Uncertain Justice

Trenton's mind had already shifted back to the statement he would be making to the McCarty jury in the morning and it took a moment for what she'd said to sink in. His head came up and his eyes focused on loose sheets of paper he could see inside the open flap. He took the envelope from the young woman, opened it to remove the documents, and arranged them in a small stack.

It was indeed a coroner's report on the autopsy of the girl Underwood had been accused of killing. The cause of death jumped out at him. The conclusion at the bottom was that the girl died as a direct result of a botched abortion.

"Son of a bitch," he breathed irreverently. He'd never seen that report. In fact, the form he'd obtained during discovery had specifically said something very different.

"Rosa? Would you get me...?" He looked up to find a large three-ring binder being thrust at him by his niece. "Thanks, I appreciate it." Both knew she was being thanked for more than the office copies of the documents admitted into evidence in Underwood's trial.

The attorney located a tab and opened the notebook to check the coroner's report. They were not the same.

"Son of a bitch!" he repeated. He used the expletive several times more as he read. He turned over the last page and leaned back in his chair.

By itself, the newly discovered autopsy report was more than enough to create doubt in anyone's mind about Underwood's guilt. Hell, if the rest--if half of the rest of the documents checked out--there was enough to convincingly prove the man was innocent.

P. Jonah chuckled. This would kill Brady. The despised, ass-kissing political creature who'd stabbed him in the back in a law-school project was going to be publicly humiliated when this all came out.

His jaw snapped shut and the grin died. This went beyond that! This was more than just unethical. Brady had suborned perjury, falsified documents, deliberately withheld evidence ... name it and Brady had done it.

It's a little disconcerting to find proof a man you've hated for a long time really is as contemptible and corrupt as you thought. He began to get angry. Brady had been willing to send an innocent man to jail and P. Jonah Trenton, Esquire, was going to do something about that.

"Rosa?" he called, looking around. Sometime after he'd begun reading, she'd left the room and quietly closed the door to the outer office. She hadn't gone far, he found. The office door opened and his wife's niece peeked around it to smile at him. He grinned back, enjoying the moment.

"Sweetheart, would you show in the reporter from...." He broke off as Rosa stepped back to reveal the tall blonde reporter beside her.

"Great," he said. "Please come in Ms...?"

"April Cantrell," she replied firmly.

"Miles Underwood said to say hello, Mr. Trenton, and he gave me this as authorization for you to talk to me about his case ... in depth." She handed him a folder with another group of documents inside. The top sheet was a signed, hand-written sheet torn from a notebook. In simple words, it waived Underwood's attorney-client privilege in behalf of Miss April Cantrell and asked Trenton to speak openly with the television reporter. The lawyer sank back down into his chair to skim through the folder and motioned April to sit in a chair near the desk.

He shook his head in disbelief as he skimmed through the folder. He made a note to fire the private investigator he'd hired to help with discovering information in Underwood's case. None of what was on his desk right now should have been a surprise at this late date. He sat back and eyed the young reporter.

"Well ... where shall we start, Miss Cantrell?"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"The Bexar County District Attorney's office was rocked this afternoon when a petition was filed with 121^st District Court Judge Roy Farmer on behalf of fugitive Miles Underwood. The petition seeks the dismissal of all charges brought against the alleged rapist and murderer of San Antonio College coed Virginia Rogers.

"Citing new evidence showing the former Army NCO could not possibly have been responsible for Ms. Rogers's death, the petition denies a rape ever took place. Affidavits accompanying the petition from witnesses who could not be located earlier confirm Underwood's only involvement was an attempt to assist the victim.

Attorneys for Mr. Underwood also claim an exculpatory autopsy report was deliberately suppressed by the prosecution and another substituted in its place. The newly discovered report allegedly shows Ms. Rogers probably died from complications resulting from a botched abortion attempt and found no evidence of rape.

"A companion lab report, unreleased until now, indicates DNA material collected from the body of the victim was NOT that of the defendant. The District Attorney's Office issued a brief denial of any wrongdoing in the matter. The DA refused further comment and has not replied to any of our phone calls requesting additional information."

San Antonio World Telegram

June 12

§

Content with the end of the day, Miles rocked slowly back and forth as he watched the shadows creep across the valley. He'd worked hard today, hoeing the small cornfield he'd planted north of the crossing. The peas and beans were coming along nicely too. It was hard learning high altitude farming from a book, but he had plenty of time to read.

He'd packed in the rocking chair last fall along with the winter supplies and seeds for his small farm and a number of books to read. The rocker had perched on top of one of the packs, waving around with the packhorse's motion and fouling several times a day on low hanging branches. It still had a number of tiny scratches and scrapes from the journey. All the trouble had been worth it though.

When the snows melted, he quickly decided sitting and rocking on old Zeb's courtyard under fragrant pine boughs while the sun dove for the southwestern horizon was one of life's most underrated pleasures. He still hadn't had time to read all the books he brought with him, but he was working on it.

A small herd of whitetail deer ventured out of the forest and made their way close to water's edge directly opposite the stone house. The movement caught his eye and he watched them closely. His four horses looked up as the wild animals came near but dropped their heads back to the deep grass without doing more than take notice of the approach by the wild herd. There was plenty here for all. The evening breeze made the tall grass wave in gentle ripples from south to north.

Abruptly the horses shied away from the water and trotted away from the river crossing. They stopped and turned, their attention focused on something high Miles couldn't see past the southwest wall of the cavern. The deer scattered, running hard for the safety of the forest to the northeast. Miles stood, a thumb inserted into the book he'd been reading to hold his place.

Running warriors from the Bear Clan raced by, en route to the city. They pointed behind them at the butte rising above and behind Miles. He cocked his head as his ears caught a faint sound. He edged toward the open door. The horses bolted, galloping toward Needle Mountain.

The big MH-53J Pave Low III Enhanced helicopter was a modified helicopter specifically designed to be one of the quietest aircraft in the Air Force inventory. Used widely for covert operations, it dropped out of the western sky behind the towering mesa with scarcely a sound and dove for the wide grassy area just east of the river ford, just far enough away from the cliff to avoid backwash air currents. The machine had been borrowed from the Air Force's Special Operations Command along with its four-man crew for this single short mission.

The pilot of the huge Sikorsky chopper worked the controls to flare at the last moment, applied power liberally and allowed the heavy machine to settle gently to the ground. The wash from the rotors flattened the thick grass for fifty yards in every direction.

A dozen men in combat boots and black jumpsuits erupted from a side door abruptly thrown open from within. Jumping to the ground, they raced toward the slender sliver of river and threw themselves to the ground in a rough line facing west. They aimed their rifles toward the cavern and waited for some aggressive action from the fugitive.

Frozen for one disbelieving instant, Miles dropped the book and dove through the doorway before the chopper's wheels touched the ground. He slammed the door shut and stepped quickly to the side for the protection of the stone wall. He tried to slow a suddenly pounding heart while his mind churned. The noise of more, less stealthy, helicopters landing across the river reverberated through the cavern making it harder to think. He'd been caught off guard and had no idea what to do next.

The Pave Low lifted off, its engines roaring. There was no need for stealth now and the crew took full advantage. The big machine rotated around its own axis to face south. Dipping its nose, it gathered speed rapidly as it sped away from the scene.

§

A half mile away, and too far south to be seen from inside the cavern, a tall figure in camouflage BDUs stepped down from a chopper owned by the Colorado Army National Guard. The crew's pay and allowances, as well as operating costs for all the rotary-winged aircraft, were being paid by the Department of Justice for this mission. From his point of view, it looked like all the money the DOJ had been funneling to the Pentagon and National Guard Bureau was finally paying off.

They'd obviously caught Underwood flatfooted. The pilot of this cargo helicopter had passed on a report from the Air Force stealth helicopter as it departed. Underwood had been seen running for the door of the concealed little house in the wide, shallow cave across the stream. They were absolutely certain it had been the fugitive.

U.S. Marshal David Owens suppressed an urge to smile broadly at how easy it had been. The Air Force surveillance flights hadn't been able to detect one man alone in the wilderness, but some hot new software and a conscientious analyst noticed a set of regular lines in one photograph ... and nature doesn't have such a thing as a straight line, much less eight or nine running parallel to each other.

Once they found the crop fields, they concentrated on this small area and finally located a man tending a group of horses in the tiny, inaccessible valley where no one was supposed to be.

Two more high altitude flights, centered exclusively on the valley, had been enough for the big, high resolution cameras to make a tentative identification and then nail it down with an enhanced photograph of the man's face when he'd looked up at the sky one afternoon.

Everything had come together and all that remained then had been to execute the assault. The plan was to insert a big team of law enforcement officers in such a fashion that Underwood would have no chance to flee, and it worked to perfection.

The tall officer sauntered north beside the stream until he reached a point just inside a small group of trees where he could see most of the cavern. He used his binoculars to examine the structure inside the concave rock formation. Obviously, the little house was built of heavy stones and that big door looked solid. If they had to go in after him, it was going to be tough. The equipment normally used to assault barricaded suspects wasn't going to do the job here. Marshal Owens replaced his field glasses in the case and snapped it shut.

It didn't matter; they could starve him out if it came to that. They had everything on their side and a few more days weren't going to make any difference. There was no escape down the rocky slope descending from the cavern--he'd be seen before he got more than a few yards downhill. Underwood was pinned as effectively as a butterfly on a pegboard. Owens walked north beside the stream of icy water watching all the activity as it spread out in front of him.

More choppers began to arrive in the deepening twilight, bringing in more men and beginning to deliver the equipment Owens had requisitioned from Department of Defense and Colorado National Guard sources. A couple of hundred yards--give or take--back from the river, six groups of floodlight stands were offloaded and connected to leads from three powerful generators. The six stands, each stand holding a dozen individual lamps, were then set up in meadows between small tree groves. They were arranged in a loose semi-circle with the cave as their focus; the arc of lights was slightly offset to the south of the cavern because of some thick groups of trees just to the north of the ford.

In moments, the raucous clatter of gasoline engines shattered what remained of the tranquility in the remote mountain valley and the cavern was lit up by the thousand-watt floodlights. In the harsh brightness, a mouse couldn't move up there without being seen and the law enforcement officers relaxed. It was time for phase two.

Marshal Owens moved into the light and held a portable megaphone to his lips. "MILES UNDERWOOD," he started. The high-pitched electronic squeal of feedback from the walkie-talkie on his equipment belt made him wince and jerk the earphone from his left ear. He turned the radio off and tried again.

"Miles Underwood," he said again ... more tentatively this time. When there was no feedback he continued in a stronger voice. "This is Deputy United States Marshal David Owens. Open the door and throw your weapons out. You will not be harmed. I repeat ... you will not be harmed."

The tall federal officer waited for a minute to see if his orders would be followed. When the heavy door remained firmly closed, he sighed and raised the megaphone again. He hadn't thought it would work--had said so at the briefing this morning in Salida.

Some had been sure the wanted man would give up when he saw it was hopeless. The marshal had read the reports written by that FBI agent however, and he had news for everyone. This wasn't going to be quick or easy. Give this guy an opening and he'd be gone again just as quickly as he'd given the slip to that big group of searchers a year ago.

He hesitated, wondering just how he should start. Normally, with a barricaded suspect, you got a negotiator set up nearby and started making phone calls to the fugitive. He had the negotiator, a specialist who did nothing but sit and talk to trapped bad guys, but he didn't have a clue how to get a phone up there.

Word was the guy had three or four weapons; at least two of them were automatic rifles courtesy of the United States Marine Corps. The terrain forced them to set up over here, across that river and a long way from the house. Add in the fact that the fugitive had automatic weapons, and was highly trained in their use, and this whole operation was short on specific guidelines and long on guess-timates and hope.

Lovely, just lovely. Marshal Owens raised the megaphone again and pressed the button on the pistol grip to start the long process of talking the suspect into surrendering.

§

Inside the stone dwelling, Miles sat on the stone floor listening to the Marshal's words but few of them registered in a mind torn by shock and apprehension. His back was against the rock front wall, his knees bent and feet braced solidly on the floor. He leaned over to rest his forehead on arms that he had folded over each other across his knees. He tried to think.

The brilliant light shining in through the windows had been almost blinding when the floodlights had initially been turned on but he'd knocked out the old glass panes and reached out to pull the shutters closed. The light was bearable now, though the comfortable nighttime dimness of the cabin was gone.

He gradually shed the bewilderment that clouded his mind. Deferring the recriminations with which he would berate himself sometime soon, he calmed himself and worked to steady his breathing and runaway heartbeat. Hyperventilating would solve nothing.

He thought briefly of giving up but dropped the idea just as quickly. On the contrary, he was slowly working himself into a mood that accepted ... even welcomed the fight that was brewing. It had been a long time coming and he was truly tired of hiding and running. The violence he'd felt rising within him in conflict with other men over the past few months burned hot, surging high within him. He began to relish the coming confrontation.

The problem was to figure out a way to get away from the cabin and then to some cover in the forest. Rising to stand in the deep shadow between the door and the front window, he looked between the slats in the shutter toward the southeast at the officers across the river as they settled in for a siege.

They were keeping to cover as best they could over there, and several positions were marked with sandbags piled up for added protection. No one over there was closer than three hundred yards or so from where he stood. That was an awful lot of territory for the manpower resources Miles could see were available to Mister Deputy Marshal David Owens.

That distance had to be an opportunity for him, if only he could figure out a way to exploit it. The biggest, most immediate problem was the way those floodlights lit up the house and this whole section of the cliff wall.

He backed away from the window and retreated into the interior of the room. Shoving the rough wooden table out of the front corner of the house, he crawled into the corner and got up, taking care not to expose himself through the window on the south side of the house. From where he was--to the right of the front window--he could see much of the valley to the northeast.

It was there that he found some hope.

§

Carl Brady was almost beside himself. Disappointed that Underwood had not immediately surrendered, he was getting more and more irritated with the U.S. Marshal who served as his personal envoy. Though he couldn't actually say so, Brady really wanted the deputy marshals and FBI agents out there in Colorado to rush the stone house immediately and take the fugitive prisoner. This was Thursday; if he could get Owens moving, he would be on every TV talk show in the country Sunday morning.

"Mr. Brady, I'm sorry but we're going to have to take things slow here," remarked the Marshal. Perhaps it was the satellite phone link. He didn't sound to Brady like he was very sorry at all.

"So far, sir, there hasn't been any gunfire and I want to keep it that way," Owens continued. "If we try to blast our way in there, someone is going to get hurt and chances are a lot of those someones are going to be law enforcement officers."

He motioned at the cavern as if Brady could actually see it.

Brady actually could see it if he wanted to. A remotely controlled unmanned aerial vehicle borrowed from the DOD was orbiting over the valley. But Brady didn't have the patience to sit still and watch the UAV turn lazy figure-eights over a darkened valley.

"Sir ... you've got to see this place to believe it. I don't know how, but Underwood has built or found a place that is, literally, a fortress. He's behind stone walls and we'll be out in the open if we try to get closer and these "bullet proof vests" just aren't ... bullet proof, that is ... to high velocity rifle bullets fired from close range."

Static threatened to overcome the conversation as Owens walked deeper into the shadow of the western mesa. He stopped and retraced his steps to get a better signal on the satellite link.

"Look," he continued. "We know this guy has a couple of assault rifles and the word is he knows how to use them. He spent over twenty years in the Army, for God's sake. From up there, he can take out every one of us if we rush him and we won't be able to touch him. We'll have a dozen dead, Mr. Brady ... maybe more."