid."

Options again. If he doesn't tell the bitch, she lets him bleed out. If he tells her, maybe a good lawyer keeps him out of prison. Any decent attorney can get the evidence thrown out because of duress, given he's shot and bleeding. It wouldn't be the first time he'd been found 'not guilty' because of a technicality.

"I'm not admitting to anything, but I thought I saw a body down below another quarter mile on the same trail. Now, call that ambulance."

"I will as soon as you tell me the truth. You're lying about the hiker which leads me to believe you're lying about Ted."

Crawford got mad and tried to get up, realizing for the first time that his legs didn't work. He tried moving them and couldn't. He moved his hands and looked at the wound, dead center just below his sternum. The bullet must have hit his spine.

"You crippled me, you bitch!" Crawford screams at Karin.

"So? You're probably going to die here anyway since you keep lying to me. You won't need your legs."