Uncertain Justice

For most of the officers, it was their first experience with the total devastation of a war zone. Others, reservists who'd spent time in Afghanistan or Iraq, recalled what they'd seen and experienced there. Remembering, their faces and attitudes hardened.

Tanker aircraft from the National Forestry Service dumped loads of fire retardant chemicals on the last hot spot about noon the next day. The team of smoke jumpers deployed from the Salida airport at dawn declared the fire out--though they poked around for most of the afternoon, officially looking for hidden embers but actually more interested in the activity of the grim-faced law enforcement officers.

The firefighters hitched a ride back home in a Park Service chopper in the late evening. They'd found the campground to not be a very pleasant place and they did not intend to stay there overnight.

§

Command authority was split in the camp. The division created massive confusion and crippled efforts to get the injured evacuated and the camp reoriented to the purpose for which they'd come to the wilderness. On one hand, Marshal Owens was busy organizing the available men into teams to provide stretcher bearers and other unskilled workers to help the medical staff that had come in. Others worked to set up new tents that replaced those burned down and find places to put supplies they expected to start flowing from Pueblo soon.

In his tent, Deputy Attorney General Brady had been ranting since daylight about anything that came to his notice in a high, shrill voice that grated on men's nerves. Gradually, authority gravitated back to Owens as people found they couldn't get coherent answers from Brady.

After all, Owens had never been officially relieved and it became a choice of being yelled at by Brady or getting some guidance from the marshal. In the crisis, Brady found himself left out of more and more.

Late in the afternoon, Brady demanded his full staff be flown in from Pueblo and it was done. It was decided it would be worth letting the eleven men and women in his staff have precedence over a load of supplies and food if it would shut Brady up.

Once there, the staff members proved their worth by soothing the temper of the senior DOJ official and isolating him from the rest of the camp. Relative quiet returned. At Brady's insistence, his people commandeered two satellite phones from the law enforcement people and set about arranging new charges to be brought against Underwood.

There'd been no pursuit of the fugitive beyond chasing him off the hill from which he'd fired. The half-platoon of Colorado National Guard troops had been there only a couple of days and didn't know the area yet.

After half a mile in the rugged terrain, most of the part-time soldiers had lost contact with each other and none ever caught sight of the fugitive. They'd fired at the muzzle flashes from his rifle and a couple minutes after he stopped shooting, they'd lost their mark and their ammunition was expended worthlessly. Then the fugitive vanished.

They still had one helicopter that hadn't been damaged and one replacement, provided on loan--with a specifically defined time limit, was being flown in from Buckley Air National Guard Base in Denver. DOJ staffers back in Washington were trying to arrange replacement choppers to be transferred from other duties with the U.S. Marshals Service and maybe two or three from DEA operations, but those agencies were resisting. They were needed right where they were. Considering the lack of cooperation coming from the civilian agencies and the Department of Defense, it was going to be some time before the little squadron of law enforcement helicopters would be back up to strength.

Personnel at the camp had to explain repeatedly why fixed wing aircraft couldn't be used. It seemed incomprehensible to people in DC that there wasn't enough flat land around somewhere to construct a landing strip.

Finally, one FBI agent took some photos of the broken terrain with a digital camera and transmitted them back to Washington. Even with those in hand, some there still had suspicions the officers in the wilderness were overstating the difficulties. It made for bad communications.

It was late evening before an exhausted Owens managed to get a reasonable plan worked out with his chief deputies to simultaneously rebuild and reenergize the search for the fugitive. They knew he was close by, but a window of opportunity to take advantage of that proximity was rapidly closing. Underwood was getting farther away with every passing minute.

Trudging across the compound to the reconstituted dining tent, Owens looked up the hill at the charred corpses of the five choppers Underwood had managed to destroy. Tomorrow morning, a big bulldozer would be flown in under a mammoth Sikorsky to push the ruined aircraft aside so they would have space for new ones.

Beyond them, the wreckage of the burned out fuel dump had finally stopped smoldering. It was a total loss. A new area for smaller replacement bladders had been identified and would also be cleared tomorrow by the dozer. These would be dug into the ground and sandbags piled high around them for protection ... same thing for a replaced water tank and the radio hut. Owens sighed wearily.

All that had happened over the past few weeks was new to him. In his experience, fugitives from justice ran as hard as they could, hid when they could, and fought only when cornered. They would fight ferociously sometimes--occasionally even commit suicide rather than surrender--but this was something else again.

Underwood was coming after them, instead of the other way around. It was all very unsettling; the natural order of things was upset.

Owens had to admit to himself he was feeling a growing respect for Underwood though. It was hard to disassociate the man from the crimes he'd committed but the man was a fighter, that much was certain, and he'd caused one hell of a lot of damage. There was nothing to admire about criminals, but there was something to be said for someone who kept coming when the odds were set so solidly against him.

On top of that, Owens knew the guy had been wounded that first night in the valley before disappearing. Somehow, he'd evaded the lawmen until he'd recovered. Now he was back and it didn't look like he was going to abandon the fight any time soon. Owens didn't like where his thoughts were leading. He frowned as he passed through the tent flaps.

Many of the officers grabbing a quick meal inside the tent thought the glare was for them. The Marshal might be thinking they were delaying getting back to their duties. Half the tent emptied before Owens got to the serving line.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

" ... described the event as an absolute catastrophe. Sources close to the manhunt tell World Information News Network it will be weeks or months before equipment destroyed in a lightning raid on the base camp can be fully replaced. Estimates of the damage have soared since word of the attack first reached Washington last night. Some officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say the cost could rise as high as three hundred million dollars.

"In the House, lawmakers say they have no intention of passing an emergency funding bill for the Department Of Justice to fund procurement of helicopters, supplies, and other equipment lost since the pursuit of the former Army Non-Commissioned Officer began.

"Instead, there is a growing movement for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate the actions of Deputy Attorney General Carl Brady ... with emphasis on his activities as the District Attorney in Bexar County, in Texas." He paused for a moment while he tried to find the information he had written on the hard copy of the script.

"I think ... yes, Bexar Country is essentially San Antonio, Texas and the surrounding metroplex. Our own April Cantrell is in San Antonio this evening and she has some insight for us. April ... what's the story from way down there in south Texas?" The anchor chuckled derisively. There was a lengthy silence and the expression on his face grew strained.

"Colin, things are getting interesting here too," April finally said. She'd allowed the moment of dead air emphasize her erstwhile co-anchor's foolishness. It was time to ease this fop off the stage and this would be the first shot in the war.

"You'll remember all of the initial charges brought against Underwood have been dropped because of...."

World Information News Network

"Evening News: First Look"

Jul 28

§

Miles Underwood, fugitive at large, sank to one knee and watched a helicopter fly south, well beyond him, where it stopped, hovering over something of interest. After a while, the chopper gained altitude and flew back north. A half hour later, he had to go to ground as the same aircraft, or one just like it, came by and stopped south and a little east of where he hid.

Miles was betting they'd dropped off ground searchers; it was what he would have done had he been in charge. Two teams had been planted across a narrow neck in the valley where they might be able to intercept him as he fled south. Where there were two, he had to expect more.

The way south was blocked. With impassable mountains to the east prohibiting movement in that direction, the only way he could go now was west. The mesa was his only hope.

The immense mesa dominated the entire western horizon. Looming over the valley, the top of the huge land formation looked to be flat as a tabletop, though it was a table that slanted slightly down from north to south. For much of its length, sheer cliffs hundreds of feet high rose from the valley floor. At their feet lay piles of scree ... mounds of rock fallen from the heights leaning against the cliff.

There was a break in the cliffs though, a place where the sheer walls gave way to less precipitous slopes. Here, water running off the mesa and ancient landslides had formed steep ramps leading up to the top of the mesa. It was toward this place that he was racing now, attempting to stay ahead of the manhunt he knew had to be gaining strength behind. He was stumbling more often now though. The overnight run from the destruction of the encampment had taken a lot out of him.

§

He was working his way up a ravine that angled upward across the slope. It provided excellent cover, but it had just about played out now. It was only a couple of feet deep here and following it any further would be pointless. Leaving the old water passage at a point where tumbled boulders provided a staircase upward, he climbed steep slopes until he reached a place where the trees and brush had given up trying to establish themselves.

The wind had polished the granite down to the bedrock here, carrying away all the rock dust and most of the small pebbles and sending it all plummeting down to the massive piles of rough scree he could see far below. He would leave no tracks here and dogs would wear themselves out long before they climbed up this far ... but he felt uncomfortably exposed.

In a space shielded from view by one boulder lying close to two others, he stopped for a rest. He knelt and tossed a pebble into the darker shade before he crept in among the rocks. Mountain rattlers liked protection from the noonday sun as much as he did and he would afford them the right of first discovery should any be hiding there. There were no answering rattles. Turning and sitting in the same motion, he dropped the rucksack beside him and leaned back against the cool stone.

After a long drink, he pulled out his binoculars and braced his elbows on his knees to provide a steady platform. He swept the glasses from his extreme left all the way around to the right ... north to south ... across the nearest ridge in front of him, searching for a pursuing party of men.

Finding none, he scrutinized the lower, farther ridgelines and then scanned the most distant slopes. He had an excellent view up here but there was no sign of anyone climbing purposefully in his direction. Relieved, he sighed and put the binoculars aside. He rested, trying to breathe slowly and deeply. He would go on in an hour or so.

§

Leaning heavily on the advice of the National Guard lieutenant, Owens changed tactics. In the early evening of the day after the catastrophic attack, the only two helicopters available to him had made a series of trips from the base camp into the surrounding mountains.

Twenty to twenty-five miles out, they dropped off teams with backpacks full of gear and supplies. The men and women had orders to establish observation posts and aggressively patrol assigned areas until they were relieved.

The single undamaged helicopter landed back at the base camp and was quickly serviced from the small supply of aviation gas that had escaped the fires. The other chopper headed east to Pueblo where spare parts were available to repair the slight damage it had sustained in Miles' night attack. It would come back to the area of operations carrying supplies and a five-thousand gallon bladder of fuel.

The only aircraft available now to the searchers would serve as a surveillance vehicle tomorrow, carrying a quick response team who would spend their time aloft searching with powerful binoculars. The hunt for the fugitive had a new urgency now. It was going to be a 24/7 operation.

This was all new to many of the police officers. None of them had been expecting a nine-to-five operation exactly, but the idea of spending the night out where wolves, bears, and mountain lions roamed unrestrained disconcerted many of the officers.

They were all volunteers though. They'd see this through, no matter what they had to do. Unfortunately, there weren't enough of these teams; there were only three out right now. Too much equipment and supplies had been destroyed in the night attack.

The three groups were spread in an arc across a broad valley between two ridgelines running loosely north and south. Hills to the west swept higher and higher until they came to the lower ramparts of the high mesa. To the east was another of the numerous, and nearly impassable, mountain chains that together make up the three thousand length of the Rocky Mountains.

The western-most patrol group was positioned atop a field of rock thrust upward from the depths of the planet's core before the dinosaurs disappeared. Though more hospitable now, worn down through millions of years of wind and rain, the place was still unsuited to watching the local area.

It looked good on a map; it was indeed slightly higher than the surrounding valley, but it was a long way from water and had no places for the officers to set up where the view was not blocked in some direction.

On day two after the attack, the FBI agent-in-charge there got permission to place his men and women on one of the tall bluffs that stair-stepped up to the western mesa. Those heights truly dominated the terrain, and provided a panoramic view of hundreds of square acres of forest and meadow.

The agent-in-charge took it upon himself to move even further west than desired by the command staff at the base camp. The team found a quarter-mile wide ledge on the lower slope of the mesa itself where they could spread out and watch great swaths of the valley down which they expected Underwood was fleeing.

At the back of the ledge, tucked up against sheer rock walls that towered into the sky, they set up a camp where it would be out of sight. They wanted the group's presence to be a surprise to a fugitive running through this section of the wilderness.

§

Something, a flash or perhaps just movement where there should have been none, caught his eye off to the south. Miles froze in mid-step and sank slowly to a knee, edging forward to put a boulder the size of a desk between himself and the possible threat. Looking around to his right and then behind, he made sure there was no one close. The air was clear of any helicopters. He checked again.

Rising slowly to put only his forehead and eyes above the top of the boulder, he examined the ridge where he thought he'd seen something. Searching each pile of rocks and growth of brush, Miles worked from the nearer places to the more distant ones but found nothing. He found nothing at all disturbing ... and that was, itself, disturbing. Something had attracted his attention.

After fifteen minutes more of watching, he decided it had probably been a wandering mountain goat or perhaps a mountain lion stalking one of them. On the other hand, perhaps it had been the sun glinting off a deposit of white quartz. It was often found with gold, and he knew for a certainty there was gold here. Maybe he should come back and look around someday.

Dropping down behind the boulder, Miles waited a short time longer while he took a deep drink from a nearly empty canteen. It did no good to ration it. Water in a canteen did nothing for a man's survival. He drank again.

He'd been up here before, curious about the mesa and hearing from some of the People of more of their villages to be found in places like this. On a couple of exploring trips, he'd actually found a few ruins but nothing to rival the ancient city in the mammoth cavern. More importantly, in the course of hunting for the ruins, he'd committed to memory the few sources of water he found.

Surveying the boulder strewn slope above him, he marked out a route he would use to get up to the near vertical heights beyond. The shallow wash over there was neck deep in runoff when melting snows and early Spring rains came to this region, but this late in the year, it was bone dry. Its primary allure was that it led directly to a place he knew. He set off again, bending over to make his silhouette smaller.

Near the top of the slope, the arroyo faded out. In the spring runoffs here, there was a narrow, and very temporary, waterfall that fell from the lip of the mesa. The falling water swept numerous small pebbles and bits of soil downward along with stray bits of brush, pieces of trees, and seeds of all kinds. Most of the debris was carried further down the ridge, but the slow flow of water in late spring allowed some to accumulate here. The small basins formed in the rock by eons of pounding water were, collectively, a tiny oasis on an otherwise barren slope.

Miles found this spot, in fact, during the spring and had been captivated by the beauty of the water cascading from the heights. Later, in summer, he found no waterfall but he marveled at the four small pools framed by small growths of trees and bushes that had been hidden behind the waterfall.

The approaches up the slope to the tanks were treacherous. A carpet of loose pebbles, twigs, dry bark ripped from tree trunks, dried out pinecones, and other debris--well mixed--made walking an adventure. By working his way slowly through the mess and watching where he put his feet, he got through safely and dropped his backpack beside the largest, the rearmost, of the pools.

This was a place for a well deserved rest and he made the most of it. It was a brief one though. He had to keep moving. Having drunk all he could and refilling both canteens, Miles nerved himself to negotiate the next part of the climb to the top of the mesa.

Leaving the shelter of the trees and brush, Miles was careful but after a hundred yards of progress, he slipped in the rubble and skidded backward. His arms waving and feet scrambling for purchase in the debris, he slid down backwards. His heart in his throat, he fought to keep from sliding off a precipice and tumbling down to the valley far below. He had a quick vision of himself shooting off a ledge and plummeting downward, his arms and legs flailing uselessly.