Uncertain Justice

They didn't have that much fuel left but the pilot hated to leave just when things were getting interesting. The rapid response team on board all had binoculars glued to their eyes but the helicopter was in the process of banking away to start a new leg and they very nearly missed seeing the escapee.

One observer, the only woman on the aircraft, caught a quick glimpse of a solitary man walking toward the strange land formation that they'd been using as the western boundary of the search area. She yelled as loud as she could, unable to form intelligible speech in her haste to get her companions' attention. As the vehicle banked around, she leaped from the left side of the chopper to windows on its right side and looked anxiously for the figure she'd seen so briefly. Finding him, she screamed a sighting report to the helicopter's flight crew.

The pilot continued the turn he was already committed to, and brought the craft around a hundred and eighty degrees. He came out of the maneuver headed west--directly for the running man. Licking suddenly dry lips, the pilot pushed the stick forward and the chopper dove for the ground, trying to get close to the fugitive before he could go to ground. Pushing the throttle to a hundred percent, he felt the aircraft frame vibrate about him as the helicopter gathered speed.

§

Caught a long way from cover, Miles had no choice except to keep going. Working back up to a shambling trot, he made for the scanty shelter of the ridge. It was a contest he couldn't win. The chopper would be overhead in seconds. Already the heavy throbbing of its dual engines was pounding its rhythm into his body. He choked, unable to breath as he panted in quick, frightened gasps.

Checking its forward progress, the aircraft drifted a hundred yards to the north and behind his right shoulder. The rear cargo door opened and a figure appeared. Secured by straps that led back into the interior, he leaned out with a rifle already at his shoulder. Tiny geysers of dust sprang up in front of Miles.

His heart in his mouth, Miles broke away from the deadly puffs kicked up by M-16 rounds. Jerking his own M-4 off his shoulder, he tried to run harder. He grasped the rifle's pistol grip in his right hand and caught the barrel support in his left. Holding the M-4 tightly, he stumbled forward. The bitter taste of fear was strong enough to make him nauseous. He struggled to get air into lungs constricted by apprehension and fatigue.

To have come so far and gone through so much ... it wasn't fair. He struggled to think, to find a way out. He was focused too much on running; now he fought too control his emotions. If he gave in to panic now, it would be all over in minutes.

He wouldn't have noticed the shallow hollow even if he'd been walking and watching where he was going. Distracted by internal turmoil and running hard, his left foot didn't come down on the rock surface when he expected and he was thrown off stride. Sent tumbling by the fall, he scrambled to get up. He found himself behind a low, uneven mound of rotten stone. More bullets whistled by his ear.

Aborting his efforts to rise, he knelt behind the rock and jerked the M-4 carbine into alignment with the fuselage of the chopper a couple of hundred yards away. Thumbing the selector to full automatic, his finger curled around the trigger spasmodically. The butt of the weapon slammed back into his shoulder as rounds began to spout from the muzzle. His chest heaving and his body trembling with fatigue, it was a minor miracle the bullets came anywhere near the hovering chopper.

Though there was discussion later about how close they'd been, the bright tracers had flashed across the pilot's line of vision and well within his comfort zone. He banked the machine hard right, adding power and collective to get his aircraft away from the source of the shots.

At his shouted instructions, the co-pilot pushed the fuel mixture to full rich. It was wasteful but they needed the additional power. Seeing the beginnings of the maneuver, Miles vaulted over the boulders and ran for the rocky ridgeline that was only a couple of hundred yards away now.

Making a wide circle away from the point where they'd taken the automatic weapon fire, the helicopter steadied up on a heading directly back to the running figure and bored in. Still shaken, but chagrined at the way he'd made an instinctive avoidance of the gunfire, the pilot shouted orders over the intercom to the law enforcement officers in the cargo bay. He wanted them to get ready to open fire on the man who'd caused the embarrassment.

The shooter was joined by two others at the cargo door. Their comrades held them around the waist for extra security, trying to steady them against the jerking of the aircraft in the unstable air. They waited for the right moment. This time they were going to get him.

Miles reslung his carbine and ran as hard as he could for the crest. There were no warriors from the People's fighting clans around him now. They could not help him.

Concentrating on pushing one foot in front of the other as fast as possible, he clawed his way up the final rise to the little break where he could cross. His pulse raced in his ears. His breath sobbed in his throat as he tried to force more speed from exhausted legs.

§

Miles got to the crest of the ridge and threw himself over the top as the helicopter roared close directly overhead. He could see men with rifles at the ready--flashes from the muzzles told Miles they were firing, but he wasn't aware of any rounds coming close. Certainly, none hit him.

The pilot had erred. He had no training in what he was doing, and the chopper wasn't designed as a weapons platform. Had he stayed to one side of the target or the other and possibly rotated around a little, the riflemen at the open cargo hatch in the rear would have had a good shot at the fugitive.

Screaming through the air directly above the man, the shooters only had a second's worth of opportunity, but they made the most of it. Automatic fire raked the dust and rocks below, some of it pocking the dust near the fugitive, but mostly not.

They got one quick look of the escaped prisoner rolling head over heels down the western side of the ridgeline before they lost him completely. Unable to check his speed quickly in the thin mountain air, the pilot fought to bring the helicopter under control and come back around.

The officers in back were shouting at the top of their lungs, furious that they had lost sight of Underwood. There was still time though. A thick cloud of dust lingered in the air, marking the position where the fugitive had last been seen. Bringing the aircraft around in a controlled circle, the pilot made his way back to the rapidly dissolving cloud.

§

His lungs burning, Miles dove over the ridgeline, his progress given an unwelcome boost by the wind from the passage of the helicopter only twenty feet over his head. His body slammed into a boulder and what little breath he had left whooshed out convulsively. He staggered backward and hunched over in the shadow of the boulder, his tortured lungs straining to drag in enough oxygen.

Air forced through abused vocal chords made a hoarse, croaking sound in the comparative quiet. It would be an eternity before he would regain even partial control but he had no time to spare. Not entirely rational, his lungs starved for oxygen, he stumbled into a shambling run.

His head was on a swivel, searching for the helicopter that had made a strafing run on him. He found it, well to the north and banking high in the sky. The rotating blades were a blur reflecting the descending sun as the craft turned. The thing was off to his left front and it was coming back to him.

Dismayed, he realized he was running back up the short slope to the summit but he aborted a twisting move to reverse course before the intention was fully formed.

Dimly he remembered there was a mile or more of bare rock on the western side of the sawtooth ridge, more than there was on the east. His only hope was to get to some kind of concealment on the eastern side and try to evade the personnel on the ground and in the chopper until nightfall.

He made the crest and ran down the reverse slope, dodging around boulders and leaping others, none of which he consciously remembered from the trip up. The heavy beat of the helicopter's rotors was getting impossibly loud in his ears when he glimpsed a deep, sharply defined darkness off to the side of the path.

Skidding a little with the abruptness of the maneuver, he pivoted on his left foot and lunged hard to the right, diving headfirst into the yawning blackness. An instant later, the cloud of dust from the chopper's first pass over the ridge was ripped apart by the powerful rotor wash of a giant cargo helicopter coming in very low and very fast.

§

Mimicking a hawk--albeit a bloated one--diving after its prey, the helicopter plummeted down and back to the point where they'd last seen the running man. At two hundred feet the pilot horsed the aircraft's nose up to kill some of the speed and let it glide over the top of the rupture in the earth at a more sedate pace than before. The dust cloud they'd kicked up on the first path was only now dissipating, but the downwash blew that away, along with more dust, pebbles and whatever had been laying loose on the ground.

Everyone on board searched ahead and to either side, hoping to be the first to see the fugitive. As they cruised over the crest, those stationed at the doors hefted their rifles and brought them up to their shoulders. Staring down the length of the barrels through the iron sights, they jerked the muzzles of their rifles from one likely spot to another. They saw nothing moving except the shadow of their own aircraft keeping pace on the barren rock below.

§

Miles fell, sliding a short distance on the rough stone before he could stop himself. He stayed on his belly, his head resting on trembling forearms. He was done for the moment. There was no way he could run, walk, or crawl another step until he got his wind back and rested his overtaxed muscles.

After a while, he summoned the strength to roll over on his back. He was in a narrow tunnel between a fallen slab of granite and a boulder that had kept the slab from completely reaching the ground. The boulder had been driven partway into the hard surface of the mesa by the hammer blow of the falling granite block, but there was still enough room between the v-shaped roof and the dust-covered surface for even a large man to lie flat. Small and large rocks--some sheered off the slab when it slammed down on the boulder and others split off by contraction and expansion throughout the year--were scattered about the exterior, helping to disguise the opening he'd come through.

Belatedly, it came to his mind that such places as these attracted rattlers who came here to cool off. Miles glanced around, but he wasn't that concerned. If there'd been a snake in here, he'd have known about it by now. Disturbed rattlesnakes weren't shy about announcing their presence.

He lay flat on his back, gasping for breath and consciously feeling the cool stone press against his overheated body. The aching muscles in his legs and back slowly relaxed. Gradually, his heartbeat steadied and his laboring lungs eased into an easier rhythm. He sat up and massaged his calf and thighs, hoping to hasten the purging of the poisonous fatigue toxins from them.

Rotating rotor blades, driven by engines on a high power setting, made a thunderous announcement that the helicopter was inbound once more. The solid rock vibrated perceptibly, knocking thousand of years of rock dust off the walls of the chamber. Listening carefully, he tracked the helicopter as it moved away and came back again.

They'd lost him for the moment. They were flying a short-legged search pattern, sweeping back and forth across the hogback ridge, trying to pick up some sign of him. The chopper spent most of its time on the other side of the ridge since it was there they'd last seen him tumbling downslope.

That was fine with Miles.

He lifted his left arm to nurse a skinned place on his elbow. He poured a little water on it to dislodge some grit and then drank deeply. Be damned if he wasn't beginning to feel half human again. A mirthless grin twisted his lips. The tiny bit of humor was a good sign, but he was still in deep trouble.

He couldn't do anything about it for the moment though. He leaned back against the boulder and rested, letting the solidness comfort and loosen knotted muscles.

§

The pilot was frantic. Their man had been 'right there'. Easy pickings, as his father had once said of an eight-point buck meandering through a meadow just in front of them. The pilot and the seething passengers saw nothing on the landscape below.

Shadows appeared to move and they investigated each one, but it was always a distortion created by helicopter's own motion. Clouds of powder-fine dust billowed, hiding the surface of the mesa behind shimmering curtains.

The pilot added power to increase his altitude, waiting impatiently for the dust to settle. Working outward in ever increasing circles, the crew and response team looked with increasing desperation. Somehow, the fugitive had vanished.

A klaxon sounded stridently in the cockpit and a small light on the instrument panel began to pulse. They'd been low on fuel when they first headed for the mesa and now the deficit was critical. The pilot banked the helicopter around and lowered the nose. The aircraft began to build up momentum as they flew northeast. He pressed the mike button on the end of the stick.

"Base, this is Air Two," he spoke, his voice tired and defeated. "We are bingo fuel and in route to your location at this time."

He lifted his thumb from the button and waited. It was an unexpectedly long wait for a reply. The co-pilot in the left seat had begun a check on the radio and to confirm the frequency when the response finally came.

"Understood, Air Two," came the somber reply. The pilots exchanged a look of apprehensive curiosity. Marshal Owens had briefed them when they arrived. Both recognized his voice immediately, but they hadn't expected to hear it at that moment.

The helicopter's aircrew had supplied a running commentary as they tracked the running man to keep their passengers and the main base personnel involved and informed. They'd been speaking before to a trained radio operator back at the encampment but Marshal Owens had apparently taken over the mike.

They were part-time military personnel and knew certain things about the military. For instance, nothing good ever comes from the boss man taking charge of routine matters. There was an audible click as the far-off radio's mike was keyed once more.

"Do you anticipate landing your passengers to search for the fugitive?" Marshal Owens asked.

"Ah, no sir, that's negative. We're running on fumes now and if we try to land, we might not have enough fuel to take off and then get all the way back to base ... sir." There was another pause. Neither pilot liked the silences.

"Very well, Air Two," came the acknowledgement. The Marshal's voice had lowered significantly in timbre and it dropped again with the next message.

"Is Special Agent Thompson on board?" the Marshal asked. His voice was so guttural the flight crew had difficulty understanding.

"That's affirmative, sir," replied the pilot after a bit.

"Let me speak to him, please," requested the senior lawman softly. The crewmen refused to look at each other. This was bad, very bad.

A second thing they knew about the military was that the nicer the upper echelon was to the lower ones, the worse they were pissed off.

The co-pilot plugged in another headset to the radio console and twisted around to wave the crewman in the passenger cabin a little closer. His lips close to the enlisted man's ears, he gave the man his instructions. Wordlessly, the staff sergeant turned and handed the set to the special-agent-in-charge and resumed his seat against the bulkhead.

The crew chief watched the FBI agent without appearing to do so. The other law enforcement officers gradually stopped their shouted grousing about having missed getting Underwood when they had the opportunity. They quieted and nudged each other until they had all seen the distressed agent's face. It had steadily lost color until he was now a deadly shade of pale.

Finishing the radio conversation, the future ex-Agent-In-Charge ... he understood precisely what lay before him ... took off the headset and handed it back to the air crewman. He sat down in one of the temporary canvas and steel seats and turned to look at the television cameraman directly across from him.

For a moment, the agent considered confiscating the man's camera and dropping it out the still open doorway. He discarded the idea almost immediately. There were too many witnesses, most of them weren't even from the Bureau, and someone would talk sooner or later. He sat impassively, his face cut into stark planes by clinched muscles. He ... correctly, as it turned out ... suspected the civilian had caught all or most of the recent action.

The cameraman avoided everyone's eyes, pretending to work on the smallish video camera held in his lap. His mind raced, turning over the possibilities. He knew he had at least one prize-winning shot. The open rear door, with its attendant riflemen, had made a perfect frame around the fugitive as they made a low pass across the plain.

Muzzle flashes had been clearly visible in the viewfinder as the men at the door fired at the fugitive. He thought the fugitive had been strolling toward the ridge; it had been the nearest thing to a run that Miles could manage.

In fact, when still images were extracted from the video, one enhanced picture showed little puffs of dust all around Underwood as he walked. His rifle wasn't visible and he appeared to be an inoffensive hiker.

In this one image, the puffs and muzzle flashes from officers' rifles were visible in one, immensely powerful statement.

The whole video and the still photograph derived from the tape were shown on cable news shows every few minutes for the first forty-eight hours after they were transmitted from the wilderness to the network's New York headquarters.

Guest lawmen on the non-stop news broadcasts tried in vain to point out that Underwood had indeed been armed with an assault rifle and had fired at the helicopter just seconds after that sequence. It made no difference. Rightly or wrongly, the photograph struck a particular chord with the television audience.

The cameraman had been correct in his prediction as the helicopter left the scene of the incident. The picture won him a Pulitzer in that year's voting.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"The administration has become embroiled in more controversy tonight. The entire nation was shocked by last night's revelations that agents from the FBI, United States Marshal Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, had opened fire on fugitive Miles Underwood as he walked across open ground deep in the Colorado wilderness. Senate leaders on both side of the aisle have roundly condemned the action, calling for an immediate investigation.

"Even Democrat Thomas Hartley went so far as to call into question the legitimacy of the manhunt, saying most of the original charges against the Texas native have been shown to be completely false and none of the remaining charges are substantiated by concrete evidence. Senator Hartley made his remarks on the floor of the Senate early this afternoon to cheers from the gallery and floor.