Hot Velocity(25)
Sierra dropped to her hands and knees and crawled to the boy, scooped him out of his seat and onto the ground, hunkering over him to block any bullets that might be fired in their direction.
“In here!” the gunman shouted. “Bring them in here!”
Sierra lifted her head high enough to peer over the seats at the upper end of the theater. Two men in business suits were shoved through the door by a group of men dressed in camouflage and ski masks.
“Down in front.” One of the men waved his rifle at the others. “Take them down in front where we can see them. And turn on the lights. It’s too dark in here.”
A man in a ski mask kicked Ranger Jared in the side. “You. Get the lights on. Now!”
Jared staggered to his feet and hurried to the controls on the wall. He flipped several switches, and the lights grew brighter. As soon as he was done, he was shoved back down the aisle to where Sierra and the other women were hovering over the children.
The little ones sobbed, their cries getting louder with all of the shouting. It didn’t help that one of the mothers was losing it in front of the kids.
“We’re going to die. We’re going to die,” she kept saying.
“Lady, shut up, or you will,” a man carrying a rifle said.
“Shh, Laura. We’re going to be fine. Just keep your cool for the children,” Sierra said.
Beside her Brenda shook, her teeth chattering. Not a week earlier, the woman had been in a bus hijacking. If anyone had a right to lose it, it was Brenda.
But Sierra couldn’t, not when the children depended on her to see them safely home.
Chapter Thirteen
T-Rex met up with Ghost and Caveman in front of the Blue Moose Tavern. Garner hurried down the stairs, carrying what appeared to be two duffel bags.
“We’re meeting Hawkeye at the Stone Oak Ranch and taking the four-wheelers from there.”
“Whatcha got?” T-Rex asked.
“The armory.” Garner laid the heavy bags in the back of his SUV. “M4A1 rifles, radio headsets and Kevlar vests. We’re not going unarmed or unprepared.”
T-Rex snorted. “Glad to hear it. I felt at a distinct disadvantage yesterday in the hills.”
Garner’s lips thinned. “We didn’t plan on having a helicopter shot down.”
“No, we didn’t,” T-Rex agreed and closed the hatch.
“How soon will the FAA be out to investigate the crash site?” Ghost asked.
“They’re on their way now.” Garner climbed into the driver’s seat and twisted the key in the ignition. “Should be here before noon. All the more reason to find that cave and neutralize any bad guys before they stir up any more trouble.” He glanced at the rest of them. “Are you coming, or not?”
The three men jumped into the SUV and held on while Garner sped out of town.
“What about the sheriff?” T-Rex glanced up at the hills. They appeared so serene, as though they couldn’t possibly harbor a bunch of terrorists. “Any activity on the roads last night?”
“His men didn’t see anything moving,” Garner answered. “The one truck he stopped was a man on his way to the airport in Bozeman. No weapons stashed in his backseat or truck bed.”
“I can’t imagine them leaving their weapons cache in the cave.” T-Rex shook his head. “Not after shooting down a military helicopter.”
“The Army National Guard sent another Black Hawk. The pilot and copilot are waiting at the fairgrounds. The ship is armed to the teeth. The guard is angry about losing one of their birds. I barely got them to wait. I don’t want to start an all-out war and get people killed who actually belong on the neighboring ranches. I told them to give us the morning to find the cave and attack it from the ground.”
“I’m surprised they agreed,” Ghost said.
Garner shrugged. “I had help from their higher headquarters.”
“Will the sheriff’s department be with us on this venture?” Caveman asked.
“They will. The sheriff, along with seven of his finest deputies and members of the Wyoming State Police, will be combing the hills alongside us.”
T-Rex shook his head. “Sounds like this could turn out to be a goat rope.”
“Can’t be helped.” Garner’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “We need the manpower to search the caves. If there are more than thirty AR-15s up there, it stands to reason there could be thirty men using them.” Garner shot a glance at T-Rex in the front seat. “I’ll take all the help we can get.”
Caveman leaned over the back of Garner’s seat. “How is everyone getting up into the hills?”
“We’re taking the four-wheelers we left at the Stone Oak Ranch.” Garner left Grizzly Pass and headed south. “The sheriff department has their own fleet of four-wheelers, and I have no idea what the state police will bring. All I know is we need to find these bastards and take them down before they hurt anyone else. Oh, and several of the folks we had on our list of possible members of Free America called in sick or didn’t show up to work today.”
“How’d you find out?”
“I had feelers out to their employers. They notified me as soon as the calls came in or the men didn’t arrive on time.”
T-Rex’s hands balled into fists. Things could get real ugly real fast. “How many?”
“Nine that we know about, so far,” Garner said.
“Sounds like they might be mobilizing,” Caveman cursed. “Why couldn’t we bring any of them in earlier?”
“We didn’t have any evidence.” Garner glanced in his rearview mirror at the men in the seat behind him. “Ghost, you and Caveman followed some of them, and they didn’t lead you anywhere but to their homes.”
“Damned waste of time,” Ghost grumbled. “If we could have interrogated them, we’d have had more to go on.”
“What about Rausch? Has he talked?” T-Rex asked.
“The sheriff is meeting us at the ranch,” Garner said. “Hopefully, he has news on that front.” He glanced in his rearview mirror again. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s him behind us now.”
They arrived at Stone Oak Ranch and met Olivia at the house.
Several vehicles pulled into the driveway behind them, including four from the sheriff’s department and three from the state police. They had trailers attached filled with four-wheelers.
Olivia and Hawkeye met them with contour maps of the area. They spread them over the hood of Garner’s vehicle, and the team gathered around along with the law enforcement personnel. They determined the approximate location of the cave from which the rocket had been shot, assigned areas to each team and took off.
Because the Safe Haven team had been the most recent to visit the area, they led the pack.
T-Rex insisted on taking point. As he drove the roads to the narrowing trails up into the hills, he couldn’t help thinking about Sierra. Was she all right? Had Ellis shown up that morning to cause problems? Or was her ex-husband with the Free America group, preparing to take over the world?
He wished he could be in two places at once. Alas, he couldn’t and his job was exactly where he was.
As they neared the valley lined with caves, he slowed his ATV and pulled out a pair of binoculars. His team stopped even with him and did the same.
“Is that metal?” Hawkeye asked, pointing to one of the caves. “There. The third cave from the end. The one with the tire tracks leading up to it. Is that a metal ammo box on the edge of the entrance?”
T-Rex trained his binoculars at the third cave from the end of the valley. Just as Hawkeye had said, there was a metal ammo box lying on its side near the mouth of the cave. T-Rex dismounted, pulled the M4 rifle from the scabbard and waited for the others to catch up.
Garner organized the sheriff’s deputies and state police into an assault team to follow the Safe Haven men into battle.
T-Rex led the charge, hugging the shadows of the trees, moving closer a little at a time. Soon he was standing below the cave in the shade of a lodgepole pine, staring up at an empty ammo can. Nothing moved on the trail or in the dimness of the cave. Nothing that he could see.
Ghost came up to stand beside him. “Anything?”
“I’d bet this was the cave. I’d also bet it’s empty of the people who were there yesterday.”
“Let’s find out. Cover me.” Ghost passed T-Rex and started up the hill.
T-Rex followed.
At the entrance to the cave, they paused, inching up from the side, out of sight and range of anyone aiming a rifle their direction.
T-Rex poked his head around the side of the rock wall and peered into the darkness. Nothing moved. “Ready?” he said. “Cover me.”
He took three steps into the darkness and felt something across his ankle. T-Rex froze and yelled, “Get back! This place is rigged!”
Since he hadn’t triggered the detonator, he knew that if he moved his ankle now, he’d set off the explosion. He waited for Ghost to get back behind the safety of the rock wall. Then, taking a deep breath, T-Rex threw himself in that direction, somersaulted and rolled to his feet.
An explosion knocked him over and sent him tumbling down the hillside to the valley floor. He lay for a long time, his ears ringing, unable to take a breath. Dust flew all around him, dimming the light from the sun above.